Читать книгу Fateful Transitions - Daniel M. Kliman - Страница 9

Chapter 3

Pax Britannica Eclipsed

As the United States, Europe, and much of Asia navigate the rise of new powers, the British experience at the turn of the twentieth century is instructive. Although the Pax Britannica ended on the battlefields of the First World War, the eclipse of British power occurred earlier. Between 1870 and 1914, Great Britain steadily lost ground to two emerging giants: post-Civil War America and a unified Germany. This was the product of differential economic growth rates and the military capabilities such superior economic performance afforded. Once the United States and Germany surpassed Great Britain economically, its days as the world’s dominant maritime power were numbered.

The unwinding of British primacy is more than a cautionary tale; it is the only period before the current era to feature a democracy and an autocracy rising in parallel. While democratic government in the United States reassured Great Britain, allowing for appeasement, the uncertainty and mistrust generated by Germany’s autocratic system compelled Great Britain to initially integrate and hedge. As growing conflict accompanied Germany’s continued ascendance, the British had no recourse but to abandon this dual strategy for containment. The eclipse of Pax Britannica amply demonstrates how regime type shapes fateful transitions and sets the boundaries for how democratic leaders formulate strategy.

The Balance of Power

At its apogee in 1870, Great Britain stood head and shoulders above all rivals. The British economy was the workshop of the world while the Royal navy ruled every ocean traversed by international commerce. Yet within little more than three decades, the balance of power had radically changed. Both the United States and Germany surpassed Great Britain in economic size and steel production and substantially closed the gap on all other indicators of national power.

Gross Domestic Product

British economic predominance evaporated at the turn of the twentieth century as the United States and Germany emerged as leading powers. Great Britain in 1870 had the largest GDP of any Western nation. The United States, with a GDP more than 98 percent of Great Britain’s, was close behind. Germany, a relative latecomer to the industrial revolution, had about 72 percent of Great Britain’s national wealth. Although Great Britain’s GDP increased from 1870 to 1913, the economies of the United States and Germany grew at a much faster pace. During this period, British economic growth averaged 1.6 percent annually, while the U.S. economy expanded at a per annum rate of 5 percent, and Germany grew at 4.7 percent.¹ Uneven growth rates brought about a marked shift in the distribution of national wealth. By the eve of World War I, Great Britain’s GDP ranked behind that of the United States and Germany. Having surpassed Great Britain in 1872, the United States by 1913 had an economic output equivalent to 230 percent of British GDP. Germany, starting from a smaller base, overtook Great Britain in 1908, and by 1913, had a GDP 5 percent larger.²

International Trade

British commercial supremacy, once beyond challenge, became increasingly tenuous as U.S. and German involvement in international trade expanded. In 1870, the volume of British trade exceeded that of the United States and Germany combined. The trade conducted by each of these states stood at 38 percent of Great Britain’s total. Between 1870 and 1913, British trade grew in absolute terms but experienced relative decline as the United States and Germany penetrated foreign markets traditionally dominated by Great Britain. U.S. exports to Europe, Japan, and China surged; German exports advanced in Europe, Latin America, and China.³ By 1913 the value of U.S. trade had grown to 73 percent of Great Britain’s, while German trade, rising even more rapidly, was 85 percent.⁴

Military Expenditures

Military expenditures (as opposed to naval expenditures) never constituted a major pillar of British primacy. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that on this dimension of national power, Germany, and subsequently the United States, closed an initial gap with Great Britain.

Unwilling to provide for a large standing army during peacetime, Great Britain in 1870 only maintained a substantial lead in military expenditures vis-à-vis a likeminded power—the United States. For a decade and a half, U.S. military expenditures actually declined as a share of Great Britain’s, dropping from 65.9 percent in 1870 to 25.6 percent in 1885. This was the result of growth in British military spending coupled with U.S. demobilization following the Civil War.⁵ U.S. military expenditures rebounded thereafter. In the first half of the 1890s, per annum military allocations in the United States averaged 50 percent of Great Britain’s. The Spanish American War and the Boer War produced great volatility in each state’s military expenditures, so the period bracketing these conflicts is atypical. In the decade before the outbreak of World War I, U.S. annual military expenditures were about 91 percent of Great Britain’s.

Unsurprisingly, Great Britain was never overwhelmingly predominant in military spending relative to Germany, a nation founded on a powerful standing army. From 1872 to 1886, Great Britain retained a modest lead in military expenditures. On a per annum basis, German allocations averaged 78 percent of Great Britain’s. However, from 1887 to the start of the Boer War, each state’s annual military expenditures were roughly equal. Last, between 1904 and 1913, Germany held its own in an arms race with Great Britain. During this period, German military spending on average stood at 98 percent of yearly British allocations.⁶

Steel Production

Great Britain led the first industrial revolution but eventually ceded its status as the world’s workshop to the United States and Germany. Nowhere was this more apparent than in steel production. Great Britain in 1870 forged more than twice as much steel as the United States and Germany combined. The steel production of these two states was respectively 28 and 21 percent of the British total. Yet four decades later Great Britain had surrendered the jewel in its industrial crown. The United States surpassed Great Britain in 1890, and by 1913 produced four times as much steel. Germany, undergoing a similar process of rapid industrialization, overtook Great Britain a decade later than the United States, and by the eve of World War I, produced 226 percent as much steel.⁷

