CHAPTER XV: ROME, 1918-1919
I returned to find a very different atmosphere from that which had prevailed when I last left England for Rome. The weeks which followed, moreover, witnessed an uninterrupted series of successes in France, in Macedonia, and in Palestine. An armistice with Bulgaria and the surrender of her railways into Allied control cut off the enemy's communications with Constantinople. The convoy system and improved methods of combating the submarine had almost exorcised the misgivings of the previous year. Every one was in good spirits, and on rejoining my post I encountered nothing but smiles, even from those who at one time had "eyed me like the basilisk."
The assumption of the Chancellorship in Germany by the Liberal
Prince Max of Baden and the omission in his first speech of any
mention of the Emperor's name seemed to indicate the elimination
of the military régime and to show that the end was near,
while our information left little doubt that the empire of the
Habsburgs was entering upon the agony of dissolution. The question
which then preoccupied Barrère and myself was whether Orlando
and Sonnino would win the day and precipitate that collapse by
an advance from the Piave or whether they would be overruled by
colleagues who were less disposed to put the last venture to the
test. In business as in all the relations of life the majority
of Italians incline to the side of caution. The new Minister of
the Treasury, who carried considerable weight, seemed to be no
exception to this rule. General Diaz went to Paris in September,
but was unsuccessful in persuading Versailles to increase his
reserves by dispatching an American contingent. Sonnino was quite
sound on the military question. But in other respects I found
discussion with him increasingly difficult, whether on Greek or
on other Balkan issues. He was unreceptive of new ideas, and still
reluctant to admit that the principle of a united Jugo-Slav state
was practically established. His attitude was really I believe
to be explained by a conception, to which he held tenaciously,
that the Balkan hand must be played as a whole and that concessions
to be made in one quarter might be balanced in another. Trumps
should therefore not be parted with light-heartedly. He clung
to the old diplomacy. He would not entertain the proposal to send
the Jugo-Slav prisoners detained in Italy to the Serbians. Many
of these, he anticipated, might in an eventual settlement have
to become Italian subjects and he could not therefore agree to
their being incorporated in military groups under another allegiance.
The Minister of the Treasury seemed to be very energetic. He
initiated a number of experiments to meet the exigencies of the
moment. The majority of these, however, in their effects only
confirmed previous experience of the impossibility of overriding
economic laws by legislation. Such legislation was, moreover,
not subject to exhaustive discussion in Parliament, but was enforced
by Decrees of the Regent in virtue of special powers conceded
to the Government in war time. An attempt arbitrarily to fix the
rate of exchange only tended to produce a suspension of commercial
enterprise. The financial straits imposed by war on a young country
without great accumulated capital suggested recourse to expedients,
unwelcome in themselves, such as that of adding a number of commodities
to the list of State monopolies. The benefit to revenue was hardly
commensurate with the unpopularity of the measure, and the new
monopolies were not long maintained.
He was successful in bringing about an arrangement between
the great commercial banks not to invade each other's fields of
activity. On the other hand, an attempt which was made at this
time to eliminate the last traces of foreign influence in the
most important of these by the acquisition on behalf of a certain
group of a preponderating proportion of the shares was said not
to have had his whole-hearted support. In any case it failed to
accomplish its immediate object. The new Government had under
Nitti's inspiration instituted investigations into alleged trading
with the enemy by firms and individuals of considerable commercial
standing, and a number of prosecutions were initiated. The ex-deputy
Cavallini was detained in prison on a charge of correspondence
with enemy agents pending his trial, which opened at the end of
the year. But the majority of these processes never got beyond
the protracted stage of instruction, and ended inconclusively
or were terminated by an amnesty.
The phase on which the war had now entered in the Near East
made it seem opportune to revert to a matter which I had urged
upon Sir Edward Grey when there seemed to be a reasonable hope
that we might occupy Constantinople, namely, that provision should
be made in any eventual settlement for Great Britain to enjoy
at least equal privileges and opportunities with any other country
in historical and archaeological research in Turkey. I therefore
now approached Mr. Balfour, who was in charge of the Foreign Office,
with a similar proposal, which he assured me had his entire sympathy,
and should not be overlooked. It is possible that others also
drew attention to the importance of such a reservation, which
would not probably occur to the average official mind.
The season was rapidly approaching when the torrents which
descend from the Alps, swelling with the autumn rains, become
difficult to negotiate. Towards the end of October military preparations
for what should be the coup de grâce were
completed, and I was now satisfied that there would be no interference
with the plans of the supreme command. The forcing of an issue
on the Italian front seemed the more urgent as President Wilson's
reply to the German peace note was drafted in a manner which might
have encouraged the enemy to believe that we should be prepared
to discuss rather than to impose conditions. I had learned privately
some outlines of the plan of campaign, and awaited results in
Rome in a state of excitement which it was nevertheless indispensable
to conceal. The Fourth Army was to attack in the much-contested
Grappa region, rather by way of a feint, while General Caviglia,
with the Eighth Army, the Twelfth (in which a French division
was incorporated) and the Tenth (Lord Cavan's army) would cross
the Piave and endeavour to break through the enemy line.
The action began on the 24th of October. The river was running
strong, but the British troops were successfully ferried across
by the Piave boatmen, whose skill and pluck Lord Cavan greatly
praised, to the islands known as the Grave di Papadopoli where,
after expelling the Austrians, they established themselves securely.
A sudden rise of the water retarded the construction of bridges
and delayed the general attack until the night of the 26th. The
resistance of the enemy was at .first stubborn, but the Tenth
Army advanced two miles, and the Eighth one mile beyond the river.
The bridges behind the latter were broken by shell-fire and flood,
and communications had to be maintained by aeroplane. By the 29th
the Eighth Army had reached Vittorio Veneto, the village which
gave its name to the battle, while the Tenth Army covered its
flank. Then the advance became rapid. The spear-head driven through
the defences spread into a fan overlapping the broken line. I
shall not, however, attempt to describe the strategic movement
which led to the débâcle of the Austrian Army,
to the capture of some 7,000 guns and half a million prisoners.
