Germany's latest dreadnought, the Kaiser class SMS Kaiserin, takes to the waves on a rainy November 11, 1911 -- seven years to the day before Imperial Germany forswore its bid for European hegemony.

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IN WHICH we compare the cost of the pre-WWI arms race from its origins in the Pre-Dreadnought Era to the last gun before the Armistice.

The chart below sets out capital ship and cruiser spending by IMPERIAL GERMANY, showing the ballooning expenditures on naval arms just before the Great War. Counting only dreadnought ships, Adm. Tirpitz' mania for powerful dreadnoughts cost the German taxpayer $1.2 billion gold marks, or US $276 million at 1914 values -- this when loaf of bread cost 5 cents, with lunch thrown in; a brick row house cost US $2,700; and a good wage for a college graduate was US $750 a year (equivalent to $55,000 in today's currency). One of the salient points underlined by these data is that the cost of a warship doubled with the advent of the dreadnought. For approximately equal numbers of capital ships, Germany spent twice as much money on her dreadnought fleet as she had on her pre-dreadnought fleet only ten years before. Taken as a whole, and counting both armored cruisers and light cruisers, the Kaiser's naval project cost more than 2.1 billion gold marks, or £103 million at 1914 valuation. Churchill called the German navy a "luxury fleet." This it was not; the German service achieved a high degree of professionalism, and the men lived in suitably Spartan quarters when at sea. The wordsmiths at BBB agree it would better be called a vanity fleet.

Numbers used are approximate with variation not exceeding 2 percent. "Initial cost" indicates only the cost to build, equip, arm, and commission these ships, trialed and ready for sea. Click the links in class names to view what all this money bought. Click here for a technical and pictorial appreciation of the dreadnought High Seas Fleet.

Dreadnought Battleships
Class	Year	No. Ships	Initial Cost in Gold Marks	Initial Cost in USD	Cost in Pounds Sterling	Unit cost in USD	Unit cost British Pounds
Nassau	1909	4	148,850,000	$35,128,600	£7,236,492	$8,782,150	£1,809,123
Heligoland	1910	4	181,890,000	$42,926,040	£8,842,764	$10,731,510	£2,210,691
Kaiser	1912	5	228,107,000	$53,833,252	£11,089,650	$10,766,650	£2,217,930
König	1914	4	180,000,000	$42,480,000	£8,750,880	$10,620,000	£2,430,800
Bayern	1916	2	100,000,000	$23,600,000	£4,862,600	$11,800,000	£2,431,300
Dreadnought Battlecruisers
Von der Tann	1910	1	36,523,000	$8,619,428	£1,775,602	$8,619,428	£1,775,602
Moltke	1911	2	78,087,000	$18,428,532	£3,796,278	$9,214,266	£1,898,139
Seydlitz	1912	1	78,087,000	$18,428,532	£2,172,406	$10,545,660	£2,172,406
Derfflinger	1914	2	114,000,000	$26,904,000	£5,542,224	$13,452,000	£2,771,112
Hindenburg	1917	1	59,000,000	$13,924,000	£2,868,344	$13,924,000	£2,868,344
Dreadnought Total		26	1,171,142,000	$276,389,512	£56,936,239	$10,630,366	£2,234,237
Pre-Dreadnought Battleships
Brandenburg	1893	4	62,886,000	$14,841,096	£3,060,234	$3,710,274	£765,058
Friedrich III	1898	5	82,545,000	$19,480,620	£4,016,904	$3,896,124	£803,381
Wittelsbach	1900	5	111,161,900	$26,234,208	£5,409,494	$5,246,842	£1,081,899
Braunschweig	1904	5	119,532,000	$28,210,024	£5,816,90	$5,642,005	£1,163,381
Deutschland	1906	5	123,250,000	$29,087,000	£5,997,739	$5,817,400	£1,199,548
Predreadnought Total		24	499,376,900	$117,852,948	£24,301,278	$4,910,540	£1,012,553
Armored Cruisers
Vineta	1898	5	61,421,000	$14,495,356	£2,988,942	$28,990,712	£597,788
Fürst Bismarck	1898	1	18,945,000	$4,471,020	£921,924	$4,471,020	£921,924
Prinz Heinrich	1902	1	16,588,000	$3,914.768	£155,897	$3,914,768	£807,225
Prinz Adalbert	1908	2	32,036,000	$7,560,496	£1,558,865	$3,780,248	£779,433
Roon	1905	2	31,586,000	$7,454,296	£1,537,076	$3,727,148	£779,433
Scharnhorst	1907	2	39,562,000	$9,336,632	£1,925,214	$4,668,316	£962,607
Blücher	1909	1	28,532,000	$6,733,552	£1,388,458	$6,733,552	£1,388,458
Armored Cruiser Total		14	228,670,000	$53,966,120	£11,127,814	$3,854,723	£1,358,458
Light Cruisers
Gazelle	1898	10	214,784,000	$10,949,692	£2,257,826	$1,094,969	£225,783
Bremen	1908	7	470,631,000	$10,949,692	£3,437,130	$2,381,274	£491,019
Königsberg	1910	4	32,844,000	$7,751,184	£1,598,294	$1,937,796	£399,574
Magdeburg	1913	4	31,062,000	$7,330,632	£1,511,576	$1,832,658	£377,894
Karlsrühe/   Graudenz	1914	2	313,850,000	$7,988,600	£1,647,249	$1,997,150	£411,812
Light Cruiser Total		29	214,784,000	$50,689,024	£10,452,077	$1,747,897	£360,416
GRAND TOTAL: One 25-Year Arms Race		93	2,113,972,900 (2.1 billion GM)	$498,897,604 ($½ billion)	£102,817,408 (£100 million)	$5,364,490	£1,105,564

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Germany's High Seas Fleet on maneuvers just before the War.

Evaluation

What did Germany get for its 2 billion-mark investment?

Its navy before the War was very well regarded -- at left, Deutschland class battleships firing a salute. It was admitted to be stiff competition for the British, while we now know it was in no danger of overtaking the number one maritime power. As we shall see, this lag was for financial reasons. The original strategy was to spook the British into acknowledging German parity as a great power, whereupon Britain and Germany would sign a master alliance giving Germany hegemony over the Continent and Britain over the seas and her imperial possessions. There were several occasions on which rapprochement seemed possible between the two Powers; but in every case, German diplomats brusquely dismissed the British overtures, falsely believing that by turing the screws tighter they could secure better terms. They appeared to be afraid of their own success.

Despite the heated competition, there were warm feelings between individuals in the rival services. British officers in many cases had friends in the Imperial German Navy. As hostilities commenced, H.M. officers recorded concern for their brother mariners' survival in the war and admiration for their gallantry in battle. Once the war began, initial brushes between the two navies reflected this concern (it helped that the British generally won). When war was first declared, the British were already on their guard, being fully mobilized by Churchill before the declaration of war. They expected a reckless operation by the whole High Seas Fleet, or a massive interception of the British Expeditionary Force on its cross-Channel journey to the battlefields of Belgium. But nothing happened.

By the Kaiser's own choice, nothing much did happen. This mighty weapon so dear to his heart, remained the blade hardly drawn from its scabbard. At the very end of the conflict, Adm. Reinhard Scheer and Adm. Franz Hipper decided (without consulting the High Command) to send their fleet out on a suicide mission; perhaps it was just as well that this did not happen. The ships had been maintained in a low state of readiness; in a sortie earlier in 1918 the Moltke suffered failure of a turbine and had to be towed back to Wilhelmshaven; there is no reason to believe more problems of this sort would not have beset the fleet on Hipper's last sortie. But in the event, the crews pre-empted the operation. Morale among the sailors was so low the men mutinied and Hipper had considerable trouble getting the situation under control and reasserting his authority. Perforce he had to abort this last desperate gamble before his ships could leave base.

As a result of all its inactivity, the High Seas Fleet had remarkably little impact on the outcome of the Great War. It is not certain that Germany would have been as safe from invasion with less well-defended shores, but on the whole (as many in Germany argued at the time) the billions spent on the navy would have been better put into more divisions, more aircraft, and more heavy artillery.

