History 20

Most of the naval battles fought during World War One occurred under the water as opposed to on the surface. The development of the submarine changed naval warfare during this period. The first successful submarine developed was in 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel a Dutchman living in England.

Although work upon the concept of the submarine was being done in England, it was Germany that quickly grasped the military potential of the invention. The British Navy refused to look at the offensive potential of the submarine. They had a proud tradition of huge ships that looked very good on display. The submarine was to only be used for defense of navy harbors.

Germany had a different role in mind for the submarine. By 1912, they had begun building submarines with a range of 7,800 miles (km), capable of carrying six torpedoes and an 88 mm deck gun. These submarines or u-boats were to seek out enemy ships and sink them. This became the strategy they employed during the First World War.

Submarines could attack in two main ways. The most popular way to attack was to come to the surface and use the deck gun. Each submarine had a large gun for sinking ships on their deck. The ships they were attacking did not have guns so it was easy for the u-boats to attack. The second method of attack was to use expensive and valuable torpedoes. These were used in cases where the u-boat did not want to be seen.

At the outbreak of the war, England employed its large navy to blockade Germany on the sea. This meant that Germany was to be cut off from trading with the rest of the world. She could still trade on land with her allies, but many important goods and food types would not be allowed in.

On the surface, the German Navy would not be able to compete with the British Navy. The German military believed it could not risk losing all her naval ships or she would be defenseless to stop a sea borne invasion. So Germany was forced to turn to the submarine, as it's main weapon for naval warfare. The Germans planned to establish their own blockade around England, and choke supplies reaching her shores.

The problem with this type of naval warfare was that it was very cruel. According to wartime maritime law, you could stop a ship on the open sea, and it was legal to scuttle or sink it. It was also the law that you must remove the crew of the ship to be sunk and guarantee their safety. With submarines, this was not an option. In essence, there was no room to put the men. Submarine crews barely had room for themselves. All the room aboard ship was taken up by equipment and weapons.

German submarines became a very powerful threat to England as the war dragged on. By 1917, the u-boats had severely damaged British shipping. In the month of April, u-boats had sunk almost one million tones of merchant shipping that was bring men, food and ammunition to England. One out of every four ships that left England's ports never returned. By the end of April, there was only a six-week supply of food left in all of England. The British Naval Chief, Lord Jellicoe stated "it is impossible for us to go on with the war if losses like this continue."

U-boats were ordered to begin a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare during the war. This meant that any ship approaching England could be sunk without warning. This included civilian ships moving women and children. This campaign led to the sinking of the cruise ship Lusitania. 1198 lives were lost as the ship went down. 139 of the passengers were from the United States.

Recent historical research and exploration of the underwater wreck indicate that the ship was caring ammunition from the United States. This was not supposed to be done on passenger ships. Yet, due to the sinking of the ship, there was a tremendous outcry by the people in the United States. This was one of the reasons that America finally entered the war against Germany and her allies.

To limit the success of the U-boats on Allied shipping the British employed a convoy system. Although the idea was not new, the British were slow to adopt the system. Before the convoy system was put in place, each ship was on it's own while crossing the ocean. In contrast, the idea of a convoy was to organize ships into groups and place destroyers around the unarmed ships to protect them. The convoy system now used a very organized approach to moving supplies to England.

The convoy became a powerful combat force to counter the submarine. U-boats could no longer just sit on the surface and shoot ships. If the u-boats fired torpedoes underwater, they would be attacked by depth charges (special underwater bombs). With the addition of airplanes, over 50 submarines were destroyed by the convoy system in a few short months.

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