History of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom

Further information: Timeline of British diplomatic history and History of the United Kingdom

The history of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom covers British foreign policy from about 1500 to 2000. For the current situation since 2000 see Foreign relations of the United Kingdom.

Britain from 1750 to the 1910s took pride in an unmatched economic base comprising industry, finance, shipping and trade that largely dominated the globe. Foreign policy based on free trade (after 1840) kept the economy flourishing. The overseas Empire recovered after the loss of America in 1776 and reached its zenith about 1920, and foreign policy made sure it was never seriously threatened.

After expending enormous energy on the defeat of France and Napoleon (1793-1815), British policy focused on achieving a conservative balance of power within Europe, with no one country achieving dominance over the affairs of the continent. This had been the basic reason behind the British wars against Napoleon, and the British commitment in the First and Second World Wars. The chief enemy down to 1815 was France, with its much larger population base and its powerful army. The British were generally successful in their many wars, with the notable exception of the American War of Independence (1775–1783). In that war Britain, without any major allies, was defeated by the colonials who had the support of France and the Netherlands, and France had support from Spain.

A favoured diplomatic strategy was subsidising the armies of continental allies, such as Prussia, thereby turning London's enormous financial power to military advantage. Britain relied heavily on its Royal Navy for security, seeking to keep it the most powerful fleet afloat with a full complement of bases across the globe. British dominance of the seas was vital to the formation of the British Empire, which was achieved through the maintenance of a Navy larger than the next two largest Navies combined for the majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries, prior to the entry of the United States into the Second World War. The British controlled the oceans. So powerful was the Royal Navy, it needed to do little actual fighting from 1812 to 1914. Although all of the other major Powers fought with their neighbours, the British army had only one relatively limited war (the Crimean War against Russia in 1854-56). The Army mostly handled garrison duty, and did have to deal with localized insurrections and colonial conflicts in Asia and Africa.

For a capsule guide to the wars, see List of conflicts involving the United Kingdom.

English foreign policy before 1700

In 1500 England had only a modest population (3.8 million) compared to its much larger rivals of France (15 million), Spain (6.5 million), and the Holy Roman Empire (17 million). It was three times larger than its naval rival, the Netherlands, and eight times larger than Scotland. The limited budget, limited ambitions on the continent, avoidance of alliances, and the protection afforded by the English Channel from foreign invasion combined to make foreign affairs less pressing for the British government before 1688. Elite elements paid little attention to Continental affairs before the 1660s, and there was little clamour to enter the Thirty Years War of 1618-48. Historian Lawrence Stone says England "was no more than a marginal player in the European power game." The increasingly powerful Royal Navy attracted admiration, but London used it to support its growing overseas empire.

Tudor foreign policy

King Henry VII (reigned 1485-1509) founded the Tudor dynasty that lasted to 1603, and concentrated on establishing peace in England, especially against the threatened rebellions by the newly defeated House of York. Foreign affairs apart from Scotland were not a high priority. Scotland was an independent country, and peace was agreed to in 1497. Much of his diplomacy involved treaties for marriages with ruling houses in Europe. He married his eldest daughter Margaret Tudor to King James IV of Scotland in 1503. The match did not guarantee peace in the short run but did so in the long run: in 1603 James VI and I, the grandson of the marriage, united the two kingdoms under his rule. Henry tried to marry his daughter Mary to the man who later became Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, but that fell through. Henry VIII finally married her to King Louis XII of France as part of a peace treaty in 1514; Louis died after three months and Henry demanded and got most of her dowry back. The other main diplomatic success of Henry VII was an alliance with Spain, sealed by the marriage in 1501 of his heir Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Catherine of Aragon, Spain's infanta (eldest daughter of the Spanish king). When his Queen died in 1503, Henry VII searched the European marriage market for a diplomatic marriage with a large dowry for himself, but was unable to find a match.

Arthur died in 1502 and the second son married the widow in 1509, just after he became king as Henry VIII,

Henry VIII

King Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1547) was one of the most flamboyant and famous of all English monarchs. In military terms, he paid special attention to expanding the English Navy, to protect the rapidly expanding merchant fleet. He also commissioned privateers from the merchant fleets to act as auxiliary warships that captured and resold enemy merchant ships. Some of his foreign and religious policy revolved around annulling his marriage to Catherine in 1533 despite the opposition of the pope--his solution was to remove the Church of England from the pope's authority, thereby launching the English Reformation.

In 1510, France, with a fragile alliance with the Holy Roman Empire in the League of Cambrai, was winning a war against Venice. Henry renewed his father's friendship with Louis XII of France, and signed a pact with King Ferdinand of Spain. After Pope Julius II created the anti-French Holy League in October 1511, Henry followed Spain's lead and brought England into the new League. An initial joint Anglo-Spanish attack was planned for the spring to recover Aquitaine for England, the start of making Henry's dreams of ruling France a reality. The attack failed and it strained the Anglo-Spanish alliance. Nevertheless, the French were pushed out of Italy soon after, and the alliance survived, with both parties keen to win further victories over the French..

Henry with Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (right) and Pope Leo X (centre), c. 1520

On 30 June 1513, Henry invaded France, and his troops defeated a French army at the Battle of the Spurs – a relatively minor result, but one which was seized on by the English for propaganda purposes. Soon after, the English took Thérouanne and handed it over to Maximillian; Tournai, a more significant settlement, followed. Henry had led the army personally, complete with large entourage. His absence from the country, however, had prompted James IV of Scotland, to invade England at the behest of Louis. The English army, overseen by Queen Catherine, decisively defeated the Scots at the Battle of Flodden on 9 September 1513, in which James IV and many senior Scottish nobles died.

Charles V ascended the thrones of both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire following the deaths of his grandfathers, Ferdinand in 1516 and Maximilian in 1519. Francis I likewise became king of France upon the death of Louis in 1515, leaving three relatively young rulers and an opportunity for a clean slate. The careful diplomacy of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had resulted in the Treaty of London in 1518, an early non-aggression pact among the major kingdoms of western Europe. In a significant follow-up, Henry met Francis I on 7 June 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold near Calais for a fortnight of lavish and extremely expensive entertainment. The hope that warfare was past proved futile. Charles brought his Holy Roman Empire into war with France in 1521; Henry offered to mediate, but little was achieved and by the end of the year Henry had aligned England with Charles. He still clung to his previous aim of restoring English lands in France, but also sought to secure an alliance with Burgundy, then part of Charles' realm, and the continued support of Charles. Charles defeated and captured Francis at Pavia and could dictate peace; but he believed he owed Henry nothing. Henry had repeatedly raised taxes to pay for his foreign operations until upscale passive resistance in 1525 forced the ending of the newest tax known as the "Amicable Grant." Lack of money ended Henry's plans for an invasion of France and he took England out of the war with the Treaty of the More on 30 August 1525.

New World

Just five years after Columbus, in 1497 Henry VII commissioned the Italian mariner John Cabot who had settled in England, to explore the New World. Cabot was the first European since the Norsemen to reach parts of what is now Canada, exploring from Newfoundland to as far south as Delaware. He found no gold or spices and the king lost interest. Colonization was not a high priority for the Tudors, who were much more interested in raiding the Spanish treasure ships than in acquiring their own colonies.<

Treasure crisis of 1568

The "Treasure crisis" of 1568 was Queen Elizabeth's seizure of gold from Spanish ships in English ports in November 1568. Chased by privateers in the English channel, five small Spanish ships carrying gold and silver worth 400,000 florins (£85,000) sought shelter in English harbors at Plymouth and Southampton. The English government headed by William Cecil gave permission. The money was bound for the Netherlands as payment for Spanish soldiers who were fighting rebels there. Queen Elizabeth discovered that the gold was not owned by Spain, but was still owned by Italian bankers. She decided to seize it, and treated as a loan from the Italian bankers to England. The bankers agree to her terms, so Elizabeth had the money and she eventually repaid the bankers. Spain reacted furiously, and seized English property in the Netherlands and Spain. England reacted by seizing Spanish ships and properties in England. Spain reacted by imposing an embargo preventing all English imports into the Netherlands . The bitter diplomatic standoff lasted for four years. However neither side wanted war. In 1573, the Convention of Nymegen was a treaty where England promised to end support for raids on Spanish shipping by English privateers such as Francis Drake and John Hawkins. It was finalized in the Convention of Bristol in August, 1574 in which both sides paid for what they had seized. Trade resumed between England and Spain and relations improved.

