Table of Contents
IGCSE History: World War I – Introduction to the War at Sea
Introduction:
Britain had not been forced to fight on her own soil.
- Thus she was not so eager to see Germany pay in the end.
Control of the sea was imperative to both Britain and Germany:
- Both depended on ships to supply them with food and raw materials.
- The British Isles did not produce enough to support themselves.
- The Germans needed to import iron ore and other such supplies.
- Britain also needed to reinforce and supply her troops fighting on the mainland.
- Germany and Britain both needed the sea to communicate with their Empires overseas.
British Fleet:
- This was the strongest fleet.
- Had 29 dreadnoughts; these were anchored at Scapa Flow, which was a protective and sheltered port in the Orkney Islands, and at Cromarty.
- Their battle cruisers were berthed at Rosyth.
- They also had a copy of the German navy codebook; This they found on an officer’s body after his ship, the Magdeburg, was sunk by Russian ships in the Baltic Sea.
- This allowed them to decode intercepted messages and know when German vessels were leaving port.
- They had experienced seamen and had a long naval tradition; They had controlled the seas throughout the 19th century.
German Fleet:
Had only 17 dreadnoughts and was smaller than the British fleet:
- It spent most of its time in its base at Wilhelmshaven.
Was only built up in the 14 years prior to the war in 1900:
- They had no naval tradition.
But the German ships were of superior design:
- They had better armor.
- The armor around British turrets was weak and can be broken with one single shot.
- This was one way to take down the British turrets.
- The armor protecting German turrets meant that they could withstand tremendous punishment before failing.
- At the time shell technology was not very developed and so there was a chance that a shell would fail to explode upon impact. The Germans had better shells which had a higher probability of exploding successfully upon impact.
- German gunners were superior in terms of skill when compared with their British counterparts.
