The December 1916 memorandum treated British merchant tonnage as the backbone supporting imports, wartime industry, and the Allied coalition. Poor harvests were expected to shift grain purchases away from North America toward Argentina, India, and Australia. Those longer routes would tie up roughly 720,000 additional tons of shipping and amplify every submarine loss. Holtzendorff argued that Germany therefore had a temporary opportunity to destroy enough sea-transport capacity to force a decision before mutual exhaustion became disastrous. The calculation was also an admission that Germany could not win under the existing conditions and feared that anything short of victory would destroy its political system. Holtzendorff nevertheless qualified the forecast, stating that he could not guarantee Britain would make peace within five months.
Chapter · 30:02-34:53
The 1916 merchant-tonnage calculation
Holtzendorff's December 1916 case rested on merchant tonnage, grain routes, and the claim that only an unrestricted campaign could force a decision.