ABSTRACT
Britain's relative power in the world - already visibly diminishing during the last quarter of the nineteenth century - was to decline still further during the first years of the twentieth century up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Increasingly, albeit reluctantly and often uncertainly, British diplomacy began to make withdrawals and to enter into commitments. Both were now accepted as necessary for the protection of essential interests. Old Lord Salisbury forecast in 1902 'some great change in public affairs - in which the forces which contend for the mastery among us will be differently ranged and balanced'. The British Empire seemed to be threatened as never before in his lifetime. 'The large aggregation of human force which lies around our Empire seems to draw more closely together, and to assume almost unconsciously a more and more aggressive aspect.' 1
