Silent hunters
German submarines against the Atlantic trade of the British
4 February 1915, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, decided to declare the waters around Great Britain and Ireland, along with the English Channel theater of operations, which actually meant the beginning of the naval blockade of England. This was the first blockade in stories naval wars when the fleet was invisible. In appearance, the calm expanse of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean continued to remain serene, and the horizon remained deserted. But British merchant ships fleet could no longer feel safe here.
German submariners went hunting
The Germans announced several blockade principles. First, since February 18, any enemy vessel found in the specified area was to be destroyed: the Germans stated that they would not always be able to warn the crew and passengers of the danger threatening them. Secondly, German submarines were allowed to attack neutral ships in these waters, since the British government recommended its ships to use the flags of neutral states. At the same time, sea lanes north of the Scottish Islands, in the eastern part of the North Sea and along the Dutch coast, in a strip of width 30 miles, were declared free for navigation.
Starting a submarine war, the Germans sought to frighten the neutrals, who should have been careful not to deliver cargo to the British ports, which would have been a heavy blow to the UK economy. But the calculations were not justified - neutral countries were not afraid of the German threats. One of the first to express their protest was the United States, which on February 12, in a diplomatic note, demanded that the German government provide security guarantees for its merchant ships and its citizens sailing on any peaceful foreign ship.
The Germans, of course, pleased this protest. The predictions of officials and diplomats led by Chancellor Betman-Golweg, who claimed that the submarine war could worsen relations with all large neutral countries, gave them a reason to intervene in the conflict on the side of the Entente. However, the admirals were not going to retreat. A note followed to the US government. It stated that the submarine warfare was the forced response of the German government to the British blockade, which could lead to famine in Germany. Nevertheless, the Germans guaranteed the safety of American citizens, in return for offering the United States to help ease the blockade. The Americans agreed with this demand and, in turn, asked the British government to open access to Germany for merchant shipping, which would provide food to civilians. But the British in response only increased the blockade.
Meanwhile, the German submariners completed the final preparations. According to pre-war calculations, which one of the ideologists of submarine warfare, Captain-Lieutenant Blum, conducted, 200 submarines were required for complete paralysis of the merchant shipping of Great Britain Germany. These figures terrified the German Admiralty: by the beginning of the war the Germans had only 44 boats. An additional large-scale construction was launched. Some officers led by grand admiral Alfred Tirpitz, head of the German Admiralty, believed that the current size of the submarine fleet would be enough only for the blockade of the Thames. They also pointed to the ineffectiveness of waging war in the Atlantic Ocean by such a small number of boats due to the inability to establish a tight blockade ring. Based on this, Tirpitz proposed to postpone the start of the submarine war until the replenishment of the fleet. But his opponents insisted on the immediate start of hostilities. While the fleet is being built, the British will continue to receive supplies, they explained. Among them was Hugh von Pohl, the chief of the naval headquarters, who was directly responsible for the conduct of operations, and his point of view was defeated.
8 February 1915, the commander of the submarine fleet Bauer issued a directive prescribing the start of the submarine war against the merchant fleet. This order contained six points regulating the basic provisions of the war, from combat patrol zones for flotilla to special orders. Submarine commanders were ordered to conduct submarine warfare on their own. When returning to the base, the boat should have had at least one torpedo in the bow and stern torpedo tubes in case of a meeting with an enemy warship. Priority rules were also discussed - the largest and most capacious vessels traveling to the UK under the English flag, as well as areas where submarines should better not enter (such as the port of Zeebrugge), since this could attract too much attention to operations.
At the same time, submarine flotilla commanders were instructed to exercise caution, spare neutral ships, first finding out their nationality. To determine the nationality of the merchant, German submariners were asked to pay attention to the marking of the vessel, which course it was taking, the silhouette, the behavior of the team. It is clear that with such criteria for determining the probability of error was very high. Already 19 February 1915, the submarine U-19, sunk the first neutral ship, the Norwegian ship Beldridge. This immediately led to complications on the world stage, but at first the German government fought off attacks.
