View source for Commerce raiding

{{short description|Form of naval warfare}}
{{More citations needed|date=January 2008}}
[[Image:Bermuda Gazette - 12 November 1796.jpg|thumb|right|''[[The Bermuda Gazette]]'' of 12 November 1796, calling for privateering against Spain and its allies, and with advertisements for crew for two privateer vessels]]
{{war}}

'''Commerce raiding'''<ref>({{langx|fr|guerre de course}}, "war of the chase"; {{langx|de|Handelskrieg}}, "trade war")</ref> is a form of [[naval warfare]] used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its [[merchant shipping]], rather than engaging its [[combatants]] or enforcing a [[blockade]] against them.<ref>Douglas Peifer, “Maritime Commerce Warfare: The Coercive Response of the Weak?” ''Naval War College Review'' vol. 66, nr.2 (Spring 2013), 83-104. </ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=34SceA8Kn2UC|title=Seapower as Strategy: Navies and National Interests|author=Norman Friedman|year=2001|isbn=1-55750-291-9|publisher=Naval Institute Press}}</ref> [[Privateering]] is a form of commerce raiding conducted by independent operators.

==Privateering==
The first sort of commerce raiding was for nations to commission [[privateer]]s. Early instances of this type of warfare were by the English and Dutch against the [[Spanish treasure fleet]]s of the 16th century, which resulted in financial gain for both captain and crew upon capture of enemy vessels ("[[Prize (law)|prizes]]").{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

===17th and 18th centuries===
[[Privateers]] formed a large part of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. In the [[First Anglo-Dutch War]], English privateers attacked the trade on which the [[United Provinces of the Netherlands|United Provinces]] entirely depended, capturing over 1,000 Dutch merchant ships. During the subsequent [[Anglo-Spanish War (1654)|war with Spain]], Spanish and Flemish privateers in the service of the Spanish Crown, including the notorious [[Dunkirkers]], captured 1,500 English [[merchant ship]]s, which provided a major boost to the flagging Dutch trade.<ref>[http://www.jiffyspanish.com/culture/c3.php Spanish Privateers]</ref> Dutch privateers and others also attacked English trade, whether coastal, Atlantic, or Mediterranean, in the Second and Third [[Anglo-Dutch Wars|Anglo-Dutch wars]].{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

During the [[Nine Years' War]], French policy strongly encouraged privateers, including the famous [[Jean Bart]], to attack English and Dutch shipping. England lost roughly 4,000 merchant ships during the war.<ref name=Privateer>[https://web.archive.org/web/20031211221516/http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj11n1/cj11n1-8.pdf Privateering and the Private Production of Naval Power], by Gary M. Anderson and Adam Gifford Jr.</ref> In the following [[War of Spanish Succession]], privateer attacks continued, Britain losing 3,250 merchant ships.<ref>Brewer, John. ''The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688-1783'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), p.197.</ref> Parliament passed an updated [[Cruisers and Convoys Act]] in 1708, allocating regular warships to the defence of trade.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

In the [[War of Austrian Succession]], the Royal Navy was able to concentrate more on defending British ships. Britain lost 3,238 merchantmen, a smaller fraction of her merchant marine than the enemy losses of 3,434.<ref name=Privateer/> While French losses were proportionally severe, the smaller but better-protected Spanish trade suffered the least, and Spanish privateers enjoyed much of the best plunder of enemy merchantmen, particularly in the West Indies.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

==Napoleonic Wars==
During [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]]'s wars against [[French First Republic|Revolutionary]] and [[First French Empire|Napoleonic France]], the [[Royal Navy]] dominated the seas. France adopted a ''guerre de course'' strategy by licensing civilian [[privateer]]s to seize British shipping. British [[East Indiamen]] of the time were therefore heavily armed to protect themselves against such raids, at the cost of considerable speed and maneuverability. Some East Indiamen, such as {{ship||Arniston|East Indiaman|2}}, were successfully able to fend off these attacks in other parts of the world; others, such as when ''Kent'' met [[Robert Surcouf|''Confiance'']] in 1800, were less fortunate.<ref>{{Cite book
|author = James, William
|year = 1835
|chapter = Light Squadrons and Single Ships: Kent and Confiance
|title = <U>The Naval History of Great Britain From the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV</U>
|location = London
|publisher = Richard Bentley
|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=K1QEAAAAQAAJ&q=Confiance&pg=PA54
}}</ref>

