Unrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of
There have been attempts to limit the use of unrestricted naval warfare, with some dating back to before the turn of the 20th Century as an extension of rules for surface raiders. While initially submarines operated successfully by attacking on the surface using
History
Limitations on warfare at sea date back to the
However, the Imperial German navy was heavily criticised internally by high level officials for their relative inactivity at the start of WWI. To boost the role of the navy, and buoyed by early successes of U-boat warfare,
In the most dramatic episode they sank
Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, chief of the Imperial Admiralty staff, argued successfully in early 1917 to resume the attacks and thus starve the British. The German high command realized the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare meant war with the United States but calculated that American mobilization would be too slow to stop a German victory on the Western Front.[6][7] The United States, who were previously neutral, joined the war in favour of the British. The decision made by Germany became one of the "trigger mechanisms" causing the US to enter the war.[8]
After World War I, there was a strong push to construct international rules prohibiting submarine attacks on merchant ships.[1] In 1922 the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France and Italy signed the Washington Treaty on Poison Gas and Submarines, to so restrict the use of submarines as to make them useless as commerce raiders.[9] France did not ratify, so the treaty did not go into effect.
In 1936, states signed the
Interwar prohibitions on unrestricted submarine warfare have been described as being too unspecified, thus leading to disagreements over how to interpret the rules and agreements.[1] For example, it was unclear what differentiated merchant ships from military ships, in particular given that Britain wanted to retain the rights to arm its merchants.[1] Furthermore, it was considered impractical for small submarines to take on the crews of noncombatant ships due to a lack of space.[1] Crews could be placed in emergency boats, but there was disagreement as to how safe that was.[1]
Prior to World War II, 48 states had accepted the prohibitions on unrestricted submarine warfare, including the great power combatants during World War II.[1] However states rapidly abandoned these restrictions: Mostly significantly Germany with War Order No. 154, and the US from the start of the War in the Pacific.[12]
Instances
There have been four major campaigns of unrestricted submarine warfare, one in World War I and three in World War II:
- The U-boat campaign of World War I, waged intermittently by Germany between 1915 and 1918 against Britain and her allies. One of the most infamous acts was on May 7, 1915, when U-boat U-20 deliberately torpedoed the British Cunard luxury liner RMS Lusitania. Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, together with the Zimmermann Telegram, brought American entry into World War Ion the British side.
- The Fascist Italyand the Allies.
- The Baltic Sea Campaigns on the Eastern Front, during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, especially from 1942, it was waged between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, primarily in the Baltic Sea.
- The Pacific War during World War II, between 1941 and 1945, waged between the Allies (especially the US Navy) and the Japanese Empire.
The four cases were attempts to impose a naval blockade on countries, especially those heavily dependent on merchant shipping to supply their war industries and feed their populations (such as Britain and Japan). Of these, the US submarine effort was by far the most successful, working together with mines to reduce the Japanese merchant fleet to less than a quarter its initial tonnage.[13]
See also
- Cruiser rules
- Submarine warfare
- Defensively equipped merchant ship
- Commerce raiding
- Tonnage war
- Arabic pledge
- Sussex pledge
- Tsushima Maru
- War Order No. 154
- Laconia incident
- Laconia Order
- List by death toll of ships sunk by submarines
- Baralong incidents
- Karl Dönitz
- 9 January 1917 German Crown Council meeting
References
- ^ S2CID 154368865.
- ^ Ritter, Gerhard (1972). The Sword and the Scepter vol III: The tragedy of statesmanship. University of Miami Press. pp. 18–19.
- ^ Ritter, pp.119-14
- ^ Eardley, Nick (1 May 2014). "Files show confusion over Lusitania". BBC News. Archived from the original on 30 November 2017.
- ^ Ritter, pp.148-150
- Project MUSE 50680.
- ^ See The Holtzendorff Memo (English translation) with notes Archived 2005-03-09 at the Wayback Machine
- ProQuest 199358222. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
- ^ "Washington Conference | Treaties & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-04-11.
- ^ Holwitt, Joel I. "Execute Against Japan", Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 2005, pp.5-6.
- ^ Holwitt, p.92: quoting Article 22 of the Naval Treaty.
- ^ "The Trial of Admiral Doenitz".
- ^ John Merrill. "World War II: Japan's Disinterest in Merchant Ship Convoying".
Sources
- Ronzitti, Natalino (1988). The Law of Naval Warfare: A Collection of Agreements and Documents With Commentaries. Martinus Nijhoff. ISBN 978-90-247-3652-2.
- Willmott, H. P. (2003). World War I. ISBN 978-0-7894-9627-0.