The Mariner's Mirror

The International Quarterly Journal of The Society for Nautical

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ISSN: 0025-3359 (Print) 2049-680X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmir20

Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic

during the First World War: German submarines
around the Canary Islands, 1916–1918

Javier Ponce

To cite this article: Javier Ponce (2014) Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic during
the First World War: German submarines around the Canary Islands, 1916–1918, The Mariner's
Mirror, 100:3, 335-348, DOI: 10.1080/00253359.2014.935145

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.2014.935145

Published online: 07 Aug 2014.

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 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.2014.935145
© The Society for Nautical Research

The Mariner’s Mirror 100:3 (August 2014), 335–348

Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic

during the First World War: German submarines
around the Canary Islands, 1916–1918

Javier Ponce

This article examines German U-boat operations in and near the neutral territorial waters of
the Canary Islands as well as British and Spanish responses to these operations. The strategic
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importance of the area around the Canaries, where trade routes from South America to Europe
converged with those from West Africa and the Cape, would determine its inclusion in the
area of operations of German submarines against commercial shipping from late 1916 onwards.
Besides, lack of Spanish defensive capabilities prevented its effective control of the islands’
territorial waters. Primary and secondary German, British and Spanish sources shed light on
the diplomatic dimension of the subject and the Allied countermeasures and clandestine actions
that limited the effectiveness of the German U-boat campaign.

Key words: Canary Islands, First World War, U-Boat, German navy, commerce warfare, British
Admiralty, international diplomacy

O nce fighting had begun in the First World War, the German navy soon
concluded it did not have the strength to wage effective commerce war with its
surface fleet. It reached this conclusion in the wake of German cruiser operations in
the Atlantic, which showed the naval superiority of the Allies on the one hand, and
Germany’s lack of a proper logistical base on the other. Further, in 1916 the battle of
Jutland encouraged the Germans to look for naval initiatives other than deploying
their surface fleet, and the policy of the blockade of Britain became of paramount
strategic importance. Thus commerce warfare with submarines (U-boats) became an
attractive option. When in the autumn of 1916 the auxiliary cruiser Moewe and other
German surface raiders were withdrawn from Atlantic waters, submarine warfare
became the principal instrument of German naval strategy in the Atlantic.
Spain’s proximity to France and Britain inevitably favoured the Allies. Security issues
and the progress of the war made Spain look to the Allies as the natural protector of
trade routes and commerce, but this also posed a formidable potential threat to Spain’s
security. If any one territory in Spain was more favourably disposed towards the Allies
than others, it was the Canary Islands, with their traditional economic and financial ties
as well as trade exchanges of all kinds with Great Britain. The islands’ defence relied on
the superiority of the Royal Navy and the more general hegemony of the British, who
controlled the main infrastructure in terms of transport and communications in this
important area of the Atlantic, which was the crossroads of all trade routes to Europe
from South America and the Cape of Good Hope. In this sense, the port of La Luz
(Las Palmas) was a major port of call in the eastern Atlantic and was largely controlled
by British companies that also occupied areas essential for coastal defence.

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 336 The Mariner’s Mirror

Historiographical discussion of the deployment of German submarines to Spanish

waters in the First World War and the available secondary literature on the subject
have been very limited.1 Using previously neglected sources, this article examines
German U-boat operations in and near the neutral territorial waters of the Canary
Islands, as well as British and Spanish responses to these operations. After analysing
in this region German cruiser warfare and the so-called Etappe system, where
supply areas, or Etappen, were organized in neutral countries with predetermined
rendezvous outside the normal shipping routes where supply vessels could meet
German cruisers, primary and secondary German, British and Spanish sources will
shed light on the diplomatic dimension of the subject. The importance of the area
around the Canary Islands, where trade routes from South America to Europe
converged with those from West Africa and the Cape, would also determine its
inclusion in the area of operations of German submarines from late 1916 onwards.2
The technical consequences of these operations is not the focus of this article; suffice
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it to say that these operations tested to the very limit the capabilities of the U-boats
deployed and their crews; after all, this was a new weapon designed for limited and
close-range operations in conjunction with the surface fleet. In extending their reach
and focusing on commercial warfare in a key zone, the Germans demonstrated an
unequivocal commitment to what amounted to a wholly new method of warfare,
and one that would find its echo and near perfection in the next world war. Even in
the First World War this stranglehold very nearly achieved strategic success.
There were three principal types of U-boats deployed in the area around the
Canary Islands. The first one was the UC II coastal minelayer class, which could
carry 18 type UC200 mines, such as UC-20. Some of these boats would be upgraded
in 1918 to have one 105 mm gun (120 rounds). The second type was the ocean-going
diesel-powered torpedo attack boat class, such as the U-47 and U-52. The last type
was the U-Cruiser class, which was designed and built to be a large commercial
submarine for shipping material to and from locations otherwise denied to German
surface ships. Using as a prototype the submarine Deutschland, Germany built seven
large submarines styled ‘submersible cruisers’ and numbered U-151 to U-157, limited
in speed but undoubtedly useful because of their operational range and endurance.
They could undertake cruises beyond the previous three-month limitation, and had
an increased torpedo storage capacity.3 Three of these U-boats operated in Canary
waters. This area in focus is the portion of the east Atlantic comprising the waters
surrounding the Canary Islands, between latitudes 27º37' and 29º25' north, and 13º20'
and 18º10' west. This is a group of seven main islands stretching roughly in an east
west line, from 57 to 300 miles west of the coast of Africa. The archipelago was, as it is
today, part of Spain, which was neutral during the war.
Submarine warfare and first signs of trouble in the Canary Islands
The notion of offensive warfare with submarines was demonstrated as early as
September 1914 when the destructive potential of German U-boats was clearly
1 On both the general and specific subject see Perea Ruiz, ‘Guerra submarina’ and Ponce,
Canarias en la Gran Guerra.
2 See also Ponce, ‘Logistics for commerce war’.
3 Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War; Halpern, Naval History of World War I;
and Rössler, Die deutschen U-Kreuze.

