Abstract
Whether or not each epoch is equal to God, as Leopold von Ranke once suggested, certainly each new generation of historians creates a new version of the past, one that suits its needs or tastes or that, at any rate, suggests itself as a plausible reconstruction of past occurrences. This is also relevant for the study of the post-1945 East-West conflict. The Cold War is generally seen as the key organising principle of the second half of the short twentieth century. So ingrained, indeed, is this view in the intellectual habits of today’s political leaders and commentators — and not a few scholars, too — that they tend to cast back wistful glances at the ‘familiar certainties of the Cold War and its alliances.’1
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Notes
R. Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century (London, rev. edn 2004), pp. 4–5.
J.L. Gaddis, The Cold War (London, 2007), p. 260; and Ibid., We Know Now: Rethinking the Cold War (Oxford, 1998 (pb.)), pp. 295–5.
D.C. Watt, ‘Britain, the United States and the Opening of the Cold War’, R. Ovendale (ed.), The Foreign Policy of the Labour Governments, 1945–1951 (Leicester, 1984), pp. 43–60.
See also the thoughtful analysis by A. Best, ‘“We are virtually at war with Russia”: Britain and the Cold War in East Asia, 1923–1940’, Cold War History xii, 2 (2012), pp. 205–26.
The notable exception is K. Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919–1939 (Cambridge, 2006).
For some tentative suggestions see T.G. Otte, ‘“What we require is confidence”: The Search for an Anglo-German Naval Agreement, 1909–1912’, K. Hamilton and E. Johnson (eds), Armaments and Disarmament in Diplomacy (London, 2008), pp. 33–52.
R. Lodge, ‘Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain, 1742–44’, English Historical Review lxv, 4 (1930), pp. 579–611.
W. Mediger, Moskaus Weg nach Europa: Der Aufstieg Russlands zum europäischen Machtstaat im Zeitalter Friedrich des Grossen (Brunswick, 1952), pp. 226–47.
Carteret to Guy Dickens, 12 Oct. 1742, J.F. Chance (ed.), British Diplomatic Instructions, 1689–1789, v, Sweden, 1727–1789 (London, 1928), p. 94.
For some of the background see also J. Black, ‘Anglo-Baltic Relations, 1714–1748’, W. Minchinton (ed.), Britain and the Northern Seas (Pontefract, 1988), pp. 67–74; and also A. Cross, ‘British Awareness of Russian Culture, 1698–1801’, Ibid., Anglo-Russica: Aspects of Cultural Relations between Great Britain and Russia in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Oxford and Providence, RI, 1993), pp. 1–28.
Chatham to Shelburne, 20 Oct. 1773, W.S. Taylor and J.H. Pringle (eds), Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (4 vols., London, 1838–9) iv, pp. 298–9. Cf. Lord E. Fitzmaurice, Life of William Earl of Shelburne, afterwards First Marquess of Lansdowne (2 vols., London, 1912) ii, p. 372.
J.H. Rose, Life of William Pitt (London, repr. 1923) pt. 1, pp. 603–6.
A. Cunningham, ‘The Oczakow Debate’, Middle Eastern Studies i, 2 (1964–5), pp. 209–37.
R.C. Anderson, Naval Wars in the Baltic, 1522–1850 (London, repr. 1969), pp. 315–37.
H.W.V. Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822–1827: England, the Neo-Holy Alliance and the New World (London, 1923), pp. 351–8.
C.W. Crawley, The Question of Greek Independence: A Study of British Policy in the Near East, 1821–1833 (Cambridge, 1930), pp. 43–62.
For a corrective see L. Cowles, ‘The Failure to Restrain Russia: Canning, Nesselrode, and the Greek Crisis, 1825–1827’, International History Review xii, 4 (1990), pp. 688–720.
The National Archives (TNA), FO 78/472, Ponsonby to Palmerston, despt. No. 29, 11 Mar. 1834. For some thoughts on the geopolitics, see J.P. LeDonne, The Russian Empire and the World, 1700–1917: The Geopolitics of Expansion and Containment (Oxford, 1997), pp. 314–8.
FO 84/373, Palmerston to McNeil, despt. No. 1 (Slave Trade), 9 July 1841. See also E. Ingram, The Beginning of the Great Game in Asia, 1828–1834 (Oxford, 1979) for a discussion of the strategic background.
