 All right welcome back everyone after that rather short break and so we're going to carry right on with our second to last paper of today and that is with Dr Martin Robson from University of Exeter. So Dr Martin Robson is a senior lecturer in strategic studies and head of top programs at the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter. He specializes in the utility of history for contemporary application and his research focuses on the formulation and implementation of British policy and grand strategy. His historical work encompasses numerous aspects of 18th and 19th century naval and military history in a global context including aspects of seapower joint operations and economic warfare. Dr Robson has been involved with civilian and military education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels since 2008. During his career he has worked as an advisor to the Royal Navy's Maritime Warfare Centre and has also worked with the MOD's Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre, the Met Office and the National Archives. Really happy to have you with us Martin and with no further due. The floor is yours. Thank you Anja and good evening to everybody and I caught the end of the previous discussion which was quite interesting and a great comment about more discussions about the First World War so I'm going to caveat that with the fact that I'm actually going to talk about 1914 to 1918 largely because if I look at international law and discussions in the debates about international law with reference of the South Atlantic I think there is a clear recognition certainly on the side of Germany on the side of Great Britain that international law had probably spread its course by the time we get to 1914 in the sense that international law had the concept of international maritime law had broken down and we can see that in some of the decisions enacted. I'll also caveat further that I am not a lawyer. My job here as part of my job here I teach students on a third year law module and I see my job as undermining their faith in the concept of international law because strategists and the role of the applied strategist is to find the work around, is to find the loophole, is to find the way to achieve national interests within an international more construct but certainly to look for opportunities to bend the rules maybe and one of the other things I wanted to consider in the in the sort of like the long pull-through of this subject is the development certainly following the declaration. Paris in 1956 which has been well put by Anne Lenner said then into certainly the first hate conference of 1899 but specifically the second hate conference of 1907 and and the London conference of late 1808 to 1909 and the follow-up to that in terms of decision making in a strategic concept. And why South America, why the South Atlantic, why does this matter? Well it's an area where Britain and Germany both conflicted over international maritime law and what I'm going to largely be looking at today and concepts of the use utility auxiliary cruisers wrapped into concepts of a good course. And again while in South America within that context well it's where you can see the intermeshing of policy-enabled strategy in a globalised context. We get the combination of trade and finance and concepts of economic warfare which I think is really important and we're thinking about economic warfare in this period. I might talk for a little bit longer than 20 minutes if I do I apologise but I'm sure Greg or Annette will probably shout at me and I'll find all stumps at a suitable point. And again the South Atlantic and South America is really quite interesting because we're not necessarily talking about huge tracks of formal empire either for Germany and certainly not not for Great Britain but we're looking at how you project power in an area where you have significant trading in economic interests. And certainly from a British perspective in terms of finance to start off with when we look at British overseas investments in places like the millions and the dependent empire by the time we get to 1913-1914 they're totaling about 1.7 and 6 billion a year the largest of which is between Canada which is over 500 million a year. But Latin America as a whole would receive more UK investment than a single dominion in 1913-1914 about 1.18 billion pounds. I mean this is a significant amount of British capital prior to overseas. Significant in that is Argentina. In 1910 British investment in Argentina amounted to about 2.9 to 269 million pounds and by 1913 it was into 257 million pounds and was approaching 500 million on either the First World War. And what's crucial here is that this trade is growing and it's new capital of being invested to and being attracted to Argentina. If we look at the years 1907 to 1930 it's about 180 million pounds of new British capital investment has been attracted to that country. The key here is trade and while by the time we get to 1912 the United States is Britain's largest trading partner with a total import and export trading about 186 million that's followed by British India and Germany sitting third perhaps raising some questions there about concepts of economic independence in terms of you know countries who are linked together economically don't fight each other and what yes they do because national interest often trumpets in strategic interests. And while Argentina has further done a list of trading partners I mean it's only sitting about 48 million pounds per year um you know