Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (72 page)

105
Ian Beckett (ed.),
The Army and the Curragh Incident
(London, 1986), p. 9; Townshend,
Political Violence
, p. 269.

106
Stewart,
Ulster Crisis
, pp. 244-9.

107
See, for example, Philip Cruickshank,
The Tyrone Regiment, U. V.F.: Record of Camp of Instruction
(1913).

108
Phoenix,
Northern Nationalism
, p. 14.

109
Townshend,
Political Violence
, pp. 261-76.

110
Spender Papers, D.1295/2/7, ‘Railway Policy’. This documentone of a series of UVF contingency plans for the enactment of Home Rule - recommended that ‘a kind of fortified frontier post should be established on the [rail] lines after they enter Ulster at which all trains should be compelled to stop’. It is difficult to see how this could have been achieved given the probable opposition of South Down Nationalists.

111
Beckett (ed.),
Army and the Curragh Incident
, pp. 1-29. See also A. P. Ryan,
Mutiny at the Curragh
(London, 1956); Sir James Fergusson,
The Curragh Incident
(London, 1964).

112
Beckett (ed.),
Army and the Curragh Incident
, p. 26.

113
Ibid
., p. 24.

114
Richard Holmes,
The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French
(London, 1981), pp. 179, 183.

115
For a fuller version of this argument see Alvin Jackson, ‘Unionist Myths, 1912-85’,
Past and Present
, 136 (1992), esp. pp. 178-83.

116
Townshend,
Political Violence
, p. 255. One Ulster Unionist MP, R. J. McMordie, claimed in debate that there were 100,000 revolvers in loyalist hands, but this seems highly unlikely:
Hansard
, 5th. ser., vol. XXXVIII, col. 289 (7 May 1912).

117
Townshend,
Political Violence
, p. 250.

118
Newton,
North Afire
, p. 200. Arthur Balfour speculated concerning this situation: see
Hansard
, 5th ser., vol. LIII, col. 1306 (9 June 1913).

119
Dicey had urged passive resistance by Ulster Unionists in the interlude between the enactment of Home Rule and a general election:
Fool’s Paradise
, p. 124. See also J. B. Lonsdale’s remarks on 2 May 1912:
Hansard
, 5th ser., vol. XXXVII, col. 2123. Lord Crewe dismissed the Unionist threat to withhold taxes:
Hansard
, House of Lords, 5th ser., vol. XIV, cols 871-2 (14 July 1913).

120
Analogies with the Balkans were being made in 1914: see Bonar Law’s remarks in
Hansard
, 5th ser., vol. LX, col. 1751 (6 Apr. 1914).

1
Viscount Grey of Falloden,
Fly Fishing
(first pub. 1899; Stocksfield, 1990), pp. 12, 15. I am grateful to Mr Sandy Sempliner for this reference.

2
Erskine Childers,
The Riddle of the Sands
(London, 1984 edn), p. 248.

3
A. J. A. Morris,
The Scaremongers
(London, 1984), pp. 156ff. See also I. F. Clarke,
Voices Prophesying War
(London, 1966).

4
Saki,
When William Came: A Story of London under the Hohenzollerns
, repr. in
The Complete Works of Saki
(London/Sydney/ Toronto, 1980), pp. 691-814.

5
Ibid
., esp. pp.706-11. The idea that Jews were pro-German, somewhat surprising to modern eyes, was a nostrum of the pre-1914 Right in England. Needless to say, the Boy Scout movement defies the defeatist mood.

6
V. R. Berghahn,
Germany and the Approach of War in 1914
(London, 1973), p. 203.

7
See D. E. Kaiser, ‘Germany and the Origins of the First World War’,
Journal of Modern History
, 55 (1983), pp. 442-74.

8
J. Steinberg, ‘The Copenhagen Complex’,
Journal of Contemporary History
, 3, 1 (1966), p. 41.

9
E. von Moltke,
Generaloberst Helmuth von Moltke
.
Erinnerungen, Briefe, Dokumente 1877-1916
(Stuttgart, 1922), pp. 13f.

10
General Friedrich von Bernhardi,
Germany and the Next War
(London, 1914). On Moltke’s religious leanings, see A. Bucholz,
Moltke, Schlieffen and Prussian War Planning
(New York/Oxford, 1991).

11
James Joll,
The Origins of the First World War
(London, 1984), p. 186.

12
W. J. Mommsen, ‘The Topos of Inevitable War in Germany in the Decade before 1914’, in V. R. Berghahn and M. Kitchen (eds),
Germany in the Age of Total War
(London, 1981), pp. 23-44.