Warship Tonnage

Great Britain’s unparalleled maritime primacy waned as the United States and Germany rose. In 1880, the Royal navy was supreme in every corner of the globe and dwarfed the navies of both powers. The U.S. fleet, after becoming a formidable force during the course of the Civil War, was sold off or allowed to rot away. The remainder, an “alphabet of floating wash-tubs” in the words of one American observer, had a tonnage 26 percent that of the Royal navy. Germany, a nation forged by Prussia, a traditional land power, scarcely possessed a navy at all. German warship tonnage in 1880 was only 14 percent of Great Britain’s.⁸

However, by the eve of World War I, Great Britain’s reign as unchallenged ruler of the seas had ended.⁹ Beginning in the late 1880s, the United States moved to reconstitute its navy. The Spanish-American war of 1898 provided a powerful impetus for additional shipbuilding, as did the later presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.¹⁰ Consequently, the U.S. navy in 1914 reached 36 percent of the Royal navy’s warship tonnage. The expansion of the German navy, beginning in 1898 with the passage of the first naval bill, ultimately posed an even greater challenge to Great Britain’s control of the ocean. From 1900 to 1905, the German navy launched fourteen battleships, sparking a maritime arms race. When Great Britain escalated the arms race by introducing a revolutionary type of capital ship, Germany soon followed suit.¹¹ The construction of naval armaments by both sides continued at a feverish pace, and by 1914 the German navy had 48 percent of the Royal navy’s tonnage. Table 5 summarizes the eclipse of Pax Britannica that occurred as the United States and Germany ascended.

The Balance of Perceptions

British fear of relative decline, though evident among a handful of farsighted intellectuals as early as 1882, only became widespread among elites during the mid-1890s.¹² Initially, concerns about Great Britain’s loss of predominance were largely economic in nature. By the century’s turning, British elites also began to foresee an erosion of their country’s maritime supremacy.

Table 5: Anglo-U.S. and Anglo-German Balance of Power (%)

*German military outlays remained above peacetime levels in the immediate aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and spiked in the year before World War I. For this reason, the comparison is military expenditures from 1872 to 1912. The long-term increase in U.S. and German military expenditures relative to that of Great Britain masks substantial short-term variation.

Premonitions of Economic Decline

Observers at the turn of the twentieth century lacked the tools to calculate gross domestic product. Elites had no means of estimating the size of the British economy or its growth rate relative to others. Indeed, the only regular statistics collected by the British government were the Customs Department’s record of exports and imports.¹³ The use of trade returns as a measure of relative economic performance precluded a consensus on Great Britain’s declining competitiveness. Given the fluctuations of trade returns, and the malleability of the statistics collected, no unassailable conclusions could be drawn.¹⁴

Early warnings of economic decline thus failed to resonate among British elites. In 1886, a royal commission reported on the “Depression of Trade and Industry.” The commission observed a growing challenge to British exports, and noted that the “increasing severity of this competition both in our home and in neutral markets is especially noticeable in the case of Germany.” Although relatively optimistic about Great Britain’s long-term economic prospects, the commission concluded: “we cannot, perhaps, hope to maintain, to the same extent as heretofore, the lead which we formerly held among the manufacturing nations of the world.”¹⁵ The anxieties voiced by the commission went largely unheeded. A report by the Board of Trade in 1888 painted a far more sanguine picture of Great Britain’s economic performance. The report argued that alarmism was unwarranted, and that British commercial primacy was uncontested.¹⁶ Likewise, the Times (of London), the newspaper of elites in the Victorian age, confidently asserted in 1891 that German hopes of overtaking British trade “must soon be surrendered.”¹⁷

However, by the mid-1890s, doubts about Great Britain’s economic competitiveness had become commonplace. Parliamentary debates in 1893 and subsequent years featured repeated questions about the influx of German imports into Great Britain. No longer complacent about Great Britain’s longterm economic trajectory, the Times in 1894 and 1895 published numerous articles detailing the advance of German commerce and the intensifying competition British business faced. The “Decay of the Iron Industry,” a prominently located article in the Times, provides a window onto British anxieties: “the iron trade of that country [Germany] has of late years greatly improved its competitive position in reference to the iron and steel industries generally, and that it now menaces the prosperity of the English iron trade to a larger extent than has ever happened in the past.”¹⁸

The alarm sounded by the Times paralleled the thinking of many, though not all Conservatives, who in 1895 assumed control of government.¹⁹ Joseph Chamberlain, the new colonial secretary, was already convinced that Great Britain would be surpassed by its commercial rivals in the absence of strenuous efforts to shore up competitiveness.²⁰ The president of the Board of Trade, Charles Ritchie, also harbored doubts about Great Britain’s economic situation. In 1896, the Board of Trade conducted a study comparing Great Britain to France, Germany, and the United States. Summarizing the results, Ritchie, largely referring to the United States and Germany, predicted: “their competition with us in neutral markets, and even in our home markets, will probably, unless we ourselves are active, become increasingly serious.” Without improving industry, Great Britain “could scarcely expect to maintain our past undoubted pre-eminence.”²¹

On the economic side, the balance of perceptions decisively shifted in the mid-1890s. From then on, a critical segment of British elites projected decline relative to the United States and Germany.

