Was the "starve them out" strategy ever really feasible?

It would be interesting to know how many weeks reserves of grain the UK had on hand during the comparable period in WW2 (1942) and during the operation of the normal peacetime economy before and after WW1. Personally it doesn’t seem that extreme a situation for an import-dependent maritime nation to be in a situation where if not another kernel of grain arrives there is sufficient buffer just in the warehouses and railway cars to cover 3 weeks of normal consumption.
However that may be conditioned by modern times where the supply chain only holds a few days worth.
 
The aspirational goal of the Royal navy in the years prior to the war was the defeat of the German HSF in a battle of annihilation - Churchill for example saw a British Blockade as a means to entice the Germans to come out to play, but has not appeared to have contemplated the ramifications of the HSF remaining anchored. The commitment of British light forces do defend against a HSF excursion contributed to the British conclusion they had insufficient escorts to implement a widespread convoy system.

The USW was a gross miscalculation. The shipping loses the British were incuring in the months before the introduction of USW were not sustainable and the Entente access to new North American credit had already dried up. Without the entry of the US (resources and funding) and the widespread introduction of a convoy system, the war would have likely ended in 1917.

Preliminary and isolated naval bombardments weeks before the arrival of Entente land forces, coupled with the initial delivery of those land forces to the wrong parts - doomed what was already a deeply flawed plan, championed by the First Sea Lord.

I am genuinely curious as to what the British would be seeking to achieve by forcing the straights, let alone how it would be achieved. On paper the Dardanelles looked there for the taking, but the reality was there were too many unknown, unknowns for the Entente to succeed.

The wartime conditions strained British shipping without the efforts of the Germans. The shortage of shipping (along with escorts) was cited as the principal reason why convoys could not be implemented, since it was believed the formation and servicing of convoys would lead to unacceptable levels of downtime among shipping resources.

The British started the war with inadequate tanker capabilities and this proceeded to get even worse without effective steps being taken to rectify this shortage on a timely manner - sufficient tanker resources would have come on line in 1918 after the point of crisis. This is curious since the RN prewar was planning to utilize British oil resources in the middle east, but due to quality issues and refining problems instead relied on more accessable US sources.

As an aside, a high review of shipping losses during WW1 illustrates a disproportionate loss of British tankers, to the extent I question the data.

I have read a decent amount about the implementation of convoys and most of the above is very fresh material...

More common reasons cited for the convoy system not being more widely implemented sooner include the belief by British admiralty that convoys system would be a logistical nightmare requiring additional shipping and escort resources that were not available. It was later determined the British admiralty were working with flawed assumptions/ calculations.

As previously stated, the British started with the strongest economy, navy and empire. From a naval perspective it also enjoyed overwhelming geographical advantages over the Germans. It's implementation of its 'blockade' was muddled and it mismanaged the protection of British maritime interests against a vastly inferior foe. Despite those overwhelming advantages, the British war effort may not have survived 1917 without US assistance.

I'm not convinced the empire was in decline, but it had probably ceased to expand and likely needed to reform to face new challenges.

The RN performed its perceived core roles really well, except those core roles were less relevant in 1914. As distasteful as it sounds, the RN chestnuts were hauled from the fire by the US, which then proceeded to strip Britain of its baubles of empire.

So back to your Hapless and Outfought comment which is what I have taken umbrage over - most of the above does not explain, support or defend your comment. I am not arguing any other point in this thread just that comment. I even agree with some of the above - I am not questioning the impact of the USA on the conduct of WW1 for example it was important but that does not explain or support the assertion.

The first role of the RN is to defend Britain its second role in to maintain British control of the international sealanes and in doing so defend Britain's maritime interests - and this it did and it was up to the German fleet (then the 2nd largest in the world) to change this state of affairs. It did not.

Their plan was to wait for the RN to come charging in to the area around the Helgoland Bight in order to conduct the close blokade and for the 'Risk Flotte' strategy to take place were after a heavy battle damaged German ships could retreat behind defensive minefields and light forces - while damaged British ships would have far longer to travel back to British ports and many of them foundering or being 'picked off' by Uboats and 'Torpedo boats' (Destroyers) thus evening up the relative strengths or even tipping the scales totally into the KMs favor.

But the Perfidious Bloody British thought that this was a silly idea and decided instead to conduct a distant blockade much to the KM leaders anguish and disappointment.

Had the KM never sortied from its anchorages in WW1 then the Grand fleet would have succeeded in its primary task without sinking or having to sink a single German ship.

Had the KM sought a fight to the death ie Jutland without the Germans (quite sensibly) running away bit the Royal Navy would also have done its job.

As I have said, before USW began to bite from Feb 1 1917 the most obvious threat to a convoy was from a surface ship or ships. For example one of the reasons that the SMS Goeben escaped the 3 Med based British Battle Cruisers in 1914 was because conventional wisdom would have the Goeben sortie and attack French troop carrying convoys, not have a sniff around and then bugger of to Turkey! Therefore the RN ships despite not 'yet' being at war with Germany or AH sought to cover the German ship from an effort to sortie and attack the French Convoys. Would Goeben have had a crack at the French Troop ships what with the French not having any BCs to match her - well she did have a sniff but changed her mind - It's my read that the presence of 3 British I class BCs changed her captains mind and instead he headed East not West.

I consider the Goeben mission to be the greatest success of the entire war by the German Navy and the subsequent op to force the Straights the RNs greatest failure (more on that later)

With the HSF locked up in the North Sea due to the presence of the Grand fleet there was no threat there and early war no real threat of USW - no need for convoys for any reason (other than troop convoys).

Troop convoys were about the only 'convoy' in the early part of the war and these were almost always escorted by powerful warships lest they be attacked by a powerful enemy warship

As for other ships - there was simply not enough capital ships to escort non troop ships during the war therefore there was nothing to be gained by them sailing in convoy - so they did not.

