N°

theory of modern times has been more dangerous to the prestige and influence for good of any given nation than that embodied in the now classic and familiar phrase, “Perfidious Albion," as applied to the underlying motives of the Continental policy of Great Britain. Firmly established in France since the French Revolution, and expanded and intensified by the rancor of Germany, balked in her designs of crippling and dividing France, it grew beyond the Rhine into a credo of hatred through the embittered utterances of Treitschke, was given constant expression in Germany's foreign policy, which aimed at England's isolation, and burst forth with volcanic fury when Great Britain intervened in the war to save France.

In a long and carefully documented review of the subject Professor W. Alison Phillips, in the January issue of the Edinburgh Review, has investigated the origin and growth of the whole legend, and marshals a considerable body of evidence to prove that it is a legend, and nothing more. That the existence of such a belief was momentous he has no doubt at all. "It is worth while," he

says, to inquire into the origins of a legend which has had so profound and terrible an effect upon international relations."

The height which this fever of hatred and distrust reached in Germany is brought out by citation of the remarkable memorandum addressed by the exKaiser to Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg on July 30, 1914, in which Wilhelm declared that, in spite of all efforts to prevent it, the " encirclement" of Germany, plotted by King Edward VII., had become an accomplished fact; and that a situation had been created which gave England the desired pretext for destroying Germany, "with the hypocritical semblance of justice presented by helping France to maintain the notorious balance of power in Europe." All these machinations, he said, must now be unsparingly laid bare, and "the mask of Christian peaceableness openly and violently torn from them in public.” Finally, the whole Mohammedan world must be incited to a savage uprising against this hated, lying, unscrupulous nation of hucksters."

66

Professor Phillips comments on this as follows:

* *

*

At first sight this language suggests that the Kaiser's mind had become unhinged; but if so, there was method in his madness. There was even something more; for it is possible to detect in this insensate outpouring of hatred against England a note of sincerity and of a conviction that is more than the outcome of mere individual prejudice. And indeed, the Kaiser's language was not his own, but a mere echo of what he had been taught as a boy, and of what all other German boys of his age and generation had been taught, about the character of England and the selfishness and unscrupulousness of her foreign policy. There is plentiful evidence that in using this language the Emperor was at one with his people, whose long pent-up hatred of England burst forth in an amazing torrent of vituperation the moment the floodgates were opened by the British declaration of war.*

A manifestation SO unbridled and SO disreputable came with a shock of surprise to the English. They would have been less surprised had they known that for two generations past the German people had been methodically taught that England, as a power, had always been mercenary, selfish and cowardly; that she had consistently abused her insular position, her policy having always been to set the continental peoples by the ears in order that, herself safe behind her "moat," she might be able to profit by the exhaustion of her rivals to extend her colonial empire, and secure a virtual monopoly of the world's wealth. It has to be remembered, too, that this legendfor legend it is-has been in the past by no means confined to Germany. Before the war it was equally current in France, and it is only since the war that French historians have begun to suspect the fundamental misconception underlying the traditional estimate of la perfide Albion.

Even with the object lessons of the war before them, not all have been able to rid themselves of their inherited prejudices. M. Edouard Driault, for instance, in a volume published in 1917, at the very time when the British blockade was forcing Germany to loosen the grip that was strangling France, declared: "It is certain that Napoleon (in the proclamation of the Continental blockade) represented right, strict right, natural right, against the indefensible misuse which England made of her supremacy at sea.' It is, then, not surprising that the legend of the peculiar unscrupulousness and hypocrisy of British foreign policy should have been widely accepted on the Continent, since the selfishness and perfidy of

England were the stock themes of both French and German publicists.

HISTORY OF THE LEGEND Tracing down the origin of the legend and its development through the nineteenth century, this writer finds its first evidence in the France of the Revolution. The political dogma formulated by Montesquieu even before the Revolution, that the republic, per se, was Virtue, brought the inescapable corollary that all opposers of the republic were open to criminal reproach. Hence, from the moment the convention resumed the traditional French policy of aggression in the Netherlands, and incurred thereby the enmity of Great Britain, it followed logically that English statesmen were, of all other statesmen of Europe, the most destitute of moral principle. The attacks of Barrère and Robespierre in the convention sound today like the antiBritish onslaughts of the Germans. is this Government which uses the treasures of India to enslave Europe," declared Barrère, "the benefits of commerce to destroy freedom, the favor of social relations to corrupt men, and the tributes of the people to compass the death of Frenchmen." "It is in England," asserted Robespierre on May 7, 1794, "that Machiavellianism has pushed this royal doctrine (that honest men are of no use to Kings) to the highest degree of perfection."

"It

This legend of la perfide Albion, spread under the republic in countless orations, in official documents, in books and polemical pamphlets, was seized joyously by Napoleon as a multiple confirmation of his hatred of the British, whom he had contemptuously stigmatized as" a nation of shopkeepers." Deliberately, according to this writer, he employed a host of hired scribblers to spread the legend throughout the Continent. The object of Napoleon, who, like William II., recognized in that impassable moat the unscalable barrier to the consummation of his dream of world dominion, was clearly evident in his stirring up in all Europe a clamor for the "freedom of the seas." Such isolated voices as that of the German, Friedrich von Gentz, who protested that Britain was the guarantor of the liberties of Europe, and that it

was British sea power which stood between Europe and slavery, were voices crying in a German wilderness.

