M ARINE WAFtFARE) proclaimed a new war zone embracing the whole North Sea, including the waters around the British Isles, extending north to the Faroe Islands, westward from France and England about 500 miles and southward to within a few miles of the coast of Spain. A large portion of the Mediterranean Sea was also included within the area. This vast ex panse of ocean embracing more than a million square miles was declared to be a "barred° or ((blockaded° zone within which after 1 Feb ruary all sea traffic would if possible be pre vented by means of mines and submarine tor pedo boats. As a special concession to the United States a narrow lane extending west ward from Falmouth through the zone was to be left open for the passage of one American steamer per week, provided it arrived at Fal mouth on Sunday and departed on Wednesday, and provided it had vertical stripes three metres broad painted on its sides and carried a large flag of checkered red and white at the mast end and the American flag at the stern. Within this zone all other merchant vessels, belligerent and neutral alike, were to be sunk without warning and without provision for the safety of the crews and passengers. This ex traordinary measure was avowedly adopted as an act of reprisal against Great Britain for various acts, the chief of which was the alleged attempt of the British government to starve the German nation by means of an unlawful blockade. It was also justified on the ground that the governments of the Entente powers had °bluntly refused° to consider Germany's peace offer. Finally, it was added that the measure would result in °a speedy termination of the war and the restoration of peace which the United States had so.much at heart.° The assertion of the right to close a vast area of the open seas to neutral navigation and the threat to destroy neutral vessels which dared to traverse it was so manifestly contrary to the long-established doctrine of the freedom of the seas for which the German government pre tended to be fighting that it would be a waste of time to argue the question. It was, as the President of the United States aptly declared, a declaration of war against the world and against humanity itself. Various neutral gov ernments vigorously protested and the action of the German government in proceeding to put the decree into effect was one of the chief causes which led the United States to declare war against Germany in April 1917.
Aside from the action of the Japanese gov ernment in proclaiming in January 1904 certain °strategic areas"' in and adjacent to its own territorial waters there is nothing analogous in the slightest degree to the war zone de cree of either Great Britain or Germany in any previous war. It has long been a recognized
rule of the law of nations that a belligerent has no right to close any portion of the high seas to neutral navigation or to interfere with neutral vessels traversing them further than such as is incidental to the right.of search, visit or blocicade, or in pursuance of the right of a belligerent to intercept the carriage of con traband to the enemy.
A belligerent may, of course, engage the enemy in battle and prey upon his commerce anywhere on the high seas. He may even warn neutrals that within a certain area of the sea which is likely to become an immediate theatre of naval operations their vessels will be exposed to destruction in the same way that a non-combatant individual who in land warfare strays into the military lines will be exposed to danger, and if they disregard the warning and are unavoidably destroyed or injured in consequence of their presence in, such theatre of operations it is doubtful whether the bellig erent from whom they suffer can justly be held responsible. But it is a very different thing for a belligerent to proclaim an inunense area of the ocean which by reason of the ex tent of such area cannot be made a theatre of inunediate hostilities to be a barred or closed zone and to destroy neutral vessels en gaged in peacefully navigating such waters. The action of the British government in pro claiming the North Sea to be a military area in which mines were planted on an extensive scale was itself an infringement upon the principle of freedom of the seas, but for the reasons mentioned above it was far less ob jectionable than the German war zone decree of January 1917. It is difficult to see how the German measure can be defended on grounds of international law.
Bibliography.— Burgess, 'American Rela tions to the War' (pp. 7ff.); Garner, (War Zones and Submarine Warfare' (American Journal of International Law, Vol. IX, pp.
594ff); Rogers, (America's Case Against Ger many> . 2); Scott, (Survey of Inter national Relations Between the United States and Germany) (Ch. 12); Westlake, (Inter national Law> (Vol. II, pp. 222ff); (Inter national Law Situations) (Publications of the United States Naval War College for 191Z pp. 126ff).
JsmEs W. GARNER, Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois.