This year will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I and my attention this week was drawn to a copy of J. Griffin and Company’s The Naval Annual 1913. It is a sweeping 520-page review of the state of the world’s navies with details on individual ships. The naval arms race of the early twentieth century saw investment in large battleships and Great Britain aimed to keep naval superiority by having a navy equal to the size of the next two largest navies – in this case it was Imperial Germany and the United States. These ships were not cheap to build and an interesting comparison is how did the size of these navies correspond to national output.
A table on page 94 of the Annual provides a convenient summary of effective fighting ships (both built and under construction) for the major powers on the eve of the war: Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, France, Russia and the United States. Figure 1 ranks the countries in terms of the number of battleships and then also presents the numbers for the other categories: cruisers, destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines. At 77 battleships, Great Britain ranks first followed by Germany (46), the United States (38), France (32), Russia (21), Italy (16) and Austria-Hungary (13). Britain also had the most cruisers and the most destroyers. However, France boasted the most torpedo boats and the most submarines. 
Figure 2 uses per capita GDP numbers (in 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars – i.e., a US PPP dollar estimate) from Angus Maddison for these great powers for 1913 and ranks them. The United States ranks first in per capita GDP followed by Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy (an average of Austria and Hungary) and finally Russia. It should be noted that these ranking don’t change much in the early twenty-first century (though Austria ranks much higher on its own both in 1913 and the present). 
So does fleet size correlate well with per capita GDP? It depends on the type of ship. Figure 3 plots the number of battleships against per capita GDP and there is a strong positive correlation. Based on the linear regression line – the British, Russians and Germans have fleets somewhat larger than their per capita GDP would predict while the Austro-Hungarians, French, Italians and Americas are smaller. I would draw from this that the Austro-Hungarians, French, Italians and Americans were not as engaged in the naval arms race as the other three countries. Similar positive correlations also hold for cruisers, destroyers and submarines. Interestingly enough, there is no positive relationship between per capita GDP and the number of torpedo boats. They were relatively cheap to build compared to the other types of ships and thus not as correlated with the national resource base. I would also venture that as a result, the French with their emphasis on torpedo boats had a more cost-effective fleet.
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Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Why leave out Japan?
Lorenzo:
Japan was not in the table I used.
Mind you, there’s also the not irrelevant consideration that Austro-Hungary and Italy’s naval interests were principally limited to the Adriatic, and principally driven by the threat posed by one another (despite being nominal allies) so it’s not wholly surprising that they would devote a relatively small portion of the GDP to their Navy. In contrast the Royal Navy had global aspirations and Germany had aspirations to match, so would need a larger Navy. Likewise, the Russians had to worry about the Dreadnaughts (or proposed Dreadnaughts, in the case of Turkey) of three countries, German, Japan and Turkey.
Why look at the per capita number for GDP? It’s not battle ships per capita either
Total GDP should be driving the ability to build battle ships. Any over- or undershooting shows a deliberate choice by the nation. I guess, e.g. Russia had more ships than she could afford, while the US had less (isolationism)
No Brazil?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_American_dreadnought_race
Michael:
Per capita GDP seemed like a good reflection of the resource available adjusting for population size but I suppose you could make the case for total GDP also.
Anon & Lorenzo:
Actually, there are more detailed tables by ship type for many countries in the second half of the Annual including both Japan and Brazil but these countries were not included in the handy summary table I used.
The French had a more “cost-effective” fleet? In what terms? A fleet is effective to the extent that it can perform its various tasks in the strategic context. Otherwise it’s a waste of money. The British fleet could (ie, it kept the seas open for British commerce, enforced the blockade on Germany and so on). The German fleet could not perform its tasks – it neither posed enough of a threat to keep Britain from aiding France (Turpitz’ “risikoflotte” concept), nor could it strangle Britain’s or France’s commerce. So it was the least effective of the fleets. How many torpedo boats one has is irrelevant. Geography also plays a part – Russia had to defend three coasts, with very limited ability ability to transfer units between them.
Naval Doctrine also matters. The French for a long time had a focus on coast defense (torpedo boats) and commerce raiding (cruisers and submarines)they did not build very many battleships.
Also numbers may be misleading the British did not have 77 dreadnought battleships and the older pre dreadnoughts were not really frontline units anymore. It was a period of rapid technological advance and ships older that 10 years or so were not nearly as effective. Note this applies to all countries not just the British. So how many of each type were modern units is a relevant question. The Russian navy would have mostly modern ships after the Russo Japanese war but they were way behind in building modern battleships.
As to the ratio no surprise that the British are high (big navy, small army, overseas empire) what is more surprising is the higher ratios for the Germans and Russians given both required large armies and Russia at least had a continental empire. Evidence maybe of the Anglo German naval arms race.
If Japan was left out of the summary table, that says something interesting about either attitudes of the author/publisher or about their expected audience. After all, the Japanese success in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 was the most important naval clash since the American Civil War and Japan had been the first Power the British had signed an alliance with since 1815.
I’d say the audience, the summary applies to the players in an Atlantic naval war only. Japan was an exception in that it was a Pacific power, and that didn’t develop as a naval area of interest until the 1920’s. At this time Pearl Harbour was still very new and rather small as an American naval base. It didn’t become the base for the Pacific Fleet until 1940.