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Britain and Economic Warfare in German Naval Thinking in the Era of the Great War

Under the leadership of Alfred von Tirpitz, the German navy concentrated on building a battle fleet based in the North Sea rather than cruisers designed for operations in distant waters. This has led many historians to assume that commerce warfare (Handelskrieg) played no real part in German preparations for war against Britain before 1914. This chapter disputes this analysis. It shows that Germany’s naval planners in the Admiralstab believed that by converting merchant ships into auxiliary cruisers and using them to attack British commerce on the high seas the German navy would be able to cause considerable damage to British shipping and so force the Royal Navy to divert forces from the main theatre of war to distant oceans. It goes on to examine the reality of this plan during the First World War.