AHC larger Naval arms race in 1890-1914 ?

Your mission should you chose to except it is to get more nations from around the world into the arms race that occured in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries .I dont want say Greece trying to out build France but realistic reasons and ships built .So say Greece gets into and arms race with the Ottoman empire (Larger than OTL )And build 3 predreadnoughts in 1900 and two Dreadnoughts in 1910-14 .
Describe the backstory for the arms race that occurs and bonus points if your mini race gets a major power to build as a response to their building .

Ireland might actually be the key to this. Suppose another attempt at revolution there, perhaps Irish-American sponsored and resourced- or simply that the Second Home Rule Bill is, as a combination of party arm- twisting, absenteeism, and tactical voting, actually passed. There would be something like the Curragh Camp crisis, without the imminent distraction of a major war to paper over the gaps.

Major internal troubles in Britain, destabilisation of the Pax Brittannia, suddenly the world's oceans look a lot less safe, there could be a few ugly international incidents around the Sino-Japanese War of 1893-4 to add impulse to this.

Anyone with a sea coast suddenly has to start looking to their own defence. Old grievances flare up, prodded by adventurism from several other great powers.

Well, more or less anyway.

I had not thought of that !My idea was that maybe regional tensions around the world escalate to the point were nations all over the world are engaging their neighbors in local arms races that add to the general arms race going on with the UK ,France ,Germany ,Russia ,Italy and Japan .Along with the US in the races later years to create a massive atmosphere of nationality and pride that would make the first world war that much more violent and horrible .
Your post though is fascinating .Keep them coming people so far they have been better than any of my ideas .

Every respectable power (and some who weren't) was building up its navy.
Russia, France and Germany. But there's also Japan, the US, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. The last three had fairly respectable navies by 1904.

The Italians are taking a little break after Adowa but get back in the game fairly soon.

Who else is there?

LordKalvert said:

Who else is there?

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What about Sweden ,Spain ,Turkey and the Netherlands ,just to name a few .Also what about Austro-Hungary getting more involved in the race than they did .
I don`t know about the first four nations but in the case of Austria they had the economy to do it seemed to lack the will to do so .What about getting any of these nations either more involved ,or involved in the first place .

If you can get some type of different settlement in Austria-Hungary in 1867 where Hungary wasn't holding the military budget to ransom then the KuK Navy is far more likely to be better funded. Which in turn would put pressure on Italy even if the two are allied. So Italy builds up more. UK would feel the need to keep more ships in Malta. France would feel threated and build more ships.

Michael

Tough with all the small powers, but here is one for the big ones. How about Russian victory at Tsushima. Russian remains as a power and the naval forces are better balanced. German naval build-up is not seen as aggressive as otherwise, but when the first all big gun BB's arrive (dreadnought commissioned later). The panic might hid all the harder. Imagine Germany ahead (or the US North Carolina being the first) and contemplate the British response and German investments to stay ahead/get the lead.

miketr said:

If you can get some type of different settlement in Austria-Hungary in 1867 where Hungary wasn't holding the military budget to ransom then the KuK Navy is far more likely to be better funded. Which in turn would put pressure on Italy even if the two are allied. So Italy builds up more. UK would feel the need to keep more ships in Malta. France would feel threated and build more ships.

Michael

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I've been thinking about that. I was thinking that if Dalmatia becomes part of Hungary instead of Austria in the 1867 settlement and the Ganz Danubis shipyard was opened a decade earlier the Hungarian politicians might be more naval minded because more votes were in it for them. Would that be enough for Hungary to spend more money on the KuK Navy?

IIRC the KuK Navy had 12 battleships and 3 armoured cruisers in 1914, but they were much smaller than other navies designs. I was going to give them 16 battleships and 4 armoured cruisers but of larger displacements. There would be more and better light cruisers, destroyers and torpedo boats to back them up.

The title was going to be The Era of Hungarian Navalism.

Gudestein said:

Tough with all the small powers, but here is one for the big ones. How about Russian victory at Tsushima. Russian remains as a power and the naval forces are better balanced. German naval build-up is not seen as aggressive as otherwise, but when the first all big gun BB's arrive (dreadnought commissioned later). The panic might hid all the harder. Imagine Germany ahead (or the US North Carolina being the first) and contemplate the British response and German investments to stay ahead/get the lead.

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Fisher wanted all-gun BB's and had been working on them since he took office in 1904 so even if the Russians win somehow he'll still get HMS Dreadnought

Even if Tsushima is a Russian win they still have the results of the Yellow Sea battle to back up the all big gun concept

(and i'm assuming you mean South Carolina if the US get their first)

What if the Anglo Japanese treaty breaks down after the Russia/Japanese war

Britain might held the dutch naval ambitions become a reality. Some technical help could make the plans reality.

A bigger Greco/Ottoman arms race was mentioned above and that might suck in Bulgaria and Romania.

Scotty said:

Fisher wanted all-gun BB's and had been working on them since he took office in 1904 so even if the Russians win somehow he'll still get HMS Dreadnought

Even if Tsushima is a Russian win they still have the results of the Yellow Sea battle to back up the all big gun concept

(and i'm assuming you mean South Carolina if the US get their first)

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He might have been talking about Japan, actually. The Satsuma was originally planned as an allｰbigｰgun battleship, with 12 inchers. If completed as planned, it would have been the world's first such ship laid down, beating out the Dreadnought. In OTL, there was a shortage of 12 inch guns in Japan (the ship was the first Japanese capital ship built in Japan, although with many foreign components), and they cheaped out, building her with two 12 inch guns, and a secondary battery of 10 and 8 inch guns. If Japan lost the Battle of Tsushima, or wins but looses several ships, the Navy might decide it is necessary to rush the ship's construction, and buy the guns abroad. In that case, it is possible that such ships would be known as "Satsumas".

Would never happen but what if ???
In the year 1899 the kingdom of Austria-Hungary decided that a new navy was necessary to help defend the nation from the threats posed by Russia ,Italy and even France .The 1900 program would call for the following vessels .
8 Battleships .
6 Armored Cruisers .
12 Protected Cruisers .
36 Torpedo Boats .
In addition the battleships a pair of vessels of a new type were ordered .To be be called the Tegetthof class these ships were to carry six 12 inch guns in three turrets all on the center line .Upon completion in 1904 these ships were the most powerfull ships on the planet and would lead to an escalation of the arms race currently occuring all over the world as most nations with a coast line raced eachother to get even a single Tegetthof type vessel in their navies .
Even the small nation of Denmark would eventually build three ships by the year 1915 while the naval superpower of Britain managed to build over forty ships of the type and had introduced the concept of the Battlecruiser of which they had 16 in service .
The nations of Germany ,France and Russia as the greatest powers of the time ,With Britain as supreme head , raced one another to build the biggest number of vessels of the new type .
Austria for their part managed to build over a dozen Tegetthofs besides the first two of the class .Italy ,Greece and Turkey also built ships both to outbiuld their neighbors and to compete with Austria .
It was estimated that by the year 1914 just ten years in the Tegetthof race that over one hundred and fifty new ships had been built and over fifty were on the stocks of over thirty different nations .
Hows that for a scenario ?