Churchill’s Sea Power ‘Apprenticeship’: Chris Bell and the Reappraisal of British Naval Policy Before the First World War

Abstract

This article explores the contribution of the late Professor Christopher M. Bell to our understanding of British naval policy in the run-up to the First World War. Despite the fact that Bell’s major intellectual and chronological focus was on the interwar years and the Second World War, he made an important, if somewhat inadvertent, intervention in the debates about British sea power before 1914 in a monograph and a series of articles that significantly sharpened our understanding of Churchill’s role in this crucial period.