Why did Germany begin a blockade?

A wish to retaliate and to break Britain's command of the seas motivated Germany to launch its campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917. The result was to make the blockade even more complete, by provoking the United States to join the Allies

Explanation:

its many islands, high mountains, and remote peninsulas isolated population centers.

in his book, the riddle of the rosetta stone, james giblin talks about how there was a young british polymath and physician named thomas young who made a lot of advances on the deciphering of the rosetta stone. he says that even though young made a lot of mistakes because he was working under false assumptions, he also made huge contributions like deciphering three out of the seven symbols (more than anyone else before him). young published his findings and continued his good work but he wasn't able to progress much further due to some unfavorable situations, he still laid the basis for many other scholars and of course for the man who has been generally known to have deciphered it, jean-françois champollion