Naval laws
| Basic data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Law concerning the German fleet |
| Short title: | Fleet Act ( coll. ) |
| Type: | Imperial Law |
| Scope: | German Empire |
| Legal matter: | Budget law , military law |
| Original version from: | April 10, 1898 ( RGBl. P. 165) |
| Entry into force on: | April 30, 1898 |
| New announcement from: | June 27, 1912 (RGBl., P. 435) |
| Last revision from: | June 14, 1900 (RGBl., P. 255) |
| Entry into force of the new version on: |
July 1, 1900 |
| Last change by: | § 1 G of June 14, 1912 (RGBl. I p. 392) |
| Effective date of the last change: |
July 4, 1912 (Art. 2 Sentence 3 RV ) |
| Expiry: | January 10, 1920 (Art. 181, 186, 190 G of July 16, 1919 , RGBl., Pp. 687, 943, 947, 949 f., In conjunction with notification of January 11, 1920, RGBl. , P. 31) |
| Please note the note on the applicable legal version. | |
The fleet laws introduced in the German Empire , the legal basis for the expansion of the Imperial Navy before the First World War . The plural term "fleet laws" stands for the 1898 and 1900 from the Reichstag adopted versions of the law concerning the German fleet , including three fleet novellas (change laws ) and a new announcement of the wording of the law published in 1912.
With the help of the fleet laws, the establishment of a powerful German deep-sea fleet should be made possible. The naval laws led to the German-British naval arms race , which was counted among the triggers of the First World War.
Basics
background
In the 1890s, domestic political tensions reached a climax in the German Empire . The East Elbe landowners, a mainstay of the political leadership of the empire since the founding of the empire, saw themselves exposed to massive economic difficulties due to cheap food imports. Meanwhile, both the rising bourgeoisie , especially the industrialists , but also the workers demanded more political say, because the participation of the Reichstag in everyday political life was largely limited to the control of state spending. As a result of the tensions that regularly erupted in parliament, the continued existence of the monarchist constitution was in question; a constitutionalization of the system on the British model was, however, strictly rejected by the ruling elites.
While right-wing conservative circles were already thinking of violent action against the Reichstag, liberals and social democrats , a means was found in naval building with which the situation should be stabilized. A kind of armistice was concluded between the great agrarians and the bourgeoisie:
- The industrial bourgeoisie could count on considerable increases in turnover thanks to the consent of the large agrarians to the state fleet armament orders.
- In return, the bourgeoisie supported the large agrarians' demand for new protective tariffs for their agricultural products.
- The hoped-for full employment and wage increases should also satisfy the workforce and thus weaken the SPD.
Aim of the fleet armor
With the construction of a numerically large battle fleet, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt (RMA) since 1897, intended to cement the political status quo and Germany's breakthrough into the circle of world powers. Based on the teachings of Alfred Thayer Mahan , according to which a dynamic connection between sea power and world power was assumed, the colonial base of Germany should be expanded with the help of the fleet, since the existing one is too small and the empire is "on the level of a poor arable country" threatened to sink.
The building of the fleet was to be financed from the normal income of the Reich, for which annual increases were expected - no tax increases were planned for this purpose.
Risk thought
The so-called “risk concept” was the basis for the fleet building program . This doctrine stated that the German fleet had to be so large that a fight against it would shake Great Britain's naval power and would therefore be too risky for the British or at least make them ready to form an alliance to prevent Germany from forming a coalition with other middle sea powers (" Alliance ability "). Tirpitz assumed a ratio of 2: 3 between the German and British fleets as the necessary strength, which was also considered sufficient in the event of a war against Great Britain to successfully take action against the " Home Fleet ".
During the build-up of the fleet, a “danger zone” had to be overcome while tensions with Great Britain were to be avoided in order not to endanger the undisturbed construction of the fleet - they feared a new “ Copenhagen ” (based on the approach of the Royal Navy 1801 or 1807 , when it destroyed the Danish fleet in the harbor so as not to let it fall into the hands of Napoleon ).
propaganda
From the beginning, the naval armament was presented as a “great national work”, as it were as a kind of nationalistic bracket in which the various population groups were to be grouped together. In the previous decade, the expansion of the fleet had not found a permanent majority in parliament, as the government was unable to present a conclusive concept and the financial risks seemed incalculable. This changed when Kaiser Wilhelm II had appointed Rear Admiral von Tirpitz as head of the Reichsmarinamt and he was able to present a long-term concept for building up the navy. When it came to enforcing the laws and amendments, Tirpitz had an excellently suitable position at hand in the intelligence office of the Reichsmarinamt, which he had set up soon after taking office in 1897.
