The Conservative Party

and Anglo-German
Relations, 1905–1914

Frank McDonough
The Conservative Party
and Anglo-German
Relations, 1905–1914
Also by Frank McDonough

THE BRITISH EMPIRE, 1815–1914

THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST AND SECOND WORLD WARS
NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN, APPEASEMENT AND THE BRITISH ROAD TO WAR
HITLER AND NAZI GERMANY
CONFLICT, COMMUNISM AND FASCISM: Europe, 1890–1945
OPPOSITION AND RESISTANCE IN NAZI GERMANY
HITLER, CHAMBERLAIN AND APPEASEMENT
HITLER AND THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY
THE HOLOCAUST
The Conservative Party
and Anglo-German
Relations, 1905–1914

Frank McDonough
© Frank McDonough 2007
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McDonough, Frank.
The Conservative Party and Anglo-German relations, 1905–14 / Frank
McDonough.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978–0–230–51711–0 (cloth)
ISBN-10: 0–230–51711–0 (cloth)
1. Great Britain – Foreign relations – Germany. 2. Germany – Foreign
relations – Great Britain. 3. Conservative Party (Great
Britain) – History – 20th century. 4. Great Britain – Politics and
government – 1901–1936. I. Title.
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To the memory of my father Francis McDonough
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

Preface viii

Introduction 1

1 The Nature and Organisation of Conservative Foreign

and Defence Questions at Westminster 16

2 Leadership: (1) A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 35

3 Leadership: (2) Andrew Bonar Law and

Anglo-German Relations 53

4 The Views of the Conservative Party at Westminster

towards Anglo-German Relations, 1905–1914 69

5 The Role of the German Threat in the Propaganda

and Electioneering Tactics of the Conservative Party
at the Two General Elections of 1910 85

6 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 105

7 The Conservative Party and the Decision for War in 1914 127

Conclusion 138

The Key Characters 144

Notes 153

Bibliography 173

Index 186

vii
Preface

The book has taken many years to finally reach publication. The
delay does not reflect any lack of hard work on the part of the author,
but more the intrusion of many other projects and publication com-
mitments. The book began life after a conversation with the late and
great R.A.C. Parker, my tutor, on his ‘Special Subject’ on ‘British
Policy and the Coming of The Second World War’ at Oxford way back
in the 1980s. He suggested that I undertake a doctorate with him
on some aspect of appeasement. I thought it had all been said on
that subject, most by R.A.C., but he felt that two areas had been
neglected: the mass media and the evolution of appeasement before
Chamberlain came to power. I began work on the press and appease-
ment and produced some articles in that subject. I also wrote a book on
appeasement entitled, Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the
British road to war (1998), and I have become associated with the
Parker-inspired ‘post-revisionist’ or ‘counter-revisionist’ school. I decided
to examine how the appeasers in the Conservative Party in
the 1930s evolved their ideas during the early period of the twentieth
century. The title of my thesis, at the outset, was ‘The Evolution of
Appeasement in the Conservative Party 1905–1937’. I even set up a
database (actually it was then a card index) of all the Conservative MPs
who sat in parliament from 1905 to 1937. I quickly realised a flaw in
my over-ambitious plan: the vast majority of the Edwardian ‘die
hard’ Tories never made it to the 1930s. Most of them never evolved
at all. They simply got old, and like everyone else they died. I finally
decided to undertake research on the Conservative Party’s attitude to
Germany as an Opposition party from 1905 to 1914. I soon found
that no one had produced either a monograph or a doctorate on this
subject. I was finally underway. After many years of research and a
doctorate awarded on the subject in 2000, now finally comes the
monograph.

viii
 Preface ix

I would like to take this opportunity to thank a number of people

who have helped along this long journey: R.A.C. Parker, for sparking
the idea to begin my research and Dr. Ruth Henig, my Ph.D. supervisor,
at the time of completion – a great influence and inspiration. I would
also like to thank Professor David McEvoy, Director of the School of
Social Science, who helped me in carrying out most of the archival
research for this project. I am also grateful for the generous support of
the University’s Research Committee. I would also like to single out
for very special praise Dr Nick White, Reader in Imperial History, with
whom I have shared a room at university for longer than we both
care to remember and who pushed me to finish off the thesis and the
book. In addition, he has provided me with much intellectual and
academic stimulation and also a great many laughs over the years.
My other colleagues in the History Department at Liverpool John
Moores have also provided support and encouragement. But the
whole project would not have been possible without the support, loy-
alty and love of Ann, my wife. Finally, I must mention my dear old
dad, Francis, who died on 11 August 2006, aged 82, after a very long
illness. I write this less than a month after his death. I could write
many words about this man: he helped so many people as he passed
along in his life and without the challenging intellectual stimulation
he provided at home I would not be writing this and you would not
be reading it. Quite fittingly, the book is dedicated to his memory.

6 September 2006 DR FRANCIS XAVIER MCDONOUGH

Reader in International History
Liverpool John Moores University
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction

The relationship between Britain and Germany has been a notoriously

difficult one. It has been characterised by a curious mixture of fear
and admiration. There have been many well-meaning efforts on both
sides to improve relations. Two prominent Conservative politicians
were at the forefront of the two most high-profile attempts to gain a
long-standing Anglo-German ‘understanding’. Joseph Chamberlain
had discussions concerning an Anglo-German alliance during the
1890s. During the 1930s, his son Neville sought to prevent war by
attempting to solve German grievances through the policy of
appeasement. Both Hitler and Chamberlain signed the ‘Anglo-
German declaration’ which promised that the two countries would
strive ‘never to go to war with one another again’. Needless to say,
these initiatives ended in failure. It is probably more important to
emphasise that the two Conservative leaders who have adopted
a consistently negative attitude towards the aims of the German
Government have enjoyed the most enduring popularity among
Conservative supporters. Winston Churchill built his enduring politi-
cal reputation as Britain’s most admired Prime Minister on the strong
anti-Nazi stand he adopted before and during the Second World War.
Margaret Thatcher’s negative attitude to German unification and the
role of Germany within the European Economic Community also
proved popular among her supporters.
In modern-day Britain, the image of Germany has remained
steadfastly negative. Journalists, comedians and politicians have all
been prepared to demonise Germany more than any other nation.
Offering crude stereotypes about Germany has almost become a
socially acceptable pastime. In the words of A.A. Gill, a popular

1
2 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

columnist on the Sunday Times, ‘Admit it, we all hate Germans’. The
traditional defence of such xenophobic utterances is that they are
just part of the ‘ironic’ British sense of humour. If Germans attack
British allusions to the ‘darker aspects’ of their past history such as the
famous ‘Don’t mention the war’ episode entitled ‘The Germans’ in the
BBC comedy series ‘Fawlty Towers’, they are castigated as ‘lacking a
sense of humour’. According to the journalist Simon Hoggart, British
people are ‘just hard-wired to make German jokes. We just can’t
help it. We make [anti-] German jokes in the same way that cats kill
small birds’.1
A similarly negative view of Germany’s past has been regularly
presented in films, newspaper articles, TV adverts and comedy shows.
A recent public opinion survey of British children, organised by the
Goethe Institute, asked who were the most famous Germans they
knew. At the top was Adolf Hitler with 68 per cent, followed by
Jurgen Klinsmann, the footballer (47%), and Boris Becker, the tennis
star (40%). When asked what Germany was famous for, one fairly
typical response was ‘Starting Two World Wars and a football team’.
In fact, the England versus Germany football rivalry, certainly for
many English fans and especially for the British tabloid press, has
often resembled the extension of the Second World War by other
means. During the 1996 European football championship, the Daily
Mirror, invoking British Second World War propaganda, claimed in
banner headlines before the England versus Germany semi-final:
‘Achtung! Surrender. For you Fritz ze Euro 96 Championship is over’.2
In a recent British Channel 4 programme, ‘The 100 Greatest TV
moments’, England’s 4–2 victory over Germany in the 1966 World
Cup Final came top, and Winston Churchill won the BBC public
phone vote of the ‘Greatest Britons’ by a similar landslide.
At British screenings of the recent popular Hollywood film Saving
Private Ryan, which concentrates on the D-Day landings, it was
reported in the British press that many young people cheered every
time a German was shot or killed. In 2003, a video featuring Rik
Mayall, the British comedian, was shown at the media launch of a
British-funded campaign against the Euro. Mayall, dressed as Adolf
Hitler, is seen in the video promoting the benefits of the Euro with the
slogan ‘Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Euro!’ (An obvious reference to the
Nazi slogan ‘Ein Volk Ein Reich Ein Führer’). The German Government
expressed outrage at the crass link made between the modern
 Introduction 3

democratic German Government’s support for the Euro and the

tyrannical Nazi regime. Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP, in true
Basil Fawlty style, commented that the Germans lacked a sense of
humour by complaining about a ‘harmless, light-hearted commercial’.
But what has all this got to do with the Conservative Party and
Anglo-German relations between 1905 and 1914? The answer, as will
be explained in more detail in the chapters that follow, is a great deal.
Any study, which examines one aspect of British attitudes towards
Germany, must take account of the fact that British society has all
grown used to ‘being beastly to the Germans’. In the process, many
myths on Anglo-German relations have become deeply enshrined
not only within popular discourse but also within the existing
historiography. One dominant historiographical myth suggests that
Anglo-German antagonism really took hold during the Edwardian
period and that the Conservative Party was one of the fomenters of
this Germanophobia. This orthodox view will be challenged in the
course of this study.
It is worth pointing out that being ‘beastly to the Germans’ was
very much a new and by no means universally popular phenomenon
in the early years of the twentieth century. In fact, a surprisingly
friendly relationship had existed between Britain and the many
German states, dating back to the eighteenth century. As a result
of the 1701 Act of Succession, the dukes of Hanover were invited
by the British Government to establish a royal dynasty after 1714.
The presence of German kings on the English throne ensured that
Anglo-German relations remained cordial. At the Battle of Waterloo,
the British forces, under the command of that bastion of the Tory
Party, Lord Wellington, were saved from defeat by Prussian forces.
In 1840, Queen Victoria married the German Prince Albert of Saxe-
Coburg-Gotha. Kaiser Wilhelm II was Queen Victoria’s grandson, the
nephew of King Edward VII and the cousin of George V.
Britain and Germany appeared to have scant reason for conflict
throughout much of the nineteenth century. Germany was a land-
based empire, with a very small navy. It had no colonies, and its
interests lay firmly on the landmass of the European continent. What
is more, Britain and the German states enjoyed cordial trading
relations. In 1860, one-third of Prussian imports came from Britain.
Both Germany and Britain were predominantly protestant countries
and had strong cultural links. British music lovers admired German
4 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and Wagner more

than any others, and many Germans admired British writers and
poets such as Shakespeare, Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott.
Most of the Conservative Party welcomed German unification,
which took place in 1871, following the German defeat of France in
the Franco-Prussian War. The first German Chancellor, Otto von
Bismarck approved of upholding a balance of power between nations
on the European continent, something that British policy also sup-
ported. It is worth noticing that the two countries which were most
often at odds with Britain during the nineteenth century were France
and Russia. Britain was almost in perpetual conflict with France and
clashed frequently with Russia in Afghanistan, Persia and India. It
seemed almost inconceivable, even at the beginning of the Edwardian
period, that Britain would line up in any form of alliance with France
and Russia against Germany.
Yet in August 1914, Britain did go to war with Germany. This
incredible course of events occurred primarily because of the stri-
dently provocative policies of the German monarchy and the way in
which the British Government and Opposition interpreted those
policies. In 1888, the ‘half-English’ Kaiser Wilhelm II came to power,
and he took two major decisions which had far-reaching conse-
quences for Anglo-German relations. In 1890, he dismissed Bismarck,
who had sought to maintain cordial relations between Britain and
Germany and attempted to ensure there was a balance of power in
Europe. Even more controversial was Kaiser Wilhelm’s support for
Weltpolitik (‘World Policy’), which involved Germany expanding its
colonial empire and, most alarmingly for Britain, building a navy to
rival the Royal Navy.
As ‘World Policy’ was implemented, Anglo-German relations
began to progressively deteriorate. But during the 1890s, Britain still
remained on even worse terms with France and Russia, and Anglo-
German antagonism was confined to the adverse impact on British
industry of the rapid growth of German imports. In the late 1890s, the
Conservative Government led by Lord Salisbury vigorously attempted
to gain an Anglo-German ‘understanding’. It was only when this
effort failed that British policy began to move in an anti-German
direction. To meet the German naval threat, a new state-of-the-art
battleship HMS Dreadnought was launched in 1902. This more heavily
 Introduction 5

armed, larger and faster naval vessel was designed to act as a deterrent
to any potential naval rivals. In response, the German navy built its
own version of the ‘Dreadnought’, and so began the heated Anglo-
German naval race which soured relations between the two nations
more than any other single factor.
From 1902 onwards, British foreign policy moved to make
Germany’s enemies its friends. Lord Lansdowne, the Conservative
Foreign Secretary, signed the ‘entente cordiale’ with France in 1904,
which although described as a ‘colonial agreement’ created fears of
‘encirclement’ in Germany. In 1905, the German monarch decided to
test the underlying strength of the agreement by provoking an unnec-
essary quarrel with France over trading rights in Morocco. Kaiser
Wilhelm II visited Tangier in March 1905, and he promised German
support to the Moroccan administration in the event of French
aggression. Throughout the protracted crisis, the British Government
offered support to the French. In December 1905, there was a talk of
war between Germany and France. In the end, the Germans decided
to settle their dispute over trading rights at the Algeciras Conference.
The French allowed the Moroccan police to retain autonomy but
gained effective control over financial and political affairs. The whole
crisis cemented Anglo-French friendship. In 1907, Britain signed the
Anglo-Russian Convention which helped to gain closer discussion of
colonial disagreements between the two countries. This led to press
talk of a Triple Alliance between Britain, France and Russia.
Between 1908 and 1910, Anglo-German naval rivalry reached a
peak of intensity, and Anglo-German relations plummeted to an all-
time low. In 1911, relations deteriorated further when a second
Franco-German crisis re-ignited in Morocco. Civil disorder in Morocco
during the spring of 1911 had prompted military intervention by
French and Spanish troops. In May, French forces entered Fez. In
June 1911, in a move perceived by the British, Russian and French
Governments as highly provocative, the Kaiser sent the German
gunboat Panther to Agadir. In July 1911, David Lloyd George, the
British Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a high-profile speech at
the Mansion House in which he hinted that if war broke out over the
Agadir crisis, Britain would certainly side with France. The Russian
Government pledged similar support to France, and Germany was
forced to compromise. In 1912, the German Government accepted
6 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

the French right to rule in Morocco. Yet the whole crisis had soured
relations between Germany on the one side and France, Britain and
Russia on the other. Anglo-German relations had by this time deteri-
orated to an all-time low. It is all these events which lay at the heart
of the issues that are examined in this study.
Not surprisingly, the existing historiography on Britain’s role in the
outbreak of the First World War concentrates on the part played by
central decision makers in the Liberal Government, and key policy
advisers in the foreign office, the navy and the army.3 These studies
portray British foreign policy as the special realm of Sir Edward Grey,
the Foreign Secretary, and chief advisers at the foreign office. This
standard view also suggests that those individuals in charge of
British foreign policy before 1914 were not significantly influenced
by the domestic political situation, and formulated policy towards
Germany in the light of external events, most notably, the escalation
of German military and naval power in Europe, and the erratic
nature of German foreign policy. On this view, British foreign policy
in 1914 was determined to prevent a German domination of Europe.4
This Primacy of Aussenpolitik (‘the primacy of external factors’)
explanation of why Britain went to war in August 1914 views the
state as a cohesive and independent actor in diplomatic decision
making, with a dominant interest in safeguarding national security. It
offers a comprehensive account of the motives behind the behaviour
of state officials during the unfolding European crisis. The most
important sources used to bolster the ‘primacy of Aussenpolitik’ inter-
pretation are the painstakingly catalogued state papers of the Foreign
Secretary, the Foreign Office, the Cabinet and the diplomatic service.
A study of these documents does shed light on Britain’s decision to go
to war in 1914.
However, many historians prefer an alternative approach to
explain the outbreak of the First World War, one that takes account of
the broader context of the society in which the major decisions were
taken. Fritz Fischer, the renowned German historian developed a
model to study foreign policy which examines the overall domestic
balance of social, political and economic forces.5 This Primat der
Innenpolitik (‘the primacy of domestic factors’) interpretation pays
close attention to the domestic factors which influence foreign policy
decision making.6 It is now accepted that the relationship between
internal and external factors in explaining the outbreak of war is
extremely complex.7 As Zara Steiner, an consummate exponent of the
 Introduction 7

‘high politics’ approach to foreign policy, concedes:

there was an obvious connection between the political life of the

country and its diplomatic stance, between the actions of states-
men and the prevailing climate of opinion. The Foreign Secretary
was a product of his time, and worked within a particular political
and bureaucratic framework; his policies were shaped by Britain’s
economic and strategic position which were in turn controlled by
other men.8

However, one major gap in the historiography of Britain’s role in

the origins of the First World War is a thorough analysis of the stance
of the Conservative Party towards Anglo-German relations from 1905
to 1914. Hence, the first major aim of this study is to remedy this
omission by examining how the Conservatives reacted to the
German threat. By focusing on the role of the most important British
Opposition party towards Anglo-German relations, it is possible to
assess the continuing importance of the ‘primacy’ controversy to the
study of Britain’s role in the outbreak of the First World War.
The existing research on Edwardian political history has concen-
trated on the struggle of the Liberal Party to maintain its ascendancy
on the centre-left of British politics in the face of a growing Labour
movement, heightened class conflict and industrial turbulence.
There have been many biographies of leading Liberal politicians. The
views of leading Liberal thinkers and policy makers have been exten-
sively scrutinised. The relative vigour of the Liberal and Labour
parties has also been probed at national and regional levels. At the
same time, the rise of the Labour Party has received enormous his-
torical attention. As a consequence, the study of the Conservative
Party in the Edwardian period has been, until recent years, a neglected
area of study.9 During the 1960s and 1970s, the small amount of
research on the Conservative Party in the Edwardian period
focused on three domestic areas: first, the inner divisions within
the Conservative Party over the policy of tariff reform; second, the
‘Die Hard’ opposition to the 1909 People’s Budget, which culminated
in the two General Elections of 1910; and third, the bitter Conservative
opposition between 1911 and 1914 towards the proposed introduction
of Irish Home Rule.10
The election victory of Margaret Thatcher in May 1979 and the
conquest of ‘new right’ ideas during the 1980s influenced the growth
8 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

of research into the right of the political spectrum. The Edwardian

period became a key focus of this fresh interest among British histo-
rians into right-wing politics.11 This new research into the pre-1914
right in Britain shifted scholarly attention away from the ‘high
politics’ of the Conservative Party towards the study of the ‘extra-
parliamentary’ deeds of the ‘radical right’, defined as consisting of
groups and individuals who became disheartened with the leadership
and organisation of the Conservative Party, and surged ‘around and
beyond the older Conservative Party structures and programmes’, in
search of ‘progressive’ and ‘constructive’ solutions to social, economic
and international problems.12 Recent research into the so-called
revolt from the right in the Edwardian period has focused on patriotic
pressure groups, jingoistic imperialist propaganda and right-wing
economic interest groups. In addition, some very thought-provoking
comparative work on the pan-European phenomenon of right
nationalism has also appeared in recent years.13
The myriad domestic problems of the Conservative Party in the
Edwardian period have been fashioned into the notion of a ‘crisis of
Conservatism’.14 However, the attempt to comprehend the ‘crisis of
Conservatism’ in terms of a grass roots rebellion by an unsatisfactorily
defined ‘radical right’ has encountered methodological problems.15
As Martin Blinkhorn quite accurately points out, ‘the definitions,
typologies and taxonomies beloved of social scientists tend to fit
uncomfortably the intractable realities which are the raw material of
the historian’.16 Many of the individuals often described as members
of the ‘radical right’ often displayed a ‘quite illogical amalgam of
modernising and anti modernising attitudes’.17 The neat pigeonhol-
ing of right-wing ‘Conservatives’ into expedient sub-groups such as
‘Die Hards’, ‘Whole Hoggers’, ‘scaremongers’ and ‘social imperialists’
shrouds the complexity of right-wing attitudes and ignores the fact
that many individuals on the right wing did not maintain unchang-
ing positions on most of the key issues. Eric Hobsbawm has suggested
that the idea of an organised ‘extreme right’ in the Edwardian period
is a flawed ‘what might have happened theory’ rather than a precise
explanation of what did happen.18 These methodological problems
are increased when it is understood that many of the actions of
the ‘radical right’ can be interpreted as expedient propaganda exer-
cises designed to weaken the Liberal Party rather than the outward
manifestation of deep ideological beliefs.
 Introduction 9

As a result, most studies of ‘radical right’ pressure groups have

examined the response of Conservatives at the grass roots level
towards the German threat, with little reference to the views and
policy of the upper stratum of the Conservative leadership.19 Indeed,
the views of the ‘radical right’ towards Germany are often regarded as
the views of the Conservative Party. Not surprisingly, it is common-
place to argue that the Conservative Party from 1905 to 1914 consisted
primarily of ‘anti-German’ scaremongers who reacted to Germany,
whether in connection with trade rivalry, the naval arms race, foreign
policy and conscription in a hostile fashion that contributed to
the growth of Anglo-German antagonism. However, Paul Kennedy,
the most highly esteemed authority on Anglo-German relations
in the Edwardian period, has argued that the most neglected aspect
of the study of the pre-War right in Britain is a detailed examination of
how the ‘official’ Conservative Party reacted to the German threat,
and to the supposed Germanophobia of the patriotic leagues.20 The
second key objective of this study, therefore, is to scrutinise whether
the Conservative Party did consist of anti-German scaremongers
who share some responsibility for the growth of Anglo-German
antagonism.
The existing research on Anglo-German relations has attempted to
explain the diplomatic, economic and strategic reasons for the
growth of Anglo-German antagonism.21 The one interpretation which
has come to dominate the subject is advanced by Paul Kennedy, who
argues that the growth of German economic and naval power, com-
bined with the craving of the German-governing elite to use that
power to attain great power status, was bound to come into conflict
with Britain’s need to uphold the existing balance of power within
the European order. Kennedy concludes that unless ‘Germans surren-
dered their desire – and their inherent capacity to halt the existing
order in Europe or overseas; or unless the British were prepared vol-
untarily to accept a great change in that order, then their vital inter-
ests remained diametrically opposed’.22 But, it is worth emphasising
that Kennedy’s massive comparative study of the growth of Anglo-
German relations covers the period from 1860 to 1914 and does not
scrutinise any one British or German political party in any great
detail. It is a vast macro-study of the social, economic, cultural,
diplomatic and strategic reasons for the growth of Anglo-German
estrangement. Even so, two very important aspects of Kennedy’s
10 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

study will be critically examined in the course of this study. The first is
Kennedy’s methodological approach, which he defines as a ‘lumping
process’, involving the examination of a wide range of views from
British and German society. It is argued here that this indiscriminate
lumping together of different views on Anglo-German relations fails
to explain the position towards Germany of any single political party
or economic group in any significant depth.23 Indeed, this study will
interrogate whether the interpretative load which Kennedy attaches
to economic factors for explaining the growth of Anglo-German
antagonism can be applied to the response of the Conservative Party
towards Germany between 1905 and 1914. In particular, Kennedy’s
view that tariff reform and anti-Germanism went ‘hand in hand’
will be subjected to detailed examination in the chapters which
follow.24
But this study is not chiefly intended to dispute the work of other
historians in the field.25 The primary objective is to provide the first
ever in-depth examination of the views of the Conservative Party
towards the key aspects of Anglo-German relations from 1905 to
1914. The book will concentrate on how the Conservative Party at
Westminster formulated the party view towards Germany and how
those views were articulated within parliamentary debate, propaganda,
elections and pressure-group activity. A detailed examination of how
the Conservative Party responded to the German threat from 1905 to
1914 provides an original and valuable input to historical debates over
Britain’s role in the origins of the First World War, the condition of the
Conservative Party in Opposition from 1905 to 1914, the pre-war right
in Edwardian Britain and the study of Anglo-German relations.
It is also important to highlight at the start of this book that the
study of British Opposition parties and foreign policy in the Edwardian
era is a neglected area of study when compared with the vast amount
of books which deal with British foreign policy. Most British political
historians are more at ease in the well-organised and chronologically
catalogued world of Government foreign policy formation, rather
than the more loosely structured terrain of Opposition political activity.
As a result, this study faced complex and difficult methodological
problems in deciding how to approach this subject. It was important
to hit upon a methodological approach that avoided Kennedy’s
drawback of lumping together ‘Conservative’ views in a generalised
manner. Most of the ‘high politics’ studies of the Conservative Party in
 Introduction 11

Opposition from 1905 to 1914 offered hardly any guidelines, primarily

because they concentrated exclusively on the private views and tacti-
cal manoeuvrings of Conservative leaders towards domestic policy.
These studies took not much interest in the effects of opposition
policy on parliamentary debate and the electorate. Most of the
existing studies of the Conservative Party in opposition are not very
different in approach and methodology from the study of a party in
Government. Indeed, there is very little awareness in the studies of the
‘high politics’ of the Conservative Party in the Edwardian period that
an Opposition can only really make a major impact on political events
and hope to replace the sitting Government by proving effective in
public debate. This gives the public statements of an Opposition and
the broader structural political context in which most Opposition
political activity takes place much greater significance than is generally
understood.
It was decided to adopt a distinctive thematic and comparative
methodological approach in this study that avoided ‘lumping’
together Conservative views in a random manner and one which
acknowledged the distinctive role of an Opposition party and one
which also allowed the Conservative response to Anglo-German rela-
tions to be examined in a number of distinct spheres of Opposition
political activity, namely, the nature and organisation of Opposition
foreign and defence policy, party leadership, parliamentary debate,
electioneering, propaganda, pressure-group activity and policy making.
By concentrating on the Conservative response to the German threat
in these differing spheres of political activity, it is possible to present
a complex and broad-ranging interpretation of the response of
Conservative Party to the German threat from 1905 to 1914. The
methodological structure adopted for this study is not calculated
to uphold a particular line of argument, but to establish a broad
analytical framework in which Conservative views in a variety of
differing public and private contexts can be analysed. To limit the
framework of analysis to manageable proportions, the study con-
centrates on Conservative views in four key aspects of Anglo-German
relations, namely, foreign policy, naval rivalry, the commercial relations
between Britain and Germany, and the conscription controversy.
These four issues were chosen for analysis because they were the ones
which dominated the discussion of Anglo-German relations within
the Conservative Party from 1905 to 1914.
12 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Assembling a broad-ranging analysis of the views of the

Conservative Party towards Anglo-German relations from 1905 to
1914, which is credible, has required the use of a number of
different types of sources. To explain the private views of the
Conservative leadership and to outline the policy structure of
the Opposition on the key aspects of Anglo-German relations, the
private papers of all the leading Conservative politicians have been
consulted. However, most Conservative politicians were primarily
concerned with the cut and thrust of domestic politics and were
only concerned with the German threat sporadically. As a result, the
amount of relevant material found in private papers was not exten-
sive, and much effort was expended in the archives for relatively lit-
tle reward. The most helpful collection of private papers, relevant to
this study were those of A.J. Balfour. He was one of the very few
Conservatives who took an unrelenting and detailed interest in
Anglo-German relations. The papers of Andrew Bonar Law, which
are not used in most other studies of foreign and defence policies
in the pre-1914 period did provide a good deal of valuable informa-
tion for this study. The papers of J.S. Sandars, Balfour’s private
secretary, who was in close communication with most of the lead-
ing Conservative front bench figures, also provided a good deal of
relevant material. The papers of Lord Selborne and Austen
Chamberlain also yielded some useful material for this study. In
most of the papers of the other leading Conservatives, however,
there was precious little mention of Anglo-German relations. The
Conservative Party archive at the Bodleian Library was also exam-
ined at length. Although Central Office records for the period 1905
to 1914 are extremely patchy, the election addresses of parliamen-
tary candidates, party publications and election propaganda mate-
rial were available in large measures and provided some very good
material. Unfortunately, there was hardly any material directly rele-
vant to Anglo-German relations found in local Conservative Party
records. There was also an attempt made during the course of
research for this book to locate the private papers of every
Conservative MP at Westminster from 1905 to 1914. Indeed, a data-
base of every Conservative MP who served at Westminster from
1905 to 1914 was established. Several research trips were made to
local archives containing the papers of obscure backbench
Conservative MPs. However, this proved a largely fruitless exercise,
 Introduction 13

which produced very little useful information. Most of the private

papers of the backbench MPs consulted were obsessed with
domestic, local and personal matters.
It soon became clear that to examine a wide range of Conservative
views towards Germany required the examination of many previously
neglected sources. Finding relevant material resembled prospecting
for gold, and the slim length of this study should not detract from the
fact that what is presented here represents the vast bulk of the sources
available. The parliamentary debates of the House of Commons
and the House of Lords, generally neglected by political historians,
provided some very valuable information and enabled a very useful
comparison between the views of the Conservative leadership towards
Germany and the views of the party rank and file at Westminster. The
leading newspapers and, especially, the periodical press were exhaus-
tively trawled during the research for this study. These sources did
provide a good deal of relevant information on such issues as the
naval arms race, the conscription controversy and foreign policy. In
addition, information gathered from specialised Conservative Party
publications helped to clarify the differences between the Westminster
framework of activities and the public presentation of Conservative
policy towards the key aspects of Anglo-German relations outside
parliament.
For the examination of pressure-group activity, the private papers
of Lord Roberts, the leader of the National Service League, L.J. Maxse,
the editor of the right-wing National Review, and the papers of
H.A. Gwynne, the editor of the Standard, were all consulted. These
papers were useful in explaining the inter-face between the ‘radical
right’ and the organisational framework of the Conservative Party.
In addition, the specialised periodicals, and pamphlets and leaflets
of the Imperial Maritime League, the Tariff Reform League and the
National Service League were also examined, and some very useful
material was gleaned from them. For the study of electioneering, the
papers of Sandars, Bonar Law and Balfour proved useful, but the elec-
tion petitions of Conservative candidates, party periodicals, and
Conservative leaflets and pamphlets provided even more useful and
relevant material.
The argument presented in this study, which receives more elabo-
rate discussion in each of the following chapters, can be briefly sum-
marised. It is argued here that the response of the Conservative Party
14 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

towards Germany, whether in connection with foreign policy, trade

rivalry, the naval race and the conscription controversy, showed a
high level of restraint and displayed a marked absence of open hos-
tility towards Germany. The leadership of the Conservative Party was
determined to avoid giving offence to the German Government, in
order to bolster the publicly restrained attitude towards Germany,
adopted by Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, in the interests of
bi-partisanship. It will also be emphasised that the bi-partisan con-
sensus on foreign policy between the two major parties was able to
operate even during the bitter turmoil of the inter-party struggle over
domestic issues. The Conservative Party rank and file at Westminster
was encouraged by the party leader to keep harsh private views about
the German threat under stringent public restraint. On the issue of
commercial rivalry between Britain and Germany, it is argued here
that the Conservative case for tariff reform was not linked specifically
to the German commercial threat, but focused instead on the intran-
sigence of free trade Liberals who opposed the policy. In many
instances, Conservative supporters of tariff reform depicted Germany
as a role model and defended the German way of life from Liberal
attacks primarily for the tactical and domestic purpose of winning
the electoral battle with the Liberal Party over the future course of
British economic policy. It is also emphasised that Anglo-German
naval rivalry was the principal reason for the growth of fear about
Germany within the Conservative Party. The hostility between
Britain and Germany during the naval race was the most important
factor which pushed the majority of the Conservative Party in a pro-
French direction in the years which led to the outbreak of the First
World War. On the question of conscription, it is argued that the
widespread approval within the party for military service, which grew
in response to fears about the growth of the German navy, was held
in check by the realistic and pragmatic view of the party leadership
which opposed conscription because of its supposed electoral unpop-
ularity. Overall this study suggests that outright ‘scaremongering’
against Germany was an extra-parliamentary phenomenon. It was
the sanctuary of ‘outcasts’ on the extreme right of extra-parliamen-
tary ‘Conservatism’ who had little influence over the Conservative
leadership. The new evidence presented here will make it easier to
understand why the ‘radical-right’ pressure groups had such a limited
 Introduction 15

impact in persuading the Conservative leadership to adopt a more

strident Germanophobic approach. Overall, the study provides a
powerful and long overdue corrective to the traditional depiction of
the Conservative Party as a chief source in fostering Germanophobic
views in Britain and thereby contributing to the growth of Anglo-
German antagonism and the anti-German popular mood which still
persists in some section of British society even today.
1
The Nature and Organisation of
Conservative Foreign and Defence
Questions at Westminster

In August 1914, the Liberal Government entered the war with

Germany with the full support of the Conservative opposition. In the
circumstances, Opposition support had been vital to prevent the fall
of Asquith’s administration. Yet very little has been written about
the policy-making and information-gathering mechanisms of the
Opposition on foreign and defence matters between 1905 and 1914 or
on the organisational context in which Conservative views towards
Anglo-German relations took place or even who were the most decisive
figures in the decision-making process on these issues. It must be
emphasised at the outset that foreign policy was viewed by the two
major parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, as a subject unsuit-
able for consideration from a purely party standpoint.1 Lord
Rosebery, the former Liberal Prime Minister, said in a speech in 1888:
‘I have always held that the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs
should speak, whenever possible, with the united voice of the English
nation, without distinction of party’.2 A.J. Balfour, the Conservative
leader between 1902 and 1911 was another firm supporter of the
principle of bi-partisanship on foreign policy. In 1911, Balfour told
the House of Commons that ‘Never in the history of Opposition has
so much trouble been taken to keep … the defence of the Empire as
far as may be outside the area of party controversy’.3 Lord Lansdowne,
a former Foreign Secretary and the leading Conservative spokesman
on foreign affairs in Opposition also believed that ‘foreign policy in
this country should be a continuous policy, and not be deflected by

16
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 17

the eddies of party political opinion’.4 Even the bitter party political
struggle over the Parliament Bill in 1911 could not persuade Balfour
to abandon support for bi-partisanship. On the contrary, Balfour
assured Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister, that he could depend on
the support of the Opposition on any question of national honour.
Lansdowne believed that a Foreign Secretary should always
speak with ‘the united voice of the English nation’, and he urged
the Conservative Party to offer ‘unqualified support for Grey’, the
Liberal Foreign Minister.5 The National Review commented in 1911:
‘The Opposition have consistently bolstered the foreign policy of
Sir Edward Grey in the interests of continuity’.6 Yet Conservative sup-
port for bi-partisanship was conditional on the Liberal Government
continuing with the main lines of policy established by Lansdowne,
while he had been Foreign Secretary. The main plank of that policy
was the Anglo-French Entente, signed in a blaze of publicity in April
1904. It was viewed by most Conservatives as the one brilliant success
of the ill-fated Balfour Government, which had sustained one of the
worst Conservative electoral defeats in 1906.7
In spite of all the well-documented internal divisions that troubled
the Conservatives in opposition from 1905 to 1914 over tariff reform,
Ireland, the party leadership, and the constitution, the bi-partisan
consensus between Government and opposition kept foreign policy
insulated from the domestic political struggle. In February 1909,
Balfour commented, ‘I think the House will admit that during this
parliament, and in the years preceding this parliament, there has
been a steady resolve, to withdraw foreign affairs from the arena of
controversial politics’.8 In 1911, Balfour, who had frequently caused
irritation within his own party because of his often ambiguous state-
ments on key domestic issues claimed that his frequent statements in
support of bi-partisanship, ‘were no mere fair weather enunciations
of an easy morality; they were not merely doctrines stated at a time
when the temperature of party differences was low, and when the
political horizon was free from cloud. They were genuinely meant,
and they will be faithfully carried out’.9 The constant support given
by the Conservative leadership for bi-partisanship left it in a very
curious position. It had no responsibility for the foreign policy of the
Government, but its leaders had what can only be described as an
official mindset which restrained them from criticising the foreign
policy of the Liberal Government.
18 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

A small ‘inner circle’, consisting of the party leader, the ex-foreign

secretary and a small group of trusted former Cabinet ministers
controlled opposition foreign and defence policy. An exclusive ‘inner
council’ had been a key feature of the conduct of foreign and defence
matters while Lord Salisbury had been Prime Minister, and it was con-
tinued by Balfour as both Prime Minister and Opposition leader. This
small group conducted policy primarily by correspondence with the
party leader and between each other.
Balfour used this elite group as a policy think tank, free from par-
liamentary or party control. As Prime Minister, Balfour had decided
policy after taking detailed advice from trusted ministers and selected
‘experts’ he respected in the navy and army.10 In 1904, Balfour had set
up the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), a body which gave
naval and army experts a role within the machinery of Whitehall deci-
sion making. The CID was directly accountable to the Prime Minister
and the Cabinet. Balfour believed it could become an important
advisory group that could inform Government policy on defence and
foreign affairs.11 Within this framework, Balfour thought that parlia-
ment and public opinion should not play a significant role. As Prime
Minister, he had consistently opposed parliamentary debate on for-
eign and defence policy. Votes on the naval and army estimates were
not taken on the grounds that they endangered state secrecy and
cordial foreign relations.12
In Opposition, Balfour continued to rely for policy advice on
defence policy on two key sources of information within the defence
establishment. The first was Admiral ‘Jacky’ Fisher, the First Sea Lord,
a firm supporter of the ‘Blue Water strategy’, who remained wedded
to the view that naval power was the key to British defence. Fisher
was a very important adviser to Balfour in opposition, and he sup-
plied him with a great deal of confidential information on naval pol-
icy. A second key adviser to Balfour on defence matters and foreign
policy was Lord Esher, who had been a leading figure in the CID and
another firm supporter of the view that Britain’s security rested on
the strength of the navy. Esher provided Balfour with a great deal of
confidential information on the defence strategy of the Liberal
Government.
In addition, Balfour received unsolicited information on admiralty
affairs from Lord Charles Beresford, who was a firm and often vitri-
olic opponent of Fisher’s leadership of the admiralty. However, the
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 19

Conservative leader did not attach much weight to this advice. In

fact, Beresford told a close friend that Balfour was, ‘the greatest
enemy I had’ during his much publicised battle with Fisher over the
administration of the navy.13 In a similarly marginal role was Lord
Roberts, a leading army figure and a firm supporter of the need to
introduce conscription. Roberts often passed on unsolicited informa-
tion to Balfour on the state of the army, but his influence over the
Conservative leader was as minimal as that of Beresford. Whereas the
views of Fisher and Esher were listened to by Balfour, the views of
Beresford and Roberts were tolerated but not acted upon.
The practice of using ‘experts’ as key sources of information to
guide opposition defence policy fitted in with Balfour’s view that the
interests of national security were best served by sheltering national
defence from close parliamentary scrutiny. Balfour was even opposed
to foreign office ministers being required to answer supplementary
questions in parliament because ‘it is impossible, if such a practice is
to prevail, to carry on the difficult and delicate negotiations in which
an empire of this magnitude is consistently engaged’.14 Balfour even
questioned whether a Foreign Secretary should even sit in the House
of Commons on the grounds that ‘No man can effectively discharge,
in conjunction, especially at a time of crisis, the duties of the Foreign
Department and those attending the Commons’.15
Given Balfour’s preference for exclusiveness in foreign and defence
policy formation, it is not surprising to find that, in true aristocratic
fashion, he saw high social prestige as a pre-requisite for appointment
to the post of opposition foreign or defence spokesman.16 This cer-
tainly explains why the leading Conservative front bench spokesmen
on foreign and defence policy were recruited from that narrow and
privileged elite within the landed aristocracy and gentry which was
later dubbed ‘The Establishment’. The majority were elderly peers
from ancient aristocratic families. Balfour felt members of the aristoc-
racy were a group that could be relied upon to keep the secrets vital
to success in foreign and defence policy.17
The two most important members of the opposition’s inner circle
on foreign and defence policy from 1905 to 1914 were the party
leader and Lord Lansdowne, the former Foreign Secretary. It was
these two figures who directed the opposition attitude on foreign and
defence matters. They corresponded with individual Shadow Cabinet
spokesmen, took expert advice when necessary and cooperated closely
20 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

with each other before key parliamentary debates. The party leader was
the decisive figure in this relationship because he selected the leading
Shadow Cabinet spokesman on foreign policy and defence, and he
had the final say on the position to be adopted by the opposition on
any given issue.
By 1905, it was an established principle of Conservative organisa-
tion in parliament that a person who had attained Cabinet rank in
Government should retain that role in Opposition.18 Balfour fol-
lowed this convention in the selection of his Shadow Cabinet
spokesman, and all former Cabinet members with front bench respon-
sibility on foreign and defence matters had some previous ministerial
experience. Most had long-standing personal links with Balfour dat-
ing back many years. Lansdowne had been Balfour’s ‘fag’ at Eton.
Lord Selborne, the leading opposition spokesman on naval affairs,
was a close relative and was addressed by Balfour in correspondence,
in all seriousness, as ‘my dear Willie’. Three other notable Shadow
Cabinet figures, namely, Lord Curzon, who spoke on Indian Affairs,
Lord Midleton, the leading spokesman on army issues in the Lords
and George Wyndham, who performed the same role in the
Commons, had all been members of a group known as the ‘Souls’, a
tight-knit aristocratic intellectual splinter group, which Balfour led
during the late nineteenth century.
The essential characteristics, therefore, for entry into the ‘inner
circle’ on opposition foreign and defence policy were close relations
with the party leader, an aristocratic background and a public school-
Oxbridge education. Of the leading opposition spokesmen on foreign
and defence affairs at Westminster, eight were peers, or the sons of
peers. Apart from Arthur Lee, who spoke on defence matters in the
Commons, all had attended public school, and eight of them were
old Etonians. Apart from Lee and Ernest Pretyman, who sometimes
spoke on naval questions, all were Oxford or Cambridge graduates,
with most having a hereditary title and a large country estate.19
In managing parliamentary debate, Balfour created another ‘inner
circle’, consisting of Alexander Acland Hood, the Chief Whip, Wilfred
Short, his personal secretary and J.S. Sandars, his private secretary. The
last two mentioned conducted most of his correspondence and
consulted with his parliamentary colleagues. H.O. Arnold-Foster
described the Whip’s room in the House as ‘A sort of private club
where, everyone except Sandars and a few other cronies are regarded
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 21

as intruders’.20 Walter Long commented to Balfour, ‘The selection of

topics for debate, and even speakers from front and backbenchers has
been entirely in the hands of Alec Hood and Jack Sandars’.21 Balfour
added to the elitism and aloofness, which characterised his leader-
ship of the Conservative Party at Westminster, by rarely mixing with
backbench MPs.
It can be said, with a great deal of confidence, that the role of the
Shadow Cabinet on foreign and defence policy was relatively insignif-
icant. The Shadow Cabinet consisted primarily of former Cabinet
ministers, the Chief Whip and, after 1911, the party chairman. It was
summoned by the party leader in the Commons (Balfour) and the
Lords (Lansdowne).22 It met periodically from 1905 to 1914 inside
parliament, most often in the room of the party leader in the
Commons. Meetings of the Shadow Cabinet also took place in
Lansdowne’s room in the Lords. Outside parliament, meetings
occurred at Carlton Gardens, the home of Balfour, and at Lansdowne
House, the ex-foreign secretary’s London address. There were very
few meetings of the Shadow Cabinet between 1911 and 1914 at
Pembroke Lodge, the home of Andrew Bonar Law. As Arthur Lee put
it, ‘It was an incredibly dreary house and no-one on the front bench
knew how to get there’.23
The first Shadow Cabinet, held in December 1905, was confined
entirely to ex-ministers, but in 1911, F.E. Smith, Edward Carson and
Arthur Steel-Maitland – who had all never sat in a previous Cabinet –
were brought in.24 The Shadow Cabinet had no research or secretarial
support, and there is no recorded instance of the leader of the oppo-
sition being defeated by a vote taken in the Shadow Cabinet from
1905 to 1914.25 Even so, the meetings of the Shadow Cabinet appear
to have been conducted in the style of a real Cabinet. Memoranda were
circulated for discussion, ex-ministers spoke on their own specialist
areas of policy, and votes were sometimes taken. The decision to
reject the 1911 Parliament Act was the agreed policy of the Shadow
Cabinet.26 It was only convened by Bonar Law in August 1914 after
the opposition leader had discussed policy within his ‘inner circle’
and had already communicated his decision to support Grey’s policy
of intervention in the European War to the Prime Minister.
Even former ministers realised the limitations of the Shadow
Cabinet as a policy-making body and especially as a restraining influ-
ence on the views of the opposition leader. As Balfour remarked of
22 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

divisions over policy in the Shadow Cabinet during the House of

Lords crisis in 1910, ‘Had it been a real Cabinet – the dissenting
minority would have resigned, or they would have silently acqui-
esced in the decision of the majority. There could be no question in
the case of a Shadow Cabinet of resignation’.27 Lord Balcarres, the
Chief Whip, described the majority of Shadow Cabinet members as
‘discredited politicians whose inclusion in a future Conservative
government would create dismay and perhaps revolt among the rank
and file’.28 Balfour said of the acrimony within the Shadow Cabinet
over the House of Lords issue,

In a Cabinet, if there is a division of opinion the rule is that the

majority must prevail; and if the view of the majority is not
accepted; those who will not accept it have no alternative but to
leave the government. But, here after a full discussion, a minority
decline to accept my advice which commanded a majority of the
shadow cabinet and the dissenting members have gone out into
the world proclaiming their differences, and have embarked upon
a policy of active resistance.29

Balfour once described it as a ‘sham Cabinet’,30 and he asked

Lord Stamfordham to dismiss from his mind the very thought that
‘a shadow cabinet exercises a greater influence over the Leader of the
Party than the real Cabinet does over the Prime Minister’.31 Lansdowne
shared the misgivings expressed by Balfour over the role of the
Shadow Cabinet in Opposition policy formation. The ex-Foreign
Secretary believed that proposing anything to the Shadow Cabinet
meant ‘considerable delay’, and he thought its meetings were unsuit-
able during ‘emergencies’. Lansdowne preferred confining important
policy decisions of the Opposition to ‘a few of our friends’.32
It is unwise, therefore, when analysing the activities of the
Conservative Opposition from 1905 to 1914 to make a simple
equation between membership and attendance lists at the Shadow
Cabinet and a key policy-making role or substantial influence over the
policy adopted by the party leader. Closer examination of those who
had influence is required and that can only be discovered by extensive
examination of private correspondence. There were very important
defence spokesmen who rarely attended Shadow Cabinet meetings.
There were some ex-Cabinet ministers who attended regularly, but
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 23

had no influence at all. At the same time, there were ex-ministers

who did frequently attend and were influential.
In the light of this, it is very important to put the leading
spokesman on foreign and defence matters under closer scrutiny,
in order to assess the amount of influence each had over the policy
of the party leader. The most important member of the Balfour’s
‘inner circle’ on foreign and defence affairs was undoubtedly Lord
Lansdowne, the former foreign secretary. He had very close French
connections. His mother was the daughter of Count de Flahaut, the
son of Talleyrand. He was fluent in the French language and fre-
quently visited France on holiday. During the 1890s, Lansdowne
had been chair of a parliamentary committee which had discussed
the possibility of a Channel Tunnel. He was Foreign Secretary when the
entente-cordiale was signed in 1904. Despite all of this, Lansdowne
did not view the Anglo-French agreement as a distinctly pro-French
policy nor as a means of encircling Germany. As Foreign Secretary,
Lansdowne had consistently refused to discuss the European impli-
cations of the entente, and he continued to view it, in the early
years of opposition, as an important way to settle a number of long-
standing and costly Anglo-French colonial disputes and thereby
reduce the over-stretched defence budget. In 1905, Paul Cambon, the
French Ambassador asked Lansdowne to outline the circumstances
which would trigger British support to France in the event of war
with Germany. In reply, Lansdowne only promised ‘consultation’ in
the event of a German attack on France. In fact, it is clear that
Lansdowne did not originally view the entente as a means of dividing
Europe into two antagonistic blocs.
The close relationship which had developed between Balfour and
Lansdowne on foreign policy in Government continued in Opposition.
Balfour valued Lansdowne’s experience on foreign affairs and his
unquestioning loyalty. Though Balfour wanted foreign and defence
policy to be guided by his own views, he always consulted Lansdowne.
Lord Cawdor told Sandars that Balfour always relied on Lansdowne for
his cool and detached ability in ‘dealing with difficult questions’.33 For
his part, the ex-foreign secretary always took pains to seek permission
from Balfour before making any key speech or taking policy action on
foreign and defence issues. A typical example is contained in a letter
from Lansdowne to Sandars, written before an important naval
debate in the House of Lords in 1909, in which he writes, ‘I must see
24 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

the Chief and ask him the best manner of dealing with the Navy
question in the House of Lords’.34 Lord Selborne offered the following
insight on Lansdowne’s relationship with Balfour: ‘If ever I had to
make any criticism of Lansdowne, it would be that he is insufficiently
self assertive’. Selborne wished that Lansdowne would ‘act on his
own judgement’, more often during his discussions with Balfour on
foreign and defence questions.35 Even so, it cannot be denied that
Lansdowne enjoyed a very significant influence over the opposition
attitude towards foreign policy and an equally esteemed international
reputation. Austen Chamberlain recalled that Sazonoff, the Russian
Foreign Minister, told him during talks in Moscow in 1912, that
the Tsar was concerned that Lansdowne might be replaced by the
‘anti-Russian’ Curzon as Foreign Secretary in a future Conservative
Government. But Chamberlain assured Sazonoff that Lansdowne
remained the most likely future Conservative Foreign Secretary.36
Another great admirer of Lansdowne’s judgement was King Edward VII
who frequently sought his advice on foreign affairs.37
The two most important Conservative figures on naval policy also
sat in the upper chamber at Westminster. Lord Cawdor had overall
responsibility for Conservative naval policy from 1905 until his death
in 1911. According to Walter Long, the leading Conservative front
bench spokesman on naval affairs in the Commons, were expected ‘to
consult with Cawdor, who alone would be able to give approval or
disapproval to their suggestions on policy towards the navy’.38 But,
this was not the whole truth as Cawdor did not act on matters of
naval policy without first consulting with Balfour and Lansdowne.
Cawdor was exceptionally loyal to the party leadership and was fre-
quently accused by Long of ‘always backing up and defending the
Admiralty’.39 Cawdor, taking his lead from Balfour, was also a firm
supporter of Lord Fisher, who provided him with confidential infor-
mation before key naval debates.40 Balfour admired Cawdor’s dutiful
loyalty more than he valued him as a naval expert, and he viewed
Lord Selborne as the leading Conservative policy expert on naval
matters. But Selborne was high commissioner for South Africa between
1905 and 1910 and so could not play a leading role. Lansdowne was
also a great admirer of Selborne’s views on naval affairs, and he
thought of Cawdor as a loyal and pliant deputy while Selborne was
abroad. ‘I wish Selborne were at home’, Lansdowne told Sandars,
‘because in his absence, our Front Bench is not up to much’.41
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 25

On many other occasions, between 1905 and 1910, Lansdowne

would write to Selborne, outlining recent developments on naval
policy and often told him that he would be ‘glad when you resume
your place on the Opposition Front Bench’.42 It was not only Balfour
and Lansdowne who bemoaned Selborne’s absence. Cawdor actually
drew on many of the policy papers, written by Selborne as naval
minister, as the basis of many of his own speeches on the navy.43
Contemporary observers, especially among the party rank and file,
had serious misgivings about Cawdor’s supposed status as the leading
figure on opposition naval policy. F.S. Oliver, a leading member of the
National Service League, remarked to Austen Chamberlain, ‘I had a
very pleasant chat after dinner with a nice old gentleman in the
corner of the dining room, and told him all sorts of things he didn’t
know about the navy. Later on, I discovered it was Lord Cawdor’.44
In the final analysis, Cawdor was really a cipher of Balfour’s views on
the navy and remained a member of Balfour’s ‘inner circle’, not as a
policy maker, but as a loyal and trusted friend of the leader.
After returning from South Africa in 1910, Selborne resumed his
role as the leading Opposition speaker in the House of Lords on the
navy. Selborne was a heart-and-soul big navy man, who summed up
his own views on the proper priorities of national defence in the
following way:

I am all for having a small home army, thoroughly organised and

trained, and that presumably is what Haldane is aiming at, but
I have never been a believer, and I do not believe that Roberts is on
the right track pressing for a greatly increased expenditure on the
Home Army. If we are not sufficiently secure against invasion
the increased expenditure ought not to be on the army but on the
navy.45

Upon his return to Britain, Selborne quickly concluded that the

Conservative Party lacked a clear and independent naval policy.
Selborne believed ‘success in politics is to believe something and to
avow it. Men always follow a steady and consistent lead’.46 It seems
Selborne’s decision to criticise Balfour’s handling of naval policy was
primarily caused by his irritation with Balfour’s handling of the
House of Lords crisis. In fact, during that struggle, Selborne became a
leading figure in the Halsbury Club, which aimed to rebuild party
26 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

morale and produce a ‘fighting policy behind a fighting leader’.47

The views of the Halsbury Club were supported by the National
Review, which argued that ‘the Opposition has had no policy what-
soever as regards national defence’.48 In essence, Selborne wanted
the Opposition to argue for much greater spending on the navy than
the Liberal Government through the introduction of a ‘Two Keels to
One Standard’ to keep ahead in the naval arms race with Germany.
A combination of disloyalty to the party leader and his membership of
the Halsbury club ensured that Selborne’s influence over Conservative
policy towards the navy became much less important after 1910, and
Balfour, after he resigned, was to exert the greatest influence over the
party on naval matters.
In the House of Commons, Arthur Lee and Ernest Pretyman were
the most frequent front bench speakers on naval affairs. At other
times, and much less frequently, Austen Chamberlain, F.E. Smith and
George Wyndham spoke on the naval matters. Of all these figures,
Arthur Lee, who was never a permanent member of the Shadow
Cabinet, can be classed as the leading opposition speaker on naval
affairs.49 Yet Lee later acknowledged that he was always on the verge
of the ‘inner ring’ that managed Conservative foreign and defence
policy.50 The chief whip in the House of Commons never approved of
Lee, regarding him as ‘over addicted to independence and not a true
blue party man’.51
It seems snobbery concerning Lee’s social background was one
major cause of this mistrust. Lee had lived his early years in poverty.
He had attended an elementary school and later married an
American heiress, not for love, claimed his critics, but for the money
and status he had been denied in his early life. As a result, Lee was
treated as a classic outsider by the leading figures in the ‘inner circle’
surrounding the Conservative leader. Yet there is one perk British
modern Prime Ministers enjoy because of Lee’s generosity: in his will,
he left the beautiful mansion at Chequers to the state.
Lee never addressed the House of Commons on any subject other
than national defence from 1905 to 1914. He was highly regarded by
Balfour, not as a policy adviser on naval policy, but as a rabble-rousing
parliamentary debater, whose primary role in naval debates was ‘to
interject to embarrass the government’.52 Lee later recalled that he
was ‘frequently incited and occasionally ordered to bait the Liberal
front bench by A.J. Balfour’.53 Yet his critics within the parliamentary
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 27

party were always bemoaning his contribution in naval debates,

questioning his loyalty to the leader and his lack of previous Cabinet
experience. As Selborne told Ernest Pretyman, ‘I have not always
thought Lee’s attitude in the House of Commons towards Admiralty
questions has been judicious, but then he had nothing of the experi-
ence at the Admiralty you and I had’.54 Selborne’s attitude to Lee
within the ‘inner circle’ was both typical and influential. But criticism
also came from a few leading figures in the party rank and file. Lord
Charles Beresford, a leading backbench figure on naval matters, said
of Lee in 1914, ‘Why Mr. Lee should arrogate to himself the position
of the spokesman for the Army and Navy I am at a loss to know’.55 Not
surprisingly, the position of Lee as leading Opposition spokesman in
the House of Commons on the navy was by no means uncontested.
The alternative and obvious candidate was Pretyman, a country
gentleman of so-called impeccable lineage. He had the added advan-
tage of having served much longer at the admiralty before 1905.
But Pretyman had lost his seat in the 1906 general election and
was outside parliament. Then, in 1908, Pretyman won a stunning
by-election victory at Chelmsford. On his return to the Commons he
fully expected to be offered by Balfour the position of opposition
spokesman on the navy. In such circumstances, Lee enlisted the sup-
port of Walter Long, a potential future leader of the party who had sat
in the House of Commons since 1880 and had occupied the post of
Chief Secretary for Ireland in the Balfour Government. Long felt that
Lee had made a good impression on naval issues and explained his
own view of the relative merits of Lee and Pretyman for the role of
naval spokesman to Balfour in November 1908:

I had an interview with Arthur Lee. No one could be nicer or more

loyal than he is in every respect. He does not want to press the
matter, but he feels, and I think rightly, that unless something is
done confusion and difficulty will arise. He has for three years now
done the Admiralty work on our Front Bench and I’m bound to
say that I think he has done it well. He thoroughly understands
the position that we now take in regard to Admiralty questions …
The question is: is he to go on, or surrender the whole case into
Pretyman’s hands? It appears to me that it would be most unfor-
tunate if we were to change horses at this moment … It would be
desirable for Lee to go on acting as he has done … On the whole,
28 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

therefore, I am inclined very strongly to recommend to you that

something very definite be said to Pretyman in order to prevent
further complications arising. It would be very awkward either in
or out of the House to make statements in regard to Admiralty
questions which were not in complete accord with the view which
I think we all share on the subject.56

This intervention by Long, which displayed his confidence in Lee,

had the desired effect on Balfour who retained him as opposition
spokesman on the navy. With some reluctance, Pretyman agreed to
speak in a supporting role to Lee during future naval debates. Austen
Chamberlain commented on the dispute between Lee and Pretyman,
before the navy estimates debates in 1909: ‘I will debate the Navy
estimates at seven, i.e. if Pretyman (who has “got the hump” because
Lee is not superseded) thinks it infra dig to follow Lee’.57 In South
Africa, Selborne was not happy with this decision and made no secret
of his own admiration for Pretyman. ‘I am glad for the sake of the
navy’, he told Pretyman, ‘that you are back in the House of Commons.
I fully agree with you on naval matters’.58
Naval issues certainly caused in-fighting and controversy among the
opposition, but on the whole they were a source of unity within a party
that was divided on matters such as the constitution, tariff reform,
social policy, the party leadership and organisation. Army issues also
created similar levels of disunity, confusion and sometimes embarrass-
ment. As Austen Chamberlain told L.J. Maxse, a passionate supporter
of conscription, ‘your army service league [National Service League]
have a very definite policy [conscription]. We as a party have not’.59
In 1913, George Wyndham, the leading Conservative spokesman
on the army in the House of Commons died suddenly. But such was
the level of bitterness and tension within the party caused by the
Home Rule crisis in Ireland, which had re-emerged as a key issue in
British politics after the outcome of the two 1910 general elections
that had left the Liberal Government dependent for its survival
on the support of pro-Nationalist Irish MPs, that Bonar Law, then
Conservative leader, could not think of a single MP who could
replace Wyndham as army spokesman without causing him ‘any
embarrassment’.60 In these circumstances, Law informed Lee that he
wanted him to speak on both navy and army affairs in the House of
Commons.61
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 29

Between 1905 and 1914, however, the two leading opposition

spokesman on army matters were Arnold Foster, who died in 1909,
and Lord Midleton. Both were unsuccessful and discredited former
War ministers who did not command great respect within the party,
and although they continued to barrage the party leader with policy
advice, it was mostly ignored. The shortcomings of both were fre-
quently discussed by leading party figures. Sandars, Balfour’s influ-
ential private secretary, described Arnold Foster and Lord Midleton as
‘worse than useless’.62 In 1911, Lee advised Bonar Law that in any
debate over army questions, the opposition would have difficulty,
‘contrasting Haldane’s performance unfavourably with those of
Unionist War Ministers of recent date’.63
Arnold Foster frequently claimed ‘the man who believes in invasion
believes in conscription.’ Up until his death in 1909, Arnold Foster
did not believe in either invasion or conscription.64 Midleton, on the
other hand, did favour conscription, but he agreed not to diverge
from the official party line of opposing the policy. Lord Balcarres,
the Conservative Chief Whip believed that Midleton ‘speaks above
his ability’ and he also thought, ‘Most of our people distrust his
judgement.’ After a long conversation with Midleton on army issues
in 1912, Balcarres, wrote in his diary, ‘He feels the statesman all over,
talks in mysterious ellipsis, swears one to secrecy on topics which are
the talk of the town and … leaves one hopelessly bewildered’.65
Even worse, Midleton wanted the opposition to take a clear and
independent line on army policy, thus challenging the loyal adherence
of the party leadership towards the bi-partisan consensus on defence
policy. In 1909, Midleton told Balfour that ‘Lord Roberts [the leader
of the National Service League] is keen to have a meeting with
Lansdowne, Cawdor, Milner and myself to try and get some under-
standing. At present, we are pulling in different ways on the army
issue’. Balfour’s reply to Midleton was clear and hard-headed: he
opposed conscription and opposed meeting those openly associated
with it in public.66 In spite of this, the National Service League con-
tinued to gain many converts among the Conservative rank and file,
particularly in the House of Lords. In July 1909, when Roberts pro-
posed a National Service bill in the upper chamber, 98 Conservative
peers supported it. But Balfour took a strong line over the proposal,
and he immediately told Lansdowne to urge the Opposition front
bench to oppose it.67 Overall, the influence of Midleton over the
30 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

party leader was relatively insignificant. Balfour consistently ignored

his pleas for the party to adopt a more sympathetic line towards con-
scription, while Bonar Law preferred to seek the advice of Henry Wilson,
a leading Army General, for ‘expert’ advice on army questions.
George Wyndham, who replaced Arnold Foster as leading
Opposition spokesman on army affairs in the House of Commons,
was yet another deeply discredited figure. On the surface, he had all
of the chief characteristics of an ideal member of the ‘inner circle’. He
was very much part of the landed elite. But, he was ill equipped for the
increasingly bitter nature of cut and thrust of party political debate
at Westminster after 1906. Balcarres bluntly described Wyndham as
‘the most indolent member of the Front Bench’.68 Balfour always
disliked the literary allusions Wyndham employed in most of his
long-winded parliamentary speeches: ‘I believe it’s his natural way of
talking, but it’s a great bore for a person with a non-literary mind like
mine’.69 The Annual Register described Wyndhams’s speeches as
‘more eloquent than convincing’.70
After 1909, Wyndham publicly endorsed the aims of the National
Service League, even though he believed that conscription could
not be achieved without a cross-party agreement. He was also very
careful in his public speeches outside Westminster to emphasise that
his support for conscription was a ‘personal view’. In the House of
Commons, Wyndham supported the principles of bi-partisanship,
and he spoke against conscription. In 1912, Wyndham claimed that
‘no difference, I believe, in principle, divides the Government and
Opposition in respect to the objects which we have as a nation to
achieve if we wish to be safe and preserve our place amongst the great
powers’.71 To make his views even more confusing, Wyndham also
opposed the idea of an opposition party ‘producing alternative
policies’ and framing ‘hypothetical estimates’. Wyndham was certainly
a part of the inner circle, and he frequently discussed defence issues
with the party leader, but his influence over the party leader was
extremely limited.
It can be seen that even within the small inner circle of front bench
spokesmen on foreign and defence matters, the amount of influence
each spokesman had over the party leader varied greatly.72 The party
leader exercised a remarkable degree of control over foreign and
defence matters within parliament and over the Shadow Cabinet. In
essence, the party leader relied primarily on Lansdowne to decide the
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 31

policy line, and took advice from several sources of ‘expert opinion’
in the party, the Admiralty and the CID. The most significant figure
within the inner circle on foreign policy was Lansdowne. The influ-
ence of the spokesmen on naval and army questions offered a much
more confusing picture. The party leader expected the leading naval
spokesmen to consult with Cawdor and Lansdowne before making
any speeches on naval matters. Leading army spokesmen were allowed
to offer sympathy, even outright support for conscription outside
parliament, but were expected to oppose the policy at Westminster, at
elections, and even in speeches outside parliament to emphasise that
they were expressing ‘a private view’.
The view that an exclusive ‘inner circle’ surrounded Balfour was a
prevailing theme of his backbench critics. As William Bridgeman, MP,
told Balfour, ‘It is well known that a feeling exists, rightly or wrongly,
amongst a large section of the Unionist Party that you have been
surrounded by men who are not in touch with the mass of the
party.’73 J.F. Remnant, MP, summed up the general feelings of back-
bench critics of Balfour’s organisation of the party in parliament in a
letter to the Morning Post:

In the House of Commons the organisation is as defective today

for practical purposes as it has ever been during the whole time
I have had the honour to sit in the House. Advisers drawn from a
very small section of the party beset the leader and the Front
Bench who represent a still smaller section of the Unionist Party
outside it. Consequently, the leader knows little or nothing of the
opinion of the rank and file and nothing is ever done to encourage
any member outside the select circle to take an active role. What
hope is there for a party so governed? … the future of the Empire
must rest in the hands of advisers?.74

Balfour dismissed this attack as a ‘profound illusion, though

no doubt one of a kind which is common enough in the history of
parties’.75
Yet Balfour’s iron grip on how the opposition dealt with the
discussion of the German threat in parliament and his firm support
for a bi-partisan consensus on foreign and defence issues ensured
that his critics were consigned to the periphery. This helps to explain
why H.A. Gwynne, the editor of the Morning Post, thought that the
32 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

majority of Tory MPs were ‘silent and useless’ on the German threat.76
Henry Wilson, a Conservative MP, who took a great interest in
defence issues, described the opposition response to Liberal naval
cuts in 1907 thus, ‘the Unionist benches were empty, and, except, for
a vigorous speech by Mr. Lee and a mild protest from Mr. Balfour
there was no response to what is really a revolution in naval policy’.77
Maddison, a Labour MP, said of Conservative attendance in a key
naval debate: ‘there were not more than half a dozen on the opposi-
tion benches … I should have thought that the representatives of the
great imperial party would have been present in their full strength to
defend the Empire’.78
The most outspoken and frustrated backbench critic of the
restrained response of the party leadership and opposition front
bench towards the growth of German naval and military power was
Lord Charles Beresford, MP, who ‘blamed Balfour more than any-
body’ for failing to alert the country to the German threat.79 He also
criticised Bonar Law for not taking ‘the slightest note of my requests
to stress the German danger’.80 The decision of Law to offer support
to Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 to 1914 pro-
duced the following private tirade from Beresford:

Mr. Churchill has always proved himself, politically, a traitor. In

1904, when the Unionist Party was getting in low waters and dif-
ficulties, he traitorously left them, and joined our political enemies.
In 1909, he led, recruited for, and reinforced the Little Navy
Party … Mr. Churchill perceiving he will get more votes for a big
Navy than for a little Navy has again turned traitor, and deserted the
army of Little Navyites, hoping their enemies (the Unionist) will
support him … The Unionist Party complains of the apathy of the
public. What else can they expect? The people at one date hear the
Leaders of the Opposition proclaim the Cabinet as traitors, felons,
and guilty of corrupt practices, and a few weeks afterwards the same
men state that one of these traitors (Mr. Churchill) is the ‘hero of the
stricken battlefield and as good a First Sea Lord as any Unionist’
and … ‘A genuine patriot’. Of course, the ordinary thinking men in
the Country thinks we are neither genuine nor sincere.81

The continuing frustration of Beresford over his lack of influence

over the party leader over the Conservative response to the German
 Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions 33

military and naval threat is evident in the following comment: ‘What

is the use of me going on fighting the case, if Unionist leaders will not
take it up.’82 These feelings of frustration and marginalisation from
Opposition decision making are also noticeable among Conservative
supporters of the National Service League, who wanted Balfour to
outline a clear policy on conscription. As Henry Page-Croft, the
Conservative MP, put it, ‘what we all think is so much needed is a def-
inite statement of policy from Mr. Balfour. We are constantly asked
our position and are in the dark’.83 The usual response of Balfour to
this sort of backbench criticism was to claim it was

hardly justified. I am not aware of a single topic of public interest

on which I have not made pronouncements as clear and as definite
and as detailed as it is wise for any Opposition to make … which
they have not, while in Opposition, any power to pass into law.84

In private, however, Balfour’s position on conscription was crystal

clear: ‘I have never been able to accept this policy – for a great many
reasons, military and political, and if it ever fell to my lot to form a
government again, I certainly should not ask anyone to join who,
I thought might subsequently break on this question’.85
Significantly, there was hardly any criticism within the Conservative
Party over the bi-partisan approach to foreign affairs. The major back-
bench critics of British foreign policy came from Liberals, the so-called
‘Radicals against War’ – and from a majority of Labour and Irish MPs.86
They argued that the bi-partisanship on foreign affairs amounted to
a ‘Front Bench conspiracy’, designed to stifle parliamentary debate.
As Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour MP, put it,

I am afraid that in respect to the pious opinion in favour of

continuity of foreign policy I am something of a heretic. It all
depends on what you are continuing. If the foreign policy you
have inherited from your predecessors is a bad foreign policy,
I am bound to confess I see no virtue in carrying it on … His
Majesty’s Government has been too loyal in its dealings with Lord
Lansdowne’s policy. I think it has carried it to extremes.87

The critics of bi-partisanship claimed that the 1904 Anglo-French

Entente and the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention were anti-German.
34 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

This charge was vehemently denied by Sir Edward Grey who claimed
that the diplomatic agreement with France and Russia did not repre-
sent a barrier to good relations with Germany.88 This view was also
supported by Lansdowne who claimed that, ‘the whole policy of late
government was quite inconsistent with the idea of coming to an
agreement which should exclude the possibility of agreements with
other powers or which should divide the European powers into two
hostile camps’.89
In 1914, the whole question of the parliamentary discussion of
foreign and defence matters was discussed at a parliamentary select
committee. During the deliberations, Balfour denied there was a
parliamentary straight jacket around critics of foreign and defence
policy. He claimed that backbench MPs were ‘allowed to put ques-
tions to ministers, they can express their views during a discussion of
naval and army estimates debates, and invite other MPs to support
them in a claim for a debate on foreign and defence matters’. To give
MPs greater parliamentary powers over foreign and defence matters
was, in Balfour’s view, ‘undesirable and unnecessary’.90
Even though the period from 1905 to 1914 is generally viewed as a
period of bitter divisions within party politics, it becomes apparent
that this conclusion did not apply to foreign and defence matters.
The Conservative leadership consistently supported the principles of
bi-partisanship in such matters. Balfour’s handling of the constitu-
tional crisis displayed a similar desire to put the nation before the
party. The personal control exercised by the Conservative leader and
his inner circle’ of advisers and front bench spokesmen over foreign
and defence matters at Westminster was the organisational mecha-
nism through which the Conservative leader enjoyed a free hand in
the realm of policy making and total and unchallenged control over
the line opposition spokesmen would adopt in parliamentary debate.
As a result, the Shadow Cabinet had no power to restrain the leader,
while backbench critics in the Commons and the Lords who disagreed
with the policy of the leader were effectively marginalised. For these
reasons, the views of the leader towards Anglo-German relations were
of primary significance because they determined the attitude which
the Conservative Party adopted at key moments in the unfolding
international crisis that led to the outbreak of the First World War.
2
Leadership: (1) A.J. Balfour and
Anglo-German Relations

This chapter provides a comprehensive account of the views of

A.J. Balfour towards Anglo-German relations. It explains how Balfour’s
views towards Germany were significantly transformed while the
Conservative Party was in Opposition from 1905 to 1914. The chapter
adopts a chronological approach, because Balfour was only deeply con-
cerned with Anglo-German relations during brief and episodic periods,
in particular, when Britain’s relations with Germany dominated the
political scene and at times of acute international crisis.
A.J. Balfour was born in 1848 into one of the leading aristocratic
families which dominated the upper strata of the Conservative Party.
Balfour’s father, James Maitland Balfour, owned two large country
estates in Scotland, but he died when Balfour was a mere seven years
old. Balfour’s mother, Lady Blanche Gascoyne-Cecil, was the sister of
Robert Cecil (Lord Salisbury), the Conservative Prime Minister, who
became the paternal uncle of A.J. Balfour, and the trustee of his
father’s substantial estate. Balfour’s close connection with the
Conservative ‘establishment’ was further enhanced by the fact that
his godfather was the Duke of Wellington. Balfour’s education also
reflected his privileged background. He attended Eton College, then
Trinity College, Cambridge. Balfour took a great interest in philosophy
while he was an undergraduate, and he penned a number of books on
philosophical subjects, most notably, A Defence of Philosophic Doubt
(1879). In later years, Balfour’s political critics claimed the title of
his most well-known philosophic work summed up his outwardly
diffident approach to politics.
The swift progress Balfour made up through the ranks of the
Conservative Party was undoubtedly helped by his family link to

35
36 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Lord Salisbury. A safe Tory seat was found in the Cecil family heartland
of Hertford, which Balfour duly won at the 1874 General Election.
When Salisbury became Secretary of State for India, his nephew acted
as his private secretary. In 1878, Balfour attended the historic
Congress of Berlin in the company of his uncle. The first important
Cabinet post held by Balfour was the difficult and politically sensi-
tive post of Chief Secretary of Ireland.1 Balfour was praised by the
Conservative Party for his unbending policy of ‘coercion’ against
Irish Nationalists. Balfour’s success in Ireland was a very important
stepping stone to his elevation to the leadership of the Conservative
Party. In 1891, he became Conservative leader in the House of
Commons. When Lord Salisbury retired in July 1902, the nephew he
had groomed for high political office succeeded him as Prime
Minister. Balfour’s appointment gave rise to a popular music hall joke
of the day which suggested that anything was possible in British
politics if ‘Bob’s your uncle’.
The period when Balfour led the Conservative Party from 1902 to
1911 is viewed by historians as the low point in the electoral fortunes
of the party during the twentieth century. The impression of a party
divided into different factions, without clear guidance from the
leader and obsessed with domestic issues is a well-established feature
of the existing historiography.2 The five major biographies of Balfour
give passing references to his keen interest in foreign and defence
questions, but none focus in detail on Balfour’s views on Anglo-
German relations. All of Balfour’s biographers express admiration for
his abilities as an effective parliamentary debater and a competent
administrator, but they portray him as a detached politician whose
mind was wracked by ‘philosophic doubt’ on most of the major
political issues of the day.3 Many contemporaries provide evidence to
support this traditional portrayal of Balfour. Lord Esher describes a
visit to Balfour’s home in Carlton Gardens thus: ‘I called on Arthur
Balfour this morning. He was in bed; a small brass bed, with an
electric light over his head. He generally remains there till mid-day’.
According to Beatrice Webb, a close friend, Balfour possessed ‘an ever
open mind, too open, perhaps, and on no issue has it been sufficiently
closed by study’.4 Admiral Sir John Fisher believed that Balfour ‘saw
too much of both sides of any argument’.5 Even in contemporary
cartoons Balfour is portrayed as vague, indecisive and aloof. He
actively encouraged his generally negative public image by making
 A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 37

statements such as ‘I am a thick and thin supporter of nothing, not

even myself’.6 Yet this orthodox and rather unflattering presentation
of Balfour as a detached philosophical statesman, dithering over every
issue, does not fit his approach to foreign and defence questions.
As a close confidante commented, ‘The reality of his belief was much
stronger than superficial appearance. There were profound convic-
tions on a limited number of subjects’.7 One of these subjects was
certainly national defence. In this area of policy, Balfour’s influence
over Conservative policy was dominant, his authority unchallenged
and his expertise highly respected.
Balfour believed the major aim of British foreign policy was to
ensure that Britain remained a great imperial power. In Balfour’s view,
naval dominance was ‘the very basis of our national existence’.8 As a
result, Balfour was convinced that Britain had to maintain an on-going
programme of naval expansion and modernisation to keep ahead of
rival naval powers. As Prime Minister, he introduced several key naval
reforms, including improved officer training, the re-distribution of
the fleet, in order to offer greater protection from invasion, improve-
ments in the reserve fleet, the scrapping of numerous obsolete vessels
and, most significantly, the building of the Dreadnought. Though
Balfour regarded command of the seas as the major priority of
national defence, this does not mean he viewed the role of the army
as completely insignificant. For Balfour, the army was a vital sup-
plement to naval power, but he consistently resisted the clamour
within certain sections of the Conservative Party for the introduction
of conscription.9 As Prime Minister, Balfour allocated the greatest
proportion of army expenditure to the British Army in India. As a
committed supporter of the imperialist ideal, Balfour viewed British
foreign policy, before the advent of the Anglo-German naval race, as
linked primarily to the defence of the Empire, not with upholding
the balance of power on the European continent.
Given Balfour’s long-standing preoccupation with imperial defence,
it was only natural for him to view Russia as the ‘traditional enemy’
of the British Empire. Balfour did not believe the Tsar wanted or
was planning a war with Britain in Asia, but he did not trust him, and
he was concerned that Russia’s deep-seated economic problems
and domestic turmoil might encourage the fragile Tsarist regime to
engage in a programme of expansion in Asia.10 Balfour believed that
the Tsarist regime regarded a policy of conciliation on the part of
38 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Britain as a severe sign of weakness.11 To strengthen Britain’s strategic

position in Asia, therefore, Balfour supported the signing of the
Anglo-Japanese Treaty in 1902. He even contemplated a war with
Russia in 1904, after a merchant vessel was sunk at Dogger Bank by a
Russian battleship. The event which eased Balfour’s fears of Russian
power in Asia somewhat was the spectacular Japanese naval defeat of
Russia at Tsishima in May 1905. Only at this stage did Balfour cease
to regard Russia as a mortal threat to India. This is not to say he
completely ruled out, in the longer term, a revival of Russian military
and naval power. In fact, it was Balfour’s underlying fear of a Russian
revival which helps to explain his negative attitude towards the
Anglo-Russian Convention, signed by Sir Edward Grey in 1907,
which was designed to reduce Anglo-Russian colonial tension in Asia.
Balfour felt the agreement with Russia might serve to inflame the
German Government and stood little chance of helping to lessen
international difficulties, nor to resolve Britain’s long-standing dis-
pute with Russia over problems in Persia, Tibet and Afghanistan.12
One of Balfour’s most persistent fears was of a war involving Britain
against France and Russia combined, which he believed might result
in the end of British naval supremacy.13
For Balfour, the second-most dangerous rival to Britain’s world-
wide imperial interests was France, the alliance partner of the Tsarist
regime. In January 1899, for example, Balfour described France as an
‘incalculable quantity’ and ‘the most obvious danger to European
peace’.14 In public speeches on Anglo-French relations, Balfour alter-
nated between making friendly comments about French people and
disparaging comments about the ‘decadent culture’ of French society.
By and large, Balfour believed, before 1905, that the French were gen-
erally hostile to British interests.15 In 1903, when Balfour asked the
Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) to investigate the possibility of
a naval invasion of the British Isles, the French navy was defined as
the hypothetical invader. The committee concluded, in line with
Balfour’s own thinking, that the Royal Navy could prevent a French
naval invasion without any substantial support from the army.16
The signing of the Anglo-Entente, therefore, did not transform
Balfour into a Francophile.17 The Entente, signed in the aftermath of
the ill-judged and poorly planned Anglo-Boer War, underlined the
overstretched nature of Britain’s defence forces. At the outset, Balfour
viewed it as a means of ending long-standing Anglo-French colonial
 A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 39

quarrels. He made no attempt while he was Prime Minister to convert

the Entente into a military alliance. As far as Balfour was concerned,
the Entente was designed to put Anglo-French relations on a more
friendly footing. It was not designed, although many others thought
differently, to divide Europe into two hostile camps or to underwrite
a French war of revenge against Germany. Balfour’s feelings of uncer-
tainty about the wisdom of drawing Britain into closer alliance with
France surfaced once more in June 1905, when Theophile Delcasse,
the French Foreign Minister, and chief architect of the Entente, was
forced to resign, under pressure from the German Government, in
the aftermath of a Franco-German quarrel over trading rights in
Morocco. On hearing of Delcasse’s resignation, Balfour claimed that
France, ‘could not be counted on as an effective force in international
politics’.18
In the early years of opposition, therefore, Balfour doubted that
diplomatic agreements alone could provide any real deterrent against
the outbreak of a major European war. In 1908, Balfour told a CID
sub-committee on invasion that he did not believe the safety of the
nation could depend on ‘some paper instrument or a mere Entente,
however, cordiale it may be’.19 Nor, in 1906, did Balfour view Anglo-
German hostility as a permanent feature of European relations.
In fact, throughout most of the period before 1905, Balfour adopted
a friendly and sympathetic attitude towards Germany. This ‘open-
minded stance’ towards the growth of German power was a natural
counterweight to his negative attitudes towards Russia and France.
Balfour always denied that he was ‘anti-German’. There is no evidence
in his private and public statements on Anglo-German relations to
deny the validity of that statement. He supported German unifica-
tion, even though he did not approve of the ‘militaristic methods’ by
which it was achieved. He was even sympathetic to German demands
to create a colonial empire.
Balfour was convinced that a strong and stable Germany in central
Europe, enjoying cordial relations with Britain, was likely to act as
an effective balance to French and Russian imperial ambitions. His
frequent travels to Germany convinced him that Britain could learn
a great deal from German social and educational reforms. He admired
German music, and he fully acknowledged the major German contri-
bution to science, philosophy and history. Balfour described Kaiser
Wilhelm II as, ‘the only Royalty I ever met, that was in the least
40 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

interesting to talk to’.20 Given these generally pro-German views, it

was only natural for Balfour to favour a close diplomatic understand-
ing between Britain and Germany. Balfour thought an Anglo-German
war would be ‘perfect lunacy’ and against the best interests of both
nations.21 Being hostile towards Germany was not something Balfour
felt comfortable about. In April 1898, following a discussion with
Lord Salisbury on the prospect of an Anglo-German diplomatic agree-
ment, Balfour acknowledged that if an understanding with Germany
was reached, ‘I should wish to the be one that lent the cheek, not
that implanted the kiss’.22 In 1900, Balfour supported the signing of
an Anglo-German trade agreement which dealt with mutual trade in
China.23 In December 1901, Balfour told Lansdowne that if Britain
fought in a future European war alongside Germany, ‘we should fight
for our own interests.’ Indeed, Balfour firmly opposed Britain sign-
ing any diplomatic arrangement in Europe which saw Germany,
‘squeezed to death between the hammer of Russia and the anvil of
France’.24 During the period of the Anglo-Boer War, while most of the
Conservative Party were putting forward anti-German views, Balfour
continued to argue that the most sensible diplomatic move for
Britain was to join the Triple Alliance.25
When Balfour became Premier in 1902, his appointment was
warmly welcomed in Berlin. He also attempted to further the cause of
Anglo-German understanding as Prime Minister. In December 1902,
he initially supported an ill-judged Anglo-German naval blockade in
Venezuela. He also gave British business the go ahead to cooperate
with German engineers in building the Baghdad railway. However,
these conciliatory moves, designed to improve Anglo-German rela-
tions, provoked a bitter outcry from the right of the Conservative
Party, the popular Tory press and a growing ‘anti-German’ faction
at the Foreign Office. A typical ‘scaremongering’ response came
from L.J. Maxse, the editor of the right-wing National Review, who
claimed that ‘10 Downing Street was becoming a mere annex of
Wilhelmstrasse’.26 Such was the ferocity of anti-German feeling, espe-
cially in the press, that Balfour agreed to withdraw British cooperation
over Venezuela and from the Baghdad railway project. In spite of
these set backs, Balfour still believed that opposition to improved
Anglo-German relations in Britain was confined to a small minority of
ill-informed ‘scaremongers’, and he was confident the British public
would soon lose interest in ‘the German bogey’.27
 A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 41

Even so, Balfour began to contemplate after 1903 the possibility of

Britain being drawn into a European war to prevent a German mastery
of Europe at some future date. In 1904, for example, he admitted that
‘Germany is always contemplating the absorption of Holland’. He
also conceded that if Germany launched an unprovoked attack on
the low countries then ‘France and England will have to fight
Germany.’28 In a memorandum, prepared by Balfour, just days after
the surprise Japanese naval victory over Russia, he warned the
Cabinet that the Russian defeat by Japan might encourage Germany
to push ahead with its long-term military aim of dominating eastern
Europe. During this German bid for European supremacy, Balfour
expected another defeat for France at the hands of the German Army.
Accordingly, Balfour recommended that in the event of France being
‘suddenly attacked’ by Germany, it would be in ‘Britain’s national
interest to support the French’.29 In the final weeks of 1905, Balfour
accepted that in certain circumstances the Anglo-French Entente
could develop into a military alliance, but he would ‘regret it and
would avoid it as long as possible’.30 In surveying the state of Anglo-
German relations at the end of 1905, Balfour acknowledged that a
definite ‘mistrust’ of Germany now existed within certain sections of
British society and was of recent origin. He offered three reasons to
explain the growth of this Anglo-German antagonism. First, the
Kaiser’s aggressive actions with France over Morocco in 1905 left a
‘painful impression’ on public opinion. Second, the planned growth
of the German navy had raised a ‘genuine concern’ that Britain’s
traditional supremacy at sea might be placed under threat. Third,
German statesmen, and many articles in the German press, had
started to repeat a constant refrain ‘that Britain was standing in the
path of German aims’.31
Though Balfour recognised that relations between Britain and
Germany were worsening, he was unwilling to drag the Conservative
Party in an overtly anti-German direction which inflamed relations
between the two nations. Even at the end of 1905, Balfour refused to
accept that a fundamental clash of interests existed between Britain
and Germany, which made war inevitable. On the contrary, Balfour
told Sir Frank Lascalles, a leading diplomat, who opposed the growth
of anti-German feeling in Britain: ‘I have, as you know, never at
any time been anti German: and I have regretted the vehemence
with which some sections of the English press have expressed their
42 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

suspicions of German intentions’.32 Even the growth of the German

navy did not initially cause Balfour to lose much sleep. As Balfour
remarked to Selborne, ‘I find it difficult to believe that we have, as
you seem to suppose, much to fear from Germany – in the immediate
future’.33 It is also worth emphasising that Balfour thought it was
‘a complete delusion’ to argue that Anglo-German trade rivalry was a
key source of friction between the two countries.34 Balfour had always
believed that Britain and Germany had always been friendly trading
partners, and he told Metternich, the German Ambassador, that most
British businessmen were not jealous of German economic strength
at all.35
During the first two years of Opposition, between 1905 and 1907,
Balfour remained well known in public for his pragmatic and generally
open-minded attitude towards Germany. He was the self-confessed
opponent of the scaremongers. He continued to support cultural
interaction between British and German people. To this end, Balfour
became a leading patron of the Anglo-German Union Club, set up
in 1905 to promote ‘friendship between the two countries’ and to
promote ‘the advancement of knowledge, science and art for the
common good’. The Anglo-German Union club arranged meetings
and dinners between British and German parliamentarians and
sponsored a wide range of Anglo-German cultural and sporting
events. Balfour attended many of the meetings, dinners and cultural
events arranged by the Anglo-German Union Club.36 Yet Balfour’s
continuing ‘middle-of-the-road’ stance towards Germany provoked
some stern critical outbursts from leading ‘right-wing’ newspaper
editors and from activists in ‘radical right’ patriotic pressure groups.
These critics claimed that Balfour was failing to take the German
threat seriously enough. Balfour did little to appease these right wing
critics by dismissing the notion of a German naval invasion of the
British Isles as ‘an impossibility’.37 In parliament, Balfour continued
to urge caution on his front bench colleagues whenever they publicly
discussed Anglo-German relations.38
Between 1906 and 1908, however, Balfour came under increasing
pressure from his right wing critics to modify his view on the possi-
bility of a German invasion. In public, Balfour attempted to pacify his
critics by suggesting that his views on the question of invasion of the
British Isles had been misquoted. He also insisted that naval defence
had to be kept under constant review.39 In private, however, Balfour
 A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 43

did not regard a German naval invasion as even a remote possibility,

as long as the channel fleet remained in a position of supremacy in
the North Sea. There was, in fact, a clear consistency in Balfour’s
attitude towards invasion. In December 1902, Balfour informed the
Cabinet that a ‘sudden surprise barbaric attack’ by ‘alien aggressors’
was ‘completely out of the question’.40 This view was repeated in
most of Balfour’s subsequent speeches on the subject. In reaching this
conclusion, Balfour was greatly influenced by Admiral Sir John
Fisher, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the leading naval ‘expert’
of the Edwardian period. Fisher was reportedly once told by his doc-
tor that he had so much mental energy: ‘he should have been
twins’.41 In November 1907, ‘Jacky’ Fisher, in a provocative speech,
aimed at Balfour’s right-wing critics, urged the British people to ‘sleep
quiet in your beds’ and ‘do not to be disturbed by these bogeys about
invasion and otherwise which are being periodically resuscitated
by all sorts of leagues’.42 Although Balfour disapproved of the con-
frontational nature of Fisher’s speech, he was fully in agreement
with his point of view. Sir George Clark, another confidante of
Balfour on naval matters, and a leading figure in the CID, warned the
Conservative leader that his right-wing critics were trying to create
‘a German scare’ in order to raise doubts about Balfour’s long-standing
sceptical views on invasion.43
Lord Roberts, the ‘most famous soldier’ of the Edwardian age and
the leader of the National Service League certainly did believe in a
German invasion and he constantly pressed Balfour to lead the
Conservative Party in a vigorous campaign to alert the public of the
danger Britain now faced from the startling growth of German naval
power.44 In September 1906, Clark was anxiously informing Balfour
that a majority of the Conservative Party now believed his ‘invasion
is impossible’ speech was no longer credible.45 Throughout the
summer of 1907, Roberts, and his supporters in the National Service
League, asked Balfour to put pressure on the Liberal Government
to call a second inquiry on invasion.46 Lord Midleton also pressed
Balfour to support a new invasion inquiry, because ‘the facts on which
you made your celebrated statement, have either considerably altered,
or are not applicable to Germany’, adding, in a direct sideswipe at
Fisher, ‘I cannot sleep safely in my bed’.47 By the end of 1907, Colonel
Repington, The Times Military Correspondent, and a key adviser to
Lord Roberts on the question of invasion, reported, in a triumphalist
44 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

tone: ‘We have been able to push Balfour much further than we dared
hope’.48 Balfour decided to support the demand by the right to re-open
the invasion question for three reasons. First, he feared that the
Liberal Government was taking the policy of ‘naval economy’ too far.
Second, he was persuaded that the growth of German naval power
required consideration by the CID. Third, and most importantly,
Balfour was confident a new investigation into the question of
invasion would confirm the validity of his original argument and
thereby help to defuse the invasion lobby within the Conservative
Party and weaken the position of his right wing critics in the popular
Tory press.49
Asquith, lobbied effectively by Lord Esher, agreed to mount a new
investigation of invasion by a sub-committee of the CID, whose
meetings would be held in private and whose findings would not be
binding on the Liberal Government.50 The second sub-committee on
invasion regarded Germany as the hypothetical invader and held its
first meeting on 27 November 1907. Fisher was not best pleased with
the decision to re-open the invasion question by what he called
‘an irresponsible committee’.51 Selborne believed that Fisher would
use the inquiry as an opportunity to silence his right wing critics.52
Only two days after the first session of the sub-committee had been
held, the First Lord of the Admiralty was pleading with Balfour to
give evidence to the sub-committee, in order to, ‘smash the invasion
bogey for good’.53 In May 1908, Balfour gave detailed evidence. The
views of Balfour, as presented to the sub-committee on invasion are
very important because they offer a clear and behind-closed-doors
expression of the Opposition leader’s views on the German naval
threat in the spring of 1908. Balfour began his evidence by denying
he had ever said the invasion of the British Isles could be prevented
by naval power alone. He said a new investigation of invasion was
necessary because of the rapid growth of German naval power. Even
more significant was Balfour’s admission that his previous ‘open-
minded’ attitude towards Germany had undergone some change. He
expressed apprehension about the immense preparations made by
the German navy, and although he considered himself ‘one of those
most reluctant ever to believe in the German scare’, he now accepted
that ‘every German thinks the enemy is England’. This clear accept-
ance by Balfour of the danger posed to British naval supremacy by the
German fleet did not, however, lead to any change in his fundamental
 A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 45

views on invasion. On the contrary, Balfour rejected the view of Lord

Roberts, who had earlier told the sub-committee that it was possible
for Germany to mount a ‘bolt from the blue’ attack on the British
Isles. Balfour did not believe such an attack was possible, not because
he did not take the German naval threat seriously, but because he was
aware of the logistical difficulties involved for any potential naval
invader of the British mainland. As a result, Balfour dismissed the
idea that Germany could, or would, mount an unprovoked invasion
before war had been declared.54 In conclusion, Balfour told the sub-
committee that a German naval invasion of the British Isles was ‘an
impossible operation’, given the present strength of the Royal Navy.55
Lord Esher informed the King that members of the sub-committee
were ‘astounded by Balfour’s command of the subject’.56
Balfour’s view that Royal Navy was too strong for any foreign power,
including Germany, to mount a successful invasion was the major
conclusion of sub-committee report, published in November 1908.57
However, Balfour’s impressive presentation of his views on invasion to
the sub-committee on invasion did recognise the long-term threat
which German naval power posed to British naval supremacy.
It is worth emphasising that the rapid growth of the German navy
from 1906 onwards was the root cause of the transformation of
Balfour’s views towards Germany.58 He began to have major philo-
sophical doubts about the underlying aims of German policy. He
started to accept the view that the extension of the German naval
programme was essentially a provocative attempt to challenge British
sea power. At the end of 1908, Balfour was predicting that German
shipyards would be in a position to produce battleships at a faster
rate than in Britain within four years. Balfour’s growing alarm over
the German naval threat at the end of 1908 was witnessed by Lady
Selborne who found Balfour, ‘much pre-occupied by the German
scare’ and seemingly convinced: ‘the Germans are determined to
sweep us out of the way’.59 In October 1908, Kaiser Wilhelm added to
Balfour’s growing anxiety by excitedly telling a Daily Telegraph
reporter that there was a ‘widespread hatred’ of Britain in Germany.60
In January 1909, Lord Balcarres, the Conservative Chief Whip, com-
mented of Balfour’s growing anxiety about the growth of German
power, ‘the chief is … nervous about the state of the navy, really
frightened about the actual disposition of the fleet, still more about
its prospects for the future’.61
46 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Throughout the early months of 1909, Balfour, greatly influenced

by the deterioration of Anglo-German relations during 1908, adopted
an uncharacteristically aggressive tone towards the naval spending
plans of the Liberal Government. In March 1909, a full-scale row
between the two major political parties over naval spending was
triggered off during the naval estimates debate, when Reginald
McKenna announced that the Liberal Government would only
sanction the building of four new dreadnoughts now, and four later,
if the need arose, but would not order the eight new battleships
which the Admiralty felt were necessary to keep ahead of the German
ship-building programme.
During the naval estimates debate of March 1909, Balfour led a
vigorous Conservative campaign designed to put pressure on the
Liberal Government to immediately sanction the building of all eight
battleships.62 Balfour, departing from his usual faithful adherence
to the bi-partisanship on defence questions, accused the Liberal
Government of compromising naval defence.63 Asquith dismissed
the Conservative naval agitation in the House of Commons as
‘scaremongering’. In private, Esher told Balfour that he was ‘pushing
at an open door’ by demanding that Asquith agree to build all eight
ships.64 To keep the naval agitation going, therefore, Balfour called
for a motion of censure against the naval policy of the Liberal
Government, which was held on 22 March 1909.65 In the debate on
the censure motion, Sir Edward Grey accused Balfour of unashamedly
pandering to the scaremongers in his own party by ‘dragging the
navy into the arena of party politics’.66 In response, Balfour claimed
that if Asquith had agreed to build all eight ships, he could have
relied on the loyal support of the Opposition. By refusing to do so,
claimed Balfour, especially during a ‘dangerous phase’ of the Anglo-
German naval race, the Liberal Government was responsible for the
bitter Government–Opposition dispute on the navy.67 The motion of
censure, however, was rejected by 353 votes to 135, and the ‘naval
panic’, which had dominated British politics for over a fortnight
during March 1909, soon burned itself out. Once the dust had settled,
Balfour told Esher that a matter as serious as the Anglo-German naval
race should not have been allowed to degenerate into ‘a daily diet of
scare stories in the press’.68
During the naval panic of 1909, Balfour was voicing his own
growing private anxiety about the German naval threat which had
 A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 47

built up throughout 1908 rather than making political capital out the
naval issue. Balfour was also attempting to pressurise Asquith to resist
the demands of ‘little navy group’ within the Liberal Party for further
naval cuts. In July 1909, the Liberal Government decided to build all
eight ships. Liberal radicals claimed that Asquith had given in to
‘the coercive policy’ of the Opposition. Balfour was delighted by the
decision, because it seemed to vindicate his own strong stand during
the naval debates and helped to restore the bi-partisan consensus. In
July 1909, in a speech in the House of Commons, Balfour praised
Asquith for the decision to build all eight ships and concluded
that the defence of the Empire was once more ‘in safe hands’.69 The
naval estimates debate of 1910, which saw the Liberal Government
announce increased naval expenditure, was held in a calm and
restrained atmosphere. By July 1914, Balfour was advising Lord
Selborne that he had no reason to attack the Liberal Government
in the forthcoming naval estimates debate ‘because nothing has
come to my attention at the Defence Committee to suggest cuts in
the navy’.70
By the end of 1909, however, Balfour’s views on Germany had been
transformed from the open-minded attitude of the early years of the
century, alluded to earlier in this chapter, to a well and truly estab-
lished fear of German aims. One further illustration of this view is a
detailed and very important secret memorandum written by Balfour
in December 1910 on the current state of Anglo-German relations.71
In the memorandum, which Balfour circulated to leading members of
his ‘inner circle’ and to Bonar Law, he admits that he had become
suspicious of the ‘unscrupulous diplomatic methods and aims of
Germany’s foreign policy’. However, the economic and military
growth of Germany in the late nineteenth century did not cause him
anxiety, or enmity, because German power at that time was based on
a formidable army, with foreign policy aims concentrated in Europe.
It was the growth of the German navy, accompanied by the provoca-
tive policy of Weltpolitik, which indicated to Balfour that the British
Empire had been selected by Germany’s rulers as the major obstacle
in the path of Germany’s desire for a world-wide Empire. This inter-
pretation of the aims of German foreign policy seemed justified,
argued Balfour, because the Kaiser had continually rejected every
British and European offer to limit the growth in naval armaments
and constantly stressed that war between Britain and Germany was
48 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

‘inevitable’. In Balfour’s view, the only plausible and logical explana-

tion for German naval construction was to mount a challenge to
British naval supremacy, with the ultimate aim of eclipsing it. The
growth of Germany’s costly fleet of battleships led Balfour to con-
clude that ‘Germany is preparing for war’, and to a firm conviction
that ‘Germany wants war’. As a consequence, Balfour predicted that
Germany could be expected to try and divide France and Russia and
also to make strenuous efforts to undermine the Anglo-French
Entente. By the end of 1910, therefore, Balfour was convinced that
German foreign policy threatened Britain’s long-term interests and
was leading inexorably towards war.
The Agadir crisis of 1911, which raised the possibility of Britain
being drawn into a war over Franco-German differences in Morocco,
served to intensify Balfour’s existing fears about German aims. During
the Agadir crisis, Balfour concluded that the chief aim of British
foreign policy must be to uphold the balance of power in Europe.72 In
September 1911, Balfour assured David Lloyd George, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, that if the Agadir crisis developed into war ‘the
Opposition will certainly not cause you any embarrassment’.73 Balfour
felt that support for Grey during the Agadir crisis was a ‘patriotic
duty’, and he did not request any privileged information in return. In
fact, Balfour claimed, ‘it came as a shock of surprise – I am far from
saying of disapproval – when I found how rapidly after I left office,
the Entente had, under the German menace, developed into some-
thing resembling a defensive understanding’.74 He told Count Albert
von Mensdorf, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to London that at
times of international crisis the Prime Minister and Opposition leader
did meet to exchange information, but at these meetings he never
requested any privileged information or attempted to influence the
foreign policy adopted by the Government.75
Balfour’s resignation as Opposition Leader in November 1911 did
not greatly reduce his powerful influence within the Conservative
Party over foreign and defence matters. He remained an influential
adviser to Bonar Law, who always consulted him on questions related
to national defence and foreign affairs. Balfour’s views on foreign and
defence issues were also sought by the leading figures in the Liberal
Government. At the end of May 1912, for example, Balfour had
dinner with Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and
told him that such had been the transformation of his views on
 A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 49