This had drastically changed by Spring 1917.

The sinkings prior to this while heavy but not critical - might not have been sustainable over the long term but were probably sustainable long enough for Germany to become exhausted and seek terms ie late 1918.

Subsequent to the introduction of USW this rate of sinkings did become critical but also brought the USA and others into the war rather rapidly and resulted in a massive reaction from all of the allies resulting in the introduction of the Convoy systems and later even more draconian measures that basically controlled every tons imported into Europe.

Convoys were seen as an own goal by pretty much everyone upto early 1917 when the British ordered convoys to start (which they did from May 10th) - as for working from flawed assumptions/calculations USW on this scale or pretty much any scale had never happened before - the closest analogy to USW in WW1 was the use of Privateers during the Napoleonic wars - the major difference being that most sailing vessels of the day could pretty much sail at the same speeds plus or minus a few knots and didn't as a rule deliberately hide underwater.

"It's implementation of its 'blockade' was muddled and it mismanaged the protection of British maritime interests against a vastly inferior foe."

Did it? Was not Germany suffering from severe shortages by 1916 onwards? The failure of its own 'inferior fleet' (a fleet 2nd only in size to the British one which had to police the world's oceans and not bob around at anchor looking aggressive) in breaking the blockade resulted in extreme pressure from the more reactionary German leaders in convincing the Kaiser to unleash USW. They knew it would result in the USA joining the war but simply did not care. Great quote on Wiki - Even if the "disorganized and undisciplined" Americans did intervene, Holtzendorff assured the Kaiser, "I give your Majesty my word as an officer, that not one American will land on the Continent."

Now there is a muddled and mismanaged decision.

As for your query around forcing the Dardanelles - well if your inept and outfought comment could be defended anywhere during the war well look no further - its right here!

"I am genuinely curious as to what the British would be seeking to achieve by forcing the straights, let alone how it would be achieved. On paper the Dardanelles looked there for the taking, but the reality was there were too many unknown, unknowns for the Entente to succeed."

Had the British and French fleets forced the Dardanelles then it is highly likely that the Ottoman Government would have collapsed and with it one of the CP allies would have ceased to be a threat to the Allies - certainly that was impression of the US Ambassador to Constantinople Henry Morgenthau at the time - he wrote that the German Ambassador had abandoned his residence and sought refuge at the US Embassy and the Leaders of the Ottoman government had made plans to flee with whatever could be loaded into whatever transport could be found as soon as the British and French entered the Marmara Sea.

Admiral John De Roebeck pure and simply bottled it and after the loss of some obsolete pre-dreadnoughts on the 18th March 1915 - ships that for the most part were going to be scrapped despite a war being on and were not going to be missed - prevaricated, delayed and then called off further attacks despite the civilian crews of the minesweepers (who had been a bit flaky when under fire) being replaced with the crews from the sunken Pre-Dreads and reorganized by Commodore Roger Keyes. The Commodore was convinced as was the Captain of HMS Queen Elizabeth that the attempt should have been made with the reorganised fleet and that it would have succeeded.

A subsequent offer by Greece of 1/4 million Soldiers to occupy the Gallipoli Peninsula was effectively vetoed by the Russians - the region was their sphere after all - another mistake as at the time the Turkish were scrambling for troops with all their best units fighting the British in Palestine and what is now Iraq.

Ultimately the failure to force the straights, make use of the Greek offer and then the failure of the subsequent much telegraphed and delayed Gallipoli land campaign resulted in the hundreds of thousands of casualties, the deployment of a million and half troops, the continued activities of the Ottoman Empire as an active member of the CP, a great deal of treasure expended and tellingly the Straights remaining closed to the 90% of Russian imports and exports (this partially responsible for the collapse of the Russian Empire) for pretty much the rest of the war.

And Churchill gets all the blame......

It's a big WW1 potential POD and one that I hope one day to explore.
 
I'm not sure where I did such, but my apologies if I gave you that impression.

Well I am pretty sure where but if you saying you miswrote then fir enough



Citation was previously made here, with John Terraine's Business in Great Waters: The U-Boat Wars 1916-1945. The book states that in May-July 93% of all
independents were sunk and 83% were in August-October.

Yeah it is an interesting claim but it is not one that adds up, I do not currently have access to the shipping news for the period but there were four hundred plus arrivals of oceanic ships in Britain every month and yet the global, that is total across all engaged oceans, number of kills by U-boats peaked at some 516 vessels in April. It is not even that these vessels were spread out with a particular concentration in the Mediterranean it is also that the sinking figures for each month include non-ocean going vessels as small as 100 tons burthern. The issue being that the U-boats simply did not kill sufficient ships for Mr Terraine's assertion, if it was his assertion and not simply bad editing, to be correct. It is possible he looked at the number of ships sunk for everywhere and the number of independent sailings to the UK alone and came up with that assumption but it is an awfully woolly application of statistics if that is the case.

Not mind you that any so great a proportion of sinking would have been required to cause serious alarm.
 
Yeah it is an interesting claim but it is not one that adds up, I do not currently have access to the shipping news for the period but there were four hundred plus arrivals of oceanic ships in Britain every month and yet the global, that is total across all engaged oceans, number of kills by U-boats peaked at some 516 vessels in April. It is not even that these vessels were spread out with a particular concentration in the Mediterranean it is also that the sinking figures for each month include non-ocean going vessels as small as 100 tons burthern. The issue being that the U-boats simply did not kill sufficient ships for Mr Terraine's assertion, if it was his assertion and not simply bad editing, to be correct. It is possible he looked at the number of ships sunk for everywhere and the number of independent sailings to the UK alone and came up with that assumption but it is an awfully woolly application of statistics if that is the case.

