The Truth Of Sacrifice

August 25th, 2007

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The Announcement

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Alternate Historian's Note: Another side trip instead of one of the main stories – if you'd like to see more a main story, email us and let us know which ones you prefer!

I went back in time the other day. It was quite an interesting experience. I almost prevented the birth of Hitler, and was an inch away from saving Martin Luther King. And, by the way, it was Oswald, and he was the only gunman. I can say that without fear of contradiction.
I'm not supposed to interfere, but you can't help yourself, really. After all, what's the point of going back if you're not going to try to change things? Time travel is the ultimate wish fulfillment. If you go back far enough, and you know enough, you can be a god.
Marcus had wanted to do that; be a god. He told me that he could bring a few gadgets with him, set up shop in Mesopotamia or someplace like that, and he would never have to worry about anything ever again. I reminded him that modern conveniences like hologames, running water and vaccinations might be missed by someone playing the god for the primitive locals, but he says that he could tough it out. I doubt it.
But, he's been gone for a while now, and I don't think he's coming back. The world hasn't come crashing down around us, so whatever changes he's made, I assume that they've already been taken into account in the time stream. I hope.
That's what we all hope, really. Everybody involved in the project has got to hope that we can't really change the past, at least not in a way that will destroy the present. If we can, then somebody's going to screw us all up any day now.
Maybe they already have.
There are a lot of paradoxes in this line of work, and you really just have to get used to them. I mean, if you try to grasp each set of contradictions that you bring up just by appearing in the past, you'd spend all your time sitting around confused instead of doing something. And that's not very productive.
My main area of focus is on historical accuracy in textbooks. I was the one who got to correct all the assassination buffs who’ve been living on JFK rumors for decades. That was my masterpiece; seventeen cameras along a one mile patch of road in old Dallas. Conclusive proof that the only shots came from the book depository, there was nobody on the grassy knoll, and I got a really good close-up of Lee Harvey himself squeezing the trigger. How they howled. I've now been labeled part of the conspiracy.

In 1940, the Imperial Government of Japan demanded and received the right to place Vietnam under military occupation, restricting the local French administration to figurehead authority.	Uncle Ho
Seizing the opportunity, the Communists organized the broad Viet Minh Front and prepared to launch an uprising at the war's end. The Viet Minh (short for Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam) emphasized moderate reform and national independence rather than specifically Communist aims. When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies in August 1945, Viet Minh forces arose throughout Vietnam and declared the establishment of an independent republic in Hanoi. Now the Vietnamese and the French shared the common experience of resistance to a fascist occupier. Matters had moved far ahead from the refusal at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to hear Ho Chi Minh's case for self-determination. France quickly developed a very independent foreign policy to Anglo-America, demonstrated as recently as 2003 when President Chirac opposed the invasion of Iraq. Bizarrely, Anglo-America described the French's anti-imperialism as the views of "Old Europe". Figure that one out.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

A group of people is coming towards us. They're tourists from Saudi Arabia it looks like, on a tour of the historic landmarks of Cambridge, Massachusetts or out for the local colour. They're diminutive and neatly turned out in burqas.

Aunt Lydia	"And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their private parts and not to display their adornment except that which ordinarily appears thereof and to draw their headcovers over their chests and not to display their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands fathers, their sons." ~ Qu'ran Sura 24:31
Handmaid

"Excuse me," said the interpreter again, to catch our attention. I nod to show I've heard him. "She asks, are you happy?". I can imagine it, the curiosity: Are they happy? How can they be happy? "Yes, we are very happy, " I murmur. I have to say something. What else can I say?" The full article is available at Wikipedia

