Corbett’s Drake books as lessons in national strategy

Corbett’s Drake books treat Elizabethan history as a source of strategic lessons. He connects the period to the Fashoda crisis, the Boer War, and the threat that French and Russian armoured cruisers posed to seaborne trade. The faltering rise of English sea power becomes a warning about Britain’s contemporary need to maintain naval mastery. His initial audience was cultured and politically engaged, including members of the Naval Records Society’s council. He soon began teaching naval officers in professional military education, which pushed him to develop a clearer language for explaining a British way of war through historical cases of national strategy.