Armada

Main article: Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)

The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) arose largely from religious differences; the execution of Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587 outraged Spain. War was never formally declared. Spain was militarily and financially much more powerful, and promoted a Catholic interest in opposition to England's Protestantism. The conflict saw widely separated battles, and began with England's military expedition in 1585 to the Spanish Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) in support of the resistance of the States General to Spanish Habsburg rule. The English enjoyed a modest victory by "Singeing the King of Spain's Beard" in 1587 at Cádiz, the main port in Spain. The raid led by Francis Drake destroyed numerous merchant ships and captured some treasure. The great English triumph was the decisive defeat of the Spanish invasion attempt by the ill-fated Spanish Armada in 1588. After Elizabeth died in 1603, the new king made peace a high priority and ended the long-simmering conflict in 1604.

Stuart foreign policy

By 1600 the conflict with Spain became deadlocked during campaigns in Brittany and Ireland. James I, the new king of England made peace with the new King of Spain, Philip III with the Treaty of London in 1604. They agreed to cease their military interventions in the Spanish Netherlands and Ireland, respectively, and the English ended high seas privateering against Spanish merchant ships. King James I (reigned 1603-25) was sincerely devoted to peace, not just for his three kingdoms, but for Europe as a whole. He disliked Puritans and Jesuits alike, because of their eagerness for warfare. He called himself "Rex Pacificus" ("King of peace.") Europe was deeply polarized, and on the verge of the massive Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), with the smaller established Protestant states facing the aggression of the larger Catholic empires. On assuming the throne, James made peace with Catholic Spain, and made it his policy to marry his son to the Spanish Infanta (princess) in the "Spanish Match". The marriage of James' daughter Princess Elizabeth to Frederick V, Elector Palatine on 14 February 1613 was more than the social event of the era; the couple's union had important political and military implications. Across Europe, the German princes were banding together in the Union of German Protestant Princes, headquartered in Heidelberg, the capital of the Palatine. King James calculated that his daughter's marriage would give him diplomatic leverage among the Protestants. He thus planned to have a foot in both camps and be able to broker peaceful settlements. In his naïveté, he did not realize that both sides were playing him as a tool for their own goal of achieving destroying the other side. Spain's ambassador Count Gondomar knew how to manipulate the king. The Catholics in Spain, as well as the Emperor Ferdinand II, the Vienna-based leader of the Habsburgs and head of the Holy Roman Empire, were both heavily influenced by the Catholic counter-Reformation. They had the goal of expelling Protestantism from their domains.

Lord Buckingham (1592-1628), who increasingly was the actual ruler of Britain, wanted an alliance with Spain. Buckingham took Charles with him to Spain to woo the Infanta in 1623. However, Spain's terms were that James must drop Britain’s anti-Catholic intolerance or no marriage. Buckingham and Charles were humiliated and Buckingham became the leader of the widespread British demand for a war against Spain. Meanwhile, the Protestant princes looked to Britain, since it was the strongest of all the Protestant countries, to give military support for their cause. His son-in-law and daughter became king and queen of Bohemia, which outraged Vienna. The Thirty Years’ War began, as the Habsburg Emperor ousted the new king and queen of Bohemia, and massacred their followers. Catholic Bavaria then invaded the Palatine, and James’s son-in-law begged for James’s military intervention. James finally realized his policies had backfired and refused these pleas. He successfully kept Britain out of the European-wide war that proved so heavily devastating for three decades. James's backup plan was to marry his son Charles to a French Catholic princess, who would bring a handsome dowry. Parliament and the British people were strongly opposed to any Catholic marriage, were demanding immediate war with Spain, and strongly favored with the Protestant cause in Europe. James had alienated both elite and popular opinion in Britain, and Parliament was cutting back its financing. Historians credit James for pulling back from a major war at the last minute, and keeping Britain in peace.

Frederick and Elizabeth's election as King and Queen of Bohemia in 1619, and the conflagration that resulted, marked the beginning of the disastrous Thirty Years' War. King James' determination to avoid involvement in the continental conflict, even during the "war fever" of 1623, appears in retrospect as one of the most significant, and most positive, aspects of his reign. There was a small naval Anglo-French War (1627–1629) , in which the England supported the French Huguenots against King Louis XIII of France.

During 1600-1650 England made repeated efforts to colonize Guiana in South America. They all failed and the lands (Surinam) were ceded to the Dutch in 1667.

Anglo Dutch Wars

Main article: Anglo-Dutch Wars

The Anglo-Dutch Wars were a series of three wars which took place between the English and the Dutch from 1652 to 1674. The causes included political disputes and increasing competition from merchant shipping. Religion was not a factor, since both sides were Protestant. The British in the first war (1652–54) had the naval advantage with larger numbers of more powerful "ships of the line" which were well suited to the naval tactics of the era. The British also captured numerous Dutch merchant ships. In the second war (1665–67) Dutch naval victories followed. This second war cost London ten times more than it had planned on, and the king sued for peace in 1667 with the Treaty of Breda. It ended the fights over "mercantilism" (that is, the use of force to protect and expand national trade, industry, and shipping.) Meanwhile, the French were building up fleets that threatened both the Netherlands and Great Britain. In third war (1672–74), The British counted on a new alliance with France but the outnumbered Dutch outsailed both of them, and King Charles II ran short of money and political support. The Dutch gained domination of sea trading routes until 1713. The British gained the thriving colony of New Netherland, and renamed it New York.

William III: 1689-1702

Further information: Nine Years' War and William III of England

Europe in 1700; England and Ireland are in red.

The primary reason the English elite called on William to invade England in 1688 was to overthrow King James II, and stop his efforts to reestablish Catholicism and tolerate Puritanism. However the primary reason William accepted the challenge was to gain a powerful ally in his war to contain the threatened expansion of King Louis XIV of France. William's goal was to build coalitions against the powerful French monarchy, protect the autonomy of the Netherlands (where William continued in power) and to keep the Spanish Netherlands (present-date Belgium) out of French hands. The English elite was intensely anti--French, and Generally supported William's broad goals. For his entire career in Netherlands and Britain, William was the arch-enemy of Louis XIV. The French king, and the, denounced William as a usurper who had illegally taken the throne from the legitimate king James II and ought to be overthrown. In May 1689, William, now king of England, with the support of Parliament, declared war on France. England and France would be at war almost continuously until 1713, with a short interlude 1697-1701 made possible by the Treaty of Ryswick. The combined English and Dutch fleets could overpower France in a far-flung naval war, but France still had superiority on land. William wanted to neutralize that advantage by allying with Leopold I, the Habsburg Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (1658-1705), who was based in Vienna, Austria. Leopold, however, Was tied down in war with the Ottoman Empire on his eastern frontiers; William worked to achieve a negotiated settlement between the Ottomans and the Empire. William displayed in imaginative Europe-wide strategy, but Louis always managed to come up with a counter play. William was usually supported by the English leadership, which saw France as its greatest enemy. But eventually the expenses, and war weariness, but the second thoughts. At first, Parliament voted him the funds for his expensive wars, and for his subsidies to smaller allies. Using the Dutch model, William created the Bank of England in 1694; it provided a sound system that made financing wars much easier by encouraging bankers to loan money. In the long-running Nine Years' War (1688–97) his main strategy was to form a military alliance of England, the Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and some smaller states, to attack France at sea, and from land in different directions, while defending the Netherlands. Louis XIV tried to undermine this strategy by refusing to recognize William as king of England, and by giving diplomatic, military and financial support to a series of pretenders to the English throne, all based in France.Williams focused most of his attention on foreign policy and foreign wars, spending a great deal of time in the Netherlands (where he continued to hold the dominant political office). His closest foreign-policy advisers were Dutch, most notably William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland; they shared little information with their English counterparts. The net result was that the Netherlands remained independent, and France never took control of the Spanish Netherlands. The wars were very expensive to both sides but inconclusive. William died just as the continuation war, the War of the Spanish Succession, (1702–1714), was beginning. It was fought out by Queen Anne, and ended in a draw.

The long 18th century: wars with France, 1702-1815

Diplomatic service

Unlike such major rivals as France, the Netherlands, Sweden or Austria, British control over their own diplomacy was erratic. Diplomats were poorly selected, poorly funded, and non-professional. The main posts were Paris and The Hague, but the diplomats sent there were more clever in dealing with London politics than they were with diplomatic affairs. King William III handle foreign policy himself, using Dutch diplomats whenever possible. After 1700, Britain, build up the quantity of its diplomatic service in the major capitals, without much attention to quality. Vienna and Berlin were upgraded, but even they were ignored for years at a time. By the 1790s, British diplomats had learned a great deal by closely watching their French rivals; aristocratic exiles from Paris began helping out as well. For the first time in the French wars, Britain set up an underground intelligence service that was in contact with local dissidents, and helped shape their protests. Pitt Was saddled with the largely incompetent foreign secretary marquess of Carmarthen from 1783 to 1791. However Pitt managed to bring in numerous strong diplomats, such as James Harris at The Hague, where he forged an alliance that with the addition of Prussia became a triple alliance in 1788. Pitt often used him as a troubleshooter in complex negotiations. Pitt brought in William Eden (1744-1814), who negotiated a difficult commercial treaty with France in 1786.

