Matthew S Seligmann
Biographic Data
| ID | 1415141 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Matthew S Seligmann |
| GIVEN NAMES | Matthew S |
| FAMILY NAME | Seligmann |
| SIGNATURE | SELIGMANN M S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brunel University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0660-9442 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Commissioning Official History versus Paying for Official History
Competing Narratives on Economic Warfare
This article examines the controversies surrounding the waging of economic warfare against Germany in the First World War. It argues that two competing narratives emerged to explain the decisions taken by the British Government in regard to the enforcement of the so-called 'blockade' against Germany. The one favoured by the Foreign Office praised the diplomatic skill by which economic pressure was applied to Britain's enemies, noting that increas…
Mass Anywhere on Sea or Land’
Before the First World War, the law stated that only Anglican clergy could perform religious services aboard British warships; clergy of other denominations were, other than in exceptional circumstances, barred from undertaking this role. For a brief period at the start of the twentieth century an informal and unpublicized attempt was made to circumvent this requirement and provide Catholic sailors with access to their own priests at sea. The rea…
The special service squadron of the Royal Marines’
It is usually maintained that before 1914 the Royal Navy had abandoned interest in amphibious warfare. This article argues otherwise. It shows that prior to 1914 the Admiralty sought to reconfigure the Royal Marines as an organic maritime strike force. The idea was advanced by junior officers and taken up by the naval leadership, who appointed a high-level committee to elaborate the details. Significant steps had been taken before war broke out, …
Widening Horizons
A Service Ready for Total War? The State of the Royal Navy in July 1914
In early 1914 Britain’s naval leadership decided to call a conference of flag officers at which the most pressing issues then facing the Royal Navy could be aired and discussed. The conference was scheduled for the end of July 1914. Owing to the European crisis that erupted at just the very moment when it was supposed to take place, the conference was never held. However, the bulk of the paperwork still exists. This documentation provides a uniqu…
The Royal Navy in the age of austerity, 1919–22
The Royal Navy in the age of austerity, 1919–22: naval and foreign policy under Lloyd George." Journal for Maritime Research, 19(2), pp. 181–182
Failing to Prepare for the Great War? The Absence of Grand Strategy in British War Planning before 1914
It is a commonplace that the Royal Navy entered the Great War intending to strangle the German economy through a strategy of blockade. This was not so. Prior to 1912 blockade was mainly seen as a means of attaining operational intelligence; economic warfare was secondary. For legal reasons blockade had to be abandoned in 1912. Thereafter, only contraband control remained as a means of waging economic warfare, and this was seen purely as a way of …
The Naval Route to the Abyss
The intense rivalry in battleship building that took place between Britain and Germany in the run up to the First World War is seen by many as the most totemic of all armaments races. Blamed by numerous commentators during the inter-war years as a major cause of the Great War, it has become emblematic of all that is wrong with international competitions in military strength. Yet, despite this notoriety, ’the Great Naval Race’ has not received the…
The Anglo-German Naval Race, 1898–1914
This chapter looks at the dynamics of the Anglo-German naval race focusing in particular on the impact of continuous technological development and its natural concomitant ever-rising costs. It demonstrates that the consequences of these core features fell more heavily on the German Navy than the Royal Navy, a fact that was not only anticipated by the framers of British naval policy, but was deliberately used by them to impose burdensome cost cons…
Strategy and the Sea
Keeping the Germans Out of the Straits
This article contests Sean McMeekin’s claims concerning Russian culpability for the First World War. McMeekin maintains that Ottoman rearmament, particularly the purchase of several battleships released onto the global arms market by South American states, threatened to create a situation where the Russian Black Sea Fleet would be outclassed by its Ottoman opposite number. Rather than waiting for this to happen, the tsarist regime chose to go to …
Germany’s Ocean Greyhounds and the Royal Navy’s First Battle Cruisers
Recently some revisionist historians have contested the evidential basis for the argument put forward by their post-revisionist colleagues that the growth of the German mercantile marine, most particularly ships capable of being transformed into armed commerce raiders, was viewed with alarm in the British Admiralty and played a significant part in shaping British naval policy before 1914. Looking in detail at their reasoning, this assessment demo…
A Great American Scholar of the Royal Navy? The Disputed Legacy of Arthur Marder Revisited