This overwhelming victory gave its deathblow to the Austrian Empire.
The crowning day of triumph was the 3rd of November, when the
Italians simultaneously re-entered their old head-quarters at
Udine, took Trent with a rush and landed in Trieste. By midnight
the enemy was compelled to sign an armistice satisfactory in its
conditions, which were communicated to Rome by wireless. On the
same day the Serbians re-entered Belgrade, and the British occupied
Valenciennes.
The capital was wild with enthusiasm. For at last, after a
century of effort, of alternating progress and disillusion, the
dream of Italian unity had been realized. No similar struggle
accompanied our national evolution, and those who have not lived
among and in sympathy with the Italian people can hardly conceive
the exultation of that hour. Late in the evening there was a demonstration
in front of the Embassy, and I had to improvise a speech. I have
no idea of what I said, but the upturned smiling faces were an
inspiration and words did not fail me. The following morning a
procession many thousands strong marched up, and when I went down
to the doorway to receive them I was embraced by those who were
nearest. It is good to feel the heart of a people at such moments.
They knew I had done my best for them acting as an interpreter
between the two nations in the long and grim struggle, and in
the hour of relief and triumph they did not forget it. Such experiences
are worth living for. The 24th of May, 1915, when Italy entered
the war, and the 4th of November, 1918, when the Armistice had
been signed, seemed the crowning days in a life which had not
been uneventful.
The reverse of the medal at the same time presented itself
in the urgent immediate problem of supplying food to masses of
disorganized humanity, brigades and divisions surrendering wholesale,
inhabitants of the regions till then in enemy occupation and destitute
Italian prisoners released immediately on the signature of the
armistice, who streamed in thousands down the mountain passes
from Austria.
On the 31st of October intercepted wireless communications
from Pola had revealed the existence of a bloodless mutiny in
the fleet, the crews of which were mostly of Dalmatian race. The
Austrian officers had withdrawn from the ships under compulsion,
or the semblance of compulsion, for the attempted transfer of
the fleet to a Jugo-Slav committee aroused some suspicion of collusion.
At that moment the principal Ministers and the chief of the naval
staff were absent from Rome. Some lack of timely co-ordination
prevented the dispatch of a message which might have prevented
the sinking in Pola harbour of the Viribus Unitis. The
battleship had, we learned in Rome, struck the Imperial flag on
the evening of the 31st of October. Meanwhile, a destroyer was
actually on its way, conveying to the entrance of the naval port.
an engine of destruction devised by two adventurous spirits, Paolucci
and Rosetti. It was a navigable torpedo, to be exploded by a time
machine, propelled by pedals like a bicycle. Unperceived, with
only their heads above water, they brought it in the night close
up to the battleship, placed it in position, set the clockwork
going and swam safely to the shore. The torpedo did its deadly
work, and the Viribus sank at her moorings at 6.30 in the
morning. So far as the two heroes of the exploit were concerned
it was a feat only second to that of Rizzo in his motor-boat when
he passed through a screen of destroyers in broad daylight, and
sank the Sant Isvan in mid-Adriatic, narrowly missing the
Tegethof with a second torpedo. It was unfortunate that
the plan was not carried into action before the fleet had been
transferred to the Jugo-Slav committee, presumably to prevent
its surrender to Italy. The Italian forces, however, now took
over the whole area of occupation laid down in the armistice,
including Pola and the Fleet.
On the Western front events had developed rapidly. Germany
was manifestly exhausted. The commercial blockade had worn down
her power of resistance which had been maintained with a national
fortitude that compels admiration. But the rigid German system
had broken at last under the strain, and if a military tradition
still maintained the semblance of discipline in the army it could
no longer control the protesting pulse-centres of the people.
The Emperor, who had long ceased to count either as a military
or as a political factor, sought refuge from the wrath to come
beyond the Dutch frontier. Only an armistice could save the retreating
legions from humiliating surrenders and prevent the invasion of
Germany.
On, the 9th of November I completed my sixtieth year, and reached
the term at which I had intended in my scheme of life to ask for
release from the public service. I had been thirty-six years abroad,
and it is well if you are able to make your bow and retire with
a good record. Once the terms of the Armistice had been accepted
by Germany I might well feel that my work was done, and the strain
of recent years had been more heavy than one knew at the time.
But few of the ambassadors of 1914 had survived the stress of
those overburdened years. Goschen, de Bunsen and Louis Mallet
had withdrawn on the declaration of war with the countries to
which they were accredited. Buchanan had left Petrograd when the
second revolution made the position of a British representative
impossible. Bertie, whose health had broken down at Paris, had
been replaced in April by Lord Derby. Cecil Spring Rice was dead.
Arthur Hardinge was still in neutral Spain. But Conyngham, Green
in Tokio and I in Rome were the only ambassadors in belligerent
countries that remained till the end. Obviously, however, it was
not possible to contemplate retiring at that moment, and nearly
another year was to pass before I could claim my liberty.
On the 14th of November, three days after his birthday, on
which also the Armistice with Germany had been signed, the King
of Italy returned to the capital. As I watched his triumphant
progress from the station to the Palace down the Via Nazionale
in a blaze of flags through a rain of flowers, I felt a sense
of happy exaltation because this King, for whom as a man I had
so profound a regard, whose judgments had been right and sound
throughout, who had never lost faith or courage in the grimmest
hours of these dark years, might now feel proudly conscious that
under his guidance the unity of his Kingdom and the old Italian
dream had been fulfilled. I thought, I remember, of the happy
family party which would be reunited at the Villa Savoia that
evening, and could do so without a touch of envy, though the Christmas
holidays were still a long way off and one of our own little group
was far away at Damascus. For at last the war was over, and he
had passed through the four years scathless except for one slight
wound. That evening, for a brief space, all the misery of the
stricken world, the wrack and ruin of conflict, the maimed victims
and the aching hearts passed out of thought, and a sense of immeasurable
relief brought a new buoyancy to life.
