As a boy, Lansdowne, then Viscount Clanwilliam (the nickname "Clan" stuck all his life), served as Arthur Balfour's fag at Eton. At Balliol, he became an intimate friend of young Lord Rosebery. He was twenty-one in 1866 when his father died and he succeeded to both the title and the estate. The family was Liberal and, almost by hereditary right, the young Marquess entered Gladstone's government in 1872. In 1883, Lansdowne, thirty-eight, was sent as Governor General to Canada, where he spent five years. His tenure was marked by a record as a salmon fisherman: in four summers, he and his friends, casting with flies, managed to pull 1,245 fish from Canadian rivers. The average salmon weighed twenty-four pounds.
In 1885, while Lansdowne was in Canada, Lord Salisbury replaced Gladstone in office. Gladstone's position on Home Rule and Lansdowne's situation as a great Irish landowner had already brought the Marquess around to thinking of himself as a Conservative. Salisbury was willing to use whatever bait was required to reel in this catch; he offered the War Office, the Colonial Office, and the Viceroyalty of India. Lansdowne accepted India. Lansdowne's service in New Delhi was as unremarkable as had been his service in Ottawa. (In India, he made himself unpopular by raising the age of consent for girls from ten to twelve.) Nevertheless, when he returned from New Delhi, the Queen offered him the Garter and a dukedom. Lansdowne accepted the first and declined the second. The government offered the embassy in St. Petersburg; Lansdowne, having spent ten years on the Imperial frontiers, preferred to remain in England. He accepted the War Office, never imagining that he would be called upon to deal with a war. When the Boer War began, Lansdowne's work was impeded by his inability to put aside his gentlemanliness. Forced to remove Sir Redvers Buller from command in South Africa, he wrote to Buller, "[Lord] Roberts' appointment must, I fear, have been very distasteful to you… It gave me pain to do what I knew would be very disagreeable to you." To the Queen, of his own performance as Secretary of State for War,
Lansdowne wrote "he must often have seemed to your Majesty to fall short of expectations."
Despite Lansdowne's perception of himself as a failure, Lord Salisbury thought highly of him and judged that a man with foreign blood and overseas experience would do well at the Foreign Office. Lansiiowne was to justify Lord Salisbury's confidence although his diplomacy overturned the basic policy which Salisbury had practiced? Lansdowne's first significant achievement was to bring a formal end to Splendid Isolation.
A military alliance between England and Japan, two island nations separated by eight thousand miles, seemed an unusual diplomatic arrangement. But Britain needed an ally in the Far East to thwart Russian expansionism; when Bülow and Holstein turned Chamberlain (down, Britain looked elsewhere. And Japan, alarmed by Russia's; occupation of Manchuria and advance to the Yellow Sea, was unwilling to tolerate Russian penetration of the Korean peninsula, "a dagger" pointed at the Japanese home islands. In April 1901, Baron Tadasu Hayashi, the Japanese Ambassador in London, told Lord Lansdowne that his country "would certainly fight to prevent" Russian absorption of Korea. A basis for negotiations existed.
Talks between Lord Lansdowne and Baron Hayashi began in London in the spring of 1901 and continued through the summer and; autumn. Salisbury, still Prime Minister, had little enthusiasm for any alliance; Chamberlain, gratified that Lansdowne recognized the neejd for an alliance and himself busy with South Africa, supported the 'Foreign Secretary but stayed out of his way. As the talks progressed, Lansdowne became aware that Japanese diplomacy was being £ conducted on two tracks. While he was negotiating an anti-Russian treaty in London with Baron Hayashi, Marquis Hirobumi Ito, a more senior Japanese diplomat, was in St. Petersburg negotiating an alternative treaty with the Russians. The Japanese explained that if nothing came of the talks with England, Japan would have to deal with Russia. One way or another, Russia must be kept out; of Korea.
