Greece was blockaded by Britain, Austria, Germany, Italy and Russia to prevent it from engaging in war with the Ottoman Empire and thus forcing the powers to define their attitude towards it. The instructions given to the British commander were to detain every ship under the Greek flag coming out of or entering any of the blockaded ports or harbours or communicating with any ports within the limit blockaded, but if any parts of the cargo on board of such ships belonged to any subject or citizen of any foreign power other than Greece, Austria, Germany, Italy and Russia and had been shipped before notification of the blockade or after such notification but under a charter made before the notification, the ship was not to be detained. On the blockade of Crete in 1897, it was notified that the admirals in command of the British, Austro-Hungarian, French, German, Italian and Russian naval forces had decided to put the island of Crete in a state of blockade, that the blockade would be general for all ships under the Greek flag and that ships of the six powers or neutral powers may enter into the ports occupied by the powers and land their merchandise but only if it is not for the Greek troops or the interior of the island, and that these ships may be visited by the ships of the international fleets. Since the adoption of the Hague Convention of 1907 respecting the limitation of the employment of force for the recovery of contract debts, the contracting powers are under agreement not to have recourse to armed force for the recovery of contract debts claimed from the government of one country by the government of another country as being due to its nationals unless the debtor state refuses or neglects to reply to an offer of arbitration or, after accepting the offer, prevents any compromise from being agreed on, or after the arbitration fails to submit to the award (Article I). Though that does not affect pacific blockades in principle, it supersedes them in practice by a new procedure for some of the cases in which they had been employed. 1900s There is always the alternative of making the blockade an act of war, which was done in 1902–1903, when Britain, Germany and Italy proclaimed a blockade of certain ports of Venezuela and the mouths of the Orinoco. That blockade