Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 35. (1982)

WILSON, Keith: Isolating the Isolator. Cartwright, Grey and the seduction of Austria-Hungary 1908–1912

Isolating the Isolator

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they of imperial competition that they admitted, privately, in late 1908 and early 1909, that they would be unable to avoid participating on the Russian side in any war that the Balkan situation produced61). For the same reason they could not exert any concrete pressure at St Petersburg in the direction of self-restraint, especially where Russian interests were so much more directly concerned than their own. Mediation in these circumstances would expose them to accusations of disloyalty that they could ill afford, and would risk the loss of Russia and the isolation not of Germany but of themselves.

It was no good Cartwright suggesting that Britain put herself forward as the Power through which an Austro-Russian rapprochement might be brought about. It was not in British interests that there should be any such rapprochement62). It is instructive to look at what Hardinge wrote to correspondents other than Cartwright on these questions. For elsewhere he admitted that rivalry between Aehrenthal and Isvolsky was ‘considerably to our advantage’ 63). It helped to maintain bad relations between Germany and Russia which, again, were ‘very much to our advantage’64). It fulfilled Hardinge’s forecast of October 1907 that Russia and Germany would not find it easy to work together in the Near East65). Examples of friction between Germany and Austria on the one hand and Russia on the other were welcomed by him, and he positively rejoiced at the fact that Germany’s brutal treatment of Isvolsky in 1909 as of Delcassé in 1905 was consolidating the Triple Entente66). Consolidation of the Triple Entente was the objective of British diplomacy. This objective was incompatible with Aehrenthal’s idea, outlined in one of Cartwright’s letters, of using Austria as a ‘regulator’ *“). For, on that principle, the stronger the Triple Entente became, the more Vienna would close with Berlin; whilst improved Austro-Russian relations meant, by definition, a weak Triple Entente. The choice, for Great Britain, was not between the isolation of Germany and German domination of the continent. It was between Austria and Russia. Cartwright’s policies were therefore out of the question. The British let the Germans down easy in order to let themselves down still more easily.

Cartwright had the grand style. His contribution to the great diplomatic game clearly indicated, as St Aulaire noticed, ‘[qu’il] ne s’affranchit pas tout a fait de l’idéologie dans le domaine de la politique extérieure, qui est sur- tout celui des contingences’67). Though he had once impressed Hardinge and

61) Hardinge MSS vol. 13: Hardinge to Nicolson 11 November 1908; Cartwright MSS: Hardinge to Cartwright 26 January, 6 April 1909.

62) Ibid.: Hardinge to Cartwright 29 June 1909.

63) Hardinge MSS vol. 13: Hardinge to Graham 23 October 1908 (copy).

M) Ibid. vol. 17: Hardinge to Goschen 25 May 1909 (copy).

65) BD 4 605: Minute by Hardinge 28 October 1907.

66) Bodleian Library Oxford Bryce MSS USA vol. 27: Hardinge to Bryce 21 February 1908; Hardinge MSS vol. 17: Hardinge to Goschen 25 May 1909 (copy).

66a) Cartwright MSS: Cartwright to Nicolson 21 July 1911.

67) See footnote 47.