A change came soon after the accession of the present emperor, William II. One of his first acts was to reorganize the whole naval system, separating the administrative part from the purely military. At present Admiral von Tirpitz is at the head of the former and Prince Henry of Prussia, subject to the emperor’s own commands, of the latter. Four great battle-ships, all of the Brandenburg class, were begun in 1889. England responded by ordering ten new battle-ships, but in 1890, by ceding Helgoland in return for a correction of boundaries in East Africa, she gave Germany an advantage worth fifty dreadnaughts. And almost before there was any tangible fleet at all Germany was at work scientifically, learning both by theory and by practise how a fleet should be managed and maneuvered. “How few these ships were,” writes a vice admiral, “and how little in accord with modern warfare on the high seas, we all know. Imagination often had to substitute what was lacking. School-ships, still with all their old full rigging, represented ironclads; torpedo-boats served as cruisers, and the _Mars_, built to be an artillery training-ship, acted as flag-ship. In those next few years we went through a period which—we can say it without boasting—is unique in the history of fleets. Not but that we made mistakes—much that then seemed to us indubitably right has since been superseded—but the German fleet, which had fewer and less available ships than many other countries, has outdistanced them all in tactical development. … The stake, it is true, became greater as ships representing a capital of millions and carrying hundreds of men took the place of the little boats, but the method remained the same. Commander and crew, by progressing from easier to more difficult and more warlike maneuvers, achieved that feeling of security which is not a foolish scorn of danger but the knowledge of power to cope with it. That is the state of mind which makes for success in war and which enables one to win all by risking all.”