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Gladstone as "Troublemaker": Liberal Foreign Policy and the German Annexation of
Alsace-Lorraine, 1870-1871
Author(s): Deryck Schreuder
Source: Journal of British Studies , Spring, 1978, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Spring, 1978), pp. 106-
135
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The North American
Conference on British Studies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/175393
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Gladstone as "Troublemaker": Liberal
Foreign Policy and the German
Annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, 1870-1871
DERYCK SCHREUDER
"I think it my duty ... to cherish respect and sympathy for

every foreign state, without exception and distinction.
"But, when there is apparent reason to believe they are
prosecuting schemes adverse to liberty beyond their own
borders, then, as I have tried in former times, so I will now
raise up moral forces as far as in me lies, to defeat their
aims... .
Gladstone to Lord Reay,1

9 April 1880.
"He was by nature an interferer, by training a man of Power,"

A. J. P. Taylor remarked of Gladstone in his noted Oxford Ford
Lectures on "Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1791-1939," later pub-
lished as The Troublemakers. He continued: "Press Bright's policy
to its conclusion and you arrive at isolation, inaction except in the
case of actual invasion. Press Gladstone's doctrine to its conclu-
sion; and you have universal interference, as the Radicals discov-
ered too late."2 This view of Gladstone's contribution to the foreign
policy of Victorian England is highly attractive. It stresses the
ethical basis for much of his "conscience politics;" and it points to
the laudable actions of liberals in championing the cause of "na-
tional self-determination"- "peoples struggling to be free" - in
nineteenth-century Europe. So far so good. But is it right to make
a direct connection between liberal sympathies for nationality and
the actual use of British power or prestige abroad? Indeed, is it
true that Gladstone's "moral fervour tempted him to universal in-
terference?" And if it is valid, did Gladstone always get his own
way in the Cabinet? Should we not perhaps put more store in Pro-
fessor C. J. Lowe's less exciting, but more exacting suggestion, that
"Gladstone's personal theory of foreign policy . . . was a complete
contrast to that of Disraeli and Salisbury but, partly due to Whig
restraint, the difference in practice was barely noticeable?"3 In
1. British Library, Gladstone to Reay, 9 April 1880, Gladstone Papers, Add.
MS 44,463.
2. A. J. P. Taylor, The Troublemakers; Dissent over Foreign Policy 1792-
1939 (London, 1957), pp. 65, 67.
3. C. J. Lowe, The Reluctant Imperialists; British Foreign Policy, 1878-1902,
(London, 1967), p. 21.

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GLADSTONE AS "TROUBLEMAKER" 107
short, are we listening too closely to Gladstonian rhetoric, an

lying too heavily on the sympathetic pages of Morley and
mond, and not looking hard enough at the formulation of Li
foreign policy; or was there indeed a distinctly Liberal style in
external policies of the Gladstonian governments?
These may be useful questions to ask at this time. The pro
of "understanding Mr. Gladstone" is becoming a large con
among British political historians.4 The focus of that reapprai
however, largely domestic, directed towards examining his pla
the evolution and workings of the Liberal party, or probing
still half-shadowed world of his religious beliefs and practice
is thus at least arguable that it is now appropriate to take "ano
look" at Gladstonian foreign policy; and to examine again
some care and thought, in the light of our understanding of
Liberal politics, the real nature of Gladstone's contribution to
role of Great Britain as a major power - what he himself ter
a little misleadingly, "England's mission" abroad.5 And among
more valuable ways of proceeding would appear to be through
case-study, where we can give due weight to general Gladston
principles but not be swept away by Gladstonian rhetoric
where we can attempt to match ideas with cabinet politics, w
setting the whole within the yet larger framework of an inte
and sometimes excited "public opinion" working on the membe
government.
In the reaction of the first Gladstone administration to the
European crisis occasioned by the outbreak of the Franco-Pru
War--and notably within that period, the Gladstonian res
to the Bismarckian annexation of the French provinces of Al
and Lorraine--there appears just such a useful working ex
from which to draw some larger conclusions.6 Just as Pro
4. For a recent summary of research in progress, see D. A. Hamer, "U
standing Mr. Gladstone," The New Zealand Journal of History, vol. 6
(Oct., 1972), 115-28.
5. W. E. Gladstone, "England's Mission," Nineteenth Century (Sept.
See also C. C. Eldridge, England's Mission.' The Imperial Idea in the Ag
Gladstone and Disraeli 1868-80 (London, 1973), pp. 226-31.
6. The broader context for this study can be found in: R. Millman, Br
Foreign Policy and the Coming of the Franco-Prussian War (Oxford, 1965);
W. E. Mosse, The European Powers and the German Question (Cambridge,
1958), pp. 312-67; Kenneth Bourne, The Foreign Policy of Victorian England,
1830-1902 (Oxford, 1970), pp. 119-25; D. N. Raymond, British Policy and
Opinion during the Franco-Prussian IWar (Columbia, 1921), esp. pp. 135 ff.;
A. A. W. Ramsay, Idealism and Foreign Policy; a Study of the Relations of Great
Britain with Germany and France, 1860-78 (London, 1925), pp. 276-357; Michael
Howard, The Franco-Prussian Wlar; the German Invasion of France, 1870-71
(London, 1962), esp. pp. 446-53; and C. J. Bartlett, "Clarendon, the Foreign
Office and the Hohenzollern Candidature, 1868-70," English Historical Review,

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108 THE JOURNAL OF BRITISH STUDIES
Peter Marsh has argued, in this Journal,7 for a larger moral element
in the development of certain of Lord Salisbury's European poli-
cies, so this essay would suggest, in reverse, that Gladstonian
foreign policy requires to be viewed in a more pragmatic and less
evocative light.
From the moment of its outbreak, Gladstone had viewed the

ravages and likely consequences of the Franco-Prussian War with
some despair. It was not merely the human and economic destruc-
tion which appalled him, and affronted his Liberal sensibilities, but
if the war had "unset . . . every joint of the compacted fabric of
Continental Europe,"8 then the legacy promised to be even more
damaging.
Gladstone had steadfastly kept the British out of the war it-
self.9 He had never believed that Britain could intervene effective-
ly to stop the war; and when the Queen tried (in Gladstone's
words) to press her government to forestall the conflict by the
"salutary effect to be produced by British threats in anticipation" of
a conflict, then the premier commented to Lord Clarendon, the
Foreign Secretary, that such intervention would be at the price of
neutrality and might even have a "stimulating effect" on the bellig-
erents.10 At no point had Gladstone denied British obligations to
Belgium under the 1839 agreement; but at no time did he feel that
unilateral action or armed intervention was the sole or best means
of fulfilling this obligation. Accordingly, on July 30, under Glad-
stone's direction, the Cabinet had "agreed that Lord Granville [the
new Foreign Secretary, in succession to Clarendon, who had died
the previous month] should ask each of these Powers respectively
[France and Prussia] whether it is willing not only to respect the
neutrality of Belgium, but to join us in upholding it, if it should
be invaded by another Power. . ."' In case of emergency, the
LXXV (April, 1960), 276-84. Any reassessment of Gladstone and foreign policy
muqt be-in with a debt to Paul Knaplund's Gladstone and Britain's Imperial
Policy (London, 1927) and The Foreign Policy of Mr. Gladstone (New York,
1935).
7. Peter Marsh, "Lord Salisbury and the Ottoman Massacres," Journal of
British Studies, vol. XI, no. 2, (May, 1972), 62-83.
8. W. E. Gladstone, "Germany, France and England," Edinburgh Review
(Oct., 1878).
9. Millman, British Policy and the Coming of the Franco-Prussian War, pp.
221-28.
10. Bodleian Library, Gladstone to Clarendon, 16 April 1869, Clarendon
Papers, c. 497, f. 151.
11. Gladstone to Queen Victoria, 30 July 1870, in P. Guedalla (ed.), The
Queen and Mr. Gladstone (London, 1933), I, 348-49.

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Cabinet prepared the British defences by agreeing to 'lay

Table [of the Commons] an Estimate for a vote of credit o
millions to increase our naval and military strength, and
authority to add 20,000 men to our army." The Law Officers o
government also re-examined the nature of British obligatio
Belgium, and reported that while the obligation was absol
was still a matter for the executive to decide how this respons
would be exercised.'2 In these circumstances Gladstone p
forward his policy of watchful neutrality: "I think all threa
are to be condemned. They are too commonly the resort of c
ards," he had already remarked to Clarendon.l3 He also sough
achieve the securing of Belgian independence. By pressing fo
"full gallop," as he put it, he assured these ends for British p
before further complications arose. On August 6, 1870, Glads
informed the Queen that Prussia was ready to accept the Bri
draft on Belgium, and it was duly signed three days later. Fr
was more tardy, and requested changes in the wording
draft document; but she too signed, on August 11.14 Granvil
marked of these proceedings: "I cannot doubt that this al
will act as a powerful check on either party. .. ." He was
Belgium was safe, and Gladstone was hugely relieved. The
raised by the Benedetti document-published in The Tim
July 25- was now thoroughly put to rest. The Gladstone gov
ment had fulfilled the guarantees without drawing an ill-pre
British people into war; and without giving favor to the Fra
philes in the Cabinet, or tilting towards the Queen's pass
Prussian sentiments. "It is not a question of Prussia agst. Fra
she had lectured Gladstone, "but of United Germany most un
fiably attacked, fighting for hearth and home. .. .'"1 But
Gladstonian administration had stayed so completely out o
war, could they be so sure that Gladstone himself would stay
lutely out of the "Peace"?
The official Prussian circular, containing a broad outline o
marck's proposed peace terms, was communicated to the
Powers on September 2.16 Moreover, for some weeks before
12. PRO, Law Officers to Granville, 2 Aug. 1870, FO 83/2234; M. Tem
and L. Pen,on, Foundations of British Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 193
138, pp. 340-41.
13. Bodleian, Gladstone to Clarendon, 28 April 1869, Clarendon Papers
497, f. 166.
14. Gladstone to Queen Victoria, 6 Aug. 1870 in Guedalla, Queen and
Gladstone, I, 251-52.
15. Queen to Gladstone, 19 July 1870, ihid., I, 241.
16. PRO, Bernstorff to Granville, 22 Sept. 1870, FO 64/706. Sent to W.E.G.
23 Sept. 1870.

