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The High Seas Fleet
Seeking the Bubble Prestige

An 1894 Cruiser Design by Kaiser Wilhelm II

A recent thesis by Wesley R. Hale at the University of Rhode Island nicely summarizes how Kaiser Wilhelm II was inspired (seduced?) into building his huge, but eventually inadequate and doomed, battle fleet.

At the beginning of the 20th century, England possessed the largest navy in the world, having established in 1889 a Naval Defense Act that formalized the "Two Power Standard" of parity with the next two naval powers, France and Russia." Kaiser Wilhelm II sought to earn prestige as a monarch by elevating Germany to a maritime power in the same manner his grandfather Wilhelm I had transformed the Prussian Army to unify Germany under one flag. Unlike his grandfather, whose reorganization efforts benefited from a long history of military institution, where the Prussian army was a fixture of society, Wilhelm II faced the challenge of developing a formidable navy in a country lacking a cohesive naval tradition.

Kaiser Wilhelm and his admirals envisioned [a battle fleet] elevating Germany to a maritime power in line with A.T. Mahan's notion of military strength. First published in 1890, Mahan's book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 argued that numerical superiority accounted for much of the maritime success of the major world powers against their enemies. While he highlighted several naval battles throughout history, Nelson's victories at the Battle of the Nile and Trafalgar were both particularly important to this argument and still relatively recent history. To that end, Mahan begins his introduction with a discussion of the basic tactics of those battles, which were "to choose that part of the enemy's order which can least easily be helped, and to attack it with superior forces." Mahan's work became one of the most influential geopolitical pieces of its time, eventually becoming recommended reading for every major world leader with global ambitions, including Theodore Roosevelt and Wilhelm II. His book became a manual that set the naval standard to which all major powers subscribed and to which Imperial Germany aspired.

Over the next half-decade, Wilhelm—being Wilhelm—fantasized, talked, consulted industrialists, pressured ministers, and gave endless pep talks to his family and entourage about the necessity for a world-class German fleet. As the illustration at the top of this article shows, he was even designing his own ships. His by-word was "The Trident Must Be in Our Fist." However, at the time Wilhelm's "Trident" consisted of a navy of only 68 ships, compared to the Royal Navy's 330.

To turn his dream into a reality, he needed a naval man of great skill to lead the effort to get the fleet built. He found his man in a brilliant and politically savvy admiral named Alfred von Tirpitz. Born in 1848, Tirpitz enlisted in the navy as a midshipman at age 16 and quickly showed aptitudes for tactics and engineering. He rose through the ranks rapidly, becoming a rear admiral by 1895. The following year he was assigned to command a squadron of cruisers in the Far East when he caught the Kaiser's eye. For several years he had been writing memoranda for navy on the importance of building the nation's navy. An adherent of Mahan, the admiral's writings showed a clear understanding of the connection of political, economic, and sea power. Further, he pointed out, "If we intend to go out into the world and strengthen ourselves commercially then if we do not provide ourselves simultaneously with a certain measure of sea power, we shall be erecting a perfectly hollow structure." The Kaiser had found an admiral whose thinking perfectly meshed with his.

Kaiser Wilhelm II, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, and General Helmuth von Moltke

In June 1897, Tirpitz was appointed to the new position of secretary of state of the Imperial Naval office and given the job of challenging the Royal Navy's dominance. He immediately got to work, raised a staff, appointed committees and set them to work—exploring the latest in ship design, gunnery and shells, examining training programs; studying docks, shipyards, and the Kiel Canal. Maybe most important, he began a huge public relations campaign to win public support for the coming financial investment to build the fleet. He cultivated the press, organized public events, and funded a naval propaganda team that had a team of authors turning out novels, pamphlets, and school presentations. In just six months, Tirpitz put together a first-phase building program and had both the Reichstag and public opinion primed to support it.

Sources: Hale, Wesley R., "The SMS Ostfriesland: A Warship at the Crossroads of Military Technology"; The Dreadnoughts, Time-Life Books

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The High Seas Fleet
The Naval Building Program

The Four Battleships of the Brandenburg-Class Were the First Seaworthy German Capital Ships

Tirpitz gained authorization and financing for a series of Naval Laws he presented to the Reichstag:

1898
The First German Naval Law, a construction program to enable the new German Navy to oppose the French and Russian navies. Nineteen battleships, eight armored cruisers, 12 large and 30 light cruisers to be completed by 1904.

