Dreadnought

by Robert K. Massie

  Sundays, Grey read, took walks, bicycled, or simply sat with Dorothy watching the birds. He was a serious reader and quoted with approval the story of a man happy in his country home when unexpected visitors were announced. The man greeted his visitors, declared that he was delighted to see them, and then said, “And now what16 would you like to do? We are reading.” Both Greys were fascinated by birds: their diversity of plumage, their multifarious songs, their ability to fly. “If you will lie on your back17 on a fine day, you may see gulls sailing high in the air, without apparent effort or movement of wing, as though it was not necessary for them to descend at all,” he marvelled. Dorothy Grey shared in everything. Sometimes, she fished beside her husband; more often she brought a book and alternated between reading and watching him fish. She was the keener and more expert bird-watcher. When Edward could not come to the cottage, she went alone, spending the entire weekend in solitude.

  In March, Grey went to Scotland to fish for salmon. “The greatest of all sport18 in fly-fishing is that for spring salmon in a big river,” he said. Beginning in October, he would lie awake in bed fishing in his imagination the deep pools where the salmon were resting on their passage up the river. A strong and undeniable pull from a salmon weighing fifteen, twenty, even thirty pounds was “one of the great moments19 of joy in life.” The most memorable of these Highland fishing expeditions came in the late summer of 1905, when Grey leased Relugas House, which looked down on the wild gorge of the Findhorn River. Here, Dorothy wrote to Haldane, “in his few intervals indoors,20 he sits by a window which overlooks a good pool and murmurs, ‘What a nice word river is!’”

  It was the last blissful summer of Edward Grey’s life. Three months after leaving Scotland, he was Foreign Secretary, embarked on an eleven-year journey. On February 1, 1906, five months after leaving the Highlands, two months after her husband had taken office, Dorothy Grey was at Fallodon waiting for her husband. She went for a drive alone, the horse shied, and she was thrown out of the small cart onto her head. She never regained consciousness. Grey was attending a meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence when the telegram came. He took the night train from King’s Cross and sat with her for forty hours before she died.

  He was alone, but not deserted. His biographer writes: “The memories he amassed21 in those twenty years with Dorothy among the woods and the birds, or alone with his rod by the waters, were the capital on which he lived during the long years of his widowerhood, his grim struggle to guide the brute forces of Europe onto the paths of peace, and the blindness that mocked his final escape from office.” Even as Edward Grey lost his sight, those memories did not dim. In his mind, he could still see “the luxuriance of water meadows,22 animated by insect and bird and trout life, tender with the green and gay with the blossoms of early spring; the nobleness and volume of the great salmon rivers, the exhilaration of looking at any salmon pool, great or small; the rich brownness of Highland water.... [An angler who has known these things] will look back upon days radiant with happiness, peaks of enjoyment that are not less bright because they are lit in memory by the light of a setting sun.”

  Grey had no particular liking for foreign countries. Unlike Lord Salisbury, Arthur Balfour, Joseph Chamberlain, or Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman, all of whom relaxed by reading French novels, or Richard B. Haldane, whose recreation lay in German philosophy and literature, Grey preferred Wordsworth and George Eliot. Grey never visited Marienbad, Biarritz, or the Riveria; he spoke no German and only a schoolboy French. In London, he avoided the society of foreign diplomats as he avoided society in general. At one point, exhausted by a prolonged period of crisis, he retreated to Fallodon. “I am alone here23 for a few days,” he wrote to a friend. “I like to be alone at first after a strenuous time.... My squirrels come on to my writing table and take nuts from my hand as if I had never been away. There is something restful in the unconsciousness of animals—unconscious, that is, of all the things that matter so much to us and do not matter at all to them.”

