Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/349

 Rh firer of six inches or thereabouts was supreme for the rest of the century.

France in 1889 laid down the Brennus which was really a Trafalgar of higher freeboard; and Germany in 1890, as the 'blundering amateur,' laid down four Brandenburgs, ships with six big guns and no secondary armament worth the mention. Both types were regarded unfavourably, and the Brandenburg with her six heavy guns was more or less an object of derision—so derided that Germany followed with a type of ship in which everything was sacrificed to a huge quick-firing armament. England alive to the dangers of low freeboard evolved the present Royal Sovereign type about 1889—ships which when all is said and done were nothing but large Devastations, more built up and carrying ten secondary guns for which the Devastation's armoured ends were sacrificed.

The Majesties differed by embodying a wide belt of medium thickness amidships instead of a narrow thick one. More protection was introduced for the quick-firers, which were advanced to a dozen, and right away on to the Queen, Majesties were built without any radical change beyond the introduction of a mild belt forward.

Every nation copied the 1889 Royal Sovereign idea in its own way. France did so by keeping the belt complete, but otherwise adhered to the idea of a couple of heavy guns fore and aft and small secondary guns in between.