Castles of Steel (167 page)

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Acknowledgments

Fifty years ago at Oxford, reading and writing tutorial essays about European diplomacy in the period 1871–1914, I first had a sense of the implacable chain of events that moved like a Greek tragedy toward the ultimate catastrophe of the Great War. All the nations involved, I learned, were motivated by the desire to achieve national security—either in hegemony, in alliance systems, or by accumulating weapons, or in combinations of these. The particular competition that most interested me was the Anglo-German dreadnought-building race, in which, for many years, two racially kindred and economically linked European states devoted staggering portions of their national wealth to building battleships—then the ultimate embodiment of sea power. The result, of course, was the opposite of that intended. Rather than achieving security, Britain believed herself ever-increasingly threatened; rather than earning England’s respect and partnership, Germany’s construction of a massive fleet propelled Great Britain into near alliances with Germany’s enemies, France and Russia. In 1914, the search for security led to war.

Years later, in the 1970s, with both the United States and the Soviet Union seeking security by acquiring tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, each state holding over the other the threat of M.A.D.—Mutually Assured Destruction—I thought often of the earlier arms race between Britain and Germany. This parallel provided the genesis of my book
Dreadnought: Great Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War.
Originally, I had intended
Dreadnought
to include the war itself, but that book carried the story only up to the night Britain and Germany went to war. It is at this point that
Castles of Steel
begins.

This personal history will explain why I first want to thank Christopher Seton-Watson, my tutor at Oriel College, Oxford, who introduced me to the drama as well as the details of great power diplomacy in the years before the Great War. The hours spent with him led me into the world described in these two books. Five of my friends at Oxford, the late Charles Till Davis, Edmund and Mary Keeley, Michael McGuiness, and Michael Jaffrey, have always known of this interest and have never stinted in their comradeship and support.

My oldest friend, my brother, Kim Massie, and my equally dear friend Jack May have kept me going though the years. Sometimes, in writing, when I reach a stone wall, a phone call to one of them, or to Lorna Massie or Lynn May, shows me the way. Hours of conversation about history and the law with these two men and with Gilbert Merritt, and the late Herbert Shayne, and Henry Walker, while walking the Cotswolds or traveling down the Mississippi, the Potomac, and the Florida Keys, have helped me sharpen my thinking.

For their friendship and constant support I thank James Marlas and Marie Nugent-Head, Tom and Annick Mesko, Peter and Masha Sarandinaki, Jeremy Nussbaum and Charline Spektor, Roger and Carolyn Horchow, Richard and Kris Hart, Jon and Stephanie Levi, Janet Byrne and Ivan Solotaroff, Eve and Dennis Mykytyn, Leonard and Pamela Gallin Yablons, Charles and Deborah Flock, Warren and Jan Adelson, Jan and Carl Ramirez, Ingrid Roberg and John Clark, Jeff Seroy and Douglas Stumpf, William F. Buckley, Erica Jong and Kenneth Burrows, Theresa Boyd and Ruth Nisco. For performing what seems to me a medical miracle on behalf of one of my children I thank Dr. William E. Hellenbrand and Dr. Welton M. Gersony.

A number of writers, editors, agents, and artists have given me continuing encouragement and good advice. I think particularly of Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, Robert and Aline Crumb, the late Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon and Melanie Jackson, Edmund and Sylvia Morris, Robert and Ina Caro, David Remnick and Esther B. Fein, Dan Franklin, Gillon Aitken, Eric Vigne, François Samuelson, Georgina Capel and Antony Cheetham, Peter Prescott, J. Robert Moskin, Matt Clark, Sidney and Avida Offit, and Helen Fisher.

Over the twenty-two years I have been working on these two books, many people have given me professional help. Robert Gottlieb, Robert Bernstein, and Katherine Hourigan were supportive when the project was coming to life. Along the way, Joni Evans, Harry Evans, Ann Godoff, and Gina Centrello have given me their enthusiastic support. David Stewardson and Carol Schwartz have assisted in making it possible for me to visit Scapa Flow, Scarborough and Hartlepool, Wilhelmshaven and Kiel, Malta, Istanbul and the Dardanelles, the Straits of Magellan, Valparaíso, the Falkland Islands, and Tsingtao.

I have worked in and drawn material from the Yale University libraries and am particularly grateful to Lorrie Klein of Sterling Memorial Library for helping me to spend many days in the stacks. Robin Lima helped me obtain books and transcripts from the U.S. Naval War College Library in Newport, Rhode Island. Pamela Bernstein and Pamela Strachan of the Irvington, New York, Public Library traced and borrowed books for me through the interlibrary loan system. I have also used the New York Public Library, the Public Record Office in London, the British Ministry of Defence Libraries, and the British Library Newspaper Library. I am grateful to the staffs of all these institutions for their efficient and cheerful help. Jack Faber, a remarkable private military book dealer, found many rare and useful volumes for me.

A manuscript passes through many experienced and expert hands on its way to becoming a book. Among those who have helped me are Benjamin Dreyer, Evan Camfield, Jolanta Benal, Dominique Troiano, Casey Reivich, James Lambert, Pei Loi Koay, Ann Weinerman, Erich Schoeneweiss, Tom Perry, and Sally Marvin. Overseeing everyone and everything in this process has been one of the great editors of our time, Robert Loomis. If there is something good to be said about a paragraph, a page, or a chapter, Bob will say it and leave the writer exuberant. If there is a misstep, a gentle nudge—backed, if necessary, by steel—moves the writer onto a firmer path. I think Bob cares as much about my books as I do.

Most important, my family has supported me with an enduring affection and patience. This includes Dolores Karl, whose professional skill saved me from dozens of actual or potential computer disasters, Fred Karl, Rebecca Karl, Judith Karl and John Ennis, Dotte Kaufman, and Patricia and Vincent Civale. My children, Christopher, Sophia, Nora, Bob, Elizabeth, and Susanna—some near, some far—have given me encouragement and love. Not only has Deborah Karl done this, but because she knows the English language better than I do, whenever she has touched the manuscript, it has improved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ROBERT K. MASSIE was b
orn in Lexington, Kentucky, and studied American history at Yale and modern European history at Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He was president of the Authors Guild from 1987 to 1991. His previous books include
Nicholas and Alexandra, Peter the Great: His Life and World
(for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography),
The Romanovs: The Final Chapter,
and
Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War.

Also by Robert K. Massie

Nicholas and Alexandra

Peter the Great

Dreadnought

The Romanovs

Journey (coauthor)