Property Rights in Time of War: Sequestration and Liquidation of Enemy Aliens’ Assets in Western Europe during the First World War

Abstract

Property Rights in Time of War: Sequestration and Liquidation of Enemy Aliens’ Assets in Western Europe during the First World War

This article explores the policies on enemy property in Britain, France and Germany during the First World War and its immediate aftermath. As part of a more complex economic warfare, countries at war halted international trade, imposed system of controls on the trade of neutral countries and launched an attack on the commercial and personal assets of enemy aliens. Real estate, firms, shops, investments, ships, goods, shares, bank accounts, patents and trademarks, and personal belongings owned by citizens of enemy nationality were sequestered and then sold by state custodians to citizens of their own countries. These actions, which started at the very beginning of the conflict, were eventually legitimised by the peace treaties. By analysing these measures, their implementation and the discourse that justified them, the article investigates the emergence of «economic nationalism» and the shift provoked by the war: from the liberal recognition of the inviolability of property rights on a national and international scale to the re-affirmation of state sovereignty.