during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, would seem to justify the opinion that such angary is now obsolete.1 Modern 365. In contradistinction to this obsolete right The to compel neutral ships and their crews to render Right of certain services, the modern right of angary consists Angary. in the right of belligerents to make use of, or destroy in case of necessity, for the purpose of offence and defence, neutral property on their own or on enemy territory or on the Open Sea. If property of subjects of neutral States is vested with enemy character,2 it is not neutral property in the strict sense of the term neutral, and all rules respecting appropriation, utilisation, and destruction of enemy property obviously apply to it. The object of the right of angary is such property of subjects of neutral States as retains its neutral character from its temporary position on belligerent territory and which therefore is not vested with enemy character. All sorts of neutral property, whether it consists of vessels or other 3 means of transport, or arms, ammunition, provisions, or other personal property, may be the object of the right of angary, provided the articles concerned are serviceable to military ends and wants. The conditions under which the right can be exercised are the same as those under which private enemy property can be utilised or destroyed, but in every case the neutral owner must be fully indemnified.a 1 See Article 39 of the "Règlement sur le régime légal des navires .. dans les ports étrangers" adopted by the Institute of International Law (Annuaire, XVII. 1898, p. 272): "Le droit d'angarie est supprimé, soit en temps de paix, soit en temps de guerre, quant aux navires neutres." 2 See above, § 92. 3 Thus in 1870, during the Franco-German War, the Germans seized hundreds of Swiss and Austrian railway carriages in France and made use of them for military purposes. 4 See article 6 of U.S. Naval War Code :-" If military necessity should require it, neutral vessels A remarkable case happened in 1871 during the Franco-German War. The Germans seized some British coal-vessels lying in the river Seine at Duclair, and sank them for the purpose of preventing French gunboats from running up the river. On the intervention of the British Government, Count Bismarck refused to recognise the duty of Germany to indemnify the owners of the sunk vessels, although he agreed to make indemnification. However, it may safely be maintained that a duty to pay indemnities for any damage done by exercising the right of angary must nowadays be recognised, since articles 52 and 53 of the Hague Regulations stipulate the payment of indemnities for the utilisation of private enemy railway plant, vessels, telephones, telegraphs, arms, and all kinds of war material, and, further, the payment, or at least the giving of a receipt, for requisitions. If, thus, the immunity of private enemy property is recognised, that of private neutral property must certainly be recognised also. It should be mentioned that article 54 of the Hague Regulations, enacting "the plant of railways coming from neutral States, whether the property of these States, or of companies, or of private persons, shall be sent back as soon as possible," indirectly recognises the right of angary, since it does not prohibit the use of neutral plant, but only requests it to be sent back as soon as possible. And that eventually indemnities must be paid for it, follows found within the limits of bellige. rent authority may be seized and destroyed, or otherwise used for military purposes, but in such cases the owners of the neutral vessels must be fully recompensed. The amount of the indemnity should, if practicable, be agreed upon in advance with the owner or master of the vessel; due regard must be had for treaty stipulations upon these matters." See also, Holland, War, No. 24. indirectly out of the second part of article 53 of the Hague Regulations. Angary Neutrality. $366. Whatever the extent of the right of angary Right of may be, it does not derive from the law of neutrality. riv The correlative duty of a belligerent to indemnify ing from the neutral owner of property appropriated or destroyed by the exercise of the right of angary does indeed derive from the law of neutrality. But the right of angary itself is rather a right deriving from the law of war. As a rule this law gives, under certain circumstances and conditions, the right to a belligerent to appropriate enemy property only, but under other circumstances and conditions, and exceptionally, it likewise gives a belligerent the right to appropriate and destroy neutral property. tion of Neutral Good's according $367. Those Continental writers who do not re- Pre-emp cognise the existence of so-called conditional contraband maintain that, according to the right of angary, every belligerent has a right to stop all such neutral to Right vessels as carry provisions and other goods with a hostile destination, and to seize such goods on payment of indemnities. The point will be discussed below in § 406. of Angary. CHAPTER III BLOCKADE Definition of Blockade. I CONCEPTION OF BLOCKADE Grotius, III. c. 1, § 5-Bynkershoek, Quaest. jur. publ. I. c. 2-15— maritimes of International Law. § 368. Blockade is the blocking of the approach to the enemy coast or a part of it by men-of-war1 for 1 When in 1861, during the American Civil War, the Federal Government blocked the harbour of Charleston by sinking ships laden with stone, the question arose whether a so-called stoneblockade is lawful. There ought to be no doubt-see below, § 380 that such a stone-blockade is not a blockade in the ordinary sense of the term, and that neutral ships cannot be seized and confiscated for having attempted egress or ingress. But, on the the purpose of preventing ingress and egress of vessels of all nations. Through blockading a coast a belligerent endeavours to intercept all intercourse, and especially commercial intercourse, by sea between the coast and the world at large. Although blockade is, as shown above in §§ 173 and 174, a means of warfare against the enemy, it concerns neutrals as well, because the ingress and egress of neutral vessels are thereby interdicted and may be punished. Blockade in the modern sense of the term is an institution which could not develop1 before neutrality was in some form a recognised institution of the Law of Nations, and before the freedom of neutral commerce was in some form guaranteed. But it took several hundred years for the institution of blockade to reach its present condition, since, until the beginning of the nineteenth century, belligerents frequently made use of so-called paper blockades, which are no longer valid, a blockade now being binding only if effective. It is on account of the practical importance of blockade for the interests of neutrals that the matter is more conveniently treated together with neutrality than together with war. And it must be emphasised that blockade as a means of warfare must not be confounded with so-called pacific blockade, which is a means of compulsive settlement of State differences. strategic § 369. A blockade is termed strategic if it forms Blockade part of other military operations directed against the and comcoast which is blockaded, or if it is declared in order mercial. other hand, there ought to be no doubt either that this mode of obstructing an enemy port is as lawful as any other means of sea warfare, provided the blocking of the harbour is made known so that neutral vessels can avoid the danger of being wrecked. See It dates from the end of the |