Not mind you that any so great a proportion of sinking would have been required to cause serious alarm.

The problem is you're just looking at April when Terraine is doing his assessments in three month blocs.
 

BooNZ

Banned
So back to your Hapless and Outfought comment which is what I have taken umbrage over - most of the above does not explain, support or defend your comment. I am not arguing any other point in this thread just that comment. I even agree with some of the above - I am not questioning the impact of the USA on the conduct of WW1 for example it was important but that does not explain or support the assertion.
I could have chosen my words more carefully, but I don't believe I said the British were outfought - they were outthought by the Germans, who were scarcely at the top of their game.

The first role of the RN is to defend Britain its second role in to maintain British control of the international sealanes and in doing so defend Britain's maritime interests - and this it did and it was up to the German fleet (then the 2nd largest in the world) to change this state of affairs. It did not.
Despite overwhelming naval, economic and geographical advantages, the British had exhausted their available war making resources by the end of 1916. The British had managed to keep the scores level with the purportedly diminutive Germans up to half time, but the Entente was dead on its feat.

In addition to financial liquidity woes, by 1917 the British shipping resources were stretched and incapable of supporting wholesale supply changes to more remote suppliers (or perhaps even sparing the capacity to waste resources 'experimenting' with convoys).

Their plan was to wait for the RN to come charging in to the area around the Helgoland Bight in order to conduct the close blokade and for the 'Risk Flotte' strategy to take place were after a heavy battle damaged German ships could retreat behind defensive minefields and light forces - while damaged British ships would have far longer to travel back to British ports and many of them foundering or being 'picked off' by Uboats and 'Torpedo boats' (Destroyers) thus evening up the relative strengths or even tipping the scales totally into the KMs favor.
No, the Risk Flotte was conceived when the Germans expected the British abide by accepted international protocols, which held a close blockade to be mandatory. I understand the Germans were expecting/hoping to engage in an ongoing battle of attrition to whittle away the British numerical advantages.

But the Perfidious Bloody British thought that this was a silly idea and decided instead to conduct a distant blockade much to the KM leaders anguish and disappointment.
Yes, the Germans were caught off guard by the British decision [circa 1912] to ignore international expectations of blockades, and the US acceptance of the same.

Had the KM never sortied from its anchorages in WW1 then the Grand fleet would have succeeded in its primary task without sinking or having to sink a single German ship.
The problem was the Royal Navy's self proclaimed primary task is meaningless if British war effort was being chocked.

Had the KM sought a fight to the death ie Jutland without the Germans (quite sensibly) running away bit the Royal Navy would also have done its job.
Any plan reliant on an enemy making a colossal blunder is not particularly cunning.

As I have said, before USW began to bite from Feb 1 1917 the most obvious threat to a convoy was from a surface ship or ships. For example one of the reasons that the SMS Goeben escaped the 3 Med based British Battle Cruisers in 1914 was because conventional wisdom would have the Goeben sortie and attack French troop carrying convoys, not have a sniff around and then bugger of to Turkey! Therefore the RN ships despite not 'yet' being at war with Germany or AH sought to cover the German ship from an effort to sortie and attack the French Convoys. Would Goeben have had a crack at the French Troop ships what with the French not having any BCs to match her - well she did have a sniff but changed her mind - It's my read that the presence of 3 British I class BCs changed her captains mind and instead he headed East not West.
I consider the Goeben mission to be the greatest success of the entire war by the German Navy and the subsequent op to force the Straights the RNs greatest failure (more on that later)
I understand the key reason the RN was caught flat footed was because it was expecting a German run for the A-H fleet, not Constantinople. The British were also bluffed to conceal the SMS Goeben had significant engine problems.

With the HSF locked up in the North Sea due to the presence of the Grand fleet there was no threat there and early war no real threat of USW - no need for convoys for any reason (other than troop convoys).

Troop convoys were about the only 'convoy' in the early part of the war and these were almost always escorted by powerful warships lest they be attacked by a powerful enemy warship

As for other ships - there was simply not enough capital ships to escort non troop ships during the war therefore there was nothing to be gained by them sailing in convoy - so they did not.

This had drastically changed by Spring 1917.
I'm not following your logic.

The Germans were never going to risk/squander any of their dreadnaughts on one-way raider operations beyond the North Sea. The British had an abundance of pre-dreadnaught battleships easily capable of protecting Entente convoys against anything the Germans had available. What the British believed they lacked was spare shipping and escorts to protect against U-boats in a convoy system, which we understand now was a serious miscalculation.

Even in 1914 British shipping was in short supply and while the scale of early losses did not initially represent an existential threat, those shipping losses were significant and cumulative. By 1917 there was a serious shortage of general shipping, while the lack of specialized tankers was reaching a crisis point. Suggestion Britain was prudent to ignore numerous systemic problems until they became crises, is curious to say the least.

The sinkings prior to this while heavy but not critical - might not have been sustainable over the long term but were probably sustainable long enough for Germany to become exhausted and seek terms ie late 1918.

Subsequent to the introduction of USW this rate of sinkings did become critical but also brought the USA and others into the war rather rapidly and resulted in a massive reaction from all of the allies resulting in the introduction of the Convoy systems and later even more draconian measures that basically controlled every tons imported into Europe.
The Entente shipping losses accelerated through the later half of 1916 and were still trending upward when the USW was introduced. Based on the months prior to the USW introduction, the Germans would have broken the British without USW - in the absence of a convoy system being introduced.

