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Jeremy Black, "British Politics and Foreign Policy, 1744-57" (Routledge, 2016)
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- [00:00]
Professor Jeremy Black
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Professor Jeremy Black
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Professor Jeremy Black
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- [01:30]
Professor Jeremy Black
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:35]
Dr. Charles Petillo
Good day. Welcome to New Books in History, a podcast channel, New Books Network. My name is Dr. Charles Petillo. I'm a host on the channel. And today we are pleased and indeed honored to have with us master historian Professor Jeremy Black. Professor Black is Professor Emeritus at the Department of History at the University of Exeter. Among many accomplishments, he is without a doubt the most prolific historian writing in the Anglophone world today, having written well over 200 books. And today we are discussing one of his newest books, British Politics and Foreign Policy 1744-1757 the mid century Crisis, published by Routledge. Welcome, Professor Black. Hello, Professor. Why did you write this book?
- [02:13]
Professor Jeremy Black
I thought it was an important book, both in terms of the 18th century and our understanding of Britain's position and of international relations then, but also because I think it's relevant to the international relations of the Present day.
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Dr. Charles Petillo
Would it be true to say that His Highness King George II was probably the premier figure in the making of foreign policy during this period in the uk?
- [02:36]
Professor Jeremy Black
Yes. The competence of monarchs very much rested on certain constitutional positions and political realities. The constitutional position was that the conduct of foreign policy, though not its financing, rested with the Crown. And the practicality was that the King appointed obviously in concert with the ministers, the diplomats, that he had his own, as it were, private or separate diplomatic service, in the case of the Hanoverian one, that by the 1740s he was considerably more experienced than his ministers. The Duke of Newcastle had never been.
- [03:19]
Dr. Charles Petillo
Abroad.
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Professor Jeremy Black
When our period starts in 1744, despite being Secretary of State since 1724, whereas George II had been abroad on frequent occasions. And also there was the prestige of being a monarch.
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Dr. Charles Petillo
The antagonism between George II and his nephew, Frederick the Great of Prussia, impact on policy?
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Professor Jeremy Black
There was a personal antagonism, as you correctly imply, but there was also an antagonism in the sense of the two territories, Hanover and Prussia, and also in terms of the, as it were, wishing to be the premier North German Protestant power and having differing views generally, but not invariably, towards other powers, not least Russia, France and Austria. And Prussia remained an ally of France, France until 1756, whereas Britain was an ally of Austria. And that put them very much on different sides.
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Dr. Charles Petillo
Why do you say that the Duke of Newcastle could not be, quote a second Walpole.
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Professor Jeremy Black
Walpole, because of his position in the House of Commons, because of his political skill, because of his understanding of finances, because of his rhetorical excellence in debate, was able to be, as it were, the leading parliamentary figure, although he was in the Commons, not the Lords. Whereas Newcastle, although he had the prestige of being a minister in the House of Lords and was of course a duke, he lacked the, as it were, political capability and certainly ability of Sir Robert Walpole.
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Dr. Charles Petillo
Would you regard Henry Pelham as the most effective politician in the time period covered by the book?
- [05:14]
Professor Jeremy Black
Henry pelham, who was First Lord of the treasury from 1743 to 1754, younger brother of the Duke of Newcastle, and in many senses a protege earlier of Sir Robert Walpole, was as first Lord of the treasury, the person who invariably had to say, is this sensible? Is this actually affordable? And I feel that most of the scholarship on foreign policy has tended to neglect that position, neglect what I've called the treasury viewpoint. It tends to be the case that those people who write on foreign policy and for the 18th century, you could think, for example, of the late Ragnall Tatton, the Late Hamish Scott or of Brendan Sims, all of them took views that were very much those of interventionists, that Britain should and must intervene to the utmost of whatever diplomats or Secretaries of State felt necessary. And the first Lords of the Treasury, Walpole, obviously, Henry Pelham, Lord north in the 1770s, William Pitt the Younger certainly in 1784, 85, 86, was, were all much more cautious and their views tend to be regarded as inadequate and as not up to Britain's diplomatic responsibilities and international position. And the problem with that approach is that A, things could go dramatically wrong and B, you did need to go on being able to finance the State and if you didn't, you could lead to enormous political problems, viz, of course, civil war in the Empire with the outbreak of the American War of independence in 1775, which in many respects was an aftermath. And comment on the heavily expensive policies of the 1750s and their corresponding financial aftermath.
