Unrestricted I.

This is coolbert:

 Unrestricted Submarine Warfare.

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

By the year 1916, it was apparent to the major combatants of the First World War[WW1], that there was going to be NO quick and easy resolution to the war. Neither side, the Allies or the Central Powers, was going to prevail in the conventional sense. A hard slog was to be had for all. And already had been.

Some alternative strategy had to be found.

The German Navy proposed a possible solution. A blockade of England by unrestricted submarine warfare. A total blockade so that ALL shipping bound for English ports would be subject to submarine attack. NOT just combat naval vessels. All shipping of a transport nature would be included.

In this regard, England WAS very susceptible to blockade. England being highly dependent upon imported food, the German Navy felt that a successful blockade would starve the British populace to the point where the English government would have to sue for peace.

A peace with terms favorable to the Germans. An end to the war could be found that would be in the favor of Germany.

Such an idea was NOT preposterous and had been suggested by many even BEFORE and during the EARLY stages of the war.

"The first torpedo in the great debate over unrestricted submarine
warfare was launched by Tirpitz on December 22, 1914.
During an interview published by the Berlin representative of
United Press, the grand admiral threatened 'total' submarine
warfare against the entente powers. Queried by Karl von Wiegand
whether Germany truly intended to blockade Britain with its
U-boats, Tirpitz testily replied: 'If pressed to the utmost,
why not? - England wants to starve us into submission;
we can play the same game, blockade England and destroy each
and every ship that tries to run the blockade.'"

"A fellow naval officer, Captain Magnus von Levetzow, the High Sea Fleet's
future chief of operations, shortly after the start of the war gained insight
into submarine warfare through a strange source: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
In 1913 the creator of Sherlock Holmes had published a short story,
'Danger! A Story of England's Peril,' wherein he suggested that Britain,
even after capturing the "enemy" fleet, was defeated by eight (!) small
hostile submarines that starved her out within six weeks by attacking her
merchant shipping."

"In an even more bizarre way, Rear-Admiral Karl Hollweg came
to the conclusion that the Lord God wanted Germany to
turn to unrestricted submarine warfare. Sitting in
a Memorial Day(Totensonntag) service at Berlin in 1916,
Hollweg experienced a quasi-theological "vision"
when reciting the words "Power and Glory" of the
Lord's Prayer. 'The word 'Power' punched deeply
into my memory. Yes, give us the power for
the will to victory, Thou Governor of Battles!'"

A whole number of slide-rule calculations was taken into account when determining if the strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare was feasible.

HOW the calculations, the assumptions, the sources, and the determinations of "experts" were put into use by the Germans is an excellent example of how strategy is formulated by the top echelons of military command and by the political civilian apparatus for waging war in the modern world. At least as seen in the World Wars of the last century.

After intensive study, the German "experts" were unanimous in their conclusion that a German naval blockade by submarine COULD and WOULD defeat Great Britain.

"the chief of the admiralty staff promised that, 'England will be forced to sue for peace within five months as the result of launching an unrestricted U-boat war.'"

"In fact, estimates of Britain's demise due to the U-boats hovered between two months (Tirpitz) and eight months (Holtzendorff)."

Calculations included the assumptions that:

"Assuming that Britain had available about 10 million tons of merchant shipping"

"the U-boats could readily sink 600,000 tons per month for four months
and 500,000 tons per month thereafter as the volume of traffic on the
high seas lessened; that 40 percent, or 1.2 million tons,
of neutral shipping would be frightened off the seas;
and that most of the 1.4 million tons of German bottoms interned in neutral ports could be 'made unseaworthy'[scuttled] by their crews."

[those "German bottom" were German transport ships interned in neutral ports and made unseaworthy by damaging or sinking in port. Preventing the English from seizing and using themselves!!]

"'the cost of a break with the United States' as neither American troops nor American money could arrive in Europe in time to blunt the U-boat offensive."

[unrestricted submarine warfare was seen as bringing American into the war, but not in time to provide a counter to the German submarine offensive!!]

Some aspects of the German strategic formulation were unique to warfare as warfare had been waged up unto that point. Among these aspects were:

"New were the statistical compilations, by both naval and civilian experts, that translated tonnage sunk by submarine warfare into political victory."

[I am not sure if these statistical compilations are in the same category as operational research. It may be, but I am not sure!!]

New was the very concept that an industrialized state could be brought to
its knees by this kind of economic blockade.

[WW1 was the first war fought on a protracted, mechanized, mass production, industrial basis. Workers in the factory and the civilian populace in general were intimately involved in "war work". The entire society becomes fair game in that sense, or so the mentality goes.]

"And new was that civilian populations in general and women and children in particular were targeted for starvation. Caloric intake became a measure of survival or defeat."

[this is not entirely true. Starvation has always been an aspect of siege warfare throughout the ages. Fortified cities would gauge their ability to "hold out" based upon the amount of food and water stored and made available to the inhabitants.]

The feasibility of unrestricted submarine warfare was arrived at by an analysis of assumptions and statistical calculations. This is where it gets interesting.

"But how had the admiral arrived at his blueprint for "total" war? What
mathematical calculations lay at its root? And how accurate were they?"

A small army of unimpeachable "experts" were brought to bear on the problem and the solution.

"Another new element: Holtzendorff [ Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, the chief of the admiralty staff] had gathered in the Admiralty Staff's Department BI a small army of experts--the equivalent of a modern-day think tank--to make his case."

Among the experts were:

Dr. Richard Fuss of the Discontogesellschaft-Magdeburg.

Heidelberg professor of economics, Hermann Levy.

Editor of the Berliner Tageblatt, Otto Jahlinger.

Grain merchants Hermann Weil and Henry P. Newman.

Professor Bruno Harms of Kiel University.

Also, from the worlds of finance:

Merk, Fink & Co. at Munich, Diskontogesellschaft and Dresdner Bank at Berlin, Norddeutsche Bank at Hamburg, and Zuckschwerdt & Beuchel at Magdeburg.

And industry:

Phoenix Mines and Foundries at Herde, Good Hope Foundry
at Oberhausen, and Hoesch Iron & Steel at Dortmund.

And agriculture:

Chamber of Agriculture in Anhalt, Chamber of Estates in Wurttemberg, and a country squire from Dirschau.

These experts compiled data from a variety of sources to arrive at their conclusions. Among these sources were:

The London Times.

The Glasgow Herald.

The Manchester Guardian.

The Economist.

The Spectator, and

The parliamentary Hansard.

And specialty papers such as:

The Corn, Seed & Oil Reporter.

The Corn Trade News.

The Liverpool Journal of Commerce.

Lloyd's Register.

And.

The grain experts on the German Frankfurter Zeitung and Berliner Tageblatt.

Such is how the sources, calculations, statistics, assumptions and conclusions that are drawn by which nations fight modern wars determined.

As will be seen, the German "solution" was not to prevail.

coolbert.