Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939: Essays in Honour of Professor Alan Sharp 1443819808, 9781443819800

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction: Professor Alan Sharp: An Appreciation • Gaynor Johnson
1. Origins of the Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1880-1914 • Erik Goldstein
2. Between Old Diplomacy and New: Eyre Crowe and British Foreign Policy, 1914-1925 • T.G. Otte
3. The Gyrations of a Die-Hard? Lord Curzon and the Dardanelles Campaign • John Fisher
4. “That Villain Lord Sumner”? Lord Sumner, Lloyd George and Reparations at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 • Antony Lentin
5. Père la Victoire or Perdre la Victoire: Clemenceau’s Defence of the Peace Settlement • David Watson
6. The Palestine Question at the Paris Peace Conference • Carole Fink
7. New Directions in British Policy: The Challenges of Disarmament, 1918-1925 • Carolyn Kitching
8. The Lucky Ones: The Dominions, India and the League of Nations in the 1920s • Lorna Lloyd
9. Lord Robert Cecil as an Internationalist: A Mental Map • Gaynor Johnson
10. International History as Biography: The Career of Rex Leeper, 1909-1940 • Gordon Martel
11. No Way to Treat an Ancient Ally: Britain and the Portuguese Connection, 1919-1933 • Glyn Stone
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939

Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939: Essays in Honour of Professor Alan Sharp

Edited by

Gaynor Johnson

Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939: Essays in Honour of Professor Alan Sharp, Edited by Gaynor Johnson This book first published 2010 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2010 by Gaynor Johnson and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-1980-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-1980-0

CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Professor Alan Sharp: An Appreciation Gaynor Johnson Chapter One................................................................................................. 3 Origins of the Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1880-1914 Erik Goldstein Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 17 Between Old Diplomacy and New: Eyre Crowe and British Foreign Policy, 1914-1925 T.G. Otte Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 51 The Gyrations of a Die-Hard? Lord Curzon and the Dardanelles Campaign John Fisher Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 81 “That Villain Lord Sumner”? Lord Sumner, Lloyd George and Reparations at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 Antony Lentin Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 103 Père la Victoire or Perdre la Victoire: Clemenceau’s Defence of the Peace Settlement David Watson Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 121 The Palestine Question at the Paris Peace Conference Carole Fink

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Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 135 New Directions in British Policy: The Challenges of Disarmament, 1918-1925 Carolyn Kitching Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 155 The Lucky Ones: The Dominions, India and the League of Nations in the 1920s Lorna Lloyd Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 185 Lord Robert Cecil as an Internationalist: A Mental Map Gaynor Johnson Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 203 International History as Biography: The Career of Rex Leeper, 1909-1940 Gordon Martel Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 223 No Way to Treat an Ancient Ally: Britain and the Portuguese Connection, 1919-1933 Glyn Stone Contributors............................................................................................. 253 Index........................................................................................................ 257

INTRODUCTION PROFESSOR ALAN SHARP, AN APPRECIATION GAYNOR JOHNSON

If one of the measures of a successful career as an historian is the willingness of ones colleagues and friends to contribute to a festschrift to mark its dénouement, then the contribution made to the profession by Professor Alan Sharp has been very considerable. Indeed, it would have been possible to fill this volume several times over. It is also testimony to the high regard in which Alan is held that those scholars whose work appears within this volume are not only international authorities on their subjects but come from across Britain and North America, the heartlands of the study of what was still called diplomatic history when he trained as an historian. Assembling this book has also been a personal pleasure, not least because it was Alan’s ideas about Lord Curzon, Lloyd George, the Foreign Office and the conduct of British foreign policy after the First World War that were among those who first fired my enthusiasm for international history when I was a postgraduate student. Since then, I have been one of the many who have been in receipt of his generous, goodhumoured and constructive advice and his warm hospitality. Although not Irish by birth, Alan is an adopted son of The Province, having been based at the University of Ulster for more than thirty years, and retiring as Provost of its Coleraine campus. Something else that also spans three decades is his publishing career, from articles on Curzon and the Foreign Office written in the mid 1970s to his biography of Lloyd George published in 2008. His carefully measured output has always been readable, erudite and original as well as being of major academic significance. While never seeking to be unnecessarily provocative, nevertheless like all good historical writing, Alan’s work has always led historical debates not simply followed them. Consequently, few would doubt that his work on the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Lloyd George and Lord Curzon has been among the most significant of his generation.

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Alan has been in the vanguard of those who have demonstrated the unique importance and dynamics of the international history of the 1920s, a decade whose significance has been so often underplayed by those more interested in the brinkmanship diplomacy of the 1930s. He has been quite happy to leave to others the task of explaining the actions of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and other similar figures who so many outside the world of the professional historian try to convince us we really ought to be more interested in. But his work has been none the less trailblazing for that. His articles on Lord Curzon’s period as Foreign Secretary represented the first detailed commentary on the most controversial area of the life of this most complex of men in more than a generation. Likewise, Alan’s book on the Paris Peace Conference and his biography of Lloyd George are also remarkable works of synthesis, each representing the only modern singlevolume histories of their subjects. It is in a spirit of friendship and professional respect that this book is dedicated to him.

CHAPTER ONE ORIGINS OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP, 1880-1914 ERIK GOLDSTEIN

During the nineteenth century Anglo-American relations under went a remarkable transformation, one that would forge a relationship which would have a dramatic impact on the international relations of the twentieth century. Starting from a situation of wary mutual suspicion their relationship became one of amity, an amity particularly observable in the most influential sections of political society. This is a complex relationship, and different facets of it, have attracted various views. One analysis of the relationship has observed that “…it is difficult at times to distinguish the concept from the feelings aroused by other beliefs and interests, such as the Anglo-Saxon "race," the Anglican church, the common law, the peace movement, banking, trade, and high society – all of which bridged the Atlantic.”1 The focus here will be to consider how that nascent relationship made the transition from suspicion to amity in a way that it could later be built upon to create the basis for a close diplomatic partnership. The historical literature has occasionally debated when the tipping point in relations occurred. Some take the year 1898, when during the Spanish-American war there was general British popular support for the United States. This was a development that did much to help change the climate of relations, and which saw a flurry of activity for finding more institutional ways of expressing friendly relations between the countries. Others, such as D.C. Watt, suggest 1896, with the Anglo-Venezuelan border dispute, when the British Empire began to attempt to find ways to minimize points of confrontation with the United States.2 James Bryce at the time of his appointment as ambassador to Washington in 1907 observed that when he first visited the United States in 1870 there was still a good deal of bitter feeling towards Britain and that there were men living who recalled the War of 1812.3 His influential 1888 book, The American

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Commonwealth, the first to provide a full explanation of American politics and society to a broad British readership, considered the turning point to be 1872 with the first Anglo-American arbitration which settled claims arising out of the American Civil War. Whichever year provided the turning point, those developments were built on earlier, wider, and more popular linkages. One of the important points of origin of the English-speaking reconciliation was the common language, which not unnaturally generated a high degree of familiarity between the countries. Shakespeare is an obvious starting place, but it was not just the reading of Shakespeare. By the 1830s Shakespeare’s birthplace and final resting place at Stratfordupon-Avon had become significant destinations for the ever burgeoning number of American visitors to England. Another writer with a transAtlantic following was the historian Thomas Carlyle. When there was a campaign to save for the public his house on Cheyne Row in London during 1894/95 Americans played a significant role, contributing twentyfive percent of the funds.4 The initial reports of the aspirations of the Carlyle memorial fund made it clear that “It is proposed to buy the house, and to keep it open for the benefit of visitors from both sides of the Atlantic.”5 When the house was saved the American ambassador, Thomas Bayard, agreed to chair its management committee, as did his later successor Whitelaw Reid, while Joseph Choate, John Hay, and Walter Hines Page all served on the management committee during their time as ambassador.6 Interest in authors moved both ways. Ralph Waldo Emerson was one the Americans to be widely read in Britain. In 1847, on his lecture tour of Britain, Emerson said in a speech at the Athenæum, “That which lures a solitary American in the woods with the wish to see England is the moral peculiarity of the Saxon race, its commanding sense of right and wrong – the love and devotion to that, -- this is the Imperial trait which arms them with the sceptre of the globe.”7 This was a sentiment often reiterated in one form or another over many decades by those advocating for closer Anglo-American ties. Not surprisingly years later Emerson’s centenary attracted attention in Britain as well as his homeland.8 One long running policy area of Anglo-American common interest were the peace movements which emerged in both countries in the early to mid-nineteenth century. In 1843 the first Universal Peace Congress met in London, organized by the American and British Peace Societies.9 Organizations to promote peace flourished by the turn of the twentieth century, for example the World Peace Foundation headquartered in Boston and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace located in Washington.

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One aspect of this movement was the promotion of disarmament or some degree of arms reduction or limitation.10 Discussions on how to assure future peace turned to what mechanisms could assist in conflict resolution. During the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries there was a vogue for bi-lateral arbitration treaties. Probably the most substantive accomplishment of the first Hague Peace Conference in 1899 was the creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, headquartered at the Hague in the magnificent Peace Palace, paid for by the British-American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who had business interests in both countries. The significant popular support for arbitration treaties in both Britain and the United States undoubtedly made them instruments of interest to political leaders. In Britain memorials supporting an Anglo-American arbitration treaty were signed by significant members of the House of Commons in 1887 and 1894. Talks began in general terms about such a treaty in 1895 between United States Secretary of State, Walter Gresham, and the British ambassador at Washington, Sir Julian Paunceforte. These talks lapsed, however, with Gresham’s death and the almost simultaneous Venezuelan crisis. The potential dangers to relations posed by the latter crisis caused renewed interest in arbitration. In Britain W.T. Stead, the founder-editor of the Review of Reviews, an advocate for the union of the Englishspeaking peoples, was one of the leading advocates for an AngloAmerican arbitration treaty, and the author of a pamphlet entitled Always Arbitrate Before You Fight. On 11 January 1897 an arbitration treaty was signed by the new Secretary of State, Richard Olney and Paunceforte. It was a very tepid agreement, but it was potentially a first step. The treaty’s ratification was taken up by the incoming administration of President McKinley, which might have suggested cross-party support. Opposition though was also cross-party. On 5 May 1898 the Olney-Paunceforte treaty was defeated in the Senate.11 Though there was undoubtedly a degree of anglophobia in the decision the political landscape was beginning to shift dramatically. Only four days earlier on 1 March the Americans had gained victory at the Battle of Manila Bay, and the pro-American sentiments demonstrated in Britain and the Empire helped to further shift American attitudes. Olney, in the wake of the defeat of the treaty wrote to Henry White, then an American diplomat stationed in London, that he believed the America people, “…feel themselves to be not merely in name but in fact, part of one great English-speaking family whose proud destiny it is to lead and control the world.”12 In building Anglo-American cooperation a number of efforts helped generate the necessary public support.13 The collaborative saving of a

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shared common heritage was one these steps. Earlier efforts such as those over the Carlyle house provided some of the impetus for the founding of the National Trust in 1895. It has been observed of the founders of the National Trust that, “…one of the primary aims was to help cement a union of English-speaking people that rested on sentiment, rather than upon material interest, on common social, political and religious traditions, on historical memories and on English literature.”14 This new organization would institutionalize this interest in preserving a common cultural heritage. One of the earliest aspirations of the trust was to organize an American branch. In developing the idea for a National Trust its founders had worked closely with a similar Massachusetts group, the Trustees of (Public) Reservations, and when the National Trust was founded a representative of the Trustees was made an ex officio member of the council, one of earliest examples of Anglo-American transatlantic institutionalized representation. The joint fascination for the built environment, as a basis for building an Anglo-American relationship, had multiple manifestations. In 1907 Isabel Inez de Guzman Garrison, one of the American-based founders of the Atlantic Union, who saw in the legend of King Arthur a heroic common past, attempted to rescue Glastonbury Abbey. In 1909 came the opening of Harvard House at Stratford-on-Avon. This was reputedly the ancestral home of John Harvard, the eponymous benefactor of the university that bears his name. The attribution may or may not be accurate but it was enough for Mary Corelli, a popular novelist of the time and one of the motivating forces in the shaping of Shakespeare’s Stratford, to convince an American businessman, Edward Morris of Chicago, to purchase and donate it to Harvard University.15 It was thought it might provide a base for American, or at least Harvard, visitors to the home town of the Bard. The house was opened by Ambassador Whitelaw Reid who was conveyed to the town by a special train “…decorated with English and American flags, and bore a laurel wreath across it.”16 Ambassador Reid observed in his remarks, in a now familiar paean of the AngloAmerican cause, that occasions such as this would support the hope that, “Long might the two peoples continue to give to the world the oldest, the longest, the largest, and the most perfect example of ordered liberty that history recorded!”17 With these remarks Reid moved from the commemoration of the benefactor of American higher education, through his ancestral geographical link with the great English playwright, to one of political co-purpose. Some Anglo-American initiatives also involved the creation of new visual representations of a common heritage. One was the erection at

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Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, of the John Robinson Memorial church through money raised in the United States. The church was named for one of the early Pilgrim leaders and its cornerstone was laid by ambassador Bayard in 1896. This feeling of a common religious heritage was expressed again by ambassador Choate in 1904, at the centenary meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, when he asked the rhetorical question, “Why should not England and the United States co-operate in good works, when they share one God, one Bible, one language, and one destiny?”18 This Anglo-American shared heritage was part of the intellectual ferment over the future of foreign policy that began to involve the future of Anglo-American diplomatic relations. Richard Olney, who had only recently stepped down as United States Secretary of State, while speaking at Harvard University in February 1898, observed that, “There is no doubt with what nations we should co-operate. England, our most formidable rival, is our most natural friend. There is such a thing as patriotism for race as well as for country….Though sometimes we may have such quarrels as only relations and intimate neighbours indulge in, yet it may be said that the near future will see in our closer friendship a power for good that will be felt by all mankind.”19 Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, in an important speech in May 1898 declared, “And I even go so far as to say that, terrible as war may be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased if in a greater and noble cause the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack should wave together over an Anglo-Saxon Alliance.” 20 This led the Quarterly Review to observe that, “There can be no question of the general accuracy of these words. Different as are the habits of the Union from those of Great Britain, diverse as is their population, the intellectual standards, the moral aspirations, of the two nations are already the same; their dispositions and policy must approximate as years go on, and in any serious world-struggle we should be certain to have each other’s sympathy and probably co-operation.” The review concluded by stating that Chamberlain’s speech “…marks a turning point in history.”21 In August 1898 Sir George Clarke, a significant commentator on defence matters, commented, “Fourteen years ago I pointed out in an official memorandum that “perhaps the most marked feature of international politics is the growing rapprochement between England and the United States – a growth not based merely on race sentiment, but on community of interests.” And I can say with truth that to promote and AngloAmerican understanding has been one of the greatest objects of my life.”22 How to develop the relationship at a diplomatic level was problematic. Both countries had a long tradition of wariness of peacetime alliances.

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The mood in Britain though was beginning to shift, with growing awareness of the isolation of the British Empire, as well as its serious strategic over-stretch, both of which became even more obvious during the course of the Boer War. For Americans, however, the Monroe Doctrine had equally clearly emerged as the great touchstone of foreign policy. It was therefore of importance for Britain and the supporters of closer Anglo-American relations to address this. In November 1902 the House of Commons declared its support of the doctrine in its entirety.23 This was reiterated not long after in a speech by Lord Charles Beresford, a leading naval officer, and at the time a member of parliament, before the Pilgrims’ Society of New York. The tenor generally taken by British speakers was that no formal alliance was needed, merely closer cooperation This was in general the approach taken by the Anglo-Americans advocates on both sides of the Atlantic in the slow construction of vehicles for communication and interaction and building of institutional ties. As Anglo-American amity warmed there seemed to be an ever increasing number of opportunities to celebrate common histories, language, institutions, and values. In 1901 came the Millenary anniversary of Alfred the Great, with the focus of the celebrations being at Winchester. The centre piece was the unveiling of a statue of Alfred at Winchester by Hamo Thornycroft together with a service of remembrance at Winchester cathedral.24 A significant portion of the funds for the statue were raised in the United States through the assistance of ambassador Choate, who was a member of the celebration’s Executive Committee, as well as by Professor Bright of the Johns Hopkins University who was secretary of the American Alfred Millenary Committee. Attending the commemoration were representatives “…from the Universities and learned societies of the United Kingdom, its colonies and the United States of America.25 Unfortunately the celebrations coincided with the assassination of President McKinley, and many of the participants travelled from the memorial service for the late president at Westminster Abbey to the celebrations at Winchester, where the flags were at half-mast. The American ambassador had been meant to be part of the events of the commemoration, but the assassination of the president made that impossible, though his place was taken by Charles Francis Adams. He took the opportunity to mark Americans’ appreciation for the “deep, spontaneous, all-pervasive, sincere sympathy manifested by Great Britain at the time of America’s National bereavement.”26 It also provided a moment for the expression of mutual friendship in the wake of a tragic event. There was also a sense of parallel loss, with Queen Victoria having died in January 1901 and then President McKinley in September.

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Those deaths saw two new heads of state being recognized in the same year, and much would be made in the succeeding period of the duality of King Edward VII and President Roosevelt, which even decades later continues to attract attention, most recently in David Fromkin’s The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward VII, Secret Partners.27 The imagery of their working together is all the more fascinating as in reality the two never met. But they both signified the beginning of what was hoped to be a new dynamic era, and they were both indeed inclined to closer amity. Edward was always careful to play his constitutional role, but he had clear views on foreign policy which he often tried quietly to move forward. During a visit of American naval officers to Britain in 1903, they were received by the king, and while careful with his words they were reported in the United States, “…as an emphatic declaration in favour of closer relations…” and that it was “…it was clear from his remarks that he desired the two nations move together in the interests of the peace of the world.”28 Ambassador Whitelaw Reid, at a Pilgrims’ dinner send off to Bryce in 1907, observed that as ambassador Bryce’s primary task was to safeguard the interests of his own country and that the best interests of both countries lay in promoting peace. After referring to President Roosevelt and Edward the VII as unsurpassed peacemakers, Reid went on to comment that, “There never was there a time when the two peoples were so glad to be friends, or when they looked with such impatience on the idea of permitting anything to prevent it.”29 Efforts to give more institutional form to the non-official activities promoting closer Anglo-American amity and cooperation moved in a series of fits and starts. The outpouring of popular support for the United States in Britain, unlike on the continent, at the time of the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 provided a useful opportunity. An AngloAmerican League was formed in London as it was, “…strongly felt that the present is an opportune moment for doing something to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the English-speaking peoples of the World….”30 The “… primary object of the organization was to give expression to feelings of cordiality and essential unity between the peoples of Great Britain and America….” The first resolution passed at the inaugural meeting, moved by the naval expert Lord Brassey and seconded by Thomas Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, was that “Considering that the peoples of the British Empire and of the United States are closely allied by blood, inherit the same literature and laws, hold the same principles of government, recognize the same ideals of freedom and humanity in the guidance of their national policy, and are drawn together by strong common interests in many parts of the world this meeting is of

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the opinion that every effort should be made in the interests of civilization and peace to secure the most cordial and constant co-operation on the part of the two nations.”31 Those attending the inaugural meeting were from a wide cross section of the major figures of the British political establishment, and was held at Stafford House in London under the presidency of the Duke of Sutherland. When, a few week after the founding of the league, the United States ambassador, John Hay, was recalled to Washington to assume the office of Secretary of State, he was presented with an address by a committee of the league, headed by Bryce. This address observed that, “…the war, now happily ended, gave occasion for the expression of the feelings of affection and sympathy toward the United States which the British people have long entertained.”32 Hay in his reply observed that, “On both sides of the ocean the conviction is almost universal that a clear, cordial and friendly understanding between Great Britain and the United States is a necessity for civilization.” It has been observed that Hay’s interest in strong AngloAmerican bonds was unsympathetic but rather pragmatic.33 Hay, who served as President Lincoln’s private secretary during the American Civil War, at that time had been suspicious of Britain, viewing its governing class as pro-Confederate.34 His view of the possibilities of working with Britain changed over the ensuing decades, and it was during his tenure of the London embassy, 1897-1898, that he was able to both witness and nurture the embryonic relationship. On his return to Washington as Secretary of State he followed a policy of trying to work with Britain, and his biographer devotes one chapter to the subject of “Hay as Anglophile”.35 In parallel with the plan for an Anglo-American League there was also the spontaneous idea of an Anglo-American dinner, and this group was presided over by the Duke of Fife, giving it a semi-royal imprimatur.36 Among those participating were Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling. The plans for the dinner and the league seem to have arisen separately but overlapped and were part of the general impetus to find some way to crystallize this new transatlantic good feeling. The response in Britain and the Dominions to the Spanish-American war did not go unnoticed in the United States. The Century Magazine commented on “…the spontaneous and widely extended demonstrations of regard for America throughout Great Britain and her sister states have revealed a fellowship which it is not too much to say marks an era in the history of humanity.”37 The new sense of Anglo-Saxonism in the wake of the war can be seen in the small blizzard of efforts at institutionalization of Anglo-American amity. In 1899 Cecil Rhodes amended the provisions of

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his will relating to the envisaged scheme of Rhodes Scholars at Oxford to include Americans, and this came into effect with his death in 1902. In 1901 Sir Walter Besant, a significant literary figure, established the Atlantic Union with the object of enabling “…visitors from America and the colonies to meet and become acquainted with English residents.”38 He had visited the United States in 1893 at the time of the Columbian Exposition and was struck “...with the dream of a great solid confederacy between all the English-speaking races.”39 He was much distressed by the tension caused by the Venezuela dispute.40 He was also an ardent advocate of arbitration between the English-speaking peoples, arguing the “…we must make war impossible.”41 His idea was to “…to bring about a better understanding and attachment between people of the mother-country and those of the colonies and America, not through politics or printed propaganda, but through social and intellectual intercourse.”42 Besant was well known as “…a great lover of clubs and societies”43 Because of his literary activities and his connections with many writers he was able to involve many well known authors in the cause of Anglo-American amity. The Atlantic Union survived his death in 1901 and later merged with the newly founded English-Speaking Union after the First World War. One organization established at this time which has endured is the Pilgrims’ Society. It was formed in 1902 as a by-product of the celebrations surrounding the coronation of Edward VII. The Pilgrims were organized with branches on both sides of the Atlantic and unlike the Anglo-American League, which had been a subscription organization with an open door, the Pilgrims were an exclusive invitation only body. Much of the success of the Pilgrims was due to its energetic organizer (Sir) Harry Brittain, whose ideas provided the initial inspiration for the society and in which he would play a prominent role into the 1960s. He was selected to serve as the first Honorary Secretary, and he put great effort into attracting to the society the most influential figures possible. He would serve as its chairman during the period 1913-1919. Among those supporting the new organization and who were present in London during the coronation period, during which the organizational meetings were held, were such significant American business figures as John D. Rockefeller (Jr), M.J. de Yong of San Francisco, and Charles Yerkes. Another strong supporter was General “Joe” Wheeler, a Confederate hero of the Civil War and of the recent Spanish-American War, who helped recruit Lord Roberts as the first president of the British society. As Wheeler explained it at the time one of the key purposes of the society to facilitate introduction of visitors to one another’s country so that they could easily meet other men of influence.

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At their first annual dinner, held at Prince’s Restaurant on Piccadilly, London, in June 1903 Senator Chauncey Depew explained that the society had been founded “to promote friendly relations by pilgrimages.”44 The society attracted numerous influential figures, in part through the assiduous work put into shaping an influential roster of members. These included not only important political figures, but people from the literary world who enjoyed popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Attending the first dinner were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Anthony Hope Hawkins. At one of the early dinners of the Pilgrims’ Society in New York in February 1903 over 200 guests attended. That evening event ended with the guests joining hands and singing Auld Lang Syne.45 Lord Grey, while Governor-General of Canada, speaking at a Pilgrims’ dinner in New York in April 1906 stated, “It is the proud mission of the Anglo-Saxon race to maintain in advance the cause of civilization throughout the world.” He concluded his remarks with the declaration that, “ To those of us who believe that in the coming solidarity and unification of the Anglo-Saxon race lie the future peace and hope of the world, the signs of the times are most encouraging. The forces of the world are slowly but steadily drifting in this direction. The peoples of the United Kingdom, of the self-governing nations of the British Empire and of the United States are joint trustees for the protection and expansion of that Anglo-Saxon civilization.”46 The impact of the decades of slowly warming relations at the non-state level could be seen to be slowly trickling into the diplomatic side of the relationship. Upon the death of the American ambassador, Whitelaw Reid, in 1912 J. Arthur Bryant, a member of the executive committee of the Pilgrims, wrote an appreciation of his life for The Times, referring to Reid as a notable “Pilgrim”. He went on to observe “A long line of Ambassadors has succeeded for now a century maintaining relations of mutual respect and esteem.”47 As has been seen many of the ambassadors were active at the sub-diplomatic level to help build goodwill among the general population. As noted in Reid’s obituary the two countries were approaching almost a hundred years of good relations. The decades of building AngloAmerican amity through all these numerous social and commemorative efforts reached its culmination with plans to celebrate the centenary of peace between the two countries in 1914, which would mark the anniversary of the Treaty of Ghent. A “British Committee for the Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of Peace Among English Speaking Peoples” headed by the Duke of Teck, again giving a transAtlantic organization a quasi-royal seal of approval.48 The organizing

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committee included the ubiquitous Harry Brittain. There were also American and Canadian committees. This effort brought together many of the sub-diplomatic strands that had emerged in the previous years. Celebrating the century of peace would be an example to the world for the peace movement. At a preliminary meeting to discuss the arrangements it was decided to create new, visual reminders of the relationship with a statue of Queen Victoria to be erected in Washington, while one of George Washington should be erected in London. The latter was particularly remarkable as it was intended that the one time commander of a rebel army be placed in Trafalgar Square, which perhaps can be described as the Pantheon of the British Empire. The presentation of the Washington statue was delayed by the war, while the statue of Queen Victoria never occurred. As discussions continued a statue of Lincoln was added to the London plans.49 To provide a different visual example the of the friendship of the two countries it was planned to save the Washington ancestral home at Sulgrave in Northamptonshire, just as Shakespeare’s birthplace, Carlyle’s birthplace, and Harvard House were saved through trans-Atlantic efforts. On the educational side it was planned to create a Sulgrave Institution which would provide an educational dimension. The plans were also filled with proposals for much pageantry and historical recreations through the United States and the empire. All these plans had to be largely abandoned or postponed with the outbreak of the Great War. In his book The Great Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1895-1914 Bradford Perkins has one chapter dedicated to “The Substructure of Diplomacy”, which consider the weaving of that complex web of trans-Atlantic ties.50 The transformation of a relationship once fraught with suspicion, enmity, and the memory of armed conflict was transformed in just over a century to one of military alliance come 1917. There is some irony in the fact that much of the growing friendship between the two countries at the sub-diplomatic level had pivoted on the concept of peaceful relations as an example to the wider international community of successful national development, and that while 1914 was intended to celebrate the triumph of peace, the next stage of the relationship would be forged in war. Some, such as Joseph Chamberlain, had seen in the growing ties between the two countries the possibility of a diplomatic alliance that would benefit and help assure the security of both. It would indeed be the greatest diplomatic and military alliance of the twentieth century, but its roots lay in the sub-strata of the deeper ties between the two countries, some occurring naturally and the some being

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careful nurtured to bring about what came to be call simply “the specialrelationship.”

Notes The author would like to thank Professor Melanie Hall of Boston University for information relating to the Carlyle House. 1

F. Herrick. ‘Gladstone and the Concept of the "English-Speaking Peoples"’ Journal of British Studies 12:1 (Nov. 1972), pp. 150-56. 2 D.C. Watt, ‘America and the British Foreign-Policy-Making Elite, from Joseph Chamberlain to Anthony Eden’ Review of Politics 25:1 (Jan. 1963), pp. 3-33. 3 ‘Mr. Bryce on America: Pilgrims’ Farewell Dinner’ Manchester Guardian 7 Feb. 1907, p. 7. 4 M. Hall, ‘The Politics of Collecting: the Early Aspirations of the National Trust, 1883-1913’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, sixth series, Vol. 13 (2003), pp. 345-57. 5 ‘Carlyle’s House’ The Times, 31 Dec. 1894, p. 6, col. b. 6 Illustrated Memorial Volume of the Carlyle House Purchase Fund Committee with Catalogue of Carlyle’s Books, Manuscripts, Pictures and Furniture Exhibited Therein (London, Carlyle House Carlyle’s House Memorial Trust, c. 1895, facsimile Saltire Society, 1995), pp. 16-20, 149. 7 ‘The Emerson Centenary’ Manchester Guardian, 25 May 1903, p. 10. 8 Ibid. 9 F.H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace: theory and practice in the history of Relations Between States (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 95-96. 10 E. Goldstein, ‘Disarmament, Arms Control, and Arms Reduction’ in M. Henessey and B.J.C. McKercher, (eds), War in the Twentieth Century: Reflections at Century’s End (Westport, 2003), pp. 45-64. 11 N.M. Blake, ‘The Olney-Paunceforte Treaty of 1897’ American Historical Review 50 (1945) pp. 228-43. 12 Perkins p. 29, letter of from Olney to White, 8 May 1897. 13 For a discussion of the wider context see D. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA, 1998). 14 M. Hall, ‘The Politics of Collecting: the Early Aspirations of the National Trust, 1883-1913’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society sixth series, vol. 13 (2003), pp. 345-57. 15 ‘Harvard House, Stratford-on-Avon’, The Times, 30 Sep. 1909, p. 11, col. b. 16 Ibid., 7 Oct. 1909, p. 11, col. e. 17 Ibid. 18 ‘The Bible Society Centenary’ Manchester Guardian 9 Mar. 1904, p. 6. 19 Olney speech of 2 Feb. 1898, quoted in, Sir G. Sydenham Clarke, ‘England and America’ Quarterly Review vol 44. no. 258 (Aug. 1898), pp. 186-195. 20 The Times, 14 May 1898.

Origins of the Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1880-1914

15

21 The International Ferment’ Quarterly Review, vol. 188, no. 375 (1898), pp. 24265. 22 Clarke, ‘England and America’, p. 188. 23 ‘Beresford upholds Monroe Doctrine’ New York Times, 5 Feb. 1903, p. 1. 24 B. Yorke, The King Alfred Millenary in Winchester, 1901 (Hampshire Papers 17) (Winchester, 1999). 25 ‘The King Alfred Millenary’ Manchester Guardian, 20 Sep. 1901, p. 5. 26 ‘Statue of King Alfred Unveiled’ New York Times 21 Sep. 1901, p. 3. 27 D. Fromkin The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward VII, Secret Partners (New York, 2008). 28 ‘King Honors Americans’ San Francisco Chronicle 10 Jul. 1903, p. 5. 29 ‘Mr. Bryce on America: Pilgrims’ Farewell Dinner’ Manchester Guardian 7 Feb. 1907, p. 7. 30 Roberts (6, King’s Bench Walk, Temple) to Davidson (Bishop of Winchester), 28 May 1898. Davidson 51, ff.50-51. Archbishop Davidson Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, London. 31 ‘An Anglo-American League’ New York Times, 14 Jul. 1898, p. 1. 32 ‘The Anglo-American Ties’ New York Times, 9 Sep. 1898, p. 7. 33 K. Clymer, John Hay: The Gentleman as Diplomat (Ann Arbor, 1975), p. 112. 34 Ibid. p. 68. 35 Ibid., pp. 157-71. 36 The Duke of Fife was married to the eldest daughter of the future Edward VII. 37 ‘Topics of the Time’ The Century Magazine 56:5 (Sep. 1898), p. 795. 38 ‘Object of Atlantic Union’ New York Times, 5 Jun. 1900, p. 6. F.W. Boege, ‘Sir Walter Besant: Novelist. Part One’, Nineteenth Century Fiction http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublication?journalCode=ninecentfict 10:4 (Mar. 1956), pp. 249-80. 39 ‘Sir Walter Besant’s Proposed Anglo-American Institute’ Harper’s Weekly 40, no. 2042 (8 Feb. 1896), p. 135. 40 ‘Sir Walter Besant Dead’ New York Times, 11 Jun. 1901, p. 9. See also F. Boege, ‘Sir Walter Besant Novelist’ Nineteenth-Century Fiction 10:4 (Mar., 1956), pp. 249-280. 41 ‘Sir Walter Besant, ‘The Future of the Anglo-Saxon Race’ North American Review 477 (Aug. 1896), pp. 129-43. 42 W. H. Rideing. Many Celebrities and a Few Others: a Bundle of Reminiscences (Garden City, 1912), pp. 247-8. 43 F. Hardy, The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891 (New York, 1928), p. 173. 44 ‘Mr. George Wyndham, M.P., on Anglo-American Relations’ Manchester Guardian 20 Jun. 1903, p.10. 45 ‘Beresford Upholds Monroe Doctrine’ New York Times, 5 Feb. 1903, p.1. 46 ‘Earl Grey returns Franklin portrait: Pilgrims Cheer the News’ New York Times 1 Apr. 1906, p. 1. 47 ‘Mr. Whitelaw Reid’ The Times, 16 Dec. 1912, p. 9, col. c.

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48 The Duke of Teck was brother of Queen Mary. On the committee see for example The National Archives, Kew, UK (TNA)/FO115/1813. 49 ‘Statue of Victoria for London’ New York Times, 24 May 1913, p. 13. 50 B. Perkins, The Great Rapprochement: England and the United States, 18951914 (London, 1969), pp. 119-55.

CHAPTER TWO BETWEEN OLD DIPLOMACY AND NEW: EYRE CROWE AND BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY, 1914-1925 T.G. OTTE

“Ambitions et défaillances, c’est de l’humanité de tous le temps.” —Georges Clemenceau.1

To associate Sir Eyre Crowe with the precepts of the “New Diplomacy” seems problematic. After all, Crowe’s political outlook was formed well before the 1914-18 watershed in world events. Crowe was never an evangelist of “New Diplomacy”. In so far as there was a close association with “New Diplomacy”, it was a biographical accident. Crowe’s career straddled the war years and the protracted period of peacemaking; and as Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office from November 1920 onwards he was confronted with the problems of bedding down the new world order. And yet, to depict Crowe as an unreconstructed “old diplomatist” out of his time would be equally misplaced. Crowe’s attitude towards the advent of “New Diplomacy” was complex. To understand it, it is necessary to consider also his role in Britain’s war-time diplomacy, for here Crowe emerged as an innovative practitioner of foreign policy, combining elements of economic warfare with diplomatic and military tools. *** Crowe’s career before 1914 was steady rather than spectacular. He was, after all, a Foreign Office grub, never a diplomatic butterfly. His progress,

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however, was ineluctable. Indeed, in some respects, his career before the Great War was more significant than after it. Crowe joined the Foreign Office in 1885, and after many years as a junior and then resident clerk he quietly established for himself a position of growing significance within the Foreign Office. A senior clerk since 1907, Crowe was promoted to become one of the department’s three Assistant Under-Secretaries in 1912.2 Although he was never without powerful enemies, internal intrigues by Hardinge, now Viceroy of India, failed to sabotage his further progress. By the summer of 1914, Crowe was in line to succeed the then Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Arthur Nicolson.3 It is one of the ironies in the history of modern British diplomacy that Crowe was destined to become the permanent head of the Foreign Office in the autumn of 1914. At the age of fifty, he was at the height of his physical and intellectual powers, with a further fifteen years in the office ahead of him. The outbreak of the Great War made this impossible. When he eventually did reach the top of his chosen profession six years later, he was no longer a well man. And this affected his performance as much as the by now fundamentally altered domestic and external environment in which he had to operate. With the outbreak of the war began Crowe’s internal exile in Whitehall. During the early days of the conflict he threw himself into readying the Office for war work. Unlike Crowe, Grey seemed exhausted, barely able to focus on the momentous tasks ahead: “I have the greatest difficulty in getting some energy into Grey. We ought to be much more active.”4 Grey ignored Crowe’s forceful representations, and ignored Portugal’s offer to join the war against Germany. Similarly, his advice to respond positively to the Greek alliance offer fell on deaf ears.5 Crowe also pressed the government to address the issue of blockading Germany, as one of the “larger questions of policy”. The neutral countries of north western Europe were vital to “bring[ing] into a system of fighting alliances a ring of Powers surrounding the enemies.” This required financial assistance and guaranteed supplies.6 At the same time, Crowe pushed through the immediate reorganization of departmental arrangements to ensure “the proper despatch of business.” The Eastern and Western Departments were abolished in due course, and replaced with the War Department, now the sole channel for all war-related matters: “I am much relieved of work and things move more rapidly in the office.”7 This reorganisation was nevertheless something of a Pyrrhic victory for Crowe, in the short term at any rate. Relations with Grey and Nicolson were

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stretched to breaking point under the strains of war. In September, the Foreign Secretary decided to postpone the planned personnel changes, which had entailed sending Nicolson to the sunnier uplands of the Paris embassy to be succeeded by Crowe in Whitehall. This was now put on hold for the duration of the war. Further changes were afoot that affected Crowe’s position at the Foreign Office. In mid-September, Grey decided to divide departmental work between Nicolson and his designated successor as PUS. The former now took sole charge of the War Department’s political business, leaving Crowe to deal with the economic aspects of wartime diplomacy. This led to an explosive row with Nicolson and the Foreign Secretary.8 For the next year, Crowe’s standing in the Office was somewhat diminished. Grey’s renewed reorganisation meant that Crowe was now “no longer informed of what goes on in the War Department.”9 Though undoubtedly irksome for the PUS-designate, there was nevertheless method in the division of responsibilities between Nicolson and Crowe. Under war-time conditions, the bureaucratic neo-absolutism, established by Hardinge before 1910, with the entire information flow and control over policy decisions concentrated in the hands of the PUS, proved “an egregious failure. No one man can properly do the work which Hardinge’s system entailed.”10 Nicolson, moreover, was worn out after four years at the head of the Foreign Office, and had somewhat antiquated views on economic warfare. By contrast, Crowe had gathered considerable experience in blockade and contraband matters at The Hague and London conferences before the war. Excluded now from the “high politics” of foreign affairs, Crowe turned the field of economic warfare into his departmental bailiwick. In September 1914, the blockade of the Central Powers was more an aspiration than a coherent strategy. Confusion as to its objectives, means, and organization was all-pervasive. Crowe soon established his complete ascendancy over this aspect of Britain’s war effort. A number of factors aided him in this. His own expertise of neutral shipping and belligerent rights was one factor, the other being the Cabinet’s decision to transfer the superintendence of the inter-departmental contraband committee from the Admiralty to the Foreign Office. In November 1914, Crowe outlined a new blockade policy, based on separate contraband agreements to be negotiated with the European neutrals. To some extent his proposals were the logical extension of an earlier Cabinet decision to seek an agreement with the Netherlands to prohibit the onward export of imported foodstuffs eastwards across the porous border with Germany. It also reflected the

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informal talks at The Hague about the creation of a private body with quasi-governmental functions to supervise the import of designated contraband goods into Holland, and guarantee their home consumption.11 As a result of these developments, Crowe’s role grew in significance. All war-related business of the Foreign Office’s Commercial and Treaty Departments was subsumed under the new Contraband Department, superintended by him. This “was the humble beginning of the vast Contraband Department which grew into the Ministry of Blockade.”12 The new ministry was created in February 1916 to conduct all blockade-related government business. It had its own minister with a seat in the Cabinet in Lord Robert Cecil; and Crowe himself was its Permanent Under-Secretary in all but name.13 As the conflict on the continent settled down to a dogged military stalemate, so the remit of the blockade department expanded. Crowe nevertheless opposed any kind of blanket continental blockade. No doubt, from the autumn of 1916, he was prepared to apply greater pressure on the smaller neutrals.14 Yet he sought to use the blockade instrument more intelligently. Politically, any decision to pursue unrestricted economic warfare increased the risk of some of the Northern neutrals joining the Central Powers. Instead Crowe advocated “concentrating all our attention of a small number of articles of which we could effectively cut off the supply and the want of whom would make it practically impossible for the enemy to continue its warlike operations.”15 Under his superintendence the blockade department evolved into one of the central war departments in Whitehall. As Owen O’Malley later reflected, the effectiveness of the blockade weapon “owed as much to the fertility of Crowe’s brain as it did to the Tenth Cruiser Squadron.”16 Crowe’s blockade work was significant for his future career on two counts. In terms of his policy outlook, the constant friction with the United States over neutral shipping and belligerent rights to search neutral vessels prior to 1917 hardened his anti-American inclinations. As the war entered its final year, he privately observed that the “Americans [were] unsatisfactory so far on account of confusion & delay. They also make promises (like a keen shopman) which they cannot keep. [...] The great thing now [in January 1918] is to get them into France. If anything critical should happen in France before American troops are involved, they might easily find excuses to get out of the business.”17 This experience was to shape Crowe’s attitude towards the United States for the remainder of his career. Crowe’s blockade work was significant also for his own future

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promotion. There was a profound irony in this. Moving Crowe out of the War Department to take charge of economic warfare was meant to exile him. But it had the unintended consequence of enabling him once more to demonstrate his organisational skills and strategic intelligence. Although technically separate, the Ministry of Blockade was located within the Foreign Office building. Its officials were, for the most part, Foreign Office clerks, so that there was a continuity in personnel. Indeed, a stint at the blockade department formed an important part of the career trajectory of many senior interwar diplomats, men like Sir Alexander Cadogan, Sir Orme Sargent or Sir Robert Vansittart. Being shunted to the Contraband Department was no doubt something of a humiliation for Crowe in September 1914. Yet, his internal exile was more apparent than real. Relations with Grey were restored by the middle of 1915, though Crowe had little confidence in Grey’s soundness or steadfastness under pressure. He “dare[d] not leave Grey alone with them [French delegates]” to discuss blockade matters, as he once confided to his wife.18 Crowe had also now powerful allies in the new coalition government, more especially Cecil and his Parliamentary UnderSecretary, Commander Frederick Leverton-Harris. Furthermore, Grey’s former private secretary, Sir William Tyrrell, from whom he had become estranged in 1914 and who had emerged as a possible rival for the PUSship, slowly descended into a physical and mental prostration, sedated by alcohol.19 By 1916, Crowe’s reputation was as high as it had ever been. And yet, when Nicolson, worn out by the continuous grind of war-time diplomacy, retired in June 1916, he was passed over for promotion in favour of Hardinge redivivus. At the root of this was a vitriolic, public campaign against Crowe by that organ of the semi-literate masses, the Daily Mail, on account of his German connections, both real and mostly assumed. Its lurid allegations were much amplified by the frenzied super-patriotic activism of the suffragette-turned-“Hun”-basher Christabel Pankurst. Crowe himself claimed to “have no feelings whatever as to anything said about me in a newspaper.”20 And, indeed, at one level, the campaign against him, which portrayed him as the organising intelligence behind a vast pan-German conspiracy, was the fantastic product of the perfervid imagination of frustrated zealots. Their ability to cause political damage, however, was very real. The Foreign Office had come under persistent fire in press and parliament, and its political influence was now much diminished. Promoting Crowe could only exacerbate the department’s own problems. Whatever his superior claims, it was practically impossible

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now to advance him any further.21 Hardinge’s return to Whitehall in the summer of 1916 inaugurated another round of internal intrigues against Crowe. The two did “not hit it off.”22 For Crowe, Hardinge’s return was symptomatic of the Office’s decline in Whitehall, as he explained to Alfred Milner with typical vigour: Crowe had seen Lord Milner that afternoon ... He had sent for him as an old friend. He complained of the F[oreign] Office. Crowe hit back. Whose fault is it? You gave us Balfour & Hardinge - you have ruined the F.O. - have deprived it of any initiative; made it into a Correspondenz Bureau. How are we to train men & have them ready for the Peace negotiations when they come?23

For his part, Hardinge sought once again to block Crowe’s eventual succession to the PUS-ship by advancing the claims of one of his protégées, so that his own plans to end his career at the Paris embassy would come to fruition.24 Yet, Hardinge was no longer as powerful as he had been during his first spell as Permanent Under-Secretary. His intrigues began to unravel after Grey’s resignation in December 1916. The new Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, left him far less room for manoeuvre; nor did the new coalition government lift a finger to defend the former viceroy when his role in the Mesopotamian fiasco came under public scrutiny. Worse for him still, when the prime minister, David Lloyd George, appointed an outsider, the Earl of Derby, as the new ambassador to France in the spring of 1918, Hardinge’s own career seemed to have reached a cul de sac. Finally, Lord Robert Cecil, who had been given the somewhat anomalous position of Assistant Secretary of State, set about establishing a new political department responsible for the affairs of the post-Ottoman Middle East. In September 1918, he moved Crowe, rather than the Hardinge protégé Ronald Graham, to lead the new department.25 Crowe’s transfer from the blockade ministry marked the return to political work. It was “a splendid opportunity to bring into being a proper department for dealing with the complex questions of oriental diplomacy, in a less amateurish manner than they have hitherto been dealt with by the F.O.”26 But it also meant that Hardinge’s final intrigue against Crowe had been check-mated. Following the merger of the Foreign Office and the diplomatic service, in September 1918, Crowe remained the only Assistant Under-Secretary, and thus the sole candidate eventually to succeed Hardinge.27

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*** Crowe’s unrivalled pre-eminence was confirmed by his performance at the Paris Peace Conference. On paper, the British delegation was led by Lloyd George, seconded by Hardinge. But it was Crowe who provided the energetic impulse. Hardinge’s star was waning fast, moreover, as the premier had “decided to cut out the F.O. altogether.”28 By March 1919, frustrated by his isolation, he faded into the background, while Crowe oversaw a resurgence of Foreign Office influence. Indeed, he remained at Paris after the German treaty was signed to settle any unfinished business. He carried, Atlas-like, much of the burden of the work of the British delegation.29 From the autumn of 1918, Crowe led the Office’s preparations for the peace conference. He harboured no illusions about the logistical problems the international gathering in the French capital would very likely entail, though perhaps not even he quite anticipated the extent to which conference business would be conducted on the “ad hoc ad nauseam” principle, as Alan Sharp has observed.30 Crowe’s disdain for the amateurstatesmen with whom he, the professional foreign policy expert, had to deal did little to encourage great expectations of what could be achieved at Paris: “Lloyd George orator who reads no papers and does no work. Balfour reads no papers and has no grasp of Foreign Affairs; Curzon getting old & gaga; Milner probably the best of the lot; Smuts a South African who fraternizes with Londoners & some believe works for peace.”31 Yet his fears were well founded. Lloyd George, more especially, was disinclined to read official submissions. Worse, he did not seem to “know from one day to the next what he wants.”32 The opening weeks of the conference were “a time of Argument and no Decision”.33 Eventually, the Allied leaders adopted the committee system that Hardinge and the Foreign Office librarian Alwyn Parker had favoured from the beginning. Crowe was appointed the British delegate on the Coordinating Committee. This position gave him effective control over the information flow from the separate territorial commissions of experts to the “Council of Ten”. And there was no doubt that Crowe was very much in control.34 At Paris, Crowe relied for his assistants on former members of the Political Intelligence Department (PID). There had been no significant contact with them until the autumn of 1918. But during the immediate preparations for the conference and then at the conference he worked closely with PID experts on the various territorial issues before the Allied

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leaders.35 The relationship between Crowe and his juniors was characterized by a curious dialectic. The latter’s admiration for Crowe bordered on hero-worship: “Crowe exercises a somewhat visionary sway over me”, confessed Harold Nicolson, “but it is a real suzerainty to have suppressed me on one point which I am keen about [surrendering Cyprus].”36 And herein lay the key to that relationship. The assistants imbibed some of his pragmatism: “He is realistic: wants facts, not ideas, however beautiful.”37 Even so, in turn, Crowe came to appreciate some of their idealism.38 Crowe was profoundly concerned about the international changes the war had wrought, and about their implications for Britain’s security interests. Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations scheme had little to recommend itself to him. He did not doubt the force of the president’s idealism, but thought that “we ought to insist upon a clear definition of Wilson’s 14 points.”39 To Crowe’s mind, what came to be dismissed as “old diplomacy” in reality reflected the immutable essence of Great Power politics. This had already been the main thrust of his critique of Cecil’s league plan in 1916. In a forensic dissection of the Cecilian scheme he emphasized the role of the national interest as the bedrock of all foreign policy and the continued significance of the military dimension of international politics. Above all: [t]he balance of power reappears as the fundamental problem. To prevent the possibility of any one State or group of States pursuing ... a policy of aggression and domination, nothing will serve but adequate force. Arbitration and conferences have their utility and serve their limited purpose. Their utility is likely to grow with the development of modern thought. But it is a necessary and preliminary condition of the functioning of general conferences as the guarantors of peace, that the community of nations has effectively organised force for the defence of the right. Whether and how this can be done, is primarily a military question.40

In terms of the territorial arrangements, Crowe was not directly involved in the German treaty. He accepted that the new Czechoslovak state would incorporate the Sudeten German areas, even though, as he pointed out, this was in breach of the principle of national selfdetermination. Privately, indeed, he suggested that a transfer of these areas to Germany might become necessary in the future.41 In the East, Crowe’s views ran similarly counter to Allied decision-making: “They have plumped for a large Poland, with Danzig and a large stretch of territory dividing East Prussia from the rest of Germany. I have from time

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to time when dealing with Germany opposed the cession of Danzig and the division of Prussia by intervening Polish territory. The committee of the conference have been unanimous in recommending their cession.”42 He also opposed, albeit with no more success, the cession of Eupen and Malmédy, Germany’s westernmost districts, to Belgium. But he was more successful in convincing the conference that Dutch Flanders should not be ceded to Belgium in return for Dutch compensation in the Lower Rhine region (where Crowe had spent part of his youth). In this instance, however, he was able to exploit an earlier British decision to agree to American demands “that nothing should be considered, which imposed any servitude on Holland. The Belgians are not likely to get anything at all.”43 Ironically, however, the Dutch minister at London, Jonkheer Renneke de Marees van Swinderen reported that Crowe “still seemed to view [matters] too much through the Belgian lense”, and later accused him of always taken a “per se anti-Dutch stand point.”44 These were questions of detail, however. Crowe’s chief concern was the creation of a durable peace settlement. The task was rendered all the more difficult by the confusion and lack of coordination that lay at the heart of Allied decision-making. But the “astounding discourtesy” of the German delegation complicated matters further: It is really distressing, almost tragic, that the Germans cannot find the right tone. I feel sure that if they frankly accepted the situation, owned in manly way the wrong done - which they should be able to ascribe to a political system now dead - and declared their readiness to shoulder their punishment honestly, they would win over the sympathy of both England and America and therewith gain hope of real peace hereafter. Instead of which we are made to feel that we are dealing with the same dishonest schemers now that have caused all the horrors of the war, and the spirits on both sides get inflamed.45

In general, however, he came to a positive view of that catalogue of paradoxes and absurdities, the Versailles treaty. It did not, he thought, contain “any injustices in any of the important stipulations, though some may not be very wise - like the terms respecting the trial of the emperor.”46 At the conference, much of Crowe’s time was taken up with the affairs of South Eastern Europe. He had always favoured the establishment of a major Hellenic power in the Eastern Mediterranean. In consequence, he supported Greek expansion in the Northern Epirus and Eastern Thrace at the expense of Turkey. And here, perhaps, he still carried with him the

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remnants of his former Gladstonian liberal beliefs. Turkey’s continued presence in Europe, he argued, was fraught with risks: “The policy of allowing the Turk to remain in Europe is so contrary to our most important interests and so certain to involve the continuance of all the abominations associated with the rule of the Turk, that we cannot afford to treat this as a matter of just humouring Moslem feeling.”47 He supported the “Greek Solution”, proposed by Harold Nicolson, under which Constantinople and the European shores of the Turkish Straits were to be ceded to Greece in return for Athens abandoning its pretensions in Asia Minor. Ultimately, the scheme was torpedoed by an unholy trinity of American vacillation, Balfour’s reluctance to force the issue and by Greek recalcitrance. This had unfortunate consequences. While the issue remained in limbo, Constantinople and the Straits were left a power vacuum. Before long, Crowe feared, the Kemalist forces would fill the vacuum, and that would be “the worst possible blunder”.48 Contrary to his own protestations, like most of the British delegation, Crowe was something of a philhellene.49 Even so, in light of future complications along the fault-lines between the Hellenic and Ottoman worlds his warning was prophetic. In Crowe’s analysis, the problems of Constantinople and the Straits were linked to the wider problems of the emerging Middle East. Here it was better to impose harsh terms on Turkey and to encourage separate Arab states rather than one united Arab kingdom in order to suppress the force of pan-Islamism. Although he could never shake off suspicions of French methods and ambitions in the region, he had identified the absence of a firm Anglo-French agreement as the main weakness of Britain’s position in the Eastern Mediterranean.50 Crowe’s command of the complex subject matters before the conference helped to establish his pre-eminence during the proceedings at Paris: It is no exaggeration to say that [Crowe] dominates that Assembly [i.e. the Council] and that there is hardly any limit to his power of making his colleagues accept his proposals. This is partly owing to the fact that he is the only person who hs ever sat on the Council who really knows the questions with which he has to deal in all their bearings but it is also largely the result of the respect and affection which he has been able to inspire in other representatives by the combination of firmness with conciliation which he is able to achieve.51

His assured performance at Paris buttressed his claims to the top job in the Foreign Office, even though Lloyd George had “taken a most violent

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objection to Sir Eyre Crowe, who ... has represented us with great dignity and ability.” In fact, the premier threatened to sack him as head of the Paris delegation in December 1919.52 Ultimately, the Earl of Derby, the ambassador at Paris, and the new Foreign Secretary, the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, joined forces to stop Lloyd George. Derby especially sang Crowe’s praises: “he has gone into the room with some proposition to put forward in which he found himself in a minority of one, and yet in the end he has, by his powers of persuasion and his great knowledge been able to turn the whole meeting round to his point of view.”53 Indeed, he threatened to resign himself if Crowe were recalled, “and explain the reason in the House of Lords showing up the monstrous way the Prime Minister proposed to treat me.”54 *** By the turn of 1919-20, Hardinge still clung on as Permanent UnderSecretary in the hope of eventually winning his last bauble, the Paris embassy. In the summer, Curzon persuaded Lloyd George to accept Hardinge’s transfer to the rue du Faubourg St-Honoré. On 16 October 1920, Crowe’s appointment as Hardinge’s successor was confirmed, and he took formally charge of his new responsibilities at the end of the following month. And yet he had realized his life-long ambition six years late. Crowe in 1920 was not the man he had been in 1914. He had always been prone to bouts of often prolonged illness. But by now the strain of his unceasing labours, first in organising the blockade, and then at the Paris peace conference, had taken their toll. He felt “rather humiliated” by his frequent absences from the office on his doctor’s orders: “The doctors, and consequently also my wife, insist on my being treated as an invalid, which is sad enough”, he complained to a friend.55 In early 1920, shortly after his return from Paris, he very nearly died of kidney failure; and recurrent eye and kidney problems would continue to plague him.56 Crowe remained as hardworking as before, but his frequent illnesses, often followed by prolonged periods of leave, diminished his effectiveness. This forced him to delegate work, something the Crowe of 1914 would not have done. He was also somewhat more restrained in his policy advice. His fragile health aside, perhaps even more important was the reorganization of the Foreign Office in the immediate aftermath of the war. In consequence of the 1919 amalgamation of the Foreign Office and the diplomatic service, it was easier now to transfer senior officials from Whitehall to head an embassy abroad. Without a private income at his

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disposal, Crowe was fearful that he might be appointed ambassador abroad, probably at some considerable financial inconvenience to himself.57 As regarded the administrative reorganization of the Office, most of the wartime departments had been disbanded or merged into new ones. Even the Middle Eastern Department that had caused so much tension in 1918, was incorporated in the much enlarged Eastern Department.58 Crowe himself had no hand in the reforms, though he was consulted by Hardinge in the summer of 1919 about some of the departmental rearrangements. With the outgoing PUS in a much weakened position, Crowe was able to push through the creation of the new Central Department, almost a revival of the old nineteenth century German Department, albeit now much enlarged in its territorial remit to cover, in addition to Germany, the Central European states as well as Italy and Yugoslavia. Hardinge himself had pushed for a substantially enlarged Western Department.59 Crowe also headed up a committee to investigate the financial aspects of the 1919 amalgamation. The fusion of the two branches of Britain’s foreign service was, in fact, more apparent than real. No true equality of status or of pay had been established, and it was found that unsuitable diplomats were continually shuttled between Whitehall and overseas postings. This, of course, was precisely the problem that had led to the original 1890 amalgamation scheme to be shelved. Three decades later, pressure for a fusion was irresistible, as Crowe acknowledged, though he remained sceptical of its efficacy: “When I get back to London [after Paris] ... I shall be plunged into the large and difficult question of F.O. reforms. Curzon is clamouring for me. We shall see, and Hardinge will no doubt let these problems devolve upon me. Nothing can be done without more men, better pay, and doubled accommodation, and there will no doubt be the usual Treasury obstruction.”60 Once installed in his new post, Crowe concluded that “a radical change of the organization alone can enable me to carry on”, and he dismantled Hardinge’s ançien régime which had once more monopolized access to the Foreign Secretary in the hands of the Permanent UnderSecretary.61 Devolving responsibilities to the departmental heads, and allowing them to make submission directly to the Secretary of State reduced Crowe’s workload, but did not reduce his authority within the Office. His constant communications with the two AUS and the superintending assistant secretaries who had replaced the senior clerks as departmental heads saw to his continued influence. As permanent head of the Foreign Office, Crowe regarded the proper

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observance of established routine practices as vital to the efficiency of the whole administrative machine: “order and neatness in the way of submitting papers very appreciably facilitate the work of busy Secretaries and Under-Secretaries of State.” His ability to grasp essential details, whilst also keeping a watchful eye on the performance of diplomats abroad entered the realm of Foreign Office legend.62 The masses of reproachful remarks from his pen notwithstanding, Crowe instilled a remarkable degree of loyalty in his juniors, not just to the department but also to him personally. He took their views seriously, provided they were expressed clearly and concisely; and he showed them great personal kindnesses.63 During his five years as permanent head of the Foreign Office Crowe served three foreign secretaries. After Curzon, there followed Ramsay MacDonald and then Sir Austen Chamberlain. There was always an element of barely suppressed tension in his relations with the somewhat Olympian Curzon. Although Curzon had great “admiration and respect” for Crowe’s long experience, tact and great abilities, Crowe was wary of “Curzon’s ruthless dictatorship and [his] dictatorial habits.”64 He was right to be so, for the monumentally monomaniacal Marquess made constant demands on him: “‘Can’t the man realize’, Crowe used to say, ‘that long after he has gone home in his Rolls Royce, I have to catch the No. 11 bus for Elm Park Road and sup off sardines or cold sausages before dealing with the evening’s telegrams?’”65 Crowe’s relations with MacDonald, who had held the premiership combined with the seals of the Foreign Office, were surprisingly good. No doubt, the advent of the first Labour government was viewed with some apprehension in Whitehall. But MacDonald was no doctrinaire ideologue, and showed a good deal of moderation and pragmatism. MacDonald’s penchant for “woolly-headed pronouncements” apart,66 and irrespective of their profound differences over relations with the Soviet Union, the two worked well together, even though Crowe did not often exercise much direct influence over MacDonald.67 Although they worked together for scarcely more than six months, Crowe and MacDonald’s Conservative successor established a close rapport. Chamberlain relied on him not only for guidance, but also for managing his recalcitrant and resentful cabinet colleagues prior to the Locarno conference. Crowe’s death deeply affected Chamberlain: “I am in great distress”, he wrote to one of his sisters, “[Crowe] was a great public servant, devoted to duty, delightful to work with, of immense knowledge and experience and proven judgment.”68 For his part, Crowe

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found in Chamberlain a politician who shared his conviction of the need for greater diplomatic involvement in European affairs. Crowe’s main task as Permanent Under-Secretary was twofold: he had to oversee the Office’s transition from war to peace; and he had to help in bedding down the post-war international order. Much of the internal rearrangements, of course, had already been decided upon prior to Crowe’s appointment; and he made no further major changes in its administrative structures. His principal aim was to restore the Foreign Office to the position it had occupied in the policy-making process before 1914. This meant substantially rolling back the frontiers of prime ministerial influence, significantly expanded under the Lloyd George premiership. This also extended to diplomatic appointments, much to Crowe’s horror: “Washington remains unfilled. No politician will consent to go at the salary our diplomats have to put up with, and Lloyd George will not appoint diplomats. [...] Balfour wanted [Sir Louis] Mallet for Rome, but Lloyd George would not have him at any price.”69 In November 1920, two of the nine existing embassies, Berlin and Washington, were in the hands of prime ministerial cronies. Hardinge’s transfer to Paris meant that the regular service had recovered one of the missions previously held by a Lloyd George appointee, though this was reversed again when, in 1922, the Marquess of Crewe succeeded Hardinge, much to Crowe’s chagrin.70 Moreover, Lloyd George’s frequent forays into foreign policy since 1919, his attempts to develop a separate, prime ministerial diplomacy, and the emergence of a parallel bureaucratic apparatus under his personal control had curtailed the Foreign Office’s influence. At the same time, as Crowe ruefully noted on taking up the reins in 1920, “we shall never get enough staff to do justice to the work the F.O. ought to do.”71 For as long as the Lloyd George coalition lasted, Crowe had to play the long game.72 While the Lloyd George cronies could not be touched, Crowe concentrated on promoting talented career officials and diplomats to middle-ranking missions abroad and senior positions at the Foreign Office. Thus, for instance, Miles Lampson, Rowland Sperling, and Gerald Hyde Villiers were placed in charge of the Central, American and Western Departments. Among the newly minted ministers abroad were Aretas Akers-Douglas (Vienna), Miles Cheetham (Berne and Athens), F.O. Lindley (Athens and Oslo), J.W.R. Macleay (Peking), and Theo Russell (Vatican). Some future ambassadors also obtained their first missions, for instance, Ronald Lindsay (Ankara), Percy Loraine (Tehran), and William Seeds (Columbia).73

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The collapse of the coalition government in October 1922 freed the Foreign Office from the incubus of Lloyd George’s often whimsical diplomacy. But his fall did not of itself restore the service to its pre-1914 pre-eminence. For one thing, the Near Eastern war scare had fuelled once more conspiracy theories of a creeping return to “old diplomacy”; for another, most foreign secretaries after 1922 tended to pay their obeiscences to a public tired of foreign entanglements, suspicious of armaments questions, and preoccupied with domestic problems.74 Even so, the personnel moves prior to Lloyd George’s fall had laid the foundations for a more sustained effort to regain lost influence. How much its position had improved became clear when, in December 1923, Sir Auckland Geddes, one of the Lloyd George cronies, announced his decision to resign as ambassador to the United States. With the imminent prospect of an incoming Labour administration, Crowe and Curzon moved speedily to fill the vacancy from within the service by selecting Sir Esme Howard, and old friend of Crowe’s and then ambassador at Madrid: “It is a critical moment for our much suffering service, and to recapture the embassies from outsiders is a thing which I have very much at heart.”75 Shuffling the diplomatic personnel was meant to return the halcyon days before the Great War. But Crowe also adhered to certain pre-war precepts in his general foreign policy ideas. The Hague conference in 1907, and its follow-up gatherings, had left him with an abiding suspicion of international arbitration schemes. In early 1919, Crowe had drafted a powerful refutation of the Wilsonian arbitration programme, in which he highlighted the inherent “theoretical contradictions involved” as much as the practical difficulties, more especially “the defects of the machinery which would have to be set up.”76 After the war, as the Dutch minister noted, he was “no overly warm supporter of the work that can be done at Geneva. He is sceptical of the practical results that may be achieved, [and] speaks dismissively of what is now usually referred to as ‘l’atmosphère de Genève’, wherein move many ‘fads’ and ‘fanatics’.” Crowe, in fact, rejected compulsory arbitration proposals as irreconcilable with British interests.77 As before 1914, a stable equilibrium remained the sine qua non of European stability to Crowe’s mind. Forging a cooperative understanding with France in Europe remained the central task of British policy after the war, irrespective of the wider imperial differences between the two countries. In two respects, of course, the post-war international landscape differed from that of 1914. In the first instance, there was a power vacuum in the East, with Russia, now in her Soviet guise, partly in self-

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imposed isolation and largely ostracized by the other Powers. For his part, Crowe, the former Gladstonian “Home Ruler”, had become an unrelenting anti-Bolshevik.78 He wished to keep Russia contained behind the cordon sanitaire of the newly independent states of Eastern Central Europe.79 The second difference with the world before 1914 was Germany’s unsettled position in Europe. Her wish for equality of status, moreover, needed to be reconciled with especially French security concerns. These problems, and the subsidiary issues linked to them, ran like a red thread through Crowe’s PUS-ship. The protracted Graeco-Turkish conflict demonstrated the difficulties in forging closer Anglo-French ties. The war began in the summer of 1920 following the collapse of the shortlived peace treaty of Sèvres collapsed, and eventually pulled Paris and London apart. Crowe remained wedded to the idea of “maintain[ing] a strong and friendly Greece”, though now without Smyrna.80 Any solution of the Graeco-Turkish conflict, however, required Anglo-French cooperation. In Crowe’s analysis, there was a nexus between the problems of the Near East and France’s European security concerns. He was by no means a Francophile. Key to his thinking was a clear-sighted appreciation of French strategic interests. Indeed, in many ways, he remained suspicious of French methods: “[Crowe] says he has good reason to suspect that France has a legal department at the Quai d’Orsay, whose main business is the word-byword dissection and analysis of all treaties she enters into, to find holes in them, which are filed with the Treaty for future possible use!”81 It was his appreciation of France’s wider strategic interests that led Crowe to propose some form of Anglo-French security pact. Germany’s inevitable eventual recovery made French fears intelligible, he argued: “I think that ... when Germany returns to more normal and settled conditions, there will be a steady growth of the feeling, traditional in German thought, that national spirit and military strength are the pride of a healthy and selfconfident State. ... [A]nd the more normal and prosperous the German State, the stronger will become that feeling.”82 In early 1921, Crowe argued that a British European security guarantee would furnish the basis for Anglo-French cooperation elsewhere, including the Eastern Mediterranean. His memorandum of 12 February is illustrative of his ability to see seemingly disparate problems in a wider context. He argued that “[i]f we could at this juncture reconstitute, or if possible fortify, the solidarity of the entente with France, the whole situation would be materially changed to our advantage.” If no settlement with Paris were reached, he warned, “a serious quarrel, if not a definite

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breach, would result.” The driving force behind French policy was “the apprehension that within a measurable period there will arise a new Germany rapidly returning to a position approaching her former strength.” A security guarantee would enable France to conciliate legitimate German demands, such as “more equitable [reparations] arrangements, which we consider necessary, because ... inevitable.” Crowe anticipated further political advantages that would accrue from a British security guarantee. The British guarantee of France’s Rhine frontier should act as an incentive for Paris to be more cooperative in the Eastern Mediterranean. Finally, “a solution of the Eastern question in a sense favourable to British interests and political aims would clear the atmosphere in all regions extending from the Balkans to Central Asia and India.”83 The need for a close Anglo-French alliance as an integral part of a new and durable European security architecture was the constant refrain of Crowe’s policy submissions: The one great preoccupation of the French mind is the danger of a German war of revenge. That Germany will prepare for it systematically, relentlessly so long as any hope of success remains, is indubitable. This danger clouds the French outlook like a nightmare. [...] If the menace of a German invasion were conquered, ... by an effective Anglo-French alliance, it might be presumed that France would become less bent on preventing or retarding Germany’s economic recovery.84

Crowe’s scheme was sensible, but its time had not yet come. An unpopular continental guarantee was too high a price for the Cabinet, even though the prospect of French moderation in the Near East was enticing. Crowe was more successful in May 1921, when he returned to the charge. Paris, he reiterated, “would pay a high price for an alliance by which we give security ... on the Rhine” and make concessions in the East. Here, he argued that, with Anglo-French military and financial support, Greece would be able to secure Eastern Thrace. At the same, she should be forced to relinquish any territorial claims along the coast of Asia Minor. Above all, Anglo-French cooperation would make it impossible for the Kemalist forces to advance beyond the Chatalja line, thus putting further pressure on Mehmed VI, the last Ottoman Sultan, now holed up in Constantinople. The loss of the Ottoman capital, and with it the loss of control over the Straits, would be disastrous for Britain’s position: “A reconstituted, great Turkey”, in a continued alliance with Soviet Russia, already pressurizing Persia and “having a footing in Afghanistan”, would pose a “formidable danger” to Britain’s empire in the East. Crowe’s

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proposal formed the basis of the Cabinet’s decision to encourage Greece to seek terms with the Turks, coupled with the promise of financial and military support in the event of the latter refusing to treat.85 This scheme was never likely to work. Its main flaw was that it offered unconditional support to the Greeks. They lost not time to snatch such a large carrot, but rejected Allied mediation, proffered at the tip of a very small stick. Instead, they sought a military decision on the plains of Anatolia. Here they were soon outclassed in generalship and organization by Mustafa Kemal. With their lines of communication and supply stretched beyond breaking point, they paid a heavy price for their hubris. The relentless Turkish counter-offensive swept the Greek armies out of Anatolia, culminating in the recapture of Smyrna and the disorderly Greek retreat from Asia Minor. The Greek defeat affected British diplomacy in two ways. It rendered the ȝİȖĮȜȚ ȚįİȓĮ, the notion of redeeming all Hellenic territories, politically impractical; and with it disappeared the central plank of Britain’s post-war strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean. Worse, Anglo-French cooperation in Asia Minor collapsed in the aftermath of France’s de facto recognition of the Kemalist state in October. The return to office of the obstreperous Raymond Poincaré in early 1922 created further Anglo-French tensions. In the East, France, as well as Italy, revised their policies and withdrew their garrisons from the Straits, Britain was left isolated. This was the background to the AngloTurkish stand-off at Chanak on the Asiatic shore of the Straits in September 1922. Although the subsequent Mudanya armistice averted bloodshed, the political price was heavy; evacuation of Constantinople and the Straits. Turkish sovereignty over Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace with Adrianople, moreover, was also recognized. And in Britain the “Chanak crisis” triggered the collapse of the Lloyd George coalition. Crowe became involved in the aftermath of the Near Eastern crisis during the Lausanne conference of 1922-3. Flushed with their recent victories, the Turks showed little inclination to compromise.86 Poincaré, meanwhile, was prepared to yield up to them various points hitherto held to be non-negotiable. Curzon, exasperated as much by Poincaré’s volte face as by Turkish stubbornness, ordered Crowe to hasten to Lausanne.87 At the conference, Curzon relied heavily on his Permanent UnderSecretary. He barely left him out of sight, whilst simultaneously burdening him with additional duties. For his part, Crowe was “more and more annoyed at having been brought here. [...] Only he [Curzon] wants to talk over all things with me, which is his process of clearing his own mind.”88 Eventually, relations grew closer, no doubt aided by Crowe

