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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
1 Nicolson to Rodd 30 Nov. 1912, Carnock MSS, Public Record Office, F.O. 800/360.
2 Rohl, J. C. C., ‘Admiral von Muller and the approach of war, 1911–14’, Historical Journal, XII, 4 (1969), 661–4Google Scholar.
3 Wolff, Theodor, The eve of 1914 (London, 1935), pp. 355–7Google Scholar.
4 Fischer, F., War of illusions (New York, 1975), pp. 172, 190–9, 207Google Scholar.
6 Hardinge to Goschen 3 Nov., to Nicolson 11 Nov. 1908, Hardinge MSS, Cambridge University Library, vol. 13.
7 Hardinge to Bryce 26 Mar. 1909, ibid. vol. 17.
8 Chirol to Nicolson 19 Jan. 1909, Carnock MSS, F.O. 800/342.
9 Hardinge memo 4 May 1909, Gooch, G. P. and Temperley, H. W. V., British documents on the origins of the War 1898–1914 (11 vols. London, 1926–1938), vGoogle Scholar, Appendix III.
10 Goschen to Nicolson 3 Mar. 1911, Public Record Office, F.O. 371/1123/11853.
11 Nicolson to Goschen 28 Feb. 1911, Carnock MSS, F.O. 800/347.
12 Mallet to Bryce 22 Dec. 1911, Bryce MSS, Bodleian Library Oxford, USA vol. 32.
13 Nicolson to Mallet 27 Apr. 1914, Carnock MSS, F.O. 800/373.
14 Sanderson to Hardinge 15 Dec. 1911, 26 Jan. 1912; Hardinge to Sanderson 12 Feb. 1912, Hardinge MSS, vol. 92.
15 Mallet to Short 4 May 1912, Balfour MSS, British Library, Add. MSS 49747; Gwynn, S.(ed.), The letters and friendships of Sir Cecil Spring-Rice (2 vols. London, 1929), II, 144Google Scholar; Hardinge to Maxse 16 Oct. 1901, Maxse MSS, West Sussex County Record Office.
16 My italics.
17 F.O. 371/1123/5379, 7 Feb. 1911.
18 Fleuriau to Pichon 21 Oct. 1913, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1870–1914 (Paris 1929–1962)Google Scholar, 3rd series, VIII, no. 367.
19 Hansard, fifth ser. LIII, 401–7, 455–7, 29 May 1913.
20 De Salis to Grey 27 Oct. 1908, Bertie to Grey 6 July 1911, Gooch and Temperley, VI, no. 103, VII, no. 361. As a matter of fact Britain was to suffer almost immediately. The Agadir crisis was not marked by the development of a unanimous view by the press. The Westminster Gazette at first defended the German action (The history of The Times, 5 vols. London 1947, III, 699)Google Scholar. The Daily Graphic continued to do so (F.O. 371/1163/28274). The Economist failed to recognize that there was any crisis or anything of which to disapprove until Lloyd George spoke at the Mansion House on 21 July. It then disapproved of the speech (Economist 8, 29 07 1911)Google Scholar. Lloyd George intervened to try to change the pacific line of the Manchester Guardian, but could not overcome the efforts made by Loreburn, the Lord Chancellor, in the opposite direction (Wilson, T., The political diaries of C. P. Scott 1911–28, London 1970, p. 46Google Scholar; Blunt, W. S., My diaries, 2 vols. London 1920, II, 373–4)Google Scholar. In case the German government was reading the wrong papers Grey encouraged the chief whip, Elibank, to publish in The Times on 29 July the findings of researches amongst the radical M.P.s which were interpreted as showing that any impression the Germans might have that there were two separate wings of opinion in the cabinet and that the old Boer War differences still existed in the ranks of the Liberal party was erroneous (Grey note 31 July 1911, Grey MSS, P.R.O., F.O. 800/93). On the French and German press bureaux see Lauren, P. G., Diplomats and bureaucrats (Stanford, 1976)Google Scholar.
