ivi during the time when he was
head of the Admiralty, and extends to the period when he became
Chancellor. The fourth is devoted to construction. The fifth describes
the disastrous breaking up of the Naval Administration into Boards, to
which the author says the Emperor William II. allowed himself to be
persuaded. The sixth chapter is directed to tactical developments, a
subject in which Admiral Tirpitz himself did much. The seventh deals
with naval plans. The eighth contains a very interesting description of
how he was sent to find a naval base in Chinese waters, and how he
selected and developed, with German thoroughness, Tsingtau (Kiaochow).
The ninth chapter begins the story of the difficulties he experienced
when refused sufficient money and freedom while he was Minister of
Marine. The tenth gives a vividly written account of his visits to
Bismarck. The next five chapters are devoted to the development of the
German Navy and its relation to foreign policy. The sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth chapters are concerned with the author's
views of the reasons for the outbreak of the war of 1914, and its
history. The nineteenth is a chapter devoted to the submarine war, and
to a farewell apostrophe to a Germany lost by bad leading and vagueness
in objectives. There is also a supplement, containing letters written
by him from time to time during the war, and his observations on what
ought to have been the consistent policy of Germany in construction of
battleships and submarines.

The great thesis of the book is that the only way to preserve the peace
was to make Europe fear German strength, and that this imported such
battle-fleets as would attract allies to Germany for protection, and
would thus in the end weaken the Entente. England was the real enemy,
and England could not be dislodged from her powerful position in the
world so long as she was allowed to continue in command of the ocean.
For Bethmann Hollweg's alternative policy of a peaceful _rapprochement_
with England he has no words but those of contempt. He, too, he says,
had ideas as to how to keep the peace, but they were diametrically
different from those of his colleague the Chancellor. On him he pours
scorn for his attempts at departure from the policy of Frederick the
Great and Bismarck.

Tirpitz had been deeply impressed by the writings of Admiral Mahan. He
himself drew from them the lesson that in ultimate analysis world-power
for Germany depended