British officer refused. 'Take my word for it,' he said. 'She was
torpedoed. Why do you wish to investigate? Your country will do
nothing--will accept any excuse, any insult and--do nothing.' When
McBride told me this, I went at once to the Foreign Office and made a
formal request that this metal should be shown to our naval attaché, who
(since Symington is with the British fleet and McBride has been ordered
home) is Lieutenant Towers. Towers was sent for and everything that the
Admiralty knows was shown to him and I am sending that piece of metal by
this mail. But to such a pass has the usual courtesy of a British naval
officer come. There are many such instances of changed conduct. They are
not hard to endure nor to answer and are of no consequence in themselves
but only for what they denote. They're a part of war's bitterness. But
my mind runs ahead and I wonder how Englishmen will look at this subject
five years hence, and it runs afield and I wonder how the Germans will
regard it. A sort of pro-German American newspaper correspondent came
along the other day from the German headquarters; and he told me that
one of the German generals remarked to him: 'War with America? Ach no!
Not war. If trouble should come, we'd send over a platoon of our
policemen to whip your little army.' (He didn't say just how he'd send
'em.)"


_To the President_

American Embassy, London, Oct. 5, 1915.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

I have two letters that I have lately written to you but which I
have not sent because they utterly lack good cheer. After reading
them over, I have not liked to send them. Yet I should fail of my
duty if I did not tell you bad news as well as good.

The high esteem in which our Government was held when the first
_Lusitania_ note to Germany was sent seems all changed to
indifference or pity--not hatred or hostility, but a sort of
hopeless and sad pity. That ship was sunk just five months ago; the
German Government (or its Ambassador) is yet holding conversations
about the principle involved, making "concessions" and promises for
the future, and so far we have done nothing to hold the Germans to
accountability[10]. In the meantime their submarine fleet has been
so reduced that probably the future will take care of itself and we
shall be used as a sort of excuse for their failure. This is what
the English think and say; and they explain our failure to act by
concluding that the peace-at-any-price sentiment dominates the
Government and paralyzes it. They have now, I think, given up hope
that we will ever take any action. So deeply rooted (and, I fear,
permanent) is this feeling that every occurrence is made to fit
into and to strengthen this supposition. When Dumba was dismissed,
they said: "Dumba, merely the abject tool of German intrigue. Why
not Bernstorff?" When the Anglo-French loan[11] was oversubscribed,
they said: "The people's sympathy is most welcome, but their
Government is paralyzed." Their respect has gone--at least for the
time being.

It is not that they expect us to go to war: many, in fact, do not
wish us to. They expected that we would be as good as our word and
hold the Germans to accountability. Now I fear they think little of
our word. I shudder to think what our relations might be if Sir
Edward Grey were to yield to another as Foreign Minister, as, of
course, he must yield at some time.

The press has less to say than it had a few weeks ago. _Punch_, for
instance, which ridiculed and pitied us in six cartoons and
articles in each of two succeeding numbers, entirely forgets us
this week. But they've all said their say. I am, in a sense,
isolated--lonely in a way that I have never before been. I am not
exactly avoided, I hope, but I surely am not sought. They have a
polite feeling that they do not wish to offend me and that to make
sure of this the safest course is to let me alone. There is no
mistaking the great change in the attitude of men I know, both in
official and private life.

It comes down and comes back to this--that for five months after
the sinking of the _Lusitania_ the Germans are yet playing with us,
that we have not sent Bernstorff home, and hence that we will
submit to any rebuff or any indignity. It is under these
conditions--under this judgment of us--that we now work--the
English respect for our Government indefinitely lessened and
instead of the old-time respect a sad pity. I cannot write more.

Heartily yours,
WALTER H. PAGE.


"I have authoritatively heard," Page writes to President Wilson in early
September, "of a private conversation between a leading member of the
Cabinet and a group of important officials all friendly to us in which
all sorrowfully expressed the opinion that the United States will submit
to any indignity and that no effect is now to be hoped for from its
protests against unlawful submarine attacks or against anything else.
The inactivity of our Government, or its delay, which they assume is the
same as inactivity, is attributed to domestic politics or to the lack of
national, consciousness or unity.

