Germany
Alfred von Tirpitz
1849–1930 State Secretary of the Imperial Navy Office, 1897–1916
Tirpitz was the brain behind the German battle fleet. A navy officer with a forked beard and a politician's skill, he persuaded the Reichstag, the press and the Kaiser to pay for a fleet built on his "risk theory" and a series of Navy Laws from 1898. He believed that a strong fleet would make Britain respect Germany and yield colonial concessions. Instead it provoked Britain into ententes with France and Russia. By 1913 he had lost the race and publicly accepted a ratio of 10 German dreadnoughts to 16 British. At the war council of December 1912 he asked the Kaiser to postpone any war until the fleet was ready. He resigned in March 1916 after losing the argument over unrestricted submarine warfare.