(Ask for a subscription!) Ask for a ticket! ）

A German submarine U27 forced a merchant ship to stop, and before it could be sunk, an American-flagged ship named Balalon came in the distance.

The Balalon signaled to both warring parties that we were willing to take in the crew of the ship.

The Germans let their guard down, but when the Balalon approached, the American flag was lowered and the British flag was raised, and the U27 was quickly sunk with cannon.

The people on the merchant ship, which had been stopped by German submarines, couldn't stand it, they felt that it had gone too far.

When they returned, they made such a matter public to the newspaper.

When the news reached Germany, the secret of the Q ship was finally revealed, and Wilhelm II was shocked.

On 9 January 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered the German Navy to begin unrestricted submarine warfare in full force from 1 February 1917, that is, German submarines could sink any ship bound for British waters at will without prior warning.

No matter what flag these ships were flying, they were inevitably sunk by German submarines.

The maritime struggle of the First World War entered a new phase in its never-before-seen form.

After the outbreak of unrestricted submarine warfare, German submarine ships attacked everywhere, most of the warships of the Entente countries were unable to defend themselves, and ordinary merchant ships were even more vulnerable.

Unrestricted submarine warfare allowed these killers, independent of surface ships, to turn German submarines into a feared proper noun.

However, Wilhelm II's unrestricted submarine warfare was not just because of the British Q-ship tactics, but for other and more important reasons.

In fact, not long after the start of the war, Germany used a lot of manpower, financial and material resources to develop submarines.

Since 1914, the number of German submarines has increased several times per year.

The well-known German company Krupp Steel continuously supplies the highest quality steel for the construction of German submarines.

The German Navy has also established a mature submarine combat system in actual combat.

Since the start of the war in August 1914, some potential of German submarines has been shown in front of some discerning generals.

The most famous of these generals was German Field Marshal Alfred von Tirpitz.

Tirpitz was a man of great courage.

Before the start of the first station, he proposed a plan to expand the German naval fleet, and his personal relationship with Wilhelm II was good.

Wilhelm II wanted to vigorously develop the navy, he also wanted to vigorously develop the navy, and he also made Wilhelm II's intentions so concrete that the other ministers were replaced.

Under Tirpitz's leadership, Germany's naval expansion plan was executed flawlessly.

Later, when the first stop started, the total number of warships of the German Navy had risen from seventh in the world to second in the world, which was roughly equivalent to a man taking medicine, from 7cm to 17cm!

At this time, the German Navy had a high seas fleet that could compete with the British Royal Navy on one hand, and a submarine force on the other that was a headache for the Allies.

Unfortunately, despite the success of German submarines at sea, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Admiral Tirpitz were more attracted to their high-seas fleet.

Although Tirpitz saw the power of German submarines, he preferred to use the High Seas Fleet to fight the British Navy to the death.

Until the war was fought, the main naval forces of Britain and Germany had never competed.

It is not yet known who is higher and who is lower.

Kaiser Wilhelm II and Admiral Tirpitz were impatient.

Although they knew the power of German submarines, they were more eager to see the German High Seas Fleet that they had built to fight with the British Royal Navy.

In February 1916, the situation of the war gradually changed, and Germany tried to defeat France on the land battlefield, using the French fortress of Verdun as the target of attack, but Germany lost huge manpower and material resources, but never gained anything.

Germany's military offensive capability had slowly fallen from its peak, and the initiative in the war was about to shift to the Allies.

The Germans were in a hurry, and the German admirals were even more anxious.

They clamored to let the German High Seas Fleet, which had been painstakingly managed, go to sea and make a new situation at sea.

Due to the low morale of the High Seas Fleet, Wilhelm II deliberately appointed the competitive von Von. Scheer was the commander of the High Seas Fleet.

Feng. Scheer is a person who is full of interest in fighting and attacking, and his personality is also quite prominent.

That's why people think it's a bit like a Spanish bull and it rushes when it sees red.

To put it bluntly, he is a warmonger and a warmonger!

On May 31, 1916, the German High Seas Fleet was launched in the von Murray. Scheer sailed out of the harbor under his command to prepare for a duel with the British Royal Navy.