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 Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic during the First World War 337

demonstrated in the dramatic destruction of a number of British warships: the first

ship to have been sunk by a submarine using a self-propelled torpedo was the scout
cruiser HMS Pathfinder, which was sunk on 5 September by U-21, commanded
by Kapitänleutnant Otto Hersing; but the most spectacular success was achieved
when the obsolete cruisers HMS Cressy, HMS Aboukir and HMS Hogue, with a
total of 62 officers and 1397 men aboard, were sunk in a little more than an hour
on 22 September by the old submarine U-9, commanded by Kapitänleutnant
Otto Weddigen. These initial, unexpected and relatively easy successes prompted
German officials and the general public to overrate the efficiency and potential of
their submarine fleet. Realizing that in normal circumstances there was little that
submarines could do against enemy warships given their slow speed, particularly
when underwater, there was an argument that submarine commanders should be
ordered to attack slower merchant ships instead.4
First there had to be a change of heart with the move to unrestricted warfare
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when striking at merchant vessels. From January 1915, after the destruction of the
German Overseas Squadron under Vice Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee at the
Falkland Islands and the poor performances of the other German surface raiders,
the original reluctance changed. The change was largely prompted by the German
government, which, eager for an effective counter-stroke, urged its naval leaders
to consider an expansion of submarine warfare, and in so doing the government
vastly overestimated its anticipated effectiveness. The army High Command, which
had been sceptical at first, now declared its support for all-out submarine warfare,
especially after the navy’s chief of staff assured it that his submarines would hamper
Allied military transport through and across the English Channel. Consequently
on 4 February 1915 German authorities declared the area around Great Britain and
Ireland, including the English Channel, an operational war zone and warned that
any enemy merchant ship found in this area would be sunk without warning. Berlin
at the same time warned neutral countries to avoid those waters because of the risk
of misidentification of their vessels. However, the new German submarine campaign
had serious diplomatic repercussions because of repeated interference and incidents
involving neutral navigation.5 Also hopes of striking a heavy blow to the British
economy soon faded as the U-boat resources available at the start of the campaign
were too modest to justify the German expectations.
The German navy in turn thought that sinking passenger liners in particular
would be a powerful and positive move because it had such a deterrent effect. Indeed
this was the view of the German press which praised the May 1915 torpedo attack
on the passenger liner Lusitania, representing it as a victory. But the attack killed
over a thousand passengers, including many American citizens, and caused great
indignation particularly in the United States. So the German government had second
thoughts and felt compelled to urge its naval leaders to temper its submarine war
activities in order to avoid an all-out break with Washington; in effect returning to

4 For an overview of commercial submarine warfare, see the classic work of Hardach, Der Erste
Weltkrieg.
5 The German submarine campaign affected very soon the Canary Islands due to their
importance along the trade routes. On 13 Mar. 1915 the Swedish steamship Hanna, carrying coal
from Tyne to Las Palmas, was torpedoed and sunk without prior warning and nine died; Halpern,
Naval History of World War I, 297–8.

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 338 The Mariner’s Mirror

the February 1915 position of limited commercial warfare.

In the winter of 1915/1916, the German army Supreme Command once more
demanded totally unrestricted submarine war to support the planned major Verdun
offensive. The government conceded this and the navy stepped up submarine warfare
in February 1916, but the breach of United States neutrality and international
neutrality generally arising from indiscriminate sinkings revived the conflict with
the United States. Again fearing a diplomatic rupture with Washington, in May 1916
the German government and naval command scaled back the neutral sinkings once
again. Meanwhile, in the central eastern Atlantic first warnings of possible German
U-boat activity had been issued in 1915. Early that year rumours circulated of
alleged submarine activities taking place around the island of La Gomera, according
to local Canarian newspapers.6 Given the possibility that these Spanish islands were
being used as a submarine base, as the British Foreign Office reported in February
to Canary-based consular authorities, the British vice-consul in La Palma proposed
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using a tugboat to visit the smaller islands and to obtain as much information as
possible. Suspicions of a possible German U-boat presence in the Canary Islands
gained further credence with the report that a torpedo may have been fired at
HMS Calgarian on 12 February just south-west of La Gomera. The captain of
HMS Amphitrite of the Royal Navy’s 9th Cruiser Squadron, then monitoring the
Madeira and Canary Islands waters, instructed the consul in Tenerife to keep a night
watch for German boats in the harbour. However, after a thorough inspection of
the islands, he concluded that no enemy submarine was likely to venture near the
Canary Islands and that the alleged torpedo attack on the Calgarian was based on
inconclusive evidence. Moreover, the alleged scene off La Gomera lay well outside
the usual navigation routes and would not be considered a natural area for submarine
patrols.7
In May 1915, coinciding with the torpedoing of the Lusitania, rumours also
circulated that three German U-boats had appeared at La Isleta (Gran Canaria),
which caused panic in the port of Las Palmas.8 In June of that year there was a possible
submarine sighting near La Orotava (Tenerife), which raised British suspicions that
the islands might be refuelling submarines.9 Despite all these rumours, the fact was
that until late 1916 there were no German submarines operating in the Canary Islands
at all, nor did they take on any fuel in the islands, thus confirming the opinion of the
British consul in Tenerife in June 1916.10 Nevertheless the British concerns prompted
the strengthening of Allied secret service activities particularly when the suspicions
were at last confirmed by the observation of a real German submarine presence in
this area in late 1916.