And now all energies were concentrated on preparations for
the Peace Conference to the exclusion of secondary issues, the
consideration of which had to be deferred. Among those was the
situation in Egypt, which undoubtedly demanded attention now that
the conditions had ceased which had justified the enforcement
of abnormal measures. That its discussion with Egyptian Ministers
should have been postponed was natural enough on the eve of the
Conference, though the urgency of the problem was perhaps not
fully realized at home. Had it been possible to admit at least
a preliminary examination of the representations of the Egyptian
Government we might have been spared many subsequent difficulties.
In the beginning of December Orlando and Sonnino were in London,
which they reached simultaneously with the French Prime Minister.
They were, I was told, rather unpleasantly surprised because on
their arrival only the Marseillaise was played by the band
at the station. It was of course an oversight, and neither of
them mentioned the matter to me on their return. But it was unfortunate
that some one should have blundered even in such a small matter,
because there had been a chronic disposition to believe that one
of our Allies received more consideration from us than the other.
The claims in Africa which they now advanced in virtue of a provision
in the London Agreement were certainly extensive. But it might
legitimately be assumed that they were meant to include latitude
for bargaining. In any case it looked as if we alone were to make
any substantial concessions to Italy. The proposed transfer of
Kismayu and the southern bank of the Juba, which has now taken
place, brought vividly back to me the memory of pioneer days in
East Africa, when I had built a stockade round that equatorial
outpost to defend it against the aggressive Ogaden Somalis. By
this time inevitable points of issue between the Italians and
the Jugo-Slavs had been worked up by publicists into a stage of
acuteness, and it was evident that grave difficulties would be
encountered in devising any settlement acceptable to both parties.
It is not my intention to comment on the discussions or decisions
of the Peace Conference. But there was at the time so much criticism
of the attitude of Italy that it seems only fair to resume, neither
in the spirit of an advocate nor of a censor, the manner in which
the question presented itself to the majority.
A united Jugo-Slav nation, composed by the grouping together
of several unities which had hitherto displayed distinct individual
characteristics, was a new conception. A potentially powerful
Southern-Slav union which might eventually even become a maritime
factor in the Adriatic arm of the Mediterranean could not be a
matter of indifference to a neighbour with a geographically defenceless
eastern sea-board. On this point there had been general agreement
four years earlier, when only Austria-Hungary had to be considered,
and it was then accepted in principle that Italy must make her
coast secure by controlling certain points on the farther side
of the Adriatic which Nature had designed to offer ideal bases
for aggression and impregnable barriers for defence. When I had
first discussed a possible disintegration of the dual monarchy
with the spokesmen of the Southern Slavs their ambitions had impressed
me as moderate. Some serviceable commercial ports were naturally
postulated. But later, assured of Allied sympathies and encouraged
by an influential Press, they were believed, by the Italians at
any rate, to aim at reconstituting the very situation which Italy
had looked to remedy in entering the war.
The Austrian occupation of many of these natural strongholds
had only been an incident of comparatively recent date in history,
whereas Latin influence had prevailed along the eastern shore
for centuries. Venice, so long the sea-bulwark of Europe against
the Turk, had controlled the ports and islands. In earlier days
Hungary had stretched a long arm to the sea. Still earlier Byzantium
had replaced the Western Empire which had received several rulers
from Dalmatia. When Austria had taken the place of the extinct
Venetian Republic, it became her policy to manipulate the local
populations with a view to substituting Slavs for Italians on
the coasts. The evidence of Austrian official records showed,
to cite two examples only, that in 1880 the Italian inhabitants
of Spalatro numbered 5,280, of Traü 1,960. Twenty years later,
in 1900, the former number had been reduced to 1,046 and the latter
to 170. In the hinterland there was certainly little or no Italian
population. But the wild and primitive people who occupied the
highlands were not, they argued, sufficiently developed to be
acceptable as masters by the occidentals of the coastal towns.
In determining the destiny of these areas historical and cultural
associations would no doubt carry less weight than ethnical, geographic
and economic considerations. At the same time, if President Wilson's
principle of self-determination was to prevail in diminution of
Italian claims based on the London Agreement, that principle might
equally well be invoked in favour of revising the decision to
exclude Fiume from the Italian sphere, since its Italian population,
if as they claimed they constituted a majority, might reasonably
insist on determining their own status.
Public feeling was also affected, rightly or wrongly, by another
influence. Population in Italy increases constantly and rapidly,
and therefore seeks new outlets, while that of France remains
stationary. In not many years the former will outnumber the latter,
a fact which cannot but cause some pre-occupation in France. The
suspicion existed, though it might not be openly expressed, that
the isolation of the chief Mediterranean rival was an object to
her powerful neighbour, whose influence at the Conference would
therefore be thrown into the scale in favour of the new Treaty
state.
If I have referred to these questions at all it is only because
it seemed to me at the time to be too readily assumed that the
Italian attitude in regard to the Adriatic was governed by Imperialist
ambitions, whereas living on the spot I came to the conclusion
that it was attributable in the first instance to a legitimate
desire for security and secondly to sentimental and cultural associations.
The Italian statesmen who would deal with these issues at the
Conference had to take account of the strong feeling which the
Adriatic question aroused in the country. They were also by that
time well aware of the difficulty of making good certain claims
in Asia Minor, conditionally recognized in 1917, which the country,
urgently in need of new areas of occupation for its surplus population,
would not readily renounce, the less so since the expansion of
France in the eastern Mediterranean seemed assured. The agreement
of 1917 contained a provision for the reopening of the whole discussion
if conditions should change before it could become effective.
Those conditions had indeed altogether changed with the Russian
renouncement of Constantinople and the entry of the United States
into the war. But the plea that the 1917 agreement was invalid,
because it had not been accepted by a Russia which had ceased
to exist as a recognized Government, did not commend itself to
our ally. Italian Ministers had, moreover, to reckon with a nation
which, after the overwhelming defeat of the Austrian armies at
Vittorio Veneto, had developed a stronger sense of national consciousness
and pride and a belief in its future destiny. Italy could justly
claim that after rendering an immense service to the Allied cause
by her timely declaration of neutrality, she had done far more
than had been undertaken in the Pact of London, and had, after
the Russian defection, held up from fifty to sixty Austro-Hungarian
divisions on the Isonzo and Piave lines, which would otherwise
have been thrown on to the Western front. It is necessary to have
all these considerations in mind in order to form a just appreciation
of the Italian attitude.
Orlando and Sonnino returned from their visit to London and
Paris rather disconcerted to have found, as it appeared to them,
that the interests of the new nations which would be formed from
the dissolution of the Habsburg empire were engaging more attention
than those of an old and tried ally. Preoccupied with the obvious
difficulties which confronted them, they did not I think quite
do justice to the difficulties of others whose task it would be
to co-ordinate the many often conflicting aspects of an equitable
settlement. A new spirit was abroad, evoked by the declarations
of the President of the United States, which would inevitably
entail the renunciation of ambitions regarded as legitimate under
the conditions prevailing in 1915. At the same time the wider
import of those declarations had found response in the minds of
many Italians who had welcomed a general principle which corresponded
to their sense of justice, perhaps without reflecting how far
its application might run counter to postulates which they had
hitherto tenaciously vindicated.
This belief in the generous sentiments of the President, the
conviction that he would approach the problems of Europe without
prejudice or preconception and, holding an even balance between
rival pretensions, would become the deus ex machinâ of
the Conference, ensured him and Mrs. Wilson a magnificent reception
in Rome. My colleague, Nelson Page---although before the end of
the Conference he somewhat modified his views---had so often enlarged
to me on the outstanding qualities of Mr. Wilson as almost a superman,
that I was very curious to meet him when he made his presidential
progress with a state and circumstance which a little surprised
the more fervent apostles of democracy. The King and Queen of
Italy with all the foreign representatives received him at the
station, and he was accompanied to the royal palace by an enthusiastically
demonstrative crowd. The municipality of the city which had given
law to the world presented the anticipated founder of a new international
code with a reproduction in gold of the famous wolf, the mother
of Rome.
I had asked Sonnino, who had already met him in Paris, to give
me his impression of the President. He conveyed his answer with
a characteristic smile in three laconic words, specie di clergyman.
I had curiously enough just read a letter from an American gentleman
who had known him for more than thirty years, in which he was
described as having the qualities of a Presbyterian parson, convinced
that he cannot make a mistake." Uncontradicted, the letter
continued, he was pleasant, well-informed, intelligent to a certain
point. Contradicted, he could become fanatically malignant, believing
himself absolutely right, and not having imagination enough to
be generous, even though he might accidentally be so disposed.
Obviously this critic was a republican.
Fortunately, when we met in Rome no occasion arose for disagreement
with so formidable an antagonist. The speeches which he delivered
there were expressed in beautifully balanced periods, suggesting
the accomplishment of oratory. But he only dealt with general
principles. No doubt he was rightly anxious to avoid any premature
commitments. Some undue weight may have been attached to a rather
Olympian pronouncement made at Milan in a speech to the crippled
victims of the war, when he was reported to have said, "I
shall give due consideration in Paris at the Conference to the
sacrifices made by Italy." I watched him with curious interest
on several public and private occasions. An impression remains
with me of a rather immobile unplastic face which encountered
each and all with the same stereotyped smile of a detached but
conscious providence.
A few days after his departure the telegraph agencies announced
the death of Theodore Roosevelt. Big-hearted, impulsive, enthusiastic,
he was the very opposite of President Wilson. Roosevelt was just
my own age. I had not seen him since the evening which he spent
with me in Rome, discussing Egypt and the Sudan, when he pronounced
his emphatic verdict, "You have shown that you know how to
govern. Govern or go!" We had however exchanged an intermittent
correspondence. With the part which he played in the political
life of his own country I was not concerned, but as a man I cared
very much for him and deeply regretted his premature death.
On the first day of 1919, I learned that my youngest boy, who
was with us for Christmas, had passed his examination for a naval
cadetship, and so one more of my ambitions was realized by the
renewal of an old family connection with the Navy. He had to start
at once for Osborne. There was also to be an examination for the
Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service, chiefly in modern languages,
and my eldest son, who was to present himself, spent three days
with us on the way from Damascus to London. His services in the
Intelligence Corps in Palestine had just won him a mention in
dispatches, and in spite of an inopportune attack of influenza,
which was raging in England, he amply satisfied the examiners
after having been adopted by the Selection Board.
In an earlier chapter, when recording the steps taken in 1915
to remove the Layard pictures from the dangerous neighbourhood
of the war zone, I referred to the excellent work done by Ugo
Ojetti, who was entrusted with the protection of monuments in
the north. All movable paintings and statues of real artistic
value were transferred to central Italy, and secrecy was maintained
with regard to their temporary disposal. I had however long known
that the four bronze horses from the portal of St. Mark's, the
Colleoni statue from Venice and the Gattamelata from Padua had
been conveyed to Rome. After the Armistice I was able to see them
and to study them in detail under conditions which are unlikely
to occur again. The Palazzo Caffarelli on the Capitol, the property
of the German Government, which occupies the site of the Temple
of Jupiter Capitolinus and the Palazzo Venezia, where both the
Austro-Hungarian Embassies had their offices, had been sequestrated
by the Italian Government. In the court of the latter, against
a background of dark ilex, the green bronze horses stood on the
gravel. They gained greatly when thus seen in close proximity.
It was evident that they had been very heavily overlaid with gold
from the marks of the files used to remove the precious metal
of which a little remained here and there. Corrado-Ricei, the
director of the Fine Arts Department, who first took me to see
them, maintained that an analysis of the bronze revealed the Roman
and not the Greek formula of metallic combination.
