page_title: Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
section_title: Foreign policy
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury / Prime minister: 1895–1902 / Foreign policy
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of the British Empire as it was in 1898, prior to the Second Boer War (1899-1902).
context_page_description: Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC, FRS, DL was a British statesman. He was styled Lord Robert Cecil before the death of his elder brother in 1865, Viscount Cranborne from June 1865 until his father died in April 1868, and then the Marquess of Salisbury. He served as prime minister three times for a total of over thirteen years. He acted as his own foreign minister. He avoided alignments or alliances, maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation."
  Lord Robert Cecil was first elected to the House of Commons in 1854 and served as Secretary of State for India in Lord Derby's Conservative government 1866–1867. In 1874, under Disraeli, Salisbury returned as Secretary of State for India, and, in 1878, was appointed foreign secretary, and played a leading part in the Congress of Berlin. After Disraeli's death in 1881, Salisbury emerged as Conservative leader in the House of Lords, with Sir Stafford Northcote leading the party in the Commons. He succeeded William Ewart Gladstone as prime minister in June 1885, and held the office until January 1886.
context_section_description: In the foreign affairs Salisbury was challenged worldwide, The long-standing policy of "Splendid isolation" had left Britain with no allies and few friends. In Europe, Germany was worrisome regarding its growing industrial and naval power, Kaiser Wilhelm's erratic foreign policy, and the instability caused by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. France was threatening British control of Sudan.  In the Americas, for domestic political reasons, U.S. President Cleveland manufactured a quarrel over Venezuela's border with British Guiana. In South Africa conflict was threatening with the two Boer republics. In The Great Game in Central Asia, the line that separated Russia and British India in 1800 was narrowing.  In China the British economic dominance was threatened by other powers that wanted to control slices of China. 
  The tension with Germany had subsided in 1890 after a deal exchanged German holdings in East Africa for an island off the German coast. However with peace-minded Bismarck retired by an aggressive new Kaiser, tensions rose and negotiations faltered.  France retreated in Africa after the British dominated in the Fashoda Incident. The Venezuela crisis was settled amicably and London and Washington became friendly after Salisbury gave Washington what it wanted in the Alaska boundary dispute. The Open Door Policy and a 1902 treaty with Japan resolved the China crisis.  However in South Africa a nasty Boer war broke out in 1899 and for a few months it seems the Boers were winning.
caption: The British Empire in 1898
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