Guest Blog by Bob Cordery: Making the best of what you have: Germany’s Kriegsmarine and some of the warships it captured Introduction by Antoine Vanner: A few weeks ago, I posted a blog article about the varied career of the late 19th-Century Dutch protected cruiser Gelderland. (Click here to read it if you missed [...]

Capturing a Slaver—1845                  Classic Pantaloon In an earlier blog (Click here to read it if you missed it previously) I outlined the duties – and the attendant hazards – of the Royal Navy’s Anti-Slavery Squadron off the West African coast in the era 1815 [...]

1916 Illustrated – a German Perspective 1916 was to be a momentous year in WW1, notable for the battles of Verdun, the Somme and Jutland, of the siege of Kut, of the Brusilov Offensive and of the smashing of Rumania, I found it interesting to see how it was viewed from a German perspective. [...]

THE EPIC OF THE SCHOONER BETSEY, 1805 I recently came across a book – undated, but clearly late 19th Century – entitled “Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy”. It was published in New York, though the author is not named. It is however a treasure house of accounts of obscure maritime events. One [...]

The  Royal Navy’s Pre-Dreadnoughts' Sacrifice HMS Dreadnought - the Game Changer. Ten 12-inch guns and turbine driven  The launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1905 made all other battleships afloat into “Pre-Dreadnoughts” overnight, incapable of fighting in the battle line with the new “all big-gun” battleship and her successors. In the Royal Navy, pre-dreadnought designs [...]

The Royal Navy's Capture of Curaçao 1807 Lying some 40 miles north of the Venezuelan coast, the Caribbean island of Curaçao is today a separate country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was first colonised by the Dutch in the mid-17th Century and was to have major strategic importance thereafter since it contains [...]