No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
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.
* 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
2 Gooch, , Under Six Reigns, p. 133Google Scholar; see also Gooch, 's earlier works, especially Before the War: Studies in Diplomacy (2 vols.; London, 1936–1938).Google Scholar
3 Andrew, C., Théophile Delcassé and the Making of the Entente Cordiale: A Reappraisal of French Foreign Policy 1898–1905 (London, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beloff, M., Imperial Sunset, Vol. I, Britain's Liberal Empire (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Cosgrove, R. A., “Sir Eyre Crowe and the English Foreign Office, 1905–1914” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of California, Riverside, 1967)Google Scholar; Howard, C. H. D., Splendid Isolation (London, 1967)Google Scholar; Lowe, C. J. and Dockrill, M. L., The Mirage of Power, Vol. I, British Foreign Policy, 1902–1904 (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Marder, A. J., From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, Vol. I., The Road to War, 1904–1914 (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Monger, G. W., The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy, 1900–1907 (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Nish, I., The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894–1907 (London, 1966)Google Scholar; Perkins, B., The Great Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1895–1914 (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Robbins, K., Sir Edward Grey: A Biography of Lord Grey of Fallodon (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Rowland, P., The Last Liberal Government: The Promised Land, 1905–1910 (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Steiner, Z. S., The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (Cambridge [Eng.], 1969)Google Scholar; White, J. A., The Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War (Princeton, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williamson, S. R., The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War (Cambridge [Mass.], 1969).Google Scholar
4 Especially “Private Collections: Ministers and Officials: Various (FO 800)” in the Public Record Office, London (hereafter cited as “PRO FO 800”).
5 Robbins, , p. 152Google Scholar. Within a few hours after taking office, Grey wrote with regard to the agenda of the upcoming conference on Morocco: “We shall of course do what they [France] want about it, as there is nothing we want to put forward” (Grey, to Bertie, , 13 12 1905Google Scholar, Grey Papers, PRO FO 800/49/12); see also Andrew, , pp. 303–04.Google Scholar
6 Monger, , p. 302Google Scholar. In another place Monger enlarges upon the differences between the two policies: “Grey's policy during the Algeciras crisis, although superficially like Lansdowne's, had in fact taken a new direction. Lansdowne's main fear had been that the crisis would lead to the acquisition of a Moroccan port by Germany, and he had been ready to go to war to prevent this happening. Grey was much less concerned with the imperial and naval aspects of the crisis and even thought seriously of conceding a port to the Germans if it would produce a settlement. Instead he emphasised, much more than Lansdowne had, the need to preserve the entente: he made relations with Germany dependent on it and convinced himself that Britain should go to war rather than see it destroyed…. What Grey was in fact working towards was a new doctrine of the European balance of power. He had not yet identified Germany as the real threat to the balance, and in fact did not yet see clearly the implications of his policy, but more and more this care for the balance came to dominate his actions; and it was a fundamental change” (Monger, , p. 280).Google Scholar
7 Taylor, , p. 438Google Scholar. For a brief recent comparison of Lansdowne's and Grey's views on “balance of power,” see Lowe, and Dockrill, , p. 18.Google Scholar
8 Taylor, , p. 437.Google Scholar
9 February 14, 1929, Gooch, , Under Six Reigns, p. 227.Google Scholar
10 “I [Gooch] mean by it [balance of power] what you have expressed as follows: ‘England has always drifted or deliberately gone into opposition to any power which establishes a hegemony in Europe’ [Minute by Grey, , 9 06 1906Google Scholar, Gooch, G. P. and Temperley, H., eds., British Documents of the Origins of the War, 1898–1914 (11 Vols., London, 1926–1938)Google Scholar hereafter cited as (“BD,” III, 359Google Scholar]. G[rey]: ‘Thus interpreted, I accept it,’” Gooch, , Under Six Reigns, p. 227.Google Scholar
