My War Memories, 1914-1918
and the neutral trading vessels were compelled to go through the Channel, close to the English coast, and could then only proceed on one track, right across the North Sea. And yet at the beginning of the war England had declared that she would in principle accept the convention of the Declaration of London as her standard of action. Her attitude in the years before the war was also quite different.
With the declaration of a War Zone she had allowed it to be understood that she would no longer consider herself bound by the regulations of cruiser warfare as laid down by the Prize Courts, and also that she considered herself justified in the adoption of violent measures against traffic in the War Zone. Germany was therefore blockaded, although there was no lawful blockade. The only reason why a true blockade was ineffective, according to the rules of naval warfare, was that England was powerless to hinder traffic in the Baltic.
The German declaration of a " War Zone " on February 4th, 1915, only a similar measure to the English precedent, gave England an excuse for further severity in the economic war against the Central Powers. In the famous Order in Council of March nth, 1915, she declared her intention of seizing all ships entering or leaving Germany. All goods intended for Germany, or exported from there, as well as all goods in German ownership, or of German origin, even if the property of neutrals, could henceforward be taken from neutral ships.
This was another unexampled instance of putting might before right. England justified herself by declaring this procedure to be an act of reprisal against the submarine warfare commenced in February, 1915. This defence fell to the ground when Germany, after the Sussex case, formally renounced submarine warfare. Had England acted in accordance with her declarations, she would have raised the so-called blockade, now that the reason for retaliation had lapsed. But she never thought of such a thing. The blockade went on as before.
By Order in Council of June 7th, 1916, England finally abandoned the Declaration of London. In this way those principles, which, despite repeated assurances, no one had attempted to
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