YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
GERMAN SEA-POWER
ITS RISE, PROGRESS, AND ECONOMIC BASIS
GERMAN SEA-POWER
ITS RISE, PROGRESS, AND ECONOMIC
BASIS
BY ARCHIBALD HURD AND
HENRY CASTLE
WITH MAPS AND APPENDICES GIVING THE
FLEET LAWS, ETC.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
153-157 FIFTH AVENUE
1913
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION - - vii
CHAPTKR
i. german maritime ascendancy in the past - i
ii. the first hohenzollern fleet and colonies - 49
iii. the german navy in the nineteenth century - 71
iv. british influence on german naval development 97
v. the german navy acts - - - 108
vi. german ships, officers, and men - - 152
vii. william ii. and his naval minister - "177
viii. the economic basis of german naval policy - 214
ix. parliament and german naval policy - - 256
x. Germany's maritime interests - - - 287
APPENDICES
I. GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION - 328
II. MEMORANDUM APPENDED TO THE GERMAN NAVY
bill, i900 ------ 346
iii. Germany's shipbuilding resources - - 361
iv. area, slips, repairing-slips, docks, and number
of employees of the chief german shipyards
in i912 ------ 372
v. british and german shipbuilding programmes - 374
vi. gun and torpedo armament of the british and
GERMAN FLEETS, MARCH, 1913 - - - 375
VII. NAVAL EXPENDITURE, ETC., OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
germany in each of the years 190i-02to 1913-14 376
viii. extent of british and german empires - - 378
INDEX ------ 379
Map of the World, showing Cables, Coaling Stations, etc., and
the possessions of the British and German peoples.
Map of the North Sea, showing Naval Bases, Distances, etc.
v
INTRODUCTION
Anglo-German rivalry is definitely shaping under our
very eyes the political conceptions and the defensive
machinery of all the peoples within the British Empire.
Already this hardly concealed antagonism between
the world's greatest naval Power and the world's most
formidable military Power, and all that it connotes,
has completely changed the course of British foreign
policy and led to a regrouping of the nations of Europe
on the one hand, while on the other it is the deter¬
mining factor in the policy of Japan and the United
States. To many political prophets we appear to have
reached the opening phase of a long struggle which
will decide whether British or German civilization is
to dominate the world in future. This Anglo-German
antagonism finds its most acute expression in naval
policy, and it is believed in many quarters that the
struggle will eventually be decided by naval conflict.
Whether this anticipation is well based or is merely
the unfounded belief of politicians and philosophers
who are prone to believe in war as the only solution
of international difficulties time alone can show.
Whatever may be the outcome of the naval problem
which is now so frequently the subject of controversy
in both countries, it is of paramount importance that
the people, not only of the United Kingdom, but of the
whole British Empire, should comprehend at any rate
the main factors underlying the remarkable expansion
of the German Fleet which has occurred since the
Navy Act of 1900 was adopted. These are the matters
vii
viii
INTRODUCTION
examined in the present volume with a completeness
which it is believed has not been attempted before.
There could be no more opportune moment for a study
of the maritime development of Germany. This year
the Emperor will celebrate the twenty-fifth year of
his accession, and 1913 happens to be the centenary
of the freedom of Germany, secured at a heavy cost
on the battlefield of Leipzig on October 18 and 19,
1813.
In the course of the study of Germany's political
and economic conditions and her maritime develop¬
ment, not a few popular conceptions firmly rooted in
the English mind must be challenged, while it may be
that Germans themselves will obtain from these pages a
juster comprehension of the British position. The
book has been written without any political object in
view, but with an honest desire to set forth the truth.
If it succeeds in dispelling some of the misconceptions
which exist in both countries, this examination of
the rise and progress of German sea-power, and its
economic and political bases, will not have been
undertaken in vain.
The present antagonism between the two countries
and, in particular, the anxiety with which the British
people watch the development of German naval arma¬
ments, rest upon no inherent antipathy between the
two peoples. As Mr. Balfour pointed out recently
in his article in Nord und Slid, the German nation has
never been the enemy of the British nation. In the
long series of wars in which Britain has been involved
between the revolution of 1688 and the peace of 1815,
German States were our allies, and on many Con¬
tinental battlefields English and German soldiers have
fought in the same cause. Moreover, Englishmen do
not forget the debt which the world owes to German
genius and German learning, and down to a compara¬
tively recent period the two nations were united in
their political policy. When the present Emperor
came to the throne, and for many years afterwards,
INTRODUCTION
ix
England and Germany were on terms of closest
friendship.
It is only during the past fifteen years, a period
marked by the rapid growth of the German Fleet, that
the relations between the two countries have become
strained and even embittered. No responsible states¬
man on either side of the North Sea can desire that
the present animosity should be perpetuated, and
nothing can tend to eliminate occasions of misunder¬
standing better than an impartial review of Germany's
maritime history and development in the effort to dis¬
cover the real causes which have led to the growth of
her war fleet.
If the expansion of Germany's naval power were
purely an artificial expression of her desire to dominate
the seas, if behind it lay no economic justification,
then, indeed, the future of the two countries would be
dark, and those who believe a war to be inevitable
could be doubly sure that this was the only solution of
the present controversy. But the growth of the Ger¬
man Navy, if it is not completely explained and justified
by the development of German maritime interests, is
at any rate not an exotic policy. If Englishmen desire
to understand the standpoint of the German people
they must recognize historical facts. The belief that
Germany has no maritime past and no spontaneous
maritime instincts is completely disposed of by the
remarkable record of the Hanseatic League, which
achieved a moral and economic victory in the only war
in which we engaged with it. Moreover, Englishmen
would do well to disabuse their minds of the idea that
until recent times there has been no movement in
Germany to possess what may be described as a
political navy for the purpose of acquiring colonies—
places of settlement in which German emigrants may
preserve their German nationality and their distinctive
German habits and customs. It is only necessary to
recall the days of the Great Elector to comprehend
that this belief is unfounded.
X
INTRODUCTION
On the other hand, an examination of the course
which German history has run during the past quarter
of a century reveals the fact that, however keenly the
Emperor William II. may have sympathized with and
encouraged the movement for naval expansion, he
cannot be regarded as its creator. In the early days
of the naval agitation the Emperor took a prominent
part in educating politicians and the public, but in
recent years the direction of naval policy has passed
largely beyond his control under the influence of a
campaign engineered by the Navy League, which is,
it is true, kept closely informed of the Imperial point
of view, and—perhaps more important—by those news¬
papers which reflect the views and ends of the real
creator of the modern German Fleet, Grand-Admiral
von Tirpitz. This sailor, who until a dozen years or
so ago was almost as unknown to the German people
as to Englishmen generally, has for some considerable
time controlled the development of German naval
policy, and also in no small measure Germany's foreign
policy, keeping the latter in just those channels calcu¬
lated to feed the special interests which he has made
it his life's work to create. Chancellors, Foreign
Secretaries, and other Ministers may come and go—
and have come and gone—but the Naval Secretary
has remained in office, and still remains, as the
personal embodiment of the aims and ambitions of
the school of thought which dominates the Admiralstab
in Berlin.
Admitting the domination of German naval policy
by this sailor-statesman, admitting also that naval
policy has outrun Germany's present economic de¬
velopment, and far exceeds the needs of German
maritime interests, it yet remains a fact that Germany
has a great stake on the seas, and therefore that the
development of the German Fleet cannot be con¬
demned as an exotic policy prompted solely by am¬
bitions of aggrandizement and greed. Nothing will
conduce better to an understanding between the two
INTRODUCTION
xi
peoples than the realization by Englishmen that
Germany has great and valuable interests afloat which
justify the accumulation of considerable naval arma¬
ments, though they cannot excuse the Anglophobe
tendency of German public opinion and the final and
aggressive expression of German policy embodied in
the Navy Act of 1912.
There is complete assurance that German naval
expansion is not a type of hypertrophy, in a financial
sense, and that the existence of a strong German Fleet
must be regarded as a permanent factor in world
politics, because it is, in some measure at least, the
expression of a natural and legitimate need. An
examination of German economic development reveals
the fact that, though German expenditure on military
and naval, and particularly naval, armaments in recent
years has been in excess of her financial resources, it
has not seriously affected her economic strength. If
the political conditions remain unchanged, she will
before long be able to bear much heavier burdens
than she bears to-day without suffering economic
injury.
But will those conditions remain unchanged ? The
present naval policy of the German Empire rests
upon a state of unstable political equilibrium. If
that equilibrium is disturbed, as it well may be within
the next few years, German naval policy can hardly
remain unaffected. But for the present it is well to
recognize that that policy—embodied in definite legis¬
lation, which can be checked only by other legislation
—holds the field, and that, until a radical change occurs
in the political conditions, and this finds expression in
constitutional change, it will continue to operate from
year to year with unfaltering persistency until the naval
legislation has been translated into ships and men co¬
ordinated for the purposes of war in accordance with
the principle repeatedly enunciated by Grand-Admiral
von Tirpitz and those who have supported him in the
Press and on the platform. We have to assume that in
Xll
INTRODUCTION
1920 Germany will possess 61 capital ships—battleships
or battle-cruisers—40 unarmoured cruisers, 144 de¬
stroyers, and 72 submarines, representing an accumu¬
lation of naval armament which in the days of their
greatest pride the British people never possessed.
Is it surprising to the German people that this
development of naval policy by the most formidable
military Power in Europe should occasion acute
anxiety, not only in the United Kingdom, but in all
the Dominions overseas ? It is only necessary to
compare the relative strength of the two Empires,
their populations, and geographical distribution,* to
appreciate the British standpoint, and to under¬
stand the development of British policy which has
occurred within the past few years. The world
has witnessed a strengthening of the ties hitherto
existing between England and her oversea Dominions,
and a determination on the part of those young States
to help bear the burdens of Empire which it has
appeared to them might in a few years' time, owing to
the acute pressure in Europe, prove too much even for
the Old Country's broad shoulders. The armament
movement on the continent of Europe, in which
Germany has been in the forefront, bids fair to cement
the British Empire into a close-knit confederation for
defensive purposes. Not only have the Dominions
adopted measures for defending their territories by
adequately drilled citizen soldiers, but they have not
hesitated to lend their aid to the defence of British
interests afloat. Australia has founded a navy which
it is intended shall be a branch of the ancient fleet
of the United Kingdom; the Canadian Government
has decided to present three large capital ships to
the Royal Navy as an emergency contribution, and
is about to elaborate a permanent policy of co¬
operation with the Mother Country in naval defence.
The Dominion of New Zealand has given to the
* See Appendix VIII.
INTRODUCTION
xiii
Mother Country a battle-cruiser of the Dreadnought
type, and a yet more costly armoured ship has been
voted by the Federated Malay States, which are not
even part of the British Empire, but which, never¬
theless, in recognition of British protection in the past,
have shown that they share in the feeling of anxiety
as to the future which casts its shadow over the
British Empire.
It may be said that this anxiety is exaggerated, but
what are the conditions which exist and which will
continue ? We cannot do better than quote the follow¬
ing passage from Mr. Balfour's admirable study of the
Anglo-German problem to which reference has already
been made :
"The external facts of the situation appear to be as
follows : The greatest military Power and the second
greatest naval Power in the world is adding both to
her Army and to her Navy. She is increasing the
strategic railways which lead to frontier States—not
merely to frontier States which themselves possess
powerful armies, but to small States which can have
no desire but to remain neutral if their formidable
neighbours should unhappily become belligerents.
She is in like manner modifying her naval arrange¬
ments so as to make her naval strength instantly
effective. It is conceivable that all this may be only
in order to render herself impregnable against attack.
Such an object would certainly be commendable,
though the efforts undergone to secure it might (to
outside observers) seem in excess of any possible
danger. If all nations could be made impregnable to
the same extent, peace would doubtless be costly,
but at least it would be secure. Unfortunately, no
mere analysis of the German preparations for war will
show for what purpose they are designed. A tre¬
mendous weapon has been forged ; every year adds
something to its efficiency and power; it is as
formidable for purposes of aggression as for purposes
of defence. But to what end it was originally de¬
signed, and in what cause it will ultimately be used,
can only be determined, if determined at all, by extra¬
neous considerations.
xiv
INTRODUCTION
" I here approach the most difficult and delicate part
of my task. Let me preface it by saying that ordinary
Englishmen do not believe, and certainly I do not
believe, either that the great body of the German
people wish to make an attack on their neighbours
or that the German Government intend it. A war in
which the armed manhood of half Europe would take
part can be no object of deliberate desire either for
nations or for statesmen. The danger lies elsewhere.
It lies in the coexistence of that marvellous instru¬
ment of warfare which embraces the German Army and
Navy, with the assiduous, I had almost said the
organized, advocacy of a policy which it seems im¬
possible to reconcile with the peace of the world or
the rights of nations. For those who accept this
policy German development means German territorial
expansion. All countries which hinder, though it be
only in self-defence, the realization of this idea], are
regarded as hostile ; and war, or the threat of war, is
deemed the natural and fitting method by which the
ideal itself is to be accomplished."
These decisive words reflect with perfect accuracy
the British point of view. Great Britain is the centre
of a vast maritime Empire of which the seas are the
lines of communication. If the people of the United
Kingdom were not dependent for almost all their food
and raw material upon the free passage of merchant
ships to and from their shores, if the Dominions over¬
seas had no oversea commerce growing from year to
year, still the necessity would exist for the mainten¬
ance by the British people of an unchallengeable
supremacy. It is the most natural thing that they
should regard with jealous anxiety the growth of a
great war fleet, when that war fleet has behind it
vast land forces to which the ships can give transport
and a policy which is too frequently represented by
leading Germans as being aimed at British security.
The only hope for the disappearance of the antagon¬
ism between the two peoples lies in a comprehension
of each other's economic and strategical necessities ;
and if this volume succeeds in giving to Englishmen
INTRODUCTION
xv
a truer conception of German policy and German
economic and maritime development, and to Germans
a better appreciation of the position of the British
people as the guardians of an Empire to which un¬
challengeable sea-power is a necessity, it will have
done something to dispel those dark clouds which still
hang menacingly on the political horizon.
GERMAN SEA-POWER
ITS RISE AND PROGRESS AND
ECONOMIC BASIS
CHAPTER I
GERMAN MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
Among the many popular errors which exist with
regard to Germany, none is farther from the truth
than the belief that her fleet is the arbitrary and
artificial creation of the Emperor William II., and but
for him would never have attained formidable dimen¬
sions. This idea is not only erroneous, but exceed¬
ingly mischievous, for it is likely to lead to false
conclusions as to the probable development of
Germany's position in the world and her future
relations to other naval Powers. If Germany's naval
expansion depended entirely, or even mainly, on the
conviction or caprice of a single man, it might reason¬
ably be expected to cease or slacken with the passing
of his stimulating will. But, much as William II. has
done to accelerate the pace of his country's naval
progress, the German Fleet has its tap-roots in the soil
of histor}', and has drawn sustenance from geographical,
economic, and political conditions, of which it is the
natural and inevitable product. It is, in fact, but the
deferred logical outcome of a slow secular process, and
will have a tendency to increase so long as that process
continues.
Like the foundation of the Empire in 1870, the
formation of the modern German Fleet is the result of
1
2 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
a movement that had its origin among the psople and
not among the Princes of the country. And this naval
movement sprang up and reached its greatest vigour
in those sea-board districts that still sedulously keep
alive the splendid tradition of the Hanseatic League,
which, as the strongest maritime Power of its day, for
centuries almost monopolized the trade of Northern
and Western Europe, and, with the word " sterling,"
a corruption of " Easterling," the name popularly given
to its members, has left on Great Britain the indelible
stamp of its former mercantile domination. For the
coin of the Hanse towns, by reason of its unimpeach¬
able quality, was once universally sought after in
England, and thus became the standard of monetary
excellence.
The memories of the Hansa are the " historical
foundation " on which are based Germany's present
claims to a leading place among the maritime nations,
and they have played a prominent part in every agita¬
tion for the increase of her fleet. Why, it is asked,
should she not again assume upon the seas that
dominating position which she once undoubtedly
held ? Why, with her expanding population, trade,
and wealth, should she not reclaim that maritime
ascendancy which she forfeited to Holland in the
seventeenth century, and which a hundred years
later passed to Great Britain ? Why should she not
realize that dream which was in the mind of Friedrich
List when he wrote : " How easy it would have been
for the Hanse towns, in the epoch of their rule over
the sea, to attain national unity through the instru¬
mentality of the imperial power, to unite the whole
littoral from Dunkirk to Riga under one nationality,
and thus to win and maintain for the German nation
supremacy in industry, trade, and sea-power !"
It is, moreover, not without significance that the
Hansa itself was, in a sense, democratic, and that, at a
time when Germany, as a national unit, was rendered
impotent in the world by her superabundance of
NAPOLEON AND GERMANY
Princes, her citizens were able, on their own initiative,
and by their own energies, to assert their power and
capacity as a maritime people.
When that portion of Central Europe which is
to - day inhabited by the German - speaking races
emerged from the Dark Ages, it was as a complex and
chaotic mosaic of principalities, spiritual and temporal,
loosely held together by that grandiose figment the
Holy Roman Empire, of which Voltaire very aptly
said that it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.
No other form of misgovernment which has ever
existed in the Western world did so much as this
venerable imposture to retard the development of the
peoples living under its rule. It was only after
Napoleon had freed the ground of its tottering ruins
that the erection of Modern Germany became possible.
He was no less necessary to clear the site than
Bismarck was to raise the structure. To this extent
Napoleon may be looked upon as the founder of the
German Empire.
When the conqueror's legions marched across
Europe, sweeping away unnatural and injurious
frontiers, the German people had for a millennium
incessantly been called upon to pay the price of the
selfish feuds of its ruling dynasties. In the earlier
phases of these devastating quarrels, the towns
gradually acquired a position of actual or qualified
independence. With their ramparts and bastions, they
were like rocks rising out of a raging sea. Within
their defences industry and trade progressed, while
without all was storm and strife. By adroit bargaining
with the impoverished Princes in whose territories
they were situated, they little by little enlarged their
immemorial liberties, till they eventually became—in
fact, where not in law—independent municipal republics.
Many of them were admitted to the rank of "imperial
cities," and owed allegiance to none but the Emperor.
Of these, three—Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck—which
were also among the most prominent members of the
4 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
Hansa, and are still called the " Hanse Towns," even
now retain that measure of independence which is left
to the federated States known in their entirety as the
German Empire. When the Hanseatic League was at
its zenith, the towns which stood at its head and
directed its policy would suffer little interference with
their management of their own affairs, external as well
as internal. The eleventh century witnessed the rise
of the German towns, the twelfth the development of
their spirit of independence, the thirteenth their first
serious attempts at combination for mutual defence,
the fourteenth the final triumph of the principle of
federation in the ascendancy of the Hanseatic League.
It was the natural ideal of the German towns of the
early Middle Ages to be self-sufficing in all things, for
in that epoch of violence and tumult it was an obvious
disadvantage to be dependent upon the outside world
for any of the necessities of existence, and they accord¬
ingly inclined strongly to a policy of exclusive protec¬
tion. There were, however, many commodities, which,
for climatic or other reasons, they were unable to pro¬
duce within the compass of their own walls. For the
raw materials of their handicrafts, the silks and spices
of the East, the woollen fabrics of Flanders, the furs
of Russia and Scandinavia, the dried or salted fish pre¬
scribed for fast days by the Church, the towns were com¬
pelled to rely upon external trade, which increased in
volume with the growth of their prosperity and the rise
of their standard of life. But the journeys which their
merchants undertook to adjacent States, or across the
seas to distant countries that had a natural or acquired
monopoly in the commodities which they sought, were
perilous adventures. Even when not actually in the
anarchical conditions which medieval warfare brought
in its train, the trade routes were infested by robbers
of every kind, whether gangs of outlaws evading in
the forests the retribution for earlier crimes, dis¬
banded soldiery awaiting enrolment by a new master,
or predatory nobles who, in large numbers, provided
ORIGIN OF THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE 5
for the carousals in their strongholds by plundering
transports of merchandise, or levying heavy duties
upon them for the right of passage through their
domains. On the ocean a very similar state of affairs
obtained. Not only did the seas swarm with veritable
pirates, but a naval war was inevitably accompanied
by innumerable gross outrages on neutral vessels by
both belligerents.
In such circumstances a single traveller with a rich
baggage had but little chance of reaching a distant
destination in safety, and it became the custom for the
merchants of every town to make their journeys, by
land or sea, in large parties, under the protection of an
escort of armed retainers. The fellowship engendered
by the companionship of thejourney, and the experience
of common perils and adventures, as well as the uses
of mutual support in a strange land, kept them together
when they reached their foreign destinations, and in
this way grew up those settlements known as " guild¬
halls," " hanses," " factories," or " counting-houses,"
which, at the close of the Middle Ages, were the head¬
quarters of German trade in other countries. By
degrees this principle of co-operation was extended
from individual citizens of a single town to the towns
themselves, and culminated in the Hanseatic League,
upholding with its fleets and armies a practical mon¬
opoly of the trade of Northern and Western Europe.
The story of the Hansa is full of strange anomalies
and antitheses. Historians differ by centuries as to
the date at which the existence of the League com¬
menced, and just as it never had a definite beginning,
so it has never had a formal end, for to this day two
of the Hanse towns—Hamburg and Bremen—have
certain institutions in common, such as their supreme
law courts and their diplomatic representation in
Prussia. For hundreds of years the Confederation
acted, and was treated by foreign Governments, as an
independent State and a great Power, but its composi¬
tion was never certain and always fluctuating. From
6 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
first to last the names of no fewer than ninety cities
and towns were entered upon its rolls, but it is im¬
possible to say of each of them how often and when
it joined or left the League. Foreign rulers, and
especially the English monarchs, made repeated
attempts to obtain from the Hansa an official list of
its members, but compliance with their demands was
systematically evaded on one pretext or another. The
League's policy was, as far as possible, to assert the
claims of its members, and to disown responsibility for
those made against them. This policy is pretty clearly
expressed in the following answer returned by the
League in 1473 to complaints put forward on behalf
of English merchantmen who had suffered through
the depredations of the Dantzic privateer or pirate,
Paul Beneke : " The towns of the Hansa are a corpus
in the possession of the privileges they hold in any
realms, lands, or lordships, and when their privileges
are infringed, they are accustomed to meet and consult,
and then to issue for all of them ordinances against
all goods from the countries in which their privileges
have been infringed, that they shall not be suffered in the
commonalty of towns. But they were not making war
against England ; only some of the towns of the Hansa,
which had been injured by England, had determined
upon it at their own venture, win or lose, which did
not take place in the name of the Hanse commonalty."
The theory of the Federation was, in fact, that it existed
for the purpose only of taking, and not of giving, and
it refused to imply a corporate responsibility by pub¬
lishing its membership rolls. Fifteenth and sixteenth
century lists of Hanse towns are extant in considerable
numbers, but none of them can claim an official character,
and they present many discrepancies. The most com¬
plete of them contains seventy names. It would ap¬
pear that membership of the Hansa was synonymous
with participation in the rights of its guildhalls and
factories abroad, and that these privileges were often
acquired, though no doubt irregularly, by individuals
THE HANSE PARLIAMENT
7
as well as by municipalities. Among the Hanse towns
themselves two distinct classes seem to have existed
—namely, those which were entitled to take part in
the League's conventions, or " Tagfahrten," and those
which, without themselves possessing this right, were
permitted to make their wishes known at these assem¬
blies through the delegate of one of the fully qualified
municipalities.
The League had, apart from its establishments
abroad, no definite constitution or set of statutes, no
fixed headquarters, no permanent body of officials or
system of finance. Its legislative procedure was
governed by customs and traditions which had
gradually established themselves, but which never
acquired the binding force of law. For example, it
became the rule at the height of the League's power
to hold the Tagfahrten once every three years, but the
practice was soon broken with, and these gatherings
took place very irregularly. They were, in fact,
seldom convened unless some special circumstances
had arisen on which it was desirable to take the
opinion of the members of the Federation ; and during
the second half of the fifteenth century a period of
eleven years was allowed to elapse without a Hanse
parliament coming together. The legislation—if it may
be called so—of the League took the form of resolutions,
or "recesses," which were adopted at the close of the
deliberations of the Tagfahrten. Of these decisions
large numbers are still extant, and they constitute the
most important source of our knowledge of Hanse
history. The earliest of them that has come down to
us embodies the Greifswald Agreement of 1361, of
which more hereafter. No regular meeting-place was
appointed for the Tagfahrten, though they were
generally held in Liibeck. The delegates, however,
always assembled in a seaport town, which was never
west of Bremen or east of Stralsund. Perhaps the
nearest approach to a common headquarters per¬
manently possessed by the Hansa was the "Trese,"
8 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
a vault beneath St. Mary's Church at Ltibeck, where
its charters were deposited, and where they still repose.
Only once in the course of its history did the League
boast of a permanent staff. That was in the years
following 1552, when a legal official, called the "Syndic,"
was appointed to look after certain of its affairs. The
innovation does not seem to have been a success, for
the first occupant of the post was also the last. Nor
had the Hansa a permanent common treasury and
system of finance. It is true that, towards the end of
the fifteenth century, efforts were made to establish the
principle of regular matricular contributions from the
partners in the League, but they met with only partial
success, and appear to have been soon abandoned.
The fact is that, as the foreign agencies of the Hansa
were self-supporting, it had little need of a permanent
administrative machine.
While the Hansa declared war and concluded peace,
there never was an occasion on which all its members
took the field simultaneously. The actual fighting was
generally confined to a few towns specially qualified
to equip fleets or raise bodies of mercenaries, and the
others participated in the campaign only by a monetary
contribution, which they levied by an imposition of
tonnage or poundage dues on the commerce of their
citizens. It was also by no means an uncommon thing
for one or more of the Hansa towns to be separately
involved in hostilities in which none of the others had
either share or interest of any sort. Lubeck, while
regarded by Europe as the head of the Confederation,
waged war single-handed in pursuance of its own
private and special ambitions. And though the
differences of the Hanse towns never degenerated
into formal armed conflict among themselves, there
were cases in which some of them, as neutrals, suffered
severely at the hands of others who happened for the
moment to be belligerents.
The power of the Hansa seems all the more remark¬
able when we consider the territorial diffusion of the
"THE BIGGEST CAPITALIST OF EUROPE" 9
towns united by its loose organization. Though they
were for the most part situated either on the sea-coast
or the banks of the Rhine, the Weser, the Elbe, or the
Oder, the League's ramifications extended to Dinant in
the south-west and to Cracow in the south-east, and
took in places of such thoroughly inland character as
Dortmund, Paderborn, and Gottingen. While it was
throughout essentially German, and all its establish¬
ments in foreign States displayed the imperial eagle in
their coats of arms, it included, at various epochs, towns
lying altogether outside the frontiers of the Empire.
Both the Order of the Teutonic Knights and the
inhabitants of the extensive regions which it had
wrested from the Slavs during its advance in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries into what is now the
north-east of Germany, enjoyed the privileges and
prerogatives of Hanse membership. The Order itself
has been called " the biggest capitalist of Europe " in
the fourteenth century. It built ships, and freighted
them to destinations as remote as Spain and Portugal,
and it traded in almost every article of commerce that
was either produced or consumed in the territories
under its sway. Moreover, it had arrogated to itself
proprietary rights over all the amber found on the
shores of its dominions, and thus possessed in Europe
a practical monopoly of this valuable commodity.
The appearances of the Hansa as a "great Power"
marked only the supreme crises in its fortunes. Its
normal and enduring activity was the promotion of
the commercial interests of its members through the
instrumentality of the guildhalls and factories which
it maintained in foreign lands. Of these establish¬
ments by far the oldest and most important was the
Steelyard in London.
Just as obscure as the derivation of the name is the
origin of the Steelyard itself. It is thought not im¬
probable that a co-operative settlement of German
merchants, trading the wines of the Rhine for the
wool and tin of England, existed at London in the
10 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
latter days of the Roman occupation. At the time
of Ethelred (979-1016) " the people of the Emperor"
were granted in London the same trading rights as
were enjoyed by natives, for the slight consideration
of a gift at Christmas and Easter of two pieces of grey
and one of brown cloth, ten pounds of "pepper" (a
word then applied to spices of all kinds), two pairs
of men's gloves, and two kegs of vinegar. A century
and a half later the merchants of Cologne, which has
been called "the only seaport of the early German
Empire," received a pledge for the protection of their
" house in London," and for the maintenance of the
privileges it had been endowed with in the past.
In one sense this " house in London" may be re¬
garded as the authentic germ from which the Hanseatic
League developed. It was apparently in England that
the word " Hanse" was first used to designate an
association or guild of merchants, and with this mean¬
ing it was also applied to the community of German
merchants regularly trading in London. They, in their
turn, seem to have adopted it and carried it to their own
country. The term, " the merchants of the Hanse of
the Germans," appears in contemporary English
records as early as 1282, and it was not till more
than half a century later that it had passed into
general currency on the Continent. Until the reign
of Henry III., Cologne alone of the German towns
had the right to maintain a " Hanse " in England, but
the privilege was extended to " the merchants of Goth¬
land" in 1237, to Hamburg in 1266, and to Liibeck in
1267. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, the
four establishments were united to form what was
afterwards known as the Steelyard.
When the Hanseatic League was at the height of
its power—from the last quarter of the fourteenth to
the first half of the sixteenth century—the Steelyard
constituted in England little less than a State within the
State. It occupied a site now covered by the Cannon
Street Station, extending from Thames Street to the
THE STEELYARD IN LONDON
river, and bounded to the east and west respectively
by All Hallows and Cousins Lanes. Strong walls, like
those of a fortress, surrounded it, and were more than
once necessary to protect the inmates from the fury
of the London mob. In the sixteenth century the
principal structure within the ramparts was a building
of several stories, with three large doorways upon the
street, two of which had been walled up, while the
third was kept jealously guarded to prevent the en¬
trance of undesirable visitors. Carved upon the lintels
were Latin inscriptions from the pen of Sir Thomas
More. One of these made the announcement: " Glad
is this house and always filled with good; here dwell
peace, tranquillity, and honest joy." The second was
to this effect: "Gold is the father of happiness and
the child of pain; to do without it is hard, to possess
it brings fear." The third ran : " Whoever refuses to
obey the good avoids the smoke but falls into the fire."
Behind the main building was a garden, in which vines
and fruit-trees were cultivated. An important feature
of the settlement was the " Rhenish wine house," where
ministers, nobles, and men of fashion were accustomed
to assemble to sip the choicest vintages of the Rhine,
and try the flavours of caviare and other delicacies
of Eastern Europe. That this tavern was a favourite
rendezvous would appear from an allusion in Webster's
" Westward Ho," where a servant bids one of the
characters " meet his master at the Rhenish wine
house in the Stilyard." Possibly it was here that
Shakespeare first discovered that caviare is not for
" the general."
The commercial community that dwelt within the
precincts of the Steelyard, and in the neighbouring
houses, which, in course of time, it was found necessary
to rent for the accommodation of its growing numbers,
was governed with monastic severity. No married man
was allowed to reside on the premises, nor was any
woman to enter them ; the gates were shut regularly at
nine o'clock in the evening; heavy fines were imposed
i2 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
for breaches of morals and good manners ; brawling,
gambling, and even " games of ball" were rigorously
repressed. The brotherhood dined at a common table
in the great hall, which was adorned with a rich display
of plate, and in its latter days hung with the pictures
of Holbein representing the triumphs of wealth and
poverty.
The Steelyard was administered by an alderman,
with the assistance of two adjuncts and nine councillors.
All the members of this governing body were elected
annually on New Year's Eve, and they met for consul¬
tation every Wednesday evening. The community
also acquired the right to choose an alderman of the
City of London, whose duty it was to safeguard their
interests, and whose services were recognized every
Christmas by a present of a pair of gloves and fifteen
gold nobles. Some uncertainty exists as to the duration
of his tenure of office, but it was held without interrup¬
tion by one occupant for a period of eighteen years.
Not infrequently the Lord Ma}ror himself accepted the
position, and this was regarded by the Steelyard as of
great benefit to its interests. Both the English and the
German alderman seem to have possessed certain
rights of jurisdiction over the members of the settle¬
ment in criminal as well as in civil cases, but there is
some doubt as to the limits of their powers in this
respect. Even in cases that came before the Royal
Courts, a member of the Steelyard could, except when
indicted for a capital offence, claim that half the jury
should be of German speech. The current business
of the settlement was transacted by paid officials,
called " secretaries "or" clerks," whose experience and
knowledge of the details of Hanse relations to England
lent considerable importance to their position. They
were often entrusted with weighty diplomatic negotia¬
tions. The Steelyard exercised supervision, and to
some extent also control, over the subsidiary colonies
of Hanse merchants in England, which are known to
have existed at Hull, Boston, Lynn, Yarmouth, and
THE EASTERLINGS AND BISHOP'S GATE 13
Ipswich, and which, in all probability, were also to
be found, at one time or another, in Newcastle-
on-Tyne, York, Norwich, Colchester, Sandwich,
Southampton, and Bristol, since German merchants
had extensive dealings with all these places. These
branch establishments contributed to the upkeep
of the Steelyard, and occasionally sent delegates to
London for joint deliberation on matters of interest
to all of them. The expenses of both the headquarters
and the provincial " Kontors " were defrayed by dues
levied on all Hanse merchandise entering or leaving
England.
In State and civic pageants, the alderman, councillors,
and merchants of the Steelyard took part as a cor¬
poration, marching in the processions immediately
behind the representatives of the City of London.
At such times, too, it was no unusual thing for thirsty
citizens to be regaled with a largesse of wine and
beer from the cellars of the Rhenish Tavern, and for
the settlement to be brilliantly illuminated in the
evenings by flaming tar-barrels and hundreds of
candles, made from that Russian or Polish wax which
was one of the principal articles of the Hanse trade.
The quite exceptional nature of the position occupied
by the Easterlings in London is evident from the fact
that they were burdened with the obligation of main¬
taining and, in case of need, assisting to defend, the
Bishop's Gate. The origin of this custom also seems
lost in the obscurity of antiquity, but a suit which
came up for decision in the last quarter of the thirteenth
century showed that it had the validity of law. In
1275 the Gate had fallen into a ruinous condition, and
the civic authorities demanded that the inhabitants
of the Steelyard should restore it. This they refused
to do, and some years elapsed before the dispute was
settled, before the Court of Exchequer, by a com¬
promise, under which the Steelyard, in return for one
of the innumerable confirmations of its privileges,
covenanted to pay the sum of £240 for the necessary
i4 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
repairs to the Gate, and thereafter to maintain it in
a proper state, besides contributing one-third of the
cost and of the guard required for its defence. Weapons
for this purpose were stored in the settlement, and
every member was bound by the statutes to keep in
his private apartment a full equipment of arms and
armour for his own use. When the City walls were
renewed in 1477, it was German money that rebuilt
the Bishop's Gate, and it was only in the reign of
Edward VI. that the Easterlings were relieved of the
duty of defending it.
The Steelyard itself was consumed in the Great Fire
of 1666, and though it was subsequently re-erected, the
new premises were, in consonance with the diminished
prestige and business of its owners, of a much less
imposing character than the old ones. They were
finally sold in 1853 for the sum of £72,500. Ten years
later the " House of the Easterlings " at Antwerp was
also disposed of, and with it disappeared the last
possession of the Hansa on foreign soil.
Before further reference is made to the political and
commercial dealings of the Hanseatic League with
England, it will be as well to cast a glance at the
events in Northern Europe which raised the Con¬
federacy to the status of a great sea-power. The
development of the Hanse navy was as gradual as
that of its trading establishments abroad, and likewise
extends back to the age of historical darkness. But
while it was Cologne that took the lead in the move¬
ment which culminated in the Steelyard, it was Lubeck
that showed the way in the building up of the Hanse
fleet, and so gained a political predominance in the
League which it maintained for centuries.
The old town on the Trave, with its thirteenth and
fourteenth century brick churches and its quaint,
timbered houses, has, at the present day, little more
than an antiquarian importance; but five hundred
years ago it was not merely the chief seaport and the
first ship-building centre of Northern Europe, but, to
TOWNS "BUILT ON HERRINGS" 15
all intents and purposes, the veritable mistress of the
Baltic. The mere number of its inhabitants shows
the leading position it had then attained to. Even
after the ravages of the Black Death, which struck it
with particular severity, so that its ships were often
found drifting before the wind and wave manned only
by the dead bodies of their crews, its population was
80,000, or very nearly as large as it is at the present
time; whereas at the very height of the Hanse power
the now mighty mercantile metropolis of Hamburg
was a town of not more than 21,000 inhabitants.
Lubeck first acquired the independence of an im¬
perial city in the year 1226, and at once entered on
that sempiternal struggle with the Scandinavian
kingdoms which at first brought it power and glory,
but ultimately contributed largely to the acceleration
of its decay. Eight years later the ships of its citizens
burst through a boom laid across the entrance to their
harbour by the Count of Holstein, and, sailing round
to the mouth of the Warnow, won " the first victory
of a German fleet," capturing or burning five large
vessels, one of which, we are told, had 400 armed men
on board.
It has been said that Amsterdam was " built on
herrings," and the remark might with equal truth be
applied to Lubeck. Indeed, the herring was a very
essential element in the prosperity and significance of
the entire Hanseatic Federation. In the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, the west coast of Scania (the
southerly projection of what is now Sweden) was the
chief centre of the herring fishing and curing indus¬
tries of Europe. Late in the summer the fish appeared
in the Sound in vast shoals, which sometimes ex¬
tended in every direction without a break as far as the
eye could reach, and which were so dense that they
" raised boats out of the water." The herrings were
caught by Danish fishermen, and landed at places
along the shore of Scania, where they were salted and
packed. The curing and wholesale trade were almost
16 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
exclusively in the hands of merchants from the German
Baltic and North Sea towns, who eventually succeeded
in driving away their English, French, and Flemish
rivals, and in erecting a legal bulwark round the
monopoly which they had gradually built up on a
prescriptive basis. The headquarters of the herring
industry was the triangular peninsula on which stand
the towns of Skanor and Falsterbo, and in the season
this patch of land was one of the busiest spots in
Europe. Rude huts on an island close to the shore
afforded shelter to the numerous assemblage of fishers,
and a special site on the mainland was allotted to each
of the towns engaged in the trade, for the accommoda¬
tion of the temporary dwellings, offices, packing-rooms,
and warehouses of its citizens. The merchants of
Liibeck alone owned a group of as many as fifty
wooden buildings, which were situated between Fal¬
sterbo and the sea. In the train of those immediately
engaged in the catching, curing, and marketing of the
herrings, came handicraftsmen and traders of every
description — coopers, shoemakers, butchers, bakers,
and publicans—to minister to their various wants;
and one summer it was estimated that no fewer than
20,000 of these season visitors were congregated in the
vicinity.
It was mainly for the sake of the Sound herrings
that the Hansa undertook against the Scandinavian
States the numerous campaigns by which it won the
keys of the Baltic, and kept them in its possession
for so many generations. As early as 1248, Liibeck
entered upon a war against Denmark in defence of its
Scanian privileges, plundering Copenhagen, and wreak¬
ing its vengeance with so little discrimination that, on
the complaints of the Church, whose property had
suffered in the sack, it was compelled to submit to
a temporary diminution of its franchises. English
merchants at Copenhagen were also despoiled by the
reckless looters, and their grievances led to temporary
difficulties for the German traders in London.
FOUNDATION OF THE HANSA 17
An alliance between Liibeck and Hamburg in 1255,
under which the two towns pledged themselves to
stand by one another against all who should do injury
to either of them, is regarded by many as the real
foundation of the Hansa, and was perhaps more
intimate in its nature, and more far-reaching in its
scope, than any of the similar coalitions that had
preceded it. Half a century later, a defensive and
offensive alliance was contracted by Liibeck, Wismar,
Rostock, and Greifswald, the signatories undertaking
to support one another in the protection of their rights
on sea and land, and to begin no war without consul¬
tation with their confederates. Though the compact
was at first made for a term of only three years, the
community of interests which existed between these
towns remained the groundwork of all the more
extensive subsequent operations of the Hansa.
It was, however, by the war which culminated with
the Peace of Stralsund in 1370 that the League raised
itself to the rank of a first-class sea-power. This
conflict was of so high an importance for the subse¬
quent position of the Hansa and for its relations to
the rest of Europe, that the circumstances under
which it arose and was decided deserve to be con¬
sidered in some detail. And, first, it will be advisable
to take note of the general situation in Europe at that
time, and of the preoccupations which then absorbed
the attention and energies of what are now its leading
States.
At the date of the signature of the Treaty of Stral¬
sund, England and France were deeply involved in
the throes of the Hundred Years' War. The recent
bright memories of Crecy and Poitiers were in a few
years' time to be blurred by the loss of all the French
dominions of the English Crown, with the exception
of Calais, Bordeaux, and Bayonne. " It was," says
Green, "a time of shame and suffering such as England
had never known. Her conquests were lost, her
shores insulted, her fleets annihilated, her commerce
2
18 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
swept from the seas ; while within she was exhausted
by the long and costly war, as well as by the ravages
of pestilence." The regions which now form Germany
and Austria were in a state of well-nigh hopeless
chaos. The Holy Roman Empire was so far from
representing a national unity that Edward III. was
actually chosen as its head by the electors, anxious
above all things that no strong and energetic authority,
ever present on the spot, should curtail their preroga¬
tives and repress their licence. It was only after the
English monarch, acceding to the protest of Parlia¬
ment, had refused the ambiguous honour, that the
King of Bohemia was able to ascend the German
throne as Charles IV. Generations of anarchy were
soon to culminate in a fierce war between federations
of towns and leagues of nobles that filled all Central
Germany with turmoil and devastation. Russia was
still but a congeries of mutually hostile States, paying
tribute to the Tartar Khans of the Golden Horde, and
the process by which the Empire of the Tsars crystal¬
lized round the principality of Moscow was only in its
earliest stages. Such was the general European back¬
ground to the great conflict between the Hansa and
the Scandinavian States.
In Scandinavia itself, something like order had been
re-established by Valdemar IV?, who had been elected
to the Danish throne by a Congress of Princes held at
Liibeck in 1340. For twenty years he had applied
himself with great energy and astuteness to the
restoration of the former frontiers of his kingdom, and
among the regions which he won back were the
Scanian provinces beyond the Sound, which had been
acquired by Magnus of Sweden in 1332. In his work
of consolidation, he had received material assistance
from the Hanse towns, whose herring merchants had
not received from the Swedish master of Scania the
benevolent treatment which they considered to be
their due. Denmark was once more a powerful and
respected State when the events occurred which were
WAR WITH DENMARK ig
to reduce it almost to the level of a dependency of the
Hanseatic League.
The trouble arose in the first instance out of the
betrothal of Magnus's son Hakon, King of Norway, to
Valdemar's eight-year-old daughter Margaret. This
match was opposed by the nobility of Sweden, who
feared that in the union of the three Scandinavian
kingdoms, in which it seemed likely to result, they
would be overshadowed by the more cultured and
influential aristocracy of Denmark, and they were suc¬
cessful in forcing Magnus to repudiate the agreement,
and to promise his son's hand to Elizabeth, the daughter
of Count Gerhard of Holstein.
Valdemar sought to avenge himself for this rebuff by
overrunning the island of Gothland with fire and
sword. The island itself was a dependency of Sweden,
but its chief town, Visby, had acquired the very con¬
siderable importance that it then possessed solely as
the central point of the Baltic trade of the Hanseatic
towns, which were supreme within its walls.
To trace the rise of Visby as a commercial centre, it
is necessary to go back to the earliest days of naviga¬
tion, when Gothland was the beacon by which trading
vessels felt their way across the Baltic. From a
harbour of refuge and a port of call, Visby became
in the Baltic very much what a coaling station in the
Pacific is to the Oriental merchantmen of to-day. It
might, indeed, not unfitly be compared with Shanghai,
for it was virtually ruled by the Hanse merchants who
resided there, and who must have been very numerous,
since even in the thirteenth century no fewer than thirty
towns, from Reval in the east to Cologne in the west,
were represented in its German guild. With its 20,000
inhabitants and its massive ramparts, Visby was a sea¬
port and fortress of absolutely first rank, which gave
its name to a code of maritime tradition—it could hardly
be called law—that for some time was recognized
throughout Northern Europe. To-day the town is
shrunk to less than half its former size, but the ancient
2o MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
walls, with their forty-eight square towers—many in
an excellent state of preservation—and the impressive
ruins that remain of its eighteen medieval churches,
still tell a tale of its earlier glory. How high its repute
stood among the contemporaries of its prosperity is
indicated by an old rhyme, according to which its
citizens weighed gold by the hundredweight, while
their children played games with precious stones, their
wives spun with spindles of gold, and their swine ate
out of silver troughs.
Valdemar seems to have had no immediate quarrel
with the Hansa at that time, but in the blind fury of his
vengeance he confounded the Germanized town in a
common doom with the Swedish island. Possibly
Visby would have escaped his wrath if its citizens had
awaited his attack behind their lofty walls, but they
rashly ventured out into the open field against him,
and the stone cross which commemorates the slaughter
that overtook them is to be seen to this day. The
town was burnt and sacked, and was never able to
recover from the blow. Tradition says that the ships
in which the Danish King was carrying his rich booty
home were sunk on the passage, and that two enormous
carbuncles, which, blazing from the summit of the tower
of St. Nicholas's Church, had for generations lighted
seamen to the harbour, can still be seen on dark nights
sparkling beneath the waves.
The news of the pillage of Visby found the burgo¬
masters of the chief Hanse towns assembled in con¬
ference at Greifswald, and before they dispersed they
entered into an agreement with Magnus and Hakon,
both of whom came to the place of their meeting in
person, to make common cause against Valdemar.
The compact was signed by Liibeck, the so-called
Wendish towns (Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, and
Greifswald), Stettin, Kolberg, and Anklam, but the
alliance was afterwards strengthened by the adhesion
of Hamburg, Bremen, and Kiel, as well as of the Duke
of Schleswig and the Counts of Holstein. Moreover,
DEFEAT OF THE HANSEATIC FLEET 21
the Prussian towns undertook to contribute to the
costs of the campaign by levying special poundage
dues.
A fleet of fifty-two ships, manned by 2,740 fighters,
was fitted out by the Hanse towns, and put to sea under
the chief command of the Burgomaster of Liibeck,
Johann Wittenborg. After once more burning Copen¬
hagen, it proceeded to Helsingborg to reinforce the
Norwegian and Swedish armies engaged in the siege of
that fortress. Here, to give more vigour to the land
operations, the ships were incautiously denuded of
their crews, and while they were in a defenceless
condition, they were attacked by Valdemar's fleet,
and, almost without exception, captured or destroyed.
Numerous prisoners fell into the hands of the Danish
King, who is said to have derisively adorned with
the golden figure of a goose the tower in which the
bulk of them were confined.
Immediately after the disaster to his fleet, Witten¬
borg had concluded a truce with Valdemar, and it was
in expiation of this act, no less than of his defective
generalship, that his head fell on the block in the
Liibeck market-place. Possibly, if the terms of the
arrangement had been carried out, his life would not
have been forfeited, for he had secured an undertaking
that the Hanse merchants should be allowed to
pursue their occupation unmolested within Valdemar's
dominions; but the King was not the man to trouble
himself about his pledged word when it stood in the
way of his ambitions, and a lucky chance placed him, as
he thought, in a position to break his promise with
complete impunity. While on the voyage to Sweden,
Elizabeth of Holstein, the bride-elect of Hakon, was
driven ashore on the coast of Scania and fell into the
hands of Valdemar, who used his power over her to
effect a reconciliation with his two royal enemies.
The upshot of the incident was that his daughter
Margaret was married to the Norwegian monarch at
Copenhagen on April 9, 1363, and the bride, then only
22 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
eleven years old, lived to bring about the amalgamation
of the three Scandinavian kingdoms by the Union of
Calmar, and so earn the title of the " Semiramis of the
North."
The Swedish nobles, however, were not prepared
to submit to the dreaded fusion without a struggle,
and, taking up arms against Magnus, they called upon
his nephew Albert, son of the Duke of Mecklenburg,
to assume the Crown in his stead. Magnus was
deposed in 1364, and was completely defeated and
captured when he attempted to regain the throne in
the following }^ear. Valdemar now determined to
take advantage of Sweden's exhaustion to extend his
own dominions at her expense, and, after a successful
invasion, he extorted from the Duke of Mecklenburg a
treaty, in which the latter, on behalf of his son, under¬
took to cede the island of Gothland, the provinces of
Halland and Blekinge, and considerable portions of the
provinces of Smaaland and West Gothland. Albert,
however, refused to surrender the regions which his
father had signed away, and before Valdemar could
take effective steps to enforce his rights, a quite
different complexion was given to the struggle by the
intervention of the Hanse towns, which thought that
the time had come to wipe out the stain of Helsingborg.
On November 19, 1367, the most celebrated of all
Tagfahrten assembled in the chamber of the Cologne
Rathaus, which is still known as the " Hanse Hall,"
and solemnly declared war against Valdemar. The
treaty which the delegates of the towns subscribed is
known as the "Cologne Confederation," and is regarded
as the most momentous decision in Hanse history.
The towns which were actually represented at the
gathering were only eleven in number, but they
pledged themselves to furnish forty-one ships and 1,950
armed men. Between thirty and forty other towns
were invited to join in the operations, but most of
them were compelled by their inland situation to con¬
fine their participation to a money contribution. It is
HUMILIATION OF DENMARK 23
a curious fact that Hamburg and Bremen, later the
Hanse towns par excellence, took no active share in the
most important campaign in the history of the League,
the municipality in each case excusing itself on the
ground of some special circumstances.
Valdemar was now threatened by a very formidable
coalition, for Sweden, Mecklenburg, and the Hansa
were joined by Count Heinrich of Holstein, and at this
critical juncture he was taken in the rear by a rising
of the nobles of Jutland. Losing heart, he fled to
Pomerania, and the allies, following a carefully pre¬
arranged plan of campaign, carried all before them.
Having yet again possessed themselves of Copenhagen,
the forces of the Baltic Hanse towns united with the
Swedish army in Scania, where all the fortresses were
besieged, and, one by one, compelled to surrender.
Recrossing the Sound, the allies seized the islands of
Moen, Falster, and Laaland, which were ravaged from
end to end. Against Norway the North Sea members
of the League were equally successful, reducing the
Royal Court at Bergen to a heap of ashes. The Hansa
had taken the lead throughout the war, and the towns
now found themselves for the moment masters of
Scandinavia.
In the negotiations which were concluded by the
Peace of Stralsund (May 24, 1370), the League imposed
on Denmark crushing and humiliating conditions. In
addition to insisting on the restoration of all privileges
and facilities its members had ever possessed in Scania,
it demanded and secured, as an indemnification for the
expense it had been put to, half the revenues of Malmo,
Helsingborg, Skanor, and Falsterbo, and of seven
neighbouring bailiwicks, for a term of fifteen years.
As a guarantee for payment, it was stipulated that the
fortresses at the places named should in the meantime
be garrisoned by the League. It was further agreed
that, on the death of Valdemar, a successor to the
Danish throne should not be appointed till he had
received the approval of the Hansa
24 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
It is impossible here to consider in detail the subse¬
quent relations of the Federation to the Scandinavian
kingdoms, but one further development of them must
be recorded, if only on account of its importance as a
source of strife between the Hansa and England. On
the death of Valdemar, in 1375, commenced the forty
years' domination of his daughter Margaret, who,
nominally as the guardian of her son Olaf, and, later,
of her grand-nephew, Eric of Pomerania, became the
autocratic ruler of all Scandinavia, which was legally
consolidated by the Union of Calmar. A necessary
step towards this consummation was the expulsion of
Albert of Mecklenburg from Sweden, and he was
crushingly defeated and taken prisoner at the Battle
of Falkoping in 1389. But for some years afterwards,
Stockholm, which had been prominent in offering him
the throne, held out in his behalf, and the attempts
made to relieve the besieged town resulted in a recru¬
descence of piracy that for generations to come was
to prove a terrible scourge to the Baltic and
North Sea. The Hanse towns Rostock and Wismar
were mainly responsible for this outcome. For once
in a way espousing the dynastic cause of the duchy
in which they were situated, they struck out on
a line of policy distinct from that of the Hansa as
a whole, and issued letters of marque, known as
"charters of robbery," to all who would undertake
the task of supplying Stockholm with provisions and
munitions of war. The prospects of plunder opened
out by these licences called to the sea a motley rabble
of adventurers and soldiers of fortune, who, however,
numbered in their ranks the owners of such now illus¬
trious names as Moltke and Manteuffel.
Under the specious titles of the " Victualling
Brothers" and the " Equal Sharers," which were
respectively derived from their supposititious mission
and their manner of disposing of their booty, these
buccaneers fell upon every defenceless merchantman
that came their way and stripped it to the ribs. By
OUTRAGES ON ENGLISH SHIPPING 25
degrees they organized themselves into a formidable
piratical community, which for some time had a regular
fortified capital in Visby, where they had established
themselves. From this stronghold they were ulti¬
mately ejected by an expedition led against them by
the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, and they
thereupon transferred the scene of their operations to
the North Sea, where they could always take refuge
from pursuit among the shoals and islands off the
Frisian coast. They made Emden their new head¬
quarters, and their depredations were not effectively
checked till 1433, when Hamburg captured the town,
which it kept in its possession for twenty years. Con¬
temporary ideas of the fabulous treasures amassed by
the Victualling Brotherhood may be gathered from the
tradition that Claus Stortebeker, one of the most
redoubtable of these freebooters, when captured off
Heligoland by a fleet belonging to merchants of Ham¬
burg, offered to lay a chain of solid gold right round
their town if they would allow him his life. The
legend must not be taken too literally, for it continues
that, though this bargain was refused, Stortebeker
was granted his further petition, that as many of his
followers as he could run past after he had been decapi¬
tated should be spared, and that he had already saved
five of his men in this way, when the executioner flung
a stick between his legs and brought his headless
corpse to the ground.
Since the Victualling Brothers had been called into
existence by two of the leading Hanse towns, it is not
surprising that in England the League itself was
blamed for the innumerable outrages committed by
these corsairs on English shipping. It was largely to
the misdeeds of this piratical sodality that were due
the quarrels between the English Government and the
Hansa, which continued almost without intermission
from the signature of the Treaty of Stralsund till
Queen Elizabeth shut up the Steelyard and expelled
its inmates from the country. At the same time, it
26 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
must be admitted that, with the exception of Rostock
and Wismar, whither the privateers repaired to dis¬
pose of their spoils, the Hanse towns themselves
probably suffered nearly as much as anyone else
through this plague of piracy.
By its triumph over Valdemar the Hansa secured
a practical monopoly of the shipping and trade of the
Baltic and North Sea, which it held almost unimpaired
for nearly two hundred years. In the words of Gustav
Wasa, "the three good (Scandinavian) Crowns remained
small wares of the Hansa up to the sixteenth century,"
and as long as this was so the commercial and maritime
supremacy of the League was practically unchallenge¬
able. The manner in which the Easterlings availed
themselves of the ascendancy they had now acquired
is a classic example of the ruthless and unscrupulous
exploitation of political power for the purposes of
purely material gain, for they were actuated by no
national or ideal aims, but solely by the desire to
enrich themselves. Favoured by the confusion and
chaos prevailing in the lands of their potential rivals,
they became the exclusive brokers through whose
mediation the spices of the Orient, the wines of
France, the cloth of Flanders, the tin, wool, hides, and
tallow of England, were exchanged for the dried cod of
Norway, the ores of Sweden, the wheat of Prussia, the
honey and wax of Poland, the furs of Russia, and the
myriads of herrings which every summer were caught
in the Sound, and salted and packed on the coast of
Scania. What they aimed at, and what for long years
they substantially obtained, was the disappearance of
all flags but their own from the North Sea and the
Baltic. Moreover, a great part of the carrying trade
between England and France also fell to their lot.
The Hanseatic League had sprung from the need
of mutual protection and support, and at the outset
had had a purely defensive character. By its early
efforts for the suppression of piracy, highway robbery,
and the infamous "beach law,"under which a wrecked
THE LEAGUE AND ENGLISH TRADERS 27
ship became the property of the owner of the foreshore
where it stranded, it had incidentally performed
valuable services to humanity. Unfortunately, where-
ever and whenever it became sufficiently powerful to
do so, it adopted aggressive tactics, and established
a commercial tyranny which could be upheld only
by violence or fraud. Its methods were in principle
exceedingly simple: they consisted in the extortion
of exclusive privileges from others, and in absolute
refusal to reciprocate; and the League not only deter¬
mined the commercial policy of its own members, but,
through its establishments at Bruges, Bergen, and
Novgorod, exercised a decisive influence on that of
other countries. The Sound was repeatedly closed
to all but Hanse ships ; foreigners other than Germans
were forbidden to reside in Russia, even with the
object of learning the language ; and, while the Easter-
lings were amassing in their hands the whole of
England's trade with Northern and Western Europe,
English merchants were, by their servants or at their
instance, expelled from Bergen, Dantzic, and other
emporia of the Baltic, if they were not actually
plundered and massacred. Recesses passed by the
Tagfahrten at various times forbade the citizens of
Hanse towns to sell ships to foreigners, to enter into
partnership with an Englishman, to consign goods
to a merchant in England who was not affiliated to the
Steelyard, to export British manufactured wares.
The Hanseatics were neither the first nor the last
to profit from the quarrels of others, but they played
the part of tertius gaudens with a persistency for
which it would be hard to find a parallel, and nowhere
was their policy more successful than in England,
whose foreign wars and internal embarrassments they
turned to account with equal promptitude and skill.
From the earliest days of their settlement in London,
we find them shrewdly exploiting the predicaments
of the English Crown. When, for example, Richard
Cceur de Lion was returning from his Austrian
28 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
captivity, the merchants of Cologne rendered him
valuable assistance in the raising of the ransom which
was the price of his liberty, and in recompense they
received a charter acquitting them of the rent of their
guildhall, and of all royal dues on their persons and
wares in England. It was apparently Hanseatic
influence which gained for Richard of Cornwall,
brother of Henry III., the doubtful dignity of " German
King"; and a couple of years after his coronation at
Aix, " the merchants of Alemannia, who own in London
the house which is usually called the ' Guildhall of the
Germans'" obtained the confirmation of all the " free¬
doms and usages " they had enjoyed in the reigns of
the English monarch and his predecessors. From
Edward III. Hanse citizens took the Crown jewels
into pawn, being allotted the revenues of the wool
duties and the royal tin-mines in Cornwall till the
pledges had been redeemed; and the King, in gratitude
for their help, extended their privileges, so that by the
middle of the fourteenth century they were actually
trading in England on more favourable terms than the
native merchant.
It was, however, only after the Peace of Stralsund
that the Federation entered into regular diplomatic
relations with England. Till that event changed the
international status of the League, the Steelyard had
been left to make for itself the best terms it could
as a mere association of foreign traders, dependent
on their own resources for the securing of favours.
Now a radical alteration took place in the conditions,
and the Hanse settlement in London became an
important political mission as well as a commercial
agency. The adoption of fresh methods was the
necessary expression of a modification of policy, which
was undoubtedly the direct outcome of the success of
the League in the Scandinavian campaign. So far the
Hanseatics had gained their ends chiefly by guile, but
they now felt themselves strong enough to bully, and
the unintermittent controversies and quarrels between
STEELYARD'S UNFAIR COMPETITION 29
England and the League, which, almost exactly a
hundred years after the signature of the Stralsund
Treaty, culminated in open warfare, were but a natural
sequel of the humbling of Valdemar.
It was characteristic of these disputes that grievances
were invariably brought forward by both sides. The
ultimate basis of the Hanse complaints was, in nearly
all cases, the Carta Mercatoria, which had been issued
to the Steelyard by Edward I. in 1303. By this charter
the King, in consideration of the acquiescence of the
foreign merchants trading in England in a substantial
increase of the export duties, which in the cases of
wool and hides amounted to 50 per cent., granted them
far-reaching liberties and privileges. In the succeed¬
ing reign it was confirmed to the Germans alone, and
henceforth it formed the legal title to which the Easter-
lings always appealed in their differences with the
English Government. What they claimed was that
legally they could not be called upon to pay duties at
higher rates than were fixed in the charter, and that
consequently they were entitled to exemption from
any additional taxation that might be imposed in Eng¬
land. Whenever fresh financial burdens were placed
on the shoulders of the people of England, whether
in the form of augmented export duties, poundage,
tonnage, " subsidies," or poll-taxes, the merchants of
the Steelyard raised protests, and sometimes flatly
refused payment. Not infrequently their resistance
was crowned with success, and, in so far as this oc¬
curred, they were given an advantage,'over the English¬
man, which enabled them to crush his commercial
competition.
On the other hand, the English merchant had much
to complain of in addition to this favouring of the
foreigner in his own country. One of the first acts of
the Federation on entering on its fifteen-year tenancy
of Scania, was the issue of a decree forbidding British
subjects to salt herrings in that province. At the
same time the bailiffs responsible for public order in
30 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
the Hanse settlement round Falsterbo and Skanor
were restrained by a penalty of fifty marks from allow¬
ing foreigners to reside within the areas under their
jurisdiction, while a few years later they were expressly
enjoined to afford such intruders no protection against
robbery, outrage, and murder. Similar measures were
enforced in Bergen, with the object of making residence
there intolerable to all aliens who did not rejoice in
the qualification of Hanse membership. It was at this
period, too, that Prussia first systematically placed
obstacles in the way of merchants from England.
Close commercial dealings between the two countries
had sprung out of the participation of English nobles
in the crusades of the Teutonic Knights against the
Lithuanians—Henry IV., as Prince of Wales, fought in
two of these campaigns—but the enterprising rivalry
of the English traders seems by degrees to have become
irksome to the citizens of the prosperous towns that
had arisen on the conquered territories. At any rate,
the Grand Master adopted a much less hospitable
attitude than heretofore towards his English visitors,
and Prussia occasionally took the lead in urging upon
the Hansa a ruthless and uncompromising policy
towards England. The commercial factors in the
antagonism were naturally less disturbing than the
wholesale piracies of the Victualling Brothers, and the
League, for its part, repeatedly raised the charge that
its merchantmen had been plundered by English war¬
ships engaged in the operations against France. That
unjustifiable accusations were made on both sides is
more than likely, for at that epoch the lines of de¬
marcation which separated regular war vessels from
privateersmen, and these from pirate ships, were very
indefinite, and it was a common practice for neutrals
to hire out their craft for belligerent purposes. It is
also highly probable that the Hansa was sometimes
held responsible for the violence of those who had
been federated to it yesterday, and would be so again
to-morrow, but had no official connection with it on
ENVOYS IN LONDON
3i
the to-day of their transgressions. At the same time,
it had none but itself to blame for the doubt that
existed in the world as to the extent of its member¬
ship.
The visit of two Hansa envoys to London in 1373,
as the spokesmen of a Tagfahrten which had met at
Liibeck, seems to have been the first attempt to estab¬
lish direct diplomatic relations between the League
and England. The mission found on its arrival that
its purpose had gone, for a truce had been arranged
between England and France, and the subsidies from
which it hoped to obtain exemption for the inmates of
the Steelyard had been dropped. Five years later the
League again found it advisable to despatch a couple
of envoys to England. Their errand on this occasion,
their manner of fulfilling it, and its issue, are very
typical of Anglo-Hanse relationships at that time. On
the accession of Richard II., as at the commencement
of every fresh reign, the English merchants petitioned
that the Hanse privileges should not be confirmed till
their own grievances against the League had been
redressed. In particular they demanded greater liberty
for their commerce at Bergen and in Scania, and their
case was supported by Parliament. Eventually the
renewal of the Steelyard charters was promised on
the acceptance of the following conditions: Freedom
for English trade in Prussia and in the Hanse towns,
repeal of the obnoxious regulations at Bergen and in
Scania, exemption of Englishmen in the Hanseatic
territories from liability for the debts and misdoings
of their countrymen, and disclosure of the names of all
the members of the League. With suspicious em¬
phasis the representatives of the Federation flatly
refused even to consider these conditions. Ultimately
the stipulations with regard to Bergen and Scania
were dropped altogether, and the English merchants
had to be satisfied with a general undertaking that
they would receive in Hanse lands like treatment to
that accorded to the League's members in England.
32 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
With the exception that this provision of " like treat¬
ment " was subsequently altered to the still vaguer
and more worthless promise of "treatment according
to ancient usage," the negotiations were exemplary in
occasion, course, and result, for many which succeeded
them. For nearly two centuries not a year passed in
which grievances were not being nursed, or discussed,
or submitted for decision by one side or the other, or by
both. As a rule, a period of retaliations and reprisals
intervened between the occurrence which formed the
original bone of contention and the actual negotiations;
ships and goods were confiscated by complainant as
by defendant; English merchants were expelled from
German towns and German merchants were flung into
prison in England ; spontaneous violence, born of
hatred and the sense of wrong, burst out here as
there, and outrage was often enough requited with
outrage.
On neither side, it must be admitted, was there very
much of either constancy of view or consistency of
action. The policy of the English Crown varied with
the vicissitudes of the long struggle with France and
with those of its recurring internal troubles, of which
the Wars of the Roses were only the most violent and
prolonged. On the other hand, the Hansa was often
crippled by its perpetual embroilment in Scandinavia;
and by its very nature and the diversity of the interests
which it represented it was prevented from pursuing
a definite and fixed line of action. The towns of the
West had not the same stake as those of the East in
the exclusion of strangers from the Baltic; the Nor¬
wegian, the Scanian, and the Russian preserves
were not of equal importance to all members of the
League. More than once Hanse Parliaments decreed
the suspension of all Baltic trade with England, but
these measures proved so injurious to some of the
confederates, that they were speedily either revoked,
ignored, or evaded. While such prohibitions were in
force, pitch, tar, and potash were smuggled westward
FEDERATION'S INTERNAL TROUBLES 33
in beer barrels, and English cloth still penetrated to
Prussia in large quantities by way of Scandinavia.
The Hansa, in fact, suffered even more from the recoil
of such commercial blockades than England did from
the original blow. By taking advantage of dissen¬
sions arising from the lack of complete unity of aim
in the League, the English Government sometimes
succeeded in effecting separate settlements with its
main component parts.
Like England, the Federation was weakened by
internal troubles. The government of the Hanse
towns had by this time passed into the hands of a few
" patrician " families, which were exclusively engaged
in the business of buying and selling, and the rule laid
down by the Liibeck statute, that only " those who
do not earn their bread by the work of their hands "
should sit in the Council, was of almost universal
prevalence. As the councils were constituted by co-
optation by their own members, and not by popular
election, they had no difficulty in maintaining this rule
so long as it was not challenged by violence. But at
the beginning of the fifteenth century the growing
and intelligent class of handicraftsmen was in many
quarters asserting its right to a voice in the administra¬
tion of the towns, and these movements often resulted
in long and sanguinary struggles that incapacitated
the municipalities from taking an active interest in the
foreign policy of the League. Liibeck, the diplomatic
and naval head of the Hansa, was for some time gravely
embarrassed by one of these constitutional conflicts.
Another event of sinister omen for the future of the
Federation that occurred at this epoch was the Battle
of Tannenberg (1410), in which the rising State of
Poland completely defeated the Teutonic Order, deal¬
ing it a blow fatal to its power and prestige. These
occurrences temporarily enfeebled the League to such
a degree that when, in 1417, an English fleet seized a
number of Hanse ships returning from the Bay of
Biscay, the aggrieved German merchants, distrusting
3
34 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
their own strength, appealed for mediation to their
supreme sovereign, Sigismund, " King of the Romans,"
who had contracted an offensive and defensive alliance
with England. It was characteristic of the attitude of
the German Emperors towards the towns, that, when
the conference of English and Hanse delegates, which
was convened by Sigismund at Constance and presided
over by him in person, failed to reach an agreement,
the monarch turned on the envoys of the League with
the rough exclamation that he regarded as an enemy
anyone who attacked his ally. That the Hansa's powers
of commercial resistance also flagged at this time is
shown by the German complaints that in one season
the English had bought up almost the entire supply
of Russian wax brought to Prussia, and that in two
separate years a Lynn merchant had penetrated into
the interior of Poland and bought where they grew
the yew-trees from which the famous long bows of
England were made.
The negotiations between England and the Hansa
took place sometimes in London, sometimes in Lubeck
or another of the League towns, sometimes at Bruges
or on other neutral ground. An important success
was obtained for the Federation in 1437 by the Burgo¬
masters of Lubeck, Hamburg, and Cologne, who visited
London, and, according to German historians, bribed
Cardinal Beaufort with the present of a handsome
mansion, and so induced him to persuade Henry VI.
that the demands of the English merchants for the
limitation of the privileges of the Steelyard were
illegal, and that the Hanse trade was indispensable to
England. All the League's freedoms were on this
occasion confirmed without restriction ; it was assured
exemption from all dues not specified in the Carta
Mercatoria, and an undertaking was given that certain
compensations, the justice of which had been admitted
in a treaty concluded at The Hague thirty years earlier,
should at last be paid, The only satisfaction received
by the English merchants was the familiar and abso-
SUCCESS OF ENGLISH PRIVATEERS 35
lutely valueless promise that they should be treated
within Hanseatic jurisdiction "according to ancient
custom."
It was because the spirit of this vague and elastic
provision was never observed that the 1437 Treaty
failed, like all its predecessors, to establish permanent
friendly relationships between England and the Hanse
towns. As they were interpreted, all the engagements
between the two parties were quite one-sided ; the
give was all on the part of England, the take all on
that of the Hansa. The treaty was succeeded by the
usual period of complaints by English merchants and
petitions by Parliament, Hanseatic countercharges,
arbitrary attempts to execute justice for themselves
by the aggrieved merchants on both sides, retaliations—
private as well as governmental—and unsuccessful
overtures for negotiation. At length it was agreed
to confer at Deventer in June, 1451, but the arrange¬
ment was thwarted by the action of a privateering
fleet fitted out by the English East Coast ports, which
seized in the Channel an enormous convoy, said to
have contained 108 vessels. Half of these belonged
to members of the League, for the most part to
merchants of Lubeck and Hamburg, and were carried
off to be sold as prizes. At about the same time, a
number of Hanse ships were plundered as they lay at
anchor in the harbour of Boston.
These occurrences precipitated an acute crisis. The
injured towns at once confiscated all the English goods
discoverable within their boundaries, and Henry retali¬
ated by givingthe merchants thus despoiled permission
to indemnify themselves from the wares accumulated
in the Steelyard. The King attempted to ignore the
existence of the League, and sent a mission to Prussia
to conclude a partial settlement with the Grand Master,
but his envoys were captured off Skagen by ships of
Lubeck, and carried off as prisoners to that town. It
was, however, again found impossible to reconcile the
divergent views of the Hanseatics. While the Prussian
36 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
and Rhenish towns advocated a conciliatory attitude,
Ltibeck was all for ruthless self-assertion, and, follow¬
ing a line of its own, sent out privateers to snap up
the cargoes of cloth that attempted to evade the
closure of the Baltic to English goods which had been
declared by Christian of Denmark. Nevertheless, the
moderation of the other members of the Federation
ultimately prevailed, Ltibeck recalled its privateers,
and in 1456 a truce was concluded with England, now
deeply preoccupied with the Wars of the Roses, for a
period of eight years.
It is hardly possible to disentangle the intricate
knot of Hanse dealings with England during the long
struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster.
Both parties were in turn, and sometimes simul¬
taneously, helped by the League, or by its individual
members, with ships or money. When fortune frowned
upon them, neither hesitated to apply to the Hansa
for assistance, promising in return the confirmation of
the privileges of the Steelyard; and the federated
towns were, as usual, guided in their policy solely by
their anticipations of material benefit. But the most
interesting incident of this period was that the Hansa,
with the encouragement of England's domestic em¬
barrassments, took heart to wage open war against
her for the first and last time in its history, and,
as the issue will show, came out of the conflict
victorious.
The war was the outcome of a series of mutual
aggravations and provocations, of which the first of
any importance was the attack by Warwick on a
convoy of eighteen large Hanse vessels putting up the
Channel for Livonia, with wine and salt from France.
After a stubborn fight for six hours the Kingmaker
withdrew to Calais, of which port he was then
Governor, with six prizes, and the remainder of the
German flotilla continued its voyage claiming the
victory. Warwick's action, which is said to have had
no better justification than the refusal of the convoy to
STEELYARD IN LONDON STORMED 37
salute the English flag, was regarded by the Hansa as
a flagrant breach of the truce of 1456, and Lubeck at
once recommenced its naval guerilla. It was, however,
unable to induce the other towns to follow the example,
and seems to have decided to recall its ships and
await the development of events in England, rather
than carry on the operations alone.
The quarrel might have simmered down, especially
as Edward IV. had provisionally confirmed the Steel¬
yard privilege, had it not been complicated by an
English grievance of a similar character. This was
the seizure in the Sound of seven English vessels laden
with cloth for Prussia. There seems no doubt that the
ships which effected this coup belonged to Dantzic,
but, according to the German case, they were at the
time in the pay of Christian of Denmark, and were
exacting reparation for the murder by Lynn sailors
and fishermen of an Iceland bailiff. The Danish King,
indeed, went so far as to certify that the Hansa was
entirely devoid of guilt in the matter. In England,
however, the League was blamed, and the Steelyard
was accused of having notified it of the departure of
the confiscated ships. The English Government in
this case acted with great promptitude, the Privy
Council ordering the imprisonment of all German
merchants in London till satisfaction had been given
for the outrage. It was decided by the Courts that the
League was guilty, and that the property of the Steel¬
yard members should be valued and divided among the
aggrieved English merchants. In the meantime, the
Cologne traders, who had long been drawing away
from the League and pursuing a more accommodating
policy of their own, were released from prison, and
installed in the Steelyard as its sole masters and the
exclusive beneficiaries of its privileges and freedoms.
Feeling seems to have run very strongly against the
foreigners in London, for the Steelyard was stormed
by a mob and partially destroyed, and a courier from
the Emperor, to whom the Hansa had appealed for
38 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
mediation, was attacked in the streets and very
seriously maltreated.
In April, 1469, delegates of twenty-three Hanse
towns assembled to consider the situation thus created,
and agreed to break off all relations with England unless
the distrained goods were restored to their original
owners by June 24. As this condition was not complied
with, the merchants of the German colony at Bruges
and the town of Dantzic sent out privateers into the
North Sea to prey on British commerce. Two of these
naval condottieri—Paul Beneke and Martin Bardewick
—wrought great havoc among English shipping, and by
the daring of their exploits won for themselves a place
of fame in the sparse chronicle of German maritime
history. It was not, however, till the following year
that the Hansa as a whole, at an unusually well-
attended Tagfahrt—the conflict with England had had
the effect of healing the dissensions in the League—
decided upon common measures in defence of its
interests. The merchants of the Steelyard were in¬
structed to return to their native towns, and it was
agreed to urge the Kings of Denmark and Poland to
join in a comprehensive boycott of English cloth. At
the same time, the ban of " Verhansung" was pro¬
nounced against Cologne, which meant that the
members of the Federation pledged themselves to
have no further commercial dealings with that city.
Almost at the very moment at which the assembly
was passing these recesses, Edward IV. was in
imminent peril of falling into the hands of the Hansa
as he fled across the North Sea to Flanders, after the
landing of Warwick in England. The vessel in which
the King and his brother, the Duke of Gloucester,
afterwards Richard III., had taken passage, was so
hotly chased by Hanseatic privateers, that, as the
only method of escape, her captain ran her ashore on
the Dutch coast, trusting that she would refloat on the
turn of the tide, and that in the meanwhile the pursuers
would have put out to sea again in search of readier
EDWARD IV. AND THE HANSA
39
booty. The Germans were, however, not so easy to
choke off, for they, too, beached their ships; and had
not partisans of the Duke of Burgundy succoured the
distressed vessel from the land side, the royal party
would certainly have become prisoners of the Hansa,
and a decisive change might have been brought about
in the course of English history. For Queen Margaret
had already, in flattering terms, appealed to Liibeck
for assistance, and made solemn promises that, if it
were successfully granted, she would become an
advocate of the Hanse cause in England. At an
earlier date, it may be remarked, she had received
substantial financial aid from Cologne. As things
turned out, Edward, too, now became a suitor for
Hanse favours, and, through the mediation of Duke
Charles, effected a provisional and informal reconcilia¬
tion with members of the League. It was on Dantzic
ships, in Burgundian service, and manned by Shakes¬
peare's " hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders," that
the King and his adherents returned to England to
win the Battle of Barnet.
It would be tedious and unprofitable to follow the
details of the desultory hostilities between England
and the Hansa which occupied the next two years.
On neither side could the war be waged with vigour
and determination. England was engrossed with her
domestic feud, and the Hanse towns were at one
neither on the broad lines of their policy nor on the
measures expedient for carrying it out. Though
Poland and Denmark had closed their frontiers to
English cloth, the blockade against it could not be
rendered effective, as that profitable article of com¬
merce was still smuggled into the Baltic in large
quantities. The League members aggravated their
dissensions by mutually accusing one another of
carrying on the contraband trade. The naval opera¬
tions of the League were equally lacking in system,
persistency, and vigour. At times a Hanse flotilla
would descend upon the East Coast of England, and
40 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
disembark a force to burn and plunder for miles inland.
At other times the conduct of the war would be left
to one or two particularly reckless and enterprising
privateers, who strung up to the yard-arm all the
English sailors who fell into their clutches, and had
only the like treatment to expect if they were ever
captured in their turn. During the last year of the
struggle, the dashing Paul Beneke, in a large ship
purchased from Dantzic by citizens of Hamburg, was
practically the sole representative of the Hanse naval
power in the North Sea, but his presence there was
enough to keep the English mercantile marine in a
state of trepidation.
In spite of the half-heartedness of its naval measures,
however, the Hansa refused to agree to an armistice
when overtures for negotiations were made in the
spring of 1472 by the English Envoy at the Burgundian
Court, and it was not until a conference had been
definitely agreed upon, a year later, that the League's
letters of marque were finally revoked. The peace
envoys met at Utrecht in July, 1473. On the one side
were delegates of the towns of Liibeck, Hamburg,
Bremen, Dantzic, Dortmund, Munster, Deventer, and
Kampen, as well as of the Hanseatic settlements at
London, Bruges, and Bergen; on the other were
representatives of the English King, the Dukes of
Burgundy and Brittany, the rulers of Bergen-op-
Zoom, Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland, and of the
towns of Cologne, Antwerp, Mechlin, and Dinant.
The congress lasted nearly a year, and three separate
series of negotiations were necessary before the indi¬
vidual quarrel between England and the League could
be composed. The English delegates declared at the
end that they would rather negotiate with all the
monarchs of the world than try another bout with
such hard bargainers as the Hanse burgomasters.
As the sequel showed, the League either was better
represented or played with stronger cards, for in all
essentials it carried the day. It secured the unre-
STEELYARD'S PRIVILEGES CONFIRMED 41
stricted confirmation of its privileges, the annulment
of the judgment pronounced against its citizens in
1468, and an indemnity of ,£10,000, without prejudice
to private claims for compensation. Edward struggled
hard before he consented to abandon Cologne to its
fate, and refused to ratify the original treaty, in which
that town was expressly mentioned by name as having
forfeited its right to the franchises of the Steelyard.
Eventually another version of the treaty, which pro¬
vided merely that no town that had been excluded from
the League should enjoy Hanse privileges in England,
was ratified, and the ejection of Cologne from the
Steelyard was stipulated in a separate instrument.
Other benefits obtained by the League were the full
freehold of its establishments in London, Boston, and
Lynn, and the renewal of a series of agreements with
the City of London extending back to the thirteenth
century.
England once more did a great deal of giving and
very little taking. All that Edward's envoys could
obtain was a repetition of the worthless provisions
with regard to English trade with Hanse lands that
had been contained in the treaty of 1437. Even this
slender concession almost broke up the peace con¬
ference, so obstinately was it contested by some of
Hanseatics, and on its account Dantzic deferred the
ratification of the treaty for two years, while some
of the other towns chose to quit the League rather
than undertake to comply with it. More than a year
elapsed before Cologne, thoroughly humbled and
penitent, was readmitted to the ranks of the Hansa.
