As such, the British had the greatest interest in the free flow of commerce. Meyer notes, Britain was asserting “that she would follow the rules to the extent that she found it to her own advantage.” Great Britain, at the time of the Declaration of London, had been the world’s preeminent naval power and possessed the largest mercantile fleet. Speaking on behalf of the Entente on 6 August 1914, the British expressed concurrence but stipulated that they reserved certain rights “essential to the conduct of their naval operations.” As historian G. The Germans and their Austro-Hungarian ally (the Central Powers) agreed to continue to abide by the Declaration, provided Britain and her allies (the Entente) did likewise. Materials on the free list could never be seized. As such, a belligerent who had declared and established a blockade in accordance with international law could legally seize materials in the first category, while conditional contraband was subject to seizure only if proof existed that it was bound for the enemy. The declaration had also divided goods into three categories: absolute contraband that concerned those materials with military use, conditional contraband that could have either military or civilian uses, and a free list of items like foodstuffs and other non-military materials. State Department formally requested that the warring nations abide by the 1909 Declaration of London, which had asserted that the rights of neutrals to engage in free trade on the seas superseded the right of belligerents to engage in naval blockade. government found itself defending the doctrine of the freedom of the seas against foreign navies seeking exclusive control of international waters.įreedom of the Seas in the First Year of WarĪt the outbreak of war, the U.S. Then, as now-especially in the South China Sea-the U.S. As naval blockades took shape in northern and western Europe, Washington, still neutral, rushed to assert the rights of U.S.-flagged ships in international waters. When World War I began, in the summer of 1914, it put a serious strain on the maintenance of the doctrine of the freedom of the seas. This determination would again be put to the test in the second decade of the 20th century. As a precedent, therefore, the United States had clearly demonstrated its willingness to fight to maintain the freedom of the seas. As an extension of these assertions, the young republic fought three wars (two of them undeclared) in the period 1801–1814. Presidents from John Adams to James Madison relied on the doctrine of the freedom of the seas to assert the right of U.S.-flagged ships to ply the world’s oceans unencumbered. ↑ MacKenzie, Donald A., The story of the Great War, (Buck Press, 2009), 142.Early in its history, the United States saw its right to the freedom of the seas directly challenged by the privateers of revolutionary France, the corsairs of the North African Barbary states, and the frigates of the Royal Navy.↑ The Encyclopedia Americana, Vol.28, (J.B.During the battle the chief of the German General Staff, Erich Von Falkenhayn, was relieved from duty and sent to lead a joint Austrian, German and Bulgarian attack on Romania, leaving Paul Von Hindenburg as Chief of Staff. After the battle the landscape was left as one of the worst battlegrounds on all of France, filled with craters of the artillery, the trenches, the odor left by the dead, etc. The French commander, Marshall Philippe Pétain, used a system of rotation by which every division in France fought for a short time at Verdun. The battle lowered into a matter of prestige for the two nations, and started being fought for the sake of fighting and honor, according to German command Paul Von Hindenburg. From a strategic point of view, there can be no justification for these terrible losses. The battlefield was not even a square ten kilometres. The battle, which lasted from 21 February 1916 until 19 December 1916, caused over an estimated 700,000 casualties (dead, wounded and missing). There were many attacks and counterattacks one small village changed hands 16 times. Never before or since has there been such a long battle, involving so many men, fought on such a tiny piece of land. The Battle of Verdun is considered the biggest and longest in world history. They also speak about the Hell of Verdun or the Blood pump. Never before was industrialisation so visible in war. Both sides lost about 337,000 soldiers each. It ended on December 18 of that year but the front line had not changed very much. It started when the German Fifth Army attacked French positions, near Verdun, on February 21, 1916. The Battle of Verdun was a battle of the First World War.
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