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Dr. Charles Petillo
Who arguably was the most influential figure in the making of policy after the King and the Pelham brothers?
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Professor Jeremy Black
Well, I think that's a very interesting question. I mean, you can obviously have influence cast by people who don't have a formal competence but are still within the governmental system. So although Carteret was no longer now Earl Grenville at that point was no longer a Secretary of State, he was still a member of the Ministry and that was important. You can have people who were flirting with opposition sentiment and linkage, whether or not they were in the Ministry, and William Pitt the Elder is the obvious instance of that, who are influential simply because what they might do and say, particularly in the House of Commons, was of consequence. And I think it's fair to say that Newcastle was very concerned about Pitt the Elder. I mean, George II tended rather to be irritated by him and obviously only took him into office when he had to. So I think it's fair to say that Pitt the Elder, who of course was the Secretary of State for most of the period of the Seven Years War, to remind listeners, there was no person who had held headed the Foreign Office in this period because the Foreign Office wasn't created until 1782. Prior to that, the responsibility of both foreign policy and domestic law and order and many other aspects of domestic policy was divided between the Secretary of State for the Northern Department, that is Northern Europe, and the Secretary of State for the Southern Department, that is Southern Europe. And William Pitt the Elder, during the bulk of the Seven Years War, was the more consequential of the two Secretaries of State.
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Dr. Charles Petillo
How much of a role did the press play in this Period in both influencing policy and reflecting public opinion.
- [09:24]
Professor Jeremy Black
The press is an interesting one. As you know, we've discussed this before and I've written several books on newspaper history. The problem is people often have an either or approach. Either something is influential or it isn't influential. And I think that. I know your question is nuanced in a sense where it's designed to draw out a nuanced reply. I mean, what I would say is there are some aspects of foreign policy in which newspapers are of singularly little or any consequence. British policy towards Sweden, for example, but not that that is insignificant. The Baltic is important in that period. But there are other areas in which an understanding of what might be the mood of the public and what has been termed the political nation, those members of the public interested in politics, has been regarded as much more consequential. And that was clearly the case in terms of British policy towards both France and Spain, because there were strongly felt views and there was a recent experience of hostility. And when our period begins in 1744, of course, Britain is at war with both of them. So the conflict ends in 1748, and it doesn't resume with Spain, in fact, till the very end of the Seven Years War, fighting starting in 62. But nevertheless, even though the fighting with Spain begins later than that, with France fighting from 54, war formally declared from 56, nevertheless there is the overhang in each case which creates a context within which the government feels it has to operate. So to give you an instance, it might or might not have pleased the diplomatic calculations to return Gibraltar in order to improve relations with Spain, or to have sought to exchange it with somewhere or other. But that was not seen as likely to commend itself in public opinion. It might have been regarded in 1754 as sensible to say, well, do we really. We've got serious European commitments, we've got serious financial issues. How consequential is it if a group of Virginia militiamen are in trouble in the Ohio Valley? Do we really need to send troops there? And, you know, you could have made that argument perfectly plausibly, particularly if you were, as it were, an ultra realist. But the reality was that there were ministerial and political expectations of what should be done, and that really is reflected in the dispatch of troops to North America in 1755.
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Dr. Charles Petillo
Would it be true to say that in this period of time covered by the book, that the Tories, in some of the oppositional Whigs, favored the North American option for lack of a better expression, versus the old core Whigs who favored the continental option.