British investments about 60 percent of all investments in Argentina so it's a key trading partner. Now it's not just the value of the trade it's the strategic nature of this trade that is concerning British naval thinkers and planners pre first and development of the First World War set in the context of international maritime war. In the years before the First World War the UK was the largest import of food in the world importing about so just need to about more than half its food by value and at least 58 cents of its calories. Significantly it's the South American Latin American food supply here which is key between 1909 and 1913 grade imports accounted for 78.7 cents a week for power consumption in Great Britain and Argentina was the second largest foreign supplier outside of the Dominions around the United States but 60 percent of the Argentinian wheat trade destined for Britain was controlled by foreign big German firms. And by the time we get to 1913 the British minister of Buenos Aires the Reginald power is warning the foreign office that this German control of trade is giving them a stranglehold of the sinews of a future British war effort i.e food supplies. What goes for wheat also goes for meat and between 1909 and 1913 imported meat accounted for about 35 to 40 percent of meat consumption in Britain. In 1907 the Britain obtained the majority of its wheat from the USA but by 1911 the largest supply was Argentina accounting for about 16 percent of the British import trade mainly as frozen beef. 61 percent of this was shipped from the river plate itself and for frozen and chilled beef South America supplied 82.6 percent of British imports which is about nearly 30 percent of domestic consumption. To the Argentinian supply must be added meat and pork which came from places like New Zealand around the Cape Horn and followed the South American freight routes leaving the official historian of the great war Seaborn Freight to calculate from official figures that in the years of peace 84 percent of the beef and 67 percent of the mutton imports in Britain came from poor food south and open waters and in a broad sense about 40 percent of British meat and wheat imports came from this route and the river plate had become an irreplaceable source of food for the island kingdom of the island. Start to add some naval granularity to this it's got to be moved somehow and here obviously merchant shipping in Britain's dominance of merchant shipping was important conventionally as pointed British shipping in 1914 being about 45 to 55 percent of global shipping so a significant domination of the market and the trade itself is housing large ocean gun vessels of over 3000 gross registered funds there the ships moving this stuff around now of course Britain and allies control nearly 80 percent of this shipping and that provided the vital means to conflict the trade itself in terms of South American nations the South American aspect of the trade and the exports was entirely dependent upon on registered shipping in 1910 Britain only 56 percent of shipping punished entering Argentinian ports and by 1912 under about 16 watt percent of the tonnage of Buenos Aires the Germany lagging well behind was only 12 percent but from this period on German trade and German shipping numbers and inside the land in the South Atlantic and South American ports start to increase for the meat trade key was refrigerated shipping and that kept the supply chain flowing between the river plate and the UK by 1914 there were 200 British steamers working in the refrigerated trade alone although not more long the South American route of course there's a strategist thing that the Norwegian pops out is obviously the cruisers or potential of some of the cruisers here so what is the German threat in British allies well Germany was seeing significant growth in its import export frame with Latin America about 1902 onwards and while Britain maintained a lead it was losing out in relative percentage terms one with the United States given ambiguity over the United States' role in any future European conflict and significantly with Germany the German trade is growing and along with that the growth of German shipping by the time we get to 1912 Germany was planning to use naval training vessels to join with the West African squadron and to be equipped as auxiliary cruisers and German planners are also thinking about mobilising the commercial vessels vessels that are those of the Hamburg South American line and HSVG as auxiliary cruisers picking them out with naval officers and arms and a number of warnings come out from the area with the admiralty about the concern and the growing concern of a danger posed by a significant portion of German shipping in the Sweden you must remember that by 1914 Germany possessed the world's second largest merchant shipping ring with more than 500 million tons of shipping and sailing under the German flag. Clearly huge potential for auxiliary cruisers and other cruisers of course. So how did the British respond to this threat? Well the initial response is strategic not legal focusing upon an offensive strategy to attack German merchant shipping therefore removing the danger of Germany converting these ships to auxiliary cruisers at source. This would be done by utilising one of the cruisers in both defensive and offensive roles and April 1905 there's nothing to be conference on commerce war which rules out convoy rules out patrolling and focuses instead upon positioning cruiser squadrons of strategic modes and the