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Battle on the Seven Seas: German Cruiser Battles, 1914–1918 Kindle Edition

by Gary Staff (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 47 ratings
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“This concise and well-written book will serve as a valuable library addition for anyone interested in the naval activities of the Great War.” —Sea Classics

The cruisers of the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserlische Marine) were active throughout the First World War and saw action all around the globe, tying up valuable Allied naval resources out of all proportion to their number. Drawing on firsthand accounts and original research in German archives, the author here describes in detail some of their most significant and/or audacious battles. Some are well known, such as their role at Jutland, Goeben’s attack on the Russian fleet (which brought Turkey into the war) and the sagas of Konigsberg and Emden; but others have been unduly neglected. Gary Staff deliberately focuses on the latter to bring new material to the attention of the reader and to demonstrate the global span of the cruisers’ activities. The blow-by-blow accounts of the action (drawing heavily on firsthand Allied and especially German accounts) are supported by dozens of photographs, many previously unpublished, from the author’s own impressive collection.

The battles described include: Heligoland Bight, August 1914; Coronel, November 1914; Falklands December, 1914; Doggerbank, January 1915; Goeben and the Russian fleet, Black Sea, May 1915; Ostergarn July 1915; Jutland, 1916; Second Heligoland Bight, November 1917; Imbros, January 1918.

“This is likely to become the definitive account of the cruiser war and will be essential reading for anyone interested in developing a comprehensive understanding of the naval warfare from 1914-1918.” —Firetrench
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  1. Print length
    405 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Pen & Sword Maritime
  5. Publication date
    June 13, 2011
  6. File size
    11554 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This concise and well written book will serve as a valuable library addition for anyone interested in the naval activities of the great war"
Sea Classics

About the Author

Gary Staff is a former airline pilot but he has been fascinated with naval history, and specifically with the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserlischmarine) for decades. He has visited archives in Britain, Germany and elsewhere to study, and often translate for the first time, official documents relating to this subject. His previous books for Pen & Sword are The Battle for the Baltic Islands 1917; Battle on the Seven Seas and German Battlecruisers of World War One. He lives in Australia.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007ASZ866
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pen & Sword Maritime (June 13, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 13, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 11554 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 405 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 47 ratings

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Gary Staff

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
47 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Darrell Ward
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2014
Verified Purchase
Having long been a military history buff, especially naval history in the WW1 era, I was excited to find this book. The author does a very good job of providing the stories of well-known, and lesser-known cruiser actions by the High Sea Fleet's cruisers and battle cruisers. Well-researched and well-written.
One person found this helpful
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Adrian Ackley
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting focus
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2013
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A good read. Easy to understand, and a good intro on the subject. I would have liked more technical reviews and comparisons of the actual ships, but thought the author did well. I thought it was an interesting focus to narate only cruiser engagements, but quickly realized that this was actually a large part of the naval conflict, and all those big superdreadnoughts really didn't get used that much.
2 people found this helpful
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Gordon
5.0 out of 5 stars Battle on the Seven Seas: German Cruiser Battles 1914 - 1918
Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2011
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Book arrived fast and before the estimated time. The stories are in grest detail and are based in chronilogical order. Grest read and I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the war at sea during WWI.
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Wayne S.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2014
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Every major engagement that involved the ships of the German High Seas Fleet described
in great detail. Well written, many charts showing how the ships maneuvered in the battles.
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Ross Menzies
3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat Useful.
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2012
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My initial enthusiasm at the thought of a comprehensive account of German cruiser battles from WW1 took a beating when the book arrived - most chapters cover some pretty well-travelled ground: do we really need anything more on Coronel & The Falklands for instance - let alone two chapters of a ten chapter book? Once you examine the chapters in depth however you find that more obscure encounters do get some coverage - the chapter on Helgoland II (itself a subject that is fairly neglected) for example also includes a brief account of the action that took place in the area in August 1917; the account of the Emden gives a very nice description of the the battle at Penang etc. So, the book is not as limited as it first appears but having said that, it is by no means comprehensive, with not even all actions of the battlecruisers being mentioned (nor the Bremse/Brummer sorties as pointed out by another reviewer).

The actions which are included are handled reasonably competently although the task of clearly illuminating the more confused battles such as Heligoland Bight & Jutland seem as beyond this author's skills as it is beyond the skills of most others. The accounts are written from the German point of view as the author freely admits in his introduction. There is nothing inherently wrong with this - indeed, at its best this enlivens the accounts with a more personal and involving approach. At its worst however Mr Staff proves himself to be more Kaiserlich Marine than the Kaiserlich Marine. In virtually every chapter or so Mr Staff has an axe to grind of some kind. This gets tiresome pretty quickly and there is a palpable sense of relief when one encounters a passage that doesn't hint at dark Allied deeds or selectively employs quotes and snippets of facts to turn defeat into victory.

Perhaps the most irritating aspect of Mr Staff's biases is that he cannot simply come out with them - instead we have to wade through recurring deployments of innuendo; very (very) carefully selected quotes; lies-by-omission presented as statements of fact; and some quite breathtaking hypocrisy.

Thus without ever quite saying so, every instance of an Allied ship continuing to fire on a disabled German until the latter clearly surrenders is a war crime, while Konigsberg's shelling of a wrecked Pegasus for thirty minutes after all fire from the British cruiser had ceased and a white flag raised is an unfortunate accident of war. Russian pursuit of a German minelayer into Swedish waters is a criminal breach of international law while German ships disguising themselves as Allied, or returning Allied call signs to give that impression, is clever. It literally goes on and on and the fact that it does hugely damages the work both as a narrative (it, as mentioned, gets pretty tiresome) and as a history for anybody with even a slightly above basic understanding of the subject.

