Scandinavian states protest

On 13 February 1917 the governments of Sweden, Norway and Denmark handed identical notes to the German and Austro-Hungarian ministers in Stockholm, Christiania (Oslo) and Copenhagen. In them they protested against the blockade zones in which, since 1 February, German submarines had been sinking all ships without warning, neutral ones included. The British chronology of the war records the announcement of the joint protest under this date. Norwegian newspapers reported on 13 February that the notes would be handed over that day, and printed their text the following day. The Swedish volume of the Carnegie Endowment’s history of Scandinavia in the war, published in 1930, gives the date as 12 February.

A common course

When on 31 January Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare, President Woodrow Wilson not only broke off relations with Berlin but on 3 February also asked the neutral states to follow his example. The Scandinavian states declined. The Danish Foreign Minister Erik Scavenius replied on 6 February that Denmark’s position was so different from that of the United States that the two could not be compared, and added that the three northern governments were conferring in Stockholm on a joint reply based on international law. The same day the Norwegian minister Nils Claus Ihlen told the American minister that for the time being the government would confine itself to a vigorous protest together with its neighbours and wait to see how the submarine war developed. The American diplomat explained this caution by the “great danger from the south” to which Norway’s position exposed it. The Swedish government of Prime Minister Hjalmar Hammarskjöld recalled on 8 February that it had earlier proposed joint action to the neutrals and that Washington had not accepted it. The course chosen by the Americans was, in Stockholm’s view, “entirely contrary” to the principles of Swedish policy, which was to remain strictly neutral towards both sides.

The British historian of wartime shipping Ernest Fayle later observed that no other neutral state went as far as the United States at that time, and that the states of northern Europe could not have broken with Germany without exposing themselves to the fate of Belgium. From the start of the war the Scandinavians had tried to act together. In December 1914 the kings of the three states had met in Malmö, and they had already sent joint notes to both belligerent sides before.

The content of the notes

The notes recalled that the three governments had already protested several times against serious violations of neutral rights by various belligerents, while they themselves had been guided by complete and loyal impartiality. They objected to the closing of areas of sea whose limits lay very far from the enemy’s coasts, although under international law only those coasts could be the object of a lawful blockade. They recalled the generally recognised principle that a neutral ship may not be seized unless it attempts to break a blockade, and that even then its case is decided by a prize court. The governments’ fears were heightened by the fact that the declared areas were apparently to be guarded solely by submarines, whose operations, as the war so far had shown, carried great danger for neutrals. The notes judged most severely the announcement that ships sailing to enemy ports and ships sailing between two neutral ports would be sunk without distinction. On this basis the governments lodged a firm protest and reserved all their rights in respect of loss of human life and material damage.

Similar protests were made by Holland, Spain, Switzerland, China and several Latin American states. The Dutch and Scandinavian notes laid particular stress on the threat to shipping between neutral ports.

Ships in port

Behind the notes lay fear for the merchant fleets, which were very important to the economies of the three states. According to the Swedish history of the war, in 1915 Sweden lost 59 insured ships and 113 men to mines and torpedoes, and in 1916 31 ships and 49 men. Norway, which had the largest fleet of the three, lost even more. After 1 February many Scandinavian shipowners kept their ships in port. Swedish war insurance did not cover the new risk, and when it was extended on 6 February the ships still did not sail. The Danes cancelled sailings to Britain. The British responded with the “ship for ship” rule: a neutral ship could leave a British port only when another ship under the same flag had arrived in Britain. In this way some 170,000 tons of Swedish shipping were held in Allied ports. The exception was the Norwegians, who quickly returned to sea. According to Fayle, by 23 February 18 steamers had sailed from Norway for Britain.

The protest did not change German policy. In the spring of 1917 Scandinavian ships were lost more often than ever before. Norway alone lost over 106,000 tons of shipping in March and over 102,000 tons in April.