Victor Valois (1841–1924), also called Anton Friedrich Victor Valois, was a vice-admiral (Vizeadmiral) in the

German Imperial Navy The Imperial German Navy or the ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly f ...

. He graduated from the post-graduate Naval War College, the Imperial Naval Academy (Marineakademie) in 1874 in a class with three other future admirals:

Otto von Diederichs Ernst Otto von Diederichs (7 September 1843 – 8 March 1918) was a German admiral of the Prussian Navy who served both the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire. He was the first governor of the German Jiaozhou Bay concession in China. Early ...

, Felix von Bendemann,

Gustav von Senden-Bibran Gustav Ernst Otto Egon Freiherr (Baron) von Bibran-Modlau, Senden-Bibran (23 July 1847, Rokitki, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Reisicht, Lower Silesia, Germany – 23 November 1909 in Berlin) was an admiral of the Kaiserliche Marine, German I ...

. Commissioned into the Prussian navy in 1857, Valois fought at the Battle of Jasmund in 1864. Between 1865 and 1868 he circumnavigated the world and later served in the

Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...

as captain of . He sank or captured several French ships before being blockaded in Vigo until the end of the war. In 1890 he became commander of the German

East Asia Squadron The German East Asia Squadron () was an Imperial German Navy cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the mid-1890s until 1914, when it was destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. It was based at Germany's Ji ...

. Towards the end of his naval career and in retirement he was active in the debate regarding the role of the German navy. Valois supported creating a fleet of light commerce raiders, as opposed to the orthodoxy of building up a battleship force for a decisive fleet action. He wrote several influential books and pamphlets.

Family

According to family legend, Valois' great-grandfather was lured from France to Switzerland during the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

, where he was conscripted into

Habsburg The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...

service. During the Prussian victory at

Liegnitz Legnica (; , ; ; ) is a city in southwestern Poland, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the Kaczawa River and the Czarna Woda. As well as being the seat of the county, since 1992 the city has been the seat of the Diocese of Legnica. L ...

he was among the 4,700 Austrian prisoners, and was persuaded to join the Prussian military. After the war he settled in the town of Prussian Holland, a village settled by Dutch refugees during the fourteenth century. (The town is now called

Pasłęk Pasłęk (pronounced ; formerly known in Polish as Holąd Pruski, , Old Prussian: ''Pāistlauks'') is a historic town in northern Poland, within Elbląg County in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. In 2017, the town had 12,298 registered inhabit ...

and is part of modern-day

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

.) The son of the erstwhile prisoner became a merchant, and his son, while studying to be a justice, married the daughter of one of the deputies of the Prussian Parliament, Antonie Pohl-Senslau.Memim Encyclopedia
''Victor Valois,''
2015, Accessed 29 August 2015. Victor Valois, born in 1841 to this couple, married Minna von Behrendt.San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser, June 13, 1891. He was generally reckoned by other naval officers to be a pleasant man who spoke perfect English.

Career

Valois entered the Prussian naval academy and was commissioned on 18 June 1857 and passed his naval exams that year. Afterward he joined the corvette on a training cruise around the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

. In 1861 he joined the frigate for a three-year cruise to East Asia. At the outbreak of the Prussian war with Denmark he was officer of the watch on the steam-powered Gunboat Loreley, under command of Captain Hans Kuhn. On 17 March 1864 he participated in the naval battle at

Jasmund Jasmund is a peninsula of the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is connected to the Wittow peninsula and to the Muttland main section of Rügen by the narrow land bridges Schaabe and Schmale Heide, respectively. Sassnitz ...

. At the end of the war in 1866 the Prussian navy was transferred to the North German Confederation. From 1865 to 1868, Valois circumnavigated the world on the

steam frigate Steam frigates (including screw frigates) and the smaller steam corvettes, steam sloops, steam gunboats and steam schooners, were steam-powered warships that were not meant to stand in the line of battle. The first such ships were paddle stea ...