The largest naval battle in one station, the Battle of Jutland, known as the epic of naval warfare, began.

Both powerful navies sent their capital battleships for large formation engagements.

Hundreds of warships chased each other in the North Sea, the flames were shining, and both sides fought for a day and a night with heavy losses and exhaustion, and finally had to withdraw their troops at the same time.

However, the result was divisive for many, and the Battle of Jutland was tactically German victorious and strategically British victorious.

Because of this, after the end of the naval battle, von. Scheer announced his resignation.

At this time, Wilhelm II and Tirpitz finally gave up, and only then did they shift their focus to German submarines.

After all, a German submarine could single-handedly break into the heavily guarded anchorage of the British army and easily destroy the battleship.

One Zhao Yunding and three fierce Zhang Fei!

Wilhelm II again made wishful thinking, he hoped to give full play to the ability of German submarines to fight covert warfare on the sea.

Britain was an island nation, a traditional sea power, and he relied heavily on his overseas territories and colonies.

Britain's war resources were not only industrial raw materials, but even soldiers and warships needed to be transferred from his colonies.

In this way, in 1917, Wilhelm II launched an unrestricted submarine war, and within a few months of the powerful blockade of German submarines, Britain was already in a difficult situation, and Britain's war materials were increasingly insufficient, and food supplies became a problem.

In some parts of the UK, gardens have been converted into vegetable patches and even grass fields, and potatoes have been planted on tennis courts.

The British saw that they were about to run out of ammunition and food, and this was like sending a distress signal from the other side of the Atlantic.

At a time when Britain was being forced by the Germans' unrestricted submarine warfare to be short of supplies, many British admirals expressed the hope that the government would seek the support of the ugly country to mediate and get Germany to stop the unrestricted submarine warfare.

This idea of the British is not a fantasy, because as early as the beginning of World War I, the ugly people really changed the strategy and tactics of the German navy, which left an unforgettable impression on the British.

As early as February 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm II had already ordered Germany to begin submarine warfare, and within ten weeks as many as 63 merchant ships had been sunk without warning, and more than 200 neutral people had died.

However, an accident happened, and on May 7, 1915, three months after the German submarine war, a British luxury cruise ship Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine, killing 1,198 people.

The British government had planned to convert the Lusitania into a heavy cruiser to disrupt enemy shipping at sea and capture enemy merchant ships.

But in the midst of many opposition, the Lusitania was allowed to continue its passenger business in order to facilitate the war exchange between the United States and Great Britain.

The Lusitania's beautiful white-black infrared watch was painted all black, without any flags, and the name of the ship was obscured.

Unfortunately, this time, the Lusitania, which was full of passengers, was accidentally encountered by a German submarine.

The sinking of Lusitania by a German submarine caused extreme shock on both sides of the Atlantic, with the United States and Britain accusing it of a brutal murder.

German newspapers claimed that the Lusitania was an munitions ship, otherwise it would not have sunk so quickly.

128 of the passengers who died in Lusitania were Americans, so the act provoked an outcry from the ugly government.

It also caused an uproar in the ugly society, and the Germans were widely criticized, and all kinds of vicious words were used.

Therefore, immediately after the sinking of the Lusitania, there were calls for a declaration of war on Germany in the United States.

Wilhelm II was very afraid of the Americans, and he thought that as long as the ugly country did not come in, Germany could still fight.

If the ugly country comes in, then Germany will probably not be able to hold on.

In this way, Wilhelm II, under the pressure of public condemnation, announced the temporary cancellation of the attack of German submarines on passenger ships or ships of neutral countries.

It was this event that stuck in the memory of the British.

Therefore, when William II announced the launch of an unrestricted submarine war in 1917, the British naturally sent a distress signal to the ugly country.

However, the Germans in 1917 were no longer the Germans at the beginning of the war, on the one hand, because the sea power was inferior to that of the British, and it was necessary to use German submarines to defeat the British maritime supremacy.

On the other hand, the Germans already had more than 100 submarines, and at this time the war had been fought for three years, and the Germans believed that they should win the war as soon as possible, especially before the American army played an active role in the European theater.

