On 10 February 1906, the sky over Portsmouth was low and grey, the kind of damp English cold that soaked through greatcoats and uniforms alike. Flags hung in neat lines above HM Dockyard, Slip No. 5 was cleared and guarded, and a crowd of officers, shipyard men and invited guests watched the monster on the stocks that would soon touch water for the first time.
Even in this sober weather, nothing could hide the pride in British eyes.
At the edge of the crowd stood Admiral of the Fleet Sir John "Jacky" Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, wrapped in his heavy coat, sharp eyes fixed on the ship that was his favourite child. Beside him were other senior officers and a scattering of politicians, including the new First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Tweedmouth, representing the Liberal government in London.
All of them were here for one thing: the launch of the newest battleship of the Royal Navy—HMS Dreadnought.
They tried hard not to look at the details that annoyed them.
Like the alarming number of dockyard workers in strange grey‑yellow helmets with little German lettering stamped above the brim—"Albrecht Safety Works"—and matching padded gloves and boots clearly not made in Britain. Or the rough workers in thick wool "sweatpants" and hooded pullovers from that cursed German gym chain, "Pump World," that had opened a branch in London and was now apparently dressing British shipyard men as if they were part of some foreign sports cult.
Worst of all, one senior engineer, coat open, helmet pushed back, was sitting on a crate in full view of the officers, calmly drinking his tea and laughing to himself as he read a brightly coloured comic book.
On the cover, a ridiculous figure in a skintight suit and cape posed heroically over a stylised Berlin skyline, a bold "G" on his chest.
German Man – Volume 1: The Beginning of a Legend.
Written, of course, by His Royal Highness Prince Oskar of Prussia.
A few younger officers exchanged horrified glances. The German fifth prince's face, lightly caricatured, stared up at them from the cover as if mocking the entire Royal Navy. One of the Admiralty clerks opened his mouth as if to say something about banning such trash from the yard.
Then he remembered that half the noble ladies of London were currently obsessed with Angelworks dresses and that even Lord Tweedmouth's own wife had sent word to the palace that her new stockings were "exquisitely comfortable, if regrettably made in Germany."
Even Fisher himself, for all his patriotic fire, was now wearing Angelworks wool undergarments and socks with British flags under his uniform. The German brands had crept in like a plague—soft, warm, cheap, and infuriatingly good.
He loathed that he liked them.
So, like everyone else, he pretended not to see the helmets, the boots, the comic book.
Let the Germans sell boots and comics and cat sand, Fisher thought coldly. Let them clothe half of Britain's backside if they like. So long as the Royal Navy rules the sea, they will never truly rule the world.
This was not the day to start a fight over underwear and cat‑sand companies.
Today was about the one thing Britain still ruled without question: the sea.
And there, on the slipway, towered the proof.
HMS Dreadnought dominated Slip No. 5 like a steel cliff. Even incomplete, her sheer bulk made the older pre‑dreadnoughts in the harbour look like toys.
The design was Fisher's dream made metal:
A long forecastle hull, ram bow abandoned at last in favour of better seakeeping.
Ten 12‑inch (305 mm) guns in five twin turrets—an "all‑big‑gun" main battery with no mixed heavy calibres to complicate gunnery.
Three turrets on the centreline—one forward, two aft—and two great wing turrets abreast the forward superstructure, giving her a broadside of eight heavy guns, with six that could fire ahead and four astern.
A secondary armament of quick‑firing 12‑pounder guns only, meant for driving off torpedo boats rather than cluttering the ship with medium guns whose splashes confused long‑range fire.
Below the armoured decks, the revolution continued.
Instead of the old reciprocating triple‑expansion engines, Dreadnought carried Parsons steam turbines—four of them, driving four shafts—fed by eighteen Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The machinery was rated at 23,000 shaft horsepower, enough for a designed speed of 21 knots, making her the fastest battleship in the world once completed.