Maritime Fears

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, elites in Great Britain took the Royal navy’s worldwide supremacy for granted.²² This was particularly true vis-à-vis the United States and Germany. Continuous neglect of the American navy in the decades following the Civil War led the British government to dismiss the United States as a maritime power. A paper prepared in 1882 for the Royal Commission on Imperial Defence exemplifies this perception. It described the American navy as “contemptible,” and cited budgetary pressures and tensions between Congress and the executive branch as ruling out substantial increase in U.S. maritime strength.²³

By the late 1880s, the British government had begun to reassess the future trajectory of the American navy. The War Office and the Admiralty in an 1889 joint report noted that British maritime supremacy in the Western Hemisphere was secure, but added: “the present naval policy of the United States tends in the direction of a considerable increase in strength.”²⁴ The steady buildup of the American fleet thereafter wrought a transformation in British perceptions of the Royal navy’s predominance. In a paper written for the first lord of the admiralty in 1899, the director of naval intelligence admitted that the Royal navy’s squadrons in North America, the Pacific, and the Caribbean had become “completely outclassed.”²⁵ By the early years of the twentieth century, Great Britain’s loss of maritime supremacy to the United States was considered potentially global in scope. In 1901, the first lord of the admiralty observed: “if the Americans choose to pay for what they can easily afford, they can gradually build up a navy, fully as large and then larger than ours.”²⁶ Three years later, the British naval attaché in Washington offered a similar assessment: the United States intended to become the world’s second maritime power, and might ultimately displace Great Britain as the first.²⁷

Fears of losing maritime supremacy to Germany emerged during roughly the same period. Before 1896, the German navy—dwarfed by its British counterpart—aroused derision rather than alarm. However, the attitude within British official circles changed when the first naval bill was introduced to the Reichstag in 1897. Elites in Great Britain worried that a stronger German navy might join with the Dual Alliance—France and Russia—to offset the Royal navy’s worldwide dominance.²⁸

Unease hardened into outright alarm as the German navy grew rapidly from 1900 to 1905. During this period, British elites began to perceive the Royal navy’s all-important primacy in European waters as increasingly tenuous. The Admiralty identified the emerging challenge to the Royal navy’s regional predominance, and recommended that the home fleet be strengthened “if it is to be on a par with the formidable German force which is being rapidly developed in the North Sea.”²⁹ By early 1902, concerns about Germany’s potential to eclipse the Royal navy in European waters permeated much of the British government. Reflecting this, the Conservative Cabinet decided to construct a naval base on the North Sea with a fleet to “be practically determined by the power of the German navy.”³⁰

Last, the Admiralty’s readiness to alter the venerable two-power standard speaks to changing British perceptions of the maritime balance. The two-power standard had previously meant maintaining a navy equivalent to the combined fleets of the Dual Alliance. Looking forward at the end of 1904, the Admiralty anticipated that the two-power standard would have to incorporate Germany to remain a valid measure of maritime supremacy.³¹

American Democracy, German Autocracy

Although the United States and Germany emerged as rising powers at roughly the same time, they differed in one fundamental respect: regime type. Whereas America was a democracy, Germany, despite parliamentary trappings, remained an autocracy. This disparity is not fully reflected in the Polity IV dataset. The United States during the prewar period receives a polity score of +10, denoting a strongly democratic regime. Germany receives a polity score of + 1 from 1895 to 1908 and +2 from 1909 to 1914.³² At the middle of the polity spectrum, it is difficult to draw conclusions about regime type. On the other hand, power centralization and domestic transparency—the additional set of criteria introduced in Chapter 2—clearly distinguish American democracy from German autocracy.

During the period of its ascendance, the United States had a decentralized political system. The House of Representatives was popularly elected. State legislators, who were directly accountable to the public, elected members of the Senate until 1913. Last, the popular vote determined the makeup of an electoral college, which in turn selected the president. The combination of a competitively elected executive and a bicameral legislature meant that America at the turn of the twentieth century had more than three checks and balances.

By contrast, Germany’s political system concentrated authority. The German constitution placed the kaiser at the epicenter of government, particularly in the realm of foreign policy. Although the Reichstag was competitively elected, and multiple parties including those hostile to the government held large numbers of seats, the chancellor was appointed and dismissed by the kaiser alone. Rather than chosen by parties with significant representation in the Reichstag, ministers served at the kaiser’s pleasure and could not even be members of parliament.³³ Germany thus featured only one check and balance.

On regime transparency, the United States and Germany also sharply differed. This becomes readily evident when assessing freedom of the press. The U.S. media enjoyed constitutional safeguards. The first amendment included in the Bill of Rights provides that “Congress shall make no law…. abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”³⁴ By the mid-1890s, changes in the revenue structure of newspapers—the rise of commercial advertising—had also freed editors from financial dependence on political parties.³⁵ The German constitution failed to enshrine journalistic freedom. As a result, the government systematically wielded charges of slander, libel, and lèse-majesté against publications that it found objectionable.³⁶ Employing the abbreviated survey of media freedom developed in the previous chapter, the United States receives a zero—a free press—while Germany receives a four—an unfree press.

Great Britain Appeases the United States

As the United States burst onto the global scene, Great Britain opted for a strategy of appeasement. Virtually all points of tension in Anglo-American relations from 1895 on resulted in unilateral British concessions.

