The Old Diplomacy and Anglo-Russian Relations

Abstract

Any bilateral relationship has its own particular character, a texture determined by the complexities of history, geography and culture. These factors can sometimes make for harmony, as with the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Great Britain in the years after 1945, when the dictates of the international environment and a common Anglo-Saxon heritage helped to forge an elite consensus on many key international economic and military questions. The Franco-German relationship, by contrast, was characterised by tension and conflict for three generations following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1, an international ‘fault-line’ that created instability across the European continent. This is not of course to argue that there is anything inevitable about the pattern of international friendships and enmities, although there can be little doubt that national stereotypes sometimes acquire a depth and resonance that endure far beyond the circumstances that give them birth. Over the past 100 years, the stereotypical British view of France, at both a popular and governmental level, has remained somewhat less than benign despite the entente cordiale and two world wars in which the countries fought a common enemy. Nevertheless, both images and realities can change across time, as witnessed so dramatically by the development of a new Franco-German relationship in the years since 1945.