ANGLO-RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS 1907-1914 THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University In
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%41o ANGLO-RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS 1907-1914 THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSPHY By Rosemary C. Tompkins, B.F.A., B.A., M.A. Denton, Texas May, 1975 1975 ROSEMARY COLBOPN TOMWKINS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Tompkins, Rosemary C., Anglo-Russian Diplomatic Relations, 1907-1914. Doctor of Philosophy (European History), May, 1975, 388 pp., 1 map, bibliography, 370 titles. No one has investigated in detail the totality of Anglo-Russian relations from the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 to the outbreak of World War I. Those who have written on the history of the Triple Entente have tended to claim that France was the dominant partner and that her efforts pulled Great Britain and Russia together and kept them together. Britain and Russia had little in common, the standard argument asserts; their ideological and political views were almost diametrically opposed, and furthermore,they had major imperial conflicts. This dissertation tests two hypotheses. The first is that Russia and Britain were drawn together less from French efforts than from a mutual reaction to German policy. The second is that there was less political and ideological friction between Britain and Russia than previous writers have assumed. The first hypothesis has been supported in previous writings only tangentially, while the second has not been tested for the period under review. Studies of the period have been detailed studies on specific events and crises, while this investigation reviews the course of the Anglo- Russian partnership for the entire seven year period. British sources for the study include the official documents of the British Foreign Office and the Cabinet, found in the Public Record Office in London, as well as the memoirs and private papers of major personalities of the period, located in the British Museum, London, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the University Library, Cambridge, and the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Original Russian sources are less available; therefore the disser- tation depends on printed Russian sources. The most useful collections include the papers of the Ministerstva Inostrannykh Del, which have been published in part by the Soviet government as Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia v epokhu imperializma; Dokumenty iz arkhivov tsarskogo i vremennego pravitelstvo, 1878-1914, and Materialy po istorii franko-russkikh otnoshenii za 1910-1914 (1925), covering Franco-Russian relations, as well as the correspondence of several important Russian diplomats. The published documentary collections of the other major European nations were used as well. The dissertation begins with an historical investigation of Anglo- Russian relations prior to 1907, for it was within the context of the late nineteenth century that the ideas and problems of the friendship were shaped. Chapter II deals with an investigation of the organization and functioning of the foreign offices of Great Britain and Russia in order that the major hypotheses might be dealt with in proper context. Beginning with Chapter III, on the formation of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, and continuing through Chapter VII, on the outbreak of World War I, the operation of the Anglo-Russian Entente is examined through the descrip- tion of events and crises of the seven years. The dissertation concludes that it was primarily the need for allies in the face of German military and economic expansion that motivated and sustained the Anglo-Russian friendship. It furthermore concludes that the ideological and political differences of the two countries were less important to their diplomatic relationship than has usually been contended, and that they were easily overcome in their mutual desire for strength against Germany. In the long run, Britain and Russia pursued diplomatic and imperial policies that were not dissimilar. Their primary needs were allies in Europe, with which to oppose the Triple Alliance, and they could both afford to overlook differences of approach and policy to achieve this strength. Expediency, not ideology, was the key to the Anglo-Russian friendship. PREFACE No one has investigated in detail the totality of Anglo-Russian relations from the making of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 to the outbreak of World War I. Those who have written on the history of the Triple Entente have tended to claim that France was the dominant partner and that her efforts pulled Great Britain and Tsarist Russia together and kept them together. Britain and Russia had little in common, the standard argument asserts, their ideological and political views were almost dia- metrically opposed, and on the surface, they had major imperial conflicts. This dissertation tests two hypotheses. The first is that Russia and Britain were drawn together less from French efforts than from a mutual reaction to German policy. The second hypothesis is that there was:less political and ideological friction between Britain and Russia than previous writers have assumed. The first hypothesis has been supported in previous writings only tangentially. Sidney B. Fay, Oron J. Hale, and William B. Langer are among those who have emphasized the French role in the Triple Entente. 