The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy and Other Essays

The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy and other essays Also by G. R. Berridge BRITISH DIPLOMACY IN TURKEY, 1583 TO THE ...

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The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy and other essays

Also by G. R. Berridge BRITISH DIPLOMACY IN TURKEY, 1583 TO THE PRESENT: A Study in the Evolution of the Resident Embassy A DICTIONARY OF DIPLOMACY (with Alan James) (second edition) DIPLOMACY: Theory and Practice (fourth edition) DIPLOMACY AT THE UN (co-edited with A. Jennings) DIPLOMATIC THEORY FROM MACHIAVELLI TO KISSINGER (with Maurice Keens-Soper and T. G. Otte) DIPLOMATIC CLASSIC: Selected Texts from Commynes to Vattel ECONOMIC POWER IN ANGLO-SOUTH AFRICAN DIPLOMACY: Simonstown, Sharpeville and After GERALD FITZMAURICE (1865–1939), CHIEF DRAGOMAN OF THE BRITISH EMBASSY IN TURKEY INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: States, Power and Conflict since 1945 (third edition) AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (with D. Heater) THE POLITICS OF THE SOUTH AFRICA RUN: European Shipping and Pretoria RETURN TO THE UN: UN Diplomacy in Regional Conflicts SOUTH AFRICA, THE COLONIAL POWERS AND ‘AFRICAN DEFENCE’: The Rise and Fall of the White Entente, 1948–60 TALKING TO THE ENEMY: How States without ‘Diplomatic Relations’ Communicate

The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy and other essays G. R. Berridge Emeritus Professor of International Politics, University of Leicester, UK and Senior Fellow, DiploFoundation

© G. R. Berridge 2011 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–230–29185–0

hardback

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

For Arianna Arisi Rota

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Contents Preface

viii

List of Abbreviations

x

1 The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy

1

2 The Origins of the Diplomatic Corps: Rome to Constantinople

16

3 Diplomatic Education and Training: The British Tradition

32

4 A Political Consul in Nineteenth-Century Armenia

50

5 Specific Reciprocity and the 105 Soviet Spies

71

6 Home or Away?

87

7 Diplomacy after Death

103

8 British Ambassadors and their Families in Constantinople

120

9 Communicating with the Orient before the Twentieth Century

145

10 Wartime Embassies

165

Appendix

193

References

195

Index

209

vii

Preface The title essay of this collection was first published, with the encouragement of Arianna Arisi Rota of the University of Pavia, in Quaderni di Scienza Politica in April 2005. For its present outing, I have substantially revised and updated it. ‘Diplomacy after Death’, which last appeared under the title ‘Funeral Summits’ in David H. Dunn (ed.), Diplomacy at the Highest Level (Palgrave Macmillan, 1996), has received similar treatment. ‘Diplomatic Education and Training’, first published in Italian translation as ‘Instruzione e formazione del diplomatico: la tradizione inglese’ in Arianna Arisi Rota (ed.), Formare alle professioni. Diplomatici e politici (Franco Angeli, 2009), appears here for the first time in English. ‘The Origins of the Diplomatic Corps’ first appeared in Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman (eds), The Diplomatic Corps as an Institution of International Society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). ‘A Political Consul in Armenia’ is taken from Chapter 2 of my Gerald Fitzmaurice (1865–1939), Chief Dragoman of the British Embassy in Turkey (Martinus Nijhoff, 2007), while ‘British Ambassadors and their Families in Constantinople’ and ‘Communicating with the Orient’ come from Chapters 2 and 5 respectively of my British Diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the Present (Martinus Nijhoff, 2009). I have altered slightly the opening and concluding sections of the last three essays in order to provide a little more context. The remaining essays (5, 6, and 10) are all new. There is a small degree of overlap between a few of the essays, which I considered eliminating. However, I then reflected that they all stand alone and that most readers would probably be interested in only a limited number of topics, so I decided to leave them more or less as they are. Most of the subjects dealt with in Essay 1 can be pursued at greater length in the fourth edition of my Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). For critical comments and/or assistance in other ways I am grateful to the following: in respect of ‘Home or Away’, Larry Pope; ‘Specific Reciprocity’, Brian Barder, Lorna Lloyd and Alan James; ‘Wartime Embassies’, Larry Pope, Geoffrey Roberts, Theo Prousis, and Lorna Lloyd; and for all of them to Palgrave Macmillan’s reader. On the editorial and production side I wish to record my warmest thanks for their work to Alexandra Webster and Christina Brian of Palgrave Macmillan; as also to the copy-editing team at MPS Limited. viii

Preface

ix

Full information on all of the sources cited in the footnotes – which are abbreviated even at first mention – is provided in the list of references at the end of the book. Arianna Arisi Rota not only encouraged the first publication of the title essay but translated into Italian the one on diplomatic education and training. It is for these reasons that I dedicate this volume to her. GRB, Leicester, December 2010

List of Abbreviations ARVN

Army of the Republic of Vietnam [S. Vietnam]

BDOHP

British Diplomatic Oral History Programme

CAC Cam

Churchill Archives Centre, University of Cambridge

DCM

Deputy Chief of Mission

DBPO

Documents on British Policy Overseas

FAC

Foreign Affairs Committee [House of Commons]

FCO

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

FO

Foreign Office [British]

FSN

Foreign Service National

GRU

Soviet Military Intelligence

HCPP

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

HL Deb.

House of Lords Debates

IO

Intelligence officer

MFA

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MoD

Ministry of Defence [British]

ODNB

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

OMB

Office of Management and Budget [United States]

OSCE

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

PRC

People’s Republic of China

SIS

Secret Intelligence Service [MI6]

STD

Soviet Trade Delegation

TNA

The National Archives [British]

USFAOHC

US Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection on CD-ROM (ADST: Arlington VA, 2000)

VCCR

Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963

VCDR

Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961

x

1 The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy

It is an axiom of the history of diplomacy that the first half of the twentieth century witnessed a revolution in diplomatic practice unprecedented since the resident mission was invented half a millennium earlier. Stimulated by the pressures of alliance politics in World War I and a rising enthusiasm for popular control of foreign policy, and facilitated by dramatic advances in transport and telecommunications, the ‘old diplomacy’ – a secretive world of negotiations between embassies and foreign ministries – was seriously challenged by a thoroughly ‘new diplomacy’. Associated with the name of US president Woodrow Wilson, the centrepiece of this was multilateralism, but it also witnessed much greater emphasis on openness and – before too long – on summitry and direct communication between domestic ministries which bypassed foreign ministries altogether.1 However, what seems largely to have escaped notice is that, slowly gathering in pace in the second half of the twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first, we have actually witnessed a rediscovery of the value of principles, procedures and institutions associated with the old diplomacy. In short, we have witnessed a counter-revolution in diplomatic practice.

The return to secret negotiation The first feature of the counter-revolution in diplomacy that should be mentioned appeared in multilateral diplomacy. This was the For extremely helpful comments on the original version of this essay I am in debt to Sir Brian Barder, Alan James, and David Travers. 1 Ebban, The New Diplomacy, Ch. 9; Hamilton and Langhorne, The Practice of Diplomacy, Chs 5–7 but especially 5; Watson, Diplomacy, Chs 8–11; Anderson,

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The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy and Other Essays

abandonment – in all but name – of voting, and a new emphasis on secret negotiation. Already in the 1950s an old wisdom was reasserting itself in decision-making in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, namely, that it is much better to create agreements that carry everyone along than to let a vote decide the issue.2 This is because voting runs the risk of alienating weak majorities if it is weighted and powerful minorities if it is not.3 However, a return to old ways that was too obvious would have created political problems, not least with the many small, poor countries that had come to attach such importance to their votes. Besides, priesthoods require mysteries and mysteries require that one word should never be used when three will do. As a result, after the mid-1960s, when scholars as well as diplomats began to notice that majority voting was falling from grace, all were anxious to call what was replacing it anything but ‘negotiation’. What they conspired to present to the world instead, as if fresh from the cradle, was ‘consensus decision-making’. A little over a decade later this title was bestowed on the changed procedures of the main committees of the UN General Assembly itself, not least those of the all-important Fifth Committee (administrative and budgetary). Since then the effort to achieve consensus in the General Assembly has normally been pursued through negotiations between its regional groups. If this is successful, delegations indicate to the president of the assembly or chair of a committee that they are willing to agree to the adoption of a resolution without a vote, and this is then formally proposed.4 The US secretary of state was soon able, with obvious satisfaction, to observe in his annual reports to Congress that more and more resolutions of the plenary sessions of the General Assembly were being adopted by consensus.5 It is true that so-called consensus decision-making consists of a peculiar blend of procedural devices, among them special powers for

The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, pp. 147–8, 291–3; and Craig and Loewenheim (eds), The Diplomats, Introduction. 2 Steinberg, ‘In the shadow of law or power?’ p. 344. 3 Buzan, ‘Negotiating by consensus’. This valuable article might with more accuracy have been called ‘Negotiating for consensus’. 4 Since 1997 the General Assembly has also been seeking to promote consensus by holding informal meetings of its plenary on certain questions, and since 2003 by holding similar meetings of its general committee. See UN General Assembly, 60th Session: Press Kit. General information available at http://www.un.org/ ga/60/presskit/geninfo.htm. 5 For example, Report to Congress Submitted Pursuant to Public Law, 101–246, 31 March 2003, http:www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rpt/2002/vtg/ (accessed 22 April 2010).

The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy 3

committee chairs, straw votes, and the ‘silence procedure’ that received some publicity when it was used in an attempt to secure agreement within NATO on when to commence planning the defence of Turkey on the eve of the attack on Iraq in early 2003.6 To this small extent it is an innovation. However, since the individual tricks it employs are all old ones, none of this can seriously be said to make consensus decisionmaking an altogether different kind of animal from negotiation.7 Returning to negotiation, it was inevitable that the world diplomatic system would also return with more relish to secret negotiation. Only by keeping discussion confidential could deals be struck before being forestalled by those opposed to them in principle or opposed to the only terms on which they could be achieved. In bilateral diplomacy, of course, secret negotiation had never stopped and in multilateral diplomacy had been essential in any bid to secure a majority of votes. However, at the end of the 1960s it assumed an unusually exaggerated form in some of the most critical of all international relationships. In negotiations with the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) over improved relations, North Vietnam over the war in the south, and (by means of a backchannel) with the Soviet Union over strategic arms limitation, the United States succeeded for some time in keeping secret the fact that they were going on at all. As for the multilateral sphere, in the UN Security Council, hitherto the greatest theatre of all of ‘open diplomacy’ after the General Assembly, secret discussion began to become routine at about the same time. It was not called ‘secret discussion’, at least not officially, but ‘informal consultations of the whole’. Later, in 1978, a purpose-built chamber for such meetings of the Security Council, with full translation and other facilities, was even created, although it was given an anodyne title: the ‘Consultation Room’. In no time at all the number of ‘informals’ and the time spent in them increased dramatically. Informal consultations of the whole have no basis in the UN Charter, no official records of 6 Silence procedure is the rule that a proposal with strong support is deemed to have been agreed unless any party raises an objection to it before a specified deadline. It is employed in the EU and the OSCE, as well as in NATO and other bodies. 7 Where decisions are still nominally taken by voting, this usually does little more than ratify a consensus previously achieved by negotiation, even in bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank where there is weighted voting. Agreements that emerge in the form of voted resolutions simply help to reconcile the weak to a world shaped by the strong, Kahler, Leadership Selection in the Major Multilaterals, p. 23.

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what is discussed are kept, and non-members are excluded. Private caucusing of other groups on the Security Council, most significantly the Permanent 5 themselves, is now such a regular feature of proceedings in New York that it only attracts attention at moments of crisis. It is true that in order to alleviate the fears of the smaller states at the gathering pace of the counter-revolution in the last decade certain gestures have been made in the name of greater transparency but they have not been of great consequence.8

The revival of the resident mission In order to be effective, secret negotiation – whether in bilateral or multilateral diplomacy – is usually best conducted by persons whose comings and goings do not attract attention and who are familiar with the landscape. This is one reason among many why the announcements of the death of the resident ambassador so confidently pronounced in the 1970s, notably by Zbigniew Brzezinski and the retiring Italian ambassador in London, Roberto Ducci, proved premature.9 All states – even the poorest – continue to establish resident embassies in countries and at the headquarters of international organizations important to them, and where major and medium powers are concerned, the networks that these create remain extensive. The evidence for this is readily available from the websites maintained by most foreign ministries, including that of Ducci’s own country, Italy. In fact, Italy had 122 embassies abroad in 2001,10 among them Ducci’s old embassy in London, the capital of a fellow member of the European Union (EU), an entity supposed by others besides the former ambassador to have rendered redundant the exchange of resident missions. Moreover, not only has the Italian embassy in London survived but, in the quarter-century following Ducci’s retirement, it has increased the size of its diplomatic staff by 60 per cent.11 8 On this subject generally, see the authoritative account in Bailey and Daws, The Procedure of the UN Security Council, pp. 50–75. 9 Brzezinski, ‘The Diplomat is an Anachronism’. As for Ducci, he thought that ambassadors were ‘rapidly becoming obsolete’ but wisely observed that ‘a return to sanity is not to be ruled out’, The Times, 14 January 1980. 10 Including permanent missions abroad of all types, it had a total of 367, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy in Numbers: Statistical Yearbook 2001 (Rome: Policy Planning Unit, MFA, 2001), Table 1.1. 11 From 22 to 35: The London Diplomatic List, Apr. 1980 (London: HMSO, 1980), and The London Diplomatic List, June 2003 (London: TSO, 2003).


The resident embassy has survived not only because it expedites secret negotiation – albeit usually only on matters of secondary importance – but also because of the valuable support it is able to provide both to temporary and permanent guests. Among the former are the numerous high-level visitors whose new, airborne mobility was supposed to render it obsolete; among the latter are the many other agents of government – from secret service officers to aid workers – for whom the campus diplomatique is usually a secure and convenient base.12 Furthermore, there has been a growing appreciation that in a world in which pluralist liberal democracy is the political system of choice, resident missions close to seats of power provide vehicles for lobbying and ‘public diplomacy’ (propaganda) that are difficult to equal.13 As for the advances in telecommunications that at first appeared a threat to the resident embassy, in practice these have made it a more flexible instrument of policy, able both to respond rapidly to new instructions and send back information and advice with equal speed. Resident embassies have also benefited from the highly successful codification of diplomatic law that took place in the early 1960s. In short, there are reasons besides national pride that caused the new states which emerged in the last years of the twentieth century to make the establishment of a diplomatic service a high priority. What is particularly impressive is that the resident mission has revived so well despite the increasing pace of three hostile developments that began in the 1960s: the severance of ‘diplomatic relations’ as a political gesture, violence against embassies and their staff, and budget cuts periodically imposed and more often threatened by legislators at home. Rather than lead to a diplomatic retreat this environment has only generated greater resourcefulness. The first evidence of this was seen in the spread of unconventional missions, although all of them had ancient pedigrees.14 In the middle of the 1960s interests sections began to mushroom. These involve attaching a few diplomats (often only one) to the embassy of a third state following either the severance of diplomatic relations or a decision to explore their re-opening. For example, there was a British interests section in the Italian embassy in Tripoli between 1984 and 1999, and a Libyan interests section in London enjoyed the same kind protection 12

Making embassies ‘le lieu naturel du service à l’étranger’ was established as firm French policy in 2006, France Diplomatie, available at http://www.diplomatie. gouv.fr/fr/ministere_817/activite-budget_824/budgets_14541/budget-2007_15112/ index.html. 13 Paschke Report, pp. 4–6; see also Gotlieb, I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Ambassador. 14 In Diplomacy, Ch. 13, I refer to these missions as ‘disguised embassies’.

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by the Saudi embassy. Interests sections make it easier for a protecting power, an institution going back to the practice of Christian diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, to handle the affairs (especially the consular affairs) of the protected state. Representative offices – embassies by another name – also began to be used extensively by Taiwan, Israel, South Africa (in the apartheid years), and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – and even by the United States and the PRC between 1973 and 1979. More heavily disguised resident missions, and consulates, too, have all been employed where politics or security has made a conventional embassy too dangerous to maintain, and testify to the enduring recognition of the need for resident representation. Some countries – notably the United States – have also given great attention to improving the security of their missions, including moving them to sites less vulnerable to terrorist attack, even though this means paying a price in terms of operational effectiveness. The missions of some closely aligned states, particularly the Nordic countries and those within the EU, have also begun to share premises. This co-location of posts obviously facilitates co-ordination of local tactics and information pooling, as well as saving money. The most recent demonstration of resourcefulness in preserving resident representation is the creation by the British Foreign Office of the rapid reaction (‘flat-pack’) embassy, containerized equipment on standby for immediate despatch to states recently in turmoil.15 However, perhaps the most interesting of all of these resourceful responses – and the least noticed outside professional circles – relates to the employment of locally engaged staff. Persons recruited from the citizens of receiving states, Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs) in State Department parlance, now typically make up more than half of the staff of diplomatic and consular missions, and in some cases, including the United Kingdom, considerably more than this.16 Moreover, although the absence of published historical statistics makes this more difficult to document, such evidence as there is suggests strongly that in recent years there has been a trend towards greater use of locally engaged staff in positions previously occupied by those sent from home.17 In the mid-1990s even the PRC’s foreign 15 Both of these developments are described in FCO Departmental Report 2003, p. 140. On co-location relative to the Nordic Countries, see Tuomioja, Report, pp. 48–9. 16 Expatriates may also be locally engaged. 17 This has been firm FO policy for some time, FAC, HC 145, 21 Mar. 2010, paras. 194–203. See also Tuomioja, Report, pp. 39–40; South African DFA, Annual Report 2002–2003.


ministry abandoned a long-established prohibition on the employment of such persons in its embassies abroad.18 The increase in the employment of locally engaged staff is a striking reversal of the trend established in the nineteenth century towards reduced reliance on such persons, except in the domestic service of the mission, and is thus another feature of the counter-revolution in diplomacy. Regarded as untrustworthy because of their vulnerability to local pressure even if their loyalties were not divided, most diplomatic and consular services moved to replace those occupying sensitive positions by their own nationals, appointed initially as student interpreters. The most well-known victims of this trend were the native dragomans of the embassies in Constantinople and the consular posts scattered over the Ottoman Empire.19 Nevertheless locally engaged staff not only provide local knowledge and institutional memory but also tend to be relatively cheap.20 Besides, where administrative and technical – as opposed to diplomatic and consular – staff are concerned, there is no requirement in international law for the consent of the receiving state to be obtained prior to their appointment.21 In the straightened circumstances in which diplomatic services have found themselves in recent years, it is not surprising, therefore, that there should have been renewed interest in locally engaged staff. It is true that locally engaged staff are normally regarded as too much of a security risk for employment as diplomatic staff, even if the receiving state would agree to it.22 Nevertheless they are lavishly praised by foreign ministries today, and it seems that they are in fact steadily being employed in more and more sensitive work. Some of the administrative and technical work obviously falls into this category anyway – personnel, ICT, and finance, for example. Many career consular staff are also now being appointed locally. This is significant because consuls are often called on to play a political role of one sort or another and, in the event of a severance of diplomatic relations, may 18

Xiaohong Liu, Chinese Ambassadors, p. 165. See Berridge, ‘English dragomans and oriental secretaries’. 20 Donaldson, ‘The changing role of FSNs’; Tuomioja, Report, pp. 40, 42; Danish MFA, Annual Report 2002, p. 22; Xiaohong Liu, Chinese Ambassadors, p. 165. 21 VCDR (1961), Art. 8; VCCR (1963), Art. 22; and Denza, Diplomatic Law, p. 72. 22 The VCDR states that diplomatic staff should ‘in principle’ be nationals of the sending state but that nationals of the receiving state may – with the consent of the latter – be made diplomats in the former’s embassy, with privileges and immunities above a bare minimum to be agreed; see Denza, Diplomatic Law, pp. 69–72 and 413–25. 19

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assume full responsibility for continued political contacts at local level. It was a sign of the way things were moving that one of Britain’s leading political journalists could ask the foreign secretary, David Miliband, whether he could envisage a time when a British ambassador might be a foreigner.23 The provincial consulates just mentioned, traditionally the poor relations of the resident embassy, have if anything revived even more strongly in recent years than their metropolitan cousins. This is largely because of great increases in cross-border population movements, and the importance attached both to keeping out those considered undesirable and to providing succour to distressed nationals. The rejuvenation of consular networks is another striking feature of the counter-revolution in diplomacy because consuls appeared first in the late Middle Ages, when they were merchants chosen by a trading settlement to represent its interests. The explosion in the ranks of honorary consuls (who still bear a strong resemblance to their early forbears) has been assisted by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had set its face against either sending or receiving them; not so its successor states.24

The foreign ministry fights back With renewed worldwide recognition of the continuing need for resident missions abroad it is hardly surprising that the foreign ministry has defied prophecies of its own eclipse.25 After all, what is the use of a network of missions abroad without a foreign ministry at home to support it? It would soon shrivel up. Such missions require staff to be recruited and trained, buildings to be acquired and protected, and a host of other needs to be met. Furthermore, overseas policies dealing with such areas as finance, defence, trade, climate change and transport, as well as with questions of high politics, also need sensitizing to politics and coordinating.26 Foreign ministries, which have geographical as well as functional expertise, continue to be the obvious choice for this role as well. 23 BBC Radio 4, ‘The New Art of Diplomacy’, David Miliband interviewed by James Naughtie, 22 Dec. 2009, transcription at http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/ latest-news/?view=Speech&id=21481248. Eventually, Miliband said ‘no’. See also FAC, HC 145, 21 Mar. 2010, paras. 194–203. 24 For a full discussion of consulates, see Berridge, Diplomacy, Ch. 8. 25 For a useful summary of recent expressions of this and related views, see FAC, HC 145, 21 Mar. 2010, paras. 328–38. 26 On this, see Hocking (ed.), Foreign Ministries, Introduction.


In many states the staying power of the foreign ministry has been reinforced by the glamour retained by its work and the opportunities it provides to cut a figure on the international stage. In some – such as Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Sweden, and Portugal – its inherited prestige works a similar magic.27 The result is that it usually continues to attract extremely able and well-connected staff. Foreign ministers themselves are often political heavyweights; in 2010 they included Bernard Kouchner in France, David Miliband in Britain, and Hillary Clinton in the United States. Even former prime ministers – like Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Carl Bildt, and Benjamin Netanyahu – are not ashamed to take on this particular role.28 All of this means that the foreign ministry is well qualified when it comes to defending its bureaucratic turf as well as its budget.29 In the greatly expanded EU the foreign ministries of some states have been strengthened by membership itself. This is either because they have been able to establish that all aspects of domestic policy now affect relations with other member states and thereby fall within their remit or because participation in the councils of a major world body has given much greater prominence to foreign policy questions on national agendas.30 But in the West generally, foreign ministries have fought back successfully for many other reasons, not least because they have been able to colour their case with military metaphors. For some years, ministries of foreign affairs have been routinely describing their overseas personnel, rather than the military establishment, as ‘the first line of defense’ or ‘front line staff’ in protecting the national interest abroad.31 The violence to which individual diplomats

27 In early 2010, as part of its ‘Corridors of Power’ season, the British television channel, BBC 4, ran programmes on the three ‘Great Offices of State’: the Home Office, the Treasury, and – to no great surprise – the Foreign Office. 28 Douglas-Home was British prime minister in 1963–4 and foreign secretary in 1970–4; Bildt was Swedish prime minister in 1991–4 and foreign minister from 2006 until the present (2010); and Netanyahu was Israeli prime minister in 1996–9 and foreign minister in 2002–3. 29 That astute observer of Whitehall, Peter Hennessy, has described in some detail how the FO marshalled its skills and contacts at home not merely to defeat but humiliate the attempt of the Callaghan government’s Central Policy Review Staff in 1975–7 to call into question the separate existence of the Diplomatic from the Home Civil Service, Whitehall, pp. 266–73; see also Owen, Time to Declare, pp. 263–4. 30 Hennessy, Whitehall, pp. 404–5; the second point is the theme of a number of the contributions, for example on Ireland, in Hocking and Spence (eds), Foreign Ministries in the European Union. 31 This sort of language appears to have been popularized by the US State Department: Bailey, The Art of Diplomacy, p. 71; Keeley (ed.), First Line of Defense; etc.

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and mission premises have been subjected in recent decades – especially during the ‘War on Terror’ since 9/11 – and the huge increase in their complex and stressful entry clearance work caused by the upsurge in immigration and the number of asylum seekers, have lent new meaning to this description and evoked a degree of public sympathy.32 In fact, in 2001–5 the State Department under Colin Powell, who was exceptionally effective in promoting the interests of this particular foreign affairs agency, dropped ‘defense’ as too modest a claim. Instead it described itself and its overseas staff as ‘the first line of offense against threats to the security and prosperity of the American people’.33 It was no accident that Powell was a four-star general and previously a towering figure in the US military establishment. Not only could effective diplomacy nip in the bud emerging threats to national security but it could also, ran the message, achieve this at a far lower cost than more drastic methods. The telling point repeatedly made here is that the costs to the national budget of a foreign ministry are only a fraction of what has to be spent on the military. All of this has found a ready ear with more thoughtful legislators.34 In addition, foreign ministries have come out stressing the value of their consular networks to the rapidly growing number of distressed citizens abroad, a theme which has found a ready ear with the public. They have also emphasized the greater priority given to the work of the commercial staff in embassies in opening doors for companies from home, which has played well with businessmen. Some, too, have also been able to point to much more egalitarian recruitment procedures, with the evident consequence that the modern ministry of foreign However, it has been adopted elsewhere, for example in Helsinki: ‘The MFA watches the first line of defence of Finland’s security’, Tuomioja, Report, p. 5. 32 President’s International Affairs Budget for 2004, Secretary Colin L. Powell, Testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, 30 April 2003. 33 US Department of State, FY 2004 International Affairs (Function 150) Budget Request: Summary and Highlights of Accounts by Appropriations Subcommittees, 3 Feb. 2003. See also ‘Preserving US Global Leadership’, Secretary Colin L. Powell, Address at Roundtable Meeting at the State Department, 10 July 2001; and President’s International Affairs Budget for 2004, Secretary Colin L. Powell, Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 6 Feb. 2003. 34 For example, in 2008–9 the FO’s budget was £2.3bn compared to the Ministry of Defence’s £45.4bn, FAC, HC 145, 21 Mar. 2010, para. 23(i); while in the same year the State Department’s budget (sub-function 153) was a miniscule $12.1bn compared to the Pentagon’s (sub-function 051) staggering $674.7bn, OMB, Historical Tables, Table 5.1, Budget Authority by Function and Sub-Function: 1976–2015, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/hist05z1.xls.


affairs – at least in the northern hemisphere – is not the closed bastion of the higher social strata that it once was. In Britain, the all-party House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has for some time been an outspoken defender of the Foreign Office, as its comments on the latter’s annual reports amply testify.35 The foreign ministry’s influence within government varies from one state to another and in the same state over time. In Britain the Foreign Office has recently lost influence to the prime minister’s office and the much better funded Department for International Development; it has also been distracted and to a degree demoralized by the ‘culture of targets’ driven by the Treasury and periodic feeding visits by flocks of migrating management consultants.36 But to conclude that this might signal its permanent demise is to demonstrate lack of historical perspective. There have been dips in influence of this sort in the past, and the fact that the consequences have usually been disastrous has helped to restore the Foreign Office’s position. As after the Suez Canal fiasco in 1956, when it was similarly disregarded by a deluded prime minister, it is the Foreign Office (not the then foreign secretary) that has emerged from the Iraq debacle with its reputation intact, not the former prime minister and his intimates. The legal advisers of this particular foreign ministry had their quiet revenge in the hearings before the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War in January 2010.37 All states of any significance, it barely needs to be added, still have a ministry of foreign affairs. The US Institute of Peace lists 143 whose ministries had websites as on 25 March 2008.38 This is more significant when it is recalled that a great many of these are small states and that the per capita cost of running a foreign ministry, with its related missions, is greater for such states than for larger ones.39 It is true that some middle powers have merged their foreign ministries with their departments of trade but these are only a fraction of the total.40 The currently gestating European External Action Service, slated under the Lisbon Treaty of 35

These are available back to 1997–8 on the committee’s website. Meyer, ‘Lights are going out at the Foreign Office’. 37 See the written evidence of Sir Michael Wood and Elizabeth Wilmshurst in week 8 of The Iraq Inquiry [www]. 38 US Institute of Peace website, ‘Foreign Affairs Ministries on the Web’ (accessed 24 April 2010). When this essay was first published, in 2005, there were only 127 foreign ministries on this list. 39 Danish MFA, Annual Report 2002, p. 20. 40 Among them are Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea, and Sweden. Some very small states also run foreign affairs and trade under the same roof. 36

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December 2007 and due to take charge of the EU’s worldwide network of delegations, is in all respects a new foreign ministry.41 It is also clear that these abundant foreign ministries are not impoverished shells altogether lacking the influence associated with the great ones in former years. In fact, while the budgets of many long-established foreign ministries, not least that of the US State Department, were under attack in the last quarter of the twentieth century, there are signs that this trend has been halted, if not reversed. This seems to be true whether we consider absolute figures for real terms authorisations or foreign ministry budgets as a proportion of combined government departments’ spending. Once again, though, there is a paucity of reliable, comparable statistical series covering long periods and we are forced to rely on a few examples. It is also important to bear in mind that such figures as are readily available do not distinguish between what is spent on running the foreign ministry at home and what it costs to run its operations abroad, that is, its embassies and other posts and that, with changes of government or for other reasons, major spending activities like foreign aid tend to move in and out of foreign ministry control. For what they are worth in the context of this argument, then, the best figures pertain to the State Department and come from the historical tables on the budget authority and budget outlays of federal agencies provided by the Office of Management and Budget.42 The figures for budget authority identify the State Department’s operational budget (sub-function 153: ‘conduct of foreign affairs’) within the much larger general international affairs budget (‘function 150’).43 These reveal that the former fairly steadily averaged 0.24 per cent of the total federal budget in the last quarter of the twentieth century but then – as diplomatic resources were channelled to more dangerous posts in the Middle East and Asia and the costs of protecting them rocketed – jumped quickly and since then has averaged 0.34 per cent; for 2010 it was estimated that it would be 0.45 per cent.44 To be sure, this is small enough but the point is that the trend is upwards, no small matter in

41

‘Treaty of Lisbon’, Art. 13a, 3. Budget authority is what Congress will permit an agency to spend in any one year; budget outlay is what it actually spends. 43 In 2009 the budget authority for the conduct of foreign affairs was less than a quarter of the total international affairs budget. 44 OMB, Historical Tables, Table 5.1, Budget Authority by Function and SubFunction: 1976–2015 available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/ fy2011/assets/hist05z1.xls. 42


this context for a state that has shown a particularly strong military reflex over the same period. Some other countries provide similar statistical series, although not over such long periods; among them are the British Foreign Office and the Quai d’Orsay. Unlike the State Department, the FO has not enjoyed the same increase in its share of combined government departments’ spending; on the other hand, it does not appear to have witnessed any marked drop either, in 2008–9 still preserving a share of 0.6 per cent, which was not significantly less than that enjoyed or, rather, endured over the previous 40 years.45 Moreover, while over the very recent past its budget has been pared back in real terms, this must be seen in the light of the unusually generous increases it received earlier in the decade.46 As for the French ministry of foreign affairs, this seems to have arrived at roughly the same position, albeit by a slightly different route. In December 2003 many of the staff of the Quai d’Orsay actually went on strike over proposed budget cuts, for the first time in its history.47 Since then, however, its finances – which over the 2005–7 period represented between 1.3 and 1.4 per cent of the budget général de l’état – seem to have been reasonably well repaired, no doubt as a result of the three-year modernization contract negotiated in 2006 with the budget ministry.48 Although contrary statistics might well be found to those given in the two examples above, the smattering of other figures that I have managed to find all tend to support the conclusion that the average foreign ministry is not yet begging on the streets.49 Indeed, confidence in the future of some important ones has been expressed in the most tangible manner possible: in bricks and mortar. For example, in 1997 the Chinese government bestowed a huge new building on its ministry

45 Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 1997–98, Cm 3601, Tables 5.2 and 5.3; 1999–2000, Cm 4201, Table 1.2; and 2003–04, Cm 5901, Table 1.2; together with FAC, HC 145, 21 Mar. 2010, para. 23(i). 46 Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses, 2002–3, Table 1.4; and 2008, Table 1.13. 47 The New York Times, 2 Dec. 2003. 48 I have calculated these figures on the basis of the MAE budget less European Development Funding spending, France Diplomatie, available at http://www. diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/ministere_817/activite-budget_824/budgets_14541/ budget-2007_15112/index.html. For the 1.5 per cent budget increases for both 2008 and 2009, see the appropriate pages on the same website. 49 Statistical Yearbook 2002 (Rome: Italian MFA, 2002), Table 2.1, p. 24; Tuomioja, Report, pp. 33–4; Belgian Dept. of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and International Cooperation, Activity Report 2002, Ch. 1; Ignacio and Rodrigo, ‘Spain’, p. 223.

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of foreign affairs, thereby helping to underline its ‘peaceful rise’. In 1999 the German Federal Foreign Office moved from Bonn to occupy the refurbished and greatly extended premises of the former Reichsbank and Central Committee building in Berlin.50 And the new building received by the Israeli ministry in 2002, which is close to the Knesset, won an architectural award.51

Serial summits and négociation continuelle Finally, to the summit. The massive increase in summitry in the second half of the twentieth century was without doubt one of the most significant characteristics of the revolution in diplomatic practice of that era. However, this initially took the form of an increase in the use of ad hoc summits, one-off events held usually in response to some major crisis or to mark some attempt at a new departure in international relations. However, what elsewhere I have called ‘serial summits’52 began to appear in the 1960s and are now probably much more important than their ad hoc cousins. Summits like the meetings of the G8 remain revolutionary to the extent that, like all summits, they bypass the resident mission – the spine of the old diplomacy – but they have a marked counter-revolutionary aspect to them as well. Serial summits meet frequently, in a few cases as often as twice a year, although more usually once every year or two years. More significantly, preparatory work for them in the intervening periods is undertaken by officials, and – in the immediate run-up to them – in the course of presummit summits. In short, serial summits provide continuity of personal contact, thereby restoring – in place of the episodic contact provided by the first summits – the central procedural principle of the old diplomacy, stressed by all of its theorists from Cardinal Richelieu in the seventeenth century to Harold Nicolson in the twentieth. Continuous contact deepens mutual knowledge via intimacy, promotes a relaxed attitude to status via familiarity with protocol, and – by fostering a sense that the encounters are routine – avoids arousing excessive public expectations. It is in such circumstances that serious, confidential negotiation at the highest level is most likely to flourish.

50

Der Haus Am Werderschen Markt. Levin, ‘Jerusalem of Gold’. 52 Berridge, Diplomacy, pp. 167–71. 51


Conclusion In the decades since the 1960s a counter-revolution has occurred in diplomatic practice which, as a general tendency if not in its discrete parts, has gone almost completely unnoticed. This is partly because it has been obscured by the attachment of new labels to old procedures and partly because the mesmerizing effect of novelties, however trivial, is so strong. This counter-revolution consists chiefly in the embracing of secret negotiation at the expense of voting in multilateral diplomacy, the reinvigoration of the resident mission, the rallying of the ministry of foreign affairs, and the realignment of summitry as an ally of rather than enemy to what Richelieu called négociation continuelle. The result of this counter-revolution, when added to the changes of genuine value that have occurred (notably in diplomatic telecommunications), is that the world enjoys a diplomatic system that is more comprehensive in its coverage and, in the richness and variety of its apparatus, perhaps more adaptable to different circumstances than ever before. This is just as well because we live in times of great uncertainty and in an era in which even the most powerful states feel vulnerable. These are precisely the conditions that obtained in the Italian peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century and at that time, too, gave such an impetus to continuous diplomatic contact.

2 The Origins of the Diplomatic Corps: Rome to Constantinople

It appears to have been about the middle of the eighteenth century before the term ‘diplomatic corps’ was used to refer to the body of diplomats resident in one capital and about the same time before the corporate existence of these envoys – by any name – was remarked upon in a general work on diplomacy.1 It was even later before individual courts began to issue diplomatic lists and thereby crystallize the group by formally identifying the boundaries of its membership.2 Nevertheless, according to Garrett Mattingly, the diplomatic corps originated in Rome a full three centuries earlier.3 This essay will begin by elaborating briefly on this but proceed swiftly to an emphasis on the development of the diplomatic corps in Ottoman Constantinople, especially during the early seventeenth century. Here many special circumstances caused the resident envoys to close ranks (however reluctantly in some cases), and it would be surprising if this did not strengthen the development of the diplomatic corps in the European states system as a whole. This is because vigorous and influential men were drawn to Constantinople, and many of them presumably took the lessons they learnt there to other posts. It is hardly surprising that the origins of the diplomatic corps should be found in the middle of the fifteenth century since it was at precisely this juncture that the recognizably modern resident mission itself first appeared. While diplomacy was conducted by special

1 Satow, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, p. 3; Pecquet, Discours sur L’Art de Négocier, p. 134. 2 In fact, not until after the French Revolution; see Graham, S. J., Vatican Diplomacy, p. 99. 3 Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, p. 100.

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The Origins of the Diplomatic Corps 17

envoys staying for only brief spells at foreign courts, the usual preoccupation was with discharging tasks and returning home as quickly as possible; such envoys had little incentive and less opportunity to create a body with a code of practice, periodic meetings, and a rolling agenda. This all began to change with the invention of the resident mission. Doomed to a stay which could be anything from one year to ten, or occasionally even longer, resident envoys had much to gain from regular collaboration with their professional ‘colleagues’. Since they appeared first in the Italian peninsula and above all in Rome, it is also here that the diplomatic corps was first created. ‘[I]t is at Rome, and during the Renaissance only at Rome’, continues Mattingly, ‘that we find the first signs of something like an organized diplomatic corps, developing a rudimentary sense of professional solidarity, exchanging social courtesies, codifying their mutual relationships, and even, in certain emergencies, acting together as a body’.4 Apart from well-known common interests – for example in sharing information and maintaining observance of special privileges5 – a number of practices adopted by the popes heightened the esprit de corps among the diplomats who found themselves at the papal curia. For one thing, they tended to be addressed collectively, not least because the popes had discovered that this was a most valuable means of ‘spreading important announcements, or initiating new lines of negotiation’.6 For another, ‘regulations for their common governance’ were periodically issued to them.7 And finally, they were usually assigned ‘places together at all important ceremonies’.8 The last practice appears to have been particularly encouraged by Pius II, pope from 1458 until his death in 1464, himself a former career diplomatist, and the only pontiff to have left memoirs. Pius II is well known for his special love of Roman ceremonial and the choreography essential to it, and was perhaps especially disposed to see that ambassadors were a prominent group on such occasions because they were ‘a marvelous sight with their foreign dress 4

Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, p. 100. Envoys of ambassadorial rank, of which the papal master of ceremonies had a very precise notion, were entitled to ‘a solemn reception at the gates of Rome by the households of the pope and the cardinals, audience in a public consistory, and a seat in the pope’s chapel’, Behrens, ‘Origins of the Office of English Resident Ambassador in Rome’, p. 647. 6 Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, pp. 99–100. For a good example, see Gabel (ed.), Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, pp. 347–9. 7 Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, p. 100. 8 Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, pp. 99–100; see also pp. 80–1 and 82–3. 5

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and ways’.9 In his Germania, which he wrote shortly before assuming the pontificate himself, Pius noted of the formal occasions at which the pope presided that ‘Bishops, Abbots, Protonotaries, ambassadors, all have their place’.10 Since these men were also the representatives of Christian princes, it seems likely that he was also anxious to see them publicly stand shoulder to shoulder in order to symbolize the unity of Christendom. This is because he was anxious to promote this as a precondition of driving the Turks back into Asia.11 There seems no reason to doubt that Mattingly is right to assign the greatest importance to Rome in any account of the origins of the diplomatic corps. This becomes doubly persuasive when he reminds us of its central importance in spreading Italian practice to the rest of Europe.12 However, any account at least of the early evolution and strengthening of the diplomatic corps would surely be remiss if it did not also attach importance to diplomatic life in Constantinople, a great city which after 1453 was the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Much information can be gleaned about this from a source that is now readily accessible. This is a collection of the despatches of Sir Thomas Roe, formerly English ambassador to the Great Moghul, close confidante of Elizabeth Stuart (eldest daughter of James I of England, and Queen of Bohemia), and from 1621 until 1628 English ambassador at Constantinople.13 It is chiefly on this collection that I shall draw in order to explore the evidence for corporate activity among the diplomats in Constantinople at this time and suggest the reasons for it. In the process, it should be instructive to compare them with the reasons for the original emergence of the diplomatic corps, in Rome. ‘No other capital’, observes Philip Mansell in his outstanding thematic history of Constantinople, ‘welcomed so many embassies. … Power was

9

Gabel (ed.), Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, p. 216; see also p. 182. Emphasis added. Quoted in Ady, Pius II, p. 255; see also Gabel (ed.) Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, pp. 245, 251, 347. 11 Gabel (ed.), Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope, p. 237. 12 Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, p. 100. 13 The Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, in His Embassy to the Ottoman Porte, from the Year 1621 to 1628 [hereafter Roe, The Negotiations]. First published by the Society for the Encouragement of Learning in London in 1740, this collection runs to 838 pages and has recently been made available in a facsimile edition from UMI Books on Demand. The originals are held in The National Archives in London. On Roe himself, see Strachan’s excellent Sir Thomas Roe, which has two chapters on his Turkish embassy. I have modernized the spelling of all quotations from The Negotiations. 10


the draw. The Ottoman Empire was at once a European, Middle Eastern, African, Black Sea, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean power. It had more neighbours – more matters for dispute or negotiation – than any other state’.14 And the sultans welcomed ambassadors as guests, permanent as well as extraordinary, because they flattered their power and invariably came bearing rich gifts. They were also indispensable sources of intelligence as well as of great value in negotiations because until 1793 the Ottoman Empire was unwilling to stoop to establishing abroad any permanent embassies of its own.15 As with Rome, Constantinople also required – and by at least the late sixteenth century attracted16 – able and resilient men. In addition to questions of high politics with which to deal, there were trading colonies to protect, Christians to rescue from the galleys, and ‘marbles’ to buy or steal for grateful aristocratic patrons at home. There was also a great deal of money to be made on the side for those with the necessary energy and acumen. ‘Here are many ambassadors, all experienced and tried in other parts, before they arrive at this trust’, wrote Sir Thomas Roe in 1624. ‘Here is a concourse of all nations, great and many varieties, important to Christendom.’17 For the Ottomans, the 1620s was a decade marked in the West by the Thirty Years’ War, in relationship to which their attitude was of great interest to all of the major players. In the east it was marked by the resumption in 1623 of fighting in their endemic conflict with the Persians. Against this background, numerous special ambassadors came to Constantinople, often with vast retinues,18 and if their purpose was to conclude a peace with the sultan they were sometimes detained for months as hostages. Among the extraordinary embassies to arrive were ones from Poland, Austria, Muscovy, Venice, Transylvania, Ragusa, the Crimean Tartars – and even from Persia itself. There was also a constant stream of messengers, ‘little ambassadors’ (or ‘nuncios’) usually sent to prepare the way for a ‘great ambassador’, and ecclesiastics of various hues on essentially diplomatic errands. However, the diplomatic community 14

Mansel, Constantinople, p. 189. See Berridge, ‘Diplomatic integration with Europe before Selim III’, pp. 114–30. 16 Until roughly this time, prior to which their reception was likely to be mixed, the Venetians and the French had difficulty in finding people willing to go to Constantinople, Frey and Frey, The History of Diplomatic Immunity, p. 139. 17 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 320. Mansel also notes that Constantinople attracted diplomats of high calibre, Constantinople, p. 199. 18 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 115; and Kolodziejczyk, ‘Semiotics of behavior in early modern diplomacy’, pp. 255–6. 15

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in Constantinople was naturally rooted in its most stable element, that is to say, in those diplomats who were resident in the city. There were, to begin with, a number of resident ‘agents’. The Polish government – with which the Ottomans had been at war in 1620–1 and at the end of Roe’s mission still maintained only ‘an infirm peace’19 – had an agent in Constantinople.20 So, too, did Prince Bethlen Gabor, the sultan’s protestant vassal in Transylvania, whom the English ambassador was under instructions to stir up against Austria. An Austrian agent was also established in 1622,21 and in 1625 an Italian was sent by Spain ‘to live a spy, under the resident of the emperor’.22 However, agents were the lowest form of diplomatic life and really had no degree of representative character at all – although their tasks were important. They gathered intelligence, prepared the way for visits by extraordinary embassies from home, and had limited dealings with Ottoman officials and other diplomats in the city. By virtue of their lowly status, however, agents appear not to have been able to attend meetings of the resident ambassadors and were therefore no more than satellites – ‘inferiors’, as Roe gently put it23 – orbiting, rather than being full members of, the diplomatic corps. As a deliberative body, this consisted exclusively of the resident ambassadors or ‘ledgers’ themselves.24

The members of the Constantinople diplomatic corps There had been a Venetian representative – the ‘baillie’ – resident in Constantinople during the reign of the Byzantine emperors, and this post was only temporarily vacated by the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453. The bailo, as he was known subsequently to the English, was without question a full ambassador – and more.25 But resident ambassadors did not begin to appear in numbers for roughly

19

Roe, The Negotiations, p. 772. From some time around the end of 1622 the Polish dragoman had also lived in Roe’s own house, perhaps because the agent had by this time gone home, Roe, The Negotiations, p. 772. 21 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 91. 22 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 422. 23 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 356. 24 On this early modern terminology, see Berridge and James, A Dictionary of Diplomacy. 25 Brown, Studies in the History of Venice, pp. 1–38; and Nicol, Byzantium and Venice, pp. 289–91, 314, 352. 20


another century – led by the French in 1536, and not long afterwards followed (with lengthy interruptions) by the hated Austrians.26 When Sir Thomas Roe arrived in 1621, there was no Austrian, but Dutch and English embassies had joined the French and were also well established. There had been an English embassy in Constantinople since 1583,27 and a Dutch one since 1612, when Cornelis van Haga was appointed by the States General. Haga, who loved the city, was still there when Roe arrived – and still there when he left. ‘He has bought his house in fee’, Sir Thomas told one of his correspondents, ‘trimmed it, adorned it, and planted it about, as if he meant to make it his mansion and tombe, and had’, he added presciently, ‘no fear of a removal’. (Haga remained Dutch ambassador at Constantinople until 1639.) Roe had a good working relationship with ‘the states ledger’, although as he saw more of him his reservations appear to have mounted. Writing to Sir Isaac Wake in Venice in 1626, he said that ‘He has lived long in Turkey, and is so corrupted with their manners, that he is the shame of ambassadors … and if necessity of business, wherein he has not much authority, did not hold us together, for my part I would not converse with him’.28 Roe had more respect for the Venetian representatives with whom he overlapped. ‘Wise’, ‘discreet’, ‘wary’, were the adjectives that often came to his lips when he mentioned them.29 However, the French ambassador, Philippe de Harlay, who had arrived in 1620 and was to remain in Constantinople for the greater part of the period until 1639,30 Roe despised. He was, to the mind of the Englishman, far too stiff-necked on the issue of precedence (discussed later), impetuous, malicious, and inclined to brand as sour grapes subjects on which he could not secure the lead. He also possessed neither ‘credit nor reputation in court nor

26 A famous account of this period by an Austrian ambassador is to be found in The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, trsl. by E. S. Forster (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1927). Two Austrian resident ambassadors were also present in Constantinople in the second half of the sixteenth century: Charles Rym and David Ungnad (the latter definitely in 1573–8). There were also Polish and Genoese residents in the mid-sixteenth century, Mansel, ‘Art and diplomacy in Ottoman Constantinople’. 27 Skilliter, William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey; Skilliter, ‘The organization of the first English embassy in Istanbul in 1583’; and Wood, A History of the Levant Company, Ch. 5. 28 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 627. 29 Roe, The Negotiations, pp. 126, 609, 627, 639. 30 Casa, Le Palais de France à Istanbul, p. 109.

22


city’ for having got himself ruinously in debt.31 The fact that much of this debt was to members of the English colony did not increase his standing in Roe’s eyes. In short, Roe told Sir Isaac Wake in 1626, ‘he is not worth a good feather’.32 As with the diplomatic corps in all capitals, that in Constantinople had tensions that went beyond personalities. Some of these had their source in the rivalry between the trading colonies of the four states, which was sometimes intense. There were also differences between Roe and de Harlay over religion,33 although these were offset to a great extent by their mutual hostility to the Habsburgs.34 There remained, however, a serious procedural obstacle to the development of a corporate spirit within the diplomatic corps; this was the problem of precedence.

The problem of precedence On the authority of the papal class list of 1504, the French claimed precedence over all of the other ambassadors in Constantinople – and the latter had previously conceded it. However, this was a situation that James I of England proved unwilling to tolerate, and Roe was instructed to demand at least equality. Predictably enough, his initial attempts to carry out this instruction merely sabotaged cooperative action by the diplomatic corps and direct communication between London and Paris failed to resolve the question.35 However, in 1624, forced by the urgency of a ‘general grievance’ to make some form of joint protest to the Porte, the diplomatic corps itself finally hit on a partial solution. First, a joint document would be employed which would refer for its authority to ‘the 4 resident Christian ambassadors, without mention of any one in particular’, thereby avoiding the issue of the order in which they should be presented. Secondly, only a relatively small space would be left for the ambassadors’ signatures

31

Roe, The Negotiations, pp. 112, 113, 126, 610, 725. Roe, The Negotiations, p. 627. 33 This was occasioned in particular by a struggle over the office of Patriarch and the role of the Jesuits in the city, Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, pp. 170–5. 34 This led all four ambassadors to spend a great deal of time concerting their actions towards Bethlen Gabor, in order that he should remain a thorn in the emperor’s side. They also acted together most strenuously to oppose (in the event successfully) the arrival in Constantinople of a Spanish ambassador, the influence of whose gold at the Porte was feared more than his arguments. 35 Roe, The Negotiations, pp. 59, 148, 188, 244. 32


and seals between the last line of the text and the bottom of the page. This would make it impossible for the signatures (with their accompanying seals) to be inscribed in hierarchical columns. Contriving to be given first choice of where in this space to place his signature, Roe wrote it precisely in the middle. Since the left-hand side ‘was the chiefest according to the Christian, and the right according to the Turkish, by reason of the difference in writing’, this gave de Harlay a choice of second-best options to save his face.36 In any event, Roe had agreed to a joint, written protest because his name did not have to appear below de Harlay’s and the latter had conceded, so he said, ‘for the general good’. ‘Since this time more courtesies have passed between us’, reported the English ambassador, somewhat complacently, ‘and I find him very tractable and affable’ – although de Harlay still had no money to pay his debts to the English merchants.37 This finesse over the form of joint, written protests certainly helped to prevent the quarrel over precedence from stifling the development of the diplomatic corps in Constantinople at this point. However, to what extent it was subsequently employed in Roe’s period is not clear from his despatches. The chief reason why the diplomatic corps held together and probably strengthened its formal bonds despite the quarrel over precedence was that the advantages of unity were particularly compelling at this time. What were they?

The incentives to unity Fear The four ambassadors had numerous meetings, although they seem to have been irregular. It has already been noted that the diplomatic body was small in number – just four ambassadors – and it is reasonable to assume that this made it easier to organize and easier to obtain decisions. Much more importantly, though, there was in Constantinople a particularly urgent need on the part of the ambassadors to stand together in self-defence.

36 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 270. Strachan claims that this was Roe’s motive, Sir Thomas Roe, p. 150. This is certainly plausible but the internal evidence of Roe’s somewhat convoluted reasoning is not, I think, quite as conclusive as Strachan suggests. 37 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 270.

24


When Roe arrived in Constantinople he was initially ignored and denied the ‘usual courtesies’ by the Porte; he also found the diplomatic corps demoralized.38 Thus in a despatch to Secretary Calvert in 1621, he said: I have undertaken to begin a reformation; and because I would not run alone, and be left single, I have required articles of all the rest to stand with me, which they have promised.39 The ambassadors also had more to worry about than discourtesies. For all their differences, they remained, after all, the representatives of Christian princes in a Muslim world, and even in quiet times hostility towards them was never far from the surface. ‘[W]e lived among enemies, where questions [squabbles] ought to be avoided’, Roe reported himself saying to the French ambassador following a tussle over precedence in 1622.40 Moreover, the first years of Roe’s time in Constantinople were far from quiet. In fact, a janissary revolt, a sultan assassinated, and a feeble-minded successor, plunged the city into anarchy and led to a major rebellion in Anatolia. Until Mustafa I was deposed in favour of Murat IV in September 1623, the Ottoman Empire seemed on the verge of disintegration – and things did not get better overnight. In June 1622, Roe told Lord Doncaster that in Constantinople ‘barbarism is philosophy, and mutiny justice’, adding that ‘though they [the janissaries] have offered us no injury, yet, when madness and fury rages, who is safe?’41 And in the following year he voiced the conclusion that he had no doubt drawn much earlier: ‘In these disordered times, when all nations suffer many injuries and oppressions, we have no refuge but to join our selves, which is a little bulwark.’42 Constantinople was also a capital in which diplomatic immunity was not even in principle respected. It is true that the ambassadors were regarded as leaders of resident ‘nations’ and in this capacity enjoyed privileges (‘capitulations’) from the hand of the sultan, notably protection.43 Nevertheless the security of their persons and their houses

38 Mansel notes that Ottoman arrogance towards ambassadors was at its height in the seventeenth century, Constantinople, p. 193. 39 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 18. 40 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 113. 41 Roe, The Negotiations, pp. 54–5. 42 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 148. 43 Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. 1, pp. 163–4.


endured only so long as their princes remained in friendship with the sultan. In effect, the ambassadors were all hostages, and, as such, could be imprisoned indefinitely if this friendship should fail – as French and Imperial ambassadors had found to their cost quite recently.44 Latent Muslim hostility, periodic anarchy on the streets, and their hostage status, all gave the ambassadors an interest in looking out for each other. Defence of the capitulations Another interest shared by the members of the diplomatic corps, and one that at this time was unique to Constantinople, was respect by the Ottoman authorities for the terms of their capitulations, especially where they concerned favourable trading arrangements. Such respect was often difficult to obtain in remote parts of the empire but in disturbed times could be equally so in the capital itself. If an Ottoman official was allowed to get away with ignoring the terms of one state’s capitulations a dangerous precedent would be established. It was only shortly after Roe arrived in Constantinople that the French ambassador himself employed the cry of ‘common interest’ in order to secure help from his diplomatic colleagues in a case of this kind. The French had a grievance against the governor of Cairo and had already secured the support of the Dutch and Venetian ambassadors. In the event, Roe himself refused to add his own signature to the joint written protest produced by de Harlay because he insisted that his own name should go first. Excusing himself by claiming that the English had no commerce at Cairo, and ‘unwilling any way’, Roe reports, ‘to break that unity which I myself had contracted’, the English ambassador told his colleagues that he would ‘not forsake them in any general cause’. As a result, he urged that they each make separate protests and thereby avoid the issue of precedence. How this was finally resolved Roe does not make clear but he claims to have soothed the French ambassador – who had threatened to reply in kind if in future the boot was on the other foot – with emollient words and by helping him out in some other matters.45 Soothing the Frenchman was important because it was not long before Roe did indeed need his support. In the middle of 1622 a tax which Roe believed contrary to the English capitulations was suddenly imposed on silk being shipped to Turkey in English vessels. He appealed

44 45

Mansel, Constantinople, pp. 192–3. Roe, The Negotiations, pp. 112–13.

