PIRATES' OLD MAN OF THE SEA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2772, 16 May 1916, Page 6

PIRATES' OLD MAN OF THE SEA

THE RETIREMENT OF VON TIRPITZ TWENTY YEARS' OF NAVAL LIFE ' ■• (By "The Times" Correspondent, formerly . in Berlin.). /Even if the German Government, emuauS the P ro,;ee dings of Enver after the death of the Turkish Heir-Apparent, were to summon all the doctors of' Berlin to certify the serious state of Admiral von lirpitzs health, they would not affect either German or foreign opinion about tho sickness which was suddenly announced on Monday evening and produced lirpitz's retirement within IS hours. Whatever may be either the naval or diplomatic consequence;!, the fall of Tirpitz is the most remarkable German domestic event since the outbreak of wit. Tirpitz, the son of a lawyer, was born at Kuetrin in 1«9, and will be 67 next Sunday. He entered the Navy in W>6s, and s9 was able to celebrate last rear, amid many signs of Imperial and public favour, the end of 50 years' service. Ho became a rear-admiral m 1895, and, after a short period, of command in the Far East, was suddenly appointed Secretary of State for the Office of the Imperial Navy in 1897, in succession to the amiable but not particularly enterprising—and somewhat Anglophil—Admiral Hollman. Tirpitz had not had ft particularly din. tinguished naval career, but lie was tho deliberate choice of. the Kmperor for the business of steering great schemes of naval expansion through the shoals of domestic politics. Tirpitz introduced the first Navy Bill in 1898. It created the foundation upon which, all his subsequent work was built—the cfiablishment of the principle that a certain naval strength should be reached in a certain period oi years. He used all kinds of general and special arguments, but it is interesting to remember that, wfcjen he spoko of war, he always said that 'Germany would have to rely upon her Navy to prevent a blockade. He said in 189S:—

