Why am I passionate about this?

On the expertise I claim only a deep interest in history, leadership, and social history. After some thirty-six years in the fire and emergency services I can, I think, claim to have seen the best and the worst of human behaviour and condition. History, particularly naval history, has always been one of my interests and the Battle of Jutland is a truly fascinating study in the importance of communication between the leader and every level between him/her and the people performing whatever task is required.  In my own career, on a very much smaller scale, this is a lesson every officer learns very quickly.


I wrote

Ned Farrier Master Mariner: Call of the Cape

By Patrick G. Cox, Janet Angelo (editor),

Book cover of Ned Farrier Master Mariner: Call of the Cape

What is my book about?

Ned Farrier learns the seagoing trade as a bargeman and works his way up to Captain of his own merchantā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

Patrick G. Cox Why did I love this book?

This is the history I wish Iā€™d learned at school. History has always been an interest of mine, but far too often history books focus on what is possibly best described as the winnerā€™s reason for going to war, or how one ā€˜nationā€™ did all these wonderful thingsā€¦ Thatā€™s how it is taught at school, and for most of us, thatā€™s all we ever learn.

I count myself fortunate to have had teachers in this subject, like Professor Clark, who taught us to look at the ā€˜littleā€™ people involved, and especially at how ā€˜historyā€™ is almost never a single isolated event, but more like a domino tumble. This book is the perfect example of that view.

Clark's examination of the lead up to the First World War is a masterpiece. It describes in detail the political dramas, the rivalries, the ambitions, and the complex web of formal and informal agreements and more important, how they developed. The assassination of the Archduke was merely the first domino, and even then the train of the tumble could have been broken, but, as it gathered pace, key players, with their own agendas, intervened to keep it going.

Clark sets it all out for the reader, the desire to contain Germany by the British, the desire to avenge 1871 by the French, Serbiaā€™s ambition to create its own ā€˜littleā€™ Empire in the Balkans, Japanese desire to protect its interests in the Far East and negate German influenceā€¦ And then there were the newspapers and their role in whipping up public opinion in each of the ā€˜greatā€™ nations.

The book sets out each nationā€™s political ambitions, and points to the crucial points at which things could have been stopped and contained had the politicians taken an objective look at what they were unleashing. This is history as it should be studied.

By Christopher Clark,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Sleepwalkers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Sleepwalkers acclaimed historian and author of Iron Kingdom, Christopher Clark, examines
the causes of the First World War.

SUNDAY TIMES and INDEPENDENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2012

The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyedā€¦


Book cover of Jutland: The Unfinished Battle

Patrick G. Cox Why did I love this book?

The Battle of Jutland has fascinated many people down the years. Who won? Some say it was a ā€˜drawā€™, others that in terms of ships lost, the Germans ā€˜wonā€™, but in truth, though the British lost more ships, they ā€˜wonā€™ a strategic victory in that the High Seas Fleet never again challenged the Royal Navy on the High Seas. As Churchill said, Admiral Jellico was the one man who could have lost the war in an afternoon.

Ever since the ā€˜inconclusiveā€™ Battle of Jutland there has been a controversy over how it was fought and the outcome. The British media expected a new Trafalgar, or a new Glorious First of June, with the German High Seas Fleet annihilated in a great clash of arms in which ship matched ship and slugged it out. When that didnā€™t happen, they turned on the Royal Navy and the Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, Sir John Jellicoe.

There are a number of books on the subject, drawing on ā€˜officialā€™ sources with a sprinkling of ā€˜unofficialā€™ opinion. Most fall into one of two categories, either giving a considered analysis of the battle, or venturing into a speculation on what might have happened if Beatty had been in charge. This book draws on Jellicoeā€™s own personal journals, his reports, and his letters as well as the logbooks, charts, and signal logs from the battle. The author has the advantage of being the grandson of Admiral Jellicoe, and his analysis of the battle draws on the Admiraltyā€™s own analysis and discussions. It is well written and a compelling read, especially if one is familiar with the other treatises on the battle.