, and subsequently on the steam corvette . With the rest of the crew of ''Nymph'', he transferred to the steam corvette , a lieutenant commander, where he was both second officer and navigation officer. After a brief supply trip to Kiel, he served as the navigator aboard ''Augusta'' around the British Isles. The ship attacked several vessels of the French government at Bordeaux, taking two as prizes, and sinking a steamship loaded with supplies for the French Army. Subsequently, ''Augusta'' took refuge in the Spanish harbour at Vigo, where it was blockaded by three French warships until 1871, when the ship returned to Kiel. From April 1876 to September 1878, Valois commanded the

gunboat A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-steam ...

on a lengthy deployment to

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

n waters. Valois commanded the corvette (France, 1863) in February 1881 on a cruise to

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

to protest a native attack on the shipwrecked crew of a German merchant ship. He exacted a monetary fine from the Liberian government and shelled the village of the natives involved in the attack. In early 1890 he left the position of Director (Oberwerftdirektor) of the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel to become commander of the German East Asia Squadron. In December 1890 he was in Australia with , , and . The purpose of the East Asia Squadron was to protect and promote imperialist interest in Asia and the Pacific. On 21 December 1890 he was as Samoa with his squadron in connection with German plans to annex the Marshall Islands when an approaching hurricane caused him to flee in his flagship ''Leipzig''. This was a period of tensions and rivalries in the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

between the great powers, including Germany and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. This tension was increased slightly when Valois brought his squadron into

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

on 4 June 1891 without the expected courtesy of raising an American flag. Perhaps it was for this reason that Admiral Andrew E. K. Benham, commander of Mare Island Station did not visit Valois. This was during the

1891 Chilean Civil War The Chilean Civil War of 1891 (also known as Revolution of 1891) was a civil war in Chile fought between forces supporting Congress and forces supporting the President, José Manuel Balmaceda from 16 January 1891 to 18 September 1891. The ...

and he was soon ordered south where, along with US and British navies, he was involved in the search for the gun-running Chilean ship ''Itata'' ( Itata Incident).

Retirement

The late 1890s were a period of conflict within the Imperial German navy. By this time,

Alfred von Tirpitz Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (; born Alfred Peter Friedrich Tirpitz; 19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral and State Secretary of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperi ...

, who favored the construction of heavy ships in direct competition with Britain, had come to power as the State Secretary of the Naval Office. In 1898, Tirpitz secured passage of the 1898 naval law, which emphasized a fleet strength that relied on battle ships and heavy cruisers. In 1899 Valois had written a book favoring cruisers if war came with Britain. Such ships, light and fast, could attack

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

's merchant ships in case of war. Ships of the great tonnage, called

capital ships The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet. Strategic i ...

, were expensive and time-consuming to build, and, according to Valois, would not serve the German marine well. This strategic philosophy, with its emphasis on cruisers, did not match William's (or Tirpitz's) concept of an appropriate German navy that could compete in weight, size, and impressive appearance with the vast British fleet.

Additional work

His book ''Seekraft Seegeltung Seeherrschaft'' published in 1899 caused a stir of interest in international naval circles as in it he admitted that the German naval build up was directed at Britain and proposed that mutual interest of the

and Germany should lead to an alliance against Britain. He was considered a progressive in the naval related questions of the time, such as foreign colonies, even after his retirement. As a member of the ''Kolonialrat'' (colonial advisory board) he was the only supporter of a 1901 proposal to free all slaves in Germany's African colonies by 1920. Valois proposed that all children born to slaves should be born free, but this was overruled as "premature" and the board objected strongly to the proposal. He was long a foe of the United Kingdom and supported a strong cruiser fleet as the most feasible way to fight her in any future war. In the April 1910 issue of ''Überall'', the magazine of the Navy League (''Flottenverein''), he published a violently anti-British article, "Our Navy in the Service of the Colonial Movement". In it he wrote "there is at present no greater menace to the world's peace than the presumption of England." Although he was long retired when the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

entered the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

against Germany, he published a pamphlet "Nieder mit England!" (Down with England!) which strongly attacked the new enemy and called for her destruction.

Promotions

* Cadet Aspirant: 21 June 1959 * Cadet 1 October 1859 * See Cadet: 10 December 1859 * Unter Leutnant zur See: 19 July 1864 * Leutnant zur See: 29 August 1866 * Kapitänleutant zur See: 25 Jan 1870 * Korvettenkapitän: * Kapitän zur See: 17 December 1881

Awards

* Prussian Red Eagle Order, 4th class, with swords * Order of Merit: Iron Cross * Order of the Crown, 3rd class, with swordsPruessische Marine, p. 30–31.

Works authored

* Victor Valois, ''Seekraft Seegeltung Seeherrschaft'', 1899. * Victor Valois, ''Deutschland als Seemacht'', Leipzig: Wiegand, 1908. * Victor Valois, ''Nieder mit England!'' 1914 or 1915.