Germany and France put together." German response Admiral Alfred Tirpitz had often visited Portsmouth as a naval cadet and admired and envied the Royal Navy. Like the Kaiser, Tirpitz believed Germany's future dominant role in the world depended on a powerful navy. He demanded large numbers of battleships. Even when Dreadnought was launched, making his previously constructed 15 battleships obsolete, he believed that eventually Germany's technological and industrial might would allow Germany to out-build Britain ship for ship. Using the threat of his own resignation he forced the Reichstag to build three dreadnoughts and a battle cruiser. He also put aside money for a future submarine branch. At the rate that Tirpitz insisted upon, Germany would have thirteen in 1912, to Britain's 16. When this was leaked out to the British people in spring 1909, there was public outcry. The people demanded eight new battleships instead of the four the government had planned for that year. As Winston Churchill put it, "The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight." Tirpitz had no option but to consider Britain's new dreadnought-building program as a direct threat to Germany. He had to respond, raising the stakes further. However, the commitment of funds to out-build the Germans meant Britain was abandoning any notion of a two-power standard for naval superiority. No amount of money would allow Britain to compete with Germany and Russia or the US, or even Italy. Thus a new policy, of dominance over the world's second leading sea power by a 60% margin, went into effect. Fisher's staff had been getting increasingly annoyed by the way he refused to tolerate any difference in opinion, and the eight dreadnought demand had been the last straw. Thus on January 25, 1910, Fisher left the admiralty. Shortly after Fisher's resignation, Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty. Under him, the race would continue; indeed Lloyd George nearly resigned when Churchill presented him with the naval budget of 1914 of 50 million pounds. By the start of the war Germany had an impressive fleet both of capital ships and submarines. Other nations had smaller fleets, generally with a lower proportion of battleships and a larger proportion of smaller ships like destroyers and submarines. France, Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Japan, and the United States all had modern fleets with at least some dreadnoughts and submarines. Naval technology Naval technology