CRISIS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

NAVAL COMPETITION AND GREAT POWER POLITICS, 1904-1914

By JON K. HENDRICKSON























JON K. HENDRICKSON was born in
Slidell, Louisiana. After attending
Williams College, he earned his PhD
in military history from The Ohio
State University in 2012. He was the
first Class of 1957 Fellow in naval
history at the United States Naval
Academy







he geopolitical situation in the Mediterranean
before the First World War generally has been
ignored by historians. In the years leading up to the
war, however, waning British control of the sea
occupied the minds of leaders from Austria-
Hungary, Italy, and France to the isles of Great
Britain. This change was driven by three largely
understudied events: t he weakening ability of the
British Mediterranean Fleet to provide more ships
for the North Sea, Austria-Hungary's decision to
build a navy capable of operating in the
Mediterranean, and Italy's decision to seek naval
security in the Triple Alliance after the Italo-
Turkish War. These three factors radically altered
the Mediterranean situation in the years leading up
to the First World War, and they forced Britain and
France to seek accommodation from each other.
These power shifts also prompted the French to
undergo a rapid naval build up, commissioning new
warships to defend their own interests as well as
those of the British. All of this activity has been
largely obscured by the July Crisis of 1914 and the
ensuing world war. Traditional history has looked
backward through the lens of the war in order to
explain the situation in the Mediterranean in 1914.
Hendrickson, however, reverses course, chronicling
the naval and diplomatic events that unfolded in the
region prior to the outbreak of fighting in order to
understand how policymakers perceived the
changing Mediterranean world they desperately
wanted to control.

New Perspectives on Maritime History
and Nautical Archaeology

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Advance Praise for Crisis in the Mediterranean ~

The race for Mediterranean naval supremacy in the run-up to World War I has received little
attention from historians on the implicit assumption that Britains withdrawal from the
Mediterranean, Frances acceptance of the status quo, and Italys failure to come to the support of
Germany and Austria-Hungary in the aftermath of Archduke Francis Ferdinands assassination were
preordained. As Hendrickson shows, the reality was more complex, more problematic . . . and far
more interesting. He paints a fascinating picture of competing imperial ambitions, nationalistic
aspirations, and fiscally driven (and politically fraught) building plans that made the Mediterranean
a seething cauldron of naval competition and diplomatic accommodation. In the event, the Italian-
Ottoman war for control of Libya was a catalyst for change at precisely the rightor wrong
moment, with enormous consequences. Hendrickson has provided an important and instructive
corrective to the conventional wisdom.JOHN F. GUILMARTIN JR., author of A Very Short War:
The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang


New Perspectives on Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology
James C. Bradford and Gene A. Smith, editors
This series is devoted to exploring the significance of the earths waterways while providing lively and
important books that cover the spectrum of maritime history and nautical archaeology. Limited by neither
geography nor time, volumes in the series contribute to the overall understanding of maritime history and
can be read with profit by both general readers and specialist alike. Titles in the series:

With Commodore Perry to Japan: The Journal of William Speiden Jr., 1852-1855
Whips to Walls: Naval Discipline from Flogging to Progressive-Era Reform at
Portsmouth Prison
Home Squadron: The U.S. Navy on the North Atlantic Station


CRISIS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: Naval Competition and Great Power Politics, 1904-1914
By Jon K. Hendrickson
Publication date: 15 April 2014
232 pp., 13 illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Hardcover list price: $54.95 41.50
ISBN: 978-1-61251-475-8 History World War I
eBook edition also available.
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