Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / British involvement in Ethiopia after 1896 became necessary to stop French activities in the Nile Basin and to block Ethiopian expansion toward the White Nile. After wringing guarantees concerning the Ethiopian sources of the Nile from the Emperor Manilek, Great Britain worked to prevent any potentially dangerous European power from gaining overwhelming predominance at the Ethiopian Court. Thus, in pursing her own interests in Egypt and the Nile Valley, England stood at the same time as a guarantor of Ethiopia's sovereignty [TRUNCATED] / 2031-01-01

This thesis examines British Foreign Office views of Russia and Anglo-Russian relations prior to the 1907 Anglo-Russian Entente. British diplomatic documents, memoirs, and papers in the Public Record Office reveal diplomatic concern with ending Central Asian tensions. This study examines Anglo-Russian relations from the pre-Lansdowne era, including agreements with Japan (1902) and France (1904), the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, and the shift in Liberal thinking up to the Anglo-Russian Entente. The main reason British diplomats negotiated the Entente was less to end Central Asian friction, this thesis concludes, than the need to check Germany, which some Foreign Office members believed, was bent upon European hegemony.