Britain’s Macedonian Reform Policy, 1903‐1905

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Notes

1. Salisbury to Sanderson, 23 April 1897, Sanderson Papers, Public Record Office, FO 800/2.

2. Unionist refers to the political merger in 1895 of the Conservatives with Joseph Chamberlain's Liberal Unionists, who had broken away from the Liberal Party in 1886 over the issue of Home Rule for Ireland.

3. Harold Temperley, “British Policy towards Parliamentary Rule and Constitutionalism in Turkey (1830–1914),” Cambridge Historical Journal 4, no. 2 (1933): 156–91.

4. George Monger, The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy, 1900–1907 (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1963), 117, 137–38, 156–58.

5. F. R. Bridge, Great Britain and Austria‐Hungary, 1906–1914: A Diplomatic History (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1972), 6–9.

6. Douglas Dakin, The Greek Struggle in Macedonia, 1897–1913 (Thessalonika, Greece: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1966).

7. O'Conor to Lansdowne, 6 May 1903, also 20 May and 16June 1903, Lansdowne Papers, Public Record Office, FO 800/143 (hereafter cited as LP).

8. Lansdowne to O'Conor, 14 August 1903, LP, FO 800/143.

9. Plunkett to Lansdowne, 30 August 1903, no. 64, FO 7/1342; Plunkett to Lansdowne, 30 August 1903, no. 258, FO 7/1340.

10. Ibid.; O'Conor to Lansdowne, 28 August 1903, British Documents on the Origins of the War. 1898–1914. 11 vols. (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1926–38), 5: 59–60 (hereafter cited as B.D.); O'Conor to Lansdowne, 28 August, 4 September, 25 September 1903, LP, FO 800/143; Balfour to Lansdowne, 10 September 1903, and Lansdowne to Balfour, 6 October 1903, Balfour Papers, British Museum. Add. MSS 49728 (hereafter cited as BP).

11. Sidney Lee, King Edward VII: A Biography (London: Macmillan, 1927), 2: 265–66; Philip Magnus, King Edward the Seventh (New York: L. P. Dutton, 1964), 320; Balfour to Lansdowne, 10 September 1903, BP, Add. MSS 49728; Lansdowne to O'Conor, 24 September 1903, LP, FO 800/143.

12. Note on Sanderson to Cranborne, 11 April 19UJ, handerson‐Lansdowne Papers, FO 800/115.

13. Salisbury to Balfour, 20 October 1903, BP, Add. MSS 49757.

14. Known as the Vienna Scheme of February 1903, its provisions called for reorganization of Macedonia's gendarmerie and police and reform of its financial and taxation system. See Dakin, Greek Struggle, 88.

15. O'Conor to Lansdowne, 28 August 1903, B.D., 5: 60.

16. Ibid., 61; O'Conor to Lansdowne, 25 September 1903, LP, FO 800/143.

17. O'Conor to Lansdowne, 28 August 1903, LP, FO 800/143.

18. Balfour to Lansdowne, 10 Sepiember 1903, BP, Add. MSS 49728. Reference to Exeter Hall, well known in the early 1860s as a meeting place for those who espoused humanitarian causes such as antislavery, indicates British fear of a public outburst in response to reports of Macedonian horrors. The Lebanon Convention refers to the 1861 arrangement whereby a European commission devised a constitution establishing autonomy in Lebanon under a non‐European Christian governor appointed by the Porte with the approval of the powers and aided by an elected administrative council and a gendarmerie recruited locally. This constitutional arrangement brought peaceful development until 1914 to a land which had been engulfed in religious strife.

19. Balfour to Lansdowne, 10 September 1903, BP, Add. MSS 49728.

20. Plunkett to Lansdowne, 25 September 1903, Tel. no. 75, FO 7/1342; Plunkett to Lansdowne, 27 September 1903, no. 291, FO 7/1341; Plunkett to Lansdowne, 27 September 1903, no. 292, FO 7/1341.

21. Scott to Lansdowne, 16 September 1903, no. 282, FO 65/1661; Scott to Lansdowne, 23 September 1903, no. 293A, FO 65/1661; Plunkett to Lansdowne, 25 September 1903, Tel. no. 75, FO 7/1342.

