The first British response to the submarine, dating from the start of the
war and intensified in 1916, included a number of measures. The British
navy set down extensive minefields to block German submarines from
leaving their harbors. A barrier based on nets as well as mines was set up
in the English Channel. Merchant ships received naval guns to defend
themselves, and the navy employed decoy vessels known as Q ships. These
appeared to be merchant ships, but they were actually vessels designed to
attack U-boats; manned by naval crews with hidden armaments, they tried
to make the submarines surface and approach so that the hunter could be
transformed into the hunted.
Nonetheless, the lords of the Admiralty and most combat commanders
favored a different countermeasure: patrolling key sea lanes with warships.
This requires some explanation. For centuries, the island nation's navy had
protected wartime commerce by a different method: escorting convoys of
merchant vessels. But this practice had fallen into disfavor during a century
without naval warfare after Britain's 1805 victory over France at Trafalgar.
Doctrines of free trade made ship owners reluctant to put their vessels under
government control, even in moments of peril. The speed of merchant
vessels in the new era of steam power seemed to offer adequate protection
against attack. Most important of all, the offensive naval doctrines of
theorists like American admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan proclaimed that the
duty of a fighting navy was to seek out and destroy the enemy's main fleet.
Patrolling the sea lanes to seek out the submarines appeared consistent with
this offensive mind-set.
Thus, the navy discarded the protecfion of commerce, and it did so for
reasons of doctrine, even for reasons of psychology. To hunt the enemy
down was proper; to shield merchant convoys was almost cowardly. As
Trevor Wilson has remarked, British leaders failed to see that "the way to
counter submarines was not by going in search of them but by standing
between them and their quaiTy." Unfortunately, the patrols encountered
few submarines, and sank even fewer, as losses of merchant ships continued
to mount. Even the most aggressive patrolling amounted to nothing more
than watching the ocean. As the war went on, the navy accepted a limited
use of convoys, especially for transporting troops and particularly valuable
individual ships. But most naval authorities rejected their wider use.
World History