"No explanation has appeared in the British press of our Government's
inactivity or of any regret or promise of reparation by Germany for the
sinking of the _Lusitania_, the _Falaba_, the _Gulflight_, the
_Nebraskan_, the _Arabic_, or the _Hesperian_, nor any explanation of a
week's silence about the Dumba letter; and the conclusion is drawn that,
in the absence of action by us, all these acts have been practically
condoned.

"I venture to suggest that such explanations be made public as will
remove, if possible, the practically unanimous conclusion here that our
Government will permit these and similar future acts to be explained
away. I am surprised almost every hour by some new evidence of the loss
of respect for our Government, which, since the sinking of the _Arabic_,
has become so great as to warrant calling it a complete revulsion of
English feeling toward the United States. There is no general wish for
us to enter the war, but there is genuine sorrow that we are thought to
submit to any indignity, especially after having taken a firm stand. I
conceive I should be lacking in duty if I did not report this rapid and
unfortunate change in public feeling, which seems likely to become
permanent unless facts are quickly made public which may change it."

*       *       *       *       *

There are many expressions of such feelings in Page's letters of this
time. They brought only the most perfunctory acknowledgment from the
White House. On January 3, 1916, Page sent the President a mass of
clippings from the British press, all criticizing the Wilson
Administration in unrestrained terms. In his comment on these, he writes
the President:

"Public opinion, both official and unofficial, is expressed by these
newspaper comments, with far greater restraint than it is expressed in
private conversation. Ridicule of the Administration runs through the
programmes of the theatres; it inspires hundreds of cartoons; it is a
staple of conversation at private dinners and in the clubs. The most
serious class of Englishmen, including the best friends of the United
States, feel that the Administration's reliance on notes has reduced our
Government to a third-or fourth-rate power. There is even talk of
spheres of German influence in the United States as in China. No
government could fall lower in English opinion than we shall fall if
more notes are sent to Austria or to Germany. The only way to keep any
shred of English respect is the immediate dismissal without more
parleying of every German and Austrian official at Washington. Nobody
here believes that such an act would provoke war.

"I can do no real service by mincing matters. My previous telegrams and
letters have been purposely restrained as this one is. We have now come
to the parting of the ways. If English respect be worth preserving at
all, it can be preserved only by immediate action. Any other course than
immediate severing of diplomatic relations with both Germany and Austria
will deepen the English opinion into a conviction that the
Administration was insincere when it sent the _Lusitania_ notes and that
its notes and protests need not be taken seriously on any subject. And
English opinion is allied opinion. The Italian Ambassador[12] said to
me, 'What has happened? The United States of to-day is not the United
States I knew fifteen years ago, when I lived in Washington.' French
officers and members of the Government who come here express themselves
even more strongly than do the British. The British newspapers to-day
publish translations of ridicule of the United States from German
papers."


_To the President_

London,
January 5, 1916.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

I wish--an impossible thing of course--that some sort of guidance
could be given to the American correspondents of the English
newspapers. Almost every day they telegraph about the visits of the
Austrian Chargé or the German Ambassador to the State Department to
assure Mr. Lansing that their governments will of course make a
satisfactory explanation of the latest torpedo-act in the
Mediterranean or to "take one further step in reaching a
satisfactory understanding about the _Lusitania_." They usually go
on to say also that more notes are in preparation to Germany or to
Austria. The impression made upon the European mind is that the
German and Austrian officials in Washington are leading the
Administration on to endless discussion, endless notes, endless
hesitation. Nobody in Europe regards their pledges or promises as
worth anything at all: the _Arabic_ follows the _Lusitania_, the
_Hesperian_ follows the _Arabic_, the _Persia_ follows the
_Ancona_. "Still conferences and notes continue," these people say,
"proving that the American Government, which took so proper and
high a stand in the _Lusitania_ notes, is paralyzed--in a word is
hoodwinked and 'worked' by the Germans." And so long as these
diplomatic representatives are permitted to remain in the United
States, "to explain," "to parley" and to declare that the
destruction of American lives and property is disavowed by their
governments, atrocities on sea and land will of course continue;
and they feel that our Government, by keeping these German and
Austrian representatives in Washington, condones and encourages
them and their governments.

This is a temperate and even restrained statement of the English
feeling and (as far as I can make out) of the whole European
feeling.

