Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3060988 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 430 pages

Synopsis
Handsome, possessed of outstanding courage and a very high degree of charisma, Beatty was the youngest British admiral since Nelson; he won the devotion and unbreakable loyalty of all who served under him; and though he never gained the annihilating victory over the German High Seas Fleet for which he longed, he nonetheless had the satisfaction of accepting the internment of that fleet in British waters after the Armistice in November 1918. This picture of Beatty has always been well known. But there were aspects of Beatty's life and character which were rigidly surpressed, particularly when it came to writing his biography, and it was only after the death of the 2nd Earl Beatty that the author was able to study and publish the great admiral's letters and papers. His turbulent marriage to the wealthy American Ethel Tree, his extra-marital liaisons and her infidelities emerged and these aspects of his life, while not unnecessarily dwelt upon, are interwoven into this biography to make it both balanced and compulsive. It is as a naval commander, however, that he is remembered, and commemorated beneath Nelson in Trafalgar Square.

Outstanding as a young man in a Nile gunboat in 1898, promoted to captain at the age of 29, chosen by Churchill - despite his lack of seniority - to command the battlecruiser squadron which formed part of the Grand Fleet at the outbreak of the First World War, determined not to allow Hipper to escape at Jutland in 1916, his career was driven by bravery and panache. He was First Sea Lord from 1919 to 1927 - a longer period than any of his predecessors - and managed to maintain an adequate postwar fleet.