BLOCKADE AND SEA POWER—The Blockade, 1914-19, and its Significance for a World State. By Maurice Parmelee, Ph.D. New York: Thomas G. Crowell Company, 1924. Octavo, 460 pages. $3.00.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral Richard Wainwright, U. S. Navy, Ret.
In his preface the author, speaking of the World War, says: “Historians will be gathering the necessary facts for many decades. Now is the time to furnish them all of the available information for a dispassionate account.” In Part I he furnishes many valuable facts for the future historians and for naval officers in regard to this remarkable blockade of the Central Powers by the Allied and Associate Nations. He is well equipped to supply these facts as he was one of the representatives of the United States War Trade Board in London, a member of the American delegation to the Allied Blockade Committee and the American delegate to the Allied Rationing and Statistical Committee. He visited Germany and Austria in order to study the effects of the blockade and afterwards was detailed to Berlin to report on economic conditions in Germany. While he has made good use of his opportunities, however, in his efforts “to be scrupulously fair to both groups of belligerents” he has not fully shown the unscrupulous injuries inflicted on neutrals by both groups; and he offsets the inhuman acts of Germany by the injuries inflicted on the people of the Central Powers by the blockade . . . “in this book I have shown that the recent blockade was a wholesale attempt to starve several nations, as barbarous in its nature as the other phases of this inhuman and bestial European War.” This inability to see the difference between the injuries inflicted by war, as conducted by the Allies following the Geneva Conventions, and war as conducted by the Germans, ignoring all conventions and humane rules, was to be expected from a confessed internationalist.
In his second chapter he gives an account of the Declaration of London, and says: “It will doubtless be improved upon in the future, especially in view of the lessons to be learned from the European War. But it is unquestionably the best and most authoritative statement of international law concerning blockade up to the present time.” This statement is incorrect as naval opinion in the United States was unfavorable to the Declaration of London, although not sufficiently strong to prevent its ratification; but in Great Britain naval opinion prevailed and parliament refused to ratify the declaration. Moreover, while Great Britain, after repeated pressure from the United States at the beginning of the war, did adopt the Declaration of London, with reservations, as experience was gained in the war it was found necessary to make new reservations until finally all adherence to the Declaration of London was withdrawn and it was declared that Great Britain and her allies would be bound by the rules of international law as established prior to the London Convention. The declaration was the result of a series of compromises and not a statement of the rules as established by the decisions of prize courts, and its rules served greatly to restrict the power of a superior fleet.
In the following chapters of Part I, the author shows how the generally accepted laws of war were expanded until “the longer this game was continued the more reckless and unprincipled did both sides become, and by the end of the war few vestiges of international law remained in operation in the practice and policies of both groups of belligerents.” The right of visitation and search was extended to mean seizure, search and detention, and release without trial. The doctrine of continuous voyage was expanded beyond the question of final destination to the question of possible substitutes. Commodities were subject to seizure that might be used as substitutes by the neutral to replace other commodities shipped to enemy countries. A close blockade became a virtual blockade off neutral coasts. Finally, the neutral was subjected to a system of rationing that prevented nearly all shipments to the Central Powers, and in answer to our many objections to the invasion of neutral rights Great Britain replied: “It would seem to be a fair reply to such a contention that new devices for dispatching goods to the enemy must be met by new methods of applying, the fundamental and acknowledged principle of the right to intercept such trade.” Thus the right of neutrals to trade with an enemy under certain restrictions was swept away. (Also: “The measures taken by the Allies are aimed at preventing commodities of any kind from reaching or leaving German ports.”0
The author also shows the various committees formed to carry out the measures necessary to make the blockade effective, the allied agreements with neutral countries, the pressure exerted on neutrals to force these agreements, and the effect and military success of the allied blockade. One of the reasons for the failure of the blockade to be a complete success, not mentioned by Mr. Parmelee, may be found in the protests from our State department and in the revelations of the British Naval Attaché to Sweden, de shows how large supplies reached Germany from England through Sweden, of the very commodities that neutrals were prevented from sending to Sweden, causing the reasonable suspicion to arise that an improper use was made of the seizure of the papers and detention of neutral vessels.
Many statistics are given that serve to show the serious effect of the blockade on the Central Powers and the great advantage of superior sea Power.
Part II takes up historical incidents to show the evil uses to which sea Power has been put. It contains a brilliant review of the League of Nations and the author’s plan for a World State that is to bring peace on earth, if adopted with the coercive measures necessary to prevent war. The chapters of Part II are permeated with pacifism and internationalism. The author speaks of the writer of Sea Power, as “the notorious Admiral Mahan.” He decries all armament because it has been used to abet tyranny, just as a Red would do away with the police force because some innocent men had been beaten up by brutal policemen.