Convoys were seen as an own goal by pretty much everyone upto early 1917 when the British ordered convoys to start (which they did from May 10th) - as for working from flawed assumptions/calculations USW on this scale or pretty much any scale had never happened before - the closest analogy to USW in WW1 was the use of Privateers during the Napoleonic wars - the major difference being that most sailing vessels of the day could pretty much sail at the same speeds plus or minus a few knots and didn't as a rule deliberately hide underwater.
Even the British Admiralty acknowledge they were working to wrong assumptions that exaggerated the merchant shipping and escorts required to introduce convoy systems - in addition to logistical concerns about loading/ unloading and coordinating convoys of merchant ships.

"It's implementation of its 'blockade' was muddled and it mismanaged the protection of British maritime interests against a vastly inferior foe."

Did it? Was not Germany suffering from severe shortages by 1916 onwards? The failure of its own 'inferior fleet' (a fleet 2nd only in size to the British one which had to police the world's oceans and not bob around at anchor looking aggressive) in breaking the blockade resulted in extreme pressure from the more reactionary German leaders in convincing the Kaiser to unleash USW. They knew it would result in the USA joining the war but simply did not care. Great quote on Wiki - Even if the "disorganized and undisciplined" Americans did intervene, Holtzendorff assured the Kaiser, "I give your Majesty my word as an officer, that not one American will land on the Continent."
If the British had continue to procrastinate the introduction of an effective convoy system it would have struggled to survive 1917. I'm not convinced the British would have reached that decision by themselves without US advocacy, logistics, shipping resources and escort resources.

Many believe the Silent Dictatorship 'rationalizations' and crop failures had a greater impact than the British blockade. Even with the significant improvements in the blockade facilitated by the US entrance, the Germans continued to fight for another 18 months, knocking Imperial Russia out of the war in the process. Conversely, if the US had remained neutral the British would be in no shape to continue the war in a meaningful way beyond 1917.
 
It would be interesting to know how many weeks reserves of grain the UK had on hand during the comparable period in WW2 (1942) and during the operation of the normal peacetime economy before and after WW1. Personally it doesn’t seem that extreme a situation for an import-dependent maritime nation to be in a situation where if not another kernel of grain arrives there is sufficient buffer just in the warehouses and railway cars to cover 3 weeks of normal consumption.
However that may be conditioned by modern times where the supply chain only holds a few days worth.
I also wonder how many weeks reserves of grain Germany had as of the same date, but yes, yours is the primary question.
 
No because then the number of ships arriving is about 1200-1500 and we are back once again to too few of the ships recorded as being sunk being ocean going vessels for this claim to make sense.

Again, it's the matter of three month blocks; in May, the addition of nearly 30 Destroyers made convoys possible and only 1% the ships within those was sunk. For independents, however, death was at 90%
 
Again, it's the matter of three month blocks; in May, the addition of nearly 30 Destroyers made convoys possible and only 1% the ships within those was sunk. For independents, however, death was at 90%

Fine then find me all the missing ships that must have been sunk because there were way too many 12 knot plus ships (which typically sailed independently throughout the war) around at the end for this statement to be remotely true. Also by about June convoys still only amounted to half the ships sailing but also look at the portion you have quoted.

...in the period May-July, this amounted to 356 (93% of all independents), and in the period August-October 221 ships (83% of the total)

From Business in Great Waters.

Terraine is saying at first 93% of losses occurred to independents and that later this fell to 83% of losses from a substantially lower total because of U-boats increasingly having to attack the increasing number of convoys and having fewer independents to target. This matches the kind of assessments that many of us here are familiar with. I realise that it is a case of woeful editing leaving the meaning unclear but look at those numbers and think about the number of vessels afloat on any given day and you ought to see where your initial interpretation falls down.

However it is not you fault, that "93% of all independents" is horribly unclear and it only when the proportion of independents is noted as "83% of the total" his meaning becomes more legible.
 
I could have chosen my words more carefully, but I don't believe I said the British were outfought - they were outthought by the Germans, who were scarcely at the top of their game.

Actually you said outperformed but have yet to prove this was the case.

Despite overwhelming naval, economic and geographical advantages, the British had exhausted their available war making resources by the end of 1916. The British had managed to keep the scores level with the purportedly diminutive Germans up to half time, but the Entente was dead on its feat.

Nonsense - Britain by 1916 had created, trained and armed a continental army in 2 years from what was a small professional Imperial Police force. At sea the Germans would only raid into the North Sea and run as soon as the British challenged them - which was every time.

And the Germans were hardly sprightly leaping about at half time either.

In addition to financial liquidity woes, by 1917 the British shipping resources were stretched and incapable of supporting wholesale supply changes to more remote suppliers (or perhaps even sparing the capacity to waste resources 'experimenting' with convoys).

And yet they had been convoying important convoys the entire war and started introducing short range convoys - for example Coal supplies to France from Feb 10th and Scandinavian Convoys from April 4th with an immediate and drastic effect on losses

No, the Risk Flotte was conceived when the Germans expected the British abide by accepted international protocols, which held a close blockade to be mandatory. I understand the Germans were expecting/hoping to engage in an ongoing battle of attrition to whittle away the British numerical advantages.

Yes, the Germans were caught off guard by the British decision [circa 1912] to ignore international expectations of blockades, and the US acceptance of the same.

The problem was the Royal Navy's self proclaimed primary task is meaningless if British war effort was being chocked.

Any plan reliant on an enemy making a colossal blunder is not particularly cunning.

Well Britain's international expectations was that Germany would respect Belgium's neutrality - so everyone can be disappointed I guess?

Ref: Colossal blunders : right up until Jutland that was what the KM were hoping the British would do? That is that the British would come out and fight them piecemeal yet every time the British got the better of them! In fact because it happened every time the KM commanders began to suspect that the British had managed to infiltrate the German HQs with spies and that the Dutch fishermen were radioing in their movements. Not particularly cunning of them eh?

I'm not following your logic.