1 1 Sidney B. Fay, The Origins of the World War, 2 vols., 2nd ed. rev. (New York: Free Press, 1966), 1:312-42; Oron J. Hale, The Great Illusion, 1900-1914 (New York, Evanston & London: Harper & Rowe, 1971), pp. 250, 275, 283; William B. Langer, The Franco-Russian Alliance, 1890-1894 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929), pp. 356-58, 399-400, 414-15. ii A. J. P. Taylor, in his larger work on European diplomacy, touches on the problem of German responsibility for Anglo-Russian friendship,2 and Oswald Hauser claims that it was the German navy that forced Britain and Russia together.3 This dissertation will examine, as the first hypothesis, whether it was indeed not only the German navy, but also a far more extensive vision of German policy that frightened Russia and Britain. It was German economic policy, German military expansion, and especially increasing German influence in the Near East as seen in Con- stantinople, the Liman von Sanders affair, and potential German influ- ence in Persia through the Berlin-to-Bagdad railway. The second hypothesis--that British and Russian ideology and politics were not nearly so antithetical as usually assumed--is novel. C. J. Lowe and M. L. Dockrill stress the troubled relations between Russia and Britain,4 and Rogers Platt Churchill, in his work on the formation of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, defends the British position, emphasizing the difficulty of reconciling British liberal groups to an agreement with reactionary Russia.5 Keith Robbins does A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1954), p. 427. 3Oswald Hauser, Deutschland und der englisch-russische Gegensatz, 1900-1914 (Berlin & Frankfurt: Musterschmidt-verlag, 1958), p. 356. 4C. J. Lowe and M. L. Dockrill, The Mirage of Power, vol. 1, British Foreign Policy, 1902-1914 (London & Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 72, 93, 133-38. 5Rogers Platt Churchill, The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1939), pp. 212-13, 221, 225. iii suggest that there were many areas in which the Russians and the British would cooperate from expediency,6 and Firuz Kazemzadeh indicates that there was less worry about ideology than about pragmatic matters.7 But no one has tested this hypothesis for the whole period under review. Studies of this period have been detailed studies, such as Mary McCarthy's Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Persia (1925),8 Bernadotte Schmitt's The Annexation of Bosnia (1937),9 William Habberton's Anglo- Russian Relations Concerning Afghanistan, 1837-1907 (1937),10 E. C, Helmreich's Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, 1912-13 (1938),11 Churchill's Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 (1939), Ima C. Barlow's The Agadir Crisis (1940), 12 John A. Murray's "British Policy and Opinion on the Anglo-Russian Entente, 1907-1914" (1956),13 and Edward Thaden's Russia and the Balkan Alliance of 1912 (1965)i.4 Only an examination of the 6Keith Robbins, Sir Edward Grey: A Biography of Lord Grey of Fallodon (London: Cassell & Co., 1971), pp. 186, 195, 224. 7Firuz Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864-1914: A Study in Imperialism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 502-5, 510-37. 8University of Buffalo Studies, ser. 4, no. 2, 1925. 9Cambridge, England: University Press, 1937. 10Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1937. 11Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938. 12 Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939. 13 Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1956. 14 Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University, 1965. iv entire seven-year period, only through seeing the entire course of the Anglo-Russian partnership, can the two hypotheses be tested. British sources for this study are easily accessible. Many of the major characters wrote memoirs, and government archives and private manuscripts are now open to investigation. The private papers of the prime ministers, the foreign secretary, the chief assistants at the British Foreign Office, as well as the official documents of the Foreign Office and the Cabinet--all are now open and were used in this study. Russian sources are less available. The present Russian government discourages foreign scholars from investigating modern foreign relations; it denies access to most papers. Even if access is given, the archives are not well-organized and are difficult to use. 15 Therefore, this dissertation depends on printed Russian sources. Both foreign ministers of the period wrote memoirs; many other figures in the Ministerstva Inostrannykh Del have published some sort of record. The papers of the Ministerstva Inostrannykh Del have been published by the Soviet Government as Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia y epokhu imperializma,T6 and certain questions have had source materials 15Patricia Grimsted, Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the USSR: Moscow and Leningrad (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp.