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DÉTENTE 1914: SIR WILLIAM TYRRELL'S SECRET MISSION TO GERMANY*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2013
Abstract
Based on hitherto unused archival material, this article reconstructs the genesis of a clandestine mission to Germany by Sir Edward Grey's private secretary, Sir William Tyrrell, planned for the summer of 1914. The mission remained abortive, but it offers fresh insights into a growing sense of détente in Great Power relations on the eve of the First World War. Although the episode involved key officials in London and Berlin, the article emphasizes that, pace many recent scholars of the period, the Anglo-German antagonism was not the central concern of British policy-makers. Rather, relations between the two countries were a function of Anglo-Russian relations, and the revival of Russian power after 1912 provides the proper context to the attempts by British and German officials to place relations between their countries on a friendlier footing. The article thus also calls into question criticisms of the British foreign secretary as irrevocably ententiste, and provides an antidote to assumptions of the First World War as somehow inevitable.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013
Footnotes
I am grateful to Zara Steiner and Keith Neilson for their constructive criticisms.
References
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43 Tyrrell to Blücher (private), 18 Apr. 1914 (TS copy), Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/16.
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58 Memo Blücher, 25 Jan. 1918, Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/15.
59 Hardinge to Chirol (private), 30 Apr. 1913, Hardinge MSS (CUL), vol. 93.
60 MacDonald to Rumbold (personal), 5 Jan. 1912, Rumbold MSS, Bodl., MS Rumbold dep. 15.
61 Memo Blücher, 25 Jan. 1918, Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/15. This six-page dossier on Tyrrell is remarkably perceptive, and dovetails neatly with the findings of later historians.
62 Fürst von Lichnowsky, K. M., Auf dem Weg zum Abgrund: Londoner Berichte, Erinnerungen and sonstige Schriften (2 vols., Dresden, 1927), i, pp. 125–6Google Scholar (much of the work was written during the war).
63 See Hermann Hatzfeldt to father, 4 Dec. 1900, HatzP, ii, no. 838, n. 1.
64 Tyrrell to Spring-Rice, 1 May 1906, Spring-Rice MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/241. Spring-Rice was one of Tyrrell's closest friends in the diplomatic service, and his letters to him provide some of the few insights into the thinking of this notoriously reluctant writer; see also Gwynn, S., ed., The letters and friendships of Sir Cecil Spring-Rice: a record (2 vols., London, 1929), ii, p. 18Google Scholar.
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67 Tyrrell to Spring-Rice (private), 1 Aug. 1911, Spring-Rice MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/241; see also Goschen diary, 22 Aug. 1911 (on conversation with Tyrrell), Howard, C. H. D., ed., The diary of Edward Goschen, 1900–1914 (London, 1980), p. 244Google Scholar.
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71 Chirol to Hardinge (private), 4 July 1913, ibid.
72 Corbett to de Bunsen (private), 20 Jan. 1914, De Bunsen MSS, Bodl., box 14; for the background see Gatrell, P., Government, industry and rearmament in Russia, 1907–1914: the last argument of tsarism (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 161–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stevenson, D., Armaments and the coming of the war, 1904–1914 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 329–408Google Scholar; Herrmann, D. G., The arming of Europe and the making of the First World War (Princeton, NJ, 1996), pp. 180–91Google Scholar.
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76 Goschen to Grey (no. 48), 5 Feb. 1914, TNA (PRO), FO 371/1857/5608.
77 Quotes from Tyrrell to Spring-Rice, 1 May 1906 and 15 Apr. 1908, Spring-Rice MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/241.
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84 Buchanan to Nicolson, 21 Jan. 1914, Nicolson MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/372.
85 Tel. Lecomte to Doumergue (no. 6), 28 Feb. 1914, DDF (3), ix, no. 377. Indeed, Benckendorff, the Russian ambassador, reported that Townley had asked to be transferred because of the strained relations with Russia in Persia, tel. to Sazonov (no. 146), 27 May/9 June 1914, BDS, iii, no. 1058.
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94 Tyrrell to Ponsonby, 10 Jan. 1913, Ponsonby MSS, Bodl., MS.Eng.his.c.659; see also to Spring-Rice, 13 Nov. 1912, Spring-Rice MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/241.
95 Russian concerns on this issue are well documented, see Grigorevich to Sazonov (no. 39/7), 6/19 Jan. 1914, and minutes of special conference, 21 Jan./8 Feb. 1914, IBZI, i, nos. 50 and 295. For some further discussion see also McMeekin, S., The Russian origins of the First World War (Cambridge, MA, 2011), pp. 35–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, though this author does not agree with the underlying argument advanced here.
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97 Chirol to Hardinge, 18 Apr. 1913, Hardinge MSS (CUL), vol. 93.
