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British attitudes during the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848-50 were predominantly pro-Danish. The invasion of Denmark and the Elbe Duchies by the Confederation of German States, led by Prussia, was looked upon as an attempt by a large and aggressive power to bully a smaller and inoffensive neighbour into surrendering a large part of her territory and excellent ports on the Baltic and Korth Seas. Besides the belief that Denmark had a legal right to the Duchies it was feared that should Germany gain control of this strategic area, she would in time build a merchant fleet and a navy which could offer Britain serious competition. In addition, should the Germans have their own way, the Duchies would probably become members of the Zollverein which already imposed high tariffs on British Goods. Should the Duchies join this union, probably other north German areas would too, and perhaps even a good part of Scandinavia would be economically compelled to enter it. This danger helped to convince many Britons that the Helstat should remain intact.

British free traders of the mid-nineteenth century brought the merchant's ledger to the aid of diplomacy when they claimed that the promotion of unrestricted oonnerc1al intercourse between nations was inseparable from that of universal peace. The application of this assumption in the conduct of British foreign policy between 1859 and. 1871 forms the subject of this study. It is based upon five commercial treaties which Britain concluded with various European countries and of which the well-known Cobclen treaty was the first. Although these brought about a state of virtual free trade among the leading trading countries of western Europe, they were, strictly speaking, contrary to Britain's policy of free trade adopted in 1846. Therefore, after a brief account of the free trade movement and of the free traders' blueprint for foreign policy, the circumstances which led. Britain to modify her post-1846 policy and. conclude the Cobden treaty are discussed in the early part of the study. With the conclusion of that treaty, the foreign Office and the Board of Trade entered a period of intense commercial activity during which they signed four more treaties. Their efforts were not entirely successful and the feeling that they were ill-equipped. for their commercial functions led to a parliamentary inquiry and the subsequent establishment of a commercial]. division within the Foreign Office in 1865. The era of free trade occasioned by the treaties was short-lived; by the 1870a most European countries had reverted to protectionism and the circumstances of this reaction axe considered in the seventh chapter. The idealism enshrined by the treaties stands in sharp contrast to the Bonapartist and. Bismarokian realism of the same decade; the grounds of this contrast and. the influence of the treaties on British foreign policy are discussed in the conclusion.

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The Anglo-French Entente received almost from the moment of its inception the endorsement of the British people. Although Anglo-French relations had been steadily improving since the end of the Boer war and the denouement of the Dreyfus affair, it was the warm and friendly greeting which King Edward VII received during his State visit to Paris in the spring of 1903 that first made the various quarters of British public opinion desirous of a full-fledged understanding with France. The conclusion of the colonial Convention of 8 April 1904 reinforced this desire. With the exception of a handful of 'High Tories' and Imperialist stalwarts, most of whom complained that Britain lost more territory and privileges than she gained, the terms of this Convention proved acceptable to the bulk of the nation. Most Conservatives and Liberal Imperialists saw the Convention as a development which bolstered Britain's position in the world and which helped the nation meet the challenge of German expansionism, while most Radicals and Socialists saw it as a peaceful event which heralded the beginning of a series of bi-lateral pacts among the Powers, including Germany. Despite these high expectations, some disillusionment soon set in in various quarters of public opinion. Businessmen who nourished the idea that the rapprochement was economic as well as political in its ramifications discovered to their dismay that the Entente had done nothing to encourage the French to abandon protectionism. The short-lived trade boom which followed the signing of the 1904 Agreements was little compensation to them.

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