The Indian Army: Manpower Reserve of the British Empire, Part I — Background and the Coming of the War

British India c.1914

Editor's Note: During the Great War, the Indian Army would grow by a factor of six and—as the main contributor of this article Professor Corel Reigel, argues—would prove a strategic manpower reserve for the British Empire throughout the conflict. Professor Reigel provides the first two parts of this three part series.  The final artice, which covers the late war experience and aftermath for the Indian Army draws on other sources.   MH

Redcoated Sepoys of the East India Company, 1804

By Corey W. Reigel, PhD, West Liberty University

Background

The Indian Army that would one day play a valuable role for the Allies in the First World War was started by the Honourable East India Company. It was raised as a small contingent under Robert Clive to oppose the Bengali rulers and the French in the struggle that ended with victory at Plassey in 1757. The East India Company had three “presidencies,” or branches, and each developed its own military force with detachments stationed in many locations around the country. As the Crown also had interests in India, there were also regular British units stationed in various spots from time to time. Following the suppression of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, the Company's charter was revoked and the Crown assumed authority in India, including control of the Company's forces. The future Indian Army would be built around those soldiers who had stayed loyal during the mutiny. Also, more British soldiers were sent to India, and all operational formations thereafter included both Indian and British troops. By 1914 the total force based in India totaled 240,000 men, almost the size of the home-based British Army. During the Great War, the Indian Army would grow by a factor of six.

Regimental Colors, 52nd Sikhs at Kohat, 1905

The Coming of the Great War

For the Indian soldiers who saw service from Flanders to China, in Africa and the Middle East, it truly was a world war. In a war of attrition, they provided the Allied effort with a strategic reserve of manpower. One justification for empire was the additional strength it would contribute. With a population of 320 million, India (see map above) sent one million men in uniform to most theaters of operations with 74,187 military deaths. Race and recent experiences were the primary criteria for the recruitment of the Indian Army. Although the Indian Army made a significant contribution to the Allied war effort in World War I, it was still a small number of soldiers relative to the population base of the Indian sub-continent. Most Europeans believed in the martial race theory, that some men were genetically superior soldiers, most often recently conquered opponents, and thus one upper limit was created by the British. Indian culture also imposed restrictions based on caste and religion. Thus, despite the substantial population, the colony of India had only a finite manpower base from which to serve the British Empire.

Most educated Europeans believed in a pseudo-scientific martial race theory, which is dismissed today. Modern conflict, the Great War itself a perfect example, took millions of ordinary men and quickly turned them into soldiers and sailors, with a wide variety of skills and tasks as required by industrialized warfare. Yet in 1914, the Indian Army was still more like a traditional colonial military of the Victorian era and was poorly prepared for a modern enemy like the German Army in Europe. Bullets and artillery shrapnel did not show a preference for certain ethnicities, but colonial government did, and thus the martial race theory was at the center of British recruitment, and most other Europeans practiced essentially the same thing. A mix of ad hominem and recent events, the Martial Race theory held that of all the Indian people only a few were of martial quality based on breeding, caste, and environment. In 1914 this favored the Dogras, the Garhwalis, the Gurkhas, the Kumaonis, the Pathans, and the Sikhs. Each company, but preferably entire battalions or regiments, was composed exclusively of men from the same caste or ethnicity. These soldiers were then deployed in a different region of India, among a different religion or ethnicity, as an alien battalion, with few connections to the local people but loyal to the British, who also encouraged a separate identity. So an example of divide and conquer, divide and rule might be a battalion each of Gurkha and Sikh infantry located in a Hindu or Muslim region.

117th Mahrattas, NW Frontier, 1910

Beyond prejudice there was also a practical reason to limit military recruitment to only certain people—it was conducive to South Asian sensibilities. The Hindu divided into many castes that determined social behavior in an unchangeable status based on birth and occupation and ideas of purity and pollution. Some were of the military castes, and like their ancestors they were literally born soldiers. This determined social behavior such as marriage and inheritance, diet and meal sharing, death rituals, and occupations, and it was both fate and a duty to fulfill these roles. Such exclusivity influenced recruitment since the purity of food, or funerals, could only be achieved if preparation were by men of the same caste, hence the logic of segregated units. This also placed an upper limit on the number of those who could serve in uniform to only certain Hindu castes and a select few non-Hindu. As World War I dragged on, there was a clear need to expand recruitment, so in 1917 75 new castes or ethnicities were eligible for enlistment. The urgency of the war changed the "science"' of recruitment as expediency altered logical conclusions. In the African colonies, the Europeans mostly practiced the martial race theory but also opened recruitment as the war continued. 

