Chapter VII: Anglo-Russian Relations After the Making of the Entente Cordiale

After the Russo-Japanese War began, the British and Russian governments decided that for the present nothing further could be done toward an understanding.[320] Russian anger was directed as much against Great Britain as against Japan for having caused the conflict;[321] while Great Britain could hardly jeopardize her alliance with Japan by coming to a settlement with the latter’s enemy. A few days after the signing of the Anglo-French agreement, King Edward tried to revive the negotiations in a talk at Copenhagen with M. Iswolski, Russian minister at the capital. When Count Benckendorff mentioned the King’s conversation to Lord Lansdowne, the latter reiterated his former opinion, adding that in the meantime the two governments should so handle any differences which might arise as to permit the renewal of the discussions for an agreement after the conclusion of the war.[322]

This suggestion was acted upon, for, even apart from other reasons, Count Lamsdorff wished to hold Great Britain to the strictest neutrality during the war with the lure of an understanding. The British government assured him of its neutral intentions.[323] King Edward cultivated assiduously the friendship of the Czar during the next months.[324] Early in June the British government gave reassurances about its policy toward Tibet, in return for which the Russian government approved the Khedivial decree putting into execution the reforms in Egypt foreseen in the Anglo-French declaration.[325] Fraught with more danger was the possibility that Russia might send her Black Sea fleet through the straits. Lord Lansdowne warned her that that act “could not be tolerated by this country,” that it “might render conflict inevitable.”[326] So the fleet was never sent. In spite of British protests, however, Russia dispatched several vessels belonging to the volunteer fleet through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. When, in July and August, two of these ships seized some British merchant vessels suspected of carrying contraband, British public opinion demanded that the government defend British commerce. When Lord Lansdowne expressed indignation at the depredations, the Russian government immediately agreed to a conciliatory settlement.[327] In September the Russian government objected strongly to the terms of the recent Anglo-Tibetan Treaty, but without avail. Being in no position to follow up that protest, it had to acquiesce in the British action.[328]

In October the two countries came dangerously close to war over the Dogger Bank affair. The Russian Baltic fleet, a makeshift, heterogeneous collection of vessels, was on its way to the war zone. While passing through the North Sea, it shot into a British fishing fleet off the Dogger Bank in the night of October 21, sinking one vessel and damaging others, killing two men and wounding members of the crews. The Russian fleet thought that it had fired at two Japanese torpedo boats, and continued its voyage without stopping to see what damage it had inflicted. The previous mishandling of British merchant ships by the Russians had already so irritated the British nation that it became incensed at this latest act. Public opinion was bellicose. Sir Charles Hardinge, British ambassador at St. Petersburg, described the fleet’s conduct to Count Lamsdorff as “an unqualified and brutal outrage.” The British government demanded a full investigation, punishment of those culpable, “ample apology and complete and prompt reparation as well as security against the recurrence of such intolerable incidents.” “The matter is one which admits of no delay,” asserted Lord Lansdowne to the Russian Ambassador; “if an attempt were made to fence with the question, public feeling here would become uncontrollable.” Unless prompt action were taken by the Russian government, he continued, “we should certainly be obliged to take our own measures for guarding against a repetition of these acts.”[329] The British admiralty mobilized the fleets at Portland and at Malta, rushed reinforcements to the fleet at Gibraltar, and advised the commander there that “it may become necessary for you to stop the Baltic Fleet, by persuasion if possible, but by force if necessary.”[330]

This energetic procedure brought immediate results. The Russian government agreed quickly to the British demands. With the help of French mediation, the crisis passed within a week, and the final settlement was left to international arbitration. But on October 29 Lord Lansdowne warned the Russian Ambassador as follows:

I owned . . . . that I lived in dread of new troubles arising. . . . . It had not been without the greatest difficulty that we had avoided a conflict. . . . . I would not, in these circumstances, dwell upon the results of a repetition of the North Sea incident.

There was however another peril against which it was our duty to guard. . . . . If, during its [the Russian fleet’s] long voyage, the Russian captains considered themselves justified in the wholesale seizure of vessels suspected of carrying contraband, public feeling in this country would become uncontrollable.[331]

A few days later the British Foreign Secretary again warned the Ambassador, somewhat more mildly to be sure, against permitting two particularly predatory ships of the volunteer fleet which had just been added to the Russian fleet itself to prey on neutral commerce.[332] No more trouble arose.

