Sentiment vs Strategy: British Naval Policy, Imperial Defence, and the Development of Dominion Navies, 1911–14
This article examines British naval policy towards imperial defence and the development of autonomous Dominion navies in 1911–14. It shows that the Admiralty's main goal under the leadership of Winston Churchill was to concentrate British and Dominion warships in European waters, and ideally in the North Sea, to meet the German threat. Churchill's approach to naval developments in the Dominions was also shaped by his desire to fulfil the Cabinet's policy of remaining strong in the Mediterranean Sea. He made some concessions to sentiment in the Dominions, but his attempts to create a coherent imperial policy for the naval defence of Britain and its empire were ultimately unsuccessful. By 1914 it was clear that the Dominions would not provide the additional warships Britain required for the Mediterranean, and on the eve of war the Admiralty was beginning to prepare an imperial naval strategy that more accurately reflected the Empire's capabilities.
The Admiralty and Dominion Navies, 1902-1914
IT IS, naturally, from Winston Churchill himself that we get the best account of the circumstances under which in 1911 he became first lord of the admiralty, charged with the responsibility for Britain's naval defense. On August 23 of that year, he tells us, there took place the famous meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence. In the morning, the director of military operations, General Sir Henry Wilson, reeled off to an enthralled audience his surmises as to the probable size and direction of German advances in France and Belgium in the event of a Franco-German war. After lunch came the turn of the admirals. And it was very soon apparent that the war office and the admiralty were not preparing to fight the same war. It was these differences between the two services that caused Churchill to be moved to the admiralty; he was placed there to bring the senior service into line. It was a forbidding task under the circumstances, but one for which Churchill was formidably equipped, especially since he was, as he says, fortified by the support of Scripture and of Sir John Fisher, the dynamic genius of the British navy.1 Churchill turned to his new job with great singleness of purpose. The size
Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity
This comprehensive study of Roman sexuality and the ideologies of masculinity discusses a wide range of ancient texts, arguing that native Roman concepts of masculinity did not rely on the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality, but were instead structured around such antitheses as free versus slave, dominant versus subordinate, and masculine versus effeminate.