Supporting the wartime economy: imperial maritime trade and the globalised maritime trade system, 1914–1916

Abstract

ABSTRACT The British Empire depended on international trade and financial systems for survival. These depended on general peace. The Empire could not afford extended periods of military expenditure, using civil–military and economic mechanisms to avoid the costs of an army. These demanded an efficient global maritime transport system feeding a free economic market with close industry–navy and insurance market–government–navy cooperation. These required a naval system to protect global maritime trade. The outbreak of war in 1914 stopped maritime trade, requiring rapid unprecedented government intervention to restart it. From this restart, the privately run global maritime trade system began to distort, but collapse was protracted and the commercial system showed remarkable elasticity. The imperial government progressively replaced an efficient, fluid maritime trade system based on meeting commercial demand with centralised control to meet the demands of a mobilising war economy. By July 1916 this process was complete and a remarkable example of international administration across all areas of the global and domestic economy was well advanced. The resulting centralised control of global maritime trade fed multinational economic demands of war economies: yet this broad, complex, multidisciplinary event remains largely unknown.