When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
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#48: 31 July 1914 V - Britain On Defence
🕑 Added 2025-02-24 06:30:01 +0000 UTCIn our final JULY episode of the July Crisis, we return to Britain, where the pressure was building to make a decision. Russian mobilisation was clearly in the air, and if the news was true, German mobilisation would soon follow. Was peace possible even now? Many in Britain insisted it could, and declared that to fight a war in the name of a far off Austro-Serbian conflict was anathema to British interests - and British honour.
But the interventionist camp was growing in strength as well. They had The Times on their side, but the Cabinet was as divided as the country. Into this tangled web of red lines and principles, Sir Edward Grey would have to navigate his colleagues somewhere. They couldn't leave France in the lurch, but the public wouldn't have it - not unless a moral case could be made. It was now known that France would respect Belgian neutrality, but Germany would not...
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Ronald Henry
The trigger has been pulled, nothing can save them now, yet they cannot accept it.