By 1914 the Indian Army consisted of 129 battalions of infantry or pioneers, 39 cavalry regiments, and 12 mountain artillery batteries (155,423 combatants), plus extensive support units. By World War I these were organized into nine divisions and several independent brigades. Each division had three infantry brigades made of one British and three Indian battalions, and one cavalry brigade composed of one British and two Indian regiments. A separate source of soldiers was the Princely States, whose units formed the Imperial Service Brigades. In theory the 29 Princely States were independent, or at least autonomous, and thus could maintain their own units, under British supervision. In 1914 they contributed 14 battalions and 20 cavalry regiments (22,515 men). Also, in an emergency the European population of India formed the Auxiliary Force, 42 battalions, 11 regiments, (33,677 men) mostly with the intention that they would serve in South Asia.

Read Part II, The Coming of War, Pending

Read Part III, Aftermath,  Pending

Historian Edward "Mac" Coffman Reflects on America's World War I

Friend and Great Historian, E.M. "Mac" Coffman
(1929–2020)

In 2012, when I was editor for one of the World War I military journals, I asked the (now) late American historian Mac Coffman for an article summarizing his thoughts and feelings about our country's participation in the Great War. I did not give any other guidelines or suggestions.  This is what Mac came up with. I think it's worth recirculating.  Incidentally,  when he  passed away, I published a tribute to him on Roads that can be read HERE. MH

As the centennial of World War I approaches, those of us who are interested in that war must hope that the American participation will be better remembered in the United States than it was during the 50th anniversary. More than a third of those who were in military service during the war were then still alive. They remembered, but the American public generally did not give much, if any, thought to their elders' contribution because the nation's war in Vietnam reached its nadir with the Tet Offensive in 1968.

The American effort clearly shifted the balance of power on the Western Front when two million men in the American Expeditionary Force threw their weight against the Germans in the last five-plus months of the war. After the war, both Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Max von Gallwitz, the commander of the German force that faced the AEF in the greatest battle (in number of men involved and casualties suffered) in American history, agreed that this massive reinforcement won the war. 

Within a few months after the Armistice, Wilson's and most of the American public's high hopes of victory waned greatly as the aspirations and infighting of the Allies resulted in the Treaty of Versailles, which certainly did not live up to the hopes of Wilson and caused many Americans to understand that this was not going to be the war to end all wars.

Americans also did not appreciate either the recalcitrance of the Allies in paying off war debts or their belittling of the American combat effort. There was an incident at a meeting of political scientists in the 1920s that illustrates the point. An American general who had served in the recent war listened to the academics give papers on the war and was impressed that little if any credit was given to the American effort. During the question and answer period after the papers were read, the general asked what they considered was the American effect on the war. After a period of hemming and hawing, one professor said, “It was the straw that broke the camel's back.” The general responded, “Straw, hell. It was the sledgehammer that broke that damn camel's back.”

In the early 1930s there was a Senate investigation of the significance of American bankers and munitions manufacturers who, it was argued, brought about the American entrance into the war. This led to several neutrality acts and a peace movement that in 1937 had the support of 95 percent of the American public. As late as 1940 a peace group put out a poster depicting a veteran in a wheelchair with the caption “Hello, Sucker.”

As a schoolboy in the 1930s in Hopkinsville, KY, I was not aware of this attitude toward World War I. My father and most of his friends were veterans whom I respected. There were parades on Armistice Day that impressed me because of the local National Guard troop of cavalry. In grade school, we memorized "In Flanders Field" and stood every year for one minute of silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I knew who General Pershing, Alvin York, and Eddie Rickenbacker were. By 1940, I was in the habit of dropping in to talk with Erskine B. Bassett, a retired National Guard colonel who commanded an infantry regiment in the 92nd Division in the last days of the war. He owned a ladies' store that had to be unique—each counter had World War I posters on its front, and the colors of the 150 Infantry Regiment, the National Guard unit he had commanded earlier in the war, were on top of a shelf. His helmet and sword were by its side. We talked not just about World War I but also about his experiences in National Guard units from the 1880s into the 1920s. With the advent of the American entrance into World War II we discussed that also. 

