A full two years before
Germany's aggressive naval policy would draw the United States into the war
against them, Kaiser Wilhelm announces an important step in the development of
that policy, proclaiming the North Sea a war zone, in which all merchant ships,
including those from neutral countries, were liable to be sunk without warning.
In widening the boundaries of
naval warfare, Germany was retaliating against the Allies for the
British-imposed blockade of Germany in the North Sea, an important part of
Britain's war strategy aimed at strangling its enemy economically. By war's
end—according to official British counts—the so-called hunger blockade would
take some 770,000 German lives.
The German navy, despite its
attempts to build itself up in the pre-war years, was far inferior in strength
to the peerless British Royal Navy. After resounding defeats of its battle
cruisers, such as that suffered in the Falkland Islands in December 1914,
Germany began to look to its dangerous U-boat submarines as its best hope at
sea. Hermann Bauer, the leader of the German submarine service, had suggested
in October 1914 that the U-boats could be used to attack commerce ships and
raid their cargoes, thus scaring off imports to Britain, including those from
neutral countries. Early the following month, Britain declared the North Sea a
military area, warning neutral countries that areas would be mined and that all
ships must first put into British ports, where they would be searched for
possible supplies bound for Germany, stripped of these, and escorted through
the British minefields. With this intensification of the blockade, Bauer's idea
gained greater support within Germany as the only appropriate response to
Britain's actions.
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Though German Chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and the German Foreign Ministry worried about
angering neutral countries, pressure from naval leaders and anger in the German
press about the British blockade convinced them to go through with the
declaration. On February 4, 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm announced Germany's intention
to sink any and all ships sailing under the flags of Britain, Russia or France
found within British waters.
The Kaiser warned neutral
countries that neither crews nor passengers were safe while traveling within
the designated war zone around the British Isles. If neutral ships chose to
enter British waters after February 18, when the policy went into effect, they
would be doing so at their own risk.
The U.S. government
immediately and strongly protested the war-zone designation, warning Germany
that it would take any steps it might be necessary to take in order to protect
American lives and property.
Subsequently, a rift opened
between Germany's politicians—who didn't want to provoke America's anger—and
its navy, which was determined to use its deadly U-boats to the greatest
possible advantage.
After a German U-boat sank the
British passenger ship Lusitania on May 7, 1915, killing over 1,000
people, including 128 Americans, pressure from the U.S. prompted the German
government to greatly constrain the operation of submarines; U-boat warfare was
completely suspended that September.
Unrestricted submarine warfare
was resumed on February 1, 1917, prompting the U.S., two days later, to break
diplomatic relations with Germany.
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germany-declares-war-zone-around-british-isles
[04.02.2015]
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