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circular arrived- and indeed since the smashing defeat of

Mahon and the French army at Sedan on September 22--th
British and continental press had been alive with rumors of
"price" to be extorted from France for "causing" the war. G
stone, like other members of the government, quite expected fin
cial reparations, and possibly even small adjustments to the fro
tier for defence reasons, to be part of the peace. But what was
shake him, and much British opinion generally - Lord Salisbury
for example, wrote a stinging anonymous article in the Quarter
Review (October 1870) summing up this sense of outrage at
German terms- was the intimation that "certain areas" of a sub-
stantial nature were to be severed from France, and transferred
with their populations to Prussian rule. Gladstone took these re-
gions to mean specifically Alsace and Lorraine - with their great
fortress cities of Strasburg and Metz-and by every measure of
his understanding he took this to be both an unnecessary and im-
moral action.17
He had been partly forewarned of this unhappy contingency by

general speculation in the British papers and periodicals, and also
by a powerful set of letters from John Bright.18 As early as Septem-
ber 11, the great old Radical and Quaker had pointed out to Glad-
stone "the folly" of Germany "retaining French territory" once a
peace settlement was signed. As Bright argued, in words which
Gladstone later made his own, "to annex any part of France would
be to sow the seeds of yet another war at no distant period."19
This warning was gratefully received by Gladstone -"your letter
suggested a multitude of interesting considerations" -though he
felt, rather ironically as it transpired, that Bright had proposed dip-
lomatic action too blunt in its tone to be followed up: "to 'urge
strongly the folly of retaining French territory' upon a nation in
arms is a serious matter."20 Clearly, at this stage in events, in mid-
September, the Liberal leader was not yet prepared to commit
himself to any formal diplomatic "interference." He explained the
specific by a characteristic reference to general principle: "I am
persuaded that a great authority attaches to this country, but it
17. Gladstone to Granville, 23 Sept. 1870 in Agatha Ramm (ed.), The

Political Correspondence of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville, 1868-76 [Camden
3rd Series] (London, 1952), I, 130, n. 306.
18. John Bright (1811-89) was then President of the Board of Trade (1868-
70).
19. BL, Bright to Gladstone, 11 Sept. 1870, Gladstone Papers, Add. MS
44,112, f. 151.
20. Gladstone to Bright, 12 Sept. 1870, ibid.

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requires to be used with strict regard to the nature of the work it

is to do, as it may turn like a razor's edge ... ."
These niceties and reservations fell away in Gladstone's mind
very dramatically on September 23, when the British received the
official Bismarckian circular setting out the peace terms.21 Th
worst fears of the government were confirmed, and Gladstone him-
self was gripped with a determination to "do something." Bu
what? He soon ruled out the most prudent course. "The idea
had last night," he told Granville, "about silence on the Prussia
circular is indigestible: it weighs on me today."22 Yet other posi-
tive actions were less easy to discern. Gladstone certainly consid-
ered the value of simply accepting the Prussian terms in the first
instance, and then trying to work out some compromise once the
campaigns on the field were over. However, as he put it in two
crucial sentences,
it appears to me that Count Bismarck's paper raises ques-
tion of public right, in which all Europe has a common in-
terest, and that it is impossible for us to receive in silence
matters relating to such questions from the North German
Government. ... In such a case, silence, without caveat of
any kind entered, is an approach to acquiescence.23
The rumble of Gladstone's famed moral anger was discernible. Not
even Granville's most genial and pertinacious efforts could now
hold Gladstone back from vigorously opposing the proposed Prus-
sian action.24
With the concern of the moment still about him, Gladstone
directed his energies in two quite different directions. He attempt-
ed to rouse public opinion in Great Britain, by anonymous publi-
cation (in the October 1870 issue of the Edinburgh Review) of an
indiscreet, if hard-hitting article on "Germany, France and Eng-
land;" he also worked to move his Liberal government colleagues,
to an equal concern for the principle of nationality, by writing sev-
eral confidential Cabinet memoranda which presented an even
more powerful, damning, and caustic criticism of Bismarck's cir-
cular.25
21. Gladstone to Granville, 23 Sept. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville, I,

130. The Circular is dated 13 Sept. 1870, in FO 64/706.
22. Gladstone to Granville, 24 Sept. 1870, Ramm, Gladstone-Granville, 1,
130-31.
23. Gladstone to Granville, 25 Sept. 1870, ibid.
24. Granville to Gladstone, 26 Sept. 1870, ibid., and Gladstone to Queen
Victoria, 6 Aug. 1870, in Guedalla, Queen and Gladstone, I, 251-52.
25. BL, Gladstone memorandum, 25 Sept. 1870 (for Cabinet of 30 Sept.)
Add. MS 44,759, ff. 151-65.

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The article duly caused a sensation, not merely for its vehement
criticism of Prussia, and of Bismarck himself, but because its au-
thorship was one of the least well-kept secrets of the century. At
the core of the article was the fundamental principle on which
rested all Gladstone's later arguments for diplomatic intervention
over Alsace and Lorraine:
Of the whole sum of human life, no small part is that which

consists of a man's relations to his country, and his feelings
concerning it. To wrench a million and a quarter of a peo-
ple from the country to which they have belonged for some
two centuries, and carry them over to another country of
which they have been almost hereditary enemies, is a pro-
ceeding not to be justified in the eyes of the world and of
posterity by any mere assertion of power, without even the
attempt to show that security cannot be had by any other
process.26
Gladstone's high tone was coldly received by Bismarck. His writ-
ings were also coldly received by many British Liberals. Lord
Granville, who had read the "anonymous" article in proof -and
had taken some alarm at its contents, to the extent of trying to hold
the premier back from publication--flatly told Gladstone: "I
rather doubt our suggesting any terms of peace, unless at the par-
ticular moment when both parties wish for a solution." Such a
moment had not arrived, and "I would therefore postpone any
observations for which the circular might call for a more oppor-
tune moment."27
Gladstone declined to accept postponements. He called his
Cabinet together on September 30 and prepared to argue his case
for making protest against the actions; or even to work for the
creation of a "concert" of Powers, to block Bismarck's territorial
ambitions. Up to this point the Liberal government had taken a
remarkably united stand on British policy towards the Franco-
Prussian War.28 The unity was about to end abruptly. "To London,"
Lord Kimberley recorded in his Journal,
Gladstone wants to address a remonstrance to Germany
against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine contrary to the
wishes of the population, on the ground that it has become
26. Reprinted by W. E. Gladstone in Gleanings (London, 1878), IV, 241.
27. Granville to Gladstone, 26 Sept. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville, I,
132.
28. On 16 July they had unanimously agreed that England should remain
neutral; a week later they had oreanized the national defences; and on 6 Aug.
they had reaffirmed the Foreign Enlistment Act. BL, Gladstone Cabinet notes, Add.
MS 44,638, ff. 106, 108, 119. Also, 3 Hansard 202: 1300-13.