Prior to May 1915 the chivalrous side of the German character was on display afloat; the sinking of the Lusitania and numerous neutral freighters, when combined with German atrocities in France and Belgium, was disastrous for Germany's image. It gave substance to widespread propaganda about barbaric Huns howling at the gates of Civilisation. British and pro-Allied American opinion raised its voice to a howl when the Kaiser once again resorted to all-out U-boat warfare in 1917, going back on his word given after the 1915 sinkings. Now, in 1917, it helped to bring in the U.S. and thus guaranteed Germany's eventual defeat. (The proximate cause of U.S. involvement was the Zimmermann Telegram, but 'Freedom of the Seas' was a contributing issue.)

So on balance, the surface-ship navy's contribution to the German war effort was negligible. Those who hunger for a world where Germany had prevailed no doubt sense an opportunity lost. Those who feel a German victory in 1914-18 was not desirable may be grateful so much of Germany's treasure was siphoned off into the fleet that was hardly used. Moreover, historians and navy buffs can thank Tirpitz for his single-minded mania for battleship building, and the Kaiser for his passive enabling behavior. Had the High Seas Fleet never been created, a wonderful source of modeling subjects and memorabilia would not have come into being. Heck, this website would be a lot smaller! Not only with the German ships that were never built, but all the British and French ships that were not built in response. It is great to be able to study this colorful and -- at times -- bizarre period from a safe distance. On the whole, one feels grateful for not having to live under the Kaiser's erratic rule, however. As we punt ahead into the 21st century, we have plenty of dragons of our own to slay.

Was World War I the Legacy of A.T. Mahan?

Although no two historical situations are ever exactly alike, one hopes that lessons can be drawn from history. When the observer considers the much greater value of small units of money a hundred-odd years ago, the naval spending was astronomical. It is testimony to the far-reaching influence of the American writer Adm. Alfred Thayer Mahan (left), whose The Influence of Sea Power Upon History was bedside reading for Kaiser Bill and Winston Churchill alike. Arguing mainly from 17th and 18th century examples, Mahan posited that control of the seas was the indispensable element in maintaining military and commercial control, as Great Britain had done during the period under study, and was to do up through the 1940s. In the Belle Époque it was taken as gospel that national greatness followed from having a great navy, and that without a powerful navy no nation could be taken seriously. Hence the dabbling in dreadnoughts by minor powers in South America and Asia. The assumption of the central importance of naval power was promoted and supported by Mahan's writings. This thesis was disseminated around the globe, often in popularized and simplistic form. It enjoyed especial currency in Europe, Japan, and the U.S.

Having ensured that the Kaiser read his Mahan even before ascending the Throne, Tirpitz enjoyed a period of ascendancy roughly from 1898 to 1911. Briefly, Tirpitz argued that Germany could best assert its claim as a first-rank Great Power (its "place in the sun") by growing a first-class fleet and conquering imperial territory -- a concept borrowed uncritically from Mahan. This marked a radical departure from the traditional German reliance on a superb land army of overwhelming size and skill.

Seduced by Mahan, the Kaiser insisted on ignoring his advisors (including Bismarck and, later, many German diplomats in London) who cautioned him not to arouse the complacent British lion through overt naval competition. The lure of Mahan and Tirpitz, the trumpet call to glory echoed too strongly in the flighty monarch's imagination. Although Tirpitz undoubtedly would have preferred to go right at the British and decide the issue in "the good old-fashioned way," the Kaiser's intentions were more vague, seeming to change with the winds. Did he intend to best the British at building? To intimidate them with a formidable fleet? To follow Tirpitz' inclinations and fight them outright for dominance of the seas? Or merely have an ever more splendid collection of big ships to review at Kiel every June? We will never know -- assuming Wilhelm himself did. We do know that their monarch's mania for ships was not shared by all Germans; and that his squirrely way of financing the naval buildup caused continuing political weakness and instability in the 16 years leading to the Great War.

