They could and they did! One unconfirmed story was that Portugal used to load German cargo ships with mere rocks instead of ore, and the order an escort ship to provide assistance to "ship so and so, leaving Lisbon harbour at such date and hour" on open channel, in the hope that some Brit submarine would hear it and oblige with a torpedo or two, while the ore was saved up to ship to the UK

This is probably a tall story, but it was told to me in perfect good faith on ways 'we' used to practise a somewhat skewed neutrality

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