~ quotation from Margaret Atwood: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Jack Black	In 2013, actor Jack Black was selected for the role of Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11: the Temperature at which Freedom Burns. Labelled an al-Qaeda training video by group Move America Forward, the original footage had been lost when the author died in a mysterious accident on this day in 2004.
President Hillary Clinton hailed the release as highly significant. The movie was a necessary reminder of the hard fought freedoms that America had seized back under her Administration.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1945, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight David Eisenhower presented US President Harry Truman with three options to establish US ground control in the Far East. As a catalist for unopposed military occupation Ike recommended biological weapons seized from the notorious Unit 731 in Manchuria, gas or the new super weapon of napalm. Agreement on napalm was reached, and Operation Rolling Thunder authorized.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 2002, in Roland J. Green' George Custer Slept Here a cavalryman's assault on Sicily and then mainland Italy delivers a radically altered outcome. Surprise landings and bombings prevent German troops from evacuating Messina at the end of the Sicilian campaign. With Custer remaining in charge of American forces, aggressive planning results in the Allies skipping a crawl up the Italian boot, and instead landings near Civitavecchia permit a result in which Rome may fall seven months early.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1814, the second war of independence ended in ignominy when Washington, D.C. was burned to the ground and the White House destroyed by British forces during the War of 1812. Arthur Wellesley immediately began the construction of the modern city of Wellington, residence of the Governor-General of the North American Union which bestrides the Potomac River to this day. It was the start of a new phase in the special relationship for Anglo-America.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1944, following the Allied invasion of France, Henri Philippe Pétain and members of the Vichy government cabinet prepared to flee to Germany where they planned to establish a government in exile at Sigmaringen. Captured by the French Resistance, Pétain revealed the degeneracy in the French state that had caused the collapse in 1940. Pétain's captors were appalled. It was an incredibly, simply incredible story. If true, Pétain was the only member of La Troisième République (French Third Republic) to emerge with honour. But could such a fantastic story be true?

~ entry by Co-Historian Steve Payne.

Castle Bonny	In 1943, Head of the British Government in Exile, Lord Halifax gave his public view of Castle Bonny which premièred six days before on Broadway. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and starred Cary Grant as Dick Blaine, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund and Paul Henreid as resistance leader Victor Laszlo, caught in ..
.. a love triangle. The rekindled romance between Blaine and Lund was set during Great War II in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, off the Bight of Bonny – then controlled by the Nazi Protectorate of Britain. The final scene shows Dick, Laszlo and a detachment of Free British soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1943 invasion of England. “The truth of sacrifice runs through the whole film, ” said the Prime Minister from the Governor's residence at Rideau Hall, Ottawa “just as our forces are doing on the south coast of England". Privately Halifax considered the movie quite dreadful. He also felt quite strongly that the forthcoming Canadian winter would be more then ample suffering for himself. Minus 20, that's just too cold for comfort.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2127, through the functioning of the Hussein-Sadat time dilation device, the Eurasian fugitive known as Brent arrived in the London office of Lord Peter Goldsmith on 11 March 2003. At that precise moment, confidential legal advice was being written ..	Goldsmith
.. by the Attorney General on behalf of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair. That advice was that British involvement in a land invasion of Iraq was legal despite the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution explicitly sanctioning participation by the “coalition of the willing”. Lord Goldsmith had more pressing problems though, his wife of 33 years, Joy was about to discover his affair with the first Asian QC Kim Hollis. At gunpoint Brent seized both Goldsmith to Hollis to join him on return to 2127. Perhaps a few days in the post-Jihad world would convince the Attorney General to offer different advice, changing the course of history..
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Duckies!	In 1942, S.M Sterling's classic Minceing Through Georgia portrayed Duckie Commander Eric Von Shrakenberg and his Century A Janissaries camped in German occupied southern Russia. Actually, the Duckies had put the Nazis on the run and the Eurasian War looked set to conclude very much in favour of the Domination. Trouble was through they were running dangerously low on peppermint herbal tea.
~ entry by Steve Payne: I've always thought there was a slightly sadomasochistic undertone to the over-caricatured fascists of the Draka taking over the world and skewering French peasants on stakes etc. My exagerrated satire of the already exagerrated Drakas of S.M. Stirling's novels (Marching through Georgia, Drakas, Stone Dogs etc) who are just a bit too inhumanely tough and hence “camped” up in my variant.

War of 1812	In 1814, Washington, D.C. is burned and White House is destroyed by British forces under the Duke of Wellington. Ostensibly a revenge attack for the destruction of Yorktown (modern day Toronto), the Duke wanted to stamp British authority as he turned the clock back to 1775. The new city of Victoria was built upon ruins of ..
.. DC and is of course today the residence of the Governor General of New Britain.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1945, an increasingly desperate American military drop the fourth nuclear bomb, “Tall Boy” on Tokyo. Surely, this would forces the Emperor of Tokyo to accept unconditional surrender as inevitable.	Harry Truman
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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The Wrath Of Wellington

July 17th, 2007

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The Announcement

Apologies From The Alternate Historian: sorry about missing yesterday's post, and many thanks to Steve for stepping up. Pets – they can be a source of great joy and great frustration, if you know what I mean. Much like children, except you can't depend on them to care for you in your frail old age.
Come to think of it, you can't really depend on your children to do that, either... Anyway, on with our regularly scheduled TIAH!

Marvin looked at her a little non-plussed. “So, it's probably just an automatic thing, right? I mean, you send something like that out here, naturally you want it to signal back home if it finds something important.”
“Right,” she said, walking with him over to the food table and lowering her voice so the others wouldn't hear. “My whole team thinks it's just an automatic signal, triggered by the radio waves we've been hitting the probe with. They figure that if the thing can still send a signal forward after this long, then of course it's got the power to send a signal home, to all its long-dead builders, letting them know it found somebody else.” She made sure the reporter and the cameraman were occupied, which they were – they were interviewing Monica. “But, what if the builders aren't long-dead, Marv?”
“Three million years is a long time, Andi.”
She dipped a celery stick into some ranch dressing and munched it. “That could be a wrong figure.”
“I thought you all agreed that was how long it took to get here from that Wolf place.”
She nodded. “Based on its current speed and trajectory. But, what if it slowed down once it approached our system? I mean, it's barely going mach 3 right now, and that's awful slow. Our probes are all traveling in excess of 15000 miles an hour. In 3 million years they'll have traveled ten times the distance this thing has. The probe's been in our system for years, and we only just noticed it because it suddenly turned on its radio.”
“Look, Andi,” Marvin said, rubbing her shoulder. “Even if its only been a few thousand years instead of a few million, it's not like this is gonna be Independence Day, right?” He smiled broadly, and she returned the smile. “You're a hard-nosed scientist. Remember when we had that argument after we saw War of the Worlds? Alien invasion just doesn't make sense.”
“If you're that advanced, you can just repair the planet you're on,” she said, quoting herself. “You're right. Sorry, Marv. I'll try to let go of all the shop talk.”
“Well, don't let it go too much,” Marvin said, pointing at the reporter. “Don't want him to get itching for something else to say about you.”

"Eddie"	"White man came across the sea Brought us pain and misery We killed his tribes we killed his creed Took his game for our own need We fought him hard we fought him well Out on the plains we gave him hell ~ Lyrics to Run to the Hills (Click Note to Play Video)
Iron Maiden Icon

British Heavy Metal band playing live on their "Eddie Rips the Long House" 2005 Tour of the Inter-tribal states on the Turtle Island. Ironically, members of the band were rebellious Etonians who had studied at the same school as the leaders of the failed imperial adventure to conquer America. The full lyrics are available at Dark World

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

Salisbury	"The Civil War was the last chance we [Great Britain] had of stopping them [the United States]." ~ Marquis of Salisbury
Prime Minister

Speaking in 1898 of the British Century to come by justifying British intervention on behalf of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. A widespread consensus of Victorian politicians agreed that a resurgent Britain would not have been possible if the Union had been permitted to defeat the South, creating a world hyper-power in North America. The history of this period is masterfully explored by Amanda Foreman in her classic opus The Trent Incident Leads to War which is available at Uchronia

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

In 2007, A. Breeg wrote ~ I feel that my search is now over. The person who contacted me from Romania has finally met me. Only now, eleven months later can I find the words to describe our meeting. And the contents of the journal. Finally I was given the answers I sought regarding my cousin Benjamin Breeg. I can hardly contain myself at the thought of sharing them..

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the genius of Iron Maiden's "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg".

In 2009, TV networks ran episode eight of So What If?. General Augustus Pinochet refused to handover his friend Margaret Thatcher to face trial for war-crimes in Britain, isolating Chile within the Organisation of American States. Pleading ill-health, the Iron Lady died in exile in Santiago. Her son Mark returned to Britain to organise a counter-coup with Simon Mann and other mercenaries drawn from Old Etonians.

~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1967, British Minister of War Dennis Healey announced a decision to increase British troop levels in Singapore and Malaysia. East of Suez was a term used in British military and political discussions. It referred to Imperial interests beyond the European theatre (sometimes including, sometime excluding the Middle East). Strategically the empire military infrastructure was based upon sea lanes of communication through the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal and round the Cape to India and on to East Asia and Australia. With the post-war struggle to prevent a retreat from empire, starting with the Indian Emergency(1947), a gradual build up of the military presence "east of Suez" started. In 1967, Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his Minister of War Denis Healey announced that British troops in major military bases in South East Asia (primarily in Malaysia, Singapore, and Aden) would be doubled by 1971. Edward Heath's government decided when it came to power in June 1970 to send further forces to augment a small political and military commitment to South East Asia through the Five Power Defence Arrangements.

~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1916, the Battle of the Somme headed towards an apocalyptic stalemate.
Battle of the Somme	The background was thus; Winston Churchill had struck a tremendous blow for the Allies with his stunning victory at the Battle of Gallipoli, achieved with the use of staggering quantities of gas which were released by the British Navy to overcome the Turkish defenders.
Promoted from the Admiralty to the position of Minister of War, when the French mutinied at Verdun, Churchill convinced the Cabinet to authorise a similar attack, Gallipoli on Land. Reluctance and xenophobia was widespread, after all, they would be releasing the gas at fellow Europeans, not the Turk who had stolen Constantinople from Christendom and threatened Western Civilization. German humanist sympathisers in the British Government warned the German High Command who prepared troops by supplying huge stocks of gas masks. However, the gas release was bungled, rendering the region of Picardie uninhabitable for twenty years.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1918, by order of the Bolshevik Party and carried out by Cheka, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his immediate family, and retainers were murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia. By feigning death, Princess Anastasia escaped to Paris where provided a detailed report of the tragedy. The western world was horrified ..	Romanovs
.. by a whole nest of vampires draining the Russian Royal Family of their blue blood in an act of indescribable violence. Calls for the War of Intervention in Russia started immediately. By cruel irony, the White Forces were soon dispatched to the city port of Arcangel.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Montreal 76	In 1976, controversy marked the Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada when a Congolese-led block of 25 African nations boycotted the opening ceremony. In protest at a tour of South Africa by the All Blacks team earlier in the year, Congo's official Jean Claude Ganga led demands that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ..
.. bar the New Zealand team. The IOC was unable to resist the logic of these demands, and the New Zealand team departed the next day. The Commonwealth Games planned for Edmonton in 1978 were cancelled completely to the disgust of the provincial government which had planned for the event for many years and was seriously out of pocket.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1815, Napoleon surrendered to British forces at Windsor, Ontario. The contribution of New France to the North American conflict was over, as was the statehood of the Francophone nation.
The United States faced the wrath of Duke Arthur Wellesley alone, as Wellington turned the clock back to 1776.	Napoleon Bonaparte
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Revolutionaries

	In 2007, British politician and statesman, diplomat and businessman George Patrick John Rushworth Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, KBE, DSO, MC, PC, FRS died on this day. Jellicoe was the only son but sixth and youngest child of First World War naval commander, the anti-hero of Jutland, Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe by his wife Florence Gwendoline (died 1964), second daughter of Sir Charles Cayzer, 1st Bart., of Gartmore, Perthshire. Jellicoe was the one of the longest-serving parliamentarians in the world, being a member of the English Bundesrat for 68 years (1939-2007).

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	In 1741, Benedict Arnold V was born in Norwich, Connecticut. A general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, he heroically commanded the American fort at West Point, New York. Arnold was considered by many to be the best general and most accomplished leader in the Continental Army. Without Arnold's early contributions to the American cause, the American Revolution might well have been lost. The hero in the Battle of Saratoga, Arnold's actions persuaded the French, who had been skeptical of the colonists' chances, to intervene in the war on the American side. This alliance tipped the balance and ultimately helped ensure the American victory.

On the battlefield at Saratoga, a lone monument stands in memorial to this man, the inscription reads: 'In memory of the most brilliant soldier of the Continental army, who was desperately wounded on this spot, winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution, and for himself the rank of Major General.' Another memorial to Arnold resides at the United States Military Academy. That the plaque recognises a contribution indelibly tarnished by his betrayal of the Crown.

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In 1958, Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic (UAR) under the inspired leadership of the Arab Nationalist Abdul Gamel Nasser. By 1980, the entire Middle East and its oil reserves would be controlled by the UAR making a showdown with the Western World inevitable.

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In 1974, 44-year-old Samuel Byck assassinated U.S. President Richard Nixon. The revelations of corruption that followed destroyed the Imperial Presidency and today the position of US Head of State is a ceremonial role. The self-evident failure of American Foreign Policy with the Fall of Vietnam set a new course for America, and Capitol Hill ensured that the executive focused exclusively on domestic concerns.

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	In 1732, rebel general George Washington was born in the Virginia colony. Despite serving with honor in His Majesty's war against the French and Indians, Washington turned traitor to the Crown when the American colonies rebelled in 1774. Washington was captured in Yorktown when Lord Cornwallis defeated the rebels after the French failed to reinforce them.

