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Re-reading the second volume of Harold Nicolson's diaries I came across the following for 16th December, 1941, when the author had been pushed out of the government and made one of the BBC's Trustees.
Harry Strauss [Conservative MP for Norwich 1935 - 1945, for Combined English Universities 1946 - 1950 and for Norwich South 1950 - 1955, later 1st Baron Conesford] attacks me on the grounds that the BBC is almost wholly left-wing. The Conservative view is never presented. It is difficult to tell him that most of the right-wing people make bad broadcasters. Let them find their own Priestley.To which one could reply that it is the BBC's job to find a right-wing J. B. Priestley, who, one must admit, was outstanding as a broadcaster. However, were there really no possible right-wing broadcasters of talent?
This reminds me of one of the many discussions I took part in on the bias in the BBC cultural output when somebody said that there was a problem with balance as, after all, there was no right-wing equivalent to David Hare and what can we do about that. Ahem, said a number of participants including me, what of the best living playwright, Sir Tom Stoppard? Collapse of stout party.
And on that note: Happy New Year to all. May 2014 be a year of conservatism.
Not yet time for resolutions so this blog will stick to the traditional greetings: Merry Christmas to one and all.
During an idle and entertaining re-reading of Harold Nicolson's diaries I found the following entry for June 22, 1930:
I talk to Macmillan. He says that the old party machines are worn out and that the modern electorate thinks more of personalities and programmes than of pressure put upon them by electoral agents. He thinks that the economic situation is so serious that it will lead to a breakdown of the whole party system. He foresees that the Tories may return with a majority of 20 and then be swept away on a snap vote. No other single party will form a Government and then there will be a Cabinet of young men.Of course, at the moment we cannot envisage the Tories getting a majority of twenty and we already have a Cabinet of young men. We've had one of those for a long time and the talk about the old party system breaking down goes on as before.
As we approach a year that will be full of contentious and paralyzingly dull books, articles, celebrations, analyses and other suchlike events of the First World War (indeed, the process has started already) I feel it appropriate that I have just finished reading Marina Soroka's extraordinarily detailed account of the last Russian Imperial Ambassador's career in London.
Count Benckendorff was an interesting person and I shall be writing more about him but first some paragraphs about the beginning of the war that was not supposed to happen. This is what Dr Soroka writes (pp. 258 - 259)
No one as yet had blamed the war on "the old diplomacy". In fact, no one had ever blamed diplomats for wars, for it was common knowledge in Europe that governments led nations into wars for various reasons, some honourable and some not, but diplomats patched up the quarrels which governments started and armies fought. Diplomats were the most civilized and pacific representatives of their nations.And another myth was born. I may add that the heavy-handed irony of the last sentence is most uncharacteristic of Dr Soroka.
In the summer of 1914 they had not done anything different from what they had always done in crises, and their responsibility for what happened was no greater than for the Crimean war or the Franco-Prussian war or the Italo-Turkish war. During the Anglo-Boer war there was a moment, in 1900, when Germany, Russia and France seemed to be on the verge of intervening to make Britain sign peace, But, as a French government official wrote: strategic interests, humanitarian considerations and public opinion sympathetic to the Boers failed to outweigh the three powers' political interests, prudence and expediency. Much as their public opinion sympathized with the Boers, the governments backed away from a confrontation, resigning themselves to the fact that "England will swallow the two poor nations without being disturbed or distracted". [Abel Combareieu] A major conflict was avoided.
In July 1914 the inability to think beyond the status and strategy considerations deprived the European cabinets of real alternatives and diplomacy was pushed aside while the military advised the heads of governments. When the unforeseen duration and the scope of the war became clear the nations fell on their governments, which sought the most plausible scapegoats and deftly passed the blame on to the diplomats. By 1918 the "old diplomacy", roundly condemned for its undemocratic, secretive and inefficient character, had been demoted to the rank of a handmaiden to the pure-minded monarchs, prime ministers and presidents of the powers whose inherently pacific intentions had been so poorly served by their elitist and hawkish foreign offices.
Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector on December 16, 1653. This was England's only experiment with a republic and a military dictatorship (the two are not necessarily the same). It was not altogether a success though I have always liked Cromwell for two reasons: the well-spoken way in which he got rid of that pesky Rump Parliament in April 1653 ("You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!") and for abolishing Christmas celebrations. That might not be entirely accurate but I think of the Lord Protector with gritted teeth as I fight my way through crowds with large shopping bags, avoid horrible decorations and try to block out tinny versions of whichever Christmas song has taken the version of the shop I have to enter or, at least, pass.
A hefty tome from Oxford University Press: One Hundred Letters from Hugh Trevor-Roper, which should provide hours of entertainment and enlightenment. On a more serious note, the third issue of West Midlands History. The first two were fascinating and I am sure this one will be as well.
What better way to come back after a slight gap (again) than by two tales of possibly the greatest British Prime Minister of the twentieth century, Margaret Thatcher.
One is a very entertaining account by Nigel Farndale, based on reminiscences, of an event that is not quite as unknown as he seems to make out but not very well known either: a dinner organized by Lord Thomas of Swynnerton (the historian Hugh Thomas) for a large group of litterati and academics to meet the Prime Minister who was not then or later considered to be particularly enamoured of the arts.
It would appear from the accounts that she was fairly knowledgeable about poetry and other literary matters but was not particularly fond of the literary self-regard displayed by several of the guests. Also, she disliked the Arts Council and its various denizens, which was always taken as a sign of philistinism by those who benefited handsomely from its tax-funded largesse.
It would appear, also that the male gathering was smitten by her, which seems to have been true in other male gatherings as well. Anyone who doubts that should listen to some reminiscences by those who fought in the Falklands.
The second tale is of greater political significance. It is a letter, written by the Prime Minister to President de Klerk of South Africa, giving him an outline of the meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government she had just attended where South Africa was discussed at length as well as her ideas on how to proceed with regards to that country and its international standing. The letter is well worth reading for its exceedingly clear-sighted analysis and proposals.
Here are a few excerpts:
My rebuttal of the case for sanctions rested on two main premises: that sanctions do not work, indeed are likely to be counter-productive and damaging to those they are intended to help: and that it was inappropriate to take punitive action against South Africa at the very moment when you are taking steps to get rid of apartheid and to make major changes in the system of government in South Africa. I received a good deal of abuse in response, being accused of preferring British jobs to African lives, of being concerned with pennies rather than principles, of lack of concern for human rights and much more in the same vein. I in turn reminded them of some of the less satisfactory features of their own societies and pointed to the inconsistency of trading with the Soviet Union, with its appalling human rights record, and putting trade sanctions on South Africa.She continued a little further on:
My other main purpose was to secure Commonwealth backing for dialogue between the South African Government and representatives of the black community in the context of a suspension of violence by all sides. The concept of course comes from your earlier letter to me: and I hope you will agree that it is no small achievement to have persuaded the Commonwealth to put its name to a suspension of violence, though there are several governments who will not wish to see substance given to this commitment if they can avoid it.She then makes several proposals, including ideas for what President de Klerk might do. This is the key comment, in view of what has happened just a couple of days ago:
I continue to believe, as I have said to you before, that the release of Nelson Mandela would have more impact than almost any single action you could undertake.There is evidence that Mrs Thatcher's insistence on Nelson Mandela's release played an important part in de Klerk's decision to do so. The whole letter is very well worth reading.
Alas, pressure of time, tasks and duties has prevented Tory Historian from attending the talk on Disraeli given this evening by Lord Hurd and Edward Young, the biography's co-author. Nothing for it: the book will have to be read and reviewed.
The star turn was the Hon. Edward Everett, pastor, politician, former Harvard President, former Secretary of State and Massachussetts Senator, who gave, as was normal in those days, a two-hour speech, entitled The Battles of Gettysburg. It was full of oratoric flourishes and historic references to other wars. Nobody can even recall the name of the man without looking it up (guilty as charged).