I was a journalism major as an undergraduate, but my first job after graduation was the army as an infantry officer. While in the army, I decided that I would go to graduate school and major in history. Fortunately, the GI bill paid my way for four years at the University of Kentucky. At that time, in the mid-1950s, I wanted to work on a Civil War topic, but a professor warned me that the field was flooded with books, so I turned to a World War I topic—Peyton C. March as chief of staff of the army—as my dissertation topic. It is a clear indication of the lack of interest in World War I that I then knew of only one other academic who was working on a U.S. Army topic. Later, in the advanced stage of my research, I spent two-plus months in the National Archives and became acquainted with other World War I researchers. They were working on different topics involved with the use of gas by the AEF. They published a limited edition of several excellent monographs for the Chemical Corps. In addition to my research in personal papers, newspapers, and memoirs, I worked on a lot of oral history and corresponded with other significant figures from World War I. This was a great opportunity to be able to ask participants questions.

When I tried to get my March biography published in the early 1960s I became increasingly aware that there was little interest in World War I subjects. Fortunately, the University of Wisconsin Press published The Hilt of the Sword in 1964, but sales were low. By that time I already had a contract from Oxford University Press to write a book on the American participation in the war. A World War I veteran and former governor of Wisconsin, Philip LaFollette, made that possible by recommending me to an Oxford University Press editor, Sheldon Meyer. Oxford was planning a series on American wars. As it happened, my The War to End All Wars and Charles MacDonald's The Mighty Endeavor, about the American war in Europe in World War II, were the only volumes in the planned series that were published.

The press hoped that my book would sell well because of the significance of the date of publication—1968. In addition, a book about the AEF—The Doughboys—had sold well in 1963. However, the author was the well-known writer Laurence Stallings, a Marine veteran who had lost a leg at Belleau Wood. As publication time neared, I heard that another author, Harvey DeWeerd, was bringing out President Wilson Fights His War as one of the distinguished series that Louis Morton developed for Macmillan Press. When I read DeWeerd's book I was impressed by the difference in our approaches. A third of his book was devoted to the war before the American entry. His coverage of the American part of the war is primarily concerned with diplomacy, strategy, and logistics at the high command level. I was relieved that I had dealt with the American military experience from the time of mobilization to the end of the war and gave the soldiers as well as the leaders due coverage. I should add that when I finally visited the Western Front in 1990 I was very pleased to see that my dependence on the maps in the American Battle Monuments Commission's American Armies and Battle Monuments in Europe (1938) was justified. Having learned a lot in map reading at the Fort Benning Infantry School helped me in recognizing terrain features. 

Still Recommended for Students of the Great War
It Can Be Ordered HERE

I was very glad that I could give my father a copy of my book. By then he was referring to himself and other Great War veterans as the “forgotten men.” Over the years, I stayed in touch with some of the veterans I had interviewed. Every time I went to Washington I would visit General Charles L. Bolte, who as a lieutenant had been wounded early in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. I often visited Sidney C. Graves, who led the first American raid against German lines and later wound up in Siberia. On several occasions I also visited Doug Campbell, who was the first U.S. Air Service pilot to achieve ace status after our entry into the war. General Bolte and Campbell lived into their nineties. 

When the French awarded Legions of Honor to veterans in 1998, a friend and I visited George Fugate, the last veteran surviving in Lexington, KY, and helped him to apply for the medal.  An infantry lieutenant, he had been in France about a month before the Armistice.  He died in 1999 at age 105. Unfortunately, his medal did not arrive until a few weeks later. 

They are all gone now, but I know that readers of this periodical and I will never forget them.

This article originally appeared in the Journal of the World War One Historical Association, Vol. 1, Num. 2, 2012

Eyewitness: Loos Battlefield—"The Aftermath" by Sapper (H.C. McNeile)

Loos Battlefield from the Original British Line

LOOS, OCTOBER,  I915 

Away  in  front,  gleaming  white  through  the gathering  dusk  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  lies  the front  line.  Just  beyond  it,  there  is  another: the  Germans.  Down  in  the  valley  behind  that  white  line  a  town,  from  which  with  monotonous  regularity  rise  great  columns  of  black  smoke — German  heavies  bursting  again  and  again  on  the  crumbling  red  houses.  And from  the  village  there  rises  a  great  iron  construction with  two  girdered  towers,  a  landmark for  miles.  Periodically  German  crumps sail  overhead  with  a  droning  noise,  woolly bears  burst  on  one's  flank,  and  then  a  salvo coming  unpleasantly  near  makes  one  remember that  the  skyline  is  not  recommended by  the  best  people  as  a  place  to  stand  on,  and, getting  into  the  trench,  you  retire  again  to the  dug-out,  to  wait  for  the  night  to  cloak your  doings. 

In  the  line  of  trench  are  men — men  not there  to  fight,  not  even  in  support.  They are  there  to  clear  up  the  battlefield;  for  only a  few  days  ago  the  trench  in  which  you  are sitting  was  the  German  front  line.  The  bed on  which  you  lie  has  supported  a  stout  Teuton for  probably  ten  long  months  or  more; and  now  where  is  he  ?  My  predecessor  was addicted  to  the  use  of  a  powerful  scent  of doubtful  quality,  which  still  hangs  faintly  in the  air.  He  also  believed  in  comfort.  There are  easy  chairs,  and  cupboards,  and  tables, and,  as  I  say,  a  bed.  Also  there  are  mice, scores  of  them,  who  have  a  great  affection for  using  one's  face  as  a  racecourse  during one's  periods  of  rest. 

But  my  predecessor  was  absolutely  out  of it  with  another  fellow  along  the  trench.  His dug-out  was  a  veritable  palace,  boasting  of wall-papers  and  a  carpet,  with  a  decorated dado  round  the  part  where  dados  live,  and  a pretty  design  in  fruits  and  birds  painted  on the  ceiling.  Bookshelves  filled  with  the  latest thing  in  German  wit,  and  a  very  nice  stove with  flue  attached.  I  was  beaten  by  a  short head  trying  to  get  there,  which  was,  perhaps, as  well.     Mine  confined  itself  to  mice.  .  .  

Gradually  the  night  falls,  and  with  it  starts the  grim  task.  It  was,  as  I  have  said,  the German  line — now  it  is  ours;  the  change  is not  brought  about  without  a  price.  Turn around,  away  from  that  line  now  almost  invisible in  front,  and  look  behind.  There, over  a  mass  of  broken  pickets  and  twisted wire,  gleams  another  white  line — our  original front  trenches.  Between  you  and  it  lies  the no  man's  land  of  ten  months — and  there  on that  strip  of  land  is  part  of  the  price.  It  lies elsewhere  as  well,  but  a  patch  of  fifty  yards will  serve.  There  was  one,  I  remember,  where the  German  line  had  swung  out  at  right angles — a  switch — going  nearer  to  ours.  In this  bit  of  the  line  the  wire  had  run  perpendicular to  the  rest  of  their  trench  for  a  few score  yards.  And  in  the  re-entrant  a  machine gun  had  been  placed,  so  that  it  fired  along  the wire.  The  steel  casing  we  found  still  standing, though  the  ground  around  was  torn  to pieces.  That  machine  gun  paid  for  its  construction. .  .  

There  was  one  group  of  four  outside,  a subaltern  and  three  men.  They  were  lying on  the  ground,  in  one  close-packed  jumble, and  the  subaltern  had  his  arm  around  a  man's neck.     Just  in  the  torn  up  wire  they  lay — the  price  at  the  moment  of  victory.  Another five  seconds  and  they  would  have  been  in that  line;  but  it  was  left  to  some  one  else  to stop  that  machine  gun  firing.  And  so,  beside that  motionless,  distorted  group  a  hole  is dug,  and  soon  no  trace  remains.  One  phase of  clearing  the  battlefield;  there  are  many such  holes  to  be  made.  A  few  yards  away — this  time  on  the  parapet  of  the  trench — a Scotchman  and  a  German  are  lying  together. 

The  Scotchman's  bayonet  is  through  the German — his  hands  still  hold  the  rifle — and as  he  stabbed  him  he  himself  had  been  shot from  behind.  A  strange  tableau:  natural enough,  yet  weirdly  grim  to  the  imagination when  seen  by  the  dim  light  two  or  three  days after  it  took  place. 

