The First World War showed the vital importance of oil. The use of oil-fuelled aircraft, tanks, motor vehicles - and especially warships - increased greatly during the war. Britain and its allies found themselves in an oil crisis in 1917, but it was overcome (with difficulty) and the Allies' greater oil resources - mostly supplied by the USA - cont

Martin Gibson was for many years an investment analyst for a leading asset management company, latterly specialising in the global oil industry. He was awarded an MLitt in War Studies by the University of Glasgow in 2006. His dissertation received the Ewing Prize for the best Modern History dissertation at Glasgow that year. It later became the basis for the chapter on the Royal Navy's conversion from coal to oil before the that he contributed to Michael LoCicero, Ross Mahoney, Stuart Mitchell, eds, A Military Transformed? Adaptation and Innovation in the British Military, 1792-1945 (2014). He completed a history PhD at the University of Glasgow in 2012 and currently writes the War and Security blogs on military history and national security issues.