by David Wragg
Starting on 18 May 1899, at The Hague, the conference was without precedence. At the time, such matters were normally only discussed between nations at the end of a war, when victors’ justice prevailed and territory was divided. As always, the major powers eyed each other with suspicion. Despite war with France ending as long ago as 1815, and the two countries having collaborated, as in the Crimean War, Great Britain and France had come close to war several times, even as recently as 1898.
This is not to suggest that all of those attending did so from doubtful motives. Amongst those present were many who knew that war was wasteful and not an activity to be indulged in lightly and that the consequences could never be foreseen. These included the British admiral, ‘Jacky’ Fisher. Nevertheless, he was also amongst those with little time for those who tried to make war less awful: ‘You might as well talk of humanising Hell!’ he declared.
The conference was in fact doomed from the start. The location was the Huis ten Bosch, House in the Wood, summer residence for the House of Orange. While Great Britain and her old foe France might have been content to see a standstill in armaments, and the Russians hoped desperately for reductions so that spending on social projects could be increased, the Germans were strongly opposed to any standstill and were determined to develop their armed forces so that the country was unchallengeable. Not only did Germany intend to retain its gains from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, it wished to show that a unified nation was stronger still. In addition, Germany did not at the time have the shipbuilding capacity of Great Britain, and did not wish to see any agreement that would inhibit the development of its shipbuilding industry, or indeed its armaments industries.
The British naval position was declared clearly by Fisher, who maintained that: ‘The supremacy of the British Navy is the best security for the peace of the world.’ He added later that if a nation was ready for instant war with every unit of its strength, peace was inevitable. Nevertheless, he also declared that it was his intention to be first into any conflict. A man of deep religious convictions, Fisher doubtless believed that the Almighty would scatter his enemies, but also expected his own fellow countrymen to take their share of the scattering.
‘Suppose that war breaks out, and I am expecting to fight a new Trafalgar on the morrow,’ Fisher responded in reference to a proposal that neutral colliers should be allowed to proceed un-molested. ‘Some neutral colliers attempt to steam past us into the enemy’s waters. If the enemy gets their coal into his bunkers, it may make all the difference in the coming fight. You tell me I must not seize these colliers. I tell you that nothing that you, or any power on earth, can say will stop me from sending them to the bottom, if I can in no other way keep their coal out of the enemy’s hands; for tomorrow I am to fight the battle which will save or wreck the Empire. If I win it, I shall be far too big a man to be affected about protests about the neutral colliers; if I lose it, I shall go down with my ship into the deep and then protests will affect me still less.’
This stark realism was in complete contrast to the ideals of many of the delegates, diplomats with little or no experience of war. The British delegation made it clear that launching of projectiles from balloons, the use of submarines and of poison gas were the weapons of the future – the first aeroplanes had still to fly – and that in a future conflict, civilians would be in the frontline. This last should not have come as a shock to the delegates. In Europe and Asia, civilians had always been in the front line as armies battled across the countryside, and the concept of civilians being spared the rigours and hardships of war was that of an island nation that had not been invaded for 800 years.
It seems that alone amongst the delegates, the Germans were the most realistic and open. They declared that the British fleet was useless and that they would sink it with their destroyers and torpedo boats. The warning was taken seriously. Just as in the late twentieth century, the major navies were concerned about the effect of fast missile-firing gunboats on their major warships, those of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were worried about the torpedo-boat. In each case, the problem was that small navies and countries with relatively little money, could challenge the great fleets.
Over and above the propaganda efforts and the work of the pressure groups, the German body politic was soon swayed by British actions in searching German merchant vessels for contraband during the Boer War. This made it easier, in 1900, for Tirpitz, to get his Naval Act approved. The Kaiser, Wilhelm II, stated that he would make his Navy the equal in status of his Army.
The Anglo-French Arbitration Treaty of 8 April 1904, drew the line under many long-standing colonial disputes, and left the Royal Navy free to prepare to meet the pending challenge from Germany. In July 1905, Fisher ordered the Channel Fleet into the North Sea and then into the Baltic for manoeuvres, stating that ‘Our drill ground should be our battle ground.’ This was nothing less than sabre rattling and it rebounded on Britain as it created uproar in Germany and once again strengthened the hand of those pressing for ever greater naval expenditure.
Fisher was undoubtedly encouraged in his concerns over German naval expansion, influenced by the British Naval Attaché in Berlin, Captain Philip Dumas, who was able to visit the Schichau Yard at Elbing, where he learnt that the Germans would be laying down a new battleship in the autumn. He was remarkably successful in his ability to unearth intelligence, all of which was reported back to Fisher, and part of which was that the Germans planned to have a main armament of 11-in guns on the new ship. In contrast to the Cold War between the Soviet Bloc and the West, the Germans clearly did not restrict the movements of people like Dumas. Far from keeping the specifications secret, Soviet-style, they overloaded him with information, giving him too many details in the hope that he would be bewildered as their one concession to security was that they did not allow him to take any notes. Nevertheless, there were rumours that new ships were being built ‘behind screens’, and indeed, on one visit to Kiel, Dumas did discover two Dreadnought-type battleships under construction.
