WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.960 Welcome to today's deep dive. We're we're jumping 00:00:02.960 --> 00:00:05.960 straight into a massive shift in global power 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:08.000 dynamics today. Yeah, a really monumental one. 00:00:08.179 --> 00:00:10.660 Right. Today we are analyzing a very specific 00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:13.720 window of time. The World War One U -boat campaign 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:17.820 from 1914 to 1918. And we're really examining 00:00:17.820 --> 00:00:21.679 how a single largely unproven piece of disruptive 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:23.980 technology just completely upended the world 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:26.859 order. And we aren't here to rehash the basic 00:00:26.859 --> 00:00:29.239 timeline of the Great War. You know the players. 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:31.920 Exactly. Instead, we're focusing on a highly 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.740 specific asymmetric conflict that forever changed 00:00:34.740 --> 00:00:37.640 naval strategy. It is a phenomenal topic. And 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:39.380 to give you a clear roadmap of where we're heading, 00:00:39.820 --> 00:00:42.399 our source material for today is a comprehensive, 00:00:42.759 --> 00:00:45.460 highly detailed Wikipedia article covering the 00:00:45.460 --> 00:00:47.439 entire U -Boat campaign from start to finish. 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:49.939 A really dense read, too. Oh, absolutely. But 00:00:49.939 --> 00:00:51.979 our mission in this deep dive is to extract the 00:00:51.979 --> 00:00:54.479 most critical insights from this text. We want 00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:56.780 to explore how the mutual blockade between Germany 00:00:56.780 --> 00:01:00.259 and Great Britain forced rapid, almost desperate 00:01:00.259 --> 00:01:02.479 technological and tactical evolution on both 00:01:02.479 --> 00:01:04.659 sides. Right. Both sides had to adapt or die, 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:08.280 basically. Exactly. And more importantly, we're 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:10.840 looking at what that tells us about how innovation 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:13.730 happens under extreme pressure. OK, let's unpack 00:01:13.730 --> 00:01:16.530 this because the naval disparity at the outbreak 00:01:16.530 --> 00:01:20.010 of the conflict in 1914 is, well, it's staggering. 00:01:20.170 --> 00:01:22.409 It really is. You have the British Royal Navy, 00:01:22.730 --> 00:01:26.069 which possessed just overwhelming numerical superiority 00:01:26.069 --> 00:01:29.689 and unparalleled global reach with its massive 00:01:29.689 --> 00:01:32.510 dreadnought battleships. I mean, heavily armored 00:01:32.510 --> 00:01:35.469 floating fortresses. The absolute peak of naval 00:01:35.469 --> 00:01:38.019 power at the time. Yeah. And on the flip side, 00:01:38.219 --> 00:01:40.480 the German high seas fleet was essentially bottle 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:42.780 up. They were restricted to the German bite, 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:45.239 meaning they were pinned into the southeastern 00:01:45.239 --> 00:01:47.040 corner of the North Sea. Right. They couldn't 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.319 get out. And the British established a severe 00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:52.120 naval blockade almost immediately. They were 00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:55.640 treating even civilian food imports as absolute 00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:58.319 contraband of war. And that geographical and 00:01:58.319 --> 00:02:01.030 new numerical trap, that is the engine for everything 00:02:01.030 --> 00:02:02.409 that follows. I want to connect this directly 00:02:02.409 --> 00:02:03.689 to you, the listener. Yeah, have yourself in 00:02:03.689 --> 00:02:06.930 their shoes. Imagine the modern, multi -trillion 00:02:06.930 --> 00:02:09.409 dollar global supply chains you rely on every 00:02:09.409 --> 00:02:12.889 single day just suddenly being paralyzed by a 00:02:12.889 --> 00:02:16.270 handful of cheap, unproven asymmetrical weapons. 00:02:16.490 --> 00:02:19.229 It's terrifying to think about. It is. It's the 00:02:19.229 --> 00:02:21.750 ultimate David and Goliath story. The British 00:02:21.750 --> 00:02:24.050 had a world -class surface fleet, but it was 00:02:24.050 --> 00:02:26.409 entirely useless against a threat it literally 00:02:26.409 --> 00:02:28.830 could not see. Because the German military recognized 00:02:28.830 --> 00:02:31.110 they could not win a conventional surface battle 00:02:31.110 --> 00:02:33.069 against the Grand Fleet. Right. So they turned 00:02:33.069 --> 00:02:35.669 to the undersea boot, the U -boat, to level the 00:02:35.669 --> 00:02:38.030 playing field. But I mean, these early submarines 00:02:38.030 --> 00:02:41.150 weren't the sleek, silent, nuclear -powered hunters 00:02:41.150 --> 00:02:44.210 we picture today, were they? What was the actual 00:02:44.210 --> 00:02:46.349 reality of operating one of these machines? in 00:02:46.349 --> 00:02:49.949 1914. The reality was brutal. It was incredibly 00:02:49.949 --> 00:02:52.110 claustrophobic. These machines were awkward. 