GERMANS HOAXED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 26 January 1939, Page 3

GERMANS HOAXED

HOW LORD FISHER BLUFFED j VON TIRPITZ ! BOGUS NEWS ABOUT SIZE Of j ; WARSIIirS I LONDON, 31st December. | After denying it for 30 years the Germans have just admitted they were hoaxed into building second-rate wardships on the strength of bogus information from Britain, inspired by the late i Lord Fisher, when First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. Lord Fisher always maintained that by circulating misleading news about : the Invincible class, Britain's first battle | cruisers, he bluffed his “opposite number," Admiral von Tirpitz, into build ing at least two ships which were, in fact, wholly inferior in fighting power to tile British type. In an official Berlin publication Germany has at length admitted its truth. ' Profesor Hans Hallmann, the semiofficial naval historian who makes the | disclosure, recalls that while the British Admiralty allowed fairly accurate | I I details of the Dreadnought, the first “all big gun” ship to be published, it observed absolute secrecy about the three armoured cruisers of the 1905 programme—lnvincible, Inflexible and Indomitable. “The Admiralty, however, appears to have deliberately furnished false information to the Press,” writes Proi'es- } sor Hallmann “on the basis of which the j " German authorities assumed the ships ' to be of about 16.000 tons with an j armament of eight 9.2in guns. Since, '.this appeared to be a logical develop-j ’! ment of the preceding British class. | 3 how were the German authorities to j ; know that they were victims of a deception? " ! “Admiral Tirpitz cannot, therefore, be blamed for deciding to build the :l j armoured cruiser Gneisenau, 11,600 1 1 tons and eight B.2in guns, and, a year 'later, the Blucher. 15,800 tons and 12 £ B.2in c i “Only when the Blucher was on the c stocks did the British Admiralty spring " its great secret on the world. Germany d then learned that the Invincible design II was a revolutionary break with tradie I lion, and represented an absolutely I novel type: 17.500 tons, with very high | speed and, above all, a main armament |of eight 12in guns, all of which could l- fire on either broadside. j “These ‘battle cruisers’ as they were '■ I called, were thus armed like battleships. :s ! They opened up an entirely new epoch, • and their construction was, perhaps, i the supereme miracle of naval tech- ■: nique in the pre-war period. Despite 5.! the inadequate armour and magazine j protection of these ships, it was clear j that the new type had a big future.” ! This information did not reach the - : German Admiralty till the summer of 11 1 1906: even then it was not at first believed. Meanwhile, the Gneisau and] I- 1 the Blucher were too far advanced to be altered, yet it was plain that they {would be obsolete even before they were launched. 1:. N&t until 1907 was the first German k j buttle cruiser authorised, but this vesisel, Von der Tan, was a better alld round fighting ship than the Invincible