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It's been a while since I looked into this, but I believe the British blockade of Germany in WWI constitute a war crime because it covered non-military assets s

It's been a while since I looked into this, but I believe the British blockade of Germany in WWI constitute a war crime because it covered non-military assets such as food. It caused wide spread hunger and the blockade was maintained even when the war was over and they were negotiating at Versailles. Worth keeping in mind when you wonder why Germany was so aggressive about US shipping to the UK.

Someone 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Declaration_concerning_the_Laws_of_Naval_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Declaration_concerning_..., signed by various countries, but never ratified.
jarym 4y ago
The more desperate one side of a conflict is the more extreme their actions can be. And they’ll always justify it. Most people are against inflicting human suffering but sometimes it’s not so black and white. Right now we can look at Afghanistan for an example - huge humanitarian disaster going on but world powers think by giving the cold shoulder then can soften the Taliban. There isn’t a clear cut right/wrong here imo.
- adastra22 4y ago
  Eh, no matter who history seems as “right” in that conflict, the British blockade of Germany was nevertheless against international law and norms of the time.
  - buran77 4y ago
    History is written by the victors. When you're on the overall winning side you can wipe out war crimes or genocide within a blink of a decade. Just as long as you can stay on that side until your past becomes distant enough. Even provable facts don't really get traction and things get swept under the rug. You don't get to read that much about such a British blockade against Germany, about a Belgian genocide in Congo (or any other major European country, even for things from the past century), etc. It's not that they're not considered big deals, it's that people are usually completely unaware they even happened.
    - cafard 4y ago
      Hardly a thing about the Congo: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-leopolds-ghost-adam-hochschild/1100487017?ean=9780358212508 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-leopolds-ghost-adam-ho... (published 2020) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-leopolds-soliloquy-mark-twain/1102636173?ean=9788187496557 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-leopolds-soliloquy-mar... (edition of 2020, written by Mark Twain in 1905)
      - buran77 4y ago
        Aah! A book! But really, I tried to make my point very clear. It's not that there's no info out there. Sweeping something under the rug doesn't mean the dust stopped existing, just that it's not immediately apparent and most people won't notice it. Ask a random person to list if they heard of King Leopold, the Congo genocide, etc. and see how many have heard the names before, let alone understand what's behind. Sure there's a Wiki page with details but the magic of rewriting history is not in deleting the truth but in making it uninteresting and obscure. And that allows people the assumption that nothing like this could have ever happened.
  - JetSetWilly 4y ago
    It was Germany which started the Blockade first. In February 1915 they announced they would sink all allied merchant vessels around Britain. Britain responded in kind a month later. If you don't want other countries doing something to you, it is a good idea to not do the exact same thing to them first. Finally, I'm not even sure it was against the law at the time. Both participants seemed to regard it as legal.
    - LAC-Tech 4y ago
      It was Germany which started the Blockade first. In February 1915 they announced they would sink all allied merchant vessels around Britain. Britain responded in kind a month later. The timeline all the sources I can access with a simple internet search tell me this: - the UK blockade of Germany began in August 1914 - the UK declared the entire North Sea to be a warzone in November 1914, and expanded their contraband list to include all food - Germany declared the areas around the UK a warzone in February 1915, which is what you're referring to
      - JetSetWilly 4y ago
        It seems like it was gradually escalated on both sides to me. > When Britain joined the war on August 4, 1914, they did not immediately execute the entire plan to blockade all German imports. It was not until nearly four months into the war that Britain labeled the North Sea a war zone, and also began directing limited forces in the Mediterranean as well to restrict all German trade routes. > The final shift to establishing the full blockade came on November 11, 1914, after several German light cruisers were observed attempting to lay mines off the coast of southern England. This act of aggression gave British leaders the impetus they needed to declare the full blockade without U.S. resistance because during the first four months of the war, Britain had confined itself to blocking only war materials from reaching German ports. World opinion of Germany during this time began to deteriorate because of repeated reports of brutality directed against Belgian and French civilians. These things have a way of "tit for tat" escalating. If your opponent is doing things like executing whole villages of Belgian civilians as at louvain (August 1914), then the blockade starts to seem like a moral imperative. As well as that - if Germany is laying mines in layers off the British coast, that is a pretty effective way of stopping merchant traffic to Britain and is sure to elicit a response in kind. If a country started laying mines off the coast of New York how do you think the US would respond? http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/899/2/the-british-blockade-during-world-war-i-the-weapon-of-deprivation http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/899/2/the-british-b...
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  i am pretty much in the minority but if USA and "allies" didnt help ukraine, russia would come in, wipe the ruling party out, maybe destry some cities but the whole thing would be over in less time. the exact same thing that happened with afghanistan or iraq for example. instead, for once, USA has all the concern for human lives and "democracy" and is arming ukraine, thereby prolonging the war. this isn't even my own idea, this is the same ideology that USA itself uses to justify hiroshima/nagasaki... if USA isnt going to be responsible for actual crimes against humanity in hiroshima or vietnam with its napalm and others or with afghanistan or iraq then why are these same people trying to fault Russia for doing the same thing they did?
  - pjc50 4y ago
    And when Russia comes for Poland, or Estonia, likewise they should surrender to make it quick? After all, to resist would be to harm the army of gunpoint Ukranian conscripts that would be used.
    - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
      uh.... afhganistan, then iraq, then libya, syria, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... so america can be involved in so many regime changes for the lulz, right?
      - Semaphor 4y ago
        So your argument is that because the USA are warmongering megalomaniacs, we should all be fine with Russia being one as well?
        2Gkashmiri 4y ago