Then the President, Abraham Lincoln stood up and said a few words that have resonated through the succeeding century and a half:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.There has been some discussion on whether those words "government of the people, by the people, for the people" were Lincoln's own or was he quoting, again as was normal in those days of greater knowledge of the classics and religious writers, someone else, specifically John Wycliffe.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.No reason why Lincoln or many of his audience should not know that, though few people nowadays would remember that Wycliffe is the name of a great scholar, religious teacher, precursor of the Reformation and the first translator of the Bible into vernacular English as well as that of a fictional detective.
However, there is a problem with his authorship of those words. That they appeared in the Bible of 1384 was first mentioned and the words quoted by Clark Ezra Carr in 1906 in his book, Lincoln at Gettysburg : An Address. Colonel Carr, as Galesburg postmaster had represented Illionois on the committee that made the arrangements for the event and it was he who insisted that the President should be invited to the Dedication and asked to say a few words though Lincoln was known as not being much of an orator.
One might, therefore, say that Colonel Carr knew whereof he spoke when he made the connection between the Gettysburg Address and John Wycliffe's great translation.
Indeed, the speech, short but carefully crafted, is "laced with religious language and meaning". But did it quote Wycliffe?
That seems a little more doubtful. It seems reasonable to assume that the General Prologue was written after Wycliffe's death by John Purvey who completed and revised the translation. Indeed, it was probably written about ten years after Wycliffe's death. He had died in 1384 and the Prologue was probably written some time in 1394 or 1395.
Does it matter? The words Lincoln spoke have been more powerful and influential than almost any other in modern history; they were also an echo of a far older tradition which, unsurprisingly, was English, full of English history and English thought.
On October 22 I went to a book launch at the very fine Daunt's bookshop in Holland Park Avenue. The book in question was The Daffodil Party, a debut thriller by the author and quondam editor of Debrett's Handbook and Burke's Peerage, the ever charming and gregarious Charles Mosley (and here).
Charles and I had known each other in the past and shared many friends but had lost touch for years. It was the much derided Facebook, whose ability to encourage renewed friendships ought to be welcomed by all true conservatives, that allowed us to renew our friendship. I was delighted to receive an invitation to the book launch, delighted to attend and delighted to manage to exchange a few words with Charles with ideas for future meetings.
Alas, there will be no meetings. This wonderful and talented man, the epitome, surely, of Englishness died not long after that event. It seems that he already knew that he had inoperable cancer when he sat there smiling and joking with his friends, signing books and exchanging gossip. The Daily Telegraph gives a very fine obituary that brings a lump to one's throat.
For various reasons to do with ongoing research I have been reading some of the essays in the volume edited by T. G. Otte, The Makers of British Foreign Policy. The first chapter, an introductory overview of the period "from Malplaquet to Maastricht" (a proper acknowledgement of the importance of both those treaties) and written by Professor Otte has this to say among many other interesting matters (p. 12):
The changing political structure of Britain after the extension of the franchise in 1867, moreover, affected the framing and executing of foreign policy. The rising middle class's stringency began to outweigh the aristocracy's traditional appreciation of Europe's significance for British interests, though between Canning and Grey only three Foreign Secretaries sat in the House of Commons. Victorian finance pursued strictly economic ends. Between the Crimean War and the Boer War, Britain's national debt fell steadily. With the reduction in government expenditure, the size and preparedness of Britain's army declined.This raises several interesting points not least that European entanglement was not new to Britain in the twentieth century but it was something that was seen by a growing section of the extended electorate as not being wholly desirable.
The relative insignificance of Britain's armed forces compared with the mass armies of France and Prussia-Germany, and the inapplicability of naval pressure against the dominant Continental powers further restricted Britain's ability to interfere in Europe. The prevailing economizing consensus, indeed, created a mindset that would ultimately contribute to Neville Chamberlain's problems in the late 1930s. The desire of mid-Victorian public opinion for abstention sapped the ability of governments to lead with confidence.
Disraeli (later Lord Beaconsfield) was prepared to challenge that opinion and, if needs be to manipulate it both in his readiness to threaten Russia with a naval squadron and to run rings round it in diplomacy (and that, despite the fact that the Russian Foreign Ministry managed to intercept and decipher most diplomatic telegrams that came anywhere near them or their agents).
