In Defense of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy, 1889–1914 by Jon Tetsuro Sumida

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 443 English mechanic, the book also offers an example of the technology available at the time in England. Several milling and woodworking machines were introduced at Tula; in addition, drop hammers using forging dies replaced hand forging of the lock parts. As a result, “the parts come out of the die in a finished state,” and “the fitters actually have little else to do but file and polish the parts.” It would appear that, by the 1820s and 1830s, the Tula factory had special-purpose machines that compared well with the metalworking technology then available. But is Gamel’s account reliable? In all likelihood Gamel was not an impartial observer. Commissioned by the imperial government and dedicated to Nicholas I, his study was no doubt calculated to tell the new emperor what he wanted to hear. Furthermore, Gamel knew his manufacturing processes as a govern­ ment official, not as a machine maker or tool builder, and it is unlikely that he had firsthand experiences of armory practices at home or abroad. Like Tsar Nicholas I, Gamel was given a showcase tour and was shown model workshops, new machines, orderly work processes, and diligent workers. The assembly of muskets from scrambled parts was a common demonstration everywhere in those days, but it was difficult to check the parts for randomness. Even if one accepts Gamel’s account of sophisticated machines and uniformity of parts, the advanced technology of the day was not domesticated: a genera­ tion later Russia’s small arms industry had become technologically stagnant. In a rather rambling introduction, Edwin A. Battison, director of the American Precision Museum, places this study of Tula in the context of early-19th-century innovations. Regrettably, the transla­ tor’s native language was not English, and infelicities and errors litter every page—the Hamburger Marselius; Charles Byrd for Charles Baird, the Scottish arms maker in St. Petersburg; Nicole for Tsar Nicholas; alien for foreigner. The excessively literal and poorly edited translation will further limit the already narrow appeal of the book. Joseph Bradley Dr. Bradley teaches in the Department of History at the University of Tulsa. In Defense of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy, 1889—1914. By Jon Tetsuro Sumida. Winchester, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1989. Pp. xix + 342; illustrations, tables, notes, index. $60.00. In Defense of Naval Supremacy is quite a good book about an early arms race and a “seriously flawed weapons system” (p. 339)—SirJohn Fisher’s battle cruiser—that had disastrous consequences for Britain at the Battle ofJutland in 1916. Jon Sumida tells the story well and in 444 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE detail, with great attention to finance, politics, and the oftentimes obscure behavior of established institutions like the British admiralty. Things begin with radical 19th-century innovations in the construc­ tion of warships that came to a head in the 1880s: steam propulsion and the abandonment of sail, steel hull construction, armor, and rifled guns. Such changes profoundly affected British naval policy, for these new ships were expensive, required the creation of new orders of military expertise, and suffered rapid obsolescence in the quickening pace of technological change. By the end of the century, confronted by the growing industrial strength of competing nations, the cost of maintaining British naval supremacy raised the specter of financial ruin. Britain’s response to this military and financial challenge was formulated by Sir John Fisher—“The British Empire floats on the British Navy” (p. 26)—who became First Naval Lord in 1904. Contin­ ued supremacy, Fisher felt, lay not just in numbers but in carefully managed technological innovation that would provide British ships with a qualitative edge, allow the nation to get the best from what it could afford, and, it was hoped, cause expensive disturbances and delays in the naval plans of competing nations. The centerpiece of Fisher’s strategy was not the battleship, Sumida argues, but the battle cruiser—lighter, faster, almost as heavily armed, and able to hit the enemy at long range before being hit in return. Fisher’s long-range strategy depended on the ability to hit distant targets despite high speed and rapid maneuver. That, unfortunately...