98 Nicolson to Townley (private), 21 Oct. 1912, Nicolson MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/359; for Nicolson and his views on Russia the locus classicus remains K. Neilson, ‘ “My beloved Russians”: Sir Nicolson, Arthur and Russia, , 1906–1916’, International History Review, 9 (1987), pp. 521–54Google Scholar.
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100 Nicolson to de Bunsen, 27 Apr. 1914, De Bunsen MSS, Bodl., box 15.
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103 Mallet to Hardinge, 27 June 1912, Hardinge MSS (CUL), vol. 93. Nicolson's hopes for Vienna are confirmed by Harold Nicolson to mother, 4 Feb. 1913, Sissinghurst MSS, box 1913–14; and Rennie to de Bunsen, 3 June 1913, De Bunsen MSS, Bodl., box 15.
104 Chirol to Hardinge (private), 14 June 1914, Hardinge MSS (CUL), vol. 93; Otte, Foreign Office mind, pp. 384–8.
105 Memo Bertie (on conversation with Grey), 2 Dec. 1913, Bertie MSS, Add. MSS 63032. For relevant section in the civil service regulations see G. Hertslet, E. P., ed., The Foreign Office list and diplomatic and consular yearbook for 1914 (London, 1914), p. 65Google Scholar.
106 Chirol to Hardinge (private), 20 June 1913, Hardinge MSS (CUL), vol. 93.
107 De Bunsen to Spring-Rice, 12 July 1898, Spring-Rice MSS, Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge, CASR 1/4.
108 Paget to Barclay (private and confidential), 13 Oct. 1912, Barclay MSS, London School of Economics Archive, 4/1. Paget's views were no secret in the service, see Paget to Nicolson (private), 7 Oct. 1912 (copy), Paget MSS, BL, Add. MSS 51253; also Steiner, Foreign Office, pp. 150–1.
109 Bertie to Hardinge (personal), 19 Feb. 1914, Hardinge MSS (CUL), vol. 93; and memo Bertie, 19 July 1914, Bertie MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/188. It was, perhaps, no coincidence that, his anti-German sentiments notwithstanding, Bertie's preference had always been for a policy of ‘tertius gaudens’ in international politics, see Cranborne to Bertie (private), [12 Apr.] 1903, Bertie MSS, BL, Add. MSS 63015; and Bertie to Hardinge (private), 19 Jan. 1907, ibid., BL, Add. MSS 63021.
110 Min. Crowe, ? May 1914, on Townley to Grey (no. 123), 28 Apr. 1914, TNA (PRO), FO 371/2073/22510.
111 Min. Crowe, 2 June 1914, on Townley to Grey (no. 143, confidential), 13 May 1914, TNA (PRO), FO 371/2059/24443.
112 Min. Crowe, 23 July 1914, TNA (PRO), FO 371/2076/33484.
113 Crowe to Howard, 10 Aug. 1913, Howard of Penrith MSS, DHW 4/Personal/19; also min. Crowe, 9 Mar. 1914, on tel. Buchanan to Grey (no. 67, confidential), 8 Mar. 1914, TNA (PRO), FO 371/2092/10266.
114 Florence Spring-Rice to Chirol, 2 Sept. 1913, Spring-Rice MSS, CASR 1/24.
115 Spring-Rice to Grey (private), 29 Sept. 1913, Grey MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/83; Burton, D. H., Cecil Spring-Rice: a diplomat's life (London and Toronto, 1992), p. 149Google Scholar.
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117 Tel. Spring-Rice to Grey (no. 123), 6 June 1913, TNA (PRO), FO 371/1859/26066; for some of the background see Spender, J. A., Weetman Pearson, First Viscount Cowdray, 1856–1917 (London, 1930), pp. 163–204Google Scholar; and Calvert, P. A. R., ‘Great Britain and the New World, 1905–1914’, in Hinsley, F. H., ed., British foreign policy under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 390–3Google Scholar.
118 Spring-Rice to Haldane, 18 Sept. 1913, Haldane MSS, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, MS 5910. The bachelor Haldane and the widower Grey shared a house in Queen Anne's Gate, see Haldane, E., From one century to another: reminiscences (London, 1937), pp. 254–5Google Scholar. For House's visit to London see Hodgson, G., Woodrow Wilson's right hand: the life of Colonel Edward M. House (New Haven, CT, 2006), p. 89Google Scholar.
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120 Blücher to Jagow, 17 Oct. [1917], Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/16.
121 Spring-Rice to Grey, n.d. [c. 20 Nov. 1913], Grey MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/83. Tyrrell went to some lengths to keep his meeting with Wilson a secret, given the latter's difficult relations with his secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, Tyrrell to Grey, 18 Nov. 1913, ibid.; also House diary, 13 Nov. 1913, in C. Seymour, ed., The intimate papers of Colonel House (4 vols., London, 1926), i, pp. 206–7.