Her armour was Krupp cemented steel, up to 11 inches thick along the main belt and faces of the turrets, wrapped around magazines and machinery in a tight armoured citadel. Only a few years earlier, ships like Majestic had been the pinnacle of naval power. Today, looking up at this 18,000‑ton monster, they already felt old.
What amazed even old dockyard hands was not just what she was, but how fast she had come into being.
Materials had been stockpiled before her keel was even laid. Prefabricated sections had been built in advance in other shops. When work officially began on 2 October 1905, more than a thousand men were already waiting; within weeks, three thousand were labouring in shifts that stretched from dawn till dark.
And now, just four months later, the hull was ready to slide.
Britain, Fisher thought with fierce satisfaction, still knew how to do miracles when it mattered.
However the ceremony was less festive than planned.
Twelve days earlier, Queen Alexandra's father, King Christian IX of Denmark, had died; the court was still in mourning. Colours were muted, bands played more solemnly than usual, and the Queen herself did not attend. But King Edward VII was there, wrapped in his coat, cheeks red from the cold, beard frosted with breath.
At the appointed moment, a clergyman offered a brief, compressed prayer. The band struck up. Dockyard sirens blew. Workers cheered from the gantries.
When Sir Fisher stepped forward, chest out, mustache bristling with pride, all fell silent and listened.
"Gentlemen," he boomed, "the Royal Navy has been the shield of the British Empire for centuries. We protect our colonies, our trade, and the peace of the world."
A murmur of approval rolled through the crowd.
"But we must recognize that other nations"—he did not say Germany aloud, but everyone heard it—"are building ships with urgency and ambition. They would challenge our rightful command of the seas."
He gestured to the massive hull behind him.
"Behold our answer!
A ship so advanced that all others become obsolete the moment she touches the water!"
"Long live the British Empire! God bless the British Empire!"
"LONG LIVE THE BRITISH EMPIRE! GOD SAVE THE KING!"
The cheers were thunderous.
And then with a smile on his bearded face, King Edward raised the bottle—sparkling Australian wine rather than traditional champagne, a novelty some newspapers had grumbled about—and swung it at the armoured bow.
The bottle bounced.
A soft, embarrassed murmur rippled through the crowd.
On the second blow, glass shattered, foaming wine splashing over grey steel.
"I name this ship Dreadnought," the King declared. "God bless her, and all who serve in her."
Massive wooden shores were knocked free. Greased ways groaned under the sudden weight as thousands of tons of steel began to move.
Dreadnought slid down the slipway into the cold water of Portsmouth harbour, throwing up a great foaming wave that crashed against the dock walls and rocked the tugs waiting to catch her. For a moment she rolled heavily, the naked hull swaying like a drunk giant. Then ballast took and she steadied, settling on an even keel.
She was afloat.
Cheers rolled across the yard. Caps flew into the air. Even the usually expressionless dockyard foremen let themselves smile for a moment.
Fisher allowed himself a single, sharp nod.
Once again, the Royal Navy had stepped ahead of the world.
After the formalities, after King and courtiers had been escorted away, Fisher did not linger.
There would be months of fitting‑out in dry dock: guns to mount, armour to bolt, machinery to test. If all went well, Dreadnought would complete her trials and join the fleet before the year's end. But Fisher's task today was political as much as naval.
Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell‑Bannerman had asked for a report in person.
By evening, Fisher was back in London, boots echoing along the corridor of Downing Street as he was shown into the Prime Minister's private room.
Gas lamps hissed softly. A coal fire glowed red in the grate. It was a comfortable room—but what they discussed here would echo from the North Sea to the Baltic.
Sir Henry Campbell‑Bannerman set his papers aside and rose.
"Jacky," he said, offering his hand. "You look like a man who has just had a child christened."
"In a manner of speaking, Prime Minister," Fisher replied, shaking it firmly. "She's afloat. On time. Less than a year from design to water. She'll be ready to run trials by autumn if the dockyard keeps up its pace."
"Sit, sit," Campbell‑Bannerman said, gesturing to the chairs. "Tell me plainly—what have we bought for all this effort?"