admiralty considered that the German go to course could not be effective but of course we roll on in a million decade and we've enhanced numbers of German shipping and the situation starts to change. A number of naval war college games simulate the German cruisers before it really proves as we can have it upon German upon British commerce in South Atlantic and the 1907 war plans delegate the suppression of German trade in the South Atlantic to cruisers station like the Cape and Sierra Leone. But it's the Hague Convention of 1907 which offers a different route not this strategic route but the legal route and picking up upon some of the previous conversations clearly this the idea of Hague formulating some kind of consensus on international war doesn't hold up to expectations why because national interests trauma concepts of international war. German thinking clearly focuses upon the ability of the adds to the dangers that they pose of British shipping so of course they will not give up their desire to outbid and take into naval service merchant shipping at sea and this is the key ability to do this on the policies while going forward so when this starts to break down this leads to essentially two options you continue the strategist route which is again using while maybe cruisers in that offensive defensive role and then certainly a use of international war or do you start to think about arming your own merchant ships as a symmetrical response to the potential journey but after 1907 British naval thinkers are thinking that the legal route is still in option and you can see the development of this between Hague in 1907 and into planning for the landing conference in late 1908 and into 1909 and it's interesting thinking about the nature of the Gürde course which is often seen as an asymmetrical response to a government battle fleet whereas when you look at the example of this in the South Atlantic what you see is the Gürde course becoming ever more important in British thinking in this offensive role to negate German shipping and remove the effect of being covered for auxiliary cruisers but on the other side of the coin almost the symmetrical response of arming British merchant ships to take on that defensive role to deny Germany the ability to interdict those absolutely crucial food-based sea lines of communication so we move on to the London conference maybe later 1809 where there are a number of divergent views and practices amongst the nations of the world as a convent which we've heard about blockade, continued voyage, mutual vessels, there was fries and fries of the wars for ships and crucially here the legality of the conversion of merchant ships to warships on the high seas etc and the British government British naval thinkers go into the conference hoping that there will be some agreements on these vexed issues but of course the Germans will not pledge they want to retain the right to transform merchant ships on the high seas into warships and from here on we can see the failure of the ability of nations to agree on international law being a key driver in further thinking about the strategic use of auxiliary cruisers from the German perspective and both the British perspective. In essence Britain is looking with its global interests it's focused upon the growing threat in the North Sea and European waters about how to protect an absolutely vital supply line with not enough resources and clearly the obvious option is to take up is to take up our merchant shipping and convert them into auxiliary warships. There's a huge amount of intelligence gathering that starts to happen at the London from 1909 in the summer of 1909 and HMS Amethyst is sent into South American waters to conduct a systematic intelligence gathering exercise from British merchants about the growing presence of European merchant shipping and to also engage a perspective about the value of the freight and by the time that we get to 1911 where there have been three formalized positions the Pernambuco, Cape Bird Islands and a month of the day where British officers are in that intelligence gathering role we can see that the growing menace of the German auxiliary cruises is being a bit large in British thinking without us. During peacetime there's only generally one long navy like cruiser in the South African station and the Admiralty placed their hopes in the fact that much of the British shipping can actually outrun its pursuers which is not necessarily a great strategic response. I'm almost by the time that we get to 1912 the Admiralty had sort of closed its eyes to South America following the example of maybe the Committee for Imperial Defence, the Foreign Office and the rest of the UK just at a time when the German military cruisers was growing to be a significant concern and so the symmetrical response from British naval thinkers is to turn to this concept of defensively armed merchant ships and the Duff Committee reports of May 1912 considered the effect German commerce rating might have on crude supplies and the resultant panic in the UK which is exactly the intended effect in German naval thinking. That would lead to a rise in insurance rates, prices, food shortages, etc all of those vexed issues that set apart a concept of economic warfare. So what happens? Well the first trial ship is the Royal Mail steam packet Company Aragon which is sent to South America in the 2050s on the 1912 on with a couple of 4.7 guns and it gets delayed and finally sets out in 1913. The concept being that adding either mountains or the ability