DID WE STARVE GERMANY ?
By SIR ARTHUR SALTER • I was 'tit the time working as British Secretary with the Supreme Economic Council, of which Lord Cecil was Chairman. We were doing our best to get relief supplies into all the countries that most needed them, including Germany. As one part of this effort we tried to get the blockade limited to war-supplies, and lifted entirely as regards food. We encountered, it is true, some opposition, and . were not completely successful. The military authorities took the view that the blockade must remain in operation, 'so as to prevent any accumu- lation .of supplies for the resumption of war. Some individuals may have carried this to the point of being indifferent to the suffering and loss of life that would result from a restriction on the import of food. If so, • however, their view was not allowed to prevail. While the blockade.was-kept formally in operation, food imports were permitted within prescribed limits, and the limits were designed to allow enough for current consumption as dis- tinct from accumulation. In fact, I believe, the amounts so 'permitted were greater than those which Germany was able to import, even with our assistance, so that the blockade was in practice inoperative. Starvation was due,. not to blockade, but to other causes.
What were these ? I told .the tale briefly in my Allied Shipping Control in 1921. After four years of war there . was a serious shortage of everything needed for peace—of. shipping, of food-supplies, of the raw materials needed for the resumption of ordinary economic activity, My colleagues and I on the Allied Maritime Transport Executive, anticipating in October, 1918, the difficulties which would arise, attempted to secure a provision .in the Armistice that the large amount of German _tonnage immobilised in German ports during the War should be made immediately available for supply work ; . but that was refused. We then tried to secure the continuance, and adaptation, of the -War-time control and supply organisation..for the. Armistice needs. The British Government. approved, as did the French and Italian Governments, and within two days of the Armistice an official proposal to that effect %was made to the American Government, .which, however. unhappily took the view that war organisations should be at once discontinued. The result was a delay of 'some months 'before an adequate new authority, the Supreme Economic Council, cold be got to work.
In the meantime the German ships were still immo- bilised, and Germany had great difficulty • in finding any financial resources with which to pay for either supplies or sea-transport. There- was indeed some gold at the Central Bank, which might perhaps have been used. I think that the Allies, in the interests of Reparation, made some objection to this being drawn upon (though my information on this point is inadequate —it was only a year later that I became associated with Reparation) : and if they did so they must of course be regarded as incurring some • responsibility. In any case, what I recollect clearly is that, on the Supreme Economic Council, we were trying hard to surmount the difficulty, and that as a principal means of securing the required resources we proceeded to negotiate for the use of the German ships. After conferences, in which I took part, at Troves and Spa, this was at last arranged, but not till March 14th,- 1919. After that date supply- arrangements were pushed on expeditiously, but there was already starvation on a large scale. It must be remembered that the general dislocation, aggravated by the premature scrapping of the War-control machinery, was causing widespread distress and shortage throughout Europe. Even in Great Britain the sugar ration, which had never fallen below 8 oz. during the War, had during the Armistice to be reduced to 6 oz. In Austria, where the efforts of the Allies and America were entirely devoted to relief, the distress was even more acute than in Germany.
These were the real causes of starvation in Germany : general shortage of supplies and shipping ; the clamant needs of other countries ; shortsighted " departmental " views of the military authorities and those concerned to protect future reparation claims ; administrative confusion, aggravated by the premature - termination of the War economic system—but not the blockade, and not deliberate malice. The Allies were in fact trying to help Germany to get food in, and that their efforts were so lamentably . ineffective was due to • the difficulties of a period of general shortage and to adminis- trative confusion. A careful. enquiry into the facts would probably show that the actual starvation would not have been substantially less than it was if there had been no blockade restriction at all upon food imports into Germany after November 11th, 1918, though the subsequent political situation would have been im- mensely better. It is a sorry tale—a tragic tale--but at least it is not the calculated inhumanity usually ascribed to us.
Well, that is my personal contribution. I cannot guarantee that it is precise in detail, or even right in perspective. I cannot assert, for I do not know, that blockade restrictions never prevented or delayed a single cargo of food imports. I never had access to all the information, and what I had I have partly forgotten. In any event a single individual's recol- lections can have little authority. What is needed is, I suggest, impartial research or enquiry on the basis of the documents still extant but not yet publicly accessible. To carry conviction the method adopted must obviously be rightly chosen. Great Britain and France -would need to make their records available, and obviously either a representative German must then be associated with the task, or the research must be entrusted, under agreed conditions, to properly qualified persons of neutral nationality. Though the result might disclose errors and folly (and in the case of some individuals perhaps, but individuals only, something worse than folly), and though the general impression might be less favourable than the one I have tried to convey as my own, I am confident that it would show that the charge against the general policy of the Allies, as now widely believed, is substantially unjust.
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