The 1914 centenary has attracted more attention, scholarly and public, in the United Kingdom than one might have expected. That war, it seems, has lost little of its morbid fascination. In their various contributions to the renewed debate about its origins, different scholars have focused on a range of aspects of Great Power relations at the end of the long nineteenth century—dynastic and strategic, diplomatic and political, but also the effects of militarism as well as nationalist terrorism. In The Hidden Perspective, Lord Owen, a former foreign secretary, offers a variation on the theme of the strategic-diplomatic developments that added to what he considers to have been a growing rigidity of international politics.

It is his contention that the Anglo-French staff talks, which commenced in January 1906, in effect tied Great Britain to France, so made international diplomacy less flexible, and in turn reduced its wiggle room during Europe's final crisis in the aftermath of the Sarajevo murders. The secret conversations minimized also the scope of independent decision making by the British cabinet and Parliament, and—Owen argues in an elaboration on a Kissingerian theme—devalued the deterrent effect of Britain's naval power on any aggressive designs harboured by any of the continental nations. Crucially—and this seems the real argument of the book—the talks curtailed proper democratic procedures in that they concentrated decision-making in the hand of three or four ministers and a motley crew of Whitehall officials at the Foreign Office, the two service departments, and the Committee of Imperial Defence.

The emphasis on the so-called staff talks as committing Britain to France is not altogether new, nor is the criticism of more especially the role of the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey. The market in political reputations, of course, is volatile at the best of times, but stocks in Grey are to be had at a discount for a long time now. Grey's association with the moment when “the lamps were going out all over Europe” is at the root of his low posthumous reputation, and so are David Lloyd George's deeply deceitful memoirs, egregious even by the standards of that genre. No doubt, as Owen points out, there was something secretive about Grey's personality. No doubt also, his aloofness and reticence help to explain why criticism of him somehow stuck. Somehow, neither his admirers nor his detractors know quite what to make of him, and this has left him an invitingly blank canvass onto which a variety of images—some plausible, others less so—have been projected over the years.

With his latest book, coming hot on the heels of a number of thoughtful and innovative books on the medical conditioning of political performance, David Owen offers a concise, forensic, and trenchant critique of Grey's hidden perspective on France. This reviewer has suggested a different interpretation of Grey as a deeper and more subtle political operator. It would be self-indulgent, however, to retread the arguments here. Instead, I focus on the following aspects that strike me as problematic with the interpretation advanced in this book. David Owen is admittedly more balanced and fair-minded in his treatment of Grey than others. The then prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and the secretary of state for war, R. B. Haldane, were instrumental in the decision to give the military talks the go-ahead, as Owen acknowledges. Even so, as John W. and Peter F. Coogan showed many years ago (“The British Cabinet and the Anglo-French Staff Talks, 1905–1914: Who Knew What and When Did He Know It?” Journal of British Studies, 24 no. 1 [January 1985]: 110–131), there was a good deal of obfuscation on the subject in the later pronouncements by Liberal cabinet ministers, those like Asquith and Haldane who sought to diminish their role, and those like Loreburn and Morley who protested their ignorance of the talks, when in fact knowledge of them was more widespread before 1911.

This is perhaps a minor detail. More significant is the tendency to treat British foreign policy in isolation. The argument about Britain's balancing role and the deterrent function of her naval prowess is a powerful one, but Britain could only play this role when there was a more or less functioning equilibrium. This was not the case after 1905. Defeat abroad and revolution at home had left Russia hamstrung in international politics. With the Franco-Russian alliance effectively disabled, Britain's role had to be a different one from that played in the years before then. Grey's answer was constructive ambiguity—suggesting support to France provided she acted with restraint, whilst hinting at intervention to Germany if she committed an act of aggression. Grey's diplomatic strategy was certainly successful in averting European complications in 1905–6 and 1911, and to that extent the talks with France were a form of reassuring Paris lest the government there, unable to call on effective Russian support, buckle under German pressure. This also explains why Grey began to contemplate a new departure in foreign policy after 1913. As Russia recovered from the double crisis of 1905, and with Germany in a weakened position, Britain could revert to the more selective engagement in European affairs of earlier years. All of this begs the question of the wider significance of Britain's role in international politics. Lord Owen cites approvingly the damning assessment of the insular outlook of British statesmen by the German chancellor between 1900 and 1909, Prince Bülow. The reverse of this, it seems, is the habit of many historians to inflate Britain's capacity to affect the decisions of others. It is interesting to note, incidentally, that the French general staff never factored a British expeditionary force into its war plans.

If international constraints are important for any assessment of Grey's handling of foreign affairs, then so are domestic pressures. The kind of foreign policy advocated by Lord Owen has the benefit of strategic logic, but it ignores the politics of the Edwardian Liberal party, which was prone to woolly thinking about international matters. Above all, it would have required a defense posture—a still larger navy and a conscript army capable of fighting a continental campaign—to amplify this policy, something that no Liberal would have countenanced, and only a few on the lunatic fringe of the Tory party advocated. Having to make bricks without straw has long been the fate of British foreign secretaries, and Grey was no exception.

There is one further aspect which strikes this reviewer as problematic. Running like a red thread through the book is the assertion that Grey ignored the cabinet and that collective cabinet deliberations make for better decisions. The latter is no doubt true—and here Owen's reflections on his own experiences as a senior minister are instructive and pertinent—but it seems rather a case of applying later twentieth-century conventions and insights to the problems before 1914. Rightly or wrongly, foreign affairs were held to be part of the royal prerogative then, and few ministers bothered about “abroad” at any rate. The former view is no longer held, fortunately so; the latter, unfortunately, is unlikely to change. But Grey should be judged by the standards of his day, not those of today.

The Hidden Perspective trains big-calibre artillery on British foreign policy before 1914. Yet, for all its formidable political intelligence and strategic grasp, it somehow does not hit the target. But it is to be hoped that Lord Owen's reflections on the tactical management of diplomacy and the role of the cabinet in foreign policy decision making will find a receptive audience among today's decision makers. He is certainly spot on there.