TIRPITZ, ALFRED VON (1849-1930), German admiral, was born on March 19, 1849, at Kiistrin, the son of a high Prus sian magistrate, and in 1865 he entered the Prussian navy, the training for which followed the British model. In 1869 he became an officer, in 1888 postcaptain ; in 1895 rear-admiral; in 1899 vice-admiral; in 1903 admiral; in 1911 Admiral of the Fleet. In 1897 he became secretary of state for naval affairs, and then, to his regret, had no further chance of practical service at sea. On March 15, 1916, for political reasons, he resigned all his offices.
From his 29th year he was employed only in important posi tions of organisation or leadership. His creative talents were first utilised when torpedoes developed into an arm suitable for war, in building torpedo boats and in working out a tactical system for their mass employment. His work during this period proved of great value to him later when constructing a fleet of great bat tleships. Here, and in constructing the fleet, he accomplished model work with a minimum of expense. After practical service at sea as captain, he became chief of staff of the Supreme Naval Command in 1892, and began the preliminary work for his plan of fleet construction by profound studies in the history and prac tice of naval warfare. The idea of the offensive use of arms was the guiding note of all Tirpitz's work. His memoranda, designed to educate the naval officers in modern ideas of their profession, fell into British hands and in this way influenced British tactical ideas also. He combined practical operations with model squad rons of useless ships with the elaboration of his tactical ideas. Simultaneously with this went on the transformation of the modern ship of war, with its technical complications, into an apparatus which worked with mechanical perfection. He en couraged the education of crews to independent action in all emergencies. His tactical memorandum, No. 9 (printed in Nauticus, Jahrbuch fur Deutschlands Seeinteressen, 1926) , afterwards served to convince the reluctant Reichstag of the necessity of forthing a German fleet according to definite laws.
and a social necessity that the working German people should gain greater independence from all political eventualities. He further saw in Germany the power of the future on which the smaller European powers might lean at sea. In view of the forma tion of great self-sufficient economic units in the world, he prob ably considered his ideas to be a consistent continuation of Bismarck's train of thought, and perhaps thought of a kind of economic Pan-Europa under a wise German leadership.
Tirpitz opposed the suggestion that Germany might annex Holland, one reason being that he was always anxious to spare the small Nordic states. He would also have been prepared to make the Danes concessions in Schleswig in order to win their friendship, and was anxious for Italy to have a considerable fleet. Tirpitz never asked for war and always believed that a war could only interrupt Germany's rise ; but he supported a rapprochement with Russia as Bismarck wished it, and a German-Russian Japanese understanding. He disapproved of the German Baghdad policy because it infringed simultaneously on the Russian and British spheres of influence. He was against irritating America in any way and disapproved both of the German intervention in Manila and of the British-German blockade of Venezuela. More over he saw clearly that in forming Germany into a sea power he would have to reckon with the opposition of Great Britain. He believed firmly, however, that it must be possible, if Germany proceeded with caution, to pass through the danger zone of the time of fleet construction without war, and that, finally, an honest understanding between Germany and Great Britain could only be advanced if Germany was a real power on sea as on land. Summing up British psychology and British love for everything straight and strong, he reckoned that Germanic England, whose statesmanship and power at sea he rated very highly, would in the end prefer a rapprochement with a strong Germany to any other political combination. It was only unwillingly and with hesitation that he adopted "the idea of risk" aimed at Great Britain in his naval estimate of 1900.