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 the 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 a pint of beer cost 5 cents, with lunch thrown in. 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	1914	4	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 at target practice. British officers in some cases had friends in the Imperial German Navy and recorded concern for their survival in the war and admiration for their gallantry in battle.

Once the war began, initial brushes between the two navies followed this pattern (it helped that the British generally won). When war was 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 weapon never drawn or utilized. 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. 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 never 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.

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.

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 by 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.

The British felt they could not afford to take chances, and acted accordingly with stepped-up spending and an emphasis on cutting-edge technology. Whatever Wilhelm's intentions, his ambassadors' and advisors' warnings came true; events sprang to attention and assumed a life of their own; and when intransigence took hold and mobilization orders began to be issued in August 1914, the anguished voices of reason were drowned by the relentless tramp of army boots. There seemd no turning back without an unacceptable loss of face, so the Great Powers blundered forward into a colossal failure. As the British Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, so poignantly wrote, the lamps were going out all over Europe. Not until the late 1950s would the Continent crawl out of the abyss into which it had marched so willingly in 1914. At right - Nassau class dreadnoughts at target practice: Westfalen firing, as seen from the Nassau.

The disastrous results of military overspending in the past send a cautionary note to us today, possibly making thoughtful observers 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 and 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. Issues to ponder!

Sources

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 consumed by the naval arms race by Great Britain, France, and the United States as our boys with the green eye-shades and slide rules continue crunching the numbers for BBB's high command.

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
• 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
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