00:02:52.389 --> 00:02:54.490 They were mechanically fragile. On the surface, 00:02:54.650 --> 00:02:57.229 their maximum speed was roughly 15 knots. Which 00:02:57.229 --> 00:03:00.449 is pretty slow. Very slow. That made them significantly 00:03:00.449 --> 00:03:03.169 slower than most warships of the era, and only 00:03:03.169 --> 00:03:05.550 about two -thirds the speed of the modern dreadnoughts. 00:03:05.590 --> 00:03:07.590 So they couldn't even keep up in a chase? Not 00:03:07.590 --> 00:03:09.770 at all. They ran on diesel engines on the surface, 00:03:10.189 --> 00:03:12.229 but once they submerged, they had to switch to 00:03:12.229 --> 00:03:14.909 electric batteries. And submerged, they were 00:03:14.909 --> 00:03:17.409 crawling at a fraction of that speed. Wow. Their 00:03:17.409 --> 00:03:19.909 battery endurance was incredibly limited, and 00:03:19.909 --> 00:03:22.330 they were virtually blind. They couldn't use 00:03:22.330 --> 00:03:25.250 sonar to track targets like modern submarines 00:03:25.250 --> 00:03:28.090 do. Right. No pinging the enemy? No. They had 00:03:28.090 --> 00:03:30.270 to rely entirely on a periscope, which meant 00:03:30.270 --> 00:03:32.770 staying perilously close to the surface. How 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:34.909 did they even manage to mount an attack with 00:03:34.909 --> 00:03:37.169 those kinds of limitations? It sounds like they'd 00:03:37.169 --> 00:03:39.530 just have to, I don't know, anticipate exactly 00:03:39.530 --> 00:03:41.150 where a ship was going to be and just sit there 00:03:41.150 --> 00:03:44.150 waiting for it. That is precisely the tactical 00:03:44.150 --> 00:03:47.270 nightmare they faced. Early torpedoes were entirely 00:03:47.270 --> 00:03:49.810 unguided. So you just point and shoot? Literally. 00:03:50.629 --> 00:03:53.530 To fire one, the U -boat essentially had to aim 00:03:53.530 --> 00:03:56.210 its entire hull at the projected path of the 00:03:56.210 --> 00:03:58.229 target. They had to be perfectly positioned ahead 00:03:58.229 --> 00:04:00.250 of time. That sounds almost impossible to pull 00:04:00.250 --> 00:04:03.189 off reliably. It was difficult, yes, and yet 00:04:03.189 --> 00:04:06.189 the sheer novelty of a submersible vessel provided 00:04:06.189 --> 00:04:09.030 an overwhelming early advantage. Surferships 00:04:09.030 --> 00:04:11.750 at that time had absolutely zero means of detecting 00:04:11.750 --> 00:04:14.449 a submarine underwater. Which brings us to the 00:04:14.449 --> 00:04:17.750 aha moment that shocked the world. In August 00:04:17.750 --> 00:04:21.490 1914, a flotilla of 10 U -boats sailed out of 00:04:21.490 --> 00:04:23.790 Hiligoland for the first submarine war patrol 00:04:23.790 --> 00:04:26.600 in human history. And it started terribly. Yeah, 00:04:26.759 --> 00:04:29.379 it really did. Engines broke down. Two boats 00:04:29.379 --> 00:04:32.519 were lost almost immediately. But then in September, 00:04:32.839 --> 00:04:36.660 a single submarine, SMU -9, achieved something 00:04:36.660 --> 00:04:39.540 unthinkable. This is a huge turning point. It 00:04:39.540 --> 00:04:42.620 sank three British armored cruisers. The Abu 00:04:42.620 --> 00:04:45.670 Kerr. the Hogue and the Cressy in a single devastating 00:04:45.670 --> 00:04:47.790 action. Right. One cruiser was hit and the others 00:04:47.790 --> 00:04:49.850 stopped to rescue the survivors. Exactly. Making 00:04:49.850 --> 00:04:51.730 themselves stationary targets and they were just 00:04:51.730 --> 00:04:54.410 picked off one by one. It was a massacre. What's 00:04:54.410 --> 00:04:56.790 fascinating here is the rapid strategic pivot 00:04:56.790 --> 00:04:58.790 that follows that initial shock. Because they 00:04:58.790 --> 00:05:00.949 didn't start out wanting to sink merchant ships. 00:05:01.410 --> 00:05:04.610 No, not at all. The original goal of the German 00:05:04.610 --> 00:05:08.149 Navy was to use U -boats to sink capital ships 00:05:08.149 --> 00:05:10.689 of the British Grand Fleet. They wanted to chip 00:05:10.689 --> 00:05:13.829 away at that numerical superiority so the German 00:05:13.829 --> 00:05:16.009 high seas fleet could eventually face them on 00:05:16.009 --> 00:05:18.930 even terms. But the British adapted. They learned 00:05:18.930 --> 00:05:21.829 very quickly. Once British warships started traveling 00:05:21.829 --> 00:05:24.430 at high speeds and using erratic zigzag courses, 00:05:24.910 --> 00:05:26.769 the U -boats were rendered virtually useless 00:05:26.769 --> 00:05:29.069 against military targets. They were simply too 00:05:29.069 --> 00:05:31.930 slow to catch them. So if the surface fleet is 00:05:31.930 --> 00:05:35.170 completely boxed in, and their country is facing 00:05:35.170 --> 00:05:38.069 severe shortages from the blockade, and their 00:05:38.069 --> 00:05:40.910 new wonder weapon is too slow to catch warships... 