- [12:31]
Professor Jeremy Black
Yes, I think that would be a very fair viewpoint. I mean, a number of scholars, and I think one of the most interesting in recent years has been the American scholar Sarah Kinkle, have argued that we should also see, as it were, a third group, a group of sort of militarized figures round the Duke of Cumberland. I mean, that's also an argument by the American scholar Geoffrey Planck. And I think there's a lot of reason in that. I think that sometimes there's been an overly crude account of the dichotomy, just as I was trying earlier in talking about the treasury viewpoint, to make it clear that there's more than one governmental viewpoint. And often, you know, I would say, for example, in the case of, you know, some of the people I've mentioned earlier, there's been somewhat crude accounts of ministerial views. I think the more one understands that we're dealing with intelligent people who evaluated the situation and understood its consequence, and it was of much greater consequence in that period, not least because government policy did not, as in the present day, relate to the nation's health or its education or its social welfare or the vast amount of things that engage the attention of modern ministers in most European countries. And secondly, as I tried to argue in my new book, when I refer to a mid 18th century crisis, that it was a period of crisis. We begin in 1744, when there's a French invasion attempt which is thwarted by the in the Channel rather than the British Navy. We move on to 1745, where there's a major Jacobite uprising. And in the winter of 45, 46, there's again anxieties, justified anxieties about French invasion. In 47, having conquered what we would call Belgium, the French successfully invade the southern reaches of Britain's leading continental ally, the Dutch Republic, and in 17, capturing Bergen op Zoom. In 1748, they moved on to capture Maastricht. And when war resumes in 1754, 55, 56, 57, the early stages of the Seven Years War, whether you're thinking of Montcalm's successful operations against the British in North America, whether you're thinking of the fall of Minorca to the Marshal Duke Richelieu, whether you're thinking of the humiliating surrender of the Duke of Cumberland's Hanoverian army in the Convention of Klostersev, and having been defeated at Hestenbach, Britain is in a total mess. And this is a crisis. And I think the problem is that people often think retrospectively, so that they don't necessarily judge the mistakes that contributed to crisis because they focus on the year of victory, 1759, or the successful resolution of the Seven Years War in peace of Paris in 1760. If you wanted to, though you have to always judge each case on its own merits, you could make the same argument. Analogously, if you're looking at 1940 and then at 1945, and you can look at 1940, Britain's forces driven from the continent of Europe, German navy established from Norway to the Spanish frontier, Britain isolated apart from the very important support of its empire, the United States neutral, Japan and the Soviet Union ally and Italy allies of Germany. And you can all say, well, that offered a comment on the wisdom of policy in 38 and the absence of that wisdom in 39 that was very different from that adopted in the perspective of 1945 and thereafter. Now, I'm not saying you should necessarily come to those conclusions, but you certainly need to be able to think about them. And there are obvious corollaries. You might say today, and again, this is controversial and people won't like me saying this, but the kind of enthusiasm one saw on the part of some politicians or commentators in recent years, and currently, one can think, for example, of the recent prime minister, Mr. Johnson, who, for almost conflict with Russia over Ukraine, reflects again, what may be a perfectly understandable response to the danger posed by Vladimir Putin, the unpleasantness of many of his attitudes and his unprovoked assault on Ukraine. But also you have to raise serious questions about whether in light, for example, of the Chalkov crisis with Russia in 1791 or the intervention against the Soviets in the Russian Civil War, whether at times you've got. Sorry, Soviet. Yeah, Russian Civil War. Whether at times you've got people who are not thinking through adequately the consequences of their own assumptions. And in a way, what I'm doing repeatedly in my work on foreign policy is saying one needs to move away from foreign policy as a kind of rhetorical device of idealism, or one based on some kind of supposed determinism, reflecting a notion of what people term the national interest, as if the national interest is obvious, and instead understand the extent to which national interests are by their very nature subject to debate and are established in particular contexts and contingencies. And it's from and within that background that one needs both at the time to assess foreign policy and that historians should do so subsequently. But we'll leave aside the issues posed by politicians. You might bring me on to discuss those on another occasion. But certainly a lot of the work on foreign policy by British scholars has been very shallow because it's failed to understand the difficulties and constraints posed by Britain's fiscal situation, its nature as a military power, the necessary strains, inevitable strains, I should say, in alliance politics and the simple play of circumstance and what can go wrong.
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Dr. Charles Petillo
Speaking of contingency, how close was Charles Edward Stuart to overthrowing the Hanoverian regime in the beginning of December 1745?
