Greater issues revolved round the balance of power in Europe.

War and democracy

In 1901 Britain had a constitutional government, but it was not a fully-fledged повністю сформована democracy. In 1918 it became a democracy, with the introduction of universal adult male suffrage право голосу and votes for women aged over 30.

World War One determined the timing of democratic change.

World War One may not have initiated democratic change, but it determined its timing. Ironically, the war's demands also weakened the exercise of constitutional government, albeit хоч і temporarily.

Freedom of speech was curtailed by the Defence of the Realm Act in 1914. Elections, due in 1915, were deferred until the war was concluded. And the formation of a coalition government in the same year all but silenced parliamentary opposition.

When Britain entered World War One, it did so in the name of 19th century liberal values - the rights of small nations and the rule of law.

What justified these claims, which became the touchstone of British propaganda, was Germany's invasion of Belgium, as its army bypassed France's eastern defences by swinging round повернувши them to the north.

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Wooing ухаживание the workers

But 19th century liberalism, although it had a provided powerful rhetoric in foreign affairs, had been more limited in its domestic aspirations. 'Household suffrage', adopted in 1867, tied political responsibility to the ownership of property.

Although increasing affluence изобилие meant that the boundaries межі of this suffrage were porous, in 1914 Britain had the most restrictive обмежений franchise право голосувати на виборах of any power in Europe, with the exception of Hungary. Many of those killed in action in 1914-1918 were fighting for a state that denied them the vote.

The Liberals were returned to power at the end of 1905, winning elections in 1906 and 1910 (twice), even if with dwindling majorities.

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Binding the powers

At the beginning of the 20th century, Britain had struggled боролася in its three-year war with the Boer republics of South Africa, and realised that it needed not just to reform the army but also to tackle енергетично взятися issues of finance, public health and colonial government.

The reforms it initiated were designed to enable it better to deal with the responsibilities of imperialism, up to and including war. A sequence of international agreements created regional balances and so mitigated the consequences of global responsibility.

Greater issues revolved round the balance of power in Europe.

In 1901, the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty accepted American domination of the western Atlantic. In the following year, Britain and Japan entered an alliance which enabled Britain to offset its fears of Russia in the Far East.

Anglo-French hostility, so often the leitmotif of both sides' foreign policies for the previous two centuries, was finally buried with an entente in 1904. Ostensibly this settled the two powers' rivalries in North Africa and the Mediterranean, but increasingly what was designed as a settlement of colonial disputes came to carry European connotations.

This process was made even clearer with the fourth and final stage of the process, the entente with Russia in 1907. At one level this laid to rest Britain's long standing fears about the security of India from attack on its north western frontier.

At another, it completed the creation in Europe of a Triple Entente to match the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Germany's attempts to rupture the Entente, principally through engineering crises over Morocco in 1905 and 1911, had the reverse effect.

They bound the powers tighter together and convinced them that colonial clashes had to be subordinated to the greater issues revolving round the balance of power in Europe.

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Sea power

Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, 1916 ©

This was the underlying dynamic which explained Britain's entry to World War One. Formally speaking, Britain was not under any obligation to support France, let alone Russia, in a war with Germany.

Indeed, the first response of the foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, was to call on Germany to cooperate in convening a conference of the great powers. When Germany refused, Grey confronted the fact that imperial obligations and European policy were indivisible.

Politically, Britain could not afford to alienate either France or Russia, given its reliance on them for the system of global security which it had constructed. Strategically, its maritime power meant that it could not permit a mighty and hostile European power to dominate the Low Countries and so threaten the English Channel.

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