22. O'Conor to Lansdowne, 25 September 1903, LP. FO 800/143; Lansdowne to O'Conor, 18 October 1903, LP, FO 800/143.

23. Plunkett to Lansdowne, 25 September 1903, Tel. no. 75, FO 7/1342.

24. Lansdowne lo O'Conor, 24 September 1903, LP, K) 800/143.

25. Lansdowne to Plunketl, 29 September 1903, B.D., 5: 63.

26. Lansdowne lo O'Conor. 24 December 1903, B.D., 5: 66–67.

27. Lansdowne to Balfour, 6 October 1903. BP, Add. MSS 49728.

28. Lansdowne to Plunkett, 27 January 1904. no. 12, FO 7/1350.

29. Bertie to Lansdowne, 21 December 1903. LP, FO 800/133.

30. Bertie to Lansdowne, 30 January 1904, LP, FO 800/133.

31. Bertie to Lansdowne, 10 February 1904, no. 17, FO 45/889. This document was minuted, “Lord Lansdowne wished to see this dispatch again in print before circulating to the Cabinet. RPM[axwell].”

32. GwendoIen Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, 4 vols. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1922, 1931–32), 2: 245–49, 261; Edmond Fitzmaurice, The Life of Lord Granville, 1815–1891, 2d ed., 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green, 1905), 2: 202; William L. Langer, European Alliances and Alignments, 1871–1890, 2d ed. (New York: Random House, 1950), 323–30; Paul Knaplund, Gladstone's Foreign Policy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935), 156–60.

33. Bonham to Lansdowne, 3 May 1903, LP, FO 800/142; Lansdowne to Bonham, 12 May 1903, LP, FO 800/142. Plunkett's correspondence doubtless confirmed Lansdowne in his conclusion to disregard the Italian hypothesis. See Plunkett to Lansdowne, 5 May 1903, Tel. no. 24, FO 7/1342, and Plunkett to Lansdowne, 7 May 1903, no. 126, FO 7/1339.

34. Lansdowne to Bertie, 16 February 1904, LP, FO 800/133. Enclosed with this letter was another which Lansdowne had received from George Buchanan, the newly appointed British representative to Bulgaria. Like Plunkett's dispatches of May 1903, Buchanan's letter served to reaffirm Lansdowne's skepticism about Austro‐Hungarian aggressiveness. See Buchanan to Lansdowne, 10 February 1904, LP, FO 800/118.

35. Draft memo by Balfour (unsigned and undated), BP, Add. MSS 49698.

36. Lansdowne to Bertie, 16 February 1904, LP. FO 800/133.

37. Lansdowne to Bertie, 23 February 1904, B.D., 5: 69. See also Bertie to Lansdowne, 24 February 1904, no. 30, FO 45/889. The question of Macedonian autonomy was brought before the cabinet. See the minute on Lansdowne to Monson, 20 February 1904, no. 83, FO 27/3662.

38. Balfour to Lansdowne, 22 February 1904, BP, Add. MSS 49728.

39. Draft memo by Balfour (unsigned and undated), BP, Add. MSS 49698.

40. See, for example, the views expressed by O'Conor and Lansdowne in Lansdowne to Balfour, 6 October 1903, BP, Add. MSS 49728, and O'Conor to Lansdowne, 9 October 1903, LP, FO 800/143.

41. Balfour to Lansdowne, 22 February 1904, BP, Add. MSS 49728.

42. Balfour to Lansdowne, 28 February 1904, BP, Add. MSS 49728.

43. For an indication of Italian support for a policy of autonomy, see Bertie to Lansdowne, 24 February1904, no. 30, FO 45/889. However, compare this dispatch with O'Conor to Lansdowne, 23 February 1904, LP, FO 800/143. By January of the next year Italian support for Britain's proposed policy was becoming uncertain. See Plunkett to Lansdowne, 20 January 1905, no. 17, FO 7/1362.

44. Lansdowne to Monson, 7 October 1903, no. 506, FO 27/3617; Lansdowne to Monson, 14 October 1903, no. 513, FO 27/3617; Lansdowne to Monson, 20 February 1904, B.D., 5:68–69; Bertie to Lansdowne, 24 February 1904, no. 30, FO 45/889.

45. Lansdowne to Monson, 21 October 1903, no. 529, FO 27/3616; Bertie to Lansdowne, 22 February 1904, LP, FO 800/133; Lansdowne to Monson, 25 February 1904, B.D., 5: 70; a long letter by Spring‐Rice dated 12 May 1904 and marked “private & secret,” LP, FO 800/140.

