Color book
In diplomatic history, a color book is an officially sanctioned collection of diplomatic correspondence and other documents published by a government for educational or political reasons, or to promote the government position on current or past events. The earliest were the British Blue Books, dating to the 17th century. In World War I, all the major powers had their own color book, such as the German White Book, the Austrian Red Book, Russian Orange Book, and more.
Especially in wartime or times of crisis, color books have been used as a form of white propaganda to justify governmental action, or to assign blame to foreign actors. The choice of what documents to include, how to present them, and even what order to list them, can make the book tantamount to government-issued propaganda.
Terminology
The terms for individual color books such as the British blue book go back centuries and other individual color books were common in the 19th century and especially during World War I. The collective term color book appears less frequently, and later. In German, "Rainbow book" is seen in 1915, and "color book" in 1928. In English, attestations of both rainbow book and color book go back to at least 1915.History
Origin and early history
In the early 17th century, blue books first came into use in England as a means of publishing diplomatic correspondence and reports. They were so named, because of their blue cover. The Oxford English Dictionary first records such a usage in 1633.During the time of the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century, they were being published regularly. By the second half of the century, Turkey began publishing its own version in red, and the concept of color books spread to other countries in Europe, with each country using one color: Germany using white; France: yellow; red: Austria-Hungary ; Belgium: gray; Italy: green; and Netherlands : orange. This concept spread to the Americas as well, with the United States using red, Mexico: orange, and various countries in Central and South America using other colors; it even spread as far as China and Japan.
The choice of colors was arbitrary at first, but became consistent among the great powers under the Vienna System.
Nineteenth century
The 19th century was a period of great development and activity for Blue Books which were published in large numbers in Great Britain under numerous foreign secretaries. In theory, their purpose was to give Parliament the info it needed to provide a basis for judgment on foreign affairs.Causation and production
In the UK, color books were initially created through one of three paths: by command of the Crown, by order of, or in response to an address in the House of Commons or Lords. Pressure was sometimes brought to bear, and papers might be published, which otherwise might not have been. Blue Books were bound and published since the days of Foreign Secretary George Canning. Bound Blue Book sets of the House of Commons are readily available; Lords less so.Documents were often printed on large sheets of white paper, loosely bound, called White Papers, and were presented to the House of Commons or Lords, often unbound and undated. This lack of date would sometimes become problematic later for historians attempting to follow the historical record, and depended on further research to sort it out. Some of the documents were reprinted and bound and known as "Blue Books" after the color of the covers.
As parliamentary systems became more entrenched in Europe, color books emerged as a means of justifying policy.
Influence of Foreign Secretaries
No other European state rivaled Great Britain in the number of color book publications. Originally conceived of as a way to "meet the ebb and flow of public opinion", they were handled differently during different parts of the 19th century, under the influence of different Foreign Secretaries. Blue Books are more complete from some parts of the century than others, but a lot was always omitted, and texts were abridged. These were sometimes flagged in the text by the word 'Extract', but that did not give any sense of scale or what was cut.George Canning's tenure stood out, as having designed a new system. Canning used it to get public support for his positions, for example, regarding South America. Robert Stewart was the pivot point between the early years when the government might refuse to publish certain papers, and the later period when it was not able to do that anymore. Henry Templeton was unable to refuse the demands of the House of Commons, as Canning had done. Later, when he rose to Prime Minister, Palmerston embodied the "Golden Age" of Blue Books, publishing a large number of them, especially during the Russell Foreign Ministry incumbency. Foreign Secretaries under P.M. William Gladstone also issued many Blue Books, but were more restrained; a large number were issued about the Eastern Question.
Reaction abroad
Publication meant that not only parliament and the public got to see the diplomatic documents, but foreign powers got to see them as well. Sometimes a government might be embarrassed by leaks from foreign sources, or publications from them; but they gave back as good as they got. By 1880 there were some informal rules, and foreign countries were consulted before publishing things that affected them. This prevented them from being used as instruments of policy, as under Canning or Palmerston.World War I
Background
After 1885 the situation altered again, there was less pressure from Parliament, fewer party-based papers, and almost all publications were ordered by the Crown. Around the close of the century and beginning of the next, there was less disclosure of documents and less pressure from MPs and the public, and ministers became more restrained and secretive, for example with Sir Edward Grey, in the run-up to World War I. Penson & Temperley said, "As Parliament became more democratic its control over foreign policy declined, and, while Blue Books on domestic affairs expanded and multiplied at the end of the nineteenth century, those on foreign affairs lessened both in number and in interest." There were still numerous publications, but less diplomatic correspondence, and lots of treaty texts.The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, led to a month of diplomatic maneuvering between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain, called the July Crisis. Austria-Hungary correctly believed that Serbian officials were involved in the assassination and on 23 July sent Serbia an ultimatum intended to provoke a war. This led to Austria partially mobilizing, followed by Russia doing the same in support of Serbia. Austria declared war on Serbia on 28 July, and a series of partial mobilizations and diplomatic warnings followed, including Germany demanding Russia's demobilization, and warning France to remain neutral rather than come to Russia's aid. After various messages back and forth, misunderstandings, and erroneous assumptions about what other countries might do, Germany invaded Luxembourg and Belgium on 3–4 August, and Britain entered the war due to its 1839 treaty with Belgium. Europe was plunged into the Great War.
Media battle begins
As their armies began to clash, the opposing governments engaged in a media battle attempting to avoid blame for causing the war, and casting blame on other countries, through the publication of carefully selected documents, basically consisting of diplomatic exchanges.The German White Book appeared on 4 August 1914, and was the first such book to come out. It contains 36 documents. Within a week, most other combatant countries had published their own book, each named with a different color name. France held off until 1 December 1914, when they finally published their Yellow Book.
Other combatants in the war published similar books: the Blue Book of Britain, the Orange Book of Russia, the Yellow Book of France, and the Austro-Hungarian Red Book, the Belgian Grey Book, and the Serbian Blue Book.
Propaganda aspects
World War I color books attempted to cast the issuing country in a good light, and enemy countries in a poor light via numerous means including omission, selective inclusion, changes in the sequence of documents presented in order to imply certain documents appeared earlier or later than they actually did, or outright falsification.A mistake in the compilation of the 1914 British Blue Book went unattended, and left the book vulnerable to attack by German propagandists. This unrectified mistake then led to certain details falsification in the French Yellow Book, which had copied them verbatim from the Blue Book.
German propagandists called the Yellow Book a vast "collection of falsifications". France was accused of having given its unconditional support to Russia. Germany tried to show that it was forced into general mobilization by that of Russia, which in turn, blamed Austria-Hungary. The Allied documents on the circumstances of the declaration of war, as well as the war crimes committed by the German army, constituted the basis on which the Allies would rely in 1919 to formulate Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles assigning the exclusive responsibility for the outbreak of the war to Germany and Austria-Hungary.
A report to parliament by German jurist Hermann Kantorowicz after the war investigating the causes of World War I found that Germany had a large share of responsibility in triggering World War I, and cited the White Book as one example, in which about 75 percent of the documents presented in it were falsified.
Translations and republications
Translation of the color books into English was often performed or approved by the governments of origin; for example, the English translation of the Italian Green Book was approved by the Royal Italian Embassy.The New York Times undertook the republication of the full text of numerous color books in English translation, including the Green Book, which was translated for the newspaper. In addition, the Times published the British Blue Book, the German White Book, the Russian Orange Book, the Gray Book of Belgium, the Yellow Book of France, and the Red Book of Austria-Hungary.