In July 1895, the United States intervened in the long-running boundary dispute between British Guiana and Venezuela. Unhappy with the British response, Richard Olney, the American secretary of state, issued a dispatch to the British government demanding that London agree to arbitration. Replying five months later, the Cabinet not only refused arbitration, but also denied the right of the United States to interfere in Venezuela and rejected the broader validity of the Monroe Doctrine.³⁷ Infuriated by the British response, President Grover Cleveland submitted a special message to Congress in December claiming that in light of British intransigence, the United States would establish a commission to determine the true boundary, and if necessary, impose the commission’s findings using “every means in its power.”³⁸

In the wake of Cleveland’s bellicose statement, the British government steadily retreated from its original position on arbitration of the Venezuelan boundary claims. Initiating informal negotiations with the United States in January 1896 implicitly conceded an American right to intervene. But Great Britain went much farther, and in February recognized the Monroe Doctrine. Arthur Balfour, at the time first lord of the treasury, declared: “there has never been, and there is not now, the slightest intention on the part of this country to violate what is the substance and essence of the Monroe Doctrine … a principle of policy which both they and we cherish.”³⁹

Moreover, serial British concessions characterized negotiations over the scope of arbitration. Privately, the British had been willing to arbitrate with Venezuela provided that all territory within a line surveyed between 1841 and 1843 by the explorer Robert Schomburgk was excluded. Yet from the outset of negotiations, the British government backpedaled from this position, and merely proposed exempting settled areas on both sides of the line. The United States refused to exclude any territory from arbitration, and Great Britain then agreed to a preliminary enquiry to determine areas of settlement. The British suggested that ten years of inhabitation define a settlement; the Americans countered with sixty years; the resulting one-sided compromise was fifty years of occupation.⁴⁰ Thus, on both the salience of the Monroe Doctrine and the actual arbitration procedure, Great Britain entirely acceded to U.S. demands.

In the years after the Venezuela crisis, the British government faced increasing pressure to rescind the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which precluded the United States from singlehandedly building a canal in Central America linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. President William McKinley’s annual message to Congress in 1898 called for action to construct a solely American canal. In January 1899, Congress began to consider legislation authorizing a canal through Nicaragua. The British soon gave way. Negotiations between U.S. secretary of state John Hay and British ambassador Julian Pauncefote concluded with an agreement in February 1900.⁴¹

Although allowing the United States to unilaterally build and operate an isthmian canal, the agreement stopped short of abrogating the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. Moreover, the new Hay-Pauncefote Treaty restricted American freedom of action by banning fortifications, neutralizing the canal during wartime, and opening the agreement to third parties. Finding these restrictions unpalatable, the Senate only ratified the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty after adding several amendments. The British government refused to approve the modified treaty, but soon welcomed a new round of negotiations. The resulting agreement—the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty—effectively incorporated all the Senate’s amendments: the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was explicitly abrogated; neutralization of the canal during wartime was not formally guaranteed; and the internationalization clause was removed. Beyond these concessions, Great Britain also dropped the clause prohibiting fortification.⁴² By the end of the isthmian canal controversy, British capitulation to U.S. demands was complete.

The last major Anglo-American dispute at the turn of the twentieth century occurred over the ill-defined border between Alaska and Canada. The Canadians largely accepted U.S. interpretation of the boundary until the Klondike gold rush of 1896. Aiming to obtain a port giving access to the gold fields, Canada demanded that the United States submit the Alaskan panhandle to arbitration involving a neutral party. From the outset, the United States rejected arbitration. Although skeptical of the Canadian claims, the British government initially sought to extract U.S. concessions by linking the Alaskan boundary dispute to negotiations over the isthmian canal. In the face of mounting U.S. frustration, Great Britain retreated and delinked the two issues.⁴³

Unable to agree on arbitration, the United States and Great Britain reached a temporary arrangement in 1899.⁴⁴ Hay reopened the dispute in 1901 by proposing the creation of a binational commission to resolve the conflicting claims. By mid-1902, President Theodore Roosevelt was determined that Great Britain should acquiesce to the U.S. formula for delineating the border. As a show of resolve and also to keep order in an unruly frontier, he dispatched a company of cavalry to the Alaskan panhandle.⁴⁵

The British government, though hoping for international arbitration, ultimately acquiesced to the U.S. formula, and in January 1903, the two sides concluded the Hay-Herbert Treaty. The agreement stipulated that each party would furnish three “impartial jurists of repute” to determine the true boundary. While Great Britain selected legal eminences to represent Canada, the United States appointed blatantly partial commissioners, including a sitting secretary of war. Nonetheless, the British government accepted the American appointments. Moreover, when the commission became deadlocked, the British representative broke with his Canadian counterparts to support the U.S. claim.⁴⁶ Like the Venezuela crisis and the isthmian canal controversy, the Alaskan boundary dispute featured unilateral British concessions.

British appeasement of the United States, though continuing for almost a decade, was always a transitional strategy. The purpose of appeasement was to stabilize Anglo-American relations to the point where long-term integration became viable. Seen from this perspective, accommodating the United States on Venezuela was a first step toward eliminating sources of conflict. The next steps were agreement on an isthmian canal and resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute.⁴⁷ Colonial Secretary Chamberlain’s assessment of Canadian claims to the Alaskan panhandle gives a tangible sense of the rationale underlying British appeasement of the United States. “I care very little for the points in dispute, but I care immensely for the consequential advantages of a thorough understanding between the two countries and the removal of these trumpery causes of irritation.”⁴⁸

America’s Rise: Democracy Reassures

Great Britain favored a strategy of appeasement because democratic rule in an ascendant United States reduced risk and bolstered trust. Operating in an open society, the British could accurately survey U.S. intentions. Observing American politics in the years preceding the Venezuela crisis, the British diplomat Cecil Spring-Rice, having served a tour in Washington, could contextualize outbursts of Anglophobe sentiment as “not so much hatred as jealousy.”⁴⁹ There was “no point on which the interests of the U.S. and G.B. are diametrically opposed, and neither wishes to take the other’s territory.”⁵⁰ In this view, a lingering sense of inferiority might impel the United States to quarrel with Great Britain, but its intentions were at heart benign.