Till the close of his reign, Edward, unlike the other
contracting parties, faithfully observed the provisions
of the treaty, and the Hanse trade with England
advanced by leaps and bounds. The Easterlings'
export of English cloth, which had been 4,464 pieces
in 1423, and 6,159 in 1461, rose by 1500 to 21,389. But
as soon as the battle of Bosworth put a final end to
the Wars of the Roses, the outcry against the Hansa
42 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
became louder and more insistent than ever. The
preferential conditions which the League enjoyed in
England could, in fact, be maintained only so long as
the country was embarrassed by foreign campaigns
or internecine strife. Immediately after the accession
of Henry VII., another epoch of complaints, outrages,
confiscations, and reprisals was commenced. The
popular feeling in London against the Hansa showed
itself in attacks on German merchants in the streets,
and in a determined attempt by a large body of appren¬
tices to storm the Steelyard and rifle its warehouses.
Henry was by no means blind to the disadvantages
under which the industry and the trade of his kingdom
were labouring, and he struck hard blows at the pre¬
dominance of the League by statutes prohibiting the
export of unshorn cloth, and the import of certain
commodities, except in British bottoms, as well as by
subsidizing shipbuilding and granting a charter to the
Corporation of Merchant Adventurers. He also nego¬
tiated a treaty with Denmark, which secured for
British trade in that country what were practically
most-favoured-nation terms. Notwithstanding these
and other measures with the object of stimulating
English industrial and commercial life, and his declara¬
tion that " our merchants must be as free in Prussia
and all other places belonging to the Hanse towns as
the merchants of the Hansa are in England," he seems
to have been actuated by a sincere desire to give the
members of the League their lawful due. A provisional
prolongation of the Utrecht Treaty was agreed to by
a conference at Antwerp in 1491, and the grievances
on both sides for many years past were also discussed
at Bruges in 1499, but no understanding promising a
permanent settlement of the points at issue was
reached. However, until the end of this reign, no
further serious friction arose.
Nor had the Hansa much ground of complaint for
the first few years after the crown fell to Henry VIII.,
who refused to listen to charges of piracy brought
WOLSEY'S FIRM POLICY 43
against the League by English merchants, and also
turned a deaf ear to the proposals of John of Denmark,
that he should combine with him in crushing it. He also
confirmed the Peace of Utrecht, besides giving repeated
assurances that the Steelyard privileges should not be
impaired by Acts of Parliament. It was only on the
rise of Wolsey to power that a change in this respect
took place in English policy. The immediate pretext
was the seizure by Stralsund, then engaged in war
with Denmark, of an English ship, which was answered
by the imprisonment of the merchants of the Wendish
towns residing in London, and the confiscation of their
wares. The Hansa had so far fallen from its former
arrogance, that it induced Stralsund to consent to
make reparation, and to send to London a peacemaker,
who, however, achieved nothing. A couple of years
were wasted in futile efforts to agree to a rendezvous
for a conference, Wolsey refusing to send envoys to
the Continent, and the Federation rejecting, as humilia¬
ting, his proposal that the negotiations should take
place in London. Eventually a meeting was arranged
at Bruges in July, 1520, and this time the English dele¬
gates absolutely insisted on being supplied with a list
of the members of the Federation. After protracted
attempts at evasion, they were furnished with the
names of forty-five towns. The bulk of the time of
the congress was consumed in legal arguments as to
the validity of the Hanse privileges, and, in the end,
it was announced, that Wolsey had come to the con¬
clusion that by law these were forfeit, and that the
Steelyard was dependent for exceptional treatment
entirely on the grace of the King. The negotiations
produced no definite result, the position of the Hansa
in England became more precarious than ever, and
the merchants of the Steelyard were secretly advised
by the heads of the League to remain in London as
long as possible, but to put their charters, jewels,
and plate in a place of safety. Nevertheless the
danger blew over once more, and in the later years
44 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
of his reign Henry VIII. found the friendship of the
Federation useful both in his ecclesiastical policy and
in his matrimonial projects. For some time the most
cordial relations existed between him and Ltibeck,
and it would indeed appear that a treaty, by which that
town was to have undertaken to make over to him
the Kingdom of Denmark and to furnish him with
warships, was actually drafted for signature.
Fresh bickerings arose soon after Henry's death,
and the Easterlings were cited before the Privy Coun¬
cil to answer the charges of a number of English mer¬
chants, whose agents had been subjected to ill-usage
at Dantzic and Stralsund. The proceedings elicited
the interesting fact that in the previous year the Hansa
had exported 44,000 pieces of English cloth, whereas
the export of all other traders, native and foreign, had
amounted to no more than 1,100 pieces. The decision
of the Council was to the effect that the Steelyard was
not a legal corporation, and had forfeited all the rights
and privileges conferred upon it. The final execution
of a decree, placing its members on exactly the same
footing as other foreign merchants in England, was,
however, prevented by the death of Edward VI., and
the brief rule of Mary brought the Hansa yet another
respite. The League did its utmost to deserve the
favour of the new ruler. When Philip of Spain entered
London to lead her to the altar, the Steelyard spent
£1,000—no inconsiderable sum at that date—in cele¬
bration of the event, and not long after, Lubeck, to
gratify the Catholic Queen, drove from its gates in the
full rigour of winter the Protestant refugees from
England who had sought its protection.
The complete emancipation of England from the
Hansa yoke was the work of that virile woman, Queen
Elizabeth. How blind the League was to the signs of
the times was shown by the events which occurred at
Hamburg in the opening years of her reign. The
Elbe port had evidently realized that, in the changed
conditions of the world, the policy of unqualified exclu-
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S EXPULSION ORDER 45
sion could not be upheld, and, in 1567, permitted the
Merchant Adventurers to establish a factory within
its walls. The concession was granted for a term of
ten years, and before two of them had elapsed the
turnover of the settlement had attained the sum ot
three and a half million thalers. At the instigation of
the Hansa, a prolongation of the concession was refused,
and the League, no longer in a position to enforce its
wishes by its own strength, appealed to the Emperor
and Reichstag, who issued a decree prohibiting the
settlement of the Merchant Adventurers in Germany.
The final catastrophe of the Steelyard was precipi¬
tated by England's war with Spain, to whom the
Easterlings, in spite of Elizabeth's emphatic warnings,
systematically furnished supplies. No sooner had the
Armada been scattered, than Drake and N orris appeared
in the mouth of the Tagus, and seized sixty German
vessels, laden with ships' stores, which were lying at
anchor there. The perplexity and vacillation which
the Hansa displayed when confronted by this action
are clear signs of the decay and impotence that had
fallen upon it. Only Wismar seems to have advocated
the use of force to obtain redress; the other towns
were unable to agree as to the course to be followed,
and many of them were now openly disregarding the
order for the expulsion of Englishmen from their
territories. While a suspension of the conveyance of
grain to, and of cloth from, England was being debated,
Philip II. himself intervened, and procured the issue
of an imperial decree (August 1, 1597) ordering all
Englishmen to leave German soil within three months.
With commendable promptitude, Elizabeth retaliated
by expelling the Hanse merchants from England. The
term for their departure, originally fixed at fourteen
days, was prolonged to a few months, but on July 25,
1598, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs were charged by
the Privy Council to take possession of the Steelyard,
and ten days later its members, headed by their
Alderman, filed out of their premises in melancholy
46 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
procession. Though the Hansa's property in London
was restored to it under James I., its expulsion by
Elizabeth was the final doom of its power in England.
But for the Hundred Years' War with France and
the struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster,
the Hansa would never have been able to win and
maintain its mercantile ascendancy in England. As
soon as the island kingdom was at peace at home and
abroad, the exactions of the Easterlings were felt to
be intolerable. But while its position in England was
being undermined, the Hansa was steadily losing
ground elsewhere. The decline of the German orders,
whose conquests it had exploited commercially; the
extension of the Kingdom of Poland to the sea; the
rise in Sweden of that most capable of ruling families,
the Wasas; the independence of Holland ; the suppres¬
sion by the Princes of Moscow (1478) of the Republic
of Novgorod, which had been the centre of Hanseatic
trade in Russia, were all important factors in bringing
about the collapse of the League. Everywhere the
arrogance, selfishness, and unscrupulousness of its
commercial policy raised it up enemies, who seized
the first opportunity of throwing off its yoke. Many
of the towns which had once been members of the
League, and especially those of Brandenburg, now
under the Hohenzollerns, had lost their independence
as the German Princes waxed in power, and were no
longer allowed to send delegates to the Tagfahrten.
Those that remained free had been weakened by the
revolt of the handicraftsmen against the oligarchic
rule of the captains of commerce, and by religious
strife. Moreover, the diversity of interest that existed
among the Hanse towns in consequence of their
geographical diffusion and their commercial differ¬
entiation, had always tended to become acuter.
In its commercial policy in the narrower sense, the
Hansa showed an extraordinary inability to adapt itself
to a fresh set of conditions. Instead of recognizing
that the world had changed, and that the new wine
THE HANSA'S NAVAL FORCES 47
could not be put into the old bottles, it acted as if
the circumstances which had favoured its ascent had
remained unaltered, and wore itself out in futile
struggles to uphold the privileges it had extorted from
the weakness of rivals now become strong. The
discovery of America and the opening up of the
inexhaustible resources of the New World found it
incapable of grappling with that great opportunity.
Finally, that most fickle of fish, the herring, which had
done so much to promote the shipping and trade of the
Hansa, deserted it in the hour of its sorest need.
During the course of the sixteenth century, the shoals
gradually abandoned the track which had brought them
to the Sound, and appeared instead on the British and
Dutch coasts, thus favouring the two nations which
were successively to occupy the place so long held by
the League.
In conclusion, a word may be said as to the naval and
military forces of the Hansa. At the outset of its
career, its warships were manned by the burghers
themselves, but as the fleet increased in size—it was
quadrupled during the first half of the fifteenth
century—recourse to mercenaries became more and
more general. The commanders of the ships were
invariably citizens of the towns which had equipped
them, and were frequently members of the governing
council, while the admiral of a fleet was always a
councillor, and usually a burgomaster. The officers
of the land forces, which were raised as occasion
demanded, were principally drawn from the im¬
poverished nobility, whose members welcomed any
opportunity of repairing their shattered fortunes by
martial adventure. Of the naval resources of the
League, some idea can be formed from the fact that,
in the war against the three Scandinavian Kingdoms
in 1426, it sent out a fleet of 260 ships, manned by
12,000 sailors and fighting men. For the exhausting,
if not inglorious, seven years' war against Gustav
Wasa's successor, Lubeck alone fitted out 18 men-of-
48 MARITIME ASCENDANCY IN THE PAST
war, of which one, the Adler carried 400 sailors,
500 fighting men, and 150 " constables." Her armament
consisted of 8 carthouns, 6 demi-carthouns, 26 culverins,
and many smaller pieces of ordnance. Among her
munitions were 6,000 cannon-balls and 300 hundred¬
weight of powder. Such was the type of vessel with
which Germany " last armed for a naval war."
It is an interesting fact, in view of modern con¬
troversies, that, in its naval wars, the Hansa asserted
the principle that hostile ships make hostile goods and
that hostile goods make hostile ships.
CHAPTER II
the first hohenzollern fleet and colonies
In one of the window niches on the ground floor of
the Military Museum (Zeughaus) at Berlin lies an old
and dilapidated 8-pounder gun. In its deep and dis¬
figuring coat of rust it is an inconspicuous object, and,
amid that rich and varied collection of artillery from
all the ages, the eye of the casual visitor will not rest
upon it for more than a disparaging moment. And
yet few of the treasures of the museum have a more
interesting history to tell, for it is the sole remaining
relic of the first serious experiment in naval and
colonial policy ever made by a German ruler. On
an elevation rising from the beach of Cape Three
Points, on the Gold Coast, now British territory, are
still to be seen the crumbling ruins of the fort of
Gross-Friedrichsburg, built there by the Elector of
Brandenburg in 1681, and when the German corvette
Sophie visited the spot, with pious purpose, in 1884,
this corroded gun was unearthed from beneath the
weeds and brushwood that have overgrown the
decayed ramparts.
Frederick William, the Great Elector, has been
exemplary for many of his successors. Frederick the
Great rightly considered him the most able of the
previous Princes of the house of Hohenzollern, while
the present German Emperor has made a special cult
of his memory, and assuredly had a symbolic intention
when he appeared at a fancy-dress ball disguised as
the first of his ancestors who equipped a fleet and
founded a colony.
49 4
5o THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
When Frederick William was called to the Branden¬
burg throne in 1641 at the age of twenty, Germany was
still in the throes of the Thirty Years'War, and no part
of the Empire had suffered more than his Electorate
from the consequences of that unspeakable calamity.
Of all the causes which have contributed to impede
the normal development of the painstaking and indus¬
trious German race, none had so malign an influence
as that stupendous conflict. It not merely delayed
civilization, but over vast tracts of country positively
exterminated it. At the close of the war many once
flourishing towns had absolutely disappeared from
the face of the earth, and where formerly a numerous
peasantry had tilled its fertile fields a howling wilder¬
ness extended in all directions as far as the eye could
reach. In North Germany to-day an apparently pur¬
poseless pond, or a detached clump of venerable trees,
still shows where once a village stood, and bears mute
witness to the ruthless barbarity with which the re¬
ligious partition of Central Europe was brought about.
When an end was put to the bloodshed and rapine
by the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the population of
Germany had been reduced to one half—in some dis¬
tricts to one tenth—of its former dimensions. Many
portions of the Empire are even to-day not so thickly in¬
habited as they were before the war. Industry and com¬
merce had migrated to England, France, and Holland;
and Leipzig and Frankfort were the only German towns
that had retained any trade worthy of mention. The
Hansa, with its fleets of warships and merchantmen, was
but a memory of the past. Konigsberg had no longer
a ship of its own; the trade of Dantzig and Stettin
was almost entirely carried in foreign bottoms; and
even Hamburg, which directly had been but compara¬
tively little touched by the thirty years of chaos and
turmoil, and had benefited from its exceptional con¬
nection with England, was left commercially crippled.
At a Hanse Parliament held in 1630, only Hamburg,
Ltibeck, and Bremen were represented. Germany had
THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
5i
been so drained of money that barter had generally
taken the place of purchase by coin ; wages were paid
in the products of labour, grain, ore, and manu¬
factured goods, and even state officials in some cases
received their salaries in kind.
Even before the war broke out, Brandenburg, a
country of barren soil and few natural resources, had
stood far below the rest of Germany both materially
and intellectually. In 1600 the twin towns, Berlin
and Coin, which faced one another from opposite
banks of the Spree, and have since been merged to
form the colossal capital of the new Empire, contained
together no more than 14,000 souls. Brandenburg
and Frankfort-on-Oder each had a population of 10,000.
Only two other towns, Stendal and Salzwedel, could
boast more than 5,000 inhabitants. And it was of the
mere ruins of this country that Frederick William
formed the foundation-stone of the Prussian Kingdom
and of the German Empire of to-day.
If the Thirty Years' War had produced any form of
national consolidation, if it had increased the authority
of the Empire or resulted in the absorption of the
smaller States by the larger, that would at least have
been some compensation to Germany for its long and
terrible ordeal. But exactly the opposite was the case.
The war ceased simply because no one had the will or
the strength to continue it, and a miserable com¬
promise was the result. The only gainers were the
Princes, who, as the wielders of the armed forces, had
been able to enhance their power, and now acquired a
larger measure of independence in their relationships
to the Emperor. Their number remained legion.
In the Germany mapped out by the Westphalian
negotiators there were eight electors, sixty-nine
spiritual and ninety-six temporal Princes, sixty-one
imperial towns, and a multitude of Counts and Barons
exercising various degrees of sovereign power.
Frederick William's claim to the title " Great," which
was bestowed upon him by his own generation, has
5i THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
been contested, but may be allowed to pass. As
military leader, diplomatist, organizer, and adminis¬
trator, he certainly had unusual gifts. Above all, he
excelled in duplicity and treachery. The most eminent
living German historian has said of him that " both
in internal and external politics he acted with an
unscrupulousness so manifest that it cannot be pal¬
liated," and can find no better excuse for his many
deeds of " faithlessness " and " double-dealing " than
that, in this respect, he was merely " the master of the
diplomatic art of his day." The Elector was actuated
solely by his own personal and dynastic interests, and
was utterly devoid of " German" patriotism, for in
return for the liberal subsidies on which he prospered,
he undertook, in a secret treaty, to support a candi¬
dature of the French King or Dauphin for the Imperial
German throne, and he was mainly responsible for the
truce which left Strasburg in French hands for nearly
two centuries. During the incessant wars which filled
up most of his reign he fought both with and against
every other belligerent. His sword was always at
the disposal of the highest bidder, either of hard cash
or of territorial extension, and by adroit choice of the
moment for changing sides he generally made a profit¬
able bargain. True, he was obliged to restore the
western portion of Pomerania which he had con¬
quered from the Swedes, but he obtained a much
more important acquisition—the recognition of his full
sovereignty in what is now East Prussia.
That region had been wrested from the Slavs by the
German orders of chivalry, founded at the time of the
Crusades, and had subsequently become an evan¬
gelical duchy, ruled by a junior branch of the house
of Hohenzollern, as a fief of the Kingdom of Poland.
On the extinction of the Ducal line, it had reverted to
the rulers of Brandenburg, and by a timely sale of his
military assistance, first to the Swedes and then to the
Poles, the Great Elector induced both to admit his
unrestricted and unqualified rights of sovereignty in
THE ELECTOR'S DREAMS OF SEA-POWER 53
the duchy. His successor persuaded the Emperor to
agree to his assumption of the kingly title for this
territory, and it is an interesting fact—especially in
view of the last development of the German Empire,
which in its present constitutional form and in much
else is dependent upon Catholic support—that this
elevation was largely brought about by the interven¬
tion of two Jesuit fathers. It was from the Kingdom
of Prussia, which was thus established, and which was
a completely independent State, altogether outside the
competencies of the Holy Roman Empire, that arose
the Hohenzollern ascendancy in Germany, and round
it that the new German Empire crystallized. For this
reason the episode is quite germane to our present
purpose.
The Germans excel as diligent pupils and patient
imitators, and the Great Elector was no exception to
this rule. From his fourteenth to his eighteenth year
he had been educated under the care of Frederick
Henry, the Statthalter of Holland, then the chief Sea-
Power of the world, from whom he had imbibed many
ideas as to the importance of navies, colonies, and sea¬
borne trade. His connection with the Netherlands
was maintained and strengthened by his marriage
with an Orange Princess, the aunt of William III. of
England, and many Dutchmen entered his service.
Among them was an ex-admiral, Gijsels by name, who
assiduously kept alive the dreams of sea-power which
the Elector had brought back with him from Holland.
It was on his prompting that, in 1659, when Frederick
William was embroiled with the Swedes, and found
his operations hampered by the lack of a fleet, an
enquiry as to the possibility of remedying this de¬
ficiency was ordered by the Elector. The investiga¬
tion resulted, for the time being, only in the compilation
of a memorandum as to a " Brandenburg-Imperial
admiralty," and some fruitless attempts to obtain ships
in the Netherlands.
But Gijsels' projects went far beyond a mere fleet.
54 THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
All the world was then discussing the colonizing
activity of the western European States, and Frederick
William's predecessor on the Electoral throne had
conceived abortive plans for founding an East Indian
trading company. What the ex-admiral proposed to
the Elector in 1660 was, that Brandenburg, Austria,
and Spain should combine for the purpose of securing
a colonial ascendancy, which was to be arrived at by
playing off England, France, and Holland against one
another. Negotiations to this end seem actually to
have been commenced, but they broke down over the
jealous suspicions of the diplomatists approached, and
the perpetual turning of the European kaleidoscope.
During the next fifteen years the idea of a Branden¬
burg navy appears to have been allowed to sleep. In
the meantime a very remarkable book had been pub¬
lished, which should be mentioned here because it
contains the essential elements of the programme of
the most modern naval agitation in Germany. The
author was Johann Becher, by profession a chemist,
but in his leisure a political seer of the type of Fried-
rich List, whose great forerunner he was. His work,
" Political Discourse on the Causes of the Rise and
Decline of Towns and Countries," was published in
1667. Becher had travelled much, and he wrote:
" In Germany there is hardly any longer trade or
commerce ; all business is going to ruin ; no money is
to be found with either great or small; on the other
hand look at Holland, how rich she is and how she
grows richer every day; that could not be if she
feared the sea as much as our nation of High Germany."
Becher then addressed to his countrymen the
following impassioned exhortation:
" Up, then, brave German; act so that on the map,
besides New Spain, New France, New England, there
shall in the future be found also New Germany. You
are as little lacking as other nations in the intelligence
and resolution to do such things; yea, you have all
THE BRANDENBURG NAVY FOUNDED 55
that is necessary ; you are soldiers and peasants, alert,
laborious, diligent, and indefatigable."
Becher had held positions at various German
Courts, and it is not improbable that his appeal fell
upon sympathetic ears among the entourage of the
Great Elector. But however that may be, the war
of Denmark and Brandenburg against Sweden, which
broke out in 1675, did actually, for the first time in
history, witness a fleet at the disposal of a member
of the dynasty that now*occupies the imperial throne
in Germany. True, it was not yet the actual property
of the Elector, but of Benjamin Raule, an enterprising
Dutch merchant, who had migrated to Denmark, and
now laid a naval project before the Brandenburg
sovereign. His proposals were readily acceded to,
and he received permission to fit out a flotilla of two
frigates and ten smaller vessels, and to operate with
them under the Brandenburg flag against the Swedes.
The Elector merely stipulated that he should receive
6 per cent, of the value of all prizes captured. Raule's
vessels rendered substantial service in the capture of
Stettin, and of that much-coveted strip of the Pome¬
ranian coast which was so essential to the reali¬
zation of Frederick William's maritime aspirations.
The Elector's hopes were disappointed by the
Treaty of St. Germain, under which he was compelled
to restore this precious booty to the intrusive
Scandinavians, but in the meantime his naval plans
had taken a wider scope in fresh contracts with the
resourceful Dutchman. In the first of these, Raule
undertook, for a monthly subsidy of 5,000 thalers,* to
maintain a fleet of eight frigates and a fire-ship,
mounting altogether 182 guns. Shortly afterwards
the terms of the agreement were extended, and at the
commencement of the year 1680, twenty-eight ships
of war, with a total of 502 guns, were flying the red
eagle of Brandenburg.
* Thaler then = about 4s. 6d.
56 THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
Though robbed by the peace of the coast-line and
seaports on which he had counted as the base of his
maritime power and the recruiting ground for his
fleet, the Elector did not allow himself to be discour¬
aged, and he very soon found fresh work for his little
flotilla to do. The greatest master of German mercen¬
aries at that date, he had, a few years previously,
hired a portion of his army to Spain for use against
the French. As repeated applications for the price of
this support had proved unavailing, he now determined
to collect the debt, which amounted to 1,800,000 thalers,
by forcible distraint.
Accordingly six ships, which were followed at an
interval of some months by three others, were sent
out to attempt to intercept the silver fleet on its way to
the Spanish Netherlands. The vessels were almost
without exception commanded by Dutchmen, but were
mainly manned by Germans, though the crews included
many English, Dutch, Danish and Norwegian sailors.
Naturally the soldiers carried on board were drawn
from the Brandenburg army; and orders were given
that they should be trained in ship's work " because
we are disposed to use the same permanently for the
navy."
Though the flotilla did not fulfil either its immediate
or its ultimate purpose, the expedition was notable for
two reasons. In the first place, a large Spanish war¬
ship, the Carolus Secundus, with a valuable cargo of
lace on board, was captured, and so became the first
war vessel that was actually the property of a Hohen-
zollern State. In the second place, the quest of the
Spanish silver resulted in a sea-fight, which, in respect
both of the force engaged and the losses sustained,
still heads the record of naval warfare under a Hohen-
zollern flag.
A detachment of four ships, cruising in the neigh¬
bourhood of Cape St. Vincent, sighted a fleet of a dozen
Spanish frigates, which had put out for the special
purpose of chasing the Germans from the sea. The
A GERMAN NAVAL DEFEAT 57
Brandenburg commander, thinking that this was the
anxiously-expected silver flotilla, bore down upon it,
and did not realize his mistake till it was too late to
avoid something of a conflict. Before he could succeed
in manoeuvring his ships out of range of his over¬
whelmingly superior enemy, he had lost ten men killed
and thirty wounded; and since that day Germany has
fought no more terrible battle on the sea.
Another section of the Elector's fleet cruised for
several months in West Indian waters without achiev¬
ing much result, while the retaliatory measures adopted
by the Spaniards secured a safe passage for the silver
ships and rendered it prudent for Frederick William to
abandon his daring and risky enterprise.
Meanwhile the Elector had allotted his infant navy a
task of a different character. Soon after entering the
service of Brandenburg, Raule had drawn up plans of
colonization, and in the same year in which the fruitless
search for the silver convoy began, he obtained per¬
mission to try his luck on the Gold Coast, and got
together a syndicate to finance the undertaking. The
Elector was wary, and declined to risk pecuniary
participation, but he ordered that " twenty good
healthy musketeers, together with two non-commis¬
sioned officers," should be placed under Raule's com¬
mand. One of the principal objects of the expedition
was to secure a share in the profitable trade in slaves
which was then carried on between the West Coast
of Africa and North America, but modern German
historians for the most part ignore this feature of the
enterprise.
The two vessels despatched on this errand reached
the Gold Coast in safety, but aroused the resentment
of the Dutch already settled there, who confiscated one
of them, and compelled the other to quit African
waters. However, the leader of the expedition had
by that time managed to conclude what served the
purposes of a treaty with certain native chiefs, who
thereby placed themselves under the suzerainty of the
58 THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
Elector, and consented to the erection of a fort in the
district under their control.
On the strength of this questionable document, an
" African Company " for the " improvement of shipping
and commerce wherein the best prosperity of a country
consists," was called into existence in the year 1682.
In the charter of incorporation, the Elector promised
to protect the Company against "all and everyone
who may undertake to trouble, incommode, or to any
extent injure the same in its actions in free places on
the coasts of Guinea and Angola but both the naval
and the military commanders were charged to keep
at a respectful distance from " all Dutch Company
fortresses, as well as those of other potentates, such
as England, France, Denmark, etc." The capital of the
Company was the modest sum of 50,000 thalers. Of
this Frederick William contributed only 8,000, and the
Electoral Prince 2,000 thalers, while almost half of the
total was supplied by Raule, who had by now become
"Director-General of the Brandenburg Navy."
The two frigates in which the second Gold Coast
expedition shipped cast anchor off Cape Three
Points on December 27, 1682, but some difficulty was
experienced in finding the chiefs who had "signed"
the provisional treaty and who were each to have
received a ratification engrossed in letters of gold,
"a silver-gilt cup, and a portrait of his Electoral High¬
ness." Frederick William had also issued instruc¬
tions that his black allies and their wives were to be
entertained on board the warships.
After a great deal of trouble, some other chieftains
of the " Moors," as they are called in the official corre¬
spondence relating to this matter, were hunted out
and induced to contract a second and definitive treaty;
and on January 1, 1683, with due ceremony and much
beating of drums, blowing of trumpets, and firing of
guns, the Brandenburg flag was hoisted over " the
first German colony." The flagstaff had been planted
on a little eminence, which was subsequently, with all
"ADMIRALTY" AT BERLIN FOUNDED 59
speed, transformed into the fort Gross-Friedrichsburg,
and no doubt the rusty cannon now in the Zeughaus
at Berlin is one of the half-dozen which had been
mounted on the hill on the previous day in preparation
for the great occasion.
In the following year the headquarters of the African
Company was removed from Pillau to Emden. This
latter town was not situated on Brandenburg soil, and
the manner in which the Elector secured a footing in
it is both instructive and characteristic of his easy
methods of intervening and making a good bargain
wherever an opportunity presented itself. It chanced
that at that time the Estates of East Frisia were at
loggerheads with their ruler, and they appealed to
Frederick William for assistance. Nothing loth, he
landed a force by night, and by a surprise attack seized
the castle of Greetsiel, which thus became his naval
base. By an agreement with the town of Emden he
subsequently acquired the right to station within its
walls a "compagnie de marine" for the service of the
African Corporation. This force, which was gradually
increased to three, and temporarily to four, companies,
and ultimately received the name of the " Marine
Battalion," was drawn upon to man both the ships and
the forts in Africa.
The transfer to Emden brought other advantages
besides an ice-free port, a base on the North Sea, and
an abbreviation of the route to Gross-Friedrichsburg
for the East Frisian Estates and the Elector of Cologne
were both persuaded to invest largely in the African
Company in consequence of the change.
In the year of the Emden agreement, the Branden¬
burg Navy was formally founded by the establishment
of an "Admiralty" at Berlin. The Cabinet order by
which this institution was created shows that the fleet
then in full possession of the State comprised 10 ships,
with 240 guns, while Raule was still under contract to
provide 17 further vessels. The permanent personnel
consisted of 1 vice-commodore, 5 naval captains,
6o THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
3 officers of Marines, 12 mates, and 120 seamen. In
1686, the Elector took the Company entirely into his
own hands, and simultaneously acquired a station on
the island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies, as a place
of call for the ships engaged in the slave traffic. He
had also at that time made preparations for forming an
East Indian trading company (at a much earlier date he
had unsuccessfully attempted to acquire Tranquebar,
on the Coromandel Coast, from the Danes) and for
fitting out an expedition to China and Japan. These
schemes, however, came to nothing.
The settlement at Cape Three Points had by no
means an easy existence. Fever made fearful ravages
among the garrison, which, when the first reliefs ar¬
rived, after an interval of nearly a year and three-
quarters, had been reduced by sickness from ninety
to sixteen men. Everything that was needed for the
construction of the fort, even building-stone, had to
be brought thousands of miles across the sea from
Germany. The Dutch traders in the neighbourhood
had at once raised objections to the new colony, and,
as their protests were unheeded, stirred up the natives
against its members. It was only after prolonged
negotiations at The Hague that the Elector secured
a full recognition of his right to the settlement. And
none the less the Dutch West India Company con¬
tinued to harass the German colonists, appropriating
their ships, and turning them out of a couple of sub¬
sidiary fortifications which they had erected at other
points along the coast. Gross-Friedrichsburg and
Taccroma, another of the four Brandenburg stations
on the Guinea littoral, for several years maintained
themselves only by the menace of their guns. These
untoward events are believed to have preyed upon the
mind of the Great Elector, and to have hastened his
end. At the time of his death, in April, 1688, Branden¬
burg and Holland were on the brink of war over the
Gold Coast affair.
His successor on the Electoral throne in one very
FAILURE OF COLONIAL ENTERPRISE 61
important respect reaped what Frederick William had
sown, for he obtained the title of King of Prussia, by
virtue of which, far more than from any specifically
imperial prerogatives, William II. holds his present
power in Germany. Frederick I. was a vain man,
who was more interested in appearances than in
realities, and cared more for the pomp and ceremonies
of Court life than for the solid business of colonization
and slave-trading. As a source of revenue, with which
to defray the cost of his empty extravagances, the
African undertaking was feebly encouraged to con¬
tinue its work; but, deprived of the directing brain
and the stimulating enthusiasm of its founder, it soon
sickened and languished. Accada and Taccarary, the
two settlements which had been seized by the Dutch,
were delivered up after a lengthy squabble, but the
fortifications of the latter had been destroyed, and
they were not rebuilt.
At first the trade of the colony, which had called
into existence a flourishing shipyard at Havelberg,
near the junction of the Havel and the Elbe, was
fairly satisfactory, and the spirit of the Brandenburg
Navy was raised by the successful operations of a
couple of its frigates against French merchantmen,
but in 1697 the Company fell upon evil days. It
suffered pecuniary loss, both through the capture
of some of its ships by the French and through
the peculations of several officials, whose multiple dis¬
honesty hints at a scandalous laxity of control. The
invaluable Raule, too, fell into disfavour, and spent
four years in gaol, though he was reinstated in his
position on being liberated. At last the Company
was no longer able to send out ships of its own, and
for eight years, during the War of the Spanish Succes¬
sion, the garrison of Gross-Friedrichsburg was left
entirely to itself. For a considerable portion of that
time five large Brandenburg ships of war were rotting
in the harbours of Emden and Hamburg, when they
might have been much more profitably employed in
62 THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
attempting to keep up communications with the
perishing colonists. When at last reliefs reached
Gross-Friedrichsburg only seven men out of an original
force of 1,700 were fit for duty.
What little credit attaches to the last days of the
first German colony is the due of Jan Cuny, a native
chief, who had placed himself under Brandenburg
protection, apparently for the purpose of obtaining
support against the English and Dutch settlements
of the vicinity, with both of which he was at feud. It
is characteristic of the period that, while Prussians were
fighting shoulder to shoulder with English and Dutch
on the continent of Europe, they were in open conflict
with them on the West Coast of Africa. Frederick I.
at one time thought it necessary to protest, through
his Minister at London, against the difficulties which
the English were causing him on the Gold Coast.
All the trouble seems to have arisen out of the
demand made by a Dutch official at Axim for the
surrender of a female relative of Cuny whom he
claimed as his slave. Jan was evidently a man of con¬
siderable parts. He led his army with great discretion
and resourcefulness, and no doubt the Prussians
at Gross-Friedrichsburg thought it to their advan¬
tage to be on good terms with so formidable a
warrior, especially as he was the sworn foe of their
jealous European neighbours. At any rate, the relations
between Cuny and the fort became both cordial and
confiding, and when the last Governor of Gross-
Friedrichsburg, Du Bois, discouraged by the indiffer¬
ence and neglect of the home authorities, sailed for
Emden to enter remonstrances, he entrusted the pro¬
tection of the colony to his black ally.
Du Bois arrived in Europe only to find that the doom
of Gross-Friedrichsburg was already irrevocably sealed.
The parsimonious Frederick William I., the father of
Frederick the Great, had ascended the Prussian throne,
and his careful mind, completely absorbed by plans of
immediate economy, was incapable of taking such
SALE OF GERMANY'S FIRST COLONY 63
flights into the distance and the future as were
necessary for the appreciation of the value of colonial
policy. The African settlements had been doing badly
and had become unremunerative, and his only thought
was to dispose of them as speedily as possible for hard
cash, which could be either hoarded or spent on his
solitary extravagance—seven-foot grenadiers. Im¬
mediately after his accession, he instructed his
representative in London that he was prepared to
"transfer his forts on the coast of Guinea to anyone
else upon easy conditions." He was not long in finding
a purchaser in that very Dutch West India Company
which had from the outset been a thorn in the side of
the Great Elector's colonial enterprise. On November
22, 1717, Gross-Friedrichsburg and its dependent
territory passed from Hohenzollern rule for the sum
of 6,000 ducats and twelve negro boys, of whom it
was stipulated that six should be adorned with golden
chains.
The signing of the contract and its execution were,
however, two very different things. The redoubtable
Jan Cuny had not been reckoned with, and when two
Dutch vessels arrived to take over the fort they found
him in possession and flying the Prussian flag. The
order for the transfer of the fort was shown to his
emissaries, who, after a good deal of delay, were sent
on board the ships, but this he flatly refused to recog¬
nize, declaring that he would yield up his trust only to
a vessel belonging to the King of Prussia. The com¬
mander of the Dutch expedition, Captain van der
Hoeven, thought he would make short work of this
insolent chieftain, and landed a body of fifty men to
take the fort by storm. But Cuny once again showed
the generalship which had raised him to the eminence
of a Prussian deputy-governor. A force of 1,800 natives
fusilladed the landing party from an ambuscade and
killed nearly every one of them. Hoeven was only
able to save himself by swimming back to his ship,
with three bullets in his body, and retired to the
64 THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
nearest Dutch settlement to excogitate a fresh plan of
campaign.
Cuny, however, was flushed by his success, and not
at all inclined to give up the prestige which he derived
from a fortress bristling with guns and well furnished
with small arms and ammunition. For seven long
years he held out, repulsing the repeated attacks of the
Dutch, and it was only when his supplies were ex¬
hausted and an overwhelming force had been put into
the field against him, that he withdrew from his
defences and vanished into the jungle from which he
had come.
Simultaneously with Gross-Friedrichsburg, there
was transferred from the Prussian King to the Dutch
Company yet another African Colony, of which mention
has yet to be made. This was the island of Arguin,
which lies off the coast of what is now French territory
to the south of Cape Blanco, and in some maps is given
the ominous name of Agadir. The islet, which was
one of the principal centres of the gum trade, had been
first occupied by the Portuguese in 1441, but had passed
by conquest to Holland, and from the latter to France.
After the Peace of Nymegen, in 1678, however, the
French Senegal Company found itself unable to main¬
tain a garrison in Arguin, and obtained permission from
Louis XIV. to blow up the fort which had been erected
there. The island then fell into the hands of the native
ruler of Arguin, on the mainland, and remained subject
to him till two ships of the Great Elector appeared off
its coasts in October, 1685.
On the strength of a treaty concluded by the com¬
mander of the expedition with the King of Arguin,
Frederick William seems to have claimed jurisdiction
right along the coast of Africa from the Canary Isles
to the Senegal River. These pretensions were not
allowed to pass undisputed, and, towards the end of
1687, a couple of French vessels appeared off the fort
and demanded its evacuation by the Germans. As
this was refused they made an attempt to seize it by
THE LOST COLONIES AND THE FLEET 65
force, but, meeting with a stubborn resistance, aban¬
doned the attack, and, after an unsuccessful endeavour
to assert their rights during the peace negotiations
at Ryswick, the French seemed to reconcile them¬
selves to the new situation, for they even proposed
commercial co-operation with the occupants of the
Arguin fort.
After the death of the Great Elector, Arguin suffered,
like Gross-Friedrichsburg, through the indifference
of his successor, and the difficulty of communication
arising from the War of the Spanish Succession.
When a relief ship arrived in 1714, it found that the
Governor had been captured by the natives, with
whom he had quarrelled; and the remnant of the
Arguin garrison was in so deplorable a condition,
that "in a few days they must have perished of
hunger."
The transfer of Arguin to the Dutch proved as
difficult as that of Gross-Friedrichsburg. In 1717
the French had renewed their claims to the island,
and, a few years later, the Senegal Company, landing
700 men and heavy guns, laid siege to the fort. After
holding out for a few weeks, the commander, Jan
Wynen, a Dutchman, withdrew secretly by night
with his force in order to escape the humiliation
of a formal surrender, and when its new owners
at last arrived to take possession of it the colony
was actually in French hands. It was in both
cases a foreigner who last kept the flag flying over
what were to be the only German colonies established
till the final quarter of the nineteenth century. With
the colonies disappeared the force with which they
had been won, the fleet, and it too had to wait long,
though not quite so long, before it experienced a
revival.
It is interesting to reflect how the history of the
world might have been changed if the Great Elector's
two immediate successors had united to his far-reach¬
ing schemes of "world-policy" his determination in
5
66 THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
carrying them out, and had bequeathed! to the greater
Frederick prosperous colonial possessions and a
formidable navy. As it was, the naval episodes of
the reign of this gifted monarch only show how
pitifully and completely the dawning sea-power of his
grandfather had passed away.
In the Seven Years' War, the shores of Prussia
were continually ravaged by Swedish frigates, and as
nothing could be effected by the armed fishing boats
and coasting vessels which were all that could be
pitted against them, Field-Marshal Lehwald, to whom
the protection of that part of Prussia had been en¬
trusted, appealed for help to the corporation of
merchants at Stettin. That body responded with
energy and promptitude, and, with great haste, a
flotilla of four galliots, four large fishing boats, and
four coasting vessels were transformed into " ships of
war." In August, 1759, this improvised fleet ventured
out of the Oder to attack the Swedes, but it was so
completely overthrown, after several days' fighting,
that the experiment was never repeated.
In the meanwhile Frederick had been inveigled
into another maritime adventure, which was to prove
just as barren of positive results. Early in the
war several Englishmen communicated to the King
their readiness to fit out privateers to prey on the
commerce of Austria and Sweden, both of which
countries had seized Prussian merchantmen. They
protested in all cases that their principal motive was
a desire to serve the cause of a monarch whom they
admired and revered, and who was, as a matter of fact,
at that time the ally of England. But at the same time
they promised him " prodigious profits" from the
enterprise, and it was admittedly the latter considera¬
tion which induced the King to listen to their pro¬
posals. Though his own Ministers expressed strong
doubts, and the English Government urged that he
would run the risk of embroiling himself with neutral
States, he issued a number of letters of marque. The
AN ANGLO-GERMAN DIFFICULTY 67
advice which had been given him proved to have been
only too well founded. Not only were there no
" prodigious profits," but the blunders of the royal
officials and the indiscretions of the ships under his
flag involved the King in voluminous diplomatic
correspondence and long and fruitless litigation.
To accelerate the process of destroying the enemy's
trade, a number of blank letters of marque, ministerially
signed and stamped with the royal seal, were sent out
to the Prussian Minister in London, and he somewhat
imprudently lent a couple of these to an interesting
adventurer, named Erskine Douglas, who said that he
wished to show them to shipowners with whom he
was in treaty for the equipment of privateers.
Douglas claimed to be a relative of the Prussian
Field-Marshal Keith, who was of Scottish origin, and
he brought letters of introduction from well-known
members of the English nobility, so the Minister may
perhaps be excused for entrusting the documents to
him. But his confidence was gravely abused, for
Douglas, having come to an agreement with the firm
of Dunbar and Eyre, filled in the forms on his own
responsibility, and two privateers were sent out with
these fraudulent credentials.
Shortly afterwards, one of these ships, the Lissa,
put into Emden with a rich Swedish prize. Lying in
the harbour was an English man-of-war, and the
captain of this ship, declaring that the English sailors
on board the Lissa were all either deserters or men
who had bound themselves to serve in the British
Navy, required that they should be given up to him.
As compliance was refused, he went on board the Lissa
with an armed escort, and, disregarding all the protests
of its captain, took away with him twenty-six members
of the crew. This action was regarded by Frederick
as an infraction of Prussian rights of sovereignty, and
representations to that effect were made in London
before it was discovered in how irregular a manner
the Lissa had become possessed of her papers. The
68 THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
matter was then discreetly allowed to drop. The
Swedes, for their part, contested the legality of the
capture, but the Prussian Government ruled that the
letter of marque was valid, although it had not actually
been issued by royal authority. At the same time
Prussia advanced the strange view that, in the event of
the owners of the Lissa having had cognizance of the
deception which had been practised, King Frederick
was entitled to the whole value of the prize. Instruc¬
tions were, however, given that the Lissa should be
deprived of her charter, but before they could be
executed she had sailed for England.
Another of Douglas's privateersmen, the Prince
Ferdinand, under a Captain Merryfield, had betaken
herself to the Mediterranean, where, in a nine-months'
cruise, she captured thirteen prizes, but caused so much
confusion that the King thought it wiser to put a stop
to the whole undertaking. The immediate ground for
this step was the complaints of the Ottoman Govern¬
ment, with which Frederick was negotiating with a view
to obtaining its support in the prosecution of the war.
The appropriation of a couple of female negro slaves
belonging to a pasha, who were on board one of the
ships captured by Merryfield, seems to have had at least
as much weight in the Turkish grievance as the more
substantial losses of the merchants of Salonika. As
Prussia had no territory and very little diplomatic
representation on the shores of the Mediterranean,
Merryfield was obliged to take his prizes into neutral
harbours and place them in the custody of the English
Consuls. They were the subjects of endless law suits,
tedious international wrangling, and practically no
profits. Merryfield's wild career was terminated by a
charge of secretly selling neutral goods from one of
his prizes to his own advantage. At the instance of
the Prussian Government he was flung into gaol at
Malta. He remained in prison five years, and even
at the end of that term would not have regained his
liberty if the Grand Master of the Maltese Knights
FRUITLESS POLICY OF PRIVATEERING 69
had not refused to pay for his maintenance any
longer.
Hardly less chequered were the fortunes of Captain
Wake, the only regularly accredited Prussian privateer
of whom anything is known. The operations of his
ship, the Embden, in the Mediterranean also resulted in
ceaseless bickerings, and he was delayed in Cagliari
for two years by disputes of one sort or another. At
last, growing weary, he set off to Berlin to prosecute
his claims to a Swedish ship which he had seized,
but of which the authorities at Cagliari would not
permit him to dispose. Four and a half years after
the capture, she was adjudged his good prize ; but
before he could enter into possession of her she was
sunk at her moorings by a violent storm.
The total gain of the Prussian Government from the
activity of these three privateers was quite negligible;
while, on the other hand, the trouble and annoyance
caused by them was immeasurable. The anticipations
that the seas would be swept of Austrian and Swedish
commerce by a swarm of vessels under the Prussian
flag proved to have been quite illusory, and it was a
particular disappointment to Frederick that the German
shipowners looked askance at the whole business, and
in no single instance applied for letters of marque.
A noteworthy feature of the episode is that Frederick's
Government, reversing the practice of the Hansa, laid
down for its privateers the rule that a neutral flag
covered the enemy's goods, and that neutral goods
were safe from capture even when under the enemy's
flag. This, it is maintained, has ever since been
Prussian tradition.
A final word is due to the "Societe de Commerce
Maritime "—now under the name " Seehandlung," the
State bank of the Kingdom of Prussia—which was
established by Frederick the Great in 1772, "to carry
on shipping under the Prussian flag, and trade with
the ports of Spain and all other places where reason¬
able and certain prospects of substantial profits from
70 THE FIRST HOHENZOLLERN FLEET
imports and exports are to be found." It was vessels
of this corporation which, towards the close of the
first half of the nineteenth century, bore a German
flag for the first time round the world, and its founda¬
tion shows that the Great Elector's ideas were only
dormant and not dead.
Frederick's immediate purpose was to open up the
markets of South America to Silesian linen, but, in
consequence of the rigid protectionist policy of Spain,
it was only possible to do this by transhipment at
Spanish ports. The original capital of the company
was 1,200,000 thalers, in shares of 500 thalers each,
and of these 2,100 were the property of the King. The
Societe was granted the exclusive right of trading in
English, French, and Spanish salt, and in Polish wax,
and was also endowed with many other privileges. It
did not at first prove a very profitable venture, and its
early days were also clouded over by the defalcations
of one of its managers. In course of time it became
little more than a branch of the Royal Treasury and
the negotiator of State loans, but in the thirties of last
century it passed under the control of a man who
determined to restore to it something of its original
character, and laid out a considerable capital in
English-built ships. At that period German mer¬
chantmen seldom ventured beyond Bordeaux and
Lisbon; but the vessels of the Seehandlung re¬
peatedly encircled the globe, showed their flag in the
remotest harbours of Orient and Occident, and estab¬
lished directly that export to South America of the
wares of the Riesengebirge which Frederick the
Great had in his mind when he called the company
into existence.
CHAPTER III
THE GERMAN NAVY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Though the sword of Napoleon completed the destruc¬
tion of the Holy Roman Empire, which had done so
much to hamper the development of the Teutonic race,
the Vienna Congress, rearranging the map of Europe
after his overthrow, left Germany still divided into
thirty-nine different'states. There were four kingdoms,
one electorate, seven grand duchies, ten duchies, ten
principalities, one landgraviate, and the four free
towns—Hamburg, Bremen, Liibeck, and Frankfort-on-
Main. These states were loosely united in the German
Confederacy.
The people of Germany, and especially those who
had risen against Napoleon, had expected a more com¬
plete unity on a democratic basis, and the disappoint¬
ment of their hopes was one of the chief causes of the
revolution which, in 1848, broke out simultaneously in
nearly every one of the federal capitals. This movement
took the Governments by surprise, and so overwhelm¬
ing was the popular demand for unity, that they offered
but little opposition to the convening of a National
Assembly, which met at Frankfort-on-Main on May 18,
1848, and appointed the Austrian Archduke Johann
provisional "Administrator of the Empire." It is
generally asserted that the failure of this serious
attempt to weld Germany together was an inevitable
consequence of the jealousy existing between Austria
and Prussia, but none can say with certainty what the
sequel might not have been, had not Frederick
William IV., the grand-uncle of the present German
71
72 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
Emperor, refused the imperial crown when it was
offered to him by the National Assembly. It is very
well conceivable that, if that monarch had been less
fully persuaded of the divine rights of Kings and of the
incompetence of popular representatives to bestow
crowns, the work which Bismarck did in the next
twenty years, with so grievous an expenditure of blood
and iron, might have been accomplished by peaceable
means, and that the world might to-day have been
confronted with the problem of a much larger, much
richer, and much more united Germany. Possibly those
who would not regard German domination in Europe
as an unmixed blessing have reason to be thankful for
Frederick William's archaic theories on the relation¬
ships of Princes to their peoples.
And those who care to amuse themselves by following-
up the grand alternatives of history must not forget
that 1848 saw the birth of the modern German Fleet,
which was the fruit of a purely popular movement.
Indeed, the patriots of the Frankfort Parliament found
in the "imperial fleet," which they actually founded,
the necessary symbol of that national unity which
was the goal of their aspirations.
Strong, spontaneous, and almost universal as was
the German naval movement of 1848, it did not attain
its actual dimensions without an effective external
stimulus. In the very month in which the revolu¬
tionaries were defending their barricades in the streets
of Berlin and other German capitals, Frederick VII.
had declared his intention of incorporating Schleswig
in Denmark; and, while an informal convention was
arranging the preliminaries for the National Assembly,
the Danish fleet was blockading the coasts of Prussia
in retaliation for the military support afforded by that
Kingdom, as the mandatory of the German Confedera¬
tion, to the rebellious duchies. Nothing was better
calculated than an incident of this sort to bring home
to the German mind the importance of sea-power.
That the ships of a little country like Denmark should
A POPULAR NAVAL MOVEMENT 73
be able, with impunity, to forbid the sea to a great
military Power, seemed to every German who reflected
upon it a grotesque inversion of the natural order of
events.
Though the National Assembly, at one of its first
sittings, appointed a permanent committee to grapple
with the naval question, the impatient interest of the
public displayed itself in schemes and suggestions
which poured in from every side. In many places
committees were formed to help to raise the funds
necessary for the equipment of a fleet. It is signifi¬
cant of the widespread nature of the movement that
the raftsmen of Gernsbach, in the Black Forest, offered
to transport down the River Murg free of cost the
timber required for the building of Germany's war¬
ships. The seaports, which felt most keenly the
insulting pressure of the Danish blockade, took the
leading part in the agitation. A congress of delegates
from the German coast towns came together at
Hamburg and nominated a "naval commission," on
which, in addition to the Governments most imme¬
diately concerned, a number of private committees
were represented. This body wasted no time in talk,
but set to work with feverish activity. As warships
were not to be had ready-made, several merchant
vessels were purchased and hastily armed with guns,
furnished by Hanover; and at the beginning of July,
the Federal Government was notified that these
extemporized men-of-war were ready to put out and
attack the enemy. But at the moment the negotia¬
tions with Denmark for a truce had already begun,
and for the time being the squadron remained
peacefully at its moorings.
Meanwhile, even before an Imperial Executive had
been got together, the Frankfort Parliament had voted
for naval purposes a sum of 6,000,000 thalers,* half of
which was to be spent immediately and the remainder
* Thaler = about 3s.
74 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
as necessity might arise. Part of the money was to be
taken from the fortress fund of the old Confederacy,
and the remainder raised by levies in due proportion
on the various states of the union. The question of
these " matricular contributions," which in some cases
were altogether refused, and in others only paid after
much hesitation and vacillation, was one of the chief
reasons for the ultimate dissolution of the first
"German" Navy.
In November an imperial naval authority was con¬
stituted under the control of the Minister of Com¬
merce, who was at the same time deputy for Bremen.
An advisory commission of experts was also appointed,
and the chair in this body was, at the personal request
of the Archduke-Administrator, taken by the man
who, in one sense, may be regarded as the father of
the present German Fleet, Prince Adalbert of
Prussia, and to whom, for this reason, more detailed
reference must be made hereafter. The commission
submitted a scheme, in which it was recommended
that Germany should, for the present, make no attempt
to gain a place in the ranks of the first-class naval
Powers, but content herself with the protection of her
Baltic and North Sea coasts and her sea-borne trade.
These purposes, it was held, could be fulfilled by a
fleet of fifteen sixty-gun sailing frigates—if possible
with auxiliary engines — five steam frigates, twenty
steam corvettes, ten despatch-boats, five schooners,
and thirty gun-sloops.
During the winter, officials were despatched to
England to purchase and order ships, and to America
to induce the United States Government to allow some
of its naval officers to enter temporarily into the
German service. These latter negotiations at first
promised success, but in the end the Government at
Washington declared itself unable to entertain the
request. With the purchase of material the German
emissaries had better luck, and when the truce with
Denmark expired in the spring of 1849, the Navy List
" THE FIRST GERMAN ADMIRAL" 75
already contained the names of twelve vessels, though,
it is true, hardly one of them was yet fit for action.
A Commander-in-Chief had also been found in the
person of Karl Bromme, a native of Leipzig, whose
name had been permanently anglicized into " Brommy "
while he was learning seafaring in the American
merchant service. This man, " the first German
Admiral," had followed Cochrane to Greece, where
he was successively Flag Captain to Admiral Miaulis,
organizer in the Ministry of Marine, and Commandant
of the Military School at the Piraeus. From there he
was tempted away to become " Imperial Com¬
missioner" to the incipient German Navy, and after
taking part in the sittings of the commission of
experts, he was sent in that capacity to Bremerhaven
to supervise the formation of the fleet and to found
a naval arsenal.
On June 4 Brommy, with a steam frigate and two
steam corvettes, attacked a Danish frigate, which was
lying becalmed off Heligoland. Hardly, however, had
the engagement commenced before a signal shot from
the island warned the belligerents that they were
within British territorial waters, and must suspend
hostilities. Soon afterwards the Danish blockading
squadron approached the scene, and the German ships
hurried back to their harbour. This was the only
opportunity the German Fleet had of showing its
quality. Brommy'- was promoted to Rear-Admiral
later in the year.
Insignificant as the Heligoland skirmish was in
itself, it had a sequel which has played a great part
in all subsequent movements for increasing the German
Fleet. Brommy's ships had fought under the black-red-
and-gold that were to be the colours of the new Empire.
But this Empire had then no legal existence, and, as a
matter of fact, never did have one, and no doubt Pal-
merston was only giving expression to recognized
principles of international law when he wrote that
vessels committing acts of belligerency under the
76 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
black - red - and - gold flag would render themselves
liable to be treated as "pirates." The Frankfort
Government, a product of excitement and inex¬
perience, made many mistakes which the ripe tradi¬
tion of an old-established administration would have
avoided, and, in its haste to assert itself on the seas,
doubtless did not give sufficient thought to the re¬
strictions imposed upon it by its own anomalous
status. The hoisting of the black-red-and-gold on
a flotilla of warships was undeniably a questionable
proceeding, and one which justified the view pro¬
pounded by the British Foreign Minister. At the
same time, his words belong to the category of things
which had better have been left unsaid. The word
" pirate" rankled then, and has ever since continued
to rankle, and the Palmerstonian note has been cited
ten thousand times, and is still cited, as the supreme
example of the tyrannous arrogance with which Britain
rules the waves. Much will have been gained when
British politicians get to understand the German
psychology, which is exceedingly sensitive, and realize
how much depends, in dealing with Germans, on a
careful choice of words.
A fortnight after Brommy's one exploit as a German
naval commander, the remnant of the National Assembly
was dispersed by military force at Stuttgart, where it
had taken refuge, and Germany relapsed into the con¬
dition of a loosely-jointed federation of mutually jealous
and suspicious Princes, whose rival claims had to be
settled on the battlefield before the great work of
unification could be accomplished. The infant navy,
which had been the work of a popular movement and
a popular Parliament, proved a source of dissension
and embarrassment to the Confederacy Governments.
Several of the inland states were altogether opposed
to the idea that Germany needed a navy. A strong
party advocated that one fleet should be provided by
Austria for the Adriatic, a second by Prussia for the
Baltic, and a third by the remaining German states for
AUCTION SALE OF GERMAN WARSHIPS 77
the North Sea. The last point of this project was the
subject of special negotiations, and at one time there
seemed some chance of Hanover assuming the office
of " Federal Admiral."
In the end, however, divergent interests and irre¬
concilable rivalries produced the only possible result,
and, in February, 1852, the Confederated Governments
decided to cut the Gordian knot. The promising Ger¬
man Navy was dissolved, Admiral Brommy received
his discharge (he was subsequently employed for some
time as Chief of the Technical Department of the Aus¬
trian Admiralty), and an Oldenburg official, whose
unforgettable name has helped to brand his memory
with the whole infamy of a transaction for which he
was in nowise responsible, was appointed " Commis¬
sioner of the Germanic Confederation charged with
the regulation of naval affairs." This, at least, is the
designation appended to his signature on the adver¬
tisement which, in the German, English, and French
languages, announced to all the world that the German
Navy was forthwith to be knocked down to the highest
bidder. It is the form rather than the fact of the sale
which is taken so ill in Privy Councillor Hannibal
Fischer, but it is difficult to see what else he could
have done. He made efforts to dispose of the ships
by private treaty, and actually sold some of them to
Prussia and others to English firms, but a residue
remained for which no purchaser could be found in
this way, and there was nothing for it but to put them
up to public auction. There thus came under the
hammer two steam frigates, six steam corvettes, a sail¬
ing frigate, and twenty-seven gunboats propelled by
oars. Of the eight steamers three had been built at
Bristol, and one each at Glasgow, Leith, New York,
Hamburg, and Bremen. Except in the case of the
American vessel, the engines were all of British make.
It must be conceded that the progress which Germany
made in this respect during the next half-century was
nothing less than prodigious.
78 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
Concurrently with the abortive efforts to found a
German Navy, Prussia had taken independent action,
and laid the real foundation of the great fleet which
now aspires to contest the British mastery of the seas.
At that time there was not even the slenderest basis
for the kingdom to work upon. The task had to be
undertaken from the very beginning. During the first
half of the nineteenth century, it is true, the advis¬
ability of building a navy had more than once been
exhaustively discussed by the Prussian Government.
In the general resettlement of 1815, the island of Rugen
and the strip of Pomeranian coast opposite to it had
passed from Sweden to Prussia, and included in the
transfer were six gun-sloops and a Swedish officer,
Captain Christian Lange, who was summoned to Berlin
to report to the War Ministry on the utility of the
little flotilla. As the result of his representations, he
was commissioned to submit plans and estimates for a
war schooner, and for an armed rowing boat for use
on the rivers. These vessels were eventually built,
with the express idea that they were to serve as ex¬
periments and models for the construction of a regular
fleet. In great haste prescriptions as to a naval uniform
were issued, and the questions of dockyards and
harbour works were also deliberated. But the only
issue of all this work was the conviction that the
national resources were not yet equal to the financial
strain which would have been entailed by the creation
of a navy. Similar investigations and discussions in
the years 1825 and 1832 were, for the same reason,
equally fruitless. At the commencement of the revo¬
lutionary year, the only vessels in the possession of
the Prussian Government were a corvette, which was
employed as a Navigation School, a paddle steamer,
which conveyed the mails between Stettin and St.
Petersburg, and which, under the terms of the contract
for its construction, was to be adaptable to the purposes
of an " auxiliary cruiser," and a couple of armed yawls.
By the autumn of 1848 a Prussian flotilla of ten
"THE FATHER OF THE GERMAN NAVY" 79
sloops and yawls, three of which had been built with
the funds collected by private committees, was ready
for operations against the Danes. It was placed under
the command of a Dutch ex-naval captain named
Schroder. The crews provided for him—465 men in all
—were a strange medley of active soldiers, reservists,
and seamen from the merchant service. For various
reasons, not the least weighty of which was the doubt¬
ful status of the black-red-and-gold flag, the squadron
sailed under the Prussian colours. While it was fitting
out, the first steps were taken towards the establish¬
ment of a naval organization and the training of a
corps of officers.
By the following summer the Prussian fleet could
already boast two steamers, one sailing corvette, and
twenty-one gun sloops, with a total complement of
thirty-seven officers and 1,521 men, and mounting in
all sixty-seven guns. But only once did this primitive
navy have the satisfaction of taking part in a pitched
naval engagement. This was a duel between a Prus¬
sian steamer and a Danish brig, which fought for five
hours off the island of Riigen. The encounter was
terminated by the fall of darkness, and before day
broke again another Danish corvette arrived on the
scene and put the Prussians to flight. But, in spite of
a lack of fighting, the presence of Commodore Schro¬
der's force along the coast undoubtedly did much to
relieve the pressure of the blockade.
The peace with Denmark in 1850 ushered in a period
of assiduous and systematic labour at the task of build¬
ing up a Prussian fleet. Throughout this important
period, the moving spirit was the man who has already
been described as the father of the German Navy, Prince
Adalbert of Prussia. This enthusiastic and indefatigable
sailor was a first cousin of King Frederick William IV.,
who refused the imperial crown as a democratic gift,
and of the Emperor William I., who finally won it on
the battlefields of France. In his boyhood, Prince
Adalbert had had the doctrine of the vital importance
8o ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
of sea-power implanted in his mind by a veteran
soldier, Field-Marshal Gneisenau, and he never forgot
the lesson. At the age of twenty-one he paid a visit
of two months' duration to England, where he was
cordially welcomed into naval circles, and where his
passion for the sea was inflamed by the conversation
of men who had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar.
He lost no opportunity of inspecting war vessels,
shipyards, and docks, and returned to Germany with
note-books crammed with information as to all he had
seen and heard. A British admiral is said to have
declared that the Prince knew more about the war¬
ships of Great Britain than many of their own officers,
and one of the last acts of this sailor Hohenzollern
was to pay a visit to the English dockyards to
familiarize himself with the latest novelties in naval
construction.
Four years after his first journey to England, one of
those naval enquiries already alluded to was held at
Berlin, and a commission was appointed to advise as
to the type of vessel to be chosen for the fleet which
the Prussian Government contemplated building at
some indefinite future date. Prince Adalbert was a
member of this body, but when asked for his views on
the subject he satisfied himself with laying before his
colleagues the opinion of his friend, Captain Mingaye,
a British naval officer, who advised that the triumph
of steam over sails and oars presented Prussia with
a splendid opportunity to create sea-power which
should be "mighty" from the outset. Curiously
enough, the War Minister, von Rauch, inferred from
this suggestion that naval construction was passing
through a transition stage of doubtful issue, and it was
used by him as a pretext for postponing the considera¬
tion of the whole question; for, he argued, Prussia
could not afford to squander money on uncertain
experiments. In the succeeding years, the Prince
cruised the Mediterranean in an Austrian ship with
his friend the Archduke Johann, afterwards the Imperial
GERMANY'S NAVAL POLICY 81
Administrator, and made in Sardinian and British
war vessels several longer voyages, during which he
devoted himself with a whole heart to the study of
seamanship and navigation. He also added materially
to his knowledge while on board one of the ships of
the British Mediterranean Squadron, which at the
time was engaged in manoeuvres. On his return home
from these experiences, he secured the appointment
of Schroder to the Navigation School ship Amazon,
always with the idea that the vessel would be the
training - ground of the officers' corps of a future
Prussian Navy. As we have seen, the Prince was
chosen as chairman of the Frankfort advisory com¬
mittee on naval questions. Some months previously
he had addressed to the National Assembly a
" Memorandum as to the Formation of a German
Fleet." This document, which was printed and pub¬
lished, not only is a remarkable testimony to the
author's insight into the true nature of naval problems,
but also contains a clear enunciation of the principles
which guide Germany's naval policy at the present
day. Pointing to the humiliation of the Danish block¬
ade he wrote:
"And this Germany—united Germany—must calmly
submit to, precisely at the great moment when, after
long years, it once more feels itself a whole, a Power
of forty millions of people. But the Fatherland
recognizes the oppressive nature of its situation; it
demands a remedy all the more speedy because, after
these events, it foresees with certainty how much more
painful its position might some day be if it were pitted
against one of the great Sea-Powers, a Power against
which the German ships would not be secure even in
their own harbours, a fleet which could menace our
coasts with debarkations on a much more extensive
scale than is possible to our present foe. United
Germany, however, wishes to see her territories
energetically protected, her flag respected, her trade
once more flourishing, and in the future to have some
influence on the sea."
6
82 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
Prince Adalbert then weighed the three alternatives :
(a) Defensive coast protection; (b) offensive coast pro¬
tection; and (c) an independent German sea-power;
and finally reached the conclusion :
" Germany must either build no battleships or at once
build so many that she can act towards her neighbours
as an independent Sea-Power. Anything intermediate
would be a useless expense, an empty pretension, and
would arouse in the nation expectations which, in the
moment of danger, our sea-power would not be able to
fulfil.
" If we now ask what would be the smallest number
of battleships which would allow us to act in European
waters as an independent fleet, especially against the
ever-ready Russian Baltic fleet, I think we must take
twenty battleships as the minimum that would be able
to measure itself with it. But such a fleet would make
Germany fourth among the Sea-Powers of first rank,
and place her incontestably in a position to play a
great role on the sea, a role which would be worthy of
her position in Europe. For with her twenty battle¬
ships she would be able to throw an enormous weight
into the scales, turn the balance by her adherence to
an alliance, and consequently be as much sought after
as an ally on account of her sea-power as on account
of her land-power."
The Prince accordingly proposed that the German
building programme should include 20 battleships with
auxiliary screws, 10 frigates, 30 steam cruisers, 40 gun¬
boats, and 80 gun-sloops; and that the construction of
these vessels should be spread over a period of ten
years. In this project we have that same principle of
the gradual working up to a fixed standard of strength
which has characterized all modern German naval
legislation. Nor can it be said that Prince Adalbert's
plans were appreciably less ambitious than those of
Admiral Tirpitz.
However, the Prince did not manage to persuade the
Frankfort technical commission to adopt his scheme in
its entirety, though the programme approved went a
SHIPBUILDER'S VISIT TO THE THAMES 83
long way towards meeting his views. Why this pro¬
gramme was never carried out has already been seen.
In the Memorandum just quoted from, Prince Adalbert
had written : " The entire nation unanimously demands
a German war fleet, for German, absolutely German, it
must be, a true representative of the new-born unity
of the Fatherland;" and it must have been with a
heavy heart that he saw his vision melt away, and
went back to Berlin to employ his gifts in a more
restricted and less promising field.
The difficulties which opposed themselves to the
realization of the Prince's ideas will be appreciated,
when it is stated that the man who built the first
warship of any size which had been launched from
a German yard since the days of the Hanseatic League
is still alive. Wilhelm Schwarm, now ninety-four
years of age, was employed as a young man in
Klawitter's shipyard at Dantzic, and at the time when
the air was filled with talk of a future German Navy,
the firm very shrewdly sent him over to the works of
Robinson and Russell, on the Thames, to learn the art
of constructing vessels of larger size than were then
built on the Baltic. He brought back with him the
plans for a paddle corvette, which was built under his
supervision on the Klawitter slips, fitted with English
engines, and, under the name of Dantzig, was an im¬
portant addition to the Prussian fleet.
At the time of the Crimean War this vessel showed
the Prussian flag at Constantinople for the first time in
history, and it was also with her that Prince Adalbert
experienced a rather grotesque adventure in the
Mediterranean in 1856. In the previous year a
German ship had been plundered by the Riff pirates,
and the Prince, happening to be in those parts with
the Dantzig, made a reconnaissance, in one of the ship's
boats, of the coast of Cape Tres Forcas, where the
outrage had occurred. The natives, as was their
custom, fired on the party from the shore. Annoyed
Sv this molestation, Prince Adalbert determined to
84 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
teach the Arabs a severe lesson. Having manned and
armed all his boats, he stormed the steep and rocky
shore and planted the Prussian flag on the summit of
the cliffs. His triumph was, however, a very brief
one, for the enemy immediately returned to the attack,
and drove the landing party back to the boats with
the loss of seven killed and twenty-three wounded.
Official panegyrists extol this rash escapade as an
" heroic deed," and declare that it did much to raise
the confidence of the young Prussian Navy. As the
Riff pirates were no doubt also exultant over their
victory, the affair must have been one of those rare
encounters with the issue of which both sides were
equally satisfied. The Dantzig was sold a few years
later in England, in the belief that her timbers were
unsound, and was then passed on to Japan, where she
was run ashore and burnt by her own crew during an
engagement in the civil war.
The problem of obtaining properly qualified per¬
sonnel for the corps of naval officers was not less
difficult to solve than that of building efficient war¬
ships. England would have been the natural source
on which to draw for instructors, but for political
reasons it was decided not to seek assistance from
that most competent of all quarters, and the services
of three officers of the Swedish Navy were secured.
For similar reasons a Swedish naval constructor was
engaged. A few years later, however, permission was
asked and obtained for a number of cadets to learn
their profession on British men-of-war.
The year 1852 brought an event of the utmost
importance for the development of the Prussian Navy
—the acquisition of Wilhelmshaven as a North Sea
base. At that time Prussia did not possess an inch of
coast-line on the North Sea, and could obtain access to
it only through the Belt and the Sound, then under
the control of the superior naval power of Denmark.
Among the innumerable projects with which the
National Assembly had been deluged, was the schen, „
DEVELOPMENT OF WILHELMSHAVEN 85
of three citizens of Rendsburg for the construction of
a water-way pretty much along the line subsequently
followed by the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. This plan
was, however, based on the false assumption that
Schleswig-Holstein would at once become, and ever
afterwards remain, German territory. It had also
been proposed to the Frankfort Government by an
Oldenburg official that the Jade Bay should be chosen
as the North Sea base for the fleet, and this suggestion
seems to have fixed the attention of Prince Adalbert
on the inlet which is now the chief naval headquarters
of the German Empire. The Grand Duke of Olden¬
burg was approached, and he consented to cede to
Prussia the piece of marshy land which has since been
covered by the harbours, docks, shipyards, workshops,
barracks, and fortifications of Wilhelmshaven. Prussia
paid a sum of 500,000 thalers for this invaluable pos¬
session, and at the same time took upon herself the
protection of the coast and sea-trade of the duchy.
Herculean efforts and inexhaustible patience were
required to adapt Prussia's acquisition on the Jade to
its destined purposes. Years had to be spent in a
careful survey of the bed of the harbour, in order to
ascertain how far the channel was affected by the
movements of sand and mud under the influence of
the tide. Further years were consumed by the task
of sinking piles in the treacherous peaty soil to
obtain a solid foundation for dock and harbour walls.
Frequently a storm or a spring tide destroyed in a few
hours the fruits of months of strenuous labour. As
Hanover refused to allow the construction of a railway
across her territory, which lay between Prussia and
Oldenburg, it was necessary to convey all the building
materials to the spot by the long and tedious sea-route.
At first not even drinking-water was to be had on the
desolate site, and prolonged and costly exertions were
needful before it could be procured in sufficient quanti¬
ties. Sixteen years elapsed before the new harbour
was formerly declared open by the Prussian King,
86 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
afterwards the Emperor William I., in the presence of
British ships, the officers of which probably regarded
the works with indulgent curiosity, and little guessed
the significance which Wilhelmshaven would one day
possess for their own country.
When the second war with Denmark broke out in
1864, Prussia's fleet was still absurdly inadequate to
deal with the naval force opposed to it. The ship
establishment at the close of 1863 was composed as
under:
Steamships with Fighting Value.
3 corvettes, mounting 27 or 28 guns each.
1 corvette, mounting 17 guns.
Steamships with little Fighting Value.
4 first-class gunboats, mounting 3 guns each.
17 second-class gunboats, mounting 2 guns each.
3 despatch-boats, mounting together 8 guns.
Steamship without Fighting Value.
1 corvette, mounting 9 guns.
Sailing Ships with little or no Fighting Value.
3 frigates, mounting a total of 112 guns.
3 brigs, mounting a total of 4 guns.
2 schooners, mounting a total of 4 guns.
Also without Fighting Value.
40 rowing-boats, mounting a total of 76 guns.
Denmark, on the other hand, had 31 steam war
vessels, among which were 1 battleship, 5 frigates,
3 corvettes, and 4 armoured craft. Even with
the assistance of a number of Austrian ships, which
arrived in the North Sea from the Mediterranean,
the Prussian fleet could contribute nothing decisive
towards the issue of the war. At the most it prevented
the Danish blockade of the German coast-line from
being effective. The Prussian Government attempted
to reduce its inferiority by hiring merchant vessels,
and hurriedly purchased warships in France and
ENGLAND AND THE WAR OF 1864 87
England. One of these latter, the monitor Arminius,
which was of English build, was almost entirely paid
for with the voluntary contributions which had con¬
tinued to flow in. This fact shows how steady and
keen the interest of a large section of the population
in the development of the navy already was, and how
erroneous it is to ascribe the naval enthusiasm in
Germany of recent years entirely to the official agita¬
tion. Peace was concluded before the new ships could
be made ready for sea.
The war of 1864 was one of the great cross-roads of
British history. Difficult as it is to " overlook the
cards of Providence," as Bismarck put it, there can be
little doubt that we took the wrong turning. The
great German Chancellor candidly admitted that
the possession of Kiel and a strategic canal through
Holstein were two of the principal objects which
Prussia had in view when she drew the sword. The
two leading members of the British Cabinet were in
favour of backing up Denmark; and one of them,
Palmerston, used language in Parliament which might
well have led that country to count upon our support.
A strong body of English public opinion also warmly
espoused the Danish cause. But Queen Victoria,
largely influenced by the sympathy for Germany
which she had imbibed from the Prince Consort,
threw all the weight of the Crown into the opposite
scale.
There are few more agitated passages to be
found in the records of diplomacy than those letters
to Lord Granville in which she argued, threatened,
entreated, and, finally falling back on the last strength
of woman, her weakness, complained that she was
" completely exhausted by anxiety and suspense," and
" so tired and unwell she can hardty hold up her head
or hold her pen." Her will prevailed in the end, and
she was able to congratulate herself that, " owing to
the determined stand she had made against her two
principal ministers, she had saved the country from an
88 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
unnecessary war." When Prussia, completely revers¬
ing her attitude, made those very claims of the Danish
King which she had contested by force of arms her
pretext for annexing the two duchies under the " rights
of conquest," the Queen suffered a bitter disillusion¬
ment, and, on her instructions General Grey wrote
to Lord Granville, that " Prussia should at least be
made aware of what she and her Government and
every honest man in Europe must think of the gross
and unblushing violation of every assurance and
pledge that she had given which Prussia had been
guilty of." It will hardly be contended now that a
war which should have left Schleswig-Holstein in the
hands of Denmark would have been anything but
exceedingly advantageous, economical, and opportune
for Great Britain.
Even before, in the formal division of the spoils,
Prussia had obtained Austrian recognition of her
right to Kiel, she had occupied that port and trans¬
ferred her naval headquarters thither from Dantzic.
The construction of the North Sea Baltic Canal was
delayed many years, mainly by the opposition of
Count Moltke, who argued that its cost would be so
great that it would, on the whole, be cheaper to build
a second fleet with the money. He further urged that
the canal would be navigable only in the summer, and
that in the event of a war the army would be weakened
by the necessity of providing for its defence. But for
the doubts and jealousies of the sister service, the
German Navy might already be enjoying the benefits
of that prolongation of the Canal, contemplated by
Bismarck, which would have allowed its ironclads to
steam from Kiel to Wilhelmshaven without putting
out into the open sea.
In the hope that the lessons of the war would have
produced the desirable effect on the public mind, the
Prussian Government, in 1865, laid before its Parlia¬
ment a bill that may be considered as the definite
inauguration of the naval policy which Germany has
NAVAL PROGRAMME OF 1865 89
ever since pursued. In the Memorandum submitted
to the House with the measure, it was contended
that the time had come for Prussia to join the ranks
of the Sea-Powers, in order that she might be in a
position to protect her own and the other German
coasts and maritime trade, and, for all future time, to
assert her European position as against such States
as were accessible only by water. " For the present,"
it was stated, " she is unable to enter into rivalry with
the first-class naval Powers, but she must occupy a
position commanding esteem among those of the
second-class."
Accordingly, the Government asked for authority
to build 10 armoured frigates of the highest efficiency,
an equal number of armoured vessels of the cupola
or turret type for coast defence, 16 corvettes for the
protection of sea-borne trade, 6 despatch-boats, and
at least 4 transports. It was calculated that ten years
would be necessary for the execution of this plan,
but rather for the training of the personnel and the
provision of the indispensable harbour works than
for the actual construction of the ships. The cost of
the proposed fleet was estimated at 34,500,000 thalers,
that of its annual maintenance at about 5,000,000 thalers.
In recommending the scheme to the Diet, Bismarck used
the following words, which contain very noteworthy
implications : " During the last twenty years no
question has so unanimously interested public opinion
in Germany as precisely the naval question. We
have seen associations, the press, and the Diets give
expression to their sympathy, and this sympathy
exercised itself in the collection of comparatively im¬
portant sums. The Government and the Conservative
party have been reproached with the slowness and
parsimony with which action has been taken in this
direction. It was particularly the Liberal parties
which carried on this agitation. We believe, there¬
fore, that we are doing you a great pleasure with this
Bill."
90 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
But the Liberal majority, then exclusively pre¬
occupied with the constitutional struggle against the
masterful and autocratic Minister-President, threw
out the Bill, and modified naval estimates were given
the force of law by royal decree. The attitude of
the Prussian Liberals of that epoch was very similar
to that of the Socialists of to-day, and many of those
who now support the latter would undoubtedly
weaken in their hostility to army, navy, and colonial
votes if concessions were made to them in other
directions.
In the brief war of 1866, the Austrian fleet was
tied down to the Mediterranean by the superior sea-
power of Italy, and the operations of the Prussian
ships were confined to a few cheap victories over the
antiquated coast and river fortifications of Hanover.
As the result of the war, Prussia was rounded off
by the incorporation of the Kingdom of Hanover,
Electoral Hesse, Nassau, and the old imperial town
of Frankfort-on-Main. She thus secured for herself
the entire German North Sea littoral, with the excep¬
tion of the coast-line of Oldenburg, which by treaty
was already hers in fact if not in law. Immediately
after the conclusion of peace, all the States to the
north of the Main were closely welded together in
the North German Confederation, the first decisive
step towards the creation of the Empire. An article
in the Federal Constitution ran: "The Federal Navy
is one and indivisible under the command of Prussia.
Its organization and composition fall to His Majesty
the King of Prussia, who nominates the officials and
officers of the navy, and to whom they, as well as
the crews, must take the oath of fealty. Kiel Harbour
and the Jade Harbour are federal war harbours. The
expenses necessary for the establishment and main¬
tenance of the fleet and the institutions connected
therewith will be borne by the Federal Treasury."
Two years later a fresh naval programme was
submitted to, and approved by, the North German
EFFECT OF THE FRENCH WAR
9i
Reichstag. It laid down that within ten years the
fleet should be brought up to the subjoined strength :
8 despatch-boats.
The new vessels actually needed for the attainment
of this establishment were 12 armoured ships, 12 cor¬
vettes, 6 despatch-boats, 2 transports, and 1 school-
ship. As native ship-builders had so far had no
experience in the construction of ironclads, only one
vessel of this type was placed in Germany, the State
yard at Dantzic being experimentally entrusted with
the work, while the rest were purchased or ordered in
England or France. No fact could illustrate more
vividly the tremendous progress which Germany has
since made in this respect.
Oddly enough, the great war with France was
succeeded by a marked cooling-off of the popular
enthusiasm for the navy in Germany. The reasons
for this appear to have been disappointment with
what the fleet actually accomplished and the complete
overthrow of the enemy without its assistance. Even
if all the federal ships had been in perfect trim and
manned by thoroughly trained crews, they were con¬
fronted by so overwhelming a superiority of force that
at best they could have achieved little or nothing. But
the outbreak of hostilities coincided with a series of
accidents which temporarily disabled several of
Germany's best war vessels, and at that time there
was not a single dock in the country in which they
could be repaired. Officers and crews were, too,
imperfectly trained and insufficiently familiar with
both engines and guns, the harbour equipments were
inadequate, and, in fact, everything was in a state of
unpreparedness.
That the French, with their great naval superiority,
effected so little, and did not even make a deter¬
mined attempt to force the Jade and destroy the
16 large and small armoured
ships.
20 corvettes.
3 transports.
22 steam gunboats.
7 school-ships.
92 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
works at Wilhelmshaven, can only be ascribed to their
lack of initiative and the paralyzing operation of their
crushing defeats on land. The only regular engagement
fought at sea during the war was an encounter of
uncertain issue between a small German gunboat and
a French despatch-boat off the coast of Cuba. But in
spite of the odds against the federal fleet, public opinion
in Germany protested that it should have shown more
dash and enterprise, and in some way have crowned
itself with laurels. Even more prejudicial to the popu¬
larity of an ambitious naval policy was the patent fact
that the hereditary and most formidable foe had been
thoroughly and rapidly humbled by a purely land
campaign, and that his superiority on the sea had
availed him practically nothing. To such considerations
must be attributed a large share of the indifference
with which many Germans regarded their navy during
the next thirty years.
