France publishes its first contraband list

On 11 August 1914 the government of France published in the official gazette its first lists of war contraband. They specified which goods the French navy could seize at sea, including on ships of neutral states, if they were destined for the enemy. A week earlier Britain had issued a similar proclamation.

Two lists

The French regulations, like the British ones, divided goods into two groups. Absolute contraband consisted of items serving war alone, such as weapons, ammunition and explosives. Conditional contraband covered goods that could serve both civilians and the military, for example food, fuel or materials for production. These could be confiscated only if they were destined for the enemy’s armed forces or authorities.

The lists were based on the Declaration of London of 1909, which had attempted to regulate the law of naval warfare. France made one significant change to them: balloons, aircraft and their parts were moved from the list of conditional contraband to the absolute list. It was a sign of the times: aviation, treated only a few years earlier as a technical curiosity, was becoming a weapon.

A common Allied policy

France and Britain undertook towards the neutral states, above all the United States, to observe the Declaration of London, though with their own modifications and additions. In practice, over the following months both countries increasingly extended the contraband lists, and the line between military and civilian goods became blurred.

Significance

The contraband lists were the basis of the naval blockade of the Central Powers. Although the main role in it was played by the British fleet, France took part, especially in the Mediterranean. The blockade, gradually tightened, cut Germany and Austria-Hungary off from many raw materials and from food, contributing to shortages and hunger in the last years of the war.