Democratic government in the United States also generated access opportunities the British could exploit. With diverse groups influencing American foreign policy, an “English faction” existed in Washington and New York, respectively the power and money centers of the United States. This provided a basis for shaping American strategic behavior. British officials self-consciously cultivated the English faction. For example, Spring-Rice in 1887 worked to ensure a warm London reception for the daughter of the anglophile secretary of state, Thomas Bayard.⁵¹ The open nature of the American political system also afforded diplomats like Spring-Rice a chance to develop close ties with U.S. political elites. During his first tour of Washington, Spring-Rice was hosted by senators and senior officials, and while staying with the secretary of war, attended an impromptu cabinet meeting.⁵² Friendships translated into access, and “Whatever may be said of the relations, politically speaking, of England and America, one thing is absolutely certain—in no country can we Englishmen make such friendships.”⁵³ Relationships between Anglo-American elites meant Great Britain had allies within the U.S. government sensitive to its interests.

The Venezuela Crisis

America’s democratic institutions functioned as a powerful source of reassurance during the Venezuela crisis, preventing a diplomatic row from escalating into war. As the crisis unfolded, congressional actions and media uproar indicated that the United States would only pursue war as a last resort. Within a week of Cleveland’s bellicose message, the Senate and the House of Representatives unanimously voted to fund a commission to determine the boundary of Venezuela. This signaled American resolve, but also that Republican and Democratic politicians were only prepared to support war if Great Britain ultimately rejected the commission’s findings. Popular support for war, like that of Congress, was conditioned on future British intransigence. American newspapers affirmed that “Whether There Will Be War Now Rests with England,” and that when the true boundary was fixed, “if England shall overstep it, it will mean war!”⁵⁴ Congress and public opinion conveyed that the United States would only undertake military action against Great Britain after the boundary commission had rendered a decision. The restraint telegraphed by Congress and the press registered in Great Britain. Prime Minister Salisbury and Ambassador Pauncefote understood that Cleveland, in committing to a U.S. commission, had postponed an Anglo-American showdown. Likewise, Colonial Secretary Chamberlain recognized that the “American affair cannot become serious for some time…. Altogether it must be months before there is a real crisis.”⁵⁵

As the crisis continued, America’s free press made visible changes in the U.S. government’s position. Newspaper reporting suggested that the commission had a less objectionable mission than unilaterally delineating the Venezuelan boundary. On December 25, the New York World published a story titled “Won’t Dictate the Line.” The story quoted Senator George Gray, a political ally of Cleveland. According to Gray, the purpose of the commission was “solely to inform the conscience of the government and the American people…. The United States does not assume to delimit a frontier for Great Britain.”⁵⁶ Gray’s remarks were subsequently noted in the British press. Because of Gray’s close relationship to Cleveland, many British officials assumed that he was speaking for the president. Consequently, the British government could ascertain a softening of the U.S. position weeks before the American ambassador in London officially communicated the commission’s watered-down objective—obtaining information.⁵⁷

The U.S. media also illuminated a shift in a key shaper of foreign policy: popular opinion. Although the initial public reaction to Cleveland’s message was bellicose, antiwar sentiment soon surged. By December 20, a leading financial journal, expressing the opinion of the U.S. business community, warned that a “great mistake had been made.”⁵⁸ The number of newspapers critical of Cleveland’s policy rapidly increased. Joseph Pulitzer, editor of the New York World, spearheaded a growing reconciliation movement and on the first Sunday after the crisis, churchmen across the United States pleaded for peace.⁵⁹ The transparency of the U.S. political system enabled the British government to observe this dramatic change in public opinion.⁶⁰

Beyond helping to stabilize the immediate crisis, America’s democratic institutions obviated the need for a more hard-line British approach. Against the backdrop of an open society, President Cleveland’s actions were readily understood as motivated by domestic political considerations rather than a deliberate effort to undermine British interests in the Western Hemisphere. The Democratic Party faced an uphill struggle in the presidential elections of 1896. Twisting the lion’s tail was one way to generate political capital, as a considerable segment of the American population was Anglophobe. To the British government, it was clear that Cleveland and the Democratic Party had manufactured a controversy to boost the electoral prospects of his successor. As Salisbury put it, the creation of a U.S. commission was “Cleveland’s electioneering dodge.” Although willing to entertain the possibility that Cleveland sought a pretext for invading Canada, Salisbury was “rather skeptical” that Cleveland actually desired war.⁶¹ Knowing that Cleveland was pandering to jingo sentiment, Great Britain did not mistakenly take U.S. interference in Venezuela as a sign of real hostility.

Likewise, enduring access opportunities within the American political system limited the potential downside of accommodation during the crisis. Cleveland and Olney, though responsible for the clash with Great Britain, were seen as hostages to jingo sentiment within the United States. By this logic, if Great Britain refrained from strengthening the hand of prowar groups, peace and an amicable settlement would prevail.⁶² Moreover, the British government continued to enjoy significant support among U.S. elites. Visiting Washington in September 1896, Chamberlain concluded: “although the great majority of educated Americans are friendly to Great Britain and desirous of peace, a feeling of hostility has been sedulously encouraged among the masses of the people.”⁶³ The best option for Great Britain was to avoid provocative action and continue to rely on its friends in the United States.

