Talk:Anglo-German naval arms race

Don't understand this calculation

Britain managed to build Dreadnought in just 14 months[5] and by the start of the First World War Britain had 49 battleships, compared with Germany's 29.[5]

• I don’t understand the calculation leading to your sums: GERMANY had 22 old battleships (ships of the line since Kaiser Friedrich III.), 17 dreadnought battleships, 2 older battle cruisers (Roon, York) and 8 modern battle cruisers, but only 5 were part of the High Sea Fleet. I don’t find a way to “29”. BRITAIN had 33 "Dreadnoughts" and "Invincibles" plus Lord Nelson, Agamenon (pre dreadnoughts) and Australia (colonial cruiser). Show me the way to “49”, please. You table below give other results: BRITAIN 29 and GERMANY 17. -- Zeitgeschichte (talk) 19:14, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Possible vandalism - or unclear sentences?

The following sentence seem out of context, or possible vandalism:

• By 1905, Britain had 44 battleships that were expensive to maintain and the arms race was no longer a threat. It did influence joining the Triple Entente because it did not bother them to upset Germany.,.[5]

I'll try to track this in the source cited, but if it still don't make sense will remove it from the article. Regards, DPdH (talk) 13:47, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Dubious

First, as noted above, the math on those figures doesn't add up, though it's in the source provided. Second, several of the references were added by someone who apparently has never done it before, so I had to untangle them. Dziban303⁓talk 22:22, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

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Inaccuracies In The Arms Race Section - Lack Of Clarity?

I am finding it difficult to understand the section Arms Race Ends (1912-14). The section has a list of ship types under the heading "Large Naval Vessels" yet it does not correlate to either interpretation. If you are including dreadnought only class ships then France should either have 7 (number of dreadnoughts commissioned) or 11 (Ships commissioned and laid down and the Normandie class was never completed or even launched either) and is wildly inaccurate if it includes pre dreadnought battleships.

Similarly, Russia only had 2 dreadnoughts launched and completed by the end of 1914 (and then, only in November and December 1914 so technically not at the start of the First World War) from the Gangut class. Gangut itself and Petropavlovsk weren't completed until January 1915. Also, the Imperatritsa Mariya class were all building but not completed until mid 1915.

Germany only had 19 dreadnought battleships in total, not 20, and 5 of these weren't in commission by the start of World War I - Grosser Kurfurst, Markgraf, Kronprinz, Bayern and Baden.

In the text of the section it says that Germany had 7 battlecruisers at the start of the First World War but they only had 5 as Lutzow and Hindenberg weren't in service.

As for the British dreadnoughts, only 20 were in service at the start of the First World War. Benbow and Emperor Of India from the Iron Duke class weren't in service yet. Erin and Agincourt hadn't been seized from Turkey as yet, Canada hadn't been requisitioned from Chile and none of the 5 Queen Elizabeth Class or 5 Revenge Class dreadnoughts were in service either.

Also, Britain only had 9 battlecruisers in commission at the start of the First World War as HMS Tiger wasn't in service.

Lastly, shouldn't Italy's 3 dreadnought battleships in service at the time be included since they didn't refuse to join the Triple Alliance in war until the 3rd August, 5 days after the First World War started?

Alleged arms race financial problems

"Maintaining Europe's largest army and second-largest navy took an enormous toll on Germany's finances." Are there any sources to substantiate these claims? According to the below mentioned source, the conscript armies of both Russia and France were larger than that of the German Empire. (What was significantly higher than in other conscript armies, however, was the German pay.) Similarly, the fleets. Fleet budgets: In 1900, the Reich was in fifth place behind England, Russia, the USA and even France. In 1905/6 it was still in fifth place, in 1910 and 1912/13 in third place (Russia and France had fallen behind), in 1913/14 Germany was in fourth place (Russia had passed). Expenditure on the German fleet compared to army expenditure: Expenditure fluctuated from 1900 to 1914, initially around 20 per cent, then 25 per cent and finally 20 per cent of the total defence budget. Defence expenditure as a percentage of gross national product: 1905- 1914: England 3.25 percent, Germany 2.88 percent. Expenditure per capita: In the 10 years before the First World War, Germany spent 20 gold marks per capita annually on the armed forces, France the equivalent of 26 gold marks and England 31. (Dr. F. Uhle-Wettler: Alfred v. Tirpitz in seiner Zeit, Hamburg 1996) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.6.16.73 (talk) 08:42, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Economic Warfare

"Germany abandoned the dreadnought arms race and focused on a commerce raiding naval strategy to be conducted with submarines."

I think this is a distortion of the facts. As early as 1905, the British Admiralty geared its strategy towards economic warfare in the event of a conflict with Germany (see Nicholas Lambert's book 'Planing Armageddon'). Germany, which before the war had to import around a third of its food from abroad, was to be cut off from all food deliveries with the aim of starving the population (see 'Planing Armageddon', pg 259). The declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare by the German government was in response to the Allied blockade. As far as I know, there was no planning for economic warfare in Germany before the war, at least not to the extent that there was in the British Admiralty. The English blockade had catastrophic effects and from 1916 onwards led to massive excess mortality among the German civilian population (look for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnip_Winter)