The first chapter of Tirpitz’s book describes the beginnings of the German Navy.  The second deals with the Stosch period.  The third is devoted to the administration of Caprivi 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 on the sea-power which she had not got, and he set himself to build it up.  He endeavored to educate on this subject, not only the Reichstag, where he says he had much opposition, but the public.  Under Prince Buelow this was less difficult than he subsequently found it.  His account of how the Minister of Education and the University professors