        why not....... the world did not stop you over the years, why are you stopping someone else now or has the USA decided to no interfere with third party conflicts ?
  - 4y ago
OJFord 4y ago
A 'war crime' violating which war law, as it were? I'm just curious whether this is judging the past with modern law or not, from my cursory search, the relevant agreements are the Hague Conventions, and the Second Geneva Convention; none of which seems to have provision for the protection of 'non-military assets such as food' like that, but perhaps I'm missing it, I am just skimming/ctrl-f-ing. (Civilians/non-combatants yes, but not their supplies specifically, if non-violently blockaded, afaict.)
- okasaki 4y ago
  How does one non-violently blockade?
  - OJFord 4y ago
    Depends whether you consider a hostile country's navy's non-firing presence to be 'violent' or not I suppose. I didn't, so I meant a blockade without any combat, projectiles fired, etc. - no physical harm to life or vessels, they just physically can't get through.
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      No maritime blockade is a physical blockade like blocking someone's parking space... It's a bunch of ships hanging about on the route, saying loudly over the radio "don't come this way or we will sink you"
      - OJFord 4y ago
        That's what I mean, physically blocking the route, threatening sure but I'm calling anything short of actually doing (or attempting to do) the sinking 'non-violent' but I acknowledged others might not so tried to explain what I meant. The semantics of what constitutes 'violence' was really not my point.
    - watwut 4y ago
      Non firing presence is not blockade. It is just another ship you pass through, maybe waving flag. I do not think any navy ever had so many ships they would be able to cover the see. Blockades are enforced by firing.
larrydag 4y ago
There were so many war crimes in WWI. I'm sure partly the reason why they called it the war to end all wars first coined by HG Wells. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/world_war_i/198172.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/world_w...
- koheripbal 4y ago
  Wars are incredibly messy. War crimes abound by all sides.
throwaway_4ever 4y ago
You realize Germany is the one who invaded Belgium and France, leading to 4 million Allied civilians dead?
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  No I didn't - mind blown. Have any more obscure historical facts to share?
- dmichulke 4y ago
  I think you're counting all casualties caused by Central Powers as a consequence of Germany's invasion of France. It can be seen like that but you should make clear that it assumes German single responsibility for the war, including for her Allies' actions against civilians, and also indirect consequences such as deaths caused by malnutrition. Then you would arrive at 3.78 million deaths, worst-case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
  - throwaway_4ever 4y ago
    Yes, I do. Austria-Hungary only invaded Serbia because they had the support of Germany. Germany's invasion caused the civilian death tolls across the continent. No German and Austria-Hungarian invasions, likely no mass murder.
    - dmichulke 4y ago
      I don't personally agree with any story where there's one single 100% responsible party, be it divorce, terrorism or war. But that doesn't mean that I'm right or that you're wrong...
- eadmund 4y ago
  You realise that Germany invaded Belgium and France because France and Russia mobilised against her? And that they mobilised because Germany was supporting Austro-Hungary against Serbia, whose intelligence service had commissioned the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and of his wife? Not countering those mobilisations would have left the German Empire at the mercy of Russia and France. To the extent that one can talk about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ sides in the Great War (which is not very far, really), Germany was on the good side (unlike in the Second World War).
nradov 4y ago
No, the blockade was not a war crime under the rules in effect at the time. And Germany actually declared a blockade against the UK first. The UK blockade against Germany was declared later, in retaliation. https://www.britannica.com/topic/blockade-warfare https://www.britannica.com/topic/blockade-warfare
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  I never said a blockade was a war crime. I said the British blockade was because they treated food as war-contraband. The British blockade against Germany was August 1914, according to these sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany https://nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/blockade.htm https://nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotl... Can you provide a source for a pre august 1914 German declaration of a blockade on the UK?
pyrale 4y ago
> even when the war was over and they were negotiating at Versailles. The war wasn't over at that point, there was only an agreement to stop fighting while negociating. In fact, the German army kept sabotaging industrial sites in northern France after the armistice.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  My understanding is that one of the terms of the armistice was that the German army retreat east of the Rhine. Allied occupation of the Rheinland began 1st of December 1918. Could you name or provide a reference to one of the post armistice actions of the german army in northern france?
  - pyrale 4y ago
    > My understanding is that one of the terms of the armistice was that the German army retreat east of the Rhine. ...And they destroyed industrial sites during their retreat. > Could you name or provide a reference to one of the post armistice actions of the german army in northern france? [1](https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/pas-calais/histoires-14-18-bassin-minier-noye-allemands-1505593.html https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/pas-...) [2](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnie_des_mines_de_Dourges https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnie_des_mines_de_Dourges) [3](https://www.cairn.info/revue-guerres-mondiales-et-conflits-contemporains-2009-4-page-5.htm https://www.cairn.info/revue-guerres-mondiales-et-conflits-c...)
    - LAC-Tech 4y ago
      Ok right that doesn't surprise me. I had interpreted your original post is the German army somehow still having active military units in France while Versaille was going on which definitely would have. Thanks for the links btw, it's not something I can remember seeing discussed in english before.
WalterBright 4y ago
On the other hand, trying to get the enemy to surrender using hunger without having to kill them en masse is arguably more humane. The blockade was arguably the main reason for Germany's capitulation. There's no excuse for continuing the blockade after the surrender, though.
- danielheath 4y ago
  > On the other hand, trying to get the enemy to surrender using hunger without having to kill them en masse is arguably more humane. Haber claimed that mustard gas was more humane than having men rot in trenches for months while shooting one another, too, but when we justify horrors with "it's a kindness" we lose something important.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Haber was wrong. Gas attacks turned out to be not only inhumane, but ineffective.

