Talk:Blockade of Germany (1914–1919)

"American liner"

Wasn't the HMS Lusitania a British liner that Americans happened to be on?

--Rotaretilbo (talk) 07:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It was British. It is also not HMS, but RMS. Fixed.

One thing I don't see discussed is that the British established a distance blockade, which I understand was illegal ( Hague conventions ). Also the list of items declared "contraband" by the English exceeded normal usage ( foodstuffs and other non-military items ). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.197.181.149 (talk) 20:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

If you can source that, it'd be great. Also, I recall reading somewhere (but not where...) starvation contributed to the rioting in Germany in 1918, which may (indirectly) have contributed to the rise of the Nazis.

I found the following: http://www.gwpda.org/naval/lusika02.htm It references other sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.151.93.2 (talk) 17:35, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Beyond that, I deleted everything not directly related to the subject, Blockade of Germany, since most of it was about the U-boat campaign against Britain... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 20:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Was a blockade ever attempted in WWII?

Since World War II dealt with the same geography as World War I, did the British ever attempt blockading Germany in what was essentially a "rematch"? Seems like this would have made sense considering how much trouble the German surface commerce raiders gave the British later on. Or did airpower and submarines make the blockading tactic unfeasible? Masterblooregard (talk) 17:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

From 1915 to 1917, Germany and Austria-Hungary were encircled and isolated in the centre of Europe, fighting against Italy and Russia, while in 1939, these two countries were commercially allied with Germany, allowing imports from the Mediterranean and even the Pacific. Besides, while the Haber process had allowed to produce fertilizer and explosives during WW1, Germans improved technologies to produce Synthetic fuel before WW2, and various Ersatz materials were known. By mid 1940, Germans occupied the coasts of Norway and France, and in early 1941, also the Balkans and Greece. Franco's Spain was not hostile to Germany, and neutral Sweden and Switzerland traded iron ore and aluminum with Germany. While the British still could control the Channel, Gibraltar, and Suez, they could hardly enforce a blockade on mainland Europe. Also, it would be the occupied countries that would suffer first from any shortage. The tide turned in mid 1941 with the attack on the USSR, cutting of an important source of supplies. In the long run, Germany could not get enough oil, steel and other goods to fight the modern mobile armoured and aerial war that consumed much more ressources than the earlier landlocked stationary war. Anyway, as in and after WW1, the British proved again that they prefer to fight against civilians rather than soldiers or industries, with Harris giving low priority to the Oil Campaign of World War II. -- Matthead  Discuß   13:14, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The British immediately blockaded Germany when World War II began but it was much less effective as Hitler had a constant supply of crucial materials from the Soviet Union until June 1941. (81.159.6.181 (talk) 22:05, 18 June 2016 (UTC))

Copyviolation?

A large portion of this article seems to be copied from this site: [1] Example:

Site:The German government made strenuous attempts to alleviate the worst effects of the blockade. The Glossary - opens new windowHindenburg programme, introduced in December 1916, was designed to raise productivity by ordering the compulsory employment of all men between the ages of 17 and 60. A complicated system of rationing, first introduced in January 1915, aimed to ensure that at least minimum nutritional needs were met. In larger cities, 'war kitchens' provided cheap meals en masse to impoverished local citizens.

Wiki article: the Hindenburg Programme of German economic mobilisation launched on 31 August 1916, was designed to raise productivity by the compulsory employment of all men between the ages of 17 and 60, and a complicated rationing system initially introduced in January 1915 aimed to ensure that a minimum nutritional need was met, with "war kitchens" providing cheap mass meals to impoverished civilians in larger cities.

--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 13:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This is my first time coming across a case like this but the UK National Archives is licensed OGL v1 which is CC-attribution compatible, so OK for use in the text. The text is mostly paraphrased and foundational to the rest of the article. I couldn't find one solid diff where large chunks were added but it was paraphrased.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:37, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I have just made this edit this edit. Those pages I have seen that are under the British Open Government Licence usually specifically say so. I do not see such licensing information on these pages, so I think that unless there is agreement that they are, then the attribution template should be removed and any copied material should be deleted. -- PBS (talk) 16:59, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

You wrote any copied material should be deleted, which sections of the article are you referring to?--Woogie10w (talk) 17:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you also for posting to my talk page. My wording was a little clumsy so I will be more specific. See for example this page (Director of the Royal Artillery) that I have created today. I have copied verbatim large amounts of text from a British Government website, but I can do that because it is under the OGL v2.0 copyleft. To mark it as such I created a new template called {{OGL-attribution}} modelled on {{source-attribution}}. I then discovered that there was an old template called {{OGL-text}} that for various reasons was outdated. So I went through the half dozen articles or that used {{OGL-text}} changing them to use {{OGL-attribution}}. having done that I redirected {{OGL-text}} to {{OGL-attribution}}. In all but this case it was a simple substitution. But in this case it is not clear to me that British Government page was indeed under the OGL template. Of course if all you did Woogie10w was copy a figure from the website then that is not a copyright violation any more than it is from any other website!. I was referring to copying or too closely paraphrasing from the government web site to here if the licensing did not allow it and it was a breach of copyright. -- PBS (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Since I posted to this talk page at 16:59, I have looked into it further, and this page on the National Archives website does AFAICT place the article page under discussion under the OGL copyleft licence. So the only thing left to do is either add inline citations to the Wikipedia page and if there is no copyleft licensed text in the article remove the attribution template (but if there is copyleft material then leave it in place) -- simples!. -- PBS (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

legality

I always heard that a sea blockade was contrary to international law and rules of war at the time. This should be addressed in the article. --BjKa (talk) 10:06, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

A sea blockade is legal under international law and always has been. Take a look at the British blockades in every war it has fought since the union in 1707. -- PBS (talk) 17:02, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The blockade was clearly illegal under the Hague Convention of 1907 which the UK had signed. (109.158.178.212 (talk) 22:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC))

There have been a number of edits recently claiming that the blockade was clearly illegal, the most recent referencing a national archives article. What the national archives article says is: Despite complaints about breaches of international law, however, most neutral merchant ships agreed.... It does not say "the blockade was clearly illegal under the Hague Convention", or anything similar. If we need to add an item about illegality of blockade, we need an article which specifies the illegality of this blockade under a specific clause, not vague references to someone complaining about breach of international law. International law isn't as simply as writing traffic tickets for speeding, so you need to find a WP:RS article which specifies the illegality, who complains and who adjudged the illegality. Tarl N. (talk) 23:27, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

The German government maintained the blockade was illegal under international law, but the United States sided with the British Empire from the very beginning of World War I. (213.122.144.226 (talk) 17:06, 18 July 2016 (UTC))

Please cite a reliable source to support your statement, see WP:RS, Thank you.--Woogie10w (talk) 18:05, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

A naval blockade was only illegal if it obstructed or prevented the movement of essential supplies such as staple foodstuffs and fuels that could only be imported via shipping - such as applied to island nations like Britain where all of their imports had to come by ship. If an alternative route over land existed - such as with Germany - by which the items could be obtained then any such blockade was legal.

Germany was in no way dependent on her merchant shipping for essential food and fuels. Britain was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.9 (talk) 11:57, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Thats wrong. Germany imported 30% of it's foodstuff (especially Russian grain via the Ukrainian Black Sea Ports). See Nicholas Lamberts book "Planning Armageddon". Additionally the agricultural production in Germany declined to less than 50% of its prewar level. One of the main reasons for this was the interruption of saltpeter imports from South America (Germany imported 750,000 tons of saltpeter in 1913). However, since saltpeter was also used in the manufacture of ammunition in addition to artificial fertilizers, it was legal for the British to declare it a contraband and prevent it from being imported into Germany. The situation with grain imports was quite different. Preventing them grossly violated international law. XeniaBW (talk) 20:17, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I think a section on the alleged illegality of the blockade should most certainly see some mention, since it was the official position of the German government and thus notable.Fritz1776 (talk) 15:29, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

There is an article in the German newspaper Welt online edition from 06. 05. 2014 with the title: Die Blockade gegen Deutschland war ein Verbrechen (Blockade against Germany was a Crime). The author is the leading editor in history of the paper, but discusses the book of Jörg Friedrich „14/18. Der Weg nach Versailles“ (14/18. The road to Versailles). Maybe fit as a reference.

