Splendid Isolation to Finest Hour: Britain as a Global Power, 1900–1950

Abstract

Usually British foreign policy in the twentieth century is seen as a progress from ‘Isolation’ to ‘Commitment’, a view questioned in this essay. The view that Britain was isolated stems from contemporary polemic, since Lord Salisbury's policy had been more flexible and subtle than such a simplistic description implies. By 1905 Britain's diplomatic position was better than it had been for a decade, and it may be that fear about isolation and Germany tipped Sir Edward Grey (Foreign Secretary 1905–16) into leaning too far towards France and Russia who were not without revisionist aspirations. The perceived success of the Great War led Britain into assuming an exposed diplomatic position which proved ultimately unsustainable, as the isolation of the summer of 1940 showed. In that light her refusal to become involved in the nascent European movement deprived her of any alternative to the role of America's adjutant, with consequent results.