6 The Canarian newspaper La Provincia, on 21 January 1915 reported the news that in mid-
January a submarine of unknown origin had been carrying out manoeuvres in a bay near Hermigua
(La Gomera).
7 The National Archives (hereafter NA), ADM 137/771, Capt. H. Grant-Dalton, commanding
officer of the Cruiser Force ‘I’, to the Secretary of the Admiralty, HMS Amphitrite, 16 Feb. 1915.
8 La Provincia, 9 May 1915.
9 Related correspondence found in NA, FO 372/716.
10 NA, FO 382/1049, Consul John E. Croker to Ambassador Arthur H. Hardinge, Tenerife, 23
Jun. 1916.

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 Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic during the First World War 339

Extending limited commerce warfare to the east central Atlantic

By October 1916 the waters of the east central Atlantic had indeed entered fully into
Germany’s overall submarine warfare strategy, when the Naval High Command
significantly intensified limited underwater warfare again this time concentrating
on cutting the supply routes and starving the Allies of food and raw materials. In
so doing they sought to offset the reduced German surface fleet activities resulting
from the loss of ships and confidence suffered in the battle of Jutland on the 31
May and 1 June that year.11 Now, an untried and rudimentary weapon would be
tested beyond its believed capacity to undertake a completely new type of warfare,
targeting not warships but civilian vessels, and nowhere was this better demonstrated
that the eastern Atlantic. This expansion included a concentration upon the waters
surrounding the archipelagos of the eastern central Atlantic, namely the Cape Verde
Islands, the Canaries, Madeira and the Azores. The Germans hoped to strike a serious
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blow to the British economy as these islands were strategically situated along major
trade routes for commercial shipping sailing for Britain and other Allied countries
with desperately needed foodstuffs and essential provisions from South America,
Africa and beyond the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. On 7 October 1916 the
German submarine U-53 arrived at the US port of Newport, Rhode Island.12 This
demonstrated that the Cape Verde Islands, the Canaries, Madeira and the Azores
were well within reach of the new German submarines, and in response the British
Admiralty had to move the 9th British Cruiser Squadron to a new base in Sierra
Leone on the west coast of Africa.13
On 18 October 1916 the German submarine UC-20, commanded by Oberleutnant
zur See Franz Becker, began its voyage from the Austro-Hungarian port of Pola in
the Adriatic and made its way through the Straits of Gibraltar to the north-west
African coast. On 12 November it arrived off Lanzarote, the easternmost island of
the Canaries.14 The first German submarine sinking in Canary waters took place on
17 November when the old Portuguese barque Emilia, 1,159 tons, was sunk by UC-
20 ten miles east of the port of Las Palmas.15 Days later the UC-20 anchored off the
Moroccan coast.16
The first British information about a German submarine presence in the Canary
zone was sent by Las Palmas consular officer Peter Swanston after the arrival of the
shipwrecked Portuguese survivors; Swanston transmitted a radio message to the British
consul in Tenerife and warned all British ships in the vicinity, including HMS Ophir
of the 9th Cruiser Squadron.17 In view of reports that motor boats were being used
as ferries between Las Palmas and the submarines, British consular officers defended
Allied interests by raising alleged breaches of neutrality in a meeting on 19 November

11 Halpern, Naval History of World War I, 328–34.

12 See Heitmann, Unter Wasser.
13 Newbolt, Naval Operations, vol. IV, 177–8.
14 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. III, 349, map XIV (no. 146).
15 Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Madrid (hereafter AMAE), Guerra Europea,
H 3122, telegrams from the civil governor to the Minister of the Interior, Tenerife, 17 Nov. 1916.
16 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. III, 350.
17 NA, FO 369/953, secret, Secretary of the Admiralty to the Undersecretary of State of the
Foreign Office, London, 30 Jan. 1917.