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the settled practice in Europe not to transfer territory f

one state to another without the consent of the inhabita
witness the plebiscite in the case of Savoy. Lord Gran
is entirely opposed to this course. Rightly I think.29
Gladstone lost the argument in the Cabinet, a majority of min
apparently feeling-in Kimberley's lucid language-that a
monstrance which, if disregarded, is not to be backed up by f
could have no effect but to cause ill feeling towards us on the
of Germany and to expose us to general ridicule on the C
nent."30 The debate was clearly pretty heated. "Quite exh
after the longest fight I have ever had against Gladstone
Granville's lively description in a letter of that night to his
"The losses were great; the killed and wounded innumerab
I remained in possession of the field, and the Cabinet. He wa
to declare our views on the conditions of peace; I was against
ing so."31
But even if Gladstone had lost that battle, he had, in fact, been
able to move the Cabinet to address itself to the possibility of a
"second strategy" beyond a mere "remonstrance" -namely, a pro-
test by the collective voice of neutral powers. His Cabinet notes
state plainly, in summary of the discussion:
1. No sole action.
2. No offer to negotiate.
3. No ... . [proceeding] without Russia as well as other
principal Powers.
4. No active intervention.
On these G[ranville]., and W. E. G[ladstone]., are
agreed.32
In short, if Gladstone now acquired Russian, and possibly Austrian

support too, could the Cabinet still stand out against his determina-
29. A Journal of Events during the Gladstone Ministry, 1868-74 by John,
First Earl of Kimberley, ed. Ethel Drus [Camden Miscellany, XXI] (London,
1958); entry for 30 Sept. 1870, 18-19.
30. Cabinet at 3 p.m.; 14 ministers present, and 2 absent (Childers and
Bright); 11 sided with Granville's 'wait-and-see' posture (Granville, Kimberley,
Argyll, Hartington, Cardwell, Lowe, Forte'cue, plus 3 minor ministers) as against
4 for the Gladstone 'remonstrance' (W.E.G., Gosch.en, Forster, Halifax). The
absence of Bright and Childers was not crucial so far as numbers went, for they
would probably have cancelled each other out- Bright "for," Childers "against."
BL, Gladstone Cabinet papers, 30 Sept. 1870, Add. MS 44,635, f. 123; and Kim-
berley's Journal, 18-19.
31. Granville to his wife, 30 Sept. 1870. Lord E. Fitzmaurice, Life of Lord
Granville, 2 vols. (London, 1905), II, 62.
32. BL, Gladstone Cabinet notes, Add. MS 44,638, f. 123. Also Add. MS
44,759, f. 166.

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tion to oppose the Bismarckian plans? He simply declined to let

the matter rest. Not for nothing had he, in his Cabinet memoran-
dum on the Prussian Circular, described the proposed transfer of
Alsace and Lorraine against the wishes of its inhabitants as being
"repulsive to the sense of modern civilization." Indeed, within
hours of the Cabinet, Gladstone was writing to Granville that he
was "much oppressed with the idea that this transfer of human be-
ings like chattels should go forward," without "any voice from
collective Europe if it be disposed to speak." The more he thought
on the matter, the more he was moved to see the necessity of
"protest":
I am bound to own that I find the [Cabinet] decision rather
indigestible. Not on account of the reply to France, who has
made the wrong appeal, and not made it on the right
ground. What in this view I am most afraid of is that if, as
seems not unlikely, France should collapse like the Southern
States of America, she will make a sudden peace abandon-
ing these people with the same indifference to their feelings
as Bismarck seems to have professed in claiming them: and a
most mischievous wrong will have been done and will be
beyond recall, without a word from anybody.33
In this rearguard action Gladstone was not alone. John Bright,
absent from the vital Cabinet, now lifted his great moralizing voice
to protest against the decis;on on grounds of his own: as Gladstone
remarked to Granville, he "leans rather to the 'Inviolability of soil';
rather recalling the memory of his former words 'Perish Savoy'."
Further, an even more cogent assault came from the usually con-
servative pen of Goschen, then President of the Poor Law Board.
He supported Gladstone's policy as:
1. being right and just in itself.
2. opening a moral campaign in Eurone against Bismarck-
ism, militaryism and retrograde political morality.
3. giving a lead to opinion in this country, at a moment
when everybody is at sea, and grounding our actions and
our sympathies not on preference for one of the com-
batants, but on political truth.34
He also made out an intriguing thesis of party-political advantage

to be gained by decisive action. He argued from the premise that
33. Gldghtone to Granville, 4 Oct. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville, I,
137 (from Hawarden).
34. PRO, Goschen to Granville, 3 Oct. 1870, Granville Papers, GD 29/54.
See also BL, Bright to Gladstone, 3 Oct. 1870, Add. MS 44,112, f. 155.

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at "present half the party [are] unsympathetic with Pruss

the remainder, especially the left wing, begin to feel strong
France," and that therefore, a "principle on which we mu
agree, boldly accepted by the government and put out autho
tively as part of the creed of the party, would I think be of
service."35
Against this forceful case, Granville stood his ground with
markable tenacity. To Goschen he replied politely - "1,000 th
for your letter" - but he would not budge from what he saw
expediency of the matter-"at present firing this shot in t
would only complete the anger of the Germans and encourag
French to hold out."36 And, within a short space of time Gran
also faced still more forceful letters from the premier. Glad
was now fascinated with the idea of demilitarizing the border
inces as a way of avoiding large-scale annexation. Gladston
drew the Queen within the range of his campaign. "With rega
the principle of action", he wrote to Victoria on October 5, "
things are pretty clear":
First, that the neglect to take into account . . feelings a
attachments in former distributions of territory has cau
much disturbance and much bloodshed in subsequent tim
to Europe. Secondly, that the opposite rule of action is
vourable to future peace. Thirdly, that it has obtained m
countenance in recent European practice. And he will ad
fourth, namely, that a matter of this kind cannot be rega
as in principle a question between two belligerents only,
that it involves considerations of legitimate interest to al
Powers of Europe.37
Granville began to grow less tolerant of the Gladstonian a
ties. Gladstone's letters -to the Queen, to newspaper editors,
to Cabinet colleagues - went on ceaselessly, all aimed at ke
alive the issue which the Cabinet had apparently closed. Summ
ing up his courage, Granville accordingly wrote Gladstone
markably frank letter on October 7, in which he warned him o
dangers of his policy: "my objection to doing at present wha
propose is that it is impossible . . . to do so, without being
35. PRO, Go3chen to Granville, 3 Oct. 1870, Granville Papers, GD 29/54.
See also T. J. Spinner, George Joachim Goschen -the Transformation of a Vic-
torian Liberal (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 34-35.
36. PRO, Granville to Goschen, 5 Oct. 1870, GD 29/54.
37. Letters of Queen Victoria, (2), II, 73-75; and Ramm, Gladstone-Granville,
(5 Oct. 1870), I, 137-38.

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sidered to throw our weight into the French scale against Ger-
many."38 He also lectured Gladstone on how
Palmerston wasted the strength derived by England from the
great war [1792-1815] by his brag.39 I am afraid of our
wasting that which we at present derive from moral causes
by laying down general principles, when nobody will attend
to them, and when in all probability they will be disregarded.
We have reserved our full liberty of action and can pro-
test whenever we like.40
Gladstone replied to Granville in a personal, self-deprecating

letter, in which he did indeed turn the other cheek: "I need not say
I agree in the general principles on which you found your
opinion."41 He did not, however, abandon his defence of the prin-
ciple at issue. He carefully collected further information on the
situation in Alsace and Lorraine from a wide range of sources both
official and private, ranging from European friends such as James
Lacaitia, British diplomats as acute as Robert Morier, German in-
tellectuals of the rank of Friederich Max Miiller, as well as study-
ing the British periodical press, itself full of reports from the fron-
tier zones of the war. Granville saw much of this material, but it
failed to move him towards focusing foreign policy solely on the
issue of Alsace-Lorraine: "the bombardment [of Paris] weighs on
my mind", he told his premier, "as much as the Alsacians weigh on
yours."42
Gladstone had more success in trying to develop an Anglo-
Russian diplomatic posture. He wrote to Granville on October 11
to the effect that "would it not be well that you should endeavour
to ascertain the views of Russia as to the terms of peace, and espe-
cially the transfer of Alsace and Lorraine?" Granville could hardly
decline to obtain those views; after all, as Gladstone subtly put it,
"I had a vague idea that this had been understood between us: but
it is probably an illusion of failing memory."43 A probe was accord-
ingly made to the Russian government, through Brunnow in Lon-
don, the very next day.44 But, interestingly, Granville carefully
shaped the request in his own terms: Great Britain and Russia, it
was suggested, might consider co-operation in the evolution of the
38. Granville to Gladstone, 7 Oct. 1870, in Ramm, ibid., I, 138-39.
39. This passage is marked in the margin - probably by W.E.G.
40. Granville to Gladstone, 7 Oct. 1870, in Ramm, ibid.
41. Gladstone to Granville, 8 Oct. 1870, ibid., 140.
42. Granville to Gladstone, 10 Oct. 1870, ibid., 143.
43. Gladstone to Granville, 11 Oct. 1870, ibid., 144.
44. PRO, Granville to Brunnow, "Private," 12 Oct. 1870, GD 29/115; Baron
Filipp Brunnow (1797-1875) was Russian ambassador to England, 1858-74.