After events of this kind, an Anglo-Russian _rapprochement_ seemed far off. The British and Russian presses were at each other’s throats. On December 2 Sir Charles Hardinge reported his French colleague’s views as follows:

He [M. Bompard] impressed upon me that the attitude of His Majesty’s Government during the next year when the conditions of peace would be under discussion would be decisive of the relations between England and Russia for the next twenty five years. Thanks to the Japanese war the German Government were only now recovering the position which they had lost at the congress of Berlin. If His Majesty’s Government continued to maintain the same strained relations during the forthcoming year as in the past twelve months there would be no prospect of a rapprochement between the two countries for another generation. He begged me to remember that the many incidents which had occurred had redounded solely to the advantage of the German Emperor who now had a position at the Russian Court which a year ago would have been regarded as impossible.[333]

In the next month M. Delcassé urged upon the British Ambassador the desirability of an Anglo-Russian _rapprochement_ and asked about the possibility of bringing Italy also into new quadruple grouping.

Lord Lansdowne saw no reason why a permanent understanding with Russia should be impossible, but he pointed out the difficulty. “The Russian diplomatic currency has become debased and discredited,” he wrote to the Ambassador at Paris, “and it will not be easy to restore it to its face value.”[334] None the less he hardly needed the French warning and advice, for he had already been acting in accordance with them. The British government had shown as much consideration for Russian feeling in the Dogger Bank affair as circumstances permitted. In February of the next year it tried to reach accord on the Afghan question, but Count Lamsdorff was too much occupied with other matters.[335] Great Britain could well afford to be friendly since the Japanese victories were so eminently satisfactory to her. Moreover, she wanted no war, for, apart from her aversion to war as such, she feared what Germany might do in case of one.[336] Rumors of a Russo-German treaty were already abroad and spread rapidly toward the end of 1904.[337] British public opinion was becoming more mistrustful of Germany than of Russia. Having regarded the growing German navy, so near at hand in the North Sea, as a distinct menace for over a year, it now feared that Germany might try a sudden descent upon the English coast.[338] The British government viewed the situation more sanely, but it appreciated the danger of the German navy. As Mr. Spring Rice, first secretary of the British embassy in St. Petersburg, had written to his friend, President Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904:

We are trying our best to come to some sort of understanding with Russia (when the war is over), so as to put an end to the continual régime of panic in India, Persia, etc. The reason we are doing so is that with the establishment of a strong German navy on our flanks we cannot afford to have a life-and-death struggle in Asia and the Far East. Germany is rapidly acquiring a very strong position in Russia. . . . . In any case, if we were at war with Russia, Germany would either take Russia’s side, or exact very hard terms from us for her neutrality. The German fleet has really revolutionized politics.[339]

In August, 1904, Sir John Fisher, first sea lord of the British admiralty, had warned the government that “‘instant readiness for war’ was imperative, . . . . unless naval reforms were ‘ruthless and remorseless, . . . . we may as well pack up and hand over to Germany.’”[340] In accordance with his recommendation, the British government reorganized and redistributed its fleet late in 1904 in such a way as to concentrate the main strength in home waters. And at the close of the year, when the German statesmen expressed fears of a British attack on their country, Lord Lansdowne wrote to Sir Frank Lascelles:

They cannot seriously believe that we are meditating a coup against them. Are they perchance meditating one against us and are they seeking to justify it in advance? All this talk about one driving them to lean towards Russia looks a little like it.

The knowledge gained early in 1905, that Germany was making approaches not only to Russia and the United States but to Japan as well, augmented British mistrust of her policy.[341]

The pressure of events and the insistence of such men as King Edward, Admiral Fisher, and others were completing the change of policy which Great Britain had been making since 1901. Great Britain had abandoned her policy of splendid isolation; she was more and more taking an active share in European international relations and assuming a definite position in the Continental system of alliances.

[Footnote 320: Lansdowne to Spring Rice, April 22, 1904, _B.D._, IV, 188 f., No. 183. The breakdown of the negotiations as a result of the war had been anticipated early in January by Sir Charles Hardinge (Gwynn, _The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice_, I, 392).]

[Footnote 321: Hardinge to Lansdowne, June 8, 1904, _B.D._, IV, 194 f., No. 188; Radolin to Bülow, Feb. 28, 1904, _G.P._, XIX, 165 ff., No. 6028, and following documents; Lansdowne to Scott, March 4, 1904, _B.D._, V, 73; Spring Rice to Ferguson, March 2, 1904, Gwynn, I, 403 ff.]

