Yet Britain cannot be absolved from blame.
War broke out in 1914 not only as a consequence
of the shots at Sarajevo. The tensions that had
been building up in Europe and the wider world
for two decades and more had created the frame
of mind that led the European chancelleries along
a fatal path. For Britain, faced with the relative
decline of its power, the problem of defending its
empire loomed ever larger. It negotiated with
France a division of interests of territory –
Morocco and Egypt – that did not exclusively
belong to either. Russia also was appeased for a
time. Inevitably, fears and hostilities in Europe
were raised. British foreign secretaries were well
aware of this and would have preferred it not to
be so. But Britain’s immediate interests were
placed before international harmony. That is the
darker thread that ran through British policy.
During the last decade before the war Britain too
tended to follow Bismarckian Realpolitik. Just as
it wanted to avoid imperial clashes with Russia, so
too Britain feared that the entente with France
might not prove strong enough to prevent
Germany and France reaching a settlement of
60 SOCIAL CHANGE AND NATIONAL RIVALRY IN EUROPE, 1900–14
German soldiers, to Paris, 1914. Joffre won’t stop us.
© Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, BerlinFrench soldiers to arms, 1914. Marching off to war with no idea what lay in store for them; war over by
Christmas. © Rex Features