From Ironclads to Dreadnoughts: The Development of the German Battleship, 1864-1918

504 pages

Mike Farquharson-Roberts PhD (Mar Hist)

This is number 35 in a series of monographs ‘From Musket to Maxim 1814-1914’ which as the series editor says “is sometimes called the long century of peace. It was in reality very far from that…”. The first author, a marine engineer, has written extensively on the Imperial German navy, mostly in German except for some articles in Warship and a book on cruisers with Aidan Dodson. He claims that this until now the only significant English language account of the Kaiser’s capital ships, ignoring Dodson’s excellent account of The Kaiser’s Battlefleet (Seaforth 2016). The book does also cover a lot of the industrial and political aspects, but so does Gary Weir’s Building the Kaiser’s Navy (Naval Institute Press 1992). Neither book is in this publication’s bibliography.

Imperial Germany described its capital ships as ‘ships-of-the-line’ – linienschiff , what  in British usage would be ‘battleships’ or dreadnoughts. This actually alludes to a significant difference of thinking. In British doctrine (if the term had been in use) battlecruisers were fast, more lightly armoured, battleships, and could and did take their place ‘in the line’, whereas for the Germans, the equivalent ship was termed an armoured cruiser, or large cruiser, a scouting ship. Thus, in this book, the German battlecruisers get only passing mentions.

The structure of the high command of the German navy was complex and bureaucratic. The Imperial naval office, the RMA, was above the naval Department B, which included construction division K. The Kaiser, described officially as the ‘All Highest’ frequently went to ‘K’ direct, bypassing Admiral Tirpitz, State Secretary of the RMA, the professional head of the navy. The navy was very much the Kaiser’s toy and he interfered in considerable detail, at one point specifying the exact makeup of the side armour of the Deutschland-class. Much taken with an Italian ship he visited, and in particular her speed, he forwarded to Tirpitz a sketch and outline specification for a battleship which Admiral von Eicksted, the head of K noted, would be very prone to capsizing. Tirpitz appears to have spent considerable time and effort diverting the Kaisers attention. Not easily deterred, the Kaiser then arranged a prize competition between all the shipyards that built battleships for what would have been a battlecruiser, 3 knots faster than foreign ships, a cruiser that “must be able to fight in the line as well”. He set out a quite detailed specification. The shipyards submitted eight designs which were then assessed by a commission of investigation. The winner was awarded a prize of 40,000 marks. The RMA eventually buried the project, however, it couldn’t avoid having to include accommodation for the Kaiser in designated fleet flagships, which had to have extra flag halliards as he “loved to raise signals by himself”.

The development of diesel propulsion for battleships is well covered as is the general question of fuel. Without ready access to oil, the German navy had to use coal or tar oil, a product of the manufacture of the coking process. Unfortunately, the latter was far from an ideal fuel, and as Admiral Goldrick pointed out, German coal was mainly of the brown variety, nowhere near as calorific as the Welsh steam coal was used for trials. The use of coal bunkers as protection complicated matters and also retarded the German move to oil fuel.

The best features of the book are the comprehensive series of photographs, with excellent captions from the first author’s personal collection and a series of drawings of various projects which together comprise a comprehensive record of the development of German battleships and their armament. The inception of each class includes the political background and details of each ships career are given. However, it is at times difficult to link the various numbered ‘projects’ with actual ships because they are referred to as ‘ersatz [replacement] xyz’ until, in line with national custom, the actual launch of the vessel when they received their definitive name.

The book was obviously not written by a native English speaker, who nonetheless attempts metaphorical, colloquial even chatty usage; a report by the British naval attaché “was the proverbial ‘water on the mill’ for Admiral John ‘Jackie’ Fisher” Presumably ‘grist to the mill’ was intended. Unfortunately, the result is in places difficult to understand which is curious; the second author is a well published author in the United States and the editor of two English language journals. It is almost as though he had had little input into the writing of the book which would benefit from thorough editing.

This book is outstanding for its content. It includes information and illustrations not readily available anywhere else and would become the major English language reference on German battleships, were it not for a major deficiency, it doesn’t have an index. Hopefully a second edition will not only be better edited and have an index.