The famous "First Order in Council" of March 11, 1915, recited German abuses and, definitely retaliatory in principle, pronounced, in effect, that all goods of enemy origin would, for the period of the war, be liable to sequestration, though not to confication, as would have been the case in a true blockade. The Order did not mention the term blockade; nor did its counterpart, the French decree. Yet to the American Ambassador, Sir Edward Grey ventured to assert that: "The British Fleet has established a blockade, effectively controlling by cruiser-cordon all p: age to and from Germany by se:
America was most vigorous of the protesting neutrals. But German frightfulness increased, till, at last, on Feb. 1, 1917, the world was startled with a ds warfare, the sinking of all ships using our shores, Publication of the Third Order in Council, on Feb. 16 (the Second Order in Council of January, 1917, had further defined the term "enemy", can have caused little surprise. Thereafter it was decreed that "A vessel......on her way to or from a port in any neutral country affording access to the enemy territory, without calling at a Britishgpr Allied port, shall. until the contrary be established. be eer asSunstion or enemy origin and Shall be brought in for examination and, if necessary, adjudication before a Prize Court."
Since, under the wide definition which contraband had assumed, practically nothing was thenceforth allowed into Germany, either by direct or devious neutral voyage, and, equally, nothing was allowed out under the new Orders in Council, and since, moreover, both contraband and outgoing goods were being similarly treated (ie. condemned)" the analogy to blockade was much closer than when Grey so loosely used the expression.
It was that newer form of blockade, answering to German threats, that brought Germany to her knees. America herself came to the Allied side, proclaimed her "military areas" in the New World, helped to lay the mine barrage from the Orkneys to Norway, and was not less assiduous in applying the two-way grip on German trade,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.