France and German Building Programs 1896 to 1912

State of French Navy 1896

12 Battleships.
15 Coast-Defense Ships.
4 Armored Cruisers.
8 Armored Gunboats.

Under Construction

9 Battleships.
3 Armored Cruisers.


1st German Naval Law – 1898
19 Battleships
8 Coast Defense
12 Large Cruiser

All to be in service or started by 1903


French 1900 Program
28 battleships
24 Armored Cruisers
By 1907



German 1900 Program
38 Battleships
14 large Cruiser
By 1917


French 1906 Program
34 Battleships
15 1st Class Armored Cruisers
12 2nd Class Armored Cruisers
By 1919


German 1906 Program
38 Battleships
17 Large Cruiser
By 1917


French 1907 Program
38 Battleships
20 Class Armored Cruisers
By 1920

Its not clear if the 1907 program was just proposed or passed into law.


German 1908 Program
38 Battleships
17 Large Cruiser
By 1917 but replacement age of BBs reduced from 25 years to 20 years.


In 1908 and 1909 there is no clear mention of the 1907 program for the French. Which makes me suspect it wasn’t passed into law or funding was refused for the ships. Note no French capital ships laid down at all in 1909. Mention of debates on size of French battlefleet, 22 or 28 or 38 battleships by 1919 or 1920.


1910 French Program
28 Battleships
10 ‘Scouts’
By 1919


1912 German Program
41 Battleships
20 Large Cruisers
By 1917


From 1910 onward lots of mention that French fleet is overtly building vs Italian and Austro-Hungarian fleets. That the Germans lead in ships is just too much to overcome.

Below is list of ships started by France and Germany 1870s on.

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What I am wondering for now is why if the Germans didn't do the 1900 navy law with that huge jump from 19 BBs + 8 CDs = 27 ships they had done a much smaller expansion? Say in 1901 or so with 28 Battleships, the Coast Defense ships to be declared over age and available for early replacement. All the rhetoric out of Berlin is the German building program is targeted on the French Fleet.

After the French do their 1906 program the Germans match it with goal of 34 BBs themselves.

With no real additional French program materializing be 1910 the German program stays as is.

By itself what if any change might this different naval program of the Germans have on events? With their fleet size overtly targeted on the French?
 
No drastic change on OTL. Any expansion of the German Navy is going to cause concern in the corridors of power of the British Admiralty who will expand the Royal Navy accordingly. It might start as targeting the French but sooner or later it's going to become an arms race between Britain and Germany.
 
Agree with Dertwit that as the numbers increase the British will get concerned.

The Germans might mitigate the British concern by building different types, continuing to build Witteslsbach class ships (good Baltic ship, shallow draft, tight turning circle, not focused on sea keeping).
OR by building smaller number of Canopus style long range Battleships (just not building ships designed to operate best between Heligoland and the Thames)
Not building building the larger Dreadnought class until the French do.

Regardless, Germany is a general threat to Britain due to its size, population and economic strength, however without war by 1918 Russia would be a bigger threat and all this OTL posturing would be an insignificant part of history,as Britain goes more concerned with the large and growing Russian navy, combined with Russia's army, population, rail net and growing industry.
 
Since 1889 the British subscribed to the 'Two Power Standard' which was France and Russia, after 1905 that will be France and Germany. So of course the RN will respond in some way but why would events follow historic path? For example why is there going to be the 1909 Naval Panic in London? If the German build tempo is slowing and there is no 1908 law to increase speed of German building?

Michael
 
Since 1889 the British subscribed to the 'Two Power Standard' which was France and Russia, after 1905 that will be France and Germany. So of course the RN will respond in some way but why would events follow historic path? For example why is there going to be the 1909 Naval Panic in London? If the German build tempo is slowing and there is no 1908 law to increase speed of German building?

One would think there would be less panics at particular points of time, But if other than naval building, if the other diplomatic events play out as OTL: Boer war, Morocco, 1908 Bosnian crisis, Sarajevo, Germany invades Belgium, that war between Britain and Germany happens anyway.

I guess the question is: Would Britain gravitate toward France diplomatically regardless of German naval strength and DOW Germany if Germany attacks through Belgium just the same.
 
One would think there would be less panics at particular points of time, But if other than naval building, if the other diplomatic events play out as OTL: Boer war, Morocco, 1908 Bosnian crisis, Sarajevo, Germany invades Belgium, that war between Britain and Germany happens anyway.

I guess the question is: Would Britain gravitate toward France diplomatically regardless of German naval strength and DOW Germany if Germany attacks through Belgium just the same.