THE LEGEND IN GERMANY

One might have supposed that the common effort at Waterloo would have mitigated the virulence of the legend in Germany. If it survived and persisted, stronger than ever, this was due to the trend of policy pursued by the British statesmen in 1814 and 1815. Realizing the rapacity of Prussia's designs on France, a danger to the world which must be diverted, they successfully opposed demands including the partition of France, the restoration to Germany of Alsace and Lorraine, and the calling into being of a formidable German confederation, planned to englobe both Switzerland and the Netherlands. Disappointed and enraged, Prussian patriots heaped abuse on Britain and accused her of desiring to throw the Continent into new convulsions for her own profit. So the old legend was revived, notably by the great Prussian soldier Gneisenau, in a memorandum addressed to Emperor Alexander I. Professor Phillips says in this connection:

Although Treitschke did not create the legend, he did more than any other man to give it a wide currency in modern Germany. His influence during the critical formative period of the new German Empire was enormous, and until his death, in 1896, he used this influence to destroy the admiration surviving among German Liberals for England and English institutions, in order to establish in its place the worship of the Prussian militarist ideal In season and out of season, in his historical works, in his professorial lectures, in the pages of his "Preussische Jahrbücher," and doubtless also as the future Emperor's tutor, he played endless variations on the theme of England's "shamelessness" (die Unverschämtheit Englands), and the blindness of her so-called democracy by huckster's egotism" (Krämeregoismus).

Such is the legend of la perfide Albion

as originated in Revolutionary France and developed by German hatred. This legend was undoubtedly favored by Great Britain's traditional foreign policy, though that policy, rightly understood, intimates Professor Phillips, is the libel's most convincing refutation. He con

tinues:

It is true that from time to time England has been content "to revolve in her own orbit," sometimes with disturbing effect on the European system. But sooner or later an irresistible force has drawn her back into her predestined place as what Montesquieu called the puissance exécutrice of Europe and the guardian of its liberties. Even Mr. Gladstone, though of all British statesmen the one most disposed to avoid " continental entanglements," realized the existence of this force.

THE BRITISH TRADITION

The most striking thing in the history of British foreign policy, continues the writer, is the almost unbroken continuity of this great tradition. In 1694 Lord Halifax laid down the prime condition of British security in the following phrase: "Look to your moat. The first article of an Englishman's creed must be that he believeth in the sea." In 1800 Pitt explained the fundamental cause of the war with France as "security against a danger which threatened all the nations of the earth." The moral authority of Great Britain in the councils of Europe was founded on the general conviction that in certain vital respects her interests and those of the Continental peoples were identical. England might be safe behind her moat, but she would remain so only so long as no power should arise strong enough to dispute her mastery of the seas. She was thus forced into the position of protector of the "balance of power " which was universally recognized as the conservative basis of the European States system. This position, though motivated by "security," brought with it moral consequences of the greatest importance; it made Great Britain the champion of the rights of weaker States, and the champion of the sanctity of the treaties by which these rights were secured. pursuit of this policy sometimes involved war, but it was not a warlike policy.

The

When, mainly through Great Britain, Napoleon's power was brought low, the island nation made it clear that she had no intention of using her enhanced prestige for selfish ends. "The wish of the Government," wrote Castlereagh on Feb. 6, 1814, "is to connect its interests in peace and war with those of the continent." While the state of Europe afforded little hope of a better order of things, Great Britain had no other course left than to create an independent position for herself; but now that she might look forward to a return to ancient principles, she was ready to make the necessary sacrifices to reconstruct a balance in Europe. In accordance with this intention, she presented a long list of the conquered colonies which she was prepared to restore to France and Holland. This action created a profound impression, and gave her a prestige which enabled her to mediate successfully between the violently conflicting interests at Vienna, to prevent a renewal of war, and to bring about the settlement of 1815, which remained the foundation of peace for nearly fifty years.

To preserve the balance of power thus re-established, and the treaties on which it was based, was the guiding principle of British Continental policy for many years. As an effective means to this end, it was deemed wise by British statesmen to preserve the "Grand Alliance which, originally concluded between the four powers and directed against France, was given wider scope in 1815 and converted in 1818 into an alliance of all five Continental great powers by the admission of France. It soon became clear, however, that there was a fundamental difference of principle between Great Britain and the Continental allies in this League. From the first the British statesmen protested against the attempts of the autocratic powers, terrified by sporadic symptoms of revolutionary unrest, to exalt the alliance into a kind of super-tribunal, armed with vague powers for the maintenance of the status quo. And when

this claim was actually formulated by the three autocratic powers at Troppau,

in 1820, Great Britain protested vigorously, and proclaimed the principle of non-intervention as a cardinal doctrine of British foreign policy; that is to say, the right of nations to manage their own affairs so long as they do not offend against their neighbors.

