Chapter 2
The British Blockade
In late 1914 the British suffered significant naval
setbacks, which alerted the Admiralty to the need for a new naval
strategy. On October 27, while preparing for target practice, the British
dreadnought Audacious struck a German mine near Lough Swilly base on the
northern coast of Ireland. Attempts to tow the enormous ship into port
were unsuccessful as her sheer weight kept breaking the towing cables.
Later that day the Audacious exploded and sank after all hands had
evacuated. The Admiralty tried to keep this loss a secret, but to no
avail. Passengers aboard the Olympic, which had assisted in the
towing attempts, photographed the stricken warship, and its sinking became
common knowledge.1
Another devastating British loss came on November 1
near Coronel on the western coast of South America. Here German Vice
Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee's East Asia Squadron defeated a British
squadron commanded by Vice Admiral Christopher Cradock. Spee had two
heavy cruisers (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau), and three light
cruisers (N�rnberg, Dresden and Leipzig). He simply
kept his ships out of range of Cradock's numerous smaller 6-inch guns while
engaging the British with his own longer-range 8.2-inch guns. The British
lost two heavy cruisers, the Monmouth (with her total complement of 675
men aboard) the Good Hope (with most of her total complement of 800 men
aboard, including Cradock). Only two light cruisers, the Otranto
and Glasgow, managed to escape. News of this defeat was a bitter
pill for a British public long used to only victories at sea.2
Letters from the pugnacious Vice Admiral Sir David
Earl Beatty reveal the general pessimism in the British Admiralty during fall
1914. He wrote to his wife saying, "We are only playing at war . . .
. We are as nervous as cats, afraid of losing lives, losing ships, and
running risks. We are ruled by Panic Law, and until we risk something
shall never gain anything."3
Beatty had written First Lord of the Admiralty Sir
Winston Churchill ten days before the Audacious disaster. He was
pessimistic:
At present we feel
that we are working up for a catastrophe of a very large character. The
feeling is gradually
possessing the Fleet that all is not right
somewhere. The menace of mines and submarines is proving larger every
day,
and adequate means to meet or combat them are not
forthcoming, and we are gradually being pushed out of the
North Sea and off our own particular perch. How
does this arise? By the very apparent fact that we have no base
where we can with any degree of safety lie for
coaling, replenishing, and refitting and repairing, after two and a half
months of war. This spells trouble. . . .4
Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet Admiral Sir John Rushworth Jellicoe believed that German mining of British home waters was an outrage. Loss of the Audacious and lack of a secure base for North Sea operations persuaded him that a new strategy was necessary to deal with the German threat. On several occasions he proposed that the Admiralty declare a prohibited area of the North Sea. The Admiralty went a step further, giving notice
that the whole of the North
Sea must be considered a military area. Within this area merchant
shipping of all kinds
kinds, traders of all countries, fishing craft, and all
other vessels will be exposed to the gravest dangers from mines which
it has been necessary to lay, and from warships searching
vigilantly by night and day, for suspicious craft. All merchant and
fishing vessels of every description are hereby warned of
the dangers they encounter by entering this area except in strict
accordance with Admiralty directions. Every effort
will be made to convey this warning to neutral countries and to vessels
on the sea, but from November 5 onwards, the Admiralty
announce that all ships passing a line drawn from the Northern
point of the Hebrides through the Faroe Islands to Iceland
do so at their own peril.5
This new British strategy actually violated terms
of the 1909 Declaration of London. There were also the rules of naval
warfare laid down at the Hague Conference of 1907, which would have precluded a
British naval blockade of Germany if the Admiralty had chosen to follow them.
The declaration's specific rules regarding blockades
were based upon two main ideas. First, belligerents were allowed full
liberty to cut off their enemy's sea-borne supply lines if they could
accomplish it with a "close blockade." This meant the blockade
could only contain the enemy coast and not cover any neutral ports.
Anything else would fall under the category of a "long-distance
blockade." Thus, the closing of the entire North Sea could hardly be
called a close blockade.6
The second main point in the Declaration of London
with regard to blockades was the categorization of contraband. The first
category was "Absolute Contraband." This included any military
items, such as artillery. These could be seized if they were shown to be
destined for the enemy, even if they were initially to be consigned to a
neutral port.
The second category was "Conditional
Contraband." This consisted of commodities for either military or
civilian ends, such as food or fuel. Even if these items were shown to be
destined for an enemy's government or military, they could not be seized unless
they were proven to be destined directly for a port on the enemy coast or an
enemy-fortified place. The problem with this was that dishonest
destinations could easily be written on the papers of ships carrying
conditional contraband and long-distance blockades could therefore be
broken. Also, foodstuffs and fuel could be shown as destined for
civilians, although those very civilians might well be munitions workers.
The third and final category was
"Non-Contraband." This included certain raw materials that were
used primarily by civilians, such as copper, nickel, iron-ore, and
cotton. Indeed, these were all potential war materials, but they might
never be declared contraband by belligerent powers. For instance,
finished weapons could be detained by a British blockade of Germany, but not
the materials that Krupp factories would use to make those weapons.7
The ideas of "conditional" and
"non-contraband" seem naive and this was in fact proven to be the
case throughout the war. The declaration also prohibited any
long-distance interference with an enemy's export trade. This was another
unrealistic wartime demand.
The British blockade turned the
The British Tenth Cruiser Squadron was a fairly
typical cruiser force in terms of makeup and blockade duty. Its area of
operations stretched from
The Tenth Cruiser Squadron was supposed to have
twenty-four ships in all, although rarely were all of them on line at any one
time. The chief vessels in the squadron initially were eight Edgar-class
cruisers. These were some of the oldest in the Royal Navy and, on
Regular Royal Navy officers commanded most of the
armed merchant cruisers, with Royal Naval Reserve officers in command of the
remainder. Often the reserve officers had been assigned to the same ship
in peacetime. Some of the ships carried crews made up of Royal Marines,
but most were reservists or former merchant marine ranks. All ships had
members of the Newfoundland Naval Reserve, the fishermen of which were adept at
handling small craft, making them ideal for boarding parties to conduct visit
and search. These fishermen led very adventurous lives, often having to
board other ships in rough weather.9
The blockade was hardly glamorous in comparison with
many naval battles. It may have been slow, rather than a swift and
decisive blow, but it ultimately brought widespread starvation to
The February 4 German declaration of the north and
west coasts of
The Reprisals Order-in-Council claimed the right to
detain, not to confiscate, all items of German origin, destination, or
ownership. The categories of contraband no longer applied as the
long-distance blockade would now stop any ship from reaching German
ports. The blockade would also stop German export ships, restricting the
main source of income used by
ENDNOTES
1. Thomas Frothingham, The Naval History of the World
War Offensive Operations, 1914-1915 (New York: Books for
Libraries Press, 1971), pp. 150-51.
2. Ibid., pp. 174-75.
3. Richard Hough, The Great War at Sea, 1914-1918 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 64.
4. Ibid.
5. Frothingham, Naval History, Offensive Operations,
pp. 207-8.
6. W. Arnold-Forster, The Blockade, 1914-1919 - Before the
Armistice and After (Oxford: Oxford Pamphlets on World
Affairs #17, Clarendon Press, 1939), pp.
5-6.
7. Ibid., pp. 174-75.
8. Paul G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I
(Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1994), pp. 150-51.
9. Ibid., p. 49.
10. Marion C. Siney, The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1914-1916
(Ann Arbor, Michigan: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1957),
pp. 61-63.