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establishing a degree of influence over the Foreign Secretary: “I think I help him in many ways by dealing with the larger aspects of the business. He always listens now patiently and gladly takes advice ... . At present he apparently welcomes my rather bellicose sentiments and my efforts to egg him on to drastic steps.”89 The Curzon--Crowe combination remained firm. The American delegates had sought to encourage Crowe to take a more independent position and act as a mediator, but he refused. If anything, he saw it as his role to ensure that Curzon did not buckle under French pressure: “French are manoeuvring to make [a] breakdown appear to be entirely our holding out for impossible terms, the truth being that, knowing the Turks will not sign anything, they loudly proclaim their readiness to give everything away.”90 When Poincaré leaked it to the press that France was prepared to negotiate a separate treaty with Turkey, Anglo-French relations reached their nadir.91 Crowe drafted the British protest note in response to this latest twist in, both, Anglo-French relations and the Lausanne proceedings. It was a strongly-worded note, casting doubt on the future viability of an Anglo-French entente: “If the Entente is to be torn to shreds at Lausanne, it can with difficulty exist elsewhere. If France is to throw over Great Britain in her dealings with Turkey, she cannot expect to rely on British friendship and British support either in this or other fields of action. [...] The French Government must be presumed to have calculated the inevitable consequences of its action.”92 Ultimately, the Lausanne conference collapsed; and it would take a second conference there, preceded by preliminary meetings in London, to settle the GraecoTurkish conflict. Anglo-French differences at Lausanne and the mutual recriminations afterwards were suggestive of a deeper malaise in the relations between the two countries. The Ruhr crisis further deepened it. In sharp contrast to Curzon’s initially somewhat indifferent stance, Crowe laid bare his distaste for the Franco-Belgian occupation of Germany’s industrial heartland, which he regarded as illegal.93 In conversation with the Belgian ambassador, he also queried the absence of an ostensible objective in “this distressing controversy.” It was “a great pity ... that the French and Belgian Governments should have decided to apply active measures of coercion, for the purpose of enforcing something which they absolutely refused to define.”94 The continued stalemate over the Ruhr forced Curzon to adopt Crowe’s harder line. The latter advised, irrespective of Britain’s misgivings, to maintain the outward appearance of Allied unity. Provided

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an inter-Allied understanding was come to, Britain might then act as a latter-day “honest broker”, urging the beleaguered Cuno government in Berlin to abandon “passive resistance” in return for a promise that “the general problem of reparations would be discussed with them in a really reasonable way.” This was very much the line that Curzon adopted in one of his stormy interviews with the French ambassador, the Comte de StAulaire.95 The British and French positions remained far apart. In consequence, Curzon instructed Crowe to draft a comprehensive refutation of the Franco-Belgian actions, the celebrated note of 11 August 1923. The document was a closely reasoned review of the past history and current state of the issue.96 Whatever leverage over the French this harder line might have given British diplomacy, it was squandered by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. Lloyd George’s successor was very much the “innocent abroad” when he met with Poincaré at Aix-les-Bains. The well-meaning but naive Baldwin was no match for his wily and anythingbut-benevolent French colleague. Their joint public statement was, in effect, a complete British surrender, as Crowe noted wryly: “[I]t is only too certain that Poincaré, as usual, is not quite straight in the matter.”97 Poincaré’s obstruction in the Ruhr, and the “pettifogging and ridiculous arguments” he advanced to support it, further hardened Crowe’s conviction that French ambitions needed to be contained through cooperation with her. To a degree this was a return to Palmerston’s policy of the 1830s and 1840s. A Rhine pact, Crowe now argued, would help in that direction, and would be useful in defusing Franco-German relations.98 Ultimately, it was the confluence of different developments that broke the deadlock: American mediation, the failure of Poincaré’s clandestine manoeuvres to establish a breakaway Rhenish republic, and the advent of the first Labour government.99 The July meeting at Chequers between Ramsay MacDonald and Edouard Herriot prepared the ground for the London conference in August 1924 to negotiate a settlement of the reparations question on the basis of the Dawes report. Here, Crowe not only acted as MacDonald’s principal adviser, but also as interpreter to, both, the Foreign Secretary and the German delegation.100 In moderating the reparations demands on Germany the outcome of the conference further stabilized Europe. Further, the evacuation of the Ruhr and the revoking of certain administrative measures taken by the French and Belgian occupational forces, which had the potential to undermine Germany’s economic unity, ended France’s somewhat artificial post-war predominance in Western Europe. This provided a platform for Crowe’s

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and Chamberlain’s attempts to place West European security on firmer foundations. Before this problem could be tackled, Crowe had to deal with the consequences of MacDonald’s attempted détente with Moscow. The Prime Minister was neither temperamentally nor ideologically close to the aims and methods of the Soviet régime. Yet, like Lloyd George, he favoured at least commercial relations with Russia. Crowe had opposed the commercial agreement of 1921, and he now opposed MacDonald’s feelers to the Soviet leadership. The main object of the initiative was to develop economic relations further. Crowe was not involved in the Anglo-Soviet London conference between April and August 1924. He had not been asked to take part. His unwavering anti-Bolshevism was well known in Whitehall. Indeed, Crowe dismissed the scheme as “a ridiculous farce and a disgrace to this office. However, I have put it formally and repeatedly on record that I entirely disapproved of and protested against the whole proceeding.” The talks went ahead not least because MacDonald had to appease certain sections in his party. As Crowe noted after the treaty was concluded on 8 August, “the Foreign Office as a department was free from all responsibility for the treaty which rested entirely with [Arthur] Ponsonby [Parliamentary Under-Secretary]. In the end he will suffer from his idiotic performance. It may even bring down the government.”101 Crowe’s prediction, though ill-tempered, was prescient. The treaty was devoid of any real substance, but its conclusion resulted in the collapse of MacDonald’s government. During the subsequent election campaign, Soviet activities once more affected British politics, in the shape of the so-called Zinoviev letter, now known to have been a forgery, probably concocted by rogue elements in the Secret Service elements in collusion with Conservative party agents. Crowe played a somewhat unfortunate role in the affair. In some respects, indeed, he showed an uncharacteristic lack of attention to detail. Crowe and his officials never thought of querying the authenticity of the letter as it had reached the Foreign Office through Secret Service channels. Given Crowe’s long-standing disdain for “S[ecret] S[ervice] reports, which are a mass of rubbishy tittle-tattle”, this failure was indeed out of character.102 There was, moreover, confusion over the correct response to the letter. MacDonald instructed a protest note be drawn up by the Foreign Office. The draft was sent to Crowe, who amended it, hardening its language, and gave instructions that “[i]t can be published as soon as it has reached M. Rakovsky’s hands.”103 The amended draft was

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then forwarded to MacDonald, who was canvassing in the Rhondda Valley. He, in turn, hardened the tone of the letter further still, but did not explicitly authorize its publication. Against the warnings of some of his officials, Crowe decided that the note should be delivered and be released to the press. Its publication created a sensation and increased the antiLabour swing in the election. Crowe was devastated by the consequences of his action. According to MacDonald, he “had become quite ill and had gone to bed.”104 Whatever its effect on Crowe, he had one more crucial role to play in diplomacy. For Crowe, allaying French fears had always been at the core of a new European security architecture. This was the leitmotif of his policy recommendations since 1920. By late 1924, circumstances were more propitious than in 1921. The decision of the Baldwin government not to ratify the Geneva Protocol with its provision for compulsory arbitration meant that some other means had to be found to satisfy French security concerns. Conversely, the decision gave Britain greater leverage over France, which could be exploited by forcing Paris into a reconciliation with Germany. In a parallel development, German diplomacy renewed its attempts to secure international rehabilitation. The confluence of Franco-German interests placed Britain in a pivotal position. At the turn of 1924/5, Crowe’s health deteriorated steadily. He was “troubled by all sorts of ailments which doctors and surgeons dispute how to tackle.”105 The beginning of 1925 was his last hurrah. When, in midJanuary, Chamberlain set his senior officials to work on the outline of the new government’s policy, they had all come to accept Crowe’s line that the French fear of Germany was the root problem of West European security.106 A lengthy memorandum by Harold Nicolson underscored this point: “until we can quieten France, no concert of Europe is possible, and we can only quieten France if we are in a position to speak to her with the authority of an Ally.”107 In the meantime, Crowe initiated a review of British policy towards the Low Countries, “which was primarily to show ... how necessary and inevitable had been, in the past, the policy of this country in throwing the whole of the national energy into the defence of the Low Countries against foreign aggressors.”108 The resulting historical survey by Sir James Headlam-Morley, the Foreign Office’s first historical adviser, concluded that there could be no equilibrium in Western Europe without the independence of Belgium and the Netherlands; and that a mutual guarantee of the frontiers of all the interested parties, including Germany,

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was the most efficacious means of reinforcing this geopolitical function of the Low Countries.109 The notion of a regional security pact was gaining ground within the Foreign Office. The German offer of 20 January to enter into such an arrangement confirmed the direction in which British policy was moving. Crowe insisted that Britain could only act jointly with France, but he welcomed Gustav Stresemann’s offer as “a move in the right direction [which] ought not to be discouraged.”110 From Crowe’s perspective, the emerging West European pact also had the pleasing side-effect that the United States would be reduced as a factor in British foreign policy calculations: “I hope we may cease to be obsessed by the idea of “placating” the United States. I have never believed in the policy of dragging the United States into our European affairs. They are supposed to be helpful but in fact they rarely are except where their pocket is concerned ... . In most cases American intervention and American “observers” do nothing but mischief and cause endless complications. I should not go out of our way to bring them in.”111 During the early months of 1925, a remarkable partnership evolved between Chamberlain and Crowe. Their close cooperation providing the driving force behind British policy, even if only for a brief period. In a curious way, the Crowe-Chamberlain combination resembled the GreyHardinge partnership between 1906 and 1910. Rarely in the history of the Foreign Office did the Foreign Secretary and his most senior official work so closely and so effectively together. Among Chamberlain’s colleagues a less charitable view prevailed: “Austen seems to have become a mere phonograph of Crowe.”112 Cabinet opposition, indeed, was a major obstacle for Chamberlain’s plans, as the CID meeting of 19 February demonstrated. Especially Curzon, now Lord President, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, were implacably opposed to any kind of continental guarantee. Chamberlain was reduced to begging his colleagues that, at the next meeting, they ought to hear Crowe, “who has not only studied but handled foreign affairs for more than forty years. He will speak with an experience which gives him more authority than I have in my official capacity.”113 By the beginning of March, Chamberlain had firmly moved to the idea of a four-power pact, including Germany. Simultaneously, and before the next Cabinet meeting on 2 March, Crowe and Tyrrell saw the premier. They impressed upon him that, unless Chamberlain’s proposals were accepted, an irrevocable breach with France was probable. In that eventuality, the French occupation of the Rhineland would become

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permanent.114 As a powerful group of ministers, aided by Captain Sir Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretary, fought a vigorous rearguard action against endless continental commitments, Chamberlain was unable to offer the French anything substantial during his discussions with Herriot in Geneva. Crowe returned to the charge, and warned Baldwin that, in the absence of a pact, French intransigence would cause “the maximum of friction, not only with Germany, but over the whole of Central Europe.” Now thoroughly alarmed, Baldwin convened an ad hoc special Cabinet meeting, which Crowe was asked to attend. Most of ministers argued against any kind of security guarantee. Crowe, who had opened the meeting with a detailed statement, also wound it up by placing it “on record that a quarrel with France over this matter would ... lead to a definite breach with France, with all the consequences for the general state of Europe”.115 The encounter “filled [Crowe] with despair.” The suggestion by some ministers of an arrangement that pledged Britain merely to consult with the other signatories “really amounted to nothing at all”. He warned Baldwin that Chamberlain “would be placed in a most difficult position.” He even indicated to Chamberlain that he would ignore orders to draft negative instructions for the Foreign Secretary in Geneva.116 This would have been an unprecedented act of disobedience. And yet, there was a striking parallel with Crowe’s position on 30-31 July 1914, when he openly criticised Grey and the Liberal cabinet for their apparent vacillation. Chamberlain followed Crowe’s hint up with a threat of resignation. Crowe, acting as go-between with Baldwin, conveyed this threat verbally at Chequers on 15 March. Losing his Foreign Secretary after merely a few months in office would have struck no one as a misfortune, but as a case of prime ministerial weakness. In consequence, Baldwin made reassuring noises. He hoped to bring the Cabinet to accept the view that the proposed pact was necessary: “I had the impression that he means to stand by you loyally ... . [...] My talk has also done some good I am sure.”117 On 20 March, the Cabinet reconvened. Curzon, the fiercest opponent of Chamberlain’s plans had died earlier that day and, as Hankey noted in his diary, “within seven hours of his death the Cabinet had decided to authorise Austen Chamberlain to announce a policy aiming at the Four Power Pact of Guarantee.”118 During the critical moments in March 1925, Crowe not only acted as the conduit for communications between Baldwin and Chamberlain. Above all, he provided the intellectual and conceptual impulse behind a

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policy that would shortly crystallize in the Locarno pact. The nucleus of this policy was to be found in Crowe’s earlier alliance schemes. In framing this policy and then pushing it through Cabinet, with Chamberlain acting as his willing battering ram, Crowe also achieved a final victory over outside interference in foreign policy. His triumph acted as a catalyst for renewed growth in Foreign Office influence, restoring the department almost, but not quite, to the position it had held in those last days of peace when Crowe was first expected to assume the role of Permanent UnderSecretary. And yet, Crowe would witness none of this. He had exhausted himself in the pursuit of his scheme for a West European security pact. Ground down and seriously ill, he was sent on sick leave in early April. He never returned; he died on 28 April, two months short of his sixty-first birthday. *** Eyre Crowe was no ardent advocate of advanced internationalist principles. He did not support the divers panaceas for future international peace hawked around towards the end of the Great War. His name is not synonymous with “l’atmosphère de Genève” or the tinkling of cosmopolitan teacups at Geneva. Nor could he be expected to cast aside his own biography and past professional experiences. As in so many other fields, the 1914-18 war ran like a broad scar across Crowe’s career. The conflict with the country of his birth and upbringing might well have terminated it; it certainly threatened, at one stage, to divert it into a cul de sac. And yet the war stimulated subtle changes in Crowe’s approach to foreign affairs. He held on, it is true, to what he regarded as the immutable essence of international relations: the national interest as the foundation of all foreign policy; the importance of military force as an instrument of statecraft; and the balance of power as the main organising principle of international order. But he was ready to adapt the precepts of “old diplomacy” to a changing international environment. The importance of economics and of international law, the two pillars around which Crowe’s wartime blockade work had revolved, could not now be ignored, let alone reversed. But there was more. Britain’s continental guarantee as the nucleus of a multilateral West European security arrangement was, perhaps, Crowe’s crowning achievement and his lasting legacy. It is the tragedy of his career that the outbreak of the Great War

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postponed his final ascent to the very top of his chosen profession. When he finally achieved his life’s ambition, he sacrificed his life in helping to settle the outcome of this, the seminal conflict of the twentieth century.

Notes * The author wishes to thank Sir Brian Crowe, GCMG, and the late Nigel Nicolson for permission to quote from the Crowe and Sissinghurst Mss. 1. G. Clemenceau, Grandeur et misère d’un victoire (Paris, 1930), p. 1. 2. For Crowe’s earlier career and the 1905-6 reforms see Z.S. Steiner, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1898-1914 (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 70-82 and passim; K. Neilson and T.G. Otte, The Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 18541946 (London, 2009), pp. 97-103 and 160-7; also S.E. Crowe and E.T. Corp, Our Ablest Public Servant: Sir Eyre Crowe, 1864-1925 (Braunston, 1993); also T.G. Otte, ‘Eyre Crowe and British Foreign Policy: A Cognitive Map’, in idem and C.A. Pagedas (eds), Personalities, War and Diplomacy: Essays in International History (London, 1996), pp. 14-37. 3. Grey to Nicolson, 21 Oct. 1913, Grey Mss, The National Archives, Kew, London TNA/FO 800/94; Tyrrell to Bertie, 22 Oct. 1913, Bertie Mss, FO 800/187. For details see Neilson and Otte, Permanent Under-Secretary, pp. 166-7; E.T. Corp, ‘The Problem of Promotion in the Career of Sir Eyre Crowe, 1905-1920’, Australian Journal of Politics and History xxviii, 2 (1982), pp. 238-40; R.A. Cosgrove, ‘The Career of Sir Eyre Crowe: A Reassessment’, Journal of British Studies iv, 2 (1972), pp. 165-96. 4. Quotes from Crowe to Clema, 13 and 6 Aug. 1914, Crowe Mss, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms.Eng.d.2903. 5. Mins. Crowe, 2 and 28 Aug. 1914, FO 371/2182/35792 and 2138/43881; also Crowe and Corp, Ablest Public Servant, p. 274. 6. Memo. Crowe, ‘Prosecution of the War’, 5 Aug. 1914, FO 371/2162/36542. 7. Quotes from min. Crowe, 7 Aug. 1914, FO 366/761/40089; and Crowe to Clema, 12 Aug. 1914, Crowe Mss, Ms. Eng. e. 3020; see also min. Sperling, 7 Aug. [1914], Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Librarian’s Department, Correspondence and Memoranda, General, vol. 5. 8. Memo. Bertie, 19 Dec. 1914, Bertie Mss, FO 800/163; also O’Malley, Phantom Caravan, p. 47; Gregory, Edge of Diplomacy, p. 257. 9. Min. Crowe, 30 Sept. 1914, on Admiralty to Foreign Office, 29 Sept. 1914, FO 371/2105/54156; also Corp, ‘Administration’, p. 452. 10. Memo. Bertie, 19 Dec. 1914, Bertie, FO 800/163; Neilson and Otte, Permanent Under-Secretary, p. 168.

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11. Memo. Crowe, 1 Nov. 1914, FO 368/1192/66930; see also C. Smit, ‘Waarom bleef Nederland buiten de Eerste Wereldoorlog’, in N.C.F. van Sas (ed.), De kracht van Nederland: Internationale positie en buitenlandse beleid (Haarlem, 1991), pp. 80-3; T.G. Otte, ‘“Between Hammer and Anvil”: Sir Francis Oppenheimer, the Netherlands Overseas Trust and Allied Economic Warfare, 1914-1918’, in A. Stewart and C. Baxter (eds), Diplomats at War: British and Commonwealth Diplomacy in Wartime (Leiden and Boston, 2008), pp. 85-108. 12. Sir J. Tilley and S. Gaselee, The Foreign Office (London, 1933), p. 178. 13. The two men worked well together, see Crowe to Cecil, 20 July 1918, Cecil of Chelwood Mss, Hatfield House, CHE 92/495; Oppenheimer diary, 5 Apr. 1918, Oppenheimer Mss, Bodleian, box 5. For the general background see A.C. Bell, The Blockade of the Central Empires (London, 1961), pp. 454-56; also Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, All the Way (London, 1949), p. 136. 14. Crowe to Paget, 14 Oct. 1916, Paget Mss, British Library, London, Add.Mss. 51254; and min. Crowe, 22 May 1918, on Townley to Balfour, 8 May 1918, FO 368/1855/85851; also T. Kaarsted, Storbritannien og Danmark, 1914-1920 (Odense, 1974), pp. 52-9. 15. Min. Crowe, 11 Dec. 1914, on Maxse to Grey, 7 Dec. 1914, FO 368/1045/80743; Crowe to Rumbold, 29 Jan. 1917, Rumbold Mss, Bodleian, Rumbold dep. 21. 16. O’Malley, Phantom Caravan, p. 46. 17. Oppenheimer diary, 4 Jan. 1918, Oppenheimer Mss, box 5. Crowe was not unaffected by certain Edwardian social prejudices. The war-times experiences reinforced them politically, see Crowe to Clema, 18 Aug. 1910, Crowe Mss, Ms. Eng. d. 2902; min. Crowe, 6 Sept. 1915, FO 382/3/71246. 18. Crowe to Clema, 10 Aug. 1915, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.e.3020. 19. Crowe to Clema, 19 and 21 Apr. 1915, Crowe Mss, ibid.; and 6 Sept. 1916, Ms.Eng.e.3021. 20. Crowe to Grey, 20 July 1915, Crowe Mss, FO 800/243. Crowe offered to resign, but this was rejected by Grey, Crowe to Clema, 25 Sept. 1915, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.e.3020. Cuttings from the Pankhurst paper can be found in the Crowe Mss, FO 800/243. Crowe was publicly defended by Cecil and Leo Maxse, see draft parliamentary answer, 22 Mar. 1917, FO 794/2, and L.J. Maxse, ‘Misgovernment as a Fine Art, The National Review no. 411 (May 1917), pp. 314-9. 21. R.M. Warman, ‘The Erosion of Foreign Influence in the Making of Foreign Policy, 1916-1918’, Historical Journal xv, 1 (1972), pp. 133-59. 22. Oppenheimer diary, 8 Jan. 1918, Oppenheimer Mss, box 5. 23. Oppenheimer diary, 30 Mar. 1918, Oppenheimer Mss, box 5. Milner was one of the few politicians whom Crowe rated highly, Crowe to Clema, 18 May 1919, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.e.3024. 24. Memo. Bertie, 16 Dec. 1916, Bertie Mss, FO 800/175; Corp, ‘Promotion’, pp. 2434.

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25. Crowe to Oppenheimer, 4 Sept. 1918, Oppenheimer Mss, box 5; see also D. Goold, ‘Lord Hardinge and the Mesopotamian Expedition and Inquiry, 1914-1917’, Historical Journal xix, 4 (1976), pp. 943-5. 26. Leverton Harris to Crowe, 6 Sept. [1918], Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.d.2908; 27. Min. Drummond, 9 Sept. 1918, FO 366/768/168209; Z.S. Steiner and M.L. Dockrill, ‘The Foreign Office Reform, 1919-1921’, Historical Journal xvii, 1 (1974), pp. 131-56. 28. Crowe to Clema, 18 Jan. 1919, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.e.3022. 29. Crowe to Clema, 11 Apr. 1919, ibid., Mss.Eng.e.3024; for the background see E. Goldstein, Winning the Peace: British diplomatic Strategy, Peace Planning, and the Paris Peace Conference, 1916-1920 (Oxford, 1991), p. 80; M.L. Dockrill and J.D. Goold, Peace Without Promise: Britain and the Peace Conferences, 1919-1923 (Hamden, CT, 1981), pp. 25-6. 30. A. Sharp, The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking in Paris, 1919 (London, 1991), p. 19. 31. Oppenheimer diary, 4 Jan. 1918, Oppenheimer Mss, box 5. 32. Crowe to Clema, 2 Apr. 1919, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.e.3024. 33. Crowe to Clema, 24 Jan. 1919, ibid., Ms.Eng.e.3022. 34. Nicolson to mother, 16 (?) Jan. 1919, Sissinghurst Mss, box 1919; H.W.V. Temperley (ed.), A History of the Peace Conference of Paris (6 vols., London, 1920) i, pp. 258-9. 35. H. Nicolson, Peacemaking 1919 (London, 1933), p. 190. 36. Nicolson to family, 26 Jan. 1919, Sissinghurst Mss, box 1919; see also Nicolson, Peacemaking, pp. 210-1 and 226; J. Lees-Milne, Harold Nicolson: A Biography (2 vols., London, 1980) pp. i, 109 and 114-6. 37. Nicolson diary, 7 Jan. 1919, Peacemaking, p. 226. 38. Crowe to Clema, 17 Mar. 1919, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.e.3023. For an analysis of the Crowe-PID connection see Goldstein, Winning the Peace, pp. 118-9. 39. Oppenheimer diary, 27 Oct. 1918, Oppenheimer Mss, box 5. 40. Memo. Crowe, ‘Notes ... on Lord R. Cecil’s Proposals for the Maintenance of Future Peace’, 12 Oct. 1916, CAB 24/10; see also min. Crowe, 30 Dec. 1918, FO 371/4353/PC 152; A. Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law, 19181935 (London, 1936), pp. 480-96. 41. Mins. Crowe, 10 Apr. and 24 May 1919, FO 608/6; min. Headlam-Morley to Crowe, 11 Feb. 1919, A. Headlam-Morley, R. Bryant and A. Cienciala, Sir James Headlam-Morley: A Memoir of the Paris Peace Conference 1919 (London, 1972), pp. 26-28. 42. Crowe to Clema, 28 Mar. 1919, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.e.3023; Headlam-Morley, Memoir, pp. 76-9. 43. Min. Crowe, 17 June 1919, on Townley to Curzon, 9 June 1919, FO 608/3/87556. For the possible territorial changes on the Rhine see ‘Draft Report of the Committee on

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Belgian Affairs on Possible Rectifications of the German-Dutch Frontier in Favour of Holland’, 10 Mar. 1919, FO 608/4/3970. 44. Van Swinderen to van Karnebeek, 5 July 1919, and 23 Sept. 1919, in J. Woltring (ed.), Documenten betreffende de Buitenlandse Politiek van Nederland, 1919-1945, ser. A (12 vols., The Hague, 1976-92) i, nos. 9 and 96. 45. Crowe to Clema, 8 May 1919, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.e.3024. 46. Crowe to Clema, 25 June 1919, ibid., e.3025; Crowe and Corp, Ablest Public Servant, pp. 335-7. 47. Min. Crowe, 22 Jan. 1919, FO 608/77/4392; for his Gladstonian liberalism see Otte, ‘Cognitive Map’, 17-8. 48. Crowe to Clema, 19 May 1919, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.e.3025; min. Crowe, 15 Apr. 1919, on memo. Nicolson and Toynbee, ‘Future Frontiers of Turkey’, 14 Apr. 1919, FO 608/10. 49. Crowe to Clema, 17 Jan. 1919, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.e.3022. 50. Min. Crowe, 24 June 1919, FO 608/80/13141; see also Goldstein, Winning the Peace, pp. 275-6. 51. Norman to Campbell, 18 Dec. 1918, FO 794/2; Crowe to Clema, 17 Sept. 1919, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.d.2904. 52. Hankey diary, 29 Dec. 1919, S. Roskill, Hankey: Man of Secrets (3 vols., London, 1970-74) ii, pp. 138-9. 53. Derby to Curzon, 8 Dec. 1919, FO794/2. Ironically, Crowe thought Derby ‘a very stupid man’, Crowe to Clema, 4 Oct. 1919, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.d.2904. 54. Crowe to Clema, 19 Dec. 1919, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.d.2905. 55. Crowe to Oppenheimer, 27 Oct. 1918, ibid., Oppenheimer Mss, box 5. For his earlier illness see Crowe to Oppenheimer, 13 Sept. 1908, ibid., box 17. 56. Crowe to Bland, 4 Apr. 1922, Bland Mss, BLND 9/2; also Hankey diary, 21 Oct. 1922, Roskill, Hankey ii, p. 304. 57. C. Larner, ‘The Amalgamation of the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office’, Journal of Contemporary History vii, 1 (1972), pp. 107-26. 58. Foreign Office List 1921 (London, 1921), p. 7; Tilley and Gaselee, Foreign Office, pp. 261-9; Steiner and Dockrill, ‘Foreign Office Reforms’, pp. 144-5. 59. The exchanges between Hardinge and Crowe in October-November 1919 can be followed in FO 366/781; see also E. Maisel, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1919-1926 (Brighton, 1994), pp. 7-30. 60. Crowe to Clema, 6 Apr. 1919, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.e.3024; Memo. Crowe, 4 Aug. 1920, FO 366/789; Larner, ‘Amalgamation’, p. 126. 61. Crowe to Bland, 11 Nov. 1920, Bland Mss, BLND 9/2. 62. Mins. Crowe, 16 Sept. 1913 (recirculated Sept. 1920), and 22 Jan. 1924, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Librarian’s Department, Correspondence and Memoranda, General, vol. 5 (quote from former); I. Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle (London, 1959), p. 32; also J.D. Gregory, On the Edge of Diplomacy: Rambles and Reflections, 1902-

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1928 (London, s.a. [1928]), pp. 258-9; Lord Strang, Home and Abroad (London, 1956), pp. 271-2. 63. Crowe to Bland, 11 Nov. 1920, Bland Mss, BLND 9/2. 64. Quotes from Curzon to Crowe, 29 Dec. 1919, and Crowe to Clema, 18 Nov. 1919, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.d.2905, and e.3026; and to Bland, 12 Aug. 1922, Bland Mss, BLND 9/2. 65. O. Malley, The Phantom Caravan (London, 1959), p. 59; also D. Kelly, The Ruling Few, or the Human Background to Diplomacy (London, 1952), p. 141. 66. Crowe to Chamberlain, 12 Mar. 1925, Chamberlain Mss, Birmingham University Library, AC 52/240. 67. Crowe to Howard, 11 Aug. 1924, Howard of Penrith Mss, Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle, DHW 9/42; see also Torretta [Italian ambassador, London] to Mussolini (UU 36/18), 7 Jan. 1924, in Ministero degli Affari Esteri (ed.), I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, 7th ser. vol. iii (Rome, 1957), no. 540. 68. Chamberlain to Hilda Chamberlain, 25 Apr. 1925, R.C. Self (ed.), The Austen Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Correspondence of Sir Austen Chamberlain with His Sisters Hilda and Ida, 1916-1937 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 275. 69. Crowe to Clema, 11 Aug. 1919, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.d.2904. 70. Crowe to Bland, 18 Sept. 1922, Bland Mss, BLND 9/2; A.J. Sharp, ‘Adapting to a New World?: British Foreign Policy in the 1920s’, G. Johnson (ed.), The Foreign Office and British Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century (London, 2005), pp. 74-8. 71. Min. Crowe, 7 Nov. 1920, on Headlam-Morley to Crowe, 3 Nov. 1920, HeadlamMorley Mss, HDLM Acc.727/37. For detailed discussions, A.J. Sharp, ‘The Foreign Office in Eclipse, 1919-1922’, History lxi, 202 (1976), pp. 198-218; G.H. Bennett, ‘Lloyd George, Curzon and the Control of British Foreign Policy, 1919-1922’, Australian Journal of Politics and History xlv, 4 (1979), pp. 476-86. 72. Crowe to Bland, 17 Nov. 1920, Bland Mss, BLND 9/2. For Curzon’s views, idem to wife, 23 Dec. 1923, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, Reminiscences (London, 1955), pp. 209-10. 73. See Foreign Office Lists 1921-1925; see also G.A. Craig, ‘The British Foreign Office from Grey to Austen Chamberlain’, idem and F. Gilbert (eds), The Diplomats, 1919-1939 (2 vols., New York, repr. 1967), pp. 26-35. 74. B.J.C. McKercher, ‘Old Diplomacy and New: The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1919-1939’, M. Dockrill and B. McKercher (eds), Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890-1950 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 92-4, offers an impressionistic, and hence overly optimistic, discussion of the changes. 75. Crowe to Howard, 9 Jan. 1924, Howard of Penrith Mss, DHW/9/39; E. Howard, Theatre of Life, 1865-1936 (2 vols., London, 1935-6) ii, pp. 497-8. 76. Memo. Crowe, ‘Some Notes on Compulsory Arbitration’, 9 Jan. 1919, FO 608/240/2; for the background see G.W. Egerton, Great Britain and the Creation of the League of Nations: Strategy, Politics and International Organization, 1914-1919

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(Chapel Hill, NC, 1978), pp. 110-9. 77. Van Swinderen to van Karnebeek, 13 Sept. 1924, Documenten betreffende de Buitenlandse Politiek van Nederland, 1919-1945 (A) vi, no. 67; also Casey to Bruce, 5 Feb. 1925, W.J. Hudson and J. North (eds), My Dear P.M.: R.G. Casey’s Letters to S.M. Bruce, 1924-1929 (Canberra, 1980), no. 9. 78. Oppenheimer diary, 23 Feb. 1918, Oppenheimer Mss, box 5. 79. Crowe to Hardinge, 15 Nov. 1919, FO 608/28; K. Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919-1939 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 27-8. 80. Min. Crowe, 18 Jan. 1921, Nicolson, ‘On the Revision of the Treaty of Sèvres’, 18 Jan. 1921, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xviii, no. 12, fn. 9, p. 19. 81. Casey to Bruce, 5 Feb. 1925, Hudson and North (ed.), Casey Letters, no. 9. 82. Min. Crowe, 13 Nov. 1920, FO 371/4757/C11056/113/18. 83. Memo. Crowe, 12 Feb. 1921, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xvii, no. 38. 84. Memo. Crowe, ‘Notes respecting the possible conclusion of an Anglo-French Alliance’, 26 Dec. 1921, FO 371/7000/W13423/12716. 85. Memo. Crowe, ‘On The Hostilities between the Turks and the Greeks’, 30 May 1921, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) vii, no. 201. 86. Crowe to Rumbold, 10 Feb. 1923, Rumbold Mss, Rumbold dep. 31; M. Gilbert, Sir Horace Rumbold: Portrait of a Diplomat, 1869-1941 (London, 1973), p. 284. 87. Curzon to Crowe, 13 Jan. 1923, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xviii, no. 349, and fn. 5; Crowe to Clema, 16 Jan. 1923, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.d.2906. 88. Crowe to Clema, 18 Jan. 1923, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.d.2906. 89. Crowe to Clema, 24 Jan. 1923, ibid. 90. Crowe to Clema, 21 Jan. 1923, ibid. For the American proposal, see letter, 28 Jan. 1923, ibid. 91. Crewe to Curzon, 28 Jan. 1923, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xviii, no. 349 and fn. 5. 92. Curzon to Crewe, 2 Feb. 1923, ibid.; Crowe to Clema, 31 Jan. 1923, Crowe Mss, Mss.Eng.d.2906. 93. Note Crowe, 13 Jan.1924, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xxi, no. 30 encl.; P. Miquel, Poincaré (Paris, 1984), pp. 457-72. 94. Min. Crowe, 14 Mar. 1923, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xxi, no. 145, fn. 4. 95. Memo. Crowe, 7 Jun. 1923, and Curzon to Crewe, 11 Jun. 1923, ibid., nos. 255 and 261. 96. Note Curzon to St-Aulaire, 11 Aug. 1923, ibid., no. 330. On Crowe’s authorship see H. Nicolson, Curzon: The Last Phase, 1919-1925. A Study in Post-War Diplomacy (London, 1934), p. 365. 97. Crowe to Mendl, 16 Oct. 1923, and ‘Note on Conversation of September 19th, 1923, between Mr. Baldwin and M. Poincaré’, ibid., no. 367 and fn. 16.

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98. Crowe to Phipps, 20 Mar. 1924, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xxvi, no. 394. 99. Crowe to Phipps, 28 Jan. 1924, Phipps Mss, CCAC, PHPP 2/3. 100. Crowe to Clema, 5 Aug. 1924, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.d.2907; ‘Aufzeichnung’ von Schubert, 5 Aug. 1924, in M. Kröger (ed.) Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, ser. A, 1918-1925 (13 vols., Göttingen, 1974-95) xi, no. 3. 101. Crowe to Clema, 8 and 13 Aug. 1924, Crowe Mss, Ms.Eng.d.2907. In official conversations Crowe merely emphasized the government’s wish for ‘a limited rapprochement’, Torretta to Mussolini (RR 253/101), 2 Feb. 1924, I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, (7) ii, no. 615. 102. Crowe to Bland, 17 Nov. 1920, Bland Mss, BLND 9/2; for Crowe’s dislike of secret intelligence before 1914 see Otte, ‘Cognitive Map’, p. 24. 103. Min. Crowe, 21 Oct. 1924, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xxv, p. 435. The whole episode is comprehensively examined in G. Bennett, ‘A Most extraordinary and mysterious business’: The Zinoviev Letter of 1924 (London, 1999) (FCO History Notes, no. 14), 47-53. 104. Scott diary, 4 Mar. 1925, T. Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of C.P. Scott, 1911-1928 (London, 1970), p. 478. Those who helped to draft the note, commented in a similar vein, see Gregory, Edge of Diplomacy, p. 255; Strang, Home and Abroad, pp. 57-8. 105. Crowe to Howard, 12 Nov. 1924, Howard of Penrith Mss, DHW 1/36. For the background see S.E. Crowe, ‘Sir Eyre Crowe and the Locarno Pact’, English Historical Review lxxxvii, 1 (1972), pp. 49-52; E. Goldstein, ‘The Evolution of British Diplomatic Strategy for the Locarno Pact, 1924-1925’, Dockrill and McKercher (eds), Diplomacy and World Power, pp. 115-6; R.S. Grayson, Austen Chamberlain and the Commitment to Europe: British Foreign Policy, 1924-1929 (London, 1997), pp. 37-8. 106. Mins. Lampson and Crowe, 13 and 14 Jan. 1925, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xxvii, no. 181. 107. Memo. Nicolson, ‘Present Condition in Europe’, 20 Feb. 1925, Documents on British Foreign Policy (1) xxvii, no. 205. 108. Min. Crowe, 18 Feb. 1925, Headlam-Morley, ‘The History of British Policy and the Geneva Policy’, 12 Feb. 1925, FO 371/11064/W1251/9/98. 109. Memo. Headlam-Morley, ‘The Problem of Security: England and the Low Countries’, 10 Mar. 1925, FO 371/11065/W2070/9/98; also in J. Headlam-Morley, Studies in Diplomatic History (London, 1930), pp. 156-71. 110. Min. Crowe, 22 Jan. 1925, FO 371/10726/C980/459/18; see also Crowe, ‘Locarno Pact’, p. 59. 111. Min. Crowe on min. Bennett, both 13 Mar. 1925, FO 371/10728/C3628/459/18. For Crowe’s anti-American bias see also Rumbold to Henderson, 1 May 1923, Rumbold Mss, dep. 31. 112. Cecil to Churchill, 16 Jan. 1925, M. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, v, 1, The

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Exchequer Years, 1922-1929 (London, 1979), pp. 347-8. 113. Minutes of CID meeting, 19 Feb. 1925, CAB 24/172. 114. Crowe to Chamberlain, 12 Mar. 1925, Chamberlain Mss, AC 52/240; Goldstein, ‘Locarno Pact’, p. 133. 115. Ibid.; also Torretta to Mussolini (s. 375/220), 11 Mar. 1925, I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, (7) iii, no. 757. 116. Crowe to Baldwin, 14 Mar. 1925, Baldwin Mss, vol. 115; Crowe to Chamberlain, 12 Mar. 1925, Chamberlain Mss, AC 52/240 (quote from former). 117. Crowe to Chamberlain, 15 Mar. 1925, Chamberlain Mss, AC 52/244; vice versa, n.d. [14 Mar. 1925], ibid.; D. Dutton, Austen Chamberlain: Gentleman in Politics (Bolton, 1985), pp. 244-5. 118. Hankey diary, 25 Mar. 1925, Roskill, Hankey ii, p. 396; Crowe apparently also used strong language with the French ambassador, van Swinderen to van Karnebeek, 20 Mar. 1925, Documenten betreffende de Buitenlandse Politiek van Nederland, 19191945 (A) vi, no. 179.

CHAPTER THREE THE GYRATIONS OF A DIE-HARD? LORD CURZON AND THE DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN JOHN FISHER

Though highly strung, and tortured by back pain throughout his adult life, George Curzon, the Earl Curzon of Kedleston, formerly Viceroy and Governor-General of India, 1899-1905, and British Foreign Secretary, 1919-24, generally avoided tearful outbursts. One lapse, however, occurred on the evening of 8 January 1916, the day after the rearguard of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force had been successfully evacuated from Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Then Curzon was a weekend guest at a country house. His uncharacteristic silence at dinner was noted by the party and when the butler gave him a telephone message from a Cabinet minister, he became pale and tears streamed down his face. Curzon tried to speak but his voice broke. At last he did so and said that Gallipoli had been evacuated without a single casualty.1 Another, better known occasion was on 20 September 1922, during the Chanak crisis, when Curzon, having accused the French Prime Minister, Raymond Poincaré of abandoning Britain in its confrontation with Turkey, was exposed to a tirade of abuse.2 As this chapter illustrates these lapses were connected. In 1915 Curzon claimed that the Dardanelles campaign was flawed in conception but he became a convinced opponent of evacuation, and campaigned vigorously in this sense against a numerically superior alliance of military and political counsel. His views owed much to a perception of the wider strategic picture in the Near East, which had greatly preoccupied him before the war, and which continued to do so in the remainder of his life. By 1915 that picture was a jigsaw of political alliances and undertakings of various kinds. The conditional promise of Constantinople to Russia in March 1915, Russia’s continued involvement

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in the war, efforts to entice Italy into the Allied camp and to forge a Balkan alliance and thereby thwart a German thrust to the east, all appeared to hang on developments on the Gallipoli Peninsula. So, too, did efforts to obtain the allegiance of the Arab world as well as the progress of the expeditionary force despatched to Mesopotamia in November 1914. These elements in turn offered prospect of imperial gain in the east to which Curzon was drawn. The interplay of these factors in Curzon’s mind, as well as the rationale for his position on the Dardanelles campaign, is the focus of this essay.3 *** Curzon’s long exclusion from government ended in May 1915, with the formation of Asquith’s coalition government. As Lord Privy Seal he sat in the Cabinet and attended the Dardanelles Committee but not the War Committee, which succeeded it in November 1915. Curzon disliked the fringes of government, not least because he disapproved of government by coalition.4 It was, however, a marginal improvement upon his role as leader of the opposition in the House of Lords where the Government treated his questions, and those of fellow Conservatives, with contempt.5 The Dardanelles Committee investigated the feasibility of aborting the Dardanelles campaign after the initial naval bombardments in February 1915 and military landings in April 1915 had failed. The former action was accompanied by exploratory and inconclusive raids by British Marines and other forces at Kum Kale on the Asiatic shore and the latter by equally inconclusive French demonstrations and diversions at Kum Kale and at Besika Bay, to the south.6 Curzon, as he was apt to repeat, had no personal responsibility for initiating the campaign. It had been approved before he joined the government and in its early stages he regarded the operations with apprehension and little conviction in their ultimate success. He did, however, take a keen interest in the detail of their prosecution; not least in the lot of the ordinary soldier as well as their concerned relatives. This was equally true of soldiers in other theatres. For those on the Western Front, he invented the Curzon Tea Boiler, and twice visited the trenches.7 For troops in East Africa, he investigated allegations of equipment shortages and supported the East Africa Field Force Fund. For those in Mesopotamia in 1916, he provided a Christmas gift of seventy dozen bottles of champagne and a library; a gesture which was reciprocated with a poem and an assurance that the champagne was superior to chlorinated water from the Tigris.8 When, in the summer of 1915, water supplies were inadequate at Gallipoli, he pressed for their

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replenishment.9 This reflected a genuine empathy with those who suffered for their country. Moreover, high morale and maximum efficiency would help win the war; hence Curzon’s uncompromising role in the conscription debate.10 Curzon’s insistence from the summer of 1915 that the Gallipoli campaign should continue belied his earlier caution and scepticism about the operations. The reason for this caution is not entirely clear but one factor was his belief, evident well into 1915 that a successful naval action at the Straits, enabling the fleet to enter the Sea of Marmora, would not secure control of Constantinople.11 Curzon’s reflections then did not lead him to consider what might happen should the city be taken.12 More generally, however, he reflected on the immense portent for the future of the Middle East of Turkish belligerence. The fate of the Caliphate, which was vested in the Sultan in Constantinople and the impact of this on the British Empire, with its Muslim subjects, vexed him. The relocation of the Caliphate, either to Cairo or to Mecca (and its ruling Hashemite family), which were more accessible or amenable to British power, might help to secure Arab loyalties. This was the view of British officials in Cairo. To this end from the autumn of 1914 they began talks with secret Arab societies.13 Though ignorant of their precise nature, Curzon was aware of their occurrence and of their correlation with the operations at the Dardanelles. In April 1915 he wrote to Lord Cromer, the former High Commissioner of Egypt, and a conduit for information about the Arab negotiations, that although he appreciated the significance of the Caliphate to the Muslim mind he considered the schemes evolving in Cairo, involving a Sharifian Caliphate, to be premature. Allied forces had not reached Constantinople and he did not anticipate that they would soon do so. As long as the Sultan remained in Constantinople Muslims would look to him as Caliph. The Arab state, as envisaged in Cairo, was vague and presupposed agreement on the seat of government. It also assumed that the Arabs were capable of governing.14 The fate of the Arab state depended upon other uncertainties, including operations in Mesopotamia. Their success was in turn linked to events at the Dardanelles, and the possibility of support landings on the Syrian coastline.15 Curzon’s early reservations about the Dardanelles Campaign were buttressed by the correlation between its progress and events on the North West Frontier. The journalist, Lovat Fraser, among others, reminded him of the connection. Fraser, when writing to Curzon at the end of May 1915, and commenting knowledgeably on recent developments in Cabinet, and Lord Fisher’s resignation, noted that unless withdrawal occurred, the

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battleships would be “bowled over one after the other like sitting partridges, and the Army, its communications cut off, swept into the sea”. As he continued, “[b]y going we may save our face. By staying we make defeat certain. We shall never get through that way.”16 Besides Cromer and Fraser, Curzon also corresponded directly with Reginald Wingate, Sirdar of the Sudan. Cromer and Wingate did not underestimate the impact upon Muslim feeling of the Dardanelles Campaign, and the fall of Constantinople to Allied troops.17 Though finely judged, to Curzon withdrawal would in the medium term be more damaging to British prestige than persisting with the operations and then failing to capture the Peninsula. At a meeting with Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury on 23 August 1915, Curzon dismissed withdrawal as politically impossible on account of its immeasurable impact on British prestige in the east. As he noted, “The effect on Egypt, on Persia, on India of a Mohammedan triumph or apparent triumph in repelling the infidels from Constantinople cannot be measured in words”. However, provided Allied troops held their defensive positions, he did not consider that their failure to secure Constantinople itself would inflict the same harm upon British prestige.18 Curzon’s initial thoughts on the Dardanelles campaign were also affected by the promise of Constantinople to Russia. Much of his early career had focused on resisting Russian expansion in the Near East and in the spring and early summer of 1915 he pondered not only the immediate issue of defeating Germany and Turkey but also the post-war balance of power with regard to Russia. As the extent of the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey’s contingent guarantees to Russia emerged, Curzon’s displeasure was assuaged only marginally, as Russia’s military weakness became apparent. In general, therefore, Curzon felt uncomfortable with the strategic outlook in the Near East after the initial unsuccessful naval bombardment of the Straits. To his mind the Mediterranean force lacked clear objectives. In Mesopotamia, the British Indian force had begun its invasion with a view to handing it over to an Arab authority which might crumble at any time.19 Efforts to create a Balkan alliance were singularly unsuccessful. These were hardly grounds for optimism. *** Why then, in view of these serious reservations about the strategic position in the East did Curzon oppose withdrawal from the Gallipoli Peninsula when the scale of the initial miscalculation had become apparent? At one level, as with some of his colleagues, he was struck by what, on paper at

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least, seemed a very slender margin which separated the Allied force from victory. Partly, this was due to information reaching him at second hand from the Gallipoli Peninsula. According to his informants British forces, by then strongly entrenched, if suitably reinforced with ammunition and supplies, could withstand any reinforcements that the Turks could muster. Without these reinforcements, however, Curzon was told that the British force would be eliminated.20 Although these deficiencies had caused unnecessary deaths, they could be remedied, but possibly only with Lord Kitchener’s removal from the War Office. Curzon knew that Kitchener deliberately withheld from the Cabinet pleas for reinforcements from Sir Ian Hamilton, who commanded the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.21 Equally, although Curzon had reservations about the judgement of Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, he accepted his view in early June 1915 that Gallipoli rather than France should receive reinforcements. Churchill argued that even if German forces on the Western Front could not break the Allied defences, the reverse was equally true. Given the proximity of Constantinople to British troops, marginal advances there were proportionately of greater value than similar gains on the Western Front. If the Kilid Bahr Plateau, on which British troops had launched their assault in April 1915, and which dominated the European shore, could be denied to Turkey then it would lose its forts on the European side of the Straits. Those forts commanded Turkey’s Asiatic forts opposite.22 Sir Ian Hamilton claimed that if suitably reinforced, he could secure Kilid Bahr.23 The Anglo-French fleet would then sail into the Sea of Marmora, secure Constantinople and precipitate Russian, and, importantly, Bulgarian assistance. If Bulgaria were to join the Allies its Balkan neighbours would follow.24 In the summer of 1915 Curzon apparently vested diminishing hope in the idea of a Balkan alliance, and was critical of Grey’s diplomacy in this area. On Balkan politics generally, his sources included James Bourchier, The Times’ Balkans correspondent, based in Sofia, whose letters to Curzon sometimes arrived by the diplomatic bag.25 When Bulgaria’s loyalties to the Central Powers became unmistakably clear, Curzon favoured decisive naval action against Dedeagatch, some way to the west of the Gallipoli Peninsula.26 Curzon was also influenced by other Cabinet colleagues. Lord Selborne, President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and a former First Lord of the Admiralty, writing to Curzon in early June 1915, reinforced Churchill’s view that withdrawal would deal a near fatal blow to British prestige. Equally significant was Selborne’s concurrence in Churchill’s view that a definite if not a decisive victory could be obtained at the Dardanelles but that withdrawal would incur huge losses. If the

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Allied force did not persist and if the southerly thrust of German forces was not impeded; if, furthermore, Constantinople were not taken, Germany would establish a submarine base at Constantinople and threaten Britain’s communications with the East.27 Such views about withdrawal were echoed by Arthur Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty and by the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, who argued that a failure at the Dardanelles would encourage pan-Islamic activity throughout the East.28 The growing urgency of such counsel as well as doubts about Kitchener’s oversight of the campaign, led Curzon to attach increasing importance to a landing on the shores of Asiatic Turkey. When, on 17 June the Dardanelles Committee discussed further offensives on the Peninsula, he expressed doubts about the Anzac plan (a proposed further offensive to be undertaken by Anzac troops), which Hamilton appeared to favour by default, and suggested “the possibility of a big effort from the Asiatic side”. As Curzon continued, he “was probably the only member of the Committee who had travelled in this part of the world” and the idea was favoured by the French General Albert d’Amade, who had commanded French assaults there in April.29 Curzon quickly added that he did not envisage a major operation but rather a cavalry raid. Kitchener scotched the idea by suggesting that such a force would probably be cut off and achieve nothing.30 Hamilton subsequently mentioned the idea of such landings but conveyed rather contradictory assessments of their potential tactical and strategic benefits: some telegrams suggested that the Asiatic shore was heavily wired, that the Turks were securely entrenched, and that there were too many rivers there for troops to advance effectively.31 Elsewhere, however, he suggested that action on the Asiatic coast would be required if only to relieve pressure from Turkish guns located there on Allied supply vessels reaching the European coast. Indeed, at various times Hamilton and other commanders suggested landings at Smyrna, at Kum Kale or opposite the Kilid Bahr Plateau and the idea was strongly favoured by some French commanders, besides d’Amade. Among these were Lt. Col. Maucorps, Chief of the French Military Mission in Egypt, Colonel Pierre Girodon, Chief of Staff to the French force at Gallipoli, General Henri Gouraud, General Maurice Bailloud, and General Maurice Sarrail.32 Periodically, the idea also gained favour with some British naval commanders and it was not without support at the War Office.33 If nothing else such landings might afford sheltered anchorage for Allied supply vessels operating in support of troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Landings near the southern extremity of the Asiatic coast of the Dardanelles, or further north, with accompanying assaults on Turkish forts, as Hamilton

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Reproduced from P.G. Halpern (ed.), The Keyes Papers vol. 1: 1914-1918 (London, 1979)

noted, might also facilitate the assault on Kilid Bahr. More ambitious appreciations suggested that Allied landings on the Asiatic coast might interrupt enemy supplies to the Peninsula, most of which were felt to originate in Anatolia. Some strategists even contemplated a bridgehead and an advance towards Constantinople. Among them, and rather interestingly so in view of his subsequent collaboration with Curzon in eastern affairs, was Leopold Amery. Fresh from an investigatory mission to the Balkan States and to the Gallipoli Peninsula, where he inspected the Allied positions, Amery felt that Hamilton could not succeed by force of arms on the Peninsula and suggested an ambitious joint Anglo-Greek offensive that would eliminate Turkey from the war.34 Such ideas depended upon the allocation of further divisions and it was apparently on

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the assumption of receiving a further, fifth division from France that in late June 1915 Hamilton briefly viewed an Asiatic offensive with greater optimism as affording the possibility of an advance on the town of Chanak and, further north, severing the enemy’s supply line.35 In order to clarify the issues at stake and to induce a clear discussion of the possibility of an Asiatic offensive, Curzon circulated a memorandum on the subject to the Dardanelles Committee. Curzon assumed that an Asiatic landing would probably have to be undertaken at some stage. The committee must decide whether it should precede a renewed offensive on the Peninsula, or whether it should be launched simultaneously with or even subsequent to such an offensive. According to Curzon, Hamilton, who knew that he was to receive two extra divisions believed that Asiatic landings might take place subsequent to and separate from a renewed offensive on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Hamilton, whose views on such landings continued to oscillate,36 thought that these landings would become inevitable as Turkish gunfire from the Asiatic shore hampered the supply of troops on the Peninsula opposite. To support his case, Curzon referred to a recent meeting in Paris between Lord Esher and Colonel Girodon, at which the latter had emphasised that the Asiatic landings must either precede or coincide with landings on the Peninsula. Without them the Turkish position on the Kilid Bahr plateau would remain and the Straits could not be opened.37 Curzon’s idea was by-passed almost completely by the Dardanelles Committee on 24 July. As the minutes record, his memorandum had not been circulated properly beforehand. Kitchener brushed the issue of Asiatic landings aside, noting that he had received more recent telegrams from Hamilton on the subject than those referred to by Curzon. Also, he had communicated with the French Government and specifically with Alexandre Millerand, French Minister for War. Kitchener added that British artillery was successfully containing enemy fire from the Asiatic shore. He admitted that an Asiatic landing might be necessary later on but noted that the Royal Navy would not be able to support Asiatic landings simultaneously with a renewed offensive on the Peninsula. These views were apparently accepted without demur and in the ensuing discussion of the weaponry to be used in the renewed attack on the Peninsula Curzon did not resume the charge.38 That he did so, repeatedly, at subsequent meetings of the Dardanelles Committee, was largely due to his concern about German troops advancing towards Constantinople through the Balkans and to his belief that Russia might collapse altogether.39 At those meetings he supported military and naval offensives on the Peninsula and into the Sea of

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Marmara.40 Such offensives gained support from Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the War Cabinet, who had spent three weeks on the Peninsula investigating the situation.41 When, as a result of Anglo-French discussions in Paris, it was agreed that France should undertake an Asiatic landing with a view to securing Chanak, he argued for an increase in Hamilton’s force to enable the operation to succeed.42 Much to Curzon’s disgust, in the following weeks and despite his efforts to oust Kitchener, the scope for offensive operations on the Gallipoli Peninsula and on the Asiatic coast dwindled as direct intervention on behalf of Serbia became imperative.43 Developments in the Balkans, with Bulgaria’s entry into the war on the side of the Triple Alliance in October 1915, Greece’s reassertion of neutrality, and the eventual fall of Belgrade, seemed either to underline the shortcomings of Grey’s Balkan diplomacy, a view echoed in the conservative press, or to point to the sheer intractability of competing territorial claims among the Balkan powers.44 As the chimerical Balkan alliance disappeared, Britain and France agreed in principle to deploy a force in Salonica. Curzon conceded that Britain must not renege on its commitments to Serbia, but he regarded entanglement in the Balkans as very hazardous.45 When reiterating his concerns about the impact of evacuating the Gallipoli Peninsula on 11 October 1915 with regard to its moral impact in the East, he suggested that effective intervention on behalf of Serbia was no longer possible. However, the General Staff, in a recent appreciation of the situation had not seriously considered the proposal to land troops on the Asiatic shore and, in momentary desperation Curzon suggested negotiations with the Young Turks that would leave the latter in control of Constantinople.46 If nothing else Curzon’s and Churchill’s efforts to maintain the force in Gallipoli led, on this occasion, to the postponing of a final decision about the ultimate destination of reinforcements from the Western Front. Curzon, disappointed by the prospect of a Balkan campaign, was equally dismayed by the need to abandon support landings at Alexandretta in the north-eastern Mediterranean. The idea, a legacy of 1878, had recurred intermittently from late 1914 as an alternative to an attack at Gallipoli, as a means of drawing Turkish forces away from the Peninsula, or of preventing their advance towards Egypt. Many strategists, Curzon included, saw it as a necessary complement not only to British possession of Cyprus, but also, in the autumn of 1915, to possession of Baghdad.47 During 1915 such landings were mentioned periodically but only gained momentum at the highest levels in the autumn when, with the future of the Dardanelles campaign in growing doubt, it was briefly considered but then decisively dismissed by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith as an alternative

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to the defence of Egypt from within its own frontiers. To Kitchener and his Cairene protégés this was short-sighted.48 Such landings, they believed, would break the deadlock at Gallipoli and, if successful, would create enormous strategic potential for the future, regarding French as well as Russian ambitions; ambitions of which Curzon was keenly aware.49 Curzon’s dissatisfaction with the handling of eastern affairs intensified in the autumn and winter of 1915. As the possibility arose of making important strategic gains and when the fate of the Dardanelles operations hung by a thread, the French government, largely for political reasons, was bent upon dissipating operations on the Gallipoli Peninsula in order to support Serbia. To Curzon, such operations, unless intercepting Turkish communications and supplies, were simply “quixotic chivalry”.50 He disclaimed expertise in Balkan affairs, but this was simply one further instance of a near eastern policy entrusted to men who had no knowledge of the region whatsoever. His annoyance was exacerbated by his exclusion from the War Committee, which replaced the Dardanelles Committee in November 1915, and by the debate on the issue of conscription, over which Curzon, and several colleagues were prepared to resign if the Earl of Derby, successively Under-Secretary and Secretary of State for War, could not produce sufficient troops without it.51 *** From this point events began to move quickly. Curzon, his views against evacuation hardening, circulated a substantial memorandum, the first of two, composed in haste and late at night, in a last ditch effort to save the campaign.52 The War Committee had pronounced in favour of evacuation and the Cabinet was asked to approve this on the following day.53 Curzon admitted that the arguments for or against withdrawal were finely balanced. His own role, he suggested, had hitherto been limited to obtaining for Sir Ian Hamilton the conditions necessary for success. It was, after all, a campaign that began before he joined the War Council.54 The crux of Curzon’s argument was that the success or failure of the Dardanelles Campaign was inextricably linked with operations in the East as a whole. Any indication of submission would reverberate throughout Britain’s Muslim empire: a view shared by some prominent French officials regarding France’s North African possessions.55 Although claiming to have been undecided about the issue until a few days before writing, Curzon perceived a lack of measured analysis of the arguments for and against withdrawal. Withdrawal, he held, was commended to the Cabinet on purely military grounds, and rather self-contradictory military

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counsel at that, and without due consideration of the relevant political factors. To remedy this imbalance, and to avoid the “unpardonable political levity” of a precipitate and unconsidered withdrawal, he wrote what Hankey termed one of the most able state papers he had ever read.56 The fact that the paper was read to the Cabinet, rather than circulated in advance, added to its dramatic impact as the Cabinet pondered the fate of the Dardanelles Campaign. Curzon did address the military factors which had been advanced in favour of withdrawal, but his primary focus was upon “political expediency and moral effect”. Quite simply, complete withdrawal and the connected risk “of setting the Mohammedan world ablaze” illustrated the “danger of applying mathematical formulae to the solution of moral problems.” Curzon turned firstly to the military arguments. The consensus in this sense in senior military circles was more apparent than real and relied upon a selective use of opinions articulated by British commanders on the Peninsula. But in preceding weeks the views of Generals Birdwood and Davies and even of Lord Kitchener had oscillated frequently on the merits of withdrawal. To this fragile consensus was added the views of Hamilton’s replacement, General Charles Monro, whose opinions on the campaign had been formed in France and whose allegedly considered recommendations had been communicated only forty-eight hours after his arrival on the Peninsula, after a hurried inspection of only three British positions, and with minimal discussion with senior officers there.57 Furthermore, Sir William Robertson, Chief of the General Staff, British Expeditionary Force, who, notwithstanding his firmly entrenched Western ideas, only favoured withdrawal if its repercussions did not necessitate even larger Allied deployments in other theatres such as Egypt. In formulating his argument against the General Staff’s opinions, Curzon looked to officers with experience of the Peninsula, including Hamilton, whose counsel against evacuation he felt to be unfairly neglected.58 In Curzon’s view and that of his informants, Turkey’s poor land and sea transport links precluded additional deployments of heavy artillery sufficient to drive the Allied troops from the Peninsula. With additional supplies of ammunition, Curzon admitted, Turkish guns might inflict heavier casualties. However, as Kitchener and Birdwood had noted, British defensive positions were excellent and unlikely to succumb to this bombardment. Curzon did not believe that an ambitious winter offensive would or should be undertaken, but he argued that the decision not to land troops on the Asiatic shore was “one of the most tragic misfortunes of this tragic campaign”. To support this he noted Hamilton’s view that troops deployed at Salonica, where they were redundant, might be diverted to the

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Peninsula and to the Asiatic shore. If exhausted British and Anzac troops on the Peninsula were replaced and if France were to resuscitate its plan of deploying six divisions as well as cavalry in an advance upon Chanak, the two forces might maintain an offensive-defensive position during the winter months. In addition, Curzon challenged the General Staff assessment of projected attrition rates if the Allied force remained. Their figure of 120,000 men to the end of March 1916 overlooked the heavy casualties suffered by the Allies as a result of successive assaults as well as illness caused by dysentery, typhoid, enteritis and other climate related maladies. More generally, Curzon attacked the General Staff’s strategic assumptions. They argued that withdrawal would produce 140,000 men for re-deployment on the Western Front. Curzon doubted if this force would guarantee the success of a western offensive of a size sufficient to counteract the negative impression of a withdrawal from Gallipoli. If a western offensive were to fail, Turkish forces could advance towards the Persian Gulf and beyond and capitalize on Britain’s tarnished prestige throughout the East. The General Staff’s assumption that troops deployed on the Peninsula were wasted was inherently wrong. As Curzon observed, the enemy had to be confronted in every theatre. If German forces were beyond the reach of British firepower on the Western Front then British troops were fulfilling a useful function on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Moreover, Turkish forces held on the Peninsula could not be redeployed to the Egyptian or Mesopotamian theatres.59 Perhaps the most telling aspect of Curzon’s memorandum was his depiction of the proposed evacuation. Military opinion put the likely attrition rate at between thirty and fifty per cent of the total force. In addition, Curzon noted, thousands of animals, food, equipment, supplies and clothing, and three hundred guns, of which half would cover the retreat, would be abandoned. Invoking Britain’s retreat from Kabul in 1842 and the bloody defeat of the Athenians in the Peloponnesian Wars,60 he observed: I ask my colleagues to picture the situation, and I wish to draw it in impressionist colours, but as it must in all probability actually arise. In the case of all three positions, the evacuation and the final scenes will be enacted at night. Our guns will continue firing until the last moment, notably those on or near to the beaches, but the trenches will have been taken one by one, and a moment must come when a sauve-qui-peut takes place, and when a disorganized crowd will press in despairing tumult on to the shore and into the boats. Shells will be falling and bullets ploughing their way into this mass of retreating humanity. On the water the motor lighters and launches and row boats will be coming to and fro, and doing

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what they can. Conceive the crowding into the boats of thousands of halfcrazy men, the swamping of craft, the nocturnal panic, the agony of the wounded, the hecatombs of the slain…It requires no imagination to create a scene that, when it is told, will be burned into the hearts and consciences of the British people for generations to come. What will they say of those who have brought about this supreme and hideous disaster?61

To this apocalyptic vision Curzon added that if, improbably, a British commander surrendered his troops, there could be no guarantee “that an Eastern enemy, intoxicated by triumph and maddened by blood, would stay their hands. Is it not more likely that there would ensue one of the bloodiest episodes in the history of mankind?” Equally, if withdrawal proceeded then the rearguard would become martyrs “whose fate will awaken emotions in this country and throughout the Empire which it is not difficult to forecast”. To those who argued that the Allied presence on the Peninsula was not a decisive element in the military balance, Curzon noted that this might easily change. Without it, however, operations in the Balkans and in the entire Near East might be seriously disadvantaged and the possibility, slight as it was, of turning the scales during a winter campaign, would be lost. Furthermore, there was the likelihood that Muslim quiescence would cease. Invoking the views of Kitchener, and attempting, as he put it, to “put myself into the skin” of those involved, Curzon observed that if Britain withdrew, the Arab movement would “fall to pieces like a house of cards” and the Arabs would be thrown into the arms of Germany.62 Revolt would follow across North Africa although it might be contained by redeploying troops in Egypt. Britain would be abandoning “a theatre specially chosen by ourselves, and in close proximity to the Turkish capital, and on one of the great historic stages of the world” in order to sterilize them in Egypt. Persia and Afghanistan would be lost to enemy intrigues and the security of India could not be guaranteed. Russia would see the prize of Constantinople slip from her grasp and confidence in British strength among the Dominions would suffer immeasurably. This was especially so as the General Staff had admitted the futility of the Salonica operations, because of Britain’s likely withdrawal from that theatre, and because after the defeat at Ctesiphon in Mesopotamia in November, the capture of Baghdad would occur too late to save British prestige. Curzon claimed that if withdrawal from the Peninsula had been integral to a broader strategy which would salvage Britain’s standing in the East then he would have supported it. Yet there was no such strategy and British leaders were “wildly groping in the dark”. The abandonment of

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landings at Alexandretta meant that there would be nothing to intercept enemy advances towards Mesopotamia. Curzon considered their advance in strength upon Egypt unlikely in view of physical and logistical obstacles, so he regarded the abandonment of the Peninsula simply to reinforce Egypt as a sterile defensive move which would pin troops to a position where meaningful offensive operations would be impossible. *** Curzon believed his efforts in favour of the campaign to have been worthwhile. To Churchill, in exile on the Western Front, he noted on 30 November that as a result of the discussion Lansdowne, Selborne, Crewe “and one or two others” had sided with him. Bonar Law and Lloyd George were implacable opponents, Balfour was inscrutable–a spectator on Mars–, and Asquith was “inclined to remain” but disinclined to incur Parliamentary opposition by contradicting military advice.63 In Hankey, Curzon found an ally who had personally visited the Peninsula, but whose conviction that evacuation was wrong was qualified by unease (because of his role as Cabinet Secretary), in voicing opinions to which the General Staff would strongly object.64 Curzon, having listened intently to Hankey’s views on 27 November, secured Asquith’s permission to circulate a further memorandum.65 Hankey’s paper and a further memorandum by Curzon were duly circulated to the Cabinet.66 Curzon’s piece reinforced his previous statements about rates of attrition and about the difficulties attending the provision of heavy artillery and ammunition by Germany.67 He argued that the defensive positions at Anzac, Helles and Suvla were such that, even with additions at Suvla, Turkey could not capture those positions with heavy artillery or gas. To his previously apocalyptic vision of the withdrawal he noted: Men will be wading into the water, scrambling on to the boats, swimming hither and thither, and being drowned by the hundred–and all this amid a continuous shell- and rifle-fire, and very likely in contact, on the beaches, with the merciless steel of the bayonet. Taken at its best it must be a gruesome and horrible scene.

