Naval Intelligence from Germany, 1906-1914

This volume of attaché correspondence illustrates 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. 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. 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. 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. This volume examines and illustrates 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.