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 340 The Mariner’s Mirror

with the civil governor. The latter immediately ordered the strict monitoring of motor
boats and fishing boats,18 while keeping an eye on fuelling stations.19
On 27 October 1916 U-47, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Metzger,
and U-52, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Hans Walther, were ordered to transfer
to the Canary Islands zone. The German Naval High Command realized that many
valuable ships passed through these waters on their way to and from England, France,
and Mediterranean countries and commerce warfare seemed destined for success
because hostile submarines had not been seen on those routes and antisubmarine
measures in the area were rudimentary. Therefore on 7 November 1916 naval
command ordered commerce warfare to be commenced in the area surrounding the
Canary Islands. On 15 November submarines U-47 and U-52 set sail to their new
killing ground.20
Their orders stipulated that during the voyage to the islands the commanders were
free to carry out any commerce warfare as best they could, but below latitude 42º
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north more precise rules for engagement in commerce warfare applied; enemy cargo
ships believed to be carrying weapons could be sunk without warning but when
encountering other merchant ships it was necessary to proceed strictly according to
the prize regulations, with the one variation that the U-boat commanders were not
required to check their papers if it was clear they were enemy ships. As for American
ships, they could be sunk if their cargo consisted of war material in an amount
greater than half of their cargo capacity. In any event, ships captured according to
the internationally agreed prize regulations could only be destroyed once crews and
passengers had safely abandoned them. If this could not be guaranteed, the vessels
were allowed to proceed to their destinations. The orders explicitly required U-boat
captains to avoid incidents that might lead to complaints by a neutral country against
German methods at sea. Therefore, commanders had to act with the greatest care and
attention and in case of doubt allow a captured ship to continue its voyage.21
On 29 November 1916 U-52 reached the Canary Islands and then patrolled the
area until 12 December. On 30 November the Dutch steamship Kediri, 3781 tons,
with cargo destined for Marseilles was detained. The Kediri crew was towed to
land in four lifeboats and the steamer sunk on 1 December by U-47 south of Gran
Canaria.22 The U-52 and U-47 commanders agreed then to remain in the waters
around the Canary Islands to carry out commerce warfare.23 Next, on 9 December,
the French sailing vessel Emma Laurans, 2153 tons, was stopped and sunk by U-52
about 70 miles south of the island of El Hierro after it had been escorted there by
the German U-boat. The crew was later moved to Maspalomas on the south coast of
Gran Canaria.24 Finally, on 12 December 1916, after 13 days on station and running

18 NA, FO 372/884, telegrams from Staniforth to the Foreign Office, Tenerife, 19 and 22 Nov. 1916.
19 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3120, telegram from the governor to the Minister of the Interior,
Tenerife, 19 Nov. 1916.
20 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. III, 329.
21 Ibid., 330.
22 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3122, telegrams from the civil governor to the Minister of the
Interior, Tenerife, 1 Dec. 1916.
23 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. III, 333, map XIV (no. 167).
24 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3120, telegram from the naval commander to the Minister of the
Navy, Las Palmas, 13 Dec. 1916; AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3018, telegram from the governor to

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 Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic during the First World War 341

low on fuel, U-52 left the Canary Islands for the Mediterranean by way of the
African coast.25
U-47 remained near the Canary Islands from 29 November until 15 December
1916. On 6 December it extended its patrol to include the area between the islands
eastwards towards the African coast, hoping to find more shipping targets there.26
Indeed it was here that the Greek steamship Spyros, 3,357 tons, was stopped and
on 7 December sunk south of Fuerteventura. Its lifeboats were towed to the coast
of Gran Canaria.27 On 8 December 1916 U-47 switched to the west of the Canary
Islands, where the Greek steamship Salamis, 3638 tons, was intercepted two days
later on its voyage from London to Montevideo under British orders.28 The steamer
was ordered to tow the submarine to the south of Gran Canaria to conserve the
submarine’s dwindling supply of fuel. Here the steamship was sunk on 13 December
and its lifeboats were towed to Maspalomas by U-47.29 Both these encounters, to the
east and then west of the islands, confirmed the commander of U-47 in his belief that
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the area immediately surrounding the Canaries had lost its significance as a neutral
coaling station since he had not encountered a single suitable target merchant ship.30
Reports appearing in some Canarian newspapers and telegrams received from the
islands,31 along with information gathered by the embassies of France and England,
convinced the Allies that German submarines had an actual supply base in the ports
of La Luz (Las Palmas) and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which in turn created speculation
that the Allies might dispatch and deploy a flotilla of specialist submarine hunters.32
Although the Spanish gunboat Laya surveyed the coasts of the Canary Islands and
found no evidence of the alleged submarine supply base,33 Spanish authorities sought
to enforce their neutrality by tightening surveillance of German ships moored off
Canary ports for possible contact with submarines or any unexplained movements,34
rather than relying on the presence of English and French cruisers policing the
waters in the vicinity, as had been the case previously.35 Nevertheless, not even in

the Minister of the Interior, Tenerife, 14 Dec. 1916.

25 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. III, 333, map XV (no. 87).
26 Ibid., 330.
27 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3122, telegram from the governor to the Minister of the Interior,
Tenerife, 7 Dec. 1916.
28 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. III, 331, map XV (nos 84 and 85).
29 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3122, telegram from the governor to the Minister of the Interior,
Tenerife, 15 Dec. 1916.
30 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. III, 331.
31 The British press also published telegrams from the Canaries about German submarines in
those waters; AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3120, telegram from the ambassador of Spain to the
Minister of State, London, 15 Dec. 1916.
32 Archivo Histórico Provincial de Las Palmas, Leopoldo Matos, file 5, Leopoldo Matos y
Massieu to Felipe Massieu, Madrid, 11 Dec. 1916.
33 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3125, telegram from the governor to the Minister of the Interior,
Tenerife, 15 Dec. 1916.
34 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3093, Minister of State to the Minister of the Navy, Madrid, 8
Nov. 1916; AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3120, telegram from the naval commander to the Minister
of the Navy, Las Palmas, 10 Dec. 1916.
35 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3093, reserved, naval commander to the Minister of the Navy,
Tenerife, 15 Jan. 1917.

