Blockade of Germany (1914–1919)
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.
History
Background
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).
Effects
It has been commonly held that the blockade starved Germany and the Central Powers into defeat in 1918, but more recent historical opinion 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 eat ersatz products including Kriegsbrot ("war bread") and powdered milk. The food shortages caused looting andriots 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 not sufficient, and disorders caused by malnutrition such as scurvy, tuberculosis and dysentery were common by 1917. 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 made worse by the population's malnutrition and related syndromes.
The blockade continued even after the [Armistice in November 1918, into 1919, in order to force Germany to sign the controversial Treaty of Versailles in June 1919.
See also
Notes
- ^ a b "Die miserable Versorgung mit Lebensmitteln erreichte 1916/17 im "Kohlrübenwinter” einen dramatischen Höhepunkt. Während des Ersten Weltkriegs starben in Deutschland rund 750.000 Menschen an Unterernährung und an deren Folgen. [1]
- ^ Tucker, Spencer (2005). World War I. ABC-CLIO. pp. 836–837. ISBN 1851094202.
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References
- Osborne, Eric W. (2004). Britain's Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914-1919. Routledge. ISBN 0714654744.
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