ABSTRACT
For Tirpitz, the development of Anglo-German relations in general as well as the progress of the Royal Navy in particular remained a matter of great concern. Of course, Britain had eventually accepted the Amendment to the Navy Law and not regarded it as an excuse to ‘Copenhagen’ the High Seas Fleet as some had expected. Instead, Anglo-German relations seemed to improve, and during the Balkan Crisis of 1912/13 both nations worked together to reach a peaceful settlement and, moreover, to avoid a European conflagration. In his Memoirs Tirpitz tried to explain this development. Titling the last paragraph of his chapter dealing with Anglo-German relations before 1914 ‘Relief’,1 Tirpitz argued that this change was nothing but the result of a new policy towards Great Britain, embodied by the new German Ambassador to the Court of St James, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein:
His appearance in London … put a stop for a time to the German method of kow-towing to the English and being impressed by their ways. Marschall knew that the Briton becomes more respectful, the more resolutely his competitor maintains his own standpoint. He declared that Germany could not carry out her economic policy without possessing a power at sea which could protect us against the necessity of yielding to England at every turn.
