Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T00:06:14.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Idealists and Realists: British Views of Germany,1864–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

P. M. Kennedy
P. M. Kennedy
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Yet another survey of the much-traversed field of Anglo-German relations will seem to many historians of modern Europe to border on the realm of superfluity; probably no two countries have had their relationship to each other so frequently examined in the past century as Britain and Germany. Moreover, even if one restricted such a study to the British side alone, the sheer number of publications upon this topic, or upon only a section of it like the age of ‘appeasement’, is simply too great to allow a compression of existing knowledge into a narrative form that would be anything other than crude and sketchy. The following contribution therefore seeks neither to provide such a general survey, nor, by use of new and detailed archival materials, to concentrate upon a small segment of the history of British policy towards Germany in the period 1864–1939; but instead to consider throughout all these years a particular aspect, namely, the respective arguments of Germanophiles and Germanophobes in Britain and the connection between this dialogue and the more general ideological standpoints of both sides. In so doing, the author has produced a survey which remains embarrassingly summary in detail but does at least attempt to offer a fresh approach to the subject.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 25 , December 1975 , pp. 137 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Bundesarchiv, Koblenz: Nachlass Brentano, vol. 244, Brentano to (? a female friend), 11/4/1915. See also Brentano's thoughts on this topic in his book Der Wirtschaftende Mensch in der Geschichte (Leipzig, 1923), pp. 55–76, 370–71Google Scholar; and Sheehan, J. J., The Career of Lujo Brentano. A Study of Liberalism and Social Reform in Imperial Germany (London, 1966), pp. 182, 186–87, 191–94Google Scholar.

2 The radical paper Concord expressed this argument well in December 1910: ‘Not we are the dreamers, the Utopians, but those who set their alarm clocks to signal the hour that threatens the Island with invasion and the Empire with destruction. They are hibernating in a fool's paradise and dreaming wild dreams of unopposed grab and grind. They are the ones who want awakening to the fact that half their day is past …’ Quoted in Morris, A. J. Anthony, Radicalism Against War, 1906–1914. The Advocacy of Peace and Retrenchment (London, 1972), p. 199, n.lGoogle Scholar.

3 Mander, J., Our German Cousins. Anglo-German Relations in the 19th and soth Centuries (London, 1974), pp. 1–187Google Scholar; Sontag, R. J., Germany and England. Background of Conflict, 1848–1894 (New York, 1969 ed.), pp. 3–66Google Scholar; Mosse, W. E., The European Powers and the German Question 1848–1871 (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 5–9Google Scholar, 17–18, 36–38, 359–62.

4 Benson, A. C. and Esher, Viscount, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1st ser., 3 vols. (London, 1907), ii, p. 164Google Scholar.

5 Harrison, F., National and Social Problems (London, 1908), pp. xix–xx, 4–70Google Scholar.

6 Fasnacht, G. E., Acton's Political Philosophy. An Analysis (London, 1952), pp. 132–39Google Scholar.

7 Cited in Hildebrand, K., ‘Von der Reichseinigung zur “Krieg-in-Sicht”— Krise. Preussen-Deutschland als Faktor der britischen Aussenpolitik 1866—1875’, in Das kaiserliche Deutschland. Politik und Gesellschaft 1870–1918, ed. Stürmer, M. (Düsseldorf, 1970), p. 216Google Scholar; see also Millman, R., British Foreign Policy and the Coming of the Franco-Prussian War (Oxford, 1965), pp. 33–37, 107–8, 215–16Google Scholar.

8 Wellesley, F., The Paris Embassy during the Second Empire. From the Papers of Earl Cowley (London, 1928), p. 314Google Scholar.

9 Wemyss, R., Memoirs and Letters of the Right Hon. Sir Robert Morier, (London, 1911), ii, p. 356Google Scholar.

10 Clarke, I. F., Voices Prophesying War 1763–1384 (London, 1970 edn.), pp. 30–42Google Scholar.

11 Quoted in Louis, W. R., Great Britain and Germany's Lost Colonies 1914–1919 (Oxford, 1967), pp. 20–21Google Scholar.

12 Medlicott, W. N., Bismarck, Gladstone and the Concert of Europe (London, 1956)Google Scholar, passim.

13 Jones, J. R., ‘England’, in The European Right. A Historical Profile, ed. Rogger, H. and Weber, E. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1965), pp. 29–54Google Scholar; Searle, G. R., The Quest for National Efficiency. A Study in British politics and British political thought 1899–1914 (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar; Semmel, B., Imperialism and Social Reform (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Beloff, M., Imperial Sunset, i, Britain's Liberal Empire 1897–1921 (London, 1969)Google Scholar, caps. II–III; Sontag, , Germany and England, pp. 93–224Google Scholar; Roach, J., ‘Liberalism and the Victorian Intelligentsia’, Historical Journal, xiii (1957), pp. 58–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marshall, P., ‘The Imperial Factor in the Liberal Decline, 1880–1885’, in Perspectives of Empire. Essays presented to Gerald S. Graham ed. Flint, J. E. and Williams, G. (London, 1973), pp. 136–47Google Scholar.

14 Milner, Lord, The Nation and the Empire (London, 1913), p. 124Google Scholar.

15 Louis, Great Britain and Germany's Lost Colonies, cap. I; Mackenzie, K., ‘Some British Reactions to German Colonial Methods, 1885–1907’, Historical Journal, xvii (1974), pp. 165–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar;Kennedy, P. M., The Samoan Tangle. A Study in Anglo-German-American Relations, 1878–1900 (Dublin, 1974), pp. 108 ffGoogle Scholar.

16 Hoffman, R. J. S., Great Britain and the German Trade Rivalry, 1875–1914 (Philadelphia, 1933)Google Scholar.

17 Marder, A. J., The Anatomy of British Sea Power. A History of British Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era 1880–1905 (Hamden, Conn., 1964), pp. 288–301, 456–67Google Scholar.

18 Monger, G. W., The End of Isolation. British Foreign Policy 1900–1907 (London, 1963), pp. 104–07, 118–23, 222–24Google Scholar. On the revival of ‘invasion scare’ literature, see Clarke, , Voices Prophesying War, pp. 138–61Google Scholar.

19 The best recent survey of the ‘idealists’ arguments is Morris, Radicalism Against War. Also important is Taylor's, A. J. P. stimulating book The Trouble Makers. Dissent over Foreign Policy 1792–1939 (London, 1969 ed.), pp. 87–119Google Scholar.

20 Daily News, 25/7/1896.

21 Quoted in Semmel, , Imperialism and Social Reform, p. 137Google Scholar.

22 Deutsches Zentralarchiv, Potsdam: Auswartiges Amt (Handelspolitische Abteilung), vol. 9094, Metternich to Bülow, no. 910 of 36/12/1903, citing th e paper.

23 Steiner, Z., The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1898–1914 (Cambridge, 1969)Google Scholar. passim; Amery, L. S., My Political Life, 3 vols. (London, 1953–1955), i, PP. 95–99Google Scholar; SirPetrie, Charles, Life and Letters of Sir Austen Chamberlain, 2 vols. (London, 1939), i. PP. 27–29Google Scholar.

24 Nord und Süd, vol. 142 (1912), ‘Deutsch-Englische Verständigungsnummer’, pp. 64–69Google Scholar.

25 Quoted in Morris, , Radicalism against War, p. 45Google Scholar. For some favourable contemporary comparisons of Germany with Russia, see Taylor, , The Trouble Makers, p. 105Google Scholar.

26 Ekstein, M., ‘Sir Edward Grey an d Imperial Germany in 1914’, Journal of Contemporary History, (1971), pp. 121–31Google Scholar; Rothwell, V. H., British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914–1918 (Oxford, 1971), pp. 18–19Google Scholar, 43–49, 283–84.

27 Mr Punch's History of the Great War (London, 1919), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

28 Gilbert, M., Sir Horace Rumbold. Portrait of a Diplomatist 1869–1941 (London' 1973), P. 171Google Scholar.

29 George Saunders Papers (in private hands), Saunders to his sister Maggie, 22/12/1914.

30 Quoted in Morris, , Radicalism against War, p. 419Google Scholar.

31 Taylor, , The Trouble Makers, pp. 120–51Google Scholar; Mayer, A. J., Political Origins of the New Diplomacy 1917–1918 (New Haven, 1959)Google Scholar; and especially, Swartz, M., The Union of Democratic Control in British Polities during the First World War (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar.

32 Notter, H., The Origins of the Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1965), pp. 12, 29–31Google Scholar; Blum, J. M., Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Morality (Boston, 1956), pp. 9–10Google Scholar. It was not surprising that Sir Henry Wilson called the president a ‘Super-Gladstone’! Calwell, C. E., Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, His Life and Diaries, 2 vols. (London, 1927), ii, pp. 136–37Google Scholar.

33 Quoted in Swartz, , The Union of Democratic Control, p. 134Google Scholar. And see generally, Martin, L. W., Peace without Victory. Woodrow Wilson and the English Liberals (New York, 1973 edn.)Google Scholar, for an excellent survey of British radical attitudes towards the president.

34 See briefly, Beloff, Imperial Sunset, i, caps, V–VI; Barnett, C., The Collapse o, British Power (London, 1972), pp. 308–21Google Scholar; Howard, M., The Continental Commitment. The Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of Two World Wars (Harmondsworth., 1974), PP. 65–73Google Scholar.

35 Laffan, M., ‘The Question of French Security in British Policy towards France and Germany, 1918–1925’ (unpubd. Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar, cap. 2; Z. S. Steiner, ‘British Foreign Office Attitudes to Germany, 1905–1919’, Paper read to the Anglo-German Group of Historians, London, September 1973, p. 3. The views of the Tory ‘die-harders’ are captured in McCallum, R. B., Public Opinion and the Last Peace (London, 1944), pp. 40–45Google Scholar.

36 Semmel, , Imperialism and Social Reform, p. 175Google Scholar; Mackinder, H. J., Democratic Ideals and Reality (New York edn., 1962)Google Scholar, passim.

37 Gilbert, M., The Roots of Appeasement (London, 1966), pp. 52–88Google Scholar; id. (ed.), Britain and Germany between the Wars (London, 1964), pp. 14–17; Taylor, , The Trouble Makers, pp. 159–60Google Scholar.

38 Quoted in Barnett, , op. at., p. 391Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., pp. 428–38; Gilbert, , Roots of Appeasement, pp. 26–29Google Scholar; Taylor, , The Trouble Makers, p. 162Google Scholar; Kennedy, P. M., ‘The Decline of Nationalistic History in the West’, Journal of Contemporary History, 8 (1973), pp. 91–92Google Scholar.

40 Naylor, J. F.Labour's International Policy (London 1969)Google Scholar, passim.

41 Gilbert, , Sir Horace Rumbold, pp. 374, 377Google Scholar.

42 Quoted in Gilbert, , Britain and Germany between the Wars, p. 16Google Scholar. Garvin's attitude towards Germany later softened considerably, much to Rumbold's disgust.

43 Thompson, N., The Anti-Appeasers. Conservative Opposition to Appeasement in the 1930s (Oxford, 1971)Google Scholar, passim. The dissensions among the Right are also covered in Jones, J. R., ‘England’ (n. 13 above), pp. 57–69Google Scholar.

44 Howard, , The Continental Commitment, pp. 74–139Google Scholar. On the anti-German sentiments of the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, see Gannon, F. R., The British Press and Germany 1936–1939 (Oxford, 1971), pp. 43–50Google Scholar; on Hankey, see Roskill, S. W., Hankey, Man of Secrets, iii (London, 1974)Google Scholar.

45 Gannon, , op. cit., pp. 136–228Google Scholar.

46 Thompson, , The Anti-Appeasers, pp. 182–90Google Scholar; Naylor, , Labour's International Policy, pp. 252–56Google Scholar; Gilbert, , Roots of Appeasement, pp. 159–86Google Scholar.

47 Gannon, , The British Press and Germany, pp. 213, 246–48Google Scholar; Thompson, , op. cit., PP. 175–78, 203–4, 208Google Scholar.

48 Thompson, , op. cit., pp. 215–19Google Scholar.

49 Taylor, , The Trouble-Makers, pp. 181–82Google Scholar.

50 Thompson, , The Anti-Appeasers, p. 232Google Scholar.

51 My colleague, Dr V. R. Berghahn, has pointed out that Hitler was also the ultimate expression of those fears expressed about Gerir: my by the British ‘idealists’ and ‘realists’ in the 1860s, which were, respectively, of the rejection of liberalism and democracy and morality in politics, and of the attempt to dominate the continent. Thus British comments from 1864 to 1939 mirror in their own way the problem of ‘continuity’ and ‘discontinuity‘ in German history which has been the subject of so much recent debate.