BlondieBC
Banned
The British still have assets and faith in the Empire to morgage for credit to hire out forgein shipping to bring in imports that early if, again, they're willing to handle their ledgers creatively. Cripples them in the longer term if the Sterling loses faith as a reserve currency and unit of value by playing fast and loose with the gold standard, but better than losing a major international war that leaves a hegemonic Germany with a chip on their shoulder as far as Whitehall is concerned.
We also need to be fair and realize a major shift in the u-boat effectiveness (the build program shift, if nothing else) will require time for German good descisions and British poor decisions to compound. So you likely don't see a major swing until mid-1915 or so, at which point the British still have a brain and make efforts to stem the loses even if they aren't effective or without drawbacks. With only realistic levels of huberius and bad judgement, I'd say Britain can hold out until very early 1918 before the pressure goes so high she's be truely starved into submission, though things will be bad by 1917 and I imagine Brest-Litovisk negotations of an equivalent will be used by the Western Entente to seek a general peace. That way, they can leverage concessions in the East to try to salvage better terms for themselves.
Yea, that is why I tend to start with POD's 5-15 years before the war. If you start with a September 1, 1914 POD of "lets do merchant warfare right", it is probably mid 1915 to early 1916 before I have all the kinks worked out. The impact will be at Verdun and Somme as the UK forces deal with substantially lower supplies than OTL. Winter 15/16 is not fun, but it is basically the German 15/16 food levels. Then depending on how effective the blockade, the UK might not break until 1918 on food. I have a strong belief that the first big impact show up on the battlefield in things like less artillery ammo, less machine guns, etc.
And we often talk about effectiveness. Big difference in 10% more effective U-boats versus 100%. Very POD specific outcomes