The Admiral rose to his position due to his technical and professional ability. His deputy, Beatty, rose largely through patronage ā€” Churchill promoted him over the heads of other, possibly more competent, Flag Officers. Like Churchill, Beatty came from a titled and landed family, Jellicoe did not. His grandfather was a Director of a merchant shipping company and Sir John himself wasnā€™t a politician, or one to court political favour.

After the battle, which heā€™d conducted using plans of engagement the Admiralty had approved, applying precautions against torpedo attacks the Admiralty had stipulated, some in the admiralty began to brief the idea that had Beatty been in charge, the fleet would have behaved like a heavy cavalry unit and ā€˜chargedā€™ at the German Fleet to start a melee. More level headed analysts have since worked out that any attempt to do so would have led to huge losses, mainly on the British side.

Nicholas Jellicoeā€™s book analyses all the arguments, and while it is certainly biased (who wouldnā€™t be) he presents a coherent and compelling defence of his grandfather and the Royal Navy. Jutland was the ā€˜unfinished battleā€™ but the repercussions, the arguments, and the legacy have had a lasting influence. 

By Nicholas Jellicoe,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Jutland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

More than one hundred years after the battle of Jutland, the first and largest engagement of Dreadnoughts in the twentieth century, historians are still fighting this controversial and misunderstood battle. What was in fact a strategic victory stands out starkly against the background of bitter public disappointment in the Royal Navy and decades of divisive acrimony and very public infighting between the camps supporting the two most senior commanders, Jellicoe and Beatty.

This book not only re-tells the story of the battle from both a British and German perspective based on the latest research, but it also helps clarify theā€¦


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Book cover of To Do Justice: White Winter

To Do Justice by Laurie Marr Wasmund,

To Do Justice is the first book in the White Winter Trilogy. The other books are To Love Kindness and To Walk Humbly. The Trilogy follows the same set of characters through eight tumultuous years in their lives and in the history of the world. To Do Justice startsā€¦

Book cover of German Battlecruisers of World War One: Their Design, Construction and Operations

Patrick G. Cox Why did I love this book?

This book makes fascinating reading as it examines the German Battlecruisers (the Germans actually referred to them as Panzerkreuzersā€”Armoured Cruisers) and they carried smaller calibre main guns than their British counterparts, sacrificing gun power for better protection with heavier armour. They took an enormous amount of punishment at Jutland, but only one was lost to battle damage, the others survived to fight again another dayā€”and they did, though not in the North Sea, but against the Russians in the Baltic.

Anyone who has read anything at all about the Battle of Jutland will have realised that the British and German ā€˜Battlecruisersā€™ did most of the fighting, and suffered the heaviest losses. This book gives details of the German ships involved, their design, evolution, build and most interesting, the actual log accounts of the engagement make for even more fascinating study.

Book cover of The Jutland Scandal: The Truth about the First World War's Greatest Sea Battle

Patrick G. Cox Why did I love this book?

Of the many books available on the Battle of Jutland, this one is a very professional look at what went wrong.

It acknowledges the key issue that no one in either fleet had any experience of handling fleets of this size and type, or fighting a battle at the ranges their guns were capable of reaching. Admirals Harper and Bacon remain thoroughly professional in their analysis of the failings on the British side, identifying such things as poor communication of orders by signal, poor signal securityā€”Beattyā€™s flagship signalled by lamp a request for the nightā€™s challenge and reply and received them from Princess Royal. So did at least one of the German ships which later used the challenge to confuse a British cruiserā€¦

A key finding was that many of the British admirals had no ā€˜staffā€™ trained to process information, draft orders in a sensible manner, and transmit them. Key information was thus lost or simply not transmitted. One example being the ambiguity of some of Beattyā€™s early signals, the classic being ā€œEnemy bears xx miles south east of me.ā€ To which Jellico responded, ā€œWhere are you?ā€ since the Battlecruiser were then out of sight of the Grand Fleet.