00:05:40.730 --> 00:05:43.189 What options did the German military actually 00:05:43.189 --> 00:05:45.730 have left? They realized they had to shift their 00:05:45.730 --> 00:05:49.430 focus from the hard targets to a softer but vastly 00:05:49.430 --> 00:05:51.649 more impactful one. The merchant ships. Exactly. 00:05:51.949 --> 00:05:53.730 The global merchant shipping network that kept 00:05:53.730 --> 00:05:56.509 the British Isles fed and supplied. And that 00:05:56.509 --> 00:06:00.129 strategic shift brings us into 1915 and a terrifying 00:06:00.129 --> 00:06:02.170 escalation of the conflict. Because they couldn't 00:06:02.170 --> 00:06:06.040 break the naval blockade militarily. Right. Figures 00:06:06.040 --> 00:06:08.420 within the German command began arguing that 00:06:08.420 --> 00:06:10.920 submarine commerce raiding was the only way to 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:14.939 quickly defeat Britain. So on February 4th, 1915, 00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:17.319 Germany declared the waters around Great Britain 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:20.759 and Ireland a war zone. That seems like a massive 00:06:20.759 --> 00:06:22.980 diplomatic risk. Weren't they worried about sinking 00:06:22.980 --> 00:06:25.620 ships from neutral countries? They were deeply 00:06:25.620 --> 00:06:28.160 worried, at least on the political side. The 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:30.860 German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann -Halweg 00:06:30.860 --> 00:06:33.699 strongly opposed the declaration. He knew it 00:06:33.699 --> 00:06:35.939 would backfire. He understood that torpedoing 00:06:35.939 --> 00:06:38.060 merchant ships without warning would infuriate 00:06:38.060 --> 00:06:40.420 neutral nations, particularly the United States. 00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:43.420 But the German military command viewed the British 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:46.379 blockade as an illegal attempt to starve the 00:06:46.379 --> 00:06:49.079 civilian population of Germany. They argued they 00:06:49.079 --> 00:06:51.480 were simply retaliating in kind. Right. A tit 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:54.199 -for -tat starvation tactic. Yes. And this tension 00:06:54.199 --> 00:06:56.259 highlights the friction between international 00:06:56.259 --> 00:06:58.769 law which traditionally required cruisers to 00:06:58.769 --> 00:07:00.990 stop a merchant ship, search it for contraband, 00:07:01.350 --> 00:07:03.370 and ensure the crew's safety before sinking it, 00:07:03.550 --> 00:07:05.589 and the physical reality of a submarine. Because 00:07:05.589 --> 00:07:07.769 a submarine would be destroyed the moment it 00:07:07.769 --> 00:07:10.370 surfaced to issue a warning like that. Exactly. 00:07:10.430 --> 00:07:13.009 It was too fragile. And that technological inability 00:07:13.009 --> 00:07:16.170 to follow traditional maritime law directly leads 00:07:16.170 --> 00:07:18.889 to arguably the most infamous event of the naval 00:07:18.889 --> 00:07:23.379 war. On May 7, 1915, the massive ocean liner 00:07:23.379 --> 00:07:26.560 RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by the U -20 just 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:28.839 off the southern coast of Ireland. A horrific 00:07:28.839 --> 00:07:31.920 event. The sheer speed of the disaster is terrifying. 00:07:32.339 --> 00:07:35.720 The ship sank in a staggering 18 minutes. 11 00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:39.459 ,197 people were killed. And critically for the 00:07:39.459 --> 00:07:42.740 geopolitical landscape, 124 of those victims 00:07:42.740 --> 00:07:45.379 were American citizens. The fallout from those 00:07:45.379 --> 00:07:47.680 18 minutes altered the trajectory of the 20th 00:07:47.680 --> 00:07:50.870 century. The American public's outrage was immediate 00:07:50.870 --> 00:07:53.009 and severe. They were ready for war, right then? 00:07:53.149 --> 00:07:55.689 Many were. U .S. President Woodrow Wilson faced 00:07:55.689 --> 00:07:57.889 immense pressure to declare war, but he opted 00:07:57.889 --> 00:08:00.689 for a rigorous diplomatic response instead. He 00:08:00.689 --> 00:08:03.269 issued three highly significant diplomatic notes 00:08:03.269 --> 00:08:04.850 to the German government. These weren't just 00:08:04.850 --> 00:08:07.149 angry letters, were they? No, they were a legal 00:08:07.149 --> 00:08:10.889 line in the sand. Wilson demanded strict accountability, 00:08:11.250 --> 00:08:13.670 rejecting Germany's argument that the submarine's 00:08:13.670 --> 00:08:16.350 vulnerability exempted it from traditional maritime 00:08:16.350 --> 00:08:19.579 rules. He demanded that Germany abandon submarine 00:08:19.579 --> 00:08:22.019 warfare against commercial vessels entirely. 