LESSONS LEARNED IN LAST WAR

Southland Times, Issue 23922, 14 September 1939, Page 12

LESSONS LEARNED IN LAST WAR

METHODS IN TRADE BLOCKADE CHANGED CONDITIONS TO BE FACED The announcement that Britain has set up a Ministry of Economic Warfare and has established six contraband control bases around her coast and in the Mediterranean, together with FieldMarshal Goering’s confident declaration that Germany is invulnerable to blockade, are developments that might have been predicted as soon as war was declared, says a writer ‘ in The New Zealand Herald.

In the latter part of the Great War the Allies’ blockade of Germany and Austria-Hungary became a potent weapon and one that greatly hastened the end. Britain at the outset realized tile need for striking as hard a blow as possible at German economic life, and in particular for stopping supplies of war materials, but she had no intention of cutting off all kinds of commodities. A contraband list was drawn up, but in deference to the United States cotton was excluded from it for a year. RATIONING OF NEUTRALS The German submarine campaign began in February 1915, and in retaliation Britain declared an embargo on all German imports. Up to this point Germany had been receiving big quanties of foodstuffs through neutrals, including Italy, until the latter joined the Allies. At first the blockade was very far from effective, because little account was taken of the extraordinary increase in shipments to neutral countries. These were even swelled by exports from Britain. The restrictions were gradually tightened, however, and by 1916 a system of rationing had been adopted under which neutrals were enabled to import sufficient quantities of goods for their own needs only. Agreements were made with Holland and the Scandinavian countries, which set up trading associations as consignees of commodities under guarantee that they would not be re-exported to Germany. Britain was able to enforce these terms by what was known as “bunker control,” in other words, by the threat to refuse coal supplies on which the merchant shipping of Western Europe was then mainly dependent. The postal and telegraphic censorship also made it possible to blacklist and penalize foreign firms known tv be trading with the enemy. AMERICA JOINS IN

Even so, the blockade was not complete until America’- entry as a belligerent in 1917. Her Government immediately set out to enforce the system against which it had hitherto protested, and even more relentlessly than Britain. In the end the blockade came to be imposed at the sources of supply, and the control stations in the Downs and at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, ceased to be necessary. Although Germany throughout the war possessed all the credit required for ample foreign imports and managed until the end to keep up munition supplies, her lack of foodstuffs, especially fats, became severe by 1916. Recent testimony to this was given by Colonel Thomas, war economics expert to the German War Ministry, when he said:

“I can say openly that the war was lost for us when we entered upon the turnip winter of 1916-17.” Lack of important fertilizers, notably phosphates, also reduced domestic food production. Territorial conquests made by the Central Powers, in the Ukraine and Rumania in 1917, and earlier in Northeast Italy, gave a little. relief, but during the last 18 months of the struggle the German people suffered intense privations.

DIFFERENT CONDITIONS The conditions under which a blockade can be carried on in the present war differ considerably from those of 1914-18. Russia and Italy are now neutral. The former is a potential source of supply for Germany in foodstuffs, metals, phosphates and oil, although it has yet to be seen whether her exportable surpluses of these commodities are big enough to be of material help.

Some authorities consider that the oil output at Baku is barely enough to supply Russia’s own needs, and in any case is too far away to make rail transport practicable. Italy is capable of becoming a big import channel, and may possibly be much less amenable to pressure from Britain and France than were the smaller European countries in the Great War. However, the establishment of British contraband control stations at Gibraltar and Haifa suggests that an effort will be made to check the flow of goods to Germany through the Mediterranean. Swedish iron ore and Rumanian oil are obviously of great importance to Germany. It was stated last week that she woul I effect a large-scale exchange of coal tfor ore, but the British Ministry of Information commented that Britain had contracts for the sale of coal which would stand in the way of such a plan. Concerning oil, Germany’s present production from wells and the treatment of coal meets only one-third of

her peace-time needs. Rumania’s output, which is declining, about equals the normal imports into Germany, but nearly 90 per cent, of it is controlled by foreign companies,', principally Anglo-Dutch. Military action, against which there is an Anglo-French guarantee, would not overcome the difficulty, as was shown in 1917, when the wells and refineries were wrecked with the greatest thoroughness before the armies of the Central Powers could reach them. How the Nazis expect to provide the enormous quantities of oil required for modern war—far exceeding those of 1914-18—over an extended period has not been satisfactorily explained. That the whole problem of imported supplies is extremely grave can be estimated from Germany’s desperate efforts toward self-sufficiency over the past year or two. All authorities agree that her foreign trade position immediately before the war was very weak and that her credit and resources in gold and foreign exchange had reached a low ebb, whereas in 1914 they were abundant. It is not without reason that the British propaganda leaflets assert: “You have not the means to sustain protracted warfare.”