Fisher eased himself into a seat.
"A revolution, sir," he said simply.
"Ten twelve‑inch guns, all of one calibre. No muddled secondary heavy battery. Unified fire control. She can throw eight big shells in one broadside, six straight ahead. And turbines—she'll run at twenty‑one knots and keep it. No foreign battleship can match that yet."
He hesitated, then added with a wry twist to his mouth:
"And she makes our own battleships obsolete as well."
The Prime Minister grimaced.
"That is the part Parliament will like least," he said. "We have spent a decade building fine ships that the public were assured would last twenty, twenty‑five years. Now you tell me one hull slides into Portsmouth harbour and they're all… rubbish?"
"Not rubbish, sir," Fisher said carefully. "They'll still fight—and very effectively—against France, Russia, anyone who has not yet followed us. But against ships built to Dreadnought's standard, they will be out‑gunned and out‑run. That is the price of staying ahead. If we had not built her, someone else would have. The Italians have been sketching such ships. The Americans talk of 'all‑big‑gun' battleships. And the Germans…"
His eyes narrowed.
"The Germans are already expanding under Tirpitz's Naval Laws. The Second Naval Law calls for thirty‑eight battleships, twenty large cruisers, thirty‑eight small cruisers. They have just pushed through a new amendment in Berlin—nine hundred and forty million marks for bigger ships, dock enlargements, even their canal. Two dreadnoughts and a great cruiser each year, if they can manage it."
Campbell‑Bannerman drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair.
"Yes," he said. "I have seen the translations. And their Kaiser's fifth son—the tall one, the… peculiar one—seems to be playing industrialist and shipbuilder on his own account."
Fisher's mouth tightened.
He had heard the rumours too: a giant prince obsessed with big guns and modern engines, pouring lottery money and factory profits into Danzig and other yards; a boy who called the German Naval Academy "garbage" to its face and then marched off to build his own shipyard.
"He's a nuisance," Fisher said aloud—more confidently than he felt. "Whatever that boy does, the German fleet still answers to Tirpitz and Wilhelm. Our real concern is that they will try to match Dreadnought and fail only by a year or two. We must keep the lead long enough that their 'risk fleet' never looks worth the risk."
The Prime Minister nodded slowly.
"And the cost?" he asked. "Your Admirals talk as if the Treasury were an inexhaustible mine. New hulls… new guns… now new turbines. Britain cannot simply conjure money because the Royal Navy wishes to terrify the world."
Fisher leaned forward.
"Sir, if we had not built Dreadnought, we would soon have been overtaken. Germany is already spending a frightening share of her revenue on the army and navy. If we lag, even for a few years, we may wake to find the North Sea thick with German flags. This ship is our answer to their Naval Laws. It is cheaper for us to build one revolution than to try to out‑build them ship‑for‑ship with old designs."
Campbell‑Bannerman looked at the fire for a long moment.
Outside, rain began tapping softly at the window.
Finally he exhaled.
"Very well," he said. "You will have your trials. You will have your next estimates. We cannot afford to fall behind. But Fisher—" his gaze sharpened "—understand me. If Parliament must swallow more naval bills, we will wash them down with talk of Germany. Tirpitz. The Kaiser. Even that ridiculous fifth prince of his, with his cat litter and comic books and factories. The public does not care for technical details. They care for fears."
"Fear of another Trafalgar," Fisher murmured, "in reverse."
"Just so," Campbell‑Bannerman said. "You'll get your money. See that you give us safety in return."
Ample financial resources, powerful shipyards, and a long tradition of hard‑driving naval officers had kept the Royal Navy at the top of the world's fleets for over a century.
Challenges had come and gone—France, Russia, now Germany—but none had yet unseated British sea power. Control of the oceans underpinned the entire empire: trade routes, colonies, the flow of grain and gold.
That was the background to Fisher's next, quieter admission.
"Prime Minister," he said, "there is one thing we cannot control."
