Securing the Sinews of Sea Power: British Intervention in the Baltic 1780–1815

This article argues that Britain's standing as a maritime nation must be considered if we are to fully understand the objectives behind British foreign policy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It focuses on one of the most important challenges successive British governments faced during this period; the need to secure shipbuilding resources. Both British economic prosperity and national security depended upon the continued supply of naval stores. These resources could only be procured from the Baltic region, which meant the region took on a crucial strategic importance for policy-makers. This article will focus on Britain's relationship with the Baltic between 1780 and 1815 tracing Britain's sensitivity to the changing political environment in Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and particularly Russia, and outlining how this came to dictate foreign policy. Britain hoped to rely on diplomacy and economic interdependence to maintain the movement of naval stores from the Baltic; however intransigence from the Baltic powers forced Britain to resort to military measures on three occasions between 1800 and 1815, such was the importance of these shipbuilding resources.     

Imperial Airs: Leo Amery,Air Power and Empire, 1873–1945

In January 1904, at a lecture by a famous geographer, only a few weeks after the first flight of the Wright brothers, a young journalist named Leo Amery argued that air power would become a major ingredient of world power. His prescient comment is often quoted, but only to be glossed over. This article elaborates on it. The origins of Amery's views on air power lay in his childhood, his experience covering the South African War and the ‘national efficiency’ movement of Edwardian Britain. His views developed through his service in a variety of government appointments, including Lloyd George's Cabinet in the First World War and Churchill's Cabinet in the Second World War, and he occasionally managed to get his ideas turned into actions. Thus contextualised, Amery's views on air power illuminate both the man and the times through which he lived.