My Review of Andrew Lambert's "No More Napoleons"

The Balance of Power

King’s College naval historian Andrew Lambert has written an over-detailed evaluation of British geopolitical strategy from 1793-1914. After fighting France for 22 years Britain settled on a strategy of offshore balancing and maintaining order in Europe enforced by the Royal Navy and a small expeditionary force. The initial goal was to prevent a revanchist France from regaining control of Europe. The architects were Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, Foreign Secretary Castlereagh, and the Duke of Wellington. The latter initially as the hero of Waterloo and later as prime minister. Their policies were enhanced by Lord Palmerston as both foreign secretary and prime minister.

Britain’s greatest fear was that a continental power could launch an invasion from the low countries. Hence it was crucial to keep France out of the Scheldt Estuary and the Port of Antwerp. When Belgium split off from Holland the 1839 Neutrality Treaty orchestrated by Palmerston kept France out. The result of that treaty and Britain’s troop presence in Belgium in 1870, kept both France and Germany out of Belgium during their war. This would not be so in 1914.

The linchpin of the strategy was the power of the Royal Navy whose goal was to be at least twice as strong as any two powers. Aside from a quantitative advantage the Royal Navy had the most technologically advanced fleet by taking advantage of steam power, screw propellers, gunnery, and hydrology. The Royal Navy truly ruled the waves and it enabled Britain to become a global power through its colonies, but for that power to be maintained there had to be an offshore balance in Europe.

For most of the 19^th century the policy succeeded largely because France was in a long-term relative decline while Britain was moving to its heights. However, after 1870 Britain entered into a relative decline in relationship to a newly reunified Germany. As a result, it required an alliance with France which severely limited Britain’s freedom of action. Britain learned the hard way in the trenches of France. Given all of Britain’s interest in Belgium, it is a wonder why Germany was unsure about Britain’s entry in World War I after it invaded Belgium.

Although Lambert discusses the 1815 Vienna settlement, he makes little note of Count Metternich of Austria whose interest in a stable Europe was greater than Britain’s. He also does not cite Henry Kissinger’s “A World Restored” on the Congress of Vienna. He also left out a discussion on the 1878 Congress of Berlin where British Prime Minister Disraeli played a leading role in settling, at least for a time, the Balkan question. There is way too much information in this book, and I would only recommend it to history nerds.