11 Monger, , pp. 267–68Google Scholar; “Lansdowne had opposed German moves in Morocco for strategic reasons…. Grey was more concerned with the maintenance of French strength in the face of German demands than the dangers of an African port for Germany” (Cosgrove, , p. 88).Google Scholar
12 Grenville, J. A. S., “Lansdowne's Abortive Project of 12 March 1901 for a Secret Agreement with Germany,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XXVII (11, 1954), 201–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grenville, J. A. S., Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy: The Close of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1964), pp. 344–69Google Scholar; Koch, H. W., “The Anglo-German Alliance Negotiations: Missed Opportunity or Myth?” History, LIV (10, 1969), 378–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 Lansdowne, to Nicolson, , private, 12 12 1905, Nicolson Papers, PRO FO 800/336.Google Scholar
14 Grey, to Bertie, , private, 15 03 1906Google Scholar, Grey Papers, PRO FO 800/49/122–23; see also Monger, , p. 302.Google Scholar
15 “His [Grey's] anxiety was always, not that relations with Germany were bad, but that they might become too good” (Monger, , p. 301).Google Scholar
16 R. H. Cosgrove writes that Grey was anti-German from 1906 to 1910 and then more conciliatory after 1910 (p. 240). This supports the author's view that any change of heart Grey may have had was too faint and too late to avoid all-out support for France in crises of war and peace. See also Robbins, , pp. 127–28Google Scholar, for a recent reinterpretation of Grey's preparation for the foreign office leadership in which the charge that he was inexperienced is denied.
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
20 Grey's travel abroad prior to the First World War consisted of a visit to India in 1887–88, travel with a commission of inquiry to the West Indies in 1897, and a state visit with King George V to Paris in 1914 (Dexter, B., p. 301Google Scholar; Robbins, , p. 40Google Scholar). See also Robbing, , pp. 126–27Google Scholar, for a defense of Grey's suitability for the post of foreign secretary because he was “totally uncontaminated” by extensive experience abroad.
21 Taylor, , p. 436.Google Scholar
22 Grey, to Spender, , private, 19 10 1905Google Scholar, Spender Papers, British Museum, Add. MSS 46389 (quoted in part in Robbins, , p. 133Google Scholar). The full letter reads as follows: “I am afraid the impression has been spread with some success by those interested in spreading it, that a Liberal Government would unsettle the understanding with France in order to make up to Germany. I want to do what I can to combat this in speaking tomorrow (Friday); if the point gets well reported & you agree with what I say it might be useful to emphasize it in the Westminster [Gazette].”
“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.”
23 Grenville, , Lord Salisbury, pp. 149–50.Google Scholar
24 Monger, , p. 256.Google Scholar
25 Salisbury, to Lansdowne, , 30 04 1905Google Scholar, Lansdowne archives at Bowood, Lansdowne MSS, Vol. 6.
26 Salisbury, to Lansdowne, , 8 04 1905Google Scholar, ibid.
27 Salisbury, to Balfour, , 9 11 1905Google Scholar, Balfour Papers, British Museum, Add. MSS 49758 (Monger quotes part of this letter on p. 226).
28 Brodrick, to Lascelles, , 1 11 1909Google Scholar, Lascelles MSS, Vol. III, part 4 (as quoted in Monger, , pp. 225–26).Google Scholar
29 Monger, , pp. 307–310.Google Scholar
30 Steiner, , p. 164Google Scholar; Monger, , p. 256.Google Scholar
31 Fitzmaurice, to Ripon, , 10 10 1908Google Scholar, Ripon Papers, British Museum, Add.MSS 43543.
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.
34 Steiner, , p. 66.Google Scholar
35 Williamson, , pp. 74–75.Google Scholar
36 The successful negotiation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 is an example of Bertie's ability.
37 Steiner, , pp. 73–74, 203–204.Google Scholar
38 One of the best examples of Bertie's new authority was in the triumph of unquestioned support for France adopted by Grey at Algeciras. In that crisis Bertie lectured Grey, writing: “One must take the French as they are and not as one would wish them to be” (Bertie, to Grey, , 17 03 1906Google Scholar, Grey Papers, PRO FO 800/49/131 [also quoted by Monger, , p. 279]).Google Scholar
39 Monger, , p. 192.Google Scholar
40 Hardinge, to Nicolson, , 15 03 1906, BD, IV, 305Google Scholar; Nicolson, to Grey, , 19 03 1906, Grey Papers, Vol. XXXVIII [PRO FO 800/72]Google Scholar, cited by Monger, , p. 279.Google Scholar
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).
42 “I would not hesitate but would let the French know—when they come to us—that we would fight if necessary” (Mallet, to Sandars, , 20 04 1905, Balfour Papers, British Museum, Add. MSS 49747Google Scholar); Mallet, to Nicolson, [23 12 1905]Google Scholar, Nicolson Papers, PRO FO 800/336; Mallet, to Knollys, , 9 06 1906Google Scholar, Royal Archives at Windsor, RA W49/46.
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
44 Steiner, , pp. 103 and 108.Google Scholar
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.
47 Minute by Fitzmaurice on Crowe's memorandum of 1 January 1907, BD, III, 420Google Scholar (also quoted by Mowat, R. B., “Lord Fitzmaurice, 1846–1935,” The Contemporary Review, CXLVIII (08, 1935), 200).Google Scholar
48 Lord Esher was named as a permanent member of the C.I.D. in 1905 (see Johnson, F. A., Defence by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defence, 1885–1959 [London, 1960], pp. 79–80).Google Scholar
49 “Haldane says … Asquith, Grey and he are strongly in favor of it [C.I.D.], only they want to give it a more ‘scientific’ and less ‘political’ complexion” (Esher, to [Sandars], private, 7 10 1905, Balfour Papers, British Museum, Add. MSS 49719, pp. 23–24Google Scholar).
50 Esher, to Clarke, , private, 10 10 1905Google Scholar, Balfour Papers, British Museum, Add.MSS 49719; Lord Morley, the secretary of state for India, commented after the first meeting of the C.I.D. in 1906: “So the Cabinet takes a secondary place” (Morley, to Minto, , 1 02 1906Google Scholar, Morley Papers, India Office Records, MSS. Eur. D. 573/1).
51 Clarke, to Balfour, , private, 5 05 1906Google Scholar, Balfour Papers, British Museum, Add.MSS 49702.
52 Fisher, to Lansdowne, , 22 04 1905Google Scholar, quoted by Marder, , I, 115.Google Scholar
53 Mallet, to Bertie, , 13 04 1905Google Scholar, Bertie Papers, Ser. A, cited by Monger, , p. 189Google Scholar, and Williamson, , p. 35.Google Scholar
54 Fisher, to Balfour, [11 11 1906], Balfour Papers, British Museum, Add.MSS 49711, pp. 209–10Google Scholar. The full text of the letter follows: “This is a secret letter! I do hope in the interests of the Country you stop any debate in either house on the Navy—I am sure you know I would not stop here one minute if anything [were] wrong. We are so much stronger than we need be as to tender it undesirable to be known—The real truth is we don't want anyone to know the truth [Fisher's italics]! Just this moment I've seen a wonderfully accurate resume of the situation in Vanity Fair. I enclose it and hope no one of note will read it!”
55 For an analysis of Germany's fear of the British fleet and its effect on Germany, see Steinberg, J., “The Copenhagen Complex,” Journal of Contemporary History, I, no. 3 (1966), 23–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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
57 Monger, , p. 331.Google Scholar
58 Sandars, to Balfour, , confidential, 23 02 1906, Balfour Papers, British Museum, Add.MSS 49764.Google Scholar
59 “Grey likes being received by the king. It also helps make things go well” (Hardinge, to Knollys, , 6 05 1907Google Scholar, Royal Archives at Windsor, RA W51/79).
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
61 Hardinge, to Villiers, , private, 20 02 1908, Villiers Papers, PRO FO 800/24.Google Scholar
62 Hardinge, to Villiers, , private, 7 01 1908, Villiers Papers, PRO FO 800/24.Google Scholar