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Armed Merchant Ships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2017

A. Pearce Higgins
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Extract

So long as the rule of capture of private property at sea exists unimpaired, states with mercantile marines of any importance will find that one of the problems they have to face in war is to defend their sea-borne commerce, and to attack that of their adversary. On the 26th March, 1913, Mr. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the British Admiralty, made an important statement in the House of Commons regarding the methods proposed by Great Britain for the protection of trade. As reported in the Times Mr. Churchill’s speech was as follows:

I now turn to one aspect of trade protection which requires special reference. It was made clear at the Second Hague Conference and the London Conference that certain of the great Powers have reserved to themselves the right to convert merchant steamers into cruisers, not merely in national harbours but if necessary on the high seas. There is now good reason to believe that a considerable number of foreign merchant steamers may be rapidly converted into armed ships by the mounting of guns. The sea-borne trade of the world follows well-marked routes, upon nearly all of which the tonnage of the British mercantile marine largely predominates. Our food-carrying liners and vessels carrying raw material following these trade routes would, in certain contingencies, meet foreign vessels armed and equipped in the manner described. If the British ships had no armament they would be at the mercy of any foreign liners carrying one effective gun and a few rounds of ammunition. It would be obviously absurd to meet the contingency of considerable numbers of foreign armoured merchant cruisers on the high seas by building an equal number of cruisers. That would expose this country to an expenditure of money to meet a particular danger altogether disproportionate to the expense caused to any foreign Power in creating that danger. Hostile cruisers, wherever they are found, will be covered and met by British ships of war, but the proper reply to an armed merchantman is another merchantman armed in her own defence. This is the position to which the Admiralty have felt it necessary to draw the attention of leading shipowners. We have felt justified in pointing out to them the danger to life and property which would be incurred if their vessels were totally incapable of offering any defence to an attack. The shipowners have responded to the Admiralty invitation with cordiality, and substantial progress has been made in the direction of meeting it as a defensive measure by preparing to equip a number of first-class British liners to repel the attack of an armed foreign merchant cruiser. Although these vessels have, of course, a wholly different status from that of the regularly-commissioned merchant cruisers such as those we obtain under the Cunard agreement, the Admiralty have felt that the greater part of the cost of the necessary equipment should not fall upon the owners, and we have decided, therefore, to lend the necessary guns, to supply ammunition, and to provide for the training of members’ of the ship’s company to form the guns’ crews. The owners on their part are paying the cost of the necessary structural conversion, which is not great. The British mercantile marine will, of course, have the protection of the Royal Navy under all possible circumstances, but it is obviously impossible to guarantee individual vessels from attack when they are scattered on their voyages all over the world. No one can pretend to view these measures without regret or without hoping that the period of retrogression all over the world which has rendered them necessary may be succeeded by days of broader international confidence and agreement than those through which we are now passing.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , October 1914 , pp. 705 - 722
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1914

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References

1 See Morning Post, 16 April, 1914, “Merchantmen in war time,” where a list of British ships already armed is given.

2 See “The Conversion of merchant ships into war ships” in the writer’s War and the Private Citizen (1912), 113–165.

3 J. R. Tanner in Cambridge Mod. Hist., IV, 474.

4 1 Dods. 443. Head money was paid to encourage ships of war and privateers to attack war ships and privateers of the enemy. There was a tendency to seek out rich merchantmen on account of their value in prize money, and by the Prize Act, 1805 (Sec. 5), £5 was to be paid for every man who was living on board the ship which was taken, sunk, burnt or otherwise destroyed at the beginning of the attack. Originally it was the reward of actual combat only; later, of the capture alone, whether with or without actual fighting. (The Clorinde, 1 Dods. 436.)

5 Manning, W. O., Law of Nations (1875), 157 Google Scholar.

6 The Helen, 3 C. Rob. 224; The Sedulous, 1 Dods. 253.

7 E. g. The Fanny, 1 Dod. 448.

8 For commentary on the convention, see the writer’s Hague Peace Conferences, 315–321, and War and the Private Citizen, 130–136.

9 J. R. Tanner, Camb. Mod. Hist., IV, 467.

10 By the court in Several Dutch Schuyts, 6. C. Rob. 48. This was a claim for head money for the capture of armed, but uncommissioned, Dutch transports.

