Complete the account of the naval race.

The German Naval Laws of 1898 and 1900 announced a battle fleet that Britain could only read as directed at itself, since Germany had no overseas empire requiring one. Britain’s answer was HMS Dreadnought of 1906, whose all-big-gun design made every existing battleship obsolete, including Britain’s own, which reset the race at a number both publics could count.

The self-defeating quality of the British answer is the interesting part. By making its own fleet obsolete, Britain converted a lead built over a century into a fresh contest starting near zero, and turned naval strength into a figure that newspapers could print weekly, which made the rivalry a matter of mass politics rather than of admiralties.