The First World War

On August 4, 1914, following the German invasion of Belgium, Britain declared war. In 1914, when Britain was at war, Canada was at war.

On October 3, 1914, the First Canadian Contingent left for England in the largest convoy ever to cross the Atlantic. Also sailing in this convoy was a contingent from the still separate British Dominion of Newfoundland. Over the course of the war, more than 650,000 Canadians made that fateful crossing. More than 66,000 did not return.

After initial rapid advancement, the war in Europe ground to a halt as two great enemy armies became deadlocked along a 960-kilometre front of impregnable trenches. For the next four years there was little change. As attack after attack failed, and hundreds of thousands were killed, the Western Front settled into a bloody stalemate.

In this setting, the war at sea took on a vital and dangerous role. The very outcome of the war depended on the successful movement of troops and goods over the oceans of the world.

The shipping of tens of thousands of troops and a mountain of guns, munitions, horses, supplies and other provisions was a major component of Canada’s naval effort, one that pushed the country’s resources to the limit. From an average of 45,000 tonnes of cargo a month in 1915, shipping from Canada increased to 351,000 tonnes a month in 1918.

Although our country had a noteworthy merchant fleet in earlier periods, by 1914 Canada’s fleet had practically disappeared. On top of this, there was virtually no capacity for building new ships. The Canadian naval service, meanwhile, consisted of fewer than 350 men and two old ships. So when Prime Minister Robert Borden cabled London to ascertain what naval role Canada could play, they responded that any aid would be so minor it would have no impact, and it would take too long to build ships. It was agreed that Canada’s war effort would be best concentrated on the army. Britain’s Royal Navy would look after the protection of Canada’s coasts and shipping in Canadian waters.

The Sailing of the First Contingent, 1914. (PAC 6701)

Our country’s merchant sailors, however, were engaged from the beginning and for the duration. Canada’s merchant fleet was all but gone, but the skilled Canadian and Newfoundland crews that had sailed them were not. These crews formed a significant part of the quarter million men³ who, at the outbreak of the First World War, manned the 12,600 steamships serving Great Britain and the other Commonwealth countries around the world.

The war at sea began as a struggle between two powerful navies, the British Royal Navy and the German High Seas Fleet. They were engaged in a struggle to control the seas for the transportation of the vitally-needed troops and goods. The great rival fleets met only once, in the Battle of Jutland off the coast of Denmark in 1916. The British suffered heavily in this encounter, but the lasting result of this battle was that the German High Seas Fleet never again ventured in force from its North Sea bases. German U-boats did, however, continue to take a great toll on Allied shipping throughout the war.

The British Royal Navy was able to retain control of the surface of the oceans and blockade merchant shipping to German ports. British warships were able to eliminate German “merchant raiders” (armed merchant vessels that attacked Allied shipping), although not before they had sunk 54 British ships. As well, the Admiralty took steps to deal with the deadly mines that had been strewn in the waters around the British Isles. They employed counter-mining, hunted the mine-layers and enlisted an ever-growing fleet of mine-sweepers.

But Britain’s command of the sea by a superior surface fleet was not enough. Striking directly at trade was an awesome new weapon, the submarine, which Germany used to try to bring Britain to its knees was the means used to achieve this goal. The German U-boat fleet preyed on Allied and often neutral ships, sank merchant ships on sight, and threatened the supply lines the Allies depended on. However, in 1915 the Germans made a reluctant promise not to sink ships without warning, following the protests of the United States who had not yet entered the war.

This agreement greatly reduced the effectiveness of the submarine as a weapon, and by the end of 1916 the Allies’ own blockade of German sea supply lines was severely hurting the Germans. Their economy was severely strained by the blockade and because the German armies were deadlocked in stalemate on the Western and Eastern fronts. In January 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the country’s leader, was convinced that Britain could be starved in five months if U-boats were allowed to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare.Even though it meant taking the risk that the United States would enter the war, on February 1, German U-boats resumed attacking merchant ships from all countries without warning. The submarine campaign suddenly entered a new and more menacing phase.

The ruthlessness of the land war now found its counterpart at sea. In the early stages of the war, crews of the merchant ships were allowed to take to the lifeboats before their ship was sunk. The U-boats, however, relied on surprise, attacked without warning and were too small to take survivors. The crews were now abandoned to their fate. These new tactics dramatically decreased the chances of sailors surviving a U-boat attack.

The German policy was effective. Allied shipping losses mounted, reaching a peak in April 1917 of 788,183 tonnes of cargo. In three bitter winter months, 800 ships and 8,000 seamen were lost. In fact, one-quarter of the ships on the transatlantic run were sunk over this period. By spring, losses were so great that British Admiralty analysts predicted the destruction of the merchant fleet by November. Losing the merchant fleet would mean the defeat of Britain.⁴

Fortunately, the submarine campaign did not achieve this dire outcome. The Allied adoption of a convoy system, together with new anti-submarine devices, gradually overcame the submarine menace. Also, in April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and its allies. The United States’ vast armada of merchant and military ships eased the burden on the Allied merchant navies.

A convoy consists of a group of ships sailing together in a group, escorted by warships if possible. Unlike a scattered stream of independent ships, convoys could be routed around areas where U-boats were known to be hiding. Ships gathered into convoys meant the U-boats had to search a vast ocean for fewer independent targets. In fact, 30 ships in a convoy are not visible from much farther away than a single ship. To attack a convoy meant risking a fight with the escort. Furthermore, convoys could be reinforced with surface and air escorts when they entered a dangerous area.

Eastbound convoys gathered in Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia, and were escorted seaward by the small ships of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). Royal Navy (RN) and United States Navy (USN) cruisers and auxiliary cruisers served as ocean escorts. Destroyers and aircraft met them in the approaches to British waters to hold off the U-boats. In May 1917, the first convoy safely reached Britain.

By August, outbound ships from Britain were also in convoy. Sinkings dropped below half of those in April, and by October losses of ships in convoys were less than one in a hundred, one-tenth the rate of independents. U-boats might slip in for torpedo attack, but the old days of sinking ship after lone ship at will, or by boarding and scuttling, had ended.⁵

However, this new strategic victory had dangerous consequences. With fewer unescorted ships in European waters, the U-boats had to search farther afield for their targets. With the United States in the war from April 1917, North American waters became new hunting grounds for the German submarines.

Fortunately, the course of war on the European battlefront began to change. By the middle of 1918, the British blockade was having a serious effect on the German war effort as well as on German morale. In the spring of 1918, a determined German offensive had been turned back, and by early September the Allies were advancing on every sector.

The war ended on November 11, 1918.