ABSTRACT
In the Navy Bills, augmented by Supplementary Bills, the Reich proposed to create a modern battle fleet of 41 battleships, 20 large cruisers and 40 light cruisers. Such a force, expected to be second only to that of Great Britain, would complement the most efficient army certainly in Europe and possibly in the world. Germany already possessed by 1900 the nucleus of a colonial empire. German merchant lines such as the Hamburg-America Line and the North German Lloyd were opening up new trade routes from the Orinoco to the Yangtze rivers. Naval construction was 8 battleships, 7 large and 6 light cruisers behind schedule, while the fleet of 60 capital ships envisaged in Tirpitz's master plan would be ready to challenge the Royal Navy only in 1922, or thereafter. It is necessary, to analyse the "Tirpitz" fleet in terms of materiel and manpower in its European setting, and also to place it within the German situation in general.
