Map 29: Britain Establishes the Blockade

[Hauksbee]

                The British blockade the German Empire

This map illustrates the meanderings of the HMS Orvieto, one of the British ships assigned to Northern Patrol — the main naval operation dedicated to enforcing a British blockade of Germany and her allies. The blockade was meant to halt Germany's trade with the Western Hemisphere and it was so successful that it led to very little drama. Exporters in the Americas didn't like the blockage, but they didn't seriously try to challenge it either. And with Britain and France diverting manpower to the war, both major Allied powers started demanding more imports, which created new markets for commodity producers. Unlike 19th-century blockades that were limited to war materiel or cash crops, the British considered everything — including food — to be contraband of war. The blockade severely stressed the Central Powers' economies. Most important, however, was the blockade's interaction with global diplomacy. When the British attempted a similar blockage against Napoleonic France, the United States became embroiled in conflict with Britain leading to the War of 1812. The World War I blockade, by contrast, merely tightened the US-UK commercial relationship: the Wilson administration essentially respected the blockade of Europe while protesting Germany's efforts to use submarines to stymie American trade with Britain.

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(It's a pretty confused looking map. Sorry. [Hauksbee])