The prevalent views were reflected in the Memo¬
randum with which, in 1872, the Minister of Marine,
Lieutenant-General von Stosch, ushered in the first
naval programme of the new German Empire. This
document stated that in a long war Germany must
leave the offensive to her land force, and that the proper
task of her navy was to assert the power of the Empire
where smaller interests were at stake in places to
which the army could not penetrate. An increase in
the fleet was, however, stated to be necessary on the
ground of the growth of German sea-borne trade, and
it was proposed that the following vessels should be
available by the year 1882 :
8 armoured frigates.
6 armoured corvettes.
7 armoured monitors.
2 armoured batteries.
20 cruisers.
6 despatch-boats.
18 gun-boats.
28 torpedo-boats.
5 school-ships.
The cost of these vessels was estimated at 73,000,000
thalers, that of their maintenance in the year 1882 at
1,300,000 thalers. The plan, which was much more
THE FIRST ROYAL REVIEW
modest in its pretensions than its predecessors, and in
principle constituted a retirement from the position
formerly taken up, was approved by the first Parlia¬
ment of the new Germany.
The first royal review of the German Fleet took place
in the Warnemiinde roads in 1875. The ships present
were four ironclads, a despatch-boat, and four school-
ships ; their total complements 2,862 officers and men.
When the year 1883 arrived, General von Stosch
published a Memorandum on the execution of his
plan. It is significant of the change that had come
over public opinion that the Government had not
dared to ask the Reichstag for a substitute for the
armoured frigate Grosser Kurfiirst, which was lost in
collision off Folkestone, and that consequently one of
the eight vessels of her type was lacking. The last of
the six armoured corvettes had yet to be built, and
instead of five monitors thirteen armoured gunboats
had been constructed, because it was thought that the
latter class of ship was better suited for the defence of
the Jade, Weser, and Elbe. It had been decided not
to build the floating batteries, which would have been
an easy prey to the fish torpedo, introduced as a weapon
of naval warfare since they were projected. One out
of the twenty corvettes, and eight large and nine small
torpedo craft were also still wanting. German national
vanity had, however, scored a questionable triumph :
the Empire was now entirely independent of foreigners
so far as its warships were concerned. But if Germany
had continued to purchase some of her warships in
England while she was still but a tyro in the art of
naval architecture, she would have saved much money,
and have reached her present efficiency even more
rapidly than has been the case.
General von Stosch simultaneously presented another
Memorandum, dealing with the future development of
the navy. In it he laid stress on the reasons which
could be adduced againstthe principle hitherto followed,
and since readopted, of fixing the building programme
94 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
in advance for a longer period, and advised that it was
inexpedient to look farther ahead than three or four
years. While admitting that " the seas are ever more
ceasing to separate the nations," and that " the course
of history seems ever more to indicate that a State
cannot withdraw from the sea if it is striving to main¬
tain for itself a position in the world beyond the
immediate future," he laid down the axiom that " naval
battles alone seldom decide the destinies of States, and
for immeasurable time the decision of every war will
for Germany lie with her land army." Thus, though
he admitted the desirability of "a concentrated high
sea fleet always ready for action," he considered it
best to defer the construction of battleships till further
experience had shown whether their functions could
not be equally well performed by vessels of a smaller
type. The conclusion reached by the Memorandum
was that it was necessary to add without delay to only
one class of vessel—namely, that which served the
purposes of coast defence. In this connection the
following words were used :
" Here it is the torpedo-boat, which, especially when
used in large numbers at night, will render the carry¬
ing through of a blockade almost impossible. Every
night the blockading ships would be compelled to
withdraw to a distance under steam. Their coal con¬
sumption would thereby be much increased, the tension
of the crews, in consequence of the need for unremitting
vigilance, would become intolerable, and at night the
blockaded harbours would be accessible. Even when
in motion, the blockading ships would not be safe at
night. The torpedo-boats would follow them and
recognize their aim by the lights which the enemy
would not be able to do without when steaming in
squadron formation. The torpedo-boat is a weapon
which is of special advantage to the weaker on the sea.
A few States already possess a considerable strength
in torpedo craft. For the German Navy 150 torpedo-
boats are considered necessary, and of these thirty-five
will be ready for service shortly."
ACCESSION OF WILLIAM II. IN 1888 95
It was while the German Fleet was still impotent
for all serious purposes that the Empire acquired the
mass of its colonies: South-West Africa, Togo, the
Cameroons, German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archi¬
pelago, and the Marshall Islands were all annexed in
1884. The decisive step towards the acquisition of
German East Africa was taken in the following year.
The political and commercial value of these possessions
will be considered in a later chapter.
William I. lived just long enough to lay the founda¬
tion-stone of the Kiel Canal, which had been one of
the dreams of the Frankfort patriots forty years
earlier. His death was followed after an interval of
three months by that of Frederick I., and with the
accession of William II., in 1888, the latest era of
German naval policy may be said to have commenced.
Until, however, Admiral Tirpitz was put in charge of
the Ministry of Marine, in 1897, practically nothing
was done to add to the fighting strength of the fleet.
Any progress which was made in connection with the
navy was confined to developments of organization,
and to the exchange of German rights in Zanzibar and
Witu for the islet of Heligoland. This transaction
was scoffed at by Bismarck, then in retirement, who,
however, only contemplated the possibility of a naval
war with France, and it was bitterly resented by
German public opinion, and especially by that heated
section of it which poses as the pioneer on the paths of
militarism, navalism, and colonism. Only during the
last three or four years has the conviction gradually
begun to gain ground, that perhaps, after all, Germany
did not make such a bad bargain, and Heligoland has
simultaneously taken an ever more and more promi¬
nent place in the speculations of political prophets as
to the probable outcome of an Anglo-German war.
The keen interest of the Emperor William, and his
ambition to play the leading part on the stage of the
world, would not, in themselves, have sufficed to bring
about the change which has been wrought during the
96 ITS NAVY IN THE LAST CENTURY
past fifteen years. The decisive personal factors here
have been the fixed purpose, the steady will, the un¬
flagging energy, the inexhaustible patience, the pro¬
found political insight, and the rare diplomatic skill of
Admiral Tirpitz, the nearest approach to a really
great man that Germany has produced since Bismarck.
He is the true creator of the German fleet that is and
is to be.
CHAPTER IV
BRITISH INFLUENCE ON THE GERMAN NAVY
In a very special sense the German Navy is the child
of the British Navy, which is the mother of all the
great naval forces of the world to-day. From the very
first it has been no secret that the German Fleet has
been definitely planned on the model furnished by the
many centuries' development of the British Navy, and
the Emperor William has been one of the principal
agencies through which this formative influence has
been exerted in more recent years.* He came to the
throne at a moment when naval sentiment in Germany
was at its lowest point, and he assisted in the initial
revival which occurred before Grand Admiral von
Tirpitz came on the scene.
Old residents of Portsmouth still remember a boy
whom they occasionally saw walking about the dock¬
yard looking at the ships with admiration and rapt
attention. His greatest delight seemed to be to watch
the great ironclads moving in and out of Spithead.
Sometimes he would find his way on board vessels ot
the Royal Navy. This lad was none other than the
present German Emperor. As a grandson of Queen
Victoria, he was a frequent visitor in his boyhood and
early manhood to his grandmother during the summer
months when she was in residence at Osborne, and
on one occasion his father and mother, then Crown
Prince and Princess of Germany, rented Norris Castle,
on the outskirts of Cowes, and lived there for several
months with their children. Prince William, who was
* Cf. also p. 80.
97 7
98 BRITISH INFLUENCE ON THE NAVY
a great favourite of the late Queen, thus not only be¬
came an eager spectator of the naval pageants in
the Solent directly under the windows of Osborne
House and Norris Castle, but watched with interest
the gay assemblage in Cowes roadstead for the regatta
from year to year.
At this time the newly-created German Empire
had practically no fleet. During the Franco-Prussian
War the few ships which flew the flag of the North
German Confederation were so weak that they could
take no part in the conflict. The memory of these
recent events was still fresh in the mind of the future
Emperor when he visited England and watched the
activities of the British Navy, whose far-flung
squadrons performed the double task of protecting
the Motherland from fear of invasion, and safeguard¬
ing all her oversea possessions. He determined that
he, too, would have a great fleet when he succeeded
to the throne of the German Empire.
This is no imaginary picture of the ideas which were
taking root in the mind of the ruler of the German
Empire to-day. Years afterwards—in fact, in 1904—
addressing King Edward, on the oecasion of His
Majesty's visit to the Kiel Regatta, the Emperor paid
a tribute to the power and traditions of the British
Navy, with which, he added, he became acquainted as
a youth during visits which he paid to England. He
recalled that he had had many a sail in the Dolphin
and Alberta, old British yachts, and had seen mighty
ironclads constructed which had since served their time
and disappeared from the Navy List. " When I came
to the throne I attempted to reproduce on a scale
commensurate with the resources and interests of my
own country that which had made such a deep im¬
pression on my mind when I saw it as a young man
in England."
When he first advocated the construction of a big
navy, the German people viewed his dreams with
indifference and distrust. Shackled by a system ol
THE EMPEROR'S FRUITLESS EFFORTS 99
conscription in order to provide the Empire with its
huge army, they asked what it would profit them if to
the burden of a great army they added the vast expense
of a fleet capable not merely of defending their coasts,
but of operating on the offensive in distant seas. At
first the Emperor made little progress in educating
public opinion; but he still nursed those dreams of
sea-power—very moderate dreams at this date, before
Admiral von Tirpitz came on the scene—which had
first taken shape in his mind when he wandered about
Portsmouth Dockyard, and viewed from the grounds
of Osborne House the coming and going of mighty
British warships. In the early days of the present
century he referred with some pride to the persistency
with which he had pursued his aims in spite of popular
disfavour. At the launch of the Kaiser Karl der Grosse
he said : " If the increase in the navy which I had
demanded with urgent prayers had not been consis¬
tently refused me during the first eight years of my
reign—I did not even escape derision and mocking at
the time—in how different a manner should we now
be able to promote our prosperous commerce and our
interests overseas !" He had to wait for many years
before he saw his dreams reaching fruition.
As the British Parliament is the mother of all
popular representative institutions, so the British
Navy is the mother of navies. If the records of most
of the great fleets of the world are searched, it will be
found that in greater or less degree they owe their
birth to the more or less direct assistance of British
naval officers, ofttimes acting with the direct authority
of the British Admiralty; while in almost every fleet in
the world even to-day may be found ships designed by
British brains and constructed of British material by
the skilled craftsmen of these islands. It was to
England that Peter the Great came to watch the ship¬
building on the Thames, and it was with a large body
of British mechanics that he returned to Russia to
create a fleet with which to defend his empire and ex-
ioo BRITISH INFLUENCE ON THE NAVY
tend its borders at the point of the gun. The prestige
of the Russian Navy in the seventeenth century was
due entirely to the skill and daring of Scotsmen. The
Greigs of four generations, Admiral Elphinstone,
Lord DufFus Gordon, and a number of other Scotsmen
entered the Navy of the Czar and did splendid service;
and some of the descendants of these pioneers of the
Russian Navy may still be traced in the fleet of to-day.
The American Navy was, of course, of distinctly
British origin; so were the fleets of many of the South
American Republics; while, as everybody knows, the
seeds of the sea-power of Japan were sown by British
naval officers, including first and foremost Admiral
Sir Archibald Douglas, and her ships were mainly built
in England. The excellence to which the Chinese Navy
once attained was also due to British instruction under
another Scotsman, Admiral Lang; and one of the prin¬
cipal shipyards of Italy, as well as her gun factory, is of
British origin, and is still linked with its British parent.
In the case of the modern German Fleet the British
Admiralty had little part in its upbuilding, but British
naval power fired the imagination of the Emperor,
and it was a kindly present made years before by King
William IV. to the then King of Prussia which first
directed his Majesty's thoughts towards the sea.
When the present Emperor was a boy, one of his
favourite recreations was to sail a beautiful model of
about 20 tons of a British frigate on the Havel lakes near
Potsdam. This little ship, of excellent workmanship,
was sent as a present to the then ruler of Prussia early
in the last century by our sailor King, and was a never-
failing source of pleasure to the present German
Emperor as a youth. From his earliest years at home
and in England the tuture ruler's aspirations were
always towards the sea, and we can now see that his
dreams of later years, which have taken such tangible
shape, were largely due to these vivid impressions
of sea-power which he obtained during his visits to
England, and which reached their climax in 1889, when
AS AN ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET 101
Queen Victoria, on the occasion of his visit to the
Cowes Regatta, conferred on him the, then, unique
rank of Admiral of the Fleet.
Though other foreign Princes and monarchs have
since been made honorary officers of the British Navy,
the German Emperor remained for some years the
only person of foreign birth holding supreme rank.
The commission conferred upon the Kaiser was of
course purely honorary, but his Majesty has never con¬
cealed the pride with which he dons the British uniform
with its deep gold cuffs and cocked hat, and he can claim
that he is the only ruler of a foreign State who has
ever commanded the British Navy in modern times.
Great Britain has boasted of her "splendid isolation,"
and the German Emperor's is the only alien hand
which has controlled any of her fleets. In times gone
by a British squadron was placed under the orders
of Peter the Great. This incident occurred during
the Czar's operations against Sweden, when he
received the assistance of a squadron from these
islands and hoisted his flag in command of the allied
forces. Between that date and the year when the
German Emperor became an Admiral of the Fleet
the British Navy maintained its absolute indepen¬
dence. But soon after receiving the honorary rank
from Queen Victoria, the Emperor seized the oppor¬
tunity to emulate the example of Peter the Great,
and he afterwards confessed in a speech he delivered
on board the British battleship, Royal Sovereign,
that the incident had left an indelible impression
upon his mind. "One of the best days of my life,"
he remarked, " which I shall never forget as long as
I live, was the day when I inspected the Mediter¬
ranean Fleet when I was on board the Dreadnought *
and my flag was hoisted for the first time."
The Emperor at this time was making a cruise in the
Mediterranean, and visited the Piraeus to attend the
* This ship was, of course, the predecessor of the present Dread-
71 ought.
102 BRITISH INFLUENCE ON THE NAVY
wedding of his sister to the present King of Greece.
Sir Anthony Hoskins, who was then only a Vice-
Admiral, was in command of the British Fleet which
had assembled in honour of the royal marriage. The
German Emperor decided that in his new role as a
British officer he would exercise command, and con¬
sequently the emblem of an Admiral of the Fleet,
which consists of the Union flag, was broken at the
main on board the old battleship Dreadnought, and
Sir Anthony Hoskins, being a junior officer, was forth¬
with relieved of the control of the British men-of-war,
and nominally, though not of course actually, the
German Emperor, during the time that his flag was
flown, was in command of the greatest of all the
fighting squadrons of the British Empire.
On a subsequent occasion, at Malta, His Majesty
again visited the British Fleet. Arriving at this great
naval base he announced that on the following day he
would inspect one of the men-of-war. Accordingly,
he proceeded on board, and his flag was forthwith
hoisted. It was thought that His Majesty would
formally walk round the decks and then take some
light refreshments and return to his yacht. This was
not the case, however. No sooner did the Emperor
reach the quarter-deck, where he was received with
naval honours by all the officers, than he took off his
coat and intimated that he was ready to go over the
ship. His Majesty went everywhere, from the turrets
to the engine and boiler-rooms, and kept the Captain
fully occupied in answering a multitude of questions
as to the design and equipment of the vessel. With
all the impetuosity of his nature he dived into every
hole and corner and saw everything, and the Captain
was kept so busy that he forgot his duty as host and
the wines he had laid in for the occasion. At last the
inspection ended, the questions ceased, and His Majesty
prepared, after complimenting the Captain on the smart¬
ness of his ship, to go down the companion ladder to
his launch. As he did so, he turned to this command-
IMPERIAL VISITS TO BRITISH SHIPS 103
ing officer and said: " Yours must be the longest ship in
the British Navy." "I think not, your Majesty," re¬
plied the Captain, "it's only 420 feet long." " Oh, you
surely are mistaken," added the Emperor, and then
the Captain remembered the naval slang as to " long-
ships in the navy"—namely, those with long intervals
between refreshments. He forthwith apologized pro¬
fusely for the oversight, and implored the Emperor to
return to the cabin. His Majesty would not, however,
do so, but added : "January 27 is my birthday, and my
orders are that on that day you entertain all your
brother captains to dinner and drink my health." He
then left, pleased at the result of the incident.
When the day arrived, the dinner was duly held,
and the guests enjoyed themselves immensely. During
the evening they despatched the following message
to the Emperor : " The orders of our Admiral of the
Fleet have been carried out, and we have drunk your
Majesty's good health. But there is one point on
which we cannot agree with your Majesty, and that is
as to the length of H.M.S. ." From this the
Emperor, who is familiar with the language of the
navy, was able subsequently to infer that on that
evening there had been no lack of hospitality.
On many occasions the Emperor has visited British
men-of-war in virtue of his commission as Admiral
of the Fleet, and no visitor has been more welcome.
His Majesty has always been very popular among
British officers, and by many little incidents, charac¬
teristic of a ruler who has much of the sailor's roving
nature and love of good fellowship, he has endeared
himself to the men of the British Fleet. More than
once, when yachting in Norwegian waters, he has
fallen in with a cadets' training ship and entertained
the future officers in the most delightful manner,
throwing aside all that majesty which hedges round
a King, and had made his young guests anticipate the
meeting with some amount of dread. During his suc¬
cession of summer visits to Cowes Regatta in the early
io4 BRITISH INFLUENCE ON THE NAVY
years of his reign, he never lost an opportunity of further
cementing his friendship with the British service.
After the lapse of many years during which the
progress of the German Navy has become ever more
and more the preoccupation of the British people, it is
difficult to realize that when the movement for naval
expansion on the other side of the North Sea first
began to take shape it was regarded with sympathy
by the British nation, and the German Emperor,
wearing his uniform as an honorary British officer,
was, of all monarchs, the most popular in this country.
The two countries were on terms of growing cordiality
when the Emperor succeeded his father in 1888. The
absence of any reference by the new Emperor in his
proclamation either to England or to France caused
momentary anxiety, but that feeling quickly passed
away, and in the following summer the new Emperor
was the central figure in the great naval pageant at
Spithead.
For the first time in the history of the British Fleet
naval manoeuvres had been held in 1885, and in the year
after William II.'s accession the young ruler witnessed
the greatest display of British sea-power which had ever
been organized. The assembly of 1889 far exceeded in
numbers and in the suggestion of power the Naval
Review which had marked the celebration of Queen
Victoria's Jubilee. It was the most powerful fleet ever
brought together in time of peace. The Naval Defence
Act, the culmination of a long and vigorous agita¬
tion, had been passed in the spring, and it was
thought appropriate to mobilize the fleet as a demon¬
stration in the eyes of the world. The German
Emperor determined to visit this country for the
special purpose of joining in this festival of British
sea - power. In those days the act of mobiliza¬
tion occupied considerable time; though the ships
in reserve were manned in the middle of July it
was not until August 1 that the fleet assembled at
Spithead. It included 20 battleships, 6 coast defence
THE REVIEW AT SPITFIEAD IN 1889 105
vessels, 29 cruisers, 3 gun vessels, 14 gunboats, and
38 torpedo boats. The great anchorage presented a
brave appearance when, on the following day, the
Emperor arrived, escorted by a squadron of his
small navy. This force consisted of the battleships
Friedrich der Grosse, P reus sen, Deutschland, Kaiser,
Sachsen, Baden, and Oldenburg, together with the
despatch vessels Zieten and Wacht; while the training
ship for German naval cadets, the Niobe, was also
present, together with the corvette Irene, commanded
by the Emperor's brother. The German Emperor
and his ships received an enthusiastic welcome as he
passed through the English Fleet on board his yacht,
the Hohenzollem. The spectacle was one of the most
brilliant and imposing ever witnessed in waters which
had often been the scene of naval displays. On the
following Monday, when the Prince of Wales, repre¬
senting Queen Victoria, inspected the ships, His Royal
Highness was accompanied by His Majesty, to whom,
subsequently, all the principal officers were presented
on board the Victoria and Albert. Early on the
following day the fleet proceeded to sea, steaming
past the German Emperor, who watched the evolution
from the deck of the Osborne, moored in Sandown Bay.
Thus did the new ruler of Germany, on whom
Queen Victoria had just conferred the honorary rank
of Admiral of the Fleet in the British service, gain a
unique knowledge of the size and efficiency ot
the British Navy normally maintained on a peace
footing in home waters. The contrast in organization
and in administration between the British Navy and
the German Army can hardly have failed to impress
the young Emperor, who had devoted himself with
unremitting persistency to the study of the military
machine of his own country. Looking back with the
knowledge which we now possess of the rapidity with
which a navy can be raised from a peace footing to a
war footing as exemplified by the modern German
Navy, we can imagine the impression which the
106 BRITISH INFLUENCE ON THE NAVY
British mobilization made upon His Majesty. And
then, when the time came for the ships to pass out of
the anchorage into the channel, the delays and confusion
which occurred must have suggested to the young
ruler, familiar with the standard of efficiency attained
by the German Army, that something was lacking.
A contemporary account of this evolution records
that—" It was at half - past three in the morning
that the fleet began to unmoor preparatory to pro¬
ceeding to sea, but it was not until nearly eleven that
Sir George Tryon—the Admiral in supreme command
—was able to give the signal for his squadron to weigh
anchor. Nearly all the delay was caused by trouble
and mishaps connected with the anchoring gear of
various ships. There is no part of the equipment
of a man-of-war which requires more management
and experience in handling than the ground tackle.
Every vessel has peculiarities of her own in this
respect, therefore it is due, probably, to the crews being
in most cases quite strange to their ships, and to the
officers not yet having got the hang of things, that so
many shortcomings were made apparent. Soon after
ten o'clock Admiral Baird, in command of the other
section of the fleet, got impatient of further delay, for
it was manifest that if he did not start speedily another
review might have to be postponed. So he signalled the
ships of his squadron to proceed to sea as soon as ready,
and shortly afterwards they began filing out eastward
in a long single line. But some ships could not obey the
order; and amongst these were the Anson, Collingwood,
and Inflexible still engaged in getting up their anchors."
This same writer concluded his account of the
spectacle with the remark that "A grander, a more
magnificent demonstration of England's Fleet it would
indeed be difficult to imagine." But behind the
seeming of things there stood revealed an organization
which, though it had recently been greatly improved,
still left much to be desired in rapid and efficient
action. Moreover, at this time even in the Channel
" GUNNERY LITTLE ATTENDED TO" 107
fleet, which then consisted of five ships, and was the
only fully commissioned force in home waters, the main
purpose of sea-power, to shoot straight, was certainly
not kept in view. In his interesting book of remin¬
iscences, " The Navy as I have Known It," Admiral the
Hon. Sir Edmund Fremantle, describing the conditions
which existed in the Jubilee year, records: "We had
large crews and, as all the ships were masted, there
was a fair amount of sail drill, while I fear gunnery
was little attended to."
There is no record of the impressions which the
German Emperor carried home with him from Spit-
head, but it is more than probable that, while his
Majesty was impressed by the great display of ships
and men, he was not less impressed by the failure to
utilize these resources to the best possible advantage.
The British Navy was living on its past achieve¬
ments. Though it possessed a mass of material and a
large personnel, neither was well organized for war.
The available resources exceeded anything belonging
to any other nation, but the fleet still basked, content,
in the glow of the triumphs achieved in the early years
of the nineteenth century. The navy was unreformed.
Steam had taken the place of sails, wood had been
superseded, first by iron and then by steel, but the
routine of the squadrons, the training of officers and
men had undergone little change. The conditions of
naval warfare had altered, but the British Fleet
remained faithful to the old regime, holding fast to
the belief that when war occurred there would be a
sufficient interval to allow it to complete its arrange¬
ments, elaborate its plans and place all its resources on
a war footing. As the British Navy in its influence
on world policy inspired German ambitions, so German
thoroughness in organization, when applied to the
growing German Fleet, reacted upon the British Navy
and gave it a new and vigorous life.*
?s In the preparation of this chapter use has been made, with the
permission of the editor of the Nineteenth Century, of an article
entitled "The Kaiser's Dreams of Sea-Power."
CHAPTER V
THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
Among the political developments of the last quarter
of a century there is none more remarkable than the
evolution of German naval ambitions as revealed in
the legislation which has been passed since 1898.
One of the first acts after the Emperor ascended the
throne was the reorganization of the central Navy
administration, which had hitherto been presided over
by a general officer of the army. This fact in itself
indicates the subordinate position which the navy had
hitherto occupied in the defensive machinery of the
German Empire. The fleet itself was of extremely
modest proportions. It consisted only of a few small
battleships of heavy gun-power, but limited radius of
action, whose role was the defence of the coasts of
Germany, and more particularly the Baltic littoral,
for at this period few men-of-war under any flag
cruised in the North Sea. The spearhead of the
British Navy was exposed in the Mediterranean,
where the latest and most powerful ships were sta¬
tioned, and the small Channel fleet spent most of its
time not in the Channel, but ringing the changes on
Vigo and other Spanish ports—Lisbon, Lagos, Gib¬
raltar, Madeira, and Port Mahon. This squadron
consisted of five obsolescent ships, and the only
British vessels permanently in home waters — so
complete was the domination of the situation in
southern waters—were a number of port and coast¬
guard ships, half manned and distributed round the
coast, and the unmanned vessels in reserve in the
108
REDUCTION OF GERMAN ESTIMATES 109
dockyards. The distribution of the French Fleet was
on much the same lines, the majority of the modern
ships being concentrated in the Mediterranean, while
a small force was based upon Brest. Russia alone
was represented in northern waters, and it was con¬
sequently in the Baltic that the German Fleet, such
as it was, was trained and drilled. Except for a few
gunboats, the German naval ensign was entirely
unrepresented in distant seas, and public opinion
showed no desire to increase the naval votes in order
to enable German influence to be exercised beyond
home waters.
After the Emperor's accession to the throne in
June, 1888, and after the reorganization of naval ad¬
ministration, an effort was made to obtain an increased
grant from the Reichstag, but only with partial
success. From 1874 to 1889-90 the naval expenditure
had increased gradually from £1,950,000 to about
£2,750,000. In 1890-91 the Estimates had advanced
to nearly £3,600,000, and in the following year they
rose still further to £4,750,000, and then they began
to fall once more under the pressure of the Reichstag,
which viewed with no sympathy the new naval am¬
bitions which were finding expression in the Press.
During these years the Reichstag repeatedly reduced
the votes put forward by Admiral von Hollmann, the
Minister of Marine. Throughout his period of office,
from 1890 to 1897, he failed signally to inoculate the
Parliamentary majority with the new ideas and the
new enthusiasm which dominated the Marineamt;
and at last in 1897, after being repulsed, first by the
Budget Committee and then by the Reichstag itself,
the Marine Minister, whose ambitions were really
extremely modest, retired from the scene compelled to
admit defeat. He was a sailor and neither a statesman
nor an administrator, and his blunt methods were not
to the liking of the politicians. No surprise conse¬
quently was felt when three months after this final
humiliation the Admiral resigned his office. One of
iio THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
the pioneers of German sea-power, Admiral von Holl-
man began, under the inspiration of the Emperor, the
naval movement which, a few years later, under the
impulse that the Boer War imparted to public opinion,
and with the help of an elaborate Press Bureau, was
carried to such lengths by his successor.
On the resignation of Admiral von Hollman, the
Emperor appointed as Naval Secretary a comparatively
unknown naval officer named Tirpitz. Born on March 19,
1849, at Ciistrin, and the son of a judge, Alfred Tir¬
pitz became a naval cadet in 1865, and was afterwards
at the Naval Academy from 1874 to 1876. He subse¬
quently devoted much attention to the torpedo branch
of the service, and was mainly responsible for the
torpedo organization and the tactical use of torpedoes
in the German Navy—a work which British officers
regard with admiration. Subsequently he became
Inspector of Torpedo Service, and was the first Flotilla
Chief of the Torpedo Flotillas. Later he was ap¬
pointed Chief of the Staff of the naval station in the
Baltic and of the Supreme Command of the German
Fleet. During these earlier years of his sea career
Admiral Tirpitz made several long voyages. He is
regarded as an eminent tactician, and is the author of
the rules for German naval tactics as now in use in
the Navy. In 1895 he was promoted to the rank of
Rear-Admiral, and became Vice-Admiral in 1899.
During 1896 and 1897 he commanded the cruiser
squadron in East Asia, and was appointed Secretary
of State of the Imperial Navy Office in January, 1897.
In the following year he was made a Minister of
State, and in 1901 received the hereditary rank of
nobility, entitling him to the use of the prefix " Von"
before his name.
With the advent of this officer as Marine Minister,
German Naval affairs at once underwent a change.
His predecessor, who entertained very modest theories
as to the size of the fleet which Germany should
possess, had attempted to browbeat the politicians,
ADVENT OF ADMIRAL VON TIRPITZ iii
thumping the table in irritation when he could not get
his way. The new Minister from the first adopted
other methods. He devoted himself to the education
of the people by means of an elaborate Press Bureau,
and was soon the undisputed master of German naval
policy. He met opposition in the Reichstag with
a smiling reasonableness, and set himself to win the
support of opponents by good-tempered argument.
In fact, Admiral von Tirpitz from the first revealed
himself as a politician and diplomatist, and from the
time that he took office, though now and again slight
checks were experienced, naval policy in Germany
made rapid—indeed, astonishing—progress.
In the year after Admiral von Tirpitz went to the
Marine Office, a Navy Bill, far more ambitious in its
terms than any proposal that had been put forward
by Admiral von Hollman, was accepted by the
Reichstag.
This measure was believed to embody at any rate
the beginnings of a scheme which he had submitted to
the Emperor some time prior to his appointment. At
any rate, it enunciated a new and vital principle. As
has been seen, the Government, whether Prussian or
German, had on previous occasions drafted extensive
naval programmes for the carrying out of which a
period of ten or twelve years was required. Not once,
however, had the establishment of ships and personnel
been fixed by law; and the Parliament in each case
committed itself to the entire scheme only to the
extent of passing the first annual instalment con¬
sidered necessary by the Government as the initial
step towards the desired goal. In this way neither
Diet nor Reichstag bound itself or its successors for
the future, but left both free to deal with the annual
naval estimates as they thought fit. And in practice
it had been found that very liberal use was made of
the budgetary prerogatives, that standards once
approved were not considered binding, and that the
fate of the naval estimates depended to a considerable
THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
extent on the relations which happened for the moment
to exist between the Government and the majority
parties on questions totally unconnected with the
naval requirements of the Empire.
Another disadvantage of the practice of leaving the
Reichstag free to determine annually the number of
vessels which should be laid down in a given year,
was, that it gave the shipbuilding, armour-plate, and
ordnance industries no sure basis for their plans for
the future. The rule that Germany must build,
engine, arm, and equip her own war vessels had been
generally accepted, but the industries which should
enable her to do this were still in their infancy, and
were almost entirely dependent upon the orders of the
home Government. If they were ever to be able to
supply the demands of a powerful fleet, it was neces¬
sary that slips should be multiplied, plant increased,
and workshops extended. But so long as the naval
policy of the Empire was indefinite and subject to
violent fluctuations, shipbuilders and manufacturers
would not endanger their businesses by locking up
large amounts of capital in appliances which could be
used for the building and arming of warships and for
no other purposes. If German industry was ever to
be in a position to satisfy the demands of a large and
efficient fleet, some guarantee of steady and remunera¬
tive orders must, it was urged, be afforded to the
trades concerned. And apart altogether from its own
needs, the Government also hoped that, some day,
Germany would be able to claim a share in those large
profits which Great Britain appropriated to herself as
the world's shipbuilder.
It was by such arguments that Admiral von Tirpitz
justified his demand that the strength of the fleet, the
date at which it should attain that strength, and the
age at which each ship should be automatically re¬
placed by a new one, should be fixed by legal enact¬
ment. No portion of his Bill was more hotly contested
than this. It was objected that, by accepting it, the
MARINE MINISTER'S FIRST TRIUMPH 113
Reichstag would be depriving itself of a considerable
portion of that power of the purse which constituted
the only effective bulwark of its rights. But in the
end the smiling and imperturbable patience of Admiral
von Tirpitz gained the day, and the Reichstag satisfied
itself with the formal right of drawing the absolutely
unavoidable conclusions from its own enactment and
passing every year the naval estimates, which could
not be rejected without an infraction of the law. The
repeated sections in the Act of 1898 which appear to
reserve the Chamber's Budget rights, are, in reality,
meaningless and valueless—except as a monument to
the folly of those who believed they had a meaning
and a value. Admiral von Tirpitz apparently drew from
his first legislative experience the perfectly correct
conclusion that the Reichstag can be made to do
almost anything if one only treats it in the right
way. The principle of fixed establishments and
regular replacements has now become so recognized
a feature of German naval legislation that opponents
to it can be found only among the ranks of the
Socialists.
In the explanatory Memorandum attached to the
Bill, Admiral Tirpitz was able to adduce two con¬
vincing reasons why the fleet should at once be
considerably augmented. One of these was the fact
that Germany's naval strength had in recent years
actually diminished. In case of mobilization, it was
pointed out, she would have had only seven efficient
battleships, whereas she had once had fourteen. Of
the armoured cruisers which had been adopted in
other navies for foreign service in times of peace, she
did not possess a single example, and their work had
to be done by three antiquated battleships. Moreover,
to the tasks allotted to the fleet in the Memorandum of
1873, another of great importance had been added—
namely, the defence of Germany's newly-acquired
colonial empire. Further, it was contended that the
growth of the Empire's population, trade, and industry,
8
114
THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
the development of her sea-fisheries, and the increasing
investment of German capital abroad, had all added to
the possibilities of her becoming involved in quarrels
with other nations. The fleet which Admiral Tirpitz
considered necessary to fulfil the old and the new sea
rqeuirements of the Empire was as under :
The Battle Fleet.
19 battleships (2 as material reserve).
8 armoured coast-defence vessels.
6 large cruisers.
16 small cruisers.
Foreign Service Fleet.
Large Cruisers.
For East Asia
For Central and South America
Material reserve
Total
Small Cruisers.
For East Asia
For Central and South America
For East Africa
For the South Seas ...
Material reserve
Total
1 station ship.
The period proposed for the gradual attainment of
this strength was seven years, but the Reichstag
shortened it by a year, and thus it became known
as the " Sexennat."* It was pronounced inexpedient
to attempt to fix for some years in advance the
* The Clerical Party had suddenly come forward with a proposal
to make a very important change in the Navy Bill, and their scheme
was accepted by a large majority of the Budget Committee, and also
by the Secretary of State for the Marine on behalf of the Govern¬
ment. The proposal was that the German Navy should be raised
to the strength contemplated by the Government Bill at the end
of six instead of seven years, as the Government had originally
demanded.
A PLEDGE AND THE SEQUEL 115
Empire's requirements in torpedo craft, school-ships,
and training ships.*
That this scheme was intended by its author to be
merely a beginning has been shown by the sequel, but
Admiral von Tirpitz himself little dreamed that he
would so soon be able to take the next and decisive
step, which should bring him to within measurable
distance of his goal. Early in 1899 he said in the
Budget Committee : " I declare expressly that in no
quarter has the intention to submit a new navy plan
in any way been manifested; that, on the contrary, in
all quarters concerned, the firmest intention exists to
carry out the Navy Law, and to observe the limits
therein laid down." In other words, the law was to
run its six years' course.
Nevertheless, before the year was at an end, the Bill
which was to become the Navy Law of 1900 had
already been announced by the Government.
In the light of the vast development of Germany's
colonial and commercial interests the Navy Act of 1898
was of an unambitious character. The German Fleet
was at this time still the weakest possessed by any of
the Great Powers of Europe, except Austria-Hungary,
which had no naval pretensions. If only as a matter
of historical interest it is interesting to record that, at
the moment when this effort towards expansion was
made, Germany kept in commission only four ships
which could be dignified with the description of battle¬
ships, together with four smaller armoured vessels.
The only modern ships ot the line under the German
ensign consisted of these four battleships of the Worth
class, vessels of 9,874 tons displacement in comparison
with ships of 15,000 tons, which had already been
incorporated in the British Fleet. The German ships,
though nominally battleships, were really only coast-
defence vessels, heavily gunned and thickly armoured,
but with storage for only 68o tons of coal; whereas
* The Bill in the form in which it was passed into law will be
found in Appendix I.
ii6 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
contemporary British ships of the Majestic class
possessed a capacity of 1,850 tons.* The four vessels
of this class, in addition to the Worth, were the
Weisenburgi Kurfurst Friedrich Wilhelm, and Branden¬
burg. They marked a notable advance on the little
armoured ships of three to four thousand tons of the
Siegfried class, which had been built during the early
nineties, but, owing to their limited fuel capacity,
their radius of action was extremely restricted, and
they were, in fact, only very powerful coast-defence
ships, with a speed on trial of between sixteen and
seventeen knots. The design of every armoured ship
is a compromise between armament, armour, speed,
and coal capacity, and in this German design a predomi-
ance then unprecedented in any navy in the world
was given to the two first-named characteristics. On
paper these ships were vessels of great offensive
power, as is revealed by the contrast given on p. 117,
between them and the contemporary battleships of
the Majestic class of the British Fleet, which displaced
about 15,000 tons and attained a speed of eighteen
knots, with 1,850 tons of coal on board.
These few details reveal the fundamental differences
between the character of the British and German
Navies at this time and the policy which they repre¬
sented. The British Government, in accordance with
precedent, was providing a fleet of the high-seas type,
while the German Government was content with a
small force built specifically for the purpose of coast-
defence. These four large German coast-defence ships
were at this time supported by the four vessels of the
Sachsen type of 7,283 tons, already obsolescent; by
six old ships—one dating back to 1868 ; by eight little
armoured vessels of the Beowulf class, of about 3,500
tons, which had been constructed during the early
nineties; and the tail of the list was brought up by eleven
* It is interesting to note, however, that even at this early date the
German Admiralty made provision for the storage of oil in order to
supplement the coal supply.
BRITISH AND GERMAN SHIP DESIGN 117
armoured gunboats each of 1,000 tons displacement.
This enumeration of the naval forces of Germany
indicates conclusively the modest ambitions which
hitherto had animated her naval administration.
The German Fleet, except for the purposes of
coastal defence, and specifically for the protection of
Majestic Class.
Worth Class.
Length
Beam
Mean draught...
Armour
Armament
Over all, 413 ft. (390 ft.
at water-line).
75 ft.
27 ft. 6 in.
Partial g-in. Harveyed
belt, 16 ft. broad, and
220 ft. long ; bulk¬
heads, 14 in. (max.) ;
barbettes, 14 in.; bar¬
bette-shields, 10 in.;
casemates (12), 6 in.;
protected deck, 2'5 to
4 in.; forward conning
tower, 14 in.; after
conning tower, 3 in.
4 12-in. 46-ton (wire-
wound) breech-load¬
ing; 12 6-in. quick-
fi rers in casemates ;
16 12-pounder quick-
firers ; 2 12-pounder
boat-guns; 12
3 - pounder quick-fir¬
ing ; 2 Maxims ; 5 tor¬
pedo-tubes (18-in.), 4
submerged, 1 above
water in stern.
380 ft. 6 in. (354 ft. 3 in.
at water-line).
65 ft. 6 in.
24 ft. 4 in.
Complete belt, ir8 to
157 in. (compound in
earlier, steel in later,
ships) ; barbettes and
conning - tower, 11 "8
in.; ammunition-
hoists, 11 "8 in.; gun-
hoods, 5 in.; cellulose
cofferdam belt; case¬
mate for 4*i-in. guns,
3 in.; steel deck, 3 in.,
flat on top of belt.
6 xi-in. Krupp breech-
loading, 2 in each bar¬
bette; 8 4* 1-in. quick-
firing of 30 calibres in
a casemate forward of
the centre barbettes;
8 3'4-in. quick-firers of
30 calibres ; 2 2'3-in.
breech - loading boat
or field guns ; 12
1 - pounder quick-
firers ; 8 machine ; 3
torpedo tubes, 2 sub¬
merged.
her Baltic shores, was a negligible quantity, having
no influence either upon European or world policy.
The truth of this statement is conclusively proved by
the following table showing the relative strength of
the only five navies in the world which were, at that
time, of appreciable importance, the fleets of Japan
118 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
and of the United States being then still in their
infancy:
Britain.
France.
Russia.
Italy.
Germany.
Battleships :
First-class
29
14
6
8
4
Second-class
7
8
4
2
4
Third-class
18
7
5
3
6
Total battleships
54
29
15
J3
H
Coast-defence ships
14
16
13
—
18
Cruisers :
First-class
23
8
6
—
1
Second-class
47
13
3
5
3
Third-class
34
9
1
9
9
Total cruisers ...
104
30
10
14
13
Torpedo gunboats
34
19
8
15
4
It must be confessed that at this time the German
Fleet bore no reasonable relation to Germany's grow¬
ing trade and oversea interests. But the people of
the German Empire were still unconscious of any
deficiency, and, blinded by the success of their armies
during the war with France and the small influence
which naval power exerted in that struggle, they had
refused for many years to take upon themselves the
burden which the new naval ambitions represented.
But with the passage of the Navy Act of 1898, and
the widespread agitation carried on by the Navy
League, under the highest patronage, and—even more
important—by the Press Bureau under Admiral von
Tirpitz, a change immediately occurred; and the
success with which the British forces were enabled to
conduct their military operations in South Africa, while
Europe was forced to stand by inactive, owing to the
supreme control which the British Fleet possessed of
sea communications, produced a revulsion of feeling.
The current of European events, and the reception
INFLUENCE OF SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 119
with which the Emperor's speeches met, convinced the
Government, within a comparatively few months of
the passage of the Act of 1898, that they might safely
abandon this modest measure and replace it by a new
Bill.
What had happened in the meantime? This: the
the outbreak of the Boer War had generated in Germany
an absolutely unprecedented hostility to Great Britain,
which was afterwards roused to white heat by the
seizure of the mail steamer Bundesrat and other Ger¬
man vessels on the African coast. Admiral von Tirpitz
had a unique opportunity such as was never likely
to present itself to him again. He made prompt and
full use of it, and while Great Britain was in the thick
of the embarrassments of the early stages of the South
African War, the great Navy Bill of 1900 was passed
into law.
The seizure of the German vessels was admitted
by the British Government to have been a blunder.
An apology was tendered to Germany on account
of it, and promises made that similar incidents should
not recur. The action of the British warships did
nothing but harm, and would certainly never have
been taken if the Foreign Office in London had been
properly informed on the situation in Germany by its
representatives in Berlin, and had itself kept the
Admiralty fully posted as to the possible political
consequences of a molestation of neutral shipping.
Consequently, in the spring of 1900, the Act of 1898
was replaced by a new one, in face of all Admiral von
Tirpitz's protestations of two years before. This
measure set up an establishment of almost twice the
size of the former one, and embraced ships intended for
battle purposes on the high seas. During the discussion
of the measure in the Reichstag the Centre Party com¬
pelled the Government to modify their original scheme,
and to drop five large and five small cruisers for
service on foreign stations, while the reserve of cruisers
was reduced by one large and two small vessels. In
120 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
the course of the debate the Naval Secretary announced
that, while the Government were compelled to agree
to the amendment of their proposals, they still insisted
upon the necessity of providing the original number of
ships for duty in foreign seas, but would agree to
postpone the final settlement of the question until a
subsequent date.
In its final form, as it received the approval of
the Reichstag and of the Emperor, and as it was pub¬
lished in the Imperial German Gazette of June 20, 1900,*
the Bill set up the following establishment for the
Fleet:
The Battle Fleet.
2 fleet flagships.
4 squadrons, each of 8 battleships.
8 large cruisers for scouting purposes.
24 small cruisers for scouting purposes.
Foreign Fleet.
3 large cruisers.
10 small cruisers.
Reserve.
4 battleships.
3 large cruisers.
4 small cruisers.
The new Act was based upon the same calculation
of the ^effective life of ships as the one of 1898, and
provided that, except in the case of total loss,
battleships were to be replaced after twenty-five years
and cruisers after twenty years. It was provided that
the age of ships was to be reckoned from the grant of
the first instalment in payment for the ship to be re¬
placed to the passing of the first instalment in payment
for the ship to be built as " substitute " (Ersatzschiff).
It was proposed to keep half the battle squadrons—
the First and Second—fully manned on a war footing,
together with one-half of the torpedo craft and all the
school-ships and auxiliary vessels. The Third and
Fourth battle squadrons were to form the Reserve
* See Appendix I.
THE NEW NAVAL POLICY 121
Fleet, half the ships of which were to be kept in
permanent commission. The Act also made provision
for nucleus crews for the second half of the torpedo-
boats, for the requirements of ships serving abroad,
and for the needs of the shore establishments.
More remarkable, perhaps, than the actual terms of
the Navy Act was the character of the explanatory
Memorandum put forward by the Navy Department.*
In this notable document occurs the following
statement of the new naval policy of the German
Empire:
"To protect Germany's sea trade and colonies, in
the existing circumstances, there is only one means ;
Germany must have a battle fleet so strong that, even
for the adversary with the greatest sea-power, a war
against it would involve such dangers as to imperil his
position in the world.
"For this purpose it is not absolutely necessary
that the German battle fleet should be as strong as
that of the greatest naval Power, because a great naval
Power will not, as a rule, be in a position to concentrate
all its striking forces against us. But even if it should
succeed in meeting us with considerable superiority of
strength, the defeat of a strong German fleet would so
substantially weaken the enemy that, in spite of a
victory he might have obtained, his own position in
the world would no longer be secured by an adequate
fleet."
The whole Memorandum well repays study in the
light of subsequent events. Almost at the moment of
its publication Admiral von der Goltz, a former Chief
of the Admiralstab, gave a less reserved exposition of
German policy, thus reflecting the opinions held by
the naval officers responsible for the character of the
proposed expansion of the German Fleet.
" Let us consider," he said, " the case of a war
against England. In spite of what many people think,
there is nothing improbable in such a war, owing to
* Cf. Appendix II.
122 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
the animosity which exists in our country towards
England, and, on the other side, to the sentiments of
the British nation towards all Continental Powers,
and in particular against Germany. These are not
Chauvinistic exaggerations, but the opinion of the
whole of the people of Great Britain, who are jealous
of our commercial development. If England should
ever lose her mercantile supremacy on the seas, the
decline of her naval dominion would only be a question
of time, and she realizes the fact instinctively. Of
course the British Government will make every effort
to prevent the violent explosion of these sentiments,
preferring peaceful competition to war. But how long
can that last? Violence becomes a right to a people
which fears for its existence.
"The opinion is generally held in this country that
any resistance against England at sea would be im¬
possible, and that all our naval preparations are but
wasted efforts. It is time that this childish fear, which
would put a stop to all our progress, should be pulled
up by the roots and destroyed.
"At this moment (1900) we are almost defenceless
against England at sea, but already we possess the
beginnings of a weapon which statesmanship can put
to a good use, and our chances of success in a war
against England grow more favourable day by day.
" The maritime superiority of Great Britain, over¬
whelming now, will certainly remain considerable in
the future; but she is compelled to scatter her forces
all over the world. In the event of war in home
waters, the greater part of the foreign squadrons
would no doubt be recalled; but that would be a
matter of time, and then all the stations oversea
could not be abandoned. On the other hand, the
German Fleet, though much smaller, can remain con¬
centrated in European waters.
" With the increases about to be made it will be in
a position to measure its strength with the ordinary
British naval forces in home waters (then consisting
only of the small and inefficiently manned Channel
squadron); but it should not be forgotten that the
question of numbers is far less important at sea than on
land. Numerical inferiority can be compensated by
efficiency, by excellence of material, by the capacity
BIRTH OF THE HIGH-SEA FLEET 123
and discipline of the men. Careful preparation per¬
mitting rapid mobilization can ensure a momentary
superiority."
With the passage of the Navy Act of 1900, Germany
proceeded to develop a High-Sea Fleet—a naval force
capable of going anywhere and doing anything.
Hitherto her ships had represented in their design
the domination of a coast-defence policy. She now
entered upon the construction of ships of the first
class. Naval construction was regularized, and forth¬
with proceeded with great rapidity. During the five
years —1886 to 1890 — no ship even nominally of
the battleship class was launched. During 1891 to
1895 only four vessels, and between 1890 and 1900
only six vessels, and these all of relatively modest
fighting power, were put in the water, but in 1901
no fewer than five first-class battleships were sent
afloat.
At the time when the Navy Act of 1900 was passed
Germany had just completed the five ships of the old
Kaiser class, with a displacement of about 11,150 tons,
and mounting four 9'4-inch guns of 40 calibre as battle
weapons in association with a large number of secondary
guns—eighteen pieces of 5*9 inches. The technical ad¬
visers of the German Admiralty at this date pinned
their faith to a storm of projectiles from quick-firing
guns, and in order that weights might be kept down
and the ships might be restricted to dimensions to
enable them to navigate the Kiel Canal, reliance was
placed upon the 9*4~inch gun at a moment when in
practically all the navies of the world a 12-inch weapon
was being mounted.
The type of battleship design which was introduced
with the passage of the Act of 1898, and which was
yet in hand when the measure of 1900 was prepared,
still combined a weak main armament of four 9'4-inch
guns with an exceedingly heavy secondary armament
and a complete armoured belt. Whereas British
ships at this time, such as those of the Duncan
THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
class, were being given only partial belts, and these
only 7 inches thick amidships, tapering off fore and
aft, the German vessels received thicker belts ex¬
tending over their whole length. Of this new design
—known as the Wittelsbach class—five units were
building when the 1900 Act was passed. They had
a maximum coal capacity of 1,770 tons of coal, with
200 tons of oil, and were capable of steaming at a
speed of about eighteen knots, thus reflecting the rise
of German ambition for something more than a coast-
defence fleet. The belts of these ships were 7'5 inches
wide, with a thickness amidships of 8-9 inches, while
the four 9'4-inch guns were protected with armour
9*8 inches thick, and the secondary turrets and case¬
mates carrying the eighteen 5-9-inch guns were pro¬
tected with armour S'9 inches thick.
After the passage of the Navy Act of 1900 the
9'4-inch gun, as the battle weapon, was abandoned
in favour of an 11-inch of 40 calibre, and the dis¬
placement of the new ships of the Deutschland
class, as they are generically termed, although
there are minor differences in the ten vessels, was
nearly 13,000 tons. These ships really represented the
entrance of Germany upon the high seas as a first-class
naval Power, possessing vessels fit to lie in the line
and to fight the men-of-war under any foreign flag.
The new design may be contrasted with advantage
with that of the Worth class which has already been
described :
Deutschland Class.
Armour.
Krupp, complete belt, about 7 feet wide,* 8-9 inches amidships,
tapering to 3*9 inches at ends; lower edge amidships, 67 inches;
lower deck side amidships, 5-5 inches; main turrets and barbettes,
11 inches to 9-8 inches; secondary turrets, 67 inches; battery,
5-9 inches; conning-tower, ii*8 inches; s.t.—aft, 5-5 inches; deck,
2-9 inches on slopes, i'6 inches on flat.
* The five later ships were given a belt with a thickness of
9'4 inches amidships, but otherwise their protection and armament
closely resembled those laid down at an earlier date.
INCREASED PROVISION OF CRUISERS 125
Armament.
Four 11 inches (40 calibre) in pairs in turrets, fore and aft;
14 67 inches (40 calibre), 10 in battery on main deck, 4 singly in
turrets 011 upper deck ; 12 3-4 inches (24 pounder) ; 4 machine ;
torpedo tubes, 6 (18 inches), 4 submerged, 1 bow, and 1 stern.
Simultaneously with the construction of these ten
battleships, six armoured cruisers, ranging in displace¬
ment from 8,800 to about 11,000 tons, were laid down,
and in 1906 a single clause amending the Act was
passed increasing the foreign fleet by five armoured
cruisers and the fleet reserve by one armoured cruiser,
thus fulfilling in part the original programme of the
Navy Department with which the Reichstag had
interfered.
At about the same date German naval opinion made
a complete volte face in regard to the fighting value
of the submarine. About the time when the Act of
1900 was passed the British Admiralty, after a careful
study of the progress of submarine navigation in
France and America, decided that it could no
longer ignore this type of man-of-war. It was forth¬
with decided to buy an experimental ship from the
Holland Company of the United States, which had
already demonstrated the practical value of this
particular type of submersible torpedo-boat. The
original craft which was purchased under these circum¬
stances was a little ship with a submerged displace¬
ment of only 120 tons, and a water-line displacement
of 104 tons. She was propelled on the surface by a
four-cylinder gasoline engine giving a speed of eight
to eight and a half knots, while below the surface she
was driven by an electric motor, and was capable of
only six or seven knots.
The entrance of this little ship into the British service
was hailed in Germany with something approaching
derision, and in the technical papers the futility of the
submarine was urged with a wealth of argument. The
little Holland boat, however, was merely the foundation
from which the British authorities proceeded to develop
126 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
a type of craft in keeping with the offensive r6le of the
British Navy, and in 1906 submarines were being
built for the British Fleet mounting two torpedo tubes
on a displacement of about 300 tons, and possessing
a surface speed of fourteen knots in combination with
a submerged speed of ten knots. When it is added
that these craft possessed a full speed radius of about
3,000 miles on the surface and were estimated to be
able to travel 150 miles under water, it is not surprising
that German naval opinion as to the advantages of the
submarine underwent a sudden and dramatic change,
Henceforth the submarine was to be treated by German
naval officers with respect. Without the formality of
any public announcement, either in the Reichstag or
in the Press, an under-water boat was laid down at
the Germania Yard at Kiel in 1906, and thenceforward
an energetic policy of construction was pursued, al¬
though it was not until two years later that legislative
provision was made for the building of this type of
warship.
A very remarkable leature of German policy has
been the persistency with which cruisers have been
built even at a time when other naval Powers,
including Great Britain, were inactive. As a matter
of course, during the period when the German Govern¬
ment was content to provide a fleet mainly for the
purposes of coast defence, great importance was
attached to the efficiency and adequacy of the cruiser
squadrons. At the time of the passage of the Navy
Act of 1900, for instance, there were eighteen cruisers
completed and nearly a dozen others in hand. Under
the Act of that year provision was made to continue
this policy while attaining a higher standard of battle
strength.* Even when, in 1908, legislative effect was
given to the ambition of the Marine Office further to
expedite battleship construction, in spite of the heavy
cost involved by the transition from mixed armament
ships to the all-big-gun ships of the Dreadnought era,
* See Appendix I.
BATTLESHIP POLICY 127
the Reichstag was asked to stereotype the cruiser
programme. The Act made provision for two light
cruisers to be laid down annually, and in the measure
passed in 1912 an addition of two " small cruisers " was
made for the period 1912-1917. A notable contrast is
provided by a study of Germany's action and the
policy of the British Admiralty charged with the
protection of a vast oversea trade and half the shipping
of the world. During the later years of the last
century and the first four years of the present century
a persistent policy of construction was pursued both
in armoured and protected cruisers, and then for
several years there was a complete cessation of this
form of shipbuilding activity. Other countries, Ger¬
many only excepted, either acting on their own
initiative or accepting the lead of the British authorities,
also desisted from cruiser construction. The advance
in the size and cost of large armoured ships threw
heavy burdens upon the respective Exchequers and no
doubt the saving effected was a welcome relief at a
moment when under every flag naval expenditure was
advancing at an unparalleled rate. The result of the
persistent policy adopted by Germany became apparent
in 1911, when in modern swift cruisers suitable for
scouting the two fleets were practically upon an
equality. It was in these circumstances, faced by
evidence of German progress in cruiser construction,
that the British authorities again decided to embark
upon the building of new squadrons of cruisers of
small size and high speed — in fact, of consider¬
ably smaller size than the ships then in hand in
Germany.
But in battleship construction German policy has
necessarily been less continuous and consistent. The
war between Russia and Japan in the Far East, and
the lessons which it taught to the naval world were
destined to upset completely the theories upon which
battleship and larger cruiser design in Germany had
been based in the early years of the present century
128
THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
The German naval authorities had persisted in attaching
primary importance to the secondary gun, still be¬
lieving in the moral and material effect of a storm
of projectiles from numerous quick-firing guns. They
were still proceeding with the construction of ships—
battleships and large cruisers—embodying these ideas
when a new Board of Admiralty in London, with
Admiral Sir John—now Lord—Fisher as First Sea
Lord, appointed a Committee to reconsider the design
of British ships in the light of the information which
the gunnery tests of the fleet and the struggle in the
Far East had supplied.
Thanks to the British alliance with the Japanese,
British officers, and British officers only, had been
permitted to be present with the Japanese Fleet during
the decisive battles of the war. With the advantage
of the information thus obtained the designs of British
ships were reconsidered. The report of this Committee
was treated as confidential. In presenting the Navy
Estimates for 1905 to the House of Commons, the Earl
of Selborne, the First Lord, contented himself with
making the following statement as to the work of this
body, and of the new programme of construction :
" I may claim that the work of the Committee will
enable the Board to ensure to the navy the immediate
benefit of the experience which is to be derived from
the naval warfare between Russia and Japan, and of
the resultant studies of the Naval Intelligence Depart¬
ment. I can, however, hold out no hope that it will be
consistent with the interests of the public service to
publish either the reference to the Committee or its
report.
" It is proposed to begin during the financial year
1905-06: 1 battleship, 4 armoured cruisers, 5 ocean¬
going destroyers, 1 ocean-going destroyer of the ex¬
perimental type, 12 coastal destroyers, 11 submarines.*
" His Majesty has approved that the battleship
should be called the Dreadnought, and the first of the
armoured cruisers the Invincible."
# One of these "armoured cruisers" was not built.
APPEARANCE OF THE " DREADNOUGHT" 129
It was not until many months later that it gradually
became known that the British Admiralty were em¬
barking upon the construction of an entirely new type
of battleship, and it was even later that information
was available as to the character of the " armoured
cruisers" mentioned in the First Lord's statement.
In the following spring a partial revelation of the
change in British design was made in the Naval
Annual:
il The Dreadnought, officially laid down at Ports¬
mouth on October 2, 1905, though some material had
already been built into her, was launched by His
Majesty on February 10, 1906. The Admiralty
announce that the period of building for armoured
vessels is to be reduced to two years, but the Dread¬
nought is to be completed in February, 1907. The
rapidity of her construction will therefore out-rival
that of the Majestic and Magnificent, which were com¬
pleted within two years from the date of the laying of
their first keel plates.
"The Dreadnought represents a remarkable develop¬
ment in naval construction, which has been for some
time foreshadowed, notably by Captain Cuniberti, the
famous Italian naval constructor. The Russo-Japanese
War, more particularly the Battle of Tsushima, es¬
tablished the fact that naval engagements can, and
will, be fought at greater distances than were formerly
considered possible. Hence the medium armament is
held by many authorities to lose much of its value."
In the Naval Annual of that year, it was reported
that the Japanese contemplated laying down a battle¬
ship with an armament of four 12-inch and ten 10-inch
guns. It was then announced that the Dreadnought
was to carry a main armament of ten 12-inch 45 calibre
guns, of 50 per cent, greater power than those carried
by the Majestic, while the medium armament was to
disappear entirely.
The question of protection entered also very largely
into the consideration, and the Times, in describing
the new ship, said that it was understood that " she
9
i3o THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
was to be made as nearly unsinkable as possible from
the explosion of a torpedo or mine." It was even
stated that there would be no openings in the water¬
tight bulkheads, and this proved to be the fact. More¬
over, this ship was the first large vessel in the world
to be fitted with turbines.
Particulars of the Dreadnought were never made
public officially, but the following is condensed from
Engineering, Februarys 1906:
" On the forecastle there will be mounted two 12-inch
guns in a barbette on the centre line, being considerably
above the water-level. On each side, a short distance
to the rear, there will be two other pairs of 12-inch
guns on the upper-deck level, and in order to enable
these guns to be fired ahead an embrasure is formed
at each side of the forecastle, so that all six 12-inch
guns may take part in a running fight. At the same
time four of them can be used on each broadside. Aft
there are two pair of guns, both in the centre line of
the ship, one pair to the rear of the other; but with
this difference, as compared with the American design,
that both pairs of guns are on the same level and a
considerable distance apart. These four guns, there¬
fore, firing on either beam, cannot be fired astern,
although they have a very considerable arc of training
abaft and forward of the beam. The arrangement
reduces the astern fire to two guns, which is less than
in any preceding ship where there are either 9'2-inch
guns or 6-inch quick-firers on each quarter. But the
pair of 12-inch guns should be adequate, in view of
the other qualities of the Dreadnought, in connection
with probable combatants. Her speed of twenty-one
knots would probably enable her to outclass any more
powerfully armed vessel, as in most foreign Powers
the question of cost must militate against high speed
with such gun-power. None of the guns are at a less
height than the upper-deck level, and the two forward
barbette guns are on the forecastle. Another im¬
portant point in reference to the armament is the
protection against attack by torpedo and submarine
boats. In the Dreadnought the intention is to adopt
an entirely new weapon, using an 18-pound shot.
DESCRIPTION OF THE "DREADNOUGHT" 131
" The placing of the guns on the upper deck has
materially simplified the arrangement of the armour,
and the adoption of the turbines has assisted towards
the higfier gun-platform, because the weights with
turbine machinery are lower in the ship, and thus the
centre of gravity is considerably lower; at the same
time the top hamper in the ship has been reduced.
The main belt in the way of the machinery has been
increased in thickness to 10 inches, and the upper
deck is armoured. The gun mechanism is protected
by thick heavy hoods, as in the case of the earlier
barbette guns ; and the gun-mountings, while largely
protected by the main broadside armour, are further
shielded by armour barbettes or cylindrical casings.
"The adoption of the steam turbine has not only
increased the speed, but has resulted in the improve¬
ment of the manoeuvring quality of the ship. Four
shafts are adopted, and this has greatly facilitated the
fitting of a double stern with two rudders—a form of
stern advocated for some time for heavy battleships.
The cutting away of the deadwood in combination
with a balanced rudder has improved the turning
moment of later single-stern battleships by 30 per
cent. ; and as the double rudder enables a larger area
to be utilized effectively, without increasing the torsion
on the threaded shaft of the steering gear, there will
be still better facility in manoeuvring. vVhile there is
no change so far as the upper works are concerned,
the stern of the ship is doubled under water, with
two rudders quite 20 feet apart. The contract for the
turbine machinery was placed with Messrs. Vickers,
Sons and Maxim, Limited, and it is anticipated that
with the four propellers running at over 300 revolu¬
tions, the power developed will be equal to 23,00c
I.H.P. There will be two high-pressure turbines and
two low-pressure turbines, eacn on separate shafts,
and each shaft will also carry an astern turbine, two
of which will take high-pressure and two low-pressure
steam. The high-pressure main and astern turbines
are to be on the wing shaft, and the two inside shafts,
in addition to carrying the low-pressure ahead and
astern machines, will also have turbines of small
diameter for cruising purposes. Steam for the low
powers will pass from the boiler into the cruising
132 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
turbines, thence to the high-pressure wing turbines,
and back to the low-pressure turbine before entering
the condenser. This will enable a full range of
expansion to be economically attained, even with a
small volume of steam. The steam pressure is to be
higher than in any previous turbine ship, as the eighteen
Babcock and Wilson boilers are to be worked at
250-pound pressure, which will be slightly reduced at
the high-pressure turbines.
" The boilers, consistent with the latest practice,
will be fitted for working not only with coal, but with
oil fuel. In order to reduce the power necessary to
attain a speed of twenty-one knots, and to reduce the
draught for a given displacement—the Dreadnought
when ready for sea will be about 18,000 tons on
26 feet draught—it was decided to increase the length
of the ship from the 410 feet of the Lord Nelson to
close upon 500 feet, with a beam of 82 feet. This
increase in length has the further advantage that it
will afford greater room forward and abaft for maga¬
zines under the 12-inch guns without interfering with
the under water torpedo-tube gear in connection
with the five submerged tubes."
It was stated unofficially that this new ship of the
all-big-gun type rendered obsolescent practically all
the battleships of the world with mixed armaments—
that is with guns of varying size. The British naval
authorities continued to maintain a discreet silence as
to the character of the new vessels, and the design, as
its main characteristics became known, was assailed
with a good deal of criticism. The controversy was
at its height when President Roosevelt called upon
Commander Sims, the Inspector of Target Practice in
the United States Navy, to make a report upon the
advantages possessed by the all-big-gun ship of high
speed and complete armour protection in view of the
criticism of Admiral Mahan of the British design.*
Commander Sims, who had made a life-study of
gunnery questions, prepared a long report describing
* It has since become known that the Americans had designed an
all-big-gun ship before the British Dreadnought was laid down.
THE DREADNOUGHT CONTROVERSY 133
the character of the revolution in design, and its
influence upon the navies of the world. It is interest¬
ing to recall some passages from this report, which in
its essential portions appeared in the proceedings of
the United States Naval Institute, particularly as the
British Admiralty have never considered it wise to
enter upon a detailed defence of their policy. Com¬
mander Sims stated :
" Concerning the advisability of building all-big-gun
ships, that is, discarding all smaller guns (except
torpedo-defence guns) and designing the ships to
carry the maximum number of heavy turret guns,
these alone to be used in battle against other ships, I
think it could be clearly shown that Captain Mahan is
in error in concluding that it would add more to our
naval strength to expend the same amount of money
that the big ships would cost, for smaller and slower
ships, carrying the usual intermediate guns (6-inch,
etc.); and that, as in the question of speed, this error
is due to the fact that much important information
concerning the new methods of gun-fire was not con¬
sidered by the author in preparing his article.
(Note.—Unfortunately these methods of gun-fire can¬
not at present be specifically explained in a published
article, as this would involve a discussion of our
methods of controlling our ships' batteries, and bring¬
ing our ships into action with an enemy.)
" I may, however, assure the reader that, from the
point of view of the efficiency of gun-fire alone, it
would be unwise ever to build a man-of-war of any
type whatever, having more than one calibre of gun in
her main battery. In other words, it may be stated
that the abandonment of mixed-battery ships in favour
of the all-big-gun, one calibre ship was directly caused
by the recognition of certain fundamental principles
01 naval markmanship developed by gunnery officers.
" Therefore we have but to decide what the calibre
for each class of ships should be, a decision which
should present no special difficulty, provided it be first
determined how we are to defeat the enemy—whether
by the destruction of his ships (by sinking them or
disabling their guns) or by the destruction or demorali¬
zation of their personnel.
134 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
" In this connection the following facts should first
be clearly understood—namely :
" i. Turrets are now, for the first time, being designed
that are practically invulnerable to all except heavy
projectiles. Instead of having sighting-hoods on the
turret roof, where sights, pointers, and officers are ex¬
posed to disablement (as frequently happened in the
Russian ships) there will be prismatic sights, project¬
ing laterally from the gun trunnions, through small
holes in the side of the turret, and the gun-ports will
be protected by 8-inch armour plates, so arranged that
no fragments of shells can enter the turrets.
" 2. On the proposed all-big-gun ships the heavy
armour belt will be about 8 feet above the water-line,
and extending from end to end. The conning-tower,
barbettes, etc., will be of heavy armour; and there
being no intermediate battery (which could not be pro¬
tected by heavy armour, on account of its extent), it
follows that in battle all the gunnery personnel, except
the small, single fire-control party aloft, will be behind
heavy armour, and that, therefore, neither the ship or
her personnel can be materially injured by small
calibre guns.
"Considering, therefore, that our object in designing
a battleship is that she may be able to meet those of
our possible enemies upon at least equal terms, it
seems evident that it would be extremely unwise to
equip our new ships with a large number of small guns
that are incapable of inflicting material damage upon
the all-big-gun one-calibre ships of our enemies, or
upon the personnel manning their guns."
In the same paper Commander Sims explained the
principal tactical qualities that are desirable in a fleet
—namely, compactness of the battle formation and the
flexibility of the fleet as a unit—that is, its ability to
change its formation in the least possible time and
space with safety to its units. Proceeding to elaborate
his views, Commander Sims stated :
" For example, suppose two fleets of eight vessels
each, composed of ships that are alike in all respects,
and suppose their personnel to be equally skilful, with
the exception of the Commanders-in-Chief, whose dif-
TACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 135
ference in energy and ability is such that one fleet has
been so drilled as to be able to manoeuvre with preci¬
sion and safety while maintaining one-half the dis¬
tance between its units that the other fleet requires.
" This is putting an extreme case, but it shows :
" 1. That the short fleet, being about half the length
of the other one, can complete certain important
manoeuvres in about one-half the time and one-half
the space required for similar manoeuvres of the long
fleet.
" 2. That, when ranged alongside each other, the
defeat of the long fleet is inevitable, since the rapidity
of hitting of the individual units is assumed to be equal,
and each of the four leading ships of the long fleet
receives about twice as many hits as she can return,
though the eighth ship of the short fleet would suffer
a preponderance of gun-fire from the fifth or sixth
vessel of the long fleet, the seventh and eighth being
too far astern to do much damage, as would also be
the case if the long fleet had several vessels astern of
these.
" It is because of the principle here illustrated that
the constant effort of competent flag-officers is to
reduce the distance between the units of their fleets
to the minimum that can be maintained with safety
under battle conditions—that is, while steaming at full
speed, without the aid of stadimeters, sextants, and
other appliances that should be used only for preli¬
minary drills.
" Doubtless some flag-officers, by constant com¬
petitive exercises in manoeuvring, may succeed in
attaining an interval between ships that is less by 15
or 20 per cent, than that attained by others; but mani¬
festly there is hardly any possibility of much greater
improvement in this respect, because the minimum
practical interval between ships depends upon their
lengths and manoeuvring qualities. For example, the
German interval is 300 metres from centre to centre,
while larger ships, say 400 feet long, require about
400 yards, and those between 450 and 500 feet in length
require about 450 yards.
" If we accept Captain Mahan's advice and build
comparatively small, low-speed battleships, while our
possible enemies build large, swift, all-big-gun ships,
136 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
it seems clear that we will sacrifice the enormous
advantages of fleet compactness and flexibility, the
superior effect of heavy-gun fire and the ability to con¬
centrate our fire—the loss of these advantages to be
fully realized twenty-five years hence, when our
enemies have fleets of big ships while we still have
those of our present size."
Finally, this officer added :
" If it be claimed that it would be better to reduce
the speed of the large vessel to sixteen knots and put
the weight saved into guns, it may be replied that the
heavy turret guns cannot be mounted to advantage (so
as to increase the hitting capacity of the vessel) with¬
out very considerably increasing the size of the ship,
because the number of heavy turrets that can be placed
to advantage is governed largely by the length of the
ship—which increases slowly with the displacement.
This point is fully discussed in a recent article in a
German publication. I do not remember the displace¬
ment used by the author to illustrate the principle,
but, supposing the ones quoted below to be correct, he
shows that if it requires a displacement of 20,000 tons
to obtain a broadside fire of, say, eight 12-inch turret
guns, you could not advantageously mount any addi¬
tional turrets on 21,000 or 22,000 tons, but would have
to go to 25,000 or 26,000 tons to obtain the necessary
space. And, conversely, if you design a 20,000-ton
battleship for sixteen instead of twenty knots, you
cannot utilize the weight saved to increase the gun-
power by adding 12-inch turrets, as you could by
adding a number of intermediate guns.
" It is now hardly necessary to state that adding
superimposed turrets (by which the number of guns
could be doubled, if the weights permitted) does not
materially increase the hitting capacity of the ship as
a whole, because of the ' interference ' caused by
having four guns in one two-story turret, while it
decreases her defensive power by adding to the vertical
height of her vital targets.
" Captain Mahan characterizes the sudden inclina¬
tion in all navies to increase the size of the new battle¬
ships (from about 15,000 to about 20,000 tons) as a
' wilful premature antiquating of good vessels' . . . ' a
CAUSE OF INCREASED DISPLACEMENT 137
growing and wanton evil.' If these words are intended
in their true meaning, the statement is to me incom¬
prehensible. I can understand an individual being
wilful and wanton, but I cannot believe that the naval
officers of the world could, without good cause, be
suddenly and uniformly inspired in this manner. On
the contrary, it seems to me that the mere fact of there
being a common demand for such large vessels is con¬
clusive evidence that there must be a common cause
that is believed to justify the demand.
" This common cause is undoubtedly a common
belief that the same amount of money expended for
large war vessels will add more to a nation's naval
power than the same amount expended for small
vessels, for it cannot reasonably be assumed that the
tax-ridden nations of Europe expend their great naval
budgets wilfully and wantonly. Undoubtedly each
nation earnestly strives so to expend these sums as
to derive the greatest increase of naval power. The
same is true in reference to their armies. As the
mechanical arts improve each nation endeavours to
improve its war material. When a nation adopts new
rifles, it is not a wilful premature antiquating of several
million excellent ones, it is a case of force majeure—it
must adopt them or suffer a relative loss of military
efficiency, and it must make no mistake as to the relative
efficiency of its weapons. In 1870 the French suffered
a humiliating defeat as a direct result of the colossal
conceit which rendered them incapable of accepting
conclusive evidence that the German field artillery was
greatly superior to theirs.
"The same law—that of necessity — governs the
evolution of battleships. As might have been expected,
this evolution has, as a rule, been gradual as regards
increased displacement. The exception is the sudden
recent increase (4,000 to 5,000 tons) in displacement.
This exception therefore needs explanation. ... It
was due to a complete change of opinion as to the
hitting capacity of guns of various calibres. This is
now well understood by all officers who have recently
been intimately associated with the new methods of
gunnery training. These methods have demonstrated
this point in such a manner as to leave no doubt in
our minds as to the correctness of our conclusions.
138 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
The rapidity of hitting of the heaviest guns has been
increased several thousand per cent., and that of smaller
guns about in proportion to their calibre.
"... The inception of the epoch-making principles
of the new methods of training belongs exclusively to
Captain (now Rear-Admiral) Percy Scott, Director of
Naval Practice of the British Navy, who has, I believe,
done more in this respect to improve naval marksman¬
ship than all of the naval officers who have given their
attention to this matter since the first introduction of
the rifled cannon on men-of-war; nor should we forget
that this degree of improvement was rendered possible
by the introduction of telescope sights, the successful
application of which to naval guns was made by Com¬
mander B. A. Fiske, U.S. Navy, as early as 1892.
" As soon as the above facts gained general accept¬
ance in Great Britain and the United States, the
evolution of the all-big-gun, one-calibre battleship
became a foregone conclusion; and the reason for the
great increase in displacement, as I understand it, is
simply that you cannot build an efficient ship of this
class on less than about 20,000 tons, because you can¬
not mount more than two 12-inch turrets to advantage
upon a battleship of much less displacement, because
the length and breadth are not sufficient."
The Dreadnought design and all that it meant threw
the German Admiralty into confusion. At the moment
they were still engaged in the construction of the
vessels of the Deutschland class, of about 13,000
tons, in which primary importance was given to the
secondary gun—fourteen 67-inch weapons—to the sacri¬
fice of the big gun—four 11-inch pieces—and speed;
whereas the new British design ignored the secondary
gun in order to mount no fewer than ten big guns,
and develop the speed to the extent of three or four
knots above battleships then building. Before the
Dreadnought of the British programme of 1905 had
been laid down at Portsmouth, two German battle¬
ships of the familiar design with mixed armament had
been begun—the Schleswig-Holstein in the Germania
Yard and the Schlesien at Dantzic. So completely
CONSTERNATION IN GERMANY 139
were the German authorities unprepared for the revo¬
lution initiated by the British Admiralty, that from
the summer of 1905 until July, 1907, the keel of not a
single further battleship was laid in Germany. In the
meantime, while British yards were busy with vessels
of the new type, the design of the German ships was
reconsidered. After an interval of two years the keels
of two vessels of the Dreadnought type were laid
down, and two more keels were placed in position
a month later—that is, in August, 1907. These four
ships—the Nassau class—inaugurated the Dreadnought
policy in Germany. Two were completed in May,
1910, and two in September following.
These ships embody the all-big-gun principle in
association with a powerful secondary armament, con¬
sisting of a dozen 5*9-inch guns and sixteen 24-pounders.
Moreover, whereas the British Dreadnought had been
provided with only ten big guns, which was held by
the British gunnery experts to be the maximum
number which could be carried with advantage on
the displacement then considered advisable, the
German vessels were given twelve guns, not of the
12-inch but of the 11-inch type. Each of these ships
displaces 18,600 tons, and has a nominal speed of twenty
knots. Their normal coal capacity is 885 tons, with
a maximum storage of 2,655 tons. On the other hand,
the early British Dreadnought, with about the same
displacement and coal-carrying capacity, attained a
speed of one or two knots more, owing to the use of
turbines in place of reciprocating engines. The contrast
between the armour and armament of the British and
German ships, comparing the four Nassaus of the
German Fleet* with the Superb class of the British
Navy, is given in the table on p. 140.
By energetic action the British Admiralty had
* British naval opinion held from the first that these ships of the
Nassau type vitiated the Dreadnought principle of simplicity of
armament, and were so over-gunned as to be ineffective units. Sea-
service has tended to confirm this view.
HO THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
obtained a lead in the new type of battleship.* More¬
over, even after the character of the Dreadnought
became known, the German authorities remained
ignorant of the fact that the " armoured cruisers " of
the Invincible class were really swift battleships carry¬
ing the same type of battle gun as the Dreadnought,
in association with a speed exceeding twenty-five
knots, and an armour belt not inferior to that placed
Superb Class.
Nassau Class.
Armour ...
Armament...
Krupp : Complete belt,
about 16 ft. wide (nar¬
rower aft), 11 in. amid¬
ships, tapering to 6 in.
forward and 4 in. aft ;
turrets, 8 in.; barbettes,
12 in. ; forward con-
ning-tower, 12 in.; after
conning-tower, 8 in.;
deck, sloping, 27 in.
10 12-in. (45 calibres) in
pairs in turrets, 1 for¬
ward, 1 on each beam,
2 aft on centre line;
16 4-in. (50 calibres),
2 on each turret (except
No. 4), 8 in superstruc¬
ture ; 5 machine; tor¬
pedo tubes, 5 18 - in.,
submerged, broadside,
and stern.
Krupp: Complete belt,
12 in. amidships, taper¬
ing to 3'9 in. forward,
and 3'9 in. aft; lower
deck side, 7*9 in. amid¬
ships, 3'9 in. narrow
belt at ends; turrets
and barbettes, 11 in.;
battery, 6'i in. ; con¬
ning - tower, 11 "8 in.;
deck, sloping, 2-9 in.
12 11-in. (45 calibres) in
pairs in turrets, 1 for¬
ward, 1 aft, and 2 on
each beam ; 12 5-9 in.
(45 calibres) in battery ;
16 3-4 in. (24-pounder) ;
torpedo tubes, 6 18-in.,
submerged, bow, stern,
and broadside.
on the latest pre-Dreadnought German battleships.
By this decisive move, the British authorities had
depressed the value of all mixed armament battleships,
in which the British Fleet was becoming weak in face
of foreign—and particularly German—rivalry, and had
started the competition in armaments on an entirely
* In the three succeeding years, in accordance with the British
Government's policy of a limitation of naval armaments, and as an
example to other Powers, this advantage was partially lost, and hence
the large programme of 1909-xo.
THE FIRST GERMAN DREADNOUGHTS 141
new basis upon terms of advantage. No sooner was the
true inwardness of the Dreadnought policy realized
than the German authorities began the preparation of
a new German Navy Act. It was eventually decided
that the best means of accomplishing the end in view—
namely, the construction of a larger number of ships
of the armoured classes in the next few years than
was provided in the Act of 1900, was to reduce the
nominal effective age, and legislate for the replace¬
ment of all battleships and large cruisers within
twenty years. Accordingly, attached to the new Act
passed early in 1908, which was over two years after
the laying down of the Dreadnought, was a schedule
setting forth that four large armoured ships should
be laid down annually between 1908 and 1911, both
inclusive, and that in 1911 onwards to 1917, two
keels annually should be placed in position. By
means of this single clause measure, which became
law on April 6, 1908, the construction of ships of the
Dreadnought type was accelerated, and, whereas the
British Admiralty had definitely abandoned the con¬
struction of large cruisers of the armoured class—as
the German authorities knew by this time—the Marine
Office decided that each of the " large cruisers"
specified in the Act of 1900 should be swift Dread¬
noughts.
This point is an important one. Between 1897
and 1904, Great Britain laid down 27 battleships and
35 armoured cruisers—a total of 62 armoured ships in
eight years, or an average of 775 ships a year. In this
period Germany built 16 battleships and 5 armoured
cruisers, or 21 armoured ships—equal to an average of
2-62 ships a year. In 1905 the Admiralty determined to
cease building armoured cruisers. In that year they laid
down 4 "capital ships"—all of them Dreadnoughts; in
the next two years 3 annually, and in 1908, 2 ships only.