- [19:42]
Professor Jeremy Black
Well, I think one could say he was one battle short of it. In other words, he'd reached Derby on December 4, 1745, and on December 5, he considered pressing on. And, as you know, he'd outmanoeuvred both the field armies that were against him in England, the one under Field Marshal Wade, which was moving south through Yorkshire, and the one under the Duke of Cumberland, which he'd outmanoeuvred in the West Midlands. And the scratch army was being assembled on the outskirts of London. You can play the counterfactual. I did so in my book On Alternative Paths, the one published by the University of Indiana Press. And I think it is entirely possible that there could have been an outcome. We saw in 1688, with William III's advance on London, how an apparently strong regime, which, after all, had crushed a Rebellion in 1685, both Monmouth Rebellion in England and the Argyll one in Scotland, nevertheless collapses in the face of a significantly smaller army. And, you know, I think there were significant problems facing the Jacobites, but one needs to bear in mind that at the same time they were not isolated, that a French army is prepared on the Channel coast, that it is not a good time in the depths of the winter to invade, but equally, it's not a good time in the depths of the winter to blockade invasion ports. So. And, you know, the landing of French forces on the south coast would have been a very serious, very serious matter. And indeed, when subsequently, Charles Edward, he draws back in December and retreats towards Scotland, the retreat is halted for a day because there is a report, erroneous, as it turns out, that the French have actually landed on the south coast. And this leads the government to, you know, to decide, well, here, rather like William the Conqueror in 1066, isn't a more immediate problem.
- [21:58]
Dr. Charles Petillo
Point well taken. How important was religion in the foreign policy of the various powers that we're dealing with at this time, including the uk?
- [22:07]
Professor Jeremy Black
Well, there's an excellent book by the German scholar Schlenke on the Anglo Prussian Alliance. It's quite an old book, came out 1963, in which he looks at religious, ideological and cultural relationships between England and Prussia. And then they obviously play a role. And there is a book by a man called Andrew Thompson on the period in the late 17 teens and early 1720s. And, you know, I've written about religion. There's a chapter in foreign policy in my Britain, British Foreign Policy in the Age of Walpole. But when all is said and done, Britain for much of the period regards the key alliance as that with Austria, the Dutch and Austria. The Dutch, of course, are Protestants, Austria is not. And indeed, in some cases, the Austrians are actively persecuting Protestants or are perceived as that in Britain, notably so in their territories in Hungary. And the Austrians are also seen as allies of persecutors, for example, the Prince Bishop of Salzburg. And. And yet, after the alliance between France and Britain from 1716-31, and France, of course, was Catholic from 1731 until really 1756, though with gaps in terms of the intensity of it, the British main alliance was with Austria. Now, it's quite true that at the very end of the period, that alliance collapses and Britain allies with Prussia and people start talking about Frederick the Great as the new Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, with reference back to the Thirty Years War, ironically, so, because of course, Britain hadn't got into the Thirty Years War. But I think I would say, and here I feel that the Thompson book is unconvincing. I mean, he does. What so often people do when they write on a subject is that they look in the sources for what supports their argument and then they extrapolate from that. But of course, what you have to do, what I tried to do in British Foreign Policy in the Age of Walpole, for example, is look at the totality of the sources and you can have a chapter, as I did, on foreign policy and religion. But there's a hell of a lot of other criteria to look at. Dynastic reasons, as we were talking about at the very outset, in which George II's principal antagonism is with Prussia, or you could look at security issues, or you could look at issues to do with trade. So there are many factors involved in foreign policy, and it would be a mistake to take one and say, this clearly is what it is all about.
- [24:57]
Dr. Charles Petillo
What did commentaries mean when they talked about the balance of power, unquote, in the time period covered by the book?