Does Entente Cordiale of 1904 still occur if there is no German naval challenge? Does the relocation of fleets still occur with most modern ships to UK waters and the French concentration into the Med?

Assume that the rest of bombastic German policy still occurs up to 1914. Ignore the July crisis etc in 1914. My focus is wondering how things play out without the German naval challenge.

Michael
 
I suspect it would happen anyway.

The Entente Cordiale would still be pursued by France, France need allies.
Britain gets resolution on colonial struggles, plus it offers Britain security because only the French have good bases for a war on English trade. Britain being the stronger of the 2 can make the Alliance into whatever she needs. Germany just has less to offer Britain. Perhaps by 1920 if Russia is becoming an aggressive super power Britain and Germany might have to get together to contain the threat.

Really for Germany, she can dabble with her fleet, aggressively pursue colonies, and generally annoy everyone, just don't get into real shooting wars with Britain or Russia, back off before then.
 
So the German fleet has nothing to do with events in your opinion?

Michael

Yes and no. I would agree with @Catspoke above, the French and British have more to gain in alliance than Britain does with Germany, there is little Germany could do in genuinely building a Navy to meet her needs and respond to the Franco-Russian threats without gaining Britain as an enemy, the British are building for supremacy, it matters little who the two other powers are but Germany offered a really good bogeyman. But that is not to say the German fleet, or in your query its "absence" is a nullity. The Russian defeat in 1905 thrust Germany front and center as the most current threat to British interests and most likely European hegemon. If the Russians had avoided or even simply not lost that conflict, then Russian growth is not delayed and Britain would be eyeing the Franco-Russian combine very differently. I do not think it gets you an Anglo-German Alliance but it does make Germany far more valuable as a counter weight to Russia and makes alliance with France thornier for the British. We forget that Anglo-French antagonisms were quite old and still alive even in 1914, not everyone simply accepted France as friend or bought that Britain should fight for French ambitions. Alas Germany did much diplomatically to bungle its position and let itself become the villain, without that things are easier, but Germany was disrupting the status quo, it was going to make enemies no matter how it proceeded. The Naval Arms Race to me is a lot more post-war narrative and scapegoating, the fact that Germany came so very close to victory and at sea offered the first real threat since Napoleon only adds to the myth, merely backing off the Naval build-up cannot alone make Britain and Germany allies, but it added to the other threads weaving Britain into the alignment to France. Delay the Great War and that gravity can shift, both France and Russia by the 1920s are becoming a real threat and Britain once again might need to seek a way to disorganize that to upset a continental hegemony sufficient to genuinely unseat the RN. So a different HSF might weaken British resolve to go to war, but other events are putting Germany and Britain on a collision course that means she needs that Navy even more threatening. To steer the middle of the Channel is I think hopelessly at the mercy of other forces that make it too little a butterfly.
 
I though this was an interesting period document:

http://www.gwpda.org/naval/pwr01000.htm

(admiralty secret memorandum to Canada)

Its pushing for funds so it is going to warn about threats but wasn't overstating the threat and didn't necessarily paint Germany's intentions as overtly hostile (perhaps a pursuit of power in the general sense).

The Entente Cordiale had the colonial understanding part, Britain gets Egypt, France gets Morocco, etc so it makes sense that it has to happen regardless of what Germany is doing, and that Germany gets in a dispute over Morocco as in OTL and that an embarrassed Germany will want a fleet as a defense mechanism. Its just hard for Germany to avoid building a fleet.

However I think Germany could have had a parallel agreement with Britain some time in there. A non aggression pact, an earlier agreement about the Baghdad railway, that sort of thing, maybe eliminating the political need of one the later naval laws.
 
Wow, a pre WW1 thread about navies that looks at the actual numbers, plans and other documents. It seems too good to be true.

For mine I agree with the broader view of history that takes into account many factors , rather than the reductionist view that appears to strip all that away in order to fit the issue into a paragraph of a book or sound bite of a History Channel doco.
 
I though this was an interesting period document:

http://www.gwpda.org/naval/pwr01000.htm

(admiralty secret memorandum to Canada)

Its pushing for funds so it is going to warn about threats but wasn't overstating the threat and didn't necessarily paint Germany's intentions as overtly hostile (perhaps a pursuit of power in the general sense).

One of the comments the document makes is a question mark about the British dont know what the Germans are building up for. If the Germans overtly build against the french fleet, matching their numbers. Then perhaps that element at least is removed.

Also again there is no 1909 panic.

Thanks for the document.

Michael
 
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