Suchergebnisse

The scope of activities covered by the rules of unneutral service is much more limited than one might casually suppose from the term itself. As determined by practice, the activities included are only those of privately owned vessels, committed in such a way as to afford actual assistance to a belligerent force, and of such a nature as to constitute a hostile action for which the agent might be found responsible.

The outbreak of the European War found hundreds of merchant vessels of belligerent nationality in enemy ports or on the high seas bound to or from such ports in ignorance of the existence of hostilities, having left their last port of departure before the outbreak of war. The short period antedating the outbreak of the war, during which hostilities may be said to have been imminent, and the suddenness with which the war burst out afforded little opportunity to such vessels to escape, and consequently large numbers were caught either in enemy ports or on the high seas proceeding innocently thereto or therefrom.

On February 4, 1915, the German Admiralty published the following decree:
The waters around Great Britain, including the whole of the English Channel, are declared hereby to be included within the zone of war, and after the 18th inst. all enemy merchant vessels encountered in these waters will be destroyed, even if it may not be possible always to save their crews and passengers.Within this war zone neutral vessels are exposed to danger, since, in view of the misuse of the neutral flags ordered by the Government of Great Britain on the 31st ult. and of the hazards of naval warfare, neutral vessels cannot always be prevented from suffering from the attacks intended for enemy ships.The route of navigation around the north of the Shetland Islands, in the eastern part of the North Sea, and in a strip thirty miles wide along the Dutch Coast are not open to the danger zone.

By an order in council issued on the 4th of August, 1914, the British Government announced a list of articles which it proposed to treat as contraband "during the war with the German Emperor"; by an order of August 12th the first mentioned order was extended to the war with "the Emperor of Austria—King of Hungary," and by an order of September 21st certain additions were made to the list of contraband articles published in the two preceding orders. By an order in council of October 29th the list of contraband articles in the earlier proclamations was withdrawn in consequence of the complaint of the Swedish Government that it included metallic ores, which were on the free list in the Declaration of London, and that the treatment of such articles as contraband would seriously injure Swedish trade. A new list was therefore substituted, from which ores were omitted.

When the entire course of a river passes through the territory of but a single state, it is generally agreed that a right of exclusive control is possessed by the territorial sovereign which may, therefore, bar the navigation of the stream by foreign nations. Any privileges of transit enjoyed by their vessels are always understood to be subject to the consent of the local state. Thus, with respect to such rivers as the Mississippi and the Hudson, foreign countries enjoy no right of navigation.