122 Spring-Rice to Grey, 2 Dec. 1913, Grey MSS, TNA (PRO), FO 800/83 (original emphasis); see also Bryan's fulsome tribute, to Tyrrell, 3 Dec. 1913, ibid.
123 House diary, 13 Nov. 1913, as quoted in Hodgson, Wilson 's right hand, p. 89.
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125 House diary, 2 Dec. 1913, as quoted in Hodgson, Wilson right hand, p. 96.
126 Memo Blücher, 25 Jan. 1918, Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/15.
127 Blücher to Jagow, 17 Oct. [1917], ibid., TNA (PRO), GFM 25/16; also House to Page, 4 Nov. 1913, Hendrick, Life of Page, ii, p. 205. After the war, German diplomats came to the conclusion that Tyrrell's mission had the object of obtaining US assurances of ‘benevolent neutrality’ in the event of a European war, see Jagow to Bernstorff, 2 Sept. 1919, in Graf J. H. Bernstorff, Erinnerungen und Briefe (Zurich, 1936), pp. 116–19; and Jagow, Ursachen, p. 91.
128 Jagow to Blücher, 21 Apr. 1914, Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/16. On Salm see Gollwitzer, H., Die Standesherren: Die politische und gesellschaftliche Stellung der Mediatisierten, 1815–1918 (Stuttgart, 1957), p. 145Google Scholar.
129 Salm to Jagow, 18 May 1914, Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/15. Buchlau referred to the secret Austro-Russian meeting in Sept. 1908 which led to the Bosnian annexation crisis.
130 Salm to Blücher, 18 May and 20 July 1914, ibid.
131 Chirol to Hardinge (private), 22 May 1914, Hardinge MSS (CUL), vol. 93.
132 In Blücher's indelicate phrase, ‘Lady Tyrrell's were in feminine manner undated’, Blücher to Jagow, 6 July 1917, encl. Lady Tyrrell to Blücher, n.d., Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/16. For Tyrrell's absence, see memo Bertie, 18 July 1914, Bertie MSS, BL, Add. MSS 63033.
133 Lady Tyrrell to Blücher, n.d. [but before 2 July 1914], Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/16. The date can be deduced from her opening reference to the ‘ghastly time for [the] poor wonderful old emperor’ and the fact that Blücher informed Jagow on 2 July, see Jagow's reply, 6 July 1914, ibid.
134 Jagow to Blücher, 6 July 1914 (TS copy), ibid.
135 Fischer, F., Der Griff nach der Weltmacht: Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland, 1914–1918 (3rd edn, Düsseldorf, 1964), pp. 60–6Google Scholar.
136 Lady Tyrrell to Blücher, n.d., Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/16.
137 Temperley diary, 28 Mar. 1918, Temperley MSS, private; see also Tyrrell to Ponsonby, 31 July 1914, Ponsonby MSS, Bodl., MS.Eng.his.c.660.
138 Lambert's, N. A.Planning Armageddon: British economic warfare and the First World War (Cambridge, MA, 2012), esp. pp. 19–184CrossRefGoogle Scholar, offers by far the most sophisticated analysis of pre-war admiralty planning.
139 This is demonstrated in exemplary fashion for relations with Russia by Neilson, Last tsar, passim; for further thoughts see also my Foreign Office mind, pp. 4–9, and ‘“Chief of all office”: high politics, finance and foreign policy, 1865–1914’, in Simms, B. and Mulligan, W., eds., The primacy of foreign policy, 1660–2000: how strategic concerns shaped modern Britain (Basingstoke and New York, NY, 2010), pp. 232–48Google Scholar.
140 Oppenheimer diary, 8 Jan. 1918, Oppenheimer MSS, Bodl., box 5.
141 Tyrrell to Blücher, 18 Apr. 1914 (TS copy), Nachlass Jagow, TNA (PRO), GFM 25/16.
142 Grey to Bertie (no. 249, secret), 1 May 1914, TNA (PRO), FO 371/2092/19288.
143 For such fears see min. Nicolson, n.d., on Buchanan to Grey (no. 75), 23 Mar. 1914, TNA (PRO), FO 371/1988/12716. For the Anglo-Russian talks see Neilson, Last tsar, pp. 334–40; Siegel, Endgame, pp. 186–96. For irritation with France see min. Crowe, 23 July 1914, on A. Hardinge to Crowe, 20 July 1914, TNA (PRO), FO 371/2045/12291.
144 Oppenheimer diary, 8 Oct. 1914, Oppenheimer MSS, Bodl., box 5; also Oppenheimer, Stranger within, p. 243.
145 Charmley, J., ‘Traditions of Conservative foreign policy’, in Hicks, G., eds., Conservatism and British foreign policy, 1820–1920: the Derbys and the world (Farnham and Burlington, VA, 2011), p. 224Google Scholar, echoing Wilson, K. M., The policy of the ententes (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.
146 Blücher and Chapman-Houston, eds., Memoirs, p. 218.
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