John W. Young
The Asquith Cabinet and the Decision to Send an Expeditionary Force to France in 1914
Young, John W.
Authors
Abstract
The decision to send the British Expeditionary Force to France has been much discussed from the perspective of its long-term military-strategic background. Yet where the eventual decision to despatch the Force in August 1914 is concerned, limited attention has been paid to the role of the British Cabinet, which gave political approval to the step. Some historians have highlighted a Cabinet decision of 1 August against sending the BEF abroad and pointed out that Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and two key ministerial allies–Lord Haldane and Sir Edward Grey–accepted it. No one has provided a full analysis of why this trio of ministers consistently stuck to their position over the following days. Nor does a full explanation exist of the Cabinet’s eventual agreement, on 6 August, to approve the despatch of the Force. This analysis addresses these questions, arguing that far from being some reluctant step forced on the interventionists by their anti-war colleagues, Asquith, Haldane, and Grey pre-emptively decided to delay the despatch of the BEF. They did this as a way of preventing the disintegration of the government, while leaving open the possibility that Britain would go to war.
Citation
Young, J. W. (2022). The Asquith Cabinet and the Decision to Send an Expeditionary Force to France in 1914. Diplomacy and Statecraft, 33(4), 611-631. https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2022.2143108
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Sep 23, 2021 |
Online Publication Date | Dec 19, 2022 |
Publication Date | Dec 19, 2022 |
Deposit Date | Oct 28, 2021 |
Publicly Available Date | Jun 20, 2024 |
Journal | Diplomacy and Statecraft |
Print ISSN | 0959-2296 |
Electronic ISSN | 1557-301X |
Publisher | Routledge |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 33 |
Issue | 4 |
Pages | 611-631 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2022.2143108 |
Keywords | Political Science and International Relations; Sociology and Political Science; History |
Public URL | https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6542852 |
Publisher URL | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592296.2022.2143108 |
Additional Information | This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Diplomacy and Statecraft. John W. Young (2022) The Asquith Cabinet and the Decision to Send an Expeditionary Force to France in 1914, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 33:4, 611-631, DOI: 10.1080/09592296.2022.2143108 . It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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