Dacia sails for Bremen

The British chronology of the war records under 11 February 1915 that the steamer Dacia sailed from the United States for Bremen with a cargo of cotton. The ship, until recently the property of the German shipping line HAPAG and since January sailing under the American flag, had for weeks been the subject of a dispute between Washington and London. Her voyage was to show whether the British would recognise the transfer of interned German ships to a neutral flag.

From Galveston via Norfolk

According to the documents of the American State Department, Dacia left Galveston, Texas, on 31 January, carrying about 11,000 bales of cotton. On 11 February she put in at Norfolk, Virginia, from where she continued her voyage across the Atlantic. Officially she was bound for Rotterdam. The ship’s owner, Edward N. Breitung of Michigan, had agreed to this port of destination in January at the suggestion of the State Department, which was trying to negotiate with the British for the ship to be let through to the neutral Netherlands. The cotton had, however, been sold in December to a Bremen merchant, and in Rotterdam it was to be transhipped onward to Germany. For this reason the British chronology gives Bremen as the destination of the voyage.

London did not change its position. The Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, had announced as early as January that Britain would buy the cotton or carry it to Rotterdam at its own expense, but would put the ship itself before a prize court. The British believed that the change of flag served only to protect a German ship from seizure. Breitung argued that he had bought Dacia in good faith, as a supporter of the growth of the American merchant fleet, and that he intended to profit from high freight rates. The Senate printed his lengthy explanations at the beginning of March as an official document.

A tense February

Dacia sailed at a time when the Atlantic was becoming ever more dangerous. Germany had announced on 4 February that from 18 February the waters around the British Isles would become a war zone in which neutral ships would not be safe either. Washington replied to Berlin on 10 February with a sharp note, and on 11 February the US ambassador in London delivered a note to the British as well, objecting to the use of the American flag by their ships.

At the same time the case of the American steamer Wilhelmina was unfolding; with a cargo of food for Hamburg she had put in at Falmouth on 9 February. On 11 February the British detained her cargo as prize. Both cases were regarded as test cases: Wilhelmina was to decide whether food for Germany was contraband, and Dacia whether neutrals could freely take over German ships laid up in their ports. Dozens of such vessels lay in American ports, and in Congress the dispute over the government’s plan to purchase merchant ships was still going on. On both sides of the Atlantic people waited to see whether Dacia would be stopped off the coast of Europe, and if so, by whom.