The end of isolation
At the beginning of the 20th century and the end of the Victorian era, Britain finally realised that it did not have enough strength to do everything on its own, and thus it ended its days of 'splendid isolation' by forming an alliance with Japan, which shaped up to become a major player in the Orient, and cooperating with it to help each other achieve their goals. Two years later, Britain also settled its grievances and antagonisms with France by the means of establishing the Entente Cordiale.
The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance, the first between a European country and an Asiatic power against a Western rival, was signed on January 30th, 1902. The 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, a high-minded aristocrat of legendary charm, was foreign secretary in the crucial years after 1900 which saw the British government abandon the policy of ‘splendid isolation’. The first product of this dubious change of direction was the treaty with Japan, negotiated in leisurely style during 1901 by Lansdowne and the Japanese ambassador in London, Hayashi Tadasu. Westernisation and industrialisation in Japan after the restoration of the Meiji emperor in 1868 had made Japan the major native power in the Far East and in Britain the Japanese were respected as a decent, orderly, efficient, reliable nation – in marked contrast to the Chinese.
In the background lay burgeoning Japanese imperialism, British commercial interests in China and the Russian occupation of Manchuria in 1900, which threatened both. Joseph Chamberlain considered that "our interests in China are so great, our proportion of the trade is so enormous and the potentialities of that trade are so gigantic that I feel no more vital question has ever been presented…". The Japanese, meanwhile, were nervous of Russian ambitions in Korea, which they regarded as their own back yard, and Hayashi told Lord Lansdowne plainly that his country considered the protection of its interests in Korea ‘its first and last wish’.
The Japanese got what they wanted. It was agreed that if either of the high contracting parties became involved in war with another country, the other party would remain neutral. If either party were confronted by two or more opponents, however, the other party would come to its aid. Japan could now count on the British in a war with Russia if any other power (France and Germany were the ones in mind) were to ally with Russia. Japanese domination of Korea was tacitly accepted.
In the background lay burgeoning Japanese imperialism, British commercial interests in China and the Russian occupation of Manchuria in 1900, which threatened both. Joseph Chamberlain considered that "our interests in China are so great, our proportion of the trade is so enormous and the potentialities of that trade are so gigantic that I feel no more vital question has ever been presented…". The Japanese, meanwhile, were nervous of Russian ambitions in Korea, which they regarded as their own back yard, and Hayashi told Lord Lansdowne plainly that his country considered the protection of its interests in Korea ‘its first and last wish’.
The Japanese got what they wanted. It was agreed that if either of the high contracting parties became involved in war with another country, the other party would remain neutral. If either party were confronted by two or more opponents, however, the other party would come to its aid. Japan could now count on the British in a war with Russia if any other power (France and Germany were the ones in mind) were to ally with Russia. Japanese domination of Korea was tacitly accepted.
Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Alliance – the end of the "splendid isolation"
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. As king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganisation of the British Army after the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. He re-instituted traditional ceremonies as public displays and broadened the range of people with whom royalty socialised. He fostered good relations between Britain and other European countries, especially France, for which he was popularly called "Peacemaker". The Edwardian era, which covered Edward's reign and was named after him, coincided with the start of a new century and heralded significant changes in technology and society, including steam turbine propulsion and the rise of socialism.
Théophile Delcassé (1 March 1852 – 22 February 1923) was a French statesman and foreign minister 1898–1905. He is best known for his hatred of Germany and efforts to secure alliances with Russia and Great Britain that became the Entente Cordiale. He belonged to Radical party and was a protege of Léon Gambetta.
Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, (14 January 1845 – 3 June 1927) was a British statesman who served successively as Governor General of Canada, Viceroy of India, Secretary of State for War, and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. As British Foreign Secretary, he signed the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance at his London home (the back half of which still exists as the Lansdowne Club) and negotiated the 1904 Anglo-French Entente Cordiale with the French foreign minister, Theophile Delcassé.
People to note:
It might have been possible for the Japanese to go the other way and reach an agreement with Russia, giving the Russians a free hand in Manchuria in return for a free Japanese hand in Korea. This was the course recommended by the veteran Japanese politician Ito Hirobumi, the principal architect of the changes under the Meiji regime. Ito was against the alliance with Britain, whose imperial grasp he saw was weakening, but he was opposed by the army chief, the formidable Yamagata Aritomo, who argued that the Russians would not stop at Manchuria. Unless prevented, they would move to dominate the whole region and a struggle with them was bound to come. Ito went to St Petersburg in the last months of 1901 to sound out the Russians, but nothing came of it. He was lured to England and blandished at Bowood, Lord Lansdowne’s stately seat in Wiltshire.
The treaty was duly signed in London and was considered a triumph in Japan, where it had a powerful influence in boosting national pride. For the first time a European country had allied with an Asiatic power against a Western rival. In effect, the British sanctioned Japanese aggression in Korea and strengthened the Japanese to challenge the Russians successfully in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which put Japan on course to dominate Manchuria.