26


for redress to the grand vizier but in vain. In a dispatch to Calvert that still palpably steams with indignation, Roe recounts his angry exchange with the grand vizier and how subsequently he enlisted the other ambassadors in his support, although not without ‘much ado’ and threatening to shame them by standing alone: [T]he vizier took part against us, the veriest villain that ever lived; and used me with great contempt, threatened to hang my secretary, and drogermen [interpreters], if they spoke in my cause; whereupon I threw him my capitulations … and unloaded my silk, resolved to stand it out. To this end, I procured all the ambassadors here to join; and we were on our way, with full resolution to go to court, and to procure his head, or to ask leave to remove our countrymen, and their estates, which are now in great danger. Fortunately, Roe was able to report that ‘God took my quarrel in hand’. On the way to the palace, the ambassadors heard that the grand vizier had also fallen foul of the janissaries, who were a far more serious threat than the diplomats to continuing intimacy between the head and the shoulders of this official. ‘He is fled’, reported Roe with obvious satisfaction, ‘and order given to kill him where he is first found’.46 The English ambassador could have given many similar examples, although by late 1623 he is found simply saying that ‘we poor strangers suffer all manner of injuries, and all oppressions; no capitulations observed; double and new customs exacted to get money’.47 Shared services The diplomatic corps in Constantinople was not only a society for mutual defence against the depredations of Ottoman officials, it was also one based on the obvious advantage of sharing important services, especially messengers and the acquisition and distribution of information. The diplomatic corps in all capitals was always of great value to its members for the trading of information, both on local and international events. However, this was especially true of Constantinople because of its relative remoteness, particularly from the states of northern European. It was not long after his arrival that Roe was complaining to London of the absence of letters from England and his dependence on the other 46 47

Roe, The Negotiations, pp. 61–2. Roe, The Negotiations, p. 188.


ambassadors for news of outside affairs, even – most humiliating of all – of events at home.48 Throughout his time in the Ottoman Empire he had very few letters from the secretary of state and complained about this with increasing stridency. It is true that he began to acquire information from the correspondence that he nurtured with English diplomatic colleagues elsewhere, especially in The Hague, Venice, and Savoy, and also had letters from other important persons in England itself, including the Archbishop of Canterbury.49 The fact remains, however, that Roe was generally short of information – only ‘fed with scraps and stale ends’50 – and was correspondingly reliant on his colleagues. This was painfully evident in 1626, when he was confronted by an extraordinary ambassador from Bethlen Gabor who claimed that a conference at The Hague had decided that he, Sir Thomas, must assist his master to procure action by the pasha of Buda against the emperor and ‘nourish the Tartars against the king of Poland’. In the absence of any instruction on this point from London, the English ambassador had to rely on an assurance from the Venetian bailo that this was indeed true. This permitted Roe to advance cautiously on these fronts, and shortly afterwards he received a letter from the secretary of state confirming that the king’s intentions for him had been correctly represented.51 In 1627 we find Roe still dwelling on his dependence on the Venetian.52 The other ambassadors may not have been as reliant on their colleagues for information on external events as was Roe but it would be surprising if they too did not value them as sources. Roe also pooled intelligence about Ottoman affairs, which he needed not only to fulfil his instructions from London but also to use as bait to elicit replies from his English diplomatic colleagues at other postings. It was, however, little use obtaining local intelligence if it could not be got out, and communications with the outside world that were tolerably rapid, predictable, and secure were not easy to achieve in Constantinople, especially in winter.53 Sometimes despatches did not 48

Roe, The Negotiations, p. 22. Many of these are reproduced in Roe, The Negotiations. 50 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 355. 51 Roe, The Negotiations, pp. 522–3, 528. 52 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 663. 53 The King’s Messenger service of the English government did not begin to provide a proper service to any diplomatic post until it was reorganized in 1772, Thomson, The Secretaries of State, p. 142; and Wheeler-Holohan, The History of the King’s Messengers, Chs 3–5. On diplomatic communications in this period generally, see Allen, Post and Courier Service in the Diplomacy of Early Modern Europe. 49

28


even get out of the city: ‘our letters of May’, Roe observed drolly to Sir Dudley Carleton in 1623, ‘were intercepted and sold in the city to wrap pepper’.54 What this meant was great reliance on the Venetian postal service, as Roe soon found out. Venice was relatively close to Constantinople, and had intimate relations with it going back to the Byzantine period. Moreover, although the republic itself was by this time past the peak of its prestige, it had a diplomatic service that was still regarded as the model for all Europe. In the second half of the sixteenth century the bailo was the unquestioned informal doyen of the nascent diplomatic corps.55 It is hardly surprising, then, that Venice had the best communications with Constantinople and that the other ambassadors – especially the Dutch and the English – should have relied on them. In fact, the bailo acted as ‘postmaster for the whole diplomatic body’.56 Roe is eloquent on his need for the Venetian post, and how this required him to ingratiate himself with the bailo.57 This evidently paid off because their relations remained smooth throughout his time in Constantinople and his correspondence continued to be handled by the Venetian post. However, it is a mark of the absence of any serious alternative that the English ambassador continued to use it despite his belief – strongly shared in London – that the Venetians not only detained his post when it suited their purposes but also regularly opened it.58 A shared neighbourhood It is clear from his despatches and private letters that Roe met his fellow ambassadors ‘in council’ quite often. This was facilitated by the fact that in Constantinople, as in other capitals, the diplomats tended to live in the

54

Roe, The Negotiations, p. 157. His law court, established by a treaty of 1454 to exercise jurisdiction over the Venetian community in the city, was the civil court for all foreigners. In the 1590s, even the English ambassador submitted to his jurisdiction, Brown, Studies in the History of Venice, pp. 4–5. 56 Brown, Studies in the History of Venice, p. 32; Allen, Post and Courier Service in the Diplomacy of Early Modern Europe, pp. 26, 38, 66, 86. 57 Roe, The Negotiations, p. 20. 58 This was admitted by the Venetian ambassador in London, who pleaded excessive zeal on the part of the post office, Roe, The Negotiations, pp. 113, 160–1, 178. Perhaps because of English protests these abuses diminished. In 1627, in commenting on the delay of some letters from Venice, Roe remarked that he had ‘no cause to mistrust the bailo, whose friendship is my only comfort here’, The Negotiations, p. 695. 55


same quarter. The concentration of diplomats in Pera, on the hill above Galata on the northern side of the Golden Horn, seems to have been a result of choice rather than compulsion. It was healthier and less congested than Constantinople, sufficiently separate from the heart of the city to make its ‘Frankish’, Christian atmosphere tolerable to its rulers – and yet close enough to them for the ready conduct of business.59 But, no doubt by underlining their common culture as well as by virtue of physical proximity, the concentration of diplomats in Pera (and the families of many of their dragomans) also encouraged co-operation between the ambassadors. Collective treatment by the Porte It will be recalled that Mattingly is of the view that collective treatment by the Pope of the Rome diplomatic corps was probably the main factor in encouraging the development of its corporate identity. Can a similar process be observed in Constantinople? There is little evidence in Roe’s Negotiations that the Porte treated the diplomatic corps as a collective body, and none that it was treated in this way on any ceremonial occasions. This is not surprising. First of all, the ambassadors were regarded by the Ottomans chiefly as protectors of the members of their ‘nations’ resident in the empire, analogous to the semi-autonomous religious communities (millets) established by Mehmet II after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.60 Since there were in fact religious differences between them, as well as legendary commercial rivalries, it is understandable that the Ottomans tended to think of the ambassador’s reference group as his nation rather than his professional colleagues. Secondly, in direct contrast to the Pope in Rome, it was hardly in the interest of the Ottomans to treat the diplomats – all Christians – as a collective body and thereby encourage their solidarity; in fact, quite the opposite. With internal strife to contend with as well as a powerful enemy in Persia, the last thing that the Porte wanted was to do anything to encourage the unity of Christendom. Having said this, there is intriguing evidence in Roe’s correspondence that on at least one occasion – when they were desperate – the Ottomans did just this. 59 Nicol, Byzantium and Venice, p. 190; Goffman, Britons in the Ottoman Empire, pp. 34–5; Mansel, Constantinople, p. 194; and Mayes, An Organ for the Sultan, p. 157. 60 Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. 1, pp. 58–9; Steensgaard, ‘Consuls and nations in the Levant from 1570 to 1650’; and Inalcik, ‘Imtiyazat’, pp. 1183–4.

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Following the accession of Murat in September 1623, money had to be raised urgently because his coffers were empty and the janissaries ‘sharply demanded’ their pay – ‘with threats of innovation’. Among other methods, his government sought to do this, wrote Roe in September 1623, by extorting contributions from ‘every other order of men and officers, that are not of the sword. The vizier’, he continued, ‘sent solemnly to the four resident ambassadors to borrow 30000 chequins, as the friends and allies of this porte, to whom in confidence they dare open their secrets’. Roe added that there were experienced officials who thought this dishonourable and unlikely to be successful – and, indeed, the ambassadors, pleading poverty themselves, refused.61 The point is though that the Porte treated the diplomatic corps as an order of men, and no doubt obliged this order to consult together so that it might concert its response. In sum, there was a small diplomatic body in Constantinople in the 1620s that deserved the name. Its members – the Venetians, French, English, and Dutch – were thrown together by common interests in resisting insult and violence, defending the capitulations, exchanging information, and preserving their communications with the outside world. Joint deliberations were also made easy by the fact that they lived in relatively close proximity to each other in Pera. On at least one occasion – although this was perhaps less important – an attempt was made by the Porte to tax them as a collective body. It was for these reasons that, although the diplomatic corps was seriously threatened by a bitter argument over precedence between the English and French ambassadors, it eventually found a limited way out of this by its own exertions – after London-Paris diplomacy had failed.

Conclusion The diplomatic corps appears first to have taken on significant corporate form in Rome in the middle of the fifteenth century before developing in other major centres of diplomacy, not least Constantinople – and not least because this city was on Christendom’s front line. Here, and for this reason, the fact that the resident diplomats were not treated as a body in anything like the same degree as in Rome seems not to have diminished their desire to act like one. This essay has only scratched the surface of its subject. The Rome diplomatic corps is only cursorily mentioned by Mattingly and ignored 61

Roe, The Negotiations, p. 180.


altogether in an otherwise excellent recent collection of essays on early modern Italian diplomatic practice.62 Accordingly, Rome has been treated merely by way of introduction to the more detailed study of the hitherto even more neglected diplomatic corps of Constantinople. As for the latter, the arrival of the French ambassador in 1536 would have been a more appropriate starting point than 1621.63 A full study of Constantinople would also require further investigation of the English sources before Roe’s time, not to mention the original copies of Roe’s papers, fully listed in Michael Strachan’s biography.64 Obviously, too, it would require study of the French, Venetian, Dutch, Austrian,65 and Ottoman archives – and quite possibly of the Polish archives as well. Nevertheless I hope that at least this essay has thrown up a few ideas over which future historians of diplomacy might usefully chew.

62

Frigo (ed.), Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy. Although on the evidence of Busbecq’s letters, the Frenchman had hardly any contact at all with him at least, and probably less with his predecessor, Malvezzi. There is barely a whiff of any ‘diplomatic body’ in The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. 64 Sir Thomas Roe, 1581–1644, ‘Bibliographical Note’. 65 For example, Nehring (ed.), Austro-Turcica, 1541–1552. 63

3 Diplomatic Education and Training: The British Tradition

The British have never attached much importance to the formal education and training of diplomatists, except – from the middle of the nineteenth century – in the case of entrants to specialized branches of the then separate consular service. Even today the government has no ‘diplomatic academy’; nor does the Foreign Office have a training wing.1 This is not just because the British are an empirical people but probably because, until well into the nineteenth century, diplomacy was not usually seen as a life-long career but as a stepping stone to a more comfortable and secure position at home.2 Moreover, when diplomacy began to be professionalized in the middle of this century Britain was one of the most powerful states in the world. The method of selecting candidates for entry might be reformed (under protest) but why should it need to do anything much different with them after that? Its diplomacy was serving it well enough. Nevertheless novice diplomatists in Britain did have some preparation for their careers, and it consisted – in the main – of providing them with a variety of informal experiences. According to one authoritative commentator, this meant that they were ‘unusually well trained’ even in the early modern period.3 In what did these experiences consist prior to the mid-nineteenth century? In what manner were they then modified as professionalism advanced? How good were they? 1 It has a small training department but this specializes in organizing short courses, most of which (for example on ‘leadership’ and ‘handling the media’) are sub-contracted to organizations in the private sector, typically management consultancies. 2 Snyder, ‘The British diplomatic service during the Godolphin ministry’, pp. 50–1; Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, p. 7. 3 Bell, A Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, 1509–1688, p. 11.

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Diplomatic Education and Training 33

Education Until the early nineteenth century the view remained widespread in Britain that a university education might well have certain advantages for a man considering a diplomatic career, but it was by no means essential.4 Furthermore, no special ‘school for ambassadors’ such as the Marquis de Torcy’s ill-fated Political Academy in early eighteenth century France5 was ever even attempted, and no effort was made to provide courses at universities or elsewhere that were tailor-made for diplomatists. There were two exceptions to this but each was only a partial one.6 The first was prompted by the desire of the new Hanoverian dynasty to shore up its political position in the church and the universities while simultaneously producing a cadre of servants of the state fluent in French and German. It sought to do this, among other things, by creating in 1724 a chair in Modern History both at Oxford and Cambridge. The ‘Regius’ professors appointed to fill them were each to employ two teachers of modern languages, whose own responsibilities were to give free instruction to 20 young men in each university. Those who progressed well were to be given employment at home or abroad. However, within a few years the scheme was moribund. The students were not in general well selected, the official posts for which the good ones were eligible tended still to be filled by the entrenched system of patronage – and the state lost interest. As Firth says, ‘the experiment of trying to train civil servants at the University failed because there was not yet any organized Civil Service’.7 Besides, as he also bitterly laments,

4 Though Bell shows that 65 per cent of British diplomatists in his period of study ‘had some formal education’, Bell, A Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, 1509–1688, p. 12. 5 Jusserand, The School for Ambassadors and Other Essays, pp. 40–7; Keens-Soper, ‘The French Political Academy, 1712’, pp. 323–55; Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, p. 132. 6 Horn might be taken to imply that a third was the curriculum offered in the eighteenth century by the University of Edinburgh, on the grounds that it was broadly based and the most attractive to Scotsmen who ended up in the British diplomatic service. Nevertheless, as he says, this programme ‘had no official backing’; nor is there any evidence that it was deliberately constructed with diplomacy in view, Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, pp. 133–4; and Horn, ‘Edinburgh University and the Diplomatic Service, 1714–89’, pp. 27–33. 7 Firth, Modern Languages at Oxford, 1724–1929, Ch. 1; Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, pp. 130–3.

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the ancient universities were deeply wedded to Greek and Latin and it was not until shortly before World War I that they accepted in principle that modern languages were a serious subject of study – and after it before the resources were provided to make this a reality.8 As for the second exception to the general rule that no formal education was given to diplomatists prior to appointment, this was the schooling provided to those doing consular work. This was also only a partial exception for three reasons: first, because it did not begin until late in the nineteenth century; second, because it was confined to the two specialized British consular services (it did not include the ‘General Consular Service’); and third, because those doing consular work were not permitted to do ‘diplomatic’ work. Nevertheless it was an important exception because consuls in the China Service, which was created in 1843,9 and the Levant Service, created in 1877, in practice often did do diplomatic work; as attitudes changed in the early twentieth century, they were sometimes even promoted into the Diplomatic Service. Ernest Satow, who became minister in Peking following the Boxer rebellion in 1900, began his career as a ‘student interpreter’ in Japan in 1861. Candidates for the two specialized consular services were examined in more or less relevant subjects and successful ones were appointed, like Satow, as student interpreters. There being no suitable teaching of oriental languages at that time available in Britain’s universities, they were then despatched to the legation at Peking (usually) and the embassy at Constantinople. Here they were given two years of full-time education. The emphasis, of course, was placed squarely on local and regional languages but other courses also had to be studied; at Ortakeui, for example, which was the location of the British school in Turkey, the students had to study Moslem law and Ottoman history. This educational system was generally regarded as modestly successful.10 The fact remains, however, that through much the greater part of the modern period there was no formal education for British diplomatists prior to their appointment. The consequence was that for those who aspired to the career and felt the need for a preparation of some kind – and most did – less formal means had to be sought. The easiest and

8

Firth, Modern Languages at Oxford, 1724–1929, Chs 4–6. This evolved into the Far Eastern Service when consuls were established in Siam and Japan. 10 Platt, The Cinderella Service, pp. 163–8, 185–92; Morray, ‘The selection, instruction and examination of the student interpreters of the Levant Consular Service, 1877–1916’; and Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice, Ch. 1. 9


cheapest, of course, was to obtain a book on the subject, and from the sixteenth century onwards a genre of works on diplomacy, written in the main by diplomatists themselves or by lawyers, became popular. These authors all believed that novices could learn something of the technical knowledge required in the performance of their tasks from books such as their own. Initially the emphasis was on the attributes of personality, character, languages, and manners, that the ideal diplomatist should display, but increasingly they came to dwell also, and more usefully, on the more practical aspects of the diplomatist’s craft. Such works, the most complete and well known of which in the ancien régime was Abraham de Wicquefort’s L’Ambassadeur et ses Fonctions, published in 1680/1 and translated into English in 1716, dealt with his tasks, letters of credence, despatches, privileges, and so on. Sir Ernest Satow’s A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, first published in 1917, was the successor to this great manual. Apart from describing the craft itself, these works also included more or less explicit reading lists of other books, especially works of history, under which heading Wicquefort including diplomatic memoirs, country reports (‘relations’), correspondence, and, above all, treaties. Callières supplemented this syllabus with accounts of the genealogies of princes and their alliances by marriage. Wicquefort also recommended The Book of the Courtier by Castiglione, works of moral philosophy reduced to the manageable form of ‘rules and precepts’, and – lest this seem to make him appear too other-worldly – ‘all the works of Nicholas Machiavelli’.11 Some novices were fortunate enough to fall in and strike up friendships with one of the more famous authors, as the young Henry Wotton did with the Italian Protestant émigré, Alberico Gentili, at Oxford in the late sixteenth century.12 Novice diplomats, who came increasingly from families of the aristocracy and landed gentry with a long tradition of service to the state, also picked up at home – or at the houses of relatives – knowledge and attitudes valuable to the diplomatic career. This was especially true of those who were born abroad and brought up in an embassy or succession of embassies, as was the case with the young Harold Nicolson in the late nineteenth century. Other diplomatic families – loosely defined – included the Wottons, Howards, Montagus, Somersets, Wyches,

11 I have reprinted Wicquefort’s key passages dealing with ‘the Birth and Learning of an Embassador’ in my Diplomatic Classics, pp. 125–7. 12 Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, pp. 5–6.

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Sidneys, Moriers, Pagets, Wellesleys, Villiers, Herveys, Elliots, Malets, and Rumbolds.13 The conservative philosopher, Michael Oakeshott, an influential figure at the London School of Economics in the mid-twentieth century, believed that family tradition was in fact the best medium for imparting practical as well as technical knowledge in the great professions – among which he specifically mentioned diplomacy – and lamented the attempt of rationalists and egalitarians to destroy it.14 He certainly had a point, though how important the ‘diplomatic family’ actually was in the whole picture is another matter. There has been no systematic research on this and two cautionary observations should be made. First, the indexes of persons in the three volumes listing the postings of Britain’s diplomatic representatives from 1509 until 1852 reveal no domination of the emerging profession by a handful of families; or, to put the same point another way, the same family names do not repeat themselves that often.15 Secondly, and consistently with this, it does not occur to Bell, the compiler of the most recent of these volumes to appear and a scholar who is sensitive to the informal preparation of novice diplomatists, to mention the family. Nevertheless a fair number of diplomatists obviously did have grandfathers, fathers, or elder brothers who were also diplomatists,16 and in such cases it is equally obvious that what they learnt from them about the craft, by hint and example as well as by deliberate instruction, must have been considerable. It is interesting that in Venice in the seventeenth century formal recognition was given to the value of diplomatic parentage in preparation for diplomacy.17 13 It is unfortunate in this connection that perhaps the most well-known example is provided by the Stanhope family, owing to the famous letters of advice written by the eighteenth-century politician and diplomatist, Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, to his son, also called Philip. Philip was a failure and died young. The letters were first published in 1774 and have since gone through many editions, Cannon, ‘Stanhope’. In 2004 an e-edition was made available on the Internet by Project Gutenberg: The Earl of Chesterfield, The PG Edition of Chesterfield’s Letters to his Son, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3361/3361-h/3361h.htm. I cite this edition for ease of access. 14 Rationalism in Politics, pp. 9, 34. 15 Bell, A Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, 1509–1688; Horn, British Diplomatic Representatives, 1689–1789; and Bindoff et al., British Diplomatic Representatives, 1789–1852. 16 According to Jones, nine per cent of diplomatists between 1815 and 1860 had fathers in the Diplomatic Service, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, Table I.2, p. 13. 17 Young men who lacked a patrician background but wished for a diplomatic career had to begin their training in the ducal chancellery, to which entry could be gained earlier (even at the age of 14) and more easily for those whose fathers


Rather more deliberately and often with the financial support of the state, young men were prepared for public service by foreign travel. In England by the end of the sixteenth century this had become a particularly well-entrenched and important custom.18 ‘Foreign travel’, writes Smith, ‘was almost a necessary part of the education of an ambitious youth in the reign of Queen Elizabeth’.19 For those with diplomacy in mind it was, of course, particularly useful. They learnt about foreign lands and forms of government, enriched their general education by attendance at great foreign universities, and at the same time improved their modern foreign languages; by the middle of the sixteenth century a knowledge of Latin was no longer sufficient.20 In this period Italy was perhaps the chief destination: Italy in general – ‘the great school of statecraft’ – and Venice in particular.21 As for Venice, not only the great republic itself was to be visited22 but its diplomatists were to be courted wherever they might be found: By the way [wrote Lord Chesterfield to his son], wherever you are, I would advise you to frequent, as much as you can, the Venetian Ministers; who are always better informed of the courts they reside at than any other minister; the strict and regular accounts, which they are obliged to give to their own government, making them very diligent and inquisitive.23 In the course of the seventeenth century France appears gradually to have eclipsed Italy as the chief destination of well-born young Englishmen, and when Holland and Germany were added to their itinerary the ‘Grand Tour’ was born.24 Nevertheless for those with the or grandfathers were chancellery officials, Zannini, ‘Economic and social aspects of the crisis of Venetian diplomacy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, pp. 132–42. 18 Howard, English Travellers of the Renaissance, Introduction. 19 Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, p. 8. 20 Howard, English Travellers of the Renaissance, Ch. 1. 21 Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, p. 18. 22 Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, p. 51. 23 Letter LXV, London, Feb. 28 Old Style, 1749, The Earl of Chesterfield, The PG Edition of Chesterfield’s Letters to his Son, http://www.gutenberg.org/ files/3361/3361-h/3361-h.htm (accessed 10 May 2007). ‘By virtue of their preeminent merits, the Venetian diplomatists became the teachers and models of all Europe’, says Hill in A History of Diplomacy, p. 297. 24 It was in 1670 that this term appears first to have appeared in print, Howard, English Travellers of the Renaissance, Ch. 6.

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diplomatic career in view, France had always been very important. Casting his eye over his ten years’ work in producing his handlist of Tudor and Stuart diplomatists, Bell notes that ‘In one instance, the embassy of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton to France in the early 1560s, so many later diplomats are to be found involved that it is tempting to refer to that embassy as a “school for ambassadors.”’25 And, in light of her remarks on the experience of Sir Amias Paulet, English Ambassador to France less than two decades later, Clare Howard would no doubt have agreed: Of course, for observation and experience, there was no place so advantageous as the household of an ambassador, if one was fortunate enough to win an entry there. The English Ambassador in France generally had a burden of young gentlemen more or less under his care. Sometimes they were lodged independently in Paris, but many belonged to his train, and had meat and drink for themselves, their servants and their horses, at the ambassador’s expense. Sir Amias Paulet’s Letter-Book of 1577–8 testifies that an ambassador’s cares were considerably augmented by writing reports to parents.26 France was close and politically important. Moreover, French was rapidly becoming the language of diplomacy and it was Frenchmen who by the end of the seventeenth century had come to be regarded in Britain as ‘the supreme masters of the art of diplomacy’.27 By the eighteenth century the Grand Tour for young Englishmen in general might have decayed from its high Elizabethan ideals to little more than a tourist jaunt. Even aspiring diplomatists may themselves by this time have been under somewhat less pressure to undertake it: journalistic news of ‘the Continent’ was now more readily obtained at home, and there was no lack here either of competent and eager teachers of the French language after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 produced an influx of French Protestant refugees. Nevertheless it is obviously an exaggeration to conclude from this and other developments that ‘It was no longer necessary to live in foreign countries to understand them’28 – not least because French was not the only language useful in diplomacy. 25

Bell, A Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, 1509–1688, p. 12. Howard, English Travellers of the Renaissance, Ch. 2. 27 Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, p. 125. 28 Howard, English Travellers of the Renaissance, Ch. 7. 26


In fact, foreign travel remained probably as important an element in the education of aspiring British diplomatists in the late as in the early modern period. Thus there was with no sense that he was recording an exceptional decision that the British diplomatist, Sir Augustus Paget, wrote of his father, the diplomatist Sir Arthur Paget: ‘in the year 1790, my father, being then nineteen years old, went abroad, with the view of studying foreign politics upon the Continent, of learning foreign languages, and of otherwise preparing himself for entry into the diplomatic profession’.29 However, in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the introduction of serious competitive examinations in 1856, the pressure to spend time abroad not only became even more intense but acquired a new flavour. Social class was still the prime determinant of selection because the foreign secretary reserved the right to nominate those who might take the examinations; nevertheless ability was now important as well. This was especially true of the ability to speak foreign languages, notably French, German, and Italian, and the aspiring diplomat now spent more of his time abroad focused on language training than in earlier periods.30 Typically he would spend on average two years in continental Europe preparing for the Foreign Office exams. Sometimes he would stay in only one centre – before, after, or often instead of, going to university – but usually in two or more.31 Frank Bertie (later Lord Bertie of Thame), who was British ambassador in Paris from 1905 until 1918, spent two years in Bonn after leaving Eton in 1860.32 Harold Nicolson’s father, Arthur Nicolson (later Lord Carnock), who had been ambassador in Madrid and St. Petersburgh before being appointed permanent undersecretary in the Foreign Office in 1910, after Oxford went to Switzerland to learn French and then Dresden to learn German.33 Harold himself, who followed his father into the diplomatic profession after leaving Oxford with a ‘Third’, spent ‘two to three months at a time with different foreign families, in Germany, France and Italy, perfecting his languages and cramming feverishly’.34 Esme Howard (later Lord Howard

29

Paget (ed.), The Paget Papers, p. vii. Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, pp. 103, 143, 159–60, 168. 31 At the beginning of the twentieth century, as a result of changes in regulations, the non-university graduate became comparatively rare, Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, p. 168. 32 Hamilton, Bertie of Thame, p. 4. 33 Nicolson, Portrait of a Diplomatist, p. 8. 34 Lees-Milne, Harold Nicolson, p. 32. 30

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of Penrith), who rose to be ambassador in Madrid and then Washington after World War I, followed a similar route except that, in the company of his mother and second sister, he went abroad straight from school and spent much longer there: in Florence, Paris, and Düsseldorf.35 Thus were British diplomats linguistically more able after the introduction of examinations – at least in European languages – than in the previous century or so.36 There was, therefore, an emphasis in Britain on the importance of education for diplomacy – albeit almost entirely by informal means – especially at the beginning and the end of the modern period. Nevertheless there was throughout these centuries a universal opinion that none of this was any substitute for practical knowledge of diplomacy, and that this could only be acquired at the elbow of a master, that is to say, by means of apprenticeship. This was where education useful for diplomacy became training essential to it.

Training Thus young men were trained for diplomacy by learning on the job and, from the sixteenth until the early twentieth century, this system changed only in its details. Initially they might have learnt by freelancing as well as by being attached to an embassy, though as the years passed the latter became the norm. The young ‘attachés’, as they came to be known, were initially all unpaid but by the first decades of the nineteenth century more and more of them were receiving salaries – albeit very small ones – and were appointed by the state rather than chosen privately by the ambassador. At about the same time a short induction period in the Foreign Office itself was introduced as a prior requirement to joining a mission abroad. Finally, as might be expected, the most popular embassies for first postings changed, by the end of the nineteenth century Constantinople having quite eclipsed Paris at the top of the ratings. In the adventurous years of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries young men with an eye on the diplomatic career did not travel abroad just to learn more about foreign lands and develop a familiarity with their languages. Sometimes they also did this – with the active encouragement and under the explicit direction of their monarch’s 35

Howard, Theatre of Life, 1863–1905, Ch. 2. Rumbold, Recollections of a Diplomatist, p. 16. Horn notes that prior to the nineteenth century few British diplomatists had any knowledge of German, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, p. 139. 36


officials or an ambitious court favourite – with a view to proving their skills at obtaining politically useful information and getting it safely home. This was often a risky business, involving the use of disguises and learning how to deal with ‘villains’.37 Writing of Sir Henry Wotton, whose foreign travels in the late sixteenth century, when newspapers were unknown and even official gazettes were not yet invented, were exactly of this freelance kind, Smith observes that [i]t was by knowledge … about the condition of foreign governments and the plans of foreign princes that young men who, like Wotton, had chosen a political career, hoped to make their fortune. If their information proved to be useful to some great man at home, he would be likely to take them into his service, and thus start them on the road to success.38 Even in these early days of modern diplomacy, however, young men were more often trained by securing attachment to the entourage of a resident ambassador.39 Giving him their services without payment, asking in return only his shelter, food, and protection, here they had the opportunity to learn first the more routine, secretarial duties of the member of an embassy. These included the copying and filing of despatches and other papers, translating documents, ciphering and de-ciphering, carrying messages to other members of the diplomatic corps, and so on. In emergencies they would be employed as express couriers.40 The rise and fall of the family embassy Only the head of a mission, and later his secretary, were officially commissioned by the state as its representatives; and the head of mission was given a large salary out of which he had to pay for virtually all of the expenses of his embassy. As a result, the attachés were selected by the ambassador himself and regarded as very much his personal responsibility, financial and otherwise. They were sometimes members of his extended family (a nephew perhaps), godsons, or the sons of friends or political allies. During the centuries when diplomatic missions were, on the whole, not large, prices on the continent were relatively low, and 37

Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, pp. 8–21. The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, p. 15. 39 Bell, A Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, 1509–1688, p. 12. 40 Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, p. 139. 38

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ambassadors were well off, it was therefore not difficult for the ambassador to regard his attachés as members of his ‘family’ and they were so treated, taking their meals with him every night if they lived – as they often did – in the same house. From a training point of view the ‘family embassy’, as it came to be called, had the advantage of keeping the apprentices in particularly intimate relations with their master and were thus well placed to learn from him.41 However, it had the disadvantage that the state, which did not even recognize them, owed them no obligations and their expectations of promotion to the position of secretary of legation were, therefore, at best highly uncertain. For the same reason no thought was given to the kind of posts at which they would be best placed, or for how long. The work, too, was for the most part deeply boring and its nature and extent entirely at the whim of the ambassador. As a result, the incentives to succeed were not strong and it is notorious that there was great wastage.42 In the nineteenth century the old system of ambassadors appointing the novices as unpaid attachés began to weaken as the government itself began to assert more influence over their appointment (eventually by means of examinations, as we have already seen) and even began to pay some of them small salaries.43 The family embassy finally disappeared altogether following the determined and ultimately successful attempt commenced by the House of Commons in 1850 to give the British Diplomatic Service a staff that was salaried (and pensioned) at all levels and, by demonstrating ability and hard work, could anticipate promotion through a proper career structure: a hierarchy of positions with clearly defined duties. What were the implications of this change for the training of new entrants to the profession?

41 A future permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office wrote in his memoirs of the time he spent as an unpaid attaché in the British Embassy in Constantinople under Lord Dufferin in the early 1880s: ‘By studying his methods of diplomacy and by listening to his views on political questions, I learnt during those three and a half years, more of the science of diplomacy than at any other time, for the mind is particularly receptive of knowledge and friendly counsel between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-six’, Hardinge, Old Diplomacy, p. 13. 42 It should be noted that many attachés had no intention of spending their lives in diplomacy and used their embassy experience instead as a springboard for a political career at home. Wastage was also caused by blocks to promotion, Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, pp. 147, 151. 43 Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, pp. 51–3, 66–7.


No longer choosing their young men themselves, and faced with more of them and much higher costs, ambassadors no longer felt either inclination or obligation to share their houses and tables with them. Attachés and secretaries thus began to live and ‘mess’ outside, often communally, and tended to behave as young men often will behave when out of sight and earshot of their families – especially when abroad. To this extent, and if the colourful accounts of this period in their lives to be found in later diplomatic memoirs is anything to go by, their training probably suffered. It is true that only one of the ambassadors interviewed by the House of Commons Select Committee on Diplomatic Service in 1861, chaired by the Liberal MP Mr Monckton Milnes, regretted the passing of the family embassy on the grounds, among others, that it afforded to ambassadors ‘an opportunity for giving hints to their attachés’.44 However, this was probably because they were unanimous in their hostility to any suggestion that – in the changed circumstances of the nineteenth century – they should be formally required to admit them into their domestic circle. Lord Stratford to Redcliffe, the legendary British ambassador in Constantinople during the Crimean War, was particularly firm on this point, and was supported by the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, Edmund Hammond. Giving more thought to the training of the attachés On the other hand, the steady growth in the number of paid attachés and their rising expectations of promotion as a reward for good service, at least led Parliament and the Foreign Office to give more thought to their training. This had started in the 1830s but – apart from the innovation of a three-month induction period in the Foreign Office prior to going abroad – gained little momentum.45 Even in the 1850s reformist thought focused on little more than encouraging better language training by the introduction of exams. However, in 1861 the Milnes Committee made the attaché system one of its main subjects of interest and looked at the whole question of their training with a commendable and unprecedented thoroughness, even if its final

44

HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: para. 197. Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, pp. 51–3, 67–8. Hammond thought that one of the advantages of this was that while in the Foreign Office the young attachés would learn about its ‘perfect’ system for registering papers. They would then be able to pass on this best practice to the registering of documents in missions abroad, HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: para. 61 (evidence of Hammond, 31 Mar. 1870).

45

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report – perhaps understandably – was silent on some important questions and its views on these needed to be inferred from any consensus emerging in the minutes of evidence. The Milnes Report was generally adopted but a decade later a second select committee of the House of Commons, chaired by Edward Bouverie, re-examined the question of education and training, among other matters concerning the diplomatic and consular services, and some modifications were advised.46 To which kind of diplomatic mission should young men first be attached – those in large and important states or those in ‘minor and less agreeable’ ones? This was one of the first questions raised about training. Lord Wodehouse argued that they should be sent first to an embassy like the one in Paris which had a large chancery: [T]hey should commence [he told the Committee] where they are sure to have other persons over them, so as not to be entrusted exclusively with the business. For instance, a young man going to Paris would have several other attachés over him, from whom he would learn his business, whereas if he goes to Stockholm, he might find himself entirely alone.47 But the Earl of Malmesbury thought this was spoiling the young men: they should be started out at a smaller court, the possibility of being moved next to a larger one like Paris being dangled in front of them as an inducement to hard work.48 Perhaps because of this difference of opinion and because it was realized that any rule would be likely to fall victim to the ever-fluctuating manpower demands of the service,49 the report did not pronounce on this question. Nevertheless Wodehouse’s view was obviously the more sensible and was in practice the one that carried the day. Of the 124 men in the Diplomatic Service on the outbreak of war in 1914, the overwhelming majority (96) had begun their careers as attachés in the small number of missions that either had embassy status already or were to achieve it before the turn of the century: Berlin, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Washington, and Paris. If the eight sent to the important Cairo Agency

46

HCPP (382), 25 July 1870. Three subsequent papers were issued by the Bouverie Committee: HCPP (238), 18 May 1871; HCPP (380), 24 July 1871; and HCPP (314), 16 July 1872. 47 HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: para. 910. 48 HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: paras. 1986–7. 49 HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: para. 1988.


are added, the proportion comes to 84 per cent.50 When in 1902 the young Viscount Cranley asked, for personal reasons, to be sent first to Abyssinia, he received no encouragement ‘as Eric Barrington’, he lamented, ‘said an attaché ought to go to a fairly big post first’.51 In the second half of the nineteenth century the large embassy at Constantinople had become the most popular first destination for entrants to the Diplomatic Service. Of the 124 men in the 1914 establishment, 22 had been sent first as attachés to this post. If those following unusual career paths are eliminated from this list, this amounted to 1 in 5 of those following what was by now the normal route.52 Constantinople – focus of the ‘Eastern Question’ and perhaps the greatest of all centres of international intrigue – was regarded in the Diplomatic Service as a valuable diplomatic training ground, and there was always plenty of work to be done there.53 Moreover, few young men needed a second bidding to make the journey. The legendary city was tinged with the exotic, spectacularly situated, and abundant in its opportunities for pleasures of every sort. After improvements in the Orient Express, first introduced in 1883, it was also only three days from London.54 Berlin, which took 15 young men from the 1914 establishment, was next in popularity for first destinations, and then there was little to choose between the other embassies; though, in giving their first taste of diplomacy to only 7, the Paris Embassy was possibly being held out after all as a reward for good service elsewhere. Another point on which a consensus initially emerged was the length of time that should be spent by junior diplomats (secretaries as well as attachés) at any one post. Hitherto this had often been very long: Sir Henry Elliot told the Milnes Committee that he knew more than ten men who had spent on average about nine years in one post as attachés. Such early careers failed to give young men the breadth of experience of different kinds of post and country that was needed to make them into rounded diplomatists (echoes of the ‘Grand Tour’), and was unfair to those who by chance found themselves in minor missions. Despite 50

FO List 1914. Onslow, Sixty-Three Years, p. 63. Barrington had been a powerful official in the Foreign Office for many years and had control of all appointments and postings, as well as promotions to all except the most senior positions, Tilley and Gaselee, The Foreign Office, pp. 206–7; Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, pp. 157–9. 52 FO List 1914. 53 Hardinge, Old Diplomacy, p. 12. 54 Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice, p. 75. 51

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some misgivings that frequent changes would be expensive and reduce the usefulness of the young men to their chiefs, the requirements of proper training were believed to take priority. It was therefore agreed by Milnes that two years in one post should be the norm.55 However, in 1870–1 the pendulum swung back a little in favour of those who thought that both missions and the Foreign Office budget suffered too much under this regime and the Bouverie Report – while failing formally to establish a new norm – recommended that junior diplomats’ postings should be ‘longer’ than two years. This decision was clearly influenced by the views of A. J. Otway, until recently parliamentary under-secretary at the Foreign Office and a member of the committee. Otway, who submitted a paper showing the great expense of shifting junior staff too frequently and believed that their first year at a new post was of no use to the mission itself, thought three years the best compromise between the needs of their training and the more immediate ones of the service.56 The Bouverie Committee also recommended that heads of mission should provide annual reports to the Foreign Office on the progress of junior diplomats.57 If attachés were still to be unpaid to begin with, how long should they have to serve before being salaried? Was three months attached to a Foreign Office department before going abroad long enough? On these questions a consensus was also achieved in the Milnes Committee, which this time gave a crisp and unambiguous recommendation in its report: That the attachéship shall, for the future, be regarded as a probationary period of four years at the most, six months of which shall be spent in the duties of the Foreign Office.58 This was accepted. Furthermore, following the recommendations of Hammond to the Bouverie Committee, ‘unpaid attachés’ were expected to serve for no more than two years before being salaried.59 They would also be eligible for promotion to third secretary on passing a foreign language examination; and, if serving in Russia, Turkey, Persia, Japan,

55

HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: Index refs. ‘Removal of Attachés’, esp. paras. 1076–7, 1516–19; Bouverie Report 382, para. 70. 56 HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: p. iv., paras. 1091–5, and Appendix 5. 57 HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: p. iv. 58 HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: p. iii. 59 Unpaid attachés still existed on the outbreak of war in 1914 but disappeared afterwards.


or China, they were also thereafter eligible, like other junior staff, for an annual addition of £100 to their salaries if they were able to demonstrate ‘a competent knowledge, colloquial and otherwise’ of the vernacular.60 Six months in the Foreign Office prior to the first diplomatic posting might have been accepted as the ideal but it could be curtailed or lengthened, depending on the size of the intake, the demand for bodies abroad, or the political influence of a young man’s mother. In 1895 Thomas Hohler did the regulation six months of ‘dull’ clerical work and was glad to escape. Viscount Cranley, by contrast, was at the Foreign Office for over a year – ‘rather longer than usual’, he confesses in his memoirs.61 Well, 1902 was Coronation Year and there were many parties in London. And then in 1913, when there were too many entrants to be accommodated in the Foreign Office and at the same time vacancies in the Diplomatic Service, the rule was abandoned altogether, as an indignant George Rendel discovered when he was ‘whisked off abroad at once’ on passing his exams.62 Finally, it should be noted that, following the recommendation of the Bouverie Report in 1871, deliberate steps were taken for the first time to encourage the post-appointment study of international law. From 1872 a third secretary could earn an extra £100 a year by passing an exam in this subject. In 1914 the MacDonnell Commission went further. ‘In our opinion’, it insisted, ‘a knowledge of the elements of international law is essential for a diplomatic officer, and we do not think its acquisition should remain a matter of individual discretion’. It therefore recommended that, while international law should not be made a component of the entrance examination, the allowance should be abolished and, instead, proven competence in the subject should become a condition of promotion beyond the rank of third secretary.63 In the half century before the outbreak of World War I, some important steps had thus been taken at least to improve the structure of the

60

HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: para. 1750 and Appendix 9; and HCPP (238), 18 May 1871: p. iv. 61 Onslow, Sixty-Three Years, p. 64. 62 He had passed first in the exams and was given the choice of St. Petersburgh or Berlin, two large posts; he went to Berlin, Rendel, The Sword and the Olive, p. 1. It should be noted, however, that, as the permanent under-secretary, Sir Arthur Nicolson, explained to the MacDonnell Commission in 1914, this change was only envisaged as temporary, and it was the plan to bring the attachés back to spend six months in the Foreign Office within their first two years; he also admitted that ‘It may become a regular rule’, HCPP (C. 7749), 1914: para. 36, 801. 63 HCPP (C. 7748), 1914: p. 21, para. 2.

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apprenticeship provided to new entrants into the service of British diplomacy and some lesser ones to improve its content. As a result, when the MacDonnell Commission looked at the condition of British diplomacy in 1914 it did not regard training as any longer a serious question. Nevertheless the route taken by a novice diplomatist still depended to a large extent on the exigencies of the service and there was no formal provision in the Foreign Office for oversight of their early careers. This at least led the MacDonnell Commission to recommend the appointment in the Foreign Office of a ‘small Departmental Committee’ to provide, among other things, ‘for the better training of junior members of the Diplomatic Corps’.64

Conclusion To the extent that education for diplomacy was available to aspiring British diplomatists throughout the modern period, this consisted in the informal learning to be obtained from books, self-financed foreign travel, and – for the fortunate substantial minority – family. Foreign travel was especially important at the beginning and the end of the period: at the beginning because it was then the only effective way to learn about foreign lands as well as develop fluency in their languages; at the end because the introduction of competitive entrance examinations in 1856 greatly increased the need for language skills prior to entry. In the last connection it is interesting to note that it was the universal opinion of the older diplomatists who gave evidence to the various parliamentary commissions of inquiry into the diplomatic and consular services in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that, in consequence of this change, Britain’s younger diplomatists were now much more fluent in foreign languages, especially French and German. It is true that in the late nineteenth century junior diplomatists en poste were encouraged to engage in ‘self-improvement’, especially by acquiring a smattering of a ‘hard’ language and some knowledge of international law, but only by giving them financial incentives; there was no compulsion and they had to hire their own tutors. This system was not very productive. Throughout the whole period, therefore, the preparation of young men for diplomacy rested essentially on on-the-job training. This apprenticeship consisted of being attached to a diplomatic mission and given the most routine and undemanding kind of work (largely clerical), though a sensitive and sympathetic chief might let a young man cut his teeth on 64

HCPP (C. 7748), 1914: p. 39, para. 18.


more responsible and stimulating work. The point is, though, that until well into the nineteenth century the content of this apprenticeship was entirely at the whim of his chief, and its general shape at the whim of the young man’s own family. Later in this century the Foreign Office – goaded by Parliament – began to show more concern for where the apprentices spent their time, and for how long, but the content of their duties remained much the same. On the outbreak of World War I the Foreign Office still had no training department. By the late nineteenth century, then, at the juncture when diplomacy finally became a true profession in Britain, it might be said that there was not a great deal wrong in principle with the education and training of those who aspired to join its ranks: emphasis on languages in a competitive entrance examination, apprenticeship first in the Foreign Office itself for six months and then in a large embassy, and tours of duty which lasted for no more than three years in any one place. But much of the work was too dull and in any case a lot could go wrong in practice, chiefly because of the exigencies of the service but also because of the lack of bureaucratic provision for systematic oversight of youthful careers. The result was that, while Britain produced many outstanding diplomatists, in the decades before World War I it also had to make do with many who were no better than average, even at the most important posts. In Constantinople, for example, though in view of Britain’s Turkey policy it was admittedly a difficult post, four successive ambassadors between 1894 and 1914 – Sir Philip Currie, Sir Nicholas O’Conor, Sir Gerard Lowther, and Sir Louis Mallet – were all judged failures.

4 A Political Consul in NineteenthCentury Armenia

At the end of 1891 a young British consul called Gerald Fitzmaurice was sent to eastern Anatolia – a remote region of the Ottoman Empire which abutted the Russian and Persian frontiers – as what today might well be called a ‘field diplomat’.1 An Irish Catholic who at one time had seemed destined for the priesthood, Fitzmaurice had been a member of the elite Levant Consular Service for a little over three years. He was short in build but had a large head topped with red hair. His face was strong and bony with a striking hooked nose, deep-set blue eyes, and a fashionable drooping moustache. Though it did not jar on his listeners, his voice was hoarse, no doubt because he was a great talker and smoked too many cigarettes. A man of high intelligence and exceptional linguistic skills, hard working, resourceful, and self-confident, Fitzmaurice had been the star of his intake into the Levant Service. Following his time at the small training school at Ortakeui on the European edge of the Bosphorus, therefore, he had been grabbed by the British ambassador in Constantinople, Sir William White, to work in his hard-pressed dragomanate. The engine room of the embassy, this contained its Turkishspeaking members – interpreters, political advisers, and intermediaries with the mysterious Ottoman administration. Although it had been a mark of esteem to be employed in the dragomanate after passing his exams, Fitzmaurice was probably happy to be released. The work of the Constantinople dragomans was not popular with the members of the Levant Service. They were constantly at the beck and call of the senior diplomats and spent much of their time kicking their heels in Ottoman ministries, arguing at the Custom House, 1 I am grateful to the publisher’s reader for drawing my attention to this modern parallel.

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A Political Consul in Nineteenth-Century Armenia 51

being bored out of their minds while observing in the courts, or serving as tour guides to visiting members of the English aristocracy. As a result, they dreamt of escape to one of the embassy’s satellite consular posts, where they would have more independence, more leisure, and probably even a higher salary.2 If escape was Fitzmaurice’s dream, it is also likely that Armenia was his preferred destination, since those with the best exam results were given greatest liberty of choice among the consular districts where additional men were thought to be needed.3 The region to which Fitzmaurice was directed was peopled heavily by Armenian Christians, and though in none of the six vilayets (Ottoman provinces) where they were concentrated were they in a majority over their Turkish and Kurdish neighbours, it was often known in the outside world – to the great annoyance of the Turks – as ‘Armenia’.4 Over the next two years Fitzmaurice, covering for officers on leave of absence, served successively in Van, Erzeroum, and Trebizond, and thus gained intimate acquaintance with the problems that were to flare up so tragically at Sasun in 1894. After a further interlude of irksome duties in the embassy dragomanate, he was then indulged by promotion to viceconsul at the important consulate-general at Smyrna. However, while he was there, Armenian massacres and forced conversions to Islam reached a peak. This was the immediate background against which, at the beginning of 1896, he was chosen to represent the embassy on the Birejik Commission that was appointed by the sultan, Abdul Hamid II, to inquire into the forced conversions. This was his real baptism, and it made his reputation. Abdul Hamid had been sultan since 1876 and had soon secured control of the machinery of both central and provincial government.

2 As it happened, it was in 1891 that Edward Law, a man of broad commercial and diplomatic experience sent to investigate the working of the consulate-general at Constantinople, drew official attention to the serious implications of this for the dragomanate, Berridge, ‘Nation, Class, and Diplomacy’. 3 He had nurtured an early ambition to seek his first posting in Greece but changed his mind after a visit to Athens. The modern Greeks did not live up to the expectations fostered by his classical education, a common enough reaction among British visitors. He also seems to have concluded that Greece was now a political backwater and not a place where great careers were made, Blackrock College (Co. Dublin), Prospectus and Annual 1907–8, p. 54. 4 Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902, p. 147; Walker, Armenia, p. 122; Pears, Life of Abdul Hamid, pp. 215–18, 228, 232; Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, pp. 47–9, 66, 87; Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878–1896, p. 54.

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He did this by means of an elaborate set-up of advisers, enforcers, and bureaucrats at his palace of Yildiz, not the least element of which was a secret police organization which he personally directed.5 In 1878 he had promised the European powers that he would introduce reforms to ameliorate the condition of his Christian subjects, in particular the Armenians. The powers were to superintend their operation but only Britain showed willingness. Finding itself forced to rely on its consuls to goad the valis (provincial governors) into better ways, the British government even added to their ranks serving officers – ‘military consuls’. Unfortunately, this experiment did not prove successful, by 1880 it had already been decided to replace them, and it was not long after this before most of the military consuls were withdrawn.6 By 1891, then, much if not most of the British responsibility for encouraging reforms in Armenia was located squarely on the shoulders of the Levant Service. Where this task, plus intelligence gathering, was a consul’s main duty, as in the eastern vilayets, such persons were known as ‘political consuls’.7 It was the ranks of such men that Fitzmaurice now joined. The Levant consuls displayed a strong consensus on the situation in Armenia. They certainly thought the Armenians had good cause for complaint about their treatment. However, they were always sceptical of claims of outrages against them since many were spread by ‘paid agitators’. More importantly, they were firmly of the view that retaliatory violence and anti-government propaganda by young and ignorant ‘hot-heads’ of the Armenian lower classes was not merely wicked but seditious. As for the secret societies behind them,8 their aim was not, believed the Levant consuls, an armed uprising against the Turkish authorities, which they knew to be hopeless, but to provoke both Turks and predatory Kurds into violent over-reaction. This in turn, the secret societies anticipated, would prompt military intervention on their

5 Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II, pp. 212–20; Yasamee, Ottoman Diplomacy, p. 53. 6 Medlicott, The Congress of Berlin and After, Chs 1 and 2; Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, pp. 30–40; and Roberts, Salisbury, Chs 10–12. It is important to stress that not all military consuls were removed and the issue of whether or not new ones should be appointed at posts of particular strategic significance (such as Erzeroum and Bitlis) for long remained a live one; see for example TNA, de Bunsen to Salisbury, 5 Sept. 1898, FO195/2007. 7 Platt, The Cinderella Service, pp. 130–5. 8 On the Hunchaks and the Dashnaktzutiun, see Walker, Armenia, pp. 129–31; Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902, pp. 155–7; and Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1774–1923, p. 254.


behalf by the European powers. The result of this would be at worst an autonomous and at best an independent Armenia. The judgement of the Levant consuls on this strategy, which in general they accurately captured, was harsh – and prescient. With no realistic prospect that it would work, these political ‘malignants’, whose leaders were based safely abroad, would, they believed, succeed merely in bringing terror and ruin on the heads of all Armenians in Turkey. It was therefore not part of the British consuls’ job to discourage the valis from catching and punishing severely such persons – providing they got the right ones, gave them a fair hearing, and inflicted penalties proportionate to their crimes. As for their advice to the broad mass of loyal, hard-working Armenians, this was prudence and patience.9 In Turkey’s Asiatic provinces there was a British consulate at Trebizond, which supervised a vice-consulate at Samsoun, and another at Erzeroum, which supervised others at Van, Diarbekir, and Kharput. Fitzmaurice was first sent to Van, where he arrived in December 1891 and remained until the middle of the following year. Van was the principal town of the vilayet of the same name, which extended along the Persian border from the vilayet of Erzeroum in the north to that of Mosul in the south.10 The town had an Armenian majority led by an educated and relatively worldly elite, and another Levant consul, Robert Graves, described it later as ‘probably the most important centre of Armenian nationalist feeling in the Turkish Empire’.11 In the more remote areas of the Van vilayet, where the writ of the Ottoman governor ran only with difficulty, if at all, Armenian peasant farmers were from time to time preyed upon by the nomadic or semi-nomadic Kurdish tribesmen, though in the previous two years there had been nothing on a major scale. The departing vice-consul was optimistic about future developments, and the acting vice-consul at Erzeroum believed that Bahri Pasha, whose appointment as the new vali had just been announced, was likely to be an improvement on Khalil Bey, the then holder of the post.12 9 This view is most readily seen in Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 124ff (and in his despatches from Sivas in May 1893 in FO195/1804); and HulmeBeaman, Twenty Years in the Near East, pp. 302–5. See also Walker, Armenia, pp. 135–6; Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878–1896, Ch. 5; and Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, Ch. 4. 10 Lynch, Armenia. Lynch visited Van in 1893 and stayed at the British viceconsulate, which he marks on his ‘Plan of Van’; see vol. II, The Turkish Provinces, Ch. 4. 11 Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 124. 12 TNA, Hampson to White, 22 Jan. 1892, FO424/172.

