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The Spithead Naval Review 1897

Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations included a naval review in the waters of Spithead on 26 June 1897 which included 165 warships of the Royal Navy. The occasion was an unsubtle demonstration of the absolute supremacy of the Royal Navy at the apogee of its power. But the seeds of decline of British naval mastery can be traced in the careers of some of the ships of foreign nations invited to witness this show of dominance.

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Wikipedia article on the ship


References

Dodson, A, The Kaiser’s Battlefleet: German Capital Ships 1870-1918, Seaforth Publishing, 2016. pp. 37-40, 189

Gröner, E, D Jung, & M Maass, German Warships, 1815-1945, Conway Maritime Press, 1990. pp. 13-14

Hildebrand, H H, Röhr A, Steinmetz H, Die deutschen Kriegsschiffe : Biographien; ein Spiegel der Marinegeschichte von 1815 bis zur Gegenwart, volume 4, Heoford Koehler, Herford, 1985 [in German]. pp. 45-55

Langensiepen, L, Güleryüz, A, The Ottoman Steam Navy 1828-1923, Conway Maritime Press. pp. 17, 20, 22-24, 28, 33


Picture credits

Taken from Wikimedia commons, all public domain

SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm

Linotype by Hugo Graf 1899

Taken from Picryl, public domain

German crew photo

Taken from Reddit, public domain

Turkish crew photo