The sea in the Great War

Summary

ABSTRACT.The role of the sea in the war is best understood in facilitating or denying food supplies to the combatants. The balance of power is presented here as a balance of energy. Coal, in which the allies were rich, multiplied human effort about forty times. Grain only multiplied human effort by 1.5. The allies were able to import food, and to send their men to war. The central powers(and Russia) did not realize that mobilizing their manpower threatened them with starvation. Submarine warfare was dangerous, but failed to reduce British food consumption.

RÉSUMÉ.Le rôle de la mer dans la guerre est mieux compris lorsqu'il est envisagé comme un moyen de faciliter ou d'empêcher l'approvisionnement des combattants. l'équilibre des puissances est ici présenté comme un équilibre des moyens énergétiques. Le charbon, dont les Alliés étaient riches, multipliait les efforts humains par environ 40. Le grain, quant à lui, ne le multipliait que par 1,5. Les Alliés étaient en mesure d'importer de la nourriture et d'envoyer leurs hommes au combat. Les puissances centrales – et la Russie – ne réalisèrent pas que la mobilisation de leur main d'oeuvre les menaçait de famine. La guerre sous-marine était dangereuse mais échoua à faire diminuer la consommation alimentaire britannique.

Viewed from space in August 1914, the earth was a shimmering blue globe, clad in a mantle of saltwater. From that height, the war that had just broken out was contained in two slender bands, neither of them visible, the one running through Belgium and France, the other through the Eastern boundaries of Germany and Austro-Hungary. On the ground, for the combatants, the grey sea was a lifeline, either for their side or for the other. The problem was how to keep it open, or how to shut it down. Historians are divided about the role of the sea. Paul Kennedy regards it as a sideshow. For Norman Friedman, however, “The First World War was above all a maritime war, not in the sense that most of the action was at sea, but rather in the sense that maritime realities shaped it.” We concur. Once a quick decision on land eluded the combatants, the sea loomed increasingly larger, until, in the final two years, its massive, inert presence determined the outcome.