History of Wars, Great And Little.

Northland Age, Volume 27, Issue 41, 26 October 1927, Page 2

History of Wars, Great And Little.

The first two volumes of the British documents on the origins of wars from 1898 to 1914, which have been edited by Dr Gooch and Dr Temperlev, have been issued by the Government Stationery Office. Volume I is called "The End of British Isolation,” and volume TI, “The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and Franco-British Entente.” The decision to publish this selection of diplomatic documents was made by Mr Ramsay MacDonald when he was Foreign Secretary, and subsequently confirmed by Sir Austen Chamberlain. Mr MacDonald’s view was that, as the secret archives of Bet'.in, Vienna and St. Petersburg had been disclosed to the world, it would be in the interests of historic truth that contemporaneous British despatches and memoranda should also be published. The papers published in the present volumes begin in 1898, when the decision to abandon the traditional po! : cy of isolation, and to substitute for it one of alliances was taken, and they end j with the signing of the AngloFrench agreements of 1904. ; These might properly be de- ; scribed as the establishment of

j the Entente Cordiale.