THE FOREIGN POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN
BOOKS OF THE DAY
By E. L. WOODWARD IT is difficult to avoid thinking that the absence of any good single volume on the history of British foreign policy during the nineteenth century has had serious political consequences. It is even possible to suggest that, if in the years before 1914 nem merely the leaders of Germany but the people of Great Britain —and some of their Ministers—had been less ignorant of the past history of our country, and of its relation to the European mainland, the Great War of 1914-18 might never have been fought. At all events today, when there has never been greater interest in foreign policy, and, for that matter, greater extrava- gance and superficiality in the language used by critics of this policy, it is more necessary than ever it was that the public should be brought back to a sober study of those historical conditions under which we have established and maintained our position as a great Power.
From every point of view, therebre, Dr. Seton-Watson's book comes at the right time. The book makes no pretensions to finality. It does not claim to be infallible in judgement or impeccable in detail. It is put forward with great modesty, and gives the most generous recognition to the work of others, though only a very few of the writers whom Dr. Seton-Watson quotes are as learned as himself. His own scholarship comes out again and again in details and footnotes, in quotations and examples which give exactly the right colour andtone to his narrative. The book is long ; it fills nearly 700 pages. There is no strain after a popular appeal, in the sense of" dressing-up" the material, or over-emphasising sensational factors and incidents. (On one point alone—the title of the book—Dr. Seton-Watson has given way to a fashion introduced, I think, by Mr. Lloyd George. Every leading English Minister in the nineteenth century, including Wellington and Castlereagh, Irish by birth, Canning, the son of an Ulsterman, Palmerston, an Irish peer, Aberdeen and Rosebery, two Scottish magnates, Gladstone, Scottish by descent, and Disraeli, a Jew, used the word" England." Every European Power still uses the word ; in French la Bretagne means Brittany. Persons who find the term insulting may ask themselves whether Mr. Pitt was insulting Scotland when he spoke of England setting an example to Europe, or whether those of Nelson's sailors at Trafalgar who came from Wales, Scotland, or Ireland, fought through the battle in indignation at their admiral's signal.) Dr. Seton-Watson has given the greater part of his book to the period between 1822 and 1878; the revolutionary and Napoleonic age is shortened into a prologue which exactly serves its purpose of introducing the reader to the history Of the Vienna settlement. The last years, 1902 to 1914, are treated in an epilogue of fifty pages; these pages are an excellent sum- mary of the events inunediately before the Great War. At the same time Dr. Sewn-Watson -does not make the common mistake of assuming that war was inevitable, either through faults in the structure of society or through the ill-will and malevolence of this or that nation. The only fault one might find with the plan of the work isthat the important years between r88o and 1902 are }lot treated as fully as they deserve. It might have been better either .to have included these years in the epilogue or to have cut down the elaborate treatment of the earlier phases of the eastern question. It is also possible that some of the minor themes of the book would gain in clear- ness if they were followed through to their .chronological end in single sections ; but the careful paragraphing of the chapters makes it easy for a reader to go from section to section if he wishes to concentrate upon any particular subject.
Dr. Seton-Watson deals with people as well as with events. The leading figures are described, and judged, with a pleasant Britain in Europe, 1789 to 1914. By R. W. Seton-Watson. (Cambridge LTniversity Press. 3v..) shrewdness ; Julm Russell, for example, "the true mid- Victorian doctrinaire, who, if his sex had been different, would have been the supreme- blue-stocking of his age." The book would be less vivid if the author did not make it plain that he likes some people more than he likes others. One might say that he does his utmost to be fair to Disraeli, and that at times he is a little unjust to Palmerston. Palmerston's manner of writing was an exception to the English habit of understate- ment, but it must be remembered that many of the flamboyant epigrams and rollicking phrases which Dr. Seton-Watson quotes are taken from private letters or private conversations, and that Palmerston's cavalier methods were sometimes forced upon him by the inner and covert opposition which he had to meet in high quarters. It is also necessary to keep in mind that if Palmerston was wrong in thinking that the Turkish Empire of his time could be reformed, even in a Turkish way, the pessimists about Turkey were equally wrong. There is a reformed Turkey today, hut it is not tin. Turkey-in-Europe of the nineteenth century.
Dr. Seton-Watson is one of the three most learned men in England, and perhaps in Europe, on matters concerning the Near Eastern Question, and it is with some hesitation that one ventures to differ from him, but is it altogether fair, in discussing the origins of the Crimean war, to write ihat the evidence against Stratford de Reddiffe is overwhelming,_ and that "it says- irnich for the- uncritical character of historical writing on our foreign policy that Lord Stratford should so long have been given the benefit of the doubt " ? One might suggest that this judgement might even be reversed, and that uncritical opinion has too long used Stratford as a scapegoat. At all events, after Dr. Temperley's recent investigations—as minute as they are brilliant—it is difficult not to agree that Stratford may be given the benefit of the doubt on the most important issues. Stratford's obiter- dicta, taken out of their context, cannot be used to judge his public acts. In Dr. Temperley's words, "a strong, rough man is not necessarily a bellicose one." On the other hand, the charges against Aberdeen are very serious. It is, for example, almost incredible that, at a time when it was essential to convince Russia that the Cabinet would not allow further encroachment -upon Turkey, the Prime Minister should write to an elderly Russian busybody like Madame Lieven : " War, under present circum- stances, would not only be an act of insanity, but would be utterly disgraceful to all of us concerned." Stratford -never went out of his way to give the Sultan the encouragement which a letter of this kind would give the Tsar.
Stratford de Redcliffe is, however, only one figure, and the Crimean war a single episode in the long story told by Dr. Seton-Watson. Taken as a whole, the book fills one with admiration. It brings out very clearly the aims and methods• of British statesmanship in modern times. It does not conceal blunders, delusions, selfishness or lack of foresight, but its calmness and honesty of outlook shod be instructive to those who want to unravel for themselves the mixed motives of idealism and- self-interest, prudence and common sense in the foreign policy of Great Britain. This analysis does not merely explain the necessary connexion of England with Europe. It is of the greatest present value in explaining the motives underlying the foreign policies Of the English-speaking countries beyond the seas, since these policies are of English descent and have an English character. Moreover, one of Dr. Seton-Watson's phrases about English public opinion might well be taken to heart by our open or concealed enemies when they are con- sidering the lengths to which they can oppose our vital interests. "A blend of hesitation, detachment and ignorance do not necessarily spell degeneracy."
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