- [25:04]
Professor Jeremy Black
Right. Well, again, as you know, I've written quite extensively about that, particularly in my books on European international relations. The balance of power is traditional, traditionally looked at as descriptive, and is seen as being the attempt to produce as it were a counter to, as it were, an over mighty or threatening power, let us say France under Louis xiv and therefore is described accordingly. What I've tried to argue in my work is the balance of power is primarily a rhetorical device. It's a rhetorical device in a subject, international relations, foreign policy, in which there is a shortage of, as it were, analytical precision. And it is produced in an age in which Newtonian physics provide. And the very notion of balance, which of course is not a new notion, provides the idea, but particularly with Newtonian physics, that you should have some precision. But of course, once you think about the balance of power, you realise there is no precision. I mean, what exactly are we trying to measure? If you're looking at military factors, how do you evaluate army against navy, how do you evaluate army? And how do you measure the difference between troop numbers, troop effectiveness, what you're going to be doing in attack or defence? How do you weight fortifications with navies? What are you doing counting the number of warships? Or are you trying to think about their quality, or are you trying to think about their seaworthiness or the quality of their officers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that leaves aside all sorts of issues to do with strength of the finances, strength of the economy, resolution of the political nation, however understood, etc. Etc. So once you actually look at it with precision, you realize that the balance of power has got about as much precision behind it as some of the scholarship that's been produced on the period. Instead of which, what you need to do is to locate these ideas in politicized contexts and to say, if you are looking for a reason to explain why you feel that Britain needs to act, then what you do is you draw on the existing vocabulary. And the existing vocabulary is one of over mighty monarchs in which you can fit new contenders. So Louis XIV can be modelled. France, the late 17th century, can be modelled on Spain of the late 16th century, or indeed the Spain that was still being talked about by Oliver Cromwell. Peter the Great can be modelled on Louis XIV and so on and so forth. The reality is these are as it were, concepts, ideas that have to be treated exactly thus. And again, if you want to think of a modern analogy, look at some of the language used in foreign policy discussion at the moment, which has a completely misleading, precise precision. And as you will know, Charles, my two books, three books I think now on geopolitics, I've argued exactly the same, that geopolitics uses the language of precision, the idea of natural interests, the idea that there is some determinism latent in geography in order to explain what states have to do. But the reality is they don't have to act that. And indeed, if you look at them carefully, you will find that there are politicians, commentators, military groups, intelligence briefings within them that are looking in contrary fashions. But people love this language of precision and I'm afraid to say academics are a bit going the same way because historians love to have some sort of pseudo scientific language when the reality is, as I've said, that the precision that is offered by such language is absent.
- [29:14]
Dr. Charles Petillo
How did. I'm sorry, why did the UK experience difficulties in dealing with the rise of what is called subsequently the three Northern Courts, unquote, which is Austria, Prussia and Russia?
- [29:26]
Professor Jeremy Black
Well, what I've argued in a number of works is that there is a shift in the European system in this period partly to do with a wider, wider developments which have come from military events. In other words, between 1683 and 1718, the Austrians have pushed the Turks a long way back and they've added Hungary to their resources. They've added a significant area of food production. The Russians have succeeded in resolving at that stage what you might call the Ukrainian question. There are other ways to look at it, of course, in that period, as well as the Russians having been the principal beneficiaries from the defeat of Charles XII. And again, remember, put determinism aside, 1700, it's Charles XII who defeats Peter the Great at Narva. It's 1709, as you know, when Peter the Great defeats Charles XII at Poltava and the result is more important. But there was nothing inevitable about what happened. But anyway, the net effect is that Austria and Russia become much, much more significant powers. Now that is challenged. And I think it's worth saying that there are French backed attempts, particularly by Sweden and also by Poland and the Turks to challenge that. So it's not a done deal, but it actually does happen. Prussia is less consequential. Prussia is more of a half great power, whereas Russia and Austria are great powers, particularly Austria, which is a power which after the War of the Spanish Succession, it reaches to encompass a large chunk of Italy, it reaches to encompass what is, is modern day Belgium, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So within this context, Britain also is a newly emergent strong power. I mean, it's worth pointing out that there had been civil war in Britain in the 1640s, a precarious and widely seen as illegal regime in the 1750s, the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660, but in a weak constitutional political situation. You know, the Popish plot, the Exclusion crisis, the Monmouth Rebellion, ultimately