00:08:22.620 --> 00:08:25.399 Basically an ultimatum. Exactly. He made it clear 00:08:25.399 --> 00:08:27.939 that any future sinkings harming Americans would 00:08:27.939 --> 00:08:31.439 be viewed as deliberately unfriendly. So Germany 00:08:31.439 --> 00:08:34.100 is suddenly staring down the barrel of American 00:08:34.100 --> 00:08:36.279 intervention, fearing they were about to pull 00:08:36.279 --> 00:08:39.279 this massive industrial power into the war. The 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:42.059 German Chancellor steps in again and issues new 00:08:42.059 --> 00:08:44.639 orders. Passenger ships could only be sunk after 00:08:44.639 --> 00:08:46.940 a warning was given and the passengers and crew 00:08:46.940 --> 00:08:48.960 were saved. Right. And following the sinking 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:52.259 of another liner, the SS Arabic, the unrestricted 00:08:52.259 --> 00:08:54.860 submarine warfare doctrine was effectively abandoned 00:08:54.860 --> 00:08:58.139 by September 1915. Much to the fury of the German 00:08:58.139 --> 00:09:00.620 Naval High Command. But while this diplomatic 00:09:00.620 --> 00:09:03.460 chess game was playing out, the Allies were desperately 00:09:03.460 --> 00:09:05.500 scrambling to figure out how to physically stop 00:09:05.500 --> 00:09:08.320 these invisible attackers. The earliest countermeasures 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:10.960 were remarkably simple, right? Like advising 00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:13.200 merchant vessels to avoid major shipping lanes, 00:09:13.659 --> 00:09:15.700 hugging the coastlines, and mounting defensive 00:09:15.700 --> 00:09:18.000 guns on the sterns of merchant ships so they 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:20.899 could fire back if a U -boat surfaced. Simple, 00:09:21.159 --> 00:09:23.990 but largely ineffective on a grand scale. Here's 00:09:23.990 --> 00:09:25.909 where it gets really interesting, though, because 00:09:25.909 --> 00:09:28.250 some of the offensive countermeasures the Allies 00:09:28.250 --> 00:09:31.450 came up with were wild, bordering on psychological 00:09:31.450 --> 00:09:34.909 warfare. Our source details the creation of Q 00:09:34.909 --> 00:09:37.690 -ships. Can you explain the sheer theatricality 00:09:37.690 --> 00:09:40.389 of this tactic? The Q -ships are a perfect example 00:09:40.389 --> 00:09:43.389 of asymmetric counter -tactics. These were heavily 00:09:43.389 --> 00:09:46.190 armed naval vessels that were meticulously disguised 00:09:46.190 --> 00:09:48.669 to look like helpless, vulnerable merchant ships. 00:09:48.789 --> 00:09:51.289 Like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Precisely. They 00:09:51.289 --> 00:09:54.120 would carry fake cargo, disguise their smokestacks, 00:09:54.279 --> 00:09:56.159 and even have crew members dressed as civilian 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:59.039 sailors. The entire objective was to bait a U 00:09:59.039 --> 00:10:01.019 -boat into surfacing. Because torpedoes were 00:10:01.019 --> 00:10:04.039 expensive. Yes, torpedoes were expensive and 00:10:04.039 --> 00:10:06.399 limited, so U -boat captains preferred to sink 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:09.139 unarmed merchant ships using their deck artillery 00:10:09.139 --> 00:10:12.019 to save their payload. The Q -ship crew would 00:10:12.019 --> 00:10:14.600 sometimes even stage a panic party, pretending 00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:17.080 to abandon ship and lifeboats while a hidden 00:10:17.080 --> 00:10:19.720 Ben crew remained on board. That is insane. The 00:10:19.720 --> 00:10:21.960 moment the submarine surfaced and moved in close, 00:10:22.220 --> 00:10:25.059 the Q -ship would drop its false bulkheads, reveal 00:10:25.059 --> 00:10:27.419 its hidden artillery, and blow the U -boat out 00:10:27.419 --> 00:10:30.000 of the water at point -blank range. The nerve 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.159 it would take to stand on a ship, deliberately 00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:34.559 waiting to take artillery fire just to lure a 00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:38.059 submarine closer, is unimaginable. Did it actually 00:10:38.059 --> 00:10:40.850 work? It was incredibly creative and it achieved 00:10:40.850 --> 00:10:44.269 some highly publicized successes in 1915. However, 00:10:44.549 --> 00:10:46.929 the macro impact was negligible. They caught 00:10:46.929 --> 00:10:49.370 on. They did. Once the Germans caught on to the 00:10:49.370 --> 00:10:51.649 ruse, they simply stopped surfacing near suspicious 00:10:51.649 --> 00:10:53.730 vessels and went back to firing torpedoes from 00:10:53.730 --> 00:10:56.690 a distance. The Allies also experimented with 00:10:56.690 --> 00:10:59.190 dragging massive steel nets across straits to 00:10:59.190 --> 00:11:01.429 ensnare submarines, and they started dropping 00:11:01.429 --> 00:11:04.090 early, crude versions of depth charges. Which 00:11:04.090 --> 00:11:06.590 the sources were literally referred to as dropping 00:11:06.590 --> 00:11:09.820 mines initially. Right, but all of this was just 00:11:09.820 --> 00:11:12.500 treating the symptoms. In the first six months 00:11:12.500 --> 00:11:17.539 of the 1915 campaign, U -Boat sank 750 ,000 tons 00:11:17.539 --> 00:11:20.580 of Allied shipping. Now, Britain possessed around 00:11:20.580 --> 00:11:23.179 21 million tons of shipping globally, so it was 00:11:23.179 --> 00:11:25.580 a painful paper cut, but it wasn't a fatal blow. 