German Diplomatic Documents 1871–1914 Volume 4

E. T. S. Dugdale (1876–1964) chose and translated these four volumes of selections from the stupendously large collection of diplomatic documents held in Berlin after the First World War. Dugdale was a keen shot, an academic, a pipe-smoking stamp-collector, and an ardent admirer of Dickens, who for a time made the translation of German texts his métier. On leaving Balliol, he had hoped to join the British Foreign Office; and to that end in the late 1890s spent two years in Germany perfecting his grasp of German – an experience which admirably qualified him for the more literary occupation. In the event, having married in 1902, he instead became an underwriter at Lloyds, and ended the War, wounded, as a captain in the Leicester Yeomanry. The four volumes of Diplomatic Documents were Dugdale’s chefs d’œuvre. The very many and generous contemporary reviews of these are as uniformly struck by their historical importance as by the skill of their presentation and choice.

Original Review of the Fourth Volume of German Diplomatic Documents:‘As before the selection has been most carefully done…the translation is excellent…and the book will be invaluable to students to whom the original is a closed book…’ Manchester Guardian, 1931‘Mr. E.T.S. Dugdale has now concluded his task – admirably done – of selecting from the immense mass of documents published by the German Government those which are of special interest to British readers. This fourth volume, like its immediate predecessors is thickly larded with the Kaiser’s splenetic marginal comments. In these outbursts, not meant for the public, the real man is exposed.’ The Sunday Times, 1931'What strikes one most forcibly in considering these diplomatic documents...is the utter failure of British statesmen after the Serajevo murder to realise the imminence of war... News Chronicle [A.J.Cummings] April 16 1931'Thoughout the Emperor is seen, in his marginal comments, as a vain and jealous man, intoxicated by the sense of his power. Armaments do not spell security but the reverse, unless they are very modest and very cautiously controlled. Mr Dugdale has done a great service by preparing this judicious and well annotated selection from the German quarry. It is a terrible warning against militarism which should be very widely and carefully read.' Spectator, May 9 1931'While the German Emperor was not perhaps anxious for War and was much more concerned to play the bully and the War Lord in Europe, his vanity, pettishness, vulgarity and childishness, as Sir Malcolm observes in his historical introduction to Mr Dugdale’s volume, are vividly displayed in his minutes -“surely some of the most damaging bits of writing that have ever seen the light of day”.' Cape Times, Cape Town. May 21 1931'Captain Dugdale completes his picture of diplomatic frustration...British foreign policy had crystalised into the theory of the Balance of Power. In the face of historical and circumstantial conflicts, Franco-German and Austro-Russian, Great Britain conceived it to be her role to preserve European equilibrium... An assassin’s bullet in Serbia knocked the bottom out of the whole system. ' Christian Science Monitor August 29, 1931'...the German documents still outshine all other revelations...In four modest volumes the student will find the meat of forty. The papers have been chosen with rare discrimination, and the editing is first rate.' New York Herald Tribune October 4 1931

• Historical Introduction Malcolm Robertson. Naval Introduction Herbert Richmond 1. The Agadir Incident, 1911 2. The United States and the Far East, 1909 –13 3. The German Naval Law, 1911–12 4. The Italian Invasion of Tripoli, 1911–12 5. Lord Haldane’s Mission to Berlin and Its Failure, 1912 6. The Consolidation of the Triple Entente, 1912 7. The First Balkan War, 1912 8. Baron von Marschall in London, 1912 9. The Conference of Ambassadors in London, 1912–13 10. The Second Balkan War, 1913 11. The Third Balkan War, 1913 12. Armenian Reforms in Asia Minor, 1913 13. The Attempt at a Colonial Agreement, 1913-14 14. The Bagdad Railway Negotiations, 1913–14 15. Naval Negotiations, 1913 16. Naval Negotiations, 1914 17. Colonel House’s Mission to Europe, 1914 18. Efforts of Diplomacy to Avert War, 1914.