to hold guns will be enough to deter German surface raiders because of course with the submarine setting is an unrealised technology in terms of conflict the majority of thinking in terms of South American security in a maritime sense is about the surface not submarine. And by the time that we get to 1940 I think we hit a crit 39 ships as defensively armed merchant ships in order to try to meet that and German cruiser threat. So I'll just say a few words to sum up because I'm doing quite okay for time. By the eve of the war the ability to assess that Germany's regular cruisers were too few to be an issue. And if we look at Corbett's thinking in the first world war about the German cruiser threat the regular cruiser threat being dealt with pretty quickly he's sort of proven right but it's the auxiliary cruisers those German ships which are printed out as raiders which are causing the real headache for the enemy. And as we have seen rather than the thrusting place in international law or in essence in essence regular naval deployments it's the sort of the middle policy or the part job or taking what you can in terms of the resources available to fit out and British merchant shipping in a defensive capacity which sits at the heart of strategy on the outbreak of the First World War for defending this important South American threat. So I think in that sense you know there are many and when I talked to my third year lawyers about international and international war and they look at this this period following the declaration of Paris the interdict to Hague conventions etc is also like the birth of not just international war but concepts of the international community and that's all that's all fine and well but from my perspective it does one significant learning point from looking at this period it's in essence the failure of international war and why does international law fail it fails for the reasons international war tends to fail which is it's not international interests of states whether it's Germany or whether it's Britain to subscribe to policies and law which will harm either their national interests or their ability to conduct warfare on a on a on a on a scale or on a type which is necessary to deal a blow to their expected enemy and because at the Hague Conference of 1907 and the London Conference of 1909 Germany refused to guarantee its merchant men would not be turned into commerce raiders because of course why would they give that guarantee when that is their best way to harm British interests if the if the high seas fleet can't escape the sea um the British response is a symmetrical one in terms of looking for a similar similar um a similar way ahead so if Germany's got on merchants and ships as a cruiser then that is really the only response set against pressing international commitments the focus upon upon European waters and the inherent value of the trade because as Ivan Block wrote in 1898 um you can't you can't fight and the primacy of protecting that sea-lady communication while visible in British thinking wasn't necessarily enacted until war actually breaks out in 1914 okay I think that's probably enough from me um I hope that was interesting and it's a it's a piece of thinking a piece of work that I've been sort of uh watching along with for a number of years and the inability to get into archives of the past eight few months has limited the the ability to work on this but it's something I'm developing as this broader construct of certainly the maritime sense why debates about international war as noble or international maritime law as noble as they are why do they fall down and as the as the arch realist it's you know a fundamental thing that certainly in this period states will be states and we can see that about debates about um about consumer merchant shipping about the conversion of merchant shipping but we also see that in debates which I'm sure you've discussed already about how the First World War will be conducted and that you know this agreement between the practitioners um whose job it is to win and some of the legal arguments and Paul with himself um being on the side of the debate but thinking about the the primacy of international war well as we know that falls down pretty rapidly and it's not just in 1914 what I've looked at um concept of international maritime law operating down as early as 1907 so that's that's enough for me delighted to field any questions um thank you very much for your time great thank you for that Martin that was super super interesting um I will just kick off with it with a small question because this is certainly not my era of expertise how much if any role did the South American governments have in this debate did they have stakes in being neutral nations did they have stakes in the company exceeding were they involved at all in this debate um a small part um if you look at the the example of Brazil for instance Brazil is very keen on that mutual realm that neutrality that essentially let's think about it in a sense of you know export trade is really really important as is obviously its financing investments in the development of say the Brazilian economy the Argentine economy so they don't really want anything to rock the boat but they hampered and although they've they've gone through a period of um trying to look up in their own interests by um made an expansion in the 19th century by the time we get to this period um clearly in terms of the the work that I've looked at and the British and German thinking there was no concept