You have the greatest navy the world has ever seen.
You plan for a war that will perhaps come and what will you do with that navy?
Well, one thing might be to blockade the enemy to deprive him of supplies to continue the
fight and stave him out of the war.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War special episode about Britain’s naval blockade
of Germany in World War One.
The British navy had been undisputed master of the seas since the Battle of Trafalgar
in 1805.
For the rest of the 19th century, there was a sort of “Trafalgar Syndrome” among the
commanders of the Royal Navy, dreaming of another such battle in another war- a clash
of fleets, usually against the French, with whom Britain remained rivals for most of the
century.
However, the rise of the German Empire as a military and economic power saw the focus
of the British navy shift from France to Germany, and Kaiser Wilhelm’s ambition to build a
fleet as grand as that of the British put them into contention.
To combat this growing threat, the Admiralty planned to resort to a strategy that had worked
wonders in the past- the naval blockade, but in the years leading up to WW1 they were divided
on whether such a blockade would be a close on or a distant one.
A close blockade was the traditional one, where enemy ports would be directly closed
off by flotillas of light ships, like destroyers, that prevented ships from leaving, while larger
ships like dreadnoughts supported the smaller ones and prevented the enemy fleet from attacking
them.
But this presented new problems for Britain from blockading the French.
Instead of just operating across the channel, destroyers would now have to cross the North
Sea to cut off German ports, and the destroyers currently at the Royal Navy’s disposal did
not have the endurance for that.
There was also the growing threat of torpedoes, subs, and mines, and if British destroyers
were to operate around the Heligoland Bight, that would be a real problem for them.
So from around 1912 on, under the leadership of First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill,
the distant blockade was adopted, together with the idea of drawing the enemy fleet into
a single decisive battle.
A distant blockade required the British Navy to close off access to the North Sea to German
shipping.
The English Channel would be mined and patrolled, while the heavier ships would be stationed
in Scotland at Scapa Flow to prevent northern access.
This would effectively turn the North Sea into a no mans land, and ideally would starve
Germany of supplies.
Economic warfare was becoming a thing, and Germany imported around a quarter of its food.
Charles Ottley, British Director of Naval Intelligence, even said, “the process of
economic exhaustion... will perhaps be slow, but the mills of the superior sea power grind
exceedingly small.
Six months after the outbreak of war the grass will be springing between the cobblestones
in Hamburg and Bremen, or rather upon the wharves and quays.”
Six months was pretty optimistic, but just as a side note, in 1914 the value of exports
to the USA from Austria-Hungary and Germany was 124 million dollars, the next year it
was over 100 million less- just 22 million.
Now, before the war the nations of the world had made treaties and declarations to define
the parameters of a blockade and protect neutral nations’ shipping rights.
Neutral shipping was protected unless it could be proven that a ship was carrying contraband
or supplies for use by enemy military.
But what was contraband?
Well, absolute contraband was stuff that could only really be used for military purposes,
like rifles or artillery.
Conditional contraband was stuff like animal feed, that could be used to feed cavalry horses,
and non-contraband was stuff that could not be seized under any circumstances, but could
often actually be used for military purposes anyhow.
Cotton, for example, could be used to make soldiers’ uniforms, while fertilizers could
be used to manufacture explosives.
So the war broke out and Britain put its distant blockade plan into action and shut down German
trade with the world.
But German shipping refused to cooperate and often remained in neutral ports to avoid capture.
Still, eventually the blockade had more and more effect.
Thing is, from 1914 to 1916, though German trade at sea effectively ceased, the blockade
had a negligible effect since Germany could still trade with the neutral nations that
bordered her like Denmark and the Netherlands and could also use resources from captured
territory in France and Belgium.
From 1916 to the end of the war, though, the blockade ground down Germany’s ability to
sustain itself.
The Royal Navy was more ruthless about pursuing neutral shipping, and the US entry into the
war provided a massive boost to the blockade.
See, the British blockade had been an inconvenience to American trade, but German unrestricted
submarine warfare had taken American lives.
The blockade was very much a waiting game.
A lot of the plight of German citizens during the later stages of the war has been attributed
to the blockade, but the demands of total war were the main contributing factor to Germany’s
suffering.
The blockade just tightened the screws.
According to Michael Howard, “exports declined, prices rose, the inflation resulting from
the growing flood of paper money hit the salaried middle classes; imported raw materials for
industry dwindled or disappeared.
The combined pressures of the blockade and the demands of the armed forces resulted in
growing shortages of food, fuel, and transport...
The civilian population began to suffer.”
In late 1916, all foodstuffs were rationed, and the food shortages led the German government
to basically nationalize the food supply system.
In Austria-Hungary the situation wasn’t much different.
The Austrian ports in the Adriatic were blockaded by the Allies, restricting Austrian trade.
Michael Howard points out that there, “generally incompetent bureaucracy... barely attempted
to plan a siege economy or to administer a rationing system.
Vienna began to starve even earlier than Petrograd.”
It’s a waiting game.
Month after month preventing your enemy from getting supplies to replace his dwindling
ones, and although it wasn’t as big a success as some like to claim, it did real damage,
and it is estimated that 772,736 deaths in Germany were direct consequences of the blockade.
When you add to that the suffering of millions, it can’t help but add up to a big contribution
in Germany’s defeat.
This was just brief look at the blockade in general, but look it up yourself to get a
deeper idea.
Thank you Daniel Jackson for helping us with the research of this episode.
Link the Netherlands episode since it was a neutral trading partner.