Part 2 of 2
Chapter 6 1 . The Milner Group's control over these lectures appears as much from the list of presiding officers as from the list of lecturers, thus:
President / Speaker / Title
A. D. Steel-Maitland / Michael Sadler / The Universities and the War
Lord Bryce / Charles Lucas / The Empire and Democracy
Lord Milner / A. L. Smith / The People and the Duties of Empire
Lord Selborne / H. A. L. Fisher / Imperial Administration
Earl St. Aldwyn / Philip Kerr / The Commonwealth and the Empire
Lord Sumner / G. R. Parkin / The Duty of the Empire in the World
2. Buckle came to The Times staff in 1880 because of his All Souls connection, being recommended by Sir William Anson, according to the official History of The Times. He was apparently selected to be the future editor from the beginning, since he was given a specially created position as "confidential assistant" to the editor, at a salary "decidedly higher than an Oxford graduate with a good degree could reasonably hope to gain in a few years in any of the regular professions." See The History of The Times (4 vols., London, 1935), II, 529. Buckle may have been the link between Lord Salisbury and The Times, since they could easily meet at All Souls. Obviously The History of the Times, which devotes a full volume of 862 pages to the period of Buckle's editorship, does not tell the full story on Buckle, since he rarely appears on the scene as an actor and would seem, from the History, to have been ignorant of most of what was happening in his offices (the Rhodes-Jameson connection, for example). This is difficult to believe.
The History of The Times is unsatisfactory on other grounds as well. For example, it is not possible from this work to construct a complete record of who held various staff positions. We are told, for example, that Flora Shaw became head of the Colonial Department in 1890, but that ends that department as far as the volume is concerned. There is considerable material on Miss Shaw, especially in the chapters on the Transvaal, but we never find out w ho was her successor, or when she left the staff, or if (as appears likely) the Colonial Department was a creation for her occupancy only and did not survive her (undated) withdrawal from the staff; similarly the exact dates and positions of men like Amery and Grigg are not clear.
3. The History of The Times (4 vols., London, 1935), III, 755.
4. There were others, but they are not of primary, or even secondary importance in the Milner Croup. We might mention Aubrey L. Kennedy (son of Sir John Kennedy of the diplomatic service), who was on The Times staff from 1910 to 1942, in military intelligence in 1914-1919, diplomatic correspondent for the BBC in 1942-1945, and an influential member of Chatham House since 1919.
5. E. Moberly Bell, Flora Shaw (London, 1947), 115.
6. At the suggestion of the British Foreign Office, copies of these articles were circulated in America and in Europe. See E. Moberly Bell, Flora Shaw (London, 1947) 228.
7. The History of The Times (4 vols., London, 1935), 111, 212, 214.
8. All quotations are from The History of The Times (4 vols., London, 1935), III, chapters 7 and 9.
9. See E. T. Cook, Edmund Garrett (London, 1909), 118-119. The difference of opinion between Stead and the others can be traced in F. Whyte, The Life of W. T. Stead (2 vols., Boston, 1925), Ch. 21.
The failure of the plotters in Johannesburg to revolt so haunted the plotters elsewhere that they salved their wounds by fantasy. Stead wrote this fantasy for The Review of Reviews annual of January 1897, and consulted with Garrett, who had similar plans for the Christmas 1896 number of the Cape Times. In Stead's story, the Jameson fiasco was to be turned into a smashing success by a heroic South African editor, who, when all appeared lost, would rush to Johannesburg, stir up the revolt, and save the day. Garrett, who was to be the original model for the hero, wrote back: 'A suggestion which will help to keep us distinct, give you a much grander theme, and do something for C.J. R. which no one has yet dared — I went nearer to 'Cecil Rhodes' Dream' but that was a hint only: viz. Make world see what he was driving at and what would have come if all had come off and if Johannesburg had played up.... As to making me the hero. No.... But he must be not only me but you also, and A. Milner, and a few more rolled into one, and he must do what I dreamed of doing but time and space prevented." For the name of this hero Garrett suggested combining the three names into 'Milner Garsted" or "Milstead." Ultimately, Stead made the hero a woman. The new model was probably Flora Shawl The story appeared with the title "The History of a Mystery." See F. Whyte, The Life of W. T. Stead, 94-95.
10. Even after the view of the majority prevailed, Stead refused to yield and published his version of a proper defense in The Scandal of the South Africa Committee (London, 1899). It was Stead's belief that preparation for"a raid" was a patriotic act which, if confessed, would have won public acclaim rather than condemnation.
11. On this see Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher, (4 vols., London, 1938N, 1, 196-202.
12. The History of The Times (4 vols., London, 1935), 111, 244. It is clear from Miss Moberly Bell's biography of Flora Shaw (183-188) that Buckle knew this fact at least by 24 May 1897, although Miss Shaw had previously written him a letter stating explicit!) (probably for the record) that she had been acting without either Buckle's or Bell's knowledge. The night before Miss Shaw testified before the Select Committee, Buckle sent her a detailed letter of instruction on how to answer the committee's questions.
13. W. S. Blunt, My Diaries (London, 1932), 226.
14. See The History of The Times (4 vols., London, 1935), 111, 315-316.
Chapter 7 1. L. Curtis, Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920), 41.
There can be no doubt that the original inspiration for the Round Table movement was to be found in anti-German feeling. In fact, there are some indications that this was the primary motive and that the stated purpose of working for imperial federation was, to some extent at least, a mask. The Round Table, in 1940, in its obituary of Abe Bailey (September 1940, XXX, 743-746) attributes its foundation to this cause as follows: "German ambitions to destroy and supplant the British Commonwealth were manifest to those who had eyes to see.... [These asked] 'Can not all the Dominions he brought to realize the common danger that confronts them as much as it confronts Great Britain and think out in mutual discussion the means of uniting all the force and resolution of the Empire in its defense?' To the solution of this question the founders of the Closer Union Societies resolved to apply a similar procedure. Round Table Groups were established in all the British Dominions to study the problem." A similar cause for the founding appeared in The Round Table as recently as the issue of September 1948.
2. The original leader of the Round Table Groups in New Zealand was apparently James Allen (Sir James after 1917), who had been educated in England, at Clifton School and Cambridge University, and was an M. P. in New Zealand from 1887 to 1920. He was Minister of Defense (1912-1920), Minister of Finance and Education (1912-1915), and Minister of Finance (1919-1920), before he became in 1920, New Zealand's High Commissioner in London. He was a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
In the Round Table Group for New Zealand, Allen was soon supplemented and eventually succeeded by William Downie-Stewart as the most important member. Stewart was at the time Mayor of Dunedin (1913) but soon began a twenty-one-year period as an M.P. (1914-1935). He was also Minister of Customs (1921-1928); Minister of Internal Affairs (1921-1924); Minister of Industries and Commerce (1923-1926); Attorney General (1926); Minister of Finance (1926-1928, 1931-1933); Acting Prime Minister (1926); New Zealand delegate to the Ottawa Conference (1932); Vice- Chancellor of Otago University; prominent businessman, and president of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (1935- ). According to Dove's letters, he attended a Milner Group discussion meeting at Lord Lothian's country house in October 1932.
