Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 35. (1982)
WILSON, Keith: Isolating the Isolator. Cartwright, Grey and the seduction of Austria-Hungary 1908–1912
Isolating the Isolator 179 Gibson-Bowles’ and Mallet’s prescription not applied? Why did London forbear to isolate the isolator? It is hardly enough to suggest that the British were too gentlemanly to respond in kind; that they refused on principle to emulate the ungentlemanly conduct of Germany, eschewing the making of mischief for the moral satisfaction of leaving Germany isolated in this respect at least. It is hardly enough to suggest that the British were themselves so afraid of a state of isolation that they would, not consciously impose such a state on anyone else; that out of fellow feeling, sheer humanity, they refrained from pushing an institution (the Triple Alliance) for the fall of which they were mentally, if in no other way, prepared (Hardinge did not expect the Triple Alliance to be renewed by Italy in 1911)49). Only tiny amounts of these elements may have been present. It is not enough to take Collier’s and Spicer’s fears that an isolated Germany would run amok, and Grey’s endorsement of this, at their face value. Even the British Foreign Office had picked up, and pointed out, the obvious: that any Napoleonic tendencies on Germany’s part would be met by a coalition of Napoleonic proportions50). The Foreign Secretary, moreover, did not think at the time that the British Isles were in any danger from Germany: in November 1908 he was congratulating himself on the fact that ‘we were the one Power that was out of her reach’51). The same applies to Grey’s stated wish not to disturb the ‘fair equilibrium’ that then existed. For given the intimacy between Italy and France, of which the British were well aware52), that any sort of equilibrium of two sets of three units existed was an illusion quite as great as, though more deliberate than, Gibson-Bowles’ that the Anglo-French Agreement was intended to be a contribution to the balance of power in Europe. Nor does the explanation suffice that in London they were afraid of losing the moderating influence that Austria might exert from within the Triple Alliance. That she might play such a role had been pointed out by diplomatists other than Cartwright53); it was, moreover, a role that she would have played under one of Cartwright’s variants. Rather, such optimism was entirely discounted all along. One of the first despatches that Grey received from Vienna took the line that ‘as regards the Foreign Policy of Austria- Hungary it is scarcely too much to say that she is well under the thumb of Germany’, and it was to this line that the Foreign Secretary adhered54). The Comte de St. Aulaire might credit Austria with ‘action modératrice . . . 49) PRO FO 371/599/6296: Minute by Hardinge 16 February 1909. 50) BD 3 414f: Memo by Crowe 1 January 1907. 51) BD 5 (1928) no. 441: Grey to Nicolson 10 November 1908. 52) See PRO FO 371/267/5107: Egerton to Grey 12 February 1907, minutes by Crowe, Hardinge, Grey; 371/682/109: Rodd to Grey 28 December 1908. 53) PRO FO 371/8/41858: Boothby (Vienna) to Grey 8 December 1906. 54) PRO FO 800/40 (Grey MSS): Goschen (Vienna) to Grey 13 December 1905, 19 April 1907. 12'
