http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-meaning-of-blockade-nvp6k76j7?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1522112
The Meaning of Blockade
In strict law neutral men-of-war have not the right to enter a blockaded port; but, in practice, the privilege is usually conceded by the blockading squadron
February 18, 1915
Blockade is the stationing of a naval force as near the coast of the enemy as may be necessary for the capture of all merchant vessels, neutral or otherwise, that may attempt entrance to or egress from the blockaded ports.
Blockades to be binding must be effective, and must be impartial. Paper blockades, or blockades established by proclamation without the use of an adequate force before the blockaded ports, are not recognized by international practice.
In order to justify the detention of a vessel attempting to enter or leave a blockaded port it is necessary that the vessel should have had notice of the existence of the blockade. At the beginning of a blockade a reasonable time may be allowed for the proclamation to become generally known, and during this time actual notice must be given. After the period has elapsed it is no longer necessary, and the fact of notice may be constructively assumed.
The penalty for breach of blockade is confiscation of the ship and cargo. An unsuccessful attempt is regarded by the Courts in the same light as a suecessfull attempt, if the intention is proved.
In attempts to break blockade inwards, where general notification has been given, liability begins when the vessel whose destination is the blockaded port has started on her voyage knowing the port to be blockaded. In breach of the blockade outwards liability continues until the end of the voyage, unless in the meantime the blockadd has been raised.
A blockade ceases when the blockading force voluntarily withdraws, when it is driven off by a force of the enemy, or when it is no longer effective. In strict law neutral men-of-war have not the right to enter a blockaded port; but, in practice, the privilege is usually conceded by the blockading squadron. Admiral Hobart Pasha, in his “Sketches from My Life,” refers as follows to some experiences of his own during the Civil War: I trust that our American friends will not be too severe in their censures on those engaged in blockades running; for, I say it with the greatest respect for and admiration of enterprise, had they been lookers-on instead of principals in the drama that was enacted they would have been the very men to take the lead. It must be borne in mind that the excitement of fighting did not exist. One was always either running away or being deliberately pitched into by the broadsides of the American cruisers, the slightest resistance to which would have constituted piracy; whereas capture without resistance merely entailed confiscation of cargo and vessel.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tightening-the-blockade-80l7wq53m?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1522112
Blockades to be binding must be effective, and must be impartial. Paper blockades, or blockades established by proclamation without the use of an adequate force before the blockaded ports, are not recognized by international practice.
In order to justify the detention of a vessel attempting to enter or leave a blockaded port it is necessary that the vessel should have had notice of the existence of the blockade. At the beginning of a blockade a reasonable time may be allowed for the proclamation to become generally known, and during this time actual notice must be given. After the period has elapsed it is no longer necessary, and the fact of notice may be constructively assumed.
The penalty for breach of blockade is confiscation of the ship and cargo. An unsuccessful attempt is regarded by the Courts in the same light as a suecessfull attempt, if the intention is proved.
In attempts to break blockade inwards, where general notification has been given, liability begins when the vessel whose destination is the blockaded port has started on her voyage knowing the port to be blockaded. In breach of the blockade outwards liability continues until the end of the voyage, unless in the meantime the blockadd has been raised.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tightening-the-blockade-80l7wq53m?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1522112
Tightening the Blockade
No blockade was ever established yet without protests from interests and individuals in neutral countries, and we should have to be prepared for outbursts of the kind
January 21, 1916
The signs that opinion at home and in the Ulnited States is being more and more occupied with the question of our blockade policy are unmistakable. It is gratifying to observe that, while this opinion is developing upon parallel lines amongst the two peoples, it points to the same practical conclusion.
In this country the conviction is steadily spreading that the present system is largely ineffective. All sorts of arguments are advanced to explain away the fact that the neutral countries adjoining Germany have been importing vast quantities of different commodities in excess of their normal imports, and that these commodities are just those which Germany urgently requires. There is doubtless a considerable measure of truth in some of the explanations, but the Government themselves admit that a large part of these imports does in fact find its way into Germany.
In these circumstances the demand for tightening up our blockade is almost universal. It is felt on all sides that we are not making the fullest use of the legitimate rights which our seapower enables us to exert, and that by our neglect to enforce them we are weakly permitting the enemy to prolong his resistance.
On the other side of the Atlantic the same view as to the facts is widely entertained. The extracts from representative American newspapers which our Washington Correspondent has been sending us for some time past prove that this is the case. These neutral observers, who command many channels of information from which the British Press is shut off by the exigencies of war or by the action of the censorship, do not hesitate to declare that Germany is much better supplied from outside sources than the official British statements permit Englishmen to believe.
They quote American statistics of exports to neutral countries bordering on Germany in support of this contention, together with the independent evidence of their own correspondents in Germany. They are quite clear that these exports are intended for Germany.
