t and embodied in a law regulating the construction for a
number of years of a fleet of predetermined size and composition to be
used for a purpose defined in the law itself. The object was to have a
fleet of sufficient strength and of suitable formation to be able to
hold its own in case of need even against the greatest maritime Power.
In other words, Germany thought that if her prosperity continued and her
superiority in organisation over other continental nations continued to
increase, she might find England's policy backed by England's naval
power an obstacle in the way of her natural ambition. After all, no one
can be surprised if the Germans think Germany as well entitled as _any
other_ State to cherish the ambition of being the first nation in the
world.

It has for a century been the rational practice of the German Government
that its chief strategist should at all times keep ready designs for
operations in case of war against any reasonably possible adversary.
Such a set of designs would naturally include a plan of operation for
the case of a conflict with Great Britain, and no doubt, every time
that plan of operations was re-examined and revised, light would be
thrown upon the difficulties of a struggle with a great maritime Power
and upon the means by which those difficulties might be overcome. The
British navy is so strong that, unless it were mismanaged, the German
navy ought to have no chance of overcoming it. Yet Germany cannot but be
anxious, in case of war, to protect herself against the consequences of
maritime blockade, and of the effort of a superior British navy to close
the sea to German merchantmen. Accordingly, the law which regulates the
naval shipbuilding of the German Empire lays down in its preamble
that--"Germany must possess a battle-fleet so strong that a war with her
would, even for the greatest naval Power, be accompanied with such
dangers as would render that Power's position doubtful." In other words,
a war with Great Britain must find the German navy too strong for the
British navy to be able to confine it to its harbours, and to maintain,
in spite of it, complete command of the seas which border the German
coast. As German strategists continuously accept the doctrine that the
first object of a fleet in war is the destruction of the enemy's fleet
with a view to the consequent command of the sea, the German Navy Act is
equivalent to the declaration of an intention in case of conflict t