Neither Britain nor Germany could feed itself without imports, and for the Germans there was the added edge that the poor quality of much of the land meant that fertiliser also needed to be imported. Both countries had abundant fuel in the form of coal, but Germany was short on iron ore and most of that available in Great Britain had too high a sulphur content to be ideal for steelmaking.
In terms of industrial capacity, early in the twentieth century, the UK had the edge, especially in shipbuilding with the nation being the world’s largest builder of ships of all kinds. Nevertheless, already there were signs that the nation’s manufacturers were failing to modernise sufficiently and were losing their edge, while the newer German manufacturing sector was expanding rapidly.
On both sides of the North Sea, many pressed for an increase in the defence budgets, and especially in those for the navies. Yet, on neither side were such policies accepted by all, for there were those who felt that these policies were of themselves making the slide into open warfare more likely. In between, there were those who wanted strong, but affordable and effective, armed forces capable of defending the country. For the mass of both populations, mutual fear meant that the overwhelming need to be defended, to be secure, drove naval expansion.
While Fisher professed to hate war, he also wished, in his own words, ‘to Copenhagen the German Fleet’, starting a war without a declaration and hoping to inflict irreparable damage on the potential enemy. King Edward VII discouraged him, saying: ‘My God, Fisher, you must be mad!’ The Germans heard of this proposal, but regarded it as a rumour, while they also heard and circulated widely, the remark by the Admiralty Board’s Civil Lord, Arthur Lee, on 3 February 1905, that Britain should ‘get its blow in first, before the other side had time even to read in the papers that war had been declared.’
It soon became clear that the Kaiser and his ministers were convinced that there would be a surprise attack by the Royal Navy. Indeed, a sur
prise attack on the Baltic coast at the onset of war was feared by many in the German armed forces. The main culprit was seen not as King Edward VII, but as the Admiral Sir John ‘Jacky’ Fisher, the First Sea Lord. In contrast, King Edward VII was seen by his own people as being a peacemaker, and a popular music hall song declared that there would be no war so long as good King Edward lives. It was remarkably prescient.
In the United Kingdom and in Germany, the press played up the scares, while fictional works were published, including the famous The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, while the German equivalent was Der Weltkrieg: Deutsche Traume (The World {or Wide} War: Germany Triumphant). The first book was one of espionage, the second, a futuristic novel in which a Franco-German-Russian alliance defeated the British, with Great Britain invaded after the Royal Navy was defeated. German journalists found irony in the use of the name ‘Home Fleet’ for the Royal Navy’s newly-established main force.
Despite a state visit by the King to Kiel and Berlin in June 1905, and a visit by German warships to Plymouth in July of that year, the unease between the two nations was not dissipated. The British noted the professionalism aboard the German warships with considerable apprehension. Relations were civil and correct, but true warmth was conspicuous by its absence. The Entente Cordiale agreed in 1904 was seen, indeed presented by the German leadership, as an alliance against Germany. The Germans also recalled Fisher’s belligerent attitude at The Hague Conference in 1899, just as much as he recalled vividly the threats made privately by German admirals. In German naval circles, the British First Sea Lord was known as ‘Lord Fisher of Copenhagen.’
‘England wanted war; not the King – nor perhaps the Government; but influential people like Sir John Fisher,’ the Kaiser told Alfred Beit, the South African industrialist. ‘He thinks it is the hour for the attack, and I am not blaming him. I quite understand his point of view; but we too are prepared, and if it comes to war the result will depend upon the weight you carry into action – namely a good conscience, and I have that.’
WIDENING THE KIEL CANAL FOR WAR
In preparing for war, there were many factors to consider. The Kattegat and Skagerrak were difficult and time-consuming to navigate, with a wandering route and too much shallow water. To provide easier access between the Baltic and the North Sea, between 1887 and 1895 the Germans had built the Kiel Canal, a ship canal sixty-one miles in length, through which ships could make the hitherto difficult journey in as little as ten hours, although there were a number of locks to pass through. This meant that the German Navy could move its entire fleet between the two seas, moving the ships to the North Sea for offensive operations, but bringing them back to the Baltic where they would be safer. Introduction of the Dreadnought-type battleships meant that the canal was inadequate as they were too wide to use it. Widening the canal, and the locks and their gates, was estimated by the British to cost £12 million at least. It provided a strong clue to German intentions when widening started in 1906. The British consul at Kiel passed the information on to Captain Dumas in Berlin. Not wanting to be caught out again, and finally recognising that warship sizes could only get bigger, the Germans doubled the width of the canal and also eased many of the bends. They also placed two new locks at each end to enable large ships to use the canal more easily at all states of the tide.
The work immediately alerted Fisher to the looming prospect of war and he used this information not just to calculate the cost of the work, which would be an additional drain on the German economy, but, far more important, also to estimate when it would finish. He concluded that it would take eight years to complete the work, taking the most likely date for the start of the First World War to 1914, and he also guessed that the Germans would want to complete harvesting before mobilising their largely conscript Army and going to war. This meant that war would break out in September or October 1914. The logic was impeccable. The work needed to be done, and continental countries had traditionally started fighting after the harvest was completed. On further consideration of the problem, he changed his mind and revised his estimate, deciding that war would break out during a bank holiday. He was right for his country declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, the then date of the British August bank holiday.
