A short history of a certain arms race | Marek Kobryń

Marek Kobryń

It might be surprising, but Germany, as a united country, entered the international scene only in January 1871. Wilhelm I of Prussia was crowned emperor Wilhelm I of Germany after the victorious war with France, waged by a coalition of German states under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia. (To humiliate France further, the coronation took place in Versailles.) Despite this, the architect of the German unification, Otto von Bismarck, was not a staunch supporter of war as a successful instrument in resolving international disputes.

Though German unification is believed to be Bismarck’s crowning achievement, he also managed to isolate France, preventing it from forming dangerous alliances, and maintaining good relations with Britain, notably after 1882, when the British occupation of Egypt was met with outrage from France. During the Berlin Conference two years later, Germany was given some colonial territory in Africa. However, in 1888 a new figure ascended the German Imperial throne – Wilhelm II, grandson of Wilhelm I. A nationalist, militarist, and imperialist, he was, from the start, bent on giving Germany its “rightful place in the sun”. He sacked Bismarck and appointed Alfred von Tirpitz the Secretary of the Navy. Even though after the victorious war against France Germany had the biggest army in Europe, its navy was significantly smaller and not fit for a country aspiring to be seen as an empire. Tirpitz devised a plan to change that and challenge Britain’s dominion over the world’s oceans.

Since the very beginning of the 18th century, the British navy has been the greatest in the world. In time, the British government even invented the "two-power standard" policy, according to which Britain should have more ships than the second two greatest naval powers combined. The royal navy was the essential building block of the Empire, enabling Great Britain to control a quarter of the globe’s landmass. Britain was not keen on losing its position to the newly created German Empire and thus, started to look closely at Germany’s actions.

Tirpitz’s plan was not to beat the British in the number of ships. The British fleet was dispersed worldwide to maintain the Empire, while Germany could concentrate only on the North Sea. The idea was to make Britain fear defeat at German hands in this region, as the mere possibility would mean that its position elsewhere in the world was threatened, too.

Between 1898 and 1912, Germany passed several Naval Acts to increase the build-up of ships. Their aggressive policy was not discouraged by the construction of HMS Dreadnought. This British next-generation battleship was significantly faster and had more firepower than any battleship possessed by any country at that time. In 1906, HMS Dreadnought effectively rendered the entire German fleet obsolete. Despite this, two years later Germany ordered six dreadnoughts, while Britain planned to add only four to the one already afloat.

Driven by the need to maintain their naval supremacy (a policy very much supported by the British public), the British government in the person of Winston Churchill – the first lord of Admiralty at that time – announced the “two to one” program. Britain was simply to build two dreadnoughts for every dreadnought constructed by the German Empire. Tirpitz’s idea of forcing the British Empire to concessions to Germany in colonial matters backfired, dragging Germany’s economy, already heavily burdened with sustaining the most significant army in Europe, into an even more expensive naval arms race. Even worse for the German economy was the fact that the new German fleet was mainly to be used as a scarecrow against Britain rather than a force to make Germany’s trade with its colonies more prosperous. Good relations with Britain, maintained since Bismarck had supported the British occupation of Egypt, came to an abrupt end. Britain, to the detriment of Germany, decided to strengthen its relations with France by signing the Entente Cordiale alliance in 1904 – an agreement that laid the foundation for the future coalition during the Great War.

Due to the rising threat posed by Russia, which had signed a military agreement with France, effectively rendering the German Empire surrounded by potential enemies, the German ruling class realized that one could have either the most outstanding army or navy in Europe, but not both. In 1912, Germany withdrew from the naval arms race after an unsuccessful attempt to create an alliance with Britain. Eventually, the British “two-power standard” was upheld, and in 1914 Britain had a total of 29 dreadnoughts, while the combined navies of France and Germany had among themselves 27 dreadnoughts. During World War I, the German battleship fleet posed no challenge to the combined strength of Britain and France. Ironically, the German plan to contest Britain’s domination on seas contributed to the downfall of the German Empire.