The Aftermath

In the years after the Venezuela crisis, the United States became the paramount power in the Western Hemisphere. America’s democratic system reassured Great Britain that its diminished position would not be exploited. Trust permeated the final phase of the Anglo-American power transition. While negotiating over the scope of Venezuelan arbitration, the British government evinced faith in U.S. willingness to abide by international law in its relations with Latin America.⁶⁴ Although Great Britain was ostensibly neutral during the Spanish-American War, in practice, British policy, by permitting U.S. access to ports and colonies, supported the American war effort. Confident that the United States would become a force for free trade in the Far East, the British government also encouraged American annexation of the Philippines.⁶⁵ By the early 1900s, Great Britain was calling for the United States to take a more active role in South America as well. Balfour, then prime minister, wrote Andrew Carnegie urging: “These South American Republics are a great trouble, and I wish the U.S.A. would take them in hand.”⁶⁶ In public, he pursued a similar line: “We welcome any increase of the influence of the United States of America upon the great Western Hemisphere.”⁶⁷ The Royal navy’s withdrawal from North America and the Caribbean in 1904, leaving Great Britain’s substantial interests to the mercy of a rapidly growing American navy, testifies to the depth of British confidence in American goodwill.⁶⁸

Great Britain and Germany: Integration and Hedging

As Germany emerged on the world stage, Great Britain took steps to integrate it into international institutions. But British leaders did more than this; they also hedged.

British efforts to integrate Germany occurred during an era devoid of strong international organizations; even in Europe, international institutions were few and weak. Great Britain’s integration strategy therefore relied primarily on the pursuit of bilateral arrangements. The earliest of these related to the Far East. By 1898, the territorial integrity of the Chinese empire and freedom of trade within had come under pressure from all the European powers, including Germany. Largely to constrain Germany’s behavior and thereby reduce the momentum behind the partition of China, Colonial Secretary Chamberlain initiated Anglo-German alliance talks in March 1898. Even skeptics of the alliance talks like Balfour still hoped to enmesh Germany in the open trading order sustained by Great Britain in the Far East.⁶⁹ Although the alliance talks failed, the British government did secure an Anglo-German agreement on China in October 1900. The treaty pledged to uphold freedom of trade in China “as far as they can exercise influence,” and both parties committed to “direct their policy towards maintaining undiminished the territorial condition of the Chinese Empire.”⁷⁰

The main focus of Great Britain’s integration strategy, however, was maritime. Between 1906 and 1911, the British government pursued a naval agreement with Germany. This was a self-conscious effort to create international institutions that restrained Germany from engaging in competitive behavior, namely, challenging Great Britain’s naval supremacy.⁷¹ Before and during the Second Hague Conference of 1907, the British government promoted an agreement to limit naval armaments. Although rebuffed by Germany, the Liberal Cabinet in 1908 once again pressed for a naval agreement. Foreign Secretary Grey and David Lloyd George, the chancellor of the exchequer, met with the German ambassador in July to discuss a maritime arrangement. In August, the British directly approached the kaiser, to no avail.⁷² Talks resumed in 1909 when the Liberal Cabinet responded to German overtures. Two years of largely fruitless negotiations ensued. Before the second Moroccan crisis brought the talks to a close, the two sides only managed to concur on an exchange of information through naval attachés.⁷³

In parallel to seeking the integration of Germany, Great Britain also implemented a hedging strategy. As German naval power began to increase, the Admiralty moved to concentrate the Royal navy in home waters. This process of redistribution accelerated under the leadership of Admiral John Fisher and took on an explicitly anti-German cast.⁷⁴ “Germany keeps her whole fleet always concentrated within a few hours of England. We must therefore keep a fleet twice as powerful as that of Germany always concentrated within a few hours of Germany.”⁷⁵ An expansion of the Royal navy occurred alongside concentration. From 1901 to 1905, the Royal navy grew by nine battleships. In February 1906, Great Britain launched the HMS Dreadnought, a revolutionary vessel rendering the capital ships of all other navies obsolete. Thereafter, the pace of battleship construction intensified, with Great Britain laying down eight vessels in 1909 and four in each successive year through 1911.⁷⁶

The nonmaritime element of Great Britain’s hedging strategy was to forge security ties with two European land powers: France and Russia. In April 1904, the newly established Anglo-French entente was more a measure to split Paris and Moscow than a protoalliance aimed at Berlin.⁷⁷ However, after the first Moroccan crisis erupted in 1905, the Anglo-French entente came to take on an anti-German cast.⁷⁸ Great Britain concluded an entente with Russia in 1907—a radical change in British foreign policy considering that only a few years earlier the two countries had been bitter imperial rivals in Central Asia and the Far East. The Anglo-Russian entente was an additional insurance against German ambitions. As Edward Grey, the architect of foreign policy under the Liberal Cabinet, put it: “An entente between Russia, France, and ourselves would be absolutely secure. If it is necessary to check Germany it could be done.”⁷⁹

Autocracy Frames Germany’s Rise

Great Britain had no recourse but to integrate and hedge because Germany was a rising autocracy. Opaque intentions and a lack of access opportunities created an environment in which British leaders could not rely entirely on international institutions to constrain German behavior.

