The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, Vol. 144: July, 1876-October, 1876 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, Vol. 144: July, 1876-October, 1876

When. Therefore, we are able to contemplate - as those who live at the present day are privileged to do - the growth of a naval force in its completeness, and to witness the whole course of its history from its inception to its latest phase, the interest with which we do so may well be scientific, as it may be en vions or patriotic. We may learn how much of our own organisation and customs or regulations has been deemed worthy of imitation by the founders of a service turned out of hand, as it were, complete and finished from the first. We may see how far a force so established may differ from our own, the almost insensible growth of centuries, and in what points the divergence is to be found. The German navy, though by no means an unique instance, amidst the many navies of recent establishment, exactly supplies these condi tions. Its connexion with our own has been somewhat close. Many of its officers have studied their profession and learned its duties on board British ships. Several of its ships still retain the names which belonged to them when they were in cluded in our own Navy List.' The most powerful of those which now compose it were constructed in this country from designs supplied by our own naval architects. Moreover, it has attained to such a respectable degree of strength as to have quite recently attracted to itself the attention of Europe.

The extraordinary ability exhibited by the administrators of Germany, or more correctly of Prussia, in organising and perfecting their vast military power, might reasonably enough be expected to extend to the institution of their naval force. It is, perhaps, a sufficient fulfilment of such expectation that the German navy has already come to be regarded as a factor of no small importance in the political calculations of the day. Such calculations are admittedly less accurate than the rigorous operations of more exact sciences. So it may be quite worth our while to ascertain the just value of this late addition to the stupendous warlike might of Germany.

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