Pitt brought on board three foreign ministers with strong reputations. William Grenville (1791-1801) saw France as a profound threat to every nation in Europe, and he focused his attention on its defeat, working closely with his cousin prime minister Pitt. George Canning (1807-9), and Viscount Casterleagh (1812-15) were highly successful in organizing complex coalitions that in the end defeated Napoleon. Castlereagh to Canning displayed imagination and energy, although their personalities clashed to the point of fighting a duel.

Britain as a naval and maritime power

Britain's leaders realized the value of the increasingly powerful Royal Navy, and made sure that in various treaties it added naval bases and obtained access to key ports. In the Mediterranean region, it controlled Gibraltar and Minorca, and had advantageous positions in Naples and Palermo. The alliance with Portugal concluded in 1703 protected its approaches to the Mediterranean. In the North, Hanover played a role (it was ruled by the English king), while the alliance with Denmark provided naval access to the North Sea and the Baltic. Meanwhile, French maritime power was weakened by the Treaty of Utrecht which forced it to destroy its naval base in Dunkirk. English maritime power was boosted by a series of commercial treaties, including those of 1703 with Portugal, with the Netherlands, Savoy, Spain and France in 1713. Although the merchants of London had little direct say at the royal court, the king appreciated their contribution to the wealth of his kingdom, and to his tax base.

1702-1712 – War of the Spanish Succession

Main articles: War of the Spanish Succession and Treaty of Utrecht

Britain was a player in the first world war of modern times with theatres of fighting in Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, and at sea. At issue was the threat of France taking control of Spain and its American colonies. The Royal Navy with an assist from the Dutch in 1704-5 captured Gibraltar, which for the next three centuries became the key to British power in the Mediterranean.

1742-48, – War of the Austrian Succession

George II leading his troops at Dettingen

Main article: War of the Austrian Succession

Britain played a small role in the inconclusive but hard fought war that convulsed central Europe, while funding its ally Austria. The goal, as defined by foreign minister John Carteret was to limit the growth of French power, and protect Hanover, which was also ruled by King George II. In 1743 King George II led a 40,000-man British=-Dutch-German army into the Rhine Valley. He was outmaneuvred by the French but he scored a narrow victory at the Battle of Dettingen. In the winter of 1743-44 the French planned to invade Britain in alliance with the Stuart pretender to George's throne; they were foiled by the Royal Navy. King George gave command to his son the Duke of Cumberland. He fared poorly and Britain pulled out of the war to deal with rebellion at home, where Cumberland gained fame by decisively suppressing the Jacobite Rising at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Meanwhile, Britain did much better in North America, capturing the powerful Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) favoured France, which won the most victories. Britain returned the Fortress of Louisbourg to France and the French left Belgium. Prussia and Savoy werre the main winners, and Britain's ally Austria was a loser. The treaty left the main issues of control over territories in America and India unresolved, and was little more than an armed truce, and a prelude to the more important Seven Years' War...

1754-63 – Seven Years' War

Main articles: Seven Years' War and French and Indian War

The new alliances formed as a result of the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756; Austria switched from a British ally to a French ally; Prussia became a British ally.

The Seven Years' War (1756-63 in Europe, 1754-63 in North America) was a major international conflict centered in Europe but reaching across the globe. Great Britain and Prussia were the winners. They fought France, Austria, Spain and Russia—nearly all of the other important powers except the Ottoman Empire). The Royal Navy played a major role, and the army and the Treasury played important roles. The war appeared to be a disaster for Prussia, until its fortunes reversed at the last second. Britain swept up much of the overseas French Empire in North America and India. The financing of war was a critical issue, which Britain handled well, and France handled poorly, leaving itself so deep in debt. That it never fully recovered. William Pitt (1708–78) energized the British leadership, and used effective diplomacy and military strategy to achieve his victory. Britain used the manpower from its American colonies effectively in cooperation with its regulars and its Navy to overwhelm the much less populous French colonial empire in what is now Canada. From a small spark in 1754 in the distant wilderness (near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), the fighting spread to Europe. 1759, was the "annus mirabilis" ("miraculous year"), with victory after victory. British and Prussian troops defeated the French army at the Battle of Minden, the British captured Guadeloupe Island and Quebec, smashed the French fleet at Quiberon Bay, and (in January 1760) defeated the French in southern India. Peace terms were hard to reach and the war dragged on until everyone was exhausted. The British national debt soared to £134 million from £72 million, but London had a financial system capable of handling the burden.

A debate erupted at the peace conference over whether Britain should keep the French colony of "New France" (now Canada) or Guadeloupe, both of which it had seized in the war. France wanted the rich sugar island as its world vision turned to maritime and tropical interests. Meanwhile, Britain was moving from commercial and maritime regulation to the assertion of territorial control over its colonies. So Britain kept the vast stretches of uneconomical Canada and France kept the rich little island.

1775-83 - American War of Independence

Main articles: Diplomacy in the American Revolutionary War and Treaty of Paris (1783)

Neutrals

Britain's diplomacy failed in the war—it had support of only a few small German states that hired out mercenaries. Most of Europe was officially neutral, but the elites and public opinion typically favoured the underdog American Patriots as in Sweden, and Denmark.

The League of Armed Neutrality was an alliance of minor European naval powers between 1780 and 1783 which was intended to protect neutral shipping against the Royal Navy's wartime policy of unlimited search of neutral shipping for French contraband. Empress Catherine II of Russia began the League in 1780. She endorsed the right of neutral countries to trade by sea with nationals of belligerent countries without hindrance, except in weapons and military supplies. The League would not recognize supposed blockades of whole coasts, but only of individual ports, and then only if a British warship was actually present. Denmark and Sweden agreed with Russia and the three countries signed the agreement forming the League. They remained otherwise out of the war, but threatened joint retaliation for every ship of theirs searched by a belligerent. By the end of the war in 1783 Prussia, the Holy Roman Empire, the Netherlands, Portugal, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Ottoman Empire had all become members.

The League never fought a battle. Diplomatically, it carried greater weight; France and the United States of America were quick to proclaim their adherence to the new principle of free neutral commerce. Britain—which did not—still had no wish to antagonize Russia, and avoided interfering with the allies' shipping. While both sides of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War tacitly understood it as an attempt to keep the Netherlands out of the League, Britain did not officially regard the alliance as hostile.

William Pitt the Younger

As Prime Minister (1783-1801, 1804-1806) William Pitt the Younger, despite his youth, reinvigorated the administrative system of Great Britain, modernized its finances, and led the way in breaking out of the diplomatic isolation, it found itself during the American war. Beginning in 1792, he led the British nation in its mortal combat with the French Revolution and Napoleon.

Warfare and finance

From 1700 to 1850, Britain was involved in 137 wars or rebellions. It maintained a relatively large and expensive Royal Navy, along with a small standing army. When the need arose for soldiers it hired mercenaries or financed allies who fielded armies. The rising costs of warfare forced a shift in government financing from the income from royal agricultural estates and special imposts and taxes to reliance on customs and excise taxes and, after 1790, an income tax. Working with bankers in the City, the government raised large loans during wartime and paid them off in peacetime. The rise in taxes amounted to 20% of national income, but the private sector benefited from the increase in economic growth. The demand for war supplies stimulated the industrial sector, particularly naval supplies, munitions and textiles, which gave Britain an advantage in international trade during the postwar years. Pitt in the 1780s reformed the fiscal system by raising taxes, monitoring expenses closely, and establishing a sinking fund to pay off the long-term debt, which amounted to £243 million, with annual interest accounting for most of the budget. Meanwhile, the banking system used its ownership of the debt to provide capital assets for economic growth. When the wars with France began, the debt reached £359 million in 1797 and Pitt kept the sinking fund in operation and raised taxes, especially on luxury items. Britain was far ahead of France and all other powers in its use of finance to strengthen the economy, the military and foreign policy.

