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The British Cabinet and the Anglo-French Staff Talks, 1905–1914: Who Knew What and When Did He Know It?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

John W. Coogan  and
Peter F. Coogan
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Extract

The role of the British cabinet in the Anglo-French military conversations prior to the First World War has been and remains controversial. The acrimonious debate within the government during November 1911 seems linked inextricably to the flood of angry memoirs that followed August 1914 and to the continuing historical debate over the actions and motivations of the various ministers involved. Two generations of researchers now have examined an enormous body of evidence, yet the leading modern scholars continue to publish accounts that differ on the most basic questions. Historians have proved no more able than the ministers themselves were to reconcile the contradictory statements of honorable men. The persistence of these differences in historical literature demonstrates both the continuing confusion over the cabinet's role in the military conversations and the need for a renewed effort to resolve this confusion.

The starting point for any discussion of the staff talks must be the recognition that the meaning of the term changed significantly over the nine years before the outbreak of World War I. The contacts began with a series of informal discussions between senior British and French officers during 1905. The first systematic conversations took place early in January 1906 under the authority of Lord Esher, a permanent member of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), and Sir George Clarke, the CID secretary. Later in that month a small group of ministers, including Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, sanctioned formal, ongoing exchanges between the two general staffs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 110 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1985

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References

1 For example, Steiner, Zara S., Britain and the Origins of the First World War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977), p. 195CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which asserts that “only Campbell-Bannerman, Grey, and Haldane knew about the Anglo-French conversations”; Wilson, John, CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973), p. 530Google Scholar: “The only ministers who knew were C.B., Grey, Haldane, Ripon, Fitzmaurice, and Asquith.” Such differences are common throughout the historical literature on the staff talks.

2 The best account of the details of the British side of the staff talks remains Williamson, Samuel R., Jr., The Politics of Grand Strategy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969)Google Scholar. See also d'Ombrain, Nicholas, War Machinery and High Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Monger, George W., The End of Isolation (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1963)Google Scholar; and Wilson, Trevor, “Britain's Moral Commitment to France in August 1914,” History 64 (1979): 380–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 See the discussion of the evidence on both sides of this question in Monger, pp. 236–48. Despite contrary statements in postwar memoirs and interviews, there is no contemporary evidence that any member of the Balfour government had learned of the informal contacts that had taken place between British and French officers before December 1905. This statement is based on an examination of the records of the cabinet, the CID, the Foreign Office, the War Office, and the Admiralty and of the private papers of Balfour, Lansdowne, Arnold Forster, Cawdor, Austen Chamberlain, Halsbury, Midleton, Selborne, and Salisbury.

4 Sir George Clarke to Lord Esher, January 9, 1906, Esher Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge University, ESHR 10/38.

5 Ibid.

6 Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Bertie (British ambassador in Paris), January 15, 1906, Public Record Office (PRO), Foreign Office (FO) 800/49.

7 Grey to Lord Tweedmouth, January 16, 1906, Tweedmouth Papers, Naval Historical Library, Ministry of Defence, case A.

8 Grey to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, January 9, 1906, Campbell-Bannerman Papers, British Library (BL), Additional (Add.) MS 41218.

9 The prime minister was in Scotland January 9–27, which may have been a factor in Grey's decision not to inform his chief immediately. It is hard to believe, however, that the distance alone prevented the foreign secretary from mentioning the staff talks in a letter, from sending a member of his staff to brief Campbell-Bannerman, or from going north himself. Monger (pp. 250–51) asserts that Haldane briefed the prime minister in Scotland within “a few days” of January 12. This account is based on Haldane's notoriously unreliable An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1929)Google Scholar and on Sir Frederick Maurice's Haldane: 1856–1929, 2 vols. (London: Faber & Faber, 1937–1939)Google Scholar, which in turn relied heavily on the autobiography and postwar recollections. The possibility that Haldane briefed Campbell-Bannerman cannot be ruled out entirely, but there is no supporting contemporary evidence, and Clarke's report on his conversation with “CB” on January 27 in Clarke to Esher, January 27, 1906, Esher Papers, ESHR 10/38, gives no indication of an earlier briefing by the war minister.

10 Clarke to Esher, January 27, 1906.

11 Campbell-Bannerman to Lord Ripon, February 2, 1906, Ripon Papers, BL, Add. MS 43518.

12 For example, Lord Loreburn (lord chancellor, 1905–12), as reported in C. P. Scott (Liberal editor), diary entry, October 23, 1914, Scott Papers, BL, Add. MS 50901; cf. John Wilson (n. 1 above), pp. 531–32.

13 Campbell-Bannerman to Ripon.

14 The best brief account of this shift is McDermott, John, “The Revolution in British Military Thinking from the Boer War to the Moroccan Crisis,” Canadian Journal of History 9 (1974): 159–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 The best source on Haldane as war minister is Spiers, Edward M., Haldane: An Army Reformer (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1980Google Scholar; see also Williamson (n. 2 above), pp. 90–95 and passim.

16 Clarke to Esher, [January 14, 1906], Esher Papers, ESHR 10/38; Sir Charles Ottley (Admiralty director of naval intelligence) to Clarke, July 18, 1906, in ibid.; Marder, Arthur J., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, 5 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1961–70), 1: 117–18 and passimGoogle Scholar.

17 Grey's view is best stated in Grey to Bertie (n. 6 above). Robbins, Keith, Sir Edward Grey (London: Cassell, 1971), 238–39Google Scholar, argues that the foreign secretary in fact knew more about the talks unofficially than he was willing to admit he knew, especially to Cambon or to his colleagues. This seems an attempt to make Grey more Machiavellian than the contemporary evidence would support.

18 On Ripon, see Ripon to Campbell-Bannerman, March 3, 1906, Campbell-Bannerman Papers, BL, Add. MS 43518; on Campbell-Bannerman, see John Wilson, pp. 517–21, 533.

19 On this incident, which has not received the attention it deserves in terms of what it reveals concerning the prime minister's ignorance of the staff talks, see Campbell-Bannerman to Grey, April 12, 1907, PRO, FO 800/100; Grey to Bertie, April 13, 1907, PRO, FO 800/164; and John Wilson, pp. 542–43.

20 The best overall source on the incoming Liberal government latein1905 and early in 1906 remains Rowland, Peter, The Last Liberal Governments, vol. 1 (London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1968)Google Scholar.

21 The best source on the group of Liberals who opposed balance of power policies is Morris, A. J. A., Radicalism against War, 1906–1914 (London: Longman, 1972)Google Scholar.

22 The best secondary analysis of the decision not to consult the cabinet is John Wilson, pp. 530–33. On the prime minister's previous experiencesand outlook in early 1906, see ibid., passim, esp. pp. 202–12, 279–341, 423–75.

23 On the Admiralty-War Office impasse after January 1906, see Williamson, pp. 78–79, 107–8, 170–71; Marder, 1:383–88 and passim; and Steiner (n. 1 above), esp. pp. 193–97.

24 The most convincing overall account of Asquith as a personality and as a political leader remains Jenkins, Roy, Asquith (New York: Chilmark Press, 1964)Google Scholar, though the work is now dated in many specific areas.

25 SirGrey, Edward, Twenty-Five Years, 1892–1916, 2 vols. (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1925), 2: 311Google Scholar; John Wilson is typical of the arguments for accepting Grey's claim.

26 Herbert Henry Asquith to Grey, July 9, 1908, with minute by Grey,n.d., PRO, FO 800/100; cf. Asquith to Grey, September 7, 1908, in ibid.;and Williamson, pp. 139–40.

27 Marder (1:22–23) provides the best analysis of the McKenna-Fisher relationship. For the first lord's contributions to the Navalist argument in the CID subcommittee of 1908–9, see CID, Subcommittee on the Military Needs of the Empire, proceedings, March 23, 1909, PRO, Cabinet (CAB) 4/3. McKenna's presence at the 1908–9 subcommittee meetings completely undermined his claim at the CID meeting of August 23, 1911, that he was hearing of the War Office “scheme” for the first time at that late date, as Asquith quickly pointed out (see CID, meeting of August 23, 1911, minutes, CAB 2/2).