Someone 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Declaration_concerning_the_Laws_of_Naval_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Declaration_concerning_..., signed by various countries, but never ratified.

jarym 4y ago

The more desperate one side of a conflict is the more extreme their actions can be. And they’ll always justify it. Most people are against inflicting human suffering but sometimes it’s not so black and white. Right now we can look at Afghanistan for an example - huge humanitarian disaster going on but world powers think by giving the cold shoulder then can soften the Taliban. There isn’t a clear cut right/wrong here imo.

adastra22 4y ago
Eh, no matter who history seems as “right” in that conflict, the British blockade of Germany was nevertheless against international law and norms of the time.
- buran77 4y ago
  History is written by the victors. When you're on the overall winning side you can wipe out war crimes or genocide within a blink of a decade. Just as long as you can stay on that side until your past becomes distant enough. Even provable facts don't really get traction and things get swept under the rug. You don't get to read that much about such a British blockade against Germany, about a Belgian genocide in Congo (or any other major European country, even for things from the past century), etc. It's not that they're not considered big deals, it's that people are usually completely unaware they even happened.
  - cafard 4y ago
    Hardly a thing about the Congo: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-leopolds-ghost-adam-hochschild/1100487017?ean=9780358212508 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-leopolds-ghost-adam-ho... (published 2020) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-leopolds-soliloquy-mark-twain/1102636173?ean=9788187496557 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/king-leopolds-soliloquy-mar... (edition of 2020, written by Mark Twain in 1905)
    - buran77 4y ago
      Aah! A book! But really, I tried to make my point very clear. It's not that there's no info out there. Sweeping something under the rug doesn't mean the dust stopped existing, just that it's not immediately apparent and most people won't notice it. Ask a random person to list if they heard of King Leopold, the Congo genocide, etc. and see how many have heard the names before, let alone understand what's behind. Sure there's a Wiki page with details but the magic of rewriting history is not in deleting the truth but in making it uninteresting and obscure. And that allows people the assumption that nothing like this could have ever happened.
- JetSetWilly 4y ago
  It was Germany which started the Blockade first. In February 1915 they announced they would sink all allied merchant vessels around Britain. Britain responded in kind a month later. If you don't want other countries doing something to you, it is a good idea to not do the exact same thing to them first. Finally, I'm not even sure it was against the law at the time. Both participants seemed to regard it as legal.
  - LAC-Tech 4y ago
    It was Germany which started the Blockade first. In February 1915 they announced they would sink all allied merchant vessels around Britain. Britain responded in kind a month later. The timeline all the sources I can access with a simple internet search tell me this: - the UK blockade of Germany began in August 1914 - the UK declared the entire North Sea to be a warzone in November 1914, and expanded their contraband list to include all food - Germany declared the areas around the UK a warzone in February 1915, which is what you're referring to
    - JetSetWilly 4y ago
      It seems like it was gradually escalated on both sides to me. > When Britain joined the war on August 4, 1914, they did not immediately execute the entire plan to blockade all German imports. It was not until nearly four months into the war that Britain labeled the North Sea a war zone, and also began directing limited forces in the Mediterranean as well to restrict all German trade routes. > The final shift to establishing the full blockade came on November 11, 1914, after several German light cruisers were observed attempting to lay mines off the coast of southern England. This act of aggression gave British leaders the impetus they needed to declare the full blockade without U.S. resistance because during the first four months of the war, Britain had confined itself to blocking only war materials from reaching German ports. World opinion of Germany during this time began to deteriorate because of repeated reports