The intensification of the submarine war led to a sharp increase in Allied losses at sea. By May 1915, the 92 ship was sunk in three incomplete months: the Germans sank one ship per day. Began to grow and the cruelty of submariners. In the first months, the captain of the U-28 Forstner “became famous,” who first ordered firing from the Akila steamer into the lifeboat boats, and then, deciding not to bother waiting, sank the Falaba passenger ship before they had time to leave. crew and passengers. Killed 104 man, including women and children.
And on May 7 an event occurred that seriously affected the further course of the whole world war - the U-20 submarine under the command of Captain Schwiger sunk a large passenger steamer Lusitania (31396 tons) off the coast of Ireland. When the ship was still in New York, the German embassy to the United States through newspapers warned of a possible attack on the airliner, but people continued to buy tickets. On May 7, the steamer was spotted by the U-20, which by that time had already shot off almost all the ammunition except for one torpedo, and therefore was about to return to base. However, noticing such a dainty goal, Schwieger changed his mind. As a result, the liner, in which the torpedo hit the starboard, sank, killed 1198 people, including almost a hundred children. The number of dead included 128 Americans, including those belonging to the "elite of society", which caused a storm of indignation in the United States. Washington was not interested in the acquittal of the Germans, who indicated that the ship was going without a flag and with a shaded name, that the passengers were warned about the danger. Germany was sent a sharp note, which stated that the US government can not allow the recurrence of such a tragedy and protests against attacks on merchant ships, the death of American citizens. Relations between the countries are extremely strained. Newspapers began to write about the imminent entry of the United States into the war on the side of the Entente.
Passenger ship "Lusitania", padded German submarine. Photo: prisonersofeternity.co.uk
This was not at all part of the plans of the German military command. This time, Chancellor Bettman-Golweg at the meeting, which was also attended by Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ambassador Tretler as Deputy Foreign Minister, Grand Admiral Tirpitz, Admiral Bachmann, Muller, proposed to change the action scenario. The chief of the General Staff Falkenhayn, thanks to the support of Muller, managed to convince the Kaiser of the need to limit the submarine war.
As a result of 1 June 1915, new restrictions were imposed on German submariners. Henceforth, it was forbidden to sink large passenger ships, even if they belonged to the British, as well as any neutral ships. Tirpicz and Bachmann resigned in protest against this decision, but the Kaiser did not accept it. It soon became clear that both admirals resigned in vain, because in the following months the numbers of sunk ships only increased compared with previous months. In May, 66 ships were sunk, in June already 73, in July - 97. At the same time, the Germans almost did not suffer losses in submarines. In May, not a single submarine died in the North Sea, in June - two: U-14 and U-40. The Allies still could not establish anti-submarine defense.
British anti-submarine measures and the end of the first stage of unlimited underwater war
From 20 in December 1914 in the UK began the work of the Commission on Underwater Attacks, whose task was to develop means and methods of anti-submarine warfare. At the beginning of the war, they were very limited: artillery fire, ram attack, trawls with fuses. In addition, invented indicator (signal) networks were tested. They were made of thin durable steel cable with floats from kapka or in the form of glass balls. Being hooked on the boat, the net was dragged behind it, and the floats on the surface unmasked the movement of the boat. With the beginning of the submarine war, the British decided to partition off the English Channel, and in addition, there were large minefields there.
Special patrol vessels armed with simple anti-submarine weapons began to be introduced into the fleet. Old destroyers were put into operation from the reserve, fishing trawlers were armed.
Another invention of the “Commission for Underwater Attacks” was ship-traps. They were of two types. The first is a fishing vessel or trawler, followed by a submarine in tow. When the German "u-bot" was caught on the bait and approached the trawler, the British submarine torpedoed him. This killed the German U-40 and U-23 submarines, sunk, respectively, by the British C-24 and C-27.
