july 1936 Has Britain a Policy? Harold Nicolson Volume 14 • Number 4 The contents of Foreign Affairs are copyrighted.©1936 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this material is permitted only with the express written consent of Foreign Affairs. Visit www.foreignaffairs.com/permissions for more information. FOREIGN AFFAIRS Vol. 14 JULY 1936 No. 4 HAS BRITAIN A POLICY? By Harold Nicolson a ?D how," inquired visitor to Sans Souci in 1768, "how would Your Majesty define the English system ?" "The English," snapped Frederick the Great, "have no system." events to The of the last six months might appear confirm this apophthegm. to Yet is it reasonable suppose that the greatest Empire which the world has ever known has in fact been maintained, as well as a created, in mood of absent-mindedness? Can it be seriously contended that this little dot of land to the west of an Asiatic mere unconscious and con peninsula has, by cerebration, spread one solidated of the few enduring civilizations in human history? as vast as Is it really credible that responsibilities those which have been inherited by the present generation of islanders have not some some imposed theory of policy, habit of extroverted more mind? These habits may be little than congenital instincts. are as as Yet what those instincts? Are they valid today they were before the war ?Has the establishment of democratic control of foreign policy rendered these instincts sectional and confused? Is Great Britain abandoning her former directives ?Or is the pres ent of volatile confusion transitional and occasioned stage merely only by sudden shiftings in the balances of European power? are Such the questions which impose themselves today and which, in this article, I shall endeavor to examine. am aware more me to I well that it would be expedient for postpone what I write until the very last moment before it must to events next go press. The of the few weeks may well disprove event a my analysis. Yet wisdom after the is penurious form of more more to wisdom. It is stimulating, and in fact useful, choose a date (let it be this tenth of May 1936) at which the future of Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Foreign Affairs ® www.jstor.org 55o FOREIGN AFFAIRS to British policy is still obscure; and examine that obscurity in terms are of the probable. What, in other words, the elements of the present confusion and into what pattern of policy is the most to course present jumble of shapeless factors likely fall? The of the next two months or a conclusive an may, may not, give swer to that let us examine our uncertainties as question; they stand today. As a basis for such an examination I shall take one of the most considered and definitions of British ever made. intelligent ? policy On January i, 1907, Sir Eyre Crowe at that time head of the ? wrote a Western Department of the Foreign Office confiden tial memorandum relations. This memo upon Anglo-German a randum has since been published.1 It embodies careful defini as as an tion of the historical principles of British policy well acute of German Let me summarize analysis intentions. the to main points of the Crowe memorandum and then consider what extent the fundamentals which he discovered are valid in this world. postwar 11 as Sir Eyre Crowe took his axiom the incontestable premise was one that British policy determined by geography. On the a on hand you had small island situated the exposed flank of a vast Europe. On the other hand you had Empire stretching across the world. The law of neces tremulously self-preservation sitated the maintenance of the food supplies of the island and the overseas safety of its communications with its Empire. This dual necessity in its turn implied preponderance of sea-power against any possible enemy. arouse This maritime preponderance would, if abused, feelings resentment must of and jealousy throughout the world. It there fore be exercised with the utmost benevolence and with the must minimum of provocation. It be "closely identified with the a primary and vital interests of majority of other nations." were was What these primary interests? The first independence, the second was trade. British must therefore maintain the policy " open door and free trade, and it must at the same time show a na direct and positive interest" in the independence of small 1 on Cf. Gooch and Temperley, "British Documents the Origins of the War, 1898-1914," V. a Ill, p. 397-420. The memorandum has also been published as pamphlet by "Friends of 1. Europe," 122, St. Stephen's House, Westminster, London, S. W. HAS BRITAIN A POLICY? 551 as tions. Great Britain must thus recognize herself the "natural enemy" of any country threatening the independence of smaller countries. The doctrine of the "Balance of Power" thus assumed for Great Britain a constant form. It meant that she must be to "opposed the political dictatorship of the strongest single or at State group of States any given time." This opposition Crowe defined as "a law of nature." Having in this way laid down the basic principles of British how policy, Sir Eyre Crowe then examined those principles ap to as on plied Anglo-German relations they stood that January 1, 1907. He started from the assumption that since 1871 the "Prussian spirit" had been the directive force in German politics. as He defined that spirit follows: a so In no other country is there conviction deeply rooted in the very body and soul of all classes of the population that the preservation of national rights and the realization of national ideals rest absolutely on the readiness of every citizen in the last resort to stake himself and his State on their assertion and vindication. He then traced the development of the German national ideal a as a from the conception of United Germany strong Power to as a in Europe the later conception of Germany World Power con with "her place in the sun." He indicated that this latter two forms. The first was that contained in the ception took for mula the "Ausbreitung des deutschen Volkstums" which he de as fined "vague and undefined schemes of Teutonic expansion." The second manifested itself in "self-assertiveness" and in the we now theory that Germany, by acquiring what call "nuisance secure no value," could that great international problem could be settled without her consent. to Sir Eyre Crowe then passed the consideration whether was at as a Germany aiming that political hegemony which, "law of nature," would incur the opposition of Great Britain. He doubted whether that could be her conscious intention, a since prerequisite of any such policy would be initial good relations with Great Britain. "Its success," he wrote, "must on to depend very materially England's remaining blind it and in humor until the moment for being kept good arrived striking to so the blow fatal her power." Yet Germany, in 1907, far from was conciliating Great Britain, doing everything within her power to outrage British opinion. Sir Eyre Crowe concluded, no more therefore, that Germany's policy "is in reality than the SS* FOREIGN AFFAIRS of a and expression vague, confused, unpractical statesmanship, own not fully realizing its drift." Germany, he argued, "does not ex really know what she is driving at" and this, in his view, often plained the "erratic, domineering and frankly aggressive" Wilhelmstrasse spirit which the policy of the displayed. Only by of own course account her blind ignorance her could he for "the impetuous mobility, the bewildering surprises, and the heedless so disregard of the susceptibilities of other people" characteristic of German prewar policy. Students of the B?low memoirs, of the "Grosse Politik," or of such works as Haller's "Die Aera B?low" or Theodor Wolff's correct was "Vorspiel," will realize how brilliantly Sir Eyre to as Crowe's diagnosis. I propose take this diagnosis the basis as some for my examination of British, of German, policy thirty years later. m me Let begin with Germany. How far is Sir Eyre Crowe's to diagnosis applicable the Third Reich ? as It would be agreed, I suppose, that the "Prussian spirit," defined by Sir Eyre Crowe, is still the dominant emotional im an wrote in "of pulse inNazi Germany. "It is axiom," he 1907, must the Prussian faith that right be backed by force." The whole of Hitler's policy is based upon this assumption. an It would be agreed, again, that Teutonic expansion is still nor aim of Berlin policy, would any observer of the German idea to question the general applicability modern times of Sir Eyre Crowe's definition of that faith: But the vague and undefined schemes of Teutonic expansion ("die Aus are breitung des deutschen Volkstums") but the expression of the deeply rooted feeling that Germany has by the strength and purity of her national purpose, the fervor of her patriotism, the depth of her religious feeling, the high standard of competency, and the perspicuous honesty of her administra tion, the successful pursuit of every branch of public and scientific activity, and the elevated character of her philosophy, art, and ethics, established for herself the right to assert the primacy of German national ideals. nervous It would be accepted also that the old mobility, the old undue suspiciousness, the old passion for dramatic trials of are still strength ("Kraftprobe") and the old national touchiness German features of foreign policy.