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That's an overstatement of a misperception, but it's a common trope or response on alternate history boards that Germany didn't have either a consequential navy or global ambitions prior to the appointment of Tirpitz and the passage of the Navy laws and the construction ordered under them coming into effect.

But for much of it's first 30 years, Germany had a respectable fleet.
Sondhaus, pp135

“In 1872 the German Navy ranked last in size among the fleets of six European great powers, but four years later {1876} it passed the Austro-Hungarian navy in total tonnage of warships in commission. In 1880 Germany passed Italy in total tonnage, and by 1882 it trailed only Britain and France in armored tonnage.


After its first decade of growth from 1872-1882, there was a bit of lull and others (Russia and Italy I think) pulled ahead of them again.

“Amid the declining budgets of his {Stosch}last years in office, Germany laid down no armored warships at all between 1879 and 1883.

pp164, German admiralty under Caprivi concerned about expansion of Russian Baltic fleet.

pp171: In the late 1880s the Italians had the world’s third largest navy and expected no help from the Germans at sea.


Sondhaus, pp189

“In 1894, two years after Russia’s naval expansion dropped Germany to fifth in armored tonnage among European fleets, the completion of the Brandenburgs enabled the navy to pass Italy and recover fourth place. In 1896 , Germany finally passed Italy in total warship tonnage”

So, these rankings show Germany twice having the third largest European fleet. The data I am specifying don't deal with contemporary non-European fleets, like America's and Japan's, but I would expect that US armored tonnage was less at a few points in the this period and Japan was probably less at all times.

German gunboat diplomacy was not a brand new thing starting in China, the Philippines and Venezuela in the later later 1890s either.

Caribbean gunboat diplomacy started as early as the 1870s:
“Compared with the Pacific, far fewer German warships visited these waters, but under Stosch the most dramatic cases of gunboat pressure came in Latin America.
1871 sent a warship to Rio to support a German merchant and consul.
Winter 1871-1872, a warship visited Venezuela to encourage debt repayment.

pp118 “After Haiti reneged on a promise to pay a claim of 20,000 thalers to a Hamburg merchant, Batsch took his ships to Port-au-Prince in June 1872. In a daring nighttime operation, a landing party led by Lieutenant Friedrich Hollman stored the town, while others seized two Haitian navy paddle steamers anchored in the harbor. They suffered no casualties, and the debt was promptly paid.”
After that in 1872, German warships went to Colombia successfully encouraging payment for railroad development.

“The next great display of gunboat diplomacy in Latin American waters came in March 1878, after Germany demanded reparations of $30,000 for alleged ill treatment of the German consult in Nicaragua. When Managua refused to pay, the corvettes Leipzig, Elisabeth and Ariadne blockaded the Nicaraguan coastline on the Pacific side, the corvette Medusa on the Atlantic side. The government in Managua remained defiant until it learned that German agents had leased a number of oxcarts to carry supplies for an inland march by a large landing party. Payment of the debt and a Nicaraguan salute to the German flag brought a quick end to the crisis. The Leipzig had to double back across the Pacific to join the demonstration; the ship even had Japanese cadets on board, who were put to shore temporarily in Panama.”

“At the turn of the century, the Nicaraguan demonstration of 1878 was still being hailed as a classic example of gunboat diplomacy.”

Also, for all the identification of Bismarck with anti colonialism and antinavalism, and Wilhelm II with enthusiasm for those items, the German Empire annexed much more territory and population overseas during Bismarck's ministry than in any of Wilhelm II's later ministries. I mean Micronesia and and Qingdao are pretty small, especially if you don't count their EEZ waters. I guess if you count those, Wilhelm II wins the contest.
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