War+At+Sea-+Unrestricted+Submarine+Warfare+of+1917





By 1917, Situation was deteriorating in Germany. The blockade that was imposed on Germany was causing starvation. And with that, death, low morale, riots and strikes resulted. Stalemate continued in the Western Front, while a prospect of Allies launching a successful offensive, because of their larger armies, was real. Therefore Germany desperately needed to end the war quickly. Admiral von Holtzendorff had used an earlier study and reported that if 600,000 of British shipping can be sunk per month, Britain would be looking for a ceasefire within six months, before America could ferry reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean. At that moment, Germany had 105 U-boats at its disposal while construction can ensure around 120 available to be used against Britain. So in February 1917, Germany resumed the Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. Admiral Beatty, the famous admiral that had led the British fleets in the Battle of Jutland, remarked that the outcome of the World War One would actually be decided by which side could blockade the other to its knees, showing how crucial the idea of 'blockading' is in a war and what importance of the U-Boat campaign, actually the entire War At Sea, was to the World War One. In response to the German decision, the US has first severed diplomatic relations with Germany, The United States Rear Admiral William Sims had in April was informed by the British Admiral that they would expect a defeat if the new German submarine threat was left unattended to, which probably influenced the United States' decision to enter the war and help with Britain against the U-Boats. The United States declared war on Germany on April. The US, however, was not the only neutral non-European country to declare war on Germany; after U-Boats had sunk many European merchant ships, Brazilians took up the vacant routes they left. However, these routes happen to be patrolled by German U-Boats, meaning that Brazilian vessels soon became victims of German Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. It had also declared war on the Central Powers that year. The campaign had initially achieved great success. The sinking of merchant vessels were not the only source of damage to the British supplies. As documented, ships from the US (and other Allied main trading partners of Britain) had refused to set sail for the British Isles because of the danger that they may be attacked by U-Boats. Therefore we see that the campaign had (initially) quite damaging for the Allies. The first three months of the campaign only cost the Germans 3 U-Boats. In March, 25% of all ships bound for Britain were sunk, and in April, the store for wheat dropped to six-weeks worth. However, the Allies soon developed counter-measures to the U-Boat threat and the campaign started loosing momentum as the US had entered the war. It is soon evident that the campaign ended up in failure.