VII. Britain and Italian Intervention, 1914–1915

Abstract

The negotiations leading up to the Treaty of London of 27 April 1915 afford a classic illustration of Grey's complaints concerning the difficulties of conducting diplomacy in wartime. Though manifold they may be reduced to two headings. In the first place diplomacy was dependent, hopelessly so, upon victory in the field. ‘A diplomacy which was suitable when the Allied armies were having success’, Grey wrote, ‘was hopelessly unsuitable when the Germans seemed to be winning.’ Whereas before the war the Foreign Office had exercised some influence upon the development of British naval and military strategy, now the boot was upon the other foot. Words could not compensate for military defeats: ‘in war words count only so far as they are backed by force and victories. Up to the end of 1916…Allied diplomacy had little enough of this backing’.