Germany that he now favoured the Anglo-French Entente being

turned into military alliance. When Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign
Secretary, heard this startling news, he instantly wrote to Balfour and
invited him to prepare a detailed memorandum outlining his views
on the current state of European relations.76
Meanwhile, during the summer of 1912, Balfour decided to make
public his growing anxiety about the German threat. For Balfour,
who had always assiduously avoided stoking up the fires of Anglo-
German antagonism, this was quite a dramatic move. In June 1912,
Balfour wrote an article entitled ‘Anglo-German relations’, which
appeared in a leading German periodical called Nord and Sud. In the
article, Balfour explained to his German readers that the recent
actions of Germany in Agadir had led the ‘average Englishman’ to
believe that German foreign policy was inevitably leading in the
direction of war.77 The German press attacked Balfour for putting all
the blame for the deterioration of Anglo-German relations on the
shoulders of the German Government while ignoring the scaremon-
gering activities of many Conservative newspapers, politicians and
pressure groups. In response, Balfour complained that the German
press had blown up, out of all proportion, what he felt were quite
reasonable comments about the current state of Anglo-German
relations.78 Maxse wrote of the controversy over Balfour’s Nord and
Sud article in the National Review,

Mr. Balfour has never been anything but an optimist, and he has
habitually treated wars, and rumours of wars, as the stock-in-trade
of sensational journalism and as unworthy of the notice of respon-
sible statesmen. This makes his contribution to Nord and Sud all the
more remarkable, and it may be some consolation to the readers
of the National Review, – who must at times … wonder whether its
editor ought not to be shut up as an irresponsible person who had
got ‘Germany on the Brain’ – to find that Mr. Balfour’s views in all
essentials coincide with the opinions of German policy which has
been set forth month after month and year after year in National
Review since the opening of the century.79

In July 1912, Balfour gave a speech in the House of Commons on

the current state of tension in Europe, in which he claimed that
Germany was ‘steadily and remorselessly’ menacing the Royal Navy.
50 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Even more startling was Balfour’s blunt admission that he now

welcomed the rigid division of Europe into two power blocs consisting
of the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance because he felt that, ‘no
power would be so stupid as to involve itself in an offensive war in a
cause which it had no quarrel’.80 This speech illustrates how far the
ex-Conservative leader’s views had moved in a pro-French direction
in response to the German naval threat and the provocative actions
of the Kaiser during the Agadir crisis.
In November 1912, Balfour informed Grey that he now thought
the Anglo-French Entente was now a ‘totally unsatisfactory’ device
to contain the German threat. The best way to persuade the Kaiser
that Britain was deadly serious in its commitment towards France,
argued Balfour, was to establish a firm military alliance between the
two countries, which would help to improve military planning and
obstruct any German attempt to undermine the existing Anglo-
French agreement. The only condition which Balfour believed should
be inserted into his proposed Anglo-French alliance was for British
participation in a European war to be conditional on an unprovoked
attack by Germany on French territory.81 Hence Balfour now believed
that the key aim of British foreign policy was to ‘save France from
destruction’ by German military power in Europe.82 In December
1912, Balfour informed Bonar Law of his support for an Anglo-French
military alliance.83 However, the proposal was not supported by Lord
Lansdowne unless Grey was also willing to support the idea.84 In the
end, Grey decided not to transform the Entente into a formal military
alliance. This decision was accepted by the Conservative leadership
without further comment. Balfour agreed to keep private his own
support for an Anglo-French alliance in the interests of upholding the
bi-partisan consensus on foreign policy.
Another indication of how firmly Balfour felt that Britain’s
national interests were bound up with those of France was the strong
support he gave between 1911 and 1914 for the British Expeditionary
Force to be sent to France immediately upon the outbreak of a
European War. In November 1912, Balfour told Bonar Law that the
major task of the British Army was no longer be the defence of India,
or even the defence of the British Isles against invasion, but to supply
a fully equipped expeditionary force whose main aim was to defend
France and the Low Countries from a German attack.85 To all these
increasingly pro-French sentiments by Balfour should be added the
 A.J. Balfour and Anglo-German Relations 51

observation of the German Ambassador, who noticed that Balfour

openly expressed decidedly pro-French views during his own frequent
conversations with the former Conservative leader between 1911
and 1914.86
The bi-partisan consensus on foreign and defence policy, which
Balfour had done so much to encourage as Conservative leader, was
enhanced still further by Asquith’s decision to invite Balfour to join the
third CID sub-committee examination of the question of invasion,
which took place between January 1913 and April 1914. It was quite
a unique development for a sitting Government to invite a member
of the Opposition into the secret discussion of the technical details of
defence strategy. The third invasion inquiry concentrated on the
question of whether new innovations in naval technology had made
the possibility of a German invasion more likely. Balfour once again
played a deeply influential role. Sir Maurice Hankey, the secretary of
the CID described a typical meeting of the sub-committee in the
following way: ‘Suddenly the door opened, and Balfour’s loose figure
sauntered into the room, and he sat down beside the P.M. He almost
immediately grasped the point at issue and there and then set about
drafting the paragraph which brought the committee together’.87 The
final report of the sub-committee reflected Balfour’s view that new
advances in naval technology gave much greater protection to defen-
sive forces, thereby making a German invasion a ‘contingency not to
be expected’. However, the final report added weight to Balfour’s idea
of an Anglo-French military alliance by stressing that an invasion of
the British Isles was more likely if Britain ended up at war with
German without any French support.88
By the summer of 1914, therefore, A.J. Balfour, who had considered
himself ‘the last person to believe in the German threat’ in 1905 and
who had constantly emphasised that Britain should not be animated
in its relations with Germany by ‘jealously or enmity’, was fully pre-
pared to support France in the event of an unprovoked attack by
Germany in western Europe.89 The single-most profound cause of the
transformation of Balfour’s attitude towards Germany was the expan-
sion of a German navy, deployed in the North Sea, which represented
a clear challenge to Britain’s naval supremacy, and ultimately to
Britain’s national and imperial interests and Germany’s provocative
actions during the Agadir crisis. As a result, it is important to stress
that Balfour’s view of Germany was transformed between 1905 and
52 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

1914, to a very large degree, by his own negative interpretation of

German actions and by a growing conviction that German policy
aimed to challenge the maritime balance of power, en route to threat-
ening Britain’s security by challenging the balance of power in Europe.
In Balfour’s view, only by maintaining naval supremacy and saving
France from military defeat by Germany could the British Empire
hope to survive. Given these views, Balfour was highly likely to sup-
port British involvement in a European war which aimed to prevent
German domination of Europe at any time after the latter months
of 1910.
3
Leadership: (2) Andrew
Bonar Law and Anglo-German
Relations

Andrew Bonar Law is a mysterious and enigmatic political figure

whose career as Conservative leader was sandwiched between two
more well-known contemporaries, Balfour and Stanley Baldwin, and
overshadowed by the dominating figure of David Lloyd George. Even
the titles of two of the major biographies of Law, The Strange Case of
Andrew Bonar Law and The Unknown Prime Minister, reinforce the
elusive nature of his political career.1 Even his biographers make no
grandiose claims about his contribution to the history of the
Conservative Party. Taylor suggests that there is scant evidence of
‘inspiration’ in Bonar Law’s political career,2 while Blake concludes by
stating that Bonar Law, ‘never had a brilliant or original mind’ and
followed ‘the Party’s instincts’ on most of the important issues of the
day.3 To examine Bonar Law’s views on domestic politics is to enter a
neglected area of historical research, but to analyse his views and
policy towards Anglo-German relations between 1905 and 1914 is to
enter a historiographical wilderness.
The election of Bonar Law as Conservative Leader in November 1911
was something of a surprise but was not completely unexpected. He
had only been elected to parliament in 1900, had not been a Cabinet
minister, and he was only promoted to the Shadow Cabinet in 1911. In
the leadership contest, the front runners were Austen Chamberlain, a
prominent supporter of tariff reform, and Walter Long, the representa-
tive of the landed interest, with views on tariff reform not greatly
different from the increasingly unpopular Balfour. It was the mutual

53
54 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

animosity between Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long that allowed

Bonar Law to gain the leadership as the compromise candidate.
The issue which most concerned Bonar Law during his time as
Opposition leader between 1911 and 1914 was not foreign or defence
policy, but the bitter Conservative opposition to the introduction of
Irish Home Rule. As Opposition leader, he developed a blunt and
uncompromising debating style, dubbed by his Liberal opponents as
the ‘New Style’ to distinguish it from the detached leadership style of
Balfour. But Bonar Law’s aggressive approach to domestic issues was
underpinned by a deep sense of patriotism, which showed itself more
fully when he dealt with foreign and defence questions.
The background and early life of Bonar Law was certainly very
different from that of Balfour. Andrew Bonar Law was born on
16 September 1858 in New Brunswick, Canada. He was the son of
James Law, an Ulster born, Presbyterian minister, who died in 1877
and Elizabeth Annie Kidston, who came from a wealthy Scottish
family of iron merchants. Law’s mother died suddenly in 1860 when
he was only two years old. Janet Kidston, his aunt, travelled to
Canada after hearing the news of her sister’s sudden death in order to
assume the role of surrogate mother to young Andrew. In 1870, when
James Law re-married, he allowed his sister-in-law to take Bonar Law,
with whom she had obviously developed a very close relationship, to
live with her family in Helensburgh, a small, close-knit village, 25
miles north-west of Glasgow. The Kidston household consisted of the
successful businessmen William and Charles Kidston who were part-
ners in William Kidston and Sons, leading merchant bankers to the
iron and steel trade.4 Bonar Law attended the prestigious Glasgow
high school.5 During his time at school, he took an active role in
political debating societies and revealed above average ability in both
language studies and history. At 16, he left school to pursue a com-
mercial career in the Kidston family business.
Bonar Law is often portrayed as ‘a successful industrialist’ or as a
‘businessman in politics’, but his successful commercial career owed
much more to family patronage than any original business talent.6
He was no ‘self-made man’, and he prospered through nepotism as
much as Balfour. To begin with, the junior partnership that Bonar
Law was offered in 1885 from William Jacks and Company, a firm of
Glasgow iron merchants, was arranged for him by the Kidston family.
Even Bonar Law’s financial independence, which allowed him to
 Andrew Bonar Law and Anglo-German Relations 55

undertake a career in national politics, was constantly boosted by

family bequests totalling £63,000, which was a very hefty sum of
money in the late Victorian age. In 1891, he married Annie Pitcairn
Robley, the daughter of a prominent Glasgow shipbroker.7
Bonar Law was a dour, sober, family man, who drank nothing
stronger than milk and had few really close friends. He was the essence
of the no frills career politician from a business background. In 1900,
he was elected Conservative MP for the Blackfriars constituency in
Glasgow at the comparatively late age of 42.8 Yet he rose rapidly,
primarily because his speeches on trade issues displayed an impres-
sive grasp of economic facts and figures. In 1902, he was appointed as
parliamentary secretary at the Board of Trade, a post which he held
until the Conservatives left office in December 1905.
The dominating issue of Bonar Law’s political career before he
became Opposition leader in 1911 was tariff reform. ‘At the time
I entered the House’, he confessed in 1914, ‘the very essence of my
political belief was belief in Mr. Chamberlain’.9 After the election
defeat of 1906, it was his expert knowledge of tariff reform which
enabled him to emerge as one of the most prominent figures among
the generally dispirited Conservative opposition. As party leader
from 1911 to 1914 it was the opposition to Irish Home Rule that
became his central preoccupation.
Given this, it is often routinely argued by historians that Bonar Law
was completely uninterested in foreign affairs.10 In actual fact, Bonar
Law took a very keen interest in the economic and the defence
aspects of Anglo-German relations. What is not widely known is
that he was a fluent speaker and reader of the German language. In
the 1890s, as the Chairman of the Glasgow Iron Trade Association, he
developed close relations with German traders, bankers and engi-
neers. At William Jacks, he built up a thriving Anglo-German trade
for the company. It was during the 1890s that Bonar Law observed
at first hand the remarkable growth of German imports. He saw the
German economic threat as a real one, which had affected the prof-
itability of his own business and his determination for Britain to
follow the German lead by introducing protectionism to protect
British industry provided the stimulus for his support of tariff reform.
Such was the depth of Bonar Law’s interest in Anglo-German trade
relations that he took out annual subscriptions to most of the leading
German trade and economic periodicals. He also became an avid
56 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

reader of the works of the leading contemporary German economists.

J.L. Garvin, the editor of the Observer, once visited Law and found
him reading an obscure book by Adolph Wagner, a major German
economic thinker, in the original German edition.11
In 1911, Bonar Law admitted, ‘I have many German friends, I love
German books, almost as much as our favourites in our own tongue,
and I can imagine few, if any, calamities which would seem so great
as a war, whatever the result, between us and the Germany people’.12
At Westminster, he engaged in many cultural and diplomatic interac-
tions with German diplomats, business people and parliamentarians.
He was an active member of the Anglo-German Union Club, and he
attended many of the meetings which the club arranged between
British and German businessmen. Law was also a frequent guest
at many of the Anglo-German dinners arranged by the German
Embassy. In addition, he was also actively involved in a number of
Anglo-German charitable projects. He was, for example, the guest of
honour at a special dinner for the opening of an Anglo-German
hospital at Dalston in 1913.13 In his key-note speech at this function,
he emphasised to his Anglo-German audience his long-standing
admiration for the commercial abilities of the German people, and
he led a toast ‘to the health of the Kaiser’, whose views he said ‘were
often mis-represented as antagonistic towards Britain’ by certain
‘irresponsible’ sections of the popular press.14 Of course, these friendly
comments about Germany can be interpreted as the despairing
attempt of an ardent tariff reformer to correct the general impression
that most supporters of protectionism within the Conservative Party
were anti-German scaremongers. In Bonar Law’s case, however, this
interpretation cannot fully explain the consistency of his friendly
comments about Germany, his continuing friendly interaction with
German people and his deep interest in German economic affairs.
Bonar Law was a blunt, but honest man and certainly no scaremonger
in public on the German threat. He did genuinely admire the German
economic system, he did have many German friends and he was gen-
uinely in favour of friendly relations between Britain and Germany.
War, he believed, was definitely bad for business.
It was the economic relations of Britain and Germany which most
consistently engaged Bonar Law’s attention whenever he discussed
Anglo-German relations. During the early stages of the Tariff Reform
League, between 1903 and 1905, the growth of German imports and
 Andrew Bonar Law and Anglo-German Relations 57

alleged ‘unfair’ German trading practices, most notably, dumping

and cartel arrangements, featured most prominently in his speeches
on tariff reform. After 1906, however, Anglo-German trade rivalry
ceased to be a dominant theme of most of his speeches on the tariff
question. Instead, Bonar Law’s presentation of the Opposition case in
favour of tariff reform in parliamentary debate concentrated on the
‘folly of the Liberal Party for remaining committed to free trade’
within a world market becoming dominated by nations with protec-
tionist policies.15 It was an argument designed to rouse the Opposition
and attack the Liberal Government. To this end, Bonar Law greeted
every new tariff increase by a ‘foreign’ or colonial Government as part
of a world-wide economic trend in favour of tariff reform which he
felt Britain should follow.16 Bonar Law’s attitude towards Germany in
these speeches was surprisingly conciliatory, and he did not use trade
rivalry to inflame Anglo-German relations, and he frequently
insisted, ‘I have no ill will towards Germany’.17
Bonar Law’s many public speeches on Anglo-German trade relations
from 1905 to 1914 were full of friendly, constructive and positive
comments about German social and economic methods. Bonar Law
also frequently dismissed the Liberal Party claim that free trade
equalled cordial Anglo-German relations, while the adoption of tariff
reform would serve to intensify Anglo-German antagonism.18 In Bonar
Law’s view, what most harmed the friendly relations between Britain
and Germany were the frequent negative and disparaging remarks
made by leading Liberals concerning the German way of life. Many
leading figures in the Liberal Government, in highlighting the
benefits of free trade, often claimed most Germans lived in what
amounted to a military training camp and enjoyed a very poor
standard of living, often existing on a meagre diet whose staple con-
stituents were ‘black bread and horsemeat’. In response, Bonar Law
claimed that German ‘black bread’ had a much higher nutritional
value than British white bread.19 The important point to stress, there-
fore, is that Bonar Law depicted the German fiscal system and the
German way of life as a role model and a positive advertisement for
the policy of protective tariffs.
The use of statistical comparisons between important aspects of the
British and German standard of living was another key feature of
Bonar Law’s presentation of the Opposition case in favour of tariff
reform. In this numbers game, Bonar Law always portrayed Germany
58 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

in positive terms.20 In particular, he claimed that the condition of the

working class in protectionist Germany was ‘incredible’, with wage
rises for the average workers ‘greater than in any other country’ and
with an unemployment rate which stood 4 per cent below the British
level.21 He also claimed German productivity levels were also higher.
In December 1908, for example, he pointed out that while the
German production of iron and steel between 1905 and 1908 had
increased sharply by 50 per cent, British production during the same
period had completely stagnated.22 It was also typical of Bonar Law to
praise German business for transforming the German economy from
being an exporter of raw materials into a modern high-tech producer
of manufactured goods.23 In putting forward these friendly views,
Bonar Law’s main aim was to win the tariff reform versus free trade
argument within the British domestic political debate. Even so, what
he said did not inflame Anglo-German relations.
When Bonar Law became Conservative Leader in November 1911,
he was forced to examine the broader aspects of Anglo-German
relations and to examine them outside the framework of the party
political cut and thrust of domestic politics. He did not allow his
admiration for German economic methods to influence or determine
his attitude towards the diplomatic, naval and military aspects of the
Anglo-German relationship. His preoccupation with Anglo-German
commercial relations, combined with his lack of detailed knowledge
of foreign and defence matters ensured that on those issues Bonar
Law needed to seek advice and to consult more fully with leading
members of the Conservative ‘inner circle’ on foreign and defence
policy bequeathed to him by Balfour. A few days after being
appointed leader, Law admitted to Balcarres that he felt a great ‘sense
of responsibility’ whenever he discussed foreign and defence affairs
as ‘he had never heard these issues discussed in Cabinet’.24
Bonar Law is best described as a ‘realist’ on foreign affairs and
defence questions, who believed that ‘the only security for peace is
that each country should recognise the strength of the other, and
should realise too, that … each nation is prepared to defend to the
last her rights and her honour.’25 In his very rare public speeches on
foreign affairs as Conservative leader, Bonar Law also displayed a
very friendly attitude towards Germany which differed little from
the point of view he expressed on tariff reform. In January 1912,
Bonar Law summed up his view of Anglo-German relations in the
 Andrew Bonar Law and Anglo-German Relations 59

following way:

I do not think there is a man inside the House, or out of it, who is
more anxious for a good understanding with Germany than I am,
and I do not think there is anyone who would look with more
horror than I upon a war between the two countries.26

Away from the public gaze, Bonar Law expressed some anxiety
about the German naval and military threat, and he reluctantly
accepted that the Anglo-French Entente was a necessary means of
upholding the balance of power on the European continent.27 By the
time he became leader, he fully recognised that British foreign policy
had made a ‘clear and unmistakable’ commitment to France in the
event of a European war.28
If those on the ‘radical right’ of the Conservative Party outside
Westminster expected Bonar Law to adopt a belligerent ‘scaremon-
gering’ approach to the German threat when he became leader, they
were very soon disappointed. Bonar Law never allowed the acrimony
which he displayed on domestic issues such as Ireland to spill over
into public discussions of Anglo-German relations. It soon became
clear the principle of bi-partisanship on foreign affairs, which had
been such a central feature of Balfour’s approach to foreign policy,
was fully supported by his successor. In his very first speech on foreign
affairs, he promised the Conservative Party under his leadership
would never ‘try to gain party advantage from the discussion of
foreign affairs’. He also promised that the Opposition would not crit-
icise Government foreign policy ‘if we believe there is any danger of
our criticism weakening our position among the other great powers’.29
Indeed, Asquith, the Prime Minister, often wished that Bonar Law
would transfer his restrained language on foreign and defence matters
to his often rough handling of domestic issues.30
At the same time, Bonar Law, who had assumed the party leadership
after the Conservatives had sustained a third successive electoral
defeat, was fully aware of the high level of criticism which had existed
over Balfour’s subtle, evasive and elitist handling of party affairs. One
of the features of Conservative Party affairs in 1911 was the growth of
splinter organisations, outside the formal party machinery, including
groups such as the National Service League and the Imperial Maritime
League which were concerned with Balfour’s even-handed handling
60 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

of foreign and defence affairs. One of the most frequent criticisms of

Balfour by both of these groups, and among many backbench MPs,
was his alleged failure to consult the party on its general attitude
towards foreign and defence policy.31
In the early days of Bonar Law’s leadership, therefore, there was
pressure for the new leader to listen more to the party rank and file
opinion on all issues. A great deal of uncertainty still existed within
the party over the Anglo-French Entente. Was it a purely colonial agree-
ment? or as many desired, ‘a vital means of keeping war-mongering
Germany encircled and powerless?’32 Leopold Amery, a Conservative
MP, later recalled that although there was general support for the
Anglo-French Entente, very few Conservative backbench MPs had
any real understanding of how loose Britain’s obligations were to
France in the event of a German attack.33
Even more uncertainty existed within the party over the Anglo-
Russian Convention, the second pivot of Grey’s foreign policy. Lord
Lansdowne observed that most ordinary Tory MPs were ‘inclined to
look at its details with a critical eye’.34 After the Agadir crisis in 1911,
however, many Conservatives started to look more favourably on the
agreement with Tsarist Russia. One prominent supporter of this view
was Austen Chamberlain who believed that Conservative support for
the Anglo-Russian agreement was a vital counterbalance to constant
Liberal hostility towards it.35 The most significant Conservative
critic of the agreement with Russia was the former Viceroy of
India, Lord Curzon, who suggested that Britain had already made far
too many concessions in Persia in return for a ‘very vague and ill
defined promise’ of Russian ‘good will’.36 Similarly, Mark Sykes, a
Conservative MP argued that a pro-Russian foreign policy would
damage British trade and help to drive Turkey into the hands of the
German Empire.37
In the face of such uncertainty within the Conservative Party over
the details of British foreign policy and in a move designed to placate
backbench opinion over the perceived elitist approach on foreign and
defence matters of his predecessor, Bonar Law instructed Lord Balcarres,
the Conservative Chief Whip to consult the parliamentary party, with
a view to defining its general attitude towards foreign affairs. After
sounding out all sections of backbench opinion, Balcarres reported to
Bonar Law that there was universal support among Conservative MPs
for the Anglo-French Entente and a generally supportive, though
 Andrew Bonar Law and Anglo-German Relations 61

somewhat more sceptical, attitude towards improved relations with

Russia. Balcarres summed up the general attitude of the Conservative
Party on foreign affairs in the following way:

We have supported Grey for six years on the assumption he

continues the Anglo-French Entente which Lord Lansdowne
established, and the Anglo-Russian Entente which Lord Lansdowne
inspired. Without our help he would have retired a long time ago.
We are entitled to ask for assurances that he adheres to our generally
agreed policy.38

The very idea of consulting backbenchers on foreign policy, some-

thing Balfour would never have even contemplated clearly illustrates
that Bonar Law wanted to demonstrate to the Conservative Party at
Westminster that whenever he spoke on foreign policy he was articu-
lating a generally agreed attitude rather than articulating a view of
the leader and his ‘inner circle’ which the party was expected to
accept without dissent. Yet the act of consultation by Bonar Law with
the party rank and file should not be interpreted as a sign that his
views on foreign policy as leader were ever determined by backbench
pressure. On the contrary, Bonar Law habitually disregarded back-
bench pressure when deciding the Opposition line on foreign and
defence policy, and his penchant for greater consultation was really a
shrewd tactical device designed to unite the party and give the
impression of greater party democracy on foreign and defence policy
than really existed in practice.
It was not backbench pressure that determined Bonar Law’s
approach to foreign policy but the advice of Lord Lansdowne. He also
continued with Balfour’s much criticised practice of managing foreign
and defence matters through a small ‘inner circle’ of ex-ministers and
close advisers. It was really ‘business as usual’ as far as foreign and
defence matters were concerned. Even the composition of Bonar
Law’s ‘inner circle’ on foreign and defence policy was exactly the
same as under Balfour. It became even smaller, because when Lord
Cawdor died in 1911 and George Wyndham died two years later, they
were not replaced. Under the leadership of Bonar Law, therefore, the
articulation of Opposition policy on foreign and defence matters was
conducted much more by peers in the House of Lords than had even
been the case under Balfour.
62 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Bonar Law, aware of his own lack of experience, relied heavily on

the advice of Lord Lansdowne on foreign and defence affairs. He com-
mented of his relationship with the ex-Foreign Secretary on foreign
affairs thus: ‘I shall, of course always consult him, as I have consulted
him today, before making any statement on foreign affairs.’39 All the
available evidence suggests the advice of Lansdowne on foreign and
defence matters was the most decisive influence on the line which
Bonar Law adopted. In Lord Lansdowne’s view, foreign policy had to
be decided by the Conservative inner circle in private and ‘the party
and the public could make of it what they will’.40 This was certainly
the approach which Bonar Law adopted prior to the delivery of his
first major speech on foreign policy in November 1911, but more
generally, it explains his general conduct of policy making on foreign
and defence policy as Opposition leader. Before making his key
speech in the famous Agadir debate, Bonar Law asked Lansdowne to
prepare for him a detailed set of briefing notes, outlining the central
elements of Conservative foreign policy. In reply, Lansdowne wrote,
‘The Entente does not, strictly speaking, bind us to more than mere
support of the French government’, but he added that ‘it would be
inconsistent with British interests, and dangerous to the peace of
the world and to the balance of power to allow a friendly nation like
France to be crushed’.41 To ensure no embarrassment was caused by
the Opposition to Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, in the
Agadir debate, Bonar Law actually discussed the content of his speech
with Sir William Tyrell, Grey’s private secretary at the Foreign Office.
This was a ringing endorsement of the bi-partisan consensus which
Balfour has established.42 What is even less well known is that Tyrell
met Bonar Law regularly from 1911 to 1914 and kept him fully briefed
‘off the record’ on important foreign policy developments. Bonar Law
claimed he was ‘astounded’ by the amount of secret information
which Tyrell passed on to him about foreign and defence policy
developments at these meetings.43
During the Agadir debate, Bonar Law emphasised that the
Conservative Party would ‘never under any circumstances attempt to
gain party advantage from the discussion of foreign policy’. He also
emphasised that the entente ‘had been of immense value to this
country’ because it had acted as ‘deterrent’ to the outbreak of war.44
Even so, Bonar Law never promised the Liberal Government in public
or in private that the Opposition would support a war to save France
 Andrew Bonar Law and Anglo-German Relations 63

‘in all circumstances’. On the contrary, he stressed the leadership

would decide on the circumstances surrounding any particular
conflict and then decide if British intervention was in the ‘national
interest’. Law also insisted that if a major war did eventually break
out between Britain and Germany, it would not be due to ‘irresistible
forces’ but to ‘the want of human wisdom’.45
The major focal point of Anglo-German rivalry was, of course, the
naval arms race. On this central issue, there is no evidence that
Bonar Law’s views differed greatly from those of Balfour. During the
1909 ‘naval scare’, Law had favoured the Conservative Party mount-
ing a ‘strong agitation’ against Liberal cuts in the naval building
programme.46 In March 1909, he made one of his very rare interven-
tions into the debate over Anglo-German naval race. In response to a
speech by Admiral von Tirpitz, the German Naval Minister, who
claimed that the German navy would only have 13 Dreadnoughts in
1912, not the 25 which Balfour had claimed in a speech during the
naval estimates debate, Bonar Law asked the House of Commons,
‘Why should we believe a man who could very soon be our enemy?’
This very uncharacteristic public indiscretion on Anglo-German rela-
tions, which was widely reported in the German press, led Balfour to
rebuke Bonar Law for unnecessarily inflaming relations between
Britain and Germany. He never did it again.47
Not surprisingly, many within the rank and file of the Conservative
Party at Westminster expected that Bonar Law would adopt a strong
independent line on naval affairs. To this end, Lord Selborne pressed
Bonar Law to adopt a ‘two keels to one’ naval standard. Selborne
suggested this new standard, which aimed to build two dreadnoughts
for every one built in German shipyards, would help to ‘stop the
progressive increase in German shipbuilding’, because ‘it would make
it profitless for them to go on building’.48 Austen Chamberlain added
his influential support to Selborne’s proposal as he thought such a
‘simple and easily comprehensible formula’, would be popular with
voters.49 Selborne even promised Bonar Law that he would, ‘not allow
Germany to be mentioned in connection with the standard, but simply
the next largest European navy’.50 The ever-cautious Lansdowne did
not disagree with the policy ‘in principle’ but evidently worried about
a possible breach in the bi-partisan consensus and he informed Bonar
Law privately of his doubts about whether, ‘it was desirable that we
should, when we are in Opposition, commit ourselves to the details
64 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

of naval policy’.51 The final decision rested with Bonar Law, who told
Selborne, ‘I know how much better you are acquainted with naval
matters than I can possibly be’, but he admitted, in agreement with
the advice of Lansdowne, that he did not like the idea of the
Conservative Party, ‘being committed in advance to this standard.’52
As a result, the ‘two keels to one’ standard never became opposition
policy. The whole episode reveals that Bonar Law was unwilling to
abandon the bi-partisan consensus on naval policy and adopt a
‘fighting independent naval policy’.
Overall, there is little sign of a ‘New Style’ in the conduct of policy
or debate over the navy under Bonar Law. Bonar Law adopted the sort
of ‘constructive opposition’ which had been favoured by his much
maligned predecessor. In fact, the period from 1911 to 1914 was
characterised by a surprisingly high level of harmony on naval affairs
between the Government and Opposition front benches. Bonar Law
offered consistent support to Winston Churchill, as the First Lord of
the Admiralty, and he frequently praised Churchill for his steadfast
determination to meet the German naval threat. Lord Charles Beresford,
the renegade Conservative MP, often attacked Bonar Law for praising
Churchill as ‘a genuine patriot’ and ‘as good a First Sea Lord as any
Unionist’.53
One important reason why Bonar Law’s underlying fears concerning
the German naval threat were eased after 1911 was due to secret
information on the German naval programme communicated to him
by George Armstrong, the former editor of the right wing Globe and a
noted expert on Anglo-German naval relations. Armstrong had main-
tained close contact with influential German naval figures. In
February 1912, Armstrong prepared for Bonar Law a detailed memo-
randum of his conversations with Commander Widenmann, the
German Naval attaché in London. The purpose of these conversa-
tions, on the German side, was to persuade the Conservative Party to
exercise caution when Germany’s programme of shipbuilding was
discussed at Westminster. The German naval attaché told Armstrong
that German naval leaders ‘entertained no hope of being able to
defeat England at sea’, and they agreed with Balfour that a naval
invasion of the British isles was ‘impossible’.54 Bonar Law was so
impressed by these backstage assurances from a leading German
naval official that he circulated Armstrong’s memorandum to all the
Conservative members of the Navy Committee in the House of
 Andrew Bonar Law and Anglo-German Relations 65

Commons. In March 1912, Armstrong told Bonar Law that Captain

Watson, the British naval attaché in Berlin, had discovered that
Widenmann’s comments on the navy were a very accurate reflection
of the views of Admiral Tirpitz. As a result, Armstrong advised Bonar
Law that a restrained approach by Conservative Party during the naval
estimates debate was likely to weaken German fears of ‘encirclement’
and lessen the demands of the German Navy League for increased
naval expenditure.55 This advice appears to have had a significant
impact on Bonar Law. During the naval estimates debates in March
1912, the Conservative front bench showed a quite remarkable
amount of restraint when discussing Anglo-German naval rivalry. In
December 1912, Bonar Law gave the following summary of his own
position towards naval issues: ‘I have never made the navy in any
sense a party question. I have always desired to regard it as precisely
something which should be left outside party politics’.56
Yet there was one issue which threatened to break the bi-partisan
consensus on defence policy: conscription. Before Bonar Law became
Opposition Leader, he had expressed some ‘sympathy’ for conscrip-
tion, but he never openly endorsed the aims of the National Service
League. In September 1908, he informed Fabian Ware, the editor of
the Morning Post, that he was ‘not opposed to compulsory service’,
but he did not feel the Conservative Party could adopt the policy
because of its unpopularity with British voters.57 As the years went
by, Bonar Law became increasingly more sympathetic towards
national service. In October 1912, General Sir Henry Wilson, the
Director of Military Training and a key adviser of the Opposition
leader on army questions, recorded in his diary that Bonar Law was
‘absolutely clear’ about the need to introduce conscription to meet
the German threat.58
In the early days of Bonar Law’s leadership, therefore, hopes were
very high, especially among the growing pro-conscriptionist lobby
within the Conservative Party, that conscription might become offi-
cial party policy. Such a move would have been a clear breach of the
bi-partisan consensus. In May 1912, Lord Roberts, the outspoken and
belligerent president of the National Service League, asked Selborne
to persuade the Opposition leader to undertake a policy review on
the question of conscription because ‘My impression is that members
are not satisfied with the existing condition of our land forces’.59 In
June 1912, Lord Midleton, a close friend of Selborne, asked Bonar Law
66 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

to set up a sub-committee consisting of all the leading front bench

spokesmen on foreign and defence policy to conduct a review of
opposition policy towards the army. Bonar Law sought the views of
Arthur Lee on Lord Midleton’s proposal. Lee welcomed the idea of the
Conservative Party putting forward a ‘definite policy’ on conscription,
but he suggested to Bonar Law that confining the proposed policy
review just to army policy would ‘lapse into the old heresy of sepa-
rating the different aspects of national defence into watertight
compartments.’ In place of a review of opposition policy towards the
army, Lee put forward the more ambitious idea of a full-scale review of
Conservative naval, foreign and defence policy because ‘the problem
of national defence as a whole has not been considered or discussed
by the Unionist leaders since we went out of office in 1905’.60 Bonar
Law then asked Lansdowne to comment on the demands within the
Conservative ‘inner circle’ for a policy review on army policy. In
response, Lansdowne suggested it was necessary for the Opposition
to ‘make up our minds what line we propose to take on compulsory
service … so that if a general election were to come upon us we
should sing the same kind of song’, but he completely rejected Lee’s
idea of a full-scale review of Opposition foreign and defence policy as
‘the scope of such an investigation would be immense. It would
virtually involve a duplication of the committee of Imperial defence.’
Instead, Lansdowne suggested a small sub-committee should be set
up to review the question of army policy alone. On the question of
conscription, Lansdowne commented, ‘some form of compulsory
service is inevitable: but such a proposal would, I am afraid, not be
popular, and I am not sure that as a party we are prepared to take it
up. We might, however, induce the country to accept some form of
compulsory training in schools’.61
In the end, Bonar Law accepted the advice of Lord Lansdowne and
set up a small sub-committee, consisting of Lord Salisbury, Lord
Midleton, George Wyndam and Arthur Lee to investigate ‘the condi-
tion of land forces’. In February 1913, the ‘Committee on Land Forces’
produced an eight-page report, which made three recommendations:
First, the Conservative Party should make a public commitment to
restore Liberal cuts of £1.4 million in army expenditure which had
occurred since 1906 if elected.62 Second, the opposition should seek a
‘Concordat’ between the major parties on conscription to ‘take the
whole question of compulsion out the party arena’. Third, the party
 Andrew Bonar Law and Anglo-German Relations 67

should support the idea of compulsory military training being

introduced in schools. This was not a very controversial proposal, as
cadet training was already widespread in many public schools.63
Bonar Law flatly rejected the idea of committing the Conservative
Party to restore Liberal spending cuts on the army. The proposed
‘concordat’ between the two major parties on conscription, in
spite of the strenuous efforts of Lord Curzon, came to nothing. The
only recommendation which Law publicly endorsed – and which
Lansdowne favoured – was to support cadet training in schools.
Overall, Bonar Law accepted that it was not possible to introduce
conscription without cross-party agreement, and he confined his
efforts to win support for the proposal behind the scenes, and away
from the public gaze. One notable example of this activity was the
encouragement he gave to Sir Henry Wilson’s efforts to build up
support for conscription among the army general staff. Nevertheless,
Bonar Law, realising the electoral drawbacks, was not willing to com-
mit the Conservative Party to a deeply unpopular policy, no matter
what its merits were to deal with the German military threat.
Although most historians emphasise sharp differences in style
and policy between Balfour and Bonar Law,64 when examining Bonar
Law’s response to the key aspects of Anglo-German relations, it can be
seen there were many elements of similarity and continuity between
the two leaders. The principle of maintaining a bi-partisanship
approach to foreign affairs was continued by the new leader. Bonar
Law also followed Balfour’s restrained approach to the discussion of
Anglo-German relations in parliamentary debate. In addition, he
continued with Balfour’s long-established practice of managing for-
eign and defence matters through a small ‘inner circle’ of ex-ministers
and close advisers. The most obvious difference between the con-
duct of Opposition foreign and defence policy was that Bonar Law,
because of his lack of experience, consulted with members of the
‘inner circle’ on foreign and defence policy more fully than Balfour
had ever done. He even undertook reviews of Conservative foreign,
naval and army policy, but it is clear this was done with the intention
of giving the impression to the party rank and file of being willing to
listen to new policy ideas, but not accepting any proposal that
breached the bi-partisan consensus on foreign and defence matters.
What is equally apparent is that Bonar Law was not Germanophobic
and was not publicly contributing to the so-called Anglo-German
68 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

antagonism. On the contrary, he showed genuine admiration for the

German economic system, its scientific methods, its military organi-
sation, its social and educational reforms, and he was not opposed to
friendly relations between the two countries. Even so, Law’s outward
public admiration for German methods was underpinned by an
underlying private fear that the growth of German economic power
needed to be halted by the introduction of protective tariff against
German goods. In essence, Bonar Law feared about Germany what he
also admired. As a result, he did not allow his admiration for all things
German to influence or determine his attitude towards diplomatic
alignments and the naval and military dimensions of the Anglo-
German relationship. On the contrary, Law’s admiration for German
efficiency made him all the more concerned about the German mili-
tary threat and led him to support measures which would strengthen
the European system of deterrence against Germany. Law believed that
naval supremacy had to be maintained whatever the cost, but he was
unwilling to adopt policies which breached the bi-partisan consensus.
This explains why he rejected the adoption of the ‘two keels to one
standard’. On conscription, Law was a political realist who was unwill-
ing to commit the Conservative Party to a deeply unpopular policy,
even though he strongly believed conscription was necessary to deal
with the German military threat. As a result, he held the Conservative
Party in check on the conscription issue in public, but continued to
work behind the scenes to hammer out a cross-party agreement on
the proposal.
Bonar Law accepted that Britain was bound to support France in
the event of an unprovoked attack by Germany, because he believed
a German victory in Europe would inevitably threaten British security
and the Empire. But he never promised that the opposition would
support a war to save France ‘in all circumstances’. As a result, Bonar
Law’s attitude towards supporting a war against Germany was not
predetermined. On the contrary, Bonar Law would examine the
details of any major crisis which threatened a European war very
carefully. He would consult with Lord Lansdowne and other selected
members of his ‘inner circle’ before deciding to support what he
thought was the most sensible course of action.
4
The Views of the Conservative
Party at Westminster towards
Anglo-German Relations,
1905–1914

The three preceding chapters have revealed how the Conservative

leadership ensured the party rank and file at Westminster avoided
making openly antagonistic statements about Germany in order to
maintain the bi-partisan consensus on foreign policy.1 As a result,
many of the public views of the Conservative Party towards
Anglo-German relations were constrained by party discipline and
constricted by tactical and political calculations. In this chapter, the
main aim is to assess how credible this interpretation really is, by
placing under detailed scrutiny the private and especially the public
views of Conservative MPs and peers towards three important
aspects of Anglo-German relations: the naval arms race, commercial
rivalry and the conscription controversy. It will be revealed here that
the now routine depiction of the Conservative Party as a bunch of
Germanophobes fostering open hostility towards Germany is deeply
misleading.
Throughout this period, the private correspondence of Conservative
MPs and peers does reveal evidence of a deep-seated and growing
anxiety about the growth of German economic, naval and military
power. It is clear that the startling growth of German power lay at the
heart of these concerns. Between 1890 and 1914, the German popula-
tion soared from 49 to 66 million, and the economy grew faster that
any other European power. Germany’s steel output was higher than

69
70 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Britain, France and Russia combined. In the same period, German

coal production was only bettered by Britain. The prominence of
science and technical subjects in the school curriculum gave
Germany a notable lead in new ‘high-tech’ industries such as arms
production and chemicals. The German army, organised on the basis
of conscription, was tactically sophisticated, highly trained and well
equipped. German naval expansion ensured that the German fleet
rose from the sixth largest to become the second largest in the world
behind the Royal navy.
As a result, fear of Germany became a live issue in British politics in
the period before the outbreak of the First World War. As Joseph
Chamberlain commented, ‘Why do people not realise that Germany
is making war upon us, and that her economic attack is just as surely
an act of aggression as if she had declared hostilities?’2 In 1908,
Austen Chamberlain informed Leopold Maxse, the editor of the
right-wing National Review,

I do not share the view that the majority of Germans, or the Kaiser
himself wants war with England, but I believe they have persuaded
themselves or me that such a conflict is inevitable. If that is their
view, then I do not see how we can underestimate the danger their
past history indicates.3

Arthur Lee also expressed equally pessimistic private views about

the likely course of Anglo-German relations. In February 1905,
while the Balfour administration was still in office, he triggered a
major Anglo-German diplomatic row by claiming, in a much-
publicised speech, that a naval war between Britain and Germany
was ‘inevitable’ and by adding it would be a good idea if ‘the Royal
navy struck the first blow.’ This inflammatory public outburst on
the naval arms race by a prominent Conservative, was extensively
reported in the German press and led to a strong diplomatic protest
from the Kaiser and an apology from Lee who was severely rebuked
by Balfour who told the junior minister he had inflamed Anglo-
German relations ‘for no good reason’.4 The incident served as
something of a lesson for Lee who accepted he could not make
openly antagonistic comments about the German naval and military
threat in future. In private, Lee continued to be ‘pre-occupied with
the German menace and our unpreparadness to meet it’. He made
several fact-finding visits to Germany between 1905 and 1914 in
 The Views of the Conservative Party 71

order to assess German naval strength at first hand. In September

1912, he returned from an informal visit to a number of important
German naval dockyards and warned his colleagues: ‘The prospects
for European peace look more precarious than ever’.5
Lord Selborne expressed similar private worries about the rapid
growth of the German navy. In 1902, he warned the Cabinet: ‘I am
convinced that the new German navy is being carefully built up
from the point of view of war with us’.6 From 1905 onwards, the term
‘German menace’ was a frequently mentioned phrase in all of his pri-
vate correspondence concerning Anglo-German naval rivalry. During
the famous ‘naval scare’ of 1909, Selborne adopted a very pessimistic
view about the aims of German naval policy. In his correspondence
with leading figures in Balfour’s inner circle, he constantly urged the
leading Opposition front bench spokesman to take, ‘a very strong
line about the navy’.7 The growing colonial ambitions of the German
Government in Southern Africa were a further source of irritation. ‘If
the Kaiser ever found himself at loggerheads with Britain on any issue’,
he told Midleton, ‘he might attempt to cause trouble by supporting the
Boers in a further conflict against the British Empire’.8
As the leading member of the Conservative front bench in the
House of Lords, and the most important Opposition spokesman on
foreign affairs, the attitude of Lord Lansdowne towards Germany was
critical. Throughout the period 1905–1914, Lansdowne looked at
Anglo-German relations in the most balanced and objective manner
of any member of the Conservative front bench. Cool, reserved and
extremely level headed, Lansdowne disliked the idea of British for-
eign policy being directed towards ‘a profound dislike of any singly
nation’.9 He also felt it was the ‘national duty’ of the Conservative
Party to avoid inflaming Anglo-German relations by making hostile
public statements. It was ‘preposterous’, he argued, for anyone to
maintain that it was in Britain’s interest ‘to provoke a quarrel with
Germany’.10 He never viewed his own foreign policy in the Balfour
Government as being in any sense ‘anti-German’ or designed to drive
Europe into two hostile and antagonistic power blocs. Yet Lansdowne
became concerned enough about the German threat to confess in
1911 that it was inconsistent with British interests, ‘to allow a friendly
nation like France to be crushed.’11
Behind closed doors, in private conversation and in correspondence,
most Conservatives expressed high levels of anxiety and a growing
concern about the military, colonial and naval objectives of the
72 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

German Government. Many pessimistically believed that a war

with Germany, at some unspecified date in the future, was a distinct
possibility. But it is one thing to suggest the Opposition were ‘scare-
mongers’ on the German threat in private, but quite another to suggest
they carried these views into public debate and stoked the flames of
the Anglo-German antagonism. It was for this reason that the
Opposition’s public statement on Germany, particularly in the sphere
of parliamentary debate took on much greater significance as it was
only open public statements that were contributing to any real or
imagined Anglo-German antagonism.
In public discussions of matters related to Anglo-German relations
by Conservatives in parliament, three issues dominated: (1) the naval
arms race, (2) trade relations, and (3) conscription. Of these, the
Anglo-German naval race, which focused on the speed at which
Dreadnoughts could be built in British and German shipyards was
the most frequent topic of debate. The sensitivity in British society
concerning the naval issue covered a wide spectrum of public opin-
ion. The navy was not only crucial for the defence from invasion of
the British Isles, but it also safeguarded the complex territories that
made up the British empire and the various British trading and financial
interests Britain had accumulated over several centuries. Fear of Germany
was also accentuated by a turn-of-the-century feeling, expressed by
politicians, writers and even novelists such as H.G. Wells suggested
that Britain’s future in the twentieth century was likely to be charac-
terised by industrial and imperial decline. It is no exaggeration, there-
fore, to suggest that Conservative estrangement from Germany during
the period 1905–1914 was primarily not due to the growth of German
economic and trading power, but, most importantly, to the expan-
sion of the German naval fleet and its deployment in the North Sea.
Of course, Conservative support for the maintenance of British
naval supremacy was traditional. Naval scares were a fairly familiar
phenomenon in British party political debate. In 1883, there was a
passionate Conservative agitation concerning the possibility of a
French naval invasion. In the 1890s, there were also fears expressed
by Conservatives about the growth of the Russian and Japanese fleets.
The usual symptoms of an impending naval panic were a reduction
in naval spending, followed by the growth of a determined rival in
close geographical proximity to the British Isles or an important
British imperial possession. As the editor of a leading Conservative
 The Views of the Conservative Party 73

Party periodical commented, ‘The Navy has always been a cause of

the Conservatives’.12 Most Conservatives were in full agreement with
Selborne’s view that the chief aim of national defence was for ‘a navy
that was definitely and indisputably strong enough for defence
against invasion, the defence of the empire, trade and commerce’.13
What made the Anglo-German naval race much more heated than
any of the many previous ‘naval scares’ was that Germany, the most
powerful military power in Europe, and a nation that had never before
possessed a major naval fleet, was building a fleet a few hundred miles
away from the British coastline. Even so, Conservatives, rather than
inflaming Anglo-German antagonism, went out of their way to suggest
that their public concern about the growth of German naval power
implied no hostility or criticism of the German monarch, the German
Government or the German people. Conservatives were also quick to
point out that their views concerning the Anglo-German naval race
were constantly being distorted by Liberals, radicals and socialists
in parliament and by certain hostile sections of the British media.
Selborne was quick to reassure the German Government in public
debate that Conservative excitability on the naval issue was ‘a national
duty’ and was not engaged in with ‘a spirit of hostility towards
Germany’.14 Cawdor also explained that the desire to maintain
naval supremacy was ‘a long standing and unalterable Conservative
principle’, designed to maintain ‘the safety of our shores and protect
commerce’, not to ‘inflame foreign relations’.15
In fact, a detailed examination of Conservative speeches on the naval
race at Westminster shows that hostile comments about Germany were
surprisingly few and far between. Instead, Conservatives used very
mild language when discussing the Anglo-German naval questions.
Most Conservatives turned their attack on Liberal Government for
failing to maintain naval supremacy. As George Wyndham put it, ‘the
Opposition had every right to question whether naval security was
adequate’.16 Lord Beresford, a rather outspoken backbench peer on
most political issues of the day, claimed that most Conservatives were
primarily concerned with global strategic interests when discussing
naval questions and were not seeking a ‘quarrel with Germany’.17
Gilbert Parker, a backbench MP, claimed that most Conservative
speeches on the navy were designed to ensure the preservation of
‘supremacy at sea’ and were not designed, ‘to inflame cordial relations
between nations’.18
74 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