Far better that British forces should perish in a frontal assault than “in this welter of carnage and shame.”68 Curzon reinforced his previous argument that those with direct knowledge of the theatre, among them Hamilton, General Walter Braithwaite, Hankey and General D’Amade, were ignored in favour of the General Staff, whose members had practically no such knowledge, and

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who had favoured the disastrous Salonica operation over the proposed sizeable French landings on the Asiatic coast. Furthermore, Russian sensibilities had to be considered. According to Curzon, Russia expected continued efforts on the Peninsula, and was mobilizing a large force for a Balkan campaign. If Britain withdrew then this would further induce Russia to abandon the Allies. Similarly, Rumania, with its “timid and halting King” would have little option but to side with Germany. Curzon argued that British forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula were generally “enfeebled and shaken,” because new drafts had not been forthcoming.69 The winter campaign must involve the replacing of tired troops, the application of the latest techniques in trench warfare, and, if time permitted, landings on the Asiatic coast. Although victory could not be guaranteed, and although he advanced these arguments with diffidence, such a campaign was preferable to withdrawal, “stained at its outset by catastrophic defeat and disaster.” In a post-script to his memorandum, Curzon noted that Hankey had provided implicit support for many of his arguments, and that military commanders on the Peninsula were now willing to cooperate in a combined military and naval attack.70 Notwithstanding his doubts about Kitchener’s judgement, Curzon perceived the willingness of colleagues and of senior officers to defer to him on military affairs.71 Hoping to prevent complete or partial withdrawal at Gallipoli, and in anticipation of a final ruling by the General Staff, on 2 December he asked Kitchener if it was not better to run a local risk by retaining troops at Suvla and Anzac than to jeopardize the wider imperial interest. Referring to Kitchener’s “great experience of Egypt, Syria, Arabia and the East”, he asked if there was not a special obligation on him to reiterate the political objections to such a course.72 These last ditch efforts were supported by feverish activity on Curzon’s part, involving meetings and correspondence with, among others, George Lloyd (later Lord Lloyd of Dolobran), Generals Braithwaite and Walker, and Sir Henry Sclater, the Adjutant General. The purpose of these contacts was to obtain detailed information which might support his arguments and undermine the case for evacuation.73 *** As to the veracity of Curzon’s judgement, his concerns about the impact of withdrawal upon opinion in the East were incorrect. Soon after the withdrawal, Sir William Meyer in Delhi told him that Muslim opinion had not been affected to the extent that had been feared.74 Similarly, efforts to construct an Arab state were not materially affected, not least because it

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had never been intended to create one in the first place. As to losses suffered during the evacuation, Curzon was proved wrong, if only because before it occurred Turkish forces had suffered a sharp rebuff following an Allied attack, and because of favourable weather conditions which permitted the rapid evacuation of the Allied force. However, Beaverbrook’s dismissal of Curzon’s efforts as futile “gyrations of the Die-hards” is ungenerous.75 The implied lack of political judgement is unfair. There is indeed evidence that Curzon’s concerns about the impact of withdrawal upon Anglo-Russian relations were borne out.76 The possibility of Arab support being lost to the enemy was no mere chimera used to justify an unpopular winter campaign but was a continuing fear in the autumn of 1915 and beyond.77 A fortnight before circulating his first Gallipoli paper, Curzon had sent Sir Edward Grey notes by Aubrey Herbert, the traveller and MP, then in military service, in which he argued that the Arab question had reached a crisis. With Arab support operations in Mesopotamia would be easier, the importance of an enemy attack on the Canal would be diminished, and anxiety in India and Egypt would decrease. Although Herbert wrote in order to convince Grey that France must concede territory to meet Arab demands, the implication was clear that a withdrawal from Gallipoli could only undermine relations with the Arabs and British prestige in the East as a whole.78 Also, Curzon’s doubts about the removal of the Gallipoli force to Egypt were borne out by eighteen months of virtual inactivity on the part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. As Curzon had repeatedly stated, the option of a major landing on the Asiatic shore had been neglected and, as Herbert Samuel, the Post-Master General and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster observed, there was little considered military assessment of this option before the decision was taken to evacuate. Specifically, the General Staff had not considered the redeployment of the force from Salonica to the Asiatic shore of the Dardanelles.79 However, with the formation of the War Committee, the slender coalition against evacuation was marginalized further. Kitchener’s prevarications ended with him pronouncing decisively for evacuation.80 Selborne asked Balfour to argue the case against evacuation at Cabinet, on the grounds of its impact on Britain’s prestige, but Balfour declined, claiming that he no longer attached too much importance to it or to the impact of evacuation upon Russia’s continued participation in the war.81 On the matter of prestige, in mid-October, Lord Milner had argued that the military arguments against evacuation had probably been over stated and that the political arguments were “bosh”. In his view, admittedly not that of a cabinet member, what had harmed and continued to harm prestige was failure and unwillingness to admit this. By

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way of an antidote he suggested military success elsewhere.82 More tellingly, in a memorandum written in early December 1915, Bonar Law argued that “obstinacy in impotence would not add to our prestige”. He further argued that there were no military reasons, defensive or offensive to remain on the Peninsula and that, in any case, the transfer of German artillery there would make the Allies’ presence impossible.83 The Dardanelles campaign was not a seminal episode in Curzon’s war. Yet it coincided with his first period at the heart of decision making in war-time. It also encapsulated his attitude later in the conflict towards the conduct of war, with his concern for the ordinary soldier as well as effective generalship, and the maximizing of resources. The detailed interest that he took in many aspects of the campaign, from the terrain involved to the supply of gas to Allied troops, was perhaps indicative of a mind, in some respects less suited to the cut and thrust of politics and more to the consideration of strategic/tactical issues. The campaign also laid the ground for substantial imperial gain later in the war. The opportunity for territorial expansion was the direct corollary of the abandonment of the Peninsula and the need to overcome the gains made by Turkish troops, freed from the Peninsula, as well as of Russia’s collapse. The episode pointed to Curzon’s capacity for intrigue, in his efforts to remove Kitchener, and a lack of sympathy for the challenges faced by Kitchener and Grey in dealing respectively with the military and diplomatic position in the autumn of 1915. Did it also point to Curzon’s stubbornness? As Hankey was to argue, once Bulgaria had fallen the decision in favour of evacuation was unavoidable. Notwithstanding the systemic failings of the Supreme Command, and his own views in 1915, Hankey argued that Curzon’s and other last-ditchers’ objections obstructed the execution by the War Committee of its decision. As he put it, “Ministers who are left out must assert themselves.”84 Perhaps, on this occasion, Curzon did so not only because of his personality but also because he sensed that Britain would not have to honour its agreement with Russia. In 1920, Curzon claimed that the main purpose of the war in the East and of the sacrifices at Gallipoli had been to deny Constantinople to the Turk and to eject them from Europe: not to hand over the prize to Russia.85 Hankey, in his memorandum of 29 November, admitted implicitly several of Curzon’s arguments. In advocating an advance on the Asiatic coast, Curzon envisaged the severing of Turkish communications from Asia Minor to the Peninsula. Thus weakened Turkish forces would be unable to withstand further attacks. If the British official history of the campaign is to be believed, if British troops had landed on the Asiatic shore in late August 1915 they would have faced not the twelve or more

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thousand Turkish troops that were believed to be there but a mere two thousand, strung out between Chanak and Yukyeri Bay.86 And yet, apparently, besides any other impediments to its realisation, this was thwarted as much by bad blood between Generals Sarrail and Joffre, and the latter’s unwillingness to see his rival lead a substantial army to the Dardanelles.87 Curzon’s tendency to assert his personal experience and superior knowledge of the East irritated his colleagues but his recollection of the plains of Troy suggested that they might offer an Allied force a base from which to advance to higher ground north of Chanak.88 There was, even among Turkish commanders retrospective support for the view of Curzon and others that if Hamilton had obtained sufficient fresh drafts and supplies, then at certain critical moments the campaign might easily have swung in the Allies’ favour.89 The news from Sofia in the spring and summer of 1915 was not all bad.90 If British and French attacks had been prosecuted with vigour and in concert with Russian advances and if more concerted efforts had been made to enlist Bulgaria especially but also Greece and Romania, the war might have been shortened considerably.91 Curzon adhered to this line of thought in his written evidence to the Dardanelles Commission in 1917, noting Lord Lansdowne’s and Balfour’s support for his first memorandum, as well as Hankey’s implicit backing. It was, Curzon concluded, “one of the most tragic, though heroic, chapters of English history.”92 *** This was not quite the end of the matter. Prior to the Dardanelles Commission, in March 1917 the New Zealand Premier, Vincent Massey had tabled for discussion the protection of imperial war graves and cemeteries at Gallipoli at the imminent Imperial Conference. He wanted to create an imperial body to safeguard them.93 He and others argued strongly for the transfer to that body of the land on the Peninsula on which Allied graves were situated.94 However, British efforts before and after the conference to obtain permission from Turkey either to send officers to the cemeteries or graves, or to have them accept a United States inspection had met with limited success.95 These matters were of continuing interest to Curzon in the winter of 1918-19 and later, when debate occurred at the highest levels about the future of Constantinople. Curzon, as chairman of the War Cabinet’s Eastern Committee and, from January 1919, Acting Foreign Secretary, argued opportunistically, and in direct contradiction to his earlier statements, that the Dardanelles campaign was “conceived on the soundest strategical [sic] lines”, and that its failure was caused by

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Turkish possession of Constantinople.96 By then, of course, he pressed for their dispossession but the enduring lack of clarity as to whether the city, its environs, as well as the Gallipoli Peninsula should be placed under mandatory supervision, complicated discussions about cemeteries. Should the issue be dealt with by the Supreme Council in Paris or by the Foreign Office in London? The issue of Allied cemeteries and graves on the Gallipoli Peninsula recurred in 1920 when the partition of the Ottoman Empire was discussed at the San Remo conference in April, and embodied in the Treaty of Sevres in August. By virtue of article 218 of the treaty, and to some extent because of Massey’s insistence on the issue, duly supported by the Colonial Secretary Lord Milner, and by Curzon, ownership (but apparently not sovereignty) of the land on which British and British Imperial war dead lay on the Peninsula, as well as of the land required for maintaining and accessing cemeteries, would be transferred to Britain.97 However, then it was envisaged that the Peninsula would be taken over by Greece, whose forces, backed by Lloyd George, were then pegging out claims in Smyrna. The Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) established an office on the Peninsula. It sought to concentrate outlying graves, in pursuance of the earlier work of the British Graves Registration Unit, and began to construct cemeteries.98 The treaty also provided for Britain, France and Italy to appoint a commission, possibly with Turkish and Greek representation, to examine areas where burial had or may have taken place, and to make suggestions about the re-grouping of graves and about the location of cemeteries.99 These activities, as well as Allied strategic interests more generally, were to be protected by a sizeable demilitarized zone which flanked the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the Straits. These clauses in the treaty were to be implemented according to a strict timetable which had not reckoned on the resurgence of Turkish nationalism in the autumn of 1922. Until their ignominious withdrawal from Smyrna, Greece was to have exercised sovereignty over the Gallipoli Peninsula. This prospect and the Treaty of Sèvres disappeared when France and Italy decided to withdraw their forces from Chanak as well as from the Gallipoli Peninsula (which they ostensibly held).100 The prospect arose of British forces concentrating on the Peninsula as a defensive stronghold against Turkish forces.101 This would surely result in the desecration of graves, to say nothing of a second ‘Gallipoli’ campaign. This prospect worried Curzon but not, apparently, Churchill.102 In the infamous exchange of telegrams between Downing Street and the Dominions in September 1922, when the latter were asked to commit their troops to contain Turkish forces, and in preliminary discussions at Cabinet,

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Churchill and Lloyd George alluded to the safeguarding of the graves on the Peninsula as well as the sanctity of that place.103 Though disappointed by Poincaré’s obduracy, Curzon was more realistic than either Lloyd George or Churchill in his assessment of the military balance. Compromise with Turkey was unavoidable. And yet, before and during the Lausanne Conference he insisted on the transfer to Britain of the land on which the cemeteries stood as a “Category A” or “essential” requirement.104 To this end, he had also to dissuade Ismet Pasha, chief Turkish delegate at the Lausanne negotiations, from pressing for a Turkish garrison on the Peninsula, something which would contravene the terms of the demilitarized zone. In so doing he was almost certainly influenced by Turkish suspicions of British policy regarding the graves and a more general fear that Britain intended to remain in occupation of the Peninsula indefinitely.105 On 24 January 1923, Turkey raised objections about the extent of land at Ari Burnu, next to Anzac Cove, which had been set aside by the IWGC at the request of the Australian and New Zealand governments for Anzac cemeteries. Turkey claimed that the land must not exceed the ground occupied by graves already concentrated and identified. It also claimed the right to examine the sites, to recommend restrictions to the IWGC, and suggested that further exhumations and concentration of graves might be necessary. As Curzon reported to the Cabinet, the British Delegation with allied support, “absolutely refused to consider Turkish pretensions”, and stated that they could not be expected to evacuate the Peninsula until fully assured that the cemeteries already established there would be left undisturbed.106 When told of Turkish moves, William Hughes, the Australian Prime Minister stated that if implemented Australia would regard them as a causus belli.107 Curzon demolished Turkish objections at a meeting of the Territorial and Military Commission of the Lausanne conference on 27 January 1923. To Ismet’s claims of Turkish veneration of the war dead, Curzon suggested that together they might visit the British cemetery at Smyrna and the French cemetery at Aintab, where evidence of such veneration was conspicuously lacking.108 The point at issue was not the nineteen Anzac cemeteries at Ari Burnu, which Turkey was prepared to cede, but the land intervening between those sites. As Curzon explained, it was uncultivated and uninhabited, and was a maze of abandoned trenches. He resisted Turkish claims to contest the location and design of existing cemeteries that had been established by the IWGC. Ismet Pasha must see for himself the respectful manner in which Turkish cemeteries were treated in Mesopotamia, Palestine and on the Suez Canal. Curzon continued:

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You cannot haggle over the dead. You can haggle over everything else, as you have been doing during the last few weeks, but you cannot bargain with the corpses of the soldiers who have lost their lives in the service of their country. In a matter of this sort you are up against the outraged sentiments of humanity. We respect your sentiments; do the same with ours. When I go into a Turkish mosque I am quite prepared to put slippers or other coverings on my feet to keep them from touching the pavement because you regard it as holy ground. We have exactly the same sentiments for the ground in which the bodies of our soldiers lie, and we insist on proper respect for it. I said just now that we are only too anxious to remove our troops from Constantinople. We are equally anxious to remove the British troops from Gallipoli. Not a man shall be moved until this question has been settled in a spirit of decency, equity and honour.

On this occasion, Ismet held fast expressing his suspicion that the wartime Allies in attempting to retain a strip of land at Ari Burnu, and in seeking to enlarge cemeteries elsewhere, had military and political aims. The land at Ari Burnu had served as the chief centre of operations during the Dardanelles Campaign, and it might be so used again.109 The result of Curzon’s tenacity, duly supported by his French and Italian colleagues, was the inclusion of detailed safeguards for the preservation and upkeep of the cemeteries in several clauses of the Treaty of Lausanne. Turkish sovereignty would persist in the Gallipoli Peninsula but Britain, as well as France and Italy (elsewhere in Turkey), obtained a grant in perpetuity of the land on which their dead lay or were commemorated, as well as guarantees of free access to it. Disputed land between the Ari Burnu cemeteries was ceded to Britain subject to guarantees as to its use for non-military purposes and its inspection by Turkish officials, among other things. These issues were entrusted to British, French and Italian commissions that would include a Turkish or Greek representative.110 The work of a joint Anglo-Turkish War Cemeteries Commission, created in 1924 was afflicted by continuing Turkish suspicions, but proceeded to delineate areas in which cemeteries and graves were located, and which might come under the protection of the IWGC. The AngloTurkish Commission, and indeed the graves and cemeteries which it oversaw, were a neglected legacy of Curzon’s successful negotiations at Lausanne and a testament to his veneration of those Allied servicemen who gave their lives at Gallipoli.111

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Notes 1

A. Dudley, A Milestone of Memory. The Marquis Curzon of Kedleston, Denison Ross Mss, PP Ms 8/37 (School of Oriental and African Studies, London). 2 See, for example, D. Walder, The Chanak Affair (London, 1969), pp. 235-7; D. Gilmour, Curzon (London, 1994), p. 544. 3 As such, the chapter presents a synopsis of Curzon’s role in the campaign and its aftermath but not a detailed military analysis. 4 Curzon to Lord Lamington, 18 May 1915, quoted in C. Hazlehurst, Politicians at War July 1914 to May 1915: a Prologue to the Triumph of Lloyd George (London, 1971), p. 286. 5 Memorandum by Curzon, n.d. (c. Jan. 1915), British Library Additional Manuscripts [hereinafter BL Add Mss] Balfour Mss, 49693. 6 See Brigadier-General C. F. Aspinall-Oglander, History of the Great War. Military Operations Gallipoli, 2 vols. (London, 1929/1932), vol. I., pp. 78, 80-81, 133-4, 155, 157, 257-64. 7 See correspondence at Curzon Mss, Ms Eur. F112/108a/62, F112/111/26 (BL). Unless otherwise stated, all remaining references are to this collection. 8 G. W. F. Brown (1/6 Devon Regiment to Curzon), 25 Dec. 1916, Ms Eur. F112/112b/213. Curzon, in his letters of condolence, was noted by Lord Redesdale to have “the gift of touching the right note”; Redesdale to Curzon, 20 May 1915, Ms Eur. F112/108a/172. Like many statesmen, Curzon either met or corresponded with officers on leave. 9 Secretary’s notes of a meeting of the Dardanelles Committee [hereafter Dardanelles Committee], secret, 19 Aug. 1915, Ms Eur F112/161. 10 Summarized in Gilmour, Curzon, pp. 443-5. Curzon’s fervour in this regard neglected his personal valet whose exemption from military service he requested. C. P. Scott, when visiting Curzon’s London home in Apr. 1917, noted “numerous flunkeys apparently of military age”; T. Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of C P Scott, 1911-28 (London, 1970), p. 279. 11 Curzon to Balfour, 1 Aug. 1915, Balfour Papers, Add Ms. 49734 (BL). 12 On this issue, see G. H. Cassar, The French and the Dardanelles: a study of failure in the conduct of war (London, 1971), pp. 111-12, n.58. 13 D. Fromkin, A Peace to End all Peace: Creating the Modern Middle East (New York, 1991), pp. 99-100. 14 Curzon to Cromer, 22 Apr. 1915, Cromer Papers, FO 633/24/77 (T[he] N[ational] A[archives], Kew). 15 Sir Percy Cox, Chief Political Officer of the Mesopotamian force, was clear about the connection between military operations in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli; Cox to Curzon, 27 Mar. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/107/159. See also, D. French, ‘The Dardanelles, Mecca and Kut, Prestige as a Factor in British Eastern Strategy, 19141916’, War and Society, 5, 1 (1987), pp. 54-7. 16 Fraser to Curzon, 28 May and 6 Oct. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/108b/225, F112/109/130. Fisher and Fraser corresponded and met during the Dardanelles operations: Maxwell Fraser Papers, P/213-8 (National Library of Wales,

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Aberystwyth). Fraser wrote for The Times, the Daily Mail and the Sunday Pictorial, was a former editor of The Times of India and author of India under Curzon and after (1911). Valentine Chirol, another Eastern pundit, who led a secret mission to the Balkans in the summer of 1915, also emphasised the possible repercussions of the campaign: Chirol to Curzon, 10 Jun. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/108b/289. On Chirol’s mission, see L. Fritzinger, Diplomat Without Portfolio: Valentine Chirol, His Life and The Times (London, 2006), pp. 456-64. On this issue also see French, ‘The Dardanelles’, passim. 17 Cromer, echoing Curzon’s scepticism about the Arab kingdom and operations in Mesopotamia, noted that success at the Dardanelles was essential as “failure would give a fatal blow to our influence throughout the East”; Cromer to Wingate, 23 Apr. 1915, Cromer Papers, FO 633/24/278 (TNA). 18 Entry of 23 Aug. 1915, vol. 23, Diaries and Memoranda 1914-19, Randall Davidson Papers (L[ambeth] P[alace] L[ibrary], London). Davidson had visited Curzon “by arrangement [and] very privately.” Hamilton reiterated the danger of withdrawal to Kitchener on the following day: Hamilton to Kitchener, 24 Sept. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/160/33. 19 Curzon to Cromer, 17 May 1915, Cromer Papers, FO 633/24/100 (TNA). 20 Curzon’s source was Lord Midleton, whose son served at Gallipoli as aide-decamp to Sir Ian Hamilton; Hon G. Brodrick to Lord Midleton, 21 May 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/49, Brodrick to Curzon, 11 May 1915, Ms Eur. F112/108a/118. Other, similar, accounts reached Curzon; J. P. Dodge to Curzon, 9 Jul. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/109/9. 21 Curzon to Balfour, 1 Aug. 1915, Balfour Papers, Add Ms. 49734 (BL). 22 ‘A Note on the General Situation’, W[inston] S[pencer] C[hurchill], 1 Jun. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/55. See A. L. Macfie, ‘The Straits Question in the First World War, 1914-18’, Middle Eastern Studies, 19, 1 (1983). 23 Hamilton to Kitchener, 7 and 8 Jun. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/66-7. 24 See n.22, Churchill’s note. 25 See, for example, Bourchier to Curzon, 9 Jul. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/114a/72. 26 Curzon to Balfour, 5 Oct. 1915, Balfour Papers, Add Ms 49734, BL. 27 ‘The Dardanelles’, Selborne, 4 Jun. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/60. Selborne remained, with Curzon, and broadly for the same reasons as him, a steadfast opponent of evacuation; Selborne to Bonar Law, 7 Jul. 1915, BL/51/1/10, Bonar Law Papers (H[ouse] of L[ords] R[ecord] O[ffice], London). 28 Balfour to Curzon, 19 Jun. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/105; Note by Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for India, 27 Jul. 1915, circulating excerpt of Hardinge to Chamberlain, 2 Jul. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/167. See also D. French, British Strategy and War Aims, 1914-1916 (London, 1986), pp. 136-8, and French, ‘The Dardanelles’, p. 54. 29 On d’Amade’s ideas, see Cassar, The French, p. 116. 30 Dardanelles Committee, 17 Jun. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. 31 See, for example, Hamilton to Kitchener, 20 Jun. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/109, and Hamilton to Churchill, 18 Jun. 1915, Hamilton Papers 7/1/1 (L[iddell H[art] C[entre] for M[ilitary] A[archives]).

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32 Maucorps and Gouraud favoured a landing at Besika Bay: Cassar, The French, pp. 82, 136, 147-8. On Bailloud, Sarrail, and French schemes in Asia more generally, idem., pp. 147-8, 159-60, 169-70, 174, 195-6; Hamilton to Kitchener, 5 Jul. 1915, and Note by Lord Esher of a Conversation with Colonel Girodon, 14 Jul. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/137, 153. Girodon was chief of staff to General Gouraud. Also see Aspinall-Oglander, Military Operations Gallipoli, vol. 2, p. 146. 33 See, for example, Percy [Radcliffe, Directorate of Military Operations, War Office] to Wilson, 20 Sept. 1915, on the “sensible scheme” of using French reinforcements there; Wilson Papers HHW 2/77/71 (Imperial War Museum, London). 34 ‘The Dardanelles Position’, L. S. Amery, Leo Amery Papers AMEL 1/3/26/2 (C[hurchill] A[rchives] C[entre], Cambridge); Amery, My Political Life, vol. 2, War and Peace, 1914-29 (London, 1953), pp. 50, 61. Similarly, Amery argued for a major landing at Smyrna to secure the whole of Western Turkey and impede enemy communications with Constantinople; ‘Notes on a Turkish Campaign’, 1 Dec. 1915, Amery Papers AMEL 1/3/28 (CAC). 35 Hamilton to Kitchener, 29 Jun. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/159/121. He then blocked it in the following month: Cassar, The French, p. 148. 36 Cassar, The French, pp. 188, 195. 37 ‘Note on the Possibility of Military Operations on the Asiatic Shore of the Dardanelles’, Curzon, 22 Jul. 1915, attached to Dardanelles Committee, 24 Jul. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. 38 Ibid. Dardanelles Committee. 39 The British Military Attaché in St Petersburg, Colonel Knox, and his brother kept Curzon abreast of Russia’s military capabilities. See, for example, Knox to Curzon, 9 Jul. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/115/34. On Knox’s ability and knowledge, see K. Neilson, Strategy and Supply: The Anglo-Russian Alliance 1914-17 (London 1984), pp. 30-32. See n.18, meeting with Davidson. 40 Dardanelles Committee, 31 Aug. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. 41 ‘Committee of Imperial Defence, The Dardanelles, Memorandum on the Situation, August 30, 1915, Prepared by the Secretary after a personal visit’, secret, G.-19, CAB 24/1 (TNA). 42 Dardanelles Committee, 3 Sept. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. 43 On Curzon’s intrigues against Kitchener, see Turner, British Politics, pp. 67-8. 44 Turner, British Politics, p. 69; C. J. Lowe, ‘The Failure of British Diplomacy in the Balkans, 1914-1916’, Canadian Journal of History, 4 (1969), pp. 73-100. On Bulgaria’s entry into the war, see G. E. Silberstein, ‘The Serbian Campaign of 1915: Its Diplomatic Background’, American Historical Review, 63, 1 (1967), pp. 51-69. On Grey’s perception of the difficulties involved in creating a Balkan alliance, see K. G. Robbins, Sir Edward Grey: A Biography of Lord Grey of Fallodon (London, 1971), p. 309. 45 Dardanelles Committee, 24 Sept. and 11 Oct. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. Curzon was Vice-President of the Serbian Relief Fund. 46 Appreciation by the General Staff of the Actual and Prospective Military Situation in the various Theatres of War, Oct. 2, 1915, A. J. Murray, Lieutenant-

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General, appended to Dardanelles Committee, 4 Oct. 1915; Dardanelles Committee, 11 Oct. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. Hankey had also suggested such talks. 47 Precisely because he considered an advance on Baghdad in Oct. 1915 too risky, Curzon, having previously argued that occupation of Alexandretta might disrupt Turkish attacks against Baghdad and Egypt, counselled against landings there; Dardanelles Committee, 21 Oct. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. 48 The final decision arose from an Anglo-French conference in Paris and was communicated to Kitchener on 19 Nov. See also Asquith to Kitchener and Kitchener’s reply, 12 and 13 Nov. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/158. 49 See, for example, J. Nevakivi, ‘Lord Kitchener and the Partition of the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916’, in K. Bourne and D. C. Watt (eds), Studies in International History (London, 1967); J. Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism in the Middle East, 1916-19 (London, 1999), pp. 1-8; E. Tauber, ‘Alexandretta: Three Plans Blocked’, Army Quarterly and Defence Journal, vol. 122 (1992), pp. 294-300. 50 Dardanelles Committee, 25 Oct. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. 51 Entry of 18 Nov. 1915, vol. 23, Diaries and Memoranda 1914-19, Davidson Papers (LPL). Membership of the War Committee had been made public on 11 Nov. 1915. 52 The many influences in this regard included Hamilton, with whom Curzon had discussed the issue, and McMahon, who had written to Grey on 11 and 23 Nov. about the disastrous impact of evacuation on the Arab mind. McMahon’s views had been circulated widely; Ms Eur. F112/160/155,172. The War Committee pronounced in favour of evacuation on 23 Nov. on the basis of a telegram from Kitchener of 22 Nov. which suggested that the position on the Peninsula was untenable, and a paper by the General Staff. 53 On the eve of the Cabinet discussion Curzon wrote to Selborne asking for his support in opposing a “dangerous & possibly fatal policy”; Curzon to Selborne, 23 Nov. 1915, Selborne Mss., Ms. 10 (Bodleian Library, Oxford). 54 ‘The Evacuation of Gallipoli’, Curzon, 25 Nov. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/160/183. Unless otherwise noted remaining material on pages relates to this memorandum. 55 Cassar, The French, p. 215. 56 Entry of 26 Nov. 1915, 1/1 Hankey Diaries (CAC); quoted, with minor amendment in Hankey, Supreme Command, p. 461. Reginald McKenna, Chancellor of the Exchequer, considered it “extraordinarily powerful in its effect upon the reader”; McKenna to Curzon, note at Cabinet, 26 Nov. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/115/122. Lord Stamfordham, private secretary to King George V, who had lost a son and a son-in-law in the war, observed of Curzon’s two memoranda that they were “stirring reading–But oh! What a momentous decision to arrive at! And when is that ‘arrival’ to be?!”; Stamfordham to Curzon, 1 Dec. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/115/319. Emphasis in original. 57 Lord Crewe, Lord President of the Council, previously noted the reliance upon westerner military advice. To him the decision to stay or not was finely balanced. In early November, though much concerned by the impact of withdrawal upon Britain’s position in the East, and “haunted by the objections”, he favoured

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evacuation; Crewe to Bonar Law, 5 Nov. 1915, Bonar Law Papers BL/51/5/8 (HLRO). 58 In fact Curzon was complicit in Hamilton’s recall and had also recommended the replacement of General Braithwaite; Dardanelles Committee 14 Oct. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/161. Hamilton was almost certainly oblivious to this, and continued to correspond with Curzon about the details of his dismissal and supplied him with information to support the argument against evacuation; Hamilton to Curzon, 25 Nov., 9 Dec. and Curzon to Hamilton, 26 Nov. 1915, Hamilton Papers 7/1/53 (LHCMA). 59 Balfour advanced a similar argument; ‘Gallipoli’, secret, 19 Nov. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/160/165. 60 Curzon used the expression when writing to Churchill on 30 November, noting that he had simply “caught [Churchill’s] mantle” in connection with the Dardanelles, after Churchill’s resignation; Curzon to Churchill, 30 Nov. 1915, reproduced in M. Gilbert, Winston S Churchill: Companion Volume III, Part 2, May 1915-December 1916 (London, 1972), pp. 1294-7. 61 In so writing, and alluding to the sixth and seventh books of Thucydides, Curzon contributed signally to the romanticism and Hellenism which came to surround the campaign; J. MacLeod, ‘The British Heroic-Romantic Myth of Gallipoli’, in MacLeod (ed.), Gallipoli: Making History (London, 2004), pp. 73-85; Reconsidering Gallipoli (Manchester, 1994), pp. 6-18 and passim. 62 McMahon had argued similarly when attempting to revive the Alexandretta scheme. He opposed abandonment of the Peninsula and suggested an alternative strategy of defending Egypt from within its own borders; McMahon to Grey, 23 Nov. Ms Eur. F112/160/172. 63 See n.60, Curzon to Churchill, 30 Nov. Sources differ slightly on other senior ministers’ opinions. According to Beaverbrook, Walter Long, President of the Local Government Board, though much impressed by Curzon’s arguments, sided with Bonar Law, as did Austen Chamberlain; Lord Beaverbrook, Politicians and the War, 1914-16 (London, 1960), pp. 158-9. Chamberlain considered Hankey’s paper of 29 Nov. more impressive than Curzon’s memorandum because freer of rhetoric; Chamberlain to Bonar Law, 30 Nov. 1915, Bonar Law Papers BL/117/1/26 (HLRO). 64 Nevertheless he intervened to prevent Bonar Law’s resignation early in Nov., portraying the decision to evacuate or not as a “choice of disasters” but one in which, on political grounds especially, evacuation would appear “the greater & more certain disaster”; Hankey to Bonar Law, 6 Nov. 1915, enclosing memorandum by Hankey, same date, Bonar Law Papers BL/51/5/14-15 (HLRO). 65 Hankey, Supreme Command, p. 461; Asquith to Hankey, 27 Nov. 1915, enclosing Curzon to Asquith, same date, copy, Hankey Papers HNKY 4/7 (CAC). See R. Rhodes James, Gallipoli (London, 1965), p. 337, and Aspinall-Oglander, Military Operations Gallipoli, vol. 2, pp. 428-31, 436. 66 See n. 60, Curzon to Churchill. Curzon’s paper is at, ‘The Evacuation of Gallipoli II’, Curzon, 29 Nov. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/160/258, and Hankey’s, ‘The

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Future Military Policy at the Dardanelles, Memorandum by the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence’, G.-43, 29 Nov. 1915, CAB 24/1 (TNA). 67 Ibid. Curzon’s memorandum. 68 Ibid. 69 This was also the crux of Hankey’s memorandum; Hankey, Supreme Command, 462. On the significance of Russia in British planning and the Dardanelles Campaign, see Neilson, Strategy, pp. 43-140 and his, ‘Kitchener: A Reputation Refurbished?’, Canadian Journal of History, 15 (1980), pp. 208-27. 70 n. 66, memoranda by Curzon and Hankey. Several Naval commanders keenly supported a further attempt at the Dardanelles. See, for example, P. G. Halpern (ed.), The Keyes Papers, vol. 1: 1914-1918 (London, 1979), pp. 268-9, 283-5. 71 Curzon had intrigued to have Kitchener replaced and to some he was the most likely replacement; Frances Stevenson Diary, quoted in M. Gilbert, Companion Volume, pp. 1173-4. 72 Curzon to Kitchener, 2 Dec. 1915, Kitchener Papers PRO 30/57/80 (TNA), also at Ms Eur. F112/162. 73 Sclater to Curzon, 29 Nov. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/160/239, and foll. notes by Curzon. Lloyd, besides having served on Birdwood’s staff at Gallipoli, had, like Curzon, taken an interest in the disruption of Turkish coal supplies; J. Charmley, Lord Lloyd and the Decline of the British Empire (London, 1987), pp. 44-5. 74 Meyer to Curzon, 3 Jan. 1916, Ms Eur. F112/111/8. Meyer, a member of the Governor-General’s Council, corresponded regularly with Curzon. 75 Beaverbrook, Politicians and the War, 170. Beaverbrook, a close ally of Bonar Law, praised his opposition to the campaign but in mid-July Bonar Law, partly because of indications that the Turks were very short of ammunition, argued that the campaign could not be abandoned: French, British Strategy, p. 105, unsigned letter to Wilson, 15 Jul. 1915, copy, BL/53/6/33, Bonar Law Papers (HLRO); original at Wilson Papers, HHW 2/77/12 (IWM). 76 W. W. Gottlieb, Studies in Secret Diplomacy during the First World War (London, 1957), pp. 130-31. 77 General Birdwood argued consistently that evacuation from the Peninsula or a reverse there would undermine British prestige in the East; Birdwood to Harcourt Butler, 26 June and 28 Dec. 1915, Ms Eur. F116/33, Harcourt Butler Papers (BL). 78 Note by Aubrey Herbert, 30 [Oct.], 1915, in Grey to Curzon, 9 Nov. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/110/89. 79 Samuel to Curzon, 28 Nov. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/110/146, and Curzon to Samuel, 29 Nov. 1915, SAM/A/155/4, Samuel Papers (HLRO). 80 Hankey summarized these in The Supreme Command, pp. 457-9, 462. 81 Selborne to Balfour, 10 Nov., and reply, 29 Nov. 1915, Balfour Papers Add. Ms 49708 (BL). Balfour had displayed inconsistency on other aspects of the campaign; M. Gilbert, ‘Churchill and Gallipoli’, in MacLeod (ed.), Gallipoli, p. 36. 82 Milner to Amery, 15 Oct. 1915, Amery Papers AMEL 1/3/41 (CAC). 83 Memorandum by A[rthur] B[onar] L[aw], 4 Dec. 1915, CAB 38/139, TNA. 84 Hankey, Supreme Command, p. 464.

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T. Higgins, Winston Spencer Churchill and the Dardanelles (London, 1963), p. 172. 86 Aspinall-Oglander, Military Operation, Gallipoli, vol. 2, pp. 369-70. 87 Cassar, The French, pp. 242-3. 88 The force of this point was brought home to the author on a visit to the Gallipoli Peninsula and to Troy and Çanakkale (formerly Chanak) in Oct. 2007. My septuagenarian Turkish guide, Capt. Ali Effe, a former submarine commander, who had known the battlefields intimately since boyhood, and a harsh critic of British war aims and military tactics, conceded that an attack in strength on the Asiatic shore may well have succeeded. V. Rudendo, Gallipoli: Attack from the Sea (Yale, 2008), pp. 266-7, suggests that a force landed there would soon have encountered opposition from guns on the Peninsula and from Turkish forces to the east in Anatolia. Field-Marshal Liman von Sanders, Commander-in-Chief of Turkish forces on the Peninsula, disagreed: Cassar, The French, p. 117; AspinallOglander, Military Operations Gallipoli, I, pp. 155, 259. 89 Aspinall-Oglander, Official History, p. 482. Also, Macfie, ‘The Straits Question’, pp. 54-5. 90 As late as Sept. 1915, the British Legation in Sofia received news of the Turkish authorities’ belief that their troops could not hold the Peninsula beyond the end of the month. W. J. Garnett (Second Secretary) to his mother, 11 Sept. 1915, Quernmore Papers DDQ 9/36/19 (Lancashire Record Office, Preston). 91 Balfour had also noted the slender margin which separated the Allies from success in the East in 1915; Memorandum of 27 Dec. 1915, Ms Eur. F112/160/295. See also, M. Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (London, 1994), pp. 47-65. General Smuts also later argued in this sense; Hamilton to Birdwood, 7 Aug. 1917, Birdwood Papers D686/77 (BL). 92 ‘The Dardanelles Operations, June 1915 to January 1916’, 10 Mar. 1917, Ms Eur. F112/162. 93 ‘Notice of motion (Handed in by Mr Massey), 24 March 1917’, Papers of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, WQ/2, Maidenhead, Berkshire (CWGC). 94 Parl. Papers. Imperial War Conference[s] 1917 [and 1918]. Extracts from Minutes of Proceedings and Papers Laid Before the Conference, May 1917, Cd. 8566 [Cd. 9177]. 95 ‘Notes for Imperial Conference’, nd but c. April 1917, WQ/2 (CWGC). 96 Minutes of a meeting of the Eastern Committee, 23 Dec. 1918, E.C. 46, secret, annex, CAB 27/24. 97 This, as well as several other clauses, applied to Britain, France and Italy equally throughout Turkey as well as in parts of Turkey occupied by Greek forces. ‘Treaty of Peace with Turkey, signed at Sèvres, August 10 1920’, Cmd. 964, 1920. Minute by L[ouis] M[allet], nd. (c. 18 Feb. 1919), FO 608/116/6, and later correspondence on the file. Also, see generally, FO 608/117/1, and specifically H. Lambert to Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 12 Nov. 1919, in F. G. A. Butler (for Curzon) to Crowe, 26 Nov. 1919. 98 For the work of the GRU, see W[ar]O[ffice] 32/5640 (TNA).

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79

Ibid. See also, Fabian Ware to Foreign Office, 20 Oct. 1922, Ms Eur. F112/296. M. Gilbert, World in Torment: Winston S. Churchill 1917-1922 (London, 1990), p. 821. 101 Cabinet Minutes, 7 Sept. 1922, CAB 23/31; cited in ibid., p. 824. 102 Ibid., p. 839. 103 P. M. Sales, ‘W. M. Hughes and the Chanak Crisis of 1922’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 17 (1971), pp. 393-5; also, Gilbert, ibid., pp. 825-6. 104 Points alluded to in Lord Curzon’s telegram of 14 Nov., to Lord Hardinge [communicated to French 15 Nov.], Ms Eur. F112/285. 105 Lord Curzon, no. 140, 20 Dec. 1922, Ms Eur. F112/285; Henderson to Curzon, 17 Jul. 1923, FO 371/9122/E7599. 106 Lord Curzon, no. 230, 24 Jan. 1923, Ms Eur. F112/285. 107 ‘Anzac Graves’, Devonshire (Colonial Secretary), 29 Jan. 1923, CP 54 (23); Lindsay, 29 Jan. 1923, Ms Eur. F112/285. 108 Territorial and Military Commission. Draft Minutes of 23rd meeting, 27 Jan. 1923, Ms Eur. F112/293. 109 This was precluded by article 219 of the Treaty of Sèvres. 110 ‘Treaty of Peace with Turkey’, Hankey, 5 Feb. 1924, CP 64 (24), CAB 24/14 (TNA). These safeguards were essential as pillaging of graves at Anzac Cove had occurred; Col. Hughes (Deputy Director of Works, IWGC) to Rumbold (High Commissioner, Constantinople), 16 Apr. 1923, FO 839/51/76. 111 Curzon was also a patron of the war memorial at Christ Church, Constantinople, established to commemorate British and British Imperial casualties at Gallipoli and in the Near East more generally; U. F. Ruxton to Curzon, 14 Jan. 1920, FO 800/157/180. On the wider strategic backdrop and Curzon’s success, see A. L. Macfie, ‘The Straits Question: The Conference of Lausanne (November 1922-July 1923)’, Middle Eastern Studies, 15, 2 (1979), pp. 211-38, 235. 100

CHAPTER FOUR “THAT VILLAIN LORD SUMNER”? LORD SUMNER, LLOYD GEORGE AND REPARATIONS AT THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE, 1919 ANTONY LENTIN

“I enclose £5.00 for the Vienna fund - as conscience money for having failed to assassinate that villain Lord Sumner when I had the chance”. —Harold Nicolson to R.W. Seton-Watson, 12 January 1920 1

Nearly a century on, Keynes’ account of the Paris Peace Conference continues to exert its seemingly unbreakable grip. It is in the nature of caricature to seize on part of the truth and bring it out by exaggeration, masking or distorting the rest and obliterating the nuances; and in his unforgettable triptych of the “Big Three” and the interplay of their characters at Paris, the assured brilliance of the caricature bewitches the imagination and paralyses the critical faculties. The magnetism of Keynes’ black comedy also extends to lesser figures at the Conference,2 including the pair whom he nicknamed “The Heavenly Twins” or “The Twins” --the British delegates most immediately associated with the reparation chapter of the Treaty of Versailles-- Lords Sumner and Cunliffe. The nickname, irreverently applied to what he perceived as two vindictive and irresponsible sexagenarians, spread quickly through the British and American delegations and was familiar to President Wilson and Lloyd George. It was Keynes’ original intention to include in The Economic Consequences of the Peace an account of the Twins as the chief agents of a policy which he denounced as ill-conceived and immoral, leading lights in the demonology of the Conference and deep-dyed villains of the peace. In a lurid preliminary sketch he portrayed them as follows:

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Cunliffe, a jovial bully, was aware of and amused by the nickname ”the Twins”, commenting that while he and his “twin” “were treated as outcasts at first”,4 they did after all have the last laugh at Paris and “it can never be truthfully said”, as he wrote to Sumner, “that we (say you) let the Hun down gently, for all his squealing”. And since two could play at nicknames, he dubbed Keynes “Herr von Keynes”.5 Sumner was in a different, more formidable category. In the proofs of his book Keynes presents him as a character of high melodrama. “I recall at the Conference of Paris”, he wrote: A figure of sinister influence who presided over the problems of Reparation in the spirit and with the aspect of a Holy Inquisitor. But this misanthrope sought to inflict his tortures on suffering Humanity neither for their own salvation, nor for the greater glory of God, but to obtain money for his own class and compatriots.6

Keynes intended this striking cameo to feature among the other penportraits that enliven the book, to which no doubt it would have made a remarkable addition. Yet even his portrait of Lloyd George was not published in full until 1933;7 and warned that his description of Sumner was libellous, and admitting with regard to the Twins that “I could not give a true and intelligible account of they part they played without some breach of confidence”,8 he decided to omit from his narrative all direct reference to them. This choice vignette went no further than the galley proofs, and posterity was thus deprived of an original and piquant study of the Rt. Hon Lord Sumner. But at Paris Keynes made no secret of his aversion, and word spread. Harold Nicolson detested the Twins –“the old fire-eaters”,9 as he called them. He was, the American Vance McCormick noted, “very bitter against Lord Sumner”. Nicolson told McCormick that the entire British delegation was “against Sumner”, who “influenced Lloyd George and made [the] treaty clauses too drastic”.10 That in a nutshell was the charge against Sumner: that he cast an evil eye on the Prime Minister and came between him and a sensible outcome on reparations, and that Lloyd George, for all his good intentions, could not or dared not resist him. James Headlam-Morley provides another variant on the black legend. After the signing of the Treaty, he and Nicolson dined at the Hotel Majestic at a supposedly celebratory dinner. By an odd twist of fate the

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Twins were their table companions. The next day, Headlam-Morley, in a letter to his teenage daughter, described them in mock-Shakespearean terms, casting Lloyd George as Richard III: I dined with Lord Sumner and Lord Cunliffe. They are very clever and very bad men. They are known as the two bad old men. They are like the murderers in Shakespeare’s plays: when Lloyd George wanted to do something wicked, he said: ‘Get me two bad men’ and they got him the two Lords, and they did all he wanted them to do.11

No one doubted Cunliffe’s sincerity, but few thought him “very clever”. He had “no intellect”, wrote Lord Robert Cecil.12 Yet he played a fateful role at the Conference. It suffices to recall that in December 1918 Lloyd George appointed him to the cabinet committee on indemnities set up under Prime Minister Hughes of Australia to report on Germany’s capacity to pay. Neither Hughes nor Cunliffe, until recently Governor of the Bank of England, knew any more about Germany’s capacity than anyone else. Cunliffe frankly and frequently admitted that “any figure he could give was more or less an estimate, and indeed not much more than a guess”.13 But they knew what they wanted, and they knew what Lloyd George wanted. It was very straightforward. He proclaimed it vociferously in his post-war election campaign of December 1918: to “make Germany pay” the costs of the war “up to the limit of her capacity.”14 Having established from Keynes, who gave evidence to the Hughes committee, that the total cost of the war to the Allies was some £20 billion worth of gold, Cunliffe duly assessed Germany’s capacity at upwards of £20 billion, adding for good measure --“and if anyone went for forty billions, I should not disbelieve him”.15 He was then sent to Paris with Sumner and Hughes as Britain’s delegates on the Reparation Commission, to fight their American and French counterparts over these figures, at the time considered astronomical –hence “the Heavenly Twins”. As for Sumner, he was certainly a “very clever” man, one of the great judges of his generation, a law lord known for his deep learning, independent mind and acerbic tongue, whose reflective rulings are cited to this day. A tough commercial lawyer, he had presided during the war over important appeals from the Prize Court. From around 1917 he was also a close associate of the fourth Marquess of Salisbury and the diehard wing of the Conservative party. He spoke wisely and wittily in the House of Lords on the sale of honours and, more controversially, on Ireland. He was outspokenly anti-German and a partisan of war to the finish whatever the cost (which he knew to be fabulous), since in his view the loser would pay all in any event. Sumner would be Salisbury’s candidate for the woolsack

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on the fall of the Coalition in 1922, and his combative interventions in the House of Lords on such issues as Ireland and India would make him an unusually interesting figure: the last of the political law lords.16 That, however, lay mainly in the future. As for the Peace Conference, his historical reputation is certainly very bad: he ranks high, probably at the top, in the demonology of Versailles. Verdicts differ only in the respective degree of malevolence ascribed to him and to Cunliffe. Sumner’s obituarists took their cue from the Keynesian orthodoxy. The Manchester Guardian lamented not only that “he vigorously pressed the views of the ‘Make Germany Pay’ fanatics” but also that “he assisted materially in defeating” Lloyd George’s efforts “in favour of a sane settlement”.17 There was no love lost between Sumner and Keynes. Ostensibly Keynes occupied a position of great responsibility at the Conference, representing the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but for all his brilliance, he was only a junior official, while the Chancellor himself, Austen Chamberlain, had little influence at Paris. We see clear evidence of Sumner’s seniority –pulling rank-- in his formal complaints about Keynes to Chamberlain, to Balfour, Lloyd George’s Foreign Secretary, and to Lloyd George himself. He was “profoundly dissatisfied”, he told them, “with the manner in which the Treasury had prepared the case for reparation”,18 and he pointed an accusing finger at Keynes’s deliberate failure to supply “the figures necessary to support the policy of the Government”.19 Always a good listener, the Prime Minister at various times leant his ear to Keynes, who was sometimes accompanied by Edwin Montagu, nominally British minister in charge of finance at the Conference. At other times he gave his attention to the Twins, particularly Sumner. Both Keynes and Montagu on the one hand and Cunliffe and Sumner on the other were variously deputed by him to argue particular cases at different meetings, including meetings of the Big Three. But while Lloyd George sometimes appeared to favour Keynes and Montagu in this lobster quadrille, it was Sumner and Cunliffe who led the dance. It was they, not Keynes, who were among the group of chosen advisers summoned by him to a weekend of impromptu meetings at Fontainebleau towards the end of March, when Lloyd George was radically reviewing his policy, though not, be it noted, after lengthy discussion with the Twins, his reparations policy.20 Sumner privately grumbled that Lloyd George should make it clear whom he wanted as his principal adviser, himself or Keynes; and when it came to Austrian reparations, he formally queried Keynes’s right to be present at all. But ultimately it was Keynes who was sidelined, and the honours went to Sumner when in recognition of his services at

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Paris the King pinned to his breast the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Keynes took his revenge. In Sumner’s words, “he failed to get his own way in Paris, and choosing his time, did his country all the harm he could in the name of conscience”.21 Acknowledging defeat, Keynes resigned from the British delegation in rage and despair. “The battle is lost”, he wrote to Lloyd George. “I leave the Twins to gloat over the devastation of Europe”.22 The sequel was The Economic Consequences of the Peace and all that that remarkable work would mean for the reputation and the fate of the Treaty. When, half a year after its appearance, Sumner pooh-poohed it in a letter to Headlam-Morley, the latter reminded him that in America alone it had already “had more influence. . .than any book since Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.23 *** How well deserved were the imprecations hurled at Sumner’s head in Paris, albeit from behind his back, and the poisoned shafts hidden in the unpublished proofs of Keynes’s polemic? To consider this, we must first outline what Sumner did at the Conference. He was a lawyer of great assiduity, thoroughness and painstaking attention to detail, efficient in the speedy drafting of innumerable memoranda required by the Reparation Commission (and others required ad hoc by Lloyd George), and a determined and strenuous advocate in arguing a difficult case before his sceptical colleagues on the Commission, in appearances before the Big Three or in confidential discussion with the Prime Minister. Throughout the Conference, from February to June, he was locked in close combat on all the vexed and interconnected problems of reparation with his opposite numbers in the American and French delegations. These protracted deliberations took their toll in the overheated rooms of the Ministry of Finance, where the participants, particularly Sumner, themselves sometimes became overheated. “It would not be suitable for you to hear his language”,24 Cunliffe more than once informed Lady Cunliffe. Week after week the arguments dragged on, circulating back and forth around questions of the utmost complexity and intractability: how much Germany should pay, how much Germany could pay, how she should pay, for how many years and how payments should be apportioned between the Allies. As chairman of the sub-committee on the valuation of damages, it fell to Sumner to co-ordinate agreement on the heads of damage under which reparation might be claimed; and the exhaustive table of categories which he drew up forms an integral part of the Treaty of Versailles as Annex 1 to

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Article 232. Sumner boasted that he had won acceptance of “a very wide interpretation of reparation”,25 ensuring that Britain’s claims were as fully represented as possible; but even Keynes admitted that, with one important exception, Sumner’s list of heads fell broadly within the limit of compensation to which the Allies were entitled under the formula agreed with the Germans just before the Armistice, namely compensation for “all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and to their property”.26 The exception, however, the claim that the Allies could demand from Germany the cost of pensions for injured servicemen and separation allowances for their dependants, was notoriously contentious. These items were included in order to meet the point, highly awkward for Lloyd George after his extravagant electoral pledges to “make Germany pay”, now coming home to roost: that if reparation were confined to making good the devastation wreaked by the Germans in France and Belgium, as clearly fell within the agreed formula, then Britain, uninvaded but with war costs exceeding those of any other belligerent, would recover next to nothing. Despite the formula, Sumner had already pleaded, at length and with great persistence, for war-costs generally and in their entirety. His advocacy got nowhere with his American counterparts and was rejected by the President as “clearly inconsistent with what we deliberately led the enemy to expect”.27 The elaborate case for pensions that Sumner drafted was equally firmly rejected by the Americans as contrary to the preArmistice agreement and at first by the President, who found it “very legalistic” and dismissed it “almost with contempt”.28 When in the end Wilson gave way on the issue under the persuasions of General Smuts, Keynes, outraged at what he considered a palpable violation of the PreArmistice agreement, placed this episode at the centre of his tragi-comic drama of the Conference: the critical moment of the President’s collapse, intellectual and moral, giving the lie, he claimed, to any view of the Treaty as a peace of justice. Keynes returned repeatedly to the episode, to which Sumner had materially contributed --denouncing the inclusion of pensions as “that most hateful and dishonourable breach of the Armistice conditions”.29 Sumner was also at the forefront in what everyone agreed was the most intractable question of all --what Lloyd George himself called “the most baffling problem in the peace treaty”30-- setting a sum for payment by Germany. Cunliffe held formal responsibility for this as chairman of a subcommittee on German capacity; but Sumner stepped in when it emerged that from an initial figure of £24 billion, Cunliffe had come right down in his negotiations with the Americans and French --both anxious for reasons

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of their own to set a lower figure-- to sums ranging from £12 billion to £8 billion, and that Cunliffe was willing to settle for £8 billion. Sumner, who had himself invoked “a claim which may amount to twenty or thirty or more thousand millions of pounds”,31 was having none of this. He intervened to make it clear that Britain had no intention of settling for anything less than £12 billion, and only then provided that no more than £4 billion of it went on civilian damage, leaving £8 billion to cover warcosts. Cunliffe, who confessed that Sumner’s views were “infinitely more important than mine”,32 acquiesced. At the beginning of March, the protracted and sterile discussions with the Americans reached an abrupt crisis when McCormick denounced them as a waste of time, and in what Sumner called a piece of “calculated rudeness” and “diplomatically…an unpardonable bêtise”, refused to consider any sum above £8 billion without clear evidence of German capacity to pay. Sumner promptly adjourned the meeting and referred the question back to Lloyd George.33 Three weeks later Sumner presented an elaborate memorandum to justify his £12 billion figure and to explain why he and his colleagues believed Germany could pay it. The Americans remained unconvinced. Consensus on a fixed sum was as remote as ever; and Lloyd George, while agreeing “there is no doubt it would be better to fix a sum if we could agree on the figure”,34 concluded that, since they could not, the best solution in the circumstances was to mention no sum at all in the Treaty and to wait a couple of years until the dust had settled and facts and figures became clearer. Once it was accepted that immediate agreement was impossible, whether on the quantum of damages or on Germany’s capacity to pay them; that whatever that capacity, it would on any reckoning take decades for Germany to discharge the debt and that even then there would never be enough to satisfy all the claims, Sumner played a key role in devising the machinery for an outcome in the form of a permanent Reparations Commission, to which the Allies would submit a final bill in 1921, and which would regulate the payment of such sums and in such instalments as it thought Germany able to pay. It is not suggested that Sumner was an easy man. This was clear from the briefest acquaintance. On first meeting him, McCormick noted at once: “Lord Sumner –judicial mind and great ability, no politician”.35 To Ray Stannard Baker, the President’s press secretary, Sumner was “a dried-up jurist”.36 The British and American delegates, Maurice Hankey informed Lloyd George, did not get on and “are unsympathetic to one another.”37 Sumner, stern and short-tempered, was brusque and overbearing towards his juniors. When Nicolson attempted to “water down” the Austrian treaty,

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he was sent away with a flea in his ear, being “told by Sumner to mind my own business”.38 He was something of a “misanthrope” and there was something about him of a “Grand Inquisitor”. “As for Sumner”, Lord Robert Cecil observed to Lloyd George’s Cabinet Secretary, Thomas Jones, “have you not observed that some very able lawyers can be very cruel men?”39 Jones agreed that the Twins were “both stony-hearted men”.40 Harold Laski, who viewed Sumner with a mixture of admiration and dislike, described him as “an amazingly powerful person, with a certitude on all matters, as hard as nails.”41 These qualities emerge in two remarkable portraits of Sumner at the Conference by William Orpen and Augustus John. Both artists present a dour and uncompromising exterior, the head tilted at a defiant angle, the thin, unsmiling lips, the icy glare -“a hard-faced man”, in the words of an anonymous observer at Paris, “with signs of irascibility on his countenance –a difficult personality”.42 Lloyd George might well seek to avoid confrontation with this abrasive member of his troublesome reparations trio. Towards the end of the Conference, when the Prime Minister was again reappraising the Treaty and turning over the possibility, even at the eleventh hour, of a final figure as low as £5 billion for insertion, Sumner, in a succession of terse confidential memoranda, warned him that “no concession should be made on the reparation clauses”;43 three days later that “any serious alteration of the clauses as they stand reopens the whole of an agreed settlement” and would be “only at the cost of concessions by Great Britain”.44 Another two days and he was insisting that “the Treaty must be signed”;45 and two days after that that the £5 billion figure was “a stab in the back for us”, that any such figure “would only be guesswork and would work out on ‘heads you win, tails you lose’ lines”, and that nothing below £12 billion should be entertained. Anything less, he concluded, “either baulks French and Belgian claims or ours or both: ours most likely. Comment is needless”.46 These emphatic and uncompromising admonitions lend colour to the view of Sumner not merely as “a man of great character”,47 as Lloyd George told the President, but a Svengali-like figure at the Conference, exerting a “sinister influence” on the Prime Minister, an irresistible force drawing him away from his more liberal instincts. In The Truth about Reparations and War Debts (1932), Lloyd George added a fresh layer of gloss to the black legend, completing the finishing touches after Sumner’s death in The Truth about the Peace Conference (1938). While defending the reparation settlement overall and taking personal credit for postponing the naming of a final sum, he castigated the Twins for their obdurate, unshakeable adherence to impossible figures –“the inflated estimates of Lord Cunliffe and Lord Sumner”.48 Their original £20 billion figure he

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condemned in a famous phrase as a “wild and fantastic chimera”; nor, he maintained, had he been “in the least satisfied” by Sumner’s arguments for £12 billion.49 Sumner, he regretted to say, had proved a grave disappointment. Lloyd George had placed him on his delegation, he said, “as a judge of great distinction, capacity and experience”, “a man who possessed one of the clearest, coolest and best-balanced brains on the Bench,” in order, as he put it, that “he could bring to bring to bear on this difficult question a judicially moderate view,”50 and at the same time exert that moderating influence on the allegedly rabid Lord Cunliffe. However, Lloyd George explained, the unforeseeable happened: Lord Sumner, so far from exerting any restraining influence on Lord Cunliffe’s strange lapse into megalomania, himself caught the infection, and gave logical and literary form to its ravings.

“It is what happens”, he added sententiously, “when men of natural and disciplined sobriety of mind suddenly lose control of their judgment”.51 According to Lloyd George, then, and contrary to all expectations, Lord Sumner, hitherto renowned for his cool sagacity, took leave of his senses in the heady atmosphere of Paris and contracted an attack of brainfever lasting six months. Having appointed the Twins, Lloyd George found himself landed with two unusually awkward customers, not to mention the obstreperous Hughes. In Cunliffe and Sumner he had unwittingly turned loose in Paris a pair of rogue elephants, who went on the rampage and trampled underfoot his hopes of a moderate settlement. Lloyd George’s retrospective gloss is impressively borne out by the unanimous evidence of the Americans involved in negotiations with the Twins: Vance McCormick, Norman Davis, Thomas Lamont, John Foster Dulles and Bernard Baruch, all men prominent in business, finance, law and politics, anxious to cut the cackle and reach a deal. Their perception was shared by Edward Mandell House, the President’s right-hand man and an astute observer. America’s own claims to reparations were negligible. Her delegates were pragmatists, their sole aim was to broker a deal between the British and French. A deal seemed entirely possible on the face of it. “While we were quite a distance apart”, Lamont recalled, “the difference did not seem to be irreconcilable”.52 And yet the Twins stood obstinately in the way and utterly refused to budge. A settlement would have been reached long since, Lamont assured the President, “if it had not been for the British ‘Heavenly Twins’”,53 all progress being blocked by “the bulldog tenacity of Lords Cunliffe and Sumner in resisting the attempts to alter the treaty”.54 As he later put it, they “put their heads together, went off the deep end, and refused to compromise at all”.55 The

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charge was corroborated by Davis. “We have been unable to arrive at any agreement with Lords Sumner and Cunliffe”, he too confirmed in his report to the President, “because these two gentlemen still stand upon their original estimate of eleven billion pounds”.56 After two months of such monumental intransigence, the Americans had had enough. They lost patience with the Twins. As long as the Twins spoke for Britain, wrote one, there was “nothing doing”.57 They urged that Lloyd George, as Davis told Keynes, should “quiet down the Heavenly Twins”, “get rid of them”, replace them “with some human beings” like Keynes and Montagu, “wind up” the Reparation Commission and “start quite afresh”.58 Keynes naturally agreed, but reflected that it would be easier said than done to induce the Twins, in his words, “to commit harikiri”.59 The Prime Minister had let not one, but two genies out of the bottle and there was no way he could get them back in again. Colonel House noted, not without wry amusement: “Lloyd George appointed these men when he had great flights [of fancy] in regard to this matter [of reparations], and now he cannot control them”.60 Casting about for a way out of the impasse, Lloyd George had contrived with Wilson and Clemenceau for an unofficial committee of three moderates to meet in private and fashion a sensible figure to which the “Big Three” could lend their united authority. Davis represented the United States; Montagu, at House’s suggestion, was there for Britain and Louis Loucheur for France. The three met behind closed doors in Davis’s suite at the Hotel Crillon61 –“dans la coulisse”, wrote Loucheur –“dans le plus grand secret”62 - and without the Twins’ knowledge,63 for fear, noted House, that Lloyd George “would get into trouble”64 with them. They rejected the Twins’ figures out of hand and produced a figure of £6 billion, at least half of which was a fictitious amount designed to assuage public expectations. Wilson backed this figure and even Clemenceau indicated approval. Lloyd George, however, still found himself in the same quandary. He accepted the figure in principle, he told the Americans, and would gladly adopt it in practice but for one thing, or rather two: the Twins, whose assent was the key to his political survival. Trapped by his electoral pledges, “he did not want”, noted House, “to let the Conservatives ‘throw him’ on a question of such public concern”.65 For at his heels louder and louder he heard Lord Northcliffe’s tally-ho in the Times and Daily Mail and the raucous howls of Tory MPs baying for the promised indemnity. All he could do, it seems, was to come clean with the Americans, take them into his confidence, explain his predicament and appeal for their understanding and cooperation. He followed this course with disarming

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candour, with what one historian indeed calls “astonishing frankness”.66 He had lunch with Davis and Lamont. He assured them across the table that he personally was fully satisfied that “Keynes and ourselves were correct” and that “Germany could not pay anything like what Lords Sumner and Cunliffe calculated”.67 He was very tempted to clinch the matter then and there. “Well, Lamont,” he said, citing Scripture, “Almost thou persuadest me”.68 He said, Davis reported to Wilson, that a figure of £6 billion or even £5 billion would be “quite acceptable to him provided we could get Lords Sumner and Cunliffe to agree to this amount.”69 If Davis and Lamont could talk the tiresome two into sense, Lloyd George told them, well and good, and he would support the lower figures; if not, he was powerless, because he needed the Twins’ endorsement “for his own protection and justification” at Westminster.70 Unless the Twins were “brought down to reasonable figures”, noted House, Lloyd George anticipated that he would be “crucified at home”.71 Egged on by the Northcliffe press, more than 100 backbenchers had signed a demand, published in The Times, for an indemnity debate, complaining that current demands on Germany were “wholly incommensurate with the Allied war bills”.72 The debate, in which Bonar Law had a hard time defending the Government’s position, was stormy and was followed a week later by a minatory telegram to which over 200 Tory backbenchers put their names. Addressed to the Prime Minister in person, despatched to Paris en clair and published in The Times on 9 April, it called on Lloyd George to redeem his pledges and, “as you repeatedly stated in your election speeches. . . present the bill in full”73 to the Germans without more ado. Two days later an editorial headed “The Indemnity” appeared in The Times. The Prime Minister, it declared, “has aroused in the popular mind hopes which he has not fulfilled”. Faced with these naked challenges to his authority, Lloyd George would be obliged to return to London to face the music himself in what would clearly be a confidence debate. If he lost, he told Wilson, the President might see him replaced at the Conference by Northcliffe himself or Horatio Bottomley. Lloyd George laid it on thick with the President about Sumner, confirming what Wilson already knew from his advisers. The Twins, he told Wilson, were “obstinate people”. Cunliffe was bad enough, “but he is under the influence of Lord Sumner, who never leaves his side”.74 He told Wilson how he had warned Sumner that if Germany were pressed too far, she would turn to Bolshevism. Sumner, he told the President, replied that in that case “the Germans would be cutting each others’ throats and that nothing would please him better”. “A discussion with a person in that frame of mind is not much use”,75 Lloyd George ruefully observed. The

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President was much shocked. A man like that, he exclaimed indignantly, “should not be permitted to participate in a peace settlement”.76 Convinced that Lloyd George was in real political trouble, he made important concessions, not only on the score of pensions, hugely significant though these were, but also on the whole cumbrous scheme of bonds and the apparatus of a permanent Reparations Commission necessitated by Lloyd George’s inability to accept a fixed sum. *** For many years I accepted Lloyd George’s version of events more or less at face value.77 Like the Americans, I might regret that he did not “get rid of” the Twins, but I could understand the political impossibility of doing so or of overruling their recommendations. In Austen Chamberlain’s words, “how could Lloyd George or anyone else definitely reject advice tendered on such high authority?”78 Then doubts began to creep in. Did Lloyd George’s explanation really stand scrutiny? Take Sumner’s remark about Germany going Bolshevik, which so horrified the President. Our sole authority for this telling utterance is Lloyd George himself. It may be that Sumner did make the remark. It would have been in character. If he did, however, how seriously did he mean it? A Germany convulsed by Bolshevism would be in no condition and no mood to pay anything; and Sumner accepted that payment of reparations must depend “on the industrial productivity of Germany”; indeed, he said, “it could only be done by Germany doubling her pre-war exports”.79 Far from relishing the prospect of revolutionary chaos in Germany, he poured cold water on it: “That Germany will permanently accept Bolshevism, repudiate all obligations and renounce all trade prospects, does not accord with what is known of Germans”.80 If Sumner did make the offending remark, it may have been a momentary outburst, a throw-away sarcasm, bitter and impatient, to relieve his feelings, but hardly to be taken literally. Leaving this aside, however, was it not after all extraordinary of Lloyd George to suggest to the Americans that they should talk the Twins out of anything? Was it not for the Prime Minister to rein in his own recalcitrant delegates? It was true that he was under great pressure from press and parliament; but how seriously did he take the threat? There was small likelihood that, firmly planted in the Coalition saddle, “the man who won the war” would be unseated within half a year of the election. Who would replace him? The names of Northcliffe or Bottomley which he waved in Wilson’s face were obvious bugaboos to curdle the President’s blood and convince him that Lloyd George was in trouble. Within three weeks of

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expressing these fears for his survival, Lloyd George, in one of his most spectacular displays of parliamentary pyrotechnics, was to hit back at Northcliffe with a succession of knockabout sallies that left the backbenchers roaring with laughter and eating out of his hand. He gained “complete mastery of the House”, as Frances Stevenson noted, “while telling them absolutely nothing about the peace conference”.81 Is it likely, above all, that a politician with so sure a touch as Lloyd George, of such unrivalled political mastery and personal ascendancy and now at the very height of his power, was really in thrall to the Twins – political outsiders with no political experience or following? True, Sumner’s patron, Lord Salisbury, leader of the Tory diehards, was a gadfly to the Coalition, but it would be another three years before any poison showed in his sting. The Twins were virtually unknown to the House of Commons, where, as Bottomley himself observed, their names cut little ice. Was Lord Sumner’s glittering eye so compelling that, like the Ancient Mariner’s unwilling listener, Lloyd George could not choose but hear? Traditional interpretations make of Lloyd George far too passive an instrument. They leave out of the reckoning his dynamic strengths, his boundless resource and artfulness. Re-examination of the facts suggests an alternative perspective on his relations with the Twins: as an audacious, sustained and ingenious charade.While he made such play to the Americans of his political vulnerability, Lloyd George’s policy –and his instructions to Sumner-remained what they had always been: to go for broke. Only four days before he agreed to the appointment of the secret committee to produce a compromise figure, he was discussing with the Twins sums of between £12 billion and £15 billion;82 and the £12 billion which he begged the Americans to talk the Twins out of was the very sum he warned the Twins to stick to whatever the consequences! On 15 March, the day after he gave conditional approval to the £6 billion figure, he summoned Sumner, Cunliffe and Hughes to his flat. He instructed them to draft a memorandum “as to the amount which, in their opinion, Germany could pay, on the assumption that the figure should be one to be insisted on, even to the point of breaking off the peace negotiations”.83 That figure, as we know, was £12 billion. Sumner, who wrote the memorandum in a day, conceded that Germany’s capacity could only be “a matter of forecast and of opinion”,84 and that “our opinion is mere opinion”;85 but then no figure could claim to be much more, since no-one knew or could know what Germany’s capacity would be in the years and decades to come; and

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Sumner was after all a lawyer, not an economist, and, as he complained, he received no help from Keynes. He argued that from 1926 until 1961 Germany could pay an annual £600 million, including interest, that is, a total of between £11 billion and £12 billion. On 18 March he replaced Montagu as the Prime Minister’s spokesman,86 to present his memorandum for consideration by the Big Three. A month later (perhaps thanks to Hughes, a notorious source of leaks), the figure became common knowledge after publication in The Times. Now the cat was right out of the bag and Lloyd George was lumbered with a commitment to £10-£12 billion which he could not name in the Treaty because the Americans would not agree to it. Laying the blame on the Twins was a characteristic piece of Lloyd Georgian doubledealing, devised to get him out of an awkward spot, to offer a conciliatory front to the Americans, to present himself as a liberal at the mercy of reactionaries at Westminster, to win thereby the President’s crucial concessions and to evade his endorsement of the lower figures accepted by Wilson and Clemenceau: to conceal, in short, behind a genial mask of moderation and a cloud of plausible obfuscation, the unchanging nature of his real strategy. The Twins were not rogue elephants; they were circus elephants, obediently going through their paces, and Lloyd George was the ringmaster. To vary the metaphor, the Twins were a team of stalkinghorses, behind which he advanced stealthily towards his goal. Sumner was not a bucking bronco, who might have unseated Lloyd George; he was a pack-horse, faithfully doing the Prime Minister’s donkey-work, save that Sumner was no donkey but one of the sharpest minds on the Bench, who could be relied on to amplify, with vigour and lucidity, the mandate on which Lloyd George had gone to the polls. Sumner was the brains in drawing up the constitution of the permanent Reparations Commission, with its powers of assessing, setting and reviewing the schedule of Germany’s payments. He also contributed most ably in justifying these controversial arrangements in the formal Allied “Reply” to the German counterproposals. Lamont believed Cunliffe to be “a bit mad”.87 If he was, what evidence is there that, as Lloyd George maintained, Sumner too was touched by his twin’s “megalomania”? The evidence is Sumner’s enthusiastic support for impossible figures. If he really believed that Germany could double her pre-war exports, he was certainly, as Keynes put it, suffering from “senile Teutophobia”.88 Wild as his estimates were, however, there was method in his madness, for they were based on the undeniable premise which he underlined in his memorandum: “It is imperative”, he declared, “not to

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underestimate Germany’s capacity, for it will certainly fall short of her liability”.89 That was the nub of the matter and it reflected Lloyd George’s thinking precisely. While toying with figures both high and low, it suited Lloyd George not to commit himself to any named sum but to play for time, to set up the Permanent Reparation Commission according to Sumner’s blueprint, to regulate Germany’s payments in the light of emerging facts and circumstances, and to see what might accrue to Britain in the fullness of years. As Lamont told the President, “with all respect to Mr Lloyd George, he is simply trying to postpone the evil day, as far as public opinion is concerned”.90 It was true, but that was the point. Under a wait-and-see solution Lloyd George had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Why settle for five or six billion pounds, when more, perhaps much more, might eventually be forthcoming?91 It was for the same reason that Lloyd George took Sumner with him to the conference table on 5 April and put him “in the place of power”92 to argue that, contrary to what the Prime Minister had proposed only the week before at Fontainebleau, namely a 30-year time-limit for payment of reparations, no time-limit at all should be set, lest Germany evade her obligations by deferment or default. As Sumner put it: if Germany failed to discharge the debt within thirty years, “would the balance be remitted?” The answer, he said, was “in the negative.” Lloyd George confirmed that Sumner “presented his view perfectly correctly.”93 This meant that, contrary to what he had led the Americans to believe when he secured the inclusion of pensions, Germany would be required to go on paying reparations as long as any Allied claim remained unsatisfied. In his forceful warnings to Lloyd George against altering the treaty and his insistence that if any figure was to be agreed it should not be less than £12 billion, Sumner was not officiously obtruding unwelcome advice on a wavering, reluctant and embarrassed Prime Minister: he was spelling out the Prime Minister’s own wishes, articulating his chief’s own policy. His admonitions to Lloyd George were written at Lloyd George’s bidding.94 Not that Lloyd George needed any reminders: he wanted Sumner’s arguments to quote at the partisans of moderation in his own delegation and Cabinet, notably Smuts, Milner, Bonar Law, Chamberlain, Birkenhead and Barnes, who were pressing him to accept lower figures. Invoking the authority of his “experts on indemnities”, Lloyd George stated that the Twins were “not disposed to make any concessions”,95 that they held that “Germany had not made out a case” and, most revealingly of all, that he himself “had not been shaken in his views on the subject of reparations”.96

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*** The presence of a law lord at an international peace conference is unique and calls for explanation. The fact is that Sumner was at Paris not, as Lloyd George asserted, in a judicial capacity, but as an advocate; not to show the lofty impartiality of the Bench in this economic battle of the nations but to fight his country’s corner with all the combative tenacity for which he had made his name. It was true that as chairman of the subcommittee on the valuation of damages, weighing conflicting Allied claims, “his pre-eminent judicial qualities”, as Dulles conceded, “were afforded some scope”. But Dulles pointedly contrasted this with “Sumner the advocate, arguing for ‘war costs’ and pensions as instructed by his principal, Mr Lloyd George”.97 That was Sumner’s true role and it highlights his essential relationship to the Prime Minister. Like Cunliffe and Hughes, Sumner needed no persuading of the merits of “making Germany pay”; Lloyd George would scarcely have sent him to Paris had it been otherwise. Keynes accused Sumner of seeking “to obtain money for his own class and compatriots”. It was true, and Sumner would not have denied it, for if Britain did not “make Germany pay”, then Britain’s war costs must fall on British shoulders. The policy was the Prime Minister’s. As Lloyd George reminded his colleagues when they urged moderation: “Somebody had to pay. If Germany could not pay, it meant that the British taxpayer had to pay”.98 It was therefore misplaced in Lord Robert Cecil to complain that Sumner took “an exceedingly narrow view” of his responsibilities in arguing for “the most extreme proposals provided they did not directly injure British interests”,99 since that was what he was there for: to contend might and main for Britain’s maximum share. As long as the full extent of the damage, of Germany’s capacity to pay and of Britain’s share of reparations all remained speculative and undetermined, there was everything to play for. Sumner, whose political philosophy harked back to Machiavelli and Hobbes,100 saw that the struggle was only just beginning and that it was as much a struggle with France as with Germany. This is clear from the guidance that he drew up for the benefit of prospective British representatives on the permanent Reparation Commission. The representatives, Sumner wrote, “are delegates, not judges. . .They have not the independence of judges”. They “are bound by the instructions of their Governments.. .It is not their business to temper justice with mercy. . . They must remember that they have, each for himself, to consider and defend the interests of his country”. A delegate should remember that inter-Allied rivalry was inevitable and that “he has to fight our battle in a

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field where victory is only half won.”101 These principles, narrow indeed but simple and straightforward, he had himself followed to the letter at the Conference. Sumner, then, did not go off his head or kick over the traces at Paris. He took his instructions from the Prime Minister and he followed them. He reported regularly and sought prior approval. Sometimes he complained of a lack of instructions or of contradictory instructions. When different lines of argument were open, he asked which he should take. When an impasse was reached over the division of the spoils, he referred matters back to Lloyd George. Much was made of his extremism on the commissions set up to determine reparations from Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the succession states. Here again, however, Sumner was doing as he was told. Lloyd George was adamant, despite warnings from the Americans and the Foreign Office that making demands on these bankrupt and impoverished states would drive them into the arms of the Germans or the Bolsheviks. He appointed the Twins to these commissions in the full knowledge of their attitude, which corresponded to his own. Accordingly, Sumner argued that Austria’s legal liability to pay reparations was no less than Germany’s. Openly defied by Keynes in the presence of the Americans, he sought clarification from the top. Was it or was it not Lloyd George’s intention to impose reparations on Austria and the new states, he asked. Yes, he was advised. The new states must be told: “Call it what you like, ‘contribution to cost’, anything, but pay you must”.102 Aware of the slender prospects of recovering anything from them, Sumner made sure of establishing Germany’s joint liability for the damage caused by her ex-Allies, and this was laid down in Article 231, the so-called “war-guilt clause”. Balfour summed up the role of the Twins and their relationship to Keynes and to Lloyd George as follows: “The Prime Minister”, he wrote, “has been largely guided by their opinion, and their view has often been right against the Treasury. Moreover, he has taken the management of these financial questions very much into his own hands”.103 Balfour was right about the “management” of reparations, but Keynes was more sceptical about the Twins’ advice. According to him, Lloyd George “was never under the slightest illusion as to the value of their advice”.104 “If”, he wrote, “I were to give the whole story of his relations with those two as I know it at first hand, I do not think that the world would hold him excused”.105 This was to shift responsibility from the Twins to Lloyd George. And rightly so. The fact is that Lloyd George was agnostic as to Germany’s capacity. In the current state of unknowing, the Twins’ advice was what he most wanted to hear, the advice most expedient and most

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convenient to him. Not for the first time, he was guided by a flexible opportunism, a remarkable ability to keep open his options, to retain the initiative and remain on top of the situation at all times. Keeping his cards close to his chest and drawing on a practised wealth of histrionic talent, he deployed a liberal measure of dissimulation all round. First, to reimpose his authority on his clamorous backbenchers: instead of damping down their superheated expectations in his celebrated Commons speech of 16 April, he committed himself up to the hilt. Far from seeking “release from any pledge or promise which I have given”, he declared, he was there to confirm that “every pledge we have given” was incorporated in the peace terms.106 He could say this with every confidence because Sumner had catalogued those claims in full and their inclusion in the Treaty had been agreed. Whether and how far and when the claims would be met was of course another matter. To the Americans, Lloyd George pointed helplessly at the Twins as immoveable obstacles, preventing the moderate deal that he professed to crave. To his colleagues in the British delegation and his Cabinet he was both candid and canny: “he did not say that the Germans could pay a particular sum or could not pay it”.107 Time would tell. To the moderates who urged him to settle for less for the sake of finality, he objected that far more could have been demanded and that the Twins advised against concessions: “Why should the Allies surrender any part of their legitimate claim?”,108 he asked. He played fast and loose with the Twins themselves, who were unaware of the backstairs wheeler-dealing by the secret committee. Lastly, in his memoirs, he bamboozled posterity about the Twins, distancing himself from them with finger-wagging disapproval. Ultimately the black legend of Lord Sumner was conjured up by the Welsh Wizard himself, casting spells all around and vigorously stirring the pot of fact and fancy amid stupefying vapours, through which the bemused historian, wiping the mist from his spectacles, endeavours to peer.

