[GERMAN IMPERIAL NAVY.]

Deutschland zur See.

[Germany, c. 1909–1914]. 38 chromolithograph ship-portraits mounted on 32 plates (390 x 530 mm); some with very minor residue from their tissue guards; in the original green pictorial cloth portfolio (410 x 540 mm); slightly worn and rubbed but a very good copy. A collection of very attractive German Imperial Navy ship-portraits. A small pamphlet of descriptive text, ‘Leipzig, Wiest, 1909’, is occasionally found but as two ships, the Sachsen and Wurttemberg, in this series of chromolithographs were not ordered until 1914 publication was presumably not completed until that date. Deutschland zur see was clearly intended as a celebration of imperial German naval power, demonstrating to a nation more used to fighting wars on land that improving Germany’s naval standing was of fundamental importance.The naval rivalry between England and Germany that led up to the First World War was a direct result of Kaiser Wilhelm’s desire to make Germany a world power through the creation of a fleet large enough to maintain an empire. Germany, only formerly a nation since 1871, did not possess a strong and continuous naval tradition, therefore most of the ships that form this collection and which were part of the German imperial navy (by 1914, the second largest in the world), were a result of the highly sophisticated, if eventually unsuccessful, Tirpitz plan. Rear-Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, secretary of state for the navy from 1897, felt that to ensure Germany’s position her navy had to have a ratio of 2 to 3 to the British Navy. This would make Germany’s navy a sufficient threat to Britain to act as a deterrent because, even though an encounter between the two fleets would probably destroy the German navy, it would also incapacitate the British navy to such an extent that she would be unable to defend herself against attack from one of the other leading powers, namely Russia and France.Deutschland zur see provides an overview of the various types of ships which formed the German Imperial Navy. Four classes of the pre-dreadnought ship of the line, for example, are included. The Brandenburg class, here represented by Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, Brandenburg, Weissenburg, and Wörth, was a ship for which ‘German naval designers for the first time turned away from foreign models and laid the foundations for the later concept of a “High Sea Fleet” ’ (Herwig, “Luxury Fleet” p. 25). The Kaiser Friedrich III class, illustrated by the Kaiser Friedrich III and Kaiser Wilhelm II, ‘brought forth a development well in advance of other navies. The first chief designer of the Imperial Navy, Professor Alfred Dietrich, following British experimentation in the 1870s and the Italian in the 1880s, designed intricate underwater protection by a close system of watertight compartments, later refined for further stability by counter-flooding apparatus’ (ibid. p. 26). The Wittelsbach class, Zähringen and Mecklenburg, was the first class of battleship laid down under Tirpitz, and the Braunschweig, of the class of her name, the first battleship issued under the Second Navy Bill, the latter had serious improvements in gunnery added by Chief Designer Rudloff.Two classes of dreadnought are also illustrated in the chromolithographs. The first is the second generation dreadnought Helgoland class. Four of these ships were built between 1908 and 1912, shown here is the Oldenburg. The second is the Bayern class, of which this collection has three examples. The Baden was, along with the Bayern, the last dreadnought completed by Imperial Germany, and although it missed the battle of Jutland it was built in time to be interned in Scapa Flow in 1918. The Württemberg and the Sachsen were never completed even though they are both illustrated here. They were laid down in 1914 and 1915 but work was stopped on them at the end of the war, the Sachsen four months away from completion, the Württemberg twelve months. ‘London’s tour de force in building the Queen Elizabeth ships left Tirpitz no choice but to accept this latest British qualitative challenge. His answer in 1912 was the Bayern series . . . . Siegfried Breyer claims that German dreadnought building with the Bayern class had reached its “peak of perfection”, and that the next twenty years were to bring no major design changes (ibid. p. 82).