Tirpitz Plan

However, due to Germany's geographic location, Great Britain could employ a distant blockade by closing the entrance to the North Sea in the English Channel and the area between Bergen and the Shetland Islands.

Tirpitz believed that the development of maritime power would advance Germany's economic interests and so serve as a "palliative against educated and uneducated Social Democrats".

The necessity to concentrate the fleet against the German threat involved Britain making arrangements with other powers that enabled her to return the bulk of her naval forces to Home Waters.

The Japanese fleet, largely constructed in British shipyards, then proceeded to utterly destroy the Russian navy in the war of 1904–06, removing Russia as a credible maritime opponent.

The necessity to reduce the Mediterranean Fleet in order to reinforce the navy in home waters was also a powerful influence in its détente and Entente Cordiale with the French.