It has been said here that every important journal published in
neutral or allied European countries, daily, weekly, or monthly,
which deals with public affairs, has expressed a loss of respect
for the United States Government and that most of them make
continuous severe criticisms (with surprise and regret) of our
failure by action to live up to the level of our _Lusitania_ notes.
I had (judiciously) two American journalists, resident here--men of
judgment and character--to inquire how true this declaration is.
After talking with neutral and allied journalists here and with men
whose business it is to read the journals of the Continent, they
reported that this declaration is substantially true--that the
whole European press (outside Germany and its allies) uses the same
tone toward our Government that the English press uses--to-day,
disappointment verging on contempt; and many of them explain our
keeping diplomatic intercourse with Germany by saying that we are
afraid of the German vote, or of civil war, or that the
peace-at-any-price people really rule the United States and have
paralyzed our power to act--even to cut off diplomatic relations
with governments that have insulted and defied us.

Another (similar) declaration is that practically all men of public
influence in England and in the European allied and neutral
countries have publicly or privately expressed themselves to the
same effect. The report that I have about this is less definite
than about the newspapers, for, of course, no one can say just what
proportion of men of public influence have so expressed themselves;
but the number who have so expressed themselves is overwhelming.

In this Kingdom, where I can myself form some opinion more or less
accurate, and where I can check or verify my opinion by various
methods--I am afraid, as I have frequently already reported, that
the generation now living will never wholly regain the respect for
our Government that it had a year ago. I will give you three little
indications of this feeling; it would be easy to write down
hundreds of them:

(One) The governing class: Mr. X [a cabinet member] told Mrs. Page
a few nights ago that for sentimental reasons only he would be
gratified to see the United States in the war along with the
Allies, but that merely sentimental reasons were not a sufficient
reason for war--by no means; that he felt most grateful for the
sympathetic attitude of the large mass of the American people, that
he had no right to expect anything from our Government, whose
neutral position was entirely proper. Then he added; "But what I
can't for the life of me understand is your Government's failure
to express its disapproval of the German utter disregard of its
_Lusitania_ notes. After eight months, it has done nothing but
write more notes. My love for America, I must confess, is offended
at this inaction and--puzzled. I can't understand it. You will
pardon me, I am sure."

(Two) "Middle Class" opinion: A common nickname for Americans in
the financial and newspaper districts of London is "Too-prouds."

(Three) The man in the street: At one of the moving picture shows
in a large theatre a little while ago they filled in an interval by
throwing on the screen the picture of the monarch, or head of
state, and of the flag of each of the principal nations. When the
American picture appeared, there was such hissing and groaning as
caused the managers hastily to move that picture off the screen.

Some time ago I wrote House of some such incidents and expressions
as these; and he wrote me that they were only part and parcel of
the continuous British criticism of their own Government--in other
words, a part of the passing hysteria of war. This remark shows how
House was living in an atmosphere of illusion.

As the matter stands to-day our Government has sunk lower, as
regards British and European opinion, than it has ever been in our
time, not as a part of the hysteria of war but as a result of this
process of reasoning, whether it be right or wrong:

We said that we should hold the Germans to strict accountability on
account of the _Lusitania_. We have not settled that yet and we
still allow the German Ambassador to discuss it after the
_Hesperian_ and other such acts showed that his _Arabic_ pledge was
worthless.

The _Lusitania_ grows larger and larger in European memory and
imagination. It looks as if it would become the great type of war
atrocities and barbarities. I have seen pictures of the drowned
women and children used even on Christmas cards. And there is
documentary proof in our hands that the warning, which was really
an advance announcement, of that disaster was paid for by the
German Ambassador and charged to his Government. It is the
_Lusitania_ that has caused European opinion to regard our foreign
policy as weak. It is not the wish for us to go to war. No such
general wish exists.

I do not know, Mr. President, who else, if anybody, puts these
facts before you with this complete frankness. But I can do no less
and do my duty.

No Englishman--except two who were quite intimate friends--has
spoken to me about our Government for months, but I detect all the
time a tone of pity and grief in their studied courtesy and in
their avoidance of the subject. And they talk with every other
American in this Kingdom. It is often made unpleasant for Americans
in the clubs and in the pursuit of their regular business and
occupations; and it is always our inaction about the _Lusitania_.
Our controversy with the British Government causes little feeling
and that is a sort of echo of the _Lusitania_. They feel that we
have not lived up to our promises and professions.

That is the whole story.

Believe me always heartily,
WALTER H. PAGE.

