5. Inter-War Trouble
Admiral Lord West’s history of the Royal Navy in the 20th century: battles with Whitehall, the Treasury and Russia. From 2014.
Lord West explores the Royal Navy's three battles between the wars.
The three opponents were a new department in Whitehall, communists in Russia, and the Navy's oldest foe - the Treasury.
The First World War left Britain reeling, economically devastated and with massive social dislocation and a generation scarred, both physically and psychologically, by the conflict. The country was on the back foot, and the Royal Navy was, too.
The Navy's formidable new capability - its air arm - was taken away and handed to the newly-formed RAF. Constant raids by the Treasury were initially rebuffed, but eventually took their toll. And a perception grew up that the pre-war arms race had caused the war, and that the Navy had caused the arms race, and there was little outrage when the size of the navy was fixed.
But alongside these battles in Whitehall, in international negotiations, and for the hearts and minds of the British public, the Navy also had a proper war to fight.
For almost a year after the end of the First World War, the Navy - together with other British and allied troops - fought a war in Russia against the 'Red Army' of the nascent Soviet Union.
Largely forgotten today because the exhausted troops were eventually withdrawn, the war nevertheless gave Estonia its first taste of independence.
Producer: Giles Edwards
First broadcast on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 in June 2014.
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Selected Reading
Books which have been helpful in making this programme are:
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On British involvement in the Russian civil war, Robert Service's book "Spies and Commissars: Bolshevik Russia and the West" is predictably both interesting and readable, while Clifford Kinvig's book "Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918-1920" is also useful.
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On air strategy, Malcolm Smith has written the very useful "British Air Strategy Between the Wars".
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On Invergordon Anthony Carew's "The lower deck of the Royal Navy 1900-39: The Invergordon Mutiny in Perspective" is superb. Mike Farquharson-Roberts has also recently written about this, in a chapter in Helen Doe's edited volume "Naval Leadership and Management, 1650-1950".
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Fri 6 Jun 2014 13:45Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4- Fri 3 May 2024 09:30Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 Extra
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Britain at Sea
Admiral Lord West tells the story of the Royal Navy during the 20th century.