"If a blockade catriiot lie prevented, thedevelopment of evenls' will be that in the first place prices will rise, and then a great part of our f wtories would stop work, a great part of our workmen would bo without bread, at id the blockade would drive us into an economic crisis.' Navy Bills and Ellockade Prophecies. In spite of constat |t .denials that he had any such intention, Tirpitz introduced in 1000 a second—and.'this time a very important—.Mavy JiiUlj and carried it upon the -wave of Angle /phobia which German intrigues had prod need during the South African War. He iiow.said:— "As regards the importance of a strong Navy for GermaiiH, the historical events of the last two j tears have spoken so clearly that the necessity of a strengthening of our forces ' is recognised in evergrowing circles in Gormnny. The distance between the military strength of Germany and that of cert ain foreign 'States is so great that the 1/edcral Governments see in it a consider? iblo danger. The danger seems all the -j.jreater because, in all human probabir. ty, the economic competition of the Poi rera w'ill increase further in the coming decades. Navies cannot be improvised—leaj t of all in the lour of danger." Tirpitz ngaiji insisted on the blockade question, sayini;'that unless Germany had a strong fleet -of battleships it would be too dangerous. iior her cruisers to go out fc> sea, that i/f they got out they would have nowhere to coal, and that meanwhile the enemy v/r.uld blockade tho German coast villi eas-ei and kill Germany's world trade. On tho other hand, a strong navy would force "the enemy," before making war on Germi my, to consider whether tho venture was ■ north the risk. Salilnr or Politician? It is not necessary to follow Tirpitz through the subsequent history of the increases of ti ie German Navy. He clung with the utmost stubbornness to the"principles" which he had established in 1898.' Ho liig arranged matters that tho annual Navy Estimates gave no real account ot liie progress or the year, es-> powally as the sums voted under particular heads ;vere transferable at pleasure. After cati'in new Navy Bill he relapsed into an iattitude of peace-loving innocence, hid .ifiiting to everybody at homo and abroai I that nothing was more remote from his intentions man any idea of aggression, and that the suspicions which ho arousei.'i wero utterly unwarrantable. Meanwhile he watched the international sit) iation for every opportunity of new legislation, and he oertinnly never missed an .opportunity. In the Reichstag he playec | to perfection tho part of a bluff and simple sailor, and ho liked nothing bet'ier than to teach newly-arrived British n; ival attaches that ho was a mere mariner :who knew nothing whatever about po' Rtics. As a i matter of fact, Tirpitz is much more of ; a politician than a sailor, and, ex'iept- 'that he always took a special interest in torpedoes, there is littlo 6 iridenco of originality in tho develop raent of naval construction, for which, however, he took ; most of the credit. Competent judges are of the opinion,, that in the case of almost every import rfut development it has been the Kaiser' who has pushed Tirpitz rather than "l.'irpitz who nas pushed tho Kaiser. He. iH'is always afraid of making mistakes, and even now that the Blucher has gone to the bottom Tirpitz has riot forgiv en Lord Pisher for having—as Tirpitz a naintained—misled him about British c ruiser construction, and so been the cause : of the construction of that unsatisfactory and ill-fated vessel. . But; if Tirpitz was little disposed to take a-jsks he was always ready to steal a ni arch on England. A few years ago a w ell-known British admiral who was atta nding luol regatta addressed somo remart? to an elderly German officer in the room s of the Yacht Club: Th b officer, according to the German metl iod of introduction, clicked his heels and then snapped out the name; "Tirpitz ," "'Oh," said the Englishman, "so you're the ; villain of the piece." J'md so he was. In spite of all his ass mrances to the contrary, his study of Eriglish ways, and the demonstrative edu. cation of his family in England, Tirpitz ha b been engaged for 20 years in tho e/'i'ort to destroy British naval power, and, if: -possible, tho British Empire. Like all men of similar character, ho fated to be found out. When his acceleration of battleship construction was C liscovered and caused such a hubbub in 1.009, Tirpitz had nothing too bad to say f»f tho British Naval Attache of that 'time; and when tho Attache left Berlin frame time afterwards Tirpitz paid off an \ old score by preventing tho customary !'farewell audience of the Emperor. It w;us only some time later that the EmI noror said he had discovered that the "misunderstandings" were not due to hi* "old friend" the Naval Attache, but to "that lawyer M'Kenna." Tirpitz and the War. Contrary to what has usually been written, there is no reason to suppose that Tirpitz was at all au enthusiastic advocate of war at the time that it occurred. It is known that in 1911, nt the time of the Morocco crisis. Tirpitz joined hands with the Gorman financiers and said that Germany was not yet ready. In 1914 it was simply impossiblo for Tirpitz to repeat this operation, and so he consented. But his view has been wfill stated by the former Belgian Minister in Berlin, Karon Beyens. in his book on "Germany Before the War":— "Hostilities broke out sooner than he had foroceoti or desired, and when he was not yet ready for the attack. A few years more and Tirpitz would doubtless have surprised his adversary with a war different from what he expected—a war in the air, a treacherous and submarine war. which would compensated ?St numerical inferiority." Nor is there any evidence that Tirpitz has had a deciding voice in German naval strategy since the war broke out. What he has undoubtedly done is to press perpetually for "rnthlcssness." and to intrigue against the Imperial Chancellor ami everybody else who found it difficult to square his desires with tolerable foreign relations. Even before the war Tirpitz made several bids for the Imperinl ChancilorsMp—especially in February, I'll!!, ■when Tirnita. who was bent on carrying the new Navy Bill with the help of the

Anglophobia created out of the Morocco', crisis, feared the supposed reasonableness pf Herr von Bethniann Hollweg. It will; bo remembered how he returned to the! attack m June of last year when Conut Keventlow was set to attack the Imperia! Chancellor in the "Deutsche Tnges. zeitung," and that journal was suspended. It remains to be seen whether Tirpita " "ally disposed of, and whether the Chancellor, in overthrowing his rival, lias sought or obtained anything more than a little elbow-room. The desire of tho Government, at any rate, to make an im-' pression upon American ana other neutral opinion seems to be emphasised by the appointment of a colourless bureaucrat as Tirpitz's successor. Admiral von Capelle is GO years .of age. He has not been at sea since lie was a captain, wild; has for many years been engaged in administrative work under Tirpitz. his main, business being to juggle with. Navy Estimates and to manage tho Iteichstag.