Did Britain really rule the waves?

Summary

History Extra Podcast: "Did Britain Really Rule the Waves?"

Episode Overview

In the February 19, 2025 episode of the History Extra Podcast, hosted by Emily Brifitt and produced by Immediate Media, historian Nicholas A.M. Roger delves into the intricate history of the British Navy from the early 19th century up to 1945. Drawing from his latest work, The Price of Victory, Roger challenges the conventional narrative of Britain's unassailable naval dominance, exploring the multifaceted factors that influenced its rise and eventual decline.

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1. Challenging the Notion of British Naval Supremacy

Timestamp: [04:10]

Roger opens by questioning the widely held belief that Britain was the unequivocal naval and economic powerhouse immediately following the French and Napoleonic Wars. Contrary to popular perception, he argues that "most of what people think of as the British Empire didn't yet exist" during the early 19th century. While Britain was indeed the largest naval force and a prominent merchant shipping nation, it was on par militarily with other European powers like Austria and Prussia. This perspective sets the stage for understanding the true extent of Britain's naval influence during this period.

Roger: “Britain wasn't in fact vastly dominant over the rest of the world. Britain was by far the largest naval power and Britain was very much prominent, if not completely dominant, in merchant shipping in the world as a whole.” ([04:10])

2. The "Price of Victory": Costs Behind Naval Dominance

Timestamp: [04:20]

The discussion shifts to the core theme of Roger's book, The Price of Victory. He elucidates that Britain's naval supremacy came at significant costs, both economically and diplomatically. One primary consequence was Britain's conscious policy to foster the growth of other nations rather than suppress them, aligning with their moral and economic understanding that indefinite dominance was unsustainable.

Roger: “But part of the price of victory was quite simply that Britain, having risen to a high level of economic development, couldn't and didn't prevent other people doing the same.” ([04:20])

3. Naval Strategy Intertwined with Global Trade

Timestamp: [11:38]

Brifitt probes deeper into how naval dominance wasn't solely about military might but also about establishing and maintaining robust global trade relationships. Roger emphasizes that securing sea routes was intrinsically linked to protecting Britain's extensive merchant fleet, which was vital for importing essential goods, including food.

Roger: “Merchant shipping and the navy are really two sides of the same coin. They're both intimately involved in national survival.” ([13:08])

4. The Adoption of Free Trade and Its Implications

Timestamp: [13:19]

A pivotal moment in British naval history, according to Roger, was the 1840s embrace of free trade. This strategic decision allowed Britain to dominate global markets by encouraging other nations to grow economically alongside it, rather than stifling their progress through protectionist policies. While this fostered extensive trade networks, it also made Britain vulnerable during wartime when enemy forces targeted merchant shipping.

Roger: “Free trade was tremendously productive as an economic decision, but in wartime it was also, as it turned out, pretty dangerous.” ([13:19])

5. Critical Crises and the Shifting Naval Landscape

Timestamp: [20:20]

Roger highlights that the 19th century was rife with political crises that continuously shaped British naval strategy. The persistent fear of French aggression, especially with the advent of steamships, underscored the necessity for a vigilant and adaptable navy. Additionally, the Anglo-German naval arms race exemplified how emerging powers could challenge Britain's naval supremacy, leading to intensified efforts to maintain dominance.

Roger: “They were obsessed for much of the 19th century with the idea that France was Britain's eternal enemy.” ([20:20])

6. The British Empire's Global Reach and Naval Priorities

Timestamp: [23:20]

The global expanse of the British Empire necessitated a naval strategy that could defend distant colonies and secure maritime trade routes. Roger explains that while settler dominions like Canada and Australia operated with significant autonomy, regions like India remained closely linked to British naval priorities. The establishment and maintenance of naval bases worldwide were crucial for projecting power and ensuring the safety of trade lanes.

Roger: “After the Second World War, the Admiralty takes it for granted that its primary function in wartime is going to be keeping the sea routes open for British shipping and everybody else's too.” ([26:24])

7. Evolution of Naval Technology: From Sail to Steam and Beyond

Timestamp: [27:54]

A significant transformation in naval warfare was the rapid technological advancements from the early 19th to mid-20th centuries. Roger outlines the transition from sail-powered ships to steamships with screws, enhancing efficiency and range. The introduction of underwater cables and telegraph systems further revolutionized naval communication and strategy, cementing Britain's dominance in international maritime affairs.

