German Naval Laws - The British Response

The British Response

Throughout the 1890s, Britain had been building its own battleships on a massive scale, and was more preoccupied with France and Russia than Germany, which it viewed more as an ally than as an enemy. However, the Second Naval Law, with its rapid expansion of the German fleet, began to gravely worry the island nation. German naval expansion threatened British control of the seas, which was vital not only to the maintenance of the British Empire, but also to the security of the British Isles themselves, as naval supremacy had long shielded Britain from invasion. As Lord Selborne, the First Lord of the Admiralty, informed Prime Minister Lord Salisbury and the rest of the British Cabinet on November 15, 1901:

The naval policy of Germany is definite and persistent. The Emperor seems determined that the power of Germany shall be used all over the world to push German commerce, possessions and interests. Of necessity it follows that German naval strength must be raised so as to compare more advantageously than at present with ours. The result of this policy will be to place Germany in a commanding position if ever we find ourselves at war with France and Russia...Naval officers who have seen much of the German Navy lately are all agreed that it is as good as can be.

In an October 1902 Cabinet paper, Selborne elaborated further on the German naval threat to Britain:

The more the composition of the new German fleet is examined, the clearer it becomes that it is designed for a possible conflict with the British fleet. It cannot be designed for the purpose of playing a leading part in a future war between Germany and France and Russia. The issue of such a war can only be decided by armies on land, and the great naval expenditure on which Germany has embarked involves deliberate diminution of the military strength which Germany might otherwise have attained in relation to France and Russia.

As a result, the British began to shift their foreign and naval policies to meet the German threat. From 1902 onward, an Anglo-German naval arms race developed as the Admiralty advocated the Two-Power Standard plus an additional six battleships over and above parity with the French and Russians. Diplomatically, the British forever abandoned Splendid Isolation by concluding the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, then followed it two years later by signing the Entente cordiale with their long-time rivals, the French. With the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907, the German fear of encirclement became a reality.

Under Sir John Fisher, who served as First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910, the Royal Navy underwent a period of revolutionary change. Since the autumn of 1902, Fisher had viewed Germany as Britain's principal naval enemy, and so he redistributed the Fleet such that the biggest and most powerful ships were situated for battle against the Germans. The Home Fleet was renamed the Channel Fleet and ordered to remain in the proximity of the English Channel, while the former Channel Fleet, based at Gibraltar, was redesignated the Atlantic Fleet. Four battleships transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet and five from China enlarged the Channel Fleet to 17 battleships, while the eight battleships of the Atlantic Fleet could move north toward the British Isles or east into the Mediterranean Sea.