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It looked as if Fitzmaurice would have a relatively undisturbed period in which to settle into his first post, as indeed proved to be the case. Fitzmaurice’s time in Van was confined largely to political reporting: the arrival of the new governor, Armenian political prisoners, developments across the nearby international frontiers, and cross border raids by Turkish Kurds into Persia and Persian Kurds returning the compliment. While for the most part his despatches were confined to factual reporting and detached political analysis, he did not hesitate to pass judgement – usually in the form of mildly sardonic understatement. For example, in a message to Erzeroum on 6 May 1892, the background to which was Abdul Hamid’s recent decision to recruit great numbers of Kurdish tribesmen into regiments of irregular cavalry (the Hamidiyeh), he wrote: I have the honour to report that Bahri Pasha, the Vali of Van, has lately summoned to Van all the Aghas and Chiefs of the Kurdish tribes in this Vilayet. … While conversing with the Vali the other day on the subject, His Excellency told me that his object in summoning them to Van was to settle some intertribal differences and to warn them that, now that they have become regular troops, they must act on their good behaviour, and cease their raids. In fact, if the Vali can change them from people who do not sow but yet reap (the crops of their more peaceful Christian neighbours) into people who sow as well as reap, it will go far to remove the just causes of complaint of the Armenian villagers against the Kurds.13 Fitzmaurice had no faith that this would happen since the creation of the Hamidiyeh regiments had in effect licensed the violence of the Kurds, and had alarmed the Turks in the Asiatic provinces almost as much as the Armenians.14 But their worst excesses were still in the future. Robert Graves, who was appointed consul at Erzeroum in June 1892, must have heard good reports of acting vice-consul Fitzmaurice.15 Anxious to take a long overdue leave, he requested his services as soon

13

TNA, FO195/1766. Lynch, Armenia, vol. II, pp. 4–9; Pears, Life of Abdul Hamid, pp. 226–7. Cf. Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, p. 126. 15 Graves had graduated from Ortakeui almost ten years ahead of Fitzmaurice and had wide experience of the Balkans and Arabia. He remained at Erzeroum for six years and became an influential figure in the Levant Service and a friend and admirer of Fitzmaurice. He had spent some weeks in Constantinople in the spring of 1892, Storm Centres of the Near East, pp. 110–11, 123. 14


as he could be released by the return to Van of the vice-consul. Since the embassy had no other plans for him, this was granted and Fitzmaurice arrived in Erzeroum in late September 1892, just as a cholera outbreak was slackening. A month later he was ‘Acting Consul for Koordistan’. The vilayet of Erzeroum extended from the Persian frontier at Bayazid, all along the Russian frontier and westward into Anatolia at Baiburt and Erzinghian. The town itself, roughly a quarter of the population of which was Armenian, was gloomy and dirty, and had a winter described by a previous acting consul as ‘something appalling’. On being finally relieved of his post, another had gone on his way ‘rejoicing’.16 It was on the route of the great Persian camel caravans that linked Trebizond on the Black Sea to Tabriz in Persia but its chief significance was strategic. ‘It was and is a great frontier stronghold’, wrote Graves in his memoir, ‘protected from Russian attack by an outer chain of forts on all the commanding positions, and within the last century has stood repeated sieges with varying fortunes’.17 In the most recent war, Russian troops had been held by the Turks at the vital Devé Boyun pass and only succeeded in occupying the town following the general surrender. Not surprisingly, the Russians, who had a full-blown consulate-general in the town, tended to regard it as very much their own preserve,18 an attitude the British embassy in Constantinople was inclined to respect.19 Nevertheless Britain had had a military consul in Erzeroum until as late as 1889, and when Fitzmaurice arrived he had with him Captain F. R. Maunsell of the Royal Artillery.20 The consulate that Graves had left in Fitzmaurice’s charge was in the crowded Christian quarter on the north-eastern side of the town, and was blessed with an experienced and able dragoman, the long-serving Yusuf Effendi, an Armenian Catholic.21 Yusuf must have proved of great value to Fitzmaurice because, as an acting consul, his responsibilities

16

Wratislaw, A Consul in the East, pp. 40, 49. On Erzeroum in this period, see also Lynch, Armenia, vol. II, The Turkish Provinces, pp. 207–9; Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 115; and Encyclopedia Britannica. 17 Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 115. 18 Wratislaw, A Consul in the East, p. 65. 19 TNA, White to Salisbury, 2 Aug. 1890, FO78/4281. 20 Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 128. Maunsell subsequently became a consular officer in Armenia himself, and then military attaché in Constantinople from 1901 until 1905. 21 Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, pp. 115–18; and Wratislaw, A Consul in the East, p. 42. Yusuf was also esteemed by Lynch, Armenia, vol. II, The Turkish Provinces, pp. 198–9.

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were significantly heavier than those he had shouldered at Van. He was now supervising the subordinate vice-consulates and required to report directly to the ambassador in Constantinople. Moreover, he also found himself assuming the role of Italian Consular Agent in Erzeroum.22 Like Van, Erzeroum was a political consulate par excellence.23 But as Graves had forecast in justifying his departure on leave, the district proved at first to be comparatively tranquil. As a result, Fitzmaurice was able to devote his attention initially to reporting on the death toll in the recent cholera outbreak and criticizing the weak and ‘senseless’ measures adopted in an attempt to cope with it by the local authorities.24 Later in the winter, however, the Armenian question began to hot up and it was not long before his reports became more political. In early January 1893 seditious posters (yaftas) in Turkish appeared on the walls of towns in the vilayets of Sivas and Angora. This was blamed on the Armenians, and on 2 February part of the large American College at Marsovan in the Sivas vilayet – alleged by the vali to be implicated in the poster campaign – had been burnt down in retaliation by none other than the chief of the Sivas gendarmerie.25 Armenians were also swiftly imprisoned in large numbers and, as Graves records, ‘complaints of arbitrary arrest, torture to extort confession, and punishment without any form of trial came pouring into the Embassies’.26 Erzeroum was soon feeling the backwash of the so-called affair of the yaftas, and in March Fitzmaurice sent the first of several long despatches to Constantinople on the Armenian question. In one he condemned

22 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Ford (Constantinople), 17 Mar. 1893, FO195/1766. It appears to have been a custom for some time for the British Consul in Erzeroum to look after Italian interests there, TNA, Hampson (Erzeroum) to White, 2 Jan. 1892, FO195/1766. 23 Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 116. 24 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Ford, 31 Dec. 1892, FO195/1766. He was caustic on this theme in the depressing trade report that he submitted in May: ‘The cholera in itself has not done so much harm to trade as the futile system of land quarantine maintained on the Russian and Persian frontiers. … Some attempt at local sanitation would, of course’, he added, ‘be much more effectual than any quarantine, however rigorously enforced.’ Foreign Office. 1893. Annual Series. No. 1242. Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance. Turkey. Report for the Year 1892 on the Trade of the Consular District of Erzeroum. Presented to Parliament June 1893. 25 TNA, Memorandum by Mr. Bertie on State of the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey, August 1892 to October 1893, FO881/6412. See also Walker, Armenia, pp. 135–6. 26 Storm Centres of the Near East, p. 132.


a court martial that sentenced 23 Armenians to death and some 27 to penal servitude because there was no clear evidence that they had committed the crime with which they were charged: murdering three Turks. In another, he provided details on the general treatment of Armenians in his district. The situation, he told the ambassador, Sir Clare Ford, was not encouraging: There is scarcely an Armenian village … that does not suffer more than once a year from Kurdish lawlessness, and I may say that not one case in fifty meets with redress from the local Ottoman officials, partly from apathy, partly from unwillingness, if not actual connivance, and often from powerlessness. There were 87 Armenian ‘political prisoners’ in the Erzeroum vilayet. ‘I hear of large numbers in prison at Moush and Bitlis’, he added, ‘but have so far no reliable information on the subject’.27 On 15 April he reported that Kurds had killed a considerable number of Armenians at Moush but that since the roads were still closed by snow, it was ‘very difficult to get accurate details on the subject’. He also told the embassy of an upsurge of Armenians emigrating to Russia,28 adding later that Russian Armenians had been moderately successful in establishing a revolutionary organization in the district of Khinis,29 from which the exodus had been particularly large.30 Fitzmaurice was expecting to be relieved at Erzeroum as soon as the roads cleared in the spring but Graves’s return was delayed until the end of June. This made him responsible for compiling the Annual Report for 1892 on the trade of the district. With this work finished and Graves finally returned, by September Fitzmaurice was in charge of the consulate at Trebizond,31 formerly the exotic capital of the empire of the Grand Comneni and at the end of the nineteenth century still retaining a large Christian quarter.32 Here, Fitzmaurice was fortunate to find an experienced staff consisting of a dragoman, a clerk, and two cavasses. All of them, including Alfred Spadaro, the trading agent in 27

TNA, Fitzmaurice to Ford, 20 Feb., 11 and 25 Mar. 1893, FO195/1804. TNA, Fitzmaurice to Ford, 15 April 1893, FO195/1804. 29 TNA, Graves to Nicolson (Constantinople), 27 June 1893, FO195/1804. 30 Lynch, Armenia, vol. II, The Turkish Provinces, pp. 186–7, 219. 31 TNA, Fitzmaurice (Trebizond) to FO, 26 Sept. 1893, FO526/12; Longworth to FO, July and 1 Sept. 1893, FO78/4498. 32 This contained at least 10,000 Greeks and 7000 Armenians, TNA, Longworth to Ford, 1 Dec. 1892, FO195/1769; see also Encyclopedia Britannica. 28

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Samsoun, were Turkish.33 The consulate was also in close touch with Dr Jewett, the American Consul in Sivas, who looked after British interests there.34 Fitzmaurice remained in charge at Trebizond until the consul, Henry Longworth, returned, somewhat later than anticipated, in late December. Like Erzeroum, Trebizond had suffered badly from the cholera epidemic in late 1892 and the consul had been actively involved in bringing medicine to its citizens.35 By the early spring of 1893, however, he too had been distracted by the Armenian question. In March he had reported that in Trebizond ‘Armenian affairs are comparatively in a lull’, thanks largely to the vali, Cadri Bey, who had ‘no taste for tragedies’.36 However, Sivas was also in his district and one of the provinces where the appearance of the yaftas had caused serious trouble. As a result, Longworth had been under pressure from the embassy for information about it. He had not visited the vilayet recently, and at the end of March had told the embassy that his own sources of information on the region had been reduced ‘to nil’.37 The vali in Sivas was now Khalil Bey, of ill repute – at least to Fitzmaurice, who had known him in Van. Ten days after his arrival in Trebizond, Fitzmaurice told the embassy that Khali Bey’s penchant for intrigue and vindictiveness was making the Armenian question more acute and that the decision to appoint him vali of Sivas was ‘very ill-advised if not inexplicable’.38 Shortly afterwards, Fitzmaurice sought permission from the embassy to make a short journey of about 12 days in order to see for himself what was really going on in Sivas, particularly in Marsovan and nearby Amassia. There was, after all, still no certainty as to who was behind the trouble – Armenians or anti-Palace Turks, or both – or on the official reaction. His clerk, he said, was ‘thoroughly competent’ and could safely be left in charge of the consulate.39 33

Longworth to FO, 1 Jan. 1893, FO78/4498. TNA, Longworth to Ford, 14 July 1892, FO195/1769. It had been agreed at the beginning of the year, following an initiative by the US, that Britain and America would act together on behalf of their subjects in Turkey, TNA, Rosebery to Ford, 15 Feb. 1893, FO195/1778. 35 TNA, Longworth’s reports to the embassy in the second half of 1892 in FO195/1769, especially that of 1 Dec. 1892. 36 TNA, Longworth to Nicolson (Constantinople), 28 Mar. 1893, FO524/24. 37 TNA, Longworth to Ford, 3 Apr. 1893; also Longworth to Nicolson, 21 Mar. 1893, and Longworth to Nicolson, 28 Mar. 1893, all in FO524/24. 38 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Nicolson (Constantinople), 11 Sept. 1893, FO524/24. 39 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Nicolson (Constantinople), 22 Sept. 1893, FO524/24. 34


An expedition like this was the sort of thing expected of political consuls and is early evidence of Fitzmaurice’s adventurous spirit but at this particular juncture the embassy thought it inexpedient and it was firmly vetoed.40 He had to content himself with what was probably a more limited expedition in the middle of October.41 Meanwhile, trouble had spread to nearby Erzinghian, and he found on his return that the embassy was anxious for any information he could obtain on this new hot spot.42 In Trebizond, however, the political temperature remained low,43 and thus did Fitzmaurice’s first encounters with the Armenian question end on a quiet note when he was relieved by the return of the consul at the end of the year. After a very lengthy period of leave, extended by illness,44 at the beginning of November 1894 he finally returned to Constantinople, where – with a sinking heart – he resumed his duties as a dragoman.

Anxious to escape the dragomanate At the embassy there had been an important changing of the guard. The brief tenure of Sir Clare Ford as ambassador had come to an end and in January 1894 Sir Philip Currie took his place. Currie had been much concerned with Near Eastern affairs during a long career at the Foreign Office which since 1889 had seen him occupy the position of permanent under-secretary. He had served as secretary to Lord Salisbury’s special embassy to Constantinople in 1876–7, and as joint secretary on the British delegation to the Congress of Berlin. Not surprisingly, his relationship with Salisbury was close. Currie had obviously been sent to bully Abdul Hamid into better treatment of the Armenians.45 Alex Waugh, who was a few years senior to Fitzmaurice in the Levant Service, says that he ‘came out to Turkey with a great reputation’, adding that ‘Sir Philip made no secret of his determination to put things straight. He was a man of great energy, self-confidence and decision, long accustomed to have his own way; 40

TNA, Nicolson to Fitzmaurice, 29 Sept. 1893 (tel. in cypher), FO195/1789. At the end of this month the clerk of the Trebizond consulate reported that he was probably at Ordou or Kerasond, small towns along the Black Sea coast to the west of Trebizond, TNA, Vivian to British Ambassador, Constantinople (tel.), 28 Oct. 1893, FO195/1812. 42 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Ford, 31 Oct. 1893, FO524/24. 43 TNA, Longworth to Nicolson, 31 Jan. 1894, FO524/24. 44 TNA, Register of General Correspondence: Consular, 1891–1895, FO566/999. 45 Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 2, p. 229. 41

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and he began by carrying things with a high hand’.46 Indeed the tone of his embassy was set from the moment he arrived at Adrianople, where it was a long-established custom that new ambassadors were greeted by Turkish officials. Arriving in the early hours of the morning, Currie refused to emerge from the sleeping berth on his train.47 To begin with, Fitzmaurice was not part of the new ambassador’s plans to whip the sultan into line over the Armenian question. Instead, he found himself charged with the usual dreary tasks to which the denizens of the lower ranks of the dragomanate were generally condemned, to which were now added arguments over the mooring of the embassy stationnaire. He was at once promoted to acting third dragoman but since the dragomans’ section was unusually well staffed,48 there was not much prospect of further advancement either. Sandison, whom Currie soon found lacking in zeal, was ushered into retirement49 and in August Adam Block had been appointed chief dragoman in his place. Block was the son of an Indian civil servant and married to the daughter of a senior Levant consul of the previous generation. He was to become one of Fitzmaurice’s most bitter enemies. Within weeks of returning to the dragomanate Fitzmaurice was trying to get out. He was not only fed up with his irksome duties but also – he claimed later – had no wish to be connected with the Armenian reforms, which he predicted would lead to massacres.50 Accordingly he asked Currie for appointment to the vacant post of vice-consul at the important but overstretched consulate-general in Smyrna.51 Fortunately, the consulgeneral, Frederick Holmwood, was anxious to add him to his staff, and Currie was willing to oblige. He arrived in March, and from the beginning of May until the middle of September 1895 was actually in charge while Holmwood took leave. However, his attention was soon diverted again.

The Birejik Commission In the early autumn of 1894, shortly before Fitzmaurice returned to the embassy, violent clashes between Moslems and Armenians had flared up at Sasun. Subsequently spreading across eastern Anatolia, within a year there was virtually civil war. In Britain, where the Armenians had vocal 46

Waugh, Turkey, pp. 36–7. CAC Cam., de Bunsen to O’Conor, 11 Aug. 1898, OCON 6//2/7. 48 Berridge, ‘Nation, Class, and Diplomacy’. 49 Waugh, Turkey, p. 37. 50 CAC Cam., Fitzmaurice to O’Conor, 15 Oct. 1903, OCON 6/2/27. 51 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Currie, 29 Nov. 1894, FO195/1835. 47


and influential popular support but the Turks did not,52 the massacres of Armenians provoked comparison in parliament and the press with the ‘Bulgarian horrors’ of 1876 – although as on that occasion many Moslems also died, relatively unnoticed. As a result, in the course of 1895 there had been renewed diplomatic pressure on Abdul Hamid from the British government, seconded by Russia and France, for guaranteed reforms in the eastern vilayets. However, as the sultan well knew, the support of Russia, which for some years had seen dangers in encouraging Armenian nationalism, was only nominal.53 As for Britain itself, military intimidation was ruled out because the Admiralty was unwilling to risk forcing the Dardanelles without a promise of French neutrality.54 This exasperated Lord Salisbury, the Tory leader, who had formed a new cabinet in the summer of 1895, won a clear majority in the election shortly afterwards, and was desperate to help the Armenians.55 His only alternative was to continue the policy of relying on consular tutelage, and the sultan – whose ‘personal humanity’ The Times still saw ‘no reason to doubt’56 – was allowed to conduct a master class in procrastination. In the following winter (1895–6) the slaughter resumed on an even greater scale. In fact, it was so much worse that in some towns, notably Birejik in the vilayet of Aleppo, Armenians converted to Islam in an attempt to save their lives.57 This fresh twist to the rolling story of horror from Turkey stimulated further attention in Britain,58 and Abdul 52 Contributing to this was the profound public ignorance of the aims and methods of the Armenian revolutionaries, Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902, p. 161. 53 Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1774–1923, pp. 254–5; Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, pp. 107–8, 136–7. 54 France had been allied to Russia since 1891. See Roberts, Salisbury, pp. 605–7; Marsh, ‘Lord Salisbury and the Ottoman massacres’, p. 79. 55 Thwarted by the Admiralty over the Dardanelles, Salisbury was fertile in proposing other kinds of naval demonstration in order to intimidate the sultan. However, he lacked cabinet support. Armenia was not Bulgaria: it was much more remote, and the Armenians themselves were too scattered readily to form the basis of an autonomous province. Besides, first Russia and then Austria vetoed coercion of the sultan, Marsh, ‘Lord Salisbury and the Ottoman massacres’, pp. 74–80; Roberts, Salisbury, pp. 607–9. 56 4 December 1894. 57 Walker discusses the significance of the forced conversions in his Armenia (p. 158) but mentions Bitlis and Gumush-khana rather than Birejik. 58 Uncharacteristically outspoken, on 31 January Salisbury said publicly that Islam was ‘capable of the most atrocious perversion and corruption of any religion on the face of the globe’. Quoted in Marsh, ‘Lord Salisbury and the Ottoman massacres’, p. 75.

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Hamid – maintaining that the massacres were the result of spontaneous Moslem reactions to Armenian sedition that were beyond his control – clearly saw the need to deflect it. In January 1896 he indicated his doubts as to the sincerity of these conversions and invited the British ambassador to nominate ‘some trustworthy person’ to engage in a joint inquiry at Birejik with two local Ottoman officials.59 Familiar with the Armenian question and only just returned to Smyrna from a mission to the district adjacent to Aleppo,60 Fitzmaurice was the obvious choice. On the instructions of Currie, who was an enthusiast for consular representation on such commissions,61 he left Smyrna for that town on 12 February. Significantly, he had already ‘arrived at the firm conviction, backed up by the testimony of several influential Mussulmans’, that the sultan himself was behind the dramatic recent escalation in violence. No direct orders had been issued, he had told Currie, but clear hints had come down from Yildiz that ‘it would be desirable to give the Armenians a good lesson’. In an oriental country, he said, this was all that was needed.62 This was already suspected in the embassy,63 and also by Salisbury.64 Membership of the Palace commission was not for the faint-hearted. Fitzmaurice had to face not only anti-Christian but also mounting antiBritish sentiment. Indeed, the traditional friendship between Britain

59 Currie to Salisbury, 29 Jan. 1896, House of Commons Blue Books: Turkey. No. 5 (1896), vol. XCVI. Correspondence relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey. Reports by Vice-Consul Fitzmaurice from Birejik, Urfa, Adiaman, and Behesni (June 1986) [hereafter ‘Turkey No. 5’]. 60 In January 1896 he had been sent by Currie to report on consular arrangements at Mersina in Cilicia, and had taken the opportunity to investigate the lot of its Armenians. This was not as bad, he reported, as in neighbouring Aleppo, consisting merely of wholesale plunder, frequent murders, and several ‘partial massacres’, TNA, Fitzmaurice to Currie, 1 Feb. 1896, FO195/1946. 61 He had earlier persuaded the sultan to attach European consuls to his commission of inquiry into the Sasun violence, with powers somewhere between observers and full members, Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, pp. 166–7. See also Graves, Storm Centres of the Near East, pp. 145–8. 62 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Currie, 1 Feb. 1896, FO195/1946. 63 Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878–1896, p. 151. See also Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, pp. 190, 194; Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902, pp. 159–61; and Walker, Armenia, p. 146. 64 The Times, 11 November 1895; Roberts, Salisbury, p. 606; Marsh, ‘Lord Salisbury and the Ottoman massacres’, p. 78. The question of Abdul Hamid’s personal responsibility for the Armenian massacres is as controversial today as it was at the time. Compare, for example, Walker, Armenia, pp. 141–73 with Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878–1896, pp. 151–7, and Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, Conclusion.


and Turkey was by now a thing of the past, eroded not only by the leading position Britain had taken on Armenian reform but also most notably by its failure to support Turkey in its war with Russia in 1877–8 and the occupation of Egypt in 1882.65 His position was made even more delicate by a rumour that Armenian revolutionaries were being aided and abetted by London through the authorities in Cyprus,66 and above all by the decision of Salisbury’s government to resume publication of consular reports from Turkey – a policy deliberately designed to cause serious embarrassment to the sultan.67 The first of a series of massive Blue Books containing diplomatic correspondence on the Armenian crisis, as well as reports from consular officers on the massacres, had actually appeared less than two weeks before Fitzmaurice left for Birejik, and the second one had been presented to parliament on the day after.68 Only four days after this, on 17 February, a third appeared – ending with a despatch of the same day as his departure. All were fully reported in The Times69 – as, in its ‘Latest Intelligence’ column, were the vice-consul’s subsequent movements. None of this would have escaped the attention of the sultan’s numerous apologists in London, not to mention Costaki Pasha, the new Turkish ambassador. Fitzmaurice’s position was perilous, and Thomas Hohler, at the time a young attaché in Constantinople, reported embassy opinion that he was being sent ‘to his certain death’.70

65 Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 2, Ch. 6; Sonyel, The Ottoman Armenians, p. 64. 66 Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878–1896, pp. 76–7. 67 Waterfield, Layard of Nineveh, pp. 435–6. The publication of consular reports from Turkey had been discontinued in 1881, according to Walker because they were evidence of the failure of British policy to secure reform (Armenia, pp. 124–5), and had only reappeared for a brief interval after that. The ‘Sasun massacres’ had soon made the resumption of their publication a prominent demand of Liberal backbenchers and the Anglo-Armenian Association, but it had been resisted by the Liberal foreign secretary, Lord Kimberley, The Times, 28 November and 12 December 1894, 5 February and 30 March 1895. 68 This was a measure of Lord Salisbury’s despair over the sultan’s attitude in the Armenian crisis, for his usual reflex was to give ‘as little information as possible to the House of Commons’, Roberts, Salisbury, pp. 508–9. See also TNA, FO83/2415, which contains a revealing file of correspondence on the construction of the Armenian Blue Books (‘Turkey: Armenia, 1882–1896’). 69 The Blue Books were Turkey No. 1 (1895), Parts I and II; Turkey No. 1 (1896); and Turkey No. 2 (1896). See The Times, 29 January, 14 and 18 February 1896. 70 Hohler, Diplomatic Petrel, p. 11.

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Fitzmaurice arrived in Birejik on 25 February. He reported that the local authorities, ‘urged by some of the well-disposed Moslems’, had initially protected the Armenians from the Moslem mob when antiChristian feeling spread to the town at the beginning of the previous November. Even during the general attack at the beginning of January, some Armenians who had escaped from the Christian quarter were sheltered in the houses of ‘one or two friendly Mussulmans’. He added, too, that his Turkish co-investigators had not behaved in an entirely cynical or obstructive manner. Nevertheless nothing that he found at Birejik altered his view of the responsibility for the treatment of the Armenians by the Turks, including the conversions to Islam; in fact rather the reverse. In the final massacre, he said, faced with a Moslem mob crying that ‘Our Padishah has ordered that the Armenians be massacred, and that no Christians are to be left in the country’, the Ottoman official and reserve soldiers who had turned up in early December stood aside. As for the conversions, these were obviously forced.71 In a private letter to Currie he described what had happened here as ‘a carefully planned war of extermination’.72 But if what Fitzmaurice found at Birejik was bad enough, his discoveries were to be even worse at Urfa, where there had been a particularly high Armenian death toll in December, followed by the usual conversions to Islam. Ordered to proceed there by Currie, Fitzmaurice arrived on 10 March, and a week later sent the ambassador a vivid and detailed report. He found the Armenian quarter still wearing ‘the aspect of a town which had been ruined and laid waste by some scourge more terrible than any war or siege’, and the Moslem population ‘openly threatening to “wipe out” the remaining Armenian Christians during the Bairam holiday’. Despite the fact that there had been little ‘actual disloyalty’ on the part of the Armenians, he said, at least 8000 of them had been massacred in two days in December, almost half of them deliberately burnt alive in the Cathedral. This, he observed, was an act which for fiendish barbarity has been unsurpassed by any of the horrors of recent massacres of Armenians, and for which the annals of history can furnish few, if any, parallels. … During several hours the sickening odour of roasting flesh pervaded the town, and even today, two months and a-half after the massacre, the smell of putrescent and charred remains in the church is unbearable. 71 72

Fitzmaurice to Currie, 5 Mar. 1896, Turkey No. 5. TNA, FO195/1930.


What was behind the Urfa massacres? Once more Fitzmaurice argued that the causes were remote as well as near. Certainly, he said, some Armenians, in despair at the sultan’s failure to implement the promised reforms, had resorted to revolutionary methods. However, ‘[t]he Ottoman officials, instead of distinguishing between the guilty and innocent, chose, some from ignorance, many from motives of personal pecuniary gain, to regard all Armenians as traitors’, not least because they had encouraged the intervention of foreign powers. This was ‘criminally communicated’ to the Moslem population, which, under Sheria law, regarded it as a ‘religious duty and a righteous thing to destroy the lives and seize the property of the [traitorous] Armenians’. In short, the Moslem population had been allowed ‘to usurp the prerogatives of Government by wreaking their blind and unreasoning fury on a, to a great extent, guiltless section of His Majesty’s most intelligent, hard-working, and useful subjects’. For good measure, continued Fitzmaurice, it appears orders were received here from the Central Government to the effect that should the Armenians attempt any disturbance, it was to be at once sternly quelled, and in the event of their offering resistance, they were to receive a terrible lesson … both Mussulmans and non-Mussulmans assert that the Government wished these massacres to take place, and that if it had not so wished they could not have taken place.73 In the last week of March Fitzmaurice arrived in Adiaman in order to investigate the killings and consequent conversions to Islam that had occurred in this place in the previous November. ‘The Government officials here, as elsewhere, might have easily prevented the massacre’, he reported.74 And by way of confirmation of his claim, found that this was exactly what had happened in Behesni – ‘the only white spot on the map of this region’ – where he arrived a few days later.75 Returning to Constantinople in April, Fitzmaurice was clearly determined that neither the Palace nor the Porte would be able to avoid the Birejik Commission’s conclusions, and he was permitted to press his observations on them. The Armenians had converted to Islam ‘under the influence of terror’, and would need to have their confidence restored if they were to be willing to return to Christianity, he maintained. The 73

Fitzmaurice to Currie, 16 Mar. 1896, Turkey. No. 5. Fitzmaurice to Currie, 25 Mar. 1896, Turkey. No. 5. 75 Fitzmaurice to Currie, 27 Mar. 1896, Turkey. No. 5. 74

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ill-disciplined reserve soldiers should be replaced by regulars, the leaders of the massacres punished or banished, and some high functionaries – ideally accompanied by one or more foreign delegates – sent to enforce order and oversee the re-conversions. With the ambassador actively pressing the same line, it was agreed that a commission of inquiry should proceed to Birejik.76 Fitzmaurice must have known that he would be in the frame again when he recommended that the commission include a foreign representative, and Sir Philip Currie quickly decided to send him. However, in the embassy there were by now even greater concerns over his personal safety. The content of Fitzmaurice’s despatches from Armenia had since March been as well known in Constantinople as in London.77 And at the end of April the correspondent of The Times had reported that ‘The plain unvarnished tale graphically unfolded by Vice-Consul Fitzmaurice … which Sir Philip Currie has communicated to his colleagues, has produced a strong impression upon the foreign Ambassadors’.78 Naturally, it was transmitted to the Porte as well. In London the government was under pressure in both houses of parliament to issue what was now being called the ‘Fitzmaurice Report’ as a parliamentary paper, and on 8 May Salisbury himself assured the House of Lords that it would be published.79 A few days later George Curzon, number two at the Foreign Office and the coming man in his party, conveyed the gist of the report to the Commons, shortly afterwards making clear that its publication was imminent.80 Not surprisingly, the embassy reported that the Palace was hostile to Fitzmaurice joining the Birejik Commission,81 and was the more anxious for his safety when it learnt that the ringleaders of the massacres were not to be punished. It also had misgivings at his suggestion that he should be a full member of the commission since this would imply British endorsement of whatever actions it took. In agreeing to it nevertheless, it consoled itself with the thought that this would be likely to provide him with more protection as well as more influence over its proceedings. 76 Currie to Salisbury, 7 May 1896, Turkey. No. 5. The commission had four members: an assistant judge of the Constantinople Criminal Court of First Instance, an assistant judge of the Pera Correctional Court, and two senior military officers who were aides-de-camp of the sultan, TNA, Fitzmaurice to Herbert, 22 June, 1896, FO195/1930. 77 The Times, 16 and 23 Mar. 1896. 78 The Times, 2 May 1896. 79 Parl. Debs., 4th Ser. (Commons), 30 Apr. 1896, col. 201; The Times, 9 May 1896. 80 The Times, 13 May; Parl. Debs., 4th Ser. (Commons), 21 May 1896, col. 75. 81 Memorandum by Mr Block, 26 May 1896, Turkey. No. 5.


Fitzmaurice left Smyrna for Birejik on 30 May and, with the assistance of the vali of Aleppo and embassy pressure on the Palace, appears to have bounced the Porte into accepting his presence.82 By the middle of June he was back in Birejik and a full member of the commission; according to his own account, he was also soon on excellent personal terms with its members.83 This was just as well because his despatches of the spring had duly been presented to Parliament at the beginning of the month as a Blue Book in their own right,84 and on 13 June they had been the subject of a full editorial in The Times.85 Shortly after Fitzmaurice’s arrival in the town, Michael Herbert, chargé d’affaires at the embassy, reported to Salisbury that ‘[a] very strong feeling against Mr Fitzmaurice unfortunately exists at this moment in Turkish official circles, owing to the recent publication of his reports’. He added that a missionary visiting Birejik who had been mistaken for a consul was recently shot at, and that ‘in view of the spirit of fanaticism which prevails in the Birejik district, I confess that I shall be considerably relieved when his mission is concluded’.86 Hohler subsequently claimed that ‘two or three attempts were made to murder him’.87 In Birejik Fitzmaurice at once sought to stiffen his fellow commissioners, and repeatedly telegraphed the embassy to demand clearer and more positive instructions from the Palace – not, he emphasized, from the Porte.88 Conscious of the difficulties of his position, the embassy eventually succeeded in doing this. It also repeatedly pressed for an adequate guard for the vice-consul on his ‘most difficult and thankless mission’,89 although whether it was successful on this point is not clear. By early July the new commission had made some progress in re-establishing the Christian community in Birejik. According to his own reports, Fitzmaurice had secretly persuaded the Armenian converts to Islam openly to declare themselves once more Christians and demand the protection promised by the sultan. This forced the hand of the Birejik authorities while the Palace commission was in the town. 82

TNA, Fitzmaurice to Herbert, 12 June 1896, FO195/1930. TNA, Fitzmaurice to Embassy, 26 June 1896, FO195/1930. 84 Turkey No. 5, advertised in The Times, 6 June 1896. 85 ‘Converts to Islam’, 13 June. 86 TNA, 24 June 1896, FO78/4709. 87 Diplomatic Petrel, p. 11. 88 Fitzmaurice to Herbert, 26 June 1896, encl. with Herbert to Salisbury, 7 July 1896, Turkey No. 5; see also Hohler, Diplomatic Petrel, p. 11. 89 Memorandum of Mr Block, 3 July 1896, encl. in Herbert to Salisbury, 8 July 1896, Turkey No. 5. 83

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The church in Birejik, which had been converted to a mosque, was also returned to Christianity. This success led Fitzmaurice to hope that the Armenians in the neighbouring villages would be emboldened to reconvert, but he found them too fearful and so urged the commission to lend them its assistance.90 The Turkish members of the commission were at first reluctant to proceed into the villages, and the embassy refused Fitzmaurice’s request to go alone on the grounds that this was too dangerous. As a result, during the remainder of July and the first days of August he concentrated on preserving the precarious peace in Birejik and sorting out the complications (some matrimonial) produced by six months living as Moslems by the Armenians. However, in the second week of August the commission finally received instructions to proceed to the villages of RoumKaleh, thence to Urfa, and finally back to Birejik in mid-September. Fitzmaurice went with them. Armenian reconversions at three villages swiftly followed, as they did at Urfa.91 On 24 September he reported to Currie that the situation remained tense but that the reconverts were ‘enjoying a tolerable freedom from molestation’ – the more remarkable in view of the degree to which Moslem hostility had been fanned by reports of the Ottoman Bank incident in Constantinople.92 Shortly after this he returned to his post at Smyrna. The year 1896 was a very important one in Fitzmaurice’s career. In the course of his three missions to the eastern vilayets, he had without doubt shown exceptional skill, tenacity, resilience, and physical courage. His achievements were also considerable. He had shone a powerful light on the massacres, and helped many Armenians to reconvert to Christianity. He had also probably strengthened the view in the embassy and in Britain generally that the wishes of the sultan were at the source of the indiscriminate attacks upon them. In its editorial devoted to his Blue Book, The Times itself came closer than it had before to endorsing this view. ‘The reports of Vice-Consul Fitzmaurice on the massacres and forced conversions to Islam … show’, it said, ‘the responsibility of the local and the central authorities for those crimes’.93 Fitzmaurice was influential in some measure because he could write a graphic despatch, to which testimony was paid in the House of Lords

90

TNA, Fitzmaurice to Herbert, 22 July 1896, FO195/1930. TNA, Fitzmaurice to Herbert, 13 and 29 Aug., and to Currie, 10 Sept. 1896, all in FO195/1930. 92 TNA, FO195/1930. 93 Emphasis added, 13 June 1896. 91


in July 1896. Anxious that an insufficient number of his fellow peers had read the vice-consul’s Blue Book, Lord Stanmore assured them that it was ‘more full of horror and interest than any sensational novel’.94 More important to his influence, though, was the fact that he visited the scene of the events on which he was required to report, and used his excellent Turkish to interrogate Moslem as well as Christian sources. Indeed, he took care to emphasize that he had relied more on the former than on the latter. Where estimating the numbers of the dead was concerned, he was careful to show his scepticism of Armenian as well as Turkish estimates; and no doubt he benefited from his previous experience of documenting death during the cholera outbreak in Erzeroum. At Birejik in March, where he estimated that over 150 Christians were massacred, he added ‘I have in my possession a carefully checked list of their names’.95 Nor did Fitzmaurice have a Manichean view of the Christian–Moslem conflict,96 and the idea that his reporting in 1896 showed him to be a Turcophobe is quite without foundation.97 Like other British consuls in the Levant Service, he was quick to acknowledge Armenian sedition and provocation and equally quick to give credit to those Turkish officials and private individuals who behaved well in circumstances that were probably at least as difficult for them as they were for him. Nevertheless, over ten years later, he privately admitted that his reputation for being ‘a bit phil-Armenian’ was deserved, adding that this was partly because the Armenians much preferred the British to the Germans and were so important to British trade with Turkey.98 The other part was with little doubt a feeling of Christian solidarity. Fitzmaurice’s service on the Birejik Commission established his reputation not only as a political reporter but also as someone who could get results from Turkish officials. He had, in other words, shown the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service that he had ‘bottom’, and that he

94

Parl. Debs., 4th Ser. (Lords), 20 July 1896, col. 112. Turkey No. 5, p. 3. Though Salt tries to cast doubt on Fitzmaurice’s account of the Urfa massacre by pointing out that he was not an eye witness, he does not challenge his estimate of the death toll, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878–1896, pp. 97, 101. 96 On this typically Victorian view, see Part One of Salt’s, Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians, 1878–1896. 97 With less than convincing logic, Sonyel levels this charge against him for laying the blame for the atrocities on the sultan himself, although, like Salt, he does not argue with Fitzmaurice’s description of events at Urfa; see The Ottoman Armenians, pp. 191, 314. 98 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Tyrrell (private), 27 June 1909, FO800/79. 95

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was not the sort to go off his head in the remoter parts of Anatolia. The opinion that he was pro-Armenian did him no harm in Britain either. Indeed, he was warmly praised for his efforts and in January 1897 – on Currie’s recommendation – received a financial gratuity from the Foreign Office.99 Shortly afterwards he was granted leave of absence and returned to England. In June he was further honoured by being made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG), and then given the established – as opposed to acting – position of third dragoman in the embassy. However, he did not return to Constantinople until August, having been granted an additional month’s leave.100 It is probable that this is because while in Armenia he had contracted typhus, and almost died from it.101 Fitzmaurice eventually became chief dragoman of the British embassy and the most dynamic and controversial man ever to occupy the position.102

99

This amounted to £120, TNA, Fitzmaurice to Currie, 30 Jan. 1897, FO195/1971. 100 TNA, Fitzmaurice to Salisbury, 29 June 1897, FO78/4839. 101 Bullard, The Camels Must Go, p. 63. 102 As well as in the full biography from which this essay is extracted (Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice), the interested reader can follow the rest of this story in the author’s essay on Fitzmaurice in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB): Berridge, ‘Fitzmaurice’.

5 Specific Reciprocity and the 105 Soviet Spies

Specific reciprocity – the phrase is due to Robert Keohane – is a condition in which two parties give to each other at least roughly equivalent treatment in respect to some specific aspect of their relations.1 The principle of specific reciprocity holds that this condition is a just one: it is only fair that there should be a ‘two-way street’ on such and such a matter. For example, if we allow your national airline two flights a day into our premier airport, it is only fair that you should permit our national airline two flights a day into yours; if we buy a lot of your goods, it is only right that you should buy a lot of ours – ‘imbalances’ in bilateral trade should be ‘corrected’. It follows that if one party decides unilaterally to haul back from a formal agreement or tacit understanding providing for equivalent benefits, the second party is entitled to retaliate in kind: ‘tit-for-tat’. Fear of such retaliation is a deterrent of sorts. Specific reciprocity has long been a mantra to diplomats and diplomatic lawyers. It is expressed most notably in the rule that one state grants an embassy in its capital to the other on the understanding that the latter will accord it the equivalent right, irrespective of whether it wishes to exercise it. If one state severs diplomatic relations with another and throws out its embassy, the sending state is legally entitled to retaliate in kind.2 To ensure that the reciprocity required by diplomatic and 1 I do not use the term in exactly the same way as Keohane. The other common sense of reciprocity is what he calls ‘diffuse reciprocity’. In the latter ‘the definition of equivalence is less precise, one’s partners may be viewed as a group rather than as particular actors, and the sequence of events is less narrowly bounded’, ‘Reciprocity in international relations’, p. 4. 2 The legality of retaliation is established in the VCDR in a somewhat roundabout way. Thus Article 47 states that receiving states shall not discriminate as between states when applying the convention but that this will not be regarded as having

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consular law is received by its own diplomats and consuls abroad, in the 1982 Foreign Missions Act the US Congress elevated the principle to a religion and created a priesthood in the Department of State to guard the flame: the Office of Foreign Missions.3 Nevertheless while specific reciprocity is usually of great value in underpinning the machinery of diplomatic relations, its significance can be exaggerated.4 Neither is the principle easy to apply, and – when it can be – it might well have drawbacks, not least the risk of embedding a feud.5 This essay discusses these questions concerning specific reciprocity in light of the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats in Anglo-Soviet relations. These exploded into the headlines in September 1971 with the unprecedented expulsion of 105 Soviet officials from London on spying charges.

Problems of equivalence For many years the exchange of representatives between Britain and the Soviet Union had rested on the principle of reciprocity in two important respects. The first was the usual and fundamental one: each granted privileged residence to the diplomatic (but not provincial consular) representatives of the other. The second concerned the highly sensitive question of the number of service attachés in the embassies. Possibly as a result of a tacit understanding, each had nine or ten: in 1971 there were ten in the Soviet embassy in London (where at 16 Kensington Palace Gardens they had their own office across the road from the taken place ‘where the receiving State applies any of the provisions of the present Convention restrictively because of a restrictive application of that provision to its mission in the sending State’. For discussion, see Denza, Diplomatic Law, pp. 497–502. 3 Foreign Missions Act 22 U.S.C. 4301-4316 [www]; US Department of State: Office of Foreign Missions [www]. 4 There is no doubt that it is sometimes made to bear too heavy a historical burden, as for example in Frey and Frey, The History of Diplomatic Immunity, pp. 6, 61, 76, 397, 401, 487; Denza, Diplomatic Law, pp. 2, 224, 515. For example, until 1793 the Ottoman sultans received but did not send resident embassies – and yet treated their guests better than is sometimes believed, even subsidizing their embassies until long after this custom was abandoned in Europe, despite the fact that they were not constrained by the ‘force of reciprocity’. They did this because they found these embassies flattering, valuable sources of information and alluring gifts, important to commerce, useful mediators, and indispensable to the manipulation of the balance of power. 5 Keohane discusses this and other drawbacks of reciprocity – among other things – in ‘Reciprocity in international relations’, although his conclusions rest largely on the study of trade negotiations.

Specific Reciprocity and the 105 Soviet Spies 73

embassy chancery at number 13) and nine in the British embassy in Moscow.6 This was a very important point because it has always been accepted that a major function of service attachés is the gathering of military intelligence. In the Soviet Union this was the responsibility of the GRU, and the British Security Service (MI5) routinely referred to 16 Kensington Palace Gardens as the ‘GRU residency’.7 So far so good – but in two other respects there was no equivalence at all. There was, to begin with, no equivalence in the conditions of representation because the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state while Britain was a liberal democracy. The consequence was that it was much more difficult for Britain to conduct diplomacy in the Soviet Union – where there was no freedom of speech, freedom of association, or freedom of movement – than for the Soviet Union to conduct diplomacy in Britain. This showed up in two ways in particular. First, in order to ensure protection for its own non-diplomats in Moscow from blackmail, kidnapping or physical attack by the KGB, Britain had been obliged to make bilateral agreements with the Soviet government – as with some of the Warsaw Pact states which also had embassies in London – under which the administrative and technical staff, service staff and private servants of the embassies in both capitals were all treated as if they were diplomatic agents (see Appendix).8 What Britain’s non-diplomats should have had as of right had needed to be purchased, therefore, at the expense of giving the Russian non-diplomats unnecessary privileges in London, which, as we shall see, were significant. Secondly, the difference in the conditions of representation affected the embassies’ unacknowledged

6

The London Diplomatic List, June 1971; The Diplomatic Service List 1971. The similarity in size may, however, have been coincidental. The defence section of the British embassy needed to be very large – representing about a quarter of the entire diplomatic staff, a much bigger proportion than that represented by its counterpart in the Soviet embassy – not just because of the importance of the target but because travelling by train and car was such an important part of its duty and the Soviet Union was so vast. Western service attachés also faced many hazards on their travels and it was safer (indeed a requirement) to travel in pairs, or even as a foursome with two other NATO attachés; see the highly informative account by Air Commodore Ted Williams, Cold War, Hot Seat, passim. 7 Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 572. Cf. Walden, Lucky George, p. 148, and Greenhill, More by Accident, p. 159, where it is wrongly described as ‘the KGB office’. 8 Provided that they were nationals of the sending state, which all Soviet (but by no means all British) ones were. In 1965, this increased the total of those in the Soviet embassy enjoying full diplomatic immunity from 67 to 118, HC Deb, 2 Aug. 1965, vol. 717, cols. 198–9w.

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but nevertheless important tasks of secret intelligence gathering. As George Walden, the Soviet desk officer in the FCO who was appointed shortly after the Conservative Party returned to power in Britain in June 1970, observed in his memoirs, ‘given the circumstances in Russia and the relative freedom enjoyed by Soviet operatives in London, in a war fought out in the dark between a free and an unfree society, we were unlikely to come off best’.9 But there was no rule that required the Soviet embassy in London to accept a ‘handicap’ in the shape of a smaller staff in order to compensate its British counterpart in Moscow for the more difficult conditions it faced, and the Soviet government actually wanted a much larger one.10 In the second place, there was no equivalence in the size of representation. London was an attractive post for the Soviet Union not only because it provided its diplomats with considerable freedom but also because it represented a potential doorway for the KGB into the American mind. By contrast, the British embassy in Moscow – while it had plenty to do – had hardly any access to the real decision-makers (talking to Gromyko’s foreign ministry was of strictly limited utility) and lived uncomfortably in a KGB goldfish bowl.11 The consequence was that the Soviet embassy in London (the diplomatic staff of which had risen to 80 by 1968) was twice the size of its British counterpart in Moscow.12 Furthermore, since the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state, the British government regarded the numerous members of all Soviet agencies in London – the Soviet Trade Delegation (STD), Aeroflot, Tass, the Moscow Narodny Bank, the Soviet Film Agency and so on – as ‘officials’. On the grounds that foreign trade was a state monopoly in the USSR, the premises occupied by the STD, as well as the Soviet trade

9

Lucky George, p. 144. This was paralleled by the situation in the Soviet–US relationship. Parity was established in the mid-1980s but prior to this the Soviet embassy in Washington was more than double the size of the US embassy in Moscow: Hartman interview; Mayers, The Ambassador’s and America’s Soviet Policy, p. 303 n. 14; New York Times, 4 Mar. 1989. Cf. Hughes, ‘Giving the Russians a bloody nose’, p. 234. 11 Staerck, ‘The role of HM embassy in Moscow’, passim. As well as the considerable amount of work involved in reporting on Soviet affairs and Soviet government attitudes and intentions, which ‘were gobbled up greedily in London’, the Moscow embassy had the task of informally supervising the much smaller British posts in the other Warsaw Pact states in eastern and central Europe: Brian Barder to the author, and Wade-Gery interview, pp. 49–50. 12 The London Diplomatic List, Oct. 1968, pp. 48–51; The Diplomatic Service List 1968, p. 87. 10


representative and his two deputies, were even granted diplomatic immunity.13 However, conveniently overlooking the Marxist-Leninist ruling class theory of the state, the Soviet government did not grant diplomatic immunity to the premises occupied by the few British businessmen permanently resident in Moscow. All of this meant that from the British point of view the lack of equivalence in the size of representation was even more marked – in fact, even if British journalists as well as businessmen in the Soviet Union were included along with the staff of the embassy in some nominal British ‘official establishment’ in Moscow, the Soviet official establishment in London exceeded it by a factor of five.14 As it happened, the British government had traditionally acknowledged that it was neither practical nor desirable to seek equivalence in the size of embassies in particular bilateral relationships, and that in view of London’s political, economic, and financial importance it might often expect to host larger ones than it sent.15 Nevertheless the discrepancy in the Soviet case was huge, and it was the less acceptable because of the purposes to which the Soviet Union put its people in London.

Breaking the rules of the game International espionage is a game that is tolerated, in part because it is impossible to prevent, in part because it helps to reduce the uncertainty on which fear breeds, and in part because allowing in the other side’s spies implicitly licenses one’s own to spy on them – reciprocity. Like all games, this game has its rules, although in this case they are unwritten. The rules of the espionage game relevant here are (1) that it should never be admitted; (2) that its scale should not be excessive; and (3) that the spies should not act so clumsily as to come to public attention.16 These rules were well understood by Britain and the Soviet 13 This was based on Article 5 of the UK-Soviet Temporary Commercial Agreement of 1934, HCPP (Cmd. 4567), 16 Feb. 1934. However, this specifically referred to the offices then occupied by the STD on the fifth floor of the East Wing of Bush House in the Aldwych, so the claim that it also covered the STD’s new premises in Highgate was debateable, min. of Bullard, 16 Feb. 1972, DBPO, p. 437 n. 8. 14 In early 1971 it was discovered that the Soviet official strength in Britain of almost 500 (of which more than a quarter were KGB officers) was larger than that in any other major Western country including Japan – even the United States if the Soviet delegation to the UN were excepted, DBPO, pp. 337–8 and no. 66, incl. important fn.7. 15 The Times, 12 Nov. 1968; HCPP (Cmnd. 9497), Apr. 1985, p. 14. 16 I am grateful to Brian Barder for his assistance with this passage.

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Union during the Cold War but the latter began to push its luck on the second and third. Intelligence officers (IOs) operated under diplomatic cover not only in the service attachés’ section of the Soviet embassy in London but in the chancery and on residence permits as members of the other official bodies. (Notable in this connection was the Soviet Trade Delegation in Highgate, where three members of staff also had diplomatic immunity, as already mentioned). These IOs were chiefly members of the KGB, and during the late 1960s and especially the beginning of the 1970s the British government began to get more and more fed up with the nature and scale of their activities – ‘as blatant as they were widespread’, concluded the new Conservative prime minister, Edward Heath.17 The number of agents seemed to be increasing all the time, and MI5 did not have the personnel to keep tabs on them all – in fact it was ‘hopelessly overloaded’;18 as a result, more ministries and areas of the armed services were being penetrated, while commercial, scientific, and especially technological secrets were also becoming popular targets.19 If the opportunities for espionage in London by these so-called legals were so much the greater because of the exceptional privileges enjoyed by the embassy already noted, more were promised by the Anglo-Soviet Consular Convention of 2 December 1965. This granted to any consular officers in both countries immunities that were to be equivalent to those enjoyed by diplomats in the capitals.20 As the junior government minister, Lord Shepherd, speaking of the convention and similar ones in train or contemplated with other Soviet bloc countries, told the House of Lords in 1967, ‘in some respects consular personnel working in the provinces require full protection even more than diplomats serving in the capital’.21 As it happened, largely owing to the unjustified imprisonment in a Soviet labour camp of a young British lecturer, the British government delayed ratification of this convention, and it did not enter into force until 22 September 1968. With the cooling in Anglo-Soviet relations that was a feature of this period no consulates were actually opened either. But even the outside chance of super-protected Soviet consulates being opened in northern industrial

17

Heath, The Course of My Life, p. 474. Walden, Lucky George, p. 143. See also Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, pp. 565, 567; and Wright, Spycatcher, pp. 343–4. 19 Killick interview, p. 25. 20 HCPP, Cmnd. 3804. 21 HL Deb., 16 Nov. 1967, vol. 286, cols. 880–96. 18


cities – where trade unionism was strong – was sufficient to set more alarm bells clanging in MI5, in ministries, and on the Conservative back benches in parliament.22 From time to time individual Soviet spies operating under diplomatic cover had been caught out and expelled, and entry visas denied to others who were already well known23 – and the Soviet Union replied in kind, as was customary. But this illustrated one of the drawbacks of the principle of reciprocity in this context: tit-for-tat exchanges of this sort might appear to be balanced but this is only true if the embassies are of the same size. Since Britain’s embassy was far smaller than that of the Soviet Union’s, each time there were expulsions the British lost a greater proportion of experienced staff.24 This was another reason why they were beginning to find the current position less than satisfactory. Following the conviction for spying of the RAF chief technician Douglas Britten in 1968, and the revelation that he had been run by a first secretary in the Soviet embassy, the British government informed the Soviet Union that its London embassy would not be permitted to expand further.25 It would be capped at its then level of 80 diplomatic staff, 60 non-diplomatic staff and 8 service staff. Furthermore, since discreet approaches in the past had failed to discourage this sort of activity and because of the particular seriousness of the latest case of espionage, on this occasion publicity could not be avoided. The decision to cap the Soviet embassy would be announced to the press, although not the exact nature of the limitation.26 This was duly done.27 Presumably because of the disparity in size between the two embassies, and because Britain subsequently agreed to a higher ceiling on the Soviet embassy (86),28 Soviet retaliation was regarded in London as perfunctory. Publicity was certainly matched with publicity. Thus the Soviet foreign 22 Probably at some point in early 1971 the Soviet government raised again the question of exchanging consulates and expressed an interest in opening one itself ‘in the north of England’ but – on security grounds – the FCO remained resolutely opposed, TNA, Visit of the PUS to the Soviet Union, 22–27 June [1971], Briefs, FCO28/1569. 23 In total, between 1960 and 1970, 25 were expelled and a further 40 were refused visas to enter the UK, Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 565. 24 Walden, Lucky George, p. 144; Dickie, Inside the Foreign Office, p. 206. 25 Under Article 11 of the VCDR, any receiving state is permitted – subject to certain rather vague constraints – unilaterally to limit the size of an embassy; for discussion, see Denza, Diplomatic Law, pp. 94–100. 26 DBPO, no. 19. 27 The Times, 12 November 1968. 28 DBPO, p. 92 n. 2.