Notes 1

Cited in G. Batonyi, Great Britain and Central Europe (Oxford, 1999), p.27. See the array of miniatures (e.g. Marshal Foch, Lord Reading, Admirals Hope and Wemyss, and Klotz, in ‘Dr Melchior: a defeated enemy’ in Two Portraits (London, 1949), pp.11-71. 3 Pencil note, 1919. King’s College, Cambridge, Keynes Papers EC/7/2/2. 4 Cunliffe to his wife, 25 Jun. and 22 Apr. 1919. Cunliffe Papers in the possession of the present Lord Cunliffe. 5 Cunliffe to Sumner, 13 Jul.1919.National Archives, Sumner Papers FO 608/310. 6 Keynes Papers, EC/10/2/31/77. 2

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‘Mr Lloyd George: a Fragment’, Essays in Biography (London, 1933), pp. 31-9. Keynes to Austen Chamberlain, 28 Dec.1919. Birmingham University Library, Chamberlain Papers, AC 35/1/10. 9 H. Nicolson, letter to his father, 8 Jun. 1919, Peacemaking 1919 (London, 1933, p. 359. 10 Vance McCormick, diary, 13 Jun.1919, A. S. Link, (ed.), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson vol. 60, (Princeton NJ, 1990), pp. 491-2. 11 Headlam-Morley to Agnes Headlam-Morley, 29 Jun. 1919. Churchill College, Cambridge, Headlam-Morley Papers HDLM Acc 1211. 12 A. Lentin, Guilt at Versailles. Lloyd George and the Pre-History of Appeasement (London, 1985), p.113. 13 ‘Notes of a conversation at the Prime Minister’s flat’, 15 Mar.1919. Cambridge University Library, Edgar Abraham Papers. 14 Lentin, Guilt at Versailles, p.21. 15 Ibid. 16 A. Lentin, The Last Political Law Lord: Lord Sumner (1859-1934) (Newcastleupon-Tyne, 2008.) 17 Manchester Guardian, 26 May 1934, p. 14. 18 Philip Kerr to Lloyd George, 16 Feb.1919. House of Lords Record Office, Lloyd George Papers F/89/2/18. 19 ‘Notes of a conversation at the Prime Minister’s flat’, 6 Mar.1919. Edgar Abraham Papers. 20 D. Newton, British Policy and the Weimar Republic, 1918-1919 (London, 1997), p. 370. 21 Sumner to Headlam-Morley, 20 Jun.1920. Headlam-Morley Papers HDLM, Box No. 37. 22 Keynes to Lloyd George, 5 Jun.1919, The Collected Writings of J.M.Keynes, vol. 16 (London,1978), p.469. 23 Headlam-Morley to Sumner, 22 Jun.1920. Headlam-Morley Papers, HDLM, Box No.37. 24 Cunliffe to his wife, 8 Apr. 1919. Cunliffe Papers. 25 ‘Notes of a meeting of the Dominion Prime Ministers’, 11 Apr.1919. Lloyd George Papers F28/3/26/9. 26 The Pre-Armistice Agreement (Lansing Note), 5 Nov.1918, cited in P.M. Burnett, Reparation at the Paris Peace Conference, Vol. I (New York, 1940), pp. 411-12. 27 Lentin, Guilt at Versailles, p.37. 28 A. Lentin, ‘Maynard Keynes and the “Bamboozlement” of Woodrow Wilson: what really happened at Paris? (Wilson, Lloyd George, Pensions and Pre-Armistice Agreement)’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 15 (4) 2004, p.736. 29 Lentin, ‘Maynard Keynes and the “Bamboozlement” of Woodrow Wilson’, p.729. I have suggested that the pensions issue was somewhat less clear-cut than Keynes supposed; that there was at least an arguable case for pensions and that his identification of it with the President’s supposed collapse was largely invention. 8

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Lentin, ‘Maynard Keynes and the “Bamboozlement” of Woodrow Wilson’, pp. 725-63. 30 A. Lentin, Lloyd George and the Lost Peace. From Versailles to Hitler, 19191940 (Basingstoke, 2001), p. 42. 31 Sumner, speech, 13 Feb.1919, Burnett, Reparation, vol. 1, p.568. 32 Cunliffe to M. Hankey, 16 Jul.1919. Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh, Lothian Papers GD40/171323/3. 33 Kerr to Lloyd George, 1 Mar.1919. Lothian Papers GD40/17/1236. Sumner to Kerr, 4 Mar.1919. Lothian Papers GD40/17/64/17. 34 Lloyd George to George Barnes, 2 Jun.1919. Lloyd George Papers F/4/3/20. 35 M. Barton (ed.), Citizen Extraordinaire. The Diplomatic Diaries of Vance McCormick in London and Paris, 1917-1919 (Mechanicsburg PA, 2004), p.104. 36 R.S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement (New York, 1923), p.888. 37 Lentin, Guilt at Versailles, p.36. 38 Nicolson, diary, 8 Jun.1919, Peacemaking 1919, p. 359. 39 Lentin, Guilt at Versailles, p.113. 40 K. Middlemass (ed.) Thomas Jones, Whitehall Diary, vol. 1, (London, 1969), p.88. 41 M. Howe (ed.), Holmes-Laski Letters. The Correspondence of Mr Justice Holmes and Harold J. Laski, 1916-1935 (Cambridge MA, 1953), p.1040. 42 Makers of the New World. By One Who Knew Them (London, 1921), p.168. 43 Sumner to Lloyd George, 31 May 1919. Lloyd George Papers F/213/5/36. Sumner’s emphasis. 44 Sumner, memorandum, 3 Jun. 1919. Lloyd George Papers F/46/2/9. 45 Sumner, memorandum, ‘Meeting the German Objections’, 5 Jun. 1919. Lloyd George Papers F/46/2/10. 46 Sumner to Lloyd George, 7 June 1919. Lloyd George Papers F/46/2/10. 47 ‘Notes of a Meeting of the Council of Four’, 26 March 1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 56, (Princeton, NJ), p.292. 48 D. Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties, vol. 1, (London, 1938), p.446. 49 Ibid. p.461. 50 D. Lloyd George, The Truth about Reparations and War Debts (London, 1932), p.17. 51 Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties, vol. 1, p. 474. 52 Lamont, ‘Reparations’, in E.M. House and C. Seymour (eds), What Really Happened at Paris. The Story of the Peace Conference 1918-1919 (New York, 1921), p. 277. 53 ‘Minutes of Meeting of the American Delegation’, 3 Jun.1919, Burnett, vol.2, p.114. 54 Lamont, memorandum, 13 Jun.1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 60, p. 494. 55 Lamont to Burnett, 25 Jun. 1934, Burnett, Reparation, vol. 1, p.50. 56 Davis to Woodrow Wilson, 25 Mar.1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 56, p.270.

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C. Seymour (ed.), Letters from the Paris Peace Conference (New Haven, CT, 1965), p.276. 58 Keynes, Memorandum, 25 Mar. 1919. Lothian Papers GD40/17/1303. 59 Ibid. 60 House, Diary, 24 Mar.1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol.56, p.208. 61 Burnett, Reparation, vol. 1, p.54. 62 Loucheur, diary, 10 Mar.1919, J. De Launey (ed.), Carnets Secrets 1908-1932 (Brussels, 1962), p.71. 63 Sumner’s ignorance of the secret sub-committee and its £6 billion recommendation is evident from his letter to Lloyd George of 7 Jun.1919, Lloyd George Papers, F/46/2/10. 64 House, diary, 10 Mar. 1919, Walworth, Wilson and His Peacemakers. American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (New York, 1986), p.176. 65 House, Diary, 6 Mar.1919, Lentin, Guilt at Versailles, p.43. 66 I. Floto, Colonel House at Paris (Aarhus, 1973), p.152. 67 Norman Davis, memorandum, 5 Jul.1919. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Norman H. Davis Papers, Box 44, Paris Peace Conference, Versailles Treaty. 68 Lentin, Lloyd George and the Lost Peace, p.32. 69 Davis to Wilson, 25 Mar. 1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol.56, p.270. 70 Op. cit., p.271. 71 House, diary, 24 Mar.1919. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol.56, p.208. 72 The Times, 25 Mar.1919, p. 14. 73 Lentin, Guilt at Versailles, p.52. 74 ‘Notes of Meeting of Council of Four’, 26 Mar.1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol.56, p.292. 75 Ibid. 76 See the account by Grayson, Wilson’s physician, of an altercation between Wilson and Sumner. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol.56, p. 285. That such an altercation took place seems to be a misunderstanding by Grayson, but there is no reason to doubt his account of Wilson’s indignation. 77 Lentin, Guilt at Versailles. 78 A. Chamberlain to Keynes, 22 Dec.1919. Chamberlain Papers AC/35/119. 79 ‘Notes of a Conversation at 23 rue Nitot’, 15 Mar.1919. Edgar Abraham Papers. 80 Sumner, memorandum on reparations, 18 Mar.1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 56, p.69. 81 A.J.P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George. A Diary by Frances Stevenson (London, 1971), p.180. 82 ‘Notes of a Conversation at 23 rue Nitot’, 6 Mar.1919. Edgar Abraham Papers. 83 ‘Notes of a Conversation at 23 rue Nitot’, 15 Mar.1919. Edgar Abraham Papers. 84 Sumner, memorandum on reparations, 18 Mar.1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol.56, p.60. 85 Op. cit., p.74. 86 Montagu returned to London on his mother’s death; but Lloyd George had in effect jettisoned him.

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Lamont to Burnett, 25 Jun. 1934, Walworth, Wilson and his Peacemakers, p.403. 88 Quoted by Lord Brand, ‘A banker’s reflections on some recent economic trends’, The Economic Journal, (Dec.1953), 252, vol. 63, p.766. 89 Sumner, memorandum on reparations, 18 Mar.1919, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol.56, p. 69. 90 Minutes of a Meeting of the American Delegation’, 3 Jun.1919, Burnett, Reparation, vol. 2, p.112. 91 Lloyd George had in mind a sum ‘somewhere between £5 billion and £11 billion’. ‘Minutes of a Meeting of the British Empire Delegation’, 30 May 1919, K. Bourne and D.C. Watt (eds), British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, Part 2, Series 1. M. Dockrill (ed.) The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 vol. 4, British Empire Delegation Minutes, p.96. 92 Florence Lamont, notes, in ‘Peace Conference 1919’. Baker Library, Harvard University, Thomas W. Lamont Papers, Box 164, folder 205. 93 Notes of a meeting held in Mr Wilson’s house, 5 Apr.1919. Edgar Abraham Papers. 94 See, e.g. Sumner, ‘memorandum [marked `secret’-author] on German objections and modes of dealing with them as suggested by the Prime Minister at today’s interview’ 3 Jun. 1919 (author’s emphasis). Lloyd George Papers F/46/2/9. 95 ‘Minutes of a Meeting of the British Empire Delegation’, 1 Jun.1919, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, p. 97. 96 ‘Minutes of a Meeting of the British Empire Delegation’, 30 May 1919, British Documents on Foreign Affairs. p. 95. 97 Lentin, ‘Maynard Keynes and the “Bamboozlement” of Woodrow Wilson’, p.740. 98 ‘Minutes of a Meeting of the British Empire Delegation’, 1 Jun.1919, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, p.111. 99 Lord Robert Cecil, diary, 23 Apr.1919. British Library Add Mss 51131, Robert Cecil Papers. 100 Laski to Holmes, 27 Mar.1928, Holmes-Laski Letters, p.1040. 101 Sumner, memorandum on the Reparation Commission, 27 Jun. 1919. Sumner Papers FO 608/309/11-12. 102 Sumner, ‘Austrian Clauses. Do the new States pay a share of Reparation?’, 26 May 1919. Sumner Papers FO 608/309/91. 103 Balfour to Kerr, 7 Jul. 1919. British Library, Add Mss 45750/78, Balfour Papers. 104 Sunday Times, 30 Oct. 1938, p. 12. 105 Keynes to Austen Chamberlain, 28 Dec.1919. Chamberlain Papers AC 35/1/10 106 Lentin, Guilt at Versailles, p.78. 107 ‘Minutes of a Meeting of the British Empire Delegation, 1 Jun. 1919’, British Documents on Foreign Affairs, p.111. 108 Ibid.

CHAPTER FIVE PÈRE LA VICTOIRE OR PERDRE LA VICTOIRE: CLEMENCEAU’S DEFENCE OF THE PEACE SETTLEMENT DAVID WATSON

Having been nicknamed Père la Victoire, by the soldiers in the trenches, Georges Clemenceau was given this other sobriquet Perdre la Victoire, by his critics who accused him of having won the war and lost the peace. This judgement, this misjudgement as will be argued here, became a virtual cliché, both in Britain and in France. However the ways in which he lost the peace were asserted by his critics to be diametrically opposed. By the British, beginning with Keynes and Harold Nicolson, Clemenceau was attacked for persuading Wilson and Lloyd George to agree to terms that were too harsh for Germany, while the great majority of French critics accused him of not being harsh enough. Clemenceau claimed that both groups of critics were wrong, that he had achieved a settlement which gave France security against another German attack, but which was a peace based on justice (Droit) not on conquest, far removed from the peace that would have been imposed by a militaristic Germany if she had been victorious. Clemenceau‘s defence against the French, who criticised him for not imposing more draconian terms, was that Germany had been defeated by an alliance, and that France could not unilaterally impose a settlement rejected by her allies; also that the peace settlement had two pillars, the Versailles treaty with Germany and the treaties of guarantee by which Britain and the United States agreed to come unconditionally to France’s aid if Germany attacked again. This meant a continuation of the wartime unity of the three powers to enforce the 1919 settlement on a recalcitrant Germany, whose ruling groups refused to accept that the war had ended in defeat. Although far from being the accepted view of the general public or of many textbook writers, this verdict on the peace settlement has come in

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recent years to be endorsed by the great majority of specialist historical studies. It is within this context that this essay examines Clemenceau’s own defence of the settlement in the years after he left office on 18 January 1920; although there are naturally discrepancies in detail, his overall perspective is remarkably similar to that of the early twenty first century. The major source for Clemenceau’s views is, of course, his book Grandeur and Misery of Victory, written between April and November 1929.1 At that point he could not know how Germany would overturn the 1919 settlement in the ten years that followed his death. It is therefore, all the more remarkable that he was able, on the basis of what he had seen down to the summer of 1929, including the Young Plan further restricting Reparations claims and the decision to end the allied military occupation of the Rhineland in 1930, to foresee the forthcoming challenge. This was because he believed that the victors had to defend the peace settlement against German attempts to overturn it. The more they relaxed, the harder would Germany push to reverse the verdict of 1918. Briand’s belief in German goodwill was a tragic error, and even more dangerous was the fact that he had been able to lull his fellow countrymen, including the formerly intransigent Poincaré and Clemenceau’s own disciple Tardieu, into going along with his naïve pilgrimage of peace. The paradox was that in Britain and France revulsion against the bloodshed and suffering of the Great War was so immense that a renewed conflict with Germany was utterly unacceptable, when acceptance of that possibility was the only guarantee against its repetition. As he had said during the debate on the ratification of the treaty in the Chamber of Deputies on 25 September 1919, in response to an interruption: “M Marin went to the heart of the question when he said in despairing tones, ‘You have reduced as to a policy of vigilance’. Yes, M Marin, do you think that one could make a treaty which would do away with the need for vigilance?”2

The paradox was that determination to enforce the settlement could have prevented a repetition of the war, but revulsion from the idea of war on the part of the victorious powers meant that they were condemned to repeat it. The spirit of Locarno was based on the premise that vigilance was no longer needed because Germany accepted voluntarily terms she had seen as the hated Diktat in 1919. But it was evident that she accepted only some of those terms, and thus the apaisement (pacification) welcomed by Briand and Austen Chamberlain in 1925, turned into the appeasement (propitiation) of the nineteen thirties. This was foreseen in Grandeur and Misery of Victory, but by 1929 Clemenceau had lost hope of preventing

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the “mutilation” of the treaty. His was the voice of Jeremiah crying in the wilderness. Georges Clemenceau resigned as prime minister of France on 18 January 1920, and it might have been expected that his role in French political life was at an end. There would have been good reasons for that, not least his age, seventy-eight. However he did live for almost another ten years, years filled with activity, some of it having political implications. This essay will examine this aspect of his life, which has not been much discussed by historians. There are certainly reasons for this neglect; he achieved little by his continued involvement in political debate, and was ambivalent about whether to persist or not. However he did in fact make an attempt to continue in office, in spite of his age, and then continued his involvement in politics by writing and speaking in defence of the peace settlement that he had played such an important part in creating. The attempt to continue in office came when he allowed his name to be put forward as a candidate to the post of president of the Republic in January 1920. His subsequent political involvement took place on four occasions, in the summer of 1921, in the year 1922, in 1926 and in the final months of his life in 1929. In 1921 in the interval between two long overseas holidays, he wrote a preface to the book on the peace settlement by his lieutenant André Tardieu; in 1922 he sponsored Tardieu’s attempt to bolster his political career, through a newspaper, L’Echo National, and also went on a five week speaking tour in the United States: in 1926 he published an open letter to US President Coolidge on the subject of French war debts to America: finally the last months of his life in 1929 were devoted to writing Grandeur and Misery of Victory, a defence of the peace terms that he had negotiated for France in 1919, in response to Le Mémorial de Foch, an account of conversations between the journalist Raymond Recouly and Marshal Foch, published after the latter’s death.3 As can be seen these published interventions were relatively brief, and were interspersed with long periods in which he made no public pronouncements on current politics, although records of his day to day activity show that he was well aware of developments in French political life and in Franco-German relations. It is obvious that the old tiger was torn between two alternative courses. On the one had he could play the role of Cincinnatus, the Roman hero who having saved the Republic returned to his modest farm with no recompense but his own sense of a task well done. On the other hand, although there was no question of him seeking or accepting rewards or honours, he felt the need to intervene to seek to prevent what he called the mutilation of the peace treaties. This impulse led him to consider taking

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up the post of president of the Republic in 1920, in spite of many good reasons for not doing so. His failure to be chosen reinforced the attractions of the Cincinnatus role, but his desire to defend the 1919 settlement overcame this self-denying ordinance on four occasions, culminating in his indignant refutation of the criticism levied against him in the Mémorial de Foch. Clemenceau’s failure to be elected as president of the Republic in January 1920 is usually only mentioned in passing in studies of the politics of this period. This is justified, as it was certainly a non-event. However, for an understanding of Clemenceau’s attitude the candidacy and its withdrawal are important. The decision to stand would not have been taken lightly, as it was certainly not a case of his election being an outside chance. Once he had decided to stand, which he only did in late December 1919, he must have expected to be elected, with all that was entailed for him, aged seventy-eight, by way of the burdens of office. Although the post of president during the Third Republic was normally mainly a ceremonial one, that was not what Clemenceau envisaged. If he became president he stated that it was in order to defend the peace settlement he had just negotiated: he would be involved in politics, not an opener of flower shows. This fitted in with contemporary developments. Poincaré, president from 1913 to 1920, and Millerand, president from 1920 to 1924, after the embarrassing interlude of Deschanel, were the two most significant political figures to occupy the post during the whole of the Third Republic. Poincaré had taken it with the idea of playing a much more active political role than his predecessors, an ambition which succeeded to a degree until Clemenceau was appointed prime minister. At the end of the war there was much momentum behind the idea that France needed a more active and powerful president, and many advocated constitutional changes to achieve that. In fact the constitution was not changed, and Millerand’s attempt to play such a role as president without changes to the law ended in failure and his forced resignation. But the important point here is that Clemenceau’s decision to stand for president was within the context of these plans for a more powerful presidency.4 However, he had to be elected under the existing law that laid down that the president should be chosen in a combined vote of the two Houses of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. A majority for Clemenceau looked certain, as he had just presided over a landslide victory for his Bloc National, giving it well over 400 deputies. But before the official election, a tradition had become established that there should be a preliminary election, to choose the “republican” candidate. This was by 1920 virtually meaningless, as only a handful still called themselves

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monarchists. So it was decided to invite everyone to the “republican” caucus, which gave Clemenceau 389 votes, and Deschanel 488. If Clemenceau allowed his name to go forward for the official election, it seems probable that he would have been elected, but he refused. He declared that he would need to have been elected with almost universal acclaim to have the authority needed to deal with France’s allies. Certainly he had expected to be supported by all except the Socialists; as soon as he heard the result he withdrew his candidacy. To be defeated by Deschanel, a nonentity, was, he observed sardonically, a telling comment on the representatives of the French people. In the few months he held that post of president, Deschanel underlined the enormity of their error, with a series of comical incidents which led to him having to resign the post. A charitable version would be to say that he had a nervous breakdown: less charitably it was said at the time and since that he went totally crazy. With his resignation, Millerand who had replaced Clemenceau as Prime Minister, became president. Long ago he had been a young protégé of Clemenceau, but their ways had parted twenty years ago and the Tiger now had little respect for him. These developments meant that in the crucial period immediately following the peace, Clemenceau was absent from the scene. He was in Egypt from 4 February to 21 April 1920, and then departed on 20 September for long explorations of India and the East, returning only on 21 March 1921. He later claimed that if he had been in power at this time, he would not have allowed the breach between Britain and France to develop, and that he would not have accepted the failure of Britain and the United States to fulfil their promises about a treaty of guarantee to France against German aggression. It is difficult, however, to see what he could have done to achieve this end. Certainly for the United States it was out of the question, as sentiment had turned as dramatically isolationist as it had been briefly interventionist in 1917 and 1918. Lloyd George was equally determined to escape from the commitment which he had given to France. In between his foreign trips Clemenceau wrote a substantial 21 page preface to Tardieu’s La Paix, which was his only political act in this period.5 The preface is interesting in that it outlines the themes that Clemenceau was to elaborate in all his interventions down to his death in November 1929. His main point was that the peace was one based on justice and on right, and that the victory that made it possible was the victory of an alliance: “a war won by four could not end with a peace made by only one”. He referred to the famous dictum of Clausewitz, albeit wrongly attributing it to Von Bernhardi, who had quoted it in his pre-war book Germany and the next War. Clemenceau had written an

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introduction for its translation into French: “war is the continuation of the policy of peacetime by other means.” Thus, as the war had been a just war, the peace was a just peace. As German barbarism had led all civilised peoples of the world to ally with France to defeat her, the allied peace was one of justice that had overthrown the spirit of military hegemony, descended from Napoleon to Bismarck and to Luddendorf. Germany had shown, since 1919, that she had not yet recognised “the depth of an irreparable fall.” Only when she did could Germany take up her just place in the world. Until then the victors had to stand watch, as President Wilson had said, over the frontiers of liberty: “and our vigilance is not needed for only one day.” More specifically he took issue with Keynes, labelled a “fort en thème d’économiste” that is to say an impractical egghead, for his attack on France that could only encourage Germany to prepare its revenge. From the other side his French critics attacked the treaty for being too weak while they were showing signs of not enforcing its terms in the face of German rodomontade. The treaty must be enforced unless allied victory was to be overturned, and not even Keynes went as far as that. The preface ends with this appeal for rigorous enforcement of the terms of the treaty, a theme he was to return to again and again in his subsequent writing. Having returned from his Asian travels in March 1921, in June he went to Oxford to receive an honorary degree, the only honour of any sort that he would accept at home or abroad. Before returning to France he had an hour’s conversation with Lloyd George, still British prime minister, in which he reproached him for being the enemy of France the moment the armistice was signed. Lloyd George made a joke of it, replying, “Well, was that not always our traditional policy.” But Clemenceau correctly saw that there was no joke about the anti-French evolution of British policy at this time.6 Recalling this incident in Grandeur and Misery of Victory he coupled it with a reference to Churchill’s account, then only just published, of the conversation which he had alone with Lloyd George in 10 Downing Street on 11 November 1918. The two British statesmen, as Clemenceau noted with sad resignation, were already concerned to defend Germany against France, so as to maintain the balance of power on the continent. Thus was born on the night of the armistice the fundamental misjudgement of the underlying relative strengths of France and Germany, a misjudgement producing the divergent views about how to deal with Germany, which prevented the realisation of Clemenceau’s aim of preserving the wartime alliance between Britain and France. Only the shock of the French

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military collapse in June 1940 brought home to British strategists how wrong they had been.7 However, by the autumn of 1921, he again began to think of playing a political role, not directly, but by lending his name to his former assistants who were trying to mark out a political role by defending the peace settlement more vigorously than the Briand government. He had indicated the possibility of this return to politics in conversation with friends after the inauguration of his statue at Ste Hermine near his birthplace in the Vendée. He declared that he hoped that he would be able to help them fight against the continued sabotage of the Treaty. He helped Tardieu organise financial support for a newspaper, L’Echo National, which first appeared on 10 January 1922, with Clemenceau’s name on its masthead as “founder”. But he disappointed expectations by not writing for it, and it was not successful, failing after two years. Nor did Tardieu succeed in achieving an important role at this time. Unfortunately, as Paul Cambon wrote in a letter to his son on 29 October 1921, Tardieu and Mandel, in spite of their talent, were seen as “impossible”.8 The remarkable thing was that, in spite of the sweeping victory of the conservative Bloc National in the elections of November 1919, by January 1921 Briand was back in office as prime minister and foreign minister. Since 1917 Briand had been anathema to Clemenceau, and he was disgusted by the failure of “his” majority to find leaders who could better represent its viewpoint. It is true that at this stage Briand was still insisting that his policy was to force Germany to fulfil the terms of the treaty, but he was not at all successful in achieving that. Accordingly in January 1922 he was replaced as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister by Poincaré, whose aim was to use stronger tactics to force German compliance. The main result of this was that Lloyd George and Poincaré stalemated each other until the former fell from power in October 1922. Lloyd George was unable to advance his nebulous plans for European reconstruction and reconciliation, while Poincaré was unable to get British support to force Germany to carry out the terms of the Treaty.9 It was at this moment, in the autumn of 1922 that Clemenceau undertook his biggest political initiative since January 1920, his speaking tour of the eastern United States. It was a private visit in the sense that he in no way spoke for the French government, but it was a political act in that he sought to win the American public over to a less hostile attitude towards France. The president of the Republic, Millerand, and the Prime Minister Poincaré were equally hostile to Clemenceau’s initiative. The visit involved him making over thirty speeches, and travelling hundreds of miles, as far as Chicago and St Louis, no mean effort for a man of his age.

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He also wrote six long articles published in the New York World and in L’Echo National. Contrary to the accusations of Le Matin that the aim of the trip was to enrich himself, all of the profits were donated to charity. Although he was greeted everywhere by enthusiastic crowds, neither his speeches nor his articles had any lasting effect on American opinion, certainly not on official policy.10 The enterprise demonstrated that, contrary to Keynes’ charge that he was a cynical exponent of Realpolitik, Clemenceau’s failing was that of naivety and optimism. He really thought that an appeal to their idealism would persuade the American public to drop their insistence on the repayment of the allies’ debts to America. As Clemenceau prepared to leave the United States, the question of French occupation of the Ruhr as a means of putting pressure on Germany attracted attention. Questioned about this by a journalist, François Crucy of Le Petit Parisien, he declared on 12 December 1922 that he was opposed to Poincaré’s policy as it would alienate British and American opinion. But he did not publicly campaign against Poincaré’s Ruhr policy, instead returning to the position of public silence and private despair at the failure to enforce the provisions of the Treaty. Clemenceau’s recently published correspondence provides several examples of his distrust of Poincaré’s policy. For example, he wrote to Nicolas Piétri on 12 January 1923: “Poincaré seems to me to be like a child playing with flaming torches amidst powder kegs.”11 On 24 November 1923 he wrote to Tardieu congratulating him on a speech criticising Poincaré’s policy and defending the Treaty against Poincaré’s charge that the present difficulties were caused by the failure to obtain the Rhine frontier for France in 1919.12 But he remained publicly silent and concentrated his energy on writing. He published a book on Demosthenes in 1926, one on the painter Claude Monet in 1928, and a huge survey of human thought over the centuries, In the Evening of Thought in 1927. Work on these projects occupied his time completely between 1923 and 1928. Internal political developments in France, and the evolution of the international situation confirmed his pessimistic and sardonic view that the treaty was being “mutilated” more and more, and that the outcome was bound to be another war. If he had been critical of the failure to enforce the treaty and of the growing divergence between British and French policy in the years 1921-1923, he was far more pessimistic from 1924 onwards. Now there was less divergence between France and her wartime allies, because France had capitulated to the Anglo-Saxons. He had criticised Poincaré for the ineffectiveness of his attempts to uphold France’s rights. After 1924 it was a question of the

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leftwing Cartel which had defeated the Bloc National. The Cartel was first led by Edouard Herriot, a pompous and empty rhetorician: it then allowed the return to office of the worst of his bêtes noires, Painlevé, Malvy and Briand. In these circumstances he could see nothing to hope for. Briand, in fact, became the dominant figure in French foreign policy for the next seven years, being minister of Foreign Affairs from April 1925 until long after Clemenceau’s death, serving virtually without a break in over ten successive cabinets. By this time Briand had moved to a position diametrically opposed to that of Clemenceau. Instead of trying to enforce the treaty, as he had done in 1921, he was now “the pilgrim of peace,” advocate of reconciliation even with an unrepentant Germany, supporter of the League of Nations with Germany a member, maker of the KelloggBriand pact “outlawing” war.13 His period of office was characterised above all by the Locarno treaties, and by a general financial settlement that combined vast scaling down of Reparations demands with allied agreement to repay their debts to the United States. The Locarno treaties virtually turned Clemenceau’s demand that Britain fulfil its promised guarantee of the French frontier against German invasion upside down. For it also guaranteed Germany against a French invasion. Another Ruhr occupation would henceforth be out of the question. Also the multilateral nature of the frontier guarantees given at Locarno meant that there could be no question of joint military planning or preparations.14 In other words, instead of an effective guarantee they amounted only to a paper promise worth nothing; such indeed proved to be the case in 1936. Soon, even before Clemenceau’s death in November 1929, it would be agreed that the allied occupation forces in the Rhineland would be ended prematurely, and all means of pressure in Germany to fulfil her treaty obligations short of war would be gone. On all of this, however much he was disgusted in private, he was publicly silent, except for his open letter to President Coolidge of 9 August 1926, protesting against the debt settlement. He wrote and published this letter, certainly not with the hope of influencing the negotiations about the debt, but as “a cry from his conscience.”15 This moment marked the end of his hopes that Tardieu would be the agent of his ideas in active politics. Tardieu had just joined Poincaré’s cabinet and told Clemenceau that he thought his letter was not opportune. Both counts led him to write off Tardieu as well as all others still active in French political life. When he published his letter to Coolidge as an appendix to Grandeur and Misery he declared that it was “a cry from his conscience”. But at the time his correspondence with his American friend James Douglas shows that he did have hopes that American policy might change. They were to

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be extinguished by the republican candidate, Hoover, in the presidential election of 1928. Having dealt with Hoover in 1919, Clemenceau said France could expect nothing from him.16 In 1929, at the age of eighty-seven, he was spurred back into the political arena, and inspired to write his last book, his political testament, Grandeur and Misery of Victory. It was written between April 1929 and his death on 24 November 1929 and no doubt the effort of writing it contributed to his death. Although it was substantially finished it remains a first draft, with difficulties of style and expression that could probably have been improved if he had lived a few months longer. Nevertheless it is a remarkable achievement for someone of his age, a substantial volume of 378 pages, written with his quill pen in a little over six months. His secretaries and assistants, General Mordacq, Georges Wormser, Nicolas Piétri, and Jules Jeanneney, provided him with documentation and transcribed his difficult writing, but the entire work was planned and written by Clemenceau himself. He was driven to this effort by the publication in April 1929 of a volume entitled Le Mémorial de Foch, which consisted of conversations between the Marshal and a journalist Raymond Recouly, in the last years of Foch’s life, published after the latter’s death. Clemenceau began his reply by complaining about Foch’s cowardly attack from the grave: this was not just a Parthian shot but a “whole quiverful of stray arrows from a chance archer.” As this metaphor implies, it was difficult to know how accurately Recouley had reported Foch’s views, but Clemenceau felt that he had to accept their validity, and to reply, as otherwise he would seem to accept the veracity of this account of his relations with Foch. Le Mémorial de Foch deals also with other topics, but Clemenceau was concerned with its presentation of his own role in Foch’s military career, and above all with its account of the conflict between the two of them about the terms of the armistice and the peace treaty. It is the latter that is of interest here, and the sections of Grandeur and Misery dealing with matters before November 1918 are not relevant. In fact Clemenceau went far beyond a reply to its simplistic thesis, writing a justification of his policy in the peace settlement. His defence was against attacks on his policy from Keynes, Poincaré and Bainville as much as from Foch. Leaving aside the first chapters in which he pointed out that Foch owed his triumphant military career to his support, Clemenceau’s book has five chapters on the making of the peace settlement, and eight on later developments, including six entitled “the mutilations of the treaty”, it concludes with two chapters of wider reflections, “peace in retreat” and “the unknown soldier”.

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The eight “mutilations” of the treaty consist of the following, with a chapter devoted to each. 1. American mutilation, by the making of a separate peace with Germany, in which he noted that the United States reserved its right to benefit from all the clauses in the Versailles Treaty concerning itself, while not being itself a party to it, nor concerned with enforcing it. 2. Financial mutilations, in which he recounts the continued reduction of the Reparations demands down to the Young plan, and the failure of Germany to pay. 3. Locarno; a universal pact in which everyone protects everyone against everyone else in text that will be torn up like a scrap of paper. This was the opposite of what the treaties of guarantee had promised France, not an alternative formulation of such guarantees. He also noted the absence of any safeguards for Germany’s eastern frontiers. 4. Germany arms while France disarms: in this chapter he claims that in 1928 France spent only three quarters of the amount spent by Germany on military expenditure. 5. Organisation of the frontiers, in which he points out that nothing had actually been constructed to defend the French frontier, and that even the plans did not envisage a continuous defence line from the Channel to Switzerland. 6. Defeatism was the sixth mutilation; in this he attacks Malvy, his old enemy of 1916-1917, and by extension those who had organised his rehabilitation, Briand and Poincaré. This attitude of mind governed all the mutilations of the treaty and had produced a situation in which when Germany looks us in the eye and lets us know that she can no longer continue her instalments on the Young Plan, we will have no choice but to give her new colonies and carve up for her benefit Poland and the other new countries and accept the borders within which Germany will allow us to retire and die.17 But Grandeur and Misery is not mainly a technical discussion. It is an appeal above all in these last chapters to the people of France to reassert themselves to defend the security that had been bought by so much blood. Although he found it difficult to see reasons for optimism: “I cannot resign myself to the thought that our last word has been said… I want to believe that civilisation will triumph over savagery…If Germany possessed by its traditional militarism, persists in its Deutschland über alles then let the die be cast. We will take up again the terrible war where we left off. We must have the courage to prepare for it instead of letting ourselves be weakened from conference to conference by lies that deceive nobody.”

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His last chapter began with an appeal to the unknown soldier, the anonymous poilu buried under the Arc de Triomphe: “And now unknown soldier of France, what do you say? What do you want? What do you do? Yes, you, modest and noble creation of the popular mind, forever silent beneath the funeral stone, it is you I dare to question.”18

These final pages are imbued with profound pessimism, although he still, hoping against his judgment, called on France to react against the defeatist leaders who had allowed the fruits of victory to be dissipated. The whole book can be seen as Clemenceau’s political testament, although it is certainly not a statesman’s memoirs in the normal sense, in no way the counterpart of multivolume works such as Lloyd George’s Memoirs or Churchill’s The World Crisis. He defended his policy in 1919 on two fronts. On the one hand he argued that it was a peace based on “Droit”, on right and justice, not on conquest. This could be seen implicitly as a refutation of the charges levied against him by Keynes, although the latter is mentioned only in passing along with Lansing as one of “the ineffable group of malcontents.” Keynes was very little read in France. 8,800 copies of Economic Consequences were printed, and some were still in stock at Gallimard in 1972: in contrast 14,0000 copies of the English version had been sold by 1924.19 On the other hand and at greater length, he argued against the attacks by Foch, Poincaré and Jacques Bainville, that he had failed by not imposing a much harsher peace. The extreme version of this was that Germany should have been divided into several small independent states; a more moderate version was that the Rhineland, the area on the left bank of the Rhine north of Alsace, should have been detached from Germany and made into an autonomous state under French control. He had of course argued the case for this solution during the peace negotiations, only to abandon it in the face of adamant opposition from Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd George. He made the basic point that as victory had been achieved only through a coalition of powers, France alone could not unilaterally impose her views on the terms of peace. The simplistic arguments of Foch and Poincaré failed to address this issue in any way. More fundamentally, he argued that it was vital to ensure the continuation in peace of the tripartite coalition, France, Britain and the United States, that had defeated the German bid for hegemony. His aim, he said, had been to combine the maximum possible security for France with the preservation of that coalition of powers. He claimed that this aim had in fact been achieved by the combination of the treaty of Versailles and the treaties of guarantee

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promised to France by Britain and the United States. His critics claimed of course that as the treaties of guarantee had never been signed, he had given away the substance for the shadows. His reply was that the failure of the United States and of Britain to honour their promises had occurred after he had left office. It was therefore his successors who should have reacted vigorously at that point, something they signally failed to do. Secondly, he argued that even without the support of the Anglo-Saxons, the terms he had achieved gave France many possibilities of defending her interest and safeguarding herself vis à vis Germany. But those in power between January 1920 and 1929 had allowed many of these safeguards to be whittled away, while at the same time criticising him for not obtaining better terms. As he said, the terms of the treaty were only worth anything if they were enforced. Clemenceau’s defence of the peace treaties in whose formulation he was such an important participant does not figure prominently in any of the analyses of the peace settlement and of its vicissitudes in the ten years between 28 June 1919 and his death just over ten years later on 24 November 1929.20 This observation is certainly not a criticism of the above studies. Clemenceau was not only out of office, he was completely removed from the circles in which current policy was being negotiated and decided. It seems obvious that the bitter remarks of this observer from the past, who if he was not already dead, certainly should have been, given his age (seventy eight when he retired, eighty eight when he died) another Mémoires d’outre tombe, were of no interest to contemporary statesmen and thus irrelevant to subsequent historians and analysts. However, from a wider point of view, it could be of some interest to examine Clemenceau’s views about the fate of the peace treaties, and especially of the Versailles treaty and of the evolution of the relationships between the four key players, Germany, Britain, France and the United States. It is interesting to remind ourselves of what he had to say, as his dominant theme was that the failure to defend what he had negotiated, and to impose it on a recalcitrant Germany would lead to a repetition of the war that the Allies had just fought and won. It is the consensus of recent academic studies that this was precisely what led to the Second World War. There has been a period in which historical study was diverted by the sociologists into looking at World War Two as a struggle between fascist and “democratic” powers, and by others as a war in which the American Japanese conflict in the Asia-Pacific region obliterated the struggle of Britain and France against Germany. But more recently and with more justification, the primacy of the European struggle against Germany’s

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attempted hegemony has been reasserted. In this perspective, failure to defend the peace settlement, and acquiescence in Germany’s incessant campaign against the “injustice” of the Versailles treaty, were the overriding reasons for the disaster of 1939-45. The fault was not in the treaty, although nothing in this world is perfect, but in the failure to enforce its terms when Germany reneged on them. Among the many assessments to have reached this conclusion, that of David Stevenson stands out for its brevity and clarity. He wrote that the peace settlement: “could either have accommodated a lasting reconciliation with the new republican regime in Germany or ensured that it remained militarily harmless. The real tragedy of the inter-war years was that it did neither …The main reason for this tragedy was not that the treaty terms were impractical or unjust. Nor did the Allies lack adequate military strength. The more fundamental problem was their disunity…The Versailles treaty did not make another war inevitable.” On the contrary disarmament and the Rhineland occupation made it impossible for the Germans to fight one. The treaty could have stopped another bloodbath if it had been upheld. And on the other hand “it contained deliberately inserted provision to allow for relaxation and reconciliation if Germany’s behaviour changed… the terms protected legitimate Allied economic and security needs, they did not predetermine a second round of conflict, and thus left a variety of futures open.” As Clemenceau told the Chamber of Deputies on 25 September 1919: “The treaty will only be worth what you are worth: it will be what you make it.”21 Although the final playing out of this scenario came after Clemenceau’s death, in the years of appeasement from 1935 to 1939 when concessions that might justifiably have been made to a peaceful and reconciled Germany were made to an obviously belligerent one, the signs were clear enough while he was alive. He told the Belgian journalist Fernand Neuray on 23 October 1928 that he thought there would be another war, and that he feared it more than he had feared the last war.22 And this was because France since 1918 had been ruled by the same politicians who had shown themselves incapable during the war and now again incapable of defending the peace. He referred to Caillaux and Malvy, but clearly included also Briand and Poincaré who had been in office for much of the period. And on 21 December 1928 he wrote to his new American friend Douglas that he would die in sadness because he feared a new catastrophe.23 It is not surprising that little attention has been paid to Clemenceau’s defence of the peace settlement. Historians who have analysed the diplomatic history of the nineteen twenties have found little reason to consider his views, as he was out of office and increasingly remote from

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the world where decisions about policy were taken. Down to 1924, through his disciple Tardieu, he might have hoped to have some access to this world, and his involvement in Tardieu’s newspaper L’Echo National, demonstrates that this remained a possibility. But with the victory of the left wing Cartel over the Bloc National in the 1924 elections, Clemenceau’s circle disappeared over the horizon as far as active politics was concerned. But moving away from the details of international relations between January 1920 and November 1929, Clemenceau’s views as expressed in his letters and conversations recorded by Martet, Mordacq and Georges Wormser, and above all in Grandeur and Misery, are worth serious consideration. His theme was that the settlement he had achieved through his hard-fought battles with Wilson and Lloyd George, combined the provision needed to give France security against a renewed German attack, with the promise of the other two to continue their alliance in the form of treaties of guarantee to France against a German attack. He was sure that if his successors in the French government had played well the cards he had placed in their hands, this combination would have been enough to maintain peace in Europe indefinitely. The treaties of guarantee were important, not to bring the Anglo-Saxons in on the side of France in a future war, but to deter Germany from launching another war. He was sure that Britain, at least, would join France if there were to be another Franco-German war, because British interests dictated that choice, just as they had done in 1914. But maintenance of allied unity, including the United States if possible, but an Anglo-French alliance if not, would prevent another war from happening. By the time he wrote Grandeur and Misery he had despaired of that outcome. There was no Anglo-French alliance, and British military strength, such as it was, was committed to defence of the Empire, far away from Calais. Although Germany in 1929 was still in no position to launch a war, the signs were clear that she would move to put herself in that position as soon as possible, and that the victors of 1918 would not stop her.

Notes 1

G. Clemenceau, Grandeur and Misery of Victory (London, 1930) is a translation of G. Clemenceau, Grandeurs et Misères d’une Victoire (Paris, 1930). Other sources used here for evidence of Clemenceau’s views are: J. Martet, Clemenceau, the Events of his Life as Told by Himself (London, 1930) a translation of parts of J. Martet, M Clemenceau Peint par lui-même (Paris, 1930), and Le Silence de M Clemenceau (Paris, 1929). A third volume of J. Martet, Le

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Tigre (Paris, 1930) has not been translated. General J.J.H. Mordacq, Clemenceau au Soir de sa Vie, 2 vols (Paris, 1933); G Wormser, La République de Clemenceau (Paris, 1961); S. Brodziak and J.-N. Jeannenay (eds), George Clemenceau, Correspondance 1858 – 1921 (Paris, 2008) 2 G. Clemenceau, Discours de Paix (Paris, 1938) p 216, quoted in D.R. Watson, Georges Clemenceau, a Political Biography (London, 1974). 3 R. Recouly, Le Mémorial de Foch, Mes Entretiens avec le Maréchal (Paris, 1929). 4 Detailed accounts of his candidature are to be found in: Watson, op. cit., pp. 3857; Wormser, op. cit., pp. 392-423; J.-B. Duroselle, Clemenceau (Paris 1988), pp. 850-858. 5 A. Tardieu, La Paix (Paris, 1921). 6 Watson, op. cit., p. 388. D.R. Watson, Georges Clemenceau: France (London, 2008), pp. 165-6. 7 W.S. Churchill, The World Crisis – the Aftermath (London, 1929), p. 20: referred to in Clemenceau, Grandeur, p 112. 8 P. Cambon, Correspondance, 1870 – 1924 (Paris, 1940) Vol., III, p. 399. 9 Details of the foundation of L’Echo National can be found in Wormser, op. cit., pp. 442-447; Duroselle, op. cit., pp. 877-884. On the wider political situation in 1921-2 see J. Bariéty “Le Projet de Pacte Franco-Britannique’ Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporaines, 193 (Sept.1999), pp. 84-99. 10 On Clemenceau’s visit to the United States, see S. Brodziak and M. Drouin (eds), ‘Clemenceau et le Monde Anglo-Saxon’, Actes du Colloque, Nov. 2004, (La Creche, 2005). In the same volume, see also M. Drouin, ‘Le voyage de 1922’, and R. Hanks, ‘Le voyage de 1922 vu par les Américains’ pp. 123-180. Sadly the edition of Clemenceau’s articles on the United States promised at this colloquium has not been published. The six articles he wrote have never been republished and must be sought in the original newspaper files. 11 G. Clemenceau, Correspondance, p. 642. The literature on the 1923 Ruhr occupation is immense. For Poincaré’s decisions in particular: J.F.V. Keiger, ‘Raymond Poincaré and the Ruhr Crisis’ in R. Boyce (ed.), French Foreign and Defence Policy 1918-1940 (London, 1998); S. Marks, ‘Poincaré le Peur, France and the Ruhr Crisis of 1923’ in K. Mouré and M. Alexander (eds), Crisis and Renewal in France 1918-1962 (London, 2002); S. Jeannesson, Poincaré, la France et le Ruhr (Paris, 1998). 12 G. Clemenceau, Correspondence, pp. 667-8. 13 He pursued his vendetta against Malvy, Minister of the Interior 1914-1917, holding him responsible for the defeatism and mutinies of 1917. A recent study points out the unfairness of this criticism: Jean-Yves Le Naour, L’Affaire Malvy (Paris, 2007). 14 J. Jacobson, Locarno Diplomacy, Germany and the West, 1925-1929 (Princeton, 1972), pp. 34-35. 15 The letter was republished as an appendix to Grandeur and Misery, pp. 392-4. 16 I am grateful to Professor Serge Cottereau for allowing me to consult the Clemenceau-Douglas correspondence of which he has photocopies taken from the

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library of the University of Arizona, where they are deposited. These photocopies have both Douglas’ letters to Clemenceau, and Clemenceau’s to Douglas, which were mainly written in English: Clemenceau’s letters have been published in the volume of his Correspondence, but translated into French, sometimes incorrectly: it also states that the originals are in the Library of Congress, not at the University of Arizona. 17 Grandeur and Misery, pp. 277-354. 18 Grandeur and Misery, pp. 374-7. 19 F. Crouzet ‘Réactions Francaises devant “Les Conséquences Economiques de la Paix” de Keynes’ in Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine XIX (Jan-Mars 1922), pp. 6-26. A recent reassessment of Keynes’ book is to be found in: D. Markwell, John Maynard Keynes and International Relations, Economic Paths to War and Peace (Oxford, 2006). The French translation of Keynes’ book has recently been republished together with Bainville’s response: J. Bainville, Les Conséquences Politiques de la Paix (Paris, 2002) 20 Four recent examples: P. Cohrs, The Unfinished Peace after World War One, America, Britain and the Stabilization of Europe 1919-1932 (Cambridge, 2006); C. Cordier and G.-H. Soutou (eds), 1918-1925, Comment Faire la Paix (Paris, 2001); S. Audoin-Rouzeau and C. Prochasson, Sortir de la Grande Guerre, Le Monde et l’Après 1918 (Paris, 2008); G. Johnson (ed.), Locarno Revisited, European Diplomacy 1920-1929 (London, 2004). 21 D. Stevenson, 1914-1918 The History of the First World War (London, 2004), p. 506 and 529; the quotation from Clemenceau is taken from Watson, Clemenceau, p. 361. 22 F. Neuray, Entretiens avec Clemenceau (Paris, 1936), pp. 73-77. 23 Clemenceau, Correspondance, pp. 919-920.

CHAPTER SIX THE PALESTINE QUESTION AT THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE1 CAROLE FINK

The principal fact about the Palestine question at the Paris Peace Conference is that it was not solved there at all. To be sure, the French and British governments as well as the Zionist and Arab delegates had fully expected a decision by the peacemakers. Instead, on the insistence of the American President Woodrow Wilson, a commission was dispatched to the region to ascertain the will of the inhabitants, creating a delay that raised anxieties and tempers and a report that was ignored.2 One year later, after the United States had withdrawn from the peace process the world’s two largest empires, Great Britain and France, patched up their differences and established the terms of their respective mandates in Palestine and Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Written under the shadows of the reparations conundrum in Europe, the April 1920 San Remo accord – ratified two years later by the League of Nations over strong Arab objections -- handed Palestine over to the British, drew its boundaries, and opened its gates to Jewish settlement.3 *** Why were there expectations that the fate of Palestine - a remote but not unbloodied battlefield – would be settled at Paris Peace Conference? The Great Powers had already made expansive promises. Although the United States had never declared war against the Ottoman Empire, Wilson’s twelfth point in his January 1918 address to Congress had stated that “the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development.”4 Breaking with longstanding tradition, the US president had thus announced his country’s interest in forging a Middle Eastern settlement. Britain and France had gone further. On 7 November

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1918, in an attempt to mollify public opinion in the Middle East, the Entente had pledged self-determination (“indigenous governments and administrations”) to the populations of Syria and Mesopotamia, now “liberated by the Allies.”5 The Palestine issue came up less than two weeks after the opening of the peace conference. While preparing to establish the League of Nations and dispose of the imperial realms of its ex-enemies, the Supreme Council in Paris on January 30, 1919 announced that “because of the historical mis-government by the Turks of subject peoples,” Palestine, along with Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, were to be “completely severed” from the Turkish Empire. But because these peoples were “not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world,” they were to be placed under the tutelage of “advanced nations,” acting as mandatories on behalf of the League of Nations, as a “sacred trust of civilization.” To sweeten the pill, the council recognized that the character of these mandates would vary according to the inhabitants’ preparation for independence and agreed that the “wishes of the communities [formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire] must be a principal consideration of a mandatory power.” 6 Looming in the background were the three momentous and contradictory wartime pledges by Great Britain that marked the future of Palestine. These included the October 1915 agreement between the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, and the Sherif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, in which Britain – in payment for the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire – had offered an independent Arab Kingdom, albeit within imprecisely defined boundaries. Seven months later, in May 1916 in the midst of the bloodiest European battles in World War I – Great Britain, concluded an old-fashioned territorial bargain with its Entente partner, the Sykes-Picot agreement, dividing the Turkish province of Syria (including parts of Palestine) with France. As the war dragged on, Russia had collapsed, America had not yet become a major contributor to the struggle against Germany, and the Reich was allegedly preparing a grand gesture to win the support of world Jewry, Britain suddenly thrust Palestine into the spotlight. In a bid to win Jewish endorsement of the Allied cause, Foreign Secretary Sir Arthur James Balfour on 2 November 1917 had promised a “Jewish National home” in the area British troops were about to conquer; and the Dominions and Britain’s major allies France, Italy, Japan, and the United States - all endorsed this audacious wartime pledge.7 Now promised in whole or in part to no less than four parties – Great Britain and France, the Zionists and the Arabs (and with the Italians,

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Russians, and other claimants expecting to maintain religious rights in the Holy Land), Palestine became one of the most fiercely contested regions at the Paris Peace Conference. The facts on the ground were, of course, significant: 1) Great Britain was now in control of all of Palestine, which it ruled through a military government until an internationally-recognized civilian regime could be established; 2) At the suggestion of the British government, an international Zionist Commission, formed in 1918 and led by Chaim Weizmann, had already journeyed to Palestine where they had negotiated with British officials and with the famed Arab nationalist leader, Emir Faisal, on the future of a Jewish homeland.8 But 3) The local Arab population in Palestine, through words and deeds, had already registered its opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration.9 The facts in Paris were equally compelling: The first was the economic and military power of the American president as well as Wilson’s enormous public prestige. The second was the strong commitment of Lloyd George and Balfour to the Zionist program,10 which was still backed by Italy and Japan, if not by France.11 Third, was the extraordinary mobilization of the Jewish world, ranging from citizens of the United States, Central and South America to the populations of Western, Central, and Eastern Europe and to those as far away as South Africa and Australia, all endorsing the Jews’ national right to resettle in Palestine. On the other hand, many elements clouded the picture. Key members of the American peace delegation opposed an increased Jewish settlement in Palestine12 as did important British cabinet members in London.13 The overwhelming support of the new German government gave little aid to the Zionists’ cause.14 Another obstacle was the mobilization of the Muslim world, which, from India to the shores of the Arabian Sea, opposed the replacement of Muslim control over Jerusalem by Christian British governors and Jewish settlers. And, finally, the Christian world, expressed its misgivings. Excluded from the peace conference, the Vatican under Pope Benedict XV was reportedly outraged at the prospect of AngloJewish control over the Holy Places.15 Emir Faisal, the leader of the Arab revolt, pressed the peace conference to fulfill the Allies’ wartime pledges. 16 On 6 February, he delivered a long, passionate address in Arabic to the Supreme Council calling for the unity and independence of all Arabs and their right to choose their own mandatory but, according to his prior assurances to the British, Zionists, and Americans, he specifically excluded Palestine.17 One week later, the French government produced its own claimant, a Syrian émigré long

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residing in Paris, who demanded a “united Syria” that included Palestine and would be governed under a French mandate.18 Wilson, before his month-long departure for the United States to win congressional support for the League, now signalled his solution for the Palestine question. At the session on 13 February, he introduced his close friend, the Reverend Howard Bliss. The aged, ailing president of the American University of Beirut made a stirring plea on behalf of the liberated Arab peoples, urged the Supreme Council to discard the wartime deals, and proposed the dispatch of an interallied commission to ascertain the population’s choice of rulers.19 Once Wilson had left Paris, Britain and France attempted to reestablish control. On the public level, they offered their Jewish clients an opportunity to present their views, although the “Big Three” – Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau -- were all absent.20 Thus, on 27 February 1919 five Jewish speakers appeared before the Supreme Council. The Zionist leaders, Nahum Sokolow and Weizmann called for an “autonomous Commonwealth” from Haifa to Akaba. A Russian spokesman, Menahem Ussishkin, and a French spokesman, André Spire, presented the proZionist views of their two communities.21 The final witness created fireworks. The famed oriental scholar, Sylvain Lévi, sent by the Quai d’Orsay and representing the anti-Zionist Alliance Israélite Universelle, punctured the myth of settling 4-5 million East European Jews in Palestine and alerted the diplomats to all the dangers of Zionism.22 Weizmann, rescued by the American Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, defended the Jewish claim to Palestine, refuted allegations that Zionism would create a double loyalty for Jews and kindle widespread anti-Semitism, and closed with the explosive announcement that his movement’s ultimate goal was To built up gradually a nationality which would be as Jewish as the French nation was French and the British nation British. Later on, when the Jews formed the large majority, they would be ripe to establish such a government as would answer to the state of the development of the country and to their ideals.23

The response was sharp and immediate. The Zionists exulted over Weizmann’s appearance and his claims.24 Back in Washington, a disconcerted Wilson imprudently reassured a Jewish delegation that the Allies had already agreed on a “Jewish Commonwealth” in Palestine, and permitted his endorsement to be widely reported in the press.25 However, a backlash also occurred. Leading figures in Whitehall and the Quai d’Orsay were appalled by Weizmann’s expansive claims.26

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American Jews were critical of the program presented in Paris. The Zionists were resentful of their exclusion and the non-Zionists horrified by a project that was “reactionary in tendency, undemocratic in spirit, and totally contrary to the practices of free government.” 27 Also the Arab world was shaken. Weizmann’s bold statement had undermined Faisal’s support for a Jewish homeland;28 and, more importantly, Weizman’s announcement stirred riots in Palestine that raised an alarm among the British occupying forces.29 Behind the scenes in Paris another drama was unfolding. French and British officials were squabbling not only over the Rhineland and the amount of reparations to be demanded from Germany but also over the future control of Syria. France, wielding its historical, economic, religious, and treaty claims, denounced Faisal as a British puppet, demanded British withdrawal from Damascus and, for tactical reasons, now demanded that its prospective mandate include parts of Palestine. Britain, on its part, counting on American, Arab, and Jewish support, was contemplating a renunciation of the Sykes-Picot agreement. Thus the stage was set for denouement.30 When the peacemakers reassembled on 20 March in their streamlined “Council of Four,” (which included Italy) they were under increasing pressure to expedite their deliberations because of a greatly aroused public and the rising threat of violence in Palestine. After more than a month of delay Wilson attempted to take charge of the “Syrian question” by proposing the dispatch a non-partisan commission to the region. Springing into action, Clemenceau suggested that the inquiry include Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Armenia; and Lloyd George was forced to acquiesce.31 Wilson’s ostensible victory for the principle of self-determination elated Faisal, the Arabs, and Jewish anti-Zionists and dismayed the Zionists.32 The president’s intervention, which effectively closed down the deliberations on Palestine, stirred uneasiness in Paris. Balfour feared an eruption of Arab protests to “create facts” for the peacemakers.33 Wilson’s advisors warned that an inquiry “would unsettle the countries it dealt with, create an impression that the Peace Conference was unable to make decisions, and open the door to intrigues and manifestations.”34 The president held firm but his initiative was quickly stalled.35 For more than two months Lloyd George and Clemenceau bickered, and neither Britain nor France nominated members of the interallied commission. Finally Wilson announced on 21 May that he was dispatching two Americans with absolutely no experience in the region: Charles Crane, a Chicago industrialist, businessman and strong Wilson

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supporter, and Henry Churchill King, a missionary activist and YMCA leader and the president of Oberlin College, to Palestine and to Syria. With a German delegation now in Paris and pressure mounting to conclude a peace treaty, the possibility of including a Palestine settlement had become moot, much to the chagrin of the Zionists.36 In the traditional historiography, this inconclusive outcome has been interpreted largely through the conduct of the three leading statesmen: the arrogant and inscrutable Woodrow Wilson; the cynical, but also beleaguered Georges Clemenceau; and the cunning military conqueror and Zionist partisan, David Lloyd George.37 To some extent this characterization is useful. Wilson, the key player, was an enigmatic figure. To be sure, he had pronounced sympathies for Zionism out of personal and political convictions. Four of his ardent Democratic supporters, Justices Louis Brandeis and Julien Mack as well as the Harvard law Professor Felix Frankfurter and Rabbi Stephen Wise, had eloquently promoted the case for a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. These prominent figures were essential to gaining Jewish support for the League of Nations.38 There were powerful arguments on the Zionists’ side. Brandeis not only defended the historical justice of reestablishing the Jews in Palestine but had provided the ingenuous (if also risky) rationalization for ignoring the wishes of the overwhelming Arab majority and the anti-Zionist sentiment of the Muslim world: He claimed that there were millions of “potential [Jewish] inhabitants” living in distant lands, now under threat from their new nationalistic governments, and barred by quotas from emigration to the West. Without access to a Jewish homeland, these unhappy Jewish masses in Eastern Europe would likely succumb to the lure of bolshevism.39 Moreover Wilson, prompted by House and Lansing, appreciated the practical reasons for moving ahead with a Palestine settlement.40 Because all the great powers had already endorsed the Balfour Resolution, any delay would diminish their power and prestige before the Arab and Jewish world. Balancing these considerations were several other factors. Within the context of his ideological rivalry to Lenin, Wilson risked much by bowing automatically to Britain’s claims to the spoils of war. Moreover, America’s economic and religious interests were at stake in Palestine. Furthermore, the president’s pro-Zionist stance was tempered by the strong anti-Zionist sentiments of some of his supporters in the American Jewish community, especially Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, whom he was about to send on an important fact-finding mission to investigate the

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allegations of a wave of anti-Jewish violence in the newly reconstituted Poland.41 We shall probably never know whether the postponement of the Palestine question was also due to Wilson’s fragile health, his brittle temperament, his huge workload in Paris, or his personal views. What is significant is that even a weakened American president, on 21 May 1919, could still call the shots in Paris; and his partners accommodated themselves to his will. Georges Clemenceau, who sympathized with the Zionist cause, was uncharacteristically passive over Wilson’s intervention. Five months earlier this old-style republican and anti-imperialist had famously renounced France’s claim to Palestine in order to gain Britain’s help in the treaty terms with Germany. But at the peace conference Clemenceau, the weakest of the Big Three, was also a besieged politician fighting for France’s demands in Europe and was forced to bow to France’s colonial lobby and to the Quay d’Orsay over Palestine. By the time Wilson’s design became evident, Clemenceau had invested too much in his bizarre quarrel with Lloyd George to thwart it; but his stubbornness and patience would ultimately bring France the award of Syria.42 Although Lloyd George put a good face on Wilson’s dictate, Britain had undoubtedly suffered a setback. For personal as well as political reasons the British Prime Minister was deeply committed to securing Palestine and redeeming the pledge in the Balfour declaration to its fullest extent. However, due to his sketchy knowledge of the region’s peoples and geography along with his notorious inconsistency on a host of peace conference issues, the prime minister’s position on Palestine was not invulnerable.43 Lloyd George, vexed by the French and shocked by Wilson’s stubbornness, was also weakened by dissension within his government. Zionism’s major champion, Balfour, was now alarmed over its leaders’ unrestrained demands and the growing Arab resistance.44 Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, was a long-time and outspoken opponent of Zionism, who feared its impact on the Muslim world. Curzon, directing the foreign office while his chief was in Paris, had made no secret of his opposition to Britain’s undertaking a thankless, dangerous commitment on behalf of the Jews that would weaken the entire Empire;45 and his subordinates were appalled by the intemperateness of the Zionists’ program, which included control over immigration, land, public works, water rights, and educational institutions in Palestine.46 On top of this, the British Military Administration had become deeply suspicious of the Zionists’ political goals, with the reports from Clayton in Cairo

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particularly alarming.47 It would have thus been politically risky for the Prime Minister to shake his fist at the American president and demand Palestine on the spot; and so he too bided his time.48 Moving beyond the governmental level, we can discern even deeper causes for the impasse in Paris. Palestine was never separate from the peacemakers’ deliberations over the new contours of Europe and the expansive, often competing nationalist claims of their various East European clients. Pressed for time, lacking local expertise, and refusing to commit troops to this volatile region between Germany and Soviet Russia, the victors had generally acquiesced in almost all of these claims. Self determination, at best a vague, problematic principle, was applied erratically and generally to the benefit of the Allies’ stronger clients. For example, no plebiscite was demanded over the union between Czechs and Slovaks or the creation of Yugoslavia; no commissions would be dispatched to learn the will of the populations of Transylvania, Bessarabia, Thrace, Macedonia, Montenegro, or Eastern Galicia. At almost the last minute the peacemakers devised minority treaties to protect populations placed under the rule of alien or hostile governments; but these were simply stopgap measures aimed at the ultimate assimilation of these involuntary new citizens.49 The situation in the Near East was both similar and different. Britain, which had won an uncontested military victory over the Ottoman Empire, was now faced with a difficult French ally, quarrelling Jewish and Arab clients, and a powerful American president in the role of a disinterested arbiter. Three competing nationalist movements, a new anti-colonial ideology, and two competing imperial visions were about to collide. Zionism was undoubtedly one of the most complicated of all nationalist ideologies born in the nineteenth century. Nurtured by small but determined minorities within Jewish communities throughout the world, Zionism by the end of the First World War already had a bumpy history, with multiple claimants to leadership, a broad, even contradictory range of objectives,50 and numerous opponents, Jewish and non-Jewish. After the Balfour Declaration, the Zionists had warmly supported the Allies; but locally and worldwide, the cause was also weakened by its association with the British Empire.51 Moreover, unlike the Czechs the Zionists had no army. Pan-Arabism, as represented by Faisal, was also a problematic ideology with its own local and foreign advocates and adversaries. News of the Sykes-Picot agreement, publicized by the Bolsheviks, had shocked the Muslim world. During the peace conference, Faisal, the foremost panArabist, became tarred by his British and Zionist connections and

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increasingly isolated from his radical Arab brethren in Jerusalem and Damascus. Local Arab leaders, threatened by European control, became less intent on establishing a vast kingdom extending all the way to Arabia than in establishing local independence. Thus Faisal, with an army about to be disbanded, quickly lost his legitimacy in the region as well as in Paris.52 There were also the Palestinians, whose nationalism had been aroused by the Balfour declaration and was directed against both Britain and the Zionists.53 Despite the foreign secretary’s exceedingly cautious formulation – the “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” [and not the existing community] – Palestinian militants could claim that they, like the Jews, had now received their international charter. They thus showed little enthusiasm for a “greater Syria” – ruled either by an Arab dynasty, by France, or even by the Americans - or for a Palestine ruled by a proZionist Britain. Like the Zionists, the Palestinians lacked their own military force; but after 1917 they rapidly adopted the language of self determination and the techniques of petitions, protests, and direct action.54 Outside the immediate region, there were growing challenges to European imperialism after the First World War.55 From the voices of Gandhi and Kemal, W, E, B, DeBois and E. D. Morel came eloquent arguments against old-fashioned territorial grabs. Even the palliative formula of mandates, supervised by the League of Nations, held little attraction for populations about to be transferred to new overlords. Nonetheless, the peacemakers in Paris had no intention of establishing self-determination either in large parts of Europe or in the former colonial world. In regard to the future of Palestine, all four powers were at least publicly committed to Zionism. Balfour had made it clear that Palestine was “absolutely exceptional” and that the Jews’ historic claim took priority over the “desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”56 Moreover Lloyd George was convinced that most Arabs, especially the Palestinians, had fought against the Allies during the First World War and were thus disqualified from consideration.57 Woodrow Wilson had hoped that his League of Nations would repair injustices and create conditions of equity and democratic rule. His innovation in regard to Palestine – parallel to Lloyd George’s ploy on Upper Silesia – was to pacify public opinion by creating the semblance of a plebiscite. In the end, however, the King-Crane Commission was no more than a well-orchestrated survey conducted by inexperienced practitioners; and its report, largely reflecting America’s religious, political, and economic interests, had only a propagandistic effect.58

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Britain and France remained determined to redeem their wartime claims. Although both were fully cognizant of the scant rewards and great dangers that lay in Palestine, they had heated up their rivalry, enabling Wilson to close down the discussions in Paris and dictate an approach that worsened conditions in the region. Nonetheless, the Allies’ patience ultimately paid off. America soon withdrew from the fray; and, although Britain’s position in Palestine was solid, France was indispensable to the post-war settlement. Thus, in September 1919, Lloyd George patched things up with Clemenceau, conceding Syria and abandoning Faisal and his pan-Arab vision. Eventually the ex-Entente reverted to the agreement they had concluded in 1916; and Great Britain, after significant backtracking over the Balfour Declaration, grimly began its two and a half decades of mandatory rule in Palestine.59 *** The essential flaw in the deliberations on the Palestine question at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 was not simply the shortcomings of its leading statesmen or the peculiarities of their procedures. There was a fundamental conceptual and political clash between the ideal of selfdetermination and European imperial interests in the Middle East and between the Jewish longing for a homeland, the Arab desire for unity, and the Palestinians’ yearning to be left alone. Palestine was introduced, debated, and postponed in the public glare of the twentieth century’s most (in)famous peace conference. These events magnified the volatile nationalist sentiments that the Allies had manipulated during the First World War. Yet at the peace table and up to now the Great Powers have proved incapable of comprehending the conflicting aspirations of Palestine’s inhabitants or mastering the politics of the region.

Notes 1

An earlier draft of this chapter was read at the conference, “From the Great War to the Peace Settlement, 1918-1919: A Retrospective Evaluation,” sponsored by the International History Institute of Boston University in March 2007. 2 A. Sharp, The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking after the First World War, 1919-1923, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke, 2008), pp. 192-93. 3 M. Macmillan, Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War (London, 2001), pp. 392-437; also, M. L. Dockrill and J. D. Goold, Peace Without Promise: Britain and the Paris Peace Conferences, 19191923 (London, 1981), pp. 169-79; C. Andrew and A.S. Kanya-Forstner, France

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Overseas: The Great War and the Climax of French Imperial Expansion (London, 1981), pp. 205-8; D. Fromkin, A Peace to End Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York, 1989), pp. 403-4. 4 Emphasis added. Congressional Record, 65th Congress, 2nd Session, 1918, pp.680-81. It was on the urging of Colonel House to avoid any US commitment to specific peace terms that the president - with the exception of Belgium - replaced “must” with “should” in all territorial references in the Fourteen Points. C. Seymour, (ed.), The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 3 (Boston, 1928), pp. 32930. 5 Text of the Anglo-French declaration, issued in Palestine, Syria and Iraq in the form of an official communiqué from the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, in G. Antonius, The Arab Awakening (New York, 1965), Appendix E, pp. 435-36. 6 Foreign Relations of the United States: The Paris Peace Conference, [Hereafter FRUS PPC) Vol. 3, pp. 795-96. Like the other defeated powers, Turkey had no voice in these deliberations. 7 L. Stein, The Balfour Declaration (London, 1961); I. Friedman, The Question of Palestine, 1914-1918 (New Brunswick, 1973); J. Reinharz, The Balfour Declaration in Historical Perspective (New York, 1996). 8 Details in: C. Weizmann, Trial and Error (London, 1950), pp. 265-99. See also R. Sanders, The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine (New York, 1983), p. 652. 9 Pichon to Tardieu, Beirut 6 Dec. 1918, 4 Feb. 1919, Durieux to Picot, 13 Dec. 1918, France. Ministry of Foreign Affairs [FMAE] Papiers d’Agents – Archives Tardieu. Conference de la Paix 1919, Question Juive (Oct. 1918-May 1919), Vol. 130. 10 See, esp. Philip Kerr to Lloyd George (Feb) 1919, Lloyd George papers, House of Lords [LGP] F89/2/22; James de Rothschild to Lloyd George, Paris, 18 Mar. 1919, ibid, F92/16/2. 11 Barbier note, 4 Feb. 1919, Questions Juives et Politique Française, FMAE E Levant (1918-19), Palestine (Sionisme) Jules Cambon, 11 Feb. 1919, details Edmond de Rothschild’s reservations over the “ultra-nationalist” tendencies of the Zionist movement, its socialist aspects, his fears of inciting a revolt among Arab Muslims and Christians, and also the impact on Jews throughout the world. FMAE Y Internationale, Vol. 377 Sionisme. 12 See, esp. D. Magie, “Palestine” [Dec.] 1918, American Peace Commission papers, Library of Congress, Vol. 34; “The Truth about Palestine,” n.d., Tasker Bliss papers, ibid. 13 Curzon to Balfour, 16 Jan. 1919, LGP F3/4/4. 14 Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 30 Jan. 1919. 15 Balfour to Lloyd George, 19 Feb. 1919, LGP F3/4/12; De Salis to FO, Vatican, 2, 12, 13, 24 Mar. 1919 Great Britain, National Archives, Foreign Office Records [GB FO] 371/4479; details in “Il Sionismo e la Palestina,” Le Momento (Turin), 16 Mar. 1919; petition by Amis de la Terre Sainte to the French Foreign Ministry, FMAE Papiers d’Agents – Archives Tardieu (166) Conference de la Paix 1919, Sionisme 131 (French involvement) also La Croix, Apr. 3, 1919.