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 342 The Mariner’s Mirror

the principal ports of Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife where many German
and Austrian ships had been anchored since the beginning of the war, could the
Spanish navy maintain an effective presence. Spain’s naval presence remained even
more sparse in the more remote islands.36
Intensified submarine warfare in the Azores-Canaries area
Looking beyond the eastern Atlantic for a moment, the overall picture showed that
the intensification of limited submarine warfare after October 1916 had brought
monthly sinkings in all areas of operation to over 300,000 tons, an unprecedented
amount at that time. This success served as an incentive for the German military in
December 1916 to call for the resumption of unrestricted warfare not complying with
the prize regulations in the expectation of reaching some 600,000 tons of destruction
per month; according to the memorandum on the subject of 22 December 1916
submitted by Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, the chief of the Admiralstab, to
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Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, now chief of the general staff.37 In January
1917 the Kaiser duly ordered unrestricted submarine warfare from 1 February 1917.
According to the predictions of the Admiralstab, this action alone would make the
overall British and Allied situation untenable,38 and within five months Britain at the
very least would be forced to sue for peace.39
This new phase of submarine warfare began in early February 1917 with a fleet
of about 100 submarines of all types.40 Results soon reached and even exceeded the
expected number of sinkings: in April 1917 the Allies and neutral countries lost
881,000 tons, of which 526,000 were British or Empire registered. The sinkings in
the eastern Atlantic contributed to these startling figures. This sobering experience
reinforced Allied and principally British pressure on Spain to take steps to prevent
Germany in its territory from spying and establishing clandestine wireless stations
communicating with German submarines.41 In response, Madrid duly passed
legislation to curb wireless communications after February 1917.42
From November 1917 Germany was compelled to establish a new and much bigger
war zone in the area of the Azores-Canaries, after the Allies placed strict controls
on shipping in the original zones, firstly around the Azores on 21 November 1917
and then later around Madeira on 11 January 1918. As part of this the German area
of operations spread as far as Cape Verde and the west coast of Africa.43 Moving
the boundaries of the German U-boat campaign especially to include the coast off
36 See also Ponce, ‘World War I: Unarmed Neutrality’, 53–67.
37 Halpern, Naval History of World War I, 335-8.
38 The impact of submarine warfare from autumn 1916 on Great Britain in Hough, Great War
at Sea, 298–321.
39 Another more recent German survey in Rössler, Die deutschen U-Kreuzer.
40 Hardach, Der Erste Weltkrieg; Hough, The Great War at Sea; Halpern, Naval History of
World War I; and Rössler, Die deutschen U-Kreuzer.
41 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3125, undated note from the Ministry of State regarding this
matter.
42 Royal Decree dated 8 Feb. 1917, Gaceta 1917, number 40, 323; Archivo Intermedio Militar
de Canarias, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (hereafter AIMC), section 2, division 4, file 4, Ministry of the
War to the General Captain of the Canary Islands, Madrid, 21 Mar. 1917.
43 Rössler, Die deutschen U-Kreuzer and Fayle, Seaborne trade, vol. III, Atlantic Ocean map,
showing prohibited areas.

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 Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic during the First World War 343

north-west Africa vastly expanded the area in which Allied convoys had to expect
and counter this new threat. Also Allied anti-submarine patrols now had to work
harder in the zone around the Azores, which had become an important staging point
for traffic to the Mediterranean, and where there would be an increasing presence
of US naval forces.44 Using the submarine Deutschland as a prototype, Germany
had built seven large submarines styled ‘submersible cruisers’ numbered U-151 to
U-157, which, while clumsily constructed and limited in speed, were undoubtedly
useful because of their operational range and endurance. They could undertake
cruises beyond the previous three-month limitation, were manned by veteran crews,
and boasted an increased torpedo storage capacity.45
These U-boats U-151 to U-157 operated in Canary waters from January to May
1918. On 17 January U-156, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Konrad Gansser,
encountered the English submarine E-48 south of the island of El Hierro. The British
had intercepted a message arranging a rendezvous there between U-156 and U-157
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and a Spanish brigantine loaded with tungsten to be brought by the submarines back
to Germany. The English submarine E-48 was sent to the rendezvous and fired three
or four torpedoes at U-156, and although one hit amidships it failed to explode and
the U-boat escaped.46 U-156 had sailed from Germany in mid-November 1917 and
returned in March 1918. From mid-December it operated mainly in the Canary
region and south-west of Cape St Vincent. U-157, commanded by Kapitänleutnant
Max Valentiner, followed in late November 1917 and returned to its home base by
April 1918 after cruising in the Canaries.47 These cruisers’ eastern Atlantic operations
could not be considered a success; the daily average of tons sunk by these submarines
was lower than that of submarines operating in the waters around the British Isles
(albeit they were more numerous).48
On 10 January 1918 U-156 sank the Dutch steamer Atlas, 1,813 tons, 21 miles east
of Fuerteventura, the survivors reaching that island soon afterwards.49 The next day
another lifeboat arrived with 18 shipwrecked crew members of the Spanish steamer
Joaquin Mumbrú, 2,703 tons, likewise destroyed on 30 December by U-156. The
survivors had to endure 13 days in their lifeboat, the last three days without food
or water. Madrid maintained that the vessel’s destruction occurred outside the areas
covered by the German area of hostility notification of 22 November 1917.50 Indeed
44 See Telo, Os Açores, 103–64; AIMC, section 2, division 3, file 82; in addition to French and
British warships, there were in the Canary Islands US gunboats registered in Mar. and Apr. 1918.
45 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. V, 229–68 and 394–5; Rössler, Die deutschen
U-Kreuzer; Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, 182, 216–18 and Appendix III,
351–7; and Halpern, Naval History of World War I, 427-8.
46 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. V, 241–2; and Ponce, Canarias en la Gran Guerra,
278–80.
47 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. V, 229–68; Castex, Synthèse de la Guerre Sous-
marine, 103–6; Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, 219 and 296; De Rivoyre,
Histoire de la Guerre Navale, 372; and Newbolt, Naval Operations, vol. V, maps of the submarine
operations in the eastern Atlantic, Jun. 1917–Mar. 1918, sheet 28.
48 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. V, 344–98.
49 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3122, telegrams from the naval commander of Las Palmas to the
Minister of the Navy, Las Palmas, 14 and 18 Jan. 1918.
50 Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin (hereafter PAAA), Der Weltkrieg Nr. 5 e geh
Spanien adh., R 20657, telegram from the Minister of State Marquis of Alhucemas to Ambassador

