The first table below compares the building
programs of Great Britain [and] Germany ... in "Dreadnought," i.e. all big
gun, battleships ... Pre-Dreadnought battleships all had a main battery of
four guns. The Dreadnought now had ten (though only a broadside of
eight), and it was bigger and faster (21 knots, against 18).
In the 1890's Britain had acquired a number of
competitors for its supreme status on the seas. ... In 1889, after some war
scares over Russia, Britain had adopted a "two power standard," by which the
Royal Navy should be at least as large as any other two navies (mainly
meaning France and Russia). In 1890, however, Alfred Thayer Mahan's book,
The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 was published,
examining how the British used the Royal Navy to obtain control of the seas
and establish the Pax Britannica dominance that they enjoyed in the 19th
century. This inspired several states to invest more seriously in warships
than they had previously, most significantly the (Mahan's own) United
States, Japan, and Germany. Thus, the United States authorized its first
three proper modern battleships in 1890 (BB1 Indiana, BB2
Massachusetts, and BB3 Oregon) ....
German advocates of naval power, like Admiral
Tirpitz and Kaiser Wilhelm, who wanted to have a navy like his grandmother,
Queen Victoria, got a serious building program launched in 1898. Then,
because of German identification with and interference in the Boer War
(1899-1902), this program was doubled in 1900, with a clearly hostile intent
toward Britain. The naval race thus started was therefore only five years
old when Britain, with the building of the Dreadnought, reset the
whole process to zero. The British simply figured that they could build
faster than the Germans, which they could. ... The Dreadnought itself
was built in a year.
In Jane's Fighting Ships of 1906, Germany
was still ranked as only fifth among naval powers. The United States
was second, behind Britain, followed by France and Japan. ... By 1914,
Germany had indeed vaulted to the second largest navy in the world. The
United States was then third. Japan was on the verge of passing France to
have the fourth largest navy, and Austria had a larger navy than either
Russia or Italy. ...
While the British could indeed outbuild the
Germans, they stumbled through attempts at economy. The new
Liberal government
in 1905 cut back on battleship orders. By 1909 it was suddenly realized that
the Germans were going to be building 10 Dreadnoughts against the 8 British
ones that had been ordered up to then. The "We Want Eight" panic then
ensued, and six battleships and two battlecruisers were ordered in the 1909
program. After that, the pace was kept up. Also British ships were
consistently more heavily gunned than the Germans. The greatest step in that
regard came in 1912. The idea of the battlecruiser was shelved for a while,
and the Queen Elizabeth class was built as fast battleships,
now with 15 inch guns. They became probably the best ships of World War I,
and still quite serviceable in World War II.
