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Given below is the final chapter of The
Millstone. This is provided as a service to
those who may be interested in the subject.
It gives an indication of the scope and
content of the book but please note that, in
accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright Act 1988, it may not be reproduced
without the prior permission of the author
or the University of Hull Press. The
footnotes which appear in the original have
not been included but can be supplied on
request.
Please be aware that this is a long
document.
Summary and Conclusion
The Moral Commitment
I have contended in the preceding chapters
that, on occasion, what matters is not the
so-called facts (for these, in themselves,
are capable of differing interpretations
depending upon the perspective of the
viewer), but the perception of the facts by
the various participants. Nowhere is this
more apparent than in trying to answer the
question of whether there was a moral
commitment to France in August 1914 and, if
so, how binding was it? Writing in 1911, the
German General, Friedrich von Bernhardi,
declared that ‘England can never be involved
in a great continental European war against
her will.’ It could not be argued that
Britain went to war on 4 August 1914 with
the Cabinet absolutely united. Indeed, the
deep divisions of only a few days previously
appeared, by Saturday 1 August, to have
ruled out immediate British intervention.
When, apparently against the odds, the
Cabinet reluctantly came round to Grey’s
position on Sunday, the accusations
subsequently levelled by the likes of
Loreburn and Ponsonby would reverberate and
intensify, centring on the person of the
Foreign Secretary. Grey, it was claimed,
either actively, by encouraging Cambon and
the French, or passively, by his failure to
control the military and his unwillingness
to impose himself upon his own permanent
officials, was, at the very least,
responsible for a moral commitment to
France. And it was this commitment to
France, rather than the obligation to
Belgium, which first (and decisively) caused
the Cabinet to shift from its
non-interventionist stance.
This is a deceptively simplistic argument
which must, in so far as Grey himself is
concerned, be heavily qualified. Was the
need for French diplomatic or military and
naval support so great that Britain’s
freedom of action was constrained? Would
another Foreign Secretary have followed an
altogether different line? Grey, who was,
after all, not in office when the
Anglo-French Entente was negotiated, was
always loathe to enter into conversations
unless pressed by the French. The requests
for closer co-operation in 1906, 1908, 1911
and 1912 were all at the instigation of
Paris. Furthermore, if not in 1906,
certainly by the time of the Agadir crisis
of 1911, Grey was in control of the Foreign
Office and its officials rather than the
reverse. The influence, for example, of Eyre
Crowe has consistently been over-stated,
while Nicolson was a spent force. Grey’s
greatest failure was allegedly the free rein
given to the military planners. Did he not
appreciate the hostage to fortune he was
creating, or did he in fact realize and not
want to be confronted with the logic of the
situation? A third interpretation is also
available: that Grey knew more or less what
the military planners were up to but, to
protect his own position, feigned ignorance
in the knowledge that, should France be
threatened with unprovoked aggression,
British interests alone would necessitate
that she should be supported.
Two themes run consistently through pre-war
Anglo-French relations: in an Entente, just
as much as an alliance, the stronger partner
is at the mercy of the weaker. The French
were able to capitalize on the fact that
Grey assumed office committed to the
maintenance of the Entente. Any attempt by
Grey to limit the military and naval
conversations was met with the French charge
that the Entente counted for nothing. The
second theme is a corollary of the first:
the British fear, which became pronounced
after 1911, of French military weakness in a
Franco-German conflict. It was widely
believed at the time that a French defeat at
the hands of Germany would be an
unparalleled disaster for Britain. This fear
was particularly acute following the
dreadnought scare of 1909, when serious
questions were raised regarding British
naval supremacy. The certainty of 1906 had
given way to doubt and anxiety. If France
was successfully to be used as a buffer
between Britain and Germany therefore, the
French army had to be strong enough to hold
back the German legions until such times as
newly raised British divisions could be
dispatched to reinforce the small Regular
army. Grey had been warned in 1906 that
‘80,000 men with good guns is all we can put
into the field in Europe to meet first class
troops’, and this, he appreciated, would not
‘save France unless she can save herself.’
The perceived French weakness, and the
German attempts to exploit it in Morocco,
threatened not only to negate the very basis
of the Entente — the settlement of colonial
differences — but also to drag Britain into
a Continental war. It would be a heavy price
to pay for the avoidance of Anglo-French
friction in North Africa unless there was
some deeper rationale underlying the
relationship.
The first German attempt to drive a wedge
through the burgeoning Anglo-French Entente
came as early as the spring of 1905,
following the Kaiser’s visit to Tangier at
the end of March, eight months before Grey
acceded to the position of Foreign
Secretary. Intent on fomenting trouble, on
the evening of 10 June 1905 the German
Chancellor, Prince Bülow, claimed to have
proof that ‘England had made an offer to
France to enter with her into an offensive
and defensive alliance against Germany’, but
that the French had refused.. The German
accusation sent Lord Lansdowne, then the
Foreign Secretary, and Thomas Sanderson, the
Permanent Under-Secretary, scurrying to find
evidence to refute the charge. Eventually
(in the form of a dispatch from Lansdowne to
Frank Bertie in Paris) Sanderson came upon a
record of Lansdowne’s interview with the
French Ambassador, Paul Cambon, on 17 May
1905. Lansdowne had then informed Cambon
that: ‘ …our two governments should continue
to treat one another with the most absolute
confidence, should keep one another fully
informed of everything which came to their
knowledge, and should, as far as possible,
discuss in advance any contingencies by
which they might in the course of events
find themselves confronted.’ This, Lansdowne
supposed, ‘was the origin of the offensive
and defensive alliance’ to which Bülow
referred. Indeed, there is evidence that,
following an expression of gratitude by
Cambon on 24 May, Lansdowne realized that
his statement had been conveniently
misinterpreted by both Cambon and Delcassé
who believed it to imply, if not an offer of
alliance, that British support would be
forthcoming in a Franco-German war.
Lansdowne immediately attempted to put
matters straight with Cambon, by repeating
the declaration of the previous week, which
had arisen, he maintained, during a
discussion of ‘the attitude assumed by the
German Gov[ernmen]t in Morocco and in other
parts of the world’.
I do not know [Lansdowne added] that
this account differs from that which you
have given to M. Delcassé, but I am not
sure that I succeeded in making quite
clear to you our desire that there
should be full and confidential
discussion between the two Gov[ernmen]ts,
not so much in consequence of some acts
of unprovoked aggression on the part of
another Power, as in anticipation of any
complications to be apprehended during
the somewhat anxious period through
which we are at present passing.
Lansdowne had sought to place a limit upon
the extent to which a ‘full and confidential
discussion’ would commit either Government.
Yet who was to say whether a heightening of
the ‘somewhat anxious period’ would not
result in an act of ‘unprovoked aggression’?
The division between the two categories as
framed by Lansdowne was, to all intents and
purposes, invisible. Writing in 1922,
Sanderson attempted further to refine the
extent of the commitment by contending that
Lansdowne had done no more than lay stress
‘in conversation on the need for frank and
intimate communication and consultation with
a view to harmonious action in opposition to
any designs of Germany to acquire a port on
the West coast of Morocco.’ However, this is
nowhere made clear in the records of the
conversations. There was never any
intention, Sanderson alleged, ‘to supplement
the Entente of 1904 by an agreement of the
nature of the Franco-Russian Alliance’,
although it was possible ‘that M. Cambon may
have taken down in writing the phrases used
by Lord Lansdowne’. The French desire to
‘have something in writing’ would be, with
one exception, in distinct contrast to the
prevailing attitude in London. Through most
of the following years there would be a
marked reluctance on the British side to put
anything in writing, until constant French
pressure resulted in the Grey-Cambon letters
of November 1912. Perhaps, in view of the
French propensity to misinterpret statements
to suit their own cause, this was no bad
thing. If Lansdowne, who negotiated the
Entente, could not avert such a
misapprehension at so early a stage, it
boded ill for his successor. The confusion
of motives would bedevil the covert
Anglo-French conversations until the
outbreak of war.
The other major cause of concern was centred
upon the surreptitious activities and hidden
agendas of the Admiralty, the War Office and
the Committee of Imperial Defence.
Initially, Admiral Fisher was not interested
in the subject of closer Anglo-French
co-operation. When, during the crisis in the
summer of 1905, the Director of Naval
Intelligence advocated an exchange of views
with the French to avoid misunderstandings,
Fisher was content to ignore the advice.
This was certainly not the case at the War
Office. Deeply antagonistic to the Admiralty
proposals to divert German troops from the
French frontier by a threatened invasion of
Schleswig-Holstein, Captain Grant-Duff
compiled a report on "British Military
Action in the Case of War With Germany",
while Major Fasson prepared two pages of
objections to the Admiralty scheme. With
domestic political considerations (the
imminent fall of Balfour’s administration)
impinging upon the formulation of naval and
military policy the field was left open for
these relatively junior officers, whose
actions might then commit the General Staff
— and the Government. Also getting in on the
act was Sir George Clarke, the Secretary of
the C.I.D., who, following Balfour’s
resignation in December 1905, convoked a
series of secret meetings to examine the
subject of direct military aid to France.
Symptomatic of the belief that politicians
(and politically motivated staff officers)
were best excluded from such discussions,
Clarke privately admitted that it was ‘very
necessary to do nothing that would alarm the
Govt. and besides the W.[ar] O.[ffice] would
balk’.
A separate strand of discussions also ensued
following the ‘chance’ meeting between the
Director of Military Operations,
Major-General Grierson, and Victor Huguet,
the French Military Attaché in London, in
whom Grierson confided his personal belief
that a small British force could be landed
at Calais to ‘unite with the French forces,
of whom it would, for example, form the left
wing.’ Thus, in the political hiatus caused
by the General Election called by the
interim Liberal administration, by the
beginning of 1906 a military camarilla was
meeting to determine policy without, as yet,
the knowledge of ministers. The extent of
the rapidly developing covert continental
commitment was made clear when the Director
of Naval Intelligence, who was attending
Clarke’s extramural meetings, reported on 13
January that ‘It was settled between the
Military Officers that, in the event of our
being forced into war (by a German violation
of Belgian neutrality or otherwise) — our
proper course would be to land our Military
forces at the nearest French ports’. With
these various clandestine discussions
occurring in difficult political
circumstances, it was a singularly
inopportune moment for the new Foreign
Secretary to step into Lansdowne’s shoes.
Faced with these behind-the-scenes contacts,
once he had been admitted into Clarke’s
confidence, the dilemma for Grey was whether
or not to confirm Lansdowne’s assurance of
British support of the previous May, which
the French had chosen to misinterpret.
Indeed, indicative of the continuing French
desire to read more than was justified into
the unofficial conversations, Huguet would
later maintain that, as he believed
Grierson’s initial meeting was not a chance
occurrence, the subsequent talks carried the
Government’s imprimatur.
Paul Cambon also was not going to let the
opportunity slip of utilizing the prevailing
disorder caused by the January 1906 election
campaign. On 10 January the Ambassador put
‘the great question’ to Grey by inquiring
whether Britain would underpin her
diplomatic support of France with force if
necessary. It was only on the previous day
that Grey had been made aware by Clarke,
however imprecisely, of the unofficial
conversations. Unfortunately, Grey agreed
with Clarke that it was ‘impossible to
approach the French through official
channels to ascertain what their views on
co-operation are, as this would give the
idea of an offensive and defensive alliance
which does not exist.’ How much this was
genuinely Grey’s own view, and how much he
was being led by Clarke (or Sanderson, for
that matter), is open to question. It would
have required a sure sense of the possible
pitfalls for Grey to have ignored the advice
of the Secretary of the C.I.D. Grey
therefore authorized the continuation of the
unofficial talks, and, at Clarke’s
prompting, both men agreed that it would be
best, at this preliminary stage, not to
inform Campbell-Bannerman.
