Tirpitz's naval answer after Bismarck

Bismarck was skeptical of a global empire that could not be directed from Germany's European position. His fall is presented as the political consequence of building up Wilhelm II and then revealing that the chancellor could command ministers more effectively than the Kaiser. Tirpitz filled the resulting shortage of strategic ideas with a navy meant to make Germany a first-rank world power. His programme drew on contemporary naval ideas, but assumed that other governments could be made to fit Germany's preferred world. Personal rule and a policy vacuum at the top of the state helped produce an unusually ambitious maritime strategy.