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At the same time, Scheer also realized that the support of the Army was necessary on this issue.

Scheer sent Trotta to visit the leading figures of the army, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff, who had suffered great losses in the Battle of the Somme and was anxious to find a way to break the stalemate.

Scheer conveyed to Ludendorff the Navy's point of view through Trotta that unrestricted submarine warfare was a necessary means to win the final victory, and that this operation should be carried out as quickly as possible.

On 22 November, Scheer went to the General Headquarters of the Army and explained his views to the Kaiser himself, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, and stated that unrestricted submarine warfare must begin on 1 February 1917.

And a few days ago, Ludendorff personally expressed to Holzendorff the Army's approval of unrestricted submarine warfare.

Obtaining sufficient alert escort forces has indirectly weakened the ocean-going combat capability of the High Seas Fleet.

In fact, Holzendorff was not difficult to be convinced, and he quickly abandoned his hesitation and handed over a crucial memorandum to Hindenburg on December 22.

In this document, the General Staff of the Navy made an assessment of the shipbuilding and shipping capabilities of Great Britain.

It was also believed that a decisive effect could be achieved in the autumn of 1917 if all efforts were concentrated on striking at the British sea lines, and that unrestricted submarines were the best means of achieving this end.

The Germans were confident in themselves that this tactic would yield unprecedented results, but this was not the case.

While Holzendorff could not guarantee in his memorandum that Britain would bend its knees and surrender within a few months, he insisted that the consequences of not conducting unrestricted submarine warfare would be unimaginable. With the agreement of the top brass of the military, the collar on the head of the submarine force is about to be removed.

Theobald von Batemann-Holwig, Chancellor of the Reich from 1909 to 1917, opposed unrestricted submarine warfare, but was forced by the military to drop his opposition in early 1917.

The final decision was to be made at a high-level meeting on January 9, 1917.

At the meeting, Holzendorff once again stressed to the government leaders and army commanders the need to resume unrestricted submarine warfare.

In the face of the military's tough stance, the Imperial Chancellor Theobard von Batemann-Holwig said that he would no longer oppose it, and finally Wilhelm II decided to resume unlimited submarine warfare from February 1, 1917.

German submarines could sink any Allied and neutral ships they encountered without warning, whether they were armed or not.

However, this decision soon led to the most feared consequence of German politicians – the official declaration of war on Germany in April 1917!

Since the outbreak of the war, the German Navy has concentrated its main forces in the direction of the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea has always been a secondary theater of operations, where the German Navy has relied mainly on a small number of patrol ships and minefields to maintain the situation.

The Baltic Fleet, commanded by Prince Heinrich of Prussia, was reinforced by a number of obsolete old shore defense battleships and armored cruisers, none of which were unfit for fleet engagement by 1914 standards.

For the German Navy, the Baltic theater got off to a terrible start.

In August 1914, the light cruiser Magdeburg ran aground in the Gulf of Finland and was hastily abandoned, and the Russian Navy seized the codebook from the underwhelmed battleship, thus facilitating the decipherment of the German Navy's secret telegrams on the part of the Allies.

In November 1914, the Baltic Detachment suffered another heavy blow when the armored cruiser "Frederick Carr" was damaged by a mine while carrying out a shelling off the coast of Memel.

In the summer of 1915, in order to support the German Army's offensive in the Baltic Sea coast, the German Navy transferred part of the capital ships of the High Seas Fleet to the Baltic Sea via the Kiel Canal.

These included eight dreadnoughts of the 1st Battleship Squadron and three battle cruisers of the 1st Reconnaissance Fleet, which, together with the former dreadnoughts of the 4th Battleship Squadron of the Baltic Fleet, formed a formidable fleet that broke into the Gulf of Riga in August.

However, in the face of the dense minefields laid by the Russian Navy and the stubborn resistance of the Russian ships, the operation was unsuccessful, a considerable number of light ships were sunk by mines, and the battlecruiser "Moltke" was damaged by torpedoes from the British submarine E-1.

Beginning in October 1914, the British Navy sent submarines to the Baltic Sea in batches to support the Russian Navy's operations, and won many successes.