This article examines the scholarly reputation of the late Professor Arthur J. Marder. Once universally acclaimed as the doyen of historians of the Royal Navy in the First World War era, in recent times his work has come in for sustained criticism from a small group of revisionist historians, who not only dispute his conclusions, but argue that his entire methodology and approach were fundamentally flawed. This article assesses the specific charg…
Preparing for Blockade 1885–1914
Evolution or Revolution? British Naval Policy in the Fisher Era
This article outlines recent trends in the scholarship on the Royal Navy in the years preceding the outbreak of the First World War. It explains the evolution of the historiography on the topic and outlines how and why new approaches are required to progress our understanding of the topic henceforth
Naval History by Conspiracy Theory
Revisionist interpretations of British naval policy in the Fisher era claim that an elaborate smokescreen was created to hide the Royal Navy’s real policies; while documents showing the true goals were systematically destroyed. By asserting this, revisionists are able to dismiss those parts of the documentary record that contradict their theories, while simultaneously excusing the lack of evidence for their theories by claiming it has been destro…
Wilhelm II
This book is the final instalment of John Röhl’s exhaustive and magisterial three-volume biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Like the two preceding parts, this volume is meticulously researched, full of new insights, beautifully written and, notwithstanding its great length and substantial weight, difficult to put down. Taken either on its own or as the culmination of a trilogy, it is a monumental achievement. What makes it stand out so? Röhl is, of …
The Naval Route to the Abyss
Volume 161 of the Navy Records Society Publications
Zwischen Empire und Kontinent
British foreign policy in the decade and a half before 1914 is currently subject to considerable academic debate. Two competing schools have emerged. The more orthodox argues that British diplomacy
Russian Imperialism and Naval Power
Russian Imperialism and Naval Power: Military Strategy and the Build-Up to the Russo-Japanese War. by Nicholas Papastratigakis." Journal of Strategic Studies, 36(5), pp. 743–744
J. J. Widen Theorist of Maritime Strategy
This book focuses on the ideas and influence of Sir Julian Stafford Corbett. Working in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, Corbett was a naval historian of repute, writing a number of well-recei
A German Preference for a Medium-Range Battle? British Assumptions about German Naval Gunnery, 1914–1915
In several recent studies of the Royal Navy a theory has emerged about the development of British battle-fleet tactics. It is suggested that, in the period leading up to the battle of Jutland, the Admiralty possessed intelligence which indicated that the German naval leadership, if it sought to fight at all, wanted to engage at medium range, where its superior secondary batteries and heavier torpedo armament could be used to maximum advantage. Ra…
Britain's Great Security Mirage
This article focuses on the relationship between the threat perception analyses of the British Admiralty and the strategic orientation of the Royal Navy at the outset of the twentieth century. The current view is that this was an era when fear of France and Russia drove British naval policy. However, as this article will show, Britain's Naval Intelligence Department formed a low opinion of French and Russian naval capabilities at this time and th…
Intelligence Information and the 1909 Naval Scare
Many contemporary historians, echoing the views of the radical critics of the day, believe that the 1909 naval scare was a fabricated panic designed to bounce Asquith’s government into ordering extra battleships for the Royal Navy. By examining the intelligence information that lay behind the Admiralty’s claims that Germany had secretly ordered warships in advance of its programme and was covertly collecting materials for their rapid construction…
The Naval Route to the Abyss
Volume 161 of the Navy Records Society Publications
A Service Ready for Total War? The State of the Royal Navy in July 1914
In early 1914 Britain’s naval leadership decided to call a conference of flag officers at which the most pressing issues then facing the Royal Navy could be aired and discussed. The conference was scheduled for the end of July 1914. Owing to the European crisis that erupted at just the very moment when it was supposed to take place, the conference was never held. However, the bulk of the paperwork still exists. This documentation provides a uniqu…
Failing to Prepare for the Great War? The Absence of Grand Strategy in British War Planning before 1914
It is a commonplace that the Royal Navy entered the Great War intending to strangle the German economy through a strategy of blockade. This was not so. Prior to 1912 blockade was mainly seen as a means of attaining operational intelligence; economic warfare was secondary. For legal reasons blockade had to be abandoned in 1912. Thereafter, only contraband control remained as a means of waging economic warfare, and this was seen purely as a way of …
Keeping the Germans Out of the Straits
This article contests Sean McMeekin’s claims concerning Russian culpability for the First World War. McMeekin maintains that Ottoman rearmament, particularly the purchase of several battleships released onto the global arms market by South American states, threatened to create a situation where the Russian Black Sea Fleet would be outclassed by its Ottoman opposite number. Rather than waiting for this to happen, the tsarist regime chose to go to …