Roger: “Steam coal is another of the sinews of empire, which provides a very substantial economic benefit and helps to connect Britain to all the various foreign trading partners.” ([31:12])

8. The Rise of Submarines and Naval Air Forces

Timestamp: [34:45]

The advent of submarines and naval air forces introduced new dimensions to naval warfare. Roger discusses the strategic significance of these technologies and the bureaucratic challenges they posed. Inter-service rivalries often hampered the effective utilization of these innovations, highlighting organizational inefficiencies that affected wartime performance.

Roger: “Both submarines and aircraft in themselves represent an enormous new dimension, literally dimension of naval warfare.” ([34:45])

9. Social Impact: The Common Man and Women in the Navy

Timestamp: [37:48]

Roger shifts focus to the social history of the Navy, emphasizing the evolving roles of the common man and women. He highlights the crucial contributions of the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens) during World War II, showcasing how women took on significant responsibilities that not only supported the war effort but also propelled social change in British society.

Roger: “It's one of the four kind of central themes of my book is social history of the Navy and seafaring.” ([37:48])

An illustrative anecdote involves a Wren coxswain rescuing drunken sailors during a stormy night, demonstrating the indispensable and often perilous roles women played in naval operations.

Roger: “She had just been sent out late on a stormy night to pick up 90 liberty men, men on leave... it's a really moving... glimpse of real life.” ([42:59])

10. Final Reflections: The Ongoing Importance of Naval Trade

Timestamp: [43:17]

In his concluding remarks, Roger underscores the enduring significance of naval trade to national survival. He draws parallels between historical dependencies and contemporary geopolitical tensions, warning that the ability to maintain and protect trade routes remains crucial for ensuring a nation's food security and economic stability.

Roger: “We're just to point out to people that nothing has changed. Everything still depends on our ability to trade... it could easily be a real one anytime now.” ([43:17])

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Key Takeaways

• Reevaluating Naval Dominance: Britain's naval supremacy was more nuanced and less absolute than traditionally portrayed, with significant economic and diplomatic considerations shaping its rise and decline.

• Free Trade's Dual Role: While fostering economic growth and global trade networks, Britain's commitment to free trade rendered it vulnerable during conflicts when merchant shipping became a target.

• Technological Advancements: Innovations such as steamships, submarines, and naval air forces fundamentally transformed naval strategy and warfare.

• Social Dimensions: The contributions of common seamen and women, particularly through organizations like the Wrens, were pivotal in supporting naval operations and driving societal change.

• Ongoing Relevance: The historical interplay between naval power and trade remains relevant today, emphasizing the continuous need to protect and maintain open maritime trade routes.

Notable Quotes

• On British Naval Strength:

  “Britain wasn't in fact vastly dominant over the rest of the world... Britain was by far the largest naval power...” ([04:10])

• On Free Trade:

  “Free trade was tremendously productive as an economic decision, but in wartime it was also, as it turned out, pretty dangerous.” ([13:19])

• On Technological Change:

  “Steam coal is another of the sinews of empire... helps to connect Britain to all the various foreign trading partners.” ([31:12])

• On the Role of Women:

  “It's one of the four kind of central themes of my book is social history of the Navy and seafaring.” ([37:48])

• On Contemporary Implications:

  “Everything still depends on our ability to trade... it could easily be a real one anytime now.” ([43:17])

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Conclusion

Nicholas A.M. Roger's insightful exploration in The Price of Victory offers a compelling reevaluation of Britain's naval history, highlighting the intricate balance between military might, economic policies, and social dynamics. This episode of the History Extra Podcast provides listeners with a deep understanding of the factors that shaped Britain's maritime legacy and underscores the lasting importance of naval power in shaping global history.

Transcript

[Emily Brifitt]

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[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Well, that's a good question, and it's the one I start out with at the very beginning of the book. Partly because most people, I find, have a mental vision of early 19th century Britain as being the great naval and economic power of the age, the great imperial power. Actually, most of that hadn't happened yet. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain was one of the Four leading anti French powers which had allied to fight the French. And after Waterloo they had definitively won. But Britain was about the same sort of level of military strength as Austria, Prussia. So Britain wasn't in fact vastly dominant over the rest of the world. Britain was by far the largest naval power and Britain was very much prominent, if not completely dominant, in merchant shipping in the world as a whole. That was true. But most of what people think of as the British Empire didn't yet exist. And a lot of what they think of as British naval dominance is really something that you could say with confidence existed, say in about the 1870s, but not in the 1820s. I'm inclined to say that Britain dominating, ruling the waves of the ocean and all that is a bit of rhetoric rather than an accurate description.

