ABSTRACT
The ability of the US Navy to adjust to the traumatic events that transpired in Europe after August 1914 had a great deal to do with the background and technological conceptions of the Annapolites looking on. Meanwhile, as Annapolites observed the catastrophic events across the Atlantic, they reacted in a predictable manner. In May 1915 a great naval review was staged in the Hudson River to show off the assembled might of the Atlantic Fleet. Thrown back on the circuitous detour around Scotland, U-boats for the remainder of the war would have trouble remaining on station in the North Atlantic long enough to dispose of even their limited supply of torpedoes. Finally the submarine's problems with the depth charge and the convoy were compounded by a crucial geographical factor: Britain sat athwart the North Sea in such a way as to reduce the most direct German approaches to the Atlantic to a thin band of water, the English Channel.
