The Failure of German Naval Policy, 1896-1914

In August 1914, the German High Seas Fleet consisted of 14 "dreadnought" battleships and 3 battlecruisers (completed). From its principal base at Wilhelmshaven in the Schillig Roads at the western end of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, it faced a British Fleet of 20 dreadnoughts and 8 battlecruisers (completed), primarily based at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. The British Admiralty had adopted this base when it became obvious that Germany was the only potential enemy in any major conflict. From this position, the "Grand Fleet" exercised a command of the sea which was more complete, in strategic terms, than it had been in any previous war or was ever to be again.

. In examining the question of German Naval Policy in the years before WWI, I would argue that, by 1914, it had failed. A failure which left the German Navy in no position to challenge British command of the sea, despite the vast quantity of resources which had been consumed by its creation. From 1896 until August 1914, Germany pursued a policy that, by virtue of its own rigidity and lack of appreciation of changing strategic realities, was doomed to failure. This failure was partly due to the supposedly "limited" aims of the "Tirpitz Plan" which, in the event, locked the High Seas Fleet into a position of quantitative inferiority to the British Navy, and partly to British responses to the creation and development of the German Fleet. That Britain would possess naval dominance during WWI was, therefore, virtually inevitable in view of the strategic assumptions and composition of the British and German navies at the outbreak of war in 1914.

Background

During the 19th Century Britain had occupied a position of naval supremacy which was all but unchallenged. Having crushed its enemies in 1815, a combination of industrial and economic growth, coupled with control of the seas, led to a period of dominance which can be said to have peaked during the half-century following Waterloo. As the century drew to a close, however, there was a relative decline in the extent of British naval superiority as other powers industrialised and began to build substantial fleets. The most significant change in the naval balance of power came with the German decision to become a major naval power.

While the British Navy had to balance the demands of a colonial empire against the need to counter threats closer to home, the Prussian (later German) navy had remained primarily a coastal defence force. Its role was to defend Germany's eastern and western coastal areas which were separated by a potentially hostile Denmark. The defeat of Denmark in 1868 and the construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in 1895 eased these problems. The canal enabled vessels to be transferred rapidly from the Baltic coast to the North Sea coast without the potentially dangerous passage of the Kattegat and the Skaggerak.
SMS Helgoland

New German Policies

Between 1890 and 1896, under Wilhelm II, Germany abandoned both Bismarck and his continental military and diplomatic policies for a new policy of "Weltpolitik" . This approach sought a role for Germany as a "world", rather than a "European", power which required overseas colonies and a fleet to protect them. The Kaiser's choice as the architect of his new fleet was Alfred von Tirpitz who believed that the construction of a battlefleet was the key to achieving real naval power. Tirpitz took over as State Secretary of the German Navy Office in June 1897 and at his first audience with the Kaiser made it clear that he saw England as the main enemy. He felt that control of the North Sea was all-important, "Der Hebel unserer Weltpolitik war die Nordsee" (The lever of our world policy was the North Sea) and it appears that from the start he anticipated a conflict with Great Britain and that the fleet would be both a military and a political instrument. Wilhelm appears to have shared this opinion:

Only when we can hold our mailed fist against his face, will the British lion draw back, as he did recently before America's threats.

In order that Germany might construct her fleet without disruption, Tirpitz opposed any proposal for the invasion of the British Isles. For his purposes he believed that Germany needed a fleet as "strong as the English".

The second stage of the "Tirpitz Plan", the Second Navy Law, came into being on June 14th 1900. Under the terms of this law, Germany would build fleet of 34-38 Battleships. Tirpitz believed that Britain would not be able to concentrate its forces against Germany and that her warships would remain scattered around the world in the face of perceived threats from Russia and France.

British Responses

During the two years following the publication of the Second Naval Law, the German Foreign Office was amenable to the idea of an alliance with Britain as a counter to the Dual Alliance (France and Russia). In the event, however, the anti-British views of Bülow prevailed and the idea was rejected. Padfield and Kennedy have noted British concerns at the scale of German Naval preparations. These concerns were expressed in an Admiralty Memorandum of August 1902 :

Against England alone is such a weapon as the modern German Navy necessary; against England, unless all available evidence and all probability combine to mislead, that weapon is being prepared.

