| INTRODUCTION |
| History most famous naval race is undoubtedly the one that opposed Great Britain and the German Empire in the beginning of the XX century. By this time, Britain was established as world's naval superpower. For geographical reasons the control of the sea had always been the countrie's top prioritie. In 1900, however, German's government under Kaiser Wilhelm II became aware to the fact that to be a mighty country, Germany would have to built a navy capable to compete with the Royal Navy. A Navy law was passed in 1898. Two years later another law stated that by 1920 German's Navy would have at disposal some twenty-one battleships. For everyone in Britain it was clear that Germany was embarking in a World Policy which was causing some apprehension among politicians, foreign authorities and naval officers. As response to this threat, Great Britain started a program in order to modernize the Royal Navy and built new ships. |
| A new step in the naval race was given when the HMS Dreadnought was launched in 1906. So revolutionary and technological advanced was the concept of this ship that all existing ships before her found themselves obsolete. The HMS Dreadnought was not only the faster ship ever built, with a total output of 21.000 h.p., reaching the remarkable speed of 21 knots, but was also the most heavier armed ship of her era. While the previous armoured ships were gunned with four main cannons of 12-inchs (305 mm) and a variety of secondary guns, the Dreadnought had ten 12-inchs guns and five torpedoes tubes. Besides, the ship was armed with twenty-four 3-inchs guns in order to protect herself against small vessels. The ship accelerated the existing naval race between Germany and Britain. No navy was worth of mention without a ship like that. |
| The HMS Dreadnought at harbor |
| Least known, however, is that naval races occured also in other regions of the globe. There was the dispute between Italy, France and Austria-Hungary. By 1909 the Dante Alighieri, the first italian dreadnought is launched. This ship incorporated a new design to the battleships with four triple turrets. France and Austria-Hungary also dashed to add dreadnoughts to their fleets. |
| Dante Alighieri, launched in 1909. Note the triple turrets. |
| The dreadnought whirl also reached the South Atlantic. By 1905, Argentina, Brazil and Chile started making plans to acquire the armoured ships. In 1904 Brazil had planned a Naval Program under Admiral Júlio de Noronha. Not long after that Argentina and Chile also made plans to increase their fleets. This fact led to a naval race between the three countries. With the launching of the Dreadnought, the three South American nations made modifications in their programs. While Argentina and Brazil at first planned the acquisition of three dreadnoughts each, Chile was unwilling to acquire two vessels. Budgets constrains and lack of industrial technology faded the projects to face many problems. In first place, only to mantain the ships updated, an insdustrial base was recquired. Not to mention that the naval race led, as consequence, to a race in technology. Thus, it was common place the ship be somewhat obsolete before she was launched. Countries that did not have industries capable to deal with this were in serious disadvantage. There was also the world political environment, which pointed out to a forthcoming war between the major europeans countries. As a result, Argentina, Brazil and Chile had their programs restricted. Nevertheless, the ships acquired really added the Southamericans navies with great firepower. When WWI brokeout only nine navies in the world had ships of that caliber, two of which were Southamericans. |
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