Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (75 page)

181
Ibid
., docs 91, 111, 114, 115, 125.

182
Ibid
., docs 133, 134, 143, 145, 154; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, pp. 523-6.

183
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, pp. 635-8, 645; vol. III, pp. 378f., 390f.

184
Geiss
,
July
1914, p. 270, doc. 158; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, pp. 634f.; vol. III, pp. 373, 378, 386.

185
Geiss,
July 1914
, docs 107, 148, 149.

186
Ibid
., doc. 152.

187
Ibid
., doc. 164. Cf. Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, p.52; Andrew, ‘Entente’, p. 33; Wilson,
Entente
, p. 95; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, p. 374.

188
Kennedy,
Anglo-German Antagonism
, pp. 458f.

189
Between 24 and 30 July, consol prices dropped by around 5 points; European securities fell by similar amounts. The Bank of England’s gold reserve fell by some 16 per cent, obliging it to increase its base interest rate (bank rate) to 8 per cent on 31 July. For the impression this made on Asquith see Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 376ff.

190
Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, pp. 36-9; Churchill,
Companion
, Part III, pp. 1990f.

191
Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, pp. 78f. See also Grey’s repetition of the same formula to Ponsonby:
ibid
., p. 37. Cf. Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, pp. 149f.

192
Geiss,
July 1914
, docs 130, 133.

193
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, pp. 501, 514, 523-5.

194
The German offer to guarantee French territorial integrity (but not French colonial possessions) had in fact been trailed by the German ship-owner Albert Ballin in a conversation with Churchill at dinner on 24 July: Churchill,
World Crisis
, p. 196; Cecil,
Ballin
, p. 207. For Bethmann’s offer see Geiss,
July 1914
, docs 139, 167; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, p. 506; Grey,
Twenty-Five Years
, vol. I, pp. 325f.

195
Geiss,
July 1914
, doc. 151; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, pp. 507, 519, 633; Grey,
Twenty-Five Years
, vol. I, pp.327f.; Churchill,
Companion
, Part III, pp. 1989, 1993; Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, p. 153; Churchill,
World Crisis
, pp.213ff.; Offer,
Agrarian Interpretation
, p. 308; Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, p. 23.

196
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, pp. 511ff., 521ff.; Asquith,
Genesis
, p. 198

197
Geiss,
July 1914
, docs 170, 173, 177. Cf. Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 380-5.

198
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, p. 639.

199
Geiss,
July 1914
, docs 162, 177.

200
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, pp. 638f., 646-9; vol. III, pp. 373, 380, 384f., 392ff.

201
Beaverbrook,
Politicians and the War
, pp. 19ff. Cf. Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, pp. 49, 84-91; Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, pp. 150ff.; Wilson,
Entente
, p. 139. It is an error to regard Lloyd George as in some way committed to intervention on the basis of his Mansion House speech of 1911.

202
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 369f.

203
Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, p. 150.

204
Beaverbrook,
Politicians and the War
, pp. 28f.; Churchill,
World
Crisis, pp. 216f.; Churchill,
Companion
, Part III, p. 1997.

205
Wilson,
Entente
, pp. 138ff.; Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, p. 94; Geiss,
July 1914
, doc. 183; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 406f. Cf. Offer,
Agrarian Interpretation
, p. 317.

206
Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, pp. 154f.; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 403f. Asquith estimated that around three-quarters of his parliamentary party were for ‘absolute non-interference at any price’: Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, p. 33; Bentley,
Liberal Mind
, p. 17.

207
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, p. 405. Morley felt with hindsight that if Lloyd George had given a lead to the waverers, ‘the Cabinet would undoubtedly have perished that evening’. Harcourt vainly appealed to Lloyd George to ‘speak for us’: Gilbert,
Lloyd George,
p. 109.

208
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 381f., 386, 399. Grey subsequently denied in the House of Commons that he had made the offer, claiming that Lichnowsky had misunderstood him. This is contradicted by his letter to Bertie of 1 August: see Geiss,
July 1914
, doc. 177 - unless Grey had been deliberately misleading Cambon in describing his proposal to Lichnowsky.

