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First Years of the World War (1914-1916) 623 II. THE WAR ON. THE SEA 1127. Extinction of German Commerce. It was the war on the sea that raised the chief problems for the world at large. At the beginning of the war many people supposed that there would soon be a great and perhaps decisive naval engagement between the German and British fleets, but no such thing happened. 1 The Germans kept their dreadnaughts safe in their harbors, protected by cruisers and mines. The German merchant ships took shelter at home or in neutral ports. So German commerce was soon cut off altogether, and England ruled the ocean. Had it not been for the recently discovered and rapidly improved submarines, or U-boats, as they were popularly called, the Germans would have been helpless against the British control of the seas. It was this new kind of warfare that largely determined the course of the conflict of the nations. 1128. The Blockade and the Submarine. It was easy for England to block the German ports of Hamburg and Bremen, the egress from the Kiel Canal, and the outlet from the Baltic with- out violating the established principles of international law. But the German submarines could still steal out and sink English merchant ships and manage now and then to torpedo a great war vessel. Great Britain claimed the right under these new condi- tions of naval warfare to force all neutral ships bound for the neutral ports of Holland, Norway, and Sweden to stop and be inspected at Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands, to see if they were carrying contraband of war namely, munitions and materials to be used directly or indirectly for military ends and to make sure that their cargoes were not really destined for Germany. The British soon declared that all shipments of foodstuffs to Germany would be deemed absolute contraband of war, since feeding her fighting men was as necessary for her continuing the war as supplying them with munitions. i On May 31, 1916, a portion of the German fleet ventured out of the Baltic and fell in with a strong detachment of the British fleet. After a few hours the mist, smoke, and darkness put an end to the fight, and no decision was reached.