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16 Faisal Memoranda, 1, 28 Jan. 1919, US Department of State. Peace Conference files 185.5138/2 and 3. 17 FRUS PPC, Vol. 3, p. 888-94. 18 Ibid., pp. 1024-38. 19 FRUS PPC, Vol. 3, pp. 1015-18. 20 As were representatives of American Zionism. Frankfurter to Brandeis, London, 7 Mar. 1919, Central Zionist Archives [CZA], Jerusalem A404/106; Jewish Daily News [London], 27 Feb. 1919; Jewish Chronicle, 7 Mar. 1918. 21 FMAE Procès-Verbaux (Quarante-Sixième Séance), Exposé de la question sioniste, 27 Feb. 1919, (Secret), Alliance Israélite Universelle [AIU], France II D 8. André Spire, “Le sionisme devant la Conférence de la Paix,” [Mar.] 1919, CZA A93/1; see also Le Temps, Journal des Débats, 1 Mar. 1919; Manchester Guardian, 28 Feb. 1919, Daily Mail (London), 1 Mar. 1919. 22 FRUS PPC, Vol. 4, pp. 466-9; Comte rendu de M. Sylvain Lévi ,” AIU France II/D. Background: Goût to Berthelot, 26 Feb.1919, FMAE Z Levant: Palestine: Sionisme, Vol. 13; political analysis: Nota per il Ministro [28 Feb. 1919) Italy. Ministry of Foreign Affairs [IMAE] Conf. Pace, Sionismo. 23 FRUS PPC, Vol. 4, pp. 169-70. 24 Zionist Organization, London Bureau, Communique No.41, GB FO 608/152 503/2/2; Weizmann report in Jewish Chronicle, 7 Mar. 1919; J. Schiff, “The Need for a Jewish Homeland,” The Nation (26 Apr. 1919); cf. Declaration by the Consistoire Centrale des Israélites de France, 15 May 1919, FMAE Z Levant. 25 New York Times, 5 Mar. 1919. 26 Curzon to Balfour, London, 26 Jan. 1919, Curzon papers, British Library, Box 65 F112/208; also Curzon Minute, 7 Mar. 1919 GB FO 371 W44/1051/4170; Memorandum, 22 Apr. 1919, ibid., 4180/60671. 27 New York Times, Mar. 5, 1919; see also F. Shatara to Henry White, 3 Mar. 1919, conveying the resolution of the “Palestine Antizionism Society,” White papers, Library of Congress. 28 Faisal interview Le Matin, 1 Mar. 1919. 29 Clayton to FO, Cairo, 26 Mar. 1919, GB FO 608/107 21004; The Times, 10 Mar. 1919. Details in Durieux to FMAE, Jerusalem, 12 Mar. 1919, FMAE Z Levant Palestine-Sionisme, Vol. 13. Balfour to Herbert Samuel, 31 Mar. 1919, Mond to Balfour, 7 Apr. 1919, Balfour to Mond, 11 Apr. 1919, Balfour papers, British Library, 49745; Levi Bianchini to Conte, Jaffa, 26 Mar. 1919, Soragna to IMAE, Jerusalem, 30 Mar. 1919, Manzoni to Sonnino, 19 Mar. 1919, IMAE Conf. Pace Sionismo. 30 House Diary, 12 Mar. 1919, House papers, Yale University; details of AngloFrench bickering in Dockrill and Goold, Peace without Promise, pp. 150-56. 31 FRUS PPC, Vol. 5, pp. 1-14. 32 L. Evans, United States Policy and the Partition of Turkey, 1914-1924 (Baltimore, 1965), pp. 141-44. 33 Monod to Goût, Paris, 29 Apr. 1919, FMAE Z Levant (1918-19), Palestine (Sionisme).

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34 Balfour to Samuel, 31 Mar., Balfour to Mond, 11 Apr., Balfour papers, British Library, 49745; Balfour to Ambassador Reading in Washington, Paris, 18 Apr.1919, GB FO 371/4180. 35 House Diary, 20 May 1919. 36 After visiting Palestine (10-25 Jun.) and Syria (26 Jun.-21 Jul.), the King-Crane Commission on 30 Aug. rejected the separation of Palestine from Syria and recommended a “greatly reduced Zionist program” and an American mandate over the entire region. However, as a result of the United States’ withdrawal from the peace with Turkey, the report vanished. H. Howard, The King-Crane Commission (Beirut, 1963), pp. 87-154, 220-7, 249-81; E. Kedourie, England the Middle East: The Destruction of the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1921 (London, 1987), pp. 148 and passim. 37 R. Lansing, The Big Four and Others of the Peace Conference (Boston, 1921), pp. 10-103 contains useful pen portraits of the three. 38 F. Manuel, The Realities of American-Palestine Relations (Washington, DC, 1949), pp. 175-79, 218-20, 233-34. 39 R.N. Lebow, “Woodrow Wilson and the Balfour Declaration,” Journal of Modern History 40, no. 4 (Dec. 1968), pp. 501-23; cf. Brandeis-Balfour interview in Paris, June 1919, detailed in A. Walworth, Wilson and His Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (New York, 1986), pp. 481-83. 40 See Lansing’s statement, FRUS PPC, Vol. 11, p. 66 41 A. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace? (New York, 1978), p. 77. 42 J.-B. Duroselle, Clemenceau (Paris, 1988), pp. 854-55; A. and K. Forstner, France Overseas, pp. 196-208. 43 On his pro-Zionism, M. Gilbert, (ed.), Lloyd George (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1968), pp. 69-72. 44 Balfour Memorandum, Paris, 23 Mar, 1919, GB FO 371/4171/51811; Balfour to Reading, Paris, 18 Apr. 1919, ibid, 4180/60568. 45 Curzon, Note Respecting the Middle East Question, 22 Apr.1919, GB FO 371/4180/60671. 46 Kidson, Minutes, 27 Feb., n.d. 1919, GB FO 371/4170 /25158, 43505. 47 See, esp. Clayton to FO, Cairo, 2 May 1919 GB FO 608/59 9567. 48 Macmillan, Peacemakers, pp. 410-26. As Fromkin has pointed out, Lloyd George succeeded in avoiding a commission to examine local responses to Britain’s postwar claims to Mesopotamia and its informal control over Egypt, Persia, and the Gulf sheikdoms, Peace to End All Peace, p. 397. 49 M. Mazower, “Minorities and the League of Nations in Interwar Europe,” Daedalus 126, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 47-63. 50 American Zionists, for example, were ill-prepared for establishing the terms of governing Palestine; Russian Zionists inclined towards Socialist objectives; and German Zionists were the most insistent on establishing cooperative relationships with the local Arab communities. 51 D. Vital, Zionism: The Crucial Phase (Oxford, 1987).

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Antonius, The Arab Awakening, pp. 286-304. B.M. Nafi, Arabism, Islamism and the Palestine Question, 1908-1941 (Reading, 1998), pp. 57-72 discusses the competition between Arabism and Palestinian nationalism; see also D. K. Fieldhouse, Western Imperialism and the Middle East, 1914-1958 (Oxford, 2006), pp. 127-29. 54 Y. Porath, The Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1919-1939 (London, 1977), pp. 208-40, 274-303. 55 E. Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford, 2007); S. Panter-Brick, Gandhi and the Middle East: Jews, Arabs, and Imperial Interests (London, 2008). 56 Balfour to Lloyd George, LGP F3/4/12; note, 23 Mar., 1919, FO 371 4171/1051, and “Memorandum respecting Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia,” Documents on British Foreign Policy, First Series, Vol. 4. 57 D. Lloyd George, Memoirs of the Peace Conference, Vol. 2 (New Haven,1939), pp. 723-24. 58 I. Friedman, Palestine: A Twice-Promised Land? The British, the Arabs & Zionism, 1915-1920 (New Brunswick, 2000), pp. 251-82. 59 B. Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict, 1917-1929 (London, 1978). 53

CHAPTER SEVEN NEW DIRECTIONS IN BRITISH POLICY: THE CHALLENGES OF DISARMAMENT, 1918-1925 CAROLYN KITCHING

Of all the responses of the political elites to changed international norms after 1918, none was more challenging than that of disarmament. The newly-formed League of Nations attempted to impose a very different way of conducting relations between nations, and to re-define the framework in which these relations would take place. One of the major planks of this new framework was to be the replacement of the traditional measurement of the strength of nations via the level and sophistication of their armaments. This chapter will examine the British response to these demands, torn as they were between their need to police the newlyacquired mandated territories, their traditional rivalry with the French and their desire to appear to conform to the ideal of the League of Nations.1 A number of factors influenced this response, including the nature of the disarmament debate itself; the reasons why disarmament became an issue at the end of the First World War; how the newly-formed League of Nations expected disarmament to be carried out; and why the theory was so difficult to implement in practice. However, before attempting to understand the new directions in British policy it is perhaps most useful to start with examining the old, established directions, which culminated in the arms races, both naval and military, which many statesmen, at the time, believed had led to the outbreak of war in 1914. War, and preparation for war, was the permanent preoccupation of the great powers. Europe had seen numerous wars in the second half of the nineteenth century, including the Crimean war, the wars of German unification, and the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78.2 Relative quiescence among the powers after 1878 was due not so much to a lack of disputes or instinctive wish for peace, rather to the deflection of military threats and

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activities into the imperial and colonial fields. New resources were sought to build up power bases for the future. Colonial wars and crises became frequent as the great powers used their technological lead in armaments to impose themselves on peoples and territories which were industrially underdeveloped. By the end of the nineteenth century, the world was effectively carved up among the leading powers. Remnants of the old order remained, for example the Portuguese colonies and the Ottoman and Chinese empires, but none were impervious to great power designs and influences. Given the prevailing ideology of the time, Tsar Nicholas II’s Rescript of 24 August 1898 calling for an international conference to discuss the limitation of armaments was a revolutionary document. Tsar Nicholas decried the “ever increasing financial burdens” and “waste of the physical and intellectual forces of the people” and argued that the “latest inventions of science … are destined tomorrow to be rendered obsolete by some new discovery”. 3 He predicted that the crushing burden and economic disturbances would “inevitably lead to that very disaster which it is desired to avoid, and the horrors of which make every humane mind shudder by anticipation”.4 There is, of course, no way of knowing what Nicholas’ real motivation was: did he genuinely desire “world peace” or, given the social unrest at the time, did he feel that the ruling classes of Europe might preserve their position better if their armed forces were focussed internally rather than externally?5 Whatever Nicholas’ motivation, his plan came to nothing. The First Hague Conference of 1899 could scarcely be deemed a success, chiefly because a reduction in armaments was not in the national interests of the great powers at that time.6 Earlier in the year, for instance, Britain and France had been on the verge of war at Fashoda, and both were currently increasing the level of their armaments, whilst in the previous year the German government had adopted a policy of Weltpolitik and had taken the decision to build a high seas fleet in competition with the Royal Navy, whilst the United States and Spain were still at war with each other, and in the Far East, a major crisis loomed. Far from basing their policies on peace and disarmament, the powers seemed to be relying on the old imperatives of war and armaments; instinctively they were disposed to competition rather than co-operation. The final years of the nineteenth century represented a watershed in the relations of the great powers, both politically and economically. This was especially reflected in Britain’s position in relation to the competing European alliances. In the 1880s and 1890s, Britain’s diplomatic tendencies favoured Germany and Austria. Her relations with France, particularly over Egypt and colonial matters, were strained, as were her

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relations with Russia. The competition between the leading powers continued throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, and the result of this competition was a series of alliances, as they juggled to maintain and, if possible, improve their imperial status. In 1898 Britain and Germany endeavoured to negotiate a formal alliance, but the negotiations failed, not because of any lack of goodwill but because British and German interests did not entirely coincide, and as German policy became more militant and inflexible, British policy leaned towards an alignment with France and Russia. Existing disputes with France and Russia had not gone away, but the differences with Germany began to assume greater importance. At the same time, in order to protect her interests in the Far East, in January 1902 Britain entered into an alliance with Japan. This alliance met two important British objectives: she prevented a Russo-Japanese combination in the Far East by recognising Japanese supremacy in Korea, and she ensured that any French assistance to the Russians in the region would be diplomatic rather than military. The implications of the alliances which Germany formed with AustriaHungary and Italy, and the closer relationship which Britain forged with France and Russia have been well documented elsewhere, as has the nature of the naval race between Britain and the Germany and the effect of Germany’s switch of emphasis to the increase in its land forces.7 Their importance as far as the current chapter is concerned is to demonstrate the way in which Britain, and the other leading powers, used their independence and flexibility to, quite literally, balance their positions of power, as well as attempting to counteract potential threats to these positions. In January 1906 a Liberal government was returned to power in Britain, and despite the imperialist tendencies of some of its major players - Sir Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, Haldane at the War Office and Herbert Asquith at the Treasury alongside the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman – there was also a vociferous Radical wing which favoured substantial increases in social expenditure and decreases in expenditure on armaments. However, this was not enough to ensure British support at the second Hague disarmament conference in 1908. This conference failed for the same reason as the first – disarmament did not suit the policies of the great powers. In July/August 1914, the deterrent of armaments simply failed to deter. The leading states and statesmen of the world were to reap what they had sown; the Great War of 1914-18. That is not to say that the arms race directly caused the Great War. Unquestionably, however, the arms race was a major factor determining the parameters and context of foreign policy decision-making

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in each of the powers. The competitive accumulation of national military and naval power not only exacerbated existing tensions but created new ones. Far from acting as a lever of accommodation, the arms race acted as a lever of division. The foregoing brief history provides a picture of the direction of British policy in the twenty years immediately preceding the outbreak of war in 1914. Built on a system of alliances into which she was drawn, albeit reluctantly, Britain nevertheless retained the freedom to weigh up her options and make her decisions. Her decision was to safeguard her position in the Far East by an alliance with Japan, to build up her naval strength in the face of a possible threat from the Franco-Russian alliance, but not to be overtaken by a determinedly expansionist Germany. Having established the direction of Britain’s policy prior to the outbreak of war, it is perhaps easier to understand her reaction to the changes demanded of all the Great Powers in the aftermath of the War. The ending of the war in November 1918 was followed by the controversial negotiation and conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles. Once again, this is an issue which has continued to fascinate historians, and upon which active debate continues.8 However, for the purposes of this study, attention will be focussed on the disarmament clauses of the Treaty and on the relevant Articles of the League of Nations Covenant, in order to establish the foundations on which the new world order was to be based. Perhaps the first point to understand is the nature of the disarmament debate: why was it seen as a fundamental part of the peace negotiations and why did its implementation apparently pose such problems for Britain? The word “disarmament” itself has been the subject of much debate and disagreement amongst political scientists and historians alike: does it mean the reduction, to whatever level, of armaments, or could it apply to an agreement which limited, or even increased, this level?9 The term, disarmament, in the context of this study, however, was used by the statesmen of the time to mean the reduction in the level of armaments. The arms race was seen by many to have been one of the major causes of the war, as expressed by the British Foreign Secretary in 1914, Sir Edward Grey The moral is obvious: it is that great armaments lead inevitably to war …. The enormous growth of armaments in Europe, the sense of insecurity and fear caused by them – it was these that made war inevitable.10

The sense behind this argument was equally obvious: eliminate weapons and the ability to wage war is likewise eliminated. The peacemakers in Paris, under the evangelical direction of American President, Woodrow

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Wilson, decreed that Germany should be disarmed, not purely as punishment for “causing” the Great War, but to facilitate the subsequent disarmament of all states. 11 Working on this assumption that wars are caused by armaments, the peacemakers drafted the Treaty, Part V of which related to the question of Disarmament, the Preamble to which stated In order to render possible the initiation of a general limitation of the armaments of all nations, Germany undertakes to observe the military, naval and air clauses which follow

and which formed the basis of Germany’s case for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles, in that the “general limitation” referred to above, was never implemented. Article 8 of the League of Nations Covenant expanded on the idea of German disarmament being a precursor to general disarmament by stating that The members of the League recognize that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations … 12

Under the Treaty of Versailles Germany was disarmed to a level at which it was anticipated that she could never again threaten the peace of Europe. She was allowed to retain an army of no more than 100,000 men, on a long-term service basis, and was prohibited from possessing “aggressive weapons” such as tanks, heavy guns over 105 mm, battleships over 10,000 tons, military aircraft, poison gas and submarines. The navy was restricted numerically to six battleships, six light cruisers, twelve destroyers and twelve torpedo boats, with a maximum personnel of 15,000; the general staff was abolished, the military training of civilians prohibited, and strict regulations applied to all military establishments. To enforce the Treaty, Inter-Allied Control Commissions were established with extensive powers of inspection; these would be withdrawn when the Allied occupation of Germany ended. The policy outlined above would seem to have a simple rationale: elimination of arms would eliminate wars. This philosophy is not, however, as simple as it might at first appear. Given that disarmament is desirable, and even that assumption is questioned by some, is it actually feasible? How does one go about achieving disarmament? If the theory of the arms race is accepted, it would appear to be quite reasonable to expect that all countries who wished for peace would agree, unquestioningly, to reduce the level of their armaments. There is, however, an alternative

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explanation of arms race dynamics, which is not that arms races cause wars, but that tensions between nations cause them to build up the level of their armaments. The theory is summed up by Hans Morgenthau thus: Men to not fight because they have arms. They have arms because they deem it necessary to fight. Take away their arms and they will either fight with their bare fists, or get themselves new arms with which to fight.13

This theory emphasises the need for security and stability: only when men cease to feel threatened will they dare to put away their weapons, and ensuring that men do not feel threatened is a much more difficult task than merely taking away their weapons. Salvador de Madariaga, who for many years led the Disarmament Section of the League of Nations, and was Spain’s representative at the World Disarmament Conference of 1932-34, also supported this theory. In his memoirs he commented that The trouble with disarmament was … that the problem of war is tackled upside down and at the wrong end …. Nations don’t distrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they distrust each other. And therefore to want disarmament before a minimum of common agreement on fundamentals is as absurd as to want people to go undressed in winter. Let the weather be warm, and people will discard their clothes readily and without committees to tell them how they are to undress.14

This leads to the next reason for Britain’s reluctance to follow the New Directions required of her: the question of security. Although this study focuses on the disarmament question in the immediate post-war years, this was not, of course, the only new direction in which the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles were expected to travel. Just as the arms race was seen to have been one factor that contributed to the outbreak of war in 1914, another was believed to have been the system of the balance of power in existence prior to 1914, and described briefly in the earlier part of this chapter. The system of alliances in force in 1914 was believed, certainly by one of the architects of the Treaty of Versailles, Woodrow Wilson, to have been a major reason for the outbreak of hostilities. Germany’s backing for Austria-Hungary in her quarrel with Serbia then brought in Russia, in an effort to protect Serbia, and the Franco-Russian agreement then brought France into the conflict, which almost automatically brought Britain into the fray. The system of collective security envisaged by Wilson, would replace this potentially de-stabilising system. Article 10 of the League Covenant stated that

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The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.

Articles 11 and 12 declared that Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations …

and that The Members of the League agree that, if there should arise between them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture they will submit the matter either to arbitration or judicial settlement or to enquiry by the Council, and they agree in no case to resort to war until three months after the award by the arbitrators or the judicial decision, or the report by the Council …

Alliances were therefore unnecessary: a threat to one member of the League would be met by the support of all other members. An aggressor nation would think twice before taking on the might of the total membership of the League. This system of collective security, when tied to the dramatic level of disarmament envisaged by Article 8, would ensure the security of all. Unfortunately, the Treaty of Versailles did not offer to all participants the rewards and certainties they craved. Britain, secure on the seas from the threat of a German navy, was inclined to be more lenient in her demands, whilst France, still seeing herself at risk from the possible, if not probable, resurgence of Germany, demanded tighter control and harsher penalties. France wished to see the detachment of the Rhineland from Germany, but this ran counter to Woodrow Wilson’s vision of selfdetermination for all nation states: the best that France could gain was a demilitarisation and occupation of the Rhineland until the disarmament clauses of the Treaty and Covenant should be met. In agreeing to this compromise, the French premier, Clemenceau, was swayed by the promise of an Anglo-American guarantee of protection against a resurgent Germany, but the decision of the American Senate, on 19 March 1920, to reject both the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, meant that this security also was removed from her. 15 Throughout the inter-war period, France repeatedly asked Britain for a formal guarantee of her security against Germany, and was repeatedly rejected.16

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The rejection of the new world order by the United States led France to search for other means to increase her security and, in the absence of a British guarantee, she turned to smaller powers - Czechoslovakia and Poland - in an attempt to replace the old Franco-Russian alliance which had helped to protect her in the past. France, in effect, adopted the “belt and braces” approach - the new collective security apparently offered by the League alongside the old alliance system. However, the continued insecurity felt by the French was only part, albeit a very significant part, of the problem. The new directions implied by the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations Covenant demanded a complete re-orientation of policy by all powers world-wide. This was implicit in the new system envisaged by Woodrow Wilson when setting out his Fourteen Points on which the League of Nations was founded. The problem was that the failure of the United States to join the new system led to its inability to operate, without actually removing the commitments made by those powers who did ratify both Treaty and Covenant. A number of issues have now been highlighted as potential barriers to Britain undertaking to follow the new directions envisaged in a post-war world. Firstly, there is the question of the nature of disarmament, secondly the closely-aligned question of security, and thirdly the all-butinevitable complications caused by rejection of this new world order by the power whose leader was chiefly responsible for its creation. A further complication was caused by the not insignificant increase in Britain’s responsibilities in the wake of the peace settlement. Her Empire had increased considerably and now included Tanganyika and South West Africa, the extensive new mandated territories in the Middle and Near East resulting from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Transjordan, Mesopotamia and Palestine, whilst the Dominions themselves had acquired further responsibilities in New Guinea and Samoa. By June 1920 the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, was questioning Britain’s ability to continue to meet her responsibilities. “I am sure we are trying to do too much with our present forces and certainly it is impossible, within the present financial limits, for me to continue to meet the varied and numerous obligations of our policy ....” 17 He asked “Are we to defend Persia, to go on reducing the garrison in Mesopotamia, reduce military responsibilities there and in Palestine, who is to be responsible for civil administration of Mesopotamia etc.?” 18 The list of current responsibilities cited by Churchill included India, Egypt, Ireland and Aden, as well as the commitments mentioned above, but another new dimension had been added to British interests, including the Army of the

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Rhine, the Army of the Black Sea and the proposed Anglo-American guarantee of French security, as well as the internal defence of Great Britain. Britain was thus being asked to police a considerably-expanded Empire with a fraction of the resources which she felt necessary to carry out these responsibilities. How, then, was Britain to deal with these issues? Could she be seen to be openly disregarding the new directions demanded of her, or would she need to appear, at least, to conform? It is not the purpose of this study to examine in great detail the efforts made by the international community in general, and Britain in particular, to conform to the new demands resulting from the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. This has been done in detail elsewhere.19 The important point in relation to the current study is the nature of the difficulties which Britain had to overcome if she was to adapt to the new world created by Treaty and Covenant. The rejection by the United States Senate removed the greater part of the rationale for the League of Nations; in the absence of one of the most powerful nations, collective security would be less than collective. The impact of this withdrawal was, perhaps, greater on France than on any other state: she had lost the prospect of both Rhine frontier and AngloAmerican guarantee, and consequently felt less disposed to reduce her armaments in the common interest. Nevertheless, on 19 May 1920, the League Council established the Permanent Advisory Commission on Armaments (PAC) in fulfilment of its obligations under Article 9 of the Covenant. Its remit was to advise the Council on military affairs in general, and disarmament in particular. In practice, however, it was to become little more than a statutory body which barely influenced the League’s proceedings. Dominated by the major powers and comprising senior military representatives of members of the Council, it derided the efforts of pro-disarmament campaigners and, in its first report (December 1920) formally advised the Council that an attempt at disarmament was premature. 20 A Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction of Armaments (TMC) was then set up by the Permanent Advisory Commission “for the purpose of submitting to the Council in the near future all evidence and proposals connected with the question of the reduction of armaments”, 21 and was initially charged with the task of preparing a draft treaty “or other equally definite plan” for the reduction of armaments. 22 By mid-1921, therefore the work of the Council of the League of Nations to address the question of disarmament had resulted in little more than the setting up of two Commissions, No-one seemed able to take the first step along the road envisaged by Woodrow Wilson as essential if the world were to move away from its old directions.

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Whilst the League Council wrestled with its commitment to reach a disarmament agreement, an event outside the League provided the first success in this area. The significance of this event, as far as this study is concerned, was that it reflected not the collective security of the League’s new order, but the old balance of power relationship of nations deciding to adopt a course of action in line with their own foreign policy and perceived needs. By 1919 it had become apparent that a new naval race was developing: whilst Britain had concentrated her efforts on the land campaigns of the late war, the United States and Japan had been building up their naval strength. The inevitable consequence was a narrowing of the gap between the British, American and Japanese navies. In quantitative terms, at the end of the war Britain still maintained a considerable superiority over her wartime partners; but by 1923-24, if current and authorised construction continued, the United States battle fleet would approach 90% of the British level while Japan would achieve a ratio of 55%. By 1925, the American fleet would be even larger than the British. Qualitatively, both in overall design and armament, the American and Japanese vessels would have a distinct advantage over their counterparts because of their later construction.23 It appeared that, despite the defeat of Germany by the Allies, these allies were now competing with each other because of decisions taken under wartime conditions. Only the politicians could halt this bizarre and unnecessary race, and they would have to move quickly before the navalists in each of the three major naval powers secured their large navies. In June 1921, the British Government made tentative approaches to Washington and Tokyo concerning the desirability of a naval conference. For its part, the United States too, was beginning to recognise that steps must be taken to address this situation. Woodrow Wilson’s defeat in the Senate on 19 March 1920 ensured that the United States would neither join the League nor co-operate immediately in any League attempts at general disarmament; but the election of a new Republican president in November 1920 made it possible for an initiative to be taken in respect of naval disarmament and Far Eastern security. The new President, Warren Harding, and his Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes, not wishing to let control of foreign policy pass out of their hands and into the Senate, put themselves at the head of the disarmament movement. An opportunity existed to gain naval parity with Britain without the need to complete the 1916 construction programme, and to restrain Japanese ambitions and naval building in the Far East. The American President summoned a conference to convene in Washington in November 1921 and along with the three major naval powers, France and Italy were invited to send delegations.

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Due to their naval competition in the Mediterranean neither of these states would ever accept a naval agreement which left them at any disadvantage vis-à-vis the other, but it was hoped that an agreement could be reached which they also would find acceptable. It is interesting to note that although this conference became known as the Washington Naval Conference, it was originally called to attempt to deal with all aspects of disarmament.24 It is not necessary to detail the proceedings of the Washington Conference in the context of this study; the significant point is that agreement on naval reductions was reached which appeared to satisfy all concerned. The limitation for both capital ships and aircraft carriers was agreed in a ratio of 5:5:3:1.67:1.67 for the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy respectively, and a detailed security agreement for the Far East was reached, which satisfied the three powers with major interests in the area. The Washington Conference was hailed as a success at the time, though subsequent analyses of the consequences of these naval limitations have questioned its longer term consequences.25 Nevertheless, even at the time, whilst hailed as a breakthrough in armaments negotiations, the Washington Conference succeeded only as far as the major participants’ own national interests were met. Agreement could not be reached on the smaller class of vessels: on the issue of cruisers, submarines and other auxiliary vessels national rivalries and different perceptions could not be overcome. Nor could agreement be reached on the wider range of armaments: the French delegation to the conference strongly objected to any discussions on land armaments, and given the collapse of the proposed Anglo-American guarantee in 1920, this is hardly surprising. The British were equally reluctant to discuss land and aerial disarmament: they had got what they wanted from Washington – a guarantee, at least for the foreseeable future, that they would not fall into second place behind the American navy – other aspects of disarmament were not to be negotiated at Washington. The British delegation was instructed to adopt the position defined by the Committee of Imperial Defence; that the British army has been reduced to a level which leaves no margin beyond what is barely essential for the discharge of our Imperial commitments, and that our military forces provide no basis on which to found proposals for any measure of military disarmament which includes Great Britain.26

The Air Ministry were equally reluctant to see general disarmament discussed at Washington, pointing out that, having been debated by the

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League of Nations for many months without obvious result, there was little chance of the conference reaching any agreement. They also questioned the validity of a conference of only the major powers, when any binding agreement must involve all powers.27 It can thus be seen that the success of the Washington Naval Conference relied on the agreement of only five states whose national interests had been served by it, and even then it succeeded only in noncontentious areas. Agreement could not be reached on issues which these states felt compromised their individual security and policy aims. It relied on the old balance-of-power ethos rather than any concession to the new order of collective security. Back in Geneva, the impasse in the League’s efforts was eventually broken by one of the British representatives on the TMC, Viscount Esher. Esher had, at first, been sceptical about the League, predicting that it would be a “Holy Alliance under another name”.28 Frustrated by the lack of progress, and by his own fear of another “aimless war”29 he drafted, in collaboration with the dissident soldier, Major-General Frederick Maurice, a plan which he put forward on 23 February 1922. His aim, he stated, was “to show that a scheme of disarmament could be practically handled, if the good will was there”.30 His plan proposed that standing armies should, in peace time, be restricted on a numerical basis “by a ratio following the naval precedent at Washington”. 31 This ratio would be confined to metropolitan military and air forces, leaving each country to fix its own requirements for colonial and overseas defence. The ratios were based on a unit of 30,000 men of all ranks, serving either voluntarily or compulsorily, including all permanently armed police forces and permanent staffs of reserve or territorial forces. 32 Each of the major powers was then awarded a unit against which these ratios would be implemented, whilst the forces of Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary were to remain as defined in the Treaty of Peace.33 This, in brief, was the basis from which Esher envisaged that League members could begin their discussions and negotiations. 34 Esher’s reasoning in putting forward his plan was that, although he had never contended that to limit armaments was to end the possibility of war, he did contend “that it brings within narrow limits the possibility of sudden attack by one nation upon another. For this reason”, he believed, “the experiment is worth trying, always assuming that the people of the world are serious in desiring to reduce the chances of war”.35 It is interesting to note Esher’s choice of words – to reduce rather than to eliminate the “chances of war”. He was no idealist who subscribed to the

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belief that the elimination of weapons meant the elimination of war; rather he was a pragmatic individual who believed that it was better to do something than to wait indefinitely for the members of the PAC or TMC to do something. The significant point to note is that he received no support whatsoever from the British government. There is no evidence of any Cabinet involvement in the drawing up, or even in discussion of, the Esher Plan, which speaks volumes for government commitment, or lack thereof, to the pursuit of a reduction of armaments. The only official reference to the Plan is in a Committee of Imperial Defence Memorandum (No. 339-B dated 3 April 1922) which set out Esher’s own version of the Plan, and a reply from the War Office to the Secretary of the Cabinet, Sir Maurice Hankey, which stated that the “ratio allotted to Great Britain … will certainly not suffice”.36 Of course, there is no guarantee that the Esher Plan would have been accepted by the members of the League as a step towards disarmament, but Esher himself had not expected it to be accepted as it stood, offering it rather as a starting point. One criticism to have been levelled at it is that it made no concessions to the question of French security, but the plan did at least provide some advantage to Britain and France in that it excluded colonial forces, and did not attempt to limit reserves, a point on which France remained adamant.37 It is also difficult to see how Germany could have accepted a “Franco-German ratio of 6 to 3.3 armed men in Europe indefinitely”.38 However, the British government did not back the Plan, much less fight for it either directly by supporting it within the League or less directly by offering France some extra measure of security. It would appear that, having been appointed as one of Britain’s representatives on the TMC, along with Viscount Cecil, Esher received no support and was very much left to his own devices. In a later attempt to explain the rejection of his plan, he confided to the then Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, that the reason his plan had not been pressed was that Cecil, who had great influence with the Commission, was “so keen on adopting a different procedure” that Esher had “regretfully” given way.39 If this is the case it seems rather strange that, after no activity whatsoever on the part of the TMC for a considerable length of time, two British representatives should simultaneously feel obliged to put forward plans. A more interesting question, of course, is whether Cecil’s proposal, having pushed aside that of his countryman, would receive a comparable lack of support from his government.

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In rejecting the Esher Plan, the TMC stated that what was important was not the limitation of the total force which any country could ultimately put into the field, rather the “force which it could mobilise during the first few months of war”.40 Therefore the most practical plan to secure a reduction of armaments was by means of a world-wide Treaty of Mutual Guarantee, and this was the plan which Cecil drew up, in collaboration with his French opposite number, Colonel Réquin. The inclusion of a Frenchman in the process might have been expected to achieve a result which the French could accept, that is, one which offered them a substantial measure of security. The British Government by no means treated Cecil’s draft Treaty of Mutual Guarantee in the same way as it had ignored Esher’s proposals. The TMG, on the contrary, was subject to much discussion and scrutiny both at Cabinet level and within the War Office and Admiralty.41 Its fate, however, was not dissimilar. Very briefly, the essence of the TMG was the inter-relationship between security and disarmament. A guarantee of security would be attained via a “defensive agreement which should be open to all countries, binding them to provide immediate and effective assistance in accordance with a prearranged plan”.42 The prime objective of achieving this level of security – in essence the “collective security” envisaged by Woodrow Wilson – was to be the reduction in the level of armaments of all signatories to the TMG. This treaty therefore addressed the other side of the disarmament debate: the provision of security which would lead nations to accept a reduction in the level of their armaments. The TMG envisaged that the League Council would decide, within four days of an apparent act of aggression having occurred, which of the parties signatory to the treaty, had been the “objects of aggression and whether they [were] entitled to claim the assistance provided under the Treaty”.43 An annexe to the draft explained that air forces and tanks should only be furnished by those states situated in the same continent as the state under attack, and that in the case of Powers with colonial possessions “only those forces actually situated in the same continent should be called upon”. 44 Cecil summed up the implications of the Treaty thus: Without an effective guarantee of security, there could be no hope of disarmament and … without a reduction and limitation of armaments, a guarantee of security was impracticable.45

The TMG would appear to meet the requirements of the new directions in policy: drawn up by a senior British statesman in association with his French counterpart, and combining security and disarmament. How, then,

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would the British government react to this proposal? Put simply, the reaction of government and armed services was in line with the “old diplomacy”: they were concerned that implications of the TMG removed the independence and autonomy of their decision-making. Eyre Crowe, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, commented that the Draft Treaty put the “cart before the horse” in that the “nebulous” object of disarmament would be achieved by the implementation of a “satisfactory guarantee of national safety”.46 The General Staff disliked the proposed definition of an aggressor, pointing out that “violation of territory might be purely a matter of defensive strategy, and therefore a measure of self-preservation”.47 The War Office, they declared, could not commit itself to placing its personnel under the command “of some foreign General Staff” and the potential delay, especially in view of the four days which the League Council would take to define an aggressor, would give valuable time to an aggressor, which “may be almost fatal”.48 The Admiralty were equally dismissive: they disliked the idea that military action could be ordered by a three-fourths majority of the League Council, and perhaps even more strongly on the grounds that the demand to “maintain certain elements of armed forces for use at the call of the Council of the League” meant that naval forces would probably be the first to be called upon and that “a very large proportion of the burden arising from this Treaty of Mutual Guarantee will fall upon the British navy” which had already been reduced to the minimum to enable it to meet the demands of the Empire.49 The Committee of Imperial Defence drew together the objections of the armed services, and pointed out that there were two sides to this question, the technical and the political. The CID was qualified only to deal with the technical aspect. As a footnote, however, the CID memorandum also pointed out that acceptance of the TMG “would be a definite renunciation of our right as a nation to take such action as we considered proper”.50 With this caveat the matter was handed over to the Cabinet. Anticipating Cabinet reaction, Cecil tried on numerous occasions to explain the implications of his treaty, pointing out that it actually demanded nothing more of its signatories than they were already committed to undertake by the terms of the League Covenant. He pointed out that French objections were diminishing as a result of constructive discussions, and the Italians were also not averse to a settlement. He accepted that there were issues which needed further discussion and negotiation, but overall felt that all nations would have to accept considerable obligations if the goal of disarmament was to be achieved.51

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In the event, there was little time for the Conservative Government to do more than examine the considerable amount of paperwork engendered by discussion on the TMG. It was defeated on 6 December 1923 over the issue of Free Trade, and Ramsay MacDonald’s minority Labour government took office in January 1924, with the question still unresolved. A new government may well have been in power, but it was still advised by the permanent officials in the Foreign Office, Admiralty and War Office. As a minority government, held in power by a tentative agreement with the Liberal Party, and viewed with suspicion by the political establishment, MacDonald’s government had to tread a careful, and ultimately rather conservative, course. Nevertheless, MacDonald, who took the role of Foreign Secretary, as well as Prime Minister, was a believer in disarmament, which was arguably not the case with his predecessors. Relations with France, however, were difficult at this time, soured by British disapproval of French action in the Ruhr, and MacDonald recognised that, in his own words, “the ‘weather’ must be improved” before results could be expected.52 France, he believed, must have another chance: he was prepared to co-operate with the French but France must be reasonable and “cease her policy of selfish vanity”.53 This attitude is significant: although MacDonald was prepared to co-operate, the failure of Britain to recognise the extent of French feelings of insecurity would almost certainly make any kind of disarmament agreement difficult, if not impossible, to attain. France, of course, was not the only factor in MacDonald’s assessment of the prospect of a successful disarmament treaty. He informed Cecil that he felt that “any attempt to remove the fear of France by military guarantees [would] fail”, and that the envisaged series of military conventions could “quite easily become military alliances capable at any moment of being cut away from League of Nations obligations and being made independent powers”.54 The result of this, he feared, was that Cecil’s scheme would degenerate into “a renewed edition of the balance of power”.55 It would seem from this statement that MacDonald, at least, was in favour of following the new directions laid down by the League Covenant, but he himself felt that, because of the tenuous nature of his minority government, his “official life” might only be one of months.56 Nevertheless, within the possibly short time allotted to it, MacDonald’s government did attempt to help the League to draw up a plan that would address the shortcomings of the TMG. A sub-committee of the League’s Third Committee (Reduction of Armaments), under the guidance of British Home Secretary, Arthur Henderson, produced the draft Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, or Geneva Protocol as

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it became known, which was a result of discussion and compromise, most significantly with the French and with British Empire Dominions. The Geneva Protocol attempted to close the “gap” in the Covenant which had always left the Powers with the final option to use force should economic sanctions fail, and to remove one of the major criticisms levelled against the TMG, its failure to define an aggressor. The Geneva Protocol attempted to address this by a system of compulsory arbitration; a power which would not submit to this arbitration would be deemed to have been the aggressor. This system of compulsory arbitration formed the essential link between security and disarmament, although the Protocol did go further than the TMG in the matter of disarmament. France, and nine other countries, signed the Protocol almost immediately, but MacDonald had decreed that Britain’s representative in Geneva, Lord Parmoor, should not sign until the House of Commons had given its verdict. This once again gave time for the Admiralty, War Office, Foreign Office and incoming Conservative government (the Labour government having fallen in November 1924 over a relatively trivial matter) to raise their objections. The Service Chiefs, in fact, said little, merely pointing out that in many respects it suffered from the same defects as its predecessor. The Board of Trade objected on the grounds that the economic sanctions implicit in the Protocol would damage British trade, and Lord Curzon, Lord President of the Council, maintained that the Protocol would involve heavy commitments which would “place the British navy in an ambiguous, a false, and … a humiliating position …. All sorts of obnoxious duties would be placed upon its shoulders; it would begin by being the watch-dog, and would end in all probability by being the scape-goat, of the world”. 57 It has been said that the Protocol was “rarely read and constantly misunderstood”,58 and it certainly appears to have been the victim of wilful misinterpretation, both on the part of the Conservative government and the British Press. This is as far as this study intends to go along the line of documenting efforts to achieve disarmament via the collective security system envisaged by the League of Nations. The continuing history of negotiations, and failures, has been dealt with in more detail elsewhere,59 but there is little more to add as far as the consistency of reasons for rejection is concerned. The British were not, of course, alone in their reluctance to adopt the new directions in policy envisaged by Woodrow Wilson, but their position of power, albeit illusory in the inter-war period, meant that where they led others would follow. It could be argued that their consistent refusal to offer any additional guarantee of security to France led increasingly to French dependence on Britain as the 1930s

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progressed. Nevertheless, the key area on which speculation must focus is whether, had Wilson been able to deliver the support of the United States Congress in 1920, the system he envisaged would have delivered the collective security on which the search for disarmament so obviously depended. The pattern is clear: where negotiations depended on the League of Nations they failed: where they depended on a bi-lateral or multi-lateral approach outwith the League – the Washington and London Naval conferences, for instance - they were much more likely to succeed, in essence because this type of negotiation followed not the new directions - the “all for one and one for all” approach envisaged, but not provided, by the League of Nations - but the old directions dependent on the traditional balance of power.

Notes 1

For a detailed appraisal of the British Governments’ engagement with the League of Nations see P.J. Yearwood, Guarantee of Peace: The League of Nations in British Policy 1914-1925 (Oxford, 2009). 2 A thorough examination of these issues is presented in C. J. Bartlett, The Global Conflict 1880-1970: The International Rivalry of the Great Powers (New York, 1984). 3 Nicholas II’s Rescript of 24 Aug. 1898, reprinted in T.N. Dupuy and G.M. Hammerman, A Documentary History of Arms Control and Disarmament (New York, 1973) p. 49. 4 Ibid. 5 For a discussion of the Tsar’s motives, see M. Tate, The Disarmament Illusion (New York, 1969) Chapter 9. 6 For a more detailed examination of the First Hague Conference see K. Hamilton, ‘Britain and The Hague Peace Conference of 1899’ in K. Hamilton and E. Johnson (eds) Arms and Disarmament in Diplomacy (London, 2008). 7 See, for example, J. Joll and G. Martel, The Origins of the First World War (3rd edition) (London, 2007), R. Henig, The Origins of the First World War (3rd edition) (London, 2002), Z. Steiner and K. Neilson, Britain and the Origins of the First World War (London, 2003). 8 See, for example, A. Sharp, The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking after the First World War, 1919-1923 (2nd edition) (Basingstoke, 2008), A. Lentin, Guilt at Versailles: Lloyd George and the Pre-History of Appeasement (Leicester, 1984). 9 For a detailed discussion of this debate see D. Richardson, ‘Process and Progress in Disarmament: Some Lessons of History’ in V. Harle and P. Sivonen. (eds) Europe in Transition: Politics and Nuclear Security (London, 1989). 10 Viscount Grey of Falloden, Twenty-Five Years (London, 1928), pp. 160-2. 11 For a detailed discussion of the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles, see, for example, Lentin, op. cit., A.J. Sharp, The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking after the First World War, 1919-1923, op. cit. For a detailed account of the formulation

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of the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations Covenant, see C. J. Kitching, Britain and the Problem of International Disarmament, 1919-1934 (London, 1999). 12 Treaty of Peace, 28 Jun. 1919, Parliamentary Papers, Cmd. 153 of 1919. 13 H. J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York, 1984), p. 398. 14 S. de Madariaga, Morning Without Noon: Memoirs, (Farnborough, 1974), p. 48. 15 Again, for more detail on the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles see, for example, Lentin and Sharp, op. cit. For detail on the abortive Anglo-American guarantee to France, see, for example, A. Lentin, ‘The Treaty that Never Was: Lloyd George and the Abortive Anglo-French Alliance of 1919’, in J. Loades (ed.) The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (Bangor, 1991). 16 For an analysis of Britain’s early position on an Anglo-French agreement see A. Orde, Great Britain and International Security, 1920-1926 (London, 1978), Part of the problem was the inherent British suspicion of French motives. Ramsay MacDonald, for instance, on one occasion, defined French diplomacy as ‘tricky’ (MacDonald Papers, TNA30/69/1753/1, Diary entry 23 Jul. 1924) an opinion which appeared not to have altered very much by the time of his second premiership. “Security”, he declared, “has become the most brazen faced word in the language. She is a French strumpet!” (MacDonald Papers, TNA30/69/1753/1, Diary entry 25 Mar. 1930). 17 CAB24/107, Cabinet Memoranda, CP1467(20), Memorandum by Churchill on British Military Liabilities, 11 Jun. 1920 18 Ibid. 19 See, for example, C.J. Kitching, Britain and the Problem of International Disarmament, 1919-34 (op. cit.), D. Richardson, The Evolution of British Disarmament Policy in the 1920s (London, 1989), B.J.C. McKercher, The Second Baldwin Government and the United States, 1924-1929 (Cambridge, 1984). 20 For a flavour of the feelings of members of the PAC see FO371/7048, Extracts from Journals and Reports of Committees of the Assembly, Proceedings of Committee No. 6, Third Meeting, November 25th 1920. 21 FO371/7043, Minutes of the 13th Session of the Council of the League of Nations held at Geneva, from Friday June 17th to Tuesday June 28th, 1921, Annex 219a, note by the Secretary General, approved by the Council on June 28th, 1921. 22 CAB24/128, Cabinet Memoranda, CP3388, Resolution of the League assembly, 1 Oct.1921 23 For a discussion, see C. Hall, Britain, America and Arms Control, 1921-37, (London, 1987) pp. 11-16. 24 For a detailed analysis of the Washington Naval Conference see E.Goldstein and J. H. Maurer,(eds) The Washington Conference, 1921-22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbour (Ilford, 1994). 25 See ibid. 26 CAB4/7, CID Paper No. 280-B, 24 Oct. 1921 27 CAB4/7, CID Paper No. 279-B, 1 Oct. 1921 28 Viscount Esher, Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (London, 1938) Esher to Cecil, 1 Aug. 1922

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Ibid. Ibid. 31 Lloyd George Papers F/16/7/82, 24 Feb.1922. 32 Ibid. 33 CAB4/8, CID Paper No. 339-B, 3 Apr. 1922. 34 For a more detailed analysis of the Esher Plan see, for example, P Towle ‘British Security and Disarmament Policy’, in Ahmann, Birke and Howard (eds) The Quest for Stability: Problems of West European Security, 1918-1957 (London, 1993), and C. J. Kitching, op. cit., Chapter 4. 35 CAB4/8, CID Paper No. 339-B, 3 Apr. 1922. 36 CAB4/8, CID Paper No. 341-B, 6 May 1922. 37 Towle, op. cit., p. 133. 38 Ibid., p. 135. 39 Esher, op. cit., Esher to MacDonald, 25 Aug. 1924. 40 CAB4/9, CID Paper No. 393-B, Memorandum by Cecil, 5 Jan.1923. 41 For a detailed analysis of the Treaty of Mutual Guarantee see C. J. Kitching, op. cit., Chapter 5. 42 CAB4/8, League of Nations Resolution No. CL119,1922.IX, CID Paper No. 377-B, Letter from the President of the Council of the League of Nations, 23 Oct. 1922. 43 CAB4/8, CID Paper No. 383-B, Memorandum by Lord Robert Cecil, 21 Dec. 1922. 44 Ibid. 45 Viscount Cecil, A Great Experiment (London, 1941) p. 152. 46 Crowe Papers, FO800/243, Memorandum by Crowe, 24 May 1923. 47 CAB4/9, CID Paper No. 395-B, Memorandum by the General Staff, War Office, Jan. 1923. 48 Ibid. 49 CAB4/8, CID Paper No. 381-B, Memorandum by the Admiralty, 15 Feb.1923. 50 CAB2/3, Minutes of 171st Meeting of CID, 11 Apr. 1923. 51 See, for instance, CAB4/9, CID Paper No. 420-B, 7 May 1923. 52 MacDonald Papers, TNA30/19/1, diary entry 3 February 1924. 53 Ibid. 54 Cecil Papers, British Library Add Mss 1081, ff. 1-3, MacDonald to Cecil, 22 Feb.1923. 55 Ibid., f. 18, MacDonald to Cecil, 25 Feb. 1923. 56 MacDonald Papers, TNA30/69/1753/1, diary entry 3 Feb. 1924. 57 CAB2/4, Minutes of 190th Meeting of the CID, 4 Dec. 1924. 58 M.A. Hamilton, Arthur Henderson (London, 1938), p. 249. 59 See, for example, C. J. Kitching, op. cit. 30

CHAPTER EIGHT THE LUCKY ONES: THE DOMINIONS, INDIA AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS IN THE 1920S LORNA LLOYD

The League of Nations came into existence in January 1920. It was based in Geneva and had three main organs. The Secretariat provided its bureaucracy. The Assembly was its general directing body, on which members had equal representation, an equal voice, and an equal veto over resolutions passed at its (usually annual) three-to-four week sessions. The Council, which normally met for a few days several times a year, was a kind of executive. It consisted of certain great powers and four (later six and then nine) non-permanent members elected by the Assembly in a secret ballot for three-year terms. As in the Assembly, each Council member had one vote and most decisions had to be unanimous. Both the Council and the Assembly were empowered by the League’s Covenant to handle ‘any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world’, but the former had primary responsibility for settling disputes and maintaining peace.1 Almost a third of the states that joined the League were in one sense or another new creations, inasmuch as they had either not existed or not participated in international relations before 1914, or re-appeared after the First World War in a completely different political form. Five of them were Britain’s senior partners in the Empire (or British Commonwealth as the grouping was coming to be called): the self-governing dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and non-selfgoverning India.2 On the face of it this was rather strange, as they were all international neophytes: they were non-sovereign; lacked the means adequately either to formulate or execute foreign policy, or stand on their own international feet; and had no real interest in international relations. Nonetheless, they became founder members of the League, the Permanent

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Court of International Justice and the International Labour Office. (Another Commonwealth country, the Irish Free State - Saorstát - joined in 1923 after becoming a dominion.)3 It has been said that they made little of their elevation, being merely ‘small, weak nations’ who were content to observe rather than act, and ‘made little impact’ on the League.4 This essay explores the accuracy of this description with reference to what their membership meant to them in the 1920s: what they expected of it, how and how well they participated, and how they (and Britain) related to each other at League meetings. It will be contended that in these respects the League served as a kind of international kindergarten, and so gave them a gentle introduction to, and education in, diplomacy.5

The membership in the League of the dominions and India Until the First World War Britain’s self-governing dominions had had no say in imperial foreign policy (even on matters which concerned them directly), and in 1914 Britain’s declaration of war on Germany had automatically included them. Their contribution to the War gave them greater stature and some imperial influence, but as late as the autumn of 1918 Britain did not anticipate their becoming independent international actors. They were constitutionally inferior to Britain and their prime ministers had only just won the right to communicate directly with their British counterpart. However, their war-time role resulted in their being invited to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, and this brought about ‘a revolutionary change’ in their position.6 Early in the Conference the British hugely offended their Commonwealth kin by circulating a draft Covenant which only allowed the dominions and India separate representation at League meetings when ‘matters affecting any particular Dominion are under discussion’.7 After Australia and Canada had protested that this was ‘clearly unacceptable’,8 Britain pressed the claims of the four dominions and India to full League membership and, there being no serious objections, this is what happened. India’s admission, however, was said to have been agreed ‘in a virtual absence of mind’9 – President Wilson of the United States ‘acquiesced and no one else seemed to care’.10 That the dominions and India had a different status to that enjoyed by other League members was not ignored. It was dealt with – as was perhaps appropriate – in a manner which was both procedurally and substantively idiosyncratic. The annex to the Covenant, which listed the original members, ‘symbolically indicated’11 their legal difference from other member states by including them (in order of their imperial seniority) in an

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indented sub-list under ‘British Empire’ – the name ‘Great Britain’ not being used. The legal adviser to Britain’s Foreign Office found it ‘a little difficult to tell’ how all this came about. A possible reason was that Britain had signed the peace treaties in both her name and also that of the dominions (the latter also signing separately immediately after Britain). It also appears that the formatting of this aspect of the Covenant was hurriedly determined at the last moment by the Americans, who were overseeing the (overnight) printing, for the first time, of the annex as well as the almost-finalised Covenant.12 Be that as it may, this textual arrangement satisfied ‘the two outstanding characteristics of the British Empire: the unity of the whole and the autonomy of the parts’,13 and it also lent support to Britain’s claim (until 1926) that her delegate represented all the King’s realms on the League Council.14 Additionally, it accorded with the reference in the Covenant’s Preamble to ‘organised peoples’ rather than ‘states’, to the Covenant’s studious references to ‘members’ rather than ‘states’, and (in the article dealing with additions to League membership) to the phrase ‘fully self-governing State, Dominion, or Colony’. The Covenant did not, therefore, support the Irish contention that ‘the very fact of admission is considered in international law to be a preeminent test of sovereignty’.15 Nor the more cautious claim of the top Canadian official that it amounted to ‘a tacit recognition of de facto sovereignty’.16 Britain would have found either claim literally inconceivable. It was therefore comforting to her that when the Irish sought admission in 1923 as a ‘fully self-governing state’, the League considered her ‘a Dominion forming part of the British Empire upon the same conditions as the other Dominions which are already members of the League’.17 Nonetheless – in what was to prove a harbinger – Dublin ‘very deliberately’ instructed the first Irish delegation to the League to assert the Free State’s ‘full international status and unimpeded sovereignty’,18 and a nationalist leader urged that Ireland’s first League speech must be in Irish, the second in French, and only the third in English (‘so as to show the world, that we are Statesmen equal to any Nation of the World’).19 (In fact the opening words of that speech were in Irish – but London’s Morning Post thought it was ‘the French of Dublin’!)20 Furthermore, in 1924 the Irish Free State persuaded the Secretariat to register what it called the ‘Treaty’ with Britain (which provided for the Free State’s birth) under Article 18 of the Covenant.21 Britain promptly retorted that neither the ‘Articles of Agreement of December 6th 1921’ – the said ‘Treaty’ – ‘nor any convention concluded under the auspices of the League are intended to govern relations inter se of the various parts of the British Commonwealth’.22

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The position of India in the League was even less straightforward. She could not deal directly with Geneva like the other dominions (who insisted on this), as her communications had to go through Britain’s secretary of state for India. As a 1927 India Office memorandum put it, it was ‘obvious that India, under her present constitution, cannot have a separate foreign policy of her own’.23 But the Assembly expressly confirmed India’s full membership, and as far as the League was concerned a member state’s political and constitutional arrangements were irrelevant. Thus India, the Free State, and the other dominions had the same entitlements as all other members, including eligibility for election to non-permanent seats on the Council and the capacity to attend its meetings when they were affected by an item on its agenda (for example, mandates - three dominions administered such territories). They also had the same responsibilities as other members, including individually-assessed contributions to the budget.

The representation of the Dominions and India at the League In a very real sense, therefore, the dominions and India had – albeit rather fortuitously – ‘arrived’ internationally. But they did so with very little baggage of the traditional international sort. Indeed, after a decade in the League their foreign policies were still either non-existent or in the incubatory stage.24 Their Departments of External Affairs were tiny. (Australia’s was ‘semi-fictional’25 until the mid-1930s; New Zealand’s existed just to administer the Samoan mandate.) Canada, the Irish Free State, and South Africa had minimal diplomatic representation, and Australia and New Zealand had none outside London. Their policymaking processes were often ‘haphazard’.26 Foreign policy was barely discussed inside or outside the government – in 1929 the Irish minister of external affairs complained that ‘nobody’ in the Dáil had ‘read a line’ of the Irish delegation’s openly-available report on the 1928 Assembly. ‘They just come here and complain that there is no information available.’27 Prime ministers (who almost invariably held the External Affairs portfolios) consulted narrowly and were liable to subordinate even the most ordinary diplomatic routine to prime ministerial conceptions of political principle and expediency. One New Zealand prime minister, thought his country should not have joined this ‘utterly useless’28 organisation, and until the mid-1930s it was ‘distrusted and neglected’29 by New Zealand governments. Australia, too, was unenthusiastic. Nor in the 1920s did South Africa’s General Hertzog (prime minister, 1924-39)

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have much interest in the League or think it offered his country much. A senior Canadian official happily proclaimed ‘he had not read the Covenant and did not believe in it’, and wrote that Canadian membership was ‘absurd’.30 Nor did Canada’s William Lyon Mackenzie King (prime minister for almost all the 1920s) have much regard for, or interest in, what he called ‘the League of Notions’, and he gave it ‘no more than the routine support which was due from Canada as one of its members’.31 The Free State entered the League on a raft of idealistic promises and good intentions, but during the next six years she was ‘scarcely heard’ in plenary debates and her delegates were notably silent in Assembly committees.32 Hence the dominions’ delegates were hardly buttressed by a powerful swell of support from home. Nor were they cosseted, as the dominions saved on representational costs by keeping delegations small and not providing them with technical advisers.33 Relative closeness to Geneva permitted the Irish (like the British) to send high-level delegations. The President of the Executive Council went there himself to take up League membership in 1923, and their Ministers for External Affairs were generally in attendance. But other dominions found Geneva too distant and its proceedings insufficiently important for senior cabinet members, let alone prime ministers, often to make a trek that could last two to three months. Moreover, some prime ministers did not like the idea of letting cabinet rivals have an opportunity to develop an interest or expertise in foreign affairs. Thus Stanley Bruce (Australian prime minister, 1923-29) restricted ministers to attending one Assembly only, and 14 of the 21 Canadian cabinet ministers who (throughout the life of the League) were appointed as delegates were appointed only once. Tellingly, ‘most of them showed little or no interest in League affairs, either before or after their trip to Geneva’.34 As the pool of qualified dominion citizens was tiny, it was sensible, convenient and cost-effective for the far-flung dominions to appoint their London-based high commissioners as one of their three accredited Assembly delegates, if not their principal delegate (despite the extent to which such activity could impinge on representational duties in London). This was New Zealand’s and South Africa’s usual choice. From 1924, however, Canada's Mackenzie King generally sent the trustworthy Quebec senator, Raoul Dandurand, to Geneva (often as delegation leader) rather than rely on high commissioners – but this did not prevent the Canadian delegations being characterised by ‘amateurism and discontinuity’.35 In the early years South Africa and New Zealand went beyond the ‘high commissioner approach’ by resorting to the appointment of British

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residents as delegates. Thus South Africa appointed Lord Robert Cecil to lead her delegation to the first (1920) Assembly. This caused consternation in London and Geneva. Cecil had no connection with South Africa and Whitehall feared his appointment might provide further ammunition for American critics of Britain’s supposed ‘six votes’ (i.e. those of the dominions and India as well as her own). The French also objected, there was unhappiness in the Secretariat, and Cecil ‘very nearly quarrelled’ with the secretary-general when the latter ‘suggested that I had no right to represent South Africa’.36 On top of that there were jibes that South Africa was seeking ‘peculiar prominence’37 by appointing someone who was held in high regard because of his role as one of the principal creators of the League. Yet Smuts was entitled to appoint whoever he wanted. He reappointed Cecil the following two years, and also included a leading member of Britain’s League of Nations Union. In time three dominions found it convenient to establish what became known as permanent delegations to the League. Poland had caused much surprise when she introduced this diplomatic innovation in 1920, but many others hastened to do likewise, including the Irish Free State which sent a ‘permanent delegate’ in the summer of 1921, even before the negotiation of the Irish ‘Treaty’. Canada came next by appointing a ‘permanent advisory officer’ as of the beginning of 1925, and in 1929 South Africa sent an ‘accredited representative’. The different titles reflected the fact that the Free State and South Africa wanted to emphasise the diplomatic standing of their envoys. Canada did not, fearing an obviously diplomatic appointment might give rise to controversy at a time when she had no diplomatic missions outside London. But although the Canadian government did not consider Walter Riddell (the advisory officer from 1925 to 1937) as having diplomatic standing, he was treated as such by the League and other states, and had numerous associated functions such as representing Canada at meetings of the League and the International Labour Office. In due course he ‘acted as dean of the Genevan diplomatic corps’.38 As well as saving money, permanent delegations provided continuity of representation; maintained contact with the secretariat, delegates, other permanent missions (including those of non-member states),39 and the many officials who visited Geneva; undertook sometimes considerable amounts of work connected with the International Labour Office (to which all the dominions and India belonged); and engaged in technical discussions (Geneva having become a centre of international technical collaboration and discussion). They also facilitated intra-Commonwealth co-operation during League meetings, and high-calibre members of such

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missions could make a valuable input into the work of the League. For example, it was Riddell who came up with the proposal for semipermanent League Council seats that provided the solution to a major crisis over the expansion of the Council in 1926. Nonetheless, it remained the case that on the whole the dominions were not particularly well kitted out, either at home or on the spot, for active and useful participation in an international political body such as the League. But this did not mean that their delegates were Genevan nonentities. There were three overlapping but identifiably-distinct reasons for this. First, the British connection meant that the dominions were not nearly as much at sea as they might otherwise have been (especially early on) and made them worth cultivating by foreign delegates. Second, most dominion delegates naturally wanted to make some kind of mark at Geneva – and did so to varied effect! Third, the institutional momentum which membership involved resulted in the dominions playing a reasonably-active role at the Assembly, some of them at the same time taking the opportunity to make it clear that they were by no means tied to Britain’s apron strings – and, indeed, in one case, positively wished to get rid of them. Moreover, from 1927 onwards, there was always a dominion on the League Council.

A ‘League of Nations within the League of Nations’:40 meetings of ‘British Empire Delegations’ As members of the Commonwealth it was open to dominion representatives to seek assistance from the British delegation, which was always much bigger than theirs and also well supported. The party from London routinely included someone from the Colonial or (as of 1925) Dominions Office so they could lend the dominions a hand and coordinate policies; but all British officials and ministers put themselves out for their Commonwealth brethren. The British also put much effort into fostering intra-Commonwealth bonhomie and to that end hosted an annual Commonwealth dinner. In 1920 the concluding toast to the King-Emperor was ‘honoured with great enthusiasm’,41 and in 1927 there was a whole raft of ‘inter Empire feasts’. These were supplemented by dominion hospitality and there were plenty of private dinners and meetings.42 But over and above that resource, and one with which the dominions might have found it easier to engage, were the regular meetings of the ‘British Empire Delegations’ (BED) – a phrase which had been used in the singular at Paris but which was quickly pluralized. At first Britain expected imperial unity to be the norm at Geneva on important issues,

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facilitated by BED meetings; but by the mid 1920s it had become clear that a diplomatically-united Empire could not be assumed. Nonetheless, throughout that decade all concerned accepted – in principle – that they should bear each other’s interests in mind and consult fully before acting on issues which affected them. And so, in marked contrast with the almost complete lack of co-ordination within her own delegation, Britain liaised closely with her Commonwealth partners in Geneva. This did not mean that there was a strong Commonwealth caucus at the League. That was never ‘on’: it would have been unacceptable to South Africa and Canada and, as of 1923, the Irish Free State – all of whom were anxious to emphasise their standing as ‘independent units’.43 Thus Britain’s colonial secretary gave an assurance before the first League Assembly that Commonwealth members ‘would merely meet for discussion, and not necessarily act en bloc’.44 But that of course by no means excluded his hope that the Empire would generally fall into line. ‘Empire’ discussions at the Assembly usually began on the Sunday evening, the day before the opening plenary meeting. For most of the 1920s Britain convened and chaired BED meetings, but in 1929 dominion delegates started calling the BED together and by 1930 their chairmen were elected. The purposes of the meetings were sixfold. First, they were a means of educating dominion and Indian delegates into the niceties of conference diplomacy. Second, Britain used them to explain her policies, to brief delegates and, during sometimes fast-moving developments, to try to keep Commonwealth delegates on side – for example, during the negotiations leading to the Locarno treaties of 1925. And in 1927, when two very unwelcome resolutions were tabled at the eighth Assembly, the British immediately summoned a special BED meeting, which agreed to ‘prevent any such absurd and mischievous proposal being passed on for the delectation of an Assembly committee’.45 The third purpose of BED meetings was to report on ‘the difficulties which certain questions before the Assembly or Conference presented to a particular delegation’. Fourth, the BED considered ‘the best attitude to take in certain circumstances, or … [drafted] proposals which would give the largest measure of satisfaction to all the delegates, and which might be put forward in the name of one of the delegates’.46 This is why there were fourteen meetings as the Geneva Protocol took shape in 1924. During the abortive, special March 1926 Assembly to consider Germany’s admission to the League, Commonwealth delegates were ‘in the closest touch and consultation’. They met almost daily in the British Foreign Secretary’s (Austen Chamberlain’s) room and ‘communications of the most confidential character passed among us more than once a day’.47 This was much

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appreciated – the dominions ‘felt we were the privileged ones since most of the Delegations were outside of the negotiations and had no direct or reliable information’48 – until Chamberlain put his foot in it by suggesting that he represented them. In 1929 there were seven BED meetings on the Optional Clause of the Permanent Court of International Justice. But by then meetings were only held on important questions, and almost invariably limited to exchanging views rather than arriving at decisions. Fifth, BED meetings considered the choice of Assembly officers. The Assembly bureau consisted of the president and six vice-presidents, who were elected by a majority vote, together with the chairmen of the six general committees, the agenda committee, and the credentials committee (each committee appointing its own chairman). These officers were usually drawn from a list compiled by the secretariat and communicated to governments before the Assembly. Britain always sought an allocation of such positions for the dominions and India, who all expected her to champion their candidates. But the Irish were touchy about discussing choices: in 1928, for example, although they had no candidates of their own they displayed ‘restiveness’ about the British supposedly ‘thrusting’ a list on them, and only after being assured ‘there was no intention of fettering in any way their discretion’, did they accept Britain’s suggestions.49 At the first 1929 meeting, the British prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, proposed that the BED ‘should settle on which candidate it would support’ for Assembly president.50 The Irish delegate responded that he had not expected the question to be raised at that meeting; his delegation had not considered who to support; and he could express no opinion. (As it was put some years later, Irish delegates ‘of course, find it easier to co-operate when that co-operation is not proclaimed to the world’.)51 It is not clear how far the Commonwealth acted together in voting to elect non-Commonwealth states to the Council, but the BED certainly discussed the question and who to elect to the bench of the Permanent Court of International Justice. Finally, at or alongside BED meetings, Commonwealth representatives on the six Assembly committees got together. (The committees did the main work of the Assembly.) In 1927, when British delegates were for the first time specifically charged with getting in touch with their Commonwealth counterparts on committees, they thought it had been useful and worked well. ‘Informal’ meetings of this nature continued to be held and were judged to be ‘extremely valuable’.52 There were also detailed BED technical meetings to consider proposals and texts for submission to committees. They were attended only by those interested in a particular subject, together with experts and advisers. After the British stated their

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position there would be an exchange of views. This often led to the draft text being considerably modified, though a common decision was not always agreed. As in Commonwealth gatherings generally, the BED meetings were ‘family affairs’: at a personal level relations were relaxed and cordial; everyone (including the Indians) was on an equal footing; ‘plain speaking’ was the rule (especially after the beginning of the 1925 Assembly when minutes were no longer taken). And, as the long-serving British military adviser pointed out, not only was consensus was not assured, Commonwealth ‘unanimity was nothing approaching that of the French with their Little Entente and other friends, or that even more powerful body, the Spanish-American bloc of fourteen or fifteen members which, whatever their internecine jealousies might be, always voted straight’.53 Still, BED meetings were undoubtedly successful, and Riddell (Canada’s long-serving advisory officer who attended many of them) said they were ‘useful not only to the members of the British Commonwealth but [also] in reaching decisions broad enough to advance the work of the international gatherings. [They] brought more or less like-minded delegates together, and by furnishing them with necessary information frequently [were]... invaluable for effective participation in the work of the session’.54

The dominions’ and India’s delegates So far as India’s delegates were concerned, even if they were the nominees of a ‘subordinate branch of H.M. Government in Great Britain’,55 the Britishers who represented them in the 1920s were from the top drawer: three were past or future viceroys of India, and Lord Lytton (a viceroy’s son who later headed the League enquiry into Japanese aggression in Manchuria who later headed the League enquiry into Japanese aggression in Manchuria) made his Geneva debut as head of the Indian delegation in 1927. They were good at making India’s views known and they fought hard for India’s interests as they perceived them. Another British national who distinguished himself at Geneva was Lord Robert Cecil, in his capacity as South Africa’s second delegate to the first Assembly. He was described as playing ‘by far the greatest share in the process of galvanizing the League into a living palpitating body .... Not only his speeches from the tribune, but his personality, his earnestness and his persuasive intercourse with other delegates, have contributed more than anything else to dissipate a spirit of scoffing and to create an atmosphere of determination on the part of the League’. (On this report the senior Foreign Office official minuted, ‘I am not thrilled’.)56

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The dominions, too, provided some first-class delegates. In the 1920s the most notable was Canada's Raoul Dandurand. He was generally considered ‘a great success’57 as Assembly president in 1925, and was heavily instrumental in obtaining Canada's election to the Council in 1927. As Canada's usual representative on that organ, he helped strengthen the League’s procedures for protecting linguistic and religious minorities in eastern Europe. Many dominion delegates, however, found the Assembly ‘something of a strange adventure’, especially if they did not speak French.58 One Australian delegate recalled how he had often been disadvantaged through being monoglot. Once, ‘coming rather late to a meeting of one of the committees … one of the French delegates was speaking …. with passion. ...I felt sure that some serious international situation had arisen. … I turned to one of the British officials sitting near and asked in a hushed and … awestruck voice, “What is the matter?” “Oh, nothing much”, he replied. “M.— is only objecting to the time fixed for meetings of the committee!”’59 On the other hand, it was unwise to claim to non-existent linguistic competence. According to one observer, that the Canadian who presided over a committee at the second Assembly was under the impression that he could speak French, though the origin of this delusion [wa]s somewhat obscure. It had been agreed that, in order to save time, French would not be translated into English, though English would into French …. This put the interpreters in a quandary whenever the President spoke in what he thought was French, but in fact hardly differed from the English. Still, there was the rule, until our old friend … who represented France … and sat far away on the right at the other end of the hall, after a fairly long Presidential statement in his strangely undefined Canadian, cried out: 60 "Traduction, s’il vous plaît." That settled Senator Doherty.