46. Plunkell to Lansdowne, 25 February 1904, B.D., 5: 71.

47. Spring‐Rice to Mallet, 13 April 1904 (marked “seen by Lansdowne”), Sander‐son‐Lansdowne Papers, FO 800/115.

48. Draft memo by Balfour (unsigned and undated), BP, Add. MSS 49698.

49. Extract from the annual report for Bulgaria for 1906, B. D., 5: 108.

50. Bertie to Lansdowne, 25 February 1904, LP, FO 800/133.

51. Dakin, Greek Struggle. 155–62, 167–69.

52. Bertie to Lansdowne, 24 January 1905, LP, FO 800/126.

53. Lansdowne to Monson, 30 July 1904, no. 416, FO 27/3663.

54. Percy to Balfour, undated but written at Christmastime 1904, BP, Add. MSS 49747. Read the speeches of Percy and Balfour delivered in the House of Commons on 27 February 1905 in conjunction with Percy's letter. 4 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates 141 (1905): 1384, 1395.

55. Lansdowne to Rodd, 27 July 1904, no. 136, FO 45/888.

56. Lister to Lansdowne, 29 November 1904, no. 187, FO 45/890.

57. Balfour to Lansdowne, 6 January 1905, BP, Add. MSS 49729.

58. Plunkett to Lansdowne, 25 June 1904, no. 157, FO 7/1352; Plunkett to Lansdowne, 21 August 1904, no. 179, and 5 May 1905, no. 106, FO 7/1352; Bertie to Lansdowne, 5 March 1904, B.D., 5: 74; Bertie to Lansdowne, 15 March and 14 June 1904, LP, FO 800/133; Bertie to Lansdowne, 24 January 1905, LP, FO 800/126; O ‐Conor to Barrington, 6 September 1904, LP, FO 800/143; Lister to Lansdowne, 31 December 1904, no. 207, FO 45/890.

59. Lansdowne to Balfour, 9 January 1905, BP, Add. MSS 49729.

60. Cabinet report to the king, 16 December 1904, CAB 41/29/43.

61. Buchanan to Lansdowne, 16 November 1904, LP, FO 800/118.

62. Notes of a conversation with Mr. Graves, H. B. M. Consul General at Salonika, 29 November 1904, BP, Add. MSS 49700.

63. See Lister to Lansdowne, 6 January 1905, no. 4, FO 45/906.

64. Percy to Balfour, undated but written at Christmastime 1904, BP, Add. MSS 49747. See also Lansdowne to Lister, 19 January 1905, no. 14, FO 27/3686.

65. Lansdowne to Plunkett, 22 March 1905, no. 30, FO 7/1361; Lansdowne to Bertie, 27 March 1905, no. 141, FO 27/3703; Lansdowne to Hardinge, 29 March 1905, no. 106, FO 65/1697.

66. Paul Cambon to Delcassé, 9 February 1905, Documents diplomatiques francais (1871–1914), 2^e série (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1929–59), 6: 103–6 (hereafter cited as DDF₂). Compare Cambon's account of this conversation with Lansdowne's in Lansdowne to Bertie, 3 February 1905, B.D., 5: 77.

67. Cabinet report to the king, 16 December 1904, CAB 41/29/43.

68. Lansdowne to Balfour, 23 December 1904, BP, Add. MSS 49729.

69. Lansdowne to de Bunsen, 6 January 1905, no. 20, FO 27/3686; sec also Paul Cambon to Delcassé, 13 January 1905, DDF_t, 6: 3In.

70. Lansdowne to Bertie, 3 February 1905, B.D., 5: 77.

71. The Earl of Lytton had drawn attention to the report appearing in the Standard. See 4 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates 143 (1905): 1320.

72. This was the explanation Lansdowne gave to account for the newspaper leak. See 4 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates 143 (1905): 1345–46.

73. Hardinge to Lansdowne, 6 April 1905, Tel. no. 45, FO 65/1706.

74. Lansdowne to Hardinge, 12 April 1905, no. 122, FO 65/1697.

75. Ibid.; Lansdowne to Hardinge, 3 October 1905, no. 298, FO 65/1697.

76. See B.D., 5: 80–99.

77. Balfour to Lansdowne, 30 December 1904, BP, Add. MSS 49729.

78. Spring‐Rice to Mallet, 13 April 1904 (marked “seen by Lansdowne”), Sander‐son‐Lansdowne Papers, FO 800/115. Of interest is Mallet's minute: “This is a strong argument against making any fresh proposals, such as Buxton & Lytton suggest, for a European gov[erno]r but it is not an argument against circularizing the Powers as to the inadequate manner in which the Miirsteg programme has been carried out.”

79. 4 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates 141 (1905): 1394–95; also 1383–84 for relevant parts in Percy's speech.

80. This topic will be developed in a forthcoming study by the author on British foreign policy and the Serbian conspiracy question.

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Notes on contributors

Frances A. Radovich

The author was assistant to Marshall J. Orloff, M.D., Editor‐in‐Chief of World Journal of Surgery; she was previously Assistant Editor of Historical Abstracts.