The Director of Naval Intelligence, DNI, Prince Battenberg chaired a committee looking into possible threats to the United Kingdom. The ‘two power standard’ was taken as the minimum. This dated back to the wars with France that had ended in 1815, and essentially required the country to be able to match the combined fleets of France and Spain. Now, a new measure had to be calculated, based on the new enemy. The threat looked most likely from an alliance of Germany and Russia, or possibly France and Russia. Realism also dictated that having fought either of these combinations, and having been weakened in the process, the country might be attacked by an opportunistic power. The committee proposed that the Admiralty should plan on creating a fleet that was ‘two power plus ten per cent’, at least in capital ships. The fact that the standard started to be confined to capital ships showed an appreciation that the extra ships might mean reductions elsewhere because of financial and manpower constraints. It also reflected the fact that smaller ships were increasingly to play a subservient role and that, with their heavy calibre guns capable of firing accurately over longer ranges, naval warfare would be between battleships, aided by submarines. In February 1905, a second committee reported, and supported the findings of the earlier committee.
Meanwhile, the Germans continued to apply pressure on their neighbours. Stories about Germany increasing her shipbuilding programme were based on rumours, while the Germans deliberately planted stories about the German Dreadnoughts being bigger and more heavily armed than those of the Royal Navy.
Once again, the indefatigable Dumas, working hard in Germany, was a source of vital information. He wrote that while out playing golf: ‘A German dirigible balloon [ie. a Zeppelin] came over our heads (one of the first journeys it has made) and I took copious notes …’ It was to be another few years before the Zeppelin became more widely regarded as a threat. In October 1912, the Zeppelin L-1, under the command of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin himself, made a record 1,000-mile flight, leaving its base at Friedrichshafen at 8.35 am on Sunday 13 October and landing at Johannisthal, near Berlin, the following day at 3.43 pm. The near round-trip caused a considerable outcry in England following a claim that it had been heard over Sheerness during the night, although no one had actually seen it. Questions were asked in Parliament, and the government proved unable to provide any answers. The German response that the airship had not approached the English coastline at any time did not convince anyone.
No less a person than Tirpitz himself met Dumas. Tirpitz referred to the ‘nonsense about invasion lately written in England,’ where people such as General Lord Roberts had argued that the Germans might land a force of up to 100,000 men on the East Coast of England. He went on to say that out ‘of the 30,000 or so military officers in Germany one might expect that one or two sheep-headed lieutenants might write such rubbish.’ Tirpitz found it incredible that someone with Roberts’ reputation could advance such arguments. Napoleon had found an invasion of England impossible across a distance of just twenty miles. It would be impossible for Germany to embark 100,000 men, and, what was more, maintain their lines of communication. In short, landing an army would be difficult enough, but it ran the risk of being cut off. He concluded by mentioning that the figure of 100,000 men would be ‘wholly useless in England even if we had no Army there to oppose them,’ as it would be certain that a million semi-trained soldiers would volunteer immediately ‘like magic’. He even reminded Dumas that the Prussians had halted before Paris in 1870.
Nevertheless, the Germans persevered with the build-up of their fleet. On 4 August 1914, Germany had sixteen battleships and three battlecruisers, while in home waters the Royal Navy had twenty battleships and five battlecruisers. These were the backbone of the fleet. In all, the Royal Na
vy had 68 capital ships, most of them pre-Dreadnoughts, scattered around the world, mainly in the Mediterranean, as well as 103 cruisers and 319 torpedo craft.
Within a few short years, less than two decades, Germany had built a fleet that could challenge the Royal Navy in its own home waters. This was as nothing, for Tirpitz, now ennobled with the ‘von’, ultimately planned no less than sixty battleships, each with a lifespan of twenty years actually enshrined in German law – a concept that was unthinkable in the United Kingdom – so that three ships could be built every year to keep the fleet up-to-date, regardless of the cost or the strain on the economy, or even of its manpower resources. Many historians now doubt Tirpitz’s sanity.
It must not be forgotten that building this fleet was only part of the problem. A continental power with a relatively short coastline had also to build the manpower. Typical of the young men starting their naval careers at this time was one Karl Dönitz, the future admiral, head of the submarine service, later head of the German Navy and then, ultimately, Hitler’s successor as Fuhrer. The cost of creating an officer corps was defrayed by passing it to the parents of the cadets and junior officers, even more so than in the Royal Navy. Over the four years of training and the following four years of service as a junior lieutenant, the total cost of the parental contribution was 7,000 marks, with 1,505 marks in the first year, some 200 marks above the average wage for a worker in industry. The initial training, equivalent to the four years at Osborne and Dartmouth in the Royal Navy, was just ten months, most of which was spent on a training ship and which included three weeks hard labour in the stokehold, in Dönitz’s case in the heat of a Mediterranean summer. On completing the cruise aboard the training ship, the cadets were promoted to midshipman, Fahnrich zur Zee, and their specialised training started.
