Fateful Transitions. Daniel M. Kliman
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