ABSTRACT
The Heligoland-Zanzibar treaty of 1890, the high point of the so-called Anglo-German 'colonial marriage', had itself contained portents of future discord between the two signatories. A growing awareness upon the German side of this very point, that the British might act much more cautiously than had hitherto been assumed, was to have little effect upon Buchsel's new operations plan for some years. In the case of German naval planning against England in the two decades preceding the First World War, this is certainly true. This activity was the natural military corollary of the fluctuating relations between London and Berlin and it attracted the constant support and interest of Kaiser Wilhelm himself. The idea of an invasion of England is insane. Tirpitz concludes that all policy hostile to England must rest until we have a fleet which is as strong as the English.