‘The years immediately prior to Tirpitz’s appointment as State Secretary of the Navy Office also witnessed the construction of the last class of large, protected cruisers that was eventually to lead to the battle cruiser class. The large cruiser was designed for reconnaissance, to fight in the line if need be, to destroy enemy stragglers after a sea battle, and to protect her own damaged vessels after such an encounter’ (ibid. p. 27). The Kaiserin Augusta was the first triple-screw unit of the Imperial Navy. The Hertha class, represented by Victoria Louise, Hertha, Vineta, and Hansa, was the successor of the Kaiserin Augusta. These were the last large cruisers built in Germany. The Fürst Bismarck class (illustrated by the ship of that name), was the successor of the Hertha and inaugurated Germany’s development of armoured cruisers designed for the fleet. ‘As such, Fürst Bismarck represented a link in the genesis of large cruising ships from the armoured corvettes of the 1860s via the avisos of the 1880s (Blitz and Pfeil) to the battle cruisers of the Invincible class (1907)’ (ibid. p. 27). The latter was an English design to which Germany responded with the last class of heavy cruiser, the Scharnhorst (illustrated here by the ship of that name).‘German efforts with light cruiser construction were much more successful [than with heavy cruisers]. The immediate pre-Tirpitz period brought a fundamental decision: the old division between “overseas” and “fleet” light cruisers [like the light cruisers Gesion and Hela in this collection] was abandoned in favour of a uniform model designed for service with the fleet as well as abroad. The Gazelle class of light cruisers, planned in 1896 and built over the next eight years at a unit cost of 4.6 million GM [Goldmarks] represented the initial synthesis of the “fleet cruiser” with the “overseas cruiser”. The class included the Amazone, Arcona, Ariadne, Frauenlob, Gazelle [this one illustrated in the chromolithographs], Medusa, Niobe, Nymphe, Thetis, and Undine. The finished ships were attached first to the fleet as a protective screen against enemy torpedo craft and, as soon as they could be replaced by more modern vessels, released for overseas service with the cruiser squadron. Subsequent classes of light cruisers down to 1918 brought few fundamental changes, mainly technological refinements’ (ibid. p. 28). The Bremen class, represented here by the Hamburg, was a further development of the Gazelle class.Deutschland zur See also illustrates the armoured frigates of the Siegfried class, Frithjof, Heimdall and Hagen, and of the Odin class, Odin and Ägir, as well as the small coastal ship Uranus, the gunboats Iltis and Jaguar, the torpedo boats S131, G108 and S102, and the old armoured frigates König Wilhelm and Stein. The royal yacht Hohenzollern, which ‘between 1893 and 1914 spent about 1,600 days, or four and a half years, at sea with Wilhelm on board’ (ibid. p. 41), is also shown in the collection.The plates are as follows:1. The heavy cruiser SMS Hertha with Helgoland in the background. 2. The heavy cruiser SMS Hansa. 3. The heavy cruiser SMS Vineta. 4. The armoured coastal protection ship SMS Heimdall. 5. The gunboat Iltis. 6. The light cruiser SMS Gazelle. 7. The armoured coastal protection ship SMS Hagen. 8. The torpedo boat S131. 9. The light cruiser SMS Hamburg. 10. The light cruiser SMS Gesion. 11. The small coastal ship Uranus. 12. The dreadnought SMS Oldenburg. 13. The gunboat Jaguar. 14. The ship of the line SMS Kaiser Friedrich III. 15. The ship of the line SMS Braunschweig. 16. The light cruiser SMS Hela. 17. The dreadnought SMS Württemberg. 18. The dreadnought SMS Baden. 19. The ship of the line SMS Zähringen. 20. The heavy cruiser SMS Fürst Bismarck. 21. The frigate König Wilhelm with flags. 22. The ships Victoria Louise, Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, and Weissenburg. 23. A torpedo boat division. 24. The dreadnought SMS Sachsen. 25. The armoured coastal protection ship SMS Ägir. 26. The armoured coastal protection ship SMS Frithjof. 27. The armoured coastal protection ship SMS Odin in salute. 28. The torpedo boats G108 and S102 with Helgoland possibly in the background. 29. The heavy cruiser SMS Kaiserin Augusta. 30. The yacht Hosenzollern. 31. The ship of the line SMS Mecklenburg. 32. The ship of the line SMS Weissenburg. 33. The ship of the line SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm. 34. The heavy cruiser SMS Scharnhorst. 35. The frigate Stein under sail. 36. The ship of the line SMS Wörth. 37. The ship of the line SMS Kaiser Wilhelm II. 38. The ship of the line SMS Brandenburg.

• GBP 1,200.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: T2079

• bookseller: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)