ABSTRACT
Scholars have rarely examined the Victorian intelligence system and its influence on British policy. Many have assumed that the former did not exist, hence, neither could the latter. During the nineteenth century, in fact, Her Majesty’s Government did collect secret intelligence, and such material did affect its diplomacy and strategy. This chapter addresses one episode in that relationship-how intelligence influenced the policy toward Russia and Central Asia of the government of Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, during the great eastern crisis of 1874 and 1878. This crisis, the most significant event in European politics between 1871 and 1891, led to conflict between Russia and Turkey and almost to a world war, and reshaped territories and the balance of power in eastern Europe. It witnessed extraordinary confusion in the formulation of British strategy. Conflicts between statesmen paralyzed action over a major matter, and then suddenly threw Britain to the gates of Istanbul and war. This chapter particularly, although not exclusively, studies the relationship between intelligence and one statesman. Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, was a central figure in this episode. The evidence reveals in unusual detail how he, and to a lesser degree others, used and were influenced by intelligence. Nor do the insights provided by this material apply solely to one crisis of a single decade. The lessons learned during this period shaped Salisbury’s actions as the leading British statesman of the later nineteenth century-experience with secret intelligence was an important part of the education of a Foreign Secretary. Examination of these issues will illuminate British diplomacy and intelligence during both the great eastern crisis and the later Victorian era.
