The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

The most important ones were the Pan-German League, the Colonial Society, and, above all, the Navy League — backed of course by the maritime and armaments lobbies — which both exploited and were exploited by the Secretary of the Navy Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. This fateful personage, a tall, thick-set, overbearing Prussian with a flowing two-pronged beard, became the dominant figure in the German government for some years after 1897. He had little difficulty in convincing the Kaiser that a great navy was essential to a great power, and with the All-Highest’s blessing launched the patriotic societies on an intensive propaganda campaign to make the nation conscious of the need for one. In time, as A. J. P. Taylor remarks, “the demagogic organizations of imperialism took the government prisoner.” The Navy League’s slogan, “Our Future lies on the water,” resulted in the top-heavy Navy bill of 1900 which set the nation’s helm straight for war. Thanks to Tirpitz and his friends, the Kaiser, before he fully realized it, found himself saddled with a policy that could hardly fail to turn England — the only uncommitted great power in Europe — into a mortal enemy, thus completing Germany’s encirclement.