C. J. Lowe - Mirage of Power Pt2 V4

FOREIGN POLICIES OF THE GREAT POWERS

VOLUME I

The Reluctant Imperialists I: British Foreign Policy 18781902

C. J. Lowe

VOLUME II

The Reluctant Imperialists II: British Foreign Policy 18781902, The Documents

C. J. Lowe

VOLUME III

The Mirage of Power I: British Foreign Policy 190214

C. J. Lowe and M. L. Dockrill

VOLUME IV

The Mirage of Power II: British Foreign Policy 191422

C. J. Lowe and M. L. Dockrill

VOLUME V

The Mirage of Power III: 190222, The Documents

C. J. Lowe and M. L. Dockrill

VOLUME VI

From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 18661914

F. R. Bridge

VOLUME VII

The Foreign Policy of France from 1914 to 1945

J. Nr

VOLUME VIII

Italian Foreign Policy 18701940 C. J. Lowe and F. Marzari

VOLUME IX

German Foreign Policy 18711914

Imanuel Geiss

VOLUME X

From Nationalism to Internationalism: US Foreign Policy to 1914

Akira Iriye

VOLUME XI

Japanese Foreign Policy, 18691942: Kasumigaseki to Miyakezaka

Ian Nish

First published 1972 by Routledge

Reprinted 2002 by Routledge

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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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Transferred to Digital Printing 2008

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

C. J. Lowe and M. L. Dockrill 1972

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN: 0415-27368-4 (Volume 4)

ISBN 0415-26597-5 (set)

Publisher's Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original book may be apparent.

volume two

Volume II

1 The Balkans 191320

Archives, etc.

The Balkans 191320

The major difficulty in the conduct of foreign policy in wartime was that it was completely dependent upon factors over which the Foreign Secretary had no control. Whereas before 1914 foreign policy had helped to shape strategy, once war broke out military and naval operations took precedence and determined foreign policy. A diplomacy which was suitable when the Allied armies were having success, Grey wrote, was hopelessly unsuitable when Germany seemed to be winning. The consequence was that the pursuit of any sort of grand strategy on the part of the Foreign Office was largely a waste of time, a basic factor which goes a long way in explaining the increasing frustration within the Office and the rapid collapse of its pre-war mystique and prestige outside. All they could do, according to Grey, was to rest thankful that if diplomacy could do little in Europe to win the war, it happily could do little to lose it.

In retrospect this seems reasonably obvious, but that Grey was constrained to make such a defence of his conduct from July 1914 to December 1916 reflects the fact that some thought otherwise. His chief critic in the Cabinet, Lloyd George, held that the Office under Grey was unimaginative, clinging to both the old diplomacy and the old diplomats. If instead the new technique of sending out roving missions with plenipotentiary powers had been followed, he claimed, much better results could have been achieved in 1915 and in particular Bulgaria need never have been lost.

Whether or not this was true, it is clear that Bulgaria's decision to join the Central Powers in October 1915 was the starting point of a general recrudescence of radical criticism of Grey's handling of foreign affairs, provoking violent debates in the House of Commons and an attempted vote of censure in November and December 1915. It was, in all probability, a considerable overestimate of the importance of Bulgaria's contribution to the European conflict;

This operation, originating in the Cabinet's desire to find some means of breaking the deadlock on the western front by employing British sea power, was rapidly built up into the strategic counterstroke of the war. If the fleet, or later the army, could only break through to Constantinople this would, the Cabinet were told, bring Italy and the Balkan states tumbling over each other to join the allies. This in turn would close the circle, somehow redressing the deadlock in the west and the patent inability of Russia to deliver the death blow in the east. In the initial stages at least the Dardanelles operation was not conceived in terms of opening up a supply route to Russia; rather it was to knock out the weakest German ally, Turkey, and mop up all the Balkan neutrals by the sheer attraction of a dazzling success.