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The Hidden Perspective: The Military Conversations 1906-1914
Within weeks of taking office in December 1905, British Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Foreign Secretary Edward Grey agreed to allow the General Staff of the Army to secretly enter detailed talks with their French counterparts about sending a British expeditionary force to France in the event of a German attack. Neither Parliament nor the rest of the Cabinet were informed. In fact, Campbell-Bannerman’s successor as prime minister, H. H. Asquith, wasn’t aware of the talks for the first three years he held office.
The Hidden Perspective takes readers back to the tense years leading up to World War I, using contemporary historical documents to re-create the stormy Cabinet meetings in the fall of 1911 when the details of the military conversations were finally revealed. David Owen, himself a former foreign secretary, shows how the foreign office’s underlying belief in Britain’s moral obligation to send troops to the Continent influenced political decision-making and helped create the impression that war was inevitable. Had Britain’s diplomatic and naval strategy been handled more skillfully during these years, Owen argues, the carnage of World War I might have been prevented altogether.
The Hidden Perspective takes readers back to the tense years leading up to World War I, using contemporary historical documents to re-create the stormy Cabinet meetings in the fall of 1911 when the details of the military conversations were finally revealed. David Owen, himself a former foreign secretary, shows how the foreign office’s underlying belief in Britain’s moral obligation to send troops to the Continent influenced political decision-making and helped create the impression that war was inevitable. Had Britain’s diplomatic and naval strategy been handled more skillfully during these years, Owen argues, the carnage of World War I might have been prevented altogether.
274 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2014
16 people want to read
About the author
David L. Owen
32 books7 followersDavid Owen is the author of Hidden Evidence and Hidden Secrets. He has written extensively on military deception, espionage, and written and produced television documentaries on computer crime and electronic intelligence.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 23, 2022
The merit of this book is the extensive reproduction of official documents from the published collections by Gooch and Temperley between the two world wars. These documents are set out verbatim and the reader is also treated to the nearly fifty page memorandum of January 1907 by Eyre Crowe about Anglo-German relations.
For the researcher, these extracts are made conveniently available by Dr Owen. Otherwise this is not a coherent work. It uses a limited source of secondary material to support the case that the Foreign Office under Edward Grey concealed the extent of the commitments made to France before the start of the First World War. More analysis would have been helpful to make that case. Otherwise, for all the reproduced material, this book has very little novelty.
For the researcher, these extracts are made conveniently available by Dr Owen. Otherwise this is not a coherent work. It uses a limited source of secondary material to support the case that the Foreign Office under Edward Grey concealed the extent of the commitments made to France before the start of the First World War. More analysis would have been helpful to make that case. Otherwise, for all the reproduced material, this book has very little novelty.
November 8, 2025
An interesting perspective by a former UK Foreign Secretary. That said it does seem to jump about a bit date-wise.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews