RCC8350

The Coal Black Sea. Winston Churchill and the Worst Naval Catastrophe of the First World War

ISBN 9780750999601 £20.00 08 May 2025
The History Press Limited, , Cheltenham, Glos (2022)
This book was presented to the Collection by Mr. Hubert Ross. The price quoted is our estimate of its value. On the morning of 22 September 1914, just six weeks into the war, three Royal Navy armoured cruisers were sunk by a German U-Boat in the southern North Sea. The action lasted less than 90 minutes but the lives of 1,450 men were lost - more than British losses at Trafalgar. This book tells this story from the perspectives of the sailors on both sides. It also studies the criticism which Churchill, then 29 years old but already First Lord of the Admiralty, received. However, he played the significance of the disaster down and shifted the blame to the survivors, in a bid to save his own faltering career.