Nootka crisis with Spain, 1789-1795

Main article: Nootka Crisis

The Nootka Crisis was a crisis with Spain starting in 1789 at Nootka Sound, an unsettled area at the time that is now part of British Columbia, Canada. Spain seized small British commercial ships engaged in the fur trade in an area on the Pacific on an area on the Pacific Coast. Spain claimed ownership based on a papal decree of 1493 that Spain said gave it control of the entire Pacific Ocean. Britain rejected the Spanish claims and used its greatly superior naval power to threaten a war and win the dispute. Spain, a rapidly fading military power, was unable to depend upon its longtime ally France, which was torn by internal revolution. The dispute was settled by negotiations in 1792-94, which became friendly when Spain switched sides in 1792 and became an ally of Britain against France. Spain surrendered to Britain many of its trade and territorial claims in the Pacific, ending a two-hundred-year monopoly on Asian-Pacific trade. The outcome was a victory for mercantile interests of Britain and opened the way to British expansion in the Pacific.

Crisis with Russia 1791

Pitt was alarmed at Russian expansion in Crimea in the 1780s at the expense of his Ottoman ally, and tried to get Parliamentary support for reversing it. In peace talks with the Ottomans, Russia refused to return the key Ochakov fortress. Pitt wanted to threaten military retaliation. However Russia's ambassador Semyon Vorontsov swayed Pitt's enemies and launched a successful public opinion campaign. Pitt won the vote so narrowly that he gave up and Vorontsov secured a renewal of the commercial treaty between Britain and Russia.

French Revolutionary Wars 1792-1803

Main article: French Revolutionary Wars

• 1793 – 1802- French Revolutionary Wars

No conclusive winner.

• • 1802 - Treaty of Amiens

War resumed in 1803 after a one-year truce.

The French Revolution, broke out in 1789 and polarized British political opinion, with the dominant conservatives outraged at killing of the king, the expulsion of the nobles, and the Reign of Terror. Britain was at war against France almost continuously from 1793 until the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815. The goal was to stop the spread of revolutionary and democratic ideas, and to prevent France from controlling Western Europe. William Pitt the Younger was the dominant leader until his death in 1806. Pitt's strategy was to mobilize and fund the coalition against France. It seemed too hard to attack France on the continent so Pitt decided to seize France's valuable colonies in the West Indies and India. At home, a minority pro-French element carried little weight with the British government. Conservatives castigated every radical opinion as "Jacobin" (in reference to the leaders of the Terror), warning that radicalism threatened an upheaval of British society.

• 1791–92: London rejects intervention in French Revolution. Its policy is based on realism not ideology and seek to avoid French attacks on the Austrian Netherlands; to not worsen the fragile status of King Louis XVI; and to prevent formation of a strong Continental league.
• 1792–97: War of the First Coalition: Prussia and Austria joined after 1793 by Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Sardinia, Naples, and Tuscany against French Republic.
• 1792: Austria and Prussia invade France. The French defeat the invaders and then go on the offensive by invading the Austria Netherlands (modern Belgium) in late 1792. This causes grave tension with Britain as it was British policy to ensure that France could not control the "narrow seas" by keeping the French out of the Low Countries.
• 1792: In India, victory over Tipu Sultan in Third Anglo-Mysore War; cession of one half of Mysore to the British and their allies.
• 1793: France declares war on Britain.
• 1794: Jay Treaty with the United States normalizes trade and secures a decade of peace. The British withdraws from forts in Northwest Territory but maintain support of tribes hostile to the U.S. France is angered at the close relationship, and denounces the Jay Treaty as a violation of its 1777 treaty with the U.S.
• 1802–03: Peace of Amiens allows 13 months of peace with France.

War between Britain and France, 1803–1814

Main article: The United Kingdom in the Napoleonic Wars

"Maniac-raving's-or-Little Boney in a strong fit" by James Gillray. His caricatures ridiculing Napoleon greatly annoyed the Frenchman, who wanted them suppressed by the British government.

Britain ended the uneasy truce created by the Treaty of Amiens when it declared war on France in May 1803. The British were increasingly angered by Napoleon's reordering of the international system in Western Europe, especially in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Frederick Kagan argues that Britain was especially alarmed by Napoleon's assertion of control over Switzerland. Britons felt insulted when Napoleon said it deserved no voice in European affairs (even though King George was an elector of the Holy Roman Empire), and ought to restrict the London newspapers that were vilifying him.

Britain had a sense of loss of control, as well as loss of markets, and was worried by Napoleon's possible threat to its overseas colonies. Frank McLynn argues that Britain went to war in 1803 out of a "mixture of economic motives and national neuroses – an irrational anxiety about Napoleon's motives and intentions." McLynn concludes that in the long run it proved to be the right choice for Britain, because in the long run Napoleon's intentions were hostile to the British national interest. Napoleon was not ready for war and so this was the best time for Britain to stop them. Britain seized upon the Malta issue, refusing to follow the terms of the Treaty of Amiens and evacuate the island.

The deeper British grievance was their perception that Napoleon was taking personal control of Europe, making the international system unstable, and forcing Britain to the sidelines.

• 1803: Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) against France
• 1803–06: War of the Third Coalition: Napoleon terminates the Holy Roman Empire.
• 1803: By the Anglo-Russian agreement, Britain pays a subsidy of ₤1.5 million pounds for every 100,000 Russian soldiers in the field. Subsidies also went to Austria and other allies.
• 1804: Pitt organized the Third Coalition against Napoleon; it last until 1806 and was marked by mostly French victories
• 1805: Decisive defeat of the French navy at the Battle of Trafalgar by Nelson; end of invasion threats
• 1806–07: Britain leads the Fourth Coalition in alliance with Prussia, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden. Napoleon leads France to victory at numerous major battles, notably Battle of Jena–Auerstedt)
• 1807: Britain makes the international slave trade criminal; Slave Trade Act 1807; US prohibits the importation of new slaves (Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves)
• 1808–14: Peninsular War against Napoleonic forces in Spain; result is victory under the Duke of Wellington
• 1812–15: US declares War of 1812 over national honour, neutral rights at sea, British support for western Indians.
• 1813: Napoleon defeated at Battle of the Nations; he retreats.
• 1814: France invaded; Paris falls; Napoleon abdicates and Congress of Vienna convenes
• 1814: Anglo-Nepalese War (1814–1816)
• 1815: With the War of 1812 against the U.S. a military draw, the British abandon their First Nation allies and agree at the Treaty of Ghent to restore the prewar status quo; thus begins a permanent peace along the US-Canada border, marred only by occasional small, unauthorised raids
• 1815: Napoleon returns and for 100 days is again a threat; he is defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to a distant island.
• 1815: The Napoleonic Wars end, marking the start of the Britain's Imperial Century, 1815–1914.
• 1815: Second Kandyan War (1815) - in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)

1814-1914

Further information: International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)

The main function of the British defence system, especially the Royal Navy, was defence of the overseas British Empire (in addition to defence of the homeland). The army, usually in cooperation with local forces, suppressed internal revolts, losing only the American War of Independence (1775–83). David Armitage says it became an element of the British creed that:

Protestantism, oceanic commerce and mastery of the seas provided bastions to protect the freedom of inhabitants of the British Empire. That freedom found its institutional expression in Parliament, the law, property, and rights, all of which were exported throughout the British Atlantic world. Such freedom also allowed the British, uniquely, to combine the classically incompatible ideals of liberty and empire.

Britain, with its global empire, powerful Navy, leading industrial base, and unmatched financial and trade networks, dominated diplomacy in Europe and the world in the largely peaceful century 1814-1914. Four men stand out for their leadership in foreign policy: Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone and Lord Salisbury. Military action was much less important than diplomacy. British military interventions in 1815–50 included opening up markets in Latin America (as in Argentina), opening the China market, responding to humanitarians by sending the Royal Navy to shut down the slave trade, and building a balance of power in Europe, as in Spain and Belgium.

Personalities

Palmerston

Lord Palmerston, as a Whig and then a Liberal, was the dominant leader in foreign policy for most of the period from 1830 until his death in 1865. As foreign secretary from 1846 to 1851 and subsequently as prime minister, Palmerston sought to maintain the balance of power in Europe, sometimes opposing France and at other times aligning with France to do so. Thus he was aligned with France in the Crimean War against Russia, fought and won with the limited goal of protecting the Ottoman Empire. Some of his aggressive actions, now sometimes termed liberal interventionist, were highly controversial at the time, and remain so today. For example, he used military force to achieve his main goal of opening China to trade, although his critics focused on his support for the opium trade. In all his actions Palmerston brought to bear a great deal of patriotic vigour and energy. This made him very popular among the ordinary people of Britain, but his passion, propensity to act through personal animosity, and imperious language made him seem dangerous and destabilising in the eyes of the Queen and his more conservative colleagues in government. He was an innovative administrator who devised ways to enhance his control of his department and build up his reputation. He controlled all communication within the Foreign Office and to other officials. He leaked secrets to the press, published selected documents, and released letters to give himself more control.

Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative leader for much of the late 19th century, built up the British Empire and played a major role in European diplomacy. Disraeli's second term (1874-1880) was dominated by the Eastern Question—the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire and the desire of other European powers, such as Russia, to gain at its expense. Disraeli arranged for the British to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company (in Ottoman-controlled Egypt). In 1878, faced with Russian victories against the Ottomans, he worked at the Congress of Berlin to obtain peace in the Balkans at terms favourable to Britain and unfavourable to Russia, its longstanding enemy. This diplomatic victory over Russia established Disraeli as one of Europe's leading statesmen. World events thereafter moved against the Conservatives. Controversial wars in Afghanistan and South Africa undermined Disraeli's public support.

Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone (Prime Minister 1868-74, 1880–86, 1892–94), the Liberal leader, was much less inclined to imperialism and sought peace as the highest foreign policy goal. However, historians have been sharply critical of Gladstone's foreign-policy during his second ministry. Paul Hayes says it "provides one of the most intriguing and perplexing tales of mobile and incompetence in foreign affairs, unsurpassed in modern political history until the days of Grey and, later, Neville Chamberlain." Gladstone opposed himself to the "colonial lobby" which pushed the scramble for Africa. His term saw the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, First Boer War and the war against the Mahdi in Sudan.

Takeover of Egypt, 1882

The most decisive event emerged from the Anglo-Egyptian War, which resulted in the occupation of Egypt. Historian A. J. P. Taylor says that the British seizure of Egypt, which lasted seven decades,"was a great event; indeed, the only real event in international relations between the Battle of Sedan and the defeat of Russia and the Russo-Japanese war." Taylor emphasizes long-term impact:

The British occupation of Egypt altered the balance of power. It not only gave the British security for their route to India; it made them masters of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East; it made it unnecessary for them to stand in the front line against Russia at the Straits....And thus prepared the way for the Franco-Russian Alliance ten years later.

Salisbury

Historians largely agree that Lord Salisbury as foreign minister (1878–80, 1885–86, 1887–92, and 1895-1900) and prime minister (1886–92, 1895-1902) was a strong and effective leader in foreign affairs. Historians in the late 20th century rejected the older view that Salisbury pursued a policy of 'splendid isolation'. He had a superb grasp of the issues, and proved:

a patient, pragmatic practitioner, with a keen understanding of Britain's historic interests....He oversaw the partition of Africa, the emergence of Germany and the United States as imperial powers, and the transfer of British attention from the Dardanelles to Suez without provoking a serious confrontation of the great powers.

Free trade imperialism

The Great Exhibition of 1851 clearly demonstrated Britain's dominance in engineering and industry, which was to last until the rise of the United States and Germany in the 1890s. Using the imperial tools of free trade and financial investment, it exerted major influence on many countries outside Europe, especially in Latin America and Asia. Thus Britain had both a formal Empire based on British rule and an informal one based on the British pound.

Relations with the United States

Further information: United Kingdom–United States relations and Britain in the American Civil War

Relations with the United States were often strained, and even verged on war when Britain almost supported the Confederacy in the early part of the American Civil War. British leaders were constantly annoyed from the 1840s to the 1860s by what they saw as Washington's pandering to the democratic mob, as in Oregon boundary dispute in 1844-46. However British middle class public opinion sensed a common "Special Relationship" between the two peoples based on language, migration, evangelical Protestantism, liberal traditions, and extensive trade. This constituency rejected war, forcing London to appease the Americans. During the Trent affair of late 1861, London drew the line and Washington retreated.

During the Civil War, Britain supplied warships and blockade runners to the Confederacy, but had a large scale trade with the United States and many British men volunteered to fight for the North. Northern food supplies were much more essential to Britain than Southern cotton. After the war, the US demanded reparations (called the Alabama Claims) for the damages caused by the warships. After arbitration the British paid the U.S. $15.5 million in 1872 and peaceful relations resumed.

Relations with the Ottoman Empire

Further information: Foreign relations of the Ottoman Empire and International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919) § Ottoman Empire

As the 19th century progressed the Ottoman Empire grew weaker and Britain increasingly became its protector, even fighting the Crimean War in the 1850s to help it out against Russia. Three British leaders played major roles. Lord Palmerston in the 1830-65 era considered the Ottoman Empire an essential component in the balance of power, was the most favourable toward Constantinople. William Gladstone in the 1870s sought to build a Concert of Europe that would support the survival of the empire. In the 1880s and 1890s Lord Salisbury contemplated an orderly dismemberment of it, in such a way as to reduce rivalry between the greater powers.

Crimean War 1854-56

Main article: Crimean War

The Crimean War (1854–56) was fought between Russia on the one hand and an alliance of Britain, France, Sardinia, and the Ottoman Empire on the other. Russia was defeated But the casualties were very heavy on all sides, and historians look at the entire episode as a series of blunders.

The war began with Russian demands to protect Christian sites in the Holy Land. The churches quickly settled that problem, but it escalated out of hand has Russia put continuous pressure on the Ottomans. Diplomatic efforts failed. The Sultan declared war against Russia in October 1851. Following an Ottoman naval disaster in November, Britain and France declared war against Russia. It proved quite difficult to reach Russian territory, and the Royal Navy could not defeat the Russian defences in the Baltic. Most of the battles took place in the Crimean peninsula, which the Allies finally seized. London, shocked to discover that France was secretly negotiating with Russia to form a postwar alliance to dominate Europe, dropped its plans to attack St. Petersburg and instead signed a one-sided armistice with Russia that achieved almost none of its war aims.

Diplomats at the Congress of Paris, 1856, settled the Crimean War; painting by Edouard Louis Dubufe.

The Treaty of Paris signed March 30, 1856, ended the war. Russia gave up a little land and relinquished its claim to a protectorate over the Christians in the Ottoman domains. The Black Sea was demilitarized, and an international commission was set up to guarantee freedom of commerce and navigation on the Danube River. Moldavia and Wallachia remained under nominal Ottoman rule, but would be granted independent constitutions and national assemblies. However, by 1870, the Russians had regained most of their concessions.

The war helped modernize warfare by introducing major new technologies such as railways, the telegraph, and modern nursing methods. In the long run the war marked a turning point in Russian domestic and foreign policy. Russian intellectuals used the defeat to demand fundamental reform of the government and social system. The war weakened both Russia and Austria, so they could no longer promote stability. This opened the way for Napoleon III, Cavour (in Italy) and Otto von Bismarck (in Germany) to launch a series of wars in the 1860s that reshaped Europe.

Of the 91,000 British soldiers and sailors sent to Crimea, 21,000 died, 80 percent of them from disease. The losses were reported in detail in the media and caused revulsion against warfare in Britain, combined with a celebration of the heroic common soldier who demonstrated Christian virtue. The great heroine was Florence Nightingale, whose was hailed for her devotion to caring for the wounded and her emphasis on middle-class efficiency. She typified a moral status as a nurse that was superior to aristocratic militarism in terms of both morality and efficiency.

Historian R. B. McCallum points out the war was enthusiastically supported by the British populace as it was happening, but the mood changed very dramatically afterwards. Pacifists and critics were unpopular but:

in the end they won. Cobden and Bright were true to their principles of foreign policy, which laid down the absolute minimum of intervention in European affairs and a deep moral reprobation of war....When the first enthusiasm was passed, when the dead were mourned, the sufferings revealed, and the cost counted, when in 1870 Russia was able calmly to secure the revocation of the Treaty, which disarmed her in the Black Sea, the view became general of the war was stupid and unnecessary, and effected nothing....The Crimean war remained as a classic example...of how governments may plunge into war, how strong ambassadors may mislead weak prime ministers, how the public may be worked up into a facile fury, and how the achievements of the war may crumble to nothing. The Bright-Cobden criticism of the war was remembered and to a large extent accepted [especially by the Liberal Party]. Isolation from European entanglements seemed more than ever desirable.

1900-1914

After 1900 Britain ended its policy of "splendid isolation" by developing friendly relations with the United States and European powers - most notably France and Russia, in an alliance which fought the First World War. The "Special Relationship" with the U.S. emerged in the late 19th century and was strong in the First World War; it forged more definitely during the 1940s, and has endured to this day - playing a pivotal role in the Cold War and the War on Terror.

First World War

Further information: Causes of World War I and Treaty of Versailles

Britain had suffered little devastation during the war and Prime Minister David Lloyd George supported reparations to a lesser extent than the French. Britain began to look on a restored Germany as an important trading partner and worried about the effect of reparations on the British economy.

Breakup of Ottoman Empire

The Sykes–Picot Agreement was a secret 1916 agreement between Great Britain and France, deciding how the possessions of the Ottoman Empire would be split up after its defeat. The agreement defined their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East. The agreement allocated to Britain control of areas roughly comprising the coastal strip between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan, Jordan, southern Iraq, and an additional small area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre, to allow access to the Mediterranean. France got control of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Russia was to get Istanbul, the Turkish Straits and Armenia. The controlling powers were left free to determine state boundaries within their areas. Further negotiation was expected to determine international administration pending consultations with Russia and other powers, including Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.

Given Ottoman defeat in 1918 and the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, the agreement effectively divided the Ottoman's Arab provinces outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of British and French control and influence.

The British took control of Palestine in 1920 and ruled it as Mandatory Palestine from 1923 until 1948. They also ruled Mandatory Iraq from 1920 until 1932, while the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon lasted from 1923 to 1946.

Interwar years 1919-39

Further information: International relations (1919–1939) and Interwar Britain

Britain had suffered little devastation during the war and Prime Minister David Lloyd George supported reparations to a lesser extent than the French did at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Britain reluctantly supported the hard Treaty of Versailles, while the U.S, rejected it. France was the main sponsor in its quest for revenge. Britain began to look on a restored Germany as an important trading partner and worried about the effect of reparations on the British economy.

Vivid memories of the horrors and deaths of the World War made Britain and its leaders strongly inclined to pacifism in the interwar era.

1920s

Britain was a "troubled giant" that was less of a dominant diplomatic force in the 1920s than before. It often had to give way to the United States, which frequently exercised its financial superiority. The main themes of British foreign policy include a role at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, where Lloyd George worked hard to moderate French demands for revenge. He was partly successful, but Britain soon had to moderate French policy toward Germany, as in the Locarno Treaties. Britain was an active member of the new League of Nations, but its list of major achievements was slight.

Disarmament was high on the agenda, and Britain played a major role following the United States in the Washington Naval Conference of 1921 in working toward naval disarmament of the major powers. By 1933 disarmament had collapsed and the issue became rearming for a war against Germany.

Britain was much less successful in negotiating with United States regarding the large loans. Britain was obliged to repay. Under Ramsay MacDonald Britain took the lead in getting France to accept the American solution through the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, whereby Germany paid its reparations using money borrowed from New York banks. The Great Depression starting in 1929 put enormous pressure on the British economy. Britain move toward imperial preference, which meant low tariffs among the Commonwealth of Nations, and higher barriers toward trade with outside countries. The flow of money from New York dried up, and the system of reparations and payment of debt died in 1931.

Britain sought to maintain close relationships with France and the United States; however the U.S. refused to renegotiate its wartime loans. In the 1920s Britain rejected isolationism and sought world peace through naval arms limitation treaties, and peace with Germany through the Locarno treaties of 1925. A main goal was to restore Germany to a peaceful, prosperous state. The Dominions (Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand) achieved virtual independence in foreign policy in 1931, though each depended heavily upon British naval protection. After 1931 trade policy favoured the Commonwealth with tariffs against the U.S. and others.

The success at Locarno in handling the German question impelled Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain, working with France and Italy, to find a master solution to the diplomatic problems of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It proved impossible to overcome mutual antagonisms, because Chamberlain's programme was flawed by his misperceptions and fallacious judgments.

Britain thought disarmament was the key to peace. France, with its profound fear of German militarism, strenuously opposed the idea. In the early 1930s, most Britons saw France, not Germany, as the chief threat to peace and harmony in Europe. France did not suffer as severe an economic recession, and was the strongest military power, but still it refused British overtures for disarmament.

Foreign policy in domestic politics

Politically the coalition government of Prime Minister David Lloyd George depended primarily on Conservative Party support. He increasingly antagonized his supporters with foreign policy miscues regarding the Middle East. Lloyd George led a coalition dominated by the Conservative Party even though he belonged to the bitterly divided Liberal Party. The Chanak Crisis of 1922 brought Britain to the brink of war with Turkey, but the Dominions were opposed and the British military was hesitant, so peace was preserved, but Lloyd George lost control of the coalition and never again became Prime Minister.

The Labour Party came to power in 1923 under Ramsay MacDonald, who served as party leader, prime minister and foreign minister. The party had a distinctive and suspicious foreign policy based on pacifism. It held that peace was impossible because of capitalism, secret diplomacy, and the trade in armaments. That is it stressed material factors that ignored the psychological memories of the Great War, and the highly emotional tensions regarding nationalism and the boundaries of the countries. Nevertheless, MacDonald overcame the ideological straight jacket and proved highly successful in managing foreign affairs. In 1929 the Americans gave him a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

The Zinoviev letter appeared during the 1924 general election and purported to be a directive from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain. It said the resumption of diplomatic relations (by a Labour government) would hasten the radicalisation of the British working class. It was a forgery but it helped defeat Labour as the Conservatives scored a landslide. A.J.P. Taylor argues that the most important impact was on the psychology of Labourites, who for years blamed their defeat on foul play, thereby misunderstanding the political forces at work and postponing needed reforms in the Labour Party. MacDonald returned to power in 1929. There was little pacifism left. He strongly supported the League of Nations but he also felt that cohesion within the British Empire and a strong, independent British defence programme would be the best policy.

1930s

Main article: Causes of World War II

Further information: Appeasement and Neville Chamberlain's European Policy

The challenge came from dictators, first Benito Mussolini of Italy from 1923, then from 1933 Adolf Hitler of a much more powerful Nazi Germany. Britain and France led the policy of non-interference in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The League of Nations proved disappointing to its supporters; it was unable to resolve any of the threats posed by the dictators. British policy was to "appease" them in the hopes they would be satiated. League-authorized sanctions against Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia had support in Britain but proved a failure and were dropped in 1936.

Germany was the difficult case. By 1930 British leaders and intellectuals largely agreed that all major powers shared the blame for war in 1914, and not Germany alone as the Treaty of Versailles specified. Therefore, they believed the punitive harshness of the Treaty of Versailles was unwarranted, and this view, adopted by politicians and the public, was largely responsible for supporting appeasement policies down to 1938. That is, German rejections of treaty provisions seemed justified.

Coming of Second World War

Further information: Causes of World War II and Diplomatic history of World War II

By late 1938 it was clear that war was looming, and that Germany had the world's most powerful military. The British military leaders warned that Germany would win a war, and Britain needed another year or two to catch up in terms of aviation and air defence. The final act of appeasement came when Britain and France sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Hitler's demands at the Munich Agreement of 1938. Instead of satiation Hitler seized all of Czechoslovakia and menaced Poland.At last in 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain dropped appeasement and stood firm in promising to defend Poland. Hitler however cut a deal with Joseph Stalin to divide Eastern Europe; when Germany did invade Poland in September 1939, Britain and France declared war; the British Commonwealth followed London's lead.

Second World War

Further information: Causes of World War II and Diplomatic history of World War II

Since 1945

Further information: Political history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)

The British built up a very large worldwide British Empire, which peaked in size in 1922, after more than half a century of unchallenged global supremacy. The cumulative costs of fighting two world wars, however, placed a heavy burden upon the UK economy, and after 1945 the British Empire gradually began to disintegrate, with many territories granted independence. By the mid-to-late 1950s, the UK's status as a superpower had been largely diminished by the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union. Many former colonial territories joined the Commonwealth of Nations, an organisation of fully independent nations now with equal status to the UK. Britain finally turned its attention to the continent, joining the European Union.

After 1945 Britain systematically reduced its overseas commitments. Practically all the colonies became independent. Britain reduced its involvements in the Middle east, with the humiliating Suez Crisis of 1956 marking the end of its status as a superpower. However Britain did forge close military ties with the United States, France, and traditional foes such as Germany, in the NATO military alliance. After years of debate (and rebuffs), Britain joined the Common Market in 1973; it is now the European Union. However it did not merge financially, and kept the pound separate from the Euro, which kept it partly isolated from the EU financial crisis of 2011. After years of debate, Britain voted on 23 June 2016 for "Brexit", to leave the EU.

Prime Minister Thatcher, 1979-1990

President Reagan and Thatcher at the White House, 16 November 1988

Thatcher's first foreign policy crisis came with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. She condemned the invasion, said it showed the bankruptcy of a détente policy, and helped convince some British athletes to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics. She gave weak support to US President Jimmy Carter who tried to punish the USSR with economic sanctions. Britain's economic situation was precarious, and most of NATO was reluctant to cut trade ties. It was reported that her government secretly supplied Saddam Hussein with military equipment as early as 1981.