Explaining why there was no expectation of the need for convoys prior to USW and the perceived risk of convoys was that a Uboat attacking a group of ships would have the ability to sink several ships in a single attack while only being able to attack a single ship at a time. And also the then perceived wisdom that civilian crews could not do convoy.

The Germans were never going to risk/squander any of their dreadnaughts on one-way raider operations beyond the North Sea. The British had an abundance of pre-dreadnaught battleships easily capable of protecting Entente convoys against anything the Germans had available.

No not when the Grand fleet is blocking their way they are not.

But they would have if they could have.

What the British believed they lacked was spare shipping and escorts to protect against U-boats in a convoy system, which we understand now was a serious miscalculation.

But this was not a critical thing until the Spring of 1917.

And knowing something a 100 years after the event, when we know with absolute clarity what the results were, what worked and what did not work with a century of investigation and millions of words written about it - gives us an ever so slight advantage over those making the life and death decisions at the time. Clever us eh?

Even in 1914 British shipping was in short supply and while the scale of early losses did not initially represent an existential threat, those shipping losses were significant and cumulative. By 1917 there was a serious shortage of general shipping, while the lack of specialized tankers was reaching a crisis point. Suggestion Britain was prudent to ignore numerous systemic problems until they became crises, is curious to say the least.

They did not ignore it - they were fully aware of the problem - however even the merchant ship captains thought that convoys were unworkable as did everyone else!

The Entente shipping losses accelerated through the later half of 1916 and were still trending upward when the USW was introduced. Based on the months prior to the USW introduction, the Germans would have broken the British without USW - in the absence of a convoy system being introduced.

Britain was already building replacement ships and making as many destroyers and arming as many suitable ships as possible. The USW massively accelerated the problem. Without it the losses are half and the critical 'tipping' point comes much later at which point the Navy is forced to act by introducing convoys. Losses increased as U-boat numbers increased from 54 to 133 during 1916.

Even the British Admiralty acknowledge they were working to wrong assumptions that exaggerated the merchant shipping and escorts required to introduce convoy systems - in addition to logistical concerns about loading/ unloading and coordinating convoys of merchant ships.

After the fact and only when fully aware of the whole picture.

If the British had continue to procrastinate the introduction of an effective convoy system it would have struggled to survive 1917. I'm not convinced the British would have reached that decision by themselves without US advocacy, logistics, shipping resources and escort resources.

According to Lloyd George he alone forced the Admiralty to act and reconsider convoys when he 'entered the Admiralty, sat in the first lords chair and took over the reigns' on the 30th April 1917 - his own biographer and editor of his letters Professor A.T. Peterson calls this and subsequent claims by the Prime Minister (as well as supporting claims by Beaverbrook....who was not even there) "A travesty of Facts" as sadly is your statement above.

The truth is that the Admiralty, who not being a bunch of ^&%$ing mugs, were fully aware of the danger and had been investigating ways of introducing convoys and other ways of combating the Uboats ever since the danger from Uboats had emerged and just to understand some of the issues and then conventional thinking at the time in late Feb 1917 for Jellico had canvassed the opinions of a number of merchant captains who despite 2 years of 'independent' losses to submarines and 3 weeks into the devastating USW campaign all the captains were unanimous in agreeing that convoys would be unworkable. "Absolutely impossible" was what they said "there were too few deck qualified officers and a Ships Captain would be obliged to spend 24 hours a day on the Bridge" and the perceived wisdom was that it would be impossible for civilian crewed ships to maintain station in fog, poor weather and night time. Other issues included lack of telegraphs on all ships and the inability to fine tune the engines for a given speed of a given convoy which may change rapidly, coupled with the use of cheaper coal making this task even harder. Basically it was then agreed that station keeping would be virtually impossible. We know this now and the RN subsequently discovered these concerns to be ultimately not nearly as serious as then perceived.

But despite these issues, by 2 months into USW the losses had become so serious that the Admiralty had already started to introduce convoys to protect vital coals shipments to France from Feb 10th and Scandinavian Convoys from April 4th in both cases losses to U Boats drastically reduced to well below a 1% of all sailings in the case of the Scandinavian shipping down from 25% since the introduction of USW.

The decision to start longer ranged convoys was taken on 25th April despite a lack of suitable escorts with plans for the Gibraltar convoy dusted off and agreed by the 27th and put into action on May 10th with a convoy of 16 freighters with the escorts being 2 armed merchantmen and 3 armed yachts they arrived unharmed in Plymouth on the 20th - the conclusion being that not only could the ships maintain stationkeeping but the crews had more sleep than they had in months!

A subsequent Hampton Roads to Uk convoy of 12 ships on the 24th May resulted in 11 ships making it (2 ships had straggled and only 1 of those was torpedoed)

These 2 convoys destroyed any resistance to long distant convoys

Other longer ranged convoys could not be protected by armed trawlers and other aux vessels who did not have the range or ability to operate in bad weather and its here were a shortage of Destroyers occurs which was Jellicos main concern with starting them earlier but losses between feb and April forced his hand with the Gib convoy not being escorted by Destroyers but by armed freighters and Yachts.

These decisions were not reached due to US advocacy, logistics, shipping resources and escort resources - but by necessity - it had become apparent that Britain would lose the war if they did not act - they did not need the US to tell them any more than the Admiralty needed Lloyd sodding George to take the reigns.

I am not suggesting that the introduction of USN DDs was not incredibly useful - Simms and the US Ambassador to the UK following Sims visit to London, his meeting with Jellico on April 4th (getting a full understanding of the losses) and then meeting the King, were instrumental in rapidly getting USN Destroyers sent to bases in Ireland for the express purpose of escorting transatlantic convoys as well as rapidly impressing upon the US President and USN the danger that USW posed to the UK and by extension the Entente. Note that it is the British King and First Sea Lord telling the USA how critical it is not the USA telling the British that they should pull their fingers out.

