generally accepted rules of international law, as they are set forth in the Declaration of London (Arts. 1-21), but very soon modifications of these rules, constituting what were regarded by neutrals as grave infringements upon their rights, were introduced by Orders in Council and decrees, issued notably by the governments of Great Britain and France. The modifications consisted in the establishment of new presumptions of the knowledge of the existence of blockade, the extension of the doctrine of continuous voyage to blockade running and, in the case of the United States, the reintroduction of the rule that a vessel which sails with an intent to evade a blockade is liable to capture from the moment she appears on the high seas (Instructions for the Navy, 1917, art. 31).1 Sec. 453. Examples of Regular Blockades. During the early months of the war a number of blockades were proclaimed and established in accordance with the conventional and customary rules governing the exercise of the right of blockade. The first of these appears to have been the blockade by AustriaHungary on August 10, 1914, of the coast of Montenegro.2 The second was the blockade on August 27, 1914, of certain parts of the coast of Kiau-Chau by Japan. The third was the blockade on February 28, 1915, by Great Britain of the coast of German East Africa and the adjacent islands. The fourth was the blockade on April 23, 1915, by the commander of the naval forces of the allied powers off the west coast of Africa, of certain parts of the coast of the Cameroons. The fifth was the blockade by Italy on May 26, 1915, of the Austro-Hungarian coast extending northward to the coast of Montenegro and southward to certain points, and also the coast of Albania (then neutral, 5 See especially the British Orders in Council of October 29, 1914, of March 30, 1916, and July 7, 1916; the French "Instructions of January 30, 1910 (Sec. 76), and the decree of April 12, 1916 (Sec. 2) and the Italian Rules of March 25, 1917, Arts. 34-37. The most important departure from the Declaration of London, aside from the new presumptions relative to the knowledge of blockade, which was introduced by these orders and decrees was that the principle of continuous voyage or ultimate destination should be applicable both to the carriage of contraband and of blockade running. Germany, Russia, Japan, and Austria-Hungary, however, do not appear to have introduced this rule, although Germany and Japan introduced new presumptions regarding knowledge of the existence of blockade. Article 79 of the German Prize Code in fact expressly excluded the application of the doctrine of continuous voyage to blockade, and in this respect it was in accord with article 19 of the Declaration of London. The rule embodied in the Austro-Hungarian Dienstbuch (Sec. XXI-Ia) was identical with that of the German Prize Code. The American "Instructions" of 1917 conformed in this respect to the Declaration of London. Text of the blockade proclamation in 22 Rev. Gén. de Droit Int. Pub. (1915) Docs., p. 74. 3 Text, ibid., p. 145. Ibid., p. 120. 'Ibid., p. 130, and ibid., 1916, pp. 125, 127. at least nominally) northward to the frontier of Montenegro.1 In the following month this blockade was extended to embrace the entire Adriatic Sea. The sixth was the blockade on June 2, 1915, by Great Britain (and by France on June 6) of certain parts of the coast of Asia Minor including the entrance to the Dardanelles. The seventh was the blockade on August 25, 1915, by the commander of the allied naval forces in the Mediter ranean of the coast of Asia Minor and of Syria from the Isle of Samos to the Egyptian frontier. The eighth was the blockade on October 16, 1915, by the same commander (and by the government of Italy), of the Ægean coast of Bulgaria. Finally, there was the blockade on September 16, 1916, by the same commander, of the coast of Macedonia (Greek territory and therefore neutral, at least nominally), from the mouth of the Struma River to the Greek frontier. There may have been others but if so they are unknown to the author. 5 The declarations proclaiming all these blockades indicated the date when they would go into effect; they specified the exact limits of the coasts to be blockaded; with the exception of the blockade of the Adriatic they specified the period or délai (it ranged from 24 hours to 10 days) during which neutral vessels found in the ports of the blockaded areas at the commencement of the blockade would be allowed to leave, and most, if not all of them, announced that a sufficient number of vessels would be stationed off the blockaded coasts to make the blockade effective. Sec. 454. Blockade of Neutral States, Albania and Greece. The validity of none of them appears to have been attacked except the Italian blockade of the Adriatic Sea, including the coast of Albania, and the allied blockade of Greece. The Italian blockade of the Adriatic would have prevented access to Italian ports on the Adriatic and to those of Montenegro, a state allied with Italy, but for a system of safe conducts by which trade with those ports was permitted, notwithstanding the blockade. Albania being neutral, at least at the time the blockade was Ibid., 1915, Docs., pp. 215, 220. Four days later the limits of the blockade of Albania were somewhat contracted. 4 Ibid., 1915, Docs., p. 216; also London Gazette, October 19, 1915. Ibid., 1916, Docs., p. 150, and ibid., 1917, p. 165; also 42 Clunet, p. 299. "Ibid., 1917, Docs., p. 53. The_Belgian Prize Commission, in the case of the Roelfina (Moniteur Belge, Jan. 17, 1920, p. 403), asserted that Great Britain, by a declaration in conformity with the Declaration of London, proclaimed a blockade of the coast of Belgium, then occupied by the German forces, but there appears to be no record of the formal establishment of any such blockade. established, the validity of the blockade so far as it prevented access to Albanian ports was contested, not however before the Italian Prize Commission, but by the Albanians themselves and by Austrian publicists.1 The Italian government, on the other hand, defended its validity on the ground that the Austro-Hungarian government made use of certain Albanian ports for the purpose of revictualling the Austrian fleet-a charge which the Austro-Hungarian government, however, formally denied. The situation of this petty state was, however, anomalous at the outset and if it may be considered as having been neutral, its neutrality undoubtedly ceased later on in consequence of its treatment by the belligerents on both sides. The blockade of Greece, nominally at least a neutral power at the time, by the fleets of Great Britain and France in December, 1916, was defended by the blockading powers on the ground that the Greek government at the