Facing one another under the arcade and level with the eye
the fiery Colleoni and the cold imperturbable Erasmus of Narni
sat their chargers. It was only when I saw them there, taken down
from their lofty pedestals, that I fully realized all the qualities
of those masterpieces, which so admirably express the respective
characters of the two men. The globe had been removed from under
the foot of Gattamelata's horse, which is represented standing
at rest but pawing the ground. The legs, meant to be seen at a
greater elevation, looked a little short on the lower level. Those
of the Colleoni horse seem also for the same reason to have been
a little shortened. Examined close to the eye the decorative harness
and trappings applied by Leopardi to Verocchio's model are seen
to have been left rough as they issued from the casting mould.
The supreme artist is revealed in the careful chisel work devoted
by Donatello to all the ornamentation of the Gattamelata. The
latter recalls the Marcus Aurelius of the Capitol, and is still
classical in conception. The Colleoni is an expression of the
Renaissance and the first modern equestrian statue.
When Orlando and Sonnino left for Paris as the delegates of
Italy, I had understood that Nitti might join them later, but
very soon after the opening of the Conference, Orlando was brought
back to Rome owing to demands put forward by the latter for certain
changes which he represented as indispensable if he were to remain
in the Ministry. As Orlando would not agree to these substitutions,
Nitti resigned. The crisis which he thus provoked within the Cabinet
at such a moment plainly indicated Nitti's ambition to succeed
to the Presidency of the Council at an opportune moment, which
he no doubt anticipated would present itself after the close of
the Conference.
In the Peace negotiations I played no part beyond furnishing
evidence on various points which arose for discussion, but I inevitably
served as a clearing house for many complaints and criticisms.
Standing outside the often hectic atmosphere at Paris, where principles
of abstract justice, practical considerations, national ambitions,
historic and pseudo-historic claims, personal predilections and
prejudices were continually in conflict, I was able to contemplate
divergent points of view more indulgently and more objectively
than were those who had to weigh in the scale actual and immediate
values. A long professional training had led me to consider the
effects of a settlement rather in the perspective of their future
influence on international relations and especially with a view
to the manner in which they might ultimately affect British interests.
As regards the questions which most closely touched the country
to which I was accredited, my personal view was eminently practical,
though I can understand that it might readily be misinterpreted
as sentimental. The future economic, and therefore to a great
extent the future political, orientation of the new states which
were to arise on the dissolution of the Austrian Empire would
inevitably be determined sooner or later by their immediate neighbourships
and their land frontiers. The new Jugo-Slavia, not to mention
the new Czecho-Slovakia, would be, and would remain, very remote
from us, and must eventually look both politically and economically
rather towards Central Europe. While therefore it behoved us to
be just and even magnanimous as arbiters it seemed to me that
no British interest could be served by the adoption of a partisan
attitude on issues of relatively little concern to ourselves.
On the other hand, the Mediterranean situation was to me a constant
source of preoccupation. Egypt had already become a centre of
unrest. The future of Palestine did not promise to be an easy
one. The security of the maritime highway to the east was an urgent
interest common to us and to the ally which touched no other sea.
Apart from the fact that it was to our material advantage that
a friend of long standing should not fall back under influences
which had prevailed before 1914, it was essential for us as an
island power to retain the goodwill of a country whose maritime
position was also almost insular, whose friendship in the Mediterranean,
where it constitutes a sort of bridge stretching from Europe to
Africa, could never be a matter of indifference to us. It is hardly
necessary to elaborate an argument which would seem axiomatic,
but the fervour of certain controversialists over matters of little
moment to ourselves sometimes tempted me to ask like Hamlet, "What's
Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?"
Private affairs called me to England at the beginning of April.
I spent one night on the way at Paris in Mr. Balfour's flat in
the Rue Nitot, but my chief was in bed with a feverish cold, and
we could only discuss very summarily the difficulties which threatened
to bring about a crisis at the Conference. I had meant to return
at the end of three weeks, but was delayed for a few days by bronchitis
and blizzards. Meanwhile, the crisis at Paris had taken place.
The Italian delegates had left, and Mr. Wilson had published his
famous note. My wife who had remained in Rome was a witness of
the profound effect created by this rupture of negotiations. The
masts for the decorations which had served for the public welcome
to the President were still standing in the Via Nazionale, down
which the Ministers drove with gloomy faces, and the shouts which
had greeted Mr. Wilson some three months before were replaced
by an inharmonious chorus demanding the restitution of the wolf.
The course which events had taken had come as a surprise to the
disillusioned population, and after the issue of the note it was
considered expedient, though I prefer to think it was unnecessary,
to place a cordon of troops round the American Embassy for its
protection.
I reached Rome on the 4th of May, and found the atmosphere
still highly electric. The nation had taken charge, and Ministers
were no longer able, even if they desired it, to control national
sentiment which was unanimous over Fiume and the Adriatic question.
Bissolati, who in a speech at Milan had advocated counsels of
moderation, could hardly obtain a hearing. Some months earlier
a compromise might have been more easy to find, but the consideration
of this issue had been postponed until public spirit had been
worked up to a dangerous point. My French and American colleagues
had meanwhile been doing all that was in their power to persuade
Orlando and Sonnino to go back to Paris, and almost immediately
after my return they decided to do so. But the reaction of popular
feeling against the President of the United States remained intense.
He was charged with being ready to waive his points, and even
his principles in favour of France and Great Britain, but rigorously
to assert them where Italian interests were concerned. Nor was
general dissatisfaction with the attitude of the Allies much less
pronounced. I do not however propose here to deal with these questions
or to discuss the ultimate settlement with which I was not concerned.
I had throughout been treated with complete frankness by the members
of Orlando's Government, and I shall respect their confidence.
It seems however legitimate to say that the action and powers
of my own Government were sometimes misinterpreted in the excitement
of conflict. Discussion was no longer limited to the signatories
of the London Agreement by which we were prepared to stand.
My old friend, Nelson Page, who held strong views on the issue
which had caused the departure of the Italian delegates from the
Conference, went to Paris with the intention of laying certain
considerations before the President. There he patiently awaited
an opportunity of doing so, but that opportunity was never given
him, and after some weeks had elapsed his position became humiliating.