Nor am I suggesting that those US resources and ships did not allow for more convoys faster than would otherwise have been the case.

But the idea that the British would bumble on without doing anything until the USA pointed out that they should start running convoys is risible.


Many believe the Silent Dictatorship 'rationalizations' and crop failures had a greater impact than the British blockade. Even with the significant improvements in the blockade facilitated by the US entrance, the Germans continued to fight for another 18 months, knocking Imperial Russia out of the war in the process. Conversely, if the US had remained neutral the British would be in no shape to continue the war in a meaningful way beyond 1917.

The German people 'believed' otherwise and the use of USW was wholeheartedly supported by the majority of Germans as a revenge for the blokade.

Certainly the Turnip Winter of 1916-17 cannot be fully laid at the door of the blockade (lack of Horses, lack of Fertiliser, problems with the internal transport system distributing food and the failure of the Potato crop certainly had an impact) but the blockade had reduced food supplies in the CP by 33% in real terms.

It's a catch 22 - USW is needed to have any possible chance of winning the war but in doing so any advantage is negated by the the USA and others such as Brazil entering the war on the side of the Entente.
 

BooNZ

Banned
Except clearly Entente shipping resources were not that dire as they were able to survive the sinking of some 4 millions register tons in 1917 alone while the US merchant fleet was not merely busy shipping the US Army to Europe but also required additional shipping resources from their allies in order to do so.



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The most ample credit must be given to the Emergency Fleet Corporation, which turned over nearly a million tons of new ships, and to the Shipping Control Committee, which stripped bare of all suitable vessels our import and export trades and turned over for Army use nearly a million and a half tons of ships. The Army vessels also came from 12 other nations well scattered over the globe and shown in the figures of map 3.

From The War With Germany, A Statistical Summary

The quoted portion and more details from the study can be found by clicking the links

Thanks - if you read the preceding paragraph of the reference you provided it states:

In building up our trans-Atlantic and Channel fleets every possible source of tonnage had to be called on for every ship that could be secured. The first great increment was the seized German vessels, which came into service during the fall of 1917. The taking over of Dutch steamers in the spring of 1918 and the chartering of Scandinavian and Japanese tonnage accounted for great increases in the cargo fleet. Map 3 shows the amounts of tonnage that were secured for our Army fleet from the different countries of the world.

If you actually examine the figure/map you referenced, you will notice the greatest contribution to shipping was seized German shipping, with the majority of the balance being neutral shipping pressed into service at later times. You will notice that Britain's slight contribution was dwarfed by even Cuba. Further, it is doubtful the British could have pressured neutrals who were still subject to a British blockade conditions (eg Scandinavia) without the added influence of a belligerent US.

You have ably illustrated the dire shipping shortage facing the British in 1916/1917 - many thanks.

Also out of interest are you in possession of an absolute figure for the financial assistance the US provided?
Not specifically, but the US entry facilitated British borrowing which ballooned from about 2.5 billion pounds in 1916 to around 7.5 billion pounds in 1919 - Britain defaulted on around 4 billion $US in 1934. Further, the immediate availability of US escort vessels facilitated/eased the decision for the wider implementation of convoy systems.
 
Thanks - if you read the preceding paragraph of the reference you provided it states:

In building up our trans-Atlantic and Channel fleets every possible source of tonnage had to be called on for every ship that could be secured. The first great increment was the seized German vessels, which came into service during the fall of 1917. The taking over of Dutch steamers in the spring of 1918 and the chartering of Scandinavian and Japanese tonnage accounted for great increases in the cargo fleet. Map 3 shows the amounts of tonnage that were secured for our Army fleet from the different countries of the world.

If you actually examine the figure/map you referenced, you will notice the greatest contribution to shipping was seized German shipping, with the majority of the balance being neutral shipping pressed into service at later times. You will notice that Britain's slight contribution was dwarfed by even Cuba. Further, it is doubtful the British could have pressured neutrals who were still subject to a British blockade conditions (eg Scandinavia) without the added influence of a belligerent US.

You have ably illustrated the dire shipping shortage facing the British in 1916/1917 - many thanks.

The thing is the there is no evidence in that data that the British were remarkably short of ships. In fact they were able to spare a number of passenger liners to serve as troopships for the Americans even when the Americans were taking not only a large chunk of their own fleet but shipping the Norwegians who were probably the most crucial neutral fleet and the Japanese who had risen in significance as a merchant fleet over the course of the war.

No matter the thing is you are no longer even pretending your post are not pure spin from claiming being reduced to a fleet in being, was a victory for the HSF to first claiming that the British had no ships and needed the Americans to bail them out but then upon being presented with evidence as to where the American ships went and discovering the British turned over some of their own even as the stock of neutral shipping was diminished you claim it as proof of you invalid argument. and then...

Not specifically, but the US entry facilitated British borrowing which ballooned from about 2.5 billion pounds in 1916 to around 7.5 billion pounds in 1919 - Britain defaulted on around 4 billion $US in 1934.

See in the past I used to think whatever my disagreements with Boonz at least he knows a fair chunk about economic related details. Nowadays not a details poster at all. You act like a sudden increase in the national debt is unusual in war time and rather than try and present a valid argument for by example comparing borrowing in the course of the Seven Years war or the Napoleonic war you just stick in a word like "ballooned" and assume people will look no further. Large national debts following a war are not unusual and most of that debt was internal to British citizens and corporations while the US held merely the largest portion of the 18% of that wartime borrowing that Britain raised from foreigners or some 1,365 million pounds sterling. I have already discussed the nature of the default which IIRC should be dated to 1932 above, however these were technical defaults that were accepted (if perhaps grudgingly) by the bondholders.