28 CID, Subcommittee on the Military Needs of the Empire.

29 Lord Fitzmaurice, September 22, 1919, minute on Campbell-Bannerman to Fitzmaurice, January 14, 1906, Campbell-Bannerman Papers, BL, Add. MS 41214. John Wilson, p. 530, is correct in asserting that Fitzmaurice knew of the talks in January 1906,but he gained that knowledge as Foreign Office parliamentary undersecretary, not as a member of the cabinet.

30 For example, Steiner, pp. 196–97.

31 John Morley to Lord Rosebery (former Liberal prime minister), December 3, 908, Rosebery Papers, National Library of Scotland, Manuscript (MS) 10047; Grey, memo of conversation with Paul Cambon, April 28, 1908, PRO, FO 800/92.

32 CID, Subcommittee on the Military Needs of the Empire, report, July 24, 1909, CID Paper 109B, CAB 4/3.

33 On Haldane's attempts to influence Lloyd George and Churchill, see Richard Burdon Haldane to M. Haldane, September 8, 1909, Haldane Papers, National Libraryof Scotland, MS 5982; there are a number of similar letters for 1910 in ibid., MS 5984. Churchill definitely received briefings on the War Office plan from Henry Wilson during August 1911, as recorded in Sir Henr y Wilson, diary entries, August 15, 1911, and passim, Wilson Papers, Imperial War Museum, microfilm, reel 4. Evidence on Lloyd George is less clear, but he certainly showed no surprise at Wilson's revelations during the August 23, 1911, CID meeting, and the fact that Asquith invited him is in itself proof that the chancellor was considered friendly by the Continentalists before themeeting. Both Lloyd George and Churchill heard Wilson's lecture on August 23, 1911,so Cameron Hazlehurst's statement in “Herbert Henry Asquith” (in BritishPrime Ministers in the Twentieth Century, ed. John P. Mackintosh, rev. ed. [London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977], 1:86) that they “did not learn aboutthe controversial Anglo-French military conversations until the whole cabinet was informed in 1911” is not historically sustainable.

34 On Wilson's appointment, see his diary entries for May 22 and June 6, 7, 1910, Wilson Papers, 4. There is no adequate biography, but see Williamson, pp. 167–70.

35 Bertie to Grey, April 13, 1911, PRO, FO 800/52.

36 Sir Henry Wilson, diary entry, July 19, 1911.

37 Ibid., diary entries, July 20, 21, 1911.

38 Ibid., diary entry, August 9, 1911. Grey admitted inTwenty-Five Years ([n. 25 above], 1:233) that “since 1906 I had made no enquiry whether the British and French military authorities were remaining in close touch, although I had assumed that they were doing so.” Compare Robbins (n. 17 above), pp. 238–39.

39 Sir Henry Wilson, diary entry, August 15, 1911.

40 Maurice Hankey, the naval assistant secretary of the CID, warne dMcKenna immediately after seeing Asquith's list of invitations that the navy should not expect a fair hearing (Hankey to Reginald McKenna, August 15, 1911, Hanke y Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge University, HNKY 7/3).

41 Sir Henr y Wilson, diary entry, August 23, 1911. On the meeting itself, see CID, meeting of August 23, 1911, minutes, CAB 2/2.

42 For example, Asquith's comments as recorded in Esher, diary entry, October 4, 1911, Esher Papers, ESHR 2/12; Grey's willingness to put a division of the BEF at the Admiralty's disposal as recorded in the CID minutes of the August 23, 1911, meeting, CAB 2/2; David Lloyd George to Winston Churchill, August 25, 1911, Lloyd George Papers, House of Lords Record Office, C/3/15/6; and Churchill to Lloyd George, August 31, 1911, in ibid., C/3/15/7.

43 For example, Steiner (n. 1 above), p. 200: “At the famous C.I.D. Meeting of 23 August 1911, Wilson's almost completed plans received official sanction and the earlier decision in favour of a continental strategy was reaffirmed.” Compare Fry, Michael G., Lloyd George and Foreign Policy (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1977), 1: 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which also regards the meeting of August 23, 1911, as decisive.

