ABSTRACT
Tirpitz1 was officially appointed State Secretary in charge of the Imperial Navy Office on 15 June 1897. A new era was about to begin, one sufficiently distinct from earlier periods for later historians to refer to the ‘Ära Tirpitz’.2 If not for the impact of his policies, the sheer duration of his term in office (1897-1916) provided ample justification for this labelling. However, the State Secretary’s naval policy did not achieve what it was meant to. Tirpitz himself later despondently acknowledged that the work of his lifetime would come to a close under a negative prefix.3 This was not least due to the measures his British opponent had rather unexpectedly taken from around 1904/5 onwards, which were to falsify Tirpitz’s basic assumptions. Though the roots of the State Secretary’s ultimate failure can accordingly be traced back to pillars central to his very own plan, these fallacies did not emerge until the last years of his first decade in office. Most of the documents in this chapter are selected so as to present a more or less detailed view of Tirpitz’s programme as it unfolded almost unimpeded during the first seven to eight years of his term in office. This plan basically centred on an armaments programme designed to secure Germany’s rise to world power status in the face of anticipated British interference. At the same time, it aimed at emancipating the fiscal foundation of the Imperial Navy from budgetary control of the Reichstag. Seen in a broader context, both objectives were aimed at the ulterior objective of shielding Prusso-German constitutionalism, which favoured the rule of pre-industrial elites, from the political effects of the industrialisation by relying on this very same industrialisation in Germany’s quest for world power status.4 As a rather complex armaments
programme the Tirpitz Plan had to take into account and integrate political, economic, fiscal, strategic, tactical, and technical matters and consider their interdependency. International politics and strategic or operational naval concepts to be applied against the designated opponent suggested the creation of a specific naval capability which could only be created by observing given tactical and technical needs and potentials. Likewise the required naval capability had to be provided for under the twofold constraints of the industrial capacity available, and the willingness of parliament to appropriate the funds requested. This, in turn, called for parliamentary tactics and affected domestic politics – the more so since there was a desire to establish the navy on a stable financial base removed from parliamentary interference. These rather general observations did not apply exclusively to the Tirpitz Plan. As its elements taken individually were not necessarily unique to Tirpitz’s programme, the substance of the new departure ascribed to it may best be illustrated by a comparison of the first three documents presented here. Having been drafted during the years immediately preceding Tirpitz’s rise to State Secretary, they point to continuity as well as to changes associated with Tirpitz’s ascendency. At the same time, the two papers originating from the pen of the soon-to-be State Secretary provide some insights into the basic framework of his design and its persistence as the Tirpitz Plan evolved over the two decades to follow. Not long after having succeeded to the throne, on 20 March 1889 Wilhelm II had dissolved the Imperial Admiralty and formed two supreme agencies in charge of the Imperial Navy. The Imperial Navy Office (Reichsmarineamt) acquired the administrative tasks under a State Secretary answering to the Emperor and the Chancellor. The High Command of the Navy (Oberkommando der Marine) with a Commanding Admiral as its Head dealt with the operational matters and exercised the imperial command authority answering to the Emperor only. Together with the Navy Cabinet (Marinekabinett) which served as the Emperor’s bureau for the affairs concerning the Imperial Navy, these two supreme agencies were supposed to cooperate. Instead, rivalries quickly came up.1 When Tirpitz served as chief of staff the High Command strove to refine its tactical and strategic doctrines. The most famous result of these efforts on which Tirpitz had put his stamp was the aforementioned Dienstschrift IX (1894). This document had not only given an exposition of the naval strategic and operational doctrine to be adopted. It had also determined