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minister, Andrei Gromyko, informed Britain’s ambassador in Moscow that the British announcement was ‘discriminatory and totally unwarranted’, and consistent with other anti-Soviet gestures made by Britain on the pretext of the recent Soviet action in Czechoslovakia; this was made public by the Soviet embassy in London but not until 3 December.29 However, the Soviet Union imposed no formal ceiling of its own – then or later – on the 40-strong diplomatic staff of the British embassy in Moscow.30 This was no more than a minor tiff and there were no serious repercussions. The 1968 ceiling imposed on the Soviet embassy made little difference to intelligence activity by Soviet legals in the United Kingdom, which continued to increase.31 The view in the FCO was that this was now not merely a mounting threat to national security but a serious impediment to any improvement in Anglo-Soviet relations, which – for commercial as well as political reasons – it was prepared to promote;32 failure to do anything about it would also cause further damage to British prestige in Soviet eyes.33 By early 1970 officials in the FCO had concluded that the situation was so intolerable that it was time for the matter to be taken up at the highest levels.34 Over the following year and a half numerous private requests – both in person and in writing – were made to the Soviet foreign ministry by the British foreign and commonwealth secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and his permanent under-secretary and ‘good friend of MI5’, Sir Denis Greenhill, for a major scaling back of the Soviet intelligence operation.35 Their intention was to give the Soviet government ample opportunity to save face by complying without publicity; should this chance be passed up, the ground for radical public action would have been prepared because 29

The Times, 4 December 1968. HCPP (28-I), 26 Mar. 1986: Report, p. xxx; cf. Denza, Diplomatic Law, p. 97. 31 The embassy ceiling was circumvented by increasing the number of ‘working wives’, DBPO, p. 337. 32 A little later, having observed that the Soviet Union continued to make the running in seeking an improvement in relations with Britain – in part ‘to legalise and institutionalise a relationship which at present works mainly to Soviet advantage (e.g. in technological exchanges and in the intelligence field)’ – the FCO added that ‘Our own aim is to emphasise the pragmatic aspects of our relations, and to demonstrate interest in any businesslike proposals for reducing East/West tension’, TNA, Visit of the PUS to the Soviet Union, 22–27 June [1971], Briefs, FCO28/1569. 33 Walden, for whom the plan to get rid of the KGB was in part a ‘personal crusade’, also believed that a blow to its international prestige would weaken its position at home, Lucky George, pp. 142–4, 145. 34 DBPO, no. 43. 35 On Greenhill and MI5, see Wright, Spycatcher, p. 342. 30


publication of the letters would demonstrate that the government’s measures were not ‘hysterical’.36 At least it served the second purpose because Gromyko repeatedly either rebuffed or ignored the FCO’s complaints.

Expulsions – and counter-expulsions On 24 September 1971 the Soviet chargé d’affaires, Ivan Ivanovich Ippolitov (himself a KGB ‘co-optee’37), was summoned by Greenhill to the Foreign Office. Here he was handed a list of 90 IOs operating under official cover who were to leave the country within two weeks and a further 15 who held valid re-entry visas but were not to be allowed to return – 105 in all. Greenhill also informed him that, henceforth, the number of officials in the various component parts of the Soviet establishment in Britain would not be permitted to rise above the levels established by these removals,38 and that any further expulsions required would reduce these ceilings in corresponding proportion since diplomacy – as opposed to espionage – clearly needed no more. Ippolitov was also told that Britain had no desire to engage in a ‘propaganda battle’ on this issue with his government but that, in view of the ‘widespread anxiety on this subject in Parliament and amongst the British people in general’, the FCO would be making the action public (without releasing the names of those to be expelled) and publishing Sir Alec DouglasHome’s unanswered and even unacknowledged letters to Gromyko.39 The Soviet government could not admit – even privately – that its diplomats had been spying on this scale, because this would have been to admit that it had broken not only one of the rules of the espionage game but also a rule of diplomacy, since diplomats are not supposed to engage in spying. 36

Walden, Lucky George, p. 147. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 571. 38 The new ceilings for Soviet officials in the UK were 44 embassy diplomats, 49 other embassy staff, 97 in the STD, and 179 in other organizations, making 369 in all, DBPO, p. 408 n. 3. However, following later clarification (e.g. concerning temporary staff), the STD ceiling was reduced to 47 and that for other organizations to 106, DBPO, p. 435 n. 5. 39 DBPO, no. 76. cf. Heath, The Course of My Life, p. 475, where he confirms that the Soviet government was told of Britain’s wish to avoid a propaganda battle but then says: ‘A press conference was then held under the D Notice Procedure, which prohibited the media from publishing any of the information with which they were provided, a procedure which at that time was always fully observed. Having described in detail what was happening, we emphasised that in no circumstances were they to publish this information, unless the Soviet Union first made it public. … In fact, Moscow exploded on receiving my [sic!] message and the press immediately published everything that had been said’. 37

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As a result, it had been feared in London that this announcement might provoke massive retaliation against the British in Moscow, thereby requiring counter-retaliation by Britain, and so perpetuating the feud.40 Accordingly, Greenhill also warned Ippolitov that any reprisals by the Soviet Union would force the UK to consider ‘other aspects of the Soviet presence in the United Kingdom with a view to bringing conditions here more closely into line with those existing in the Soviet Union’. Measures open to the UK, he said, included imposing ‘strict parity’ in regard to embassy size (it was assumed that even after the mass expulsions the Soviet embassy would still be slightly larger), terminating the STD’s anomalous immunity, and shrinking further the free travel zone of Soviet diplomats.41 The British government had also concentrated the expulsions on the KGB (which it believed – probably correctly – to be unpopular with the Soviet foreign ministry, as well as with the Soviet people in general42) and left the GRU agents operating as service attachés almost completely untouched. In fact, only one service attaché was expelled,43 which gave Britain a reasonable hope that its own service attachés in Moscow would be spared.44 It also deliberately refrained from expelling any Soviet journalists, no doubt with a similar aim in mind. However, a secondary aim of not moving at this stage against the Soviet service attachés and journalists – among whom were found most of the 40 or so ‘known or suspected intelligence officers’ – was to retain them as further bargaining chips;45 this was a cost, certainly, but not likely to be heavy because MI5 would find the much reduced number easier to watch. 40

Douglas-Home to Heath, 23 Sept. 1971, DBPO no. 75. DBPO, no. 76. Since 1941 the Soviet Union had restricted movement beyond a radius of 25 miles from the centre of Moscow. In 1953 – along with other NATO countries – the UK reciprocated, although it granted a free travel zone in London with a 35-mile radius. (In both countries the ambassador and the ambassador’s family were exempted from these restrictions; there were also other minor reciprocal exceptions.) Not until 1982 was the threat to establish parity by reducing this to 25 miles (hinted at on this occasion) carried out, HCPP (HC 28-vii), 27 Nov. 1985: [Memo submitted by FCO and Department of Trade and Industry] pp. 272–3. 42 TNA, Wilson (Moscow) to Douglas-Home, 5 July 1971, FCO28/1564; Thorpe, Alec Douglas-Home, pp. 417–18; Killick interview, p. 24. 43 This was an assistant naval attaché, Captain Lory Kuzmin, who had run a Royal Navy spy since early in 1970, Shipley, Hostile Action, p. 163; The Times, 14 Mar. 1972. 44 Hughes, ‘Giving the Russians a bloody nose’, p. 242; Brimelow to Killick, 23 Dec. 1971, DBPO, no. 86. 45 Brimelow to Killick, 23 Dec. 1971, DBPO, no. 86. See also Wright, Spycatcher, p. 344; Thorpe, Alec Douglas-Home, p. 416; Hughes, ‘Giving the Russians a bloody nose’, p. 241. 41


As expected, the Soviet government was deeply angered by the scale and public nature of this move. It had also been taken completely by surprise, for the British had kept the planning of the operation a carefully guarded secret so that it could not be headed off by pre-emptive hostage taking.46 The KGB itself was ‘stunned’.47 It was by far the largest strike against it that had ever been made and, on the evidence of defectors, it was a blow from which its London residency never recovered. Nor was Moscow soothed by the British protestation that the mass expulsions were designed in part to improve Anglo-Soviet relations – Walden thought it regarded this as a wind-up and was gleeful over its discomfort.48 Nevertheless Soviet retaliation observed the rules of the diplomatic game: it was concentrated on the modes of diplomatic relations, while leaving the substance of Anglo-Soviet relations largely untouched. It was also subtle because on the surface it was relatively mild (and could be presented by Britain as even milder) but in fact was quite savage. The Soviet government at once made strong diplomatic protests, launched an anti-British press campaign, increased the level of minor harassment of British embassy staff in Moscow, and – whether deliberately or not – strained the nerves of all of the British in the city by delaying its direct retaliation for two weeks.49 On 8 October the Soviet government finally announced that a number of ministerial visits to Moscow were to be cancelled, as were some forthcoming Anglo-Soviet meetings and exchanges. Furthermore, four British diplomats were to 46

Walden, Lucky George, p. 146. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, quoted in DBPO, p. 389, n. 7. See also Walden, Lucky George, p. 148; Thorpe, Alec Douglas-Home, pp. 416–17; Heath, The Course of My Life, p. 476; Hughes, ‘Giving the Russians a bloody nose’, p. 242. However, the KGB was able to call on its Soviet bloc allies to make up for its losses in London, with the result that ‘identified hostile intelligence personnel’ remained in large numbers, Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, pp. 573, 576–7. 48 Walden, Lucky George, pp. 148–9. 49 Brian Barder, who was acting head of chancery at the time and was dragged to the foreign ministry – along with the ambassador – almost every evening during that fortnight to listen to a demand that the expulsion orders be withdrawn, believes that there may have been a ‘faint hope in Russian minds’ that this bullying would pay off, Barder to the author. As for the Moscow correspondent of The Times, David Bonavia, he thought that the delay had other advantages for the Soviet government: it enabled them to float a whole range of possible reprisals and thereby gauge the likely British reaction to them; and also ‘gave plenty of time for Soviet propaganda’s explanation of the expulsions from London to find willing listeners, both in Britain and in other countries’, The Times, 8 October 1971; see also The Times 29 September, 1 and 3 October 1971. 47

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leave the country within two weeks; these included an assistant naval attaché, the archivist, and the two members of the embassy’s Russian secretariat. A British businessman was also required to leave the country within two weeks, and a total of 13 other British subjects would not be allowed to return.50 No serious suggestion was made that any of them had been engaged in espionage.51 As far as the categories of expellee were concerned, Moscow did what the British had hoped: one service attaché only was expelled (an assistant naval attaché, like the one expelled by Britain), and no journalists. Moreover, unlike the British, they did not formally exclude the sending of replacements;52 while the greater proportion of those ‘expelled’ (13 of the 18) were persons who were actually not in the country, 10 of them having not recently even applied for visas. The most serious element of the Soviet government’s retaliation was the completion of its project to destroy the Russian secretariat. This was the section of the chancery composed of Soviet and Russian specialists, those most fluent in the language and knowledgeable about the country. Their tasks included studying and reporting on internal developments; providing ‘linguistic advice on the inwardnesses of Soviet texts, Soviet communications, drafts of agreements etc, [thereby] assisting the provision of sound advice to London’; and supporting the ambassador ‘when called in by or calling on the MFA on tricky matters with a long history’.53 Because of their language skills and their need to travel extensively and make informal contacts with Soviet citizens, the members of the Russian secretariat were objects of particular suspicion and dislike to the KGB.54 It had already been weakened by expulsions earlier in the year, and these moves effectively extinguished it for years to come. This was because in addition to the expulsion of its remaining diplomatic staff, most of those permanently barred from returning were experienced former members – at the time either in the FCO’s research or information research department: the pool from which it might be replenished was pumped dry.55 50 These consisted of three other businessmen with valid visas, nine former members of the embassy, and one academic; cf. Denza, Diplomatic Law, p. 82. 51 Barder interview, p. 10. 52 DBPO, p. 404, n. 1. 53 Tony Bishop (FCO) to the author, 9 February 2010. 54 Staerck, ‘The role of HM embassy in Moscow’, pp. 154 (Gordievsky testimony), 156 (Barder testimony). 55 The Times, 11 October 1971; Staerck, ‘The role of HM embassy in Moscow’, p. 156 (Barder testimony); Tony Bishop (FCO) to the author, 9 February 2010. To some extent this also meant that the FCO now had more Russian specialists – a


It is probably because of this destruction of the British embassy’s Russian secretariat that the ambassador, Sir John Killick – only in post for a fortnight before the mass expulsions – was not just helping Moscow to save face when at the time he publicly described its measures as ‘severe in nature’,56 but the secretariat was a relatively anonymous section of the embassy and this made its fate easier for the British government – if not the embassy itself – to accept quietly.57 In any case, Sir John’s private, considered advice to the FCO was that the embassy ‘had got off very lightly indeed … the Russians’, he continued, ‘have evidently wanted to combine the minimum provocation to us to take further counter-reprisals with the appearance of moderate, though adequate, retaliation on their side’.58 Accordingly he recommended against any such counter-reprisals. This advice was accepted: It would not be in our interest now [Douglas-Home told the prime minister] to appear to be carrying on a vendetta against the Soviet Union. This would lead to accusations that we were trying to sabotage détente and obstruct the Conference on European Security. … We expected that there would be reprisals: having assessed these and having considered the situation as a whole we see no need to take further measures now.59 Heath, who according to George Walden had been ‘resolute and clearminded’ throughout,60 agreed.

The vendetta continues Any British hopes that this might well be the end of the matter were misplaced: the vendetta continued. The Soviet government – which

‘disturbingly long list’ – than it needed, Memorandum by Mr Bullard on AngloSoviet Relations, 5 July 1972, DBPO, p. 488. 56 The Times, 9 October 1971. 57 No one in London ever seemed to mention the loss of the Russian Secretariat, and in his Oral History interview Killick substantially revised his estimate of the Soviet retaliation: it was, he said, ‘puny’. 58 DBPO, p. 407 n. 4. The analysis of the evidently well-briefed Moscow correspondent of The Times (9 October 1971) was identical, if expressed somewhat more elegantly. 59 DBPO, p. 407 n. 4. In his memoirs, Sir Alec described the Soviet retaliation as ‘weak to the point of being routine’, Home, The Way the Wind Blows, p. 250. 60 Walden, Lucky George, p. 147.

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could not have retaliated by expelling 105 British ‘officials’ from Moscow without in effect causing a complete breach in relations – pursued its retaliation instead by a discreet process of attrition. On morale and security grounds, the FCO continued to permit members of the embassy to leave when their relatively short term in Moscow was at an end but was not able to replace them because the Soviet government either refused or failed to respond to applications for visas for new staff. This applied to UK-based security guards as well, and the size of this group soon shrank to almost nothing.61 Furthermore, on 5 May 1972 The Times correspondent in Moscow, David Bonavia, was expelled, the presumption being that this was because of his contacts with dissidents. Britain replied in kind as far as visas were concerned and the deadlock was not resolved until a major ‘exchange of visas’ was made on 4 July 1972: Britain gave the Soviet Union 40 visas and received 20 in return, the discrepancy reflecting the greater size of the Soviet establishment in London despite the recent expulsions.62 Henceforward there was ‘approximate parity’ in the size of the diplomatic staff in both embassies – although the Soviet Union still imposed no formal ceiling on the British embassy.63 However, Britain was unable to expel a Soviet journalist from London in retaliation for Bonavia’s expulsion without compromising its commitment to freedom of information and – at the risk of appearing weak – had to confine itself to a strong protest.64 The visa war seems to have affected the British embassy to a greater degree because it was more dependent on internal travel for its reporting, and – stretched as it now was – it was difficult to release people for

61 The consequence of this was that ‘the embassy’s political and commercial and other staff had to undertake extra duties, including doing the night security guards’ rounds throughout the night, on top of their ordinary day jobs. For months the embassy was trying to conduct its business as usual with ever fewer people to do the work’, Brian Barder to the author. 62 Memorandum by Mr Bullard on Anglo-Soviet Relations, 5 July 1972, DBPO, pp. 486–8. 63 The vendetta climaxed again with another major expulsion of Soviet representatives from London in 1985, four diplomats and an Aeroflot official in April and a massive 31 officials in September. This time Soviet retaliation took an almost identical form. Three British diplomats were expelled in retaliation for the April expulsions from London and an exactly equivalent 31 British subjects were ejected from Moscow following those in September; most of these came from the embassy and included 15 diplomats, HCPP (28-I), 26 Mar. 1986: Report, p. xxx. 64 Goodall to Rose, 15 May 1972, DBPO p. 472; The Times, 9 May 1972.


this purpose.65 Sir John Killick was also cold-shouldered by the Soviet foreign ministry and his embassy generally went through ‘a quite hairy period’.66 Bryan Cartledge, who joined the embassy as head of chancery shortly after the mass expulsions, went so far as to say that it became ‘virtually inoperative for about 18 months’ after the event.67 Morale among at least some of the British embassy staff also suffered because of a feeling that they were simply pawns in the game;68 and the same was probably true of Soviet diplomats in London. The important fact remained, however, that the Anglo-Soviet conflict was substantially contained. It was, in other words, only the embassies and certain additional channels of diplomatic communication that suffered in the 105 affair and its aftermath; the dispute did not spill over into other areas of bilateral relations – even though the general atmosphere here remained chilly for a long period69 – or of NATO relations with the Soviet Union.70 This was a reflex on both sides71 – although on this occasion London showed more enthusiasm for it than Moscow – and was important because there were issues at stake in these relations besides spies, not least the fate of commerce in the former and détente in the latter.72 As it was, none suffered in any significant degree.73 In fact, it was a common opinion in London that the mass expulsions

65 Staerck, ‘The role of HM embassy in Moscow’, p. 156 (Barder testimony); Gillmore interview, p. 6. Internal travel was in any case being made even more difficult than usual as part of Moscow’s retaliation, Cartledge interview, p. 25. 66 Killick interview, p. 23. 67 HCPP (16), 21 Mar. 1989: mins. of ev., p. 208 (Cartledge). 68 Staerck, ‘The role of HM embassy in Moscow’, p. 152 (Ratford testimony; also Hibbert); Cartledge interview, p. 27. However, Brian Barder says, ‘I don’t remember morale being low during my time: the whole thing was actually quite exciting!’ Barder to the author. 69 Douglas-Home, The Way the Wind Blows, p. 250. 70 This was even truer of the effect of the major tit-for-tat expulsions in 1985, HCPP (28-I), 26 Mar. 1986: Report, pp. xxx–xxxi; HCPP (16), 21 Mar. 1989: mins. of ev., p. 208 (Cartledge). 71 TNA: Wilson (Moscow) to Douglas-Home, 5 July 1971, FCO28/1564; Visit of the PUS to the Soviet Union, 22–27 June [1971], Briefs, FCO28/1569. 72 The US National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, had been angry enough when he learnt of the expulsion of the 105. 73 Killick interview, pp. 23–5; Staerck, ‘The role of HM embassy in Moscow’, p. 155 (Killick testimony); Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 955 n. 31. However, at least one British company thought that it had lost an important contract in the immediate aftermath of the mass expulsions, HCPP (28-II), 26 Mar. 1986: p. 14 (ques. 31).

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themselves actually put Anglo-Soviet relations on ‘a better and more realistic basis’.74 In the opinion of one Foreign Office Russian specialist, who had himself been ejected from Moscow at 48 hours’ notice six years earlier, this was in part because the mass expulsions proved to the Soviet government ‘that we had not after all gone soft and were worthy opponents and thus – selectively, where there was mutual advantage – worth collaborating with.’75

Conclusion Specific reciprocity as a basis for the exchange of diplomatic representatives between Britain and the Soviet Union during the years under review faced considerable difficulties. Differences in the diplomatic attractiveness of Moscow and London and, to some degree, in the resources of the two states, made it difficult to contemplate equivalence in the size of missions, and this was further complicated by ideological differences as to who was an ‘official’ and who was not. Even to the extent that there was nominal equivalence – as for example in the fact of an embassy and similar numbers of service attachés – this was to a significant degree rendered meaningless by differences in the conditions in which they operated. Furthermore, the need to hold bargaining chips stimulated by the principle of reciprocity also produced costs: low morale among staff and the continuing risk of espionage. And retaliation and counter-retaliation confined to the spheres of espionage and the machinery of diplomatic relations certainly perpetuated a vendetta, and one rather worse than officially admitted in London. Nevertheless the great compensating advantages of employing specific reciprocity were that it not only restrained abuse of diplomatic privileges and immunities by both states but also helped to contain their conflict over espionage in the UK. Had Britain threatened Moscow with a trade war, for example, if every last KGB officer were not to be removed – rather than simply expel a good proportion of them under the rules of a well-understood game – the dire consequences are not difficult to imagine.

74 Greenhill, More by Accident, p. 159. See also Walden, Lucky George, p. 149; Thorpe, Alec Douglas-Home, p. 418; Hughes, ‘Giving the Russians a bloody nose’, p. 241. 75 Tony Bishop (FCO) to the author, 9 February 2010.

6 Home or Away?

Many bilateral negotiations of secondary importance are still conducted by embassies. This is also true of some of the first order, for example on the legal status of armed forces personnel and the future of military bases abroad, not least because these can take years to conclude. But, assuming that a bilateral relationship enjoys an embassy at each of its poles, is it best for a state to negotiate with the foreign embassy in its own capital or through its own embassy abroad, at home or away? Diplomatic historians have rarely shown much interest in this question, although the choice of venue is always taken seriously by foreign ministries because it can have a distinct bearing on the outcome of a negotiation. In sporting engagements, ‘home advantage’ is well established: the players are likely to gain both from their greater familiarity with the ground and the vocal encouragement of their more numerous supporters. In diplomacy, however, the picture is less clear. Some states appear to be as keen to conduct negotiations by means of their own embassies in overseas capitals as others are to pursue them via foreign embassies at home. The reason for this is that home and abroad both have their advantages and disadvantages. But, this being the case, how are decisions actually made as to which embassy should take the lead?

Home advantage and away advantage Negotiations today frequently require the participation of specialists not on the regular staff of the embassy. The first advantage of negotiating at home, therefore, is that this avoids the expense – in time wasted as well as money spent – of sending out such persons to stiffen the embassy’s negotiators; this consideration obviously weighs more heavily with poorer states. By virtue of the greater ease with which it can consult interests 87

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affected by a negotiation, the home team can also make any necessary adjustments to its position more quickly, although modern communications probably make this a less important aspect of home advantage than it used to be, particularly for larger states. The private discussions and communications of the home team are also less vulnerable to eavesdropping, while its secret service has more opportunity to tune in to those of the foreign embassy and its visiting specialists. The home team has more influence over the choreography of the negotiations, including the choice of conference rooms, the timing of meetings, arrangements for press briefings, and the selection of more or less instructive diversions for any delegates who have come from abroad, some or all of which in some circumstances might give it a distinct edge – not least by enabling it to shape the atmosphere favouring its strategy. This is particularly appealing to authoritarian and totalitarian states, where opposition elements and a free press do not exist to disturb their tidy arrangements. These advantages of negotiating at home might seem to be overwhelming but the appeal of negotiating away is also strong. Despite its risks, particularly that of exposing a negotiating position to espionage, Britain was one state that preferred to negotiate abroad from well before the French Revolution until well after World War II – and probably still prefers to do so today. In the early modern period, as recorded by D. B. Horn, the eminent historian of the British Diplomatic Service, there were two general reasons for what the admiring Prussians called the English plan. The first of these was that an ambassador’s elaborate written instructions provided the only record of royal assent to policy towards the country in question, and so were a vital register of political consensus. A secretary of state who negotiated directly with a foreign diplomat in London forfeited this protection and exposed himself to personal blame should any mishap occur. The second reason was that secretaries of state, who until 1782 were responsible for domestic as well as foreign business, could well have difficulties in attempting negotiations in London, for they rarely spoke foreign languages other than French and sometimes not even that.1 In course of time these general aspects of away advantage disappeared but there were others then – and there have been others since. What has probably always been the greatest advantage of negotiating abroad was also noted by Horn. The secretaries of state in eighteenth 1 Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, pp. 6–8. See also Kynaston, The Secretary of State, pp. 103–4, 165; Thomson, The Secretaries of State: 1681–1782, pp. 18–19.

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century London, he wrote, wanted to conduct business through their own agents abroad because it was only by this means that they could be sure ‘that their point of view was accurately and vigorously impressed upon foreign governments’.2 In 1955 Lord Strang, a then recently retired permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, revealed that the same thought was still very much alive in the minds of officials in London. However, in his valuable but now largely forgotten book, he was understandably careful to avoid implying any criticism of foreign ambassadors in London. Instead, he stressed simply that Britain naturally knew its own ambassadors better than the foreign ones and, being a great power, possessed ‘a physical apparatus of communication which is above the average of efficiency’.3 In addition, he pointed out, negotiating abroad provided a double cushion for the Foreign Office. Its officials were relieved of the burden of negotiations and – by virtue of this – also gained time for reflection and the opportunity to recover without significant loss of face from any mistakes made by their ambassadors.4 Strang would probably also have agreed that when a state has a first class diplomatic service with a long tradition, it will usually be wary of implying lack of confidence in its own (well-connected) ambassadors by preferring to deal directly with their foreign counterparts.5 It is clear, then, that – in principle – negotiating at home and negotiating away both have advantages and disadvantages. It will also be readily understood that the foreign ministries of the richer and more powerful states will generally – as with Strang’s Foreign Office – not only prefer to negotiate away but make this their common practice. The US State Department is today the paradigm case. Such ministries have the greater ability to shrug off the costs of negotiating away, more confidence in their own highly professional diplomats, and the power to insist on their use. But sometimes a state which normally negotiates away is happy to negotiate at home – and vice versa. And when two rich and powerful states wish to engage in a bilateral negotiation they cannot both negotiate away. In such circumstances how, then, are decisions actually made as to which embassy should take the lead? What other considerations enter the picture?

2

Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, pp. 5–6. Strang, The Foreign Office, pp. 151–2. 4 Strang, The Foreign Office, pp. 116–17. 5 Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, p. 166. 3

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The state taking the initiative Lord Strang wrote that [t]here is no hard and fast rule governing the division of business between the one channel and the other, but in general it is true to say that external negotiation in London occurs chiefly when the initiative is taken by the foreign government concerned. And this, it will be seen on reflexion, is natural enough.6 In other words, even a state which in general prefers to negotiate away will be willing to negotiate at home if the foreign state takes the initiative in pressing for a negotiation; if, in other words, it is the demandeur. Why? Because when Strang was writing it was still normal for an embassy to be used as the main channel of diplomatic communications, and an embassy raising the question of negotiations on a particular issue with a foreign government would, ipso facto, already have the lead. Furthermore, it would presumably have done more homework on the question and have the wind in its sails. This being so, if offence was not to be given, there would need to be a very good reason for the foreign ministry of the receiving state to demand that any discussions be conducted via its own embassy. A good example of Strang’s principle was provided a decade after publication of his book. In 1963 Argentina had begun to show renewed interest in asserting its claim to sovereignty over the nearby British colony of the Falkland Islands/Malvinas, and in the following year took the matter to the United Nations. The General Assembly duly passed a resolution inviting both sides to negotiate a settlement to the problem, and in July 1966 the first of a number of short rounds of discussions were held between the Foreign Office and the Argentine ambassador in London, initially Dr Alejandro Lastra. It is true that the British embassy in Buenos Aires was frequently employed to press the British view on the Argentine foreign ministry – and also, more importantly, that at key junctures high-level talks were held between the British and the Argentines at the UN in New York. The fact remains, however, that – with Britain permanently on the defensive on this question – until 1970 it was the Argentine embassy in London which had the lead in what were usually referred to as the formal or detailed ‘official-level’ discussions on sovereignty over the Falklands.7 When – for reasons explained 6 7

Strang, The Foreign Office, p. 151. See generally TNA, FCO7/140–2, 1073–4, and 1713–16.

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below – the British had hinted at the advisability of permanently switching the negotiations to the UN, the influential Argentine foreign minister, Dr Costa Mendez, coyly explained that he strongly preferred London over New York for ‘administrative reasons’.8 A further case in point of the initiating state’s embassy having the lead in a negotiation is the fitful one that lasted from the early summer of 1969 until the spring of 1970 between Britain and Turkey over the landing rights of Turkish Airlines (THY) in London. The Turks were furious at the British Board of Trade’s insistence that, when THY wished to resume flights on this route in 1969 after a break of seven years, it should, like other new suitors, use London Gatwick rather than, as before, the more convenient and prestigious – but by then more congested – London Heathrow. The Turks retaliated by banning all landings by British European Airways (BEA) in Turkey and, in the meantime, pressed hard for the admission of their airline to Heathrow, which they made a matter of national prestige. The newly arrived Turkish ambassador in London, Zeki Kuneralp, was charged with getting the British decision reversed: To achieve this end [he later wrote] I mobilized all my resources, I knocked on every door and tried to talk round anyone even remotely concerned with the subject. This was necessary, because British resistance was strong.9 The Foreign Office was in two minds whether to accept London or urge Ankara as the focus of discussions, and decided initially to make ‘parallel representation’ through both channels.10 However, the British ambassador in Ankara, Sir Roderick Sarell, made clear that he was indifferent on the matter: willing to take it on but equally content to see the business handled through Kuneralp in London.11 With his heart not in it and facing stubborn Turkish resistance, Sarell could make no headway in persuading the Turks to accept Gatwick, no matter how many different face-saving devices were offered.12 The result was that by the beginning 8 TNA, Record of Meeting between the Foreign Secretary and the Argentine Foreign Minister at the Argentine Mission, New York, 14 Oct. 1968; and Diggines to Hildyard, 29 Oct. 1968, FCO7/1073. 9 Kuneralp, Just a Diplomat, p. 120. 10 TNA, Brown to O’Neill, 19 Nov. 1969, FCO14/573; FCO to Sarell, 19 and 21 Nov. 1969, BT245/1386. 11 TNA, Sarell to FCO, 21 Nov. 1969, BT245/1386. 12 TNA, Sarell to FCO, 22 and 23 Dec. 1969 and 23 Jan. 1970, BT245/1386.

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of 1970 the locus of the discussions had settled firmly on the Turkish embassy in London, and in late March the dispute was resolved – to the relief of both embassies.13 It is certainly easier and more common today for foreign ministries and other government departments to take the initiative in proposing a negotiation to a foreign government by means of a direct telecommunications link, and to this extent the case for employing the embassy of the demandeur in any subsequent talks is weakened. Nevertheless, should it be agreed that the negotiation be conducted at embassy level, it remains likely that the embassy of the demandeur will have the lead. After all, even if it had not been used to ask for negotiations in the first instance, it is still the embassy of the state most concerned to force the issue and so take the diplomatic offensive at its negotiating partner’s seat of decision.

Embassy reputations Another important reason shaping the decision as to which embassy should take the lead in a bilateral negotiation is the reputation of the missions concerned. In many bilateral relationships, and not just those between rich and poor countries, there is a considerable discrepancy in the size, professionalism and general resources of the embassies at each end. This makes it difficult to resist giving the lead in a bilateral negotiation to the embassy with the best reputation for effectiveness. What is often most critical, however, is the personal reputation of the chief of mission, the ambassador. Perhaps more than most servants of the state, ambassadors have always varied enormously in their reputations. Some are outstanding and are kept for many years in key posts, their effectiveness usually increasing further with their experience and perhaps even deanship of the diplomatic corps. At the other extreme are spoilt and dilettante members of a ruling family, troublesome politicians sent abroad to get them out of the way, party loyalists who have proved their worth in the struggle for power but are unsuited to government office, or – as is common in the United States – wealthy individuals given an easy post to reward them for campaign contributions; in all cases they may have little aptitude for diplomacy. As for career ambassadors, some go native or, contrary-wise (although it is less often remarked), become too hostile 13 TNA, Burrows to White, 24 Feb. 1970, FCO14/698; FCO to Ankara embassy, 24 Mar., and Kuneralp to Roberts, 31 Mar. 1970, BT245/1386.

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to the government to which they are accredited; some are suspected of opposition tendencies by their own governments; and some are just dull or lazy – or both. Other things being equal, an embassy headed by an ambassador who is well regarded by both sending and receiving state will usually find itself automatically preferred to the one at the other end if the latter is headed by a recognized lightweight, even if the person concerned has considerable experience in post. Thus in the 1780s the British – their strong attachment to the ‘English plan’ notwithstanding – permitted Anglo-Prussian business to be conducted in London rather than Berlin because the hands of the British minister at the time, the young Joseph Ewart, ‘were too feverish to hold it’.14 More recent examples of the determining significance of ambassadorial quality are easy to find. In 1913 lengthy and wide-ranging negotiations between Britain and Turkey were – quite exceptionally – conducted in London rather than Constantinople. This was almost certainly because the British embassy in Turkey under Sir Gerard Lowther, who was heavily influenced by his chief dragoman, Gerald Fitzmaurice, was regarded by the Young Turk government as irredeemably hostile. As it happened, the Young Turks also had a low opinion of their own ambassador in London, Tewfik Pasha, a model ‘Old Turk’, but they got round this difficulty by sending the more sympathetic Hakki Pasha – a former ambassador as well as grand vizier – to conduct the negotiations.15 A further example is provided by one of the cases mentioned in the previous section. London rather than Buenos Aires was accepted by the Foreign Office as the locus of the talks with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in the mid-1960s not only because the South American state was the demandeur but also because the Argentine ambassador in the British capital at the time, Dr Alejandro Lastra, was believed to be competent and well disposed to Britain. One of Argentina’s leading lawyers, he had previously served as ambassador in Moscow and had at one time been legal counsel for the British-owned railways in Argentina. At his introductory meeting with the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Paul Gore-Booth, in December 1965 – shortly 14 Lord Auckland, writing to his brother, Sir Morton Eden, on the latter’s appointment as British minister at Berlin in 1791, quoted in Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, p. 6. Ewart had been at the Berlin legation since 1782 and risen through the ranks; however, he was still only 29 years old when appointed minister in 1789, Bindoff et al. (eds), British Diplomatic Representatives, 1789–1852, p. 96; Stephens, ‘Ewart’. 15 Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice, pp. 180, 197.

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before the meeting in Buenos Aires at which it was decided to instigate discussions on the Falklands – Lastra had been anxious to emphasize his desire to assist in ‘the revival’ of the traditionally good relationship between Britain and Argentina.16 He was clearly someone with whom the Foreign Office thought it could do business.17 As a result of the military coup in Buenos Aires in June 1966, Lastra resigned his post after the first round of London talks in July and was replaced in October by Air Brigadier Eduardo McLoughlin.18 McLoughlin was regarded by the Foreign Office as far from brilliant, diplomatically inexperienced, and, in consequence, more ‘rigid’ than his predecessor. This opinion was shared by Argentina’s permanent representative at the UN, Dr Jose Maria Ruda, who confided to the UK mission that McLoughlin was ‘no negotiator’ but ‘a man who would simply read out his instructions’.19 The Foreign Office also believed that he could not be relied upon to report accurately on the London discussions to Buenos Aires.20 It is for these reasons that the British were keen to make more use of the New York channel (where, in addition, Ruda was more in the Lastra mould) and their own embassy in Argentina. Nevertheless McLoughlin had saving graces. He had a distinguished appearance and bearing, spoke good English, and was ‘very well disposed’ towards Britain, where he had served as air attaché after the war and taken several courses with the RAF.21 The British ambassador in Buenos Aires, Sir Michael Creswell, also spoke up for him, reminding the Foreign Office that he was ‘straightforward’ as well as a man of ‘considerable goodwill’.22 These attributes helped to reconcile the Foreign Office to the insistence of Costa Mendez that London should remain the principal channel for negotiations over the Falkland Islands. In any case, McLoughlin had the kind of support in his embassy which the Foreign Office found reassuring. Indeed, when the final round of ‘special’ negotiations was held in London in July 1970, his place as

16

The Times, 18 Sept. 1965; TNA, min. of Gore Booth, 9 Dec. 1965, FO371/179224. 17 TNA, Hohler to Creswell, 25 May 1967, FCO7/140. 18 The Times, 10 Nov. 1966. 19 TNA, Hope to Barker, 13 Nov. 1967, FCO7/141. 20 TNA, FO to Buenos Aires, 11 May, and to UK MIS New York, 22 June 1967, FCO7/140. 21 TNA, Biographical Note, n.d., FCO7/138. On his departure from his post in June 1970, The Times (27 June 1970) reported that he had proved ‘popular’ in London. 22 TNA, Creswell to Hohler, 4 May 1967, FCO7/140.

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leader of the Argentine delegation was taken by the ‘genial and sensible’ Juan Carlos Beltramino, formerly head of the ‘Malvinas’ department in the Argentine MFA.23 In the same way, the reputation of the Turkish ambassador to Britain, Zeki Kuneralp, helped the Foreign Office to settle finally on London in 1970 as the venue of negotiations over whether or not Turkish Airlines was to be admitted to Heathrow. He was one of Turkey’s most outstanding diplomats, had served as ambassador in London earlier in the 1960s, and was regarded as an Anglophile; not surprisingly, he was highly popular in the British capital.24 On the other hand, Sarell, the British ambassador in Ankara, was new to his post and had not served there before, even though his family background was Levantine. He was also alarmed by the implications of the dispute for Anglo-Turkish relations and – like his number two, John Edmonds – sympathetic to the Turkish case.25 More well-known examples of the influence of embassy reputation are to be found in the foreign relations of the United States. Aside from the legendary position of the Israeli embassy in Washington, it is a byword of transatlantic diplomacy that the British embassy in the US capital has always played a more important role in negotiations between Britain and America than the US embassy in London. To be sure, this is partly because – certainly since the beginning of the twentieth century – Britain has usually been the demandeur and a trusted ally but it is also because Britain always sent as ambassador to Washington the individual considered most likely to be effective in the post. The most striking example of this in the years after World War II was David Ormsby Gore during the presidency of John F. Kennedy.26 By contrast, as one former US diplomat observed in explaining why it was the British embassy in Washington that routinely served as the channel for communications between the two countries, ‘Usually we don’t have a very competent man serving as ambassador to London.’27 23 TNA, Summerhayes to Wallace, 6 June 1969, FCO7/1064; Brief on Procedure [for communications talks in July 1970], nd., FCO7/1716; and min. of Ling, 4 May 1971, FCO7/2118. 24 TNA, Gardner (BoT) to Cromartie (FCO), 19 Feb. 1970, BT245/1386. 25 TNA, Edmonds to Brown, 18 Aug. 1969, FCO14/572. 26 Ormsby Gore was a long-standing, close personal friend of Kennedy and also a nephew by marriage to the British prime minister, Harold Macmillan. As ambassador he became a member of Kennedy’s inner circle, Jenkins, ‘Gore’. 27 Toon interview. Until the appointment of the career diplomat, Raymond Seitz, in 1991, the US ambassador in London had always been a political appointee, although, as Seitz acknowledges, a few of them – notably David Bruce – were very good, Seitz, Over Here, pp. 37–45.

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The same pattern was sometimes observable in US–Soviet diplomacy during the Cold War, even though the United States usually sent an able career diplomat to Moscow.28 During the late 1960s and early 1970s it was the Soviet embassy in Washington that played the most important role, among other instances at certain difficult points in Middle East and arms control negotiations.29 This was in part because the US national security adviser, later secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, wished to play the key hand himself but also because the Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, was not just very able but also immensely experienced in Washington and – for an ambassador – influential in Moscow. Amazingly, he was Soviet ambassador in Washington from 1962 until 1986. Similarly important in Washington were Ashraf Ghorbal and Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The former – a confidante of his president, Anwar Sadat – was the highly respected and well-liked Egyptian head of mission in Washington from 1968 until 1984, who took at least some of the strain of conducting US–Egypt bilateral negotiations from the vast US mission in Cairo.30 As for Prince Bandar bin Sultan, he was appointed Saudi ambassador in Washington in 1983. Prior to this, it was the US embassy in Riyadh that handled ‘the substance of the diplomatic work’ in US–Saudi relations, while the Saudi ambassador in Washington ‘gave parties’ and ‘entertained visiting princes’.31 But Prince Bandar was ‘[a]lmost a foster son, in many respects, of King Fahd, very close to the king. A man of great ability and energy, with unparalleled access in both capitals’.32 Like Dobrynin, he remained in Washington for an exceptionally long period, not resigning his post until 2005. Not surprisingly, therefore, during his time the locus of negotiations between the US and Saudi Arabia, notably over arms supply to the kingdom and 28

Mayers, The Ambassadors and America’s Soviet Policy, p. xii. On the Sisco-Dobrynin talks on the Middle East in Washington in 1969, see Smith interview. 30 He was initially head of the Egyptian interests section under the Indian embassy but appointed ambassador on the restoration of diplomatic relations in 1973. Gordon Brown, previously in Cairo and in 1969–71 working on Egyptian affairs in the State Department, records that even at that stage ‘He was very effective, very good. … Our relations with the embassy were fairly warm. We were doing a lot of bilateral work, and we would see him fairly regularly’, Brown interview. In 1978 Ashraf Ghorbal played a very important albeit low-key role in the negotiations at Camp David from which the Egypt-Israel peace treaty issued, The Times, 16 December 2005. 31 Hart interview. 32 Freeman interview. 29

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the response to Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, swung from Riyadh to Washington.33 In playing the lead role in bilateral negotiations, the US embassy in Delhi illustrates the more usual pattern of American diplomacy but the more so because of Washington’s traditional inclination to appoint heavyweight non-careerists with easy access to the White House as its chief of mission. In the mid-1970s these included the former senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and William B. Saxbe. This was also at a time when the Indian ambassador in Washington was T. N. Kaul, a man believed to be so pro-Soviet that he was almost refused agrément by the Americans.34 What is common to all of these examples – with the exception of McLoughlin and possible exception of Dobrynin – is that not only were these ambassadors of great ability but they were also connected at the highest levels at home. This allayed the fear of their hosts that their own views would not promptly reach the right quarters in the other capital.

The subject of the negotiation Which embassy is best suited to take the lead in a bilateral negotiation might also be decisively affected by the subject of the negotiation. Many bilateral negotiations are concerned with subjects – perhaps a military base to be closed or reprieved, an aid project under consideration, or a territory in dispute – which are firmly centred on only one of the countries concerned and where, in consequence, popular political interest is much sharper and detailed local knowledge at a premium. In the case of an aid negotiation, for example, while the potential beneficiary will be the demandeur, the local knowledge of the embassy of the potential donor state will usually be regarded as essential in the negotiation, and its technical and other specialists will need first-hand experience of local conditions. (In many cases, of course, the poverty of the potential recipient will mean that it has no embassy in the capital of the potential donor.) In addition, the intimate involvement of the donor embassy signals early engagement; it is also advisable because of the requirement inevitably laid on it of playing the major role in following up any agreement achieved. For similar reasons, British embassies played the lead role in the negotiation of ‘No Torture’ agreements with states

33

Hart and Freeman interviews. Kux interview. Kux is very interesting on Moynihan’s negotiation of the ‘rupee deal’. 34

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such as Jordan and Libya in the first decade of the new millennium.35 As for negotiations involving major powers over the future of military bases, which can take years to conclude, the need to be in constant touch with the views of regional military commanders gives a further small push to the use of their own embassies in such circumstances. Negotiations on the transfer of sovereignty over territory provide another example of one in which the venue may be strongly influenced by the subject. It has already been recorded that, because Argentina took the initiative, it was the Argentine embassy in London which took the lead on the negotiations over the future status of the Falkland Islands that commenced in 1966. However, the islanders became gripped with the fear that the Labour government in Britain was surreptitiously planning to surrender sovereignty to Argentina, and successful pressure was mounted to extract from it a public assurance that no such move would be made without their consent: the stated ‘wishes’ of the islanders would always take precedence over any outside determination of their ‘interests’. It was against this background that deadlock had developed over sovereignty by the end of 1968 and that in the following year the Argentines had to be slowly brought round to a different approach to the problem. This was the idea of opening negotiations instead on restored air and sea communications between the Falkland Islands and the Argentine mainland, the British having persuaded the Argentines that ending the isolation of the islanders was the essential first step to reconciling them to incorporation. In November 1969 the UN was informed that these negotiations would commence early in 1970.36 Once more, a major procedural question was: where should they be held? Costa Mendez had favoured Buenos Aires rather than London as the venue for the communications talks since 1967, when he first became receptive to this approach. There are a number of possible reasons for this, among them that on this question Britain was itself the demandeur – and readily accepted his preference for the Argentine capital.37 As time wore on, however, and the necessity of including Falklands’ representatives in the British delegation to any such talks became more obvious, there can be little doubt that the most important reason was the anxiety of the Argentines to show the islanders that they were not ogres: the venue itself was to be part of the ‘wooing’ process. For their 35

For further discussion, see Berridge, Diplomacy, pp. 90–3. Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, Ch. 3. 37 TNA, Caradon to FO, 28 Sept., and FO to UK Mission New York, 29 Sept. 1967, FCO7/141. 36

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part, the British supported Buenos Aires as the venue for the same reason but also supported the idea of Port Stanley, the Falklands’ capital, despite its inaccessibility and primitive facilities. This was not only because it would facilitate Falklands’ representation but also because the ‘Argentines in a position to take decisions’ – whose proposals for communications links the Foreign Office believed to be overambitious – would be able ‘to see for themselves the difficulties on the ground’.38 In December 1969 McLoughlin himself told the Foreign Office that he was going to float past his own government the idea of alternating the communications talks between Buenos Aires and Port Stanley.39 As it happened, the deeply conservative and suspicious islanders expressed a ‘strong preference’ for the United Kingdom for the first round of communications talks, although they were open to the idea that later they might shift to Buenos Aires and Port Stanley.40 Cautioned by the Foreign Office about the risk of frightening them off, the Argentines shelved their pressure for Buenos Aires41 and the communications talks – with islanders present – commenced tentatively in the usual place, London, in July 1970.42 Nevertheless these discussions broke the ice to the extent that the islanders themselves pressed that further meetings should take place in Buenos Aires and Port Stanley.43 The Argentine capital was indeed the venue of the next and decisive round of talks on this subject, which was held in June 1971. It was preceded by a lengthy, soothing visit to the islands by the three-man team sent by the Foreign Office to stiffen and indeed lead the British embassy delegation to the talks, and was the ‘high point of British diplomacy on the Falklands’.44 (The role of the British ambassador, who had made

38 TNA, Wiggin to Daunt, 30 July 1970, FCO7/1716; see also Greenhill to Hadow, 2 Apr. 1971, FCO7/2117. 39 TNA, FO to Buenos Aires, 25 Dec. 1969, FCO7/1074. 40 Initially, they appear to have favoured Birmingham over London. They were also averse to the idea of holding the talks at the UN in New York, which they regarded as ‘somewhat hostile’ territory, TNA, Record of Conversion [Wiggin/ Ros], ca. 11 Dec. 1969, FCO7/1074; and Falkland Islands to FCO, 12 Feb. 1970, FCO7/1713. 41 TNA, Talks with Argentine Government about Communications with the Falkland Islands, C. D. Wiggin (American Dept.), 27 Feb. 1970, FCO7/1713. 42 ‘Exploratory’ talks in the absence of the islanders had taken place with the Argentine embassy earlier, TNA, note by Wiggin for Secretary of State, 21 May 1970, FCO7/1714. 43 TNA, Wiggin to Daunt, 30 July 1970, FCO7/1716. 44 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, p. 29.

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his own visit to the islands in the previous year – apparently the first ever to do so – was chiefly to use his influence at a higher level ‘in the corridors’ outside the formal sessions.)45 The talks in Buenos Aires in June 1971 produced a joint statement which, in addition to containing substantive agreements on new air and sea links, established a ‘special consultative committee’ to handle any questions arising from their working. Composed of representatives of the Argentine foreign ministry and the British embassy, this important committee was headquartered in Buenos Aires. The need to focus on the practical problems of communications rather than on more abstract arguments about sovereignty, and carry the islanders at every stage, had dictated the shift from London to Buenos Aires and thereby confirmed the British embassy as the new occupant of the leading role in Anglo-Argentine diplomacy over the Falkland Islands.46 Perhaps the lesson of the Falklands negotiations had an impact on the later negotiation for the transfer of sovereignty over another British colony, Hong Kong. This was more successful, culminating in the Joint Declaration of September 1984 which transferred Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty. Although the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had a very large embassy in London, the negotiations were conducted wholly by the British embassy in Beijing. It is true that this is partly because, increasingly anxious about the effect on confidence in Hong Kong of uncertainty about the colony’s future, it was Britain that raised the question.47 But, this being so, the British embassy in Beijing – although 1200 miles from Hong Kong, located as it is off the South China coast – was much better placed than the Foreign Office in London to judge what was politically possible during the negotiations. Besides, had they taken place with the Chinese embassy in remote London, the people of Hong Kong would have been even more convinced that they were being sold out than many of them were anyway. As it was, by

45 TNA, Hadow to FO, 26 Mar. 1970, FCO/1714; Greenhill to Hadow, 2 Apr. 1971, FCO7/2117. 46 HCPP (Cmnd. 5000), June 1972, p. 5. Although in the remainder of 1971 the islanders continued to express their anxiety to see the next round of communications talks take place in Port Stanley, they appear to have been conducted instead in the special consultative committee in Buenos Aires. This was probably because Port Stanley was so inconvenient and because by this time the islanders had more confidence in the Foreign Office and the embassy. 47 Cradock, Experiences of China, pp. 163–8, 178, 184. The lease on 92 per cent of the colony’s territory was due to expire in 1997.

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conducting the negotiations in Beijing via the British embassy, it was possible to incorporate Hong Kong’s representatives in the talks and thus carry them along.48 It does not follow that the embassy located in the state on which a negotiation is chiefly focused is always the best placed to take the lead. This is particularly true if it raises strong political passions in that country and protest is able to make itself heard. This might make it difficult for the embassy to work effectively. In the case of the Hong Kong negotiations the British embassy was fortunate in that the colony was a considerable distance from Beijing, where in any case government control was more or less absolute. The British embassies in Athens and Ankara during the negotiations over the fate of Cyprus from the mid-1950s onwards were less fortunate and, besides, these talks could hardly have been conducted in one at the expense of the other. Not surprisingly, most of the important talks on Cyprus were held in London.

The stage of the negotiation Finally, the stage reached by a bilateral negotiation might also influence a state’s view as to whether it is advisable to play at home or away. For example, a foreign ministry or other government department might be happy to see its own embassy take the lead during preliminary discussions on a subject in which it is the demandeur and even while seeking a formula for a deal – but then press for the decisive details stage to be conducted on familiar territory. This clever strategy was adopted by the British Department of Transport in the negotiation of international road haulage agreements in the 1970s. These normally took two meetings, and when negotiation of such an agreement with the Turks was anxiously sought in the mid1970s, the department’s chief negotiator told the commercial counsellor in the British embassy in Ankara that he would prefer the first to be in the Turkish capital (with the counsellor’s assistance) and the final one in London. ‘We find playing at home has a psychological and practical advantage’, he told him. In the event, however, while the British embassy in Ankara duly conducted the pre-negotiations and in effect established the outline of the new agreement, the Turks also preferred

48 The British ambassador was the leader of the British delegation but the governor of Hong Kong, who was accompanied by his political adviser, was his number two, Cradock, Experiences of China, p. 187.

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to negotiate the details at home. Since they had the stronger hand they got their way.49

Conclusion Other things being equal, there are probably more advantages to a foreign ministry or other government department in negotiating at home than in negotiating away, that is, in negotiating directly with a foreign embassy or foreign embassy-supported special mission. But other things rarely are equal in a bilateral negotiation. There are usually variations in the enthusiasm for it (who is the more obvious demandeur), the diplomatic resources of the states concerned, the reputations of their ambassadors, and where the principal impact of the negotiation is likely to be felt. Major powers typically place more reliance on their own, better-provided as well as more trusted embassies, while sometimes making exceptions in the case of the embassy of a demandeur or one headed by an outstanding personality. Weaker states usually have little alternative but to accept this situation, although they can console themselves with the real advantages that it provides.

49 I describe this negotiation in detail in Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, pp. 240–9.

7 Diplomacy after Death

Ceremonial occasions of exceptional national importance generally attract guest lists on which foreign dignitaries, including heads of state and government, are prominent. As a result, they are often significant to diplomacy between enemies as well as friends. Imperial enthronements, royal coronations, presidential inaugurations, papal investitures, royal weddings, independence day celebrations, and anniversaries of the revolution, are characteristic occasions of this kind. There seems little doubt, however, that the funerals of major political figures – ‘working funerals’ – are now the most important of these occasions. The exploitation of funerals for diplomatic purposes appears to have been a feature of many ages and cultures. The practice has been noted at the Feast of the Dead celebrated by the Algonkians of the Upper Great Lakes of Canada in the seventeenth century;1 and it was a marked feature of the high middle ages, when there was a new emphasis on the ceremonial function of ambassadors.2 As far as the post-Westphalian system of states is concerned, however, it appears to have been as late as the 1960s before funeral diplomacy became at least a significant institution.3 The growth in funeral diplomacy in the 1960s was obviously encouraged by the enormous improvements at this time in air transport. 1 Hickerson, ‘The feast of the dead among the seventeenth century Algonkians of the Upper Great Lakes’. 2 As might be expected, however, wedding ceremonies were diplomatically more important at this time because of the great political significance of dynastic marriage, Queller, The Office of the Ambassador in the Middle Ages, pp. 98–9. 3 In a major book published in 1926 on the character and functions of funeral customs, containing an entire chapter, ‘State and Public Funerals’, the author makes no mention of any diplomatic function at all, Puckle, Funeral Customs.

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Another reason seems to have been that it was at roughly this juncture that advances in the technology of embalming and refrigeration were achieved. These made it easier and cheaper to preserve bodies for longer in hot climates, thus giving time for foreign dignitaries to assemble before burial or cremation of the corpse became unavoidable if the health of the deceased luminary’s retainers was not to be put at serious risk.4 The potential for political theatre of these funerals also became more attractive to publicity-hungry leaders with the spread of television during this decade. Secularization, too, may have made it seem less outrageous that funerals should be so obviously exploited for the conduct of business. Finally, it was in the 1960s that severing diplomatic relations became fashionable as a political gesture and, as a result, the ability to preserve contact by discreet alternative means became more important. In any event, it was in 1967 that, according to the then British prime minister, Harold Wilson, the term ‘working funeral’ was invented.5 By the early 1980s, with the huge international gatherings at the funerals in fairly rapid succession of three Soviet leaders, the working funeral had come of age. What are the characteristics of these funerals? What diplomatic risks are associated with them? Why, nevertheless, do they provide such important diplomatic opportunities?

