London defends its blockade against a US protest

The British chronology of the war records under 29 December 1914 that the British government sent the government of the United States a memorandum in defence of its blockade policy. No British note of that date, however, could be found in the published documents of American diplomacy. At the end of December it was Washington that made a protest, and the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, replied to it only in January. The chronology entry probably refers to this exchange of notes, although its date and description do not match the documents.

The note of 26 December

On 26 December the Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, cabled the text of a note to the US ambassador in London, Walter Hines Page, who delivered it to the Foreign Office on 28 December. Grey was out of London at the time and returned only on 30 December. Since October, when the United States gave up on the Declaration of London, the Americans had protested about individual ships, but now for the first time they challenged British policy towards neutral trade as a whole. The note was friendly in tone but firm in substance. The US government stated that it observed with growing concern how ships carrying American goods bound for neutral European ports were stopped at sea, taken into British ports and often held there for weeks.

For the time being Washington did not dispute the contraband lists themselves, although it regarded some items as questionable. It complained about the treatment of cargoes bound for neutral countries. As an example it cited copper: a cargo for a consignee in Sweden had been detained because Sweden had not banned the export of copper, while cargoes of copper bound for Italy were also detained, although Italy had introduced such a ban. The Americans recalled that during the Boer War the British Prime Minister himself, Lord Salisbury, had defended the principle that foodstuffs could be treated as contraband only when they were known to be destined for the enemy’s forces. According to the note, British policy went beyond the “manifest necessity” of a belligerent and found no justification in international law. It ended with a warning that if the situation did not improve, feeling unfriendly to Britain might grow in the United States.

London’s reaction

On 30 December Page reported that The Times had commented on the note politely but briefly, and the Westminster Gazette, close to the government, in a friendly way. In part of the press, however, there were voices claiming that the note was evidence of the influence of German propaganda in America. The next day Grey assured the ambassador that he would reply as soon as possible and “in the same spirit”.

A preliminary reply came on 7 January 1915. Grey agreed with the principle that a belligerent may interfere with neutral trade only within the limits necessary for its own security, but stipulated that this did not apply to contraband actually destined for the enemy. He argued that American trade had not in fact suffered so much. According to the figures he quoted, exports from New York to Denmark had risen from $558,000 in November 1913 to more than $7 million in November 1914, and to Sweden and Norway several times over. Exports of copper from the United States to Italy had more than doubled during the war, and to the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland almost fivefold. In Grey’s view it was clear that a large part of this metal was reaching Germany. He stressed that of the 773 ships that had sailed from the United States to the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Italy since August, only 8 had been brought before a prize court. On foodstuffs he would not give unconditional guarantees, citing the enemy’s violation of “the accepted rules of civilisation and humanity”.

A long dispute

Washington received the preliminary reply calmly and waited for the full one, which Grey sent on 10 February 1915. It was the beginning of an exchange of notes that went on, with interruptions, until the United States entered the war in 1917. President Woodrow Wilson defended neutral rights but did not want to bring about a break with London. The British, for their part, tightened their control of trade gradually, taking care not to cross the line beyond which America might respond with more than a protest. Germany answered the blockade in February 1915 by declaring the waters around the British Isles a war zone, which soon brought Washington a much more serious dispute with Berlin.