Chapter 13 - The Military and Political Significance of the U-boat Campaign
OUR fleet was built for the protection of German interests at sea; its object was quite definitely a defensive one. This was proved in its construction; its main strength consisted in battleships and torpedo-boats which were meant exclusively for naval battles. There were so few cruisers that they barely sufficed to scout for a fleet on the move. Both in numbers and in construction they were unfitted to threaten the trade of the enemy; they could not touch English world-trade, because the British Isles formed a barrier in the North Sea. We had no naval bases abroad. Thanks to English policy, in this war a hostile fleet ran little risk in attacking ours, though it was built as a defence against such attacks. England had secured the co-operation of the next strongest land and sea Powers, and could count on the benevolent neutrality of the United States of America, until they, too, sided with our enemies. Nevertheless, England forbore to risk her superior fleet in battle, and her naval policy in the war was confined to this: to cut Germany off from all sup- plies by sea, and to starve her out by withholding food and raw materials.
On October 2, 1914, the British Admiralty published a warning that it had become necessary to lay a large minefield at the entrance of the Channel into the North Sea; this was 1,365 square sea miles in extent. It left free a narrow channel near the English coast, which was only passable within British territorial waters. On November 2, 1914, the whole of the North Sea was declared to be in the War Zone. Any ships which crossed it other than by routes prescribed by the British Admiralty would do so at their own peril, and would be exposed to great danger from the mines laid in these parts and from warships which would search for suspicious craft with the greatest vigilance. This was the declaration made by the British Government. The provisions of the Declaration of London of 1909 had not been ratified by England at the time, and she therefore did not consider herself bound by any international laws which would have made it possible to get articles of trade through neutral countries into blockaded Germany. The result of the measures adopted by the British Government were as follows: