The National Review was founded in 1883 by the English writers Alfred Austin and William Courthope. It was launched as a platform for the views of the British Conservative Party. Its masthead incorporating a quotation of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, referring to him as Lord Beaconsfield: "What is the Tory Party, unless it represents National feeling?" Under editor Leopold Maxse, the National Review took an unfriendly attitude towards Imperial Germany in the years leading up to World War I.