The Kaiser's Merchant Ships in World War I


Book Description

Germany's merchant marine fleet -- the second largest in the world prior to 1914 -- played an unintended but decisive role in that nation's defeat in World War I. There were those ships that went to war for the Kaiser on the high seas, those that stayed at home or otherwise played no significant part, and those that were commandeered (mostly in 1917 and by the United States) and used against Germany. This is a well illustrated history, both practical and romantic, of the association each ship may have had with famous people and events of the war, and of the fates of the ships that comprised that fleet.




The Kaiser Strikes America


Book Description

In the closing months of the First World War, German U-boats attacked the American coast in a last ditch effort to slow the flood of troops and supplies heading to the Western Front. Though generally considered a minor event in the war at sea, the U-boat attacks in the summer and fall of 1918 brought the war to the very doorstep of the United States. For the American people this brought home the fact that they were involved in a struggle of global scope, and that their long treasured sense of isolation from the affairs of the world was a thing of the past.







The Kaiser's U-Boat Assault on America


Book Description

A deeply researched and engaging account of the use of U-Boats in the First World War. The focus touches on both diplomatic and economic aspects as well as the tactical and strategic use of the U-boats. The book also examines the role played by US president Woodrow Wilson and his response to American shipping being sunk by U-boats and how that ultimately forced his hand to declare war on Germany.




The Kaiser's U-boats in American Waters


Book Description

When the Fuhrer sent U-boats to America waters in World War Two, he was repeating a strategy that the Kaiser had tried a generation earlier. Long neglected in the annals of military history is the first attempt to employ a fleet of undersea warships to help achieve world domination. While the Kaiser's surface navy was as ineffective against his enemies as the Fuhrer's surface navy, his use of German submarines, or U-boats, afforded a tactical advantage that was unprecedented in naval warfare. The Kaiser's unterseeboote took a great toll on the world's merchant vessels. The volume in hand is the first of its kind to compare Allied action reports with the deck logs and war diaries of German submarine commanders. These bipolar sources permit a true and accurate assessment of U-boat efficacy, while dispelling erroneous notions about the impact of submarine warfare against staunch American defenders. U-boats torpedoed and shelled harmless fishing vessels, plodding windjammers, and unarmed steamships. They laid mines off U.S. harbor approaches. They left sailors stranded hundreds of miles from shore without adequate food and water. They killed men and women indiscriminately. They took prisoners of war. One U-boat lobbed shells onto a beach on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This was the first time since the War of 1812 that a foreign country attacked the American mainland. This is the trenchant story of U-boat aggression and American defiance in the Great War of atrocities, when people perished at sea or suffered incredible privation in their struggle to survive.




The Kaiser's Cruisers, 1871–1918


Book Description

While bookshelves groan with works on the capital ships of the German Third Reich, there is little in English devoted to their predecessors of the Second Reich, so this new book will fill a clear gap in its study of German cruisers of the period, from wooden-hulled corvettes, through the fusion of ‘overseas’ and ‘home’ vessels into the modern small cruisers that evolved and fought in the First World War. The book covers the full range of cruising vessels operated or ordered by the Imperial German Navy between 1871 and 1918, excluding the large cruisers, previously covered by the author’s companion volume The Kaiser’s Battlefleet. These include corvettes, avisos, sloops, torpedo cruisers, III- and IV-class cruisers and small cruisers, and are described and arranged in a chronological narrative. This includes both design and operational histories, the latter continuing down to the end of ships’ service after the fall of Imperial Germany, and it is accompanied by an extensive selection of many rare photographs. The ships’ technical details are tabulated in the second half of the book which also includes sketches of ships’ internal layouts and armour and changes in appearance over time. The authors have made extensive use of archival material, particularly relating to the political and technical background to design and procurement, and present a developmental history of this ship class which is unique in the English language. It will have huge appeal to all those with an interest in the German navy and to those who have been waiting avidly for the sequel to The Kaiser’s Battlefleet.




German Raiders of the First World War


Book Description

The story of the detached and overseas based German Cruisers in the first eight months of the First World War. Admiral Souchon's force caused great embarrassment to the British Admiralty. Admiral Von Spee led his forces on a daring gamble across the Pacific in a bid to get back to Germany and Von Muller led his cruiser on a corsair like existence.




The Kaiser's Lost Kreuzer


Book Description

In the final year of World War I, Germany made its first attempt to wage submarine warfare off faraway shores. Large, long-range U-boats (short for unterseeboot or "undersea boat") attacked Allied shipping off the coasts of the U.S., Canada and West Africa in a desperate campaign to sidestep and scatter the lethal U-boat defenses in European waters. Commissioned in 1917, U-156 raided commerce, transported captured cargo and terrorized coastal populations from Madeira to Cape Cod. In July 1918, the USS San Diego was sunk as it headed into New York Harbor--the opening salvo in a month-long series of audacious attacks by U-156 along the North American coast. The author chronicles the campaign from the perspective of Imperial Germany for the first time in English.




The Kaiser's Battlefleet


Book Description

This illustrated study of the German Imperial Navy presents a ship-by-ship history from the dreadnaught era through WWI. The battleships of the Third Reich have been written about exhaustively, but there is little in English devoted to their predecessors of the Second Reich. In The Kaiser’s Battlefleet, Aidan Dodson fills this significant gap in German naval history by covering these capital ships and studying the full span of battleship development during this period. Kaiser’s Battlefleet presents a chronological narrative that features technical details, construction schedules and the ultimate fates of each ship tabulated throughout. With a broad synthesis of German archival research, Dodson provides fresh data and corrects significant errors found in standard English-language texts. Heavily illustrated with line work and photographs drawn from German sources, this study will appeal to historians of WWI German as well as battleship modelmakers.




The Kaiser's Pirates


Book Description

The Kaiser’s Pirates is a dramatic and little-known story of World War I, when the actions of a few men shaped the fate of nations. By1914 Germany had ships and sailors scattered across the globe, protecting its overseas colonies and “showing the flag” of its new Imperial Navy. After war broke out on August 4 there was no hope that they could reach home. Instead, they were ordered to attack Britain’s vital trade routes for as long as possible. Under the leadership of a few brilliant, audacious men, they unleashed a series of raids that threatened Britain’s war effort and challenged the power and prestige of the Royal Navy. The next year saw a battle of wits which stretched across the globe, drawing in ships and men from six empires. By the end, the “Kaiser’s Pirates” were no more, and Britain once again ruled the waves. Including vivid descriptions of the battles of Coronel and the Falklands and the actions of the Emden, the Goeben and the Breslau, the Karsrühe and the Königsberg, The Kaiser’s Pirates tells a fascinating narrative that ranges across the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.