CHAPTER XV 
BLOCKADE 
REGULAR BLOCKADES 
Sec. 451. Importance of Blockade During the World War. 
In consequence of the fact that all the important maritime 
States were participants in the late war, blockade, like the 
measures for the interception of contraband, played an important 
role. It is somewhat singular, however, that Great Britain and 
France, the two principal belligerents on the one side, did not 
have recourse to blockade measures against Germany, the prin- 
cipal belligerent on the other side, until after the war had 
been in progress for some seven months. Until then they con- 
tented themselves, in the main, with the employment of their 
power to prevent contraband goods from going to their chief 
adversary. Since the category of contraband was extended to 
embrace nearly all commodities which were capable of serving 
either the civil or military necessities of the enemy the measures 
adopted to intercept the transportation of such commodities to 
enemy country accomplished in large measure the same object 
for which recourse to blockade is had. 
Sec. 452. Departures from the Existing Rules and Prac- 
tice. When recourse to blockade came to be adopted it took 
two forms: First, the regular form customarily followed by bel- 
ligerents in the past and, in the main, applied in accordance 
with the established rules of international law governing the 
exercise of the right of blockade; and, second, blockade applied 
as a measure of reprisal and under a form not in accord with the 
law or practice of the past. The blockade of Greece, at the time 
a neutral power, by Great Britain and France for the purposes 
of coercion may be mentioned as a third exceptional form. 
At the outset, all the belligerent powers manifested a dispo- 
sition to exercise the right of blockade in accordance with the 
A491