Command Far Seas by Keith Middlemas: Signed (1 results)
Published by Hutchinson of London, London, 1961
- Hardcover
- First Edition
- Signed
Seller: Ground Zero Books, Ltd., Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.Ground Zero Books, Ltd.
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used - Good
US$ 125.00
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Add to basketHardcover. Condition: Good. Good in a plastic wrapper. Presumed First Edition, First printing. 255, [1] pages. Frontis illustration. Illustrations. Maps. Footnotes. Index. Signed and dated by the author on the fep. Minor soiling inside front cover. DJ has some discoloration. Robert Keith Middlemas (1935-2013) was an English hist…orian, known for works on British Naval history and modern European political history. He was educated at Stowe School and then joined the Northumberland Fusiliers, before entering Pembroke College, Cambridge, graduating with a first class degree in history. Entering the Civil Service, Middlemas worked as a House of Commons clerk for nine years. From 1967 he was a lecturer at the University of Sussex. He became a reader there in 1976, and Professor in 1986. Middlemas published 21 books. This is a the author's first book. It is a vivid and exciting account of the German cruiser raiders of 1914 and the naval battle of Coronel and Falkland. 1914 produced a dramatic threat to British seapower, unchallenged since the days of Nelson. Fast German raiders attacked the far-flung shipping routes, sinking dozens of merchant vessels and causing consternation on the London markets. this reached a climax at Coronel when on Pee destroyed Admiral Cardiac and his squadron and threatened grave loss of prestige throughout the Empire at the very moment with the Dominions were pouring out troops for the hard-rpressed Western Front. Stirred by the disaster, the Admiralty reasserted itself and in a series of bold and decisive moves hunted down the solitary raiders and smashed on Pee at the Falkland Islands. the story switches fro the Admiralty to the Pacific and the stormy waters of Cape Horn, from exotic South Sea islands to the mangrove swamps of East Africa, But this is not only the picture of a dramatic year--it is the story of men on both sides whose vivid personalities lay behind this world threat and its solution; The Germans on Pee, on Muller and the lonely captains doomed to be hunted down by the more powerful enemy; Cardiac and Milne, suffering from uncertainty and conflicting orders, Sturdee, tough and successful'; Tirpitz and on Pohl, divided about strategy, fighting for the support of Kaiser Wilhelm; Battenberg, Fisher and the irrepressible figure of Churchill. This is an assured piece of writing . The author handles the narrative with skill and authority in terms compressible to the non-strategically minded. In the field of recent history the author shows much promise for the future.