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terms of peace, of which the Alsace-Lorraine issue was but o

As the Anglo-Russian diplomatic discussions moved forward
factor became more marked - Gladstone tending to stress th
ter of nationality, Granville the broader overall character o
peace.45 Close harmony still, of course, remained in their w
relationship, for they deeply respected each other's motive
glad that the gout seems to be mitigating its terms of peac
you," Gladstone wrote his friend and Foreign Secretary in th
of these diplomatic events, "May Bismarck do the like
France."46
With Granville ill, and away from important Cabinets on
ber 20 and November 2,47 Gladstone had opportunity to
his prime cause - "endeavouring to save Alsace and Lorraine
actual severance," as he put it48 -with less opposition fr
Foreign Secretary. But to no avail. Russia informed the
government that she preferred to mediate independently, an
she would make up her own mind whether she did or not.4
ville accepted the failure of this diplomatic feeler with sto
Gladstone was far from sanguine. He saw Russia as "th
substantive among the Neutral Powers" [his emphasis],
fact that she declined to work in concert with the British meant
that no collective action would really be possible. "It is now a
question of pressure 'against Prussia', if at all," as he admitted un-
happily to Granville, in the knowledge that the Cabinet had already
firmly turned its back on unilateral declarations of protest.50 As if
to compound this secret failure, the Daily News (November 4,
1870) ran a sensational column revealing the authorship of Glad-
stone's anonymous article.51 All his strategies appeared to be com-
ing apart in his hands.
Gladstone's sole comfort in this situation lay in the fact that
Granville at last agreed on a new initiative with respect to the
peace, an alternative to the crumbling posture of protest and pres-
sure. Gladstone advocated calling on France and Prussia to allow
45. PRO, Granville to Buchanan, 16 Oct. 1870, FO 65/799.
46. Gladstone to Granville, 1 Oct. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville, I,
144.
47. BL, Gladstone Cabinet notes, 20 Oct. and 2 Nov. 1870, Add. MS 44,638,
ff. 126-32.
149.
49. PRO, Buchanan to Granville, (tel.) 2 Nov. 1870. FO 65/807.
149.
51. BL, Editor of Daily News to Gladstone, 4 Nov. 1870, Add. MS 44,428,
f. 174.

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free elections in Alsace-Lorraine, to test the will of the people. "I

am glad you approved of my suggestion .. ." he wrote more cheer-
fully to Granville, "though it is rather impertinent to furnish Thiers
and Bismarck, like boys at school doing verses, with ideas."52 This
line of action also, however, came to naught. Negotiations at Ver-
sailles, towards an armistice which would have allowed an interval
for free elections, broke down on November 6. Yet again Glad-
stone's hopes had been dashed. The Cabinet of November 2 had
found him mildly optimistic; that of November 7 learnt of the
collapse of his latest proposal on behalf of nationality in the case
of Alsace and Lorraine.53
In a mood of some despondency Gladstone now took stock of the
situation. He began another memorandum--never finished--in
which he recorded his efforts on behalf of Alsace-Lorraine, the
principle of nationality in international politics, and the future
peace of Europe.54 When he could be drawn away from his single-
minded concern with Alsace-Lorraine, he was ready to give Gran-
ville practical advice on the basic tenets of the British approach to
other matters in the peace settlement. Most of all, premier and
Foreign Secretary could agree to encourage Bismarck to let France
elect a constituent assembly, free of Prussian influence, as "the only
starting point for a future (perhaps not immediate) peace ...."55
That working accord was placed under some strain again, however,
when Bismarck officially intimated that Germany would annex
Alsace and a good portion of Lorraine as a basic condition of the
peace (December 3, 1870).56
In preparation for this moment, Gladstone had been drafting
since November 23 a third memorandum on the disputed territories
and the necessity for some British official pronouncement. This
document was finished, and duly placed before the Cabinet in the
last week of November. 57 At great length Gladstone considered the
pros and cons of the issue, taking into account the force of the Ger-
152. See also, J. Holland Rose, "The Mission of M. Thiers to the Neutral Powers,
1870," Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. (3rd Ser.), XI, esp. 41-42.
53. BL, Cabinet notes, 2 and 7 Nov. 1870, Add. MS 44,638, ff. 127, 135.
54. BL, Gladstone memorandum (unfinished), dated 9 Nov. 1870, Add. MS
44,759, ff. 188-90. Morley appears to have confuied this document with the
Cabinet memorandum of 23 Nov. 1870, which was finished and debated.
55. Gladstone to Granville, 20 Nov. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville,
I, 162.
56. Gladstone to Queen, 15 Dec. 1870, in Guedalla, Queen and Gladstone,
I, 266.
57. Cabinets were held on 25, 28, 30 Nov. 1870. BL, Gladstone Cabinet notes,
Add. MS 44,638, ff. 147-52.

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man desires, and the quite impossible French peace terms.58

stone argued first, that such territorial expansion by the Pr
was a matter of general European concern, over which Brit
every right to voice a strong opinion, and second, that if this ag
dizement of the new German state went forward it would con
an entirely retrogressive step in international law and publ
tice. His language throughout was strong. In defence of the
point he argued that while he fully accepted that Germa
solidation from within her own territories is not a matter which
other countries are entitled to take any hostile cognisance," when
it came to non-German speaking nationalities then the situation
was totally different:
... so soon as Germany begins the work of aggrandizement

by annexation of territory taken from a neighbour she steps
out of her own bounds and comes upon a ground where
every country is entitled to challenge and discuss the title.
... It was on this principle of resistance to aggrandizement
that the Great Powers of Europe in 1853 sought to abridge
the rights and power of Russia....59
In support of his second premise, Gladstone deployed his con-
siderable personal experience in the rise of nationality in European
politics since mid-century. He took the 1850s and 1860s to be crucial
decades for establishing a new European order of nations, bound
together around an evolving pattern of international law. The pro-
posed German annexations were, in this view, "retrogressive with
reference to the public practice of Europe," as for "more than
half a century there cannot be said, among many territorial changes,
to have been one in which a population has been willingly severed
from one country and annexed to another."60 For Gladstone "his-
tory" established this principle of international morality and law,
and he instanced the cases of Schleswig-Holstein, where "the
greater part of the . . . population have, in becoming German,
found the fulfillment of their own choice;" the Ionian Islands, given
up by Great Britain to Greece "in deference to the popular wish
expressed by the Legislative Assembly;" Savoy and Nice, "effected
58. BL, Gladstone memorandum, 23 Nov. 1870, Add. MS 44,759, f. 203,
passim.
59. Ibid.
60. There is a fascinating marginalia on this document. In reply to Glad-
stone's rhetorical question -"Is it likely that England would have been silent
[in 1860] had France annexed much larger countries [than Nice and Savoy]
inhabited by palpably unwilling populations?"-Morley has written (presumably
while writing the "Life"), "Silent-no. But almost certainly she shd. not have
gone to war." Ibid.

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with the consent of the Government and the votes of the popula
tion;" the Italian states, which "by similar votes . . . attached them
selves to the Italian Kingdom;" and the Danubian Principalitie
which were "consulted under the auspices of the Great Powers of
Europe." In short, these acts formed "a series" and were "no mere
isolated precedents." Rather,
They go near to constitute one of those European usages,
which when sufficiently ascertained become the basis of
public international law, and they appear moveover to be
founded on natural equity....
It was, accordingly, immoral to "effect a transfer of a whole popul
tion from one Nationality to another in defiance of the attachment
and desires which they entertain."6'
At the practical level of persuading the Cabinet that inactio
would be more dangerous than action by remonstrance, Gladstone
laid stress on the dual argument that "whatever endangers the pea
between France and Germany endangers, as we now see and feel,
the peace of Europe." Thus, Alsace-Lorraine was not some isolated
moral cause; the legacy of "violence done" could be incalculable
Bismarck's proposal
is that the people of these districts should become not only
friends of their enemies, but the enemies of their friends, and
this at a time when the greatest political authority of Ger-
many declares that the present war [might] very speedily be
followed by another between the same belligerents ... 62
Gladstone knew that the "dragon's teeth" argument was the most
powerful in trying to persuade a skeptical and largely isolationist
Cabinet that it should make a principled stand against Bismarckia
realpolitik. Hence his constant reference to the theme that "this
violent laceration is to lead us from bad to worse, and to the begin
ning of a new series of European complications."63
Granville was not persuaded by what Gladstone referred to
unashamedly as "the dose administered in my Memorandum abou
Alsace and Lorraine." Indeed, he replied in equally vigorous lan
guage. He agreed that the Alsace-Lorraine affair was the "so
pivot of the war...." (Gladstone's own phrase), but
I own that I am getting shaken about the base being so
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid.
63. Gladstone to Granville, 10 Dec. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville,
I, 183.

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clear as to warrant us laying down the law on the subjec

unless there is some political or practical object to be
tained by it.
If we could obtain a general sanction to the doctrine, it m
be of use, but a brutum fulmen about Alsace would not
the other little nationalities much.64
The Cabinet agreed with Granville. Not even a diplomatic noi

protest was to be uttered, and indeed the British response to
Prussian circular was to be couched in neutral language - "to
it easy," as Gladstone was forced to explain to the Queen, "fo
North German Government to reply in such a manner as wil
tribute to reassure the public mind."65
Gladstone had lost again in his own Cabinet. At the end of
month, and in the midst of the Christmas festivities at Hawar
he was still grumbling to Granville that he "had not given up
opinion ... about the probable military tenacity of the French
the possible effects of a prolonged, even if passive, resistance.
guest at Hawarden, M. Reitlinger (Jules Favre's private secret
had long talks with Gladstone on the Franco-Prussian crisi
premier was careful to explain the basis of British neutrality
there was ever a great "moral difficulty" for any "Third Powe
to interfere by force," and that all his Liberal government w
was to see a just peace settlement, which would not be the bas
a war of revanche later on. In setting out government policy,
stone could not, however, resist making plain his own pr
view, to the effect that "the English nation had perhaps scar
formed an opinion for itself on the Alsace and Lorraine dem
but he felt sure that once formed it "never could be in favour
forcible annexation ...."67
The contents of these discussions were relayed by Gladstone to
Granville, who placed a quite different construction on them from
that of the premier. Far from feeling that they were valuable ways
of re-examining the problem of Alsace-Lorraine, Granville inclined
to feel they were indiscreet, and gave scant guarantee that Glad-
stone would abide by the final word of the Cabinet. "I am sorry
you said as much as you did to him in his position," Granville wrote
frankly, "as to what would be the feeling of this country as to the
64. Granville to Gladstone, 9 Dec. 1870, ibid., I, 180.
65. Gladstone to Queen, Cabinet report, 15 Dec. 1870, in Guedalla, Queen
and Gladstone, I, 266. Also, Letters of Queen Victoria (2), II, 94.
I, 192-93.
67. Gladstone to Granville, 28 Dec. 1870, ibid., 194.

