The naval race is presented as a multi-power process involving Italy, France, Russia, the United States, Britain, and Germany. Italy's nation-building fleet and France's response help push the starting point back into the 1870s or 1880s, rather than the familiar Anglo-German contest after 1905. The earlier Warrior and Gloire competition makes the lineage longer still. Jeune Ecole tried to turn this shifting, interactive competition into a straight-line problem with a simple answer, which explains both its appeal and its fragility.
Chapter · 5:01-9:05
The longer naval race behind Jeune Ecole
Jeune Ecole cruiser thinking developed within a multi-power naval competition that began decades before the Anglo-German dreadnought race.