Naval Operations, 1915

The only notable naval battle in 1915 occurred January 24. Rear Admiral Fritz von Hipper had set out with three battle cruisers, six light cruisers, and a flotilla of destroyers for a raid on the English coast. A superior British force under Vice Admiral Beatty attacked Hipper at Dogger Bank, a sand bank in the North Sea east of England. Hipper escaped, losing only one ship (the cruiser Blücher)and heavily damaging Beatty's flagship, the Lion.

In the Baltic, on July 2, a Russian cruiser squadron drove back a German fleet. After that British submarines in these waters reduced German activities.

The German submarine campaign developed during 1915. Germany tried to cripple Great Britain by declaring the waters around the British Isles to be a zone of war in which all enemy or neutral ships would be sunk. Great Britain, in turn, ignored the rules of international law regarding blockades, and extended the meaning of contraband (war goods liable to seizure) to include almost any kind of cargo carried by ships headed for Germany.

Public opinion in the United States remained more or less neutral until a German submarine sank the liner Lusitania, which had a number of American passengers, on May 7. After receiving several strong protests from President Woodrow Wilson, Germany stated on September 1 that its submarines would not sink liners without providing for the rescue of noncombatant passengers.