44 On Loreburn's general opposition to military ties with France, see Lord Loreburn to Grey, August 26, 1911, PRO, FO 800/99. There is little solid evidence from which to determine the timing or even the order of McKenna's approaches to Loreburn, Harcourt, and Morley, but see Loreburn's recollections in C. P. Scott, diary entry, October 23, 1914, Scott Papers, BL, Add. MS 50901. The date of September 9, 1911, on Morley comes from Asquith to Richard Burdon Haldane, September 9, 1911, Haldane Papers, MS 5909. McKenna clearly was being less than candid on October 20, 1911, when he assured Asquith that he had not yet discussed the staff talks with anyone outside the CID. Morley, Harcourt, and Crewe technically were members of that body, despite their exclusion from the August 23, 1911, meeting, but Loreburn had no claim to membership (Reginald McKenna, memo of conversation with Asquith, October 20, 1911, McKenna Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge University, McKN 4/2).

45 McKenna.

46 Asquith to King George V, cabinet letter, November 2,1911, PRO, CAB 41/33/28.

47 Sir Henry Wilson, diary entries, November 17, 1911, and passim; Richard Burdon Haldane to M. Haldane, November 16, 1911, Haldane Papers, MS 6011; see also Williamson (n. 2 above), pp. 199–201.

48 On Loreburn's claim concerning resignation, see Scott, diaryentry, October 23, 1914, Scott Papers, BL, Add. MS 50901. On the cabinet debate and its resolution, see Churchill to Grey, November 4, 1911, PRO, FO 800/87; McKenna to Sir John Fisher, November 5, 1911, Fisher Papers (examined in the St. Andrews University Library by courtesy of the duke of Hamilton); Richard Burdon Haldane to E. Haldane, November 13,16,1911, Haldane Papers, MS 6011; Sir A. Grant Duff (military assistant secretary of the CID), diary entry, November 16, 1911, Grant Duff Papers, Imperial War Museum, microfilm; Sir Henry Wilson, diary entries, November 16, 17, 1911; Esher, diary entry, November 24, 1911, Esher Papers, ESHR 2/12; C. Hobhouse (chancellor, duchy of Lancaster), diaryentry, November 16, 1911, in Inside Asquith's Cabinet, ed. David, Edward (London: John Murray, 1977), 107–8Google Scholar. A provocative modern analysis is Wilson, K. M., “The Opposition and the Crisis in the Liberal Cabinet over Foreign Policy in November 1911,” International History Review 3 (1981): 399–413CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Sir Henry Wilson, diary entries, May 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 1912, Wilson Papers, 5. See Steiner, pp. 99–104; and Williamson, pp. 295–98, on the significance of the Grey-Cambon agreement.

50 Winston Churchill, memo, July 17, 1912, PRO, FO 800/87, and memo of conversation with Cambon, July 26, 1912, in ibid.; for the background and details of the naval talks, see Williamson, pp. 227–48, 264–99.

51 Asquith to V. Stanley (personal confidante), August 2, 1914, Stanley Papers (private); Grey to Bertie, telegram, August 2, 1914, PRO, FO 371/2160; Sir Edward Grey, House of Commons speech, August 3, 1911, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th ser., 65 (1914): 1823Google Scholar.

52 Asquith to Stanley, August 6, 1914, Stanley Papers. The prime minister noted that his colleagues had accepted dispatch of the BEF that day “with much less demur” than he had expected.

53 Sir Henry Wilson, diary entries, August 5, 12, 1914, and passim, Wilson Papers, 5.

54 Fitzmaurice claimed in 1919 that, “if nobody else told Loreburn of the conversations with Cambon, I did” (as quoted in John Wilson [n. 1 above], p. 531), but the reference clearly is to the political rather than the military staff talks. Had Loreburn known of the joint planning by the two general staffs in August 1911, he surely would have raised the issue in his blunt letter to Grey, August 26, 1911, PRO, FO 800/99.

55 Sir Henry Wilson, diary entry, August 9, 1911, Wilson Papers, 4.