Page was too good a patriot and too great a gentleman to complain,
but I have reason to know that he felt it acutely, and when he
asked for leave I realized that there was little chance of his
returning to his post. Both he and Mrs. Page had done so much
for Italy during the war and were so genuinely attached to the
country that it seemed almost tragic that they should be leaving
Rome at a moment when popular feeling against the President was
at its height and judgment was obscured by prejudice. The United
States had been fortunate in having such representatives as the
two Pages in London and Rome, but it was a curious coincidence
that both of them should have left their posts disillusioned by
the small impression they were able to make on the President's
unplastic mentality and their inability to obtain a hearing. Thomas
Nelson Page had not the strong personality of his colleague in
London, but he had all the charming qualities of an old Virginian
gentleman of sound traditions and transparent honesty. His Tales
of Old Virginia contain in "Massa Chance"
at least one little masterpiece and many other delightful human
pictures of the plantation life which has now disappeared. I had
hoped we should meet again to talk over In a calmer spirit the
difficult years which we had lived through together, but this
was not to be. Mrs. Page died rather suddenly in America, and
her husband did not long survive her. His memory remains to me
one of the brightest associations of the Great War.
My eldest son, after passing the examination for the Diplomatic
Service, was appointed to the Embassy at Rome. During the Palestine
campaign he had become devoted to Colonel Lawrence, who won the
entire confidence of the Arabs, and played such a conspicuous
part in the eastern zone of action. An accident brought us together
quite unexpectedly in Rome. Lawrence was on his way from England
to Egypt by air. The Handley-Page in which he was travelling left
the aerodrome at Pisa too late in the day to reach the Roman station
at Centocelle before it was dark. The pilot as he was about to
alight felt uncertain of his ground, and was attempting to rise
again when the machine struck a tree. It was smashed to pieces
and the two aviators were killed on the spot. Lawrence escaped
with a cracked shoulder-blade and some other minor injuries. To
these he paid no attention while busying himself with the victims
of the mishap, and only some time afterwards was taken to the
military hospital. He wanted to start again at the end of a week,
but fortunately a new machine was not immediately available, and
my son succeeded with some difficulty in persuading him to come
and stay a few days at the Embassy. I was thus enabled to make
the acquaintance of the remarkable man who had rendered invaluable
service to his country, both as a political influence and as a
leader of Arab irregulars on the desert border beyond the Jordan.
A few walks and talks with him were enlightening regarding certain
aspects of Arabian affairs. I could however well understand that
Lawrence must have been a difficult problem to the authorities.
Almost an ascetic by temperament and habit and quite detached
from the age in which he lived, he was supremely indifferent to
life's rewards and prizes. He may have shown himself lacking in
perspective, and so disposed to concentrate on one exclusive interest
as to be intolerant of any of the compromises which are inevitable
in the handling of political questions ; but if he was rigidly
tenacious of his own opinions he was obviously sincere. I was
sorry when he left us, much too soon after his accident for the
ordinary mortal to travel, in another aeroplane for Taranto and
Crete. He has now by his own deliberate act elected to disappear
from social life, but it is to be hoped that when occasion arises
he will emerge once more from his moral Thebaid.
The conclusion of the Peace Conference and the general disappointment
felt in Italy at its results was no doubt responsible for the
fall of Orlando's Government. The ostensible cause was the reluctance
of its most prominent members to agree to parliamentary reform,
for which there was apparently an urgent demand in the Chamber.
On the 19th of June Orlando was overwhelmingly defeated, chiefly
by the Giolittian combination which, long quiescent, had not ceased
to be the most potent factor in political life. His resignation
entailed the retirement of Sonnino, the only Minister for Foreign
Affairs in Allied countries who had survived all the vicissitudes
of the Great War. Nitti, who could, for the time at any rate,
count on the support of Giolitti's adherents, realized his ambition,
and succeeded to the Premiership.
Sonnino did not seek re-election after the dissolution which
followed. If his fellow-negotiators had found him difficult to
work with at Paris he was not less criticized by his own countrymen
for having accepted the provisions of the London Treaty which
excluded Fiume from the Italian sphere. To such criticisms he
did not deign personally to reply, nor did he ever speak in the
Senate to which he was only called, after having declined to be
nominated on the recommendation of Nitti, more than a year later,
at the instance of his old antagonist Giolitti. He remained for
the most part in seclusion among his books in his hermitage on
the Tuscan coast. When some three years afterwards I went to Rome,
in November 1922, he had just succumbed to an apoplectic seizure.
In a cavern of the cliff below his garden between the pine-trees
and the sea, a sarcophagus of granite had been morticed to the
rock. He had been heard to say that the only favour he had ever
asked of the State was the authorization to be laid in the place
he had prepared when his hour should come. And there, where the
blue water whitens against the rocks below, lies Sidney Sonnino,
a man of whose friendship I have always been proud, whose high
intellectual capacity no one questioned, who had many admirers
but few intimates, who throughout his life regarded things rather
than men, and was therefore perhaps not really suited for the
political career he had elected to follow. He was twice Prime
Minister for terms of a few months only, and the brevity of his
tenure of that office revealed the unadaptability of character
which was more to his honour than to his advantage. He could never
yield on what to him was a question of principle, but his single-minded
and disinterested patriotism had a quality of greatness.
Once the new Government was formed I was able for the last
time to spend a few weeks at the Villa Rosebery at Posillipo,
where the spirit of the pre-war days was revived by a merry party
which included Lady Cynthia Curzon, Lord Delaware, and several
members of the staff in addition to our large family party. We
had so fallen in love with the gulf of Naples that some years
earlier we had acquired a few acres of vineyard over the little
bay of Trentaremi on the last point of the peninsula towards Nisida
and Pozzuoli, which in the Augustan age had formed part of the
estate of Vedrius Pollio. We now began to lay out there the foundations
of a house which for various reasons was not completed until 1924.
Knowing that I was anxious to be relieved of my duties at the
Embassy, Curzon, who had then replaced Lord Balfour as Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs, suggested to me that before definitely
retiring I should undertake one more public service and accompany
Lord Milner to Egypt on a mission to investigate the conditions
there, which had assumed a serious phase in the spring of 1919,
and to report to the Government the conclusions we should form
as to the best manner of dealing with the situation. The eight
years I had spent in that country as second in command to Lord
Cromer had left me constantly interested in its future, and so,
with good hope of being able to contribute useful assistance,
I gladly accepted the invitation. Sir George Buchanan was to succeed
me in Rome. My first duty was to write to the King of Italy and
explain personally to His Majesty the reason why my long tenure
of the Embassy was now about to. terminate. I then paid a hasty
visit to London to see Milner and make arrangements for the transfer
of the Embassy to my successor, returning to Italy to take leave
and remove the furniture and effects accumulated during a residence
of eleven years. The task was comparatively easy, as we had just
bought a house in the picturesque Via Giulia, behind the Farnese
palace, to which all that we desired to keep was transferred.
Meanwhile Gabriele d'Annunzio had endeavoured to out a Gordian
knot by throwing himself into Fiume with a band of militant enthusiasts,
officially disowned but tacitly applauded by national sentiment.
It surprised me that my own countrymen, who have generally a weakness
for a great adventure, were not more indulgent in appraising the
bold defiance of authority which made the poet for a time the
uncrowned king of Fiume. It is true he had recently overstepped
the limits of moderation in denouncing the Allies individually
and collectively, and probably the fate of that much-contested
port was to the British public a question of relatively small
interest at a moment when every one was weary of the afterwar
unrest and resented any developments tending to prolong it. Officially
I could of course only condemn his action for which, it may now
be confessed, I could not help feeling a certain romantic sympathy.
Those who also look back to-day on the part he played must at
least admit that it contributed to the ultimate solution of a
problem with which the concentrated abilities of the Peace delegates
had been inadequate to cope.
D'Annunzio, ever since he magniloquently substituted for a
modest bourgeois patronymic the name of the Archangel of the Annunciation,
had strained the privilege of genius and had offered ample occasion
for criticism. So long as I only knew of him at the world's valuation
I was numbered among the critics, though I could pay my homage
to the creator of the Figlia di Jorio. But when we first
met in 1915 he completely conquered me. Externally nature had
not been lavish to him of her gifts, but he had only to speak
to exercise the spell of an undeniable charm, which was not due
only to his mastery of expression in a beautiful language, but
also to the resources of a singularly well-stored mind and the
unfailing precision with which he rounded the outline and conveyed
the colour sense of a picture. If in his earlier days a somewhat
exotic temperament seemed hardly consistent with martial qualities,
the experience of war revealed him to be a man of exceptional
and imaginative courage. His addresses to the Italian people in
a critical hour had been one of the moving impulses which persuaded
the hesitating to appeal to the sword. As soon as that decision
had been taken he sought a post of honour and danger in the ranks.
He made himself an aviator at the age of fifty, and fearlessly
undertook perilous raids into enemy territory. In his submarine
ventures he could only serve as an inspiring supercargo, but on
the shell-battered fronts of the Isonzo and the Carso he was ready
to volunteer for any forlorn hope and, bearing as it seemed a
charmed life, he stimulated the assailants like a modern Tyrtaeus
with his lyric enthusiasm. In exalting a gospel of patriotism
which stirred the soul of young Italy, d'Annunzio may be regarded
as the precursor of a recent national reaction against forces
which were threatening the social order with dissolution.
Before leaving the Embassy in October, I placed on record,
in one of the longest dispatches I have ever written, a summary
of my experience during the last eleven years, and an appreciation
of the manner in which the good relations which I believed to
be essential with Italy in the future could best be maintained.
My last week at Rome was somewhat marred by a troublesome episode
arising from a misinterpretation of a friendly conversation which
had taken place in London and a consequent communication to the
Press in Rome, which offered another occasion for reopening the
floodgates of journalistic intemperance. I was, however, happily
able to deal with the matter in a way which satisfied both sides,
and a fresh communication was issued announcing that any misunderstanding
had been entirely cleared away. Meanwhile, my wife and I were
most cordially entertained at a series of farewell parties, and
I was greatly touched to receive a magnificent piece of silver
from the staff of the Embassy who had worked with me so devotedly
through the last anxious years. Privately and officially nothing
was left undone to manifest the warmth of Italian goodwill. The
Press was full of kindly notices, and when the hour came to start,
the Railway Department provided a saloon carriage to convey us
to Pisa, whence we were to go to San Rossore and take leave of
the King and the Queen. The station in Rome was crowded with friends
- a number of the Ministers were there, and all my colleagues.
There was a touching demonstration from a group of crippled soldiers who had come to express their recognition of my wife's work in their behalf. They had already presented her with a beautiful silver vase for remembrance. The saloon carriage was like a garden of flowers, and it was not without some natural emotion that we left so many familiar faces behind. But it was only a good-bye in the official sense, inasmuch as we hoped to devote a considerable portion of our leisure to the city in which I had spent some sixteen of my thirty-seven years of official duty.
While such a testimony of friendly sentiment is very gratifying,
"no doubt there's something strikes a balance." If I
had ever been disposed to overestimate the result of my activities
during the eleven years of my tenure of the Embassy, which had
been full of incident even in the period preceding the Great War,
a corrective would have been supplied by the two or three bald
lines in the English Press which were the only comment on our
departure after an exceptionally long and strenuous term of office.
But I had no reason to resent a silence which indeed was only
to be anticipated from certain quarters, because I have always
maintained that the less a diplomatist is discussed in public
the better in all probability he has done his work.
On the other hand, I received from the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs both in official and in private form the warmest
appreciation of my service at Rome, expressed in terms which could
not but be extremely gratifying at what was probably the end of
a long career. On the first ensuing appropriate occasion, I was
offered, as a public recognition of those services, the alternative
of a baronetcy or of the Grand Cross of the Bath. I chose the
latter distinction, which indeed Sir Edward Grey had already been
good enough to ask for in my favour in 1915, but at a moment when
there was no vacancy on the then restricted list.
My wife and I with our youngest daughter dined with the King
and Queen of Italy at San Rossore, returning from the villa late
after dinner to Pisa to spend the night at the royal residence
within the city. His Majesty expressed to me his great regret
at our departure. After all that we had lived through together
and the perfect confidence with which he had always treated me,
this leave-taking was the one which I felt the most. I had been
reading in the train Ferrero's remarkable history of the greatness
and decline of Rome, and had just reached the passage in which
he explains why Octavian had found himself reluctantly compelled
to take over the whole burden of administration. The exhaustion
of the civil war had undermined the stability and broken the continuity
of the old order. The populace of Rome cared only for distraction.
The best elements in the country had perished in the struggle,
and the Senate had become impotent. To enlist public support for
his external policy Octavian fell back upon a man of letters and
engaged the collaboration of Horace. That foreign affairs should
be in the hands of a poet is regarded by Ferrero as a sure indication
of political degeneracy. D'Annunzio had just taken charge in Fiume,
and I could not help pointing out the humour of the parallel to
the King, without in any way accepting Ferrero's depreciation
of poets as men of action. The analogy between the actual situation
and the period succeeding the civil war proved after all not without
significance, for it did not take long for the country to drift
into a condition from which it was only redeemed by a sort of
revolution, which the King with his unerring judgment recognized
as an expression of the real will of the country. In 1919-20 Italy
was in danger.
His Majesty chose this occasion personally to present to my
wife the medal for auxiliary service during the war. This medal
in gold is, I believe, almost unique, and she was justifiably
proud to receive such a distinction. It was an interesting evening,
during which we discussed many experiences of recent years. Then,
frankly admitting that there must inevitably be stages in international
affairs where opposing views were difficult to reconcile, we parted
officially only, with good hopes for the future relations of our
two countries.
And now I have reached a point at which it is well to close
the record of my diplomatic memories, which in the later period
it has only been possible to resume very summarily. Of our experience
in Egypt, where, in spite of a sort of boycott, which I believe
the Egyptians themselves soon realized to have been a regrettable
mistake, the Mission collected an immense amount of valuable information
and formed very definite conclusions, I do not intend to speak
here. The Egyptian question has not yet found its final solution,
and as the one which we recommended did not at the time meet with
complete acceptance, I do not feel at liberty to add anything
to what has already been published in our report. No exception,
however, can be taken to my expressing the pleasure I had in working
with friends, among whom a singular unanimity prevailed, such
as Lord Milner, Sir John Maxwell, Sir Cecil Hurst, Alfred Spender,
and Sir Owen Thomas, the genial member for Anglesey, from whom
the Great War had exacted the utmost sacrifice in the lives of
his three sons, and who has now himself passed away from our midst.
In retiring from foreign service some ten years before the
fixed age limit I expressed my readiness at any time to undertake
any public work for which my long service abroad might qualify
me. I have since presided over various Committees and acted with
Sir Cecil Hurst as British delegate on a Commission which met
in the winter of 1922-3 at The Hague, to study what changes in
the existing rules of international Law should be adopted in consequence
of the introduction of new agencies of warfare, namely, the development
of aircraft and wireless telegraphy. I have also been twice appointed
one of the three British delegates to the General Assembly of
the League of Nations at Geneva, where I have chiefly had to deal
with the less conspicuous but important and difficult issues of
finance and administration.
The last public service which I have been called upon to perform
was to represent Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's Government at the centenary
of Byron's death at Athens and Missolonghi--- I shared this privilege
with Lord Ernle, than whom it would be difficult to find a more
congenial companion on such a pilgrimage. I think we both look
back on it as one of the most memorable experiences of our lives.
To return to Greece was in itself a keen pleasure which satisfied
a chronic nostalgia, and to crown this satisfaction my wife and
I were conveyed to the land of lands in the historic Sunbeam
by so kind a host as Mr. Walter Runciman, who was good enough
to take us to many places I had longed but hardly hoped to see.
Delos and Melos were familiar from of old; new to us all were
Knossos in Crete, where we had the good fortune to find Sir Arthur
Evans; Mitylene, where the almonds and the judas were in bloom,
and the clear air seemed quick with an echo of the songs which
"cleave to men's lives," and then that little Gibraltar
on the eastern coast of the Morea, Monemvasia or Malvasia, which
gave its name to the wines exported to western Europe. There,
over the door of one of the half-ruined Byzantine churches in
the fortress on the summit, we found the floreate anchored cross
of Villehardouin. It was good to feel that the capacity for enjoyment
of the things that really matter had not diminished with the years,
and every day of the island voyage was glorious to live.
The celebration of the centenary at Athens, unostentatious
and sincere, was perfect in taste and feeling. The visit also
enabled us to realize with what efficiency the problem of disposing
of the urban refugees from Asia Minor has been handled. The courage
and devotion with which a little nation of five millions has received
and absorbed a million and a half of new population is to the
eternal credit of Greece.
The scene at solitary Missolonghi, which we reached by sea
from Corinth, was deeply impressive, and not the less so because
of the presence of a contingent of British sailors from the Emperor
of India, whose dark navy blue contrasted with the white kilts
and red waistcoats of the Evzones. The little town had made a
great effort, and the long central street leading to the Heroum
was festooned through all its length with greenery and flags.
From both sides of the gulf the villagers had gathered, and hundreds
of guests from Athens had accompanied us to do honour to the poet
who gave his fortune and his life to Greece. We made two pilgrimages
to the Heroum, at midday to hear and deliver orations at the Byron
monument and in the evening to follow the bishops and the clergy
to the shrine, where they held a solemn service in memory of the
last exodus of the starving garrison.
We have been told that the inclusion of a tablet bearing the
name of Byron in Poet's Corner would disturb the sensibilities
of devout worshippers in the Abbey at Westminster. Well, if so,
he at any rate has his appropriate place here. His statue stands
between the mound of the martyrs of Missolonghi and the tomb of
Mareo Botzaris, remote and difficult of access, relieving against
the background of the rugged Aetolian mountains, where the austere
majesty of nature inspires a less exclusive worship.