Competing Narratives on Economic Warfare: The Unlikely Origin of Archibald Bell’s Unwanted History of the Blockade of Germany

Abstract

This article examines the controversies surrounding the waging of economic warfare against Germany in the First World War. It argues that two competing narratives emerged to explain the decisions taken by the British Government in regard to the enforcement of the so-called ‘blockade’ against Germany. The one favoured by the Foreign Office praised the diplomatic skill by which economic pressure was applied to Britain’s enemies, noting that increasing stringency was enforced without provoking retaliation from neutrals; the one favoured by the Admiralty chafed at the restrictions that prevented a fuller exercise of maritime power. The existence of these two competing narratives, it is argued, made it impossible even a decade after the fighting was over to agree a text on blockade suitable for the published official history of the war at sea. As a result, the chapters on blockade, although written, were excluded from the published official history; instead, in the aftermath of a bitter intra-departmental dispute, a separate stand-alone volume that was produced and classed as secret until after the Second World War.