Germany tried to cut off supplies reaching the Entente, ultimately resorting to submarine warfare. Naturally, both sides waged economic warfare, and therefore, both sides attempted to blockade each other. However, it was not an exclusively British, but an Allied policy, executed by all the Allied navies, in which the Royal Navy had the predominant part. These deaths have traditionally been attributed to the “British hunger blockade”. It involved preventing goods used in the war effort from reaching the enemy, above all munitions and raw materials for their production, but also food and everything needed to sustain the armed forces, thus ultimately targeting the civilian population.Ī large part of the German population suffered hunger during the war, and between 478,500 and 800,000 civilians died from diseases related to hunger and malnutrition. Economic warfare means all the measures designed to weaken the enemy’s economy. Naval blockades, imposed by surface or submarine fleets or by mines, were part of broader economic warfare, as had often been employed in history.
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