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 344 The Mariner’s Mirror

Spanish interests were seriously affected in February 1918 by submarine activity to

the west of the Canaries and near the island of El Hierro:51 four out of five Spanish
steamships sunk that month were caught in that area.52 The first victim was the
steamer Sebastián, 2,563 tons, torpedoed on 5 February by U-152, commanded by
Kapitänleutnant Constantin Kolbe, about 65 miles west of the Canary Islands.53
Given Spain’s repeated strong protests against the renewal of submarine warfare early
in 1918, the German diplomatic response in February 1918 was conciliatory.54 This
did nothing to stop a second Spanish steamship being sunk by U-152 in February
1918. This was the Ceferino, 3647 tons, which had left Las Palmas on 6 February
and 48 hours later, more than 300 miles from the Canaries, was intercepted by the
submarine. The vessel went down south of the island of El Hierro on the 9th and the
survivors manned three lifeboats, which were towed by the U-boat to that island,
arriving two days later.55
After the Ceferino case, the Ministry of State in Madrid despatched a formal
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note of protest to the German government warning that in future action would be
taken, so that they would understand the seriousness of the situation.56 In essence,
Germany was accused of major breaches of the Prize Regulations and international
law. The protest related not only to the sinking of a Spanish ship but also that the
U-boat escorting the shipwrecked crew into Spanish waters closed within one and a
half miles of the port of Estaca on El Hierro, that is within Spanish territorial waters.
Further, two members of the Spanish steamer’s crew were held aboard the submarine
as hostages to guarantee safe passage for an officer and sailor from the U-boat who
landed with the other survivors.57 At dawn the next day the two Germans turned up
at the docks to transfer back to their submarine and in exchange, the two hostages
were then released.58
News of the Ceferino’s sinking was published in the foreign press and in its turn

Luis Polo de Bernabé, Madrid, 12 Jan. 1918.

51 AMAE, R-1966, Exp. 34, telegram from the naval commander of Tenerife to the Ministry of
the Navy, 5 Feb. 1918; AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3123, telegram from the naval commander of
Tenerife to the Ministry of the Navy, 10 Feb. 1918.
52 PAAA, Schiffahrt Gen. Nr. 32 adh. 1, Band 1, listing of Spanish ships sunk by German naval
forces from the outset of the war within and beyond prohibited waters, Berlin, 24 Aug. 1918;
‘losses suffered by the Spanish merchant navy in vessels of more than 250 tonnes gross weight from
the start of the war until December 1918’, Anuario Estadístico de España, 1918, 462.
53 PAAA, Der Weltkrieg Nr. 5 e geh Spanien adh., R 20657, telegram from the Minister of State
Alhucemas to Ambassador Polo de Bernabé, Madrid, 15 Feb. 1918.
54 Ibid., telegram from Ambassador Polo de Bernabé to the Minister of State Alhucemas, Berlin,
23 Feb. 1918.
55 AIMC, section 2, division 4, file 4, post commander of the Civil Guard in Valverde to the
District General Captain, Valverde, 13 Feb. 1918.
56 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3161, undated note from the Ministry of State.
57 NA, ADM 137/1607, telegram from Ambassador Hardinge to the Foreign Office, Madrid,
16 Feb. 1918; according to rumours which reached the British consul in Tenerife, the two crew
members of the German submarine who landed with Ceferino survivors demanded the release of
two Germans of the U-156 submarine who had fallen into the water when it was going into battle
with the British submarine E-48 in those waters a month before.
58 AIMC, section 2, division 4, file 4, post commander of the Civil Guard in Valverde to the
District General Captain, Valverde, 13 Feb. 1918.