the Glorious Revolution, so called, leading to civil war in Scotland and Ireland and leading to a situation which is to be contested by the Jacobites during this period. Britain also becomes, to a degree, although I arguing it's later rather than earlier, powerful. I mean, I would argue it's really something that is fundamentally a matter of the late 1750s onwards. That's one of the points of writing this new book, is to argue that the chronology people use fundamentally is misleading. But having said that, you could argue that yes, the British have, have difficulties with both Russia and Austria, but the point to bear in mind is, on the other hand, they have managed to, for reasons we can discuss, be allied with Austria for most of the period from 1689 to 1756 and ultimately allied with Austria against both the French Revolution and Napoleon. And although their relations with Peter the Great are, to put it mildly, poor, and they nearly go to War in 1720-21 from 1734 onwards, and I would actually argue really from 1732, 3, the Anglo Russian relations are better than they have been. It doesn't mean they aren't going to be difficult, but they are better than they have been. So that yes, the British can't get the Russians or the Austrians to do as they want, but for Britain, the rise of Russia and Austria is much less challenging than it is for France. For France it disrupts their understanding of and assumptions of European affairs and also traditional alliances and understandings with Sweden, Poland and Russia. And the rise of Austria is one which, as it were, is in the teeth of of French antipathy. Louis XIV is not pleased by Leopold I successes against the Turks. The Austrians make gains from the Spanish succession in the face of war with the French. It is true that there's a brief interest in rapprochement at the very end of Louis XIV's reign, but that leads nowhere. And it's a diplomatic revolution which is deplored by many foreign commentators, that produces Franco Austrian understanding and alliance from 1756. But it's always going too far. But it's largely precarious and of course it doesn't last. And in the end, the French are opposing Joseph II in the scheldt crisis of 1784 and they don't back him in the and later in the 1780s. So already that alliance is collapsed before the French Revolution.
- [35:15]
Dr. Charles Petillo
Why was the treaty ending the war, the Austrian secession of 1748, popular in the UK and then when did it become subsequently unpopular?
- [35:26]
Professor Jeremy Black
Well, it was and it wasn't popular in 1748. It was unpopular with people who deplored the return of Louisbourg on Cape Breton island to the French and who regretted the absence of any territorial gains for Britain. So in that respect it was unpopular but it was certainly met with pleasure by those who wanted an end to an intractable war, a war that was expensive and a war that with the entry of the French into the Dutch Republic seemed to be going seriously wrong.
- [36:00]
Dr. Charles Petillo
And why did at first immediate aftermath of the war of the Austrian secession did the British reject, I suppose by the. By the fact of not replying French and pourpalier's some type of rapprochement?
- [36:15]
Professor Jeremy Black
Yes, that's. Yeah, that's a very interesting question because as you know there are a number of occasions. 49 is one in which there was a French attempt to better relations. You get exactly the same same thing in 1772. First of all, I think it's worth bearing in mind the background that in 1716 the two powers had made an alliance despite having spent most of the period at War from 1689 to 1713 and despite the fact that the government in Britain was now under George I and the Whigs, both of whom had fought the French. So the during that war period of warfare. So I think it's fair to say that having fought a war is no reason not subsequently to have an alliance or at the very least an alignment. I mean you can think for example of the. Again if you want a modern analogy, you can think of Mr. Nixon goes to China. Why just after 1749 it was because the Duke of Newcastle is the key figure in foreign policy. The Duke of Newcastle, who ironically when he was Secretary of State for the Southern department from 24, had actually been managing, if you like, the alliance with France in those years until it ended in 31. But the Duke of Newcastle has decided by this stage he doesn't trust the French, he doesn't think an alliance with France is in his view of Britain's interests, that he's much more concerned to revive what he sees as the old alliance with the Dutch and the Austrians. And that is the direction he goes goes in. Isa happened to think that he failed to understand the weakness of that alignment. But on the other hand it needs to be borne in mind that basing an agreement with France on the views of a foreign minister, we get the same with Vergennes, who of course dies in 1786 having talked about better relations. Well, the problem Is policies are apt to change. I mean, if you think about it, the end, you know, the death of Louis XV led to the overthrow of the Maupou revolution around that ministry. And there is no inherent reason to believe the French would necessarily be consistent. On the other hand, foreign policy is often a matter of taking advantage of and working with short term agreements, cohesions of interests that can be brought to the fore in a particular contingency. And if at the same time you use the flannel of language, natural interests, or responding to change in international circumstances, or winners all act together against some appalling oppressor, an expansionist, that can be helpful as long as you're not taken in by it. Because as you are well aware, your alliances and allies can change rapidly.
- [39:24]
Dr. Charles Petillo
Why did George II not wish to have the Elder in the Ministry?
- [39:27]
Professor Jeremy Black
Oh, he regarded him as unreliable, megalomaniac, rude and as disinclined to support the interests of the electorate of Hanover. And in all those respects he was correct. But on the other hand, you could argue that Pitt the Elder also was correct. I hope my book on Hanover and Britain makes this clear because and here Ragnall Hatton was totally wrong and I'm afraid to say a lot of the scholarship is wrong. There is no doubt at all that the electoral link with Hanover had detrimental consequences for Britain in terms of resources, policies and the attitudes of others.
- [40:10]
Dr. Charles Petillo
What was the diplomatic revolution of 1756 and why did it matter to the UK?
- [40:15]
Professor Jeremy Black
Diplomatic revolution is a term used to describe the kaleidoscopic rejigging of alliances which ends, as it were, the Anglo, Dutch, Austrian alignment and ends that between France and Prussia and incidentally also ends that between Britain and Russia, as well as ending the formal antipathy between France and Russia. So what you end up with is in the first instance you end up with better relations between, and in fact alliance between France and Austria and between Britain and Prussia. You end up with a war in which the Dutch are neutral, much to the the fury of the British. You end up with France making an agreement with Russia and you end up with the breaking of diplomatic relations between Britain and Russia and Britain and Austria. To all intents and purposes, though, they don't go to war.
- [41:21]
Dr. Charles Petillo
Why? And how did the dispute over the Ohio River Valley between France and the UK morph into another war between Britain and France subsequently?
- [41:31]
Professor Jeremy Black
I think that's largely because of what neither the British nor the French Ministry wanted. And you know, I read in detail the dispatches from Mirepoix, the French envoy in London, and from Francois Debussy, who goes out to Hanover in 56, and both of them talking to British ministers and in fact to George ii. And you can read their correspondence back in the sense that what the French government is telling them, everybody's clear, they don't want war. They really don't. And for the French, it's a distraction from the mainfield of foreign policy for the British, they don't want to be fighting the French on their own. And I think it's fair to say that what goes wrong in 54, 55 is that a local conflict over competing territorial interests between what are really sort of, as it were, figures on the margins. They're scarcely proconsuls, to use the term often used about the Romans, proconsular policy. They're not in that position. But that is taken up by ministers back in London. Henry Fox, Duke of Cumberland, the Earl of Halifax. And they argue that if the British don't act, then their North American position will collapse. That was just not the case. It wouldn't have been as strong. But that's a different position, different. And they therefore press first for the dispatch of a significant number of troops, in contrast. Well, in comparison to what had been there before, they're not. Not in aggregate terms. And that, of course, goes wrong in 55. Braddock's Depeet advancing on Fort Duquesne, what is now Pittsburgh. And the issue then becomes that both sides try and send reinforcements to North America. And what specifically touches off war is when the British fleet attacks a French squadron taking reinforcements to North America. Missing most of them in the fog, incidentally, but that's another matter. And that is a cause of Spelli and the French, they still don't declare war, but the French at that point do decide that conflict is inevitable. And of course, they prepare for the invasion of Menorca, Britain's major possession in the Mediterranean. And that leads to the formal declarations of war. So it's not an inevitability. I mean, the fighting you're talking about in the Ohio basin is in 54. War isn't declared till 56, but nevertheless, it takes one through a series of stages. Now, with all cases, what is interesting is why did it prove impossible to resolve the differences? And I think here one would really be looking at the political context in Britain that Newcastles, Duke of Newcastles, that is unwillingness to stand up against ministers who he's worried about his concern about the Duke of Cumberland, who after all is the king's surviving son, as well as being Captain General of the army. And in the case of France, they felt put in an impossible position by the British. And I mean there's no doubt at all that from the French point of view, and you may know my book on French foreign policy in the 18th century, from the French point of view, they had a reasonable case. I mean, whereas in 78 the French are clearly aggressors against the British in North America, having earlier been providing the rebels, or you would call them patriots, with arms and other support. So the French had very much been acting in an aggressive fashion and the British had good cause for regarding them. Thus, I think in 54, 55, 56, it's a much more complicated situation and I don't think the British response was necessarily a sensible one, a wise one, or indeed one that was well grounded in international law.
