Unfortunate as it may seem, one of the biggest factors in waging successful war is to prevent the enemy from getting food supplies. It is a frequently repeated truism that "an army travels on its stomach," and in the pleas for conservation and efficient management the leaders in every country declared frequently that "the war would be won by the last loaf of bread," or that it was not a question of ammunition, but of wheat.
One of the serious problems which the government was therefore called to face within a very short period after the American troops were first landed in France was that of dealing with the food situation, both at home and abroad. At that time the German U-boats had sunk merchant ships having a total of more than 5,000,000 tonnage, and the food situation was precarious in the Allied countries. Germany, on the other hand, because of long preparation for the struggle, coupled with efficient management and practices, was more largely independent of other countries.
At this time it was learned that Germany was securing large quantities of foodstuffs through the medium of some of the neutral countries. America was, therefore, called upon to take steps to prevent the Germans getting supplies from this country, through the intermediary of Holland and the Scandinavian countries. As a result the government placed an embargo on a long list of articles including fuel, oils, grains, meats and fodder. The embargo, which was made effective by a proclamation of President Wilson, forbade the carrying of such supplies as were mentioned from the United States or its territorial possessions to neutral countries.
The purpose of the embargo was not to prevent the neutral countries from securing foodstuffs from America for their own consumption, but to prevent their reselling such supplies at a profit to Germany. The position of the government was made plain in the statement of President Wilson, who said:
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN NEEDS.
"It is obviously the duty of the United States in liberating any surplus products over and above our own domestic needs to consider first the necessities of all the nations engaged in war against the central empires. As to neutral nations, however, we also recognize our duty. The government does not wish to hamper them. On the contrary, it wishes and intends, by all fair and equitable means, to co-operate with them in their difficult task of adding from our available surpluses to their own domestic supply and of meeting their pressing necessities or deficits. In considering the deficits of food supplies, the government means only to fulfill its obvious obligation to assure itself that neutrals are husbanding their own resources, and that our supplies will not become available, either directly or indirectly, to feed the enemy."
While the conservation of our resources had a great deal to do with the issuing of the embargo, the action was partly taken as the result of information lodged by England that Holland, Sweden and Norway had been supplying Germany and her allies with food, despite the latter's hostile action in sinking ships owned by the neutrals. The government made an investigation and discovered that the shipment to these neutral countries had become abnormally large. It was reported, particularly, that many Holland business men had become fabulously wealthy by trading in the supplies which came from America, and which they resold to Germany.
The embargo became operative under a method of license procedure, so that all shipments could be watched by the government authorities. The order compelled all persons seeking to export goods to make application for a license to the Secretary of Commerce, or bureaus designated in various parts of the country.
In support of the contentions that the neutral countries were supplying Germany, Great Britain furnished the Government with the following table as representing the minimum of food exports from Scandinavia and Holland to Germany in 1916: Butter, 82,600 metric tons; meat, 115,800 tons; pork products, 68,800 tons; condensed milk, 70,000 tons; fish, 407 tons; cheese, 80,500 tons; eggs, 46,400 tons; potato meal, 179,500 tons; coffee, 58,500 tons; fruit, 74,000 tons; sugar, 12,000 tons; vegetables, 215,000.
These figures are most impressive, it is asserted, in relation to fats, the scarcest thing in Germany. Fat, it is claimed, is the only food seriously lacking now in the diet of the German people. Imports of this food, the British declare, furnish one-fourth of the daily German fat ration.