Prior to World War I, Britain was at the center of global relations, utilizing tactics of diplomacy as it broke through the old alliances of European states. Historians have regularly interpreted these efforts as a reaction to the aggressive foreign policy of the German Empire. However, as Between Empire and Continent demonstrates, British foreign policy was in fact driven by a nexus of intra-British, continental and imperial motivations. Recreating the often heated public sphere of London at the turn of the twentieth century, this groundbreaking study carefully tracks the alliances, conflicts, and political maneuvering from which British foreign and security policy were born.

Between 1911 and 1914, the conflicts between Italy and the Ottoman Empire, together with the Balkan wars that followed, transformed European politics. With contributions from leading, international historians, this volume offers a comprehensive account of the wars before the Great War and surveys the impact of these conflicts on European diplomacy, military planning, popular opinion and their role in undermining international stability in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War. Placing these conflicts at the centre of European history, the authors provide fresh insights on the origins of World War I, emphasizing the importance of developments on the European periphery in driving change across the continent. Nation and empire, great powers and small states, Christian and Muslim, violent and peaceful, civilized and barbaric - the book evaluates core issues which defined European politics to show how they were encapsulated in the wars before the Great War.

Prior to World War I, Britain was at the center of global relations, utilizing tactics of diplomacy as it broke through the old alliances of European states. Historians have regularly interpreted these efforts as a reaction to the aggressive foreign policy of the German Empire. However, as Between Empire and Continent demonstrates, British foreign policy was in fact driven by a nexus of intra-British, continental and imperial motivations. Recreating the often heated public sphere of London at the turn of the twentieth century, this groundbreaking study carefully tracks the alliances, conflicts, and political maneuvering from which British foreign and security policy were born.

Between 1911 and 1914, the conflicts between Italy and the Ottoman Empire, together with the Balkan wars that followed, transformed European politics. With contributions from leading, international historians, this volume offers a comprehensive account of the wars before the Great War and surveys the impact of these conflicts on European diplomacy, military planning, popular opinion and their role in undermining international stability in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War. Placing these conflicts at the centre of European history, the authors provide fresh insights on the origins of World War I, emphasizing the importance of developments on the European periphery in driving change across the continent. Nation and empire, great powers and small states, Christian and Muslim, violent and peaceful, civilized and barbaric - the book evaluates core issues which defined European politics to show how they were encapsulated in the wars before the Great War.