German historian Martin Bayer argues that the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917 sealed Germany’s fate, helping to bring America into the First World War.
The U-boat campaign was seen as the only chance of breaking the deadlock of the Allied naval blockade and the Western Front, Bayer says in a blog for WW100 New Zealand.
But Germany’s supreme commanders made ‘another crucial error of judgement’ in basing their strategy on the war being won before considerable numbers of US troops could be sent to Europe – with fatal consequences in 1918.
Read Martin Bayer’s full article on the WW100 New Zealand website.