How Internal German Politics Set the Stage for War

The roots of the Great War lie, too, in the internal politics of Germany. In the 1898-1914 period, the German constitutional system was locked in an ever-deepening impasse: it was as though unyielding walls of granite were grinding past each other. No back-and-forth motion was possible save upheaval, subduction, or earthquake. Part of the deepening rift was over the ever-increasing military and naval spending -- and who got how much. Naval funding was a new, wild-card budget item that ballooned unpredictably, each time with overblown performances by Tirpitz and his political allies. Every four or five years, a new naval crisis would be announced and a budget supplement, or novella, would be introduced to answer the need, together with a hard-sell campaign to pass the measure immediately and uncritically. The Navy League would mount well-publicized and manipulative public relations stunts at the same time to focus pressure on the government. Tirpitz' hysterics and sneakiness became a controversial feature of German politics, and his "special relationship" with the Kaiser was widely resented. There were murmurs that the State Secretary had escaped control and needed to be shackled for good. A big job generator, the navy was popular enough among the people; but for those in the know, Tirpitz' enormous and ever-increasing demands for money smacked of extortion, not to mention poor taste. Because they had not been foreseen by the budget writers, the navy's demands had heretofore been met entirely by state loans; Tirpitz had shrewdly included the big bankers in his pro-navy coalition.

After a decade of finance à la Rumsfeld, dishonest budgeting was causing severe heartburn in the Reich's body politic. On taking office in 1909, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg was shocked at the state of finance. Counting the obligations incurred in the 1908 novella authorizing the first round of dreadnought building, the state's deficit was pegged at 500M GM. Analysis quickly told him just how much of it was attributable to the Kaiser's little navy habit. Worse, spending in the newly approved 1908 novella would double the deficit to a projected one billion gold marks by 1914, much of it interest on the loans. Over the next three years Reich Treasury Secretary Adolf Wermuth managed to repair state finances, only to see his careful work threatened by Tirpitz' unremitting demands for funds -- and the Army's reawakened appetite. Wermuth and Bethmann both tendered their resignations in May 1912, precipitating a constitutional crisis and fresh elections. The Kaiser refused the Chancellor's resignation, but accepted Wermuth's.

The power struggle within Germany was deep-rooted and based in the competing interests of the old agrarian elite, the rising urban bourgeoisie, and the industrial workers. Representing the rural Junkers, or big landowners, the Conservative party steadily lost ground as the country continued to industrialize -- even under an electoral system stacked in their favor. The Conservatives could see that their influence would wane even more unless they could form a Sammlung, or coalition, with elements of the Center. The Junkers were all in favor of a huge army: the bigger the better; after all, the Prussian Army had long been an expression of their class interest, led entirely by members of the Junker nobility. But many of the Conservatives mistrusted Tirpitz and detested his agenda. Following widespread Left gains in the 1912 election, the Conservatives launched a determined assault on the Grossadmiral's privileged position. They did not succeed in toppling him, but Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg personally put the lid on the lumbering admiral and forced his compliance with rigorous new fiscal procedures. With the assent of Chancellor and Kaiser, the navy's "wish list" for 1913-16 was slashed from five ships to two. Tirpitz' star was observed to shine with diminished lustre from then on.

At right - Nassau class dreadnoughts at target practice: Westfalen firing, as seen from the Nassau.

More generally, the de-emphasis of the naval buildup in the final years before WWI reflected a widespread repudiation of Tirpitz' strategy for asserting German greatness through fleet and empire. Instead, Germany's leaders turned to a strategy of de facto hegemony on the Continent, enforced by an unbeatable land army. Therefore, instead of new battleships, Reichstag deputies voted for monumental increases in the German Army budget.

In the fevered climate of the times, the Conservative Party grasped at any solution that might arrest -- even reverse -- their decline in influence. The Conservatives generally believed that a war would rally the country around Kaiser, Army, and Conservative statesmen. No doubt they envisioned a short, victorious war like their romp over Napoléon III in 1870, as did the General Staff. Like the political elite, the military wanted war sooner rather than later. The German military buildup that lurched into overdrive in 1913 soon provoked countermeasures in all the neighboring countries. Since Germany had a year's head start, her forces were projected to peak before her adversaries' could be brought fully up to establishment. Statistics told the General Staff the period between 1914 and early 1916 would be the optimal time to strike; after that, the adversaries' forces would start to unacceptably outnumber the armies of the Reich, and Germany would lose the advantage of her head start in preparedness. Revealing their class prejudice, the officer caste discounted the military threat of Great Britain, refusing to take seriously the competence of a social system that differed so radically from their own. Then as now, tax rises were controversial, but the revenue measure underwriting the army buildup was suitably disguised as a one-time "patriotic contribution" levied on all Germans.