3. The chief leaders in Australia were Thomas Bavin (Sir Thomas after 1933) and Frederic W. Eggleston (Sir Frederic since 1941). The former, who died in 1941 (see obituary in The Round Table for December 1941), was a barrister in New South Wales from 1897, Professor of Law and Modern History at the University of Tasmania (1900- 1901); private secretary to the first Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Edmund Barton, in 1901-1904; Secretary and Chief Law Officer of Australia in 1907; It. commander in naval intelligence in 1916-1918; an Australian M.P. in 1919-1935; held many cabinet posts in New South Wales from 1922 to 1930, ending as Premier (1927-1930). He finished his career as a judge of the Supreme Court in 1935-1941. He was one of the original members of the Round Table Group in Australia, a regular contributor to The Round Table, and an important member of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
Eggleston was a barrister from 1897; a member, correspondent, and chief agent in Australia for The Round Table from 1911; a member of the Legislative Assembly of Australia, (1920-1927); Minister for Railways, (1924-1926); chairman of the Commonwealth Grants Commission, (1934-1941); Minister of China (1941-1944) and to the United States (1944-1946). He was one of the founders and chief officers of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and its representative on the council of the Institute of Pacific Relations.
4. Glazebrook, although virtually unknown, was a very important figure in Canadian life, especially in financial and imperialist circles, up to his death in 1940. For many years he had a practical monopoly in foreign exchange transactions in Toronto, through his firm, Glazebrook and Cronyn (founded 1900). Like most members of the Milner Group, he was interested in adult education, workers' education, and university management. He promoted all of these in Toronto, lecturing himself to the Workers' Educational Association, and at the University of Toronto where he was assistant Professor of Banking and Finance (1926-1937). He was the chief adviser of leading bankers of Canada, and of London and New York bankers on Canadian matters. The Round Table says of him: "Through his friendship with Lord Milner and others he had at one time a wide acquaintance among the prominent figures in British public life, and it is well-known to his intimates that on numerous occasions British ministers, anxious to secure reliable information about certain Canadian affairs through unofficial channels, had recourse of Glazebrook.... By precept and example he exercised an immense influence for good upon the characters and outlook of a number of young Canadians who had the privilege of his society and knew him as 'The Sage.' Some of them, who have come to high place in the life of the Dominion, will not be slow to acknowledge the value of the inspiration and enlightenment which they derived from him. Continually he preached the doctrine to his young friends that it was their duty, if fortune had placed them in comfortable circumstances, to give some of their time to the intelligent study of public affairs and to the service of the community, and he awakened in not a few minds for the first time the idea that there were better goals in life than the making of money. It is true that the Round Table Groups which he organized with such enthusiasm have now faded into oblivion, but many of their members did not lose the zest for an intelligent study of politics which Glazebrook had implanted in them, and after the last war they proved keen supporters of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs as an agency for continuing the political education which Glazebrook had begun."
5. That Curtis consulted with Lord Chelmsford on the planned reforms before Lord Chelmsford went to India in 1916 was revealed in the House of Lords by Lord Crewe on 12 December 1919, and by Curtis in his book Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920), xxvii.
6. Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920), 74.
7. See R. H. Brand, ed., Letters of John Dove (London, 1938), 115-116.
8. See R. H. Brand, ed., Letters of John Dove (London, 1938), 326, 340.
9. Some of Milner's Canadian speeches in 1908 and in 1912 will be found in The Nation and the Empire (Boston, 1913). Kerr's speech at Toronto on 30 July 1912 was published by Glazebrook in June 1917 as an aid to the war effort. It bore on the cover the inscription "The Round Table in Canada." Curtis's speech, so far as I can determine, is unpublished.
10. See R. L. Schuyler, "The Rise of Anti-Imperialism in England," in The Political Science Quarterly (September 1928 and December 1921); O. D. Skelton, Life and Times of Sir Alexander Tilloch Gait (Toronto, 1920),440; and C. A. Bodelson, Studies in Mid- Victorian Imperialism (Copenhagen, 1924), 104.
11. All of these papers will be found in The Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, VI, 36-85; XII, 346-391; and XI, 90-132.
12. The ideas expressed by Lionel Curtis were really Milner's ideas. This was publicly admitted by Milner in a speech before a conference of British and Dominion parliamentarians called together by the Empire Parliamentary Association, 28 July 1916. At this meeting "Milner expressed complete agreement with the general argument of Mr. Curtis, making lengthy quotations from his book, and also accepted the main lines of his plan for Imperial Federation. The resulting discussion showed that not a single Dominion Member present agreed either with Mr. Curtis or Lord Milner." H. D. Hall, The British Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1920), 166. The whole argument of Curtis's book was expressed briefly by Milner in 1913 in the Introduction to The Nation and the Empire.