While the British authorities abandoned the building
of armoured cruisers, Germany decided to accelerate
her battleship construction, and she also decided that
142 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
all the " large cruisers " specified in her Law should
be swift Dreadnoughts, and thus from 38 battleships and
20 armoured cruisers, she rose to an establishment
of 58 battleships.
At the end of 1911, when it was imagined that the
German programme would fall from 4 large ships
annually to 2 ships, a new Navy Bill was produced.*
Incidentally this measure added to the establishment
3 battleships and 2 unarmoured cruisers, and made
provision for the construction of a maximum of 72 sub¬
marines.
The significance of the successive changes in ship¬
building policy in Germany, reflecting in an ascending
scale the naval ambitions of the Marineamt, may be
realized from the following summary, showing the
establishment of large armoured ships fixed under
successive measures:
Establishment of Ships Adopted.
Act.
Battleships.
Large
Cruisers.
1898
1900
1906
17
38
38
8
14
20
1908
1912
Dreadnoughts.
58
61
Under the operation of German naval legislation, it
is now intended to provide sixty-one large armoured
ships of maximum power, all of them less than twenty
years old. The Act does not specify the character of
the vessels of the various classes which are to be laid
down. It is elastic in this respect. It leaves to the
Marine Office complete freedom in the matter of design;
but, on the other hand, it ties effectually the hands of
* Cf. Appendix I.
THE LEGISLATION OF 1912 143
the Reichstag, and it cannot, except it repeal the Navy
Law, reduce in any year the number of keels to be laid
down. There can be no reduction in the output of
naval material until a new Navy Law has been passed.
This is a point which is frequently forgotten in
England.
But the notable feature of the Navy Act passed by
the Reichstag in 1912 was not the additions to the
shipbuilding programme, though these were notable,
but the steps taken to increase the instant readiness of
the fleet for war. Prior to the passage of this measure
it had been the practice in the British Navy to maintain
only about half the men-of-war of various classes on a
war footing, relegating the remainder to reserves
representing various stages of preparedness for action.
The German Navy Act of 1912 set up an entirely new
standard with a view to obtaining the maximum
advantage from a conscript service, where the pay is
low, in competition with a voluntary service, such as
obtains in the British Fleet, with very much higher
rates of pay. In the speech which he delivered in
Committee in the House of Commons on July 22, 1912,
Mr. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty,
gave a lucid explanation of the essential features of this
German Navy Act. He said :
" The main feature of that Law is not the increase in
the new construction of capital ships, though that is an
important feature. The main feature is the increase in
the striking force of ships of all classes which will be
available, immediately available, at all seasons of the
year. A third squadron of 8 battleships will be
created and maintained in full commission as part of the
active battle-fleet. Whereas, according to the un¬
amended Law, the active battle-fleet consisted of 17
battleships, 4 battle or large armoured cruisers,
and 12 small cruisers; in the near future that active
fleet will consist of 25 battleships, 8 battle or large
armoured cruisers, and 18 small cruisers; and, whereas
at present, owing to the system of recruitment which
prevails in Germany, the German Fleet is less fully
144 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
mobile during the winter than during the summer
months, it will, through the operation of this Law, not
only be increased in strength, but rendered much more
readily available.
"Ninety-nine torpedo-boat destroyers—or torpedo-
boats, as they are called in Germany—instead of 66,
will be maintained in full commission out of a total
of 144. Three-quarters of a million pounds had already
been taken in the general estimate for the year for the
building of submarines. The new Law adds a quarter
of a million to this, and that is a provision which, so
far as we can judge from a study of the finances would
appear to be repeated in subsequent years. Seventy-
two new submarines will be built within the currency
of the Law, and of those it is apparently proposed to
maintain fifty-four with full permanent crews.
"Taking a general view, the effect of this Law will be
that nearly four-fifths of the entire German Navy will
be maintained in full permanent commission—that is to
say, instantly and constantly ready for war. Such a
proportion is remarkable, and so far as I am aware,
finds no example in the previous practice of modern
naval Powers. So great a change and development in
the German Fleet involves, of course, important ad¬
ditions to their personnel. In 1898 the officers and
men of the German Navy amounted to 25,000. To-day
that figure has reached 66,000.
" Under the previous Laws and various amendments
which have preceded this one, the Germans have been
working up to a total in 1920, according to our calcula¬
tions, of 86,500 officers and men, and they have been
approaching that total by increments of, approximately,
an addition of 3,500 a year. The new law adds a
total of 15,000 officers and men, and makes the total
in 1920 of 101,500.* The new average annual addition
is calculated to be 1,680 of all ranks, but for the
next three years by special provision 500 extra are to
be added. From 1912 to 1914, 500 are to be added, and
in the last three years of the currency of the Law 500
less will be taken. This makes a total rate of increase
* In his speech in the House of Commons on March 26, 1913, the
First Lord corrected this figure. He stated that the maximum to be
attained under the new Fleet Law in 1920 was 107,000 apart from
reserves.
INCREASED EXPENDITURE 14S
of the German Navy personnel of about 5,700 men a
year.
" The new construction under the Law prescribes for
the building of three additional battleships—one to be
begun next year (1913), one in 1916, and two small
cruisers of which the date has not yet been fixed. The
date of the third battleship has not been fixed. It
has been presumed to be later than the six years
which we have in view.
" The cost of these increases in men and in material
during the next six years is estimated as £10,500,000
above the previous estimates spread over that period.
I should like to point out to the Committee that this is
a cumulative increase which follows upon other
increases of a very important character. The Law of
1898 was practically doubled by the Law of 1900, and if
the expenditure contemplated by the Law of 1900 had
been followed the German estimates of to-day would
be about £ 11,000,000. But owing to the amendments
of 1906 and 1908, and now of 1912, that expenditure
is very nearly .£23,000,000. But the fact that the
personnel plays such a large part in this new amend¬
ment, and that personnel is more cheaply obtained in
Germany than in this country, makes the money go
farther there than it would do over here.
" The ultimate scale of the new German Fleet, as
contemplated by the latest Navy Law, will be 41 battle¬
ships, 20 battle or large armoured cruisers, and 40 small
cruisers, besides a proper proportion—an ample pro¬
portion—of flotillas of torpedo-boat destroyers and
submarines, by 1920. This is not on paper a great
advance on the figures prescribed by the previous Law,
which gave 38 battleships, 20 battle or large armoured
cruisers, and 38 small cruisers. That is not a great
advance on the total scale. In fact, however, there
is a remarkable expansion of strength and efficiency,
and particularly of strength and efficiency as they
contribute to striking power. The number of battle¬
ships and large armoured cruisers alone which will
be kept constantly ready and in full commission will
be raised by the Law from twenty-one, the present
figure, to thirty-three—that is to say, an addition of
twelve, or an increase of about 57 per cent. The new
fleet will in the beginning include about twenty battle-
10
i46 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
ships and large cruisers of the oldertypes, but gradually,
as new vessels are built, the fighting power of the fleet
will rise until in the end it will consist completely o
modern vessels.
" This new scale of the German Fleet—organized in
five battle squadrons, each attended by a battle or
armoured cruiser squadron, complete with small
cruisers and auxiliaries of all kinds, and accompanied
by numerous flotillas of destroyers and submarines,
more than three-fourths—nearly four-fifths, maintained
in full permanent commission—the aspect and scale of
this fleet is, I say, extremely formidable. Such a fleet
will be about as numerous to look at as the fleet which
was gathered at Spithead for the recent Parliamentary
visit, but, of course, when completed it will be far
superior in actual strength. This full development
will only be realized step by step. But already in
1914 two squadrons will, so far as we can ascertain,
be entirely composed of Dreadnoughts, or what are
called Dreadnoughts, and the third will be made up of
good ships like the Deutschlands and the Braun-
schweigs,* together with five Dreadnought battle-
cruisers. It remains to be noted that this new Law
is the fifth in fourteen years of the large successive
increases made in German naval strength, that it
encountered no effective opposition in its passage
through the Reichstag, and that, though it has been
severely criticized in Germany since its passage, the
criticisms have been directed towards its inadequacy."
In these words the First Lord of the Admiralty
described in full detail the exact character of the latest
German Navy Act, and then he proceeded to make
some general observations, which, in view of the
organization of the British Navy, prior to the expan¬
sion of the German Navy, are of particular interest:
" There are two points with regard to navies and
naval war which differentiate them from armies and
land war. The first is the awful suddenness with
which naval warfare can reach its decisive phase. We
see on the continent of Europe immense military
establishments possessed by nations dwelling on
♦ These two groups of ships are of practically the same design.
NAVAL AND MILITARY CONDITIONS 147
opposite sides of political frontier lines; yet they
dwell and have dwelt for a whole generation in
peace and tranquillity. But between those armies
and any decisive collision there intervenes an in¬
evitable period of delay that acts as a great buffer,
a cushion of security. I mean the vast process of
mobilization, the very first signs of which must be
noticed, and which, once it begins, lays idle the
industry of both countries, and dominates the whole
course of national life. So it is that through all these
years nations are able to dwell side by side with their
tremendous military establishments without being a
prey to undue anxiety as to immediate attack. But
none of these considerations apply to fleets. The fleet
which was assembled for the manoeuvres the other
day was fully capable of going into action as soon as
the ammunition could be brought up and put by the
side of the guns. And that is true of all the great
highly efficient navies of the world.
" I am bound to say, looking far ahead, and farther
than the purposes of this Vote, at the aspect which
Europe and the world will present when the power of
States, which has been hitherto estimated in terms of
armies, will be estimated very largely in naval strength,
and when we have a number of great Powers all
possessed of very powerful navies, the state of Europe
and of the world would seem to contain many more
germs of danger than the period through which we
have been passing in our lifetime.
" The second general point to which I would
direct attention is the extreme slowness with which
naval preparations can be made. Small ships take
eighteen to twenty months to build ; large ships four
years. Docks take more than four years to build.
Seamen take from two to three years to train; arti¬
ficers take much longer; officers take between six and
seven years. The efficiency which comes from the
harmonious combination of these elements is a plant
of very slow growth indeed. Cool, steady, methodical
preparation, prolonged over a succession of years, can
alone raise the margin of naval power. It is no use
flinging millions of money about on the impulse of the
moment by a gesture of impatience, or in a mood of
panic."
i48 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
Such is the evolution which German naval ambitions
have undergone since the Reichstag in the early years
of the Emperor's reign refused to believe that four
relatively small battleships in full commission, with
the same number of ineffective coast-defence ships of
small size, did not represent the maximum naval power
which Germany need provide, and that an expenditure
of two and three-quarter millions sterling was not
sufficient burden to impose annually upon the Teutonic
peoples over and above the cost in money and service
of the predominant army.
Nothing reveals the statesmanship of Admiral
Tirpitz so strikingly as the character of the naval
legislation for which he has been responsible, and
the manner in which he has bent every influence in
Germany and every occurrence abroad to promote his
ends. Prior to the introduction of the Navy Act of
1898, the only example of a continuous naval policy
was the Naval Defence Act of 1889, under which
seventy ships of various types were added to the
British Navy during a period of four years. Of these
vessels only ten were of the armoured classes. This
measure was confined to shipbuilding, and it made no
provision for increasing the personnel or for setting up
a fixed standard of commissioning. It merely pro¬
vided a certain number of ships and left it to Parlia¬
ment to provide or not to provide crews with which
to man them, and, as a matter of fact, Parliament did
not provide the necessary officers and men until long
after the ships were at sea. Admiral von Tirpitz was
not satisfied with so unmethodical and unstatesman-
like a measure of procedure when he went to the
Marineamt in 1897. He presented to the Reichstag, as
may be seen from the terms of the Fleet Law of 1898,
given in an appendix, a complete scheme of naval
expansion, making provision not only for the con¬
struction of ships in specified numbers over a period
of six years, but providing also for the due expansion
of the personnel and for the attainment of a fixed
POLICY OF ADMIRAL VON TIRPITZ 149
establishment of ships first in full commission, secondly
with nucleus crews, and thirdly in reserve. In obtain¬
ing the assent of the Reichstag to this measure, which
to a great extent removed the naval expansion move¬
ment from the annual control which it had hitherto
exercised annually on the presentation of the Estimates,
the Minister of Marine achieved his first great triumph.
This Act was to have remained in operation for a
period of six years, and was represented as an em¬
bodiment of German needs, quite independent of the
naval preparations then being made by other Powers.
During the next two years no development occurred
in the naval programmes either of Great Britain or
other foreign countries, but an Anglophobe wave
passed over the Continent as a result of the South
African War. German sympathies in particular were
aroused, and Admiral Tirpitz at once seized the
opportunity to repeal the fixed and immutable Fleet
Law of 1898, and to replace it by a new enactment
providing a Battle Fleet of roughly twice the strength
of that legalized in the establishment of the former
measure. This measure was to have remained in force
until 1917. Six years later, however, an amendment
representing another expansion was passed; two
years after that the fourth Fleet Law became operative,
and in 1912 another measure was adopted by the
Reichstag under the influence of a renewed Anglo¬
phobe movement in Germany. Experience has shown
that German Fleet Laws are regarded as immutable
and fixed when proposals in the direction of a limita¬
tion of armaments are made, but as flexible as though
no Fleet Law existed when political circumstances are
favourable for making a further effort towards a higher
standard of naval power.
Nor does this study exhaust the remarkable features
of this naval legislation. An ordinary statesman,
ignorant of naval matters, might have so framed the
successive Naval Laws as seriously to tie the hands of
the naval authorities in the development of the fleet,
150 THE GERMAN NAVY ACTS
whereas Admiral von Tirpitz, with great skill, restricted
the powers of interference on the part of the Reich¬
stag, while leaving the Marine Office with almost ~
complete freedom in shaping the naval machine in the
process of expansion. This double end was achieved
by the use of generic naval terms in the loose manner
adopted by those unfamiliar with their significance.
Admiral von Tirpitz made up his " paper " establish-^
ment in the Fleet Laws by styling every ship of slow j
speed but carrying an armoured belt "a battleship,"
and then, under the terms of the Law, he made pro¬
vision for these dummy vessels to be replaced by
veritable battleships of maximum power. Thus ships
of 4,000 tons displacement have been replaced by
Dreadnoughts of 25,000 tons, carrying the heaviest
guns, and protected by thick armour. The establish¬
ment fixed by the Reichstag has not been exceeded,
but by a simple process of conjuring, small coast-
defence ships have been quietly converted into first-
class sea-going battleships, ranking in strategical and
tactical qualities with the most formidable ships in the
British Fleet. The naval authorities have by this
means been able to prove to the uninitiated when
challenged that they have kept within the four corners
of the Law, that the number of battleships has re¬
mained fixed according to the establishment between
the periods of each enactment, and at the same time
they have been in a position to follow an active ship¬
building policy, at the same time raising from year to
year the necessary personnel for manning the new
vessels. This is another notable feature of Admiral
von Tirpitz's policy. The legislation has been so
elastic as to enable him to raise the necessary number
of officers and men to suit the requirements of the
Fleet. When a Dreadnought, requiring 1,106 officers
and men, has been completed for sea to take the
place of a ship of the Hagen class, with a crew of
only 306, the additional personnel has been instantly
ready.
THE " REPLACEMENT" POLICY 151
The same process has been adopted in increasing
the cruiser squadrons of the German Navy. The Law
has specified that a certain number of " large cruisers "
shall be built, and it has been left to the discretion of
the naval authorities to interpret this elastic term in
tons, guns, armour, knots of speed, and personnel. In
accordance with the Law, Admiral von Tirpitz has
thus been able to replace cruisers of negligible fighting
value and of small size by Dreadnought battle cruisers
mounting guns of immense power and attaining speeds
hitherto without precedent. Similarly, small torpedo-
boats have given way in the establishment of the Navy
to torpedo-boat destroyers of large size, and step by
step the naval strength of Germany has been increased
by a process, the cleverness and ingenuity of which
even the German people themselves have not realized.
Germany has immensely increased her resources of
ships and men, but she has done more than that: she
has forced other Powers to organize and train their
squadrons on a standard of efficiency never attempted
in the past. She has increased the strain and stress
of peace until it resembles closely the actual conditions
of war, and having determined year in and year out
to keep four-fifths of her fleet always on a war footing,
always instantly ready for action, she has compelled
other countries, in accordance with the dictates of
ordinary foresight, to take similar action, however
onerous the financial burden. It is on Great Britain
and the United States that the weight of this burden
bears most heavily, for in those States alone is reliance
placed on a voluntary system of manning.
CHAPTER VI
GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
In material, in the art of constructing and equipping
ships of war, Germany now ranks far above most of
the Great Powers, and she is little, if anything, behind
even Great Britain in workmanship, rapidity and
cheapness. Her personnel also stands high, for she
has succeeded in translating into naval terms the
professional and disciplinary codes which have raised
the German Army to a position of pre-eminence.
Above all she has succeeded, ,in a degree never before
attempted by any country, in keeping ships and men
in constant association. The German naval authorities
have recognized that, while a conscriptive system of
manning a fleet brings into the organization certain
grave and ineradicable disadvantages, it does at least
enable large numbers of officers and men to be borne
for service at a relatively small annual cost. Realizing
this economic benefit of conscription, the Marineamt
has had no hesitation in increasing the personnel
rapidly from year to year. The expansion of this
element of naval power has kept pace with the
activity of the shipyards. This policy of simultaneous
increase of ships and of men, accompanied as it has
been by the expansion of her shipbuilding and allied
industries and of her dockyards, has been the secret
of the rapid rise of Germany as a maritime Potver
wielding world-wide influence.
Within the memory of the present generation German
ships of war, if not built in England, were constructed
152
GERMANY'S ENGLISH-BUILT SHIPS 153
in Germany with materials obtained entirely or in part
from England. Her earliest armoured ships of any
account—the Dentscliland, the Kaiser and the Konig
Wilhelm—were all constructed on the banks of the
Thames at the old Samuda Yard. The great industry
which Germany and other foreign nations helped to
support is now dead, and on the other side of the
North Sea is to be seen an activity more intense and
on a far larger scale than the Thames establish¬
ments could boast even in the day of their greatest
prosperity.
Though there are many shipbuilding yards and
engine-making establishments in Germany, the naval
authorities depend exclusively upon the vast establish¬
ment of Krupp for armour and guns, and the repute
of the firm in both respects stands very high. The
vast establishment which supplies the German and
many other Governments was founded in 1810 by
Friedrich Krupp, who bought a small forge and
devoted himself, with little commercial success, to
the manufacture of cast steel. In this he was ahead
of Germany's requirements, but on the basis thus laid
by the father, the son built; and in 1851 a solid steel
ingot which he exhibited at the Great Exhibition in
London completely took the metallurgic world by
surprise, and his fortune was made. He turned his
energy and knowledge to the making of guns, armour,
weldless steel rails, and other manufactures; and the
modest works at Essen continued to expand until
to-day they and the associated establishments give
employment to about 70,000 men, not all of whom, of
course, are engaged on the manipulation of armaments.
For many years the Krupp process of armour
manufacture was adopted in every country in the
world, but lately the British Admiralty have, it is
common knowledge, adopted a superior process which
produces a plate of greater resisting power, and the
German cemented type of armour no longer holds the
premier position which it occupied when its advantages
154 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
over the Harvey plate were demonstrated. On the
other hand, the Krupp firm still claim that their
ordnance is not equalled by any in the world, and
on the strength of this claim they have obtained most
valuable orders, extending over a long series of years,
from foreign Governments. British guns are made on
the wire-wound system—that is, steel ribbon is wound
under great pressure round the gun, and over this is
placed an outer hoop; Krupp's, on the other hand,
still remain faithful to the solid steel tube to resist the
gas pressures exerted, arguing that their method of
steel manufacture enables them to submit it to strains
which other steel might not stand. There has been
endless controversy as to the merits of the two systems;
and the subject was again discussed as recently as the
end of 1912, when the Italian Minister of Marine laid a
report before the Italian Parliament with reference to
the armaments of the principal fleets. According to
this statement the British, Italian, and Japanese are
the only Navies to mount wire-wound guns; the
probable life of the Italian and Japanese 12-inch guns
was given at 80 rounds, whereas the English gun was
good for only 60 rounds. On the other hand, the
Austrian and German guns were given from 200 to 220
rounds, and the American 14-inch gun was estimated
to have a probable life of 150 rounds. Particulars with
reference to British and German guns were given as
follows :
British.
German.
Calibre in inches
12
13*5
12
14
15
Length in calibres
SO
45
45
50
5o
Weight in tons
69
80
53
83
102
Weight of projectile in pounds
850
1,240
850
1,360
1,650
Initial velocity
2,950
2,800
3,000
3,ooo
3,000
Energy at muzzle in metric tons
16,540
22,150
17.520
27,650
33>910
Energy per kilogramme in kilo¬
metres
240
2 77
33°
330
33o
Probable life in rounds
60
60
200
200
200
BRITISH AND GERMAN GUNS 155
The attention of the First Lord of the Admiralty
was directed to these statements in the House of
Commons, and he reiterated the assurance of former
Ministers that the expert advisers were satisfied as to
the wisdom of retaining the wire-wound system. He
gave no data as to the foundation of this confidence,
and in the German technical press—no doubt with an
eye to foreign orders—the superiority of the German
gun over the British was repeated with at least equal
assurance.
The great advantage of the wire-wound system, it
has always been claimed, is that after much use, when
the rifling is worn, the gun can be given a new inner
tube, a comparatively simple and cheap operation
which results in practically a new gun being made
available for sea service in a short time. All that can
be said as to the two systems from practical experience
is that the Japanese found the British-made weapons
give eminently satisfactory results during the war with
Russia, while the Krupp artillery guns used by the
Turkish Army in the Balkan War of 1912 did not
realize expectations.
Probably in naval material—in ships, their armour,
armament, and engineering equipment—there is little
difference as between the leading navies. One may
be thought to have an advantage in some particular
respect, but this may possibly be counterbalanced by
the rival's superiority in another. No final judgment
on the relative merits of material, certainly as between
the British and German Navies, can be passed in the
absence of war experience. Generally the British
ships mount fewer guns but of larger calibre, and to the
experienced eye they look very workmanlike; while the
German ships carry smaller guns in greater number
and have a crowded appearance which does not appeal
to British naval opinion in its desire for simplicity of
design and plenty of working room. Which school
represents the nearest approximation to ideal war
conditions only war itself can show. Virtually, all the
156 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
instruments for exerting naval power as they exist to¬
day are experimental, based upon empirical knowledge.
When the war between the United States and Spain
occurred, it was anticipated that it would throw light
upon these problems, but these anticipations were not
realized, and even the struggle between Russia and
Japan failed to satisfy fully the natural curiosity of the
naval constructor and the naval officer owing to the
inefficiency with which the Russian ships were
handled, and the deplorable slackness of the adminis¬
tration.
It is the fashion to calculate the relative strength of
fleets in tons and guns,* but the probability is that on
the day of trial these nice paper computations will be
entirely upset by the course of events. Morale, as
Napoleon observed, dominates war. This dictum is
no less true to-day than it was in the past. Man is still
greater than the instruments of his creation, and the
experience of war will certainly confirm the teaching
of history—that the important element in naval power
is men rather than ships. On the eve of the Battle of
St. Vincent, when Jervis, in command of fifteen ships,
was pacing the quarter-deck of his flagship and the
Spanish Fleet was entering the field of vision, the
numbers of the enemy were reported by the Captain
of the Fleet to the Commander-in-Chief as they were
counted. "There are eight sail of the line, Sir John,"
"Very well, sir," answered the Admiral. "There are
twenty sail of the line, Sir John." "Very well, sir,"
Jervis responded. "There are twenty-five sail of the
line, Sir John." "Very well, sir," the Admiral again
replied imperturbably. " There are twenty-seven sail
of the line, Sir John," the Captain of the Fleet at length
reported, and when he had the temerity to remark on
the great disparity between the British and Spanish
Fleets, the Admiral, confident in the efficiency of his
small fleet, replied: " The die is cast, and if there be
* A comparison of the gun-power of the British and German
Fleets, drawn from official sources, is given in Appendix VII.
CALCULATIONS OF TONS AND GUNS 157
fifty sail, I will go through them." We may be sure
that the victor of the Battle of St. Vincent, who by
stern but wisely directed measures created the fleet
which Nelson used with such dramatic effect at
Trafalgar, would have scorned and ridiculed an entire
reliance on mere paper calculations of guns and tons,
realizing that victory or defeat depends mainly upon
the personal element and morale.
It is in respect of officers and men that there is the
greatest contrast between the British Fleet and the
Navies of the continent of Europe. The British
service is organized on a voluntary system, while
the Continental fleets are manned mainly by conscripts;
the former serve for many years, while the latter for the
most part submit to only the short period of duty
required by law and then pass into the reserve. In
the matter of officers, however, the German Fleet is
certainly not worse served than the British Navy;
though the cadets begin their training at a somewhat
later age, a thoroughly good sea officer is produced.
The marked distinction between the two services is
that, whereas under the White Ensign special duties
are assigned to special classes of officers—gunnery,
torpedo, navigation, signalling and physical training—
in the German Navy no hard-and-fast lines are drawn.
It is held that the British system would entail a larger
number of officers than are available on the other side
of the North Sea. However this may be, the German
authorities can certainly pride themselves upon a corps
of executive officers which in many respects is not
excelled in any country. As in the British service,
special lines of officers are trained for engineering,
medical, and accountant duties and these have no
executive standing.
The method of training executive officers for the
German Fleet differs in some important respects from
that which obtains in England. In the British service
the cadets, who enter when they are, on the average,
thirteen and a half years of age, have not completed
158 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
their general education, and consequently spend four
years at the Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth
respectively before they go afloat in a training ship. The
German naval officer receives much the same general
education as any other boy before he enters the navy,
whereas the British cadet, after entering, is submitted to
an educational course specially devised with a view to
his future naval career; his studies embrace physical
science and practical engineering, and emphasis is laid
upon athletics and as much sea experience as can be
obtained in small craft. When the four years ashore
are completed he goes afloat at about the same age as
the average German cadet and makes a six months'
cruise. Which is the better system ? Who shall say ?
This is certain, however, that British naval officers
have always held that lads for the sea service cannot be
caught, broken in, and inoculated, so to speak, too
early.
The training and the position subsequently occupied
by the naval officer in the German organization is
peculiar to the country in some respects. His relation
to the navy, to the technical side of naval power, and
to the Emperor, as the supreme head of the fleet, was
admirably presented by two foreign officers who, after
studying the German naval system, compiled the
following notes :*
Private workshops will construct the ships, will
mount the guns, will provide the technical personnel,
will instal all the machinery and all the arms for im¬
mediate and perfect action ; only skill in directing and
rapidity of action will be required of the officers. It
is on this principle that the organization of the German
Fleet is founded, and to this principle is subordinated
every detail of the education of the officers. It is not
claimed that the officers possess a profound scientific
knowledge of the mechanism nor even sufficient prac¬
tical acquaintance with the details for handling it. The
* Translated from the Rivista Generate di Marina of November, 1911,
and published in the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution,
OFFICERS AND WARRANT OFFICERS 159
first is the province of the naval architects; and for
the second there exists the class called " deck officers "
(warrant officers), to whose function the Saxon nature
readily adapts itself; a class between petty officers
and officers, composed of individuals whose practical
knowledge of one single subject is being constantly
improved by frequent alternations of practical expe¬
rience and teaching in the schools. From this class
are drawn and placed respectively under the officers
concerned, experts in gunnery, torpedo and engineer¬
ing, highly trained by constant and exclusive employ¬
ment of the one machine, and perfected in the schools
by theoretical instruction limited, in extent, but of
great efficiency.
Relying on these assistants, the German naval officer
does not require a profound knowledge of the scientific
part of his machinery, nor familiarity with details,
but concerns himself solely with the direction of the
whole.
There are, besides, other peculiarities of race and of
political organization which influence details, and are
at first sight incomprehensible to us. In war and
executive matters the control of the Emperor is abso¬
lute and personal. He issues his orders directly to
the chiefs of the different 'departments, without the
intervention of the Minister, which is only exercised
in the administrative part. Contracts, construction,
etc., are under the Minister's control, but the Com¬
manders-in-Chief of the fleets and of the naval stations,
the heads of the departments of artillery and of tor¬
pedoes, and those of the centres of instruction receive
orders directly from the Emperor. Their personal
responsibility to him is therefore unavoidable and
effective.
The Emperor, for his part, issues concise orders with¬
out entering into details, and this compels the subordi¬
nate to exercise his own initiative. The result of this
system is, first, a perfect knowledge on the part of the
Emperor of the fitness of the personnel; and, secondly,
160 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
that each individual is accustomed to act on his own
responsibility and on his own initiative unhampered
by any other consideration than that of carrying out
the design of the Emperor.
It is evident that this tends to produce admirable
results in the spirit of the war organization, but on the
condition that the personal fitness of the Emperor is
fully equal to the great requirements of such an im¬
portant role. Everything depends on this.
There are other important factors which must not
be overlooked, if we would understand and judge the
organization of this navy. The democratic spirit,
claiming equal chances for all, which influences all the
acts of Governments of the Latin nations, has not yet
impressed itself upon the Teutonic race. It is there¬
fore not surprising to find strict rules excluding the
lower grades of society, such, for example, as the rules
determining the entrance to the Academy in the first
instance, and later on to executive rank, or those which
forbid the lower grades of engineers to marry if they
aspire to the rank of officers.
This same spirit of differentiation which pervades
the whole fabric of society, and is accepted by the
lower classes themselves, facilitates the exercise of
military authority without requiring great scientific or
intellectual knowledge.
The combination of these circumstances creates an
atmosphere absolutely different, not only from our
own, but from that of all maritime nations. It is not
thought necessary to give officers an extensive know¬
ledge which might be useless, and would probably
quench in them an activity which should be applied
rather to stimulating qualities of another order.
Neither is there any intention of adopting the system
of evolution, which other nations have initiated in the
organization of engineers; there will continue to be,
above all, practical men with a career limited to the
post of Commander; because, it is said, they have not
the wherewithal to fill the higher posts.
ENTRY OF CADETS
161
The course of instruction of the personnel of the
different branches is founded upon these ideas.
As to the executive branch of officers the maximum
age for admittance as a cadet is eighteen, and a certi¬
ficate of the standard of education of "bachelor" is
sufficient to qualify him for entrance. A Commission
of the Inspectorate of Schools examines the antecedents
of the candidate's family more closely than his diploma,
and his admission is then determined. It is possible
also to enter before the age of sixteen, without having
attained the standard of " bachelor," but in this case,
and with the consent of the Board, the candidate must
pass a qualifying examination in arithmetic, algebra
(including quadratic equations), geometry, plane and
solid (elementary), plane trigonometry, the rudiments of
physics (mechanics, light, heat, and electricity), French,
and English (to read and translate).
During the first six months the cadets receive
military training on land, and then at once embark in
the cruisers exclusively reserved for this purpose.
These vessels, of 5,000 tons, are the Hertha, Freya}
Hansa, and Victoria Luise.
The instruction given in these cruisers, which are
at the same time schools for seamen apprentices, is of
a practical character; they are taught the principles
of seamanship, including practical navigation and
pilotage, and sufficient astronomy for the determina¬
tion of latitude by the meridian. In gunnery they learn
the handling of the guns and firing at the target. In
the engine-room they perform the mechanical duties
of each department in all their details. Every mid¬
shipman must have kept at least twelve watches of
two hours each as stoker mechanic, and twenty-four
as artificer in the engine-room. The study of gunnery
and of engineering is purely descriptive. They learn,
besides, French and English.
During the first year the progress made in their
studies is carefully watched, and at the close of the
course the students pronounced competent undergo
11
162 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
an examination on board the same ship before they
can pass into the Kiel School as midshipmen; whilst
those classed as competent, but who fail in the examina¬
tion, may repeat the course.
The school at Kiel occupies at present a building
which, although sumptuously furnished and decorated,
does not fulfil the modern requirements for space in
establishments of this character. The German Govern¬
ment, alive to this defect, is constructing an edifice
adapted for the purpose at Sonderburg.
The midshipmen remain a year in this school. The
table on p. 163 gives the list of lectures delivered, and
the time devoted to each subject in the year's course,
which is the only one of a theoretical character in the
career of the German officer.
In addition, the afternoons are employed as
follows :
(a) In summer, weekly : Two double hours seaman¬
ship ; one hour gymnastics; one hour fencing; one hour
signalling. Monthly: One double hour in engineer¬
ing, and, during the term, seven double hours ot
navigation.
(b) In winter : Six double hours gunnery ; five hours
construction; one hour gymnastics ; one hour fencing;
one hour signalling; one hour riding; one hour
dancing.
The textbooks for the course of instruction contained
in these lectures could scarcely be more elementary.
The one for mathematics includes arithmetic, algebra,
geometry, and trigonometry. It consists of 450 pages,
and the previous knowledge of the four rules of arith¬
metic with whole numbers is all that is required for
its study. The theories of arithmetic and algebra are
confined to the first 88 pages. Plane geometry, with
numerous applications to pilotage, occupies the next
100 pages. Trigonometry is studied in all its branches;
this science, with the principles of solid geometry,
which are indispensable for the comprehension of all
that relates to the sphere, and with application to
MIDSHIPMEN'S STUDIES AT KIEL 163
cosmography and nautical astronomy (triangulation)
occupies the rest of the book.
The German officer does not study calculus.
Analytical geometry is epitomized in 80 pages, which
treat principally of the parabola, and touch lightly
Table of Studies in the School.
Subjects.
Hours Weekly
in Classes.
Observations.
Navigation, seamanship,
6
One and a half hours a
and knowledge of the
week in navigation work,
ship
and a practical course
in a sailing vessel during
one week.
Gunnery and hydraulics
2
—
Engineering
3
—
Organization of the de¬
2
—
partments
Construction
2
—
Mathematics
2
—
Natural sciences...
2
—
Electro-technics
2
—
English
2
—
French
2
—
Mines (in summer)
1
—
Land tactics (fortifications
1
During the summer twelve
in winter)
double hours approxi¬
mately for land tactics.
During the winter six
double hours given to
the same subject in such
form as the Director of
Studies may decide.
Drawing and languages
—
—
optional
on the other curves of the second degree. This book
contains all that is required for the mathematical
course.
All that refers to natural sciences is contained in
a little book of 94 pages, devoted to all the most
elementary principles of mechanics, heat, light, mag¬
netism, electricity, and chemistry.
164 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
The class-books on the applied sciences do not go
much farther. Cosmography, navigation, meteorology,
oceanography, and surveying are contained in a volume
of 280 pages.
Engines occupy 300 pages in a book, which, after
some elementary explanation of thermo-dynamics,
gives a description of the engines actually in use in the
German Navy, not only for propulsion, but for every
kind of use on board. It describes, therefore, recip¬
rocating engines, turbines, internal combustion, all
kinds of auxiliary engines, dynamos, electro-motors,
refrigerators, ventilators, pumps, etc. It is all in a
very condensed form, and the scientific is subordinated
to the popular character.
Gunnery is the subject of a much larger work, and
is divided under three heads. The first is the descrip¬
tion of the material in use in the German Navy; the
second part, of 50 pages, is a fairly complete and
very practical study of external ballistics and fire
control; and the third portion is a very elementary
treatise on internal ballistics, powder, and ammuni¬
tion.
When the course of study has been completed in
the school, the students pass into the gunnery school
of Sonderburg, where, for three months, they devote
themselves exclusively to the theory and practice of
this arm ; after which, having satisfied their instructors
in this course, they pass into the torpedo school on
board a special ship, where they remain two months.
Another examination follows, and they are then
attached for one month's purely military service to
one of the colonial battalions. After this stage of
apprenticeship the midshipmen have the privilege of
wearing swords, and then enter for a year's service
afloat.
The examination at the end of this last year closes
the period of instruction, and the place which the
student takes in the examination, together with his
previous record in the schools, determines his
PROMOTION BY SENIORITY 165
seniority in the list. But whatever may be the result
of this examination, the student does not enter the
Executive Branch of Officers until all the officers at
the station to which he belongs, whether Kiel or
Wilhelmshaven, have given their votes in his favour.
Should even one officer alone raise objection to the
entrance of the candidate on the ground of the
dignity and reputation of the corps, it is sufficient
to delay his admission pending the decision of the
Emperor.
The commanders of the ships have the power
to delay the final examination for six months, and
even to propose retirement on professional or social
grounds. This is granted by the Inspectorate
of Schools, of which Board a Vice - Admiral is
head.
Promotion to the higher grades of the corps goes
practically by seniority, because, although the regula¬
tions direct promotions by selection, this method is
little employed, at present at all events.
The officers of the Executive Branch of Officers
performing the duties of naval lieutenants are selected,
not on their initiative, but by the direction of their
superiors, to go through a course of gunnery which
comprises two standards: the lower, which requires
two months, is for the guns of cruisers ; the higher,
lasting three months, for the heavy guns of battle¬
ships. Should three years elapse without these
officers being employed in the capacity for which
they have specialized they forfeit their title of
specialist.
In the same way the " Oberleutnants " (lieutenants
of less than eight years' seniority) have to go through
a further torpedo course, which lasts three months.
As in the previous case, the title of specialist is
forfeited by three years' unemployment. In reality
neither the torpedo nor the gunnery course gives
any personal advantage or differentiation in the
service.
166 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
Promotion in the ranks of Engineer Officers is prac¬
tically limited to the comparative rank of " Kapitan-
leutnant " (naval lieutenant of over eight years' service),
because, although there are posts ranking with major
and lieutenant-colonel in the Army, their number is so
small relatively to that of the officers that it is by only
an exception that these posts can be obtained. On
the other hand, the pay is always higher than that of
other officers of equal rank. Their position on board
is that of combatant officers, although inferior to
that of the officers of the Executive Branch, who
hold certain privileges, such as Presidency of the
Mess, etc.
The candidates for entry as engineer sub-lieutenant
must, as students, be under twenty-two years of age;
they must have attained the standard of education of
" bachelor," or followed part of the course for this
certificate like the students of the Executive Branch
of Officers; they must pass a theoretical examination
in elementary mathematics, the rudiments of mechanics,
and mechanical drawing, as well as a practical examin¬
ation in what concerns their profession; they must,
besides, show that they have served in private works
for at least twenty-four months, of which four must
have been passed in boiler works, two in copper, and
three in iron foundries, and fifteen in machinery work¬
shops. Having satisfied their examiners on these
points, they then receive an exclusively military
training for three months, and the other nine months
of the first year are spent in naval vessels. At
the end of the year they are examined on board
ship by a commission composed of one captain,
one commander, and three engineer-officers. They
pass two years more on board an armoured vessel;
or one year in an armoured ship and one in a
torpedo-boat as petty officer, keeping their watches,
and pass on to Wilhelmshaven for a theoretical
course.
TRAINING OF ENGINEER OFFICERS 167
The programme for this first year is as follows :
Subjects.
Engines
Electro-technics
Mechanics ...
Physics
Chemistry
Higher mathematics
Languages ...
Drawing
At the end of this year, the fourth of their career,
they are promoted, and return as " deck officers"
(warrant officers) to the ship. There they do duty
as assistant chiefs of the watches in the engine-room
and stoke-hold, subordinate to the engineer officers,
who are the chiefs of the watches. After four years'
duty they return again to Wilhelmshaven, where the}r
go through a year's course, comprising both theo¬
retical and practical work. The following subjects
are studied :
Subjects.
Engines
Electro-technics
Mechanics
Physics
Chemistry
Mathematics
Languages (French and English)
Torpedoes
This ninth year of their career closes the period of
training and the result of the examination, combined
with that of the previous examinations, and with the
reports of their commanding officers, determines their
seniority in the list of officers; but in order to take
their place among the officers a favourable vote must
be obtained, as in the case of the officers of the
Executive Branch, only in this case the officers of the
Engineer and the Executive Branch vote. Those who
aspire to become officers cannot marry until after they
have attained their position.
Hours per
Week.
••• 5
••• 3
... 4
... 2
... 2
... 6
... 4
••• 3
Hours per
Week.
... 6
... 4
— 3
... 2
... 2
- 5
... 4
... 4
168 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
After the first six months of study, a certain number
of the engineer students are selected from the others,
and trained in torpedo-boats exclusively. Later they
spend a year at Wilhelmshaven, and when they have
been advanced to torpedo " deck officers " they spend
six months in the floating torpedo school, on board the
Wiirttemberg. After this course they pass on to the
school for torpedo practice on board the armoured
cruiser Friedrich Karl, where they remain three
months. Another year is spent in practical work in
the torpedo workshops. After four years, reckoned
from their advancement to " deck officers," they return
to Wilhelmshaven and go through the second course
with the engineers, and are finally promoted to officers
under the same conditions as the other engineer
officers. The most distinguished among those of both
branches are afterwards sent for a two years' finishing
course in civilian schools and institutes.
The electricity department is confined in Germany
to engineer officers, excepting the machinery required
for the guns, which is under the control of the officers
of the Executive Branch, assisted by " gunnery
engineers," so-called. These latter are recruits, who
can prove that they have served three years in private
workshops. They are at once sent to the artillery
division, where they are put through a three months'
practical course on board ; then they spend two months
in the Kronprinz (course of electricity); five months in
gun factories, and in workshops for the construction
of dockyard machinery; one-and-a-half months in the
school for gunnery; one-and-a-half in arsenal work¬
shops. Having completed this course of training they
are appointed to ships, and having given evidence of
their aptitude and skill, they are then recommended
and promoted to petty officers.
The most proficient among them, after a fixed time
of duty in the workshops and four years on board ship,
return to the gunnery school, where they qualify for
advancement to "deck officers."
CONSCRIPTION AND THE NAVY 169
These are the various methods by which officers are
trained, and it only remains to add that owing to
the drastic action of the Emperor the average age of
German officers, which was formerly very high, has
been reduced. As an illustration of His Majesty's
methods it may be recalled that one year after
naval manoeuvres two admirals, a captain, and four
younger officers were placed on the retired list;
and on other occasions energetic steps have been
taken in order to secure to the service only those
officers whose intellectual and seaman-like character¬
istics fit them for the arduous duties of the sea
service.
Throughout the years of naval expansion the German
authorities have been struggling to eliminate as far as
possible the disadvantages of conscription in its ap¬
plication to naval conditions. The War Department is
responsible for putting in force the conscription law,
and periodically the navy sends in its requisition,
stating the number of recruits who will be needed, and
where and when they are to join. The men selected
are passed direct into the fleet without preliminary
training each October. Under the British system
boys are entered at about sixteen years of age, and
receive a short training first in one of the shore or
stationary sea establishments, and are subsequently
drafted into one of the ships of the Training Squadron,
thence joining the sea-going fleet. A certain number
of youths are also entered at an average age of about
seventeen and a half years, and these recruits dispense
with the preliminary course, but are also drafted to
the Training Squadron before joining the fleet. Nearly
all the men of the fleet sign on for twelve years' active
service, and the best of these are permitted to re¬
engage for another ten years in order to earn pensions.
A relatively small number of men, not boys, join the
British Navy for a term of only five years, with the
obligation to remain in the Reserve for seven years. Five
years,consequently, is the minimum in the British Navy,
170 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
and applies to only a relatively small number of men;
but three years is the maximum period of German
conscripts, and during this time the officers and warrant
officers have to do their best to transform the raw
material provided by the State into skilled seamen.
It is easy to imagine the difficulties which assail the
administration in Germany in these circumstances.
Every year one-third of the naval conscripts complete
their period of active service and are passed into the
Reserve, and their places are taken by an equivalent
batch of raw recruits. The result is that in the winter
months the officers and petty officers of the fleet are
occupied in licking into shape these embryo sailors,
and from October until May the fighting ships of the
Empire become practically training vessels.
If this were a complete representation of the condi¬
tions in the German Fleet its efficiency would be of a
low order. The Navy is, however, stiffened by a
proportion of conscripts who re-engage voluntarily,
and by a certain number of volunteers who enter as
boys. These lads engage at ages ranging from fifteen
to eighteen years. They agree to undergo an appren¬
ticeship of two years followed by seven years of active
fleet service. Volunteers are not trained ashore or in
fixed naval establishments as in the United Kingdom,
but are drafted to sea-going training ships, which cruise
in home waters during the summer months and pass
into the Mediterranean during the winter. By these
two expedients the German naval authorities have been
able to secure about 25 per cent, of the German per¬
sonnel on what passes in Germany for a long-service
system. The boy volunteers and the conscripts who
re-engage constitute the class from which petty officers
are drawn, and these men are the backbone of the naval
organization ashore and afloat, and it is to their efforts
that the high standard of efficiency which Germany's
Navy has attained may in a large measure be traced.
Year by year, in order to provide crews for the
larger number of ships passed into the fleet, the
A DIFFICULT PROBLEM 171
Marine Office has been compelled to increase the
number of conscripts required for sea service, and
thus the task of training the Navy has been increased
in advance of the expansion of the material, because
men must begin training before their ships are ready
for sea. The officers and petty officers have had not
only to train raw recruits embarked to take the place
of conscripts at the end of their three years' term, but
to find means also of training the additional recruits
entered as net additions to the naval strength. When
it is added that in 1894 the number of officers and men
in the Navy was less than 21,000, whereas it is now
66,000, and under the Navy Act of 1912 is to be raised
to 107,000, some conception may be formed of the
character of the problem which presents itself, not
only to the central administration ashore, but to
the officers afloat, intent upon attaining the highest
standard of efficiency at sea. Admission of these
difficulties was made by Admiral von Tirpitz in the
explanatory Memorandum which accompanied the
last Navy Bill presented to the Reichstag and which
directed attention to "two serious defects" in the
organization of the fleet:
"The one defect consists in the fact that in the
autumn of every year the time-expired men—i.e.,
almost one-third of the crew in all ships of the battle
fleet, are discharged and replaced mainly b}^ recruits
from the inland population. Owing to this, the readi¬
ness of the battle fleet for war is considerably impaired
for a prolonged period."
When it is recalled that the maritime population of
Germany amounts only to 80,000, and that compulsory
service in the active fleet lasts for only three years, it
will be realized that most of the recruits taken for the
German Navy must necessarily be landsmen. The
personnel in 1912 numbered roughly over 50,000, after
deducting from the total the executive officers, en¬
gineers, cadets, and volunteers. If approximately 13,000
172 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
of these are regarded as long-service men there remain
roughly 37,500 conscripts, one-third of whom pass
annually into the Reserve, and are replaced by raw
hands. Under the new Navy Law it is intended to
strengthen the personnel in the next few years by 6,400
annually, and, consequently, if allowance is made for a
certain number of the net additions being volunteers,
it follows that the raw recruits to be embarked will
number between 18,000 and 19,000 men, or about one-
third of the total personnel, excluding officers and long
service ratings. It is proposed to utilize the third
squadron of the High Sea Fleet largely for training
purposes, and thus to raise the standard of efficiency
in the First and Second Squadrons by the elimination,
as far as possible, of the raw recruit. This apparently
is the best expedient which has occurred to the naval
authorities in the difficulty in which they are placed
by theconscriptivelaw which is essential to the Army,
but is a serious handicap to the Navy—not only in
Germany, but in every country on the continent of
Europe. While the average period of service in the
British Navy, including the relatively small number
of five years' men entered for short service, is about
ten years, the average in the German Fleet does not
amount to as much as half this period.
It is possible to attach too much importance to the
fact that the German Navy is recruited " mainly by
recruits from the inland population." The inherited
sea habit counts for less to-day than at any time since
men attempted to navigate the seas. Ships of war have
become vast complicated boxes of machinery, and naval
life requires the exercise of qualities different from those
it demanded in the sail era. Then brute courage, en¬
durance, and familiarity with the moods of the sea were
the main attributes of sailors, but to-day a large pro¬
portion of the crews must be experts in the handling of
complicated mechanical appliances. In these changed
conditions the compulsory system of education in
Germany has proved of the greatest advantage in
WORK AT HIGH PRESSURE 173
providing recruits of a high standard of mtelligence,
who probably acquire in six months a? complete a
familiarity with their work as it would have taken
a seaman of the old school as many years to attain.
At the same time, while resisting the- temptation to
place too great importance upon the inherited sea
habit, it would be no less a mistake to : ?nore entirely
its influence upon naval efficiency. Familiarity breeds
contempt for the terrors of the sea and for the horrors
of a naval action, and it is reasonable to expect that in
the hour of trial the long-service men of the British
Navy will exhibit a moral standard when projec¬
tiles are falling fast and thick far higher than that of
the conscript. A modern Dreadnought is intended
to fire its guns in broadsides and not in succession,
and when it is borne in mind that at one discharge
these guns will deliver on an enemy's ship, if they are
fired accurately, between five and six tons of metal, it
will be realized that at such a moment the calibre of
men will count more than the calibre of guns.
Let there be no mistake, the German naval authori¬
ties realize the disadvantages under which they are
working owing to the restrictions of the conscriptive
law. When the Act of 1900 was introduced the
Reichstag was informed by Admiral von Tirpitz in a
Memorandum that " as, even after the projected in¬
crease has been carried out, the number of vessels in
the German Navy will still be more or less inferior to
that of other individual Great Powers, our endeavours
must be directed towards compensating this superior¬
ity by the individual training of the crews and by
tactical training by practice in large bodies. . . .
Economy as regards commissioning of vessels in
peace time means jeopardizing the efficiency of the
fleet in case of war." Never since navies existed have
a body of officers and men been worked at higher
pressure than those of Germany: drill never ceases;
no effort is spared to obtain the last ounce of value
out of every one on board the ships. The promotion
174 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
of officers rests with the Emperor, and he is unsparing
in his punishment of anything like slackness; an
officer who is not enthusiastic, alert, and competent,
stands no chance of rising in rank. The German
Navy has no use for anything but the best which the
Empire can p/ovide, and in order that the highest
expression c the esprit de corps which has con¬
tributed to German influence on shore may be in¬
stilled into the Navy, no officer, however influential or
brilliant, can enter either the executive or engineering
branch unless, as we have seen, his claims are endorsed
by all his contemporaries; one black ball—if the term
may be used—is sufficient to disqualify an aspirant,
though he may have passed all the prescribed examina¬
tions brilliantly.
The German Navy is recognized as a vast compli¬
cated machine which has to be worked at the highest
pressure, and therefore no sand must impede the
engine nor salt water get into the boiler; everything
must be made to go smoothly and quickly; so far as
it can be eliminated, there must be no distraction. It
may be that the officers and men are being submitted to
a regime which is inimical to their staying power, that
their endurance is being unduly tested, and their
nerves kept too continuously on the strain. This may
be so, but the German naval authorities have in view
a kind of war different from any which has hitherto
been known. It is not to be a long-drawn-out
contest in which patient courage, sturdy tenacity of
purpose, and incapacity to recognize defeat can
triumph after months or years of hostilities. The
German Fleet is intended to be used—if used at all—
like a thunderbolt. The whole record of its evolution
and training confirms this conclusion, and we have
notable confirmation of this view in the series of
" notes" by two Spanish officers already quoted.
They have written as follows :
"The German Navy has a definite and immediate
objective; everything must be prepared for a rapid,
GERMANY'S NAVAL AIMS 175
energetic and decisive action. Her ships, equipped by
her national industry, rich in resource of every kind,
provided with war material of the highest efficiency,
must be ready to dart at a given moment against an
enemy whose fleet awaits them almost at the mouth of
the German ports. The first encounter, fierce and
terrible, will decide the campaign, and will influence
the future of both nations. The partial actions, the long
blockades, the prolonged manoeuvres of fleets, which
require such seamanship, such skill in the personnel,
will necessarily be eliminated in the future war. All
that is required is men of action, with the determina¬
tion to win in one day of supreme and fierce struggle."
The ideal of the German naval authorities somewhat
resembles that of the American manufacturer. The
latter does not attempt to produce an article which
will last a lifetime, because he foresees that in a few
years inventive genius will have produced something
better. He provides a motor-car, locomotive, or
stationary engine which will run well and do good
work for a reasonable time, and he sells it at a price
which justifies the owner in scrapping it directly a
better article is available representing a gain in power
or speed. So the German naval authorities are intent
on creating an instrument which will look well on
paper when tons and guns are compared, and thus
achieve a diplomatic objective, and which will be
trained to the highest pitch of efficiency for a sudden
coup, representing a triumph over the disadvantageous
conditions traceable to the law of conscription; but it
will never be the kind of fleet which St. Vincent
fashioned and which maintained the blockade for month
on month off the French coast and still preserved un¬
diminished its ability to go in and win whenever battle
offered. Also it will not be the kind of fleet which
British officers, faithful to their inherited traditions,
still desire to preserve—a body of well-manned ships
which can go anywhere and do anything, whether the
service be short and sharp, or whether it be a long and
wearisome task.
176 GERMAN SHIPS, OFFICERS, AND MEN
Germany is creating a navy as a powerful political
instrument which at a favourable moment and in an
instant can exert its maximum power. The German
Fleet has its limitations, but within those limitations it
probably has no superior in the world : the ships are
well built, the officers are capable sailors, and the men
are raised to the highest pitch of efficiency possible
under a short-service system.
CHAPTER VII
william ii. and his naval minister
The German Fleet as it is to-day, and as it will be
when its statutory establishment has been reached,
may be regarded as the work of two men—the Em¬
peror William II. and Admiral von Tirpitz ; and in the
present chapter an attempt will be made to allot to
each his due share of credit for their joint achieve¬
ment. The task is by no means an easy one, and in
the present generation it cannot be performed with
more than an approximation to accuracy. It must be
left to the historian of a distant future, with access to
State archives and the epistolary confidences of Ger¬
man statesmen now living, to tell the full and authentic
story of this, as of all other episodes, of the reign of
William II.
Even for those who have lived long in Germany, it
is difficult to form a judgment as to the aims and
motives of the Emperor William's naval policy, and of
the part which he has played in its carrying out. With
regard to their sovereign, Germans are inclined to fly
to one of two extremes; according to the class to which
they belong, they represent him either as a heaven-
born genius of universal gifts, or as a busybody whose
meddlesomeness is rendered specially mischievous by
medieval delusions as to the functions of monarchs
and their relations to the Deity. Everything that he
does or says is set down as quite right by the one
party and as quite wrong by the other. Moreover, the
opinions of those brought into closest contact with
177 12
178 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
him are vitiated by the prevalence of a type of syco¬
phancy which is fortunately becoming extinct in other
countries. As all offices, high and low, in the Empire
and in Prussia are dependent, directly or indirectly,
on the Emperor's will, and as he intervenes in all the
details of the public administration, it is inevitable
that the desire to deserve his favour should be the
predominant motive in the minds of the servants of
the State. And, rightly or wrongly, the idea obtains
that an attitude of unqualified and unquestioning
adulation is the surest means of finding the way into
his good graces. Over the unofficial sections of his
subjects he exercises a similar influence as the foun¬
tain of all honour. The German is vain, and delights
even more than other men in decorations, ranks, and
titles. And by the infinite multiplication of these
petty prizes of life which has taken place during his
reign, the Emperor has been ministering to a popular
appetite. Members of all professions and occupations,
artists, authors, and musicians, ministers of religion,
doctors, lawyers, and engineers, captains of industry,
commerce, and finance, compete with one another
eagerly for a share in the annual largesse of titles,
decorations, and patents of nobility, and their judg¬
ment with regard to the giver of the feast is perverted
by either the anticipation or the enjoyment of its
pleasures. It is true that this evil also exists in other
countries, but nowhere else has it assumed such dimen¬
sions as in Germany, for it is there alone that a single
individual endeavours to direct every force of the
national life along the channels of his own convictions
and tastes. On the other hand, disgust at the fulsome
flattery of the people who flock round the throne and
prostrate themselves before it has excited a reaction
in the minds of those to whom even the Emperor is
but a man to be measured by human standards, and
has prevented them, in their turn, from forming a just
opinion of his actions. Little wonder if it is well-nigh
impossible, in the confused picture resulting from
THE GERMAN EMPEROR'S POLICY 179
these discordant colours, to discern the true linea¬
ments of its subject.
For the foreigner, the task is further complicated by
an apparent incongruity between the Emperor's own
opinions and actions, which it has been urged can be
accounted for only by the theory of deliberate duplicity.
Throughout his reign he has repeatedly protested his
friendship for Great Britain, and his wish to live on
terms of peace and amity with her, but at the same
time he has, just as consistently, followed a line of
policy which is admittedly a challenge to her position
in the world, and can legitimately be construed as a
direct menace to her very existence. The apparent
contradiction can, perhaps, best be explained by taking
his words, or at any rate some of them, at their face
value, and considering them in relation to his responsi¬
bilities as the head of the German Empire, and to certain
marked traits in his character. It is his obvious duty
as German Emperor to do what lies in his power
to fortify his country against attack, and to claim for
it in the world the place to which he believes it to
have entitled itself by its great military record and by
its wonderful achievements in science, art, and industry.
Though he has been more communicative than any
monarch of modern, and perhaps of any other, times,
his position has naturally prevented him from explain¬
ing his point of view as to his country's deserts and
aspirations, but we shall be able to form some idea of
it if we examine the opinions of those of his people
who are animated by the sentiments which we call
" national pride" in ourselves, but are apt to call
" national vanity " in others.
The patriotic German, who is familiar with his
country's history, knows that, five or six hundred
years ago, his forefathers monopolized the markets and
policed the seas of Northern and Western Europe.
He realizes keenly that Germany's maritime and in¬
dustrial progress was first checked, and then retarded
for centuries, by political division and internecine and
i8o WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
foreign wars. Possibly he still remembers that great
crescendo of victory in which Prussia smothered
Denmark, then overthrew Austria in a single battle,
and finally, at the head of the kindred Teutonic States,
humbled France in the dust, and welded Germany
together in one indivisible whole. Even if he does
not remember it as part of his own personal experience,
all its vivid and stimulating episodes have been a
thousand times impressed upon his mind by school¬
master, politician, historian, and journalist. That after
this tremendous martial achievement he should regard
his country as the mistress of the continent of Europe
is no matter for surprise. But he sees, too, that the
Germany of Luther and Goethe, of Ranke, Liebig,
Helmholz, and Mommsen, of Bismarck and Moltke,
has become also the Germany of Krupp, Siemens,
Rathenau, Ballin, and Gwinner; that the products of
German industry, the fruits of an unexampled applica¬
tion of the discoveries of science to the processes
of manufacture, have been carried by German ships
to the remotest ends of the earth; that the material
prosperity of his country is advancing in every direc¬
tion by leaps and bounds. And he thus believes
Germany to be strong, wise, and wealthy, and in
every way fitted to stand at the head of mankind.
But in one respect he feels, to his bitter mortification,
that she is powerless. Wherever he goes on the
world's oceans, he is confronted by those iron walls
of Great Britain, which mean that he is there only by
the sufferance of one who is immeasurably stronger
than himself. With one nation he recognizes with
chagrin that he cannot afford to quarrel, for by doing
so he would expose his floating merchandise and his
colonies to certain loss, and his home industry to the
paralysis that would inevitably follow upon the closing
of the routes along which it exchanges its finished
products for the exotic raw materials indispensable to
its existence. And these facts are all the more galling
to him because he regards them as resulting from the
THE GERMAN OUTLOOK 181
accidents, and not from the intrinsic nature of things.
For he is convinced that his country has the men and
the money, and could soon be in a position to build
and arm the ships as easily, as quickly, and as well as
any other State. That any substantial improvement
of Germany's position in this respect would endanger,
not merely the prosperity, or the development, or the
prestige, but also the very existence of Great Britain,
is a consideration which we cannot ask him to take
into his calculations. He cannot be expected to regard
even the existence of another State as a legitimate bar
to the gratification of his ambitions, especially if he is
convinced that that other State occupies the place
which, by moral right, belongs to his own country.
No doubt he could not, and would not, cherish such
ambitions if it had been made clear to him that they
could never be realized, that no efforts on the part of
Germany could materially alter the balance of sea-
power to her advantage as against Great Britain, and
that she would be compelled to fight for her preten¬
sions long before she was in a position to give battle
on anything like equal terms. Unfortunately this has
not been made clear to him. On the contrary, he
knows that a very great change to his country's
advantage has already taken place in the relationship
of the Fleet of Germany to that of Great Britain, and
he sees no reason why the process should not be
indefinitely continued. He is persuaded that Germany
will soon be rich enough to spend as much on her
fleet as Great Britain does, and in manning it will
have an enormous advantage in the inexhaustible
resources of conscription among a population of eighty
or ninety millions. He further believes that the
British nation is unnerved and effete, that it is losing
both its martial and industrial vigour, that its energies
have been sapped by too much wealth and prosperity,
and that it is rapidly following the downward path.
Finally, he is convinced that the British Parliament,
under the influence of an aggressive democracy, exclu-
182 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
sively concerned with its own immediate material
needs, is losing the capacity to realize and grapple with
the larger problems of international politics, and that
the Cabinets proceeding from it will, in timorous
anxiety, procrastinate and vacillate till it is too late
to strike. In this idea he has been only confirmed by
the pacifist movement in Great Britain, by the British
agitation for disarmament by international agreement,
and by the well-meant but unfortunate attempt of
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to effect by example
what much amiable precept had done nothing to
accomplish. These phenomena he looks upon not as
evidence of good-will and peaceableness, but as symp¬
toms of physical, moral, and financial exhaustion.
Such is the view of many in Germany to whom we
cannot fairly deny the name of " patriot" if we are to
claim it for an analogous disposition among ourselves.
It is the view that is almost universally held by the
officers of the German Army and Navy, and, with
certain qualifications and reservations, it may be said
to be the view of the Emperor William. This will be
evident if, with the help of his many spoken and written
utterances, we attempt to follow the main lines which,
with many sudden and violent deviations, his thought
has taken on this subject. He has, for example, in
his speeches repeatedly dwelt on the power and
renown of the Hanse League—" one of the mightiest
undertakings that the world has ever seen," which
"was able to raise fleets such as the broad back of the
sea had probably never borne up to that time," which
" won such high prestige for the German name abroad,"
which "created markets for the German industrial
regions," and which " only failed because it lacked the
support of a strong united Empire obedient to a single
will." At Hamburg, in June, 1911, he used these
words: " I have only acted historically, for I said to
myself on my accession, that the tasks which the
Hansa attempted to solve by itself, and which it could
not solve because the strong Empire was not at its
"OUR FUTURE LIES ON THE WATER" 183
back, and the defensive and executive power of the
Empire did not exist, must unquestionably at once fall
on the shoulders of the newly-arisen German Empire;
and it was simply the obligations of old traditions
that had to be resumed." It was in one former Hanse
town that the Emperor spoke the familiar words, " Our
future lies on the water;" in another that he declared
"The trident should be in our hand;" in a third that
he uttered the appeal, " We have bitter need of a strong
German Fleet."
Again, he has repeatedly extolled the Great Elector
—" the one among my ancestors for whom I have the
most enthusiasm, who has from my earliest youth
shone before me as a bright example," who, "looking
far ahead, carried on politics on a large scale, as they
are carried on to-day." In his great speech at Bremen
in 1905, the Emperor said: " When as a youth I stood
before the model of Brommy's ship, I felt with burning-
indignation the outrage that was then done to our fleet
and our flag;" and these words undoubtedly referred
to the injudiciously-phrased note in which Palmerston
threatened that vessels which undertook belligerent
operations under the colours of that greater German
Empire, which then was not and was never to be,
would render themselves liable to be treated as
"pirates." The present realities of sea-power had
been early revealed to him when, as he told the
officers on board a British flag-ship in the Medi¬
terranean, he "was running about Portsmouth Dock¬
yard as a boy;" and, as he said in a speech made
during the visit of King Edward to Kiel in 1904, "the
stupendous activity on the sea at the headquarters
of the greatest navy of the world impressed itself
indelibly on his youthful mind," and made him, "as
Regent, endeavour to realize on a scale corresponding
to the conditions of his country what he had seen as a
young man in England."
From such reflections, and from the imposing facts
of Germany's recent development, arose the dream of
184 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
world-empire which William II. sketched out in the
Bremen speech already referred to. But perhaps
this very speech furnishes the key to the riddle which
his policy presents, for in it he declared with emphasis
that his vision was one of pacific and not of warlike
conquests. After using the significant words, " We
are the salt of the earth," he said :
"As the result of my reading of history, I have
pledged myself never to strive after an empty world-
rule. For what has become of the so-called world-
empires? Alexander the Great, Napoleon, all the
great heroes of war swam in blood, and left behind
them subjugated nations which rose on the first
opportunity and brought their empires to ruin. The
world-empire that I have dreamed of would consist in
this, that, above all, the newly-created German Empire
should on every side enjoy the most absolute confidence
as a tranquil, honourable, peaceable neighbour, and that
if history should one day tell of a German world-
empire, or of a Hohenzollern world-rule, it should not
have been based on conquests with the sword, but on
the mutual trust of nations striving towards the same
goal."
Of all the innumerable speeches of the Emperor
William, there is perhaps none that throws more light
than this upon the motives of his policy. If it is
regarded as a sincere expression of the speaker's
feelings, it disposes entirely of the idea that his fleet
is being built with the deliberate intention of attacking
Great Britain and opening the way to her shores for
the hordes of the German Army. And those who have
studied with care the Emperor's words and deeds will
hardly doubt its sincerity. It is quite true that among
his utterances are to be found many explosions of a
bellicose and minatory type, but if all their circum¬
stances are examined, it will be seen that they can
easily be explained by a histrionic sensitiveness to the
incidents and environment of the moment and an
impulsive reaction to passing impressions, which are
among the traits as to the existence of which in the
THE EMPEROR AND ENGLAND 185
character of William II. both his panegyrists and his
critics are agreed. To those who have looked beneath
the surface of German national life, it is, too, no secret
that the Emperor's most inveterate and dangerous
opponents are the rampant Chauvinists who, intoxi¬
cated by the exuberance of their own patriotism, are
for ever calling on him to pick up an imaginary gauntlet,
and who criticize him with great asperity on the ground
that he carries his love of peace to excess and sacrifices
Germany's interests and honour rather than draw the
sword in their defence.
The theory so frequently advanced that the character
of William II. is of a Machiavellian quality, that he is
inspired by hostility to Great Britain and a determina¬
tion to destroy her, and that his assurances to the
contrary are merely designed to lull her into a false
sense of security till he is ready to strike a fatal blow
at her heart, is, in fact, absolutely untenable. The
Emperor is essentially a man of warm impulse and
frank utterance, and his professions of liking for
England and the English are undoubtedly perfectly
sincere. He is exceedingly impressionable, especially
to appreciation of his own merits, and it is quite certain
that he has been deeply touched by the enthusiasm
with which he has been welcomed in the streets of
London, and not a little puzzled how to reconcile it
with the supposed political antipathy of Great Britain
towards Germany. The free and unconstrained at¬
mosphere of English social life also appeals strongly to
a side of his nature which he may not so easily indulge
in his own country, where he can never quite forget
that he is the Sovereign, to whom none can speak on
equal terms and with an open mind. In England, on
the contrary, he can feel that he is a man among men,
and consequently enjoy in all its fulness that spon¬
taneous and unfettered social intercourse for which
he often craves.
In his admission of the debt which the German Navy
owes to its elder British sister, the Emperor has been
186 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
frank and generous. " Not only," he said at a luncheon
given to the Duke of Edinburgh at Berlin, "is the English
Navy a model for the German from the technical and
scientific standpoints, but the heroes of the British
Fleet, Nelson and the rest of them, have always been,
and will always be, the guiding stars for the officers
and crews of the German Navy." And again, on board
the Royal Sovereign, he said : " Ever since our fleet has
existed we have always striven to form our ideas on
yours, and to learn from you in every way." This is
assuredly not the language of envy, hatred, and malice,
and if such sentiments have played a part in German
naval policy—as they undoubtedly have—they are at
any rate not to be sought in the mind of the Emperor
William.
No doubt the words quoted above seem out of
harmony with the Emperor's expressed hope some
day to control a fleet "which will be as powerful an
instrument for the German Empire as my ancestors
on the Prussian throne possessed in the Army," and
thus to be able to " dictate peace on the seas also."
But it is evidently the deep sense of the pacific nature
of his own plans which prevents him from realizing
that Germany can dictate peace upon the seas only
when the British Empire has ceased to exist, and in
all probability his mind is so completely devoid of all
aggressive or violent designs that he is unable to
understand the suspicions with which his naval policy
is regarded. This hypothesis will be received with
incredulity only by those who have not recognized
the defects as well as the qualities of the Emperor's
intellectual apparatus. His mind is one which leaps
boldly at its final goal over all intervening stages and
obstacles. It sees ends and ignores means; it revels
in grand spectacular effects, and does not trouble itself
with the detailed work by which alone they can be
attained; it loses itself in dazzling ideals, and is
oblivious of the difficulties that stand in the way of
their realization; it chafes under restraint, and is
IDEALS AND POLICY 187
heedless of that rule of consistency which, in defiance
of the law of human nature, public opinion attempts
to impose on statesmen and politicians. Above all,
it reacts instantly and irresistibly to the impressions
of the moment. It is these qualities which make
William II. at once the most charming of conversa¬
tionalists and the most incalculable of monarchs.
The record of the Emperor is full of sayings of which
it is impossible to believe he realized the full bearing
when he spoke them. When he called the nations of
Europe to "defend their most sacred possessions"
against the power of heathendom that was arising in
the Far East, and when he promised " the three hundred
million Mohammedans living on the earth" that he
would "always be their friend," he cannot have fully
realized that he was threatening one set of peoples
and encouraging another to extravagant and unfulfill-
able hopes. Similarly, it is hardly conceivable that
he had thoroughly considered the significance of his
words when he spoke of dictating peace upon the seas.
What the Emperor expresses by such utterances are
ideals, not fixed aims of policy; visions, not the cal¬
culated expectations of statesmanship; speculations,
not positive predictions. Other monarchs and states¬
men cherish such ideals, see such visions, and indulge
in such speculations, but they differ from the German
Emperor in this—that they say nothing about them in
public. William II. is exceptional in allowing us to
see so much of the workings of his mind, and if we
employed in his case the standard usually applied to
the words of monarchs, we should be doing him an
injustice. That he permanently and steadily desires
Germany to have a powerful fleet and to be immune
to attack from the sea, that he dreams of a day when
she shall be supreme in the council of the nations, is
indubitable and not unnatural; but just as certain is it
that he, personally, has no aggressive designs against
any of his neighbours, that he regards his fleet as an
instrument of peace, and that the destiny he wishes
188 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
Germany to fulfil is that of leading the world in art
and science, industry and commerce, not that of over¬
running it with the violence of armed hosts.
How far the Emperor has helped to realize his own
naval ambitions, and how far his efforts have actually
told against them, it is also very difficult to determine
with anything like exactitude. His agitation for a
bigger fleet has been open and unwearying, and out¬
side Germany the idea is very prevalent that he not
only contrived the naval policy of the Empire, but
also, almost single-handed, generated the degree of
popular support without which it could not have been
carried out. This idea will be seen to be erroneous.
The Emperor's influence upon his own people is very
greatly overrated in other countries, and even the
crisis of 1908, in which the storm of discontent which
had long been gathering burst with full force upon his
head, does not seem to have been properly understood
outside Germany. On that occasion, the Imperial
Parliament listened without a protest, without a
murmur, as a Liberal deputy, slowly, deliberately, and
with dramatic emphasis, spoke the following words:
" In the German Reichstag not a single member has
come forward to defend the actions of the German
Emperor." The incident was without a parallel in the
history of parliaments. Even the Conservative party,
which has always gloried in being the chief prop of
the throne, passed and published a resolution express¬
ing the wish that the Emperor should " in future
exercise a greater reserve in his utterances," and
declaring that " arrangements must be made to pre¬
vent with certainty a recurrence of such improper
proceedings." It may be remarked, in passing, that
this blow fell upon William II. because he had con¬
fessed to having had Anglophile sentiments, and to
having performed friendly services to Great Britain, at
a time when the general feeling of the German people
was one of hostility to this country. Nor was it with¬
out significance that when, after holding aloof from
EFFECTS OF PERSONAL RULE 189
public affairs for several weeks, he at last emerged
from the solitude of his palace at Potsdam, it was in
England that he sought the recuperation and rest 01
which he stood in need.
As the debate in the Reichstag on the Daily Telegraph
interview unmistakably showed, the Emperor at that
time had the whole of his subjects against him in a
solid body. But that would have been impossible if
the interview had been merely a single isolated in¬
cident. It was, in fact, the culmination of a long
period of accumulating resentment and opposition.
William L, then Crown Prince of Prussia, fled to
England in 1848 to escape the wrath of the populace :
but he lived to concentrate on his person a hoard of
personal popularity such as had, perhaps, never before
fortified a monarch's throne. Only a few months after
his grandson's accession, this inestimable treasure was
already being rapidly dissipated. The causes of the
change are not far to seek. All Germany realized that
under the first Emperor it was Bismarck who really
governed, and whatever there was of opposition or
political discontent in the country was directed against
the Minister alone. From the outset, William II. made
it clear that he intended to be his own Chancellor, to
take the initiative in all branches of government, and
to extend his influence to many departments of the
national life which had hitherto been regarded as lying
outside the competence of the monarch. As he claimed
for himself the credit, so he became the target for
the criticism, of everything done in his name, and his
intrusion into the realms of theology, art, music,
literature, and the drama conjured up for him many
opponents who would never have troubled themselves
one way or the other about his specifically political
theories and actions. If he had adopted an impartial
attitude of general patronage towards all the various
endeavours of his people, his intervention might have
had a purely beneficial and stimulating effect. But the
contrary was the case; everywhere he appeared on
190 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
the scene as a convinced and almost fanatical partisan,
and nothing could be more indicative of the antagonism
he aroused and of the limitations of his personal in¬
fluence than the fact that every tendency which he has
denounced and opposed, whether in politics, religion,
or the arts, has at no other time flourished and
prospered in Germany as it has precisely during his
reign.
That his unconcealed determination to rule person¬
ally and in all things, and his openly-avowed belief in
the divine origin and inspired character of his office,
also aroused antagonism, will have surprised few who
have so much as a superficial acquaintance with the
German nation. The average cultured German is
Liberal in conviction and sceptical in habit. He is well
aware that many of the episodes which led to the
Hohenzollern ascendancy in Germany had little enough
of the divine character in them, and, above all, that
the one really great Prince in the genealogy of his
ruling house was an ardent disciple of the most icono¬
clastic of unbelievers. How indeed should he reconcile
the idea that the family of Hohenzollern has prospered
under the direct and special protection of a conventional
Providence, with the fact that it was the Voltairian,
Frederick the Great, who first gave the dynasty
oecumenical importance ? Impatience of the Emperor's
conception of his functions in the State and his position
in the universe allied itself with many other types of
dissent and discontent to form the great German
Socialist party. In no direction has the Emperor's
activity been more strenuous and persistent than in
his efforts to eradicate Socialism, but in no other
country, and at no other epoch, has this form of
political error made such prodigious strides forward
as in Germany during his rule.
But the political opposition which he has aroused
has not been confined to the democratic elements in
the German population. Even the Prussian nobles,
the strong pillars on which the structure of the Hohen-
THE EMPEROR AND THE JUNKERS 191
zollern monarchy rests, have more than once faltered
in their allegiance. They perhaps understood his
cosmopolitanism and universality less than any other
class of his people. Strongly tinged with anti-semitism,
as they are almost without exception, they were at a
loss to comprehend his intimacy with Herr Ballin, the
managing director of the Hamburg-America Shipping
Company, and other prominent Jews whose work is of
national import, or whose wealth has assisted him in
carrying out his schemes. It is they, too, who furnish
the Officers Corps of the Army, which, ever jealous of
favours shown to the sister service, was especially
apprehensive that it might be starved to provide money
for the ambitious naval projects which the Emperor
had made quite evident were the principal preoccupa¬
tions of his mind. With their material interests resting
on an almost purely agrarian basis, the Junkers were
also filled with anxiety when they saw their Sovereign
associating familiarly with the directors of banks and
industrial companies, and heard him dilate on the
importance of oversea trade in manufactured products.
Their misgivings were transformed into overt opposi¬
tion when, under the chancellorship of Caprivi, the corn
duties were reduced, and commercial treaties concluded
which admitted agricultural products into Germany
on terms more favourable than those that had
hitherto prevailed. It was then that some, at any rate,
of the Conservatives openly threatened to "join the
Socialists in the opposition." Some years later, a
great project to link up the Rhine and the Elbe by a
system of canals was submitted to the Prussian Diet,
but the Conservatives feared that the proposed water¬
way would provide an easy channel for the introduc¬
tion of foreign wheat into the heart of the Empire, and,
though the Emperor let it be known that he had the
scheme much at heart, the Bill was rejected. He is
understood to have said: "None the less it will be
built," but that was fifteen years ago, and the first sod
of the canal has yet to be cut. Because the Emperor
192 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
staked his personal influence in favour of the scheme,
a certain amount of the opposition which it engendered
among the most loyal section of his people was inevit¬
ably directed against himself.
The dismissal of Bismarck and the subsequent
attempts of the Emperor to depreciate the life-work
of the man to whom he owed the Imperial crown,
were, of course, the principal causes of the spirit
of opposition which flared up with such startling
suddenness in 1908. The popularity of William I.
was in no small measure due to his absolute trust
and confidence in his Chancellor, and the abrupt
ejection of this incomparable statesman from his office
will never be forgotten or forgiven till the generation of
liis contemporaries has passed away.
These things go far to explain why it was that, in
spite of the vigorous naval agitation of the Emperor,
the German Fleet, as was pointed out in the Mem¬
orandum attached to the Bill of 1898, became weaker
instead of stronger during the first ten years of his
reign. From the day of his accession he had lost no
opportunity of manifesting his interest in the fleet
and his desire that it should be largely increased.
Among his earliest acts as monarch was his un¬
heralded appearance in admiral's uniform at a parlia¬
mentary luncheon given by Bismarck, to decorate
one of the guests who had displayed sympathies and
wishes with regard to the Navy similar to his own.
Year after year, tables of diagrams, showing the
disparity between the fleet of Germany and those of
the leading naval Powers, and prepared, it is said, by
the Emperor's own hand, were sent out over his
signature to the Reichstag, the Government depart¬
ments, and all public institutions where it was
thought they might meet the gaze of appreciative
eyes. At a soiree given at the New Palace at Pots¬
dam in 1895, he assembled round him a group of
members of the majority parties of the Reichstag, and
lectured them for two-and-a-half hours on Germany's
A FAMOUS IMPERIAL PICTURE 193
need of sea-power. Bismarck's eightieth birthday was
then approaching, and the Emperor concluded his
remarks by urging upon his hearers that they should
seize the opportunity of " doing the founder of our
colonial policy the pleasure of passing the sum
absolutely required for the Navy." A couple of
years later, he delivered a similar address after a
dinner given to members of the Reichstag by the
Finance Minister, von Miquel, illustrating his argu¬
ments with the diagrams of warships mentioned
above. About the same time, an English illus¬
trated paper published a picture of the foreign war
vessels on the East Asian station. Among them,
as the sole representative of Germany, was a
small gun-boat, which, as was pointed out in the
accompanying text, was " under sail only." Against
these words the Emperor wrote, " What mockery
lies therein," and the picture, with this comment, was
laid before the Budget Commission of the Reichstag,
then engaged in the discussion of the naval estimates.
Moreover, the monarch had himself recourse to the
pamt-brush, and exhibited in the Berlin Academy of
Arts a picture of an attack by a flotilla of torpedo
craft on a squadron of ironclads. No doubt he
hoped in this way to arouse sympathy for his ideas in
some who were not accessible to the ordinary methods
of political persuasion. The " Song to Aegir," the
Scandinavian Neptune, of which he composed the
music, was probably also intended to have a similar
operation.