Thatcher became closely aligned with the Cold War policies of United States President Ronald Reagan, based on their shared distrust of Communism. A more serious disagreement came in 1983 when Reagan did not consult with her on the invasion of Grenada. During her first year as Prime Minister she supported NATO's decision to deploy US nuclear cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe and permitted the US to station more than 160 cruise missiles at RAF Greenham Common, starting on 14 November 1983. That decision triggered mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She bought the Trident nuclear missile submarine system from the US to replace Polaris, tripling the UK's nuclear forces at an eventual cost of more than £12 billion (at 1996–97 prices). Thatcher's preference for defence ties with the US was demonstrated in the Westland affair of January 1986, when she acted with colleagues to allow the struggling helicopter manufacturer Westland to refuse a takeover offer from the Italian firm Agusta in favour of the management's preferred option, a link with Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, who had supported the Agusta deal, resigned in protest.

On 2 April 1982 the ruling military junta in Argentina ordered the invasion of the British-controlled Falkland Islands and South Georgia, triggering the Falklands War. The subsequent crisis was "a defining moment of her [Thatcher's] premiership". At the suggestion of Harold Macmillan and Robert Armstrong, she set up and chaired a small War Cabinet (formally called ODSA, Overseas and Defence committee, South Atlantic) to take charge of the conduct of the war, which by 5–6 April had authorised and dispatched a naval task force to retake the islands. Argentina surrendered on 14 June and the operation was hailed a success, notwithstanding the deaths of 255 British servicemen and 3 Falkland Islanders. Argentinian deaths totalled 649, half of them after the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sank the cruiser ARA General Belgrano on 2 May. Thatcher was criticised for the neglect of the Falklands' defence that led to the war, and especially by Tam Dalyell in parliament for the decision to sink the General Belgrano, but overall she was considered a highly capable and committed war leader. The "Falklands factor", an economic recovery beginning early in 1982, and a bitterly divided opposition all contributed to Thatcher's second election victory in 1983.

In September 1982 she visited China to discuss with Deng Xiaoping the sovereignty of Hong Kong after 1997. China was the first communist state Thatcher had visited and she was the first British prime minister to visit China. Throughout their meeting, she sought the PRC's agreement to a continued British presence in the territory. Deng stated that the PRC's sovereignty on Hong Kong was non-negotiable, but he was willing to settle the sovereignty issue with Britain through formal negotiations, and both governments promised to maintain Hong Kong's stability and prosperity. After the two-year negotiations, Thatcher conceded to the PRC government and signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration in Beijing in 1984, agreeing to hand over Hong Kong's sovereignty in 1997.

Although saying that she was in favour of "peaceful negotiations" to end apartheid, Thatcher stood against the sanctions imposed on South Africa by the Commonwealth and the EC. She attempted to preserve trade with South Africa while persuading the government there to abandon apartheid. This included "[c]asting herself as President Botha's candid friend", and inviting him to visit the UK in June 1984, in spite of the "inevitable demonstrations" against his government. Thatcher dismissed the African National Congress (ANC) in October 1987 as "a typical terrorist organisation".

Thatcher's antipathy towards European integration became more pronounced during her premiership, particularly after her third election victory in 1987. During a 1988 speech in Bruges she outlined her opposition to proposals from the European Community (EC), forerunner of the European Union, for a federal structure and increased centralisation of decision making. Thatcher and her party had supported British membership of the EC in the 1975 national referendum, but she believed that the role of the organisation should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that the EC's approach was at odds with her views on smaller government and deregulation; in 1988, she remarked, "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels".

Thatcher was firmly opposed to the UK's membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a precursor to European monetary union, believing that it would constrain the British economy, despite the urging of her Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, but she was persuaded by John Major to join in October 1990, at what proved to be too high a rate.

In April 1986, Thatcher permitted US F-111s to use Royal Air Force bases for the bombing of Libya in retaliation for the Libyan attack on Americans in Berlin, citing the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Thatcher stated: "The United States has more than 330,000 members of her forces in Europe to defend our liberty. Because they are here, they are subject to terrorist attack. It is inconceivable that they should be refused the right to use American aircraft and American pilots in the inherent right of self-defence, to defend their own people." Polls suggested that fewer than one in three British citizens approved of Thatcher's decision. She was in the US on a state visit when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded neighbouring Kuwait in August 1990. During her talks with President George H. W. Bush, who had succeeded Reagan in 1989, she recommended intervention, and put pressure on Bush to deploy troops in the Middle East to drive the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait. Bush was apprehensive about the plan, prompting Thatcher to remark to him during a telephone conversation that "This was no time to go wobbly!" Thatcher's government provided military forces to the international coalition in the build-up to the Gulf War, but she had resigned by the time hostilities began on 17 January 1991.

Thatcher was one of the first Western leaders to respond warmly to reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Following Reagan–Gorbachev summit meetings and reforms enacted by Gorbachev in the USSR, she declared in November 1988 that "We're not in a Cold War now", but rather in a "new relationship much wider than the Cold War ever was". She went on a state visit to the Soviet Union in 1984 and met with Gorbachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Thatcher was initially opposed to German reunification, telling Gorbachev that it "would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security". She expressed concern that a united Germany would align itself more closely with the Soviet Union and move away from NATO.

See also

• British Empire
• Historiography of the British Empire
• Commonwealth of Nations
• Edwardian era
• European Union
  • Foreign relations of the European Union
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• History of England
• History of the United Kingdom
  • Historiography of the United Kingdom
• International relations, 1648–1814
  • International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)
  • Diplomatic history of World War I
  • International relations (1919–1939)
  • Diplomatic history of World War II
  • Cold War
• Kingdom of England
• Kingdom of Great Britain
• List of Ambassadors and High Commissioners to the United Kingdom
• Military history of the United Kingdom
• Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
• United Kingdom and the United Nations
• United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
• United Kingdom–United States relations
  • Special Relationship
  • United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom

Timeline

Main article: Timeline of British diplomatic history

Further reading

Further information: Historiography of the United Kingdom

• Black, Jeremy et al. The Makers of British Foreign Policy, From Pitt to Thatcher (Palgrave, Basingstoke and New York, 2002)

1500-1815

• Bayly, Christopher A. "The first age of global imperialism, c. 1760–1830." Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 26.2 (1998): 28-47.
• Black, Jeremy. "Britain's Foreign Alliances in the Eighteenth Century." Albion 20#4 (1988): 573-602.
• Black, Jeremy. America or Europe? British Foreign Policy, 1739-63 (1998) online edition
• Black, Jeremy, ed. Knights Errant and True Englishmen: British Foreign Policy, 1660-1800 (2003) online edition
• Black, Jeremy. Natural and Necessary Enemies: Anglo-French Relations in the Eighteenth Century (1986).
• Black, Jeremy. Politics and Foreign Policy in the Age of George I, 1714–1727. (Ashgate. 2014) 279pp.
• Black, Jeremy. British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1727–44 (Ashgate. 2014) 294pp
• Brumwell, Stephen, and William Arthur Speck. Cassell's companion to eighteenth century Britain (2001).
• Christie, Ian R. Wars and revolutions: Britain 1760-1815 (1982).
• Crowson. P.S. Tudor Foreign Policy (Modern British foreign policy)(1973).
• Davis, Ralph. "English foreign trade, 1660–1700." Economic History Review 7.2 (1954): 150-166. in JSTOR
  • Davis, Ralph. "English Foreign trade, 1700–1774." Economic History Review 15.2 (1962): 285-303. in JSTOR
• Dickinson, H. T., ed. Britain and the French Revolution, 1789-1815 (1989)
• Horn, David Bayne. Great Britain and Europe in the eighteenth century (1967) 411pp; detailed coverage country by country
• Howat, Gerald. Stuart and Cromwellian Foreign Policy (Modern British foreign (1974).
• Jones, J. R. Britain and the World, 1649-1815 (1980).
• Langford, Paul. The Eighteenth Century, 1688-1815 (Modern British Foreign Policy) (1976).
• Price, Jacob. "What Did Merchants Do? Reflections on British Overseas Trade, 1660-1790," Journal of Economic History 49#2 (1989), pp. 267-284 in JSTOR
• Seton-Watson, R. W. Britain in Europe, 1789-1914. (1938) excerpt
• Ward, A.W. and G.P. Gooch, eds. The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783-1919 (3 vol, 1921–23), old detailed classic; vol 1, 1783-1815 ; vol 2, 1815-1866; vol 3. 1866-1919
• Wernham, Richard Bruce. Before the Armada: the growth of English foreign policy, 1485-1588 (1966).

