Dutch protest against the blockade

On 19 March 1915 the Dutch Foreign Minister, John Loudon, sent the British and French ministers in The Hague two almost identical letters. In them the government of the Netherlands protested against the measures by which the two states, in reprisal for German submarine warfare, intended to cut Germany off from seaborne trade. A few days later Loudon laid this correspondence before parliament, and its content appeared in the press.

Three stages of reprisal

On 1 March the ministers of the two states handed Loudon a joint declaration on the detention of ships carrying goods destined for the enemy, belonging to him or originating in his territory. A few days later they assured him that in applying it they would bear in mind the interests of the Netherlands and its colonies. On 16 March they handed him the British Order in Council of 11 March and the French decree of 13 March, which set out the details.

The Netherlands was particularly defenceless against these measures. Rotterdam was the main port of western Germany, and goods flowed in both directions through Dutch ports. Since the autumn of 1914 overseas imports had been controlled by the Netherlands Overseas Trust, but the new measures went further, because they also struck at the export of goods of German origin. As early as the beginning of March Dutch chambers of commerce and shipowners warned foreign shippers to suspend consignments of goods from or through Germany.

The Declaration of Paris

Loudon stressed that the Dutch government was not judging whether the measures by which the belligerents were trying to harm each other were justified. Since the beginning of the war, however, it had protested against every violation of neutral rights, in defence of the rights of the Netherlands and in the name of international law. It had protested against the Allied changes to the Declaration of London, and in February it had also presented its reservations about the German war zone to Berlin.

This time one of the fundamental principles of maritime law was at stake. The Declaration of Paris of 1856 laid down that under a neutral flag enemy goods, with the exception of contraband of war, were inviolable. According to the Dutch government, this principle meant that if a search showed that a neutral ship was carrying no contraband and there were no other recognised grounds for detaining it, it had to be allowed to continue its voyage and its cargo left alone. The British Order in Council, by contrast, allowed the fleet to apply coercion to all private property, enemy and neutral, if it was merely suspected of being destined for the enemy or coming from him. The measures promised milder treatment for neutrals but did not set out the rules precisely. In Loudon’s view, however leniently they were applied, the Dutch government could not pass over in silence so serious a violation of a principle that all the powers had observed for more than half a century.

The Netherlands will not give an undertaking

The letter to the British minister contained an additional passage. Article 8 of the Order in Council provided for a relaxation of the measures towards the ships of a state that undertook that no goods would be carried under its flag to Germany, from Germany or as German property. Loudon declared that the Netherlands would make no such declaration, because it would be contrary to the duties of a neutral state.

On 23 March the Dutch minister in Washington passed a summary of the protest to the State Department. The Netherlands was not alone. As early as 17 March Norway had lodged formal reservations about the Allied measures in London and Paris, and Sweden and Denmark also sent similar notes. On 30 March the United States protested as well. Britain and France did not, however, change the measures. From then on Dutch seaborne trade with Germany could take place only within the limits allowed by Allied controls and the agreements with the Overseas Trust.