[Emily Brifitt]

Drawing conclusions from your book title, the Price of Victory. Supremacy over the sea came at a cost. What was this price to be paid?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

It's quite a big and complex issue, but I think lying behind the title is my awareness that a great many people have a problem with British naval history. And the problem is, putting it crudely, they are conscious that, that by the end of the 19th century, Britain was the dominant naval and indeed maritime power of the world, which is true. They're also conscious that less than a century afterwards, in fact little more than half a century afterwards, Britain had been dislodged from that position. By the 1950s, the 1960s, it was already perfectly obvious that Britain was no longer the dominant naval power. The US had taken over that position and Britain's relative standing was going down compared to the generality of other naval powers, and still is. So there's a lot of people who in the first place are disappointed at that and feel that it's unfair, unreasonable what has happened. After all, we did win both world wars, didn't we? So surely we should have gone on getting more and more powerful, instead of which we appear to have been going downhill ever since. There are lots of reasons that you can pile up, but the basic reasons which I would draw attention to, firstly, if you look at late 19th century Britain, when Britain really was at the apogee of its power, people in government were asking themselves, where do we go in the future? What is happening with other powers? And their answer was other powers are improving, growing economically, and it is right and proper that they should do so. Our moral position is that the poorer countries of the world should be encouraged to grow until they reach the same level that Britain is at. And that, broadly speaking, was British government policy, and it was broadly successful. So it was a moral decision by people who very definitely regarded themselves as being Christian. For a start, they would have been outraged if it had been suggested that what we ought to be doing is stamping the faces of other powers and keeping them as poor as possible. On the contrary, they felt that it was right to encourage other countries to grow. And they also thought it was prudent because they were perfectly well aware that Britain was not in fact big enough. It hasn't got a big enough population to dominate the world forever. Population is the most basic factor in economic strength. If you haven't got people to work the fields and the factories, then you haven't got the basic requirement for economic success. And it was already obvious by the end of the 19th century that Britain's competitors, many of them, had a larger population, above all the United States. Its population was already about four times the population of Britain. There was no possibility that Britain could in the long run maintain economic supremacy over the United States. Probably the point at which the size of the US economy began to exceed Britain's is in about the 1890s. And they took it for granted as being something which they couldn't block and didn't wish to block. But what was clear to them that Britain ought to, as still the leading naval power, Britain ought to be running a policy which benefited other countries as far as possible, rather than making enemies by trampling on other people's toes. Other naval powers, Germany is the very obvious case, preferred to make enemies and did so with great efficiency and lost both world wars quite substantially because they had so effectively made enemies of absolutely everybody. The British didn't make enemies of absolutely everybody. Doesn't mean to say that relations were always peaceful and easy in every direction. The British were conscious of the fact that as a naval power, they needed to be, as far as possible, good neighbours, good fellow users of the sea, making friends and keeping friends as far as possible. And broadly speaking, that worked pretty well. So one part of the price of victory was that it was necessary to be consciously running a good neighbour foreign policy. And that on the whole seems to me to have been both necessary and very successful. But the more successful it was, the more other maritime powers prospered and the more Britain was merely one among a number of advanced economies, broadly speaking, on the same level of economic advance as other advanced Western nations. So if you think that Britain should have been the sole dominant naval power forever and ever, then you have no idea about how economics actually works. The fact is that Britain never could have been and never intended to be what Britain hoped was to generate a system of friendly trading powers. Part of the price of victory was quite simply that Britain, having risen to a high level of economic development, couldn't and didn't prevent other people doing the same. So Britain today is one of a couple of dozen advanced economic powers, all broadly at the same kind of level. And among other things, many of them are naval powers. And some of them, notably the United States, are much bigger. But they are bigger. The US has about four times the population of Britain. It is not, in my view, primarily a symptom of failure, incompetence or whatever. But I do often meet people who are implicitly assuming that in a natural, proper world, Britain would rule the world forever and ever. But I'm afraid that was never a plausible option. And the people in government in the 1890s, as I said, were perfectly well aware that it was not a plausible option, that they were moving into a multipolar world, and they were content with that. They didn't just submit grumblingly. They thought that was the right thing.

