The End of Splendid Isolation?: British Foreign Policy under Haldane
The Entente Cordiale - a cartoon depicting Marianne embracing Uncle Sam in return for $3,000,000 of direct investment
Since the beginning of the Edwardian era, Britain had mostly stayed aloof from alliances in the late 19th century, with an independence made possible by its island location, the presence of the Royal Navy, the country’s dominant position in finance and trade as well as its strong industrial base. Under the Liberal governments of Lord Hartington and Chamberlain, Britain’s economic position moved away from one of free trade (as had obtained under the Hanoverians since the end of the Napoleonic Wars) and towards one of tariffs and reliance on the Empire and certain protected markets such as Argentina. After losing power in 1874, William Gladstone had initiated his political return in 1876 by calling for a moralistic foreign policy, as opposed to the realism of the Conservatives. However, on his return to government in 1880, he found himself distracted by fiscal affairs and the question of Home Rule. As a result, his moralistic foreign policy was not taken up by successive Foreign Secretaries of both parties. Foreign policy was, by and large, not an issue that interested the vast majority of the public, with the exception of occasional flare-ups of public feeling over particular issues such as the Bulgarian War of Independence in the 1870s and the Congo Reform Association in 1904, or more consistently in campaigns to end the international slave trade.
Imperial affairs, as differentiated from foreign affairs, did have the capacity to capture the public imagination. However, the Congress of Berlin had largely neutered the prospect of conflict between European powers in Africa by delineating a process for African colonization and the Great Game in central Asia continued to be of interest to few people outside of India and Whitehall. Instead, what attracted the attention were developments in colonial and Dominion governments, with particular attention being paid to the prospects for emigration. Canadian and (later) Australian and New Zealand electoral results were regularly reported and discussed at length in the UK. The independent countries which most commonly figured in the British imagination were Argentina and the United States, both also distinguished by their position as popular sites for emigration.
As a result, British engagement with European politics was at a minimum. The country had renewed the Treaty of Windsor with Portugal in 1899 but had not taken action in response to the revolution there in 1910. Similarly, little action had been taken in response to German and Italian unification in the 1860s and 1870s or the fall of Napoleon III in 1871. The UK had acquiesced implicitly in Napoleon’s earlier intervention in Mexico which had restored the Mexican Empire and later stayed out of the Spanish Revolution (1868-74) until the attack on HMS Royal Alfred had initiated a short intervention which had ended with the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines (1873-74). Cordial relations had been maintained with the Ottomans until the independence of Egypt promised a better safeguard of the route to India and relations with Russia improved following the annexation of Tibet. Kaiser Wilhelm’s telegram of support to the Kruger Boer government (1896) and the Fashoda Incident (1898) had briefly suggested the possibility of war with Germany or France, respectively, but relations were smoothed over in both cases.
However, following the election of 1904-05, the attitude of the British government changed as the alliance system in Europe moved the countries solidly into two mutually hostile camps. Germany had allowed their friendship treaty with Russia to lapse in 1890, which in turn pushed France and Russia into each other’s arms and encouraged Russian expansionary interest in the Balkans at the expense of the declining Ottoman Empire. In 1894, the two powers concluded a secret mutual defence treaty. This in turn pushed Austria-Hungary closer to Germany (the two powers had concluded a friendly treaty in 1882) and a more formal, but also secret, alliance was concluded in 1902. Thus, in 1905 there were four powerful countries in Europe which remained ‘unclaimed’ by either side: the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Spain and the UK. The Ottomans were caught between two opponents in the form of Austria-Hungary and Russia, both of whom were pursuing expansionary policies in the Balkans. Italy wished to join one of the alliances but its diplomatic aims of establishing African colonies (it would eventually do so in Libya in 1911) and being a major power in the Mediterranean was a source of concern for all the four powers. Spain was recovering from its civil war and revolution and its governments of all stripes were forced to adopt a delicate balancing act to avoid alienating anybody, which constrained its room for maneuver abroad.
