WWI History Lesson 7: The War at Sea

The years leading up to the outbreak of WWI saw massive buildups of modern battleship fleets in many of the world's navies.  When the war finally began, it was naturally expected that powerful new battleships would meet in epic fleet actions similar to those of the Napoleonic Wars a century earlier.  To almost everyone's surpise, however, the great new battleships saw little action and faced each other in only a few, inconclusive battles.  The real naval war was not between rival warships but between warships and enemy merchant ships.  

Meanwhile, the most important vessles of the war proved to be submarines.  This was especially surprising because before the war began, few people even imagined submarines could become effective weapons in war.  Another unexpected turn in the war was the growing importance of airplaines in naval operations.  When the war began, few people suspected airplanes would ever become weapons.  By the end of the war, however, sevearl nations were building aircraft carriers to extend the war in the air out to sea.  This development pointed the way to the central importance of air power in 21st century navies.

The importance of World War I's naval phase is best understood by considering what each navy's objectives were.  Throughout history, navies have played important roles transporting troops to assaults on enemy territories. With the notable exception fo the Allies' Gallipoli campaign, however, the first world war saw few such naval actions.  The navies' main objectives during the war were to disrupt enemy shipping while protecting their own nations' shipping.  Great Britain and Germany depended especially heavily on foreign trade to feed their peoples and supply their industries.  Trade disruptions seriously weakended them.

UBoats

German submarines were known to the Allies as "U-boats" after their German name Untersee boots.  At the start of the war, Germany had fewer than 30 U-boats, to which it added about 80 new boats per year throughout the war.  More than half of all U-boats were lost in action during the war, but they sank more than 5,000 allied and neutral ships.

Watch about Uboats here

The Lusitania

On May 7, 1915, Germany scored a small tactical success that became a public relations disaters.  On that date, on of its submarines sank the British ocean liner Lusitania off the cost of southern Ireland.  More than 1,000 civilian passengers, including more than 100 Americans, died when the ship went down.  The public outcry in Britain and the United States was great. The fact that the Lusitania was carrying war materials that made it a legitimate military target, was not information given to the public.  This turned the American public opinion strongly against Germany.  The US would not declare war on Germany for another two years, but her Lusitania sinking contributed to that decision

Watch about the Lusitania here

• Read The Century For Young People Chapter 2 pages 27-32
• Read pages in the Eyewitness book on submarines
• Read Treaties, Trenches, Mud and Blood pages 73-86