In January 1902 the British had concluded an alliance with Japan. It was not aimed specifically at the Germans, but rather intended to counter any threat from the Russians and French in the Far-East. Indirectly , however, it permitted the return of the heavy ships of the Far-Eastern squadron to Britain while the Japanese fleet protected Britain's interests in that region. After 1902, concern over German armaments, the general growth of anti-German sentiment in Britain and the fact of the Japanese alliance, led to a series of conversations with France. A visit to France by Edward VII, which further improved relations, followed, and the two powers signed an "Entente" on April 8th 1904.

Although some elements of the German Foreign Office had warned of such a development the Anglo-French colonial agreement, was a shock to Germany, to the extent that Holstein considered German " Weltpolitik" to be bankrupt. Bülow maintained that in a crisis Britain would not support France, and saw Russia as a potential ally. Now that Britain had its agreement with Japan, Germany did its best during 1904 to ensure that war between Russia and Japan, threatening from 1903, actually broke out.

The German Dilemma

By 1905 the Anglo-French Entente had made it virtually certain that the German army would not occupy Denmark or Sweden in the event of war with Britain and France. At the same time an alternative form of "risk" theory developed which assumed an "alliance" value for the German fleet which would be able to inflict such damage on the British as to make her prey for some third force. Even by 1905, however, it is hard to see who this third force or "ally" could have been, particularly as the Germans saw the USA as being hostile to Germany.

By 1906 the British Admiralty was fully aware of the German threat and was in the process of bringing back as many ships as possible from foreign parts. The Algeciras crisis had shown the strength of the Entente and the international community generally believed that Britain would support France if she were attacked by Germany. The belief that the German Navy was a threat to Britain was by now firmly established in the British public mind and in that of the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey:

If the German Fleet ever becomes superior to ours, the German Army can conquer this country. There is no corresponding risk of this kind to Germany: for however superior our Fleet was, no naval victory would bring us any nearer to Berlin.

In the face of such British appreciation of his strategy, it is hard to understand why Tirpitz persisted with his plan after 1906. German naval policy had a domestic-political agenda and was important to the prestige of the monarchy, but it appears that he may have been hoping for a significant, if unspecified , event which would present Germany with its "political independence" from Britain. By May of that year, however, the viability of the Tirpitz Plan itself was being queried at very high levels. Holstein drafted a memo which warned of the dangers to Germany of placing to much reliance on naval construction, and concluded that the fate of Germany would be decided on land. No one in Germany, at the highest level, would confront these issues before 1913.

Dreadnought and "Entente"

In the area of materiel the British had taken a quantum leap by building the Dreadnought and creating a situation where all "pre-dreadnoughts" were rapidly rendered obsolete. With the choice of Fisher, as First Sea Lord, Britain proceeded to bring home the battle fleet, to which were added new Dreadnoughts as they became available. At the same time British Admiralty strategy moved from the "close" to the "distant" blockade in the face of the threat from mines and torpedoes. German assumptions of a "close" blockade were obviously invalid well before the outbreak of war.

The August 1907 Entente with Russia represented a significant change in the British diplomatic outlook. For years the potential Russian threat to India had maintained hostility between the two nations. but in 1907 its economic and military weakness made Russia amenable to improved relations with Britain particularly in view of the German refusal to provide it with loans. War between Britain and Russia now appeared an unlikely eventuality. The conclusion of the agreement with Russia removed the last overseas threat to British colonial interests and permitted her to concentrate on the European situation.

The German Navy Laws of 1906 and 1908 and The Hague Conference

In 1906, and again in 1908, Germany introduced new Naval Laws. The May 1906 "novelle" was a cautious document which maintained a construction rate of 3 ships per year. In proposing this, Tirpitz resisted more extremist pressures to increase the building rate. He appears to have taken into account both domestic political considerations (a hostile Reichstag) and the need to stabilise international relations (particularly with Britain) in the aftermath of the First Moroccan Crisis. Despite this appearance of caution, Tirpitz expected relations with Britain to remain tense due to his decision to match British dreadnoughts with ships of similar design. In December 1906, new Reichstag elections led to the election of a "pro-Government" assembly, which in turn permitted the preparation of a further "novelle" during 1907. With anti-British feeling running high in the country as a result of the Algeciras defeat and the Anglo-Russian Entente, Tirpitz was able to achieve approval of a construction rate of 4 ships per year until 1912. He was still unable to achieve his "Aeternat" which would make the navy independent of the Reichstag. That body approved the new Navy Law on March 27th 1908.

