Commerce raiding (french: guerre de course, "war of the chase"; german: Handelskrieg, "trade war") is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its

merchant shipping Maritime transport (or ocean transport) and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people ( passengers) or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used thro ...

, rather than engaging its

combatants Combatant is the legal status of an individual who has the right to engage in hostilities during an armed conflict. The legal definition of "combatant" is found at article 43(2) of Additional Protocol I (AP1) to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. ...

or enforcing a

blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are leg ...

against them.

Privateering

The first sort of commerce raiding was for nations to commission

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

s. Early instances of this type of warfare were by the English and Dutch against the

Spanish treasure fleet The Spanish treasure fleet, or West Indies Fleet ( es, Flota de Indias, also called silver fleet or plate fleet; from the es, label=Spanish, plata meaning "silver"), was a convoy system of sea routes organized by the Spanish Empire from 1566 to ...

s of the 16th century, which resulted in financial gain for both captain and crew upon capture of enemy vessels (" prizes").

17th and 18th centuries

Privateers formed a large part of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. In the

First Anglo-Dutch War The First Anglo-Dutch War, or simply the First Dutch War, ( nl, Eerste Engelse (zee-)oorlog, "First English (Sea) War"; 1652–1654) was a conflict fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Province ...

, English privateers attacked the trade on which the United Provinces entirely depended, capturing over 1,000 Dutch merchant ships. During the subsequent war with Spain, Spanish and Flemish privateers in the service of the Spanish Crown, including the notorious

Dunkirkers During the Dutch Revolt (1568–1648), the Dunkirkers or Dunkirk Privateers were commerce raiders in the service of the Spanish monarchy. They were also part of the ''Dunkirk fleet'', which consequently was a part of the Spanish monarchy's ''Fl ...

, captured 1,500 English

merchant ship A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are ...

s, which provided a major boost to the flagging Dutch trade. Dutch privateers and others also attacked English trade, whether coastal, Atlantic, or Mediterranean, in the Second and Third

Anglo-Dutch wars The Anglo–Dutch Wars ( nl, Engels–Nederlandse Oorlogen) were a series of conflicts mainly fought between the Dutch Republic and England (later Great Britain) from mid-17th to late 18th century. The first three wars occurred in the second ...

. During the Nine Years' War, French policy strongly encouraged privateers, including the famous

Jean Bart Jean Bart (; ; 21 October 1650 – 27 April 1702) was a French naval commander and privateer. Early life Jean Bart was born in Dunkirk in 1650 to a seafaring family, the son of Jean-Cornil Bart (c. 1619-1668) who has been described variously a ...

, to attack English and Dutch shipping. England lost roughly 4,000 merchant ships during the war.Privateering and the Private Production of Naval Power
by Gary M. Anderson and Adam Gifford Jr. In the following

War of Spanish Succession The War of the Spanish Succession was a European great power conflict that took place from 1701 to 1714. The death of childless Charles II of Spain in November 1700 led to a struggle for control of the Spanish Empire between his heirs, Phili ...

, privateer attacks continued, Britain losing 3,250 merchant ships. Parliament passed an updated Cruisers and Convoys Act in 1708, allocating regular warships to the defence of trade. In the

War of Austrian Succession War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

, the Royal Navy was able to concentrate more on defending British ships. Britain lost 3,238 merchantmen, a smaller fraction of her merchant marine than the enemy losses of 3,434. While French losses were proportionally severe, the smaller but better-protected Spanish trade suffered the least, and Spanish privateers enjoyed much of the best plunder of enemy merchantmen, particularly in the West Indies.

Napoleonic Wars

During

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

's wars against Revolutionary and

Napoleonic France The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire (; Latin: ) after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Eu ...

, the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

dominated the seas. France adopted a ''guerre de course'' strategy by licensing civilian

s to seize British shipping. British

East Indiamen East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vesse ...

of the time were therefore heavily armed to protect themselves against such raids, at the cost of considerable speed and maneuverability. Some East Indiamen, such as , were successfully able to fend off these attacks in other parts of the world; others, such as when ''Kent'' met ''Confiance'' in 1800, were less fortunate. U.S. and British privateers also actively raided each other's shipping during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

American Civil War

During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, the

Confederate Navy The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American ...

operated a fleet of commissioned Confederate States Navy commerce raiders. These differed from

s as they were state-owned ships with orders to destroy enemy commerce rather than privately owned ships with letters of marque. These included ''Sumter'', ''Florida'', ''Alabama'', and ''Shenandoah''. Most of the ships used in this period were built in Britain, which resulted in the ''Alabama'' Claims.