13. Milner's two letters were in Cecil Headlam, ed., The Milner Papers (2 vols., London, 1931-1933), I, 159-160 and 267; On Edward Wood's role, see A. C. Johnson, Viscount Halifax (New York, 1941), 88-95. The project for devolution on a geographic basis for political matters and on a functional basis for economic matters was advocated by The Round Table in an article entitled "Some problems in democracy and reconstruction" in the issue of September 1917. The former type was accepted by Curtis as a method for solving the Irish problem and as a method which might well have been used in solving the Scottish problem in 1707. He wrote: "The continued existence in Edinburgh and London of provincial executives and legislatures, entrusted respectively with interests which were strictly Scottish and strictly English, was not incompatible with the policy of merging Scots and Englishmen in a common state. The possibility of distinguishing local from general interests had not as yet been realized." Again, he wrote: "If ever it should prove expedient to unburden the Parliament of the United Kingdom by delegating to the inhabitants of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales the management of their own provincial affairs and the condition of Ireland should prove no bar to such a measure, the Irish problem will once for all have been closed" — The Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916), 295, 518.
14. R. H. Brand, ed., Letters of John Dove (London, 1938), 321.)
15. "The Financial and Economic Future" in The Round Table (December 1918), IX, 1 14-134. The quotation is from pages 121-123.
16. The Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916), 8. This emphasis on duty to the community is to be found throughout the Milner Group. See, for example, Lord Grey's violent retort to a Canadian (who tried to belittle A. J. Glazebrook because he made no real effort to accumulate wealth) in The Round Table obituary of Glazebrook (March 1941 issue). The same idea was advocated by Hichens and Milner to settle the problems of management and labor within the industrial system. In a speech at Swanwick in 1919, the former said: "The industrial problem is primarily a moral one.... If we have rights, we also have duties.... In the industrial world our duty clearly is to regard our work as the Service which we render to the rest of the community, and it is obvious that we should give, not grudgingly or of necessity but in full measure" (The Round Table, December 1940, XXXI, 11). Milner's views are in Questions of the Hour (London, 1923).
17. In the August 1911 issue of The Round Table the future Lord Lothian wrote: "There are at present two codes of international morality — the British or Anglo-Saxon and the continental or German. Both cannot prevail. If the British Empire is not strong enough to be a real influence for fair dealing between nations, the reactionary standards of the German bureaucracy will triumph, and it will then only be a question of time before the British Empire itself is victimized by an international 'hold-up' on the lines of the Agadir incident. Unless the British peoples are strong enough to make it impossible for backward rivals to attack them with any prospect of success, they will have to accept the political standards of the aggressive military powers" (The Round Table, August 1911, 1, 422-423). What a disaster for the world that Lord Lothian, in March 1936, was not able to take to heart his own words written twenty-five years earlier!
18. As a matter of fact, one American Rhodes Scholar was a Negro; the experiment was not a success, not because of any objections by the English, but because of the objections of other American Rhodes Scholars.
19. L. Curtis, Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920), liii-liv.
20. The Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916), 16, 24.
21. The Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916), 181. See also The Problems of the Commonwealth (London, 1915), 18-19.
