By 1916 the German merchant fleet had been driven from the seas by a British blockade that had cut off Germany from foreign markets and put the nation on the verge of economic collapse. Germany's desperate response was the Deutschland, a merchant U-boat uniquely designed with an exceptionally wide beam to carry cargo. Its brief career as a blockade-runner captured international headlines, and Paul Konig's fast-moving account of its maiden voyage was one of the most popular books of the year when first published in the United States in 1917.
Although an acknowledged piece...
By 1916 the German merchant fleet had been driven from the seas by a British blockade that had cut off Germany from foreign markets and put the nat...
When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the clamoring in the press for a strong army largely overshadowed the need for considerable naval contributions to the war effort. Although it was small at the time, the U.S. Navy transported thousands of doughboys to France, all the while battling the predatory German U-Boats. Henry Ford tried to put his mass-production techniques to work to produce hundreds of submarine chasers to patrol American coastlines. The fledgling Naval Air Service was assigned the daunting task of dealing with enemy aircraft over France and in the...
When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the clamoring in the press for a strong army largely overshadowed the need for considerab...
By the summer of 1915 Germany was faced with two major problems in fighting World War I: how to break the British blockade and how to stop or seriously disrupt the British supply line across the Atlantic. Th e solution to the former was to find a way over, through, or under it. Aircraft in those days were too primitive, too short range, and too underpowered to accomplish this, and Germany lacked the naval strength to force a passage through the blockade. But if Germany could build a fleet of cargo U-boats that were large enough to carry meaningful loads and had the range to make a round trip...
By the summer of 1915 Germany was faced with two major problems in fighting World War I: how to break the British blockade and how to stop or seriousl...