Campbell‑Bannerman lifted an eyebrow.
"German spies," Fisher said simply.
The Prime Minister's mouth tightened.
"I had hoped," he said drily, "that this miracle ship of yours might remain a mystery a little longer."
"Impossible, sir," Fisher replied. "Not completely. We can screen the slip, keep them away from the fitting‑out basin, muzzle the newspapers for a few months… but Dreadnought is a mountain that floats. Unless every German agent in Britain has suddenly gone blind, they will know we've built something new. And soon enough, they will have photographs. Rough dimensions. Perhaps even a sense of her speed."
Campbell‑Bannerman frowned.
"Then what measures do we have?"
Fisher's smile returned—sharp this time.
"Superiority of time," he said.
He spread his hands.
"Even if the Germans begin designing a copy tomorrow, they will need a year or two to refine their plans, another two to build and fit out. By the time their first true all‑big‑gun battleship is ready for trials, we will already have more Dreadnoughts in commission—and the next generation on the slipways."
He leaned back, confidence returning.
"Our gunmakers are already working on refinements. The next class—Bellerophon, three ships—will begin this year under the 1906–1907 Programme. Improved protection, better secondary batteries, still ten twelve‑inch guns."
His eyes glittered.
"And the gun factory at Woolwich is already sketching something larger. A thirteen‑and‑a‑half‑inch piece. Not for this programme—the Admiralty is not completely mad—but for the one after. If we call these new twelve‑inch ships 'dreadnoughts', then the bigger ones will be 'super‑dreadnoughts'."
Campbell‑Bannerman allowed himself a small smile.
"Very good. Keep us ahead not only in numbers, but in quality. If the Germans dream of challenging our naval supremacy, I want that dream shattered by hard steel and harder arithmetic."
"Yes, Prime Minister," Fisher said. "The Navy will see to it."
So it was that soon after the launching of the Dreadnought, Germany's spies in Britain were quick to begin making reports back home to Germany.
However much Fisher tried to hide the capabilities of his ships from prying eyes, you couldn't hide a ship as large as Dreadnought for long.
Within weeks, sketchy reports reached the naval attachés in Germany, speaking of a new battleship, larger than any before with ten heavy guns in five twin turrets.
Four funnels, turbine machinery, unusual speed.
All‑big‑gun armament.
The word "Dreadnought" began to circulate in coded telegrams.
By early spring, grainy photographs and rough technical estimates were in the hands of the German Naval Office in Berlin.
Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office, stared at the papers in silence.
"So," he said at last, voice very calm. "The British have built the design our own committee called impossible."
He wasn't exaggerating.
Months earlier, Prince Oskar—giant, troublesome, infuriatingly persuasive—had brought the Naval Technical Committee a concept for an all‑big‑gun battleship: uniform heavy battery, centreline turrets, higher speed, no mixed calibres to complicate fire control.
The committee had sniffed, frowned, and explained to his face why such a ship was impractical, too expensive, untested. They preferred to keep tinkering with mixed batteries and reciprocating engines.
Tirpitz had not fought hard enough.
He knew that now.
And the British, of course, had arrived at the same idea—whether by parallel thinking or eager industrial espionage—and built it, with turbines, before a single all‑big‑gun keel had been laid in Germany.
Tirpitz's jaw clenched.
He slammed his fist onto the table hard enough to make inkwells jump.
"Idiots!" he snapped. "Are the gentlemen on our Technical Committee completely useless? They rejected His Highness's design, and now the British put something very close to it into the water for the whole world to admire."
He turned to his aides.
"Summon the committee heads. And prepare a full brief for His Majesty. The Kaiser will want to see this himself."
In the Neues Palais at Potsdam, Wilhelm II read the translated reports in growing disbelief.
Ten twelve‑inch guns. Turbines. High speed. Short building time.
All the things his fifth son had been shouting about for over a year—wrapped up in a British hull called Dreadnought.
