Blockade of Germany

The Blockade of Germany, or the Blockade of Europe, occurred from 1914 to 1919. The prolonged naval blockade was conducted by the Allies during and after World War I in an effort to restrict the maritime supply of goods to the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The blockade is considered one of the key elements in the eventual Allied victory in the war. The German Board of Public Health in December 1918 claimed that 763,000 German civilians had already died from starvation and disease, caused by the blockade. An academic study done in 1928 put the death toll at 424,000. An additional 100,000 people may have died during the post-armistice continuation of the blockade in 1919. Both Germany and the United Kingdom relied heavily on imports to feed their population and supply their war industry. Imports of foodstuffs and war materiel of European belligerents came primarily from the Americas and had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, which made Britain and Germany aim to blockade each other. The British had the Royal Navy, which was superior in numbers and could operate throughout the British Empire, but the German Kaiserliche Marine surface fleet was mainly restricted to the German Bight, and it used commerce raiders and unrestricted submarine warfare elsewhere. The Nazis drew on the experiences of World War I in order to avoid a repeat of 1918. One of their conclusions was the importance of securing food supplies for the German home front. Prior to World War I, a series of conferences were held at Whitehall in 1905–1906 concerning military co-operation with France in the event of a war with Germany. The Director of Naval Intelligence, Charles Ottley, asserted that two of the Royal Navy's functions in such a war would be the capture of German commercial shipping and the blockade of German ports. A blockade was considered useful for two reasons: it could force the enemy's fleet to fight, and it could act as an economic weapon to destroy German commerce.