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annexation of French territory."68 Gladstone was mildly chastened,

even if he was quick to argue in reply that he had spoken only his
"individual opinion and not that of the Gov[ernmen]t."
Holding Gladstone back from expressing opinion was never an
easy task, not least if he intended to generate "right-minded public
opinion" by such declarations. And in this context Granville was
almost certainly doomed to failure in trying to hold onto his intellec-
tual coat-tails. We know, even if Granville perhaps did not, that
Gladstone went on writing to editors in favor of strong articles on
Alsace-Lorraine. To Henry Reeve of the Edinburgh Review, for
example, he advocated writing vigorous leading articles, "For it
seems by no means impossible that these little provinces may be the
central hinge on which for years to come the history of Europe may
virtually depend."69 We also know, and the Cabinet certainly knew
too, that Gladstone was sympathetic to the mass working-class
meetings at the end of September, when London trade societies
called for the recognition of the French Republic and the retention
of Alsace and Lorraine to France. Gladstone personally took time to
meet working-class delegates at Downing Street (on September 27,
1870) and to assure them of his personal sympathy, though he did
point out that the government could only recognize the republic
when it was clearly more than a mere de facto administration.70
It may have been good Liberal politics, but it must have jarred
with much of Cabinet opinion, which was trying to rally party and
electors under the increasingly tattered banner of what The Times
had dubbed "observant neutrality" (October 1, 1870).
II
Gladstone was also reaching out beyond the Cabinet in yet

another direction, and in a manner unique to his own version of
being "a man in politics" rather than a mere politician. Through
an Oxford professor in philology at All Souls, with whom he had
been conducting a friendly debate over the latter's published
68. Granville to Gladstone, 29 Dec. 1870, ibid., 196.
69. Quoted Knaplund, Gladstone's Foreign Policy, p. 60. Henry Reeve (1813-
95) was a Times leader writer, 1840-55, and editor of the Edinburgh Review,
1855-95.
70. The London newspapers record that large-scale working-class-supported
meetings were held in St. James' Great Hall on 24 Sept., and at Hyde Park the
next day, when a mass rally took place. Representatives from the trade societies
of London sent a delegation to Downing Street - and were received by Gladstone
- on 27 Sept. See Raymond, British Policy and Public Opinion during the Franco-
Prussian Wlar, pp. 168-72; the Daily News and Morning Post, 28 Sept.; and the
Fortnightly Review, XIV, 479-88, article by John Morley.

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lectures on The Science of Religion, Gladstone was able to p

his views about Alsace-Lorraine directly within the Bismarck
circle by a personal and confidential channel. The arrangement w
less extraordinary than it first appears, though it could only h
seemed natural in Gladstonian politics, where the range of corr
spondents and associates knew few limitations of interests.
Oxford don was Friederich Max Muller,71 the distinguished Germ
intellectual-his most recent biographer has rightly termed h
"Scholar extraordinary"-who was acquainted with Heinr
Abeken,72 Bismarck's personal secretary in foreign policy matte
On October 4, 1870 Gladstone had swung his corresponden
with Muller away from theology quite suddenly: "I want to ask
what we are to think of the Alsace and L[orraine] question.
Gladstone presumed-very naively as it soon transpired-th
Muller, as a liberal-minded German scholar, would give him bo
information and assurance in his struggles with Granville's sile
neutrality approach. "It would surprise me to find that you thou
these people [of Alsace and Lorraine] cd. properly be annexe
Germany, if their heart is in France, as their own country." G
stone was to be surprised. Muller was quick to reply in a kindl
yet most Germanic sense.74 Gladstone was about to discover th
Muller shared the popular German enthusiasm for the war -"th
holy war", he termed it75 - and while he was no great admirer
Bismarck personally, he was "prepared to defend every step
has taken since 1866 against all comers."76 Thus, far from bein
71. Friederich Max Muller (1823-1900), distinguished philologist and Orie
authority, celebrated Oxford professor, and noted German resident in Eng
His career is documented in his wife's Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Frieder
Max Miller, 2 vols. (London, 1902), and esp. I, 376-414 on activities in 1870
in support of German war efforts and war aims. A recent sympathetic "lif
C. N. Chaudhuri, Scholar Extraordinary; the life of Friederich Max-Miller (Lon
1974), pp. 244-51.
72. Heinrich Abeken (1809-72) was acting secretary of the legation in
Prussian Foreign Office to Bismarck, 1859-72, and an official close to the chanc
Gladstone had first met Abeken on 17 Dec. 1838, when they had discussed q
tions of Church unity; they met again in 1841 (15 Oct. and 5 Nov.) and tal
on church and state, and on the Jerusalem bishopric. See M. R. D. Foot
H. C. G. Matthew (eds.), Gladstone Diaries, II, 531, and III, 150, 154-55:
Bismarck's Pen; the Life of Heinrich Abeken, Edited from his Letters and Jou
by His Wife (London, 1911), pp. 46-48, 67, 305-59.
73. BL, Gladstone to Miller, 4 Oct. 1870, Add. MS 44,539, f. 42 (Letter
book).
74. BL, Miiller to Gladstone, 6 Oct. 1870, Add. MS 44,251, f. 294.
75. Muller to Dean of We.tminster, 26 July 1870, in Georgina Max Muller,
Life of Max Muiller, I, 378. Muller wrote to his mother (14 Aug.) after the
initial German victories, that "such a triumph of a good cause has seldom been
seen in history" (ibid., 380).
76. Miller to Dean of Westminster, 23 Aug. 1870, ibid., 381.

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ready to line up alongside Gladstone, Miiller was eager to put the

Prussian case. With some surprise Gladstone read in Muller's reply
that Bismarck had not started the war - "France has attacked with
avowed purpose of annexing German soil" - and now, due to the
war, "a new current of national feeling has sprung up," which re-
quired satisfaction for France's assault on Germany: "Alsace, they
say, is ours, and our sons shall not have died in vain. The thousands
and thousands of German hearts that lie buried in Alsace-Lorraine
have made that soil German once more."77
Before Gladstone could respond to this unexpected turn in the
correspondence, Miiller (only three days later) despatched a post-
script to his letter:
I wish the French could be made to see that there is no dis-
honour in taking the punishment which this war has brought
on them . . . those who are guilty of the war ought to be
thankful that there is a province which is but half French,
which was originally all German, and which they may re-
store to Germany with a good grace.78
As much from surprise as disagreement, Gladstone sent on the
correspondence to Granville, who commented that he found
Miiller's argument "unconvincing."79 Gladstone's personal response
was to invite Miiller to stay for a few days at Hawarden, where
they could have private discussions about the gulf which now
yawned between them on their respective interpretations of nation-
ality and Alsace-Lorraine. Miiller stayed with the Gladstones from
December 9 to 12, and intense if friendly debate ensued. "Mr. G.
and I took a walk through the snow and talked it all over," Miiller
wrote to his wife on the third day of the visit, "and I told him that
any German statesman who gave up Strasburg deserved to be
hanged, and he shook himself a little...." Muller believed, how-
ever, over the length of their discussions, that Gladstone "begins to
see that we Germans are not such ogres as he thought. G. is an
old friend of Abeken's, but has lost sight of him."80
Through Miiller Gladstone was, however, to make indirect con-
tact with Abeken again; and to open up a channel for placing
Gladstonian ideas on the principle of nationality before Bismarck.
77. BL, Miiller to Gladstone, 6 Oct. 1870, Add. MS 44,251, f. 294.

78. Miiller to Gladstone, 9 Oct. 1870, ibid.
79. Granville to Gladstone, 9 Oct. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville,
I, 141.
80. G. Max Miiller, Life of Max Miiller, I, 396-97.

