High Seas Fleet (MastahCheef117)

The  was a sub branch of the German Kaiserliche Marine, the naval branch of the German Empire. Established in 1899, the High Seas Fleet contained the majority of Germany's surface warships, as well as almost all of it's heavy capital ships, namely it's battleships and battlecruisers. The High Seas Fleet was the most renowned naval group of the Kaiserliche Marine, and rightfully so. At it's height, the fleet included almost 4 dozen battleships and 1 dozen battlecruisers. They contested control of the Baltic Sea several times with the Russian Navy and fought in many major engagements against both the French and British navies, both of which which contained a comparable and formidable fleet of capital ships.

In 1911 Grand Admiral Tirpitz drafted the Naval Resolution of 1911 into the Reichstag, stating that one battleship could each be gifted to the Austro-Hungarian and Italian navies, supposedly as a gift of friendship. However, it was an attempt by Germany to strengthen their Mediterranean allies for a coming war with Great Britain or France, to contest the sea and to keep the Russian Balkan Fleet trapped at their homeport of Sevastopol. Two older armored cruisers were also gifted to the Ottoman Navy to reinforce this plan. In the event they did not need to do such acts for several more years, but it solidified the alliance between the three nations (the Ottoman Empire was not an official ally of either of the other two German allies) and Germany's renown as a European naval power was solidified.

Tirpitz, who submitted the novelles to the Reichstag throughout the first years of the 20th century, was a pioneer of the Kaiserliche Marine and, by extension, the High Seas Fleet. He suggested building the German navy around many powerful battleships that could contest with British naval power and frighten them into neutrality, allowing Germany peace. This was counteracted by other beliefs that a cruiser-centered navy, which would help in escorting German commerce, would frighten other nations from raiding their trade ships. Tirpitz's argument won over and the Reichstag gave permission to German naval yards to begin construction of up to 42 battleships, to be completed by 1916.