Sea Your History - The Naval Arms Race

Conflict and Change

Learning

The Naval Arms Race

The fight for naval supremacy

Since the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, when the British Navy defeated the combined Fleets of the French and Spanish, Britain had rested on its laurels as the greatest naval power in the world.

An emerging German nation, who was keen to expand its fleet and empire and become a world power, soon began to challenge Britain’s naval supremacy.

Traditionally, Britain had always regarded its main enemy as France. An alliance between Russia and France in 1893 strengthened Britain’s suspicion and Germany’s five-year naval shipbuilding scheme, adopted in 1898 with its first Fleet Law, went largely unnoticed in Britain.

At the turn of the 20th century many countries viewed the modern battleship as a kind of status symbol. Only the richest and most powerful countries could afford to build and run the ships to make up a battle fleet.

Germany viewed the fleets of Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Austria-Hungary, the United States and Japan jealously and was keen to emulate the might of the Royal Navy.