Another reason for the oft-felt uneasiness of dominion delegates was that they generally came from small, out-of-the-way, provincial-feeling capitals and they had narrow political horizons and scant knowledge of world affairs. The British did what they could to assist, though in private they could be scathing. Although dominion delegates to the first Assembly were later described as ‘in aggregate the ablest representatives these countries ever sent to an Assembly’,61 a British delegate found them ‘bumptious’, sometimes inattentive, ‘excessively inefficient’, ‘very difficult to handle’, and given to making ‘absurd’, ‘vacuous’, and ‘irrelevant’ speeches.62 Ten years later, another Britisher said that apart from the Irish and Mackenzie King, dominion delegates were ‘rather second-rate’.63 Even Dandurand was considered a ‘conceited, talkative,

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cocky little man’,64 a ‘very bad’ Assembly president,65 and an unwelcome member of the Council.66 Sometimes, the condescension that lay behind such remarks was evident in Britain’s actions. Austen Chamberlain intervened too promptly (and unnecessarily) to save Dandurand from blundering during a complicated debate at his first Council meeting.67 And Ramsay MacDonald (Labour prime minister, 1924, 1929-31) was irritatingly brusque to dominion delegates whom he tended to treat like schoolchildren. In 1929 he offended his Commonwealth kin several times: by taking it for granted that he chaired meetings of Commonwealth delegates (which he demeaningly referred to as meetings of the ‘British Empire Delegation’ or the ‘Imperial Delegation’);68 by his paternal attitude and seeming failure to appreciate that he represented only one of His Majesty’s seven governments at Geneva; and by seeking to steal the limelight with a big declaration announcing Britain’s adoption of the Optional Clause, which Canada and the Free State had been urging for years! It was no consolation that he was acting out of ignorance of League procedure and the position of the dominions.69 A further disadvantage for dominion delegates was that the slowness of communications between Geneva and overseas capitals often limited the extent to which they could be briefed in advance. For example, the Australian government could not discuss the secretary-general’s annual reports with its delegates since the report did not arrive until after the delegation had departed. And the prohibitive cost of telephone calls severely restricted the extent to which, when available, telephones were used during the Assembly. (The transatlantic telephone service between Britain and Canada was only inaugurated in October 1927.) On the other hand, as principal delegates were often of cabinet rank and instructions to delegates were not yet the order of the day, they often had plenty of scope to say and do as they personally saw fit. In 1920 Canada’s Senator Doherty acted off his own bat in proposing the excision of Wilson’s keystone of the Covenant, the territorial guarantee enshrined in Article X. At the same Assembly, Lord Cecil neither had nor needed instructions: he understood General Smuts’ mind so well – and Smuts had such confidence in him – that he ‘felt able to go ahead without any misgivings as to whether I was properly representing my government’.70 The Free State’s League policy was at first ‘almost solely’ in the hands of her Genevan representative who was still finding his feet and for the first few years her delegates were ‘poorly briefed’71 – in 1928 the permanent representative bemoaned the difficulty of effectively joining in debates on technical matters without adequate support. But even when instructions were issued, delegates sometimes paid no heed. Thus in 1924 the Australian delegate

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deliberately ignored his prime minister’s clear instruction to abstain from voting on the Geneva Protocol. Indiscretions, however, were not as disastrous as they might have been if they had come from another source. For dominion delegates must have known that their words did not carry too much weight. They could, therefore, ‘with relative impunity, venture beyond their depths’,72 with neither ‘the secrecy and deviousness of the official mind’73 nor the diplomatic propensity to ‘inertie courtoise’.74 In 1920 Senator Doherty’s scrupulous fidelity to truth (and perhaps also his Roman Catholic prejudices) led him to make ‘an absurd speech’75 formally dissociating Canada from a tribute to the memory of Rousseau. And in 1927 the novice Australian delegate, General Ryrie, used such ‘expressive and lurid’ vocabulary that he gave life to a dull debate: he ‘beefed’ it out hot and strong. The Assembly awoke and sat up. The General, a big sturdy figure, banged the table and became more humorous and forceful in his language. The audience began to laugh at his ridicule of the motion, couched as the ridicule was in unfamiliar English of a most picturesque kind. In the midst of this scene, and no doubt attracted by the noise it produced, M. Briand, Foreign Minister for France, came in. As he walked to his seat he had a puzzled look on his face. His knowledge of English was not sufficiently wide to enable him to understand Ryrie. The General concluded amid a storm of uproarious applause. There followed the French translation of Ryrie’s speech - a task that must have been difficult even for those wonderful linguists of the League. As the translation proceeded, M. Briand and his French colleagues began to laugh. Briand laughed until he lay back in his seat literally helpless and with tears running down his cheeks. When the translation was finished, Briand rose, and rushing up to Ryrie, clapped him on the shoulder and shouted, ‘Magnifique! Australia!’ The motion in question was defeated by a tremendous majority and Ryrie had received an introduction to Geneva 76 such as has been given to few men.

Perhaps the Assembly’s ‘squalid surroundings’77 were unconducive to ‘decorous behaviour’,78 but dominion ‘enfants gâtés’79 lacked decorum anyway. The ‘appalling candour’ of the Australians, their slowness to learn the rules of the Genevan game, and their unwillingness ‘even to dissemble a little in the ordinary diplomatic way’ has been described as constituting a ‘fundamental problem’.80 The ‘prickly’, monoglot Australian delegates openly hate[d] the ‘swarm[ing]’ South Americans at the First Assembly.81 In 1922, when the Permanent Mandates Commission criticised Australia’s handling of the mandated territory of Nauru, her

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poorly-briefed representative responded angrily. Using undiplomatic words such as ‘rubbish’ and ‘mischievous “propaganda”’, he ‘violently’ denounced the League’s Information Section and made ‘extreme’ personal attacks on the British member of the Commission (whose members sat as experts, not as representatives of states).82 South African delegates bore out General Smuts’ observation that his country did not understand ‘diplomatic finesse’.83 The talented but temperamental and difficult Eric Louw, who led the delegation to the ninth (1929) Assembly, never had any ‘qualms about saying what he thought and giving umbrage to all and sundry’.84 Yet dominion bluntness was not just due to gaucheness and inexperience. It was also because they were from new, geographicallyfavoured countries that could, thanks to their link with Britain, choose how far to engage in international relations. It was easy for unblooded states to adopt a high-minded stance. ‘For years to come Canada’s role will be that of helper,’ said one Canadian. ‘We joined the League for what we could give, not for what we could get.’85 A decade into the organisation’s life Canada was said never to have acted in the League to advance her national interests.86 But her tendency to preach irritated and wearied audiences. The Free State’s pursuit of a policy of ‘idealistic self-interest’ was purportedly ‘for the benefit of the League as much as Ireland’,87 and one commentator thought her ‘special history’ equipped her to supply ‘honesty and passion and decency’88 to discussions. An Australian minister was loudly applauded for announcing that his country was ‘not prepared for war’.89 South Africa told of reconciliation between Boer war foes and ‘denounce[d] the feeble progress made by European countries on the road of peace’.90 (In those days the Union’s 'grave concern’ for the well-being 'the savage hordes of Africa' passed muster.)91 These factors contributed to the dominions’ preference for a consultative League and their dislike of sanctions. As Dandurand famously pointed out in 1924, Canada lived in a ‘fire-proof house, far from inflammable materials’.92

A Commonwealth bloc? One of the USA’s major objections to the League derived from the belief that Commonwealth countries comprised a single cohesive unit. Thus the first two amendments that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee demanded be made to the Versailles Treaty (of which the League Covenant was a part) related to Britain’s alleged ‘six votes’, and the Senate went on to approve a recommendation that that the USA should not be ‘bound by any election, decision, report, or finding’ on which more

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than one Commonwealth country had voted. 93 (It was even suggested, and apparently believed by some, that Britain wanted the Irish Free State in the League ‘as it would give the British Empire an extra vote’!)94 From Britain’s point of view, of course, it could be contended that any ‘extra’ votes had no formal importance, as Assembly and Council decisions had to be unanimous on all but administrative action. But from other perspectives the thought of a multi-voting Britain was clearly irksome. And it was this conception which aroused opposition to the idea of dominion ‘representation’ on the Permanent Mandates Commission or the bench of the Permanent Court of International Justice. However, from the start the dominions were on a variety of issues anxious to emphasise their separateness from Britain. As self-governing entities, who were almost all geographically remote from Britain, it was not very surprising that they took advantage of the opportunities which had suddenly opened up at Geneva: in a sense they were impelled in that direction by the very fact of their independent membership. Thus from the outset they were all, including India, treated separately from Britain in, for example, League statistics. At meetings of the Assembly they sat separately in accordance with the alphabetical seating arrangements. Their governors-general, not the King, issued the letters of credence which each delegate had to carry to Geneva95 and they presented them as they saw fit. Such instructions as dominion delegates received came from their several capitals. And following the precedent set at Paris in 1919, they exercised their right separately to sign and ratify conventions negotiated under the auspices of the League. Their contributions to the League’s budget were by no means insignificant. In 1926 the dominions paid a sixth of the budget – more than all the Latin Americans combined and several times as much as the Scandinavians or the Little Entente. Only permanent Council members contributed more than India (who was only a little behind Japan and Italy), and in 1929 Canada paid the ninth-highest amount (after Spain) and Australia came thirteenth.96 It also became immediately clear that the dominions (and India) could not be relied upon automatically to line up behind Britain in the League’s debates (formal and informal) and votes, and that they often disagreed among themselves. At the first (1920) Assembly they differed over nonpermanent Council seats; whether Germany and Armenia should be admitted; and, to the British foreign secretary Lord Curzon’s ‘great and lasting annoyance’,97 Lord Cecil (for South Africa) was in effect responsible for the admission of Albania and Bulgaria. When the Council tried to prevent the Assembly discussing mandates, Canada and New Zealand backed Cecil in a clash with his cousin Lord Balfour (a former

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prime minister and foreign secretary) who was supported by Australia. Canada, Australia, and India also regarded as improper a British-approved League Council recommendation that the League should study ‘the problem of raw materials’. They won their point. The following year Australia was the only Commonwealth country to oppose Austria’s admission, and in 1922 India (who kept a vigilant eye on the administration of mandates) criticised General Smuts’ suggestion that mandated territories had in effect been annexed, and dissented from New Zealand criticism of the Permanent Mandates Commission. In 1923 only Britain voted against a resolution calling on the League to intervene to end the Greek-Turkish war (Chanak). The next year, in his first speech as Britain’s foreign secretary, Austen Chamberlain raised Canadian hackles by saying: The first thoughts of any Englishman on appointment to the Office of Foreign Secretary must be that he speaks in the name not of Great Britain only, but of the British Dominions beyond the seas ... Our interests are one. Our intercourse must be intimate and constant, and we must speak with one voice 98 in the councils of the world.

He went on to compound his error by asking the Council to postpone a discussion of the Geneva Protocol because he spoke the mind of not one but six governments. Mackenzie King stiffly told Chamberlain his remarks prejudiced the dominions’ position in the League and was contrary to the ‘original understanding upon which Dominions received distinct representation’.99 King’s fears that the British were plotting to forge a common imperial policy were further fuelled when London presumed Ottawa would not object to Chamberlain telling the Council that the Protocol was unacceptable to all the King’s governments. Chamberlain needed Canadian authorisation to say that, said King, who then made sure Canada's views were known in Geneva before Chamberlain addressed the Council. Chamberlain also put his foot in it the next year by saying he had extensively briefed dominion delegates because it was ‘his duty to report … to the Dominions whom he did not represent in the Assembly but did represent in the League’!100 In 1925 the rest of the Commonwealth lined up against India at a League-sponsored conference on the opium trade (India being a notable producer and exporter of the drug).101 The next year it was Britain’s turn to be isolated on a New Zealand-sponsored proposal for an enquiry into slavery in Africa. After the vote the (British) head of the Indian delegation slapped a British delegate on the back, saying the ‘cubs’ had ‘put it over’ the motherland.102 On that year’s big issue, the reform of the Council,

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Commonwealth members also held different views. So it went on until, at the decade’s end, the dominions began openly arguing about what Britain regarded as vital imperial interests. One such matter was the so-called Optional Clause of the Permanent Court (whereby states promised to settle certain disputes by adjudication in advance of any disputes arising). The 1924-29 British Conservative administration was opposed to accepting the Clause, but the Canadians and Irish were keen to do so. Britain worked hard, and successfully, to preserve a united front. But by early 1929 the two dominions were champing at the bit, and Australia was sidling in the same direction. As it happened, a change of government in Britain led to all Commonwealth members signing the Clause at the tenth (1929) Assembly. But imperial unity collapsed completely and openly in the immediate run-up to signature. The Irish Free State marched out of the sometimes acrimonious intra-Commonwealth discussions to make her own Optional Clause declaration a few days before the others, and even loyal New Zealand (for the first time) was unhappy with British policy. Meanwhile, imperial disaggregation had proceeded so swiftly that two other peace conference assumptions had fallen by the wayside. The first related to dominion membership of the Council. In 1919 the American, British and French leaders had given Canada's prime minister a written promise that the dominions were entitled to stand for election to the Council, but no-one expected that. In 1926, however, the Free State was a candidate and the following year all doubts were put to rest when Canada was elected. Second, it had been agreed in 1919 that no part of the Empire could, as an interested party, vote in a dispute involving another Commonwealth country. In 1930 this was no longer tenable. Thus, by the end of the League’s first decade the dominions had clearly demonstrated that in respect of their membership they were undoubtedly independent of Britain, and this had been recognised by the other members of the organisation. Even Britain, although often still clinging to the idea of her imperial superiority, had had to come to terms with this development. And not just at Geneva. For events there had both reflected and encouraged a reconsideration of the constitutional shape of the Empire/Commonwealth, which bore fruit in two hugely significant ways. The first was the 1926 ‘Balfour Declaration’, which proclaimed that the dominions were ‘autonomous Communities … equal in status, in no way subordinate one to the other in any aspect of their dominion or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations’. That each was now ‘the master of its own destiny’103 was confirmed in legislative form five years later when Britain passed the Statute of Westminster, which

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embodied the principles of the earlier Declaration. It was then up to the dominion legislatures whether or not to adopt the Statute into their own constitutional arrangements. Ireland, South Africa, and Canada promptly incorporated the Statute into their own constitutional arrangements but it was more than a decade before Australia and New Zealand followed suit. There could be no question that the Commonwealth was undergoing a fundamental change. Of course, Britain put a brave face on it, saying that nothing had really changed, and on a day-to-day basis she tried to discourage anything that could be seen as diluting the dominions’ position within the Empire/Commonwealth. And on the constitutional front there were still some basic uncertainties – in particular as to whether the King could at the same time be both at war and at peace. Only with the Second World War was that issue clarified. But for those who chose to see it, the writing was on the wall. The dominions’ response to the Statute of Westminster was in keeping with how they generally related to Britain at the League for most of the inter-war period. Overall, the New Zealanders and Australians were selfeffacing and content to march in step.104 Canada’s towering inter-war prime minister, Mackenzie King, insisted firmly on the country’s independent status and liked to demonstrate it, and he agreed with the Irish about ‘limit[ing] our conferences to questions of vital importance to the Empire’.105 In practice, though, Canadian delegates tended to cooperate helpfully with the British. The South Africans and the Irish ‘stood much more aloof’.106 During the Hertzog years (which amounted to most of the inter-war period) South Africans seemed to fear that close cooperation might compromise the Union’s independence. The Irish were also very prickly about the Free State’s status, which was compounded by their distrust of the English. But alongside these varied approaches, all they continued to work together on many issues. Basically, each had got as much as was wanted – and the League was one of the more valuable means through which it was achieved. As a 1927 Free State memorandum put it, it was ‘the best publicity centre for those Dominions which desire to make their sovereign status clear to the World and to obtain recognition for that position’.107 India, of course, was differently placed, but even here League membership was significant. Her delegation did not feel significantly cramped on account of her constitutional subordination. In the functional field (where political and constitutional issues were hardly relevant) she went her own way; on political and economic matters indigenous Indian views could not in practice be ignored; and such control as Britain exerted

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was ‘practically confined to those questions on which the Empire must of necessity, and in fact did, act together’.108 Thus the independence of the Indian delegates in the League was up to a point real (and in formal terms as real as that of any other delegate). On most issues, including those on which India had a special point of view, they expressed ‘specifically Indian, not British, ideas’.109 Here too, therefore, the Commonwealth was never a united voting bloc.

Conclusion It was due to their British links that in 1919 the dominions and India gained an entrée into international relations; and in the next decade it was ‘almost exclusively for the purposes of League membership that some of them ha[d] a foot in the field of world diplomacy at all’.110 To a large extent they were able to choose whether to remain sitting in their Genevan ringside seats or to enter the fray, but they could not be mere onlookers. When votes were taken, they had to stand up and be counted. Moreover, the League gave them the context in which to develop and exercise foreign policies. At Geneva they could strut the world stage, flaunt their separateness from Britain (sometimes dramatically so), seek assistance from the Secretariat, and talk to representatives of states and nongovernmental organisations from every continent and on a myriad of issues (including representatives of non-members such as the USSR [before 1934] and the USA, both of whom participated in, for example, technical, humanitarian, and disarmament discussions).111 Thus the dominions and India were seldom passive League members. They have been compared to the Scandinavians, but their contribution was arguably greater, and certainly more than might have been expected from distant members, inexperienced in international politics, with a tiny corpus of bureaucratic expertise, and a still evolving relationship with their former imperial overlord. They were also conscientious members. They attended meetings; their delegations, while small, were not smaller than those of some other states, especially the extra-European ones; their delegates were by no means obviously of a lesser quality than those of many other states (delegates from states outside Europe rarely had much calibre); they paid their not negligible dues; and they sought to be true to (their conceptions of) the Covenant. Their presence extended the geographical spread of the League, which was predominantly a European body. And (unlike some others) they stayed the course. The slowness with which the Dominions and India separated from Britain gave them huge diplomatic advantages. Their right of more-or-less

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instant, and assuredly friendly, access to delegates of one of the League’s two leading members gave them splendid opportunities to exert private influence and obtain a wealth of privileged information. Their interests were always taken into consideration by other Commonwealth countries, not just Britain. They received much support of all kinds – representational, technical, and practical. Their imperial connection added to their diplomatic weight. Such was the cosiness of the Genevan environment and the gentleness with which the League introduced all the new and inexperienced states and their leaders to international relations that it has been described as acting ‘as a kind of nursery for young states’.112 But as the dominions and India were not passive enough to stay put in a nursery, the analogy of a kindergarten seems better to describe their diplomatic beginnings at Geneva. It was an immensely fortunate and privileged way to enter international relations. They were indeed the lucky ones.

Acknowledgements As always, I thank Alan James for acting as research assistant and for valuable advice and comments. I am also grateful for the Canadian Faculty Research Award that, at a late stage, enabled me to incorporate insights gleaned during related research at the Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa; the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University; and the papers in the possession of M. Louis Bruneau and Professor Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon. I am also grateful to Mrs Greta Riddell-Dixon for sharing her memories.

Books and articles cited Baker, Philip (1924), ‘The making of the Covenant from the British point of view’ in P. Munch (ed), Les origines et l'oeuvre de la Société des Nations, vol. 2, (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel). Beloff, Max (1989), Imperial Sunset, vol. 2, Dream of Commonwealth 1921-42 (London: Macmillan). Carter, Gwendolen (1971), The British Commonwealth and International Security. The Role of the Dominions 1919-1939 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971, first published in 1947). Clark, Lovell C. (1970), Documents on Canadian External Relations, vol. 3, 1919-1925 (Ottawa: Department of External Affairs).

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Connor, John (2003), Stanley Melbourne Bruce: Guide to Archives of Australia’s Prime Ministers (Canberra: National Archives of Australia). Craig, Gordon A. & Gilbert, Felix (eds.) (1972), The Diplomats, 1919-1939 (New York: Atheneum, 2 vols., first published 1953). Darwin, John (1999), ‘The dominion idea in imperial politics’ in Judith Brown & Wm Roger Louis (eds.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. IV, The Twentieth Century (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press). Dawson, R. MacGregor (1958), William Lyon Mackenzie King. A Political Biography, 1874-1923, (London: Methuen) de Madariaga, Salvador (1973), Morning without noon. Memoirs, (Farnborough: Saxon House). Fanning, Ronan, Kennedy, Michael, Keogh, Dermot, O’Halpin, Eunan (2002) Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, vol. III, 1926-1932 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy). Hart-Davis, Duff (ed.) (1989), In Royal Service. The Letters and Journals of Sir Alan Lascelles, vol. II, 1920-1936 (London: Hamish Hamilton). Harte, W.J. (1932), The Control of Foreign Policy in the British Commonwealth of Nations, Historical Association Leaflet no. 89 (London: G. Bell & Son for the Historical Association). Hilliker, John F. (1990), Canada’s Department of External Affairs, vol. 1, The Early Years, 1909-1946 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press for the Institute of Public Administration of Canada). Hudson, W.J. (1980), Australia and the League of Nations (Sydney: Sydney University Press for the Australian Institute of International Affairs). Ignatieff, George (1987), The Making of a Peacemonger, (Canada: Penguin). Inglis, Alex I. (ed) (1971), Documents on Canadian External Relations, vol. 4, 1926-30 (Ottawa: Department of External Affairs). Kennedy, Michael (1996), Ireland and the League of Nations 1919-1946. International Relations, Diplomacy and Politics (Dublin, Portland: Irish Academic Press). Mackay, R.A. (ed) (1969), Documents on Canadian External Relations, vol. 2, The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (Ottawa: Department of External Affairs). MacQueen, Norman (1982), ‘Eamon de Valera, the Irish Free State and the League of Nations, 1919-1946’, Eire-Ireland, vol. 17, no. 4, Winter, 110-27.

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Manning, C.A.W. (1932), The Policies of the British Dominions in the League of Nations (London: Oxford University Press). —. (1932b) draft manuscript of The Policies of the British Dominions in the League of Nations. —. (1933) ‘India and the League of Nations’, in Alfred Zimmern et al, India Analysed, vol. 1, International (London: Victor Gollancz) 30-66. McCraw, David J. (2002), ‘The zenith of realism in New Zealand’s foreign policy’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. 48, no. 3, 353-68. Meaney, N.K (1963), ‘The British Empire in the American rejection of the Treaty of Versailles’, Australian Journal of Politics & History, vol. 9, no. 2, 213-34. Miller, David Hunter (1928) The Drafting of the Covenant (New York: Putnam’s) 2 vols. Miller, J. D. B. (1958), The Commonwealth in the World (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1958). Moore, Professor Sir William Harrison (1931), ‘The dominions of the British Commonwealth in the League of Nations’, International Affairs, vol. 10, no. 3, May 1931, 372-92. Pearce, Sir George Foster (1951): Carpenter to Cabinet. Thirty-Seven Years of Parliament (London: Hutchinson). Pienaar, Sara (1987), South Africa and International Relations between Two World Wars: the League of Nations Dimension (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press). Riddell, Walter Alexander (1947) World Security by Conference (Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver: The Ryerson Press). Shotwell, James (1937) At the Paris Peace Conference (New York, Macmillan) Appendix V, ‘The "British Empire" in the League Covenant’, . Skilling, H. Gordon (1945), Canadian Representation Abroad: from Agency to Embassy (Toronto: The Ryerson Press). Sole, Donald Bell, ‘This Above All. Reminiscences of a South African Diplomat’, unpublished manuscript. Stacey, C.P., (1981), Canada and the Age of Conflict. A History of Canadian External Policies, vol. 2, 1921-1948. —. (1984), Canada and the Age of Conflict. A History of Canadian External Policies, vol. 1, 1867-1921 (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1st published 1977). Sundaram, Dr. Lanka (1933), ‘India and the International Labour Organisation’, in Alfred Zimmern et al., India Analysed, vol. 1, International (London: Gollancz) 67-90.

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Temperley, Major-General A. C. (1938), The Whispering Gallery of Europe (London: Collins) Templeton, Malcolm (2007), ‘Jordan, William Joseph 1879-1959’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, vol. 4, 1998, updated 22 June 2007, http://222.dnzb.govt.nz/> Veatch, Richard (1975), Canada and the League of Nations (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press). Yearwood, Peter J. (2009), Guarantee of Peace. The League of Nations in British Policy 1914-1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Notes 1

The Council also oversaw the League’s disarmament efforts, supervised the new ‘mandates’ system, appointed the League’s Secretary-General, and had certain administrative responsibilities under the peace treaties. 2 For League purposes, India was deemed to include both the British Raj and the 562 princely states under British suzerainty. However, the princely delegates who were always included in Indian delegations to the League had no mandate to commit their states to conventions and the central government paid the whole of India’s contribution to the League. 3 Newfoundland was also a dominion but did not join the League. When, at one stage, her membership was suggested, President Wilson’s adviser, Colonel House ‘hoped’ the British would not press, ‘as we have had enough trouble about the Dominions already’: David Hunter Miller (legal adviser to the US commission to the peace conference) diary, 20 April 1919 in Miller (1928) 61. She forwent dominion status in 1934 when Britain resumed control over the territory. 4 William Rappard quoted in Manning (1932) 63. Also Miller (1958) 41. 5 Cf. Pienaar (1987) 176, Hudson (1980) 186, and Manning (1932) passim. 6 Sir Cecil Hurst (legal adviser, FO) minute, 2 June 1920, Kew: The National Archives, Public Records Office (TNA), General 200303/200303, FO371/4331. 7 ‘Memorandum on the draft convention on the League of Nations submitted by Lord Cecil’, enclosure 1 in Doherty (Canadian Minister of Justice) to Secretary, Committee on position of dominions and India in League of Nations, 27 January 1919, in Mackay (ed.) (1969) 43 n.2. 8 Ibid. 43. 9 Manning (1933) 61. 10 Miller (1928) vol. 1, 492. 11 Ibid. 493. 12 On 21 April, a week before the Covenant was finalised: see Shotwell (1937), Miller (1928) 476. In private Shotwell claimed responsibility: Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada (LAC), O.D. Skelton (under-secretary, Department of External Affairs, Ottawa) diary, 23 March 1929, MG30 D33 vol. 12/2. 13 Hurst quoted in Shotwell (1937). 14 In 1926, however, an imperial conference agreed to cease using the term ‘British

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Empire’ in treaties and at the League of Nations. But even before the conference had met, a League document listed them in the same way as every other member, separately and in alphabetical order: see League document C.L.102.1926.V. 15 Gavin Duffy (former provisional Minister for External Affairs) in the Dáil in 1922 quoted in MacQueen (1982) 111. 16 O.D. Skelton (under-secretary, Department of External Affairs, Ottawa) comments on Arnold Toynbee, ‘The British empire since the peace settlement’, sent to Toynbee on 26 January 1928, LAC, T-1807, RG25 D1, vol. 802, file 556, parts 1-2. 17 Sixth committee report to 4th Assembly quoted in Manning (1932) 8. This was also the view of the League’s legal director. 18 See Kennedy (1996) 28, 37. 19 Major-General Seán McEoin (GOC Troops Athlone Command) to William T. Cosgrave (President of the Executive Council), 19 July 1923 in Fanning, Kennedy, Keogh & O’Halpin (2000) 138. 20 Kennedy (1996) 40. Cf. Beloff (1989) 78, n.10. 21 The Secretariat reportedly spent three or four days discussing whether it should accede to the Irish request. 22 Quoted in British Commonwealth relations conference 1933, draft agenda, section A, item 2, no. 1(a), ‘Procedure for the negotiation of treaties’, LAC, RG25, vol. 3434, file 1-1-1-1933-1. 23 Quoted in Manning (1933) 34. I have here drawn heavily on this work. 24 Manning manuscript, VI, 9; Manning (1932) 153. 25 Hudson (1980) 4. 26 Hart-Davis (1989) 180. 27 Patrick McGilligan (minister for industry & commerce and external affairs) to Dáil Committee on Finance, 28 June 1929 < http://historicaldebates.oireachtas.ie/D/0030/D.0030.192906280013.html> accessed 22 October 2009. It should, however, be noted ignorance was far from limited to the dominions. In 1927, for example, the British minister at Oslo, doubted ‘whether in any country, which is a member, there is less interest taken in the League or less enthusiasm for its future than in Norway’: Sir F. Lindley despatch, 21 September 1927, TNA, W9227/9227/98, FO371/12686. 28 McCraw (2002) 364. 29 Templeton (2007). 30 Sir Joseph Pope (under-secretary, Department of External Affairs, Ottawa) diary, 11 December 1920 quoted in Hilliker (1990) 80. 31 Ignatieff (1987) 76, Dawson (1958) 403. 32 Michael MacWhite memorandum, ‘The Saorstát and the League of Nations’, enclosed in MacWhite- Joseph P. Walshe (secretary, Department of External Affairs, Dublin), 14 April 1928, in Fanning et al. (eds) (2002) 186. 33 In the 1920s, most delegations contained at least six delegates and substitute delegates, which Noel-Baker considered the minimum required satisfactorily to participate in the Assembly. New Zealand rarely sent more than one delegate in the 1920s and even when, in the 1930s. she was on the Council the complete New

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Zealand party numbered just eight. By contrast, the great powers fielded parties of ‘forty or fifty delegates and experts’: Webster (1933) 66. Cf. Temperley (1938) 110. 34 Veatch (1975) 25. In 1929 the Australian prime minister said the leader of the delegation to the Assembly was ‘not at all strong and has very little knowledge of international affairs, or the subjects which will have to be discussed’. However, ‘[c]ircumstances rendered it necessary that he should be … sent’: Bruce-Casey, personal & confidential, 28 June 1929, Stanley Bruce papers, Canberra: National Archives of Australia (NAA), A1420/6 barcode 202611. 35 ibid. 25. 36 Cecil diary, 13 November 1920, London: British Museum (BM), Robert Cecil papers, Add Mss 511231. 37 Manning (1932) 151. 38 Skilling (1945) 168. 39 For example, the German consul was designated to act in that capacity four years before Germany entered the League in 1926; Mexico and Turkey had specially designated observers before joining, and from 1922 the US consul at Geneva kept Washington informed on League matters and liaised with the secretariat. 40 Australian MP quoted in Harte (1932) 5. 41 Hon. Theo Russell (British minister, Berne), 23 November 1920, TNA, W2458/160/98, FO371/5479. 42 Lord Onslow (parliamentary under-secretary for war and head of the British delegation after the departure of the acting foreign secretary)-Sir William Tyrrell (permanent under-secretary, FO), 26 September 1927, TNA, W9382/9382/98 FO371/12686. The dinners were, however, wearisome as they generally consisted of the same people meeting at the same restaurant, with only the host varying. 43 Pienaar (1987) 24. There was ‘much to be said for occasional and informal conferences’, said Canada's Skelton, but ‘formal and exclusive meetings … queer our position in the League and confirm United States jibes that “Great Britain was given six votes in the League”. In 1924 when Ramsay MacDonald summoned such a meeting during a session of the Assembly, and one by one the Dominion delegations rose and left the hall, the smile on the faces of the other delegations drew wider and wider: Senator Dandurand at once made objections and future conferences were held less obtrusively: Skelton 'Notes on the Imperial Conference. 1926', LAC, RG25 G1 vol. 3422, file 1-1926/80. See also Dandurand-Skelton, 26 June 1926 in Inglis (ed) (1971) 610. It was, moreover, ‘quite a business to get all the delegates together for any combined consultation – several hours notice is required and telephone calls have to be sent all over the town’: Casey-Bruce. 24 March 1926, Stanley Bruce papers, NAA, A1420/3 barcode 202609. 44 Lord Milner quoted in Stacey (1984) 331. 45 Sir Alexander Cadogan (assistant to the British delegate and delegate to the League)-Sir Gerald Hyde Villiers (head of Western, League of Nations department, FO), 7 September 1927, TNA, W8572/61/98, FO371/12675. 46 Riddell (1947) 191-2.

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Austen Chamberlain to the house of commons, 23 March 1926, in FO411/3. Dandurand-Skelton, 26 June 1926, in Inglis (ed) (1971) 611. For his part, Sir Austen reportedly complained that, while he was ‘delighted to see and talk to the Dominion representatives … it is rather a waste of time. If the Dominions want to take a hand in the conduct of Foreign Affairs, in Geneva or in London, then they must learn something about the subject. I haven’t time to teach them the A.B.C. of it all. Look at last night’s meeting. Some of the Dominion representatives’ questions showed that they hadn’t even read the Covenant. I come back to my hotel mentally and physically tired out, and then have to set to and talk for half-anhour and then answer another half hour’s questions, most of which are elementary. By all means let us have co-operation in the conduct of Foreign Affairs but the Dominions will have to produce some people who know the subject with whom I can co-operate”': Richard Casey-Stanley Bruce. 24 March 1926, Stanley Bruce papers, NAA, A1420/3 barcode 202609. 49 Report on ninth Assembly of the League of Nations, 26 November 1928, TNA, W11286/8660/98, FO411/8. 50 Optional Clause. Report on inter-commonwealth discussions received from Saorstat delegation, 12 Sep. 1929, LAC, RG25, vol. 3424, file 1-1929/10. 51 Ben Cockram (private secretary to the permanent under-secretary, dominions office) minute, 1935, quoted in Kennedy (1996) 165. When de Valera came to power, the Irish apparently ceased attending BED meetings and Commonwealth dinners, but personal relations were amicable and they were ready to talk informally: ibid. 52 Clutterbuck note on BED meeting, 10 September 1930, TNA, DO35/163/4. 53 Temperley (1938) 110-1. Cf. Harrison Moore (1931) 379. 54 Riddell (1947) 193. 55 Sundaram (1933) 68. 56 Hon. Theo Russell (British minister, Berne), 23 November 1920, and Sir Eyre Crowe minute thereon, TNA, W2458/160/98, FO371/5479. 57 Stacey (1981) 65. 58 Temperley (1938) 108. 59 Pearce (1951) 182. 60 de Madariaga (1974) 25. 61 Carter (1947) 17. 62 H.A.L. Fisher diary, November-December 1920,H A.L. Fisher papers; Fisher (Geneva)-Lloyd George (British prime minister), 16 November 1920, London: Beaverbrook Library, Lloyd George papers, F/16/7/61. 63 Cecil-Lord Passfield (colonial and dominions secretary), 27 January 1930, BM, Cecil papers, Add Mss 51100. 64 Onslow-Tyrrell, 26 September 1927, TNA, W9382/9382/98 FO371/12686. 65 Chamberlain and Cadogan minutes, 9 November and 9 October 1925, TNA, W9478/9478/98 FO371/11071. 66 See Ivone Kirkpatrick (second secretary, Western department, FO) and Cadogan minutes, 5 and 11 October 1927, TNA, W9382/9382/98 FO371/12686. 67. Manning (1932) 147. 48

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181

See Optional Clause. Report of inter-Commonwealth discussions received by Canada from Saorstat [Irish] delegation, 12 September 1929, LAC, RG 25, vol. 3424, file 1-1929/10. 69 See Ibid.. This, combined with Australia having fiercely fallen out with Britain over the Optional Clause, might have contributed to the comment of Richard Casey (the Australian liaison officer in Downing Street) about Ramsay MacDonald’s ‘mediocrity’. MacDonald was, Casey said, ‘vain to a degree, lacks clarity of thought and expression, and wraps up anything he has to say in a dense cloud of meaningless words. Also … he has a shifty eye, looks the reverse of almost everything that a man in his position should be’: Casey-Stanley Bruce (Australian prime minister, 1923-9), 29 August 1929, in Connor (2003) 40. 70 Cecil-Smuts, 21 December 1920, BM, Cecil papers, Add Mss 51076. 71 Kennedy (1996) 43, 53. 72 Manning (1932) 141. 73 Darwin (1999) 83. 74 Manning (1932) 63. When the British complained to Bill Jordan (the New Zealand high commissioner) about spouting dangerous, ‘disastrous’ ‘bunk’ in Council meetings, Jordan replied that ‘the views of a small Dominion “would scarcely be calculated to upset the equilibrium of Europe”’: R.C. Skrine Stevenson (Adviser on League of Nations Affairs) minute, 20 October 1937, TNA, T14606/14606/384, FO372/3205; Robert Vansittart (Permanent Under Secretary, FO) minute, 26 October 1937, TNA, T14606/14606/384, FO372/3205; Malcolm MacDonald (dominions secretary)-Jordan conversation, Geneva, 17 September 1938, TNA, W18017/259/98, FO371/21243; Berendsen, Parr and Jordan-Anthony Eden (foreign secretary), 25 August 1936, quoted in McIntyre (1988) 148. According to Skrine-Stevenson, Jordan was ‘entirely ignorant of the European situation and apparently takes no trouble to inform himself: nevertheless he is liable at any moment to deliver a lengthy ex tempore speech in the Council on the most delicate topics, Spain being his favourite subject. … he makes violent attacks on Italy, and at the same time proposes that Spain should be placed under an A mandate. … by his irresponsible utterances he creates a serious danger to peace …. Mr. Jordan is the worst possible advertisement for the democratic form of Government’: minute, 20 October 1937. 75 H.A.L. Fisher diary, 15 November 1920, Beaverbrook Library, H.A.L. Fisher papers. 76 Pearce (1951) 181-2. 77 Cecil-Chamberlain, 21 October 1926, TNA, W10048/10048/98 FO371/11906. 78 Cadogan minute, 8 November 1926, TNA, W10048/10048/98 FO371/11906. 79 ‘spoilt children’: Manning (1932) 141. 80 Hudson (1980) 140. 81 H.A.L. Fisher to his wife, December 1920, BL, H.A.L. Fisher papers. 82 William Rappard (head of the Mandates Section)-William Ormsby-Gore (British member of PMC), 17 September 1922; Ormsby-Gore – Rappard, 16 August 1922, quoted in Hudson (1980) 162, 160. In 1928 McLachlan’s ‘jingoist utterance’ was ‘poorly delivered, not even well read’: Mackenzie King diary, 6 September 1928,

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97

France/ Germany

Italy /Japan

India

China

Spain

Canada

Poland

Argentine/ Czechoslovakia

Australia

South Africa

Irish Free State /New Zealand

rank units

Great Britain

http://king.collectionscanada.ca. And in 1929, Sir Granville Ryrie, was unable to answer many of the questions posed by the Permanent Mandates Commission. 83 Smuts in 1917, quoted in Darwin (1999) 83. 84 Sole manuscript, 164. 85 Herbert Ames (financial director, League secretariat) quoted in Manning (1932) 137. 86 Manning manuscript, VI 11. 87 Kennedy (1996) 16. 88 Patrick Sarsfield O’Hegarty (writer and biographer) quoted in Kennedy (1996) 24. 89 Frank Brennan quoted in Harrison Moore (1931) 379. 90 Hertzog to (Eleventh) 1930 Assembly, quoted in P.A. Clutterbuck (principal, DO, Geneva)-C.W. Dixon (assistant secretary, dominions office), 24 September 1930, TNA, DO35/163/4. 91 J.S. Smit (South African high commissioner) to League Assembly, 11 September 1928, League of Nations, Official Journal, special supplement no. 64, 93. 92 Dandurand to Fifth (1924) Assembly, 2 October 1924, League of Nations, Official Journal, special supplement no. 23, 222. 93 Lenroot reservation quoted in Meaney (1963) 228. 94 Kennedy (1996) 30. 95 That is apart from India and New Zealand who agreed that Britain could issue the credentials. 96 In 1929, when there were 54 League members, contributions (calculated in units of a little under £1,100,000) were as follows:

1st 105

2nd 79

4th 60

6th 56

7th 46

8th 40

9th 35

10th 32

11th 29

13th 27

20th 15

23rd 10

Yearwood (2009) 175. Guildhall speech quoted in Craig (1972) 39. 99 King telegram, 8 March 1925, in Clark (ed) (1970) 551. 100 Dandurand-Skelton, 26 June 1926, in Inglis (ed) (1971) 611. 101 While the India Office and New Delhi supported Indian producers, Singapore (which imported opium) looked to the Colonial Office for support, as did the Malay states who derived 40 per cent of their revenue from a consumption tax. The British Home Office, however, wanted the opium trade suppressed, as did the FO and dominions. After considerable consultation, the British hedged and the 98

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rest of the Commonwealth, including the dominions, were aligned against India. 102 Riddell (1947) 187. 103 ‘Report of Inter-Imperial Relations Committee’, Imperial Conference, 1926. Summary of Proceedings, Cmd. 2768. 104 It should be noted, however, that the election of a Labour government in 1935 transformed New Zealand’s policy. Reference has been made to Britain’s crossness with Bill Jordan, the high commissioner appointed by that government (see n.74). After Jordan’s maiden Assembly speech, in which he made ‘carping references’ to Abyssinia, a British official commented that it was ‘a new departure for the spokesman of the New Zealand Government to declare publicly and openly his disagreement with a cardinal feature of the policy of the United Kingdom Government, particularly without previous consultation … we may have to revise rather thoroughly or views of New Zealand’: Joe Garner (assistant private secretary to the dominions secretary)-Ben Cockram (principal, CRO, Geneva), 30 September 1936, TNA, DO35/165. 105 Dandurand-Skelton, 26 June 1926, in Inglis (ed) (1971) 610. 106 Temperley (1938) 111. 107 Joseph P. Walshe memorandum, 11 October 1927, in Fanning et al. (eds) (2002) 156. 108 Manning (1933) 37. 109 Ibid. 36. 110 Manning (1932) 131. 111 In addition, when Anglo-Irish relations were troubled in the 1930s, the League provided a ‘neutral’ meeting ground: 112 Pienaar (1987) 176.

CHAPTER NINE LORD ROBERT CECIL AS AN INTERNATIONALIST: A MENTAL MAP GAYNOR JOHNSON

Lord Robert Cecil, Viscount Cecil of Chelwood had a career in public life spanning more than half a century. He was a man with an impeccable political pedigree, being the son of the great nineteenth century Conservative Prime Minister, the Third Marquess of Salisbury, and a descendant of Robert Cecil, favourite advisor to Elizabeth I. He was known also for his personal and political integrity and for his staunch independence of mind. Because of this, many found him frustrating and difficult to relate to. For example, between 1903-1913 he championed the Free Trade lobby and openly defied the wishes of his cousin and party leader, Arthur Balfour.1 But it is for his involvement in and promotion of the League of Nations and international peace after the First World War that he is chiefly remembered. Most of his remarks on these subjects date from the interwar period. But Cecil also remained an active commentator on international affairs for more than fifteen years after the outbreak of the Second World War, his last comments being on the conduct of the Korean War when he was almost ninety. Cecil also wrote about many more issues concerning international affairs than the League and the pursuit of peace. He wrote about European unification; about the diplomatic dynamics of the Cold War and the atomic age as well as the establishment of the United Nations. The history of the events about which Cecil concerned himself has been covered by numerous historical studies and consequently, it is not the intention of this chapter to cover them in detail here. Instead, the aim is to create a framework from which to construct a mental map of Cecil’s attitude towards international affairs from the end of the First World War until his final remarks on Cold War diplomacy; to ask whether there was a consistent pattern in his thinking and to trace the origins of that. From

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this, two prevailing themes emerge. First, that it is an oversimplification to view Cecil as an idealist, with an unrealistic belief in the willingness of the international community to relinquish war. Instead, he adopted a more pragmatic approach. On foreign affairs, he did not adhere to a particular party political message and believed that the most appropriate response to an act of aggression or breach of treaty should be determined by the willingness of the parties concerned to submit to League arbitration. The second theme relates to his attitude towards the general conduct of diplomacy. Here it is evident that Cecil was one of the few British statesmen who believed that the new conference diplomacy of the postwar First World War era provided the optimum framework for the promotion of international peace and diplomatic engagement: an attitude that frequently brought him in to direct conflict with the British government. It is commonplace now to claim a link between childhood experience and adult attitudes, but in the case of Cecil this connection had a particular resonance. Unusually for one of his social class, Cecil was not sent away to school at an early age, but was educated at home, in a hermetically sealed world created by his parents at the family home, Hatfield House, until he was eleven.2 He learnt that for those with the means to do so, a career in public life should be altruistic and determined by the moral and ethical code revealed in the Bible and as preached through the High Anglican Church. The principles that all men are equal in the eyes of God and that it was a Christian duty to obey the Ten Commandments and to live a life of Christian charity played a particularly prominent role in shaping Cecil’s Weltanschauung. When he went up to Eton, his strong sense of morality led him to take the side of the bullied against the bully.3 After Oxford, he trained as a barrister and it was from the late 1880s that he began to develop an interest in international law, although he never practised it. All of the Third Marquess’ children were imbued with a strong awareness of their father’s contribution to late nineteenth century politics. So much so that when the Third Marquess died in 1903, Cecil’s desire to preserve his father’s legacy fuelled his decision to abandon the Bar in 1906 and to enter the House of Commons as Conservative MP for East Marylebone.4 Cecil’s role in Edwardian politics falls outside the remit of this discussion, but it is important to note that it was during his career as an internationalist that he believed that he was most in tune with his father’s moral code. He wrote: “…I am convinced that, in advocating the creation of an international organisation for the maintenance of peace, I was carrying out the lessons which I had, consciously or unconsciously, received from my father”.5 Like his father, Cecil was not snobbish about

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the more parvenu members of the Conservative party, such as the Chamberlain clan, despite, in their case, seldom agreeing with their policies. Instead, he viewed himself as a “progressive Tory”.6 This he defined as being wedded neither to the view that change was “profoundly disagreeable” nor embracing “change for its own sake”. Instead he took the view that “If something seems wrong, I have always been anxious to put it right.”7 That said, this fluid approach to politics ultimately set Cecil somewhat apart from his father and brothers, who were staunch supporters of the Conservative party. To him, it was the policy that mattered, not which party was expounding it. His resignations over the disestablishment of the Welsh Church in 1919 and over Austen Chamberlain’s conduct of the Geneva Naval Conference in 1928 demonstrated that he was willing to place religious belief and personal principle over party loyalty. His decision to move to the Cross Benches of the House of Lords after1935 was made because he disagreed with the Conservative-driven policy of appeasement of Europe’s fascist dictators. While Cecil never left the Conservative party, it was with the Liberals that he frequently felt that his natural sympathies lay. Before the First World War, he had contemplated joining their ranks because the Conservatives had sold their soul over Tariff Reform and the reform of the House of Lords.8 After 1916, the main stumbling block to joining the Liberals lay in the person of the party leader and Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, whom he later described as “quite as sordid as the worst Tories with class hatred and secularism…”. 9 After the war, as Acting Foreign Secretary, he despised Lloyd George’s egotistic conduct of the peace negotiations and the subsequent conferences they spawned as well as his “eclipsing” of the Foreign Office.10 It is for this reason that during Lloyd George’s second administration, Cecil pressed for the former Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, to challenge the Prime Minister for the leadership of the Liberal party. At no point did Cecil claim that if his preferred course of action was successful that he would join the Liberal party, but the fact that he lobbied Grey and Asquith, as well as other leading Liberals, such as Walter Runciman, suggests that he entertained the possibility. 11 It is unusual for a member of one political party to lobby for a change in the leadership of another for reasons which he thinks will be beneficial to them if he was not entertaining serious thoughts about transferring his political allegiance. Cecil also believed that the Liberals were also more likely to be responsive to the promotion of the work of the League of Nations.12 The Conservative policy of “passive conservatism”, while it made sense in controlling the economy, was dangerous when applied to

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foreign affairs, although the most likely reason why Cecil did not join the Liberals was because of family pressure.13 What was required was a vigorous, dynamic strategy to deal with the residual diplomatic and political issues stemming from the First World War that required Britain to take an unambiguous leading role. At the centre of it should be the League of Nations dominated by Britain.14 But it is important to consider whether Cecil would have been less willing to leave for prolonged periods in Geneva as head of the British delegation to the League had he felt that the political and ethical questions closest to his heart had a natural home in the political party he had been brought up to support. It is reasonable to see the First World War as marking the most significant watershed in Cecil’s career in public life. And it has frequently been claimed that it was the scale of that conflict and the enormous cost in human life that it demanded that were in the forefront in his mind when he became one of those instrumental in seeking permanent ways of ensuring that no such event would happen again through what became the League of Nations.15 Cecil was far from alone in his thinking, of course, and there were many who attempted to produce much deeper intellectual justifications for their points of view than he did. Nevertheless, Cecil did view the First World War as being uniquely “uncivilised”. War had always demanded casualties, but there was something about man’s new capability to wage war on an industrial scale that set that conflict apart and so gave the need to prevent further occurrences particular impetus. Hence the need to strive for what he termed “civilisation”, that is a world in which Christian principles of tolerance would provide a framework of understanding that would help underpin the work of the League and thus a rejection of the use of war to resolve diplomatic conflicts.16 Cecil was no more specific than this in his definition, although his assumption that Britain would be in the vanguard of the pursuit of this goal and his subsequent statements on European political extremism make it clear that this “civilised” world would be one in which the British Empire would continue to exist and in which parliamentary democracy would prevail. That said, Cecil never devoted much of his energies to the consideration of British imperial issues.17 Like many during the First World War, he believed that it was important to protect British interests in the Middle East against the ambitions of the French in that region.18 He was also not alone in considering that a second global conflict would cause irreparable damage to Britain’s relations with her empire.19 But he seldom concerned himself with countries outside the North American and European arenas. This is significant because the British delegation to the League, which Cecil headed for much of the interwar period, also

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represented the interests of many of Britain’s colonial possessions. He clearly did not view the League as a venue for the promotion of British imperial harmony. On European diplomatic issues, Cecil’s opinions were much more transparent. He did not share the pro-French sympathies of the interwar Foreign Office. While he understood the French need for security, Cecil viewed the Entente Cordiale sceptically, observing that “if you try and deal with them from the Anglo-Saxon point of view you merely prepare for yourself disappointment…”. 20 The stresses within the Entente Cordiale were caused not so much by a British failure to understand French security needs, but because after the First World War, Britain lacked the financial and industrial strength to take the lead in the regeneration of Europe.21 During the Abyssinian crisis of 1935-6, Cecil urged the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, to take a firm line with the French who he feared were likely to capitulate against Mussolini. The use of sanctions against the Duce was essential because if they were not deployed, there was a danger that the British would also appear to be adopting a weak line. Or, as Cecil put it, “…an ineffective friend is even more hated than a frank opponent, and France comes in to the first category”.22 If the British diplomatic stick did not work in Paris, then the French should be made to see that “…what is sauce for the Abyssinian goose will be sauce for the French gander.”23 Likewise his attitude towards Germany was also somewhat at odds with the policy of reconciliation that was such a feature of British government policy during the interwar period. What the Germans required, he argued, was a firm hand, because “[T]hey are stupid people…and very backward in intellectual and spiritual civilisation. The reason they advocate force is because it is really almost the only way of dealing with their own people.” A policy of “sweet reasonableness” was unlikely to yield results.24 That said, even in matters concerning Germany, diplomatically there was little that could not be resolved if she remained in the League. He went against the wishes of the Foreign Secretary, Austen Chamberlain, during the League Council Crisis of 1926, openly promoting German admission to a permanent seat on that body, and despite his exasperation at Hitler’s foreign policy exploits a decade later, never lost hope that a German delegation would once again return to Geneva.25 However, by 1936, Cecil was on record as being “…one of those who believe that Germany is preparing for war.” In what proved to be a prophetic anticipation of the policy of appeasement, he argued that Hitler “…intends to make a variety of demands which, she believes, may end in war and she is preparing herself for that contingency,” because “it is

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impossible to believe that Germany would have spent vast sums of money, would have carried an elaborate war propaganda, would have run the risk of hostility caused by the anxiety of her neighbours unless she has in mind the eventuality of war…”.26 Cecil’s attitude towards the role of the United States in international diplomacy after 1919 was centred on American absence from the League of Nations.27 He was not resentful of this, but convinced him that the Americans required special treatment, additional incentives to play a leading role in defending the post-war peace settlements and in the economic regeneration of Europe.28 To this end, he made a number of visits to Washington, primarily as the guest of the Carnegie Foundation and undertook a lecture tour in 1923 of New England, visiting Boston and New York, to promote the work of the League. This tour also coincided with the realisation that a purely European solution to the reparations problem was unlikely to be reached. To this end, he told the American journalist, Frederick Dixon: “…Would it not be well…for the 2 sides of the Atlantic to take counsel together? To talk things over? And if that is to be done is it not better that such talk should be not just isolated efforts, but part of a regular scheme so that they shall produce some permanent effect, and not just run away into the sand?”29 In other areas of international diplomacy, he recommended British tolerance of the American position. During the Geneva Disarmament Conference, Cecil recommended that the United States be given special leave to build cruisers carrying eight inch guns.30 And during the negotiation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact the following year, when Austen Chamberlain raised concerns about American insistence on retaining the Monroe Doctrine, Cecil was concerned that the Foreign Secretary’s obstinacy might result in the American government abandoning the pact negotiations.31 During the 1930s, Cecil like his fellow League champion, Philip Noel-Baker, believed that some capital could be made by persuading the United States to adopt an associate role inside the League. To this end, as late as 1938, he recommended that pressure be brought to bear on the Roosevelt administration to send a delegation to League “because the future of peace depends on it.”32 By the spring of 1941, Cecil had concluded that American involvement in European affairs after the Second World War was essential because the events of the past half century had demonstrated that the European powers alone could not be trusted to make peace in Europe.33 Cecil believed that the most effective way of preserving international peace was through the principles of collective security that underpinned the League Covenant. The Covenant was a contradiction: it was fixed yet

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needed to be flexible. It provided a minimum rather than an absolute benchmark for determining that way in which states interacted with one another. 34 As such, it was important that the Covenant was allowed to evolve, to enable it to be responsive to the needs of the time. He supported the efforts to reform and update the Covenant instigated by Herriot and MacDonald in 1924 in what became the Geneva Protocol, although was not impressed by the outcome.35 It had always been the intention when, for example, a joint Allied policy on disarmament had been formulated, that the Covenant would be amended to take this in to account because he favoured “leaving the Covenant as it is and doing whatever has to be done in order to secure disarmament by a separate instrument.”36 But for the Covenant to work effectively, those charged with implementing it needed to do so fearlessly. When it became clear that the League would not be able to stem Japanese incursion in China after 1931, Cecil described the lukewarm response of the British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, to the crisis as “disastrous”.37 As the 1930s progressed, his anger at the willingness of the British government to have truck with dictators who clearly intended to destabilise Europe, led him to move from the Conservative to the cross benches in the House of Lords in 1935, and to publish a number of direct attacks on that policy.38 Cecil’s statements on appeasement date from two events during the interwar period. The first was the decision by the Baldwin government to reject the Geneva Protocol and to negotiate the security pact that became the Treaty of Locarno in 1925; with the second being the policy pursued by the Neville Chamberlain government between 1937 and 1939 towards the fascist dictators. Like many of his contemporaries during the 1920s, Cecil believed that the adoption of a policy of reconciliation towards Britain’s former enemies was a vital ingredient to obtaining long-term peace that there was little to be gained through the policy of retribution favoured by the French. However, for him, a vital initial ingredient to the success of such a policy was the confidence that no country had the means or the will to wage war. Without that commitment in place, no international agreement would be worth the paper on which it was written. By the mid 1920s, Cecil believed that the British government had moved away from the notion of collective security that was central to the ethos of the League. This was because, as he told the then Foreign Secretary, Austen Chamberlain, collective security had proved to be “…inconsistent with the spirit and essential requirements of the British Empire…”.39 So, in effect, by 1925, Cecil believed that British commitment to the diplomatic principles that underpinned the League was at best shaky and at worst, that it had been totally abandoned. Instead, the British government

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had decided to pursue “diplomacy by special agreement”, whereby tailormade agreements were concluded with powers on a pragmatic basis as circumstances dictated.40 That said, Cecil did not doubt the British commitment to maintaining international security and to achieving disarmament, he merely questioned the diplomatic tactics behind it. But, as he told MacDonald in 1930, it was also true that “…the vigour and success of the League depends on the attitude of this country.”41 And it was by their attitude towards the League that British politicians influential in foreign affairs during the 1930s were judged. He had more time for Eden’s insistence that the League could only stand up effectively to the fascist challenge through assistance from countries outside it, for example, the United States, than for Neville Chamberlain’s “sorrow over a moribund relation”.42 The latter’s “defeatism” that also encouraged other countries to reach humiliating rapprochements with Hitler and Mussolini was effectively a call to “abandon the League”.43 Of Chamberlain’s agreement with Hitler in the spring of 1939, Cecil wrote that “The Munich settlement has quite definitely shown itself to be a Munich surrender…”.44 He also put pressure on Halifax to persuade the Prime Minister of the error of his ways. “Is it possible to prevent the Prime Minister from sending any more communications to Hitler?…It really is madness, believe me. We ought to do exactly the opposite. We ought to be making, openly and will full advertisement every possible preparation for war.”45 Much of the historical literature concerning the League of Nations has focussed on its failure to prevent the outbreak of war in 1939. It does not fall within the remit of this discussion to re-enter this debate. That said, in sketching Cecil’s mind map, it is important to examine his attitude towards the League in another context. That is, the League as an example of the new diplomacy. Zara Steiner has argued recently that it is debateable whether there was anything “new” about the way in which diplomacy was conducted in Europe after the First World War.46 She is also not alone in claiming that the vogue for international conferences populated by as many expert advisors as diplomats that became synonymous with Lloyd George’s foreign policy seemed to have gone out of fashion by as early as 1922.47 So from this, can we conclude that the new diplomacy, with the exception of a largely ineffectual League was defunct? To answer in the affirmative is to miss some essential points about the new diplomacy and, with that, about Cecil. One of the essential purposes of the new diplomacy was to democratise the ways in which states interacted with each other and to promote democracy within those states. The conduct of post-war diplomacy should move away from an exclusive club of diplomats and officials and embrace

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the insights offered by legal and financial experts. For Cecil, this process went a stage further. The war had done much to politicise most of British population and for Cecil, it was natural that the greater level of accountability the British people now expected of their governments should also be reflected in the way that international diplomacy was conducted. He set great store in the importance in the connection between the conduct of foreign policy and public opinion. When the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey attempted to defend the pre-war political and diplomatic system, Cecil noted that to him “such proceedings seem to be out of date and to ignore the growing interest of the electorate in the proper conduct of the most important function of government.” 48 Lloyd George also understood this point of course, and much has been written about, for example, his timing of the General Election of December 1918 and his use of press barons during the remainder of his second administration. But for Lloyd George and for all of the other premiers of the period, the need to take in to account public opinion and to be seen to be responding to it, also had a very clear and obvious practical rationale to it; the desire to secure re-election. For Cecil the relationship between public opinion and the conduct of diplomacy had three aspects to it. First, a willingness to represent and to consult public opinion was a sign of political and diplomatic openness and transparency and as a check on the excesses of politicians and their advisers. Vitally important if confidence was to be built in efforts to demonstrate that the international community had relinquished war and that the horrors of the trenches would never be repeated. Secondly, it stemmed from the belief that a foreign policy that resulted in war would require the people of a state potentially to lay down their lives in sacrifice for that cause. As he told Hankey, “…in many cases, particularly those which directly affect peace, the peoples are more and more taking strong views on the questions involved in international conference, and that fact that these views exist is an important feature in producing or preventing agreement.” 49 The governments of the world owed it to the people they represented to pursue a foreign policy that would avoid war, preferably banning it altogether. It was a humanitarian as well as a practical gesture. Thirdly, for Cecil, public opinion was synonymous with the idea of a public conscience. Public opinion would become a substitute for “military spirit”, although he applauded the patriotic spirit of those willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, so long as it was a gesture linked to the glorification of war.50 That while politicians pursued their own party political agendas; it was through public opinion that the “real” view of British attitudes towards foreign affairs and other matters was revealed.

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This opinion was also likely to be consistent with his own broad set of life principles, Christian charity and humanitarianism and moral decency. This included fighting for the oppressed, standing up to bullying tactics and to having the strength of one’s convictions. That said, more open diplomacy was not without its difficulties, and of these Cecil was aware. One of the most notable was the slow speed at which it was obliged to work. Full consultation of expert and public opinion after all took time. Cecil himself lamented during the Geneva Disarmament Conference that “…it adds greatly to the difficulty of negotiation if confidential documents shown by one party to the other immediately become the subject of public criticism and comment.”51 Cecil never openly labelled himself an advocate of the new diplomacy, not least because of his personal antipathy towards Lloyd George. Nevertheless, he was quite clear that it was essential that a different means be found to the “secret diplomacy” that had been such an important cause of war in 1914. In 1933, at a time when critics of the League were at their most vocal over its handling of the Manchurian crisis, Cecil defended the new diplomacy in a series of letters to Hankey, who believed that international diplomacy should contain a mixture of “secret” and “new” diplomacy.52 For Cecil, secret diplomacy was not only dangerous, it was rooted too much in “the perpetuation of the methods of the Congress of Vienna.”53 Although it is important to note that Cecil’s objections were not so much at the Congress itself, or indeed, to the century of general peace and stability that it provided Europe, but tot the alliance system that it fostered.54 The complex web of alliances, designed to create or protect spheres of influence forced Europe into a diplomatically rigid system of power blocs. Consequently, when it became in states’ interest to wage war, it resulted in the industrial-scale carnage of the First World War and massive political dislocation that followed it.55 A second and by far the most well-known feature of Cecil’s advocacy of the new diplomacy was, of course, his enthusiasm for the work of the League of Nations. This provides the most concrete evidence of his belief that if a second global conflict was to be avoided then an alternative method of conducting diplomacy that renounced war, needed to be found. But as what type of entity did Cecil view the League? Historians have offered two alternatives. That it was a nineteenth century construct, brought into being by well-meaning statesmen wishing to break free of the traditions of the secret diplomacy but whose mindset prevented them from doing do effectively, thus condemning the League to a lack of success. Alternatively, there is the view that the League was too radical a diplomatic experiment; that it tried to bring about too dramatic a change to

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the conduct of diplomacy at a time of great political instability. Not surprisingly, there is little in Cecil’s thinking to corroborate the first point of view, with its emphasis on the misjudgement of the League’s architects, but more evidence in support of the second. But even here, the evidence is not overwhelming, suggesting the need to engage in a wider more radical reappraisal of the British League mindset than has hitherto been made. It is important to remember that for Cecil, the League was, in his own words, a great experiment. And consequently, as with all such endeavours, that it should be in a constant process of review and update. Clearly the League failed to prevent the outbreak of a Second World War and a number of smaller conflicts between 1918 and 1939, but as far as Cecil was concerned, it was not usually the mechanism of the League that was at fault, it was because “Britain and France would not discharge the obligations to resist aggression which they had undertaken” under the League Covenant.56 In his view, international diplomacy in the French and British capitals was conducted on a selfish basis of national selfinterest rather than in the spirit of collective internationalism. Such an approach offered insufficient foundation to create the means of providing an alternative means for the conduct of diplomacy, work needed to be done to change the mindset of those charged with the conduct of diplomacy. On these latter points, Cecil was unclear as to how this transformation could be brought about. Although it was self-evident to him that such a process would take place – even if it took a second world war to force the point home – because eventually it would become obvious to all that resort to war was too costly. It is for this reason that Cecil believed that none of the British prime ministers and foreign secretaries of the interwar period were up to the job – they didn’t understand that a form of diplomacy based on national self-interest would inevitably lead to war.57 Consider his choice of language when he described Simon as “morally incapable” of pursuing an effective foreign policy and Neville Chamberlain as being “entirely un-teachable!”.58 For Cecil, a further way of defusing international tension and preventing war was by substituting what he termed “the principle of corporate life” for diplomatic and political international rivalry.59 The Protestant work ethic so beloved of Victorian philanthropist, the emphasis in domestic politics and economics on self-improvement and individualism in the last century, the emphasis in science on evolution and a move away from the teachings of the Bible, had all contributed to the “military spirit”. Much better, he told his brother in 1921, to move away from all of this through the promotion of what he termed “the better side of Tariff

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Reform”, that is through some state regulation of the economy and the guarding of British commercial interests. There ought to be a move towards “state socialism” and the development of a non-conformist conscience, although it is important to realise that as far as Cecil was concerned, the former was not commensurate with any left wing ideology, but referred to a process by which the government took an active (but not overwhelming) role in promoting the welfare and economic development of society.60 Likewise, Cecil’s reference to non-conformity refers not to the disestablished church, but to a willingness to act according to conscience and not be bound by conventional wisdom, be that on political, religious or on social issues. He was clear that any heavy-handed attempt at establishing state control would stifle some of the individuality that he thought essential to encourage. Consequently, the way forward would be “…to take existing units, individuals, classes, nations and try to induce them freely to combine to discourage competition and self-aggrandisement as the dominant motive of civilised life and substitute co-operation and selfsacrifice. 61 In a letter to his eldest brother in 1941, Cecil expressed interest in the claim made by the left-wing historian and former diplomat, E.H. Carr, in his book The Twenty Year Crisis, that “nothing can save the world but communism or Christianity.”62 Cecil agreed with Carr’s contention that “no international machinery or national policy can last unless it is founded on an ideal”. However, if it was Carr’s intention to claim that if communism - a “great policy of social justice” - was a necessary precursor to an effective scheme for the preservation of peace, then Cecil believed that the end of the Second World War would simply produce “a new dose of those international platitudes which were rightly reprobated in the early days of the League.” What was essential was a practical policy that was based on a review of the reasons why the League had failed to prevent the Second World War before “the application of the necessary remedy”.63 Thus if Carr was right, then the only alternative would be a return to Christian principles as a foundation for making peace. As it was, of course, post-war Europe, ended up adopting both communism and “Christianity” until 1989, after which the latter, if viewed partly as a synonym for democracy and the democratic powers, prevailed. A further feature of Cecil’s enthusiasm for the new diplomacy was on its emphasis on the use of a more streamlined government infrastructure. During the Lloyd George coalition governments, although he was repelled by the Welshman’s conduct of foreign affairs, he admired the way in which he reduced the size of the Cabinet but increased the frequency of its meetings.64 One reason why that streamlining was possible was because

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Lloyd George was the head of a coalition government. That type of government had particular appeal to Cecil because, by its very nature, it meant that the party infighting became secondary to meeting the challenges of the national emergency: that it was the issues that drove policy and not dogma. He felt sufficiently strongly about this to make it the subject of the Sidney Ball Lecture The Machinery of Government that he delivered in October 1932.65 In it, he reflected positively on the effectiveness of the War Cabinet after 1916, although he saw little purpose to its continuation after the Paris Peace Conference. Likewise, a year after the National Government had been formed in 1931, Cecil had urged Hankey to resurrect the administrative structure that had been used by Lloyd George. As things stood, the machinery of government was “waterlogged”, with the consequence that the Prime Minister had insufficient time to work out which were the most pressing issues and have time to respond to them. At the back of his mind was his belief that a premier ought to be able to give priority to foreign affairs at a time of severe international crisis. This he felt that the then Prime Minister, the socialist Ramsay MacDonald, leading a country in the grip of a severe recession, was unlikely to do of his own accord.66 Contemplating the diplomatic shape of Europe after the Second World War, Cecil’s instincts were also collectivist. Believing that the war had as many social and economic causes as political and diplomatic, he advocated the creation of some form of European federal unit to minimise differences between states and thus reduce tension between them.67 A week before the fall of France in May 1940, Cecil prepared a memorandum on the diplomatic shape of post-war Europe in which he endorsed the Briand Plan as a useful way forward, although he anticipated that any European confederation would be primarily for mutual defence – a forerunner more of NATO than of the European Union. But containing within it the framework for promoting the closer assimilation of interests, especially in commerce at a later date, once collective security had been assured. In which case the confederation would assume the attributes of a state in its own right, with its own parliament, legal system, currency and flag. This organisation would become, in effect, a European League of Nations super state that would work in conjunction with the larger Geneva-based organisation, providing an addition way of monitoring and diffusing tensions between European states. As the origins of both the world wars had lain in Europe, it was logical to assume that it would be from this part of the world that future conflicts were likely to emanate.68 The League needed to be reformed first and the body that was to become the United Nations, given proper shape before any other organisation

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could be contemplated. Just as Britain had played a leading role in the League and in the new post war version of the League, it was essential that she would do so in a European confederation.69 However, on this issue Cecil anticipated problems.70 He gave expression to them through a series of rhetorical questions posed in a series of letters to David Davies in September 1939: “Do you really think it conceivable that even this country…would accept a system by which she would be bound to carry out a majority of the European Constitution?”71 And so again we return to Cecil’s belief that the British government was incapable of setting aside national interests in favour of a more altruistic collectivist approach to diplomatic problem solving. Cecil was thus a type of eurosceptic, although not in the same way as the right wing of the Thatcherite Conservative party were to be half a century later. For the latter group, any excessive British subservience to the European Union was regarded as being undesirable and unnecessary. In Cecil’s case, he simply believed that the British government lacked the will to make a concrete commitment to a Europe-wide organisation dedicated to the pursuit of peace through collective security. However, what Cecil did have in common with later Conservative eurosceptics was that they believed that as much emphasis should be placed on relations with the United States and the maintenance of British colonial interests as on relations with Europe.72 By 1941, with the war having taken on a further ideological turn through Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union, Cecil had become convinced that any proposal for a European confederation should come from the United States, and that as a consequence, the emerging organisation would be a “bastion for the protection of peace and democratic ideals”, a conflation of what became NATO and the European Union.73 The development of other areas of potential integration should be reserved until Nazism had been defeated. But until such a time arose, debates should be had about the nature and operation of a European security confederation along with a consideration of the likely role of a resurgent League in post-war diplomacy. To this end, in June 1941, he endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, to agree to a set of meetings at Chatham House under the auspices of the Foreign Office to discuss how the League could be reconfigured.74 In addition to high political and diplomatic issues, a significant aspect of the League’s work during the interwar period concerned the plight of refugees and other displaced groups. During the late 1930s and throughout the Second World War, he received hundreds of letters from individuals and organisations representing a plethora of interest groups –

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everything from the Society for Free Albanians to organisations concerned with the hazard to public health caused by the effects of bombing on London’s water supply. However, it is striking that Cecil was comparatively disinterested in these and in other humanitarian issues. There were only one or two exceptions. In September 1937, he visited the battlefields of Abyssinia on behalf of the League to assess the long-term effect of Italian nerve gas during the war two years earlier.75 While he sat on the executive council of the League’s High Commission for Refugees, his attitude towards one of the most significant issues of the period, the Nazi treatment of European Jewry, was frequently detached. In 1942, when the first indications of the horrors of the Holocaust were beginning to emerge in western Europe, and despite being conventionally proZionist, Cecil wrote: “Everyone must sympathise mostly deeply with them; but they really are not acting fairly in trying to ignore the limits put on the number of immigrants into Palestine so long as that limit exists; and I think that there is very strong grounds for suspecting that a section of them quite deliberately tried to use the misfortunes of their unhappy coreligionists to break up the present arrangement in the hope of getting something better when that has been broken up.”76 At the same time, he shared the view of many that those guilty of war crimes, especially those perpetrated against Europe’s Jews, should be prosecuted after the war.77 Most requests for his personal intervention or endorsement were politely declined. The horrors of the Second World War and the decade that preceded it did not fire Cecil’s humanitarian soul and conscience in the same way that the first war had done. This was partly because of advancing years. He celebrated his eightieth birthday in 1944 and was by then firmly of the view that the time had come to make way for the next generation in all things, including the work of the League. In concluding this mind map of the man who was raised to the peerage in 1923 in recognition of his services to international affairs, it is important not to overstate his claim to being a maverick – either as a politician or as an internationalist. His views were similar to many of his generation - the debate about what Liberalism and Conservatism meant in the first half of the twentieth century; the revulsion at the carnage of the First World War and the desire to ensure that such an event never happened again. While the connection between Christian teaching and political and social responsibility were always very clear to Cecil, and indeed his family had a reputation for being particularly pious and sanctimonious in this respect, the Cecils were in fact part of a wider late Victorian aristocratic tradition of noblesse oblige. So then, what is uniquely important about Cecil’s career as an internationalist, or, indeed

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about Cecil the man? Through him we have the opportunity to study for an unbroken period of almost half a century, during an era of enormous political and diplomatic change, a set of largely consistent ideas about how international relations could and should be conducted. There are few of whom this was true. While Cecil never aspired to be Foreign Secretary, he did hold Cabinet rank on two occasions, he was the long-time head of the British delegation to the League of Nations and as such had direct access to those with greatest control over British foreign policy in Whitehall. That said, during this period, foreign secretaries and premiers with an interest in foreign affairs were seldom able to make their mark for more than five years before they or the party they served lost office. The Foreign Office veered unsteadily from a pro-French, to a pro-German, to a pro-French and American bias. Britain’s status as a world power also profoundly changed. In Geneva, Cecil also brought this consistency of outlook to dealings with some of the most important and influential European statesmen and diplomats of the period. For this, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1937 and numerous other international accolades. Cecil’s unconventional approach towards party allegiance also poses questions about the extent to which British party political agendas were helpful in addressing the enormous political, social, economic and diplomatic consequences of the global conflicts that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century. The best description of his approach is the one he gave himself – an “independent Conservative”.78

Notes 1

See, for example, A. Sykes, Tariff Reform in British Politics 1903-1913 (Oxford, 1979); N. Blewett, ‘Free Fooders, Bafourites, Wholehoggers, Factionalism within the Unionist Party 1906-1910’ Historical Journal, xi, I (1968), pp. 95-124. 2 Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, All the Way (London, 1949), pp. 16-7. 3 Quoted in K. Rose, The Later Cecils (London, 1975), p. 127; Cecil, All the Way, p. 13. 4 Cecil, All the Way, pp. 24-5. 5 Ibid., p. 74. 6 Ibid., p. 72. 7 Ibid. 8 Cecil to Salisbury, 18 May 1921, Viscount Cecil of Chelwood Papers, British Library Additional Manuscripts (hereinafter referred to as BL Add Mss) 51085. 9 Ibid. 10 R. Warman, ‘The Erosion of Foreign Office Influence in the Making of Foreign Policy, 1916-1918’, Historical Journal, 15, (1), 1972; A. Sharp, ‘The Foreign Office in Eclipse, 1919-1922’, History, 61, (2), 1976; G. Johnson, ‘Curzon, Lloyd

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George and the Control of British Foreign Policy, 1919-1922: A Reassessment’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 11, 3 (2000), pp. 49-71.. 11 Cecil to Salisbury, 18 May 1921, BL Add Mss 51085. 12 Cecil, All the Way, p. 74. 13 Cecil to Salisbury, 18 May 1921, BL Add Mss 51085. 14 Ibid. 15 See most histories of the League, for example, F.P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations (Oxford, 1969); F.S. Northedge, A History of the League of Nations (Leicester, 1989). See also Z. Steiner, The Lights that Failed. European International History 1919-1933 (Oxford, 2005), p. 353. 16 Open letter from Viscount Cecil of Chelwood to Lord Stamfordham, 28 Oct. 1935, BL Add Mss 51139. 17 Undated Note by Viscount Cecil of Chelwood on World Settlement after the War, BL Add Mss 51084. 18 Cecil to Sykes, 7 Sept. 1918, BL Add Mss 51094. 19 Cecil to Churchill, 26 Jul. 1927, BL Add Mss 51073. 20 Cecil to Reading, 1 Sept. 1931, BL Add Mss 51082. 21 Ibid. 22 Cecil to Eden, 11 Nov. 1935, BL Add Mss 51083. 23 Cecil to Eden, 6 Mar.1935, BL Add Mss 51083. 24 Cecil to Simon, 29 Jan.1935, BL Add Mss 51082. 25 Notes by Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, 7 Sept.1926, BL Add Mss 51079. 26 Memorandum by Viscount Cecil of Chelwood on League Policy, 26 May 1936, BL Add Mss 51083. 27 Cecil to Dixon, c. Feb.1923, BL Add Mss 51092. 28 Cecil to Reading, 1 Sept. 1931, BL Add Mss 51082. 29 Cecil to Dixon, 18 Jan.1923, BL Add Mss 51092. 30 Cecil to Salisbury, 31 July 1927, BL Add Mss 51086. 31 Cecil to Grey, 1 Aug.1928, BL Add Mss 51073. 32 Cecil to Smuts, 7 Nov.1938, BL Add Mss 51076. 33 Cecil to Noel Buxton, 7 May 1941, BL Add Mss 51113. 34 Cecil to Hankey, 14 Jan.1925, BL Add Mss 51087. 35 Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, The Great Experiment (London, 1941), p. 59. 36 Cecil to Hankey, 14 Jan.1925, BL Add Mss 51087. 37 Cecil to Victor Wellesley, 10 Aug.1934, BL Add Mss 51083. 38 Cecil, All the Way, p. 205. 39 Cecil to Austen Chamberlain, 7 Sept.1925, BL Add Mss 51078. 40 Ibid. 41 Cecil to MacDonald, 18 Aug.1930, BL Add Mss 51081. 42 Cecil to Halifax, 30 Dec.1937, BL Add Mss 51084. 43 Ibid. 44 Cecil to Eden, 17 Mar. 1939, BL Add Mss 51083. 45 Cecil to Halifax, 27 Sept. 1938, BL Add Mss 51084. 46 Steiner, The Lights that Failed, p.612.

