yachting enjoyed by, 154–59
William IV, King of England, 4–5
Wilson, Sir Arthur, 374
Agadir Crisis and, 729, 736
Beresford and, 513–15, 518, 520–22
Churchill and, 778
Dreadnought and, 482
Fisher and, 445–46
Fisher-Beresford conflict and, 535, 537–38, 541–42
on submarines, 452
war plans and, 745–47
Wilson, Sir Henry, 745–47
Wimbourne, Lady, 833
Windthorst, Ludwig, 97–98
Wingate, Reginald, 253
Winterfeldt, General, 45–46
Witte, Count Sergei, 672
Wolseley, Lord, 507, 627, 632
Woolf, Virginia, 490n
World Crisis, The (Churchill), 775, 788
World War I:
beginning of, 407
Churchill’s anticipation of, 854–55
opposition to British intervention in, 898–99, 901
Wren, Christopher, 14
Wyndham, George, 218, 616
Zedlitz-Trützschler, Count Robert von, 149
Zimmerman, Arthur, 728
About this Book
From colonial disputes, secret treaties with former foes, high-wire diplomacy, and tit-for-tat building of the terrifyingly powerful dreadnought battleships. Dreadnought is a dramatic re-creation of the diplomatic and military brinkmanship that preceded, and made inevitable, the outbreak of the first world war.
Massie brings to vivid life such historical figures as the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz, the young, ambitious, Winston Churchill, the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow, and many others. The relationship between Queen Victoria and Kaiser Wilhelm is particularly intriguing. Wilhelm’s admiration, and even envy, for everything British, was to play an important part in the events to come. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in his powerful narrative. Intimately human and dramatic, Dreadnought is history at its most riveting.
Reviews
“He has the supreme gift of making history live in simple, readable language.” —Observer
“This is a book you are bound to enjoy... narrative history at its very best” —Financial Times
“Tells the story with energy and attention to detail, especially human detail. It has not been told so well before” —Lit Review
Also by Robert K. Massie
1. Dreadnought
From colonial disputes, secret treaties with former foes, high-wire diplomacy, and tit-for-tat building of the terrifyingly powerful dreadnought battleships. Dreadnought is a dramatic re-creation of the diplomatic and military brinkmanship that preceded, and made inevitable, the outbreak of the first world war.
Massie brings to vivid life such historical figures as the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz, the young, ambitious, Winston Churchill, the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow, and many others. The relationship between Queen Victoria and Kaiser Wilhelm is particularly intriguing. Wilhelm’s admiration, and even envy, for everything British, was to play an important part in the events to come. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tragedy in his powerful narrative. Intimately human and dramatic, Dreadnought is history at its most riveting.
Dreadnought is available here.
2. Castles of Steel
On the eve of the war in August 1914, Great Britain and Germany possessed the two greatest navies the world had ever seen: two fleets of dreadnoughts – gigantic ‘castles of steel’ able to hurl massive shells at an enemy miles away – were ready to test their terrible power against each other.
They skirmished across the globe before Germany, suffocated by an implacable naval blockade, decided to definitively strike against the British ring of steel. The result was Jutland, a titanic clash of fifty-eight dreadnoughts, each holding of a thousand men. When the German High Seas Fleet retreated, the Kaiser unleashed unrestricted U-boat warfare, which, in its indiscriminate violence, brought a reluctant America into the war: the German effort to “seize the trident” led to the fall of the German empire.
Massie’s portrayals of Winston Churchill, the British admirals Fisher, Jellicoe, and Beatty, and the Germans Scheer, Hipper, and Tirpitz are stunning in their veracity and artistry.
Castles of Steel is available here.
3. Peter the Great
Against the monumental canvas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and Russia, unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great, crowned at the age of 10. A barbarous, volatile feudal tsar with a taste for torture; a progressive and enlightened reformer of government and science; a statesman of vision and colossal significance: Peter the Great embodied the greatest strengths and weaknesses of Russia while being at the very forefront of her development.
Robert K. Massie delves deep into the life of this captivating historical figure, chronicling the pivotal events that shaped a boy into a legend—including his “incognito” travels in Europe, his unquenchable curiosity about Western ways, his obsession with the sea and establishment of the stupendous Russian navy, his creation of an unbeatable army, and his relationships with those he loved most: Catherine, his loving mistress, wife, and successor; and Menshikov, the charming, unscrupulous prince who rose to power through Peter’s friendship. Impetuous and stubborn, generous and cruel, a man of enormous energy and complexity, Peter the Great is brought fully to life.
Robert K. Massie’s Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the man who brought Russia from darkness into light remains the essential portrait of this great man and his era.
Peter the Great is available here.
4. Catherine the Great
The daughter of an impoverished aristocrat, Catherine was married aged 16 to Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne of all the Russias, a feckless teenager with a weakness for drink. Catherine was only able to give him an heir by passing off her lover’s son as his own.
In 1762, Catherine rode out of St Petersburg at the head of an army to arrest her husband. Three months later she became sole empress of the largest empire on earth. She was 33 years old. She ruled Russia as a benevolent autocrat for 34 years, fighting the Turks abroad and rebellion at home, and shepherding her people through the upheavals of the French Revolution. She took on many lovers but gave her heart to General Potemkin, the foremost statesman of her time.
She died in 1796 aged 67, revered by her people as ‘our mother’, praised by Voltaire as a philosopher, reviled by her enemies as the Messalina of the North and remembered in history as Catherine the Great.
From this extraordinary life of great events, fabulous splendour and barbaric cruelty, Robert K. Massie has woven a thrilling narrative based on impeccable scholarship and a cinematic eye for detail.
Catherine the Great is available here.
5. Nicolas and Alexandra
A superbly crafted and humane portrait of the last days – and last rulers – of the Russian Empire.
Complementing his Pulitzer-Prize winning Peter the Great, in this commanding book Robert K. Massie sweeps readers back to the extraordinary world of imperial Russia to tell the story of the ruling Romanov family: Nicholas’s political naïveté, Alexandra’s obsession with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and their son Alexis’s battle with haemophilia. Against a lavish backdrop of luxury and intrigue, Massie unfolds a powerful drama of passion and history – the story of a doomed empire and the death-marked royals who watched it crumble.
Nicolas and Alexandra is available here.
6. The Romanovs – boxset
Against a monumental backdrop of fabulous splendour, intrigue and barbaric cruelty, unfolds a powerful drama of passion and history. This is the story of the Romanovs, from the Tsar who brought Russia from darkness into light, t
o one of the greatest female rulers in history, and ultimately to the death-marked royals who watched their empire crumble.
The Romanovs – boxset is available here.
About the Author
ROBERT K. MASSIE was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1929. He studied American History at Yale University and Modern European History at Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes scholar. He lives in Irvington, New York.
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First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape in 1992
This eBook edition published by Head of Zeus Ltd in 2013
Copyright © Robert K. Massie, 1991
The moral right of Robert K. Massie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
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ISBN (E) 9781781856680
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