Another type of submarine trap was trading, most often sailing ships, on which medium-caliber guns or torpedo tubes were installed and camouflaged. When the German submarine resurfaced and demanded that the crew of the bait ship leave the ship, part of the crew rushed to the boats, painstakingly portraying panic, while the second waited patiently for the "German" to come closer to shoot him point-blank from guns or sink to torpedo. Service on such vessels, of course, was considered very dangerous, the crew was staffed exclusively from volunteers. It happened that German submarines attacked such vessels, not even emerging or from a considerable distance. Then, in order to deceive the Germans, additional funds began to be used - for example, the sailors changed into women's dresses to put down the vigilance of the enemy. From a trap of this type in the summer of 1915, the U-41 submarine died.
However, in general, all these methods did not lead to the desired results, since German losses from the actions of the Allies remained small. But the number of sunk vessels of the Entente was growing rapidly - in August, the 1915 allies lost their 121 vessel with a total capacity of 200 thousand tons.
But soon another event occurred that drastically changed the situation. On August 19, the German U-29 submarine sank the Arabica passenger ship. The United States reiterated a strong protest, the German ambassador in Washington again forced the US government to reassure that submarine warfare would be limited. 26 August was going to the next German Council, on the basis of which, from August 27, submarines were ordered to interrupt military operations until the situation was clarified, and on August 30 new rules for underwater warfare were introduced. The submarine fleet was ordered to leave the area of operations off the west coast of England and in the English Channel. In addition, now ships were allowed to sink only under the law of the sea. So the first stage of the underwater war came to an end.
With all the enormous damage to the countries of the Entente and the neutral states, he showed a reassessment of the capabilities of submarines by the Germans. Despite the fact that since the beginning of the war the total tonnage of the 1 300 000 tonnes has been sunk by ships, this is only one-twentieth of the huge total tonnage of Great Britain. The Germans lost 22 submarines from 70 - a bit like, but almost a third of the submarine fleet. Despite all the dangers, the Allied shipping was not stopped, the shortfall in the cargo on the internal state of Britain was only slightly affected. And the Germans seriously spoiled their foreign policy image, turning the population of many neutral countries against themselves.
The modest results achieved by submariners were largely due to the constant rush of the government, which could not choose the only right course. Finally, the German admirals and the constant intervention of the military land command greatly interfered.
As a result, Admirals Bachmann and Tirpitz resigned. Kaiser left Tirpitz for political reasons (he was very popular among the people, his removal could have made an unfavorable impression). Bachmann, on the post of chief of the naval headquarters, was replaced by Gening von Holtzendorf, a man close to the chancellor, who advocated normalization of relations with the United States. He continued to curtail submarine operations against merchant and passenger ships.
Short respite
However, the completion of the first “unlimited underwater war” did not mean that the German Navy completely stopped attacking the sea routes of the Entente. The war, albeit “limited,” continued in the North Sea. The submarine fleet was also active in other theaters of military operations: in the Mediterranean, Black and Baltic seas, although the scope of operations there, of course, was many times inferior to the activity of military operations in the seas around Great Britain. For example, in the Black Sea, there were only 6 German submarines, which were mainly engaged in reconnaissance tasks, as well as operations against military vessels. The war was more active in the Mediterranean, where Austrian and German submarines attacked the merchant shipping of Italy, France and Great Britain. Submarine warfare was also conducted on the Baltic Sea, where Russian and British submarines displayed much greater activity.
Off the coast of Ireland and western Britain, the Germans were forced to focus on fighting with the help of underwater minelayers, who began secretly to establish minefields near the ports of allies and off the coast. But, despite some successes, small submarines carrying only 12 mines could not change the course of the war, of course.
At the same time, despite the restrictions imposed on the actions of their submarines, the Germans continued to actively increase the power of the submarine fleet and build new submarines. This was also due to the fact that the chief of the naval headquarters, von Holtzendorf, took up his position, quickly revised his views and sent several memorandums to the Kaiser and the government, in which he proved the need to resume an unlimited submarine war. In the meantime, violent battles continued in high cabins, a new, special type of submarines was being built at German shipyards - submarine trucks designed to break the blockade and deliver strategic cargo. These ships had an increased range.