With the military talks in progress, and
remembering the German accusation of the
previous summer, Sanderson was anxious to
prevent a recurrence of the rumours of a
possible alliance. It was for this reason
that he objected to the involvement of
‘intermediaries’ (specifically, Colonel
Repington) in the ‘unofficial
communications’ which the French might take
‘as being authorized by our General Staff.’
However, what Sanderson was apparently
objecting to was not the unofficial
communications per se so much as the
impression which would be created by
Repington’s association with them. Sanderson
immediately contacted Grierson, who denied
that there had been any official contact
other than the ‘chance’ meeting, and who
urged that ‘informal communication should be
opened between the General staffs on both
sides’. He saw ‘no difficulty in such
communication being made on the express
understanding that it commits the Government
to nothing.’ Grey thereupon sanctioned the
opening of the military conversations. Once
under way, Sanderson, as Lansdowne before
him, then attempted to set restraints upon
Cambon. First, Sanderson informed the
Ambassador, there should no secret agreement
which pledged London and Paris ‘further than
that if a certain policy agreed upon with
another Power were in any way menaced, the
two Powers should consult as to the course
to be taken.’ Second, ‘it was not wise to
bring before a Cabinet the question of the
course to be pursued in hypothetical cases
which had not arisen’, as a ‘discussion on
the subject invariably gave rise to
divergences of opinion on questions of
principle’. Third, the Cabinet could give no
‘pledge which would morally bind the country
to go to war in certain circumstances,’
without informing Parliament.
In the circumstances Grey may have decided
to withhold knowledge of the talks from the
Cabinet in the hope that the current crisis
would soon abate and the pledge would not
have to be redeemed. In this he had the
tacit support of the Prime Minister,
Campbell-Bannerman, who remained resolutely
unperturbed by what had transpired, and who
showed no inclination to encourage a broader
debate on the subject. Grey was subsequently
to regret this omission which, in view of
subsequent events, tended to indicate that
he had something to hide. S. R. Williamson
has summarized the most frequent
explanations advanced to account for Grey’s
secretive behaviour:
Grey was an inexperienced Cabinet minister
in the midst of an election campaign and did
not realize the full importance of the
French demands;
the conversations were merely a logical
extension of the terms of the 1904 accord
and thus involved no question of policy;
the conversations had begun in the Lansdowne
period;
Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, not
Grey, had the final responsibility for
bringing the talks before the Cabinet;
the death of Grey’s wife on 1 February
detained him so long at Fallodon that the
issue was forgotten when he returned to
London; and
the talks were purely departmental matters
and thus permissible if the responsible
ministers were informed.
A further reason, clearly foreshadowed by
Sanderson, was the expectation of the
opposition which would surface in the
Cabinet. This was certainly the impression
formed by Cambon, who believed that, if the
matter was brought before the Cabinet,
‘certain Ministers would be astonished at
the opening of official talks [another
French misapprehension?] between the
military administrations of the two
countries and of the studies which they have
worked out in common.’ In another instance
of perception playing a crucial rôle, in
addition to the twin strands of clandestine
activity (Clarke’s and Grierson’s) Grey
believed, erroneously, that Admiral Fisher
was also engaged in talks with his French
counterparts. The fact that such
conversations had not taken place is
irrelevant. By mid-January, it was Grey’s
belief that the Admiralty, the War Office
and the C.I.D. were all engaged in
discussion with the French for the purpose
of the formulation of joint war plans which
could commit the Government. Such ignorance
was especially dangerous, as it appeared
already that the talks were out of control —
Clarke admitted on 18 January that Grierson
may have ‘been permitted to go further than
is considered wise’. This had serious
implications for, as Clarke also noted, ‘one
department of state commits all.’
By 13 January Grey had spoken to Haldane,
who also consented to the commencement of
‘non-committal’ talks. Quoting Haldane’s
autobiography, John Terraine notes that the
Minister for War was asked ‘whether it could
be made clear that the conversations were
purely for military General Staff purposes
and were not to prejudice the complete
freedom of the two Governments should the
situation the French dreaded arise.’ Haldane
then ‘undertook to see that this was put in
writing’ and a letter was duly signed to the
effect that ‘the conversations were to leave
us wholly free’. Terraine continues: ‘There
is something pathetic, even at this
distance, in this belief in the virtues of
putting peculiar arrangements "in writing" —
something odd in the fact that an acumen
like Haldane’s should accept such a device.
No amount of ‘writing’, no signature to a
piece of paper, could alter the impression
of the transaction on the second party —
France.’ In support of his argument,
Terraine uses as evidence the opinion of the
very same French officer, Huguet, whose
chance meeting with Grierson first provided
the impetus for the talks. After agreeing
that it ‘was understood that the (British
Government) retained full liberty of action
and that … the Government of the day would
be the sole judge of the line of action to
be taken, without being tied in any sense by
the studies which might have been previously
undertaken’, Huguet then tries to have it
both ways. ‘Nevertheless,’ he continues, ‘we
were somewhat surprised in 1906 to see the
readiness with which the authorisation asked
for by the French Government was granted.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Edward
Grey and Mr Haldane were all three, as
politicians, too shrewd and wary not to
realise that the studies which were being
entered upon — no matter what the
reservations — constituted nevertheless an
undertaking of sorts, at any rate a moral
one.’
Trevor Wilson profoundly disagrees with
Terraine’s analysis. What Huguet’s claim
seemed to show, according to Wilson, was
that ‘the French had formed, not one
impression but two, and that these
impressions flatly contradicted each other.
That the French should then have attached
importance only to the impression which
suited their book, and ignored the other
which did not, is no cause for wonder. What
is surprising is the assumption that the
British were bound to accept the French
view, even though this meant rejecting an
equally plausible impression and one which
"conforms to the traditional British
attitude to foreign affairs" ’. This
‘equally plausible impression’ was the one
referred to by Huguet: ‘There was nothing
surprising in this reservation [to attempt
to preserve freedom of action] which’,
Huguet declared, ‘conforms to the
traditional British attitude to foreign
affairs — a policy which has always and
which will always consist in finding a means
to keep the balance of power between any and
every possible Continental alliance or
agreement so that in this way her own
security may be guaranteed.’ This
reservation was outlined by Grey:
Diplomatic support [for the French] we
are pledged to give and are giving. A
promise in advance committing this
country to take part in a Continental
war is another matter and a very serious
one: it is very difficult for any
British Gov[ernmen]t to give an
engagement of that kind. It changes the
entente into an alliance and alliances,
especially continental alliances are not
in accordance with our traditions. My
opinion is that if France is let in for
a war with Germany arising out of our
agreement with her about Morocco, we
cannot stand aside, but must take part
with France. But a deliberate engagement
pledging this country in advance before
the actual cause of the war is known or
apparent, given in cold blood goes far
beyond anything that the late
Gov[ernmen]t said or as far as I know
contemplated. If we give any promise of
armed assistance it must be conditional.
Conditional upon what? Certainly British
support would not have been forthcoming if
France herself committed an aggressive act.
Was there something which would have made
the provision of armed assistance
acceptable? What did Britain hope to gain
from the Entente? Was it the guarantee of
‘her own security’ referred to by Huguet?
How can this have been when, as Grey noted
on 15 January 1906 (less than month before
the launch of HMS Dreadnought), ‘We can
protect ourselves of course for we are more
supreme at sea than we have ever been.’ What
other benefit, therefore, might accrue to
Britain? Within days of Cambon’s approach
Grey was actively engaged in seeking a
reciprocal engagement. Writing privately to
Bertie, he admitted: ‘I think too we should
have some quid pro quo such as a promise
that, if we get into war with Germany over
any question of our own France will at least
remain neutral if she cannot support us, and
keep other European Powers neutral.’ If
French aggression was viewed as unlikely, in
return for a pledge of British support which
Grey probably appreciated would be automatic
in case of a German attack, the Foreign
Secretary was seeking to limit any hostile
combination which Britain might have to
face. Grey was, however, unable for the
present to go any further: ‘all this must
remain in the air’, he noted, ‘till the
elections are over: all my colleagues are
fighting their own or other election
contests and I am alone in London and cannot
consult them or get them together.’ And,
when the election was over, the death of
Grey’s wife in February understandably
distracted him.
There was no doubt that Grey realized the
moral force created by the talks. ‘The
Entente’, he argued in the following month,
‘and still more the constant and emphatic
demonstrations of affection (official,
naval, political, commercial Municipal and
in the Press), have created in France a
belief that we should support her in war.
The last report from our naval attaché at
Toulon said that all the French officers
took this for granted, if the war was
between France and Germany about Morocco. If
this expectation is disappointed the French
will never forgive us.’ However Grey’s
proposal ‘to find out what compensation
Germany would ask or accept as the price of
her recognition of the French claims in
Morocco’ immediately ran into opposition and
was shelved. These tentative musings of
early 1906 would appear to be the only
serious attempt Grey made to confront the
logic of the situation. Similarly,
Campbell-Bannerman also appreciated the
difficulties which might arise: ‘I do not
like the stress laid upon joint
preparations,’ he declared, for it came
‘very close to an honourable understanding’.
German suspicions did not evaporate
following their diplomatic defeat at
Algeciras. Speculation that an Anglo-French
military convention had been concluded
continued throughout 1906. Yet, having
forced the issue, the French themselves were
not entirely satisfied with the outcome.
‘The present elastic situation’, Hardinge
(the new Permanent Under-Secretary) declared
in September, ‘is more satisfactory for us
although the fact that we are not bound hand
and foot to the French makes the latter
nervous and suspicious.’ As the
international situation quietened in 1907
and naval attention focussed on the German
naval build-up, the Admiralty began to
contemplate the contribution which the
French navy could make in any future war.
Already, the increasing threat posed by
Germany was dictating naval strategy; it was
time to declare an Entente dividend. In
contrast to the desire of the General Staff
to assist the French, the Admiralty had
suddenly realized that the addition of the
French ships could make the position
absolutely secure. No longer wary, the
subsequent naval War Plans noted that an
‘arrangement by which France could be
entrusted with the responsibility of
conducting operations in the Mediterranean,
and Great Britain those in northern waters,
would provide a satisfactory division of
labour by giving to their respective navies
separate and distinct spheres of activity.’
If, therefore, complications of a serious
nature arose, the French could undertake –
with the full use of British bases – all
offensive operations in the Mediterranean as
well as the protection of their own and
British interests; of the British
Mediterranean Fleet only the torpedo boats
would be left on station. Whatever validity
lay behind Churchill’s subsequent charge
that Anglo-French naval dispositions had
been arrived at independently, here was a
clear example of a proposal for a
reciprocal, and mutually beneficial,
arrangement. A further strengthening of the
commitment was being advocated. The extent
of this new commitment was made clear late
in 1908 following a succession of new crises
in North Africa and the Balkans.
As he was wont to do in moments of
international tension, the French Ambassador
spoke to Grey on 24 November 1908 (at the
height of the Bosnian annexation crisis) to
urge the resumption of the desultory naval
conversations. Grey’s refusal to meddle in
naval and military matters (could it be that
he was in awe of Fisher?) was to continue to
have unfortunate repercussions. As the first
tangible result of the 1908 talks, the
French were presented with the "three
conventions": the French Fleet would be
concentrated in the Mediterranean,
responsible for the defence of the western
basin. All British ships would be withdrawn
for operations in the North Sea and Baltic.