Uncertainty Breeds Mistrust

With foreign policy an exclusive domain limited to the kaiser and his clique, great uncertainty surrounded an ascendant Germany’s ambitions. Writing in 1904, Spring-Rice neatly summarized this conundrum: “Germany is a mystery. Does she simply want the destruction of England … or does she want definite things which England can help her to get?”⁸⁰ Eyre Crowe, in a 1907 memorandum that was widely circulated within the British government, also pointed to the difficulty of ascertaining German intentions:

It would not be unjust to say that ambitious designs against one’s neighbours are not as a rule openly proclaimed, and that therefore the absence of such proclamation, and even the profession of unlimited and universal political, benevolence are not in themselves conclusive evidence for or against the existence of unpublished intentions.⁸¹

Would German expansion be peaceful, and economic in nature, or would Germany seek hegemony over Europe? The answer was fundamentally unclear.⁸²

Unsurprisingly, German intentions became the subject of much debate within the British government. Regardless whether the Conservative or Liberal Party held power, pro- and anti-German groups struggled to assert their respective views. After 1902, Chamberlain and his son, both members of the Conservative Cabinet, argued that German intentions were inimical to Great Britain. Other ministers, however, perceived German ambitions in a more benign light. Foreign Secretary Lansdowne and Balfour, then prime minister, initially remained unconvinced by either side, but Lansdowne’s attempt to use reform of the colonial administration in Egypt as a “test case” for German goodwill brought disillusionment. Angered by Berlin’s recalcitrance, Lansdowne and Balfour became increasingly skeptical of German motivations.⁸³

Disagreement over German intentions divided the Liberal Cabinet elected in late 1905 and became increasingly sharp as the naval arms race with Germany accelerated. During the debate over British naval requirements for 1909, Cabinet members Lloyd George and Winston Churchill rallied other ministers with favorable views of Germany to press for only four new battleships. The anti-German group, which included Grey, insisted that six dreadnoughts were necessary to retain a margin of safety over the German fleet. The debate was heated, and at one point, Grey threatened to resign. Only a compromise brokered by Prime Minister Asquith prevented conflicting assessments of German intentions from tearing the Cabinet apart.⁸⁴

Within the British government, the balance gradually shifted toward the anti-Germans. This upwelling of mistrust was catalyzed by the autocratic nature of Germany’s regime. The lack of sources illuminating German intentions led British elites to focus on what they could observe: actions abroad and changes in military capability.

Colonial quarrels sparked initial British misgivings about Germany’s trajectory. The kaiser’s interference in relations between the Cape Colony and the Boers, the occupation of Chinese Kiaochow by German forces in 1897, German demands on the Portuguese colonies, and the acrimonious partition of Samoa—all were interpreted by the British Foreign Office as symptomatic of a more fundamental antagonism. By the turn of the century, Great Britain’s career diplomatic corps had become a bastion of anti-German sentiment.⁸⁵ German assertiveness overseas likewise provoked growing anxiety in successive Cabinets. For Lansdowne and Balfour, German resistance to the consolidation of Great Britain’s position in Egypt appeared a harbinger of deeper ill will. Similarly, Grey regarded the diplomatic crisis triggered by the kaiser’s landing in Tangiers as indicative of enduring German hostility.⁸⁶

The relentless expansion of the German fleet loomed large in British threat assessments and more than any other factor strengthened the hand of anti-German groups. Based on the technical specifications of the German fleet, Selborne, first lord of the admiralty and originally an advocate of an Anglo-German alliance, concluded in 1902 that “the German navy is very carefully built up from the point of view of a new war with us.”⁸⁷ Coming to power in the midst of the first Moroccan crisis, Foreign Secretary Grey perceived Germany’s willingness to limit naval armaments as a touchstone of its intentions. The fruitlessness of the naval talks amplified the mistrust Grey already harbored.⁸⁸ Minus the reassurance mechanisms of a democracy, Germany’s maritime buildup cast an ominous shadow over its rise.

“The Emperor Is a Very Odd Man”

An autocratic system lent additional uncertainty to Germany’s ascendance by placing the kaiser at the epicenter of foreign policy. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany was a mercurial monarch. His instability concerned Great Britain as early as 1895, the year perceptions of Germany’s rise became widespread. Reporting to London, the British Embassy in Berlin warned that the kaiser’s mind was “subject to hallucinations.”⁸⁹ Prime Minister Salisbury, in response to the report and other information about the kaiser, noted: “The conduct of the German Emperor is very mysterious and difficult to explain. There is a danger of his going completely off his head.” Moreover, Salisbury perceived the kaiser as the source of extreme German behavior. He believed that “outrageous” German demands for territory in Africa could only reflect the kaiser’s decision to go against the wishes of more responsible statesmen.⁹⁰

In January 1896, the kaiser’s impulsiveness directly fueled British mistrust of Germany’s rise. After the Jameson Raid—a botched attempt by British citizens from the Cape Colony to overthrow the Transvaal Republic—the kaiser, in a fit of rage, dispatched a congratulatory telegram to the Boer president. What became known as the Kruger telegram directly challenged British interests in the Transvaal by implying recognition of the Boers’ independence. Through rumor, the British government discerned that Wilhelm had disregarded the advice of the chancellor and others when sending the telegram.⁹¹ This episode demonstrated to British leaders that German intentions could rapidly change due to the kaiser’s erratic nature.

