BLOCKADE IN THE WORLD WAR Light torpedo craft, submarines, mines, and aircraft have made it impossible to maintain a close blockade as in old days, and in the World War Great Britain and her allies were compelled to find means of making their blockade effective with the squadrons at a safe distance. British and French cruiser squadrons patrolled the Channel, North Sea and Straits of Otranto but no blockade of Germany was declared. The rapid development of submarine activity led shortly to the substitution of a boarding squadron of small ships in the Straits of Dover for the cruisers in the Channel, and to the withdrawal of the northern force to the area between Iceland and the Scottish coast. The old cruisers originally forming this patrol were relieved by armed merchant cruisers as soon as they could be got ready and called the loth Cruiser squadron. This squadron experienced great difficulty in carrying out visit and search according to the old-established ideas. It is practically impossible to do this at sea under modern conditions, and so neutral ships, under suspicion of carrying contraband, had to be sent into harbour. The delay thus caused acted as an additional deterrent to neutral owners from carrying goods of a suspicious nature.
Great Britain's most effective weapon was "Bunker Control." The world's shipping was at that time almost entirely dependent on British coal, and by withholding it from owners who were reluctant to comply with the requirements of the blockade she was able to bring great pressure to bear. The "Evidential System" for determining the real destination of goods from documentary evidence proved valueless, and in spite of all efforts it was obvious that supplies were pouring into Germany through Scandinavia, Holland and (at first) Italy. Germany herself, however, gave the Allies the opportunity of escaping from their difficulties.
The complete stoppage of her shipping was telling on her and the rapid development of submarine warfare induced her to issue the celebrated order of Feb. 19'5 in which she declared the waters around Great Britain and Ireland a military area, and announced that every hostile merchant ship found therein would be sunk with out regard to the safety of passengers or crew. Even neutral ships in that area would be in danger. That this callous renunciation of the laws of humanity and international maritime law was to be no empty threat was soon proved, and the sinking of the "Lusi tania" produced a feeling of horror throughout the civilised world. Great Britain and France replied with what has come to be known as the "Reprisals Order," which empowered their naval forces to stop all ships of enemy origin, ownership, or destination, so that the allied navies were freed from the trammels of the Declarations of Paris and London.
The Reprisals Order brought Britain into sharp conflict with America, just as, previously, the declaration of 1806 had done. During the prolonged diplomatic correspondence which followed she used the term blockade, which was technically incorrect in view of the fact that the Reprisals Order affected neutral terri tory. Though the doctrine of continuous voyage was recognized, neutral territory was technically exempt from blockade and neutrals were thus given an opening for discussing measures which were perfectly sound and logical in themselves in view of modern conditions. Every means was adopted to ensure that the blockade should interfere as little as possible with legitimate trade, and in order to avoid unnecessary delay cargoes sent in for adjudication were first examined by a contraband committee before being sent to the prize court.
The American contention that their trade with neutrals was suffering as compared with pre-war conditions was shown by their own figures to be incorrect. Whereas before the War it had been steadily diminishing in volume for some years, a circular issued by the Department of Commerce at Washington on Jan. 23, '9'5 gave the following figures (in millions of dollars) for America's foreign trade: August . . . . . . .
September . . . . . . '56 October • • • • • • 194 November . . . . . . 2o5 December . . . . . . 246 Further figures show that the trade with Scandinavia and Hol land had increased by 300%. It was obvious that those countries' own requirements could not have risen to that extent, and that they must have been re-exporting to Germany.
That the Allies' blockade measures were interfering with neutral trade less than Germany's activities is shown by the fact that up to Jan. 3, 1915, out of 45 neutral ships which had been tem porarily detained by the Allies only 8 had been placed in the prize court, while 25 had been reported as destroyed by mines scattered by Germany on the high seas.
America was however on firmer ground when she called atten tion to the magnitude of Britain's own exports to these same coun tries, figures produced proving conclusively that Britain herself was doing exactly what she was trying to prevent America from doing. The cry of "Business as usual" had largely governed her policy, no matter who the business was with, and, but for this, Germany must have succumbed long before she did.
The economic blockade involved an enormous amount of work, for dealing with which practically the only machinery existing before the War was the prize court. Various committees and departments were formed in London to deal with different sections of it, and these were amalgamated into the Ministry of Blockade under Lord Robert Cecil early in 1916. The contraband depart ment of the Foreign Office was the nucleus round which the organization grew, the personnel being chiefly drawn from the Foreign Office, Admiralty and Board of Trade. The Foreign Office was particularly interested in relations with neutrals and smoothing over difficulties with them, the Admiralty strove to make the blockade as effective as possible, while the Board of Trade watched over commercial interests. It took England over two years of bitter experience to realize that modern war on a large scale involves the whole nation, with all its interests and resources. Not until she realized that "Business as usual" is in compatible with a "Nation in arms" did she reap the full benefit from her sea power.
