Alfred von Tirpitz
Buchanan argues that Britain had no quarrel with Germany before 1914, but the great rise of the Imperial German Navy, spearheaded by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, was a "threat to Britain" that forced the British to bring back to European waters the bulk of its Royal Navy and to make alliances with Russia and France. Buchanan asserts that a disastrous policy that "tied England to Europe" and created the conditions that led the British to involvement in the war.