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9781612514758

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The race for Mediterranean naval supremacy in the run-up to World War I has received little attention from historians on the implicit assumption that Britain's withdrawal from the Mediterranean, France's acceptance of the status quo, and Italy's failure to come to the support of Germany and Austria-Hungary in the aftermath of Archduke Francis Ferdinand's assassination were preordained. As Hendrickson shows, the reality was more complex, more problematic . . . and far more interesting. He paints a fascinating picture of competing imperial ambitions, nationalistic aspirations, and fiscally driven (and politically fraught) building plans that made the Mediterranean a seething cauldron of naval competition and diplomatic accommodation. In the event, the Italian-Ottoman war for control of Libya was a catalyst for change at precisely the right--or wrong--moment, with enormous consequences. Hendrickson has provided an important and instructive corrective to the conventional wisdom. --John F. Guilmartin Jr., author of A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang

The race for Mediterranean naval supremacy in the run-up to World War I has received little attention from historians on the implicit assumption that Britain's withdrawal from the Mediterranean, France's acceptance of the status quo, and Italy's failure to come to the support of Germany and Austria-Hungary in the aftermath of Archduke Francis Ferdinand's assassination were preordained. As Hendrickson shows, the reality was more complex, more problematic . . . and far more interesting. He paints a fascinating picture of competing imperial ambitions, nationalistic aspirations, and fiscally driven (and politically fraught) building plans that made the Mediterranean a seething cauldron of naval competition and diplomatic accommodation. In the event, the Italian-Ottoman war for control of Libya was a catalyst for change at precisely the right--or wrong--moment, with enormous consequences. Hendrickson has provided an important and instructive corrective to the conventional wisdom. --John F. Guilmartin Jr., author of A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang

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Jon Hendrickson is a PhD in military history from The Ohio State University. He was the first Class of 1957 Fellow in Naval History at the United States Naval Academy.

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