The Naval Race That Started World War One (68 Battleships Were Built. The Fleets Met Once.)
Bold History
6,994 views
In eleven years Britain and Germany built sixty-eight capital ships. They were
the most expensive objects either country had ever made, they consumed the two
largest industrial economies in Europe, and they were built for one purpose: to
fight each other. The two fleets met once, for one afternoon in the fog, and
then never again.
This is every dreadnought battleship and battlecruiser ordered by either navy
before August 1914, in the order they were finished, so the race runs the way it
actually happened - move and counter-move. Britain resets the game with
Dreadnought in 1906. Germany answers with Nassau, then discovers it must widen
the Kiel Canal before it can build anything at all, and loses three years.
Britain panics in 1909 and votes eight ships in a single year. Germany skips the
13.5-inch gun entirely and jumps straight to 38cm.
Along the way: the ships Britain confiscated from the Ottoman Empire in 1914,
Lord Haldane's failed mission to Berlin, and the one battlecruiser whose escape
brought an empire into the war.
At Jutland the two design philosophies were finally tested. Three British
battlecruisers blew up in about ninety seconds. Seydlitz absorbed twenty-one
heavy shells and five thousand tons of water and came home.
Forty-two ships to twenty-six. And the side that lost the race scuttled its own
fleet in the winner's harbour, undefeated.
0:00 Sixty-Eight Ships, One Afternoon
0:31 Tirpitz and the Risk Theory
3:08 HMS Dreadnought, 1906
5:32 The Three-Year Silence: the Kiel Canal Trap
5:50 Invincible Class, 1908
7:31 Bellerophon Class, 1909
8:48 Nassau Class, 1909
10:37 St Vincent Class, 1910
11:35 SMS Von der Tann, 1910
13:16 We Want Eight and We Won't Wait
15:41 HMS Neptune, 1911
16:48 Colossus Class, 1911
17:49 Helgoland Class, 1911
19:43 Indefatigable Class, 1911
21:04 Moltke Class and the Escape of Goeben, 1912
23:19 The Super-Dreadnought: Orion Class, 1912
25:00 Lion Class, the Splendid Cats, 1912
26:35 Kaiser Class, 1912
28:07 King George V Class and the Loss Britain Hid, 1913
29:39 HMS Queen Mary, 1913
30:56 SMS Seydlitz and the Lesson of Dogger Bank, 1913
33:07 Haldane in Berlin: the Offer and the Refusal
35:26 Iron Duke Class, 1914
36:46 Konig Class, 1914
38:12 Derfflinger Class, 1914
40:01 HMS Tiger, 1914
41:15 The Fifteen-Inch Gamble: Queen Elizabeth Class, 1915
43:42 Bayern Class, 1916
45:19 Revenge Class, 1916
46:52 The Three Ships Britain Took, August 1914
48:55 The Audit: Jutland, 31 May 1916
51:55 The Ships That Never Arrived
53:48 Scapa Flow, 21 June 1919
17 Comments
if moltke, seydlitz and derflinger had, for example, 350-mm guns, thay could have sunk Lion at Dogger bank and increase british losses at Jutland
The Naval Race That Started World War One (68 Battleships Were Built. The Fleets Met Once.)
Bold History
6,994 views
In eleven years Britain and Germany built sixty-eight capital ships. They were
the most expensive objects either country had ever made, they consumed the two
largest industrial economies in Europe, and they were built for one purpose: to
fight each other. The two fleets met once, for one afternoon in the fog, and
then never again.
This is every dreadnought battleship and battlecruiser ordered by either navy
before August 1914, in the order they were finished, so the race runs the way it
actually happened - move and counter-move. Britain resets the game with
Dreadnought in 1906. Germany answers with Nassau, then discovers it must widen
the Kiel Canal before it can build anything at all, and loses three years.
Britain panics in 1909 and votes eight ships in a single year. Germany skips the
13.5-inch gun entirely and jumps straight to 38cm.
Along the way: the ships Britain confiscated from the Ottoman Empire in 1914,
Lord Haldane's failed mission to Berlin, and the one battlecruiser whose escape
brought an empire into the war.
At Jutland the two design philosophies were finally tested. Three British
battlecruisers blew up in about ninety seconds. Seydlitz absorbed twenty-one
heavy shells and five thousand tons of water and came home.
Forty-two ships to twenty-six. And the side that lost the race scuttled its own
fleet in the winner's harbour, undefeated.
0:00 Sixty-Eight Ships, One Afternoon
0:31 Tirpitz and the Risk Theory
3:08 HMS Dreadnought, 1906
5:32 The Three-Year Silence: the Kiel Canal Trap
5:50 Invincible Class, 1908
7:31 Bellerophon Class, 1909
8:48 Nassau Class, 1909
10:37 St Vincent Class, 1910
11:35 SMS Von der Tann, 1910
13:16 We Want Eight and We Won't Wait
15:41 HMS Neptune, 1911
16:48 Colossus Class, 1911
17:49 Helgoland Class, 1911
19:43 Indefatigable Class, 1911
21:04 Moltke Class and the Escape of Goeben, 1912
23:19 The Super-Dreadnought: Orion Class, 1912
25:00 Lion Class, the Splendid Cats, 1912
26:35 Kaiser Class, 1912
28:07 King George V Class and the Loss Britain Hid, 1913
29:39 HMS Queen Mary, 1913
30:56 SMS Seydlitz and the Lesson of Dogger Bank, 1913
33:07 Haldane in Berlin: the Offer and the Refusal
35:26 Iron Duke Class, 1914
36:46 Konig Class, 1914
38:12 Derfflinger Class, 1914
40:01 HMS Tiger, 1914
41:15 The Fifteen-Inch Gamble: Queen Elizabeth Class, 1915
43:42 Bayern Class, 1916
45:19 Revenge Class, 1916
46:52 The Three Ships Britain Took, August 1914
48:55 The Audit: Jutland, 31 May 1916
51:55 The Ships That Never Arrived
53:48 Scapa Flow, 21 June 1919