*       *       *       *       *

This dismissal of Dumba and of the Attachés has had little more effect
on opinion here than the dismissal of the Turkish Ambassador[13].
Sending these was regarded as merely kicking the dogs of the man who
had stolen our sheep.


VI

One of the reasons why Page felt so intensely about American policy at
this time was his conviction that the severance of diplomatic relations,
in the latter part of 1915, or the early part of 1916, in itself would
have brought the European War to an end. This was a conviction from
which he never departed. Count Bernstorff was industriously creating the
impression in the United States that his dismissal would immediately
cause war between Germany and the United States, and there is little
doubt that the Administration accepted this point of view. But Page
believed that this was nothing but Prussian bluff. The severance of
diplomatic relations at that time, in Page's opinion, would have
convinced the Germans of the hopelessness of their cause. In spite of
the British blockade, Germany was drawing enormous quantities of food
supplies from the United States, and without these supplies she could
not maintain indefinitely her resistance. The severance of diplomatic
relations would naturally have been accompanied by an embargo suspending
trade between the United States and the Fatherland. Moreover, the
consideration that was mainly leading Germany to hope for success was
the belief that she could embroil the United States and Great Britain
over the blockade. A break with Germany would of course mean an end to
that manoeuvre. Page regarded all Mr. Wilson's attempts to make peace in
1914 and early 1915--before the _Lusitania_--as mistakes, for reasons
that have already been set forth. Now, however, he believed that the
President had a real opportunity to end the war and the unparalleled
suffering which it was causing. The mere dismissal of Bernstorff, in
the Ambassador's opinion, would accomplish this result.

In a communication sent to the President on February 15, 1916, he made
this plain.


_To the President_

February 15, 7 P.M.

The Cabinet has directed the Censor to suppress, as far as he can
with prudence, comment which is unfavourable to the United States.
He has taken this action because the public feeling against the
Administration is constantly increasing. Because the _Lusitania_
controversy has been going on so long, and because the Germans are
using it in their renewed U-boat campaign, the opinion of this
country has reached a point where only prompt action can bring a
turn in the tide. Therefore my loyalty to you would not be complete
if I should refrain from sending, in the most respectful terms, the
solemn conviction which I hold about our opportunity and our duty.

If you immediately refuse to have further parley or to yield one
jot or tittle of your original _Lusitania_ notes, and if you at
once break diplomatic relations with the German Empire, and then
declare the most vigorous embargo of the Central Powers, you will
quickly end the war. There will be an immediate collapse in German
credit. If there are any Allies who are wavering, such action will
hold them in line. Certain European neutrals--Sweden, Rumania,
Greece, and others--will put up a firm resistance to Germanic
influences and certain of them will take part with Great Britain
and France. There will be an end at once to the German propaganda,
which is now world-wide. The moral weight of our country will be a
determining influence and bring an early peace. The credit you
will receive for such a decision will make you immortal and even
the people of Germany will be forever grateful.

It is my conviction that we would not be called upon to fire a gun
or to lose one human life.

Above all, such an action will settle the whole question of
permanent peace. The absolute and grateful loyalty of the whole
British Empire, of the British Fleet, and of all the Allied
countries will be ours. The great English-speaking nations will be
able to control the details of the peace and this without any
formal alliance. There will be an incalculable saving of human life
and of treasure. Such an act will make it possible for Germany to
give in honourably and with good grace because the whole world will
be against her. Her bankrupt and blockaded people will bring such
pressure to bear that the decision will be hastened.

The sympathies of the American people will be brought in line with
the Administration.

If we settle the _Lusitania_ question by compromising in any way
your original demands, or if we permit it to drag on longer,
America can have no part in bringing the war to an end. The current
of allied opinion will run so strongly against the Administration
that no censorship and no friendly interference by an allied
government can stem the distrust of our Government which is now so
strong in Europe.

We shall gain by any further delay only a dangerous, thankless, and
opulent isolation. The _Lusitania_ is the turning point in our
history. The time to act is now.

PAGE.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The Ambassador's granddaughter.]

[Footnote 2: "A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861-1865," edited by
Worthington Chauncey Ford. Vol. I, p. 84.]

[Footnote 3: "The Life and Letters of John Hay," by William Roscoe
Thayer. Vol. II, p. 166.]

