Overview

This book thoroughly explores and analyses naval policy during the period of austerity that followed the First World War. During this post-war period, as the Royal Navy identified Japan its likely opponent in a future naval war, the British Government was forced to “tighten its belt” and cut back on naval expenditure in the interests of “National Economy”. G.H. Bennett draws connections between the early 20th century and the present day, showing how the same kind of connections exist between naval and foreign policy, the provision of ships for the Royal Navy, business and regional prosperity and employment. The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity 1919-22 engages with a series of important historiographical debates relating to the history of the Royal Navy, the failures of British Defence policy in the inter-war period and the evolution of British foreign policy after 1919, together with more mundane debates about British economic, industrial, social and political history in the aftermath of the First World War. It will be of great interest to scholars and students of British naval history.

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9781350067110

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G.H. Bennett has made a persuasive case that the network of relationships that crossed government, politics, private sector and communities ... made highly difficult the resolution of the series of issues which lay at the heart (176) of British naval policy in the early 1920s. Those same issues, he writes, confront present-day politicians ... as they seek to balance modernization and expansion of their naval power to meet new global threats while satisfying domestic economic and political agendas. Thus, The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity is not just an astute academic case study of post-World War I British naval policy, it is a book very relevant to policy decisions being made today. * Michigan War Studies Review * [An] excellent analysis ... Bennett guides the reader through the intricacies of thinking within the British government and the public and private arguments between the Admiralty and the Treasury. * The Naval Review * History is a debate without end, one in which each generation needs to recover the past anew. The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity 1919-22 demonstrates the importance of revisiting and reviewing the assumptions, methods and aims of older scholarship. Bennett provides a modern, broad-based alternative to the narrowly focused, doom laden record of inevitable decline that dominated the writing of British inter-war naval history fifty years ago. Since then Britain, the Royal Navy and the wider world have changed, and this book provides a timely reminder of how national and naval policy and strategy were made in another age of uncertainty. * Andrew Lambert, King's College London, UK * This groundbreaking book catches the nuanced interplay between naval, diplomatic, and imperial factors centering on the Anglo-Japanese Naval Alliance of 1919-21. Previously ignored Whitehall battles concerning the proposed G-3 battle cruiser programme and their real importance in the run-up to the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922 receive significant attention. Bennett vigorously asserts the hitherto underrated success of the 1921 Pax-Anglo-Americana and the agreement to build two capital ships as significant victories for the Royal Navy. Sadly, political developments in the 1930s now obscure our understanding of these very real achievements. An essential read for students and specialists of military history. * Anthony J. Cumming, author of The Battle for Britain: Interservice Rivalry between the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy; 1909-40 *

[An] excellent analysis ... Bennett guides the reader through the intricacies of thinking within the British government and the public and private arguments between the Admiralty and the Treasury. * The Naval Review * History is a debate without end, one in which each generation needs to recover the past anew. The Royal Navy in the Age of Austerity 1919-22 demonstrates the importance of revisiting and reviewing the assumptions, methods and aims of older scholarship. Bennett provides a modern, broad-based alternative to the narrowly focused, doom laden record of inevitable decline that dominated the writing of British inter-war naval history fifty years ago. Since then Britain, the Royal Navy and the wider world have changed, and this book provides a timely reminder of how national and naval policy and strategy were made in another age of uncertainty. * Andrew Lambert, King's College London, UK * This groundbreaking book catches the nuanced interplay between naval, diplomatic, and imperial factors centering on the Anglo-Japanese Naval Alliance of 1919-21. Previously ignored Whitehall battles concerning the proposed G-3 battle cruiser programme and their real importance in the run-up to the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922 receive significant attention. Bennett vigorously asserts the hitherto underrated success of the 1921 Pax-Anglo-Americana and the agreement to build two capital ships as significant victories for the Royal Navy. Sadly, political developments in the 1930s now obscure our understanding of these very real achievements. An essential read for students and specialists of military history. * Anthony J. Cumming, author of The Battle for Britain: Interservice Rivalry between the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy; 1909-40 *

Author Information

G.H. Bennett is Associate Professor of History at Plymouth University, UK. He is the author of Bismarck: The Chase and Sinking of Hitler's Goliath (2012), The RAF's French Foreign Legion: De Gaulle, the British and the Re-Emergence of French Air Power 1940-45 (2011) and British Naval Aviation in World War II (2007).

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