U.S. and British privateers also actively raided each other's shipping during the [[War of 1812#Blockade|War of 1812]].<ref>{{Cite book
|author = Coggeshall, George
|year = 1851
|title = Voyages to various parts of the world, made between the years 1799 and 1844
|location = 200 Broadway, New-York
|publisher = D. Appleton & Company
|url = http://www.elmerfudd.us/dp/ocean/coggeshallvoyages.htm
|access-date = 2010-05-17
|archive-date = 2022-07-04
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220704230233/https://www.elmerfudd.us/dp/ocean/coggeshallvoyages.htm
|url-status = dead
}}</ref>

==American Civil War==
{{See also|Ransom bond}}

During the [[American Civil War]], the [[Confederate States Navy|Confederate Navy]] operated a fleet of commissioned Confederate States Navy commerce raiders. These differed from [[privateer]]s as they were state-owned ships with orders to destroy enemy commerce rather than privately owned ships with [[Letter of marque|letters of marque]]. 

==Steel navies==
By the 1880s, the navies of Europe began to deploy warships made of iron and steel. The natural evolution that followed was the installation of more powerful guns to penetrate such warships, followed by specialized armor plating, followed by larger guns and the development of effective torpedoes (followed by armored belts below the waterline to protect against them). This "arms spiral" (which included the development of [[High explosive shell|high explosive]] and [[Armor-piercing shot and shell|armor-piercing]] shells) shifted focus from capture of [[Prize (law)|"prizes"]] (that meant financial gain for captain and crew of the responsible vessel, and their government, when the prize and her cargo were [[auction]]ed) to destruction of enemy [[Man-of-war|warships]].{{citation needed|date=January 2022}}

First seen at the [[Battle of Sinope|Sinope]] in 1853, the change was little appreciated until 1905, when at [[Battle of Tsushima|Tsushima]] seven [[Pre-dreadnought battleship|pre-dreadnought]]s were sent to the bottom, and the only prizes were those that had voluntarily surrendered.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

==World War I==
World War I saw [[Germany]] conducting a commerce war ({{lang|de|"Handelskrieg"}}) against Britain and her allies, [[U-boat Campaign (World War I)|principally with U-boats]], but also with [[merchant raider]]s and [[light cruiser]]s, and even occasionally with [[List of Schütte-Lanz airships|naval airship]]s.<ref>[[#Lehmann|Lehmann Chapter VI]]</ref>

==World War II==
During World War II, the [[Battle of the Atlantic]] saw [[Nazi Germany]] conducting commerce raiding against Britain and its allies, again using U-boats, [[armed merchantman|auxiliary cruisers]], and small groups of cruisers and battleships (surface raiders). The goal was to wage a [[tonnage war]] against the British Empire, destroying merchant shipping (and its cargoes) faster than they could be replaced, ultimately strangling the island nation by cutting off supplies it was inevitably dependent upon.

Limitations set by the [[Treaty of Versailles]] meant Germany had been unable to build a large battle fleet between the World Wars as she had in the time leading up to World War I; instead, she chose to [[U-boat#Interwar years (1919–1939)|covertly develop her U-boat fleet]]. [[Submarine]]s were cheaper and quicker to build than capital ships. This meant Germany was not able to fight battles between fleets, and relied on commerce raiding instead. The extreme early success of ''[[Kriegsmarine]]'' U-boat [[wolfpack (naval tactic)|wolfpacks]] led to the Allied development of an extensive and naval resource-straining [[convoy#Atlantic|convoy system]].

In addition to U-boats Germany also deployed the small numbers of surface warships she possessed, such as the {{Sclass|Deutschland|cruiser|5}} "[[pocket battleship]]s", her auxiliary cruisers, and a number of commercial vessels converted into [[merchant raiders]], perhaps the most famous being {{ship|German auxiliary cruiser|Atlantis||2}}.

