The change that came with the appointment of Admiral von Tirpitz to the Ministry of Marine was as complete as it was sudden, and it is to this very able man that we must look if we wish to find not only the intellectual author of German naval legislation, but the statesman who devised and directed the means by which it was popularized and passed through the Reichstag. The transformation which he effected was one both of policy and of method. The three rejected vessels which brought about Hollmann's fall represented a principle--that of "cruiser warfare." At that time the imperfectly-thought-out strategy of the German Naval Ministry was based on the two ideas of coastal defence and commerce destruction. Pitched battles between ships of the line on the high seas played a very secondary part in its calculations. In the programme which he submitted to the Reichstag, Hollmann laid it down that fifteen battleships would be sufficient for Germany's purposes, and those who are best qualified to form a judgment of the Empire's naval policy at that epoch are of opinion that this number was intended to be not merely a provisional, but a final estimate of the country's requirements in this type of vessel. There are good reasons for supposing that in the Hollmann era no clear idea existed as to the problems with which Germany might be confronted in a naval war, and that his programmes were the product rather of vague general principles than of calculated odds and chances. In fact, one of his main difficulties with the Reichstag was his inability to justify his estimates by numerical demonstrations.