THE SUBMARINES OF WORLD WAR ONE
Since the beginning of the twentieth century submarines have had a great influence on naval warfare. Germany first used them in World War One. Submarines have gotten a reputation of being sinister, other than just being used to fight in wars they frightened most of the world in the Cold War when the Soviet Union built an impressive post war fleet.In World War One, the Germans had around twenty submarines (called U-BOATS in German for Fuhrer der Uterseeboote) in the high seas fleet. On August 6th, 1914, some submarines were sent out to attack the British Grand Fleet at Scappa Flow. Some of these ships sunk while many others fled the battlefield due to engine troubles. Despite their difficulties they did manage to sink the British cruiser, the HMS Birmingham while it was positioning for an attack.
A U35 crosses paths with another U-BOAT In September of 1914, U-BOATS successfully attacked the British cruiser HMS Patchfinder (which weighed about three thousand tons) with the first torpedo fired by a submarine in world war one. Days later, the fleet of U-BOATS also sunk three cruisers off of the Netherlands in about and hour and fifteen minutes. They were the HMS Aboukir, Houge, and Cressy (each weighed about twelve thousand tons). This was an impressive victory, one for which the whole crew were awarded the Iron Cross, appointed by the German Emperor.
In 1914, Admiral Hugo Von Phol submitted a memorandum to the German chancellor asking for a blockade using U-BOATS to respond to the British blockade. By the end of the year the German submarines had sank eight warships and ten merchant ships, only loosing five submarines.
A sinking ship named "The Karonga" In April of 1915, a U-BOAT called the SMU-V hit a French cruiser called Leon Gambetta with two torpedos. This was the first ever submarine night time attack. It showed how vital Austrian help was to Germany. The French cruiser and 648/821 crew sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.
Near the end of the war the arrival of the American and British blockade eventually made Germany loose the war. The unrestricted U-BOAT warfare was called off after the Germans abandoned their bases in Belgium.
The many attacks of a U-BOAT The Austrian submarine force has a great record of 79 attacks which hit 90% of the time. But, then the Austro-Hungarian navy had to be given to Yugoslavians. The Yugoslavians and the Imperial Austro-Hungarian navy didn't exist by the end of the war.
The final boat destroyed in warfar was the British battleship called the HMS Britannia. The overall damage done by submarines in World War One was alot. Around five thousand ships had been sunk and around fifteen thousand lives had been lost had been lost out at sea. Only one can imagine how the German engineers made the most amazing and damaging warships at the time without the assitance of any computers or modern technology.
A School Link Article done by Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School
Contact the authors: Ian Morrison, Shawn O’Neill, Vadim Mintz, Ryan MacKay