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:28.500 But the bleeding doesn't stop. And as the war 00:11:28.500 --> 00:11:32.139 drags into late 1916, the situation on the continent 00:11:32.139 --> 00:11:34.539 is deteriorating. The armies are bogged down 00:11:34.539 --> 00:11:36.519 in the mud of France, and the British blockade 00:11:36.519 --> 00:11:39.139 is causing severe malnutrition across Germany. 00:11:39.299 --> 00:11:41.399 The half measures aren't working anymore. Exactly. 00:11:41.620 --> 00:11:43.620 The German High Command decides they need to 00:11:43.620 --> 00:11:45.940 force an end to the war, no matter the diplomatic 00:11:45.940 --> 00:11:48.340 cost. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:11:48.700 --> 00:11:51.440 we have to examine the chilling, purely mathematical 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:54.899 logic of Admiral Henning von Holtzendorf. In 00:11:54.899 --> 00:11:58.000 December 1916, he presented a pivotal memorandum 00:11:58.000 --> 00:11:59.899 that convinced the Kaiser to risk everything. 00:12:00.100 --> 00:12:02.679 This is the math of starvation. Yes. Holtendorff 00:12:02.679 --> 00:12:05.200 laid out a brutal equation. He calculated that 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:07.919 if the U -boats could sink 600 ,000 gross registered 00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:10.559 tons of shipping every single month, Witten would 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:13.200 completely exhaust its food reserves and be forced 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:16.759 to capitulate within six months. Wow, six months. 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:19.340 It's worth noting that gross registered tons 00:12:19.340 --> 00:12:21.820 is actually a measure of the ship's internal 00:12:21.820 --> 00:12:24.539 volume and cargo capacity, not just its physical 00:12:24.539 --> 00:12:27.440 weight. So it was a direct metric of how many 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:29.919 supplies are being denied to the island. He is 00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:32.179 essentially promising the Kaiser that if they 00:12:32.179 --> 00:12:34.820 take the leash off the U -boats, the war is won 00:12:34.820 --> 00:12:37.679 by summer. But he had to know this would immediately 00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:40.139 provoke the United States, right? He absolutely 00:12:40.139 --> 00:12:42.799 knew it. But Holtzendorf argued that American 00:12:42.799 --> 00:12:45.610 intervention simply wouldn't matter. The calculation 00:12:45.610 --> 00:12:47.690 was that Britain would starve before the United 00:12:47.690 --> 00:12:50.190 States could organize, train, and transport an 00:12:50.190 --> 00:12:52.629 army across the Atlantic. That is quite the gamble. 00:12:52.909 --> 00:12:55.769 He famously promised the Kaiser, and this is 00:12:55.769 --> 00:12:58.409 a direct quote from the source material, I give 00:12:58.409 --> 00:13:01.590 your majesty my word as an officer that not one 00:13:01.590 --> 00:13:04.480 American will land on the continent. That arrogance 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:08.399 sets the stage for 1917. On February 1st, the 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:11.080 switch is flipped, unrestricted submarine warfare 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:14.259 resumes. Any ship, anywhere near Britain, whether 00:13:14.259 --> 00:13:16.740 allied or neutral, is hunted. And initially, 00:13:16.940 --> 00:13:19.080 the math looks like it's going to work. The destruction 00:13:19.080 --> 00:13:23.980 is unprecedented. In April 1917, the Allies experienced 00:13:23.980 --> 00:13:28.179 their worst month of the entire war. Over 881 00:13:28.179 --> 00:13:30.340 ,000 tons of shipping are sent to the bottom 00:13:30.340 --> 00:13:34.700 of the ocean. A full 25 % of all Britain -bound 00:13:34.700 --> 00:13:37.879 shipping is destroyed in a single month. Britain's 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:40.279 wheat supply shrinks to an estimated six weeks 00:13:40.279 --> 00:13:43.539 worth of reserves. They were quite literally 00:13:43.539 --> 00:13:46.120 staring into the abyss of national starvation. 00:13:46.350 --> 00:13:49.049 But Holtzendorf's mathematical gamble possessed 00:13:49.049 --> 00:13:52.149 a fatal flaw. The diplomatic ticking clock. Exactly. 00:13:52.529 --> 00:13:54.590 President Wilson severed diplomatic relations 00:13:54.590 --> 00:13:56.590 almost the moment the doctrine was announced. 