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First Cod War
| First Cod War | |||||||||
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| Part of the Cod Wars | |||||||||
 Coventry City and ICGV Albert off the Westfjords | |||||||||
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| States involved | |||||||||
 Iceland | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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| Strength | |||||||||
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| None | |||||||||
| a 3 by February 1960. | |||||||||
The First Cod War lasted from 1 September 1958 to 11 March 1961.[1][6] It began as soon as a new Icelandic law came into force and expanded the Icelandic fishery zone from 4 to 12 nautical miles (7.4 to 22.2 km) at midnight on 1 September 1958.
War[edit]
All members of NATO opposed the unilateral Icelandic extension.[7] The British declared that their trawlers would fish under protection from their warships in three areas: out of the Westfjords, north of Horn and southeast of Iceland. In all, twenty British trawlers, four warships and a supply vessel were inside the newly declared zones. The deployment was expensive; in February 1960, Lord Carrington, the First Lord of the Admiralty, responsible for the Royal Navy, stated that the ships near Iceland had expended half a million pounds sterling worth of oil since the new year and that a total of 53 British warships had taken part in the operations.[8] Against that, Iceland could deploy seven patrol vessels[9] and a single PBY-6A Catalina flying boat.[10]
The deployment of the Royal Navy to contested waters led to protests in Iceland. Demonstrations against the British embassy were met with taunts by the British ambassador, Andrew Gilchrist, as he played bagpipe music and military marches on his gramophone.[11] Many incidents followed. The Icelanders were, however, at a disadvantage in patrolling the contested waters because of the size of the area and the limited number of patrol ships. According to one historian, "only the flagship Þór ( Thor (IAST: Thor)
) could effectively arrest and, if necessary, tow a trawler to harbour".[6][12]
On 4 September, ICGV Ægir, an Icelandic patrol vessel built in 1929,[13] attempted to take a British trawler off the Westfjords, but was thwarted when HMS Russell intervened, and the two vessels collided. On 6 October, V/s María Júlía fired three shots at the trawler Kingston Emerald, forcing the trawler to escape to sea. On 12 November, V/s Þór encountered the trawler Hackness, which had not stowed its nets legally. Hackness did not stop until Þór had fired two blanks and one live shell off its bow. Once again, HMS Russell came to the rescue, and its shipmaster ordered the Icelandic captain to leave the trawler alone, as it was not within the 4 nmi (7.4 km) limit recognised by the British government. The captain of Þór, Eiríkur Kristófersson, said that he would not do so and ordered his men to approach the trawler with the gun manned. In response, the Russell threatened to sink the Icelandic boat if it fired a shot at the Hackness. More British ships then arrived, and the Þór retreated.
Icelandic officials threatened to withdraw Iceland's membership of NATO and to expel US forces from Iceland unless a satisfactory conclusion could be reached to the dispute.[14] Even the cabinet members who were pro-Western (proponents of NATO and the US Defence Agreement) were forced to resort to the threats, as that was Iceland's chief leverage, and it would have been political suicide not to use it.[15] Thus, NATO engaged in formal and informal mediations to bring an end to the dispute.[16]
Following the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea between 1960 and 1961,[17][18][19] the UK and Iceland came to a settlement in late February 1961, which stipulated 12 nmi (22 km) Icelandic fishery limits but that Britain would have fishing rights in allocated zones and under certain seasons in the outer 6 nmi (11 km) for three years.[6] The Icelandic Althing approved the agreement on 11 March 1961.[1]
The deal was very similar to one that Iceland had offered in the weeks and days leading up to its unilateral extension in 1958.[6] As part of the agreement, it was stipulated that any future disagreement between Iceland and Britain in the matter of fishery zones would be sent to the International Court of Justice, in the Hague.
Reference[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Jóhannesson (2006). Þorskastríðin þrjú. Hafréttarstofnun Íslands. pp. 61–62.
- ↑ Associated people and organisations for "HMS Eastbourne on fishery protection duties" Archived 6 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine (August 1958). Imperial War Museum. Accessed 20 January 2014.
- ↑ Jóhannesson, Gudni Thorlacius (2004). Troubled Waters: Cod War, Fishing Disputes, and Britain's Fight for the Freedom of the High Seas, 1948–1964 (PDF) (PhD thesis). Queen Mary, University of London. p. 161. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
... Barry Anderson, Captain of the Fishery Protection Squadron ...
- ↑ Tyrone Daily Herald Archived 7 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine, 2 September 1958, p. 1 (OCR text; accessed 20 January 2014).
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Magnússon, Gunnar (1959). Landhelgisbókin. Bókaútgáfan Setberg SF. p. 157.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedauto - ↑ Ingimundarson (1996). Í eldlínu kalda stríðsins. p. 377.
- ↑ Sveinn Sæmundsson, Guðmundur skipherra Kjærnested, Örn og Örlygur. Reykjavík. 1984. p. 151.
- ↑ Jón Björnsson, Íslensk skip. vol. III. Reykjavik. 1990 p. 8-142 ISBN 9979-1-0375-2
- ↑ Svipmyndir úr 70 ára sögu. Landhelgisgæsla Íslands. Reykjavík. 1996. pp. 30–31, 37–38. ISBN 9979-60-277-5
- ↑ Jóhannesson, Gudni Thorlacius (1 November 2004). "How 'cod war' came: the origins of the Anglo-Icelandic fisheries dispute, 1958–61". Historical Research. 77 (198): 567–568. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.2004.00222.x. ISSN 1468-2281.
- ↑ Jóhannesson, Guðni Th. (2003). "Did He Matter? The Colourful Andrew Gilchrist and the First Cod War". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
- ↑ Háskólabókasafn, Landsbókasafn Íslands-. "Tímarit.is". timarit.is (in íslenska). Archived from the original on 4 April 2023. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
- ↑ Ingimundarson (1996). Í eldlínu kalda stríðsins. pp. 33–34.
- ↑ Ingimundarson, Valur (2002). Uppgjör við umheiminn. pp. 33, 36.
- ↑ Bakaki, Zorzeta (1 January 2016). "Deconstructing Mediation: A Case Study of the Cod Wars". Negotiation Journal. 32 (1): 63–78. doi:10.1111/nejo.12147. ISSN 1571-9979.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedNationalArchives - ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedUN1998 - ↑ "Second United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, 1960". United Nations. Archived from the original on 25 October 2015. Retrieved 4 November 2015.