22. The quotations from Curtis will be found in The Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916), 181 and 176; also The Problem of the Commonwealth (London, 1915), 18-19; the quotation from Dove is in a long letter to Brand, dated 9 September 1919, in Letters of John Dove, edited by R. H. Brand (London, 1938), 96-106; Philip Kerr's statement will be found in L. Curtis, Dyarchy (Oxford, 1920),73. See also Kerr's speech at King's College in 1915, published in The Empire and the Future (London, 1916); he attacks jingo-imperialism, racial superiority, and national conceit as "Prussian heresy" and adds: "That the spirit of Prussia has brooded over this land is proved by the shortest examination of the history of Ireland." He then attacks the Little Englanders and economic or commercial imperialism, giving shocking examples of their effects on native lives and cultures. He concludes: "The one thing you cannot do, if you are a human being, is to do nothing. Civilization cannot stand on one side and see native tribes destroyed by so-called civilized looters and marauders, or as the result of the free introduction of firearms, drink, and other instruments of vice. He decides that Britain, by following a middle ground, has "created not an Empire but a Commonwealth" and defines the latter as a community activated by the spirit "Love thy neighbor as thyself." (The Empire and the Future, 70-86). George R. Parkin expresses similar ideas in the same volume on pp. 95-97. Kerr had expressed somewhat similar sentiments in a speech before the Canadian Round Table in Toronto, 30 July 1912. This was published by Glazebrook as a pamphlet (Toronto, 1917).
23. The quotations from A. L. Smith are from The Empire and the Future (London, 1916), 29-30.
Chapter 8 1. The success of the Group in getting the foreign policy they wanted under a Liberal government may be explained by the pressure from without through The Times and the assistance from within through Asquith, Grey, and Haldane, and through the less obvious but no less important work of persons like Sir Eyre Crowe and above all Lord Esher.
2. During this period Lord Esher played a vital but still mysterious role in the government. He was a strong supporter of Milner and his Group and was an influential adviser of Lloyd George. On 12 November 1917, he had a long walk with his protege, Hankey, in Paris and "urged the vital importance of sending Milner as Ambassador, Minister- Plenipotentiary, call him what you will. Henry Wilson cannot stand alone." Later the same day he spoke to Lloyd George: "I urged most strongly that he should send Milner here, on the ground that he would give stability where there is none and that his presence would ensure Henry Wilson getting 'information.' this I urged specially in view of the future as of the present. Otherwise we might one day find the Italian position reproduced in France. He finds Milner almost indispensable, but he will seriously think of the proposal." Milner was sent to Paris, as Esher wished, four months later. On 2 February 1918, Esher had another conversation, in which Lloyd George spoke of putting Milner in Derby's place at the War Office. The change was made two months later. (Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher [4 vols., London, 1938], 158-159 and 178.)
3. Zimmern was unquestionably one of the better minds in the Milner Group, and his ideas were frequently closer to Milner's than those of others of the inner circle. Although Zimmern agreed with the others in 1919 about the severity of the treaty, his reasons were quite different and do credit to both his integrity and his intelligence. He objected to the severity of the treaty because it was a breach of the pre-armistice commitments to the Germans; at the same time he wanted a continuation of the alliance that had won the war and a strong League of Nations, because he had no illusions about converting the Germans to peaceful ways in the near future. The inner circle of the Milner Group were against a severe treaty or a strong League or an alliance with France because they believed that Germany could be converted to the British way of thinking and acting and because they wanted to rebuild Germany as a weapon in a balance-of-power system against "Russian bolshevism" and "French militarism." Part II of Europe in Convalescence (New York, 1922) remains to this day the most brilliant summary available on what went wrong in 1919.
Chapter 9 1. In June 1908, in a speech to the Royal Colonial Institute, Milner said: "Anything like imperial federation — the effective union of the self-governing states — is not, indeed as some think, a dream, but is certainly at present little more than an aspiration" (Milner, The Nation and the Empire [Boston, 1913], 293). In 1891 Sir Charles Tupper said: "Most people have come to the conclusion stated by Lord Rosebery at the Mansion House, that a Parliamentary Federation, if practicable, is so remote that during the coming century it is not likely to make any very great advance." In 1899, Rosebery said: "Imperial Federation in any form is an impossible dream." See H. D. Hall, The British Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1920), 70-71. In October 1905, Joseph Chamberlain said: "You cannot approach closer union by that means." Philip Kerr in 1911 spoke of federation as "the ill-considered proposals of the Imperial Federation League" (The Round Table, August 1911, 1, 374). By this last date, only Lionel Curtis, of the Milner Group, had much faith in the possibility of federation. This is why his name alone was affixed, as editor, to the two volumes published by the Group in 1916.