What is a ‘working funeral’? This is the funeral of a major political leader who dies either in office or in retirement. It is attended by scores of high-level delegations from 4 A spectacular example was provided by the funeral on 7 February 1994 of Ivory Coast leader, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who died two months earlier. His corpse was kept frozen while the elaborate preparations for the funeral were made, The Independent Magazine, 19 February 1994. Mummification, a process by which a corpse is dried out, treated with preservatives of one sort or another, and then prettily wrapped, could achieve the same result, although its purpose was not to permit mourners a more leisurely journey but to prepare the deceased for the next world. But it required great skill and seems not to have been to everyone’s taste. As is well known, it was a high art in Ancient Egypt. 5 Wilson, The Governance of Britain, p. 87. Wilson’s immediate predecessor, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who was once more to be foreign secretary at the beginning of the 1970s, told his biographer in 1991 that ‘he had once planned to write a monograph on public funerals he had attended. The principal section was to be on Nasser’, Thorpe, Alec Douglas-Home, p. 539 n. 27. As it is, he left us only a little over two pages on the subject in his memoirs, where he compares the atmosphere at the funerals of Kennedy, Nehru, and Nasser, Home, The Way the Wind Blows, pp. 197–9.

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abroad who use the occasion in order to conduct diplomatic business. One of the most remarkable in recent years was the funeral of the Emperor Hirohito of Japan on 24 February 1989, which was attended by representatives from almost 160 countries, including 55 heads of state, 11 prime ministers, and 14 representatives of royal families. Working funerals are not necessarily ‘state funerals’; nor are state funerals necessarily of greater diplomatic significance than political funerals of lesser grandeur. For instance, at the state funeral of former US President Herbert C. Hoover in 1964 only 15 of the 300 diplomats invited actually turned up; by contrast, a galaxy of foreign dignitaries attended the merely ‘official’ funeral in 1959 to which former US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was entitled.6 Nevertheless, since the most important leaders tend to receive state funerals, working funerals are generally of this kind.7 They are distinguished by the ‘lying-in-state’ of the fallen hero in an imposing edifice at the heart of the state’s institutions; in the United States, for example, in the Capitol rotunda. On the day of the burial or cremation eulogies over the body are delivered by leading figures among the politically bereaved, and visiting foreign delegations pay their last respects. Despatch of the corpse is then followed by a state reception for the guests, which is in turn followed hotly by the private conduct of diplomatic business between different visiting delegations as well as between the visitors and their hosts – sometimes described as ‘side consultations’. The working funeral has now become so institutionalized that no sense of shame is felt at this mingling of business with obeisance to the dead. This would have been no surprise to the nineteenth century novelist, George Eliot, who wrote in her short story, Janet’s Repentance, that ‘worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral’.8 No attempt is made to conceal the discussions: leaders make press statements within

6

Mossman and Stark, The Last Salute, p. 264. In some states, Britain and Japan for example, state funerals are routinely given to monarchs but only very rarely – if at all – to ‘commoners’. In Britain only nine commoners have received state funerals in the last five centuries, in the twentieth century only one: Sir Winston Churchill, The Guardian, 15 July 2008. Controversially, one has been promised to the other former Conservative prime minister, Lady (Margaret) Thatcher. 8 First published in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1857, this was reissued in book form with two other short stories in Scenes of Clerical Life in the following year. Janet’s Repentance is now freely accessible on the web from eBooks@Adelaide; the famous quotation is to be found in the opening paragraph of Chapter 25. 7

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minutes of the conclusion of their discussions with the leadership of the bereaved state, and joint statements are commonly issued following conversations between visiting delegations which have proved fruitful. Even at the funeral of Emperor Hirohito, where controversial Shinto rituals were employed, ‘the standard international model’ was much in evidence.9 Provided that there are incentives for diplomacy, the atmosphere in which the funeral is conducted does not necessarily make much difference either. Thus the usual round of meetings was held in the emotional atmosphere of the funeral in September 1970 of the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser, who had been the great standard-bearer of Arab nationalism since the mid-1950s and was one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement. Routine diplomacy on this occasion was the more striking since there were fears in the government that – despite the presence of three entire divisions of the army – the Cairo crowds would get out of hand and burn the city to the ground.10 Diplomatic discussions were also held in the super-charged climate of the funeral of President John F. Kennedy, a young, charismatic leader cut down by an assassin.11

The drawbacks of funeral diplomacy Despite their own drawbacks, normal summit meetings between world leaders are now widely regarded as an essential feature of modern diplomacy – at least by politicians. By and large, they signal top-level commitment to diplomacy, engage the attention of heads of state and government on foreign issues, set the clock on negotiations, and, among other things, provide splendid opportunities for solemnizing international agreements. These advantages flow not least from the fact that normal summits are usually arranged well in advance. By contrast, international funerals, even those of leaders whose age and poor health suggest that they have not long to live, are still usually held at very short notice. This means that these ‘impromptu summits’12 – a special case of the ad hoc summit – carry several risks not associated with other summits.

9

Crump, The Death of an Emperor, p. 211. Heikal, The Road to Ramadan, pp. 110–11; Home, The Way the Wind Blows, p. 199. 11 Manchester, The Death of a President, pp. 844–52. 12 This phrase was employed in The Guardian, 13 February 1984. 10


To begin with, top-level attendance can seriously upset existing diplomatic schedules – as well as domestic timetables – and at the least risk causing offence. (The same thing can happen when a funeral seems guaranteed but the leader makes an unexpected recovery. For some, this must be particularly irritating.)13 US president, Ronald Reagan, did not lead the American delegations to any of the Soviet funerals, and one reason – admittedly not the most important – was that it would have meant his absence from Washington at a time when visits by important foreign leaders had been arranged: newly elected Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany at the time of Leonid Brezhnev’s funeral in November 1982;14 King Hussein of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt on the occasion of that of Yuri Andropov in February 1984.15 By the same token, last-minute diversion to Moscow by these leaders might have caused offence in Washington. Vice-President George H. W. Bush, who led the American delegations to these funerals, had to interrupt an African tour to participate in Brezhnev’s rites. In a further example, attendance by President Tito of Yugoslavia at Nasser’s funeral would have meant cancelling an imminent visit by US president, Richard Nixon, although, ironically enough, when the news broke the Americans assumed that Tito would cancel (Tito had also been a founder member of the Non-Aligned Movement) and frantically worked on alternative plans while Nixon slept on board the US aircraft carrier Saratoga. To the relief of Nixon’s staff, ‘He [Tito] attached more importance to the symbolism of the first Presidential visit to Belgrade’, records former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, ‘than to the funeral of his fallen friend’.16 A further risk of these funerals is that, in view of the widespread assumption that they will be attended at a high level, failure to comply with this norm will cause serious offence to the politically bereaved when this is not intended. (Sometimes there is indifference to this and calibrating level of attendance is a method of diplomatic signalling; 13 After the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, suffered a second and much more serious stroke in January 2006, which in the event did not prove fatal although it left him comatose, the US secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice, cancelled visits to Indonesia and Australia, Financial Times, 6 January 2006. 14 See Public Papers of the Presidents, Ronald Reagan, 1982, vol. II, The President’s News Conference, 11 November 1982. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and the funeral took place on 15 November. 15 Andropov died on 9 February 1984 and the funeral took place on 14 February. 16 Kissinger, The White House Years, pp. 926–7.

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see below.) Whether or not relations between Belgrade and Cairo suffered as a result of Tito’s non-appearance at Nasser’s funeral is not clear. However, it was widely held at the time that relations between Turkey and the Atlantic powers had been impaired by the relatively low level of Western attendance at the funeral of the Turkish president, Turgut Özal, who died suddenly of heart failure (aged only 65) in April 1993. This was not overlooked in Turkey, where there is widespread suspicion that ethnic and religious considerations underlie the West’s determination to keep the country at arm’s length. The Özal funeral was not a good day for Western diplomacy.17 The Americans had earlier run a similar risk with the funeral of the former Shah of Iran, who died in exile in Cairo on 27 July 1980 and was given a state funeral by the Egyptian government two days later. The crisis over the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran was still going on and it was feared that official American representation of any sort at the funeral would simply make matters worse. On the other hand, a refusal to attend the event would hardly impress the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, who had emerged as a key friend of the United States in the Middle East and only recently permitted it to broker a watershed peace treaty between his country and Israel. After some dithering, it was agreed that – like some other Western governments – the United States would be publicly represented at the funeral by its ambassador in Cairo.18 In the circumstances, this was probably the right decision and appears to have caused no fall-out in Cairo. If all states or, more likely, a group of allied states can agree beforehand on a relatively low level of attendance at a funeral, the political damage will individually be less. This certainly happened on the occasion of the Shah’s funeral,19 and probably occurred prior to the Özal funeral as well. However, the short notice for what might be called funeral summits – especially when the death of a leader is unexpected – also means that there is very limited time available for gathering information on the intentions of other states and making the necessary preparations. On the 17 The Americans were represented only by the former secretary of state, James Baker, and his successor’s deputy, Cliff Wharton. Britain was represented by its minister of Overseas Development, Baroness Chalker. The Germans, it is true, sent President Weizsäcker but the French despatched merely their Minister of Foreign Trade, Financial Times, 28 April 1993. 18 The initial idea had been that he would offer private condolences. Former president Richard Nixon also attended, in a private capacity, Atherton interview; The Times, 30 July 1980. 19 Atherton interview.


evidence of a cable sent to the Foreign Office from the British embassy in Tokyo on the occasion of the funeral of President Kennedy, problems of this kind seem to have led the Japanese cabinet to be seized by something little short of panic: At first, the plan seems to have been that the former Prime Minister, Mr Yoshida, should attend the funeral as the official Japanese representative. Later it was decided to send Mr Ohira, the Foreign Minister. At the last minute, however, when it became known that Royalty and Prime Ministers would be representing other countries, the Cabinet decided that Mr Ikeda should also attend.20 In the end, then, the Japanese made the right decision but it was a close call. In New Delhi, however, ‘no-one thought about the question of sending someone from India to Washington’ until it was too late.21 Sometimes decisions on attendance at the funeral of an incumbent also have to be made in the absence of certainty about who the successor is likely to be and what manner of reception will be granted to the visiting delegation. This increases a third risk, especially if relations between the countries concerned are poor – the risk of humiliation. In the event, this did not materialize for US vice-president, George H. W. Bush, at the funeral of Andropov, although Konstantin Chernenko was not appointed to succeed him as party leader until the day before the event, and the vice-president had no guarantee that he would meet him before having to take the decision to go.22 However, the Soviet funerals in the 1980s produced more mixed fortunes for the Pakistani and Chinese governments. Even old friends have to take irrevocable decisions in the absence of complete certainty that a top-level delegation to the funeral of an allied leader will be received appropriately. For example, after a brief period of indecision in the hours following the assassination of President Kennedy as to whether to attend the funeral in person,23 the new British prime 20 TNA, Br. Embassy (Tokyo) to Foreign Office, 26 November 1963, FO371/ 168406. 21 TNA, British High Commission (New Delhi) to CRO, 30 Nov. 1963, FO371/ 168408. 22 Public Papers of the Presidents, Ronald Reagan, 1984, vol. I, Radio Address to the Nation on United States-Soviet Relations, 11 February 1984. 23 TNA, Downing Street to British embassy (Washington), despatched 12.43 a.m. (Emergency/Confidential), 23 Nov. 1963, FO371/168487. Replying immediately, the ambassador urged Douglas-Home to come to Washington.

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minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, instructed the Foreign Office to cable the Washington embassy in the middle of the following day that he had ‘now definitely decided to come himself’. This cable was despatched at 1.15 p.m. on 23 November 1963 and classified ‘Emergency/Top Secret’. It added that the US government should be informed of the proposal and that it was the aim to make it public ‘as soon as it is clear that the Americans have no objection’.24 Ten minutes later, but later nevertheless, Downing Street cabled the British ambassador with instructions to try to arrange a meeting between the new president, Lyndon Johnson, and the prime minister. It was understood that, in the circumstances, this could only be ‘the shortest of talks’, and Sir Alec was prepared to delay his departure slightly if this ‘would make all the difference to the chances of seeing the President. … For your information, however’, added Downing Street, ‘the Prime Minister does feel that it might look odd if he comes to Washington and did not have any time with the President at all’.25 Once decisions have been taken on attendance, there remains the logistical problem of setting up the visit at short notice. This can lead to an unseemly scramble for accommodation and other facilities in the city where the funeral is to be held, with delegations from the more powerful states throwing their weight around and bruising their hosts as well as their own embassy staff. This can also generate bad publicity, the more so because funerals are supposed to be occasions when people are on their best behaviour. The comportment of the party of US President Lyndon Johnson, which arrived in Bonn for the funeral of former West German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, in April 1967, complete with a full supply of Texas beef and seven Filipino houseboys, was a particularly unedifying spectacle. The worst excess was provided by the ‘cosseted’ White House press corps, which insisted on sailing down the Rhine from Bonn to the funeral in Cologne Cathedral (other journalists took the train) ‘with a keg of beer and a supply of sausages … a few singing along to a deck-hand’s accordion’. It was only with great difficulty that the US embassy’s public affairs officer managed to damp down the local press coverage.26 The short notice for funeral summits also means that they are unlikely to provide opportunities for serious negotiations, even if some time could be set aside for this purpose. This is because the suddenness 24

TNA, FO to British embassy (Washington), 23 Nov. 1963, FO371/168487. TNA, Personal for the Ambassador from de Zulueta, despatched 1.25 p.m. (Emergency/Top Secret), 23 November 1963, FO371/168487. 26 Hemsing interview. On the impact on the embassy of the Johnson visit, see also Stern interview. 25


of the event does not permit the lengthy and detailed preparation of briefs which normally precedes summit meetings. Moreover, the unexpectedness of funeral summits also means that they cannot be used to set deadlines for the completion of negotiations, which is one of the more important functions of the regular ad hoc summit; while this – as well as their formal character – means that they cannot be used to solemnize international agreements either. Arrangements for the personal security of leaders and media coverage are also much more difficult to make at short notice. Finally, it should be added that the sheer informality and confusion which attends some part of these occasions, particularly when inexperienced leaders are not accompanied by aides, can lead to inadvertent public encounters between ‘unfriendly states’. One such incident, much relished by the leader of the Liberal Party in Britain, David Steel, occurred in a crowded palace anteroom in Belgrade at the funeral of the legendary Yugoslav leader, Marshall Tito, in May 1980. Here, records Steel, who was himself a guest, ‘our relatively new Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, was glad-handing those present (“I’m Margaret Thatcher, so pleased to meet you”). Being without any aides in this distinguished gathering, she gave the distinct and understandable impression of not knowing who everybody was, and among those she greeted with happy incomprehension was [the PLO leader] Yasser Arafat’.27 The wily Arafat, whose hostility to the existence of the state of Israel had for many years condemned him to the backstreets of Western diplomacy, had – no doubt beaming broadly – pulled off the same trick with Sir Alec Douglas-Home ‘amid the chaos, hysteria, grief and danger’ at Nasser’s funeral in 1970.28 Altogether, then, these impromptu summits upset diplomatic schedules, present a higher risk of mistakes and rebuffs, and clearly lack some of the diplomatic attractions of ordinary summit meetings. Nevertheless they have a great many compensating advantages.

The diplomatic potential of funeral summits Funerals of incumbent leaders, or of retired ones that happen to coincide roughly with a transfer of power,29 are usually the most valuable 27

Steel, Against Goliath, p. 231. Thorpe, Alec Douglas-Home, pp. 412–13; see also Young, Twentieth-Century Diplomacy, p. 92. 29 For example, the coincidence Winston Churchill’s with the election of the Labour government in Britain in late 1964, and that of former US president, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, with the inauguration of Nixon in early 1969. 28

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to diplomacy. This is because they provide the visiting dignitaries with probably their first opportunity to meet the new government. If this is the government of a major power, aid donor, or key client, allies or patrons will attend in order to show respect and establish personal rapport with the new leadership – and thereby seek reassurance that there will be no change in policy to their disadvantage. It is for this reason that the British generally crowd to American presidential funerals;30 that Warsaw Pact leaders rushed to the funerals of Moscow’s bosses in the Soviet era; that a large and high-powered Soviet delegation descended on Cairo for the funeral of Nasser in September 1970;31 and that a truly vast one – including three former presidents, requiring two planes to carry it, and occupying completely one of the two hotels taken over by the Egyptian government for the entire body of visiting delegations – arrived in the same capital from the United States for the funeral of his assassinated successor, Anwar Sadat, 11 years later.32 Sadat’s funeral was also attended by the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, with whom the Egyptian leader had signed the peace treaty only two years previously. On arriving for the funeral a day early, Begin drove directly from the airport for a 45-minute meeting with Sadat’s heir apparent, Hosni Mubarak – whom the Israelis did not know well – and they were photographed embracing.33 On the flight back to Israel, Yitzhak Shamir and Yosef Burg, the ministerial colleagues who had accompanied Begin, told the US ambassador to Israel, Samuel Lewis, ‘that Mubarak had said all the right things, had made all the right assurances – the Egyptians would stick to everything to which they [had] been committed, there would not be any change in policies towards Israel’.34 Some of the visiting delegations at international funerals, however, are always rivals if not outright enemies of the politically bereaved – for example, the Turks at the funeral of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, in Moscow in March 1953; the French president, General Charles de

30 Manchester, The Death of a President, p. 771. In a brief report to the cabinet on his meeting with President Johnson at Kennedy’s funeral, Sir Alec Douglas-Home stated that ‘He had been assured by President Johnson that there would be no change in United States foreign policy and that the United States Government would wish to maintain close relations with the United Kingdom’, TNA, CM(63)8, 28 Nov. 1963, CAB128/38. 31 Riad, The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East, p. 168. See also Heikal, The Road to Ramadan, pp. 111–13. 32 Atherton interview. 33 The Times, 10 October 1981. 34 Lewis interview.


Gaulle, at that of Churchill in London in January 1965; the Americans at Nasser’s funeral in 1970, where they were represented by a strong delegation even though the United States and Egypt were not even in diplomatic relations;35 and Mrs Thatcher (‘the Iron Lady’) at the funeral of Chernenko in Moscow in March 1985. Such mourners may be in a mood to explore the possibility of a rapprochement with their hosts; and, if not, nevertheless find themselves under pressure from mutual friends to seek one. It is therefore fortunate that these funerals have special features that lend themselves to diplomacy conducted with this end in view. In the first place, the funerals of international statesmen are – at a minimum – times of political truce. This is because paying respects to the dead (unless extravagantly depraved or the object of religious anathemas) is above reproach in all cultures of which I am aware. As a result, the enemies of the bereaved government and enemies among the visiting mourners can normally attend these funerals without serious fear of attack from supporters at home or friends abroad. This also means that these occasions provide a perfect excuse – and perfect cover – for a political leader who wants to break an existing diplomatic schedule for an urgent discussion with, or to put out a peace feeler to, a foreign counterpart among the other mourners.36 In the second place, the atmosphere at most major funerals is actually conducive to reconciliation. In the West at any rate, funerals of statesmen – no less than those of private individuals – are customarily occasions for reflecting on the transitoriness of life. With the eternal verities thrown into strong relief by the occasion, political squabbles look petty. Moreover, because the funeral of an incumbent coincides with the creation of a new leadership; because, that is, the political wake is also a political baptism, there is commonly a sense of change and opportunity in the air. It is thus not surprising that major funerals are often a time for urging a more energetic search for peaceful solutions – and so the scene at which former enemies bury the hatchet, or at least make a start on the hole in which the hatchet is subsequently placed. Finally, aside from the fact that, compared to a regular presidential visit, the arrival of a leader at short notice for a funeral will paralyse

35 The US delegation consisted of two coming men who were already members of Nixon’s cabinet – Elliot Richardson and Donald Rumsfeld – and two very senior foreign policy advisers, Robert Murphy and John McCloy, Bergus interview. 36 What is really significant about the Tito case is that the Yugoslav leader could have broken his engagement with Nixon if he had wanted to go to Nasser’s funeral for business reasons; the Americans expected this.

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his embassy for only a few days and be relatively uncomplicated to support,37 the short notice of these occasions is also conducive to the risk taking required when enemies seek a way out of their conflicts: a decision to attend is unlikely to prove embarrassing as a result of changed circumstances by the date of the event, which is sometimes the fate of regular summit meetings;38 and there is little time for opposition to attendance to be mobilized. Although it might invite the charge of aping the method adopted by the late seventeenth century writer on diplomacy, Abraham de Wicquefort, in The Embassador and His Functions, which was to pile example on top of example and so encourage the reader to capitulate to his argument out of sheer mental exhaustion, something like this style might be pardoned in this case. After all, the idea that funerals are ‘working’ occasions might still be difficult for some to accept even in these cynical times. What follows, then, are some well-documented examples of cases when rivals exploited their attendance at funerals to take more or less constructive steps towards reconciliation. Certainly, General de Gaulle’s presence at Kennedy’s funeral in 1963 ‘helped to reconcile Americans to his unaccommodating stance as an ally’,39 while the long conversation which he had with President Nixon at Eisenhower’s funeral in 1969 ‘laid the groundwork’, according to Nixon, ‘for Kissinger’s secret trips to Paris, which resulted four years later in the Paris Peace Agreement and the end of American involvement in Vietnam’.40 At Churchill’s funeral in January 1965, a 50-minute conversation at the French embassy between the indefatigable de Gaulle and the new British prime minister, Harold Wilson, broke the ice which had formed over Anglo-French relations following the veto by Paris two years previously on Britain’s application to join the Common Market. As for the funeral in Hanoi of the legendary North Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh, on 9 September 1969, this did not lead to any breakthrough

37

Once a regular presidential visit is contemplated, complained William Sherman, DCM at the US embassy in Tokyo at the end of the 1970s, ‘it is the sole issue of the day, day after day, week after week and sometimes month after month’, Sherman interview. 38 The Gorbachev-Deng summit in Peking was publicly announced in February 1989 when all was quiet in Tiananmen Square – and presumably planned even earlier – but it had to take place in May against the humiliating background for the Chinese government of its occupation by pro-Democracy students, Cradock, Experiences of China, p. 221. 39 The Times, 24 February 1989. 40 Nixon, Leaders, p. 76.


at the meeting in Peking two days later between the Soviet prime minister, Aleksei Kosygin, and the Chinese premier, Chou En Lai, the first meeting at this level for more than four years.41 Nevertheless, coming as it did only shortly after the Sino-Soviet conflict had degenerated into border fighting, it is unlikely to have occurred at all in the absence of pressure for unity among communists generated by the funeral, during the preliminary ceremonies of which Ho Chi Minh’s will – appealing for an end to dissension in the world communist movement – was read out.42 At Brezhnev’s funeral in November 1982, General Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan was encouraged to believe that Moscow was now serious about a diplomatic solution to the Afghan conflict, and at Chernenko’s funeral in 1985 Mrs Thatcher had a private conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev in which she clearly advanced the good relationship with him established during his visit to Britain in the previous December.43 This by no means exhausts the successful attempts in recent years to exploit the potential of funeral summits for bilateral diplomacy between rivals and enemies among the visiting mourners. High on this lengthening list are the efforts made by the leaders of East and West Germany at the Soviet funerals. These began at Brezhnev’s obsequies, when Erich Honecker was met privately by President Karl Carstens and the foreign minister of the recently elected CDU/CSU-FDP government, Hans-Dietrich Genscher. At the next funeral Chancellor Kohl himself met Honecker for the first time, and they met again at that of Chernenko.44 It is widely acknowledged that these encounters were of the greatest significance in the improvement of relations between the two halves of divided Germany, and helped pave the way for eventual reunification. Chernenko’s funeral was also the scene of a private meeting between Mrs Thatcher and President Samora Machel of ‘Marxist’ Mozambique, a country which was soon to be virtually the latest recruit to the British Commonwealth. Following discussions between President Suharto and Chinese foreign minister, Qian Qichen,45 at Hirohito’s funeral in 41

The Times, 12 September 1969. The Times, 10 September 1969. 43 The Guardian, 14 March 1985; and Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, pp. 429–30. 44 The Times, 24 February 1989. 45 The People’s Republic of China was only represented at foreign minister level in order to indicate Chinese anger over remarks to the Japanese Diet on 18 February by then prime minister Noboru Takeshita, denying Hirohito’s responsibility for atrocities committed by the Japanese in China during World War II, Keesing’s Record of World Events (1990), p. 37341. 42

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February 1989, China and Indonesia resumed diplomatic relations after breaking them off over 20 years earlier.46 That is probably sufficient examples. These funerals, especially those of incumbent leaders, also provide first-class opportunities for diplomatic signalling as well as sensitive, private diplomatic conversations. These opportunities exist for both the bereaved and the mourners, although as hosts the former probably have more scope for subtlety. For potential guests at the wake, the scope for signalling, as already noted, is normally confined to decisions on whether to attend or not. These, however, are not insignificant opportunities. An interesting case of a decision to attend prompted largely by symbolic considerations, and on which there is documentary evidence, is provided by the Turkish decision to accept the Soviet invitation to Stalin’s funeral in 1953. This was a cause of general astonishment, not least in Moscow, because Turkish-Soviet relations were very bad at the time. The Turks had nevertheless decided to accept for three reasons, as Cevat Açikalin, secretary-general of the Turkish foreign ministry and the man who led the special mission, explained to the mystified British ambassador on his return to Ankara. First, there had been a desire to repay the earlier Soviet gesture, albeit made in very different circumstances, to send a mission to the funeral of Atatürk in November 1938.47 Second, they wanted to take a look inside Moscow (although Turkey did have a mission in the Soviet capital). And third – and this seemed to be the most important as far as Açikalin was concerned – the Soviet invitation was seen as a challenge which, ‘from the point of view of the cold war’, it was important to take up. In line with this, Molotov had invited Açikalin to call on him during the visit but the interview had been confined to formalities: ‘It would, he said, have been a sign of weakness if he had started talking politics; and M. Molotov showed no disposition to do so himself’.48 Behind each of these reasons prompting the decision of the Turks to go to Moscow there was perhaps also, as a British Foreign Office official suspected, ‘the feeling that after all they are a limitrophe [bordering] state of Russia’.49

46 Many of the examples just listed, as well as some others, may be found well documented in Young, Twentieth-Century Diplomacy, pp. 162–5. 47 On this funeral, see Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, p. 158. 48 TNA, Br. Embassy (Ankara) to FO, 24 Mar. 1953, FO371/106516. 49 TNA, FO minute, 27 Mar. 1953, FO371/106516.


A decision not to be represented at a funeral at all – especially if publicly announced in a manner that is gratuitously offensive – is obviously a gesture of deep hostility. An example of the latter was provided by the British government on the death of the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1989. To a written question in the House of Commons as to whether the British government would ‘express sympathy to the peoples of Iran on the death of their nation’s spiritual leader’ and if it ‘sought to be represented at the funeral’, the Foreign Office spokesman replied ‘No, in both cases.’50 But if the decision to attend a funeral is made, the level of the delegation to be sent provides a further opportunity for diplomatic signalling. A decision to attend at head of state and government level amounts to a major olive branch to the new leader. This is what Mrs Thatcher, who had come a long way since Belgrade, presented to Chernenko by her personal presence at Andropov’s funeral in February 1984 after several years of ‘megaphone diplomacy’.51 It is also what President Mubarak of Egypt, previously ostracized in the Arab world following the peace treaty with Israel, delivered to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia by his own attendance at the funeral of King Khalid in June 1982.52 Just below head of state and government level there is a host of nuanced possibilities. These include sending the vice-president (a typical American strategy, which has the added advantage of getting the vice-president out of Washington), a senior member of a royal family (a typical British strategy), the foreign or defence minister (the strategy of most states at one time or another), the wife of the head of state (once a characteristic Filipino strategy), and even the mother of the head of state (a strategy occasionally favoured by US president, Jimmy Carter53). US President 50

HCDeb., vol. 154, 9 June 1989, col. 262(w). She had only sent her foreign secretary to the funeral of Brezhnev. For her appearance at Andropov’s funeral, see Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, pp. 352–4. 52 Cohen, Theatre of Power, p. 158. 53 His mother, usually referred to as ‘Miss Lillian’, was sent by Carter to represent the United States at the funeral of the retired Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, in December 1978, Lewis interview. Since the relationship with Israel was intimate, Mrs Meir was not an incumbent, and Cyrus Vance (the secretary of state) was formally co-head of the delegation (although he was busy and arrived late), this appears to have raised no eyebrows and was probably regarded by Israelis as signifying Carter’s personal interest in their affairs; besides, Israel was a state in which women were at least nominally equal to men, as Mrs Meir’s own elevation suggested. However, when President Carter sent Miss Lillian as his ‘personal representative’ to the diplomatically much more important funeral of Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia in May 1980 – albeit that she was nominally number two to 51

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Lyndon Johnson, who was cool towards the new Labour government in Britain and appears to have used the excuse of a cold to absent himself at the last minute from Churchill’s funeral on 30 January 1965, sent instead the secretary of state and the chief justice of the Supreme Court.54 If the intention is to signal a complete absence of emotional involvement, zero ideological solidarity and little general political interest, ideal representatives at a funeral include the minister of agriculture, an ex-governor general, a minor royal – or the ambassador, who happens to be there anyway. The signalling possibilities presented by these funerals to the bereaved government itself are more numerous, and – considering the rigidity of the funeral format and the multiplicity of guests – it is easier than might be imagined to manipulate ceremony and hospitality in order to develop a political theme. The bereaved government is able to grant or withhold a private audience with the new leadership, vary the level at which it is held, offer it earlier or later in the proceedings, and let it run for a longer or shorter number of minutes. These points are often finely calibrated – and closely watched by those attending the event and the journalists reporting it to the world. At the succession of Soviet funerals in the 1980s, the new leaders signalled a desire to improve relations with particular states by giving them manifestly warm welcomes in the Kremlin and the earliest and longest, as well as the most high-level private audiences that protocol would allow. At Brezhnev’s funeral this was notably the case with China, Pakistan, and West Germany. At the

Vice-President Walter Mondale – there was ‘some consternation’; according to the then political counsellor in the US embassy in Belgrade, Thomas Dunlop: this was ‘a decision by President Carter which a lot of people thought was not too good. I think that the Yugoslavs took this fairly well, but a lot of chiefs of state and chiefs of government went to Tito’s funeral, and, although President Carter couldn’t come, sending his mother didn’t exactly resonate too well’, Dunlop interview. 54 Johnson had claimed that he really wanted to come and the US embassy in London had already taken over the top two floors of the Hilton and knocked out walls to accommodate his party. But late on 27 January he called reporters to his sickbed in the White House and, ‘sniffling and coughing’, announced that his doctors had vetoed the trip, The Times, 28 January 1965. Richard Ericson, the political officer in the US embassy in London who had been marked down as Johnson’s control officer for the visit, regarded his behaviour during the whole episode as one of the president’s ‘more hysterical exhibitions’. Former president General Eisenhower attended in a private capacity, while making no secret of his belief that he should have been made head of the official delegation in Johnson’s absence, Ericson interview.


funeral of Chernenko in March 1985, the new general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, immediately showed his own determination to improve relations with China by having its delegation (along with that of India) ‘whisked ahead of the line’ at the Kremlin reception. Like Andropov at the Brezhnev funeral, Gorbachev also signalled his goodwill towards Western Europe by devoting more attention to the states of this region in his bilateral conversations than to the Soviet Union’s own allies.55 The working funeral became an institution of the world diplomatic system in the 1960s, at a time when conventional channels of diplomacy were at a discount in many areas of the East and South – and to some degree in the United States, for that matter. It should not be forgotten, however, that funeral summits are often as important for allies looking for reassurance as they are for enemies seeking to find a way out of an impasse. On the occasion of the funeral of the Showa Emperor, The Times summed up the subject well: ‘They are public ceremonies’, it wrote, ‘which offer more a convenience for the living than a tribute to the dead’.56 There are risks in this diplomacy for the unwary, it is true, but these are probably fewer now that the funeral summit has become such a fixed feature of the diplomatic scenery. This process is thus cause as well as effect of the rise of the working funeral.

55 56

Financial Times, 14 and 16 March 1985. 24 February 1989.

8 British Ambassadors and their Families in Constantinople

Although a diplomat of ambassadorial rank headed British missions of only the greatest political importance until well into the twentieth century, from the beginning an ambassador was almost always in charge of the post at Constantinople. This was partly in order to impress the sultan and facilitate access at the highest levels, and partly because – until the tradition was too well established to change without causing offence – an ambassador in Constantinople came cheaply to the government. Only during a problematical changeover or when money had to be saved was the ambassador replaced with a lower form of diplomatic life. Who were the ambassadors? How were they chosen? What did they do? Who helped them? The theme that runs through the answers to all these questions is a tussle over influence and money between the London-based Levant Company and the British government, which was not resolved until the company was dissolved in 1825.

The ambassador The first five or six ambassadors were all merchants or servants of the Levant Company before their appointment. Levant Company merchants occasionally appeared much later as well. Sir William Hussey in 1691 and Sir Everard Fawkener in the middle of the eighteenth century both worked for many years in the English factory (community of merchants and factors1) in Aleppo before going to the embassy in Constantinople. Fawkener’s friend Voltaire was astonished at his promotion, believing

1 Factors sometimes traded in their own right and so were merchants as well as agents for merchants at home.

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that such social mobility would have been impossible in France.2 Following the arrival at the embassy of Sir John Eyre in 16203 and more certainly that of Sir Thomas Roe at the end of the following year, the ambassadors came to fit the more usual profile of British ambassadors: men of junior aristocratic lineage with a career interest in diplomacy. There remained interesting exceptions: Sir John Finch was a physician who had been for six years professor of anatomy at Pisa;4 Sir William Trumbull was a leading civil lawyer;5 Admiral Sidney Smith, who for a while shared the office with his younger brother, was a glory-seeking naval officer; and Sir Henry Layard (‘Layard of Nineveh’) was first and foremost an archaeologist and politician. The first peer to be appointed British ambassador at Constantinople was Heneage Finch, the third Earl of Winchilsea, who arrived in 1661; among those following him was Lord Elgin at the end of the eighteenth century, who achieved the lasting enmity of the Greeks for his role in the transfer of so many of their priceless ‘marbles’ from Athens (then still a grubby town in the Ottoman Empire) to the British Museum.6 Ottoman tradition rejected the view that special respect for an ambassador was based on the theory of sovereign representation, for no foreign sovereign was the equal of the sultan-caliph. In other words, the emerging law of nations on diplomatic immunity meant nothing in Constantinople. Instead, an ambassador was regarded as roughly analogous to that of the leader of one of the empire’s semi-autonomous religious communities (millets) whose privileges depended on his ability to maintain order among his followers and deliver their taxes.7 As a rule, therefore, the Ottomans treated ambassadors well, even subsidizing their embassies until long after this custom was abandoned in Europe.8 They did this because they usually found their embassies flattering, valuable sources of information and alluring gifts, important props to commerce, useful mediators, and indispensable to the manipulation of the balance of power. However, at some junctures they found them less 2

Mason, ‘Fawkener’, and Gauci, ‘Hussey’. Little is known about Eyre, the sixth ambassador, but Wood believes that he was probably not previously a company servant, A History of the Levant Company, p. 84. 4 Hutton, ‘Finch’. 5 Hanham, ‘Trumbull’. 6 On this episode, see the splendid book by St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles. 7 Desperate for cash, in 1623 Sultan Murat actually tried to tax the diplomatic corps, see Essay 2 of this volume. 8 TNA, Ainslie to Liston, 10 Mar. 1794, FO261/7. 3

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useful, and there was the risk that at any time an ambassador might fall foul of a malevolent grand vizier or sheikh-ul-Islam with a personal grudge against him. On such occasions, ambassadors in Constantinople risked humiliation, and if their princes should turn hostile towards the sultan their liberty itself was forfeit. In 1651 even the astute and energetic Sir Thomas Bendish was shackled and imprisoned – the first and last English ambassador to be so treated – after refusing to remove the English consul in Smyrna, who had been involved in a commercial dispute with a relative of the sheikh-ul-Islam.9 It was some time before English ambassadors at Constantinople were able to summon a warship to the Bosphorus to help them smother the anger of a sultan or the ‘insolence’ of a grand vizier.10 It was even longer before they could rely for this on the fear of retaliation against the sultan’s own ambassador in London, for such an emissary was not permanently established until the end of the eighteenth century.11 Far from home and in an alien world, much therefore depended on the ambassador, who not only had to face up to Ottoman ministers but also impose his authority on factors and consuls who would have been lucky to prosper in the same alien world without strong personalities and a highly developed sense of self-interest. Speaking from bitter experience at the French court at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Machiavelli reported to his masters in Florence that the only things that counted for an ambassador were the arms and money of his prince. But he was typically overstating a good case. These things being equal between those princes competing for the favour of another, the appearance, character, personality, and sheer professional ability of an ambassador could be decisive. Nowhere was this truer than for a north European ambassador in the alien world of Ottoman Constantinople.

9

Saunders, ‘Bendish’. Although in 1648, not long after his arrival, Bendish had become so incensed at Turkish behaviour that in a successful bid to intimidate the grand vizier he had eight English merchant vessels made ready for battle and positioned beneath Seraglio Point, Goffman, Britons in the Ottoman Empire, pp. 147–8; Saunders, ‘Bendish’. 11 Selim III had decided to send resident ambassadors abroad in 1793. But this was something of a false start which petered out in 1821 under the impact of the war for Greek independence. Permanent embassies were not established on a durable basis until 1834, on the initiative of Sultan Mahmud II: Findley, ‘The foundation of the Ottoman foreign ministry’, pp. 395–9; Hurewitz, ‘Ottoman diplomacy and the European state system’, pp. 147–8. 10


The diplomatic manuals of the early modern period detail the attributes of the ‘perfect ambassador’ at great length.12 One of these was linguistic ability, and it is no accident that some of the most successful ambassadors at Constantinople, like Barton in the late sixteenth century, had good Turkish13 or – what was more usual – Italian, for long the lingua franca of the Levant. Intimate knowledge of the issues they would confront on arrival at Constantinople gained in commerce, travel, or, much later, by Foreign Office experience in the prestigious Eastern Department, established in 1881, was also valuable, although in itself insufficient, as demonstrated by the relatively unsuccessful careers of Sir Philip Currie and Sir Louis Mallet in the decades before World War I.14 Rather, the need for affability, good manners, a striking physique, and above all a natural authority based on astuteness, courage, and firm character are the points that stand out as valuable in accounts of the most effective ambassadors in Constantinople, especially in the early years when they were so alone. But they did not come amiss in later ones either, as the careers of Stratford Canning (Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) and Sir William White (who was exceptional in beginning his career as a consul), amply testify.15 In difficult times timid men such as Henry Lello16, and Sir John Finch17 were likely to wilt, while those such as Currie, who were inclined to preach, were doomed to leave in frustration. ‘[M]uch more may be operated here by civility and management than by Bearishness and Blustering’, wrote the shrewd, longserving ambassador, Sir Robert Ainslie, in 1781. ‘The Porte may by a little and a little be led gradually a great deal. But it is easier to make them swallow Flies than Elephants’.18 Except for two brief periods in the early nineteenth century when the ambassadors in question left Constantinople without the permission of the Foreign Office,19 between 1583 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Britain’s permanent diplomatic presence in Turkey was unbroken. On two occasions there were even officially two ambassadors at the same 12 This preoccupation is sometimes condemned but this is to forget that in the early modern period ambassadors, even of powerful states, often had few immediate resources on which to call but their own. 13 Lewis, ‘Turks and Britons over four hundred years’, p. 125. 14 Steiner, ‘Currie’; on Mallet, Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice, pp. 197–203. 15 Woods, Spunyarn, vol. 2, p. 170. 16 Mayes, An Organ for the Sultan, pp. 209, 248–9. 17 Wood, ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, p. 543. 18 TNA, Ainslie to Hillsborough, 11 Aug. 1781, FO78/2. 19 Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, p. 215.

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time.20 Because of the cost of replacing them, heads of mission were usually required by the Levant Company to agree to a minimum term of five years. In the event, a few stayed for a shorter time but many remained for up to ten years and not a few for significantly longer. But by whom was the ambassador to be paid, and by whom selected? For many years it was the Levant Company that paid the ambassador and covered most of his expenses, which included handsome presents for the sultan and his senior officials; it also financed the satellite consulates. Naturally it had not liked this but it was an unavoidable quid pro quo for receiving a monopoly of the trade.21 The methods by which the embassy was financed varied a good deal. Generally, however, the custom was that the ambassador’s salary, together with the expenses of his outward and homeward journeys, were paid by the embassy treasurer as stipulated in his articles of agreement with the Levant Company. However, the recurring costs of the embassy and consulates were funded by a local tax on the English merchants in the Levant who enjoyed their protection. This took the form of a small duty on all goods moving through their factories and was known as ‘consulage’.22 Although its diplomatic and consular protection was expensive, the Levant Company could reasonably expect that the ambassador would not make excessive financial demands upon it. This was because the Constantinople post had a justified reputation for providing boundless opportunities for the ambassador to enrich himself, and at less personal risk than was originally supposed.23 Even the otherwise mediocre Elizabethan envoy, Henry Lello, managed to supplement his salary handsomely.24 How did they do this? For one thing, the sultan, like his Byzantine predecessors, provided a significant annual sum of money (£500 according to Wood) to all

20 The Smith brothers, John Spencer, and Admiral Sidney, during the French revolutionary wars, St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles, pp. 20–1 and Ch. 5; and, during 1638 and 1639, Sir Peter Wyche and Sir Sackville Crowe, Saunders, ‘Wyche’. 21 Wood, A History of the Levant Company, pp. 10–12. 22 Epstein, The Early History of the Levant Company, p. 157; Wood, A History of the Levant Company, pp. 85ff, 160, 209–10, and ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, pp. 535–6. 23 Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 86; Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, p. 167. This reputation became so entrenched that it long outlasted the realities upon which it was based. Robert Liston still had ‘mercenary’ illusions about Constantinople at the end of the eighteenth century, Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, p. 65. 24 Mayes, An Organ for the Sultan, p. 248.


ambassadors attached to his court, although it is true that the whole of this amount rarely found its way into their pockets.25 Until 1615, when the company judged it prudent to prohibit the practice, ambassadors could also trade on their own account. Even after this it was possible for them to deal in jewels and money changing, and sell locally a portion of the large quantity of wine they were allowed to import duty free.26 The rewards for assisting in a successful mediation between the Porte and one or other of its perennial enemies could also be vast.27 Nor is it likely that Ainslie was alone in receiving handsome payments from the Secret Committee of the East India Company for certain dubious practices in its interest.28 And then there was the scandalous harvest to be reaped from the sale of barats, documents certifying membership of a foreign nation in the Levant which bestowed on the owner the privileges of its capitulations.29 The price of these documents fluctuated with the prestige of the embassy and was its surest index but this source of ambassadorial income was already drying up in the late eighteenth century and was formally ended shortly afterwards.30 During the eighteenth century the protests of poverty from a weakening Levant Company became loud; the ambassadors found their alternative sources of income too unpredictable or disappearing altogether;31 and more and more of the embassy’s work was political. The result was that the British government was forced slowly to take on greater 25

Wood, A History of the Levant Company, pp. 86–7, 134; Naff, ‘Reform and the conduct of Ottoman diplomacy’, pp. 306–7; Hill, A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, vol. I, p. 207. 26 Wood, A History of the Levant Company, pp. 87, 134–5. 27 Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, pp. 57–8. 28 TNA, Michel (E. India Co. Secretary, London) to Ainslie, 16 Mar. 1781, FO78/2. 29 Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 191; Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, pp. 59, 63; Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, pp. 88–91. It also became customary for a new ambassador to be paid 300 piastres by his ‘barratlees’ (existing holders of barats), although this was sometimes difficult to extract, TNA, Ainslie to Barker (Smyrna), 11 Nov. 1776, FO261/3. 30 TNA, Ainslie to Carmarthen, 25 Oct. 1786, FO78/7; Wood, A History of the Levant Company, pp. 135, 191. 31 Finding that European governments were not so indulgent towards his own newly appointed permanent ambassadors, in 1794 Sultan Selim III brought to an end the Ottoman tradition of subsidies to ambassadors at Constantinople. It is true that he agreed to continue certain payments to allies, among them, after 1799, the British. However, the new regulation was not rescinded and the writing was clearly on the wall, Naff, ‘Reform and the conduct of Ottoman diplomacy’, p. 307.

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financial responsibility for the mission in Constantinople. Initially it had grudgingly provided ambassadors with nothing more than some token furnishings for the embassy, including a bed,32 but already in 1688 it agreed to contribute to the expenses involved in any mediation between the Porte and its enemies.33 In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, by which time the cash-strapped Levant Company was reckoning to need £10,000 a year for maintenance of the embassy and consulates, the government began to make a significant contribution. In 1805 it took over their funding completely, including the salary of the ambassador.34 But how was he chosen? Until the end of the eighteenth century the Levant Company may have had to foot most of the bill for British diplomacy in Turkey but at least this nourished its claim to have the sole right to appoint the ambassador. Unfortunately for the company, although its charter may have made clear its right to appoint consuls and vice-consuls wherever it should see fit,35 it was silent on the question of who was to appoint the ambassador. Until the middle of the 1620s the company’s claim to this right was tacitly admitted by the crown. But when at this point the issue of a new ambassador was raised by the request of the then ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, to be allowed to return home, it chose to contest it. This is not surprising because the Constantinople post was now seen as an important component of royal patronage.36 Sir Thomas Roe was in many ways an outstanding ambassador, among his achievements being that of galvanizing the Constantinople diplomatic corps into stout defence of its rights.37 However, he was not notably successful in carrying out an important informal instruction. This was the order from the court favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, to strip the Ottoman Empire of as many of its ancient statues and other valuable relics as possible and send them home for the adornment of his

32 Saunders, ‘Bendish’. Nevertheless, when Winchilsea asked for his bed, Secretary Nicholas said that he ‘could find no precedent for it’, Lachs, The Diplomatic Corps under Charles II and James II, p. 90. 33 Wood, ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, p. 537. 34 Wood, ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, p. 538, and A History of the Levant Company, pp. 161, 180, 184; Kurat (ed.), The Despatches of Sir Robert Sutton, pp. 42, 50; Lachs, The Diplomatic Corps under Charles II and James II, pp. 35–6. 35 Epstein, The Early History of the Levant Company, p. 179. 36 Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 86, and ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, p. 533. 37 See Essay 2 of this volume.


properties.38 Perhaps it was in part this failure, as well as Roe’s entreaties that he might help him return by finding a replacement, that encouraged Buckingham to propose one of his dependants, a courtier called Sir Thomas Phillips, as Roe’s successor. In July 1625 King Charles I, claiming royal prerogative, duly recommended Phillips to the company.39 Alarmed by this move to overturn its customary right to select the ambassador and alleging in any case that Phillips was not qualified for the position, the company resisted the appointment.40 The Levant Company was in luck. Roe may have had no gift for stealing marbles but his general effectiveness at the Porte was well known in London and he had not found his request to be recalled willingly received.41 He did not press it, and the court’s nominee, Phillips, died in the following spring. However, the company’s success was shortlived because the king responded by producing another candidate, Sir Peter Wyche, whose qualifications for the post were better than those of Phillips; he also offered to pay £1000 in order to obtain it.42 By November 1626 Wyche had been imposed on the company.43 This proved a decisive precedent, although it did not completely end this tug of war until the end of the seventeenth century, and when the crown felt weak the company sometimes won.44 Wyche’s appointment was also significant because, as Wood says, ‘the office henceforth went, with two exceptions only, to men of rank or diplomatic distinction and not to those who, like the early ambassadors, had served their apprenticeships under the Company in Turkey’.45 What did these men actually do in Constantinople?

38 Roe despatched servants to many quarters of the empire in search of ‘marbles’ for Buckingham but they were repeatedly beaten to the best pieces by the Earl of Arundel’s man, Mr Petty, Roe, The Negotiations, letters ‘To the Duke of Buckingham’ listed in the table on p. lxii. His successor, Sir Peter Wyche, was also energetic in this fashionable quest, although his own customer was King Charles I, Saunders, ‘Wyche’. 39 Roe, The Negotiations, Roe to Buckingham, 1 May 1625; Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, p. 180. 40 Roe, The Negotiations, Conway to Roe, 20 Apr. 1626. 41 His high reputation was fostered by his political alliance and regular correspondence with the king’s daughter, Elizabeth, the dispossessed Queen of Bohemia, see Baker (ed.), The Letters of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia. 42 Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, p. 181. 43 Although he did not actually arrive in Constantinople until April 1628, Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 88; Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, pp. 181–2. 44 Wood, A History of the Levant Company, pp. 132–3. 45 Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 88; see also pp. 182, 184.

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The burden of the ambassador at Constantinople was large and complex, not least because of his heavy involvement in commercial questions and because, under the capitulations, he was expected to supervise not just the English traders in the capital but also those in the English factories elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. The most important of these were at Smyrna and Aleppo but there were many smaller ones, as the extent of the network of consuls – who were in effect the ambassador’s provincial agents – amply testifies. If the privileges won in the capitulations were to be preserved and trade with Turkey was to flourish it was essential that these English trading communities should conduct their business in a fair and orderly manner.46 The ambassador, therefore, had not only to be the champion of the English nation at the Porte – he was required by his instructions to appear in person before the grand vizier or other senior minister when an English factor had a serious complaint – but also peacemaker between, and judge under English law and moral chastiser of its members.47 Since the factors were in competition among themselves and usually bachelors, such responsibilities were rarely easy to discharge.48 This was particularly true when, as during the period of the English civil war in the mid-seventeenth century and the French revolutionary wars at the end of the eighteenth, political passions among the factors ran high.49 It was in such circumstances that the Earl of Winchilsea, the ambassador sent out by Charles II at the restoration in 1660, was formally instructed to give appropriate punishment to any English traders who ‘by word or deed express any disaffection to Our Government or Person’.50 To enforce his authority, the ambassador was permitted to order boycotts of individual factors, impose fines, imprison them in his own house or those of his consuls, and if necessary send them home.51 46 The Bark Roe affair in 1581, in which an English ship engaged in piracy against Ottoman subjects after discharging its cargo, made this obvious from the beginning, Woodhead, ‘Harborne’. 47 This not only involved clamping down on those ‘notoriously addicted to gameing, drinking, or any other scandalous course of life’ but also actively discouraging marriage to local women; see for example, TNA, Company Instructions to Chandos, 28 Jan. 1680, SP105/145. 48 Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, pp. 134, 142; Goffman, Britons in the Ottoman Empire 1642–1660, Ch. 8. 49 Goffman, Britons in the Ottoman Empire 1642–1660, Chs 5–7; Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, pp. 75–6. 50 TNA, Instructions to the Earl of Winchilsea, SP97/17. 51 Goffman, Britons in the Ottoman Empire 1642–1660, esp. Chs 7 and 8; Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe pp. 142–4, 162–5.


The ambassador was not formally relieved of his commercial responsibilities, including direct management of the English nation, until 1804. At this point, the political work created for the embassy by the French revolutionary wars had caused it to neglect its commercial duties to such a degree that the merchants were in a state of rebellion. As a result, the government not only agreed henceforward to pay the salary of the ambassador, who was now to concentrate exclusively on diplomatic matters, but also instructed the Levant Company to appoint (and pay) a consul-general in Constantinople to look after its affairs.52 This also meant that the provincial consuls were supposed to correspond with the consul-general rather than as formerly with the ambassador.53 The year 1804 was therefore a momentous one in the evolution of the British embassy, although the break in its relationship with the Levant Company suggested by the innovation of a consul-general to take over the latter’s affairs was by no means complete.54 The new ambassador appointed in this year, Charles Arbuthnot, did not regard the new arrangement as an unmixed blessing. While no doubt gratified at being relieved of much tedious commercial work, he believed that if the consuls corresponded only with the new consul-general, Isaac Morier, it would diminish his office and his influence at the Porte. Accordingly, he opposed this idea (and dragged his feet in securing Morier’s recognition) and the Levant Company had to enlist the support of the government to force him to accept it.55 Nevertheless the company realized that in practice it would always need the support of the political head of the mission as well as the consul-general, and, on 19 January 1810, at an important meeting in London with Arbuthnot, now one of the joint-secretaries of the Treasury, stressed its unqualified support for the supremacy of the ambassador.56 Later in the same year, when he took charge of the post, Stratford Canning characteristically ignored the ruling that the ambassador should not correspond with the consuls.57 With the demise of the

52

Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 184. TNA, Copy of Instructions sent to Lord Harrowby, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in order for their being conveyed to Charles Arbuthnot Esq., Ambassador Elect for the Sublime Porte [1804], folios 442-6, SP105/122. 54 Compare Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 184. 55 TNA, Levant Co. to Isaac Morier, 11 Apr. 1806, SP105/123. 56 TNA, Green [treasurer of the Levant Co.] to Bosanquet [deputy governor], 20 Jan. 1810, SP105/123. See also, Levant Co. to Morier, 7 Mar. 1810, SP105/123. This document is essentially the revised version of the Instructions provided for Arbuthnot in 1804. 57 Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, p. 149. 53

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Levant Company in 1825 and the mounting great power rivalry in the financial and commercial exploitation of the Ottoman Empire, which culminated most famously in the Baghdad Railway project at the beginning of the next century, the British ambassador was soon as closely involved in commercial affairs as ever. Albeit in fits and starts, then, the ambassador simply came to add responsibility for political to commercial negotiations at the Porte. Moreover, until the arrival of Yusuf Agah Efendi in early 1794 there was no permanent Ottoman ambassador at London, so there was no possibility of sharing the burden of these negotiations. In any case, for a secretary of state to conduct negotiations through one of the king’s envoys abroad rather than via a foreign envoy in London was a general British preference which became entrenched in the early modern period. This was probably in part because of the force of the axiom that it is safer to trust one’s own agent as a point of contact with a foreign government than an agent of the foreigner, but this was not the only reason. The ambassador’s instructions provided the only record of royal assent to policy towards the country in question and were thus a vital register of political consensus. A secretary of state who negotiated directly with a foreign diplomat in London forfeited this protection and exposed himself to personal blame should any mishap occur. In any case, secretaries of state, who until 1782 were responsible for domestic as well as foreign business, could well have difficulties in attempting negotiations in London, for they rarely spoke foreign languages other than French and sometimes not even that.58 In the absence of military attachés, who did not begin to appear until the late eighteenth century, the ambassador might even be expected to accompany a sultan on campaign. In 1594 Edward Barton was with Sultan Murad III when the fortress of Raab (Yanik Kalesi) was captured from the Austrians and two years later, at the head of a large suite entirely financed by the Ottomans, he accompanied Mehmet III on his Hungarian campaign. These adventures had distinct advantages for the English ambassador: he was able to ingratiate himself with the sultan and obtain first-hand intelligence for his despatches; he was also perfectly placed to exploit any opportunity for a mediation. However, since the sultans – like other princes – wished by taking them along to add lustre to their enterprises and implicate the ambassador’s sovereign in 58 Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, pp. 6–8; Kynaston, The Secretary of State, pp. 103–4, 165; Thomson, The Secretaries of State: 1681–1782, pp. 18–19.


their campaigns, Barton’s action was politically risky, as was confirmed by the stories subsequently put about by his enemies that he had personally killed Christians.59 The ambassador was also expected to write regular despatches home, and until the early nineteenth century these had to be sent to the Levant Company as well as the government. Gathering and reporting intelligence, on military as well as commercial and political developments, was a task of which the ambassador in Constantinople hardly needed to be reminded, although in his instructions he always was. Some of his information on regions bordering the Ottoman Empire came from recently arrived messengers, and most of that on its many and far-flung provinces from the consuls stationed in them. The venality of the Ottoman court also made it possible to obtain sensitive information – as well as other things – by the judicious distribution of ‘presents’. This was well understood and the ambassador, in order to obtain reimbursement, regularly sent home long and detailed lists of the presents that he had disbursed to whom and at what cost.60 The diplomatic corps in Constantinople, which was unusually intimate, was also a valuable source of intelligence for the English ambassador, as the despatches in the 1620s of Sir Thomas Roe, who sometimes had to rely on other ambassadors for news from home, make very clear.61 Roe pooled intelligence with foreign colleagues in the diplomatic corps not only to fulfil his instructions from London but also to use as bait to elicit replies from his English diplomatic colleagues at other postings, with whom he was also instructed to correspond. When not lobbying and negotiating at the Porte, petitioning it over particular grievances, admonishing a weak or corrupt consul, sentencing a fraudulent factor, composing a more or less eloquent despatch, or huddling with colleagues in the diplomatic corps, the English Ambassador at Constantinople was entertaining important members of his colony in the

59 Lewis, ‘Turks and Britons over four hundred year’s’, p. 125; Woodhead, ‘Barton’. Because of this risk and the ambassador’s lack of qualifications for making military judgements, in his great manual of diplomatic practice, Wicquefort, who cited Barton as an example, condemned this practice and urged that a military officer should always be employed for this purpose, The Embassador and His Functions, pp. 297–8. 60 For example, TNA, Ainslie to Carmarthen, 10 Jan., 8 May, and 22 July 1788, FO78/9 and 10; and Ainslie to Leeds, 22 June 1790, FO78/11. See also the instructive and entertaining account of present giving in the Elizabethan period by Mayes, An Organ for the Sultan. 61 See Essay 2 of this volume.

