Berlin

In order to enlighten his people on the need for a strong navy, Wilhelm relied upon the propagandistic genius of his new secretary of the Imperial Naval Office, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. A huge man with a fierce forked beard, Tirpitz was an avid student of the American strategic theorist Admiral Mahan, who held that sea power was the key to world power. Having earned his high rank by winning bureaucratic battles within Germany’s military establishment, Tirpitz fully appreciated the challenge inherent in convincing the German people of Mahan’s wisdom.

The kaiser’s government brought its first major naval spending bill before the Reichstag in 1898. It faced opposition not only from the Social Democrats, who ritually rejected most military outlays, but also from the Conservatives, who preferred to spend money on the army. To muster support for the bill, Tirpitz sought the endorsement of former chancellor Bismarck, but the old man was willing to back only a minor increase in naval power. If the Germans ever had to fight the British, Bismarck believed, they should “slay them with the butt-ends of [their] rifles.” Tirpitz had better luck among nationalist academics, whom he wooed with guided tours of Germany’s main naval base at Wilhelmshaven. The professors obligingly wrote newspaper articles explaining the life-and-death imperatives of a high-seas fleet. By identifying a large fleet with the nation’s economic development, the admiral also won the support of commercial and industrial interests across the Reich, especially in Berlin. As the debates on the naval bill progressed in the Reichstag, Tirpitz made a point of inviting key legislators for chats in his office on Leipzigerplatz. To overcome conservative deputies’ reservations about investing in a navy, he pointed out that a big fleet could be a rallying-point for the forces of order against the SPD. As a result of this expert political spadework, the First Naval Bill passed the Reichstag with a vote of 221 to 139. It provided for a naval force of nineteen battleships, twelve large cruisers, thirty small cruisers, and an array of support vessels.

But this was only the beginning. Two years later Tirpitz went back to the Reichstag with a new naval measure that called for doubling the number of battleships to thirty-nine. Without specifically mentioning Britain, the admiral made clear that the larger fleet was necessary to intimidate that island power. This argument, however, was not by itself convincing enough to win the day in the Reichstag. He secured passage of the Second Naval Bill only with some old-fashioned political logrolling. In brief, he promised the Conservatives higher tariffs on grain imports (duly introduced in 1902), while the clerical Center Party was given a larger influence in educational and cultural affairs.

In Berlin the naval buildup quickly caught fire. Self-interest on the part of groups and institutions that stood to profit from it played a significant role here. The Technical University’s department of shipbuilding, created in 1894, added a number of new faculty, all of them eager propagandists for naval expansion. Not to be outdone, the University of Berlin established its own “Institute for Ocean Research.” Its faculty worked closely with industrial firms in Berlin that built components for the new vessels. Bankers with investments in overseas trade promoted the fleet expansion in the expectation that it would make their ventures more secure. Yet maritime enthusiasm was not restricted to those who stood to gain directly from the construction of a large fleet. Berlin’s chapter of the Navy League was filled with middle-class naval buffs who collected pictures of battleships and thrilled to the idea of the Reich competing with Britain to rule the waves. The League sponsored a Naval Museum in the capital, which opened with much fanfare in 1906. Two years later a large naval and maritime exhibition was held on the grounds of the Berlin Zoo.

Berlin’s enthusiasm was matched by London’s consternation. Determined that Germany not close the naval gap between the two nations, Britain added significantly to its own great fleet, concentrating on the massive Dreadnought-class battleships, which bore the name of eight previous Royal Navy vessels, the first of which had helped Sir Francis Drake defeat the Spanish Armada. Britain calculated that it would be difficult for Germany to match it ship for ship while simultaneously maintaining a huge land army. In 1904 London also abandoned its long-cherished policy of “splendid isolation” by forging the Entente Cordiale with France, one of its main imperial rivals. As a signal of the new cordiality, Paris renounced its claims in Egypt, while Britain recognized France’s dominating interest in Morocco.