Blockade of Germany (1914–1919)

The Blockade of Germany, or the Blockade of Europe, occurred from 1914 to 1919. The prolonged naval blockade was conducted by the Entente during and after World War I in an effort to restrict the maritime supply of goods to the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The blockade greatly contributed to the eventual Allied victory in the war. The restricted supply of strategic materials such as metal ores and oil had a detrimental effect on the Central Powers' war effort, despite ingenious efforts to find other sources or substitutes.

Through a sequence of events, the Allies declared foodstuffs contraband, and this aspect of the blockade remains most controversial. In December 1918, the German Board of Public Health claimed that 763,000 German civilians had already died from starvation and disease caused by the blockade. An academic study done in 1928 put the death toll at 424,000, with similar or lower numbers given by more recent scholars, noting however complications with the degree of attribution of deaths to the Spanish flu of 1918-1920. Around 100,000 people may have died during the post-armistice continuation of the blockade into 1919. However, it has been pointed out that there was an even slightly larger civilian excess mortality during the war in the United Kingdom and France, both countries that were much less affected by food shortages (although this can also be attributed to the influenza epidemic and to diseases such as bronchitis and tuberculosis which are not strictly nutrition-related).

Germany, France and the United Kingdom relied heavily on imports to feed their populations and to supply their war industry. Imports of foodstuffs and war materiel to the European belligerents came primarily from the Americas and had to be shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, which impelled Britain, France and Germany to aim to blockade each other. The British Royal Navy, combined with the French Navy, out-numbered the Central Powers' ships and could operate throughout the British Empire and the French colonial empire, while the German Kaiserliche Marine, its surface fleet mainly restricted to the German Bight, used its commerce raiders and submarines elsewhere. Germany was initially able to use neutral countries as a conduit for international trade, but eventually British and French pressure, American involvement, and German missteps led to the full economic isolation of Germany.