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city or well connected – and sometimes trying – visitors from home. The work was also fitful, with long periods of relative inactivity punctuated by periods of high tension and frenetic business. When there was not so much to do ambassadors had many opportunities to indulge themselves, for example by cruising on the Bosphorus or – when travel became easier in the nineteenth century – taking long periods of home leave. Some cultivated hobbies suitable to the East and became well known in their fields: James Porter in astronomy, Sir Robert Ainslie in numismatics, Lord Elgin in the collection of Greek sculptures and other antiquities, and Sir Henry Layard in archaeology, while few resisted the temptation of the bazaars of Constantinople to collect rugs and antiques. Plague, fire, and earthquakes aside, it was a life which provided many consolations.

The domestic family The ambassador’s ‘family’ consisted of both his relations who accompanied him to Turkey or joined him subsequently and all those employed to assist him in his embassy. In other words, it consisted of both his ‘domestic family’ and his ‘official family’.62 In the ambassador’s domestic family it was his wife who was the most important figure, although it was a commonly held view in the early modern period that women were a serious liability in diplomacy. Not only were they supposed to be too frail to withstand the rigours of a perilous journey but they were also believed to be congenitally incapable of keeping secrets. These considerations, together with general attitudes to the proper role of women, not only ruled them out as envoys but also argued against permitting them to accompany ambassadors to whom they were married. An ambassador of the much-admired Venetian diplomatic service was expressly forbidden to take his wife with him by a law of the thirteenth century.63 But Venetian ambassadors also had strictly limited terms of office, and at least by the seventeenth century attitudes were becoming less firm on the point. De Vera, for one, writing in 1620, admitted the force of the old argument but added coyly that it was not conclusive because there were reasons for allowing wives to accompany ambassadors that were of ‘no less consideration’.64 Only a little later, Richard Zouche, the English lawyer, asked ‘what more honorable thing 62 On the family embassy in the British diplomatic service generally, see Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, Ch. 3. 63 Hill, A History of Diplomacy in the International Development of Europe, vol. I, p. 360. 64 In Le parfait ambassadeur, reprinted in Berridge, Diplomatic Classics, pp. 96–7.


for men returning after their labor than a wife’s consolation?’ Marriages were difficult enough to hold together, he added, and were likely to be destroyed by years of separation. Ambassadors must simply make sure that their wives kept their mouths shut.65 Wives (and children) actually accompanied most married British ambassadors to Constantinople from as early as the time of Sir Thomas Glover at the beginning of the seventeenth century.66 This was well before this became normal in the British diplomatic service and was a practice adopted presumably because of the distance from home and the consequent expectation that the ambassador was likely to be away for a very long time. Sir Thomas Roe, who had married in December 1614, just seven weeks before abandoning his new wife Eleanor for nearly five years while on his epic mission to Mughal India, decided that another long separation could not be borne and the Levant Company raised no objection to her going with him.67 The most famous British ambassadress in Constantinople was not, however, Lady Eleanor Roe but Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Just as colourful if somewhat less serious was Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin, who was two months pregnant when she set sail from Portsmouth for Constantinople with her husband in a 38-gun frigate in September 1799.68 A sensible and likeable ambassadress was not just a consolation to her husband but a valuable asset in overseeing his household, counselling his junior staff, and organizing the entertainments – from picnics and sailing parties to large dinners and balls – that were both a relief to the embassy and useful for its business.

The official family Nominally the most important members of the ambassador’s official family were his secretaries and the junior diplomats apprenticed to him, 65

Zouche, An Exposition of Fecial Law and Procedure, pp. 91–3. MacLean, The Rise of Oriental Travel, pp. 57, 221–5; Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 225. Of Glover’s predecessors, Harborne did not marry until 1589, shortly after returning to England; Barton never married; and Lello, who had gone out first as secretary to Barton, appears also to have been unmarried. 67 Strachan, Sir Thomas Roe, pp. 58, 135. 68 On Lady Mary, see Halsband, The Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and Wortley Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters. On Mary Nisbet, see St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles, and Nagel, Mistress of the Elgin Marbles. There are snippets about these two as well as about other British ambassadresses in Constantinople in Hickman, Daughters of Britannia. See also Dufferin, My Russian and Turkish Journals. 66

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his attachés. These gentlemen were, however, only the most socially prominent component of an increasingly large household. In fact, they were not always the most influential of its members; and if the ambassador had trouble inside the embassy it was also usually from this quarter that he might expect it to come. Until 1804 it was customary for the ambassador to have two secretaries, one for Levant Company business and the other for political and private matters. The former was elected and paid by the company’s general court in London; he also doubled as chancellor (administrator and archivist) of the Constantinople factory. Despite the fact that he did not hold a royal commission he was effectively deputy to the ambassador and served as chargé d’affaires in the event of his absence or illness, or in the interval – sometimes considerable – between the departure of one chief and the arrival of another. For example, when the disgruntled Sir Everard Fawkener, who believed the embassy was ruining him, departed Constantinople in November 1742, ostensibly for only a short leave to attend to family business, he left the embassy’s secretary, Stanhope Aspinwall, in charge. This was the last Aspinwall saw of Fawkener, and he was not relieved until the arrival of James Porter as the new ambassador in February 1747. In the meantime, Aspinwall, who had no credentials other than ‘a kind of letter of attorney’, had to face a hostile and all-powerful French ambassador and an Ottoman government angered by Fawkener’s behaviour and insulted by the British government’s obvious indifference to the need to make a swift replacement.69 The private secretary, who was junior to the company-appointed secretaries such as Aspinwall, and more poorly paid, was appointed by the ambassador.70 The end of this anomalous arrangement came with the outbreak of the Napoleonic wars towards the end of the eighteenth century, and was a harbinger of the final assertion of government control over the embassy in 1804–5, noted earlier in this essay. John Spencer Smith, younger brother of the more famous admiral, who had been the secretary in charge of affairs since 1795, was in early 1798 first given a commission as secretary of legation and then, in swift succession, credentials as minister plenipotentiary ad interim and a commission as

69 TNA, Fawkener to Newcastle, 20 Sept. 1742, SP97/31; Aspinwall to Harrington, 22 May 1745, and to Newcastle, 20 Aug. 1746, SP97/32; Mason, ‘Fawkener’. 70 Anderson, An English Consul in Turkey, p. 25; Wood, ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, p. 538; and Wood, A History of the Levant Company, p. 222.


secretary of embassy.71 When he was recalled in early 1801 his successor as secretary of embassy, Alexander Straton, was at once given a commission, as was Stratford Canning, who began his extraordinary career at Constantinople in 1809 with a commission for the same rank.72 David Morier, who had already assisted Sir Arthur Paget in 1807 and Robert Adair in 1808–10 and succeeded Canning when the latter was promoted to minister in 1810, was refused a commission but probably because he was a member of the despised class of Anglo-Levantines.73 Secretaries of embassy were initially prescribed no duties while the ambassador was in effective charge of a mission, their sole responsibility being to take over in his absence. With nothing officially to do but prepare themselves against this day, their routine was much at the mercy of the whims of their chief. Not surprisingly, this situation was ‘the cause of many desperate rows and disputes’ in the British diplomatic service in the first half of the nineteenth century.74 As it happens, the worst of these rows occurred at the embassy in Constantinople, where in 1860 the ambassador, Sir Henry Bulwer, had got into the casual habit of allotting the confidential political work to his private secretary, the Levantine, Count Pisani, who was also the keeper of the archives and de facto head of chancery. To the secretary of embassy he gave the lowly consular correspondence, which was heavy. This worked well enough until the appointment of a new secretary of embassy, Savile Lumley, who did not like this eccentric arrangement at all. The poisonous dispute between Bulwer and Lumley which ensued led the Foreign Office to clarify their relationship. It was laid down that henceforward the secretary of embassy was not to be employed at the whim of the ambassador but always treated as the most senior of his confidential advisers on public matters, be appraised of all public business passing through the embassy, and so be in the best position possible to act as chargé d’affaires when this became necessary; in other words, the order of precedence in the chancery should be respected (see Box 8.1). The ambassador could, however, still employ an attaché as his private secretary if he so desired.75 Later in the nineteenth century the 71

On Smith, see Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, pp. 71, 92, 95. Bindoff et al., British Diplomatic Representatives, 1789–1852, pp. 165–7. 73 Lane-Poole, ‘Morier’. 74 Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, p. 51. 75 This affair is described in some detail and its significance sharply analysed in Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, Ch. 5 and Appendix B. Jones rightly sees it as marking the demise of the family embassy in the British diplomatic service as a whole. 72

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Box 8.1 British Embassy and Consulate-General, Constantinople, 1862: Staff positions Ambassador Chancery Secretary of Embassy Oriental Secretary Paid Attachés (4) Attachés [unpaid] (2) Keeper of the Archives Dragomanate (Political) Dragomans (4) Private Secretary Physician Chaplain Consulate-General Consul-General Vice-Consul Cancellier Vice-Consul Chief Clerk of English and Maltese business Chief Clerk for Ionian business

Treasurer and Accountant Keeper of Archives Clerk of Registers Chief Police Clerk Assistant Police Clerk Clerk of Papers Clerk of Correspondence Chief Constable Dragomanate (Consular) Chief Dragoman Assistant Dragomans (2) Supreme Consular Court, Levant Judge Vice-Consul Cancellier and Registrar Law Clerk Surgeon to the British Seamen’s Hospital

Source: FO List, July 1862

more senior of the paid attachés came to be known as first, second, and third secretaries,76 and in the first decade of the twentieth century the secretary of embassy was renamed the councillor (in 1914 ‘counsellor’) of embassy. An ambassador’s attachés, already mentioned in passing, were the men who joined his embassy usually because they saw it as either the most important step to a diplomatic career, part of the preparation for a future in politics, or simply as a congenial base from which to explore

76 The term ‘attaché’ originally meant all unpaid junior diplomats; in the course of the nineteenth century it came to mean all diplomats (paid or unpaid) below secretarial rank; and in the last decades of that century, with appropriate adjectival prefixes, it came to mean a specialist of some sort who was not an established member of the diplomatic service, which is the chief modern meaning.


the region in which it was located.77 This was no less true of the embassy in Constantinople than of other British embassies; indeed, by the middle of the nineteenth century the Ottoman capital had already become a popular destination for British attachés. For example, in 1862 it had six of them (see Box 8.1), with only Paris, Berlin, and Washington, as a rule, providing it with competition. The attachés were sometimes members of the ambassador’s extended family (a nephew perhaps), or the sons of political allies or friends, in which case they might well be a godson. In the early nineteenth century attachés were still unpaid but in return for their labour usually received board and lodging from the ambassador, which helped them in learning their trade. Charles Hardinge, a permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office in the early twentieth century who was an unpaid attaché in Constantinople during the time of Lord Dufferin, later wrote that ‘By studying his methods of diplomacy and by listening to his views on political questions, I learnt during those three and a half years, more of the science of diplomacy than at any other time, for the mind is particularly receptive of knowledge and friendly counsel between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-six’.78 The attachés were naturally given the most routine and undemanding kind of work (largely clerical), although a sensitive and sympathetic chief might let a young man cut his teeth on more responsible and stimulating tasks. The scope for this was in some measure restricted at the Constantinople embassy by the large number of attachés; on the other hand, the workload was always increasing and many of the routine tasks were done by the dragomans. As already noted, Bulwer had preferred an attaché to his secretary of embassy for the most important work of all. Later in the nineteenth century the government began to professionalize the diplomatic service and, in the process, assert more influence over the appointment of attachés (eventually by means of examinations) and even pay some of them small salaries.79 No longer choosing their young men themselves, faced with a growth in their number and spiralling costs, ambassadors soon lost their enthusiasm for sharing their houses and dinner tables with the attachés. In giving evidence to

77 On the other ways to prepare for a diplomatic career in both the early and late modern periods, see Essay 3 of this volume. 78 Hardinge, Old Diplomacy, p. 13. 79 Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, pp. 51–3, 66–7; Middleton, The Administration of British Foreign Policy, 1782–1846, pp. 217–18.

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the Monckton Milnes committee in 1861, Stratford to Redcliffe had a firm view on the question. As ambassador in Constantinople he had not enjoyed the company of one particular attaché and had felt obliged to insist that a separate kitchen be made for all of ‘the gentlemen’ in the new palace, and that rooming in the embassy and taking their meals with him should be ‘expressly a matter of invitation’.80 In short, boarding and lodging with an ambassador should henceforward be a privilege rather than a right.81 In the second half of the nineteenth century the family embassy may have withered away but this did not dent the enthusiasm of rich young men for attaché posts at the embassy in Constantinople. On the contrary, it became much the most popular first destination for entrants to the diplomatic service. Of the 124 men in the 1914 establishment, 22 had been sent first as attachés to this post. If those following unusual career paths are eliminated from this list, this amounted to 1 in 5 of those following what was by now the normal route.82 Constantinople – focus of the ‘Eastern Question’ and perhaps the greatest of all centres of international intrigue – had come to be regarded in the diplomatic service as a particularly valuable diplomatic training ground, and there was always plenty of work to be done there.83 Add to this that the legendary city was tinged with the exotic, spectacularly situated, and abundant in its opportunities for pleasures of every sort, and its magnetism is not difficult to understand. After improvements in the Orient Express, first introduced in 1883, it was also only three days from London. Even unpaid attachés continued to be attracted to the Constantinople embassy until World War I, although they were now called ‘honorary attachés’. Aubrey Herbert, Mark Sykes, and George Lloyd made a notable trio in the time of Sir Nicholas O’Conor.84 In addition to the diplomatic attachés, two sorts of specialist attaché were to be found at the Constantinople embassy before World War I. The first of these was the military attaché. Military and indeed naval officers had been informally attached to it on an ad hoc basis at least 80

HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: Mins. of Ev., paras. 1667–72. Yurdusev, ‘The Mid-Nineteenth Century British Embassy in Constantinople’. 82 FO List 1914. Berlin, which took 15 young men from the 1914 establishment, was next in popularity for first destinations, and then there was little to choose between the other embassies. However, in giving their first taste of diplomacy to only seven, the Paris embassy was possibly being held out after all as a reward for good service elsewhere. 83 Hardinge, Old Diplomacy, p. 12. 84 Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice, pp. 75–6. 81


since the period of the French revolutionary wars, which brought to a head the great, late eighteenth century shift in British policy to active support for the Ottoman Empire in the European balance.85 George Frederick Koehler, a German employed by the British army, had spent six months in Turkey in 1791–2 in order to report on the condition of the country’s defences.86 Shortly afterwards he was followed by Sir Sydney Smith, who reported on the Ottoman fleet.87 The intelligence gathered was obviously valuable to the government but visits of this kind by men of such prominence caused a certain amount of unease on the part of the ambassador, Sir Robert Ainslie, because they were bound to cause speculation. ‘Major Koehler departed Eight Days since for Vienna’, he told the foreign secretary, Lord Grenville, on 26 March 1793, ‘and will, I hope, be soon followed by Sir Sydney Smith, after which I hope soon to quiet the uneasiness and jealousy to which their sojourn here has so amply administered’.88 In the early spring of 1812, with a French offensive against Russia imminent and the British government anxious to galvanize peace negotiations between its Turkish friends and its Russian ally, another ad hoc military attaché arrived in Constantinople. This was the cavalry colonel, Sir Robert Wilson, who was attached to Liston’s new embassy with the local rank of brigadier-general and instructions to assist the ambassador in advancing the cause of allied unity. He might do this, the foreign secretary told Liston, by helping him ‘to judge with accuracy of the forces of the contending powers, and the probability of the military results which are likely to arise, and also, from his acquaintance with Russian officers, to open channels of communication which may be useful’.89 Thereafter, military officers appeared sporadically at Constantinople under the protection of the embassy. In the main they were formally

85

Compare Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, p. 220. TNA, Ainslie to Grenville, 8 Oct. 1791, FO78/12A, and 10 Aug. 1792, FO78/13; Black, ‘States, strategy and struggle’, pp. 477–8. 87 TNA, Smith to Grenville, 22 Feb. 1793, FO78/10. 88 He was too optimistic about Smith, but at least he was able to report later that ‘he quitted my Hotel, and took a private House to be more at his Ease’, Ainslie to Grenville, 10 May 1793, FO78/14. 89 TNA, Castlereagh to Liston, 27 Mar. 1812, FO78/79. In the event, so dire was Russia’s position by this time that it had made peace terms with Turkey before Liston and Wilson arrived in Constantinople. Nevertheless Wilson seems to have played a part in consolidating the settlement, Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1774–1923, pp. 45–7; Vetch, ‘Wilson, Sir Robert Thomas’. 86

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employed as instructors to the Turkish army but doubled informally as gatherers of military intelligence.90 It was not, however, until the 1870s that a military attaché was formally and permanently appointed. This was Colonel Wilbraham Oates Lennox, a distinguished officer of engineers who had won a VC in the Crimean War. Appointed in October 1876, he was instructed to report directly to the ambassador ‘on all matters of interest relating to military affairs in Turkey’.91 After first serving as British military delegate in armistice negotiations between Turkey and Montenegro, during the Russo-Turkish war in the following year he accompanied the Turkish armies in Bulgaria.92 Lennox then enjoyed a huge – albeit temporary – increase in assistance as further soldiers were attached to the embassy when Russia’s successes threatened Constantinople and the Straits in early 1878.93 As Turkey’s own soldiers became more involved in politics in the decade before World War I, the military attachés found their sphere of reporting broadening somewhat. Reporting on the politics of the military was approved as much by the War Office as by the Foreign Office.94 A naval attaché was not appointed until 1905 and then was based in Rome, presumably because the Ottoman government’s reliance on British naval advice had led to the presence of many other British naval officers in Constantinople. The other specialist attaché post established in the embassy before World War I was a commercial attaché. The experiment with such attachés, whose task was to look out for opportunities for the advancement of British trade, began in 1880. However, their areas of responsibility were far too large and their difficulties were compounded by the tendency of ambassadors to load them up with routine commercial work.95 The first commercial attaché to be appointed at Constantinople, in 1895, was William Wrench, who had been head of the commercial section of the consulate-general for over 20 years. Wrench died suddenly in October 1896 and in the following year was replaced by Ernest Weakley, a very able and hard-working man who remained in this post until the outbreak of war in 1914.96

90

Yurdusev, ‘The Mid-Nineteenth Century British Embassy in Constantinople’. TNA, FO to Lennox, 24 Oct. 1876, FO78/2526. 92 TNA, FO to Lennox, 2 Nov. 1876, FO78/2526; and Vetch, ‘Lennox’. 93 The FO List 1878 records seven military attachés altogether in the embassy. 94 TNA, Notes with Regard to the Collection of Intelligence in Peace Time, April 1907, WO279/503; Instructions for Military Attachés, 1908, WO279/647. 95 Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, App. A. 96 Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice, pp. 74, 94. 91


In the centuries of Levant Company control, the ambassador’s household also included a treasurer, whose duties included collecting all monies due to the company and paying Ottoman tax demands and bribes to officials.97 It also had a chaplain, who was usually the ambassador’s nominee.98 A doctor was also essential and at least at one period gave his professional advice free of charge to seamen and distressed British subjects.99 An embassy doctor in the early eighteenth century, Charles Maitland, achieved some fame in his professional sphere by virtue of his association with the experiments in smallpox inoculation encouraged by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.100 The doctor was sometimes loaned to the sultan and some of his senior ministers, and thus could be as important for the ambassador’s diplomacy as for the health of his family.101 At a further social remove, the ambassador had a large number of additional staff, some of them locally engaged. These included his dragomans and a scribe known as an ‘efendi’. To assist with entertaining and the general running of his house, he had many servants – a butler, grooms, cooks, housemaids, footmen, and pages, all supervised by a steward. When the British government acquired its own embassy building in the early nineteenth century and rebuilding, renovation, and expansion became constant preoccupations, the ambassador also obtained a clerk of works. In the nineteenth century, too, he acquired a separate consular staff with – in mid-century – its own court assistants. Until their legendary corps was disbanded in 1826, janissaries were provided by the Porte to act as guards and sometimes as messengers within the confines of the empire, although the ambassador was obliged to pay them.

The importance of numbers From fairly early days the staff of the embassy in Constantinople was large, and, although its size dipped from time to time, by the middle of the nineteenth century it was much larger than that of any other British embassy of the period.102 Diplomatic, consular and ancillary staff all tended to be larger. This was not accidental. 97

Wood, A History of the Levant Company, pp. 220–1. Wood, A History of the Levant Company, pp. 222–4. 99 TNA, George Liddell (Secretary, Levant Co.), List of Officers and Consuls of the Levant Company, 26 Mar. 1825, FO78/137. 100 Curling, Edward Wortley Montagu, 1713–1776, pp. 34–6. 101 On the importance to Stratford of Dr Samuel McGuffog’s services as a go-between, see Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 2, pp. 10, 38, 43, 50. 102 Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, p. 87. 98

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From the time of William Harborne, household staff in excess of the ambassador’s own needs were required to cope with the ‘travellers of rank’ who were likely to descend on the embassy at any time.103 In such an alien environment, European travellers were more likely to gravitate to this one than to embassies in other cities. A more important consideration, however, was prestige. There was a long and firmly held view in British diplomacy that Constantinople was a capital in which the size of the ambassador’s household, as well as its liveried magnificence on ceremonial occasions, determined to an unusual degree a nation’s standing in the eyes of the host government.104 Until the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when the general problem of precedence was resolved, anxiety about this was fired further by the struggle for precedence between the major diplomatic missions in the capital, the more so because they were all usually headed by ambassadors – and so by public ministers having the ‘full representative character’. The British vied particularly with the French embassy, which had been established longer in Constantinople and claimed the right of protection over all Christians in the sultan’s dominions. Attention to ‘exterior demonstrations’, reported Sir Everard Fawkener in 1739, in words resembling those employed by almost every ambassador before and after him, is ‘particularly necessary here, where pomp and ostentation, especially in point of retinue, are carried to great heights, and everything of this kind is observed with great exactness’.105 The need to defend and execute the special rights given to the English nation in the Ottoman Empire under its capitulations was a further reason for the need of a large staff. Yet another was the need to employ local men (dragomans) knowledgeable in the languages of the empire and in the ways of the Ottoman bureaucracy, courts, and custom houses. Then in the nineteenth century a final spur to staff growth was provided by the new and intense reforming interest taken by successive British governments in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Exactly how large was the English ambassador’s family at Constantinople in the first centuries of the embassy’s existence is not entirely clear. This is not so much because of the sparseness of figures but because ambassadors tended to exaggerate the size of the entourage they needed in the perennial attempt to wring more money out of the Levant Company and, subsequently, the government. The easiest way 103

Wood, ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, p. 541. Wood, ‘The English embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762’, p. 541; Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, pp. 69–70. 105 TNA, Fawkener to Newcastle, 15 Mar. 1739, SP97/30. 104


to do this was to emphasize the large retinue they needed on presenting their credentials to the sultan and each time thereafter that they had audience with the grand vizier, while glossing over how many members of the retinue were just hired for the occasion.106 Nevertheless some figures seem reliable and those available for other periods can be assessed fairly accurately. Harborne seems to have had a very modest establishment: just two secretaries, one dragoman, several domestic servants, and two or more janissaries for protection. However, by 1594 the household of his successor, Edward Barton, was already more than twice as large, with some 18 to 20 members.107 A century later, during the embassies of Sir John Finch and Sir William Trumbull, the permanent embassy household, excluding the domestic family but including janissary guards, was probably about 30-strong.108 At least a third of these consisted of diplomatic and other staff, and the remainder of liveried servants. During the early eighteenth century embassy of Edward Wortley Montagu, whose wife felt compelled to compete with the vast retinue of the French ambassadress,109 the household was at least as big and probably around 40-strong. The Wortley Montagus took out with them 20 servants alone and almost certainly acquired more after their arrival.110 Fawkener, in begging for more money from the government, claimed that ‘to live with decency and as the other ministers do, one must have a family of 45 to 50 people’.111 According to 106 This seems to have been a common practice. Paul Rycaut, previously a secretary of embassy, advised Sir William Trumbull that ‘it was a good idea to take about twenty extra liveries from London to outfit men hired for special occasions, such as the day of audience’, Lachs, The Diplomatic Corps under Charles II and James II, p. 74. 107 Woodhead, ‘Harborne’ and ‘Barton’. 108 For Finch, see Lachs, The Diplomatic Corps under Charles II and James II, pp. 178–9; for Trumbull, TNA, ‘A relation of what passed at the audience which His Excellency Sir William Trumbull … had of the Vizier’ [16 Jan. 1688], SP97/20. The procession was led by 37 persons in full livery: six janissaries, two grooms, a steward, 26 footmen, and two valets de chambre. Following these were 12 interpreters, a gentleman of the horse, the ambassador himself with four pages, the secretary ‘and other people’, and the merchants. 109 Wortley Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters, p. 67. 110 Halsband, The Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, pp. 58, 88. For the staff they found at the embassy on arrival, see Grundy, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, pp. 140–1. 111 TNA, Fawkener to Stone, 24 Jan. 1736/7, SP97/29. In a later letter he said that at audiences with the grand vizier ‘I have never less … than four led horses, and a retinue of at least 50 people’, Fawkener to Newcastle, 15 Mar. 1739, SP97/30.

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official Ottoman records, his successor, James Porter, had a total staff of 55.112 As the fortunes of the Levant Company declined during the eighteenth century, however, so did the size of the ambassador’s entourage. When Robert Liston arrived in Constantinople in 1794 he found a staff, excluding servants and janissary guards, of ten – and those underpaid.113 Shortly afterwards, with the growth in the political importance of Turkey and the assumption of complete government responsibility for the embassy, the household began to grow again. When Stratford Canning sailed for Constantinople in 1825 he took with him – in addition to his wife – four secretaries and 21 servants,114 and probably had a total household beginning to regain mid-eighteenth century heights. By the last years of his final embassy, in the late 1850s, the chancery staff alone usually had 14 or 15 members and the consulate-general had been augmented by the staff of a new ‘Supreme Consular Court of the Levant’ under Edmund Hornby. In 1862 the embassy and consular staff combined amounted to 37 persons, excluding all domestic and ancillary staff (see Box 8.1). By the eve of World War I this figure had shrunk only marginally and the chancery itself remained as large.115 While Britain continued to lay confident claim to membership of the club of great powers, the British ambassador in Constantinople – occupant of the massive ‘English Palace’ – still needed an entourage that was as large as a parsimonious parliament in London would permit.

112 Cited in Mansel, Constantinople, p. 194. The same source says that the Dutch embassy had 38, the French 78 and the Venetian 118 (including 50 priests) 113 Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, pp. 69–70. Cunningham counts eight interpreters, an ‘embellisher’ (a Turkish scribe, more usually described as an ‘efendi’), and a cancellier/secretary. 114 TNA, Planta to Croker, 23 Sept. 1825, FO78/138. 115 FO List 1914.

9 Communicating with the Orient before the Twentieth Century

A diplomatic mission without some form of secure and reasonably swift form of communication with its own government is of limited use. It can still discharge important tasks, for example in the protection of any expatriates, but it cannot send home timely reports or ask for – or be sent – timely new instructions. For long periods out of touch with home, it may also feel forgotten and find its morale dropping. Poor communications also impede the exchange of information with sister missions in its region and reduce the usefulness of consular outposts. Communication with their diplomatic missions in the Orient presented European governments with problems such as these until well into the nineteenth century. This applied even to the near Orient, and is clearly seen in the experience of the British embassy in Constantinople. What means of communication were available to early ambassadors? What were the political consequences of the limitations of these methods? What expedients were employed to ameliorate such consequences? How significant was the introduction of the telegraph? The overland route from London to Constantinople, which usually went via Vienna, was not only long but also traversed wild territory, especially in the Balkans, and here messages periodically fell victim to rebels and bandits.1 If sent by the common post, they met the same fate more routinely at the hands of the ‘black chambers’ of the Vienna or Venice post

1 A northerly version of this overland route was preferred by William Harborne, the first English ambassador. Also used by his couriers and agents, this went via Hamburg and Poland ‘since it helped maintain good Anglo-Polish relations and also avoided the suspicions and hostility of the Venetians and Spanish which would inevitably have been raised by a sea voyage through the Mediterranean’, Woodhead, ‘Harborne’.

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offices.2 Couriers coming out of the Ottoman Empire were also delayed by the need for quarantine, and the contents of their packets were liable to inspection on the pretext of ‘perfuming’ them against the plague.3 The sea route, which usually started with a ship from Marseilles, passed through waters infested with pirates, particularly off the Barbary coast. Whether over land or sea, or a combination of both, matters were particularly bad during the winter and when there was war with a country overlapping or adjacent to part of a normal route; this was particularly true of war with France.4 In short, communications between London and Constantinople, not to mention those between the embassy and its consular posts in the Balkans and Asiatic Turkey, presented special challenges. In the pre-telegraphic era, diplomatic messages were carried through Europe in many different ways. The great bulk of British diplomatic mail was consigned to the scheduled or ‘ordinary’ services of the emerging national post offices, while messengers were used for more urgent communications.5 King’s or Queen’s Messengers, the body of couriers in the fulltime employment of the government itself, could also be employed – as they still are today – if maximum security was needed as well, for example in the delivery of new ciphers. But the services of official agencies by no means exhausted the options available for the carriage of diplomatic mail. Embassy servants, merchants, ships’ captains, bankers, and private visitors known or recommended to the ambassador were among those also pressed into service. It was even common for ambassadors to entrust their despatches to colleagues in the missions of friendly states if they happened to be returning or have a courier due to depart at an opportune moment.6 These various options were also available to the ambassadors in Turkey, where in the early modern period their communications also benefited from a degree of orchestration by the Venetian diplomatic service.7 Nevertheless there is no doubt that communications with the secretaries of state in London, whether by sea or land, were in general slow, insecure, and unpredictable until well into the nineteenth century – and 2 Cassels, The Struggle for the Ottoman Empire, pp. 73–4; Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822–1827, pp. 267–8; Allen, Post and Courier Service in the Diplomacy of Early Modern Europe, pp. 66, 86. 3 TNA, Ainslie to Hillsborough, 12 Apr. 1782, FO78/3; see also Ainslie to Elliot (Berlin), 17 Apr. 1778, FO261/3. 4 Heywood, ‘English diplomatic relations with Turkey, 1689–1698’, pp. 34–5. 5 Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, p. 219. 6 Allen, Post and Courier Service in the Diplomacy of Early Modern Europe, p. 26. 7 Brown, Studies in the History of Venice, vol. II, p. 32; Allen, Post and Courier Service in the Diplomacy of Early Modern Europe, pp. 38, 66, 86.

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the introduction of the electric telegraph by no means changed matters overnight.

‘Ye surest, and most speedy conveyance you can’ Use for your communications with us ‘ye surest, and most speedy conveyance you can’, read the royal instructions to Lord Chandos, the newly appointed ambassador to Turkey in 1680, which at first glance was challenging but contained a clear hint of sympathy for the problems that his mail was likely to encounter. These were problems concerning which no ambassador had any illusions. Sometimes it was discovered that despatches did not even get out of Constantinople: ‘our letters of May’, the earlier ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, observed drolly to Sir Dudley Carleton, ‘were intercepted and sold in the city to wrap pepper’.8 This was in 1623, and Roe was probably no more surprised to learn from London in the same year that all of his letters were being opened and inspected at leisure in Venice.9 Writing to the British consul in the same city over a century and a half later, Sir Robert Ainslie said: ‘The steps you have taken for the security of our correspondence is in fact all that can be done. I have not a doubt that all letters are liable to be opened in this transit, and am equally convinced that it is frequently practised by fair or foul means, notwithstanding every precaution’.10 As the ambassadors were aware, no precautions designed to increase the security of messages were foolproof. But some were more effective than others, and the most effective precaution of all was employment of a trusted messenger; he was also the fastest means of getting a message delivered, and had the bonus of being able to provide useful intelligence on the lands through which he passed.11 Tough, resourceful, well armed, and at least an adequate linguist, this was a man so personally dependent on the ambassador or the government at home that he would suffer drastically if he lost his bags through carelessness. Even in the more enlightened world of early twentieth century employer–employee relations a King’s Messenger who lost his bags would be dismissed instantly, without pension or gratuity.12 King’s Messengers en route overland

8

30 May 1623, The Negotiations. Calvert to Roe, 6 June 1623, The Negotiations. 10 TNA, Ainslie to Richie, 8 Dec., 1788, FO261/6; see also Ainslie to Peter Mitchell (London), 17 June 1782, FO261/4. 11 TNA, Ainslie to Fox, 25 Oct. 1783, FO78/4. 12 Antrobus, King’s Messenger, 1918–1940, p. 11. 9

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between London and Constantinople travelled by carriage where the roads were good enough (and later by train) but always rode on horseback south of Vienna until well into the nineteenth century.13 The messengers were of two main types: the express messenger and the one who tried to maintain a regular timetable. The more colourful express, sometimes referred to as an ‘estafette’, departed as soon as letters were ready for despatch. For urgent messages this was essential since the regular messenger may just have left, while the ordinary international posts – even if considered sufficiently trustworthy – were regulated by schedules with days or even weeks intervening between departures. In England at the end of the seventeenth century the ‘ordinary’ post travelled at an average speed of about four miles an hour, while an express messenger would travel at between five and seven miles an hour depending on his burden and the quality of the fresh horses available at the staging posts on his route. An express would consist sometimes of one rider carrying the message for the whole journey, sometimes of relays of riders; in either event, the express would often be accompanied by a guide and, if necessary, by one or more armed guards. The King’s Messengers certainly proved their value to the embassy in Constantinople. However, they were not initially the elite body that the name suggests and a dedicated corps did not begin to emerge until the end of the eighteenth century.14 They were also used sparingly because they were expensive, and Constantinople was by far the most costly of their standard runs, comfortably exceeding the expense even of going to St. Petersburg.15 Expresses were particularly expensive; they also attracted attention and excited rumours.16 It did not help that the messengers tended to be well known, and in Britain in the nineteenth century their movements were watched closely by the press for clues to 13

Wheeler-Holohan, The History of the King’s Messengers, pp. 157–8. Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, pp. 266–8; Wheeler-Holohan, The History of the King’s Messengers, Chs 3–5; Thomson, The Secretaries of State, p. 142. 15 TNA, Estimate of the Charge for Journies to the Principal Foreign Capitals, on the New Scale of Allowances, ca. 1824, FO351/10. Constantinople was also the most profitable to the messengers and thus, despite its hazards, also the most popular, Wheeler-Holohan, The History of the King’s Messengers, p. 232; Estimate of the Profit which will be received by Messengers on Journeys to the Principal Foreign Capitals on the New Allowances, ca. 1824, FO351/10. 16 TNA, Fawkener to Newcastle, 7 Jan. 1738, SP97/29; Ainslie to Elliot (Berlin), 3 June 1778, FO261/3; Ainslie to Secret Committee of the East India Co. (London), 10 Sept. 1782, FO261/4. See also Middleton, The Administration of British Foreign Policy, 1782–1846, p. 234. 14


the tempo of diplomatic events.17 On one occasion in Constantinople, at a particularly delicate juncture, an ambassador sought to solve this problem by passing off a messenger just arrived from London as ‘a gentleman in trade’, although the secret was soon out.18 Messengers were also liable to attack not only because of their despatches but also because of the large sums of money which they had to carry to meet their heavy travelling expenses.19 To reduce the damage caused by hostile interception, messages could be ciphered but this had to be done sparingly. One reason for this was that the greater the number of ciphered despatches that fell into hostile hands the more likely it was that the codes would be broken.20 Another was that the ciphering and deciphering of lengthy messages was until very late a tedious and time-consuming business. One way of minimizing these drawbacks was to cipher just the most sensitive parts of a message, Ainslie spotting that a further advantage of this was that the open parts could be used to plant misinformation and the ciphered parts used to explain to the Foreign Office what the cunning ambassador had done.21 How long did messages take to travel between Constantinople and London? On 18 May 1624 the secretary of state, Sir George Calvert, sent highly important fresh instructions to Sir Thomas Roe. These informed the ambassador of a dramatic change in the king’s attitude to the Habsburgs and of his consequent desire that Sir Thomas should encourage the sultan’s Protestant vassal in Transylvania, Prince Bethlen Gabor, to adopt a threatening posture towards the emperor. Although this letter completely reversed the chief political thrust of Roe’s initial instructions, which was to ‘divert’ the Ottomans from falling on Christendom, it seems clear that the ambassador did not receive it until 20 August, that is, three months after its despatch. At the end of the seventeenth century, six weeks to two months was reckoned to be good going for a special courier.22 Towards the end of the following century

17

Wheeler-Holohan, History of the King’s Messengers, pp. 83–5. There was even a cartoon of the senior messenger, Captain Conway F. C. Seymour, in the popular periodical Vanity Fair: ‘Despatches’, 16 Feb. 1884. 18 TNA, Ainslie to Consul Abbott (Aleppo), 3 Apr. and to East India Co. (London), 12 Apr. 1782, FO261/4. 19 Wheeler-Holohan, History of the King’s Messengers, p. 157. 20 Horn, The British Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789, p. 219. 21 TNA, Ainslie to Carmarthen, 10 Feb. 1787, FO78/8. 22 Heywood, ‘English diplomatic relations with Turkey, 1689–1698’, p. 36. Fraser suggests 46 days for the journey ‘in good conditions’ in the 1660–88 period, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State, map facing p. 64.

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the enterprising Ainslie told the Foreign Office that it could be done in half this time23 but it was not dramatically reduced until roads were improved in the late eighteenth century and steamships and railways arrived in the nineteenth.24 At the end of 1833, albeit it in winter and in a sub-standard carriage as far as Semlin (thence on horseback), it still took a King’s Messenger a month to reach Constantinople.25 Even if special couriers were used in both directions and the secretary of state replied by return, for most of the pre-nineteenth century period therefore it could still take three to five months before an ambassador received a reply to an urgent request for fresh instructions. Ainslie himself wrote five letters to the Foreign Office between 10 July and 25 September 1793 begging to know whether a permanent Ottoman ambassador would be welcome in London, and did not receive the brief and laconic reassurance which he sought until 18 November.26 One way to maximize the chance that an important message would get through quickly, or just get through at all, was to send as many as three or four copies by alternative routes. At least one might make it rapidly to its destination.27 This was usually effective but at the price of increasing the risk of interception. For example, in a letter of 8 September 1627 to Sir Thomas Roe, the secretary of state referred to the ‘hazard of the conveyances, whereof I have had proof by the loss of some of mine … and some from yourself; whereof I have received the duplicates, but never saw the originals’.28

The consequences of poor communications Insecurity and slowness were thus endemic to diplomatic communications in the pre-telegraph era. Long intervals between messages were the more usual and, at critical times, the more serious of these drawbacks because they could cause an ambassador at Constantinople, out of

23

TNA, Ainslie to Hillsborough, 1 Feb. 1781, FO78/2. However, mail packet sailings, most of which had been taken over by the Admiralty in 1823 and extended from Malta to the Ionian Islands in 1819 and Alexandria in 1835, never went to Constantinople, Robinson, Carrying British Mails Overseas, pp. 91–3, 106, 161. 25 Wheeler-Holohan, The History of the King’s Messengers, pp. 167–79. 26 TNA, FO78/14. 27 Allen, Post and Courier Service in the Diplomacy of Early Modern Europe, p. 137; Heywood, ‘English diplomatic relations with Turkey, 1689–1698’, pp. 35–6. 28 The Negotiations. 24


ignorance of important developments, to adopt an attitude that was no longer appropriate.29 For example, Calvert’s letter of May 1624 informing Roe that the king now wished him to stimulate Bethlen Gabor’s hostility to the Austrians (see p. 20 above) took such a long time to reach him that he had looked on benignly while the prince had signed a peace with them. In consequence, lamented the ambassador, ‘more force must be used to raise him again, then would have served to keep him up while he was in motion’.30 Alternatively, in fear of adopting the wrong attitude, even the most experienced and self-assured ambassador could be completely paralysed by the absence of mail from London. Inaction thus induced could at best cause loss of ‘credit’ and at worst missed opportunities to advance his country’s interest. Even Sir Thomas Roe, whose instructions had given him no guidance on how he should react to the French ambassador’s strenuous assertion of precedence at Constantinople, once said in a despatch to his secretary of state: ‘I should take it as a great favour, if you would also please to inform me what I should do. … I am very diffident of my discretion in these times, and therefore resolve to sit as quiet as I may’.31 In regard to Bethlen Gabor, the fresh instructions which finally arrived in August 1624 were so vague as to how far he should go with him that Roe felt obliged to insist that ‘it may be more necessary than formerly, that I should receive punctual directions for my rule and discharge’. Please send me, he concluded, ‘a speedy answer, that may be unto me a star of direction to sail by’.32 Over a year later, with still no ‘star of direction’, the ambassador wrote that ‘I am utterly disabled, and do fear to lose a fair harvest’.33 In times of war with the French, the obstacles to communications were so great that fresh instructions could take up to a year to travel between London and Constantinople. As can be imagined, this seriously impeded the efforts of William III, initiated in 1689, to use his ambassador to mediate a peace between the Turks and the Austrians so that the latter could concentrate on the War of the Spanish Succession. Sir William Trumbull was the first to suffer34 but poor communications were also among the factors which obstructed the efforts of Lord Paget,

29

Cunningham, Collected Essays, vol. 1, pp. 135–6. Roe to Conway, 21 Aug. 1624, The Negotiations. 31 Roe to Calvert, 24 Aug. 1623, The Negotiations. 32 Roe to Conway, 21 Aug. 1624, The Negotiations. 33 Roe to Conway, 25 Feb. 1626, The Negotiations. 34 Heywood, ‘English diplomatic relations with Turkey, 1689–1698’, p. 35. 30

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sent to Constantinople in 1692 in pursuit of the same objective, and it was not until five years later that a mediated peace between the Turks and the Austrians was finally signed.35 Important information acquired by the ambassador could also arrive in London too late to be of use, while the consequences of intercepted communications which were deciphered – sometimes because the cipher itself had fallen into the wrong hands – are too obvious to require elaboration. It is clear, then, that considerable damage could be caused by slow and insecure diplomatic communications. Nevertheless this should not be exaggerated because it was possible – at Constantinople as elsewhere – to reduce the need for diplomatic communication in the first place. Considerable resourcefulness was demonstrated to this end.

Reducing the need for good communications The first step was to give an ambassador some discretion in his initial instructions and full powers to conclude any negotiation.36 Provided circumstances at his post did not change drastically, it was unlikely, therefore, that he would feel the need to make frequent requests for fresh instructions and be paralysed until he received replies. All he had to do was send home frequent reports of his actions – usually at least twice a month37 – so that the secretary of state would be alerted to any that were inconsistent with current policy. These reports were not likely to go unread, even if they were unacknowledged, since they contained the intelligence which was the lifeblood of the secretaries of state.38 They also protected the ambassador since no one at home could make retrospective complaints of his actions if they had been kept informed but remained silent. It was also not unusual to provide a new ambassador, as in the case of Lord Chandos in 1680, with two versions of his letter of credence, the one more mild and the other more severe in tone, and leave him to choose which was the most appropriate to deliver in light of the circumstances which he found on his arrival at

35

Heywood, ‘Paget’. Wicquefort, The Embassador and His Functions, Book I, Ch. XIV; Lachs, The Diplomatic Corps under Charles II and James II, pp. 18–27; Satow, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, p. 155. 37 Thomson, The Secretaries of State, 1681–1782, pp. 96–7; Fraser, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State, pp. 65–8. 38 Fraser, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State, Ch. 3. 36


Constantinople.39 In short, this system did not require by any means as many messages to flow out to the ambassador as were sent home by him, while the latter were themselves limited by the discretion that he was permitted. The second step designed in part to relieve the secretary of state of the need for good communications with ambassadors, as well as to spare him a burden when they were efficient, was to remind them to keep up a regular correspondence with British diplomats posted at other major capitals;40 and, in the particular case of ambassadors at Constantinople, to keep one up especially with those British representatives accredited to countries sharing any task of mediation with Britain at the Porte.41 It is also striking to what extent this advice was followed. Among the more regular correspondents of Sir Thomas Roe, for example, were Sir Dudley Carleton at The Hague and Sir Isaac Wake at Venice. Roe also exchanged letters with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the king’s daughter, the Queen of Bohemia. Other ambassadors, for example Lord Kinnoull a century later, found their colleagues at the British embassy in Vienna particularly valuable correspondents.42 Most of these were in easier reach than London. Following his own arrival at Constantinople on 2 October 1776, Ainslie lost little time in announcing the event by means of a circular letter to his colleagues at other posts. This continued: I shall not fail to give you the earliest Information of whatever may happen during my Residence, of a nature interesting to His Majesty’s Service, or that may be agreeable to you to know. I hope you will not forget me in your circular letters, or in case any matter of moment relating to this distant Residence should come to your knowledge.43 39 Chandos was actually given one of each sort addressed to both the sultan and the grand vizier, and it is interesting that what appears to have been the first draft of his instructions, dated 28 Jan. 1680, was more explicit in explaining this – ‘(the one of each in a more mild and the other in severe terms)’ – than the final version, dated 29 Dec. 1680 (see App. 2, para. 11), TNA, 28 Jan. 1680, SP105/145. 40 Fraser, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State, p. 65; Thomson, The Secretaries of State, p. 95. 41 TNA, Weymouth to Murray, 6 June 1769, SP97/45. 42 Webb, The Earl and his Butler in Constantinople, p. 79. 43 This letter went to Paris, Madrid, The Hague, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Cologne, Turin, Florence, Venice, Lisbon and Warsaw. It was not sent to Naples, Brussels, Berne or St. Petersburg only because these posts were temporarily unoccupied, TNA, FO261/3.

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This pooling of political and commercial intelligence had many advantages but not the least of them was that it gave the ambassador at Constantinople – as elsewhere – further clues and reassurance as to which of his own actions would be likely to gain favour at home should he be wanting in fresh instructions. Aside from the fact that now and again Sir Thomas Roe did receive them, it was this which in the long intervening periods enabled him to avoid the paralysis which he was inclined to stress, probably in order to encourage replies from the secretary of state. In fact it is clear that while he seems occasionally to have been slowed up, he was rarely immobilized; on the contrary, he was generally very active, and comparatively successful in achieving what the king wanted. Allied to the last mentioned procedure was the usual injunction laid upon British ambassadors to work in close harmony with the ambassadors of friendly and allied states. At one difficult juncture in 1626 when Sir Thomas Roe was told by an extraordinary ambassador from Bethlen Gabor that a conference at The Hague had decided that he must help to procure action by the pasha of Buda against the Emperor and ‘nourish the Tartars against the king of Poland’, the English ambassador had to rely on an assurance from the Venetian baillo that this was true. This permitted him to advance cautiously on these fronts.44 For much of this period and especially after the Glorious Revolution in 1688, it was the Dutch ambassador at Constantinople whom the British envoys found most useful for additional clues as to their own government’s intentions.45 It is also worth adding that poor communications with home had diplomatic advantages. To begin with, it was more expedient for the English ambassador to blame distance and the poor state of the roads for any long delay in receiving instructions on a new question than to admit to an Ottoman minister that the explanation was more likely to be indolence or – worse still – indifference in London. Slow communications also gave more time for thought. This was to become a common theme of diplomats and Foreign Office officials as they were forced to come to terms with the breathless haste of the telegraphic era.

