Page 157 - Il Mediterraneo quale elemento del Potere Marittimo - Atti 16-18 settembre 1996

GERMAN NAVAL STRATEGY IN THE MEOITERRANEAN 1914-1918 143

Only in the Aegean ships which were clearly transporting troops to the Dardanelles
could be sunk without warning.
Being unable to break the strong Turkish-German defenses on Gallipoli the
Allies had to decide to evacuate their troops after heavy losses on both sides in
December 1915 andJanuary 1916. So the supply traffic in the Aegean was redu-
ced to some shipping to Greek ports, and the U-boat operations were to some ex-
tent transferred to cover the whole Mediterranean.
As in the northern waters now also in the Mediterranean more and more of
the Allied merchant ships were armed, and it became dangerous for the U-boats
to stop them surfaced. And U 38 under Lt. Cdr. Max Valentiner o n bis transfer
to the Mediterranean had on 3 November 1915 stopped the British steamer Wing-
field, and the boarding party had captured a secret Admiralty order with detailed
instructions for armed merchant ships how to attack U-boats. On 15 January 1916
the chief of the German U-boat flottilla Pola, Cdr. Kophamel, sent a report to the
Admiralty in Berlin about the dangers to the U-boats, asking for the permission
to attack all armed merchant ships like warships without warning. After some in-
tense discussions with the Chencellor and even th~ Kaiser it was decided on 11
February 1916, to grant this permission, effective from 29 February after notifica-
don to the neutra! governments. Following some interventions the passenger ships
were again excluded, even if under Allied flag and armed.
But when on 24 March 1916 UB 29 in the Channel sank the French ship Sus-
sex, and again some Americans became victims, strong American notes forced the
German government to reduce the U-boat war to submerged attacks against war-
ships only and to the prize regulations against merchant ships again. Because the
Command of the "Hochseeflotte" held such methods for too dangerous for the U-
boats, the merchant warfare by the U-boats of the "Hochseeflotte" and of the "Ma-
rinekorps Flandern" was discontinued from 24 April1916. On 9 May the U-boat
Flotilla Pola got the order to continue merchant warfare only surfaced under prize
regulations. Siibmerged they were allowed to attack only warships, but not even
armed merchant ships. Passenger steamers should pass unmolested. On 12 Octo-
ber this order was loosened so tnat then armed ships, surely recognized as enemy
ships, could be sunk without warning.
While these orders interrupted the U-boat merchant warfare in the northern
waters up to the final declaration of the unrestricted U-boat war, effective on l
February 1917, in the Mediterranean the U-boats achieved great successes with
the continuation of the surfaced operations according to the prize regulations. So
severa} of the mentioned 30's boats on their patrols in the second half year of 1916
achieved sinkings of more than 40 000 or 50 000 gross tons, and U 35 unter Lt.
Cdr. von Arnauld de la Perière sank in the most successful patrol of any submarine
in both world wars from 26 July to 30 August 1916 no less than 54 vessels with
90.1 SO gross tons only in surfaced attacks.
T o augment the successes efforts were undertaken to send additional U-boats
·into the Mediterran~an. While the Austrians in 1915 and 1916 commissioned the