Date with History: New Crusade – Writers of the Navy News
Visitors Center Theater
Thursday July 31, 6pm
Free with paid parking
Over a century ago, before the First World War uprooted the world order, political and military officials in Britain were already grappling with a very modern problem – how to make the expanding popular press a friend and not an enemy. For the Royal Navy, the newspaper era was one of great promise and great peril. If you shared the same goals, how much cooperation with a journalist was too much? Wasn’t anything justifiable to expand Britain’s naval power? And if your dubious ethics were discovered by your political superiors, how could you keep your rank and keep yourself out of trouble? These were some of the turbulent currents just under the surface of the navalist era, when the British press, political leadership, and naval officers fought together to increase naval budgets and preparedness – and then fought each other. By the time the First World War broke out, most of the British population supported a stronger navy at all costs. New Crusade is the story of how that process began, the behind-the-scenes maneuverings that drove it, and the uncertainties that led to its bitter end before a single shot was fired on the Western Front.
About the Speaker
Dr. Bradley Cesario is a research historian at the First Division Museum at Cantigny. He received his PhD from Texas A&M University and has previously taught courses in U.S. military history and U.S. foreign policy at Angelo State University, Texas A&M University, and the Bush School of Government & Public Service. He has also worked with the DPAA (Defense POW / MIA Accounting Agency) as a historian in residence. His reviews have appeared in Marine Corps History, Britain and the World, and The Journal of Military History. His book New Crusade: The Royal Navy and British Navalism, 1884 – 1914 was published by De Gruyter in 2021.
About Date with History
The First Division Museum’s Date with History series, now in its 18th year, features presentations by authors, historians, documentarians, and veterans on a variety of military history topics. Visit Cantigny or attend online to connect with these experts in a lecture and Q&A format.