Risk theory (military)

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Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz

The theoretical guiding principles behind the construction of the German deep-sea fleet (“ risk fleet ”) between 1897 and 1918, which can be traced back to Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , are called risk theory (also risk strategy ) .

Conceptual background

The name “risk” to denote the Tirpitzian concept is to be understood in two ways. On the one hand, according to Tirpitz, German fleet construction was exposed to a certain risk in its first few years: This would result from the fact that the German armament efforts would have to survive a certain "danger corridor" of several years until the German fleet is strong enough to support itself and just to be able to assert against a British attack. According to Tirpitz, the possibility of a British attack resulted from the ability and inclination of the British authorities to eliminate a potentially dangerous enemy at an early stage through preventive action, as long as he was still relatively weak and vulnerable. As a historical experience that would justify such a "risk assumption", he referred in particular to the attack by the Royal Navy on the Danish fleet under construction in 1805. This also had ambitious plans for armament, which at the time in question were not very advanced.

When the "risk" period of relative maritime weakness had passed, according to Tirpitz's calculation, the attribute risk would no longer relate to Germany, the fleet would no longer be the object that was exposed to risk, but would rather become the subject that posed a risk to others, notably Great Britain. Tirpitz argued that the German deep-sea fleet, the construction of which is admittedly a risky “matter”, would pose such a large marine-political and - since Britain's great power position was based on its fleet - an overall political risk for Great Britain that this would result from the existence of the risky fleet a policy friendly to Germany would be initiated.

Theory

In 1897, Alfred von Tirpitz was appointed State Secretary to the Reichsmarine Ministry by Kaiser Wilhelm II in order to build up a strong fleet aimed at by the German monarch to power the German Reich, which was striving for a “place in the sun” ( Bernhard von Bülow ) and should help to establish itself as a colonial and maritime power.

Convinced that building a fleet that would be strong enough to defeat the British Navy is an impossibility, Tirpitz developed the idea of ​​a so-called risk fleet. Tirpitz's basic assumption was that a German fleet did not necessarily have to be strong enough to defeat the Royal Navy in order to induce the United Kingdom to adopt a German-friendly naval and overall policy, but that it would be enough to build a fleet that was strong would be enough to turn their destruction by Great Britain into a Pyrrhic victory . Great Britain, so Tirpitz's thought, could not afford to engage in a military conflict with another sea power if it was strong enough, in spite of the numerical and qualitative inferiority of its fleet, to take large parts of it when it was destroyed by the Royal Navy to destroy. Such a victory for the British would, according to Tirpitz, be bought so dearly in the eyes of the island power that it would be pointless, since it would inevitably mean the loss of British naval dominance to a third sea power, which after the loss of large parts of the British fleet in the course of whose “victory” over the German fleet would suddenly be stronger than this one.

According to this, as soon as a German fleet of a certain size in relation to the British fleet was reached, Great Britain could not avoid seeking Germany's friendship if it wanted to maintain its maritime superpower position. The risk fleet will therefore probably become an “alliance-enforcing instrument” (Orth) in the hands of imperial foreign policy, but at least it will induce the British to adopt benevolent neutrality towards Germany in future European crises.

Political reception at home and abroad

Kaiser Wilhelm and Bernhard von Bülow, as foreign ministers and imperial chancellor the decisive man in the German civilian government in the years in question, were convinced by Tirpitz's armament theory and its supposed political consequences and elevated them to the - secret - guideline of German naval policy in the Years from 1899 to the First World War . Officially, the - secret - risk considerations were not given as the background for the decision to build the deep-sea fleet . In particular, British politics and the press, who did not know the Tirpitzian memoranda, which of course was kept secret, but could foresee the intentions behind the German naval construction on the basis of external events (ship and base construction), tried to appease and about the German's marine policy intentions Fool rich.

The naval laws of 1899, 1902 and 1912, which coordinated the armaments efforts of the German Reich, as well as the manifest results of the naval construction (imposing shipbuilding, in particular so-called dreadnoughts ) caused increasing unrest and even consternation in the British public, most clearly visible in the naval Scare from 1909. Tirpitz's British opponents, the Navy Ministers Tweedmouth (1905–1908), McKenna (1908–1911) and Churchill (1911–1915), as well as the fleet chiefs Fisher , Wilson and Battenberg finally went over to who saw through their basic ideas To counteract the risk strategy for its part through massive British armaments efforts ( German-British arms race ). The main idea behind their measures (including the dreadnought program) was to ensure that the British Navy had a sufficiently large lead over the German Navy in terms of quality and quantity to allow the risk concept to fail. H. In the event of a violent conflict with the deep-sea fleet, there should be such large reserves of crews and, above all, modern ships available that even after an expensive victory over the German fleet, the British fleet would still be so superior to the next largest sea power that the British Supremacy on the sea against this would remain unchallenged.