of brutality directed against Belgian and French civilians. These things have a way of "tit for tat" escalating. If your opponent is doing things like executing whole villages of Belgian civilians as at louvain (August 1914), then the blockade starts to seem like a moral imperative. As well as that - if Germany is laying mines in layers off the British coast, that is a pretty effective way of stopping merchant traffic to Britain and is sure to elicit a response in kind. If a country started laying mines off the coast of New York how do you think the US would respond? http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/899/2/the-british-blockade-during-world-war-i-the-weapon-of-deprivation http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/899/2/the-british-b...
2Gkashmiri 4y ago
i am pretty much in the minority but if USA and "allies" didnt help ukraine, russia would come in, wipe the ruling party out, maybe destry some cities but the whole thing would be over in less time. the exact same thing that happened with afghanistan or iraq for example. instead, for once, USA has all the concern for human lives and "democracy" and is arming ukraine, thereby prolonging the war. this isn't even my own idea, this is the same ideology that USA itself uses to justify hiroshima/nagasaki... if USA isnt going to be responsible for actual crimes against humanity in hiroshima or vietnam with its napalm and others or with afghanistan or iraq then why are these same people trying to fault Russia for doing the same thing they did?
- pjc50 4y ago
  And when Russia comes for Poland, or Estonia, likewise they should surrender to make it quick? After all, to resist would be to harm the army of gunpoint Ukranian conscripts that would be used.
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    uh.... afhganistan, then iraq, then libya, syria, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... so america can be involved in so many regime changes for the lulz, right?
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      So your argument is that because the USA are warmongering megalomaniacs, we should all be fine with Russia being one as well?
      - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
        why not....... the world did not stop you over the years, why are you stopping someone else now or has the USA decided to no interfere with third party conflicts ?
- 4y ago

OJFord 4y ago

A 'war crime' violating which war law, as it were? I'm just curious whether this is judging the past with modern law or not, from my cursory search, the relevant agreements are the Hague Conventions, and the Second Geneva Convention; none of which seems to have provision for the protection of 'non-military assets such as food' like that, but perhaps I'm missing it, I am just skimming/ctrl-f-ing. (Civilians/non-combatants yes, but not their supplies specifically, if non-violently blockaded, afaict.)

okasaki 4y ago
How does one non-violently blockade?
- OJFord 4y ago
  Depends whether you consider a hostile country's navy's non-firing presence to be 'violent' or not I suppose. I didn't, so I meant a blockade without any combat, projectiles fired, etc. - no physical harm to life or vessels, they just physically can't get through.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    No maritime blockade is a physical blockade like blocking someone's parking space... It's a bunch of ships hanging about on the route, saying loudly over the radio "don't come this way or we will sink you"
    - OJFord 4y ago
      That's what I mean, physically blocking the route, threatening sure but I'm calling anything short of actually doing (or attempting to do) the sinking 'non-violent' but I acknowledged others might not so tried to explain what I meant. The semantics of what constitutes 'violence' was really not my point.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Non firing presence is not blockade. It is just another ship you pass through, maybe waving flag. I do not think any navy ever had so many ships they would be able to cover the see. Blockades are enforced by firing.

larrydag 4y ago

There were so many war crimes in WWI. I'm sure partly the reason why they called it the war to end all wars first coined by HG Wells. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/world_war_i/198172.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/world_w...

koheripbal 4y ago
Wars are incredibly messy. War crimes abound by all sides.

throwaway_4ever 4y ago

You realize Germany is the one who invaded Belgium and France, leading to 4 million Allied civilians dead?