The populations of the small countries concerned could not, they affirm, consume the quantities they order. They, too, desire a change in our system of blockade, not, of course, in order to make it more stringent, but in the supposed vindication of certain principles to which they cling. They want us to proclaim a regular blockade of all the German coast. The step, accompanied by an enlargement of our list of contraband, would be welcomed as a success for American diplomacy, and it would almost certainly make the economic strain upon Germany heavier. It may, not improbably, be taken, and it may be taken, as our Parliamentary Correspondent suggests this nmorning, as a measure adopted jointly by Great Britain and her Allies.
There are many difficulties inseparable from such a procedure, both for our own Government and for the Governments of neutral States. We should have to supplement it by an extension of our contraband list and by the rigorous application of the doctrinc of “continuous voyage” and of “ultimate destination”. No blockade was ever established yet without protests from interests and individuals in neutral countries, and we should have to be prepared for outbursts of the kind, which in this case would be fomented and organized by German agencies. But the Government of Washington, who are constantly harassed by similar protests against our action under the Orders in Council, would be able to reply that these are recognized American doctrines, applied and greatly extended by the American Courts during the Civil War and approved by the most eminent of Amenrcan jurists. We acquiesced in the developments then given them by the American Judges, despite the stream of complaints lodged by British owners and traders, and Americans could not possibly maintain that what was lawful for them when they were fighting for their existence is not lawful for us when we are fighting for ours.
Many of their chief newspapers have, in fact, insisted on this moral impossibility as forcibly as we could desire. Sweden, another of the neutrals concerned, has recognized, it is interesting to remember, the doctrine of continuous voyago by a decree so far back as 1870. There would, of course, be leakage through neutral countries under this system, as there is leakage under the system now in force. But probably there would be less leakage, and nobody would have plausible grounds any longer for declaring that our blockade was illegal or irregular.
Attempts would doubtless be made to dispute its validity on the ground, amongst others, that in the Baltic it would not be effective, as a regular blockade by international law must be. That remains to be seen. Our submarines have of late very successfully interfered with the entrance and exit of vessels to and from German ports in that sea, and there are grounds, some American lawyers point out, for the contention that the full doctrines of regular blockade do not exactly apply to all its waters.
Whatever may be said as to the sufficiency of that interference to constitute a legal blockade, it is at least very much more effective than was the action of the Federal vessels for many months after the outbreak of the Civil War. President Lincoln and his Secretary of State knew very well that they had no ships to enforce a blockade of the immensely long coast of the Southern States. But when they saw that making them uncomfortable by interrupting “their commerce” was a method in which neutrals could not be expected to acquiesce, the President boldly proclaimed a blockade of all the Southern ports.
We print that proclamation today. It merits study at the present moment. There is no shilly-shally, nothing of the half-measure about it. Fort Sumter was fired upon on April 12. On April 19 - just a week after - Lincoln “deemed it desirable to set on foot a blockade”. He announced that a competent force would be posted to enforce it, but he had no such force. Nevertheless, he warned offending vessels that they would be captured and taken before a Prize Court for such proceedings against them and their cargoes as might be deemed desirable. We made no formal protest against this step, though the blockade was a “paper blockade” on the face of it, and though the menace to our cotton trade was clear. We knew that it would ripen into an effective blockade, and as we were anxious for the friendship of the American people we indulgently allowed it plenty of time for the process.
The American naval authorities, our Correspondent has reported, have advised the State Department that, so far as naval law is concerned, our Fleet has the situation completely in hand, and he states that three American Admirals have declared that we can immediately establish an effective blockade of Germany, as the term is understood in international law. Even if this were not the case, even if the effectiveness of our blockade in certain waters were at first open to question, we might reasonably expect from America the favourable interpretation of strict law which we freely allowed to her in the most trying period of her great struggle for freedom and for right.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-blockade-debate-9k5sfnljh?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1522112
In this country the conviction is steadily spreading that the present system is largely ineffective. All sorts of arguments are advanced to explain away the fact that the neutral countries adjoining Germany have been importing vast quantities of different commodities in excess of their normal imports, and that these commodities are just those which Germany urgently requires. There is doubtless a considerable measure of truth in some of the explanations, but the Government themselves admit that a large part of these imports does in fact find its way into Germany.
In these circumstances the demand for tightening up our blockade is almost universal. It is felt on all sides that we are not making the fullest use of the legitimate rights which our seapower enables us to exert, and that by our neglect to enforce them we are weakly permitting the enemy to prolong his resistance.
On the other side of the Atlantic the same view as to the facts is widely entertained. The extracts from representative American newspapers which our Washington Correspondent has been sending us for some time past prove that this is the case. These neutral observers, who command many channels of information from which the British Press is shut off by the exigencies of war or by the action of the censorship, do not hesitate to declare that Germany is much better supplied from outside sources than the official British statements permit Englishmen to believe.