But Conservative parliamentary speeches on the naval race between

1905 and 1914 could not avoid comparing British and German ship-
building programmes or discussing the possible implications should
Britain lose the naval race. Arthur Lee frequently explained to the
House of Commons that the Conservative Party had traditionally
considered naval questions on the basis of comparative analysis
which compared ‘British naval building with the spending plans of
other naval powers’.19 Most leading peers in the House of Lords made
similar claims. Lord Brassey argued that only by measuring British
naval strength against that of the German building programme could
the full extent to which the Royal Navy was falling behind in the
naval arms race be fully evaluated.20 Similarly, Lord Lovat explained
that because the most potent threat to British naval supremacy came
from Germany, it was logical to use that power as ‘the most effective
barometer to evaluate the Britain’s naval preparations’.21
Most Conservatives were also keen to emphasise they were not
making party political capital over the Anglo-German naval arms
race. According to Sir Robert Cecil, the Conservative Party had a duty
to ‘King and Country’ to criticise the naval policy of the Government
when they believed the ideals of continuity were being infringed.22
Viscount Helmsley, another Conservative MP, observed that from 1905
to 1909 he could not recall ‘a single instance’ when a Conservative had
ever used the navy for ‘purely political purposes’ in parliamentary
debate.23 Similarly, William Peel, MP, insisted that Conservatives were
merely reflecting public concern on the navy and were not seeking
to manipulate the issue for party political purposes.24 One of the most
important reasons why Conservatives spent so much time explaining
their ‘patriotic’ motives when discussing the naval race was to coun-
teract the Liberal charge that Conservatives were using Anglo-German
naval rivalry as a jingoistic issue, designed to improve their flagging
electoral popularity. In response to this charge, Lee claimed that the
Conservative discussion of the naval race was guided by patriotic
motives within the framework of continuity. In a similar way, Cawdor
insisted that the Conservative position towards the navy was based on
the principle of ‘national needs not mere party considerations’.25
During the great naval scare of 1909, Lee took pains in parliamentary
debate to stress that Conservative grievances concerning the strength
of the navy were not directed at Germany, but aimed at ‘our own gov-
ernment for neglecting naval supremacy’.26 Viscount Helmsley, MP,
 The Views of the Conservative Party 75

claimed that it was the failure of the Government to match German

naval spending which had sparked the naval scare in the first place.27
As a result, Conservative speeches in parliament during the famous
naval estimates debate of March 1909 concentrated on attacking the
Liberals for not upholding naval supremacy. George Wyndham was
convinced that if Conservative concern for the maintenance of naval
supremacy remained restrained it ‘would not inflame Anglo-German
relations’.28 Most Conservatives viewed the growth of the German
navy as a logical consequence of the emergence of Germany as a
major European industrial power. Alfred Bigland, MP, claimed that
‘the navy built by Germany, which has exercised so much argument
and so much thought in this country, is not intended as a menace to
this country but was created to ensure that when major international
questions arise the voice of Germany will be heard’.29 Gilbert Parker,
MP, claimed that no Conservative had any quarrel with the ambition
of Germany to become a great naval power.30 Lee constantly insisted
that the Conservative Party had ‘no grievance against Germany’ over
its decision to build a large navy, because the German Government
had ‘made no secret of their intentions and had acted strictly within
their own rights’.31 Only a very small minority of Conservatives dis-
cussed German intentions in a manner that could be viewed as
‘scaremongering’. Sir Robert Cecil, the Conservative MP argued that
in any balanced discussion of the naval race, the ‘foundations of
German policy’ had to be discussed. According to Cecil, at the heart
of Anglo-German naval rivalry was the fact that the Germans wanted
a large fleet, while the British required naval supremacy. As a result,
there was ‘very little hope of finding common ground’.32 The most
extreme version of this, rather mild viewpoint was that of Sir William
Peel who commented that any study of history ‘showed that Germany
always achieved its aims by cunning diplomacy and force’.33 Similarly,
Lord Brassey, a Conservative peer, insisted that any expansion of
German naval power was bound to come into conflict sooner or later
with the British desire to maintain naval supremacy. However, Cecil
and Brassey, who both expressed the gloomiest interpretations of
German aims in parliamentary debate, are difficult to be pigeonholed
as ‘scaremongers’. Cecil was opposed to British intervention in the
war against Germany in August 1914 and he later went on to found
the League of Nations Union during the inter-war period. Lord
Brassey was actually a member of the Executive Committee of the
76 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Anglo-German Friendship Committee and took part in many social

and cultural events with German businessmen and politicians.34
Overall, Conservative views on the Anglo-German naval race in
parliamentary debate showed a quite remarkable level of public
restraint and a very surprising lack of hostility towards Germany. This
is not to suggest most Conservatives did not have genuine private
concerns about the German naval threat, but to emphasise that
they decided not to air these at Westminster and did not inflame
Anglo-German relations. The lack of antagonistic comments by
Conservatives about the German Government even on the highly
charged issue of Anglo-German naval rivalry reveals how the party
leader’s advice to MPs and peers to avoid making openly hostile
statements about Germany at Westminster was adhered to by the
majority of the parliamentary party.
The second issue discussed by Conservatives concerned with
Anglo-German relations was commercial rivalry. It was the penetration
of British and imperial markets by German goods which had led to this
conflict. British concern about German ‘dumping’ of cheap imports
in the British market began towards the end of the nineteenth century.
In the early 1890s when German imports to Britain increased, a small
group of Conservative backbenchers led by Howard Vincent, MP for
the steel-making city of Sheffield, complained in parliament about
such trivial matters as the high tariff Germans levied on British goods,
Whitehall civil servants using German pencils, the admiralty buying
German lifeboats and the import of goods made in prison by German
convicts.35 Fear of the impact of German imports on the British econ-
omy had been given the most impetus in 1886 by publication of the
best-selling and deeply influential book Made in Germany by Ernest
Williams, who claimed, ‘Germany has entered a deliberate and
deadly rivalry with Britain, and is battering might and main for the
extinction of her supremacy’.36 However, Lord Salisbury, then Prime
Minister condemned the ‘Made in Germany’ scandal and he rejected
the argument of protectionist supporters in the Conservative Party
who argued that the rapid growth of German imports heralded the
‘downfall of British trade’.37 Indeed, most Conservatives dismissed
the ‘Made in Germany’ affair as a sort of ‘midsummer madness’,
which quickly faded. By November 1896, the Daily News claimed that
the British public had completely forgotten about the ‘German
scare’.38 In 1899, the National Review suggested that the American
 The Views of the Conservative Party 77

‘trade peril’ was an even more potent one.39 Hence, complaints about
the impact of various foreign imports on the British economy, even
from the protectionist wing of Conservative Party, were already
broadening beyond a singular concentration on Anglo-German
commercial rivalry before Joseph Chamberlain launched the Tariff
Reform League in 1903. Even so, those historians who have examined
the impact of tariff reform on the deterioration of Anglo-German
relations from 1903 to 1914 have viewed tariff reform as an ‘us and
them policy’ singularly obsessed with German commercial rivalry.40
It has also become equally commonplace to pigeonhole the average
Conservative supporter of tariff reform as ‘bitterly anti-German’,
without any serious examination of their public views.41 Of course, it
is hard to deny that after 1900 fear of German economic penetration
of British and imperial markets was a very important topic of
Conservative political debate. It is equally difficult to suggest the
economic threat from Germany did not feature prominently in Tariff
Reform League propaganda. ‘Herr Dumper’, portrayed as a plump and
bearded German shopkeeper, in horn rimmed spectacles, who sold
cheap German imports in his ‘Dump Shop’, was a rather unflattering,
if humorous, anti-German stereotype used very prominently in the
leaflets and posters of the Tariff Reform League. However, when
discussing the whole question of Anglo-German trade rivalry, a clear
distinction must be drawn between the propaganda of the Tariff
Reform League, outside of parliament, much of which could be
viewed as outspokenly anti-German, and how the Conservative Party
at Westminster dealt with the issue of Anglo-German trade rivalry. It
must also be appreciated that the drive to introduce tariff reform
became part of a broader right of centre movement which sought to
make Britain more ‘nationally efficient’ by introducing a range of
‘social-imperialist’ policies, most notably, protectionism and social
reform, and the introduction of conscription in order to meet the
challenge of Germany in Europe, but most importantly, to save the
British industry, the empire and the export trade.
A major feature of the Conservative language on tariff reform at
Westminster was to use the term not ‘German’ but ‘foreigner’ to
describe all countries with protectionist policies. It was, in fact, a very
rare occurrence for a Conservative MP or peer to blame foreign nations
which attempted to prevent British goods entering their own market.
Austen Chamberlain, one of the strongest advocates of tariff reform,
78 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

claimed that foreign countries did not use protectionism to inflame

international relations but in order to provide ‘their own people with
the greatest amount of employment’.42 Balfour insisted that passionate
support for tariff reform should not be accompanied by antagonism
towards any foreign country. It was not the external challenge posed
by foreign trade competitors on which the Conservative case in
favour of tariff reform revolved, but on what Balfour claimed were
‘wild free traders in Britain who refuse to put on the armour at their
disposal’.43
In evaluating the reaction of the Conservative Party rank and file to
Anglo-German trade rivalry, therefore, the first point which needs to
be emphasised is that it was surprisingly restrained. It must also be
emphasised that Liberals, in their passionate defence of free trade,
expressed the most deliberately hostile and antagonist comments
about Germany. In comparison, most Conservative MPs regarded
themselves as ‘positive towards Germany’, and they claimed that it
was ‘Liberal lies about Germany’ that contributed most to the growth
of Anglo-German tension. Arthur Du Cros commented that while the
great majority of Conservatives viewed German progress in a positive
light, most Liberals portrayed the Germans as a beleaguered people,
living under a militaristic regime, in very poor economic conditions,
with a very poor standard of living.44 Edward Goulding, claimed
that one of the major features of the Liberal campaign during his
by-election at Worcester in 1908 was a poster campaign which
declared ‘A vote for Goulding is a vote for rye bread and horsemeat’.45
Many other Conservative MPs shared these views. William Peel said
that nothing soured Anglo-German relations more than ‘frequent
Liberal claims about the poor diet of the average German’.46 It was
the Conservatives who ended up defending the German way of life in
parliamentary debate. A fairly typical pro-German comment was that
of F.E. Smith who argued that ‘this horse nourished country [Germany]
had managed to preserve their national agriculture at a time when
ours has been perishing’.47
It is also worth pointing out that the Conservative crusade for the
introduction of tariff reform from 1905 onwards had broadened con-
siderably beyond a singular concentration concerning Anglo-German
trade rivalry. A detailed examination of all parliamentary questions
put by Conservative MPs and peers at Westminster at Question time
from 1905 to 1914 reveals no singular obsession with Anglo-German
 The Views of the Conservative Party 79

trade rivalry. On the contrary, Conservatives complained at Question

time to the Prime Minister and other leading Liberal Government
ministers about the following trading issues: imports of American
cars, tin-plate, steel, wheat and tram rails, French limes, wine and
cars, Japanese fraudulent use of British trade marks, imports of Dutch
cheese, increased Russian tea duties and imports of low-quality
Chinese tea. Conservatives called for curbs on the imports of hops,
malt, sugar and every other imaginable import from a bewildering
variety of countries around the world. As H.H. Marks, the Conservative
MP put it, ‘the Tariff question was one of world politics’.48 Many
Conservatives argued that Britain was being left behind in a world-
wide conversion towards protectionism. ‘I am convinced’, said Lord
Milner, ‘that in the next twenty years we shall have duties in this
country’.49 Lansdowne who claimed that ‘one country after another
is endeavouring to shut Britain out of its markets’ endorsed this view,
in a more moderate tone.50
Of course, there were many ardent supporters of tariff reform in the
Conservative Party who viewed the introduction of tariffs on foreign
imports as the best means to finance increased defence spending
in order to meet the German threat. George Wyndham believed that
the extra revenue required to build new Dreadnoughts could only
be provided by means of the increased revenue which would flow
from the introduction of tariffs.51 In a similar way, Lord Milner
argued that tariff reform was not an isolated question concerned with
the domestic economy and the unity of the Empire, but was an
‘essential part of a great national imperial defence policy’.52 For these
Conservatives, tariff reform was a vital means of maintaining British
markets, maintaining naval supremacy and limiting the economic
and naval ambitions of foreign rivals.
But any analysis of Conservative views on Anglo-German commer-
cial rivalry must also point to the far larger number of Conservatives
who held very insular views on trade questions and were primarily
concerned with how specific foreign imports affected the economic life
of their own constituencies. There were certainly some Conservative
MPs in constituencies hit by German imports, such as Howard Vincent
in Sheffield who frequently highlighted the German commercial
threat, but there were just as many Conservative complaints about
French, American, Russian and Canadian imports when they impacted
on the economic well being of their own constituents. Sir Arthur Fell
80 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

often complained about the damaging effect imports of hops were

having on the hop growers in his own constituency of Great
Yarmouth.53 This type of insular reaction to the impact of foreign
imports was repeated in numerous speeches by Conservative MPs in
constituencies dependent on a wide range of products and com-
modities, ranging from iron, steel and cotton to slate, wool and silk.
Many of these attacks on the impact of foreign imports bore little
relationship with Britain’s diplomatic stance. Sir George Courthorpe,
a very strong supporter of the Anglo-French Entente, frequently
complained about the damaging impact the import of French cars
was having in his own constituency of Rye in Sussex.54 Similarly,
Captain Craig, who also supported the Anglo-French Entente, claimed
that the introduction of a tariff on French wine would greatly help
wine producers in his constituency.55 It must also be understood that
there was a highly vocal group of Conservative MPs who frequently
expressed fear about the ‘American danger’ to the British economy.
As one Conservative MP commented, ‘in 1905, 3,872,881 lb. of
tinned American meat was imported and could only be curtailed by
the introduction of a tariff’.56
It is also important to emphasise that most Conservatives at
Westminster concentrated their arguments in support of tariff reform
on the intransigence of ‘free traders’ in the Liberal Party who refused
to introduce protectionism and portrayed Germany as an economic
and social role model. It may be surprising to learn that it was, in
fact, Conservatives who most strongly objected to frequent Liberal
attacks on the German way of life. In fact, parliamentary debate on
Anglo-German trade rivalry must be viewed as an integral part of the
domestic electoral struggle with the Liberal Party over the future
course of British economic policy rather than as a key ingredient in
the growth of Anglo-German antagonism.
The third issue discussed in parliamentary debate by Conservatives
concerned about the German threat was the role the British army
would play in a future European war. Exactly how Britain might fight
a future European war divided opinion within the Conservative Party.
‘Navalists’ tended to remain committed to the view that British sur-
vival depended on sea power, but ‘Continentalists’ argued that only a
massive military commitment in Europe would ensure victory in any
future war. Before the First World War, the British army was very small
by continental standards, and it was recruited on a voluntary basis.
 The Views of the Conservative Party 81

It was expected by British military and naval planners within the

defence establishment that Britain’s role in any future European War
would be extremely limited, primarily concerned with maintaining
control of the seas and mounting a successful trade blockade. The
British contribution on land, in the event of a European war involving
Britain on the side of France against Germany, would only consist of
the six infantry and one cavalry battalion of the British Expeditionary
Force (BEF). Most Conservatives doubted whether such a limited
military contribution could prevent a German invasion and provide
adequate support to the French Army. As fear of the German threat
intensified after 1905, many Conservatives believed the introduction
of conscription was the only way to really prevent the German
mastery of Europe. In December 1910, for example, 177 Conservative
MPs expressed ‘sympathy’ towards military service, and a total of
88 Conservative MPs were card-carrying members of the National
Service League. The rapid growth of Conservative support for con-
scription was an extra parliamentary expression of the widespread
private anxiety about the German military threat.
At Westminster, it was a very different story. Most Conservative MPs
accepted the view of the party leader that conscription was a deeply
unpopular policy which could not be advocated by one party alone.57
Balfour, who remained a committed ‘Navalist’ refused to include in
any future Conservative Cabinet anyone in the parliamentary party
who refused to accept his line on the army question. Balfour told Grey
that ‘submarines and airships were far better protection against inva-
sion than conscription’,58 and he advised Bonar Law after he became
Conservative leader that the ‘experts Conservatives should follow
are sailors not soldiers’.59 A large number of informed Conservative
military experts at Westminster also raised objections to conscription.
In Earl Percy’s view, Lord Roberts’ scheme of limited military training
specifically for ‘Home Service’ was misleading because owing to the
probable high casualty rates in any prolonged European war most
conscripts would be expected to serve overseas anyway.60 The Duke of
Bedford claimed that the introduction of conscription would simply
divert expenditure from the navy and the financing of the BEF.61
These divisions within the Conservative Party over conscription
help to explain why the leading opposition spokesmen on army
questions concentrated in parliamentary debate on the less con-
troversial issue of the existing strength of the Territorial Army (TA).
82 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Lord Midleton claimed the voluntarily recruited TA could not be

expected to keep at bay ‘a well armed German invasion force’.62 In
fact, few Conservatives believed the TA which had been created by
Haldane’s army reforms in 1907 as an auxiliary force of part-time
soldiers was adequate enough to meet the German threat.63 As Amery
put it, ‘the TA was a lamentable corps with which to cope with a
German offensive’.64 Yet it was very difficult for Conservatives to admit
openly, given party policy, that the only way to meet the deficiencies
in the strength of TA was to introduce conscription. In Lord Milner’s
view, the chief reason why Conservative ‘sympathy’ for conscription
from 1905 to 1914 was never translated into action was due to the
hardened prejudice of British people against the idea. ‘These were
facts’, said Milner, ‘which no political party could ignore’.65
As a result, the strongest arguments put forward in support of con-
scription at Westminster came from Roberts and Milner.66 Lord Roberts,
dubbed in the press as ‘the most popular soldier of his day’ and whose
war record included stints in India and South Africa frequently
claimed not to be attached to any political party, and he presented
his views in the House of Lords as an ‘independent Peer’. The alleged
‘independence’ of Roberts at Westminster enabled the Conservative
leadership to endorse some of his milder claims on the strength of
the British army and to distance itself from his more controversial
views on conscription. Roberts was often a useful kite flyer, but more
often he was treated as a loose canon by the party leadership. Even so,
the views of Roberts are important because he spoke far more openly
about the German military threat than any Conservative MP or Peer
ever dared to. Roberts claimed that Germany was not only Britain’s
fiercest competitor in trade and shipping, but also the one power
whose desire for a place in the sun conflicted with the British desire
to preserve the status quo. He questioned whether the diplomatic
agreements with France and Russia, with their vague commitments,
combined with a singular reliance on naval power could prevent a
German invasion of the British Isles in the event of a future war.67 The
only feasible solution to Britain’s severe military deficiencies, accord-
ing to Lord Roberts, was for all able-bodied men between the ages of
eighteen to thirty to undergo four months tough military training in
order to create ‘a virile national army’.68
In private, Roberts expressed even more outspoken fears about
the German threat. He frequently congratulated L.J. Maxse, the
 The Views of the Conservative Party 83

‘scaremongering’ editor of the National Review for ‘going on about

the German peril and the absence of our defence against it’.69 But
even Roberts, supposedly free of any political restraint from the
Conservative leadership, claimed his frequent utterances about the
growth of German military strength implied ‘no hostility and no fear
of the Kaiserreich’. He also praised the German Government for greatly
improving the quality of its armed forces in most of his speeches on
army questions,70 and he also attempted to reassure the German
Government that the military position of foreign countries had to be
taken account of when considering ‘what ought to be our own arrange-
ments’ towards national defence.71 In spite of this, the ‘straight talking’
of Roberts on the German military threat in the House of Lords often
alarmed the Conservative leadership which was quick to distance itself
from his views. Balfour even asked King Edward VII if he would plead
with Roberts to stop making inflammatory references to Germany dur-
ing his key speeches on army questions in the House of Lords.72 Balfour
also instructed Lansdowne to speak in firm opposition to the many
various private member National Service Bills that Lord Roberts
attempted to introduce in the House of Lords.73
Another open Conservative supporter of conscription at Westminster
was Lord Milner, who frequently castigated the timidity and restraint
of the Conservative front bench when speaking on Anglo-German
relations. Milner summed up the dilemma facing any Conservative
who spoke openly on the German military threat at Westminster in
the following way: ‘If anyone attempts to raise the question of the
efficiency of our land forces at a time when the international horizon
is clear, he is pooh-poohed as an alarmist. If anyone raised the subject
when the horizon is clear he is branded a mischief-maker’ . However,
Milner, who did support conscription quite openly, also admitted
that the German military system was enforced in a manner ‘which
will never be tolerated, and I am glad would never be tolerated in this
country’.74 In 1914, the Earl of Errol complained bitterly that the
muddled nature of the Conservative position towards the conscription
issue had contributed to public apathy on the true extent of the
German threat. As a result, Errol claimed that the British public was
‘psychologically unprepared for war’.75 In a similar manner, Earl Percy
remarked that while the German people had been directed by their
political leaders towards the idea of a future war with Britain, the
British people had been encouraged by the two major political
84 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

leaders to view a war between Britain and Germany as a remote

possibility.76
Overall, a surprisingly high level of caution was maintained
whenever Anglo-German relations were discussed in parliamentary
debate. Few provocative statements, or moral judgement towards
Germany more generally marked the Conservative response to
Anglo-German naval rivalry, in spite of the brief panic exhibited in
1909. The debate on tariff reform, included discussions of the German
economy and standard of living, but it was more part of the domestic
political struggle with the Liberals rather being linked to a vaguely
defined ‘Anglo-German antagonism’. The most radical proposal to
deal with the German threat was conscription, but this was viewed as
a deeply unpopular electoral policy which could only be implemented
within a bi-partisan framework.
It appears the routine depiction of the Conservative Party as a
group of anti-German ‘scaremongers’ who stoked up the fires of
Anglo-German antagonism during the Edwardian era is really quite
misleading. The charge of ‘scaremongering’ is particularly misplaced
when applied to the approach Conservatives adopted towards Anglo-
German relations in the Westminster sphere of political activity. As
explained earlier, the public attitude of the Conservative Party
towards Germany at Westminster, whether in connection with the
naval arms race, trade rivalry and conscription, showed a high level
of restraint and a marked absence of openly expressed hostility.
5
The Role of the German Threat
in the Propaganda and
Electioneering Tactics of the
Conservative Party at the Two
General Elections of 1910

For most of the period following the electoral Reform Act of 1884,
the Conservative Party made opposition to Home Rule for Ireland
and support for the Empire the two main planks of its appeal to
voters. This proved a potent attraction at the 1900 ‘Khaki Election’,
which was fought at the very height of the Boer War, at a time when
the Liberal Party was in turmoil. At the 1906 General Election, the
mood of the electorate had changed dramatically. Jingoism lost the
advantages it had enjoyed six years earlier. After Lord Salisbury’s res-
ignation in 1902, the party endured three years of bitter internal divi-
sion over tariff reform and entered the election in a state of alarming
disarray. During the election campaign, the Liberal Party offered
voters a choice between a forward-looking modern party, espousing a
‘New Liberalism’ which was determined to uphold free trade and to
implement social reform against a divided Conservative Party fighting
to introduce protectionism.
In the aftermath of the cataclysmic 1906 election defeat, the
Conservative Party, the traditional upholders of the status quo, seemed
out of touch and searched for a ‘positive’ electoral appeal in order to
provide an attractive alternative to the radicalism of ‘New Liberalism’.
Another background fear was the ‘progressive’ long-term appeal of

85
86 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

socialism represented in infant form by the Labour Party. Most

Conservatives recognised that jingoism, which appealed to nationalist
feelings for the Empire appeared to have a limited electoral appeal to
the average working class voter who seemingly demanded ‘progressive’
and ‘constructive’ policies to deal with social problems such as unem-
ployment, low wages and poor housing.1 As Sir Joseph Lawrence, a
leading tariff reformer commented, ‘It is no use to feed the empty
stomachs of men with appeals to patriotism’.2 With the benefit of
hindsight, it seems political suicide for any British political party
to have believed that protectionism would prove a vote winner at
elections. In fact, jingoism has proved a more potent vote winner. Yet
the Conservative Party fought two further elections in 1910 firmly
committed to implementing tariff reform. Even though tariff reform
proved a copper-bottomed vote loser, it did help to ‘liberate the party
from its previously negative attitude to policy making’.3 It combined
a patriotic appeal to unite the Empire, with promises to instigate
social legislation and improved living standards from the custom
duties levied on foreign imports.
But the electoral difficulties facing the Conservative Party after
1906 were not confined to the field of policy alone. There were sev-
eral problems with the electoral machinery of the Conservative Party,
which was poorly organised outside Westminster and lacked effective
coordination. One of the major problems was the absence of clearly
defined roles in the control of electoral strategy between Conservative
Central Office, controlled by Sir Alexander Acland Hood and J. Percival
Hughes, the Chief party agent from 1907 to 1912 and the more pro-
fessionally organised National Union, controlled by John Boraston,
the chief organising secretary of the Liberal Unionist Party. In essence,
the Conservative Party had two separate and conflicting organisations
involved in defining electoral strategy and party propaganda. Not
surprisingly, this produced wasteful overlapping and competition
between the ‘Conservative’ and ‘Liberal Unionist’ organisations at
both the national and local level. The Times claimed that the relation-
ship between Conservative Central Office, dominated by Balfourites,
and the National Union, controlled by ardent Chamberlainite tariff
reformers resembled, ‘two motor cars driven side by side along a
narrow road with the attendant risk of collision’.4
Even the electoral disaster of 1906 did not lead to a merger of
these overlapping organisations. What emerged was a very uneasy
 The Role of the German Threat 87

compromise between the two groups. The National Union gained

overall control over party propaganda, party publications and the
selection of speakers during election campaigns, and control over the
majority of local constituency organisations. Conservative Central
Office paid a yearly grant of £8,500 to the National Union to operate
as the ‘servant of the party in parliament’ for the publication and
dissemination of party propaganda. In practice, the National Union
between 1906 and 1909 made no attempt to coordinate electoral
strategy or propaganda with Central Office.
These organisational deficiencies in the projection of Conservative
propaganda were not compensated for by good relations with the
press. The Conservative Party had the editorial support of a majority
of national newspapers, most notably, The Times, Daily Telegraph, the
Morning Post (now defunct), the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the
Daily Graphic (now defunct) and the major London daily newspaper,
the Standard. A great many local newspapers also gave support to the
Conservative Party. But, the electoral advantage of press support was
greatly diminished by poor liaison between Central Office and the
press. There was no blatant orchestration of the press undertaken by
Central Office. On the contrary, relations between Central Office and
the press were very loosely structured. Up until the end of 1911, when
press relations were brought under the direct control of Sir Malcolm
Fraser, Central Office manipulation of the Tory press consisted of an
‘Editors Handy Sheet’, which featured rather dull extracts from the
speeches of leading Conservatives, which were circulated to the edi-
tors of pro-Tory national newspapers. The amount of coverage gained
for the party by this method was extremely limited, even in those
newspapers favourable to the Conservative cause. What Central
Office failed to fully appreciate was that most editors had already
received the contents of the public speeches by leading Conservatives
from the Press Association, and they were unwilling to use party
political material which duplicated this material or was supplied to
every other rival newspaper.5
In general, most newspapers covered Anglo-German relations without
any reference to the restrained views of the Conservative Party leader at
Westminster. As a result, the Conservative press portrayed German aims
in a constantly hostile manner, frequently highlighting naval and trade
rivalry between the two countries, and the ‘scaremongering’ British
press was viewed by the German regime at various times, most notably,
88 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

during the 1909 naval controversy and the 1911 Agadir crisis as
promoting Anglo-German antagonism. The Times described Germany
as ‘a new, crude, ambitious, radically unsound power’.6 During the
January 1910 General Election campaign, Lord Northcliffe, the pro-
prietor of the Daily Mail, told the editor, a key aim of editorial line of
the newspaper during the election campaign was ‘to bring home to
Englishmen the extent and nature of the German menace’.7
It seems that most right-wing newspaper proprietors such as Lord
Northcliffe and many right-wing editors such as Kennedy-Smith at
the Daily Mail, H.A. Gwynne at the Standard, and Ralph Blumenfield
at the Daily Express believed the ‘scaremongering’ line they adopted
towards Germany reflected the rank and file opinions of ordinary
Conservative voters. Gwynne told Beresford most of the letters he
received from the public showed enormous apprehension about the
growth of the German navy.8 Maxse, the editor of the National
Review, believed that the Conservative Party at Westminster was so
‘silent and useless’ on the German threat that press agitation was a
useful method of keeping the issue at the forefront of public debate.
In a very real sense, blatant and public ‘scaremongering’ about Anglo-
German relations was the independent preserve of pro-Conservative
right-wing newspapers that put forward these views without the
agreement of the Party leader and Conservative Central Office.
By the end of 1909, the absence of a coordinated Conservative
propaganda message at elections was acknowledged by Central Office.
This realisation led to J.L. Garvin, the editor of the Observer, being
appointed as the chief party adviser on propaganda for the General
Election of January 1910. One of the first things Garvin told Balfour
was that most current Conservative propaganda was ‘too abstract,
academic and verbose’ and required simplification in style and con-
tent in order to appeal to the average voter.9 Garvin believed the
Conservatives could not win the General Election ‘on Tariff Reform
alone’ and needed to highlight other issues.10 He urged Balfour to
make the naval threat from Germany ‘a new and dominating issue’
during the campaign. In putting forward this view, Garvin was greatly
influenced by the outcome of the Croydon by-election in March 1909.
It had been fought at the height of the Anglo-German naval scare and
had resulted in the Conservative share of the vote increasing from 3 to
19 per cent. Many Conservatives interpreted the Croydon result as
evidence of the vote-winning potential of the German naval threat.11
 The Role of the German Threat 89

Even so, Balfour was not prepared to make the Anglo-German naval
race the key issue during the election campaign. Scaremongering was
not going to replace jingoism. In fact, Balfour believed the naval issue
might persuade many wavering lower middle-class voters in the
south-east of England who had switched allegiance to the Liberals at
the 1906 General Election to return to the Conservative fold, but he
doubted whether it could gain votes for the Conservatives in solid
working class industrial regions in the north, Scotland and Wales. Nor
did Balfour agree with Garvin’s view that the naval issue would
‘breathe new life into the Party’ and act as an ‘electoral cannonball’
which could bring the Conservatives an outright victory at the General
Election.12 In the end, Garvin reluctantly accepted Balfour’s view that
the Conservative campaign should not be fought as an uncompromis-
ing exercise in Germanophobia.13 It was agreed by Balfour, Garvin and
Central Office that the naval issue would rank in third place in the
Conservative campaign for the January 1910 General Election behind
the struggle against the Lloyd George’s ‘People’s Budget’ and support
for tariff reform. Percival Hughes, the Chief Party Agent, implored all
Conservative parliamentary candidates to mention the danger posed
to the nation by Liberal naval cuts, but he also urged them to stress
‘People’s Budget’ and to ‘make tariff reform the key issue over every-
thing else in the campaign’, and emphasise that food taxes were not
exclusively a patriotic policy directed against ‘the foreigner’ but a key
‘solution to unemployment’.14
The General election campaign, which began in early December
1909 and did not conclude until the end of January 1910, was the
longest in the twentieth century. An examination of the Election
addresses of Conservative candidates shows that 100 per cent of
Tory candidates mentioned tariff reform, 96 per cent national
defence, 94 per cent the House of Lords veto powers, and 84 per cent
Lloyd George’s Budget.15 These figures show that national defence
and tariff reform did feature very prominently in the Conservative
campaign. Most Tory candidates did stress ‘tariff reform and national
defence’, but the dominant issue of all was ‘The Peers versus the
People’. After all, the Election had been called because the House of
Lords had rejected Lloyd George’s Budget.
Garvin was acutely aware that Tory propaganda during the campaign
had to counteract the frequent Liberal charge that the Conservative
Party was composed of a group of anti-German ‘scaremongers’. To this
90 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

end, a Conservative election leaflet was produced entitled ‘Are the

Unionists Scaremongers?’. It emphasised the restraint which Balfour
had displayed on the German threat at Westminster and highlighted
the consistent support given by Conservatives at Westminster to the
principles of bi-partisanship on foreign affairs.16 Yet the restrained
approach towards the German threat which Balfour and Central
Office urged candidates to adopt was often contradicted and severely
undermined by much of the election propaganda produced by the
National Union. In spite of the appointment of Garvin, there appears
to have been very little effective coordination between the Central
Office and the National Union over the presentation of Anglo-German
relations to the electorate during the two General Elections of 1910.
This view is reinforced when the campaign material used by
Conservative candidates and party workers during the General
Election campaigns of 1910 is placed under closer scrutiny. Each local
Conservative agent, candidate and canvasser was supplied by the
National Union with a collection of essential campaign aids, which
offered advice on campaign tactics and party policy on most of the
key election issues. ‘How to Canvass’ was a ‘confidential’ small hand-
book, of handy canvassing tips, given to all party workers. It advised
canvassers to always visit homes in their constituency in pairs, ensuring
they carried with them all of the following: canvass cards, at least
four election leaflets, a pencil, a box of matches and a Lantern for use
in ‘badly lighted districts’. Canvassers were also advised to enlist the
support of a wife, if the husband was absent at the time of their visit on
the grounds ‘they are sometimes useful allies’. They were also advised
not to waste time ‘with a decided opponent’. The election issues which
party workers were advised to highlight at the January 1910 General
Election were carefully selected and placed in the following rank order:
the ‘unjust’ nature of Lloyd George’s Budget, the benefits of tariff
reform, to promise voters that old age pensions would be retained and
to mention the navy would be maintained ‘upon such an adequate
scale as will secure food supply being cut off from any hostile nation’.
There was no mention made at all in ‘How to canvass’ on foreign
policy or the conscription issue.17 Two other widely used campaign
aids were ‘Notes for Speakers’ and ‘Gleanings and Memoranda’, which
both provided a detailed collection of extracts from the speeches of
leading Conservatives on most of the key election issues.
 The Role of the German Threat 91

The most comprehensive campaign aid produced by the National

Union, however, was the ‘Campaign Guide’, which offered policy
advice on every major and minor election issue. The language
expressed in the ‘Campaign Guide’ on Germany is blatantly xeno-
phobic and extremely hostile. In a very strident tone, the ‘Campaign
Guide’ warned, ‘Ever since the birth of Prussia the key stone of its
international policy has been the sudden, but carefully prepared war
of aggression’. On the naval race, the ‘Campaign Guide’ argued that
naval supremacy had to be maintained because ‘no other nation
depends for its national existence upon a single defence weapon’. The
attitude expressed in the ‘Campaign Guide’ towards Anglo-German
trade rivalry is equally uncompromising, stressing that if tariffs
are introduced, Germany would no longer be able to ‘bully in the
economic sphere’. This strong commitment by Conservatives to meet
the German threat is contrasted with the Liberal desire to ‘subordi-
nate national defence to schemes of social reform’, during a period
when Germany was building ‘the most powerful fleet ever possessed
by any country, except Britain’. Yet no mention is made in the
Campaign Guide about the need for conscription to meet the
German threat.18 On foreign policy, the Campaign Guide emphasised
that foreign policy under Sir Edward Grey represented continuity with
the policy of Lord Lansdowne and highlighted how diligently the
Opposition at Westminster under Balfour had consistently refrained
‘from offering criticism of foreign affairs’. The main pivot of Grey’s
foreign policy, the Anglo-French Entente is presented, not as a loose
colonial arrangement, but as a firm deterrent against possible German
aggression. What is more, German foreign policy actions are portrayed
in the Campaign Guide as leading in the direction of a European war.
Germany is denounced for acting like ‘a dictator of Europe’ in its
dealings with Russia during the 1908 Bosnian crisis and is also
charged with making persistent efforts to ‘browbeat France into
abandoning her alliance with Britain’.19 Hence, while Balfour and
Central Office were advising Conservatives to downplay Anglo-German
antagonism during the campaign, most of the policy advice which
candidates and canvassers received from the National Union pre-
sented Germany’s actions in extremely hostile terms and put forward
antagonistic views at odds with the moderate line put forward by the
party leader and Conservative front bench at Westminster.
92 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Despite Balfour’s desire to downplay the German threat, the role of

Germany featured very prominently in many of the pamphlets,
posters and newspaper advertisements produced by the Conservative
Party for the General Election of January 1910. The Conservative
leaflet and poster campaign was a vast operation. The National Union
distributed 50 million pamphlets and leaflets during the campaign in
January 1910. Thousands of posters were displayed on giant billboards
in most constituencies and advertising space was bought in most
national and local newspapers. Most potential voters received pam-
phlets and leaflets on the issues of the navy and tariff reform. Very
few Conservative leaflets were produced on foreign policy, and there
was only one produced on the role of the army, and it did not even
mention the dread word ‘conscription’.
The rapid growth of the German fleet and the need to counteract
it through increased naval spending featured very prominently in
the Conservative poster and leaflet campaign. Under the jingoistic
banner headline ‘Britons Beware!’, voters were warned in a widely used
Conservative poster during the two General Election campaigns in
1910 that Britain faced a ‘death fight for national existence’ with
Germany for naval supremacy.20 But a more prominent message in
most Conservative posters and pamphlets on the naval issue were
strong attacks on the so-called unpatriotic radicals in the Liberal
Party who had consistently supported cuts in naval expenditure.
A typical Tory campaign leaflet asked, ‘Can we trust the radical
government to guarantee naval supremacy?’21 In another widely used
poster entitled ‘Under Which Flag’, the voters were given a stark
choice: ‘Are we to stand under the Union Jack, like our fathers before
us, for the power and glory and welfare of Great Britain and her
empire … or … Are we to hoist the Red Flag of Socialism, civil war,
and national ruin at the bidding of Mr. Lloyd George?’22
This negative line of attack, which charged the Liberals with being
‘friends of every country except their own’ had been a familiar aspect
of Conservative electoral propaganda ever since the days of Disraeli.23
To this extremely familiar aspect of negative Conservative election-
eering was added the view that Lloyd George and his ‘radical friends’
were allowing their passionate desire to introduce social reform to
override, ‘the additional needs of the navy’.24 As one Conservative
election leaflet put it, ‘The sea-power of Britain is being sacrificed to
socialism’.25 In most of the Conservative campaign literature on the
 The Role of the German Threat 93

navy, it was suggested that the Liberal Government had ‘made it

possible for Germany to threaten Britain’s naval supremacy with-
out the help of any ally’.26 The charge of a ‘lack of patriotism’ by
Liberals was also extended to encompass supporters of the Liberal
Government, especially within the Labour and Irish Nationalist
parties. One widely circulated Conservative election leaflet quoted
the view of Major McBride, an Irish Nationalist MP, who claimed that
even if the Germans mounted a naval invasion of Ireland ‘They
would be welcomed with willing hearts and open minds.’ The leaflet
ended by asking potential Conservative voters ‘Can you trust a party
who look for parliamentary support from such allies?’.27 To demon-
strate to potential working class voters that support for a strong navy
was not simply a return to the familiar pre-1906 jingoistic electoral
tactics of the party, many Conservative pamphlets on the navy
attempted to suggest that command of the seas ‘is the only security
working men have for the wages they earn and the bread they eat’.28 By
focusing propaganda on the navy towards attacks on the alleged lack
of patriotism among their political opponents, the Conservative poster
and pamphlet campaign was able to deny that its presentation of the
naval issue was specifically anti-German.
But the issue of tariff reform took a far more prominent role than
Anglo-German naval rivalry in Conservative election propaganda
for the two elections of 1910. Voters were overburdened by the
multitude of campaign literature delivered to their homes by the
two major political parties. The Tariff Reform League produced over
80 million pamphlets to support the Conservative campaign, and the
National Union cooperated with the Tariff Reform League through-
out the campaign in order to coordinate their propaganda efforts.29
Conservative canvassers were advised by Central Office not to present
Germany as an economic threat but to emphasise that ‘protectionist’
Germany was a positive economic role model that was developing far
more rapidly than ‘free trade’ Britain.30 Many Conservative pam-
phlets and leaflets on tariff reform, which were often modified to fit
the specific economic needs of particular constituencies, put forward
a generally favourable picture of the standard of life in Germany.
One widely used Conservative campaign leaflet entitled ‘Ourselves
versus Germany’ claimed that ‘protectionist Germany was making
greater progress than Britain, with its people enjoying higher levels of
exports, and lower levels of unemployment.’31 In response, Liberal
94 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

campaign literature depicted the average German as living in a paltry

condition, eating a diet which consisted primarily of black rye bread
and horseflesh. Conservative propaganda described these Liberal
attacks on the German way of life as ‘a great deception and an abuse
of language’.32 To refute the constant rude Liberal attacks on the eating
habits of the average German, Conservative propaganda emphasised
that German rye bread was far more savoury than dull British white
bread and was put on the menu at most top class German hotels. On
the question of Germans eating horseflesh, Conservative leaflets
explained that horsemeat was eaten in Germany ‘because Germans
like it, … like Scotsmen like Porridge’.33 Each of the two major political
parties used life in Germany for purely electoral purposes at the two
general elections of 1910, with selected facts and figures used to con-
firm or deny a particular point of view whatever their true validity.
The major reason why arguments about life in Germany formed such
a key part of the Conservative campaign was primarily due to the
need of the Conservative campaign to demolish the strong and
persuasive Liberal claim that tariff reform meant increased bread
prices and a lowering of living standards. This helps to explain why
Garvin advised Percival Hughes, the Conservative Chief Agent, to
ensure that Conservative propaganda stressed that tariff reform meant
‘a British loaf – a big loaf.’34 Garvin was also keen for Conservative
propaganda to emphasise that the Liberals had introduced measures of
social reform, such as old age pensions and social insurance based on
German models, but had chosen to finance these reforms not with
tariffs, as occurred in Germany, but by the use of increased indirect
and direct taxation.
The question of how to present the issue of social reform produced
divisions in the electoral strategy of the Conservative Party at the two
1910 elections. A simple negative and reactionary attack on free trade
was regarded by many Conservative candidates, especially committed
Chamberlainites, as inadequate. One of the chief consequences of
the 1906 election defeat had been a severe loss of working class
support. The Liberal victory had also shown that social reform was a
popular policy. The growth of a solid body of Labour MPs revealed
that the working class had recognised their potential power. Tariff
Reform was viewed as a potentially popular policy among the working
classes as it promised to ‘tax the foreigner’ in order to finance social
reform. The most committed tariff reformers within the party wanted
 The Role of the German Threat 95

to emphasise that tariff reform offered an alternative means of uniting

the Empire, ensuring Britain remained a great power, and to provide
the revenue to finance social reform for the working classes. The
more moderate ‘Balfourites’ were more non-committal about social
reform and tended to project tariff reform as a policy which offered
the safeguarding of British industry and greater job security for
British workers, without making any specific commitment to imple-
menting any wide-ranging programme of social reform. It is worth
noting that only 40 percent of the Conservative candidates men-
tioned social reform in their election addresses for the January 1910
election.35 Oddly enough, many of the most vociferous advocates of
the idea that tariff reform meant social reform were ‘die hard’ peers in
rural constituencies.36
By and large, most Conservative pamphlets and leaflets placed
greater emphasis on the Balfourite view that tariff reform would bring
greater security of employment in industry and agriculture by taxing
foreign goods.37 A total of 90 per cent of Conservative candidates
presented tariff reform as a policy which would increase employment
and wages.38 To support this view, Conservative propaganda empha-
sised that ‘foreign’ competition was destroying local industry and
agriculture. In the hop-producing region of Kent, a Conservative
poster entitled ‘No Hops’ was displayed on billboards in local villages.
It depicts a gloomy poor hop worker telling a farmer ‘It’s the work-
house for the wife and kids, while foreign hops are dumped here.
What we want is tariff reform’.39 A complementary leaflet argued that
‘Free imports of foreign hops means more employment for the for-
eigner, and less employment for the British hopgrower, labourer and
picker’.40 Many similar posters and leaflets were targeted at a wide
section of areas affected by foreign imports. In industrial regions,
tariff reform was also presented as a policy which would protect local
jobs. A fairly typical Conservative leaflet entitled ‘A Word to the
Working Man’ claimed that tariff reform would protect British jobs
by using ‘an effective weapon against nations that have built up a
tariff war against British goods’. It was also emphasised that taxing
imports would enable a Conservative Government to remove taxes
on tobacco, tea and a range of other goods imported from within the
Empire.41
But a very important aspect of the Conservative propaganda was to
engage in negative attacks on the ‘foreigner’ who ‘dumped’ goods on
96 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

the British market at artificially low prices.42 To end this practice, a

widely used Conservative leaflet proclaimed ‘Foreigners tax us. Let us
tax them’,43 while another claimed ‘Every vote for Free Trade means
more work in Germany and more want in Britain’.44 The Tariff Reform
League added considerable weight to this negative propaganda tactic
by creating mock ‘dump shops’ in many constituencies, which
displayed the foreign goods that had allegedly destroyed British jobs.
Any visitor to these shops could see the so-called foreigner mentioned
in Conservative propaganda was, in fact, ‘Herr Dumper’, the stereo-
typical German shopkeeper, and most of the goods displayed in these
shops were made in Germany. It is probably worth adding that many
of these ‘dump shops’, created by the Tariff Reform League, were
extensively vandalised in working class industrial areas.45
A further negative aspect of Conservative propaganda on tariff
reform was to blame ‘dumping’, not only on the sharp business prac-
tices of ‘Herr Dumper’, but on the ‘cosmopolitan interests’ in Britain
who supported free trade. Leopold Amery, a leading tariff reformer,
admitted that his own chief hatred was reserved for the free traders in
Britain whom he opposed ‘with all the intensity which any Calvinist
ever hated the church of Rome’.46 These sentiments tend to reveal
that the external threat of ‘the foreigner’ was often a convenient
bogey used by many right-wing Conservatives to mask a deep and
underlying fear of the immediate domestic threat from progressive
forms of Liberalism and socialism. Indeed, there was an extreme strand
of Conservative election propaganda, usually emanating from many
pro-Conservative pressure groups, which combined xenophobia against
‘foreigners’ with attacks on ‘socialists’, ‘aliens’, ‘cosmopolitans’ and
‘international financiers’ in Britain who, it was alleged, were ‘engaged
in a conspiracy against the British Empire.’47 There was a definite
anti-Semitic tinge to some of this propaganda. Some Tory candidates
in speeches expressed opposition to Jewish immigration, especially,
in east London constituencies during the election campaign.48
However, it was not the Conservative propaganda campaign but
the ‘scaremongering’ sections of the Tory popular press which often
profoundly altered the course of the debate over key issues during
the General Election campaign.49 The most heated discussion of the
German threat during the campaign for the January 1910 election was
triggered off by a series of articles on the German menace by Robert
Blatchford which appeared in the Daily Mail during December 1909.
 The Role of the German Threat 97