2. On the secret group of 1903-1905, see H. D. Hall, The British Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1920). The group was clearly made up of members of the Cecil Bloc and Milner Group. On its report, see the Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute for 1905, appendix; W. B. Worsfold, The Empire on the Anvil (London, 1916); and R. Jebb, The Imperial Conference (London, 1911), Vol. n. Lyttleton's dispatch is Cond. 2785 of 1905. Kerr's remark is in The Round Table (August 1911), I, 410.
3. This opinion of the important role played by Milner in the period 1916-1921 undoubtedly originated from Geoffrey Dawson, but it was shared by all the members of the Kindergarten. It is stated in different words by Basil Williams in The Dictionary of National Biography and by John Buchan in his autobiography, Pilgrim's Way (Boston, 1940).
4. On the reaction to the speeches of Smuts and Halifax, see J. G. Allen, Editorial Opinion in the Contemporary British Commonwealth and Empire (Boulder, Colorado, 1946).
5. On this whole section, see "George Louis Beer" in The Round Table (September 1920), X, 933-935; G. L. Beer, African Questions at the Peace Conference (New York 1923), 424-425; H. D. Hall, Mandates, Dependencies, and Trusteeship (Washington, 1948); U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States. Paris Peace Conference 1919, VI, 727-729. That Kerr wrote Article 22 is revealed in H. V. Temperley, History of the Peace Conference, VI, 501. That Curtis wrote" Windows of Freedom" and showed it to Smuts before he wrote his memorandum was revealed by Curtis in a private communication to Professor Quincy Wright, according to Q. Wright, Mandates under the League of Nations (Chicago, 1930), 22-23, note 53a.
6. W. K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs (3 vols., London, 1940- 1942), 1, 125.
7. S. G. Millen, General Smuts (2 vols., London, 1936), U, 321.
Chapter 10 1. Robert Jemmett Stopford (1895- ) was a banker in London from 1921 to 1928. He was private secretary to the chairman of the Simon Commission in 1928-1930, a member of the "Standstill Committee" on German Foreign Debts, a member of the Runciman Commission to Czechoslovakia in 1938, Liaison Officer for Refugees with the Czechoslovakian government in 1938-1939, Financial Counselor at the British Embassy in Washington in 1943-1945.
Chapter 11 1. See Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (4 vols., London 1938), 11, 56, and III, 8.
2. According to David Ogg, Herbert Fisher, 1865-1940 (London, 1947), 96, Fisher, "helped Mr. Montagu in drafting the Montagu-Chelmsford Report."
3. This memorandum was published, with Lord Halifax's permission, in A. C. Johnson, Viscount Halifax (New York, 1941).
Chapter 12 1. See the minutes of the Council of Four, as recorded by Sir Maurice Hankey, in U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. The Paris Peace Conference, (Washington, D.C., 1946), VI, 138-160.
2. In Europe in Convalescence (New York, 1922), Alfred Zimmern wrote of October 1918 as follows: "Europe, 'from the Rhine to the Volga' to quote from a memorandum written at the time, was in solution. It was not a question now of autocratic against popular government; it was a question of government against anarchy. From one moment to the next every responsible student of public affairs, outside the ranks of the professional revolutionaries, however red his previous affiliations may have been, was turned perforce into a Conservative. The one urgent question was to get Europe back to work" (80).
In The Round Table for December 1918 (91-92) a writer (probably Curtis) stated: "Modern civilization is at grips with two great dangers, the danger of organized militarism . . . and the more insidious, because more pervasive danger of anarchy and class conflict.... As militarism breeds anarchy, so anarchy in its turn breeds militarism. Both are antagonistic to civilization."