But all these pleas and cajoleries had little or no
positive result. Indeed, taken in conjunction with
other phases of the Imperial activity, they seem rather
to have excited opposition in the breasts of the
members of the Reichstag, who possibly considered
themselves just as well qualified as the monarch to
estimate the degree and appreciate the needs of
Germany's maritime interests, and at any rate half-
suspected that his efforts directly to influence their
13
194 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
deliberations involved an encroachment on their con¬
stitutional privileges. The first naval estimates
submitted in the new reign, which provided for the
laying down of the unusually large number of four
battleships, were got through the Reichstag without
much difficulty, but when Admiral von Hollmann be¬
came Minister of Marine in the following year, he found
that quite a different temper had taken possession of
the Parliament. It was not only that the Emperor's
general governmental acts had begun to stir up
opposition; his oratorical flights in praise of sea-
power and world-empire had also generated strong
suspicions that he was urging Germany along a path
which would lead her to ruin at home and disaster
abroad. Hollmann's by no means exorbitant demands
were branded both in the Reichstag and the press as
" unconscionable," his programme as " boundless,"
and on every side were heard contemptuous and
impatient references to "the awful fleet." For a
decade the naval estimates were ruthlessly and reck¬
lessly cut down to, on an average, not far short of
half their original figure, and finally, in 1897, the
ministerial career of Hollmann was terminated by the
unceremonious rejection of three out of the four
cruisers which, in a special Memorandum, he had
sought to prove were indispensable for the protection
of the Empire's stake on the seas. And all this time
the Emperor had never ceased to agitate, by word and
deed, for the ideas which he had so much at heart and
to which the Reichstag nevertheless showed itself so
completely indifferent, if not actually hostile.
The change that came with the appointment of
Admiral von Tirpitz to the Ministry of Marine was as
complete as it was sudden, and it is to this very able
man that we must look if we wish to find not only the
intellectual author of German naval legislation, but
the statesman who devised and directed the means by
which it was popularized and passed through the
Reichstag. The transformation which he effected was
SAILOR AND STATESMAN 195
one both of policy and of method. The three rejected
vessels which brought about Hollmann's fall repre¬
sented a principle—that of " cruiser warfare." At that
time the imperfectly-thought-out strategy of the Ger¬
man Naval Ministry was based on the two ideas of
coastal defence and commerce destruction. Pitched
battles between ships of the line on the high seas
played a very secondary part in its calculations. In
the programme which he submitted to the Reichstag,
Hollmann laid it down that fifteen battleships would
be sufficient for Germany's purposes, and those who
are best qualified to form a judgment of the Empire's
naval policy at that epoch are of opinion that this
number was intended to be not merely a provisional,
but a final estimate of the country's requirements in
this type of vessel.
There are good reasons for supposing that in the
Hollmann era no clear idea existed as to the problems
with which Germany might be confronted in a naval
war, and that his programmes were the product rather
of vague general principles than of calculated odds
and chances. In fact, one of his main difficulties with
the Reichstag was his inability to justify his estimates
by numerical demonstrations.
On the other hand, Admiral von Tirpitz's strength
always lay chiefly in this, that he knew exactly what he
wanted and why he wanted it. When he came into office,
it was generally stated that he had years previously
already laid before the Emperor a Memorandum em¬
bodying his conception of Germany's maritime needs,
and how they could be satisfied, and it is certain that
the main outlines of his policy were at any rate clearly
sketched out in his head long before he was given an
opportunity of carrying it out. He was recalled from
the command of the East Asian Squadron to take
charge of the Naval Ministry, and he seems to have
employed his leisure on the homeward voyage in
drafting a programme, which he had worked out in all
its details before he took over his portfolio. In its
196 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
very fundamental principles it was a reversal of that
of his predecessor, for it was based on the idea, prob¬
ably adopted from Mahan, that battleships alone are
the decisive factors in naval warfare. As he himself
put it to the Reichstag: " If we have a strong battle
fleet, the enemy will have to defeat it before he can
blockade our coasts. But in such circumstances
he will, before he declares war on Germany, consider
very carefully whether the business will cover its
expenses and justify the risk." It was this principle of
risk which he took as his standard of the Empire's naval
requirements. From the literature which he has inspired
it is evident that he is one of those who believe that
Germany is destined some day, in the not very distant
future, to occupy the position on the seas which now
belongs to Great Britain. It was, however, impossible
for a Minister of State to argue this belief in public,
for the open confession of it would have at once pro¬
duced incalculable complications in international affairs
which would certainly not have contributed to its
realization. Besides, the consummation which he
wished for could in any case only be reached by
gradual stages over a long period of years. The
defensive formula which he invented was quite as
effective for his immediate domestic purposes, and, as
the sequel showed, was not appreciated abroad in its
true and full significance. It was that " the German
Fleet must be so strong that not even the greatest
naval Power will be able to enter upon a war with it
without imperilling its position in the world."
It was only after a good deal of hesitation, and some
resistance, in high quarters that Admiral von Tirpitz
was able to make his view prevail. Even courtly pane¬
gyrists admit that at the commencement of his term
of office deep-seated differences of opinion existed
between him and the Emperor on cardinal points of
naval policy. The monarch was then a firm adherent
of the cruiser-war theory, and no doubt had been
responsible for its adoption by his Ministry of Marine.
REVERSAL OF NAVAL POLICY 197
It may be regarded as his most substantial contribu¬
tion to the present strength of the German Fleet that
he finally yielded to Admiral von Tirpitz's arguments.
In one other very essential respect the new Minister
revolutionized the policy of his predecessor. In the
Memorandum already referred to, Hollmann defined
the needs of the navy only for the three succeeding
years, and in the course of the debate on the esti¬
mates, he used these words : "Neither the Federated
Governments nor the Reichstag will ever agree to be
bound to a formal programme for years in advance.
That is quite impossible, and even if both factors
desired it, impossible, for the very simple reason that
the art of war is changeable on sea just as it is on
land, and that to-day no Naval Ministry can prophesy
what we shall need ten years hence. It can only tell
you what are our immediate requirements, and if the
circumstances change, then our demands will change
too. As to that there is no doubt whatever." Here
again, Admiral von Tirpitz not merely modified, but dia¬
metrically reversed the policy of his predecessor, and,
it may be added, of the Emperor. Starting from the
conclusion that the main types of war vessel and their
respective functions remain unaltered in principle
throughout the ages, he induced the Reichstag to
commit itself statutorily to a fixed warship establish¬
ment, a building programme of nearly twenty years'
duration, and an automatic renewal of the units of the
fleet when they had reached a prescribed age. This
is the one absolutely new feature of German naval
legislation, and it was undoubtedly the idea of the
new Minister. That it has its merits appears from
the facts that it has been imitated by France and found
warm advocates in England.
Admiral von Tirpitz has, in fact, been the Bismarck
of German naval policy, and just as the Iron Chan¬
cellor fulfilled the hopes of the men of the Frankfort
National Assembly, so the smiling and urbane Minister
of Marine has gone far towards realizing the dreams
198 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
of Friedrich List and Prince Adalbert of Prussia. It
may be questioned whether he would not have done
this work quite as effectually without the Emperor's
loud and tempestuous advocacy of his schemes on the
open stage of the world. The trumpet tones in which
William II. proclaimed his dreams of world-wide rule
and maritime dictatorship, not only exercised a dis¬
quieting effect in foreign countries, but conjured up in
the minds of many Germans unpleasant visions of
provocative and perilous adventure. Other nations
were anything but delighted at the prospects of being
swallowed up in a universal Teutonic Empire, how¬
ever peaceful its conquests and however beneficent its
rule, and they took steps by which the successive
moves of German naval policy were successively
counteracted. But for the blunders of British and
French diplomacy over the annexation of Bosnia and
the Morocco affair, Germany would at this moment
have been much weakened both internally and ex¬
ternally by precisely the measures which were in¬
tended to make her strong. If, on the other hand,
there had been less hurry and less noise, and the
inevitable ebullitions of German Anglophobia had been
quietly and unostentatiously exploited as they occurred,
the Imperial Fleet might have been steadily built up
without causing a condition of chronic alarm through¬
out Europe, and without giving rise to such effective
counter-measures. It would not, perhaps, so soon
have reached its actual dimensions, but its compara¬
tive value would probably have been even greater
than it is. Germany would, too, have avoided that
rapid accumulation of taxes and debts, which, in spite
of her prosperity, has made those of her people who
must live on small incomes the most discontented
class in Europe. And here, possibly, we have one of
Admiral von Tirpitz's few mistakes, for if he had little
to do with the noise he was at any rate responsible for
the hurry. Whether it will prove to be a mistake in
the long run, the future must be left to show.
CHARACTERISTICS OF " THE MASTER" 199
If we may judge from the discretion which he has
shown by keeping as far as possible in the back¬
ground, Admiral von Tirpitz would, if left to himself,
have built up the German Fleet with the same silent
and systematic persistency with which Bismarck,
Roon, and Moltke prepared to crush France, and to
some extent he combines in his character the qualities
of these three. He is at any rate the adroitest
politician, the ablest organizer, and the most far-
sighted strategist in the Imperial service. Long
before he was thought of as Naval Minister, he had
won for himself among his colleagues, by the skill and
thoroughness with which he grappled with every
problem allotted to him, the title of " The Master."
It was he who, against the ignorant protests of the
older school of naval officers, chiefly concerned for
the smartness of their paint, the cleanness of their
decks, and the brightness of their brasswork, forced
the torpedo upon them, and brought the service of
this weapon up to the high pitch of efficiency which it
has to-day attained in the German Fleet. As Chief of
the Staff to the General Command of the Navy, he
evolved fresh rules of strategy and new tactical
formations, and insisted upon manoeuvres being
carried out in such a way as to test the value of both.
He has been no less successful as statesman, politician,
and diplomatist. Here, too, he deserves the name of
" Master " among his contemporaries, for what he has
done has been the greatest ministerial achievement of
our day. It is true that he was favoured by an
extraordinary run of luck that was vouchsafed to none
of his forerunners, and that he would never have been
able to drive his machine but for the energy generated
by a series of international dissensions, but at the
same time it must be conceded that he took advan¬
tage of his opportunities with rare promptitude and
address.
He at once took the measure of the Reichstag, and
saw how he could make it obedient to his will. It is
200 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
traditional in the higher ranks of the German official
hierarchy to despise popular assemblies, and to treat
them with an air of pedagogic superciliousness.
Hollmann had become so impatient at the continual
mutilation of his estimates that at last he thumped his
list menacingly on the table. That precipitate action
sealed his fate. Admiral von Tirpitz recognized that it
would be better for him if he disguised his contempt,
and smothered his anger in his beard. In one of
Rostand's plays, a lady is asked how she passed the
sentries who were posted round a jealously guarded
camp, and she replies: "I smiled at them." If the Naval
Minister were to be asked how he induced the parties
who had been so obdurate to his predecessor's de¬
mands to pass his own so much more expensive
projects, he, too, might have replied : " I smiled at
them." Completely breaking with the tradition of
schoolmasterly superiority, he was all complacency
and urbanity to the ignorant mediocrities who had it
in their power to frustrate his designs. His beaming
rubicund countenance was ever the brightest and
most ingratiating feature in the debates on his bills
and estimates. His good humour was inexhaustible,
his courtesy unflagging, his patience undisconcert-
able. He knew exactly what he wanted, and thought
only of that. His mind was not clouded, like those
of so many of his ministerial colleagues, by reli¬
gious or political prejudices. He was ready to accept
ships from the hands of Catholics or Socialists.
Whether they ranked the Pope above the Emperor,
or preferred a republic to a monarchy, was quite in¬
different to him, if only they would grant him the
ships and the men he asked for.
In one of his many veiled conflicts with the Foreign
Office, Admiral von Tirpitz is understood to have ex¬
claimed: "Politics are your affair—I build ships!"
and it was precisely because he attended strictly and
conscientiously to his own business that he was able
to do it so well. It was incumbent upon him as
THE ADMIRAL'S PRESS BUREAU 201
administrator of the Navy to make it as strong and
efficient as possible, and it lay with the Chancellors to
decide whether the line he was following was con¬
sistent with the general policy of the Empire. That,
against their own convictions and what they conceived
to be Germany's foreign interests, they allowed him
to have his own way, only proved their weakness and
his strength.
While he was amiable and polite to all parties and
persons who could assist him in the carrying out of
his ideas, flattered their vanity by pretended con¬
fidences from the region of high politics, took them
for cruises in war vessels, and had them deferentially
escorted round Imperial shipyards, the Admiral was
quick to appreciate the importance of winning the
good graces of the Catholics, without whose favour, as
party relationships stood and were likely to stand, he
could hope to effect little. Young and active members
of the Centre party, who showed a particular interest in
the details of naval policy, were singled out for special
attention, and soon were numbered among his most
devoted champions. He likewise realized the value of
popular support, and this was secured through the
instrumentality of the Press Bureau of the Ministry of
Marine. This institution was, and is, administered in
the same spirit which gained the Admiral his par¬
liamentary triumphs. The naval officers by whom it is
manned receive all journalists, domestic and foreign, with
open arms, and, according to the objects and nationality
of their visitors, furnish them with ideas, information,
and directions. No German writer on naval affairs could
afford to dispense with official assistance so profusely
and willingly supplied. The Press Bureau placed at
his disposal all the historical and statistical data which
could be used to demonstrate Germany's need of a big
fleet, all the articles from the foreign press which were
likely to have a stimulating effect upon his readers, all
the details of ship and gun types which could safely
be made public, all the rules of naval strategy and
202 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
tactics which might be of service to him in the
formulation of his themes. If diffidence or a spirit
of independence prevented him from coming to the
Press Bureau, the Press Bureau went to him, as will
be seen from the following document which found its
way into print:
"Imperial Ministry of Marine,
"News Office.
" Berlin,
" , i9°7-
" It has become known here that, some time ago,
you published in articles of a maritime nature.
For this reason the News Office gladly takes the oppor¬
tunity of enquiring whether you would care to receive
occasional batches of service material and press com¬
ments for possible use in further articles. In view of
the impending Navy Bill, your support in the Press
might be particularly valuable in the immediate future.
" Your most obedient servant,
" Boy-Ed."
By such means the Admiral succeeded in obtain¬
ing a control, gentle, persuasive, and veiled, but none
the less effective, over practically the entire body of
writers on naval topics in the German Press. He
would have been a less able and a less successful
statesman if he had openly egged on his army of
scribes to a violent campaign against Great Britain.
He was much too shrewd to do that. While he flooded
Germany with information of a provocative character,
the Press Bureau was careful to impress upon its
callers that nothing was farther from his thoughts than
the wish to inspire articles calculated to inflame inter¬
national animosities.
The unanimity of view on naval subjects which
the Bureau imported into the German Press was
naturally most effective. When the simple citizen
found that all the papers to which he had access
spoke with one voice, simultaneously adopting an
OFFICIAL NAVAL PUBLICATIONS 203
identical attitude to a fresh situation or propound¬
ing a novel theory, he could only assume that they
must be in the right. The proposal that Great
Britain should abandon her Two-Power standard and
accept in its stead a ratio of three to two, which
appeared almost at the same moment in a score of
different papers while the 1912 Navy Bill was under
process of dilution, is an instance in point. Up till
then all naval writers in Germany had been unanimous
in protesting that agreements to fix a naval ratio
between two countries were in their very nature im¬
possible, and the suddenness and simultaneity of their
conversion must have been due to the intervention
either of Providence or the Marine Minister. Indeed,
the Minister's statement a year later in the Reichstag
Budget Commission definitively set at rest any doubt
that might have existed as to the original source of
the proposal. Since Bismarck, no one has shown such
adroitness as Admiral von Tirpitz in the management
of the Press.
In addition to controlling the naval views of
independent publications, the Press Bureau also
makes important direct contributions of its own to
periodical literature with the annual Nauticus and the
monthly magazine Die Marine Rundschau. Both these
publications are further testimonies to the ability
with which the Admiral performs the duties of his
office.
But with all his cleverness, perseverance, and
patience, Admiral Tirpitz would never have reached
his goal had not Germany been swept by successive
waves of Anglophobia. Both speeches in the Reichstag
and articles in the Press make it quite evident that the
motive uppermost in the minds of most deputies when
they voted for the Navy Bills was the desire to im¬
press, annoy, or terrify Great Britain. The truth is
that, but for the Boer War, the Bill of 1900 could
never have been so much as introduced ; but for the
perpetual international friction over Morocco and the
204 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
fantastic legend of King Edward's designs against
Germany, the Bills of 1906 and 1908 would have had
but small chance of acceptance ; and but for Mr. Lloyd
George's speech and Captain Faber's indiscretions—
and, it should be added, the misrepresentations of both
of them by Admiral vonTirpitz's Press—the Ministry of
Marine would never have been able to win its last
victory against the opposition of the Treasury and
the misgivings of the Chancellor. The lesson of 1848
cannot be too thoroughly learnt. The naval move¬
ment of that year was almost entirely popular in its
character. It arose out of a sense of wounded dignity,
and fits of national temper, blind to all the prudential
considerations of domestic and international politics,
have given Germany to-day the second largest fleet
and the largest Socialist party in the world. It may
seem almost like a contradiction in terms to suggest
that a national sentiment has contributed to swell
German Socialism to its present dimensions. But, as
will be be seen later, this is—for Germany, at any
rate—no paradox, for in no other country does so small
a proportion of the population constitute what is in
practice and in effect the "will of the people."
It should have become clear that the part which the
Emperor William has played in the formulation and
carrying out of Germany's naval policy has been quite
insignificant in comparison with that played by his
Minister. The really effective work which the monarch
has done for his fleet has been that of which the wider
public has heard least. The Emperor's brain is not
an originating or creative one, but it is keenly appre¬
hensive, appreciative, and assimilative, and its owner
was quick to perceive the value of many of the forces
and institutions which have made the British Fleet
supreme, not only in numerical strength but also in
esprit de corps and organization. From his visits to
England he took back much useful information as to
the construction and handling of ships, and in many
other respects he found British models which he
WORLD-POLICY AND THE SCHOOLS 205
considered worthy of imitation in his own country.
Thus the Institute of Naval Architects was provided
with a German counterpart in the Schiffbau-technische
Gesellschaft, the ideals of self-discipline of sport were
fostered in the Imperial Navy, and when the tem¬
perance movement in the British Fleet had developed
sufficient strength to attract attention, the Emperor
inaugurated a similar propaganda among his crews.
As has already been seen, William II. has generously
admitted the debt of the German Fleet to its British
sister, and beyond all doubt he has done more than
anyone else to incur it.
The Emperor has also been able to do a good deal
towards the propagation of his naval ideas through
his autocratic control over the official machinery of
Prussia, which constitutes more than three-fifths of
the area, and nearly that proportion of the population
of Germany. In a country where the tentacles of the
central authority reach to the remotest village this
control means a great deal. In particular, through
the Ministry of Education, the rising generation is
being initiated into the mysteries of "world-policy"
and sea-power. The teaching of history and geogra¬
phy is utilized to impress upon susceptible minds the
importance of colonies and fleets, and to suggest with
more or less precision and emphasis that Great Britain
is the jealous rival who chiefly obstructs Germany's
path to that " place in the sun " which is her due. The
process which is commenced in the schools is con¬
tinued at the universities. Indeed, here as elsewhere,
Germany's professors have been the pioneers of her
progress, and were putting forward her claim to sea-
power long before the Emperor was born. Friedrich
List, the father of German economics, urged, in 1840,
that Denmark and Holland should be taken into the
Germanic Confederation, which "would then obtain
what it at present lacks—namely, fisheries and sea-
power, ocean-borne trade, and colonies." In another
passage he said:
206 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
" What intelligent citizens of those sea-ports (Ham¬
burg and Bremen) can rejoice over the continual in¬
crease of their tonnage, when he reflects that a couple
of frigates, putting out from Heligoland, could destroy
inside twenty-four hours the work of a quarter of a
century."
List also maintained that Germany was " called by
nature to place herself at the head of the colonizing
and civilizing nations," and " that the time had come for
the formation of a Continental alliance against the
naval supremacy of England." Treitschke, writing ol
the European situation in the later thirties, said:
" Against so absolutely ruthless a commercial policy,
inciting and making mischief all over the world,
all other civilized nations seemed natural allies. Eng¬
land was the stronghold of barbarism in international
law. To England alone was it due that, to the shame
of humanity, naval warfare still remained organized
piracy. It was the common duty of all nations to
restore on the seas that balance of power, long existing
on the Continent, that healthy equipoise which per¬
mitted no State to do exactly as it liked, and conse¬
quently assured to all a humane international law.
The civilization of the human race demanded that the
manifold magnificence of the world's history, which
had once commenced with the rule of monosyllabic
Chinese, should not end in a vicious circle with the
empire of the monosyllabic Britons. As soon as the
Eastern Question was reopened a far-sighted states¬
manship was bound to attempt at least to restrict the
oppressive foreign rule which the English Fleet main¬
tained from Gibraltar, Malta, and Corfu, and to restore
the Mediterranean to the Mediterranean peoples."
At the same time the Professor was teaching his
students at the Berlin University that " the settlement
with England will be the most difficult of all," and
that "the result of our next war must be, if possible,
the acquisition of some colony."
The modern schoolmasters and professors of Ger¬
many are working to produce a race inspired with the
A " PATRIOTIC BASIS " FOR EDUCATION 207
ambitions of List and the rancours of Treitschke, and
imbued with the idea that an unexampled destiny
awaits their nation. That the Emperor William early
recognized what schools and universities might be
made to do in this direction is clear from the speech
with which he opened the Educational Conference
convened by him in 1890, and in which he complained
that the traditional curriculum " lacked a patriotic
basis." "We should," he exclaimed, "rear patriotic
Germans and not young Greeks and Romans." It was
also with a political purpose that he recommended a
reversal of the usual order in which history was taught
—that is to say, that the most recent periods should
be taken first, and the student led back step by step
to the events of antiquity.
While the Emperor is not omnipotent in legislation,
he is, in Prussia, at any rate, practically unfettered in
administration—that more extensive and equally im¬
portant branch of Government—and so the impulsions
of his will can be forced down through the reticula¬
tions of the bureaucratic system till they are felt by
the humblest official. He thus has at his disposal a
large body of zealous co-operators anxious to comply
with his desires even if they should have no direct
relation to their official duties.
To appreciate the operation of this force, it is only
necessary to turn over the pages of the German Navy
League Handbook and notice how prominent a part the
provincial agents of the central authority and sub¬
ordinate members of the official body play in the
propaganda of that organization. It is impossible to
avoid the conclusion that, wherever difficulty has
been experienced in forming a local branch of the
League, gentle pressure has been brought to bear on
the stationmaster, postmaster, or gymnasium-director
of the town, and has compelled him to take the
initiative. In numerous cases such persons have,
of course, come forward and founded branches of the
League without any prompting, knowing well that
208 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
their zeal would be in accordance with the " wishes of
the Emperor," and would be rewarded by preferment
when a suitable opportunity arose.
The Navy League is the only instrument the Em¬
peror possesses for systematically and persistently
propagating his ideas on world-policy and sea-power
among the German people as a whole. It was founded
in 1898, at his personal instance, but in all probability
at Admiral von Tirpitz's suggestion, with the assistance
of funds principally furnished by the Krupp family,
which, as the chief material beneficiary from any
increase in the German Fleet, could well afford to
invest a little money in this way. Even in Bismarck's
time the head of the Krupp firm had been induced to
start a number of newspapers to advocate the aug¬
mentation of those armaments from which he had
derived a considerable proportion of his vast wealth,
and it is one of the least edifying features of modern
Germany that those of its citizens who show the most
bellicose spirit have a direct personal interest in the
waging of war. The financial founders of the Navy
League included other prosperous manufacturers who
were anxious to deserve decorations or titles, and
who, in some instances, went so far as to compel their
employees to join the organization and so help to swell
its membership.
Three weeks before the League was constituted,
the first Navy Bill had already received the Emperor's
signature, and the order of these events is a plain
demonstration that even then the measure was intended
to be merely the thin end of the wedge. It is an
interesting and significant fact that almost all the
ruling houses of Germany have been induced to
identify themselves with the League, though it is
nominally an absolutely independent and unofficial
organization. The Emperor's brother, Prince Henry
of Prussia, has assumed the general protectorate, and
among the protectors of the affiliated State federations
are Prince George of Bavaria, the Kings of Saxony
THE GERMAN NAVY LEAGUE 209
and Wiirttemberg, the Grand Dukes of Baden, Hesse,
the two Mecklenburgs, Oldenburg, and Saxe-Weimar,
the Dukes of Anhalt, Saxe-Altenburg, and Saxe-Coburg-
Gotha, the Princes of the two Lippes, Waldeck-
Pyrmont, and the two Reusses, the Statthalter of
Alsace-Lorraine, the Regent of Brunswick, and the
Burgomasters of Hamburg and Bremen. Thus the
State governments have a direct interest in the League,
are under a moral obligation to promote its work, and,
it may be added, bear a certain amount of responsibility
for the manner in which its agitation is carried on.
The purposes of the organization are defined in the
statutes as follows:
"The German Navy League regards a strong German
Fleet as necessary—principally in order to ensure the
sea frontiers of Germany against the danger of war,
to maintain the position of Germany among the Great
Powers of the world, and to support the general
interests and commercial communications of Germany
as well as the safety of her citizens at work in oversea
countries. Accordingly, it is the aim of the German
Navy League to awaken, cultivate, and strengthen the
interest of the German people for the importance and
functions of the fleet."
The members of the League are divided into two
classes—" individual " and " corporative." The latter
are members of branches of other societies which
enrol themselves in the League en masse. The most
fruitful sources of support of this kind are those kindred
bodies, the Pangerman Federation and the Colonial
Association. On December 31, 1911, the corporative
members numbered 756,000, the individual members
298,000. The qualifications for individual membership
are the attainment of the sixteenth year and a money
contribution, which, if not fixed by the branch, is left
for the member to determine for him- or herself. The
pecuniary contribution of a corporation joining the
League is fixed by special arrangement in each case.
From the accounts published it would appear that the
14
2io WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
average annual member's subscription falls a good
deal short of sixpence. A considerable number of
the members are young persons of both sexes who
send in their names because it is a cheap and easy
method of gratifying the association instinct, so strong
in Germans, or for the sake of the dances and other
purely social entertainments which are arranged by the
branches.
A monthly paper, Die Flotte, which is published in
an edition of 350,000 copies, is the League's chief organ
in the Press, but the Central Office also issues immense
quantities of pamphlets and leaflets. These are largely
distributed with newspapers owned or controlled by
the iron and steel and shipbuilding industries—what
the Socialists call the "armour-plate Press"—but
naturally find their way to all quarters to which
Government influence can give them access. Under
the name of " Communications," items of naval news
and controversial paragraphs are sent out about once
a week to all the papers, and though little notice is
taken of them in the metropolitan Press, struggling
provincial journals are very glad to have their columns
filled up with topical matter by expert and authorita¬
tive pens. The League also publishes a profusely
illustrated Naval Album, of which the Emperor every
year buys 600 copies for distribution as prizes in the
schools of Prussia—a typical example of the inter¬
action of the wheels of the naval agitation and the
Government machine. Lecturing, too, occupies a
prominent place in the League's activity, and the
Central Office keeps a stock of magic-lanterns and
slides, which it lends out free of charge to the local
branches. It also supplies uniforms, badges, and
bunting for local festivities.
By far the most effective department of the League's
activity is, however, the excursions to the German
naval ports, which it arranges for the benefit of school¬
masters and their classes. The participants in these
outings are, as far as possible, selected from the inland
INFLUENCE OF NAVAL EXCURSIONS 211
states and districts, in which it is most difficult to
arouse enthusiasm for the sea and the fleet. They are
taken to Kiel or Wilhelmshaven, received with effusive
courtesy by the naval officers delegated to look after
them, and escorted through the streets by a ship's
band to the dockyards or war vessels, over which
they are conducted by amiable guides, who supply
them with all the information likely to stimulate their
interest in what they have seen. If the distance they
have travelled makes it impossible for them to return
home the same day, naval barracks or storehouses
which happen for the moment to be vacant are placed
at their disposal as night quarters. So much official
complaisance and amenity, especially in a country
where neither of these qualities is particularly common
in the public services, arouses in those on whom it is
expended a flattering sense of their own and their
national importance, and schoolmasters thus captivated
will naturally, in due time, convey their impressions
to their pupils. Though the numbers of persons thus
dealt with are inevitably somewhat limited, the League
unquestionably gains more ground in this way than it
can hope to win by pamphlets which are read and
lectures which are listened to mainly by the already
convinced.
In spite, however, of official patronage and assiduous
labour, the League has probably failed to fulfil the
anticipations of its founders. Three years after its
incorporation it had already attained an " individual"
membership of 240,000, and in the decade which has
since elapsed it has added only 59,000 to that number.
The fact seems to be that its influence has not ex¬
tended far beyond that section of the population which
is, directly or indirectly, amenable to official pressure,
and the adherence of which could be counted upon
from the outset. In the fluctuations of its member¬
ship we have a barometer of the League's own internal
crises and of the tense phases of the international
situation. Very soon after it had been founded, a
2i2 WILLIAM II. AND HIS NAVAL MINISTER
handful of purists among its members felt compunc¬
tion as to the manner in which it was being financed
and administered. The substantial subscriptions which
flowed into its coffers from the pockets of the Krupps
and other industrial magnates with a business interest
in the building of warships seem to have been the
chief ground for their complaints ; but it is evident
that the entire management of the organization had
got into a scandalously lax state in consequence of the
inexperience of those to whom it had been entrusted.
In fact, the League seems to have existed at that time
principally for the benefit of two classes of people—
the wealthy snobs who purchased honours by supply¬
ing its funds, and the overpaid lecturers from the
ranks of the retired naval officers on whom those
funds were spent. Though the actual facts were
hushed up, a sufficient inkling of them got about to
excite the misgivings of the public, and in the next two
years the membership (individual) dropped by 70,000.
It began to revive as soon as the scandal was for¬
gotten, and, under the stimulus of the first stages of
the Morocco imbroglio, reached in 1907 its record
figure of 324,000. At this juncture, however, it became
known that during the elections of that year, the
League's manager, General Keim, had been so indis¬
creet as to issue pamphlets against the Centre (Catholic)
party. The result was a great exodus from the League
in Bavaria and other Catholic districts, and its member¬
ship gradually declined, till at the end of 1910 it stood
at 291,000. The crisis of the summer of 1911 and dis¬
closures made in England gave it another push forward,
and, with a jump of 6,500, the membership reached
the figure given above. Exactly how far the League's
membership and the apparent success of its agitation
have been the causes, and how far the effects, of the
naval movements of recent years, it would be difficult
to decide. Its most effective work has, however, un¬
questionably been done through the schools, and this
has as yet hardly had time to bear tangible fruit, since
THE EMPEROR AND THE LEAGUE 213
the German citizen is enfranchised only at the age of
twenty-five years.
To Germany's neighbours, the League's agitation
is always valuable, because it affords some indication
as to what the next development of the Imperial naval
policy is likely to be. When the too impetuous
General Keim committed the dangerous blunder of
giving offence to the Catholics, he was deposed by
official intervention, and Admiral Koester, a trusted
confidant of the Emperor, placed in charge of the
organization. The admiral is every year the monarch's
guest at the Kiel yachting week and other maritime
occasions, and it is obviously no mere coincidence
that his most emphatic pleas for more armoured
cruisers, or whatever it may be, have generally been
uttered shortly after one of their meetings. There
cannot, in fact, be the slightest doubt that the Emperor
is the real director of the Navy League, and that it
puts forward no demand that has not already received
his approval, in principle if not in detail. The League
is, in short, little more that a Government department,
the function of which is to carry on an agitation for
more warships. It must, however, always be remem¬
bered that the League's demands represent not what
the Government desires or expects to get, but what it
wants to be asked for. In order that it may keep up
the pretence that it is an unofficial and independent
organization, the League must naturally avoid too
close a correspondence between its own programme
and that of the Ministry of Marine, and it is also
guided by the principle that it is necessary to ask
much in order to get little. Occasionally it makes a
show of hurrying and worrying the Naval Minister,
and of being positively objectionable to the Govern¬
ment, but no one suffers less than Admiral von Tirpitz
from these " attacks " upon him, and there is nothing
he would like better to see than the satisfaction of the
demands by which they are accompanied.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF GERMAN NAVAL POLICY
In order to form an opinion as to the probable
development of the Anglo-German problem, it is of
cardinal importance to know whether Germany has
the ability and the will to continue her recent policy
of naval expansion. Assuming that her present
economic tendencies remain unchecked, there can be
little doubt as to her ability to do this. Should her
population, her industry, and her commerce expand in
the future at anything like the same rate as in the past,
she will, before very long, be in a position to build
and arm warships with almost as great facility as the
United Kingdom, and to pay for and man them with
even greater ease than this country.
A nation's economic strength depends upon the
numbers and character of its population and the
position and natural resources of the country it in¬
habits. In the size of her population alone Germany's
advantage over the British Isles is already enormous,
and it is still growing steadily. In 1871, the year of
the foundation of the German Empire, the populations
of the two countries were :
Germany 41,000,000
In 1911, the two populations were :
Germany 65,400,000
United Kingdom
Germany's advantage
31,800,000
9,200,000
United Kingdom
Germany's advantage
45,400,000
20,000,000
A CONTRAST OF POPULATIONS 215
Thus the advantage of Germany in mere numbers had
increased since 1871 by nearly 11,000,000, or by one
and a half the total population of Canada. How rapidly
this advantage is progressing may be gathered from
the subjoined comparison of the natural increase of
the populations of the two countries in 1910, the
latest year for which figures are available in both
cases :
Births.
Deaths.
Natural
Increase.
Germany
United Kingdom
Germany's advantage
1,983,000
1,123,000
1,104,000
630,000
879,000
493,000
386,000
An annual gain upon the United Kingdom of nearly
400,000 souls by excess of births over deaths is not,
however, the only factor by which Germany is in¬
creasing her numerical superiority. Especially in
recent years, she has benefited further in this respect
by the decline of her emigration. During the four
decades which have elapsed since the foundation of
the Empire, the excess of natives embarking over
those disembarking in the two countries has been as
under:
Years.
Germany.
United Kingdom.
1871-1880
1881-1890
1891-1900
1901-1910
625,968
1,342,423
529,875
279,645
1,678,919
2,558,535
1,742,79°
2,841,464
In the individual years of the decade which closed
with 1911, the emigration from the two countries was
as below:
216 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
Year.
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
I9°7
1908
I9°9
1910
1911
Totals
Germany.
32,098
36,310
27,984
28,075
3I>°74
31,696
19,883
24,921
25.531
22,690
280,262
It would be some compensation to the British Isles
for the loss of these 1,670,000 emigrants if they had all
gone to British dependencies, that might some day be
united to the Mother Country by the bonds of im¬
mutable federation, but large numbers of them went
to foreign countries, and so were lost to the British
Empire. In the United Kingdom during the nine
years 1902 to 1910, the emigration to exceeded the
immigration from non-European foreign countries by
606,000 souls. During 1911, 121,829 British passengers
shipped in the British Isles for the United States, and
though a considerable proportion of them doubtless
represented return business and tourist traffic, a large
residue of genuine emigrants must still have remained
over. Fortunately Canada, Australasia, and South
Africa now attract an ever-increasing proportion of
the emigrants from the United Kingdom, but it is still
an open question whether those dependencies can be
regarded as a British asset for all future time. During
the last few decades the centrifugal forces within them
have unquestionably developed more rapidly than the
centripetal forces, and while there has been a good
deal of sentiment in favour of closer union the actual
facts have been in the direction of disruption. It is on
the arrest of that tendency, and the substitution for it
of a federative consolidation, that the whole future of
DECREASED GERMAN EMIGRATION 217
the British Empire depends. For the present, it is
inexpedient to regard the exodus from the British
Isles as anything else than a sapping of the national
strength, and it appears all the more strongly in that
light when it is contrasted with the drying up of the
stream of emigration from Germany.
It is also very significant that the decline in the
drain on Germany's population, apparent from the
figures set forth above, is due not merely to the reduc¬
tion of her emigration, but also, to a considerable
extent, to the return to her shores of many who had
left them in earlier years. Some of these never in¬
tended to settle abroad definitively, but went to the
United States to complete their industrial or com¬
mercial training. It is characteristic of modern
Germany that many of her commercial leaders have
spent several years in the States, studying the latest
methods of making money quickly, and that their
success in their native country has been largely owing
to what they learnt on the other side of the Atlantic.
American influences have, in fact, played a very large
part in Germany's most recent development. But
apart from these business students, Germany's rapid
progress in material prosperity has drawn back to
her many of her sons who had bidden her what they
regarded as a final farewell, but who, having failed to
find in the New World the Eldorado of their dreams,
have been able to realize in their old home the hopes
with which they once quitted it.
Moreover, besides ceasing to export her own
people, Germany has commenced on a consider¬
able scale to import those of other nations. In the
last fifteen years her slight losses through emigration
have been more than made good by the influx of
foreign labourers required by her agriculture and
industry. At the time of the professional census
taken in June, 1907, no fewer than 766,000 foreigners
were in employment in Germany. If the count had
been made a little later in the year the number would
218 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
have been much larger, for the demand of German
agriculture for hands does not attain its maximum till
the season of the grain and root harvests. In the year
1911, between 350,000 and 400,000 aliens were taken
into Germany under contract to work on the fields.
Much of this seasonal labour would undoubtedly settle
permanently in the country if it were permitted to do
so, but in order to prevent an aggravation of the
Polish problem in Prussia—a majority of the seasonal
workers being Russian or Austrian Poles—the foreign
agricultural hands are compelled to recross the frontier
as soon as their contracts have expired. Even on
works of a military character, the details of which it
is desired to keep secret, it is found necessary to
employ foreigners, and from figures which have been
given in the daily press, it would appear that, in
spite of all the efforts of the authorities to eliminate it,
the alien element in the labour engaged in the widen¬
ing of the Kiel Canal has varied from about 20 to
35 per cent. At the ordinary censuses which have
been taken since the foundation of the Empire, the
numbers of foreigners resident in Germany were as
under:
1871,
I875 -
1885
1890,
1895
1900
i9°5
1910
206,755
290,799
372,792
433,254
486,190
778,698
1,028,560
1,259,873
Among the million and a quarter foreigners counted
in 1910 were 635,000 Austrians, 144,000 Dutch, 138,000
Russians, 104,000 Italians, 68,000 Swiss, 32,000 Hun¬
garians and Croats, 26,000 Danes, 19,000 French,
18,000 British, 18,000 North Americans, 14,000 Luxem-
burgers, 13,000 Belgians, and 10,000 Swedes.
At the present moment, there seems little prospect
of a substantial modification of the numerical relation¬
ship of the population of the British Isles and Germany,
DECLINE OF THE BIRTH-RATE 219
in consequence of changes in their birth-rates. In
both countries human fertility has fallen off rapidly,
but it remains much greater in Germany than in the
United Kingdom. During the fifteen years ended with
1910 the birth-rate per thousand of population was in
the two countries :
Year.
United
Kingdom.
Germany.
Germany's
Advantage.
1896
29-0
37'5
8-5
1897
28'9
37"2
8-3
1898
287
37'3
8-6
1899
28-5
37-0
8'5
1900
28*2
36-8
8-8
1901
28-0
36-9
8-9
1902
28-0
36-2
8-2
I9°3
28*0
34'9
6-9
I9°4
277
35"2
7*5
I9°5
2yi
34'°
6-9
1906
27-0
34*i
7-1
i9°7
26-3
33'2
6-9
1908
26-6
33-o
6-4
I9°9
25'7
31'9
6'2
1910
25-0
307
57
It is true that Germany's advantage, which was
8*5 per thousand of population in 1896, had, by 1910,
sunk to 57, but simultaneously her death-rate declined
from 22 "i to 17*1 per thousand, while that of the
United Kingdom dropped only from 16*9 to 14 during
the fifteen-year period. In a recent newspaper article,
Professor Julius Wolf, of Breslau, an eminent
economist, pointed out that the birth-rate of Germany
exceeded that of England alone by only '6 in the five
years 1851-55, whereas by 1881-85 its excess had risen to
3-5 and by 1908 to 5*5. While he apparently wished to
suggest that the fecundity of England was falling even
more rapidly than that of his own country, he at the
same time admitted the contradictory conviction that
the annual natural increase of the population of
Germany, which is at present between 800,000 and
220 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
900,000 souls, would, within measurable time, drop to
600,000, 400,000, or even lower.
It is only quite recently that the German authorities
have shown signs of waking up to the decline in their
country's human fertility, though it has been going on
steadily since 1876, when the Empire's births numbered
42*6 per thousand of population. Early in 1912, the
Prussian Government instituted an enquiry as to the
causes of the phenomenon and the possibility of
counteracting them, but it is very doubtful whether
the investigation will lead to the discovery of an
effective antidote. The tendency has been an invari¬
able concomitant of the concentration of population in
large towns, and is no doubt mainly of artificial rather
than physiological origin both in the United Kingdom
and Germany. In the latter country it has had a
special cause in the extraordinarily rapid inflation ol
the cost of urban dwelling accommodation, which
renders small families or overcrowding the only alter¬
natives for the artisan classes. On the other hand,
Germany possesses in her proprietary peasants and
her Catholics a trustworthy bulwark against the danger
of depopulation. Neither the incentives nor the op¬
portunities for an interference with the natural law of
multiplication exist in the rural districts in anything
like the same degree as they do in the towns, and in
no country in the world can the Church of Rome exact
a more unquestioning obedience to its social decrees
than it does in the Catholic areas of Germany.
Thus we find that, in 1909, whereas the birth-rate in
Berlin was only 22 and in Hamburg 25*8 per 1,000, in
the agricultural province of East Prussia it was 32*8,
in Catholic Westphalia 38*8, and in Posen, where, it is
true, it was assisted by the superior fertility of the Slav,
as high as 39-5. It is, of course, unlikely that these
safeguards will always retain their present effective¬
ness, but their operation will certainly be felt for a
long time to come. Should the prediction of Leroy-
Beaulieu and Professor Schmoller be verified, and the
TWO HUNDRED MILLION GERMANS 221
end of the century see the German nation swollen to
200,000,000 souls, it cannot be doubted that, other
things remaining as they are, the disproportion be¬
tween its numbers and those of the population of
the British Isles will be much more pronounced than
it is to-day.
Numbers alone do not, of course, count for every¬
thing, even as between nations living under similar
economic conditions. Superiority of quality can make
good almost any quantitative inferiority. The question
must therefore be asked, whether the character, gifts
and attainments of the Briton are, on the average, so
much superior to those of the German as to compen¬
sate for the latter's enormous numerical superiority.
And, undoubtedly, it can only be answered in the
negative. While the German is slow, and lacks
intuition, independence and initiative, he is, on the
other hand, patient, industrious, thrifty, and sober.
Though he has but little originality, he is a close
observer, a diligent imitator, a laborious thinker-out
of other men's thoughts. Indeed it is not infrequently
he who thinks them out to their logical and their
practical conclusions. If he fails where rapid im¬
provisation is needed, and has difficulty in adapting
himself to a sudden and unforeseen situation, he suc¬
ceeds wherever faithful adherence to law, rule, regu¬
lation, prescription, discipline, organization, method,
schedule, or pattern is the essential condition of
success. Whatever is known by others he too will
know ere long, and he may be the first to apply the
knowledge to practical use. An invention or a fresh
idea may give another nationality a momentary ad¬
vantage, but the German will adopt it promptly, and
will never remain far behind in the race. The whole
history of German development during the last couple
of centuries has been one long record of the adoption
and adaptation of the ideas of other nations. Without
Hume, as Professor Schulze-Gaevernitz has admitted,
there would have been no Kant; without Louis XIV.,
222 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
Frederick the Great is unthinkable; without Napoleon,
Moltke would never have planned his campaign of
1870. German industry has been copied stage by
stage and process by process from that of Great
Britain. In particular, both the ships and methods
of Germany's Navy as well as of her mercantile
marine have been based upon British models. The
copying and the imitation have, however, been no
mere apish mimicry, but the intelligent comprehension
of principle and the sedulous application of scientific
law; and in this way the German has frequently
surpassed his master.
It would also be difficult to exaggerate the import¬
ance to Germany of her large infusion of Jewish blood.
There are, indeed, those who regard the latest phases
of the Empire's development as a specifically Semitic,
and not at all as a Teutonic phenomenon. Germany's
banks and financial houses are almost exclusively in
the hands of Jews, and that race is the leaven of her
commerce. Herr Ballin, the architect of the Hamburg-
America Line, the biggest shipping concern in the
world ; Herr Rathenau, the organizer of the Allgemeine
Electrizitats-Gesellschaft, the leading electrical under¬
taking of Europe; and the Loewes, who have won
international repute for German small arms and
machine tools, are all Jews, and the list might be
extended almost indefinitely. Jews throng the front
ranks in Germany's law, medicine, art, music, literature,
drama, and journalism. They are to be found every¬
where exercising their unrivalled flair for the public's
wants and their marvellous capacity for organization.
Of the entire population of the Empire 111 out of
every 10,000 are professing Israelites, whereas in the
United Kingdom the ratio is only 20 to every 10,000.
In some of the principal German towns the propor¬
tion of the Jews is, of course, much higher than it is on
the average for the whole country; and practically the
entire city of Berlin is their property. To some
extent, at any rate, the partial removal of the dis-
EFFECTS OF PROSPERITY 223
abilities which formerly weighed on this highly-gifted
commercial race has contributed to Germany's rapid
economic advance; and the merit is in no small measure
theirs if it can be said that the qualities of the German
mind are to-day as conducive to the creation and
accumulation of material wealth as the characteristics
of any other nationality.
On the other hand, a danger undoubtedly lies in the
defects of the German's qualities. He inclines to
formalism and rigidity, and his love of law and rule
is already exposing him to the risk of being strangled
by legislation. Moreover, there are unmistakable
signs that his prosperity has been too sudden, and
that his wealth is accumulating too rapidly. In the
larger towns, and especially in the capital, the
traditional thrift, frugality and idealism of the German
have been replaced by a luxury, a self-indulgence, a
crude materialism, and a delight in vulgar ostentation,
which bode ill for the future of the race. The Lutheran
religion is powerless, if not actually dead, and in its
stead a scientific hedonism, which applies to pleasure
and sensuality all the method and system which in
other directions have done so much for Germany, is
asserting its maleficent sway over the urban mind.
Berlin is now the metropolis of European vice, and,
strange though it may seem, there are many of its
citizens who seem quite proud of this evil pre¬
eminence, regarding it apparently as a legitimate title
to international fame.
It is not without significance that the article most
widely advertised in Germany at the present day is
champagne—either the French product or the inferior
and deleterious native imitation known as " Sekt."
This may indicate wealth, but it also points to a
perilous habit of expenditure. It cannot be denied
that the disposition to live for money and the luxuries
it can buy has developed disquieting strength in the
British Isles of recent years, but the Briton has an
effective antidote in the bracing self-discipline of sport.
224
THE ECONOMIC BASIS
In Germany sport is still only the cult of coteries, and
its stimulating principles cannot be said to play an
appreciable roll in the national life. Whether they
will, at some future date, impose an effectual restraint
on the present inclination towards enervating amuse¬
ments, is a question to which it is, at the moment,
impossible to return an answer.
Strenuous efforts are being made by the Govern¬
ments of some of the German States to awaken an
interest in sports, and especially by that of Prussia,
where the Emperor and the Crown Prince have
placed themselves at the head of the movement. The
monarch's encouragement of sailing and rowing, his
regular attendances at the regattas at Kiel, on the
Elbe estuary, and on the lakes round Berlin, have,
of course, a more definite political purpose than the
mere maintenance or improvement of the physique of
the nation. It is here his outspoken purpose to direct
the attention of his subjects to the water, on which he
has told them that their future lies. The Emperor
has, however, exerted himself to promote other types
of sport—for instance, by the introduction of football
into the Prussian Army; while the Crown Prince not
only is himself a first-class all-round sportsman, but
loses no opportunity of inciting others to follow in his
footsteps. That both father and son have acquired
their love of sport from English associations and
English example is indisputable. Indeed, the former
has repeatedly admitted as much. Addressing the
troops about to embark on the expedition to China in
1900, he said: " The first care must be for the health
of the men, and the principal thing is to keep them
occupied with exercise, games, and races right round
the deck. It is the experience of the English, too,
that physical exercise is the main thing." Speaking
to another batch of men setting out on the same
errand, he said: "We can learn here from the
English, who are very practical in these matters.
Give your men plenty of running games." Similarly,
THE GERMAN PEOPLE AND SPORT 225
the "path-finder" movement, which is making great
progress in Germany under the active patronage of
Field-Marshal Baron von der Goltz, was considered
worthy of steady official cultivation only after the boy
scout had become a popular figure in English life.
The encouragement of sport in Germany is, in fact,
but one more instance of Teutonic imitativeness. It
has its origin in the conviction, that not only the
Battle of Waterloo, but also Great Britain's com¬
mercial, industrial, and political position in the world
was won on the playing-fields of Eton, and that to
attain a like pre-eminence Germany must adopt similar
methods. This cult has, however, still many obstacles
to overcome, not only in the national habits of the
German race, but also in the prejudices and traditions
of its dominant classes. The feeling that Germany
should follow the laws of her own national develop¬
ment, and close her doors to foreign influences, which
seems to be growing in strength among one section
of the population, finds expression in the complaints,
uttered by members of the old Prussian nobility, that
the Crown Prince would be better occupied in attending
more closely to his military duties, and in mastering the
intricacies of the bureaucratic machine, than in shooting
elephants in India, playing tennis at Heiligendam, or
toboganning in Switzerland. What will be the ultimate
issue of this struggle of forces it is impossible to foresee.
Trustworthy data as to changes in the physical
condition of the German people are not obtainable.
German laudatores temporis acti lay much stress on the
decline in the percentage of the young men due to
enter the Army and pronounced by the doctors to
be fit for military service, but the returns on this
point are a very uncertain guide. Medical standards
have changed and are still changing. Certain forms
of nervous constitution which were formerly regarded
as voluntary personal peculiarities are now classified
as specific disease. Hereditary predispositions can
now be detected at a much earlier stage than was
15
226 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
possible twenty years ago. Moreover, it is certain
that the Army doctors sound for political as well as
physical disease, and that the medical examination is
used to give preference to the rural recruits who are
less likely than the young artisans of the towns to
have been inoculated with the Socialistic virus. For
it is felt that to give a military training to a Socialist
may mean nothing more than to furnish an efficient
fighter to the revolution which looms up menacingly
in some Germans' dream of their Empire's future.
Even if the diminution of military fitness were real
it would not necessarily signify a depression of the
national stamina, but might easily be accounted for
by the advance of medical skill, which saves the lives
of many persons of inferior vitality who at an earlier
period would inevitably have perished in infancy.
The German people is undoubtedly passing through
one of those phases of rapid development to which
the word " transition" is generally applied, but it
would be rash to assume that the outcome of it will
be national degeneration or reduced efficiency in the
contest for the commercial, industrial, and political
supremacy of the world. Those whose position is
threatened by Germany's challenge will do well to
concentrate their attention on those factors which tend
to make her strong rather than on those which appear
to have the opposite tendency.
Having glanced at the human element in the problem,
let us now, for a moment, consider the material ele¬
ment. The prime natural resources of a country are
its area and the fertility of its soil, and in respect of
these Germany again has a great advantage over the
British Isles, in spite of the barrenness of those vast
tracts in the north of the Empire which at present are
covered only with heather and gorse, or with stunted
fir-trees of little utility except as firewood. The total
extents of the two countries and the areas under the
principal types of cultivation in 1910 are shown in the
subjoined table :
BRITISH AND GERMAN RESOURCES 227
United Kingdom.
Germany.
Total area
Woods and forests ...
Total cultivated area...
Wheat
Barley
Oats
Rye
Potatoes
Acres.
77,716,992
3,069,070
46,931,637
1,857,671
1,899,130
4,ii6,i37
57,OO4
1,144,465
Acres.
133,585,000
34,272,000
78,632,139
4,842,196
3,879,090
10,594,341
15,280,235
8,X4I,323
The harvests yielded by these crops in 1910 were as
below:
United Kingdom.
Germany.
Wheat
Barley
Oats
Rye
Potatoes
Tons.
1,540,700
1,430,200
3>IIO>5°°
6,700
6,450,800
Tons.
3,861,500
2,902,900
7,900,400
10,511,200
43,468,400
The numbers of the principal animals bred for
human food in the two countries were in 1907, the
date of the last German agricultural census, as under:
United Kingdom.
Germany.
Cattle
Sheep ...
Pigs
11,630,142
30,011,833
4,055,793
20,630,544
7,703,710
22,146,532
In the consideration of the foregoing figures, allow¬
ances must be made for differences of national habit,
the prominent place taken by rye, bread, and potatoes
in the German's diet, and his preference for pork over
mutton. It should further be mentioned that in 1909
Germany produced 12,684,874 tons of sugar-beet and
44,453,640 gallons of grape juice for the manufacture
of wine. Moreover, while the tendency in the United
228 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
Kingdom is for land to go out of cultivation, in Germany
it is the reverse. Till that problematical date when
Germany possesses colonies in the temperate zone
suitable for settlement by white men, her Government
will do all in its power to restrain its subjects from
emigration. For military and political reasons it is
anxious to retain control over as large a number of
people as possible, and it also desires to keep the
Empire in a position to feed itself in case of need.
Much attention has consequently been given of late
years to the problem of repopulating the rural areas,
which are being drained of their best blood by the call
of the towns, and with this object in view great efforts
are being made to reclaim the three-and-a-half million
acres of waste, moor and marsh land which at present
is put to no use whatever. Scientific opinion seems to
encourage the idea that a considerable proportion of
this might be brought under profitable cultivation if the
proper methods were employed, and the probability is
that before many years have gone by Germany will have
largely increased her yield of agricultural products.
But if the agricultural resources of Germany are
more productive than those of the British Isles, she
has an even greater superiority over this country in
her mineral treasures. In a recent lecture, Professor
Engler, of Carlsruhe, estimated the total coal deposits of
Europe at 700,000,000,000 tons, of which 416,000,000,000
tons or nearly three-fifths are situated in Germany, and
only 193,000,000,000 tons in the British Isles. On the
basis of the present rate of consumption, he calculated
that the British stores of coal would last for 700, those
of Germany for 3,000 years. A more cautious
estimate of Professor Milch puts the life-time of the
British coalfields at 300 years, and that of the Lower
Rhenish and Upper Silesian beds, from which Germany
draws the bulk of her supplies, at over a thousand
years. In addition to these stores of solid fuel, Germany
possesses beneath her own soil large reservoirs of
petroleum, which already satisfy quite a considerable
PETROLEUM AND IRON ORE 229
proportion of her requirements, and which every year
yield more abundantly. In 1911 Germany's con¬
sumption of imported petroleum amounted to 925,000
metric tons, and her own production was 143,000 tons.
As recently as the last lustrum of the nineteenth
century she obtained from her wells no more, on the
average, than 29,000 tons of oil annually, so that in ten
years the output has increased fivefold. Germany
also possesses in her voluminous and rapid rivers
inexhaustible reserves of water-power, and the Bavar¬
ian Government is understood to be at present pre¬
paring a scheme for the exploitation on a large scale
of the streams which rush down the northern slopes
of the Alps for the generation of electrical energy.
This project will possibly create in South Germany
an industrial centre as busy and productive as those
of the North and West of the Empire.
" The God who made iron grow " has likewise
bountifully endowed the country, one of whose poets
gave Him this name, with the cardinal metal of industry.
A computation made by a Swedish committee for the
International Geological Congress held at Stockholm
in 1910 showed the utilizable supplies of iron ore in
Europe and their metallic contents to be as under:
1
Country.
Ore.
Metallic Contents
of Ore.
Tons.
Tons.
Germany
3,607,000,000
1,270,000,000
France
3,300,000,000
1,140,000,000
United Kingdom
1,300,000,000
455,000,000
Sweden
1,158,000,000
864,000,000
740,000,000
Russia
387,000,000
Spain
7x1,000,000
349,000,000
Norway
367,000,000
124,000,000
Luxemburg
270,000,000
90,000,000
Austria
250,000,000
90,000,000
Greece
100,000,000
45,000,000
Belgium
62,000,000
25,000,000
Hungary
33,000,000
13,000,000
Italy
6,000,000
1,600,000
3,000,000
Switzerland
800,000
230
THE ECONOMIC BASIS
From this estimate it would appear that Germany
possesses between two and three times as much as the
British Isles of the principal metallic basis of all
industries. The development of the production of the
chief minerals in both countries during the last thirty
years will be seen from the following tables:
Coal Production.
Year.
United Kingdom.
Germany.
1880
1885
1890
*895
1900
I905
1910
Tons.
146,969,000
159,351,000
181,614,000
189,661,000
225,181,000
236,129,000
264,433,000
Metric Tons.
46,974,000
58,320,000
70,238,000
79,169,000
109,290,000
121,299,000
152,828,000
Metric ton = 2,204 pounds.
Iron Ore Production.
Year.
United Kingdom.
Germany (includ¬
ing Luxemburg).
1880
1885
1890
189S
Tons.
18,026,000
15,418,000
13,781,000
12,615,000
Metric Tons.
7,239,OOO
9,158,000
11,406,000
12,350,000
M
00
%
13,701,000
14,162,000
1900
I9°5
1910
14,028,000
14,591,000
15,226,000
18,964,000
23,444,ooo
28,710,000
Thus, whereas in the United Kingdom the production
of iron ore declined substantially in the period dealt
with, in Germany it increased nearly fourfold. The
statistics with regard to the manufacture of pig-iron
and steel tell a similar tale, and a few figures from
PRODUCTION OF PIG-IRON AND STEEL 231
them may be inserted, though they properly belong
to a subsequent section of this chapter. During the
past thirty years the development of the production of
pig-iron in the two countries has been as under:
Year.
1880
1885
1890
1895
1900
1903
I90S
1910
United Kingdom.
Tons.
7,749,000
7,415,000
7,904,000
7,703,000
8,959,000
8,935,000
9,608,000
10,012,000
Germany.
Metric Tons.
2,713,000
3,673,000
4,651,000
5,455,000
8,507,000
10,018,000
10,875,000
14,794,000
It will be noticed that thirty years ago the United
Kingdom manufactured nearly three times as much
pig-iron as Germany, and that the latter country in
1910 had the advantage by approximately 50 per cent.
In the production of crude steel the relationship has
changed even more emphatically to the disadvantage
of the British Isles, as will be seen from the subjoined
table:
Year.
United Kingdom.
Germany.
1890
^93
1895
1900
I9°5
1910
Tons.
3,579,000
2,950,000
3,290,000
4,901,000
5,812,000
6,515,000
Metric Tons.
2,232,000
3,163,000
3,963,000
6,362,000
10,067,000
12,281,000
In the two preceding tables special prominence has
been given to the year, inserted out of the quinquennial
232 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
series, in which Germany overtook the United Kingdom
in these vital branches of industry. In addition to
coal and iron Germany owns considerable deposits
of the other principal metallic ores, from which she
raised in 1910 the following quantities :
Further, Germany is, in the words of one of her
professors, " the richest country in salts that exists on
earth," and among her saline treasures are vast deposits
of soluble potash of a quality such as has, up to the
present, been found in no other part of the world.
She has, in fact, through a strange geological caprice,
a natural world monopoly of a substance which is now
practically indispensable to the manufacturer of arti¬
ficial fertilizers, and this endowment not only is of
inestimable value to her own agriculture, but has also
been the origin of an important branch of her export
trade. In the course of 1911 she shipped abroad nearly
2,000,000 tons of these potash salts, the bulk of it going
to the United States.
It may well be asked why Germany, with her large,
plodding and methodical population, her agricultural
resources, and her inexhaustible mineral deposits, has
been so tardy in taking her natural place in the ranks
of the first industrial and commercial nations of the
world. The answer will be found in those conditions
of political division and confusion which have been
either sketched out or indicated in earlier chapters.
The lack of unity in government, administration, legis¬
lation, weights, measures, and coinage ; centuries of
misrule, internecine strife, and foreign warfare ; a
perpetual sense that the conditions were unstable and
could not last, coupled with blank uncertainty as to
the manner in which they might develop—these have
been the causes which for so many centuries made
Germany the Cinderella among the big nations of
Copper ore
Zinc ore
Lead ore
Tons.
926,000
718,000
148,000
RETARDED DEVELOPMENT 233
Europe. Even in unbroken peace and under stable
and uniform government the repair of the havoc
wrought by the Thirty Years' War would have been
the work of many generations, but these conditions
were denied her till the closing quarter of the nine¬
teenth century. The armies of the Great Elector could
be maintained only by the help of foreign subsidies,
and the wars of Frederick the Great so completely
exhausted Prussia that he was compelled, in his ex¬
tremity, to melt down the solid silver balustrade of the
musicians' gallery in the Berlin Palace, and replace it
with the plated woodwork which is still pointed out
to tourists as a monument of kingly self-abnegation.
Before the fruits of Frederick's conquests and adminis¬
trative reforms could be reaped, the Napoleonic tem¬
pest burst upon Europe, and the industrial progress of
Germany was again violently arrested. The French
occupation and the exhausting indemnities exacted by
the conqueror were not in themselves so debilitating
as the consequences of Napoleon's attempt to ruin
Great Britain by closing the Continent to her trade,
and of the retaliatory blockade by which this measure
was answered.
Under the conditions thus created, Germany's ship¬
ping languished and almost expired, and her export
trade received a blow from which some branches of it
have never been able to recover. The chronic distress
among the weavers of the Erzgebirge, which has been
so poignantly depicted by Hauptmann in his play,
"Die Weber," is attributed by some writers to the
closing of foreign markets to Silesian linen through
the Continental blockade, and in Germany there is a
curiously illogical tendency to blame Great Britain
rather than Napoleon for this calamity. The flag of
Prussia practically disappeared from the seas ; at the
commencement of the Napoleonic wars the ship¬
owners of that State possessed an aggregate fleet of
1,100 vessels, but when the conclusive peace arrived
the number had sunk to 700, and these were for the
234 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
most part antiquated and of little value. While the
blockade was in force the prices of exotic commodities,
such as sugar, coffee, rice, tobacco, and cotton, rose in
Germany to three, four, and even five times their
former level, and in its impoverishment the population
was all the less able to pay the higher rates. In
Hanover, according to an official computation, the
consumption of some of these articles was reduced
during the blockade to a hundredth part of what it had
previously been.
The War of Liberation, by which the Napoleonic
yoke was shaken off, was financed largely by voluntary
contributions. In the principal centres the Prussian
Government opened subscription offices, to which, in
default of money, noblemen and their wives brought
their family plate and their personal jewellery, and
members of the poorer classes any trinkets or trifles
made of the precious metals they might possess. To
such straits had Germany been reduced by the Napo¬
leonic era.
The repartition of Europe carried out by the Con¬
gress of Vienna left in Germany no sense of finality.
How deeply the population was imbued with the feel¬
ing that further changes in the direction of national
unity were inevitable, was shown by the spontaneity
with which the Revolution of 1848 blazed forth simul¬
taneously in a score of different places. But so long
as that feeling of suspension and uncertainty prevailed,
the fundamental conditions of industrial and commer¬
cial progress were lacking. The country recovered so
slowly, from the convulsions of the first fifteen years
of the nineteenth century, that a careful and conscien¬
tious investigator like Professor Sombart calculates
that the economic condition of its people in 1830 was
lower than it had been in 1802.
The Zollverein, by which Germany became a
Customs unit, only partially removed the hindrances to
trade and traffic which had arisen from the multiplicity
and multifariousness of her systems of government.
GROWTH OF THE ZOLLVEREIN 235
Though, for the purposes of trade, the internal
frontiers were abolished, and it was no longer
necessary, as it had been at the close of the eighteenth
century, to pay sixteen separate Customs dues on a
journey from Dresden to Magdeburg, a great variety
of restraints on traffic continued to impede the
exchange of commodities for many decades to come.
Moreover, the Zollverein was only of gradual growth.
As formed in the years 1834 and 1835, it included
Prussia, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Saxony, the two
Hesses, Baden, Nassau, the Thuringian States, and the
town of Frankfort-on-Main. Ten years more were to
elapse before it took in the large territories of
Hanover and Brunswick; and the two chief Hanse
towns, Hamburg and Bremen, did not accept Customs
membership of the Empire till 1888. And while the first
Customs Union Treaty of 1833 bound its signatories to
aim at uniformity of weights, measures, and coinage,
this ideal was not actually realized till the metric
system was made compulsory throughout the Empire
in 1872. .At the outbreak of the great war of 1870 no
fewer than seven different systems of currency still
obtained in Germany.
Another bond which had to be burst before Germany
could freely extend her limbs was the serfdom of the
peasantry. Under the agrarian system generally
prevailing in the country at the commencement of last
century, the entire peasant population was tied fast to
the soil by innumerable allodial obligations to the
larger landowners. All the work on the estate of the
junker was performed by the peasant proprietors of the
vicinity, who, with their own horses or oxen, ploughed
his land, sowed his seed, and reaped and threshed his
crops. That they might not escape these labours, they
were legally bound to the places of their birth. Until
this modified enslavement was done away with, and
the rural population was permitted to migrate to the
towns, the modern industrial development of Germany
was impossible through lack of labour, if for no other
236 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
reason. Attempts at agrarian reform were made by
Stein and Hardenberg from 1807 to 1821, but it was
not till the second half of the century that the
adscriptus glebi was fully and finally abolished.
Meanwhile the United Kingdom had passed completely
over to factory and machine manufacture, with the
assistance of workmen drawn from the rural districts.
Yet another impediment which shackled German
industry in the earlier part of the nineteenth century
was the guild organization of her trades. For hundreds
of years the guilds had followed the selfish and short¬
sighted policy of restricting output and smothering
enterprise in the interests of their members. They
imposed regulations limiting the number of apprentices
who could be indentured by the individual master,
controlling his output, and fixing the times, prices, and
methods both of the purchase of his raw materials and
of the sale of his finished commodities. This entire
system had to be swept away before Germany could
adapt herself to cosmopolitan trade.
It has been seen how the opposition of Hanover to
the construction of a railway through her territory
made it necessary to convey building material for the
naval base of Wilhelmshaven by the long and circuitous
sea-route; and this was but a crowning example of
the purblind and petty policy by which German
Princes had long obstructed the provision of those
channels of communication that are the arteries and
veins of a country's commerce. In consequence of
political division and princely jealousy, Germany was,
at the beginning of last century, almost entirely devoid
of highways. Especially in the northern districts,
traffic had to be carried on along rough tracks that
were hardly passable in the winter and after rainy
weather. It was only in the forties of the nineteenth
century that the construction of highways was syste¬
matically taken in hand. By 1857 Germany had
nearly 20,000 miles of good roads; ten years later
a further 10,000 miles had been added; and by the
UNIFIED POSTAL SYSTEMS 23;
close of the century the aggregate length had increased
to over 80,000 miles. The state of the roads naturally
reacted on the speed of travel and transport. In the
early decades of the nineteenth century twenty-five
miles was considered a good day's journey, and it was
little less than a revolution when, in 1824, the Prussian
Minister of Posts introduced the English mail speed
of forty-five miles, and so reduced the distance between
Berlin and Magdeburg from two days and a night to
fifteen hours. Even then, owing to the multiplicity of
authorities, the postal service was very slow in develop¬
ing. In 1842, two years after the adoption of national
penny postage in England, the annual epistolary corre¬
spondence of Prussia amounted to only a letter and a
half per head of population, and ten years later this
proportion had not more than doubled. By the Prusso-
Austrian postal agreement of 1850 the number of
independent post-offices in Germany was reduced to
seventeen, but even the postal tariff of the North
German Confederation was a volume of 300 printed
pages. It was not till 1868 that Germany received
the blessing of unified postal rates.
Railways, too, came a little too soon for Germany.
If that great transformation in locomotion had
succeeded instead of preceding her unification, she
would have adopted it with less doubt and hesitation,
and have been quicker in reaping the benefits of it.
The prophetic eye of Friedrich List at once recognized
the enormous importance of the iron road, and he
employed his most eloquent persuasions in favour of
a plan for " raising Germany by a great net of railways
to the rank of the industrial countries, and so uniting
the severed limbs of the German nation to a sound
and vigorous body." But this keen-visioned seer was
far in advance of the bulk of his countrymen, and
especially of those governments which had imprisoned
and banished him, as they had so many of the truest of
German patriots. Stephenson's " Rocket" made its
first triumphant journey in 1829, and it was ten years
238 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
later before Dresden and Leipzic were linked up by the
first railway of any importance to be constructed in
Germany. In the meanwhile, two short local lines
had been laid down between Nuremberg and Fiirth
(1835), and between Berlin and Potsdam (1838). The
subsequent development of German railways may be
seen from the appended table:
Year.
Ig45
1850
1855
i860
1865
1870
1875
1880
1885
1890
1895
1900
I905
1910
Length of Line
in Kilometres.
.. 2,131
.. 5,822
.. 7,781
.. 11,026
.. 13,821
.. 18,560
•• 27>795
• • 33)865
•• 37.572
.. 41,818
•• 45,203
.. 49,878
.. 54,680
•• 59>°3!
Kilometre = § mile.
Here, too, it was the removal of political uncertainty
by the foundation of the Empire which imparted the
decisive stimulus, for 15,305 kilometres of line, or
more than a quarter of the whole, were completed in
the decade from 1870 to 1880. The development of
railways in the United Kingdom may be compared
with that in Germany by a glance at the subjoined
table:
Year.
United Kingdom.
Germany.
Miles.
Miles.
1840
843
293
1870
I5,239
II,6oo
1900
21,826
3M73
1910
23,387
36,894
It should, of course, be remembered that Germany
does not build railways solely for the purposes of
TRANSPORT AND PRODUCTION 239
general traffic, but has constructed many hundreds of
miles with the main object of being able to fling her
armies with the utmost possible rapidity on to a
threatened frontier.
Of the many secondary causes which have con¬
tributed to give Germany to-day what must be con¬
sidered her natural place in the front rank of the
industrial States, none has been more effective in its
operation than the adoption of steam locomotion.
England owes her industrial supremacy very largely
to her insular structure and the situation of her
mineral resources. Iron ore, coal, and limestone
were found on English soil in close proximity to one
another, and in no case very far removed from the
coast or navigable water. Iron and steel could thus
be produced, manufactured, and shipped to either home
or foreign ports without being burdened with heavy
charges for land transport. In Germany the condi¬
tions were the very reverse of these; though coal
and iron abounded they lay at great distances from
one another, and could, as a rule, be brought together
only by overland routes. It has been calculated that
even to-day transport accounts for as much as 28
to 30 per cent, of the cost of producing pig-iron
in Germany, whereas in England the corresponding-
proportion is only 9 to 10 per cent. It may easily
be imagined how serious a handicap this geographical
separation of her mineral stores was to Germany in
the days before the horse had been ousted by the
locomotive. By the nationalization of the railways
the State was provided with a valuable instrument for
stimulating industries which were considered of vital
importance, and by the manipulation of the transport
tariff economic miracles have been worked.
Moreover, it was not till Germany's political future
was assured by her victory over France that she
properly developed the capacities of her 6,000 miles
of natural and artificial waterways. The channels of
the rivers were then dredged out and their banks
240 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
protected by buttresses and groins; new and im¬
proved locks were constructed; and a way to the
interior was thus opened out to vessels of much larger
draught. On the Rhine, the barges, which had
averaged about 100 tons displacement in the first
half of the nineteenth century, gradually increased in
size to 200, 400, and, finally, 1,500 and even 2,000 tons.
During the last quarter of the century the traffic on
these waterways expanded from 2,900,000,000 to
11,500,000,000 kilometre tons. It would be difficult
to exaggerate the importance of these improvements
in methods of communication to that process of "mov¬
ing things," which, according to Mill, constitutes the
whole of industry and commerce.
A salient feature of modern Germany is the pro¬
minent part played by the big banks in the industrial
life of the nation. Credit has thus become not so
much a means as one of the chief causes of industrial
expansion. As Professor Sombart says, " The banks
have actually become promoters of the spirit of
enterprise, the pacemakers of industry and com¬
merce." But here, again, we have to do with a quite
modern development. Until the second half of last
century, commercial credit in Germany was in a most
primitive condition. There was a time between 1830
and 1840 when the Lubeck Private Bank was the
only institution in the country which issued notes.
In 1851 the Prussian State Bank, finding its deposits
accumulating and not knowing what to do with them,
gave its customers notice to withdraw them. Bill
discounting has become general in Germany only
during the last hundred years. It is also certain that
the great increase in the savings bank deposits, so
often cited as proof of Germany's prosperity, has been
very largely due to the abandonment of the habit of
hoarding, which had been the natural outcome of a state
of political uncertainty. Even to-day certain features
of banking are but imperfectly developed in Germany.
The settlement of tradesmen's bills by cheque is
BANKING AND CREDIT 241
almost unknown, and any day the head offices of the
chief banks of Berlin may be seen crowded with
customers patiently waiting till receipts for the money
they have paid in have been signed by two members
of an overworked directorate. It is no uncommon
experience to have to wait a quarter, or even half an
hour for the cashing of a small cheque on a sub¬
stantial account of long-standing. The quick passage
of money across the counter of an English bank would
take away the breath of a German cashier.
Nearly all the great financial undertakings which
have capitalized the successive advances of German
industry have come into existence since the middle of
last century, and it is worthy of note that more than
one of them were admittedly modelled on the Credit
Mobilier, which commenced operations in 1852. The
Schaafhausenscher Bankverein was founded in 1848,
the Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1851, the Darmstadter
Bank in 1853, the Berliner Handelsgesellschaft in
1856, the Deutsche Bank in 1870, and the Dresdener
Bank in 1872. Just as it is now impossible to imagine
Germany's business life without these financial houses,
so it is easy to appreciate how difficult it must have
been for her industry to get on to its feet in the days
when nothing corresponding to them existed. As a
matter of fact, it seems to have been with English
capital that the larger reticulations of Germany's
network of railways were constructed, just as it was
English capital which introduced gas-works and water-
mains into some of her principal towns, and inaugur¬
ated the earliest line of regular steamers on the Elbe
between Hamburg and Berlin.
When the long-looked-for moment actually arrived,
and Germany found herself for the first time a real
national unit, the pent-up forces burst forth with such
violence as to cause a grave momentary catastrophe.
In his great German History, Professor Lamprecht
says of this period : " With extraordinary rapidity,
new factories, mines, iron foundries, railways sprang
16
242 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
up on every hand. To deal first with the most
important of all undertakings—railways—there were
in Prussia, in 1872, besides 1,800 miles (German mile
= 7'42 kilometres) completed, 700 miles under con¬
struction and 1,200 miles projected. From 1871 to
1874 as many blast furnaces, iron foundries, and
machine works were established as had come into
existence from 1800 to 1870." The flotations in the
lustrum following the declaration of the Empire at
Versailles far surpassed in their aggregate capital, if
not in their number, those of any equal period of the
century, as will be evident from the subjoined figures:
Five Years.
1871-1875
1876-1880
1881-1885
1886-1890
1891-1895
1896-1900
Number of Com¬
panies Floated.
I >073
270
620
I,o6l
635
i >39°
In the single year 1872, no fewer than 479 com¬
panies, with an aggregate capital of M. 1,477,730,000,
were got together. Economists will probably always
differ as to how far this reckless speculation and the
crash which succeeded it were, respectively, caused
by the indemnity of £200,000,000 that Bismarck ex¬
torted from France. The bulk of this money was
spent almost immediately, £130,000,000 of it being
devoted to the rearming and remunitioning of the
German land forces, while a further large sum went
to build strategic railways on the Western Frontier.
It is not proposed to consider here the influence
which a protective commercial policy has had upon
Germany's industrial expansion, but it may be pointed
out that Bismarck's abandonment of free trade in 1879
coincided with another event from which the Empire
has incidentally reaped inestimable benefits—namely,
FOUNDATIONS OF GERMAN CULTURE 243
the invention of the Thomas-Gilchrist process of
making steel. Up to that time the inexhaustible sup¬
plies of iron found in Lorraine had been practically
useless for the manufacture of steel owing to the high
percentage of phosphorus contained in the ore. The
Thomas-Gilchrist process, however, turned this draw¬
back into a positive advantage, for the conversion of
Lorraine ore into steel leaves a valuable bye-product
in the form of phosphoric acid. Profiting by this Eng¬
lish invention, Germany now obtains more than half
her iron and three-quarters of her agriculture's re¬
quirements of phosphoric acid from the previously
despised and neglected ore-beds of Lorraine. It was
a singular dispensation of Providence that the native
land of Liebig, the father of agricultural chemistry,
should, in its potash salts and its phosphoric ores,
be so richly endowed with the two substances which
he showed that it was necessary for the farmer to
restore to the soil after gathering his crops. In the
opinion of Professor Sombart, " the dominant position
which the German iron industry occupied at the close
of the nineteenth century is to a large extent to be
ascribed to the blessings that have fallen to it from the
invention of the basic process of casting iron."
In past ages Germany suffered immeasurably from
the mutual jealousies and animosities of her rulers,
and from their selfish territorial ambitions, but their
emulation in the fields of science and art at any rate
conferred upon her one great blessing from which she
has benefited enormously in her industrial ascent.
This rivalry set up in the region now united as the
German Empire numerous centres of culture, and,
in course of time, led to the establishment of the
twenty-one universities, where, at the present day^
between fifty and sixty thousand matriculated students
drink at the purest springs of knowledge. To these
institutions it is due that the transition from empirical
to inductive industry found the Germans better
equipped, as a whole, with scientific and technical
244 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
information and training than the people of any other
country. It was a particularly fortunate circumstance
for Germany that her political renaissance should have
coincided with the birth of an entirely new industry—
the electrical—and the fundamental regeneration of
another—the chemical. These two now absolutely
vital industries differ from all previously existing
branches of manufacture in this, that they are the
offspring of science and not of empirical practice, of
laboratory experiment and not of workshop experience-
With the help of her large class of scientifically trained
minds Germany was able to grapple with them from
the outset, and she rapidly took the lead in both. A
hundred years ago Germany had no chemical industry
whatsoever; she now holds the place of chemist to the
world. In 1911 her exports of chemicals, drugs, dyes,
colours, and artificial manures, were worth £35,500,000,
those of the United Kingdom only £20,000,000. In
the preceding year Germany exported electrical ma¬
chinery and apparatus to the total value of £10,000,000,
the United Kingdom only to the value of £5,700,000.
It seems ^hardly necessary to dwell on the rapid
forward strides that have been made by Germany's
export trade within recent years, so frequently and
fully has this theme been dealt with in English
publications ; but a few figures may serve to revive
the essential facts in the reader's memory. Since the
statistics of the Empire were placed on something
like their present basis, the value of its exports has
leapt up from decade to decade by the following
gradations :
Year. £
1880 144,800,000
1890 166,400,000
X900 ... ... ... ••• ••• 230,000,000
1910 367,000,000
Of more importance for our present purposes than
the mere bulk is the composition of that trade, and
here it is highly significant that, step by step with the
PROGRESS OF INDUSTRY 245
transformation of the battleship into a huge and com¬
plex mechanical contrivance, an ever and rapidly
increasing proportion of the value of Germany's
exports has been accounted for by the products of the
engineering industries. Ten years ago she sent
abroad machines of all kinds to the total value of
£9,800,000, and that was 4*1 per cent, of the value of
her aggregate export trade. In 1911 the value of her
exports of machinery was £27,500,000, and its propor¬
tion to that of her total export trade 67 per cent. A
clearer idea of this tendency of German industry will
be obtained if a glance is cast at the subjoined figures
from the three occupation censuses that have been
taken in the Empire. They show the proportions of
the persons engaged in certain occupations to the
totals of those earning a livelihood by industry or
commerce :
Industry.
1882.
1895.
1907.
Per Cent.
Per Cent.
Per Cent.
Agriculture
5°'12
43'13
39'54
Mining
272
3'°°
3 "9i
Metal working
3-26
4*56
4-82
Machinery
176
2-04
3-68
Chemicals
0-36
°"54
0-65
Textiles
5'25
5'°°
4*29
Building
5-84
7-16
774
Commerce
5-20
6-37
707
When the great fiscal project was under con¬
sideration by the Reichstag in 1908, the Imperial
Finance Minister submitted to that Chamber a vast
mass of statistical material, the purpose of which was
to show that Germany was well able to bear the
additional burden that it was proposed to place on her
shoulders. A special series of tables was devoted to
the progress of German industry during the ten years
immediately preceding the introduction of the Govern¬
ment scheme. One of these tables demonstrates the
changes which had taken place during the decade in
246 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
question in the number of persons employed, and in
the aggregate horse-power of the engines at work, in
the leading manufacturing industries. As compared
with the figures for the period 1894-1896, those for the
years 1904-1906 showed the following increases:
Industry.
Employees.
Horse-power.
Mining and iron
Potteries
Chemicals
Paper
Leather
Wood
Food, etc
Clothing
Per Cent.
71-96
37'84
63'95
4r36
39-66
7275
678
92-30
Per Cent.
157
138
167
160
36
115
70
148
Equally striking is the progress made by the export
trade of these industries during the ten years under con¬
sideration. Comparing the two periods 1894-1896 and
1904-1906, we get the following percentual increases:
Industry.
Values of
Exports.