The first submarine of this type, “Deutschland”, in June 1916 of the year made a test trip to the United States for a load of strategic raw materials. Her appearance in Baltimore, where the submarine had taken on board 350 tons of rubber, 343 tons of nickel, 83 tons of zinc and half tons of jute, caused a stir and seriously disturbed the Allied command. The appearance of this type of ships meant that now German submarines could attack British ships even at a considerable distance from their bases, including off the coast of America. 8 cruisers were hastily dispatched to intercepting Deutschland, but the submarine easily left them and safely delivered the cargo to Germany.
In September, the Germans decided to repeat the experiment. Two more boats were sent to the shores of the United States - another “blockade breaker”, the Bremen and one military U-53 submarine. “Bremen” never reached America, disappearing somewhere in the ocean, but U-53, safely reached Newport, refueled there and again went out to sea. Off the coast of Long Island, she sank seven British trading steamers, having previously checked the cargo. All this happened in full view of the American patrol ships at 16. Then U-53 went home to Germany, after 42 of the day arrived at the base on the island of Helgoland. For the British, this campaign was another signal - now submarines operated on their transatlantic trade lines.
The resumption of unlimited submarine warfare
By the end of 1916, the martial law of the Central Powers began to deteriorate rapidly. Reduced human resources, there was a shortage of raw materials and food. It became clear that the longer the war was delayed, the less the Germans would have a chance to win. It was necessary to accelerate the course of the war. However, on the land fronts, the German troops and their allies were bogged down in positional battles, a different exit was required.
22 December 1916 of the year von Holtzendorf addressed the Chief of General Staff Field Marshal Hindenburg with an extensive memorandum. In the document, the admiral once again emphasized the need to start an unrestricted submarine war. Great Britain must be withdrawn from the war, and this then this will have a devastating effect on the rest of the Entente, which is dependent on British supplies, he insisted.
The British were again invited to overcome, undermining the sea trade of Great Britain. The memorandum cited new calculations based on the experience of the underwater war of the first years of hostilities. It was noted that submarines could sink a month to 600 thousand gross tons of the English merchant fleet, which would reduce the delivery of goods to the islands by 39% in five months and put the UK on the brink of a military disaster. In addition, it was noted that the declaration of a trade war would scare away neutral countries that could cut their supplies to the UK by 40%.
Of course, the risk of US entry into the war was also considered, but the “hawks” asserted that this would not have a decisive influence on the conflict, since the Americans have too little land army, and it already already produces military supplies to the Entente countries. The Hawks claimed that in the event of an unrestricted submarine war, the German fleet would win a victory before the United States could build an army.
Having considered the proposed arguments, the German government 27 January decided to resume the unrestricted submarine war at sea. Even its long-time adversary, Chancellor Betman-Golweg, who believed that there was nothing for the Germans to lose in the current situation, now spoke out for it.
By February 1 The 1917 of the year at the disposal of the Germans in the North Sea and the Atlantic were 69 submarines. They immediately began military operations and in just the first three months of 1917, sank 728 ships with a total displacement of 1 168 000 tons. It turned out that on average, the Germans drowned 8 ships per day during these months. True, their losses immediately increased - in three months of 9 boats. However, the pace of construction of new submarines also increased, and for the same period the Germans built an 24 submarine ship. The main problem now was the "lack of personnel" - a lack of trained crews.
On January 31, the Germans sent a special note to the United States about the beginning of an unlimited submarine war, which caused widespread public discontent in the States. The Americans profited well from military supplies during the war years, without incurring almost any losses. Now the goods were stagnant in the ports, because shipping companies massively refused to transport them by sea because of the military threat. Merchants began to suffer losses. Requirements to the government about taking radical measures against the German fleet immediately fell down, the press began to inflate military hysteria.
At the same time, another event occurred that did not strongly affect the decision of the American government. British intelligence intercepted a German radiogram to the Mexican government. In it, the Germans offered Mexico assistance and recognition of its special rights to the US states of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico in the event of participation in the war on the side of Germany. The fact is that at that time there was a civil war in Mexico, during which the American troops carried out several interventions on its territory. Anti-American sentiments were in vogue in the country, and therefore the chances of Mexico’s possible participation in a potential war against the United States were, albeit small, but “non-zero”. British intelligence, intercepting the telegram, handed it over to the Americans and destroyed the cunning German plans.
