How important was the war at sea

22/11/01

HISTORY COURSEWORK!

WORLD WAR ONE!

HOW IMPORTANT WAS THE WAR AT SEA?

The main aim of the war at sea for Britain; was to blockade the enemy’s ports to stop them receiving supplies, to protect trade-ships so that the allies could remain supplied, to protect the British colonies overseas and to carry troops to wherever they were needed. Having the control over the sea was extremely important for both Germany and Britain. Even before this war, both sides wanted to get rid of each other. This war was so important because if the ports were to be blockaded, then the country would not be receiving any supplies such as food. This blockade of the food would get people to starve and so this would eventually mean that the war was won.

There were a number of battles on the sea during the World War One. The major sea action of 1916 was the Battle of 31 May, in which the British Grand Fleet clashed with the German High Sea Fleet. The Germans had planned to trap a small amount of British fleets by a very small battle but the British took advantage of that and sent her strong forces. About two hours into the war, the German forces joined in. Although the battle was in itself indecisive, both sides claimed victory: the Germans because they sank more ships than they lost, and the British because the German fleet remained in harbour for the rest of the war. The Germans had failed to remove the blockade and they were the first to retreat. In the long term, the latter effect had far more impact on the war as a whole. In the battle over 250 dreadnoughts clashed. The dreadnoughts were 18000-ton battleships, which were a lot stronger than any other battleships

Allied control of the seas could not guarantee all coasts against German raids, but it did ensure freedom of movement for Allied shipping, and it allowed the Allies to receive supplies from anywhere in the world, while denying the Central Powers access to world markets. All Britain had been planning to do was to cut the Germanys supplies and starve her by withholding food and raw materials. So the British avoided battles but other than that laid mines across the English Channel so Britain was a barrier between the North Sea. Britain had managed to cut the trade to Germany and so allies trading Germany would now trade to Britain. Germany had to go through the Grand Fleet of the British to be able to receive supplies but that was nearly impossible for them. The Germans did have some battles ships but they were not good enough to fight against the British. Germany had to pass Britain and that is when the U-boats came into action.

The British couldn’t do anything to prevent the U-boats getting in to their area. The British trade fell by 75%. The U-boats would attack when they see a ship trading Britain. From 1915, thousands of tons of merchant shipping were attacked and even when the Germans only had 21 U-boats. The British Grand soon left the North Sea unprotected because of the U-boat threat. But Britain soon introduced the Q-ships that looked like merchant ships but as the submarines came to the surface, they had the ability to attack and destroy the submarines before they were destroyed. The U-boats changed the war at sea. The result of the U-boat campaign was that Britain had 6 weeks supply of wheat left in 1917 and millions of tons of shipping was lost. The U-boats also caused huge minefields to be laid in the English Channel and the introducing of the convoy system by Lloyd George. Warships sailed in large numbers with the merchant ships to protect them. The U-boats also sunk the passenger ship, Lusitania, killing 1198 people in 1915. And also the USA joined the war in 1917 because of the U-boat campaign.

There was a lot of improvement in technology at the war at sea.

When the war began, most people expected to be a confrontation between the new Dreadnought battleships.
The submarines became more important features of the war at sea. They were primitive and inefficient but they were also very effective.
The U-boats became very dangerous and they had new weapons such as torpedoes, which were fit in submarines, and they were so good that even the best battleships were hugely damaged by the smallest submarines.
The mine was also a devastatingly effective weapon in the war at sea.
Another tactic was for submarines to lay mines in harbours to catch enemy ships by surprise as they set out to sea.

British totally trusted on their powerful fleet. They doubted that the Germans would be successful at the war at sea. German was scared to have battles, as they knew they would be crushed. Their most successful tactic was the U-boat attack. The U-boats seemed to be an unstoppable force. The Germans sank some American ships, notably famous ship called the Lusitania. This helped to bring the USA into the war against Germany. Britain also did not want battles at sea so threats of the were more common and more important than the actual battles. The war at sea had affected the Home Front and all the other fronts. The sea caused many problems throughout the war.

HOW IMPORTANT WAS THE WAR IN THE AIR?

This war mostly took young men’s attention. They all wanted to learn how to fly and defeat the enemy and be heroes. The most important fact of this war was the improvement in technology. The first planes were only used to watch the troops and look for the weaknesses in the enemy’s lines. The pictures they took were very valuable. They were very dangerous to fly at first but as time passed, the planes got better. Here is an order of how the technology had improved.

