Allen L. Churchill

THE WAR ZONE

The war on the seas, with the long-expected battle between the fleets of the great nations, developed during the second six months of the war into a strange series of adventures. The fleets of the British and the Germans stood like huge phantoms—the first enshrouded in mystery somewhere in the Irish and North Seas; the second held in leash behind the Kiel Canal, awaiting the opportune moment to make its escape.

These tense, waiting days were broken by sensational and spectacular incidents—not so much through the sea fights of great modern warships as through the adventures of the raiders on the seven seas, the exploits of the submarines, and the daring attempt of the allied fleets to batter down the mighty forts in the Dardanelles and bombard their way toward Constantinople—the coveted stronghold of the Ottoman Empire. The several phases of these naval operations are described in special chapters in this volume, therefore We will now confine ourselves to the general naval developments.

In the spring of 1915 the threat made by Admiral von Tirpitz that Germany would carry on war against British and allied shipping by sinking their vessels with submarines, was made effective. The submersible craft began to appear on all the coasts of the British Isles. It infested the Irish Sea to such an extent that shipping between England and Ireland was seriously menaced.

A particularly daring raid took place on the night of February 1, 1915, when a number of submarines tried to scuttle ships lying at Dover. The attack failed, but drew fire from the guns of the fort here.[1]

On the 5th of February, 1915, the German Naval Staff announced that beginning February 18, 1915, the waters around Great Britain would be considered a "war zone." This was in retaliation for the blockade maintained against Germany by the British navy. The proclamation read as follows:

"The waters round Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole of the English Channel, are herewith proclaimed a war region.

"On and after February 18, 1915, every enemy merchant vessel found in this war region will be destroyed without its always being possible to warn the crew or passengers of the dangers threatening.

"Neutral ships will also incur danger in the war region, where, in view of the misuse of the neutral flags ordered by the British Government and incidents inevitable in sea warfare, attacks intended for hostile ships may affect neutral ships also.

"The sea passage to the north of the Shetland Islands and the eastern region of the North Sea in a zone of at least thirty miles along the Netherlands coast is not menaced by any danger.

(Signed) Berlin, February 4, 1915, Chief of Naval Staff,
Von Pohl."

The effect of this proclamation, which was in truth nothing more than official sanction for the work that the submarines had been doing for some weeks, and which they continued to do, was to bring Germany into diplomatic controversy with neutral countries, particularly the United States; such controversy is taken up in a different chapter of this history. In connection with the naval history of the Great War it suffices to say that such a proclamation constituted a precedent in naval history. The submarine had heretofore been an untried form of war craft. The rule had formerly been that a merchantman stopped by an enemy's warship was subject to search and seizure, and, if it offered no resistance, was taken to one of the enemy's ports as a prize. If it offered resistance it might be summarily sunk. But it was impossible for submarines to take ships into port on account of the patrols of allied warships; and the limited quarters of submarines made it impossible to take aboard them the crews of ships which they sank.

Reference made to the use of neutral flags quoted in the German proclamation had been induced by the fact that certain of the British merchant ships, after Germany had begun to send them to the bottom whenever one of its submarines caught up with them had gone through the waters where the submarines operated flying the flag of the United States and other neutral powers in order to deceive the commanders of the submarines. The latter had little time to do more than take a brief observation of merchantmen which they sank, and one of the first things they sought was the nationality of the flag that the intended victims carried; unless they could be sure of the identity of a ship through familiarity with the lines of her hull, they ran the risk, in attacking a ship flying a neutral flag, of sinking a vessel belonging to a neutral power.

Here was another matter that opened up diplomatic exchanges between Germany and the United States, and between the United States and England. It suffices here to give not only the controversy or the points involved, but the record of events. The first use of the flag of a neutral country by a ship belonging to one of the belligerents in the Great War occurred on January 31, 1915, when the Cunard liner Orduna carried the American flag at her forepeak in journeying from Liverpool to Queenstown. She again did so on February 1, 1915, when she left the latter port for New York. And another notable instance was on February 11, 1915, when the Lusitania, another Cunard liner, arrived at Liverpool flying the American flag in obedience to orders issued by the British admiralty. It was only the prominence of these vessels which gave them notoriety in this regard; the same practice was indulged in by many smaller ships.

"What will happen after the 18th?" was the one important question asked during February, 1915, by the public of the neutral as well as belligerent countries. February 18, 1915, arrived and saw Von Pohl's proclamation go into effect, and from that date onward the toll of ships sunk, both of neutral and belligerent countries, grew longer daily.

But before the German submarines could begin the new campaign, those of the British navy became active, and it was admitted in Berlin on February 15, 1915, that British submarines had made their way into the Baltic, through the sound between Sweden and Denmark, where they attacked the German cruiser Gazelle unsuccessfully.

Nor was the British navy inactive in other ways, though it had been greatly discredited by the fact that the German submarines were playing havoc with British shipping right at England's door. A fleet of two battleships and several cruisers drew up off Westende and bombarded the German trenches on the 4th of February, 1915.

Only one day after the war-zone proclamation went into effect the Allies brought out their trump card for the spring of 1915.[Back to Contents]