Admiral von Tirpitz has, in fact, been the Bismarck of German naval policy, and just as the Iron Chancellor fulfilled the hopes of the men of the Frankfort National Assembly, so the smiling and urbane Minister of Marine has gone far towards realizing the dreams of Friedrich List and Prince Adalbert of Prussia. It may be questioned whether he would not have done this work quite as effectually without the Emperor's loud and tempestuous advocacy of his schemes on the open stage of the world. The trumpet tones in which William II. proclaimed his dreams of world-wide rule and maritime dictatorship, not only exercised a disquieting effect in foreign countries, but conjured up in the minds of many Germans unpleasant visions of provocative and perilous adventure. Other nations were anything but delighted at the prospects of being swallowed up in a universal Teutonic Empire, however peaceful its conquests and however beneficent its rule, and they took steps by which the successive moves of German naval policy were successively counteracted.
If we may judge from the discretion which he has shown by keeping as far as possible in the background, Admiral von Tirpitz would, if left to himself, have built up the German Fleet with the same silent and systematic persistency with which Bismarck, Roon, and Moltke prepared to crush France, and to some extent he combines in his character the qualities of these three. He is at any rate the adroitest politician, the ablest organizer, and the most far-sighted strategist in the Imperial service. Long before he was thought of as Naval Minister, he had won for himself among his colleagues, by the skill and thoroughness with which he grappled with every problem allotted to him, the title of "The Master." It was he who, against the ignorant protests of the older school of naval officers, chiefly concerned for the smartness of their paint, the cleanness of their decks, and the brightness of their brasswork, forced the torpedo upon them, and brought the service of this weapon up to the high pitch of efficiency which it has to-day attained in the German Fleet. As Chief of the Staff to the General Command of the Navy, he evolved fresh rules of strategy and new tactical formations, and insisted upon Man[oe]uvres being carried out in such a way as to test the value of both. He has been no less successful as statesman, politician, and diplomatist. Here, too, he deserves the name of "Master" among his contemporaries, for what he has done has been the greatest ministerial achievement of our day. It is true that he was favoured by an extraordinary run of luck that was vouchsafed to none of his forerunners, and that he would never have been able to drive his machine but for the energy generated by a series of international dissensions, but at the same time it must be conceded that he took advantage of his opportunities with rare promptitude and address.
He at once took the measure of the Reichstag, and saw how he could make it obedient to his will. It is traditional in the higher ranks of the German official hierarchy to despise popular assemblies, and to treat them with an air of pedagogic superciliousness. Hollmann had become so impatient at the continual mutilation of his estimates that at last he thumped his fist menacingly on the table. That precipitate action sealed his fate. Admiral von Tirpitz recognized that it would be better for him if he disguised his contempt, and smothered his anger in his beard. In one of Rostand's plays, a lady is asked how she passed the sentries who were posted round a jealously guarded camp, and she replies: "I smiled at them." If the Naval Minister were to be asked how he induced the parties who had been so obdurate to his predecessor's demands to pass his own so much more expensive projects, he, too, might have replied: "I smiled at them." Completely breaking with the tradition of schoolmasterly superiority, he was all complacency and urbanity to the ignorant mediocrities who had it in their power to frustrate his designs. His beaming rubicund countenance was ever the brightest and most ingratiating feature in the debates on his bills and estimates. His good humour was inexhaustible, his courtesy unflagging, his patience undisconcertable. He knew exactly what he wanted, and thought only of that. His mind was not clouded, like those of so many of his ministerial colleagues, by religious or political prejudices. He was ready to accept ships from the hands of Catholics or Socialists. Whether they ranked the Pope above the Emperor, or preferred a republic to a monarchy, was quite indifferent to him, if only they would grant him the ships and the men he asked for.
In one of his many veiled conflicts with the Foreign Office, Admiral von Tirpitz is understood to have exclaimed: "Politics are your affair—I build ships!" and it was precisely because he attended strictly and conscientiously to his own business that he was able to do it so well. It was incumbent upon him as administrator of the Navy to make it as strong and efficient as possible, and it lay with the Chancellors to decide whether the line he was following was consistent with the general policy of the Empire. That, against their own convictions and what they conceived to be Germany's foreign interests, they allowed him to have his own way, only proved their weakness and his strength.
