Though neutrals jibbed at mine-laying and military areas, it was not till Germany, in February, 1911, declared the North Sea a zone in which it would sink at sight by submarine any Allied ship, and gave no promise to spare others south of the inds or out of the east side of erman Ocean," that a real reprisal from England seriously flute tered the neutral world.
The Grand Fleet was maintaining command of the sea by strategic blockade which pinned the enemy High Seas Fleet to Kiel, and was exercising that command for both military and trade purposes.
was eliminating German merchant men and protecting our own; it was searching for contraband in every suspect ship that nosed into the chops of the Channel or stormy Scottish waters; but it emphatically was not claiming to maintain a trade blockade against Germany—no port or ports of Germany had been advertised as closed by an investing sea squadron, Such a declaration, supported by adequate force, alone could have made de jure an orthodox trade blockade and rendered liable to total condemnation any ship attempting to go into or emerge from one of the blockaded harbours, The Navy might, and did, apply trade blockade to German East Africa, the Cameroons, Asia Minor, and, later, Bulgaria; but, in any hitherto accepted sense, Germany was not then being subjected to it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.