Transcriber’s Notes: This is Volume I of a two-volume set. Volume II is available at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75617. Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Boldface text is enclosed in =equals signs=. Additional notes will be found near the end of this ebook. THE BRITISH BATTLE FLEET [Illustration: SUBMARINES IN THE CHANNEL.] THE BRITISH BATTLE FLEET ITS INCEPTION AND GROWTH THROUGHOUT THE CENTURIES TO THE PRESENT DAY BY FRED T. JANE AUTHOR OF “FIGHTING SHIPS,” “ALL THE WORLD’S AIRCRAFT,” “HERESIES OF SEA POWER,” ETC., ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR FROM ORIGINAL WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS BY W. L. WYLLIE, R.A. AND NUMEROUS PLANS AND PHOTOGRAPHS. VOL. I. London The Library Press, Limited 26 Portugal St., W.C. 1915 TO THOSE WHO IN ALL AGES BUILT THE SHIPS OF THE BRITISH NAVY AND TO THE UNKNOWN MEN WHO HAVE WORKED THOSE SHIPS AND SO MADE POSSIBLE THE FAME OF MANY ADMIRALS. PREFACE This book is not intended to be a “history” of the British Navy in the generally accepted sense of the term. For this reason small space is devoted to various strategical and tactical matters of the past which generally bulk largely in more regular “naval histories”--of which a sufficiency already exist. In such histories primary interest naturally attaches to what the admirals did with the ships provided for them. Here I have sought rather to deal with how the ships came to be provided, and how they were developed from the crude warships of the past to the intricate and complicated machines of to-day; and the strictly “history” part of the book is compressed with that idea principally in view. The “live end” of naval construction is necessarily that which directly or indirectly concerns the ships of our own time. The warships of the past are of special interest in so far as they were steps to the warships of to-day; but, outside that, practical interest seems confined to what led to these “steps” being what they were.