greatwar-1914:The High Seas Fleet and Germany’s Search for a Naval Strategy“Germany’s future lies in
greatwar-1914:The High Seas Fleet and Germany’s Search for a Naval Strategy“Germany’s future lies in the water.” Germany’s aspirations for world power were materialized in its navy. Kaiser Wilhelm II, before the war, had begun the process of building up Germany’s Navy, to be able one day to challenge the British, as well as the United States, for mastery of the seas. Based on the writings of military theorists like A.T. Mahan’s influential work The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, the Kaiser hoped that his naval arms race would make Germany a leading world power.The decision taken around 1900, German naval build-up did much to worsen Germany’s relations with Britain, which could not abide such an obvious challenge to British naval supremacy. Admiral Tirpitz, the State Secretary of the Imperial Germany Naval Office, pursued his goals with vigor, but without regard for strategic or geographic realities. Knowing that war with Britain would mean a blockade, Tirpitz focused on building battleships and battlecruisers that could fight a decisive battle with the Royal Navy and destroy a blockade. However, Britain’s ports controlled the North Sea and the English Channel, meaning that in the event of war the German fleet would be bottled up from the open ocean, and unable to choose when to fight. If Britain blockaded Germany from a distance, Tirpitz’ ships would be unable to fight them without sallying out and risking everything. Furthermore, Britain responded to the challenge by outmatching Germany’s pace at constructing ships, meaning that when war came, Germany still did not threaten British naval supremacy, let alone that of Britain and France combined.Total German naval personnel in the Kaiserliche Marine, the Imperial Navy, counted 80,000 officers and sailors, spread across 15 modern battleships, five battlecruisers, and thirty pre-dreadnought battleships, compared to Britain’s 22 dreadnoughts, nine battlecruisers, and 40 pre-dreadnoughts, respectively. Germany also was outnumbered in terms of cruisers, 40 German to 121 British, destroyers, 90 to 221, and submarines, 31 to 73. Nevertheless, German ships were modern, with even better optics and range-finding equipment that their British enemies, and German crews motivated and well-trained.In the first phase of the naval war, the Royal Navy swept Germany’s ships from the waters, destroying their colonial holdings and their small service of surface raiders. This left Germany’s main force, the High Seas Fleet, confined to port. The German Navy wanted to fight, but the government was unwilling to risk its precious, and numerically inferior fleet, in a decisive battle with the British. Instead, Germany concentrated on submarine warfare, and mines and torpedoes to weaken Britain’s strength until battle could be joined in Germany’s favor. The constant presence of the German fleet also influence Britain’s naval strategists to be more cautious, prompting some Germans to argue that the fleet was better used as a “fleet-in-being” to worry the British, but never actually risked in combat.However, as the war dragged on and the German Army proved unable to secure victory, the Navy had to justify the resources devoted to it. Tirpitz desperately wanted to send the fleet to battle, challenging the Kaiser, who was too worried about losing his precious battleships. In 1915 Admiral Reinhard Scheer took command of the High Seas Fleet, and pursued a more aggressive strategy to try and bait the Royal Navy into a battle closer to Germany, where German subs and mines could help take a toll on the British and limit their numerical superiority. Scheer put his battleships to sea twice in early 1916 to coax the British into battle, once in March and again in April. Both times, the British, deployed as a result of timely intelligence, just missed intercepting the German ships. At the end of May 1916, the two sides finally would make contact, leading the war’s only major naval battle, the Battle of Jutland. -- source link