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 Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic during the First World War 345

increased British diplomatic pressure on Spain.59 Predictably, these press reports were
rejected by the German government which conceded that the alleged incident would
have been completely contrary to the strict, precise and categorical instructions
issued to U-boat commanders to respect territorial waters and the sovereignty of
neutrals. Berlin hinted all this was a British plot to foment discord between Spain
and Germany using false allegations.60 Still, the German government assured Spain it
would subject the matter to a thorough investigation and, if necessary, take measures
to correct abuses.61
Once Spanish authorities ascertained the true circumstances of this incident, on
3 March the Spanish Minister of State briefed the Spanish ambassador in Berlin,
explaining to him that the news published in the press about the Ceferino’s sinking
was in fact entirely accurate. The Spanish government once again protested strongly
against the capture of Spanish nationals within Spanish territorial waters and
expected that Berlin would swiftly punish the U-boat commander and also provide
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explanations and necessary reparations.62

Even before the Spanish lodged their protest the Ceferino case, there was a fresh
cause to protest. On 22 February 1918 a lifeboat landed at El Hierro with 26 survivors
from the Spanish steamship Negurí, 1859 tons, which had been torpedoed on 15
February some 200 miles west of La Palma by U-152, whose commander claimed to
have also sunk the Giralda,63 and others.64 On 16 February, one day after the Negurí
went down, another Spanish steamer, the Mar Caspio, 2,723 tons, was sunk by the
same U-boat’s gunfire, about 250 miles from the Canary Islands.65 This U-boat, one
of the large submarine cruisers, had left Germany on 23 December 1917 and did not
return to Kiel until 18 April 1918. The commanders of the U-boats argued that all
Spanish vessels lost to U-boats near the Canary Islands were sunk according to prize
regulations after being found to carry contraband cargo for enemy nations.66
In addition, other U-boat patrols in the Azores and Canary Islands area during 1918
stopped and searched Spanish vessels, only to release them unharmed. Interestingly,

59 NA, FO 372/1164, telegram from Ambassador Hardinge to the Foreign Office, Madrid, 17
Feb. 1918; Hardinge to Balfour, Madrid, 17 and 23 Feb. 1918.
60 PAAA, Der Weltkrieg Nr. 5 e geh Spanien adh., R 20657, telegrams from Ambassador Polo de
Bernabé to the Minister of State Alhucemas, Berlin, 27 Feb. 1918.
61 PAAA, Der Weltkrieg Nr. 5 e geh Spanien adh., R 20658, telegram from Ambassador Polo de
Bernabé to the Minister of State Alhucemas, Berlin, 26 Feb. 1918.
62 Ibid., urgent telegram from the Minister of State Alhucemas to Ambassador Polo de Bernabé,
Madrid, 3 Mar. 1918.
63 NA, FO 372/1164, secret, consul Croker to Ambassador Hardinge, Tenerife, 22 Feb. 1918; a
German crew member of the submarine which sank the Ceferino informed one of the passengers
of this Spanish steamship that this submarine had sunk the two Spanish steamships Giralda and
Sebastián.
64 AIMC, section 2, division 4, file 4, telegrams from the post commander of the Civil Guard in
Valverde to the District General Captain, Valverde, 23 and 25 Feb. 1918; telegrams from the military
commander of the island of El Hierro to the General Captain, Valverde, 23 and 24 Feb. 1918; post
commander of the Civil Guard in Valverde to the District General Captain, Valverde, 1 Mar. 1918.
65 Castex, Synthèse de la Guerre Sous-marine, 104–5; PAAA, Der Weltkrieg Nr. 5 e geh Spanien
adh., R 20658; the Spanish protest was sent in a telegram from the Minister of State Alhucemas to
Ambassador Polo de Bernabé, Madrid, 14 Mar. 1918.
66 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. V, 229–68.

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 346 The Mariner’s Mirror

some Spanish vessels were found to carry up to eighty per cent contraband in
their cargoes but were not sunk on account of the presence of civilian passengers.
In March 1918 several German submarines were still patrolling in the area. On 13
March the United States vessel Whyland, 130 tons, was hit by gunfire and sunk by
U-152 about 50 miles west of Gran Canaria, where the survivors landed.67 On 14
March the Spanish steamer Arpillao, 2768 tons, was sunk by U-157 north of Gran
Canaria.68 Two days later, on 16 March, the English steamer Ellaston, 3,192 tons, was
torpedoed and sunk by U-152 about 300 miles west of La Palma. After more than a
week at sea its survivors arrived at various ports on this island.69
From 1917 to the end of the war U-boat activity in the central eastern Atlantic
met increased countermeasures by the Allies. For instance from May 1917, with
American help, they established an effective system of convoys.70 Control over
the communications infrastructure in this part of the Atlantic was tightened.
When Germany extended the zones closed to shipping around the archipelagos of
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the Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde and off parts of the West African coast in early
1918, the British Admiralty developed a secret plan for breaking telegraph cables
to the Canaries, as this was the only neutral enclave in the eastern Atlantic whose
communications were not subject to Allied control and which could therefore assist
German U-boats. A memorandum of January 1918 concluded that the two Spanish
cable lines between Tenerife and Cadiz should be cut at a deep ocean point.71
There was another French cable connecting the islands with the outside world:
the line between Tenerife and Senegambia on the African mainland. There were also
the Canary wireless stations broadcasting to other Spanish stations and to British or
French ones. The memorandum stated that these wireless stations were susceptible
to interception or interference by the British. The memorandum recommended that
the two Spanish lines from Cadiz to the Canaries be severed close to the French
cable passing near the islands, because it could be suggested that a German ship
had mistakenly cut off the Spanish cables instead of the French. And it added: ‘Any
expression of belief on the part of the Spanish Authorities that the Central Powers
were desirous of preserving Spanish cables would be tantamount to an assertion
that their cables were being utilized for German purposes’,72 and particularly for the
benefit of U-boat warfare.
The memorandum was circulated to different departments within the British
Admiralty, all of which endorsed the idea of cutting the two Spanish lines. They
67 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3122, telegram from the naval commander of Las Palmas to the
Minister of the Navy, Las Palmas, 20 Mar. 1918; information from the Ministry of the Navy,
Central Staff, Madrid, 27 Apr. 1918.
68 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. V, 229–68.
69 AIMC, section 2, division 4, file 4, post commander of the Civil Guard in San Andrés and
Sauces to the General Captain of the Canary Islands, San Andrés and Sauces (La Palma), 27 Mar.
1918; AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3122, telegram from the naval commander of Tenerife to the
Minister of the Navy, Tenerife, 27 Mar. 1918; telegram from the naval assistant to the Minister
of the Navy, Santa Cruz de La Palma, 27 Mar. 1918; information from the Ministry of the Navy,
Central Staff, Madrid, 27 Apr. 1918.
70 Telo, Os Açores, 103–64.
71 NA, ADM 137/2707, secret memorandum on the censorship of telegraphic communications
with the Canary Islands, Planning Division, 26 Jan. 1918.
72 Ibid.

