William I. lived just long enough to lay the foundation-stone of the Kiel Canal, which had been one of the dreams of the Frankfort patriots forty years earlier. His death was followed after an interval of three months by that of Frederick I., and with the accession of William II., in 1888, the latest era of German naval policy may be said to have commenced. Until, however, Admiral Tirpitz was put in charge of the Ministry of Marine, in 1897, practically nothing was done to add to the fighting strength of the fleet. Any progress which was made in connection with the navy was confined to developments of organisation, and to the exchange of German rights in Zanzibar and Witu for the islet of Heligoland. This transaction was scoffed at by Bismarck, then in retirement, who, however, only contemplated the possibility of a naval war with France, and it was bitterly resented by German public opinion, and especially by that heated section of it which poses as the pioneer on the path of militarism, navalism, and colonism. Only during the last three or four years has the conviction gradually begun to gain ground, that perhaps, after all, Germany did not make such a bad bargain, and Heligoland has simultaneously taken an ever more and more prominent place in the speculations of political prophets as to the probable outcome of an Anglo-German war. The keen interest of the Emperor William, and his ambition to play the leading part on the stage of the world, would not, in themselves, have sufficed to bring about the change which has been wrought during the past seventeen years. The decisive personal factors here have been the fixed purpose, the steady will, the unflagging energy, the inexhaustible patience, the profound political insight, and the rare diplomatic skill of Admiral Tirpitz, the nearest approach to a really great man that Germany has produced since Bismarck. He is the true creator of the German fleet. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 6: Thaler = about 3s.] CHAPTER IV British Influence on the German Navy In a very special sense the German Navy is the child of the British Navy, which is the mother of all the great naval forces of the world to-day. From the very first it has been no secret that the German Fleet was definitely planned on the model furnished by the many centuries' development of the British Navy, and the Emperor William has been one of the principal agencies through which this formative influence has been exerted in more recent years. He came to the throne at a moment when naval sentiment in Germany was at its lowest point, and he assisted in the initial revival which occurred before Grand Admiral von Tirpitz came on the scene.