[Footnote 4: On September 6th, certain documents seriously compromising
Dr. Constantin Dumba, Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to the United States,
were published in the British press. They disclosed that Dr. Dumba was
fomenting strikes in the United States and conducting other intrigues.
The American Government gave Dr. Dumba his passports on September 17th.]

[Footnote 5: August 26th, Count Bernstorff gave a pledge to the United
States Government, that, in future, German submarines would not attack
liners without warning. This promise was almost immediately violated.]

[Footnote 6: Sir Lionel Sackville-West was British Minister to the
United States from 1881 to 1888. In the latter year a letter was
published which he had written to an American citizen of British origin,
the gist of which was that the reëlection of President Cleveland would
be of advantage to British interests. For this gross interference in
American domestic affairs, President Cleveland immediately handed Sir
Lionel his passports. The incident ended his diplomatic career.]

[Footnote 7: In this passage the Ambassador touches on one of the
bitterest controversies of the war. In order completely to understand
the issues involved and to obtain Lord Haldane's view, the reader should
consult the very valuable book recently published by Lord Haldane:
"Before the War." Chapter II tells the story of Lord Haldane's visit to
the Kaiser, and succeeding chapters give the reasons why the creation of
a huge British army in preparation for the war was not a simple matter.]

[Footnote 8: The italics are Page's.]

[Footnote 9: Viscount Bryce, author of "The American Commonwealth" and
British Ambassador to the United States, 1907-1913.]

[Footnote 10: In a communication sent February 10, 1915, President
Wilson warned the German Government that he would hold it to a "strict
accountability" for the loss of American lives by illegal submarine
attack.]

[Footnote 11: A reference to the Anglo-French loan for $500,000,000,
placed in the United States in the autumn of 1915.]

[Footnote 12: The Marquis Imperiali.]

[Footnote 13: Rustem Bey, the Turkish Ambassador to the United States,
was sent home early in the war, for publishing indiscreet newspaper and
magazine articles.]




CHAPTER XV

THE AMBASSADOR AND THE LAWYERS


References in the foregoing letters show that Page was still having his
troubles over the blockade. In the latter part of 1915, indeed, the
negotiations with Sir Edward Grey on this subject had reached their
second stage. The failure of Washington to force upon Great Britain an
entirely new code of naval warfare--the Declaration of London--has
already been described. This failure had left both the British Foreign
Office and the American State Department in an unsatisfactory frame of
mind. The Foreign Office regarded Washington with suspicion, for the
American attempt to compel Great Britain to adopt a code of naval
warfare which was exceedingly unfavourable to that country and
exceedingly favourable to Germany, was susceptible of a sinister
interpretation. The British rejection of these overtures, on the other
hand, had evidently irritated the international lawyers at Washington.
Mr. Lansing now abandoned his efforts to revolutionize maritime warfare
and confined himself to specific protests and complaints. His
communications to the London Embassy dealt chiefly with particular ships
and cargoes. Yet his persistence in regarding all these problems from a
strictly legalistic point of view Page regarded as indicating a
restricted sense of statesmanship.

_To Edward M. House_

London, August 4, 1915.

MY DEAR HOUSE:

... The lawyer-way in which the Department goes on in its dealings
with Great Britain is losing us the only great international
friendship that we have any chance of keeping or that is worth
having. Whatever real principle we have to uphold with Great
Britain--that's all right. I refer only to the continuous series of
nagging incidents--always criticism, criticism, criticism of small
points--points that we have to yield at last, and never anything
constructive. I'll illustrate what I mean by a few incidents that I
can recall from memory. If I looked up the record, I should find a
very, very much larger list.

(1) We insisted and insisted and insisted, not once but half a
dozen times, at the very beginning of the war, on England's
adoption of the Declaration of London entire in spite of the fact
that Parliament had distinctly declined to adopt it. Of course we
had to give in--after we had produced a distinctly unfriendly
atmosphere and much feeling.

(2) We denied the British right to put copper on the contraband
list--much to their annoyance. Of course we had at last to
acquiesce. They were within their rights.

(3) We protested against bringing ships into port to examine them.
Of course we had to give in--after producing irritation.

(4) We made a great fuss about stopped telegrams. We have no case
at all; but, even after acknowledging that we have no case, every
Pouch continues to bring telegrams with the request that I ask an
explanation why they were stopped. Such explanations are
practically refused. I have 500 telegrams. Periodically I wire the
state of the case and ask for more specific instructions. I never
get an answer to these requests. But the Department continues to
send the telegrams! We confessedly have no case here; and this
method can produce nothing but irritation.