Further events developed rapidly. 12 March The US Congress decided to arm the merchant ships. On April 1, the Aztec steamer was sunk, killing American citizens 28. This was the last straw: on April 6, US President Woodrow Wilson announced that he would enter the war on the side of the Entente and that the war with Germany would begin. Following the United States, half of the Latin American states, as well as China, Siam and Liberia, entered the war on the side of the Entente. However, these countries almost did not take part in the fighting, limited to the supply of strategic goods.
But the entry into the war the United States seriously changed the military situation in the Atlantic Ocean. The Americans had a powerful fleet, which included 68 destroyers. 6 destroyers were still under construction, and according to the gigantic program of building a new fleet, the Americans were to receive 270 ships of this class. These forces were soon to be involved in the fight against the German submarines.
But before “moving fast”, the American military machine “slowly” harnessed for a long time, and therefore in April 1917 the German navy achieved the biggest success in the whole war - 512 ships were sunk and damaged with a total displacement per million tons. The Germans lost only one submarine, blown up in a minefield. Over the next two months, the Allied losses due to the introduction of the convoy system somewhat decreased, but the average amount of lost tonnage of the Entente countries still exceeded 600 000 tons and reached 664 000 tons. The idea of the Germans seemed to come to reality.
Entente is defending
By April, the British already had a shortage of tonnage of merchant ships. The situation was critical, since the continued pace of the sinking of the English courts could lead the English to a catastrophe. The country began interruptions in food, not enough raw materials for factories. Prime Minister Lloyd George in a special appeal to the Allies demanded to provide the country with as many ships as possible to transport goods: the British themselves did not have time to cover the losses of the merchant fleet by building new ships in shipyards. The United States needed time to expand the large-scale construction of the merchant fleet, while other countries did not have free ships either.
Absolutely all forces were connected to the solution of the problem in Britain. Diplomats have achieved from the neutral countries of the continuation of the supply of goods in exchange for greatly reduced tariffs and good prices. As a matter of urgency, volunteer sailors were recruited for newly built vessels, and any, even the smallest schooners were used as merchant fleets, paying gigantic compensations to captains. In the ports of the court loaded to the eyeballs, violating safety standards. The ships returned for decommissioning were put into operation.
The United Kingdom and France organized a special rescue service, which accompanied the damaged ships to the ports, and also raised the sunken ones. Great attention was paid to the quick repair of ships.
However, all these measures would have little value if the German submarines still had complete freedom in the ocean. Thus, the development of new anti-submarine warfare weapons came to the fore.
Until the middle of the year 1917 weapons German submarines were not torpedoes, and artillery guns. The boat floated to the surface, calmly sinking a defenseless steamer. If the ship was armed, then such vessels the Germans preferred to attack from a submerged position, which increased the merchant's chances of survival. Curiously, between January 1 1916 and 22 February 1917, the Germans attacked 310 armed ships, from which 236 was able to escape. Another 62 were sunk from a submerged position by torpedoes and only 12 from a surface position by artillery. Therefore, the British began to massively equip the merchant ships with guns, special anti-mine trawls, and smoke bombs, which put smoke curtains. A special instruction was created that required cargo ships to sail closer to the coast, which made it difficult to detect the vessel and complicated navigation in shallow waters for German submarines.
For military purposes, the first anti-submarine defense training school was organized. On military ships began to use special sonar devices that could "hear" the boat under water. In addition, by the beginning of 1917, a new depth bomb was refined, the first samples of which immediately entered the fleet. Mine could be blown up at four depths, 15, 30, 45 and 65 meters. In the first months of the 1917, the fleet each month received up to 300 of such mines, from the middle of the 1917 of the year - 1200 mines, by the end of the year 4000 had already been produced. This, finally, allowed the British to effectively fight with submarines in a submerged position.
To combat submarines is now also used aviationincluding airships. They were based in Ireland and on the English Channel.