Speaking of the dangers of rivalry, Mr. Parmelee says: “Since the termination of the European War is 'to be observed a similar effect of the even greater British postwar navy upon the naval program and ambitions of the United States.” Yet since this war we have had the Washington Conference, the first great step toward general peace by the limitation of naval armaments and now great American battleships, partially completed, are being destroyed. It is a pity that Mr. Parmelee has not used his extensive knowledge of facts and great ability as a writer in the cause of rational limitation of armaments rather than to advocate the abolition of all arms. Peace is the aim of all sound thinkers; but while the majority believe in the slow evolution toward better things, the idealist; the pacifist and the internationalist would use revolutionary methods that could only serve to retard if not to destroy present progress. They would hustle aside the natural laws as decreed by a higher power in favor of their own intellectual fantasies.
The author’s World State is one of these fantasies. As armaments are used in war, away with armaments—this in spite of the example of China. The so-called capitalistic scheme of government produces rivalry and competition, away with capitalism, try socialism even communism—this in spite of the evil plight of Russia. He installs a World Parliament where a war of words will soon lead to a war of arms, and as all the present barriers are to be swept away, barbarous war will follow.
Blockade and Sea Power is well worth reading. The facts are valuable and the fancies will injure no one. The majority of thinking Americans believe in helping Europe in peace, but remaining aloof from her wars. The advocates of the League of Nations will not like his exposition of its faults and the fanatic fringe that Colonel Roosevelt says accompanies all reforms cannot be imposed by his theories. Universal peace is a beautiful ideal but humanity improves slowly and it must be many years before the lamb can lie down alongside, and not inside, the lion.
MEMOIRS OF THOMAS O. SELFRIDGE, JR., REAR ADMIRAL U. S. NAVY. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1924. $2.50.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral C. F. Goodrich, U. S. Navy, Ret.
After reading this unusually interesting book, the reviewer laid it down, wishing, for the thousandth time, that more of our old officers had committed their memories to writing for the benefit of their successors and as a powerful means of educating the American people in appreciation of the Navy’s splendid work in peace as well as in war. Too often the latter fail to realize that they are the Navy’s owners and, alone, are at fault if it is allowed to lapse into inadequacy or inefficiency. They are prompt to blame it in disaster but averse to admitting their own responsibility for keeping it always prepared for any emergency. Hence Admiral Selfridge’s autobiography is especially timely.
The author of these enjoyable reminiscences inherited his name and love of the sea from his father, who was a distinguished naval officer. His father reached the head of the retired list. The son tarried long next to it, after a most useful and eminently creditable career afloat and ashore beginning, in 1851, as number one of the first class to be graduated at Annapolis under the then new system of a four years’ course at that institution. With Just pride he claimed to “being the pioneer graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy.”
The reader (and it is hoped that every graduate may be so designated) will note that, when less than twenty years old, even at night, he had charge of the deck of the razee Independence and a watch of about two hundred fifty men. The reviewer holds firmly to the belief that the earlier responsibility is put upon a man the better it is for him and the reviewer deprecates the present system of graduation at too advanced an age. May it not be that Selfridge’s youthful assumption of responsibility was no small factor in his achievement during the Civil War, when surveying the Isthmus of Darien, and as commanding officer?
Bearing on this point, read his account, when captain of the Nipsic in 1868, of forcing the Spanish authorities at Trinidad, Cuba, to clear an American barque, illegally held by the local Collector of Customs, threaten- U'S to take possession of the Customs House and tow the vessel out of port. Such an action required backbone, a quality with which Selfridge was abundantly endowed.
Again, ten years later, he was sent to survey the Madeira River, that great tributary of the Amazon, whose waters were barred to foreign shipping unless specifically permitted. On arriving at his scene of operations he found that the necessary permit, promised him in Washington, had not been issued. Did this deter him? Not in the least. He blandly remarks: "I concluded to take the bull by the horns and go ahead with the work, Paving it to my superiors to explain.” Surely a praiseworthy spirit. His course was approved by his own government and also by that of Brazil.
Had he possessed the power in 1861, he would, unquestionably, have evacuated the Norfolk Navy Yard in time and have removed the ships there subsequently burnt) and have saved the Merrimac which, later, under the Confederate flag, destroyed the Congress and his own frigate the Cumberland. His plan was rejected, presumably on the score of his youthful rashness!