I could extend this list to 100 examples--of mere lawyer-like
methods--mere useless technicalities and objections which it is
obvious in the beginning cannot be maintained. A similar method is
now going on about cotton. Now this is not the way Sir Edward Grey
takes up business. It's not the way I've done business all my life,
nor that you have, nor other frank men who mean what they say and
do not say things they do not mean. The constant continuation of
this method is throwing away the real regard and confidence of the
British Government and of the British public--very fast, too.

I sometimes wish there were not a lawyer in the world. I heard the
President say once that it took him twenty years to recover from
his legal habit of mind. Well, his Administration is suffering from
it to a degree that is pathetic and that will leave bad results for
100 years.

I suspect that in spite of all the fuss we have made we shall at
last come to acknowledge the British blockade; for it is pretty
nearly parallel to the United States blockade of the South during
our Civil War. The only difference is--they can't make the blockade
of the Baltic against the traffic from the Scandinavian neutral
states effective. That's a good technical objection; but, since
practically all the traffic between those States and Germany is in
our products, much of the real force of it is lost.

If a protest is made against cotton being made contraband--it'll
amount to nothing and give only irritation. It will only play into
Hoke Smith[14]--German hands and accomplish nothing here. We make
as much fuss about points which we have silently to yield later as
about a real principle. Hence they all say that the State
Department is merely captious, and they pay less and less attention
to it and care less and less for American opinion--if only they can
continue to get munitions. We are reducing English regard to this
purely mercenary basis....

We are--under lawyers' quibbling--drifting apart very rapidly, to
our complete isolation from the sympathy of the whole world.

Yours forever sincerely,

W.H.P.

Page refers in this letter to the "blockade"; this was the term which
the British Government itself used to describe its restrictive measures
against German commerce, and it rapidly passed into common speech. Yet
the truth is that Great Britain never declared an actual blockade
against Germany. A realization of this fact will clear up much that is
obscure in the naval warfare of the next two years. At the beginning of
the Civil War, President Lincoln laid an interdict on all the ports of
the Confederacy; the ships of all nations were forbidden entering or
leaving them: any ship which attempted to evade this restriction, and
was captured doing so, was confiscated, with its cargo. That was a
blockade, as the term has always been understood. A blockade, it is well
to keep in mind, is a procedure which aims at completely closing the
blockaded country from all commercial intercourse with the world. A
blockading navy, if the blockade is successful, or "effective,"
converts the whole country into a beleaguered fortress, just as an army,
surrounding a single town, prevents goods and people from entering or
leaving it. Precisely as it is the purpose of a besieging army to starve
a particular city or territory into submission, so it is the aim of a
blockading fleet to enforce the same treatment on the nation as a whole.
It is also essential to keep in mind that the question of contraband has
nothing to do with a blockade, for, under this drastic method of making
warfare, everything is contraband. Contraband is a term applied to
cargoes, such as rifles, machine guns, and the like, which are needed in
the prosecution of war.

That a belligerent nation has the right to intercept such munitions on
the way to its enemy has been admitted for centuries. Differences of
opinion have raged only as to the extent to which this right could be
carried--the particular articles, that is, that constituted contraband,
and the methods adopted in exercising it. But the important point to be
kept in mind is that where there is a blockade, there is no contraband
list--for everything automatically becomes contraband. The seizure of
contraband on the high seas is a war measure which is availed of only in
cases in which the blockade has not been established.