After assisting the Russians in thwarting the first German naval offensive in the Gulf of Riga, the British submarine E-8 sank the German armored cruiser Prince Aldabet on October 23, and E-19 sank the protective cruiser Wendini on November 7.

In view of the activity of British submarines and the occasional sorties of Russian ships, the German Navy began to escort merchant fleets from Norway and Sweden in April 1916 to ensure the smooth passage of strategic goods from neutral countries across the Baltic Sea.

However, in the autumn of the same year, an even greater catastrophe befell the Baltic Fleet.

On 10 November, 11 destroyers of the 10th Destroyer Detachment were ordered to attack Russian patrol ships in the western Gulf of Finland, but they accidentally fell into a minefield, and seven destroyers were sunk by mines overnight, a record that humiliated the Germans.

In order to reverse the passive situation on the Baltic front, the German Navy planned to move the main forces of the High Seas Fleet eastward at the end of 1916 in preparation for a real offensive campaign in the Baltic Sea.

On 24 December, two days after submitting the important memorandum on unrestricted submarine warfare, Holzendorff further proposed a new strategy for the fleet's operations, which would continue to maintain control of the Flemish coast in the North Sea direction and provide critical support to the submarine forces;

An active offensive in the Baltic direction, seizing the initiative in the coastal areas of Courland, and then expanding forces off the coast of Latvia and occupying the islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Riga.

Beginning in the spring of 1916, the Germans sent seaplanes, airships, and submarines to harass the Russian naval base in the Gulf of Riga, while planning to land on the islands at the mouth of the Gulf of Riga.

In September of the same year, the German fleet began a new offensive and mine-laying operation, and it was not until the onset of winter that the bay froze and the fighting in the Baltic Sea ceased for a moment.

In February 1917, a revolution broke out in Russia, the tsarist regime was overthrown, and the Provisional Government of the Social Democratic Party, led by Alexander Kerensky, took power.

In the summer of 1917, the German Army took advantage of the political turmoil in Russia to launch an offensive on the Eastern Front, approaching Riga by land, and through novel commando tactics, the Germans broke through the Russian trench defenses and occupied Riga on September 3.

The conditions were now ripe for the German Navy to clear the Russian fleet of the Gulf of Riga and to use Riga as an important supply base.

In fact, the German Navy was planning operations as early as May, with the central goal of capturing the island of Össel, which lies at the mouth of the Gulf of Riga, and the Russian batteries on the peninsula at the southern tip of the island controlled the Ibers Strait, a key passage into the Gulf of Riga.

However, the offensive was premised on the need to strengthen the Baltic detachment.

After the Battle of Jutland, in order to strengthen submarine operations and expand submarine forces, the former dreadnoughts of the 4th Battleship Squadron, which was originally the core force of the Baltic Fleet, were decommissioned, and the surplus personnel were transferred to the submarine force.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to replenish the Baltic Fleet with capital ships from the High Seas Fleet.

The German navy's offensive in the Baltic Sea also had the aim of boosting morale.

Since the Battle of Jutland, the German High Seas Fleet has not experienced a large-scale combat operation for a year, and the rank and file officers and men have been busy with endless training all day long.

At the same time, they had to endure deteriorating food supplies and the hardships of the officers, who were starved of food in Germany due to the Allied blockade, and whose posts were occupied by inexperienced young officers as a large number of experienced officers were transferred to the submarine force.

The combination of these factors led to a continued low morale of the High Seas Fleet, growing discontent in the ports of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, and a growing erosion of the Fleet's unity and cohesion.

At the same time as the capture of Riga by the German Army, soldiers' petitions or hunger strikes took place on a number of large warships, including the flagship of the fleet.

Five sailors were sentenced to death by a court-martialed for leading the trouble, and in fact the seeds of the mutiny had been planted a year later.

The top brass of the fleet believed that sending the fleet to launch an offensive at this time would help to divert internal contradictions and improve morale, so it was decided to carry out an operation to seize the islands of the Gulf of Riga in the autumn of 1917, codenamed "Albion".

Operation Albion was the largest amphibious landing operation carried out by the German Navy during World War I, and it was also the largest fleet operation conducted in the Baltic theater.

