ABSTRACT
Few foreign secretaries have faced more difficulties than those which faced Sir Edward Grey from 1906 to 1914 and few grappled with them more steadfastly. The second charge of which he should be acquitted is that he failed to make it plain to the Germans that England would intervene with a continental army if Germany attacked France. Grey's insistence on an entente rather than an alliance preserved for British foreign policy its only remaining margin of choice, its sole chance of fending off what appeared otherwise inevitable. The public mind was furiously concentrated on social and parliamentary reform, on industrial strikes, on votes for women and home rule for Ireland. Any postponement of conflict might also have given time for the situation to be affected more decisively by the internal politics of the various powers. With the possible exception of Germany all the powers were in a chaotic state internally.