The UK was in a similar position: unable to make a clear choice for each side. On the one hand, traditional concerns with maintaining the balance of power in Europe would indicate that an alliance should be concluded with France and Russia to keep down the rising power Germany. But on the other hand, France remained a traditional rival and there was a strong institutional dislike of any alliance with them (despite the Treaty of London in 1903, which had resolved a number of imperial border disputes). Germany, despite its own personal military and economic strength, was not well served for with allies and the majority of British analysts expected her to lose a protracted engagement with both France and Russia at the same time. Furthermore, the overriding British foreign policy concern of defending the empire was not exactly compatible with joining either alliance. The fact that the Anglo-Ottoman War in 1905 had been protested by both Russia and Germany (as well as, of course, the Ottomans), is a telling illustration of this point.
The Entente Cordiale of 1904 between France and the United States had been the pinnacle of the diplomatic maneuverings of President William McKinley and, although there were some doubts about the extent to which an American government headed by a President William Jennings Bryan (as occurred following the election of 1904) would actually honour the terms of the agreement, it caused considerable concern in London. It meant that not only was the United States to come to the aid of France if needed but also that France was opened up to an influx of American capital. The possibility of American expansion into Europe, either in the form of capital or military, was just as much of a concern to Britain as German expansion was (there had been a simmering geopolitical competition between the two Anglophone powers since the British intervention in the Spanish revolution). Finally, it left Germany in a vulnerable position against three great powers.
Richard Haldane, appointed Foreign Secretary by Chamberlain in 1905 and confirmed in this position by both Dilke and Lloyd George, was instinctively pro-German but understood that a full Anglo-German alliance would not be desirable. Despite its sympathies towards Berlin’s predicament facing the Triple Entente, the British government remained concerned about the build up of the German navy, even though Kaiser Wilhelm continued to insist that he did not want to expand his empire or challenge the Royal Navy. Furthermore, the beginning of the construction of the German financed Berlin-Baghdad Railway was a sign that there would now be close cooperation between the German and the Ottoman governments. The Liberal government thus agreed a strategy of neutrality which would enable Britain to deploy its diplomatic and military power as it saw fit in any given situation. By 1912, the simmering and undeclared naval arms race in which Britain and Germany had been participating (as had the United States up to 1905) had begun to take its toll on both countries’ finances. Furthermore, the German government was very aware of the weak position of its allies as against the Entente. The resulting Haldane-Jagow Agreement of 1912 meant that Germany accepted British naval superiority in exchange for British neutrality in a war in which Germany was not the aggressor, as well as formalizing the boundaries of the German colonies in Africa which abutted British ones. However, issues to do with the Ottoman Empire prevented Britain from formally joining the Triple Alliance and Britain kept its options open regarding future war in the Middle East.
The Agreement proved controversial in Britain, with there being hostility from both the press and the backbenches. Jackie Fisher – the architect of the Dreadnought programme – and Colonial Secretary Edward Grey resigned in protest, demanding a more assertive attitude towards the Germans. Further pressure was put on the government when the United States, France and Russia formally entered a mutual defence pact on 31 July 1912. A popular and much-reprinted cartoon appeared in the Daily Mail, depicting Britannia, Italia Turrita and Hispania scolding the ‘Triple Cowards’ in their governments. However, the government managed to ride out the turbulence, with Austen Chamberlain replacing Grey at the Colonial Office and Fisher resignation disappearing from public attention within a month or so.
With the end of the naval arms race, British naval policy once more shifted away from building ever bigger battleships and dreadnoughts and towards the refitting and updating of the current fleet. In particular, moves were made to change from coal to oil as the primary fuel. Work was also done to build on research undertaken on aeronautics following the recommendations of Plan 1914. The first seaplane tender ship had been created by the conversion of the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Hibernia in September 1911 and this was followed by the first successful take-off from a ship underway in May 1912. HMS Corageous became the first purpose-built seaplane carrier when it was launched in August 1913, equipped with Sopwith Pup airplanes (and was joined by her two sister ships, HMS Furious and HMS Glorious, by the end of 1913).