Introduction

The years before the First World War saw radical changes in Britain's international relations, and consequently in defence policy. In 1902 the Cabinet's Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) identified the following priorities: first, defence of the United Kingdom from invasion, with France being seen as the main threat; second, defence of Britain's empire in India against a possible invasion from Russia; and third, defence of the route to India through the Mediterranean, against France and Russia. These priorities reflected the prevailing imperial rivalries, and it was against the French and Russian navies that the Royal Navy's two-power standard had been designed in 1889 and reaffirmed in 1893. The German Reichstag passed a naval law in 1900 providing for a larger fleet, the purpose of which was to give Germany bargaining power over Britain in the event of the latter's navy being weakened in a war with France and Russia, but it was not until after the destruction of most of the Russian navy in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 that Germany clearly became Britain's principal naval rival. Britain's traditional foreign policy objectives had been a balance of power in Europe, the independence of the Low Countries and the security of her trade routes and overseas interests, but so long as German military power was balanced by the Franco-Russian alliance of 1894, Britain could avoid European commitments.