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On the Road to War: British Foreign Policy in Transition, 1905–1906
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
To determine that the course being followed at one point in time is a road to war and that one being followed at another point is a path to peace is a hazardous undertaking. It is especially so when, as in the case presented here, the two leading figures in the successive periods of British foreign policy were both outspoken advocates of peace. Still it seems reasonable to attribute to one policy a greater affinity for those elements which contributed to the coming of a war. Since the First World War included the dimension of British participation from a very early stage, her contributions to the prerequisites of that war are worth reexamining.
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- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1973
References
* My work for this article was done with the aid of a grant from the American Philosophical Society.
1 Lansdowne, Lord, foreign secretary 1900–1905, known for his “Peace Letter” in the Daily Telegraph (London) in 1917Google Scholar. See Kurtz, Harold, “The Lansdowne Letter,” History Today, XVIII (02, 1968, 84–92)Google Scholar; SirGrey, Edward, foreign secretary 1905–1916, “abhorred the thought of war,”Google ScholarGooch, G. P., Under Six Reigns (London, 1958), p. 110.Google Scholar
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17 Governor-general of Canada, 1883–88; viceroy of India, 1888–94; secretary of state for war, 1895–1900.
18 Foreign secretary, 1878–80; prime minister and foreign secretary 1886; prime minister, 1886–92 (foreign secretary, 1887–92); prime minister and foreign secretary, 1895–1900; prime minister, 1900–02.
19 Lansdowne's and Grey's conversations with Paul Cambon, the French ambassador in London, show a marked difference in style. Lansdowne always conversed with the ambassador in French, and Cambon who certainly knew some English refused to use it at all, Eubank, K., Paul Cambon (Norman, 1960), p. 209Google Scholar; Grey, who did not know French so well, refused to converse with Cambon in it; he and Cambon each used his own language without any interpreter present. The language barrier placed the two men at equal advantage or disadvantage, and “the question of misquotation never arose,” Dexter, B. “Lord Grey and the Problem of Alliance,” Foreign Affairs, XXX (01, 1952), 300.Google Scholar
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“I think we are running a real risk of losing France & not gaining Germany, who won't want us, if she can detach France from us.”
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32 David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill did not involve themselves in foreign affairs at the beginning of the Liberal government's tenure.
33 The outstanding study of the internal working of the Foreign Office is the book by Steiner cited above in note 3.
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36 The successful negotiation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 is an example of Bertie's ability.
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39 Monger, , p. 192.Google Scholar
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41 In a memorandum to William Tyrrell, Grey's précis writer, Crowe complained about Bertie's irregular procedure in mixing secret dispatches and private letters. Crowe ended by saying: “it is always annoying to have to say anything to Sir F. Bertie, but I am afraid he will make a regular habit of repeating the present procedure unless something is said to him.” Tyrrell's minute sent on the memorandum forwarded to Hardinge asked: “If you agree with Crowe, do you feel inclined to ‘face the music?’” (Crowe's minute to Tyrrell, , 29 12 1906Google Scholar, PRO FO 371/129/file 43788).
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43 “The French government is likely to be as much embarrassed by French peacemongers and arbitrationists-at-any-price, as the British government is by the same class of busybodies here” (minute by Crowe, , 3 03 1906, PRO FO 371/77).Google Scholar
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45 Fitzmaurice was the younger brother of the Unionist foreign secretary, Lord Lansdowne.
46 An illuminating sidelight to the widening gap between Grey and the “anti-Germans” on the one hand and those who were willing to qualify Britain's friendship for France in order to avoid a complete break with Germany on the other is accidentally provided by an editor's error in the British Documents on the Origins of the War. On a dispatch (Nicolson, to Grey, , confidential, 5 01 1906, BD III, 208–09 [PRO FO 371/171/187]Google Scholar), Gooch and Temperley show two “minutes” by Grey. The first says merely: “This is important.” The second goes on for several sentences and closes with this statement: “I admit that any arrangement between Spain and Germany on the west coast is difficult, because of the Canaries; but an equivalent concession elsewhere is not impossible.” This latter “minute” was really written by Fitzmaurice not Grey, yet Gooch and Temperley did not recognize it as being uncharacteristic of Grey (see Grey, to Campbell-Bannerman, , 9 01 1906Google Scholar, Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-five Years, 1892–1916, I [New York, 1925], 114–115Google Scholar [partially quoted in Monger, , p. 267Google Scholar]). It is not likely that the editors would have attributed such a remark to Grey three months later after British support for France and opposition to Germany had hardened at Algeciras (see Lowe, and Dockrill, , p. 24Google Scholar). Fitzmaurice, on the other hand, remained quite consistently in favor of seeking a solution to the differences with Germany.
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56 Much of the influence gained from friendship with the king came through his private secretary, Francis Knollys. When the Liberals came to power Lewis Harcourt wrote to John Sinclair, who was to be secretary of state for Ireland in the Liberal cabinet of 1905: “Don't lose touch with Francis Knollys for more than a few hours at a time! If you have no news for him go and ask his opinion on something. He likes you and you ought to become really intimate this week” (Harcourt, to Sinclair, , 6 12 1905, Campbell-Bannerman Papers, British Museum, Add.MSS 52518).Google Scholar
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60 “If the Germans succeed in detaching France from us we shall soon get the rough side of German diplomacy again” (Grey, to Campbell-Bannerman, , private, 4 09 1907Google Scholar, Campbell-Bannerman Papers, British Museum, Add.MSS 52514; also quoted by Robbins, , p. 158).Google Scholar
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