Chapter V: The German Navy Acts (2)

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" ... 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 marksmanship 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 Commander B.A. Fiske, U.S. Navy, as early as 1892. As soon as the above facts gained general acceptance 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 cannot 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 6·7-inch weapons--to the sacrifice 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 battleships of the familiar design with mixed armament had been begun--the _Schleswig Holstein_ in the Germania Yard and the _Schlesien_ at Dantzic. So completely were the German authorities unprepared for the revolution 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, consisting 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[14] with the Superb class of the British Navy, is given in the table on p. 129.

By energetic action the British Admiralty had obtained a lead in the new type of battleship.[15] Moreover, 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 carrying 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 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 of armaments on an entirely 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 replacement 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 6th, 1908, the construction of ships of the Dreadnought type was accelerated, and whereas the British Admiralty had definitely abandoned the construction 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 Dreadnoughts.

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 7·75 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 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.[16] Incidentally this measure added to the establishment 3 battleships and 2 unarmoured cruisers, and made provision for the construction of a maximum of 72 submarines.

The significance of the successive changes in shipbuilding policy in Germany, reflecting in an ascending scale the naval ambitions of the Marineamt, may be realised from the following summary, showing the establishment of large armoured ships fixed under successive measures:

+-----+----------------------------+ | Act.| Establishment of Ships | | | Adopted. | | +------------+---------------+ | |Battleships.|Large Cruisers.| +-----+------------+---------------+ |1898 | 17 | 8 | |1900 | 38 | 14 | |1906 | 38 | 20 | | | | | | +----------------------------+ | | Dreadnoughts. | |1908 | 58 | |1912 | 61 | +-----+----------------------------+

Under the operation of German naval legislation, it was determined to provide sixty-one large armoured ships of maximum power, all of them less than twenty years old. The Act did not specify the character of the vessels of the various classes to be laid down. It was elastic in this respect. It left to the Marine Office complete freedom in the matter of design; but, on the other hand, it tied effectually the hands of the Reichstag, and it could not, except it repealed the Navy Law, reduce in any year the number of keels to be laid down. There could be no reduction in the output of naval material until a new Navy Law had been passed. This is a point which was 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 22nd, 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 unamended 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 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 additions 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 calculations, 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.[17] 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 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 amendment, 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 battleships, 20 battle or large armoured cruisers, and 40 small cruisers, besides a proper proportion--an ample proportion--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 battleships 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 battleships and large cruisers of the older types, but gradually, as new vessels are built, the fighting power of the fleet will rise until in the end it will consist completely of 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 Braunschweigs,[18] 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."

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 von 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 provided a certain number of ships and left it to Parliament 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 a complete scheme of naval expansion, making provision not only for the construction 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 establishment of ships first in full commission, secondly with nucleus crews, and thirdly in reserve. In obtaining the assent of the Reichstag to this measure, which to a great extent removed the naval expansion movement from the 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 embodiment 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 von 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--a Liberal Government, intent on disarmament, having assumed office in the United Kingdom--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 Anglophobe movement in Germany. Experience has shown that German Fleet Laws are regarded as immutable and fixed when proposals in the direction of a limitation 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, whereas Admiral von Tirpitz, with great skill, restricted the powers of interference on the part of the Reichstag, 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" establishment in the Fleet Laws by styling every ship of slow speed but carrying an armoured belt "a battleship," and then, under the terms of the Law, he made provision 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 establishment 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 remained 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 shipbuilding policy, while raising from year to year the necessary personnel for manning the new vessels. This in 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 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 nearly 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 has borne most heavily, for in those States alone is reliance placed on a voluntary system of manning, which is necessarily very costly.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: 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.]

[Footnote 9: _Cf._ Appendix I.]

[Footnote 10: 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.]

[Footnote 11: See Appendix II.]

[Footnote 12: One of these "armoured cruisers" was not built.]

[Footnote 13: It has since become known that the Americans had designed an all-big-gun ship before the British Dreadnought was laid down.]

[Footnote 14: 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.]

[Footnote 15: 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 1909-10.]

[Footnote 16: _Cf._ Appendix II.]

[Footnote 17: In his speech in the House of Commons on March 26th, 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.]

[Footnote 18: These two groups of ships are of practically the same design.]

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The German FleetChapter V: The German Navy Acts (2)

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