Admiral Sir Jackie Fisher, who was First Sea Lord at the time, predicted in 1908 that war with Germany would come in the summer of 1914, and no sooner. Why? In 1907, Germany began widening the Kiel Canal so that her dreadnoughts could pass from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea without passing through the bottleneck around Denmark. The British estimated that date was when the canal would be complete.

The canal was certainly a concern to the Germans, and during the German Imperial War Council in December of 1912, the Naval State Secretary, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, argued against any move to war until the canal work was finished and the U-Boat base on Heligoland completed. Note that there was no plan to go to war after the canal was done, but the Kaiser agreed with Tirpitz that war should be delayed, if possible, until then. The work was completed in July, 1914, and the war began the next month, sparked by that "damned foolish thing in the Balkans".

Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought