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This is a major new naval history of the First World War which reveals the decisive contribution of the war at sea to Allied victory. In a truly global account, Lawrence Sondhaus traces the course of the campaigns in the North Sea, Atlantic, Adriatic, Baltic and Mediterranean and examines the role of critical innovations in the design and performance of ships, wireless communication and firepower. He charts how Allied supremacy led the Central Powers to attempt to revolutionize naval warfare by pursuing unrestricted submarine warfare, ultimately prompting the United States to enter the war. Victory against the submarine challenge, following their earlier success in sweeping the seas of German cruisers and other surface raiders, left the Allies free to use the world's sea lanes to transport supplies and troops to Europe from overseas territories, and eventually from the United States, which proved a decisive factor in their ultimate victory.

The German navy of 1848–52 was born in the stormy sessions of the Frankfurt Parliament and died amid equally acrimonious debates in the diet of the restored German Confederation. Denmark's blockade of the North Sea and Baltic ports during the Schleswig-Holstein war inspired this first attempt to create a German battle fleet, and the temporary resolution of German-Danish differences, combined with the Confederation's unwillingness to assume responsibility for the warships, brought it to an early end. The scant scholarly literature on the first German navy tends to view it purely as a north German concern, but on this question, as in all other activities of the Frankfurt Parliament and German Confederation, Austria had a considerable voice in determining the outcome. During its four years of existence the fleet became a pawn in the greater Austro-Prussian struggle for hegemony over Germany.

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