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For example, K.O. Morgan: Consensus and Disunity: The Lloyd George Coalition Government, 1918-1922 (Oxford, 1979), 140-3. 48 Cecil to Hankey, 28 Oct. 1933, BL Add Mss 51087. 49 Cecil to Hankey, 3 Nov.1933, BL Add Mss 51087. 50 Cecil to Hankey, 24 Aug.1925, BL Add Mss 51087. 51 Cecil to Boncour, 21 Mar.1927, BL Add Mss 51099. 52 Hankey to Cecil, 27 Oct.1933, BL Add Mss 51087. 53 Cecil to Hankey, 28 Oct.1933, BL Add Mss 51087. 54 See also Cecil to Lord Stamfordham, 28 Oct.1935, BL Add Mss 51139. 55 Cecil to Hankey, 28 Oct.1933, BL Add Mss 51087. 56 Cecil to David Davies, 8 Sept.1941, BL Add Mss 51138. 57 Cecil to Margot Asquith, 1 Feb.1944, BL Add Mss 51073. 58 Cecil to Irwin, 27 Mar.1933, BL Add Mss 51084; Cecil to Bobbety Cecil, 27 Sept. 1938, BL Add Mss 51087. 59 Cecil to Salisbury, 18 May 1921, BL Add Mss 51085. 60 That said, Cecil did predict that in the near future, business would have to choose between ‘state control’ and ‘state ownership’, Cecil to Thomas Lamont, 31 Jan.1938, BL Add Mss 51144. 61 Cecil to Salisbury, 18 May 1921, BL Add Mss 51085. 62 Cecil to Salisbury, 25 Aug. 1941, BL Add Mss 51086. 63 Ibid.. 64 See inter alia, E.Goldstein, Winning the Peace. British Diplomatic Strategy, Peace Planning, and the Paris Peace Conference, 1916-1920 (Oxford, 1991). 65 See also Hankey to Cecil, 5 Oct.1932, BL Add Mss 51087. 66 Cecil to Hankey, 15 Apr. 1932, BL Add Mss 51087. 67 Cecil to Salisbury, 25 Aug.1941, BL Add Mss 51086. 68 Memorandum by Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, c. 4 May 1940, BL Add Mss 51139. 69 Cecil to David Davies, 13 Sept.1939, BL Add Mss 51138. 70 Cecil to Smuts, 24 Jul. 1940, BL Add Mss 51076. 71 Cecil to David Davies, 20 Sept.1939, BL Add Mss 51138. 72 Ibid. 73 Cecil to David Davies, 8 Sept.1941, BL Add Mss 51138. 74 Cecil to Eden, 16 Jun. 1941, BL Add Mss 51083. The London International Assembly, the League of Nations in all but name, met on average once a month from Sept.1941onwards and was one of the first international organisations to consider the punishment of war criminals. 75 Cecil to Neville Chamberlain, 4 Sept.1937, BL Add Mss 51087. 76 Cecil to David Davies, 2 Apr. 1942, BL Add Mss 51138. 77 Cecil to Lytton, 24 Apr. 1941, BL Add Mss 51139. 78 Cited in M. Ceadel, ‘Cecil, Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne- [Lord Robert Cecil], Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864-1958)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).

CHAPTER TEN INTERNATIONAL HISTORY AS BIOGRAPHY: THE CAREER OF REX LEEPER, 1909-1940 GORDON MARTEL

Alan Sharp has demonstrated a lifelong scholarly enthusiasm for the study of personalities in the shaping of foreign policy.1 His articles, essays and books on James Headlam-Morley, Lloyd George and the making of British diplomacy during and after the First World War have contributed greatly to our understanding of the peace settlement of 1919. His work on Headlam-Morley has been especially valuable in demonstrating the importance of “secondary” figures in the making of policy, and I thought he would find it interesting to learn more about the life of one of Sir James’ young colleagues from the Department of Political Intelligence, Sir Reginald Leeper.2 It seems to me a fascinating life, and one that can illuminate our understanding of how the First World War reshaped the lives and ideas of individuals – and how these in turn reshaped the institutional dynamics of policies and decision-making in Britain between the wars. *** “Rex” (as he would be known to family, friends and colleagues throughout his life) was born in Sydney, Australia in 1888 – the second son of Alexander Leeper, a classical scholar and principal of Trinity College, (and then the first warden, when it was affiliated with the University of Melbourne), and Adeline Marian Allen, the daughter of a successful solicitor and politician.3 The youngest of four children, Rex’s mother died when he was five years old. His father remarried when he was nine – to Mary Moule – who became Rex’s beloved “Madre”, for whom he felt a deep and abiding affection throughout his life. The second marriage added three more children to the family.4

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Rex graduated from Trinity College, Melbourne, in 1909 whereupon he immediately travelled to England to continue his studies at Oxford – following the path of his older brother, Allen, who had preceded him the year before.5 After attaining a second B.A. in 1911 and a B.Litt in 1912 he began a career in business with the Bombay Company, relocating to Madras from 1913 to 1915. Sent home from India in 1915 to clear up a case of dysentery, he began “volunteering” at the fledgling Press Bureau, working – literally – alongside his brother, translating Russian newspapers. Before long he was being paid for his work and in December 1916 he married his cousin, Primrose. In March 1918 he and his press group entered the Foreign Office as the “Department of Political Intelligence” – Rex being appointed as a “temporary clerk”. Following the war Rex remained at the Foreign Office, being appointed as a second secretary and serving in the Northern Department until 1923, when he was sent to Warsaw. He was promoted to first secretary and sent to Riga in 1924, thence to Constantinople from 1925 to 1927, and back to Warsaw from 1927 to 1929. He returned to London and the Foreign Office in 1929, serving in the News Department, where he was promoted to Counsellor in August 1933. In August 1940 he was promoted to assistant under-secretary and assigned to head up SO 1 – the propaganda division of the Special Operations Executive, and from 1941 to 1943 he was director of the country headquarters of the Political Warfare Executive. In 1944 he was appointed ambassador to the Greek government, serving in that capacity until 1946 when he was appointed ambassador to Argentina. Rex retired from the civil service in 1948, and then took up a number of directorships until his death in 1968. *** Looked at from afar, this may appear to be a fairly typical life of a conventional civil servant. However it is not only the devil that is found in the details, but the gold – those historical nuggets that enable us to understand the ethos of the times, and the ways in which lives and ideas were shaped and re-shaped. Retracing Rex’s steps will illuminate how events – how “international history” – produced Sir Reginald Leeper, GBE, and how Leeper in turn helped to shape the history of Britain in the first half of the twentieth century. There is, in the first instance, a clear socio-intellectual “imperial” (and familial) connection to be discovered in his father’s decision to support both him and his brother to travel to England to do a second undergraduate degree. His father, a classical scholar himself, had made his way to St

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John’s, Oxford, to do a second degree after receiving his first from Trinity College, Dublin. Given the stellar scholastic accomplishments of his two sons in Melbourne, he had high hopes for future careers as scholars and/or scholastic administrators. Oxford – at least in terms of classical scholarship – was still at the intellectual heart of the Empire, and a second degree for someone born outside England itself, was a rough equivalent to obtaining a Ph.D today. But in this respect Oxford failed to provide what Alexander had hoped for: neither of the boys would pursue a scholarly career after their matriculation. It did, however, make imperial “Englishmen” of them. In spite of his travels to places as far-flung as Bombay and Buenos Aires, Riga and Constantinople, Rex never again set foot in Australia after his departure from Melbourne in May 1909. After reading Keith Hancock’s Australia in 1931, Rex wrote to his father that he: realised very forcibly that I was never an Australian in the present sense of the word. I was brought up as a British Colonial & it was always to England that I looked. After all the inspiration that I got in educatn came from England – English history & English literature – & it was always to England that I wanted to go. Nor was I ever disappointed in it when I got there…. Don’t think that I am unsympathetic to Australian ideals & Aus. [sic] nationalism. They are inevitable & healthy, but they are alien to me. I don’t belong to them & never did.6

This was, of course, a reflection long after his time at pre-war Oxford. Without the intrusion of the First World War and the impetus it gave to Australian nationalism, Leeper would not have been so likely to have made such a distinction: all his correspondence testifies to a belief in an “imperial citizenship”, of regarding those in and of the “white dominions” as forming a coherent group of like-minded people drawn together through their belief in what the Empire represented, with the connections made tangible through social and economic ties. Here is one aspect of “international history as biography” that featured significantly throughout the twentieth century: the phenomenon by which the sons (and, later in the century, daughters) and descendants within European colonies reversed the migratory pattern by returning to Europe for their education – and Rex Leeper, like many others, never returned “home”. The ties connecting him to the heart of empire ended up binding him to it. His three years at New College changed the direction of his life. First, he discovered that the glittering prizes he had won in Melbourne had prepared him for no more than a “very good second” in modern history, thereby dashing his father’s hopes that he might have a distinguished scholastic career. Second, he began to question many of the beliefs that he

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had grown up with under the tutelage of his Irish-Tory-Unionist father. By the time Rex took his examinations he had become a Home Ruler – a conversion he felt he had to explain to his father. He attributed the change to his Oxford experience, which was much more liberal than during his father’s time: If Allen & I have changed our views on many subjects we have been influenced by the atmosphere of the times in which we live.… when I was in Australia I often told you I had no views on any subject & what I held as my view was merely what I had taken from somebody else. Such a foundatn is useless & utterly failed to stand against criticism from people who attacked those views in a way that had never struck me before….Even such a thing as Socialism I am not sure whether I cd absolutely reject.’7

Pity poor Alexander Leeper! After sending his sons off to Oxford hoping that they will follow in his footsteps, he learns that within two years they have turned into Home-Rulers, liberals – or even worse: Rex reported that he admired Ramsay MacDonald’s early works on socialism and the new liberalism of Hobhouse’s Democracy and Reaction.8 But this was what a proper English education was all about, according to Rex. He explained to his stepmother that it was wrong to think of Oxford as the home of deep learning: “It is nothing of the sort. The men that do best in the schools have very little knowledge really, but an extraordinary amount of ingenuity & intelligence.” So the time that he and Allen spent there was not wasted: “It has done us both a world of good & has done what a Colonial University does not succeed in doing…It has taught us both to think for ourselves & as that is the end of Oxford teaching I think we may be said to have got the right benefit from it. That seems to me to be the aim of the English Universities.”9 What he disliked were the “parvenus and plutocrats” who were “abominable and contemptible” and “that Oxford is not enough of a university but too much of the glorified Public School where all the lectures that are given – or practically all – are merely with a view to examinations. Learning is pursued not for the sake of learning, but merely for the sake of culture, the object being to turn out gentlemen.”10 Nevertheless, he loved Oxford and England: “Every day I have less inclinatn to live anywhere except in England. I am afraid I sd never feel contented if I had to go out & live in Australia.” After obtaining his B.A. in 1911 he decided to travel, to continue his study of history (with the possibility of becoming a historian) and to compete for a place at the British Museum (which was determined by competitive examination, mainly in languages).

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Thus, during the academic year 1911-12, he travelled to Italy, France and Germany with the aim of improving his grasp of European languages and modern history. But his approach to this was self-consciously presentminded and practical: he wished “by means of the past to try & understand the present & by means of practice in discovering & developing ideas & movements in the past to realize what is going on in the present.”11 And he hoped that his travels would provide him with a more cosmopolitan perspective: “Hence when I return to England next year I ought to be in a better position to understand things English instead of regarding them as standing by themselves as many English people do.” These two simple prescriptions formed the foundations of much of his outlook from that point forward: that the past was most useful as a practical guide to the present, and that “England” could not be understood apart from its place in the flow of European history. And his time in Germany provided a third: I am afraid I am very anti-German or at least anti-Prussian. I do admire their energy & their thoroughness, but they give vent to it so aggressively & without regard to other people that it is most unpleasant. The average Prussian man fills me with disgust. To me his face expresses more than anything else conceit & selfishness, & I am sorry for the German woman when I see the man….Berlin too I get very tired of. Its monotony is oppressive. There is no ‘cachet’ such as in London or Paris. It is so obviously a city built by a self-satisfied nation that has made its money too quickly.12

Rex was a snob. He had few quarrels with those he considered to be the real thing, the genuine aristocracy rooted in history and tradition – in England or elsewhere – but “parvenus and plutocrats” he continued to find offensive throughout his life. In part at least this was because he believed he was hard up himself – forty years of family letters are replete with complaints about money. After receiving his Oxford degree he had another financial incentive: he had fallen in love with his cousin Primrose and set his sights on marrying her – much to the dismay of her Oxfordbarrister father. After his hopes of a job at the British Museum fell through (brother Allen succeeded) he turned to the idea of a business career. Although he was offered a professorship in history at the University of Lahore, he decided instead to take a job with the Bombay Company, which offered better prospects over the long run (the salaries of £450-500 were comparable). After a year of training in Manchester he set off for the company’s branch office in Madras. He hated to leave England, but persuaded himself that it would be good for him – and not just financially. As he explained to his father:

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“I see now that I have always been shielded and protected & have always had some of my own family to fall back on…I feel a need very strong within myself to stand alone now for a time & make my way with other men.”14 This aspect of his personality was critical to the course he would follow in the future: after his stay in Germany he had concluded that the German belief in knowledge for its own sake was not one that he shared: he wanted to apply his knowledge to practical affairs and to participate actively in the world. What was not yet clear was what knowledge and what abilities he could bring to that world. In India he discovered that it was not so easy to fit in with the “other men”. When he arrived in November 1913 he undertook to do all the right things in order to fit in: he moved into the Yacht Club, joined the Bombay Volunteer Rifles, tried jackal-hunting and snipe-shooting and spent his evenings at the club. He was quickly disillusioned. They all think & live alike or rather they never think at all & because I read a good deal I am looked upon as very studious – a thing that my contemporaries here seem to view with horror…[on Friday] I was in the society of men of my own age from 4.30 pm till 1.30 am, & there was not a moment when the conversation wasn’t absolutely banal. For instance three or four men will discuss how somebody plays Golf [sic] or how much trouble somebody else has with his motor bicycle & what kind it is & the advantages of such a kind over another kind. Then it will be about a man & a girl & what they did etc, or else about sailing or hockey or the next race meeting or else it will consist of catch words & the talk will go on about nothing at all….They are quite nice men…but absolutely without imagination of other ways of thinking & living outside their own.15

This particular passage to India turned out to be a voyage of selfdiscovery. What Rex learned about himself was that he had little or no interest in the mundane affairs of ordinary people – and even less in the world of business: “it is a monotonous life I find without anybody here I care about. One just goes thro’ the same day after day….My heart is not much in my work, but there is nothing else for me at home & I can’t throw something definite up merely because I find it uncongenial.”16

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When war broke out it came as a godsend – he was miserably unhappy but could see no way out of the life that he had fallen into. “International history” saved him from this fate. Now in Madras, he immediately joined the Motor Bicycle Corps of the Southern Provinces Mounted Rifles in preparation for a possible rising of Indian nationalists against the Raj. When none came, he was bored again and longed to return home to join Kitchener’s New Army: “I hate being here with nothing to do & being out of it so completely when so much is happening.”17 The company refused to let him go, however, and it was only when he was under medical orders to return to England to receive treatment for dysentery in the summer of 1915 that he was able to act on his wishes to participate in the war effort. Rex failed to pass the medical examination required to enlist in the army, so he began assisting his brother Allen as a “volunteer” in the Press Censorship office of the new Intelligence Bureau.18 Press censorship is a misnomer: Allen (who had also been rejected as medically unfit for military service) had begun working in the evenings (after a day at the British Museum working on cuneiform translations in the Assyrian department) to assist the Bureau by providing summary translations of Italian and Russian newspapers.19 Within a month it had become a fulltime job, and whatever moments he had to spare were devoted to learning Greek, Serbian and Roumanian.20 Rex, who had begun to teach himself Russian while in India, was soon translating half-a-dozen Russian newspapers. Typical of how “intelligence” and “propaganda” were handled by the British government in the war, this initiative was ad hoc and proceeded piecemeal until its importance became clearly demonstrable and the decision was made to regularize it. The brothers believed it was important work; Rex hoped “that before long we may be included under the F.O. The work done in the Office is of extreme importance, embracing a great deal more than the mere translatn of papers. That is necessary so as to note all expression of opinion in each country. You can understand that that is the necessary preliminary to far wider & more important work.”21 This was not India again – he loved the work and sought to expand his linguistic skills by taking lessons in Polish and teaching himself to read Magyar. By the end of 1915 he was sketching more ambitious plans – to learn Ukrainian, Finnish, Lettish and Lithuanian – in the hope that he would be taken permanently into the diplomatic service or hired as a foreign correspondent after the war. 22 The war was, truly, a life-changing experience for Rex Leeper. “Our work now is becoming more & more interesting & we are getting into touch with more people, meeting a lot of men in various government offices in Whitehall & getting a very good insight into present-day

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European politics. It is the most absorbing work I have ever done, particularly at the present moment.”23 By the beginning of 1916 he and Allen were working at 82 Victoria Street, and living together only a few hundred metres away at 4 Palace Street – on the same street as their old friend from pre-war days in Oxford, R.W. Seton-Watson, who they saw regularly.24 They also renewed their friendship with Lewis Namier – who had been at Balliol with Allen, and who played tennis (badly) with the brothers – now described by Rex as “a man who probably knows more about Poland than anybody else in England & we hear from him most of what is going on & the various intrigues.”25 And they too became active participants in “intrigue” as they began to produce propaganda in the form of articles and essays that they published either pseudonymously or anonymously. Rex adopted the pen-name of “Rurik” (the Varangian chieftain who invaded Russia in 862, founding the dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus until the sixteenth century) and wrote on Russian and Hungarian matters. The propaganda was sometimes semi-official – sanctioned by the operation at Wellington House – sometimes unofficial. Perhaps the unofficial is more interesting – in that, while working for the British government, Rex, Allen and their friends were also attempting to influence its policy in eastern Europe and the Balkans by shaping “public opinion”.26 In the spring of 1916 the Press Bureau was amalgamated with the News Department of the Foreign Office, which gave Rex hopes of a continuing career after the war (and of an increase in pay – he was getting only 3 guineas a week for his work at the Bureau).27 If that failed, he hoped for a career as a foreign correspondent. He discovered that he was eminently well-suited for the work he was doing: “What a change it is for me after business in Manchester & India.”28 The fact that both he and Allen were writing “unofficially” for newspapers and journals while employed at the Press Bureau was no secret: “Far from not being supposed to write we are encouraged to do so. You see we are not in the F.O. – our position is in a way only semi-official.”29 Perhaps the most important (and certainly the most interesting) of these venues was the new journal launched by Seton-Watson and George Glasgow, The New Europe. The “foremost aim” of the weekly publication (stated explicitly in the first number of 19 October 1916) was to “further and consolidate that entente cordiale of allied publicists which must accompany the wider political entente”. Its highest ambition was “to provide a rallying ground for all those who see in European reconstruction, on a basis of nationality, the rights of minorities, and the hard facts of geography and economics, the sole guarantee against an early repetition of the horrors of the present

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war.”30 The editors also promised to “unmask the great designs of German war policy” and counter the “Pangerman project of Central Europe and Berlin-Baghdad” by seeing to it that an informed public opinion would hold Allied statesmen to their promises of vindicating national rights and public law and emancipating the subject-races of central and south-eastern Europe from German and Magyar control.” This was an agenda to which Rex and his brother could enthusiastically subscribe. He advised his father “to follow the New Europe” as closely as he could. “It is the only paper I know that shows a real grasp of what is happening in Europe.”31 Over the course of the next year, up to the Bolshevik revolution, Rex wrote regularly for the New Europe, espousing the kind of settlement endorsed by Seton-Watson who “lets me write every week practically as much as I want to.”32 He would also become intimately acquainted with the large circle of colleagues and friends around Seton-Watson. Rex’s particular sphere of activity focused on Russia. Almost all of the articles on Russia in The New Europe over the next few years were written by him.33 His expertise continued to grow, as he moved from summarizing newspapers to meeting with those involved in formulating policy, and then to offering advice, privately and publicly. His translations were sometimes quoted verbatim in parliament and – by the beginning of 1917 – he was sent to Russia to meet with the British ambassador and leaders in the Duma. By the time the revolution erupted in Russia and the tsar abdicated in March, Rex had established himself as an “expert” – at almost the same moment that John Buchan took over as Director of the newly-formed Department of Information. In his new place Rex became a fervent supporter of the revolution and looked to Kerensky to save the day. His own views were shifting to the left: “I think some form of Socialism is inevitable & desirable in every country in Europe. We are certainly going to have it in England whether we like it or not, & I hope that the moderate Socialists will triumph in Russia.”34 He dismissed the old-fashioned conservatives and imperialists who wanted to use the war to strengthen and expand the Empire and looked instead to Woodrow Wilson for salvation: “I assure you there is much less chance of his taking a weak line than of our own statesmen doing so. He is the strongest & in every way the greatest man the war has produced.” Venizelos ran second and Kerensky third: “Germany has produced no great men, only efficient ones, & the same may be said of England & France.”35 By the end of 1917, following the armistice signed by the Bolsheviks with Germany, Rex was meeting directly with members of the War Cabinet, who on one occasion cross-examined him for four hours.36 Although he regarded Bolshevism as a “disease”, he dismissed suggestions

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that the Bolsheviks were merely a gang of German agents, and he welcomed it as a good thing in the long run because it was the Russian version of a war for freedom – freedom from the oppressive rule of the tsarist autocracy.37 The interest of the war to me is no longer so much in military as in social questions. The fact that this is a war of peoples, not of governments or States is beginning to tell, & for that very reason it may end in a way we have not expected it to. The way I look at affairs in Russia now is as part of a new movement that may spread throughout the world, tho’ of course it may take different forms in different countries. We may have to change entirely our whole outlook on social and political questions. before [sic] this war is over The New Europe we are fighting for will, if we persist in the struggle, be entirely different from that which we contemplated at the beginning of the war. New ideas of government and society have come to the surface in every country during the last 3 years. How far these ideas may be realised or how far they may be modified before the end it is impossible to say…. The uncertainty of the future, the bankruptcy of the old diplomacy, the failure of all governments & political parties, the constant curprises [sic] & disappointments make you something of a fatalist when you look forward. At the same time I have enough optimism to feel that however unknown the future is, a new & better world is going to emerge, in which much that have hitherto clung to will be taken away from us. but [sic] which will be a great step forward all the same.38

International history was reshaping Leeper’s life and his ideas. It briefly seemed that he would be sent to assist Bruce Lockhart on his mission to establish relations with the Bolshevik government. Although it was decided that he would be more useful to the mission if he were to remain in London, he could still report to his father that he was having “an intensely interesting time & have been closely mixed up in some of the most interesting things in the war….It is extraordinary to think how quickly Allen & I have worked our way up from the very obscure positn we held in 1915. Little did we know then that we were going to have such an interesting experience”.39 He now looked forward to obtaining a permanent position in the Diplomatic Service – an ambition that was encouraged partly because of another pending organizational change: the formation of a “Department of Political Intelligence” to work within the Foreign Office itself. A report prepared by Lloyd George’s confidant, Sir Robert Donald, early in 1917, had recommended the formation of such a unit in order to fill a perceived gap in information coming to the War Cabinet.40 He, and a few influential members of the Foreign Office, advocated the placement of such a group within the Foreign Office. But resistance to this scheme led

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to the formation of a new “Department of Information” with John Buchan appointed as Director, reporting directly to the Prime Minister. In spite of the new arrangements, designed to centralize propaganda activities, bureaucratic quarrels and inefficiencies continued. Donald was directed to write a second report that was very critical of the new arrangements. The door was opened to an entirely new Ministry of Information. When Lord Beaverbrook, proprietor of the Daily Express, was appointed head of the ministry, with a seat in cabinet, he assumed that the ministry would absorb the entirety of its predecessor, the Department of Information, while adding to it some of the propaganda activities of other agencies and departments. But Robert Donald’s and John Buchan’s support for a proposal to move the Intelligence Bureau to the Foreign Office and Arthur Balfour’s championship of the move convinced the War Cabinet to approve of it on 19 February 1918. Beaverbrook was furious. Before the Ministry could even be properly constituted it was being reduced; he protested, insisted on further discussion, then agreed to submit the question to the War Cabinet for arbitration. On 5 March the Cabinet decided to annul the previous decision and to leave the Intelligence Bureau under the aegis of the new ministry, suggesting to the Foreign Office that if they saw the need for a department of political intelligence they were free to create one. Those designated to form the new PID under Beaverbrook’s command submitted their resignations en masse and applied directly to the FO for positions there. “None of us was willing to work under Beaverbrook or any other newspaper ‘boss’. If the F.O. are not able to take us” Rex told his father “– [and] I know they want us very much – then those of us who are of military age will go into the army unless we are given military intelligence work abroad.”41 Not everyone in the Foreign Office was pleased with the idea of forming a special department in its midst. After all, none of those designated to staff it were FO people themselves; it was well known that most of those coming over from the intelligence branch of the Department of Information were active as propagandists (which the FO found distasteful at best); and it was feared that they would form a group that advocated a particular set of policies (which was not supposed to be something undertaken by permanent officials). Although Lord Edward Gleichen had been appointed by Buchan as administrative head of this section, the day-to-day administration was left to James Headlam-Morley (an Inspector in the Board of Education who had been seconded to Wellington House and then the Intelligence Bureau), who did his best to allay fears that the PID would advocate policy. Nevertheless, he made an impassioned case for permitting its members to continue writing “for the

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press”.42 While it may have been true that “as a group” they did not advocate any “definite policy” they certainly shared a vision of past, present and future. To members of the fledgling PID, the war had been caused by a combination of Prussian militarism and Austro-Hungarian suppression of the rights of small nationalities. A peace constructed on the basis of the current military situation in Europe would permit militarism and suppression to grow even more powerful in central and eastern Europe. In the future an international organisation ought to be established by the victorious democracies that would enshrine the right of national selfdetermination, encourage demilitarisation and disarmament and promote free trade among nations. Rex, who shared responsibilities with Professor J. Y. Simpson for Russian matters within the new department, subscribed to this vision and had no compunction concerning the advocacy of policies that he believed to be right: “I have very definite views as to what our policy sd be, but I don’t know which way the decision will go, as others take a different line from me.”43 Over the next few months, as the Cabinet considered its Russian policy, Rex met regularly with Milner, Lloyd George, Carson, Cecil, Balfour, Hardinge and Haldane. He suggested the formation of an ad hoc “Russia committee” which was duly formed, consisting of 8-9 members who met weekly under the chairmanship of Sir George Buchanan, the long-time ambassador to St Petersburg, recently returned to London. The committee included other expert “outsiders” such as Harold Williams and Professor Richard Pares. Rex met regularly with Russians of all stripes in London – including Litvinov, the Bolshevik ambassador, and Maklakov, the ambassador of Kerensky’s old government in Paris – and, in absolute secrecy, Kerensky himself.44 And he met with Englishmen and others returning from Russia, in order to get their first-hand views of the situation there. After a brief break with New Europe over its Russian policy, he resumed writing for it – whereupon he was attacked as a Bolshevik in the Roman Catholic New Witness.45 “I feel now more than ever in the centre of things.”46 There is insufficient space here to disentangle the complicated and changing policy pursued by Britain vis-à-vis Russia during Rex’s time at the PID. But it is possible to summarize his changing views of both Russia and the peace process through 1918-1919. It is impossible to explain his career after the war without outlining the changes he went through at the end of the war. To begin with, he had been dead set against any Allied intervention against the Bolshevik regime that aimed to crush it: he believed the regime would have to collapse of its own accord. Any such intervention would, he argued, be counter-productive: “If you try to

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crush it by brute force, as Germany has tried to do it in the Ukraine, you merely strengthen it.”47 But as the regime endured and its revolutionary campaign widened, he slowly became converted to some kind of intervention: first in Siberia – not one that aimed to overthrow the regime, but to assist various national groups on the periphery of Russia to establish their own democratic regimes. Equally interesting are Rex’s views on the prospect of revolution in Germany, the rest of Europe and in Britain itself. He was a devoted advocate of “régime change” in Germany, arguing that only a reconstituted Germany could be relied upon to participate peacefully in a new Europe: crushing or dismembering Germany would be as great a mistake as attempting to crush the Bolsheviks. He anticipated revolutionary upheavals throughout Europe, but believed these could be overcome, although it would be very difficult for some time. He was more optimistic about the situation in Britain, where he blamed the press for many of the difficulties: “It is the press, more than anything perhaps, that has created this bad blood, & above all the Northcliffe press. It is they who began by discrediting the ruling classes with their talk of the Old Gang etc.”48 And, well before the signatures on the Treaty of Versailles, he had ceased to regard Lloyd George as anything like a heroic leader: “to anybody following politics closely it is amusing to think of him as anybody’s hero…”.49 For Rex, as with many others in similar positions, the end of the war brought little respite. He was immediately immersed in preparations for the peace conference, worrying that all of the competing nationalist agendas would pave the way to Bolshevism, “& if Bolshevism prevails a great part of European civilisatn & culture will perish…. How can we save ourselves from the coming barbarism that threatens us?”50 Suddenly his correspondence and memoranda were filled with bleak and dire predictions for the future: that the cause of democracy would be set back 100 years; that if Wilson and the United States failed to commit to the new international order chaos would reign; that anarchy in eastern Europe might produce an alliance between the Russian and German Bolsheviks: “I fear that 1920 will be the most disastrous year of modern times.”51 He was exhausted: “everybody is overworked & overstrained & suffering from diminished vitality.”52 He was reading Spengler and Merezhkovsky, whose predictions concerning the end of civilization and/or the coming of the epoch of “God the Holy Ghost”, resonated with him. Certainly he perceived the end of the “peaceful and comfortable days of the Victorian Age”.53 He was tired and fearful but still finding things intensely interesting.

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Rex was surprised and delighted when he was awarded the CBE in the New Year’s honours of 1920. His hopes of a permanent position in foreign affairs were realized when he was appointed Second Secretary in the Foreign and Diplomatic service that summer and was despatched to Poland. For the next nine years he served in various capacities in Warsaw, Riga, Constantinople and Durazzo, before returning to London in March 1929 to serve in the News Department: “work that … is exactly what I want & I think I am well suited to it”.54 He would remain there until the Second World War. In the News Department his primary responsibility was dealing directly with journalists – briefing them on current events, fielding their questions concerning policy, and providing them with materials for publication. By and large he despised them and the papers they worked for as “catering more & more for the half-educated, the most painful product of Democracy. These are the people who sway elections & for whom political speeches are made.”55 He was much keener on an initiative that he undertook very soon after taking up his post in News: developing an apparatus for engaging in cultural propaganda: “We wish to make the achievements of English art, literature, science etc better known abroad & we shall do so by presents of books, by the provision of lecturers, by the use of the wireless etc.”56 In the wake of the financial crisis following 1929 it proved very difficult to get even minimal funding to get the project off the ground, and the project moved only in fits and starts, and when it finally began it was with a minuscule £300 per annum to establish lending libraries in six countries. Rex turned to private sources to supplement the funding from Treasury, and he pursued this eagerly as “constructive” work quite different from that involved in managing the press. He did not get far with this until the advent of Hitler galvanized support for the initiative – and after five years of hard work and constant lobbying the “British Committee for Relations with Other Countries” was renamed and the “British Council” was born.57 Rex Leeper was, more than any other individual, responsible for its birth;58 and its conception may be traced directly to his experience at the Intelligence Bureau and the Department of Political Intelligence between 1915 and 1918. Equally important was the ideology behind the initiative: Rex encouraged the Council to present a vision of the accomplishments of British arts and letters as the triumph of democracy and liberty, and this was presented as an alternative to the barbaric populism of the totalitarian regimes in Germany, Russia and elsewhere. Rex was a cold warrior before the Cold War.

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Vital in getting the Council off the ground along the lines proposed by Rex was the support of Sir Robert Vansittart, and here is an interesting insight into the politics of the Foreign Office before the Second World War. Leeper became one of “Van’s boys”: an outspoken critic of what would come to be called “appeasement”.59 His personal correspondence is full of contempt for the government, its leaders, and a succession of foreign secretaries (with the exception of Samuel Hoare) who refused to see or stand up to the German menace. “I abhor Hitler & all his works & their violent anti-Semitism….it is high time that the people of this country realised the true nature of the Prussian, a bully & a barbarian.”60 Like Vansittart, he advocated an alliance with France “If we had not ratted in 1919 when America threw over President Wilson & had given France the guarantee she asked for, it would have been we who would have controlled the European situation & Europe would not be where she is now.”61 Like Vansittart, he promoted a deal with Italy to keep him off of Hitler’s team. Rex despised the political leaders who would not go beyond giving pious advice to the Europeans and who refused to commit themselves to act against both the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. But the tune was an old one: the refrain against Prussianism and Bolshevism had been heard too often since 1918: our own Govt. refuses to face the real issues. It is 1914 all over again. Nothing seems to have been learnt from past experience. It would be incredible if it were not true. One goes on fatalistically watching the steady course of events…. England has been slow to believe the real nature of the Germans. I learnt this many years ago when I first went to Poland in 1923 & I am less surprised than most people here at the Germans turning out as they are. Prussianism is paganism naked & unabashed. The old German culture is drowned in a flood of barbarism.

Few were prepared to listen seriously to his dire warnings of looming disaster: German propaganda is still very strong here & there is an extraordinarily close parallel between what is happening now & what went on during the years before the War. If you stand up to them people call you warmongerers & I have been subjected to a good many attacks for my stiff attitude towards them with the press. Vansittart & I are the two people whom they dislike most.62

Perhaps Rex might have made more of an impact on public perceptions of the looming international crisis if he had taken the position as the BBC’s chief broadcaster on foreign affairs that was offered to him in

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1932. But even though the salary of £1500 was enticing, it was insufficient to persuade him to abandon his guaranteed civil service pension. The other focus of his attention in the years before the Second World War was the creation of a Ministry of Information, on which he began to work in 1935 as the chair of a subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, shortly after his promotion to head of the News Department. As department head, he suggested that the two apparently separate activities of political publicity on foreign affairs in the press and of cultural relations (that is, the British Council), formed two sides of a general policy. “I am convinced, as most of us are, that if this country does not play its proper part in Europe the latter will drift into war or else into a position in which Germany is all-powerful, but I do definitely cherish the hope that the influence of this country in Europe may avert war.”63 His idea here was that the News Department should form the nucleus of a new ministry if war did break out, one that was to be pulled together when war was anticipated. After the Munich crisis he withdrew altogether from the dayto-day management of the press and concentrated on “publicity and propaganda”. Dismayed by the inaction in the preparations for the formation of a new Ministry, he resigned from the subcommittee and focused on his own department, re-naming it the “Foreign Publicity Department” and receiving Treasury approval for thirteen new staff positions. But he was shattered when Eric Drummond (Lord Perth) was appointed to head this instead of him. Resilient nevertheless, he succeeded – twenty years after it had been disbanded – in reviving the Department of Political Intelligence almost immediately upon the outbreak of war. He was installed as its head, whereupon he invited old friends such as Seton-Watson to come back. He was determined that another old friend, Arnold Toynbee, who had done so much to promote the cause of appeasement in the 1930s, should not be allowed to call the shots at Chatham House, and by 1940 Rex was in charge of its operation at Balliol. By early 1940 he was running the PID, overseeing Chatham House, running the British Council and instrumental in the transmission of propaganda to enemy countries. He had come a long way from his lonely, unhappy situation in Madras when war broke out in 1914. *** When Rex’s stepmother described to him the marching of Australian troops to waiting ships in 1940 it reminded him of having attended with her and his father the farewell ceremony for a similar delegation at

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Melbourne Town Hall departing to fight in the Boer War.64 Rex’s road from the streets of Melbourne had been a long and winding one over those forty years, but one that tells us much about the international history of the twentieth century – and even more about how that history shaped the lives of people caught up in its events.

Notes 1 Our Alan Sharp is not to be confused with another of the same name, described as ‘Comedian, Author, Actor and All Round Smart-Arse’ http://www.randomalan.co.uk/. Although he can certainly spin a good story and is the author of numerous works. 2 There is no biographical study of Leeper. A brief sketch of his life may be found in D. Drinkwater, ‘Leeper, Sir Reginald Wildig Allen (1888–1968)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), online edn, Jan 2008. 3 On his father, see the excellent biography by J. Poynter: Doubts and certainties: a life of Alexander Leeper (Melbourne, 1997), or the briefer outline in Poynter’s ‘Leeper, Alexander (1848 - 1934)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 54-57. 4 One of whom was Valentine Leeper. See the fascinating study by M. Poynter, Nobody's Valentine: Letters in the Life of Valentine Alexa Leeper, 1900-2001 (Melbourne, 2008). 5 On Allen Leeper see the biographical sketch by E.Goldstein, ‘Leeper, (Alexander Wigram) Allen (1887–1935)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), online edn, Jan 2008. 6 Rex Leeper to father, 1 January 1931, Leeper MS, 11129 3160/2. There are two collections of Leeper papers in Melbourne, Australia: the first – and most substantial – at the Victoria State Library, the second at the Trinity College library. Those referred here to as ‘Leeper MS’ are located at the state library, those referred to as ‘Leeper Papers, Trinity College’ are located at the college library. 7 Rex Leeper to father Leeper, 14 May 1911, Leeper MS, 11129 3159/2. 8 Rex Leeper to father, 23 Jun.1911, Leeper MS, 11129 3159/2. 9 Rex Leeper to Madre 28 May 1911, Leeper MS, 11129 3159/2. 10 Idem. 11 Rex Leeper to father, 23 Jun. 1911, Leeper MS, 11129 3159/2. 12 Rex Leeper to father, Berlin (Ranke strasse), 1 Sept. 1911, Leeper MS, 11129 3159/2. Emphasis as in the original. 13 Rex Leeper to father, 31 May 1912, Leeper MS 11129 3159/3. 14 Rex Leeper to father, 26 Jul. 1912, Leeper MS 11129 3159/3. 15 Rex Leeper to Madre, 14 Feb.1914, Leeper MS 11129 3159/5. 16 Rex Leeper to father, 2 Jun.1914, Leeper Papers, Trinity College. 17 Rex Leeper to Madre, 6 Oct. 1914, Madras; Leeper Papers, Trinity College. 18 On the Press Bureau, see M. Sanders and P.M. Taylor, British Propaganda during the First World War, 1914-1918 (London, 1982).

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Allen Leeper to father, 5 Mar. 1915, Leeper MS 11129 3160/14. Allen Leeper to Madre, 22 Apr. 1915, Leeper MS 11129 3160/14. 21 Rex Leeper to father, 28 Oct. 1915, Leeper MS 11129 3159/5. 22 Rex Leeper to father, 30 Dec. 1915, Leeper MS 11129 3159/5. 23 Rex Leeper to father, 26 Jan. 1916, Leeper MS 11129 3159/6. 24 Rex Leeper to father, 9 Aug. 1916, Leeper MS 11129 3159/6. 25 Rex Leeper to father, 26 Jan. 1916, Leeper MS 11129 3159/6. On Namier’s time and friendships at Oxford, see J. Namier, Lewis Namier: A Biography (London, 1971), pp. 81-102; for his activities at the Intelligence Bureau and the Department of Political Intelligence, pp. 122-35. 26 Among other activities, Rex would send articles to his father for publication in The Age – the largest daily newspaper in Melbourne – using the Rurik pseudonym. 27 Rex Leeper to father, 10 Feb. 1916, Leeper MS 11129 3159/6. 28 Rex Leeper to father, 24 Feb.1916, Leeper MS 11129 3159/6. 29 Rex Leeper to father, 16 Oct. 1916, Leeper MS 11129 3159/6. 30 Volume I, Number I, p. 1. 31 Rex Leeper to father, 14 Mar. 1917, Leeper MS 11129 3159/7. On New Europe see H. and C. Seton-Watson, The Making of a New Eur: R.W. Seton-Watson and the Last years of Austria-Hungary (London, 1981). 32 Idem. 33 There was a brief falling-out over the policy to be pursued with the Bolsheviks. Rex saw them as a potential ally against the Germans, while New Europe was more sceptical. “The New Europe has failed altogether & it is a long time now since I have had anything to do with it on Russia. I disagree altogether with its Russian policy & I have had no hand in it now for several months. I have made a special study of the Bolsheviks & have been closely in touch with their representatives here. Tho’ I understand their point of view pretty clearly – which is more than most people do – I am fully alive to their mistakes, but I think our attitude to them, since they came into power last November, has been absolutely fatuous & has been an enormous assistance to Germany.” Rex Leeper to father, 12 Mar. 1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. Brest-Litovsk changed things, and by April he had resumed writing for it. 34 Rex Leeper to Madre, 3 Oct. 1917, Leeper MS 11129 3159/7. 35 Idem. 36 Rex Leeper to father, 26 Dec. n.y. [1917], Leeper Papers, Trinity College. 37 Rex Leeper to father, 13 Nov. 1917, Leeper MS 11129 3159/7. 38 Rex Leeper to father, 26 Dec. n.y. [1917], Leeper Papers, Trinity College. 39 Rex Leeper to father, 8 Jan. 1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. 40 The report, ‘Propaganda Arrangements’ of 9 Jan.1917, may be found in the National Archives, Kew, INF 4/4B. 41 Rex Leeper to father, 12 Mar. 1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. 42 “I would wish to add, to prevent misapprehension, that I do not mean by this that we agree with one another or are forming a group advocating any definite policy.” Headlam-Morley to A.D.I. [Gleichen], 4 Feb.1918; copy in Headlam-Morley papers, Churchill College, Cambridge: HDLM ACC 727/16. 20

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Rex Leeper to father, 14 Apr. 1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. Rex Leeper to father, 30 Jun. 1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. 45 Rex Leeper to father, 26 May 1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. 46 Rex Leeper to father [dictated to Primrose], 2 Jun.1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. 47 Rex Leeper to father, 28 Jul., 1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. 48 Idem. 49 Idem. 50 Rex Leeper to Madre, 21 Dec.1918, Leeper MS 11129 3159/8. 51 Rex Leeper to father, 31 Mar.1920, Leeper MS 11129 3159/10. 52 Rex Leeper to father, 18 Feb. 1919, Leeper MS 11129 3159/9. 53 Rex Leeper to father, 3 Aug. 1920, Leeper MS 11129 3159/10. 54 Rex Leeper to father, 6 Mar. 1929, Leeper MS 11129 3160/1. 55 Rex Leeper to father, 24 Oct. 1929, Leeper MS 11129 3160/1. 56 Rex Leeper to father, 4 Mar. 1931, Leeper MS 11129 3160/2. 57 Rex Leeper to Kennard [draft], 7 Mar. 1935 FO 395/527. On Rex’s role in the origins of the Council see M. Grant, Propaganda and the Role of the State in InterWar Britain (Oxford, 1994), pp. 236-42. 58 The British Council’s official website recognizes him as ‘the founder’ of the organization: http://www.britishcouncil.org/history-who-leeper.htm 59 “He is a taskmaster & not easy to please, but at the moment he is pleased & appreciative. Vansittart has been very nice & has told me to look after myself as he said that I was one of the people in the F.O. on whom most depended & that a breakdown now would be disastrous.” Rex Leeper to Madre, 16 Jan. 1935, Leeper MS 11129 3160/5. 60 Rex Leeper to father, 3 Apr. 1933, Leeper MS 11129 3160/4. 61 Rex Leeper to father, 14 Mar. 1933, Leeper MS 11129 3160/4. 62 Rex Leeper to Madre, 1 Apr. 1935, Leeper MS 11129 3160/5. 63 Rex Leeper to Vansittart, 14 Mar.1935 (flimsy copy), National Archives, BW82/5. 64 Rex Leeper to Madre, 8 Feb. 1940, Leeper MS 11129 3160/7. 44

CHAPTER ELEVEN NO WAY TO TREAT AN ANCIENT ALLY: BRITAIN AND THE PORTUGUESE CONNECTION, 1919-1933 GLYN STONE

As the senior partner in the Anglo-Portuguese alliance for most of its history, beginning in 1373, British governments had consistently interpreted their commitments to Portugal in terms of their own interests, notably strategic and economic ones, and had reserved their position when called on to render assistance to their oldest ally. In 1873, for example, they had not unconditionally guaranteed Portugal’s integrity and independence when she had been faced with a possible invasion by Spanish Republican forces, nor in 1877, when the Portuguese had asked for assistance in defending their Indian colony of Goa.1 The alliance also did not prevent the British from engaging in discussions with Germany over the fate of the Portuguese colonies in 1898-1899 and 1911-1914, with only the outbreak of the First World War rendering them null and void.2 Despite the wishes of the Portuguese authorities to enter the war immediately on the allied side, the British applied diplomatic pressure upon Lisbon not to become a belligerent. They suspected that if Portugal became involved she would make “very inconvenient demands for more territory”.3 When they relented in early 1916 and encouraged the Portuguese to requisition German ships in their ports, in the certain knowledge that the Germans would declare war on Portugal, they did so because of their desperate need for increased naval tonnage with the Admiralty declaring bluntly that it was “the ships we care about, not the Portuguese”.4 Portugal’s military engagement in the common struggle did little to increase British sentiment in her favour. On the contrary, there was much irritation with what was seen as the lamentable performance of the Portuguese armed forces, first in East Africa and later on the Western Front. The Curzon Committee, a sub committee of the Imperial War

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Cabinet, went so far as to recommend in April 1917 that far from supporting Portuguese claims to German colonial territory Britain should acquire Portuguese East Africa, Delagoa Bay in particular, and the Azores.5 While these claims remained recommendations and were not adopted by the British War Cabinet, the British delegation at Paris in 1919 refused to support Portuguese demands for the southern part of German East Africa as a mandate and conceded to Lisbon only a small portion of territory in northern Mozambique called the “Kionga Triangle”, which rounded off Portuguese territory at the natural frontier of the Rouvuma river. This was given to them, in Colonial Secretary Lord Alfred Milner’s words, as “a matter of grace and convenience”.6 *** The low esteem with which Portugal was clearly held by her British ally before and during the First World War was to be a consistent feature for much of the period after it. British statesmen, diplomats and officials alike were scathing of the instability of the Portuguese parliamentary system until its demise in 1926 as the result of a military coup. The military dictatorship which followed was scarcely less stable in British eyes until 1932 and the complete ascendancy of the soon to be dictator of the Portuguese Estado Novo, António Oliveira Salazar, began to restore respect internationally. Coups, counter coups and rumours of counter coups were a regular feature of Portuguese political life during the parliamentary Republic. Between 1910 and 1918 there were fifteen governments and five presidents. In 1920 alone two prime ministers were murdered and there were nine different Cabinets between June 1919 and March 1921. In total, during the sixteen years of the parliamentary Republic, Portugal experienced forty-five governments.7 Disenchantment and disaffection with the parliamentary Republic affected all classes of Portuguese society, including the professional middle class and artisans who had originally been the most committed of its supporters. Political instability was complemented by economic instability with many Portuguese, including senior army officers, suffering a real decline in incomes.8 The British were unsympathetic and less concerned with the problems of the Republic and their causes than they were in the creation of a critical impression of chaos and instability in Portuguese life which they roundly deplored. In September 1920 the British Foreign Secretary, Lord George Curzon, advised Mello Barreto, the Portuguese Foreign Minister, that notwithstanding their ancient and enduring alliance, the influence of

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Portugal in popular British estimation was bound to be adversely affected by “the instability of her Ministries and the apparent lack of cooperation among her different parties and sections of opinion”.9 On reading the Lisbon Legation’s annual report for 1920, and the political situation in Portugal it described, he was moved to refer to it as “a rotten country”.10 The continuing inability of Portuguese politicians to achieve any kind of consensus in order to stabilise government and reduce political violence was reported assiduously and scathingly by British diplomats in Lisbon throughout the last years of the parliamentary Republic. In October 1920 the British Minister at Lisbon, Sir Lancelot Carnegie, had reported that on his return from leave he had found the general situation in Portugal much as he had left it with “a Government in which no-one has any confidence”, with “scarcity and ever increasing cost of the necessities of life” and “an abnormally low exchange, which tends to raise the price of everything”, and with “perpetual strikes, often on the most frivolous pretexts”.11 Although the annual report for 1923 noted that “calm and contentment” had “prevailed throughout the country” owing to “an almost record harvest, a satisfactory vintage and the high wages now paid to the farm workers”, it was also reported that strikes and bomb explosions had taken place in Lisbon and Oporto and revolutionary movements suppressed. But what was of greatest concern was the “deplorable condition of the country’s finances” which encouraged corruption by government officials.12 Matters had deteriorated further when in February 1925 Carnegie, who had been promoted from Minister to Ambassador with the replacement of the British Legation by an Embassy the previous year, reported that: The parliamentary system of Government, so unsuited in many ways to the Latin nations has hopelessly collapsed, owing partly to the indolence of, and partly to the perpetual quarrels between the Deputies….we find her [Portugal] with a weak government, an incompetent Parliament, her credit abroad impaired, no budget, a huge deficit, business at a standstill, high prices and a discontented working class. It would be difficult to find a more promising field for the cultivation of Communist and Bolshevik propaganda, which is already being actively carried out in the big towns happily, so far, with but moderate success.13

Further light concerning the decline of democratic standards and increasing corruption in Portugal was cast in August 1925 by the Chargé d’Affaires at Lisbon, Hugh Grant Watson, who reported that it was “a curious commentary of the futility of democratic institutions” in Portugal that it was essential for the various parties to be in power when dissolution was granted so that they could preside at the elections in order “to “make”,

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as the Portuguese say, the elections to control the lists of voters, the urns, the counters and the votes, so universal is the conviction that whoever “makes” the elections will win”.14 In February 1926, months before the military overthrow of the parliamentary Republic, Carnegie complained of the lack of discipline throughout the Portuguese nation, warned that “such little prestige and respect as Portugal still enjoys in the world will entirely disappear” and lamented that it was “the self-seeking unpatriotic professional politician who rules the country, and politics enter into every question”.15 When the military coup took place on 28 May 1926 the British Government showed neither enthusiasm nor regret. When questioned about the coup in the House of Commons, the Parliamentary UnderSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Godfrey Locker Lampson, merely replied that he had nothing “to add to the information contained in the press reports”.16 British indifference was matched in Portugal where few if any mourned the passing of the parliamentary Republic. The Embassy in Lisbon reported that the General Confederation of Labour had proclaimed a general strike in protest at the coup but “no one paid the slightest attention to the order and work went on as usual”.17 When in mid July 1926 Grant Watson was assured by the new regime that they “wished to show themselves worthy of the alliance by rehabilitating the country and by regaining Portugal’s lost prestige” the Embassy and its political masters remained to be convinced.18 The Foreign Office seemed to be in no hurry to grant de jure recognition to the new regime doubting it would bring stability; not least because the coup had within a matter of weeks produced three separate Prime Ministers leading three governments one after the other – Naval Captain José Mendes Cabeçadas, General Manuel de Oliveira Gomes da Costa and General António Oscar de Fragoso Carmona.19 But when the Portuguese Ambassador in waiting, General Garcia Rosado, commander-in-chief of the Portuguese Expeditionary Force in Flanders during the Great War and former Governor of Mozambique, having raised the recognition issue a week earlier with Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain himself, warned Deputy Permanent Under Secretary Sir Victor Wellesley on 27 July of “the exceedingly bad impression which our attitude was creating” which threatened “to embitter relations” between Britain and Portugal, it was decided to concede recognition, albeit reluctantly.20 There was no disagreement with Assistant Under Secretary Sir John Gregory’s observation that “all Portuguese (like all Mexican) Governments are bad” and that there would probably be “dozens more revolutions and dozens more governments in Portugal, but unless we get something quite

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outrageous, we may just as well recognise them one after the other” because the alternative was probably “to leave our most ancient Ally in a permanent state of non-recognition”. Chamberlain acknowledged that “the least of the evils is to recognise the Government”.21 Despite the relative stability eventually brought about by the military dictatorship, British diplomats continued to have doubts as to the capability of the Portuguese to put their house in order. In 1928 the Chargé d’Affaires, Francis d’Arcy Godolphin Osborne, lamented that while in most other countries financial stability was feasible, in Portugal, where “politics is rather a distemper than a healthy function of the State”, optimism would be rash. According to Osborne, there were a variety of disruptive elements in Portugal “any of which may combine to effect a disturbance of the process of national regeneration”.22 Such critical observations and views were commonplace in the minds of British diplomats in Portugal and the officials in the Foreign Office. But none of them reached the appalling level of racist vituperation contained in the Lisbon Embassy Report of 1928, approved by the British Ambassador, Sir Adrian de Rune Colville Barclay: There is no denying - and there are many Portuguese who admit it – that while the soil and resources of Portugal and her Colonies offer in abundance all that is necessary to national health and prosperity, the nation, owing partly to the copious admixture of negro blood and partly to a rather enervating climate, is physically, mentally and morally degenerate. Some 80 percent of the population are either tubercular or syphilitic, 60 percent are illiterate, and almost all are incurably emotional, volatile and incapable of sustained effort or logical thought.23

These comments were exceptional and extreme but there could be no disguising the low esteem in which the Portuguese were held by their British allies throughout the 1920s. The Portuguese for their part were hardly enamoured by the attitude of successive British governments. They complained about Britain’s lack of support at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; her negativity when requested to provide economic assistance, notably in pursuing reparations from Germany, or in modifying and rescheduling the debts owed to Britain in consequence of Portugal’s participation in the First World War; the seeming indifference of the British to their proposals to establish imperial air communications to the different parts of the Portuguese empire and Brazil; Britain’s apparent reluctance to support Portugal’s candidature for a seat on the Council of the League of Nations; and British bullying, as the Portuguese saw it, in support of the deplorable British owned Charter companies in Mozambique, such as the Nyassa Company.

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*** Occasionally, the Portuguese would abandon diplomatic reserve altogether and complain bitterly about the lack of appreciation and support shown by their British partner. In November 1919, for instance, the President of the Republic, António José de Almeida, complained to Carnegie that while Great Britain had emerged from the Great War more powerful and dominant than ever, Portugal “who had made enormous sacrifices in blood and money by participating in the campaigns in France and Africa”, had lost much and gained nothing, not even any recognition of what she had done, only coldness and indifference.24 Eight years later, in October 1927, little had changed when the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Dr Bettencourt Rodrigues, protested to Carnegie that “the coldness now shown to his country by His Majesty’s Government was really undeserved and caused him much regret”. British aloofness was in stark contrast, he argued, “with the very friendly attitude towards Portugal of Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and especially the United States of America”.25 Likewise, in October 1930, the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Commander Fernando Augusto Branco, “expiated at great length” to Sir Francis Lindley, British Ambassador at Lisbon, on “the infamy of a country such as Guatemala being preferred to Portugal for a seat on the Council of the League of Nations”. He warned Lindley that Portuguese public opinion had not understood why Britain, “the ancient ally of Portugal” had not supported her candidature at Geneva and ensured her election.26 There was nothing new in Britain’s reluctance to support Portugal’s candidature for a place on the Council of the League or to accept Portuguese complaints. Previously, on 6 September 1927, the Portuguese representative at the League of Nations, Dr Augusto Cesar de Vasconcellos, had approached Chamberlain at Geneva “to press the claim of Portugal to a seat on the Council and to express the usual hope that she would receive the support of her Ancient Ally”. The Foreign Secretary told Vasconcellos, “politely but plainly”, that the Portuguese Government were “very prompt to appeal to the alliance whenever it was a question of obtaining help from Great Britain” but that the appeal would “come with better grace if they on their side attached more importance to the Alliance when the situation was reversed”.27 Not to be intimidated, Bettencourt Rodrigues, on 13 October, expressed his deep disappointment to Carnegie at the lack of support given by Britain to Portugal’s bid for a place on the Council and his regret at the coldness of Chamberlain’s remarks to Vasconcellos at Geneva.28

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In similar vein, although the British Government decided in May 1924 to raise the status of the legations in London and Lisbon to embassies, it was a decision six years in the making and taken with a great deal of reluctance. For more than a century, with the exception of a short period between 1824 and 1833, when Ambassadors were appointed in Lisbon and London, diplomatic representation was on the basis of Minister and Legation.29 Then towards the end of the First World War, in May 1918, a proposal to accredit an Ambassador was submitted to King George V by Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, and approved because it was considered desirable in view of the elevation of the Legation at Rio de Janeiro to the rank of Embassy. On instruction, Carnegie notified the Portuguese Government of Britain’s intention and indicated that the alteration would take place when the next change was made in the Head of the British Mission.30Apart from putting Carnegie in, in his words, “a most disagreeable and equivocal position”, this qualification was used to backtrack from the original decision as the Minister continued in his post. Moreover, by the end of 1921 the continuing instability of the situation in Portugal had provided an additional reason for refusing to proceed with the upgrading of the legations in Lisbon and London. Carnegie was instructed on 25 January 1922 to impress on the Portuguese Foreign Minister that the decision not to proceed was “definite”, and further discussion was “for the present useless”.31 The Portuguese refused to be intimidated and insisted on pressing the issue. The Portuguese Minister at London, Manuel Texeira Gomes, who had been in post since 1912 and was a strong Anglophile, reminded Sir Eyre Crowe, Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, in June 1922, that the establishment of embassies had been the subject of a formal pledge by the British Government and he stressed that the perception of his Government was that the British attitude in the matter seemed “to foreshadow the definite refusal to carry out their undertaking”.32 Curzon, however, was in no mood to be conciliatory as he intimated at the beginning of August,33 although his temporary stand-in at the Foreign Office, Lord Balfour, and Eyre Crowe were inclined to be more sympathetic. The Permanent Under Secretary, who was socially well acquainted with Gomes, noted that the present Government led by António Maria da Silva was “certainly the most efficient and energetic that we have to deal with of late years”, had “actually got the budget voted” and were showing “much readiness to deal with matters in which we are interested”. He also admitted that there was force in the Portuguese argument that the rapid change over of governments was never connected with any questions affecting Anglo-Portuguese relations and that “the Portuguese nation

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always supports a pro-British policy”. Accordingly, if it was considered that sooner or later the Government must act on its promise there was “no very strong ground to make further delay from the point of view of the internal situation in Portugal”.34 As the Foreign Secretary responsible for giving the undertaking to the Portuguese in 1918, and recognising that it was Curzon’s decision to make rather than himself as temporary stand-in, Balfour expressed the opinion that there could be no doubt that the pledge must be fulfilled and there was “no way out of it”. He queried whether there was anything to gain by delaying consummation which could not be avoided but which created “the maximum of irritation at Lisbon” and was disposed, other things being equal “to proceed with the creation of the embassy now” and to Carnegie’s promotion to Ambassador.35 While admitting the Portuguese right to claim fulfilment of the British pledge, Curzon was not inclined to grant the Portuguese what he regarded as a “great compliment” or “mark of favour” without conditions relating to the satisfaction of British claims and grievances against Portugal.36 These were subsequently identified and prioritised in late 1922 as the final settlement and payment of debts owed to British firms by the Transportes Maritimos do Estado (a Portuguese government shipping department) and of British compensation claims concerning certain cargoes on board exenemy ships confiscated by the Portuguese during the war; the conclusion of a commercial treaty with regard to shipping matters, notably a 50 per cent reduction of dues on British goods at Portuguese ports; and the introduction of safeguards for British interests in connection with Atlantic cable concessions through the Azores to American cable companies.37 The Portuguese were receptive up to a point. By the summer of 1923 with one exception all shipping debts and claims were regarded as settled but the Portuguese could not agree to a 50 per cent reduction in port dues as the British Government was not prepared to offer reciprocal reductions bearing in mind, as the Board of Trade admitted, that British shipping had already obtained a reduction of 25 per cent under most favoured nation treatment. The safeguards demanded for British interests in the negotiations between the Portuguese and United States governments concerning cabling concessions could not be resolved satisfactorily; not least because of American resistance to the granting of such safeguards.38 It was the considered view in the League of Nations and Western Department of the Foreign Office that reasonable satisfaction had been given by the Portuguese with regard to the specific debts, claims and shipping dues and that the lack of satisfaction over the cabling issue should not prevent the fulfilment of the pledge to upgrade the respective legations. The recommendation was therefore made that the Embassy in

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Lisbon should be created on the assumption of office of the new President of the Portuguese Republic in October. Unfortunately, Curzon was not prepared to concede to this recommendation. In January 1924 before leaving office to make way for his Labour successor, James Ramsay MacDonald, Curzon made his position on the British pledge abundantly clear: Before I leave office I would like to place on record that I have never proceeded with this appointment because I do not agree that the conditions have been satisfied – in fact I could easily demonstrate the contrary – and because it seems to me absurd to go to the expense of creating an Embassy in a country of such minor importance and where there is so little stability of government as Portugal. We no sooner give a decoration to a Minister than he falls. We no sooner offer a compliment to the Portuguese Government than it collapses.

His advice was equally clear; his successor should “desist as long as possible from the Portuguese appointment”.39 As Curzon’s successor, Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister as well as Foreign Secretary, was not minded to take his advice but to follow that of his officials. The Head of the League of Nations and Western Department, Gerald Hyde Villiers, expressed the discomfort felt by the Foreign Office when on 26 March he confessed that “our behaviour in this matter has been deplorable” and admitted that they had “stooped to every kind of subterfuge and while refusing to honour our solemn promise we have pretended that we would do so eventually”.40 Carnegie was accordingly instructed by MacDonald on 3 April to inform the Portuguese Government that Britain desired to fulfil all its pledges and that the Prime Minister intended to discuss the Embassy question with the new Portuguese Minister in London, Dr Augusto Castro, as soon as he arrived.41 When he saw Castro on 8 May MacDonald told him that it was his intention to fulfil the pledge given previously and elevate the legation at Lisbon to an Embassy.42 Carnegie was promoted to Ambassador and the Portuguese lost little time in appointing General José Mendes Rebeiro Norton de Mattos, former Governor of Mozambique and Portuguese War Minister during the First World War, as Ambassador at London.43 *** In view of the low esteem in which Portugal was held by her British ally, and Portuguese ill feeling towards British aloofness and indifference towards their many problems, it is remarkable that there was any mileage left in the Anglo-Portuguese alliance in the 1920s. Yet for both countries

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it retained its value and importance. For Portugal it still provided the best external guarantee of her integrity and independence and that of her colonial empire and for Britain it continued to contribute towards the strategic defence of her global interests. From time to time the British needed to be reminded of this fact. Before the war, in late 1912, the Admiralty, led by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, and the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis Battenburg, convinced that Spain was more important from a military strategic view than Portugal, had ordered a review of the alliance.44 The review, while recognising the importance of Portugal’s several outlying positions in various parts of the world, including the Azores, Cape Verde Islands and Portuguese Guinea, concluded that Britain derived no direct advantage from the alliance, which tended to increase her responsibilities without adding to her strength, and did not confer upon Britain’s national interest any direct advantage of supreme importance.45 Appalled by the Admiralty’s attitude, the Foreign Office, notably Eyre Crowe, countered with a blistering response in defence of the alliance. Crowe argued that by giving up the alliance Britain would have no legal right, no locus standi, to intervene to prevent other powers from taking and occupying Portuguese territory, including the Atlantic Islands. In this connection, he revealed that under existing arrangements the alliance prevented any third power from acquiring the Portuguese islands, “except by going to war with England and defeating her”.46 The force of Crowe’s argument had been accepted though the British Government before the war continued to hold the view, as they did in 1913, that they “should reserve to themselves the right of judging the circumstances under which help might be given or withheld”.47 After the war the British continued to insist on this reservation. When questioned in the House of Commons, in March 1926, as to whether British obligations “to defend and protect all conquests and colonies belonging to Portugal against all enemies, future as well present” were still in force, Locker Lampson repeated the pre-war statement to the letter.48 Unsurprisingly, the statement excited both interest and consternation in Lisbon and the Permanent Under Secretary, Sir William Tyrrell, was compelled to assure Norton de Mattos that there was no deviation from the pre-war statement and that it “‘neither added nor subtracted from the value of the treaty of alliance”.49 While the Portuguese Ambassador appeared mollified, Tyrrell’s assurance did little to convince the Portuguese public or Parliament for whom Locker-Lampson’s words had fallen, in Carnegie’s words, “like a cold douche”. According to the Ambassador, Tyrrell’s assurance had not convinced anyone in Portugal of Britain’s

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“good faith, for who can believe in a declaration of our loyalty to our treaty engagements if at the same time we reserve to ourselves the decision as to when they are valid or not”.50 The Foreign Office rejected Carnegie’s advice for a further parliamentary question and answer, optimistically regarding the incident as “now forgotten” and therefore “the less said the better”.51 Public assurances aside, the significance and value of the alliance to British strategic interests continued to be recognised. In April 1926 the Foreign Office stated emphatically if somewhat complacently: The British alliance is the sheet-anchor of Portuguese foreign policy, and though the Portuguese Government are behaving extremely badly in commercial and financial matters, notably as regards British claims, we can safely count on their support in any question of really first-rate importance. Such support would be of negative rather than of positive value. The Portuguese army and navy do not count, but…it would add to our liabilities if there were any danger of the mouth of the Tagus or the Portuguese Atlantic Islands being placed at the disposal of a hostile power.

