Russian Naval Forces in the Defense of Communications in the Northern Maritime Theater of World War I: Organization and Results (1914–1917)

The article is devoted to the participation of the Russian Navy in the defense of sea communications in the Northern Maritime Theater of the First World War. The military and economic importance of inter-allied transportation through the ports of Northern Russia forced the Supreme Command and the leadership of the Naval Ministry to take emergency measures to organize antimine and antisubmarine defense of sea communications and, in the second half of 1916, to form the first operational large force of navy in this theater—the Arctic Ocean Flotilla. The author considers the tasks solved by the naval forces, the forms and methods of their implementation, and the results achieved. The data contained in Russian historiography on the number of German submarines operating in the theater during the campaigns of 1916 and 1917 and the damage they caused are updated. It is concluded that the Arctic Ocean Flotilla, despite an acute shortage of forces and resources, managed to minimize the losses of allied shipping in cooperation with the British naval group.