the world. Of course, Germany was an excellent
market for British goods, something that was
taken for granted. Above all, the German naval
build-up touched the public to the quick. As Sir
Eyre Crowe, a senior member of the Foreign
Office, put it in 1907, a hostile Germany was dis-
regarding the ‘elementary rules of straightforward
and honourable dealing’ and Britain would have
to defend its position in the world, its naval
supremacy and the European balance of power.
Still, there were others who deplored the Ger-
manophobia, among them the bankers, industri-
alists, politicians and many ordinary people who
preferred the ‘clean’ Germans to their French and
Italian neighbours with their supposedly more
dubious morals and awful lavatories. Tsarist auto-
cratic Russia, with its record of abusing human
rights, was regarded as the one European country
that not only threatened Britain in Asia but least
shared British democratic ideals and respect for
human rights.
Grey did not share the Germanophobia, but he
believed it essential to preserve and strengthen the
entente with France as the primary objective of
British policy in Europe. He hoped to gain some
influence over French policy in return for support-
ing France against unreasonable German behav-
iour. He could not hope to exercise such influence
over German policy. As it turned out he could
exercise little influence over the French either. But
it was the bedrock of Grey’s policy that friendly
relations with Germany should never be estab-
lished at the expense of France. In the end it
meant that Britain was more influenced by French
objectives than the other way around. To please
the French and Russians in 1914, for instance,
Grey consented to Anglo-Russian naval conversa-
tions which unnecessarily but dramatically
increased German fears of encirclement. On the
eve of 1914 the well-informed Grey perceptively
assessed German apprehensions:
The truth is that whereas formerly the German
Government had aggressive intentions... they
are now genuinely alarmed at the militarypreparation in Russia, the prospective increase
in her military forces and particularly at the
intended construction at the instance of the
French Government and with French money
of strategic railways to converge on the
German Frontier.Yet for all these insights, when the crisis came in
July 1914, Grey’s mediating efforts, limited as they
were by previous constraints, proved unavailing.
On the eve of the Great War, the most serious
problem facing the British government seemed to
be not abroad but at home: the question of main-
taining the unity of the United Kingdom. Ireland
was Britain’s Achilles heel. British governments
had been too slow in attempting to satisfy Irish
national feeling by devolution or limited ‘home
rule’. Ireland’s problems had been allowed to
languish until after the elections of December- Now the decline of the Liberals’ fortunes
forced Asquith into more active collaboration
with the Irish Nationalist Party in the House of
Commons. Not for the first time the Irish held
the parliamentary balance of power. The Liberals
with the support of the Irish Nationalists had
staked their future on reforming the House of
Lords. Asquith, in return, was committed to
home rule for Ireland. In April 1912 he intro-
duced the Home Rule Bill in the Commons.
Ulster Protestant militants, strong in the north of
Ireland, were determined to kill the bill or at least
to demand partition. Sinn Féin, the Irish repub-
lican movement, was equally determined to pre-
serve a united Ireland. Both sides raised private
armies which on the eve of the Great War in 1914
threatened to plunge a part of the United
Kingdom into civil war. The outbreak of the war
gave Asquith the opportunity of postponing the
Irish confrontation. What with suffragettes resort-
ing to spectacular demonstrations to gain the vote
for women, industrial unrest, Ireland seemingly
on the brink of civil war, Britain presented a
picture of disarray. It was deceptive. A united
Britain and its empire entered the Great War of