The risk concept or its practical objectification - the construction of numerous German battleships - contributed significantly to the deterioration of German-British bilateral relations in the years before the First World War. The foreign policy climate of mistrust that ultimately led to the world war, and in particular the British inclination and ultimately the practical decision of the British to enter the war on the part of the Franco-Russian alliance, was, according to the opinion of numerous historians ( Marder , Mommsen , Hildebrand , Hillgruber ) to a considerable extent. Express confirmation of this view by British political decision-makers before the First World War can be found in the war memoirs of David Lloyd Georges and Winston Churchill. According to the almost unanimous opinion of researchers, the German naval policy, which is committed to the idea of ​​risk theory, contributed to a considerable extent to turning British foreign policy, ministerially directed by Edward Gray , against Germany. Among other things, the decision to seek the entente cordiale with France is attributed to the consideration of the British leadership that, due to the increasing danger posed by the steadily growing German fleet, foreign policy differences with other powers must be resolved as quickly as possible.

The calculation of risk theory to induce the British to adopt a pro-German policy by building their fleets after a phase of disgruntlement ultimately failed. The most important reason for this is undoubtedly that the outbreak of the First World War, in which Germany and Great Britain faced each other as enemies, fell in that phase of "disgruntlement" and thus the possibility of a reconciliation after the completion of the fleet construction - which Tirpitz in his plans Had terminated in 1917 - smashed. It is also important that a reaction not calculated by Tirpitz occurred on the British side: the shift of the British-German rivalry to a field other than that of the military. Tirpitz's conception was based exclusively on military and armament practice considerations, which should be political in their targeting. He completely ignored the field of diplomacy . With the decision of Great Britain, in response to the increasing danger from Germany, not to seek proximity to Germany in order to “make the enemy who cannot be defeated into a friend”, but to seek proximity to other powers ( Russia , France) looking, Tirpitz hadn't expected. For example, the Minister of the Navy, Churchill, had almost all British ships withdrawn from the Mediterranean in order to concentrate them in the North Sea area, and in future assigned responsibility for this area to the French as Entente partners.

As a result, with the de facto - albeit not formally sanctioned - alliance-like rapprochement between these three states, the risk strategy was shattered, since Tirpitz's most important assumption - the inability of Great Britain to continue to prevail against other, pushing rivals after a victory over Germany - had become null and void The political merging of the three Entente powers opened up the possibility for Great Britain, in the event of a direct conflict with Germany, to no longer have to bear the expected losses of ships and people alone, but rather these - in relation to the size of the fleets of all three partners on “Total fleet volume” corresponding to the ratio - to be able to distribute it to all alliance partners. The result would be that the losses of the British fleet, which would have resulted in the destruction of the German fleet, would have been significantly lower than calculated by Tirpitz. Furthermore, due to the three-party alliance, after a German defeat, there would in all likelihood have been no further rival who could have challenged Great Britain's supremacy at sea, since France and Russia almost certainly not immediately after a war against Germany would have taken to the field against their own allies, and an imminent threat to the British navy need not be expected. In addition, due to the weakening of the other Allied fleets, which is proportional to their size, Great Britain would in all probability have continued to be superior to them in the course of a conflict with the German fleet.

literature

Political memoirs and personal testimonies

  • Churchill: World Crisis
  • Gray: Twenty-five years
  • Lloyd George: My part in the world wars
  • Tirpitz: memories
  • Ders .: The construction of the German world power [book]:

Scientific works

  • Marder: From Dreadnought To Scapa Flow
  • Hobson: Imperialism At Sea
  • Petter: German naval history of modern times
  • Weir: Building the Kaiser's navy: the Imperial Navy Office and German industry in the von Tirpitz era, 1890-1919
  • Volker Berghahn : The Tirpitz Plan: Genesis and Decay of a Domestic Crisis Strategy under Wilhelm II , Düsseldorf 1971, ISBN 978-3-7700-0258-0 .
  • Steinberg: Yesterday's deterrent: Tirpitz and the birth of the German battle fleet