Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy

12. Sow the Wind, 1906–1908

263 The RMA in 1906 The RMA’s diverse workload and Tirpitz’s success as a bureaucratic warrior employed sixty mostly senior sea officers, by far the largest levy in the navy except for the fleet itself.1 Many of them were long-term RMA officers , whereas the Admiralstab had thirty-six officers, most of them quite junior, who rotated frequently in and out of the fleet. The RMA employed fifty-seven senior civil servants (none in the Admiralstab), plus clerks, scribes, and so on. The Admiralstab had only one admiral (Büchsel), whereas the RMA had six rear admirals or officers of even higher rank. The RMA still had a leavening of Tirpitz’s Torpedo Gang, who, by 1906, were of high rank. These included Tirpitz’s close personal friends: Vice Admiral Hunold von Ahlefeld, Rear Admiral August von Heeringen, and Captain Raimond Winkler. Other torpedo men included Captain Reinhard Scheer and Captain Harald Dähnhardt. The latter two reported to Rear Admiral Eduard Capelle, Director of the Administrative Department (V). Just departed for the fleet were Commanders Adolf von Trotha, who had served under Scheer in the Central Department, and William Michaelis . The latter had served as confidential secretary to Heeringen. Trotha had served in a similar capacity for Tirpitz for the prior five years. Although Trotha, after 1906, never again served under Tirpitz, their correspondence of hundreds of letters testifies to the closeness of their relationship.2 Trotha had a gift for ingratiating himself with powerful men. First he served Tirpitz, while officially a subordinate of Scheer, and then Müller 12 Sow the Wind, 1906–1908 264 Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy in the MK from 1909 to 1913, where he had close access to the Emperor. He became Scheer’s Chief of Staff when the latter took over the High Seas Fleet in 1916. After the war he was briefly Chief of Admiralty under the Republic, but discredited himself by his “neutrality” toward the Kapp Putsch. After Tirpitz’s death, he became an ardent Nazi.3 Trotha was one of few officers with substantial Front credentials who understood the magnitude of Tirpitz’s achievement in winning the Reichstag for the navy. He saw what Tirpitz had to do, to the disappointment of many Front officers, to operate in the world of parliamentary politics. Trotha’s duties from 1901 to 1906 included preparing matters subject to the Emperor’s decision. He defended Tirpitz from Front complaints, including his reluctance to create a Fleet Command before it was “absolutely necessary.” This had deleterious effects on training and readiness, as seen in Tirpitz’s conflict with Koester in 1902 and after.4 Trotha saw this practice as the “normal conflicts of a healthy organization.”5 One advantage of Tirpitz’s view was that sooner or later Prinz Heinrich would take his turn as Chief of the Active Battlefleet. Though he was a man of considerable personal charm, and much more stable than his imperial brother, no one wanted to see him as wartime Fleet Chief. Trotha defended Tirpitz against the charge that he did not provide enough money for readiness and other pressing needs of the fleet. He agreed with Tirpitz that the tight-fistedness of the Reichstag for anything but construction made such needs wait until the development phase was over.6 Across the North Sea Early in 1906 events eased Tirpitz’s fears of a preventive attack. In December 1905, with the Moroccan Crisis at its height, Tirpitz shepherding the Novelle through the Reichstag, and Dreadnought on the stocks at Portsmouth, British elections in January 1906 returned a gigantic Liberal majority. The new Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, renewed his predecessor’s vague “commitment” to support France against Germany at the Algeciras Conference and continued military conversations with France that the Conservatives had initiated;7 there were indications, however , that the Liberals intended to modify British naval policy. In their last days in office the Conservatives defined their shipbuilding policy in the “Cawdor Memorandum,” after Lord Cawdor, then First Sow the Wind, 1906–1908 265 Lord of the Admiralty.8 It proposed construction of four large armored ships per year. The new Liberal Prime Minister, Sir Henry CampbellBannerman , at first accepted this program. Many Liberal candidates had run on a platform of arms reduction in favor of social welfare programs. The party was divided over armaments. The Liberal Imperialist faction, led by Herbert...