German-British naval competition

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The German-British arms race at sea refers to the arms race between the German Imperial Navy and the British Royal Navy before the First World War and was long considered to be one of its causes.

background

Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz called for the armament of the navy

In the centuries before the German Empire was founded in 1871, the war fleets of German states (e.g. the Prussian Navy ), if they had any at all, were insignificant compared to those of the major naval powers (e.g. Great Britain, France). Due to the rapidly increasing German overseas trade and the acquisition of overseas colonies after 1880, the need for competitive German naval forces grew. But it was only after Kaiser Wilhelm II took office that the goal of building a fleet went beyond coastal protection and securing trade routes.

In 1895 the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal , which had been under construction since 1887 (since 1948 the Kiel Canal ), was inaugurated. German merchant ships and warships could now sail from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea without having to circumnavigate Denmark via the Skagerrak . From 1907 to 1914 the canal was significantly expanded.

The 1898 Head of Reichsmarineamt appointed Alfred von Tirpitz put a concept to build a German High Seas Fleet ( Tirpitz Plan ) before and failed to do so by the first  Navy Law define the long run. This law should end the constant quarrels in the Reichstag about the strength and financing of the fleet and enable long-term planning. The concept envisaged a so-called risk fleet , which should serve to deter other sea powers off Germany's coast. For this purpose, a ratio of 2: 3 (i.e. 67 percent), measured against the largest sea power (i.e. Great Britain), appeared to Tirpitz to be sufficient.

The establishment of a large ocean-going fleet by the German Reich brought movement into the balance of power of the sea powers, which had been dominated by Great Britain. The British naval doctrine was the so-called two-power standard , which required that the Royal Navy must always be at least as strong as the two subsequent fleets combined.

procedure

The 2nd Fleet Act (passed in June 1900), which provided for a significant increase in the German fleet, was seen as the start of the arms race . At the same time, the construction of the British ship HMS Dreadnought falls in 1905, which is seen as the type ship for a new generation of capital ships , the Dreadnoughts , which was superior to all previous types and devalued them. So both navies had to start over and this gave Germany the chance to keep up with armaments. The sparkling wine tax was introduced in Germany in 1902 to finance this .

The 1907 HMS Invincible - the first battle cruiser
The large cruiser SMS von der Tann from 1909 - the first German battle cruiser

The British First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher , who took over this post in 1904 and designed the HMS Dreadnought and the first battle cruiser in 1905, played a special role . According to the Fleet Act, Germany built two to four large warships a year, either to replace very old ships after 25 years or to increase them to the planned target strength. In Great Britain, however, the parliament limited the funds for the Navy at this time so that z. B. 1908 only two large ships could be started. Since this was the naval planners clearly too little, was the public in 1909 a campaign, called the fleet Panic ( English navy scare ), started on the armor deficit compared to other powers, including Germany, pointed and called for the construction of eight ships . This demand was given in and the necessary money was granted.

Final scoring

With the British arms program of 1909, the arms race was de facto decided. In view of eight new buildings, Germany was no longer able to achieve the balance of power of 2/3 of the British aimed at for the risk fleet and could never seriously endanger the British supremacy. The balance of power in the Battle of the Skagerrak (1916) - it is considered the largest conventional sea ​​battle  - clearly shows this.

The priorities have also tended to shift since 1912, as the Russian Empire had been pursuing an ambitious maritime armaments program from that point on, which included the deployment of 16 modern capital ships in the Baltic Sea until 1920 . This was directed - also because there were no other major maritime powers in this area and Russia was also bound within the Entente cordiale - solely against the German Empire.

literature

  • Jürgen Rohwer : Politics and Fleet Construction [1889–1914]. In: Elmar Potter / Chester Nimitz: Sea power: A naval war history from antiquity to the present . Pawlak: Herrsching 1982, p. 315-342 - comparison table p. 294, dislocation graphics p. 323 (1904), p. 325 (1906), p. 327 (1908), p. 329 (1912).
  • Rolf Hobson : Maritime Imperialism. Sea power ideology, maritime strategic thinking and the Tirpitz Plan 1875 to 1914 , Oslo and Munich, 2004
  • Franz Uhle-Wettler : Alfred Tirpitz in his time . Ares: Graz (2nd edition) 2008. - The author deals extensively with the proponents of the view that the naval competition was one of the causes of the First World War.
  • Andreas Rose: Between Empire and Continent. British foreign policy before the First World War . Oldenbourg: Munich 2011 - Therein comparison tables on fleet sizes p. 214 (1903), p. 390 (1906), p. 412 (1909).
  • Klaus Franken: Vice Admiral Karl Galster . A critic of the Imperial Navy's battle fleet construction. Publishing house Dr. Dieter Winkler, Bochum, 2011 ( Small series of publications on military and naval history. Vol. 22nd edited by Jens Graul , Jörg Hillmann, Stephan Huck). ISBN 978-3-89911-137-8 . ( Table of contents at winklerverlag.com)

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