Quantities of
Exports.
Per Cent.
Per Cent.
Mining and iron
104-00
70-84
Potteries
74-27
23-71
Chemicals
50-68
II3'43
Paper
3441
42-09
Leather
7'54
58-96
Wood
30-11
11-75
Food, etc
2*11
1-96
Clothing
30-84
I5-5I
It will be noticed that the industries which are most
highly technicalized went ahead much more rapidly
than the others. A vivid picture of the advancing
activity of Germany in manufacture is also afforded by
the appended figures of the horse-power of the
stationary steam-engines used at various periods in
the industry in Prussia :
SIGNS OF GROWING PROSPERITY 247
Year.
Horse-power.
Percentage.
1878
1885
1895
I907
887,780
1,221,884
2,358,175
5>I9°'4I7
IOO
137
269
585
A multitude of other conclusive proofs of the
prosperity of the nation were also adduced by Herr
Wermuth. It has already been pointed out that the
increase in the savings bank deposits in Germany has
been largely due to a change of habit; but even with
this qualification, it is sufficiently remarkable that they
should have augmented, between 1875 and 1907, from
M. 1,869,200,000 to M. 13,889,100,000. Between 1883
and 1907, the deposits in the ordinary German banks
rose from M. 813,000,000 to M. 7,050,000,000, or, ex¬
pressed in percentages, from 100 to 867.
Concurrently with the accumulation of savings, it
was shown that an enormous increase in the consump¬
tion of articles of food had taken place. In the case
of the two principal bread grains, the annual consump¬
tion per head of population was :
Average of Years.
Wheat.
Rye.
Kilos.
Kilos.
1878-1882
6i'4
I28-O
1883-1887
65'4
1187
1888-1892
67-9
1097
1893-1897
87-2
151*5
1898-1902
927
149-6
1902-1906
96>5
151-1
A particularly noteworthy feature of this table is the
evidence it affords that the consumption of wheat is
advancing more rapidly than that of the cheaper rye.
In many parts of Germany, and especially in the
north, where wheat cannot be profitably grown, white
bread is still regarded as one of the luxuries of life,
248 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
and its increased consumption is, therefore, doubly a
proof of growing wealth. The increase in the per capita
consumption of other articles of food bears similar
witness, as will be seen from the appended figures:
Average of Years.
Barley.
Oats.
Potatoes.
Sugar.
Tobacco.
Kilos.
Kilos.
Kilos.
Kilos.
Kilos.
1879-1883
46-8
82-3
34" i
6*3
V2
1884-1888
52-8
857
4017
77
r5
1889-1893
57'9
84-8
434*3
9-8
1 "5
1894-1898
69-8
"3'3
545'°
IV 4
17
1899-1903
73-0
1207
633-6
I3'5
1-6
1902-1906
77'9
I20'6
6o8-o
i5'5
1-6
Unfortunately, no trustworthy statistical data with
respect to the consumption of meat in Germany during
the latter part of the nineteenth century are available.
In the Treasury publication, from which the above
figures have been taken, the ascertainable facts are
carefully weighed, and the conclusion is drawn from
them, that the German, on an average, now eats as
much meat as the Englishman. That the consumption
of meat has increased enormously in Germany of
recent years is incontestable.
Still more notable than the per capita consumption of
articles of food is that of the chief raw materials of
industry. From 1879 to 1909, the consumption of coal
per head of population rose from o'86 of a ton to 2*153
tons ; of iron from 48-94 kilograms to 191 kilograms. The
annual average consumption of cotton per head of popu¬
lation was, in the years 1871 to 1875, only 2-84 kilograms;
in the years 1906 to 1910 it was 6-64 kilograms.
Further convincing evidence of the rapid accumula¬
tion of wealth in Germany is afforded by the taxation
assessments. Between 1896 and 1907 the aggregate
income of individuals assessed for taxation in Prussia
rose from M. 10,148,000,000 to M. 15,874,000,000, or by
156 per cent. Few things are more difficult to calculate
than the actual total wealth of a nation, and German
ENGLISH AND GERMAN WEALTH 249
economists differ widely in their estimates of that of
their own country. Many of them are of opinion that
Germany is already richer than France, some that it
has even outdistanced England in point of wealth.
Steinmann-Bucher, who takes the most optimistic
view of the Empire's riches, calculates that, by the
year 1930, they will have attained the sum of
M. 600,000,000,000, and that those of Great Britain
will then amount to no more than M. 424,000,000,000,
These and similar German computations are, no
doubt, unduly sanguine. They are based, for one
thing, on an arbitrary and misleading definition of
wealth, and sometimes entirely ignore the important
item of domestic appurtenances and personal orna¬
ments, which, after land and hard cash, are the most
enduring of all forms of property.
The casual visitor to Berlin is, as a rule, deeply
impressed by the pretentious plaster fatpades of that
mushroom city, which he usually takes to be stone,
and he compares them with London's monotony of
grimy brick, very much to the disadvantage of the
latter. Let him, however, wander in the environs of
the two capitals, and what does he find ? Within a
radius of fifty miles around London the country is
dotted with ancient mansions, each filled with the
masterpieces of the goldsmith's, the jeweller's, the
cabinet-maker's, and the potter's craft, many of which
have an artistic value almost beyond price. Five or
six miles from Berlin he enters a region where he can
walk for hours through forests of stunted fir-trees or
flat expanses of sandy soil, without encountering a
trace of the material refinements of civilization. The
contrast is just as sharp if the surroundings of the
towns of second-class magnitude in the two countries
be compared. Germany is beyond all doubt heaping
up wealth at an amazing rate, but an observant eye
will divine, much more truly than the computations of
the economists, that she has yet much way to make
up before she can get level with Great Britain. At
250 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
the same time, it must ever be borne in mind how
much larger both her area and population are than
those of this country, and though Steinmann-Bucher's
estimate assuredly exaggerates the prosperity of
Germany, it cannot be doubted that, if present ten¬
dencies remain unchanged, the Empire will, before the
end of the century, have become by far the richest
country in Europe.
Long before that point is reached, Germany will be
able without an effort to bear the weight of much
heavier armaments than those she now carries. It is
often said that she cannot maintain both the strongest
Army and the strongest Navy in Europe. The state¬
ment sounds plausible, but it is in reality an unreasoned
begging of the question. Whether or not she can do
this thing depends entirely upon her resources in
men, money, and manufacturing power, and in re¬
spect of these three taken together she is probably
already much more favourably situated than any other
European State—that is to say, if we leave colonies
out of the question. And though she is rightly re¬
garded as essentially the military State of the world,
she as yet has neither absolutely nor relatively spent so
much on national defence as some of her neighbours.
Nauticus, the naval annual issued indirectly by the
German Ministry of Marine, gives the expenditure of
the principal Powers of the world on national defence
in the year 1912 as under :
State.
Army.
Navy.
Together.
Thousand
Thousand
Thousand
Marks.
Marks.
Marks.
Great Britain
568,340
899,342
1,467,682
Russia
1,067,684
354'956
1,422,640
Germany
947.825
461,983
1,409,808
1,181,651
United States
647,708
533.943
France ...
736,399
338,623
l,075,Q22
Austria-Hungary
455,801
118,794
574,595
Italy
338.049
173.509
5^,558
Japan
196,259
194,643
390,902
EXPENDITURE ON ARMAMENTS 251
Per head of population this expenditure works out as
below :
State.
Army.
Navy.
Together.
Marks.
Marks.
Marks.
Great Britain
12-46
19-72
38-18
France...
18-55
8-53
27-08
Germany
I4'23
6*94
21-17
Italy
9-66
4-96
14-62
United States
6-8o
5-61
12-41
Austria-H ungary
8-72
2*27
10-99
Russia
6-86
2-28
9'r4
Japan
3-76
373
7"49
So that both absolutely and relatively Great Britain
spent more than any other country on national
defence, whereas Germany, the military State par
excellence, stands only third on the list in respect both
of aggregate and per capita expenditure.*
Similarly, the financial burden which Germany has
to bear is not, at any rate in its immediate incidence,
as great as that which presses on some other countries.
The German official publication, already quoted, gives
the following as the total per capita incidence of taxation,
local and municipal as well as national, in the eight
chief countries of the world :
Marks.
United Kingdom (1904-05) 95'8o
France (1908) ~ 8270
United States (1906-07) 8o-8o
Italy (1906-07) 48-40
Germany (1907) 48-17
Austria-Hungary (1906) 4r7o
Japan (1906) 20-50
Russia (1908) 18-40
Even if the twenty to twenty-five millions sterling of
additional annual taxation, which the German nation
has since that time been called upon to pay were to be
* This survey takes no account of the German Army scheme of
1913, which at the moment of writing had not yet been laid before
the Reichstag.
252 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
included in the above figures, the Empire would still
stand in a very favourable position. It is, of course, true
that the additional taxes imposed in Germany of recent
years have been very sorely felt and very bitterly
resented. But that by no means implies that the
country has reached the limit of its taxable capacity.
It is rather the result of the combined action of a
number of other causes. In the first place, the pros¬
perity of Germany is of so recent a date that it has
not yet had time to penetrate to all classes of the
population. While manufacturers, merchants, and
certain categories of skilled artisans have benefited
largely by it, the salaried classes generally and the vast
body of unskilled labourers have hardly yet begun to
feel its effects. Moreover, a considerable proportion of
the German revenue is obtained from protective duties
on necessary articles of food, the prices of which are
raised accordingly. The consumer pays the amount
of the duty not only on the imported but also on the
home-produced portion of his food, though the latter
yields nothing to the public revenue.
German financial policy has also been exceedingly
improvident, unsound, and injudicious, for till the
great finance reform of 1908 the Empire carried on
its military and naval expansion largely on borrowed
money. Up to that date the Imperial funded debt
had grown, in times of peace be it noted, in the follow¬
ing manner:
March 31.
Million Marks.
Marks per Head.
1878
72'2
I '66
1881
...
267-8
5'9°
1886
... ... ... ...
440-0
9*36
1891
...
1,3I7'8
26-56
1896
2,125-3
40-46
1901
...
2,3957
42-29
1906
...
3>543'5
58-14
1907
...
3-803-5
61-48
1908
...
4>°°3'5
63-78
INCREASES OF TAXATION 253
At the close of the financial year 1907, the national
debt comprised the undermentioned items of expen¬
diture :
For some years Government and Reichstag cheer¬
fully committed the country to vast expenditure for
the Navy and other purposes without troubling them¬
selves as to where the money was to come from. In
the Memorandum to the Navy Bill of 1900 Admiral von
Tirpitz had enunciated the principle : " If new sources
of income cannot be opened up, all that will remain will
be to increase the amount of the loan." This principle
was unquestioningly adopted by the Reichstag, not
with the cool calculation of the Naval Minister, but
in the blindness of the Anglophobia which the Boer
War had engendered. Naturally the limits to such
a policy are quickly reached. In 1906 a half-hearted
attempt was made to recover the lost financial equi¬
poise, and the German nation was saddled with ad¬
ditional taxation to the amount of about 10 millions
sterling annually. This, however, proved totally in¬
adequate, and, a couple of years later, further imposts,
expected to yield 25 millions sterling annually, were
demanded from the Parliament. Thirty-five million
pounds of fresh taxation within three years after nearly
forty years of still unbroken peace ! It is not surprising
that the taxpayers raised a howl of protest, and gave
more support to the only party which had consistently
opposed this expenditure—namely, the Socialists; nor
that, even after the renewed outburst of Anglophobia
over the Morocco Question in 1911, it was the Socialists
who, at the expense of all other parties, enormously
increased their holding of seats in the Chamber. The
Army
Navy
Kiel Canal
Colonial administration
South-West Africa Expedition
East Africa Expedition
China Expedition
Marks.
1,670,100,000
768,400,000
109,000,000
24,000,000
379,000,000
1,800,000
287,000,000
254 THE ECONOMIC BASIS
other parties were at length thoroughly alarmed by
the consequences of their prodigality, and the military
and naval measures of 1912 would have had but small
chance of acceptance had it not been a perfectly under¬
stood thing, even before they were presented, that the
increased outlay they involved would not be covered
by additions to the fiscal burdens of the masses of the
population.
A less reckless and improvident naval policy might
very easily have attained the same ends at a some¬
what later date without involving these inconveniences;
for, as has been seen above, the taxation borne by the
German people, in comparison with that paid by other
nations, is by no means excessive, and all sources
of public revenue have the tendency to yield more
abundantly as a country grows richer, which, as must
also have become apparent, Germany is doing very
rapidly.
If it could be assumed that Germany had, during
the last ten or fifteen years, been governed only by
shrewd and far-sighted statesmen, thoroughly aware
of all the bearings of their actions, it would be safe
to conclude that the Empire was preparing for a naval
war which either they had determined upon or con¬
sidered immediately inevitable ; for such an hypothesis
is the only satisfactory explanation of the manner in
which Germany has pushed her naval armaments be¬
yond her momentary financial strength. Fortunately
this assumption cannot be made. Germany's policy in
these respects has been the result, not of clear, but
of clouded thinking—that is, if we except one man,
Admiral von Tirpitz, who conceivably calculated that
the opportunity presented by the Boer War might never
recur, at any rate during his tenure of the Ministry
of Marine, and that if he did not get his ships then
he never would do so.
As to the immediate future of German finance it
would be dangerous to prophecy. The increased
quantity of foodstuffs now imported into the country
THE FUTURE OF GERMAN FINANCE 255
has the effect of swelling the public revenue, and
the present apparently satisfactory condition of the
Empire's finances is, by an odd paradox, very largely
due to the partial failure of the harvest in 1911. But
augmented import of food means higher prices in a
protected country, and the urban population, which
is growing by leaps and bounds by the absorption
of ambitious rustics, is already up in arms against
the agrarian tariff. It is quite conceivable, nay, even
probable, that its discontent may ere long rise to such
a pitch as to force a change in the Empire's commercial
policy. That would mean a dislocation of the Imperial
finances, and some time would have to elapse before it
would be possible to establish them on another footing.
CHAPTER IX
PARLIAMENT AND GERMAN NAVAL POLICY
The question whether Germany will continue to
enlarge her Fleet concurrently with her economic
expansion is not easy to answer, for the reply to it
depends upon political considerations, both foreign
and domestic, of a somewhat complex character.
When we speak of Germany, or any other country,
having certain " determinations" or "intentions," all we
can mean is the effective will of the nation as it has
been, or is likely to be, manifested in legislative or
administrative acts. This effective will is not neces¬
sarily synonymous with the popular will—indeed often
is diametrically opposed to it—and it is liable to
modification both by intrinsic change and by alterations
in governmental forms. Both nations and parliaments
are, too, swayed by waves of emotion and fits of passion,
which are frequently followed by reactions just as
sudden and violent, so that what was the effective will
one day ceases to be so on the morrow. Such con¬
siderations have an important bearing on the attitude
of Germany towards the naval question.
It is sometimes quite falsely assumed that the
Germans are to an exceptional degree a homogeneous,
contented, united, and harmonious people, of which all
the members concentrate their energies primarily on
the attainment of specifically national ends. No notion
could be farther from the truth. Germany is, on the con¬
trary, with the possible exception of Austria-Hungary,
the most heterogeneous, dissatisfied, disunited, and dis¬
cordant nation in Europe. In no other country do the
256
DIVISIONS OF CLASS AND CREED 257
divisions of class, creed, and party cut so deep; in
none other are they so complicated by cross-lines of
territorial cleavage. Professor Hans Delbruck has
justly said : " How small is at bottom the number of
those Germans who, in the true and higher sense of
the term, form the German nation and represent the
German idea—a small, very small minority." And
nowhere does the remark more accurately apply than
in respect to naval policy, though it must be admitted
that, owing to a combination of circumstances, the
number of Germans who are fascinated by the idea of
sea-power has very largely increased of recent years.
In past ages particularism was the bane of Germany,
and to-day it is still her most serious weakness. But
it is a particularism of a new type. The old form of
particularism has ceased to exist as a vital force. True,
the other German rulers regard the Hohenzollern
ascendancy with a certain amount of jealousy and
distrust, and resent the apparent desire of the Emperor
William to encroach still further upon their already
sadly diminished prerogatives. True, many of the
inhabitants of Hanover and Hesse-Cassel still describe
themselves as " must-Prussians," to indicate that their
adherence to the predominant German State is not a
voluntary one. True, the people of Munich hate those
of Berlin as sordid and unfeeling barbarians, and the
people of Berlin despise those of Munich as idle and
emotional sots. But these are merely the little
bickerings and frictions that exist in all large families
without seriously imperilling the ties of kinship, and
the Germans as a whole are far too keenly alive to the
blessings of national unity ever to risk them for the
gratification of traditional grudges. Still less would
they allow their tranquillity and security to be staked
on dynastic squabbles. The particularisms of to-day
spring, not from historical traditions and local senti¬
ments, but from the two most powerful agencies in
human society—spiritual ideals and material interests.
The Germany of the days of the Holy Roman Empire
17
258 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
has often been likened to a mosaic of loosely-cemented
pieces. Modern Germany rather resembles a plate in
which a series of cracks cross one another, thus
increasing the probabilities of a breakage. The main
cleft is that which separates the Protestants from the
Roman Catholics, and it is all the deeper because it is to
a large extent geographical as well as denominational.
Thus, in Bavaria, Baden, Alsace-Lorraine, and the
Prussian provinces of Westphalia, the Rhineland,
Silesia, Posen, and Hohenzollern, Catholicism largely
predominates; while in Wilrttemberg and Oldenburg
it is strongly represented. According to the census of
1910, the two creeds were territorially distributed as
under:
Roman Catholic.
Evangelical.
Prussia :
West Prussia
Posen
Silesia
Westphalia
Rhineland
Hohenzollern
Bavaria
Wiirttemberg
Baden
Oldenburg
Totals
844,566
1,347,958
2,765,394
1,845,263
4,472,058
64,770
4,612,920
696,031
1,206,919
96,067
764,719
605,312
2,120,361
1,733.413
1,877,582
3.040
1,844,736
1,582,745
769,866
339>9l6
I7,951.946
11,641,690
Thus out of the twenty-two million Catholics counted
at the census, close upon eighteen millions are concen¬
trated on two continuous belts of land, one of which
extends from Westphalia up the Rhine and across the
south of Germany, the other from Silesia through
Posen to West Prussia. Moreover, the denominational
concentration is really much more intense than appears
from the figures given above, the population being
Catholic almost to a man over large tracts of territory.
Now, two features of this religious segregation are
deserving of special attention. In the first place, it is
INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICISM 259
noteworthy that the Catholic belts are composed
either of those States of Germany where the tradi¬
tional antagonism to Prussia is strongest, or of
provinces which have been conquered by the sword
of the Hohenzollerns. In the second place, it should
be observed that they are of a specifically inland
character, have no historical associations with the
sea, contain no port of any significance, and have little
direct contact with the Empire's maritime interests.
The bearing of these facts will be apparent when it is
realized that Catholicism is in Germany, not only
a political force, but the most homogeneous, constant,
and stable of all political forces, though it has been
momentarily eclipsed in mere numbers by Socialism.
It was Bismarck's Kulturkampf—perhaps the greatest
mistake of the Iron Chancellor, who, like Napoleon,
failed to understand the character of the Church of
Rome—which forced German Catholicism into political
consolidation. His attempt to undermine the influence
of the Papacy on its German adherents failed, and at
the same time called into existence that solid and
compact element in the Reichstag, which is indiffer¬
ently called the Centre, or Catholic, or Clerical, or
Ultramontane party. This party is the foundation on
which the German Empire in its existing form rests.
At the present moment, it completely dominates the
Parliamentary situation, for without its consent no
legislation and no budget can be passed, and so far as
the eye of the mind can penetrate into the future, it is
likely to become more rather than less indispensable
to the Government as time goes on. In particular, its
acquiescence is, and will be, necessary for any further
additions to the German Army or Navy, and for this
reason it is desirable that its character should be fully
understood.
In the present Reichstag, the Centre occupies of its
own right ninety seats out of a total of 397, so that it
holds the balance between the Socialists, who are
no strong, and the other non-Socialist groups. Its
260 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
Parliamentary representation now stands lower than
it has ever done since the election of 1874, which
followed the inauguration of the Kulturkampf, but, on
the other hand, it has never been higher than 106, and
these facts in themselves indicate clearly its remark¬
able stability. This characteristic, however, appears
in a much more striking light when we find that out
of its ninety seats the Centre has held no fewer than
seventy-three uninterruptedly since 1874, and fifty-one
since 1871. In other words, it has for nearly forty
years successfully defied all challenge in three-
quarters of the constituencies which may be regarded
as its normal Parliamentary holding. The causes of
this steadiness are not far to seek. The ratios of the
Catholics to the entire population in the ninety Centre
constituencies are as below :
Over 60 per cent, in 86 constituencies.
». 70 „ in 75
„ 80 „ in 66 „
» 9° >> ^ 45 >>
„ 95 » in 24 »
Until some decided change takes place in the
religious sentiments of either Protestants or Catholics,
at least these eighty-six constituencies seem certain to
remain Centre strongholds. The degree of the Centre
ascendancy over the minds of the Catholic electorate
may be illustrated by a few extreme instances from the
results of the last (1912) elections :
Centre Poll.
Poll of all other
Parties.
Bergheim (Rhine)
894
Daun
20,657
452
Gelsenkirchen
22,606
915
Paderborn
17,108
5*9
Kelheim
IX,161
737
Though the above are extreme cases, they may be
taken as typical of the general tendency. It is, in fact,
only in the large towns, where the Catholic masses
URBAN CONDITIONS AND RELIGION 261
have been exposed to the corrosion of urban scepti¬
cism and materialism, that the Church of Rome has
substantially lost control over those who nominally
acknowledge its sway. The 145 constituencies in
which Catholics are in a majority returned at the 1912
elections members of the following parties:
Catholics:
Centre 90
Poles 18
Alsace-Lorrainers 9
Bavarian Peasants' League 2
— 119
Non-Catholics :
Socialists 1 x
National Liberals 8
Radicals 3
Imperial party 2
Conservatives 2
— 26
145
These twenty-six Catholic constituencies with non-
Catholic representation, included the towns of Mul-
heim (population 53,000), Metz (68,000), Freiburg
(83,000), Wurzburg (84,000), Miihlhausen (95,000),
Saarbrucken (105,000), Strasburg (179,000), Duisburg
(229,000), Dusseldorf (358,000), Cologne (516,000), and
two divisions of Munich (595,000). It is such towns
as these that account for the difference between the
percentage of the Catholic population of Germany
(37), and that of the Centre voters to the total
electorate (21). Essen is the only town of first-class
business importance with a predominantly Catholic
population which now remains in the hands of the
Centre. It is an anomalous feature of the religious
structure of Germany that in certain big towns
situated in the heart of pronouncedly Catholic dis¬
tricts, the Evangelical population is in a majority, and
of these Elberfeld, Barmen, Nuremberg, and Mann¬
heim may be cited as examples. It may also be
mentioned in passing, that in 1912 not a single
Conservative was returned in Westphalia, the Rhine
Province, or Baden, and that the two candidates of
262 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
this party who were successful in Bavaria were both
chosen by Evangelical divisions.
The geographical concentration of the Centre may
be further illustrated by the fact that, of the 1,990,700
votes which its candidates secured at the 1912 elections,
no fewer than 1,680,600 were cast in the three Prussian
provinces of Silesia, Westphalia, and Rhineland, the
Kingdom of Bavaria, and the Grand Duchy of Baden ;
and that seventy-nine out of its ninety Reichstag seats
were won in the same regions. Votes and seats were
distributed as below:
Votes.
Seats.
Prussia:
Silesia
Westphalia
Rhineland
Bavaria
Baden
Totals
154,100
262,000
664,000
47i,4°o
129,000
9
8
27
29
6
1,680,600
79
We must now briefly consider the political principles
of the Centre, and the motives which usually determine
its actions. And here it must first be emphasized that
the party stands on a purely denominational basis.
All the temporal interests and political principles
which usually go to the making of parties play a
secondary and quite subordinate role with its leaders.
It is there to safeguard the spiritual interests of the
Roman Catholics of Germany, and for the sake of these
interests all other considerations are allowed to sink
into the background. Catholicism is in a minority in
Germany, and would necessarily be on the defensive,
even if it had not passed through the ordeal of the
Kulturkampf, and was not continually being warned
by the invectives of the Evangelical majority of the
possibility of a fresh attack upon its position. While
the Protestant denomination has lost practically all its
SOLIDARITY OF THE CENTRE PARTY 263
spiritual force, it has retained, as an inheritance of the
Thirty Years' War and of the territorial division with
which that struggle ended, an intense and virulent
antipathy to the Church of Rome, and the feeling is
especially strong among the urban, and consequently
Liberal, classes. It is the manifestations of this senti¬
ment which make German Catholics fear for their
faith,and, sinkingall temporal differences, hold together,
as they consider, in its defence. The Centre party
comprehends all ranks, classes, and occupations. On
its block of benches in the Reichstag, Princes and
priests sit side by side with university professors,
farmers, manufacturers, butchers, publicans, and trade
union secretaries. These men have only one thing in
common—their religion—and when this is not at issue
their line of action is determined by compromise and
opportunism.
On one main point the views of the Centre harmonize
with those of the Conservatives : both are in favour of
denominational teaching in the schools and of State
support of religion in general. It might be thought
that there would rather be risk of conflict here, but
such is not the case. Where the Conservatives prevail,
Protestantism is as predominant as is Catholicism in
the Centre districts, and consequently the danger of
proselytism is not serious in either. But there is yet
another force which brings the two parties together—
both are mainly dependent on a rural electorate, and
for this reason favour a protective tariff on agricultural
products. Conservatives and Centre, therefore, form
the most intimate and enduring of the opportunist
party combinations, without which Parliamentary
action is impossible in Germany. On the other hand,
the south and west, whence the Centre draws its
chief strength, are—apart from questions ot religion—
distinctly Liberal in spirit, and the Clerical party is
also compelled to pay some heed to the temporal
claims of the tens of thousands of Catholic artisans
who are employed in the coalmines of Silesia and the
264 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
ironworks of Rhenish Westphalia. Consequently the
Centre is always somewhat democratic in professions,
though seldom so in practice, and, for example, con¬
sistently advocates the adoption of universal suffrage
in Prussia, while never taking any serious steps to
enforce its demand.
But, for our present purposes, most weight must be
attached to another feature of Centre policy. The
gravamen of the attacks made upon that party by the
Liberals and Radicals lies in the contention that its
real allegiance is to Rome, that it pursues aims which
are cosmopolitan rather than German, and that,
accordingly, it cannot be relied upon to safeguard
the interests of the Empire, especially in matters of
foreign policy, where the Wilhelmstrasse and the
Vatican sometimes do not see exactly eye to eye.
This charge of lack of patriotism tells very heavily
against the Centre, and has even drawn away from it
some who, in other respects, can claim to be unim¬
peachable Catholics, and it makes the party very
cautious when it is called upon to deal with Army,
Navy, or colonial votes. In such a situation its practice
depends much more upon adventitious circumstances
than upon the intrinsic merits of the case. If nothing
is to be obtained by special bargaining, it may be
relied upon to play the popular card, or what it
believes to be the popular card.
The Navy Bills of 1900 and 1912 furnish excellent
illustrations of Centre policy and tactics. The party
had offered considerable opposition to the earlier naval
project of 1898, principally on the ground that it con¬
stituted an infringement of the budget rights of the
Reichstag, and a handful of Catholics actually voted
with the Noes in the decisive divisions. When the
1900 Bill was announced, however, something very
significant happened — the Catholic press raised a
clamour for the repeal of the Jesuit Law. This statute,
which was one of the fruits of the Kulturkampf, at that
time consisted of three clauses. The first forbade
RELIGION AND POLITICS 265
settlements of, and activity by, the Society of Jesus
and kindred congregations within the German Empire.
The second empowered the Government to expel
members of these Orders from the country if foreigners,
and to exclude them from particular places or districts
if natives of the Empire. By the third clause the
Federal Council was invested with the power to issue
regulations for the execution of the law. The general
belief has always been, and probably rightly, that it
was no mere accidental coincidence when, as soon as
a decent interval had elapsed after the promulgation
of the 1900 Navy Bill, the Imperial Government laid
before the Reichstag a measure repealing the second
clause of the Jesuit Law. That no causal connection
existed between the two events seems all the more
improbable when we consider that a renewed agitation
for the repeal of the remnant of the Jesuit Law set in
simultaneously with the preparation of the Defence
Bills of 1912. It is impossible to demonstrate with
the conclusiveness of legal proof that these sequences
and coincidences were really connected in the manner
suggested. The German has a great faculty for keep¬
ing secrets, and the contemporary world seldom hears
the details of the confidential negotiations which are
the essential process of so much of the legislation that
passes through the Reichstag. But that the Catholics
are not accustomed to give their support for nothing if
they can obtain a price for it is beyond all doubt.
However, another motive entered into the Centre's
calculations in the session of 1912. A new Reichstag
had been elected, and it presented an almost exact
balance between the Conservatives, Centre, and Poles
on the one hand, and the National Liberals, Radicals,
and Socialists on the other. The country was ringing
with the cry, "More soldiers and more ships," raised,
it is true, by a comparatively small number of people,
but uttered with such persistency and vehemence as
to produce the impression that a strong popular feeling
was inspiring it. It had been declared by the Govern-
266 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
ment that the chief task of the new Parliament would
be the closing up of the gaps in the Empire's armour.
If under such circumstances the Centre had placed
obstacles in the way of the Defence Bills it would
have exposed itself to the charge of having left the
country imperfectly armed in the hour of its need, and
would have tempted the Government to repeat Prince
Billow's experiment, so disastrous to himself, of ruling
with the Conservatives and Liberals. In spite of the
recent triumph of the anti-militarist Socialists, the
Centre no doubt calculated that it would stand to lose
if a General Election were taken on the Defence Bills
as the result of its opposition to those measures. That
is why, having a year before declared itself emphatic¬
ally against any further naval expansion, it accepted
Admiral von Tirpitz's latest project without a murmur.
Moreover, the feeling was widely diffused among all
the monarchical parties that it was necessary to demon¬
strate to the outside world that the victories of the
Socialists at the elections had not weakened Germany
where national questions where concerned, and could
not prevent her from adopting such military and naval
measures as were considered by the responsible organs
of Government to be necessary for her protection.
It is by considerations such as these that the Centre,
though less directly affected by maritime interests than
any other party, and though pledged to strict economy
and sound finance, has always been persuaded to vote
Army and Navy Bills, and will probably always go on
being persuaded to vote them in the future whenever
the Government can bring forward a " purely defensive "
pretext, and the temper of the patriots is in a purely
aggressive state. No one, however, will pretend that
the peasants of the Bavarian Alps and the Black Forest
have much understanding for the problems of "world-
policy," or that the Catholic artisans of the Black Country
of the Ruhr are more avid of sea-power than their
Protestant colleagues who are Socialists to a man.
The second main line of cleavage across the German
GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 267
plate is that which divides the Socialists from the
Monarchists. The antithesis can best be put thus, for
the effective barrier which separates the Socialists
from the remainder of the population is not so much
their communism as their rejection of the monarchy.
This crack has extended and deepened with alarming
rapidity, and there is at any rate some slight ground
for the fears of the nervous politicians who believe
that it will one day culminate in an absolute breakage.
Since the formation of the Empire the development of
the German Socialist party has been as below:
Election.
Socialist Votes
Cast.
Socialist Seats in
Reichstag.
1871
124,000
I
1874
352,000
IO
1877
493,000
12
1878
437,000
9
1881
312,000
12
1884
550,000
24
1887
763,000
11
1890
1,427,000
35
1893
1,787,000
44
1898
2,107,000
56
I903
3,011,000
81
I907
3,259,000
43
1912
4,250,000
110
This is the bane. The antidote we have already dealt
with—it is the Roman Catholic Church. So long as that
institution retains anything like its present influence in
Germany the Socialists can never hope to obtain a
clear majority in the Reichstag, and till they can do
that they are powerless for legislative purposes. On
the other hand, there is real danger in the absolute
control which they have secured over the artisan classes
in the urban Evangelical districts of the Empire. They
are particularly strong in and around the capital and the
other chief centres of industry and commerce, as will
be seen from the appended table, showing the present
representation of those districts in the Reichstag:
268 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
District.
Total Members.
Socialist Members.
Berlin
6
5
Brandenburg
20
7
Province of Saxony
20
xo
Kingdom of Saxony
23
19
Saxon duchies
8
5
Hanse towns
5
5
Totals
82
5i
Thus five-eighths of the seats of these districts are
in the possession of Socialists, and it is not a little
remarkable that the only two seaports of the Empire
which count for anything—Hamburg and Bremen—
and one of its two chief naval bases—Kiel—should be
Parliamentarily represented by a party which has per¬
sistently and energetically opposed the Government's
colonial and maritime policy. A better idea of the
territorial concentration of German Socialism will per¬
haps be afforded if we examine the 1912 poll for the
central area of the Empire. If, following state and
provincial divisions, we take the compact block of
territory, bounded to the north by Schleswig-Holstein
and Mecklenburg, to the south by Bohemia, to the east
by the River Oder from the point where its course
turns due northward, and to the west by the Weser,
we get the following figures :
District.
Total Poll.
Socialist Poll.
Prussia:
Berlin
408,600
307,800
Brandenburg
853,100
418,800
Province of Saxony
622,700
266,000
Hanover
588,800
187,200
Saxony
933.50O
513,200
Saxon duchies
228,800
HI,8oo
Brunswick and Anhalt
167,200
79,700
Minor principalities
134,200
56,600
Hanse towns
318,400
187,600
Totals
4.25S.300
2,128,700
THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM 269
Within this area, therefore, more than half of the
votes cast in 1912 were given to Socialist candidates,
and it is thus the heart of Germany that is coloured
red on the electoral map. The Socialist predominance
in this central mass of the country would have appeared
in an even more striking form if the frontiers of states
and provinces had been disregarded, and, attention
being paid only to geographical compactness, the region
under consideration had been clipped a little here
and extended a little there. In the principal towns
of this area the total and Socialist polls were as under:
District.
Total Poll.
Berlin
Berlin suburban divisions
Stettin
Madgeburg
Halle
Erfurt
Osnabriick
Hanover
Dresden
Leipzic
Chemnitz
Brunswick
Liibeck
Bremen
Hamburg
Totals
408,600
453700
3 5 >000
56,700
5I)5°°
44,500
38,200
82,500
105,100
158,300
65,500
46,600
2 <5,400
67,100
65,900
1,704,600
Thus in the fifteen principal towns of the central area
of Germany the Socialists failed to obtain an absolute
majority over all other parties in the first ballots ol
1912 only in Osnabriick, where close upon one-half of
the population is Roman Catholic. Their aggregate
majority in these fifteen towns was nearly 395,000.
As tendencies are at present it would be rash to
attempt to lay down limits for the future growth of
Socialism in Germany, and especially in this area.
The urban proletariat of the Protestant regions of the
Empire is already completely dominated by the doc-
270 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
trines of Marx, and it is likely to continue under this
obsession as the process by which Germany is being
transformed from an agricultural into an industrial
State progresses. How rapidly this transformation is
being accomplished will be evident from the appended
figures, showing the proportions of the total popula¬
tion of the Empire engaged, respectively, in agricul¬
tural and in industrial and commercial pursuits at each
of the last three professional censuses :
Census.
Agriculture.
Industry and
Commerce.
1882
1895
I9°7
Per Cent.
42-5I
3574
Per Cent.
45'57
A necessary concomitant of this process of trans¬
formation is the steady drain of human energy from
the country districts and its concentration in the towns.
In the subjoined table are shown the proportions of
the total population residing, respectively, in the towns
of over 20,000 and over 100,000 inhabitants at each of
the last five ordinary censuses :
Census.
Towns of over
20,000 Inhabitants.
Towns of over
100,000 Inhabitants.
Per Cent.
Per Cent.
1880
l6'i
7-2
1885
i8'4
9'5
1895
24*6
I3'9
1900
28*8
16*2
1910
3479
21 "2
Already we find that the infection of Socialism has
spread from the artisan classes to large numbers of
persons dependent upon them for their livelihood. In
the chief Protestant towns the artisan districts are
so entirely Socialist, that doctors, lawyers, and trades-
MILLIONS OF SOCIALIST "WORKERS" 271
men cannot exist in them without at any rate a lip
service to the prevailing'political creed. Consequently
it would be unsafe to assume that Socialism will stop
short in Protestant Germany at any particular point,
for the possibilities of industrial expansion are not
limited by those physical laws which set a term to the
multiplication of peasant ownership of the soil, the
one solid bulwark against Utopian experiments that at
present exists north of " the Main line." On the con¬
trary, so long as the general political conditions of the
country remain unchanged, and its industrialization
continues, Socialism is likely to go on extending its
sway. It is true that the Socialist vote is not a precise
measure of the prevalence of communistic conviction,
for large numbers of monarchists support "red" can¬
didates as the only means of entering an emphatic
protest against the manner in which Germany is ruled.
At the same time, the strength of genuine Socialism
in Germany should not be underestimated. The
numbers of those actually enrolled in the Socialist
organization and pledged to propagate communistic
principles by word, deed, and pecuniary contribution,
have grown during the past few years as under :
Year.
Total
Membership.
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
384»327
530,466
587,336
633,309
720,038
836,562
970,112
It may be doubted whether any other political cause
in the history of the world has ever had at its disposal
a permanent organized army of nearly a million
workers, but even these do not exhaust the standing
forces of communism. The federated "free" trade
272 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
unions, which have a total membership of nearly two
and a half millions, are an outcome of the Socialist
propaganda, and are entirely Socialistic in spirit.
Their chairman, who represents Kiel in the Reichstag,
is a prominent member of the Socialist party there. It
is an arguable point whether the " free" trade unions
are not a safer index than the purely political organiza¬
tion of the true strength of Socialism in Germany.
This is not the place for a searching analysis of the
causes which have given Socialism its strong hold upon
the German people, but it may be pointed out that it
has more than doubled its poll since the inauguration
of the Tirpitz era in 1898; that it attained its present
high-water mark, with four and a quarter million votes,
or nearly 35 per cent, of the total number cast, in the
midst of the most violent Chauvinistic agitation which
the country had experienced since the war with France;
and that this agitation was directed almost exclusively
against Great Britain as " the tyrant of the seas." Yet
the Socialists have not merely opposed every vote for
the colonies, the Army and the Navy, but have always
given a most prominent place in their propaganda to
denunciations of militarism, "marinism," and schemes
of oversea expansion. That they should, nevertheless,
have flourished so abundantly indicates that very large
sections of the German people have yet to be converted
to the principles of "world policy" and sea-power, or
at any rate do not desire them on the present terms of
increased taxation.
A third line of cleavage separates agriculture from
industry, the rural from the urban population, and it is
all the wider because the German Government, in its
recent commercial policy, has favoured the products
of the soil at the expense of those of the factory.
Agrarianism finds its parliamentary expression in the
Conservative party, and here again we have one of
those curious segregations of political force which are
so characteristic of modern Germany. At the 1912
elections, the Conservatives obtained 1,508,700 votes
CONSERVATIVE-CATHOLIC DOMINATION 273
and 58 seats, and of these 1,038,200 votes and 53 seats
came to them from those provinces of Prussia which
lie almost entirely to the east of the Elbe and from
Mecklenburg. They were distributed as below :
District.
Votes.
Seats.
Prussia :
East Prussia
West Prussia
Brandenburg
Pomerania
Posen
Silesia
Province of Saxony
Mecklenburg
Totals
i33.5oo
83,800
199,300
148,500
96,900
189,800
138,300
48,100
9
7
8
10
3
10
4
2
1,038,200
53
Not a single Conservative was returned in the
Prussian provinces of Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover,
Westphalia, Hesse-Nassau, and Rhineland, or in
Wurttemberg, Hesse, the Saxon duchies, Oldenburg,
Brunswick, the minor principalities, the Hanse towns,
and Alsace-Lorraine. Of the five seats which fell to
the party west of the Elbe, two were in Bavaria, two
in Saxony, and one in Baden.
In spite of their trifling parliamentary representation
(58 out of 397 seats), and their slight hold on the
electorate (they secured only 12^4 per cent, of the total
poll in 1912), the Conservatives are more nearly a
dominant party in Germany than any other of the
Reichstag groups. This position they owe in part to
the large representation which, under a curious system
of franchise, they possess in the Prussian Legislature,
and in part to the support of the Centre, which, as has
been indicated, looks at religious and agrarian questions
very much from their general point of view. It is this
Conservative-Catholic domination on which German
domestic politics turn. The German people is, as a
whole, essentially Liberal in character, and it resents
18
274 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
that laws and regulations should be dictated to it by
what is little more than a tenth of the electorate.
As the industrialization of Germany continues, the
Conservative rule will become less and less tolerable,
and some inevitable day the Empire will be plunged
into a constitutional crisis of the severest kind, from
which it will eventually emerge with its political
institutions considerably modified. Nor can the
change be long postponed, except by a war or a
period of acute international tension.
Whether a constitutional change in Germany would
be followed by any appreciable alteration in her atti¬
tude towards the rest of the world is a question on
which there is plenty of room for differences of opinion.
The Conservatives, as a whole, have never been par¬
ticularly enthusiastic on behalf of " world policy."
It is generally conceded that Germany already has
enough tropical territory, and what the colonial party
clamours for is areas on which she can settle the
surplus population that she will no doubt one day
have to find new homes for. But where white men
can become acclimatized grain grows and cattle
flourish, and the Conservatives have unpleasant
visions of colonial agricultural produce pouring into
Germany and narrowing their margin of profit. That
is why they have never lent much encouragement to
the proposal that the Empire should direct its attention
to the acquisition of Asia Minor, and why they have
watched the construction of the Bagdad Railway with
ill-disguised uneasiness.
It is also probably quite clear to the Conservative
leaders that immigration colonies would be a death¬
blow to their domination in Germany. As soon as
such colonies became at all thickly populated they
would demand self-government with such insistence
that it would be impossible to ignore their wishes.
No new country inhabited by people of European race
would long consent to be ruled by the rigid formulas
of the German bureaucracy. But what was granted to
POLICY OF THE "EMPIRE PARTY" 275
the colonist could not well be refused to the German
at home, and the agitation for a reform of the Prussian
franchise, already sufficiently vigorous, would acquire
such strength as to be irresistible. That, however,
would mean the destruction of the Conservative
power, which the junkers value much more highly
than the hypothetical benefits of colonies populated
by men and women of German stock.
Moreover, it is from Conservative elements that the
officers' corps of the German Army is mainly drawn.
, This body has always looked upon the Navy with a
jealous eye, and has frequently uttered the complaint
that the land force was being dangerously neglected in
order that the sister service might be disproportionately
encouraged. For these reasons there are many Con¬
servatives who have all along regarded Admiral
von Tirpitz's policy with distrust, and have only voted
for the Navy Bills because it is the tradition of their
party to grant what the Government declares to be
necessary for the purposes of the national defence.
These remarks do not, however, apply to the
" Empire party," or Free Conservatives. This small
group — its members are at present but thirteen —
forms a narrow and unsteady bridge between the
Conservatives proper and the National Liberals, and
comes nearer to being a "Government party" than
any other in the Reichstag. It is qualified to hold
this place in virtue of its compromise character. But
just as the Government, though nominally "standing
above parties," is essentially Conservative in spirit, so
this group always inclines strongly to the Right, and
for all general purposes may be treated as one with
the main Conservative mass. On matters of colonial,
military, and naval expansion, however, the Empire
party takes the lead, and it usually criticizes the
official policy, if at all, on the grounds of alleged
insufficiency. Among its leading members are to be
found several personages who play prominent parts in
the coulisses of German politics : for example, Prince
276 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
Hatzfeldt, who, in character and standing, occupies
a position in the public life of the Empire not unlike
that held for so many years in England by the late
Duke of Devonshire; Prince Ernest Hohenlohe, who
administered the colonies for a brief period before
they were raised to the dignity of an independent
department under Herr Dernburg; Prince Lichnowski,
the Imperial Ambassador in London, who, however,
is, in many respects, in but imperfect correspondence
with his party environment; and the ex-Governor of
East Africa, General von Liebert, who is now a leading
spirit in the Pangerman Confederation, and the chair¬
man of an extensive organization that issues millions
of leaflets and otherwise displays a laudable activity
without, so far as can be seen, in any way attaining its
object, which is to check the spread of Socialism. The
present Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, sat
among the Free Conservatives during his very short
occupancy of a representative seat in the Reichstag.
It is a curious trait of the Empire party that it
should be closely connected with the newspaper Die
Post, which is conspicuous alike for its rabid Anglo¬
phobia and for its occasional virulent and personal
attacks on the Government. Always in a condition of
frenzy, this journal does not even spare the Emperor
himself when its fits are in what may be called " the
critical phase." It is quite in harmony with the
character of Die Post that the Marine Minister should
have obtained from among the ranks of the Empire
party the most cordial support for his policy, and this
group is the only one in the Chamber which can be
regarded as favouring as a whole and in principle
the Admiral's ambitious schemes. But just as the
Socialists have prospered in spite of their consistent
and vehement opposition to these projects, so the
Empire party has drooped and languished in spite
of its championship of them. At the 1912 elections
it lost eleven out of twenty-four seats and 106,000 votes,
or 23 per cent, of the number which had been given in
THE STRENGTH OF LIBERALISM 277
its favour at the contest of 1907—again a strange com¬
mentary on the boasted eagerness of the German nation
to make a bid for sea-power.
The parliamentary representation of the bourgeois
urban interest is in the feeble hands of what calls itself
Liberalism, as exponents of which two parties contest
the palm for incompetency and ineffectiveness. Of
these the National Liberals attempt to compensate for
their lack of a domestic policy by the loudness of their
professions of patriotism and their readiness to pass
military and naval votes. They are, in fact, much
more concerned to be " national" than Liberal, and
are the only other main party besides the Free
Conservatives in which Admiral von Tirpitz has really
convinced and enthusiastic disciples. As a class
representation, they stand for industry and a portion
of Liberal professionalism, and they are consequently
to some extent subject to Semitic influence. Recently
they have made strenuous, but not very successful,
efforts to draw the peasant land-owners out of the
Conservative camp and into their own.
Jewish influence plays a much more important role
in the counsels of the " People's Party of Progress," as
the German Radicals now call themselves. This group
derives its main strength from finance, commerce,
minor industry, the residue of the professional classes,
and the diminishing section of small townsmen who
ardently desire sweeping changes but cannot bring
themselves to vote for a Socialist candidate. Whereas
the National Liberals in principle favour protection for
both agriculture and industry, the Radicals are divided
upon this point. Until recently, indeed, they were
split up into three separate groups as the result of
this difference of opinion, and it was only because the
question was not at the moment a burning one that
they were able to reunite their forces. It would seem
that Free Trade doctrines have gained ground among
the Radicals of recent years, in consequence mainly of
the rise in the prices of the staple articles of food.
278 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
Apart from the Socialist, this is the only party in which
pacificism and other derivatives of " Manchesterdom "
make much progress. As a parliamentary group it is
contemptible both in numbers and character, but it
paradoxically has behind it the best and most largely
circulated papers that exist in Germany.
Side by side with the Liberal and Radical parties,
and in intimate association with them, is the Hanse
League, which was founded at the time of the last
finance reform to safeguard the interests of industry
and commerce in general, and to combat the agita¬
tion of the Agricultural League in particular. Both
organizations have memberships running into hundreds
of thousands, and they form, respectively, the standing
armies of urban and rural occupation, which in Germany
are practically synonymous with Liberalism and Con¬
servatism. In fact, the tendency is for these two
political forces to become divorced from general con¬
stitutional principles, and to concentrate on the purely
material interests of the two great sections of the
population from which they proceed. And herein lies
yet another of the causes why German Socialism, with
its noisy advocacy of democratic rights and franchises,
has gained so strong a hold on the masses of the
people.
For all practical purposes, German party politics
are limited to the four forces which have just been
enumerated — Catholicism, Socialism, Conservatism,
and Liberalism. All these forces pull different ways,
and the effect of their efforts is to neutralize one
another, and to render it easy for the Government,
when it wishes, to follow a line of its own. The
maxim, Divide etimpera, has never been more effectively
put into practice than in the German Empire of to-day.
Of the minor groups in the Reichstag, the Poles,
Alsatians, and Lorrainers are au fond separatist.
Prussia has never succeeded in reconciling foreign
races to her rule, and she never will succeed in doing
it so long as she retains her present spirit and methods.
THE ANTI-SEMITE MOVEMENT 279
Her theory of government is that the peoples subject
to her are her children, that discontent with her rule
is naughtiness, and that the only means of correcting
naughtiness is the rod. Nothing could be more char¬
acteristic of the difference between the two countries
than the contrast between the Irish policy of Great
Britain and the Polish policy of Prussia. Great Britain
has attempted to solve her problem by placing the
Irish on the land; Prussia is exacerbating hers by
trying to turn the Poles off it. Through their com¬
munity of religion, the Poles and Alsace-Lorrainers
have a strong affinity for the Centre party, and on
matters not touching their specific aims frequently
accept its leadership. As, however, they wish Germany
to be weak, they always oppose any measures intended
to increase her strength.
The various groups of Anti-Semites may for all
general purposes be counted to the Conservatives.
They are composed of dreamers, unpractical idealists
and cranks, who are completely out of touch with the
realities of life, and especially with that gross mani¬
festation of it which we call politics. Among them
are to be found the people who hope to maintain and
extend German influence in the world by adhering to
the use of Gothic type and expunging from their
language all words of foreign origin. Some of them
will tell you with a grave face that Germany will.
never be a healthy State till she has purged herself
of her Jews, her Socialists, and her Catholics. That
is much the same as if a doctor should advise a patient
to part with his brain, heart, and muscular tissue.
Yet the Anti-Semites who would divest Germany of
her vital organs are among the loudest in clamouring
that she should be in a position to call all the world
into the lists, and they demean themselves on every
opportunity as if they were in a special sense the
guardians of their country's honour. In their ranks
stand many of the stalwarts of Admiral von Tirpitz,
frenzied fanatics whom the coolly adroit Naval Minister
280 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
can at any moment plunge into paroxysms of patriotic
fervour. The Anti-Semites find much sympathy among
the Conservatives and some among the Catholics, but
their force in the Reichstag is recruited principally
from those portions of the Empire where Jewish usury
still presses hard upon the agricultural population.
It is from this strange medley of discordant ele¬
ments that the effective national will of Germany must
be evolved, and the fact that it sometimes differs
considerably from any of their individual intentions
is the result of their number and their discordancy.
At the election of 1912, the 397 seats in the Reichstag
were distributed among these groups as below :
Conservatives:
Conservatives proper 45
Empire party 13
Anti-Semites 11
Catholic group :
Centre 90
Poles 18
Alsace-Lorrainers, Guelphs, etc. ... 15
69
Liberals :
National Liberals
Radicals
Socialists
Nondescript
Total
— 123
43
42
85
no
10
397
As has been indicated, the only three of these sub¬
groups which can really be said to favour in principle
a forward naval policy are the Empire party, the
Anti-Semites, and the National Liberals. It may well
be asked how, in such circumstances, a small body
of zealous patriots can, time after time, make their
own aspirations the effective will of the nation. The
main cause of this phenomenon has already been
pointed out in those fits of national passion or jealousy
to which Germany is at least as prone as other
countries. But this cause could not produce its effects
if it were not helped by the simplicity and ignorance
THE AVERAGE MAN AND THE NAVY 281
of the German politician. It is the commonest thing
in Germany to come across persons of high literary
and artistic culture to whom politics are a sealed
book into which they have no desire to look, and
a large section of the population is profoundly
indifferent alike to the questions of the domestic
legislation, and to those of the foreign relations of
their country. These people look upon the acts of the
Government as the dispensations of a minor provi¬
dence, inscrutable and unchallengeable. The members
of the Reichstag are not of course in this frame of
mind, but many of them are extraordinarily lacking in
political acumen and aptitude. It is, in fact, here
more than anywhere else that the defect of the
German's mind and intellectual training manifests
itself. Where there are hard-and-fast rules and
regulations to follow, he may be depended upon to
follow them. But that science of applied psychology
which is called politics knows no such rules and
regulations, and there he fails, and fails miserably.
The politician of no other country is so fast bound
as he in the thraldom of his own phrases, and the
history of modern German naval legislation has been
one long exploitation of specious catch-words.
The average German politician declares that the
Empire is building its fleet " for purely defensive
purposes," and is genuinely astonished that this
assurance does not set the whole world at rest. He
absolutely fails to realize that the defensive relation¬
ship of two States resembles a pair of scales: that if
one pan is raised the other must be depressed; that
the enhancement of the safety of one country can
only be secured by the diminution of the safety of
another. And he persists in regarding every addition
to his own fleet as a defensive, every addition to the
British Fleet as an aggressive measure, oblivious of
the patent fact that it is his own country and not
Great Britain that has altered its policy, and thereby
modified the naval relationship of the two countries
282 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
very considerably to its own advantage. He protests
that Germany is building her fleet " according to the
measure of her own needs and without reference
to the naval strength of other States," though it is
self-evident that the measure of the naval needs of
one country can only be the naval strengths of
others. He urges that Germany's Fleet is intended
merely " to protect her coasts, commerce, and
colonies," and apparently fails to recognize that
exactly in proportion that this purpose is fulfilled
Great Britain will be unable to protect her only fron¬
tier line, her much larger and more vital commerce,
which is literally a matter of life and death to her,
and her vastly more extensive and more valuable
colonies. He argues that "each nation has the in¬
alienable right to fix for itself the dimensions of its
armaments;" but if he were to reflect for a moment,
he would be compelled to admit that Germany would
not remain unmoved or idle if France and Russia
were largely to augment their land forces, and were
to mass the new corps on his country's frontiers; and,
making the necessary allowances for the different
conditions of naval warfare, that is precisely what
Germany is doing by Great Britain.*
Even within the narrow limits of their possible
meanings these phrases are not true, for the entire
modern naval agitation in Germany has from first to
last been carried on with reference to Great Britain and
to that country only. It was British naval supremacy
which the German was called upon to break; British
"arrogance" and "tyranny" on the sea, by which his
pride was wounded and the feeling of resentment stimu¬
lated, without the existence of which Admiral von Tirpitz
could never have been so successful with his schemes.
But the crowning example of German political in¬
consequence is the argument, frequently employed,
* Something of the character actually happened early in 1913, when
a marked improvement in the fighting efficiency of the Russian Army
led Germany to embark on a policy of military expansion. France,
of course, followed suit.
ENGLAND'S BEST CUSTOMER 283
though never, of course, precisely in these terms :
" The increase of the German Fleet has involved us
in the danger of war; therefore we will diminish that
danger by increasing it further." This argument can
have validity only on the assumption that Great
Britain is prepared to abdicate her position in the
world and exist on sufferance like the smaller States,
for otherwise it is perfectly evident that every addition
to the German Navy necessarily aggravates the risk
of war, which would come, if at all, at a date before
Germany was able to engage in it with much chance
of success.
Nevertheless, to those who have closely followed
the debates in the Reichstag on naval topics, it must
appear at least exceedingly probable that the great
majority of the members of that Parliament are quite
sincere in their expressed convictions that Germany
has no intention of rivalling the naval power of Great
Britain, and is actuated in her shipbuilding policy by the
desire to attain a position which, to put it in the terms
of its true significance, will alter her naval relationship
to other nations without changing theirs to her.
Another of the phrases with which considerable
sections,of the Reichstag and of the German nation
confuse their brains and disturb their judgments
is this: " England fears our commercial rivalry, and
has resolved to destroy us before it is too late." Yet
but a very slight acquaintance with the leading facts
of international trade is required to show that by
"destroying" Germany Great Britain would deprive
herself of the best foreign customer she has, and it
may well be doubted whether any sane mind has ever
believed that any diminution of Germany's competition
in neutral markets that could be brought about by a
naval war could compensate for the corresponding
loss from her purchases of British products, which
have an annual value of between thirty and forty
millions sterling.
However, as already indicated, the phrases which
284 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
have helped so much to carry succeeding Navy
Bills through the Reichstag attain their maximum and
effective force only in moments of popular excitement
over affronts or dangers, real or imaginary, to the
Fatherland. External pressure has made the German
Empire, and the same force holds it together in its
present form. Napoleon's service to Germany was
not confined to the destruction of the mouldy frame¬
work of the Holy Roman Empire; he also made the
nation realize vividly what dread possibilities its
political particularism involved. And to-day, at the
slightest semblance of a threat from without, the
Germans incline even more strongly than other
nations to forget their own domestic quarrels and
to place themselves unreservedly at the disposal of
their Government, the only power that can do any¬
thing for them against a foreign foe. This charac¬
teristic, which has been cleverly exploited by Admiral
von Tirpitz, involves no small peril to the peace of the
world. The most clamorous of the various sections
of naval enthusiasts in Germany is that school of
thinkers who hold that war is in itself a good thing, and
the only tonic by means of which nations can shake off
their social and political ailments. They openly pro¬
claim that the maladies of which Germany is sickening
—Socialism, materialism, and hedonism, for instance—
have been allowed to spread too far, and that a big
war should be prescribed for their cure.* There is
this much in favour of their theory—that a successful
war would undoubtedly impose a check, temporarily
at any rate, on the dissemination of communistic
doctrines, and therein lies a temptation and a risk.
On the other hand, it is by no means improbable that
an unsuccessful war, with the sufferings that it would
inflict upon the people, would so aggravate the pre¬
vailing dissatisfaction with the Government as to
precipitate a revolution. This possibility is recog-
* This view is held, and held very vehemently, by the Admiralstab
—that is, by the officers mainly responsible for Germany's naval policy.
GERMANY'S NEXT STRUGGLE 285
nized in Government circles, and in this recognition
lies the safeguard. Should Germany, however, some
day find herself in a position to declare war with
strong prospects of success, the temptation to draw
the sword would be very great indeed.
Should the international horizon clear, German
politicians may, in spite of the insidious counsels of
Admiral von Tirpitz, recover from their mental agitation,
and awake to the facts that British distrust is the
effect and not the cause of the increase of their fleet;
that their recent naval policy, however " defensive " in
theory and intention, is aggressive in effect; that it
has not diminished the risks of war between the two
countries but increased them ; that it has not, in the
sum total of its consequences, strengthened Germany
but weakened her, internally and externally, politically,
militarily, and financially, by raising up opposition to
her abroad and encumbering her with debt, taxes, and
Socialism at home. They may, in that event, once again
become preoccupied with their own internal affairs,
and concentrate their energies on the great struggle
which will have to be fought out before German
democracy can assert its claims to an equal share in
the government of the Empire. How long that struggle
would last, or what forms it would take, it is impos¬
sible to predict; but there are no sufficient reasons
for supposing that its issue would permanently impair
Germany's position in the world, or render her at all
less formidable as a possible opponent. On similar
provocation a democratic German Parliament would
probably act in precisely the same way as did the
National Assembly in Frankfort when it decided to
build a navy in a hurry, and sweep the Danes off the
sea. And a Germany in which the effective will ot
the nation represented the views of a majority of the
population would for all genuinely national purposes
be stronger than one in which that will is the product
of the adroit exploitation by a determined few of panics,
party jealousies, and religious dissensions.
286 PARLIAMENT AND NAVAL POLICY
The mere removal of some of the many political
grievances which are rampant in Germany would of
itself liberate for larger national objects a vast force
of interest and energy which is at present consumed
in futile protests against the existing regime. A
sense of full partnership in the business of the
Empire would awaken a new pride in its institutions,
and diminish the present large number of political
fatalists, who, feeling that they have no real influence
on the destinies of their country, stand aside from the
party struggle, and watch its progress with the in¬
difference of strangers-
Above all, a democratization of Germany would
stay the advance of Socialism, and reduce the risk of
an eventual plunge into perilous communistic experi¬
ments.
On the other hand, the school of blood-letters and
prescribers of prophylactic wars would have but little
influence in a democratic Germany, which, in normal
times, would, on the whole, be of a peaceable dis¬
position, for it is undoubtedly true that a vast majority
of the nation intensely dislikes the idea of war, and
has no more fervent wish than to live in peace and
concord with its neighbours.
In any case, however, the rapidly progressing in¬
dustrialization of Germany, which renders a change
in the form of her government inevitable, also makes
it highly probable that she will, before many genera¬
tions have elapsed, outstrip all the other purely
European nations in wealth and national energy, as
she has already far surpassed them in population.
When that day arrives it will be difficult for the
United Kingdom alone to keep pace with her in the
building of warships, as in other manifestations of
national activity, and the future of the British race
will then depend on the result of the efforts now
being made to knit together into one indivisible
political whole the diverse regions of the earth which
it now inhabits.
CHAPTER X
GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
Passing mention has already been made of Germany's
maritime interests—her colonies, her oversea trade,
and her shipping—which, it is urged, compel her from
motives of self-preservation, to build up a powerful fleet
for their defence. It will be well to look a little closer
into the nature and scope of these interests.
When the record of Germany's colonies is examined,
it is difficult to understand how she can either wish to
add to their number, or be anxious to spend millions
of pounds on their defence against hypothetical dangers.
The general belief among patriotic Germans is that the
Empire's colonies have provided agreeable homes and
remunerative employment for its surplus population,
large and profitable markets for its trade, and abun¬
dant supplies of raw materials for its industry. In
no singular particular is this belief well-founded.
Germany's colonies have so far been merely a source
of weakness and impoverishment to her: they have
not been occupied to any appreciable extent either by
her own or by any other white people, their trade is
of quite insignificant dimensions, they have supplied
•her with no mentionable quantities of the raw materials
of her staple industries, and they have cost, and are
costing, her immense sums of money, which can onty
be recouped, if at all, at a very remote date.
In mere area the German colonies are a very im¬
posing mass, for their superficial extent is five times
as large as that of the Fatherland, but in all other
respects their value has been a negative one. Let us
287
288 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
first of all consider to what extent they have furnished
fresh fields for the activities of German emigrants. In
1911 the total white population of the one million square
miles which the Empire then owned in oversea lands
(certain tracts of swampy jungle on the Congo have
since been added to these estates) was 25,758 souls, of
whom 20,966 were Germans. But if we wish to ascer¬
tain the genuine German colonial element, we must
deduct from these latter 8,856 official individuals—
officials, protectorate troops, missionaries, wives of
officials and missionaries, nurses, and school teachers,
and 3,431 children.
In this way we get an adult German population of
8,679 spread over a million square miles of territory,
practically all of which has been in the possession of
the Empire for nearly thirty years. The detailed
figures, which are taken from official returns, are
appended, and it should be mentioned that the Navy
Department, which administers Kiauchow, restricts its
enumeration of official personages to the white garrison,
and does not distinguish children from adults, so that
the numbers stated above really afford too favourable
a view of the situation:
Colony.
Total White
Population.
Germans.
Official
Persons.
Children.
East Africa
4,227
3.II3
1,414
617
Cameroons
1.455
i,3H
594
66
Togo
363
327
202
4
South-West Africa
13,962
11,140
3424
2,579
South Sea Colonies
I,66o
1,056
584
I65
Kiauchow
4,091
4,019
2,638
Totals
25»758
20,966
8,856
3,43i
By way of comparison, it may be mentioned that,
within the German Empire, there are some 230 towns,
each of which contains more persons of Teutonic race
than all these colonies taken together. The German
population of the Imperial oversea possessions is, in
VOLUME OF COLONIAL TRADE 289
fact, just about equal to that of insignificant places like
Passau and Kempten, which might disappear from the
map to-morrow without causing a perceptible disloca¬
tion of the world's affairs.
It will, perhaps, be objected that Germany's
colonies, though unsuitable for settlement by white
men, may nevertheless be of substantial benefit to her
trade. Let us see. In 1910 the value of the total
trade of Germany's colonies, and of her share in it,
were as under :
Imports.
Colony.
Value of Total
Imports.
Value of Imports
from Germany.
East Africa
Cameroons
Togo
South-West Africa
New Guinea
East Carolines
West Carolines, etc
Marshall Islands
Samoa
Kiauchow
£
1,932,000
1,274,000
573 .o°°
2,217,000
194,000
15,000
36,000
65,000
173,000
3,501,000
a£
983,000
999,000
314,000
1,722,000
84,000
3,ooo
14,000
11,000
42,000
109,000
Totals
9,980,000
4,281,000
Exports.
Colony.
Value of Total
Exports.
Value of Exports
to Germany.
East Africa
Cameroons
Togo
South-West Africa
New Guinea
East Carolines
West Carolines, etc
Marshall Islands
Samoa
Kiauchow
£
1,040,000
996,000
361,000
1,734,ooo
181,000
10,000
72,000
468,000
176,000
2,369,000
£
629,000
862,000
226,000
M33>ooo
118,000
9,000
31,ooo
109,000
86,000
17,000
Totals
7,407,000
3,520,000
l9
29o GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
In the same year in which Germany's aggregate
imports from the whole of her own colonies were
worth £3,520,000, she took from British West Africa
alone goods to the total value of £5,401,000. In the
same year in which Germany's aggregate exports to
the whole of her own colonies were worth £4,281,000
she sent to the British East Indies goods to the total
value of £5,165,000. From these figures it is clear
that all Germany's colonies taken together have not
yet so great an importance for her trade as single
colonies of the United Kingdom. The total external
trade of the German colonies is approximately equal
to that of the British West Indies, which in area are
not much more than a hundredth part of their size.
In 1910 only two of Germany's colonies sent her as
much as TV per cent, of her total import trade: they
were the Cameroons and East Africa, and their joint
contribution amounted to f per cent, of her aggregate
imports. Three of her colonies—South-West Africa,
East Africa, and the Cameroons—each took as much as
TV per cent, of her outward trade, their aggregate pur¬
chases amounting to f per cent, of her total exports.
But here again it should be borne in mind that
nearly one-half of the German population of the
German colonies consists of officials and their depen¬
dents, so that a considerable proportion of the imports
of these possessions is composed of stores for the
administration and commodities for the consumption
of its employees. Thus we find that Germany's exports
to her colonies in 1910 included railway material to
the value of upwards of £250,000, silver coin to the
value of nearly £300,000, beer to the value of £42,000,
and preserved foods to the value of £43,000.
Nor is there the slightest ground for the idea current
in Germany that her colonies supply her with any con¬
siderable proportion of the raw materials which she
requires for her manufactures, or of the articles of
food which she cannot produce herself. The Year-
Book issued by the Imperial Statistical Office gives
THE COLONIES AND INDUSTRY 291
special tables, showing all articles of which the export
from or the import into Germany had an annual value
of at least £150,000, and the countries of destination or
origin which took from or sent to her such commodities
to the annual value of at least £25,000, together with
the detail values in both cases; and for 1910 her
colonies appear under only eight separate headings as
sources of raw materials or foodstuffs. These eight
commodities and the value of her colonies' contribution
to Germany's total import of them were as below:
Commodity.
Total German
Imports.
Share of German
Colonies in
Imports.
Agave fibres
Uncut jewels
Coffee
Cocoa beans
India-rubber
Copra
Palm kernels
Phosphate of lime
17^,000
305,000
8,823,000
2,270,000
11,112,000
4,125,000
4,420,000
1,808,000
£
54,000
152,000
26,000
50,000
1,366,000
228,000
119,000
143,000
From these figures it would appear that the only
raw materials of which Germany draws any consider¬
able proportion of her consumption from her own
colonies are agave fibres and rough diamonds. She
derives from none of her oversea possessions either
cotton, silk, tobacco, wool, hides, tea, or metallic ores,
to the annual value of even so much as £25,000.
During recent years great efforts have been made,
and much money has been spent, by the German
Government on the promotion of cotton culture in
the East Africa Protectorate and Togo. Mainly as the
result of this State encouragement, the two colonies
named placed upon the market in the year 1911 raw
cotton of a total weight of 2,750 metric tons. In the
same year Germany's aggregate import of cotton was
444,017 tons, so that she was then in a position to
cover from her own territory only the one hundred-
292 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
and-sixtieth part of her own requirements of this raw
material. Cotton growing in the German colonies can
so far be regarded only as an interesting experiment,
and is otherwise entirely without present significance
for the industries of the Fatherland.
The plain facts are that, up to the present, Ger¬
many's colonies have been practically worthless to
her, whether for the settlement of her own people, as
markets for her manufactures, or as sources of supply
of raw materials and tropical food-stuffs. On the other
hand, they have placed large tracts of her territory at
the mercy of any enemy who can sweep her shipping
off the seas, and have thus exposed her to a risk
which never threatened her so long as she remained
a purely Continental State. It may be argued that
they have, at any rate, provided her with a convenient
pretext for building a fleet which she really wishes to
have for other and more general purposes of " world-
policy"; but the incontestable bulk and importance
of her oversea trade, so little of which goes to her
colonies, has always been, and will, so far as can be
foreseen, always remain a much more effective argu¬
ment in favour of her naval policy.
So far, however, only the credit side of the balance-
sheet has been considered, and we have yet to see
what Germany's colonies have cost her. Here we
find much more imposing figures. The bill which had
been incurred up to the year 1908 was as under:
£
Cost of central administration 14,500,000
Purchase of Caroline Isles 830,000
Loans to colonies 1,170,000
Subsidies to balance deficits of local
administration :
East Africa 5,384,000
Cameroons 1,564,000
Togo 85,000
South-West Africa 7,446,000
South Sea Islands 452,000
Kiauchow 6,514,000
South-West Africa war loan 18,955,000
East Africa war loan 90,000
Total
•• £S6>99°>000
THE GROWTH OF SHIPPING 293
For all the German colonies, with the exception of
Samoa and Togo, the Imperial subsidies still continue,
and their aggregate amount for the year 1913-14 was
estimated in the budget at upwards of a million and a
half sterling. In the immediate future they are likely
to be substantially increased through the acquisition
of a portion of the French Congo under the Morocco
Treaty of 1911. The proportion of the large and
ever-increasing cost of the Empire's Fleet which must
be written down to the debit of this account, cannot,
of course, be computed; but if the part which the
colonies, present and future, play in the naval agita¬
tion can be taken as a guide, it must be a very large
one.
Altogether it can be said that a very considerable
measure of ignorance or optimism must be available
before it is possible to look at the results of Germany's
colonial policy with enthusiasm or confidence. There
was clearly much truth in the exclamation of Caprivi:
"No greater misfortune could befall us than to be
presented with the whole of Africa." Yet many
members of the Reichstag have been so completely
hypnotized by the colonial legend that they go on
year after year talking as if Germany's colonies were
a source of wealth and power, instead of, as they
really and obviously are, a drain on her finances, and
a weak spot in her defences. To the meanest intelli¬
gence it should be quite evident that up to now
Germany would have been considerably richer and
much stronger if she had never possessed a square
inch of oversea territory.
The development of Germany's shipping and ship¬
building has a double bearing. On the one hand, the
growth of her mercantile marine increases the stake
which she has floating on the water, already very
large in the shape of the 70 per cent, of her total
foreign trade that is sea-borne; on the other hand,
the evolution of her shipbuilding industry touches
294 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
very closely the question whether she can place her¬
self in a position to defend those maritime interests
against all possible foes, and so become the dominant
naval Power of the world.
When the development of German ship-owning
during the last hundred years is examined, it will be
noticed that at the outset of that period it was suffering
from artificial retardation, that it made its decisive
step forward under the influence of a morbid stimulus,
and that in its most recent phase it can hardly be
regarded as quite normal and healthy.
Like all other forms of industrial and commercial
activity in Germany, shipowning was, until the
foundation of the new Empire, most prejudicially
affected by the territorial divisions and political con¬
vulsions which for centuries had hampered every
manifestation of the national life. Passing mention
was made in an earlier chapter of the operation of the
Napoleonic wars and the Continental blockade upon
the German mercantile marine. No port was hit
harder by these events than Hamburg, which is now
the chief shipping centre on the European Continent,
and owns nearly three-fifths of the sea-going tonnage
of Germany. From 1804 to 1813 there is a gap in the
official returns of the sea traffic to and from the Hanse
town, and in the place of the usual figures the following
note appears: " During these years there was no ship¬
ping traffic, as the French occupied the left bank of
the Elbe, and the blockade on the part of England
came into force. Only on June 8, 1814, was shipping
reopened." It is also very significant of the low ebb
to which the mercantile marine of Prussia had sunk,
that, when Further Pomerania was handed over to
that State at the general peace, a number of vessels
belonging to the ports of the transferred province
continued to fly the Swedish flag, as affording them
greater security than that of their new country against
the ravages of the Barbary pirates.
In fact, German shipping had lapsed into a condition
THE INFLUENCE OF EMIGRATION 295
of coma, from which recovery was possible only by
slow degrees. A certain amount of stimulus was
imparted by the Treat}'- of 1824, under which Prussia
secured exemption from the provisions of the British
Navigation Acts. The policy embodied in these
statutes, which had been borrowed from the Venetians
by the Hanseatic League and copied from the latter
by England, had long, by a curious irony, proved a
great obstacle to the progress of German shipping.
Treitschke goes so far as to describe the Treaty
of 1824 as the "first real blow struck at the bulwark
of British sea supremacy since the restoration of
peace."
It is, however, in the emigration of her people to
the United States that the main cause of the recent de¬
velopment of Germany's mercantile marine is to be
sought. In the individual decades from 1820 to 1870
the number of persons who left what is now German
territory for North America were :
1821-1830
1831-1840
1841-1850
1851-1860
1861-1870
6,761
152,454
434,626
591,667
822,007
In the early days of this migration the settlers
crossed the Atlantic almost exclusively in British
ships, and this necessitated a voyage over the North
Sea and a railway journey from one side of England
to the other. The advantages of direct shipment from
German ports were too obvious to be overlooked, but
it is a significant fact that it was a man of English
birth who first clearly appreciated in Germany the
latent possibilities of the passenger traffic from the
Continent to the United States. Robert Miles Sloman
was born at Yarmouth in 1773, and as a boy of ten
years settled at Hamburg, where he was destined to
become, and long remain, the most enterprising and
far-seeing pioneer of German shipping. It was he who,
296 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
in 1836, started the first regular line of German sailers
between the Elbe and the Hudson ; and in 1850 he made
another new departure by placing a steamer in this
service. The vessel, however, did not remain afloat very
long, and her loss seems for a time to have discouraged
him from further experiments with mechanical pro¬
pulsion.
In 1847, a year in which, as has been seen, the Ger¬
man emigration to the United States had already
assumed colossal dimensions, a number of Hamburg
firms decided to make an attempt to capture and ex¬
ploit this rapidly growing traffic. With the modest
capital of £15,000 was formed what is now the biggest
individual shipping undertaking in the world—the
Hamburg-Amerika Paketfahrt Gesellschaft. It is a
curious fact that the original partners in this concern
were not individuals but firms, and that at the outset
practically the entire business of the line, both pas¬
senger and freight, was placed in the hands of
brokers.
The Hamburg-America line did not venture on the
purchase of a couple of steamers till 1856, so that the
field was still fully open for enterprising competition
when, in 1857, the Norddeutscher Lloyd was started
at Bremen as a purely steam line, for the purpose of
disputing with the older company the profits of the
emigrant traffic. By a bold and far-sighted policy, the
Bremen concern succeeded in attracting to its boats
a very large proportion of the German emigration.
Further, by accepting return cargoes at merely nominal
freights, and treating cotton and tobacco substantially
as ballast, it made Bremen the chief Continental empo¬
rium for these articles, and thus deprived Liverpool
and London of much of their transit trade. Half a
century ago the spinners of Chemnitz obtained the
entire supply of their raw material from Liverpool, but
now that Bremen ranks second among the world's
cotton-importing towns, they have become quite in¬
dependent of the English middleman. The develop-
HAMBURG AND BREMEN 297
ment of the importation of cotton by Liverpool and
Bremen respectively during the last quarter of a
century is shown in the appended figures :
Liverpool.
Bremen.
1885-86
18915-96
1905-06
1911-12
Bales.
2,558,798
2,090,123
2,485,686
3,690,800
Bales.
530451
9*8,955
1,612,066
2,792,000
The tobacco manufacturing trade of Bremen shows
to this day traces of its origin, for its products are
packed in the English fashion, bear English names
(sometimes of an unintentionally grotesque character),
and are sent out under labels and wrappers printed
in the English language. It may be mentioned in
passing that in American tobaccos, as in jams and
biscuits, German manufacturers have hitherto failed
completely in their attempts to reproduce British
samples.
Hamburg had been the pioneer of the German trans¬
atlantic passenger traffic, but now found itself in danger
of being outdistanced by Bremen. This menace
spurred the shipowners of the Elbe to fresh efforts,
and the subsequent history of the German mercantile
marine has been practically synonymous with that of
the two leading lines of Hamburg and Bremen re¬
spectively. A separate book would be needed to tell
the tale of their rapid growth, their mutual emulation,
and the ultimate agreements under which, in amicable
compromise, they divided up the traffic on those ocean
routes where they had no native rival to fear. Nor
does the space available here allow the presenta¬
tion of details of the numerous bargains of the same
kind which they have from time to time concluded
with the leading lines of other countries.
298 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
A few figures will suffice to give an adequate idea of
what these two concerns mean to the German mercantile
marine, and of the dislocation which their immoderate
growth has brought about. In 1912 the capital of each
of them stood at M. 125,000,000 (in round figures
£6,000,000), exclusive, in both cases, of debentures to
the total amount of about £3,500,000. At the begin¬
ning of that year the gross register tonnage of the
vessels belonging to the two companies was as
under :
Hamburg-America Company 1,160,424
Norddeutscher Lloyd 739>74°
Total 1,900,164
This total is not far short of half the aggregate
tonnage of the entire mercantile marine of the German
Empire, which at the same date was 4,513,191 gross
register tons.
The concentration of so large a share of the German
merchant navy under the management of these two
concerns has aggravated the disproportionate develop¬
ment of the two Hanse towns in which they have
their respective headquarters at the expense of the
other German ports. Up to 1854, the mercantile
tonnage of the German ports on the Baltic was larger
than that of those on the North Sea, but after that
date the positions were reversed, and the tendency
which produced the change has continued with
gathering force ever since. It has manifested itself
not only in a greater rapidity of growth on the part
of the merchant fleet of the North Sea, but also in
the actual absolute decline which that of the Baltic
experienced for many years. In 1875 the shipowners
of the German Baltic ports owned 2,109 vessels, of an
aggregate of 470,914 tons net, but by 1900 these
numbers had sunk to 840 vessels and 218,750 tons.
In the thirty years which had elapsed since the
foundation of the Empire the German Baltic littoral
GERMANY'S MERCHANT FLEET 299
had actually lost more than half of its merchant
shipping. On January 1, 1912, German shipping" was
distributed between the two seas as under:
Vessels.
Net Register
Tonnage.
North Sea
Baltic
Totals
3,730
945
2,594,353
309,217
4,^75
2,9°3,57°
There is obviously this much justification for
Germany's new policy of naval distribution, that in
so far as her merchant navy and sea-borne commerce
are concerned, she is ceasing to be a Baltic, and
becoming a very important North Sea, Power. And
it is noteworthy, that of the 2,903,570 net tons of
mercantile shipping registered in the Empire at the
commencement of 1912, no fewer than 1,604,415 tons,
or considerably more than half the total, were owned
at Hamburg, and 859,064 tons at Bremen. In fact
these two free towns between them contribute very
nearly 85 per cent, of the total tonnage of the German
mercantile fleet.
But the concentration of German merchant shipping
is even greater than appears from the foregoing
figures. At the close of 1911, the composition of this
shipping was as is shown in the appended table,
in which once more we return to gross tons, as the net
figures necessary for comparison are not available in
all cases:
Gross Register
Tonnage.
Steamers 3,949.759
Sailing vessels 452,996
Sea-going lighters 110,436
Total 4,513,191
300 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
Included in this tonnage were the following in¬
dividual merchant fleets:
Gross Register
Tonnage.
Hamburg-Am erica 1,160,424
Norddeutscher Lloyd 739,740
Hansa Company 289,873
Hamburg-South America Company ... 221,859
German-Australian Company I99>757
Kosmos Company 153,324
Levant Line ... ... ... ... 121,243
East Africa Line 103,703
Woermann Line 98,134
German-American Petroleum Company 84,219
Total 3,172,276
It thus appears that 70 per cent, of the total
merchant tonnage of Germany, and 80 per cent, of
her steam tonnage are in the hands of ten companies,
and considerably more than half of the latter in those
of the two leading concerns. In fact, the recent re¬
markable growth of German mercantile shipping has
been almost entirely due to the development of a
few big lines of steamers plying regularly along fixed
routes.