at all of say the Argentine perspective or the Brazilian perspective or even the Chilean perspective this is very much seen as a as a as a as a northern hemisphere external conflict been you know taken to South American waters and ports largely from European national interests from their German interests or whether they're or whether they're British interests I mean the other interesting aspect here is the role of the United States because there's many people in this conversation are aware um there's thinking within British circles that um this is a massive opportunity the first of all is a huge opportunity to clean out those German companies which are controlling either leak processing certainly aspects of the canning trade in terms of the preservation of food stuffs and this is seen as a great opportunity to basically blacklist German companies a fortnight of business and then British companies will take them over but of course by creating the vacuum what happens is the great competitive aspects of the US economy means the United States then steps in to take over those roles and again you know there's very little of what I've seen debate whether it's in British or or German or United States circles about the national interests and so there's a lot of Argentina this is you know informal empire by you know empire by essentially informal arrangement it's it's it's it's it's taking a dominant almost hegemonic position in the global trading environment and use it to maximize one's own interests now obviously Brazil Argentina etc benefit from this trade but in no way is it done on equal terms and I think that's reflected certainly in some of the discussions about one protecting of the protection of say South American aspects of South American neutrality and that has infringed a number of times in the First World War but also about their their voice in terms of inputting into what international law looks like I mean if you're thinking about this in a systemic way if you're not inputting into the system significantly you don't have a voice and I think if you look at the difference between say the pre First World War period the interwar period and post 1945 I think one of the most significant changes in that concept of what the international community thinks international law is for is there are more voices in that debate post 1945 than there are at this at the period that I'm looking at in terms of say 1900 to 1940 which I know is a very long and convoluted answer to your question but you know you'll get paid to talk so we all quite like to talk anyway no absolutely no no that was great that was perfect thank you I know that Greg has the question and then Marta also has a question so Greg let's let's go with you no let's go with Marta first well that's fine too all right thanks Greg and thanks Martin I have a question because my conceptualization of international law is quite different from yours and I study the same period which is all as it should be of course but I'm wondering whether you're overstating the separation between national interests and international law and if you're almost overstating the nobility of international law at the time and even whether you're underselling Latin American voices in the formation of international law because 1907 they were at the Hague and they were very loud and and very proud and it's really more about no one seeing what you said I don't disagree that there is planning for war and there is planning among the British for war with Germany but I do think that there is also a planning there is no conception of the first world war is is going to happen right so so we have that knowledge they didn't and I think there is in much of what you say there's real issue about how do we protect our various futures and so auxiliary cruises are absolutely central to this because it might bring back the age of privitering it might bring back this fear of merchants going out as merchants or seeming like their merchants and then turning them into warships at sea and if we lose control of that then we lose control of global trade our imperial connections and all this trade and that would be true whether Britain will be at war or not and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the so not so much about sort of thinking about what a war with Germany might look like but what it might look like if Germany was at war but Britain was neutral in this period because I'm seeing when I read these sources and I admittedly look more at the foreign policy foreign office ones and the legal ones as opposed to the Admiralty ones so this is where that contestation about what what the roles of various institutions in the formation of planning at state level plays of course how do you see this the Admiralty engaging with the possibility that there might be a future in which Britain is neutral and in which these auxiliary German auxiliary cruises might be become belligerent how does that play in their conceptions of of what they are planning for I think in terms of the big issue is I think a disconnect between concepts of national policy and those charged with the formulation of strategy to deal with specific threats and challenges and you can you can see this time and time again between tension between say the Admiralty and the foreign office which you alluded to in terms of if we're dealing with this in a high level in terms of the formulation and implementation of British policy how is that linking or not linking into the practitioners who are thinking about solving naval issues