It was Gladstone whose policy was beset by ambiguity that has dogged all liberal interventionists ever since, particularly if they wanted to control expenditure. On the one hand, he saw it as Britain's duty to develop an active European policy, on the other hand he wished to eschew Continental entanglements that were liable to cost the country dear and bring no immediately obvious benefits.
A couple of pages later Professor Otte writes:
The underlying problem for British diplomacy at the close of the nineteenth century was that British governments saw European affairs in light of Britain's imperial interests. Continental governments, by contrast, viewed colonial problems in terms of the general great power constellation in Europe.The Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907 was fraught with even more difficulties and misunderstandings (not to mention bad faith on both sides) and was fraying badly by the summer of 1914.
As a result, British diplomacy tended to regard agreements on issues arising from the geostrategic periphery as a means to reduce European frictions, which, in turn, could impinge on Britain's overseas interests. The European powers judged the value of any agreement with Britain by its utility in forcing Britain in taking part in Continental affairs. Thus, Anglo-German alliance talks in 1898 and 1900 - 01 came to nothing and the Anglo-French entente after 1904 was plagued by different interpretations as to the nature and extend of the understanding.
For many of the same reasons I have also been reading a somewhat less satisfactory book by Marina Soroka, Britain, Russia and the Road to the First World War, which does, however, have an interesting comment about the ideas behind diplomacy in that period.
In the 1900s European governments tried to implement their foreign policies without losing sight of two guiding principles. One stated that the "man in the street never cares two damns about foreign politics until he finds himself landed in the wary". The other cautioned that if a government went against the "national feeling" too often or too openly, it might undermined the popular confidence in its foreign policy. How universal these axioms were is obvious from the fact that the first one was expressed by a Foreign Office bureaucrat in parliamentary Britain and the second by the Russian autocrat Alexander III.The two opinions are related though Marina Soroka does not exactly explain how. In general, her book proposes certain theses and then floods the pages with detailed facts and quotations from official and unofficial correspondence, hoping that the theses will find support somewhere in that flood.
While British governments of the late nineteenth century found it difficult to conduct a foreign policy with the electorate more interested in balanced budgets than doubtful European glory, it it also true that by the time of the early twentieth century many diplomats and officials in various foreign ministries found themselves driven to a more aggressive foreign policy than they would have preferred by popular opinion, expressed by the newspapers all too often and by politicians who felt they had to react to that opinion.
Technical problems have prevented postings on this site and on Tory Historian's blog. These have now been solved or so we have been led to assume. Postings will resume in a very short time.
The Sackville family became great supporters of cricket on their estate and, indeed, played it themselves, putting together teams at various times to play others.
In 1783 the third Duke of Dorset was appointed ambassador to the court of Louis XVI. By all accounts, he was a lazy and not very intelligent though amiable sort of chap, who was fond of cricket, tennis and billiards as well as society gossip. He did manage to be on very good terms with Marie Antoinette but had little appreciation of the storm that was brewing in France during his term as ambassador.
One thing he did try to achieve, with indifferent success, was to introduce cricket to the French society. As Robert Sackville-West says, the historian G. M. Trevelyan claimed that
If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants [as the English aristocracy and their tenants and labourers did] their chateaux would never have been burnt.Which suggests that if the British ambassador had been successful in getting the French aristocracy to play cricket, preferably with their peasants, which begs the odd question, the French Revolution might never have happened. A sobering thought.
October 16, 1834 was the day Parliament burned down to be rebuilt eventually into the grand edifice we know today with Westminster Hall the only remaining mediaeval part. Caroline Shenton, a Parliamentary Archivist and author of The Day Parliament Burned Down, describes the events of that traumatic day.
J. M. W. Turner played the role of a disaster photographer by setting up his easel on the other side of the Thames and getting down as many sketches as he could.
And talking of Georgians, the British Library's next big exhibition is going to be about them. The full title will be Georgians Revealed: Life, Style and the Making of Modern Britain and it promises to be fascinating. One hopes there will not be too much harping on the various clashes between politesse and riotous behaviour, riches and poverty and more emphasis on this:
From beautifully furnished homes to raucous gambling dens, Georgians Revealed explores the revolution in everyday life that took place between 1714 and 1830. Cities and towns were transformed. Taking tea, reading magazines, gardening and shopping for leisure were commonplace, and conspicuous consumption became the pastime of the emerging middle classes.It will open on November 8 and this blog will report on it.