- [46:52]
Dr. Charles Petillo
What explains the collapse of the Duke of Newcastle's ministry in 1756 and subsequently the collapse of the Pitt Devonshire ministry in 1757?
- [47:02]
Professor Jeremy Black
Ah, right. Well, there is an excellent book on that by Jonathan Clark, JCD Clark, a doorstop of a book, a great scholarship on the domestic politics. But, but very, very briefly, the political situation of the time is not one in which the ability to manage Parliament which Newcastle and his allies had in 55, 56 could survive the strains of bad news in war with the fall of Menorca, in, in particular in the political crisis that this caused and the allegations that it was because the government had failed to give the sufficient force and the right instructions, leading Newcastle, fearing a bad session, coming to, as it were, resign when he couldn't find somebody to manage the House of Commons for him. I think that. But there was again nothing inevitable about that. You then get a new ministry which doesn't have the favor of the King, which is inherently itself a weak ministry, not least because it doesn't include Newcastle and all his chaps. And in a way, what you get in 57, the end of the political crisis, is, as it were, a revision. So you get the Newcastle group continuing, but now with Pitt and his group playing a significant role in it and the King having to accept that. So what you've got in 5657 is a replay of the political wee jiggings of 42, 43 and 4446 when similar developments had occurred in which there had to be a taking in of some of the opposition. Now you could regard that as a sign of political failure or weakness and that indeed was how it was regarded by British diplomats, by British Secretaries of State and by Foreign commentators and diplomats. Or you can say, well actually this is a way in which a representative government which is parliamentarily accountable strengthens itself in the context of a particular crisis. So I would be more inclined to say that this is an aspect of politics as it works in the British state. Jonathan Clark produces a marvelous explanation of the particular facets of it and the specificities of it. But I would see it also in this wider way of looking at the rejiggings of politics to take on board opposition when you don't have formal political parties in which you change the whole lot over, as for example we just did in Britain last year.
- [50:12]
Dr. Charles Petillo
What was the nature of the strategic crisis of 1757 in the UK?
- [50:17]
Professor Jeremy Black
Well, the strategic crisis was that Britain was threatened by invasion. It didn't yet have its major naval victories that were to occur in 59. Its position in North America was going badly wrong. Hanover had been overrun by the French and the Hanoverian government and with it George II as elector of Hanover was toying with a neutrality for Hanover which threatened in the eyes of interventionists to discredit Britain in the continent. Britain really didn't have a reliable ally. The ally it did have Prussia prior to its victories at Rosbach and Leuthen was in major vulnerable position at war with France, Austria, Sweden, Russia and most of the empire, what we would call Germany. So it was a really difficult situation for the British. And that's what I tried to write about in part when I referred to this mid 18th century crisis. I mean the term is more usually in commonly employed with reference to the mid 17th century, but you could argue it should be used more for the mid-80s.
- [51:38]
Dr. Charles Petillo
If you wanted people to take one thing away from your book, Professor Black, what would it be?
- [51:42]
Professor Jeremy Black
Oh, that foreign policy is important and it's too important to be left to those people who come up with sort of facile arguments in which interventionism always appears as the correct response.
- [51:56]
Dr. Charles Petillo
On that observation, which I would like to agree with entirely. I'd like to thank you very much, Professor Black, for being so kind as to speak with us today. This is Charles Coutillo public New Books in History podcast channel, the New Books Network. Thank you Professor Black, very much.
- [52:09]
Professor Jeremy Black
Thank you. And may I also say thank you because this is part as you know, we've reviewed also the two previous ones chronologically and these books I've written on foreign policy, they don't need to be read together but they are intended in some to produce a major rethinking the major body of work not. Not just on Britain's foreign policy and international relations, but also as a corollary and those of other states.
- [52:38]
Dr. Charles Petillo
Understood. Thank you again, Professor Black.
- [52:41]
Professor Jeremy Black
Thank you.