The legislation of 1900 amounted to a doubling of the fleet provided for only two years previously. Seventeen battle-ships, four large cruisers and sixteen small cruisers were to be in constant readiness, while exactly as many more ships of each of the three types were to be kept, partially manned, in reserve. In 1906, in addition to a number of submarines, six cruisers for the “foreign squadron” were provided for, and it was voted to raise the number of torpedo-boats and also to provide automatically for their renewal, the life of a torpedo-boat being estimated at twelve years. This meant that twelve torpedo-boats would have to be built each year. England’s example in building dreadnaughts necessitated greatly raising the appropriation for battle-ships and also influenced the legislation of 1908, by which the normal life of a battle-ship was declared reduced from twenty-five to twenty years. The legislation of 1912, finally, increased the number of active battle-ships by eight, of large cruisers by four and of small cruisers by six, not to mention that the number of submarines is to be brought up to seventy-two, fifty-four of which are to be always ready for service. But as the period for finishing all the new ships is 1920 they will play little part in the present war. The reserve ships, of course, will all now be called into action. To resume, then, and to be more specific, the actual German fleet, counting ships expected to be ready in the course of 1914, numbers thirty-eight ships of the line, fourteen armored cruisers, thirty-eight protected cruisers, two hundred twenty-four torpedo-boats and thirty submarines. There are no torpedo-boat-destroyers as in other navies, the small cruisers being supposed to take their place. The battle-ships are ranged in classes. There are three of the “King class” (the _König_, the _Grosser Kurfürst_ and the _Markgraf_), which have a displacement of nearly 26,000 tons and are equipped with every possible modern improvement, such as net protection against torpedoes, turbine engines, provision for oil-fuel, torpedo tubes, etc. It is from these monsters, of which each carries ten of the largest guns, not to speak of the smaller ones, that we shall probably hear most in the course of the war, though not perhaps in the beginning, as they are not fully completed. They are to be joined in 1915 by a sister-ship, the _Kronprinz_. [Illustration: H. M. Man-of-War _Wittelsbach_ Passing under a High Bridge in the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal] [Illustration: H. M. Ship _Seydlitz_ in Dry-Dock] [Illustration: Signaling on Submarine]