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The Limits of Commitment: Rosebery and the Definition of the Anglo-German Understanding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Gordon Martel
Gordon Martel
Affiliation:
Royal Roads Military College
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Extract

The 1890s can easily be portrayed as the era of missed opportunities in Anglo-German relations. Before the Kruger telegram, the Boer War, the Boxer rebellion and the Berlin to Bagdad railway, and most particularly before the naval race, it seems possible that Britain and Germany might have drawn closer together and that areas of mutual interest might have led to co-operation rather than antagonism. The failure to draw together in the 1890s, it can be argued, precipitated the series of disputes that progressively embittered Anglo-German relations. If only an understanding had been reached before each side became convinced of the other's enmity, if only men on both sides had been more reasonable, more judicious, more temperate, perhaps Europe could have avoided the division into armed camps, and perhaps the cataclysm of 1914 could have been averted.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 387 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 Mathew, H. C. G., The liberal imperialists: the ideas and politics of a post-Gladstonian elite (Oxford, 1973). p. 200Google Scholar.

2 Rosebery's memorandum on conversation with Hatzfeldt, Rosebery papers, National Library of Scotland, Box 90. Hatzfeldt's account can be found in D[ie] G[rosse] P[olitik] der Europäischen Kabinette, 1871–1914, Lepsius, J., Bartholdy, A. Mendelssohn and Thimme, F. (eds.) (Berlin, 1923), IX, 102–5Google Scholar.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Malet to Rosebery, no. 306, confidential, 20 December 1893, Public Record Office, FO 64/1294. This document is published in Martel, Gordon, ‘Documenting the great game: “world policy” and the “turbulent frontier” in the 1890s’ International History Review, II (1980), 300–1Google Scholar.

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8 Ibid.

9 Gosselin to Rosebery, no. 250A, confidential 27 October 1893, FO 64/1294. Published in Martel, ‘Documenting the great game’, p. 299; and see Hatzfeldt, Paul, Nachgelassene Papiere, 1838–1901, Ebel, G. and Behnen, M. (eds.) (Boppard, 1976), II, 919 ffGoogle Scholar.

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11 Ibid. See Marschall, to Hatzfeldt, , 23 12 1894. D.G.P. IX, 110–11Google Scholar.

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14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

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22 During the Great Eastern crisis, Derby, the British foreign secretary, had warned the Russians that even a temporary occupation by them of Constantinople and the Straits would force Britain to act to protect her own interests.

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24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Deym to Kalnoky, 7 February 1894, Foundations of British foreign policy, Temperley, H. W. V. and Penson, L. M. (eds.) (London, 1938), p. 481Google Scholar.

28 Rosebery's memorandum on conversation with Deym, 1 February 1894, Rosebery papers, Box 91.

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31 Rosebery's memorandum on conversation with Deym, 1 February 1894, Rosebery papers, Box 91.

32 Rosebery's memorandum on conversation with Hatzfeldt, 14 February 1894, Rosebery papers, Box 91; Hatzfeldt's account can be found in D.G.P. ix, 127–9.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Rosebery to Malet, telegram i, 16 February 1894, FO 64/1335.

36 Rosebery to Malet, no. 150, 19 December 1893, FO 64/1332.

37 On the Kaulla affair, see Mattel, Gordon, ‘The near east in the balance of power: the repercussions of the Kaulla incident in 1893’, Middle Eastern Studies, xvi (1980), 23–41Google Scholar.

38 Rosebery to Currie, telegram 9, confidential, 15 February 1894, FO 78/4545.

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48 Kimberley to Malet, no. 31, confidential, 19 March 1894, FO 64/1332.

49 Kimberley to Malet, no. 48A, 23 April 1894, FO 64/1332.