ABSTRACT
In my lectures I have sought to bring out the principal facts and events; to let the men who exercised an influence upon the course of those events speak for themselves, and then to leave it to my hearers and readers to pronounce judgement upon the aims and conduct of the British statesmen. I hope that at least one thing has been made clear; namely, that the men in control of British foreign policy held firmly to the basic principles which had (as I pointed out at the beginning of my lectures) inspired their predecessors for centuries in their policy towards the Continental Great Powers. It was quite obvious to British statesmen, during the decades that preceded the World War, that England must retain her supremacy at sea; that she could not permit any Continental Power to establish a hegemony in Europe and by so doing upset the European Balance of Power in a sense contrary to British interests; and finally, that she could not allow Belgium to pass into the hands of the strongest Continental Power. Since the fear that Germany entertained such plans increased from year to year, British statesmen held it to be their duty to make all possible preparations to be ready to defeat such plans if Germany should one day seek to put them into operation. Hence the increase in naval armaments, the successive agreements with their allies, and hence also their endeavours to win for England new friends. No British statesman desired the war; but many of them, and especially influential men in the Foreign Office, held it to be inevitable. Neither Lansdowne nor, later, Grey belonged to this school of thought. As we have seen, Grey made every endeavour to avoid a break with Germany. Whether or not the means he chose to effect his purpose were invariably the best is a question I cannot enter into here. What is indisputable, however, is that he acted in accordance with the traditional policy of England when, at the outbreak of war between the Triple Alliance and the Entente, he brought England into the conflict on the side of the Entente. The war was decided in England’s favour. Germany vanished from the number of England’s possible rivals. But is the danger that England felt to be threatening her from Germany, finally, and from every side, overcome? Far be it from me to attempt to answer this question. For it least becomes the historian, who is a prophet with his eyes directed upon the past, to prophesy what the future holds. Nevertheless I cannot refrain at the end of these lectures from giving expression to my hope that in the future England’s statesmen will take up the cause of European peace and civilization in friendly co-operation with other States for the benefit of England and for the good of mankind; that they will support the cause of peace among the nations and the promotion of common scientific progress; and that they will assist in restoring more and more that European culture to which England has contributed so greatly in past centuries.