and naval problems in this perspective and you can you can see this in either work with Ottley or Slade etc who you get the feeling of being quite frustrated in the sense that as practitioners they have a role and obviously the London Congress Slade is there as a delegate in terms of kind of represent the naval strategists approach to solving problems set against concepts of national interest so I think there is a bit of a disconnect there in terms of the way in its specifically something that I think in this period the Admiralty struggle with as opposed to say the war for some terms of planning for a future conflict either in Europe or Britain's role on the side of a future conflict because the Admiralty is charged with a broader remit and say the war for us and the Admiralty is charged with not just looking at the threat in a symmetrical way from either France or Russia or Germany but it's also charged with the security of those vital arteries and where the war is isn't it so I think the Admiralty is going almost through a sort of a period of contextualising how does it defend British interests in the realm on a global level when you have a disconnect between policy and strategy but also within the naval service itself I mean the efficient barris industry being a classic example of this about exactly how to do that in terms of security in home waters or security overseas and if you can't provide for security overseas who helps you out of course leading to the debate with France about taking on Mediterranean security in order to allow that greater concentration of benefit in the North Sea and I think and you mentioned privateers is quite interesting because I think one of the one of the developments that you've got going on in this period is the enhanced ability to sort of have a more controlled approach to a good cause so it's not just a case of sending out privateers with letters of mark to to ravage with economic self-interest enemy trade it's the ability to take up shipping in an auxiliary role and control it in an almost like a state sponsored proxy and control it to a degree with developments in wireless technology etc and I think the fear is of a highly coordinated German offensive in the very start of a conflict whether it's wars declared or whether it's that pre-war inter-conflict period which is going to significantly damage the British food supply which is a significant issue for the admiralty whether whether policy makers actually fundamentally get the nature of the danger I'm I'm still not entirely convinced but this is a significant concern for many of the admiralty itself even the fact that they are charged with detection and if this doesn't work they're going to get the blame and they're going to be held accountable for this in some way shape or form and in terms of neutrality I think I mean I know that and looking at the the I'm sorry I couldn't make you a talk but looking at the title in terms of might is right and again you've got this feeling within the naval service that within the construct of the Anglo-German relations with the construct of economic conflict within the construct of or what Germany can do to harm the UK to either keep us out or force us out of the conflict once it starts and the biggest opportunity that Germany has maybe is not you know the traditional invasion of the French islands stair but it's the ability to affect British British trade British supply lines etc and that therefore I mean I think you know if you look at naval thinking of this period I mean I think you find it hard maybe to think of inconceivable you know a broadly European conflict of which British interest are at stake and Britain remain neutral on the sidelines now I'm not as familiar with the foreign office I'll say because you are more so the admiralty files but I think thinking like the practitioners did about the reality of this it is about planning for a future war with initially Russia France but then increasingly so Germany of which that war will inevitably escalate and spread into into South America and South American war with the British investor thank you it's a good question if you can imagine. No that was great Martin thank you for that I'm going to move to a question that's in the chat from John Bodie I'm sorry if I mispronounced that and so John says what a fantastic lecture thank you and he goes on to say I was wondering if you could comment on the modern interpretation of your ideas regarding international humanitarian law that is do you feel the same state interests apply today in regard to political interests taking supremacy over legal theory or law in the same manner as they did in 1907 to 1918? Thank you John for your current comments in terms of when we look at concepts of say national interests versus human rights today not all states are the same I mean we must recognize that in Western liberal democracies like ourselves we have a we do have a different interpretation of the role that human rights and whether they sit as a priority for other parts of the world I think that also sits within the construct of of the international community and things are RTP responsible in effect which you know the UK has used itself as a as a justification for action I think about Libya in 2011 but they're non-action in Syria in 2013 so the human rights aspect of this is is significant in terms of say the UK's interpretation of the world around it but I suspect that human rights don't necessarily sit very high on Vladimir Putin's list of priorities unless Russian human rights are being or are being infringed maybe in Eastern Ukraine or the Baltic states etc so I think you know they are we have seen the concepts of human rights being weaponized to agree by states to achieve their national interests I'm a I'm a liberal realist I like the world to be a nice fluffy place where everybody's great to each other but sometimes going to do bad things so you know I think it'll be it's I think it's very problematic to categorize states as states when we need to maybe think about and again it's one of the criticisms of the Western liberal rules-based international order that is a Western liberal rules-based international order which might not suit say China's way of thinking about how it and achieves its interest either internally as a sort of a nation or externally in say the way it acts in the South China Sea I think we have to realize that there are different interpretations about human rights globally now as an international community we can agree on many things so the United Nations the hard part of strategy is getting it to work in practice where people fundamentally disagree on aspects and I think in that sense when it when push comes to show national interests in many cases still from the concept of human rights now that's not necessarily a good thing but we have to we have to call it as we see it. Well that's great thank you Martin I think you know if if this conference has showed anything is that there is a fascinating tension always between conceptions of international law and strategic thinking and clearly in the maritime sphere this is very much true which is great because that's what we hoped would come out of this. Greg I'm going to give you the last question of this panel and then move on to our final panel. Thanks Anna just a quick one then Martin changing nature of you mentioned this kind of humanitarian and the food link debates schools of thought within the the admiral team that actually the indiscriminate use now of of a general food blockade was immoral unethical and or illegal was there much of that prior to the outbreak of the war. To be honest Greg I don't know because I haven't been looking at blockade specifically in the sense that if we're thinking about this in terms of economic and humanitarian consequences of economic activity which is essentially you know is starving civilians to death and legitimate use of of state power. Yes because that's the whole nature of blockade. As you know that the huge amount of work done by people at the time, you already mentioned some of what I'm getting in the previous session about about the reality of understanding that blockade is a you know it's not a soft tool it's a hard tool why because people will die because of it it may take them longer and it's not like they've gotten fond on their heads but we're talking about the blockade of food dust means means the death of women and children. I think from the work that I have seen and the thinking that I have done this is done in a very detached way and while the concert is always for one's own in the effect of one's own population etc and not you know cutting the South American supply line is going to be highly detrimental to the UK free supplies it's often seen from what I have seen as a political concern in the sense that if we're thinking about blockade as a tool to starve enemy populations to make them rise up and overthrow their governments as a way to force government to do maybe a more a less provincial line of policy. This figures quite often but I think and maybe it's the nature of the times and maybe it's the nature of the naval approach to this which is often detached from those large population centres online where you can see this I mean you know maybe it's contained about seed line that's from policy but of course maybes are also often behind to be affected what they do and how it happens and impacts on views of them in the same way that maybe sort of you know street and former crews in the second world will detach themselves from what they were doing. So I think in that case Greg I mean although I have looked at the yeah Admiralty files on this I hadn't seen things that make it bigger highly but of course we're talking about official documentation and I think there's there's concern but there's a strategic realisation that you know war is a massive group of business and that people get killed and you want to hope that you lose less of your people than the casual people on the other side. If that shortens the war then that's maybe a good thing in terms of the word up people approaching this thinking I know that's quite a woolly answer to your question Greg and I'm not trying to avoid the issue but it's certainly something that I think needs further investigation so that was a that was a that was a sort of straight back one for that one Greg but it's important aspect because I think when we think about areas that have not been traditionally covered certainly in terms of either naval work or maritime work the impact of things that happen at sea on land is integral I mean that's why we that's why naval operations that's why maritime warfare is conducted it's to have an impact upon political entities upon societies to make them change their policy you know to impose one's will upon the other and I think the humanisation and the humanising aspect of that are as yet possibly untapped areas for further research thanks Martin cheers thank you Greg thank you Anna all right brilliant thank you so much Martin for a wonderful paper and a wonderful Q&A session