The land war in Europe became a destructive machine, consuming supplies, equipment, and soldiers at massive rates.
Resupply ships from the home front and allies streamed across the Atlantic, braving submarine attacks, underwater mines, and aerial bombardment. Battleships clashed with each other from the Indian Ocean to the North Sea, competing for control of colonial territory and home ports.
New technologies were invented and refined, such as submarine warfare, camouflaged hulls, and massive water-borne aircraft carriers. And countless thousands of sailors, soldiers, passengers, and crew members were sent to the bottom of the sea.
Here's a collection of 45 amazing photos of the World War I at sea.
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A German U-boat stranded on the South Coast of England, after surrender. (Keystone View Company) |
Interior view of a British Navy submarine under construction, Clyde and Newcastle. (Nationaal Archief) |
Evacuation of Suvla Bay, Dardanelles, Gallipoli Peninsula, on January 1916. (Bibliotheque nationale de France) |
In the Dardanelles, the allied fleet blows up a disabled ship that interfered with navigation. (Bibliotheque nationale de France) |
United States Marines and Sailors posing on unidentified ship (likely either the USS Pennsylvania or USS Arizona), in 1918. (National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, USA) |
A mine is dragged ashore on Heligoland, in the North Sea, on October 29, 1918. (U.S. national Archives) |
The USS Fulton (AS-1), an American submarine tender painted in Dazzle camouflage, in the Charleston South Carolina Navy Yard on November 1, 1918. (US Navy) |
Men on deck of a ship removing ice. Original caption: "On a winters morning returning from France". (National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, USA) |
Landing a 155 mm gun at Sedd-el Bahr. Warships near the Gallipoli Penninsula, Turkey during the Gallipoli Campaign. (Library of Congress) |
Sailors aboard the French cruiser Amiral Aube pose for a photograph at an anvil attached to the deck. (Library of Congress) |
The German battleship SMS Kaiser on parade for Kaiser Wilhelm II at Kiel, Germany, circa 1911-14. (U.S. National Archives) |
U.S. Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., the Big Gun section of the shops, in 1917. (Library of Congress) |
A cat, the mascot of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, walks along the barrel of a 15-inch gun on deck, in 1915. (Bibliotheque nationale de France) |
The USS Pocahontas, a U.S. Navy transport ship, photographed in Dazzle camouflage, in 1918. (San Diego Air and Space Museum) |
The Burgess Seaplane, a variant of the Dunne D.8, a tailless swept-wing biplane, in New York, being used by the New York Naval Militia, ca 1918. (Library of Congress) |
The USS New Jersey (BB-16), a Virginia-class battleship, in camouflage coat, ca 1918. (US Navy) |
Launching a torpedo, British Royal Navy, 1917. (Bibliotheque nationale de France) |
British cargo ship SS Maplewood under attack by German submarine SM U-35 on April 7, 1917, 47 nautical miles/87 km southwest of Sardinia. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv) |
Crowds on a wharf at Outer Harbour, South Australia, welcoming camouflaged troop ships bringing men home from service overseas, circa 1918. (State Library of South Australia) |
The German cruiser SMS Emden, beached on Cocos Island in 1914. (State Library of New South Wales) |
The German battle cruiser Seydlitz burns in the Battle of Jutland, May 31, 1916. (AP-Photo) |
Surrender of the German fleet at Harwich, on November 20, 1918. (Bibliotheque nationale de France) |
German Submarine "U-10" at full speed (Library of Congress) |
Imperial German Navy's battle ship SMS Schleswig-Holstein fires a salvo during the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916 in the North Sea. (AP Photo) |
"Life in the Navy", Fencing aboard a Japanese battleship, ca 1910-15. (Library of Congress) |
Portside view of the camouflaged USS K-2 (SS-33), a K-class submarine, off Pensacola, Florida on April 12, 1916. (U.S. Navy) |
The complex inner machinery of a U.S. Submarine, amidships, looking aft. (Library of Congress) |
The Zeebrugge Raid took place on April 23, 1918. (National Archive/Official German Photograph of WWI) |
Allied warships at sea, a seaplane flyby, 1915. (Bibliotheque nationale de France) |
Russian battleship Tsesarevich, a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, docked, ca. 1915. (Library of Congress) |
The British Grand Fleet under admiral John Jellicoe on her way to meet the Imperial German Navy's fleet for the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea on May 31, 1916. (AP Photo) |
Troop transport Sardinia, in dazzle camouflage, at a wharf during World War I. (Australian National Maritime Museum/Samuel J. Hood Studio Collection) |
The Russian flagship TSAREVITCH passing HMS VICTORY, ca. 1915. (Library of Congress) |
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German submarine surrendering to the US Navy. (Library of Congress) |
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Sinking of the German Cruiser SMS Bluecher, in the Battle of Dogger Bank, in the North Sea, between German and British dreadnoughts, on January 24, 1915. (U.S. National Archives) |