[Footnote 322: Lee, _King Edward VII_, II, 283 ff.; Lansdowne to Spring Rice, May 4, 1904, _B.D._, IV, 189 f., No. 184, and following documents; Savinsky, _Recollections of a Russian Diplomat_, pp. 90 f.; Crozier, _Revue de France_, April 1, 1921, pp. 275 ff.; Newton, _Lord Lansdowne_, pp. 307 ff.; cf. _ibid._, pp. 243 f.]

[Footnote 323: Hardinge to Lansdowne, June 8, 1904, _B.D._, IV, 194 f., No. 188; Newton, pp. 310 ff.]

[Footnote 324: Lee, II, 287 ff.]

[Footnote 325: Lansdowne to Spring Rice, May 4, 10, 1904, _B.D._, IV, 189 f., No. 184; 307 ff., No. 291; Hardinge to Lansdowne, May 18, 1904, _ibid._, 190, No. 185; Monson to Lansdowne May 27, 1904, _ibid._, 193, No. 186.]

[Footnote 326: Lansdowne to Monson, April 29, 1904, _ibid._, II, 401; Lansdowne to O’Conor, June 7, 1904, _ibid._, IV, 51, No. 46; Metternich to F. O., Aug. 18, 1904, _G.P._, XIX, 240, No. 6070.]

[Footnote 327: _B.D._, Vol. IV, chap. xxiii, Part III; _G.P._, Vol. XIX, chap. cxxxii; Newton, pp. 313 ff.; Gwynn, I, 424 f. King Edward was in favor of showing to Germany, whose commerce was also being molested by those ships, a mark of friendship by co-operating with her in handling the matter with Russia. Lansdowne disapproved the idea (Lee, II, 297 f.).]

[Footnote 328: Hardinge to Lansdowne, Sept. 23, 1904, _B.D._, IV, 317, No. 299; Lansdowne to Hardinge, Sept. 27, 1904, _ibid._, 319 f., No. 301.]

[Footnote 329: Lansdowne to Hardinge, Oct. 24 and 25, 1904, _ibid._, 6, No. 6; 7 f., No. 8; 10 f., No. 12; Hardinge to Lansdowne, Oct. 24, 1904, _ibid._, 7, No. 7.]

[Footnote 330: Admiralty to F. O., Oct. 28, 1904, _ibid._, 18 f., No. 19 and inclosures.]

[Footnote 331: Lansdowne to Hardinge, Oct. 29, 1904, _ibid._, 23 f., No. 23.]

[Footnote 332: Lansdowne to Hardinge, Nov. 3, 1904, _ibid._, 55, No. 52. On the Dogger Bank affair see _ibid._, chap. xxiii, Part 11; _G.P._, Vol. XIX, chap. cxxxiv; Lee, II, 301 ff.; Newton, pp. 315 ff.; Gwynn, I, 432 f.]

[Footnote 333: Hardinge to Lansdowne, Dec. 2, 1904, _B.D._, IV, 66 f., No. 58.]

[Footnote 334: Newton, pp. 339 f.]

[Footnote 335: Lansdowne to Benckendorff, Feb. 17, 1905, _B.D._, IV, 520 f., No. 466_a_; Lansdowne to Hardinge, March 8, 1905, _ibid._, 521, No. 466_b_.]

[Footnote 336: On Nov. 5, 1904, Spring Rice wrote to Roosevelt as follows: “Emperor William has got the ear of the Emperor here. . . . . It is plain that Germany naturally enough wants to see Russia have a free hand in Asia and hopes in exchange to have one in Europe; that if England could be engaged in a war with Russia which would require her fleet to be absent in the East, the German fleet, especially if France would come in, would have a good chance for a sudden descent on England” (quoted in Dennett, _Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War_, pp. 73 f.; see also Gwynn, I, 414 ff., 436, 438 ff.).]

[Footnote 337: Lascelles to Lansdowne, Sept. 23, 1904, _B.D._, IV, 4 f., No. 4; Gwynn, I, 427 f.; see also below.]

[Footnote 338: Bernadotte Everly Schmitt, _England and Germany, 1740-1914_ (Princeton, 1916), p. 180; _G.P._, Vol. XIX, chap. cxxxvi. Balfour denied in the House of Commons that an attack was likely or would succeed if it were made. But the British fear continued. See 4 Hansard, Vol. CXLII (March 7, 1907), col. 595; Vol. CXLVI (May 11, 1905), cols. 72 f.]

[Footnote 339: Dennett, pp. 152 f.; Gwynn, I, 422 f. The letter was a reply to one from Roosevelt dated June 13, 1904. The approximate date given by Dennett is incorrect.]

[Footnote 340: Fisher to Knollys, Aug. 19, 1904, Lee, II, 328.]

[Footnote 341: Newton, p. 332.]