Stephen Roskill - Naval Policy Between the Wars - I: The Period of Anglo-American Antagonism 1919-1929

STEPHEN WENTWORTH ROSKILL, a retired Royal Navy captain, is best known as the author of the official History of the Second World. The War at Sea, first published in four parts between 1954 and 1961. He went on to become one of the most prominent naval historians of the time, producing numerous significant works, including Churchill and the Admirals, and major biographies of Lord Hankey and Admiral Beatty. However, the two volumes of Naval Policy Between the Wars (1968 and 1976) stand out as particularly important contributions that remain essential reading to any student of the inter-war years.

The Battle Fleet Concept: the British Battle Fleet at sea. c.1930.

Copyright Stephen Roskill 1968
Foreword copyright Correlli Barnett 2016

This edition first published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Seaforth Publishing,
An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd,
47 Church Street,
Barnsley
South Yorkshire S70 2AS

www.seaforthpublishing.com
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4738 7740 5 (PAPERBACK)
ISBN 978 1 4738 7741 2 (KINDLE)
ISBN 978 1 4738 7742 9 (EPUB)
ISBN 978 1 4738 7743 6 (PDF)

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Cover by Brill Design
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd,
Croydon CR0 4YY

Contents

Illustrations

Glossary of Abbreviations

Foreword

I count it as a privilege as well as a pleasure to be asked to contribute the Foreword to this re-issue of Stephen Roskills masterful and still unsurpassed account of British naval policy between the First and Second World Wars.

I first came to know Stephen as a man and as a historian when I, as a young freelance author entirely new to naval history, wrote to ask for his advice concerning Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Jellicoe (later Earl Jellicoe), C-in-C of the Grand Fleet from 1912 to 1917 and thereafter First Sea Lord. Stephens advice took the form of a detailed line-by-line critique of my draft chapters on Jellicoe which thereby saved me from many errors of fact or interpretation. Our correspondence proved the starting-point of a lifetimes friendship with him, his wife Elizabeth, and his children. It was largely thanks to his personal advocacy as a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, that in 1960 the College appointed me Keeper of the Archives, charged with the task of carrying on Stephens mission of attracting major collections of twentieth-century historical papers to augment the Archive Centres core collection, Sir Winston Churchills own correspondence. Stephen and I served thereafter as close colleagues until his death in 1982.

The Council and Governing Body of Churchill College then agreed that the most suitable memorial to Stephen would be a Roskill Memorial Lecture delivered every other year by a speaker of global standing. The first such lecture was given in 1984 by the then Director-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, Lord Carrington. Subsequent Roskill Memorial Lecturers have included Field Marshal Lord Carver, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald, Sir Colin McCall (former Head of mi6), and Professor Sir Michael Howard.