Early planes used for reconnaissance were made of wood, canvas and wire. They had no guns, no radio, no parachutes and unprotected cockpit.

Led to:

Fighting planes like the Sopwith Camel and Focker Triplane. But they did not have any bombs at first.

Led to:

Zeppelins were early bombing machines but they were very slow and vulnerable. 1915, 20 raids on England

Led to:

Better ways of preventing the bombing.

Led to:

Better searchlights and anti aircraft guns.

Led to:

Barrage balloons and better bomber aircraft.

Led to:

Better British bombers, which bombed Germany with 500kgm bombs

Led to:

Establishment of aircraft as lethal weapons of war and invention of long distance flight.

Now more information about these developed technologies. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Led to:

Fighting planes like the Sopwith Camel and Focker Triplane. But they did not have any bombs at first.

Led to:

Zeppelins were early bombing machines but they were very slow and vulnerable. 1915, 20 raids on England

Led to:

Better ways of preventing the bombing.

Led to:

Better searchlights and anti aircraft guns.

Led to:

Barrage balloons and better bomber aircraft.

Led to:

Better British bombers, which bombed Germany with 500kgm bombs

Led to:

Establishment of aircraft as lethal weapons of war and invention of long distance flight.

Now more information about these developed technologies. The first planes were named ‘stringbags’ because of the use of external bracing and wires. The first planes that were fitted with proper machineguns was in 1915 and they were made so that they did not shoot their own propeller. In 1918, the planes in Royal Flying Corps and the planes in the navy merged in to form the Royal Air Force. By that time the RAF had over 20,000 planes. The Germans used the Zeppelins for bombing England but England used the balloons mostly for escorting ships and hunting the U-boats. They would watch down to the sea for the submarines and if there was one they would immediately report it to the allies ships around them. There were also new guns invented to fight back the planes from the ground.

There were some people who had killed many enemies and were made heroes.

MANFRED VON RICHTOFEN:

(The Red Baron) shot down 80 enemy planes.

RENE FONCK:
shot down 75 enemy planes.
ALBERT BALL:

Shot down 43 enemy planes.

This war was not as big as the other wars but the planes were very useful at the wars. It was still an important fact of the World War One. It did make some difference. It was actually the first time that the civilians were in so much danger. They would have raids anytime and they wouldn’t be expecting it. There are no major battles in the air but air warfare developed so fast that technology was always getting better. The German navy had been using the airships for spotting the enemy’s position. They were very valuable from this point of view. Airships and aircrafts were among the weapons used by the royal navy to defeat the u-boat offensive. They forced the enemy submarines to submerge, thus making it difficult for them to approach of overtake the convoys. Ships in convoy were also protected by the use of captive balloons. The British used airships mainly for hunting u-boats. They could spot u-boats on the surface and warn the escort ships by radio. The German airships were much more advanced and more widely used. The Zeppelins were a key weapon in the early war at sea. They were able to fly higher and faster than many planes and were used as observation decks for the German fleet.

THE HOME FRONT

The Home Front was a major event in World War One. Britain was simply having the hardest time ever. This was the first major event where British civilians at home were badly affected. At first, when the war had begun, joining the war was voluntary and many men wanted to join the adventure. They all thought that the war would be over by Christmas. They thought that the war would be enjoyable. The recruitment posters were the things that made them think like that. There was already a strong anti-German feeling in the country so all the men wanted to do was just to get rid of them and go home. The newspapers and radios were announcing some regular stories about the Germans to make the people hate them even more. Posters were also put up and this went very successful, half a million signed up at the beginning.

The number of volunteers slowed down by 1915 and the number of casualties lost was so high in the Western Front that the volunteers were all used up. Some important people left their jobs to fight at the war and so some people thought that it was unfair that some men were escaping from military duty. In 1916, the government had to introduce conscription for the first time otherwise there would be a shortage of men in the trenches. The government first said that all single men between the ages 18 and 41 had to fight at the trenches. But they saw that there was not enough so they also made all men that were able to fight between the ages of 18 and 41 enter the war. They would put the people who didn’t believe in fighting into prison or shoot the people who were refusing to fight, as traitors. The government persuaded the women to persuade the men to join the war.