Not content with this division, Fisher then
proposed that the French should assume
responsibility for the whole of the
Mediterranean. Although the French Admiralty
eventually balked at the suggestion, it was
indicative of the state of mind which had
arisen following the opening of the military
talks. Fisher’s bizarre conversion owed more
to his paranoia regarding the North Sea and
his desire to circumvent any detailed
investigation of his Baltic schemes, yet the
alluring logic of the French guarding the
Mediterranean while the British patrolled
the North Sea was to ensnare both the
Foreign Secretary and a future First Lord of
the Admiralty.
Persuaded at the time to appoint a
sub-committee of the C.I.D. to examine the
"Military Needs of the Empire", Asquith, by
now the Prime Minister, showed as little
interest in the surreptitious activities of
the War Office as his Foreign Secretary. The
General Staff had not deviated from their
earlier conclusion ‘that the only feasible
option was to afford direct support to the
French Army’. Asquith gave grudging approval
to the General Staff’s plans but attempted
to maintain the fiction of freedom of action
by declaring that, ‘in the event of an
attack on France by Germany, the expediency
of sending a military force abroad, or of
relying on naval means only, is a matter of
policy which can only be determined when the
occasion arises by the Government of the
day.’ Naval and military planners could
continue to formulate schemes to allow for
the contingency, but this would not commit
the Government until the Government of the
day had determined that it wished to be
committed. Presumably, while it was coming
to a decision, German troops would already
be on the move through Belgium and Northern
France. According to this scenario the
French were to base their own War plans on
the half expectation of British assistance,
and, while half an expectation may be better
than none, not only would the French be
unsure of military assistance until a
political decision had been made in London;
even then, it was still up to the British
Government to decide to wage war by ‘naval
means’ alone. Thus, the French logically
would have to develop plans to provide for
the contingency of fighting Germany unaided,
or with British naval assistance, or with
British military and naval assistance. Each
plan would then have to be held in readiness
until after a German attack as it was only
then, according to Asquith, that the matter
of policy could be determined. In view of
this refusal to face the issue squarely, the
basic premise that the Continental strategy
would prevail in time of war was not
seriously questioned.
Could Grey (or Asquith) have prevented the
War Office hegemony of strategic thinking?
Or, as the pusillanimous conclusion of the
sub-committee indicated, were they already
aware of the commitment created by the
ongoing military contacts — a commitment
they did not want questioned? With Fisher’s
concern about the North Sea position
permeating the higher echelons of
Government, the prospect of French naval
assistance was seductive, so long as the
concomitant was appreciated: the call which
would be made for British assistance should
France be threatened by unprovoked German
aggression. The failure to control the
military element was serious enough; yet
Grey always appeared content to leave Fisher
to his own devices, for whatever reason.
This hardly mattered in January 1906 when
Grey mistakenly believed that the
non-existent naval talks were supposedly
shadowing the military talks. It was
altogether different when Fisher, apparently
on his own initiative, proposed a move (the
British evacuation of the Mediterranean)
which the French must have assumed had
official backing. In the discussions of
December 1908 the French would have had
every reason to believe that, as soon as
they were able, the command of the
Mediterranean would fall to them.
Following a run-in with the C.I.D.
sub-committee, Fisher wrote querulously on
15 March 1909, ‘Are we or are we not going
to send a British Army to fight on the
Continent as quite distinct and apart from
coastal raids and seizures of islands,
etcetera, which the Navy dominate?’ By
virtue of Asquith’s conclusion this question
remained unanswered — officially.
Unofficially, a plan for intervention was to
be worked out by the General Staff, ‘in
which the British Army shall be concentrated
in rear of the left of the French Army,
primarily as a reserve.’ The arrangements
made with the French Army would be
accelerated by Henry Wilson when he became
Director of Military Operations in 1910.
Asquith meanwhile was as content as Grey to
let matters drift. Whenever quizzed about
the existence of a secret Anglo-French
convention, as he was in the House on 21
March 1910, Asquith was able to reply, in a
correct formal sense, that ‘no treaty or
convention of the nature specified … exists
between this country and France.’
The following year (on 30 March 1911) Grey,
as Asquith had done, would provide a
similarly contrived answer in the House on
the nature of the British commitment to
France. This time, however, the French,
again wishing to consolidate the Entente,
refused to let Grey off as lightly as his
parliamentary colleagues. Cruppi, the French
Foreign Minister, approached Frank Bertie on
5 April 1911 to inform the Ambassador that
he intended to read a statement in the
Senate to the effect that Britain and France
‘would remain friends and united in the
presence of every eventuality, and they
would entrust to their respective
Governments the care of giving a precise
form to their entente when the moment came.’
When Bertie objected to the proposed
language, Cruppi surmised that there was no
longer whole-hearted support in Britain for
the Entente. In another of those
‘coincidences’ which punctuate the history
of the conversations, General Foch chose
this very moment to engage the British
Military Attaché in a lengthy discussion
which revolved around the extent to which
the French depended upon a guarantee of
British assistance. On a purely practical
level, argued Foch, rolling stock would have
to be specially reserved for the transport
of British troops, but this could not be
done unless the French Government ‘had
received a previous assurance that it could
count with certainty on the arrival of the
British contingent.’
Having thus laid the groundwork, a further
approach was made to Bertie on 12 April
requesting that matters should be carried
further ‘as regards possible co-operation in
certain eventualities than had hitherto been
done.’ Grey faced a predicament — he had no
desire to be constrained either by renewed
French ardour or by a repeat of his earlier
actions in January 1906, when he failed
properly to disclose the opening of the
military talks. He therefore informed
Asquith, Morley and Haldane of the renewed
French approach, reminding them also what
had happened in 1906 when the ‘French then
urged that the Mil[itar]y Auth[orit]y should
be allowed to exchange views — ours to say
what they could do — the French to say how
they would like it done, if we did side with
France. Otherwise, as the French urged, even
if we decided to support France on the
outbreak of war we shouldn’t be able to do
it effectively. We agreed to this.’ The use
of "we" by Grey denoted a collective
responsibility which was wholly absent.
Despite this, the argument, by itself, was
hardly contentious if Grey had decided to
keep a tight rein on the War Office;
however, the opposite was the case. In an
apparently staggering admission, Grey then
declared that the ‘military experts then
convened. What they settled I never knew —
the position being that the Gov[ernmen]t was
quite free, but that the military people
knew what to do if the word was given.’
Unless, he added, ‘French war plans have
changed, there should be no need for
anything further, but it is clear we are
going to be asked something.’ Was Grey
really this lackadaisical? Not according to
General Nicholson. By October 1906,
Nicholson subsequently recounted, the
original scheme for embarkation of the B.E.F.
needed revision on account of changes in the
organization of the Home Army. Intimation
had also been received of certain changes in
the French plans of mobilization and
concentration, which affected the ports of
disembarkation and the railway transport
therefrom. A revised scheme was therefore
prepared, but before communicating it to
Colonel Huguet Sir Neville Lyttleton, then
Chief of the General Staff, approached the
Foreign Office and on July 26th, 1907,
submitted a covering memorandum indicating
the action which it was proposed to take. In
this memorandum it was clearly laid down
that the scheme was not binding on the
British Government, but merely showed how
the plans made in view of the situation in
1906 would be modified by the changes made
in the organization of the Home Army in
1907. The memorandum with a few verbal
amendments was approved by Sir Edward Grey,
and Colonel Huguet was informed accordingly.
Furthermore, Grey was a permanent member of
the C.I.D. He was present at the 103rd
meeting, on 24 July 1909, when the Report on
the Military Needs of the Empire was tabled.
He would be present at the 144th meeting, on
23 August 1911, when the principal topic was
‘Action to be taken in the event of
intervention in a European war’. Was Grey
really as innocent as he claimed? Although
Grey did refuse to meddle in military
affairs, this should not be construed as
implying that he was unaware of what was
going on; the confusion between these two
distinct positions has worked to Grey’s
benefit ever since.
What the French wanted was ‘something more
visible to Germany and useful to France than
the existing Entente.’ For the time being,
however, Grey remained immovable on the
subject and the French feelers ceased until
the crisis at Agadir that summer prompted
another inquiry into Britain’s ‘vital
interests’ in the Mediterranean. Once more
confusion was evident. Did the Panthersprung
really affect British interests, or was the
genuine scare in London simply a reaction to
perceived French military and naval
weakness? When pressed by C. P. Scott, for
example, Lloyd George could provide no clear
answer to the question as to ‘what interests
had we for which in the last resort we were
prepared to go to war and was the prevention
of a German naval station at Agadir one of
them’? Asquith admitted that it would not be
‘worth our while to go to war about Agadir’
but that ‘we should strongly resist the
acquisition by Germany of a port on the
South Mediterranean coast’, while Grey was
apparently unconcerned about the prospect,
so long as the proposed base remained
unfortified. The net result of Scott’s
investigation was that Lloyd George objected
to a German naval base at Agadir; Asquith
would not object to a German port at
Libreville, but did not think it worthwhile
to risk war over Agadir; while Grey was
relatively unconcerned at the prospect of a
German presence at Agadir but would strongly
resist any attempt by Berlin to obtain a
Mediterranean base.
In view of this strategic ineptitude,
perhaps the underlying cause of the fear
felt in London was the opinion ‘repeatedly’
voiced by Lloyd George, namely, ‘France’s
weakness and terror in the face of Germany.’
France, according to the Chancellor, ‘had
her eyes fixed on "those terrible legions
across the frontier … [which] could be in
Paris in a month and she knew it." The
result would be the end of France as a Great
Power, leading possibly to German hegemony
in Europe on a scale similar to Napoleon’s.’
Lloyd George with the wind up was not an
attractive sight — did he have cause to be
anxious this time? General Bernhardi wrote,
soon after the crisis, that Germany
must defeat France so decisively that
she would be compelled to renounce her
alliance with England and withdraw her
fleet to save herself from total
destruction. Just as in 1870-71 we
marched to the shores of the Atlantic,
so this time again we must resolve on an
absolute conquest, in order to capture
the French naval ports and destroy the
French naval depots. It would be a war
to the knife with France, one which
would, if victorious, annihilate once
for all the French position as a Great
Power. If France with her falling
birth-rate, determines on such a war, it
is at the risk of losing her place in
the first rank of European nations, and
sinking into permanent political
subservience. Those are the stakes.
Even Churchill, who might have been
expected to take a more relaxed view of the
matter, asserted that ‘One cause alone
c[oul]d justify our participation — to
prevent France from being trampled down &
looted by the Prussian junkers — a disaster
ruinous to the world, & swiftly fatal to our
country.’ In January 1906 Grey had declared
‘We can protect ourselves of course for we
are more supreme at sea than we have ever
been.’ By 1911 this was no longer the
perceived reality. The dreadnought scare of
1909 had come and gone, but the residue
lingered. Lists were endlessly being drawn
up as to which country would have how many
dreadnoughts by which date. And, which ever
way the lists were drawn up, the British
position was in no way as secure as it had
seemed in 1906. In the final analysis,
French military weakness had not mattered as
much in 1906 when the German fleet was
unable to mount a creditable challenge to
the Royal Navy. By 1911 the strategical
position had been transformed by the German
naval challenge. If Germany ever could
establish hegemony in Europe she could then
devote all her energies to an even more
rapid naval build-up.