  For ten years, this reclusive man guided the foreign policy of England. From Campbell-Bannerman, Grey was detached, politically and personally. He had opposed the Liberal leader during the Boer War and he had joined in the awkward and unsuccessful effort to force C.B. from the Commons to the Lords. In the twenty-seven months of Campbell-Bannerman’s Premiership, the two rarely saw each other outside of Cabinet meetings. Nevertheless, C.B. and Grey were in accord on the general lines of British foreign policy: maintaining the Entente with France, endeavoring to reach a similar agreement with Russia, and restraining German ambitions through British naval supremacy while seeking a mutual lowering of levels of naval armaments. As Prime Minister, Campbell-Bannerman left these matters mostly in Grey’s hands. When Asquith succeeded C.B. in 1908, Premier and Foreign Secretary were personal friends and trusted political allies. More even than C.B., Asquith left foreign policy to Grey. In the Cabinet and the Commons, Grey was the government spokesman; Asquith intervened only to confirm and reinforce. Grey rarely consulted the Cabinet and even more rarely spoke in the House; he spared the Prime Minister most details.

  Grey based policy exclusively on what he perceived to be the interests of England. In 1895, when he was Parliamentary Under Secretary and the threat to those interests had come from France, Grey had firmly warned that Captain Marchand’s expedition to the Nile headwaters would be viewed in England as an “unfriendly act.”24 Nine years later, Grey—out of office—read the agreement Lord Lansdowne had negotiated with France with “a feeling of simple pleasure25 and relief... the menace of war with France had disappeared.” Grey’s attitude towards Germany was guided solely by how German policies affected England. He had learned early that dealing with the Wilhelmstrasse could be difficult. Soon after he became Under Secretary, British and German firms were competing for railway concessions in Anatolian Turkey. “Suddenly,” said Grey, “there came26 a sort of ultimatum from Berlin requiring us to cease competition... and stating that unless we did so, the German consul in Cairo would withdraw support from the British Administration in Egypt.... [This was followed by] a despairing telegram from Lord Cromer [British agent in Egypt] pointing out that it would be impossible to carry out his work in Egypt without German support in the face of French and Russian opposition.” In diplomacy, Grey admitted, one expects quid pro quos. But “it was the abrupt and rough peremptoriness27 of the German action that gave me an unpleasant surprise.... The method adopted by Germany in this instance was not one of a friend. There was no choice for us but to give way... but it left a sense of discomfort and bad taste behind.” Thereafter, Grey regarded Britain’s involvement on the Nile “like a noose28 round our neck... In this case, the noose had been roughly jerked by Germany.”

  Grey had been surprised and distressed by Holstein’s and Bülow’s bludgeoning attempt to shatter the new Anglo-French Entente when the Kaiser landed at Tangiers. During the months that followed in the summer and autumn of 1905, he sympathized with Lansdowne and the Unionist Cabinet. “The French were being humiliated29 because of an agreement we had made with them,” he wrote later. “The agreement bound us only to diplomatic support, but... if Germany used force and France was in serious trouble, what was our position to be?” Before the question was answered, the Balfour government resigned, the Liberals came in, and members of the new Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, Campbell-Bannerman, left London to campaign for the January general election. The only member of the government who continued to work three days a week in London was the new Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey.

  Grey was quickly made aware that France was seeking a British military commitment in the event of war with Germany. Major Victor Huguet, the French Military Attaché in London, had seen Major General J. M. Grierson, Director of Military Operations in the War Office, and had talked for five hours with Colonel Charles Repington, the influential military correspondent of The Times. On December 29, Repington wrote to Grey that Huguet did not question the British governmen
t’s sympathy for France, but that he had asked “what the British Government30 were prepared to do.” On January 9, Grey wrote to Campbell-Bannerman in Scotland: “Indications keep trickling in31 that Germany is preparing for war in the spring. France is very apprehensive. I do not think there will be war.... But the War Office ought, it seems to me, to be ready to answer the question of what they could do, if we had to take part against Germany.” The following day, Paul Cambon, the French Ambassador, came to see Grey.fn2 “He put the question32 to me directly and formally,” the Foreign Secretary wrote to the Prime Minister, “...whether in the event of an attack34 by Germany arising out of Morocco, France could rely upon the armed support of England. I said that I could not answer this question. I could not even consult the Prime Minister or the Cabinet during the Election.... M. Cambon said he would again ask after the Election was over.”

