November 14th, 1918.
( . . . )
.., President Wilson was discussed, everyone saying something in is favour—mainly because he is commended by such competent yet curiously dissimilar judges as Arthur Balfour, Lord Reading, and Tardieu. All three like him and find him
not only sincere but " open to argument." Sweet reasonableness is always to opposite numbers an outstanding quality.
( pages 50-51 )
November 20th, 1918.
To-day I had luncheon with little Daisy de Broglie, meeting Diana Capel,1 my old friend Princess Winnie de Polignac, the Academician Prince de Broglie and Count Isvolsky.2 Isvolsky was interesting about Russia. He thinks the Emperor has certainly been murdered and most probably the whole Imperial family with him, although it is just possible that one or two of the young Grand Duchesses may have escaped. Everywhere and to everyone he urges the despatch of an Army of 300,000 men and
insists that it should be sent at once in order to disarm the Red Guard and the Bolshevists and to put up in their place some reactionary form of Government. He is evidently exasperated by the douches of cold water showered upon the proposal by all in authority and notably by President Wilson. Indeed, how can France or the Allies (already bled white, and themselves threatened with disaffection in their armies) embark on such a colossal and quixotic task as the re-conquest of Russia at the present time ?
1 Now Countess of Westmorland.
2 Count Isvolsky had been Russian Ambassador in Paris until the collapse of the Imperial régime in 1917.
( pages 54-55 )
* * *
Early in June 1920, D'Abernon was offered the post of Ambassador to Germany. Whether the offer originated from his old friend Lord Curzon (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), or was inspired, as seems to me more probable, by Mr. Lloyd George (Prime Minister), it was in either case undoubtedly due to his well-known financial qualifications. These qualifications had been proved long since when at an extremely difficult and critical time, he had been Financial Adviser to the Khedive at Cairo and had succeeded in averting State bankruptcy. The question of Reparations was already creating Inter-Allied differences and threatening to become insoluble.
At the request of George Curzon, D'Abernon left England at once, arriving in Berlin a few hours after the French Ambassador, who had hastened to present his letters the day before. D'Abernon remained only a few days in Berlin because Lloyd George wished him to attend the Inter-Allied Conference at Spa.
Shortly after this the Bolshevist offensive, with Warsaw for its objective, began to be rigorously pressed. The Poles were retreating everywhere, and the Allies decided to send to their assistance a Franco-British Mission. D'Abernon was appointed to lead the British Delegation, and Monsieur de Jusserand 1 and General Weygand were his French opposite numbers. (Etc.)
1 Monsieur de Jusserand had previously been French Ambassador in Washington.
( page 58 )
It was during the days when the Mission was hesitating between Warsaw and Posen, to which place the Polish Government and the Legations ultimately retired, that I first went to Berlin. It had been arranged that Lord Kilmarnock, who some weeks after the Armistice had been appointed Chargé d'Affaires, should carry on at the Embassy until D'Abernon was free to return and take up the duties of Ambassador. (Etc.)
I spent ten days in Berlin before returning to England and did not go out again until October. The following entries in my diary describe Berlin as it appeared when I first arrived at the time of the Boshevist invasion of Poland in July 1920. (Etc.)
( page 59 )
July 29th, 1920
( . . . )
Although Edgar is away in Poland, Winston Churchill,1 his wife and a few other friends spent last Sunday with me at Esher Place. Winston kindly arranged that I should be met by a military magnate at Cologne, with the happy result that ten minutes after arrival, I was already comfortably breakfasting in this hotel.
1 At this time Mr. Winston Churchill was Secretary of State for War.
( page 59 )
August 4th, 1920.
I arrived early on July 31st, and, being unversed in diplomatic etiquette, was somewhat dismayed by being met at the station in the cold light of six a.m. (unprepared and looking my worst,) by Lord Kilmarnock, and the whole Embassy Staff. Since then the days have been spent in endeavouring to straighten out some of the confusion that prevails on the domestic Hausfrau side of the embassy. I have been much assisted by the efficient endeavours of a clerk sent out by the Office of Works. (Etc.)