FO 195/109, Palmerston to Ponsonby, despt. No. 15, 7 Aug. 1833. For British thinking on Unkiar Skelessi, see P.E. Mosely, Russian Diplomacy and the Opening of the Eastern Question in 1838 and 1839 (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 9–12.
FO 195/109, Palmerston to Ponsonby, despt. No. 23, 6 Dec. 1833. See also K. Bourne, Palmerston: The Early Years, 1784–1841 (London, 1982), pp. 382–4.
Palmerston to Granville, 8 June 1838, Sir H. Bulwer and J. Ashley, The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston (2 vols., London, 1870–6) ii, p. 268.
Palmerston’s policy undermines Paul Schroeder’s thesis of a form of Anglo-Russian condominium after 1815, see Ibid., ‘Did the Vienna System Rest Upon a Balance?’, American Historical Review, xcii, 4 (1992), 683–706. For a critique see T.G. Otte, ‘A Janus-liked Power: Britain and the European Concert, 1815–1854’, W. Pyta and P. Menger (eds), Das europäische Mächtekonzert: Friedensund Sicherheitspolitik vom Wiener Kongress bis zum Krimkrieg 1853 (Vienna and Cologne, 2009), pp. 125–54.
For the Levant crisis see J. Marlowe, Perfidious Albion: The Origins of Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant (London, 1971), p. 231.
For the simultaneous Rhine crisis see P. Sagnac, ‘La crise de l’occident et la question du Rhin, 1832–1840’, Revue des Études Napoléoniennes xvi, 2 (1919), pp. 284–300.
As quoted in J.C. Hurwitz (ed.), The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics: A Documentary Record (2 vols., New York, 2nd edn 1975) i, p. 281.
See also H.N. Ingle, Nesselrode and the Russian Rapprochement with Britain, 1836–1844 (Berkeley, CA, 1976).
As quoted in J.A.R. Marriott, Anglo-Russian Relations, 1689–1943 (London, 1944), p. 108.
See also J.A. Norris, The First Afghan War, 1838–1842 (Cambridge, 1967).
Palmerston to Russell, 28 Sept. 1849, S. Walpole, The Life of Lord John Russell (2 vols., London, 1889) ii, 54–5. Sir Stratford Canning, the British ambassador, denied that Parker had been instructed by London to force the Straits. See PA XII/70, Stürmer to Schwarzenberg (no. 53B, reserviert), 7 Nov. 1840.
Hobhouse diary, 30 July 1838, Lady Dorchester and Lord Broughton (J.C. Hobhouse), Recollections of a Long Life (6 vols., London, 1909–11) v, p. 159.
For a general discussion of ‘patriotic politics’ see J. Parry, The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalis, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge, 2007);
for Russophobia see J.H. Gleason, The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain: A Study of Interaction and Opinion (Cambridge, MA, 1950);
and for Russia’s uneasy cultural and intellectual relations with ‘the West’ see L. Schapiro, Rationalism and Nationalism in Russian Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (New Haven, CT, 1967), especially pp. 142–69.
Clarendon to Westmoreland, 14 Sept. 1853, W. Baumgart (ed.), Akten zur Geschichte des Krimkrieges, 3rd ser., vol. i (Munich, 2005), no. 308.
Quotes from T.G. Otte, ‘Victory to the smallest’, Times Literary Supplement, no. 5639, 29 Apr. 2011, 11, and ‘Te Deum’, Punch, 28 Jan. 1854, p. 35. For the use of cartoons as a historical source see E.H. Gombrich, The Uses of Images: Studies in the Social Function of Art and Visual Communication (London, 1999), pp. 184–211.
See British Library (BL), Add. MSS. 49533, Halifax MSS., the instructions for Admiral Dundas in the Baltic, Eden to Dundas, 7 Apr. 1855; P. Knaplund, ‘Finnmark in British Diplomacy, 1836–1855’, American Historical Review xxx, 3 (1925), pp. 478–502;
A. Lambert, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853–56 (Farnham and Burlington, VT, 2nd edn 2011);
J.D. Grainger, The First Pacific War: Britain and Russia, 1854–6 (Woodbridge, 2008).
Bodleian Library (Bodl.), Clarendon MSS., Ms.Clar.dep.c.62, memo. Hammond, 5 Feb. 1856. See also W.E. Mosse, The Rise and Fall of the Crimean System, 1855–1871 (London, 1963), pp. 25–33.