Steel navies

By the 1880s, the navies of Europe began to deploy warships made of iron and steel. The natural evolution that followed was the installation of more powerful guns to penetrate such warships, followed by specialized armor plating, followed by larger guns and the development of effective torpedoes (followed by armored belts below the waterline to protect against them). This "arms spiral" (which included the development of

high explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ...

and armor-piercing shells) shifted focus from capture of "prizes" (that meant financial gain for captain and crew of the responsible vessel, and their government, when the prize and her cargo were

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

ed) to destruction of enemy

warships A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster an ...

. First seen at the Sinope in 1853, the change was little appreciated until 1905, when at Tsushima seven

pre-dreadnought Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, protec ...

s were sent to the bottom, and the only prizes were those that had voluntarily surrendered.

World War I

World War I saw Germany conducting a commerce war ("''Handelskrieg''") against Britain and her allies, principally with U-boats, but also with

merchant raider Merchant raiders are armed commerce raiding ships that disguise themselves as non-combatant merchant vessels. History Germany used several merchant raiders early in World War I (1914–1918), and again early in World War II (1939–1945). The cap ...

s and

light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to th ...

s, and even occasionally with naval airships.

World War II

During World War II, the Battle of the Atlantic saw

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

conducting commerce raiding against Britain and its allies, again using U-boats, auxiliary cruisers, and small groups of cruisers and battleships (surface raiders). The goal was to wage a

tonnage war A tonnage war is a military strategy aimed at merchant shipping. The premise is that the enemy has a finite number of ships and a finite capacity to build replacements. The concept was made famous by German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, who wrote:" ...

against the British Empire, destroying merchant shipping (and its cargoes) faster than they could be replaced, ultimately strangling the island nation by cutting off supplies it was inevitably dependent upon. Limitations set by the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

meant Germany had been unable to build a large battle fleet between the World Wars as she had in the time leading up to the World War I; instead, she chose to covertly develop her U-boat fleet. Submarines were cheaper and quicker to build than capital ships. This meant Germany was not able to fight battles between fleets, and relied on commerce raiding instead. The extreme early success of Kriegsmarine U-boat wolfpacks led to the Allied development of an extensive and naval resource-straining

convoy system A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...

. In addition to U-boats Germany also deployed the small numbers of surface warships she possessed, such as the "

pocket battleship The ''Deutschland'' class was a series of three ''Panzerschiffe'' (armored ships), a form of heavily armed cruiser, built by the ''Reichsmarine'' officially in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The ships of the cl ...

s", her auxiliary cruisers, and a number of commercial vessels converted into merchant raiders, perhaps the most famous being . During World War II, elements of the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

based in Brazil conducted operations in the Atlantic against German commerce raiders and blockade runners. In the Pacific, the U.S. Navy operated against Japanese merchant shipping, as well as engaging in offensive operations against ships of the Japanese Imperial Navy. The bulk of the Japanese merchant marine was sunk by American submarines. By the end of the war, only 12% of Japan's pre-war merchant tonnage was still afloat. The

Indian Ocean raid The Indian Ocean raid, also known as Operation C or Battle of Ceylon in Japanese, was a naval sortie carried out by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) from 31 March to 10 April 1942. Japanese aircraft carriers under Admiral Chūichi Nagumo ...

was a naval sortie by the Carrier Striking Task Force of the Japanese Navy from 31 March to 10 April 1942 against Allied shipping and bases in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

. It was an early engagement of the Pacific campaign of World War II. The staff of the Imperial Japanese Navy decided to send some raiders to

waters during December 12, 1941 – July 12, 1942. The Germans had already been operating in the area and conducted mutual aid with Japanese submarines, in the form of re-supply and military intelligence. The Indian Ocean was the largest operating area involving direct contact between the two Axis partners, in which their primary objective was to keep pressure on the shipping lanes. The Japanese Navy participated in some commerce raiding, but concentrated its efforts toward a "decisive battle" in the Pacific, which never took place.

Notes

References

* * Lehmann, Ernst A.; Mingos, Howard. ''The Zeppelins: The Development of the Airship, with the Story of the Zepplin Air Raids in the World War''. *