The Mistake of German Naval Policy: 1888-1918

[Dachs]

It was a tactical victory on points but a huge strategic loss because they were not prepared to follow up.

...well, yeah. Which has nothing to do with how close the German fleet came to destruction at Jutland.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Sure it does. I wasn't answering you, specifically.

 

[budweiser]

Sinking 115,000 tons of British ships for a loss of 62,000 tons of their own, with a loss in sailors a third of what the British sustained, does not seem to me to have been a 'narrow escape'.

They came under fire twice from the Grand Fleet which could shoot pretty well and total weight of fire power far out weighed the High Seas Fleet. Jellicoe, in fact managed to coss their T and they were obliged to retreat. Fog, mist and skillfull maneuovre allowed them to flee.

 

[Dachs]

They came under fire twice from the Grand Fleet which could shoot pretty well and total weight of fire power far out weighed the High Seas Fleet. Jellicoe, in fact managed to coss their T and they were obliged to retreat. Fog, mist and skillfull maneuovre allowed them to flee.

And the Royal Navy's T was capped, too. Given the atrocious communications of the Grand Fleet and their essentially nonexistent response during the initial action, when the Hochseeflotte emerged from the mist at 1830, and the very good by comparison response by the Germans in making the battle about turn, and the ultimately successful charge by the battlecruiser squadron under Hartog during the 1720 second action, I don't think the Germans came all that close to destruction, or in any event no closer than the British themselves came during the night fighting.

 

[budweiser]

Maybe you are right. The point I was trying to make is that the germans could not stand up to the Grand Fleet and had to retreat when it appeared.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Have you ever heard the term 'risk fleet'? It's the idea that the German Navy would be just large enough to inflict such damage on the Royal Navy that risking a battle could result in so much damage to the RN that they lost dominance of the sea to another nation. That was, in essence the German strategy.

Yes I have, and I went into that in-depth in my article, just not by name. Tirpitz believed Germany could scare Britain into an alliance with them, or at the least out of one against them, by having a fleet big enough to require the withdrawal of other British fleets back home to compliment the Home Fleet in its defense against the German fleet. That withdrawal would leave other areas of the Empire unprotected or under protected, something Britain would not want to do, and thus see the wisdom in "having Germany on her side." Of course, Tirpitz and the German High Command never anticipated that the British would simply double the size of the Home Fleet, and when the Brits started building six dreadnoughts a year, the Germans were taken by surprise when they only had allotted the funds to produce one dreadnought and one battlecruiser. We see this in the 1909-1914 time period, where Britain's new policy of maintaining a fleet 2/3 larger than the German fleet being put into action, and incredibly outpacing German capital ship manufacturing.

The High Seas Fleet narrowly escaped destruction at Jutland. It was by luck and some skill that they managed to disengage and retreat.

I would say the escape at Dogger Bank was much more based on luck than the withdrawal at Jutland was.

Also the High Seas Fleet did not fight off the coast of South America, just a few ships did.

I said a squadron of cruisers did, not the whole High Seas Fleet.

 

[civiijkw]

What effect did the German naval build up have on British-American relations? With the US having had extremely one-sided naval victories in 1898, was Britain willing to become more cordial with the former colonies rather than risk having the US (and its fleet) ally with Germany?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

There was always worry in Great Britain and the United States during the first two decades of the Twentieth Century about a possible naval war between the United States and Japan, the rising naval power in the East. It, too, was riding on its 1905 victory of Russia, decided largely by that famous naval battle at Tsushima. Such a conflict would pull Great Britain into the war on Japan's side, via the Anglo-Japanese Alliance began in 1902. It was anxiety of this possibility, which neither the US nor Britain wanted, that compelled the UK to allow the treaty to expire in 1921. So to answer you question in full, no, I don't think German buildup drove the British into a closer friendship with the United States, because British concerns about that buildup was its ability to balance the strength of the Home Fleet with the strength of those abroad. Those abroad fleets existed to protect Britain's colonial holdings, something the US was none to fond of, and would not have been particularly interested in protecting on Britain's behalf.

 

[RedRalph]

Seriously Cheezy - do you do requests?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Depends. I'm pretty swamped right now with school work, these are just old papers I thought I'd post. What did you have in mind?

 

[RedRalph]

Something to do with the industrialisation of Japan, maybe up til the 30s... just a thought. If you ever get a chance PM me so I dont miss it