While he was amiable and polite to all parties and persons who could assist him in the carrying out of his ideas, flattered their vanity by pretended confidences from the region of high politics, took them for cruises in war vessels, and had them deferentially escorted round Imperial shipyards, the Admiral was quick to appreciate the importance of winning the good graces of the Catholics, without whose favour, as party relationships stood and were likely to stand, he could hope to effect little. Young and active members of the Centre party, who showed a particular interest in the details of naval policy, were singled out for special attention, and soon were numbered among his most devoted champions. He likewise realized the value of popular support, and this was secured through the instrumentality of the Press Bureau of the Ministry of Marine. This institution was administered in the same spirit which gained the Admiral his parliamentary triumphs. The naval officers by whom it is manned have always received all journalists, domestic and foreign, with open arms, and, according to the objects and nationality of their visitors, furnished them with ideas, information and directions. No German writer on naval affairs could afford to dispense with official assistance so profusely and willingly supplied. The Press Bureau placed at his disposal all the historical and statistical data which could be used to demonstrate Germany's need of a big fleet, all the articles from the foreign press which were likely to have a stimulating effect upon his readers, all the details of ship and gun types which could safely be made public, all the rules of naval strategy and tactics which might be of service to him in the formulation of his themes. If diffidence or a spirit of independence prevented him from coming to the Press Bureau, the Press Bureau went to him, as will be seen from the following document which found its way into print:
"Imperial Ministry of Marine,
"News Office.
"Berlin,
"——, 1907."It has become known here that, some time ago, you published in —— articles of a maritime nature. For this reason the News Office gladly takes the opportunity of enquiring whether you would care to receive occasional batches of service material and press comments for possible use in further articles. In view of the impending Navy Bill, your support in the Press might be particularly valuable in the immediate future.
"Your most obedient servant,
"Boy-Ed."
By such means the Admiral succeeded in obtaining a control, gentle, persuasive, and veiled, but none the less effective, over practically the entire body of writers on naval topics in the German Press.
The unanimity of view on naval subjects which the Bureau imported into the German Press was naturally most effective. When the simple citizen found that all the papers to which he had access spoke with one voice, simultaneously adopting an identical attitude to a fresh situation or propounding a novel theory, he could only assume that they must be in the right. The proposal that Great Britain should abandon her Two-Power standard and accept in its stead a ratio of three to two, which appeared almost at the same moment in a score of different papers while the 1912 Navy Bill was under process of dilution, is an instance in point. Up till then all naval writers in Germany had been unanimous in protesting that agreements to fix a naval ratio between two countries were in their very nature impossible, and the suddenness and simultaneity of their conversion must have been due to the intervention either of Providence or the Marine Minister. Indeed, the Minister's statement a year later in the Reichstag Budget Commission definitely set at rest any doubt that might have existed as to the original source of the proposal. Since Bismarck, no one has shown such adroitness as Admiral von Tirpitz in the management of the Press.
In addition to controlling the naval views of independent publications, the Press Bureau also makes important direct contributions of its own to periodical literature with the annual Nauticus and the monthly magazine Die Marine Rundschau. Both these publications are further testimonies to the energy with which the Admiral performs the duties of his office.
But with all his cleverness, perseverance, and patience, Admiral Tirpitz would never have reached his goal had not Germany been swept by successive waves of Anglophobia. Both speeches in the Reichstag and articles in the Press make it quite evident that the motive uppermost in the minds of most deputies when they voted for the Navy Bills was the desire to impress, annoy, or terrify Great Britain. The truth is that, but for the Boer War, the Bill of 1900 could never have been so much as introduced; but for the perpetual international friction over Morocco and the fantastic legend of King Edward's designs against Germany, the Bills of 1906 and 1908 would have had but small chance of acceptance; and but for Mr. Lloyd George's speech and Captain Faber's indiscretions—and, it should be added, the misrepresentations of both of them by Admiral von Tirpitz's Press—the Ministry of Marine would never have been able to win its last victory against the opposition of the Treasury and the misgivings of the Chancellor. The lesson of 1848 cannot be too thoroughly learnt. The naval movement of that year was almost entirely popular in its character. It arose out of a sense of wounded dignity, and fits of national temper, blind to all the prudential considerations of domestic and international politics, have given Germany to-day the second largest fleet and the largest Socialist party in the world. It may seem almost like a contradiction in terms to suggest that a national sentiment has contributed to swell German Socialism to its present dimensions. But this is—for Germany, at any rate—no paradox, for in no other country does so small a proportion of the population constitute what is in practice and in effect the "will of the people."