On the eve of the Great War in August 1914, Great Britain and Germany possessed the two greatest navies the world had ever seen. When war came, there two fleets of dreadnoughts-gigantic floating castles of steel-were ready to test their terrible power against each other. Their struggle took place in the North Sea and the Pacific, at the Falkland Islands and the Dardanelles. They reached their climax when Germany, suffocated by an implacable naval blockade, decided to strike against the British ring of steel. The result was Jutland, a titanic clash of fifty-eight dreadnoughts, each the home of thousand men. Soon after, the kaiser unleashed unrestricted U-boat warfare, which brought reluctant America into the conflict and led the fall of the German empire.
  
   In a work filled with the brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea power in the winning of the Great War.