During World War One the Scandinavian countries played a dangerous and sometimes questionable game; they proclaimed their neutrality but at the same time pitched the two warring sides against one another to protect their import and export trades. Germany relied on Sweden, Norway and Denmark for food and raw materials, while Britain needed to restrict the flow of these goods and claim them for herself. And so the battle for the North Sea began. The campaign was ferociously fought, with the Royal Navy forced to develop new tactical thinking, including convoy, to combat the U-boat threat. Many parts of Scandinavia considered that the War had ‘missed’ the region, and that it was just a distant ‘southern thunder’; Much of that thunder was over the North Sea. This new book tells this little-known, and often ignored, story from both a naval and a political standpoint, revealing how each country, including the USA, tried to balance the needs of diplomacy with the necessities of naval warfare. AUTHOR: Steve Dunn has a special interest in the Royal Navy of the late Victorian, Edwardian and First World War eras. His books include biographies of Admirals Cradock (The Scapegoat) and Troubridge (The Coward?) and the story of the first British battleship, Formidable, to be sunk by a torpedo. His most recent books, Blockade, Securing the Narrow Sea and Bayly’s War have been published by Seaforth.
40 photographs, 1 map