Evolution or Revolution? British Naval Policy in the Fisher Era
This article outlines recent trends in the scholarship on the Royal Navy in the years preceding the outbreak of the First World War. It explains the evolution of the historiography on the topic and outlines how and why new approaches are required to progress our understanding of the topic henceforth
A German Preference for a Medium-Range Battle? British Assumptions about German Naval Gunnery, 1914–1915
In several recent studies of the Royal Navy a theory has emerged about the development of British battle-fleet tactics. It is suggested that, in the period leading up to the battle of Jutland, the Admiralty possessed intelligence which indicated that the German naval leadership, if it sought to fight at all, wanted to engage at medium range, where its superior secondary batteries and heavier torpedo armament could be used to maximum advantage. Ra…
A prelude to the reforms of Admiral Sir John Fisher
Journal Article A prelude to the reforms of Admiral Sir John Fisher: the creation of the Home Fleet, 1902–3 Get access Matthew S. Seligmann Matthew S. Seligmann University of Northampton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Historical Research, Volume 83, Issue 221, August 2010, Pages 506–519, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2008.00484.x Published: 25 June 2010
A Barometer of National Confidence
Many recent examinations into the origins of the First World War have concluded that it was owing to a distorted threat perception that the German government opted for conflict in 1914. It is said that, despite all the indications to the contrary, Germany's leaders believed that their country's strategic position was becoming untenable and that something drastic needed to be done to remedy this. Ultimately, military action was felt to be the only…
Maps as the progenitors of territorial disputes
Two German maps of southern Africa, one official, the other private, came to the attention of the British government in the 1890s and raised questions of boundary delineation. In both instances, they provoked a response—diplomatic dispute and internal policy decision—but in neither case did the maps do more. They actively initiated contention but were passive devices thereafter
The Pfeil Family and the Devlopment of German Colonial Ambitions in Southern Africa
Journal Article The Pfeil Family and the Devlopment of German Colonial Ambitions in Southern Africa: A Study of Diplomacy and Colonial Trends Get access Matthew S. Seligmann Matthew S. Seligmann (Nene College) Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, Volume 12, Issue 1, January 1994, Pages 27–38, https://doi.org/10.1093/gh/12.1.27 Published: 01 January 1994
Koloniale Begeisterung im Rheinland wahrend des Kaiserreiches
Koloniale Begeisterung im Rheinland während des Kaiserreiches Get access Mawhew S. Seligmann Mawhew S. Seligmann Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, Volume 12, Issue 2, April 1994, Page 266, https://doi.org/10.1093/gh/12.2.266 Published: 01 April 1994
The Pfeil Family and the Development of German Colonial Ambitions in Southern Africa
Maps as the progenitors of territorial disputes
Two German maps of southern Africa, one official, the other private, came to the attention of the British government in the 1890s and raised questions of boundary delineation. In both instances, they provoked a response—diplomatic dispute and internal policy decision—but in neither case did the maps do more. They actively initiated contention but were passive devices thereafter
The Great Powers, Imperialism and the German Problem, 1865-1925
Das Hamburger Tropeninstitut 1919 bis 1945. Auswartige Kulturpolitik und Kolonialrevisionismus nach Versailles
Journal Article Das Hamburger Tropeninstitut 1919 bis 1945. Auswärtige Kulturpolitik und Kolonialrevisionismus nach Versailles Get access Matthew S. Seligmann Matthew S. Seligmann Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, Volume 14, Issue 2, April 1996, Pages 263–264, https://doi.org/10.1093/gh/14.2.263 Published: 01 April 1996
Germany and the Origins of the First World War in the Eyes of the American Diplomatic Establishment
Germany and the Origins of the First World War in the Eyes of the American Diplomatic Establishment Get access Matthew S. Seligmann Matthew S. Seligmann Nene College, Northampton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, Volume 15, Issue 3, July 1997, Pages 307–332, https://doi.org/10.1093/gh/15.3.307 Published: 01 July 1997
Germany and the Origins of the First World War in the Eyes of the American Diplomatic Establishment
The Emergence of Conflict, 1893–96
So far as southern African policy was concerned, the governmental reorganization of October 1894 was a landmark, for, as a consequence of it, the restraining hand of Caprivi’s anti-African views was entirely removed. With the presumption of Germany’s concentration on central Europe no longer at the heart of policy, other developments became possible. Much was made of this opportunity: as early as August 1893, while Caprivi was occupied with probl…
Rivalry in Southern Africa, 1893–99
Seligmann focuses on the development of German policy towards the Transvaal and southern Africa in the 1890s. During this time Germany's flirtation with President Kruger and her confrontational approa
Rivalry in Southern Africa, 1893-99
Imperium/Empire/Reich
