MINE WARFARE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 November 1939, Page 5

MINE WARFARE

DECLARATION OF GERMAN PLANS ATTEMPT TO BLOCKADE BRITAIN. SOME EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, November 24. Proclaiming that Germany has the right to make mine warfare against Britain, Berlin newspapers announce that at a suitable moment drifting mines will be laid along all the principal sea routes to Britain, reports the Copenhagen correspondent of “The Times. ’ ’ These mines, it is declared, will be the chief weapon with which Germany intends to enforce her “Continental blockade” of Britain, which is the principal aim of the newly-appointed blockade director, Herr Werner Daitz. Germany, it is added! knows well that it is against international law to attack commercial shipping with mines, but she argues that her new mine warfare is not directed against merchantment but against warships and that therefore it is not against the law. The Berlin. “Borsen Zeitung” declares that “sailing for Britain in future means sailing to death.’’ “MILITARY ZONE” GERMANS AND THE BRITISH COAST. NEW YORK, November 23. The Berlin correspondent of the “New York Times” says that Germany is claiming to be observing the Hague Agreement on the ground that the British coast is not a regular commercial route but a military zone into which neutrals have been forced by the British minefields. DUTCH SHIPPING MAINTENANCE OF NORMAL SAILINGS. LONDON, November 24. The Amsterdam correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Company say s that most of the Netherlands lines have decided to continue normal sailings, except in the area near the mouth of the Thames. GERMAN MINES TWO HUNDRED WASHED ASHORE IN YORKSHIRE. (Received This Day. 10.0 a.m.) LONDON, November 24. Two hundred German mines have been washed ashore in Yorkshire.