But the great mass of the
German people never heard this truth; and even their navy hoped to win
under the water a victory it had found impossible on top. So, for the
last two years of the war, the Germans worked their hardest at what
they called the "Submarine Blockade." As this "Blockade" forced the
United States into war, and as its failure showed the Germans that, in
the end, they had no more chance under water than on top, we can all
see now that Jutland turned the scale.
The British fleets blockading Germany of course seized and kept for the
Government, as spoils of war, whatever warlike stores (guns, shells,
and so on) they could lay their hands on. But all the other goods the
Navy stopped the Government bought, paying fair market prices. So the
American and other neutrals trying to trade with the enemy had really
nothing to complain of; for a blockade at sea is very like a siege on
land, and nobody has ever pretended that a besieging army has not a
perfect right to stop any supplies of any kind from reaching the
besieged.
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