172. Liberals back, great power tensions too

Arthur Balfour’s intention in resigning as Prime Minister but without a general election was probably to oblige Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman to form a government, which might force their divisions to the surface. That would weaken their chances in an election that was bound to be held soon.

There was a curious symmetry between the divisions in the main parties. The Liberals were split three ways over the Boer War. Liberal Imperialist right wing backed Britain’s military intervention, while the left, sometimes called pro-Boer, opposed it, and in the middle a group around the leader accepted the need for war but denounced its most brutal aspects (such as the concentration camps).

Meanwhile, the Unionists were split three ways over tariff reform. The ‘wholehoggers’ backed a full system of import tariffs to protect British trade, the free traders wanted to stick with the old doctrine of tariff-free commerce, and a group around the leader accepted the need for reform but wanted to proceed more cautiously.

Unfortunately, tariff reform was topical while the war had been over for three years. The Liberals were able to unite in attacking the government, specifically over tariff reform. And they won their last landslide in the 1906 election.

Despite the end of the Boer War, the new Liberal government faced a world haunted by the spectre of renewed war. There was uncertainty over who the enemy would be if a new war broke out. The traditional enemy was France, and Britain likes its traditions. But an increasing threat was now coming from across the North Sea in Germany. Politicians and even novelists (the latter best represented by Erskine Childers and his Riddle of the Sands) were beginning to warn that the German threat was the more serious.

The entente cordiale with France in 1904 showed Britain beginning to move closer to France and further away from Germany. Then Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany showed up in Tangier in Morocco, making a speech designed to provoke France, and tensions quickly grew. The conference that ended the crisis failed to address Germany’s issues. That made Tangier just the first of a series of crises that set two groupings of European great powers increasingly at odds with each other.

Finally, this episode also talks about a small step forward in the ugliest of the European colonies in Africa, Congo. Again with a link to a novel.

Illustration: A 1904 British cartoon on the Entente cordiale: John Bull (Britain) walking off arm-in-arm with Marianne (France), turning their back on Wilhelm II of Germany, whose sabre is poking out of his coat. A Punch cartoon by John Bernard Partridge.

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.