ABSTRACT
Developments in the first week of August 1914 marked the most dramatic phase in the history of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The partners had to determine their responses to the momentous events unfolding in Europe. Despite growing tensions in their relationship before August 1914, the allies regarded the Alliance as having continuing value and reassurance; however, the month of August 1914 may be described as the decisive watershed in that for the first time Britain was indisputably more dependent on Japan than Japan was on Britain. The largest empire in the world required Japanese assistance in meeting a German naval threat. Exactly how Japanese aid would be provided, and what this would denote formally, remained to be established, but there could be no doubt that the relationship was entering a new stage – the most challenging one since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Pragmatism and opportunism characterised British and Japanese reactions – the British were pragmatic and the Japanese were opportunistic. This should not occasion surprise, since the unpredictable concomitants of war mean that the interests of states have to be advanced or defended as interpreted by policy-makers.1