In 1914, DORA (Defence Of The Realm Act) was introduced which gave the British Government new powers during the war. The government could; control drinking hours and the strength of alcohol, enforce rationing, stop people talking about the war or spreading rumours, censor newspapers, takeover vital industries, takeover land and buildings introduce conscription and introduce British summer time to give more daylight working hours. The government also took control of the coal industry so it could be run to support the war effort. The government did not want people top hear what was going on at the battles so the government controlled what the public found out about the war through censorship. In October 1915 the British government announced several measures they believed would reduce alcohol consumption. A No Treating Order laid down that people could not buy alcoholic drinks for other people. Public House opening times were also reduced to 12.00 noon to 2.30 pm and 6.30 to 9.30 pm. Before the law was changed, public houses could open from 5 am in the morning to 12.30 pm at night.

The conscription led to a huge shortage of workers in vital industries, so it was the women who took the jobs after men. At the beginning of the war, the women campaigning for the vote had called a truce, and many women had already been working in factories and as nurses in France etc. Women had jobs like dressmaking, cleaning or worked as servants but the main job was seen as being to raise the children and look after the home before the war. The work force was reorganised, Lloyd George made a deal with the Trade Union to allow unskilled workers and women to take the jobs of absent men until the war ended. This was vital to the munitions industry, which produced weapons for the Western Front. The production increased, and women began to take on other jobs such as working on the railway system. By the end of the war women were doing many jobs, which they had not been allowed to do before. They had jobs like; farm labourers, steel workers, road repairers, bus drivers, gravediggers or ship-builders. After the war there was still a massive shortage of men, and the efforts of women were recognised by government who gave them the right to vote in 1918. But only women who owned a house, or were married to a house owner, were given the right to vote. The role of women in society had changed. Women were very successful with their new jobs. They were as capable and productive as men had been before them. And even in some industries, the men felt very threatened by the women who showed that with very little training they were also able to do the work much better than the men. But after the war, when the men had come back, they wanted their jobs and the women were made to leave the jobs and that was expected. Out of 3000, 2500 wanted to keep their jobs.

There were also many problems in Britain such as the food crisis. The war made it impossible for Britain to import all the food it needed to survive. The was at sea has a lot to do with this and the importing of the food was made worse by the U-boat threat to all shipping around Britain. Lloyd George took a several steps to stop this crisis. Merchant ships travelling with food on their own were easy targets for the U-boats so 25% of the merchant ships bringing supplies to Britain were sunk. The navy introduced the Convoy system, merchant ships travelled in groups with an escort of Royal Navy ships to protect them. This meant that the U-boats could not attack without the risk of being sunk. So the number of sinking of the ships coming into Britain was reduced to 1%. Britain had to start rationing the food. It was voluntary at first, but it soon was mage compulsory for everyone. People were issued with coupons to hand over when they bought certain basic foods and weren’t allowed to have more than their official quota for any week. There was a black market in food but no one was starving.

Britain was effected from all around; the sea, the air and of course the civilians were in real danger. So thing would never be the same again…. 1500 civilians had been killed by enemy attacks, usually from the air. People in Britain now knew that they were no longer safe because they lived on an island protected by a strong navy. Britain’s army was clearly too small. During the war conscription had to be introduced for the first time in Britain because of the extant of the troop loses in the Western front. The 1917 U-boat campaign meant that food supplies had run low. Lloyd George had to reorganise the Food Supply system. Rationing drove the point home to people. Newspapers and films had been censored and gave out propaganda information. But people gradually found out some of the truth about the war, and questioned the leadership. Women had been asked to do the jobs which men traditionally had done; this changed the role of women in Britain and brought many of them the vote. The war effort meant that the development of advanced new technology. This would change life in future. E.g. the improvements in the war in the air and sea; the aeroplanes and U-boats and many chemicals. No war in history ever produced so many casualties; the war had included civilians and soldiers all over the world. This was a total war.

THE WESTERN FRONT

When the war broke out across Europe in 1914, it was greeted with enthusiasm. Everyone was exited and they thought that the war would be over by Christmas with a magnificent victory. The newspapers and magazines filled their minds with images of brave young men charging on horseback or heroic soldiers putting enemy into flight. Europe was gripped by war fever.

As soon as war broke out, Germany’s Shlieffen Plan went into operation. This specified the advance of the most powerful German armies through Belgium, while lighter forces in Alsace and Lorraine fell back if necessary before the French. This would bring the French armies out of their prepared positions, making the heavy blow through Belgium and northern France more dangerous and more difficult to stop. The German aim was to capture Paris and to trap the advancing French armies in the east between the German defences to their front and the successful German armies in their rear. France would quickly be forced to surrender and Germany could deal in turn with Russia, the real object of its war plans. They planned to get to Paris and defeat France within six weeks, so they could send all their troops to fight against Russia.

At first it looked as thought the plan was going to succeed. Germany invaded Belgium on 4 August. Germany expected Belgium to let the German troops walk past their land, but the Belgians put up a heroic resistance from their frontier forts. This did not stop the crushing German advance but slowed them down. Even so the Belgian resistance won them many friends and bought time for British and French troops to mobilise. In 1839 Britain and a number of other European nations had signed the treaty of London, promising to protect Belgium’s neutrality. The invasion of Belgium was enough for Britain to enter the war. So on 4 August Britain declared war on Germany and sent the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to help the Belgians against Germans.

According to the original Shlieffen plan, the German army was supposed to swing around Paris but Von Kluck, the German commander, decided he could not swing around Paris so he advanced straight towards Paris on 5 September. While the Germans advanced on foot, the French were being transported by rail and taxi. At last the British and the French army was able to stop the advancing Germans along the line of River Marne. This battle went on for about a week. On 13 September the Germans had been forced back to the river Aisne. This battle was a sign of a stalemate, which was to come. Neither side could make any progress and by 8 September. Both sides were trying to protect themselves from snipers and shellfire by digging up trenches. This battle was also a turning point of the war and the Shlieffen plan had failed. The entire basis of pre-war German strategy had crumbled; Germany was now committed to a two-front war.

After the failure of their Shlieffen plan the Germans struck hard towards the vital Channel ports: Calais and Boulogne. The British forces, moved up from River Marne, met them before the Belgian town of Ypres. After six weeks fighting Ypres was still Allied hands and the ports were safe. At the battle of Ypres from 16 to 22 November, neither side could break through the lines of each other, as 1914 ended the fighting on the Western Front had reached a stalemate which lasted until 1918. The French army tried to break through the German lines but they were beaten back with heavy losses. The war had become a stalemate because the techniques and the weapons were better suited to defence than to attack. The factories back at the countries were supplying more and more guns which mean even a couple of guns were destroyed, there were still many more behind the lines. As the war developed, both sides tried new tactics to achieve any advance e.g.: artillery, bombardment, poison gas, and tanks.

By September 1915, the British had 1 million troops in the field, while the French had 2 million on a front stretching from Ypres to the Somme. The Allies launched a major offensive from this front, the battle of Champagne, September–October 1915, with the intention of breaking the German lines of communication from east to west. The French made very small net gains while the British took and held Loos. Attacks and counterattacks throughout October produced little progress, and the line gradually stabilized for the winter. Sir John French was replaced as commander of the British Expeditionary Force by Sir Douglas Haig December 1915.

At the start of 1916, the new German commander-in-chief, Erich von Falkenhayn, decided on an offensive against the French fortress at . His main object was a campaign of attrition to wear down the French army, still the mainstay of the war effort of the western Allies. The Germans were to employ a new tactic: powerful but limited attacks would seize the French front line, then immediately dig in while artillery support was brought up. The inevitable French counterattacks could then be decimated by well-supported and dug-in defenders, after which the process could begin again. A short, intense bombardment began 21 February; by far the fiercest bombardment yet experienced, it obliterated the first French lines, broke up the communications trenches, and even altered the shape of the hills. By July 1916 around 700,000 men had fallen. The French army was in crisis even though there were huge losses on both sides.

The next major offensive on the Western Front was the Battle of the 1 July–18 November 1916. This was the offensive for which the British 'New Armies' had been preparing since 1915, the 'Big Push' which would finally break the trench deadlock. A week-long bombardment of the German lines failed to destroy their defences, and the partly trained British troops were cut down as they emerged from their trenches: over 19,000 were killed on the first day. In over four months of some of the bloodiest fighting of the war, the Allies gained barely 13 km/8 mi at a cost of about 1.25 million men Certainly the battle of Somme seemed to be a military disaster. However, there were some important consequences. The British had used some new weapons and infantry and artillery tactics. The battle is also notable as the first in which tanks were used.

