852.00/8196
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 5.]
Sir: With reference to previous correspondence on the bombing of British ships in Spanish ports, I have the honor to outline below, as of possible interest, certain points in this relation which do not appear to have been examined either in the press or in debates in Parliament.
As the Department is aware, since the outbreak of the civil war in Spain the British Government has refused to grant belligerent rights to the two parties, maintaining that these rights are only withheld because of non-intervention. Since the British Government does not grant these rights, the Spanish Nationalists have, particularly insofar as British shipping is concerned, been unable successfully to impose an effective naval blockade of any Spanish Government port. It will be recalled that last summer British warships escorted British merchant vessel through the Bilbao, Santander, and Gijon blockades to Spanish territorial waters, and that this policy was arrived at after debates in which the Government was severely criticized by the Opposition for not protecting these vessels. Similarly, the successful working of the Nyon Agreement put an end to the menace to British shipping in the Mediterranean from submarines and surface vessels.
Thus the policy of the British Government has, in a sense, indirectly contributed towards the adoption by the Nationalists of the only other means of interfering with shipments to their enemies, namely, by bombing ships from the air. This new method of interfering with the enemy’s supplies within Spanish territorial waters, has been so successful that even if the Nationalists should now be [Page 223] granted belligerent rights, and presumably the right of blockade, it is perhaps doubtful whether, if given the choice, they would not prefer to continue to bomb ships in Spanish ports rather than to attempt an effective naval blockade, particularly in view of the reduced strength of General Franco’s navy. In other words, by denying to Nationalists belligerent rights at sea in order to further the cause of non-intervention, Great Britain has inadvertently encouraged the development of a new method of blockading enemy ports which is far more ruthless and destructive than that which it has replaced. Certainly there can be little or no question of peaceful capture, visit and search, etc., from the air which is usual in the case of a legal and effective blockade.
The position in which the British now find themselves seems the more paradoxical when it is considered that Great Britain, the dominant naval power in Europe, but one of the most vulnerable to air attack, and certainly the most dependent on seaborne supplies, has denied to a belligerent the right of naval blockade which, in turn, has led to an intensive bombing by airplanes of ships carrying supplies and British ships at that.
Respectfully yours,