The news office was only responsible for public relations and, for example, supplied the German Fleet Association with materials. The naval association, led by conservative forces, was an important means of anchoring the “naval concept” in the population, as it appeared to be independent of the Reichsmarineamt. However, many of his relatives were active or former naval officers and the Reichsmarineamt encouraged the officers to join. With a few exceptions, the collaboration behind the scenes was very close. During his inaugural visit to the Reichsmarineamt, the chairman, Grand Admiral Hans von Köster, elected in June 1908, assured that the naval association would always act in the interests of the office. Even Kaiser Wilhelm II. , A renowned advocate of the Navy, did his part to arouse the national enthusiasm for "the fleet".
The naval laws of 1898 and 1900
The first naval law of 1898
The first naval law of April 10, 1898 contained a six-year construction plan and laid down the scope of the battle fleet at two squadrons with eight ships of the line each , to which were added a fleet flagship and two reserve units , as well as eight coastal armored ships , twelve large and thirty small cruisers . The ships were to be kept in service for twenty-five years after completion and then automatically replaced by new buildings, so that these replacement buildings did not have to be applied for again, but the Reichstag was forced to approve the necessary funds.
The second naval law of 1900
The second naval law of June 14, 1900, passed with 201: 103 votes, decided to double the German battle fleet. According to this, this should consist of two fleet flagships and four squadrons with eight ships of the line each plus four reserve ships. The number of cruisers grew to fourteen large and thirty-eight small cruisers; six large cruisers had to be crossed out of the bill, otherwise the Reichstag would have refused its approval. The costs were estimated at around 300 million marks per year.
Thanks to the agreement of the bourgeois and conservative forces, both naval laws passed the Reichstag, against the votes of the SPD and some liberals.
The amendments to the fleet laws in the context of international development
The German armaments efforts did not go unnoticed in Great Britain. The British response was not the one you had hoped for: instead to approach the question of an alliance to the Empire, in 1902 with Japan an alliance in 1904 with and France , the Entente Cordiale closed - both contracts, part of the Home Fleet to "Free" use against Germany. At the same time, the British intensified their own armaments efforts and embroiled the Reich in an open arms race. At the same time, Christopher Clark is of the opinion that the German armaments projects have made an undue impression on British politicians and the military.
In 1906 the HMS Dreadnought was completed in Great Britain - a battleship that far surpassed all previous ships of the line in terms of combat strength, speed and stability (but also in terms of construction costs) and made it obsolete in one fell swoop. This technical leap put further sea armaments in all countries with new financial burdens and influenced the amendments to the naval laws, which in principle had been available since 1900 and should be presented when the opportunity arose.
The fleet amendments 1906 and 1908
With the fleet amendment of 1906, the Reichsmarineamt reacted to the " dreadnought jump". The construction of the six large cruisers , which had been canceled in 1900, has now been approved. The new buildings (as well as future replacement buildings) could be accommodated as ships of the line in the German program without any problems, but these could no longer be financed in the conventional way, as the Navy was obliged not to exceed the financial framework of the fleet laws. Therefore, what the laws had actually meant to exclude, the Reichstag had to approve the significantly higher construction costs. This question of financing was to develop into a long-running political issue in the years to come.
The fleet amendment of 1908 brought no changes with regard to the fleet. However, she changed the pace of construction until 1911 to four large ships a year (instead of three previously). In 1912 they wanted to fall back to a two-pace, which Tirpitz hoped for a better negotiating position for further increases in target strength. At the same time, the service life of the ships was reduced to twenty years, which would have meant a constant construction rate of three capital ships per year for the near future. Britain responded to this challenge by having no fewer than eight battleships under construction the following year .
With the immense increase in construction costs due to the transition to the "dreadnought" building, the parliamentary alliance between the bourgeoisie and large landowners broke up on the question of financing. Chancellor Bülow , a long-time supporter of Tirpitz, took off his hat and was replaced by Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg , who rejected the “ Tirpitz Plan ” in many respects and sought rapprochement with Great Britain in the form of a fleet restriction .
The 1912 fleet amendment
The fleet amendment of 1912 was dominated by battles over direction between Bethmann Hollweg and Tirpitz. For financial and foreign policy reasons, the Chancellor did not want any further amendments to the fleet. Instead, he relied on a policy of détente with Great Britain through a neutrality agreement. As an offer to negotiate, a limitation of German naval armament was promised, with the British demanding a strength ratio of 1: 2. Tirpitz saw this ratio as unacceptable and in return offered 2: 3, at best 10:16 for the capital ships, which corresponded to the original risk concept. The " Haldane Mission " of 1912, which was undertaken for the purpose of such a German-British detente by means of a naval agreement, then also failed because Tirpitz adhered to his naval plan.
With the fleet amendment passed in May 1912, which only increased the number of three ships of the line and two small cruisers , the German battle fleet was to be expanded to five squadrons with eight ships of the line each by 1920. The total stock provided for forty-one ships of the line, twenty large or armored cruisers and forty small cruisers. In order to achieve the actual goal of sixty capital ships, Tirpitz only had the detour of tacitly replacing the coastal tanks and foreign cruisers with "dreadnoughts" after their service time had expired.