It is Staff's account of the Battle Of Jutland that best illustrates his predilection for linguistic gymnastics in support of an agenda. I'll quote a very indicative passage (p174) in full - "There would be no further action between capital ships mainly because Admiral Jellicoe did not wish to fight: (quote from Jellicoe concerning the dangers of night combat omitted). It seems the example of Aboukir Bay had been forgotten. Vizeadmiral Scheer expected to renew battle at dawn on 1 June, but with the coming of daylight nothing was to be seen of the enemy and so at 04:24hrs he ordered the I AG to run in to the Jade." This passage perhaps more than any other illustrates everything that is wrong with Mr Staff's book - a precise, disengenuous, application of language, quoutes and facts to support the most ridiculous implication possible. There are plenty of viable arguments to be made for a German victory at Jutland but Mr Staff's is the stuff of fanboy fantasy - the Germans wanted to play on but their opponents didn't, so the Germans went home - you have got to be kidding!

There is more, much more, of the same but hopefully you get the picture. There is plenty that is useful in Mr Staff's book and any addition to the WW1 naval library is to be valued but you have to ferret the hard facts out of a narrative that is so littered with the chips that the author carries on his shoulder regarding the events of nearly a century ago that you could use it to grow mushrooms.
12 people found this helpful
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thomas dunne
4.0 out of 5 stars German Cruisers WW I
Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2013
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Have read a number of boors about German World War One Cruisers but not one book that had a number of battles and information on the subject.
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewer
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent WW1 Naval History
Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2011
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I thoroughly enjoyed this work. It was well-written, it covered naval actions not so well documented elsewhere, but most of all it used accounts of the action that have not been repeated endlessly before. Well done!
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Brent
4.0 out of 5 stars The other side
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2015
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Certainly good to hear the perspective of the German side. Disagree with a couple of things but a good read.
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Julio
4.0 out of 5 stars Very reach in details. Another view.
Reviewed in Brazil on August 1, 2014
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Very detailed and diverse view over naval actions from WWI. Instead of big battles like Jutland, the boock offer us another view, over cruise actions mostly under German point of view.
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Martin S.
5.0 out of 5 stars Interessante Auswahl an bekanntem und wenig bekanntem aus dem Seekrieg im 1. WK
Reviewed in Germany on September 30, 2015
Verified Purchase
Das Buch bietet eine interessante Auswahl an Seeschlachten bzw. -gefechten der deutschen Kaiserlichen Marine im ersten Weltkrieg. Darunter sind so bekannte wie Coronel, Falkland und natürlich Skagerrak/Jutland wie auch fast unbekannte wie Östergan, Cape Sarych und Imbros.
Die einzelnen Kämpfe sind farbig und nachvollziehbar erzählt, einzig die Abläufe sind teilweise verwirrend geschildert (hier wäre mehr Kartenmaterial von Vorteil).
Was ebenfalls sehr selten in englischsprachiger Literatur zu dem Thema ist - die Sympathien des Autors liegen durchaus auch auf deutscher Seite, es wird nicht einseitig verteufelt.
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Michael Neuy
5.0 out of 5 stars Sehr gutes Buch!
Reviewed in Germany on December 19, 2019
Verified Purchase
Sehr gut recherchiertes Buch mit ausreichenden Details und korrekten Wertungen. Stellt auch seltenere Ereignisse gut dar.
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AK
4.0 out of 5 stars A dry but extensive overview of the most important Imperial German cruiser warfare in WW1
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2013
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The book packs lots of information on the WW1 cruiser battles of the German Imperial Navy from (partially) good primary and secondary sources into a reasonably compact format. The book is divided into 10 chapters, covering:

- the battle in the Helgoland Bight (1914)
- the battle at Coronel (1914)
- the battle off Cape Sarych (1914)
- the battle of the Falklands (1914)
- the battle on the Dogger Bank (1915)
- the battle off Östergarn (1915)
- Emden & Königsberg
- Skagerrak (Jutland) (1916)
- the second battle in the Helgoland Bight (1917)
- the battle off Imbros (1918).

As stated by the other reviewers there are issues with the author's point of view / perspective on some of the battles and certain descriptions will definitely rub British readers the wrong way. I would see the ship type naming conventions (small cruiser, etc.) as a bit less problematic, as many could be attributed to the author translating them oddly. As also mentioned, there are cases, where a better language command / translation into English would be helpful.

Another comment is that I found the book a very dry read. The author goes into some level of detail into the maneuvers, the damage, and the first hand accounts of the participants but the book still did not leave me with the impression that I really understood all aspects as fully as I would have liked - i.e. almost all the effort is expended on the battles and very little on the surrounding environment / context.

The book still provides a decent, if slightly one sided, overview of the sea battles the German WW1 cruisers engaged in and may be a much more concise treatment of the subject than some of the original, significantly more extensive German language sources.
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Richard Hardy
2.0 out of 5 stars Good on Baltic, but poor overall
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2021
Verified Purchase
Useful for info on actions in the Baltic but for elsewhere it’s less good

Like others I wonder whether it’s simply a translation of others work, it uses a rather obscure distance measurement (Hms) and the constant referral to “small cruisers” does become slightly annoying when the standard usage is “light cruiser”. The info about the Battle of Imbros is particularly inaccurate, the two British battleships stationed nearby were the two Lord Nelson class ships Lord Nelson and Agamemnon, not as in the text two ships of the King Edward and King George class, the King George class being with the Grand Fleet and the King Edwards being largely decommissioned by then

Glad I got the much cheaper kindle version
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