With the Germans arming rapidly and their good faith in doubt, the British felt they could not afford to take chances, and steeply increased their own spending on army and navy. The Royal Navy emphasized on cutting-edge technology and superior building capacity. Whatever Wilhelm's intentions, his ambassadors' and advisors' warnings came true; events assumed a life and will of their own; two of the most fabulous fleets in history blossomed into being in a world rapidly arming to the teeth; taunts were tossed back and forth as the national rivalry sharpened. The German Conservatives and many from the Center were agitating for war even before the Sarajevo assassination; and the General Staff was fine-tuning its war plans. To all voices of moderation, the politicians and militarists turned the stony face of intransigence. So it was that when intransigence took hold and mobilization orders began to be issued in August 1914, the anguished cries of reason were drowned by the relentless tramp of army boots. Since any turning back would entail an unacceptable loss of face, the Great Powers blundered forward into one of the most colossal failures in all history. As the British Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, poignantly wrote, the lamps were going out all over Europe; their light would not be seen again in his lifetime. Not until the late 1950s would the Continent crawl out of the abyss into which it had marched so willingly in 1914.

The disastrous consequences of military overspending in the past send a cautionary note to us today. Possibly a hypothetical observer might question whether (for instance) the U.S. really needs a military ten times as strong as any potential opponent, costing half a trillion dollars a year exclusive of major engagements, with covert ops costing as much as a hundred billion more. One might ask also whether borrowing the money to maintain such a military is a wise move -- whether such indebtedness contributes to national weakness rather than strength, to inhibitions on policy rather than freedom to act. Whether 'tis wiser, perchance, to tax the top 1.2% than to borrow to cover all one's military spending? Issues to ponder!

Sources

Sources on the German political impasse: V.R. Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973) - This 265-page study limns the main issues in the run-up to WWI as seen from Berlin; one of many excellent books on the subject. The Wikipedia biography of Bethmann-Hollweg and sections of Robert K. Massie's Dreadnought are also helpful on Tirpitz's effect on Reich policy and finance, and his frantic efforts to smother reconciliation between Britain and Germany on naval matters.

Sources for financial data: Brassey's Annual, 1882-1920; Jane's Fighting Ships, 1906 and 1914 eds.; Web article by Barry Slemmings (Warspite), How Much Did a Warship Cost?, and statistics quoted on worldwar1.co.uk   Costs quoted are for an entire class; from left to right in German marks, equivalent U.S. dollars and British pounds at 1914 valuation; then in the columns furthest to the right, the average cost per ship in each class, stated in U.S. dollars and British pounds at 1914 valuation. In actuality costs varied significantly from ship to ship even within a class; our numbers are sums of the actual ship costs where available; the average costs may be misleading in some cases. GM indicates gold mark (Imperial German currency), worth about 23 cents U.S. at the time. Of course, the cost of new capital ships was nowhere near the entire cost of the naval arms race; but especially as the dreadnought competition heated up, they were a driver of increased spending across the board. Thus we have captioned them initial cost. Watch this site for further analyses on the moneys engorged by Great Britain, France, and the United Statesin the naval arms race. It'll be right here soon as our boys with the green eye-shades, slip-sticks, and slide rules continue crunching the numbers for BBB's high command. We'll feed them into the fire-control table to make sure they're completely bona fide.

For more information on the value of money in the period compared to today, click here.

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Relevant Weblinks

• Narrative of the Pre-WWI Naval Arms Race
• Analysis of British Naval Spending, 1891-1916
• Timeline of the Naval Arms Race - from Churchill College, Cambridge
• Illustrated List of German Dreadnoughts
• BBB's Picture History of the Imperial German Nav
• Gallery of Battleship Models from SteelNavy.com
• Notable Naval Battles, 1860-1918
• The Influence of Sea Power on History, 1660-1783, 12th ed. - Project Gutenberg e-book
• Set Course for BBB Site Nav