io MY MEMOIRS

ment begun at sea, however, cannot be broken off if the enemy has the greater speed. In any case the navy was blamed for its inactivity, and we were not even allowed to count these years as war service.

In 1870 we had some excellent Lloyd steamers which we could have armed for privateering warfare. We kept, however, to the declaration which we had made at the beginning of the war, that we would not privateer. When the French seized our merchantmen, we ultimately changed our standpoint, but it was then too late for the necessary preparations.

The maritime law of these days, based on the Paris Convention of 1856, prevented the French from bombarding open towns; though if they had done so we could have taken reprisals. Any disarming of our warships lying in foreign waters was also against the law. Our ships coaled in Vigo whilst the French ships lay outside the harbour, and a French sloop was actually within the harbour watching us. In the open roads of Fayal in the Azores the French armoured vessel Montcalm circled round our sloop Arcona which was lying at anchor there, without doing it any harm. In short, it was a naval war without the English. In the later world-war the lawyers of the Foreign Office and the Reichstag still placed the greatest hopes in the niceties of maritime law, whilst the English passed them over with sovereign power, and will strive after the war for a new maritime law which will stabilize their police control of the seas.

The campaign which had been so glorious for the