One  could  elaborate  indefinitely.  Each  of those  quiet,  twisted  figures  means  some  one's tragedy:  each  of  them  goes  to  form  the price  which  must  be  paid.  And  at  no  time, I  think,  does  the  brutal  realism  of  war strike  home  more  vividly  than  when  in  cold blood  one  sees  before  one's  eyes  the  results of  what  took  place  in  hot  blood  a  few  days before.  Just  a  line  in  the  paper — a  name — no  more.     That  is  the  public  result  of  the price,  and  at  one  time  it  seemed  to  me  hard on  those  behind.  Unavoidable  of  course,  but hard.  No  details — nothing — just  a  statement. I  have  changed  my  mind:  there  are worse  things  than  ignorance.  .  . 

Then  from  the  trenches  themselves,  from the  dug-outs,  from  behind  are  pulled  out  the Huns.  Caught  in  their  deep  dug-outs,  with the  small,  slanting  shaft  going  down  to  great chambers  hewed  out  of  the  chalk  underneath — and  some  of  the  shafts  are  ten  to  twelve yards  long — unable  to  get  out  during  the bombardment,  they  were  killed  by  the  score. 

A  few  bombs  flung  down  the  shaft  and — voild  tout.  And  so  they  are  hauled  out  one at  a  time.  More  holes  to  be  dug — more  shell holes  to  be  utilised.  Apropos  of  those  Hun dug-outs,  a  little  incident  in  one  of  them  revealed yet  another  side  of  Tommy's  character. 

Truly  is  he  a  man  of  many  parts.  A  few cheery  sportsmen  having  worked  manfully and  well,  and  having  earned  their  rest,  found the  dug-out  they  had  marked  as  their  own was  occupied.  It  had  for  the  time  been missed  in  the  search  for  Germans;  that  was why  it  was  occupied.  Nothing  daunted, however,   they  piled  the  occupants  on  one side,  while  they  peacefully  went  to  sleep  on the  other.  There's  no  doubt  getting  a  dead German  up  those  shafts  is  weary  work,  and they  were  tired.  But  I'd  sooner  have  slept in  the  trench  myself.  However,  that  is  by the  way. 

Source

And  so  we  go  on,  wandering  in  perfect safety  over  the  ground  that  a  few  days  before meant  certain  death.  A  mass  of  rifles,  kit, bandoliers,  accoutrements  litters  the  ground, save  where  it  has  already  been  collected  and sorted  into  heaps.  Unexploded  bombs  lie everywhere,  clips  of  ammunition,  bayonets. All  has  to  be  collected  and  sent  back — another phase  of  clearing  the  battlefield. 

Then  there  is  the  road  where  some  transport was  caught  topping  the  rise.  There  the holes  have  to  be  bigger,  for  the  horses  have to  be  buried  even  as  the  men.  It  is  only rarely  the  process  is  already  done.  One horse  there  was,  in  a  trench  on  his  back, fifty  yards  from  the  road,  stone  dead.  How he  got  there,  Heaven  knows.  He  wasn't much  trouble. 

Then  there  was  another  mound  from  which protruded  an  arm,  in  German  uniform,  with its  ringers  pointing.     And  the  hand  was  black. A  morbid  sight,  a  sight  one  will  neyer forget.  Vividest  of  all  in  my  mind  remains the  impression  of  a  German  skeleton, near  the  edge  of  our  own  trench.  Dead  for nearly  a  year  perhaps,  shot  in  some  night attack,  trying  to  cut  the  wire.  A  skeleton hand  from  which  the  wire-cutters  had  long since  fallen,  crumbled  on  a  strand,  a  skull grinned  at  the  sky,  a  uniform  mouldered, 

That,  and  the  blackness  of  Death.  No peaceful  drifting  across  the  Divide,  but  blackness and  distortion. 

Thus  the  aftermath  :   the  price.  .  .

From The Lieutenant and Other Stories by Sapper (H.C. McNeile), who saw duty at Loos with the Royal Engineers in the aftermath of the September 1916 battle there.