  Haldane urged that Huguet and Cambon deserved a quicker response. Accordingly, on January 16, without the approval of either the Prime Minister or the Cabinet, secret talks between British and French staff officers began. They focussed on plans to send 100,000 British soldiers to the Continent within two weeks of an outbreak of hostilities. On January 26, when Campbell-Bannerman returned to London and was informed, he approved. On the thirty-first, Grey responded officially to Cambon: the military conversations would continue with the proviso that they not bind England in advance to war. “In the event of an attack upon France by Germany arising out of our Morocco agreement,” Grey said, he did not doubt that “public feeling in England would be so strong that no British government could remain neutral.” But Parliament would not be committed before the event and it would be impossible for any Cabinet to sign a defensive alliance with any foreign power without the knowledge and consent of Parliament.

  On the same day, January 31, 1906, before seeing Cambon in the afternoon, Grey had attended a morning meeting of the new Cabinet, where he had informed the ministers that he had promised France unreserved diplomatic support in the Morocco crisis. Neither he, Campbell-Bannerman, nor Haldane had mentioned the military conversations. On the following day, February 1, Dorothy Grey was thrown from a cart in Northumberland. After her death on the fourth, Grey, in shock, offered to resign or take a lesser role. C.B., Asquith, Haldane, and the Cabinet begged him to persevere. Gradually, he regained his grip. The Algeriras Conference, begun in January, went forward through February and March, and ended in April, when Germany gave way. The threat of war receded and ministers in London turned to other problems. But the military staff conversations continued. And for six years, the Cabinet was not told.

  Before and after the war, Grey was criticized for keeping most ministers of the British government in ignorance of detailed military talks with a foreign power. Grey’s tactic was to play down the importance of the conversations: Grierson and Huguet had been required to state in writing that their talks, although officially sanctioned, did not commit either of the governments to go to war; on this ground, Grey steadfastly insisted that neither Cabinet nor Parliament ever lost its freedom of action. Harold Nicolson’s explanation of Grey’s view was that “[Grey] did not attribute35 any but a purely technical and conditional importance to such conversations as soldiers or sailors might hold. These conversations, to his mind, were mere matters of routine which could be reversed with the stroke of a pen. They possessed to his mind, no more importance than discussions between the London Fire Brigade and the Westminster Water Works.”

  The final responsibility for not informing the Cabinet rested with Campbell-Bannerman. It was his Cabinet, not Grey’s, and whatever the Foreign Secretary recommended, the Prime Minister had the power to overrule. The ingredients of a discussion between the two men can be imagined: within months, a successful colonial settlement with France had evolved into a threat of war with Germany. A new government, faced with an imminent General Election, risked distraction and a potential split if there was debate over entering a Continental military alliance. The new Cabinet, unaccustomed to working together, still lacked cohesion, and revelations in Cabinet might easily find their way to Parliament and the press. Better, then, to continue the conversations in secret, reminding all concerned—the officers involved, the French Ambassador, and his government in Paris—that nothing was guaranteed, that ultimately the House of Commons must decide.

  The extent to which the military conversations committed Britain to France remained unclear to Asquith when he succeeded C.B. in 1908. Grey wrote to Asquith in 1911:

  “Early in 190636 the French said to us, ‘Will you help us if there is war with Germany?’

  “We said, ‘We can’t promise, our hands must be free.’

  “The French then urged that the military authorities should be allowed to exchange views, ours to say what they could do, the French to say how they would like it done, if we did side with France. Otherwise, as the French urged, even if we decided to support France, on the outbreak of war we should not be able to do it effectively. We agreed to this. Up to this point, C.B.,... [Haldane] and I were cognizant of what took place—the rest of you were scattered in the Election.