An attempt to limit the naval armament races was made at the Hague Conference which lasted from June to October 1907. Such a conference had little chance of success in the face of previously expressed German opposition to "such an impractical notion as disarmament." German hostility meant that the British Admiralty itself saw little hope for success The failure of the conference was a great disappointment to the new British Liberal administration which had hoped to be able to reduce naval armaments. Its collapse committed both sides to the continuation of the race and even while the conference was in progress, the Germans were preparing the 1908 "novelle". The Kaiser put his position in typically colourful language :

I have no desire for a good relationship with England at the price of the development of Germany's Navy...The{Navy} Law will be carried out to the last detail; whether the British like it or not does not matter! If they want war, they can begin it, we do not fear it.

The failure of arms limitation talks, the German "novelle" and the Kaiser's Daily Telegraph interview of October 1908 caused a considerable clamour in the British press and Parliament with demands for more ships.

The Naval Scare of 1909 and its Consequences

In early 1909 there was growing public anxiety over the German program, and in response the McKenna program was for 6 dreadnoughts to be laid down in the year 1909/10. At this stage Britain was patently not maintaining a two- power standard, she was building against Germany (and could even be construed as likely to be inferior by 1912). Some groups in Britain were concerned that Germany was intending to increase its program. In January 1909 the Sea Lords became alarmed and recommended that 8 ships be laid down at once. This led to a major Cabinet disagreement (deadlock), where Lloyd George (supported by Churchill) opposed increases. A compromise was reached, initially for 4 ships with 4 more to be laid down if necessary.

In the March 16th Parliamentary debate Balfour raised fears of a growing inferiority (20-21) while there was considerable media agitation following the revelation of details of Italian and Austrian construction levels. The final result was that 8 ships were laid down for completion in 1912.

German Plans: 1909-1914

German planning from 1909-1914 was marked by confusion over the direction of strategic (offensive or defensive) policy and by a failure to develop any agreed operations plan against Britain and/or France. In many ways 1909 can be seen as the turning point of the pre-war period. By this date the British were aware of the potential threat posed by the German Fleet and had taken steps to counter it. In Germany, first Holstein, and subsequently Bulow, had come to question the validity of the Tirpitz Plan, but both had been dismissed. It would appear that Tirpitz himself had doubts. In 1907 he had admitted that Britain would find close blockade inoperable but that she could achieve the same results from a distance. and in October 1910 he was forced to report to the Kaiser:

If the English fleet is permanently made and maintained so strong as to make it safe to attack Germany, then German naval development, from an historical standpoint, was a mistake and Your Majesty's fleet an historical fiasco...Germany's world position in the existing political situation, would remain dependent on England's favour.

This statement represented a tacit admission of Britain's capacity to maintain its level of naval superiority and, by implication, that Germany required still higher levels of construction. War Games in 1911 indicated that offensive strategy was inappropriate in the North Sea as in each case the "British" were able to unite their forces and defeat the Germans with various levels of damage to themselves. The result of these exercises was that in late 1912, directives to the High Seas Fleet command were changed, and, in effect assigned to it a defensive role. Such surface actions as took place during the period 1914-16 served to confirm the German view that the defensive was the only policy which would preserve the fleet. The result of the positions taken by the opposing forces was that the British could not lose the surface war, even if they could not decisively win it (in conventional terms).

British Policy 1910-1914

In the aftermath of the Agadir crisis of July 1911 a real threat of war existed. The British fleet was unprepared for war with its ships and crews scattered, and an invasion scare resulted. To quote Hankey :

Supposing the High Seas Fleet, instead of going to Norway as announced, had gone straight for Portland, preceded by a division of destroyers, and after a surprise night torpedo attack had brought the main fleet into action at dawn against our ships without steam, without coal, and without crews!

The British response to the crisis was to send Churchill to the Admiralty to carry out a reform program, which can be summarised as follows :

(a) The establishment of an Admiralty war staff (January 1912).

(b) The reform of the conditions of sailors.

(c) The promotion of Beatty and Jellicoe.

(d) The laying down of the Queen Elizabeth class of dreadnoughts (oil fired).

The essence of the British response to the German construction program between 1908 and 1914 can be traced through the changes to Fleet war orders. In July 1908 the war orders for the Channel Fleet stated that in the event of war the objective of the British fleet was to destroy the enemy at all costs. By 1912, however, the idea of an "observational blockade" between Norway and the Texel had emerged. The Battle Fleet would patrol outside of this line. In 1914 even this idea was abandoned, with the "distant blockade" substituted whereby the Grand Fleet would be based a Scapa Flow in the event of War.

