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1. Introduction
- Indiana University Press
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1 Overture: The Watch on the North Sea On 3 August 1914 gray-clad German troopers crossed the Belgian and Luxemburg frontiers to begin, in that theater, the greatest conflagration Europe had ever seen. Nestled in the fenlands of the North Sea coast, the small, drab German city of Wilhelmshaven overnight became a household word. In its harbor and in the nearby Jade, a lagoon-like body of water, sheltered from the stormy North Sea by a great sand bar, there gathered the most powerful fleet ever assembled in continental Europe, the mighty German High Seas Fleet. Fifteen of the most modern (Dreadnought-type) battleships, soon joined by two more in trials, and four speedy battlecruisers lay poised for an expected Armageddon with the even mightier British Grand Fleet, which then had twenty-two Dreadnoughts and ten powerful battlecruisers. A few dozen leagues to the north, on the small island of Helgoland, lookouts scanned the horizon in wary anticipation of the British Armada. Smaller warships, based in Helgoland, formed a picket line to the north and west, ready to wireless the alarm. To the south, the presence in an Austrian Adriatic base of the German battlecruiser Goeben alarmed the British Mediterranean command. Halfway around the world, in the German colony of Tsingtau on the Chinese Shantung Peninsula,1 a small squadron of older German cruisers excited the same fears for British forces in the Pacific. This impressive array of German naval might was, in large measure, the life’s work of Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. 1 Introduction 2 Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy As recently as 1897 most ships of the Imperial German Navy were obsolescent museum pieces, many of them foreign-built. Depending on how one measured, Germany, an industrial giant, had a fleet that ranked only fifth or sixth among the world’s navies, with just a handful of modern ships. As the French Revolution proved, nations could create, train, and arm huge military forces over a short period of time; navies, however, were another matter. To construct and maintain a formidable navy required vast amounts of coal and steel, large numbers of skilled workers, highly sophisticated machine tools and engineering, and complex organizational entities to manage the process. Failing heroic measures, a large modern ship needed at least three or four years to complete, and usually another year for trials. Some of the essential fleet-building elements were in place in Germany by 1897, but a master organizer was needed to initiate and direct such a complex systematic undertaking. The naval zeal of William II (r. 1888–1918) was an indispensable prerequisite for a large fleet, but his mercurial temperament and erratic work habits provided little progress on naval matters during the first nine years of his reign. To finance a first-class navy required vast sums of money. Absent were a plausible program, public enthusiasm, and parliamentary support from a society not previously noted, except in a few coastal cities, for its maritime interests. Alfred Tirpitz, who brought the German Navy to second in the world by 1914, was the son of a respected Prussian country judge. In 1865, at age sixteen, he joined the navy to escape the rigors of the classroom. How could such an unpromising middle-class youth rise to one of the highest positions in the Second Reich? How could he ultimately challenge the might of the British Royal Navy? How could he become the most effective politician in the entire history of Imperial Germany, save only the incomparable Otto von Bismarck? This biography addresses these questions , along with the failures and doleful consequences that followed from those same unlikely successes. Tirpitz2 is best remembered for his work as State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office (Reichsmarineamt, or RMA) from 1897 to 1916. During those years he persuaded the Imperial Reichstag to pass five naval bills (1898 and 1900, with amendments in 1906, 1908, and 1912) that produced the world’s second-largest navy. The laws were mainly directed toward the construction of sixty modern battleships and battlecruisers by 1920. In 1914 the exigencies of war essentially brought the construction [18.212.102.174] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 21:01 GMT) Introduction 3 plan to a halt; nevertheless, the partially fulfilled program was a remarkable , if tainted, achievement. Tirpitz had to overcome enormous political and diplomatic obstacles, the fecklessness of William II, and even the opposition of powerful elements within the navy itself. The Navy and the Constitution To...