Imperium/Empire/Reich: An Anglo-German Comparison of a Concept of Rule: Conference at the Landesbibliothek Coburg, 11–12 September 1998 Get access Matthew Seligmann Matthew Seligmann University College Northampton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, Volume 17, Issue 2, April 1999, Pages 251–263, https://doi.org/10.1191/026635599668040966 Published: 01 April 1999
Rivalry in Southern Africa, 1893-99
A view from Berlin
This essay traces the image of Germany that emerges from the reports of Colonel Frederick Trench (1857–1942), British military attache in Berlin from 1906 to 1910. At this time, the British Army possessed only the most limited intelligence‐gathering apparatus and had to rely heavily on the reports of military attaches for information about their continental rivals. Trench, who believed that Germany planned to wage war against Britain and said so …
Africa since 1935
Part 1 Africa in a decade of world conflicts, 1935-45: the Horn and North Africa, T. Chenntouf tropical and equatorial Africa under French, Portuguese and Spanish domination, A. Diop, D. Birmingham, I. Hrbek, A. Margarido and D.T. Niane Africa under British and Belgian domination, M. Crowder. Part 2 The struggle for political sovereignty - from 1945 to independence: seek ye first the political kingdom, Ali A. Mazrui North Africa and the Horn, I. …
Leadership in Conflict
A Barometer of National Confidence
Many recent examinations into the origins of the First World War have concluded that it was owing to a distorted threat perception that the German government opted for conflict in 1914. It is said that, despite all the indications to the contrary, Germany's leaders believed that their country's strategic position was becoming untenable and that something drastic needed to be done to remedy this. Ultimately, military action was felt to be the only…
Wilhelm II
THIS book is the second instalment of John Röhl's multi-volume biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The first volume, which examined Wilhelm's youth, was widely acclaimed as a masterly work that looked in unprecedented depth and detail into the life and mind-set of its subject. This second volume, which explores the critical first twelve years of Wilhelm's reign, displays the same high standards of scholarship and, like the preceding volume, is based …
New Weapons for New Targets
The reconsideration of Arthur J. Marder's evaluation of the date at which the admiralty recognized the threat to Britain from the Germany navy has implications for others of Marder's arguments that have been the subject of extensive revisionist critique. This article reexamines the revisionists's most important conclusion, namely that Marder misunderstood the origins of Admiral Sir John Fisher's revolutionary new warships, HMS Dreadnought and HMS…
Switching horses
In three books published in 1940, 1956, and 1961, Arthur J. Marder established what became the orthodox view of the development of the British navy in the years leading up to the First World War.1 A.J. Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era, 1880–1965 (New York, 1940); idem,[Fear God and DreadNought: The] C[orrespondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord] F[isher of Kilverstone: II: Years…
Intelligence Information and the 1909 Naval Scare
Many contemporary historians, echoing the views of the radical critics of the day, believe that the 1909 naval scare was a fabricated panic designed to bounce Asquith’s government into ordering extra battleships for the Royal Navy. By examining the intelligence information that lay behind the Admiralty’s claims that Germany had secretly ordered warships in advance of its programme and was covertly collecting materials for their rapid construction…
The British Naval Staff in the First World War – By Nicholas Black
A prelude to the reforms of Admiral Sir John Fisher
Journal Article A prelude to the reforms of Admiral Sir John Fisher: the creation of the Home Fleet, 1902–3 Get access Matthew S. Seligmann Matthew S. Seligmann University of Northampton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Historical Research, Volume 83, Issue 221, August 2010, Pages 506–519, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2281.2008.00484.x Published: 25 June 2010
A German Preference for a Medium-Range Battle? British Assumptions about German Naval Gunnery, 1914–1915
In several recent studies of the Royal Navy a theory has emerged about the development of British battle-fleet tactics. It is suggested that, in the period leading up to the battle of Jutland, the Admiralty possessed intelligence which indicated that the German naval leadership, if it sought to fight at all, wanted to engage at medium range, where its superior secondary batteries and heavier torpedo armament could be used to maximum advantage. Ra…
Britain's Great Security Mirage
This article focuses on the relationship between the threat perception analyses of the British Admiralty and the strategic orientation of the Royal Navy at the outset of the twentieth century. The current view is that this was an era when fear of France and Russia drove British naval policy. However, as this article will show, Britain's Naval Intelligence Department formed a low opinion of French and Russian naval capabilities at this time and th…
History (40 works) · Political science (36 works) · History (31 works) · Law (30 works) · Law (25 works) · German (18 works) · Archaeology (17 works) · Engineering (14 works) · Navy (14 works) · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact (13 works)