00:13:56.909 --> 00:14:00.389 And by April 6, 1917, the U .S. Congress officially 00:14:00.389 --> 00:14:02.509 declared war on the German Empire. Just so the 00:14:02.509 --> 00:14:05.350 race was on. Could Germany starve Britain before 00:14:05.350 --> 00:14:07.389 American industrial and military might arrive 00:14:07.389 --> 00:14:09.610 in Europe? Why didn't they? I mean, if the U 00:14:09.610 --> 00:14:11.549 -boats were sinking a quarter of all inbound 00:14:11.549 --> 00:14:13.769 cargo, why didn't the British economy completely 00:14:13.769 --> 00:14:17.289 collapse? The answer lies in a massive, desperately 00:14:17.289 --> 00:14:20.070 needed shift in logistical tactics, the convoy 00:14:20.070 --> 00:14:23.009 system. But wait, didn't the British Admiralty 00:14:23.009 --> 00:14:25.690 fiercely resist the idea of convoys for years? 00:14:26.090 --> 00:14:28.389 Why on earth would they resist grouping ships 00:14:28.389 --> 00:14:30.809 together if they were losing hundreds of thousands 00:14:30.809 --> 00:14:33.370 of tons a month? It seems baffling in hindsight, 00:14:33.789 --> 00:14:35.789 but the Adderallty clung to traditional naval 00:14:35.789 --> 00:14:38.750 dogma. They argued that grouping dozens of merchant 00:14:38.750 --> 00:14:41.389 ships together would simply create a massive, 00:14:41.710 --> 00:14:44.110 unmissable target for the U -boats. I suppose 00:14:44.110 --> 00:14:47.070 that makes a kind of superficial sense. Furthermore, 00:14:47.409 --> 00:14:50.230 the logistics of a convoy are incredibly complex. 00:14:50.789 --> 00:14:53.190 You're forcing fast ships to slow down to the 00:14:53.190 --> 00:14:55.789 pace of the slowest freighter in the group, causing 00:14:55.789 --> 00:14:58.129 massive delays and turnaround times at the ports. 00:14:58.730 --> 00:15:01.389 And nobody liked doing it. Right. Naval captains 00:15:01.389 --> 00:15:03.769 hated babysitting merchant vessels, and merchant 00:15:03.769 --> 00:15:06.330 captains hated sailing in tight, rigid formations 00:15:06.330 --> 00:15:08.870 without navigation lights. The Admiralty viewed 00:15:08.870 --> 00:15:12.070 it as a passive, defensive strategy that surrendered 00:15:12.070 --> 00:15:14.710 the initiative to the enemy. But the losses in 00:15:14.710 --> 00:15:17.730 April 1917 were so catastrophic that dogma had 00:15:17.730 --> 00:15:20.250 to give way to survival. The Admiralty finally 00:15:20.250 --> 00:15:22.490 endorsed the convoy system, and the first official 00:15:22.490 --> 00:15:25.750 convoy sailed from Gibraltar in May 1917. And 00:15:25.750 --> 00:15:27.929 the shift in momentum was almost instantaneous. 00:15:28.490 --> 00:15:31.549 Shipping losses just plummeted. By forcing merchant 00:15:31.549 --> 00:15:34.149 ships to travel within a protective ring of armed 00:15:34.149 --> 00:15:37.009 naval escorts, the U -boats could no longer pick 00:15:37.009 --> 00:15:40.740 off isolated, defenseless prey. To sink a merchant 00:15:40.740 --> 00:15:43.620 ship, the submarine now had to expose itself 00:15:43.620 --> 00:15:46.120 to heavily armed destroyers. It was a complete 00:15:46.120 --> 00:15:48.480 paradigm shift. The introduction of the convoy 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:50.799 system, coupled with the arrival of U .S. Navy 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:53.100 destroyers commanded by Rear Admiral William 00:15:53.100 --> 00:15:55.879 Sims, drastically increased the number of U -boats 00:15:55.879 --> 00:15:58.740 destroyed. The hunters became the hunted. Exactly. 00:15:59.440 --> 00:16:01.440 Furthermore, the Allies formed the Allied Maritime 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:03.960 Transport Council to centrally manage global 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:07.029 shipping. ensure that cargo capacity was maximized 00:16:07.029 --> 00:16:09.389 even with the delays caused by convoy assembly. 00:16:10.190 --> 00:16:12.690 The math was finally turning against Holtzendorf. 00:16:13.070 --> 00:16:14.909 If they couldn't break the congoy system in the 00:16:14.909 --> 00:16:17.389 Atlantic, the German naval command decided to 00:16:17.389 --> 00:16:20.210 take the psychological war directly to the source. 00:16:20.750 --> 00:16:23.269 Entering 1918, the final year of the war, we 00:16:23.269 --> 00:16:25.590 see the deployment of U -Cruisers. Which sound 00:16:25.590 --> 00:16:27.830 less like submarines and more like submersible 00:16:27.830 --> 00:16:29.909 battleships. Yeah, the scale of these vessels 00:16:29.909 --> 00:16:33.669 is remarkable. The Type U -151 and Type U -139 00:16:33.669 --> 00:16:35.929 submarines were massive. They carried up to 24 00:16:35.929 --> 00:16:38.779 torpedoes. But what made them truly formidable 00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:42.419 were their twin 150 millimeter deck guns and 00:16:42.419 --> 00:16:45.539 an astonishing operational range of around 25 00:16:45.539 --> 00:16:48.840 ,000 nautical miles. They were specifically designed 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:51.320 to bypass the heavily guarded European waters 00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:54.279 and conduct independent commerce raiding right 00:16:54.279 --> 00:16:56.879 off the coast of North America. And they absolutely 00:16:56.879 --> 00:16:59.220 brought the terror of the war to American shores. 