IGCSE History

• Home
• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
    • Immigration
    • Henry Ford and mass production
    • Farming in the 1920s
    • The Stock Market Boom
  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
    • The Depression
    • The policies of Hoover
    • Roosevelt and the New Deal
    • Reactions to the New Deal
• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
    • The Foundation of the League of Nations
    • Strengths and weaknesses of the League of Nations
    • Successes and failures of the League of Nations
    • Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
    • The Disarmament Conference
    • Abyssinia
    • Hitler and the League
    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
    • China under Mao
    • Reform under Liu and Deng
    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
    • The impact of the Cultural Revolution
    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
    • China under Deng Xiaoping
    • Reforms of the economy
    • The Democracy Movement
    • China in the 1990s
• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
  • Indo-China
    • The end of the French Empire
    • Vietnam 1954 - 1965
    • US involvement in Vietnam
    • The unification of Vietnam
    • Laos and Cambodia
  • South-East Asia
    • The struggle for control of Malaya
    • The creation of Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Suharto and Indonesia
    • Sukarno and Pancasila
• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
  • The War at Sea
  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Advertising and consumerism
  • New forms of entertainment
  • Prohibition
  • Gangsterism
  • Hollywood
• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

The war at sea

When war broke out in 1914 the Royal Navy expected that there would be a major battle with the German High Seas Fleet. In fact the first two years were spent chasing German raiders and eliminating Von Spee's squadron at the Falkland Islands. The only action in home waters was between battle-cruisers at Dogger Bank in 1915.

The Germans began submarine warfare in 1915, but stopped after the protests from the USA over the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915. This was a passenger liner that was sunk with the loss of 1,400 lives. It was carrying contraband (war goods), which had been falsely entered in the ship’s records.

In fact there was only one major sea battle during the First World War, at Jutland in May 1916. The result was indecisive. In a dense fog, the British fleet found itself between the German ships and the German coast, but failed to press home its advantage. Although the Royal Navy lost twice as many ships as the Germans and twice as many men, it was the German High Seas Fleet that broke off the action and returned to port. It never left port again.

That meant that from 1916 the Royal Navy controlled the seas. It now fulfilled two functions. It blockaded Germany and prevented vital supplies from getting through, and from 1917 it began to escort convoys across the Atlantic. This role ensured that Britain received the supplies it needed.

The failure of the German High Seas Fleet was one reason for the beginning of unrestricted U-Boat warfare at the end of 1916. With the failure of the battle of Verdun and the Allies increasingly on the offensive, the Germans attempted to starve Britain by sinking merchant ships as they sailed across the Atlantic. In April 1917 more than 875,000 tonnes of shipping was sunk. This immediately changed naval strategy. From May 1917, David Lloyd George, the prime minister ordered the Admiralty to supply escorts for convoys sailing across the Atlantic. The Admiralty resisted Lloyd George, it did not want its ships tied to merchantmen, when they could be on the lookout for the High Seas Fleet. But Lloyd George forced the navy to give way and by October 1917 the Germans had lost more than 50 submarines and the danger was over.

At the same time the Royal Navy began to exert a stranglehold on Germany. Imports were cut and this led to severe shortages of food and other essential goods. Rationing was introduced and by mid-1918 many Germans were going hungry. More significant was the fact that war materials were in short supply. The allied blockade played a key role in the final defeat of Germany in 1918.

• The Schlieffen Plan
• Deadlock on the Western Front
• Gallipoli
• The Somme and Passchendaele
• The War at Sea
• The defeat of Germany

links