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64 Great Britain

The Liberals, having lost their dominance, became a more progressive party in the 1890s, reaching out toward a wider working-class electorate. Their positions on home rule, social reform, and higher taxes on the wealthy were oddly linked to a segment of the party which had favored imperial growth. A portion of that group of Liberal imperialists helped the Conservatives under Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour stay in power for most of the period 1885–1902. With Joseph Chamberlain at the Colonial Office during that time, they championed strong imperial policies. Other Liberals who remained in the party (Lord Rosebery, Lord Haldane, Sir Edward Grey, Herbert Asquith) were also strong advocates of empire who fought with the more advanced social reformers in the party during the Boer War (1899–1902).

The British position in foreign affairs naturally was linked to the empire. Because of growing global strength, British leaders were content to withdraw from continental involvements. They preferred to act on the principle of the balance of power. Britain reserved the right to intervene in European affairs to redress a perceived imbalance—for example, negotiating Belgian neutrality in 1839 and intervening in the Crimea in 1854. In fact, by the end of the 19th century, Lord Salisbury had coined the phrase “splendid isolation” to describe British aloofness from diplomatic commitments. Other states could easily interpret this as proof of typical British arrogance or deviousness.

In the mid-century, a dominant policy theme was Cobdenite liberalism; peace and trade were seen as interdependent. Thus, in 1860 the Cobden-Cheva- lier treaty between Britain and France agreed to reduce tariffs and promote peaceful relations. Yet by the 1870s there was talk of a “new imperialism”—a more aggressive, conscious effort to advance the size and strength of the empire. This was clearly popular with the new working-class voters. Disraeli had been an early beneficiary of this policy, and as prime minister he gained popularity by unilateral acts to extend influence, for example, by buying shares in the Suez Canal (1875) and by creating the title “Empress of India” for Queen Victoria (1876).

After Disraeli died in 1881, Lord Salisbury succeeded him as Tory leader. About the same time, the “scramble for Africa” began, with many European countries trying to carve out some holdings there, both as a matter of prestige and for (elusive) economic benefit. A similar process soon began in Asia, particularly aimed at China. Also in the 1880s, there was the beginning of a feeling of insecurity about British naval power. First there was a stir when the French began building new ships. Then, in the later 1890s, Germany passed a naval law directing the expansion of the high seas fleet, a move clearly aimed at challenging British supremacy. Britain responded by building the new type of battleship known as Dreadnoughts (1906) and adding to that class of very expensive vessel over the next few years. By this time the cost of competing in this manner had escalated, and it became a major political issue.

Meanwhile the diplomatic picture had changed. After Britain’s struggles in the Boer War, there was a general shift in European attitudes. German support for the Boers and general hostility to Britain’s exertion of power in South Africa were both cause for concern. The policy of isolation was also being challenged

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on other imperial fronts: Russia’s presence in the Far East was a reason why Britain broke its ban on alliances in 1902 and signed an agreement with Japan. A showdown in Africa with France led to a diplomatic truce known as the Entente Cordiale in 1904. Further efforts to resolve tension in and around Afghanistan, plus the mounting tensions in Europe, brought an entente with Russia in 1907. Thus imperial tensions, on top of a dawning sense of relative weakness, contributed directly to a fundamental modification of British foreign policy. In these same years, Britain began to realize that her conduct in colonial affairs faced new and difficult challenges for which she would have to fashion new responses.

CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE

The empire’s colonial subjects expressed their hostility to British control in escalating fashion in the later 19th century, first in isolated outbreaks and later moving toward systematic colonial nationalism. The British government’s responses were signs of hardening British attitudes toward empire and of more belligerent moods between imperial powers. Time seemed to be running out on the Pax Britannica.

By the mid-19th century it was apparent that white-majority dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) were destined to gain more autonomy. But in colonies with nonwhite majorities, or in cases of conflict with nonwhite populations, British policy reflected the belief that these were “lesser breeds without the law.” A series of episodes in the third quarter of the century clearly demonstrated this.

The most serious insurrection occurred in India when native troops at a station near Delhi mutinied in 1857. They had been issued Enfield rifle cartridges which rumor said were treated with pork and beef fat—contriving at once to offend both the Hindu and Muslim soldier. A regiment had been severely disciplined for refusing to touch the cartridges, and shortly several bodies of troops mutinied, murdered their officers, and marched on Delhi. There they were joined by other disaffected troops. The mutiny spread, often resulting in the deaths of wives and children of British soldiers. There was too small and dispersed a garrison to strike back at once, but as reinforcements arrived over the summer, the British retaliated. They recaptured Delhi in September, other cities in the fall, and completed the reconquest in 1858. The British had ample support from other native troops—Sikhs, Gurkhas and Pathans—and most of the insurgency was concentrated in the north-central provinces. The violence and retribution were brutal on all sides. After the mutiny was suppressed, the East India Company lost its role in Indian government, and a separate cabinet level post of Secretary of State for India was created. The government recognized that the mutiny was the result of the British policy of attempting to convert the population to western customs, thus threatening to destroy native culture. While that policy was discontinued, British influence continued to be exerted through railroad construction, road building, irrigation, sanitation, and impartial administration of justice.

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saries. With the discovery of gold and diamonds in the 1860s, the situation changed. The British annexed the Afrikaner state of Transvaal in 1877, galvanizing a nationalist movement there. Actually the most dangerous enemy of the Transvaal was the Zulu kingdom of Cetewayo. His army was poised to attack, but the British commissioner delivered an ultimatum and then attacked. A British force was soundly beaten in January 1879 at Isandhlwana, with 800 killed. That day another British unit defeated the Zulus at Rorke’s Drift, and some months later, the Zulu army was destroyed at Ulundi. There was ample criticism over the handling of these conflicts, in addition to one unforeseen consequence. The British victory over the Zulus in 1879 only increased Boer nationalism. A rebellion was followed in 1881 by renewed Boer independence, and the Transvaal became rich in 1886 with the discovery of diamonds in the Witwatersrand.

In Afghanistan an uprising in Kabul led to the murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari, the British resident. Frederick, Lord Roberts occupied Kabul in August 1880 from where he led a force of 10,000 men on a forced march over the mountains to relieve the garrison at Kandahar, a journey of 320 miles in 23 days. The British installed a new native ruler under an arrangement that gave Britain control over the foreign affairs of Afghanistan.

In Egypt the British had been anxious about the Suez, especially since the opening of the canal there in 1869. The French had been involved in its construction, and the Khedive, the deputy of the Ottoman Turks, was the political authority for the region. He was deeply in debt, and in 1875 Disraeli authorized the purchase of 44 percent of the shares in the canal company. With this foot in the door, Britain joined with France in sorting out Egyptian finances and demanding a number of fiscal reforms. Those measures were an incentive to rebel nationalists, and the British and French decided to establish a protectorate. This only increased native hostility, and after France withdrew, Britain bombarded Alexandria and sent in troops.

One effect of British action in Egypt was to cause instability in the large area to the south, the Sudan. There a revolt was begun by a fanatical Muslim leader, the Mahdi. General Charles Gordon was sent to evacuate an Egyptian force in Khartoum, but he tried instead to hold the city, and he was killed in 1885. A decade later the British dispatched General Herbert Kitchener to retake the city, and he defeated the rebel forces and reestablished British authority (1898).

In the meantime, affairs at the other end of the continent were becoming critical. The Cape Colony under Cecil Rhodes was fomenting unrest with the Boer republics, Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The pretext was the denial of civil rights to foreigners (uitlanders) in the gold and diamond mines. The real cause probably had more to do with a plan to take over these lucrative assets. Rhodes already had built up the DeBeers Mining Corporation to a position of monopoly power, and he had equally ambitious political aims. In 1895, a Rhodes agent named Colonel Jameson led a raid across the border of Transvaal, but he was repelled. A period of protracted negotiation followed, ending in 1899 with an ultimatum from the Transvaal president Paul Kruger. War began in October that year. Initially the Boers had numerical superiority and better

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weapons; in addition, they were defending their own territory. As a result, they won early victories and besieged British forces in several towns. By 1900, with reinforcements and a change in command, the British turned the tide. But the Boers then resorted to guerilla warfare and prolonged the fighting for another 18 months. In that time, British leaders employed “concentration” camps for women and children, while they systematically destroyed Boer farms and crops. More than 20,000 died in the camps, about twice as many as the total losses in battle; Britain lost 5,800, the Boers 4,000. The war was a shock to all, even to imperialists: it cost over £220 million, brought humiliating defeats, and displayed serious military weaknesses. Furthermore, the camps and the campaigns aroused bitter controversy at home and created a more critical attitude toward empire.

Something similar came from Britain’s actions in China, an old established power but one which was terribly weak by modern standards. Along with other European states, the British had carved out port zones where they exercised a limited sovereignty and supervised a lucrative trade. The key commodity that Britain imported was opium from India. Wars were fought over this trade in the 1840–60 period, and later the European intrusions escalated, creating numerous grievances. These boiled over in 1899 with the organization of the “Righteous and Harmonious Fists”—known to the Europeans as the Boxers. Though the Boxers had troubled relations with the Chinese empress, they joined in a raid on the Peking legations in 1900. An international army was sent to relieve the legations, and the episode provoked even more foreign intervention.

The European powers realized that their normal response to incidents such as this was likely to bring down the dynasty, which could lead to China’s total collapse, causing untold conflict. Therefore they drew back from full use of their power, in fear of the consequences. In fact the world situation had progressed to the point where the unchecked use of imperial power was ever more likely to result in serious collisions. The Pax Britannica had clearly ended.

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negate an ordinary bill in two successive sessions. On its third passage, the same bill would become law, with or without their assent. The act also altered the length of a parliament from seven to five years. This reform of the traditional constitution was paralleled by rising voices of workers and women: the former agitated for more power for unions, while a workers’ party (Labour) was organized and began to gain seats in Parliament (1903–18). The women, for their part, escalated the campaign for women’s suffrage with protest demonstrations from 1908 on. They initially failed to gain any concession, but in 1918 the vote was given to women over the age of 30. The same act gave the vote to all men over 21, clearly as a consequence of the sacrifice made in World War I (1914–18).

How Britain came to be involved in “The Great War” was, of course, a consequence of international affairs. During the 19th century the country had enjoyed economic supremacy and an unusually long period of peace. A major corollary of Britain’s peace and prosperity had been what Lord Salisbury called “splendid isolation.” Without alliances, Britain was free to act independently in foreign affairs. This luxury, if that is what it was, could not survive in the new century. The Boer War had embarrassed Britain, and it had given Germany the chance to pose as a protector of the Boer Republics. A faltering Turkish empire in the Balkans and an expansive Russian one in the Far East were both serious threats to peace. Thus, in 1902 Britain broke out of isolation with an AngloJapanese alliance. This enlisted Japan as a counterweight to Russia, and it allowed Britain to concentrate its naval strength in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. That arrangement proved successful when Japan beat Russia in the Russian-Japanese war of 1905. Before that Britain had come to terms with France, signing an entente (not an alliance) in 1904 to sooth tensions over contested colonial claims. In 1907 a similar agreement was signed with Russia (dealing with Persia, Tibet, and Afghanistan). But these agreements had another dimension. France and Russia were allies, having signed a Dual Alliance in 1893. They were ranged against the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy (1882). That framework had been the result of growing national rivalries on the continent since about 1870. Britain had purposely remained aloof, and even with her ententes she was still hoping not to become a full military ally. That hope proved to be futile in 1914.

The most explosive area in Europe was in the Balkans. There were strong national independence movements throughout the region (Rumania and Serbia, 1878; Armenia, 1890s; Bulgaria, 1908). All were seeking to escape the Ottoman Empire’s control, while internally that government was losing power to the Young Turk movement. The neighboring Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires fostered some of these efforts and looked for chances to expand their territory and influence. Several earlier crises in this area were resolved by international conferences (the Congress of Berlin, 1878; the Mediterranean Agreement of 1887; the Treaty of London, 1913, ending the first Balkan War, followed quickly by the Second Balkan War, 1913). The area remained a major confluence of national ambitions with a very long history of hostilities.

In 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo by an agent of the Serbian terrorist Black Hand Society (June 28). Austria issued

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an ultimatum demanding a Serbian crackdown on nationalists, surrender of those involved, and apologies (July 23). Britain proposed an international conference to adjudicate, but Austria and Germany rejected this (July 26). Austria declared war on Serbia (July 28), Russia ordered mobilization (July 30), and Germany declared war on Russia (August 1) and France (August 3). The German invasion of France required movement of German forces through neutral Belgium, and on the ground that this violation of international law had to be resisted, Britain declared war on Germany (August 4). In fact, Britain had become more closely allied with France in the preceding years, making agreements for shared naval responsibility. But whether she would join the war, and in what capacity, were questions answered only at the last minute.

ARMAGEDDON, 1914–1918

In 1914 the Liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith led the nation into war. Britain was not well prepared, except at sea, where the only major encounter with the German fleet was the indecisive Battle of Jutland in 1916. The German invasion of Belgium required the dispatch of the British Expeditionary Force to the continent. The allied armies stalled the German advance, and soon a line of battle stretched from the coast of Belgium across northern France to the border of Switzerland. Trenches were dug along that line, with barbed wire and fortifications placed on both sides. Millions fought on the western front for four years, taking massive casualties. The greatest impact, both physically and psychologically, came from the devastating and unprecedented losses in individual battles or campaigns—for example, the 1916 Battle of Verdun, which saw the French lose 550,000 and the Germans 450,000. In summer that year, the British lost 60,000 in the first day of the Battle of the Somme and 400,000 overall. This kind of destruction was inflicted with long-range artillery, machine guns, mines, and poison gas. The war also saw the first tanks and aircraft used in battle—and, more importantly, the submarine. On the eastern front, battles raged across central and eastern Europe, the Germans and Austrians taking large amounts of territory and forcing the new revolutionary government of Russia to accept a humiliating treaty (Brest Litovsk) in early 1918. This effort had exhausted all of the old prewar empires, and the regimes of the Habsburgs, Turks, and Bulgarians had collapsed by 1918.

Meanwhile, there were efforts to develop some flanking strategy to relieve the horror of the western front. The most dramatic of these was the Gallipoli campaign fostered by Winston Churchill, then a prominent Liberal. The plan was for British and French fleets to force their way through the straits of the Dardanelles, take Constantinople, and open a route of communication to Russia through the Black Sea. In March 1915 a naval assault very nearly succeeded, but the commander withdrew after losing several ships to mines and bombardment. The Turkish forces were bolstered by some assistance from their German ally, and they were able to repel an allied amphibious assault on the rugged Gallipoli peninsula, near the straits. This campaign proved to be a disaster, and allied forces withdrew in late 1915 after taking heavy casualties. By

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bought their temporary cooperation with a coalition. Lloyd George was sent to head a new Ministry of Munitions, and ammunition factories were placed under direct government control. With the wide powers he had been granted, Lloyd George was very successful in expanding production. In 1916, as discontent with Asquith’s leadership mounted, Lloyd George joined the Conservatives in forcing him out and taking over as prime minister. This was an important improvement in wartime government, but a disaster for the future of the Liberal Party, which never recovered from the split in its ranks. In 1917 and 1918, Lloyd George brought energetic leadership, but he could not hold back the tide of losses and discouragement.

Part of the disarray came from within the British Isles. In Easter week of April 1916 there was an uprising in Dublin. A band of rebels seized the general post office and several other buildings and proclaimed an Irish republic. Within a week they had been routed by the British army, their leaders rounded up and summarily executed. The Easter Rising was the end result of pent-up frustrations over the past generation: Irish home rule had been promised, but it was shelved in 1914 because of the war. For two years prior to that, the threat of home rule had galvanized Ulster Protestants to swear to defend the union, and there was a serious prospect of civil war when a home rule act passed in 1914. The suspension of that law only proved to ardent Irish nationalists that the British government intended to continue to rule Ireland. Ironically, the small rebel band of the Easter Rising, who had become martyrs to their cause, was incorrectly labeled as the “Sinn Féin” by the British government. In fact that name applied to a moderate nationalist party, which benefited from British policy and in 1918 was successful in parliamentary elections for the first time. Sinn Féin took nearly three-fourths of the Irish seats, but the party (having become considerably more radical) chose not to send its MPs to Westminster but stayed in Dublin and formed a provisional government in January 1919.

A long list of national movements sprang up during the war. As the three old empires crumbled in the East, many people saw the opportunity for political self-expression. As the war dragged on, it was imperative that Britain enlist the support of these movements. Britain had not made its goals clear, other than defense of Belgian neutrality, France, Russia, and its own possessions. This was especially important since the United States, which was a vital potential ally, had remained neutral. Britain was helped in this regard by Germany’s decision to resume unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917. America formally entered the war in April, and though U.S. troops did not arrive until much later, shipments of grain from the United States and Canada were critical. Britain lost about 30 percent of her merchant fleet in 1917, and Lloyd George had to coerce the admiralty to accept the use of convoys to reduce the losses of merchant ships. However, the German tactic did not succeed.

There were many who called for a negotiated end to hostilities, including most of the Americans. What would a British negotiating position be? Why was Britain fighting? On January 5, 1918, Lloyd George issued Britain’s first statement of war aims, claiming that Britain was not waging war against the German people, only Germany’s authoritarian government, and that Britain wanted to