The unexpected success of these endeavours, which aimed at nothing less than concerted establishment of legal standards calculated to maintain the freedom of the seas and the interests of neutrals even in time of war, was not to be long enjoyed by the peoples concerned.
Hardly had the United Kingdom decided to take part in the war than it also began to break through the barriers with which it was confronted by the standards of international law.

While the Central Powers immediately on the outbreak of war had announced their intention of observing the Declaration of London, which also bore the signature of the British representative, England discarded the most important points in that Declaration.

In the endeavour to cut off the Central Powers from all supplies by sea, England gradually extended the list of contraband until it included everything now required by human beings for the maintenance of life.

Great Britain then placed all the coasts of the North Sea--an important transit-way also for the maritime trade of Austria-Hungary--under the obstruction of a so-called "blockade," in order to prevent the entry into Germany of all goods not yet inscribed on the contraband list, as also to bar all neutral traffic with those coasts, and prevent any export from the same.

That this method of proceeding stands in the most lurid contradiction to the standards of blockade law arrived at and established by international congress has already been admitted by the President of the United States in words which will live in the history of the law of nations.