Why and to what extent did Britain abandon Splendid Isolation under the Conservatives

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Jenny Mason

Why and to what extent did Britain abandon Splendid Isolation under the Conservatives

From 1895 to 1900 Britain continued the policy of ‘splendid isolation’.  This policy was started by Lord Salisbury in his previous government of 1886-92; Salisbury was more concerned with affairs out of Europe then becoming entangled in the Bisamarkian alliance system.  Britain could afford to follow the policy of ‘splendid isolation’ because of her naval supremacy.  However ‘splendid isolation’ is a misleading term as it was not that Britain was deliberately refusing to have anything to do with the rest of the world as she signed the Mediterranean Agreements and negotiated boundary settlements in Africa.  Yet in a sense Britain was isolated as Salisbury kept Britain aloof from binding alliances in case he committed her to military action.  

When Salisbury came to power again in 1895 important changes had taken place and the two countries he had most feared, France and Russia had signed an alliance with each other and also in 1894 the Triple Alliance had been formed which consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; this left Britain the only major European country not associated in an alliance bloc.  During this time Italy, France and Russia began to increase their navies and consequently Britain passed the Naval Defence Act of 1889.  Lord George Hamilton said in1893: “Our fleet should be equal to the combination of the two strongest navies in Europe.”  Nevertheless Salisbury was not anxious to commit Britain to either of the blocs as he preferred to try and revive the old ‘Concert of Europe’ where all the powers would co-operate together in times of crisis; however this had little success.  In 1895 Salisbury was now getting old at 66 and was becoming under increasing pressure from his cabinet ministers in particular Chamberlain.  The cabinet ministers wanted a more positive policy, but Salisbury did all he could to avoid it.  

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1900 was a turning point in Britain’s policy of ‘splendid isolation’ as she started to search for allies with much greater urgency than before.  A reason for this was that all the other major European powers had alliances so would have back-up in any future conflicts.  However Britain’s isolation had been demonstrated by events such as the Venezuela incident and the Boer war where lack of support had been demonstrated towards Britain and it had been difficult to defeat the Boers.  Consequently Britain was beginning to wonder what would happen if she was attacked by one or more powers. ...

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