Another indication of the extent to which
foreign policy was being dictated by
military considerations was provided by the
actions of Henry Wilson who, with his
‘perfect obsession for military operations
on the continent’, hardly needed a spur such
as Agadir to confirm his belief that ‘we
must join France.’ Already Hankey was
warning that, at the forthcoming meeting of
the Committee of Imperial Defence on 23
August 1911 to which only the inner core of
the Cabinet had been invited, if Wilson
could get a decision ‘in favour of military
action he will endeavour to commit us up to
the hilt.’ It was hardly surprising then
that the principle recommendation of the
General Staff was that Britain ‘should
mobilise and dispatch the whole of our
available army of six divisions and a
cavalry division immediately upon the
outbreak of war, mobilising upon the same
day as the French and Germans.’ This would
compel Britain at once to follow an
inescapable course of action in any
Franco-German dispute which threatened to
escalate and was a clear advance upon the
1909 formula in which the political decision
was to be made following the first clash of
Franco-German arms. The more that
politicians such as Churchill and Lloyd
George could be made to accept the necessity
for the British Expeditionary Force to
operate on the Continent, whether in
conjunction with the Belgian army, as Henry
Wilson would have preferred, or on the flank
of the French army, which was still the
preferred War Office option, the more that
policy would become subservient to the
technical aspects of military planning. Such
was the size and detailed nature of the
military commitment that, once the finer
points of either military strategy were
settled, the question of policy would become
irrelevant. Henry Wilson, following up his
success in the C.I.D., redoubled his efforts
to ingratiate himself with the French,
travelling to Paris at the end of September
1911 for consultations with the new Chief of
the General Staff, Joffre, and his staff.
‘They were most cordial and open’, Wilson
confided to his diary: ‘they showed me
papers and maps … showing in detail the area
of concentration for all our Expeditionary
Force … In fact, by 12.30 I was in
possession of the whole of their plan of
campaign for their northern armies, and also
for ours.’
Conversely, following Fisher’s eccentric
approach to the French in 1908, Anglo-French
naval talks had again lapsed. Only on the
day after the August 1911 C.I.D. meeting was
Admiral Wilson apprised of the three
conventions which had arisen from the 1908
meeting. Since then, the French Naval
General Staff had issued new instructions
that the point of concentration for the
French Navy should be Brest, on the Atlantic
coast — the German Navy was to be defeated
first before the victorious French navy then
re-entered the Mediterranean to deal with
the Austrians and Italians. Only if the
British were active allies, which they were
singularly reluctant to become, would the
French revert to the original plan of a
Mediterranean concentration. This policy
remained in force until the impressive
French naval manoeuvres of 5 September 1911
rekindled visions of Mediterranean
dominance. A French emissary was thereupon
dispatched to London to propose an amendment
to the three conventions: now confident of
their command of the sea, the French
themselves sought to extend their zone to
cover the whole of the Mediterranean,
including operations against both Italy and
Austria. Arthur Wilson accepted the new
proposal. In furtherance of this, on 31
October 1911, the French First and Second
Squadrons were ordered to Toulon leaving
only the Third Squadron of obsolete
battleships still based at Brest. These new
dispositions, which would have condemned the
Third Squadron to certain destruction should
it encounter modern warships, lasted only a
few months. In February 1912 it was accepted
that the position of the Third Squadron was
isolated and vulnerable and the dispatch of
the elderly ships to the Mediterranean was
soon sanctioned.
The radical elements in the British Cabinet
realized soon after the August C.I.D.
meeting that something was afoot. ‘I greatly
fear that France expects our military and
naval support’, Loreburn warned Grey some
days after the meeting. Aware of their
activities, but unable to control the naval
and military factions, Grey attempted to
fall back on the notion of collective
responsibility — an irony, given the
selective attendance of the C.I.D. meeting,
which was probably not lost on Loreburn.
Although Grey’s own opinion was that ‘an
assurance that in the case of war between
Germany and France we should remain neutral
would not conduce to peace’, the Foreign
Secretary added that ‘Even if I thought such
a statement should be made either to Germany
or France it could not be made except as the
result of a Cabinet decision.’ The Cabinet,
which had not yet been informed of the
military conversations, was now the only
body which could veto what, the Radicals may
have reasoned, was the logical outcome of
those talks. Loreburn begged Asquith to
broach the matter with Grey, which the Prime
Minister did on 5 September. Either from a
recognition of his own unease, or in
response to the disquiet evidently agitating
radical consciences, Asquith had now decided
that the military conversations ‘seem to me
rather dangerous’. The French, he argued,
‘ought not to be encouraged, in present
circumstances, to make their plans on any
assumptions of this kind.’ Had Asquith dozed
off during Henry Wilson’s exposition on that
hot August Wednesday? Grey replied that it
‘would create consternation if we forbade
our military experts to converse with the
French. No doubt these conversations and our
speeches have given an expectation of
support. I do not see how that can be
helped.’ So long as the Entente remained an
Entente, this problem would prove
intractable. The only solution was either to
have formalized relations by virtue of an
alliance, or else to proclaim neutrality
which, by destroying the value of the
Entente to both France and Russia, was not a
feasible option. While the French could have
done little in the circumstances, problems
would almost certainly have soon arisen with
regard, for example, to Russian encroachment
in Persia.
It was not just the Radicals who entertained
misgivings with regard to the continental
policy. McKenna, as he had done throughout
the summer, argued with Asquith on 20
October 1911 that the very fact of the
conversations encouraged the French, who
might then provoke Germany. ‘If we failed to
join them’, McKenna contended, ‘we should be
charged with bad faith. If we joined in fact
we should be plunged into war on their
quarrel.’ McKenna contended ‘that there
certainly might be cases in which we ought
to join in the war but that in no case
should our troops be employed in the first
instance and the French should never be
encouraged by such a promise’. Asquith
insouciantly replied that the French would
receive no encouragement ‘while he was
there’. McKenna then made the mistake of
saying that the War Office or the Admiralty
might ‘jump the claim’, at which Asquith
protested that he was not ‘a figurehead
pushed along against his will and without
his knowledge by some energetic colleagues.’
Such sentiments could not abate the swell of
Radical anger. On 1 November 1911 Morley
again raised ‘the question of the
inexpediency of communications being held or
allowed between the General Staff of the War
Office and the General Staff of foreign
States, such as France, in regard to
possible military co-operation, without the
previous knowledge and directions of the
Cabinet.’ This, however, was an argument
over a different matter: not that the talks
should not take place, but that the Cabinet
should be informed beforehand and given the
chance to impose ‘directions’. Any such
attempt to impose pre-conditions would
inevitably come up against Grey’s almost
impregnable position — the Foreign Secretary
was the one member of Asquith’s Cabinet who
might justify the description
‘indispensable’. Additionally, Grey also had
powerful allies within the Cabinet. He had
always been able to rely upon Asquith and
Haldane; now Churchill, in particular, had
also come on board. The First Lord, whose
position had changed as a result of the
Agadir crisis, urged Grey to take a strong
line regarding the military conversations:
the Cabinet, Churchill insisted, should have
‘an absolute right to have a free choice
between peace and war’, which they could not
retain ‘without constant and detailed
communications between the British and
French military authorities.’ But this was a
different argument still, based firmly on
Churchill’s belief that war could only erupt
through a German violation of Belgium and
the invasion of France in ‘undisguised
aggression.’
The meeting of the Cabinet on 15 November
1911, during which Grey animatedly sought to
defend the conversations, was decidedly
acrimonious. Grey again ‘made it clear that
at no stage of our intercourse with France
since January 1906 had we either by
diplomatic or military engagements
compromised our freedom of decision and
action in the event of war between France
and Germany.’ On the other hand [Asquith
noted] there was a prevailing feeling in the
Cabinet that there was a danger that
communications of the kind referred to might
give rise to expectations, and that they
should not, if they related to the
possibility of concerted action, be entered
into or carried on without the sanction of
the Cabinet. In the result, at the
suggestion of the Prime Minister, unanimous
approval was given to the two following
propositions:
(1) That no communications should take place
between the General Staff here and the
Staffs of other countries which can,
directly or indirectly, commit this country
to military or naval intervention.
(2) That such communications, if they relate
to concerted action by land or sea, should
not be entered into without the previous
approval of the Cabinet.
But how could this be? As John Terraine has
argued, ‘Staff talks must constitute an
undertaking, practical and moral because …
if they are at all fruitful they must
inevitably dictate actual plans.’ For
Terraine, General Huguet’s conclusion
regarding the moral imperative was ‘the
heart of the matter.’ This led Terraine to a
threefold indictment against the Liberal
Government: ‘first, their failure to
perceive the real meaning of the step they
had taken prevented them from recognising
its significance abroad — which in turn
prevented them from exploiting it. They had
placed their country in one of the two
opposing camps — but they could never bring
themselves to say so firmly. Secondly,
arising from this, they did not (could not)
alert the nation to what had been done and
what it might mean … Finally … the great
defence programmes of the next few years
(Fisher’s modernisation of the Navy,
Haldane’s of the Army) were robbed of their
full fruition. Much was being done, but
because the nation was never frankly told
for what reason it was being done, the work
was carried out not in an atmosphere of
patriotic urgency, but in one of materialist
complacency.’ Terraine’s indictment is,
however, flawed. First, there was no failure
of perception. Grey, if not immediately,
knew what he was doing by the time of Agadir.
This is clearly demonstrated by the attempt
to bring Haldane, Morley and Asquith into
line. As Grey admitted in July 1911, his
policy was ‘to give France such support as
would prevent her from falling under the
virtual control of Germany and estrangement
from us.’ This would break up the triple
Entente, he warned, ‘and we should again be
faced with the old troubles about the
frontier of India.’ The result would be ‘the
complete ascendancy of Germany in Europe’,
so that ‘some fine day we might have the
First Lord of the Admiralty coming to us and
saying that instead of building against two
powers we had to build against six.’ Second,
the nation hardly needed alerting: the
evidence was plain to see. Grey’s foreign
policy, for example, was consistently
criticized in both left- and right-wing
journals. Third, Government parsimony and
the need to divert resources to other areas
(primarily social expenditure) was the
principal reason for the failure of the
‘great defence programmes’ to reach
fruition. When a scare developed, as it most
famously did in 1909, Government action was
secured. ‘We want eight, and we won’t wait’
was no mere slogan, but a real attempt to
inform the Government of a genuine, if
imagined, fear.
The attempt by the Radicals to assert
themselves came too late. As was to be a
common feature of Asquith’s premiership, the
Cabinet resolutions altered very little; and
especially not for so long as Henry Wilson
remained on the scene. The other factor to
be contended with was Churchill’s move to
the Admiralty. This was a crucial
development. The new First Lord’s position
was clear — the Cabinet had a right, before
deciding between peace and war, to have all
the salient facts laid before it and this
could only be accomplished by ‘constant and
detailed’ Anglo-French communications.
Indeed, for much of 1912, Churchill would be
preoccupied with the Mediterranean naval
position and the situation created by the
news of the planned increased German
building tempo. ‘In order to meet the new
German squadron,’ Churchill informed Grey,
‘we are contemplating bringing home the
Mediterranean battleships.’ Obviously, in
this eventuality, Britain would have to rely
upon France in the Mediterranean and, as
Grey was no doubt privately aware, another
strand in the Entente web was being spun.