1900
Second German Naval Law to challenge Royal Navy. Fleet to be doubled to 38 battleships, 20 armored cruisers, and 38 light cruisers.

1906
Third Naval Law (six battleships) proposed by Reichsmarinemt. These, the Deutschland-class, 13,990t, 4-11in, were the last pre-dreadnoughts to be built. Meanwhile, the revolutionary British all-big-gun battleship Dreadnought was launched and soon completed, superseding all existing capital ships and thus dislocating the German building program. This led to the First Amendment of 1900 Naval Law (5 + 1 armored cruisers) instead of the six battleships of the 3rd Law which would have to be uprated to the Dreadnought concept. This would have been too expensive for the Reichstag at that time.

1907
Germany's High Seas Fleet comes into being. It consists of two 8-ship squadrons of pre-dreadnought battleships. A third squadron would be added in 1914.

1908
Second Amendment of 1900 Law (6 Dreadnoughts at the rate of two each fiscal year, plus submarine construction). Admiral Tirpitz, as head of Reichsmarinemt was subordinate to the Imperial Chancellor but at this time was, in effect, steering much German foreign policy.

1912 Third Naval Amendment—to build three capital ships each year, building up to an active fleet strength in German waters of one fleet flagship, three squadrons of eight battleships, eight battlecruisers, 18 light cruisers. Tirpitz's domination of other branches of the navy, though still strong, was for the first time under serious attack by U-boat and preparedness advocates. Funding was not available for the navy to respond to Britain's new Queen Elizabeth-class of super-dreadnoughts. By 1912 the naval arms race was abating. Tirpitz publicly stated that 1912 was his “last” amendment to the navy law. His influence waning, he apprehended the fleet he had built would enter any near-term conflict still significantly inferior to Britain's.

Source: Naval-History.net

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Germany's Response to HMS Dreadnought

HMS Dreadnought, ordered by the Admiralty in 1905 and briskly launched in 1906, abandoned previous battleships’ secondary array of 9-inch and 6-inch guns in favor of ten Vickers 12-inch guns with a host of 3-inch QF 12-pounders for defense against torpedo-boat attack. The Germans quickly followed suit. Their Nassau-class dreadnoughts mounted 12 11-inch Krupp guns. The race intensified over the next seven years, both sides dropping pre-dreadnoughts and adopting all-heavy-gun dreadnought-type platforms as the new standard ship-of-the-line; coal-driven reciprocating engines likewise quickly evolved into oil-fueled steam turbines. However unwelcome the news of the Dreadnought was in Germany, Wilhelm later recalled, it also created a more level playing field for all sides since “England had robbed her enormous pre-dreadnought force, upon which her great superiority lasted, of its fighting value.” Now the German navy was “forced, ‘nolens volens,’ to follow England along this road."

"Perils of the Quest for Supremacy," Naval History, June 2014

Still Friends on the Eve of War

Admiarl Reinhard Scheer, Able Commander of the High Seas Fleet in 1916

The visit of an English squadron for the Kiel Week in June, 1914, seemed to indicate a desire to give visible expression to the fact that the political situation had eased. Although we could not suppress a certain feeling of doubt as to the sincerity of their intentions, everyone on our side displayed the greatest readiness to receive the foreign guests with hospitality and comradeship.

The opportunity of seeing great English fighting-ships and their ships' companies at close quarters had become so rare an event that on this account alone the visit was anticipated with the liveliest interest. All measures were taken to facilitate the entrance of the English into Kiel Harbor and make it easy for them to take up their station and communicate with the shore, and it goes without saying that they were allotted the best places in the line, close to the Imperial yacht. Accustomed as we were from early times to regard the English ships as models, the external appearance of which alone produced the impression of perfection, it was with a feeling of pardonable pride that we now had an opportunity of making comparisons which were not in our disfavor. The English ships comprised a division of four battleships under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir George Warrender, who was flying his flag in the battleship King George V., which was accompanied by Audacious, Ajax, and Centurion, and a squadron of light cruisers, Southampton, Birmingham, and Nottingham, under Commodore Goodenough. . .

The feeling of camaraderie which, as my experience went, had marked intercourse between German and English naval officers, as men of similar ways of thought and capacity, up to the year l895, had now disappeared as a result of the attitude of hostility towards our progress which had been displayed by English statesmen, especially in recent years. Every attempt to sham a relationship to which our inmost feelings did not correspond would have compromised our dignity and lowered us in the eyes of the English. It is also easy to realize that there could be no question of making an impression by a full-dress muster of every possible ship. For this occasion only those of our ships were assembled at Kiel which were based thereon. . .

