World War I
By the start of the First World War, the German Imperial Navy possessed 22 pre-Dreadnoughts, 19 dreadnought battleships and 7 battle-cruisers.
Admiral von Tirpitz became the commander of the Navy. The main fighting forces of the navy were to become the High Seas Fleet, and the U-boat fleet. Smaller fleets were deployed to the German overseas protectorates, the most prominent being assigned to the East Asia Station at Tsingtao.
The German Navy's U-boats were also instrumental in the sinking of the civilian passenger liner, the RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915, which was one of the main events that led to the USA joining the war two years later in 1917.
Read more about this topic: Imperial German Navy
Famous quotes containing the words war i, world and/or war:
“The war is utter damn nonsense—a vast cancer fed by lies and self seeking [sic] malignity on the part of those who don’t do the fighting.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten the arrival of that age.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)