LAC-Tech 4y ago
No I didn't - mind blown. Have any more obscure historical facts to share?
dmichulke 4y ago
I think you're counting all casualties caused by Central Powers as a consequence of Germany's invasion of France. It can be seen like that but you should make clear that it assumes German single responsibility for the war, including for her Allies' actions against civilians, and also indirect consequences such as deaths caused by malnutrition. Then you would arrive at 3.78 million deaths, worst-case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
- throwaway_4ever 4y ago
  Yes, I do. Austria-Hungary only invaded Serbia because they had the support of Germany. Germany's invasion caused the civilian death tolls across the continent. No German and Austria-Hungarian invasions, likely no mass murder.
  - dmichulke 4y ago
    I don't personally agree with any story where there's one single 100% responsible party, be it divorce, terrorism or war. But that doesn't mean that I'm right or that you're wrong...
eadmund 4y ago
You realise that Germany invaded Belgium and France because France and Russia mobilised against her? And that they mobilised because Germany was supporting Austro-Hungary against Serbia, whose intelligence service had commissioned the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and of his wife? Not countering those mobilisations would have left the German Empire at the mercy of Russia and France. To the extent that one can talk about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ sides in the Great War (which is not very far, really), Germany was on the good side (unlike in the Second World War).

nradov 4y ago

No, the blockade was not a war crime under the rules in effect at the time. And Germany actually declared a blockade against the UK first. The UK blockade against Germany was declared later, in retaliation. https://www.britannica.com/topic/blockade-warfare https://www.britannica.com/topic/blockade-warfare

LAC-Tech 4y ago
I never said a blockade was a war crime. I said the British blockade was because they treated food as war-contraband. The British blockade against Germany was August 1914, according to these sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany https://nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/blockade.htm https://nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotl... Can you provide a source for a pre august 1914 German declaration of a blockade on the UK?

pyrale 4y ago

> even when the war was over and they were negotiating at Versailles. The war wasn't over at that point, there was only an agreement to stop fighting while negociating. In fact, the German army kept sabotaging industrial sites in northern France after the armistice.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
LAC-Tech 4y ago
My understanding is that one of the terms of the armistice was that the German army retreat east of the Rhine. Allied occupation of the Rheinland began 1st of December 1918. Could you name or provide a reference to one of the post armistice actions of the german army in northern france?
- pyrale 4y ago
  > My understanding is that one of the terms of the armistice was that the German army retreat east of the Rhine. ...And they destroyed industrial sites during their retreat. > Could you name or provide a reference to one of the post armistice actions of the german army in northern france? [1](https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/pas-calais/histoires-14-18-bassin-minier-noye-allemands-1505593.html https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/pas-...) [2](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnie_des_mines_de_Dourges https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnie_des_mines_de_Dourges) [3](https://www.cairn.info/revue-guerres-mondiales-et-conflits-contemporains-2009-4-page-5.htm https://www.cairn.info/revue-guerres-mondiales-et-conflits-c...)
  - LAC-Tech 4y ago
    Ok right that doesn't surprise me. I had interpreted your original post is the German army somehow still having active military units in France while Versaille was going on which definitely would have. Thanks for the links btw, it's not something I can remember seeing discussed in english before.

WalterBright 4y ago

On the other hand, trying to get the enemy to surrender using hunger without having to kill them en masse is arguably more humane. The blockade was arguably the main reason for Germany's capitulation. There's no excuse for continuing the blockade after the surrender, though.

danielheath 4y ago
> On the other hand, trying to get the enemy to surrender using hunger without having to kill them en masse is arguably more humane. Haber claimed that mustard gas was more humane than having men rot in trenches for months while shooting one another, too, but when we justify horrors with "it's a kindness" we lose something important.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Haber was wrong. Gas attacks turned out to be not only inhumane, but ineffective.