Popular culture as we know it began, and with it the unstoppable rise of fashion and celebrity. Art galleries, museums and charities were founded. In this time of incredible innovation, ideas were endlessly debated in the new coffee houses and spread via the information highway that was mass print.
In the meantime, there is a smaller and wholly delightful exhibition of illustrations to children's books, tucked away in that odd bit of space to the coffee bar.
The Georgian Gentleman blog came my way because of its highly entertaining posting on coalitions then and now, complete with a Gillray cartoon of Charles James Fox and the 2nd Earl of Guilford, that can be described as "robust" and an updated version that used some version of photoshop. There seems to have been a good deal less snivelling among politicians at the time and they often gave as good as they received.
The blog, by Mike Rendell is based on diaries, letters and miscellaneous papers he inherited from his ancestor, Richard Hall, "a hosier who lived at One London Bridge, who saw and felt the changes with his own eyes, who shared the general thirst for knowledge, and who made and lost a fortune".
Edward believed passionately in monarchy, but in a monarchy limited by the rule of law and by the obligation to work with the Church and with Parliament. So finely tuned was the constitution which he and his allies upheld that any monarch would necessarily, and instinctively, seek to maintain a sense of harmony, generally by asking consent for his actions. Edward's attitude to the Petition of Right hardened to one of outright opposition because he believed there was no need for Parliament to prescribe, and legislate for, this delicate balance; and that any attempt to do so was as an unacceptable limitation on the King's prerogative and instinctive good sense.As he and his allies found, that delicate balance was very hard to hold. National tragedy resulted in the short term but a stronger constitutional structure in the long.
The Jewellery Editor writes:
The collection of 500 gems, including loose stones, ancient objects and even tools suggest this was the stock in-trade of a jeweller, one of the many that lined the thoroughfare of Cheapside. Buried, probably for safety, it's owner never reclaimed the hidden treasure. It's diversity of rare stones, from around the world and the opulence of some of its pieces speaks of London's key role in the international gem trade in an age of global conquest and exploration.Most probably the jewels were buried during the Civil War but, one assumes the exhibition will have notes about the latest research on the subject. Some discussion of this was published in the Independent earlier this year.
Yesterday's anniversary of Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich with that famous piece of paper in his hands requires a longish blog, on which I am working. In the meantime, let me remind readers of another anniversary, one that shows the triumph of humanity over barbarity.
October 1, 1943 was going to be the date on which the SS would round up the 7,800 Jews of Denmark, arguing that as the evening was that of Rosh Hashanah, they would all be at home. Instead, almost all of them had been warned, gone into hiding and were taken out of the country to Sweden, many to continue their journey onwards. Notable among those was the great physicist, Niels Bohr who was taken to the United States immediately.
This short summary on the Yad Vashem website mentions that the Danes were awarded the Righteous Among Nations title and also that large sums of money were paid to the sailors who agreed to take the refugees to Sweden.
For once, I suggest going to Wikipedia, which gives a much more detailed analysis, naming some of the rescuers, explaining the role of the German diplomat, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and adding
At first, a few "bad apples" among the fishermen assisting in the rescue charged an excessive sum of money to transport Jews to Sweden, but most took just a modest payments from those who could pay for the passage or were helped by funds supplied by the organizers. The Danish underground took an active role in organizing the rescue and providing financing, mostly from wealthy Danes who donated large sums of money to the endeavor.Not all were rescued. About 450 were arrested by the Gestapo and some perished during the journey. It was, nevertheless a stupendous effort in which large sections of the Danish population were involved directly with the support of others. It is a little sad to hear that the story of King Christian X wearing the yellow star because the Jews were his subjects, too, is a myth but the truth is quite honourable enough.
Denmark marked the anniversary a couple of days ago, on the anniversary of when the Jews were actually warned.