At the outbreak of the war, there had been much sympathy for Germany in the USA, compounded by the British maritime policy, which interfered with US shipping. In the early months of 1915, Germany introduced new guidelines for U-boat (submarine) attacks and warned the USA that neutral ships might be sunk. The full implication of this was brought home to the US public by the sinking of the liner Lusitania 7 May 1915 with the loss of 1,200 lives, including US citizens; the outcry was such that Germany suspended its U-boat campaign. Of the great powers in the world, only one remained outside the conflict by 1915; United States. There was little fear that the US would enter the conflict, if they did so at all, on the German side. But if America could be brought into the war in support of the Allies, it could make all the difference. On 13 January 1917 the German government announced that all sea traffic within sea areas adjoining Britain, France, and Italy, and in the eastern Mediterranean, would 'without further notice be prevented by all weapons', a return to unrestricted submarine warfare. This was finally too much even for the President Woodrow Wilson and diplomatic relations with Germany were severed 3 February. When German submarines sank six US vessels shortly after there was no chance of the US remaining neutral. War was formally declared 1 April. The entry of the USA into the war was of immediate economic and industrial value to the Allies, although no considerable contingent of US troops could be sent to Europe for many months.

By 1918, Germany was being weakened. The Allies’ blockade of German ports had starved the economy of raw materials and the population of food. Worse still, the Allies were receiving help from the U.S. Germany needed a quick victory and surrender of Russia gave the Germans one last opportunity to achieve this. That shows the war at sea affected the final outcome of the war more then the Western Front. Through the early months of 1918 Germany transferred troops from the East to the Western Front. In March 1918 the German commander Ludendorff launched the Great gamble to win the war. It was started with the typical huge bombardment and gas attacks. However, instead of the usual ‘wave’ of infantry, it followed up by smaller bands of specially trained and lightly equipped ‘storm troops’. The idea behind this was to stop the allies from building up their defences in one place. The offensive had gone very well for Germany. However, the allies strategically retreated stretched the German army too far. By this time the German army was heavily depleted and the poorly disciplined and badly fed troops were lagging behind to loot captured trenches and villages to gain supplies. This delayed many of the planned German advances and made them ineffective. The Germans had ended trench warfare but it was the Allies who reaped the benefit. By this stage of the war, the allies had large numbers of well-fed and well-equipped troops, which were supported by improved tanks and aircraft. The help from America had increased and troops were arriving every week. Between May and August the Germans made no further progress and it was only a matter of time before the Allies defeated Germany. On 8 August the allies counter-attacked along much of the Western Front. By late September they had reached the Hindenburgh Line and by October the Germans were in full retreat. On 11 November 1918 the Armistice came into effect and the Great War was over.

So the Western Front had played a vital role in the war but the outcome of the war would have been very affective if Germany succeeded in the Western Front. During the Western Front one of the main things were the developments in technology and the way that the trenches were dug. Therefore the Western Front was vital in the way that it changed the way countries fought.

War at sea was successful while Britain was blocking German navy, this helped Britain take the control of the seas therefore she could support Western Front and Home Front. The War at sea was equally balanced in both sides. It would be a great advantage for one side to get the control of the seas. The battle of Jutland (the major battle in the sea 31 May 1916) did not have a significant effect to the outcome of the war, because there was not actually a victory maintained by either side. However, if there was a victory then one side would get a great advantage of seas which would also led that side, win the war. The war at sea could define the outcome of the war if one side had the strength to blockade or cancel out the other whereas during the war both sides cancel out each other. The entrance of America (result of U-boat campaign) titled the balance towards Britain therefore was significant to the outcome of the war as Britain gained victory with American help.

The War in the air did not have a significant role to play in the outcome of the war compared with the war at sea. At the beginning, the planes were so simple that they were used for reconnaissance, although they were far more useful then that. (E.g. the Battle of Marne) During the war each side attempted to gain the technological advantage, but the only thing they did was to cancel each other out. Overall, World War 1 did more for the development of the planes then the planes did for the war. Despite this, however, the planes did remove the stalemate in the war and both boosted and lowered the morale. The planes, especially Zeppelins, were effective in the Home front as they lowered the morale, which Home front needed to look after and feed the other fronts.

The Home Front was very important to the outcome of the war because it gave people the morale to fight on, both at Home and on Western Front. The Home Front was also important because it gave the support needed to troops. The Home Front kept the morale up at home as it gave women occupations, independence, and a chance to help the war effort on Western Front. It was also important that keeping moral up as it supplied letters, munitions, and new troops. Government aided this by using propaganda, press coverage, and censorship. The Home Front helped the war at sea by introducing rationing, which helped them to cope with German U-boat attacks. It was aiming to reduce the dependence on these ships for that the Women’s Land Army encouraged people to use all available land to grow food. The Home Front also helped to develop the new aircraft and weapons.

In my opinion the Home Front had the most significant impact on the outcome of the war by helping Britain in all the Fronts and keeping Britain’s morale up to fight on. However, the Western front mainly contained the German actions, which could change the outcome of the war if they had succeeded.

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