In order to defeat the British, it was necessary to use submarines, and a large number of German soldiers were convinced that the war could only be won through unrestricted submarine warfare.

In 1917, Wilhelm II agreed to the scheme of activating unrestricted submarine warfare.

After receiving a distress signal from Britain, Wilson, the boss of the ugly country, hesitated.

As mentioned earlier, Wilson had a different idea about the war that took place in Europe.

Wilson knew that a significant number of the Ugly Nation did not sympathize with the British, especially the Irish Ugly Nationals who were not dissatisfied with the way Britain ruled Ireland, and that millions of German-Americans wanted Germany to win the war.

And the Russian Jews who had been exiled to the ugly country hated the Tsar to the core, hoping that Germany would defeat Russia.

But anti-German sentiment grew in the ugly country after the Lusitaia was sunk by a German submarine.

After much consideration, the ugly country finally decided to declare war and unite with Britain to contain Germany.

And in order to contain Germany, it is necessary to effectively block German submarines.

After the German Unrestricted Submarine War in 1917, the total tonnage sunk by Britain was almost the same as the total tonnage lost in the whole of 1916.

Faced with the threat of submarine warfare, the Entente was unable to come up with effective means of dealing with it for a while, and the situation on the battlefield took a sharp turn.

Against German submarines, the Entente came up with a variety of methods.

Among the various anti-submarine schemes, the Entente soon came up with a new anti-submarine measure, the creation of a mine interdiction line.

With the strong economic support of the United States, the Entente countries established a total of three mine blocking lines, the most famous being the "North Sea Mine Curtain".

Stretching from the Orkney Islands in the North Sea to Norway, the line is 230 nautical miles long and 15 to 20 nautical miles wide, consisting of 24 mine lines at different depths, with a total of about 100,000 mines planned.

However, the effect of the mine blocking line was not ideal, especially the great obstacle in the North Sea.

Only one submarine succeeded in striking a mine here, and of the 13 submarines lost by Germany in the Mediterranean, only two were sunk along the blocking line.

At this time, the Entente side adopted sonar technology for anti-submarine warfare, and used sound waves to detect German submarines underwater.

However, due to the limited scientific and technological power at that time, sonar technology was not mature.

In addition to the fact that the detection depth is too shallow and the effect is not obvious, more often than not, the sonar operators will mistake the fish in the sea for a German submarine, wasting torpedoes in vain.

At a time when the Entente was helpless against unrestricted submarine warfare, a group of young officers from the British Admiralty proposed the tactics of escort system.

When Germany first began to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare in World War I, there were no wolves and no sheep, and neither side had much tactical awareness.

At that time, the situation was like sprinkling a handful of sesame seeds on a football field, and then letting a group of ants eat sesame seeds, the ants have a high probability of encountering sesame seeds, and they can eat one of them.

If there is only a pile of sesame seeds on the huge football field, the probability of encountering ants will naturally decrease, and even if one or two ants happen to eat two grains, they will not be able to gnaw on them, which is the simplest metaphor for the escort system.

The opponent quietly changed his tactics, and the Germans were still ignorant, and their submarines sailed as usual, but they returned again and again without success.

In the words of one of the German captains at the time, the sea suddenly became empty, the battle loss rate of German submarines increased significantly, and the anti-submarine technology on the part of the Entente became stronger and stronger.

The British escort forces had a large number of anti-submarine forces and sank a large number of German submarines, which dealt a very big blow to Germany's psychological morale, and thus made the German submarines face a greater threat.

In 1918, due to the anti-submarine warfare of the Entente to escort the fleet, the German submarine was finally defeated, but the deterrent effect brought by the German submarine is still fresh in the memory of the world.

Therefore, after the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles clearly prohibited Germany from building submarines, and the original submarines belonged to Britain, France, and Russia.

In this way, the unlimited submarine came to an end on the battlefield of World War I, but the German Navy did not fall silent, and returned to the ocean many years later with a new type of U-boat and a pack of wolves at sea, creating a new legend of the wolf pack in the sea.

()

1 second to remember the net:.