This was confirmed by Grey’s permanent
officials, who maintained that the
‘consequences [of a British evacuation]
could to a certain extent be averted if the
place of the British Mediterranean squadron
were effectively taken by a powerful French
fleet’; or if ‘Anglo-French co-operation
were assured in the case of either country
being at war with the Triple Alliance…’
The proposed British withdrawal again sent
Cambon hurrying to the Foreign Office where,
citing the excuse of Haldane’s failed
mission, the Ambassador once more exploited
British unease at German intentions. This
time the ploy failed — he was informed that,
for the time being, the Anglo-French
‘understanding’ could not be placed under
any strain. Cambon did not press the matter;
with the Admiralty intent on evacuating the
Mediterranean, he could afford to wait,
until the naval situation made British
dependence upon France in the Mediterranean
a certainty. However, Cambon’s gamble was
threatened following an announcement by
Asquith that, despite news of the latest
German naval programme, Anglo-German
relations were sufficiently amicable to
allow for discussion of mutual interests. On
this occasion using the pretext of a Russian
approach to conclude a naval convention with
France, Cambon returned to the Foreign
Office to request the renewal of
Anglo-French naval conversations. As Cambon
understood it, the desire of the French
Government was that Britain should look
after the Channel and northern coasts of
France while the newly ‘renovated’ French
fleet would take ‘care of the whole of the
Mediterranean.’
Nicolson, to whom Cambon made the approach,
was dumbfounded. He told Cambon that he knew
‘nothing absolutely about all these
arrangements’ and made no other remark,
saving his ire for the real guilty party in
his view: the Admiralty. ‘I think’, he wrote
innocently to Grey later that day, ‘that
these inter Admiralty discussions or
conversations should not have been
undertaken without the knowledge and
approval of the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs at least. Indeed I should
have thought Cabinet sanction should have
been solicited. We shall have confusion if
the Departments intervene in what are
important foreign questions.’ Nicolson’s
report was also seen by Asquith, Churchill
and Haldane, each of whom bore some
responsibility for the lamentable state of
affairs it described; but none of course as
much as Nicolson’s own boss. Grey’s weak
response was to fall back on the standard
formula: ‘…it was always understood’, he
minuted, ‘that [the conversations] did not
commit either Government to go to war to
assist the other.’
Once Nicolson’s fury had abated, he realized
that Cambon’s approach ‘would bring to a
head the question which has been
preoccupying me for some time past, and that
is, that we really must come to some
understanding with France in regard to our
naval matters.’ Nicolson’s personal opinion
had long been at variance with Grey’s; he
now feared that there would be a
continuation of the drift in foreign policy
which he had been warning about for some
time. Nicolson privately voiced his
apprehensions on 7 May:
The idea, I believe, is that France
should safeguard our interests in [the
Mediterranean] until we should be in a
position to detach vessels from our
forces in home waters. If we ask France
to do this, she will very naturally
request that there should be some
reciprocity in the arrangement, and that
we should undertake ourselves to assist
her on her eastern frontier. I do not
think that we can continue for an
indefinite time to sit on the fence, and
the Government will have to make up its
mind as to what policy they intend to
adopt.
Writing in similar vein to Bertie in Paris,
Nicolson could see that only two courses
were available if ‘the naval people’
insisted upon a Mediterranean evacuation.
First, to construct a new purpose-built
Mediterranean fleet; but this was out of the
question in view of the heavy addition it
would add to the Estimates. Second, ‘to come
to an understanding with France on the
subject which would, I do not deny, be very
much of the character of a defensive
alliance. I think certain members of the
Cabinet see this very clearly and would be
disposed to agree to it, but I do not know
if they would be able to carry all their
colleagues with them. In fact I doubt if
such would be the case.’ Nicolson avoided
all mention of the specific term ‘defensive
alliance’ to the Foreign Secretary. Rather,
he suggested, there should be an
‘understanding with France whereby she would
undertake, in the early period of a war and
until we could detach vessels from home
waters, to safeguard our interests in the
Mediterranean.’ As a quid pro quo, she
‘would naturally ask for some reciprocal
engagements from us which it would be well
worth our while to give. This to my mind
offers the cheapest, simplest and safest
solution.’ What Nicolson was proposing, by
automatically assuming that Britain and
France would be conjoined ‘in the early
period of a war’, was a defensive alliance
by any other criteria. Although, after six
years in the post, Grey was now very much
his own Foreign Secretary, the concerns of
Nicolson and Crowe still had to be faced,
and answered if possible. While Grey did not
need Nicolson to act as his conscience, an
occasional reminder of the covenant which
was being created should have served to warn
Grey of the perils of an Entente whose main
foundation rested not on a concrete
political understanding but the shifting
sand of military and naval conversations.
Would Nicolson’s formula have worked? What
precise ‘reciprocal engagement’ did Nicolson
have in mind — simply a guarantee of
France’s Atlantic seaboard, solely a naval
task; or, as he intimated to Goschen,
assistance on France’s eastern frontier — a
combined military and naval task, and a much
more serious undertaking? Superficially, a
specific commitment to safeguard the
Atlantic coast of France in return for a
guarantee of British interests in the
Mediterranean might appear to have been the
answer to the problem faced in August 1914.
Could the French have coped? Certainly not
in the opinion of General Bernhardi who
believed that ‘England could hardly leave
the protection of her Mediterranean
interests to France alone.’ Also, how could
British warships engage German warships in
defence of French interests without being at
war with Germany? A useful analogy was
provided by the anomalous position of
Austria-Hungary in the first days of the
war. The British declaration of war on 4
August was against Germany alone; however,
as Grey noted, it was hardly possible that
British ships in the Mediterranean ‘should
look on and take no part if an Austrian
warship and a French warship were firing at
each other.’ And what of the situation which
did arise when, on the morning of Tuesday 4
August 1914, the British ship Isle of
Hastings was seriously damaged during the
shelling of the French North African ports
by Goeben and Breslau? Grey again was to
find an ally in the shape of the First Lord.
‘The War-plans for the last 5 years’,
Churchill declared, ‘have provided for the
evacuation of the Mediterranean as the first
step consequent on a war with Germany, & all
we are doing is to make peace dispositions
which approximate to war necessities.’
Churchill at least still held out for the
notion of ‘freedom of action’, which is more
than can be said for Eyre Crowe who,
according to Henry Wilson, insisted on the
imperative of an alliance with France and
maintained that ‘Grey seems to be coming to
believe this, but says such a step would
break up the Cabinet.’
Grey not only had to endure attacks from his
own colleagues and permanent officials but
from the Opposition as well. The former
Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, added to
Grey’s discomfiture by forwarding him a
memorandum on 12 June 1912 in which he
argued that the present position was such
that Britain bore ‘the risks and burdens of
an alliance without the full advantage which
an alliance would secure.’ The Mediterranean
situation was a perfect illustration of
this. Balfour ruled out two options aimed at
eliminating these ‘risks and burdens’
(increased naval expenditure or the total
abandonment of the Mediterranean) before
deciding upon a third: securing the
co-operation of the French Fleet, which he
admitted, would involve ‘the substitution of
a formal alliance for an informal Entente.’
An Entente, he maintained, was ‘the natural
prey of the diplomatic intriguer’; therefore
the immediate announcement of an
Anglo-French alliance would relieve
international tension rather than aggravate
it. Balfour concluded: ‘(1) that the
capacities of the much tried "Entente" are
now almost exhausted. (2) That the
advantages … of a treaty are great and
growing. (3) That its dangers, though real,
are not unavoidable; and (4) that in a
judicious use of the modern machinery of
arbitration may perhaps be found the best
way of avoiding them.’ In conjunction with
the planned changes to the British
Mediterranean Fleet, and with knowledge of
the Franco-Russian naval talks, this would
have been an ideal opportunity to
renegotiate the Entente and either
strengthen its terms or decide once and for
all to hold out for the complete freedom of
action which only a declaration of
neutrality would bring. Instead, Grey
replied blandly that the ‘Mediterranean
position will oblige this or any Government
to consider our relations with France very
carefully.’
Churchill had already done this. ‘The
influence and authority of the [British]
Mediterranean Fleet is going to cease’, he
argued with some justification, ‘not because
of the withdrawal of the Malta battleships,
but because of the completion of the
Austrian and Italian Dreadnoughts.’ His
solution was to come to ‘an arrangement with
France and leave enough ships in the
Mediterranean to give her undoubted
superiority’. McKenna, embittered and a
confirmed critic of Admiralty policy,
insisted that ‘I do not think I am
misinterpreting Mr Churchill’s strategy when
I say that an alliance with France is its
essential feature. Without such an alliance
I cannot think that his naval advisers would
recommend the distribution of the fleet
which he now proposes. It is, of course, for
the Cabinet to decide whether we should
allow ourselves to be forced into this
alliance, but, for my part, I should view
with the gravest concern any action being
taken which must necessarily lead to such a
conclusion. I would far rather – if it were
necessary, which I hesitate to believe –
give my vote for an addition to our fleet in
ships and men, than be driven by our
weakness into dependence on an alliance with
any European power.’ Churchill had already
refused to accept this contention; the new
arrangements, he declared,
stand by themselves, and are put forward
as the best we can make in the present
circumstances. The situation would,
however, become entirely favourable if
France is taken into account. The French
fleet, supported by an adequate British
naval force, and enjoying the use of our
fortified and torpedo-defended bases as
well as their own, would be superior to
any Austro-Italian alliance. An
Anglo-French combination in a war would
be able to maintain full control of the
Mediterranean, and afford all necessary
protection to British and French
interests, both territorial and
commercial, without impairing British
margins in the North Sea. A definite
naval arrangement should be made with
France without delay. This arrangement
would come into force only if the two
Powers were at any time allies in a war.
It would not decide the question of
whether they should be allies or not. No
sound or effective dispositions can be
made without it, and many obvious
contingencies must be left unsatisfied.
Churchill’s solution had the same
inherent flaw as that of Asquith’s two
years’ previously — naval action was to be
made dependent upon political action.
However, in the absence of a guarantee, how
could ‘sound and effective’ dispositions be
made? The very act of arranging the fleet
dispositions in the manner clearly
anticipated by Churchill presumed that the
political decision would be a foregone
conclusion. Having so distributed the fleet
in the expectation that co-operation would
be affirmed (for surely this was Churchill’s
intent), how could the Cabinet realistically
decide otherwise?
What was Grey’s stance during the
Mediterranean debates? Arthur Nicolson
attempted, none too successfully, to find
out. Nicolson informed Grey on Sunday 30
June 1912 that he was ‘puzzled as to the
next meeting of the C.I.D. at which the
Mediterranean question is to be discussed.
The F.O. paper enumerating our objections is
on the Agenda, and to my mind, Churchill’s
recent minute does not weaken or remove any
of the objections. I do not know if you are
of a different opinion, and whether you are
ready to support Churchill’s proposals as
affording at least a provisional solution of
the problem. Your opinion is naturally and
properly decisive as regards F.O. affairs —
I feel myself therefore in a dilemma
supposing you consider that the F.O.
objections have been satisfactorily met by
what I will term the Malta compromise.’ And
this was the rub: by 1912 Grey’s opinion was
decisive. Indeed, the great debate of the
summer of 1912 revolved around those recent
protagonists, Churchill and McKenna, so that
at times Churchill himself almost appeared
as de facto Foreign Secretary; and, like all
genuine Foreign Secretaries, he wanted no
limits upon his powers, as would happen
should the Entente develop into an alliance.
Churchill’s opinion was unalterable: ‘the
Admiralty had never assumed an alliance with
France’, he insisted. ‘Their view was (1)
that we must maintain a continuous and
certain superiority of force over the
Germans in the North Sea, and (2) that all
other objects, however precious, must, if
necessary, be sacrificed to secure this
end.’ This was a convenient assumption which
begged many questions. Grey’s contribution
to the debates was minimal, and was confined
to an acknowledgement that Britain had
‘given up command’ of the Mediterranean to
the French, but that if a one-Power standard
were to operate, this, in conjunction with
British diplomacy might be able to ‘prevent
too powerful a combination against the
country being brought about elsewhere.’