I haven't read the book, but as far as I know the British blockade was indeed against international law in many aspects. Blockades were rightful, when only the ports of the enemy were effected (close blockade). Neutral traffic had to be unmolested. Blockading international waters was illegal, but the British declared the whole Territory of the North Sea a war zone, and maintained in fact a distant blockade between Scotland and Norway and in the Straits of Dover, not letting any ships sail to Germany, not even those with food on board. These are all grave breaches against international law. More than 700.000 people died in Germany cause of the blockade - and some thousand in addition in neutral Scandinavian countriies and Holland! Many died already after the war, because the Entente maintained it even in 1919, to force Germany to accept the peace dictate at Versailles. In Austria-Hungary (mainly in the western part of it), there were another 400.000 people who starved cause of this blockade, since the Strait of Otronto was also blockaded. The death toll lies above a million. As far as I can judge it, this blockade was a serious War Crime and one should pay more attention to it. --Andreas (talk) 20:09, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

The US did not side with the British Empire from the very beginning of World War I. That claim is totally wrong. The British historian Nicholas Lambert has clearly worked out in his book 'Planning Armageddon' how hostile the relationship between the Wilson administration and the British government was at the beginning of the First World War. Wilson and his chief adviser Colonel House called on the British several times, in an almost ultimate tone, to respect the freedom of the sea and to lift the blockade immediately. At that time Germany imported around a third of its food from abroad and the southern states in the USA were dependent on the income from the sale of grain and cotton to the Germans. Wison, who came from the south, was therefore under particularly strong pressure. Lambert also comes to the clear conclusion that the blockade was illegal. The argument that Germany could import food by land is wrong, since the British Empire also put the neutral states under massive pressure and also reduced their imports to what was absolutely necessary for them. According to Lambert, the British began intensively with preparations for the blockade as early as 1905, which clearly had the goal of starving the Germans and thus forcing them to surrender. — Preceding unsigned comment added by XeniaBW (talk • contribs) 20:15, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Reply
1-As editors of Wikipedia we cannot decide if the British blockade was a crime. If a reliable source has that opinion we could make mention of that source. Wikipedia has a NPOV, we cover both sides of the story
2-Your statement that "More than 700.000 people died in Germany" is based on Dec. 1918 German propaganda. An academic study from 1928 put the actual death toll at 424,000. --Woogie10w (talk) 20:53, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

1-I haven't made any changes to the article, only mentioned a source that can maybe support the statement discussed above.

2-The number might be a creation of propaganda, but sure there were hundreds of thousands of dead. But if you want to be precise, you can't say bluntly that it was propaganda, only that it was (a propagandistic statement / an exaggeration) according to the academic study from 1928. --Andreas (talk) 21:43, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

We still lack any passage in the Hague Conventions for the German claim that the blockade was supposedly illegal. With how the issue keeps popping up, we need a source making clear that no such passage existed in the Hague Conventions, and did not come into existence until article 42 of the UN Charter in 1945. --2003:EF:1709:2974:64C9:E196:5FC:1DF7 (talk) 03:30, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Of course, that was a war criminal. In the Haague Conventions of 1899 and 107 paragraph 8, in which the rules for war at sea are regulated, it is stipulated that the international treaties on trade remain in force. According to the 1856 Declaration of Paris (still in force in 1914), blockades were permitted, but only if they were so-called "effective" blockades — meaning that blockades should only take on the form of a cordon of ships off an enemy port or coast. Blockades 'from a distance' were strictly prohibited.

The blockade also violated the 1909 London Declaration which established the rules under which items could be confiscated (Britain was not a signatory, but the international community — especially the United States — still expected Britain to honor the spirit of the Declaration; it was, after all, Britain's idea).

Thus it is clear that the blockade was illegal, an act of piracy and a war criminal. Even the British war cabinet has noted that it is a war crime, even though they have assumed it is a "victimless" war crime.

