ABSTRACT
This essay was first published as the front-page review in the Times Literary Supplement (12 April 1947). It reviewed the first volume to be published of Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, Second Series, Vol. 1 (London, HMSO, 1947), edited by E.L, Woodward and Rohan Butler. In it Alan Taylor makes high claims for published diplomatic documents, not least in deeming, 'The Grosse Politik der Europäischen Cabinette was as good as a military victory for Germany, for it was a decisive weapon in shaking the moral foundations of Versailles'.
The review also created much bitterness on the part of Llewellyn Woodward (1890-1971), who had earlier been supportive of Alan Taylor's career – being a major supporter of his successful application to be a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1938. Woodward took great exception to the suggestion that Rohan Butler and he had failed to assert their independence as scholars as effectively as the editors of the 1898-1914 series had done earlier. He demanded that Alan Taylor withdraw such assertions, which the latter did. Even so when Alan Taylor published his major diplomatic history, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1954), Woodward further demanded that his name be taken from the list of acknowledgements even though he (Woodward) had read an early draft of some 40 per cent of the book. This episode revealed that at least occasionally some of 'the great and good' could find out who were the reviewers for the Times Literary Supplement during the period when reviewers were assured anonymity – and then wage vendettas thereafter.