time was not observing its obligations of neutrality but was permitting Greek territory and ports to be used as bases of supplies and operations by Germany and Austria-Hungary against the allied powers, that it permitted an extensive German propaganda to be carried on in the country against the allied cause, that it allowed the strongest fortification in Greece to be surrendered to the Bulgarians, that it handed over an army corps of 40,000 men to the Germans for "friendly internment," etc. The purpose of the blockade was to coerce the Greek government into compliance with various demands made upon it by the governments of Great Britain and France. It was therefore analogous to a pacific blockade and not, like the others, directed against an enemy belligerent, although like them it was applied to the ships of neutral powers, which is not recognized as permissible in the case of pacific blockade.2 II PRIZE JURISPRUDENCE RELATIVE TO BLOCKADE Sec. 455. The Question of Effectiveness. Prize cases involving questions of blockade were relatively rare during the The Continental Times of July 3, 1915, quoted Professor Lammasch as having denied the validity of the blockade and protests were made by groups of Albanians in the United States. 2 As to the circumstances which led to the establishment of this blockade and the defense put forward by the blockading powers, see my International Law and the World War, Vol. II, pp. 241 ff.; see also Ion, "The Hellenic Crisis," in 12 Amer. Jour. of Int. Law (1917), pp. 46 ff. and 327 ff., and Recouly, M. Jonnart en Grèce et l'abdication de Constantin (Paris, 1918). World War. The question of the effectiveness of blockade appears to have been directly raised only before the Italian Prize Commission. In a number of cases, most of them involving Greek vessels which sailed from the island of Corfu in the month of June, 1915, and were seized in the rayon d'action of the force blockading the Adriatic, by French torpedo boats coöperating with and acting under the orders of the Italian naval forces in the maintenance of the blockade, the claimants contended, inter alia, that the blockade which they were charged with attempting to violate was not effective, principally for the reason that it was maintained in part by French warships. The Prize Commission, however, refused to accept this argument. The contention of the claimants, it declared, was ill-founded for the simple reason that since the establishment of the blockade, without interruption, as was attested by the general staff of the army, a sufficient force had been maintained to prevent approach to the blockaded coast. The Prize Commission added that "the non-effectiveness of a blockade cannot be deduced from the circumstance that the seizure of Greek sailing vessels had been made by French vessels, since the latter were coöperating with the Italian forces in the maintenance of the blockade established by Italy and were under the direct and immediate dependence of the Italian military command, whose orders they executed, and the seizures had been made by them for the account of and in the interest of the Italian state. The Belgian Prize Council in the case of the Roelfina2 expressed at some length its opinion on the question of what constitutes an effective blockade, although the question was not directly involved in the case. The precise question at issue was the validity of the transfer of a vessel lying in the port of Bruges from an enemy to a neutral flag and in order to establish the invalidity of the transfer the Prize Commission maintained that the coast of Belgium then under German occupation was blockaded by Great Britain and that the blockade was effective in the sense of Article 2 of the Declaration of London. The right of a belligerent to blockade the ports and coasts of an allied power under enemy occupation, was, the Prize Commission asserted, recognized by Article 1 of the Declaration of London; that the alleged blockade of Belgium by Great Britain The Aghios Spiridon and Other Vessels, Fauchille et Basdevant, Jurispr. Ital., p. 5; also the Aghios Caralambos, ibid., p. 11; the Aghia Elene, ibid., p. 17, and the Posseidon, ibid., p. 21. "Moniteur Belge, Jan. 17, 1920, p. 403. had been maintained by Great Britain down to the date of the armistice with such effectiveness as to prevent access to or egress from Belgian ports; that it had been done by means of mines which barred access to the North Sea and by numerous cruisers which constantly patrolled the entrance to the North Sea while allied aeroplanes patrolled the Belgian coast day and night; that the English fleet with bases at Dover, Dunkirk, and other places on the English and French coasts had exercised a constant surveillance over the English Channel; that English submarines had aided in the work and that the blockade was so effective that no German vessel had ever attempted to enter or leave a Belgian port. Sec. 456. The Question of Notification. In two respects the Italian blockade of the Adriatic Sea does not appear to have conformed to the rules of the Declaration of London (Arts. 9-11) in that the proclamation establishing it did not specify the délai during which neutral vessels in the blockaded ports would be allowed to leave, nor was notification made to the local authorities by the commander of the blockading forces. In the above mentioned cases of the Greek vessels, which came before the Italian Prize Commission, the claimants relied in part upon the failure of the Italian authorities to observe these rules. But the Prize Commission rejected their arguments on this as on the other points raised. Adverting to the publication in the Gazzetta Ufficiale of the declaration of the blockade which prescribed the date of the commencement of the blockade and the geographical limits of the coast blockaded, the Prize Commission added that even if there had been an omission to prescribe the délai to be accorded neutral ships to leave the blockaded ports, this could have had no bearing on the question of the effectiveness of the blockade. As to the question of notification to neutral powers in accordance with Article 11 of the Declaration of London the Prize Commission asserted that notice had been given the Greek legation at Rome on the day of the declaration of the blockade. But as to the omission to give notice to the local authorities, the Prize Commission made no pronouncement. Sec. 457. Knowledge of the Existence of Blockade. Article 15 of the Declaration of London provides that in the absence of proof to the contrary knowledge of the blockade is presumed if the vessel left a neutral port subsequent to the notification of the blockade to the power to which such port belongs, proIvided that such notification is made in sufficient time. In the |