Sir Charles Hardinge and the Question of Intervention in the Boer War: An Episode in the Rise of Anti-German Feeling in the British Foreign Office

Abstract

In recent years attention has been drawn to the rise of antiGerman feeling in the British Foreign Office during the first decade of the twentieth century.1 One significant episode, however, has hitherto been overlooked, and that is the part played by Sir Charles Hardinge in misleading Sir Edward Grey over the question of German intervention in the Boer War. This article is intended to draw attention to that episode, and to consider some of the questions that it raises.