During World War II, elements of the [[United States Navy]] based in Brazil conducted operations in the Atlantic against German commerce raiders and [[blockade runner]]s. In the Pacific, the U.S. Navy operated against Japanese merchant shipping, as well as engaging in offensive operations against ships of the Japanese Imperial Navy. The bulk of the Japanese merchant marine was sunk by [[Allied submarines in the Pacific War|American submarines]]. By the end of the war, only 12% of Japan's pre-war merchant tonnage was still afloat.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9gl-xT-swcUC|title=One Hundred Years of Sea Power|author=George W. Baer|year=1996|isbn=0-8047-2794-5|publisher=Stanford University Press}}</ref>

The [[Indian Ocean raid]] was a naval sortie by the [[Carrier Striking Task Force]] of the [[Imperial Japanese Navy|Japanese Navy]] from 31 March to 10 April 1942 against [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] shipping and bases in the [[Indian Ocean]].{{citation needed|date=November 2020}} It was an early engagement of the Pacific campaign of World War II.

The staff of the Imperial Japanese Navy decided to send [[List of Japanese auxiliary cruiser commerce raiders|some raiders]] to [[Indian Ocean]] waters from December 12, 1941 to July 12, 1942.<ref>{{cite web |last=Visser |first=Jan |url=https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/ondina.html |title=The Ondina Story |date=1999–2000 |work=Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110321233336/http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com/ondina.html |archive-date=2011-03-21 }}</ref> The Germans had already been operating in the area and conducted mutual aid with Japanese submarines, in the form of re-supply and military intelligence.<ref>{{cite web |last=Rosselli |first=Alberto |url=https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/u-boatindia.html |title=The U-Boat War in the Indian Ocean |date=1999–2000 |work=Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110321090442/http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com/u-boatindia.html |archive-date=2011-03-21 }}</ref> The Indian Ocean was the largest operating area involving direct contact between the two Axis partners, in which their primary objective was to keep pressure on the shipping lanes. The Japanese Navy participated in some commerce raiding, but concentrated its efforts toward a [[Kantai Kessen|"decisive battle"]] in the Pacific, which never took place.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

==See also==
*[[Axis naval activity in Australian waters]]
*[[Demoralization (warfare)]]
*[[German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis|German auxiliary cruiser ''Atlantis'']]
*[[Indian Ocean raid]]
*[[Japanese raiders in the Indian Ocean]]
*[[Merchant raider]]
*[[Naval strategy]]
*[[Piracy]]
*[[Privateer]]
*[[Q-ship]]
*[[Tonnage war]]
*[[Unrestricted submarine warfare]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*{{cite web |first= Klemen |last= L |date= 2000 |title= Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942 |url= https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/index.html |access-date= 2021-03-30 |archive-date= 2011-07-26 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110726053035/http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com/index.html |url-status= dead }}
*<cite id=Lehmann>[[Ernst A. Lehmann|Lehmann, Ernst A.]]; Mingos, Howard. ''The Zeppelins: The Development of the Airship, with the Story of the Zepplin Air Raids in the World War''.</cite> *

==Further reading==
*Brown, David. ''Warship Losses Of World War II''. 1995. {{ISBN|1-55750-914-X}}.
*Blair, Clay, Jr. ''Silent Victory''. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975.
*Mahan, Alfred, Captain. ''Influence of Seapower on History''.
*[[Douglas Reeman|Reeman, Douglas]]. ''The Last Raider''. Arrow Books. {{ISBN|0-09-905580-5}}. Novel detailing the last voyage of a WWI German commerce raider.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20081121201756/http://www.hydrogencommerce.com/zepplins/zeppelin6.htm Chapter VI: "THE NORTH SEA PATROL—THE ZEPPELINS AT JUTLAND"](online chapter).
{{Warship types of the 19th & 20th centuries|state=collapsed}}
{{Military and war}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Commerce Raiding}}
[[Category:Commerce raiders| ]]
[[Category:Economic warfare]]
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[[Category:Naval warfare tactics]]