Unrestricted submarine warfare
Encyclopedia
Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare
Naval warfare
Naval warfare is combat in and on seas, oceans, or any other major bodies of water such as large lakes and wide rivers.-History:Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Land warfare would seem, initially, to be irrelevant and entirely removed from warfare on the open ocean,...

 in which submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s sink merchantmen
Merchantman
A merchantman is any non-naval vessel, including Tankers, freighters, or cargo ships, but not troopships.Merchantman may refer to:*ST Merchantman, a tug in service with United Towing Co Ltd from 1946 to 1962...

  without warning, as opposed to attacks per prize rules (commonly known as "cruiser rules"). Cruiser rules demand submarines surface and search merchantmen, and place crews in "a place of safety" (for which lifeboats did not qualify, except under particular circumstances) before sinking them, unless the ship in question showed "persistent refusal to stop...or active resistance to visit or search".

Following the use of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany in the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, countries tried to limit, even abolish, submarines. The effort failed. Instead, the London Naval Treaty
London Naval Treaty
The London Naval Treaty was an agreement between the United Kingdom, the Empire of Japan, France, Italy and the United States, signed on April 22, 1930, which regulated submarine warfare and limited naval shipbuilding. Ratifications were exchanged in London on October 27, 1930, and the treaty went...

 required submarines to abide by "cruiser rules". These regulations did not prohibit arming merchantmen, but arming them, or having them report contact with submarines (or raider
Commerce raiding
Commerce raiding or guerre de course is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt the logistics of an enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than engaging the combatants themselves or enforcing a blockade against them.Commerce raiding was heavily criticised by...

s), made them de facto naval auxiliaries and removed the protection of the cruiser rules. This made restrictions on submarines effectively moot.
While such tactics increase the combat effectiveness of the submarine and improve its chances of survival, they are considered by many to be a clear breach of the rules of war
Laws of war
The law of war is a body of law concerning acceptable justifications to engage in war and the limits to acceptable wartime conduct...

, especially when employed against neutral country
Neutral country
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...

 vessels in a war zone.

Instances

There have been four major campaigns of unrestricted submarine warfare:
  1. The U-boat campaign
    U-boat Campaign (World War I)
    The U-boat Campaign from 1914 to 1918 was the World War I naval campaign fought by German U-boats against the trade routes of the Entente Powers...

     of World War I
    World War I
    World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

    , waged intermittently by Germany
    Germany
    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

     between 1915 and 1918 against Britain
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

     and her allies. This warfare was also ostensibly the casus belli
    Casus belli
    is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...

    for the United States and Brazil
    Brazil
    Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

    's entry into the war in 1917.
  2. The Battle of the Atlantic during World War II
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

     between 1939 and 1945, waged by Germany and, from 1940 to 1943, by Italy, against Britain and her allies.
  3. The Naval War on the Eastern Front
    Eastern Front (World War II)
    The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...

    , also during World War II between 1941 and 1945, waged by Germany and the USSR
    Soviet Union
    The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

     against each other, primarily on the Baltic Sea
    Baltic Sea
    The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

    , especially from 1942.
  4. The Pacific War
    Pacific War
    The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...

     during World War II
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

    , also between 1941 and 1945, waged by the United States against Japan.


All the four cases centered around attempts to navally blockade countries, especially those heavily dependent on merchant shipping to supply their war industries and feed their populations (like Britain and Japan), even though the countries waging the unrestricted submarine warfare were unable to institute a typical naval blockade.

See also

  • Submarine warfare
    Submarine warfare
    Naval warfare is divided into three operational areas: surface warfare, air warfare and underwater warfare. The latter may be subdivided into submarine warfare and anti-submarine warfare as well as mine warfare and mine countermeasures...

  • Intensified submarine warfare
    Intensified submarine warfare
    Intensified submarine warfare is the English-language term used to describe the form of submarine warfare practiced by Germany in the first months of 1916...

  • Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships
    Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships
    Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship was an Admiralty Trade Division program established in June, 1939, to arm 5,500 British merchant ships with an adequate defence against enemy submarines and aircraft...

  • Commerce raiding
    Commerce raiding
    Commerce raiding or guerre de course is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt the logistics of an enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than engaging the combatants themselves or enforcing a blockade against them.Commerce raiding was heavily criticised by...

  • Tonnage war
    Tonnage war
    A tonnage war is a military strategy aimed at merchant shipping. The premise is that an enemy has only a finite number of ships, and a finite capacity to build replacements for them. The concept was made famous by U-boat commander Karl Dönitz, who wrote: The shipping of the enemy powers is one...

  • Arabic pledge
    Arabic pledge
    The Arabic pledge was a promise made by the German Empire during World War I to limit unrestricted submarine warfare.On May 7, 1915, Kaiserliche Marine U-boat U-20 sank the RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. The Germans attacked the Lusitania without warning and the ship went down within 18...

  • Sussex pledge
    Sussex pledge
    The Sussex pledge was a promise made in 1916 during World War I by Germany to the United States prior to the latter's entry into the war. Early in 1916, Germany had instituted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, allowing armed merchant ships – but not passenger ships – to be torpedoed...

  • War Order No. 154
    War Order No. 154
    War Order No. 154 was issued during World War II at the end of November or the beginning of December 1939. It was the first explicit instruction by the German Navy to use the tactics of unrestricted submarine warfare.-The order:...

  • Laconia incident
    Laconia incident
    The Laconia incident was an abortive naval rescue attempt in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. On 12 September 1942, , carrying some 80 civilians, 268 British Army soldiers, about 1,800 Italian prisoners of war, and 160 Polish soldiers , was struck and sunk by a torpedo from Kriegsmarine...

  • Laconia Order
    Laconia Order
    The Laconia Order was issued by German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz during World War II as a result of the Laconia incident....

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