His chapter, Cumberland and Merrimac, is a graphic report of that one sided but gallant fight in which the Cumberland went down with colors flying. No less thrilling is his story, as an eye-witness, of the epoch-making battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac. For a short four or five days he held the command of the former in succession to the wounded Worden. A fine example of service loyalty he set in his reception of the officer sent by the Navy Department to relieve him. As “Lieutenant Jeffers was many years the senior, I could have no objection to his superseding me” although, inadvertently, the Monitor had been given to him by Mr. Fox, the Assistant Secretary, whose embarrassment he so promptly and courteously dispelled.
From the standpoint of today’s "knowledge, his brief experience on board the Alligator, a submarine propelled by man power, seems vastly amusing. With her sinking, there was ushered in a period of active, exciting and well performed war duty on the Mississippi. His professional merits and energy were recognized in the command of the powerful, ironclad gun boat Cairo which did excellent service until sunk by a “torpedo” (or mine as it is now called). Being too good an officer to keep unemployed or on shore, Admiral Porter, commander-in-chief, lost no time in assigning him to the Conestoga, a much less formidable craft than the Cairo. She was chiefly “engaged in patrolling the Mississippi to guard the army’s supplies.”
Selfridge’s vision and resourcefulness were brought into play at a certain point projecting in the river where “guerillas” were particularly active against passing transports. Perceiving that the river had greatly risen and had flooded the narrow neck connecting the point and the mainland, “it occurred to me that if even a small flow of water could be started across this neck, a deep channel would soon be eroded by the river itself, thus affording a short cut between the limits of any station.” To visualize was, with Selfridge, to act. “A boat’s crew made short work of digging the necessary few hundred yards of ditch and before many hours a raging torrent was rapidly enlarging the cut, carrying away even large trees.” Such was the genesis of “Selfridge’s Cut” which completely foiled the “guerillas” and made safe the passage of that part of the river.
The Conestoga’s boilers requiring extensive repairs, she returned to Cairo where Selfridge took command of the Manitou, a side wheel gun boat, converted from a river steamer, on which he cooperated with Sherman’s army in the siege of Vicksburg. Indeed he actually landed his two 8-inch guns and planted them on Sherman’s right where, as Admiral Porter states, the “battery was worked with marked ability and elicited the warmest praise from the commanding general.”
Later, while guarding the Mississippi near the mouth of the Red River, a company of Confederates annoyed him greatly by rifle fire from behind the protection of the levee. Here again his ingenuity found its opportunity. Moving his ship to a distance, he anchored and then elevating his guns to their limit, he opened fire on the enemy with reduced charges. “In this way, by trial and error, after a few shots he managed to land two shells in their midst, apparently wounding some of them, and they retreated in short order. Probably this is one of the very few occasions when naval guns have been used as mortars.”
For a third time in this war, his ship was sunk, the Conestoga being accidentally rammed by another vessel.
His next command was a stern wheel iron clad, the Osage. It is significant his personality that her crew “was augmented by the fourteen volunteers who had kept with me since the days of the Alligator." Can a finer compliment be imagined?
River navigation presents difficulties not encountered in deep sea cruising, a fact illustrated in Selfridge s admirable story of the part the Navy took a the Red River Expedition and of the saving of some of its units when entrapped by the falling waters.
Later, through the fault of the pilot, the Osage grounded hopelessly, Selfridge proceeded in person to report the mishap to Porter, who immediately gave him the large, swift ram, Vindicator, which he retained until he went east with Porter to share in the attacks on Fort Fisher and to lead one of the three divisions of blue jackets in their gallant but futile assault—doomed from its very inception.
The problem of where to construct a ship canal across Central America lad engaged the academic attention of the American people for generations hut it began to assume national importance in the late ’6o’s of the nineteenth century. Several routes were suggested but none could be selected until a11 had been thoroughly surveyed. To Selfridge fell the task of finding a Practical way through Darien, the most southerly of the isthmuses in those parts. How carefully he studied, in advance, the various questions which he must solve and how complete were his preparations may be learned from his remarks: “An even greater danger than that to be expected from the natives was the notorious unhealthiness of the isthmus. Of all tropical regions it had the worst reputation for sickness. Provision against this involved proper foods and clothing, as well as medicines, camp equipment, mosquito netting, work routine, etc.” With just pride he added: “The excellence of the foresight and preparations is evidenced by the fact that during three successive survey seasons not a single man died from tropical sickness, notwithstanding that frequently more than 150 men were in the field, many of them for two months at a time, exposed to constant wet and *e most fatiguing labor.” Again, “the success of the expedition depended upon extraordinary persistence and willingness to endure hardships. The tropical sun, torrential rains, floods, raging currents, swamps, dense vegetation, poisonous snakes, blood-sucking bats, tarantulas, scorpions, hornets, Wild cats, sand flies, and mosquitoes so thick that I have seen them put out a lighted candle with their burnt bodies, all were to test our resolution to the utmost.”