Blatchford, who was a socialist, used bitter anti-German language

and concluded that Germany was ‘deliberately planning to destroy
the British Empire’.50 A pamphlet of Blatchford’s articles on the
‘German Danger’ sold a staggering 1.6 million copies during the
course of the campaign and another 250,000 were given away free by
Conservative canvassers to potential voters. Blatchford’s critical and
negative views of German foreign policy aims were frequently dis-
cussed and endorsed in the speeches of a great many Conservative
candidates during the campaign, without, of course, the approval of
Balfour or the Central Office. Significantly, the Conservative campaign
gained any real impetus only when the German naval threat became
a key issue. Balfour’s most significant speech in the campaign at
Hanley on 4 January 1910 was on the naval issue. In the speech, the
Opposition leader claimed that a great many British people agreed
that ‘a struggle between this country and Germany was inevitable’,
and he argued that the Liberals ‘were squandering naval supremacy’.
In such circumstances, the Conservative Party, Balfour argued, had to
agitate for the maintenance of naval supremacy.51
The result of the general election of January 1910 was inconclusive.
The Conservative Party did make a net gain of 105 seats and won a
total of 273 seats, with a 46.9 per cent share of the popular vote. This
was two seats behind the Liberal Party’s total of 275 seats, gained on
a 43.5 per cent share of the total vote and a net loss of 105 seats. The
Conservative increase in seats was not matched in the share of the
popular vote which had only increased by 3.3 per cent on the disas-
trous result in 1906. The Conservatives had secured a hung parliament,
but the Liberal Party, which could rely on parliamentary support
from the 82 Irish Nationalists MPs, at the price of offering Home
Rule, and also from 40 Labour MPs, remained in power. The turnout
in the election was extremely high at 86.7 per cent, which reveals
how much passion the ‘Peers versus People’ issue had registered
among voters. The results of the January 1910 election exhibit sharp
regional differences in the swing to the Conservatives from the
Liberals. The resurgence of Conservative support was confined to
middle class and rural areas in the midlands and the south of England.
Conservative support hardly increased at all in the north, Scotland
and Wales. The average swing to the Conservatives in the north in the
January 1910 contest was a mere 3 per cent, and in some industrial
areas, it was less than 1 per cent. In contrast, the swing to the Tories
98 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

from the Liberals in the south of England was a very impressive

8 per cent. The only major urban area in which the Conservative vote
grew substantially was Birmingham, the home of the most radical
tariff reformers. Of the 58 seats in which the Conservative Party polled
over 60 per cent of the total vote, only one of them was outside the
south of England.52 Overall, the Conservative Party fared as well in
south of England as they had done in the 1900 ‘Khaki Election’. At the
same time, Liberal support held up remarkably well in its traditional
heartland in urban and industrial Britain.
The Tory recovery in rural areas in the south of England was due to
several factors. The appeal by the ‘die hard’ peers to defend the land
of the aristocracy against ‘New Liberalism’ appears to have struck a
chord with many rural Tory voters. As Lord Salisbury explained,
‘I very much believe that we prevailed amongst the agricultural con-
stituencies because the leaders of opinion in the upper & middle
classes … strove as they have never striven before to gain the support
of electors’.53 It seems tariff reform propaganda in rural areas which
stressed how foreign competition was destroying agriculture proved
equally attractive. Another explanation for Conservative success in the
south of England is the prominence of the naval issue in the cam-
paign there. The emphasis in Conservative propaganda on ‘unpatriotic
radicals’ endangering national security by supporting naval cuts
does seem to have benefited some Tory candidates in the south of
England. Some of the most spectacular swings to the Conservative
Party in the January 1910 contest, 19.8 per cent at Portsmouth
and 17.2 per cent at Chatham, were in naval dockyard towns. The
Conservative candidate at Chatham, who highlighted the Anglo-
German naval race throughout the campaign, achieved a swing of
7.2 per cent, while the Conservative candidate at Woolwich, who
campaigned on the issue of Liberal defence cuts at the Woolwich
Arsenal, also scored an impressive victory. It is probably worth adding
that 60 ‘radical’ Liberals, many of whom had supported naval cuts
between 1906 and 1909, lost their seats in the south of England to
Conservatives at the January 1910 General Election. A Times reporter
noted that most Liberal candidates avoided mentioning their support
for naval cuts during the campaign.54 It is clear the Conservative
campaign in the south was much better organised and coordinated
than in the north. The Conservative Party definitely won ‘the battle
of the pamphlets’ with the Liberals in the south, but it was winning
 The Role of the German Threat 99

back former voters, worried about the navy, rather than winning new
converts to the ‘positive’ appeal of tariff reform. Conservative Party
workers also ensured that plural votes were used by middle class
voters in more than one constituency in the south. Tory canvassers
also persuaded more ‘lodgers’ to register to vote in the south than in
the north. In general, it was only in very isolated dockyard con-
stituencies in the south where the naval issue proved the ‘electoral
cannonball’ that Garvin had suggested it might be. Throughout the
rest of the country, the naval arms race with Germany did not have a
very significant impact on the outcome of the election.
The most plausible explanation for the poor performance of the
Conservative Party in the urban and industrial areas of the north,
especially in the constituencies of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Scotland
in January 1910 was the unpopularity of tariff reform and the prefer-
ment of the working classes for free trade. As the Daily Telegraph
reported, ‘Many working men have hazily gathered that Tariff Reform
is the name of a plot between the Tories and the Peers, involving dear
bread, black bread or the likelihood of no bread for the people’.55 It is
also noticeable how much the Conservative campaign in the north
downplayed the naval issue, except in very isolated shipbuilding
areas. In the Newcastle seat – which included the Armstrong and
Vickers naval shipyard – the Tory candidate lost narrowly despite a
rabble-rousing campaign that constantly emphasised the ‘German
menace’.56
The interpretation of the election results of January 1910 within
the Conservative Party did not produce any clear consensus about
the outcome. Austen Chamberlain flatly refused to accept that tariff
reform had been a turn off for new voters, and he lost no time in
informing his colleagues: ‘Where we won, we won on and by tariff
reform’.57 A report on the Conservative campaign by party workers
for the National Union in Yorkshire cited a number of reasons
for the defeat, including, apathy among party workers, poor local
organisation and speakers from London who did not tailor their
speeches to the needs of local voters. On the issue of tariff reform, it
was stressed that ‘it was not sufficiently pressed’ in the campaign in
Yorkshire which became bogged down in the attempt of Tory candi-
dates to contradict the Liberal claims that ‘tariff reform meant dearer
food’.58 A report by the Liverpool Constituency Associations warned
Central Office: ‘We will lose another election through trying to force
100 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

that vague, indefinite fog they call Tariff Reform’.59 The Conservative
campaign in the north, which had persistently stressed that ‘protec-
tionist’ Germany enjoyed a higher standard of living than ‘free trade’
Britain did not prove attractive in either rural or industrial regions.
The second general election of 1910 took place in December. The
short duration between the two elections meant that the Conservative
pamphlets, posters and leaflets produced for the first election on the
issues of tariff reform and the navy were simply recycled and used
again. In the months between the two elections, there was also
no attempt to reorganise the functions of Central Office and the
National Union with regard to the control of propaganda. Nor was
any effort made by Central Office to review party policy on most of
the key issues. The National Union, however, did make a request to
‘kindred organisations’, including the Tariff Reform League, to con-
sult more closely with the council of the National Union in order to
prevent ‘overlapping’ and ‘confusion’ in the distribution of electoral
propaganda.60
In a desperate attempt to weaken the persuasive Liberal argument
that the standard of living enjoyed by workers in Germany was lower
than in Britain, the Tariff Reform League, with the support of the
National Union, sponsored a number of trips to Germany by British
workers ‘with an open mind’ during the summer of 1910.61 The
reports of the ‘Tariff Trippers’ visits to Germany were included in
the new edition of How To Canvass for the Unionist, which was used
by canvassers at the second general election in December 1910.
Canvassers were advised to contrast the Liberal view that Germans
live on food that ‘would not be given to a tramp in England’ with the
first-hand evidence provided by the ordinary workers who had visited
Germany and who had reportedly seen ‘no tramps, no loafers, and no
ragged people’.62 Garvin was not very impressed by the strength of the
evidence produced by these visits, and he advised Balfour to down-
grade both tariff reform and the naval issue at the second election.
He wanted the campaign to concentrate on defending the House of
Lords as ‘the only bulwark against socialism’.63 To water down the
policy of tariff reform still further, Garvin suggested to Balfour that
the Conservative campaign should promise electors that a Tory
government would ‘tax the foreigner, but … not tax your food’.64
The general election campaign in December 1910 was less than a
month in duration. The number of contested seats dropped from 571
 The Role of the German Threat 101

in January to 485 and turnout fell by 5.6 per cent. The future of the
House of Lords was the dominant issue of a very lacklustre campaign.
As a result, concentration on the German naval threat by Conservative
candidates declined quite dramatically. The heat and passion over
the Anglo-German naval race had definitely simmered greatly in the
months between the two elections. References to the German naval
threat by Conservative candidates in December 1910 were noticeably
less prominent and were much more restrained. A total of 74 per cent
of Conservative candidates ranked the House of Lords as the key issue
in December 1910, with only 17 per cent making tariff reform the top
issue. Only 2 per cent of Tory candidates made national defence the
most dominant issue, which was an incredibly steep decline from the
January contest.65
To help boost the now faltering tariff reform cause in Lancashire,
Bonar Law, dubbed by Liberals as ‘the archangel of tariff reform’, gave
up his safe seat in Dulwich to fight Manchester North West. Bonar
Law’s campaign did attempt to refute Liberal claims that the German
diet consisted of horsemeat and black bread, and he also repeated the
now tired view that Germans enjoyed a higher standard of living
than was the case in ‘free trade’ Britain.66 Bonar Law halved the
Liberal majority of Sir George Kemp in Manchester North West but
failed to win the seat.
Balfour generally played down the tariff reform issue during the
campaign, and it generally lacked the revivalist enthusiasm it had
generated in January. The most significant important intervention by
the Conservative leader during the election campaign came in speech
at the Albert Hall on 29 November 1910 when he promised that an
incoming Tory Government would not introduce taxes on foreign
imports of food without a referendum. Everyone knew the British
public would definitely endorse free trade in any referendum. So
most of the Tory press felt Balfour’s ‘referendum pledge’ would
greatly help Conservative prospects at the election.
In the end, it made very little difference. The general election of
December 1910 produced a virtual repeat of the January result. The
Conservatives polled 46.8 per cent of the popular vote, ending up
with 271 seats. The Liberal Party took 44.1 per cent of the votes and
272 seats, but with the promised support of 84 Irish Nationalists and
42 Labour MPs, the Liberal Government remained in power. A total
of 55 seats changed hands during the election, but the Conservative
102 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Party ended up with a net gain of just one solitary seat. The swing to
the Conservatives was a mere 0.8 per cent nationally which goes to
show how little voters minds had changed since the January contest.
The highest regional swings in the election for the Conservative Party
were in Lancashire (3.3%) and industrial seats in Wales (2.5%) which
indicates that Balfour’s referendum pledge on tariff reform did help
to increase Conservative support in these areas.67
One fact that could not be ignored was that the Conservatives
had suffered a third consecutive election defeat. One group of
Conservatives ascribed the electoral difficulties of the party, not to
tariff reform, but to the ineffective leadership of Balfour. Maxse
summed up the views of a great many on the right when he stated,
‘Balfour must go, or Tariff reform will go – that is the alternative’.68
A second group blamed continued electoral failure on the problems
of party organisation. As Midleton commented, ‘All organisations
were completely incapable of co-operating at the election’.69 A group
of 60 Conservative MPs, dubbed the ‘1900 Club’, sent a petition
to Balfour demanding an overhaul of ‘the rusty old machinery’.70
A local agent in Southampton reported that when he arrived in
Southampton a fortnight before the December 1910 election ‘not a
single voter had been canvassed’.71 These protests prompted Balfour
to set up a committee to examine party organisation in February 1911,
which recommended greater central control of the party. A party
chairman, Sir Arthur Steel Maitland, was given total power over prop-
aganda, finance and speakers. The National Union was placed under
the control of the Principal agent, and its powers over party propa-
ganda were completely curtailed. The chief whip, who had previously
been responsible for the overall management of the party in parlia-
ment and in the country, was left to concentrate on party discipline
at Westminster. Relations with the press were greatly improved by the
appointment of Sir Malcom Fraser as Chief Press Officer, who set up
the Lobby Press Service, which acted as a useful informal briefing
mechanism for the Conservative Party to the editors of national and
local newspapers. The main casualties of these organisational reforms
were Acland-Hood and Percival Hughes, who both resigned. These
organisational changes have been seen as ‘landmarks in the party’s
transition into the world of modern politics’.72 A third group within
the party blamed electoral failure on the unpopular policy of tariff
reform. In spite of all the propaganda, most electors did not believe
 The Role of the German Threat 103

that life in ‘protectionist’ Germany was better than in ‘free trade’

Britain. As Lord Galway told Austen Chamberlain, ‘the electorate do
not care a straw for tariff reform and you cannot win an election on
that cry’.73 The results of the two general elections of 1910 tended to
support the view that tariff reform was not so much an electoral
cannon ball but just a ball and chain. Bonar Law, although a firm
believer in tariff reform, recognised when he became leader that the
policy was not practical politics. From 1911 to 1914, tariff reform was
relegated to virtual insignificance in the Conservative programme, as
the issue of Irish Home Rule assumed an all-consuming dominance
over the party.
The high point of Conservative electoral activity on the German
threat, therefore, was the period immediately prior to the general
election of January 1910. In this period, the naval and economic
threat posed by Germany did play a significant role in the election-
eering strategy and especially in the propaganda tactics of the party.
There was no orchestrated plan on the part of the Conservative Party
to create a systematic form of ‘xenophobic propaganda’ on the German
naval or economic threat.74 Official Conservative Party propaganda
attempted to avoid outright scaremongering against Germany in
favour of a negative attack on the Liberal Party. However, the attempt
to confine the debate on the navy to a domestic squabble with
Liberals over the proper level of naval spending proved impossible.
The external threat from Germany was highlighted during the
Conservative election campaign in order to illustrate to voters why
the extra spending was required. Balfour and the Central Office
found it impossible to stop Conservative candidates from making
public their private concerns about the German naval threat, and the
various scaremongering activities of the Tariff Reform League and
the National Service League simply showed Balfour could not exert
the sort of control over the Conservative Party message on Germany
as he achieved at Westminster.
In the projection of tariff reform by Conservative propaganda at
the General Elections of 1910, Germany also played a significant role.
Conservative candidates often presented Germany as a model for
Britain to follow but also as a threat to British industry and jobs. Even
so, ‘anti-Germanism’ was not the chief characteristic of the language
of Conservative election propaganda on tariff reform.75 Conservative
propaganda on tariff reform, supplemented by the Tariff Reform
104 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

League portrayed the German fiscal system as a model and presented

the German way of life in positive terms. The projection of Germany
as a protectionist wonderland in Conservative propaganda was
linked to the needs of the domestic party struggle with the Liberals
over economic policy. A great deal of Conservative propaganda on
tariff reform presented a dual ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ image of
Germany. The ‘unpatriotic’ policies of ‘Liberal radicals’ often inter-
mingled with the equally underhand tactics of the German ‘Herr
Dumper’.
In general, the German threat played an ambiguous and rather
confusing role in the electioneering strategy of the Conservative
Party. Conservative propaganda presented the ‘good’ Germany of
tariff reform and the ‘bad’ Germany of increased naval building side
by side. At the same time, the Conservative leadership took pains to
distance itself from the ‘scaremongering’ aspects of its own campaign
and suggested the party did not want to openly inflame Anglo-German
relations at a time of great international tension. To this end, Balfour
and the Central Office did urge Conservative candidates to adopt a
restrained attitude when discussing Germany during the election
campaigns of 1910. However, most of the policy advice which candidates
and canvassers received from the National Union, which was domi-
nated by the radical tariff reformers and the propaganda produced by
the Tariff Reform League, more often than not presented German
foreign policy actions in extremely hostile terms and offered very
little hope for future Anglo-German friendship. At the same time, the
popular Conservative press presented Germany in a similarly hostile
manner. The end result of all these internal contradictions and mixed
messages was the external presentation of a confused image of
Germany by the Conservative Party to the electorate which was both
a model and a threat.
6
Extra Parliamentary Pressure
Groups and Germany

Extra parliamentary pressure groups had been a prominent feature of

British political activity outside Westminster ever since the days of
the Anti-Corn Law League in the 1840s.1 But most of the leading
pressure groups of the Victorian era were dominated by Liberals and
non-Conformist groups. Conservatives, the self appointed upholders
of tradition, tended not to form or join such organisations. Only after
1880 did pressure groups dominated by Conservatives begin to
appear – most notably, the Fair Trade League (1881), which supported
protectionism, and the Imperial Federation League (1884), which
advocated closer unity within the Empire. It was during the Edwardian
period when Conservative pressure-group activity accelerated most
dramatically with the founding of such popular bodies as the National
Service League (founded in 1902), the Tariff Reform League (1903), the
Imperial Maritime League (1908), the Anti-Socialist Union (1908) and
the Budget Protest League (1909). As one Conservative commented,
‘If past eras have been known as the stone age, bronze age and iron
age, surely the present period in our history might be known as the
league age’.2 Pressure groups were part of a complex interaction
between Westminster politics and society. These groups aimed to
influence the Conservative Party to adopt their policies and to influ-
ence the public to support their aims through extensive propaganda
activities.
It is, of course, tempting to view those pressure groups, whose
membership lists were dominated by Conservatives, as safety valves
for protesters within the Conservative Party during a period of
extreme electoral crisis or as manifestations of the growth of a new

105
106 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

‘radical right’ which feared the growth of progressive forces at home,

warned of external threats to British power and wanted to transform
the Conservative Party into a ‘progressive’ political force fit and able
to deal effectively with the rise of socialism, more progressive forms
of Liberalism and the coming of mass democracy.
A study of the aims, membership and policies of the unprecedented
number of pressure groups which existed from 1905 to 1914 would
be a vast undertaking. For the purposes of this chapter, the study of
pressure-group activity by Conservatives is limited to an examination
of the views towards Germany of three important pressure groups:
the National Service League, the Imperial Maritime League and the
Tariff Reform League. The choice of these three organisations is not
arbitrary. Unlike many of the other Edwardian pressure groups,
which drew support from across the political spectrum and could
legitimately claim to be ‘non-party’ organisations, the membership
lists of these particular groups were dominated by Conservative MPs
and peers, and they were overwhelmingly supported by members
of the Conservative Party. The Tariff Reform League, as we have
already seen in the previous chapter, used its vast financial resources
to aid the electoral activities of Conservative candidates. In many
constituencies between 1905 and 1914, the Conservative candidate
owed allegiance to both the local Conservative association and the
local committee of the Tariff Reform League. On the surface, the
National Service League has a much greater claim to be termed a
‘non-political’ organisation because it functioned separately from the
official Conservative Party machinery. But the membership of the
National Service League was predominantly Conservative, boasting of
88 Conservative MPs as card-carrying members, compared with only
three Liberals and hardly any Labour or working class member. Many
prominent Conservatives, including Wyndham, Lee, Amery, Milner,
Smith and Curzon were active members of the National Service League.
The Imperial Maritime League, was a much smaller organisation, but it
never even pretended to be ‘non-political’ and openly urged voters to
vote Conservative at election time. Yet while it was acceptable for
Conservatives to join the Tariff Reform or National Service League the
same could not be said of the Imperial Maritime League, which was
regarded by the Conservative leadership as a ‘renegade’ and extreme
organisation that only gained support from a small number of very
independently minded backbench Conservative MPs and peers and a
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 107

number of right-wing newspaper editors, including Maxse and Gwynne.

But all three organisations had one thing in common: they were all
concerned with the naval, military and economic vulnerability of
Britain to the challenge of German power.
The National Service League was set up in February 1902, with the
central aim of educating the nation to ‘an intelligent appreciation of
military questions’.3 It was the most important pressure group that
campaigned for military training during the Edwardian period. The
impetus for such an organisation grew out of the dissatisfaction felt
by many leading Conservatives and army figures over the poor
performance of British volunteers during the Anglo-Boer War. In the
years following the South African war, the speeches and writings of
military leaders resonate with words of pessimism about the condition
of the British army. Most questioned whether Britain could maintain
its position as a major world power in the face of the growth of a
formidable rival in Europe such as Germany without the introduction
of some form of compulsory military training.
The chief aim of the National Service League was to form a body of
public opinion in favour of military training.4 The leadership claimed
that the organisation was a single issue, non-partisan pressure group,
which was above the cut and thrust of party politics. It concentrated
its efforts on persuading the political parties to adopt military service,
but it did not adopt an electoral strategy and stood no candidates at
national or local elections. In 1905, the public standing of the new
organisation increased greatly when Lord Roberts, aged 73, and the
most well-known Edwardian military figure, became the President of
the infant organisation. Roberts had a gift for presentation and a per-
suasive tongue. He was the major driving force behind the demand
for conscription in the Edwardian age. The argument he used in sup-
port of military training was simple and direct: the military resources
of Britain were much too dependent on naval power and needed to
be supplemented by service in the army for every man ‘high or low,
rich or poor’, in order to repel a possible invasion of the British Isles
by a foreign power. The vast majority of the membership of the
National Service League recognised the German navy and army as the
most likely invading force.5 But, even Roberts realised his quest for
compulsory military training was deeply unpopular among the
British public. So to make it more palatable, he proposed only four
months ‘training’ for all males aged between 18 and 21. This rather
108 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

feeble training model was borrowed from Switzerland, a neutral

country, which trained conscripts for short periods, unlike the two
years which was normally served by German conscripts. The primary
reason why Roberts emphasised the Swiss model was a tactical move
that aimed to distance the National Service League from the charge
that it wanted to transform Britain into a militaristic state along
German lines. To further emphasise that ‘military service’ was a
purely defensive measure, Roberts stressed that recruits would only
be used for service within the British Isles.
The most significant factor which explains the growth in support
for military service was fear about the potential of German military
and naval power to dominate the European continent and threaten
Britain’s vast extra-European empire. In October 1904, the National
Service League had a mere 1,725 members, including just five
Conservative MPs.6 In May 1909, with fears of the German naval
threat running at panic levels, membership had grown to 35,000,
located in 50 branches nation wide.7 By 1914, the number of members
stood at the very healthy figure of 100,000, and local branches had
mushroomed to over a hundred.8 Even more remarkable was the
growth in support for the National Service League among Conservative
MPs and peers. In December 1910, 88 Conservative MPs appeared
on official membership lists, supplemented by over a hundred
Conservative members of the House of Lords. This upsurge of parlia-
mentary support for the National Service League led to the formation
of a parliamentary committee of the National Service League in the
House of Commons led by Sir Henry Craik, the Conservative MP.9
Despite the predominance of Conservatives within the membership
of the National Service League, the organisation still attempted to
win support from across the political and social divide. But close
scrutiny of the membership lists of the organisation throughout its
various branches dotted around the map of the British Isles reveals
that the attempt to create a non-partisan mass movement was a
complete failure. The vast bulk of the membership were existing tradi-
tional and long-standing middle-class supporters of the Conservative
Party.10 Most of the local branches of the National Service League were
located in places such as the Midlands, the Home Counties, the south
east and London where the Conservative Party support was already
very strong. Membership was at its lowest level in areas where the
Conservative Party was extremely weak, most notably, the industrial
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 109

areas of the north, Wales and Scotland. Local branches of the National
Service League in most rural areas were run by former military officers
and members of the landed aristocracy. Even the traditional leaders
of rural society in the south of England had great difficulty persuading
local agricultural labourers that the National Service League was
nothing more than an auxiliary Conservative organisation masquerad-
ing in non-partisan colours.11 The recruitment drive in rural areas was
far more successful than in industrial regions. A useful contrast can be
drawn between the Essex branch, an existing Conservative stronghold
in the south east, which saw membership increase from 560 to 1,000
between 1906 and 1909, and the Manchester branch in the ‘free
trade’ stronghold of industrial Lancashire, which attracted a paltry
30 new members during the same period. During the summer of 1912,
the National Service League put on a series of open air meetings,
designed to overcome ‘the apathy of the working man’, in most of the
industrial cities in the north. Lord Roberts, who spoke at several of
these highly publicised events admitted by the end of the tour that
the average working man ‘continues to be apathetic to the National
Service League’.12
The leadership of the National Service League was drawn from the
extreme ‘radical right’ of the Conservative Party, and most of the
leading activists in the organisation were deeply concerned about
the German threat. One of the most influential was Lord Milner, the
vice-president, who was the thoughtful son of a German professor.
Milner argued that a pool of trained reserves was necessary to ‘weigh
in the scales of a Continental struggle with Germany’.13 He described
himself as ‘a freelance’ who was fighting on the side of the
Conservative Party even though he professed, with some difficulty,
to be independent of it. The National Service League, according to
Milner, was as an ‘Educational Agency’ whose main objective was to
change public opinion in Britain from opposition to support for con-
scription by means of a concerted programme of propaganda.14 To
Milner, therefore, the pressure-group activism and the energetic
propaganda activities of the National Service League were a powerful
antidote to the ‘timidity’ and ‘lethargy’ of the leadership of the
Conservative Party at Westminster towards the German threat.15
Milner viewed conscription as part of a grand plan to build a more
technocratic and well-organised Government and military machine in
Britain that would compete with the growing economic and military
110 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

power of Germany and the USA. It is also worth adding that Milner
was infatuated by Germany, with its strong and well-organised
authoritarian state devoted to patriotic ends, with a leadership free of
parliamentary control and a well-disciplined proletariat. This German
model which Milner believed had contributed to the rapid growth of
the Kaiserreich was one he wanted Britain to emulate, especially in the
fields of military organisation and economic policy, and also in the
creation of a powerful state machine devoted to ideals of ‘national
efficiency’.
But Milner’s complex approach towards the German threat was by
no means shared by many of the other leading activists in the
National Service League. A great many are best described as hyper-
patriots and ultra-imperialists who often displayed outright hostility
and sometimes bigoted harshness when discussing the growth of
German military and naval power. They all had an obsession with
the military threat posed by Germany. Their correspondence bristles
with over dramatic language about the ‘German danger’. Most were
ambivalent towards the traditional political parties, and they were
all extremely frustrated with what they saw as the dilatory and the
timid approach adopted by the Conservative Party towards the
German threat. In essence, they wanted the Conservative Party to
become a radical and modern right-wing alternative to the rising
appeal of progressive forms of Liberalism and Socialism. A typical
example of the king of person attracted to the National Service
League is L.J. Maxse, the editor of the National Review, who even
wrote a book entitled Germany on the Brain which chronicled his fear
and loathing of almost every aspect of the Kaiserreich. He was fond of
telling paranoid ripping yarns about German officers and spies
roaming around the British countryside taking ‘bicycles in all direc-
tions’ and eagerly gathering intelligence for an ‘inevitable inva-
sion’.16 The vitriolic language Maxse used in the National Review was
deeply antagonistic towards Germany, and he carried his prejudiced
arguments to the very extreme of right-wing intolerance of all things
‘foreign’ and ‘alien’. He frequently stereotyped Germany as a ‘bully’
or a ‘menace’, led by a Kaiser with ‘peace on his lips’, but ‘war on his
mind’, leading a population ‘systematically trained by the powers
that be, to look upon a war with England as a moral duty’.17 He was
firmly convinced that Germany could only be deterred from launch-
ing an ‘inevitable bid for European supremacy’, by introducing
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 111

conscription. But he held out very little hope the National Service
League could arouse:

our political deadheads of either Party – to who Party (with a big P)

stands for country (with a small c) – to any realisation of the
German danger which is greater than the Spanish danger at the
end of the sixteenth century, the French danger at the beginning
of the eighteenth century or even the Napoleonic menace of a
hundred years ago.18

In spite of Maxse’s openly antagonistic language, he still denied,

in the face of all evidence and logic to the contrary, that he was
‘anti-German’, rather unconvincingly. Even so, he claimed that his
critics would be ‘hard put to find a single sentence from the National
Review which revealed prejudice against the German people’. Maxse
suggested he reserved his strongest language for the ‘irresponsible
oligarchy called German Government’, and he frequently castigated
‘the tortuous duplicity of German policy’.19 Maxse also contrasted a
‘strong and vibrant Germany’, building up its army and navy in prepa-
ration for an ‘inevitable war’ with a ‘timid’ Britain led by politicians
absorbed by the narrow issues, as he saw it, of domestic politics and too
afraid to champion conscription in case they lost electoral support.20
In Maxse’s editorials, speeches and in his private correspondence on
Anglo-German relation, there is a massive conviction of the right-
fulness of his views, mingled with desperation, bordering on a very
bad case of paranoia. He fully recognised that he was regarded as
‘disruptive right-wing’ Germanophobe by Balfour, Lansdowne and
the mainstream of the Conservative Party. To the Liberals, he was
simply derided as a right-wing buffoon who soured Anglo-German
relations for no good reason. Maxse’s self-perception as an ‘outcast’ on
the extreme fringe of the mainstream of political discourse is graphi-
cally illustrated by a typical editorial he wrote in the National Review
in May 1912 on the German threat in which he compares Britain to a
‘Titanic, obviously plunging at full speed towards certain disaster,
because her so called statesmen refused to see the obvious or prepare
against the inevitable’.21 It is also evident in Maxse’s description of the
Conservative Party at Westminster as a ‘bunch of Parliamentary syco-
phants who are prepared to open their mouths and shut their ears and
swallow whatever Mr. Balfour may give them’.22
112 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

The National Service League attracted many similar right-wing

eccentrics. Leopold Amery, who wrote many of Lord Roberts’ speeches
and books, described the Conservative Party at Westminster as ‘panic
stricken sheep’.23 F.S. Oliver, who came from a radical Scottish back-
ground, ferociously despised democracy and seemed to relish what
he saw as the ‘coming struggle’ with Germany. ‘Nothing will save us’,
he confessed, ‘except the sight of blood running pretty freely, but
whether British and German blood, or only British, I don’t know – nor
do I think it much matters’.24
All of these right-wing activists believed that a German invasion of
the British Isles was imminent, and they exchanged details of the
so-called secret German war plans and the activities of German spies
in Britain. Even H.G. Wells’ dire predictions about a future War of the
Worlds seemed mild compared to the coming apocalyptic struggle
with Germany these people imagined, not asleep, but awake in their
beds. The power of their nightmares poured out in daylight in vitriolic
prose. Colonel Repington, the Times Military Correspondent, another
close adviser to Roberts on the question of a German invasion, often
told a story – or was it a dream – about Count Metternich, the German
Ambassador, whom he alleged often entertained between fifty and
sixty exiled German officers every month behind closed doors at an
Italian restaurant in London. After the spaghetti was eaten, the
diners apparently drew up detailed plans for an invasion of the east
coast. The story was obviously the figment of his fertile imagination.
H.A. Gwynne, the editor of the Standard, obviously having similar
nightmares he believed to be true, often relayed a story to fellow
activists in the National Service League concerning his suspicion
about a number of German-born hotel keepers in Aldershot, in the
Isle of Wight and in several eastern coastal ports whom he claimed
had created a secret and complex intelligence network which sent
back details to Germany of the best coastal areas to mount a successful
invasion.25 Cecil Spring-Rice, a cantankerous ex-diplomat who had
served for many years in Germany, often supplied Roberts and Maxse
with pretty alarming reports of what he thought were German prepa-
rations for war. He was firmly convinced the German Government
aimed to ‘lull the English government to sleep, to make preparations
in silence until it is too late for the government to take action’. He
claimed that his information from Germany came from the ‘highest
sources’, but he never revealed who they were, and all of his many
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 113

invasion dates between 1907 to 1914 turned out to be completely

wrong.26 Not many sensible people took these far-fetched stories seri-
ously at the time, and historians who make grandiose claims about
the influence of the ‘radical right’ need to appreciate more fully how
marginalised and plain ‘loony’ many of its leading figures were.
The chief propaganda aim of the National Service League was to
convince the public of the danger of a German invasion. Lord Roberts
who claimed that the National Service League had ‘no desire to stir
up an aggressive jingo spirit’ did realise that the propaganda of the
National Service League needed to ‘grip the imagination’ and ‘stir the
blood.’27 To this end, the National Service League established its own
monthly journal, A Nation in Arms (a title borrowed from a famous
German military book). In 1908, A Nation in Arms enjoyed a fairly
healthy circulation of 17,500.28 In the pages of this journal, the
military and naval danger posed by Germany looms very large, but it
was often accompanied by admiration for German military progress.
The Earl of Meath, a member of the executive council of the National
Service League claimed that ‘most Englishmen were inferior to
Germans in intelligence, knowledge and practice not because we are
an inferior race but because we neglect the military training of young
men’.29 Lord George Hamilton, another leading figure in the organi-
sation, commented that if Nelson was alive he ‘would have been on
an National Service League platform’.30 He also suggested that on the
day military training was introduced, Anglo-German relations would
immediately improve, because German leaders would realise ‘they
could not bully us with impunity’.31 Most National Service League
propaganda emphasised the possible social benefits of conscription.
One National Service League supporter, who visited Germany fre-
quently, claimed that it was army life which gave health, exercise and
discipline to young Germans, even encouraging them to ‘wash behind
the ears’.32 In another typical article, Miss H.S. Cheetham, a frequent
contributor to A Nation in Arms, contrasted German ‘thoroughness’
with British ‘slackness’ and concluded, ‘The German military system
has been the making of modern Germany’.33
The most dominant theme of National Service League propaganda
was the possibility of a German invasion. In those newspapers and
periodicals that supported the conscriptionist cause, there were
numerous articles devoted to the subject. A constant flurry of popular
books, newspaper articles, pamphlets, magazines, plays, posters and
114 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

comics brought the invasion scare constantly to the attention of the

public. In comics, the German people were often described as ‘sausage
munchers’ who were planning war. In weekly magazines and in
many popular novels, it was suggested that German spies were
already in Britain, collecting information, making detailed plans and
even building elaborate underground ammunition stores in prepara-
tion for what was called ‘a barbaric Prussian invasion’.34 A great many
of these invasion novels and articles were written by supporters of the
National Service League, and many received sponsorship and
endorsement from the organisation. The National Service League also
financed a number of theatre plays on the theme of invasion. One
such drama, which drew large audiences was called A Nation in Arms
and was based on the best-selling book by Roberts. It graphically
depicts a successful German invasion of the south of England. Roberts
claimed the scenes in the play, ‘are by no means an exaggerated picture
of the scenes which would occur in England if an invading army was
able to effect a landing on our shores’.35
For most of the leading activists in the National Service League, the
strong emphasis on invasion was not a mere propaganda ploy, but
represented the public expression of their own very real private
anxieties about the growth of German military and naval power. As
Lord Roberts explained in his evidence to the Committee of Imperial
Defence (CID) sub-committee on invasion in 1908, ‘Everybody in
Germany – every school and University in Germany – is being edu-
cated to the idea of invading England’.36 In support of these views,
Roberts presented evidence to the sub-committee from the British
ambassador in Berlin and from ten British consuls, based in German
ports, who all warned of the preparations in Germany for a ‘Bolt from
the Blue’ attack on poorly defended British coastal ports.37 Roberts
often compared Britain to ‘a jeweller’s shop’, with a thin glass window,
and Germany to ‘a burglar waiting until the policeman [the Navy]
turned his back and broke in.’38 Yet Roberts realised that National
Service League propaganda, which constantly warned of the German
danger, had exerted precious little influence on a British people who
‘shut their eyes to the dangers’ and ‘would take no steps to resist
invasion’.39 In spite of all the hype, much of it popular with cer-
tain sections of the public, and the useful additional support it received
from many leading newspapers and periodicals, most notably, the
Observer, The Times, the Standard, the Daily Express, the Daily
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 115

Telegraph, the Morning Post and the National Review, the National Service
League never gained widespread public support. The Conservative
Party, which gave the League its largest group of parliamentary
supporters, believed it was electoral suicide to openly support the
military service, while to support Liberals, Socialists and Irish
Nationalists was miniscule. All this tends to emphasise that the
overwhelming majority of the British public did not believe in the
idea of a German invasion, and they preferred to rely on naval power
to prevent it.
The Tariff Reform League, formed in 1903, was the most powerful
and influential Conservative pressure group of all, but unlike the
National Service League, it was intimately connected with the official
Conservative Party machinery. The broadside against free trade deliv-
ered by the radical and imperialist Joseph Chamberlain on 15 May
1903, which demanded the introduction of tariffs on foreign imports
outside of the British Empire, is traditionally viewed as the starting
point of the formation of the Tariff Reform League. But Chamberlain’s
speech was really the rallying call of an already growing body of pro-
tectionists within the Conservative Party. In April 1902, H.H. Marks,
a Conservative MP, and 24 leading industrialists met to consider the
formation of a tariff reform pressure group. On 14 May 1903, the
Protection League was established, which soon changed its name to
the Imperial Tariff Reform League and finally to the Tariff Reform
League on 21 July 1903. On the very same day, the first meeting of
the new organisation was convened at the luxurious Westminster
Palace Hotel, under the chairmanship of the Duke of Sutherland.
The Tariff Reform League claimed its principal aim was the safe-
guarding of ‘the industrial interests of the Empire’ through the
introduction of taxes on imported goods and the creation of a colonial
customs union. For Joseph Chamberlain, and most of the other lead-
ing tariff reformers, it was a two pronged policy, designed to halt
British economic decline and to provide the Conservative Party with
a ‘progressive’ policy in order to weaken the appeal of radical forms
of Liberalism and the growing appeal of socialism. Even though the
Conservatives had suffered a crushing defeat in 1906, the Tariff
Reform League emerged in an extremely strong position within the
party in opposition. Of the total of 157 MPs left after the defeat,
109 were ‘Chamberlainites’, 32 were ‘Balfourites’, and only 11 were
‘free traders’.
116 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

To many of Chamberlain’s supporters, tariff reform became similar

to an evangelical religious sect which demanded total loyalty and
devotion from its followers.40 It was a very well-organised pressure
group with its own policy think tank: the Tariff Commission, a pop-
ular monthly magazine, Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, a nation-wide
network of local branches, a trade union association, a powerful
group of financial supporters and a modern and well coordinated
programme of propaganda.41 Richard Jay describes the Tariff Reform
League as ‘the most powerful propaganda machine that peacetime
British history has seen’.42 The membership of the Tariff Reform
League, whose average age was 49, was strongest in the Midlands,
Chamberlain’s political heartland, and in London and scattered
parts of the south east of England. Hard-core support for the Tariff
Reform League was, in fact, rather middle aged and popular in areas
with an already strong tradition of voting Conservative. But support
was also strong in areas containing industries such as iron, steel, tin,
glass, building materials and chemicals, all of which faced very stiff
industrial competition in home and export markets. In rural areas,
membership of the Tariff Reform League was much lower, except in
those regions in which local agricultural producers faced foreign
competitors.43
In the early propaganda of the Tariff Reform League, the German
economic threat did feature very prominently. As already mentioned,
in Chapter 5, one of the most potent images used in this propaganda
was that of ‘Herr Dumper’, the rotund German shop keeper who sold
cheap goods of so-called dubious quality to extremely ‘gullible’ British
importers which resulted in the loss of British jobs. The early issues of
Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, the official journal of the Tariff
Reform League, also feature many articles and reports which suggest
that German industry used Britain as a dumping ground for its goods.
The German bogey was also used in a satirical manner in cartoons
and songs, most notably a popular music hall composition called
‘Herr Schmit’s advice’, which featured the memorable line: ‘Cobden
[the famous Manchester free trader] vos a vondourous man’.44 It is,
however, important to recognise that German stereotypes were by no
means the only ones used in Tariff Reform propaganda. A long list of
‘foreign’ stereotypes from around the world were frequently depicted
in tariff reform literature.
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 117

To simply view the growth of the Tariff Reform League as primarily

due to fears about Anglo-German trade rivalry is a gross over-
simplification. Global economic development which affected British
competitiveness and the influence of the domestic political situation
were far more important than any singular obsession with the growth
of German economic power. During the early years of the twentieth
century, both the Conservative and Liberal parties realised that finding
policies which appealed to the working classes were likely to become
the deciding factor in future elections. Joseph Chamberlain and his
supporters believed that the Conservative Party needed to find a pop-
ular policy which aimed to persuade industrial workers that economic
and social reform could be financed by taxing foreign goods and not by
increasing taxation for business, the landed aristocracy or the middle
classes. To convince working class voters in industrial regions that
protectionism did not mean a fall in their standard of living, it
became vital to portray the economic and social condition of
Germany, the most prosperous protectionist economy in Europe, not
as a rival but as a positive model, worthy of emulation. This helps to
explain why an endless stream of Tariff Reform League propaganda
depicted Germany as place that combined protectionism with social
reform for the benefit of the working classes. It also explains why the
key enemies of Tariff Reform League propaganda were the Liberal free
traders who allowed ‘foreign’ goods to be ‘dumped’ in the British
market.45 To appeal to the consumer interests of the average voter,
tariff reform propaganda also suggested that free trade ‘taxes the poor
through duties on tobacco, spirits, beer and sugar’, while ‘foreigners’
were allowed to send their goods into the British market tax-free.46
By and large, tariff reform propaganda presented Germany as an
economic role model and a very prosperous society. Most pamphlets
and posters of the Tariff Reform League suggest Germany had pro-
gressed at an incredible pace under protectionist policies, while Britain
had fallen behind economically because of blind adherence to free
trade. Tariff reform propaganda was extremely sophisticated by the
standards of the Edwardian age, with specific groups of workers in a
wide variety of industries having propaganda tailored to suit their
needs. Railway workers were told wages for German rail workers had
increased rapidly under protectionism.47 Glass workers informed
that while unemployment in their own industry was rising rapidly,
118 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

it was falling in the German glass sector.48 The sorry plight of the
granite trade in Britain was blamed on the rapid growth of imports
from Norway and Sweden.49 Many other workers in a wide range of
industries and trades were targeted in a similar manner.
Another major feature of Tariff Reform League propaganda was to
urge potential supporters to dismiss ‘bogey tales about Germany’, put
out by Liberal free traders, and to ‘Look at Germany’ where they
would find the workers enjoying increased wages, reduced working
hours, low rents, better education, welfare benefits and a much more
nutritional diet than workers could afford in ‘free trade’ Britain.50
Such arguments were an integral part of the long and protracted
domestic debate between tariff reformers and Liberals over the
standard of living in Germany. To help resolve this bitter struggle
between the two parties, the Tariff Reform League financed several
trips to Germany by ‘ordinary workmen’. The most significant of
these occurred in 1910, when the Tariff Reform League sent a large
party of ‘average’ British workmen, ‘of all political persuasions’ on a
free holiday to cities in Germany.51 The national press dubbed them
‘The Tariff Trippers’. The crucial aim of these trips was to use the
evidence of the ‘ordinary workers’ in order to weaken the constant
and seemingly persuasive Liberal claims that most Germans live
on food, which Lloyd George had claimed, ‘we would not give to
tramps’.52 In the summer of 1910, the ‘Tariff Trippers’, working on
the principle that ‘seeing is believing’ spent over a month touring
Germany at the expense of the Tariff Reform League. After returning
home, these ‘working men’ told waiting reporters that the German
worker was well educated, well dressed, well fed and very happy. They
also mentioned that unemployment and the cost of living were
much lower in Germany than in Britain. ‘After what I saw’, said one
Manchester worker, ‘I have become convinced that the German
worker with protective tariffs, is far better off than our workers.’ What
also impressed these British workers about life in Germany was the
absence of poverty and ‘the lack of tramps and beggars’ in all the
German towns and cities they visited. Even the much derided
German ‘black bread’, which the Liberals had constantly suggested
they would ‘not feed to a dog’, was sampled by the Tariff Trippers and
found to be ‘tasty and nutritious’. In general, the British workers who
visited Germany, in the summer of 1910, claimed the Liberal Party
had been guilty of ‘vicious fabrications’ in its portrayal of social
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 119

conditions in Germany.53 The visit of the Tariff Trippers illustrates

just how important it was for the electoral success of tariff reform to
portray Germany as a prosperous and congenial place to live, with
workers enjoying what they claimed was a much higher standard of
living than in Britain. The motive behind much of this tariff reform
propaganda was not designed to improve diplomatic relations
between Britain and Germany but was an integral part of an electoral
strategy designed to reassure potential working class Tory voters
that their standard of living would not fall under protectionism. To
support this case, life in Germany was used and abused by the Tariff
Reform League and the Conservative Party for purely domestic
political purposes.
The Imperial Maritime League, the most radical of these groups,
was established on 27 January 1908 by a rebel group within the Navy
League, led by Lionel Horton-Smith, a prominent barrister, and
Harold Wyatt, a writer on naval affairs.54 The Imperial Maritime
League was a very small pressure group, positioned on the extreme
right of the Conservative spectrum. It did not have an organisation or
membership comparable to either the National Service League or the
Tariff Reform League. The real importance of the Imperial Maritime
League, for the purposes of this study, lies in the fact that it was sup-
ported by the most extreme and supposedly the most Germanophobic
members of the so-called radical right. The two major factors behind
the formation of the Imperial Maritime League were anger with the
moderate Navy League leadership for refusing to criticise Sir John
Fisher’s decision to create a new Home Fleet in October 1906 by
cutting back on battleship strength in the Atlantic, the English
Channel and the Mediterranean, and dissatisfaction with the Navy
League stance of refusing to protest against the decision of the Liberal
Government to cut naval spending on battleships from £8.5 million
to £6 million between 1906 and 1909. F.T. Jane, one of the leading
rebels within the Navy League, commented, ‘Every man – whatever he
may call himself – who cuts down the Navy is to be regarded as a
public enemy and should be treated as such’.55 Maxse – who not
surprisingly supported the Imperial Maritime League – described the
struggle within the Navy League as one involving the ‘deadheads’ who
supported the ‘Fisher revolution’, which, of course, included Balfour
and those who were content to ‘swallow whatever the Admiralty
offers them’, and the ‘agitators’ who realised that ‘the strength of the
120 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

navy would only be preserved by constantly emphasising the dangers

Britain faced from the German fleet’.56
The leadership of the Navy League supported the principle of
bi-partisanship in defence matters and wanted to keep the Navy a
non-party issue. At the same rime, a rebel group within the Navy
League wanted the Liberal cuts in naval expenditure to be vigorously
attacked. In February 1907, the Navy League leadership tried to pre-
vent dissidents from opening up a debate on the reductions in naval
spending and emphasised that the Navy League would not engage in
party political attacks on the naval policy of the Liberal Government.57
The fierce debate between the moderate and rebellious sections of the
Navy League became a leading topic of discussion in most of the pop-
ular Conservative newspapers. On 15 May 1907, at the Navy League
annual general meeting, the split within the Navy League grew even
wider. In a last ditch attempt to resolve the differences between the
‘moderates’ and the ‘rebels’, an extraordinary general meeting of
the Navy League was held on 19 July 1907. At the meeting, Wyatt
claimed that the Navy League had ‘stifled public debate’ over Liberal
cuts in naval expenditure and rather than adopting the role of
‘watchdog’ of the navy it had become ‘the spaniel of Whitehall’.58 In
response, the leadership of the Navy League branded the criticism of
the rebels as party political.59 The voting figures on an amendment,
tabled by Wyatt and Horton Smith, at the extraordinary General
Meeting, which called for the Navy League to adopt a critical stance
against Liberal cuts in naval expenditure, show that 40 per cent of
the branches of the Navy League actually supported the radical stance
adopted by the rebels, even though the attempt to change of the
policy of Navy League ended in failure.
In January 1908, the leaders of the rebellion, Horton-Smith and
Wyatt, announced, in a blaze of publicity, that they were leaving
the Navy League to set up a new naval pressure group grandly called
The Imperial Maritime League. This group promised in a Cassandra-like
tone to ‘waken the nation from its sleep’ and to take up ‘the neglected
or abandoned duties of the Navy League, by using propaganda to
alert public opinion to the danger of reducing naval spending at a
time when the German Navy was expanding’.60 The Imperial Maritime
League, dubbed sarcastically as the ‘Sea Gallopers Society’ and the
‘Navier League’ by the Liberal press set out to launch a propaganda
campaign which aimed to protest against ‘the Destructive Naval
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 121

Policy of the Present Government’61 and to rouse the Conservative

Party leadership to mount a ‘vigorous opposition to cuts in the Navy’
or else forfeit forever its claim to be termed ‘the party of patriotism’.62
From the very beginning, therefore, the Imperial Maritime League
was determined to fight a jingoistic verbal battle with its Liberal
opponents on the true meaning of patriotism. It was also a group that
wanted to put pressure on the Conservative Party leadership to adopt
a more independent line on naval policy. The leaders of the Imperial
Maritime League claimed it was ‘a patriotic duty’ to denounce any
Government which cut spending on the navy. But the impact of the
Imperial Maritime League was severely hampered by the fact that
the vast majority of members of the Navy League, the majority of
whom were Conservative supporters who decided to remain loyal to
the parent organisation, and the Conservative leadership blocked the
progress of the organisation within the official party machinery and
charged Horton Smith and Wyatt with ‘dragging naval policy into
party politics’.63
The openly rebellious and partisan language of the Imperial
Maritime League positioned it firmly on the extreme right fringe of
Conservatism. The membership was composed exclusively of right-
wing members of the Conservative Party. It gained no support
whatsoever from the Liberal Party, Irish Nationalists and the Socialist
Left. Carlyon Bellairs, a Liberal MP, even greatly weakened the impact
of the formation of the Imperial Maritime League by persuading
75 Liberal MPs to join the Navy League for the first time.64 The highest
ever membership figure recorded by the Imperial Maritime League
was 1,460. By contrast, the moderate Navy League, which remained
committed to the principles of bi-partisanship on defence matters saw
its membership grow dramatically from 20,000 to 125,000 between
1908 and 1913. Geographically, the membership of the Imperial
Maritime League was located almost exclusively in London and the
south east, both areas of the strongest electoral support for the
Conservative Party.
The very small number of Conservatives at Westminster who
joined the Imperial Maritime League fall into three categories:
first, those Conservative MPs and Peers who were most at odds
with Balfour’s restrained approach to Anglo-German relations at
Westminster; second, Conservatives who opposed the bi-partisan
approach to national defence; and third, extreme right wingers who
122 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

were dissatisfied with Sir John Fisher’s administration of the Admiralty.

In numerical terms, the Imperial Maritime League gained open
support from approximately 20 Conservative MPs between 1908 and
1910. Most of these were ‘independently minded’ backbench figures,
including Arthur Bignold, Clive Bridgeman, Harvey Du Cros, Walter
Faber, Claude Hay, H.S. Staveley-Hill, Edward Turnour and Rowland
Hunt. The renegade Admiral Lord Charles Beresford also gave his sup-
port to the organisation. The most notable peers to give open support
to the Imperial Maritime League were the Earl of Malmesbury, the
Duke of Sutherland and Lord Willoughby De Broke.65 The only
Conservative front bench figure ever to appear on a very early mem-
bership list of the Imperial Maritime League was George Wyndham
and the only well-known Conservative MP on the early membership
list is F.E. Smith. Both quickly withdrew their support once it became
abundantly clear that the party leadership greatly disapproved
of the activities of the organisation. At Westminster, those few
Conservatives who were sympathetic to the aims of the Imperial
Maritime League formed a ‘Joint Committee’ which pledged to
‘watch over naval questions in Parliament’.66 Wyatt conceded that
‘only the Conservative Party has the means, the organisation, the
number of speakers and the prestige needed to arrest the attention of
Britain and to penetrate the cloud of apathy and indifference
towards the Navy’.67 The Conservative Party leadership, however,
regarded the Imperial Maritime League as an unwanted and some-
what embarrassing supporter.
The views of the Imperial Maritime League on Anglo-German
relations can be regarded as coming from the most rebellious and
extreme right-wing members of the Conservative Party. The Imperial
Maritime League generally believed that the balance of power in
Europe had been disturbed by the growth of Germany, and its mem-
bers adopted a strongly pessimistic tone about the likely course of
Anglo-German relations. ‘The real secret of German hostility to Great
Britain’, argued Wyatt, ‘is to be found in the birth rate, which
accounts for Germany’s desire for territorial expansion, and that is a
fact that can scarcely be altered by diplomacy’.68 The fear of a German
invasion also looms large in the speeches and writings of leading
activists of the Imperial Maritime League. As Beresford commented,
‘There is no question that if there was a sudden surprise, without
any warning, the Germans could land a large force … as we have not
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 123

the ships instantly ready’.69 Rowland Hunt, a Conservative MP, who

supported the Imperial Maritime League, was so little inclined to toe
the party line at Westminster that the Conservative whip was with-
drawn from him in 1907. ‘Germany’, he claimed ‘by a grand coup,
might throw an army into London, and once in possession of our
capital could dictate here own terms of peace’.70 In a similar manner,
Wyatt argued that ‘Germany might easily become the master of the
Channel in 24 hours, with her large number of torpedo boats and
her ever ready fleet’.71 H.A. Gwynne, the editor of the Standard, who
became a leading propagandist and activist within the Imperial
Maritime League claimed that ‘Germany was planning a raid in such
numbers as to threaten our existence as a nation’.72
A major propaganda tactic employed by the Imperial Maritime
League was to encourage its members to write letters and articles to
newspapers and periodicals warning of a German invasion. Many of
these contributions were often written by past and present admirals
and naval officers.73 Often such letters were written anonymously.
A fairly typical example was offered by ‘A Naval Officer’ who argued
that Germany, if achieving naval supremacy, ‘could invade and con-
quer the United Kingdom without any serious difficulty and turn it
into a mere province of the German empire’.74 In a similar vein,
‘An English Patriot’ often claimed to have access to ‘secret informa-
tion’ which indicated Germany was planning a naval assault on the
British Isles.75 The Imperial Maritime League was roundly attacked on
all sides of the political mainstream for constantly raising the spectre
of a German attack on Britain and for inflaming Anglo-German
relations. Wyatt, speaking in 1908, gave the following explanation
for his actions:

There are a great many people who think it is wrong and mistaken,
and even wicked, to allude to Germany in connection with the
question of national defence, and their attitude, I must say,
reminds me of that of children who are afraid to mention the
word ‘bogey man’, lest the evil spirit should appear.76

The leadership of the Imperial Maritime League soon realised its

own propaganda efforts could never hope to make a major political
impact unless it could gain more converts from the Navy League or
persuade the Conservative Party to rouse public opinion over the
124 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

German naval threat. Between 1908 and 1909, the Imperial Maritime
League concentrated most of its time and energy in gaining official
support from the Conservative Party. In May 1909, Wyatt asked
Balfour if he would meet a deputation of the Imperial Maritime
League in order to discuss ‘the naval peril’ which the country faced
from Germany.77 Balfour flatly refused this request and he never
endorsed the Imperial Maritime League in any way either in private
or in public.78 In October 1910, Gwynne urged Balfour to place
the state of the navy at the centre of the Conservative campaign for
the second General Election in 1910, but the Conservative leader
completely ignored this right-wing pressure.79 Even without any offi-
cial encouragement from Balfour or the official Conservative Party
machine, the Imperial Maritime League went ahead and organised
public meetings in Conservative constituencies during the two
general elections of 1910. It also sent activists to campaign for the
election of Conservative candidates in elections. In Ealing in October
1908, the Imperial Maritime League organised a major demonstra-
tion against Liberal cuts in the navy. However, the local Ealing
Conservative Association, which initially gave cooperation to this
effort, quickly withdrew it, following pressure from Conservative
Central Office.80 It also seems clear that pressure was placed on
Conservative MPs and peers not to attend major demonstrations
against Liberal naval cuts organised by the Imperial Maritime League.
There were a few Conservatives who ignored these requests, but on
many other occasions, a Conservative MP, who had promised to speak
at an Imperial Maritime League meeting or demonstration, often mys-
teriously withdrew at the last minute, under pressure from Balfour,
Central Office or the Conservative chief whips at Westminster.
By 1912, the leaders of the Imperial Maritime League were actually
proposing a reconciliation with the Navy League. At the end of 1913,
Lord Willoughby De Broke, the prominent ‘Die Hard’ Conservative
peer was appointed president of the failing organisation. Not long
afterwards, Wyatt and Horton-Smith both resigned their membership.
In 1914, Imperial Maritime League propaganda was emphasising that
‘neither party will take a strong line on the question of national
defence’.81 At the same time, the Imperial Maritime League announced
that it would no longer advise members to support the Conservative
Party, but would instead rouse public opinion in a ‘non-partisan
manner’ in future. This important change of tactics was a clear
 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups and Germany 125

admission by the Imperial Maritime League that its dual attempt to

persuade the Conservative Party to abandon bi-partisanship on the
navy and to weaken the Navy League had ended in complete failure.
During the First World War, the Imperial Maritime League and the
Navy League were back in harmony, and both organisations cooper-
ated in the production of anti-German propaganda. Indeed, it was
the Imperial Maritime League which, in true scaremongering style,
produced the infamous poster in 1915 which depicted German
soldiers eating babies on the Western Front.
It is clear that the three pressure groups examined in this chapter
were deeply concerned with the ‘German danger’. The National
Service League highlighted, indeed exaggerated, the danger of a
German invasion, but the solution it advocated to prevent invasion,
namely, military training, was rejected by the leadership of the
Conservative Party because of its supposed electoral unpopularity.
The Tariff Reform League, which attracted widespread support
within the Conservative Party, portrayed the German fiscal system
and the social condition of the German people from 1905 to 1914
in positive, often glowing terms. However, supporters of the Tariff
Reform League used the Anglo-German trade issue selectively in order
to win the domestic battle over economic policy with the Liberal
Party. Supporters of the Imperial Maritime League were extremely
Germanophobic and presented German aims in openly hostile and
negative terms. Many of its members thought Germans were already
eating babies in Belgium before the war started. But the xenophobia
of the Imperial Maritime League found very little support from within
the official Conservative Party machinery. Overall, the activities of
the Imperial Maritime League were castigated not just within the
‘moderate’ Navy League itself, an organisation dominated by
Conservatives, and Liberal Imperialists, but from across the political
spectrum. The two most persistent charges made by moderate
Conservatives in the Navy League against the Imperial Maritime
League was that it dragged the navy into party politics and soured
Anglo-German relations.
It does seem that outright ‘scaremongering’ on the German threat
was very much an extra-parliamentary activity, located primarily in
the patriotic pressure groups. Indeed, the desperation, frustration, so
evident in all the writings, speeches and private correspondence of
the leading activists in the National Service League and the Imperial
126 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Maritime League, with the perceived timidity of the Conservative

Party at Westminster towards the German threat, indicates that the
fomenting of Anglo-German antagonism was only practised in
the public by those groups and individuals outside the mainstream of
the Conservative Party and outside the official organisations of the
Conservative party in the country. Open hostility towards Germany
was, therefore, the preserve of those without any real influence over
the Conservative leadership, without any political responsibility and
was predominantly an extra-parliamentary phenomenon.
7
The Conservative Party and the
Decision for War in 1914

In the summer of 1914, the Conservative Party was totally immersed

with problems in Ireland. Each attempt to reach a deal between the
Government and the Opposition over the Irish Home Rule question
ended in deadlock. The obsession with Ireland in British politics,
which had re-emerged after the two General Elections of 1910 had
left the Liberal Government dependent on the votes of Irish
Nationalist MPs to stay in power, ensured that problems of foreign
policy had retreated into the background. This helps to explain why
the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip, a
Bosnian terrorist, on 28 June 1914, did not instantaneously give rise
to the prospect of British involvement in a European War.
Most Conservatives agreed with the initial view of the British press
towards the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which was to
condemn the ‘impossible Serbians’ for inflaming relations with the
Dual Monarchy.1 The only newspaper editors who attempted to stress
that the assassination at Sarejevo might be exploited by the German
Government to further its own territorial aims in the Balkans were,
not surprisingly, the leading ‘scaremongers’ Gwynne, then editor of
the Morning Post, and Maxse still editor of the National Review. The one
major Conservative figure who instantly grasped the wider European
magnitude of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was
Balfour who was certain the destruction of Serbia by Austria-Hungary
was part of a German plan to dominate Europe.2
At first, few members of the Conservative rank and file linked the
complex Austro-Serb problem to the intricate European diplomatic
balance of power. As a result, there was little early support within the

127
128 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Conservative Party for British involvement in what seemed a localised

Balkan war involving just Austria-Hungary and Serbia.3 The majority
of Conservatives were also strongly opposed to Britain becoming
mixed up in the defence of Russian interests in the Balkan region.4
The idea of supporting British participation in a war to save Russia
alone was never seriously contemplated within the Conservative
Party.
The Austrian and German ambassadors in London went on a charm
offensive during July 1914 in order to influence the British press and
leading figures in the two major political parties not to get involved
in the Austro-Serb quarrel. On 13 July 1914, Count Mensdorff, the
Austrian Ambassador, met with Lord Lansdowne, and he handed to
him a batch of carefully selected press cuttings from the Serbian press
which took a very sympathetic line towards the aims of the Serb
terrorist group, which was thought responsible for the assassination of
the Austrian Archduke. Lansdowne gave this information to Geoffrey
Robinson, (later named Geoffrey Dawson) the editor of The Times.
The leading editorial comment on the Austro-Serb squabble, which
appeared in The Times on 16 July 1914 strongly denounced the
anti-Austrian tone of the Serbian press but also urged the Austrian
Government not to solve the quarrel by resort to force.5 These views
were very much in line with Lansdowne’s own position towards the
Austro-Serb quarrel, and it is pretty obvious he influenced the line
Robinson adopted in his editorial.
During the last sunshine-filled days of July 1914, a European War,
developing out of the Austro-Serb dispute started to became a real
possibility after Austria-Hungary issued a stern and uncompromising
ultimatum to Serbia, with the support of the German Government. It
was now that discussions began not only within the British Cabinet,
but also within the Conservative Party concerning what were Britain’s
exact obligations towards France under the terms of the Anglo-
French Entente.6 This ambiguity over the Entente had long been
encouraged by Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary and supported
by Lord Lansdowne, in effect, the shadow Foreign Secretary. Both had
habitually stressed in speeches that the Anglo-French Entente was
not a binding military alliance, but instead merely a voluntary and
friendly ‘colonial agreement’ of a very restricted nature.7 In private,
Grey was convinced that Britain had to get involved on the side of
France in the event of a German attack. What is more, Grey let it be
 The Conservative Party and the Decision for War 129

known to his Cabinet colleagues during the July crisis of his readiness
to resign as Foreign Secretary if France was not fully supported. It is also
worth stressing that Grey encouraged Winston Churchill to engage
in ‘off the record talks’ with leading figures in the Conservative ‘inner
circle’ over the possible formation of a coalition Government in the
event of a Cabinet split over supporting British intervention in a
European war.8
The greatest problems which Grey faced in the days which preceded
the outbreak of the First World War, therefore, were to win over a
seemingly divided Liberal Cabinet and a sceptical and puzzled British
public which asked why Britain, though not legally obligated to do
so, should enter a European War, to save France and Russia. It quickly
became apparent, at an emergency Cabinet meeting, held on 27 July
1914, that the majority of the Cabinet were not prepared to agree to
go to war to defend France from a German attack in Western Europe.9
At this stage, Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister saw no reason why
Britain ‘should be more than spectators’ in the event of the outbreak
of a European War, growing out of the Austro-Serbian crisis.10 In order
to convince the divided Liberal Cabinet not to stand aside in the event
of a Franco-German War, it was Grey who cleverly shifted his ground
in the final days before war broke out away from supporting France
under the vague terms on the entente to the closely connected issue
of German forces violating Belgian neutrality, which Britain was
pledged to defend under a 1839 Treaty.
Bonar Law informed Grey that the position of France or Belgium
had to be endangered in order for the Conservative Party to support
British intervention in a European War.11 Bonar Law met with Grey
on a number of occasions during July and at each meeting he assured
the Foreign Secretary that the Opposition would offer him ‘unqualified
support’ on the understanding that he remained determined to use
the Anglo-French Entente to uphold the European balance of power.12
It was, however, the decision of the Tsar Nicholas to declare Russian
mobilisation on Thursday, 30 July 1914, which fixed the attention of
the Conservative ‘inner circle’ on the growing European crisis more
fully than ever before. The very same day, the Russian army mobilised,
in preparation for war, Bonar Law had a meeting with Asquith in his
room in the House of Commons. They both immediately agreed to
postpone the second reading of the amending bill on Irish Home
Rule in the interests of maintaining national unity between the two
130 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

parties during the impending European crisis.13 Bonar Law’s meeting

with Asquith appears to have reassured him that the outbreak of a
European war was not in the offing, because on Friday, 31 July 1914,
the Opposition leader decided to go ahead with a pre-existing
arrangement to spend the bank holiday weekend at Wargrave Manor,
the country home of Sir Edward Goulding, MP, in the company of
F.E. Smith, Sir Edward Carson and Max Aitken. The original aim of this
weekend get-together was to discuss Conservative policy towards the
Irish Home Rule question. But it was the growing European crisis
which became the main topic of conversation. On arrival at Wargrave
Manor, F.E. Smith informed Bonar Law that Churchill had told him
how bitterly divided the Cabinet was over the question of going to
war in support of France.14 It seems Lansdowne was also unconvinced
that war was imminent that weekend as he also left London on
31 July 1914 to relax in the English countryside. The only leading
Conservative figure who remained in London that particular weekend
was Balfour, who had already decided to cancel a proposed holiday
to Austria. On Thursday, 30 July 1914, Balfour had breakfasted with
George Lloyd, the Conservative MP, who later recalled how quickly
the ex-Prime Minister grasped the significance of the Russian deci-
sion to mobilise, and he put forward the firm view that Britain had
to go to war in defence of France.15 In Balfour’s view, the logic of
Britain’s commitment to France, built up over the years since the
signing of the Entente, was clear and unambiguous: ‘We have chosen
our side, and must bide by the result’.16
On Saturday, 1 August 1914, the European crisis reached a higher
level of intensity when Germany suddenly declared war on Russia.
This dramatic news led to a frantic day of activity among the
Conservative ‘inner circle’ and among leading activists on the extra-
parliamentary ‘radical right’. In the morning, reports had appeared in
the popular Tory press, claiming that the Conservative Party leader-
ship was ‘dithering’ over whether to offer support to France at all.
Balfour became so alarmed by these reports that he quickly sent off
letters, without consulting Bonar Law or Lansdowne, to the French
and the Russian ambassadors in London informing them that the
press reports were completely without foundation.17 At the same
time, a number of leading ‘radical-right’ activists, including Maxse,
Beresford, Gwynne, Amery and Sir Henry Wilson held a meeting that
same morning to discuss the European crisis at which they agreed
 The Conservative Party and the Decision for War 131

that Bonar Law was taking a very unhurried approach to the unfolding
European crisis and he should be persuaded to return to London as
soon as possible.18
On the beautiful sunny afternoon of Saturday, 1 August 1914,
two completely unconnected attempts were made to convince the
Conservative leader to come back to London. Balfour, a dependable
and influential member of the Conservative ‘inner circle’, instigated
the first attempt. He sent separate telegrams to Law and Lansdowne,
appraising them of the growing gravity of the European situation and
urged them to come back immediately to the capital.19 The second
attempt to persuade Bonar Law to return to London was made by two
representatives of the ‘radical right’: Charles Beresford and George
Lloyd, who journeyed by car to Wargrave Manor. They arrived, late in
the afternoon, to find Bonar Law playing a gentle game of tennis
with a friend. Apparently, Beresford, observing this scene, walked
straight up to the Opposition leader while he was preparing to serve
in his tennis match and told him bluntly he should be ‘ashamed
of himself’, for ignoring the seriousness of the international crisis
and engaging in such a trivial pursuit.20 Whether this took place is
unclear. Max Aitken, who was at Wargrave Manor on the same day,
does not refer to this altercation between Beresford and Law, but
there seems no reason to doubt that it probably occurred, given what
we know of Beresford’s temperament.21 In any case, Law had already
received Balfour’s telegram before Beresford and Lloyd had arrived,
and the Conservative leader had already decided to return to London
and had made the necessary travel arrangements. He was in no way
persuaded to return by the unsolicited intervention of members of the
radical right. This view is re-enforced by the fact that Lord Lansdowne,
who also received Balfour’s telegram alerting him to the gravity of the
situation, had also decided to return to London that same afternoon.
There was quite obviously further telegraphic or telephone contact
between Law and Lansdowne during that same afternoon, because a
meeting of leading members of the Conservative ‘inner circle’ was
arranged to take place at Lansdowne House, the London home of the
ex-Foreign Secretary, later the same evening.
Shortly after arriving back in London, in the early evening, Bonar
Law was invited to dine with Grey and Churchill. It is important to
note that the Opposition leader declined this invitation, believing that
Grey was likely to suggest Conservative participation in a coalition
132 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

Government in the event of the Cabinet failing to endorse British

intervention in a European War. At this time, Bonar Law appears to
have been disinclined to engage in unofficial negotiations with Grey
on the possibility of a coalition, before he had the opportunity of
discussing the international situation with his close Shadow Cabinet
colleagues.22
The Conservative ‘inner circle’ met for 90 minutes at Lansdowne
House very late in the evening of 1 August 1914 to talk about the
Conservative stance towards the European crisis. Those present at
this important meeting were Bonar Law, Lord Lansdowne, Balfour,
Sir Henry Wilson, Law’s military adviser, and the Conservative Chief
Whips in the Commons (Lord Edmond Talbot) and the Lords (the
Duke of Devonshire). Austen Chamberlain, the Shadow Chancellor
of the Exchequer, was also urged by George Lloyd to attend this meet-
ing, but he did not arrive back in London in time to do so. The only
backbench MP present was Lloyd, a close friend of Bonar Law, who
subsequently gave two contradictory accounts of the attitude of
Lansdowne and Law at this meeting, which must cast some doubt on
his dependability as a reliable witness. Lloyd told Austen Chamberlain
that Lansdowne and Law ‘did not seem to grasp the gravity of the
situation’ during the course of the crisis meeting at Lansdowne
House.23 But in a subsequent account of the meeting, later given in
an interview with Ian Colvin, Lloyd claimed that Lansdowne was
fully aware of the gravity of situation and he tried to make contact
with Asquith by telephone during the meeting to request a meeting
between the Prime Minister and the Opposition leaders to discuss the
European crisis.24 The account given by Lloyd to Colvin does appear
more trustworthy, when compared to the evidence of others who
attended the meeting. There is no difference of opinion about the
major outcome of the meeting at Lansdowne House. It was agreed by
the Conservative ‘inner circle’ that Lord Lansdowne should immedi-
ately send a letter to the Prime Minister informing him that the
Conservative leadership would be willing to meet him at any time to
appraise him of their views towards the crisis. However, the letter,
which was sent to Asquith that evening, did not actually outline the
Conservative position towards the crisis.
On the morning of Sunday, 2 August 1914, the German Government
sent an ultimatum to the ‘poor defenceless’ Belgian Government,
requesting authorisation to allow the German army safe passage
 The Conservative Party and the Decision for War 133

across its territory. The Cabinet was due to meet later the same
morning in emergency session to discuss its response to this new and
extremely disturbing development. Meanwhile, Law, with Lansdowne
and Balfour in attendance, awaited Asquith’s reply to their letter of
the previous evening at Pembroke Lodge, Bonar Law’s London
home. Austen Chamberlain, who arrived at Pembroke Lodge, shortly
after breakfast, suggested a second letter should be sent to the
Prime Minister, which clearly outlined the position of the Opposition
towards the crisis. There was some discussion between Law,
Lansdowne and Balfour on Austen Chamberlain’s proposal. It was
finally decided by Law, seemingly on the spur of the moment, to
write to the Prime Minister outlining the views of the Opposition
towards the European crisis. It seems that Lansdowne was uneasy
about the wisdom of stating the position of the Opposition too
explicitly in the letter in case it highlighted differences between the
Government and the Opposition over foreign policy and thereby
breached the principles of bi-partisanship.25 The letter which Bonar
Law sent to Asquith, is significant, because it puts on record the
position taken by the Conservative leadership towards the European
crisis and agreed upon the night before at Lansdowne House. The
views expressed in the letter were already well known to Grey and
Asquith as Bonar Law, during the last week of July 1914, had gone
‘daily to Grey’s room at the House of Commons to be briefed on
diplomatic developments’,26 In the letter to the Prime Minister, dated
2 August 1914, Bonar Law wrote:

Dear Mr. Asquith,

Lord Lansdowne and I feel it is our duty to inform you
that in our opinion, as well as in that of all the colleagues
with whom we have been able to consult, it would be
fatal to the honour and security of the United Kingdom
to hesitate in supporting France and Russia at the
present moment; and we offer our unhesitating support
to the Government in any measures they may consider
necessary to that object27

There are two important points to make about the views expressed by
Bonar Law in this letter. First, the letter makes very clear the unanimity
of the Opposition ‘inner circle’ towards supporting France and Russia
134 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

during the crisis. Second, the letter does not even mention the
question of Belgian neutrality, which was the issue being constantly
highlighted by Grey to his Cabinet colleagues as the chief reason
why Britain should go to war. In reply, Asquith, who was chiefly con-
cerned with maintaining Cabinet unity over the question of Belgian
neutrality, rather than focusing on Britain’s obligations towards
France, informed Bonar Law that Britain was under ‘no obligation’
to France or Russia. The Prime Minister even questioned whether
British obligations towards Belgium made British participation in a
European war inevitable. Asquith also pointed out to the Opposition
leader that Britain’s decision to go to war would be determined by
three issues: treaty obligations to Belgium, a determination to uphold
naval supremacy and a concern that France should not be crushed as
a great power. In a more conciliatory passage, Asquith did promise
to meet with Law and Lansdowne at 10 Downing Street on Monday,
3 August 1914 to discuss the crisis with them in person. In the reply to
Bonar Law, Asquith had acknowledged the position of the Opposition
towards the crisis, but had skilfully distanced himself and the Cabinet
from the course of action which Bonar Law had proposed even
though it was a course of action he knew Grey fully supported.
According to Austen Chamberlain, the Conservative ‘inner circle’
expressed some concern about Asquith’s reply but took some comfort
in the fact that Asquith did mention in one passage in the letter that
the Government could not stand by and see France ‘crushed’.28
The Prime Minister at the first emergency Cabinet meeting on
2 August 1914 read out Bonar Law’s letter.29 Asquith later claimed the
letter had no influence on the deliberations of the Cabinet at all. The
same view is put forward in the memoirs of Sir Edward Grey.30
However, the accounts of other Cabinet ministers, particularly
those who opposed intervention, recall that Bonar Law’s letter was
used negatively by Asquith and Grey, and their Liberal Imperialist
colleagues, to increase the mounting pressure on the ‘waverers’ in
the Cabinet to ‘stand together’ during the crisis rather than lead
the way to an inevitable Conservative–Liberal Imperialist coalition
Government.31 In fact, Grey was openly telling his Cabinet colleagues
that he would definitely resign if Britain did not intervene. Moreover,
Churchill claimed that during the break between the first and second
emergency Cabinet meetings on 2 August 1914, he actually discussed
with Balfour the possibility of the Conservatives joining a coalition
 The Conservative Party and the Decision for War 135

with the Liberal Imperialists, if the Cabinet failed to agree about

intervention.32 During the second emergency Cabinet meeting on
2 August 1914, however, the Cabinet did agree, with only two
exceptions, to support British intervention, if Belgian neutrality
was violated.33 It does seem that fear of the consequences of a
Conservative-dominated coalition taking power if the Cabinet had
split apart was certainly an important influence on the decision of
‘waverers’ in the Cabinet to support British intervention.
On Monday, 3 August 1914, Bonar Law, accompanied by Lord
Lansdowne met Asquith at 10 Downing Street at 10.30 in the morning.
They both urged the Prime Minister to intervene in the European
conflict.34 According to Asquith’s account of this meeting, Bonar Law
and Lansdowne both cited the violation of Belgian neutrality as the
chief reason for their support of British intervention and did not even
mention Britain’s obligations towards France. It seems the emphasis
which Bonar Law and Lansdowne placed on Belgian neutrality at
this meeting was a premeditated decision which aimed to restore
bi-partisan harmony between both party leaders at a time of great
national emergency.35 The Shadow Cabinet, which had played no
part whatsoever in defining the Opposition attitude towards the
European Crisis, met at Lansdowne House, an hour later, and quickly
agreed that the policy of the Opposition towards the European crisis
was to offer the ‘unconditional support’ for the policy of the Liberal
Government.
On the afternoon of 3 August 1914, Sir Edward Grey, in a very
restrained speech, told the House of Commons that the Anglo-French
Entente did not legally bind Britain to enter the war on behalf of the
French Empire. He stressed that the British Government was free to
decide between peace and war. When Grey explained that Germany’s
violation of Belgian neutrality placed Britain under more of a legal
obligation to enter the war, he received loud cheers from both sides
of the House. Grey also stressed in his speech that if the German fleet
attacked France then Britain’s ‘national interests’ would be threatened,
and he warned MPs that if Britain backed away from supporting
France there would be ‘a severe loss of respect and honour’.36 Speaking
on behalf of the Opposition, Bonar Law praised the Foreign Secretary
for attempting to maintain peace in the face of insurmountable odds.
He also gave a firm assurance that the Government ‘could rely on the
unhesitating support of the Opposition’ in ‘whatever steps they think
136 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

it necessary to take for the honour and security of this country’.37 The
bi-partisan consensus once more stood firm in the public forum of
the House of Commons. However, some Liberal radicals, supported
by several Labour MPs demanded an adjournment debate to discuss
whether Britain should intervene on behalf of Belgium. This debate
took place on the evening of 3 August 1914. The Prime Minister,
the Foreign Secretary and the Opposition leader did not attend it.
One Liberal MP claimed that the reason why Britain was contemplat-
ing intervention in a European war was a direct consequence of the
‘war fever against Germany’ which had been waged for many years
by the Conservative Party and ‘their supporters in the press’.38 After
listening to several more speeches from the Liberals and socialists
opposed to war, Balfour suddenly stood up and appealed to the
speaker to curtail the debate which he thought was ‘not adding to our
dignity, and which, I venture to think, will possibly be misunder-
stood in the country and will be certainly misunderstood abroad’.39
Only minutes later, the speaker ended the debate.
On 4 August 1914, Bonar Law asked the Prime Minister in the
House of Commons, ‘if he has any information to give us to-day?’
Asquith replied, ‘Our Ambassador at Berlin received his passports at
seven o’clock, last evening, and since eleven o’clock last night a state
of war has existed between Germany and ourselves’.40 At this time,
the news that Germany had invaded Belgium was already known. By
the end of 4 August 1914, therefore, Britain was already at war with
Germany, ostensibly in defence of Belgium’s independence.
The German violation of Belgian neutrality was vital in uniting the
wavering and uncertain Liberal Cabinet and convincing British public
opinion of the need to enter ‘The Great War’. However, it was the pre-
vention of the destruction of France by Germany, which determined
the decision of the Conservative Party leadership to strongly support
British intervention. There was a very strong and united interven-
tionist spirit within the Conservative Party during the latter stages
of the July crisis. As one Liberal MP observed, ‘The overwhelming
mass of the Tory Party seem to suggest war is inevitable and some
seem eager to take the best chance of smashing Germany’.41 Winston
Churchill later recalled that he only received ‘one or two letters’ from
Conservatives who opposed British intervention.42 Throughout the
July crisis, backbench opinion in the Conservative Party had played
no part in the discussions of the Conservative ‘inner circle’, nor did
 The Conservative Party and the Decision for War 137

rank and file opinion in anyway influence the decisions which were
taken by the Conservative leadership.
If the Liberal Cabinet had split apart, which was a real possibility,
there was the equally real prospect of a coalition composed of
Conservatives and the Liberal–Imperialists. The very fact that Grey
was putting out informal feelers to the Conservative Party in July 1914
for a coalition reinforces the view that the Foreign Secretary was deter-
mined to ensure Britain did intervene, no matter what that meant for
the unity of the Liberal Party. The arrival of the Conservatives in
Government would have meant the decision to go to war with
Germany would have been taken anyway. Therefore, it was the
‘balance of forces’ in favour of intervention in both of the major
political parties which ensured that Britain was certain to go to war
once Germany had mounted a military attack in western Europe. The
Conservative Party, therefore, provided Grey with an additional
reserve group of parliamentary supporters for the policy of interven-
tion, which would almost certainly have been used, if the Cabinet fell
apart. In the end, Grey persuaded the Liberal radicals in the Cabinet
that it made sense to ‘stick with nurse for fear of something worse’.
Conclusion

The most important aim of this study was to critically examine

whether the conventional depiction of Conservative Party from 1905
to 1914 as consisting primarily of ‘anti-German’ scaremongers who
reacted to Anglo-German relations whether in connection with trade
rivalry, the naval arms race, foreign policy and conscription in a
hostile fashion which contributed to the growth of Anglo-German
estrangement was valid.1 It can now be seen this is one myth about
the British road to the First World War which must now be seriously
discussed and re-evaluated by scholars. It can now be convincingly
argued that the Conservative Party in the Edwardian years did
not consist of anti-German scaremongers who openly fomented
Anglo-German antagonism. On the contrary, the public attitudes of
Conservatives towards the key aspects of Anglo-German relations
showed a high level of public restraint and a marked absence of open
hostility. Scaremongering against Germany in public is shown in
this study to have been the preserve of ultra right-wing ‘outcasts’ on
the ‘radical right’ of the party, without any real influence over the
Conservative leadership. Indeed, the so-called radical right was
more a ‘loony right’ who had a very limited impact in persuading the
Conservative leadership to adopt a more strident Germanophobic
approach.
What really emerges from this study is a complex picture of the
Conservative response to Anglo-German relations from 1905 to 1914.
The Conservative Party consistently supported the principles of
bi-partisanship on matters foreign and defence policy.2 The control
of Opposition foreign and defence policy was kept in the hands of

138
 Conclusion 139

the Conservative leader and a very small and exclusive ‘inner circle’
of advisers. This allowed the two Conservative leaders in this period,
Balfour and Bonar Law, to enjoy a unique measure of independence
in the presentation of the Opposition attitude towards the key aspects
of Anglo-German relations. Zara Steiner’s view that foreign policy
formulation within the British Government was made by ‘a few men
who are easily identifiable’ can be equally applied, as this study has
shown, to the conduct and presentation of foreign and defence affairs
by the Opposition.3
Given the importance of the party leader over foreign and defence
policy, the views of Balfour and Bonar Law required detailed analysis.
It has been shown that Balfour’s attitude towards Germany was
dramatically transformed between 1905 and 1914 in a much more
significant manner than has been emphasised by his biographers. In
1905, Balfour claimed that he was ‘the last person to believe in the
German threat’, but during the July crisis he was the most energetic
and influential supporter of a swift British declaration of war against
Germany in order to ‘prevent France being crushed’.4 The single most
profound cause of this shift in Balfour’s attitude towards Germany
between 1905 and 1914 was not commercial rivalry, but the growth of
a German navy, deployed in the North Sea, which he believed repre-
sented a clear challenge to Britain’s national and imperial interests.
Balfour’s approach to Anglo-German relations as Opposition leader
is best described as realistic statesmanship which avoided making
hostile comments on Germany and helped to bolster Grey’s foreign
policy in the interests of bi-partisanship.
It has now become commonplace for historians to emphasise sharp
differences in leadership style and policy between the apparently
diffident Balfour and the seemingly strident Bonar Law.5 But what
this study has revealed is that there were many important elements of
similarity and continuity in how these two Conservative leaders dealt
with Anglo-German relations. In fact, Bonar Law emerges in this
study as more open minded on Anglo-German relations than Balfour.
The bi-partisanship approach to foreign affairs was continued and
enthusiastically supported by Bonar Law. At the same time, Bonar
Law’s speeches on Anglo-German relations were full of friendly, con-
structive and extremely positive comments. He concentrated his
arguments in support of tariff reform, not on the economic threat
from Germany but on the intransigence of supporters of free trade
140 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

within the Liberal Party. But Law’s outwardly restrained approach

towards Anglo-German relations was also underpinned by underlying
and realistic fears about the growth of German economic, naval and
military power. Yet Bonar Law, like Balfour, was not prepared to adopt
or support policies to meet the German threat which breached the
bi-partisan consensus or were electorally unpopular. He flatly refused
to adopt the ‘fighting independent policy’ on naval and army issues
which was energetically demanded by many of his ‘die hard’ right-
wing supporters. On the issue of conscription, Bonar Law was a
political realist who was unwilling to commit the Conservative Party
to a deeply unpopular policy, even though he strongly believed
conscription was necessary to deal with the German military threat,
in the event of a European war. In fact, as this study has shown, Bonar
Law showed admirable political skill in handling the conscription
issue. He put forward a restrained posture on the conscription issue in
public but worked behind the scenes in the hope of hammering out
a cross-party agreement on the proposal. These backstage discussions
impressed many of the politicians who would become his partners in
the wartime coalition Government. What is perhaps most startling
about the new material presented here on Bonar Law’s approach to
the foreign, defence and economic aspects of Anglo-German relations
is that the often bitter confrontational style he adopted in domestic
politics, particularly over Lloyd George’s People’s Budget, the House
of Lords crisis and the Irish Home Rule affair was not carried over into
how he handled foreign and defence matters. As this study has
shown, Bonar Law, greatly influenced by Lord Lansdowne showed a
quite remarkable level of restraint when discussing Anglo-German
relations. Pragmatic realism is the best way to describe Law’s overall
response to Anglo-German relations as leader of the Opposition.
Most Conservatives in the Westminster sphere of political activity
followed the restrained attitude of the party leadership towards Anglo-
German relations. This is not to suggest there was not significant private
anxiety about the ‘German peril’, among Conservatives at Westminster,
especially, in relation to the naval arms race. A great many Conservatives
believed a war with Germany was a distinct possibility. The comment
of George Wyndham that ‘the Germans mean to have war: not
necessarily in the immediate future, but some day, and pretty soon’,
was a fairly typical private Conservative view.6 Yet these pessimistic
Conservative views on the likely course of Anglo-German relations
 Conclusion 141

were hardly ever uttered in parliamentary debate. In fact, a quite

remarkable level of caution was maintained whenever Conservatives
discussed Anglo-German relations in parliament. In general, a few
provocative statements or moral judgements about the German
desire for ‘a place in the sun’ marked the Conservative response to
Anglo-German naval rivalry. Conservative speeches in support of tariff
reform certainly included discussions of German social and economic
conditions but support for tariff reform was an integral part of the
domestic political struggle with the Liberals over economic policy
rather than being intimately linked to foreign policy.7 Conservative
tariff reformers more often saw Germany as a model rather than a
threat. There was also a general consensus among Conservatives at
Westminster that conscription was a deeply unpopular policy which
could only be implemented within a bi-partisan framework.
It is only when the focus of analysis moves away from Westminster
politics to examine key public sphere of political activity outside
Westminster that a much more complex picture emerges. As explained
in Chapter 5, the most sustained period of Conservative electoral
activity on the German threat was confined to the period immediately
prior to the general election of January 1910. At that election, the
naval and economic threat posed by Germany did play a very impor-
tant role in the electioneering and the propaganda tactics of the
Conservative Party. But there is no real evidence of an orchestrated
plan by the Conservative Party to create a systematic form of ‘xeno-
phobic propaganda’ against Germany on the naval arms race and
trade rivalry at the two elections of 1910.8 In fact, Balfour never
believed Germanophobia was likely to be ‘the electoral cannonball’
which many right-wing press editors thought it would. An examina-
tion of the content of Conservative electoral propaganda reinforces
this view more clearly. It cannot be argued with any conviction that
‘anti-Germanism’ was the chief characteristic of the language of
Conservative propaganda on tariff reform.9 On the contrary, the
dominant feature of official Conservative Party propaganda on tariff
reform was the projection of the German fiscal system as a model and
the portrayal of the German way of life in positive terms. Conservative
propaganda on the navy focused on those so-called unpatriotic
Liberals who wanted to reduce naval expenditure and was not focused
on attacking the aims of German naval policy. At the two elections of
1910, the Conservative Party did not project a single consistent view
142 Conservative Party & Anglo-German Relations

on Germany. Potential voters were offered very confusing images

of Germany as a threat and a model. Underlying this ambiguous
presentation of Germany in Conservative propaganda were deep
organisational problems within the party structure. Balfour’s mastery
of the Westminster sphere of political activity was not transferred to
the organisation of the party in the country, especially at election
time. Attempting to ‘keep the party on message’ proved impossible,
and canvassing at the local level was often chaotic with many of the
competing types of propaganda being offered to voters as if they
represented the view of the party leader. Those historians who have
argued that the Conservative Party, under the leadership of Balfour,
lacked a streamlined and professional organisation outside parliament
have found much to support that view in the examination of the elec-
toral and propaganda tactics of the party in the two general elections
of 1910 which forms part of this study.
What has also been revealed in this study is that ‘scaremongering’
on the German threat was predominantly an extra-parliamentary
phenomenon which had very little support from those in positions
of responsibility at the top of the Conservative Party. As revealed
in Chapter 6, there was a strong feeling of paranoid desperation,
isolation and alienation among the leading ‘radical-right’ activists in
Conservative pressure groups, concerning their complete lack of
influence over the Conservative leadership. But, the ‘scaremongers’
never contemplated either forming or supporting a party that was
not ‘Conservative’. Lord Charles Beresford, one of the leading right-
wing agitators in the Imperial Maritime League claimed that in his
attempt to warn the public of the dangers of the German naval
threat, Balfour ‘was the greatest enemy I had’.10 He also admitted that
Bonar Law ‘did not take the slightest note’ of his requests for the
Conservative Party to engage in a strong agitation over the German
threat between 1911 and 1914.
In the final chapter, it was shown, in a very revealing and rare
micro-study of Opposition foreign policy, how the Conservative
‘inner circle’ reacted to the unfolding European crisis which led to
the outbreak of the First World War. If Chapter 1, explained the
nature of the ‘inner circle’, who controlled Opposition foreign and
defence policy and who had the greatest influence, Chapter 7 showed
how policy operated in practice. It was the Conservative leader and
his ‘inner circle’ that decided the Opposition position towards the
 Conclusion 143

European crisis in 1914, with scant reference to the Shadow Cabinet

and complete indifference to the views of the party rank and file. The
roles of Bonar Law and Lord Lansdowne, supported by the influential
Balfour were dominant in the construction of Opposition foreign
policy towards the July crisis. The prevention of the destruction of
France by Germany was the major reason why the Conservative Party
leadership supported British intervention, not the German violation
of Belgian neutrality, which was the vital issue that united the Liberal
Cabinet and convinced British public opinion of the need to go to
war. The ‘balance of forces’ in favour of British intervention in both
the major political parties ensured that Britain was certain to go to
war against Germany in August 1914 even if the Liberal Cabinet had
fallen apart.
The motives behind the high level of restraint and marked absence
of open hostility towards Germany displayed by the Conservative
Party from 1905 to 1914 can now be more fully understood. In
the arena of domestic politics, the depiction of Germany as a role
model in the debate over tariff reform is shown in this study as a
calculated tactical device designed to win the domestic struggle with
the Liberals over economic policy. In the arena of foreign policy,
Conservative restraint on Germany was designed to give support to
the foreign policy, followed by Sir Edward Grey. Lord Lansdowne
constantly urged the Conservative Party to offer unqualified support
for Grey. The leadership of the Conservative Party gave wholehearted
support to Grey not on the basis they supported everything he did, but
on the understanding that Grey would use the Anglo-French Entente
to uphold the balance of power in Europe. Grey used Conservative
support for his foreign policy negatively during the European crisis in
1914 in order to convince ‘waverers’ in the Liberal Cabinet to back
his policy or face a Conservative–Liberal Imperialist coalition. In a
very real sense, Conservative support for Grey during the July crisis
was the important fear factor which kept a disunited Liberal Cabinet
together. However, the decision to go to war against Germany helped to
make a coalition with the Conservative Party of Bonar Law, which
the Liberals only narrowly avoided in 1914, a more likely possibility
because as Ivor Jennings quite rightly puts it, ‘War is always good for
the Conservative Party, not because its members are “bloody minded”,
but because their imperialism makes them single minded’.11
The Key Characters

Arthur James Balfour, first Earl of Balfour, (1848–1930) was a major

Conservative politician between 1886 and 1930, and Prime Minister between
1902 and 1905. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. In
1874, he was elected MP for Hertford, and he rose in the Conservative Party,
many contemporaries claimed, because he was pushed forward by his ‘Uncle
Bob’ – that giant late Victorian Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. In 1878, he
accompanied his uncle to the Congress of Berlin and gained his first experience
of international relations, an interest he retained for the rest of his political life.
In 1878, he wrote a book entitled In Defence of Philosophic Doubt, which estab-
lished him as an intellectual politician. He held many notable Cabinet posts
in the late Victorian age, including, Secretary of State for Ireland, First Lord of
the Treasury and Foreign Secretary. After 1892, he acted as Conservative leader
in the House of Commons. A popular joke in the late Victorian age suggested
anything was possible if ‘Bob’s your uncle’, but in spite of the charge of nepo-
tism, Balfour became highly respected and produced logical and convincing
speeches in the House of Commons. In July 1902, he became Prime Minister,
but his leadership of the Conservative Party was dogged by internal party dis-
putes, most notably over tariff reform. One notable achievement was the estab-
lishment of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) which helped to plan
and coordinate British defence policy. In December 1905, Balfour resigned, and
the Conservative party suffered a major election defeat in 1906. After two more
election defeats in 1910, Balfour’s position as leader was greatly weakened, and
in 1911, he resigned. He remained an important figure in the Conservative
party and British politics. In May 1915, he was appointed First Lord of the
Admiralty, due to his great expertise on naval affairs, in Asquith’s coalition
government. He also became Foreign Secretary in Lloyd George’s coalition. In
1917, he issued what became known as ‘The Balfour Declaration’ which prom-
ised a homeland for Jewish people. He resigned as Foreign Secretary after the
Versailles Conference, but remained in the Cabinet as Lord President of the
Council until he resigned in 1922, with most of the Conservative leadership,
following the revolt that swept Lloyd George from office. In 1925, Baldwin per-
suaded him to join his government as Lord President of the Council. He died in
1930 and was praised for his major contribution to political life, foreign affairs
and national defence.

Charles William Beresford, first Baron Beresford (1846–1919), was known as

Lord Charles Beresford in the Edwardian era. He became a Conservative MP in

144
 The Key Characters 145

1875 but continued to serve in the Royal Navy. He constantly pushed for
greater expenditure on the navy. He was in command of the Mediterranean
fleet from 1905 to 1907. He had a long-running battle during the Edwardian
era with John Fisher over his modernising naval reforms. Beresford returned
to parliament as MP for the naval town of Portsmouth. He retired from the
navy in 1911 and was a leading backbench critic of Balfour.

Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain (1863–1937) was a leading Conservative

figure who won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the son of Joseph
Chamberlain and was educated at Rugby Public School and Trinity College,
Cambridge. He visited Germany and took classes at the University of Berlin,
His time in Germany led him to believe German nationalism was a potential
danger to the peace of Europe. He was first elected to parliament as a mem-
ber of his father’s Liberal Unionist Party in 1892. From 1895 to 1900, he was
appointed Civil Lord of the Admiralty. In 1903, he was appointed
Chancellor of the Exchequer. After 1906, Chamberlain became the leading
Opposition spokesman on economic matters and the standard bearer of the
tariff reform wing of the party. In 1911, he was a leading contender to
succeed Balfour as Conservative leader, but he lost out to Bonar Law. In
1915, he joined the wartime coalition as Secretary of State for India but
resigned in 1917 after the failure of British forces in Mesopotamia. In 1918,
he was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer again. In 1921, he became
leader of the Conservative Party. In 1922, Chamberlain resigned as leader
after the backbench revolt that brought Bonar Law to power. He was one of
the very few Conservative leaders who never became Prime Minister. From
1924 to 1929 he was Foreign Secretary and helped to negotiate the Locarno
treaty, under whose terms the German government accepted the western
borders decided upon at the Paris Peace settlement of 1919. For his efforts,
he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. He returned to office in 1931 as
First Lord of the Admiralty in the National Government, but he resigned
after being forced to deal with the Invergordon Mutiny. He was very critical,
from 1933 until his death, of the National Government’s policy of appeasing
Nazi Germany.

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) was one of the most influential British

political figures of the period 1886–1914. In his early life, he was a successful
businessman and a radical Liberal. He was the father of two leading
Conservative figures: Neville Chamberlain and Austen Chamberlain. He went
to University College School, but never attended university. At eighteen, he
joined the family screw-making company in Birmingham, and it is with
that city that he is most identified. In 1873, he became Lord Mayor of
Birmingham, and as a Liberal reformer he introduced a series of reforms in
housing, education, and public and utility services dubbed as ‘gas and water
socialism’. In 1876, he became Liberal MP for Birmingham and was then a
critic of Disraeli’s jingoistic imperialist policies. In 1880, he was appointed
President of the Board of Trade in Gladstone’s Liberal government. In March
1886, he split from the Liberal Party over Gladstone’s plans for Home Rule for
146 The Key Characters

Ireland and joined the Liberal Unionist Association which soon aligned with
the Conservative Party to form the Conservative and Unionist Party, often
called ‘The Unionist Party’. Most Liberals saw Chamberlain as a traitor. In 1895,
he was appointed Colonial Secretary and became involved in the expansionist
plans of Cecil Rhodes in southern Africa. In 1895, he supported a bungled
attack on the Transvaal (‘The Jameson Raid’) which ended in humiliating
failure. He also soured relations with the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
Britain’s relations with the Boer Republics – as these two countries were
known – deteriorated between 1895 and the outbreak of the Second Boer War
(1899–1902). Joseph Chamberlain made a number of efforts to improve
Anglo-German relations as Colonial Secretary. In March 1898, he opened talks
with the German government about the possibility of an Anglo-German
understanding on colonial issues, but von Bulow, the German Chancellor
rejected this offer suggesting Britain was not a ‘reliable’ potential ally. Later
that year, Britain cooperated with Germany over the partition of the
Portuguese empire. This agreement prompted Chamberlain to press again for
an Anglo-German agreement. In 1899, Britain, Germany and the USA again
cooperated over the future of Samoa. In a speech at Windsor Castle in
November 1899, with Kaiser Wilhem II in attendance, Chamberlain said he
desired an ‘understanding’ between Britain and Germany. The Kaiser responded
by saying that although he wanted friendly Anglo-German relations, he did not
want to antagonise Russia by openly allying with Britain. When von Bulow
heard of this, he said the best way for Britain to have friendly relations was to
ensure Germany was spoken of in positive terms by leading politicians and
the British press. On 30 November 1899, Chamberlain said in a speech at
Leicester that a Triple alliance involving Britain, Germany and the USA would
‘become a potent influence on the future of the world’. But von Bulow poured
cold water on such an idea and claimed Britain was a ‘jealous’ and declining
power. Even so, Chamberlain continued to press for an Anglo-German agree-
ment. In January 1901, he told the German ambassador that he supported
Britain joining the Triple Alliance. During the autumn of 1901, the German
government invited Britain to join the Triple alliance, but Lord Salisbury
rejected the offer. With the dream of an Anglo-German alliance over,
Chamberlain began to look at the prospect of closer Anglo-French relations
more favourably. In September 1903, Chamberlain resigned from the Balfour
Cabinet and started a campaign for Tariff Reform, which divided the
Conservative party, united the Liberals and contributed to three Conservative
election defeats in the Edwardian period. After the 1906 defeat, the tariff
reform debate dominated the party. In July 1906, Chamberlain suffered a
severe stroke, which paralysed his right side and led to difficulties in speaking
and writing. Henceforth, his political career was over at a time when the Tariff
reform crusade was at its height. On 2 July 1914, his wife Mary read him
details of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and later that very same day he
had a severe heart attack and died.

Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923) was a leading Conservative politician and

Prime Minister. He was born in Rexton in New Brunswick, Canada. In 1860,
 The Key Characters 147

his mother died, and he later moved to live with his mother’s family in
Glasgow. The family were rich merchant bankers, and after attending Glasgow
High School, he joined the family business. In 1891, he married Annie Robley
in 1891, and they had seven children. His financial independence, gained
from the family business, allowed him to pursue a career in politics. He
became Conservative MP for Glasgow Blackfriars in 1900 and soon became a
supporter of tariff reform. He was made parliamentary secretary at the Board of
Trade in 1902. After 1906, Law was considered, along with Austen Chamberlain,
as one of the most passionate supporters of tariff reform in the Conservative
opposition. Law developed a reputation as a blunt and fearless debater and
was known for his honesty. He lost his seat in 1906 election but returned to
represent Dulwich in a by-election later that year. In 1911, he was elected as
Conservative leader, and he focused his attention on tariff reform and fought
a bitter opposition to Liberal plans for Home Rule in Ireland. He entered the
coalition government as Colonial Secretary in 1915 and served in Lloyd
George’s War Cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the
House of Commons. His two eldest sons were killed in action during the First
World War, which added to the sadness he already endured after the death of
his beloved wife several years earlier. At the 1918 election, he was elected MP
for Glasgow Central. In 1921, ill health forced him to resign as Conservative
leader, and he was replaced by Austen Chamberlain. He returned to office as
Prime Minister in October 1922 when Conservative MPs forced Lloyd George
out of office. In May 1923, he resigned after being diagnosed with throat
cancer and was replaced by Stanley Baldwin. He became known as the
‘unknown Prime Minister’ and was the shortest serving Prime Minister of
the twentieth century, but he was an extremely important political figure in
the early twentieth century.
William St John Fremantle Brodrick, first Earl of Midleton, commonly
known as St John Brodrick, (1856–1942) was the Conservative spokesman for
army affairs in the House of Lords from 1905 to 1914. He was educated at Eton
and Balliol College, Oxford. He entered parliament as MP for Surrey West in
1880. He held several ministerial posts related to imperial and foreign affairs
and national defence, most notably, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of
State for India.
Lord Cawdor, Frederich Archibald Vaughan Campbell, third Earl of Cawdor
(1847–1911), was educated at Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford. He mar-
ried Edith Turnor in 1868, and they had ten children. He served as First Lord
of the Admiralty briefly in the 1902–1905 Balfour Government. He was the
leading Conservative naval spokesman in the House of Lords from 1905 until
his death in 1911.
George Nathaniel Curzon, first Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925),
was a leading Conservative politician in the early twentieth century. Educated
at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford where he was a brilliant student and
inspired a poem which contained the lines, ‘My name is George Nathaniel
Curzon, I am a most superior person’. He entered parliament in 1886 as
148 The Key Characters

Conservative member for Southport. He was Under-Secretary of State for India

(1891–1892) and Foreign Affairs (1895–1898). In 1899, he was appointed
Viceroy of India and henceforth was deeply antagonistic towards Russia. He
instituted a number of reforms as Viceroy involving administration, educa-
tion and reform of the police force. In 1904, he decided to partition Bengal
which roused bitter opposition and was later revoked in 1912. In 1905, he
resigned as Viceroy and returned to England. He spoke on imperial affairs for
the Conservatives in the House of Lords from 1905 to 1914. He also took an
active part in opposition to the Liberal government’s plans to remove the veto
power of the House of Lords. From December 1916, he served in Lloyd
George’s War Cabinet as leader of the House of Lords. After the First World
War, he became Foreign Secretary, and when Bonar Law retired in May 1923,
Curzon was a leading contender to become leader of the Conservative party,
but he was beaten in the leadership contest by Stanley Baldwin largely because
it was felt it would be an unpopular move to make a rich aristocrat leader of the
Conservative Party during an age of mass democracy. When Baldwin became
Prime Minister in November 1924, he did not continue with Curzon as
Foreign Secretary and made him Lord President of the Council, a post he held
until his death in March 1924. It was widely felt that Curzon never fulfilled
his brilliant early promise and that he failed in most of the major posts he
held in government.

Lord Esher, Reginald Baliol Brett, second Viscount Esher (1852–1930), was a
leading defence expert in the Edwardian era. In 1901, he became deputy
governor of Windsor Castle, and he remained on close terms with the Royal
family for the rest of his life. He edited Queen Victoria’s papers and published
a book called The Correspondence of Queen Victoria in 1907. He was a Liberal
and a fervent supporter of the Anglo-French Entente and a close adviser to
Balfour between 1905 and 1914.

John Arbuthnot ‘Jackie’ Fisher, first Baron Fisher (1841–1920), is the second
most well-known naval figures in history, after Lord Nelson, and he was the
leading figure in the Edwardian naval administration. He was born in Ceylon
(now Sri Lanka) to an English family. He joined the navy on 1854 and studied
at Excellent, the naval gunnery school. From 1876 to 1883, he was the captain
of five different Royal naval vessels. He was part of the British fleet that bom-
barded Alexandria in the Egyptian War of 1882. In October 1905, he was
appointed First Sea Lord. In December 1905, he became Admiral of the fleet.
Fisher was known as a ‘moderniser’ and reformer, and he was appointed to
reform the navy in order to reduce its budget. He sold off 90 obsolete battle-
ships and a further 64 reserve vessels. Fisher believed the Dreadnought, the
high-speed big-gun battleship, supported by new high-speed battle cruisers,
would allow the Royal Navy to continue to ‘rule the waves’ and keep Britain
safe from overseas invasion. He also encouraged the introduction of
submarines. He was severely criticised by right-wing sections of the
Conservative Party for suggesting Germany had no chance of invading
Britain, and he was also opposed to conscription. Not only did Fisher advise
 The Key Characters 149

the Liberal government, but he was also a key adviser to A.J. Balfour, as leader
of the Opposition. He died of cancer in 1920.