The alliance's provisions for mutual defence prompted Japan to enter the First World War on the British side. Japan attacked the German base at Tsingtao in 1914 and forced the Germans to surrender. Japanese officers aboard British warships were casualties at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. In 1917, Japanese warships were sent to the Mediterranean and assisted in the protection of allied shipping near Malta from U-boat attacks. A memorial at the Kalkara Naval Cemetery in Malta is dedicated to the 72 Japanese sailors who died in the conflict. The Treaty also made possible the Japanese seizure of German possessions in the Pacific north of the equator during the First World War, a huge boon to Japan's imperial interests.
The alliance formed the basis for positive trading and cultural exchanges between Britain and Japan. Rapid industrialisation and the development of the Japanese armed forces provided significant new export opportunities for British shipyards and arms manufacturers. Japanese educated in Britain were also able to bring new technology to Japan, such as advances in ophthalmology. British artists of the time such as James McNeill Whistler, Aubrey Beardsley and Charles Rennie Mackintosh were heavily inspired by Japanese kimono, swords, crafts and architecture.
However, there still remained strains on Anglo-Japanese relations during the years of the alliance. One such strain was the racial question. Although originally a German notion, the Japanese perceived that the British had been affected by idea of Yellow Peril—a racist perception of the East Asian peoples as an existential danger to the Western world—on account of their recalcitrance in the face of Japanese imperial success. This issue returned at Versailles after the First World War when Britain sided with the U.S. against Japan's request of the addition of Racial Equality Proposal, proposed by Prince Kinmochi Saionji. The racial question was difficult for Britain because of its multi-ethnic empire.
Another strain was the Twenty-One Demands which Japan made of China in 1915. This unequal treaty would have given Japan varying degrees of control over all of China, and would have prohibited European powers from extending their Chinese operations any further.
The treaty was duly signed in London and was considered a triumph in Japan, where it had a powerful influence in boosting national pride. For the first time a European country had allied with an Asiatic power against a Western rival. In effect, the British sanctioned Japanese aggression in Korea and strengthened the Japanese to challenge the Russians successfully in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which put Japan on course to dominate Manchuria.
The alliance's provisions for mutual defence prompted Japan to enter the First World War on the British side. Japan attacked the German base at Tsingtao in 1914 and forced the Germans to surrender. Japanese officers aboard British warships were casualties at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. In 1917, Japanese warships were sent to the Mediterranean and assisted in the protection of allied shipping near Malta from U-boat attacks. A memorial at the Kalkara Naval Cemetery in Malta is dedicated to the 72 Japanese sailors who died in the conflict. The Treaty also made possible the Japanese seizure of German possessions in the Pacific north of the equator during the First World War, a huge boon to Japan's imperial interests.
The alliance formed the basis for positive trading and cultural exchanges between Britain and Japan. Rapid industrialisation and the development of the Japanese armed forces provided significant new export opportunities for British shipyards and arms manufacturers. Japanese educated in Britain were also able to bring new technology to Japan, such as advances in ophthalmology. British artists of the time such as James McNeill Whistler, Aubrey Beardsley and Charles Rennie Mackintosh were heavily inspired by Japanese kimono, swords, crafts and architecture.
However, there still remained strains on Anglo-Japanese relations during the years of the alliance. One such strain was the racial question. Although originally a German notion, the Japanese perceived that the British had been affected by idea of Yellow Peril—a racist perception of the East Asian peoples as an existential danger to the Western world—on account of their recalcitrance in the face of Japanese imperial success. This issue returned at Versailles after the First World War when Britain sided with the U.S. against Japan's request of the addition of Racial Equality Proposal, proposed by Prince Kinmochi Saionji. The racial question was difficult for Britain because of its multi-ethnic empire.
Another strain was the Twenty-One Demands which Japan made of China in 1915. This unequal treaty would have given Japan varying degrees of control over all of China, and would have prohibited European powers from extending their Chinese operations any further.
Entente Cordiale, (April 8, 1904), is the Anglo-French agreement that, by settling a number of controversial matters, ended antagonisms between Great Britain and France and paved the way for their diplomatic cooperation against German pressures in the decade preceding World War I (1914–18). The agreement in no sense created an alliance and did not entangle Great Britain with a French commitment to Russia (1894).
The Entente Cordiale was the culmination of the policy of Théophile Delcassé, France’s foreign minister from 1898, who believed that a Franco-British understanding would give France some security against any German system of alliances in western Europe. Credit for the success of the negotiation belongs chiefly to Paul Cambon, France’s ambassador in London, and to the British foreign secretary Lord Lansdowne; but the pro-French inclination of the British sovereign, Edward VII, was a contributory factor.
