Miserable 20th Century European Leaders - Volume 1; Edward Grey

Mr. Grey was the British foreign secretary from 1905 to 1916, and it was predominantly through him that England made that fateful alliance with France (a country that they had fought numerous wars with) that ultimately led (along of course with a lot of other factors; trade wars, national and ethnic hatreds, incompetent governments, huge political miscalculations, the horrors of the Napoleonic wars having by that time faded, etc.) to World War One (yes, for all intents and purposes it obligated that England come to the aid of France in any conflict with Germany). Of course, what made this alliance all the more idiotic and foolhardy was the fact that it was done almost entirely in secret (and, yes, Winston Churchill, then a member of Parliament and the First Lord of the Admiralty, was in on it) and so, no, it didn't even have one iota of deterrence to it. Yeah, I would say that this Grey fellow was a real big POS.