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Authors: Niall Ferguson
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was held responsible for the deaths of two British officials. That the editors shared the widely held conservative view of the Empire as militarily overstretched (or, rather, undermanned) seems clear; how else to explain their call for a revival of the eighteenth-century militia as ‘the embodiment of the principle that it is the duty of every man to assist in the defence of his country’?
A further reason for disquiet was the apparently fraught state of relations between the continental great powers.
The Times
’s Paris correspondent reported the imminent visit of the Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, to France, and offered two theories as to the purpose of his visit. The first was that he was coming to pave the way for the latest of many Russian bond issues on the Paris market; the second, that his intention was to reassure the French of his government’s commitment to the Franco-Russian military alliance. Whichever explanation was correct, the newspaper’s reporter saw dangers in this manifestation of harmony between Paris and St Petersburg. Since theGerman annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871, he noted, France was ‘to-day the only nation in Europe which has some claims to put forward, and the only one which neither can nor should admit that the era of European peace is definitive… What she might do if circumstances impelled her and patriotism as well, were it a question of filling the breach made in her territory… no one knows or can know.’ Yet the most likely consequence of the Tsar’s visit would be to strengthen Germany’s rival alliance with Austria and Italy, recently under some strain because of disagreements over German import tariffs. Too strong an affirmation of the Franco-Russian ‘Alliance of the Two’ would tend to increase the risks of a war with this ‘Alliance of the Three’:
I make no allusion [the paper’s correspondent concluded darkly] to the elements which at any moment may combine with those of the existing alliances, because the hour for action has not yet struck and is not near striking. Those who at present belong to neither of the alliances have time to wait and to continue their meditations before making a decision.
To be sure, our imaginary reader might have taken some comfort from the news that the Tsar was also paying a visit to his cousin the German Kaiser on his way to France, an event solemnly described by the semi-official
Norddeutsche Zeitung
as symbolizing the shared commitment of the Russian and German governments to the maintenance of peace in Europe. Less reassuring, however, was the news of a deterioration in relations between the French and Ottoman governments, which prompted
The Times
to speculate that the Sultan was considering ‘the growing Pan-Islamic movement’ as a possible weapon against both the French and the British empires. In the Balkans, too, there were grounds for concern. The paper reported signs of a slight improvement in Austro-Hungarian relations, but noted:
The respective influence of the two Powers in the Balkans are [
sic
] based upon different factors. Russian influence is founded upon community of race, common historic memories, religion, and proximity; while that of Austria-Hungary is chiefly manifest in the economic…sphere. Nothing has happened during recent years to diminish either Russian or Austrian influence. Both Powers have maintained their old positions…
In the eyes of pacifists, certainly, the world of 1901 was not quite the Eden of Keynes’s recollection. At the 10th meeting of the Universal Peace Congress, then sitting in Glasgow, Dr R. Spence Watson prompted cries of ‘Hear, hear’ when he called ‘the present… as dark a time as they had ever known’. Warming to his theme, Watson denounced not only ‘that terrible war in South Africa, which they could not think of without humiliation’ but also ‘the swooping down of the Christian nations upon China, the most detestable bit of greed which history has recorded’ –
A further reason for disquiet was the apparently fraught state of relations between the continental great powers.
The Times
’s Paris correspondent reported the imminent visit of the Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, to France, and offered two theories as to the purpose of his visit. The first was that he was coming to pave the way for the latest of many Russian bond issues on the Paris market; the second, that his intention was to reassure the French of his government’s commitment to the Franco-Russian military alliance. Whichever explanation was correct, the newspaper’s reporter saw dangers in this manifestation of harmony between Paris and St Petersburg. Since theGerman annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871, he noted, France was ‘to-day the only nation in Europe which has some claims to put forward, and the only one which neither can nor should admit that the era of European peace is definitive… What she might do if circumstances impelled her and patriotism as well, were it a question of filling the breach made in her territory… no one knows or can know.’ Yet the most likely consequence of the Tsar’s visit would be to strengthen Germany’s rival alliance with Austria and Italy, recently under some strain because of disagreements over German import tariffs. Too strong an affirmation of the Franco-Russian ‘Alliance of the Two’ would tend to increase the risks of a war with this ‘Alliance of the Three’:
I make no allusion [the paper’s correspondent concluded darkly] to the elements which at any moment may combine with those of the existing alliances, because the hour for action has not yet struck and is not near striking. Those who at present belong to neither of the alliances have time to wait and to continue their meditations before making a decision.
To be sure, our imaginary reader might have taken some comfort from the news that the Tsar was also paying a visit to his cousin the German Kaiser on his way to France, an event solemnly described by the semi-official
Norddeutsche Zeitung
as symbolizing the shared commitment of the Russian and German governments to the maintenance of peace in Europe. Less reassuring, however, was the news of a deterioration in relations between the French and Ottoman governments, which prompted
The Times
to speculate that the Sultan was considering ‘the growing Pan-Islamic movement’ as a possible weapon against both the French and the British empires. In the Balkans, too, there were grounds for concern. The paper reported signs of a slight improvement in Austro-Hungarian relations, but noted:
The respective influence of the two Powers in the Balkans are [
sic
] based upon different factors. Russian influence is founded upon community of race, common historic memories, religion, and proximity; while that of Austria-Hungary is chiefly manifest in the economic…sphere. Nothing has happened during recent years to diminish either Russian or Austrian influence. Both Powers have maintained their old positions…
In the eyes of pacifists, certainly, the world of 1901 was not quite the Eden of Keynes’s recollection. At the 10th meeting of the Universal Peace Congress, then sitting in Glasgow, Dr R. Spence Watson prompted cries of ‘Hear, hear’ when he called ‘the present… as dark a time as they had ever known’. Warming to his theme, Watson denounced not only ‘that terrible war in South Africa, which they could not think of without humiliation’ but also ‘the swooping down of the Christian nations upon China, the most detestable bit of greed which history has recorded’ –
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