January 31 1917 – Germany Resumes Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
January 31 1917 – Germany Resumes Unrestricted Submarine WarfareRate this post Fifteen months after calling off the highly effective U-boat attacks against merchant ships nearing the British Isles, German Kaiser Wilhelm II agreed to allow unrestricted submarine warfare on January 31, 1917. The following day, the waters around Britain were once again fair game — a fact which soon turned the United States from a non-combatant to an active participant. At the start of World War I, Germany and Britain both realized the best way to affect the opposition’s warmaking capacity would be forming a blockade to prevent supplies arriving by sea. Both countries required imports of food and materiel […]