Ibid., Wodehouse to Currie (private), 3 Jan. 1857, (original emphasis). See also G.H. Alder, ‘The Key to India?: Britain and the Herat Problem, 1830–1863’, Middle Eastern Studies x, 2 (1974), pp. 186–209.
FO 83/185, Malmesbury circular, 8 Mar. 1858. For a discussion of British offensive means see the important piece by K. Neilson, ‘The British Way in Warfare and Russia’, Ibid. and G. Kennedy (eds), The British Way in Warfare: Power and the International System, 1856–1956. Essays in Honour of David French (Farnham and Burlington, VT, 2010), pp. 7–28.
FO 918/53, Ampthill MSS., Lytton to Russell (private), 31 Jan. 1872. See also H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Politics of Mid-Victorian Budgets’, Historical Journal, xxii, 3 (1979), pp. 615–43.
Gorchakov circulaire, 21 Nov. 1864, Correspondence Respecting Central Asia No. 2 (1873) (C. 704) (1873), app. For some background see A.P. Thornton, ‘The Reopening of the Central Asian Question, 1864–9’, History, xli, 2 (1956), 120–2;
H. Carrère d’Encausse, ‘Systematic Conquest, 1865–1884’, E. Allworth (ed.), Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance (Durham, NC, 1994), pp. 131–40;
D. Brewer, ‘Islam and Ethnicity: Russia’s Colonial Policy in Turkestan’, Ibid. and E.J. Lazzerini (eds), Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington, IN, 1997), pp. 115–35.
National Library of Scotland (NLS) (Edinburgh),Elliott MSS., MS 13072, Granville to Elliot (private), 13 Nov. 1870. For a detailed examination of the crisis see W.E. Mosse, ‘The End of the Crimean System: England, Russia and the Neutrality of the Black Sea, 1870–1’, Historical Journal, iv, 2 (1961), 164–90.
TNA, PRO 30/29/72, Granville MSS., Granville to Cambridge (private), 19 Dec. 1873. Lord E. Fitzmaurice, The Life of Granville George Leveson Gower, Second Earl Granville, KG, 1815–1891 (2 vols., London, 1905), ii, 410–1.
BL, Layard MSS., Add. MSS. 39137. Salisbury to Layard (private), 4 Apr. and 9 May 1878. L.M. Penson, ‘The Foreign Policy of Lord Salisbury, 1878–80: The Problem of the Ottoman Empire’, in A. Coville and H. Temperley (eds), Studies in Anglo-French History (Cambridge, 1935), pp. 127–9.
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (Belfast), Dufferin and Ava MSS., D/1071/H/J1/1, Somerset to Dufferin, 26 Jan. 1879. The Whig Duke of Somerset had been asked by Disraeli to sound Dufferin about the appointment. T.G. Otte, The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865–1914 (Cambridge, 2011), p. 84.
NLS, Rosebery MSS., MS 10132, min. Rosebery, 24 Sept. 1885. R.A. Johnson, ‘The Penjdeh Incident, 1885’, Archives xxix, 1 (2004), pp. 28–48.
Hatfield House, Salisbury MSS., 3M/E/Currie, Currie to Salisbury (private), 4 and 10 Aug. 1885, and memo. Currie, 28–29 Sept. 1885. R.L. Greaves, Persia and the Defence of India, 1884–1892 (London, 1959), pp. 239–41.
Paget MSS, Add. MSS. 51228, Salisbury to Paget (private), 5 Aug. 1886. W.N. Medlicott, ‘The Mediterranean Agreements’, Slavonic Review v, 13 (1926), pp. 71–4.
Morier MSS., box 21/1, Salisbury to Morier, 16 Sept. 1885, partially quoted in Lady G. Cecil, Life of Robert Marquis of Salisbury (4 vols., London, 1921–32) iii, p. 231.
Rosebery to Dufferin (private), 26 Aug. 1893, reprinted in G. Martel, ‘Documenting the Great Game: “World Policy” and the “Turbulent Frontier”’, International History Review ii, 2 (1980), 296–7. ADM 231/11, memo. ‘Russia: Naval Manoeuvres in the Baltic’, n.d. Dec. 1888 (Naval Intelligence Reports nos. 59 and 190). FO 425/207, memo. Stratfield, ‘Memorandum respecting the Designs of Russia on the Varanger Fiord on the North-East Coast of Norway’, 26 Feb. 1890.
