File No. 841.801/110
The British Ambassador ( Spring Rice) to the Secretary of State
Sir: The attention of His Majesty’s Government has been drawn to the use of the words “danger area,” in the recent British proclamations respecting mine fields in the North Sea,1 which, it is pointed out, somewhat resemble the German expression “danger zone.”
I have received instructions from my Government to communicate to you the following explanations in regard to this matter:—
[Page 1761]No true comparison can be drawn between the “danger area” proclaimed by His Majesty’s Government, and the “danger zone” proclaimed by the German Government. The British proclamation is directed against submarines engaged avowedly in cruel and illegal depredations; whereas the German proclamation is directed against lawful trade. The first represents an area determined by the actual laying of mines or other obstructions permitted by the laws of war. The second is limited only by the whim of the naval authorities at Berlin. The German “danger zone” is already twenty times as large as the British “danger area,” and could be indefinitely increased without laying down a single new mine, or launching a single new submarine. Since it can be thus extended or contracted at will, His Majesty’s Government think that any appeal for the maintenance of a gap between it and the area in which British mines are laid1 should in the first instance be addressed not to His Majesty’s Government but to the Imperial German Government.
My Government have instructed me in communicating the above explanations to you to express the hope that any misunderstanding which may have arisen in this connection may hereby be fully removed.
I have [etc.]
- Foreign Relations, 1917, Supplement 1, pp. 518–519 and 520.↩
- Papers relating to representations to this effect made by the Netherland Government not printed.↩