The German naval program, which Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930) introduced in 1898, challenged Great Britain as the foremost world and naval power. Bismarck had declared that Germany was territorially “satisfied”, but now the German Empire entered the imperial race for colonies together with France and Great Britain and, in addition, built a strong battle fleet in the pursuit of “world politics” ( Weltpolitik). When the young Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859-1941) dismissed the first Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), in 1890, the basis of German foreign policy changed and with it, political relations between the major European powers.
