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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:
(1)
Grey was an inexperienced Cabinet minister in the midst of an election
campaign and did not realize the full importance of the French demands;
(2)
the conversations were merely a logical extension of the terms of the
1904 accord and thus involved no question of policy;
(3)
the conversations had begun in the Lansdowne period;
(4)
Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, not Grey, had the final
responsibility for bringing the talks before the Cabinet;
(5)
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
(6)
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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