21 Grey to Rodd 13 Jan. 1913, in Trevelyan, G. M., Grey of Fallodon (London, 1937), p. 219Google Scholar.
22 Crowe minute 29 Apr. 1912, F.O. 371/1371/17863: ‘The German govt is conveying through the Liberal Press to the British public what the former wants the latter to believe its policy is. I do not think these efforts to influence British public opinion remain so fruitless as Lord Morley seems disposed to believe.’ Crowe thought that some of Grey's parliamentary critics were ‘clearly being used by that part of the organisation of the German Foreign Office which exists for the purpose of disseminating in England an entirely erroneous view of the history of Anglo-German relations and of influencing English public opinion in favour of this country making gratuitous concessions to Germany’: Crowe minutes 23 Jan. 1913, ibid./1372/2802; 10 Dec. 1911, ibid./1128/49252.
23 Grey to Lascelles 2 Jan. 1906, 22 Feb. 1908, Grey MSS, F.O. 800/61.
24 Bridge, F. R., Great Britain and Austria-Hungary 1906–14 (London, 1972), p. 30Google Scholar.
25 F.O. 371/827/22901.
26 Grey to Cartwright 5 July 1910, Grey MSS, F.O. 800/41.
27 Brett, M. V. and Esher, (eds.), Letters and journals of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols. London, 1934–1938), II, 362Google Scholar; Hardinge to Lascelles 2 Oct. 1907, Grey MSS, F.O. 800/61.
28 Gooch and Temperley, IX (i), nos. 256, 264, 267.
29 Hardinge to Chirol 3 June 1904, Sanderson MSS, P.R.O., F.O. 800/2.
30 Hardinge to Goschen 7 Apr. 1908, Hardinge MSS, vol. 13.
31 Mallet to Bertie 2 June 1904, Bertie MSS, P.R.O., F.O. 800/170: ‘The only terms on which I would make a treaty with (Germany) would be an understanding on their part to add no more to their fleet. If the Govt. doesn't understand this, the Country does and I believe public opinion will keep them straight’.
32 Hardinge minute 26 Jan. 1909, F.O. 371/666/3379.
33 Crowe minute 17 Mar. 1914, ibid./2092/11538: ‘No German Government…will be drawn into a war by popular clamour. On the contrary, popular clamour will be engineered by the German Government if it wishes to go to’ During the Agadir crisis Grey maintained that ‘a repetition of 1870, when France was manoeuvred into making war against Germany, would be a fatal mistake as regards public opinion here’: Grey to Nicolson 13 Sept. 1911, Carnock MSS, F.O. 800/350.
34 Selborne memo 16 Nov. 1901, P.R.O., CAB 37/59/118.
35 Committee of Imperial Defence, minutes of 96th meeting, 28 Feb. 1907, P.R.O., CAB 2/2/1.
36 Nicolson to Goschen 28 Feb. 1911, Carnock MSS, F.O. 800/347; see Hale, O. J., Publicity and diplomacy (New York 1940), p. 393Google Scholar.
37 Mallet to Bertie 11 Jan. 1906, Bertie MSS, F.O. 800/164.
38 Nicolson to Buchanan 3 Dec. 1912, Carnock MSS, F.O. 800/360.
39 In November 1911 Grey had agreed with Cambon's picture: ‘British public opinion…had an instinctive mistrust and dislike of an aggressive and bullying Power. All British history proved this.’ Gooch and Temperley, VII, no. 617. Nicolson wrote to Hardinge on 14 September 1911 that the pro-German views of the king's private secretary, Bigge, had been modified by the Agadir crisis (Hardinge MSS, vol. 92); the germanophile John Burns had reacted to the first of the Moroccan crises by telling an agent of the German government: ‘Look here, sir, you Germans must mend your manners, or you'll find the Baltic black with our ships and we'll wipe the floor with your Emperor’ (Hardinge to Lascelles 26 Feb. 1906, Lascelles MSS, P.R.O., F.O. 800/13).
40 Paget to Salisbury 10 Feb. 1887, Salisbury papers, Hatfield House, A/48; Deym to Kalnocky 14 June 1893, in Temperley, H. W. V. and Penson, L. M., Foundations of British foreign policy 1792–1902 (Cambridge 1938), p. 474Google Scholar; Sanderson to Grey 3 Mar. 1906, Grey MSS, F.O. 800/111; Hardinge to Bertie 12 Oct. 1908, Hardinge MSS, vol. 13.