The concentration of Germany's shipping at Ham¬
burg and Bremen is, however, not only natural, but in
many ways exceedingly advantageous. A glance at
the map will show that the Elbe, in conjunction with
the Oder, with which it is linked up into one system
of waterways by a couple of junction canals, is the
natural entrance into Germany from by far the greater
part of the outside world. Dividing the Empire
diagonally into two approximately equal parts, this
mighty stream is navigable right through the heart of
the highly industrialized Kingdom of Saxony and
beyond that deep into Bohemia, where it serves as the
channel of transport for a considerable proportion of
the Austro-German trade. By way of the Oder, it
permits unbroken water traffic between the North Sea
and the busy mining district in the extreme south-east
of Silesia. Barge-loads of cheap manufactured articles
A PROPOSED NEW CANAL 301
are brought down from Breslau to Hamburg, there
transhipped on board sea-going vessels, and landed in
the London docks without having traversed an inch of
railway line, and it is this exclusively water transport
that chiefly accounts for the lowness of the prices
at which many German articles can be sold in
England.
The busiest point on this vast system of waterways
is, however, Berlin, with its manufacturing suburbs,
which is connected with the Elbe by the Spree and the
Havel. It is to the Elbe alone that the German
capital owes its present position as the chief manu¬
facturing and trading centre of the Empire. The
Rhine, while serving districts of even higher in¬
dustrial development than those traversed by the
Elbe, has not nearly so central a course as the latter
river, and is, for the moment, of comparative un¬
importance from the point of view of the German
mercantile marine, because its mouths are in the
possession of other countries.
It may be mentioned incidentally that a movement
is now on foot with the object of providing the Rhine
with a German mouth by means of a canal from
Cologne to Emden. The proposed waterway would
include stretches of the Ems and Ruhr, and would tap
the coal-mining and iron industry district which takes
its name from the latter stream. This project would,
if carried out, have the additional significance of assist¬
ing the efforts now being made to transform Emden
into that first-class commercial port on the North Sea
which Prussia at present lacks. It has been suggested
that the canal would yield large surpluses, which
might be employed in the construction of the much-
talked-of strategic waterway between the Ems and the
Jade, to enable German warships of the largest size to
pass at will, under cover of the land, from Wilhelms-
haven to Emden, and so baffle the vigilance of a
blockading squadron.
The great importance which Hamburg has recently
302 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
acquired as a trading port was rendered possible only
by the introduction of steam-shipping. Prior to that
event the harbour was frequently frozen up and in¬
accessible during a considerable portion of the winter.
For instance, in the five years, 1826 to 1830, the
Hamburg water-traffic was, on an average, suspended
for seventy-two days annually by accumulations of
ice. The constant coming and going of powerful tugs
and ice-breakers now prevents the water in the basins
from congealing, and keeps the traffic of the actual
port open right through the winter. On the other
hand, the German canals are generally closed by ice
for a few months every year, and though the period of
unnavigability naturally varies with the severity of
the weather, traffic upon them is usually suspended
during the whole of the period which experience has
shown brings with it a risk of being frozen in. The
goods which arrive at Hamburg during this period
en route to an inland destination find it cheaper, except
in cases of urgency, to remain warehoused at the Elbe
port till the spring than to finish their journey by rail.
It is the geographical idiosyncrasies of Hamburg,
which, to some extent, are shared by Bremen, that
form the main justification for the massing of the bulk
of Germany's shipping at these two ports, but there
are also other respects in which this concentration
possesses undeniable advantages. For example, it
has provided the two Hanse towns with the financial
basis for a bold and comprehensive harbour policy,
and they have developed their channels, docks, wharves,
warehouses, cranes, and all the appurtenances necessary
for the rapid loading and unloading of ships to the
highest point of efficiency. Concentration also means
considerable economy in administration, and though the
aggregate sums spent at Hamburg and Bremen on
harbour improvement and management have been
large, they will, in the long run, prove to have
lightened the proportional burden of dues and costs
falling on each ton of merchandise handled.
LINERS AND TRAMPS 303
What Bremen lacks in natural facilities, it has
partially made good by a superior spirit of enterprise
and emulation, and it thus affords a valuable illustra¬
tion of what can be effected by these two ideal motives.
In many respects it has led the way, and Hamburg,
though much more prodigally endowed by Nature, has
merely followed in its footsteps. It is a common and
pardonable boast of Bremen business men that, if they
had been at Hamburg, the great port and emporium at
the mouth of the Weser would never have been allowed
an opportunity of developing.
There are, however, unquestionable risks and draw¬
backs in the manner in which German shipping has
evolved. For one thing, it has prospered through
the long and general upward movement of the world's
trade consequent on the opening out of fresh markets
in Asia, Africa, and South America, and though it will,
no doubt, continue to flourish whilst that movement
lasts, it might find it very difficult to survive an
extended period of universal depression. The brief
commercial crisis of 1908 hit the Norddeutscher Lloyd
exceedingly hard. For that year, even after reducing
the sum due to be written off, the company's accounts
showed a loss of £800,000, which absorbed the entire
renewal and reserve funds, and left only the insurance
fund of ^"800,000 untouched. It was 1910 before the
line was able to resume the payment of dividends, and
the rate was only 3 per cent.
It is obvious that the large liners of such companies
cannot adapt themselves to the fluctuations of trade so
easily as tramps of moderate size, which can tide over
bad times by picking up an odd freight here and there.
It is another weak spot in the constitution of the big
lines, that they are, to a very large extent, dependent
for their profits on agreements of the nature of inter¬
national trusts. No one is likely to contend that such
agreements are as sound a basis to stand upon as the
unrestricted competition on which the enormous British
tramp trade has been built up.
304 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
The crisis of 1908 was so acutely felt in German
maritime circles that leading Hamburg owners seri¬
ously advocated the joint purchase and scrapping by
the big lines of a million tons of shipping, or, as an
alternative, a mutual undertaking to abstain from
building, except to replace losses, for a period of two
or three years. Such fits of compunction are quickly
overcome, however, and there were building for Ham¬
burg's account alone at the beginning of—
1910, 16 steamers of a total of 66,000 gross register tonnage.
i9IJ>35 » » 198,000
1912,51 „ „ 412,000
Nor can it be said that the principal German shipping
companies have so far proved a bad investment for the
original shareholders. There are three of these com¬
panies which each have a capital of over a million
sterling, and during the past ten years their dividends
have been as under:
Year.
Hamburg-
America.
Norddeutscher
Lloyd.
Hansa.
I9°3
W
1905
1906
I9°7
1908
1909
1910
191 x
1912
Per Cent.
6
9
11
10
6
0
6
8
9
10
Per Cent.
6
2
j
0
0
3
5
7
Per Cent.
6
9
9
6
8
6
10
10
15
20
Totals
75
43'5
99
Averages
7*5
4'35
9*9
During these ten years the average annual dividends
of the four German shipping companies which rank
next in point of capital were as under:
BRITISH AND GERMAN SHIPPING 30S
Company.
Annual
Average.
Hamburg-South America
Kosmos
German-Australian
German-East African
Per Cent.
87
7'1
8-5
3-6
At the same time, it cannot be maintained that the
mercantile marine of the United Kingdom is as yet
seriously threatened by that of Germany. The pro¬
gress of the two merchant fleets during the past forty
years has been, from decade to decade, as under:
Year.
United Kingdom.'
Germany.
Net Register
Net Register
Tonnage.
Tonnage.
1870
5,690,789
982,355
1880
6,574,513
1,181,525
1890
7,978,538
1,433,413
1900
9,304,108
*>94* >645
1910
11,555,663
2,903,570
Included in these figures are the following quantities
of steam shipping:
Year.
United Kingdom.
Germany.
Net Register
Net Register
Tonnage.
Tonnage.
1870
1,112,934
81,994
1880
2,723,468
215,758
1890
5,042,517
723,652
1900
7,207,610
1,347,875
1910
10,442,719
2,396,733
These figures are, no doubt, capable of being twisted
in such a way as to bear a very ominous aspect. It is,
20
3o6 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
for instance, perfectly true that, in the forty years
under consideration, the shipping of the United
Kingdom merely doubled, while that of Germany
increased nearly threefold. In some circumstances
this might mean a great deal, but percentage growths
cannot alter the essential fact, that whereas in 1870
the United Kingdom owned only 1,031,000 tons more
steam shipping than Germany, her superiority had
increased by 1910 to over 8,000,000 tons.
Nor does it signify very much that the share of the
United Kingdom in the world's steam mercantile fleet
sank in the ten years 1901 to 1911 from 53-3 to 49*8 per
cent., while that of Germany rose simultaneously from
io*6 to 11 per cent. If all the factors of the economic
history of the past fifty years are taken into considera¬
tion it must astonish, not that the British proportion
has declined, but that its downward movement should
have been so insignificant in extent. It is really,
when we come to think of it with unbiassed minds,
an astounding phenomenon, that a State with forty-
five million inhabitants should own half the merchant
shipping in a world with two thousand millions.
The essential question from our present point of
view is, however, how far Germany's water-borne
trade and mercantile marine have reacted on her ship¬
building industry; for if a nation hopes to take the first
place among the naval Powers of the world—and this
is the destiny which some Germans prophesy for their
country—it must be able not only to pay for the biggest
fleet, but to construct it in its own yards. As to whether
Germany is likely ever to be in a position to do this
it is impossible to make positive predictions, but it is
incontestable that the progress of her shipbuilding
has, in some respects, been hardly, if at all, less
remarkable than that which she has made in other
branches of industry, and at present there are no
obvious reasons for supposing that it will be brought
to a standstill.
What Germany has accomplished in the art of ship-
PROGRESS OF MACHINERY 307
building appears all the more remarkable if we consider
the disadvantageous circumstances in which she was
overtaken by those two great revolutions of navigation
—the transition from sails to steam as a means of pro¬
pulsion, and the substitution of iron for wood as con¬
struction material. When the American watchmaker,
Fulton, fitted his first vessel with Watt engines, in
1802, Germany was on the eve of the ordeal of the
French occupation. In 1807, the year which saw the
first line of paddle-boats plying on the Hudson River
between New York and Albany, that hard probation
had already commenced; and Europe was only just
beginning to recover from the effects of the Continental
blockade as the Savannah opened a new area of
transoceanic traffic by crossing the Atlantic under
mechanical power.
A steam engine had been built in a German work¬
shop as early as 1785, but the general adoption of
machinery in the country was very slow, and it was
1822 before it was put to any other use than that of
pumping, the Royal Porcelain Works at Berlin leading
the way in applying it to other purposes. In 1840 it
was estimated that there were only 500 stationary
engines in the territories belonging to the German
Customs Union. Six years later, 196 engines of an
aggregate of 2,446 horse-power were known to exist in
Saxony, and 1,139, of an aggregate of 21,716 horse¬
power, in Prussia. In England^,000 steam engines had
been at work as early as 1810. Of the 245 locomotives
which were in service on the German railways in
1840, only 38 were of home manufacture, 166 having
been made in England, 29 in the United States, and
12 in Belgium. These facts will make apparent how
heavily handicapped Germany was in the great inter¬
national competition of the machine age.
Moreover, at the commencement of that epoch,
German shipbuilding was still comparatively in a very
primitive stage of development. The Hanseatic
Federation, always more concerned about commerce
308 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
and carrying trade than about industry, severely dis¬
couraged the building of ships by its members for
other countries. Repeatedly it issued prohibitions
against the sale of vessels to foreigners, and it was
only after much trouble that Dantzig, which was
favoured through its geographical situation with an
abundant supply of wood suitable for shipbuilding,
secured the final abolition of these restrictions.
During the eighteenth century several states of the
German littoral, and especially Prussia and Hamburg,
endeavoured to stimulate shipbuilding by the offer of
premiums, and in other ways, but their efforts availed
little against the short-sighted selfishness of the trade
guilds, which arbitrarily fixed wages and opposed
the opening of new yards as well as the extension
of old ones. Nothing could have been better calcu¬
lated to prevent an industry from keeping pace
with the times, and the advent of steam found
German shipbuilders for the most part confining their
activities to the rule-of-thumb construction of small
coasters.
The first marine engine to be built in Germany seems
to have been that supplied by the works of Egells
of Berlin (which subsequently developed into the
Germania yard, at Kiel, now in the possession of
the Krupp firm), for a small paddle passenger boat
for use on the Elbe; and it was not till 1852 that
Fiirchtenicht and Brock, now the Vulcan Works of
Hamburg and Stettin, launched what appears to have
been the first sea-going steamer of German con¬
struction.
For the transition from wood to iron as the material
of ships' hulls, Germany was also very badly prepared.
Her builders found it exceedingly difficult to break
with their traditional empiricism, and asked sceptically
how iron was to float. Many of them paid dearly for
their lack of adaptability, and were eventually obliged
to close their yards. Even if they had been willing to
change with the times, they would have been unable to
NATURAL DISADVANTAGES 309
procure the necessary technical instruction in their
own country. A school of shipbuilding was opened at
Grabow, near Stettin, in 1831, but both its teaching and
its equipment were of a very rudimentary character,
and it was only after it had been transferred to Berlin
(1861) and staffed by the naval constructors of the
Ministry of Marine, that it can be said to have done
much towards the fulfilment of the purposes with
which it was inaugurated. Meanwhile German
students who wished to acquaint themselves with
the shipbuilding art were accustomed to attend the
courses at the School of Naval Construction at
Copenhagen.
Another drawback under which German shipbuilding
suffered much at that time, and to some extent still
suffers, was the distance of her mineral fields and iron
works from the sea-coast. The addition to the cost of
the raw materials thus incurred goes far to explain
why the German yards found it so difficult to compete
with their rivals on the Tyne, Wear, and Tees, who
obtained their plates at their very doors. At a later
period, when the Government had opened its eyes to
the importance to the Navy of a strong shipbuilding
industry, the materials required by the yards were
granted special rates on the railways; and in 1879,
when Germany adopted protection, they were admitted
into the country free of Customs duty. On the other
hand, the policy of the trusts in selling abroad at
lower prices than at home has done something to
counteract the effects of these measures, and Holland
has been able to develop her shipbuilding industry
with the aid of German materials supplied to her
at cheaper rates than those charged to the home
consumer.
Germany was also under a disadvantage through her
poverty in the industries auxiliary to shipbuilding. A
large modern steamer, whether battleship or trans¬
atlantic liner, is the most highly developed product of
industry that exists, many of its component parts being
3io GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
the finished articles of special trades. Several of these
special trades did not exist in Germany when she first
seriously turned her attention to the cultivation of her
shipbuilding, whereas they had been firmly established
in England for generations. For many years after they
had acquired the ability to construct hulls and engines,
the German shipbuilders were entirely dependent upon
British manufacturers for boilers, anchors, chains,
windlasses, and many other important features in the
equipment of their vessels. It was in England, too,
that most of the machines now used in the building of
ships were invented and first brought into use; and
here, again, Germany was, and still is, though not to
anything like the same degree as a couple of decades
ago, in the position of a pupil who has yet to obtain
full command over his implements.
But the Germans are clever and assiduous imitators,
and nowhere have they shown that more distinctly
than in their shipbuilding. The engineers who were
sent over to British yards to supervise the construction
of vessels for German firms kept their eyes open and
took back with them to their native land much precious
knowledge of British methods. It happened time
and again that German shipowners ordered a new
type of vessel, or engine, or boiler, from British
builders, and had another constructed on this model in
Germany. Several of the technical high schools in
various parts of the Empire now have special chairs
of naval construction, and none has ever equalled
the German professor in the patient accumulation
of all the available information on his particular
subject.
If the advocates of the combustion motor are to be
believed, we are at present on the threshold of another
new era in marine engineering, and in that event the
United Kingdom may easily lose much of the advantage
which her old-established mechanical industry gave
her when steam displaced sails for the propulsion of
ships. Germany is quite awake to the potentialities
THE COMING OF THE OIL-DRIVEN SHIP 311
of the new power-generator, and several of her leading
shipbuilding firms and engineering works have vigor¬
ously grappled with the problem of the marine oil
motor.
At the beginning of August, 1912, the Howaldt Yard,
at Kiel, completed for the Hamburg-South America
Line a 6,500-ton vessel, the Monte Penedo, fitted with
engines of this type, and ships of the same class have
also been built in Germany for the Hamburg-America
and the German-American Petroleum Companies. It
is further understood that the Augsburg-Nuremberg
Engineering Company has constructed a set of oil
motors of 6,000 horse-power for the Imperial Ministr}'
of Marine. Should the oil motor prove universally
victorious on the sea, Great Britain will, of course,
derive no further benefit from her unique deposits of
smokeless steam coal, and will become even more
dependent on foreign countries for her motive power
than she already is for her food.
Though of doubtful advantage from the point of view
of the immediate interests of the German Fleet, General
von Stosch's rule that all the Imperial war vessels should
be constructed in home yards and of native material
unquestionably did a great deal to stimulate ship¬
building in Germany. Another measure which con¬
tributed much to the same end was the subsidization of
the mail lines to the Far Orient, Australia, and East
and South Africa. It has always been maintained by
German authorities that the sums paid by the Govern¬
ment under the postal contracts are not really subsidies,
and that they had neither the intention nor the effect
of promoting shipping. Their sole purpose, it is
contended, was to establish a regular mail service
between Germany and portions of the globe where
she had important commercial interests. The Nord-
deutscher Lloyd, which has almost monopolized the
mail-carrying under these contracts, professes to have
had no initial benefit from them, but rather to have lost
heavily at the inauguration of the service; while the
312 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
Hamburg-America Line renounced participation in the
subsidies after a very brief experience.
That the Government was not exclusively concerned
for the carrying of letters when it proposed these
contracts was shown by the clauses providing for
the transformation of the mail steamers into auxiliary
cruisers in time of war. All the fastest steamers of
the German lines are now constructed with a view
to such a contingency; their engines are protected
against lighter shell fire, platforms are provided for
the mounting of quick-firers, and the guns themselves
are kept in readiness, if not actually on board, so that
the change from merchant-ship to warship can be
accomplished with a minimum of delay. A large
number of the officers of these liners belong to the
Naval Reserve, and the Emperor, here again taking
a leaf out of the British book, allows them to bear
the iron cross, the German war emblem, on their
flag. As is the case with the reserve officers of the
British Navy, they also derive various other privi¬
leges from their connection with the Imperial sea
service.
For nearly twenty years after the general adoption
of iron construction, practically every important
addition to the German mercantile marine came from
the United Kingdom. The seventies witnessed the
first considerable spurt in German shipbuilding, which
in the succeeding decade finally broke with its old
traditions and passed over to the use of iron as build¬
ing material. The Imperial yards at Kiel and Wilhelms-
haven laid down their first ironclads in 1869, and in
1875 the works at Dillingen, now a branch of the vast
Krupp establishment, commenced the manufacture of
armour plating, for which they were subsequently to
become famous. About the same period the Vulcan
works secured orders from China for two armoured
vessels and three protected cruisers, and the Schichau
yard, at Elbing, made its name by the construction of
torpedo craft, which it subsequently supplied to
THE BLUE RIBBAND OF THE ATLANTIC 313
practically every navy in the world, with the exception
of those of Great Britain and France. (One of these
vessels is actually in the British service at the present
moment, having been captured from the Chinese at the
time of the Boxer rising.)
Simultaneously the German yards came to the front
with the construction of large passenger liners. The
first vessels of this class to be built in Germany were
ordered by the Hamburg-America Company from the
Vulcan and Reiherstieg yards in 1882, and they were
soon followed by the first half-dozen mail-boats of the
Norddeutscher Lloyd. An attempt to rival the swift
British liners was made in 1888 with the Augusta
Viktoria, and less than ten years later the same
owners and builders captured the blue riband of the
Atlantic with the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, which,
with its 22\ knots speed, remained unchallenged till
the Cunard Line, with the assistance of substantial
and direct State subsidies, won it back with the
Mauritania and Lusitania. It is claimed that the
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was completed in the record
time of eighteen months, but rumour has it that this
was only rendered possible by the employment of
English material in her construction. It must be
admitted, however, that, considering that German
shipbuilding can be said to have been still in its
infancy at that time, the vessel bears very eloquent
testimony to its quickness in learning and its skill in
applying its lessons.
With the 50,000 - ton and 70,000 - horse - power
Imperator, built for the Hamburg-America Company
by the Vulcan Works, and the two sister ships which are
being constructed by Messrs. Blohm and Voss for the
same line, Germany hopes once more to take the lead in
the transatlantic passenger traffic in size and comfort
if not in speed. It can hardly be pretended that either
in design or workmanship she is any longer sensibly
behind the British Isles in turning out steamers of this
type, and her shipyards are equipped with the very
3i4 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
latest and most efficient appliances for saving labour
and handling heavy castings. Thus Messrs. Blohm and
Voss have erected a crane to lift weights up to 300 tons,
while the Germania yard has two (one floating and
one stationary), and the Vulcan Works one, of only
fifty tons less raising power.
For various reasons the amount of capital sunk in
the German shipbuilding industry cannot be precisely
ascertained. The great Schichau works at Dantzig
and Elbing are, for instance, a private concern, which
publishes no accounts, and the proprietors of which owe
the fortune of six millions sterling they are reputed to
have accumulated at least as much to their agricultural
machinery and locomotives as to their torpedo craft
and dredgers. The Germania yard at Kiel is part of
the immense Krupp undertaking, which, though, for
purposes of convenience, worked as a public company,
is, with the exception of the qualifying directors' shares,
a family property, and allows no insight into the details
of the financial adjustments between its manifold depart¬
ments. It is, however, estimated by Herr Lehmann-
Felskowski, a well-informed writer on the subject, that
an aggregate sum of M. 200,000,000 (say ^10,000,000) is
at present invested in German shipbuilding. Some¬
thing like one-half of this is administered by ordinary
limited liability companies, and of the numbers, capital,
and profits of these during recent years, the appended
figures will afford an adequate idea:
1907.
1908.
1909.
1910.
Number of companies
Share capital in M. 1,000 ...
Debentures in M. 1,000
Dividend in M. 1,000
Dividend per cent
18
63,660
23,927
3-867
6-09
*9
68,739
3l>°56
2,594
377
J9
64,363
31,884
2,189
3'4
18
59,726
34>i87
1,852
3'1
The companies included in these statistics have, how¬
ever, worked with very unequal results, as will be
REDUCED SHIPBUILDING PROFITS 315
seen from the subjoined details of the dividends of the
chief of them :
1903.
1904.
1905.
1906.
1907.
1908.
1909.
1910.
1911.
Vulcan
14
14
14
14
T4
14
12
II
II
Blohmand Voss
7
9
9
9
7
7
4
6
4
Weser
5
5
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
Howaldt
0
4
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Reiherstieg ...
10
5
6
7
10
10
7
5
6
Tecklenborg ...
12
10
10
4
9
0
0
0
4
Oderwerke ...
3
3
5
6
6
6
6
5
6
Neptun
8
7\
5
6
7
4
4
0
0
Seebeck
10
5
4
5
0
0
4
0
0
Bremen Vulcan
0
6
10
10
10
0
0
1\
10
Nordseewerke
0
0
0
—
—
It is impossible to survey these figures and the facts
explanatory of them without a faint suspicion that the
efforts of the German Government artificially to stimu¬
late shipbuilding have not been an unmixed blessing
to the yards whose services to the Navy were to have
been rewarded by extended business and increased
profits. Before the Howaldt works received an order
for a cruiser in 1901, and, by the promise of more im¬
portant naval commissions, was encouraged to lay
down expensive special plant for the construction of
large warships, they had never paid a smaller dividend
than 5 per cent. What the subsequent results of their
operations have been is indicated in part by the fore¬
going figures, which, however, give no sufficient idea
of the severity of the crisis of 1910, when the company
was driven to desperate financial devices in order to
complete the battleship Helgoland, and at one time
actually contemplated the sale of the greater portion
of its site at Kiel as the only sure method of staving
off irretrievable disaster. Its difficulties were ulti¬
mately surmounted by a combined condensation of
old and issue of new capital, the existing shareholders
supplying the funds necessary to save the situation.
It is not known to what extent, if any, the Imperial
3i6 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
Ministry of Marine contributed to the rescue of the
establishment, the disappearance of which would have
seriously interfered with its plans.
It was, however, to some degree through the inter¬
vention of this department that the Weser yard was
kept on its feet. This concern had, on the whole, paid
very well up to the inauguration of the new naval
policy of the German Empire. But in 1904 it under¬
took a considerable extension of its premises and
plant, to enable it to take full advantage of the in¬
creased construction for the German Fleet, and from
that date up to the moment of writing its shareholders
have received nothing. Miscalculations and strikes
caused delays in the carrying out of the new works
and consequent losses, and by 1907 the company was
shaken to its foundations. Its shares fell from 130 to
45, and its position was all the more critical because
its buildings and other structures were erected on
rented land. At this juncture the Ministry of Marine
took over the half-finished ships which the yard was
building to its order, and in the following year the
shareholders were persuaded to contribute an additional
three and three-quarter million marks to save their
investments from annihilation.
These have not been the only untoward incidents in
the recent history of German shipbuilding. In 1903
an attempt was made to establish a big yard at Emden,
where, with the assistance of the municipality, the
Nordseewerke were founded. The original capital
was M. 2,100,000; but this proved altogether in¬
sufficient, and in 1907 a committee appointed to advise
what could be done to keep the undertaking going
recommended that an additional M. 2,200,000 was
absolutely necessary. This was raised by share¬
holders' contributions and the renunciation by the
creditors of a portion of their claims; but these efforts
to place the yard on a sound footing were unavailing,
and it was sold by auction for M. 53,000 to the big
coal-dealing firm of Hugo Stinnes. Another ship-
SUGGESTED SHIPBUILDING TRUST 317
building undertaking which has been unable to keep
its head above water was the Eider yard, of Tonning,
which, after various abortive attempts to amalgamate
it with the Howaldt and other companies, went into
liquidation in 1909.
In the summer of 1912, when a distinct revival had
already set in, it was complained in the German Press
that shipbuilding was altogether in a parlous state,
and that companies like the Vulcan,* of Stettin and
Hamburg, which continued to pay substantial divi¬
dends, were enabled to do so only by the profits of
their general engineering business. It was urged that
the only means by which German shipbuilding could
be saved was a comprehensive trust, or, at any rate,
an amalgamation into several large groups, which
would have no difficulty in coming to agreements, as
necessity arose, to prevent underbidding in the home
market. Rumours of secret rebates granted to the
German shipbuilders by the manufacturers of their
materials suggest also that the yards do not work
under the same economic conditions as other branches
of industry, but are rather privily favoured at their
expense.
If it cannot be said that Germany as yet seriously
menaces the oceanic carrying trade of the British Isles,
even less dangerous seems her rivalry in general ship¬
building. The variations from year to year in the
output of this industry are very great, a period of high
freights invariably leading to over-production, and this,
in its turn, being followed by a term of restricted
activity, while the building of one or two vessels more
or less of the largest type will cause considerable dis¬
crepancies between the construction figures of suc¬
cessive years. For these reasons quinquennial periods
have been taken in the appended table, showing the
* While this book is in the press it is announced that, in con¬
sequence of a loss of ;£ 100,000 on the construction of warships for
the Imperial Navy, the Vulcan Company will divide profits for 1912
(a record year for German shipbuilding) at the rate of only 6 per cent.
3i8 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
progress of shipbuilding in the two countries during
the past thirty years :
Quinquennium.
United Kingdom.
Germany.
Tons Built.
Tons Built.
1881-1885
3,313,43!
248,504
1886-1890
2,950,040
242,793
1891-1895
3,512,841
307,829
1896-1900
4,145,396
439,545
1901-1905
4,624,642
574,403
1906-1910
4,126,093
612,112
Here again, by the use of percentages and multiples,
the figures can be given an appearance very threaten¬
ing to the United Kingdom's predominance in the
shipbuilding industry. It is obvious at a glance that
while her output of tonnage in the quinquennial
periods under review increased by only about 30 per
cent., that of Germany became twice and a half as
great as it was; further, that from being more than
thirteen times as large as that of Germany, the output
of the United Kingdom declined in comparison till it
was less than seven times as large. These relation¬
ships are, however, of little significance in comparison
with the facts that the excess of British over German
shipbuilding rose during the period dealt with from
3,064,927 tons to 3,513,981 tons. So far, indeed, is
Germany from seriously imperilling the United King¬
dom's position as shipbuilder to the world that, in spite
of all the pressure and inducements brought to bear on
her shipowners, they still purchase large quantities of
tonnage abroad. In the quinquennial periods of the
last thirty years the amounts of these foreign purchases
were:
Quinquennium. Tons.
1881-1885 217,004
1886-1890
1891-1895
1896-1900
1901-1905
1906-1910
275,382
273,928
515,486
450,258
334,007
BRITISH PREDOMINANCE 319
A great deal of this shipping was not, of course,
built to order, but was transferred to Germany by
British firms, who had exhausted its utility so far as
their purposes were concerned. During the three
years 1909, 1910, and 1911, the vessels built in the
United Kingdom on German account were of the
following aggregate tonnage :
Year.
Vessels.
Tons Gross.
I909
2
8,179
1910
5
26,507
1911
3
20,527
As clinching evidence of the overwhelming pre¬
dominance which British shipbuilding still maintains,
the following figures, showing the number and tonnage
of vessels of all kinds launched in the United Kindom
and elsewhere, respectively, during the year 1911, may
prove interesting:
Number.
Tonnage.
United Kingdom
British Colonies and foreign countries
Totals
822
946
2,034,630
I>384,379
1,768
3,419,009
By the exclusion of warships these figures become :
Number.
Tonnage.
United Kingdom
British Colonies and foreign countries
Totals
772
827
1,803,844
846,296
I>599
2,650,140
It is, however, our special present object to enquire
how far Germany is equipped for rivalry with Great
320 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
Britain in the building of a war navy, and here it must
be admitted that her situation is much more favour¬
able than it is in respect to the mercantile marine.
To demonstrate this it is only necessary to state
that the warships of over 100 tons launched in the
United Kingdom in 1911 had a total displacement of
221,430 tons, while those launched in Germany had a
total displacement of as much as 128,340 tons. If the
extreme possibilities of construction were not attained
on the side of the United Kingdom, no more were
they on that of Germany. In the winter of 1905-06—
that is to say, just before the era of the Dreadnought
battleship—Count Ernst Reventlow, the well-known
writer on naval topics, circularized the German yards
that up to that time had built capital warships, with
an enquiry as to the speed at which they could con¬
struct such vessels and the number they could complete
annually. The replies received may be summarized as
under:
Period of Con¬
Could be
Yard.
struction in
Completed
Months.
Annually.
Germania
24-30
2
Howaldt
24
I
Vulcan
24-30
4
Blohm and Voss
24-30
2
Schichau
30"36
2
Weser
24-30
2
Total
—
13
Up to the present Germany has never laid down more
than four capital warships in one year, so that at the
date of Count Reventlow's investigation, without the
co-operation of the Imperial yards at Wilhelmshaven,
Kiel, and Dantzig, her private industry would, as was
stated in the reply of the Schichau firm, have been able
to turn out such vessels at a rate which would have
been three times the Empire's past maximum produc-
SHIPBUILDING RESOURCES 321
tion. It could, in fact, according to these figures,
which must, however, be accepted with some reserve,
have kept up a speed of construction twice as great
as that which Great Britain would be compelled by the
German Navy Law to maintain for all future time if
the two-keels-to-one standard were to be observed.
It should, however, be mentioned that the undertakings
given to Count Reventlow by some of the yards were
conditional upon the prompt delivery of armour plating
and heavy guns by Krupps, who so far have furnished
the German Navy with its entire requirements of these
two essential articles of warship equipment.
This Krupp monopoly is undoubtedly a weak spot
in Germany's warship-building arrangements, and
especially since the able race which developed the
great works at Essen has become extinct in the male
line and the undertaking is managed solely by what
are in fact, if not in name, salaried officials. As yet,
however, there is no reason to doubt the quality of
Krupp workmanship or the capacity of the establish¬
ment, in case of need, to supply guns and armour for
a much larger number of battleships and large
cruisers than Germany has any immediate intention
of building; and the intimate friendship which has
long existed between the Emperor William and the
Krupp family is possibly an even more important
factor than it was, now that the ordinary share capital
of the undertaking is entirely in the hands of a woman.
There can be no doubt that Krupps were taken into
the confidence of the Government before the Navy Bill
of 1900 was drafted, and that the subsequent extensions
of the works were then agreed upon in principle.
These extensions took the form of the acquisition of
the Germania shipbuilding yard in 1901, and of enor¬
mous additions to the ordnance and armour plate
works a few years later. To carry out these develop¬
ments debentures were issued to the amount of
M. 20,000,000 in 1901, and to the amount of M. 25,000,000
(out of a total of M. 50,000,000, for which rights were
21
322 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
obtained) in 1908. On neither side is the relationship
of the German Government to Krupps an ordinary
business one, and in all probability its basis is an
undertaking to the effect that, if the works would lay
down the plant necessary to supply a certain quantity
of big guns and armour plate annually, the Government
would do its best to see that the orders required to
keep that plant remuneratively employed were duly
forthcoming.
Since the replies to Count Reventlow's enquiries
were penned, the building of the Dreadnought has
brought about a positive revolution in the dimensions
of capital warships. A sudden jump of five thousand
tons in displacement, and then a further advance of
nearly as much, together with the corresponding
increases in length and beam, must have been very
unwelcome to the German shipyards; but if the
builders have not fully kept pace with these changes,
at any rate it may be assumed that they have not been
left very far behind, and that their powers of produc¬
tion have not been substantially reduced since they
sent in the estimates in question. Besides, the com¬
pletion of the new Vulcan yard at Hamburg, from
which the company anticipated an increase in efficiencj^
of from 50 to 75 per cent., took place subsequent to
the launch of the Dreadnought, and naturally arrange¬
ments were made to comply with the fresh standard.
This establishment was decided upon in 1905, and
was formally opened in the presence of the Emperor
William on June 21, 1909. It contains three slips,
respectively, 305, 259, and 207 metres in length, for
the construction of liners; while a fourth, which
provides accommodation for vessels of up to 41
metres beam, was specially designed for warships
of the largest dimensions. The 1912 edition of
Nauticus gives a useful table (of which the essential
features are reproduced as an appendix to this book),
showing, among other details, the slip accommodation
at all the principal German shipyards. From this it
NUMBER OF BUILDING SLIPS 323
would appear that the yards which have already had
experience in the building of battleships and large
cruisers have at their disposal the following slips for
vessels of the larger types :
Yard.
150 to 200 Metres.
Over 200 Metres.
Vulcan, Hamburg
_
2
Vulcan, Stettin
3
2
Schichau
3
2
Blohm and Voss
5
4
Weser
1
3
Germania
4
Howaldt
2
I
Totals
18
14
In addition to these private slips, there are five of
unspecified length at the Imperial yards at Wilhelms-
haven, Kiel, and Dantzig, and it would certainly be
no exaggeration to state, that, in an emergency, this
accommodation would suffice for the construction of
at least twice as many large armoured ships as are
specified in the Fleet Law, other conditions—the sup¬
ply, in particular, of guns, armour, torpedo equipment,
and engines—being of equivalent capacity. But, as
already stated, Germany is handicapped by the inability
of her shipyards to manufacture their own heavy
ordnance and armour plates and their dependence
for these articles on the one firm that at present
produces them in Germany. And so long as that firm
is, in its turn, dependent solely, or nearly so, on home
orders for the utilization of its plant and the remunera¬
tion of its capital, it will never be in a position to
respond to the exigencies of such an emergency.
German naval legislation was not, however, dic¬
tated exclusively by political motives ; one of its
objects was to establish an industry which should
break the British shipbuilding monopoly, and become
not merely a broad and stable foundation for the
324 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
erection of the Empire's war fleet, but also a valuable
national economic asset. The Navy Act of 1900 gave
the German shipbuilders the assurance of future orders,
which was necessary to induce them to run the risk
of laying down the plant required for the construction
of ships of the largest classes. From the date of the
passing of that measure, it was known that for all
future time the Imperial Ministry of Marine would
require the annual delivery of at least three capital
warships, and the yards had a definite justification for
large capital outlay. What was hoped, and what is
hoped, is that, with the aid of the experience thus
gained, they will be able to enter more successfully
into competition with the United Kingdom for the
naval orders of those States that cannot build their
war vessels for themselves. On the degree of the
fulfilment of these hopes will depend to a very large
extent the issue of the struggle for the supremacy of
the seas.
The German Government will assuredly leave no
stone unturned to assist its shipbuilders to obtain
foreign contracts. It was undoubtedly with a view
to securing orders that the Von der Tann, as soon as
she had passed through her trials in such a way as, on
the published figures, to warrant the boast that she
was the fastest battle-cruiser afloat, was despatched
to South America at forced speed for a tour of the
Republican ports, and similar motives will in the
future frequently have to be looked for behind German
naval movements. For the first time in modern
history, the German Navy is now equipped with a
large number of vessels approximately equal in size,
speed, and strength to the best in the world, and what
it has effected in this respect during the twelve years
which have elapsed since the change in the Empire's
naval policy was clearly formulated has been little
less than astounding.
The approach which in that short period has been
made to Great Britain has involved not only the size
COMPETITION FOR FOREIGN ORDERS 325
and number of the vessels, but also their quality, and
it is not improbable that in a few years' time Hamburg,
Bremen, Kiel, and Dantzig may be able to secure
a considerable proportion of those foreign orders for
large armoured ships, which now go almost ex¬
clusively to the Clyde, the Tyne, and Barrow.*
This is an ambition which has played an important
part in German naval legislation, and should it ever
be realized it will have a very decisive bearing on the
chances of the Empire in a naval war. With her slips
and her finishing docks regularly occupied by vessels
building for foreign States, Germany would have an
invaluable reserve of material on which to fall back in
case of need, and which might easily decide in her
favour the fortunes of a campaign against an enemy of
anything like equal strength.
Up to the present the only German yard which has
to any considerable extent executed foreign orders has
been that started by Ferdinand Schichau in 1837, and
now owned by his son-in-law, Herr Karl Ziese. It is
not without interest that the founder of this under¬
taking made prolonged investigations in England
before embarking on his venture, though the mention
of this must by no means be taken to imply that he
was not an engineer of great and original gifts. The
Schichau yard can boast the distinction, unique for
a German shipbuilding concern, of having done pioneer
work in at least one branch of naval construction. In
turn it has been able to claim for the Russian 28*4~knot
torpedo-boat Adler (1880), the four Chinese destroyers
built in 1898 (367 knots), of which one, it may be
recalled, is now in the British service, the Russian
cruiser Nowik of the same year (26 knots), and the
Argentine torpedo-boat destroyers, Cordoba and La
Plata, finished in 1911, that they were the fastest vessels
* Since these words were written a first-class battleship has been
commenced at the Vulcan yard at Hamburg for the Greek Govern¬
ment at, it is reported, an unremunerative price ; and at the moment
of going to press the same establishment has strong hopes of securing
the order for a sister vessel to the one under construction.
326 GERMANY'S MARITIME INTERESTS
of their respective classes afloat, though the details
of the conditions under which the trials that yielded
these results took place have not been published.
The two last-named boats belonged to a series of
twelve, of which four each were placed in the United
Kingdom, France, and Germany, and in their trials they
attained a speed of 36'8 knots ; whereas, according to
the reports in the German Press, the stipulated 32 knots
was reached neither by the British nor the French
boats. Up to 1912 the Schichau yards had delivered
the following torpedo craft (torpedo-boats, destroyers,
and torpedo cruisers)
To—
Germany
Russia
Italy
China
Japan
Austria
Turkey
Brazil
Norway
Argentine
Sweden
Denmark
Total
Number.
• 179
• 39
• 36
21
19
18
9
5
4
2
x
1
• 334
A few foreign orders have also been executed by
the Vulcan Works and the Germania yard. Up to
the end of 1911 the former had completed the following
war vessels:
For—
Battle¬
ships.
Large
Cruisers.
Other
Cruisers.
Torpedo
Craft.
Germany
China
10
2
2
14
4
38
16
Japan
Russia
—
I
1
2
Uruguay
Greece
—
1
~
IO
The Germania yard, which, it should be noted, is
the only shipbuilding establishment that up to the
THE GERMANIA YARD 327
present has applied itself to the construction of sub¬
marines, had, at the commencement of 1912, supplied
the following war vessels :
To—
Germany
Turkey
Russia
Brazil
Argentine
Spain
Norway
Austria
Italy
Battle¬
ships, etc.
Large
Cruisers.
Other
Cruisers.
Torpedo
Craft.
32
14
4
3
3
1
Sub¬
marines
16
4
* Including one armoured coast-defence ship,
f Armoured coast-defence ship.
The yards of the Weser Company, Messrs. Blohm
and Voss, and the Howaldt Company, the only three
other German undertakings which up to the present
have occupied themselves seriously with the construc¬
tion of warships, seem to have executed no orders for
foreign Governments.
APPENDIX I
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION
ACT RELATING TO THE GERMAN FLEET OF
APRIL 10, 1898
We, Wilhelm, by the grace of God, German Emperor, King
of Prussia, etc., order in the name of the Empire, with the
consent of the Federal Council and of the Reichstag, what
follows:
I. Ship Establishment.
Clause i.
1. The ship establishment of the German Fleet is, apart
from torpedo craft, school-ships, special service ships, and
gunboats, fixed as below :
(a) Ready for use—
1 fleet flagship,
2 squadrons each of 8 battleships,
2 divisions each of 4 armoured coast-ships,
6 large cruisers \ scouts 0f the Home Battle Fleet,
16 small cruisers J '
3 large cruisers 1 for f . 5ervice
10 small cruisers J °
(b) As material reserve—
2 battleships,
3 large cruisers,
4 small cruisers.
2. Of the ships existing or under construction on April i,
1898, there shall be reckoned on this establishment—
as battleships
as armoured coast-ships
as large cruisers
as small cruisers ...
328
12,
10,
23-
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION 329
3. The provision of the means for the new ships necessary
for the attainment of the establishment (Clause 1) is subject to
annual determination by the Imperial Budget, with the standard,
that the completion of the legal establishment, in so far as the
means stated in Clause 7 suffice, can be attained by the end
of the financial year 1903.
Clause 2.
The provision of the means for the necessary replacement
construction is subject to annual determination by the Imperial
Budget, with the standard that, as the rule—
battleships and armoured coast-ships can be replaced at
the end of 25 years,
large cruisers .at the end of 20 years,
small cruisers at the end of 15 years.
The periods run from the year of the granting of the first
instalment for the ship to be replaced to the'granting of the
first instalment of the replacing ship.
To a prolongation of the replacement period the consent of
the Federal Council is required in the individual case, to an
abbreviation that of the Reichstag. Any grants of replace¬
ment ships before the expiry of the statutory life-time—acts of
God, such as the sinking of a ship, excepted—are to be com¬
pensated for, within a period to be agreed upon with the Reich¬
stag, by the postponement of other replacement construction.
II. Maintenance in Commission.
Clause 3.
The provision of means for maintaining the Home Battle
Fleet in commission is subject to annual determination by the
Imperial Budget, with the standard that there can be kept in
commission :
(a) For the constitution of active formations—
9 battleships,
2 large cruisers,
6 small cruisers.
(b) As nucleus ships of reserve formations—
4 battleships,
4 armoured coast-ships,
2 large cruisers,
5 small cruisers.
330 APPENDIX I
(c) For rendering a reserve formation active for a period
of two months—
2 battleships or armoured coast-ships.
III. Personal Establishment.
Clause 4.
Of warrant officers, petty officers, and men of the seamen's
divisions, and of the dockyard and torpedo sections, there
shall be :
1. i£ crews for the ships on foreign service.
2. Full complements for—
the ships belonging to active formations of the Home
Battle Fleet,
half of the torpedo craft,
the school-ships,
the special service ships.
3. Nucleus crews (engine-room personnel f, remaining
personnel § of the full complements) for—
the ships belonging to reserve formations of the
Home Battle Fleet,
the second half of the torpedo craft.
4. The necessary shore requirements.
5. An addition of 5 per cent, on the total requirements.
Clause 5.
The strengths required according to the standard of these
principles for the seamen's divisions and dockyard and torpedo
sections are subject to annual determination by the Imperial
Budget.
IV. Other Expenditure.
Clause 6.
All recurrent and non-recurrent expenditure in the Naval
Estimates with regard to which no provisions are made in this
law are subject to annual determination by the Imperial
Budget according to the standard of the requirements.
V. Cost.
Clause 7.
During the next six financial years (1898 to 1903) the
Reichstag is not bound to provide for all non-recurrent ex-
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION 331
penditure of the Naval Estimates more than M. 408,900,000—
viz., for building and arming ships more than M. 356,700,000,
and for other non-recurrent expenditure more than M. 52,200,000
—or for the recurrent expenditure of the Naval Estimates more
than an average increase of M. 4,900,000 annually.
In so far as the law cannot be carried out in accordance
with this provision before the end of the financial year 1903,
its execution will be extended beyond the year 1903.
Clause 8.
In so far as the total of the recurrent and non-recurrent ex¬
penditure in any financial year exceeds the sum of M. 117,525,494
marks, and the proper revenue of the Empire does not suffice
to cover the excess, the extra amount may not be raised by
augmenting or adding to indirect Imperial taxes on articles
consumed by the masses.
Legally attested under our own signature and Imperial seal.
Given at Homburg vor der Hohe, April 10, 1908.
WILHELM.
FURST ZU HOHENLOHE.
ACT RELATING TO THE GERMAN FLEET OF
JUNE 14, 1900.
We, Wilhelm, by the grace of God, German Emperor,
King of Prussia, etc., order in the name of the Empire, with
the consent of the Federal Council and of the Reichstag, what
follows:
I. Ship Establishment.
Clause 1.
There shall consist:
1. The Battle Fleet of—
2 fleet flagships,
4 squadrons of 8 battleships each,
8 large cruisers ^ ,
. > as scouts.
24 small cruisersJ
2. The Foreign Service Fleet of—
3 large cruisers,
10 small cruisers.
332
APPENDIX I
3. The Material Reserve of—
4 battleships,
3 large cruisers,
4 small cruisers.
To this prescribed establishment are to be reckoned at the
promulgation of this Law the ships specified in Schedule A.
Clause 2.
Except in the case of losses of ships there shall be replaced:
Battleships after 25 years,
Cruisers after 20 years.
The periods run from the year of the granting of the first
instalment for the ship to be replaced to the granting of the
first instalment of the replacing ship.
For the period from 1901 to 1917 the replacement building
will be regulated according to Schedule B.
II. Maintenance in Commission.
Clause 3.
With regard to the maintenance in commission of the Battle
Fleet the following principles obtain :
1. The First and Second Squadron form the active
Battle Fleet, the Third and Fourth Squadrons the
Reserve Battle Fleet.
2. Of the Active Battle Fleet all, of the Reserve Battle
Fleet half of the battleships and cruisers shall be
kept permanently in commission.
3. For manoeuvres some ships of the Reserve Battle
Fleet which are out of commission shall be tempor¬
arily placed in commission.
III. Personal Establishment.
Clause 4.
Of warrant officers, petty officers, and men of the seamen's
divisions and of the dockyard and torpedo sections there shall be:
1. Full complements for the ships belonging to the
Active Battle Fleet, half of the torpedo-boats, the
school-ships, and the special service ships.
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION 333
2. Nucleus crews (engine-room personnel §, remaining
personnel £ of the full complements) for the ships
belonging to the Reserve Battle Fleet, as well as
for the second half of the torpedo-boats.
3. 11 crews for the ships on foreign service.
4. The necessary shore requirements.
5. An addition of 5 per cent, to the total requirements.
IV. Cost.
Clause. 5.
The provision of means for the carrying out of this Law is
subject to annual determination by the Imperial Budget.
Clause 6.
In so far as from the financial year 1901 the additional
requirements of recurrent and non-recurrent expenditure in
the ordinary estimates of the naval administration exceed the
additional yield of the Imperial stamp duties to the sum of
M. 53,708,000, and the deficit is not covered from other
sources of the Empire's revenue, the deficit shall not be raised
by augmenting or adding to indirect Imperial taxes on articles
consumed by the masses.
V. Final Provision.
This Law comes into force simultaneously with the Laws
with regard to the Amendment of the Imperial Stamp Law of
April 27, 1894, and with regard to the Amendment of the
Customs Tariff Law.
The Law with regard to the German Fleet of April 10, 1898,
is repealed.
Legally attested under our own signature and Imperial seal.
Given at Castle Saalburg, near Homburg vor der Hohe,
June 14, 1900.
WILHELM.
Ft)RST ZU HOHENLOHE.
334
APPENDIX I
SCHEDULE A.
Enumeration of the Ships to be Reckoned to the Fixed
Establishment on the Promulgation of this Law.
Battleships.
Large Cruisers.
Small Cruisers.
i.
Bayern
i.
Konig Wilhelm
i.
Zieten
2.
Sachsen
2.
Kaiser
2.
Blitz
3-
Wiirttemberg
3-
Deutschland
3-
Pfeil
4-
Baden
4-
Kaiserin Augusta
4-
Arkona
5-
Oldenburg
5-
Hertha
5-
Alexandrine
6.
Brandenburg
6.
Victoria Louise
6.
Greif
7-
Kurfiirst Fried-
7-
Freya
7-
8.
Irene
rich Wilhelm
8.
Hansa
Prinzess Wilhelm
8.
Weissenburg
9-
Vineta
9-
Schwalbe
9-
Worth
10.
Fiirst Bismarck
10.
Wacht
io.
Kaiser Fried-
11.
Prinz Heinrich
11.
Jagd
rich III.
12.
B
12.
Sperber
xi.
Kaiser W i 1-
helm II.
13-
14.
Bussard
Meteor
12.
Kaiser Wilhelm
der Grosse
15.
16.
Falke
Komet
x3-
Kaiser Barbarossa
17-
Kormoran
H-
Kaiser Karl der
18.
Kondor
Grosse
19.
Seeadler
l5-
C
20.
Gefion
16.
D
21.
Geier
17-
E
22.
Hela
18.
F
23-
Gazelle
19.
G
24.
Niobe
20.
Siegfried
25-
Nymphe
21.
Beowulf
26.
C
22.
Frithjof
27.
D
23.
Hildebrand
28.
E
24.
Heimdall
29.
F
25-
Hagen
26. ^Egir
27.
Odin
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION 335
SCHEDULE B.
Distribution among the Individual Years ofthe Replacement
Ships to be Built in the Years 1901 to 1917 Inclusive.
Replacement Year.
Battleships.
Large Cruisers.
Small Cruisers.
1901
1
1902
—
I
I
T9°3
—
I
I
I904
—
—
2
I905
—
—
2
1906
2
—
2
I9°7
2
—
2
1908
2
—
2
I9°9
2
—
2
19x0
I
X
2
1911
I
I
2
1912
I
I
2
I9I3
I
I
2
I9H
I
I
2
I9I5
I
I
2
1916
I
X
2
w
2
—
I
Totals
17
10
29
ACT OF JUNE 5, 1906, AMENDING THE LAW
RELATING TO THE GERMAN FLEET
OF JUNE 14, 1900.
We, Wilhelm, by the grace of God German Emperor, King
of Prussia, etc., order, in the name of the Empire, with the
consent of the Federal Council and of the Reichstag, what
follows:
Single Paragraph.
The ship establishment fixed in Clause i of the Law relating
to the German Fleet of June 14, 1900, is increased :
1. In the case ofthe Foreign Service Fleet by 5 large cruisers;
2. In the case of the material reserve by 1 large cruiser.
Legally attested under our own signature and Imperial seal.
Given at the Neues Palais, June 5, 1906.
WILHELM.
FURST VON BULOW.
336
APPENDIX I
ACT OF APRIL 6, 1908, AMENDING CLAUSE 2
OF THE LAW RELATING TO THE GERMAN
FLEET OF JUNE 14, 1900.
We, Wilhelm, by the grace of God German Emperor, King of
Prussia, etc., order in the name of the Empire, with the consent
of the Federal Council and of the Reichstag, what follows :
Single Clause.
The following takes the place of Clause 2 of the Law relating
to the German Fleet, June 14, 1900:
Clause 2.
Except in the case of the loss of ships, battleships and
cruisers will be replaced at the end of 20 years.
The periods run from the year of the granting of the first
instalment of the ship to be replaced to the granting of the first
instalment for the replacing ship.
For the period from 1908 to 1917 the replacement building
will be regulated according to Schedule B.
Legally attested under our own signature and Imperial seal.
Given at Palermo on board M.Y: Hohenzollern, April 6, 1908.
WILHELM.
FtiRST VON Bt)LOW.
SCHEDULE B.
Distribution among the Individual Years of the Replacement
Ships to be Built in the Years 1908 to 1917 Inclusive*
Replacement Year.
Battleships.
Large Cruisers.
Small Cruisers.
1908
3
2
I9°9
3
—
2
1910
3
—
2
1911
2
—
2
1912
1
i
2
I9I3
1
i
2
I9M
1
i
2
I9I5
x
i
2
1916
1
i
2
i9J7
1
i
i
Totals
17
6
*9
* The programme of shipbuilding, including replacement and
additional ships, 1897-1917, is shown in Appendix V.
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION 337
ACT OF JUNE 14, 1912, AMENDING THE
LAWS RELATING TO THE GERMAN FLEET OF
JUNE 14, 1900, AND JUNE 5, 1906.
We, Wilhelm, by the grace of God German Emperor, King
of Prussia, etc., order in the name of the Empire, with the
consent of the Federal Council and of the Reichstag, what
follows:
Clause i.
The following Clause i replaces Clause i of the Law con¬
cerning the German Fleet of June 14, 1900, and the amend¬
ment of this Law of June 5, 1906.
There shall consist:
1. The Battle Fleet of—
1 fleet flagship,
5 squadrons of 8 battleships each,
12 large cruisers ,
. } as scouts.
30 small cruisers J
2. The Foreign Service Fleet of—
8 large cruisers,
10 small cruisers.
Clause 2.
The following paragraphs replace paragraphs 1 and 2 of
Clause 3 of the Law concerning the German Fleet of June 14,
1900:
1. 1 fleet flagship,
3 squadrons of battleships,
8 large cruisers, and
18 small cruisers
form the Active Battle Fleet;
2 squadrons of battleships,
4 large cruisers, and
12 small cruisers
form the Reserve Battle Fleet.
2. The whole of the battleships and cruisers of the Active
Battle Fleet and a quarter of those of the Reserve Battle
Fleet are to be kept permanently in commission.
22
338
APPENDIX I
Clause 3.
The following paragraphs are to replace the opening sen¬
tence and paragraphs 1 and 2 of Clause 4 of the Law concerning
the German Fleet of June 14, 1900:
The following proportions of warrant officers, petty officers,
and men of the Seamen, Dockyard, and Torpedo Divisions, as
well as the Submarine Sections, shall be available:
1. Full crews for the ships belonging to the Active Battle
Fleet, for the whole of the torpedo boats and submarines with
exception of the Material Reserve of both these classes of boats,
for the school ships and for the special ships.
2. Nucleus crews (one-half of the engine-room personnel,
one-quarter of the remaining personnel of the full crew) for
the ships belonging to the Reserve Battle Fleet.
Clause 4.
The Imperial Chancellor is empowered to publish the text
of the Law concerning the German Fleet of June 14, 1900,
with such alterations as result from the Laws of June 5,
1906, April, 1908, and the present Law. Given at the New
Palace, June 14, 1912.
WILHELM.
VON BETHMANN HOLLWEG.
Memorandum appended to the German Navy Bill, 1912.
The organization of the Fleet still suffers from two serious
defects:
The one defect consists in the fact that in the autumn of
every year the time-expired men—i.e., almost one-third of the
crew in all ships of the Battle Fleet—are discharged, and
replaced mainly by recruits from the inland population. Owing
to this, the readiness of the Battle Fleet for war is considerably
impaired for a prolonged period.
The second defect consists in the fact that at the present
time, with an establishment of fifty-eight capital ships, only
twenty-one ships are available at first, if the Reserve Fleet
cannot be made ready in pvopev time. Since the Fleet Law
was drawn up, this latter has become more and more unlikely,
as the moment at which the Reserve Fleet can be ready for
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION 339
war gets more and more deferred. This is a consequence of
the ever-growing complexity of modern ships, and of the
steadily growing difficulty in training large organizations. At
the present day, therefore, the Reserve Fleet only comes into
consideration as a second fighting line ; but in view of our great
numerical strength in reserve men, it still maintains its great
importance.
Both these defects are to be removed, or at any rate con¬
siderably ameliorated, by the gradual formation of a third
active squadron.
The requisite ships for this third active squadron are to be
derived:
(а) By dispensing with the Reserve Fleet Flagship.
(б) By dispensing with the present existing Material Reserve
—4 battleships, 4 large, and 4 small cruisers.
(c) By newly constructing 3 battleships and 2 small cruisers.
As the maintenance in commission of ships in the Reserve
Fleet can be reduced by one-half in consequence of the increase
of active organizations, the formation of a third active squadron
only renders the additional maintenance in commission of three
battleships, three large and three small cruisers necessary
beyond those to be maintained in commission already provided
for in the Fleet Law. This involves a corresponding increase
in personnel.
A further increase in personnel is necessary as the com¬
plements of all classes of ships, including torpedo boats, have
had to be augmented.
Moreover, an increase in submarines and the acquisition of
some airships is contemplated. The submarines, which are
still at the present moment without organization, are to be
organized—as regards manning—after the manner of the
torpedo-boats.
340
APPENDIX I
APPENDICES.
1. Comparison of the Amendment with the Fleet Laws.
2. Programme of Construction.
3. Increased requirements of Personnel.
4. Calculation of Cost.
APPENDIX 1.
Comparison of the Amendment with the Fleet Laws.
Provisions of the Fleet Law.
I. Establishment of Ships.
Section 1.
There shall be (1) the Battle Fleet, consisting of—2 fleet
flagships, 4 squadrons of 8 battleships each, 8 large cruisers,
and 24 small cruisers as scouts. (2) The Foreign Service
Fleet, consisting of—8 large cruisers and 10 small cruisers.
(3) The Material Reserve, consisting of—4 battleships, 4 large
cruisers, and 4 small cruisers.
Alterations of the Amendment.
I. Establishment of Ships.
Section 1.
There shall be (1) the Battle Fleet, consisting of—1 fleet
flagship, 5 squadrons of 8 battleships each, 12 large cruisers,
and 30 small cruisers as scouts. (2) The Foreign Service
Fleet, consisting of—8 large cruisers and 10 small cruisers.
Provisions of the Fleet Law.
II. Maintenance in Commission.
Section 3.
The following principles obtain regarding the maintenance
in commission of the Battle Fleet: (1) The First and Second
Squadrons form the Active Battle Fleet, the Third and Fourth
Squadrons the Reserve Battle Fleet.
(2) The whole of the battleships and cruisers of the Active
Battle Fleet, and one-half of those of the Reserve Battle Fleet,
are to be kept permanently in commission.
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION 341
Alterations of the Amendment.
II. Maintenance in Commission.
Section 3.
The following principles obtain regarding the maintenance
in commission of the Battle Fleet: (1) 1 fleet flagship,
3 squadrons of battleships, 8 large cruisers, and 18 small
cruisers form the Active Battle Fleet, 2 squadrons of battle¬
ships, 4 large cruisers, and 12 small cruisers form the Reserve
Battle Fleet.
(2) The whole of the battleships and cruisers of the Active
Battle Fleet and one quarter of those of the Reserve Battle
Fleet are to be kept permanently in commission.
Provisions of the Fleet Law.
III. Establishment of Personnel.
Section 4.
The following proportions of warrant officers, petty officers,
and men of the Seamen, Dockyard, and Torpedo Divisions
shall be available:
(1) Full crews for the ships belonging to the Active Battle
Fleet, for half of the torpedo-boats, for the school-ships, and
for the special ships.
(2) Nucleus crews (two-thirds of the engine-room personnel,
one-half of the remaining personnel of the full crews) for the
ships belonging to the Reserve Battle Fleet, as well as for the
second half of the torpedo-boats.
Alterations of the Amendment.
III. Establishment of Personnel.
Section 4.
The following proportions of warrant officers, petty officers,
and men of the Seamen, Dockyard, and Torpedo Divisions,
as well as of the Submarine Sections, shall be available :
(1) Full crews for the ships belonging to the Active Battle
Fleet, for the whole of the torpedo-boats and submarines with
exception of the Material Reserve of both these classes of boats, for the
school-ships and for the special ships.
(2) Nucleus crews (one-third of the engine-room personnel,
342
APPENDIX I
one-quarter of the remaining personnel of the full crews) for
the ships belonging to the Reserve Battle Fleet.
The remaining provisions of the Fleet Laws remain un¬
altered.
Explanations.
With regard to Section i.
The legal establishment of ships experiences an increase oj
three battleships and two small cruisers through the Amendment:
Previous
Establishment.
Future
Establishment.
Increase.
Battleships
38
41
+ 3
Large cruisers
20
20
—
Small cruisers
38
40
+ 2
With regard to Section 3.
Of the legal establishment of ships, there are to be in
commission:
Battleships.
Large Cruisers.
Small Cruisers.
Previ¬
In
Previ¬
In
Previ¬
In
ously.
B'uture.
ously.
Future.
ously.
Future.
In the Active Battle
Fleet
17
25
4
8
12
18
In the Reserve Battle
Fleet
9
4
2
1
6
3
Totals
26
29
6
9
18
21
Consequently, additionally in commission in future:
3 battleships, 3 large cruisers, 3 small cruisers.
With regard to Section 4.
1. In accordance with the Memorandum to the Estimates of
1906 there are to be :
Altogether—144 torpedo boats.
Of which ready for use—99 with full active service crews.
As Material Reserve—45 without crews.
Nothing is altered in this by the Amendment.
GERMAN NAVAL LEGISLATION 343
Section 4 of the Fleet Law of 1900 provided for 72 full crews,
and 72 nucleus crews, making together a total of 116 full crews
(compare footnote to Memorandum accompanying Estimates
of 1906).
Only 99 are required, and the Fleet Law, therefore, demands
17 full crews too many.
Article 3 of the Amendment brings the number of crews
legally to be held in readiness into line with actual require¬
ments, and therefore reduces the torpedo personnel demanded under
the Fleet Law by seventeen boat's crews.
2. It is proposed to demand 6 submarines every year. With
a twelve years' life this gives an establishment of 72 boats.
For 54 of these boats active service crews are estimated for;
18 form the Material Reserve without crews.
APPENDIX 2.
Programme of Construction.
Previous Programme of Construction.
Year.
Battle¬
ships.
Large
Cruisers.
Total Large
Ships.
Small
Cruisers.
1912
I
I
2
2
I9I3
I
I
2
2
I9I4
I
I
2
2
I9I5
X
I
2
2
1916
I
I
2
2
w
I
I
2
2*
Future Programme of Construction.
Year.
Battle¬
ships.
Large
Cruisers.
Total Large
Ships.
Small
Cruisers.
1912
I
I
2
2
*9*3
2+
I
3
2
*9*4
I
I
2
2
i9r5
I
I
2
2
19x6
2t
I
3
2
W
I
I
2
2*
* Including one additional ship outstanding from the Fleet Law.
+ Including one additional ship under the Amendment.
The year of construction of one battleship and two small cruisers is reserved.
344
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX 3.
Additional Personnel Required.
(A.) Men of the Seamen, Dockyard, and Torpedo Divisions,
as well as of the Submarine Sections—14,310; annual average
1,590-*
(B.) Executive Officers—433 ; annual average, 48.
(C.) Engineers—116; annual average, 13.
(D.) Medical Officers and Sick Birth Staff—175; annua
average, 19.
(E.) Paymasters and Accountant Staff—119 ; annual
average, 13.
Remark.
The requisite increase in personnel consists of—
(1) The personnel necessary for additional ships to be
maintained in commission under the Amendment.
(2) The personnel to be held in readiness for the submarines.
(3) The personnel becoming necessary in consequence of
alterations in complements and increased activity in training.
In regard to (3), the complements of torpedo-boats, and in
part also of the ships, have experienced an increase which is
not taken into account in the calculations for the requirements
of personnel for the Fleet Law, as this could not be foreseen.
The larger complements have become necessary owing to
growth in size and speed of ships and torpedo-boats, as well as
on account of the greater requirements of the guns in guns'
crews.
The additional requirements of training personnel is a
consequence of the increase in active naval fighting forces.
* Five hundred men are to be demanded in excess of the average
annual increase in each of the three years 1912-1914. This increase
is to be balanced by a corresponding decrease in the three years
1918-1920.
o
m
&
§
>
>
<
>
r
r
w
O
h—i
CO
r
>
H
i—«
c
Note.—The Navy Estimates for 1917, it is calculated, will amount to ^22,651,000, including the additional sum
required under the Amendment; that is to say, ^98,000 less than the sum of ^22,749,000 for the current year (1911) as
calculated when the Law was amended in 1908 (which includes a further sum of £166,000 due to the increase of pay
sanctioned in 1909).
Ca)
* In consequence of the projected increase in the wages of the men, the sums quoted for recurring expenses will each be augmented by 4^
j£49,ooo from 1^3 inclusive.
APPENDIX 4.
Calculation of Cost.
Description of Expenditure.
Expenditure.
1912.
1913.
1914.
1915.
1916.
1917.
A. Shipbuilding and armaments, in¬
cluding submarines and airships
B. Other non-recurring expendi¬
ture :
Increase in annual amount by
C. Recurring expenditure :*
Augmentation of annual in¬
crease, foreseen in the sums
required calculated in 1908, by
^196,000 each on the average,
graduated according to probable
requirements
£
342,000
245,000
147,000
£
832,000
245,000
293,000
£
1,174,000
245,000
440,000
£
1,076,000
147,000
685,000
£
1,174,000
930,000
£
881,000
1,174,000
Totals, A to C
734,000
1,370,000
1,859,000
1,908,000
2,104,000
2,055,000
From which an increase in the de¬
mands on the ordinary revenue
results, as compared with the
previous year, of
+ 734,000
+ 636,000
+ 489,000
+ 49,000
4* 196,000
— 49,000
APPENDIX II
MEMORANDUM APPENDED TO THE
GERMAN NAVY BILL, 1900
I. NECESSITY AND SCOPE OF THE INCREASE
OF THE NAVY.
The German Empire needs Peace at Sea.—For the Ger¬
man Empire of to-day the security of its economic develop¬
ment, and especially of its world-trade, is a life question. For
this purpose the German Empire needs not only peace on land
but also peace at sea—not, however, peace at any price, but
peace with honour, which satisfies its just requirements.
A naval war for economic interests, particularly for com¬
mercial interests, will probably be of long duration, for the aim
of a superior opponent will be all the more completely reached
the longer the war lasts. To this must be added that a naval
war which, after the destruction or shutting-up of the German
sea fighting force, was confined to the blockade of the coasts
and the capture of merchant ships, would cost the opponent
little; indeed he would, on the contrary, amply cover the
expenses of the war by the simultaneous improvement of his
own trade.
An unsuccessful naval war of the duration of even only a
year would destroy Germany's sea trade, and would thereby
bring about the most disastrous conditions, first in her economic,
and then, as an immediate consequence of that, in her social
life.
Quite apart from the consequences of the possible peace
conditions, the destruction of our sea trade during the war
could not, even at the close of it, be made good within measur¬
able time, and would thus add to the sacrifices of the war a
serious economic depression.
346
THE MEMORANDUM OF 1900
Navy Law* does not yet make Allowance for the Pos¬
sibility of a Naval War with a Great Sea-Power.—The
Navy Law does not make allowance for the possibility of a
naval war with a great naval Power, because, when it was
drafted in the summer of 1897, the first consideration was to
secure the carrying out in modern ship material of the 1873
plan for the founding of the fleet, limiting the increase to the
small number of battleships which was necessary to establish,
at least for a double squadron, the organization demanded by
tactical exigencies.
The Justificatory Memorandum to the Navy Law left no
doubt as to the military significance of the Battle Fleet. It is
therein expressly stated:
" Against greater sea-powers the Battle Fleet would have
importance merely as a sortie fleet."
That is to say, the fleet would have to withdraw into the
harbour and there wait for a favourable opportunity for making
a sortie. Even if it should obtain a success in such a sortie,
it would nevertheless, like the enemy, suffer considerable loss
of ships. The stronger enemy could make good his losses, we
could not. In war with a substantially superior sea-power,
the Battle Fleet provided for by the Navy Law would render
a blockade more difficult, especially in the first phase of the
war, but would never be able to prevent it. To subdue it, or,
after it had been considerably weakened, to confine it in its
own harbour would always be merely a question of time. So
soon as this had happened, no great State could be more easily
cut off than Germany from all sea intercourse worthy of the
name — of her own ships as also of the ships of neutral
Powers. To effect this it would not be necessary to control
long stretches of coast, but merely to blockade the few big
seaports.
In the same way as the traffic to the home ports, the Ger¬
man mercantile ships on all the seas of the world would be left
to the mercy of an enemy who was more powerful on the sea.
Hostile cruisers on the main trade-routes, in the Skager Rack,
in the English Channel, off the north of Scotland, in the Straits
of Gibraltar, at the entrance to the Suez Canal, and at the
* In this Memorandum "Navy Law" means the Navy Act
of 1898.
348
APPENDIX II
Cape of Good Hope, would render German shipping prac¬
tically impossible.
Also with regard to this the Justificatory Memorandum to
the Naval Law speaks unambiguously. In it is observed:
" Protection of sea trade on all the seas would occur prin¬
cipally in time of peace. In case of war it would be the task
of the foreign service cruisers to afford their own mercantile
ships the " utmost possible protection."
That is to say, the ships would do the "utmost possible."
What would be possible in this respect is clear when it is
realized that the Navy Law provides altogether for forty-two
cruisers, whilst the greatest Naval Power, for example, to-day
already possesses 206 cruisers (finished or under construction),
and, moreover, has as its disposal bases and coaling stations
on all the chief trade-routes.
For the Protection of Sea Trade and Colonies there
is only One Means—a Strong Battle Fleet.—To protect
Germany's sea trade and colonies in the existing circumstances
there is only one means—Germany must have a battle fleet
so strong that even for the adversary with the greatest sea-
power a war against it would involve such dangers as to
imperil his position in the world.
For this purpose it is not absolutely necessary that the Ger¬
man Battle Fleet should be as strong as that of the greatest
naval Power, for a great naval Power will not, as a rule, be in
a position to concentrate all its striking forces against us. But
even if it should succeed in meeting us with considerable
superiority of strength, the defeat of a strong German Fleet
would so substantially weaken the enemy that, in spite of the
victory he might have obtained, his own position in the world
would no longer be secured by an adequate fleet.
In order to attain the goal which has been set, the protection
of our sea trade and of our colonies by ensuring a peace with
honour, Germany requires, according to the standard of the
strength-relationships of the great Sea-Powers, and having re¬
gard to our tactical formations, two double squadrons of efficient
battleships, with the necessary cruisers, torpedo-boats, and so
on, pertaining thereto. As the Navy Law provides for only
two squadrons, the building of a third and fourth squadron is
contemplated. Of these four squadrons two will form a fleet.
The second fleet is to be organized in its tactical composition
THE MEMORANDUM OF 1900
in the same way as the first fleet provided for in the Navy
Law.
For the scope of the maintenance in commission in time of
peace the following consideration has been decisive : As the
ship-establishment of the German Navy, even after the carry¬
ing out of the projected increase, will still be more or less
inferior to the ship-establishments of some other great Powers,
compensation must be sought in the training of the personnel
and in tactical training in the larger combinations.
A trustworthy training of the separate ships' crews, as well
as an adequate training in the larger tactical combinations,
can be ensured only by permanent maintenance in commission
in time of peace. To economize in commissioning in time of
peace would mean to jeopardize the efficiency of the fleet for
the event of war.
The minimum of commissioning is the permanent formation
of that fleet which comprises the newest and best ships as an
active combination—that is to say, a combination in which all
battleships and cruisers are in commission. This fleet would
form the school for tactical training in double squadron, and in
case of war would bear the first shock. For the second fleet,
which will comprise the older battleships, it must suffice if only
half of the ships are permanently in commission. For train¬
ing in the larger combination some further ships must then,
it is true, be placed temporarily in commission during the
manoeuvres. In case of war this second fleet—the Reserve Battle
Fleet—will have to make up its arrears in the training of the
separate ships' crews and the deficiency of training in the
larger combination behind the protection afforded by the Active
Battle Fleet.
With Four Line Squadrons, Coast Squadron is less
Important.—If Germany possesses four squadrons of efficient
battleships, a coast squadron composed of small armoured ships
is less important.
Increase of the Foreign Service Ships.—Besides the
increase of the home battle fleet, an increase of the foreign
service ships is also necessary. In consequence of the occupa¬
tion of Kiauchow and the great enhancement of our oversea
interests in the last two years, it has already become neces¬
sary, at the cost of the scouting ships of the Battle Fleet, to
send abroad two large ships more than were provided for by
35°
APPENDIX II
the plan of the Navy Law. Indeed, for an effective represen¬
tation of our interests it would have been necessary to send
out even more ships, if such had only been available. In
order to form a judgment of the importance of an increase of
the foreign service ships, it must be realized that they are the
representatives abroad of the German defence forces, and that
the task often falls to them of gathering in the fruits which the
maritime potency created for the Empire by the home Battle
Fleet has permitted to ripen.
Moreover, an adequate representation on the spot, supported
on a strong home Battle Fleet, in many cases averts differ¬
ences, and so contributes to maintain peace while fully up¬
holding German honour and German interests.
A numerical demonstration of the additional requirements
cannot be given for a considerable time in advance in the
same manner as for the Battle Fleet, which rests upon an
organic foundation.
If the demand is made that the foreign service fleet shall be
in a position (i) energetically to uphold German interests
everywhere in time of peace, (2) to be adequate for warlike
conflicts with oversea States without navies deserving of the
name, an increase of at least five large and five small cruisers,
as well as of one large and two small cruisers as material
reserve, seems called for. The Navy Law foresees as ready for
use three large and ten small cruisers, and as material reserve
three large and four small cruisers.
A distribution of the foreign service fleet among the foreign
stations cannot be given, as this distribution depends upon
the political circumstances, and these can only be estimated
from case to case.
II. CARRYING OUT OF THE INCREASE—COST-
RAISING OF THE MEANS.
Necessary Sea-Power should be Created as soon as
Possible.—If the necessity for Germany of so strong a fleet
is admitted, it will not be possible to contest, that the honour
and welfare of the Fatherland peremptorily demand, that the
home sea-power should be brought up to the requisite strength
as soon as possible.
Therefore the Increase cannot be Deferred till the
Expiry of the Sexennate.—With the Budget for 1900 the
THE MEMORANDUM OF 1900
increase of the Navy provided for in the Navy Law is
accomplished with the exception of one small cruiser. The
additional ships will, after the passing of the Budget, stand on
the slips in the summer of this year. For the further years
it is only a question of building replacements. For the next
three years the laying down of five large and seven small
replacing ships is provided for in the building plan of the Navy
Law. The small ships to be replaced are completely obsolete
and absolutely useless for warfare. If the replacement of
these is taken in hand first as especially urgent, there remain
hardly any means over for the laying down of larger ships,
since the sum provided in the building programme —
M. 35,000,000—is almost absorbed by the rise in the price
of the other ships and an increase in the supplies of ammuni¬
tion which had become necessary. If it were desired to keep
within the sum allowed by the Navy Law, no large ships could
be laid down from 1901 to 1903.
In consequence of the urgency of a strengthening of the
Navy on the one hand, and of the restriction in the building
of big ships through the limitations of the Navy Law on the
other, it was imperative that the demand for an increase of the
ship establishment should not be postponed till the expiry of
the sexennate but should be made now.
Exposition of the Building Programme.—The additional
ships to be built have to fit as is expedient into the gaps left by
the replacement buildings which fall due during the next few
years, and the replacements of large ships, owing to their
considerable cost, are the ones to be taken chiefly into
account.
If the limitation of pecuniary means foreseen in the Navy
Law is left out of consideration and regard paid only to the
age of the ships, there will be due for replacement—
1. In the year 1901: Seven large ships (four of the Sachsen
class, Konig Wilhelm, Kaiser, Deutschland).
2. In the twelve years 1902 to 1913 : Three large ships
(Oldenburg, Kaiserin Augusta, Siegfried).
3. In the four years 1914 to 1917: Seventeen large ships
(seven of the Siegfried class, four of the Brandenburg class,
five of the Hertha class, Fiirst Bismarck).
In consideration of the replacement construction, therefore,
the necessary increase of the Navy should be carried out in the
352
APPENDIX II
years 1902 to 1913; but even then the yearly shipbuilding
activity would remain so irregular that it seems best to dis¬
tribute the entire requirement of 46 large ships evenly over
sixteen years, and, as a rule, to lay down annually 3 large
ships. That such a rate of construction can be maintained
is, after the experience of recent years, in which also 3 large
ships were laid down annually, not to be doubted.
With regard to the small cruisers, it would be expedient to
choose a similar rate of construction. Within the next sixteen
years 29 ships have to be replaced: the increase amounts to
16 ships. Under a building programme extending over sixteen
years 3 keel-layings would, as the rule, fall to each year.
The construction of torpedo-boat divisions, gunboats, and
special service ships will run concurrently.
With regard to the age limit of the new large torpedo-boats,
experience is still lacking at the present time. If it is taken at
sixteen years, in every year there would become due the laying
down of 1 torpedo-boat division (4 additional divisions for the
new squadron, 12 replacement divisions for the 2 existing
squadrons and the coast squadron of armoured ships).
The additional and replacement construction of gunboats
and special service ships that will be necessary in the next
sixteen years cannot be foreseen.
Order of Construction.—There remains for decision the
order in which the ships are to be built. In order to attain
with the utmost possible speed a greater military efficiency,
it is, in the first place, necessary to have ready a third squadron
of modern battleships with accessories. On its completion an
Active Battle Fleet of 17 ships of the line of the most modern
construction and a Reserve Battle Fleet of 17—with the excep¬
tion of the Brandenburg class—inferior armoured ships (4 of the
Brandenburg class, 4 of the Sachsen class, 8 of the Siegfried
class, and the Oldenburg) can be formed. This will, it is true,
involve the putting back of the replacements of the Sachsen
class behind the additional construction to supplement the
Active Battle Fleet. This is a considerable drawback, but
seems permissible, since the Sachsen class underwent sub¬
stantial reconstruction only in the last few years. True, that
has not transformed twenty-five-year-old coastal armoured
ships into fully efficient modern ships of the line; nevertheless
the ships are still seaworthy, and are in utility but little inferior
THE MEMORANDUM OF 1900 353
to those of the Siegfried class, which also belong to the Reserve
Battle Fleet.
Cost of Ship Construction and Armament.—Under this
building programme there would be required for ship construc¬
tion, inclusive of the torpedo-boat divisions (additional and
replacement construction), according to the price units of the
Budget of 1900, altogether M. 1,306,000,000, or on an average
M. 81,600,000 annually.
It will, however, be necessary to strengthen the heavy
artillery on the battleships and large cruisers, and the equip¬
ment of ammunition on all classes of vessels. Accordingly,
somewhat higher price units have been taken as the basis of
the financial calculations, whereby an average annual require¬
ment of M. 87,600,000 results. Still further expense arises:
1. From the building of gunboats and special service ships.
2. From the reconstruction of older ships, which is becoming
necessary, in so far as the cost thereof cannot be met out of the
means provided by the Budget for recurrent expenditure.
3. From the rise of prices in consequence of technical im¬
provements.
4. From the rise in prices of materials and in wages.
The probable financial requirements for these purposes cannot
be given. In the financial calculations M. 12,400,000 have been
added to the average annual instalment of M. 87,600,000 men¬
tioned above. That gives as the probable average requirement
for shipbuilding and arming the sum of M. 100,000,000 annually.
Increase of Military Personnel.—The increase in the
establishment of ships renders necessary, up to the year
1920 (date of the readiness for war of the ships given out in
the year 1916), an increase of the military personnel by 35,551,
and in the following manner:
Altogether.
Annual Average.
Naval officers ...
1,212
60
Marine engineers
283
14
Surgeons
188
9
Paymasters
122
6
Crews
33,746
1,687
Totals
35,55!
1,776
23
354
APPENDIX II
It is in contemplation to demand, during the first ten years
(period of the preparation of the Third Squadron and increase
of the foreign service ships), an augmentation of the personnel
higher than the average, and in the last ten years (period of
the replacement of inferior armoured ships of the Fourth
Squadron by fully efficient battleships) a correspondingly lower
augmentation.