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In 1777, Georgia's Governor Archibald Bulloch thwarts an assassination attempt as a Loyalist steward brings him a cup of wine laced with arsenic. When he accidentally spills the cup, the enraged Tory tries to strangle him, but Bulloch wins their struggle. The governor then uses the near-total powers he had been granted by Georgia's rebel government to rally the state's colonists and send them into war for the rebel cause. Bulloch is such a successful leader in the revolution that he maneuvers himself into the newly-created office of president of the new nation after the revolution, and influences the writing of the constitution to give himself powers similar to his near-complete control of Georgia. The other states chafe under his presidency, and the formerly united states dissolve into regional war in Bulloch's 5th year in office. The wars end when Bulloch is shot dead by a member of his staff, Thomas Paine, who had been planted close to the president in order to get the opportunity to kill him. Another Constitutional Convention is called to rewrite the document that had granted so much power to the president, and a tripartite government is born from the ashes of Bulloch's dictatorship in 1797.

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In 1632, Galileo Galilei's Dialogue Concerning the Two Counter-earths was published. By deductive logic Galileo had postulated the existence of a counter-earth, a same sized planet rotating on the far side of the sun since 1610.

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In 1994, Aldrich Ames and his wife were charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union. Whilst directing the analysis of Soviet intelligence operations at the CIA's Europe Division / Counter-intelligence branch he had access to the identities of U.S. Sources in the KGB and Soviet military. The information Ames provided led to the compromise of at least 100 U.S. intelligence operations and to the execution of at least 10 U.S. Sources. Ames was sentenced with the death penalty since his betrayal resulted in several CIA assets being killed and he was executed two years later at the US Penitentiary in Allenwood, Pennsylvania

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In 1998, the deadliest series of tornadoes in Florida's history provides the impetus for Vice-President Al Gore to begin a study of climate change. Already an environmentalist, Gore was alarmed at the massive changes in the climate that many scientists were predicting could soon become irreversible. He runs for the presidency with a passion and urgency that moves the nation, and sweeps in a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives to aid him in his work. The Senate is split evenly, so his vice-president, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, is more important than any VP in decades. With Gore's skills and commitment, the warming of the earth was slowed, and Wellstone continued his former boss' work when he was elected president in 2008.

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In 1991, US President George HW Bush threatened Iraq with land war, giving Iraq until 1700 GMT the next day to pull out of Kuwait or face the full force of the allies. It was an incredible volte-face from the American 'green light' for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait given by Ambassador April Glaspie. The magnitude of that error did not become clear until the 18th January. Israel joined the Gulf War after Iraq attacks Tel Aviv and Haifa with Scud missiles. Saddam Husssein had succeeded in provoking the Israel leadership both through these bombings, and also by establishing linkage between Kuwait and Palestinian nationhood.

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	In 1997, a sheep named Dolly was cloned by scientists in Edinburgh and hailed as one of the most significant breakthroughs of the decade. The sheep's birth was heralded as one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the decade although it sparked ethical controversy. Scientists in Scotland cloned a ewe by inserting DNA from a single sheep cell into an egg and implanted it in a surrogate mother. Within twenty years, cloning would become the most lucrative medical technology on the planet.Within twenty years, cloning would become the most lucrative medical technology on the planet.

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In 1994, African American community leaders absorbed the import of US President Bill Clinton's briefing on the contents of the Ames dossier. Jesse Jackson knew a few things about skeletons in the closet himself. Clinton had been wily in suggesting that of course. Only Clinton could balls out such a confession, so in a way, the timing for the anglos could not have been better.

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	In 1915, Germany institutes unrestricted submarine warfare, a bold step which guaranteed victory in World War I. The evidence suggests that Imperial Germany had not started World War I with an appreciation of the impact on commerce and supply that submarines could have. They had fewer than 30 operational boats, all with small torpedo capacities.

At first, merchant ships would be stopped, occupants safely evacuated and then the vessel sunk, usually by gunfire, all following Prize Rules. This had little effect and increasingly placed the German submarine – U-boat - at risk from defensive weaponry. Germany had practical strategic problems. War-weariness affected the German home situation. The best chance of achieving an early advantageous peace with Britain was to stifle its trade and imports. Surface ships had not been effective, neither could the Kaiserliche Marine force the British Royal Navy off the seas - the Battle of Jutland had shown this, despite an apparent German victory. The gamble which was taken was that unrestricted submarine warfare would critically damage Britain before an incensed United States could make a practical impact. The success of the submarines was a killer blow to British supply lines and the gamble ultimately succeeded.

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