Sir Edward Grey, first Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933), was British
Foreign Secretary in the Edwardian period. He was educated in Winchester
and Balliol College, Oxford. He was elected Liberal MP in 1885. He was parlia-
mentary under-secretary for foreign affairs between 1892 and 1895. He was a
strong supporter of the British Empire and was dubbed a ‘Liberal-Imperialist’.
In 1905, Grey was appointed as Foreign Secretary: a post he held until 1916
and the longest holder of that office in the twentieth century. Grey’s policy
was to ensure that if war came Britain would be allied against Germany, a
power he thought was intent on dominating the continent. He signed the
Anglo-Russian convention in 1907, and he maintained his support for a
bi-partisan or non-partisan approach to foreign affairs with the Conservatives,
something he was criticised for by radicals on the left of the Liberal Party. In
1914, Grey played a key role in the events which led to the outbreak of war.
He was determined to support France, but in public he used the neutrality of
Belgium as the pretext for Britain entering the war, something that did not
deter Germany. He is best remembered for a remark he made on hearing of the
outbreak of the First World War: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe: we
shall not see them lit again in our lifetime’. After the war, he wrote his memoirs
and was a highly regarded elder statesman.

Lord Lansdowne, Henry Charles Keith Petty-FitzMaurice, fifth Marquess of

Lansdowne (1845–1927), was a very wealthy Irish peer, who was Foreign
Secretary between 1900 and 1905 and the leading Conservative spokesman on
foreign affairs between 1905 and 1914. He went to Eton and Oxford. He
entered the House of Lords as a Liberal in 1866, and served as Lord of the
Treasury in Gladstone’s government from 1869 to 1872 and as Under-
Secretary for war between 1872 and 1874. He was Governor-General of
Canada between 1883 and 1888, and Viceroy of India from 1888 to 1894. On
his return to England, he aligned as a Liberal Unionist with the Conservative
Party and was appointed Secretary of State of War in June 1895. As Foreign
Secretary, he negotiated the 1904 Anglo-French Entente, and in 1906, he
became Conservative leader in the House of Lords. In 1915, he joined the
wartime coalition of Herbert Asquith as minister without portfolio, but he was
not given a post in Lloyd George’s coalition government formed in 1916, and
he never held high office again.

Arthur Hamilton Lee, first Viscount Lee of Fareham, (1868–1947) was the
leading Conservative spokesman for naval affairs in the House of Commons
from 1905 to 1914. He came from humble origins and did not attend univer-
sity. His wife Ruth was the daughter of a wealthy New York banker, and the
couple were prominent in New England society. He was Conservative MP for
Fareham in Hampshire between 1900 and 1918. He founded the Courtauld
Institute of Art, and he owned the Buckinghamshire estate Chequers which
was left in his will to be used as the official retreat of British prime ministers.
150 The Key Characters

Walter Hume Long, first Viscount Long, (1854–1924) was a leading

Conservative politician in the Edwardian era. He was educated at Harrow and
Christ Church College, Oxford. He served as a Conservative MP from 1880 to
1921. Long held a number of Cabinet posts, most notably, as President of the
Board of Agriculture, as Chief Secretary of Ireland during 1905 and First Lord
of the Admiralty from 1919 to 1921. Long’s wife and mother had Irish con-
nections, and he was a strong supporter of Irish Unionism throughout his
political career. In 1907, he helped to establish the Ulster Unionist Defence
League. He sat as an MP for a Dublin constituency from 1905 to 1910. He was
one of the few Conservatives who remained sympathetic to free trade in
Opposition, and he is best known as a leading candidate to succeed Balfour in
1911, but he lost out to Bonar Law. He played a leading role in the
Government of Ireland Act and the establishment of the Irish Free State. He
retired from politics in 1921 and died just three years later.

Leopold James Maxse (1864–1932) was a noted right-wing journalist and edi-
tor of the National Review from 1893 to 1932. He attended Cambridge
University and was made President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1886.
Maxse was famous for being pro-French and anti-German during the
Edwardian period, and he even wrote a book called ‘Germany on the Brain’ in
1916. He continued to be anti-German after the war and thought the
Versailles Treaty was too lenient on Germany. He was also a strong opponent
of the League of Nations. At the general election of 1918, he supported the
extreme right-wing National Party.

Alfred Milner, first Viscount Milner (1854–1925), was a controversial British

imperialist statesman. He was born in Giessen, Hesse-Darmstadt in Germany.
He was educated in Germany and then became a scholar at Balliol College,
Oxford. He was awarded a first in classics in 1877. He spoke with the trace of
a German accent for most of his life, which was a great irony, as he often
described himself as a ‘British race patriot’, and he dreamed of an expanded
British Empire with its own global imperial parliament. In 1897, Joseph
Chamberlain appointed him as High Commissioner of South Africa and
Governor of Cape Colony. He was a controversial appointent, having little
government experience. He told a friend before his departure that while in
South Africa he was determined to ‘teach those bloody Boers a lesson’. He was
a leading figure in causing the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902).
In February 1901, he took over the administration of the Boer states, and it
was Milner who was responsible for the concentration camps which housed
27,000 Boer women and children in appalling conditions that produced wide-
spread controversy. After the war he was appointed Governor of the
Transvaal and the Orange free state. Suffering from ill health, he resigned in
April 1905 and returned to Britain. He became a passionate advocate of tariff
reform, the unity of the empire and a strong national defence to meet the
German threat during the Edwardian age. In 1910, he founded ‘The Round
Table’, which promoted ideas of imperial unity and acted as a policy think-
tank on imperial and defence matters. He also became chairman of Rio Tinto
 The Key Characters 151

Zinc and was a strong opponent of attempts to curb the veto powers of the
House of Lords. In 1918, Milner was appointed as Secretary of State for War
and then Colonial Secretary. He attended the Paris Peace Conference and was
one of the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles. He died of sleeping sickness
after a visit to South Africa in 1925.

Ernest Pretyman (1860–1931) was a leading Conservative spokesman on

naval affairs from 1908 to 1914. He was educated at Eton and The Royal
Military Academy at Woolwich. In 1894, he married Lady Beatrice Adine
Bridgeman, the daughter of the fourth Earl of Bradford. He was a Conservative
MP for Suffolok (1895–1906) and Chelmsford (1908–1923). He was Civil Lord
of the Admiralty from 1900 to 1903 and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty
between 1903 and 1906.

Field Marshal Frederich Sleigh Roberts, first Earl Roberts (1832–1914), was one
of the most famous soldiers of the Victorian era and the President of the
National Service League. He was born in Cawnpore, India on 20 September
1832 and educated at Eton and Sandhurst. He had the nickname ‘Bobs’ and
played a significant role in several important military campaigns, including
the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the Second Boer War (1899–1902). He died of
pneumonia in 1914 while visiting Indian troops fighting at St. Mar in France
in the First World War. Such was his reputation that he was allowed to lie in
state at Westminster Hall, an honour only bestowed on one other non-Royal
in the twentieth century: Sir Winston Churchill in 1965. He was buried in
St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Lord Selborne, William Waldegrave Palmer, second Earl of Selborne

(1859–1942) was a leading Conservative figure on Naval affairs during the
Edwardian era. He was educated at Winchester and University College, Oxford
and gained a first class degree in history. In 1883, he married Lady Maud Cecil,
elder daughter of Robert Cecil (Lord Salisbury), who later became Prime
Minister. He started his political life as the Liberal MP for East Hampshire, but
he became a ‘Liberal Unionist’ in 1886 outraged with Gladstone’s proposal for
Irish Home Rule. From 1895 to 1900, he was Under Secretary of State for the
Colonies under Joseph Chamberlain. From 1900 to 1905, he was First Lord of
the Admiralty and supported the introduction of the new Dreadnought class
of battleships. From 1905 to 1910 he was High Commisioner for South Africa
and Governor of the Transvaal. He returned to England in 1910 and became a
leading supporter of Tariff Reform and Colonial preference and spoke on
naval affairs at Westminster.

Frederick Edwin Smith, first Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930), was a rising star
of the Conservative Party during the Edwardian years. He was born in
Birkenhead in Cheshire and was educated at Birkenhead School and Wadham
College, Oxford. He married Margaret Eleanor Furneaux in April 1901, and
they had three children. In 1906, he was elected Conservative MP for the
Liverpool constituency of Walton, which was then a Conservative stronghold.
He was known as ‘F.E. Smith’ and made his name as skilled lawyer. He was a
152 The Key Characters

hard-drinking, witty character and a brilliant orator. At the outbreak of the

First World War, he was put in charge of the Governments Press Bureau. In
1915, he was made Solicitor General, and he then became Attorney General.
In 1919, he became Lord Chancellor in Lloyd George’s coalition government.
Between 1924 and 1928, he was Secretary of State for India. After retiring from
politics, he became Director of Tate and Lyle. Margot Asquith once said,
‘F.E. Smith is very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head’.

George Wyndham (1863–1913) was the leading Conservative Spokesman on

army questions in the House of Commons from 1905 and 1913. In 1887, he
married Sibell, Countess Grosvenor (née Lumley), after the death of her first
husband, who was the son of the first Duke of Westminster. He was a prolific
writer and scholar, noted for his elegance and charm. He was Chief Secretary
for Ireland from 1900 to 1905, and he took a keen interest in army questions
until his death in 1913.
Notes

Introduction
1. See S. Hoggart, ‘Hard wired to be beastly to the Germans’, Guardian,
17 May 2002.
2. Daily Mirror, 24 June 1996.
3. The most important examples of studies focused on the ‘Official Mind’
of British Foreign policy are: F. Hinsley (ed.), The Foreign Policy of Sir
Edward Grey, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977; C. Lowe and
M. Dockrill, The Mirage of Power, vol. 1, British Foreign Policy 1902–1914,
London, Routledge, 1972; K. Robbins, Sir Edward Grey, London, Cassell,
1971; Z. Steiner, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1898–1914,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1968; Z. Steiner, Britain and The
Origins of the First World War, London, Macmillan, 1977; K. Wilson, The
Policy of The Entente: Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy
1904–1914, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985. For the role of
key figures in the military–naval establishment see: J. Gooch, The Plans of
War: The General Staff and British Military Strategy 1900–1916, London,
Routledge, 1974; P.M. Kennedy (ed.), The War Plans of the Great Powers,
London, Allen and Unwin, 1980; P.M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of
British Naval Mastery, London, Allen Lane, 1976; A.J. Marder, From
Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. 1, The Road to War 1900–1914, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 1961.
4. Wilson, Entente, pp.1–2.
5. See F. Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War, London, Macmillan,
1967.
6. See A. Mayer, ‘Internal Causes and Purposes of War in Europe 1870–
1956, A Research Assignment’, Journal of Modern History, vol. 41 (1969),
p. 291.
7. See J.A. Moses, The Politics of Illusion, the Fischer Controversy in German
historiography, London, 1975.
8. Steiner, Origins, pp. 1–2.
9. The most notable biographies, include: P. Fraser, Joseph Chamberlain:
Radicalism and Empire, 1868–1914, London, Cassell, 1966; H.S. Zebel,
Balfour, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, London, 1973.
10. The most noteworthy monographs are G. Phillips, The Die Hards:
Aristocratic Society and Politics in Edwardian Britain, Cambridge, MA,
Harvard University Press, 1979; J. Ramsden, The Age of Balfour and Baldwin

153
154 Notes

1902–1940, London, Longman, 1978; A. Sykes, Tariff Reform in British

Politics 1903–1913, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979.
11. See F. Coetzee, For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemmas of
Popular Conservatism in Edwardian England, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1990; G.R. Searle, ‘The “Revolt from the Right” in Edwardian
Britain’, in P.M. Kennedy and A.J. Nicholls (eds), Nationalist and Racialist
Movements in Britain and Germany in Britain and Germany before 1914,
London, Macmillan, 1981, pp. 21–39.
12. P. Kennedy, ‘The Pre War Right’ in P.M. Kennedy and A.J. Nicholls,
Nationalist and Racialist Movements, p. 2.
13. See F. Coetzee, ‘Pressure Groups, Tory Businessmen and the Aura of
Political Corruption before the First World War’, Historical Journal, vol. 29
(1988), pp. 833–852; E.H. Green, ‘Radical Conservativism and the
Electoral Genesis of Tariff Reform’ Historical Journal, vol. 28, (1985),
pp. 667–692. For a stimulating comparative survey of right wing groups in
Britain and Europe see: M. Blinkhorn (ed.), Fascists and Conservatives. The
radical right and the establishment in twentieth century Europe, London, Allen
and Unwin, 1990.
14. D. Dutton, ‘His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’: The Unionist Party in
Opposition 1905–1915, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 1992,
pp. 293–300.
15. Kennedy, ‘The Pre-War Right’, p. 1.
16. Blinkhorn, Conservatives, p. 2.
17. Lord Winterton, Pre-War, London, Macmillan, 1932, p. 20.
18. E. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire, London, 1968, p. 163.
19. P.M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914,
London, Allen and Unwin, 1980, p. 435.
20. Kennedy, ‘Pre-War Right’, p. 2.
21. The leading contributions include: R.J. Hoffman, Great Britain and the
German Trade rivalry 1875–1914, London, 1933; W.R. Louis, Great Britain
and Germany’s Lost Colonies 1914–1919, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1967; R.J. Sontag, Germany and England, Background to
Conflict 1848–1894, London, 1969.
22. Kennedy, Antagonism, p. 470.
23. Ibid., p. 486.
24. See P. Cain, ‘The Political Economy in Edwardian England: The Tariff
Reform Controversy, in A. O’Day (ed.), The Edwardian Age, London,
Macmillan, 1979, p. 51; W. Fest, ‘Jingoism and Xenophobia in the
Electioneering Strategies of British Ruling Elites before 1914’, in
P.M. Kennedy and A.J. Nicholls, Nationalist and Racialist Movements,
pp. 171–189.
25. Paul Kennedy has claimed what is needed to complement the vari-
ous studies of the ‘radical right’ pressure group in the Edwardian
period is a study of how the Conservative Party as a whole responded
to the growth of German power. See Kennedy, ‘The Pre-War Right’,
pp. 1–20.
 Notes 155

Chapter 1 The Nature and Organisation

of Conservative Foreign and Defence Questions
at Westminster
1. A. Ponsonby, Democracy and Diplomacy, London, Methuen, 1915, p. 49.
2. T. Coates, Lord Rosebery, His Life and Speeches, vol. 2, London, Hutchinson,
1900, pp. 542–543.
3. The Times, 18 November 1910.
4. The Times, 7 November 1905.
5. Conservative Party Archive, ‘The Benefits of Conservative Rule’,
Conservative Election Leaflet, 1905.
6. National Review, February 1911.
7. The Outlook, 5 January 1907.
8. Hansard, 16 February 1909, col. 23.
9. K.M. Wilson, ‘The Opposition and the Crisis of the Liberal Cabinet over
Foreign Policy in November 1911, International History Review, vol. 3(1981),
p. 403.
10. S. Low, The Governance of England, London, Fisher, 1904, p. 252.
11. F.A. Johnson, Defence by Committee: The Committee of Imperial Defence
1885–1959, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1960, p. 75.
12. Ibid., p. 55.
13. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 16, Beresford to Gwynne, 24 May 1912.
14. Hansard, 21 March 1902, cols. 322–368.
15. The Times, 18 May 1904.
16. Low, Governance, p. 251.
17. J. Spender, Public Life, London, Longman, 1925, p. 40.
18. Low, Governance, p. 166.
19. M. Egremont, Balfour, London, Collins, 1980, pp. 109–121.
20. Law Papers, 18/2/16, Arnold-Foster to Law, 24 April 1906.
21. Balfour Papers, 49777, fols. 82–89, Memorandum to Balfour, by Walter
Long, October 1911.
22. R. Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar
Law 1858–1923, London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955, p. 103.
23. A. Clark (ed.), ‘A Good Innings’: The Private Papers of Viscount Lee of
Fareham, London, John Murray, 1974, p. 120.
24. B. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, vol. 2, London, Hutchinson, 1936, p. 68.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. A. Chamberlain, Politics From the Inside: An Epistolary Chronicle,
1906–1914, London, Cassell, 1936, p. 350.
28. J. Vincent (ed.), The Crawford Papers: The Journals of David Lindsay, twenty
seventh Earl of Crawford and tenth Earl of Balcarres 1871–1940 during the
years 1892–1940, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1984, p. 192.
29. Sandars Papers, c.764, fols. 157–172, a note on Mr. Balfour’s Resignation,
8 November 1911.
30. Sandars Papers, c.751, fols. 114–115, Balfour to Sandars, 25 January 1906.
156 Notes

31. Sandars Papers, c.764, fol. 47, Balfour to Stamfordham, 18 September 1911.
32. Sandars Papers, c.756, fol. 83. Lansdowne to Sandars, 3 February 1908.
33. Sandars Papers, c.757, fols. 193–195,Cawdor to Sandars, 2 December 1908.
34. Sandars Papers, c.758, fol. 134, Lansdowne to Sandars, 21 March 1909.
35. Selborne Papers, 3/fol. 81, St. John Brodrick to Selborne, 3 October 1908.
36. Chamberlain, Politics, p. 471.
37. Lord Newton, Lord Lansdowne: A Biography, London, Macmillan, 1929,
pp. 371–372.
38. Sandars Papers, c.757, fols. 207–210, Note by Walter Long on Naval
Policy, November 1908.
39. Balfour Papers, 49777, fols. 33–36, Long to Balfour, 15 January 1909.
40. Cawdor Papers, Box 290, Fisher to Cawdor, 11 July 1907.
41. Sandars Papers, c.751, fols. 127–128, Lansdowne to Sandars, 3 March 1906.
42. Selborne Papers, 79/fols. 20–21, Lansdowne to Selborne, 4 April 1907.
43. Cawdor Papers, Box 290, ‘The Organisation of the Admiralty and the State
of the Navy’, (1904).
44. Chamberlain, Politics, p.170.
45. Selborne Papers, 3/fol. 1, Selborne to St. John Brodrick, 14 January 1908.
46. Selborne Papers, 79/fols. 80–93, ‘Notes on navy’, July 1912.
47. Sandars Papers, c.764, fols. 113–116, Long to Balfour, 29 September 1911.
48. R. Williams, Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defence
Policy 1899–1915, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991, p. 192.
49. Ibid., p. 131.
50. Clark, Lee Papers, p. 107.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., p. 92.
53. Ibid., p. 91.
54. Selborne Papers, 71/fols. 171–184, Selborne to Pretyman. 13 January 1909.
55. Law Papers, 31/2/68, Beresford to Vesey, 29 January 1914.
56. Sandars Papers, c.757, fols. 207–10, Balfour to Long, 9 November 1908.
57. Chamberlain, Politics, p.159.
58. Selborne Papers, 71/fols. 171–184, Selborne to Pretyman, 13 January
1909.
59. Maxse Papers, 458/649, A. Chamberlain to Maxse, 5 February 1908.
60. Bonar Law Papers, 31/3/13, Lee to Law, 6 February 1914.
61. The Times, 23 January 1913.
62. Sandars Papers, c.751, fol. 139, Sandars Memorandum, 1906.
63. Bonar Law Papers, 25/1/46, Lee to Law, 21 January 1912.
64. Williams, Defending the Empire, pp. 145–146.
65. Vincent, Crawford Papers, p. 137, p. 217, p. 276.
66. Sandars Papers, c.754, fol. 274, Midleton to Balfour, 16 December 1907.
67. D. James, Lord Roberts, London, 1954, p. 438.
68. Ibid., p. 182.
69. Chamberlain, Politics, pp. 255–256.
70. Annual Register, London, 1902, p. 62.
71. Hansard, 5 March 1912, col. 209.
72. The Times, 30 April 1909.
 Notes 157

73. P. Williamson (ed.), The Modernisation of Conservative Politics: The Diaries

and Letters of William Bridgeman 1904–1935, Manchester, Manchester
University Press, 1988, p. 30.
74. Morning Post, 30 January 1907.
75. Balfour Papers, 49764, fol. 210, Balfour to Bridgeman, 4 August 1906.
76. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 16, Gwynne to Beresford, 28 May 1907.
77. National Review, September 1906, pp. 38–50.
78. Hansard, vol. 162. cols. 77–80.
79. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 16, Beresford to Gwynne, 24 May 1912.
80. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep.16, Beresford to Gwynne, 16 August 1912.
81. Bonar Law Papers, 31/2/68, Vesey to Beresford, 29 January 1914.
82. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep.16, Beresford to Gwynne, 16 August 1912.
83. Sandars Papers, c.761, fol. 67, Page-Croft to Sandars, 12 September
1910.
84. Sandars Papers, c.764, fol. 56, Balfour to Imbert-Terry, 21 September
1911.
85. Sandars Papers, c.764, fol. 56, Balfour to Sandars, 21 September 1911.
86. A.J.A. Morris, Radicalism Against War 1906–1914: The Advocacy of Peace
and Retrenchment, London, Longman 1972.
87. Hansard, 27 November 1911, col. 74.
88. Ibid.
89. House of Lords Debates, 28 November 1911, col. 389.
90. Ponsonby, Democracy and Diplomacy, pp. 48–49, pp. 121–123.

Chapter 2 Leadership: (1) A.J. Balfour and

Anglo-German Relations
1. Balfour held this post from 1887 to 1891.
2. Many studies of the Conservative Party in Opposition during the period
1905 to 1914 pay no attention at all to foreign, naval or defence matters.
For example, see D. Dutton, ‘His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’: The Unionist
Party in Opposition, 1905–1914, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press,
1992.
3. B. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, London, Hutchinson, 1936; M. Egremont,
Balfour, London, Collins, 1980; R. Mackay, Balfour: Intellectual Statesman,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985; K. Young, Arthur James Balfour: The
Happy Life of the Politician, Prime Minister, Statesman and Philosopher,
1848–1930, London, Bell, 1963; S.H. Zebel, Balfour, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1973.
4. B. Webb, Our Partnership, London, 1926, p. 248.
5. A. Marder, Fear God and Dread Nought: the Correspondence of Admiral of the
Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, vol. 2, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1961, p. 114.
6. The Times, 11 January 1900.
7. Viscount D’Abernon, Portraits and Appreciations, London, Hodder and
Stoughton, 1931, p. 43.
158 Notes

8. Balfour Papers, 49747, fols. 175–176, Balfour to M. D’Estounelles de

Constant, 8 May 1905.
9. Young, Balfour, p. 228.
10. P.M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914,
London, Allen and Unwin, 1981, p. 270.
11. Hansard, 11 May 1905, col. 78.
12. Balfour Papers, 49779, fol. 47, Balfour to Hewins, 17 June 1908.
13. Balfour Papers, 49727, fols. 172–173, Balfour to Landsowne, 12 December
1901.
14. Egremont, Balfour, p. 163.
15. Documents Diplomatic Francais, 1871–1914, Paris, Ministere des Affaires
Etrangers, 1929–1959, vol. 11, no. 33.
16. National Archives, CAB 31/1/A ‘Draft report on the possibility of serious
invasion’, 11 November 1903.
17. The Anglo-French Entente was signed in April 1904.
18. National Archives, CAB 41/30, Balfour to King Edward VII, 8 June 1905.
19. Cawdor Papers, Box 291, ‘Draft of A.J. Balfour’s evidence to CID invasion
sub-committee’, 29 May 1908.
20. Viscountess Milner, My Picture Gallery, London, Murray, 1951, p. 233.
21. National Archives, CAB 41/30, Balfour to King Edward VII, 22 June 1905.
22. Young, Balfour, p. 182.
23. G.W. Monger, The End of Isolation, London, Nelson, 1963, p. 20.
24. Balfour Papers, 49727, fols. 26–27, Balfour to Lansdowne, 12 December
1901.
25. This is not to suggest that Balfour admired German militarism or the style
of German diplomacy. In 1905, for example, Balfour stressed that their ‘ill
mannered behaviour’ during the Morocco crisis revealed what ‘poor
diplomats Germans are’.
26. National Review, March 1903.
27. MacKay, Balfour, p. 31.
28. Young, Balfour, p. 228.
29. Balfour Papers, 49711, fols. 65–69, ‘British Intervention in the event of
France being suddenly attacked’, a paper by A.J. Balfour, June 1904.
30. Young, Balfour, p. 248.
31. Balfour Papers, 49747, fols. 155–162, Balfour to Lascalles, 2 January 1905.
32. Ibid.
33. Selborne Papers, 3/fols. 5–6, Balfour to Selborne, 5 April 1902.
34. Balfour Papers, 49747, fols. 155–162, Balfour to Lascalles, 2 January 1905.
35. Die Grosse Politik der Europaischen Kabinette 1871–1914, Berlin, Deutsche
Verlagsgesellschaft fur Politik and Geschichte, 1922–1927, vol. 21, no. 7206
and vol. 24, no. 8215.
36. Lascalles Papers, FO 800/12, fols. 198–202 ‘File on Anglo-German Union
Club’.
37. Hansard, 11 May 1905, cols. 74–77.
38. J. Mackail and G. Wyndham, The Life and Letters of George Wyndham, vol. 2,
London, Hutchinson, 1925, pp. 546–566.
 Notes 159

39. Hansard, 2 August 1904, col. 620.

40. National Archives, CAB 3/1/34A, ‘The Possibility of a raid by a hostile
force on the British coast’, memorandum by A.J. Balfour, 12 December
1902.
41. R. Williams, Defending the Empire, The Conservative Party and British Defence
Policy,1899–1915, New Haven, Yale University Press, p. 33.
42. The Times, 11 November 1907.
43. Sydenhan Papers, 50836, 4/fols. 14–15, ‘Note on the Distribution of our
naval forces’, by Sir George Clark, 1907.
44. National Review, June 1906.
45. Balfour Papers, 49703, fol. 27, Clarke to Balfour, 14 September 1906.
46. N. Hiley, ‘The Failure of Espionage towards Germany, 1907–1914’,
Historical Journal, vol. 26 (1983), p. 867.
47. Sandars Papers, c.754, fols. 274–279, Midleton to Balfour, 16 December
1907.
48. Repington Papers, Repington to Roberts, 11 November 1907.
49. National Archives, CAB 3/2/42A, ‘Note by George Clark on Invasion’, July
1907.
50. Williams, Defence, p. 131.
51. M. Brett (ed.), The Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher, vol. 1,
London, Nicholson and Watson, 1934.
52. Selborne Papers, 3/fols. 16–18, Selborne to St. John Brodrick, 27 February
1908.
53. Balfour Papers, 49712, Fisher to Balfour, 29 November 1907.
54. Sandars Papers, c.765, fols. 2–4, Balfour to Fisher, 1 January 1908.
55. National Archives, CAB 43, ‘A Statement by Mr. A.J. Balfour before the
sub-committee on Invasion’, 29 May 1908.
56. Sandars Papers, c.756, fols. 151–152, Lord Esher to King Edward VII,
1 January 1909.
57. National Archives, CAB 16/3, ‘A Report and Proceedings of the sub-
committee, appointed by the Prime Minister, to reconsider the question
of overseas attack’, 22 November 1908.
58. Balfour told the German Ambassador[Metternich] in 1908 that the
Anglo-German naval race was the primary reason for the deterioration of
Anglo-German relations. See Grosse Politik, vol. 24, no. 8215.
59. Selborne Papers, 3/fol. 12, Lady Selborne to Lord Selborne, 16 September
1908.
60. F. Coetzee, For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Popular
Conservatism in Edwardian England, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1990, p. 108.
61. J. Vincent (ed.), The Crawford Papers: The Journals of David Lindsay, twenty
seventh Earl of Crawford and tenth Earl of Balcarres 1871–1940, Manchester,
Manchester University Press, 1984, p. 122.
62. The Conservative agitation was summed up by George Wyndham’s
popular slogan: ‘We want eight and we won’t wait’.
63. The Times, 17 March 1909.
160 Notes

64. Williams, Defence, pp. 164–165. In private, Asquith, a committed Liberal

Imperialist, supported the building of the eight battleships straight away.
He came up with the ‘four now and four later’ in the hope of pacifying
the Liberal rank and file, most of whom opposed excessive spending on
the navy.
65. The motion of censure stated ‘That in the view of this House the declared
policy of His Majesty’s Government respecting the immediate provision
of battleships of the newest types does not sufficiently secure the safety of
the Empire.’
66. Hansard, 22 March 1909, col. 65.
67. The Times, 23 March 1909.
68. Sandars Papers, c.758, fols. 178–185, Balfour to Esher, 16 April 1909.
69. Hansard, 29 July 1909, cols. 1396–1397.
70. Selborne Papers, 1/fols. 144–146, Balfour to Selborne, 7 January 1914.
71. The memorandum was sent by Balfour to a number of senior Shadow
Cabinet figures in the weeks leading up to the General Election of
December 1910.
72. Vincent, Crawford Papers, pp. 255–257.
73. Sandars Papers, c.764, fols. 57–58a, Balfour to Sandars, 21 September
1911.
74. Balfour Papers, 49862, fol. 169, Balfour to Spender, 30 May 1912.
75. Balfour Papers, 49747, fol. 218, Balfour to Mensdorf, 1 May 1913. Balfour
and Lansdowne were frequently briefed ‘off the record’ by William Tyrell,
Grey’s private secretary, who constantly stressed the German ‘menace’ in
conversation with them.
76. Balfour Papers, 49731, fol. 1, Grey to Balfour, 1 June 1912.
77. A.J. Balfour, ‘Anglo-German Relations’, Nord and Sud, July 1912, pp. 22–34.
78. Balfour Papers, 49747, fol. 213 ‘Anglo-German Relations’, notes and
comments on Nord and Sud article.
79. ‘Episodes of the Month’, National Review, July 1912.
80. Hansard, 22 July 1912, cols. 860–868.
81. Balfour insisted on this clause because he was not prepared for Britain
to be ‘dragged at her heels into a war for the recovery of Alsace
Lorraine’.
82. Bonar Law Papers, 39/D/7, ‘Memorandum on Anglo-French relations by
Mr. A.J. Balfour sent by request to Sir Edward Grey’, November 1912.
83. Bonar Law Papers, 29/4/49, Balfour to Bonar Law, 12 November 1912.
84. A. Chamberlain, Politics from the Inside, vol. 1, London, Cassel, 1936,
p. 413.
85. Bonar Law Papers, 29/4/49, Balfour to Bonar Law, November 1912.
86. J. Rohl (ed.), 1914: Delusion or Design, London, Elek, 1973, p. 108.
87. Egremont, Balfour, pp. 260–262.
88. National Archives, CAB 3/2/5/62 A, ‘Report of Standing sub-Committee of
the Committee of Imperial Defence on attack on the British Isles from
overseas’, April 1914.
89. Balfour Papers, 49731, fols. 17–19, Balfour to Grey, 16 December 1913.
 Notes 161

Chapter 3 Leadership: (2) Andrew Bonar Law

and Anglo-German Relations
1. H.A. Taylor, The Strange Case of Andrew Bonar Law, London, Stanley Paul,
1938; R. Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister, London, Eyre and Spottiswoode,
1955.
2. Taylor, Law, p. 279.
3. Blake, Unknown Prime Minister, p. 533.
4. The Kidston brothers later became partners in the Clydesdale Bank.
5. The school can also boast Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal
Prime Minister, as another former pupil.
6. Blake, Unknown Prime Minister, p. 43.
7. The marriage produced seven children. The untimely death of Bonar
Law’s wife in 1909, following a routine gall stone operation, was a shat-
tering blow to Law, because his marriage had provided him with a vital
support system from the daily grind of politics.
8. Bonar Law lost his seat in the 1906, but soon gained a seat, following a
by-election victory at Dulwich later the same year. Law was defeated in
Manchester North West in December 1910, but he won a by-election in
Bootle in 1911.
9. Blake, Unknown Prime Minister, p. 42.
10. Taylor, Law, p. 206.
11. Ibid., p. 21.
12. Hansard, 27 November 1911, col. 68.
13. Law Papers, 29/1/30, ‘Letter concerning Anglo-German hospital at Dalston’,
27 July 1913.
14. Taylor, Law, p. 207.
15. Hansard, 30 March 1909, col. 287.
16. Ibid., col. 287.
17. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, August 1908, vol. 8, p. 249.
18. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, January 1908, vol. 8, p. 71.
19. Taylor, Law, p. 125.
20. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, December 1908, vol. 8, p. 396.
21. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, January 1908, vol. 8, pp. 20–22.
22. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, December 1908, vol. 8, pp. 392–397.
23. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, August 1908, vol. 8, pp. 243–244.
24. J. Vincent (ed.), The Crawford Papers: The Journal of David Lindsay, twenty
seventh Earl of Crawford and tenth Earl of Balcarres 1871–1940, Manchester,
Manchester University Press, 1984, pp. 247–248.
25. Hansard, 27 November 1911, col. 68.
26. Hansard, 14 January 1912, col. 21.
27. Ibid., col. 23.
28. Ibid., col. 22.
29. Hansard, 27 November 1911, col. 67.
30. Hansard, 14 February 1912, col. 33.
31. Vincent, Crawford Papers, p. 253.
162 Notes

32. ‘Episodes of the Month’, National Review, November 1905.

33. J. Barnes and D. Nicholson (eds), The Leo Amery Diaries, vol. 1, London,
Hutchinson, p.116.
34. House of Lords Debates, 28 November 1911, cols. 388–399.
35. A. Chamberlain, Politics From the Inside: An Epistolary Chronicle 1906–1914,
London, Cassell, 1937, p. 471.
36. Ibid.
37. P. Adelson, Mark Sykes: Portrait of an Amateur, London, 1975, p. 110.
38. Law Papers, 38/D/5, ‘Our Parliamentary Attitude to Foreign Affairs’, mem-
orandum by Lord Balcarres, 20 May 1912.
39. Hansard, 27 November 1911, col. 67.
40. The Times, 7 November 1905.
41. Law Papers, 24/3/72, ‘Briefing Notes for Bonar Law for Agadir Debate’,
prepared by Lord Lansdowne, 22 November 1911.
42. Law Papers, 24/3/63, Gwynne to Law, 20 November 1911.
43. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 20, Law to Gwynne, 29 June 1912.
44. Hansard, 27 November 1911, col. 69.
45. Hansard, 27 November 1911, col. 69.
46. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 16, Gwynne to Beresford, 3 June 1907.
47. Daily News, 19 March 1909.
48. Selborne Papers, 79/fols. 99–103, Selborne to Austen Chamberlain,
19 August 1912.
49. Selborne Papers, 79/fols. 107–110, Austen Chamberlain to Selborne,
20 August 1912.
50. Selborne Papers, 79/fols. 114–120, Selborne to Lansdowne, 29 August
1912.
51. Selborne Papers, 79/fols. 117–118, Lansdowe to Selborne, 4 September
1912.
52. Selborne Papers, 79/fol. 113, Law to Selborne, 2 September 1912.
53. Law Papers, 31/2/68, Beresford to Vasey, 29 January 1914.
54. Law Papers, 25/3/15, ‘Conversations with Herr von Riepenhausen,
Councillor of Legation, and Commander Widenmann, German Naval
Attaché concerning the German Naval Programme’, memorandum by
George Armstrong, 26 February 1912.
55. Law Papers, 25/3/14, Armstrong to Law, 7 March 1912.
56. Hansard, 20 December 1912, col. 1901.
57. Law Papers, 18/8/10, Law to Fabian Ware, 8 September 1908.
58. Wilson Papers, DS. MISC./ 80/HHW21, Wilson’s Diary, 26 October 1912.
59. Selborne Papers, 79/fols. 78–79, Roberts to Selborne, 15 May 1912.
60. Law Papers 26/5/5, Lee to Law, 3 July 1912.
61. Law Papers 26/5/11, Landowne to Law, 6 July 1912.
62. This recommendation seems to have been included at Midleton’s insis-
tence, because Lee and Wyndham, in a brief minority report, rejected the
idea of the Opposition declaring ‘hypothetical’ spending estimates.
63. Bonar Law Papers, 29/1/14, ‘Report on the Sub-Committee on Land
Forces’, 4 February 1913.
64. Blake, Unknown Prime Minister, pp. 93–94; Taylor, Law, pp. 164–175.
 Notes 163

Chapter 4 The Views of the Conservative

Party at Westminster towards Anglo-German
Relations, 1905–1914
1. J. Mackail and G. Wyndham, The Life and Letters of George Wyndham,
vol. 2, London, Hutchinson, 1951, pp. 564–66.
2. H. Page-Croft, My Life of Strife, London, Hutchinson, 1949, p. 47.
3. Maxse Papers, 458/698, A. Chamberlain to Maxse, 2 June 1908.
4. R. Williams, Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and National
Defence 1899–1915, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991, p. 89.
5. A. Clark (ed.), ‘A Good Innings’: The Private Papers of Viscount Lee of
Fareham, London, John Murray, 1974, p. 89, p. 130, p. 120.
6. J. Amery, The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, vol. 4, London, Macmillan, 1951,
p. 197.
7. Selborne Papers, 3/fols. 16–18, Selborne to Midleton, 27 February 1908.
8. Selborne Papers, 97/fols. 97–98, 21 August 1905.
9. P.M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860–1914,
London, Allen and Unwin, 1980, p. 256.
10. Kennedy, Antagonism ,p. 316.
11. Ibid.
12. The Conservative, January 1905, p. 10.
13. Morning Post, 12 July 1912.
14. Kennedy, Antagonism, p. 420.
15. House of Lords Debates, 24 November 1908, cols. 25–33.
16. Hansard, 5 March 1912, col. 213.
17. Hansard, 14 December 1911, cols. 2555–2558.
18. Hansard, 29 March 1909, cols. 725–729.
19. Ibid., cols. 39–52.
20. House of Lords Debates, 24 November 1908, cols. 10–61.
21. Ibid., col. 1696.
22. Hansard, 29 March 1909, cols. 70–73.
23. Ibid., cols. 107–109.
24. Ibid., cols. 112–115.
25. House of Lords Debates, 24 November 1908, cols. 25–33.
26. Hansard, 29 March 1909, cols. 39–52.
27. Ibid., cols. 107–109.
28. Hansard, 15 March 1912, col. 213.
29. Hansard, 14 December 1911, col. 2645.
30. Hansard, 29 March 1909, cols. 725–729.
31. House of Lords Debates, 23 November 1908, cols. 39–52.
32. Hansard, 14 December 1911, cols. 74–78.
33. Ibid., cols. 112–115.
34. Nineteenth Century and After, April 1909, p. 507.
35. Report of the Departmental Committee on the Importation of Foreign
Prison Made Goods, Public Record Office, Cmnd No. 7902.
36. E. Williams, Made in Germany, London, 1886, pp. 1–2.
37. Nineteenth Century and After, vol. 41, 1897, p. 993.
164 Notes

38. Daily News, 26 August 1896.

39. National Review, June 1899.
40. F. Coetzee, For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemmas of
Popular Conservatism in Edwardian England, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1990, p. 95.
41. P. Cain, ‘Political Economy in Edwardian England: The Tariff Reform
Controversy’, in A. O’Day (ed.), The Edwardian Age, London, Macmillan,
1979, p. 51.
42. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, January 1908, vol. 8, p. 18.
43. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, December 1907, vol. 7, p. 389.
44. Hansard, 29 March 1908, cols. 107–109.
45. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, December 1908, vol. 8, pp. 392–397.
46. Hansard, 29 March 1909, cols. 112–115.
47. The Times, 17 December 1909.
48. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, July 1907, vol. 7, p. 69.
49. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, July 1908, vol. 8, p. 18.
50. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, December 1908, vol. 8, p. 386.
51. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, March 1908, p. 65.
52. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, December 1907, p. 386.
53. Hansard, 14 April 1908, col. 1014.
54. Hansard, 30 March 1909, cols. 285–286.
55. Ibid., col. 260.
56. Hansard, 13 June 1906, col. 1035.
57. Coetzee, For Party or Country, p. 42.
58. A.J.A. Morris, The Scaremongers: The Advocacy of War and Rearmament
1896–1914, London, Routledge, 1984, p. 246.
59. Law Papers, 27/4/49, Balfour to Law, July 1912.
60. Earl Percy, ‘The British Army in a Future War’, National Review, July 1910.
61. Lord Roberts, ‘Imperial and National Safety’, Nineteenth Century and After,
July 1913, p. 457.
62. House of Lords Debates, 23 November 1908, cols. 1738–1741.
63. Law Papers, 25/46, Lee to Law, 21 January 1912.
64. House of Lords Debates, 23 November, 1908, cols. 1707–1714.
65. House of Lords Debates, 10 July 1906, cols. 682–689.
66. Ibid., cols. 656–667.
67. H.B. Jeffreys, ‘Invasion and National Safety’, Nineteenth Century and After,
March 1913, p. 478.
68. Jeffreys, ‘Invasion and National Safety’, p. 478.
69. Maxse Papers, 458–746, Roberts to Maxse, 2 September 1908.
70. House of Lords Debates, 27 November 1908, col. 1685.
71. Ibid., col. 1685.
72. M. Brett, Journals and Letters of Reginald Brett, Viscount Esher, vol. 1,
London, Nicolson and Watson, 1934, p. 361.
73. D. James, Lord Roberts, London, 1954, p. 438.
74. Ibid.
75. Earl Percy, ‘Our Military Weakness’, National Review, July 1913.
76. Earl Percy, ‘The True Doctrine of National Defence’, National Review,
April 1914.
 Notes 165

Chapter 5 The Role of the German Threat

in the Propaganda and Electioneering Tactics
of the Conservative Party at the Two General
Elections of 1910
1. P.M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Anglo-German Antagonism,
1860–1914, London, Allen and Unwin, 1980, pp. 343–345.
2. Walter Long Papers, 947/444/9, Lawrence to Long, 22 December 1910.
3. J. Ramsden, The Making of Conservative Policy, London, Longman, 1980, p. 15.
4. N. Blewett, The Peers, The Parties and the People: The General Elections of
1910, London, Macmillan, p. 270.
5. Conservative Party Archive, ‘Memorandum on Origin of Lobby Press
Services’ by Mr Burchett, October 1927.
6. Kennedy, Antagonism, p. 369.
7. Blewett, Elections, p. 307.
8. Gwynne Papers, dep. 16, Gwynne to Beresford, 25 May 1907.
9. Balfour Papers, 49795, fols. 3–9, ‘Memorandum on Campaign Literature’,
by J.L. Garvin, 1909.
10. Sandars Papers, c. 759, fols. 64–70, Garvin to Northcliffe, 4 August
1909.
11. F. Coetzee, For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Popular
Conservatism in Edwardian England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990,
pp. 109–111.
12. A.J.A. Morris, The Scaremongers. The Advocacy of War and Rearmament,
1896–1914, London, Routledge, 1984, pp. 201–204.
13. Sandars Papers, c.759, fols. 64–70,Garvin to Northcliffe, 4 August 1909.
14. Gwynne Papers, dep. 27, ‘A Note on General Election’, Percival Hughes,
January 1910.
15. Blewett, Elections, p. 317.
16. Conservative Party Archives, ‘Are The Unionists Scaremongers?’, National
Union pamphlet, no. 1333, 1910.
17. How To Canvass For the Unionist Party, London, National Union, 1910.
This version was used extensively at the January election in 1910.
18. The Campaign Guide; A Handbook for Unionist Speakers, London, National
Union,1909, pp. 117–120, pp. 133–153, pp. 425–435, pp. 454–456. This
version was used extensively for both elections during 1910.
19. Campaign Guide, pp. 20–27.
20. ‘Britons Beware’. National Union, pamphlets and leaflets, no. 780,
1909.
21. ‘Can we trust the radical government to guarantee naval supremacy?’
National Union, pamphlets and leaflets, no. 1416, 1909.
22. ‘Under which Flag?’, National Union leaflet, no. 859, 1909.
23. ‘The Radicals and Foreign Affairs’, National Union leaflet, no. 1173.
24. ‘Britain Betrayed: A Deadly Danger and a National Shame’, National
Union, pamphlets and leaflets, no. 851, 1909.
25. National Union pamphlets and leaflets, no. 851, 1909.
26. Campaign Guide, 1909, p. 22.
166 Notes

27. ‘Radicals and Foreign Affairs’, National Union pamphlets and leaflets,
no. 1173.
28. National Union pamphlets and leaflets, no. 1063, 1909.
29. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 94.
30. How to Canvass, London, National Union, 1910.
31. ‘Ourselves versus Germany’, National Union leaflet, no. 1443, 1910.
32. Facts About Food Taxes, London, National Union, 1910, pp. 12–18.
33. Facts About Food Taxes, pp. 12–19.
34. Sandars Papers, c.760, fol. 26, Garvin to Percival Hughes, 4 January
1910. ‘What Price the Radical Loaf ’, National Union poster, no. 759,
1909.
35. The issue was highlighted by 64 per cent of Liberal candidates and
80 per cent of Labour candidates. See Blewett, Elections, p. 321.
36. Kennedy, Antagonism, p. 345.
37. There were an enormous number of pamphlets and leaflets produced for
the two elections on this theme, including, ‘The Employment Question’,
National Union leaflet, no. 779, 1909; ‘Give Home Industry a Chance’,
National Union leaflet, no. 766, 1909; ‘Free Imports Starve British
Workmen’, National Union leaflet, no. 998, 1909; ‘Free Imports Mean Idle
Mills’, National Union leaflet, no. 1001, 1909; ‘Fiscal Reform Means more
Employment’, National Union leaflet, no. 756, 1909.
38. Blewett, Elections, p. 321.
39. ‘No Hops’, Tariff Reform League poster, 1909.
40. ‘Facts for the Hop Grower’, Tariff Reform leaflet, 1909.
41. ‘A Note to the Working Man’, National Union leaflet, no. 739, 1909.
42. ‘Tariff Reform’, National Union leaflet, no. 1204, 1909.
43. ‘Foreigners Tax us. Let us Tax Them’, National Union poster, no. 998,
1909.
44. National Union leaflet, no. 1195, 1910.
45. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 95.
46. L.S. Amery, My Political Life, vol. 1, London, Hutchinson, 1953, p. 236.
47. G.A. Lebzelter, ‘Anti Semitism – A Focal Point for the British Right’ in
P.M. Kennedy and A.J. Nicholls (eds), Nationalist and Racialist Movements,
pp. 88–105.
48. Ibid., p. 97.
49. Blewett, Elections, p. 311.
50. The series of articles on the ‘German threat’ by Blatchford appeared in the
Daily Mail from 13 to 24 December 1909.
51. The Times, 5 January 1910.
52. The seat in question was Everton, Liverpool, which was one of the
strongest ‘Orange’ constituencies in the country.
53. Blewett, Elections, p. 403.
54. R. Williams, Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and Defence Policy,
1899–1915, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991, p. 176.
55. Westminster Gazette, 14 December 1909.
56. W. Fest, ‘Jingoism and Xenophobia in the Electioneering Strategies of
British Ruling Elites Before 1914’, in P.M. Kennedy and A.J. Nicholls (eds),
 Notes 167

Nationalist and Racialist Movements in Britain and Germany before 1914,

London, Macmillan, 1981, p. 181.
57. Austen Chamberlain Papers, 8/5/1, Austen Chamberlain to Balfour,
29 January 1910.
58. Sandars Papers, c.760, fol. 102, ‘Report of sub-committee on organisation,
Yorkshire Division’, National Union, 29 April 1910.
59. Sandars Papers, c.760, fol. 157, Short to Sandars, 13 May 1910.
60. Conservative Party Archive, ‘Minutes of Executive Council of National
Union’, 8 March 1910, p. 8.
61. The Tariff Reform trips to Germany will be dealt with in more detail in
Chapter 6.
62. How to Canvass for the Unionist Party, London, National Union, 1910. This
version was used for the second general election in December 1910.
63. Sandars Papers, c.760, fol. 199, Garvin to Balfour 17 October 1910.
64. Balfour Papers, 49796, Garvin to Sandars, 14 November 1910.
65. Blewett, Elections, p. 326.
66. H. Taylor, The Strange Case of Andrew Bonar Law, London, Stanley Paul,
1938, p. 137.
67. Blewett, Elections, p. 388.
68. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 135.
69. Sandars Papers, c.762, fols. 190–193, St John Brodrick to Steel Maitland,
22 December 1910.
70. Sandars Papers, c.763, fol. 16, ‘Petition of 1900 Group’, January 1911.
71. D. Dutton, ‘His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’: The Unionist Party in Opposition
1905–1915, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 1992, p. 134.
72. Ibid., p. 137.
73. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 147.
74. This interpretation casts doubt on the view put forward by Fest. See Fest,
‘Xenophobia’, p. 181.
75. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 95.