Failure of the naval armor
Since 1908 Tirpitz was confronted with the inevitable failure of his efforts. All functions intended for the fleet could not be fulfilled:
- It was not possible to achieve the strength originally required in comparison with the British fleet; so the “risk idea” had failed. It was not possible to get the British to give in through a forced arms race - the arms spiral threatened to ruin Germany much more than Great Britain - nor to force an alliance through threats. In the end, German-British relations were worse than ever since 1871.
- The rallying of the “national forces” broke up because of the horrific financial burdens that Tirpitz cost one after the other with the support of the great agrarians, the Reich Chancellor and finally the Emperor. Ultimately, the social democrats could not be stopped from growing in strength either: in the Reichstag elections of January 1912 they became the strongest party.
- Even if the own strength of the fleet had been cheaper compared to the British, it could not have been used promisingly against them, since the Royal Navy decided in 1912 to build up a wide blockade of the German coasts in the event of war , which would be a decisive battle under favorable circumstances for the Germans should make it highly unlikely. In addition, Great Britain had had the backing of the French Navy since the Franco-British Naval Convention of 1912 , while Germany had no sea power comparable to France as an ally in Austria.
Between March 1911 and July 1913, i.e. already parallel to the naval amendment of 1912, the armaments focus was shifted to the army sector , as demonstrated by the successive increase in the peacekeeping strength of the land forces during this period. In addition to a huge hole in the state budget, the fleet laws left behind not only an unfinished fleet, but also one that was in poor condition, because in order to be able to pay for the new buildings, staff and material were saved as much as possible.
literature
- Volker R. Berghahn: The Tirpitz Plan. Genesis and decay of a domestic political crisis strategy under Wilhelm II. Düsseldorf 1971.
- Dirk Bönker: Militarism in a global age. Naval ambitions in Germany and the United States before World War I. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY et al. 2012, ISBN 978-0-8014-5040-2 .
- Wilhelm Deist: Fleet Policy and Naval Propaganda - The Message Bureau of the Reichsmarineamte 1897-1914. Stuttgart 1974.
- Michael Epkenhans: The Wilhelmine armor of the fleet 1908–1914. Striving for world power, industrial progress, social integration. Munich 1991
- Sebastian Diziol: "Germans, become members of the fatherland!" The German Naval Association 1898–1934. Solivagus Praeteritum, Kiel 2015, ISBN 978-3-9817079-0-8 .
- Jan Rüger: The Great Naval Game. Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare 26). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-11461-5 .
- Hansgeorg Fernis: The fleet novellas in the Reichstag 1906–1912. Stuttgart 1934.
- Jörg-Uwe Fischer: Parliamentary study trips before 1914: "... to promote the fleet idea". In: ZParl . 2000, pp. 775-786.
- Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume 4: Structure and crises of the empire. 2nd Edition. Stuttgart et al. 1982.
- Rolf Hobson: Maritime Imperialism. Sea power ideology, maritime strategic thinking and the Tirpitz Plan 1875 to 1914 . Munich 2004.
- Dennis Schneider: The naval policy in the German Empire, 1890s until the outbreak of the First World War. GRIN Verlag, 2009.
- Herbert Schottelius, Wilhelm Deist: Navy and naval policy in imperial Germany 1871-1914. Düsseldorf 1972.
- Alfred von Tirpitz: Political Documents. Volume 1: The construction of the German world power. Stuttgart / Berlin 1924.
Web links
- German stories "Fleet Laws". ( Memento from April 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- The German naval armament as a domestic political instrument of war against the SPD (PDF file; 49 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner Rahn (ed.) / MGFA : German Marines in Transition: From Symbol of National Unity to Instrument of International Security , Oldenbourg 2005, p. 148 ( online ).
- ^ Law on the German fleet of April 10, 1898 ( RGBl. P. 165); Validity from April 30, 1898.
- ↑ Law on the German fleet of June 14, 1900 (RGBl., P. 255); Validity from July 1, 1900.
- ↑ Christopher Clark : The Sleepwalkers. How Europe moved into World War I. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Munich 2013, p. 205.
- ^ Amendment to the law concerning the German fleet, of June 14, 1900 of June 5, 1906 (RGBl., P. 729); Validity from June 28, 1906.
- ↑ Law amending § 2 of the law, concerning the German fleet, of June 14, 1900 of April 6, 1908 (RGBl., P. 147); Validity from May 2, 1908.
- ^ Amendment to the laws concerning the German fleet of June 14, 1900 and June 5, 1906 of June 14, 1912 (RGBl., P. 392); Validity from July 4, 1912.
- ^ Act, regarding the German fleet in the announcement of June 27, 1912 (RGBl., P. 435).
- ↑ Law to supplement the law on the strength of the peace presence of the German army of March 27, 1911 (RGBl, p. 99) / June 14, 1912 (RGBl, p. 389) [...] of July 3, 1913 (RGBl., P. 496); Validity from July 26, 1913.