Searching for improvements The fact remained, however, that poor communications were usually regarded as an irritant in normal times and a serious handicap in 44

Roe to Conway, 30 June 1626, The Negotiations. See for example TNA, Trumbull to Shrewsbury 31 Oct. 1689, SP97/20; and letter of 16 May. 45


a crisis or when a major diplomatic development was in prospect or already under way. As a result, more than one British ambassador at Constantinople gave thought to how they could be improved. For example, in 1737, in order to speed up communications during the mediation foreshadowed between Turkey and Russia in which he expected to be involved, Sir Everard Fawkener pressed repeatedly for use of a sloop directly from Portsmouth or Plymouth. ‘The French court frequently dispatch a barque from Toulon’, he pointed out to the powerful Duke of Newcastle, secretary of state for the Foreign Office’s Southern Department, and a sloop from England would be fast. ‘I may very easily have a letter in 30 days, and sooner with good luck’, said Fawkener, adding that it would be more secure and no more expensive than any other means of communication.46 His pleas fell on deaf ears. Towards the end of the next century, Sir Robert Ainslie seemed often to be turning his fertile mind to the problem, although with little more success. In 1782 he proposed to the East India Company an elaborate arrangement for avoiding delays to their despatches at the quarantine house at Semlin in the Balkans – an arrangement from which his own despatches may or may not have benefited.47 Following the later outbreak of war between the Turks and the Austrians, Ainslie had to abandon the Vienna route and use instead the Spanish post.48 Reminiscent of Fawkener earlier, he looked with envy at the French ambassador, who, he told the foreign secretary, Lord Carmarthen, ‘is exceedingly favoured by a number of Corvettes, constantly plying between Toulon, or Marseilles, and Smyrna, to which last place his couriers go and return very frequently, and must occasion no inconsiderable expence’.49 The Spanish post must have been slow, because following the peace made between Austria and Turkey at Sistovo in August 1791, Ainslie was soon urging a return to the Vienna route as ‘undoubtedly the most expeditious’, despite its well-known drawbacks in other respects.50

46

TNA, Fawkener to Newcastle, 24 Aug., 26 Sept., and 30 Dec. 1737, SP97/29. Two merchants should be stationed at the adjacent river frontier towns of Semlin and Belgrade. They would negotiate the packets through the lazaretto at Semlin, thus ensuring they were unopened, while the presence of a courier on both sides of the river Sava would obviate the need for quarantine, TNA, Ainslie to Mitchell (London), 17 June 1782, FO261/4; see also Ainslie to Keith (Vienna), 6 June 1792, FO261/7. 48 By this time, the Venetian post had also become unreliable, TNA, Ainslie to Carmarthen, 26 Feb., 1 and 15 Oct. 1788, FO78/9. 49 TNA, Ainslie to Carmarthen, 15 Apr. 1788, FO78/9. 50 TNA, Ainslie to Grenville, 25 Oct. 1791, FO78/12. 47

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In the 1820s a form of the scheme for the Vienna route proposed by Ainslie to the East India Company was put into practice for the embassy’s own communications with the Foreign Office, with the use of relays of messengers at the border of the Ottoman Empire to prevent delays caused by the need to perform quarantine. The effects of this were appreciated by Stratford Canning shortly after the start of his second tour in Constantinople, this time as ambassador. Writing to thank his cousin, George Canning, the foreign secretary, for despatches he had recently received, he told him that the messenger had brought these in only 21 days from London.51

‘The telegraph frenzy’ By the second half of the nineteenth century Turkey was of such political importance to Britain that, at least in the decade after 1856, the Foreign Office appears to have had a greater volume of correspondence with the embassy at Constantinople than with any other diplomatic mission.52 It is therefore not surprising that the introduction of the electric telegraph in the middle of the century, which dramatically quickened the speed with which messages might be exchanged, was of particular interest to this post. Messages that until recently had taken weeks to reach London could now get there in about 24 hours. It was the Crimean War that stimulated the British, together with their French allies, to extend the electric telegraph to Constantinople, and thus connect the embassy to London.53 This was finally achieved in early 1855 when Varna on the western coast of the Black Sea, the link in the previously laid submarine cable between Constantinople and the Crimean peninsula, was connected via Bucharest to the end of the

51

TNA, Canning to Canning, 9 Mar. 1826, FO195/60. In the decade 1857–67, the FO bound 339 volumes of Turkey correspondence. The next largest figure was for France (303) and after that the USA (179), HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Appendix, No. 1, p. 419. This is a crude but nevertheless suggestive index. 53 The Paris embassy had been connected since December 1852, and Florence, Berlin and Vienna since 1853. Until the beginning of the 1860s, embassy telegrams went to the London offices of either the Electric Telegraph Co. or the Submarine Telegraph Co. From this point on, however, a branch of the former company was installed in the FO, despite the marked reservations of the permanent under-secretary, Edmund Hammond. In 1870 the GPO took over the Electric Telegraph Co., Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, pp. 122–5; From Quills to Computers, pp. 5–6. 52


Austrian line at Jassy in Moldavia.54 Another line was also established from Bucharest to Vienna, and later in 1855 the Ottoman government, which from an early date shared ‘the telegraph frenzy’, announced the opening of another connection with Vienna by means of its own line from Constantinople to Shumnu in Bulgaria via Adrianople.55 Government messages – announced by the demand, ‘clear the line, clear the line’ – always took priority over private ones. The improvement brought by the telegraph to the British embassy’s communications with London did not happen overnight, and even after its main teething problems had been sorted out telegraphic communication continued to have significant disadvantages. For one thing, the messages had to travel through landlines over foreign countries rather than through submarine cables. This meant that apart from being vulnerable to high winds and heavy ice, the lines could be cut or tapped into, while operators at telegraph stations could easily copy the messages. At least until the later years of the nineteenth century, telegrams were also incredibly expensive and prone to garbling in transmission. For these and other reasons, the telegraph did not replace the need for the messenger service to Constantinople, any more than – to the disappointment of innocents in parliament and elsewhere – it replaced the need for diplomatic missions themselves, or even well-paid men of high ability in charge of them.56 The insecurity of telegrams meant that all messages had to be ciphered but this did not guarantee that they would not be read by friends and foes alike. Ciphered telegrams, being incomprehensible to the telegraph operators who had to transcribe them, were also prone to mistranscription – and thus to being incomprehensible to anyone.57 Furthermore, because the use of ciphers was extremely labour-intensive (at both ends) and telegrams were so expensive, it was very important to phrase them in the sparsest language possible and prune them of all but absolutely essential information58 – the language that came to

54

HCPP (C. 1886), 1 Feb. 1855. Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, pp. 134–6. 56 A question repeatedly put to the diplomats appearing before the 1861 Select Committee was whether ‘diplomatic servants of a high character’ were any longer needed in embassies, heads of mission having allegedly been reduced by the telegraph to nothing more than marionettes, HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: Mins. of Ev., for example, para. 1780. The best account of the impact on diplomacy in general of the introduction of the telegraph is Nickles, Under the Wire. 57 Davison, Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History, p. 148. 58 HCPP (C. 2483), 1859: Circular to Her Majesty’s Ministers abroad, FO, 25 Sept. 1858; Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, p. 123. 55

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be known as ‘telegraphese’. However, old habits died hard, especially for ambassadors on the verge of retirement when the telegraph was introduced, and this contributed to their high initial cost.59 A case in point was Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. As the following example of one of his telegrams, sent to the Earl of Clarendon on 10 September 1857, reveals, he entered into the spirit of the new method at the start of the message, which, as it happens was about the telegraph, but relapsed into old ways at the end: Terms approved by the Porte for a telegraph service towards India: – To start it from Constantinople, to carry it to Bagdad; to begin it at once on the Porte’s own account; to take materials, engineers, and workmen from the Company; to extend the telegraph to Bussorah, if the East India Company will bring an Indian line to meet it there; to have two wires – that one connected to Marine under English management; to bind itself by a Convention with Her Majesty’s Government. Mr. Hawes and Mr. Stanniforth might be employed at once by the Porte, the latter in settling with the Company in England, the former in carrying out the line. It is possible, but by no means probable, that the Porte might still accept the Company and their original line, if strenuously pressed, under special instructions and urgent demand from Her Majesty’s Government. Pray communicate this message to the Chairman of the Company, and favour me with an immediate answer.60 Stratford notwithstanding, telegrams fairly soon came to be shorn of nuance, context, and good syntax, and so usually had to be reserved for urgent messages. In order to give the full picture, they were routinely followed by longer despatches sent by messenger or regular post; these were known as ‘extenders’.61 59

HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: App. no. 4, p. 434. This telegram, which was sent from the summer embassy at Therapia, was 161 words long; its ‘extender’, dated the same day, was itself only 309 words long, HCPP (2406), 4 May 1858. 61 Duplicates of the telegrams, which were sent in plain language by the same means and known as ‘recorders’, were also used to begin with as a check on the deciphering. But they presented the obvious risk that the cipher would be compromised if the recorder fell into the wrong hands. So in 1890 they were replaced by paraphrased versions of the telegrams, Roper, The Records of the Foreign Office, 1782–1968, p. 18. 60


The abbreviated nature of telegrams was a serious drawback, especially in the early days when they could be badly garbled in transmission. Not surprisingly, fresh instructions and other messages sent by this means were sometimes difficult to understand,62 and in such cases rather increased than decreased the need for the assumption of responsibility by an ambassador when it came to taking action on them. This was the consensus view of the diplomats questioned on the implications of the telegraph by the Select Committee on the Diplomatic Service in 1861, including Stratford, who had only recently retired as ambassador at Constantinople,63 and Henry Elliot, who would become ambassador there in six years time. The ‘very scanty telegraphic information’ now received by missions, said Elliot, made it more difficult than before to understand what was going on: You receive telegraphic news that first appears to give information, but which often turns out to be totally at variance with the facts as they come out afterwards when you receive the post.64 By the time that the Select Committee of 1870 discussed the question, the telegraph service had improved and was somewhat less expensive. According to Edmund Hammond, expenditure on telegrams had been reduced by three-quarters since 1860.65 The same trend was seen in the traffic from the Constantinople embassy, where spending on telegrams had been as high as £2492 in 1858 but by 1869 had dropped to only £572, and in the previous three years had been even lower.66 (It was a mark of the remoteness of Constantinople as well as of its importance that this remained 26 per cent of the total expenditure of all missions on telegrams.) But to some members of parliament the increased efficiency and diminishing costs of the telegraph simply made it a better stick with which to beat the Foreign Office into giving up its most highly paid diplomats. In the course of a tetchy exchange with the independent, radical member of parliament, Peter Rylands, the ageing

62

HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: Mins. of Ev., paras. 1304–5. HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: Mins. of Ev., paras. 1779–82. 64 HCPP (459), 23 July 1861: Mins. of Ev., paras. 1551–2. 65 HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Mins. of Ev., para. 616. In fact, from £8283 to £2197, Appendix 4, p. 435. 66 HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: App. no. 4, p. 434. 63

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and conservative Hammond was forced to fight a rearguard in defence of the traditional line. He did this very ably: We have now the electric telegraph, which for all purposes of business is a very unsatisfactory means of communication; you may send a word, or a sentence, but an explanatory despatch, or an argument to be enforced, you cannot send by a telegraph.67 On being pressed further, Hammond conceded that a telegram was useful in emergencies, provided it was expanded upon in a proper despatch sent afterwards, and also that it was a useful means of giving guidance to a diplomat on a specific point in a negotiation. However, he rightly insisted that the modern diplomat still needed to exercise his own judgement in carrying out his instructions; the question of the extent to which a diplomat could be relieved of responsibility for a decision by a Foreign Office telegram depended on the circumstances. Besides, he insisted, ‘You may act upon an instruction or opinion clumsily, or you may act upon it cleverly.’68 A week later, Sir Henry Elliot, by now ambassador at Constantinople but at the moment at home on leave, was also questioned by the Select Committee on the issue of the telegraph. His view was exactly the same as Hammond’s and just as forthrightly expressed. He freely admitted to finding telegrams useful when he thought the Foreign Office should learn of something quickly. Nevertheless in general he thought that they made business much more difficult than before because it was so hard to understand them completely, not least – he added somewhat disarmingly – because the foreign secretary’s telegrams to the embassy were themselves based on ‘imperfect telegraphic evidence that you may have sent yourself or that somebody else may have sent’.69 The labour they entailed was also great: ‘I have seen telegrams arrive that took many hours to decipher, and sometimes could not be deciphered 67

HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Mins. of Ev., para. 526. HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Mins. of Ev., paras. 527–33; see also Lord Malmesbury, paras. 749–53. 69 HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Mins. of Ev., paras. 908–10; see also 945–9. Without, one suspects, even a hint of a blush, another witness, Robert Morier, secretary of legation at Darmstadt and a descendant of the first consul-general at Constantinople, emphasized the conclusion to be drawn from this: a good telegram was an ‘intellectual tour de force’ and required ‘an exceedingly superior kind of agent’ rather than the lowly paid mediocrity with whom some MPs hoped missions would now be able to make do, HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Mins. of Ev., para. 4371. 68


at all’, he added.70 And later: ‘It has happened to me to have to act on a telegram which said exactly the contrary of what I felt sure it meant to say. [‘Declare war at once’?] Fortunately the mistake was so palpable, that I had no doubt on the matter.’71 Nevertheless suggestive of modernity and exciting events, telegrams already had much prestige attached to them. What was their effect on the messenger service? In the middle of the nineteenth century the embassy in Constantinople was receiving a Queen’s Messenger from London once a week.72 However, with the introduction of the telegraph there was pressure to economize on them. The Foreign Office was also less inclined to be sympathetic because the other great invention of this century – steam power – had reduced the hardships which the messengers had previously been forced to endure while travelling on horseback or bumping along in carriages. This applied as much to the Constantinople run as to the others, they were reminded by the foreign secretary, Lord Malmesbury, at the end of 1858.73 It is not entirely surprising, therefore, that one of the consequences of the review of the Queen’s Messengers in 1858 was a drastic cutback in the Constantinople service: henceforward, it was to be provided only once a month.74 The service was still being conducted on the skeletal monthly basis in 1870 but it was probably only a few years later, when the ‘Eastern Question’ flared up again, that it was increased to twice a month.75 The journey time was also being reduced. By the early 1870s improvements in rail and steamship services had usually made it possible for a messenger to do the trip in two weeks or less – typically via train to Marseilles and steamship to Constantinople on the outward journey, and steamer only as far as Brindisi on the homeward one.76 A few years later the time 70

HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Mins. of Ev., para. 981. HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Mins. of Ev., para. 1039. 72 Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914, p. 118. 73 HCPP (C. 2483), 1859: Memorandum [conveying the views of Lord Malmesbury to the Messengers], FO, 10 Dec. 1858. 74 HCPP (C. 2483), 1859: Circular to H.M.’s Ministers abroad, FO, 25 Sept. 1858. 75 HCPP (382), 25 July 1870: Mins. of Ev., paras. 1441, 1444. In 1876–7 an extra £650 compared with the previous year was estimated for Foreign Service Messengers that was wholly attributed to the ‘Constantinople Messenger’, HCPP (C. 47), 17 Feb. 1876, p. 4. 76 Sir Henry Elliot impressed on messengers the unreliability of the Brindisi route on the outward journey, although they probably preferred this, especially in winter, because it meant a greater proportion of the journey spent on the train. On the evidence of their claims for expenses, they eventually appear to have got the message, TNA, Elliot to Hammond, 3 Jan. 1872, FO391/22; Messenger Journeys: Memoranda of Service, Constantinople, 1869–81, FO366/264–5. 71

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was reduced further by use of a rail service all the way via Vienna and Bucharest to Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, whence it was just a short trip by steamer to Constantinople.77 This route was perfected in the following decade when in 1888 the ‘Orient Express’, which had been inaugurated five years earlier, was able to run directly through the Balkans to Constantinople. At this point it became possible for the ‘gentlemen’ from whom the Queen’s Messengers were recruited, such as Captain Philip Wynter, late of the Bengal Army, to complete his journey from London to the Ottoman capital in three to four days.78 The fortnightly run, which went by way of Paris, Stuttgart, Munich, Vienna, Belgrade, and Sofia, was one of only three fortnightly ‘fixed journeys’ that the messengers performed, the others being to Berlin and, in the following week, to St. Petersburg via Berlin.79 What documents did they bear with them to Constantinople? Pressed by the Select Committee in 1870 to explain what the messengers actually carried, Hammond had mentioned instructions from the foreign secretary that were too sensitive to be sent by other means.80 However, he had also laid particular emphasis on what came to be known as the ‘confidential print’, that is, copies of all the ‘secret and most confidential’ correspondence received in the Foreign Office and forwarded for their edification to the British ambassadors at ‘the great courts’, among which he numbered Constantinople. The confidential print had its origins in 1829 but had only really started to grow in size after 1850.81 What Hammond omitted to mention but was stressed when the same subject came up at the Ridley Commission in 1890 was that by this time the confidential print had become so voluminous – and 77 See, for example, TNA, Memorandum of Service of Major St. Aubyn Player, London to Constantinople and back, 31 July–19 August 1879, FO366/265. 78 Cookridge, Orient Express, pp. 86–7; Wynter, On the Queen’s Errands, pp. 220, 234; Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Constantinople, Brûsa, and the Troad, pp. 2–3. The first through express train from Paris to Constantinople arrived on the evening of 10 November 1888, The Times, 12 Nov. 1888. Under then current regulations, messengers were permitted to travel first class for journeys of over 150 miles. 79 HCPP (C. 6172-I), 1890: Appendix, p. 175. A ‘local service’ had been established from Calais to Paris. 80 In 1890 the FO’s chief clerk told the royal commission that letters from the foreign secretary also went more quickly by messenger than by ordinary post, first because no time had to be wasted on ciphering and deciphering them, and secondly because in any case the ‘messenger beats the post’, HCPP (C. 6172-I), 1890: Mins. of Ev., paras. 26653–5. 81 Roper, The Records of the Foreign Office, 1782–1968, p. 54.


so ‘horribly dangerous’ if intercepted that it should really be abolished, said Sir Charles Dilke82 – that there was no alternative but to send it by messenger. To have sent it by ordinary post, said the permanent under-secretary, then Sir Philip Currie, would have required it all to be ciphered, which would have been ‘an endless labour’.83 For his own part, Sir Francis Alston, the long-serving chief clerk in the Foreign Office, came close to saying that carrying the confidential print was by this time the only reason for retaining messengers.84 Needless to say, with the Ottoman Empire the pivot on which turned so much of Europe’s international relations in the late nineteenth century, the ambassador at Constantinople relied very much on the confidential print, and so on the messengers who delivered it every fortnight. Could he soon rely on messages relayed by the recently invented telephone as well? Not until a request was made in October 1912 by the ambassador, then Sir Gerard Lowther, did the Foreign Office authorize expenditure on the installation of telephones at the embassy houses in Pera and Therapia.85 The work was to be done by the Constantinople Telephone Company, a British-owned concern recently granted a long-term monopoly by the Turkish government to provide a service for the city and its suburbs.86 However, the company’s progress was slowed by the outbreak of war with Italy and then with the Balkan League, and it was February 1914 before the exchanges could be opened.87 It was May before Lowther’s successor, Sir Louis Mallet, was able to sign a contract for a connection to the embassy buildings. After this the work was quickly completed but the installation was expensive and the cost of calls high. Telephones were placed only in the ambassador’s study, the chancery, and the dragomanate.88 The Foreign Office had acquired its own telephone system a little under a decade earlier89 but it was to be many years before it could speak directly by this means to the ambassador at Constantinople.

82

HCPP (C. 6172-I), 1890: Mins. of Ev., para. 29133. Dilke was a radical Liberal member of the House of Commons and had been a junior FO minister in the early 1880s. 83 HCPP (C. 6172-I), 1890: Mins. of Ev., paras. 26316–17. 84 HCPP (C. 6172-I), 1890: Mins. of Ev., para. 26652. 85 TNA, Lowther to Grey, 29 Oct. and FO to Lowther, 13 Nov. 1912, FO371/1520. 86 The Times, 5 Mar. 1925; Southard, American Industry in Europe, pp. 52–3. 87 The Times, 24 Apr. 1913, 8 May 1914. 88 TNA, Mallet to Grey, 15 May 1914, FO371/2134. 89 From Quills to Computers, p. 10.

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Meanwhile, with the outbreak of war between Britain and Turkey, the Constantinople Telephone Company’s operation was taken over by the Turkish government in March 1915 and not returned to it until April 1919.90 By the beginning of the twentieth century, then, the communications of the British embassy in Constantinople with London were in very good condition. The telegraph connection was working well and had come down in price. The messenger service had been restored to its earlier frequency and benefited from faster, more comfortable, and more secure forms of transport. For the same reasons, the ordinary post was also much improved: in 1909 the approximate time taken for a letter to be carried from London to Constantinople was only 3 days and 18 hours.91 Moreover communication by telephone seemed at least to be at hand.

90 91

The Times, 23 Sept. 1919. Lloyd’s Calendar 1910, p. 248.

10 Wartime Embassies

An important reason why the resident embassy has survived is that it can be turned to many different purposes. This can be seen with particular clarity in wartime. But wartime embassies can find themselves in a number of different situations. An embassy may represent a belligerent and find itself in an enemy state, allied front-line state, or important neutral state. On the other hand, it may represent a neutral and have to function in a belligerent state. How does its situation affect its priorities and the peculiar handicaps under which it labours? What changes in the staffing and conduct of embassies are made by war, and what are the implications of these changes for their diplomatic component? These are the main issues considered in this essay, in the light chiefly of the experience of British, American, and Indian embassies.

War work In short wars, such as the Suez War in early November 1956, it tends to be only the embassies of the belligerents in each other’s capitals that feel the real impact of the fighting. In longer wars – including those in which brief periods of combat are interrupted by a long interval of ‘phoney war’, as in the Gulf War in 1990–1 – many more embassies will feel the consequences of the conflict. All embassies touched by war see their priorities change and their workload increase. Military intelligence gathering is always a much higher priority, not least in the case of the embassies of neutral states, which in time of war have as much to worry about as belligerents, and sometimes more. Political work also becomes more important because – with lives and territory at stake and so the survival of regimes and even the independence of states – it becomes vital to have a clear grasp of 165

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the intentions and stability of friends as well as enemies, to nurture friendly alliances, and undermine hostile ones. An aspect of political work is propaganda, in this context sometimes called political warfare. With the gloves off in war, the commencement of hostilities always sees belligerent embassies devote more time and resources to this activity (including the provision of feedback on the local reception of broadcast propaganda1). Neutral embassies have to look to their propaganda in wartime as well because their countries invariably get a bad press in belligerent states.2 Until World War II propaganda work was undertaken only reluctantly by diplomats, but since then they have been converts and more likely to complain of the poor supply of materials.3 They have been reconciled to it by the invincibility of television and embraced propaganda’s new and more palatable label, ‘public diplomacy’. Other embassy functions – certain kinds of economic, commercial, and cultural work, for example – tend to be discounted in wartime, and in or near the war zone non-essential staff and dependents are usually sent home. The drastic reduction in the number of tasks is so much the greater if the embassies are distracted by logistical problems caused by the need to follow a retreating government.4 There is, however, one other task that cannot be discounted: consular work. This always becomes a great – sometimes the greatest – priority in wartime, especially if there is a large expatriate community to look out for; this is true even in the case of a belligerent embassy in an enemy state, when the doomed mission may have only hours to provide shelter to those of its nationals who can reach its gates. Belligerent embassies in neutral states must look to the needs of their internees, of whom there are always a few and often many.5 Among those away from home, war induces a degree of apprehension that can quickly turn to panic. For example, on 15 June 1940, with France about to capitulate to the Germans, Oliver Harvey, number two at the British embassy – then located in the consulate in Bordeaux, whence it had followed Paul Reynaud’s retreating government from Paris – wrote in his diary: We are working at Consulate offices in considerable difficulties, stairs and passages packed with refugees clamouring for visas and 1

Duggan, Herr Hempel at the German Legation in Dublin, pp. 81–2. The large Swedish legation in London had no press attaché until 1939, and the Spanish embassy had none until 1941 – when it acquired two, FO List. 3 Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, pp. 193–7; Freeman interview. 4 Noble, Embassy at War, p. 141. 5 Duggan, Herr Hempel at the German Legation in Dublin, p. 216. 2

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evacuation. [Two days later he continued …] A hellish day. All day long the Consulate office is besieged by wretched British subjects and refugees fleeing from the terror to come. The stairs were almost stormed … I never saw so much human anguish.6 To avoid such scenes, if possible, well-run embassies make plans for the evacuation of their nationals and – today with the help of warden networks – help to organize this if it should prove necessary. In the meantime, they seek to reassure their communities about their safety, especially if there should be pressure from a host government to retain key workers among them for as long as possible – and try to keep their advice to expatriates in step with that of other embassies, since ‘a premature move by one could start a chain reaction by others’.7 The burden of consular work might also be increased by the need to assist refugees – non-nationals as well as nationals – arriving from neighbouring countries where fighting is already in progress, particularly if there is a fear that it will escalate in ferocity and spread.8 The scenes at the British embassy in Bordeaux in 1940 were as nothing compared to those around the small Indian embassy in Amman after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait at the beginning of August 1990. With the growing fear of a massive confrontation between the forces of Saddam Hussein and those of the UN coalition being marshalled against them, and the clear risk that Saddam would resort to chemical and biological weapons, huge numbers of the 180,000 Indian workers in Kuwait and 10,000 in Iraq began to find their way to the embassy. Hampered by inflexible bureaucratic procedures and with little in the way of reinforcements from Delhi, the mission was overwhelmed. According to the ambassador, K. Gajendra Singh: They [his staff] were working 14 to 18 hours every day, many even when ill and down with fever. The main stress was on patience against all provocation from the refugees, who, while they had been silent while in Kuwait or Iraq, started shouting and abusing once they saw Indian embassy personnel. As the majority of the refugees were from Kerala in India, four officers who had come to assist us had to pretend that they did not understand the abuses showered 6 Harvey (ed.), The Diplomatic Diaries, p. 390. On the similar experience of the US embassy in Paris, see Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, p. 60. 7 Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 111, and generally pp. 59, Chs 6 and 12; Freeman interview. 8 Selby, Diplomatic Twilight, 1930–1940, pp. 118–20.

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on them in Malyali. Some of our personnel were even assaulted and embassy cars stoned by tired and jittery Indian refugees. On many occasions the Jordan police had to step in.9 So much for what tend to be priorities for all embassies touched by war: military intelligence, political (including propaganda), and consular work. In other regards, however, they differ according to their circumstances. Belligerent embassies in allied front-line states The embassies of states allied to front-line belligerents, particularly if they have a major military force in the country, as notably in the case of the US embassies in Seoul during the Korean War and Saigon in the Vietnam War, and the Coalition embassies in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in 1990–1, are unusual in a number of regards. The most distinctive task for such embassies is to serve as political advisers to the senior officers commanding their own forces. This means advice on how to conduct themselves with the host government, which is particularly important if there are profound cultural differences between them; how to integrate command of their forces with those of any other ally present in the country; and how governments adjacent to the theatre of war and even further afield are likely to react to significant military moves.10 Another major task for embassies in this situation is to sustain the morale of their ally when things are going badly on the military front or when it is being confused by mixed signals from home. Morale is sustained by means of personal encouragement of political and military leaders as well as by propaganda.11 If they are prudent, these embassies will also want to gather their own intelligence on the progress of the fighting and not rely for this entirely on the military. Military developments have political implications and there are, in any case, ‘borderline areas between military reporting and political reporting’.12 Negotiations with the host government also sharpen in focus, characteristically seeking agreement on points of military entry, location of bases, the status (legal and operational) of their forces,13 arms supplies, and so on. 9

Singh, ‘Ambassador’s Journal’. Noble, Embassy at War, pp. 142–4, 216–17; Freeman interview; Munro, An Embassy at War, pp. 87, 95–103, 170. 11 Noble, Embassy at War, p. 216; Freeman interview; Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 303. 12 Noble, Embassy at War, p. 92; see also pp. 165–6. 13 Munro, An Embassy at War, pp. 172–3, 260–1. In the Gulf War, the Status of Forces agreement signed between the United States and Saudi Arabia provided that all US military personnel in the kingdom would be assigned as ‘technical 10


If they have any time left over, the ambassadors of states allied to frontline belligerents usually give thought to post-war affairs, especially if ‘war aims’ have not been clearly formulated by politicians. Already in February 1942, Lord Halifax, British ambassador in Washington, ‘realised it was the peace that was the prize and that setting the context for that time was his main effort’.14 In the Gulf War, where little beyond the liberation of Kuwait had been agreed because of the risk that discussion of other war aims would jeopardize the fragile anti-Saddam coalition, both the US and UK posts at Riyadh brooded on such questions as improved regional security arrangements (including the pre-positioning of US equipment), payments for military services rendered, and lucrative contracts for companies from home in reconstruction activity.15 Not that what the US ambassador did under this heading elicited any response from Washington, even on the manner in which the war should be terminated. Belligerent embassies in neutral states Belligerent embassies in neutral states do not usually find their work skewed in a distinctive manner unless their hosts are close to the front line or are for some other reason of strategic importance to both sides. Neutrals in such positions included Sweden, Ireland, Turkey, Portugal (especially its colony of Mozambique), and – until December 1941 – the United States during World War II; Cambodia, until the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk in 1970, in the Vietnam War; and Jordan in the first Gulf War. In neutral states such as these, embassies and any consular posts subordinate to them tend to give exceptional priority to military espionage and special operations, and so must provide shelter to intelligence officers and others working under cover.16 In a neutral state, these are the only means by which military intelligence can be gathered (other

staff of the embassy’. Since their total came to reach over half a million, this made the US embassy in Riyadh without doubt the largest embassy in history, Freeman interview. 14 Kennedy, ‘Lord Halifax’, p. 117. 15 Freeman interview; Munro, An Embassy at War, pp. 255, 266, 280, 288–98. 16 Hagglof, Diplomat, p. 169; Wylie, ‘SOE and the neutrals’, p. 167; Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, pp. 180–93; Hyde, The Quiet Canadian; Harrison, ‘On secret service for the Duce’. The German legation in Dublin during World War II was indirectly involved in espionage and harboured a clandestine radio which was used occasionally in the early years of the war to send weather reports of some military value to Berlin (it was surrendered at the end of 1943); after America’s own entry into the war, the US legation was less reticent, O’Halpin, Spying on Ireland, pp. 169–71, 198–200, 245–6, 276.

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than by technical means), and subversion and sabotage conducted. The presence in the neutral capital of diplomatic missions of all belligerents also makes such cities perfect theatres for strategic deception,17 and generally gives a keen edge to their work. Sir Victor Mallet, British minister in Sweden during World War II, was said to look back ‘with particular pleasure to his years in Stockholm when he was playing political poker with the Germans’.18 The policy which drives the work of belligerent embassies in neutral states also has a characteristic focus. This is at least to keep the receiving state strictly neutral, better still to induce it to adopt a stance of benevolent neutrality – and best of all to enter the war on the side of the sending state if and when circumstances are propitious.19 This is a particularly delicate task because heavy pressure on a neutral, typically economic but possibly including threats to exclude consideration of its interests in any peace settlement, may easily have the opposite of the intended consequence, especially if the war is going badly for the sending state and the neutral needs to be more nervous of the other side. Thus a more than usually solicitous attitude towards its situation by the belligerent embassy might be required, and so in turn expose its staff to the charge of localitis. This was the reputation acquired in some degree by the British embassy in Ankara during World War II and by the US embassy in Amman during the Gulf War. Indeed, Chas Freeman, the US ambassador in Riyadh during this conflict remarked afterwards – tongue rather obviously in cheek – that [o]ur embassy in Amman appeared to endorse Jordan’s special pleading [about the embargo against Iraq] to such an extent that I considered persuading the United States Navy to refrain from air strikes on our embassy there to be one of my greater achievements.20

17

On the key role of the British legation in Stockholm in ‘Operation Graffham’, designed to deceive the Germans into believing that steps were being taken to enlist the cooperation of Sweden in an attack on northern Norway in the spring of 1944, see Howard, British Intelligence in the Second World War, pp. 117–18; on World War II Dublin as an ideal centre for whispering campaigns, see O’Halpin, Spying on Ireland, pp. 144–9, 209–13. 18 The Times, 23 May 1969. 19 On Stockholm: Howard, Theatre of Life, Chs 9–12; Churchill, The Second World War, pp. 480–1; and Hagglof, Diplomat, Chs 8–17. On Ankara: Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, pp. 171–7, 193–7. On Dublin: Duggan, Herr Hempel at the German Legation in Dublin. 20 Freeman interview.


Neutral embassies in belligerent states Whereas belligerent embassies tend to find the range of their tasks narrowed, the embassy of a neutral in a belligerent state is likely to have the opposite experience, particularly if it has been agreed that it should serve as a protecting power. As George Kennan, administrative officer in the US embassy in Berlin in the opening phase of World War II, wrote afterwards: The state of war was already adding, as it always does, innumerable burdens and complications to the work of a neutral diplomatic mission. Among other things we were taking over the interests of France and Great Britain: the protection of their nationals, their diplomatic property, their prisoners of war, and the tasks connected with the exchange of their official personnel. And in addition to this, there were many new problems affecting American interests themselves.21 It is perhaps some consolation for embassies in this position – at least if they represent weighty states – that they seem particularly well placed to acquire military intelligence. For the same reason that belligerent embassies in neutral states seek to win over their hosts, so belligerent states usually seek to win over the embassies of those states in their own capitals – or in capitals they have occupied. For example, Gerald Fitzmaurice, who was British acting consul-general in Tripoli during much of the Italo-Turkish War in 1911–12, in which Britain was neutral, moved around with no difficulty and sent numerous detailed reports to the Foreign Office on the progress of the fighting.22 In the case of the US embassy in Paris in 1940, the German occupying forces sought to charm its officers by being ‘unexpectedly communicative about their accomplishments and intentions’.23 Previously the Germans had also been amenable to negotiation of an agreement – to which the US and Swiss missions had contributed – that Paris should be undefended and thereby saved from destruction.24 The major Swedish legation in Berlin, which had about 100 personnel and contacts with resistance groups as well as continuing negotiations with Nazi ministers over vital supplies and transit to occupied Norway, also appears to have had little difficulty in obtaining valuable intelligence.25 21

Kennan, Memoirs, p. 105. Berridge, Gerald Fitzmaurice, pp. 169–71. 23 Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, pp. 65–7. 24 Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, pp. 61–2, 69. 25 Hagglof, Diplomat, pp. 161, 170, 184, 190. 22

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Dangers and obstacles War presents novel obstacles and sometimes severe dangers to all embassies touched by it. Even in neutral states the embassies of belligerents find their information-gathering and potential for putting out peace-feelers hindered by the custom prohibiting contact between enemy missions,26 as perhaps also – in a world war – by the severe reduction in the number of social events attended by the diplomatic corps, such engagements not being thought seemly when so many are dying at the front. As Esme Howard, British minister at Stockholm during World War I, put it: Owing to the War no reception was held at Court during 1914 or indeed for two years more, so that Isa [Howard’s wife] had no opportunity of meeting the King till three years after her arrival at Stockholm. A very minor matter this was in such a universal earthquake as the World War, but it seriously restricted our contacts with Stockholm society and to that extent perhaps our general usefulness. The stress of the War practically and very properly put an end to all ordinary social gaieties. In fact, for the first two years of the War no dinner parties of a formal kind were given at all.27 However, it is embassies on enemy territory and embassies in allied frontline states that suffer most practical handicaps. In the former case, particularly if diplomatic relations have been severed as a prelude to war, as was traditionally the case, or are broken very shortly afterwards,28 these handicaps are usually terminal – and can have serious consequences for their staffs. After all, the embassy is in enemy territory and entirely at the mercy of its hostile government and aroused populace. Belligerent embassies in enemy states Under diplomatic law, the embassies of belligerents have long been entitled to expect a prompt, safe, and dignified departure for home.29 26

Howard, Theatre of Life, pp. 214, 268. Howard, Theatre of Life, p. 208. Murphy noted the same thing in Switzerland during World War I, Diplomat Among Warriors, p. 23. Friendly embassies in frontline states have less time for the ‘social circuit’ even if they had the inclination to participate, Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 127. 28 Denza, Diplomatic Law, p. 485. 29 VCDR, arts. 39, 44 and 45(a); Denza, Diplomatic Law, pp. 434–5, 481. This was not always the case in the Ottoman Empire, especially during the period of 27


On the outbreak of World War I, states still generally played by the book, sometimes providing special trains for departing ambassadors and their staffs and showing them the usual courtesies.30 On the outbreak of World War II, some embassies still enjoyed this treatment. It was accorded without difficulty to Sir Nevile Henderson, British ambassador in Berlin, as also to Dr Theodor Kordt, the German chargé d’affaires in London; and the departures for home of Sir Percy Loraine, the British ambassador in Rome, and Signor Giuseppe Bastianini, the Italian ambassador in London, were delayed by only about a week.31 Even the departure of the German ambassador in Moscow at the time of Hitler’s ‘surprise’ attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, Count Werner von Schulenburg, was delayed by little longer, despite the evil reputation for the treatment of diplomats Stalin’s regime has since acquired;32 and the departure of Vladimir Dekanozov, the Soviet dictator’s own ambassador in Berlin, was similarly quite prompt. It suited both sides to permit the neutral Swedes (who assumed protection of Soviet interests in Germany) to begin almost at once the brokering of an agreement on a simultaneous exchange via Turkey, and scarce shipping was not needed to effect it.33 In other circumstance, such exchanges did not prove so easy to arrange. The fact that formal ‘exchanges’ of diplomatic and consular officers had to be negotiated via protecting powers after the outbreak of World War II was a sign of the times. Previously, it had been more or less unthinkable that a belligerent power would refuse promptly to

‘unilateral diplomacy’; see Berridge, ‘Diplomatic integration with Europe before Selim III’. 30 Frey and Frey, The History of Diplomatic Immunity, pp. 422–4. However, the departing French ambassador complained bitterly of the want of courtesies shown him by the Germans, Rumbold, The War Crisis in Berlin, pp. 314–15. 31 TNA, Admiralty mins. 12–21 June 1940, ADM199/1294. See also Henderson, Failure of a Mission, pp. 290–1; Waterfield, Professional Diplomat, pp. 276–7; Grafftey-Smith, Bright Levant, pp. 209–10. 32 Frey and Frey, The History of Diplomatic Immunity, p. 423. 33 The exchange took place on 18 July, when Schulenburg’s party was handed over to the Turkish authorities at Leninakan (modern-day Gyumri, in Armenia) and Dekanozov’s was handed over to them at Svilengrad in Bulgaria, just across the border from Edirne. On this, see Koblyakov, ‘On the way home from Berlin’ (a valuable source for which I am indebted to Professor Geoffrey Roberts), and The Times, 24 July 1941. The disposition of the Soviet foreign minister, Molotov, to play substantially by the rules may have been encouraged by the fact that the German ambassador had warned him of Hitler’s treachery, Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, pp. 309–15.

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release its enemies’ diplomats. By World War II, however, ideology and ethnic animosities had both poisoned international relations, and the underpinning of cross-national aristocratic solidarity in diplomatic circles had also been weakened. The result was that trust between the Axis powers and their rivals had been discounted to such a degree that it was more common for enemy diplomatic and consular officials and their families to be interned until exchanges in which both sides could have confidence were negotiated via third parties. Most diplomatic and consular officials had to wait for around half a year before being allowed to return home, and some for considerably longer.34 Among the latter was the large British party gathered together by Germany from across occupied Europe, and the smaller party of German consular officials and their families arrested by the British in neutral Iceland following its precautionary occupation in May 1940. It was the end of September 1941 before what proved to be only the first instalment of exchanges of members of these two groups – among which numbered the British ambassador in Brussels, Sir Lancelot Oliphant, and the German consulgeneral in Reykjavik, Werner Gerlach – was achieved.35 What tended to extend the period of internment, particularly in the case of Allied diplomats in Japan and Japanese diplomats in Britain and the US, were the time-consuming tasks of concerting positions with allies and negotiating the exchange via third parties. The sensitive points on which agreement needed to be found were seemingly endless: markings on the exchange vessels, routes and ports of call, date and place of exchange, guarantors, and, above all, who was to be on the passenger lists. In light of ever-urgent military demands, the difficulty of finding suitable ships to carry the returning diplomats was also huge, as was securing safe conducts for them confirmed by acknowledgements from warships and submarines active on the agreed routes (these sometimes had to be done without). It was also not always politic to bring the diplomats out quickly and treat the evacuation of ‘non-official’ nationals as a secondary priority – so the former had to wait for the 34

Frey and Frey, The History of Diplomatic Immunity, pp. 423–5; Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 135–40; Heinrichs, American Ambassador, pp. 358–62. Compare Roberts, Satow’s Diplomatic Practice, 15.29, where, after stating how diplomats should be treated ‘even in case of armed conflict’, it is remarked only that ‘These facilities for departure were uniformly granted in many States in Europe on the outbreak of the Second World War’. The best that can be said of this guarded sentence is that it is true as far as it goes. 35 Oliphant, An Ambassador in Bonds; TNA – FO371/26375 and FO371/29307 [Annual Report for Iceland for 1940]; The Times, 25 Sept. 1941.


latter, who were often scattered far and wide, or even be put under pressure to give way to them (discussed later). It was something of a miracle that it was only nine months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 before the diplomats and many non-officials of Britain and America and their allies were exchanged with those of Japan and Siam, in the neutral port of Lourenço Marques.36 While waiting for their exchange to be agreed, some of the interned diplomats were effectively placed under house arrest in their own compounds, which was the fate of the American embassy in Tokyo, headed by Joseph Grew.37 More often, though, the diplomats were removed from the capital and confined, sometimes with other expatriates, in relatively commodious but secluded buildings in the provinces – here a hotel, there a sanatorium. On his release, Oliphant was on the whole very complimentary about his treatment by the Germans, and it was probably for this reason that Central Department in the Foreign Office was anxious to restrict very severely distribution of his report.38 After Pearl Harbour, Axis diplomats in the United States were corralled in numerous comfortable hotels in the Appalachian Mountains, and in late 1942 the staff of the embassy of Vichy France was deposited in the equally comfortable Hotel Hershey in Pennsylvania. Japanese diplomats in the United States had a far easier war than Japanese-Americans.39 In Tokyo, Grew and his staff were ‘never subjected to brutality, serious deprivation, or gross indignity’.40 Sometimes, diplomats interned in World War II were if anything more angry with their own governments than with their captors. A cold contempt for the wartime State Department impregnates the pages of the memoirs of George Kennan, who was the administrative officer at the US embassy in Berlin in December 1941 when it was despatched to a hotel on the outskirts of Bad Nauheim, near Frankfurt. Why was he so angry with the State Department? First, it ignored them until the end of April, although it could easily have communicated with them via 36 The extensive British files on this subject are located in TNA: ADM199/1294, FO371/31739 and WO208/1478. On Lourenço Marques at the time, see the typically instructive and entertaining memoir of the British SIS agent who was posted there, Malcolm Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time, Ch. 3; and Harrison, ‘On secret service for the Duce’. 37 Heinrichs, American Ambassador, pp. 358–9. 38 TNA, min. of Makins, 2 Jan. 1942, FO371/26375. 39 ‘World War II: The Vichy Internment at the Hotel Hershey’ [www accessed 7 Dec. 2009]. 40 Heinrichs, American Ambassador, p. 359.

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the Swiss embassy. Second, when the department did finally send a telegram, this was merely to inform the staff of the comptroller-general’s decision (which it was clearly ‘disinclined to challenge’) that they would not be paid for the period of their confinement because they had not been ‘working’. Third, putting the need to appease Congress before the interests of its own employees, it then informed them that – contrary to the initial plan – half of the staff were to be left in German custody in order to free up space for Jewish refugees on the exchange vessel. Kennan and the chargé d’affaires, Leland Morris, managed to kill these proposals but the former’s memory of them clearly did not fade. He was also embittered by the cowardly attitude of the State Department to diplomats in relation to the draft. They were specifically told that they were needed more in their present occupation than in the armed forces. However, fearing congressional criticism, it ducked the responsibility of directly seeking deferment on their behalf from the draft boards. In this connection Kennan also notes that ‘The American press repeatedly carried articles charging them, sometimes individually and by name, with being draft dodgers’. This was the more galling, he thought, because ‘in not a few cases the dangers and hardships of work in the Foreign Service in wartime proved little if any smaller than those to which a great many men in the armed services were subjected’.41 Even when the departure of the personnel of an embassy is expected to be facilitated on its closure, heavy restrictions are often placed on it in the weeks before this is anticipated. Staff numbers are run down not only on the initiative of the embassy because of safety fears but also on that of the receiving state because it is apprehensive about what a fully staffed embassy (especially its service attachés) might get up to. During these weeks embassies are also watched more closely, staff movements are often severely restricted, and their communications are usually cut. This sort of thing happened to the British and American embassies in Berlin in September 1939 and December 1941 respectively, to the British embassy in Cairo at the start of the Suez War in November 1956, and to the embassies on each side of the line-up in the impending Gulf War in late 1990 and the first days of 1991.42 The expulsion of seven diplomats 41 Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 139–41. On Bad Nauheim, see also Wolter, POW Baseball in World War II, Ch. 8 [www]. 42 Henderson, Failure of a Mission, p. 285; Kennan, Memoirs, p. 135; Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution, p. 117; New York Times, 25 Jan. 1991; HCPP (143-I), 9 July 1991, pp. 16–25. However, the British embassy in Kuwait was able to maintain ‘an erratic radio voice-link’ with the British embassy in Riyadh, Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 121, and some others probably had similar facilities.


and a security guard from the Iraqi embassy in London on 3 January was prompted by ‘near-panic’ on the part of the British government that chemical or biological weapons might have been smuggled into the mission.43 Nevertheless the state ‘barbarism’ towards diplomats directly touched by war, that seemed to some to be an unstoppable trend by the middle of the twentieth century,44 appears thereafter to have been in some degree, albeit slowly, reversed. This is probably because the conditions of the Cold War underlined the value of embassies for all of the major powers – and thus the continuing need for reciprocity of treatment; and also because the new states were by stages absorbed into the world diplomatic system, not least by participation in the codification of the customary law of diplomacy (including consular work) at the turn of the 1960s. In the new conditions, moreover, states at serious odds normally fought shy of formally ‘declaring war’ on each other, which made it easier to remain in diplomatic relations and even to keep embassies (and subordinate posts) in place after fighting – or ‘armed conflict’ as it was now more usually known – had broken out. This enlightened response began to be seen at least for a short period at the start of a conflict and sometimes even for its duration – always provided there were reasonable assurances of the safety of the staff.45 In its development the government of India has been rightly credited with playing the leading role.46 During the savage but limited Sino-Indian border war from 20 October until 21 November 1962 the Chinese embassy in Delhi47 was permitted to remain open, even though its propaganda activities had led to angry opposition demands in the Indian parliament for its closure before the fighting started and India’s own embassy in Peking had for some time been subject to restrictions. This embassy, which had no Chinese speakers at the time but did have a special esprit de corps, 43

Urban, UK Eyes Alpha, p. 167; BBC Home, ‘On this Day, 1950–2005: 3 January’ [www]. Subsequently, it was found to contain only conventional small arms and ammunition, probably for use against opponents of Saddam resident in Britain, The Times, 9 June 2005. 44 Frey and Frey, The History of Diplomatic Immunity, p. 423. 45 Gore-Booth (ed.), Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice, p. 155; Dembinski, The Modern Law of Diplomacy, p. 96; Denza, Diplomatic Law, pp. 477, 485. 46 Gore-Booth, Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice, p. 190. 47 Unusually for a Chinese embassy, this mission had already been granted a major role in shaping the bilateral relationship in which it was planted, Xiaohong Liu, Chinese Ambassadors, p. 133.

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also remained in operation throughout the war. Its effectiveness – such as it was – was assisted by the unusually good personal relations that the chargé d’affaires, P. K. Bannerjee, had with a number of prominent Chinese, including – exceptionally for a diplomat of his rank – the premier, Zhou en-lai.48 Nevertheless its telecommunication links with Delhi were ‘snapped’49 and Nehru and Zhou En-lai’s communications during the war were conducted by letter. The moral of this episode seems to be that the main advantage of keeping embassies in place during an armed conflict is not that they can do much while it is going on (either of a political or consular nature) but that they can get relations off to a flying start from the moment a ceasefire begins.50 During the short Indo-Pakistan wars in August–September 1965 and December 1971 the same surface pattern was observable. Perhaps it was not entirely coincidental, either, that in 1965 Gopalaswami Parthasarathi, the Indian high commissioner in Karachi,51 had been in charge of the Indian embassy in Peking prior to his recall in 1961; and that Arshad Husain, in charge of the Pakistan high commission in Delhi – which occupied a building described by a contemporary as ‘half

48 Ambassadors had been recalled by both sides some time before the war broke out and during the conflict – and for many years afterwards – the missions were headed by counsellors acting as chargé d’affaires. On the wartime embassies, see Damodaran, ‘Diary of an old China hand’ and Rana, ‘A young Indian diplomat in China in the 1960s and 1970s’; The Times, 22 and 23 May, 7 Dec. 1962; Gore-Booth, Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice, p. 190; Bhutani, Clash of Political Cultures, pp. 128–32. 49 Bhutani, Clash of Political Cultures, pp. 183, 191–2. 50 However, the thinking in these circumstances of the British ambassador in Cairo during the Suez War in 1956 appears to have been directed more to the possibilities they held out for subversion than preparing for peace. The Egyptians had announced a break in diplomatic relations with Britain on 1 November, only hours after the start of the conflict, but the hard core of the British embassy did not depart the country until 10 November – three days after the ceasefire. Had they wished to make contact with the Egyptian government’s domestic opponents during this critical period, said the ambassador afterwards, ‘this would not have been difficult’, their confinement notwithstanding, Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution, p. 123. 51 J. K. Galbraith, at the time US ambassador in Delhi, had a long talk with Parthasarathi before he left for Karachi and recorded in his diary that he was ‘a reasonable man who will work for Indian-Pakistani reconciliation’, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 383. He was still in Karachi in 1965 because the Pakistan foreign ministry – with the diplomatic missions in its wake – did not move to the new capital of Islamabad until after the war, in November, The Times, 26 Feb. 1966.


mosque, half tomb, and all folly’52 – was a first cousin of Azim Husain, India’s ambassador to Switzerland.53 Nevertheless below the surface the picture was somewhat different from that evident in the Sino-Indian conflict in 1962; there were also significant variations between the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistan wars.54 As soon as hostilities commenced in both conflicts, the missions on both sides (including consular posts) had their telephone links cut, all staff and their families were in effect placed under ‘house arrest’, and no unauthorized visitors were permitted. In neither case were diplomatic relations simultaneously severed. However, as early as 6 December 1971, only a few days after the second war broke out on 3 December (and was publicly declared on the day after55), Pakistan did formally sever diplomatic relations with India, ostensibly because of the latter’s recognition of the breakaway state of Bangladesh earlier in the day.56 In these circumstances the wartime missions of neither state was able to do any political or consular business. In fact, in 1971 the only reason they remained was that trust between the Indian and Pakistan governments was at such a discount that neither party would permit the departure of mission staff from its own territory until – as in World War II – it had cast-iron guarantees that its own diplomats would be returned safely at the same time; and, following Swiss intervention, they were ‘exchanged’ very shortly after the fighting stopped.57 On the other hand, in 1965 – when India and Pakistan remained in diplomatic relations throughout the fighting – the wartime diplomats were not repatriated after the war and so it seems reasonable to infer that their experience would have been useful in preparing the ground for the post-war negotiation of the Indo-Pakistani agreement on the exchange of internees that bore fruit as early as mid-December 1965.58 In 1965, if not in 1971, keeping missions in place seems to have signalled a determination to keep the fighting limited. Where India led others have followed. The US-led coalition began its bid to drive the forces of Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait with a massive 52

The Times, 26 Feb. 1966. The Times, 26 Apr. 1968. 54 Cf. Denza, Diplomatic Law, p. 485. 55 The Times, 4 Dec. 1971; private information. 56 The Times, 7 Dec. 1971; Dembinski, The Modern Law of Diplomacy, p. 96; and information kindly supplied by Kamal N. Bakshi, India’s assistant high commissioner in Karachi during the 1971 conflict. 57 Information kindly supplied by Kamal N. Bakshi. 58 The Times, 28 Oct., 5 Nov. and 20 Dec. 1965. 53

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aerial bombardment of Iraq in the early hours of 17 January 1991. However, although the US and other Western embassies in Baghdad were closed shortly before the attack, Iraq was determined to keep its own embassies in their capitals open as long as possible.59 As late as 24 January it even sought the permission of the British government to appoint a new ambassador. This was declined by John Major’s government but the Iraqi embassy in London remained open until the first week of February, when Saddam broke relations with Britain.60 Other Iraqi embassies in coalition states also remained open until early February, and diplomatic relations between the United States and Iraq were not severed – also on the initiative of Baghdad – until 9 February. Dr Abdul Razzak Al-Hashimi, Iraq’s most senior diplomat at a foreign posting, did not leave his embassy in Paris until 18 February, barely a week before the start of the ground war.61 There is no doubt that the propaganda activities of its embassies was believed to be of enormous value by Saddam Hussein’s government in January–February 1991 (his ambassadors were constantly to be seen making his case on television sets), and was the main reason why they were kept open for so long.62 Embassies in allied front-line states Embassies in allied front-line states, especially if they represent major supporters of the regimes at the sharp end of the fighting, and whether the sending states are themselves technically at war or not, can find themselves facing dangers and dilemmas which – if not so politically terminal – are even more acute than those experienced by embassies on enemy territory. This is always true if the enemy is supported by wellarmed and numerous insurgents in the receiving state. Such embassies, quite apart from occasionally becoming military targets and having to take measures to protect themselves that may to some degree compromise their diplomatic role,63 sometimes face the prospect of having to shift their location if and when the government to which they are accredited is forced to move by the threat of losing its capital. This confronts embassies with a very difficult dilemma: stay put and not only 59 ‘For tactical reasons the FCO did not go for a formal breach in relations [at the time the British embassy in Baghdad was closed], and left the onus to do this on the Iraqis’, Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 228. 60 Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 283. 61 The New York Times, 25 and 30 Jan. 1991; The Seattle Times, 19 Feb. 1991; US Dept. of State (Office of the Historian), A Guide …: Iraq [www]. 62 Taylor, War and the Media, pp. 97–8, 106–7. 63 Shifting to the suburbs of the capital, restricting visitors etc.


lose contact with the government but also risk capture or leave with the government and encourage defeatism, invite the charge of abandoning their consular responsibilities to any nationals unable to escape the capital, and probably have to subsist in primitive conditions with poor communications, particularly if they have to move more than once.64 If the government decides to hang on in the capital to the bitter end, the embassy’s dilemma is not so different. In the space of only a few months after the outbreak of World War I, the British embassy in Paris followed the French government to Bordeaux and then back again to Paris; in World War II it followed it first to Tours and then once more – briefly – to Bordeaux.65 Following the North Korean attack on South Korea in June 1950, the US embassy in Seoul (close to the frontier) retreated by stages with the government to Pusan on the south-eastern corner of the peninsula; returned to Seoul after MacArthur’s successful counter-attack in late September; and then – following the Chinese entry into the war – back to Pusan in January 1951, where it remained until well after the ceasefire was finally agreed in 1953.66 The Chinese followed the Americans but the staff of the French and British legations – both of whose heads had consular as well as diplomatic responsibilities – both stayed in Seoul, where they were captured by the North Koreans and interned for three years near Pyongyang.67 64

Noble, Embassy at War, pp. 32–3, 169–73. Hamilton, Bertie of Thame, Ch. 13; Harvey (ed.), Diplomatic Diaries, pp. 384–5, 388–9. On the capitulation of France on 21 June 1940, the British embassy declined to follow the new government of Marshall Pétain to Vichy, where it finally settled, although diplomatic relations were not severed – at Vichy’s instigation – until the destruction of the French fleet at Oran on 13 July in order to prevent it falling into German hands. The embassy of the United States – which at this stage was still a neutral – initially remained in Paris, although an ‘advance embassy group’ headed by an ‘Interim Ambassador’ was sent after the retreating government. However, following the armistice, the rest of the US embassy – along with many others – removed to Vichy, Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors, pp. 61, 90. 66 Noble, Embassy at War. 67 However, the British minister, Captain Vyvyan Holt, ordered his first secretary, Sydney Faithful, to leave. Interned together with the small number of diplomats were some missionaries, The Observer war correspondent, Philip Dean, and George Blake, head of the SIS station, together with the latter’s assistant, Norman Owen, the last two having been working under cover in the British legation. Confirmation that the party was safe and well was not received for over a year, and its members were not released until March 1953. It was during his internment that Blake decided to transfer his loyalties to the Soviet Union while remaining in SIS, and so became one of the most notorious double agents to come to light during the Cold War, Blake, No Other Choice, pp. 111–52; Hoare, Embassies in the East, pp. 197–200; The Times, 10 Sept. 1951 and 30 July 1960 (Holt obit.); Noble, Embassy at War, pp. 39–40. 65

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More recent years have seen more of the same. In the Vietnam War the massive US embassy in Saigon was never forced to go walkabout but during the Tet offensive in January 1968 the Vietcong got into the chancery compound and the ambassador’s residence came under fire;68 eventually the mission had to be abandoned in dangerous and humiliating circumstances in April 1975.69 The Western embassies in Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion on 2 August 1990 also had a particularly hard time. Having announced the annexation of Kuwait a week later, and thus its new status as a province of Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s government further declared that ‘embassies’ in Kuwait City were no longer appropriate. Barbara Bodine, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Kuwait, summed up the alternatives faced by the embassies: ‘All diplomatic missions in Kuwait were given two weeks to either close, convert to consulates, or face being forced out, at gunpoint if necessary’.70 Furthermore, since any of their staff remaining after the deadline of 24 August would – in the Iraqi view – no longer be diplomatic officers, they would be liable to arrest and use as ‘human shields’ against the bombing of key installations, along with other Western hostages already being made to serve this purpose; meanwhile, they would be entitled to no special protection against popular hostility. In the event, the allied embassies were ordered to ignore the deadline in order to signify the refusal of the governments of the emerging UN Coalition to accept Iraq’s actions, and they found themselves under siege.71 Water, food supplies, electricity, and phone lines were all cut, and the missions were surrounded by Iraqi troops. The larger and better-resourced embassies were able to hang on for some time, and by various means – and varying degrees – to provide support to their nationals trapped (some in hiding) in the short-lived ‘province’, as well as symbolize resistance.

