GREAT BRITAIN’S PEACE EFFORTS

Great Britain tried to hold aloof from this international rivalry, this preparation for a war which her people and leaders hoped against hope would be averted. Royal visits of a pacific character were exchanged, parties of Great Britain’s business men visited Berlin, while leaders such as King Edward and Lord Haldane exercised all their ability in striving for some mutual ground of friendly action. Lovers of peace wrote many volumes and filled many newspapers with articles on the beneficence of that policy and the terrors of militarism—books and articles which were never seen in Germany except by those who regarded them as so many confessions of national weakness. Between 1904 and 1908 Great Britain actually reduced her naval expenditures and limited her construction of battleships in the hope that Germany would follow the lead, pleaded at two Hague Conferences for international reduction of armaments, kept away from all increase in her own almost ridiculous military establishment, urged upon two occasions (in 1912–1913) a naval holiday in construction. The following figures from Brassey’s authoritative NAVAL ANNUAL shows that her naval expenditure upon new ships in 1913 was actually less than in 1904, that Germany’s was nearly three times greater, that France and Russia and Italy had doubled theirs:

Great BritainGermanyFranceRussiaItalyAustro-Hungary
1904£13,508,176£4,275,489£4,370,102£4,480,188£1,121,753£1,329,590
19088,660,2027,795,4994,193,5442,703,7211,866,158716,662
191117,566,87711,710,8595,876,6593,240,3942,677,3023,125,000
191217,271,52711,491,1576,997,5527,904,0942,500,0003,620,881
191313,276,40011,176,4077,595,01010,953,6162,800,0003,280,473