It was left to a scouting cruiser to report that they had the Battlecruisers in sight, and Jellico was able to deploy his ships and ā€˜Cross Scheerā€™s Tā€™. They criticise the Admiralty as well, pointing to the fact information received by the Admiralty, or deciphered by Room 40, was not passed to Jellico timeously if it was passed on at all.

The admiral's appraisal was written after World War 2, and sparked some controversy since Beattie was, and still is, regarded as one of Britainā€™s ā€˜greatā€™ Admirals, an opinion not shared by many who have studied his handling of the battlecruisers and his tactics. His supporters in Westminster and Whitehall, however lost no time in painting Jellico as lacking decisiveness, being too cautious, and throwing away the chance to annihilate the High Seas Fleetā€”a canard Harper and Bacon refute.

By John Harper, Reginald Bacon,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Jutland Scandal as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two high-ranking officers defied the British Admiralty to tell the tale of World War I's first naval battle against Germany.

The Royal Navy had ruled the sea unchallenged for one hundred years since Nelson triumphed at Trafalgar. Yet when the Grand Fleet faced the German High Seas Fleet across the grey waters of the North Sea near Jutland, the British battleships and cruisers were battered into a draw, losing far more men and ships than the enemy.

The Grand Fleet far outnumbered and outgunned the German fleet, so something clearly had gone wrong. The public waited for the official historiesā€¦


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Book cover of Bessie

Bessie by Linda Kass,

In the bigoted milieu of 1945, six days after the official end of World War II, Bess Myerson, the daughter of poor Russian immigrants living in the Bronx, remarkably rises to become Miss America, the first ā€”and to date onlyā€” Jewish woman to do so. At stake is a $5,000ā€¦

Book cover of Jutland: The Naval Staff Appreciation

Patrick G. Cox Why did I love this book?

This is the ā€˜Appreciationā€™ that Admirals Harper and Bacon responded to. It was never published or edited for publication at the time it was written by Captains A C and G B Dewar in 1920-21.

Both were firmly in the Beatty ā€œcharge the guns and slug it out ship to shipā€ faction and even Admirals Chatham and Keys, both Beatty supporters found it far, far too one-sided and likely to divide the RN into factions (Jutland still does). Though it was never published, copies did circulate and Churchill obviously had a copy since he quotes it in his own book ā€œThe World Crisisā€. Eventually, in 1928, orders were given that all copies were to be collected and destroyedā€¦some survived.

This book is remarkable in that it is the work of two historians who reproduce the original text with explanatory notes, annotations, and additional material. Reading it soon leads the reader to understanding why it was deemed too damaging to publish. The Dewar brothers, both in Admiralty posts at the time of the battle, defend Beatty throughout and assert that Jellico was neither bold enough nor simply not up to leading the Fleet at such a moment. It must be said that neither of them had experienced leading a Fleet, and there does appear to be an element of covering up the failures of the Admiralty staff to it as well.

It is a compulsive, if difficult read, and it goes a long, long way in explaining how and why the Service became split over Beatty and Jellico to the point even Churchill recognised how divisive the debate had become. It was he who insisted that the ships that became HMS Anson and HMS Howe could not be named as proposed HMS Beatty and HMS Jellico.

By Stephen McLaughlin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jutland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Explore my book šŸ˜€

Ned Farrier Master Mariner: Call of the Cape

By Patrick G. Cox, Janet Angelo (editor),

Book cover of Ned Farrier Master Mariner: Call of the Cape

What is my book about?

Ned Farrier learns the seagoing trade as a bargeman and works his way up to Captain of his own merchant ship bound to Australia, South Africa, and beyond. Losing his young wife and child to the consumption, he throws himself into his work and meets Sally Hudsmith, a married woman and a passenger on board one of his ships with problems of her own. Drawing on the social history and class divisions in England in the 1860s, the book combines a seafaring tale with an unlikely romance between a young man from the slums of Londonā€™s East and a woman whose husband has squandered the family fortuneā€¦

Book cover of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914
Book cover of Jutland: The Unfinished Battle
Book cover of German Battlecruisers of World War One: Their Design, Construction and Operations

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