It was the assertion of this principle that led to the first breach (and eventually to complete separation) between Great Britain and the Continental Alliance. When, at the Congress of Verona in 1822, it was proposed to give royalist France a European mandate to suppress the Liberal, system in Spain, Great Britain protested, and when her protests were unheeded withdrew her representative from the conferences. After Castlereagh's death Canning proclaimed anew all the well-known principles of Britain's policy. Under Palmerston occurred the events connected with the successful revolt, in 1830, of the Belgians against the union with Holland imposed on them in 1815. For two years Palmerston's diplomacy prevented the outbreak of a general European war over this dispute. When, finally, in 1832, a British squadron and a French army cooperated in forcing the Dutch to evacuate the citadel of Antwerp, and to retire behind the frontiers assigned to Holland by the powers, this action was interpreted by the autocratic nations as fresh proof of the "perfidiousness" of Great Britain, and in September, 1833, the meeting of Münchengratz proclaimed their resolve to draw together in support of the sacred principles of the Holy Alliance.

THE EUROPEAN BALANCE The situation thus created was commented upon by Palmerston as follows:

The division of Europe into two camps is the result of events beyond our control, and is the result of the French Revolution of July. What they really complain of is not the existence of two camps but the equality of the two camps. The plain English of it is, that they want to have England on their side against France, that they may dictate to France as they did in 1814 and 1815; and they are provoked beyond measure at the steady proBut tection France has derived from us. it is that protection which has preserved the peace of Europe. Without it there would long ago have been a general war.

With the revolutionary years 1848 and 1849, which saw the rise of Louis Napoleon to power, the relations of Great Britain and the Continent entered on a new phase. These years heralded the break-up of the old order in Europe, and marked the beginning of that universal clash of national ideals which, in the next twenty years, was to lead to the creation of the German Empire and of United Italy. Palmerston, though favoring oppressed nationalities, still pursued the tradition of the balance of power. He favored Italian aspirations only because he believed the amputation of the Italian provinces would strengthen Austria for her proper life work as the guardian of the west against the overgrown power of Russia. He refused to intervene on behalf of Hungarian independence. The attempts of Great Britain to combine the championship of the weaker nations with her traditional policy gave fresh life to the old legend, contradicted by the whole attitude of England at the opening of the second half of the nineteenth century, when she came out in favor of free trade, that is to say, unfettered intercourse between nations.

ENGLAND'S WEAK POLICY

It was England's very desire for peace which, after Lord Palmerston's retirement in December, 1851, caused a weakness of policy that had regrettable consequences. There would have been no Crimean war, says Professor Phillips, if Great Britain had made it clear from the first that she would resist in arms any attack by Russia on the Ottoman Empire. Her very peaceableness, emphasized by the pacifist propaganda of Cobden and Bright, completely deceived Czar Nicholas as to the temper of the British people. The fault of the British attitude was not that it was perfidious, but that it was weak. In 1854 this weakness was partly due to the weakness of the army and navy. The Crimean war and the Indian mutiny still further exhausted Great Britain's strength. A greater firmness was displayed in 1860 when Lord John Russell proclaimed the sympathy of England with the cause of Italian independence; and again when

Great Britain refused to join her naval forces with those of France in order to prevent Garibaldi and his thousand from crossing the Strait of Messina; but Russell's protest in the name of the treaties, against the treatment meted out to Poland by the Emperor Nicholas after the insurrection of 1863, helped the Poles not at all, and earned for Great Britain a humiliating snub, followed by another of the same kind encountered by an equally futile protest in 1864 against the seizure of the Danish duchies by the German powers. Thus England's prestige, as Disraeli said in the House of Commons, was noticeably lowered. Bismarck shaped his policy accordingly, and, availing himself of Louis Napoleon's restless efforts to secure compensations in Luxemburg and the Netherlands for the aggrandizement of Prussia, drove England into an angry neutrality when the attack on France was launched in 1870 by publishing the celebrated draft treaty, drawn up by the French Ambassador Benedetti, under the terms of which Belgium was, under certain contingencies, to be annexed to France. Great Britain then intervened only to safeguard the neutrality of Belgium, and left France to meet her fate alone.

THE GERMAN MENACE

From the time of the crushing defeat of France and the consolidation of the German Empire in 1871, until the creation of the new entente with France in 1904, Great Britain, says Professor Phillips, can hardly be said to have had a Continental policy at all. The treaties had been torn to pieces; the balance of power had ceased to be. The power of the German Empire now surpassed that of any other State. Four years later it was still more strengthened by the alliance with Austria, which in 1882 became the Triple Alliance by the adhesion of Italy. Great Britain accepted the situation and turned her attention to the East.

With the Congress of Berlin, in 1878, the chapter of European history which opened in 1815 may be said to have closed. In the scramble for world power which began in the eighties, the storm centre was transferred to Egypt, Tunis,