They quote American statistics of exports to neutral countries bordering on Germany in support of this contention, together with the independent evidence of their own correspondents in Germany. They are quite clear that these exports are intended for Germany.
There are many difficulties inseparable from such a procedure, both for our own Government and for the Governments of neutral States. We should have to supplement it by an extension of our contraband list and by the rigorous application of the doctrinc of “continuous voyage” and of “ultimate destination”. No blockade was ever established yet without protests from interests and individuals in neutral countries, and we should have to be prepared for outbursts of the kind, which in this case would be fomented and organized by German agencies. But the Government of Washington, who are constantly harassed by similar protests against our action under the Orders in Council, would be able to reply that these are recognized American doctrines, applied and greatly extended by the American Courts during the Civil War and approved by the most eminent of Amenrcan jurists. We acquiesced in the developments then given them by the American Judges, despite the stream of complaints lodged by British owners and traders, and Americans could not possibly maintain that what was lawful for them when they were fighting for their existence is not lawful for us when we are fighting for ours.
Many of their chief newspapers have, in fact, insisted on this moral impossibility as forcibly as we could desire. Sweden, another of the neutrals concerned, has recognized, it is interesting to remember, the doctrine of continuous voyago by a decree so far back as 1870. There would, of course, be leakage through neutral countries under this system, as there is leakage under the system now in force. But probably there would be less leakage, and nobody would have plausible grounds any longer for declaring that our blockade was illegal or irregular.
Attempts would doubtless be made to dispute its validity on the ground, amongst others, that in the Baltic it would not be effective, as a regular blockade by international law must be. That remains to be seen. Our submarines have of late very successfully interfered with the entrance and exit of vessels to and from German ports in that sea, and there are grounds, some American lawyers point out, for the contention that the full doctrines of regular blockade do not exactly apply to all its waters.
Whatever may be said as to the sufficiency of that interference to constitute a legal blockade, it is at least very much more effective than was the action of the Federal vessels for many months after the outbreak of the Civil War. President Lincoln and his Secretary of State knew very well that they had no ships to enforce a blockade of the immensely long coast of the Southern States. But when they saw that making them uncomfortable by interrupting “their commerce” was a method in which neutrals could not be expected to acquiesce, the President boldly proclaimed a blockade of all the Southern ports.
We print that proclamation today. It merits study at the present moment. There is no shilly-shally, nothing of the half-measure about it. Fort Sumter was fired upon on April 12. On April 19 - just a week after - Lincoln “deemed it desirable to set on foot a blockade”. He announced that a competent force would be posted to enforce it, but he had no such force. Nevertheless, he warned offending vessels that they would be captured and taken before a Prize Court for such proceedings against them and their cargoes as might be deemed desirable. We made no formal protest against this step, though the blockade was a “paper blockade” on the face of it, and though the menace to our cotton trade was clear. We knew that it would ripen into an effective blockade, and as we were anxious for the friendship of the American people we indulgently allowed it plenty of time for the process.
The American naval authorities, our Correspondent has reported, have advised the State Department that, so far as naval law is concerned, our Fleet has the situation completely in hand, and he states that three American Admirals have declared that we can immediately establish an effective blockade of Germany, as the term is understood in international law. Even if this were not the case, even if the effectiveness of our blockade in certain waters were at first open to question, we might reasonably expect from America the favourable interpretation of strict law which we freely allowed to her in the most trying period of her great struggle for freedom and for right.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-blockade-debate-9k5sfnljh?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1522112
The Blockade Debate
If we allow the “border neutrals” to import maize and to export pigs, we are indirectly allowing them to export maize to the enemy
March 28, 1917
The important debates in both Houses of Parliament yesterday related to what the nation rightly feel to be one of their greatest weapons. We have used the Fleet to throttle our enemies from the wars of Elizabeth and of William III, to the wars against the France of the Revolution and of the Empire, and it has never failed us. The bitter cry of the German newspapers and their desperate efforts to impugn its lawfulness show that it is not failing us now.
Mr Hewins, in the Commons, and Lord Latymer, in the Lords, were justified, none the less, in drawing attention to the uneasiness of the public as to the efficacy of our present use of it. The feeling is neither unnatural nor unwholesome. The very history of progress which the Minister of Blockade was able to lay before his hearers yesterday is itself an admission that when he took office a year ago he found a very great deal to reform. The public are aware of that, and they are also aware that many of the largest and most dangerous leaks in the system which the Foreign Office had been applying since the first stages of the war, were not stopped until the country had clamoured loudly to have them made good.
