Unrestricted II.

This is coolbert:

Conclusion.

[I quote freely here from the web site article by Holger H. Herwig, Department of History University of Calgary.]

To arrive at the conclusion that unrestricted submarine warfare would succeed in brining England to the brink of starvation, the German "experts" and planners made some basic assumptions. I have mentioned this before.

Among those assumptions were:

First was "that the war had to be brought to anend 'by the autumn of 1917'"

Second. "A modern economy was 'a masterpiece of precision machinery; if it is once thrown into disorder, malfunctions, friction, and breakage will set in motion without end.'"

Third, "the German experts agreed that Britain could never adopt rationing."

Fourth. "Reports of the Royal Commission on the Supply of Food of 1903-05, convinced the Admiralty Staff that wheat was 'beyond all comparison the most important cereal.'"

Fifth. "The financial burden imposed by increased imports would bring the British economy to ruin."

Sixth. "the Germans were mesmerized with British coal production in general and reliance on Scandinavian pit-prop timber (Grubenholz) in particular."

[these are the timbers, cut to size, used to hold up the sides a coal mine. The tunnels and the pit caves themselves are held up by what is called "shoring". Timbers placed at intervals that prevent the mine from collapsing on itself. It seems England was dependent on Scandanavian timber for this purpose!!]

Seventh. "and perhaps most critically, the members of the German 'think tank' put British and world shipping tonnage under a microscope . . . London could command at best 10.75 million gross tons of merchant bottoms."

Eighth. "Holtzendorff [German Admiral] tied unrestricted submarine warfare to Germany's survival as a great and a world power."

These were the basic assumptions made by the Germans in evaluating the feasibility of unrestricted submarine warfare as a plausible means of bringing World War One to a conclusion with a favorable outcome for the German side.

A formal decision was made to initiate unrestricted submarine warfare. This decision was in the positive.

"The formal decision to launch the U-boat offensive was taken by the Kaiser, the chancellor, generals, and admirals at Pless on January 9, 1917."

This decision was arrived at only after the most intensive research and debate. Such a decision WAS NOT taken lightly.

"The issue had been debated both inside and outside
official chambers since early 1915; Holtzendorff had taken
sixteen monthsto craft his great memorandum of
December 22, 1916. Officers, statesmen, politicians,
and journalists alike had taken sides with a
passion unmatched by any other issue during the war.
Rationality had clashed endlessly with irrationality--and
led to no concrete conclusion. And the Admiralty Staff's
countless memoranda, some leaked to enflame the public debate,
offered voluminous statisticalmaterial to buttress arguments
both for and against the U-war.

In the end however, the U-boat war did not succeed in starving Britain into submission. This DID NOT happen.

The careful, meticulous, and carefully drawn statistical analysis, assumptions, and conclusions did not hold up under real conditions.

A variety of reasons made this to be so.

Among those reasons were:

First. "Holtzendorff and his experts failed to appreciate that a modern industrial state can tap into almost inexhaustible lines of credits; can build up an almost limitless debt, as long as it (and its creditors) believe in its future. In the British case, by 1917 this meant almost exclusively 'inexhaustible' American credits."

[as long as one can pay, credits will be issued for more or less forever. Contingent that the loans can be REPAID on time!! That is what is most crucial!!]

Second. "a modern state's "machinery" is not as precise or as finely tuned as German Admiralty Staff planners had assumed . . . 'a self-repairing mechanism, not a machine.'"

[in a crisis mode, methods, techniques, and options that would not be ordinarily adopted are put into motion. Assumptions and calculations are based on methods, techniques, and options NOT being used. And this is reasonable. YOU cannot make assumptions based upon what is not known to you. What your opposition will do is not entirely known to you in advance. What exists is known. That is what you go with when making calculations!!]

Third. "the British national character likewise proved far more resilient than the German experts had predicted."

Fourth. "and most critically of all, Holtzendorff and his experts showed a glaring inability to synthesize accurately the bulk of statistical materials on British wheat, grain, and agricultural conditions.

"Another cardinal miscalculation by Admiralty Staff planners was in the area of United States grain production."

[American grain production was 50 % greater than what it had been in the previous year. The year of 1916 was a poor year for grain as wheat rust infested the crop. 1917 was a normal year. German calculations were based upon a POOR year for harvest!!]

Fifth. "the unrestricted U-boat war did not destroy the domestic food situation in Britain."

"Nor did it cause vast and violent labor unrest. To be sure, prices did rise, but so did wages."

"Nor did the predicted surplus of unemployed and unemployable laborers forced to emigrate develop."

Sixth. "Holtzendorff's and Ludendorff's curious calculations about Scandinavian pit-prop timber for British mines failed to hold."

[Timber was made more available for mining by restricting the use in other industries. Imported timber was not so crucial!!]

Seventh. "the Germans erred terribly in their rather simplistic calculations of gross tonnage available to Britain."

"Above all, the nature of merchant cargoes, and not simply the total tonnage, was critical . . . Britain's daily needs of 15,000 tons of grain could be delivered by a mere four ships."

Eighth. "the politics of unrestricted submarine warfare backfired."

"Finally, Germany never managed to mount the "total" effort required to conduct "total" war."

[at any moment, 1/3 of German submarines were in dock being refitted. 1/3 intransit to a battle station, and the remaining 1/3 only on battle station for a max of six days most at a time. NOT enough submarines were available for the blockade to be successful.]

German miscalculations and erroneous assumptions were behind the failure of the U-boats to "starve" the British.

The British were adaptable, resilient, flexible, and had the ability to organize themselves to overcome whatever difficulties the blockade presented. As simple as that!!

In conclusion:

"It was all a matter of accounting, of war by slide-rule. No romanticism. No adventure. No individualism. In the process, grand strategy was reduced to ordnance on target--in this case, torpedoes against steel hulls."

[this is how modern war in the Twentieth Century was fought. Institutionalized, industrialized, mass production assembly line warfare that relied upon impersonality!!]

coolbert.