In The Round Table for June 1919, Brand wrote: "It is out of any surplus on her foreign balance of trade that Germany can alone — apart from any immediately available assets — pay an indemnity. Why should Germany be able to do the miracle that France and Italy cannot do, and not only balance her trade, but have great surpluses in addition to pay over to her enemies? ... If , as soon as peace is declared, Germany is given assistance and credit, she can pay us something, and should pay all she can. But what she can pay in the next five years must be, we repeat, limited. If, on the other hand, we take away from her all her liquid assets, and all her working capital, if furthermore, she is bound in future to make yearly payments to an amount which will in any reasonable human expectation exceed her capacity, then no one outside of a lunatic asylum will lend her money or credit, and she will not recover sufficiently to pay anything" — War and National Finance (London, 1921), 193.
3. The attitude of the Group toward "French militarism" can be found in many places. Among others, see Smuts's speech of October 1923, quoted below. This attitude was not shared by Professor Zimmern, whose understanding of Europe in general and of France in particular was much more profound than that of other members of the Group. In Europe in Convalescence (158-161) he wrote: "A declaration of British readiness to sign the Guarantee Treaty would be the best possible answer to French, and it may be added also to Belgian fears.... He little knows either the French peasant or the French townsman who thinks that aggression, whether open or concealed, against Germany need ever be feared from their country.... France feels that the same willfully uncomprehending British policy, the same aggravatingly self-righteous professions of rectitude, pursue her in the East, from Danzig to Upper Silesia, as on the Western frontier of her hereditary foe; and in her nervous exasperation she puts herself ever more in the wrong with her impeccably cool-headed neighbor."
The Group's attitude toward Bolshevism was clearly stated is an article in The Round Table for March 1919: "Bolshevism is a tyranny — a revolutionary tyranny if you will — which is the complete abnegation of democracy and of all freedom of thought and action. Based on force and terroristic violence, it is simply following out the same philosophy which was preached by Nietzsche and Haeckel, and which for the past twenty-five years has glorified the might of force as the final justification of all existence.... In its present form Bolshevism must either spread or die. It certainly cannot remain stationary. And at the present moment, it stands as a very real menace to the peace of Europe and to any successful establishment of a League of Nations. This is the real problem which the Allied delegates in Paris have now to face." (The italics are mine.)
4. The German emissary, whose name Smuts does not mention, was Walter de Haas, Ministerialdirektor in the Foreign Ministry in Berlin.
5. When the Labour government was in power in 1924 and the Dawes settlement of reparations was an accomplished fact, Stresemann was so afraid that DAbernon would be replaced as British Ambassador in Berlin that he w rote a letter to Lord Parmoor (father of Stafford Cripps, Lord President in the Labour Cabinet, and delegate at the time to the League of Nations), asking that DAbernon be continued in his post as Ambassador. This letter, dated 16 September 1924, was answered by Lord Parmoor on 18 September from Geneva. He said, in part: "I think that in the first instance Lord DAbernon was persuaded to go to Berlin especially in relation to financial and economic difficulties, but perhaps he may be persuaded to stay on, and finish the good work he has begun. In any case your letter is sure to be fully considered by our Foreign Minister, who is also our Prime Minister." See E. Sutton, Gustav Stresemann: His Diaries, Letters, and Papers (New York, 1935), 1,451-454.
6. This paragraph is largely based on J. H. Morgan, Assize of Arms (London, 1945), especially 199, 42, and 268. It is worthy of note that H. A. L. Fisher consulted with both Lord DAbernon and General Morgan on his visit to Germany in 1923 and came away accepting the ideas of the former. Furthermore, when Gilbert Murray went to Geneva in 1924 as League delegate from South Africa, Fisher wrote him instructions to this effect. See D. Ogg, Herbert Fisher (London, 1947), 1 15-117.
7. On this organization see Institute of Politics, Williams College, The Institute of Politics at Williamstown: Its First Decade (Williams/own, Mass., 1931).
8. Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, The Great Experiment (London, 1941), 166. The quotations from Lord Esher's Journals and Letters (4 vols., London, 1938) are in Vol. IV, 227, 250, and 272.
9. Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, The Great Experiment (London, 1941), 250.
10. The whole memorandum and other valuable documents of this period will be found in USSR, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Documents and Materials Relating to the Eve of the Second World War (5 vole., 1948-1949), Vol. I, November 1937-1938. From the Archives of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 13-45. The authenticity of these documents was challenged by an "unnamed spokesman" for the British Foreign Office when they were first issued, but I am informed by the highest American authority on the captured German documents that the ones published by the Russians are completely authentic.
11. Keith Feiling, Life of Neville Chamberlain (London, 1941), 333. The author is a Fellow of All Souls, close to the Milner Group, and wrote his book on the basis of the late Prime Minister's papers, which were made available by the family.
12. See Lionel Curtis, Civitas Dei; The Commonwealth of God (London, 1938), 914- 930.
13. Robert J. Stopford, a close associate of the Milner Group whom we have already mentioned on several occasions, went to Czechoslovakia with Runciman as a technical adviser. See J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, Munich: Prologue to Tragedy (New York, 1948), 79, n. 1.
14. The reference to Professor Schumann is in J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, Munich (New York, 1948), 436, n.l. If Mr. Wheeler-Bennett had placed a little more credence in the "pre-Munich plot," many of the facts which he cannot explain would be easily fitted into the picture. Among them we might point out the mystifying (to Mr. Wheeler-Bennett) fact that Lord Runciman's report of 16 September went further than either Hitler or Henlein in demanding sacrifices from the Czechs (see Munich, p. 1 12). Or again he would not have had to make such an about-face as that between page 96 and page 97 of the book. On page 96, The Times' s demand of 7 September was similar to the views of Mr. Chamberlain, as expressed at Lady Astor's on 10 May, and "Geoffrey Dawson was a personal friend of Lord Halifax." But on page 97, "The thoughtless irresponsibility of The Times did not voice at that moment the views of His Majesty's Government. If Mr. Wheeler-Bennett had added to his picture a few additional facts, such as a more accurate version of German re-armaments, Runciman's letter of 2 September to Hitler, etc., he would have found it even more difficult to make his picture of Munich stand up.
15. Count Helmuth lames von Moltke, a German of the Resistance (Johannesburg, 1947). See also Allen W. Dulles, Germany's Underground (New York, 1947), 85-90. The additional letter added to the Johannesburg publication was written by von Moltke to his wife just before his death. Curtis's name is mentioned in it.
16. On this whole movement, see Hans Rothfels, The German Opposition to Hitler (Hinsdale, Illinois, 1948), and F. L. Ford, "The Twentieth of July in the History of the German Resistance" in The American Historical Review (July 1946), LI, 609-626. On Kordt's message to Lord Halifax, see Rothfels, 58-63.
17. A. C. Johnson, Viscount Halifax (New York, 1941), 531.
18. USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Documents and Materials Relating to the Eve of the Second World War. II Dirksen Papers (1938-1939) (Moscow, 1948), 126-131.
19. British Blue Book, Cmd. 6106.
20. All documents on these negotiations will be found in a Swedish Foreign Ministry White Paper, Forspelet till det tyska angreppet pa Danmark och Norge den 9 April 1940 (Stockholm 1947).
Chapter 13 1 . On the Ministry of Information during the war, see Great Britain, Central Office of Information, First Annual Report, 1947-1948. This is Cmd. 7567.
2. This extract is printed in the Report of the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs for 1938-1939.
3. The last important public act of the Milner Group was the drawing of the Italo- Yugoslav boundary in 1946. The British Delegate on the Boundary Commission was C. H. Waldock, now a Chichele Professor and Fellow of All Souls, assisted by R. J. Stopford.
Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2019 2:19 am