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"Max Miiller, who is here," Gladstone wrote with some anticipat

to Granville, from Hawarden on December 12,
is very intimate with Abeken, a Prussian ex-Chaplain, who
now M.M. says, the very right hand of Bismarck, and wri
all the state papers for him, as he dislikes writing. His off
corresponds with Permanent Under-Secretary. I knew Ab
ken well 30 years ago. I mention all this because somethin
might perhaps be conveniently said in the course of ti
through this channel.81
The diplomatic "channel" was indeed to be opened, but Gladston

was again to be cruelly disappointed in his hopes about Abe
and the mood of the Bismarckian circle at the German Head-
quarters.
Miiller duly wrote to Abeken after his Hawarden visit, and by
December 28 had a long letter back from the German official.82
Abeken, through Miiller, assured Gladstone that Bismarck would
not act rashly with respect to Alsace-Lorraine; and Abeken was also
"very much pleased to hear that [the Gladstone's] . . . should have
remembered his name," being "deeply touched by the expression . ..
of kind feeling towards him," and happy to assure the British
premier that there was no need to worry over Germany's new
military supremacy in Europe -"Germany looks very strong just
now, but is she really so? Can her strength ever become a menace
to Europe?" Abeken and Miiller, said "no." Gladstone was less
sure.83 Miiller sympathized with his concerns, but wondered aloud
whether Gladstone grasped the realities of Bismarck's own position
in Berlin: "the real difficulty is that even Count Bismarck is not
strong enough ... to oppose the military party and I believe the
feeling in Germany is so strong that for any statesman now to give
up Strasburg would be simply to abdicate."84
Gladstone was not comforted. He wrote gloomily on February
24: "I am afraid the result will be that Germany, crowned with
glory and confident in her strength, will start on her new career
to encounter the difficulties of the future without the sympathies
of Europe." His gloom was shortly to deepen when Miiller for-
warded another letter from Abeken. It certainly revealed a major
I, 184.
82. BL, Miiller to Gladstone, 28 Dec. 1870, Add. MS 44,251, f. 299.
83. "I think he [Miiller] reflects through Abeken the Bismarckian mind, in
the best light which it is capable of reflecting." Gladstone to Granville, 30 Dec.
1870, Rarrm, Gladstone-Granville, I, 197.
84. BL, Miiller to Gladstone, 2 Feb. 1871, Add. MS 44,251, f. 309.

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gulf between Gladstonian and Bismarckian perceptions of the situa

tion. Abeken revived the old cry that the British Liberal governme
should share part of the moral burden for not having prevented
the war: "What good might England have done, what misery migh
she have prevented, if at the beginning of the war she had pro-
fessed the moral courage to call Good good, Wrong wrong, Right
right, Crime criminal. .. ." Even more partisan was Abeken's s
called reasoned defence of Bismarck's annexation policy:
The French sentiments of the people of Alsace and Lorraine
prove to me all the more strongly that we are duty bound
to bring back the German race to the German Empire. We
have to cure them of a fearful disease, that future genera-
tions, though blushing at the disgrace of their forefathers,
may grow up to a healthy life.85
What possible response, beyond indignant refutation, could Glad-

stone now usefully make? His earlier confidence in both Miiller an
Abeken, as kindred liberal minds, looked sadly misplaced. Glad
stone thus cautiously acknowledged Abeken's letter via Miille
adding only that "it discloses a deep and wide difference between
English and ruling German ideas on the first principles of fr
polity."86
Though an optimist in his politics, Gladstone was never blind
to final realities; and in this case he simply accepted Abeken's
letter as the last word from the Bismarck circle on Alsace and
Lorraine. The peace continued to be close to his interests, as his
further letters to Miiller, and some letters to Guizot as well, mak
clear.87 He also worked with Granville and the Cabinet in attempt
ing to persuade Prussia to modulate the financial indemnity clause
of the peace treaty;88 and, of course, he gave considerable attention
to assisting Granville over the Russian denunciation of the Black
Sea Clauses. The London Conference (November 1870-March
1871) settled the revision of the Treaty of Paris by "concert
methods."89 In both these areas there was some apparent success -
85. Abeken to Miiller, encl. in ibid., f. 316. (Copy in Muller's handwriting.)

86. BL, Gladstone to Miiller, 26 Feb. 1871, Add. MS 44,539, f. 166 (Letter-
book).
87. Ibid., and Gladstone to Guizot, 30 Jan. 1871 (copy), Add. MS 44,429, f.
123.
88. BL, Gladstone cabinet notes, Add. MS 44,639, f. 16. The indemnity was
reduced to 5 milliard francs, and there was to be an army of occupation until it
wa. paid. A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918 (Ox-
ford, 1954), p. 217.
89. See Kimberley's Journal, 2 Nov. 1870, 19, for Gladstone on the Russian
challenge. Also, W. E. Mosse, "Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: the British

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even if hindsight allows us to question whether British inter

tion did indeed much affect the lowering of the indemnity
paid by France, or whether the Black Sea settlement was
very high price for a major power such as Great Britain
merely to sustain collective diplomacy.90 Gladstone, anyway,
pleasure in both developments; but his great cause of A
Lorraine was most definitely lost. Germany moved to annex
occupy the territories in May 1871 under the Treaty of Frankf
III
This case-study amply provides examples of the way in which

Gladstone wished to behave as an "interferer," an activist abroad
in defence of the principles of nationality and international morality.
Absolutely accepting Mill's notion of nationality as a precondition
of liberty in the European states, albeit setting the principle in
typical Christian language--"The Almighty has allowed nations
and peoples to exist in the main for themselves, and permitted them
to be the first judges of their own destiny"92- Gladstone took a
strong, but qualified view, of foreign policy.
It is in this sense that Taylor is quite right. Gladstonian
Liberalism, for all its pacific and laissez-faire overtones, never
absolutely precluded the firm use of British diplomatic protest, or
even the collective use of power, in such moral and principled
causes as nationality or international law. Where some of the more
radical Liberals of the Cobden-Bright persuasion were inclined to
argue that all wars were evil- barring only defence of the nation
in the case of foreign attack - and that "God's diplomacy" was
really free trade, Gladstonians took up a more complicated position.
They spoke beguilingly of selective intervention.93 There could
therefore be such things as moral war aims.94 There could also, as
a shattered John Bright discovered in the 1880s, be a Gladstonian
Public and the War Scare of November 1870," Historical Journal, VI, 1, (1963),
38-58.
90. Mosse, The European Powers and the German Question, pp. 360-67, and
Richard Shannon, The Crisis of Imperialism 1865-1915 (London, 1974), p. 51.
91. Howard, The Franco-Prussian War, p. 449: "The terms were harsh ....
Yet the treaty was not so harsh as that which the French had imposed on Prussia
in 1807."
92. Gladstone speaking in the House of Commons, 11 April 1865; 3 Hansard
166: 937.
93. Shannon, The Crisis of Imperialism, pp. 47-48.
94. W. E. Gladstone, Speeches, ed. A. T. Bassett, (London, 1916), p. 542
(speech of 30 July 1878); Gladstone, Political Speeches in Scotland (Edinburgh,
1880), II, 534; Taylor, Troublemakers, p. 65; and BL, Gladstone autobiographical
note, Add. MS 44,791, f. 36.

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defence for "reluctant imperialism": "while it is true that we hav

done many acts of force" in Africa and Asia, in every case these
were undertaken "through the belief of an honorable necessity."9
There is however an important sense in which our understand
ing of Gladstone's contribution to activist foreign policy require
careful qualification. As Taylor himself has argued, and as Morley
Hammond, and Holbraad have indicated, the basis for Gladstone's
interventionism differed fundamentally from Palmerston's premis
It rested rather on a Christian, European perspective- acting out
moral prescriptions through collective diplomacy, the concert of
powers and support for international law.96 That is all well unde
stood. As Gladstone himself once made abundantly plain, the "on
foreign policy" which could have his complete support was "o
which, while averse from meddling, shall employ the moral infl
ence inherent in the strength and greatness of England, in th
general interests of justice and freedom."97 But what needs to be
further established is the existence of a grid of principled an
pragmatic factors which filtered Gladstone's moral urges as h
attempted to play a creative role in shaping British foreign polic
In his own words, written to Granville on October 8, 1870, "It is
all a question of the application of principles .. ,"98 Three elemen
would here appear to be of considerable importance in affectin
Gladstone's interventionism.
There is, first, the issue of what he meant by "intervention" and
"activism." If it was not to be conveniently Palmerstonian, in the
unilateral use of force or threat of power, what remained? Glad-
stone placed great emphasis on diplomatic and public "protest," to
defend ideal-goals in international politics, or to denounce some
illiberal action by an erring power. While it was entirely verbal
in substance, this technique was still highly regarded by Gladstoni-
ans: it relied on morally shaming the offending state--whether
it was Prussia in 1870 or Turkey in 1878 -and in reminding the
European community of the principles at issue in international law
and morality. As Gladstone once explained to a fellow Liberal
politician, when faced by illiberal acts on the part of foreign
powers, his primary response was "to raise up moral forces, so far
95. BL, Gladstone to Bright, 1 June 1885, Add. MS 44,548, f. 23.
96. John Morley, Gladstone, (London, 1903) I, 316-58; The Liberal Tradition,
eds. A. Bullock and M. Shock (Oxford, 1967), p. 38; J. L. Hammond, Gladstone
and the Irish Nation (London, 1938), Ch. v; C. Holbraad, The Concert of Europe
(London, 1970), p. 165.
97. BL, Gladstone private note, June 1861, Add. MS 44,751, f. 68.
98. Gladstone to Granville, 8 Oct. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville,
I, 140.

