Word: germanic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cold, foggy morning. In the grey dawn, under the guns of Fort Monroe, a ghost ship slipped into the harbor at Hampton Roads, Va. There were 451 persons aboard. Of them, 429 were captives. Twenty-two were members of a German prize crew who had kept the prisoners subdued while dodging British pursuit, sailing the ship across the South Atlantic. The ship was the British-owned liner Appam, captured off the African coast by a German raider that had already sunk or captured seven vessels. And as the Appam dropped anchor in the harbor of a troubled neutral, it gave...
...into Kola Bay, north of the Russian harbor of Murmansk, the U. S. freighter City of Flint dropped anchor and thereby posed for Russia a far less crucial test of its neutrality, the skill of its diplomats, the wisdom of its foreign policy. City of Flint was flying the German flag. It carried a German prize crew. Dramatic was the story of its seizure and flight. But last week the swift routine moves of the Russian Foreign Commissariat, the swift routine countermoves of the U. S. State Department, unexpectedly turned into something bigger, a first-class demonstration of diplomatic action...
Precedent. Last week, when Germany embarrassed Russia by anchoring City of Flint at Murmansk, the U. S. State Department moved with calm deliberation. It asked its officials in Oslo, Moscow and Berlin for information. Alexander Kirk, chargé d'affaires in Berlin, made informal inquiries, reported the German claim that inadequate charts had forced the City of Flint to take refuge at Murmansk. What Germany demanded of Russia was not known. What the U. S. wanted was clear: it wanted information about the whereabouts and welfare of the crew. Coupled with U. S. playing down of the case, that...
...Foreign Affairs Vladimir Potemkin promised thin-featured, intense U. S. Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt full information as soon as it was available. Seldom has a simple request produced such odd results. The U. S. was absolved from taking a stand until the promise was kept. Russia announced that the German prize crew had been interned. That would imply that the ship would be released to its U. S. crew. Ambassador Steinhardt pressed for more information. Russia announced that the German crew had been released. That would suggest that the ship should sail under her German crew within 24 hours. Ambassador Steinhardt...
Procedure. Russia's position was beginning to look embarrassing. Plain fact was that, as soon as City of Flint sailed under the German flag, it risked capture by British warships, faced at the minimum a 1,300-mile voyage through blockaded waters, at least 50 miles of known mine fields, to reach a German port. Equally plain was it that, if Russia permitted the ship to remain in port, she violated international law, that if she released it to her U. S. owner (as the U. S., after a Supreme Court decision, eventually released the Appam), she would antagonize...