[Emily Brifitt]

So am I right in thinking, then, that this is not just about naval dominance in terms of ruling the waves, in terms of conflict and warfare and security of the realm, this is about fostering sort of world trading relationships, too?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, my underlying concept of naval history is of all the ramifications that come from having a navy and sometimes using it. And the point of using a navy is to be able to use the sea. What do we want to use the sea for? Not just for going paddling on the sands in summertime, but it's fundamentally a means of communication, a means of trade. Britain has been basically dependent on foreign trade by sea since certainly the 18th century. I would say probably from the 16th century. So the whole British economy has always, in modern times anyway, always depended on trading over long distances at sea. And then that automatically means that you have to have a naval policy, because otherwise nasty foreigners are going to come steal your ships and your trade. So merchant shipping and the navy are really two sides of the same coin. They're both intimately involved in national survival.

[Emily Brifitt]

We've talked about how other powers are growing in their own naval supremacy. But how did Britain by the 1870s, come to be at its apogee?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

I think the key decision, if you like, and it was a government decision or a series of decisions taken in the 1840s, was to embrace the doctrine of free trade. That is to say, instead of trying to shut out foreign competitors with tariffs and taxes, they deliberately took the decision that Britain should adopt a free trade policy, meaning other people could export freely to Britain. And naturally we hoped, though we didn't necessarily expect, that they would do the same thing back to us. But they were already so confident in the strength of the British economy that they were sure that British exporters would out compete the rest of the world and Britain would be able to earn its economic living by trade. And that worked. It worked spectacularly well up until, well, the end of the 19th century at any rate, it worked really well. Big problems arose with the two world wars because in both cases Britain found herself in a situation which they hadn't anticipated in the 1840s, that is to say, a situation in which major military powers were enemies of Britain, which was expressed in attacks on merchant shipping. And Britain by this time was totally dependent on merchant shipping as a means of livelihood and as a means of feeding the population. Because another critical aspect of free trade essentially was that the working population of Britain, by the 1840s, only a relatively small proportion of them were still working the land. And British agriculture didn't feed the people. So the food was bought abroad and imported, and that was fine. If the economy was prosperous, the money was there to buy the food and import it. But if the food couldn't be imported because, for example, German submarines were sinking the merchant ships. Although it didn't lead to disaster in either world war, it came near enough to be very frightening. At the time there were people, many people, who feared going for free trade had been a disastrous decision because now the country could no longer feed itself and therefore it was indispensably necessary that merchant ships should get through and not all be sunk. So that's another aspect of the price of victory. Free trade was tremendously productive as an economic decision, but in wartime it was also, as it turned out, pretty dangerous. And although in both world wars we surmounted the dangers and survived, it was quite a close run thing. And it was also a pretty expensive victory in a number of respects. Amongst other things, it was necessary to make friends with foreign powers which were not necessarily friendly. And this applies above all to the United States. Churchill, who had managed to make friends with the United States and was aware of the necessity of Britain to keep friends with the United States, certainly didn't tell the public the whole truth about how hostile US governments were to Britain and how determined they were to exploit Britain's difficulties in order to damage Britain. Generally speaking, the British never realized how unpopular they were in the United States and the US Navy in particular were convinced that Britain was about to go to war in alliance with Japan against the United States, and that this would be their perfect opportunity to fight the kind of war they had always wanted to fight, that is A war in the Pacific against the Japanese and the British. This, I have to say, was not an entirely realistic assessment of the world situation. So the price of victory is partly the price that had to be paid to buy American alliance. And the Americans were absolutely clear that they would not support Britain in War in 1939, 1940 if Britain still depended, as the British economy did depend, on extensive overseas investments. They demanded, in other words, that the overseas investment should be sold off to American profit as their price of an alliance to persuade them to join in. And even then, I don't know if they would have done it had it not been for Pearl Harbor.

[Emily Brifitt]

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[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Will that be cash or credit?

[Emily Brifitt]

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[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

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[Emily Brifitt]

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[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

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[Emily Brifitt]

Oh oh oh O'Reilly Auto Parts. This is a history that's shaped by war alliance trade. You've mentioned both world wars. Are there any other key moments in the timeline between 1815 and 1945 that we should really be aware of that changed or developed British naval ideology strategy doctrine?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Well In a sense, it's continually under development. The two world wars tend to loom very large in our modern political consciousness. But actually there are lots of crises in the 19th century. It's broadly speaking true to say that the 19th century is Britain's period of greatest economic dominion. But actually if you had been a Victorian, you would have been living through a continuous series of alarming political crises. It's really not true to suggest that 19th century Britain had a kind of pain free dominance. On the contrary, had you, I don't know, lived in Britain in the second half of the 19th century and read the newspapers, what you would have seen is a continuous succession of alarming headlines about another foreign crisis, yet another potential set of enemies making unpleasant noises. They were obsessed for much of the 19th century with the idea that France was Britain's eternal enemy. And from the 1830s when the French began to have steamships, you know, paddle steamers, at this point there is this obsessive idea that steam has bridged the channel. In other words, the navy has preserved Britain for hundreds of years because foreigners can't fight their way across the channel. But now steamships mean that the French will be able to cross the channel without warning, without difficulty, and launch an enormous army onto British shores. And they really believe that this is likely to happen without any warning, without any possibility of defence against it. And later in the 19th century, last years of the 19th century and just running up to the First World War, there's an analogous situation with Germany. The Germans in fact launched themselves into a period of violent hostility which really looks as though they're about to start a war. It only lasts five or six years, the Anglo German naval arms race, as people call it. But it was entirely provoked by Germany, entirely contrary to Germany's own interests, and entirely contrary to what Germany could reasonably have hoped to succeed in, because the German navy was outnumbered considerably by the British at all stages of these proceedings. Germany is an important trading power, but most of its exports and imports are actually carried in British ships. So it's not a tremendously good policy to try and make enemies with the British. So there are a whole lot of problems and difficulties which are real ones. So they're good questions.

[Emily Brifitt]

The other thing I really wanted to ask you about is, obviously the British Empire had such a global reach. How did the Empire's global reach influence naval priorities as well as the defence of the more far flung colonies? What was that relationship like with the colonies?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Well, it's a good question and there isn't a simple answer. Because colonies there are an enormous number of bits of the map which in some sense were British, some of them bits of territory which are actually directly ruled from Britain and are British possessions. But others, notably the white settler dominions, that is to say Canada, Australia, New Zealand, are by the mid 19th century already independent countries, very closely linked to Britain by ties of sentiment. Nevertheless, they were actually quite independent countries, certainly before the First World War. The last legislative link which imposes some restrictions on the extent to which a Canadian government could act without any reference to London is the Statute of Westminster. In 1935 or 6. It was already long past the practical proposition that Whitehall could tell a Canadian government to stop doing things, but from that point it had no legal power to do so. So this is in a loose sense part of the British Empire, but actually Britain no longer rules it from that point and really not from the mid 19th century. In real terms, these countries were all self governing, with their own parliaments and their own political systems. Whereas to take another example, India was still more like an empire ruled from the centre, except that more than half of India was actually made up of independent principalities, each of which had a treaty relationship with Britain. And in many cases, in fact, in most cases also a military and economic relationship with Britain. And India as a whole was still fairly effectively tied to the imperial apron strings. But already by the interwar years, the idea of Indian full independence is politically growing. So this was another bit of the Empire which was drifting away from central control. But there are still a few bits of the Empire around which are still under central control, but mostly rather small bits.

[Emily Brifitt]

Just to follow up on that, did that influence naval strategy or priorities at all?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Yes, absolutely it did. Still, after the Second World War, the Admiralty takes it for granted that its primary function in wartime is going to be keeping the sea routes open for British shipping and everybody else's too, but in particular British shipping carrying trade to and from Britain and other countries, not necessarily other countries that Britain rules, because a great deal of the trade is with foreign countries with which we have friendly relations, but which are not in any sense under British rule. But the shipping still has to be protected. And in the post war years, there's still a chain of British naval bases all around the world from which ships could be deployed to protect British shipping. And there was a lot of British shipping about and a lot of planning for how it might have to be protected again in the event of a war. This was a lot of what the Navy was doing, I mean, planning to do defending trade but also defending actual bits of territory. There was a certain amount of what you might call police work, but bigger scale perhaps than police work. But there was a term that the Victorians often used, police work, meaning basically just keeping order, dealing with domestic trouble in the colonies. And this often involved the navy.