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as in me lies, to defeat their aims."99 Not all Liberals agreed

this method or posture. Lord Kimberley spoke for those who
the case of Alsace-Lorraine, felt that such formal, moral prote
simply counter-productive in foreign policy.100 Salisbury too
similar view of this kind of moral "open-mouthed diplom
remarking that "remonstrances are to be valued by the stren
which lies behind them."'10 Gladstonians were not unaware of that
criticism; but they argued, in response, that not only was it im-
portant to register public protest against acts of oppression or ag-
gression but that "opinion" was, in fact, a power in itself in such
matters. Gladstone himself was emphatically of that view: "in
moral forces and in their growing effect upon European politics,
I have a great faith: possibly on that very account, I am free to
confess, sometimes a misleading one."'02
A second, related question, accordingly, bore on the develop-
ment of such "opinion" as a moral force. Gladstonians were not so
naive as to believe that mere statement of principle was always
sufficient to bring about results, even if they felt there was value
in constant reiteration of ideals in international relations. The
use of the press in 1870 was a good example of Gladstone attempt-
ing to harness "opinion" in Britain and Europe to pressure Prussia
into what he took to be proper policies and human actions towards
the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine. In that sense, 1870 was to
be a suggestive pointer for what was to come after 1876 on a
greater scale in the major Bulgarian agitation: reliance on raising a
body of right-minded opinion which could be directed towards
shaping British official policy; and also directed against "wrong-
doers" in the international sphere.103 This element was extremely
important to Gladstonian interventions abroad. He wished not
merely to redress particular ills and sufferings, but to support the
more general "enthronement of this idea of Public Right" in inter-
national politics, so that it might operate "in a manner more or
less analogous to nations in which public opinion acts upon the
institutions in a well-ordered country."104
Moreover, because his Liberal idealism rested on secure
99. BL, Gladstone to Reay, 9 April 188v, Add. MS 44,463.

100. Kimberley Journal, 18-19.
101. (Salisbury), "Count Bismarck's Circular Letters to Foreign Courts, 1870,"
Quarterly Review, CXXIX (Oct., 1870), 541.
102. Gladstone to Granville, 8 Oct. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville,
I, 140.
103. R. T. Shannon, Gladstone and the Bulgarian Agitation (London, 1963),
esp. pp. 104-12.
104. BL, Cabinet memorandum, 24 Oct. 1862, Add. MS 44,752, f. 67.

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Peelite foundations of pragmatism and caution, Gladstone was less

inclined to tilt at windmills, or confront Iron Chancellors, on the
basis of moral imperative alone than his critics, or even his sup-
porters, have led us to expect. As a matter of principle he had
long ruled out universal interventionism: "Is England so uplifted
in strength above every other nation that she can, with prudence,
advertise herself as ready to undertake the general redress of
wrong? Is any Power . . . warranted in assuming to itself this com-
prehensive obligation? Of course, the answer is no."'05 As a matter of
pragmatism, Gladstone had also learned to rule out interventionism
which appeared to stand no chance of having some effect.'06 He
had absorbed the lesson of Schleswig Holstein, for example: "We
urged strongly upon Russia much that concerned Poland, upon
Germany and Prussia much that concerned Denmark; in neither
case with advantage to those whom we sought to protect, in both
cases with a decided loss of our own moral weight."'07 In short,
Gladstone's selective interventions were even more selective than
might be supposed. His politics rested, as he stressed, "in our cir-
cumstances, with their potentialities - these are the materials with
which a man is to work."'08
Among the critical "circumstances" involved in this context
were not merely questions of European realrolitik, but Cabinet and
party-pressures within Britain. Not even a Gladstone could conduct
a personal foreign policy. Broadly speaking, in the 1868 Liberal
government Whiggery was simply too strong to let Gladstone have
his own way over foreign policy - although some aristocrats, such
as Kimberley, felt that they still did not sufficiently control Glad-
stone's moral urges.109 The Whigs indeed feared, as even Granville
put it to Gladstone, a new "moral Palmerston" as much as the old
"jingoistic Palmerston.""0 Equally, Nonconformists like Bright were
as opposed to the use of force as they were anxious to enunciate
publicly the principles on which an international morality might
develop. "Be strong for peace," as Bright urged Gladstone over the
parallel matter of the Black Sea Clauses in 1871, but also "show a
105. Gladstone to Grey, 17 April 1866, in Guedalla, Queen and Gladstone,
I, 169-70.
106. Sec Gladstone to Times, 21 July 1863, quoted in Derek Beales, England
and Italy, 1859-60 (London, 1961), p. 171.
107. BL, Gladstone to Bright, 12 Sept. 1870, Add. MS 44,112, f. 151.
108. BL, Gladstone nemrorandum, 9 June 1840, Add. MS 44,819, ff. 49-51.
Also J. Brooke and M. Sorenson (eds.), The Prime Ministers' Papers: W. E.
Gladstone; Autobiographical Memoranda, 1832-45 (London, 1972), II, 164.
109. Kimberley Journal, 32.
110. Granville to Gladstone, 7 Oct. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville,
I, 138-39.

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good front against the 'services', and all who would urge you
itary preparations.""' There is also some reason to believe th
middle ground of the Cabinet, representing rank and file lib
of the boroughs, found this apparently curious combination o
idealism and quasi-pacifism in foreign policy to their ta
Salisbury was unduly harsh when he remarked, in 1870,
aspect of Liberal foreign policy: "We have compromised bet
the traditions of the aristocracy, and the more prudent insti
the middle classes, by a foreign policy which never acts, and
army which is too weak to fight any civilised nation except
the wing of a military ally."'13 But there was an undoubted d
that high sounding Liberal rhetoric, in defence of princi
nationality, could become just that, rhetoric. Protest could
late as mere preaching--"one of those high fallutin descr
of moral greatness and superiority of England," in the words
hostile Saturday Review (November 12, 1870), "and of her r
sermonize to the world, which are so provoking to foreigne
act so injuriously on ourselves." Further, moral activism not
by any intention to act by force, could allow a contemporary
to remark stingingly on that "ostentatious and verbose neutr
which appeared to characterize the Liberal foreign polic
lead a diplomatic historian to comment recently that, b
there was in this Liberal government "an almost universal re
to accept any fait accompli [in Europe] not directly hur
British interests."l14
The cumulative consequence of these restraining factors
making of Liberal foreign policy takes us in the opposite di
to that of "universal interference." Even if only a small mino
informed voices advocated direct action in Europe in the cont
crisis of 1870-71- such as Frederic Harrison's in the Fortn
Review (November 1870)- a good portion of the nationa
grew anxious over the apparently supine posture of the
government. They could not know of Gladstone's attempts to
his Cabinet to diplomatic protest; but they could suspect th
Gladstone had no iron in the velvet glove. And the suc
challenge by the Russians to the Black Sea Clauses, foll
closely on the Alsace-Lorraine affair, merely strengthened th
tile view about the lack of both mettle and metal behind Liberal
111. BL, Bright to Gladstone, 17 Nov. 1870, Add. MS 44,112, f. 161.

112. John Vincent, The Formation of the Liberal Party, 1857-68 (London,
1966, 1972), p. 273.
113. Salisbury in Quarterly Review, CXXIX (Oct., 1870), 541.
114. Mosse, The European Powers and the German Question, p. 365.

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foreign policy. Gladstone might well point to the triumph of Britis

neutrality during the war, the preservation of Belgian independ-
ence, and the fact that the Concert had retrospectively recognize
a new power status in the Black Sea region. But this logic looked
thin, a post facto rationalization for what had taken place, irrespec
tive of British desires. "What a master of rigamarole he is," J. R
Green wrote on Gladstonian policy-making speeches at the time,
"nobody else could make one wish Palmerston alive again
Gladdie is making everybody wish him now."'15 The Mancheste
Guardian worried that under the Liberals Britain did not act like a
great power, and that Gladstone conducted government as if h
were running a superior vestry meeting. A popular periodical too
the unkind image even further, and argued that Liberal foreign
policy could only succeed if Britain had "angels to deal with, angel
as subjects, angels for neighbours, angels for allies, ange
for foes. . .""1 The Gladstonian attempt to rally "opinion" in his
far from anonymous Edinburgh Review article only fueled th
critical fire. In the sharp words of one periodical, "We have, i
seems, been placed by Providence in a position very like that of a
clergyman: for just as he may say what he likes without fear of
hissing or reply, so we may say what we like without fear of anyon
crossing the channel.""7
Such criticism grew rather than diminished over the course of
these events. The Standard spoke of Liberal foreign policy a
"that pitiable affectation which, by a euphemism, is dubbed non-
intervention;" the Spectator and the Economist despaired of "Liber
weakness;" the Contemporary Review described the Liberal Cabine
as "driftwood politicians," floating on the tide of opinion; an
Judy printed a cartoon (January 1871) showing the British lion a
caged, taunted, and looking distinctly like Gladstone.s18 Salisbury
in the Quarterly Review, developed the most sustained and incisiv
case against Gladstonian foreign policy; writing in tile autumn o0
1870 he feared that the Liberal Cabinet would "reduce England to
complete isolation" by its attempts to "draw all profit from the ar
rangements of the great commercial republic," without accepting
its proper "share in the cost and dangers of its government.""9 His
115. J. R. Green, quoted in Raymond, British Policy and Opinion during th
Franco-Prussian lWar, pp. 113-14.
116. Gentleman's Magazine (Dec., 1870), quoted in ibid., p. 258.
117. Saturday Review (12 Nov. 1870).
118. Raymond, British Policy and Opinion during the Franco-Przussian War
pp. 221, 223, 258, 284.
119. Quarterly Review (Oct. 1870). See also Lady G. Cecil, Life of Robert
3rd Marquis of Salisbury (London, 1921), II, 33.

