British Official Histories of the Blockade of the Central Powers during the First World War

Abstract

IN May I96I Her Majesty's Stationery Office announced the release for public sale of a hitherto confidential book on the blockade of Germany and its allies which had been written by Archibald C. Bell of the Historical Section, Committee of Imperial Defence, in the Ig3o's.' Since this was one of three studies of the subject produced for official use and since the other two volumes are now available, it seems useful to consider them all in a historiographical review. The first to be printed was written by the then Lieutenant Commander W. E. Arnold-Forster, RNVR, who was attached to the Trade Division of the Admiralty in the early months of the war and who later served as the Admiralty's representative on a variety of committees connected with economic warfare. This book, The Economic Blockade, i9i4-i9i9, was printed in May i920 as a Naval Staff Monograph. Although it was declassified in I942, it was only recently that I was informed of this fact as a result of inquiries made by Professor W. N. Medlicott and Mr. R. W. Mason, the Foreign Office librarian.2 The second book, History of the Blockade, whose preface is dated June i, I920, was written by the well-known historian H. W. C. Davis, then vicechairman in the War Trade Intelligence Department.3 Although a copy of this book was sent by the Comptroller General, Department of Overseas Trade, Development and Intelligence, to the Copyright Office of the British Museum on August 24, I92I, and, according to the officials in the State Paper Room, was never entered in the Suppressed Book Catalogue, I did not discover its