The kaiser remained a key point of uncertainty as German power expanded. In the midst of the Anglo-German alliance negotiations, Balfour observed: “The Emperor is a very odd man.” The first lord of the treasury worried that failure to fulfill the expectations of “so impulsive a being” might produce an abrupt turnabout in German foreign policy—the kaiser would seek an arrangement with France and Russia, then Great Britain’s chief adversaries.⁹² Negotiating with Germany over the fate of Samoa in 1899, Salisbury complained: “It is a great nuisance that one of the main factors in the European calculation should be so ultra-human.”⁹³ On reading a description of the kaiser’s talks with the czar in 1905, Foreign Secretary Lansdowne echoed his colleagues: “the Kaiser’s language and demeanor fills me with disquiet. What may not a man in such a frame of mind do next?”⁹⁴ Lansdowne’s successor, Grey, on meeting the kaiser, concluded that he was “not quite sane.”⁹⁵ Centralization of authority in the hands of the kaiser rendered German intentions doubly opaque and compounded British concerns arising from Germany’s colonial assertiveness and naval buildup.

Friendless in Berlin

As the power transition with Germany moved forward, British leaders had few avenues for the shaping of strategic behavior. In a political system that centralized authority, only one point of access existed: the kaiser and his closest advisers. However, this point of access was unfriendly toward Great Britain. During his posting in Berlin, Spring-Rice noted: “the Emperor and his people are actuated by feelings of hostility against England which are only limited by the German regard for law and by the practical fear of reprisals.”⁹⁶ Later reports from the British Embassy in Berlin confirmed the kaiser’s animosity toward Great Britain. In 1904, the British ambassador informed Lansdowne: “I hear from other sources that the Kaiser has been generally letting out against England.”⁹⁷ This message, along with news that Wilhelm had become convinced that Great Britain was planning a surprise attack, led Lansdowne to wonder whether the center of political power in Germany was not actively hostile: “They cannot seriously believe that we are meditating a coup against them. Are they perchance meditating one against us?”⁹⁸

Keenly aware of their inability to shape Germany’s foreign policy from within, British elites gravitated toward a theory of “two Germanies.” The kaiser and his advisers were dangerous and warlike, while the majority of the German people were peace loving.⁹⁹ This view made inroads among even some of the pro-German members of the Liberal Cabinet. Lloyd George came to espouse the “two-Germanies” theory after a visit to Berlin in 1908. The chancellor of the exchequer was “gravely disturbed by the expressions of distrust and suspicion I had encountered…. It seemed to me to be ominously significant of what must be the general opinion at the time in leading German circles.”¹⁰⁰

If democratic rule had prevailed in Germany, the kaiser’s antipathy would not have deprived Great Britain of friends in Berlin. The British government could have cultivated groups empowered by democracy such as the Reichstag and thereby offset the kaiser’s malign influence over German foreign policy. Countering one domestic actor with another was in fact Great Britain’s approach to the United States, where according to the logic of a “two Americas” theory, elites were sympathetic but the masses Anglophobe. This approach was impossible to carry out in Germany, where the constitution stripped the Reichstag of any role in foreign affairs. With the kaiser and his advisers unfriendly, the British government had nowhere else to turn for access.

Great Britain Embraces Containment

During the first decade of the twentieth century, a rising Germany was prickly and assertive yet unwilling to press international disputes to the brink of war. In 1905, the diplomatic crisis Germany triggered over Morocco worried British elites but did not fundamentally shake their faith in the utility of integration. After 1910, however, frequent conflict accompanied Germany’s rise. The British became disillusioned with integration and increasingly convinced of Germany’s unremitting antagonism, and steadily shifted to containment.

The Second Moroccan Crisis

In July 1911, Germany sparked a crisis that raised the specter of the first large-scale European war in forty years. The epicenter of the crisis was Morocco. Eager to receive compensation for what appeared to be an impending partition of Morocco, Germany dispatched the gunboat SMS Panther to Agadir. The Panther’s presence was intended to convince France and Great Britain that Germany ought to receive concessions for any changes in Morocco’s status. Moreover, the German government hoped that pressing its claim to compensation might bring about tensions that would weaken or even fracture the Anglo-French entente.¹⁰¹ But Great Britain and France remained united. The crisis escalated, and foreshadowing the events of August 1914, Germany deployed troops to the Belgian border. Ultimately, all parties stepped back from the precipice and reached a settlement whereby France occupied all of Morocco and Germany received territories previously part of the French Congo.

For Great Britain, the second Moroccan crisis was a watershed moment. It compelled the civilian leadership in London to become intimately involved in war planning against Germany. While still at the Home Office, Churchill pressed for information concerning the army’s strength and mobilization time frame. Foreign Secretary Grey urged the Admiralty to go on heightened alert. Richard Haldane, the civilian head of the War Office, cancelled military exercises scheduled for September because British troops might soon be needed in Europe.¹⁰² Most important, Asquith convened a meeting of the Committee on Imperial Defence to examine “actions to be taken in the event of intervention” in a Franco-German conflict. Adjudicating between plans put forward by the Admiralty and the War Office, this select group fatefully chose sending troops to France over naval attacks against the German coast. Never before had British leaders confronted the possibility of war with Germany in such a tangible way.¹⁰³ Their faith in integration as a tool for moderating German behavior was badly shaken.