The London talks were successful. On January 30, 1902, Great Britain and Japan signed a military alliance for protection of their mutual interests in the Far East. The integrity of Korea was guaranteed. The treaty was to run for five years. If either power was attacked by only one power, the ally would maintain a benevolent neutrality. But if one of the allies was attacked by two countries, the other ally would go to war in support. On the surface, the treaty seemed to favor Japan: it isolated Russia in the Far East (France had no significant interests or military forces in northeast Asia; Germany would not side with Russia against England in an Asian war). Japanese military and naval officers began to plan the blow which fell on Port Arthur in 1904. But there were advantages for England. Should she find herself at war with France and Russia in Europe, Japan could be counted upon to distract the Tsar by attacking him from the rear. Most important, Britain now had powerful support in her effort to check Russian expansionism in Asia. The assistance which Chamberlain had sought from the Kaiser to protect British interests and markets in China had now been promised to Lansdowne by the Mikado.
German reaction to the new alliance was favorable. As the arrangement clearly was aimed at Russia, the Wilhelmstrasse understood that Russia now would encounter more resistance to her advance into the Far East; this, in turn, would relieve Russian pressure on Germany's eastern frontier. The Germans also were cheered by the anti-Russian character of the agreement, noting that it would widen the gulf between Great Britain and the Dual Alliance, making an understanding between Britain and France less likely. "I congratulate you on the conclusion of the new alliance, which we all look upon as a guarantee of peace in the East," the Kaiser wrote to King Edward on February 26, 1902. When he saw Sir Frank Lascelles at a garden party in Berlin, William said of the new treaty, "At last the noodles seem to have had a lucid interval."
French reaction to the Anglo-Japanese Treaty was mixed. Foreign Minister Theophile Delcasse understood that the alliance was aimed at France's Russian ally and therefore, indirectly, also at France. There was danger that if war broke out between the principals-Japan and Russia-the seconds-Britain and France-might have to fight each other. But there was an element in the new treaty which gave Delcasse hope. Joseph Chamberlain's policy had at last borne fruit; Great Britain was abandoning Splendid Isolation. Although Great Britain's liability was limited and the possibility of European implication seemed small, and although Lord Salisbury was still Prime Minister, the island nation had formally bound itself to a military alliance with a foreign power. In defending the new treaty in the House of Lords, Lord Lansdowne vigorously argued against the longstanding policy of his own Prime Minister:
"I do not think that anyone can have watched the recent course of events… without realizing that many of the arguments which a generation ago might have been adduced in support of a policy of isolation have ceased to be entitled to the same consideration now.
What do we see on all sides? We observe a tendency to ever-increasing naval and military armaments involving ever-increasing burdens upon the people… There is this also-that in these days: war breaks out with a suddenness which was unknown in former days when nations were not, as they are now, armed to the teeth'. When we consider these features of the international situation, we must surely feel that a country would indeed be endowed with an extraordinary amount of self-sufficiency… to say… that all foreign alliance were to be avoided… Therefore, I would entreat you… to look at the matter strictly on its merits and not to allow your judgement to be swayed by musty formulae and old-fashioned superstitions as to the desireability of pursuing a policy of isolation for this country… Prima facie, if there be no countervailing objections, the country which has the good fortune to possess allies is more to be envied than the country which is without them."
While an Anglo-German alliance was being discussed and an Anglo-Japanese alliance concluded, German diplomacy consistently failed to understand the basis and direction of British policy. Holstein and Bülow believed that Germany held the power of decision-that Germany had only to wait and, in time, England would come on German terms. In Holstein's view, the possibil
ity of a diplomatic understanding between England and France was too remote to warrant serious concern at the Wilhelmstrasse. When Eckardstein warned that Chamberlain had threatened to look elsewhere if Germany re;used an alliance with England, Holstein dismissed Eckardstein as 'naive."
Holstein's opinion had firm historical backing. Antagonism between England and France went back to the Middle Ages; England's longest wars had been fought against the French. Through the century just ended, the Royal Navy had prepared to fight the fleet of a single enemy: France. In 1898, even as Chamberlain's plan for a German alliance was being launched, England and France had almost gone to war over Fashoda. Now, as the two nations competed for colonies, there were a dozen places around the globe where imperialist ambitions rubbed dangerously against each other.
