In October 1907, Captain Dumas began to hear rumours that yet another change (i.e. increase) was contemplated in the German naval law [40]. The prospect of a further expansion of the German fleet a mere two years after the previous amendment to the naval law was a worrying development and reporting the rumours and then the reality of this proposal took up much of the naval attaché's attention in the last year of his posting in Berlin [42, 43, 44, 46, 52]. The fact that back in Britain the Committee of Imperial Defence was once again investigating the possibility of an invasion of the British Isles also impacted on Dumas's work and he touched upon the question of a German invasion in several of his reports [47, 48, 53, 55]. Not surprisingly, the position he adopted was the same as the Admiralty’s, namely that no major landing in the British Isles could be planned and executed in secret. However, his most significant and wide-ranging memoranda from this period were the two substantive overviews he conducted of Anglo-German naval relations. The first of these was his report on the German navy for 1907 [48]; the second was his summary of affairs produced on giving up his post [57]. Both were remarkable documents. They stressed the intensity of anglophobia in German and warned that, although there was no immediate danger of a conflict, the German desire to challenge the Royal Navy's maritime supremacy and thereby to supplant Britain's place in the world heralded a future conflagration. Intended as both warnings and as a spur to decisive counter-measures, they proved prescient analyses of affairs.

40. Philip Dumas, Germany N.A. Report 53/07

Berlin, 3 October 1907

The Rumoured New Navy Bill to be Introduced in the Next Reichstag

I have the honour to call your attention to the frequent statements in the German newspapers of late as to the introduction, during the forthcoming session of the Reichstag, of either a new Navy Bill or of an amendment to the existing one.

I may say here that while calling at the Admiralty a short time ago I asked if anything of the sort was projected and was told by my usual informant, one of Admiral von Tirpitz’ Naval secretaries, that he personally knew nothing about it.