The ships transferred from the High Seas Fleet included 2 battleship squadrons, a total of 10 dreadnoughts, the battlecruiser "Moltke", 5 light cruisers, 47 destroyers, 6 submarines and other auxiliary ships.

The ships were assembled in the port of Libao, about 100 kilometers south of the Gulf of Riga, under the unified command of Vice Admiral Erhard Schmidt, with the Moltke as the flagship. It is worrying that most of the capital ships, including the most powerful "Bavaria", are plagued by morale problems.

The Baltic Fleet provided 3 light cruisers, 9 torpedo boats, 60 minesweepers and 72 other light ships for the operation, which were responsible for providing escort, minesweeper and anti-submarine vigilance support to the landing fleet.

In addition, the German Navy mobilized six airships and more than 100 aircraft to provide air support.

The landing operation will be carried out by a reinforced infantry division with 24,000 troops.

Due to the weather, the date of the operation "Albion" was postponed, which gave the Germans more time to prepare, refine the plan.

A landing exercise conducted on 29 September revealed a number of problems that needed to be addressed before the offensive could be launched.

On the other hand, the situation of the Russian army, as the defender, is not optimistic, and the defenders are scattered on the islands, which is not convenient for mutual support.

Moreover, soldiers' committees were generally established in the Russian military units under the control of the Provisional Government, which weakened the command of officers, and the morale of the Russian army was relatively low.

On the other side of the North Sea, the British Admiralty had been deeply concerned about the situation in the Baltic since the spring of 1917.

Admiral John Jellicoe, the former commander of the Grand Fleet, who had risen to the rank of First Sea Lord, asked his successor, Admiral David Beatty, to send a fleet to cruise the North Sea in order to attract the attention of the German High Seas Fleet and prevent its main forces from moving eastward.

The Admiralty's staff also studied the possibility of sending a detachment of a detachment to break through into the Baltic Sea to help the Russians relieve the pressure.

Although Jerichault urged the staff officers in the autumn of 1917 to come up with a plan to support the Russians as soon as possible, the planners opposed sending a fleet into the Baltic Sea to fight, believing that such a move would weaken British defenses in the North Sea direction.

All in all, the actions of the British Navy failed to interfere with the readiness of the German fleet in the Baltic.

After a large-scale mine-sweeping operation, Operation Albion officially began on 12 October, with German troops successfully landing on the northwest coast of Ursel Island, and by 20 October, the operation had been completely successful.

The batteries that controlled the strait south of Össel fell to the Germans, and the island of Moon, east of Össel, also fell into German hands.

On 16 October, the main force of the German fleet crossed the Ibers Strait into the Gulf of Riga and began to sweep the Russian fleet in the bay.

In the ensuing engagement, the German fleet destroyed the Dreadnought Glory, but most of the Russian ships managed to retreat along the Strait of Moon to the north.

During the operation "Albion", the German Navy suffered minor losses, only a few destroyers and a few minesweepers were sunk, and the battleships "Bavaria" and "Elector" were damaged by mines.

Operation Albion was the most successful campaign of the German Navy during World War I, and due to the influence of the revolution, the Russian Baltic Fleet had basically lost its combat effectiveness in the later stages of the war, thus allowing the German Navy to gain domination of the Baltic Sea.

Finally struggling

In the end, the British Navy did not send a single surface warship to the Baltic Sea to assist in the war.

Throughout 1917, the British Navy focused on offensive mine-laying operations in the Gulf of Helgoland and the eastern North Sea, protecting convoys between Britain and Norway, and devoting more resources to anti-submarine warfare.

Although there was a debate within the British Navy about the effectiveness of the offensive minelays, the large number of mines proved to be a problem for the German Navy.

According to statistics, in 1917-1918, the German Navy lost 28 destroyers, 70 minesweepers and at least 4 submarines in minefields on the outskirts of the Helgoland Bay.

In response, the German Navy carried out an active mine detection operation in the Helgoland Bay, clearing as many mines as possible laid by the British, and lost a lot of ships in the process, in fact, mine clearance became the main surface combat operation of the German Navy in the final phase of the war.

I don't know if the puzzle game Minesweeper, which was popular all over the world in later generations, was developed with reference to the German army in this period.

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