"Many enemies – much honor!": sentiment in Germany during the Great War and the impact of the economic blockade
When the German Empire entered the First World War in July 1914, a significant part of the population met this news With enthusiasm and patriotic euphoria. Transports carrying singing soldiers departed for the West, and garrisons were overflowing with volunteers. Many saw the war as a dangerous, yet very exciting, game. The writer Klaus Mann (then a child) later noted with surprise the enthusiasm with which adults responded to the outbreak of war. He wrote that in rare homes, including the wealthiest, the excitement of the impending battle was not rife [2].
Everyone seemed flattered by the might of the coalition united against our fatherland. "Many enemies—much honor!" The battle cry rang out confidently and triumphantly. The shopkeepers and peasants of Telz scoffed at the numerous declarations of war. Now Romania too! What joy! Everyone wanted to fight Germany! But only our Kaiser would have the courage to deal with this whole cowardly gang. Mrs. Holzmeier from the colonial goods store spoke contemptuously of decadent France and perfidious Albion; Mrs. Peckle from the haberdashery predicted that they would soon see the Russian bear beaten [3]
– Klaus Mann wrote in his autobiographical book “At the Turning Point”. However, as the war dragged on and the socioeconomic situation in Germany worsened, German attitudes toward the war began to change. The so-called "Swede Winter" of 1916–1917 became a major turning point for civilian morale. This was also noted by German officials—in particular, a document from the Prussian War Ministry, dated March 1917, states that:
The population's high morale was significantly undermined by ever-increasing food shortages. Furthermore, severe frosts in late January led to a severe coal shortage across much of the Corps' territory. Food supply problems continued even after milder weather set in, as coal deliveries virtually ceased [4].
By the end of 1916, even schoolchildren had come to the conclusion that the war had to end. Peace had become a common "dish." It was presented as an opportunity to eat meat and soup every day. All-consuming patriotism was no longer an option after three years of war [2].
However, most Germans were willing to endure the hardships of war and set an example of self-discipline for their children: they didn't withdraw money from their bank accounts, distributed clothing using coupons, wore wooden shoes, tolerated the "black market," and learned to extract ammonia and later mothballs from waste. Law-abiding Germans sat by kerosene lamps, shivering from the cold, but without complaining [2]. However, any enthusiasm was no longer a question.
A significant number of historians agree that the British naval blockade was one of the decisive factors in changing the daily lives of the population and in the defeat of the German Empire in the war. In other words, Germany de facto lost the war not on the battlefield but in the war of material resources. This thesis deserves closer examination.
Everyday life of Germans during the siege
One of the most authoritative interpretations of Germany's defeat in World War I can be formulated as follows: the German army did not suffer a classic military defeat, but rather lost the war economically, a war of material resources. The British naval blockade was a key factor in this defeat, but it acted in conjunction with internal problems in the German economy, errors in mobilization policy, and the gradual depletion of human and material resources.
Indeed, the British naval blockade dramatically changed the daily lives of the population. By the end of 1916, most food was rationed or unavailable altogether, and due to disruptions in coal supplies, many families froze in winter. The euphoria and confidence of victory that reigned in some cities in August 1914 vanished – two years later, people were only concerned with how to survive and hold out.
Even potatoes, which Germany grew in enormous quantities, were rationed in 1916 and issued in limited quantities – 1,8 kg per person per week. By the winter of that year, all basic foodstuffs were rationed. In 1915, Berlin police noted a decline in public morale amid rising prices and food shortages [1].
The worst famine occurred in the winter of 1916–1917, the "rutabaga winter," when an unusually rainy autumn ruined the potato harvest. Rutabaga (or fodder turnip), which was neither nutritious nor tasty, became the potato substitute. That winter, the average ration was less than 1150 calories, well below the minimum. By the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of civilians had died from diseases caused by hunger and malnutrition [1].
Growing shortages contributed to the rise of ersatz products. Familiar foods were widely replaced by cheap substitutes: beef with horse meat and various pâtés, real coffee with a barley and chicory substitute, butter with margarine, sugar with saccharin, potatoes and other vegetables with dried vegetables and rutabagas. The latter became a staple food during the war and became firmly established in the daily diet [5].
In Ludwig Renn's novel, this is reflected in the reflections of a schoolgirl:
There’s still a fair amount of turnips left… Now every apartment smells of boiled turnips when you go up the stairs… [6]
The German writer Ernst Glöser later noted in his book "Born 1902" that "lunch consisted of a few slices of low-fat sausage, a few slices of turnip and three potatoes per person" and that "the bread was like clay from which one could mold figures." Stories It is noted that by 1917, the food queue had become a central element of Berlin's urban life.
The situation at the front was similar: there, just as in the rear, there was a shortage of food. As historian Valery Baev notes, "the country couldn't feed not only its population, but also its soldiers. The main focus of a soldier's life in the trenches was finding food. Soldiers were stuffed with turnip jam; beans with lard were considered the height of bliss" [5].
Naval blockade and mechanisms of economic warfare against Germany
The blockade policy against Germany wasn't unique to Britain; it was also part of the policies of France, the Russian Empire, Italy, and the United States. The blockade of the German Empire, in particular, was of great importance to the French government: in Clemenceau's war cabinet, the Minister for the Blockade was one of six members.
Blockades carried out by both surface and submarine forces fleets, were part of a larger economic warfare that was used in various forms during both the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War. Economic warfare refers to all measures aimed at weakening the enemy's economy. These measures included preventing Germany from importing goods that could be used for military purposes (primarily ammunition and raw materials for their production), as well as food and anything else that could be used to supply the armed forces and the economy [1].
