PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE XXXVII
Eduard von Capelle
Born in Celle (then in the Kingdom of Hanover) on October 10, 1855, Eduard Capelle joined the Imperial German Navy as a seventeen-year-old cadet. He served in various capacities in the fleet, including in the Torpedowesen (Torpedo Department) with Alfred von Tirpitz.
In December 1894, Capelle was serving as the executive officer of the battleship SMS Weissenburg. He was later assigned to the Reichsmarineamt (RMA, the Imperial Navy Office) as the chief of the administrative department. In this capacity, Capelle began to work closely with Admiral von Tirpitz, who had been promoted to become State Secretary for the Navy. Capelle was responsible for drafting the legislation that became the Flottengesetz (the Fleet Laws) and supplementary laws in 1906, 1908, and 1912. During this period, he and other senior members of the naval command worked repeatedly to break monopolies in the shipbuilding industry, as a means to keep costs low and stable. The only firm that proved resistant to their efforts was Krupp, which held a near monopoly on armor plating and large-caliber guns. It proved to be too powerful for the RMA to effectively pressure the Essen-based firm.
Capelle was promoted to Konteradmiral (rear admiral) in 1906, and Vizeadmiral (vice admiral) three years later. In 1912, he was elevated to nobility, which allowed him to add “von” to his name. He rose to the rank of admiral in 1913.
In 1914, von Capelle was von Tirpitz’s deputy. During the July Crisis that instigated the First World War, von Capelle was acting State Secretary, as von Tirpitz was away at his summer home. In this capacity, von Capelle endorsed the “blank check” that Kaiser Wilhelm II had extended to Austria-Hungary in the aftermath of the royal murders in Sarajevo the previous month. With regard to the deepening crisis, von Capelle stated (albeit naively) that while “many swords will be rattled and much poisonous ink spilled, Europe will not tear itself to pieces over Serbia.”
By late August 1915, von Capelle had fallen ill and requested retirement from the Imperial German Navy, though he agreed to remain in the post until November. In March 1916, he was recalled to service and replaced von Tirpitz (whose views on the naval war had become unpopular) as State Secretary for the Navy. By this point, von Tirpitz had pushed for unrestricted submarine warfare in order to break the deadlock on the Western Front. But Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg feared a war with the United States, so he maneuvered to have von Tirpitz relieved of command. Meanwhile, the chancellor secured the support of von Capelle and brought him out of retirement.
The position of Eduard von Capelle as State Secretary was decidedly weaker than that of Alfred von Tirpitz. This was in large part due to the course of the war and the discrediting of the surface fleet policy advocated first by von Tirpitz, then by von Capelle. Admiral Paul Behncke (who later served as von Capelle’s deputy) stated the following:
“In the Navy, the position of the RMA has become purely administrative, it no longer plays a leading role.”
Though von Capelle was initially opposed to unrestricted submarine warfare, a group of senior officers led by the commander of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, convinced von Capelle to change his mind, who in turn worked to convince the Kaiser to permit a return to unrestricted submarine warfare. By January 1917, Wilhelm II had consented, and Imperial Germany resumed the U-boat campaign against Britain on February 1st. Just over two months later, America declared war on Germany.
Even though he agreed to resume the U-boat campaign, von Capelle did not believe that submarines had replaced the battleship as the decisive naval weapon. In February 1917, he argued that new battleship construction—that of the L 20e α design—should not be stopped. In order to keep costs down, von Capelle announced that the Imperial German Navy would not build any ships over 41,000 tons (40,000 long tons; 45,000 short tons) displacement or with a draft in excess of 9.8 meters (32 feet), as these were the maximum dimensions of the existing harbors and drydocks. Larger designs would require prohibitively expensive dredging on harbors, channels, and new docks.
Nevertheless, by February 1918, design work on the new class of battleships had ground to a halt, and von Capelle could do nothing about it. By this point in the war, the U-boat arm had absorbed all of the limited production capabilities of the Imperial German Navy.
Eduard von Capelle also advocated for shipbuilding contracts with the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s wartime ally… and as such, he secured contracts for twelve torpedo boats and twelve U-boats for the Ottoman Navy. He also used the naval construction program to keep skilled workers out of the German Army in order to preserve their expertise for naval needs.
In August 1917, von Capelle banned socialist literature from the fleet in the aftermath of several disturbances. In a speech to the Reichstag on October 9, 1917, he accused the radical, independent branch of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (the Social Democratic Party, or SPD) of knowingly supporting these revolutionary actions, which in turn drove moderate SPD members closer to the radical independent faction. This led to the toppling of Chancellor Georg Michaelis, who was replaced by Georg von Hertling.
On January 9, 1918, von Capelle was awarded the Pour le Mérite, Germany’s highest military award. But by August, Reinhard Scheer and a group of prominent commanders in the High Seas Fleet had convinced the Kaiser that the senior officers in the naval high command needed to be replaced by more dynamic individuals. To this end, Wilhelm II requested the resignation of von Capelle, Henning von Holtzendorff (Admiralty Chief), and Karl Alexander von Müller (head of the Naval Cabinet). Eduard von Capelle resigned from the Imperial German Navy in October 1918, shortly before the end of the war. His deputy, Paul Behnke, briefly replaced him… but he too was forced out due to his opposition to Scheer, who had recently been promoted to Seekriegsleitung (Chief of Naval Staff).
In 1919, von Capelle testified before the Reichstag War Failures Committee about his tenure as State Secretary during the conflict. One area of particular interest was the U-boat campaign against Britain.
At the age of seventy-five, Eduard von Capelle died in Wiesbaden on February 23, 1931.