The France of the Third Republic was querulous. Defeated by Germany, then-deftly encouraged by Bismarck-seeking to recover her lost pride by distant colonial adventures, France was restless, excitable, and unstable. No French government during these years enjoyed authority or longevity. Between 1873 and 1898 the British Foreign Office had negotiated with twenty-four French foreign ministers and twelve French ambassadors in London. During one five-year span, 1881-1886, ten French governments rose and fell. Although the years 1898-1905 saw six more French governments come and go, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs remained in the hands of a single man, Theophile Delcasse. Delcasse, a clever young provincial lawyer, had come to Paris, where he quickly had abandoned law for journalism and become a fixture in the lobby of the Chambre des Deputes. At thirty-five, he had married a wealthy widow and, freed from financial worry, had run for office. He was elected to the Chambre in 1889 and, in 1894, became Minister of Colonies. Four years later, at forty-six, he was Foreign Minister. France needed allies to redress the balance with Germany and, one day, perhaps, regain the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine. He had strongly supported the French alliance with Russia, signed in 1894. When he entered the Quai d'Orsay four years later, he had a personal goal. "I do not wish to leave this desk," he told a friend, "without having established an entente with England."
At the moment Delcasse said this, Kitchener had just confronted Marchand at Fashoda and Delcasse's first weeks in office were spent negotiating France's humiliating withdrawal from the Upper Nile. The French public did not easily forget. For several years, French opinion was so violently anti-British that even the memory of Alsace-Lorraine seemed to have been obliterated. During the Boer War, not even German newspapers were as harsh in their criticism of England as the Parisian press. "The feeling of all classes in this country towards us is one of bitter and unmitigated dislike," reported the British Ambassador. Ignoring these feelings, Delcasse steered with consistent purpose. Removing the hostility in France's relationship with England by easing colonial frictions was the solution. Immediately after signing the Fashoda evacuation agreement, Delcasse launched his revolutionary policy. He dispatched to London as French Ambassador a prudent, far-sighted professional diplomat, Paul Cambon, who was instructed to do everything he could to effect a rapprochement. On December 9, 1898, before Marchand had even departed Fashoda, Cambon was seated at dinner next to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. The Queen, who throughout the crisis had bombarded Lord Salisbury with pleas that war be averted and France spared humiliation, found M. Cambon "very agreeable and well-informed. He told me a great deal about Constantinople [Cambon's previous post]." During the winter and spring of 1899, Cambon met often with Lord Salisbury to define the frontiers of the two empires in the center of Africa. Once agreement was reached, Cambon-following instructions from Delcasse-suggested that other matters might be solved in an equally friendly spirit. Lord Salisbury smiled and shook his head. "I have the greatest confidence in M. Delcasse and also in your present government," he said. "But in a few months they will probably be overturned and their successors will make a point of doing exactly the contrary to what they have done. No, we must wait a bit."
Delcasse and Cambon waited. In October 1899, on the eve of the Boer War, Cambon reported to Paris: "Everything is difficult for us here. The rage of imperialism turns all heads and I am not without disquiet about the future." In 1900, when Lord Salisbury retired from; the Foreign Office, Delcasse hoped that because the new Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, had had a French mother, the chances for rapprochement had improved. But Joseph Chamberlain, not Lansdowne, was then the dominant figure in the British Cabinet, and [Chamberlain still sought an alliance with Germany. Patiently, the jrrench waited. In the spring of 1901, when the last Anglo-German alliance negotiations were ended by Salisbury's memorandum; Delcasse and Cambon saw an opportunity. The luster of Splendid Isolation was fading; Britain was already negotiating a military alliance with Japan, but still had no formal ally in Europe. Cambon quietly suggested to Lansdowne that the causes of friction in the colonial sphere should be examined and, if possible, eliminated. Lansdowne immediately passed this suggestion to Chamberlain, whose department would be affected by any talk involving colonies. The Colonial Secretary delayed, still hoping to reopen the door to Berlin. Then, in December 1901, Bülow made his famous "biting on granite" speech to the Reichstag, and Chamberlain was convinced that a German alliance was impossible. After the signing of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in January 1902, Delcasse and Cambon pursued more vigorously. In July 1902, Lord Salisbury stepped down as Prime Minister and was replaced by Arthur Balfour but it was Chamberlain, Eckardstein wrote to Bülow, who still "exercises relentlessly the dominant influence in British policy." And: now Chamberlain was interested in reconciliation with France. Passing through Egypt in November 1902, on his way to South Africa, the Colonial Secretary asked Lord Cromer to transmit, through the French Charge d'Affaires in Cairo, his hope for an understanding with France. "Delcasse… seems to me to have done much to make possible an Entente Cordiale with France which is what I should now like. I wonder whether Lansdowne has ever considered the possibility of the King asking the President to England this year "
By the spring of 1903, the Boer War was over and the bitter French attacks on England had dwindled. King Edward VII planned a Mediterranean cruise with stops in Lisbon and Rome. On his own initiative, he decided also to visit Paris. Sir Edmund Monson, British Ambassador to France, was instructed to tell French President Emile Loubet that, on his return from his Mediterranean cruise, it would give the King great pleasure to visit the President of the Republic on French soil. President Loubet, who shared the hopes of Delcasse and Cambon, replied with enthusiasm that "a visit from the King would… do an amount of good which is probably not realized in England… In this capital, His Majesty, while Prince of Wales, had acquired an exceptional personal popularity."
King Edward's zeal for the visit took his own government aback. Lansdowne worried that, with French antagonism still not completely abated, the King might be insulted or endangered. In addition, he and Balfour were affronted that the monarch had taken so much of the making of arrangements out of their hands; constitutionally, foreign policy was the government's, not the sovereign's, to make. Lansdowne therefore mentioned to Cambon that the visit should be "quite an informal affair." The King overruled him and told Monson and Cambon that he wished to be received "as officially as possible, and that the more honors were paid to him, the better." Cambon, taking his cue from the King rather than the Foreign Secretary, hurried to Paris to make arrangements.
On the first of May, King Edward, wearing the scarlet uniform and plumed hat of a British Field Marshal, descended from his private railway car at the Bois de Boulogne station and took his seat in a carriage next to President Loubet. As the carriage, surrounded by a screen of cuirassiers in silver breastplates, rolled up to the Arc de Triomphe and then down the Champs-Elysees, the crowd remained silent except for a few shouts of "Vivent les Boers!" "Vive Marchand!" and even "Vive Jeanne d'Arc!" The King behaved as if he were on the Mall, turning from side to side, gesturing with his Field Marshal's baton in reply to the salutes of French officers, smiling broadly
whenever he heard a faint cheer. The rest of the English party, following in other carriages, was booed. "The French don't like us," a worried aide whispered to the King as the carriage came to a halt. "Why should they?" the King replied, and continued smiling and bowing from side to side.
King Edward's first speech was diplomatic: "A Divine Providence has arranged that France should be our near neighbor and, I hope? always a dear friend…" The first evening, he went to the theater with President and Madame Loubet. The house was crowded, all eyes were on him, and the air was filled with tension. At intermission, the King left his box and plunged into the crowd. By chance, in the lobby he spied Mile Jeanne Granier, a French actress whom he had seen on the stage in England. Extending his hand1 he walked up and said, "Oh, Mademoiselle, I remember how I applauded you in London. You personified there all the grace and spirit; of France." His words spread quickly. The next morning, on his way to a military review in Vincennes, the King continued to smile and scrupulously saluted every French flag and French officer in sight. Returning to the Hotel de Ville, he told the Mayor of his pleasure at again being in Paris, "where I am treated exactly as if I were at home." His words rippled across the city. He went to the races;: at Longchamps, a ball at the Opera, and a state dinner at the Elysee Palace. When he departed on May 4, enthusiastic crowds lined; the streets and "Vivent les Boers!" had been replaced by "Vive le Roi!" and "Vive le bon Eduard!"
Dreadnought, Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War Page 47