[Robert A Cook PE]

It did matter strategically - because the Germans never left port effective again.
It did matter strategically, because the BLOCKADE of England failed - their submarines were not effective enough to stop trade, while the British-American-French blockade killed Germany. Stopped their army through attrition and lack of support and lack of an economy to support it.

But that same blockade and the even more hated Versailles Treaty after the war created Hitler’s dominance that led to WWII.

[elcid1970]

Ironic how after the Armistice the Germans were ordered to surrender their High Seas ships to the British, but then scuttled them all in Scapa Flow in a final act of defiance.

Took Britain twenty years to clean out the wreckage.

[Fiji Hill]

Thanks for the Memory

Thanks for the memory
In every German's mind,
When you broke the ties that bind
And dictated a pact called
the Treaty of Versailles.

How rotten that was.

Thanks for the memory
Of British aims divine,
French Negroes on the Rhine,
Your food blockade and misery
All over the German Reich.

What an injustice that was.

Many is the time that you feasted,
And many is the time that we fasted.
For you, it was swell while it lasted.
You did have fun, but harm was done.

Well, thanks for the memory
It gives us strength to fight
For freedom and for right
It might give you a headache, England,
That the Germans know how to fight
And hurt you so much.

--Karl "Charlie" Schwedler, c. 1941