Holtzendorff's career ran from the Franco-Prussian War, the West Africa Squadron, and the Boxer Rebellion through the Danzig shipyard, First Battle Squadron, and command of the High Seas Fleet. That experience made him a senior naval officer with no special attachment to submarines. He regarded a massive battle fleet built against Britain as strategically unsound and repeatedly challenged Tirpitz's policy. Forced into retirement in 1913, he entered the Prussian House of Lords and remained a political obstacle to Tirpitz. His later submarine policy grew from this earlier opposition: it was an emergency alternative after the Risk Fleet failed to provide a route to victory.
Notable Point · 6:29-13:37
Opposing Tirpitz's Risk Fleet
Holtzendorff's career explains why he was an unusual advocate of submarine warfare: he had opposed Tirpitz's naval competition with Britain.