the materiel requirements for the battle fleet envisaged as centring on two squadrons of eight battleships each. However, to the rising annoyance of the High Command, the Imperial Navy Office stuck to its inclination towards the teachings of the jeune école. With the backing of Wilhelm II, Vice Admiral Friedrich von Hollmann1 had sought to procure numerous cruisers in lieu of the battleships for which the High Command had persistently and comprehensively argued. The naval estimates from 1891/92 until 1895/96 had provided for four coast defence battleships (of rather limited combat effectiveness) and eight cruisers of various rates, but only for one battleship, the Ersatz Preußen, later to become Kaiser Friedrich III.2 On 27 October 1895, the Imperial Navy Office sent a draft of the budget proposals for 1896/97 to the High Command on short notice. The next day Admiral Eduard von Knorr3 stated in his reply that the construction programme to be submitted by the Imperial Navy Office had originally completely ignored the well-founded proposals of the High Command. Indeed, the Imperial Navy Office had planned to procure only one battleship, two second-class protected cruisers (disparagingly dubbed ‘ten-minutes-cruisers’ by the British, insinuating the time required to sink them), and a fourth-class unprotected cruiser.4 Knorr took up the gauntlet and pleaded the case of the High Command directly with the Emperor [1]. Upon receipt of his report the former chief of staff, Rear Admiral Tirpitz, was approached by the Chief of the Navy Cabinet, Rear Admiral Gustav Freiherr von Senden-Bibran,5 and asked to comment on Knorr’s memorandum. Tirpitz drafted his own paper during the closing days of 1895 and on 3 January 1896 he delivered a written report to the Emperor [2].6 Six weeks later and after the ‘Krüger-Telegramm’, sent by Wilhelm II on 3 January, had caused the Transvaal Crisis to sour the relations between Britain and Germany,7 Tirpitz on 13 February 1896 came back to some of his proposals put forward in his commentary, elaborated on
them, and at times broadened their scope in his letter to General Albrecht von Stosch [3], who had served as the first Head of the Imperial Admiralty and with whom Tirpitz had entered into a trustful correspondence.1 Seen in their interrelation, these three documents already reveal a good deal of the peculiarities of the proposals Tirpitz was to inaugurate two years later. Basically the High Command’s paper dealt with an armaments programme, with the requirements to be met in order to carry it into effect, with a concept of naval warfare coupled with an assessment of the international situation on both of which the armaments effort was to be based.2 As for the substance of the programme, the High Command called for the rebuilding of the battle fleet up to the strength of a two-squadron battle force by 1908, supported by the required light forces, which in part were destined for service on foreign stations. In order to attain the planned total, it was deemed necessary to add to the fleet, over the next twelve years, at least twelve battleships, three armoured and twelve protected cruisers. Besides providing for a back-up in overseas contingencies, the main function of the fleet was to defend the seas adjacent to Germany, including the coastal regions and harbours. The aim was to secure sea control in home waters. Such an endeavour would require a long-term construction programme with the costs spread evenly over the period till 1908. The necessary economies were to be achieved by a stringent reduction to only three types of fleet units – battleship, armoured cruiser, protected cruiser – which being of rather moderate size were to be capable of serving with the battle fleet as well as on overseas stations. Subsequent to 1908, the plan apparently aimed at a steady replacement programme. Not surprisingly, Tirpitz in his commentary wholeheartedly endorsed the recommendations put forward by the High Command which closely followed the prescriptions of the Dienstschrift IX concerning the battle fleet’s composition and crucial role. Notwithstanding some minor amendments Tirpitz adopted the construction programme of the High Command. He also concurred with it in considering it necessary to arrange for a new relationship with the Reichstag seeking its commitment to a long-term construction programme. However, in two aspects he went beyond the scope set by the High Command. While dealing with the necessity to mobilise public support in order to persuade the Reichstag to consent to a long-term armaments effort, Tirpitz
introduced an argument which can be interpreted in terms of a concept of a ‘secondary integration’, designed to preserve the specifics of the PrussoGerman pre-industrial rule in the face of a rapidly industrialising Germany.1 Closely related to this extension was another broadening of scope by which Tirpitz shifted the focus of Germany’s naval policy. Whereas the High Command had written of the need to preserve the world power status of Germany, the only contingency it dealt with was a war against the Dual Alliance – i.e. against Russia and France, possibly joined by Denmark. Tirpitz instead suggested for the fleet a role guarding against British interferences as well. When, in the wake of the Transvaal Crisis, Stosch asked him for an evaluation of the German prospects in an AngloGerman war he accordingly elaborated on the notion he had already expressed in his commentary on the High Command’s memorandum.2
