File No. 763.72/2757
The Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs ( Skouloudis ) to Greek Diplomatic Officers in Neutral Countries
[Left at the Department of State by the Greek Chargé, June 19.]
The Royal Hellenic Government deems it its duty to denounce to the governments of the neutral states the treatment to which the maritime commerce of Greece is subjected by the Entente powers in disregard of the traditional principles of law and equity observed in international relations. Since May 24/June 6, 1916, the Greek coasts are actually in a state of partial blockade; all vessels under the Hellenic flag met by Allied ships cruising in Greek waters have been stopped, detained in one of the naval bases arbitrarily established in Greece by the belligerents, and then released for the most part with the sole liberty of resuming mere coastwise trade. At the same time all vessels under the Hellenic flag which in the course of regular voyages were found in ports of England, France, Italy, and Egypt were authoritatively prevented from leaving. Lastly a number of large-sized Greek ships thus seized by Allied cruisers were compelled to go to Bizerta with a view to being used as transports for the Allies.
Surprised at these summary as well as arbitrary proceedings, the Royal Government lost no time in calling on the Entente powers for the cause thereof, but to its great amazement was unable officially [Page 37] to draw from them any plausible explanation. The fact nevertheless remains that it is confronting an extensive plan of blockade, embargo, and impressment—forcible measures agreed upon and carried out without any previous notice and without any indication of the ultimate purpose. Thus Greece witnesses the sudden stopping, paralyzing of her maritime commerce, the essential basis of her national economics and the sole source of her supplies, without even an opportunity, in her ignorance of the motives for such a treatment, to consider practical means of bringing that condition to an end. The Royal Government fails to find, in its acts as much as a semblance of a breach of the law which alone might afford a semblance of an explanation for the harsh reprisals that are brought to bear on Greece. It avers that the Entente powers have proceeded in contravention of the practice sanctioned for centuries in international relations by mere good sense, without having resorted to the formulas of representations or exhausted the other means of restoring the juridical order which they should at least claim to have been violated by Greece.
Facing a situation that is so extraordinarily irregular, the Royal Government has no other resort than that of lodging with the governments of the other neutral states, equally interested in the respect of law, the protests which it owes to itself to formulate against the violations from which it is made to suffer.