Finally, the creation of a system of convoys was a decisive contribution to the antisubmarine war. Initially, the British Admiralty fiercely resisted the idea of creating convoys, since for their protection it was necessary to allocate guard ships, each of which was on the account of admirals. The Admiralty considered the separation of the main core of the combat fleet and the allocation of warships for commercial operations to be dangerous. In addition, it was believed that in conditions of a torpedo attack, merchant ships due to fuss during evasion maneuvers could cause a lot of damage to each other. However, experience has shown that the chances of survival among merchants who follow the group are much greater than those of a single person.
As a result, a whole system was developed, prescribing the concentration of vessels from different ports in special rendezvous places, the average speed (8-12 nodes) from which ships went, the number of escort vessels (40 destroyers 9 transports), the order of construction. However, the escort ships for the convoys were often lacking, although by the end of the first half of 1917, the Allied ships had one German submarine.
As a result of the measures taken, the losses of the British merchant fleet began to decline gradually. Despite the fact that Great Britain was still under siege, the apogee of the critical days was passed, and the Germans did not manage to return to the high April figures of the "effectiveness" of submarines. If during the first seven months of 1917, the Entente countries lost 3 100 000 tons, in the period from August to December this figure decreased more than twice, to 1 400 000 tons. Also, between February and December 1917, the Germans lost 62 submarines, which was a serious loss, despite the fact that 92 new submarines were launched during the same period. However, it was impossible to compensate for the death of experienced crews on submarines. Teams had to replenish at the expense of the sailors from surface ships, who did not have the necessary training, as well as not so high morale. In addition, the increase in the number of submarines could not correct the fact that boats could no longer sink ships from a surface position. Because of this, the figures of "performance" of the Germans was rapidly declining.
The expansion of the zone of unrestricted submarine warfare to the coast of the Azores and the permission to sink neutral ships as part of the convoys did not help either. The number of war crimes committed by German sailors, who frenziedly shot people escaping from dying ships or motivated them in sadistic ways, increased.
For example, Lieutenant Werner, commander of the U-55 submarine, sank the British ship Torrington, 8, on April 12 in the English Channel, ordered people to escape to the submarine’s deck, after which the submarine went under water. The people on her deck drowned. Only the captain of "Torrington" escaped, taken prisoner and at the time of the murder inside the submarine.
On July 31, Lieutenant Commander Wagenfur, the commander of U-44, sank the ship "The Belgian Prince." Only due to the fact that in the area nearby were a few guard, all people managed to save.
Finally, the Germans began to attack even the hospital ships, including those marching under the Red Cross flag. The Germans explained this by the fact that such ships were used for military purposes for the transport of goods and troops.
But despite all the war crimes, the prospects for German victory in the war became less and less realistic. In Germany, the high command gradually rekindled skepticism towards the submarine war, decadent sentiment began to dominate the naval headquarters, although the “Napoleonic” program in scope adopted on 1918 for the construction of new submarines 244. They had to enter the fleet by the end of the year, and because of the end of the war the program was never implemented.
Despite the fact that from January to August 1918, the Germans lost 45 submarines, their submarine fleet even increased, since 57 new ships were built. But it became obvious that the system of convoys works properly. In addition, the Entente for the entire military year 1918 for the first time built more merchant ships than lost.
By September, 1918, against the background of the military defeats of the countries of the Central Powers, began the winding up of submarine operations. October 20 under pressure from Parliament and the Chancellor, the Kaiser decided to end the unrestricted submarine war, and on November 11 Germany officially concluded the Compiegne truce with the Entente. War is over.
During the First World War, German submarines demonstrated gigantic opportunities, causing great damage to Britain. However, to achieve complete victory thanks to the timely actions of the Allies and the introduction of a new tactic of countering with the help of "underwater weapons" they did not succeed. The extensive experience gained by the Germans in 1914-18 was well studied, and on this basis German theorists developed a new submarine warfare tactic, which was used during the years of a much larger and bloody conflict that shook humanity after all 20 years. However, even then it did not bring victory to the Germans.
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