13
David Lloyd George,
War Memoirs
(London, 1938), vol. I, pp. 32, 34f., 47f.

14
W. S. Churchill,
The World Crisis 1911-1918
(London, 1922), pp. 45, 55, 188.

15
Lord Grey of Falloden,
Twenty-Five Years
(London, 1925), vol. I, pp. 143, 277; vol. II, pp. 20, 30.

16
C. Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War, July 1914 to May 1915: A Prologue to the Triumph of Lloyd George
(London, 1971), p. 52.

17
G. M. Trevelyan,
Grey of Falloden
(London, 1937), p. 250.

18
See, for an example of Marxist determinism, Eric Hobsbawm,
The Age of Empire 1875-1914
(London, 1987), pp. 312-14, 323-7. The American liberal tradition of blaming the war on a systemic crisis of international relations continues to have its adherents; as does the notion popularised by A. J. P. Taylor of ‘war by timetable’, i.e. a war caused by the inexorable ’logic’ of military planning.

19
Hobsbawm,
Age of Empire
, p. 326; C. Barnett,
The Collapse of British Power
(London, 1973), p. 55.

20
H. H. Asquith,
The Genesis of the War
(London, 1923), p. 216.

21
Lloyd George,
War Memoirs
, vol. I, pp. 43f.

22
A. J. P. Taylor,
The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918
(Oxford, 1954), p. 527. See also J. Joll,
Europe since 1870: An International History
(London, 1973), pp. 184ff.

23
M. Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, in R. J. W. Evans and H. Pogge von Strandmann (eds),
The Coming of the First World War
(Oxford, 1988), pp. 145-78.

24
Churchill,
World Crisis
, pp. 202f.

25
Ibid
., pp. 228f.

26
Grey, Twenty-Five Years, vol. II, p. 46. See also pp. 9f.

27
Ibid
., vol. I, pp. 77, 312.

28
Ibid
., vol. II, p. 28.

29
Ibid
., vol. I, pp. 335ff. Cf. Gordon Martel,
The Origins of the First World War
(London, 1987), pp. 89f.

30
K. M. Wilson,
The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy, 1904-1914
(Cambridge, 1985), esp. pp.96f., 115. See also T. Wilson, ‘Britain’s “Moral Commitment” to France in July 1914’,
History
, 64 (1979), esp. pp. 382-90.

31
D. French,
British Economic and Strategic Planning, 1905-1915
(London, 1982), p. 87.

32
See for example M. Howard, ‘Europe on the Eve of World War I,’ in
idem, The Lessons of History
(Oxford, 1993), p. 119; Martel,
Origins
, p. 69.

33
P. Kennedy,
The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860-1914
(London, 1980), esp. p. 458: ‘The ultimate decision was ... predictable in advance, even without the Belgian issue being utilised as political camouflage.’

34
Crowe, Hardinge and Grey all accepted that ‘the Germans have studied and are studying the question of invasion’; Morris,
Scaremongers
, p. 158. See also D. French, ‘Spy Fever in Britain 1900-1915’,
Historical Journal
, 21 (1978).

35
I. Geiss,
July 1914: The Outbreak of the First World War: Selected Documents
(London, 1967), pp. 29ff.

36
Wilson, Entente, p. 100; Z. Steiner,
Britain and the Origins of the First World War
(London, 1977), p. 42.

37
Wilson,
Entente
, pp. 66f.

38
P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins,
British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914
(Harlow, 1993), pp. 450, 456ff.

39
Churchill,
World Crisis
, p. 120; Lloyd George,
War Memoirs,
vol. I, p. 6.

40
J. Gooch,
The Plans of War: The General Staff and British Military Strategy c. 1900-1916
(London, 1974), p. 25.

41
See the classic texts F. Fischer,
Germany’s Aims in the First World War
(London, 1967);
idem, War of Illusions: German Policies from 1911 to 1914
(London/New York, 1975).

42
I. Geiss,
Der lange Weg in die Katastrophe. Die Vorgeschichte des Ersten Weltkrieges 1815-1914
(Munich/Zurich, 1990), esp. pp.23f., 54, 123.

43
K. Burk, ‘The Mobilization of Anglo-American Finance during World War One’, in N. F. Dreisziger (ed.),
Mobilization for Total War
(Ontario, 1981), pp. 25-42.

44
Only the most tendentious reading of the historical record, as we shall see, could actually equate Germany’s aims in 1914 with those of 1939.

