I like this book a lot. As an account of Anglo-German relations from the eighteenth century to the present, it draws very ably on a very wide range of sources, both British and German, and has the great benefit of being very well written. Furthermore, the political dimension, which is especially good for Rüger’s core period of the run-up to World War One — and is, more generally, highly instructive from the late nineteenth century — is ably counterpointed with the cultural and intellectual. So we get Richard Wagner going to London in order to deal with the financial ruin he faced in 1877, and the inspiration British visitors found in Weimar Germany. There is also the range of the personal from the “Poor Palatines” to the “hare chase of Celle”, Victor Klemperer to Christabel Bielenberg, the Queen’s controversial visit to Dresden in 1992 to President Steinmeier at the Cenotaph in 2018. There are some wonderful photographs, notably Hitchcock on set in Munich in 1925, and some great quotations, not least George VI thinking Coventry looked “just like Ypres after the last war.”
The book is organised in three sections, Allies, Opponents and Reconciliation, although the last is qualified by “a sense of misapprehension, the residue of an unresolved past.” The Anglo-German relationship is seen as more significant in European history than the Franco-German relationship, and is commendably brought up to the present. Rüger, like many Germans, tends to think of Anglo-German relations as somehow central to the histories of both countries, which is greatly flawed as an account of most of their history, and notably so if Bavaria, France, Austria and Russia are seen as playing a role in European history.
As an explicit criticism of the nonsense of great powers rising and falling as if “a timeless truth,” that offered for example by Paul Kennedy, Graham Allison, and Brendan Simms, Rüger, Professor of History at Birkbeck, emphasises the role of individuals and contingencies. His is a book that emphasises human agency, and at every level from that of nations to individuals.
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So, a first-rate book. As a scholar, I have to add my pennyworth of possible other ways to approach the subject, but these should not take away from my admiration for “the read.” So, first the role of religion is underplayed. It was important not only in the era of the Reformation but also thereafter, with for example the “Great Awakening” of the eighteenth century, and British Christian thinkers in the nineteenth century looking to German advances in Biblical criticism. Rüger is far from alone in failing to appreciate such points, but this is a major failing. It is also one that is all-too-characteristic of the book, in that religious links were with German Protestantism, but much of German culture and experience was Catholic. This was especially the case if, as Rüger fails to do, it is understood that Austrians were also German and the Austrian Habsburgs the leading German dynasty until shut out by defeat in 1866. Earlier, Protestant control in the shape of Prussia, over Catholic centres such as Cologne, only occurred in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.
Secondly, and linked to that factor, it is pertinent to have at least a pre-1714 prelude, one that should, at the very least, include the Reformation, the Thirty Years’ War (in which many Scots served) and co-operation with Germans in opposing Louis XIV in 1689-1713. The problem here is that Rüger does not really know what to do with Austria, the key ally against Louis (unlike Prussia) and this is linked to his difficulty in defining Germany.
For the period on which I am a specialist (and Rüger is not), the eighteenth century, there is a degree of nonsense. For example, George I did not have a “reliably anti-French stance” contributing to British “nation-building.” Instead, there was alliance with France from 1716 to 1731, the deployment of French troops into “Germany” to protect Hanover against Prussia and Austria was sought in 1727 (George II was similarly concerned in 1729), and so on. Nor were British interests successfully ringfenced to protect against their use for Hanoverian ends. Any detailed consideration of British foreign policy, or, indeed, the despatch of warships to the Baltic would suggest otherwise. Nor is Rüger correct to suggest that “at the heart of Britain’s national interest” was Britain choosing both Continental interventionism and trans-oceanic policies. Walpole’s determination to keep Britain out of European war, notably in 1753-5, and the beneficial consequences that flowed from this, demonstrates the contrary; as, indeed, did the earlier non-engagement, as in the Thirty Years’ War or against France in 1675-78. Rüger’s Whiggishness draws on a failure to understand the range of views in and on the eighteenth century.
From a German perspective, I would scarcely describe this book as a Bavarian or a Swabian viewpoint. Nor is there sufficient engagement with the extent to which Germany for long in Britain meant the Empire and thus included Austria. That only really ceased in the nineteenth century. Thus, there is on the part of Rüger a degree of anticipation that is misleading. Prussia takes far too central a position too early. This is linked to his misleading account of Prussia as a great power by the end of the Seven Years’ War. Not so, it was more significant by then than Bavaria and Saxony both of which had had their search for status crippled by defeat. However, Prussia also had had its vulnerability amply displayed, notably so to Russia. Furthermore, in terms of “reach,” Prussia in 1763 in no way matched Austria, Britain, France or Russia. Instead, it only became a great power as a result of developments from the 1860s. 1871 still seems to be the lens through which most Germans view their history. That includes Rüger, and is misleading.
So, lots to the good, particularly (but not only) for the post-1871 period; but with significant weaknesses, and notably so for the eighteenth century.
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