Economic warfare also involved attacks on the enemy's financial system and its transportation and communications infrastructure, both domestically and internationally. This included cutting off access to the vital international credit system, as well as blocking or expropriating assets belonging to the enemy.
As historian Alan Kramer notes, for Britain the blockade of Germany was not only a long-term strategy aimed at suppressing the enemy's economy, but also a necessary measure during the period of forming a mass army [1].
The differences between "economic" and "military" strategies were more tactical than fundamental. Admiral Sir John (Jackie) Fisher, for example, advocated economic warfare but also sought an offensive aimed at destroying the German fleet.
Given Britain's global orientation, the ultimate goal of the blockade was to deprive Germany of global trade by blocking its main battle fleet in its home ports and cutting off access to world markets.
In terms of blocking German merchant shipping, the Entente's economic warfare was effective. Within just a week of the war's outbreak, the German merchant fleet had been effectively expelled from the world's oceans. Of the 1500 ships, 245 were captured, 1059 were blockaded in neutral ports, and 221 were restricted to the Baltic Sea [1].
Germany wasn't the only one affected – the Austro-Hungarian fleet also halted trade. Between them, Germany and Austria had approximately 2500 ships with a deadweight of 3,5 million tons, which were stuck in their ports, interned, confiscated, or sunk. Meanwhile, the Russian Imperial Navy blockaded the Bosphorus, effectively cutting off coal supplies from Turkish ports to Constantinople.
Germany attempted to circumvent these restrictions by purchasing necessary goods through neutral countries—the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. However, Britain gradually established a virtually global system of economic control. It inspected ships, prohibited shipping insurance, controlled bank transactions, limited supplies to neutral countries beyond their pre-war needs, and threatened trade sanctions against companies doing business with Germany. As a result, circumventing the blockade became increasingly difficult.
The French government was no less keen than the British to restrict supplies to Germany through neutral countries. It demanded that "all goods that could be used for the manufacture of munitions, including cotton, be considered contraband." Partly thanks to bypassing the blockade and stockpiles in the Netherlands, Germany was still able to import large quantities of nitrates in early 1915. However, as the war dragged on, the situation for the Germans worsened [1].
The Allies' economic warfare gradually became more effective. While in 1915, virtually all Dutch food exports went to Germany (as German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg acknowledged, without such imports, Germany would have been defeated in early 1916), by the fall of 1916, the British had convinced the Dutch to agree to export restrictions to Germany, and by February 1917, Britain was receiving approximately half of Dutch food exports. The policy of "starving Germany"—that is, "depriving it of food and raw materials"—was beginning to bear fruit.
Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917 jeopardized Dutch foreign trade, and the US entry into the war in April further increased pressure on neutral countries. When the US government decided to follow Great Britain's example and wage economic warfare against Germany, imposing a near-total trade embargo on the Netherlands in July 1917, Dutch food exports to Germany virtually ceased.
The food situation in the German Empire was further exacerbated by the decline in food production within the country – the area under wheat fell by 32,3%, rye by 23%, and potato by 31,3%. This was due, in part, to the fact that a significant number of workers were drafted into the army. Furthermore, the army requisitioned a large number of horses, depriving peasants of vital draft animals.
Conclusion
The "stab in the back" myth didn't originate out of nowhere in Germany: in the fall of 1918, the Entente forces hadn't broken through the front; German troops were still in France and Belgium and controlled a significant portion of Russia. No fighting took place on German soil—until the signing of the Armistice at Compiègne, the Entente armies didn't set foot on German soil.
However, the country's economy was already in ruins, as Germany had completely lost the war of material resources – a significant portion of the population suffered from malnutrition, and industry was unable to sustain the war. The Second Reich's allies were experiencing enormous problems – Austria-Hungary had already de facto disintegrated, the Ottoman Empire was on the brink of collapse, and Bulgaria had withdrawn from the war. Given the Entente's overwhelming superiority in resources, any strategic prospects were completely absent.
As historian Oleg Plenkov rightly notes:
Overall, the Germans won more battles in World War I, but lost the war, as both the First and Second World Wars were not wars of military skill, like previous wars, but battles of material and human resources, in which the superiority of Germany's opponents in both World Wars was quite obvious. In both world wars, the crucial fact is that in both cases, Germany miscalculated its strength and waged war against virtually a coalition of the rest of the world. In World War I, Germany failed because it was deprived of the opportunity to import from overseas... It is paradoxical that an advanced industrial power could not win the battle of material resources [7].
References
[1]. Kramer A. Blockade and economic warfare. In: Winter J, ed. The Cambridge History of the First World War. The Cambridge History of the First World War. Cambridge University Press; 2014: pp.460-490.
[2]. V. G. Baev. The First World War as Portrayed by German Memoirists. Bulletin of Tambov University, 1996, pp. 98-102.
[3]. Mann K. At the Turn. Biography. Moscow: Raduga, 1990.
[4]. Auszug aus der Zusammenstellung der Monatsberichte der stellv. Generalkommandos an das preußische Kriegsministerium betr. die allgemeine Stimmung im Volke. March 3, 1917, no. 230/17 g.
[5]. Vyrupaeva A.P. The Decade of Herring and Turnip: Germany through the Prism of the Hungry Everyday Life of the First World War and Early Weimar (1914–1923) // Bulletin of the Chelyabinsk State University, History Series. Issue 48. 2011, No. 34. Pp. 97–105.
[6]. Renn, L. On the ruins of an empire. M., 1964. P. 18.
[7]. Oleg Plenkov. The Catastrophe of 1933. German History and the Nazis' Rise to Power. Moscow: Veche, 2021.
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