The thing is there is a sensible argument to be made concerning US finance but the evidence when examined in does not automatically lead to Armageddon without it and yet rather than present a nuanced arguments based around an interpretation of the numbers we get pure spin?


Further, the immediate availability of US escort vessels facilitated/eased the decision for the wider implementation of convoy systems.

Yes it was useful but no one argued that it was not useful the question is was it vital which is a far thornier issue.

I don't what has changed about you but something has changed and it has gotten really weird. You used to rely on solid numbers, the numbers might be open to interpretation, most data sets usually are because the context is not frequently selected for ahistorical examination but you used them as the basis for your claims. Now you make claims and try twist the world to fit those claims.
 

BooNZ

Banned
Nonsense - Britain by 1916 had created, trained and armed a continental army in 2 years from what was a small professional Imperial Police force. At sea the Germans would only raid into the North Sea and run as soon as the British challenged them - which was every time.
As previously stated, by the end of 1916 the British had exhausted its financial liquidity and a President Wilson inspired warning by the Federal Reserve had dried up Entente access to new funding in the US. Without financial liquidity the British would have no means to pay for imports from the US. If the Entente sought supplies from alternative markets those would likely be more expensive and further away. The scarcity of British shipping was not an imminent threat to Britain in late 1916, but it lacked the spare capacity to go roaming further afield to supply the Entente war effort.

In summary, at the end of 1916 the Britain did not have the money to continue existing purchase US supplies, Britain did not have the credit to continue existing purchases of US supplies and Britain did not have the surplus shipping to effectively source those supplies from far further afield - assuming those alternative suppliers were even willing to accept British IOUs...

And the Germans were hardly sprightly leaping about at half time either.
Even with the US strengthened blockade and the vast US contributions to the Entente war effort, we know the CP powers lasted a further 18 months or more and eliminated Imperial Russia during that time.

And yet they had been convoying important convoys the entire war and started introducing short range convoys - for example Coal supplies to France from Feb 10th and Scandinavian Convoys from April 4th with an immediate and drastic effect on losses
The critical factor here was important convoys, which indicates the Admiralty probably recognised the potential advantages of convoys, but did not implement them on a wider scale because it did not feel convoys were an efficient use of limited shipping resources and/or did not believe it had escorts available to effectively protect those convoys against U-Boats.

Ref: Colossal blunders : right up until Jutland that was what the KM were hoping the British would do? That is that the British would come out and fight them piecemeal yet every time the British got the better of them! In fact because it happened every time the KM commanders began to suspect that the British had managed to infiltrate the German HQs with spies and that the Dutch fishermen were radioing in their movements. Not particularly cunning of them eh?
I have not gone out of my way to praise the German Navy, I merely stated the German Navy outperformed the Royal Navy to the extent they were winning the economic war up until 1917.

No not when the Grand fleet is blocking their way they are not.

But they would have if they could have.
Oh pulease - neither Tirpitz nor the Kaiser would be prepared to risk frittering away their precious dreadnaughts in the mid Atlantic on raiding adventures.

Explaining why there was no expectation of the need for convoys prior to USW and the perceived risk of convoys was that a Uboat attacking a group of ships would have the ability to sink several ships in a single attack while only being able to attack a single ship at a time. And also the then perceived wisdom that civilian crews could not do convoy.

But this was not a critical thing until the Spring of 1917.

And knowing something a 100 years after the event, when we know with absolute clarity what the results were, what worked and what did not work with a century of investigation and millions of words written about it - gives us an ever so slight advantage over those making the life and death decisions at the time. Clever us eh?

They did not ignore it - they were fully aware of the problem - however even the merchant ship captains thought that convoys were unworkable as did everyone else!
Providing excuses why convoys were not introduced earlier or providng reasons or rationales they were not introduced is beside the point. The point is up until 1917 the British were losing the economic war. Your points even suggest that without the US the British Admiralty may have had its way, and kicked convoys to the curb for want of available resources etc

Britain was already building replacement ships and making as many destroyers and arming as many suitable ships as possible. The USW massively accelerated the problem. Without it the losses are half and the critical 'tipping' point comes much later at which point the Navy is forced to act by introducing convoys. Losses increased as U-boat numbers increased from 54 to 133 during 1916.
As prevously stated, the increases in Entente shipping losses accelerated in the later half of 1916 and were already unsustainable and trending upward before the USW was introduced. I am curious about you conclusion that Entente shipping losses were not really a problem before 1917. If a tree falls in a forest... ...you still have one less tree.
But the idea that the British would bumble on without doing anything until the USA pointed out that they should start running convoys is risible.
I agree it sounds absurd, like the notion that Germany would somehow have the two strongest financial powers (Britain and France) on the ropes in 1916/17. As previously stated, there were a myriad of slow building systemic problems with the Britsh war effort, each projected to produce crises in 1917. Perhap it is conincidence the British only stated to effectively address those problems effectively when the US entered the war - perhaps not.

Certainly the Turnip Winter of 1916-17 cannot be fully laid at the door of the blockade (lack of Horses, lack of Fertiliser, problems with the internal transport system distributing food and the failure of the Potato crop certainly had an impact) but the blockade had reduced food supplies in the CP by 33% in real terms.
Do you have a reference for that - it sounds like a made up number. As an aside,wartime Germany was not as vulnerable to maritime trade as Britain, but its agriculture was relatively inefficient (i.e. labour intensive), so men in uniform (and not workign the land) was probably another significant systemic burden on German food production.

It's a catch 22 - USW is needed to have any possible chance of winning the war but in doing so any advantage is negated by the the USA and others such as Brazil entering the war on the side of the Entente.
No, that might have been the perception of some, but the reality was the Entente had already running out of financial liquidity and the pre USW shipping losses were unsustainable.
 
