When Sir Llewellyn Woodward wrote his distinguished book Great Britain and the German Navy in 1935, the last volumes of Gooch and Temperley were not yet published, and the original papers were still subject to the fifty-year rule. In 1971, all of the Gooch and Temperley collection of documents has long since been available; and the archives have been open since 1965. It is therefore possible to add to what Sir Llewellyn wrote, and this article seeks to show, not differently from him, but more fully, how the naval holiday proposals unfolded and how the general tenor of Anglo-German relations remained unaltered in this most vital area. Nothing that the Haldane Mission had done, nor even the general co-operation between London and Berlin during the Balkan Wars, could change the fundamental position—despite Baron Marschall's hopes.