Chapter 6 Extra Parliamentary Pressure Groups

and Germany
1. The following studies examine patriotic pressure groups in the Edwardian
period: F. Coetzee, For Party or Country: Nationalism and the Dilemmas of
Popular Conservatism in Edwardian England, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
1990; F. Coetzee, ‘Pressure Groups, Tory Businessmen and the aura of
Political Corruption before the First World War’, Historical Journal, vol. 29,
1986, pp. 833–852; A. Summers, ‘Militarism in Britain before the First
World War’, History Workshop Journal, vol. 2, 1976; A. Sykes, ‘The Radical
Right and the Crisis of Conservatism’. Historical Journal, vol. 26, 1983,
pp. 661–676.
2. H. Taylor, Jix: Viscount Brentford, London, Stanley Paul, 1933, p. 89.
3. National Service League Journal, March 1904, p. 101.
4. Nation in Arms, January 1911, p. 3.
168 Notes

5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. R. Williams, Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defence
Policy 1899–1915, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991, p. 184.
8. P.M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914,
London, Allen and Unwin, p. 371.
9. Nation in Arms, August 1911, p. 405.
10. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 41.
11. Nation in Arms, February 1911, p. 99.
12. Nation in Arms, Midsummer 1913, p. 47.
13. Nation in Arms, Christmas, 1913, p. 467.
14. Nation in Arms, Midsummer, 1913, p. 381.
15. G.R. Searle, ‘The “Revolt from the Right” in Edwardian Britain’, in
P.M. Kennedy and A. Nichols (eds), Nationalist and Racialist Movements
in Britain and Germany before 1914, London, Macmillan, 1981, p. 24.
16. National Review, February 1908.
17. National Review, May 1905.
18. National Review, January 1908.
19. National Review, October 1908.
20. L.J. Maxse, Germany on the Brain, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1915, p. 7.
21. National Review, May 1912.
22. The Times, 7 November 1905.
23. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 14, Amery to Gwynne, 3 January 1913.
24. Searle, ‘Revolt From the Right’, p. 27.
25. Bonar Law Papers, 18/4/53, Gwynne to Law, 11 February 1908.
26. Maxse Papers, 458/699, Spring-Rice to Maxse, 3 June 1908.
27. Nation in Arms, Midsummer 1914, pp. 614–615.
28. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 115.
29. Nation in Arms, Christmas 1913, p. 498.
30. Ibid., p. 484.
31. Nation in Arms, Midsummer, no. 2, 1912, pp. 95–96.
32. Ibid., p. 67.
33. H.S. Cheetham, ‘German Thoroughness’ in Nation in Arms, October 1911,
pp. 561–562.
34. Titbits, 13 March 1909.
35. B.S. Townroe, A Nation in Arms: A Play in Four Acts, London, National
Service League, 1910.
36. National Archives, ‘Report of C.I.D. Sub-Committee on Invasion, 1908’,
CAB 16/3A.
37. Roberts Papers, R62/19, Repington to Roberts, 12 November 1907.
38. Bonar Law Papers, 18/4/53, B.K. Murray to Law, 11 February 1908.
39. Nation in Arms, Spring 1912, p. 93.
40. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 97.
41. See A. Sykes, Tariff Reform in British Politics 1903–1913, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1979.
 Notes 169

42. R. Jay, Joseph Chamberlain: A Political Study, Oxford, Oxford University

Press, 1981, p. 277.
43. B. Semmel, Imperialism and Social Reform: English Imperial Thought
1895–1914, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960, pp. 102–105.
44. Coetzee, Party or Country, p. 95.
45. Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, December 1908, p. 395.
46. ‘Taxing the Poor’, Tariff Reform leaflet, no. 197.
47. ‘Railway Workers and Tariff Reform’, Tariff Reform leaflet, no. 190.
48. ‘The Foreigner and The Glass Trade’, Tariff Reform leaflet, no. 124.
49. ‘An Injured Industry; The Granite Trade’, Tariff Reform leaflet, no. 125.
50. ‘Look at Germany’, Tariff Reform leaflet, no. 184.
51. Daily News, 21 April 1910.
52. The Times, 13 January 1913.
53. The Conservative and Unionist, July 1910, p. 120.
54. The Times, 28 January 1908.
55. Ibid.
56. National Review, 20 July 1907.
57. Standard, 13 November 1907.
58. Standard, 20 July 1907.
59. Coetzee, For Party or Country, p. 133.
60. Standard, 9 November 1907.
61. Standard, 2 December 1908.
62. Standard, 6 May 1908.
63. Standard, 29 November 1906.
64. Standard, 21 May 1908.
65. The Times, 28 January 1908.
66. Morning Post, 3 November 1908.
67. Daily Express, 7 August 1908.
68. Morning Post, 20 November 1907.
69. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 16, Beresford to Gwynne, 22 November 1907.
70. Morning Post, 17 July 1907. See also a letter from Rowland Hunt
entitled ‘Danger of a Successful Invasion’, published in Standard, 12 June
1908.
71. Standard, 29 November 1906.
72. Law Papers, 18/4/53, Gwynne to Law, 11 February 1908. Gwynne worked
closely with Charles Beresford to further the cause of the Imperial
Maritime League. As Gwynne commented to Beresford about Wyatt’s con-
stant stress on the danger of a German invasion, ‘Mr Wyatt, who is
absolutely on our way of thinking’ is ‘fighting the fight on our lines’. See
Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 16, Gwynne to Beresford, 25 May 1907.
73. Daily Express, 26 January 1909.
74. A. Pollock, ‘A Bolt from the Blue’, National Review, August 1908.
75. ‘An English Patriot’, Standard, 7 August 1907.
76. Standard, 19 November 1908.
77. Sandars Papers, c.758, fol. 228, Wyatt to Balfour, 22 May 1909.
78. Sandars Papers, c.758, fol. 229, Balfour to Wyatt, 23 May 1909.
170 Notes

79. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep. 15, Gwynne to Balfour, 28 October 1910.

80. Ealing Gazette, 31 October 1908.
81. Coetzee, For Party or Country, p. 142.

Chapter 7 The Conservative Party and the

Decision for War in 1914
1. Z. Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the First World War, London, Longman,
1977, p. 220.
2. Balfour Papers, 49832, fol. 21, Balfour to Alice Balfour, 8 August 1914.
3. Bonar Law Papers, 24/3/72, ‘Briefing Notes for Andrew Bonar Law for
Agadir Debate’ by Lord Lansdowne, 22 November 1911.
4. House of Lords Debates, 27 November 1911, col. 58
5. D.C. Watt, ‘British Reactions to the Assassination at Sarejevo’, European
Studies Review, vol. 1, 1971, p. 242.
6. J. Barnes and J. Nicholson, The Leo Amery Diaries 1896–1929, London,
Hutchinson, 1980, p. 116.
7. House of Lords Debates, 28 November 1908, cols. 388–389.
8. The offer to form a coalition was made by Churchill to F.E. Smith on
30 July 1914 and was discussed with Law on 31 July 1914. Law told Smith
that he would only discuss the question of a coalition with Asquith – not
with any intermediaries. See Lord Beaverbrook, Politicians and the War,
London, Hutchinson, 1916, p. 18.
9. Steiner, Origins, p. 223.
10. M. Brock and E. Brock (eds), H.H. Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 123.
11. Viscount Grey, Twenty Five Years 1892–1916, vol.1, London, Hodder and
Stoughton, 1925, p. 337
12. W. Churchill, The World Crisis 1911–1914, London 1923, p. 216.
13. See Hansard, 15 September 1914, col. 896.
14. R. Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister, London, Eyre and Spottiswoode,
1955, p. 220.
15. Maxse Papers, 475/335, Beresford to Maxse, 22 September 1918.
16. Balfour Papers, 49748, fols. 3–4, Balfour to Nicolson, 2 August 1914.
17. B. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour, vol. 2, London, Hutchinson, 1936, pp. 82–86.
18. National Review, August 1918.
19. Balfour Papers, 49836, fols. 197–198, ‘Notes of a Conversation between
Mrs. Dugdale and A.J. Balfour’, 8 November 1928.
20. Maxse Papers, 475/332, Beresford to Maxse, 8 September 1918.
21. Beaverbrook, Politicians and the War, pp. 19–20.
22. R. Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister: The Life and Times of Andrew Bonar
Law, 1858–1923, London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955, p. 221.
23. A. Chamberlain, Down the Years, London, Cassell, pp. 93–95. For details of
the reaction of Conservative politicians in the period from 31 July to
4 August 1914, see Austen Chamberlain Papers, Birmingham University
Library, 14/2/2.
 Notes 171

24. I. Colvin, The Life of Lord Carson, vol. 3, London, 1932, pp. 16–19. See also
C. Adam, Life of Lord Lloyd, London, 1960, pp. 59–61, for Lloyd’s account.
25. Blake, Unknown Prime Minister, p. 222.
26. R. Williams, Defending the Empire. The Conservative Party and British Defence
Policy 1899–1915, New Haven, Yale University Press, p. 227.
27. Bonar Law Papers, 37/4/1, Law to Asquith, 2 August 1914.
28. Chamberlain, Down The Years, pp. 101–102.
29. Bonar Law Papers, 34/3/2, Asquith to Law, 2 August 1914.
30. Blake, Unknown Prime Minister, p. 223.
31. K.M. Wilson, ‘The British Cabinet’s Decision for War’, British Journal of
International Studies, vol. 1, 1975, pp. 151–157.
32. Churchill, World Crisis, p. 218.
33. P.M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914,
London, Allen and Unwin, 1980, p. 461. Only two Cabinet members –
Morley and Burns disagreed with the policy of intervention.
34. Chamberlain, Down the Years, p. 102.
35. H. Asquith, Memories and Reflections, 1852–1927, vol. 2, London,
Hutchinson, 1928, p. 20.
36. Hansard, 3 August 1914, cols. 1809–1827.
37. Ibid., cols. 1827–1828.
38. Ibid., cols. 1835–1836.
39. Ibid., col. 1883.
40. Hansard, 4 August 1914, col. 1963.
41. C. Hazelhurst, Politicians at War, July 1914 to May 1915: A Prologue to the
Triumph of Lloyd George, London, 1971, p. 42.
42. Churchill, World Crisis, pp. 214–215.

Conclusion
1. The ‘anti-German’ nature of the Conservative Party is emphasised in a
number of studies. See P. Cain, ‘The Political Economy in Edwardian
England: The Tariff Reform Controversy, in A. O’Day (ed.), The Edwardian
Age, London, Macmillan, 1979, p. 51; F. Coetzee, For Party or Country:
Nationalism and the Dilemmas of Popular Conservatism in Edwardian
England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 95; W. Fest, ‘Jingoism
and Xenophobia in the Electioneering Strategies of British Ruling Elites
before 1914’, in P.M. Kennedy and A.J. Nicholls (eds), Nationalist and
Racialist Movements in Britain and Germany before 1914, Oxford,
Macmillan, 1981, pp. 171–189.
2. This interpretation takes issue with the views of those historians who
claim that the Conservative Party used foreign and defence policy for
party political gain. See R. Williams, Defending the Empire, The Conservative
Party and British Defence Policy 1899–1915, New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1990, p. 155, p. 202, p. 224; Fest, ‘Xenophobia’, pp. 171–189.
3. Z. Steiner, Britain and the Origins of the First World War, London,
Macmillan, 1977, p. 3.
172 Notes

4. Balfour Papers 49731, fols. 17–19, Balfour to Grey, 16 December 1913.

5. R. Blake, The Unknown Prime Minister, London, Eyre and Spottiswoode,
1955, pp. 93–94.
6. J. Mackail and G. Wyndham, The Life and Letters of George Wyndham,
vol. 2, p. 614.
7. Coetzee, For Party or Country, p. 163.
8. This interpretation casts doubt on the view put forward by Fest,
‘Xenophobia’, p. 181.
9. Coetzee, For Party or Country, p. 95.
10. Gwynne Papers, 3/dep.16, Beresford to Gwynne, 24 May 1912.
11. I. Jennings, Party Politics: vol 1: The Growth of Parties, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, p. 205.
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Index

Act of Succession (1701), 3 Germany, 73

Agadir crisis (1911), 5, 48, 50, 61, 81 ‘Dreadnought’, own version
Germany’s provocative actions developed, 5
during, 51 war, principal reason for, 14
Aitken, Max, 130, 131 Anglo-German relations
Albert, Prince (of Saxe-Coburg- (1905–1914), 3, 4, 6, 7–12, 14
Gotha, Germany), 3 agreements with France/Russia, 34
marriage to Queen Victoria, 3 Balfour’s leadership, 35–52, 92
Algeciras Conference, 5 Bonar Law’s leadership, 53–68
Amery, Leopold (Conservative MP), Conservatives’ approach to/views
60, 82, 96, 106, 112 on, 16–34, 69–84, 90, 110,
National Service League 139, 140, 146
membership, 106 press reportage of, 87–88
‘radical-right’ activism, 130 ‘scaremongering’, distancing
speechwriting for Lord Roberts, from, 104, 138
112 three important aspects of, 69
tariff reform, 96 deterioration in
Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), 38, 40, ‘Dreadnought’, German version
85, 107, 151 of, 5
Anglo-French Entente (1904), 5, 23, four key aspects of, 11
146, 148, 158n.13 pressure groups, 105–26, 122–5
Balfour Government’s solitary trade, 3–4
success, 17 Anglo-German trade/commercial
transformation in, 49, 50, 51 rivalry, 9, 14, 60, 76–80, 81, 93,
views of, 38, 39, 41, 48 118, 138 see also free trade;
economic implications of, 80 protectionism; tariff reform
Grey’s views, 129, 135, 143 agreement for mutual trade in
Britain’s obligations under, 128, China, 40
130 tariff reform versus free trade
deterrent against German argument, 58
aggression, 91 Conservative Party rank\file,
Lansdowne’s view of, 23, 149 reactions of, 78–80
‘Anglo-German declaration’, 1 election campaign, 91
Anglo-German Friendship hostile press, 87
Committee, 76 restraint, 84
Anglo-German naval race/rivalry, 11, Roberts’ claim, 82
14, 65, 71, 93 ‘xenophobic propaganda’
Conservatives’ responses/views, impossibility, 141
14, 25, 73, 74, 75, 76, 84, 141 ‘Herr Dumper’/‘Dump Shop’, 77,
election issue/results, 89, 91, 98, 101 96
jingoism, 74 satirical description of, 116

186
 Index 187

Anglo-German trade/commercial on Conservative Party, attitude on

rivalry – continued foreign affairs, 61
key source of friction, 42 Balfour, A.J., 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
‘Made in Germany’ scandal, 76–7 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29,
Tariff Reform League’s 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38,
views/actions, 117, 125 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47,
Anglo-German Union Club, 42, 56 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 58, 59,
Anglo-Russian Convention (1907), 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 70, 71, 78,
5, 33, 38, 60 81, 83, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 97,
precursor to Triple Alliance, 5 100, 101, 102, 103, 111, 115, 119,
Annual Register, 30 121, 124, 127, 130, 131, 132, 133,
Anti-Corn Law League, 105 134, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143,
Anti-Socialist Union (1908), 105 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 150
army issues/matters, 28, 29 Anglo-German naval race/rivalry,
bi-partisan consensus on, 140 views on, 37, 46, 63, 159n.58
‘Committee on Land Forces’ preoccupation with, 45
(report, February 1913), 66 public discussions, 72
Armstrong, George (former editor, backbench criticism, response to,
right wing Globe), 64, 65 33
Arnold-Foster, H.O., 20 conscription, opposition to, 30
Asquith, Herbert (Prime Minister), foreign and defence
16, 17, 44, 46, 51, 59, 129, 132, matters/policies, 19, 23, 37,
133, 134, 135, 136, 160n.64, 48–9, 50
170n.8 Anglo-French relations, 38–9
Balfour’s assurance to, 17 Archduke Ferdinand’s
European War, Britain’s assassination, 127
involvement in, 129, 130, 136 Lansdowne’s influence on, 23
Bonar Law’s letter to, 133 relationship with Lansdowne,
foreign and defence policy, bi- 23
partisan consensus, 51 style of, 138
invasion, investigation by CID, 44 views on, 22
France
backbenchers/backbench criticism, fears about/views on, 38, 39, 40,
12, 13, 136, 145 41, 48, 50, 62, 139
Anglo-French Entente, 60 free trade, views on, 78
Balfour’s aloofness from, 21, 33, ‘referendum pledge’, 101
34, 60 Germany, attitude to/views on, 39,
‘inner circle’, exclusiveness of, 31 44, 83
Bonar Law’s attitude to, 61, 132 naval threat, 46, 48, 49
German imports to Britain, 76 philosophical doubts, 45
‘independently minded’ figures, pressures, 40–41
122 transformation in, 34, 42–4,
Liberals 47–52, 139
foreign policy, 33 Irish Nationalists, policy of
naval matters, 27, 32, 73 ‘coercion’, 36
Balcarres, Lord (Conservative Chief leadership of party (1902–1911),
Whip), 22, 29, 30, 45, 58, 60 16–18, 35–52
188 Index

Balfour, A.J. – continued Bismarck, Otto von (first German

parliamentary debates/discussions Chancellor), 4
influence on, 31–2 Blake, R., 53, 155n.22
posts held, 36 The Unknown Prime Minister (Bonar
Shadow Cabinet under, 20–23 Law’s biography), 53
writings Blatchford, Robert, 96, 97, 166n.50
‘Anglo-German relations’ articles on German menace in Daily
(article, 1912), 49 Mail (December 1909), 96–7
A Defence of Philosophic Doubt Blinkhorn, Martin, 8
(1879), 35 ‘Blue Water strategy’, 18
Balfour Government, 27, 71, 147 Blumenfield, Ralph (right-wing
Anglo-French Entente (1904), 17 editor, Daily Express), 88
Battle of Waterloo, 3 ‘scaremongering’, 88
Bedford, Duke of, 81 Bodleian Library, 12
Bellairs, Carlyon (Liberal MP), 121 Bonar Law, Andrew, 12, 13, 21, 28,
Beresford, Lord (Admiral) Charles, 29, 30, 32, 47, 48, 53, 54, 55, 56,
(backbencher/renegade 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65,
Conservative MP), 18, 19, 27, 66, 67, 68, 81, 86, 101, 103, 105,
32, 64, 73, 88, 122, 130, 131, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134,
142, 144–5, 169n.72 135, 136, 139, 140, 142, 143,
‘enmity’ with Balfour, 19, 32, 142 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 155,
naval matters 156, 157, 160, 161nn.7, 8,
comparison with Pretyman, 27–8 170n.8
Bigland, Alfred (Conservative MP), Anglo-French Entente (1904),
75 views on, 59, 60
Bignold, Arthur (backbench Anglo-German trade/commercial
Conservative MP), 122 rivalry, grasp of issues, 55, 57
Imperial Maritime League Anglo-German Union Club,
member, 122 membership of, 56
bi-partisanship, 14, 30, 133, 149 backbenchers’ pressure, 61
backbench criticism of, 33 conscription, views on, 65
Bonar Law’s support, 65 dominating issues/central
conscription, 84, 141 preoccupations
Balfour’s views, 16, 17, 46, 50, Irish Home Rule (from
51, 62, 139 1911–1914), 54
Bonar Law’s views, 59, 64, 67, tariff reform (before 1911), 55
68, 135, 136, 140 foreign policy matters
Conservative leadership support Lansdowne/Tyrell, consultations
for, 34, 138 with, 61–2
defence matters, 120, 121, 138 views on, 59, 60, 62, 67, 140
challenge to, 29 France, 59, 62, 68, 133
Imperial Maritime League free trade, views on, 57, 139
opposition, 121, 125 Germans standard of living, 101
Navy League support, 120 tariff reform, 58
foreign affairs/policy, 16, 69, 90 Germany, attitude to/views on,
Lansdowne’s views, 17 58–9, 63, 68
‘Front Bench Conspiracy’, 33 public utterances, 57–9
 Index 189

Bonar Law, Andrew – continued German domination of Europe, 6

leadership of party (1911–1914), Britain’s interests, 48
53, 56–7, 65–6 Lansdowne’s expertise, 23, 24, 31,
bi-partisanship, continuance of, 62, 71, 143
59, 62, 63 Budget Protest League (1909), 105
compromise candidature, 54 Byron, Lord, 4
foreign affairs, 55, 58–9, 60
‘inner circle’, continuance Cambon, Paul (French Ambassador,
of/consultations with, 58, 1905), 23
61, 67 Carson, Sir Edward, 21, 130
‘New Style’ of, 54, 64 induction into Shadow Cabinet
protectionism, 68 (1911), 21
Shadow Cabinet membership Cawdor, Lord, 23, 24, 25, 31, 61, 73,
(1911), 53 147
splinter groups, handling of, 60–1 Balfour’s ‘inner circle’, 24
naval matters naval policy, 31
confidence in Lee, 28 Selborne’s papers, 25
war against Germany Cecil, Lady Blanche Gascoyone, 34
Lansdowne’s consultation, 68 mother of A.J.Balfour, 34
support to Liberals, 62–3 Cecil, Sir Robert (Lord Salisbury), 35,
Boraston, John (chief organising 74, 75, 152 see also Salisbury,
secretary of the Liberal Unionist Lord (Robert Cecil)
Party), 86 war against Germany
control of National Union, 86 opposition to British
Brassey, Lord (Conservative peer), intervention, 75
74, 75 Chamberlain, Austen (Shadow
Anglo-German Friendship Chancellor of the Exchequer),
Committee member, 75–6 12, 20, 24, 26, 28, 53, 54, 60, 63,
naval supremacy advocate, 74 70, 77, 99, 103, 132, 133, 134,
Bridgeman, Clive (backbench 145, 147
Conservative MP), 122 leadership of Conservative Party,
Bridgeman, William (Conservative 53–4
MP), 31, 122 naval matters
Imperial Maritime League dispute between Lee and
member, 122 Pretyman, 28
British foreign policy, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, support for
18, 20, 37, 47, 60, 127, 138, 139, Anglo-Russian agreement, 60
141, 143 Selborne’s ‘two keels to one’
‘anti-German’ scaremongers, 9 naval standard, 63
backbenchers’ criticism of/views tariff reform, 77, 99
on, 33, 61, 97 Chamberlain, Joseph, 1, 70, 77, 86,
bi-partisan consensus on, 14, 16, 115, 117, 145–6, 150, 151, 152
69, 133 anti-free trade radicalism, 115
electioneering, 91, 92 Tariff Reform League, launch in
France, commitment to, 59 1903, 77
Bonar Law, 59, 61 Chamberlain, Neville, 1, 145
key aim, 50 ‘Anglo-German declaration’, 1
190 Index

Channel Tunnel, 23 outside parliament/opposition

Cheetham, Miss H.S., 113 at Westminster, 31
contributions to A Nation in Arms Lord Roberts, 19
(journal) Conservative Party/Conservatives, 8,
contrasts between Britain and 12, 16, 55, 59, 71, 96, 127, 136
Germany, 113 Anglo-French Entente, 17
Churchill, Sir Winston (First Lord of Anglo-German relations
the Admiralty, 1911–1914), 1, 2, (1905–1914), approach to,
32, 48, 64, 129, 130, 131, 136, 16–34, 69–84
151, 170n.8 public restraint, 138
anti-Nazi stand, 1 Anglo-Russian agreement, 60, 128
Bonar Law’s support to, 32, 64 coalition with Liberals, 134–5, 137
coalition government proposal, divisions in
129, 131, 134 over party politics, 34
Clark, Sir George, 43 over tariff reform, 17, 85
confidante of Balfour, 43 electioneering (1910), 91, 97,
Colvin, Ian, 132 101–2, 146
Committee of Imperial Defence issues, 86–90
(CID), 18, 30, 38, 44, 114, 144 platform, 85–6
defence policy advice, 30 propaganda deficiencies, 87–8
German invasion, investigations success in the South, 99
into, 38, 44, 51, 114 expedient sub-groups, 8
Balfour’s presentation on, 39, 45 German threat/invasion, response
Sir George Clark’s warning to, 43 to, 7, 9, 81
Lord Roberts’ evidence, 114 Haldane’s army reforms (1907), 82
Congress of Berlin, 36, 144 Imperial Maritime League, viewed
conscription/compulsory military as renegades, 106
training, 9, 11, 13, 14, 28, 66, 138 bi-partisanship, opposition to,
Balfour’s opposition to, 30, 33, 37 121
bi-partisanship, threat to, 65 naval race/rivalry
Bonar Law on, 68, 81, 140 Cawdor’s views on, 73
‘Concordat’ between major Germany, principal reason for
parties, 66, 67 fear, 14
Conservatives, controversy in, 33, growth of Russian and Japanese
69–70, 72, 77, 81–3, 141 fleets, 72
election issue, 90–2 parliamentary speeches on, 74–7
Lansdowne’s suggestion, 66 pressure groups, 105–8, 115, 124,
German threat, 70, 84 125
National Service League, 113 war, decision in 1914, 127–37
Lord Milner’s views, 109–10 European crisis, reactions to,
propaganda of, 113–15 128–33, 136–37
Lord Roberts’ argument for, 19, France/Russia, unanimous
81, 107–8 support to, 134–5
supporters of Conservatives in Opposition, 17,
Arnold Foster, 29 22–3, 78, 97, 121, 122, 150 see
Sir Henry Wilson, 67 also bi-partisanship; ‘inner
Maxse, 28, 110–11 circle’
 Index 191

Conservatives in Daily Graphic (now defunct), 87

Opposition – continued elections 1910
Anglo-German relations editorial support of
(1905–1914), approach to, Conservatives, 87
16–34 Daily Mail, 87, 88, 96, 166n.50
naval issues, antipathy over, 72 elections 1910
‘scaremongering’ charge, 84 editorial support of
three aspects of, 69–72 Conservatives, 87
foreign policy, conditional bi- Daily Mirror, 2
partisanship, 17 elections 1910
public restraint, 138, 140, editorial support of
141 Conservatives, 87
German threat/invasion/’peril’, Daily News, 76, 162
140 elections 1910
parliamentary speeches/debates editorial support of
on, 74–7 Conservatives, 87
conscription, 81 Daily Telegraph, 45, 87, 99
tariff reform, support of, 80 elections 1910
Bonar Law’s views on, 68 editorial support of
tariffs and protectionism, 78–80 Conservatives, 87
Tariff Reform League, presence de Broke, Lord Willoughby, 122, 124
of, 115 open support to Imperial Maritime
Courthorpe, Sir George, 80 League, 122
strong supporter of Anglo-French de Flahaut, Count, 23
Entente, 80 Delcasse, Theophile (French Foreign
Craig, Captain F., 80 Minister), 39
supporter of Anglo-French architect of Anglo-French Entente
Entente, 80 (1904), 39
Craik, Sir Henry (Conservative MP), Disraeli, Benjamin, 92, 145
108 Dreadnought class battleships, 5, 46,
parliamentary committee of the 48, 72, 148, 152
National Service League, 108 Balfour’s Prime Ministership, 37
Curzon, Lord, 20, 24, 60, 67, 106, funding from tariff revenue, 79
147–8 German navy, equivalents in, 63
‘anti-Russian’ views of, 23, 60 launch in 1902, 4
conscription Du Cros, Arthur (Conservative MP), 78
‘Concordat’ between major Conservatives’ views of Germany,
parties, 66, 67 distortion by Liberals, 78
National Service League Du Cros, Harvey (backbench
membership, 106 Conservative MP), 122
Shadow Cabinet Imperial Maritime League
Indian affairs, 20 member, 122

Daily Express, 87, 88, 114 Edwardian period/age/era, 3, 7, 8,

elections 1910 43, 107, 117, 144, 145, 148, 149,
editorial support of 150, 151, 152, 154n.25
Conservatives, 87 Anglo-German relations in, 9, 10
192 Index

Edwardian period/age/era – continued naval reforms

conscription/military training creation of new Home Fleet
National Service League (October 1906), 119
campaign, 107 Fischer, Fritz (German historian), 6
Conservative Party Primat der Innenpolitik (‘the
‘high politics’ of, 11 primacy of domestic factors’), 6
Germanophobia, fomented by, 3 foreign affairs/defence matters, 11,
pressure group activity, 105, 106 12, 16–34, 51, 59, 60, 62, 67, 66,
Russia, frequent clashes with, 4 79, 139, 140, 142, 144, 151, see
‘scaremongering’, misplaced also bi-partisanship; British
charge, 84, 138 foreign policy
Errol, Earl of, 83 Conservatives, 34, 60, 61, 157n.2,
Esher, Lord, 18, 19, 36, 44, 45, 46, 171n.2
148 ‘inner circle’ on, 58, 61, 67
CID investigation of invasion, 44 leading opposition speakers on, 20
defence advisor (to Balfour in France, 4, 6, 34, 82, 149, 151
Opposition), 18, 46 Algeciras Conference
European Economic Community, 1 trading rights dispute with
European War, 81 Germany, 5
British intervention, 132, 134, 136 British support/obligations to, 23,
Balfour’s views, 39, 40, 41, 50, 52 59, 60, 62, 128, 129, 130, 133,
Bonar Law’s views, 21, 59, 68, 134, 135, 139
130, 140 Conservatives leadership, 136, 143
Conservatives, 80, 129 European War, 81
comprehension of implications, Lansdowne, 71, 91
128 hypothetical naval invader, 38
election campaign, 91, 127 Franco-German crisis/War, 5, 39, 48,
129
Faber, Walter (backbench Morocco Civil Disorder, re-ignited
Conservative MP), 122 by (1907), 5
Imperial Maritime League Franco-Prussian War, 4
member, 122 Fraser, Sir Malcolm, 87, 102
Fair Trade League (1881), 105 control of election press relations,
supported protectionism, 105 87
Fell, Sir Arthur, 79 free trade, 14, 57, 93, 100, 116, 118,
Ferdinand, Archduke Franz (of 150 see also protectionism; tariff
Sarajevo), 127, 146 reform
implications of assassination of, Conservative Party
127–8 election platform, 103, 109
Fisher, Admiral Sir John (‘Jackie’) electoral strategy of, 94–6
(First Sea Lord), 18, 19, 23, 24, results, 99, 115
36, 43, 44, 119, 122, 148–9 Liberals, 57, 78, 85, 117
Admiralty administration, right intransigence of, 14. 80
wingers dissatisfaction over,
122 Galway, Lord, 103
‘Blue Water strategy’, firm Garvin, J.L. (editor of Observer), 56,
supporter of, 18 88, 89, 90, 99, 100
 Index 193

Garvin, J.L. (editor of ‘radical right’, views of, 9, 88, 97

Observer) – continued Tariff Reform League, 77
chief (Conservative) party adviser Conservatives’ views on, 13–14,
on propaganda, 88 43, 69, 76, 141, 142, 143
coordination, 90 electioneering, 91, 93, 94, 96,
naval issue, ‘electoral cannonball’, 100, 103, 142
89, 99 Lansdowne, 71
tariff reform, ‘a British loaf – a big Roberts, 82
loaf’, 94 tariff reform, 143
General Election of 1906, 27, 85, 89 war with, 72, 84, 137, 140
General Election of 1910, 7, 90, 98, invasion by, 44, 148
103, 127, 142 living conditions in, British
campaign issues/material, 89–94, misconceptions, 100
103 naval arms race, 26, 52, 64, 73, 74,
‘battle of the pamphlets’, 98–9 75, 99
‘Tariff Trippers’ reports, 100 negative view of, 1, 2, 104
Conservative Party Liberals, 78, 80
propaganda matters, 88–9, 94 unification of (1871), 4
contrasts between 1906 and 1910, Balfour’s support to, 39
100–1 war-like preparations in, 70, 71
German threat, role of, 85–104 Gill. A.A. (columnist, Sunday Times), 1
hung parliament, 97 Globe, 64
explanation for, 100, 104 Goethe Institute, 2
jingoism, 92 Goulding, Sir Edward, 78, 130
German invasion, 42, 43, 51 Conservatives’ views of Germany,
Conservatives’ views on, 81, 82 distortion by Liberals, 78
right-wing activists, 112 Grey, Sir Edward (Foreign Secretary),
investigation by CID, 43 6, 14, 17, 21, 33, 38, 46, 48, 49,
Germanophobia, 3, 9, 89, 141 50, 60, 61, 81, 91, 128, 129, 131,
German threat, 85–104, 115 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 139,
electioneering 143, 149, 160n.75
press relations, Sir Malcom Anglo-French Entente, 50, 91, 128
Fraser, 87 France’s interests, 135
Imperial Maritime League, 122, Anglo-Russian Convention, 38, 60
169n.72 signatory to, 38
Milner’s complex approach to, 110 Balfour, relationship/interaction
right-wing paranoia, 112–13 with, 46, 48, 49
National Service League conscription, 81
propaganda, 113, 114, 125 bi-partisanship, criticism of, 33
Germany, 3, 5, 6, 10, 16, 34, 35, 48, Bonar Law,
70, 81, 130, 135, 136, 137, 146, relationship/interaction with,
149 62, 131, 132, 133, 134, 139
Anglo-French Entente, coalition government, 137
implications of, 23, 39, 50, 60 European War, intervention in, 21
Anglo-German relations, four key foreign policy, 60
aspects of, 11 Lansdowne, 17, 143
British pressure groups, 105–26 support for, 21
194 Index

Gwynne, H.A. (editor of right-wing parliamentary committee of the

Standard), 13, 31, 88, 107, 112, National Service League, 108
123, 124, 127, 130, 169n.72 parliamentary debates of, 13
Imperial Maritime League, support Shadow Cabinet meetings, 21
of, 107, 123, 169n.72 House of Lords, 74, 101, 132, 147,
‘scaremongering’, 87, 88, 127 148, 149, 151
spy network in Aldershot, 112 Conservative members, 108
crisis in, 22, 140
Haldane, Richard, 25, 29, 82 Balfour’s handling of, 25
Halsbury Club, 25, 26 foreign and defence matters, 61
Hamilton, Lord George, 113 Lansdowne’s influence, 71
National Service League, leading leading opposition spokesmen
figure of, 113 army affairs, 20, 82, 83
Hankey, Sir Maurice (secretary, naval affairs, 25, 74
CID), 51 Lloyd George’s Budget, rejection
Hay, Claude (backbench of, 92
Conservative MP), 122 National Service League, support
Imperial Maritime League to, 29
member, 122 ‘the only bulwark against
Helmsley, Viscount (MP), 74 socialism’, 100
Hitler, Adolf, 1, 2 parliamentary debates, 13, 89,
Hobsbawm, Eric, 8 167n.65
Home Rule see Irish Home Rule Shadow Cabinet, 21, 22, 34
Hood, Alexander Acland (Chief Hughes, J. Percival (Conservative
Whip), 20, 21, 86, 102 party Chief agent, 1906–1912),
electoral strategy, control of, 86 86, 89, 94
‘inner circle’ member, 20 organisational reforms, casualty
organisational reforms, casualty of, 102
of, 102 Hunt, Rowland (backbench
Horton-Smith, Lionel (barrister), Conservative MP), 122, 123,
119, 120, 124 169n.70
Imperial Maritime League Imperial Maritime League
member, 124 member, 122
Navy League, leader of rebellion
in, 120 Imperial Maritime League (1908),
House of Commons, 16, 28, 34, 36, 13, 59, 105, 120, 125–6, 142,
46, 132, 135 169n.72
Balfour’s bi-partisanship, bid to abandon,
comments/pronouncements 125
on, 16, 19, 31, 47, 49, 144 formation of, two major factors
Bonar Law on, 63, 64–5, 129, 133, for, 119
135–6, 147, 150 German threat/invasion/’peril’, 140
leading opposition spokesmen Navy League, reconciliation
army affairs, 30, 152 proposed with, 124
foreign and defence affairs, 20 propaganda tactics, 123–4
naval affairs, 24, 26, 27, 28, 74, renegade Conservatives, 106
150 three categories of, 121–2
 Index 195

Imperial Maritime League Kemp, Sir George (Liberal), 101

(1908) – continued election defeat by Bonar Law,
views of, most rebellious/right 101
wing, 122–3 Kennedy, Paul (authority on Anglo-
invasion fears, 122, 123 German relations), 9, 10,
‘inner circle’ (of Conservatives in 154n.25
Opposition), 21, 27, 129 Anglo-German antagonism,
Bonar Law and, 58, 61, 67, 68, strategic reasons for, 9
131 Kennedy-Smith (right-wing editor,
characteristics essential for entry, Daily Mail), 87
20, 30 ‘Khaki Election’ (1900), 85, 98
composition of, 18, 19, 23, 25, 26 Kidston, Charles, 54, 161n.4
backbench opinion, 136 Kidston, Elizabeth Annie (Bonar
Balfour’s control over, 34, 47, 71 Law’s mother), 54
Lansdowne’s position/influence Kidston, Janet (Bonar Law’s maternal
in, 31, 62, 66, 132 aunt and foster-mother), 54
defence matters Kidston, William, 54, 161n.4
war against Germany, 68
foreign affairs Labour movement/Party, 7, 32, 97,
war, 130, 131, 132, 133–4, 138, 101, 106, 135
142 British foreign policy, backbench
Irish Home Rule, 7, 127, 129, 140, critics of, 33
145, 147, 150, 152 ‘lack of patriotism’, charge of, 93
1910 General elections, 97 socialism, long-term appeal of, 86
key issue after, 28 working class, potential power of,
appeal to voters, a main plank 94
of, 85 Lansdowne, Lord (Conservative
Conservatives, 103, 130 Foreign Secretary), 5, 16, 17, 18,
bitterness/tension caused, 28, 54 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31,
Bonar Law, 55 34, 50, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66, 67, 68,
opposition to, 7, 85 71, 79, 83, 91, 111, 128, 131,
132, 133, 134, 135, 140, 143,
Jane, F.T., 119 149, 160n.75
leading Navy League rebel, 119 Anglo-German relations
Jennings, Ivor, 143 balanced assessment of, 71
jingoism, 8, 85, 145 Anglo-French Entente (1907), 5
Anglo-German naval rivalry, 74 military alliance, 50
Conservative poster/leaflet ‘inner circle’, 132
campaign, 92, 93 Balfour, 18, 19, 31, 40, 83
electoral appeal Bonar Law, 68, 133, 134, 135,
limited or vote winner, 86 140, 143
‘scaremongering’, not a foreign affairs/policy,
substitute, 89 advice on, 16, 23, 24,
Imperial Maritime League, verbal 30, 31, 71
battle, 121 cadet training, 67
National Service League, 113 war against Germany, 68
Johnson, Boris (Conservative MP), 3 conscription, 67
196 Index

Lansdowne, Lord – continued survival, dependence for on pro-

party’s reliance on, 31, 66 Nationalist Irish MPs, 28
Shadow Cabinet, misgivings tariff reform/trading issues, 57, 79
over, 22 Liberal Party, 7, 14, 57, 85, 92, 145,
‘two keels to one’ naval standard, 149
63, 64 elections, 97, 101, 103, 119
Lascalles, Sir Frank, 41, 158 naval cuts, demands for, 47
opposition to anti-German protectionism, stance on, 80, 125,
antagonism, 42 139
Law, James (father of Bonar Law), ‘radical right’ efforts to weaken, 8
35, 54 Lloyd, George (Conservative MP),
Lawrence, Sir Joseph (tariff 130, 131, 132
reformer), 86 European crisis, Balfour’s grasp of,
League of Nations Union, 75 130
Lee, Arthur, 20, 21, 26–7, 28, 29, 32, Lloyd George, David (British
66, 70, 71, 74, 75, 106, 149, Chancellor of the Exchequer), 5,
162n.62 48, 53, 89, 90, 92, 118, 140, 144,
Anglo-German relations 147, 148, 149, 150, 152
personal visit/assessment, 71 ‘People’s Budget’, 89, 140
public indiscretion, 70 Long, Walter, 21, 24, 27, 28, 53, 54,
‘inner circle’, outsider in, 26 150
National Service League naval affairs
membership, 106 spokesman in Commons, 24
naval matters, 75 views on Lee, 27–8
comparative analysis, 74 Lovat, Lord, 74
dispute with Pretyman, 28 British naval supremacy, advocate
Liberal Cabinet of, 74
coalition prospects, 137
division in, 129 MacDonald, Ramsay (Labour MP),
‘The Great War’, need to enter, 33
136, 143 Malmesbury, Earl of, 122
Liberal Government, 6, 18, 135, 137, Imperial Maritime League, open
145, 148, 149 support to, 122
bi-partisanship, conditional Marks, H.H. (Conservative MP), 79
Conservative support, 17 Tariff Reform League, formation
defence, 26, 73, 93 of, 115
Navy League stance on, 119, tariffs and protectionism, 79
120 Maxse, L.J. (editor of right-wing
spending cuts, restoration of, National Review), 13, 28, 40, 49,
46, 47, 67 70, 83, 88, 102, 107, 110, 111,
war, 16, 62 112, 119, 127, 130, 150
election, 101, 127 antagonism towards Germany,
foreign policy, conditional bi- 107, 111
partisanship, 17 Germany on the Brain (book), 110
Imperial Maritime League, no conscription, support for, 28
support to, 121 Imperial Maritime League, support
invasion, inquiry on, 43, 44 to, 107
 Index 197

Maxse, L.J. – continued 103, 105, 106, 107–15, 119, 125,

‘scaremongering’, 40, 83, 112 151
tariff reform, 102 compulsory military training,
Mayall, Rik (British comedian), 2 107
McKenna, Reginald, 46 conscription, 30
Meath, Lord of, 113 propaganda for, 113–15
National Service League, executive German invasion/danger, 43,
council member, 113 125
Mensdorff, Count (Austrian local branch concentrations, 108
Ambassador), 128 ‘scaremongering’ activities of, 103
Metternich, Count (German threat of invasion, 114–15
Ambassador), 42, 112, 159n.58 National Union, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92,
Midleton, Lord, 20, 29, 43, 66, 71, 93, 99, 100, 102, 104, 166n.37,
81, 102, 147, 162n.62 167n.62
invasion, inquiry into, 43 campaign aids, 91–3, 166n.37,
Shadow Cabinet 167n.62
army issues in Lords, 20, 29, 66 control of
Milner, Lord, 29, 79, 82, 83, 106, Sir Arthur Steel Maitland
109, 110, 150–1 (Principal agent), 102
National Service League John Boraston, 86
membership, 106, 109 relationship with Conservative
pressure group activity Central Office, 86–7, 90, 100
views on conscription, 82, 83, leadership, 109
109 A Nation in Arms, 113, 114
protectionism/tariff reform, 79 drama (based on best-selling book
Monthly Notes on Tariff Reform, 116 by Roberts), 114
popular monthly magazine of National Service League, own
Tariff Reform League, 116 monthly journal, 113
Morning Post (now defunct), 31, 65, naval rivalry/race, 5, 11, 28, 48,
87, 115, 127, 169n.70 63–4, 70, 72–3
elections 1910 Balfour
editorial support of expansion/modernisation
Conservative Party, 87 programme, 37
Morocco Civil Disorder, 5 infighting/controversy in
Opposition, 14, 28–9, 69
National Review, 13, 17, 26, 40, 49, public restraint/discretion, 65,
70, 83, 88, 110, 111, 114, 127, 70
150 inter-party row on spending, 46
Balfour, controversy over article, scare of 1909, 71
49 Selbornes’ ‘two keels to one’ naval
Germany, fear of, 70 standard, 63
invasion, 114–15 Navy League, 119–20
Halsbury Club, support from, 26 Conservatives, support to, 121
‘scaremongering’, 40 Imperial Maritime League, 123
National Service Bills, 83 reconciliation with, 124, 125
National Service League (1902), 13, ‘New Style’ (of Bonar Law), 54, 64
25, 28, 29, 30, 33, 43, 59, 65, 81, Nicholas, Tsar, 88, 129, 165
198 Index

Northcliffe, Lord, (proprietor of the assassination of Archduke

Daily Mail), 88, 165 Ferdinand, 127
editorial line during the election protectionism, 55 see also free trade;
campaign, 87 tariff reform
Bonar Law’s views on, 68
Observer, 56, 88, 114 definition of, 8
Oliver, F.S. (leading member, European crisis, discussion on, 130
National Service League), 25, Germanophobia, 56
112 limited impact, 15
German confrontation, relish of, paranoia, 112, 142
112 pressure groups, support to
Conservatives, 119–20
Page-Croft, Henry (Conservative Protection League, 115
MP), 33, 157 precursor to Tariff Reform League,
Parker, Gilbert (backbench 115
Conservative MP), 73, 75
naval supremacy, views on, 73 Reform Act (electoral) of 1884, 85
Parliament Act (1911), 21 Remnant, J.F. (MP), 31
Shadow Cabinet’s rejection of, 21 backbenchers’ attack on Balfour, 31
patriotic pressure groups, 8, 42, 142 Repington, Colonel Charles
see also pressure groups (The Times Military
patriotism, 54, 86, 93, 121 Correspondent), 43
Peel, Sir William, 74, 75, 78 key advisor on invasion to Lord
People’s Budget (1909), 7, 89, 140 Roberts, 43
Percy, Earl, 81, 83, 164 National Service League,
Press Association, 87 membership of, 112
pressure groups, 8, 9, 10, 11 Roberts, Lord (leader of National
extra-parliamentary, 105–26 Service League), 13, 19, 29, 43,
National Service League, 107 45, 65, 81, 82, 107, 108, 109,
Tariff Reform League, 115 112, 113, 114, 151
three important entities, 106 conscription, supporter of, 19, 65
pro-Conservative, 96 argument for, 82, 107–8
‘radical right’, 9, 14, 42, 142, German military threat, views on,
154n.25 83
Imperial Maritime League, 119 invasion, inquiry into, 43–5, 114
‘scaremongering’ activities of, 49 limited military training, 81
‘German danger’, deep concern Robinson, Geoffrey (editor of The
with, 125 Times, later named Geoffrey
Pretyman, Ernest, 20, 26, 27, 28, 151 Dawson), 128
navy affairs Robley, Anne Pitcairn (Bonar Law’s
dispute with Lee, 27, 28 wife), 55, 147
Primacy of Aussenpolitik (‘the Rosebery, Lord (former Liberal Prime
primacy of external factors’), 6 Minister), 16
Primat der Innenpolitik (‘the primacy Royal Navy, 4, 38, 50, 70, 145, 148
of domestic factors’), 6 capabilities of, 38, 74
Princip, Gavrilo (Bosnian terrorist), Balfour’s view of, 45
127 HMS Dreadnought (1902), 4
 Index 199

Salisbury, Lord (Robert Cecil), 4, 18, Shakespeare, William, 4

35, 36, 40, 66, 76, 85, 98, 144, Short, Wilfred (personal secretary to
146, 152 see also Cecil, Sir Acland Hood), 20
Robert (Lord Salisbury) Smith, F.E., 21, 26, 78, 122, 130,
Anglo-German understanding, 133, 151, 170n.8
attempted, 4 Imperial Maritime League,
‘Committee on Land Forces’, 66 membership of, 122
‘Made in Germany’ scandal, National Service League
condemnation of, 76 membership of, 106
Sandars, A.J. (Balfour’s private Shadow Cabinet, induction in
secretary), 12, 13, 20, 21, 23, (1911), 21
24, 29 ‘social imperialists’/social
Saving Private Ryan (film), 2 imperialism, 8, 77
‘scaremongering’, 8, 9, 46, 49, 75 socialism/social reform, 77, 92, 94–5,
Balfour’s opposition to, 42, 89, 90 100, 106, 110
Bonar Law’s attitude, 56, 59 electioneering, 93, 117, 119
Conservatives, mistaken image of, Conservatives campaigns, 86,
56, 84, 138 89, 92, 94
election campaign, 96, 103, 104 Liberals campaigns, 85, 91, 94
extra-parliamentary phenomenon, tariff reformers insistence, 94–5
14, 125, 142 Labour Party, 85
pressure group propaganda, 124 working man/working classes, 58,
right-wing newspapers, 40, 83, 96
88, 127 apathy to National Service
Scott, Sir Walter, 4 League, 109
Selborne, Lord, 12, 20, 24, 25, 26, benefits of taxation, 117–18
27, 28, 42, 44, 45, 47, 63, 64, 65, tariff reformers weakening of, 99,
71, 73, 151 115
Halsbury Club, leading figure in, Spring-Rice, Cecil (ex-diplomat), 112
24, 26 National Service League,
House of Lords, leading Opposition membership of, 112
speaker (1910), 20, 25 Stamfordham, Lord, 22
on Lansdowne, 24, 25 Standard, 13, 87, 88, 112, 114, 123
naval affairs expert Staveley-Hill, H.S. (backbench
(Conservatives), 20, 23, 64, 71 Conservative MP), 122
‘two keels to one’ naval Imperial Maritime League
standard, 63 member, 122
Shadow Cabinet (Conservatives in Steel-Maitland, Arthur, 21
Opposition), 22, 26, 53, 132, Shadow Cabinet, induction in
160n.71 (1911), 21
European Crisis, Opposition Steiner, Zara, 6, 139
attitude to, 135, 143 Sunday Times, 2
‘inner circle’, 19 Sutherland, Duke of, 115, 122
notable figures in, 20 Tariff Reform League,
party leader’s influence, 20, 22, 30, chairmanship of (21 Jul 1903),
34, 143 115
role of/composition of, 21 Sykes, Mark (Conservative MP), 60
200 Index

Tariff Commission, 116 Thatcher, Margaret, 1, 7

think tank of Tariff Reform, 116 German unification, negative
tariff reform, 10, 53, 79, 86, 98, 116, attitude to, 1
117, 145 see also free trade; Times, The, 43, 86, 87, 88, 89, 112,
protectionism 114, 128
Anglo-German relations, impact Tory Party/pro-Tory, 3, 44, 60, 87,
on, 77 119, 130
Balfour’s view, 78 Balfour’s election to parliament,
Balfour’s referendum pledge on, 36
102 elections 1910, 92, 96, 98–9,
Bonar Law’s knowledge/support 101
of, 55, 57, 58, 139, 147 editorial support of
Conservatives, 141 Conservatives, 87
Germany, role model of, 14, 56 tariff reform, 89
internal divisions/disputes over, German threat, silence on, 32
7, 17, 28, 85, 144 press, 87
pressure groups, 115 ‘scaremongering’, 40
support of, 79, 80, 84 Triple Alliance, 5, 40, 50, 146
electioneering Britain, France, and Russia, 5
Conservative platform, 86, 89, Turnour, Edward (backbench
90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 100, 101, Conservative MP), 122
103, 146, 167n.65 Imperial Maritime League
Germany, image of, 96, 104 member, 122
working classes, unpopularity Tyrell, Sir William (Grey’s private
with, 99 secretary), 62, 160n.75
Tariff Reform League (1903)
(formerly Protection Victoria, Queen, 3, 148
League/Imperial Tariff Reform Vincent, Howard (Conservative MP),
League), 13, 56, 77, 105, 116–19 76, 79
Conservatives, support to, 93, 115 von Mensdorf, Count Albert
election propaganda, 96, 100, (Austro-Hungarian
104, 106 Ambassador), 48
organization of, 116 von Tirpitz, Admiral Alfred
principal aim of, 115 (German Naval Minister),
‘scaremongering’ activities of, 103 63, 65
satirical anti-German
propaganda, 116–19 Wagner, Adolph (German
‘Tariff Trippers’, 100, 112, 118–19 economist-author), 56
Taylor, H.A., 53 Ware, Fabian (editor of Morning
The Strange Case of Andrew Bonar Post), 65
Law, (Bonar Law’s biography) Webb, Beatrice, 35
53 Wellington, Lord, 3
Territorial Army (TA), 81 Wells, H.G., 72, 112
created by army reforms (1907), Weltpolitik (‘World Policy’),
82 4, 47
 Index 201

Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 3, 4, 5, 39, Anglo-German naval

41, 45, 47, 50, 70, 71, race/rivalry, 14
110, 146 Primacy of Aussenpolitik (‘the
Weltpolitik, support for, 4 primacy of external
William Jacks and Company, 54 factors’), 6
Bonar Law, junior partnership in, 54 World War, the Second, 1, 2
Williams, Ernest (author), 76 Wyatt, Harold (writer on naval
Made in Germany (1886), 76 affairs), 119, 120, 121, 122, 123,
Wilson, General Sir Henry (Director 124, 169n.72
of Military Training), 30, 65, 67, Navy League rebel group, 119
130, 132 Wyndham, George, 20, 26, 28, 30,
Conservatives in Opposition 61, 73, 75, 79, 106, 122, 140,
army adviser, 65 152
supporter of conscription, 65 army issues in the Commons, 28, 30
Wilson, Henry (MP), 32 National Service League
World War, the First, 6 membership, 106
Conservative Party Shadow Cabinet, 20
attitude, 34
decision in 1914, 127–37 xenophobia, 2, 91, 96, 103, 125,
outbreak of, 131 141