As previously stated, by the end of 1916 the British had exhausted its financial liquidity and a President Wilson inspired warning by the Federal Reserve had dried up Entente access to new funding in the US. Without financial liquidity the British would have no means to pay for imports from the US. If the Entente sought supplies from alternative markets those would likely be more expensive and further away. The scarcity of British shipping was not an imminent threat to Britain in late 1916, but it lacked the spare capacity to go roaming further afield to supply the Entente war effort.

How did Britain pay for their own war effort and both finance and subsidise the French and Russian war efforts until April 1917 without any financial liquidity? I understand that France had run dry by late 1916, but as I understand it Britain was still liquid in April 1917.

Oh pulease - neither Tirpitz nor the Kaiser would be prepared to risk frittering away their precious dreadnaughts in the mid Atlantic on raiding adventures.

Tirpitz was the Secretary of the Navy, he held no command position to deploy ships. The Kaiser was the CinC of the KM, but of course he was pretty uninvolved, so the KM (2 major fleets, 2 naval stations, the MarineKorps Flanders and overseas ships) was not really commanded as such.

Also, the mid Atlantic isn't the only profitable hunting ground for an anti-commerce campaign. In 1914 coastal shipping was a crucial element to the British domestic transportation, Admiral Bacon opined that if the Channel was closed to through shipping 1/4 of the population would have to be evacuated.

Putting 2 and 2 together, if the KM was actively commanded by a professional Naval Officer with authority to move resources between fleets and direct operations then surface ships may have been used in the klienkrieg strategy to interdict the Dover straight.
 
The Kriegsmarine did not have warships that were set up for things like commerce raiding. Most of them were relatively short legged (not helped by being coal fired) and the personnel set ups were generally not adequate for long cruises. Going out in to the Atlantic was not something they were designed or planned for. as far as the Channel, to send heavy units in to the Channel means the Home Fleet battle line has to be dealt with first, light forces were based on the Belgian coast and required the rn to keep a large "light" force there.
 
Most of them were relatively short legged (not helped by being coal fired) and the personnel set ups were generally not adequate for long cruises. Going out in to the Atlantic was not something they were designed or planned for.

In 1913–1914 two Kaiser-class ships, Kaiser and König Albert took part in a major overseas tour to South America and South Africa. The cruise was designed to demonstrate German power projection, as well as to test the reliability of the new turbine engines on long-range operations. Both ships had returned to the German bases in the North Sea by the outbreak of World War.
 
As previously stated, by the end of 1916 the British had exhausted its financial liquidity and a President Wilson inspired warning by the Federal Reserve had dried up Entente access to new funding in the US. Without financial liquidity the British would have no means to pay for imports from the US. If the Entente sought supplies from alternative markets those would likely be more expensive and further away. The scarcity of British shipping was not an imminent threat to Britain in late 1916, but it lacked the spare capacity to go roaming further afield to supply the Entente war effort.

In summary, at the end of 1916 the Britain did not have the money to continue existing purchase US supplies, Britain did not have the credit to continue existing purchases of US supplies and Britain did not have the surplus shipping to effectively source those supplies from far further afield - assuming those alternative suppliers were even willing to accept British IOUs...

Even with the US strengthened blockade and the vast US contributions to the Entente war effort, we know the CP powers lasted a further 18 months or more and eliminated Imperial Russia during that time.

The critical factor here was important convoys, which indicates the Admiralty probably recognised the potential advantages of convoys, but did not implement them on a wider scale because it did not feel convoys were an efficient use of limited shipping resources and/or did not believe it had escorts available to effectively protect those convoys against U-Boats.

I have not gone out of my way to praise the German Navy, I merely stated the German Navy outperformed the Royal Navy to the extent they were winning the economic war up until 1917.

Oh pulease - neither Tirpitz nor the Kaiser would be prepared to risk frittering away their precious dreadnaughts in the mid Atlantic on raiding adventures.

Providing excuses why convoys were not introduced earlier or providng reasons or rationales they were not introduced is beside the point. The point is up until 1917 the British were losing the economic war. Your points even suggest that without the US the British Admiralty may have had its way, and kicked convoys to the curb for want of available resources etc

As prevously stated, the increases in Entente shipping losses accelerated in the later half of 1916 and were already unsustainable and trending upward before the USW was introduced. I am curious about you conclusion that Entente shipping losses were not really a problem before 1917. If a tree falls in a forest... ...you still have one less tree.

I agree it sounds absurd, like the notion that Germany would somehow have the two strongest financial powers (Britain and France) on the ropes in 1916/17. As previously stated, there were a myriad of slow building systemic problems with the Britsh war effort, each projected to produce crises in 1917. Perhap it is conincidence the British only stated to effectively address those problems effectively when the US entered the war - perhaps not.

Do you have a reference for that - it sounds like a made up number. As an aside,wartime Germany was not as vulnerable to maritime trade as Britain, but its agriculture was relatively inefficient (i.e. labour intensive), so men in uniform (and not workign the land) was probably another significant systemic burden on German food production.

No, that might have been the perception of some, but the reality was the Entente had already running out of financial liquidity and the pre USW shipping losses were unsustainable.

Again I would like you to back up your claim that the RN was outperformed by the Germans and hapless in WW1 but you continue to use tangental arguments of 'a Russian style' about other things instead so I am going to assume that you have a dislike of the RN and that the comment was a throw away remark.
 
In 1913–1914 two Kaiser-class ships, Kaiser and König Albert took part in a major overseas tour to South America and South Africa. The cruise was designed to demonstrate German power projection, as well as to test the reliability of the new turbine engines on long-range operations. Both ships had returned to the German bases in the North Sea by the outbreak of World War.
Tours that needed ports to replenish in, not very many of those open to CP ships during WW1
 
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