The blockade of Germany was a naval blockade conducted during World War I by the British Royal Navy from 1914 onwards, in an effort to restrict the maritime supply of raw materials and foodstuffs to Germany and its allies, and is considered one of the key elements in the eventual victory of the Allied Powers. The blockade continued even after the Armistice of 11 November 1918, in order to force Germany to sign the controversial Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. Over 750,000 German civilians are said to have died from starvation caused by the blockade during and after the War.[1]
Both the German Empire and United Kingdom relied heavily on imports to feed their population and supply their war industry, thus both aimed to blockade each other. The British had the Royal Navy which was superior in numbers and could operate within the British Empire, while the German Kaiserliche Marine surface fleet was mainly restricted to the German Bight, and used commerce raiders and unrestricted submarine warfare to operate elsewhere.
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Prior to World War I, a series of conferences were held at Whitehall in 1905-1906 concerning military cooperation with France in the event of a war with Germany. The Director of Naval Intelligence, Charles Ottley, asserted that two of the Royal Navy's functions in such a war would be the capture of German commercial shipping and the blockade of German ports. A blockade was considered useful for two reasons: it could force out the enemy's fleet to fight and it could also act as an economic weapon to destroy German commerce. It was not until 1908, however, that a blockade of Germany formally appeared in the Navy's war plans and even then some officials were divided over how feasible it was. The plans remained in a state of constant change and revision until 1914, the Navy undecided over how best to operate such a blockade.
The British, with their overwhelming sea power, established a naval blockade of Germany immediately on the outbreak of war in August 1914, issuing a comprehensive list of contraband that all but prohibited American trade with the Central powers, and in early November 1914 declared the North Sea to be a War Zone, with any ships entering the North Sea doing so at their own risk.[2] The blockade was unusually restrictive in that even foodstuffs were considered "contraband of war". The Germans regarded this as a blatant attempt to starve the German people into submission and wanted to retaliate in kind.
The blockade also had a detrimental effect on the US economy and the United States protested vigorously. Britain did not wish to antagonize the US, but cutting off trade to the enemy seemed a more pressing goal.
A memorandum to the British War Cabinet on 1 January 1917 stated that very few supplies were reaching Germany or its allies either via the North Sea or other areas such as Austria's Adriatic ports (which had been subject to a French blockade since 1914).
It has been commonly held[3][4] that the blockade starved Germany and the Central Powers into defeat in 1918, but more recent revisionist opinionwhos? asserts that while the German population did indeed go hungry as a result of the blockade, few actually starved to death, due to the German rationing system, and German's final surrender was caused by events on the Western Front rather than among the civilian population.
Nevertheless, it is still accepted that the blockade made a large contribution to the outcome of the war; by 1915, Germany's imports had already fallen by 55% from their prewar levels. Apart from leading to shortages in vital raw materials such as coal and non-ferrous metals, the blockade also deprived Germany of supplies of fertiliser that were vital to agriculture. This latter led to staples such as grain, potatoes, meat, and dairy products becoming so scarce by the end of 1916 that many people were obliged to instead consume ersatz products including Kriegsbrot ("war bread") and powdered milk. The food shortages caused looting and riots, not only in Germany, but also in Vienna and Budapest.
The German government made strong attempts to counter the effects of the blockade; the Hindenburg Programme of German economic mobilisation launched on 31 August 1916, was designed to raise productivity by the compulsory employment of all men between the ages of 17 and 60, and a complicated rationing system initially introduced in January 1915 aimed to ensure that a minimum nutritional need was met, with "war kitchens" providing cheap mass meals to impoverished civilians in larger cities.
All these schemes enjoyed only limited success, and the average daily diet of 1,000 calories was insufficient to maintain a good standard of health, resulting by 1917 in widespread disorders caused by malnutrition such as scurvy, tuberculosis, and dysentery. Official German government statistics attributed nearly 763,000 wartime deaths in Germany to starvation caused by the blockade[1], but this excluded the approximately 150,000 German victims of the 1918 flu pandemic, whose effects were rendered worse by the population's malnutrition and related syndromes.
The blockade was maintained for eight months after the Armistice in November 1918, into the following year of 1919, in order to force Germany to sign the controversial Treaty of Versailles in June 1919.
The blockade of Germany, during World War I, was a part of the First Battle of the Atlantic between the United Kingdom and Germany.
About 750,000[1] civilians died because of starvation caused by this blockade during the War. Many more had to die from starvation after the Armistice in November 1918 as the blockade was continued into 1919, in order to force Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919.
The British established a naval blockade of Germany early in the war. This blockade was unusually restrictive in that even food was stopped as it was said to help the war. The Germans regarded this as an attempt to starve the German people into submission and wanted to fight back. As Germany could not fight with British naval strength on an even basis, the only possible way Germany could impose a blockade on Britain was through the submarines. The German Chancellor was against this sort of blockade because it meant attacking neutral ships as those of the United States as well. But the military pushed unlimited submarine warfare forward.
On 4 February 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone. Effective 18 February, Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning. British ships hiding behind neutral flags would not be spared, though some effort would be made to avoid sinking clearly neutral vessels.
The German U-boat force was now primarily based at Ostend in Belgium. So German submarines had better access to the sea lanes around England. The Germans made use of this advantage and sent out about 20 U-boats to begin the naval blockade. In January, before the declaration of "unrestricted submarine warfare" as the submarine blockade was called, 43,550 tonnes of shipping had been sunk by U-boats. The number of sinkings then steadily increased, with 168,200 tonnes going down in August.
Losses of British warships were small. Although the battleship Formidable had been sunk by U-24 on New Year's Day, the fast destroyer screens soon made successful attacks on battleships and cruisers a thing of the past. On the other hand, there was little a Royal Navy warship could do to sink a U-boat if the submarine's captain was reasonably alert. The U-boat was generally safe from shelling once it had submerged. It could be rammed if it were at periscope depth, but ramming was hardly a reasonable tactic as a standard practice.
Destroyers were not able to hunt the U-boats as they were protecting the fleet, so the British pressed every vessel they could into service, including yachts and trawlers, as auxiliary patrol vessels. However, the U-boats were able to easily evade the patrols and sink merchant vessels traveling unescorted.
Militarily, unrestricted submarine warfare was proving a great success, and the U-boats stood a good chance of starving Britain into surrender. However, in terms of the propaganda war, it was a great disaster for Germany. America wanted to stay out of the European war, but American public opinion had turned against Germany, as unrestricted submarine warfare seemed to confirm the German reputation for brutality. The deaths of American citizens traveling on British vessels torpedoed by U-boats began to make headlines in the US.
When on 7 May 1915, the American liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine, American outrage brought the US closer to declaring war on Germany. Under threat of US retaliation, on 27 August, the Kaiser imposed severe restrictions on U-boats attacks against large passenger vessels. On 18 September 1915, he called off unrestricted submarine warfare completely.
Under military pressure on Germany early in 1917, the Kaiser declared full unrestricted submarine warfare once more. Some German diplomats believed that the Americans would avoid war at all costs, and if not, hopefully Germany could bring Britain to its knees before the weight of American power made itself felt in Europe. In February, 86 vessels were sunk, followed by 103 in March, and then 155 in April. But the US finally declared war on Germany in April 1917, and both America and Britain were able to deal with the U-boat problem.
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