41 Goschen to Grey 29 Aug. 1908, Gooch and Temperley, VI, no. 100; Pope-Hennessy, J., Lord Crewe (London, 1955), p. 144Google Scholar; Lloyd George to Churchill 13 Sept.1911, in Churchill, R. S., W. S. Churchill (London, 1969), companion vol. 2, part 2, pp. 1125–6Google Scholar.
42 Cartwright to Nicolson 14 Mar. 1913, Carnock MSS, F.O. 800/364.
43 Wickham Steed memo of conversation with Clemenceau 19 Aug. 1908, published in The Times, 24 Dec. 1920; and see Lansdowne MSS, P.R.O., F.O. 800/130.
44 Cambon, P. to Pichon, 18 11 1908, D.D.F. 2nd series, XI, no. 558Google Scholar.
45 P. Cambon to Poincaré 4 Dec. 1912, ibid. 3rd series, IV, no. 622. Bertie was of the same opinion: Paléologue, M., Journal de 1913 et 1914 (Paris, 1947), p. 28Google Scholar.
46 Hardinge memo 11 Nov. 1908, Grey MSS, F.O. 800/92. Though this was presented to the C.I.D. sub-committee on the Military Needs of the Empire in December 1908, it, and a memo by Crowe of 15 November 1908 on Britain's obligation to defend Belgian neutrality (Gooch and Temperley, VII, no. 311), may have been not absolutely unconnected with the crisis in Franco-German relations which was then at its height.
47 Fischer, pp. 197, 494, 498, 511.
48 Murray, A., Master and Brother(London 1945), pp. 116–17Google Scholar. Murray places this immediately after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. As the Foreign Office did not expect Sarajevo to have serious political consequences outside Austria-Hungary (Nicolson to de Bunsen 6July, to Buchanan 30 June 1914, Carnock MSS, F.O. 800/375, /374) it is more likely that it followed the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. Masterman recalled Grey in the week before war murmuring to himself: ‘We can't desert France’ (Masterman, Lucy, C. F. G. Masterman, London, 1939, p. 265)Google Scholar. See Butterfield, H., ‘Sir Edward Grey in July 1914’, Historical Studies, v (1965), 1–25Google Scholar.
49 Grey to Buchanan 25 July 1914, Gooch and Temperley, XI, no. 112.
50 Geiss, I., July 1914 (London, 1967), docs. 97–9Google Scholar; Jarausch, K., ‘The illusion of limited war: Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg's calculated risk, July 1914’, Central European History II (1969), 65Google Scholar.
51 Cambon, P. to Viviani, , 31 07 1914, D.D.F., 3rd series, XI, nos. 445,459Google Scholar; Grey to Goschen 27 July 1914, Gooch and Temperley, XI, no. 176.
52 Ibid. no. 448; Hansard, fifth ser. LXV, 1861. See also Churchill to Ponsonby 27 July 1914, R. S. Churchill, companion vol. 2, part 3, p. 1991; Churchill note 1 Aug. 1914: ‘Public opinion might veer round at any moment if Belgium is invaded and we must be ready to meet this opinion’, ibid. p. 1996; Bryce to C. P. Scott 31 July 1914: ‘The Germans, I hear, are already considering whether they had not better take this chance and violate Belgian neutrality and it is possible that if they felt sure that England would not stir they might do this – a result much to be deprecated, for it might turn public opinion here towards war’ (Bryce MSS, E 31); on 2 August Ramsay MacDonald agreed that if Belgian neutrality were infringed, England would be justified in declaring war upon Germany (Riddell, Lord, War Diary (London, 1933), p. 4)Google Scholar.
53 Grey minute 29 Apr. 1907, F.O. 371/364/13755. Crowe's memo of 15 November 1908 was printed for the cabinet in September 1911, when the possibility of Belgium's becoming involved could not be ruled out: P.R.O., ADM 116/3486.