Great Britain, when she declared war on Germany, did not follow
President Lincoln's example and lay the whole of the German coast under
interdict. Perhaps one reason for this inaction was a desire not unduly
to offend neutrals, especially the United States; but the more impelling
motive was geographical. The fact is that a blockade of the German
seacoast would accomplish little in the way of keeping materials out of
Germany. A glance at the map of northwestern Europe will make this fact
clear. In the first place the seacoast of Germany is a small affair. In
the North Sea the German coast is a little indentation, not more than
two hundred miles long, wedged in between the longer coastlines of
Holland and Denmark; in the Baltic it is somewhat more extensive, but
the entrances to this sea are so circuitous and treacherous that the
suggestion of a blockade here is not a practicable one. The greatest
ports of Germany are located on this little North Sea coastline or on
its rivers--Hamburg and Bremen. It might therefore be assumed that any
nation which successfully blockaded these North Sea ports would have
strangled the commerce of Germany. That is far from being the case. The
point is that the political boundaries of Germany are simply fictions,
when economic considerations are involved. Holland, on the west, and
Denmark, on the north, are as much a part of the German transportation
system as though these two countries were parts of the German Empire.
Their territories and the territories of Germany are contiguous; the
railroad and the canal systems of Germany, Holland, and Denmark are
practically one. Such ports as Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen are
just as useful to Germany for purposes of commerce as are Hamburg and
Bremen, and, in fact, a special commercial arrangement with Rotterdam
has made that city practically a port of Germany since 1868. These
considerations show how ineffective would be a blockade of the German
coast which did not also comprehend the coast of Holland and Denmark.
Germany could still conduct her commerce through these neighbouring
countries. And at this point the great difficulty arose. A blockade is
an act of war and can be applied only to a country upon which war has
been declared. Great Britain had declared war on Germany and could
therefore legally close her ports; she had not declared war on Holland
and Denmark, and therefore could not use the same measure against those
friendly countries. Consequently the blockade was useless to Great
Britain; and so, in the first six months of the war, the Admiralty fell
back upon the milder system of declaring certain articles contraband of
war and seizing ships that were suspected of carrying them to Germany.

A geographical accident had apparently largely destroyed the usefulness
of the British fleet and had guaranteed Germany an unending supply of
those foodstuffs without which she could not maintain her resistance for
any extended period. Was Great Britain called upon to accept this
situation and to deny herself the use of the blockade in this, the
greatest struggle in her history? Unless the British fleet could stop
cargoes which were really destined to Germany but which were bound for
neutral ports, Great Britain could not win the war; if the British fleet
could intercept such cargoes, then the chances strongly favoured
victory. The experts of the Foreign Office searched the history of
blockades and found something which resembled a precedent in the
practices of the American Navy during the Civil War. In that conflict
Nassau, in the Bahamas, and Matamoros, in Mexico, played a part not
unlike that played by Rotterdam and Copenhagen in the recent struggle.
These were both neutral ports and therefore outside the jurisdiction of
the United States, just as Rotterdam and Copenhagen were outside the
jurisdiction of Great Britain. They were the ports of powers with which
the United States was at peace, and therefore they could not be
blockaded, just as Amsterdam and Copenhagen were ports of powers with
which Great Britain was now at peace.

Trade from Great Britain to the Bahamas and Mexico was ostensibly trade
from one neutral port to another neutral port in the same sense as was
trade from the United States to Holland and Denmark. Yet the fact is
that the "neutrality" of this trade, in the Civil War, from Great
Britain to the Bahamas and Mexico, was the most transparent subterfuge;
such trade was not "neutral" in the slightest degree. It consisted
almost entirely of contraband of war and was intended for the armies of
the Confederate States, then in arms against the Federal Government.
What is the reason, our Government asked, that these gentle and
unwarlike inhabitants of the Bahamas have so suddenly developed such an
enormous appetite for percussion caps, rifles, cannon, and other
instruments of warfare? The answer, of course, lay upon the surface; the
cargoes were intended for reshipment into the Southern States, and they
were, in fact, immediately so reshipped. The American Government, which
has always regarded realities as more important than logic, brushed
aside the consideration that this trade was conducted through neutral
ports, unhesitatingly seized these ships and condemned both the ships
and their cargoes. Its action was without legal precedent, but our
American courts devised a new principle of international law to cover
the case--that of "continuous voyage" or "ultimate destination." Under
this new doctrine it was maintained that cargoes of contraband could be
seized anywhere upon the high seas, even though they were going from one
neutral port to another, if it could be demonstrated that this
contraband was really on its way to the enemy. The mere fact that it was
transshipped at an intermediate neutral port was not important; the
important point was the "ultimate destination." British shippers
naturally raged over these decisions, but they met with little sympathy
from their own government. Great Britain filed no protest against the
doctrine of "continuous voyage," but recognized its fundamental
soundness, and since 1865 this doctrine has been a part of international
law.

Great Britain's good sense in acquiescing in our Civil War practices now
met its reward; for these decisions of American courts proved a godsend
in her hour of trial. The one neutral from which trouble was anticipated
was the United States. What better way to meet this situation than to