![]() The much acclaimed and publicly celebrated building of the naval battle fleet – in spite of its questionable military value – as well as the costly armament programs for the land armies were consistent with this attitude. ![]() ![]() The extraordinary economic upswing, which by 1913 had made Germany the leading export nation in the world, led the German bourgeois classes to believe that the Empire was more than entitled to an international political standing in line with its economic power and performance. Consequently, military and economic competition between these two great European powers increased and the arms race grew alarmingly, although by 1910 it became clear that Germany had already lost the battle for naval supremacy. The German naval program, which Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930) introduced in 1898, challenged Great Britain as the foremost world and naval power. Bismarck had declared that Germany was territorially “satisfied”, but now the German Empire entered the imperial race for colonies together with France and Great Britain and, in addition, built a strong battle fleet in the pursuit of “world politics” ( Weltpolitik). When the young Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941) dismissed the first Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), in 1890, the basis of German foreign policy changed and with it, political relations between the major European powers.
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