Royal Navy Research Paper

The Royal Navy is the United Kingdom's principal naval warfare force. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, it is the oldest of the armed services and is known as the Senior Service. During the 17th century the Royal Navy competed mostly with the Dutch Navy and in the 18th century with the French Navy for world supremacy. From the late 18th century until the mid-1940s it was the most powerful navy in the world, being surpassed by the US Navy after World War II. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power during the 17th, 18th, 19th and first part of the 20th centuries. In the course of the 17th century, the Navy completed the transition from a semi-amateur Navy Royal fighting in conjunction with private vessels into a fully professional institution, a Royal Navy due to the permanent end of the threat to English shipping from the Barbary corsairs. Its financial provisions were gradually regularized, it came to rely on …show more content…
During the First World War, most of the Royal Navy's strength was deployed at home in the Grand Fleet, confronting the German High Seas Fleet across the North Sea. Upon entering the First World War, the Navy had immediately established a blockade of Germany. The Navy's Northern Patrol closed off access to the North Sea, while the Dover Patrol closed off access to the English Channel. The Navy also mined the North Sea. As well as closing off the Imperial German Navy's access to the Atlantic, the blockade largely blocked neutral merchant shipping heading to or from Germany. The blockade was maintained during the eight months after the armistice was agreed to force Germany to end the war and sign the Treaty of