Over a period of six years, the "official" British response to German naval policy had been to progressively withdraw the blockade to ever greater distances where it was less and less likely that German plans could have any success, unless the British attempted to press the offensive. The promotion of Jellicoe and his subsequent (August 6th 1914) appointment to command the Grand Fleet, ensured that the British Fleet was under the command of a man who would not make such a mistake.

Summary

By 1914 the German Fleet must be seen to have failed in its primary objective.

The "alliance" value of the German fleet had been one of the main arguments of the advocates of a strong navy. The effect of the fleet had been to draw Great Britain more closely to France and Russia. The fleet was one of the causes of the isolation of Germany, and yet it was not strong enough in time of war to protect German commerce or the German colonies, or to meet its main rival in battle on the open sea

For his part Tirpitz rejected the British perception of German naval expansion as a threat and asserted that the real issues were trade and colonial rivalry. Between 1911 and 1914 pressure from the General Staff increased and led to a large increase in funding to the German Army (making the Schlieffen Plan at least numerically feasible). By 1913 the Army was once again predominant in view of its persistent predictions of a European War. In 1911 the Navy budget had been 54% of the Army budget, in 1912 it was 49% and by 1913, 33% The navy's "star" was now on the wane as the German General Staff now agreed with Holstein and Bülow that the navy could not be decisive in a European War.

During the period before the war, British and German perceptions of national interest remained as far as part as ever. Churchill put forward the idea of a "naval holiday", but no common ground could be reached. The continuous expansion of the German Fleet led to the estrangement of Britain and Germany. In his correspondence with Berlin Metternich makes continual references to the need to reduce the levels of naval construction in order to obtain an understanding with Britain. An examination of the German diplomatic documents of the period reveals numerous marginal notes by the Kaiser and correspondence from Bülow which stress continually, however, that this point was not negotiable and that the ambassador was to refrain from discussing the subject with the British.

Germany hoped that Britain would remain neutral in the event of a German attack on France. It was doubtful, however, if Britain could have stood by and permitted a situation of German hegemony on the continent which would have eventually led to German naval supremacy. Britain, as the established power, was in favour of the status quo and desired no change in the established balance of forces. German desire for overseas expansion was linked to a European strategy which required the swift destruction of France and an irreversible shift in the European balance of power.

Essentially Britain and Germany had totally incompatible naval aims. The Germans could not have :world political freedom" or security for their overseas trade without threatening British naval supremacy. If the British to maintain their own security in the North Sea meant that they could not allow the Germans to achieve their goal. The German navy could be successful against the Dual Alliance, against the Dual Alliance plus Britain it could never be strong enough.

The sad fact was that the construction of the German fleet had been counterproductive and had contributed considerably to what Germany saw as her encirclement. The "risk" theory had failed, it had not led to alliances with other powers (Germany was isolated), it had not provided control of the North Sea, it could not guarantee the security of such colonies as Germany had been able to obtain. To quote Herwig:

The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 in particular once more brought home the realisation that battleships could not protect Germany against huge Russian and French armies. Moreover a victorious land war might bring Germany the hegemony in Europe that the naval arms race had promised - but failed - to provide. Annexations and indemnities would serve to restore internal harmony as well as the lustre of the crown in its ensuing battle against democratisation, especially in Prussia. This gamble apparently was all that remained to Wilhelm II after the demise of Tirpitz's master plan.

With hindsight, the entire German naval policy during the period of "Weltpolitik" (1896-1914) seems illogical in the extreme. From the start its premises must have inevitably resulted in a position of inferiority to Britain as Tirpitz's strategy was not to try to outbuild the British. After 1909, his deliberate concern was to maintain a 2:3 ratio as compared to Britain and as a result the German fleet would always be numerically inferior to that of the British. In the absence of any naval ally for Germany, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Tirpitz Plan was an extended and expensive exercise in self-delusion. The threat posed by the German fleet had been clearly divined, at the earliest, by 1902 or, at the latest, by 1906, while the increases due to the 1908 "novelle" directly contributed to the British acceleration of 1909. With the British agreements with Japan, France and Russia the loss of its "risk" or "alliance" value made the continuation of such an expensive policy a nonsense. Tirpitz with his "idee fixe" refused to admit that his entire policy could be invalidated by British responses to the German building programs. Despite persistent British "materiel" and strategic responses to his policies and the resultant diplomatic isolation of Germany:

"he held doggedly to his counter-productive course which thenceforward undermined the regime that the Navy was intended to preserve"