Eat Less Bread
1917 gross tonnage of British merchant shipping lost: 3,729,785 tons
Grand total gross tonnage of British merchant shipping lost until Nov. 11, 1918 (end of the war): 7,759,090 tons
The British merchant vessel, SS Arcadian, which was torpedoed off Marseille in 1917, with the loss of nearly 300 lives
The World War I Document Archive, (14 Nov. 2003)
Despite losing nearly thirteen million tons of merchant shipping over the course of the war, the Allies and neutral nations worked hard to replace it during the same period. Note the incredible shipbuilding output of the United States in 1918.
Merchant Vessels Launched during the War Period (100 GRT and Upwards)
Location | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
United Kingdom and Dominions | 714 // 1,706,000 | 354 // 664,000 | 342 // 630,000 | 366 // 1,229,000 | 485 // 1,579,000 |
United States Coast and Lakes | 94 // 201,000 | 84 // 177,000 | 211 // 504,000 | 326 // 998,000 | 929 // 3,033,000 |
Rest of the World excluding Austria and Germany | 389 // 499,000 | 301 // 351,000 | 407 // 544,000 | 395 // 683,000 | 430 // 786,000 |
World War I Document Archive (20 Feb. 2004), originally from J.A. Salter, Allied Shipping Control (Oxford: Clarendon, 1921), 361.