Criticism has borne palpable fruit, and Lord Robert Cecil is now able to declare that the resulting state of things is satisfactory. That is the best of reasons for renewing criticism from time to time, and for encouraging the Blockade Department and its chief to keep the edge of the arm entrusted to them bright and keen.
The account which Lord Robert gave of his activities is interesting, and on the whole it bears out his claim that they have been successful. He had first of all to create his Department, for although we have conducted many blockades, we have never had to undertake one which resembled this. He acknowledges that when he was appointed there was a good deal of friction between the Admiralty and the Foreign Office. That was widely known, and it was a reason for the criticism heard at that time. This feeling, he told the House, has now “entirely disappeared”. The means by which it was conjured away were just a little elementary tact and good sense on the part of the Minister, and Sir Edward Carson confirmed Lord Robert’s assurance that the two Departments are working together in perfect harmony.
Blockades always raised difficult international controversies, even when they were direct blockades of the old-fashioned type. Lord Robert Cecil showed, by many instructive and apposite illustrations, how greatly these difficulties must be multiplied under a blockade of the indirect character which we are using against Germany. The practical abolition of the distinction between absolute and conditional contraband and the interment of the abortive Declaration of London were amongst the first acts of the Blockade Minister after he had set his house in order. The wonder is that they remained in existence after eighteen months of war. But certain impracticable fragments of this last-namcd legacy of pacifist sentiment in official quarters survived until Lord Robert succeeded in convincing all of the Allies that its disappearance was for their benefit as well as for ours.
Having cleared the ground in this way, the Minister of Blockade had to consider what he has been considering ever since - how to make the blockade as stringent as possible. The chief instrument on which he has relied, it need hardly be said, is rationing, and he is satisfied that this instrument is very thoroughly doing its work. It has not been his only instrument, but, coupled with the others, it enables him to declare that overseas imports into Germany have been, in substance, completely stopped since June or July last. He adduced figures to show that a number of the most important imports into the Scandinavian countries and Holland have now been reduced to about the normal pre-war figure. That is claimed with reason as a proof that there is no considerable leakage of these commodities across the German frontier. But there are other imports into these countries and other exports into Germany which have attracted a great deal of attention from the public. There are overseas, imports of fertilizers and feeding-stuffs and there are exports of agricultural produce. If we allow the “border neutrals” to import maize and to export pigs, we are indirectly allowing them to export maize to the enemy.
Most of the critics in both Houses concentrated their attention on this point, and we are satisfied that their vigilance was valuable. Our blockade is not yet by any means perfect, and the distrust with which its employment was regarded for the first year and a half of the war had very solid foundations
Mr Hewins, in the Commons, and Lord Latymer, in the Lords, were justified, none the less, in drawing attention to the uneasiness of the public as to the efficacy of our present use of it. The feeling is neither unnatural nor unwholesome. The very history of progress which the Minister of Blockade was able to lay before his hearers yesterday is itself an admission that when he took office a year ago he found a very great deal to reform. The public are aware of that, and they are also aware that many of the largest and most dangerous leaks in the system which the Foreign Office had been applying since the first stages of the war, were not stopped until the country had clamoured loudly to have them made good.
Criticism has borne palpable fruit, and Lord Robert Cecil is now able to declare that the resulting state of things is satisfactory. That is the best of reasons for renewing criticism from time to time, and for encouraging the Blockade Department and its chief to keep the edge of the arm entrusted to them bright and keen.
The account which Lord Robert gave of his activities is interesting, and on the whole it bears out his claim that they have been successful. He had first of all to create his Department, for although we have conducted many blockades, we have never had to undertake one which resembled this. He acknowledges that when he was appointed there was a good deal of friction between the Admiralty and the Foreign Office. That was widely known, and it was a reason for the criticism heard at that time. This feeling, he told the House, has now “entirely disappeared”. The means by which it was conjured away were just a little elementary tact and good sense on the part of the Minister, and Sir Edward Carson confirmed Lord Robert’s assurance that the two Departments are working together in perfect harmony.
Blockades always raised difficult international controversies, even when they were direct blockades of the old-fashioned type. Lord Robert Cecil showed, by many instructive and apposite illustrations, how greatly these difficulties must be multiplied under a blockade of the indirect character which we are using against Germany. The practical abolition of the distinction between absolute and conditional contraband and the interment of the abortive Declaration of London were amongst the first acts of the Blockade Minister after he had set his house in order. The wonder is that they remained in existence after eighteen months of war. But certain impracticable fragments of this last-namcd legacy of pacifist sentiment in official quarters survived until Lord Robert succeeded in convincing all of the Allies that its disappearance was for their benefit as well as for ours.
Most of the critics in both Houses concentrated their attention on this point, and we are satisfied that their vigilance was valuable. Our blockade is not yet by any means perfect, and the distrust with which its employment was regarded for the first year and a half of the war had very solid foundations
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