ABSTRACT
This article investigates a number of issues and problems about which Michael Dockrill has written extensively in his career-the end of wars and the problems of victorious alliances, the control of foreign policy, the conundrums raised by defence policy, and, in particular, AngloFrench relations in the inter-war period.2 It illuminates some of the difficulties of diplomatic, strategic, and military policy towards a great power that was simultaneously an ally and a rival in the wake of a great war in which there had been a close alliance. In their fine study of Britain and the peace conferences, Dockrill and Goold argued that the Anglo-French relationship was of central importance to international relations after 1918. Observing that while both Britain and France ‘were more or less able to thwart the other’s German policies’, neither country on its own was able ‘to impose a coherent long term unilateral solution’. It was not the Treaty of Versailles, they asserted, ‘that was at the root of the problems of the inter-war period. It was the inability of France and Britain, the two great powers with most at stake in the settlement, either to agree to uphold the Treaty or to find some means of alleviating it’.3 There are obvious parallels between the Anglo-French and Anglo-American experiences during and after both the twentiethcentury world wars, but this investigation is focused on the post-1918 Anglo-French relationship. It is also a case study for the important problem faced by all major governments-the extent to which it is possible to plan a realistic and effective defence strategy linked to the priorities of foreign and domestic policy aims.
