1897 was Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and the Royal Navy gathered at Spithead to pass in review.

Note the boat chugging along doggedly front and center. It has an experimental engine that will soon rock the world- steam turbines. Faster and more reliable- when mated with fuel oil instead of coal, it will become the powerplant of choice in the next 10--20 years.

This was just before the dawn of the age of the Dreadnought..

Technological breakthroughs were being made every day that enabled battleships to become the biggest and most lethal war ships in history. Electricity, hydraulics, turbines, radio, steel, welding-: with every new innovation the ships became bigger, faster and more powerful.

HMS Dreadnought, 1906. The ship that included the newest technologies of the new century and set the pace for all the rest.

Dreadnoughts became the ticket that had to be punched to be acknowledged as a Great Power. To build and maintain a fleet of Dreadnoughts required the economic wherewithal, industrial capability and technological base that only a Great Power could afford.

 
Dreadnoughts were to the 20th century what advanced jet aircraft and nuclear weapons are to the 21st century. They define a Great Power, insure its security and add to its prestige. 
In a very few short years Dreadnoughts advanced from naval units to political status symbols.