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In 1914 the Royal Navy had much to lose.
It had attained its position of global pre-eminence during the
long maritime wars of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century that
culminated in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Only the Royal
Navy had the capability of dominating the seas to such an extent
that large forces of troops could be freely and securely moved
around the globe to launch a powerful assault. The old rule of
thumb had been to ensure that the British possessed a fleet large
enough to face both France and Russia acting in harness. Now the
rise of the highly industrialised Imperial Germany posed a new
threat. Germany was determined to build her own navy to express
fully her Imperial ambitions.
The Admiralty response to the increased
pressure was exceptionally bold: the launch in 1906 of the Dreadnought.
She was well armoured with ten 12" guns and powered by the
latest turbine engines which took her up to the then unprecedented speed, for a
British battleship, of 21 knots. They also instigated a new class
of ship that would in time become known as the battlecruiser.
The battlecruiser had a heavy armament, eight 12" guns, but was
lightly armoured, relying on her exceptional speed of 25 knots
to whisk her away from danger. The first battlecruiser, the Invincible,
was completed in 1908.
The 'Naval Race' between Britain and Germany
escalated in the following years as each sought to match and exceed
the building programme of the other. The competition poisoned
relationships between the two counties and forced Britain into
ever-closer informal alliance with her former enemies, France
and Russia.
The dreadnoughts increased in size and power while
the Germans actually came up with a better-balanced design for
their battlecruisers - just as fast, but with a far superior
armoured protection. They would test to destruction
the dictum that 'speed is its own armour'.
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