Remembering a Veteran: Sir John D. Cockcroft, Royal Field Artillery, British Army

John D. Cockcroft

John Douglas Cockcroft (1897–1967) was one of the most productive and broadly valuable scientists of the 20th century. In 1914, he won a County Major Scholarship, West Riding of Yorkshire, to the Victoria University of Manchester, where he studied mathematics. When Cockcroft completed his first year at Manchester in June 1915. He joined the Officers' Training Corps there, but did not wish to become an officer.  He eventually enlisted in the British Army on 24 November 1915. On 29 March 1916, he joined the 59th Training Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, where he was trained as a signaller. He was then posted to B Battery, 92nd Field Artillery Brigade, one of the units of the 20th (Light) Division, on the Western Front.

Cockcroft participated in the advance to the Hindenburg Line and Passchendaele. He applied for a commission, and was accepted. He was sent to Brighton in February 1918 to learn about gunnery, and in April 1918, to the Officer Candidate School in Weedon Bec in Northamptonshire, where he was trained as a field artillery officer.  He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery on 17 October 1918.  The war ended shortly afterwards and he was released from the Army in January 1919. After completing his education and serving an apprenticeship at Vickers Electrical, he began work under Lord Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. He married Eunice Elizabeth Crabtree in 1925, and the couple had four daughters and a son.

Walton, Rutherford, and Cockcroft

He first collaborated with P. Kapitsa in the production of intense magnetic fields and low temperatures. In 1928 he turned to work on the acceleration of protons by high voltages and was soon joined in this work by E.T.S. Walton. In 1932 they succeeded in transmuting lithium and boron by high energy protons. In 1933 artificial radioactivity was produced by protons and a wide variety of transmutations produced by protons and deuterons was studied. In 1951 Cockcroft and Walton received the Nobel Prize in Physics for splitting the atom. 

In September 1939 he took up a war-time appointment as Assistant Director of Scientific Research in the Ministry of Supply and started to work on the application of radar to coast and air defence problems. He was a member of the Tizard Mission to the United States in the autumn of 1940, in which British breakthroughs on radar were shared with American scientists. 

World War II British Radar Unit

After this he was appointed Head of the Air Defence Research and Development Establishment. In 1944 he went to Canada to take charge of the Canadian Atomic Energy project and became Director of the Montreal and Chalk River Laboratories until 1946 when he returned to England as Director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell.  He is considered one of the founding fathers of the nuclear energy industry.

For the remainder of his life, Cockcroft held a number of distinguished posts and received honors and awards to numerous to list here. John Cockcroft died on 18 September 1967.

Sources: Nobel Prize Biography; Wikipedia; Moments of Discovery

German Torpedo Boats of World War I—A Roads Classic

The German torpedo boats of World War I were designed to execute torpedo attacks on bigger warships. While other nations like Britain started to increase the size and gun armament of their torpedo boats—or torpedo boat destroyers—and designed a ship that would later just be called "destroyer," the German Navy stayed with the idea of small craft that were to focus on their torpedoes as their main weapons.

Action

During the war, it became obvious that the artillery component of those boats had to be increased. Therefore, all torpedo boat classes laid down during wartime got more and larger guns—the climax were the large torpedo boats (Große Torpedoboote) of the Design 1916—with their four 15cm guns. At  over 2000 tons they were the biggest and most powerful ships of their kind at the end of the war. They were in many ways the equivalent of the contemporary destroyers in other navies (they were often referred to as such by their crews). 

Torpedo Boat G-136 at Sea

The combat effectiveness of the German torpedo boat squadrons, however, was not very impressive. In an early, October 1914, action off the Dutch coast, a British flotilla consisting of a light cruiser and four destroyers sank an entire squadron of torpedo boats causing German commanders to lose confidence in the vessels. As a direct result, there were very few further sorties into the Channel and the torpedo boat force was relegated to coastal patrol and rescuing downed pilots for fear of similar losses. Consequently, it is difficult to find accounts of the boats sinking Allied ships. The sinkings of a British minelaying sloop and a single destroyer, were all the editors could find

.

A Flotilla in Port

Germany built over 300 torpedo boats by the end of World War I, and 67l of them were lost because of enemy actions. Fifty of the most  modern ones were interned in Scapa Flow and scuttled there in June 1919; only a few of them were not sunk. Of the 114 boats left in Germany, only 24 were allowed to be kept after the Treaty of Versailles, but most of the remaining boats were of such a bad condition that it was difficult to keep even 24 of them running. Most of those boats were later reconstructed and several of them were even used for auxiliary duties during World War II.

Sources: german-navy.de; http://www.naval-history.net; Wikipedia