209
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, p. 483; Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, pp. 116f.; Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, pp. 157f.; Asquith,
Genesis
, pp. 220f.

210
PRO, CAB 16/5 XC/A/035374, Proceedings ..., Foreign Office memorandum (CID paper E-2), 11 November 1908. Cf. Wilson, ‘Education’, p. 409.

211
Lloyd George,
Memoirs
, pp. 30f., 40; Churchill,
World Crisis
, pp. 65, 199, 219.

212
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, p. 513; Asquith,
Genesis
, p. 211.

213
Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, pp. 177, 303.

214
R. Graves,
Goodbye to All That
(Harmondsworth, 1977), pp. 60f.; S. Sassoon,
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting
Man (London, 1978), p. 244. For other examples of the Belgian argument see Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, pp.167f.; Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, pp.47f.; Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, p. 159; A. Marwick,
The Deluge: British Society and the First World War
(London, 1991), pp. 85f.; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, p. 518; Bentley,
Liberal Mind
, pp. 19f.

215
Offer,
Agrarian Interpretation
, p. 305.

216
Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, p. 73; Wilson,
Entente
, p. 136; Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, p. 149.

217
Churchill,
Companion
, Part III, pp.1991, 1996; Geiss,
July 1914
, docs 166, 174; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 388f., 399f.; Grey,
Twenty-Five Years
, vol. I, pp. 329f.; vol. II, p. 10; Asquith,
Genesis
, p. 209.

218
Beaverbrook,
Politicians and the War
, pp. 22f.; Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, pp. 149f.

219
Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, p. 153; Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, p. 151; Gilbert,
Lloyd George
, p. 110; Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, pp. 70f.

220
Albertini,
Origins
, pp. 409f., my emphasis. For vivid proof of Lloyd George’s agonising on the subject, see Morgan (ed.),
Lloyd George Family Letters
, p. 167. See also Lloyd George’s remarks to C. P. Scott in Gilbert,
Lloyd George
, p. 112.

221
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, p. 494; Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, p. 160.

222
Geiss,
July 1914
, docs 179, 184, 188; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 479, 489, 497.

223
Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, p. 145. 224. Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp. 486f.; Grey,
Twenty-Five Years
, vol. II, pp. 14f.; Wilson,
Entente
, p. 144.

225
Asquith, Genesis, pp. 212f.; Wilson,
Entente
, p. 120; Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, p. 114; Brock, ‘Britain Enters the War’, p. 161. For a good example of the popular reception of the strategic argument, see G. Hodgson,
People’s Century
(London, 1995), pp. 27f.

226
Wilson,
Entente
, p. 146. This was also the view of Frances Stevenson, Lloyd George’s mistress, and Ramsay MacDonald, who dined with Lloyd George on the evening of 2 August: see Gilbert,
Lloyd George
, pp. 108, 111.

227
Wilson, ‘Decision for War’,
passim.
228. Beaverbrook,
Politicians and the War
, pp. 13-19; Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, p. 41.

229
Beaverbrook,
Politicians and the War
, p. 31; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, p. 399. Churchill relayed a similar message from F. E. Smith to the Cabinet: Wilson,
Entente
, p. 141.

230
Lammers, ‘Mayer’, p. 159; Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, p. 155. Cf. Sir L. Woodward,
Great Britain and the War of 1914-1918
(London, 1967), p. 46, for the reciprocation of this sentiment from the Tory side.

231
Wilson, ‘Decision for War’, pp. 154f. 232. See for example his less than hawkish comments to the German Crown Prince on 26 July: Albertini,
Origins
, vol. II, pp. 429, 497, 687.

233
Before the war, the General Staff had envisaged mobilising simultaneously with France and getting the BEF to France within fifteen (at most twenty) days: PRO, CAB 16/5 XC/A/635374, Proceedings ..., Ewart testimony, 3 December 1908; PRO, CAB 2/2, Committee of Imperial Defence ... 23 August 1911; Monger,
End of Isolation
, p. 251.

234
Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, p. 503; Hankey,
Supreme Command,
p. 165. Cf. Offer,
Agrarian Interpretation
, p. 5.

235
French,
British Planning
, p. 88; Offer,
Agrarian Interpretation,
p. 312. The maximum number of divisions contemplated before the war was six. For this and other adverse comments on the size of the proposed expeditionary force see Wilson,
Entente
, pp. 47, 63, 65; d‘Ombrain,
War Machinery
, pp. 103f.; Howard,
Continental Commitment
, p. 46. See also PRO, CAB 2/2, Committee of Imperial Defence ... 23 August 1911; Collier,
Brasshat
, p. 117.

236
PRO, CAB 16/5 XL/A/035374, Proceedings ..., General French testimony, 23 March 1909. Cf. Collier,
Brasshat
, p. 119; d’Ombrain,
War Machinery
, p. 109.

237
Kitchener in fact allowed Wilson to revert to Maubeuge six days later, and on 3 September the Cabinet agreed to send the 6th Division too: Wilson,
Entente
, p. 125; Albertini,
Origins
, vol. III, pp.510f.; Hankey,
Supreme Command
, pp.169ff., 187, 192; Gooch,
Plans of War
, p. 301; Beaverbrook,
Politicians and the War
, p. 36; Collier,
Brasshat
, p. 162ff.; Morgan (ed.),
Lloyd George Family Letters
, p. 169; d‘Ombrain,
War Machinery
, pp. 113f.

238
The question was posed directly by McKenna and answered in the affirmative by Wilson at the CID meeting of 23 August 1911. Cf. Ollivant’s memorandum on the subject of 1 August 1914, quoted in Hazlehurst,
Politicians at War
, pp. 63f.: ’There is reason to suppose that the presence or absence of the British army will ... very probably decide the fate of France.’ Cf. Woodward,
Great Britain
, pp. 32-5.

239
See esp. G. Ritter,
Der Schlieffen Plan
.
Kritik eines Mythos
(Munich, 1956).

240
Hankey,
Supreme Command
, pp. 187-97; Collier,
Brasshat
, pp. 172-90; P. Guinn,
British Strategy and Politics
,
1914-18
(Oxford, 1965), p. 37.

241
570,000 men volunteered between August and December 1914. By ‘First Ypres’, two new divisions and two Indian divisions had been deployed.

242
See the evidence in (though not the argument of) Offer,
Agrarian Interpretation.

243
Renzl, ‘Great Britain, Russia.’

244
Guinn,
British Strategy
, pp. 122, 171, 238; Gooch,
Plans of War
, pp. 30, 35, 278. It is important to note that a German victory over France would
not -
as is often assumed - have shifted German politics to the right. The pan-Germans and the Kaiser may have thought so; but, as we have seen, Bülow and Bethmann knew well that the price of a war, whether victorious or not, would be a further move in the direction of parliamentary democracy.

245
Woodward,
Great Britain
, pp. 227f. Robertson was no less suspicious of Italian and French ambitions.

246
Wilson,
Entente
, p. 79.

247
I. Geiss, ‘The German Version of Imperialism:
Weltpolitik
’, in Schöllgen (ed.),
Escape into War?
, pp. 114f.

I would like to thank Professor Michael Burleigh and Dr Niall Ferguson for their comments on an earlier draft.

1
Among fictional presentations are Douglas Brown and Christopher Serpell,
Loss of Eden
(London, 1940); H. V. Morton,
I
,
James Blunt
(London, 1940); Noël Coward’s play
Peace in Our Time
(1947); C. S. Forester,
If Hitler Had Invaded England
(London, 1971) and Len Deighton,
SS-GB
(London, 1978). Films on the subject include
Went the Day Well?
(1943) and
It Happened Here
(1960).

2
See Andrew Roberts,
‘The Holy Fox’: A Biography of Lord Halifax
(London, 1991), p. 103.