So what's the point of this discussion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.233.229.42 (talk) 14:54, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Lets edit the article accordingly then? 62.153.148.98 (talk) 12:12, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Footnote to Barnes Review

I'm deleting this note. First, it's not needed in the article, and second, The Barnes Review, according to its Wikipedia page, is one of the most virulently anti-Semitic organizations around, and is devoted to Holocaust denial. Thus, the only reason for having the note is to direct unsuspecting readers to look it up. Theonemacduff (talk) 16:52, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 8 September 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) HouseBlaster^talk 22:25, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

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Blockade of Germany → Blockade of Germany (1914–1919) – Disambiguation from Blockade of Germany (1939–1945). Blockade of the Central Powers could also be a valid option. Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 06:51, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Biblio History of the Great War

• Bell, Archibald Colquhoun (1961) [1937]. The Blockade of the Central Empires 1914–1918. History of the Great War based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence (1st ed.). London: HMSO. OCLC 4476363.
  • Completed 1921, unpublished at request of the Foreign Office, due to the legal ramifications of blockade. Published HMSO 1937, marked Confidential as A History of the Blockade of Germany and the Countries Associated with her in the Great War, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey, 1914–1918, restricted circulation; republished and offered to the public, HMSO, 1961; IWM-NMP pbk 2013. ISBN 978-1-84734-102-0 German translation published 1943 for general sale. FYI Regards Keith-264 (talk) 06:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 30 September 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Looks like a snowstorm (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 15:16, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

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• Blockade of Germany (1914–1919) → Blockade of Germany
• Blockade of Germany → Deleted to make way for page move

– Primary topic as given in opening sentence. Prepondernace of incoming links are to Blockade of Germany. Move to disambiguated title created many disambiguation links from previously valid links and restoration avoids use of redirect. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:12, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: the present title neatly distinguishes it from Blockade of Germany (1939–1945); the proposed change would mean a visit to the page to discover which was meant. Alansplodge (talk) 14:01, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Do you have any opinion as to whether it is the primary topic for the phrase "blockade of Germany"? GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:39, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

The blockades were applied with equal vigour in both World Wars, but in the second conflict, the Germans were (initially at least) able to mitigate the effects by means of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and by asset-stripping the numerous countries that they had invaded. So I don't think that there is a "primary topic" in this instance. See for example The Big Blockade from 1942. Alansplodge (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose, cz there is one more Blockade of Germany.–MinisterOfReligion ^(Talk) 19:13, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose There was also a blockade of Germany during World War II. Its significance and complexity is such that the British History of the Second World War official history series has two volumes covering it. Nick-D (talk) 23:36, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose as it is not the primary topic over the WWII article, and restore dab page at base name. Mdewman6 (talk) 00:13, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose unless there is reason to think this would be the primary target. I would add, IMO, it isn't. GenQuest ^"scribble" 19:49, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. No primary topic, although the WWI blockade is more famous. Srnec (talk) 20:32, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. No primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:46, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deputy State Secretary of the German Food Office Braun

I cannot find evidence of this person. The source is a journal from 2. 2. 1919. At this time the Deputy State Secretary of the German Food Office was Emmanuel Wurm. A Person called Braun was never in this position. I also cannot find the article in the journal which this claim is from. Any idea where this might be from? Bunchoforgans (talk) 10:30, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

In the interim, I have added a [dubious - discuss] template linking to this thread (in the "After Armistice" section). Alansplodge (talk) 22:01, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:RX would be the place to ask for a copy of the source. DuncanHill (talk) 22:12, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

The newspaper itself can be found at https://zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/kalender/auswahl/date/1919-2-2/2807323X/ but I can't find the article from a cursory look. It's possible that it's from a later edition and the editor used the date the article was written instead of the publication.

That said I'm inclined to delete the statement altogether. If it exists it might just be a personal opinion sent to the newspaper, I don't think secondary sources by historians exist that take that claim seriously. Fangz (talk) 09:40, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Alansplodge (talk) 18:40, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Now removed. Alansplodge (talk) 12:21, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Death toll point to prevent edit warring

Let me just be clear on this and hopefully reach a consensus. I think the basic principle with respect to citing on the death toll question is to aim to cite, where possible, the original source that made the estimate, or near enough close to it with an examination of where the figures come from. There's thousands and thousands of books on the first world war, so there's a severe risk of running into WP:OVERCITE if we go for just a single thrown out ref without methodology. Now, there's the December 1918 official estimate, and unless I'm mistaken this is also the same estimate that appears in Gilbert's book albeit with a few typoes (I can't find Gilbert's book exactly, but I found another book that cites him which uses *almost* the same yearly numbers as the original 1918 report). In my view it's not really safe to put this estimate on an even footing with other estimates - because it is *not* a neutral estimate, and the others are even if you can agree/disagree with their approach. This figure *is* used in some other pop history style books, but it needs to be separated out from the cases where the sum is re-calculated from scratch. For this reason IMHO it's best to go with a rounded off ~500k for the infobox. (Because frankly, this stuff is very hard to estimate anyway) Fangz (talk) 13:36, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Okay, located Gilbert book, his estimate seems to just be a typo-ridden version of the official german figures. For example he gives 293,760 for 1918 which is in complete agreement, with the german report, 121114 for 1916 which is a single digit off the 121174 in the report etc. Fangz (talk) 15:16, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Don't understand reference for claim that Britain suffered higher excess civilian mortality than Germany

Article states: "However, it has been pointed out that there was an even slightly larger civilian excess mortality during the war in the United Kingdom, a country that was much less affected by food shortages (although the author partially attributes it to the influenza epidemic and diseases such as bronchitis and tuberculosis which were not strictly nutrition-related)."

(I wrote the part in parentheses fyi, maybe it doesn't belong in the summary.)

The citation in question ("Blockade and economic warfare" by Alan Kramer) says: "Overall, however, 600,000 civilians died in the United Kingdom in excess of the peacetime mortality rate, or about 1.3 per cent, a higher rate than Germany." This statement itself has a footnote which leads to Brill's Encyclopedia of the First World War, which states:

"Table 'Military and civilian losses', in Brill's Encyclopedia of the First World War, pp. 732-3. Although his thesis it that civilian mortality declined in the war, Winter does not provide overall figures for excess civilian mortality in The Great War and the British People.

If the original reference doesn't provide numbers where are they coming from? (I'm working on getting access to the encyclopedia itself, the publisher's website doesn't list the articles by page number so I can't simply request through ILL. Historian932 (talk) 17:58, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

In fact in the article "Great Britain" by the same author (Jay Winter) in Brill's Encyclopedia he states on page 34 that "...the mobilization of the home society also led to a drop in the mortality rate and to an increase in the living standard of most population groups." This sounds like a complete contradiction to saying Britain suffered an *increase* in the civilian mortality rate, no? Historian932 (talk) 18:37, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

His numbers are coming from Brill. He's saying that Brill's figures give the 1.3 percent for the UK, but there's no figures from Winter. IIRC, Brill uses the official German estimate for excess mortality which would give around 1.2% for Germany, which is less than Brill's own figures for the UK. It does seem like on this point there's a disagreement between Winter and Kramer in that yeah, Winter doesn't buy the Brill figures for the UK and thinks it's a lot lower. That said Kramer also has estimates from other authors on say, Italy that give higher numbers. My feeling is that the key difference is that Kramer likes to use values inclusive of disease whereas Winter makes a big effort to eliminate the impact of influenza. There's reasonable arguments both ways, I think. I think both Kramer and Winter are quite credible historians - personally I'd be happy with toning down that statement, though I think Kramer does strongly believe it. Fangz (talk) 10:50, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I found a deeper discussion of Winter's argument in his chapter in the Upheaval of war. I think the issue here is that his dataset only has overall male working class mortality. I.e. it's a demographic subset, and there's no military/civilian split. In his tables though, he had mortality increase for the entire period 1914-1918 for all age groups, with reductions in mortality only for a few specific years (later in the war, excluding flu, I think?). So when he's talking about a decline in mortality, perhaps he's talking about the change in mortality levels, not comparing "during the war, overall" to "prewar"? Fangz (talk) 11:11, 15 August 2024 (UTC)