Cf. S. Jungar, Ryssland och den Svensk-Norska Unionens Uplösning: Tsardiplomati och Rysk-Finländsk Pressopinionen kring Unionsuplösning från 1880 till 1905 (Åbo, 1969), pp. 51–60.
FO 633/7, Cromer MSS., Rosebery to Cromer (secret), 22 Apr. 1895, Cromer MSS. For a fuller discussion see T.G. Otte, The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894–1905 (Oxford, 2007).
FO 800/16, Lascelles MSS., Salisbury to Lascelles (private), 27 July 1895. See also Kimberley MSS., MS 10247, memo. Rosebery, 20 Sept. 1893. For the Pamirs agreement see K. Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar: British Policy towards Russia, 1894–1917 (Oxford, 1995), p. 147.
G.P. Gooch and Harold Temperley (eds), British Documents on the Origins of the War (11 vols., London, 1926–38), vi, app. iv, Salisbury to Iwan-Muller (confidential), 31 Aug. 1896. Later Salisbury spoke of his wish to revert to the ‘old Tory’ policy of ‘friendship with Russia which existed in 1815’.
Salisbury to MacColl, 6 Sept. 1901, as quoted in G.W.E. Russell, Malcolm MacColl: Memoirs and Correspondence (London, 1914), pp. 282–3.
Bodl., Selborne MSS., Selborne 10, Curzon to Selborne (private), 29 May 1901. See F. Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864–1914 (New Haven, CT, 1968), pp. 352–8;
and D. McLean, Britain and the Buffer State: The Collapse of the Persian Empire, 1890–1914 (London, 1979), pp. 60–2.
FO 46/547, memo. Bertie, ‘Anglo-Japanese Agreement’, 22 July 1901. I.H. Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894–1907 (Camden, CT, repr. 1976), pp. 154–82.
CUL, Hardinge MSS., Hardinge 7, Lansdowne to Hardinge, 4 Sept. 1905. For a discussion of these issues see K. Neilson, ‘The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and British Strategic Foreign Policy, 1902–1914’, P.P. O’Brien (ed.), The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922 (London and New York, 2004), pp. 48–62.
CAB 38/8/26, memo. Clarke, ‘The Afghanistan Problem’, 20 Mar. 1905. CAB 17/67, memo. Ottley, ‘The Renewal of Anglo-Japanese Alliance’, 9 May 1905. For a discussion of some of the background see B.J. Williams, ‘The Revolution of 1905 and Russian Foreign Policy’, in C. Abramsky (ed.), Essays in Honour of E.H. Carr (London, 1974), pp. 101–25;
and K. Neilson, ‘Watching the “Steamroller”: British Observers and the Russian Army before 1914’, Journal of Strategic Studies viii, 2 (1985), 199–217.
Spring-Rice to Onslow, 28 Mar. 1907, S. Gwynn (ed.), The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring-Rice (2 vols., London, 1929) ii, 95.
For an instructive discussion of popular attitudes towards Russia see also K. Neilson, ‘Tsars and Commissars: W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden and Images of Russia in British Adventure Fiction, 1890–1930’, Canadian Journal of History xxvii, 4 (1992), pp. 475–500.
Quotes from N. Schebeko, Souvenirs: Essai historique sur les origines de la guerre de 1914 (Paris, 1936), p. 175; FO 800/372, Nicolson MSS., Buchanan to Nicolson, 21 Jan. 1914.
J. Siegel, Endgame: Britain, Russia and the Final Struggle for Central Asia (London, 2002), pp. 175–96, gives a flavour of the problems.
BL, Bertie MSS., Add MS 63035, memo. Bertie, 18 Dec. 1914. For an in-depth discussion see K. Neilson, Strategy and Supply: The Anglo-Russian Alliance, 1914–1917 (London, 1984), pp. 49–51.
NLS, Haldane MSS., MS 5913, Grey to Haldane, 25 Mar. 1917. For the Radical critique of Grey see inter alios, H. Weinroth, ‘British Radicals and the Balance of Power, 1902–1914’, Historical Journal xiii, 4 (1970), 653–82.
Temperley MSS., (private), Temperley diary, 3 Dec. [1917] (summarising Buchanan’s views). See also P. Gatrell, Russia’s First World War: A Social and Economic History (Harlow, 2005), pp. 197–242.