[Emily Brifitt]

That's a really interesting perspective. To hear more about the shifting uses, shifting priorities of the navy. Another thread that I really wanted to pick up with you was this short period between 1815 and 1945. Seems to have seen this rapid evolution. In terms of what ships were you mentioned about the looming threat of steamships earlier. How did the ships of the early 19th century contrast to those in the mid 20th century? And what were the steps that got us from one to the other?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Well, the short answer is there's very big and quite rapid technical change and over not a great deal of time, the, the first sea going steamships come in 1830s, if we really mean sea going. And they were paddle steamers to begin with. They used so much coal that they couldn't steam long distances under coal. So most steamships actually sailed most of the time and saved their coal for moments when they really needed it, such as getting in and out of harbor. But by the 1860s, 1870s, seagoing ships now have screws, not paddles. They have much more efficient boilers. And it's easy to, if you want to export a cargo to, I don't know, Australia, let us say it's very easy to find half a dozen competing shipping companies who will carry your cargoes out to Australia or anywhere else in the world. Because this enormous network of steam shipping is connecting Britain with the rest of the world, an enormous infrastructure exists to support steam shipping. Britain has the very good fortune to have the best steam coal in the world. So this means that all over the world, ship owners of every nationality are trying to buy Welsh steam coal. And who supplies it? Answer coal merchants who mysteriously also turn out to be British and in fact, in most cases, Welsh. So steam coal is another of the sinews of empire, which provides a very substantial economic benefit and helps to connect Britain to all the various foreign trading partners. Steam shipping was so efficient that Australian farmers could undercut producers who were only 100 miles away from Britain. It was cheaper to ship a railway wagon load of coal from Cardiff to Port Said at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, which is three and a half thousand miles away, than to ship the same amount of coal by train from Cardiff to London.

[Emily Brifitt]

What other key developments were there?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Well, trade isn't just physical things by the 1880s, there's already an enormous international trading system which is underwater cables carrying, to begin with, telegraph messages and then later on telephone and other communications. And this was something which was developed by British businessmen. There were some brave and bold investors who carried on pouring money into this initially very loss making technology. By, I say, the 1880s, the great bulk of the international cable traffic of the world was owned by British companies, built by British manufacturers. And when the two world wars came, the fact that Britain didn't totally control, but had a very large measure of control over the major system of secure international communications was a big strategic factor as well as being a very big economic factor, because it was a very profitable business, vastly profitable. In fact, if you looked at the price of sending telegrams in the latter part of the 19th century, they are fantastically expensive. And businessmen who need to communicate by telegram buy code books which allow you to compress the length of messages as much as possible in order to save money sending your telegrams in a compressed form. They weren't for secrecy because these codes were publicly available. So the British government wouldn't allow people to send telegrams over cables which it controlled in codes which it could not read, which is of course a very significant index of basically the British dominance of international communications. During the South African war in the 1890s, the British government issues a unilateral announcement that no foreign power may send any telegrams over British owned cables in code. That means that the French, the Dutch, all foreign powers which have overseas colonies which are connected by British owned cables, which they mostly were, can no longer keep their secrets secret because they can only use the cables by sending them not only in plain language, not in cipher. The British decided that wasn't enough. They insisted that they should send them only in plain English because then it would save the Foreign Office the trouble of translating everything. It's a very dramatic example of, well, economic and political consequences of controlling the means of international communication.

[Emily Brifitt]

There's a couple of other developments I want to just ask you a question about, and that's things like submarines and the naval air forces as well. What strategic significance did they have?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Well, huge significance is the answer. Both submarines and aircraft in themselves represent an enormous new dimension, literally dimension of naval warfare. They're also enormously important politically because in many countries, and Britain was one of them, there are inter service disputes over who controls airplanes in Britain. We start out with the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps and they are disputing with one another during the first World War. At the end of the First World War, the Royal Flying Corps wins. Well, it becomes the Royal Air Force. And the Navy has a great deal of difficulty in actually getting an efficient naval air force. They finally get control of seaborne aircraft just before the Second World War starts. But by that time it was actually too late to set up an efficient naval air service again. Whereas in America, well, exactly the same or very similar disputes took place. The US Navy had a very efficient naval air service, but they couldn't agree with the U.S. army Air Corps over who was responsible for anti submarine work. So there are rival Army Air Force and US Navy anti submarine patrols flying from American ports over the North Atlantic hunting German U boats, but they won't talk to one another. The Japanese had similar situation, only even worse. The Imperial Naval Air Force and the Imperial Army Air Force employed different aircraft companies to build different aircraft. There was one Japanese aircraft building company which actually sold aircraft both to the army and to the Navy. But the Navy insisted that they build a brick wall down the middle of their factory, lest there should be some contamination with military ideas leaking into the Naval Air Force's airplanes. Now, this again is not really a rational way of running a war effort and it certainly didn't help the Japanese to win the war. But it's quite a common situation and you can't write a naval history such as I've just done without devoting quite a lot of space to naval communications and so on.

