Greetings! This is certainly an interesting question, and one which is critical to understanding the state of European international relations in the years before the "seminal tragedy" of 1914. In a short statement: indeed there was. In fact, the serious discussions extended so far as to "genuine" attempts by the British to form an Anglo-German Alliance of some sort in the period between 1890 and 1905 (when the naval arms race formally began). This response shall delve into the diplomatic and geopolitical reasons behind those talks, and why they ultimately ended up failing. For further reading, consider this thread with comments from myself and several other AH travelers regarding the context to the breakdown of Anglo-German relations in 1897 onwards. Let's begin.
'Splendid Isolation', Colonial Confrontation
"You ask too much for our friendship."
- British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury to German ambassador Paul von Hatzfeldt regarding a potential rapprochement between Britain and Germany in 1900.
At the turn of the 20th century, British diplomats and ministers viewed their position on the global stage with some uncertainty. Though London was very much the economic capital of the world, and though the British Empire was the global power, it was continually threatened across the world by foes old and new. In Central Asia and the Far East, the Russian bear continued to worry the Foreign Office, who viewed Britain as entangled in a "Great Game" with St. Petersburg for influence over these regions. In reality, that term has passed out of popular academic usage, and was more so a reflection of contemporary British Russophobia than any intentional antagonising by the Russian government.
From the New World, the United States was a rising economic-industrial powerhouse, and she would continue to insist upon her "special rights" to intervene in Latin and South American affairs enshrined within the Monroe Doctrine (most notably in a land dispute with Britain and Venezuela in 1895-1896). Then of course, France posed a constant threat with her grievances over the British "holding" of Egypt in 1882, and the Fashoda Incident of 1898.
So where did Germany factor into this geopolitical landscape? The German Empire of course, was a new player in the sense that it had only been around following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Its Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had pursued a foreign policy which emphasised isolating France above all else, and that meant constantly avoiding confrontation as well as colonial tensions with the other great powers. Up until his dismissal by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890, this policy had worked - Anglo-German relations were cordial (if somewhat distant) during this time.
In keeping with the so-called policy of "Splendid Isolation", Lord Salisbury had avoided any commitments or alliances with any of the European powers. He, along with many of his conservative peers and the public, viewed such entanglements on the Continent with great suspicion. They feared that if Britain were to get too close to another power, it might drag them into "continental affairs", something that Westminster and the Foreign Office absolutely abhorred.
Yet do not take this policy to mean that Britain was cut off from the affairs of the European nations. Far from it. In the imperial age, Britain's main clashes and concerns with the other great powers came at the imperial peripheries. In Africa, Qing China, and Indochina, Salisbury had balanced the claims of France and Russia with great tact. Here was a key difference between the British and German foreign policies: the use of imperial 'tokens'. Christopher Clark sums up this concept well:
"As the possessors of vast portions of the Earth's inhabited surface with a military presence along extended imperial peripheries, Britain, France, and Russia controlled tokens that could be exchanged and bargained over at relatively little cost to the metropolis. Britain could offer France concessions in the Mekong delta; Russia could offer Britain a demarcation of zones of influence in Persia; France could offer Italy access to coveted territory in northern Africa. Germany could not credibly make such offers."
In the time of Bismarck, this reality was something the Iron Chancellor had accepted. His main concern with foreign policy was continental; not colonial. He once described Germany as "his Africa" when a colonialist group tried to lobby him to push for German territory in the "Scramble". The British were also not very keen to allow such imperialist dreams; entering into a 'pointless' feud over the Samoan Islands, denying German "claims" to parts of the Namibian coast (then a Portuguese territory), and resenting German designs for a port on the Chinese coastline.
There were however, less confrontational moments too. The Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890 for example, and the shared mistrust of Russian ambition in the Far East. In the grand scheme of things, 'Anglo-German antagonism' was not the main determining factor in British foreign policy during the last decade of the 1890; but rather a consequence of colonial squabbles and great-power rivalries which were commonplace for the age.
Part 1 of 2