File No. 763.72/1268
No. 261]
[Enclosure—Translation]
Reply of the German Government to the protest of
the British Government against the laying of German mines
It has been brought to the knowledge of the German Government that
the British Government addressed a note to the neutral powers under
date September 20, 1914, protesting against the laying of German
mines. It is asserted in the protest that the mines were laid in a
way contrary to international law and in forbidden localities; that
they were not sufficiently anchored or under proper observance; and
were not notified to the neutrals in accordance with rule.
Furthermore, attention is called to the declarations of the first
German delegate at the Second Hague Peace Conference which are in
contradiction with such practice and likewise to the deliberate
injury to neutral trade which Germany’s action on the open sea is
alleged to involve.
The German Government makes the following reply to this protest:
I
In condemning the alleged German practice the British Government
relies on the eighth Hague convention of October 18, 1907, relative
to the laying of automatic submarine contact mines. It overlooks the
fact that under Article 7 of this convention its provisions do not
apply unless all the belligerents are parties to the convention. Now
Russia, which is allied with England, has not ratified the
agreement; it is therefore not binding by international law on any
of the participants in the present war.
Nevertheless the German Government has voluntarily held itself bound
by its provisions, with the exception of Article 2, with regard to
which France as well as Germany made express reservations. The
assertion of the British
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Government that these provisions have been violated by Germany is
emphatically denied.
II
1. The British Government finds it a breach of international law that
the German mines were apparently laid by fishing vessels, possibly
under neutral flag, under the pretense of following the ordinary
peaceable avocations of fishing. This assertion is incorrect and an
invention; the German mines were laid exclusively by German
warships.
2. The British Government complains that German mines were laid as
far as 50 miles from the British coast and not only on British but
neutral trade routes. The convention does not stipulate how far from
the coast and ports of an enemy mines may be anchored, and there is
no established practice in this respect in international law;
moreover, the English statement of the distance of the German mines
from the menaced coast is much exaggerated. The mines have been laid
as close as the conditions of the anchoring grounds and the
character of the coast permitted. The assertion that neutral trade
routes have been blocked is untrue; no German mines have been laid
in any trade route from the high seas to a neutral port.
3. The British protest maintains further that in numerous cases
German mines were found adrift without having become harmless. The
anchoring of mines by Germany has been carried out with all possible
precaution. If some have drifted from their moorings in consequence
of currents or storms, their number is certainly much smaller than
that of mines laid by England which have drifted ashore on the
Belgian and Dutch coasts and have caused damage there through their
undiminished explosive power.
4. The obligation of keeping mines under surveillance, which the
British Government complains has been violated, can naturally be
enjoined upon a belligerent only as long as he retains command over
that part of the seat of war where he has laid mines in a manner
permitted by international law. As a rule, therefore, this
obligation will apply only to defensive mines but not to offensive
mines. When a belligerent has properly laid offensive mines and has
duly notified their laying he is relieved of all further
responsibility.
5. In the British protest the charge is made that the German
Government never issued any proclamation as to the places where
mines were laid. This charge is not founded in fact. On August 7,
1914, the German Government communicated to all the neutral powers
that the trade routes to English ports would be closed by mines by
Germany.1 Neutral shipping was therefore notified of the fact of the
laying of the mines and the zones where it had to look out for
German mines. If the German Government did not give the exact
situation of the various mines, this may well be understood from the
conditions which forced the laying of the mines.
III
The volume of strong words and moral indignation with which the
British protest denounces the German Government to the neutral
powers is not, therefore, justified at all by Germany’s practice.
This protest is plainly nothing but a cloak to cover up the serious
violations of existing international law laid down in the
Declaration of London indulged in by England and a pretext to
prepare public opinion for the closing of the North Sea, contrary to
international law, which has since taken place and is equivalent in
its economic importance to a blockade of neutral coasts. In view of
these facts it is doubly remarkable that the British Government
constitutes itself the advocate of the “established and generally
accepted principle of the freedom of the seas for peaceful trade.”
Obviously in the eyes of England, which is at war, the only peaceful
trade is that neutral trade which brings goods to England, but not
that which carries or might carry goods to her opponents.
The German Government is convinced that the continual violation of
neutral trade by England will everywhere place the British protest
in its true light. The German Government is satisfied that for its
part, in taking the measures required by military exigency, it has
reduced, as far as possible, risk or injury to neutral shipping, and
has strictly followed the rules hitherto applied by civilized
nations to maritime warfare. On the other hand, the infringement of
vital neutral interests by England is capable of justification by no
military
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exigency, since
it has no connection with any military operations and is merely
intended to strike at the economic system of the adversary by
crippling legitimate neutral trade. This fundamental disregard of
the very freedom of the seas which it has invoked deprives the
British Government of any right to appear as the advocate of this
freedom in the question of the laying of mines, which is far less
injurious to neutrals.
Berlin
,
November 7, 1914.