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criticisms were taken up by the Standard, which began depic

the Gladstonians as "peacemongers" (November 23, 1870), a
The Times which began to thunder against the Liberals for a
doning "our position in the world altogether," and allowing G
Britain to "sink to the level of the worst opinion our neighb
have formed of us."120
Such European opinion was apparently not much impre
by the combination of moral indignation and neutrality which
made up Liberal policy. Several important British diploma
ported on this situation in very unflattering terms: for exam
from Carlsbad, Sir James Hudson wrote that "people ask me
'Are you an Englishman?' with a pitying sort of condescen
while from Darmstadt, Sir Robert Morier (November 7, 1870
mented that "the heartbreaking conclusion I have come to is
modern England, as represented in the Reform Parliamen
incarnated in the person of Mr. Gladstone, has lost the sense o
Imperial position and become denuded of the instinct of d
with her peers."'"' And it was to Morier that Bismarck confess
1873 that he had lost five years of his political life by a foolish be
that England was still a great power under the leadership of
fessor Gladstone."'22 By 1881 Bismarck looked forward to blo
Gladstonian attempts to conduct policy by means of the Con
system, and to the day when - as his son said - he could "
Gladstone against the wall, so that he can yap no more."123
Gladstonian foreign policy was not, in fact, necessarily we
than that of previous administrations. Short of a commitme
direct armed intervention, there was little that could actuall
done in the face of Bismarckian realpolitik.l24 But because G
stonian policy was informed by moral conceptions, it had
potential of raising hopes at home which could not be fulfille
of developing a righteous tone in its diplomacy which gave m
offence abroad. The Gladstonian approach to power was avow
internationalist, even pacific, and this allowed observers t
away an impression that it was rooted in nothing more than m
120. Quoted in Mosse, "Public opinion," Hist. Jo., VI, 49.
121. Mori.er to Earl Russell, 7 Nov. 1870, in R. Wemyss, Sir Robert M
II, 208-09. Also Ramsay, Idealism and Foreign Policy, p. 276.
122. Ibid., p. 357, n. 1.
123. Quoted in Bourne, Foreign Policy of Victorian England, p. 140.
124. Lowe, Reluctant Imperialists, p. 21: "Until a government in Londo
prepared to develop England's potential to become a great military powe
thinkable until forced upon them in 1915- the voice of Berlin was loude
that of London and all Foreign Secretaries had to work with the restriction
this imposed." See also, Shannon, Crisis of Imperialism, pp. 170-71 for t
tractable nature of the European situation facing the Gladstone ministry.

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indignation. "As it is, there is a deep feeling of distrust of

gov[ernmen]t. as regards their conduct of foreign affairs,"
tough-minded member of the Cabinet wrote in his Journal in
midst of the Alabama Arbitration (Thursday, June 20, 1872), "a
even when we are in the right, we manage somehow to leave
impression of vacillation and truckling."'25 Part of the reason f
this was the fact that Liberal policy tended to be the final result
considerable wrangles in Cabinet between Gladstonians and
rest, something which was not hidden from the outside observ
But Gladstone himself was also partly to blame. Not only did
have a noted abhorrence of things military, whether in expendit
or in actual use of force - "a long experience of life leads me, n
towards any abstract doctrine on the subject, but to a deeper an
deeper conviction of the enormous mischief of war" (1879) -
he patently worried over "those forms of moral force which car
an implied obligation to follow them up by physical force."
Granville accordingly had the unusual task - in the context of
Black Sea Clauses - of trying to stiffen Gladstone's resolve in t
matter: "Do not appear as peaceable as you are to our colleag
or to the Foreign Representatives. ."127
Gladstone's attempts on behalf of the peoples of Alsace a
Lorraine, to defend the principle of nationality, reveal the exte
and also the limits, of his version of an activist and intervention
foreign policy in the European arena. For all his moral vehemen
Gladstone's approach and ideals in foreign policy were rather co
servative. He did not in any way wish to become a promoter
irredentism in Europe or to be a constant activist in internatio
politics. He was firmly set against a "restless," and even "spirit
foreign policy," as being unsound in that it encouraged "extrav
gance of expenditure," and morally dangerous in that it develop
a spirit of chauvinistic adventurism-the very reasons w
Beaconsfieldism was "evil."128 Rather, the Gladstonian ideal was
highly selective use of British power- a deployment of mo
capital, rather than physical power - as a means of redressing ve
particular ills in the international context, and in supporting t
evolution of a body of law and moral practice in internatio
relations. It is not quite so surprising that he should favor "ma
125. Kimberley Journal, 32.
126. Bodleian, Gladstone to Clarendon, 5 Feb. 1869, Clarendon Papers, c. 4
ff. 84-85.
127. Granville to Gladstone, 23 Nov. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville,
I, 170.
128. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches, pp. 117, 137-38, 178-79.

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taining, as far as possible, a continuity in Foreign Policy." In

in his attacks on Palmerston, Russell, and Disraeli, he des
return to the traditions of Canning, Peel, and Aberdeen. H
lieved, indeed, that British foreign policy "ought on every g
to be conservative, to set a good example to the world of mo
tion, justice and love of ordered freedom."'29 Interventions a
should never develop out of a "sympathy with disorder" but r
out of the "deepest and most profound love of order."'30
concern with "ordered freedom" was a major intellectual tap
of Gladstonian Liberalism. If it qualified the degree to which
Liberalism was at all radical in the domestic context, it certa
placed major strictures on his international politics of interve
ism. For that reason alone would he not have chosen "Peacemaker"
as an epithet over "Troublemaker?"131
TRENT UNIVERSITY
Peterborough, Ontario
129. BL, Gladstone to Mancini, 14 June 1881, Add. MS 44,544, f. 181.

130. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches, p. 117.
131. R. J. Sontag, Germany and England; Background of Conflict, 1848-96
(New York, 1938), p. 184, uses both terms- "Peacemaker" and "Troublemaker."
Earlier versions of this paper enjoyed the criticisms of Dr. Agatha Ramm, Pro-
fessor M. R. D. Foot and Dr. Derek Beales, as well as discussion at the C.H.A.
Meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, and Dr. H. C. G. Matthew's special seminar on
Glad-tonian Liberalism at Oxford University. The final draft was written at the
Research School of Social Sciences, A.N.U., Canberra, where I owe much to Pro-
fessors Oliver MacDonagh and F. B. Smith.

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Gladstone as "Troublemaker": Liberal Foreign Policy and the German Annexation of

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/175393

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"I think it my duty ... to cherish respect and sympathy for

Gladstone to Lord Reay,1

"He was by nature an interferer, by training a man of Power,"

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short, are we listening too closely to Gladstonian rhetoric, an

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From the moment of its outbreak, Gladstone had viewed the

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Cabinet prepared the British defences by agreeing to 'lay

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circular arrived- and indeed since the smashing defeat of

He had been partly forewarned of this unhappy contingency by

17. Gladstone to Granville, 23 Sept. 1870 in Agatha Ramm (ed.), The

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requires to be used with strict regard to the nature of the work it

21. Gladstone to Granville, 23 Sept. 1870, in Ramm, Gladstone-Granville, I,

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Of the whole sum of human life, no small part is that which

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the settled practice in Europe not to transfer territory f

In short, if Gladstone now acquired Russian, and possibly Austrian

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tion to oppose the Bismarckian plans? He simply declined to let

He also made out an intriguing thesis of party-political advantage

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at "present half the party [are] unsympathetic with Pruss

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Gladstone replied to Granville in a personal, self-deprecating

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terms of peace, of which the Alsace-Lorraine issue was but o

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free elections in Alsace-Lorraine, to test the will of the people. "I

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man desires, and the quite impossible French peace terms.58

... so soon as Germany begins the work of aggrandizement

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clear as to warrant us laying down the law on the subjec

The Cabinet agreed with Granville. Not even a diplomatic noi

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annexation of French territory."68 Gladstone was mildly chastened,

Gladstone was also reaching out beyond the Cabinet in yet

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lectures on The Science of Religion, Gladstone was able to p

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ready to line up alongside Gladstone, Miiller was eager to put the

77. BL, Miiller to Gladstone, 6 Oct. 1870, Add. MS 44,251, f. 294.

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"Max Miiller, who is here," Gladstone wrote with some anticipat

The diplomatic "channel" was indeed to be opened, but Gladston

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gulf between Gladstonian and Bismarckian perceptions of the situa

What possible response, beyond indignant refutation, could Glad-

85. Abeken to Miiller, encl. in ibid., f. 316. (Copy in Muller's handwriting.)