The Haldane Mission of February 1912 was an unsuccessful effort by the British to seek détente with Germany and reduce dangerous friction between Britain and Germany arising because of their escalating naval arms race.
British diplomat Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane wanted a slowdown in the naval race and Germany wanted British neutrality in a future war.[1] The negotiations were initiated by worried businessmen on either side, and continued by the British cabinet on the one side and the Kaiser and his top aides on the other. The collapse came when Germany insisted on a promise that Britain would be neutral and not join a country that started a war on Germany.
According to British historian John C. G. Röhl:
February 1912 is rightly regarded as a decisive event in the years leading up to the First World War. Seldom was the incompatibility between Great Britain’s balance-of-power policy of maintaining the status quo and the German Reich’s claim to the leadership of continental Europe so strikingly displayed.[2]