872 Ch. 22 • The Great War
in Britain anxious, although Britain still accounted for about 45 percent of
world investment. It also inspired a campaign to establish an empire-wide
tariff barrier that would encourage trade within the British Commonwealth,
while keeping foreign goods out.
Above all, it was the Anglo-German naval rivalry that pushed Britain
toward a rapprochement with France. German military spending had already
quadrupled between 1874 and 1890 (in a period of little inflation). In
1897 the Reichstag allocated funds for the accelerated expansion of the
German navy over six years. William IPs uncontrolled enthusiasm provided
no small degree of impetus—the vain kaiser loved breaking bottles over the
bows of brand new ships of war. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849—1930)
belligerently cited the strength of the British navy as the raison d'etre for
the passage of the bill to build up the German navy. The nationalistic
Pan-German League and the Naval League whipped up popular enthusiasm
for the navy. The new German fleet began to include some of the biggest,
fastest, and widest-ranging warships ever built.
Britain reacted quickly when confronted with the sudden and almost
unexpected naval competition. In 1906, the fastest and most powerful bat
tleship in the world, the Dreadnought, took to the sea. Germany began to
build comparable ships of war, and wild British estimates had the Germans
turning out even more, leading to a brief panic in 1909 that a German inva
sion of Britain was near.
British-French RapprochementThe British government took a hesitant step toward ending its diplomatic
isolation by signing a treaty in 1901 with the United States, which permitted
the latter to construct the Panama Canal. By undertaking an alliance with
Japan in 1902, Britain sought to counter Russian ambitions in East Asia.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1904—1905 helped push Britain toward France
(see Chapter 18). The Russian Baltic fleet, embarking on a disastrous voy
age around the world to confront the Japanese navy in the Yellow Sea, sank
several British fishing trawlers in the North Sea, somehow mistaking them
for Japanese ships. Germany expected that France would immediately sup
port Russia, with whom it was allied. Yet, to almost everyone’s surprise,
French Foreign Minister Theophile Delcasse (1852-1923) helped mediate
between Russia and Britain. Russia’s defeat in East Asia confirmed that
Britain had far more to fear from Germany than from Russia.
The Entente Cordiale reached between Britain and France in 1904 had
the immediate goal of eliminating points of tension between the two powers:
Britain recognized French interests in Morocco in exchange for the French
recognition of British control over Egypt; both sides accepted the existence
of neutral Siam in Indochina standing between French Indochina and
British-controlled Burma; and they settled a centuries-old dispute over fish
ing rights off the coast of Newfoundland.