00:16:59.500 --> 00:17:03.000 In May 1918, U -151 crossed the Atlantic and 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:05.579 began cutting submerged telegraph cables connecting 00:17:05.579 --> 00:17:08.299 New York to Nova Scotia. Severing communications. 00:17:08.539 --> 00:17:11.359 Then on June 2, a day the press dubbed Black 00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:14.539 Sunday, that single submarine sank six U .S. 00:17:14.819 --> 00:17:16.819 ships and damaged two others right off the coast 00:17:16.819 --> 00:17:18.640 of New Jersey in a matter of hours. Right in 00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:21.140 America's backyard. Even more bizarre, in July 00:17:21.140 --> 00:17:24.160 1918, a U -boat attacked the small town of Orleans, 00:17:24.220 --> 00:17:26.720 Massachusetts. They fired their artillery shells 00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:29.279 directly at the town for an hour. While it didn't 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:31.740 cause massive structural damage, it holds an 00:17:31.740 --> 00:17:34.019 incredible historical distinction. Yes, it was 00:17:34.019 --> 00:17:36.819 the first attack by a foreign power's artillery 00:17:36.819 --> 00:17:39.200 on U .S. soil since the Mexican -American War. 00:17:39.660 --> 00:17:42.579 Foreign artillery hitting Cape Cod. The psychological 00:17:42.579 --> 00:17:45.519 impact of that is just wild. It was a desperate 00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:47.839 attempt to force the U .S. to pull its destroyers 00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:49.720 back from Europe to defend its own coastline. 00:17:49.980 --> 00:17:52.680 But it didn't work. No, the Allies didn't take 00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:55.359 the bait. because they were simultaneously scaling 00:17:55.359 --> 00:17:57.759 up their physical and technological countermeasures 00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:02.019 to an industrial level. By 1918, aircraft began 00:18:02.019 --> 00:18:04.779 playing a crucial role. Wait, airplanes hunting 00:18:04.779 --> 00:18:07.839 submarines in World War I? Yes. While airplanes 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:10.900 of that era rarely sank U -boats, an airplane 00:18:10.900 --> 00:18:13.779 patrolling above a convoy forced the submarine 00:18:13.779 --> 00:18:16.940 to dive deep to avoid detection. And as we established 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:19.859 earlier, a deeply submerged U -boat is blind 00:18:19.859 --> 00:18:22.160 and too slow to maneuver into an attack position. 00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:25.200 Not a single convoy escorted by an air patrol 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:28.059 lost a ship in 1918. And the physical barriers 00:18:28.059 --> 00:18:30.500 they constructed are mind boggling. The U .S. 00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:32.980 Navy spearheaded the North Sea mine barrage. 00:18:33.299 --> 00:18:35.299 They essentially tried to fence in the ocean, 00:18:35.460 --> 00:18:38.660 laying over 70 ,000 explosive mines across a 00:18:38.660 --> 00:18:41.460 250 -mile stretch of the North Sea to physically 00:18:41.460 --> 00:18:43.579 wall off the U -boats from reaching the Atlantic. 00:18:43.799 --> 00:18:46.319 It was a monumental engineering feat. And the 00:18:46.319 --> 00:18:48.920 effort to suppress this technology became a truly 00:18:48.920 --> 00:18:52.119 global operation. Japanese destroyers were stationed 00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:55.059 in the Mediterranean at Malta to escort convoys 00:18:55.059 --> 00:18:57.599 and the Brazilian Navy deployed a naval division 00:18:57.599 --> 00:19:00.819 in war operations to patrol the Atlantic Triangle 00:19:00.819 --> 00:19:04.220 between Dakar, Cape Verde and Gibraltar. The 00:19:04.220 --> 00:19:06.859 news had completely tightened. The combination 00:19:06.859 --> 00:19:09.920 of convoys, air patrols, massive minefields, 00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:13.019 and global naval cooperation made U -boat losses 00:19:13.019 --> 00:19:15.180 completely unsustainable. The crews just couldn't 00:19:15.180 --> 00:19:17.119 take it anymore. The morale of the submarine 00:19:17.119 --> 00:19:20.019 crews collapsed under the immense danger and 00:19:20.019 --> 00:19:22.880 the increasingly low survival rates. By autumn 00:19:22.880 --> 00:19:26.039 of 1918, the broader war effort had failed. And 00:19:26.039 --> 00:19:28.569 when the armistice was signed in November, One 00:19:28.569 --> 00:19:30.970 of the absolute preconditions dictated by