Introduction

Abstract

For various reasons, British historians have not previously paid much attention to the subject of this book. For one thing, little seems to attract them to the period: at the domestic level, attention is deflected either forwards or backwards in time: by 1848 the free trade debates had largely achieved their objectives, Chartism was about to lose its steam, and the political excitement of the first reform movement was in the past. The intensity of the political debate of the 1840s had resulted in the separation of the Tories, the creation of the Peelites, and a period of political fluidity and apparent convergence on centre ground. Not until the late 1860s did vigour return with the renewed political polarity of Gladstone/Disraeli, the rebirth of reform as an issue, and the new input of the masses into the political dialogue. The period between 1848 and 1866 appears out of focus and overshadowed by what went before and what came after. In terms of foreign relations, too, the 1850s are seen as a quiet decade of stability and non-intervention. The Crimean War stands out as a rare moment of activity abroad in a period of tranquillity lasting until the new tone in international relations revolving round German unification. As a result, historians of foreign policy have tended to cover the period in terms of grand principles such as non-interventionism, and studies relating to particular countries have continued to be thin on the ground.