Germany buying South American dreadnoughts

What if Germany bought five South American dreadnoughts and built a balanced fleet around them?

Getting crews and ships to Germany would create treaty and diplomatic problems. Strong French opposition and renewed capital-ship construction are predicted if the ships somehow arrived.

Getting the purchased ships to Germany would be the first obstacle. Germany would need to send crews to collect them or have the selling nations deliver them, with the latter judged to violate multiple treaties. Even acquisition after the Anglo-German naval agreement would produce a sudden increase in German capital-ship numbers. France is expected to object strongly because it had not agreed to the British settlement with Germany. A hypothetical French submarine attack on the ships in transit is floated as an apparent accident. If Germany somehow brought the ships home, arguments for pausing capital-ship construction would disappear. The analogy with alleged Italian submarine piracy during the Spanish Civil War carries a pointed dispute over proof. Neither the imagined German purchase nor its proposed French interception is presented as an event that occurred.