German Naval Laws The Naval Laws ( , " Fleet Laws " ) were five separate laws passed by the German Empire , in 1898 , 1900 , 1906 , 1908 , and 1912 . These acts , championed by Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Secretary of State for the Navy , Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , committed Germany to building up a navy capable of competing with the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom . German desires and the strategic debate . The Kaiser had long wanted a large naval force to assure Germany of what he called " a place in the sun " . A large German navy could assist in German attempts to attain colonies , as well as further the country ' s economic and commercial interests elsewhere in the world . He was determined to make his country a colonial power in the Pacific and Africa . He was also a very militaristic man , and wished to increase the strength of the German armed forces ; in particular he wanted to develop a navy that could match the British Royal Navy . As he wrote in his autobiography : Though Wilhelm loved naval power , he was initially unsure what form the German Navy would take : a force made up primarily of smaller vessels such as cruiser s , or larger vessels such as battleship s . He initially leaned toward cruisers because they could go to all corners of the globe and display the German flag wherever they went , while battleships were large and cumbersome and thus needed to stay in the Baltic or North Sea . The Secretary of the German Imperial Naval Office , Admiral Friedrich von Hollmann , also favoured cruisers because they were cheaper and more suited to German maritime strategy , which then emphasized coastal defence . However , Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , the leading proponent of battleships for the German navy , argued that because Germany did not have many colonies or overseas coaling stations , cruiser warfare did not make sense . Rather , it was important to concentrate a large fleet of battleships in close proximity to the strongest sea power , as this was the only way that Germany could compete with Britain ( the world ' s leading naval and colonial power ) and thus achieve world power for itself . Tirpitz further claimed that the mere existence of a large battleship fleet would indirectly protect German colonies and commerce the world over , despite the battleships ' limited range . The victory of the battleship camp in this strategic debate was cemented when Tirpitz replaced Hollmann as State Secretary for the Navy . On June 15 , 1897 , Tirpitz unveiled a memorandum that was to alter European history . In this document , he argued that in order to defeat the strongest naval power , a fleet of battleships was necessary . He then proceeded to reverse his argument : if battleships were necessary , Germany ' s enemy must be the strongest naval power – Britain . Tirpitz ' s plans were predicated on " risk theory " – even if the German fleet was smaller than that of Britain , it had to be able to inflict damage on the Royal Navy that was severe enough to endanger British dominance of the seas . The losses would be so heavy that another power , perhaps a German ally or British foe , could then swoop in and destroy the remnants of the British fleet . To avoid such a costly naval confrontation with Germany , British diplomacy would become more accommodating towards German colonial and economic desires . Tirpitz felt that such a massive shipbuilding program could only work if its particulars were enshrined in law ; this would commit the navy to building a fixed number of ships in advance , ensure that the fleet was built up continuously , and avoid the need to haggle for the money to build each ship in the Reichstag . The stage was thus set for a set of laws that would precipitate the transformation of Anglo - German relations . The Naval Laws . At the turn of the 20th century , Britain adhered to the so - called " Two - Power Standard " : the Royal Navy had to be equal in strength to that of the next two naval powers combined . The standard , long accepted unofficially , was made official by the Naval Defence Act 1889 , and designated the French and Russian navies as the most likely adversaries for Britain on the high seas . However , the German Naval Laws advocated by Tirpitz began to threaten this standard . The First Naval Law , introduced to the Reichstag in late 1897 , outlined the composition of the fleet by vessel class and the number of ships to be constructed by 1904 and also set a cost limit . It authorized a fixed number of battleships that would not be altered by an annual parliamentary vote , proposing that 16 battleships be built in the following three years . The law passed the Reichstag on March 26 , 1898 over the opposition of the Conservative Party and the Social Democratic Party , who were against spending vast amounts of money . Its ramifications were not immediately evident , as the seven battleships it called for would not be sufficient to fight either the British or French navies . Germany ' s real threat to the Royal Navy began with the Second Naval Law . During the Second Boer War ( 1899 – 1902 ) , the Germans greatly sympathized with the Boers , whom they considered a racially and culturally akin people . In January 1900 , British cruisers on patrol detained three German mail steamers off the coast of Africa to search them , suspecting them of carrying materiel to the Boers . Although the British quickly apologized , the Germans were outraged , and Admiral von Tirpitz took advantage of the anger to introduce a new naval bill , which passed through the Reichstag with very little opposition on June 20 of that year . This law doubled the size of the fleet from 19 to 38 battleships ; two flagships , four battle squadrons of eight battleships each , and four reserve battleships were to be constructed over seventeen years , from 1901 to 1917 . This law made clear that not only was the German Navy to be a powerful battle fleet instead of a coastal defence force ( in the process turning Germany into the second - strongest naval power in the world ) , but that the primary opponent of this enlarged fleet was to be the United Kingdom . The next 12 years saw the Reichstag pass three more Naval Laws , in 1906 , 1908 , and 1912 ; in each case , Tirpitz took advantage of a sense of crisis and alarm in Germany to ensure the success of the legislation . In June 1906 , the Third Naval Law , mandating the construction of six large cruisers , became law following the German failure to break the Entente cordiale at the Algeciras Conference . The Fourth Naval Law of April 1908 pared down the age at which battleships were to be replaced from 25 to 21 years , and was sparked by a feeling that King Edward VII and Great Britain were trying to encircle Germany . The Fifth Naval Law , sparked by the German retreat in the Agadir Crisis of 1911 , passed in June 1912 and added three more battleships to the building program . The British response . Throughout the 1890s , Britain had been building its own battleships on a massive scale , and was more preoccupied with France and Russia than Germany , which it viewed more as an ally than as an enemy . However , the Second Naval Law , with its rapid expansion of the German fleet , began to gravely worry the island nation . German naval expansion threatened British control of the seas , which was vital not only to the maintenance of the British Empire , but also to the security of the British Isles themselves , as naval supremacy had long shielded Britain from invasion . As Lord Selborne , the First Lord of the Admiralty , informed Prime Minister Lord Salisbury and the rest of the on November 15 , 1901 : In an October 1902 Cabinet paper , Selborne elaborated further on the German naval threat to Britain : As a result , the British began to shift their foreign and naval policies to meet the German threat . From 1902 onward , an Anglo – German naval arms race developed as the Admiralty advocated the Two - Power Standard plus an additional six battleships over and above parity with the French and Russians . Diplomatically , the British forever abandoned Splendid Isolation by concluding the Anglo - Japanese Alliance in 1902 , then followed it two years later by signing the Entente cordiale with their long - time rivals , the French . With the signing of the Anglo - Russian Entente in 1907 , the German fear of encirclement became a reality . Under Sir John Fisher , who served as First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 , the Royal Navy underwent a period of revolutionary change . Since the autumn of 1902 , Fisher had viewed Germany as Britain ' s principal naval enemy , and so he redistributed the Fleet such that the biggest and most powerful ships were situated for battle against the Germans . The Home Fleet was renamed the Channel Fleet and ordered to remain in the proximity of the English Channel , while the former Channel Fleet , based at Gibraltar , was redesignated the Atlantic Fleet . Four battleships transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet and five from China enlarged the Channel Fleet to 17 battleships , while the eight battleships of the Atlantic Fleet could move north toward the British Isles or east into the Mediterranean Sea .