Grey’s wish was granted with the decision to
accept one-Power Mediterranean standard,
excluding France.
Following the adoption of the new standard,
it did not take long for Cambon to seek to
re-open the spasmodic naval staff talks. If
the French had learned of the Cabinet’s
resolution they were keeping quiet: the
ostensible spur on this occasion was the
decision to transfer the Third Squadron into
the Mediterranean which effectively rendered
the Atlantic coast defenceless. With
Churchill committed to the principle of
‘freedom of action’, it had to be made clear
that such a decision would not have been
taken with the presumption of British
assistance. At the Cabinet the following
week it was agreed in light of the French
move that, ‘in continuing the communications
which had taken place in the past between
French naval and military experts and our
own, it should be plainly indicated to the
French Government that such communications
were not to be taken as prejudging the
freedom of decision of either Government as
to whether they should or should not
co-operate in the event of war.’ Churchill
saw the French Naval Attaché the following
morning to bring up to date the arrangement
for joint action which had been agreed to
the previous autumn. As usual in these
negotiations, the ‘full freedom of action
possessed by both countries’ was to remain
unfettered by the conversations which were
to remain ‘purely hypothetical’; and,
further, ‘nothing arising out of such
conversations or arrangements could
influence political decisions.’ Churchill
outlined the British changes in the
Mediterranean, explained that these were
being made in pursuance of British interests
and maintained that the arrangements were
‘adequate in our opinion to the full
protection of British possessions and trade
in the Mediterranean.’ For his side de
Saint-Seine confirmed officially that the
French were to leave ‘their Northern and
Atlantic coasts solely to the protection of
their torpedo flotillas…’
As a result of the French move the British
reservations regarding freedom of action
were delineated in a draft Anglo-French
Naval Agreement. While acknowledging that
‘France has disposed almost the whole of her
battle fleet in the Mediterranean, leaving
her Atlantic sea board to the care of
Flotillas’, and that Britain ‘has
concentrated her battle fleets in home
waters, leaving in the Mediterranean a
strong containing force of battle and
armoured cruisers and torpedo craft’, the
agreement tendentiously maintained that
‘These dispositions have been made
independently because they are the best
which the separate interest of each country
suggests, having regard to all the
circumstances and probabilities; and they do
not arise from any naval agreement or
convention.’ Nicolson at once perceived the
objection in the draft agreement: the
unilateral French withdrawal from her
Atlantic coast, would leave them undefended
and nominally under the protection of
Britain but with no absolute responsibility
on the latter’s part to render assistance.
Although Nicolson was careful to avoid any
reference to a moral obligation he added, in
a letter to Grey, that this same objection
might conceivably occur to the French, who
would require a more definite assurance.
Grey did no more than hope that the French
would not ‘raise the point’; however, if
they did, they would have to be accommodated
without altering the first article of the
Draft agreement which enshrined the notion
of ‘political freedom’. ‘This kind of
difficulty’, Asquith minuted wearily, ‘is
inherent in all such contingent
arrangements.’
Grey had already been warned by Frank Bertie
that the French might expect a quid pro quo,
following a British withdrawal from the
Mediterranean. Bertie suggested that an
exchange of notes should take place,
‘defining the major interests of England and
France and stating that in the event of any
of those interests being in the opinion of
either endangered the Governments of the two
Countries would confer together as to what
steps, if any, should be taken to defend
those interests.’ This formula was anathema
to Grey and was eventually rejected by the
Cabinet. Aware that Bertie was not above
following his own line when in Paris, Grey
evidently felt it necessary to add that he,
personally, would not remain in the Cabinet
‘if there was any questioning of abandoning
the policy of the Entente with France.’ Grey
had spoken to Cambon on 22 July to emphasize
the non-binding nature of the naval talks.
During the discussion the Foreign Secretary
had remarked that there was ‘no formal
"Entente" ’, which prompted Cambon to reply
that, if not, there was certainly a moral
Entente, ‘which might however be transformed
into a formal "Entente" if the two
governments desired, when an occasion
arose.’ Cambon would now re-double his
efforts to achieve that end. Formal
ententes, informal ententes, moral ententes,
diplomatic ententes, strategic ententes —
some ententes were apparently more equal
than others. Grey must have realized that a
formal Entente, if such a thing existed, was
no more nor less than a defensive alliance
disguised by a diplomatic euphemism.
Furthermore, who was to say that Cambon’s
‘moral Entente’ corresponded with Grey’s
definition of the same beast? If the Entente
had to have a descriptive qualifier,
undoubtedly the British would have insisted
it was a strategic Entente. Until the
partners could at least agree on what type
of Entente they wanted such confusion would
continue.
French objections to the proposed naval
agreement centred on the stipulation that
the ‘dispositions have been made
independently’. Churchill argued that the
naval arrangements had been made not as the
result of any agreement ‘but because these
are the arrangements best suited to the
separate interests of either Power.’ In
other words, the French had independently
concluded that their own interests were best
served by being strong in one sea rather
than weak in two, and this just happened to
tie in precisely with British strategical
dispositions but did not come about as a
result of them. Even if, as is evident,
Churchill himself believed this, Cambon
reminded Grey of the long history of the
negotiations which had, in addition, always
been conducted with Grey’s tacit approval;
in particular, he mentioned the 1908
conversations at which Fisher had wanted the
French to undertake the defence of the whole
of the Mediterranean. It was, Cambon clearly
intimated, a consequence of these
conversations that France had concentrated
in the Mediterranean, and not out of
self-interest. However, as Williamson has
noted, ‘France’s initial decision to
concentrate in the Mediterranean had come in
1906 solely as the product of the Conseil
Supérieur de la Marine’. The unofficial 1908
talks ‘had simply reaffirmed earlier French
assumptions about British help along the
northern coasts. Moreover, if Cambon’s
analysis had been accurate, then why the
long French delay in asking for a coastal
guarantee?’ Exploiting Grey’s ignorance as
to the extent of the naval conversations, it
was a simple matter for the French
Ambassador to misrepresent them and endow
the talks with a significance they did not
possess. Cambon also argued that article one
(the non-committal proviso) was out of place
in a purely technical agreement and, if it
were to remain, ‘it would be essential that
there should be some understanding between
the two Governments that they would at least
communicate with each other if there was a
menace, and concert beforehand.’ This
formula was of course exactly what Grey and
Churchill desired to avoid. Churchill
continued to insist: ‘I still think the
non-committal proviso desirable and
perfectly fair. The present dispositions
represent the best arrangements that either
power can make independently. It is not true
that the French are occupying the
Mediterranean to oblige us. They cannot be
effective in both theatres and they resolve
to be supreme in one. The Germans would
easily defeat them at sea.’ This denial of
the moral commitment, in the hope that it
would not be questioned, was a comforting if
irresponsible delusion that Churchill did
not share alone.
With Cambon clearly intransigent, an attempt
was made to get the message across direct to
Poincaré. ‘It must be clearly understood’,
he was admonished by Bertie, ‘that any
communications between the naval or military
experts of the two countries were not to be
taken as prejudicing the freedom of decision
of the two Governments so as to commit
either Government to come to the assistance
of the other in time of war.’ It was, Bertie
continued, ‘necessary to be clear about this
because, though the Governments might be
cognisant of the fact that the experts were
arranging details for co-operation, they
could not be sure of everything which passed
between the experts and Governments ought
not to be committed by them, but only what
passed directly between Governments
themselves.’ (The threat posed by Henry
Wilson was therefore fully appreciated.)
Bertie also emphasized Churchill’s opinion
as to the basis behind the French naval
concentration in the Mediterranean. Cambon
must have been under a misapprehension,
observed Bertie, ‘in regard to the reasons
for the transfer of the greater portion of
the French Fleet from the Channel and
Atlantic to the Mediterranean.’ The
transfer, in fact, ‘was a spontaneous
decision of the French Government and not in
consequence of the conversations between the
British and French experts in the same way
as the decision of His Majesty’s Government
to withdraw for the present from the
Mediterranean some of the British ships
hitherto stationed there.’
Poincaré admitted that, although the French
move was ‘quite spontaneous’, it would not
have been taken without the supposition that
Britain would stand by the French in the
face of an unprovoked attack. If the Entente
did not even mean that England would come to
France’s assistance in the event of a German
attack on the northern French ports, its
value to France, Poincaré insisted, was ‘not
great’. If a political formula was to be
introduced, or reservations made, this could
only be done through direct
inter-Governmental talks. Poincaré suggested
therefore ‘some form of declaration’ which
would allow the technical discussions to
continue but would, when danger threatened,
entail mandatory conversations between the
two Governments to initiate the naval and
military arrangements. In other words,
something approaching a formal definition of
Anglo-French relations. Bertie, however,
advised Poincaré ‘not to press his views
regarding the discussions between the
experts for the present’ and warned that
even the mild declaration proposed would be
unlikely to meet with unanimous Cabinet
approval in London. This final warning was
superfluous: Poincaré had already been
informed by Cambon of the Cabinet splits in
London. Grey’s supposedly continuing
struggle with the Radicals continued to
provide a convenient excuse for postponing
the contemplation of awkward decisions.
Churchill complained that the offending
article in the draft convention was not a
Cabinet requirement but had been inserted on
his own initiative ‘to preserve in its
integrity our full freedom of choice.’ He
offered to redraft the offending section ‘in
a more general form’, which addressed the
problem semantically if in no other way; yet
Bertie was sure that Poincaré would not find
it acceptable. ‘What the French Government
would like best’, Bertie informed Grey,
‘would be an exchange of diplomatic notes
defining the joint interests of France and
England and stating that in the event of any
of those interests being in the opinion of
one of the two Powers endangered it will
confer with the other as to whether any and
if so what steps should be taken to defend
those interests, and if they be agreed that
combined armed action should be taken the
naval and military arrangements already
agreed upon between the French and British
experts will come into force…’ Churchill
continued to insist that the French move
was, in itself, unilateral — ‘If we did not
exist, the French could not make better
dispositions than at present’. By attempting
to view matters with a modicum of
objectivity, Churchill was finally led to
utter a prophetic warning:
how tremendous would be the weapon which
France would possess to compel our
intervention if she could say "on the
advice of and by arrangement with you
naval authorities we have left our
Northern coasts defenceless. We cannot
possibly come back in time." Indeed it
would probably be decisive whatever is
written down now. Everyone must feel who
knows the facts that we have the
obligations of an alliance without its
advantages and above all without its
precise definitions.
This was too close to the truth for comfort.
The intense debates in the summer of 1912
had settled the wartime dispositions of the
British and French fleets in the
Mediterranean. And, from this, it is clear
that the French counted upon British
military and naval assistance. Indeed,
Poincaré confided to the Russian Foreign
Minister that,
while no written agreement between
France and Great Britain was in
existence, the General and Naval Staffs
of the two States were nevertheless in
close touch with one another … This
continual exchange of ideas had led to a
verbal agreement between the Governments
of France and Great Britain in which
Great Britain had declared her readiness
to come to the aid of France with her
land and naval forces should France be
attacked by Germany. Great Britain had
promised to support France on land by a
detachment 100,000 strong sent to the
Belgian frontier, in order to ward off
an invasion of the German army through
Belgium, which was expected by the
French General Staff.
Ironically, the issue had been forced by the
movement of six obsolete ships whose absence
from the northern coasts of France, or
presence in the Mediterranean, would have
made little if any difference to the overall
naval balance. From Churchill’s point of
view, the Mediterranean was the best place
for the Brest Squadron for precisely the
same reason that he had ordered the
withdrawal of the Malta pre-dreadnoughts in
the face of the new Italian and Austrian
building programmes — operating alone, the
pre-dreadnought simply could not stand up to
a modern ship. Tactically, the best course
for France was to have relied upon the
torpedo in the Channel and there was clearly
some justification for Churchill’s belief
that the French move was governed in part by
pure self-interest; the difficulty for
Churchill was that it was not possible to
separate completely the political
considerations from the strategic. Cambon
was playing a weak hand the best way he knew
how. If Grey remained in office, Cambon
could be reasonably assured that the
obligation would be honoured; but how could
his country’s fate rest upon the whims of
the current Prime Minister or Foreign
Secretary or the fickleness of the British
electorate?
The Liberal Cabinet met on 30 October 1912
to debate the French request for ‘some sort
of declaration’: the suggested formula was
rejected as ‘vague and open to a variety of
constructions’. Mindful that something had
to take its place, a letter drafted by Grey
was eventually agreed upon. The Foreign
Secretary had taken care to embody in the
draft three cardinal points: that naval and
military consultations had taken place; that
these were non-binding; and that the
Governments would consult in the face of
aggression to decide upon the action to be
taken. Missing from the final form of the
letters was any acknowledgement that the
British and French fleet dispositions had
been reached independently: the point upon
which Churchill had been so insistent.
Whether from an admission of the sophistry
of the argument, or weariness at the
prospect of the continuation of the tiresome
debate (presupposing that the French would
object to such a statement), the omission
was to have grave consequences in August
1914. Furthermore, despite apparently being
cast in stone, Grey’s letter itself was
still ‘open to a variety of constructions’:
it mentioned, for example, consultations in
the event of either Government having
‘reason to expect an unprovoked attack by a
third Power, or something that threatened
the general peace’. That ‘something’ might
be viewed quite differently in London than
in Paris.
Once the letters were exchanged, however,
the matter was all but forgotten — at least
so far as the British were concerned. The
following year was to prove a relatively
quiet one for Anglo-Franco-German relations,
as attention was diverted yet again to the
Balkans. By April 1914 the Grey-Cambon
letters, and the rancorous debates, were a
distant memory. There was no enthusiasm for
a revival of the debates or a re-examination
of the policy — with either Entente partner.
When a Russian approach was made to George
Buchanan on 3 April 1914 for an
Anglo-Russian alliance of a purely defensive
character, or, failing this, some
arrangement similar to that existing between
Britain and France, it had to quashed as
firmly as possible. Not even the temptation
offered by the prospect of eight Russian
dreadnoughts in the Baltic by 1917 was
sufficient inducement. Symptomatic of the
desire to let sleeping dogs lie, Nicolson
mendaciously informed Buchanan that ‘What we
have done with France goes very little
further than an interchange of views between
our naval and military staffs and those of
France, and indeed in respect of any
military co-operation with France matters
are still in an undecided state.’ These
interchanges, Nicolson argued, were
non-binding and had ‘little real practical
value’. If that was not discouragement
enough for the Russians, Nicolson added that
‘the likelihood of our despatching any
expeditionary force is extremely remote, and
it was on such an expeditionary force being
sent that France at one time was basing her
military measures.’ France, he believed, had
‘gradually abandoned the hope of ever
receiving prompt and efficient military aid
from us’.
While Nicolson doubted the resolve of his
political masters, General Friedrich von
Bernhardi had earlier questioned the
military benefit accruing to France from the
possible dispatch of the expeditionary
force. Unlike Nicolson, he foresaw that the
main impediment would not be a failure of
political will, but the realization that the
small British Regular army counted for
little. Nevertheless, Bernhardi declared, it
was probable ‘that England will throw troops
on the Continent, in order to secure the
co-operation of her allies, who might demand
this guarantee of the sincerity of English
policy’. Despite this, the ‘greatest
exertions of the nation’, he believed, ‘will
be limited to the naval war. The land war
will be waged with a definitely restricted
object, on which its character will depend.
It is very questionable whether the English
army is capable of effectively acting on the
offensive against Continental European
troops.’ In this analysis, the sole purpose
of the B.E.F., more used to fighting
colonial wars, was the maintenance of
Entente unity.
Political interference, wishful (if not
devious) strategic thinking: was there
anything else the British Cabinet was guilty
of? Paul Kennedy has argued that the
‘greatest misperception of those (like Grey
and other Liberal-imperialist ministers)
willing to offer military aide to France and
Belgium in the event of German aggression
lay not in their judgment of Germany’s
capabilities or intentions … but in their
naive belief that only a limited amount of
support would be necessary. To assert that
German expansionism posed the greatest
threat to Europe since Napoleon, yet could
be checked by a minuscule British army, was
not merely questionable, it was also
contradictory …’ This resulted, in Kennedy’s
opinion, from the failure of both Grey and
Asquith to probe the assertions made by
Henry Wilson or to question the alleged fact
that a few British divisions could preserve
the balance of power. This is too sweeping
an indictment. General Wilson himself made
quite clear in his exposition in August 1911
that, ‘although the Germans could deploy 84
divisions against the French 66 and the
garrisons of their frontier fortresses, the
Germans could not concentrate their superior
force against any one point. Our 6 divisions
would therefore be a material factor in the
decision. Their material value, however, was
far less than their moral[e] value, which
was perhaps as great as an addition of more
than double their number of French troops to
the French Army would be. This view was
shared by the French General Staff.’ Grey
was under no delusion; the dispatch of the
B.E.F. would be, first and foremost, a
political gesture, not necessarily a
strategic one.
Was the British belief in the utility of the
B.E.F. really shared by the French in 1911,
as Wilson wanted the politicians to believe?
And, if so, bearing in mind that in April
1914 Nicolson was primarily concerned with
deterring the Russian approach, was there
any validity to his hypothesis that France
had, by then, abandoned hope of British
military assistance? Perhaps ‘abandoned’ is
too strong a description. The French,
according to Williamson, ‘interpreted the
military conversations for what they were:
arrangements that facilitated British
intervention but did not guarantee it.’ For
this reason it was significant that ‘none of
the orders for [the French] Plan XVII made
any mention either of a British zone of
concentration or of the possibility of
British help.’ Sir William Robertson was
subsequently to lay the charge that, since
there was no ‘undertaking the French
authorities were forced to frame their plan
of campaign not knowing whether they would
or would not receive British assistance,
while we, on our side, were not able to
insist upon our right to examine the French
plan in return for our co-operation. When
the crisis arose there was no time to
examine it, and consequently our military
policy was for long wholly subordinate to
the French policy, of which we knew very
little.’ This, in Trevor Wilson’s view, was
a flawed analysis:
It may be argued [Wilson contended] that
the French military staff, as a result
of their conversations with the British,
had so comported their strategic
arrangements that their entire plan of
campaign depended on British
co-operation, and would fall in ruins if
the British failed to participate. In
these circumstances Britain might feel
obliged to act alongside the French. But
such a hypothesis runs up against two
serious difficulties. In the first
place, it presumes stupidity on the part
of the French high command that they
would render their strategy dependent on
a power which stated that it could not
be relied on. Secondly, given the
relatively tiny numbers of the British
Expeditionary Force, it is hard to
imagine a strategy which could have
assigned to the British so crucial a
position in the French plan of campaign.
However, to base an objection on the
presumption that high commands are incapable
of stupidity is tenuous at best. In so far
as intelligence assessments were concerned,
the French high command was guilty of not so
much stupidity as imbecility. What, then,
was the French plan of campaign?
On 28 July 1911 Joseph Jacques Césair Joffre,
not the first (nor even the second) choice,
an engineer by training with little
appreciation of grand strategy, and a firm
believer in the power of the offensive over
the defensive, was appointed to the new
position of Chief of the General Staff and
assumed command of the French army saddled
with a scheme of operations (Plan XVI) he
disliked. Although the main emphasis was
still on a great offensive move into Alsace
and Lorraine, the overall approach was too
defensive and the French left, in Joffre’s
opinion, was not adequately well protected.
With the possibility of a sudden German
flanking attack through Belgium in the wake
of the Agadir crisis, three hundred and
fifty thousand men were hurriedly assigned —
on paper — to guard the Franco-Belgian
border. This force would consist of the
French Fifth Army, based on Mézières,
supported by three cavalry corps, the
Algerian Corps, and the B.E.F., which would
be concentrated around Hirson and Mauberge.
Thus, a sizeable proportion of the troops
assigned to this prominent weak spot would
only take the field under certain
conditions: in the case of the Algerian Army
Corps, this depended upon the successful
ferrying of the troops from North Africa, a
task which would be made more difficult in
succeeding years in the face of Austrian and
Italian dreadnoughts and the German
Mittelmeerdivision; in the case of the B.E.F.,
the principle determinant would be the
resoluteness of the British Cabinet.
Such a conditional arrangement was doubly
irresponsible in view of a contemporaneous
estimation of German intentions. In the
opinion of the French General Staff:
The concentration of numerous embankments
and yards along the German railway lines
between Trier and Aix-la-Chapelle indicates
that our adversary would like to prepare for
a possible swing of his right wing through
Belgium. An offensive in the general
direction of Mézières would allow the
Germans to avoid the fortified frontier of
the Meuse River and to outflank our left
wing. If successful, [this offensive] would
open the most direct roads to Paris. It will
be in the Germans’ interest to limit their
offensive to the land south of the Meuse,
all the more so because an invasion north of
the river would force them to make a big
detour and thus divide their troops into two
groups, completely separated from each other
by a fortified barrier [Belgian fortresses].
How that may be, in our strategic plans we
shall have to take into account the
possibility of a German attack through
Belgian Luxembourg and to move our armies
slightly westward from Mézières to Hirson.
The great miscalculation of pre-war French
planners stemmed from the failure of
intelligence accurately to predict German
intentions and capabilities. While
recognizing that a German attack through
Belgium was almost certain, the General
Staff failed to appreciate that this would
constitute the main German thrust. It was,
after all, something the Germans could not
do without using reserve troops in the front
line. And, although there was evidence
available that this was precisely what the
Germans intended to do, it did not fit
French assumptions and was ignored. This
faulty appraisal was strengthened in 1913
following the Reichstag vote to increase the
size of the German army, which the French
interpreted as indicative of an intention
not to utilize reserve troops in offensive
operations. As reports to the contrary
continued to be received in Paris, the
Deuxième Bureau still asserted ‘that it did
not know "what the direction of [Germany’s]
main effort will be" and that it did "not
possess any really reliable information
concerning the operational plans of our
adversaries." ’ When new intelligence was
received late in 1913, the French General
Staff refused to recast Plan XVII or depart
from its out-and-out offensive doctrine.
