 The Bayern @-@ class ships were a result of the fourth Naval Law , which was passed in 1912 . Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz used public outcry over the British involvement in the Agadir Crisis of 1911 to pressure the Reichstag into appropriating additional funds for the Navy . The Fourth Naval Law secured funding for three new dreadnoughts , two light cruisers , and an increase of an additional 15 @,@ 000 officers and men in the ranks of the Navy for 1912 . The capital ships laid down in 1912 were the Derfflinger @-@ class battlecruisers ; funding for Bayern and Baden was allocated the following year . Funding for Sachsen was allocated in the 1914 budget , while Württemberg was funded in the War Estimates . The last remaining Brandenburg @-@ class pre @-@ dreadnought , Wörth , was to be replaced , as well as two elderly Kaiser Friedrich III @-@ class pre @-@ dreadnoughts , Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kaiser Friedrich III . Baden was ordered as Ersatz Wörth , Württemberg as Ersatz Kaiser Wilhelm II , and Sachsen as Ersatz Kaiser Friedrich III ; Bayern was regarded as an addition to the fleet , and was ordered under the provisional name " T " . 
