Re: New Bike

J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Yes. Britain, and the Royal Navy at the end of World War One.
Biggest
fleet the world has ever, ever seen.

Maybe the biggest that the world had seen up to that time, but hardly
the biggest that the world had ever, ever seen--the US Navy at the end
of WWII had more than 100 carriers.

Yes, fair comment. I was forgetting about the 1945 US Navy.

Something like 60 battleships,
never mind the rest. The world's first aircraft carriers.

But they didn't have the means to conclusively win a land war. Yeah,
they wore out the Germans with a lot of help, but the Germans were
never _beaten_ in WWI like they were in WWII.

Only because they were given the chance to walk home. A silly mistake.
But the Royal Navy blockade had brought Germany to its knees by then
anyway.

It's interesting - blockade had *always* been a standard British way of
fighting a foreign power. The Brits knew that command of the oceans
mattered more than command of the land - you might want to make an
exception for land masses like Russia here, however.

And naval force counted as much then as it does today. After all, the
world is mostly water....


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