OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE WAR. NAVAL OPERATIONS – VOLUME I

This five -volume history of the part played by the Royal Navy in the Great War is based chiefly on the records of the Historical Section of the Admiralty, with the full help of the German Admiralty. These records include telegrams to and from the Admiralty, reports from officers in command, minutes of proceedings of the War Cabinet and other state papers. It also makes use of allied ministers’ conference records, ships’ logs, signal logs, captains’ and squadron commanders’ despatches as well as battle orders to the fleet and local records of every base and shore station. It contains maps, plans and diagrams of the original which was published between 1920 and 1931.
The first volume describes events leading up to war and the organisation of the three British fleets in Home Waters and the disposition of the coastal Destroyer Flotillas such as the Dover Patrol. It deals with the opening movements on the outbreak of war in Home Waters and in the Mediterranean and the passage of the BEF to France. It describes the Heligoland Bight action and the loss of Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy, sunk by a U-boat in the North Sea, and of the battleship Audacious, sunk by a mine on 27th October 1914 off the coast of Donegal but without loss of life. She was the first battleship of any nation to be sunk in the war. It deals with operations on the Belgian coast in October 1914 and the First Battle of Ypres. Further afield it describes the commencement of the Cameroons Expedition, 15 August to 15 October and then turns its attention to the Far East, the exploits of the Emden, the operations of von Spee’s squadron, the Battle of Coronel and the Falklands where the book ends. Appendices list the ships of the German High Seas Fleet, the Grand Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet on the outbreak of war.