Volume 152, Naval Intelligence from Germany: The correspondence of the British Naval Attachés in Berlin, 1903 - 1914
ed. M. S. Seligmann (2007)

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During the course of the Anglo-German naval race, the British Admiralty found a regular flow of information on Germany’s naval policy, on her warship construction and on the technical progress of her fleet to be absolutely vital. For, it was only on the basis of accurate calculations of Germany’s maritime development that the framers of British naval policy could formulate a coherent response to this alarming challenge to the Royal Navy’s long-standing supremacy at sea. While numerous sources were available to the Admiralty on the development of the German navy – ranging from published material in newspapers and periodicals to the illicit fruits of clandestine espionage – one of the most important, if not, in fact, the most important, was the information provided by the British naval attaché in Berlin. From his meetings with German officials, conversations at social occasions, visits to naval facilities and shipyards, and personal observations of German naval politics, the British naval attaché was able to supply a regular stream of high-grade intelligence to his superiors in Whitehall. All the available evidence suggests that this information played a significant part in the formulation of the intelligence picture of the German navy that existed at the Admiralty and, thus, played a major part in the formulation of British naval policy, particularly during moments of high tension such as the 1909 naval scare. This volume will examine and illustrate the work of the last four officers to hold the post of naval attaché in Berlin before the cataclysm of 1914, Captains Dumas, Heath, Watson and Henderson. By providing examples of their reporting on such crucial matters as the expansion of the German battle fleet, the goals of Admiral von Tirpitz, the development of German naval materiel, including Dreadnoughts, U-boats and airships, this volume of attaché correspondence will illustrate a fundamental, but neglected, dimension of the Anglo-German naval race before the First World War: namely, the role of the navy’s ‘man on the spot’ in Berlin.

Contents

Further Reading

Extracts

Editor

Matthew S. Seligmann is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Northampton. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Anglo-German relations before the First World War. His most recent book, Spies in Uniform: British Military and Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War, was published in 2006 by Oxford University press.