Joffre had initially planned to counter any
German move through Belgium by advancing to
Namur, from where he could launch an attack
on the German flank. Forbidden by Poincaré
for obvious political reasons — the risk of
alienating Britain — to plan for the
launching of a French offensive through
Belgium, as he would have preferred,
throughout 1912 and 1913 Joffre had,
perforce, to cast around for an alternative
strategy. The result would be in the
notorious Plan XVII. The main French effort
would still be directed against the
Franco-German frontier. Of the five French
armies, four would concentrate between
Verdun and Belfort in anticipation of an
immediate offensive directed at Lorraine and
the Luxembourg Ardennes. The Fifth Army, not
required for the initial offensive, would
guard the Belgian Ardennes from Montmédy to
Mézières. Concern over the presence of enemy
dreadnoughts in the Mediterranean capable of
disrupting its passage caused the zone of
concentration of the Algerian Corps to be
shifted south, to the area between Toul and
Epinal. Joffre’s left flank was now more
exposed than ever: the hundred and ten mile
sector from Mézières to the coast was to be
defended only by the B.E.F. upon whose
presence on the battlefield Joffre could not
definitely count. By 1914 Joffre had finally
abandoned any lingering hope of a French
offensive through Belgium. Continued
uncertainty regarding the possibility of any
British military assistance, the size of the
available force, and when it might become
available gave Joffre little option other
than to declare: ‘We will thus act prudently
in not depending upon English forces in our
operational projects.’ But how was it
prudent, when, despite continued warnings,
Joffre continued to insist that his left
flank, the site of the actual German
invasion, would only be defended by a
contingent force? ‘Admittedly’, Williamson
notes, ‘British sensitivity over Belgian
neutrality prevented French offensive action
in the one area where it might have stalled
the German drive. Yet London’s attitude did
not force the General to plan an attack
against the heavily fortified area of
Lorraine, nor to neglect the elementary
requirements of security. Nor did it cause
him to relegate twenty-five reserve
divisions to secondary functions. For these
decisions the allure of the "offensive"
school remained the culprit.’ To this should
be added an over-optimistic French reliance
on the prospect of Russian assistance.
Despite Joffre’s so-called prudence, was
there, at the very least, a British moral
commitment to France? In view of the
expectations built up from years of military
conversations, and which should have been
subject to more rigorous political control —
yes. Could the Cabinet have refused to
honour it? Yes. Did this commitment —
whether moral or not — entail an obligation?
In a strict sense, no — Britain could have
refused to fight in August 1914. The
November 1912 letter, after all,
specifically repudiated the notion of a
commitment and sought instead to enshrine
the principle of freedom of action. This
counted for little on the afternoon of
Saturday 1 August when Paul Cambon
confronted Sir Arthur Nicolson with his
‘petit papier’. ‘M Cambon pointed out to me
this afternoon’, Nicolson informed Grey soon
after, ‘that it was at our request that
France had moved her fleets to the
Mediterranean, on the understanding that we
undertook the protection of her Northern and
Western coasts.’ This was deliberately to
misrepresent the 1912 letter; however, as
was evident the following day, the strategy
worked. In the sense applied to it by Cambon
and Nicolson the letter was irrelevant as it
did not reflect the perceived state of
affairs. Realistically, could Britain have
remained out of the war? Almost certainly
not. Within days of the outbreak of the
Franco-German war, some incident such as the
shelling of a British merchant ship by a
German man-of-war (as happened on the
morning of Tuesday, 4 August), or the
destruction of a British ship on the
German-laid minefield in the Channel, would
so have inflamed public opinion in Britain
as to compel British entry. The difference
would have been that, with the dispatch of
the B.E.F. even further delayed, in all
probability the Germans would have won at
the Marne. If the commitment had been
formalized, and replaced by a specific
obligation, would the same decisions have
been taken in the last week of July 1914?
Probably not: Asquith, for example, would
have found it almost impossible to refuse a
request for the mobilization of the B.E.F.;
Belgium would no longer have remained the
excuse it always was. The one great
imponderable is the effect this might have
had on the other warring states. Russia
might have become, as Grey and Asquith
feared, more bellicose; the French might not
have been as scrupulous in respecting
British feelings. Either of these
occurrences would have negated any calming
influence which the assured prospect of
British entry might have exerted on Berlin.
The essence of government by Cabinet is the
notion of collective responsibility. For so
long as the knowledge of the Anglo-French
talks remained confined to a few members,
the remainder could justifiably claim to
have been innocent of any charge regarding
the pledging of a commitment, moral or
otherwise. However, by 1911, the circle of
those in the know was widening; by 1912 it
was complete. No excuses could then absolve
them of responsibility. As G. M. Thomson has
stated:
Some ministers, Lloyd George among them,
felt the resentment of men who had allowed
themselves, through stupidity,
lazy-mindedness or excess of trust, to be
cheated out of their full liberty of
decision. They claimed that a web of
obligations, which they had been assured
were not obligations, had been spun around
them while they slept. But they knew they
had not slept all the time. Like Grey, who
had deliberately stayed "ignorant" of the
outcome of the military talks with France,
they had deliberately shut their eyes. But
not all of them, and not all the time.
Morley might insist on his innocence, but
Lord Haldane could produce from a red box of
Committee of Imperial Defence papers a
memorandum of General Ewart’s of 1910
discussing a proposed concentration of the
British expeditionary force at Mauberge. And
at the foot of the paper was the minute:
‘Doubtful if I ought to approve of this. But
I suppose it’s in the interests of European
peace.’ It was in Morley’s handwriting.
Similarly, Grey’s famed remoteness from
military matters was a sham. The Foreign
Secretary knew more of the outcome of the
1906 military talks than he admitted to and
was a permanent member of the C.I.D.
Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty
from late 1911, also had no excuse and was
largely confined to waging a war of words to
justify a policy decision he was forced to
make, while recognizing all the while that
there was no alternative. Lloyd George was
an intimate of Churchill and Henry Wilson
and an enthusiastic, if amateur, dabbler in
military strategy. Asquith and Morley were
certainly alive to the danger. What can
explain this unwillingness to face facts?
The answer can be found in the realization
that Britain could no longer face new and
growing threats unaided. The Entente with
France (and even more with Russia) was a
necessary evil. This attitude was doubly
irresponsible in that it prevented a British
appraisal of the French Plan XVII. By
denying the General Staff an overt rôle in
the formulation of Anglo-French strategy,
the Cabinet also denied its military
planners the opportunity to question certain
of the conditions upon which the plan was
based. Perhaps, in view of the evidence of a
loss of nerve on his part, Henry Wilson
would not have wanted too close an
examination of the French plan; perhaps
British intelligence regarding German
intentions was as inept as the French and
could not have added much; perhaps the
French, in view of the limited scope of
initial British assistance, would not have
taken kindly to interference. But who is to
say that a joint planning committee might
not have highlighted at least some of the
dangers involved in the offensive
assumptions inherent in Plan XVII?
Britain, above all, went to war in August
1914 in defence of British interests. This
much was made clear by Sir Edward Grey in
the House of Commons on the afternoon of
Monday, 3 August:
I would like the House [Grey declared]
to approach the crisis in which we are
from the point of view of British
interests, British honour (loud
Opposition cheers), British obligations
(renewed cheers), and free from all
passion … But I want to look at the
thing also without sentiment from the
point of view of British interests
(cheers), and it is on that that I am
going to base and justify what I am
presently going to say to the House. If
we are to say nothing at this moment,
what is France to do with her Fleet in
the Mediterranean? If she leaves it
there with no statement from us on what
we will do, she leaves her northern and
western coasts absolutely undefended at
the mercy of a German fleet coming down
the Channel … I say that from the point
of view of British interests we felt
strongly that France was entitled to
know and to know at once (cheers)
whether or not in the event of attack
upon her unprotected northern ands
western coasts she could depend upon
British support … Now, Sir, I ask the
House, from the point of view of British
interests, to consider what may be at
stake [if] France is beaten in a
struggle of life and death, beaten to
her knees, loses her position as a Great
Power …
In other words, in Grey’s less than
disinterested opinion, French interests were
also British interests. The convergence
which had commenced in 1904, which had been
tested in 1906, which had been strengthened
in 1908, which had been forced upon Paris
and London in 1911, was now complete.
The new century had brought with it new
enemies and new areas of dispute. For
Cabinet Ministers of a Victorian frame of
mind, immersed in the concept of the balance
of power, the Entente had seemed a logical
way to approach the situation. Colonial
differences could be settled immediately; in
the longer term, as Grey candidly admitted
in 1906, ‘An entente between Russia, France
and ourselves would be absolutely secure. If
it is necessary to check Germany it could
then be done.’ But with the Entente came
obligations. These needed to be faced or
disowned. Neither happened; instead backs
were turned, though it is doubtful if Grey,
in particular, was as ignorant of what was
going on as he sometimes made out. It has
been written of what occurred in January
1906 that:
Promises were declined but expectations were
created. Whatever the verbal limitations, a
momentous change in the orientation of
British policy had taken place. The era of
unfettered self-determination was over, the
era of Continental attachments and
entanglements had begun. The Entente
Cordiale was the half-way house between
isolation and alliance; and such
relationships tend to grow more intimate
with the passing years.
The failure to admit unpleasant facts at the
time severely narrowed the options available
to the Cabinet in the first days of August
1914. And this failure could be attributed
to an unwillingness to acknowledge that, in
the face of new threats and without
assistance, Britain was no longer in a
position to safeguard her global interests —
it was impossible, as Fisher had realized in
1912, to be ‘strong everywhere’. Nowhere was
this more so than in the Mediterranean, once
the Austrians and Italians had commenced the
construction of dreadnoughts. After the
decision was reluctantly made, and the
British battleships were withdrawn from the
Mediterranean, it was open to the French to
contend that a deal had been struck. When
the final crisis arose, this specious
argument was used to devastating effect by
the French and accepted uncritically by the
Cabinet who had come to realize, if they did
not know already as a result of Grey’s
special pleading, that, since the Entente
had come into being, British and French
interests in fact coincided. France had
unwittingly become the key partner of the
Triple Entente. Russia needed French
capital; Britain, always wary of renewed
trouble on the Indian frontier and in
Persia, needed to keep the Russians as
content as possible with the current
strategic situation. France was the
linchpin. Realistically, and despite the
many pre-war invasion scares, Germany could
not threaten Britain; France was another
matter. The French had to be supported, even
though it went against the grain, by the
promise of an expeditionary force and by the
unstated, though implied, commitment to
safeguard the exposed Atlantic coasts. Naval
resources could only be stretched so far;
this was recognized by some in 1912 even if
others fought a desperate rearguard action
against the policy of concentration in the
North Sea. It was also at this time that
Balfour’s advice (amongst others) should
have been followed: the Entente should have
been converted into an alliance. Unwilling
to accept this solution, or face the
predictable outcry, the Cabinet gambled on
the Grey-Cambon letters keeping the Entente
afloat, hoping that the bluff would not be
called.
The gamble was on its way to being lost when
the Russians attempted to come to a similar
arrangement in the spring of 1914. If there
was reluctance to face realities in 1912,
the Russian approach was greeted with
dismay. The problem of avoiding the pitfalls
created by the passing years and growing
intimacy would prove intractable.
Notwithstanding the difficulties, an
Anglo-French alliance, if agreed to in 1912,
would have allowed for full and unfettered
naval and military co-operation. By being
defensive in nature and peaceful in intent
such an alliance might not necessarily have
provoked Germany, but could have made
certain members of the Government in Berlin
think twice in July 1914 before irrevocable
steps were taken. The greatest difficulty
would concern the position of Russia; the
prospect of an Anglo-Russian alliance was
viewed by many with anathema. Perhaps the
solution was to be found in a series of
bilateral agreements, all defensive in
nature. Finally, only an Anglo-French
alliance would have provided the wherewithal
to aid in the defence of British interests
by freeing additional British forces,
particularly in the Mediterranean. Instead,
for Britain in August 1914 the Mediterranean
remained what it had been for a number of
years — and certainly since the advent of
the German naval challenge — a millstone.
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