  “The military experts then conversed. What they settled, I never knew—the position being that the Government was quite free, but that the military people knew what to do if the word was given.”

  Asquith, still nervous a few months later, wrote to Grey: “Conversations such as that37 between Gen. Joffre and Colonel Fairholme seem to me rather dangerous; especially the part which refers to British assistance. The French ought not to be encouraged, in present circumstances, to make their plans on any assumptions of this kind.” Grey’s reply was testy; he was performing a delicate balancing act between his obligations to Parliament and his personal commitment to France.

  “My dear Asquith,”38 Grey wrote. “It would create consternation if we forbade our military experts to converse with the French. No doubt these conversations and our speeches have given an expectation of support. I do not see how that can be helped.”

  During his first weeks in office, Grey set his course for the next eight and a half years. The restrictions imposed by parliamentary government sometimes made him appear evasive, even devious. He always insisted that, until the ultimate moment of decision, Parliament’s freedom of action had been preserved. On the other hand, it was equally clear to Grey personally—and he made his belief known to everyone else—that Britain’s national interest dictated support of France if war came between France and Germany. While Grey acknowledged this contradiction, he overcame it by saying that, although England was not legally bound to France, his own conviction decreed that he could not remain in a government which refused to stand by its Entente partner. Grey knew that Asquith would resign if he did; this meant that the Liberal government would fall. A Unionist government, returning Balfour and Lansdowne to office, would stand by France.

  Underlying Grey’s policy was the imperative of British naval supremacy. He was a Liberal and advocated government spending for social reform, but once the German challenge was raised, he accepted that no matter how many ships Germany built, Britain must build more. As long as the only adversary was Germany, it could be done. There was, however, a grimmer possibility: if Germany achieved hegemony on the Continent, England would find herself at bay against the combined sea power of a united Europe. “What really determines39 the foreign policy of this country is the question of sea power,” Grey told an audience of Dominion delegates in 1911. “There is no... appreciable danger of our being involved in any considerable trouble in Europe unless there is some power or group of powers... which has the ambition of achieving what I call the Napoleonic policy.fn3 That would be a policy on the part of the strongest power in Europe... of... separating the other powers... from each other, taking them in detail, crushing them if need be, and forcing each into the orbit of the policy of the strongest power. The result would be one great combination in Europe, outside which we would be left without a friend. If that was the result, then... if we meant t
o keep command of the sea, we should have to estimate a probable combination against us of fleets in Europe, not of two powers, but five powers.”

  For a century, British naval supremacy had made allies superfluous. Now, in Grey’s view, allies had become essential to the maintenance of British naval supremacy.

  fn1 Forty-four years later, in 1928, Sir Edward Grey was elected chancellor of Oxford University.

  fn2 Although Paul Cambon served as French ambassador in London for twenty-three years, he never learned to speak English. Cambon experienced no embarrassment with Lord Salisbury or Lord Lansdowne, the two previous foreign secretaries with whom he had dealt; both were fluent in French, the international language of diplomacy. Grey, however, spoke French poorly and, taking office at a moment of crisis, worried that communication with Cambon would be difficult. He explained in his memoirs how the difficulty was overcome:

  “I could read French easily,33 but had no practice, and therefore no power of expressing myself in it,” Grey said. “Cambon’s position respecting English was exactly the same. He understood, but could not speak it. He spoke his own language so distinctly and with such clear pronunciation that every word could be visualized when listening to him. To listen to him was like reading French. Each of us, therefore, spoke his own language, and each understood perfectly. To make sure that we did understand we each exchanged the record that we had made separately... of one of these early conversations. The comparison of our records left no doubt that each of us had followed every word spoken. From that time we trusted each other completely.... All the other ambassadors of the Great Powers spoke English and spoke it well; so that the drawback of my deficiency in French was less than I had feared it would be.”