19. AMERICAN NEUTRALITY. When the European War broke out in August 1914, it immediately drew into the circle of its opera tions and influences all the civilized nations of the world. Eventually three powers were allied with Germany and 27 states declared war upon her. Italy remained neutral for a year and China for four years: otherwise.the only coun try significant in a military sense that kept out of the war was the United States; and that power at once found itself entangled in the net of European diplomacy, because it was not to fhe interest of the great belligerents to foster neutral rights, and because the intensity of the war made real neutrality almost im possible.
Attitude of the American People.— Some German-Americans would have liked to see the United States at least apply a brand of neutral ity favoring Germany. A small but eminent group of Americans from the first believed and urged that the United States should go to the rescue of Great Britain, and incidentally of France, as the belligerents who were closest to us in history and policy. By far the greater part of the American people, however, insisted upon maintaining the neutrality traditional in all European conflicts. Neutrality was observed by the American government with little difficulty or friction in the 11 wars,— eight European, Nortr_Asiatic and two African, to which one or more European powers were parties after 1854.
The United States was further committed to stiff principles of non-interference by its policy during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. The.nation then went to an extreme in resent ment at w'hat was thought to be a premature recognition by Great Britain of the belligerent status of the Southern Confederacy. In the effort to check the trade of neutrals with the enemy it insisted on restrictions, especially as to °continuous voyages,x' which proved incon venient when it became a neutral in 1914. On the other hand, the United States during the Civil War insisted on standards of strict ac countability for the building and dispatch of vessels of war by neutral nations, and subse quently claimed and received an indemnity for the slackness of Great Britain in that particular (see INTERNATIONAL CLAIMS AND DISPUTES), As a nation with a vast and expanding import and export trade it was the interest and tx3licy of the United States, when the Great War broke out, to preserve the broad privileges to which was given the general tenn 4freedom of the seas?) In every considerable war for many years fighting populations had drawn food and other supplies from the 'United States: hence commercial reasons combined with the traditions of the nation to make the govemment and people stand by the policy of impartial trade with all belligerents, and to insist on strict con struction of the limitations on naval warfare.
Principles of Neutrality.—A hard struggle, lasting for centuries, gradually built up among nations the idea that neutrality is an inter national right, and not simply a privilege. The slow gains made were swept away by the Napoleonic Wars, in whicli all the nations of Europe, as well as the United States of Amer ica, were at one time or another drawn into active warfare. When large-scale wars were renewed, beginning with the Crimean War in 1854, strong neutral powers, sotne of them 1,vith considerable ocean trade, insisted on rights which were enlarged by international agree ments. The general congresses of Paris in 1856, and of Berlin in 1878. and particularly The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, made new definitions of the rights and duties of neutrals; so that in 1914 there was a body of inter national law upon this subject recognized throughout the world. The most important of these principles are as follows: A. General Every sovereign nation has a right to abstain from war, even though its closest neighbors are in combat. No previous friendship or trade relations or com mercial treaties require any power. to loin in a war in which it was not otherwtse involved. To remain neutral is unfriendly to nobody.