For the impact of 1917 on the alliance see K. Neilson, ‘The Breakup of the Anglo-Russian Alliance: The Question of Supply in 1917’, International History Review iii, 1 (1981), pp. 62–75.
For a discussion see K. Neilson, ‘“That elusive entity British policy in Russia”: The Impact of Russia on British Policy at the Paris Peace Conference’, M.L. Dockrill and J. Fisher (eds), The Paris Peace Conference: Peace without Victory? (Basingstoke and New York, 2001), pp. 67–102.
As quoted in Lord Beaverbrook, The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George (London, 1963), p. 292.
H.W.V. Temperley (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference at Paris (6 vols., 1920) i, pp. 233–5, gives a flavour of contemporary thinking.
For a scholarly discussion see R.H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917–1921 i, Intervention and the War (Princeton, NJ, 1961), pp. 168–229.
Lloyd George to Churchill, 4 Aug. 1920, M. Gilbert, Winston Churchill, vol. iv, companion vol. pt. 2 (London, 1976), p. 1159;
see also S. White, Britain and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Study in the Politics of Diplomacy, 1920–1924 (London, 1979), pp. 3–26.
FO 371/5433/N2448/207/38, memo. Curzon, ‘Russian Trade Negotiations, 14 Nov. 1920. Despite such differences, there was much common ground between the two men, see K.O. Morgan, Consensus and Disunity: The Lloyd George Coalition Government, 1918–1922 (Oxford, 1979), p. 114.
G.H. Bennett, British Foreign Policy during the Curzon Period, 1919–1924 (London, 1995), pp. 65–7 et passim, provides an excellent survey.
DBFP, i/xvii, no. 38, memo. Crowe, 12 Feb. 1921. For a further discussion of some of this see K. Neilson, ‘“Pursued by a Bear”: British Estimates of Soviet Military Strength and Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1922–1939’, Canadian Journal of History xxviii, 2 (1993), pp. 189–221.
CAB 24/106, min. Curzon, 27 May 1920. CAB 23/21, Cabinet conclusions, 28 May 1920. For a further discussion see also E. Maisel, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1919–1926 (Brighton, 1994), pp. 66–67.
On the domestic scene see W. Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain, 1900–1921: The Origins of British Communism (London, 1969), pp. 220–83.
CAB 23/45, Cabinet conclusions, 2 May 1923, app. I. The exchanges can be followed in DBFP, i/xxv. See also H.G. Nicolson, Curzon: The Last Phase, 1919–1925 (London, 1934), pp. 356–60.
G. Bennett, “A most extraordinary and mysterious business”: The Zinoviev Letter of 1924 (London, 1999) provides the most authoritative account of the affair.
Min. Chamberlain, 3 Jan. 1925, as quoted in J.R. Ferris, Men, Money, and Diplomacy: The Evolution of British Strategic Foreign Policy, 1919–1926 (Ithaca, NY, 1989), p. 155.
Chamberlain to Hilda, 27 Feb. 1927, R.C. Self (ed.), The Austen Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Correspondence of Sir Austen Chamberlain and His Sisters Hilda and Ida, 1916–1937 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 310. See also Neilson, Collapse, pp. 53–5.
Quotes from CAB 4/15, memo. Tyrrell, ‘Foreign Policy in Relation to Russia and Japan’, 26 July 1926; and C. Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London, 1985), p. 328. For the severing of relations see Ibid., ‘British Intelligence and the Breach with Russia in 1927’, Historical Journal xxv, 3 (1982), pp. 457–64.
V. ibid. iii/v, no. 609, tel. Halifax to Seeds (no. 117), 24 May 1939. For a thorough discussion see Z.S. Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark: European International History, 1933–1939 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 671–726.
J.L. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York, 1972), p. 31.
Curzon MSS., Mss. Eur. F. 112/1B, Salisbury to Curzon, 23 Dec. 1897. For some discussion of this See T.G. Otte, ‘“Chief of all Offices”: High Politics, Finance, and Foreign Policy, 1865–1914’, B. Simms and W. Mulligan (eds), The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000 (Basingstoke and New York, 2010), pp. 232–48.
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Otte, T.G. (2013). ‘A Very Internecine Policy’: Anglo-Russian Cold Wars before the Cold War. In: Baxter, C., Dockrill, M.L., Hamilton, K. (eds) Britain in Global Politics Volume 1. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137367822_2
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