68

Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker, p. 195. According to the DCM at the time, this was a particularly delicate operation: huge numbers needed to be evacuated, so the consequences of panic could have been catastrophic; there was a fear that some elements in the ARVN, bitter at the prospect of being ‘deserted’, would attempt to obstruct the operation; and the possibility also had to be considered that a core element of the embassy should remain after the fall of Saigon, Lehmann interview. 70 Bodine, ‘Saddam’s siege of Embassy Kuwait’, p. 114. 71 Meanwhile, the Kuwaiti government had been re-established at Taif in Saudi Arabia, and some states – among them Britain, the US, and France – had attached diplomats to them as a further means ‘to give international recognition to the continuation in authority of the Kuwait government’, Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 69. 69


However, most were forced to give up by early October, and after the French and Canadian embassies pulled out at the end of the month only the American and British missions remained – the Americans having gained a lease of life by successfully digging a well. Balking at using force against them, the Iraq government permitted the last US embassy personnel to leave on 13 December after they judged their political and consular responsibilities to have been discharged – as indeed they had been.72 The British, who had been ‘surviving on tinned tuna fish and vegetables grown in a patch on the compound’, left at about the same time.73 It is notorious that most of the embassies in Baghdad and Kabul today are fortresses. It is also embassies located in allied front-line states – provided embassy security is good enough – that tend to suffer most from that handicap about which complaints from diplomats are most loudly heard: the sudden upsurge in the number of visitors from home. This did not begin with the arrival of the aeroplane. On the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, in which Britain was an important but as yet uncommitted ally of Japan, even remote Tokyo became a victim of this phenomenon.74 High-level visitors, it is true, are generally welcomed by the embassy. The arrival of such persons might weaken the authority of the ambassador in the eyes of the receiving state,75 but this risk is usually outweighed by their advantages. A visit by an able and influential defence minister, for example, such as the British minister, Tom King, to Saudi

72 Bodine, ‘Saddam’s siege of Embassy Kuwait’; see also HCPP (143-I), 9 July 1991: Mins. of Ev., 24 Oct. 1990, p. 16. 73 Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 213. 74 Nish, ‘British legations in Tokyo and Beijing during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905’, p. 30. On the general point, see also Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, pp. 397, 399, 429–31; Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker, pp. 179–80; and Munro, An Embassy at War, pp. 61, 100, 178, 190, 325. The embassies of belligerents in neutral states can face a similar problem if it is important to win over the neutral and both sending and receiving state are liberal democracies with no restraints on the operation of para-diplomats. This was the experience of the British embassy in Washington in the early days of World War I, when ‘a group of prominent English men of letters travelled to the United States to put the British case’, Neilson, ‘Sir Cecil Spring Rice and the United States, 1914–1917’, p. 71. This was not, however, the sort of problem experienced by the British embassy in neutral Turkey in World War II. 75 Wartime missions in Washington, which naturally attracts the most powerful visitors, are at particularly high risk in this regard, Neilson, ‘Sir Cecil Spring Rice and the United States, 1914–1917’, p. 79; Kennedy, ‘Lord Halifax’, pp. 116, 125.

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Arabia during the Gulf War in 1990–1,76 or by anyone with influence over the flow of military and other forms of assistance, will even be encouraged by an embassy. Such visits provide an opportunity to educate them on what needs to be done, and – because of the norm that ambassadors accompany high-level visitors in their calls on senior government figures – multiply the occasions on which the embassy has top-level access. Since visits of this sort usually flatter the receiving state, they also add to the warmth of the relationship – thereby bringing advantage to the embassy indirectly. Less welcome are visits from parliamentarians, para-diplomats and other ‘visiting firemen’, which consume embassy resources and staff time at precisely the juncture when they are under most pressure. Ten days after the outbreak of the Sino-Indian conflict in October 1962, J. K. Galbraith, the acerbic American ambassador in India who was trying to orchestrate a policy of quiet support for its government, noted in his journal: From all around the world, people seem to be converging on New Delhi and I foresee that I will spend considerable time in the next few days standing off help that I do not need. Today’s offering included a Marine Corps specialist on guerrilla warfare and a deluge of Congressional delegations for whom India has obviously become a place of interest and excitement.77 On the day that the ceasefire came into effect, 22 November, a special mission arrived from Washington that was so large that Galbraith recorded that ‘there doesn’t seem to be any way of arranging conferences with the Indians short of hiring a church’.78 Licking his wounds a few days later, he complained to his journal that [t]he arrival of a big Washington mission is worse than a war. The Harriman mission is far too large; all the bureaucratic divisions of the State Department plus Defense are represented and each man feels he must uphold his unit at every meeting. When a whole battalion descends on an Indian official, he naturally clams up. When you cut down the size of these visiting delegations, the excluded become angry, hurt or depressed.79 76

Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 161. Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 390; see also p. 399. 78 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 429. 79 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 430. 77


Matters were much the same – if not worse – for the US embassy in Riyadh during the Gulf War. In fact, ‘visitor overload’ was such a problem that Chas Freeman and the commander of the Coalition forces, General Norman Schwarzkopf, made a joint protest about it to Washington.80 Newspaper, radio, and television journalists present a special problem for embassies because of their ability to swing public opinion at home in the wrong direction, sow panic in an expatriate community, or arouse fury in the receiving state – or all of them at the same time.81 There were 1600 members of the American press in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in 1990–1, all of whom were regarded by the US ambassador as ‘illiterate’, both about the military and Saudi Arabia. As for the CNN broadcasting from Baghdad, this ‘amplified and disseminated the Iraqi propaganda message very effectively’.82 The risk of antagonizing the receiving state is a particularly high one – and so a formidable problem for an embassy – when the journalists are used to operating freely and find themselves in societies suspicious if not completely hostile to such behaviour. Even in India, where there was a ‘big press invasion’ from the United States during the Sino-Indian war, Galbraith had to urge the government to be more forthcoming to the newsmen about the extent of US material support, which Delhi wished to play down. The American press, he told them, was a fact of life: ‘It can be managed or mismanaged but has to be accepted.’ For his own part, he sought to ‘calm’ the journalists by ‘providing billets, communication facilities, briefings and other help’.83 (Enlightened selfinterest in this shape is generally good practice for an embassy in such a situation, if it can afford it.) In far less liberal states, for example Japan during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–5 and Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War in 1990–1, the greater problems presented to Western embassies by the arrival of hordes of journalists can well be imagined.84

Militarization In addition to all of these problems, there is the risk that in wartime a swollen and better-funded military component will present the 80

Freeman interview. Alan Munro, the British ambassador in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, devotes a whole chapter in his memoir of the period to ‘The Fourth Estate’, An Embassy at War, Ch. 18; see also Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker, pp. 185–7, 196–7. 82 Freeman interview. 83 Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, pp. 401–3. 84 Nish, ‘British legations in Tokyo and Beijing during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905’, pp. 30, 32–5; Munro, An Embassy at War, pp. 84, 85–6. 81

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diplomatic element in the embassy with the prospect of a loss of control, and that with this militarization of the mission will come any number of undesirable consequences. This is the more likely if the ambassador is personally weak.85 Those embassies feeling the chill of a major war tend at a minimum to experience a significant growth in the number of their service attachés. This is chiefly a feature of embassies located in allied states, where there is an anxiety on both sides to do the utmost to facilitate military collaboration, coupled with a more relaxed attitude to the customary intelligence-gathering activities of embassy defence sections. It is true that in one of the most militarized major embassies of the post-World War II period, the US embassy in Saigon in the 1960s, the ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., got rid of his defence section. However, this was only because the size of the US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in the country – with which the embassy was obliged to work intimately in the ‘US Mission’ and which was soon to be absorbed by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) – had by 1963 swollen to such a degree that it seemed to Lodge that the defence section was at best irrelevant and at worst an expensive bureaucratic irritant.86 In fact, the effective militarization of the Saigon embassy was taken to its logical conclusion when the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Maxwell Taylor, was appointed ambassador in 1964, with instructions written by himself making it crystal clear that he had ‘broad’ responsibility for all US military as well as civilian activity in South Vietnam.87 In similar circumstances, sending states have actually installed a military headquarters in their embassy buildings or compounds. For example, for some time after early August 1990 the British forces component of 85

Galbraith, Ambassador’s Journal, p. 411. Flott interview. Following the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 and the winding up of MACV, the defence attachés office (DAO) in the embassy took over the latter’s headquarters, thus becoming ‘The largest Defense Attaché Office in the world’, Brown interview; see also Dunlop interview. This consisted largely of civilian employees of the Department of Defense but also 50 military personnel, Helble interview. 87 Taylor was well aware that governments benefiting from US military assistance often tried to play off the US ambassador against the head of the MAAG. This particular experiment proved short-lived because Taylor had indicated on his appointment that for personal reasons he was unwilling to serve abroad for more than a year. However, on the departure of his successor in 1967, the MACV commander, General Westmoreland, was the front-runner for a time before the highly regarded diplomat, Ellsworth Bunker, was finally selected, Taylor interview; Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker, pp. 164–5. 86


the anti-Iraq coalition being built up in Saudi Arabia was headquartered in the chancery of the British embassy in Riyadh; the Commander, British Forces Middle East (BFME), occupied the office next door to the ambassador.88 The US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, and the Coalition Commander-in-Chief, General Schwarzkopf, were also ‘co-located’ in Riyadh during this war.89 To give a further example, since the 9/11 attacks on the United States and the declaration of the ‘War on Terror’, many US embassies – not just those in Afghanistan and Iraq – have acquired an ‘Office of Defense Cooperation’ to coordinate new and lavishly funded security assistance programmes, not to mention teams of special forces officers and military propagandists (‘public affairs’ personnel). Not surprisingly, these US embassies have been christened ‘command posts’ in the War on Terror.90 This is the militarization of the embassy taken to extremes. Modest militarization, confined in the main to a heavy build-up of service attachés, might also be seen in the embassies of belligerents located in neutral states, especially if these states are weighty and near the front line, and if the sending state hopes to bring them over to its side, as Britain hoped fervently to bring over neutral Turkey in World War II. Military intelligence gathering is particularly important in these conditions, and officers can also be employed in the attempt to gain influence with the local military establishment, typically by offering them training and weapons. This was a marked feature of the British embassy in Ankara during World War II, where the size of the defence section doubled within a few months of its outbreak, already exceeded the number of diplomatic staff by the end of 1941, and by the end of the war was twice its size. When military supernumeraries of one sort and another were added, not to mention secret service offices based chiefly at the consulategeneral in Istanbul, the numerical predominance of the military over the diplomatic staff was much greater still.91 The strengthening of embassy defence sections in less important neutrals, such as Portugal, was by no means as marked but the trend was the same nonetheless.92 88 Eventually, the British military HQ outgrew the chancery and moved to offices nearer to the main joint command centre in the Saudi Defence Ministry and the USAF headquarters, although Royal Air Force intelligence and elements of its communications remained in the embassy compound, Munro, An Embassy at War, pp. 79–80, 179. 89 Freeman interview. 90 ‘Embassies as Command Posts in the Anti-Terror Campaign’. 91 Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, pp. 177–82. 92 Selby, Diplomatic Twilight, pp. 90, 97–8, 105.

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The same pattern can be seen, too, in the reverse situation: the case of embassies from neutrals to belligerents. This is only likely if the conflict is one in which the sending state has a close interest, but it is not a rare occurrence. The number of military attachés at the British embassy in Turkey shot up during the Russo-Turkish War in 1877–8, and did likewise at the British legations in Tokyo and Peking during the RussoJapanese War in 1904–5.93 By the middle of World War II the defence section of the Swedish legation in London – which had been strong for most of the jittery thirties and was desperately anxious about British military plans for Scandinavia – had gone up from two officers in 1937 to five by 1943 and represented a third of the entire diplomatic staff; the number rose to six in the following year.94 While the United States was still a neutral in World War II, its own embassy in London had an even larger defence section: 12 out of a total embassy staff of 30 in 1940 and 14 out of 28 in 1941.95 The problems that the militarization of an embassy can create for the diplomats are only too real. Chief among them is the risk that insensitive behaviour by military personnel – prompted by political naivety and a certain directness of approach to problem solving – will alienate political leaders, key officials, and even important sections of public opinion in the receiving state. This is a particularly high risk where bilateral relations are fragile, and one which is a special worry to a belligerent embassy in an important neutral state and a friendly embassy in the state of a key ally. The kind of rough and high-handed behaviour that embarrasses diplomats is likely to originate not so much with the attachés in the defence section but with other military elements that gravitate to the wartime embassy. For instance, as US ambassador in Saigon, General Maxwell Taylor was not well known for his delicate handling of the South Vietnamese generals, who at one point demanded his recall.96

93 Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, p. 44; Nish, ‘British legations in Tokyo and Beijing during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905’. 94 FO List. 95 FO List. 96 ‘He got very frustrated with the internal political revolving door governments and was very imperious with the Vietnamese generals. They resented that and at one point tried to get him recalled. I suppose the role of any US ambassador at that point would have been a very tough one. I think that Taylor had a military rather than diplomatic approach in terms of getting the Vietnamese to do things that we wanted to see them do. He tended to be too imperious, I think’, Miller interview; see also Jones interview.


In World War II the British ambassador to neutral Turkey was constantly fearful that the exploits of the high octane-fuelled agents of Special Operations Executive (SOE) – for whom he was required to provide cover – would wreck his attempts to prevent the Turks from throwing in their lot with Germany, with fearful consequences;97 the minister at the German legation in neutral Ireland had the same kind of problems with his own cloak-and-dagger people.98 For their part, to take a further example, the Western embassies in Riyadh had to work overtime to ensure that the recreational behaviour of their military personnel did not upset conservative elements in Saudi society, who were deeply uncomfortable with the build-up of the ‘infidel’ forces in their country in 1990–1. The main risk, it is true, came from military personnel in the camps rather than in the embassies, but even the latter had to be urgently educated on some points. When the British ambassador put it to his embassy colleague, the commander of BFME, that the entertainment of British forces would have to be confined to comedians and conjurors (no alcohol, no sex, no bacon, no religion, no live music and dancing), ‘he looked at me’, he recorded in his memoirs, ‘as if I was out of my mind’.99 Even if the military element in the embassy is under firm diplomatic control and its intentions are entirely benign, the sheer fact of its presence is also likely to raise local suspicions and thus to make life more difficult for the embassy. This will be greater still if there is a history of intervention in the receiving state’s domestic affairs.100 Nevertheless militarization of an embassy usually brings consolations. More intelligence is likely to be made available for the head of mission’s reports; although – as in South Vietnam – it is not necessarily good intelligence.101 The embassy should also carry more weight in dealings with a government in which the military are influential, as they invariably are in wartime or if war is always a real risk. Thus William Clark, the American ambassador in Delhi in 1989–92, whose military attachés had been permitted to make a reconnaissance of the India-Pakistan border at the period of high tension in 1990, testifies that – in addition to their role in gathering invaluable intelligence – they had been a great 97

Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, pp. 182–93. Duggan, Herr Hempel at the German Legation in Dublin, pp. 155–7. 99 Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 100. 100 ‘Embassies as Command Posts in the Anti-Terror Campaign’. 101 Security worries might well inhibit the ability of an ambassador and his staff to travel much beyond the embassy’s walls, which increases their dependence on military intelligence, Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker, pp. 180, 228–9. 98

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asset to him in opening doors to India’s military establishment.102 The presence of a large, representative and high-ranking military cadre in an embassy also provides the diplomats with the opportunity to convince them of the need to recognize political and strategic realities. The huge military component of the British embassy in Ankara in World War II became a solid and important ally of the ambassador in support of his view that it would be disastrous to try to push Turkey too quickly into the fight against Hitler. Finally, service attachés, whose judgement on the military situation is likely to command more respect than that of diplomats, are an asset if there is a need to reassure and prevent the premature flight of an edgy expatriate community; they may also prove invaluable in the planning and carrying out of any emergency evacuations that nevertheless become necessary.103 Furthermore, at least in the Western diplomatic tradition, there is a strong norm supporting the right of the ambassador, as head of mission, to have the last word – or at least be seriously consulted – on any military operation in his bailiwick.104 This cardinal point was insisted upon by the British ambassador in Ankara in World War II and supported by the Foreign Office.105 It was insisted upon with equal success by the longest serving US ambassador in Saigon during the Vietnam War, Ellsworth Bunker, whose ‘unquestioned command’ was exerted via chairmanship of the weekly meetings of his ‘Mission Council’, which included two four-star generals; although it helped that he was a hawk on Vietnam himself.106 Against the background of the growing preponderance of the military in US embassies in the War on Terror, the importance of the US ambassador’s leadership of the ‘country team’ – first seen in practice at the 102

Clark interview. Munro, An Embassy at War, p. 109. 104 In the embassies of military dictatorships, heavy militarization is likely to have a much greater impact on the ambassador’s authority even if a civilian holder of this position is still nominally in overall control. In the mid-1950s, for example, it was widely believed that the military attachés in Egypt’s embassies abroad were all the ‘personal agents’ of the charismatic Egyptian president, Gamal Abdul Nasser, a colonel and controlling force in the Society of Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk in a coup d’état in 1952. Their influence obviously exceeded by far their relatively low status in these posts, Trevelyan, The Middle East in Revolution, p. 62. 105 Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, pp. 179–93. 106 The ‘Mission Council’ consisted of ‘a group of a dozen or so civilian and military agency heads and embassy section chiefs’. The use of this grand title rather than the more usual and ordinary term, ‘country team’, ‘mirrored the importance and scope of the Saigon mission and the professional standing of the council’s members’, Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker, pp. 174–7. 103


embassy in Seoul and developed as managerial doctrine thereafter107 – was also firmly endorsed in a recent report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.108

Conclusion The wartime embassy can find itself in a number of different situations, varying with the status relative to the conflict of both sending and receiving state, but all are required to give higher priority to military and political intelligence and consular work. In other regards, the work of wartime embassies – and the risks they confront – varies considerably. Neutral embassies in belligerent states risk only an accidental hit by a bomb or missile and often find the range of their tasks increasing, particularly if they are required to assume the important role of protecting power for one or more of the belligerents. If the conflict is of close interest to their governments, neutral embassies may also find themselves with as large a defence section as the embassies of belligerents. It is, however, the latter that usually find their experiences most dramatically altered from those of peacetime. Belligerent embassies in allied front-line states tend to serve chiefly as indispensable political advisers to their own military commands but experience huge problems. They face the constant risk of military or terrorist attack, are plagued by high-level visitors and journalists, invariably struggle to control their swollen defence sections, and may have to endure the logistical nightmare of following a retreating government. Paradoxically, in enemy states they usually face no physical danger, and in some relatively short recent conflicts have either been kept open as long as possible or even – as in the case of the Indo-Pakistan

107 Noble, Embassy at War, p. 8; Blancké, The Foreign Service of the United States, pp. 137–40. 108 ‘Embassies as Command Posts in the Anti-Terror Campaign’. In this connection it is interesting to note that when General Maxwell Taylor was appointed ambassador in Saigon, the position of number two in the embassy was given to America’s most senior diplomat, U. Alexis Johnson, upon whom was bestowed the unusual rank of ‘deputy ambassador’ rather than minister or ministercounsellor; this was intended to ensure – at least nominally – the continuing influence of the diplomatic element at the top, as well as acknowledge the scale and importance of the Saigon embassy, Schaffer, Ellsworth Bunker, p. 177; Taylor interview. Although Johnson was chosen by Taylor himself and was believed by some to be one of those diplomats who was too inclined to defer to the military, Burke and Burnet interviews.

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wars – permitted to remain securely in place throughout; in some of these cases the embassy’s value as a propaganda platform and means to a swift restoration of normal relations have been important advantages. However, the more usual fate of embassies in enemy states since the middle of the twentieth century, with its increasingly poisonous atmosphere, was a lengthy period of internment while an exchange agreement was laboriously negotiated via a third party. As for the belligerent embassy in an important neutral state, where all belligerents will usually be represented, intelligence gathering usually takes even more of its time than it does in allied states, while the chief risk it faces is the charge of localitis, so urgent is the need to appear sympathetic to its host for fear that it will veer to the other side. Embassies have proved of little value in the direct relations between active belligerents. However, the other wartime embassies – those of neutrals as well as belligerents – present a quite different picture. Indeed, it is probably true, and – if so – a rich irony of the history of diplomacy, that embassies are never so important as in war.

Appendix Diplomatic Privileges Act 19641 Pursuant to section 7 (2) of the Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964, Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs hereby gives notice of the States with which and the classes of persons with respect to which special agreements or arrangements as mentioned in section 7 (1) of the Act are in force at the commencement of the Act and of the effect of each such arrangement, whether it is as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of the said section 7 (1): State

Classes of Person

Effect

Bulgaria

(i)

As in para. (a) of section 7 (1).

Czechoslovakia

Hungary

USSR

Belgium Bulgaria France Federal Rep. of Germany Indonesia Luxembourg

Members of the administrative and technical staff; (ii) Members of the service staff; (iii) Private servants. (i) Members of the administrative and technical staff; (ii) Members of the service staff; (iii) Private servants. (i) Members of the administrative and technical staff; (ii) Members of the service staff; (iii) Private servants. (i) Members of the administrative and technical staff; (ii) Members of the service staff; (iii) Private servants. Members of the administrative and technical staff Members of the administrative and technical staff Members of the administrative and technical staff Members of the administrative and technical staff Members of the administrative and technical staff Members of the administrative and technical staff




As in para. (b) of section 7 (1). As in para. (b) of section 7 (1). As in para. (b) of section 7 (1). As in para. (b) of section 7 (1). As in para. (b) of section 7 (1). As in para. (b) of section 7 (1). (continued )

1

Repr. from The London Gazette, 2 Oct. 1964, pp. 8292–3. 193

194

Appendix

State

Classes of Person

Effect

Netherlands

Members of the administrative and technical staff Members of the administrative and technical staff Members of the administrative and technical staff

As in para. (b) of section 7 (1). As in para. (b) of section 7 (1). As in para. (b) of section 7 (1).

Poland U.S.A.

Article 7 of the Diplomatic Privileges Act 19642 7 Saving for certain bilateral arrangements (1) Where any special agreement or arrangement between the Government of any State and the Government of the United Kingdom in force at the commencement of this Act provides for extending— (a) such immunity from jurisdiction and from arrest or detention, and such inviolability of residence, as are conferred by this Act on a diplomatic agent; or (b) such exemption from taxes and related charges as is conferred by this Act in respect of articles for the personal use of a diplomatic agent; to any class of person, or to articles for the personal use of any class of person, connected with the mission of that State, that immunity and inviolability or exemption shall so extend, so long as that agreement or arrangement continues in force. (2) The Secretary of State shall publish in the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes a notice specifying the States with which and the classes of person with respect to which such an agreement or arrangement as is mentioned in subsection (1) of this section is in force and whether its effect is as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of that subsection, and shall whenever necessary amend the notice by a further such notice; and the notice shall be conclusive evidence of the agreement or arrangement and the classes of person with respect to which it is in force.

2 This version of the act is extracted from the UK Statute Law Database (Office of Public Sector Information, www). It is not necessarily in the form in which it was originally enacted but is a revised version, which means that any subsequent amendments to the text and other effects are incorporated with annotations.

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Woods, Sir Henry F., Spunyarn: From the Strands of a Sailor’s Life Afloat and Ashore. Forty-Seven Years under the Ensigns of Great Britain and Turkey vols. 1 and 2 (London: Hutchinson, 1924). Wortley Montagu, Lady Mary, The Turkish Embassy Letters, introduced by Anita Desai, ed. and annotated by Malcolm Jack (London: Virago Press, 1994). Wratislaw, A. C., A Consul in the East (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1924). Wright, Peter, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (Richmond, Vic.: William Heinemann Australia, 1987). Wylie, Neville, ‘SOE and the Neutrals’, in Mark Seaman (ed.), Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of War (London and New York: Routledge, 2006). Wynter, Philip H. M., On the Queen’s Errands (London: Isaac Pitman, 1906). Xiaohong Liu, Chinese Ambassadors: The Rise of Diplomatic Professionalism since 1949 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2001). Yasamee, F. A. K., Ottoman Diplomacy: Abdülhamid II and the Great Powers 1878–1888 (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1996). Yurdusev, Esin, ‘The Mid-Nineteenth Century British Embassy in Constantinople’, Unpublished Ph.d. thesis, University of Leicester, 2008. Young, John W., Twentieth-Century Diplomacy: A Case Study of British Practice, 1963–1976 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Zannini, Andrea, ‘Economic and Social Aspects of the Crisis of Venetian Diplomacy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Daniela Frigo (ed.), Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy: The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450–1800, trsl. by Adrian Belton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Zouche, Richard, An Exposition of Fecial Law and Procedure, or of the Law between Nations, and Questions Concerning the Same, first published 1650; translated by J. L. Brierly (London: Wildy, 1964).

Index Abdul Hamid II 51–2 Armenians and 54, 59–68 passim Açikalin, Cevat 116 Adenauer, Konrad, funeral of 110 Adiaman 65 Adrianople 60 agents, diplomatic 20 Ainslie, Sir Robert 125, 132 diplomatic communications and 147–56 passim military attachés and 139 Porte and 123 Algonkians 103 Al-Hashimi, Dr Abdul Razzak 180 Alston, Sir Francis 163 ambassadors correspondence of with colleagues 153–4 country leadership of 190–1 reputations and 92–7 at Rome 17–18 see also British Ambassador at C’nople, communications, diplomatic corps, ideal diplomatist, instructions, resident embassies, and under names of individual ambassadors Andropov, Yuri, funeral of 107, 109, 117 Anglo-Soviet Consular Convention (1965) 76–7 apprenticeship, diplomatic 40–9 Arafat, Yasser 111 Arbuthnot, Charles 129 Argentina 11 n.40 London embassy of 90–1, 93–5, 99 n.42 see also Falklands/Malvinas dispute Armenian question 51, 52–61 passim Britain and 52, 59, 60–1 Aspinwall, Stanhope 134 Atatürk, funeral of 116 attachés

defined 136 n.76 paid 40, 42–8 unpaid 40, 41–2, 46 see also British ambassador at C’nople, official family of; commercial attachés; honorary attachés; service attachés Australia 11 n.40 Austria 9 Ottoman Empire and 19, 21, 31, 61 n.55, 130, 151–2, 155 see also Bethlen Gabor Bahri Pasha 53, 54 bailo (Venetian) 20, 21, 27, 28 Bandar bin Sultan, Prince 96 Bannerjee, P. K. 178 barats, sale of 125 Barder, (later Sir) Brian 81 n.49, 85 n.68 Bark Roe affair (1581) 128 n.46 Barrington, Eric 45 n.51 Barton, Edward 123, 130–1, 133 n.66, 143 Bastianini, Giuseppe 173 Begin, Menachem 112 Behesni 65 Belgium 11 n.40 Bell, Gary M. 36, 38 Beltramino, Juan Carlos 95 Bendish, Sir Thomas 122, 122 n.10 Bertie, Frank 39 Bethlen Gabor, Prince 20, 22 n.34, 27, 149, 151, 154 Bildt, Carl 9 Birejik Commission 51, 60–70 Bishop, Tony 86 Blake, George 181 n.67 Block, (later Sir) Adam 60 Blue Books 63, 67, 68, 69 Bodine, Barbara 182 Bonavia, David 81 n.49, 84 books on diplomacy 35

209

210

Index

Bouverie Committee (1870) 44, 46, 47 Brezhnev, Leonid, funeral of 107, 115, 117 n.51, 118 Britain Ankara embassy of 101–2, 170, 187, 189, 190 Beijing embassy of 100–1 Berlin embassy of 44, 45, 47 n.62, 93, 138 n.82, 156 n.53, 173, 176 Bordeaux embassy of 166–7, 181 Buenos Aires embassy of, see Falklands/Malvinas dispute Cairo embassy of 176, 178 n.50 C’nople consul-general of 129 Iran and 117 Kuwait City embassy of 176 n.42, 183 Moscow embassy of (defence section of 73; regional responsibilities of 74 n.11; retaliation against for London expulsions 81–4; Russian secretariat of 82–3; secret intelligence disadvantages of 74; size of 74, 78, 84; see also Soviet embassy in London) Ottoman Empire and 58 n.34, 62–3, 123 Paris embassy of 38, 44, 45, 138 n.82, 156 n.53, 181 Riyadh embassy of 169, 176 n.42, 186–7 Rome embassy of 44 Seoul legation of 181 state funerals and 105 n.7 Stockholm legation of 170 n.17, 172 Tokyo legation of 183, 188 Trebizond consulate of 53, 57–8 Van consulate of 53–5 Washington embassy of 95, 169, 183 n.74 see also Anglo-Soviet Consular Convention, British ambassador at C’nople, diplomatic service, Foreign Office

British ambassador at C’nople 21, 120 background of 120–1, 126, 127 chaplain of 141 character and personality and 122–3 consuls and 129 doctor of 141 domestic family of 132–3 English nation in Ottoman Empire and 121, 125, 128–9 great volume of correspondence of 156 leisure activities of 132 Levant Co. and 120–44 passim as mediator 125 official family of 133–41 opportunities of for enrichment 124–5 political work of 129–31 size of staff of 141–4 treasurer of 141 see also communications, dragomanate, and under names of individual ambassadors Britten, Douglas 77 Brown, Gordon 96 n.30 Brzezinski, Zbigniew 4 Buckingham, Duke of 126–7 Bulwer, Sir Henry 135 Bunker, Ellsworth 186 n.87, 190 Bush, George H. W. 107, 109 Cadri Bey 58 Callières, François de 35 Calvert, Sir George 149, 151 Cambodia 169 campus diplomatique 5 Canada 11 n.40 Canning, Stratford, see Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord capitulations 24–6 Carstens, Karl 115 Carter, Jimmy 117 Cartledge, Bryan 85 Central Policy Review Staff 9 n.29 Chandos, Lord 147, 152 Charles I, King 127 Chernenko, Konstantin 109 funeral of 113, 115, 119

Index 211 Chesterfield, Earl of 36 n.13, 37 Chilcot Inquiry 11 China, People’s Rep. of border war of with India 177–8, 184, 185 Delhi embassy of 177 Hong Kong and 101 Indonesia and 115–16 Japan and 115 n.45 locally engaged staff and 6–7 ministry of foreign affairs of 13–14 Soviet Union and 115, 119 China Service (British) 34 Chou En Lai 115, 178 cholera epidemics 55, 56, 58 Churchill, Winston S., funeral of 105 n.7, 111 n.29, 113, 114, 118 ciphering 41, 146–63 passim Clark, William 189 Clinton, Hillary 9 co-location of embassies 6 of embassies and the military 186–7 commercial attachés 140 communications, diplomatic advantages of poor 154 Ainslie and 147–56 passim disadvantages of poor 150–2, 154–5 Falklands/Malvinas dispute and 98–100 Fawkener and 155 London/C’nople and 26–8, 45, 138, 145–64 messengers and 146, 148–50 miscellaneous methods of 146, 150 ordinary post and 145–6, 148, 162 n.80, 163, 164 reducing need for 152–4 see also ciphering, instructions, Queen’s Messengers, telegrams, telephone confidential print 162–3 consensus decision-making 2–3 Constantinople diplomatic corps in 16–31

diplomatic immunity and 24–5, 121–2 popularity of with attachés 40, 45, 137, 138 popularity of with messengers 148 n.15 prestige and 142 struggle for precedence at 22–3, 25, 142 see also British ambassador, communications Constantinople Telephone Co. 163, 164 consulage 124 consular service, British preparation for 34 see also China Service, Levant Service consulates 6, 7–8, 10, 166–7, 181 consuls, see consulates Costaki Pasha 63 Costa Mendez, Dr Nicanor 91, 94 counsellor of embassy 136 country team 190, 190 n.106 Cranley, Viscount 45, 47 Creswell, Sir Michael 94 Crimean War 156 Crowe, Sir Sackville 124 n.20 Currie, Sir Philip 49, 59–60, 62, 66, 70, 123, 163 Curzon, George Nathaniel 66 Cyprus negotiations 101 deciphering, see ciphering de Busbecq, Ogier Ghiselin 21 n.26, 31 n.63 ‘declaring war’ unfashionable 177 defence section (of embassy) 187, 188, 191 see also service attachés defense attachés, see service attachés de Gaulle, Gen. Charles 112–13, 114 de Harlay, Philippe 21–5 passim Dekanozov, Vladimir 173 demandeur 90–2, 95, 98, 101 Department for International Development (UK) 11

212

Index

Department of State 10 budget of 12–13 negotiating abroad and 89 reciprocity and 72 World War II draft and 176 World War II Embassy Berlin and 175–6 deputy ambassador, rank of 191 n.108 diffuse reciprocity 71 n.1 Dilke, Sir Charles 163 diplomatic corps defined 16 in Constantinople 16–31 in London 75 origins of 16–17 in Rome 16–18, 30–1 diplomatic couriers, see messengers diplomatic cover 76, 77, 169, 189 diplomatic families 35–6 diplomatic law codification of 177 Ottoman tradition and 24–5, 121–2 see also Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) diplomatic lists 16 Diplomatic Privileges Act (1964) 193–4 diplomatic relations in armed conflict 177–80 diplomatic service, British 88–9 education and training for 32–49 see also British ambassador, communications, and under names of individual diplomats diplomatic signalling 107, 116–19 Dobrynin, Anatoly 96 Douglas-Home, Sir Alec 9 funeral diplomacy and 104 n.5, 109–10, 111, 112 n.30 Soviet spies and 78, 79, 83 dragomanate 50, 60 dragomans 7, 29, 50–1, 137, 142 see also Fitzmaurice Ducci, Roberto 4 Dufferin, Lord 137 Dulles, John Foster, funeral of 105

Dunlop, Thomas 117 n.53 Dutch embassy at C’nople 21, 144 n.112, 154 Eastern Department 123 East India Co. 125 Edmonds, John 95 Egypt see Ghorbal, Mubarak, Nasser, Sadat, Suez War Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight D. 118 n.54 funeral of 111 n.29, 114 Electric Telegraph Co. 156 n.53 Elgin, Countess of 133 Elgin, Lord 121, 132 Eliot, George 105 Elliot, Sir Henry 45, 159, 160, 161 n.76 embalming and refrigeration 104 embassies, see resident embassies English Civil War 128 ‘English nation’ (in Ottoman Empire) 128, 129, 142 ‘English plan’ 88, 93 entry clearance work 10 Ericson, Richard 118 n.54 Erzeroum, British consulate at 53, 55–7 Erzinghian 59 espionage, rules of game of 75, 79 estafette, see express messenger European Union 3 n.6, 6, 9 External Action Service of 11–12 evacuations 166–7, 174–5, 182 n.69, 190 Ewart, Joseph 93 examinations 39, 46, 47 exchanges of enemy diplomats 173–6, 179 express messenger 41, 148 extenders 158 Eyre, Sir John 121 factors 120, 122, 128 Falklands/Malvinas dispute 90–100 passim family, diplomatic training and 35–6 see also family embassy

Index 213 family embassy 38, 41–3, 135 n.75, 137–8 see also attachés Far Eastern Service 34 n.9 Fawkener, Sir Everard 120, 134, 142, 143, 155 Finch, Sir John 121, 123, 143 Finland 10 n.31 Fitzmaurice, Gerald Armenians and 51–70 passim background, character and personality of 50, 69–70 Birejik Commission and 62–70 Blue Book and 67, 68–9 dislike of dragomanate of 50–1, 60 at Erzeroum 55–7 Lowther and 93 at Trebizond 57–9 at Tripoli 171 at Van 53–5 flat-pack embassy 6 Foreign Affairs Committee, House of Commons 11 foreign aid 97 foreign ministry, see ministry of foreign affairs Foreign Missions Act (1982) 72 Foreign Office budget of 10 n.34, 13 Eastern Dept. of 123 embassy precedence and 135 influence of 11 Iraq and 11 legal advisers of 11 locally engaged staff and 6 negotiating abroad and 88–9 Oliphant and 175 telegrams and 156 n.53 telephone system of 163 see also diplomatic service, Falklands/Malvinas dispute, Turkish Airlines dispute, and under names of individual foreign secretaries, permanent undersecretaries, and other officials Foreign Service Nationals, see locally engaged staff foreign travel 37–9, 40–1

France 5 n.12, 33 British diplomatic training and 37–8 C’nople embassy of 19 n.16, 21, 22, 31, 142, 144 n.112, 155 Seoul legation of 181 see also de Harlay, Vichy France Freeman, Chas 170, 185, 187 funeral diplomacy characteristics of (‘working funeral’) 104–6, 113–14 diplomatic potential of 111–19 drawbacks of 106–11 growth of 103–4 Galbraith, J. K. 178 n.51, 184, 185 Gajendra Singh, K. 167–8 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 2 Genscher, Hans-Dietrich 115 Gentili, Alberico 35 Gerlach, Werner 174 Germany 171, 174, 175 British language training in 37, 39, 40 n.36 Dublin legation of 169 n.16, 189 Moscow embassy of 173 foreign ministry of 14 funeral diplomacy and 115, 118 Ghorbal, Ashraf 96 Glover, Sir Thomas 133 Gorbachev, Mikhail 115, 119 Gorbachev-Deng summit (1989) 114 n.38 Grand Tour 37, 38 Graves, (later Sir) Robert 53–7 passim Greece 51 n.3 see also Cyprus; Elgin, Lord Greenhill, Sir Denis 78, 79, 80 Grew, Joseph 175 Gromyko, Andrei 78, 79 GRU 73, 80 Gulf War (1990–1) 165, 169, 176–87 passim Hakki Pasha 93 Halifax, Lord 169 Hamidiyeh 54

214

Index

Hammond, Edmund diplomatic training and 43, 43 n.45, 46 Queen’s Messengers and 162 telegrams and 156 n.53, 159, 160 Harborne, William 133 n.66, 142, 143, 145 n.1 Hardinge, (later Sir) Charles 137 Harvey, Oliver 166–7 Heath, Edward 76, 79 n.39, 83 Henderson, Nevile 173 Herbert, Aubrey 138 Herbert, Michael 67 Hirohito, Emperor, funeral of 105, 106, 115–16 Hitler, Adolph 173 Ho Chi Minh, funeral of 114–15 Hohler, Thomas 47, 63, 67 Holt, Capt. Vyvyan 181 n.67 Honecker, Erich 115 Hong Kong 100–1 honorary attachés 138 honorary consuls 8 Hoover, Herbert C., funeral of 105 Hornby, Edmund 144 Horn, D. B. 88 hostages 19, 25 Houphouët-Boigny, Félix, funeral of 104 n.4 Howard, Esme (later Lord Howard of Penrith) 39–40, 172 Husain, Arshad 178–9 Husain, Azim 179 Hussein, Saddam, see Gulf War Hussey, Sir William 120 Iceland 174 ideal diplomatist 35 India 109, 119, 158, 189–90 border war of with PRC 177–8, 184, 185 Amman embassy of 167–8 Peking embassy of 177–8 Washington embassy of 96 n.30, 97 preserves diplomatic relations in war 177 see also Indo-Pakistan wars

Indonesia 115–16 Indo-Pakistan wars 178–9 informal consultations of the whole 3–4 instructions (to ambassadors) 88, 131, 151, 152, 159, 160, 186 intelligence collection 88 diplomatic corps and 26–7 foreign travel and 40–1 in wartime 165–71 passim, 186, 187, 189 intelligence officers 169, 181 n.67, 187 see also journalists, KGB, Soviet embassy in London interests sections 5–6, 96 n.30 international law exam 47 International Monetary Fund 3 n.7 internment of diplomats 174, 175, 179, 181 Ippolitov, Ivan Ivanovich 79 Iran 108, 117 see also Persia Iraq 11 London embassy of 177, 180 Paris embassy of 180 see also Gulf War Ireland 169 Israel 6, 14, 95, 112, 117 n.53 see also Netanyahu, Sharon Italy 5, 15 London embassy of 4, 173 see also Rome diplomatic corps James I, King 22 Janet’s Repentance 105 Japan 34, 46, 105 n.7 internment of diplomats and 174, 175 Kennedy funeral and 109 war of with Russia (1904) 183, 185 see also Far Eastern Service, Hirohito janissaries 24, 26, 30, 141, 143 Jewett, Dr 58 Johnson, Lyndon B. 110, 118 Johnson, U. Alexis 191 n.108 Jordan 98, 167–8, 169, 170

Index 215 journalists 110 of Britain in Moscow 75, 82, 84 embassies and 185 intelligence officers as 80 Kaul, T. N. 97 Kennan, George 171, 175–6 Kennedy, John F., funeral of 106, 109, 109–10, 112 n.30, 114 Keohane, Robert 71, 72 n.5 KGB 80, 81 see also Soviet embassy in London (intelligence officers at) Khalid, King 117 Khalil Bey 53, 58 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, funeral of 117 Killick, Sir John 83, 85 King, Tom 183–4 King’s Messengers, see Queen’s Messengers Kinnoull, Lord 153 Kissinger, Henry A. 85 n.72, 96, 114 Koehler, George Frederick 139 Kohl, Helmut 115 Kordt, Dr Theodor 173 Korean War 181 Kosygin, Aleksei 115 Kouchner, Bernard 9 Kuneralp, Zeki 91, 95 Kurds 53, 54, 57 Kuwait 182 n.71 see also Gulf War Kuzmin, Capt. Lory 80 n.43 language training 33–43 passim, 46–7, 48 Lastra, Dr Alejandro 90, 93–4 Latin 37 Law, Edward 51 n.2 Layard, Sir (Austen) Henry 121, 132 Lello, Henry 123, 133 n.66 Lennox, Col. Wilbraham Oates 140 letters of credence 35, 152 Levant Company 120–44 passim Levant Consular Service, see Levant Service

Levant Service 34, 50 Armenians and 52–3, 69 see also Fitzmaurice, Graves Libya 5–6 Liston, (later Sir) Robert 124 n.23, 139, 144 Lloyd, George 138 localitis 170 locally engaged staff 6–7, 141 see also dragomans Lodge, Henry Cabot 186 Longworth, Henry 58 Loraine, Sir Percy 173 Lourenço Marques 175 Lowther, (later Sir) Gerard 49, 93, 163 Lumley, Savile 135 Lynch, H. F. B. 53 MacDonnell Commission (1914) 47, 48 Machel, Samora 115 Machiavelli, Niccolò 35, 122 McLoughlin, Air Brig. Eduardo 94–5, 99 Mahmud II, Sultan 122 n.11 mail packets 150 n.24 Maitland, Dr Charles 141 Mallet, Sir Louis 49, 123, 163 Malmesbury, Earl of 44 marbles, acquisition of 19, 121, 126–7 Marsovan, American College at 56 Maunsell, Capt. F. R. 55 Meir, Golda, funeral of 117 n.53 messengers 146, 148, 157, 158 see also Queen’s Messengers Miliband, David 8, 9 militarization 185–91 military attachés 188, 189–90 at C’nople 130, 138–40 Nasser’s 190 n.104 Wicquefort proposes 131 n.59 see also service attachés military base negotiations 97–8 military consuls 52, 55 military metaphors 9–10 millets 29, 121 Milnes Committee (1861) 43–6 passim

216

Index

ministry of foreign affairs fights back 8–14 see also Department of State, Foreign Office, Quai d’Orsay and under country entries ‘Miss Lillian’ 117 n.53 MI5 76, 80 Morier, David 135 Morier, Isaac 129 Morier, Robert 160 n.69 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick 97 Mozambique 115 Mubarak, Hosni 112, 117 Muggeridge, Malcolm 175 n.36 multilateral diplomacy 1–3 see also United Nations Munro, Alan 185 n.81, 189 Murat IV, Sultan 24, 30 Nasser, Gamal Abdul 190 n.104 funeral of 106, 107, 112, 113 NATO 3, 73 n.6, 80 n.41, 85 naval attachés 80 n.43, 82, 140 see also service attachés negotiations away advantage in 88–9, 130 resident embassies and 5, 87–102 home advantage in 87–8 secrecy and 1–4 working funerals and 110–11 see also summits Netanyahu, Benjamin 9 neutral states 165–75 passim, 183 n.74, 187–92 passim new diplomacy 1 new states 5, 177 New Zealand 11 n.40 Nicolson, Sir Arthur (later Lord Carnock) 39, 47 n.62 Nicolson, Harold 14, 35, 39 Nixon, Richard M. 107, 108 n.18, 111 n.29, 114 ‘No Torture’ agreements 97–8 Oakeshott, Michael 36 O’Conor, Sir Nicholas 49 old diplomacy 1 Oliphant, Sir Lancelot 174, 175 ‘Operation Graffham’ 170 n.17

Orient Express 45, 138, 162 Ormsby Gore, David 95 Ortakeui school 34 OSCE 3 n.6 Ottoman Empire 6, 7 Britain and 58 n.34, 62–3, 123 Russia and 55, 63, 140, 188 telegraph and 157, 158 unilateral diplomacy of 72 n.4, 122 see also Armenian question, Austria, Bethlen Gabor, capitulations, Constantinople, Fitzmaurice, quarantine, Spain, sultans Otway, A. J. 46 Özal, Turgut, funeral of 108 Paget, Lord 151–2 Paget, Sir Arthur 39, 135 Pakistan 115, 118, 189 foreign ministry of 178 n.51 Delhi high commission of 178–9 see also Indo-Pakistan wars papal class list (1504) 22 Parthasarathi, Gopalaswami 178 Paulet, Sir Amias 38 Pearl Harbour (1941) 175 Pera 28–9 Permanent 5 4 Persia 19, 29, 46, 54 see also Iran Petty, Mr. 127 n.38 Phillips, Sir Thomas 127 Pisani, Count 135 Pius II, Pope 17–18 Poland 19, 20 political consuls 52, 56 Porter, James 132, 134, 144 Portugal 169, 187 see also Lourenço Marques Port Stanley 99, 100 n.46 Powell, Gen. Colin 10 precedence 22–3, 25 presents 124, 131 prestige 142 prisoners of war 171 private secretary of ambassador 134, 135 propaganda 5, 79, 166, 177, 180, 185

Index 217 protecting powers 6, 171, 173 public diplomacy, see propaganda Qian Qichen 115 Quai d’Orsay 13 quarantine 146, 155, 156 Queen’s Messengers 27 n.53, 146, 147–9, 150, 161–3 see also messengers Reagan, Ronald 107 reciprocity, see specific reciprocity, diffuse reciprocity recorders 158 n.61 Regius professors 33 Rendel, George 47 representative offices 6 resident ambassador, see resident embassies resident embassies 165 apprenticeship at 40–8 lead in negotiations and 87–102 of military dictatorships 190 n.104 revival of 4–8, 177 specific reciprocity and 71 see also British ambassador at C’nople, diplomatic corps, wartime embassies, and under country entries retreating governments 166, 180–1, 182 n.71 Rice, Condoleeza 107 n.13 Richelieu, Cardinal 14, 15 Ridley Commission (1890) 162 road haulage negotiations 101–2 Roe, Lady Eleanor 133 Roe, Sir Thomas 18 begs recall 126, 127 communication problems of 26–8, 149, 150–1, 154 C’nople diplomatic corps and 19–31 passim, 154 despatches of 18 value of correspondents of 27, 153, 154 see also Bethlen Gabor, marbles Rome diplomatic corps 16–18, 30–1 Ruda, Dr Jose Maria 94

Russia Armenians and 57, 61 Erzeroum consulate of 55 Ottoman Empire and 55, 63, 140, 188 war of with Japan (1904) 183, 185 see also Soviet Union Rycaut, Paul 143 n.106 Rylands, Peter 159 Rym, Charles 21 n.26 Sadat, Anwar 108 funeral of 112 Salisbury, Lord 59–66 passim Salt, Jeremy 69 n.95 Sandison, Sir Alfred 60 Sarell, Sir Roderick 91, 95 Sasun violence 60, 62 n.61 Satow, (later Sir) Ernest 34, 35 Saudi Arabia 6, 185, 189 Washington embassy of 96–7 see also Gulf War Saxbe, William B. 97 Schwarzkopf, Gen. Norman 185, 187 secrecy, see negotiations secretary of embassy 41, 42, 45, 134–6 secretary of legation, see secretary of embassy secret service officers, see intelligence officers Selim III, Sultan 122 n.11, 125 n.31 Semlin 155 service attachés 72–3, 80, 82, 186, 187, 190 see also defence section, military attachés, naval attachés Seymour, Capt. Conway F. C. 149 n.17 Shah of Iran, funeral of 108 Shamir, Yitzhak 112 Sharon, Ariel 107 n.13 Shepherd, Lord 76 silence procedure 3 Sivas 58 Smith, Adm. Sir Sydney 121, 139

218

Index

Smith, John Spencer 124 n.20, 134–5 Smyrna British consulate at 60, 122 English factory at 128 Sonyel, Salahi Ramsdan 69 n.97 South Africa 6 South Korea 11 n.40 Soviet embassy in London free travel zone of 80 intelligence officers at 72, 77, 79–81, 84 n.63 official Soviet establishment and 73, 74–5, 84 retaliation for expulsions from 81–5 secret intelligence advantages of 74 service attachés at 72–3 size of 74–84 passim Soviet Trade Delegation in London 74–5, 79 n.38, 80 Soviet Union funerals of leaders of 112, 116, 107–19 passim honorary consuls and 8 Hitler’s attack on 173 PRC and 115, 119 United States and 74 n.10, 96 see also Anglo-Soviet Consular Convention, Russia, Soviet embassy in London, Stalin, Soviet Trade Delegation in London Spadaro, Alfred 57 Spain 155, 166 n.2 Ottoman Empire and 20, 22 n.34 special envoys 16–17, 19 see also visitors to embassies Special Operations Executive 189 specific reciprocity 71–86 passim advantage of 86 bargaining chips/pawns in game and 85, 86 defined 71 diplomacy and 71–2, 85–6 espionage and 75 vendettas and 83–5, 86 Stalin, Joseph 173 funeral of 112, 116

Stanhope family 36 n.13 Stanmore, Lord 69 State Department, see Department of State state funerals 105 see also funeral diplomacy status of forces agreements 168 Steel, David 111 Strang, Lord 89, 90 Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord 123, 141 n.101, 156 attachés and 43, 138 consuls and 129 household of 144 as secretary of embassy 135 telegrams and 158, 159 Straton, Alexander 135 student interpreters 7, 34 subsidies to ambassadors 125 n.11 Suez War (1956) 165, 176, 178 n.50 Suharto, President 115 sultans 19, 72 n.4, 130 see also Ottoman Empire and under names of individual sultans summits 14, 106, 114 see also funeral diplomacy Sweden 9, 11 n.40 diplomatic corps in 172 Berlin legation of 171 London legation of 166 n.2, 188 as neutral state 169, 170, 173 Switzerland 171, 172 n.27, 176, 179 Sykes, Mark 138 Taif 182 n.71 Taiwan 6 Taylor, Gen. Maxwell 186, 188, 191 n.108 telecommunications 5, 92 see also telegrams, telephone telegrams 156–61 telegraph, see telegrams telephone 179 British embassy at C’nople and 163 Foreign Office and 163 see also Constantinople Telephone Co. Tewfik Pasha 93

Index 219 Thatcher, Margaret 105 n.7 funeral diplomacy of 111, 113, 115, 117 Throckmorton, Sir Nicholas 38 Tiananmen Square occupation 114 n.38 Tito, Marshall Josip Broz 107, 108, 113 n.36, funeral of 111, 117 n.53, 117 n.53 tours, length of 45–6 transfer of sovereignty negotiations 98 Transport, British Dept. of 101 Trevelyan, Humphrey 178 n.50 Trumbull, Sir William 121, 143, 151 Turkey 169 see also Britain (Ankara embassy of), Ottoman Empire, Özal, Stalin Turkish Airlines dispute 91–2, 95 Turkish embassy in London 91–2, 93 Turkish Rep. of N. Cyprus 6 UK-Soviet Temporary Commercial Agreement (1934) 75 n.13 ul-Haq, Gen. Zia 115 Ungnad, David 21 n.26 United Nations Falklands/Malvinas dispute and 90–1, 94, 99 n.40 General Assembly 2 Security Council 3–4 United States 3, 6, 58 n.34, 92, 105 Amman embassy of 170 Berlin embassy of 171, 175–6 Bonn embassy of 110 Delhi embassy of 97, 184, 189 Dublin legation of 169 n.16 funeral diplomacy and 105–19 passim Kuwait City embassy of 182, 183 London embassy of 95, 188 Moscow embassy of 74 n.10, 96 Paris embassy of 167 n.6, 171, 181 n.65 Riyadh embassy of 96, 168 n.13, 169, 170, 185, 187 Saigon embassy of 182, 186, 190, 191 n.108

Seoul embassy of 181, 191 Tokyo embassy of 114 n.37, 175 see also Department of State, Gulf War, US Military Assistance Advisory Group, ‘War on Terror’, and under names of individual presidents, secretaries of states, and diplomats universities 33–4 University of Edinburgh 33 n.6 Urfa church massacre 64, 69 n.95 US Military Assistance Advisory Group 186 van Haga, Cornelis 21 Vance, Cyrus 117 n.53 Venice 28, 36 diplomatic service of 132 diplomatic training and 36, 37 C’nople embassy of 19 n.16, 144 n.112 postal service of 28, 145–6, 147, 155 n.48 see also bailo Vichy France 175, 181 n.65 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) armed conflict and 172–3 locally engaged staff and 7 retaliation and 71 n.2 size of embassies and 77 n.25 Vietnam War 182, 186, 189 visas, Soviet exchange of with Britain (1972) 84 visitors to embassies 142, 183–5 see also special envoys Voltaire 120–1 von Schulenburg, Count Werner 173 voting 2 Walden, George 74, 78 n.33, 81, 83 war aims 169 ‘War on Terror’ 10, 187 wartime embassies 165 of belligerents in enemy states 166, 172–80, 191–2 of belligerents with front-line allies 167, 168–9, 172 n.27, 180–91 passim

220

Index

wartime embassies – continued of belligerents in neutral states 166, 169–70, 183 n.74, 187, 192 military component of 185–91 of neutrals in belligerent states 165, 166, 171, 188, 191 Waugh, (Alexander) Telford 59 Weakley, Ernest 140 wedding ceremonies 103 n.2 White, Sir William 50, 123 Wicquefort, Abraham de 35, 114 William III, King 151 Wilson, Harold 104, 114 Wilson, President Woodrow 1 Wilson, Sir Robert 139 Winchilsea, Lord 121, 126 n.32, 128 Wodehouse, Lord 44 women in diplomacy 132–3 working funeral, see funeral diplomacy

World Bank 3 n.7 world diplomatic system 15 World War I 1, 172, 173, 181, 183 n.74 World War II 166–76 passim, 181, 187–90 passim Wortley Montagu, Edward 143 Wortley Montagu, Lady Mary 133, 141, 143 Wotton, Sir Henry 35, 41 Wrench, William 140 Wyche, Sir Peter 127 Wynter, Capt. Philip 162 yaftas affair 56 Young Turks 93 Yugoslavia, see Tito Yusuf Agah Efendi 130 Yusuf Effendi 55

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