1 - Doing the Necessary: The Declaration of London and British Strategy, 1905–1915

Summary

The Declaration of London (DOL) has been struck from the study of power politics and British policy, although it illuminates international law, and the links between diplomacy and naval strategy between 1905-15. The DOL illuminates British and German war plans before 1914; the links between humanitarianism, law and realpolitik; how the relationship between ideology, bureaucratic politics, diplomacy and naval policy, shaped British strategy; and how the failure of sea law drove the radicalization of economic warfare. This study will address those questions, and thus the evolution of the distinction between the civilian and the military. It shows how, during peacetime, states sought to use international law as a tool of power politics, and why, soon after the great war began, they adopted terrible campaigns of economic warfare. During 1914-15, law gave maritime war a jagged edge. Law links morality and strategy, in paradoxical ways: its letter triggered unrestricted submarine warfare and the hunger blockade.