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Authors: Stephen Budiansky
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visibility)—Germany again promised to adhere to prize regulations, but added that it would feel perfectly justified in unleashing the U-boats to carry out unrestricted attacks without warning:
In self-defense against the illegal conduct of British warfare, while fighting a bitter struggle for her national existence, Germany had to resort to the hard but effective weapon of submarine warfare. As matters stand, the German Government cannot but reiterate its regret that the sentiments of humanity which the Government of the United States extends with such fervor to the unhappy victims of submarine warfare are not extended with the same warmth of feeling to the many millions of women and children who, according to the avowed intentions of the British Government, shall be starved. 17
The U-boat campaign held an appeal for the German populace that went beyond retaliation for their suffering. It also was one of the few fronts left in this war of “brutish mutual extermination”—the air was the other—where individual heroes could still come forth and fire the public imagination. The U-boat crews were seen as daring young champions, venturing into a dangerous new realm where they pitted their dash and wit against theenemy. Successful U-boat captains had their portraits taken by the official court photographer and were presented with the Iron Cross, or the even more coveted Pour le Mérite, by the Kaiser himself. Commanded usually by a Kapitänleutnant, the equivalent of a full lieutenant in the British or American navies, the U-boats offered a rare opportunity for an ambitious junior officer to distinguish himself.
The U-boat service was like the glamorous new air service in another way: it offered an excellent opportunity for an early death. Antisubmarine warfare was in its infancy; only in 1916 did the British navy begin to acquire depth charges and hydrophones that could pick up the sound of a U-boat’s propeller underwater, and even then supplies were short and effectiveness distinctly limited. Still, U-boats continuously fell prey to accidents, mines, and the simple but deadly countermeasure of ramming by destroyers or other warships that chanced to catch one on the surface. By the end of the war almost exactly half of the approximately 370 German submarines that had ventured to sea during the war had been sunk, taking 6,000 men to their deaths.
Throughout the fall of 1916 a barrage of studies and official memoranda from the German army and navy staffs kept up a drumbeat of arguments in favor of resuming all-out war on British shipping. General Erich Ludendorff, who with Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg now effectively headed the army high command, contemptuously dismissed the American threat as empty saber rattling; the Americans had only a small professional army and the transports that would carry their troops across the Atlantic if they sought to join the fight could be easily dispatched by the U-boat fleet. The German naval staff in late December produced a study concluding that if the U-boats could sink 600,000 tons of British shipping a month, “we can force England to make peace in five months.” The unrestricted U-boat campaign was not only “the right means” to achieve victory, “it is only means to that end.” 18 Anticipating that it was now only a matter of time before the U-boats would be allowed to slip their leash, the navy stepped up construction and training. By the beginning of 1917, 120 oceangoing boats were in service and young officers were being rushed through an intensive three-month course at the German navy’s U-School to prepare them for their new role.
OBERLEUTNANT ZUR SEE KARL DÖNITZ was one of them. In background and upbringing, he was strikingly similar to Patrick Blackett. Dönitzwas six years older, but because German naval cadets entered at age eighteen he had become a naval cadet the same year as Blackett, 1910. Dönitz’s family had been small farmers, pastors, scholars,
In self-defense against the illegal conduct of British warfare, while fighting a bitter struggle for her national existence, Germany had to resort to the hard but effective weapon of submarine warfare. As matters stand, the German Government cannot but reiterate its regret that the sentiments of humanity which the Government of the United States extends with such fervor to the unhappy victims of submarine warfare are not extended with the same warmth of feeling to the many millions of women and children who, according to the avowed intentions of the British Government, shall be starved. 17
The U-boat campaign held an appeal for the German populace that went beyond retaliation for their suffering. It also was one of the few fronts left in this war of “brutish mutual extermination”—the air was the other—where individual heroes could still come forth and fire the public imagination. The U-boat crews were seen as daring young champions, venturing into a dangerous new realm where they pitted their dash and wit against theenemy. Successful U-boat captains had their portraits taken by the official court photographer and were presented with the Iron Cross, or the even more coveted Pour le Mérite, by the Kaiser himself. Commanded usually by a Kapitänleutnant, the equivalent of a full lieutenant in the British or American navies, the U-boats offered a rare opportunity for an ambitious junior officer to distinguish himself.
The U-boat service was like the glamorous new air service in another way: it offered an excellent opportunity for an early death. Antisubmarine warfare was in its infancy; only in 1916 did the British navy begin to acquire depth charges and hydrophones that could pick up the sound of a U-boat’s propeller underwater, and even then supplies were short and effectiveness distinctly limited. Still, U-boats continuously fell prey to accidents, mines, and the simple but deadly countermeasure of ramming by destroyers or other warships that chanced to catch one on the surface. By the end of the war almost exactly half of the approximately 370 German submarines that had ventured to sea during the war had been sunk, taking 6,000 men to their deaths.
Throughout the fall of 1916 a barrage of studies and official memoranda from the German army and navy staffs kept up a drumbeat of arguments in favor of resuming all-out war on British shipping. General Erich Ludendorff, who with Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg now effectively headed the army high command, contemptuously dismissed the American threat as empty saber rattling; the Americans had only a small professional army and the transports that would carry their troops across the Atlantic if they sought to join the fight could be easily dispatched by the U-boat fleet. The German naval staff in late December produced a study concluding that if the U-boats could sink 600,000 tons of British shipping a month, “we can force England to make peace in five months.” The unrestricted U-boat campaign was not only “the right means” to achieve victory, “it is only means to that end.” 18 Anticipating that it was now only a matter of time before the U-boats would be allowed to slip their leash, the navy stepped up construction and training. By the beginning of 1917, 120 oceangoing boats were in service and young officers were being rushed through an intensive three-month course at the German navy’s U-School to prepare them for their new role.
OBERLEUTNANT ZUR SEE KARL DÖNITZ was one of them. In background and upbringing, he was strikingly similar to Patrick Blackett. Dönitzwas six years older, but because German naval cadets entered at age eighteen he had become a naval cadet the same year as Blackett, 1910. Dönitz’s family had been small farmers, pastors, scholars,
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