Says German Fleet Must Match Ours.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 8, 1912:
That Is the Way to Make England Understand, Says Official of Kaiser's Navy.
TELLS STORY OF ITS GROWTH
Britain Has Great Respect for "Yankees," He Says, and Does Not Dare to Talk to Us as to Germany.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    BERLIN, Dec. 7.— "Kaiser Wilhelm II. and the Navy" is the title of a new book which promises to be one of the Christmas best sellers. It is devoted to telling the story of the rise of the German fleet to its present position, and gives Emperor William the lion's share of credit for making the Fatherland a power on the sea.
    The book draws a flattering comparison between the American and the German fleets, and alleges that the reason why Great Britain never dares to talk at the United States the way it does at Germany is that Britishers have long had a most wholesome respect for the American Navy. "We must strive to build our fleet at least as powerful as the American," writes the author, George Wiscilenus, a distinguished official of the Navy Department, "In order that the people on the other side of the North Sea may gradually learn to understand that the German Navy is just as little of a luxury, as Winston S. Churchill had the effrontery to call it, as is the American or the English. "The English have got to reconcile themselves to the fact that alongside of their own overwhelmingly strong navy, which is still in ships and guns three times as strong as the German, other fleets are growing up.
    "It is passing strange that John Bull never gets excited about the much more dangerous growth of the American sea power. There is system in that silence and in the British practice of only boiling within when in conflict with Uncle Sam.
    "The British have had great respect for the Yankees ever since 1776, a respect which they characteristically exhibited on the occasion of the Titanic disaster. If the German Government had attempted to hold back British subjects on British ships by force, as the Americans held Messrs. Ismay and his confrères, there would have been a storm of indignation in England such as never yet has been."
    The author's statement in regard to the weakness of the German fleet, as compared with the British, does not, of course, stand investigation. The Kaiser's fleet is far from being quite "one-third as strong as the British." At the present time it is fully as strong in dreadnought units as the American Navy, if not a fraction stronger.