"Useless!" Wilhelm exploded, crumpling a sheet in his gloved hand. "Are my Naval experts all blind? There are so many of them, such deep experience, and yet they cannot match a seventeen‑year‑old boy!"
He glared around the room.
"Prince Oskar brings them ideas, and they sneer. The British Admiralty takes the same idea and turns it into steel before our people finish arguing about diagrams!"
The palace staff stared fixedly at the floor.
A few feet away, Oskar himself was not present. He was somewhere between meeting Diesel, drafting worker protection laws, and accidentally starting a cat fashion industry.
But the shadow of his earlier arguments loomed over the table all the same.
Wilhelm II ordered an immediate naval conference.
The Minister of the Navy. Tirpitz. The head of the Naval Technical Committee. Relevant admirals.
They all came.
Tirpitz, grimly prepared, laid out the facts:
Britain still held numerical superiority by a vast margin.
Under the 1900 Naval Law, Germany itself aimed for thirty‑eight battleships and twenty large cruisers by 1920.
The 1906 amendment, just passed by the Reichstag after much argument, added six more large cruisers and a swarm of torpedo boats, and—most importantly—allocated nine hundred and forty million marks for a new generation of capital ships and the infrastructure to support them: widened docks, enlarged locks, a deeper Kiel Canal. Two dreadnoughts and one armoured cruiser (soon to be "battlecruiser") per year.
Now, with Dreadnought afloat, those ships could no longer be modest improvements on older designs.
They had to match the British leap.
The discussion was heated. Admirals argued about calibres and layouts. Conservative engineers muttered about risk.
Tirpitz, for once, invoked Prince Oskar directly.
"Your Majesty," he said, "we no longer have the luxury of debate. The British have shown the world what is possible. If we hesitate, we will always be one generation behind them. His Highness Oskar warned us. The British have now proved him correct."
Wilhelm II's moustache twitched.
He did not enjoy being reminded that his most disruptive son, who was just 17 had predicted this without even having ever studied a single day in the Naval Academy.
But he was not stupid.
Reluctantly, he nodded.
"Very well," the Kaiser said. "You will build dreadnoughts. Big‑gun ships. Turbines. Whatever is needed. But you will also listen—this time—to my son when he speaks of such things."
The Naval Technical Committee squirmed.
Tirpitz exhaled.
In the months that followed, design studies that had been quietly gathering dust were pulled back onto desks. Concepts for heavy‑gun ships—some closer to Dreadnought, some closer to Oskar's more radical ideas—were re‑examined.
Out of that messy, rushed process, the first German dreadnought design—what the Admiralty would eventually approve as the Nassau‑class—began to take shape.
It would not be perfect.
It would, in some ways, lag behind the British.
But it would exist—and it would fire a broadside of heavy shells in anger one day.
That night, as Fisher reviewed papers at the Admiralty and Campbell‑Bannerman dozed over Cabinet documents in Downing Street, telegraph keys clicked from Portsmouth to Berlin, Paris, Saint Petersburg, Vienna, and beyond.
In Paris, newspapers grumbled about British arrogance and muttered darkly about "la folie des cuirassés".
In Saint Petersburg, cautious admirals of a battered Tsar studied the figures and sighed, knowing their own fleet was still recovering from Tsushima.
In Vienna, officers of the k,u,k. Kriegsmarine peered at sketches and quietly wondered how Austro‑Hungary would ever afford such monsters.
In Berlin, where Prince Oskar's industrial empires were already reshaping daily life and where the Reichstag had just voted through that enormous naval Novelle, many eyes drifted from their own "G‑series" design studies to the first blurred photographs of the English monster at Portsmouth.
Some in Germany saw Dreadnought as an insult.
Others saw a challenge.
Oskar, when the news finally reached him between a diesel engine, a cat‑clothing contract, and a crying baby, would see something else again.
But that would be a matter for another day.
For now, on 10 February 1906, under a low English sky, HMS Dreadnought floated in Portsmouth harbour—ten great guns silent, turbines yet to turn—and the world of battleships had been quietly, irrevocably changed.