Great Rapprochement

The Great Rapprochement was the convergence of diplomatic, political, military, and economic objectives of the United States and the British Empire from 1895 to 1915, the two decades before American entry into World War I.

[6] Guided by Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain, the British cabinet of Lord Salisbury rejected both the applicability and legal validity of the Monroe doctrine and asserted that Britain remained an imperial power in the Americas.

Cleveland responded in kind, establishing an investigatory commission to determine the true boundary and publicly stating that his administration would use "every means in its power" to prevent British expansion into Venezuelan territory.

Near the conclusion of his famous Cross of Gold speech, Bryan directly accused England of interference in American economic sovereignty and framed outright bimetallism without international approval as a nationalist alternative: It is the issue of 1776 over again.

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost.Other Bryanite populists including John Peter Altgeld, William Hope Harvey, and Mary Elizabeth Lease echoed this theme in their speeches, alarming British opinion.

The treaty was approved by President Cleveland during his lame duck session and submitted to Congress with support from many academics and peace advocates, but was rejected resoundingly by the United States Senate.

In the early stages of the Spanish–American War of 1898, the common belief in the United States, fueled by Ambassador John Hay and Liberal pressmen like W. T. Stead, was that the British public took the side of the Cuban revolutionaries against Spanish colonial rule.

The exception among the cabinet was Chamberlain (a Liberal Unionist rather than Conservative), who now gave speeches in support of American intervention and privately suggested an outright alliance to Hay.

The Salisbury ministry, by contrast, secretly sought McKinley's personal approval before urging peace and went so far as to expedite the sale of two cruisers to the United States as part of its mobilization effort.

[14] Observing the war in the final months before his death, Otto von Bismarck remarked that the most significant event of the 20th century would be "the fact that the North Americans speak English.

As part of the process of imperial retrenchment, Britain resolved a border conflict between Canada and Alaska, withdrew its objections to an American-controlled canal in the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty of 1901, and agreed in 1902 to arbitrate a debt collection dispute with Venezuela.

After a final British flirtation with Germany's anti-American designs during the Venezuelan crisis of 1902–03, Britain and the United States embraced unreservedly during the Theodore Roosevelt administration (1901–1909).

[citation needed] In addition to geopolitical alignment brought about by the American turn toward empire, the United States and Great Britain resolved long-held trade disputes during the period.

Britain's adoption of John Hay's Open Door Policy toward China garnered much goodwill on the western side of the Atlantic and further accelerated the pace of rapprochement after 1900.

I think that when an important case, such as the question of trade relations with the United States is pending, the local Legislature should remain quiet, and let the Dominion Government carry the burden.

"[24] Conservative appraisals of "provincial reciprocity" as a question of legislative sovereignty, rather than solely international commerce and political economy, became crucial for fictional and nonfictional narratives of Anglo-American reunion as well as burgeoning New England tourism in the Atlantic Maritimes.

[citation needed] The poem The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling was written to encourage reconciliation between Great Britain and the United States in the name of cooperative civilizing imperialism.

Uncle Sam embraces John Bull , and Britannia and Columbia hold hands and sit together in the background in a promotional poster for the United States and Great Britain Industrial Exposition (1898).
President Grover Cleveland twists the tail of the British Lion over Venezuela as the Republican Congress cheers him on.
The 1896 presidential nomination of William Jennings Bryan served to alarm British interests, who saw his opposition to the gold standard as a threat to the London-based systems of international trade and finance.
The British policy of non-intervention and tacit support in the Spanish–American War played a decisive role in the largely naval conflict and marked a turning point in the diplomatic relationship between the two countries.