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By Root 816 0

his Dominions tour made between September and December 1934; this noted a worrying paucity of military preparations.4 The Abyssinian Crisis had precipitated some further essentially half-hearted examination of the question the following year, but interest once again faded long before Italian troops finally marched into Addis Ababa. In February 1937 Sir Grattan Bushe, the DO's long-serving legal adviser, finally instigated a serious review when he approached the FO and told his colleagues of his concerns about how the Dominions viewed 'common belligerency'.5 For many within Whitehall the long-held principle that the indivisibility of the King bound together each Dominion remained standard policy. There had in fact been ample evidence during recent years that this was now something of a fanciful ideal and even though it was mortified that they should be discussing such a possibility, the FO agreed that some form of contingency planning would be sensible.

Overwhelmed with arrangements for the forthcoming Imperial Conference, at this stage nothing more was done.6 By the time the visiting Dominion ministers had left London and those government officials who had been involved had taken their summer leave, Bushe's question was more urgent. European tensions were worsening and Sir Edward Harding, the DO's most senior official, believed that the British government's most important objective was to ensure the Dominions' active support in the event of any future war.7 In the last month of the year he therefore instructed Sir Harry Batterbee, who was both his deputy and brother-in-law, to prepare a comprehensive assessment of the Dominions' military and political state of readiness. Another senior department member, whose focus was monitoring foreign policy and defence matters, contributed to the review and shortly before Christmas a draft memorandum entitled 'Probable Attitude and Preparedness of the Dominions in the Event of War' was complete. This, the authors confirmed, was still based broadly on the earlier documents, but details had been updated and individual studies of each of the Dominions and new conclusions had been added. With Batterbee having included his final flourishes, the findings were passed to the FO for further comments and then on to Malcolm MacDonald. The Dominions secretary was also given an additional paper, prepared entirely by Dixon and reserved solely for internal DO distribution, which looked in more detail at the question of 'common belligerency'.8

The two documents totalled some 15 pages. A lengthy introduction made it clear that a truly definitive answer to the question was not possible at this stage. Following this was an idea about the kind of conflict that could be expected along with some thoughts on how Britain might become involved. The conclusion was stark; a war in defence of European commitments but without any direct attack on Britain in the first instance would very likely place considerable strains on the Anglo-Dominion relationship. These would be worsened if there had been no international effort to find a peaceful solution involving Britain and the Dominions beforehand. Even at this first drafting stage the authors already had few doubts that, whatever situation might develop, New Zealand and Australia would offer their support but the role that might be played by Canada and South Africa was a cause for real concern. Dixon's internal report advised his colleagues that they needed to retain 'a certain fluidity of conception' when thinking about how the Commonwealth relationship worked. Long-accepted norms did not now apply and this would need to be recognized if Britain was still to gain maximum advantage from the revised position.9 Batterbee, however, remained more optimistic, telling the secretary of state that he believed it would be 'alright on the night'.10 As it was impossible to say with conviction what was going to happen, he also agreed that to not make provision accordingly would be foolish. This was 'the policy of the ostrich' and the reports were therefore a sensible precaution.