45
B. H. Liddell Hart,
The British Way in Warfare
(London, 1942), pp. 12f., 29f.

46
J. M. Hobson, ‘The Military-Extraction Gap and the Wary Titan: The Fiscal Sociology of British Defence Policy 1870-1913’,
Journal of European Economic History
, 22 (1993), pp. 461-506.

47
L. Albertini,
The Origins of the War
(Oxford, 1953), vol. III, pp. 331, 368, 644; Lloyd George,
War Memoirs
, vol. I, pp. 57f.; Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, p. 41. For similar views, see M. R. Gordon, ’Domestic Conflicts and the Origins of the First World War: The British and German Cases‘,
Journal of Modern History
, 46 (1970), pp. 195f.

48
Trevelyan,
Grey
, p. 257; Asquith, Genesis, p. 202. See C. Nicolson, ‘Edwardian England and the Coming of the First World War’, in A. O’Day (ed.),
The Edwardian Age: Conflict and Stability 1902-1914
(London, 1979), pp. 145-8.

49
Hobson, ‘Wary Titan’, pp. 495f., 499f. For similar suggestions, see A. L. Friedberg,
The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline 1895-1905
(Princeton, 1988), pp. 301f.; P. K. O‘Brien, ‘Reply’,
Past and Present
, 125 (1989), p. 195. But see the perceptive critique in T. J. McKeown, ‘The Foreign Policy of a Declining Power’,
International Organisation
, 42, 2 (1991), pp. 259-78.

50
A rare exception is Paul Johnson,
The Offshore Islanders
(London, 1972), pp. 365f.

51
Asquith,
Genesis
, pp. 57f., 60, 63f., 83.

52
Grey,
Twenty-Five Years
, vol. I, pp. 75, 81, 85, 313, 334f. Cf. Trevelyan,
Grey
, pp. 254, 260.

53
Grey,
Twenty
-
Five Years
, vol. II, pp. 35ff.

54
On ‘national efficiency’ see G. R. Searle, ‘Critics of Edwardian Society: The Case of the Radical Right’, in O‘Day (ed.),
Edwardian Age
, pp. 79-96; on Edwardian ‘militarism’, see A. Summers, ‘Militarism in Britain before the Great War’,
History Workshop
, 2 (1976), pp. 106-20.

55
C. Trebilcock, ‘War and the Failure of Industrial Mobilisation: 1899 and 1914’, in J. M. Winter (ed.),
War and Economic Development
(Cambridge, 1975), pp. 141ff.; Cain and Hopkins,
British Imperialism
, p. 452; Barnett,
Collapse
, pp. 75-83. See also G. W. Monger,
The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy 1900-1907
(London, 1963), pp. 8f., 15, 110,147.

56
Figures from Hobson, ‘Wary Titan’, pp. 478f. Cf. my own comparable estimates in N. Ferguson, ‘Public Finance and National Security: The Domestic Origins of the First World War Revisited’,
Past and Present
, 142 (1993), pp. 141-68.

57
Monger,
End of Isolation
, p. 13.

58
Lord Hankey,
The Supreme Command
(London, 1961), vol. I, pp. 46, 49; Gooch,
Plans of War
, pp. 42-90; N. d‘Ombrain,
War Machinery and High Policy: Defence Administration in Peacetime Britain
(Oxford, 1973), pp. 5f., 9f., 14, 76.

59
See C. Buchheim, ‘Aspects of 19th Century Anglo-German Trade Policy Reconsidered’,
Journal of European Economic History
, 10 (1981), pp.275-89; Kennedy,
Anglo-German Antagonism
, pp.46ff., 262ff.; Cain and Hopkins,
British Imperialism
, pp.461f.; Z. Steiner,
Britain and the Origins of the First World War
(London, 1977), pp. 60-3.

60
J. L. Garvin,
The Life of Joseph Chamberlain
, vol. III:
1895-1900
(London, 1934), pp.246, 250ff., 331-9, 502; J. L. Amery,
The Life of Joseph Chamberlain
, vol. IV,
1901-1903
(London, 1951), pp. 138ff., 159, 163; R. T. B. Langhorne, ‘Anglo-German Negotiations Concerning the Future of the Portuguese Colonies 1911-1914’,
Historical Journal
(1973), pp. 364ff.; Monger,
End of Isolation
, pp. 19f., 24-9, 39f., 119ff., 145, 186.

61
H. W. Koch, ‘The Anglo-German Alliance Negotiations: Missed Opportunity or Myth’,
History
, 54 (1968), p. 392; P. M. Kennedy, ‘German World Policy and the Alliance Negotiations with England 1897-1900’,
Journal of Modern History
, 45 (1973), p. 625. See also Grey,
Twenty-Five Years
, vol. I, p. 245.