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 Commerce Warfare in the East Central Atlantic during the First World War 347

Table: Commercial tonnage of shipping visiting Canary ports 1913 to 1921*

Las Palmas Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Year Ships Tons Ships Tons
1913 6,717 10,734,989 4,248 9,735,053
1914 5,451 7,422,316 3,819 7,460,882
1915 4,536 5,984,395 3,167 5,224,670
1916 3,606 4,214,191 2,691 3,398,421
1917 2,116 1,126,605 1,363 959,855
1918 1,786 950,730 1,036 775,120
1919 2,734 2,821,677 1,949 2,668,894
1920 3,515 4,523,845 2,558 4,254,101
1921 3,839 5,032,475 2,891 4,839,879

* For this table see Ponce, ‘La revalorización internacional’, 189.

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recognized the supreme need for the British to control communications to and from
the Canaries in order to interfere with enemy operations. It was further postulated
that since Spain did not own cable-laying ships, it was likely to request a British
ship to repair its lines, and Britain would respond that the presence of German
submarines made repair work in the middle of the ocean too dangerous.73 The
Admiralty Intelligence Division decided, however, to defer the proposed action until
after the forthcoming Spanish elections, to avoid the pro-German faction in Spain
creating propaganda against the Allies.74 The action would be risky. It no longer
involved cutting the German cables at Tenerife, as had been done early in the war,75
but cutting Spanish lines connecting two sovereign Spanish entities protected by
international law on neutrality in times of war. Despite this, cable communications
between the Canaries and Cadiz were indeed interrupted, as was reported by local
authorities in mid-March 1918.76 In any event, U-boat operations in this Atlantic
area decreased after the spring and especially after the summer of that year.77
In conclusion, active submarine warfare around the Canary Islands reveals both
the major strategic significance to the Allies of the movement of food and other
commodities from the Empire and elsewhere and also the major strategic significance
for the central powers to interrupt the traffic. The defensive vulnerability of the seas
around the archipelago provided a ready target in the attempt to blockade the Allies.
Lack of Spanish defensive capabilities prevented its effective control of the islands’
territorial waters, so that German U-boats were able to conduct regular and effective
offensive operations against commercial shipping beginning in late 1916. Their
victims were mostly Allied ships, but sometimes included neutral Dutch and Spanish
vessels, even though this contravened prize regulations. The Germans extended their
area of operations during 1916 and 1917, and employed to some effect seven large
cruiser-type submarines between November 1917 and May 1918. These activities

73 Ibid., secret minutes from the Admiralty, 28 and 30 Jan. 1918.

74 Ibid., secret minutes from the Admiralty Intelligence Division, 5 and 15 Feb. 1918.
75 See Ponce, ‘Logistics for commerce war’, 456.
76 AMAE, Guerra Europea, H 3121, radiogram from Tenerife to Cadiz from the civil governor
to the Minister of the Interior, Tenerife, 16 Mar. 1918.
77 Spindler, Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, vol. V, 229–68.

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 348 The Mariner’s Mirror

angered the Madrid government not only because it affected their own vessels but
also because it was forced to rely increasingly on the Allies for protection. Finally,
Allied countermeasures in 1917 and 1918 limited the effectiveness of the German
U-boat campaign. The British used naval patrols and an effective convoy system,
especially in the north Atlantic, to counter the German threats. Clandestine actions
to damage the Spanish communications infrastructure, strong diplomatic pressure
by the Spanish, and not least the increased presence of US naval forces late in the war
rounded off Allied efforts to limit the German campaign.

Javier Ponce BA (Salamanca), MA (Leuven), PhD (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria)

is Professor of Contemporary History at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran
Canaria. His research interests are the international role of the Canary Islands and
Spanish foreign policy, especially during the First World War. He has recently
published ‘Propaganda and Politics: Germany and Spanish opinion in World War I’
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in T. R. E. Paddock (ed.), World War I and Propaganda (Leiden, 2014).

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