The obtaining of the professional personnel necessary for such
an increase involves the annual enlistment of about 200 naval
cadets and 1,000 ships' boys.
That enlistments of this magnitude will be practicable if the
extension of the Navy is statutorily assured does not seem
doubtful after the experiences of recent years.
Other Non-recurring Expenditure.—The other non¬
recurring expenditure which will be rendered necessary by
the increase of the fleet cannot be estimated. In order to
cover the existing necessities out of the many possibilities, and
to be able to choose what is right in the individual case, the
working out of rival projects, and, consequently, long and
expensive preliminary labours, are required. Accordingly,
only general indications can be given.
Extension of the Shipyard and Dock Works.—Of chief
importance for the question of cost is the extension of the ship¬
yard basins and harbour works in order to provide mooring and
equipment berths for the increased establishment of ships.
This necessity principally affects Wilhelmshaven and Dantzig;
Kiel less, since the spacious and protected harbour of Kiel can
be utilized for berthing ships which are not under repair or in
process of equipment. An extension of the shipyard works at
W ilhelmshaven and Dantzig will probably present no special
difficulties.
At Kiel and Wilhelmshaven the need for docks is temporarily
covered by the docks which are either under construction or
demanded for 1900, so that docking facilities are only to be
increased at Dantzig.
An extension of the workshops is called for only by the
increased requirements for the maintenance of the ships, as
an enhancement of the building activity of the yards is not
necessary.
Further, so far as the yards are concerned, consideration
must be given to (a) increas of the working stock—tugs,
THE MEMORANDUM OF 1900 355
praams, cranes, and so on; (b) increase of the materials for
equipping ships—coal, lubricating material, and so on; (c) in¬
crease of the magazines.
Coast Fortifications.—Larger outlay for coast fortifica¬
tions is all the less necessary the more the Battle Fleet is
strengthened. At the same time the existing coast fortifications
must be maintained in a state of efficiency.
Moreover,'in consequence of the extension of the harbour
works, possible changes of channel, and so on, the construction
of fresh detached batteries over a longish space of time will
not be avoidable.
Garrison Accommodation, Artillery, Torpedo, and
Mine Works.—The outlay for the extension of garrison
accommodation (barracks, hospitals, and so on), as well as
of the depots for artillery, torpedo, and mine material, will not,
in view of the long period over which it will be distributed,
and in comparison with the expenses for shipbuilding, require
considerable sums.
Estimate of the other Non-recurring Expenditure.—
In order to obtain a serviceable standard for estimating the
remaining non-recurring expenditure, it seems expedient to
revert to the experiences of the past.
In the period of the greater development of the Navy, from
1873 to 1882, M. 9,000,000 was, on an average, absorbed by
these expenses. This same average sum was contemplated
for the first six years of the Navy Law.
In the coming period the expenses will not distribute them¬
selves evenly over the individual years, but at the outset will
exceed the average amount, because the great expenses for the
extension of the yards will occur then.
If an average sum of M. 15,000,000 — that is to say,
M. 6,000,000 more than the maximum of former longer periods
of time—is taken as a basis, and M. 18,000,000 are put down
for the first ten years, and for the next ten a gradual decline to
M. 9,000,000—the hitherto highest amount—it will probably
be found that an adequate allowance has been made.
Increase of the Recurring Expenditure.—For calcu¬
lating the increase of the recurring expenditure, the best
standard, as experience has shown, is afforded by the dimen¬
sions which the outlay for military personnel and commission¬
ing will probably attain.
356
APPENDIX II
A calculation on this basis is given in the Annex IV.* It
results in an average annual increase of M. 5,400,000. Never¬
theless, the circumstance that the increase of personnel and
the maintenance in commission must, as far as possible, keep
pace with the increase of the ship establishment, makes it
seem right to allow M. 6,000,000 in the first half, and
M. 4,800,000 in the second half of the twenty-year period for
the rise of recurring expenditure.
Increase of the Total Outlay for Naval Purposes.—
The following assumptions form the basis for the estimates of
the financial requirements:
1. Annual quota for shipbuilding and armaments,
M. 100,000,000 ; total requirements for sixteen years,
M. 1,600,000,000, of which M. 603,000,000 are to be covered
by annual loans, M. 997,000,000 from ordinary revenue.
Recourse to borrowed money to obtain additional ships is in
accordance with the principles which have obtained hitherto.
The loan amounts of the separate years have been adjusted in
such a way that they gradually and evenly decline, and in the year
1920, after the last ship has been completed, reach nil, so that
the normal renewal quota then falls upon the ordinary revenue.
2. Average quota for other non - recurring expenditure,
M. 15,000,000; that is to say, in the first ten years
M. 18,000,000, in the next ten years a gradual fall to
M. 9,000,000 ; altogether for sixteen years M. 261,000,000.
Of this sum M. 166,000,000 are, in accordance with the prin¬
ciples of the past, to be covered by loans, M. 95,000,000 from
ordinary revenue. Here, too, the distribution of the loans
over the separate years has been adjusted in such a way that
the amounts of the loans gradually decline; while, on the
other hand, the sums to be contributed by ordinary revenue
correspondingly increase. In the year 1920 the loan amount
is nil; the amount estimated to be covered out of ordinary
revenue M. 9,000,000, which is the quota that is regarded as
necessary for the maintenance of what would then be existing.
3. Average annual rise of recurring expenditure, M. 5,400,000,
namely: In the first ten years, M. 6,000,000; in the last ten
years, M. 4,800,000.
4. Increase of the pension fund to threefold its present
dimensions.
* Not reprinted here.
THE MEMORANDUM OF 1900 357
5. The interest on past loans and those to be issued up
to 1920 have been taken into consideration.
As is apparent from the calculation of the financial require¬
ments, the total cost for the sixteen years will be :
1. Loans to the amount of M. 769,000,000.
2. An average annual rise of M. 11,000,000 in the naval
expenditure covered out of ordinary revenue (inclusive of
pensions and interest on debt).
The total annual outlay for the Navy (inclusive of pensions
and interest on debt) would increase from M. 169,000,000 in
the year 1900 to M. 323,000,000 in the year 1916, or, on an
average, by M. 9,600,000 annually.*
This estimate of the financial requirements is intended to,
and can, give only a survey of the total cost. The expenditure
to be included in the annual Budgets, as well as its distribution
between loans and ordinary revenue, are to remain subject to
the annual determination of the legislative factors. If the
method of the estimate of the financial requirements is taken
as a basis, the amount computed in the table would in the
individual years be allotted to the ordinary revenue, the
balance in each case to loans.
Raising of the Means.—The past development of the
Imperial finances justifies the expectation that an annual
increase of the claims on the ordinary revenue for naval pur¬
poses to the amount calculated above can be covered without
fresh taxation.
Should this temporarily prove impossible to the necessary
extent, it would only remain, if new sources of income cannot
be opened out, to raise the amount of the loan in such years.
III. STATUTORY DETERMINATION OF THE
INCREASE.
Necessity of the Statutory Determination of the
Strength and Organization of the Navy is already
admitted.—By the passing of the Navy Law, the necessity
of placing the strength of the Navy and its organization on a
* That the average increase of the total expenditure—M. 9,600,000
—is smaller than the average increase of that portion of the naval
outlay which falls on the ordinary revenue of the Empire—
M. 11,100,000—is due to the annual diminution of the amount,
contained in the former sum, which falls on the loans.
358
APPENDIX II
statutory basis was admitted. From this follows, of itself,
that an increase of the Navy likewise requires statutory regu¬
lation. Though in this situation a further justification of the
necessity of statutory determination is not necessary, the
grounds on which the Federated Governments consider the
statutory form indispensable shall nevertheless be once more
explained in what follows.
Only if the Entire Increase is Carried Out will its
Purpose be attained.—The Federated Governments are
of the opinion, that an increase of the Navy can only fulfil
the intended purpose, the securing of peace even against the
most powerful naval opponent, if it is carried through in the
proportions contemplated for it. Fractions of a squadron do
not constitute a formation, and have, in a military sense, only
the significance of a strengthened material reserve. Just as
little would a limitation to three squadrons suffice, because
thereby the aim of the increase would not be attained.
Therefore before a Commencement is made with its
Execution the Entire Plan must be adopted. — It is,
therefore, necessary, that before the execution of the plan is
entered upon, the legislative factors should agree as to whether
the entire plan is right and should be carried out. A decision
on this question must be brought about, and it must be one of
permanent validity. This can be only done by a law.
Further Reasons for the Statutory Determination.
—Apart from this consideration the statutory determination
of the increase is also necessary on the following grounds:
i. Uncertainty as to whether the Entire Plan is to be Carried
Through impedes its Execution.
i. Only the statutory determination of the increase testifies
the firm will to create the fleet. Unless this firm will is
brought to indubitable expression, considerable difficulties,
both of a personal and material nature, will oppose themselves
to the execution of the great plan.
Only if a sure guarantee is given for the execution of the
plan can the permanent participation of a large number of
efficient undertakings in the building of the fleet be counted
upon, as only then will the necessary capital be laid out on
expensive works for the construction of warships. But healthy
competition will only be rendered possible if the Navy is not
THE MEMORANDUM OF 1900 359
restricted to a very few big undertakings. Only if a further
development of the Navy is legally placed beyond question
will there be adequate entries of naval cadets, ships' boys, and
volunteers, that is to say of such persons as chose the naval
service as their life profession.
Only under a statutory determination of the aim can the
internal development of the Navy, and particularly the exten¬
sion of the shipyard and harbour works, be properly adjusted
from the outset to later requirements.
2. Importance of the Statutory Determination for the Prestige of the
German Name Abroad.
2. The united decision of Federal Council and Reichstag to
double the war fleet, as marked by a statutory determination
of the increase, will be of the greatest importance for the
prestige of the German name abroad, and so for the entire
political and economic development of the German Empire.
Objections to a Statutory Determination.—Against
a statutory determination of the increase it has been objected,
that the time necessary for the execution of so great a plan is
so long, that it is impossible to foresee whether, within this time,
the technical, political, and financial conditions for such a
statutory determination might not undergo a fundamental
change.
The Federated Governments do not regard such radical
alterations as probable. Should they, contrary to expectations,
occur, the two legislative factors are at any time in a posi¬
tion to alter the Navy Law and the contemplated Amending
Act.
That the Federated Governments will ever oppose a change
of the Navy Law which becomes necessary in consequence of
changes in the technical and military conditions of warfare no
one can believe.
It is further objected that precisely the Navy Law has
furnished proof that the strength which a fleet shall attain,
that is to say, the goal of its development, is not adapted
to statutory determination, and that, accordingly, the same
mistake should not be committed again.
This objection can only be explained by an inaccurate view
of the Navy Law. This consists of two parts—of one part of
permanent validity, which in earlier Reichstag proceedings was
360
APPENDIX II
described as "Aeternat," and of another part of only temporary
significance, which received the name " Sexennat."
The first part is the essential one. It regulates the strength
and organization of the fleet, the replacement construction, the
maintenance in commission, and the personal establishment.
In this essential part, the " Aeternat," the strength, and, as a
necessary consequence, the provisions with regard to mainten¬
ance in commission, are to be extended. The remaining
provisions of the Navy Law are not touched.
The second part of the Navy Law, the so-called "Sexen¬
nat," had merely the object of legislatively laying down a term
for the attainment of the statutory ship establishment, and not
for the carrying out of the replacement construction, for the
building of replacement ships continues further in unbroken
series beyond the Sexennat.
In the Reichstag proceedings with regard to the Navy Law,
the statutory determination of a period within which the ship
establishment was to be attained encountered by far the most
difficulties, in consequence of misgivings in respect of Budget
rights. The consequence of this was, that the essential feature
of the Navy Law stepped into the background, and the statutory
determination of a period for the attainment of the fixed
establishment—that is to say, that part which after the passing
of the Budget of 1900 was assured and therefore objectless,
gave the Law among the public its character and the name of
Sexennat.
Demand of the Federated Government for the Bill.—
In consequence of the difficulties then encountered, and in
recognition of the fact that it is somewhat questionable to lay
down by statute a term for the completion of a plan for the
carrying out of which so long a period is necessary, the Feder-
rated Governments have considered that they should refrain
therefrom, and have restricted themselves merely to the statu¬
tory determination of the goal. They are here guided by the
confident expectation that the Reichstag, when it has accepted
the goal of the development, will do its utmost, in the measure
of the financial resources of the Empire, to bring this object to
completion.
APPENDIX III
GERMANY'S SHIPBUILDING RESOURCES
The growth of the war-shipbuilding industry in Germany has
kept pace with every movement towards a higher standard
of naval power. The remarkable character of this expansion
of the country's resources was revealed by Count von Reventlow
in an article which he contributed to the Marine Number of
Cassier's Magazine published in December, 1911 ; and from the
data- which he then presented some conception can be formed
of the phenomenal progress which has been made since. In
1890 German public opinion congratulated itself on the
determination of their Government to rely no longer even on
ships' plates manufactured in England, but to insist on German
ships being built in the Fatherland of German materials.
The resources of the three Imperial yards, which have been
greatly extended from time to time, are in keeping with the
development which the navy has undergone in recent years.
The Imperial yard at Kiel has two large slips and a small
one for torpedo-boats, six floating docks, and six dry docks.
The yard at Wilhelmshaven has two large slipways, five
floating docks, with four small ones for torpedo-boats, and
seven dry docks. At Dantzig there is a comparatively small
slipway, three horizontal slips, a docking-basin, and two floating
docks. This yard is gradually being devoted to submarines.
The Imperial yards are generally confined to repairs, yet they
are designed on the principle that they shall possess a sufficient
power of output so as to prevent private yards from being in a
position to fix the prices at which war vessels should be built,
and they have shown themselves equal to the occasion, and are
by no means behind private establishments.
Count von Reventlow's descriptions of private establishments
is the fullest and most authoritative which is available, and
361
362 APPENDIX III
bears testimony to Germany's present capacity to build and
equip the largest and most powerful men-of-war.
The Vulcan Company of Stettin.
The Vulcan was developed out of the shipyard which was
founded in 1851 by Fruchtenich and Brock, in Bredow. This
development took place in 1857. In the mercantile marine the
Vulcan became the typical shipbuilding establishment for fast
ships after the North German Lloyd, following the example of
the Hamburg-America Line, had its ships built in German yards.
The fact, also, that the North German Lloyd was bound to
have its postal ships built in German yards was of great benefit
to the Vulcan. On the other hand, the Vulcan was the first
private shipbuilding yard to be in a position to build armoured
vessels and to show that far-sighted policy—we had almost said
boldness—of adapting itself to great undertakings. In 1868 the
German naval authorities made the experiment of building an
armoured corvette, the Hansa, in the State yard at Dantzig.
The Vulcan Company received an order to build a sister-ship;
the order hung back, however, for some considerable time, and
it was only in 1873 that the Preussen was laid down at the
Vulcan yard. The • efficiency in the case of the Vulcan
Company is all the more commendable, inasmuch as the
Admiralty had warned the directors not to lay down an
expensive plant for building armoured ships, as it was not
certain that orders would be given. With the year 1873 came
the oft-mentioned order of General Stosch that all warships
belonging to Germany, and, as far as possible, all materials,
should be constructed in Germany. This undoubtedly acted as
a great stimulus to the Vulcan. The production of its yards
may be seen from the following statistics: Since 1871 they
have built 110 warships, among which a large number for the
Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Greek Navies, respectively.
Apart from torpedo-boats, the Vulcan has received more orders
for vessels of war than any other yard, and has, dating from
1900, built a large number of torpedo-boats for the German
Navy. The Vulcan has built over 159 screw-steamers, among
them over a dozen mail steamers and about forty Atlantic
freight and passenger ships. To these may be added fifty
paddle-steamers and seven ice-breakers.
GERMANY'S SHIPBUILDING RESOURCES 363
The area of the Vulcan yard is 283,400 square metres, of
which 91,915 are covered with workshops. There are seven
slips, of which two are over 200 metres, three between 150 and
200 metres, and two of 100 to 150 metres. There are two
floating docks, one of 100 to 150 metres, and another under
100 metres. The Vulcan is in a position to build large
warships and vessels for the mercantile marine, yet for years
there has been an ever-increasing necessity to establish yards
on the North Sea. On the one hand, now, was the question of
locality, and on the other the draught of water in the Oder.
The establishment at Bredow is of the most practical and
modern. Round the slips lie the workshops and magazines;
light railways facilitate transport between one part and another
of the works. They have their own forges and armour-plate
plant—in fact, everything associated with an up-to-date ship¬
yard. There are also engine and boiler works, and it may be
mentioned that there are, [in addition, locomotive and turbine
building works.
The establishment on the Elbe dates from 1906. In that
year a beginning was made with the construction of a yard on
the island of Ross, within the boundary of the Hamburg Free
Harbour. The yard has an area of 226,850 square metres, with
a water front of 1,100 metres. The yard abuts on the Kaiser
Wilhelm Harbour, and is connected with the State Railway.
Up to the present there are two slips over 200 metres long and
two large floating docks, while a third, of over 150 metres long
with a lifting capacity of 25,000 tons, is in process of con¬
struction. By dredging in front of the slips, the depth of water
has been so much increased that the largest ships may be
launched and armed. Every mechanical device is at hand. The
Vulcan will now be able to compete under far more favourable
conditions with other shipbuilders, and it may be anticipated
that the yards will pay, notwithstanding the enormous initial
outlay. The capital of the Vulcan amounts to M. 15,000,000,
and the last dividend was 11 per cent. The members of the
staff and workmen were 12,000 in all. From the point of view
of the Navy, it is of the utmost importance to possess so
efficient a shipyard on the Elbe. In any war in the North Sea
the Vulcan yards, and those of Blohm and Voss, would be
immensely valuable for docking and repairing disabled vessels.
That the company themselves consider this North Sea branch
364
APPENDIX III
the most important, is shown by the fact that they have
transferred their central bureau to Hamburg since October 1
of this year. Nevertheless, the yards at Bredow will retain
much of their present importance, for the demands of ship¬
building are great and will continue to increase. The Vulcan
is regarded in Germany, and with justice, as having grown up
with the development of German shipping and the German
naval power, as sharing in all their experiences, and as having
always risen to the height of its demands.
The Shipyard F. Schichau, of Elbing and Dantzig.
This is the unique and largest shipbuilding yard in Germany
which is not a limited company, but remains in private hands.
The Schichau works were founded in 1837 by Ferdinand
Schichau at Elbing, and are now owned by his son-in-law,
Geheimrath Zeiss. Ferdinand Schichau was a man whose
abilities may not unjustly be compared with those of Alfred
Krupp, founder of the works of that name. He started the
works at Elbing for engine building in 1837, and ten years
later obtained the first order for a marine engine. Hence¬
forward the works developed more and more in the direction
of shipbuilding, and began with building dredges, which are
to-day one of the specialities of the firm. In the early fifties
the Prussian Government approached the Schichau works as
to building the engines and boilers for the corvette Dantzig.
I mention this otherwise unimportant fact to show the intimate
connection which has existed between the firm of Schichau
and the Prussian, later the German, Government—relations
which have proved of the greatest importance, both in matters
of shipbuilding and torpedo-boat construction. Later, the firm
confined itself to its original engine building, until, in 1855,
iron ship Borussia was built in their newly-established shipyard.
Shipbuilding now developed apace, and in the early seventies
a second ship was constructed in partnership with the engineer
Zeiss, the present owner. The Schichau engines proved them¬
selves as superior as the materials used in the construction of
the torpedo-boats. In the seventies the Prussian Government
gave an order for a spar-torpedo. The brilliant result of this
boat and its successes laid the foundation of the firm's fame in
this branch of their productions. In the eighties the German
GERMANY'S SHIPBUILDING RESOURCES 365
Government turned to the torpedo, and Captain Tirpitz—as
he was then—developed the type of boat and the general
organization. The superiority of the Schichau-built boats lay
chiefly in their light displacement, speed, large radius of opera¬
tions, and seaworthiness, even in rough weather, large coal
capacity and comfort. In open competition, in 1884, Schichau
obtained the preference, and ever since, up to the beginning of
the present century, has built almost all the German torpedo-
boats. The reputation of these torpedo-boats brought them
numerous orders from abroad. Great attention was drawn to
them when a torpedo-boat of 140 tons, ordered by China,
reached Foochow in sixty days, going under its own steam,
without parent ship. As is well known, other builders besides
"Vulcan" and "Weser" have entered into competition with
Schichau in the domain of torpedo-boats, but the distinction
of being the inventor of the German torpedo-boat belongs to
Schichau. That is proved by the fact that our torpedo-boats
of the present day preserve the type of the original Schichau
boat.
At the end of the eighties the firm of Schichau acquired
a yard at Dantzig, as they intended to devote themselves also
to the construction of large vessels, and from 1890 onwards
cruisers and battleships have been built for the German Navy,
as also for other foreign navies. In addition, it must be noted
that several large liners have been built for the North German
Lloyd.
The works have grown with every demand made upon them,
and would be more than equal to any extraordinary efforts
which might be required of them in the matter of rapid ship¬
building by the German naval authorities. The ground covered
by their yards at Elbing, Dantzig, and Pillau amounts to
more than 87 hectares. The staff and workmen generally
number 8,000.
The yard at Elbing has nineteen slips for torpedo-boats and
two docks; that at Dantzig seven slips, of which four are
adapted for ships of the largest tonnage. The slips are sup¬
plied with the most up-to-date appliances, such as electric
cranes, etc. The present owner, like his predecessor, the
founder, belongs to that band of great organizers of labour and
distinguished experts.
366
APPENDIX III
Blohm and Voss Shipyard.
In 1877 the shipbuilding yard and engine works of Blohm
and Voss were founded on the Island of Steinwerder in the
Elbe, and were at first small and of little importance. The
position of the enterprise to-day is most important. In 1911
the yards employed 7,500 men. The works cover 460,000
square metres, of which 300,000 have been built upon, and the
water-front is 2,570 metres long. There are ten slips, of which
four are over 200 metres long, five between 150 and 200 metres,
and a small one of less than 150 metres. There are floating
docks, the largest of which has a lifting capacity of 35,000 tons,
and there are others of capacities of 17,500, 17,000, 4,700, and
3,000 tons. Two of these—the largest and the third—can be
transported, and in case of war would be of great service to
the fleet in the Elbe. In 1881 Blohm and Voss were turned
into a limited liability company, with a capital of M. 6,000,000,
and loan on mortgages of M. 8,000,000. A dividend of 6 per
cent, was paid in 1910.
The yards are used for the construction of all kinds of ships,
but a speciality is made of floating docks. In addition to ship¬
building, there are large works for the construction of steam-
engines and turbines. There are two boiler-making establish¬
ments for cylindrical and water-tube boilers. Lately a foundry
for bronze and steel has been added. In short, there is every
modern requirement, both as regards machinery and equip¬
ment generally.
Shipbuilding of any importance for the German Navy dates
back only a comparatively short time. This began in the
eighties with the small cruiser Kondov, followed in the nineties
by the battleship Kaiser Karl der Grosse, of about 11,000 tons,
and from that date an uninterrupted series of armoured cruisers.
Beginning with the cruiser Freidrich Karl, launched in 1902,
there followed the York, Scharnhorst, Von der Tann, Moltke,
Goben, and the cruiser "/"of the 1910 programme, not yet
launched. The building of armoured cruisers has been
specialized by Blohm and Voss, and the cruisers Von der
Tann and Moltke have given them a reputation throughout the
world. This was also the first German shipyard to make
arrangements on a large scale for the construction of turbines,
the cruiser Von der Tann having been the first large cruiser
GERMANY'S SHIPBUILDING RESOURCES 367
fitted with the turbine. Several years earlier the firm had
received the second prize for the best plan of an armoured
cruiser, and shortly afterwards the prize offered by the Russian
Government for a new type of battleship. The works have
in the last decade advanced enormously in the matter of
battleship building, and can compete in this branch with any
firm in the world. In war the position of the yard on the
Elbe would be of great advantage as a repairing and refitting
basis to Germany.
Messrs. Blohm and Voss have built a large number of
steamers of all kinds for the mercantile marine, notably for
the Hamburg - America and North German Lloyd Lines.
Besides this they have built vessels for the Hamburg South
American Line, for the Woermann, the German East African,
and the Kosmos Lines. A considerable amount of the firm's
activity is devoted to repairing vessels, as their position in
Hamburg Harbour and their possessing manifold modern
appliances stand them in great service. The number of work¬
men varies between 5,500 and 8,000. The yards of Blohm
and Voss grow yearly in importance.
The Howaldt Works.
These works were started and opened as a shipyard in 1876
by their founder, Howaldt, and have only recently been turned
into a limited liability company, up to which time they were
the private property of the Howaldt family. The yards are in
Kiel Harbour. In 1876 there were only 450 square metres
covered with buildings, and a total ground area of 20,000 square
metres. To-day there are 35,515 square metres covered with
workshops, and the total area amounts to 735,695 square
metres. The yards can, therefore, be very much enlarged.
In these yards there is evidence—more, perhaps, than in any
other—of the extraordinary growth of German shipbuilding.
The old yard remains, but new and enlarged shipyards have
been constructed. The original shipyard is principally utilized
for the lighter and least important work, but the work is cen¬
tralized. The Howaldt works have a water-front of fully two
kilometres, one of which is arranged as a quay. This company
has a capital of M. 7,750,000. They have had difficulties of
recent years, and no dividend has been paid, but there is every
368
APPENDIX III
ground for believing that this period of adversity is over. The
shipyard has six slips, one of over 200 metres in length, two
over 150, two over 100, and four less than 100 metres long.
There is also a floating dock. The number of employees
amounts to 3,500. A turbine manufactory is in process of
construction.
Since 1876 Howaldts have built numerous ships of all sorts
and sizes, more especially for abroad, among others, the Russian
school ship Okean. Floating docks, floating cranes, and dredgers,
form also part of their output. Modern naval construction by
this firm is comparatively recent. Their first modern cruiser,
the Undine, was begun there in 1901. There soon followed a
battleship of 20,000 tons—namely, the Helgoland. It may be
expected that the Howaldt yards will soon be in a position
equal to that of any other German yards for building large
men-of-war.
The Weser Limited Liability Company was founded in
1872, having been originally C. Waltjen and Co., established
in 1843. The business was, from the beginning, remunerative,
and the firm got many orders for mercantile ships, and also
ships of war, though these were of comparatively small size.
As ships grew larger with time the yards proved too small,
and an extension on its original situation was impossible. In
consequence, the whole establishment was transferred to
Gropelingen, a suburb of Bremen, and the new works were
gradually completed between 1901 and 1905. The shipyard
as it now it, is entirely new and entirely up-to-date, having no
old equipments. This is, naturally, a very favourable position
to be in, but to accomplish this entailed a very heavy outlay.
On the completion of these works the company became one of
the important shipbuilding companies of Germany. They employ
about 5,000 officials and workmen. There are five slipways,
one over 200 metres long, another over 150 metres, one over
100 metres, and another less than 100 metres long. There is a
floating dock of 100 to 150 metres long. The construction of
two further slips has been begun. The dockyard harbour is
1,200 metres long, and the largest ships can easily be launched.
The works cover an area of 600,000 square metres, and there
is a waterfront of 1,200 metres long. Capital, M. 7,500,000.
No dividend last year.
Mercantile ships were chiefly built for the North German
GERMANY'S SHIPBUILDING RESOURCES 369
Lloyd. The latest were the Goven and the Liitzow, and the
transatlantic steamer Berlin, of 28,000 tons, the largest vessel
built, up to that time, on the banks of the Weser. The
company also built the first longitudinal-ribbed vessel in
Germany. It will also be of particular interest to learn that
the Hamburg-America Line has ordered this year a 6,500-ton
cargo steamer, to be driven by oil-motors. The vessel will be
350 feet long, 50 feet beam, with a depth of 22 feet 6 inches.
There will be two motors on the "Junkers" system, each
capable of developing 800 effective horse-power. The speed is
10 knots. The auxiliary engines will be driven at sea by com¬
pressed air and electricity, and in harbour by steam.
The yard supplied the Navy with a considerable number of
vessels, such as gunboats and small cruisers; but when the
new yards were established at Gropelingen it was possible to
take orders for battleships and armoured cruisers. In 1907 the
order for the battleship Westphalen, of the Nassau class, of
about 18,000 tons, was placed here, although no battleships
had previously been built, but only cruisers and gunboats.
The vessel was delivered in prompt time, and successfully
underwent all the trials. This yard has, in a very short time,
showed itself capable and efficient for building the largest class
of vessel. They have introduced, also, a turbine on a system
of their own, and known as the " Weser-Bergmann."
The Krupp Germania Yard at Kiel.
The Germania yard has a curious history, inasmuch as it
had its beginning, not on the sea-coast, but inland. It derives
its origin from a small foundry and workshop, which was
founded by F. A. Egells, in 1822, in the neighbourhood of
Berlin, and employed only ten men. The works were gradually
enlarged, and frequently received orders for marine engines
and boilers. In 1871 works were started at Tegel, near Berlin,
and became theMarkisch-Schleische Machinenbau- und Hutten-
Aktiengesellschaft. The great industrial progress in Germany
brought many orders for ships' engines and boilers. These
became the specialities of the firm, and it was a natural conse¬
quence that they should turn to shipbuilding. In 1879 the
company bought the Norddeutscher yard at Kiel, and in 1881
the two branches were united under the name of the SchifF- und
24
370
APPENDIX III
Maschinenbau-Aktiengesellschaft Germania. Under this desig¬
nation the yard has produced much good work, and built a
number of mercantile and naval vessels for home and abroad.
As of interest in naval history, it ought to be mentioned that
the cruiser Kaiserin Augusta was built in the Germania yard,
the first German warship to be fitted with triple screws and to
reach the then exceptional speed of twenty-two knots. The
Fiivst Bismarck, the first German armoured cruiser, launched
in 1897, was built by the Germania. In 1896 Friedrich Krupp,
of Essen, took over the yard on a twenty-five years' lease. By
the terms of the contract the firm of Krupp stipulated that they
might make any alterations in the situation they might deem
necessary. They also reserved the right to acquire the yard
for themselves. The moment for this occurred in 1902. On
April 1 of that year this yard became the possession of Krupp,
under the name of Friedrich Krupp Aktiengesellschaft
Germania-werft. It then entered upon a new period of
development. Many millions were invested in the new plant,
and nothing was spared in making the establishment one of
the biggest and best-equipped in Germany. This has happened,
and the Germania is now equal to the greatest possible de¬
mands which may be made, either for the construction of
naval or mercantile ships. The area covered by the works is
235,000 square metres. There are four slips of between 150
and 200 metres, three of between 100 and 150 metres, and six
under 100 metres. The Germania does not possess a dock.
There are 4,000 workmen employed. The capital belongs to
the Krupp, Essen Company. The Germania stands alone in
Germany in so far that it produces its own guns and armour.
The purchase of the Germania yards would appear to have
been a favourite idea of the late Herr Krupp, and it is well to
draw attention to this, as its development is being pushed
forward by every possible means. The first German ship¬
building works to be covered in were constructed, and a
passing visit will show that no expense has been spared.
Battleships, cruisers, torpedo-boats, and, as a speciality, sub¬
marines, are built. For many years Germania has built
torpedoes for foreign Governments, and at the beginning of
the present century begun to build regularly for the German
torpedo flotilla, with excellent results. Experiments were also
made with submarines, and in 1902 the first submarine, the
GERMANY'S SHIPBUILDING RESOURCES 371
Forel, was delivered to Russia, to be succeeded by others. A
few years later the first submarine for the German Navy was
built, and proved in every respect a satisfactory type.
Mercantile vessels are also built, and a large number have
been supplied to the orders of the North German Lloyd and
Hamburg-American Lines, as well as large numbers of tug¬
boats, railway steamers, dredgers, and freight steamers.
The Germania has also taken up the turbine, and alone pro¬
duces the water-tube boilers on the system Schultz. Further¬
more, she builds oil-motors and all engines and boilers installed
in ships of her building.
The Krupp Germania has this difference as compared with
all the other German yards, that she has not gradually de¬
veloped, but has been made at one stroke, by means of the
Krupp millions, a great and modern yard. Her power of
production, as that of most of the German yards, is far superior
to the present demands likely to be made upon it.
APPENDIX IV.—AREA, SLIPS, REPAIRING-SLIP^
CHIEF GERMAN SHI;#
Y ards.
Vulcan Works, Hamburg1 ...
Vulcan Works, Stettin
F. Schichau, Elbing, Dantzig
Blohm and Voss, Hamburg...
Weser Company, Bremen2 ...
Germania Yard, Kiel-Gaarden
Howaldt Works, Kiel
Bremer Vulcan Works, Vege-
sack ...
Joh. C. Tecklenborg, Geeste-
miinde
Flensburger Shipbuilding
Company, Flensburg
Reiherstieg Shipyard, Ham¬
burg
Neptun Company, Rostock ...
G. Seebeck, Geestemiinde ...
Stettin-Oder Works, Stettin ...
J. Frerichs and Co., Eins-
warden
H. C. Stiilcken and Son,
Hamburg
Henry Koch, Liibeck
J. W. Klawitter, Dantzig
Heinr. Brandenburg, Ham¬
burg
Rickmers Reismiihlen Ship¬
building Company, Bremer-
haven
Jos. L. Meyer, Papenburg ...
Riiscke and Co., Stettin
Stocks and Kolbe, Welling-
dorf-Kiel
Stocks and Kolbe, Sonder-
burg Branch
J.H.N. Wichhorst, Hamburg
Shipyard and Machinery
Works Company, Hamburg
C. Cassens, Emden ...
Johannsen and Co., Dantzig...
C. Liihring, Hammelwarden
Gustav Fechter, Konigsberg
G. H. Thyen, Brake ...
Eider Shipbuilding Company,
Tonning8 ...
North Sea Works, Emden ...
Bremen State Docks ...
North German Lloyd
Totals
The three Imperial yards ...
Grand totals ...
Area in
Square
Metres.
Slips. w
Up to
LOO Metres
Long.
From
100 to
150 Metres
Long.
From
150 to
200 Metres
Long.
Over •■■■
200 Metre,«.
Long.
227,180
269,560
874,000
460,000
604,400
225,000
165,400
21
I
6
4
2
I
I
1
3
2
3
3
5
1
4
2
2
2
2
4 -
3 -
1
332,000
—
3
2
1
210,000
1
2
1
2
178,000
3
2
2
- .
68,300
107,000
I74>75°
118,000
1
5
8
2
2
2
28
- ;
161,390
1 *
3
B
- .
18,020
72,500
52,000
7
1
4
4
—
13,600
6
—
—
-
94,000
31,900
24,000
2?
3
5
2
—
- ;
16,000
—
—
—
-
60,000
16,500
6
2
—
—
8,900
10,000
13,5°°
6,200
12,000
15,000
4
4
2
5
3
2
—
—
-
60,000
280,000
—
4
—
14
—
107
34
27
18
j
7,850,000
186
5
—
191
372
'docks, and number of employees of the
^yards in 1912.
Dry Docks.
Up to
' 100 Metres
Long.
Over
100 Metres
Long.
I a
29
15
12
27
Floating Docks.
Up to
100 Metres
Long.
From
100 to
150 Metres
Long.
Over
150 Metres
Long.
-}
34
13 1
47
Number of
Officials
and
Workmen
Employed.
13,000
8,000
9,000
5,000
5,600
3,500
3,500
2,600
2,800
2,000
1,700
I.IOO
1,000
750
70O
750
600
500
500
450
4OO
3°0
50
300
340
150
I30
I20
I20
IXO
4OO
65,470
24,000
89,470
Remarks.
1 In addition to one
floating dock over
150 metres long and
of 25,000 tons lifting
capacity, and one
floating dock of
17,500 tons lifting
capacity under con¬
struction for Ham¬
burg.
2 The Germania yard
belongs to the
Krupp firm.
3 Building dock.
4 Transverse slip.
6 One slip projected.
6 Dock A, two sections,
altogether 86 metres
long; Dock B, one
section, 53-5 metres
long ; Dock C, two
sections, altogether
93 metres long; B
and C docks, com¬
bined in three sec¬
tions, have a length
of 146-5 metres.
7 Including one trans¬
verse slip.
8 This yard is not
working.
9 In Bremerhaven. An
additional dry dock
of 260 metres, be¬
longing to the Bre¬
men State, is also
under construction
at Bremerhaven.
10 Four dock pontoons
for torpedo craft.
One floating dock
contemplated.
373
APPENDIX V
BRITISH AND GERMAN SHIPBUILDING
PROGRAMMES
The following tables show the British and German ships laid
down between 1897 and I9I3> and the programmes of sub¬
sequent years—the British figures being based on the Admiralty
forecast, and the German on the latest German Fleet Law:
Great Britain.
Germany.
<D
*2.9*
oj ^5
CQ «
T3 .
<D CO
i- u.
3 0)
O
g 2
T3 .
<D £
O a)
(D &
0 2
CO
u
1
Q 0
CO
O .
a S
0
OB
H
i a;
"5.2*
CQ m
TJ .
<D </}
S- V-
<D
O
s s
<u
T3 •
2, S2
0
55 «
2 a
£
Q 2
(/)
1-1897-1898
g 1898-1899
S 1899-1900
g-g 1900-1901
rt'gl I90I-I902
•O a 1902-1903
8 1903-1904
S 1904-1905
I10CK-IQ06
Totals
'1905-1906
1906-1907
"§ 1907-1908
"g 1908-1909
&, 1909-1910
1910-1911
£0 1911-1912
0 1912-1913
•3 i9I3-i9I4
q 1915-19x6
1916-1917
,1917-1918
Totals authorized
(i9°5-i9I3) (Dread¬
nought period)
Grand totals, includ¬
ing additional ships
of German Fleet Law
4
7
2
2
3
2
5
2
4
8
2
6
6
2
4
3
3
X
1
1
2
61
41
6
X2
5
10
9
15
2
2
5
4
1
2
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
2
3
3
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
27
35
18
57
13
18
6
20
48
4
3
3
2
8
5
5
4
5
4
4
4
4
—
1
6
6
5
4
82
8
5
5
6
5
6
2
5
16
20
20
20
20
16
5
5
5
6
I23
I23
I23
6
5
6
5
2
3
4
4
4
4
2
3
2
2
3
2
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
39
38
I25
36
26
1
16
96
82 4
35
56
182
49
534
7
44
192
1 Included in these two figures are eight scouts—small cruisers—which were
laid down in 1902 and 1903.
2 The cruisers of 1912-13 were designated " light armoured cruisers."
3 These thirty-six craft are small destroyers, and were built as such.
4 These totals include battle cruisers.
5 No programme of British cruisers or torpedo craft announced.
The thirty-nine British battleships exclude the two Colonial vessels—Australia
and New Z.ealand—and the battleship given by the Federated Malay States, and
ordered early in 1913.
374
APPENDIX VI
GUN AND TORPEDO ARMAMENT OF THE BRITISH AND GERMAN
FLEETS, MARCH, 1913
BRITISH FLEET
13'5-in.
'
Torpedo Tubes.
12-in.
10-in.
9'2-in.
7*5-in.
6-in.
4'7-in.
4-in.
3-in,
Under
Water.
Above
Water.
Battleships*
Armoured cruisers ...
Protected cruisers
Coast-defence ships
66
284
8
52
68
2
28
70
428
318
352
62
316
236
590
222
3X4
223
83
86
9
64
Totals
66
284
8
122
98
1,098
62
552
1,126
392
73
GERMAN FLEET
Torpedo Tubes.
13'5-in.
12-in.
ll-in.
9'4-in.
8'2-in.
6-7-in.
5 *9-in.
4-in.
3'4-in.
Under
Water.
Above
Water.
Battleships*
Armoured cruisers
Protected cruisers
Coast-defence ships
—
68
106
40
6
9
44
10
140
330
82
30
328
438
x52
70
30
x95
36
78
9
2
2
3
Totals
—
68
106
55
54
140
442
328
690
318
7
* Battle-cruisers are included.
APPENDIX VII
NAVAL EXPENDITURE, ETC., OF GREAT
BRITAIN AND GERMANY IN EACH OF
THE YEARS 1901-02 TO 1913-14
GREAT BRITAIN
(Financial Year : April 1 to March 31)
Amount Voted
for New
Year.
Total Naval
Expen¬
diture.*
Construction,
including
Armament
(Expenditure
shown in
Italics).
Amount of
New Con¬
struction. f
Numbers of
Personnel.
o£
£
Tons.
117,116
1901-02
34,872,299
10,420,256
(10,341,780)
139,940
1902-03
35,227,837
10,436,520
89,465
121,870
(9,782,217)
125,948
I9°3"°4
40,001,865
11.473.030
(.12,398,133)
155,225
41,062,075
85,880
1904-05
13.508,176
130,490
1905-06
(.13,184,419)
1x6,570
37.159.235
11,291,002
127,667
1906-07
(.11,368,744)
83,260
34,599,541
10,859,500
(.10,486,397)
I27.43I
1907-08
127,228
32.735.767
9,227,000
H9,937
1908-09
(.8,849,589)
33.5n.719
8,660,202
77,202
127,909
36,059,652
{8,521,930)
1909-10
11,227,194
92,957
127,968
(.11,076,551)
130,817
1910-11
41,118,668
i4.957,43o
(.14,755,289)
176,582
1911-12
43.061.589
17,566,877
183,045
132,792
1912-13 (estimated)J
(.15,148,171)
45,616,540
17,271,317
(■16,323,926)
113,089
i37,5oo
1913-14 (estimated)
47,021,636
16,101,884
236,406
146,000 §
* The gross total of naval expenditure excludes the annuity in repayment of
loans under the Naval Works Acts, and includes (a) the expenditure out of loans
under those Acts, and (6) appropriations in aid.
f Tonnage, when completed, of vessels launched.
X Including Supplementary Estimate. § Maximum numbers.
376
NAVAL EXPENDITURE 377
GERMANY
(Financial Year : April to March)
Total Naval
Amount to
Amount Voted
for New
Amount
of New
Construc-
tion.f
Numbers
Year.
Expen¬
be met from
Construction,
of Per¬
diture.
Loans.*
including
sonnel.
Armament.
£
£
£
Tons.
1901-02 ...
9,53°,ooo
2,701,712
4>653,423
62,640
31,157
1902-03 ...
10,045,000
2,463,111
4,662,769
33,542
1903-04 ...
10,400,000
2,307,975
4,388,748
64,340
35,834
1904-05 ...
10,105,000
2,256,115
4,275,489
44,072
38,128
1905-06 ...
11,300,000
2,295,939
4,720,206
45,729
40,843
1906-07 ...
12,005,000
2,486,056
2,806,764
5,167,319
53,!8o
43,654
1907-08 ...
14,225,000
5>9io>959
33,985
46,936
1908-09 ...
16,490,000
4,214,048
7,795-499
104,971+
50,53!
1909-io ...
20,090,000
s,37i,i6i
10,177,062
83,184+
53,946
1910-ii ...
20,845,000
5,5i5>287
11,392,856
101,830+
57,373
1911-12:
22,031,788
22,609,540
5,328,274
11,710,859
122,630+
60,805
1912-13:
4,039,628
n,49i,i87§
—
66,783
1913-14
22,876,675
2,502,446
10,864,112^
73,176
* Interest on loans and annuities in repayment of loans do not appear in
Navy Estimates.
f Submarines not included,
t Estimates as voted.
§ Includes ^97,847 for airships and experiments with airships.
|| Estimates as proposed. Supplementary Estimate of ^146,771 for Aeronautics
not included.
IT Including ^144,325 for airships and aviation, but not the Supplementary
Estimate for Aeronautics.
APPENDIX VIII
EXTENT OF BRITISH AND GERMAN
EMPIRES
BRITISH EMPIRE
Area.
Population.
United Kingdom
India
Europe
Asia (except India)
Australia and Pacific Islands ...
Africa
America ...
121,393;
1,773,088
119
165,879
3,190,168
2,187,275
4,010,034
45,365,599
3I4,955,240
248,038
8,324,050
6,147,974
34,999,986
9,360,484
Totals
n.447,954
4I9,4OI,37I
GERMAN EMPIRE
Area.
Population.
Europe
Africa
Asia ...
Pacific
208,780
931,460
200
96,160
65,400,000
13,419,500
168,900
357,800
Totals
1,236,600
79,346,200
378
INDEX
Adalbert, Prince of Prussia: father
of the German Fleet, 74, 79; his
building programme, 82 et seq.
Adscriptus glebi abolished, 236
African Colonies. See East Africa
African Company, the, 58 ; head¬
quarters at Emden, 59
Agriculture, census of persons occu¬
pied in, 245
Amazon, navigation school ship, 81
America, United States of, and the
German Navy, 74; British in¬
fluence on Navy of, 100; and
the Dreadnought controversy,
132 et seq.; expenditure on army
and Navy, 250, 251
Anti-Semite Movement, 279
Arguin, Island of, transferred to
the Dutch, 64, 65
Augsburg-Nuremberg Engineering
Co., 311 ; oil-driven ships, 311
Australia, navy of, xii
Austria in fourteenth century, 18 ;
jealousy of Prussia, 71; and Italy,
90 ; amount of iron ore in, 229
Austro-Hungary, expenditure on
army and navy, 250
Baden and the Zollverein, 235
Baird, Admiral, and the review at
Spithead, 1889, 106
Balfour, A. J., his article in Nord
und Siid on Anglo-German prob¬
lem, viii, xiii
Ballin, Herr, architect of Hamburg-
America line, 222
Banking and credit, 240 et seq.
Bardewick, Martin, a Dantzig
privateer, 38
Barley, consumption of, 248
Barnet, Battle of, 39
Bavaria and the Zollverein, 235
Beach law, 26
Beaufort, Cardinal, 34
Becher, Johann, " Political Dis¬
course on the Causes of the Rise
and Decline of Towns and
Countries," 54, 55
Belgium, supplies of iron ore, 229
Beneke, Paul, the Dantzig priva¬
teer, 6, 38, 40
Bergen : destruction of the Royal
Court at, 23; law as to aliens,
30, 31
Berlin in 1600, 51 ; Admiralty
founded at, 59 ; birth-rate, 220 ;
metropolis of European vice, 223 ;
railway to, 238 ; banks, 241 ; de¬
scription of, 249; and Munich,
257 ; growth of Socialism, 268,
269 ; shipbuilding school at, 309
Bethmann-Hollweg, Dr. Von,
Chancellor, 276
Bishop's Gate and the Easterlings,
13, 14
Bismarck: his contemplated canal,
88; effect of his dismissal, 192 ;
and Admiral von Tirpitz, 197 ;
abandonment of free trade, 242;
and Roman Catholicism, 259
Black death, 15
Blohm and Voss : builders of war¬
ships, 313, 314 ; their dividends,
315 ; period of construction for
warships, 321 ; building slips,
323, 372 ; no foreign orders, 327 ;
history and details of, 366, 367,
372
Bosworth, Battle of, 41
Brandenburg: population of, in
1600, 51 ; navy established, 55 ;
war with Sweden, 55
Brandenburg, of the Majestic class,
116
Brandenburg, Heinr. Shipbuilding
Co., details of, 372
Bremen: a Hanse town, 3-5; de¬
feat of the Hanseatic fleet, 20, 21 ;
the Cologne federation, 23 ; the
Thirty Years' War, 50; the
Vienna Congress, 71 ; and the
Zollverein, 235 ; merchant ship¬
ping at, 297, 302, 303 ; State
docks, details of, 372
Bremer Vulcan works, details of.
372
380
INDEX
Bromme, Karl, the first German
Admiral, 75, 77, 1S3
Bruges, Wolsey's firm policy at, 43
Brunswick, growth of the Zoll-
verein, 235
Building, proportion of persons en¬
gaged in, 245
Building slips, number of, 323, 372
Bundesrat, mail-steamer, seizure of,
119
Calmar, Union of, 22
Cameroons : German population in,
288 ; imports and exports, 289 ;
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry,
and Germany, 182
Canada and the British Navy, xii
Canal: North Sea Baltic, 88; Co¬
logne to Emden, 301
Caprivi on South Africa as a colony,
293
Carolines, East and West, imports
and exports, 289
Carolus Secundus, Spanish warship,
capture of, 56
Carta Mercatoria, 29, 34
Cassens, C., shipbuilding firm, 372
Cassier's Magazine, Count Revent-
low's article in, 361
Catholicism, influence of, 258 et seq.
Centre party, the, 259, et seq. ;
principles of, 262, 263
Charles IV., 18
" Charters of Robbery," 24
Chemicals, 244; proportions of
persons employed, 245, 246
China, her navy due to British
influence, 100
Churchill, Winston, First Lord of
the Admiralty, on the German
Navy Act of 1912, 143 et seq.
Clothing, imports and exports, 246
Coal production, 230
Coin in 1600, 51
Cologne and the Steelyard, 14;
Confederation at, 22, 34 ; ban of
"Verhansung" against, 38, 41;
canal to Emden, from, 301
Colonial enterprise, failure of, 60
et seq.; extent of, 287 et seq.; cost
of, 292
Commerce, proportion of persons
employed in, 245
Conscription and naval conditions,
169
Conservative party, 261, 272 et seq.
Constance, conference at, 34
Copenhagen plundered and burnt
by Liibeck, 16, 21; retaken, 23
Cotton culture in East Africa Pro¬
tectorate and Togo, 291
Credit Mobilier, 241
Cuny, Jan, and the first German
colony, 62, 63
Customs Union, Treaty of 1833,
235
Dantzic: success of ships belonging
t0. 37- 38; and the Hanseatic
League, 41, 44, 308 ; trade carried
on foreign bottoms, 50; building
slip at, 323, 361 ; competition for
foreign orders, 325
Dantzig, a paddle corvette, 83, 84
Darmstadter Bank, 241
Delbriick, Professor Hans, on the
German nation, 257
Denmark: war with Liibeck, 16;
a powerful State, 18 ; humiliation
of, 19 et seq. ; closed against
English cloth, 39 ; treaty with
England, 42 ; and Henry VIII.,
44; war with Sweden, 55; her
fleet blockade coasts of Prussia,
72, 86 ; peace with Prussia, 79;
strength of her fleet in 1863, 86
Deutsche Bank, 241
Deutschland class of warships de¬
scribed, 124, 125
Deventer, conference at, 35
Die Flotte, Navy League paper, 210
Die Marine Rundschau, monthly
magazine, 203
Die Poste and the Empire party, 276
Disconto-Gesellschaft, 241
Douglas, Admiral Sir Archibald,
assists the formation of the
Japanese fleet, 100
Douglas, Erskine, the adventurer,
67, 68
Dreadnought class of warship, de¬
scription of, 128 et seq.
Dresden first railway, 238
Dresdener Bank, 241
Du Bois, Governor of Gross-Fried-
richsburg, 62
East Africa Line, gross register
tonnage, 300
East African Colony: German popu¬
lation, 288 ; imports and exports,
289 ; cotton culture in, 291
East Carolines, See Carolines
Easterlings, the, and Bishop's Gate,
13, 14; their abuse of power,
26; export of English cloth, 41,
44 ; Queen Elizabeth's expulsion
order, 45
INDEX
381
Economic basis of German naval
policy, 214 et seq.
Education of naval ideas in schools,
205 ; a "patriotic basis," 207
Edward I. issues the Carta Mer-
catoria to the Steelyard in 1303,
29
Edward III. and the Holy Roman
Empire, 18 ; pawns crown jewels
with Hanse citizens, 28
Edward IV. and the Steelyard privi¬
lege, 37 et seq. ; war with the
Hansa, and narrow escape of
capture, 38
Egells Works (Berlin): first marine
engine built by, 308 ; history of
the works, 369
Eider Shipbuilding Company, de¬
tails of, 372
Elbe River, use for shipping, 300,
301
Electrical industry, 244
Elizabeth, Queen, expels the Hanse
merchants from England, 44, 45
Elphinstone, Admiral, and the
Russian Navy, 100
Embden, a Prussian privateer under
Captain Wake, 69
Emden : headquarters of the " Vic¬
tualling Brothers," 25; African
Company transferred to, 59 ; pro¬
posed canal to, 301
Emigration: decrease of German,
216 ; influence of, 295
" Empire party," policy of, 275
Engineer officers, training of, 166,
167
Engineering newspaper, description
of the Dreadnought, 130-132
England: result of rivalry with
Germany, vii; and the Hundred
Years' War, 17; foundation of the
Hansa, 17 ; outrages on English
shipping, 25 ; the Hanseatic
League and English traders, 26
et seq.; and Prussia, 30 ; Hansa
envoys in London, 31 ; negoti¬
ations and conflict with the
Hanseatic League, 34 et seq. ;
success of English privateers, 35 ;
treaty with Denmark, 42; eman¬
cipation from the Hanseatic
League, 44, 45 ; war with Spain,
45 ; difficulty with Germany, 67 ;
and the war of 1864, 87; her
influence on the German Navy,
97 et seq.; review at Spithead in
1889, 104-107 ; disposition of her
fleet, 108 ; strength of fleets in
1900 compared, 118 ; influence of
South African War, 119 ; her
submarines, 126; English and
German policies compared, 126
et seq., 141 ; comparison of British
and German guns, 154, 156 ;
training of officers and men
compared, 157 et seq.; Emperor
William's naval policy, 177 et
seq.; contrast of English and
German populations, 214 etseq.;
British and German resources,
227 et seq.; English and German
wealth, 248, 249 ; expenditure on
armaments, 250, 251, 376, 377;
merchant fleet compared with
Germany, 305 ; British predomi¬
nance, 318, 319; British and Ger¬
man shipbuilding programmes,
374; gun and torpedo armaments
compared March, 1913, 375 ; ex¬
tent of British and German
Empires, 378
Engler, Professor, on coal deposits
in England and Germany, 228
'' Equal sharers,'' 24
Export trade in Germany, 244,
246 ; from colonies, 289
Faber, Captain, result of his indis¬
cretions, 204
Falkoping, Battle of, 24
Falster, island of, seizure of, 23
Falsterbo : headquarters of the
herring industry, 16; result of
Peace of Stralsund, 23 ; expul¬
sion of foreigners, 30
Fechter, Gustav, shipbuilding firm,
details of, 372
Fisher, Admiral Sir John, now Lord,
and the Dreadnought class, 128
Flensburger shipbuilding firm, de¬
tails of, 372
Food values and quantities of ex¬
ports, 246-248
France: and the Hundred Years'
War, 17; and the Island of
Arguin, 64, 65 ; effect of the war
on German Navy, 91 ; strength
of fleet in 1900, 118; supplies of
iron ore compared, 229; expendi¬
ture on armaments compared,
250, 251
Frankfort-on-Main : national as¬
sembly at, 71; incorporation with
Prussia, 90; and the Zollverein,
235
Frankfort-on-Oder, population of,
5i
382
INDEX
Frederick William : the Great
Elector, 49 et seq.; character of,
52 ; his dream of sea-power, 53 ;
the Brandenburg Navy estab¬
lished, 55 ; Admiralty at Berlin
founded, 59 ; Anglo-German diffi¬
culty, 67 ; rule as to neutral flag
and goods, 69
Free trade, Bismarck's abandon¬
ment of, 242
Fremantle, Admiral the Hon. Sir
Edmund, "The Navy as I have
Known It," 107
Frerichs and Co., J., shipbuilders,
details of, 372
Fiirchtenicht and Brock. See Vul¬
can Works
Fiirth, first German railway to,
238
German-American Petroleum Co. :
gross register tonnage of fleet,
300 ; oil-driven ships, 311
German-Australian Co., gross
register tonnage, 300
Germania yard (see Krupp) : an
underwater boat, 126; period for
construction of warship, 320 :
building slips, 323; description
and number of warships built by,
326, 327; history of, 369-371 ;
details of, 372
Germany: rivalry with England,
vii et seq.; the centenary of free¬
dom, viii ; maritime ascendancy
in the past, 1 et seq.; the Han-
seatic League, 2 et seq.; Napoleon
as the founder of the German
Empire, 3 ; wars with Denmark,
19 et seq., 86, 87; outrages on
English shipping, 25 ; Queen
Elizabeth's expulsion of the
Hanse merchants, 45 ; the Hansa
naval forces, 47 ; the first Hohen-
zollern fleet and colonies, 49 et
seq.; the Thirty Years' War, 50 et
seq.; the Elector's dreams of sea-
power, 53; the Brandenburg
Navy founded, 55 ; a naval de¬
feat, 57; "Admiralty" at Berlin
founded, 59 ; failure of colonial
enterprise, 60 et seq. ; Anglo-
German difficulty, 67; navy in
the nineteenth century, 71 et seq.,
115-118 ; division of, 71 ; a popu¬
lar naval movement, 73 ; auction
sale of warships, 77 ; " the father
of the German Navy," 79 ; her
naval policy, 80 et seq. ; develop¬
ment of Wilhelmshaven, 85;
naval programme of 1865, 89 ; of
1868, 90, 91 ; of 1872, 92 ;
effect of French war, 91 ; first
Royal Review, 93 ; accession of
William II., 94 ; acquisition of
her colonies, 95 ; British influence
on the German Navy, 97 et seq. ;
the Navy Acts, 108 et seq., 331 et
seq. ; advent and policy of
Admiral Von Tirpitz, 111 et seq.,
149, 194 et seq., 254 ; strength of
fleet in 1900, 118 ; influence of
South African War, 119; birth
of the high sea fleet, 123 ; in¬
creased provision of cruisers,
125 ; appearance of the Dread¬
nought, 128 et seq.; consternation
in, 139; first German Dread¬
noughts, 141 ; the Reichstag and
naval policy, 143, 256 et seq. ;
ships, officers, and men, 152 et
seq.; her English-built ships,
153 ; British and German guns
compared, 154 : training of
officers and men, 158 et seq.; con¬
scription and naval conditions,
169 ; work at high pressure, 173 ;
her naval aims, 174 ; the German
Emperor's policy, 177 et seq.; the
Emperor and England, 185 ;
socialism, 190 ; Press bureau,
201 et seq. ; a "patriotic basis"
for education, 205-207 ; the Navy
League, 206 et seq. ; economic
basis of German naval policy,
214 et seq.; contrast of popula¬
tions in 1871 and 1911, 214,
215 ; decreased emigration, 2x7 ;
number of foreigners resident in
(1871 to 1910), 219; decline of
birth-rate, 220 ; Jews, 222 ; effects
of prosperity, 223 ; sport, 224,
225 ; British and German re¬
sources, 226 et seq.; petroleum
and iron ore, 229, 230; coal, 230 ;
pig-iron and steel, 231 ; metallic
ores, 232; causes of retarded
development, 233 ; growth of the
Zollverein, 234 et seq.; serfdom
of the peasantry, 235 ; trade
guilds, 236 ; roads and transport,
236 et seq. ; unification of the
postal systems, 237 ; banking,
240 ; companies floated, 242 ;
export trade, 244 et seq.; employ¬
ment statistics, 245, 246; increase
in consumption of food, 247, 248 ;
wealth compared with England,
INDEX
383
249 ; expenditure on armaments,
250, 251 ; funded debts, 252, 253 ;
divisions of classes and creeds,
256 et seq.; influence of Catholi¬
cism, 258 et seq.; solidarity of the
Centre party, 262 et seq.; growth
of Socialism, 265 et seq.; Con¬
servative - Catholic domination,
273 ; policy of the " Empire
Party," 275, 276 ; strength of
Liberalism, 277 ; the Anti-Semite
movement, 279 ; England's best
customer, 283 ; her next struggle,
285 ; maritime interests and
colonies, 287 et seq. ; extent of the
Colonial trade, 289 ; growth of
shipping, 293, 294 ; influence of
emigration, 295 ; her merchant
fleet, 298-300; a proposed new
canal, 301 ; British and German
shipping compared, 305 ; pro¬
gress of machinery, 307 ; coming
of the oil-driven ship, 3x1 ; the
blue riband of the Atlantic, 313 ;
reduced shipbuilding profits, 315 ;
British predominance, 318, 319;
number of building slips, 323 ;
competition for foreign orders,
325-327 ; her shipbuilding re¬
sources, 361 et seq.; area, slips,
repairing docks, etc., of the chief
German shipyards, 372 ; British
and German shipbuilding pro¬
grammes, 374 ; gun and torpedo
armrments of British and Ger¬
man fleets, 375 ; naval expendi¬
ture of Great Britain and Ger¬
many, 1901-1914, 376, 377 ; extent
of British and German empires,
378
Gijsels, Admiral, and sea-power, 53
Gneisenau, Field - Marshal, and
Prince Adalbert, 80
Goltz, Field-Marshal Baron von
der, on German policy, 121 ; the
"Pathfinder" movement, 225
Gordon, Lord Duffus, and the Rus¬
sian Navy, 100
Gothland, island of, 19, 22
Grabow, shipbuilding school at,
309
Granville, Lord, and Queen Vic¬
toria, 87, 88
Great Britain. See England
Greece, supply of iron-ore in, 229
Greigs, the, and the Russian Navy,
100
Griefswald Agreement of 1361, 7 ;
an alliance, 17, 20
Grosser Kur/iirst, armoured frigate,
93
Gross Friedrichsburg, fort of, 49,
59, 60, 62 ; sale of, 63
Guilds for organization of trades,
an impediment, 236
Gun and torpedo armament of
British and German Fleets, 1913,
375
Hakon, King of Norway, betrothal,
and its result, 19, 20
Hamburg: an Imperial city, 3;
Hanseatic privileges, 5; an
alliance, 17, 20, 23 ; capture of
Emden, 25 ; successful negotia¬
tions in London, 34 ; success of
English privateers, 35 ; admit
merchant adventurers, 44, 45 ;
result of the Thirty Years' War, 50,
294; position in nineteenth cen¬
tury, 71 ; birth-rate, 220 ; and the
Zollverein, 235 ; merchant fleet,
297 et seq.
Hamburg-America Line: gross regis¬
ter tonnage, 300; oil-driven ships,
3ii
Hamburg-South America Company:
gross register tonnage, 300 ; oil-
driven ships, 311
Hanover, 90; and the Zollverein,
235
Hansa Company, gross register
tonnage, 300
Hansa, the. See Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League: IX., history of,
2 et seq.; origin, 5 ; Parliament, 7 ;
" the biggest capitalist of Europe,"
9 ; origin of the Steelyard in
London, 9 et seq. ; defeat of the
fleet, 21; Cologne Confederation,
22 ; troubles with England, 25-
27 ; sends envoys to London, 31;
internal troubles, 33 ; conflict and
settlement with England, 34-41 ;
Wolsey's firm policy against, 42,
43; emancipation of England from,
44; decline of power, 46, 47 ;
naval forces of, 47 ; Emperor
William's opinion of, 182
Hanse, meaning of term, 10
Hanse League, 2.78
Hanse Parliament, 7
Hardenberg and agrarian reform,
236
Hatzfeldt, Prince, 276
Heligoland, island of, taken over
by Germany, 95
Helsingborg, 21, 23
3 §4
INDEX
Henry IV. and Prussia, 30
Henry VI. confirms the Steelyard
privileges, 34 ; a crisis, 35
Henry VII. and the Hanseatic
League, 42
Henry VIII. and the Hanseatic
League, 43, 44
Herrings, towns built on trade of
catching, 15
Hesse and the Zollverein, 235
Hoeven, Captain van der, Com¬
mander of the Dutch Expedition,
63
Hohenlohe, Prince Ernest, 276
Hohenzollern : first fleet and
colonies, 49 et seq.; ascendancy
in Germany, 53
Holland: maritime supremacy of, 2;
independence of, 46
Hollman, Admiral von, Minister of
Marine, 109, 110, 194, 195, 200
Holstein, the Counts of, 20, 21, 23
Holy Roman Empire. See Roman
Empire
Horse-power, growth of, 247
Hoskins, Sir Anthony, and the
German Emperor, 102
Howaldt Yard : build oil - driven
ships, 311 ; period of construction
of warships, 321 ; building slips,
323,372; description of the works,
367. 372
Hungary, supply of iron ore in,
229
Imperial German Gazette, new estab¬
lishment for fleet, 120
Imperial yards at Kiel, 312; descrip¬
tion of, 372
Iron. See Mining
Iron ore: supply of, in various
countries, 229 ; production of, in
Germany and United Kingdom,
230
Italy : principal shipyard and gun
factory due to England, 100;
strength of fleet, 118; supply of
iron ore, 229 ; expenditure on
armaments, 250, 251
Jade Harbour a federal war harbour,
90
Japan : what her fleet owes to
England, 100 ; war with Russia,
127; expenditure on armaments,
250, 251
Jervis, Sir John, and the Battle of
St. Vincent, 156, 157
Jesuit law, 264, 265
Johann, Archduke, afterwards Im¬
perial administrator, 80
Johannsen and Co.'s shipbuilding
yard, description of, 372
Jutland, rising of the nobles of, 23
Keim, General, manager of the
Naval League, 212, 213
Kiauchow, a German colony, popu¬
lation in, 288, 289
Kiel, 20; Prussia's right to, 88;
naval school at, 162; Howaldt
Yard at, 311; Imperial yards at,
312 et seq., 361, 372
Klawitter's, J. W., shipyard, descrip¬
tion of, 372
Koch's, Henry, shipyard, descrip¬
tion of, 372
Kolberg, 20
Konigsberg, 50
Kosmos Company's shipyard, gross
register tonnage, 300
Krupp firm (see also Germania):
history of, 153, 208, 314; and
the Navy Bill of 1900, 321; a
monopoly, 321
Kurfiirst Friedrich Wilhelm, 116
Laaland, island of, seizure of, 23
Lamprecht, Professor, his German
history, 241
Lang, Admiral, and the Chinese
Navy, 100
Lang, Captain, a Swedish officer,
78
Leather, value and quantity of ex¬
ports, 246
Lehmann - Felskowski, Herr, on
money invested in German ship¬
building, 314
Lehwald, Field-Marshal, and the
Seven Years' War, 66
Leipzic, first railway to, 238
Levant line, gross register tonnage,
300
Liberalism, strength of, 261, 277
et seq.
Lichnowski, Prince, Imperial Am¬
bassador in London, 276
Liebert, General von, 276
Lissa cause of an Anglo-German
difficulty, 67-69
List, Friedrich, father of German
economics: on federating Den¬
mark and Holland, 205, 206; on
the importance of railways, 237
Loewes, the, celebrated for small
arms and machine tools, 222
Lorraine, ore-beds of, 243
INDEX
385
Liibeck : a Hanse town, 3,4; head¬
quarters of the League, 7 ; builds
up the Hanse fleet, 14, 47 ; an
Imperial city, 15 ; war with Den¬
mark, 16; alliance with Ham¬
burg, 17; Congress of Princes
held at, 18 ; Conference at Greifs-
wald, 20; internal troubles, 33;
privileges of the Steelyard con¬
firmed, 34 ; an acute crisis, 35,
36; and Henry VIII., 44; after
the Thirty Years' War, 50 ; the
Vienna Congress, 71 ; private
bank, 240
Liihring's, C., shipbuilding yard,
details of, 372
Machinery : proportion of persons
engaged in, 245 ; progress of,
307 et seq.
Magnus of Sweden, 18-20 ; deposed,
22
Mahan, Admiral, on the Dread¬
nought, 132, 135
Malay States, Federated, and the
British Empire, xiii
Malmo, 23
Margaret, Queen: autocratic ruler
of all Scandinavia, 24; appeals
to Liibeck for help, 39
Maritime interests, 287 et seq.
Marshall Islands, imports and ex¬
ports, 289
Meat, comparative consumption in
England and Germany, 248
Mecklenburg, Duke of, 22
Merchant shipping, 293 et seq. ;
tonnage and dividends of fleets,
300, 304 et seq.; liners and stamps,
3°3> 3X3; blue riband of the
Atlantic, 313 ; reduced shipbuild¬
ing profits, 314, 315
Merryfield, Captain, a privateers-
man, adventures of, 68
Metal-working, proportion of per¬
sons employed in, 245
Meyer's, Jos. L., shipbuilding yard,
details of, 372
Miaulis, Admiral, organizer in
Ministry of Marine, 75
Midshipmen, training of, 161 et seq.
Milch, Professor, on life of coal¬
fields, 228
Mingaye, Captain, on Prussia's
opportunity, 80
Mining and Iron: proportion of
persons engaged in, 245 ; increase
in horse-power used, 246 ; values
and quantities of exports, 246
Moen, island of, seizure of, 23
Moltke, Count, and the North Sea
Baltic canal, 88
Monarchists, the, and Socialists,
267 et seq.
Monte Penedo, an oil-driven ship, 311
More, Sir Thomas, his inscriptions
on the Steelyard lintels, 11
Munich, jealousy of Berlin, 257
Napoleon as the founder of the
German Empire, 3, 284 ; cause of
retarded development, 233
Nassau, 90; and the Zollverein,
235
Nassau class of warship, 139; com¬
pared with Superb class, 140
Nauticus, the annual naval publica¬
tion, 203; gives expenditure of
principal powers on armaments,
250, 251 ; details of shipbuilding
yards, 322, 372
Naval Album, 210
Naval Annual: appearance of the
Dreadnought, 129
Naval expenditure of Great Britain
and Germany, 1901 to 1914, 376,
377
Naval legislation:
Navy Act, 1889, 148
,, 1898, 113, 148 ; text
of, 328-331
,, 1900, 120, 149; text
°f. 331 -335; memo¬
randum of, 346-360
,, 1906, text of, 335
,, 1908, 141 ; text of,
336
,, 1912, 149 ; text of
337-345
Naval training of officers and men,
158 et seq.
Navy. See Germany
Navy League, campaign of the, x,
207 et seq.
Neptun Co. shipyards, details of,
372
New Guinea, German colony, im¬
ports and exports, 289
New Zealand and naval defence,
xii
Nineteenth Century, " The Kaiser's
Dreams of Sea-Power," 107 n.
Nord und Sild, Balfour's article on
Anglo-German problem, viii, xiii
Norddeutscher Lloyd, gross register
tonnage of, 300
North German Lloyd, dry docks,
372
386
INDEX
North Sea works, details of, 372
Norway and the Hanseatic League,
23 ; supply of ore in, 229
Novgorod, republic of, 46
Nuremburg, railway to Fiirth, 238
Nymegen, Peace of, 64
Oats, increase in the per capita con¬
sumption of, 248
Oder River, importance of, 300
Officers, training of naval, 158 et seq.
Oil-driven ships. 311
Oldenburg and development of
Wilhelmshaven, 85
Palmerston : Viscount, his indiscreet
note, 76,183 ; and the war of 1864,
87
Paper, increase in use of horse¬
power for manufacture of, 246
Peasantry, serfdom of, 235
Philip II. and expulsion order from
Germany of Englishmen, 45
Poland, State of: defeats the Teu¬
tonic Order, 33 ; closed to British
cloth, 39 ; extension to the sea,
46
Pomerania, 52, 294
Postal systems, unification of, 237
Potatoes, increase in the per capita
consumption of, 248
Potsdam railway to Berlin, 238
Potteries, increased use of horse¬
power in manufacture, 246
Prince Ferdinand, a privateer, her
captures, 68
Privateering, 24, 38, 67-69
Protestantism, 258 et seq.
Prussia (see also Germany) : defeat
of the Hanseatic fleet, 21 ; and
England, 30 ; her fleet, 78, 79, 86,
88 ; and the Zollverein, 235
Railways, commencement of, 237,
242
Rathenau, Herr, organizer of the
Allgemeine Electrizitats-Gesell-
schaft, 222
Rauch, von, War Minister, and
transition of steam from sail, 80
Raule, Benjamin, Dutch merchant,
his eventful dealings with the
Elector, 55, 57, 58, 61
Reichstag and naval policy, 111-
113, 143; influence of Roman
Catholicism, 259
Reiherstieg shipyard, 313 ; details
of, 372
Religion, influence of, 258 et seq.
Reventlow, Count Ernst, on ship.
building resources, 320, 321, 361
Richard Coeur de Lion and the
Cologne merchants, 28
Richard of Cornwall, "German
King," 28
Richard II. and the Hanse privi¬
leges, 31
Rickmers Rersmiihlen Shipbuilding
Co., details of, 372
Roads, state of, 236, 237
Roman Catholics, their power in
Germany, 258 et seq.
Roman Empire, Holy, 3, 18
Roosevelt, President, and the
Dreadnought controversy, 132 et
seq.
Rostock alliances, 17, 20 ; and
piracy, 24
Riiscke and Co., shipyards, details
of, 372
Russia, state of, in 1370, 18; in¬
fluence of English officers on her
navy, 100 ; disposal of fleets in
1888, 109 ; strength of fleet in
1898, 118 ; expenditure on arma¬
ments, 250, 251
St. Germain, Treaty of, 55
Salzwedel, population of, 51
Samoa as a German colony, im¬
ports and exports, 289
Saxony and the Zollverein, 235
Scandinavia, 18 ; union of, 22,
23
Scania, 23, 31
Schaafhausenscher Bankverein
founded, 241
Schichau shipbuilding yard : con¬
structors of torpedo craft, 312,
313 ; a private concern, 314;
rate of construction of vessels,
320 ; number of ships, 323, 372 ;
execution of foreign orders, 325,
326 ; description and details of.
364, 372
Schlesien, battleship, 138
Schleswig, Duke of, 20
Schleswig-Holstein, battleship, 138
Schroder, Captain: commands
Prussian fleet against the Danes,
79 ; appointment to Navigation
School ship Amazon, 81
Schwarm, Wilhelm, aged 94, builder
of first German warship, 83
Scott, Rear-Admiral Percy, his new
methods of training naval marks¬
manship, 138
Seebeck shipyard, details of, 372
INDEX
387
Seehandlung, formerly Societe de
Commerce Maritime State bank,
69, 70
Selborne, Earl of, and the appear¬
ance of the Dreadnought, 128
Serfdom of peasantry, 235
Shipbuilding programmes, British
and German, 374
Shipyard and Machinery Works
Co., details of, 372
Shipyards, statistics of, 372
Sigismund, "King of the Romans,"
34
Sims, Commander, and the Dread¬
nought controversy, 132 et seq.;
tactical considerations, 135;
cause of increased displacement,
137
Skanor, town of, 16, 23, 30
Smaaland, 22
Socialists, the, 259; growth and
future of, 266 et seq.
Societe de Commerce Maritime.
See Seehandlung
Sombart, Professor: on economic
condition of the people, 234 ; on
the iron industry, 243
Sonderburg, naval school at, 162
South African War, influence on
Germany, 119
South Sea colonies : German
population in, 288 ; imports and
exports, 289
Spain : war with England, 45 ;
Carolus secundus captured, 56 ;
supply of ore in, 229
Spithead Review in 1889, 104, 105
Steel statistics, 230, 231 ; Thomas-
Gilchrist process, 243
Steelyard in London: origin and
history of, 9 et seq.; unfair com¬
petition, 29 ; privileges con¬
firmed, 34, 41 ; acute crisis, 35;
stormed,37; Wolsey'sfirm policy,
43 ; Queen Elizabeth's expulsion
order, 45
Steinmann-Bucher estimate of the
Empire's riches, 249, 250
Stendal after the Thirty Years' War,
5i
Stephenson's "Rocket," first steam-
engine, 237
" Sterling," meaning of, 2
Stettin, 20, 50, 66 ; shipbuilding
yards, 362, 372
Stettin-Oder Works, details of, 372
Stockholm, 24
Stocks and Kolbe shipbuilding yard,
details of, 372
Stortebeker, Claus, the freebooter
25
Stosch, General von, and the navy,
93. 94. 3ii
Stralsund, treaty of, 17, 23 ; seizure
of, 43
Stiilcken and Co. shipbuilding yard,
details of, 372
Submarines, fighting value of, 125
Sugar, increase per capita, in con¬
sumption of, 248
Superb class compared with Nassau
class, 140
Sweden : siege of Helsingborg, 21 ;
exhaustion of, 22, 23 ; war
against, 55; supply of ore in,
229
Switzerland, supply of ore in,
229
Taccroma, 60
Tannenberg, Battle of, 33
Taxation, increase of, 253
Tecklenborg, John C., shipbuilding
yard, details of, 372
Textiles, statistics, 245
Thomas-Gilchrist process of making
steel, 243
Three Points, Cape, settlement at,
60
Thuringian States and the Zoll-
verein, 235
Thyen, G. H., shipbuilding yard,
details of, 372
Tirpitz, Grand-Admiral von: the
creator of the modern German
Fleet, x, xi, 95, 96; his career,
110 et seq.; triumph over the
Reichstag, 112 ; reasons for aug¬
mentation of fleet, 113, 1x4; a
pledge and the sequel, 115 ; his
policy, 148-151, 284; a difficult
problem, 171 ; and William II.,
177 et seq.; a sailor and states¬
man, 195 ; reverse of naval policy,
196, 197; his characteristics, 199 ;
his Press bureau, 201 et seq.; and
the Boer War, 253, 254
Tobacco, increase in per capita con¬
sumption of, 248
Togo: German population, 288;
imports and exports, 289
Transportation, 236 et seq.
Treitschke on the European situa¬
tion in the later thirties, 206
Tryon, Sir George, and the Review
at Spithead, 106
Utrecht, Treaty of, 40, 42
338
INDEX
Valdemar IV., King of Denmark:
attack on Visby, 19, 20; defeats
the Hanseatic fleet, 21 ; humili¬
ation of Denmark, 23; death,
24
Victoria, Queen, and the war of
1864, 87
"Victualling Brothers," 24, 25
Vienna Congress, 71
Visby: history of, 19; captured
and pillaged, 20 ; a stronghold of
the "Victualling Brothers," 25
Vulcan Shipbuilding Works: the
first sea-going steamer, 308 ;
foreign orders for warships, 312,
325; 326 ; passenger liners, 3x3 ;
dividends paid from 1903-11, 315,
317 ; new yard at Hamburg, 322;
building ships, 323, 372; first-
class battleship ordered by Greek
Government, 325 ; history and
details of, 362-364, 372
Wake, Captain, a Prussian priva¬
teer, 69
Warwick, Earl of, attack on Hanse
vessels, 36, 37
Wasa, Gustav, on Scandinavia, 26
Wesenburg, battleship, 116
Weser Shipbuilding Yard: divi¬
dends from 1903-11, 3x5, 316;
period of construction for ships,
320 ; building ships, 323, 372;
history and details of, 368, 372
West Carolines. See Carolines
Westphalia, Peace of, 50
Wheat, annual consumption of,
247, 248
Wickhorst, J. H. N.. shipbuilding
yard, details of, 372
Wilhelmshaven : acquisition of, 84 ;
development of, 85; Imperial
yards at, 312 et seq., 361, 372
William I.: flight to England, 189 ;
lays foundation-stone of Kiel
Canal, 95 ; death, 95
William II., Emperor of Germany :
and England, viii, 185 ; not the
creator of naval expansion, 1 ;
accession, 95 ; his close acquaint¬
ance with the English Navy, 97
et seq.; an Admiral of the English
Fleet, 101; the review at Spithead
in 1889, 104, 105 ; compels the
subordinate to exercise his own
initiative, 159; and his Naval
Minister, 177, 194 et seq.; his
policy, 178 et seq., 187; "Our
future lies on the water," 183;
effects of personal rule, 188, 189 ;
and the Junkers, 191 ; and the
Reichstag, 192,193; world policy
and the school, 204 et seq.; a
"patriotic basis" for education,
207; and the Navy League, 208-
213
Wismar : one of the Hanse towns,
17; conference at Greifswald, 20;
issue of "charters of robbery,"
24 ; and Queen Elizabeth, 45
Wittelsbach class of warship, 124
Wittenborg, Johann, Burgomaster
of Lubeck, defeated by Valdemar,
21
Woerman Shipping line, gross
register and tonnage, 300
Wolsey, Cardinal, firm policy with
Hanseatic League, 43
Wood, values and quantities of ex¬
ports, 246
Worth class of warship, the, 115,
116, 124
Wurttemberg, a floating torpedo
school, 168
Wurttemberg and the Zollverein,
235
Wynen, Jan, defender of Arguin,
65
Ziese, Herr Karl, owner of the
Schichau shipyards, 325
Zollverein, the growth of, 234 et seq.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
Ekersund
Peierheajf
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Cables British .
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Wireless Stations JX
Flying Stations.. F
Docks to accommodate "Dreadnoughts D
. Torpedo Destroyers d
DISTANCES IN NAUTICAL MILES.
Rosyth to Wilhelmshaven - - - 445 m
Sheerness „ „ ... 270 „
Dover „ „ ... 330 „
„ „ Rosyth - - - - 473 „
Sheerness „ „ .... 458 „
Portsmouth „ „ .... 570
Kiel to Wilhelmshaven by Kiel Canal - 80 „
„ „ by Great Belt - 530 „
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