The disturbing element in this gay and peaceful picture, in which the only note of rivalry was sounded by competitions in skill in the realms of sport, was the news of the murder of the Austrian heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Kaiser left Kiel the very next day and traveled to Berlin. The English ships departed on June 29, their light cruisers using the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. They thus had an opportunity of making a close acquaintance with the new waterway which had only been completed a few weeks before. Whether it could be also used by our heavy ships was one of their questions which must be laid to the account of untimely curiosity.

Admiral Reinhard Scheer, Germany's High Sea Fleet in the World War

By the start of the First World War, Britain had 20 commissioned dreadnoughts and nine battlecruisers, compared with Germany's 15 commissioned dreadnoughts and seven battlecruisers. Immediately after the outbreak of the war, Great Britain began to implement its prewar planning for economic warfare via long-range blockading. Due to its inferiority in numbers, the High Seas Fleet felt incapable of taking action against the British blockade. Its tasks were limited to reconnaissance and surveillance in the German Bight. Early losses also led to the limited operation of the High Seas Fleet. The purpose of the fleet was mainly to act as a deterrent "fleet in being" which bound enemy forces due to its sheer existence but did not play an active role in the war.

The Opposition: British Battle Cruisers at Sea

The only capital ship action between elements of the High Seas Fleet and the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet occurred on 24 January 1915 at Dogger Bank, a sandbank about 60 miles off the east coast of England. It was history's first dreadnought engagement. It was instigated by the Germans, who thought the fishing trawlers frequenting Dogger Bank were monitoring their communications. It was with the intention of clearing the Dogger Bank fishing ground of trawlers and small warships that the German battle-cruiser fleet sortied there on 23–24 January 1915. The British, forewarned by decrypts, were there to meet them with a larger force. The British had five battle-cruisers. The Germans had four, one of which, Blücher, was hardly a battle-cruiser at all, being slower and worse armed than any of the others.

The fleets steamed southeast in lines. The faster British had closed to within firing range at about 9 am. At 9:43, the German Seydlitz suffered a hit which caused a massive ammunition fire, destroying two gun turrets. Around 10:30, the British flagship Lion was hit several times and had to pull out of the line. Simultaneously Blücher, at the rear of the German line, was badly hit and its speed greatly reduced. The pivotal event, at 11:02, was a signal from Lion, muddled in sending and misinterpreted when received, which caused the other British ships to abandon the chase for the German fleet and instead concentrate on Blücher. Overwhelmed, Blücher sank around 1 p.m. The British belief, later repeated by historians and analysts, was mostly that the Battle of Dogger Bank was a victory squandered. British post-battle reports mostly overlooked the quality of German gunnery, and over-estimated battlecruisers' ability to absorb the gunfire of other dreadnoughts.

Battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz Would Absorb Tremendous Punishment at Dogger Bank and Later at Jutland

After the several engagements over the course of 1915 and early 1916, a full-scale battle between Britain and Germany's main fleets became increasingly likely. Admirals and sailors on both sides were impatient for Der Tag, the day when the world's strongest sea forces would finally clash. This became probable in January 1916 when the High Seas Fleet received an aggressive new commander, Admiral Reinhard Scheer. Scheer was eager to change that and came up with a strategy to defeat the British. At the core of his plan was his intention to divide the numerically superior British fleet and destroy part of it—the Battlecruiser Fleet (BCF). The BCF was based at Rosyth, Scotland, and was commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty.

On 30 May 1916, the British Admiralty intercepted German communications which were decoded by the unit unofficially known as "Room 40." They revealed that the High Seas Fleet was preparing to sail. Both the main portion of the Grand Fleet, based at Scapa Flow, and the BCF, based at the Firth of Forth, were under way before the Germans had sailed.

Admiral Scheer had initially intended to target Sunderland, but given poor weather and technical difficulties, the plan was changed. Instead, German warships were ordered to sail north toward the Skagerrak— the waters between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—to threaten merchant shipping. They left Wilhelmshaven at 2:00 a.m. on 31 May 1916. The two fleets would meet late the next afternoon in what would be the High Seas Fleet's most remembered moment. (The Battle of Jutland will be addressed in a future issue of the St. Mihiel Trip-Wire)

Sources: 1914-1918 Online, "Dogger Bank: Weighing the Fog of War,6" Significance, June 2017; Over the Top, May 2016