304 Chapter Eight
mobilize potential supporters. He did so systematically and thor
oughly. Newspapers and journalists, industrialists and university pro
fessors, politicians and clergymen: no one who could exercise influ
ence on the political process within Germany was overlooked. Success
of the propaganda effort was attested by the size of the Navy League,
founded with Krupp’s financial support in 1898. By the next year it
counted no fewer than 250,000 members,^78 far exceeding anything
the British ever managed to attract into their parallel organization,
established three years previously.
As a result, when H.M.S. Dreadnought upset Tirpitz’ original plans,
he still was able to get another, enlarged naval bill through the Reich
stag in 1908—just in time, as we saw, to trigger the British decision to
raise the pace of their building to eight dreadnought-type ships a year
in 1909.
All the same, Chancellor von Bülow’s support in the Reichstag was
shattered by quarrels over what and whom to tax in order to pay for
the enlarged naval program. He left office in 1909 as a result. This was
the year when Great Britain began to be convulsed by the dispute
over Lloyd George’s budget, which also hinged on paying for the ex
panded British naval building program. Clearly both countries found
it hard to apportion the costs of their rivalry. Yet efforts to call a halt
failed, even when the two governments expressed an interest in doing
so, as happened, for example, in 1912.
Though shipbuilding continued, after 1909 Admiral Tirpitz’ plan to
create a fleet strong enough to defeat the Royal Navy in the North Sea
was in disarray. His initial assumptions had proved false. Instead of
being distracted by imperial conflicts with France and Russia, Great
Britain had established a diplomatic entente with Germany’s enemies.
And in 1910, the British government showed its mettle by imposing
graduated new taxes to pay for the navy and for social welfare in a way
the imperial German government was unable to do.
Moreover, by 1912 Tirpitz and the German navy had to face a for
midable new rival at home in the form of the army. Anxiety over risks
of revolution had haunted Prussian officers ever since 1848. Even
affected the behavior of millions of Germans who had no clear or immediate personal
interest in making the navy strong. Jonathan Steinberg, Yesterday’s Deterrent: Tirpitz and
the Birth of the German Battle Fleet (New York, 1965) emphasizes the deliberate manip
ulation of public opinon more than German historians seem to do; but he also puts
greater weight on economic self-interest and pecuniary rationality than I think the
circumstances truly warrant.
- Kehr, Schlachtflottenbau und Parteipolitik, p. 101. Cf. Wilhelm Diest, Flotten
politik und Flottenpropaganda: Das Nachrichtenbureau des Reichsmarineamptes, 1897–
1914 (Stuttgart, 1976).