In recognising Portugal’s strategic significance, however, the Foreign Office raised considerable doubts as to its continuation in the long term owing to what they regarded as the continuing maladministration of the Portuguese African Empire which, they insisted, was a source of constant trouble to British, and, in particular, South African interests. Unless the Portuguese “put their house in order” of which at present there was “neither sign nor prospect” the Foreign Office was convinced that “the conscience of the civilised world” would “one day demand that Mozambique and Angola should be handed over to some other Power”. As it was believed that the Union of South Africa was the most suitable successor Britain would find it difficult to resist such an outcome.52 In making this critical charge the Foreign Office reflected the ongoing humanitarian campaigns in Britain, the European press and in the League of Nations aimed at labour abuse in the Portuguese colonies. These campaigns and the publication in 1925 of a highly critical report by Edward Ross, an American sociologist, which accused Portuguese officials of complicity in slavery and forced labour, contributed to the demise of the parliamentary Republic and revived memories of similar pre-war campaigns against Portugal in which the Foreign Office had been heavily involved in defending their oldest ally.53 Discussion of the value of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance continued in the Foreign Office and in September 1927, incensed by Portugal’s failure to provide any satisfaction to British and South African interests in Mozambique, Chamberlain instigated another full review of its worth,

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claiming “I can see what we stand to lose by the Treaty of Windsor” by which he meant the liability of dealing with inconvenient Portuguese claims for British support, such as their candidature for the Council of the League of Nations, but “I cannot see what we gain”.54 The subsequent review dispelled any doubt as to the importance of maintaining the alliance. It guaranteed Portuguese assistance in time of war and despite the inefficiency of Portuguese armed assistance it had proved valuable during the Boer War and the First World War. The alliance also guaranteed to Britain the use of the Tagus and the Portuguese Atlantic Islands as bases for warships, submarines and aircraft in time of war. It was admitted that Britain’s situation in the Great War would have been “immeasurably more dangerous and difficult” if the Portuguese had been in alliance with the Germans or had been neutral in the same way as Sweden and that it “might indeed have cost Britain the war”. In supporting this view reference was made to the Admiralty’s review of the alliance in 1912 and the Foreign Office response, and it was considered that despite the elimination of the German menace, Eyre Crowe’s contention remained sound. Legally, it was admitted that a denunciation of the treaties of alliance on Britain’s part would be problematic as there had been no vital change of circumstances since the decision to “defend and protect the Portuguese colonies” in 1899. It was presumed that if the British Government told the Portuguese they intended to denounce the treaties they would demand arbitration, which Britain could not refuse and she would lose her case.55 The review of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance proved salutary from the British point of view. It was discussed by Cabinet in November 1927 and ministers concurred in Chamberlain’s revised opinion that “it was undesirable to reconsider Britain’s treaty obligations with Portugal”.56 With the review in mind, the Foreign Secretary offered to make a public declaration of support which the Portuguese Government, taken by surprise, accepted.57 The decision to stand by the alliance was accordingly reaffirmed in the House of Commons on 21 December 1927. Asked whether the official attitude towards the Anglo-Portuguese alliance had been, in any way modified in respect of the Portuguese colonies in Africa, Chamberlain announced that “His Majesty’s Government has every intention of maintaining in force the ancient alliance between Britain and Portugal which, of course, covers the Portuguese colonies”.58 According to Carnegie, the statement had created “a most favourable impression” in Portugal and was linked in the press with the forthcoming visit to Lisbon of the cruiser squadron of the Royal Navy’s Atlantic fleet.59

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The strategic significance of the Portuguese connection was tested during 1928 when in July Bettencourt Rodrigues, acting within “the letter and spirit of the alliance”, informed Barclay that there was a growing competition for air concessions in the Azores, Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands by foreign countries, such as the United States, France and Spain; Spanish aviation being regarded by the Portuguese as a cover for German aerial development. Despite strong diplomatic pressure, the Portuguese had granted and accepted nothing, preferring to work with Britain in anticipation of commercial and financial investment similar to that offered by the other interested countries.60 The Foreign Office immediately recognised the strategic implications and reminded the Air Ministry that the Government had been in the habit of seeking and receiving from successive Portuguese Governments “an assurance that no concessions or facilities in Portuguese Atlantic ports will be granted to any foreign Power without prior consultation with them”. While the motive for demanding such an assurance had been the desire on strategic grounds to prevent the creation by foreign powers of naval bases in the Atlantic the same consideration presumably now applied and would increasingly apply to the acquisition of potential air bases.61 The issue was remitted to a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, chaired by Sir Ronald Lindsay, Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, which met on 22 August. While acknowledging that it would, of course, be preferable for all civil air routes employing the Portuguese bases to be exploited by British enterprise, it emerged that the Air Staff were compelled to concentrate on the air routes through the Middle East which were of the greatest strategic importance, and the air routes proposed in the Portuguese schemes were “definitely in a lower category of strategic importance”. The Admiralty concurred generally with the Air Staff and emphasised that the essential requirement as far as the alliance was concerned was the preservation of the South American and South African trade routes and that it was therefore desirable that potential enemy powers should be prevented from establishing themselves on the Portuguese islands, so that in war “the islands might without difficulty be converted to their use as air bases for sustained air operations”. Lindsay considered that relations with Portugal were the key to the situation and that no danger was “to be apprehended” provided Britain was assured of “the support, or at least the friendly neutrality, of Portugal in time of war and possesses sufficient command of the sea to secure it”. The Committee concluded that in view of their existing commitments the Government were not in a position to offer any material help to Portugal but that the Portuguese authorities should be

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urged to ensure that any aerodromes constructed on Portuguese territory “should be open to the aircraft of all countries” and be available for “foreign civil aviation only”.62 The sub-committee’s report was approved by Lord Hailsham, the acting Prime Minister, and Osborne was instructed subsequently to inform the Portuguese that because of prior commitments to aviation schemes in the East and Africa the British Government had no resources to embark on fresh enterprises but did not wish to delay the development of aviation in Portugal until they became available. At the same time, they were urged not to grant a monopoly to any foreign power or company but to take adequate steps to ensure that any airports which might be created could not “be converted into a military air base by the concessionaires in time of war”.63 According to Osborne, Bettencourt Rodrigues had “displayed less mortification” than he had anticipated and had accepted in good part the statement that the British Government were too deeply engaged in other schemes to be able to embark on any further enterprise. The Foreign Minister also accepted “with no great enthusiasm the advice offered him by His Majesty’s Government”.64 When Barclay saw Bettencourt Rodrigues on 1 November on return from leave, the Foreign Minister said that he realised that the air schemes in the direction of the East and Africa had priority for Britain and expressed the wish “to work in complete accord with His Majesty’s Government in this matter”.65 The change from a Conservative to a Labour Government in 1929 brought no change in the resolve of the British to uphold the treaties of alliance. When questioned in the House of Commons on 22 July 1929 whether in view of Britain’s adherence to the League of Nations the Government intended to take an early opportunity to terminate the AngloPortuguese alliance Arthur Henderson, the Labour Foreign Secretary, rejected the suggestion outright. He saw nothing in Britain’s obligation to Portugal which was in any way inconsistent with the Covenant of the League of Nations and saw no reason for “wishing to terminate an association which has united the two countries in friendship for many hundreds of years”.66 From the British point of view, the case for retaining the alliance with Portugal was strengthened further in 1930 when the Foreign Office considered its economic dimension and recognised that the Portuguese connection gave to Britain a certain standing in pressing for equitable treatment for the very large British commercial and financial interests in Portugal, Mozambique and Angola. It was considered certain that a “repudiation of the Alliance would be fatal to those interests”.67 ***

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While the Portuguese expressed their satisfaction, not to say gratification at the public reaffirmation of the alliance in 1927 and 1929, they recognised the caveats included in those statements. Moreover, they continued to be concerned that their colonial territories might be the subject of Anglo-German negotiations as they had been prior to the First World War or that the Union of South Africa might annex Mozambique. They also resented the resistance of the British Government to changes in their African colonies which threatened the interests of British owned or dominated companies, such as the Nyassa Company. Indeed, it was colonial issues above all which threatened during the period under review to create a schism in the Anglo-Portuguese relationship and with it the alliance. The British were only too aware of the imperialist ambitions of the Union of South Africa which centred on southern Mozambique and particularly the port of Lourenço Marques on Delagoa Bay, which was, in General James Barry Munnik Hertzog’s words, “the natural harbour for the Transvaal, the [Orange] Free State and Swaziland”.68 When, in May 1922, General Jan Chritiaan Smuts’ Government at Pretoria proposed a new Mozambique convention respecting the trade route from Pretoria to Lourenço Marques, Eyre Crowe realised that this was “a move on the part of the Union of South Africa towards the absorption of the Portuguese colonies” and knew this “to be their ambition”. But he also realised that “the Portuguese Government also know it and are always on their guard” and that they particularly mistrusted “the present government at Pretoria”.69 This was borne out by the Portuguese response to a proposal by Smuts for the revision of the Mozambique Convention of 1909 which sought to establish a joint railway and harbour board “to have the management and control of the port and harbour of Delagoa Bay and of the railways thence to the Transvaal”, with the Union Government having the majority of members, and to Smuts’ insistence that no agreement would be concluded unless such a board was conceded with a Union majority.70 The Portuguese Government were adamant that they could not accept any solution which could involve the diminution of Portuguese sovereignty over any part of Mozambique.71 Eyre Crowe was told by Gomes in no uncertain terms in late June that because the proposed agreement would remove the principal railway and port of Mozambique once and for all from the control of the Portuguese authorities no Portuguese Government could possibly agree to it and Parliament had almost unanimously rejected it. The Minister revealed that his Government were “much alarmed at the general spirit manifested by General Smuts and his Government”. It was clear in their minds that

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Smuts’ policy was to convince the Portuguese Government to believe that “they could do nothing, and could get nothing done, so long as the Union Government opposed them” and by this means bring them “to accept any terms and proposals that suited South Africa”.72 The Foreign Office was placed in an uncomfortable position faced with Smuts’ expectation of support at Lisbon and Portugal’s determination to resist his demands. When at the beginning of July an alternative proposal was presented to set up a concession company (along the lines of the Mozambique company in respect of the port and railways at Beira) to administer the port and railways at Delagoa Bay and to be controlled by the Union Government, Lord Balfour, who as Lord President was standing in for Curzon, expressed to the Colonial Office his strong aversion to any infraction of Portuguese sovereignty and rights which, he believed, had been present in Smuts’ original proposal and the alternative was scarcely different.73 The negotiations between the Union Government and the Mozambican authorities ran into the sand and the Mozambique-Transvaal Convention was renewed on 31 March 1923 with no substantive changes other than to acknowledge that the Union Government had taken the place of the Transvaal Government for purposes of the convention.74 Only too aware that the Portuguese were incapable of developing their African colonies without foreign assistance and that developments in Mozambique, particularly concerning the railways and ports, would continue to be stalled, the Union Government persisted in seeking a substantial revision of the Mozambique-Transvaal Convention. In November 1926 Hertzog, as South African Prime Minister, disclaimed personally to the Portuguese Ambassador in London any wish to impinge on the sovereign rights of Portugal over Mozambique and emphasised that his Government desired to cultivate the most friendly of relations with Portugal and to develop the railway and port facilities at Lourenço Marques and Beira to their mutual advantage. At the same time, Hertzog stressed that if satisfactory facilities could not be arranged on the Mozambique route his Government would develop an alternative railway and port.75 It was indicative of the assertive tactics employed by the Union Government that in order to prevent the Portuguese from halting the flow of labour to the Rand and prejudicing South African interest in dominating the port and railway development at Delagoa Bay they sought British help in early 1928 to undermine Portugal’s request for a reconstruction loan, amounting to £12 million, from the League of Nations. Chamberlain told the South African High Commissioner, the ardent Afrikaner Nationalist Jacobus Smit, on 26 January 1928, that he was reluctant to interfere with the work of the League’s Financial Commission which was not

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responsible to individual governments but the League as a whole and considered that it was to the advantage of both the Union and Britain that Portuguese finances and credit should be restored, an objective which could not be achieved without a loan. In the event, Portugal rejected the proposed loan because of the stringent terms imposed by the League.76 While the Portuguese entered into discussion with the League they also took the decision to denounce the Mozambique Convention and to negotiate a new one with the Union Government which focused on the recruitment of Mozambican labour for the Rand mines and the administration of the Lourenço Marques railway and port. As Bettencourt Rodrigues intimated to Carnegie on 27 October 1927, the Portuguese were concerned at the considerable increase in the recruitment of labour from southern Mozambique, from 60,000 a few years previously to over 100,000 at a time of growing labour shortage in the colony, a concern which was manifested in Portugal’s refusal to supply labour for French Madagascar and the Cameroons and the Belgian Congo.77 Portugal’s denunciation of the convention coincided with the Cabinet review of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and the decision to maintain it. Chamberlain was concerned about the friction which continued to exist between Pretoria and Lisbon and he urged Hertzog to seek improved relations with Portugal.78 With little progress made towards a new convention Chamberlain instructed Carnegie early in February 1928 to emphasise to the Portuguese Government that despite his statement supporting the alliance in the Commons in December and the visit of the British fleet to Lisbon in January, it would become “well nigh impossible” to maintain intimate and cordial relations unless “the disputes and difficulties between the Union and Portugal be solved within a reasonable time”.79 Shortly afterwards at Geneva, the Foreign Secretary assured General Ivan Serraz, the Portuguese Minister of Colonies, that Hertzog had no intention to infringe Portuguese sovereign rights and wished only to conclude a mutually beneficial agreement concerning labour supply and an improvement in facilities afforded by the port and railway of Lourenço Marques.80 In the event, a new convention was signed at Pretoria in September 1928 that regularised the supply of labour at 80,000, which required a reduction of 20,000 to be attained over a five year period. As far as the port and railway administration was concerned there was no infringement of Portuguese sovereign rights but Union ambitions concerning southern Mozambique were by no means diminished.81 Britain’s own relationship with Portugal’s colonies was to change considerably during the 1920s with Portuguese determination to achieve greater control in opposition to foreign owned companies, particularly

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British ones such as the Delagoa Bay Development Corporation, the Incomati Sugar Estates and above all the Nyassa Company (Companhia do Niassa). The latter was a chartered company and when its charter came up for renewal in 1929 it was cancelled by the Portuguese. The Nyassa Company’s record was abysmal, not to say appalling. Over forty years it did virtually nothing to develop the territories covered by its charter, its main sources of revenue, over 90 per cent, being the hut tax and customs dues imposed on the native population which increased inexorably during the 1920s; and to make matters worse the company paid its labour in devalued Portuguese paper but demanded taxes be paid in either silver coin or sterling banknotes which were not devalued.82 The Foreign Office had no illusions about the dreadful exploitation perpetrated by the company led by Sir Owen Phillips, later Lord Kylsant, former chairman of the Union Castle Steamship Company who towards the end of the war had been encouraged by the British Government to buy shares in its parent company, Nyassa Consolidated. As early as January 1915, Carnegie had argued that in view of the Nyassa Company’s “notorious maladministration of its territories and the shocking treatment of the natives by its officers” the prolongation of the present charter appeared “most undesirable” unless questions of high policy demanded it; particularly as the Portuguese regarded it as “a scandal and misfortune”.83 In view of the continuing maladministration by the Nyssa Company during the 1920s, the Foreign Office were disinclined to oppose the cancellation of its charter in 1929 but were reluctantly compelled to declare it illegal and to insist that the matter be referred to arbitration.84 While acknowledging that the company had been badly run, the Permanent Under Secretary, Sir Robert Vansittart, was concerned about setting precedents and insisted that if the Portuguese were allowed to “get away with this predatory action” they would certainly be encouraged “to play the same game on more important and more blameless [British] concerns”, such as the port of Beira.85 Portuguese rejection of arbitration prompted the Foreign Office to warn of the deplorable consequences on British public opinion, notably in financial and political circles.86 While Portuguese Foreign Minister Branco seemed inclined to consider arbitration, Salazar, the “most powerful person in the [Portuguese] Cabinet”, was far from convinced.87 Faced with Portuguese intransigence the idea of arbitration was dropped and replaced by a claim for compensation which had first been mooted in October 1929 by Kylsant himself at £500,000 but eventually settled more than a year later in 1931 at less than £150,000.88

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With regard to the possible repetition of the Anglo-German pre-war negotiations, the British were disinclined to engage in any such action during the period under review. In November 1924 Chamberlain went out of his way to reassure the Portuguese Ambassador that there was no foundation for the statement of the former Imperial German Navy Minister, Alfred von Tirpitz, in his published memoirs which made reference to the pre-war Anglo-German negotiations. He stressed that the British Government had “no desire but for the prosperous development of the Portuguese colonial empire”.89 However, while colonial revision was not an immediate priority in German foreign policy it was raised publicly on a number of occasions by the statesmen of Weimar Germany: in the course of negotiations for the 1925 Locarno Agreement; on the occasion of Germany’s entry into the League of Nations in 1926; and during the Young Plan negotiations in 1929. While there was no public announcement of German interest in Portugal’s African colonies on these occasions, discussion, both within and between official and unofficial circles, took place which revealed that the pre-war ambitions to acquire at least a part of these territories were far from moribund. Indeed, during the Young Plan reparation negotiations in March 1929 the former head of the German Foreign Ministry, Richard von Kühlmann, actually raised with Sir William Tyrrell, British Ambassador at Paris, the question of reviving the pre-war accords in relation to Angola and Mozambique.90 The Foreign Office view, in this case the Central Department, was that it was impossible to conceive that secret conversations could be entered into to redistribute these colonies “behind the backs of the Portuguese who are members of the League and our allies whose territories we are bound to defend”. Chamberlain agreed as did his Cabinet colleagues.91 As a result, the British Ambassador at Berlin, Sir Horace Rumbold, was instructed on 2 April to inform the German Foreign Minister, Gustav Stresemann, that Britain was unable “to contemplate the revival in any shape or form” of the “former conventions” concerning the Portuguese colonies.92 The Foreign Office knew only too well the significance of the colonial issue for the Portuguese. In 1926, for example, responding to rumours of schemes to lease or buy Angola involving the President of the Reichsbank and future Economics Minister in the Third Reich, Hjalmar Schacht, Carnegie was adamant that the sensibilities of the Portuguese with regard to their colonies were “notorious” as were “their suspicions of the designs on them which various countries were suspected of harbouring”. He insisted that no Portuguese Government “would entertain for a moment any proposal involving the alienation either by lease or sale of any Portuguese overseas territory”.93 It was this awareness of Portuguese

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sensibilities which led Chamberlain in April 1929 to suggest that if the question should ever be raised at Lisbon it would be convenient for the Ambassador, Colville Barclay, to know “our attitude towards any revival of the old Anglo-German arrangement about the Portuguese colonies. Otherwise, we should not mention the subject”.94 This was sage advice and if any reminder was needed it came at the end of the period under review when Sir Claud Russell, in March 1933, reported the public response to rumours of Italian designs on the Portuguese colonies. According to the Ambassador: “The Government and the nation were quickly roused in defence of the one thing in which the Portuguese people are ardently united; namely, an uncompromising determination to keep their colonies”.95 At the same time, with the rumours in mind, the Portuguese Government expressed satisfaction that Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon and Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald had succeeded, during their recent visit to Rome, in removing from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s draft communiqué any reference to the future treatment of the colonial question.96 *** By this time also, the British had come to appreciate the greater stability created by the military regime headed by Salazar, even if it had been achieved at the cost of political democracy.97 Throughout the 1920s the officials at the Foreign Office had lamented the absence of a strong man in Portugal capable of creating stability. For example, in January 1922 Eyre Crowe commended Prime Minster Francisco Pinto de Cunha Leal’s realisation that without force government in Portugal could not govern and advised that “what Portugal wants above all [is] a strong man”. Ronald Hugh Campbell, First Secretary in the League of Nations and Western Department, wrote in a similar vein in 1925 when he commented that “some form of military dictatorship is the only hope for this despairing country. Unfortunately they lack the man”.98 Following the military revolution in 1926 and as a result of his reforms, which created greater financial stability, Salazar came to be recognised in the Foreign Office as the strong man in the Portuguese Cabinet, even before his eventual appointment as Prime Minister in 1932.99 Although they recognised fascist tendencies in the developing Portuguese Estado Novo, officials such as the Head of the League of Nations and Western Department, Charles Howard Smith, considered it to be relatively benign, believing neither President Carmona nor Salazar to be “a Mussolini”.100 British recognition of Portugal as a stable country capable of maintaining order was also confirmed by the

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suppression of the revolts in the Azores and Madeira in April 1931 and in Portugal itself in August.101 At the same time, it was recognised that the Portuguese Government faced a potential threat from Portuguese revolutionaries acting in concert with Spanish left-wing organisations, both of whom were encouraged by the onset of the Second Spanish Republic in the spring of 1931. Branco emphasised this threat to Russell at the end of August1. The Foreign Minister was concerned for the future and thought that the time had come when Portugal and Britain would be forced to act together to save the whole peninsula from falling under communist rule.102 Fear of Spanish developments encouraged the Portuguese to lay further stress on the alliance with Britain, as the Chargé d’Affaires, Frederick Adam, noted in August 1931: “But the whole population is keenly alive to the fact that…it is the existence of the Alliance which at the moment prevents the neighbouring republic or its communist demagogues from attempting by peaceful penetration or propaganda the absorption of Portugal into an Iberian federation”.103 Despite British acceptance of the developing new state during 1931 and 1932, two issues arose which concerned British interest and which the Government could not ignore. The first was that of flag discrimination and the second immigration into Mozambique. With regard to the former, the Portuguese had for years instituted measures in favour of their mercantile marine, notably a remission of 10 per cent in customs duties charged on goods carried in Portuguese bottoms and preferential maritime and port dues. It was feared that if Portugal persisted in this discrimination other countries could follow suit with potentially disastrous consequences for British trade at a time of world economic depression.104 The issue was a constant source of questioning in the House of Commons105 and the Foreign Office, along with the Board of Trade, engaged in long and drawn out negotiations with Lisbon which concluded in late 1932 with Portuguese agreement to abolish flag discrimination in June 1934.106 The issue of immigration in Mozambique centred on a decree of July 1932 which was intended to preclude immigrants from entering the colony who could not speak and write a European language and another decree under consideration which would establish minimum salaries of various classes of workers. The Foreign Office believed these measures were discriminatory against British Indian subjects and would seriously affect British and Indian business interests in the colony.107 It was admitted that the Government had no treaty rights to protest against the enforcement of the decree since the Anglo-Portuguese Commercial Treaty of 1914 did not apply to the Portuguese colonies.108 Unable “to wave a stick” the Foreign Office settled for a compromise whereby the

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existing legitimate interests of British subjects employed in the Portuguese colonies would be safeguarded but the doors of Mozambique to British or British Indian immigration would be closed so that it was possible that British firms in the future would find it difficult to recruit “adequate staff”.109 *** British disdain at the political and economic instability of the Portuguese Republic, which only diminished when Salazar began to fulfil the role of the long awaited strong man and take effective control, was certainly a feature of Anglo-Portuguese relations during the period under review. It certainly accounted for the reluctance to support Portugal’s candidature for a seat on the Council of the League of Nations and for a time at least, particularly while Curzon was Foreign Secretary, to enhance the diplomatic relationship by elevating the Legation in Lisbon to an Embassy and allowing reciprocally the Portuguese to establish an Embassy in London. As Assistant Under Secretary Sir George Mounsey remarked in 1932, the Portuguese “do impossible things and then do listen quite reasonably to our remonstrances even though slow in effecting the necessary remedies”.110 Portuguese reticence or stubbornness in meeting constant British requests was certainly irksome to the Foreign Office but almost always the Portuguese acceded eventually to British pressure, unless it threatened Portuguese sovereignty with regard to their African colonies. Hence, they were prepared under British prompting to make the Mozambique Convention in 1928 with the Union of South Africa because it did not threaten Portuguese sovereignty whereas Smuts’ earlier proposals concerning the Delagoa Bay railway and port facilities were perceived as undermining Portuguese control in their East African colony. Although Salazar was extremely reluctant to compensate the Nyassa Company for the loss of its charter, a compromise was eventually worked out in deference to British pressure even though the Foreign Office recognised that the company had no moral grounds whatever to expect to retain the charter. Mounsey’s query, whether it was in the long run “ever good policy to espouse a bad cause” was salient in this context.111 The Portuguese were prepared on occasions to put up with perceived British aloofness and indifference, and on others with real criticism and pressure, not to say occasional bullying, which was naturally unwelcome, and to accede to British demands because the alliance was by far the best safeguard for Portugal’s independence in face of the historic Spanish ambition to reunite the Iberian peninsula and for maintaining the integrity

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of the Portuguese empire against potential predator powers, such as the Union of South Africa and a revived Germany. Indeed, it was largely because of the strategic significance of the alliance, reaffirmed in 1927, that the British Government would not countenance any suggestion to revive the Anglo-German pre-war conventions with Weimar Germany nor to encourage the imperialistic ambitions of the Smuts and Herzog Governments in the Union of South Africa. It is worth noting in this connection, that when the Assembly of the League of Nations convened a Committee of Nineteen in March 1932 to negotiate an end to the Manchurian Crisis Britain voted for Portuguese rather than South African membership.112 While the consolidation of the Estado Novo after 1932 was welcome to Britain, no effort was made to create an effective relationship with Portugal and the Portuguese continued to complain as they had in the 1920s about British indifference and aloofness and the absence of real cooperation. In January 1936 the Portuguese Foreign Minister, Dr Armindo Monteiro, complained to Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, at Geneva, that Anglo-Portuguese relations were by no means satisfactory, that there was no real cooperation between them and particularly insufficient cooperation on matters of policy which were of “vital concern” to Portugal’s future.113 At the time and predictably, the British response was scarcely enthusiastic or conciliatory but within a matter of months and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 Portugal’s international significance increased considerably and for the first time the British were confronted with serious rivals, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in their relations with Portugal. Unlike previously, they were compelled to take a whole series of effective and proactive measures to retain the good will of the Salazar regime. Certainly, from the summer of 1936 onwards Portugal was no longer held in low esteem by her British ally and could not be taken for granted.114

Notes 1

See H. Temperley and L.M. Penson (eds), Foundations of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt to Salisbury, 1792-1902 (London, 1966), pp. 341-3 and R. Anstey, Britain and the Congo in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1962), pp. 86-8. 2 See P.H.S. Hatton, “Harcourt and Solf: The Search for an Anglo-German Understanding through Africa, 1912-1914”, European Studies Review, 1, 2 (1971); R.T.B. Langhorne, “Anglo-German Negotiations concerning the Future of the Portuguese Colonies, 1911-1914”, Historical Journal, 16, 2 (1973); and J. Vincent-Smith, “The Anglo-German Negotiations over the Portuguese Colonies in Africa, 1911-1914”, Historical Journal, 17, 3 (1974).

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Minute by Lord Eustace Percy on [Sir Lancelot] Carnegie, to Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 15 Jul.1915. J. Vincent-Smith, AngloPortuguese Relations, 1910-1916, unpublished University of London Ph.D. thesis, 1971, p. 299. 4 J. Vincent-Smith, “Britain, Portugal and the First World War, 1914-1916”, European Studies Review, 4, 3 (1974), p. 238. 5 G. Smith, “The British Government and the Disposition of the German Colonies in Africa, 1914-1918” in P. Gifford and W.R. Louis (eds), Britain and Germany in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule (Yale, 1967), p. 289. See also R. Hyam, The Failure of South African Expansion, 1908-1948 (London, 1972), pp. 28-30. 6 W.R. Louis, Great Britain and Germany’s Lost Colonies, 1914-1919 (Oxford, 1967), p. 152. 7 D. Wheeler, Republican Portugal: A Political History, 1910-1926 (Wisconsin, 1978), pp. 155-6. 8 T. Gallagher, Portugal: A Twentieth Century Interpretation, (Manchester, 1983), p. 33. T. Gallagher, “The Mystery Train: Portugal’s Military Dictatorship, 19261932”, European Studies Review, vol. 11, 3 (1981), pp. 327-9. 9 Lord George Curzon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to Sir Lancelot Carnegie, British Minister at Lisbon, 28 Sept.1920. The National Archives (TNA), FO371/5491, W449/449/36. 10 Minute by Curzon, 13 May 1921, TNA, FO371/7109, W2606/2606/36. 11 Carnegie to Curzon, 6 Oct. 1920, TNA, FO371/5491, W1046/449/36. 12 “Portugal: Annual Report 1923” enclosed in Carnegie to James Ramsay MacDonald, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister, 4 Feb. 1924, TNA, FO371/10590, W1580/1580/36. 13 “Portugal: Annual Report 1924” enclosed in Carnegie to Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 18 Feb.1925, TNA, FO371/11090, W1512/1512/36. 14 Hugh Grant Watson, British Chargé d’Affaires at Lisbon, to Chamberlain, 4 Aug. 1925, TNA, FO371/11087, W7630/24/36. 15 Carnegie to [now Sir Austen] Chamberlain, 4 Feb. 1926, TNA, FO371/11927, W990/12/36. Gerald Hyde Villiers, Head of the League of Nations and Western Department of the Foreign Office responsible for relations with Portugal, commented on Carnegie’s despatch: “This is worth reading. What a country!” Minute by Villiers, 9 Feb. 1926. Ibid. 16 3 Jun. 1926. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, HC, vol. 196, cc. 9289. 17 Carnegie to Chamberlain, 21 Jun. 1926, TNA, FO371/11927, W5917/12/36. 18 Grant Watson to Chamberlain, 16 Jul. 1926, TNA, FO371/11827, W6662/12/36. 19 Foreign Office Memorandum, Villiers, 9 Aug. 1926, TNA, FO371/11927, W6960/12/36. 20 Chamberlain to Grant Watson, 20 Jul. 1926. Minute by Sir Victor Wellesley, Deputy Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, 27 Jul. 1926, TNA, FO371/11927, W6717/W6960/12/36.

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21 Minutes by Sir John Gregory, Assistant Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, and Chamberlain, 31 Jul. and 2 Aug. 1926, TNA, FO371/11927, W6960/12/36. 22 Francis d’Arcy Godolphin Osborne, British Chargé d’Affaires at Lisbon, to Lord Cushendun, Acting Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 17 Aug. 1928, TNA, FO371/13421, W7961/73/36. 23 “Portugal: Annual Report 1928” enclosed in Sir Adrian de Rune Colville Barclay, British Ambassador at Lisbon, to Chamberlain, 8 Mar. 1929, TNA, FO371/14159, W2291/2291/36. Alexander Leeper, First Secretary in the League of Nations and Western Department, commented that it was “an excellent report: very clear, comprehensive and readable”. Minute, 23 Sept. 1929. Ibid. 24 Carnegie to Curzon, 12 Nov. 1919, TNA, FO371/4119, 153682/692/41. 25 Carnegie to Chamberlain, 13 Oct. 1927, TNA, FO371/12711, W9844/4573/36. 26 Sir Francis Lindley, British Ambassador at Lisbon, to Arthur Henderson, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 23 Oct. 1930, TNA, FO425/406, W11381/2123/98. 27 Foreign Office to Leo Amery, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 15 Sept. 1926, TNA, FO371/12709, W8748/3569/36. 28 Carnegie to Chamberlain, 13 Oct. 1927, TNA, FO371/12711, W9844/4573/36. 29 According to an old “Foreign Office List”, the last British Ambassador at Lisbon was Frederick Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, appointed in 1827. His successor, appointed in November 1833, was designated as a Minister. See Grant Watson to MacDonald, 12 Jul. 1924, TNA, FO371/10590, W5983/2495/36. 30 Foreign Office Memorandum by Terence Shone, Second Secretary in the League of Nations and Western Department, 25 Mar. 1924, TNA, FO371/10590, W2900/2495/36. 31 Carnegie to the Foreign Office, 20 Jan. 1922. The Foreign Office to Carnegie, 26 Jan. 1922. TNA, FO371/8370, W664/272/36. 32 Minute by Sir Eyre Crowe, Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, 27 Jun. 1922, TNA, FO371/8370, W6673/272/36. 33 Minute by Curzon, 1 Aug. 1922, TNA, FO371/8370, W6675/272/36. 34 Minute by Eyre Crowe, 2 Aug. 1922, TNA, FO371/8370, W6675/272/36. For Crowe’s friendly relations with Gomes, including social contact at the Paris Peace Conference in late 1919 and the Brussels Conference in the summer of 1920, see the Permanent Under Secretary’s personal correspondence with his wife, Lady Clema Crowe (née von Bonin), including letters dated 17, 23 and 29 Dec. 1919, 1 and 5 January 1920, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 14 Jul. 1920, The Papers of Sir Eyre Crowe (Bodleian Library), ms. Eng. d.2905 and d.2906. 35 Minute by Balfour, 10 Aug. 1922, TNA, FO371/8370, W6674/272/36. 36 Carnegie to Sir William Tyrrell, Deputy Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, 12 Sept. 1922, TNA, FO371/8370, W7655/272/36. 37 Carnegie to Curzon, 9 Oct. 1922. Curzon to Carnegie, 1 Nov.1922, TNA, FO371/8370, W8598/W8633/272/36. 38 Foreign Office memorandum by Shone, 25 Mar. 1924, TNA, FO371/10590, W2900/2495/36. For Portuguese concerns with regard to the cable concession

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issue see minute by Eyre Crowe of a meeting with the Portuguese Minister, Manuel Texeira Gomes, 1 Dec. 1922, TNA, FO371/8370, W9859/272/36. 39 Foreign Office memorandum by Shone, including minute by Curzon, 25 Mar.1924, TNA, FO371/10590, W2900/2495/36. In his minute Curzon deprecated “the movement to create Embassies everywhere”, lamented the decision to create an embassy in Brazil and complained that the enhanced prestige acquired by Belgium as a result of the establishment of an Embassy in Brussels had been “a source of unmitigated embarrassment ever since”. 40 Minute by Villiers, 26 Mar.1924, TNA, FO371/10590, W2900/2495/36. 41 MacDonald to Carnegie, 3 Apr. 1924, TNA, FO371/10590, W2495/2495/36. 42 Minute by MacDonald, 8 May 1924. Minute by Walford Selby, Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, attaching relevant papers to MacDonald, 8 May 1924, TNA, FO371/10590, W4012/2495/36. 43 MacDonald to Carnegie, 17 May 1924. Augusto da Castro, Portuguese Minister at London, to MacDonald, 29 May 1924. MacDonald to Castro, 31 May 1924. TNA, FO371/10590, W4012/W4448/2495/36. 44 Neither Churchill nor Battenburg was well disposed towards Portugal at this time because of the recent overthrow of the Portuguese Monarchy and the establishment of the Portuguese Republic. See J. Vincent-Smith, “The Portuguese Republic and Britain, 1910-1914”, Journal of Contemporary History, 10, 4 (1975), pp. 709, 711. 45 Admiralty War Staff Memorandum, 18 Dec. 1912, TNA, FO371/2105 (40102) or FO367/342 (7899). 46 Foreign Office Memorandum by Sir Eyre Crowe, 12 Feb.1913, TNA, FO367/342 (7899). 47 Memorandum by Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to the Cabinet, 30 Jul. 1913. TNA, FO371/1741 (36217). 48 16 Mar. 1926. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, HC, vol. 193, c. 254. 49 Minute by Sir William Tyrrell, Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, 18 Mar. 1926, TNA, FO371/11933, W2290/1696/36. 50 José Norton de Mattos, Portuguese Ambassador at London, to Chamberlain, 21 Mar. 1926. Carnegie to Tyrrell, 31 Mar. 1926, TNA, FO371/11933, W2290/W2879/1696/36. 51 Gregory to Carnegie, 12 Apr. 1926, TNA, FO371/11933, W2879/1696/36. 52 “Memorandum on the Foreign Policy of His Majesty’s Government, with a list of British Commitments in their Relative Order of Importance”, undated but submitted under cover of a minute of 10 Apr. 1926, by Gregory to Chamberlain. Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, series IA, vol. I, app. I, pp. 8534. 53 Wheeler, Republican Portugal, p. 218. W.G. Clarence-Smith, The Third Portuguese Empire, 1825-1975: A Study in Economic Imperialism (Manchester, 1985), p. 140. For the pre-war humanitarian campaigns against Portuguese forced labour in her colonies and Foreign Office involvement see G. Stone, “The Foreign Office and Forced Labour in Portuguese West Africa, 1894-1914” in K. Hamilton

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and P. Salmon (eds), Slavery, Diplomacy and Empire: Britain and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, 1807-1975 (Brighton, 2009). 54 Chamberlain, at Geneva, to Tyrrell, 18 Sept. 1927, TNA, FO371/12711, W8897/4573/36. 55 Memorandum by Sir Austen Chamberlain on the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, 24 Oct. 1927. TNA, CAB 24/189, C.P. 255 (27). 56 TNA, CAB 23/55 C.M. 53 (27), 2 Nov. 1927. 57 Chamberlain to Carnegie, 1 Dec. 1927. Chamberlain to Carnegie, 15 Dec. 1927, TNA, FO371/12711, W11195/W11794/4573/36. 58 21 Dec. 1927. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, HC, vol. 212, c. 385. 59 Carnegie to Chamberlain, 29 Dec. 1927. Foreign Office to the Admiralty, 12 Jan. 1928, TNA, FO371/13422, W101/101/36. 60 Barclay to Chamberlain, 15 Jul. 1928, TNA, FO371/13428, W6898/1559/36. 61 Foreign Office to Air Ministry, 6 Aug. 1928, TNA, FO371/13428, W6898/1559/36. 62 TNA, CAB4/18, CID 910-B: “Concessions and Facilities in Portuguese Atlantic Ports in Connection with Aviation Schemes, 22 August 1928”. 63 TNA, CAB4/18, CID 910-6: Note by the [Committee of Imperial Defence] Secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey, 16 Oct. 1928. Cushenden to Osborne, 11 Sept.1928, TNA, FO371/13428, W8450/1559/36. 64 Osborne to Cushenden, 20 Sept. 1928, TNA, FO371/13428, W9920/1559/36. 65 Barclay to Chamberlain, 1 Nov. 1928, TNA, FO371/13428, W10623/1559/36. 66 22 Jul. 1929. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, HC, vol. 230, cc. 8834. 67 TNA, FO371/20512, W825/762/36. This particular Foreign Office memorandum is indexed as appearing in FO 371/14990, W11381/2123/98 but within the volume and file there is no trace of such. The information which appears here is taken from a reference to the memorandum in one of a series of minutes representing a discussion on the value of the alliance amongst Foreign Office officials in Jan.Feb.1936. 68 C.F.G. Muller, “Southern Africa: Mozambique, Belgian Congo and Angola” in T. Wheeler (ed.), History of the South African Department of Foreign Affairs, 1927-1993 (Cape Town, 2005), pp. 168-9. 69 Paraphrase Telegram from the Governor General of the Union of South Africa, Sir Arthur Frederick, to Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 19 May 1922, transmitting message from Prime Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts to Curzon. Colonial Office to Foreign Office, 20 May 1922. Minute by Eyre Crowe, 22 May 1922, TNA, FO371/8373, W4335/860/36. For Smuts’ grand design for South East Africa at this time, including Mozambique, see R. Hyam and P. Henshaw, The Lion and the Springbok: Britain and South Africa since the Boer War (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 110-12. 70 Paraphrase Telegram, Frederick to Churchill, 19 May 1922, TNA, FO371/8373, W4335/860/36. 71 Carnegie to the Foreign Office, 3 Jun. 1922, TNA, FO371/8373, W4596/860/36. 72 Minute by Eyre Crowe, 27 Jun. 1922, TNA, FO371/8373, W5392/860/36.

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73 Paraphrase Telegram, Frederick to Churchill, transmitting message from Smuts to Curzon, 1 Jul. 1922. Foreign Office to Colonial Office, 8 Jul. 1922, TNA, FO371/8373, W5550/860/36. 74 “Renewal of Part I of the Mozambique-Transvaal Convention of April 1, 1909: Signed at Lisbon, March 31, 1923”. Parliamentary Papers, Treaty Series No. 10 (1923), cmd. 1888. 75 Chamberlain to Carnegie, 12 Nov. 1926, TNA, FO371/11935, W10607/10607/36. 76 Foreign Office to Dominions Office, 30 Jan. 1928, TNA, FO371/13424, W424/261/36. Secretary General of the League of Nations to the Council, circulating letter from the Portuguese Government, 6 Jun. 1928, TNA, FO371/13421, W5554/73/36. See also R. Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance, 1918-1939 (London, 1981), pp. 90-2 and the Round Table, 1927-1928, 18, pp. 883-6. 77 Carnegie to Chamberlain, 27 Oct. 1927. Jacobus Smit, Union of South Africa High Commissioner at London, to Chamberlain, 31 Oct. 1927. Carnegie to Chamberlain, 20 Oct. 1927, TNA, FO371/12710, W10213/W10237/W10006/ 3569/36. 78 Chamberlain to Balfour, 7 Nov. 1927. Chamberlain to Barry James Munnick Hertzog, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, 24 Nov.1927, TNA, FO371/12710, W10752/3569/36. 79 Chamberlain to Carnegie, 2 Feb. 1928, TNA, FO371/13424, W875/261/36. 80 Memorandum by Chamberlain, Geneva, 7 Mar. 1928, TNA, FO371/13422, W2327/101/36. 81 “Convention regarding Native Labour from Mozambique, Railway Matters and Commercial Intercourse, Pretoria, 11 September 1928”. Parliamentary Papers, Treaty Series No. 9 (1930), cmd. 3495. 82 B. Neil-Tomlinson, “The Nyassa Chartered Company: 1891-1929”, Journal of African History, 18, 1 (1977), p. 123. L. Vail, “Mozambique’s Chartered Companies: The Rule of the Feeble”, Journal of African History, 17, 3 (1976), p. 414. 83 Vail, “Mozambique’s Chartered Companies”, p. 408. 84 Long Minute by Frederick Hoyer Millar, Second Secretary in the League of Nations and Western Department, 10 Dec. 1929, TNA, FO371/15013, W67/67/36. 85 Minute by Sir Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, 25 Jan. 1930, TNA, FO371/15014, W696/696/36. 86 Foreign Office to Lindley, 10 Mar.1930. Lindley to the Foreign Office, 14 Mar. 1930, TNA, FO371/15014, W1808/W2649/67/36. 87 Lindley to the Foreign Office, 18 Mar. 1930, TNA, FO371/15014, W2768/67/36. 88 Minute by Hoyer Millar, 10 Dec. 1929. Lindley to Henderson, 23 Apr. 1930. The Foreign Office to Lord Kylsant, Jun. 1930, TNA, FO371/15013, W67/67/36 and FO371/15015, W4219/W5991/67/36. 89 Chamberlain to Carnegie, 14 Nov. 1924, TNA, FO371/10591, W9912/9912/ 36.

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90 Richard von Kühlmann to Sir William Tyrrell, British Ambassador at Paris, 19 Mar. 1929, TNA, FO371/13615, C2284/43/18. 91 Minute by John Victor Perowne, Second Secretary in the Central Department of the Foreign Office, 26 Mar. 1929. Minute by Chamberlain, 26 Mar. 1929, TNA, FO371/13615, C 2284/43/18. Also, TNA, CAB23/60, CM 13 (29), 26 Mar. 1929. 92 Chamberlain to Sir Horace Rumbold, British Ambassador at Berlin, 2 Apr. 1929, TNA, FO371/13615, C2359/43/18. 93 “Foreign Office Memorandum: Dr Schacht’s Colonial Propaganda”, 21 Jun. 1926, TNA, FO371/11303, C7296/539/18. 94 Minute by Chamberlain, 12 Apr. 1929. Orme Garton Sargent, Counsellor at the Foreign Office, to Barclay, 20 Apr. 1929, TNA, FO371/13615, C2541/43/18. 95 Sir Claud Russell, British Ambassador at Lisbon, to Sir John Simon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 25 Mar. 1933, TNA, FO371/17433, W4104/2294/36. 96 Simon to Russell, 30 Mar. 1933, TNA, FO371/17433, W3580/2294/36. 97 See, for example, Frederick Adam, British Chargé d’Affaires at Lisbon to Simon, 9 Jul. 1932, TNA, FO371/16492, W8163/43/36. 98 Minute by Eyre Crowe, 18 Jan. 1922. Minute by Ronald Hugh Campbell, First Secretary in the League of Nations and Western Department, 8 May 1925, TNA, FO371/8366, W502/11/36 and FO371/11086, W4005/24/36. 99 See, for example, minutes by Ivone Kirkpatrick, First Secretary in the League of Nations and Western Department, Aug. 1929, Charles Howard Smith, Head of the League of Nations and Western Department, 1 Mar. 1930, 18 Apr. 1931, 12 Jun. 1931, 27 Jun. 1932, 29 Jun. 1932, 28 Dec.1932 and Arthur Francis Wiggin, First Secretary in the League of Nations and Western Department, 29 Jun. 1932, TNA, FO371/14151, W7810/62/36. FO371/15019, W2330/151/36. FO371/15758, W4690/ W6987/801/36. FO371/16492, W7307/W7412/W13974/43/36. 100 Minute by Howard Smith, 3 Jun. 1932, TNA, FO371/16492, W6277/43/36. 101 For the revolts in Portugal and Madeira see File 1452, TNA, FO371/15762-4. 102 Russell to the Marquess of Reading, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 31 Aug. 1931, TNA, FO371/15758, W10424/801/36. 103 Adam to Reading, 19 Oct. 1931, TNA, FO371/15758, W12510/801/36. 104 Foreign Office Memorandum, Wiggin, 11 Jun. 1931, TNA, FO371/15760, W6156/856/36. 105 See Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, HC, vol. 244, cc. 827-8; vol. 245, cc. 1767-8; vol. 252, cc. 965-6; vol. 260, cc. 2236-7; vol. 261, cc. 1440-1; vol. 262, cc. 1457-8; vol. 264, cc. 795-6; and vol. 268, cc. 1092-3. 106 Russell to the Foreign Office, 29 Dec. 1932, TNA, FO371/16494,W14191/ 218/36. 107 Russell to Dr Cesar Sousa Mendes, Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2 Sept. 1932, TNA, FO371/16497, W10082/2261/36. 108 Circular Letter, Howard Smith to the Board of Trade, India Office, Colonial Office, Dominions Office and Home Office, 6 Oct. 1932, TNA, FO371/16497 W10582/2261/36. 109 Russell to Simon, 15 Dec. 1932, TNA, FO371/16497, W/14039/2261/36. The “stick” reference is made in a minute by Howard Smith, 30 Sept. 1932; he

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recognised that it might well turn out to be “a boomerang”. FO371/16497, W10582/2261/36. 110 Minute by Sir George Mounsey, Assistant Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, Dec. 1932, TNA, FO371/16497, W14039/2261/36. 111 Minute by Mounsey, 6 Sept. 1930, TNA, FO371/15015, W8986/67/36. See also Vail, “Mozambique’s Chartered Companies”, p. 415. 112 S. Pienaar, South Africa and International Relations between the Two World Wars: The League of Nations Dimension (Witwatersrand, 1987), p. 38. 113 Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to Sir Charles Wingfield, British Ambassador at Lisbon, 22 Jan.1936, TNA, FO371/20512, W771/762/36. 114 See G. Stone, The Oldest Ally: Britain and the Portuguese Connection, 19361941 (London, 1994).

CONTRIBUTORS

Carole Fink, Distinguished Humanities Professor of History at The Ohio State University, is the author of Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and International Minority Protection, 18781938 (2004) and The Genoa Conference: European Diplomacy, 19211922 (1984, new ed. 1993), both of which were awarded the George Louis Beer Prize of the American Historical Association, and Marc Bloch: A Life in History (1989), which has been translated into six languages, and editor of seven volumes, including Ostpolitik, 1969-1974: The European and Global Response (2009); 1956: European and Global Perspectives (2006); Human Rights in Europe since 1945 (2003), and 1968: The World Transformed (1998). She has written some fifty articles and chapters on contemporary European history. John Fisher obtained his Ph.D from the University of Leeds in 1996. He is Senior Lecturer in International History at the University of the West of England, Bristol. He has published widely on aspects of British foreign policy with special reference to the Middle East and North Africa in the period 1870 to 1930. He is currently completing a biography of the British diplomat, William Garnett. Erik Goldstein is a Professor of International Relations and of History at Boston University. He was previously Professor of International History and Deputy head of the School of History at the University of Birmingham, England, and was a US Secretary of the Navy Senior Research Fellow at the Naval War College, Newport, R.I. The founding editor of the journal Diplomacy and Statecraft, he is the author of numerous books and articles on British foreign policy. Gaynor Johnson is Senior Lecturer in International History at the University of Salford, UK. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, she is a member of the executive committees of the British International History Group and the British International Studies Association. She is the author and editor of a number of books on twentieth century international history including The Berlin Embassy of Lord D’Abernon, 1920-1926 (2002); Locarno Revisited: European Diplomacy 1920-1929

254

Contributors

(2004) and Our Man in Berlin: the Diary of Sir Eric Phipps, 1933-1937 (2008). She is currently writing a book about Lord Robert Cecil, Viscount Cecil of Chelwood and is a By-Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge. Carolyn Kitching is Reader in British International History at Teesside University. She has written widely on disarmament, including Britain and the Problem of International Disarmament, 1919-34 (1999) and Britain and the Geneva Disarmament Conference, 1932-34 (2003). Other works include ‘The search for disarmament: Anglo-French relations, 1929-1934’ in Anglo-French Relations in the Twentieth Century, (Sharp and Stone (eds.), 2000), ‘Britain and the Irrelevance of Disarmament’ in Locarno Revisited: European Diplomacy 1920-1929 (G. Johnson, (ed.), 2004) and ‘Sunk Before We Started? Anglo-American Rivalry at the Coolidge Naval Conference, 1927’ in Arms and Disarmament in Diplomacy (K. Hamilton and E. Johnson (eds.), 2008). Antony Lentin, formerly a Professor of History at the Open University, is a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Barrister. He is the author of Guilt at Versailles: Lloyd George and the Pre-History of Appeasement (1985), Lloyd George and the Lost Peace: from Versailles to Hitler 1919-1940 (2001), The Last Political Law Lord: Lord Sumner (1859-1934) (2009), and General Smuts (2010) in the series on the peace conferences edited by Alan Sharp. His other main specialism is in eighteenth-century Russia, on which he has published widely. Lorna Lloyd is Reader in International Relations at Keele University. Her research focuses on political, diplomatic and legal aspects of the Commonwealth, the League of Nations, and the United Nations, and the pursuit within these organizations of national ends. Her major works are Peace through Law. Britain and the International Court in the 1920s (1997) and Diplomacy with a Difference. The Commonwealth Office of High Commissioner, 1870-2006 (2007). She also wrote the chapters on the United Nations in International Organization in World Politics (co-authors, David Armstrong and John Redmond, 3rd ed., 2004). She has served as Covenor of the British International Studies Association’s (BISA) Group on Diplomacy; chair of the International Law Section of International Studies Association; and on the committee of BISA’s International History Group.

Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939

255

Gordon Martel is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Northern British Columbia and Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Victoria (Canada). Some of his works include: The Origins of the First World War; Imperial Diplomacy: Rosebery and the Failure of Foreign Policy; The Times and Appeasement: The Journals of A.L. Kennedy, 1932-39; A Companion to International History, 1900-2001 and The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered. He is Editor-in-Chief of the 6-volume Encyclopedia of War and is completing a book-length manuscript entitled ‘Political Intelligence in Great Britain’. T.G. Otte, M.A., Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in Diplomatic History at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. He specialises in international and military history, c. 1750-1918, and is the author or editor of eight books, the most recent being The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894-1905 ( 2007) and The Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1854-1946 ( 2009). He is a Trustee of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical Collection. Glyn Stone is Professor of International History at the University of the West of England, Bristol. He is the author of The Oldest Ally: Britain and the Portuguese Connection, 1936-1941 (1994), Spain, Portugal and the Great Powers, 1931-1941 (2005) and co-editor with Dick Richardson of Decisions and Diplomacy: Essay in Twentieth Century International History (Routledge, 1996), with Alan Sharp, Anglo-French Relations in the Twentieth Century: Rivalry and Cooperation (2000), and with T.G. Otte, Anglo-French Relations since the Late Eighteenth Century (2008). He is Secretary of the British International History Group, a member of the Council of the Royal Historical Society and a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College. David Watson was educated at the University of Oxford and the Ecole des Sciences Politiques, Paris. He taught European history at the University of Dundee for almost forty years, specialising in French and Russian history. He published Georges Clemenceau, a Political Biography (1974); since retirement he has continued to research and write on the history of the Third French Republic and on the international history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Recent publications include “France, Europe and the World” in J. McMillan (ed.), Short Oxford History of France, Modern France (2003). "French assistance to Russian armament production, 1914-17" in K. Hamilton and E. Johnson (eds), Arms and Disarmament in Diplomacy (2008) and Georges Clemenceau: France in

256

Contributors

the Hauss series Makers of the Modern World, the Peace Conferences of Paris, 1919-23 (2008).

INDEX

Abyssinian crisis, 189, 198. Adam, Frederick, 244. Adams, Charles Francis, 8. Afghanistan, 33. Akers-Douglas, Aretas, 30. Alfred the Great, 8. Ali, Hussain bin, 123. Allen, Adeline Marian, 204. Allied Supreme Council, 123, 124, 125. Almeida, António José de, 229. d’Amade, Albert, 56, 65. American Alfred Millenary Committee, 8. American Civil War, 4, 10. American Department, 30. Amery, Leopold, 58. Anglican Church, 3. Anglo-American League, 9, 10, 11. Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 138, 139. Anglo-Portuguese Commercial Treaty, 244. Anglo-Soviet commercial agreement, 37, 66, 68. Anglo-Turkish War Cemeteries Commission, 72. Asquith, Herbert, 52, 60, 64, 186. Athenaeum, 4. Atlantic Union, 11. Australia, 156, 157, 170, 171, 172, 173. Austro-Hungarian Empire, 138, 141, 215. Bailloud, Maurice, 57. Bainville, Jacques, 115. Baker, Ray Stannard, 86.

Baldwin, Stanley, 36, 38, 39, 40, 191. Balfour, Arthur James, 22, 26, 30, 56, 64, 67, 68, 83, 96, 123, 124, 128, 130, 170, 184, 214, 215, 230, 231, 239. Balfour Declaration, 127, 128, 129, 131, 172. Barclay, Adrian de Rune Colville, 228, 243. Barreto, Mello, 225. Baruch, Bernard, 88. Battenburg, Prince Louis, 233. Bayard, Thomas, 4, 7. Beaverbrook, Lord, 66, 214. Belgium, 24, 25. Benedict XV, Pope, 124. Beresford, Charles, 7. Besant, Walter, 11. Birkenhead, Lord, 94. Birdwood, General, 61. Bismarck, Otto von, 109. Bliss, Howard, 125. Blockade, Ministry of, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27. Boer War, 7, 220, 235. Bombay Company, 205. Bombay Volunteer Rifles, 209. Bonaparte, Napoleon, 109. Bonar Law, Andrew, 64, 67, 90, 94. Bottomley, Horatio, 90, 92. Bouchier, James, 55. Braithwaite, Walter, 65. Branco, Fernando Augusto, 229, 244. Brandeis, Louis, 127. Briand, Aristide, 105, 110, 111, 114, 117, 168.

Index

258 Briand Plan, 196. Britain, border dispute with Venezuela, 3, 5, 11. Disarmament, 5, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 190. Relations with France, 20, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 59, 61, 85-6, 88, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 136, 137-8, 142, 144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 161, 188, 190, 199. Relations with Germany, 138, 199, 209, 212, 218, 228, 238, 242, 243, 246. Relations with Portugal, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246. Relations with the United States, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 39, 85, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94-5, 96, 97, 104, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 143, 145, 146, 169, 189, 191, 197, 199. British Committee for the Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of Peace Among British Speaking Peoples, 12. British Empire, 3, 4, 7, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174. British Empire Delegations, 162-3.



British Foreign and Bible Society, 7. British Graves Registration Unit, 69. British Council, 217, 218. Brittain, Harry, 11, 13. Bruce, Stanley, 160. Bryant, Arthur, 12. Bryce, James, 3-4, 8, 10. Buchan, John, 212, 214, 215. Cabeçadas, José Mendes, 227. Cadogan, Alexander, 21. Caillaux, Joseph, 117. Cambon, Paul, 110. Campbell, Hugh, 243. Campbell-Bannerman, Henry, 138. Canada, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173. Carlyle, Thomas, 4, 6, 13. Carmona, António Oscar de Fragoso, 227, 243. Carnegie, Andrew, 5. Carnegie Endowment, 4, 189. Carnegie, Lancelot, 226, 227, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 240, 241, 242. Castro, Augusto, 232. Cecil, Lord Robert, 20, 21, 22, 24, 82, 87, 95, 148, 149, 150, 151, 161, 165, 167, 170, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 215. Central Department, 28, 30. Chamberlain, Austen, 29, 36, 38, 39, 40, 83, 91, 94, 105, 163-4, 167, 171, 186, 188, 189, 190, 227, 228, 229, 234-5, 240. Chamberlain, Joseph, 7, 13. Chamberlain, Neville, 190, 191, 194. Cheetham, Miles, 30. Choate, Joseph, 4, 7, 8. Churchill, Winston, 39, 55, 59, 64, 70, 109, 115, 143, 233. Cincinnatus, 106-107.

Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939 Clarke, George, 7. Clemenceau, Georges, 89, 93, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 125, 126, 127, 128, 142. Cold War, 184, 217. Columbian Exposition, 11. Committee of Imperial Defence, 146, 148, 150, 236. Congress of Vienna, 193. Contraband Department, 21. Coolidge, Calvin, 106, 112. Corelli, Mary, 6. Costa, Manuel de Oliveira Gomes da, 227. Council of Ten, 23. Court of International Justice, 157. Crane, Charles, 126. Crewe, Marquess of, 30, 64. Crimean War, 136. Cromer, Lord, 53, 54. Crowe, Eyre, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 150, 230, 233, 235, 238. Crucy, Francois, 111. Cunliffe, Lady, 84. Cunliffe, Lord, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85-86, 87, 88, 89, 90-1, 92, 94, 95, 96-7. Curzon,George, 23, 27, 29, 31, 34, 35, 39, 40, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 128, 152, 170, 225, 230, 231, 232, 239, 245. Curzon Committee, 224-5. Dandurand, Raoul, 160, 166, 167, 169. Dardanelles Committee, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71. Davies, David, 197. Davies, General, 61.



259

Davis, Norman, 88, 89, 90. Dawes Report, 36. DeBois, W.E.B., 130. Depew, Chauncey, 12. Derby, Earl of, 22, 26-7, 60. Deschanel, 107, 108. Disarmament, 5, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 190. Dixon, Frederick, 189. Doherty, Senator, 166, 167, 168. Donald, Robert, 213, 214. Douglas, James, 112-3. Doyle, Arthur Conan, 10, 12. Drummond, Eric, 219. Dulles, John Foster, 88, 95. Duma, 212. Eastern Department, 27, 69. Eastern Thrace, 25, 33, 34. Eden, Anthony, 188, 191, 197, 246. Edward VII, King, 9, 11. Elizabeth I, Queen, 184. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 4. English-Speaking Union, 11. Entente Cordiale, 188. Esher, Lord, 58, 147-8. Esher Plan, 148, 149. Eupen and Malmédy, 25. European Union, 196, 197. Faisal, King, 126, 129, 130, 131. Fife, Duke of, 10. First World War, 13, 14, 22, 31, 41, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 105, 129, 130, 131, 136, 138, 140, 156, 157, 184, 185, 186, 187, 191, 192, 193, 198, 204, 206, 224, 225, 227, 228, 229, 230, 232, 235. Gallipoli campaign, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71. Fisher, Lord, 53-54. Foch, Marshal, 106, 107, 113, 115.

Index

260 Foreign Office, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41. Foreign Publicity Department, 219. Fourteen Points, 24, 143. France, relations with Britain, 20, 26, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 40, 59, 61, 85-6, 88, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 136, 137138, 142, 143, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 161, 188, 190, 199. Little Entente, 143. Relations with Russia, 138, 139, 141. Relations with the United States, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114, 115, 116, 199. Frankfurter, Felix, 127. Fraser, Lovat, 53, 54. Gallipoli Campaign, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71. Gandhi, Mahatma, 130. Garrison, Isabel Inez de Guzman, 6. Geddes, Auckland, 31. General Confederation of Labour, 227. Geneva Naval Conference, 186, 189, 193. Geneva Protocol, 38, 151-152, 163, 168, 171. George V, King, 230. German Department, 28. German Unification, 136. Germany, admission to the League of Nations, 163, 242. Bolshevism, 90-91. Relations with Britain, 138, 209, 212, 218, 228, 238, 242, 243, 246.



Versailles, Treaty of, 23, 24, 25, 26, 80, 83, 84-85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92-3, 94, 95, 96. Ghent, Treaty of, 12. Girodon, Pierre, 57, 58. Glasgow, George, 211. Gleichen, Edward, 214. Gomes Manuel Texeira, 230. Gouraud, Henri, 57. Graham, Ronald, 22. Greece, relations with Turkey, 32, 33, 34, 51, 58, 59, 68, 69, 70, 71, 171. Gregory, John, 227. Gresham, Walter, 5. Grey, Edward, 12, 18, 19, 21, 22, 39, 40, 54, 59, 66, 67, 138, 139, 186. Hague Peace Conference, 5, 19, 31, 137. Hailsham, Lord, 237. Haldane, Lord, 138, 215. Halifax, Lord, 191. Hamilton, Ian, 55, 56, 61, 62, 65, 68. Hankey, Maurice, 39, 40, 59, 64, 65, 68, 86, 148, 192, 193, 196. Harding, Warren, 145. Hardinge, Lord, 18, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 30, 39, 215. Harvard, John, 6, 13. Hawkins, Anthony Hope, 12. Hay, John, 4, 10. Headlam-Morley, James, 38, 81-2, 84, 204, 214. Henderson, Arthur, 151, 237. Herbert, Aubrey, 66. Herriot, Edouard, 36, 39, 112, 190. Hertzog, General, 159-60, 173, 238, 239, 240. Hitler, Adolf, 188, 191, 197, 217, 218. Hoare, Samuel, 218. Hobhouse, Henry, 207.

Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939 Hoover, Herbert, 113. House, Edward Mandell, 88, 89, 90, 92. Howard, Esme, 31. Hughes, Charles Evans, 145. Hughes, William, 70, 82, 88, 92, 95. Imperial Conference, 68-9. Imperial War Graves Commission, 69. India, 156, 159, 164, 173, 174. Inter-Allied Control Commissions, 140. International Labour Office, 157, 161. Ireland, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 167, 169-70, 172-173. Ismay, Lord, 9. Jeanneney, Jules, 113. Joffre, General, 68. John, Augustus, 87. Jones, Thomas, 87. Kemal, Mustafa, 33, 34. Kellogg-Briand Pact, 112, 189. Kemal, Mustapha, 130. Keynes, John Maynard, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89, 93-4, 95, 96, 104, 109, 111, 113, 115. Kievan Rus, 211. King, Henry Churchill, 126. King-Crane Commission, 130. Kipling, Rudyard, 10. Kitchener, Lord, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, 210. Kühlmann, Richard von, 242. Lamont, Thomas, 88-9, 90, 93, 94. Lampson, Miles, 30. Lansdowne, Lord, 64, 68. Lansing, Robert, 125. Laski, Harold, 87. Lausanne Conference, 70-1, 72. Lausanne, Treaty of, 34, 35, 71. League of Nations, 24, 112, 122, 123, 125, 127, 130, 136, 139, 140, 142, 144, 145, 147, 148, 151, 152, 153, 156-7, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167,



261

169-70, 171, 172, 173, 174, 186-7, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199, 228, 229, 231, 235, 237, 239, 240, 242, 243, 245, 246. League of Nations Assembly, 156, 160, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 170, 172, 246. League of Nations Council, 144, 145, 149, 150, 156, 158, 160, 162, 167, 170, 171, 188, 229, 237, 245. League of Nations Covenant, 139, 140, 141-2, 143, 144, 150, 151, 156, 157, 169, 174, 189-90, 194. League of Nations Department, 232. League of Nations Financial Commission, 239-40. League of Nations High Commission for Refugees, 198. League of Nations Information Section, 169. League of Nations Union, 161. Leal, Francisco Pinto de Cunha, 243. Leeper, Alexander, 204, 207. Leeper, Allen, 205. Leeper, Reginald (Rex), 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220. Lenin, Vladimir, 127. Leverton-Harris, Frederick, 21. Lévi, Sylvain, 125. Lindley, Francis, 30, 229. Lindsay, Ronald, 30, 236. Little Entente, 143, 165, 170. Litvinov, Maxim, 215. Lloyd, George, 65. Lloyd George, David, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 31, 34, 36, 69, 70, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91-2, 94, 95, 104, 108, 109, 115, 118, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 186, 191, 192, 193, 195-6, 204, 215, 216.

Index

262 Locarno Conference, 29, 38, 39, 40. Locarno Pact, 40, 41, 105, 112, 114, 190, 242. Locker Lampson, Godfrey, 227, 233. Lockhart, Bruce, 213. London Conference, 19, 36. Loraine, Percy, 30. Loucheur, Louis, 89. Louw, Eric, 169. Luddendorf, General, 109. Lytton, Lord, 165. MacDonald, Ramsay, 29, 36, 37, 148, 151, 164, 167, 190, 191, 196, 207, 232, 243. Mack, Julien, 127. MacKenzie King, William Lyon, 160, 166, 171, 173. Macleay, J.W.R., 30. Madariaga, Salvador de, 141. Mallet, Louis, 30. Malvy, 113, 114. Manchuria, 165, 190, 193, 246. Manila Bay, Battle of, 5. Massey, Vincent, 68-9. Mattos, José Mendes Rebeiro Norton de, 232. Maurice, Frederick, 147. McCormick, Vance, 81, 86, 88. McMahon, Henry, 123. McKinley, John, 5, 8. Mehmed VI, 33. Meyer, William, 66. Middle East Department, 28. Millerand, Alexandre, 58, 107, 108, 110. Milner, Alfred, 22, 23, 67, 69, 215, 225. Ministry of Information, 219. Monet, Claude, 111. Monro, Charles, 61. Monroe Doctrine, 7, 189. Montagu, Edwin, 83, 89, 93, 128. Mordacq, General, 113, 118. Morel, E.D., 130. Morganthau, Henry, 127.



Morris, Edward, 6. Motor Bicycle Corps, 210. Moule, Mary, 204. Mounsey, George, 245. Mozambique Convention, 238, 239, 245. Munich Crisis, 191, 219. Mussolini, Benito, 188, 191, 243. Mutual Guarantee, Treaty of, 148, 149, 150. Namier, Lewis, 211. National Trust, 6. Neuray, Fernand, 117. New Diplomacy, 17, 30, 193. New Zealand, 156, 159, 160, 161, 170, 171, 172, 173. News Department, 205, 211, 217, 219. Nicholas II, Tsar, 137. Nicolson, Arthur, 18, 19, 21, 24. Nicolson, Harold, 26, 38, 81, 86-7, 104. Noel-Baker, Philip, 189. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 196, 197. Northcliffe, Lord, 89, 90. Northcliffe Press, 216. Northern Department, 205. Northern Epirus, 25. Nyassa Company, 228, 238, 241, 245. Old Diplomacy, 24, 30-1,193. Olney, Richard, 5, 7. Olney-Paunceforte Treaty, 5. O’Malley, Owen, 20. Optional Clause, 164, 167, 172. Orpen, William, 87. Osborne, Francis d’Arcy Godolphin, 228. Ottoman Empire, 122, 123, 129, 137-8, 143. Pages, Walter Hines, 4. Painlevé, Paul, 112. Palestine, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131. Pankhurst, Christabel, 21.

Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939 Pares, Richard, 215. Paris Peace Conference, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 95, 96, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 157, 170, 196, 225, 228. Palestine question, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131. Parker, Alwyn, 23. Parmoor, Lord, 152. Pasha, Ismet, 70, 71. Passive resistance, 35. Paunceforte, Julian, 5. Permanent Advisory Commission on Armaments, 144, 148. Permanent Court of International Justice, 164, 170, 172. Permanent Mandates Commission, 168, 170, 171. Phillips, Owen, 241. Piétri, Nicolas, 111, 113. Pilgrims’ Society, 8, 11, 12. Poincaré, Raymond, 34, 36, 51, 105, 107, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 117. Polish Corridor, 24-5. Political Intelligence Department, 23, 204, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220. Political Warfare Executive, 205. Ponsonby, Arthur, 37. Portugal, relations with Britain, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246. Pre-Armistice Agreement, 85. Press Bureau, 211. Press Censorship Office, 210.



263

Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes (Geneva Protocol), 151-2, 171, 190. Recouley, Raymond, 106, 113. Reid, Whitelaw, 4, 6, 9, 12. Reparation Commission, 82, 84, 86, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95-6. Réquin, Colonel, 149. Rhodes, Cecil, 10-1. Riddell, Walter, 161, 162, 165. Robertson, William, 61. Rockefeller (Jr), John D., 11. Rodrigues, Bettencourt, 229, 236, 237, 240. Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 189. Roosevelt, Theodore, 9. Rosado, Garcia, 227. Ruhr, occupation of, 35, 36, 39, 111, 112, 151. Rumbold, Horace, 242. Runciman, Walter, 186. Russell, Claud, 243. Russell, Theo, 30. Russia Committee, 215. Russo-Turkish War, 136. Ryrie, General, 168. Salazar, António Oliveira, 225, 241, 243, 245, 246. Salisbury, Fourth Marquess of, 823, 92. Salisbury, Third Marquess of, 184, 185. Samuel, Herbert, 66. San Remo Conference, 69, 122. Sargent, Orme, 21. Sarrail, Maurice, 57, 68. Schacht, Hjalmar, 242. Sclater, Henry, 65-6. Second World War, 116, 117, 173, 184, 189, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 217, 218, 219. Seeds, William, 30.

Index

264 Selborne, Lord, 55, 64, 67. Serraz, Ivan, 240. Seton-Watson, R.W., 211, 212, 219. Sèvres, Treaty of, 32, 70. Shakespeare, William, 4, 6, 13. Silva, António Maria da, 230. Simon, John, 190, 194, 243. Simpson, J.Y., 215. Sirdar of the Sudan, 54. Smit, Jacobus, 239. Smith, Charles Howard, 243. Smuts, Jan, 23, 85, 94, 161, 167, 171, 238-9, 246. Sokolow, Nahun, 125. South Africa, 156, 159, 160-1, 163, 165, 169, 172-3, 234, 236, 2389, 246. Southern Provincial Mounted Rifles, 210. Soviet Union, 29, 31, 33, 36, 37, 174. Relations with France, 138, 139, 141, 143. Spain, war with the United States, 3, 9, 10, 137. Spanish Civil War, 246. Special Operations Executive, 205. Sperling, Rowland, 30. Spire, André, 125. Statute of Westminster, 173. St-Aulaire, Comte de, 36. Stead, Wickham, 5. Stevenson, Frances, 92. Streit, Clarence, 197. Stresemann, Gustav, 39, 242. Sumner, Lord, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90-1, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97. Sutherland, Duke of, 10. Swinderen, Jonkheer Renneke de Marees van, 25. Sykes-Picot Agreement, 123, 126, 128, 129. Tardieu, André, 105, 108, 110, 111, 112, 118. Teck, Duke of, 12.



Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction of Armaments, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152. Thorneycroft, Hamo, 8. Tirpiz, Alfred von, 242. Toynbee, Arnold, 219. Transportes Maritimos do Estado, 231. Trustees of (Public) Reservations, 6. Turkey, 25, 26, 32-3. Relations with Greece, 32, 33, 34, 51, 58, 59, 68, 69, 70, 71, 171. Tyrrell, William, 21, 39, 233, 242. United Nations, 197. United States, relations with Britain, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 39, 69, 86-7, 89, 90, 93, 945, 96, 97, 104, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 143, 145, 147, 169, 189, 191, 197. Relations with France, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117. Treaty of Versailles, 84, 88, 89, 93, 96, 97, 104. War with Spain, 3, 9, 10, 137. Universal Peace Congress, 4. Upper Silesia, 130. Ussishkin, Menahem, 125. Vansittart, Robert, 21, 218, 241. Vasconcellos, Augusto Cesar de, 229. Venezuela, border dispute with Britain, 3, 5, 11. Versailles, Treaty of, 23, 24, 25, 26, 80, 83, 84-5, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92-3, 94, 96, 104, 105-6, 109, 110, 114, 115, 116, 117, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 147, 149, 169, 170, 216. Victoria, Queen, 8, 13. Villiers, Gerald Hyde, 30, 232. Walker, General, 65-6. War Committee, 60, 66-7.

Peacemaking, Peacemakers and Diplomacy, 1880-1939 Washington, George, 13. Washington Naval Conference, 1457. Watson, Hugh Grant, 226, 227. Weizmann, Chaim, 124, 125-6. Wellesley, Victor, 227. Wellington House, 211, 214. Western Department, 30, 231, 232, 243. Wheeler, Joe, 11. White, Henry, 5. White Star Line, 9. Williams, Harold, 215. Wilson, Woodrow, 24, 80, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90-1, 92, 93, 115, 118, 122, 124, 125, 127-8, 130-1,



265

139-40, 141, 143, 144, 145, 149, 152-3, 157, 167, 212, 216, 218. Fourteen Points, 24, 143. Windsor, Treaty of, 235. Wingate, Reginald, 54. Wise, Stephen, 127. World Disarmament Conference, 141. Wormser, Georges, 113, 118. Yerkes, Charles, 11. Yong, M.J. de, 11. Young Plan, 105, 114, 242. Zinoviev Letter, 37. Zionism, 123-4, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 198. Zionist Commission, 124, 125-6.