11 The Nereide, 9 Cranch, 388.

12 The evidence of the arming of merchant ships and of their defending themselves from attack is to be found in such works as R. Beatson’s, Naval and Military Memoirs and naval histories in general and in the records preserved in the British Public Record office, Admiralty Secretary “In-letters.” Captain B. W. Richmond, R. N., has kindly given me references to several cases, such as the despatch from Admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle of 1st December, 1743, the capture of the San Domingo Convoy on 20th June 1747, the action between Commodore Barnett and three French China merchant ships on 25 January, 1745 (see Beatson, I, 258). In the case of the San Domingo Convoy, Beatson gives a list of the captured ships (I, 343) but does not mention whether they were armed or not. The original papers show that with few exceptions all were armed. In the battle of Finisterre, 3 May, 1747 the four armed French East India merchant ships, Philibert, Apollon, Thétis and Dartmouth sailing under convoy, took part. (Beatson, I, 341.)

13 5 C. Rob. 232.

14 9 Cranch, 388.

15 Hall, 456; Oppenheim, II, 85; Phillimore, III, § 339; Twiss, II, § 97.

16 Snow, 83, 84; Wheaton, § 528; Stockton, 179.

17 De Boeck, De la Propriété privée ennemie, See. 212; Dupuis, C., Le droit de la guerre maritime (1899), 121 Google Scholar.

18 P. Fiore, §§ 1627, 1698.

19 E. Nys, III , 181 (1906).

20 J. H. Ferguson, Sec. 225.

21 Annuaire (1913), 644.

22 Ibid., 516, 517.

23 Ibid., 519.

24 Die Stellung der feindlichen Kauffahrteischiffe im Seekrieg. Vol. 8, pp. 154–169.

25 Marshall, C. J., in the Nereide, 9 Cranch, 388.

26 See Declaration of London, Art. 63.

27 “Gegen das Personal der Schiffsbesatzung soil im tibrigen eine vorläufige Zurückhaltung an Bord soweit zulässig sein, als dessen Vernehmung für die Feststellung des Tatbestandes erforderlich erscheint, und es soil diesen Leuten eine anständige Behandlung zu teil werden. Dem entsprechen auch die folgenden Festsetzungen in den Artikeln 10 und 11 des N. W. C: (Das Internationale Seerecht, ed. 1903, p. 191).

28 W. E. Hall, International Law (5 ed.) 407. Hall’s note on Bismarck’s denial of the right to treat merchant sailors as prisoners of war is emphatic, but, in my opinion by no means too strong. See F. Perels, Das Internationale Seerecht, 191.

29 J. B. Moore, Digest of International Law, VII, 371.

30 L. Oppenheim, op. cit., 164.

31 En France, sous l’ancien régime, les prises faites en se défendant étaient acquises à l’amiral “dont la générosité le portait, la plupart du temps, à en faire don au capteur, en récompense de sa bravoure,” au témoignage de Valin et d’Emerigon. Aujourd’hui, aux termes de l’art. 34 de l’arrêté du 2 prairial an xi, la prise faite par un bâtiment attaqué qui parvient à s’emparer de l’aggresseur est acquise au capteur; l’art. 34 a été assez fréquemment appliqué par le Conseil des Prises dans les guerres de l’Empire. La mêrne règle est admise, notamment en Hollande.” C. De Boeck, Proprété privée, § 212. Prof, de Boeck adds the following footnote: “Quant à la prise qu’un navire non commissionné et armé pour sa défense aurait faite en attaquant, elle est bonne quant à l’ennemi, mais confisquée au profit de l’Etat; l’auteur pourra même être poursuivi et condamné comme pirate.”

See also Abdy’s edition of Kent’s International Law, 246; E. Nys, Le Droit International (1906), III, 181.

32 1 Dod. 448.

33 9 Cranch, 387.

34 3 Wheaton Rep. 400. See on this subject Wheaton, Elements, § 529 and Dana’s note; R. Wildman, Institutes of International Law, II, 126.

35 The Nereide, 9 Cr. 388.

36 See Dana’s note in Wheaton’s Elements, § 529.