The Battle of Lissa, 1866: How the Industrial Revolution Changed the Face of Naval Warfare (From Musket to Maxim 1815-1914)

Having previously research the Battle of Lissa for a manuscript I am preparing, I have nothing to complain about in this writing, and it contained the details needed to to finish the battle description for my target readers. Worth every penny I paid for it!!!

Easy to read with a great overview of the development of steam and armor prior to the battle. It does a wonderful job highlighting how steam and armor development was occurring in Europe prior to the US civil war and the monitor and the merrimac was not where the idea of iron warships spung up from. Great addition to nautical & military history

I'm not rating content - the little I've been able to read is fine - but the binding came apart before I got thru Preface and every time I turn a page three or four fall out which makes it too much effort when I have other books to read,

A bit of history I had never been exposed to, and covered in depth. I'd say the "battle maps" were a bit confusing, but presumably that's more due to the event itself than the author.

Sorry, but the major heading for this book is ‘The Battle Of Lissa’ - the industrial revolution changing naval warfare is very much a sub- heading (see photo attached) yet the actual battle is dispensed with in 15 pages. Biographies of the admirals Persano and Tegettoff occupy almost as much space as the battle itself. I had hoped for more than the usual focus on affondatore, Kaiser v Portogallo and Fredinand Max ramming Ri d’Italia, but no such luck. The chapter ‘aftermath’ does give some more details (which should have been in the chapter on the battle). Tegetthoff’s ‘glorious victory’ was real in that the Italians broke off the action and went home, but they lost only two ships, and only Ri d’Italia was rammed. The author does not really make the point that Lissa was proof of the failure of the ram as a weapon, not its success: it was incredibly risky to use and ensured loss of all command and control in a fleet action. Thus the chapter ‘Decline and fall of the ram’ is really superfluous and actually the Royal Navy soon discounted it, despite Colombe, Satorious and other fanatics who endlessly tried to promote it.The book rather resembles Mr Barry’s earlier work on the dispute that arose after the Battle of Santiago in the Spanish American war. The ‘dispute’ does not arrive in that one until page 204! Here, the story of the development of ironclad fleets is well told, but is from secondary sources (the books by Parkes, Brown, Lambert etc) that most potential buyers, hoping to find here a really detailed study of the Battle of Lissa, will already be familiar with.There is a good photographic section, presenting most of the ironclad types of the two navies - these are not all very clear, but the original plates date from the early days of photography. There is also an excellent looking series of coloured maps and two battle plans. As is often the case, the these maps were probably drawn up by someone other than the author and various places mentioned in the narrative cannot be found on the maps. The two plans of the battle do not really do much to help describe it. For such a complex battle, probably six or seven such plans are really required, carefully annotated and with a time line.The battle of Lissa is a ‘niche subject’ but of great interest to real enthusiasts. Had the author emphasised that this book was really mostly about early 19 century naval technology I could not have complained, but the title puts the emphasis on the Battle of Lissa and that’s how I judge it. For me, then, it’s rather a disappointment. Perhaps what I was hoping for is impossible to produce, due to lack of data, but there must be more than we find here and that would doubtless require the original research using primary sources that I was expecting.All this being said, If the development of the ironclad navy really is quite new to you then you will find the book informative since there is a lot of data here about that and it is well presented. In fact I suspect the author had to learn much about the technological development himself before writing the book, and like him you may be encouraged to read the sources listed, starting with the inimitable Oscar Parkes’s great tome ‘British Battleships’. If you read nothing else, please read that one.