the 00:19:30.970 --> 00:19:33.150 Allies was the total surrender of the German 00:19:33.150 --> 00:19:35.650 submarine fleet. Over 160 U -boats were sailed 00:19:35.650 --> 00:19:38.650 to Harwich in England and handed over. As a testament 00:19:38.650 --> 00:19:40.930 to the lingering animosity, the German crews 00:19:40.930 --> 00:19:43.329 were forbidden from even stepping foot on British 00:19:43.329 --> 00:19:45.130 soil when they delivered the vessels. They had 00:19:45.130 --> 00:19:47.410 to just drop them off and leave. So what does 00:19:47.410 --> 00:19:50.019 this all mean? When we look at the final tally 00:19:50.019 --> 00:19:52.900 extracted from this deep dive, the sheer volume 00:19:52.900 --> 00:19:55.420 of destruction is difficult to comprehend. The 00:19:55.420 --> 00:19:58.119 numbers are staggering. The U -boats sank nearly 00:19:58.119 --> 00:20:02.700 5 ,000 ships. That represents 12 .8 million gross 00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:04.799 register tons of shipping sent to the bottom. 00:20:05.220 --> 00:20:07.720 Nearly 15 ,000 British merchant sailors lost 00:20:07.720 --> 00:20:10.519 their lives. On the German side, the cost was 00:20:10.519 --> 00:20:14.400 equally severe. 178 U -boats were lost in combat, 00:20:14.740 --> 00:20:17.670 taking around 5 ,000 crewmen with them. The campaign 00:20:17.670 --> 00:20:19.730 also produced individual records that remain 00:20:19.730 --> 00:20:22.990 untouched. U -boat aces like Lothar von Arnall 00:20:22.990 --> 00:20:26.650 de la Perrier sank 189 ships, a record of naval 00:20:26.650 --> 00:20:28.930 destruction that has never been surpassed by 00:20:28.930 --> 00:20:31.410 anyone in any conflict since. The takeaway for 00:20:31.410 --> 00:20:33.890 you listening to this extends far beyond military 00:20:33.890 --> 00:20:36.690 trivia. This entire campaign serves as a masterclass 00:20:36.690 --> 00:20:39.670 in how established dominant systems react or 00:20:39.670 --> 00:20:42.390 fail to react to disruptive technology. The Admiralty 00:20:42.390 --> 00:20:44.769 almost lost the war because of their stubbornness. 00:20:45.170 --> 00:20:47.549 Exactly. The British Admiralty, commanding the 00:20:47.549 --> 00:20:50.970 most powerful navy on earth, almost lost a global 00:20:50.970 --> 00:20:53.769 war because they stubbornly clung to centuries 00:20:53.769 --> 00:20:56.869 -old dogmas. They initially refused to adopt 00:20:56.869 --> 00:20:59.829 the convoy system because it violated their traditional 00:20:59.829 --> 00:21:02.190 offensive mindset and bureaucratic structures. 00:21:02.769 --> 00:21:06.329 It's a harsh lesson. It is. Survival, whether 00:21:06.329 --> 00:21:09.549 we are talking about naval warfare in 1917 or 00:21:09.549 --> 00:21:13.049 modern industrial disruption today, depends entirely 00:21:13.049 --> 00:21:16.049 on a leadership's willingness to abandon what 00:21:16.049 --> 00:21:18.670 used to work and innovate rapidly the moment 00:21:18.670 --> 00:21:21.150 the paradigm shifts. That's a powerful point. 00:21:21.349 --> 00:21:23.089 This raises an important question, though, and 00:21:23.089 --> 00:21:25.009 it's a detail from the very end of our source 00:21:25.009 --> 00:21:27.890 text that provides a remarkably ironic conclusion 00:21:27.890 --> 00:21:30.269 to this story. We spent all this time analyzing 00:21:30.269 --> 00:21:32.490 the U -boats as this ultimate terror weapon deployed 00:21:32.490 --> 00:21:34.650 against the allied supply chains. Right. But 00:21:34.650 --> 00:21:37.049 the very last significant military action the 00:21:37.049 --> 00:21:39.009 U -boats were ordered to take in World War I 00:21:39.009 --> 00:21:41.450 was not against the British Royal Navy and it 00:21:41.450 --> 00:21:43.170 wasn't against the American convoy. Who was it 00:21:43.170 --> 00:21:46.529 against? It occurred in November 1918 during 00:21:46.529 --> 00:21:49.980 the widespread German naval mutiny at Kiel. The 00:21:49.980 --> 00:21:52.920 U -boats were commanded to stand ready with orders 00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:55.519 to fire torpedoes without warning on any German 00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:57.720 vessel flying the red flag of mutiny. They turned 00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:00.160 them on their own fleet. The ultimate asymmetric 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.940 weapon of the German Empire ended the war with 00:22:02.940 --> 00:22:05.279 its sights pointed squarely at its own rebelling 00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:08.279 sailors. What a profound and chilling image to 00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:11.259 end on. A disruptive technology that starved 00:22:11.259 --> 00:22:13.720 nations, ultimately turning its weapons inward. 00:22:14.429 --> 00:22:16.450 Thank you for joining us on this exploration. 00:22:16.750 --> 00:22:18.970 Keep questioning, keep digging into the past, 00:22:19.009 --> 00:22:20.950 and we'll be waiting for you in the next deep 00:22:20.950 --> 00:22:21.250 dive.