The result of this work which he himself considered to be “the most notable of my naval career” was embodied in his report of a practical route up the Atrato River, then parallel to its tributary, the Napipi and to the valley of the Doguado and by a three-mile tunnel through the Cordillera to the Pacific side, thence down a series of locks to sea level. Three objections caused the rejection of this site. It was too far south, other things home and prosperous farm, and went to sea in search of adventures—and found so many. He ran his course in something less than three score years, but those were crowded years in which he experienced every vicissitude of a sailor’s life “of want and plenty, of peace and strife.”
When he was sixteen he was in command of a merchantman in the Mediterranean, and was compelled by a Spanish admiral to join an attack on Algiers. He served as an officer in the State Navies of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and also in the Federal Navy, and according to Mr. Paine, he and not John Paul Jones displayed for the first time the American flag with its thirteen stripes. He commanded many private ships, and in later years accepted a commission in the French Navy as chef de division des armees navales, and for this he was severely censured at home.
He had as many adventures as the Apostle Paul. Like the saint he was cast into prison, was a night and a day in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of water, in perils of city, in perils by his own countrymen and in perils of the wilderness. Five times he was captured at sea by the British, and he suffered the tortures of a prison ship that took him to England. His thrilling escape from the Old Mill Prison at Plymouth is comparable to Casanova’s famous escape from the Plombs in Venice. He fought in seventeen battles in the Revolution, and in nine in the War of 1812, and was victorious in all except the last—the battle, so-called, of Bladensburg, where, at the head of a handful of blue jackets and marines, he held his ground against the rush of British troops which scattered General Winder and his militia like chaff before the wind.
Barney loved society and pleasure, and wherever he went he met interesting people. In Paris Benjamin Franklin was fond of him, and presented him at court where he became a favorite. He was too level headed to be overcome by the splendors of Versailles, or awed by its etiquette. He kissed the cheek of Marie Antoinette and dined with Louis XVI; on another visit to Paris he had an audience with Napoleon and saluted the hand of the Empress Josephine.
He visited George Washington at Mt. Vernon and accompanied General and Mrs. Washington to the inaugural ceremonies in New York City, and thus became the first naval aide to a President of the United States. Robert Morris was deeply attached to him, and was his strongest friend in days of adversity, of which he saw many. He was a friend of John Paul Jones who on one occasion accompanied him across the Atlantic to Plymouth. This landing in England was a bold thing even for that eagle, for the Revolution was still fresh in the minds of the English, and Paul Jones, who had raided their coasts, was neither forgotten nor forgiven. Later, as commodore in the French Navy, Barney was in Haiti during the anarchy of 1798. There he became the friend and adviser of the celebrated Toussaint L’ouverture.
Joshua Barney’s place in history is marked by his capture of the General Monk and the affair at Bladensburg. The former was a brilliant action, fought with consummate skill from start to finish, and Mr. Paine is at his best in telling the story of this wonderful fight and victory over tremendous odds. At Bladensburg, although a sailor on horseback, he distinguished himself by his courage and tenacity; his horse was shot under him, and he received a bullet in the thigh which he carried to the grave.
He was a high strung, sensitive man who often saw slights where none were intended. His temper led him to resign twice from the Navy for fancied unjust treatment in questions of promotion. After the War of 1812, he declined a captain’s commission in the Navy because he was made junior to Silas Talbot, whom he considered more soldier than sailor. He resigned from the service and went to France.
His last venture was to move his family to his forest possessions in Kentucky, but he died on the way and was buried at Pittsburgh.
It is a wonderful story. Would it be infra dig to suggest that it would make an extraordinary film? Certainly it would be an educational one of high value.
The book is attractive in form, but why did the proof readers allow the incorrect spelling of Commodore Truxtun’s name to escape them?
Editor’s Note: A correction should be made in Lieut. Comdr. Frost’s review of “Narrative of the Battle of Jutland,” in the December issue of the Proceedings. On page 2141, first line of paragraph four, the word “submarine” should read “destroyer.”