[Emily Brifitt]

Threading through this entire conversation has been the experience of the common man. How far did the experience of life at sea, but also those involved elsewhere, change between 1815 and 1945?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Well, immensely, of course, and I'm glad you bring that up because it's one of the four kind of central themes of my book is social history of the Navy and seafaring. And it's one which I personally find intensely fascinating. And I ought to say also that by the time we get to the Second World War, in fact the First World War, but especially the Second World War War, it's not only the common man, but the common woman as well. The Wrens Women's Royal Naval Service plays a really very significant role in the Second World War and in the war effort, but also it has a very big social impact on British society that the way in which women showed they were able to take over very large areas of war effort, even though they were not allowed to risk their lives in action, at least not allowed to risk their lives in combat. And I should correct that because quite a lot of People were actually killed by bombing, for example. There is a tremendous contribution to, certainly to naval war and, in fact, the other services as well. It seems to me to be much more important that people realize. My mother was a Wren. I grew up with lots of my mother's friends telling me about things that they had done during the war and not telling me because, of course, a lot of Wrens were working at Bletchley and they had all taken an oath to keep secret. And long after the thing had come out into the public domain in the 1970s, 1980s, my mother would never tell me what she'd been doing during the war. And I know a lot of people who. A lot of women who took their secrets to the grave because that was what they had sworn to do and nobody had ever released them from their oath. It's very moving, I would say, example of fidelity. But anyway, it's really interesting that, for example, the ways which the Wrens developed of training new recruits were actually adopted by the Navy later. The women were teaching the men how to do things, which I don't think a lot of people realize even now, the way the Rens were set up, facing a good deal of opposition. In 19, the first director of the Wrens and the Second World War appointed Wren senior officers all around the country for different places, different seaports, different areas. And she said, get your people basically trained and go and find the senior naval officer in your district and ask him what you can do to help. And the result of this approach was essentially lots of free enterprise projects set up in different parts of the country at a time when the Admiralty is trying to suppress women and not allow them to do things. And too late, they discover that actually the women are working in close cooperation with naval commanders in chief on the home bases. It's much too late to tell an admiral he can't do anything when he's already set it up and got it going. It's quite amusing in a way, but it's also very significant that it's a whole system of initiative and a system of loose independence or interdependence, because, for example, Ren Boats crews, which are one of the things which very good sort of public relations with the Wrens. There are lots of big warships lying at anchor, boats carrying people to and frozen. I was reading a letter from a Wren who was the coxswain of a boat. She had just been sent out late on a stormy night to pick up 90 liberty men, men on leave, last boatload back to their ship just before midnight, stormy dirty night. A lot of the men are drunk and the Wren boats crews are fishing drunken sailors out of the water, but with boat hooks. And she's writing to her mother. I think she says, I think I must be getting frightfully hard boiled because it doesn't worry me at all. You never have any trouble with them, with drunken sailors. They never cause trouble. You just have to treat them all like a lot of small boys. It's a really interesting thing, sort of glimpse of real life. Anyway, it's fine seamanship, bringing a boatload of 90 drunken sailors out in the dark in the middle of the night.

[Emily Brifitt]

As my final question to you, obviously we can only fit so much into a podcast episode. We can't manage possibly to fit your entire book in. But I just wanted to ask, are there any final messages or things you'd like to leave our listeners with?

[Nicholas A.M. Roger]

Gosh, there are lots of things I could say, but perhaps one rather obvious point to make, but I think it's still an important one, is that if both world wars, from the point of view of naval warfare, were close run, things and everything depended on our ability to trade overseas to import and export. We're just to point out to people that nothing has changed. Everything still depends on our ability to trade. The country feeds itself to the extent of about 25%, I think, of food. If we couldn't import all the rest, then we'd starve. Since we are at the moment in a fairly difficult international situation with quite a high risk of war, this is not a theoretical consideration. It could easily be a real one anytime now. So people who are interested in public affairs or even interested in where breakfast is going to come from, might like to keep that in mind.

[Emily Brifitt]

That was Nicholas a.m. roger, historian of the Royal Navy and senior research fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His book is the Price of Victory, and it's the third installment of his trilogy on Britain's naval history. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.