1815-1919

• Bartlett, C. J. Defence and Diplomacy: Britain and the Great Powers, 1815-1914 (1993) 160pp
• Baxter, C. and M. Dockrill, eds. Britain in Global Politics Volume 1: From Gladstone to Churchill (2013) excerpt
• Bourne, Kenneth. The foreign policy of Victorian England, 1830-1902 (Oxford UP, 1970.) pp 195–504 are 147 "Selected documents"
• Chassaigne, Phillipe, and Michael Dockrill, eds. Anglo-French Relations 1898-1998: From Fashoda to Jospin (2002)
• Clark, Christopher. The sleepwalkers: how Europe went to war in 1914 (2012).
• Feis, Herbert. Europe the World's Banker, 1870-1914 (1930) online; mostly about London banks
• Hayes, Paul. Nineteenth Century (Modern British foreign policy) (1975).
• Lowe, C.J. The reluctant imperialists: British foreign policy, 1878-1902. Vol. 1. 1967); vol 2: The reluctant imperialists: The Documents (1967). (American edition 1969, two volumes in one).
• Lowe, C.J. and M.L. Dockrill. The Mirage of Power: Volume 1: British Foreign Policy, 1902-14. (1972); The Mirage of Power: Volume 2: British Foreign Policy, 1914-1922. (1972). vol 3 (1972) includes 190 documents.
• MacMillan, Margaret. The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (2013).
• Mahajan, Sneh. British foreign policy 1874-1914: The role of India (Routledge, 2003)
• Otte, T.G., The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 1865-1914 (Cambridge UP, 2011).
• Platt, D.C.M. Finance, Trade, and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815-1914 (Oxford UP, 1968).
• Seton-Watson, R.W. Britain in Europe (1789–1914): A Survey of Foreign Policy (1937) online
• Taylor, A.J.P. Struggle for Mastery of Europe: 1848-1918 (1954)
• Taylor, A.J.P. "International Relations" in F.H. Hinsley, ed., The New Cambridge Modern History: XI: Material Progress and World-Wide Problems, 1870-98 (1962): 542-66.
• Ward, A.W. and G.P. Gooch, eds. The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783-1919 (3 vol, 1921–23), old detailed classic; vol 2, 1815-1866; vol 3. 1866-1919
• Webster, Charles. The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, 1830-1841: Britain, the Liberal Movement, and the Eastern Question - Vol. 2 (1951) online edition vol 2

Since 1919

• Bartlett, C. J. British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century (1989)
• Baxter, C. and M. Dockrill, eds. Britain in Global Politics Volume 1: From Gladstone to Churchill (2013) excerpt
• Byrd, Peter, ed. British foreign policy under Thatcher (Philip Allan, 1988).
• Campbell, John. Margaret Thatcher; Volume Two: The Iron Lady (Pimlico, 2003)
• Chassaigne, Phillipe, and Michael Dockrill, eds. Anglo-French Relations 1898-1998: From Fashoda to Jospin (2002)
• Cottrell, Robert. The end of Hong Kong: The secret diplomacy of imperial retreat (John Murray, 1993).
• Dilks, David. Retreat from Power: 1906-39 v. 1: Studies in Britain's Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century (1981); Retreat from Power: After 1939 v. 2 (1981)
• Dimbleby, David, and David Reynolds. An Ocean Apart: The Relationship Between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century (1988)
• Feis, Herbert. Churchill Roosevelt Stalin: The War They Waged and the Peace They Sought: A Diplomatic History of World War II (1957), by a senior official of the U.S. State Department
• Hughes, Geraint. Harold Wilson's Cold War: The Labour Government and East-West Politics, 1964-1970 (2009)
• MacMillan, Margaret. Paris 1919: six months that changed the world (2007).
• McNeill, William Hardy. America, Britain, & Russia: their co-operation and conflict, 1941–1946 (1953), 820pp; comprehensive overview
• Medlicott, W. N. British foreign policy since Versailles, 1919-1963 (1968).
• Moore, Charles (2013). Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands.
  • Moore, Charles. (2016) Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith: In London, Washington and Moscow.
• Reynolds, David. Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century (2nd ed. 2000) excerpt and text search, major survey of British foreign policy
• Reynolds, David. From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s (2006) excerpt and text search
• Sharp, Alan, and Glyn Stone, eds. Anglo-French Relations in the Twentieth Century: Rivalry and Cooperation (2000) excerpt and text search
• Sharp, Paul, ed. Thatcher's Diplomacy: The Revival of British Foreign Policy (St. Martin's Press, 1997).
• Sharp, Paul. "Thatcher’s Wholly British Foreign Policy." Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 35#3 (1991): 395-411.
• Thane, Pat, and Derek Beales, eds. Cassell's Companion to Twentieth-century Britain. (2001).
• Turner, Michael J. Britain's international role, 1970-1991 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
• Vickers, Rhiannon. The Evolution of Labour's Foreign Policy, 1900-51 (2003) online edition
• Watry, David M. Diplomacy at the Brink: Eisenhower, Churchill, and Eden in the Cold War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014.
• Woodward, Llewellyn. British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (1962); summary of his 5-volume highly detailed history
• Young, John W. ed. The Labour governments 1964-1970 volume 2: International policy (2008).
• Young, J. and E. Pedaliu, eds. Britain in Global Politics Volume 2: From Churchill to Blair(2013) excerpt

British Army and Royal Navy

• Barnett, Correlli. Britain and her army, 1509-1970: a military, political and social survey (1970).
• Carlton, Charles. This Seat of Mars: War and the British Isles, 1485-1746 (Yale UP; 2011) 332 pages; studies the impact of near unceasing war from the individual to the national levels.
• Chandler, David G., and Ian Frederick William Beckett, eds. The Oxford history of the British army (Oxford UP, 2003).
• Cole, D. H and E. C Priestley. An outline of British military history, 1660-1936 (1936). online
• Higham, John, ed. A Guide to the Sources of British Military History (1971) 654 pages excerpt; Highly detailed bibliography and discussion up to 1970; includes Royal Navy
• James, Lawrence. Warrior race: a history of the British at war (Hachette UK, 2010). excerpt
• Ranft, Bryan. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy (Oxford UP, 2002).
• Rodger, N. A.M. The safeguard of the sea: A naval history of Britain, 660-1649 (Vol. 1. 1998). excerpt
  • Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815 (vol 2 2006) excerpt
• Sheppard, Eric William. A short history of the British army (1950). online

Historiography

Further information: Historiography of the British Empire and Historiography of the United Kingdom

• Martel, Gordon, ed. A Companion to International History 1900-2001 (2010).
• Messenger, Charles, ed. Reader's Guide to Military History (2001) pp 55-74; annotated guide to most important books.
• Mulligan, William, and Brendan Simms, eds. The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660-2000 (Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 345 pages; excerpt
• Neville, Peter. Historical Dictionary of British Foreign Policy (Scarecrow Press, 2013).
• Schroeder, Paul W. "Old Wine in Old Bottles: Recent Contributions to British Foreign Policy and European International Politics, 1789–1848." Journal of British Studies 26#1 (1987): 1-25.
• Weigall, David. Britain and the World, 1815–1986: a dictionary of international relations (1987), 300 short scholarly entries with bibliographies; 252pp and maps.
• Wiener, Martin J. "The Idea of "Colonial Legacy" and the Historiography of Empire." Journal of The Historical Society 13#1 (2013): 1-32.
• Winks, Robin, ed. Historiography (1999) vol. 5 in William Roger Louis, eds. The Oxford History of the British Empire online
• Winks, Robin W. The Historiography of the British Empire-Commonwealth: Trends, Interpretations and Resources (1966); this book is by a different set of authors from the previous 1999 entry online

Primary sources

• Bourne, Kenneth. The foreign policy of Victorian England, 1830-1902 (Oxford UP, 1970.) pp 195–504 are 147 "Selected documents"
• Jones, Edgar Rees, ed. Selected speeches on British foreign policy, 1738-1914 (1914). online free
• Lowe, C.J. The reluctant imperialists: vol 2: The Documents (1967), 140 documents 1878-1902. (American edition 1969 vol 1 and 2 bound together).
• Lowe, C.J. and M.L. Dockrill, eds. The Mirage of Power: Volume 3: The Documents British Foreign Policy, 1902-22. (1972), 191 documents.
• Medlicott, W. N. ed. Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939 (HMSO, 1946), primary sources
• Temperley, Harold, and Lillian M. Penson, eds. Foundations of British Foreign Policy from Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902); Or, Documents, Old and New (1938), 612pp online
• Wiener, Joel H. ed. Great Britain: Foreign Policy and the Span of Empire, 1689–1971: A Documentary History (4 vol 1972) vol 1 online; vol 2 online; vol 3; vol 4 4 vol. 3400 pages