THE U-BOAT WAR

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 196, 14 May 1920, Page 7

THE U-BOAT WAR

FAILURE ADMITTED NEW' FACTS AND FIGURES Unrestricted U-boat warfare was instituted on February 1, 1917, on the strength of a German Admiralty "pledge" that England would thereby be brought to her knees within six months. The causes and effects of the failure of this policy were recently examined by a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry sitting in Berlin, and the official reports of the evidence before the Committee shed new light upon this phase of the Groat War. V ■ Admiral von Capelle, who was Secretary for the Navy from March, 1916, until September, 1918, stated in evidenco that in the autumn of 1917, as soon as it became apparent that England could not be brought low within the specified period, ho established the U-boat Office as a separate section of the Navy De- • partment. Vice-Admiral Bitter von Mann was placed at the head of the Submarine Office. Thenceforward the requirements of the new office 'wero treated i as paramount. : "Everything also .Went to the wall." Admiral Capelle informed the Committee, that, from, first'to last (including 1 all erder3 both before and during,the war),' the Admiralty had placed contracts for 810 U-boats. Of this total Admiral von • T'rpitz had ordered 45 before the war and 186 during the war, while Capelle himself had ordered 579. ..The actual distribution of U-boat orders during, his teem of office was:—9o during the last; nine months of 1916, 269 during 1917, and 220 during tho-first nine months of 1918. The U-boat tonnage on order averaged, according to another expert, about 4000 tons- a month under Admiral Tirpitz and abnut 14,000 under Admiral Capelle. i-'he Committee' was anxious to ascertain why there had been no speeding up of U-boat construction during the nine ; *r ten months immediately preceding the proclamation of unrestricted submarine warfare in February, 1917. Admiral Capelle pleaded, in the first place, that the policy of the Imperial Government dur- ; ing 1916 was essentially one of marking time; second, that the urgent task of repairing, tho damage"suffered' by the German Fleet in the Jutland battle imposed a heavy additional strain upon tho dockyards; and, third, that the extensive mine-laying operations undertaken by tho British in the North Sea during 1916 rendered imperative tho construction of large nUmbers of 'mine-sweepers. " Evidence was also given by Admiral Koch, formerly Deputy-Chief of Staff Tinder the lato Admiral von. Holtzendorif, the aiithor of the -"six months" pledge. According to Admiral Koch.' all that the ■ German Naval' Staff really hoped to do was to bring England to a frame of mind in which she would be ready to make peace., Ho admitted, however, that not oven this more modest expectation had been fulfilled.' The U-boats, \ui his opinion, had not been at fault. They had done all that had been asked of-them. He suggested thai tho error . in the calculations of tho German naval authorities might be attributed to an iff perfect estimate of British endurance on tho part of the German economic experts who had been called in by the JNavy. Tenacity was notoriously characteristic .of., the, British "sporting Spirit." , In the further course of his evidence Admiral Koch put in the following official return for tho first nine months of the unrestricted submarine campaign:— 1M „ Active Tonnage U-boat 1917. U-boats sunk. ' losses. February 103 781,500 '- 2 ■"•arch „. i2i . 885,000 G April 121 1,091,000 ; 2 May 128 869,000 '7 Juno 131 1,010,000 3 J , ulv •• - 130 -■ 811,000 7 August ............ 123 -808,000 ' 4 September. 132 872,000 9 October -13-1 ; . 874,000 9 v . As the. Admiralty Staff has been dissolved, Admiral Koch experienced some d'mculty m producing oven this brief •summary. But he did not make it clear why his information stopped short at Aw , month. ■of October. It may have L?,'..?, tllß Ivas not over-anxious to the irrestible increase 1 of U-boat losses in excess of Admiralty expectations that resulted from British countermeasures. • • / i ■ Admiral Capelle was reminded by the Committee that on January 1, 1917, he himself had confidentially informed the iteichstag .that the German naval authorities were .prepared to make : allowance for more intensive British counteraction to the extent of estimating TWboat losses for the future at' an . average of 'two or three per month instead of, as hitherto, at about 1-J per month. Nevertheless already in.the following May, eeyen U-boats were returned as lost. Ad-' miral Capelle wtis bound to admit that, m the event, British counter-measures . caused heavier losses than had originally been contemplated, and that the Germmi A aval authorities had been disappointed m their expectation that.it would bo possible to maintain tho rate of loss as in 191 C, at one-ciuarter of the monthly : average of new construction, Admiral Koch was further invited to explain- how.it came about that, if the U-boats had not m-themselves been' a lailure, only a single transport conveying American troops to France had been Bunk by submarine agency. What he was asked, were the specific British devices for. combo ting the U-boats ? - Ad-miral-Koch declined to commit himself beyond expressing the opinion that the success of British .counter-measures was due chiefly to now technical inventions, such as listening ships, and to the fast surface craft that compelled tho'U-boats .to remain almost continuously $übmerged. The convoy system and the continual alteration of routes for shipping had likewise played andmportant part! . Notwithstanding correspondingly heavier losses, the U-boats never relaxed their efforts. vOii the vexed question of U-boat "effectives, . Admiral Capelle stated that from February to June, 1917, the following were respectively tho lowest and ' highest numbers of U-boats at sea during each month:— .'..,•• Minimum. Maximum. February M W - March 32 'fl ' < April „„.. 39 58 : ' ; . May '% 58 June ;. 49 CG .™l°n A^ ira -!, Capelle's submarine experts Captain Bartenbach.. added the information that for tho whole nineteen months of the unrestricted campaign the average of active U-boats was W per month and the number of U-boats actually at sea averaged 47 per month. W w . M ,,P° mt «l .?«t by various mem*,?l % \ % that on the fate1917, the Admirally had at. its disposal only some 20 U-boats ready to take the s»a. Doubts were expressed as to whether it wan . timely to declare unrestricted U-bonfc wariaro on so narrow a marjrin. Admiral Capelle. replied Hint Sir Arthur Connn JJoyle.-in a masterly trentisn written before the war, discussed the chances of a submarine campaign against England with only eight boats. The. former Secretary for the Nav. T recalled liK own first speech before' the Bmlspt Committee of the Roiohsmg on . March 28. 1910. when he explained that the decisive U-boat, theatres were the northern and southern entrances to the "11 V,i an< * * 110 wefJ fern entrance to .the Channel. These, ho repeated, wero the highways of the world's traffic. The • initial Admiralty plan had been to divide these waters-into three uatrol areas, and to station one U-bont permanently ' n each area. Experience had shown that (reckoning the duration of encli expedition ' nt one month) about one-third of the time was spent on the voyage out. one ; third on the station, and one-third again on the voyatre home. A continuous cycle of three boats for each station had therefore to be maintained. With an average additional allowance for each station of two boats in dock, five boats in all had to be assigned to each station A total number of 15 boats-was therefore required for the three decisive- sta tions. He accordingly considered ' that the German naval authorities wore amply warranted in embarkiim on the unrc ■ stricted campaign with 20 boats.