The British Government had first of all tried to persuade neutral Governments contiguous to Germany to prohibit the export to her of all goods which were declared contraband in London. This proved unworkable and a little experience showed that the Government would have to deal direct with neutral traders and shipping companies. The leading commercial mag nates in the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland were induced to form themselves into trusts and were made the sole consignees of those goods which the British Government wished to prohibit from going into Germany, on condition that they would not re export the goods consigned to them. The cardinal feature of the blockade, however, was what was called "rationing." This had been proposed in 1914 but was not adopted until 1915, as it was only slowly realized that it could be put into practice. The con ception of rationing was that the imports for home consumption of the neutral countries contiguous to Germany were a true measure of the home requirements of those countries and that, therefore, if the Allies allowed such neutrals to import commodi ties on the scale of their pre-war imports, with a small margin for contingencies, their merchants would be unable to increase imports for the special purpose of selling to Germany. In 1915 rationing agreements were concluded with Switzerland, Holland and Denmark, and the Ministry of Blockade, when it was subse quently formed in 1916, adopted and actively pursued the policy.
Towards the end of 1914 the three Scandinavian Governments had held a conference at Malmo at which they agreed to sup press all trade statistics, so there was strong presumptive evi dence of a big re-export trade ; their rations were accordingly based on pre-war figures. With the United States a very suc cessful arrangement known as "Letters of Assurance" was ar rived at, by which American traders submitted to the British Embassy at Washington a complete list of the goods they wished to ship and their quantities, and applied for permission to pass them through the patrols. Thanks to an elaborate organization formed solely for the purpose of making the necessary investi gations as rapidly as possible, the permit or refusal was generally telegraphed within 48 hours.
The "Blacklisting System" grew out of the postal and tele graph censorship, which disclosed the firms in America and Scandinavia mostly concerned in the organization of German trade. Bunker control enabled the Allies to deal satisfactorily with blacklisted firms. When the United States came into the war in April 1917 they passed measures for stopping all German trade and for making it impossible for adjacent neutrals to re export to the Central Powers. Bunker control had already made it possible for England to withdraw the loth Cruiser Squadron, so America was not called upon to assist in the naval side of the blockade ; but in all else, blacklisting, export embargoes, postal and telegraph censorship, they acted far more drastically and severely than the other Allies.
The meat imported from adjacent neutrals in 1915-16 never sufficed to fill the deficit caused by the British agreement with the American Meat Packers' Association, while the cattle killed at home in any year could not be replaced in the next owing to lack of fodder for raising the young stock.
This lack of the necessaries of life was most keenly felt in the industrial districts of the west and centre of Germany. In the autumn of 1919 it was officially reported to the British Gov ernment that "the nation of Germany is broken both in body and spirit." Austria felt the blockade even more than Germany. When the Armistice was signed the population of Vienna was in little better plight than that of Paris during the starvation period of the siege of 1871.
The economic blockade proved that modern States are inter dependent to a degree unsuspected before the War. An industrial country cannot be isolated from the outer world and produce both machinery and food supplies; an agricultural country may possibly feed itself but cannot also provide arms and material for its armies. Even of ter the coalition of the Central Powers covered half Europe the lack of seaborne supplies created wants and deficits which in their turn created others, until in the end the entire population of Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey broke down under the strain created by these progressive dis comforts and sufferings. For further discussion of the Economic Blockade see RATIONING OF NEUTRALS (BLOCKADE) ; RESTRICTION OF ENEMY SUPPLIES COMMITTEE; BLOCKADE, MINISTRY OF; WAR TRADE ADVISORY COMMITTEE.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Popular Works.—Mahan, Influence of Sea Power Bibliography. Popular Works.—Mahan, Influence of Sea Power (1892) , for blockade measures during Napoleonic War; Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces (1923) gives the Scandinavian aspect ; Bowles, The Strength of England (1926).
Modern Technical Works.—Garner, International Law and the World War (192o), with bibliography at end of vol. 2 ; Fayle, Of ficial History of the lVar: Seaborne Trade (1920-24) ; Hall, Inter national Law, 8th edition, Clarendon Press (1924) ; Report of the Commission of Jurists, Cmd 220I/1924, H.M. Stationery Office; Oppenheim, International Law, 4th edition (1926) ; Earl of Birken head, International Law, 6th edition (1927) ; Garner, Prize Law during the World War (1927). (R. N. BA.)