The most important feature of the agreement was that it granted freedom of action to Great Britain in Egypt and to France in Morocco (with the proviso that France’s eventual dispositions for Morocco include reasonable allowance for Spain’s interests there). At the same time, Great Britain ceded the Los Islands (off French Guinea) to France, defined the frontier of Nigeria in France’s favour, and agreed to French control of the upper Gambia valley, while France renounced its exclusive right to certain fisheries off Newfoundland. Furthermore, French and British zones of influence in Siam (Thailand) were outlined, with the eastern territories, adjacent to French Indochina, becoming a French zone, and the western, adjacent to Burmese Tenasserim, a British zone; arrangements were also made to allay the rivalry between British and French colonists in the New Hebrides.
By the Entente Cordiale both powers reduced the virtual isolation into which they had withdrawn—France involuntarily, Great Britain complacently—while they had eyed each other over African affairs: Great Britain had had no ally but Japan (1902), useless if war should break out in European waters; France had had none but Russia, soon to be discredited in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The agreement was consequently upsetting to Germany, whose policy had long been to rely on Franco-British antagonism. A German attempt to check the French in Morocco in 1905 (the Tangier Incident, or First Moroccan Crisis), and thus upset the Entente, served only to strengthen it. Military discussions between the French and the British general staffs were soon initiated. Franco-British solidarity was confirmed at the Algeciras Conference (1906) and reconfirmed in the Second Moroccan Crisis (1911).
The Entente Cordiale was the culmination of the policy of Théophile Delcassé, France’s foreign minister from 1898, who believed that a Franco-British understanding would give France some security against any German system of alliances in western Europe. Credit for the success of the negotiation belongs chiefly to Paul Cambon, France’s ambassador in London, and to the British foreign secretary Lord Lansdowne; but the pro-French inclination of the British sovereign, Edward VII, was a contributory factor.
The most important feature of the agreement was that it granted freedom of action to Great Britain in Egypt and to France in Morocco (with the proviso that France’s eventual dispositions for Morocco include reasonable allowance for Spain’s interests there). At the same time, Great Britain ceded the Los Islands (off French Guinea) to France, defined the frontier of Nigeria in France’s favour, and agreed to French control of the upper Gambia valley, while France renounced its exclusive right to certain fisheries off Newfoundland. Furthermore, French and British zones of influence in Siam (Thailand) were outlined, with the eastern territories, adjacent to French Indochina, becoming a French zone, and the western, adjacent to Burmese Tenasserim, a British zone; arrangements were also made to allay the rivalry between British and French colonists in the New Hebrides.
By the Entente Cordiale both powers reduced the virtual isolation into which they had withdrawn—France involuntarily, Great Britain complacently—while they had eyed each other over African affairs: Great Britain had had no ally but Japan (1902), useless if war should break out in European waters; France had had none but Russia, soon to be discredited in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The agreement was consequently upsetting to Germany, whose policy had long been to rely on Franco-British antagonism. A German attempt to check the French in Morocco in 1905 (the Tangier Incident, or First Moroccan Crisis), and thus upset the Entente, served only to strengthen it. Military discussions between the French and the British general staffs were soon initiated. Franco-British solidarity was confirmed at the Algeciras Conference (1906) and reconfirmed in the Second Moroccan Crisis (1911).
Anglo-French "Entente Cordiale"
Exercises:
1. Re-read the text, make up a list of necessary vocabulary and answer the following questions:
1) Why did Britain sign a treaty of alliance with Japan?
2) What was the Japanese side of reasoning for this agreement?
3) How did the countries accept the alliance?
4) What put the most strain on the relationship between the two island empires?
5) What were the conditions of the Entente Cordiale?
6) What benefits did France and Britain receive from this agreement between them?
7) Did the Anglo-French solidarity hold out in the end?
2. Find in the text the following words and word combinations, find a Russian equivalent for them and add them to your working vocabulary:
‘splendid isolation’; dubious change of direction; westernisation; burgeoning; a free hand; to sound out; to pave the way; adjacent to.
3. Use the words from the Exercise 2 in your own sentences.
4. Write your summary of the text, emphasising in it:
a) its subject matter,
b) the facts discussed,
c) the author's point of view on these facts.
1) Why did Britain sign a treaty of alliance with Japan?
2) What was the Japanese side of reasoning for this agreement?
3) How did the countries accept the alliance?
4) What put the most strain on the relationship between the two island empires?
5) What were the conditions of the Entente Cordiale?
6) What benefits did France and Britain receive from this agreement between them?
7) Did the Anglo-French solidarity hold out in the end?
2. Find in the text the following words and word combinations, find a Russian equivalent for them and add them to your working vocabulary:
‘splendid isolation’; dubious change of direction; westernisation; burgeoning; a free hand; to sound out; to pave the way; adjacent to.
3. Use the words from the Exercise 2 in your own sentences.
4. Write your summary of the text, emphasising in it:
a) its subject matter,
b) the facts discussed,
c) the author's point of view on these facts.