( page 60 )
August 6th, 1920.
To-day I re-visited the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, and again came back on foot, meeting Dr. Dresel, the American commissioner, on the embassy doorstep when I returned. Owing to
America not yet being technically at peace with Germany, the have no chargé d'affaires. Dr. Dresel is of German-Jewish origin and consequently he understands the position here better than most people. Government officials in the Wilhelmstrasse have convinced him (and apparently Lord Kilmarnock is of the same opinion) that should events in Warsaw take a bad turn and
the Bolshevists obtain possession of the city, there will be civil war in Germany—Communists versus Reactionists and the middle class.
( pages 62-3 )
6th August 1920
Lord Kilmarnock received to-day a telegram from the Foreign Office saying that D'Abernon is being asked to remain for the present in Warsaw. We hear that although everyone who is in a position to leave is leaving, yet there is no panic, only stupendous and interminable religious processions. The people who quit are those who can well afford to do so and apparently, with Slav fatalism or insouciance, those who go leave all their worldly goods behind them.
August 7th, 1920.
To-day a telegram from Warsaw announces that the Bolshevists are close to the town and that the outlook is so menacing that all the Legations, Government Archives, etc., have been instructed to leave immediately for Posen. Three Red Armies are converging on Warsaw and the Poles are putting up no serious resistance. Cypher telegrams continue to reach the Embassy without much delay, but no private telegrams get through at all. Lord Kilmarnock, from whom it is as easy to elicit news as to draw water from a plugged tap, admits that the existing Government has practically no control over the Post Office officials in East Prussia. The Socialist employés take holidays, transmit
messages—in whole or in part —exactly as they please. There is, he allows, a heavy leaven of Communism permeating Germany, but it is the Government's policy to camouflage it and to hope that it will presently seep away. All over Europe war between nations seems to have given way to an almost worse war between classes, or, to be explicit, a war directed by all wage-earners against those who live on acquired incomes. The Professional and the small rentier classes wage war on no one and are the chief sufferers because they have much less to live on than the wage-earners.
( pages 63-4 )
August 17th, 1920.
(..)
The talks then diverged on to housing conditions, especially in the industrial areas. All agreed that conditions are deplorable. Philip Sasson said that the Labour Party, in order to foster the general discontent, was purposely hindering the Trade Unions from allowing men in the building trade to do a full day's work. Apparently to create and encourage discontent is a lever much advocated in the Bolshevist elementary manuals. (Etc.)
( page 65 )
August 26th, 1920.
I returned to-day to Esher and found a telegram from Cracow annoncing that D'A. and the Mission have finally left Warsaw, whither they had returned after the Bolshevist retreat. It appears that the situation in Germany, no less than here in England, is enormously eased by the retreat of the Bolshevists. Their defeat is the more welcome because so totally unexpected. The other side of the picture is that England's see-saw policy has been neither helpful nor dignified, and the veering weather-cock telegrams and despatches that D'A. received from George Curzon doubled his difficulties not only with the Polish authorities, but even more embarrassingly with the French delegation.
( page 67 )
November 2nd, 1920.
Last night we dined at the Hôtel Adlon next door. The dinner was given in private rooms by Princess Radziwill. She is a Polish war-widow now living in Paris, and has come to Berlin in order to try to regain possession of some wonderful jewels that belonged to her mother and which lie deposited here in a government safe. We had been told that Prince and Princess Blücher had been asked to meet us, together with other Germans, . . . (etc).
At dinner conversation, although not effortless, was more or less general—not just talking to one's neighbour, as at London banquets, . . . (etc). Princess Blücher is English and a Catholic ; she is tall and handsome with pleasing quiet ways ; not brilliant, I should imagine, but dignified and tactful, with a straightforward, easy manner. Princess Radziwill is a tiny, restless imp of a woman, very dark with black, bead-like eyes and quick, darting movements like a lizard. . . . she is quite obviously a network of nerves. She has recently engaged herself to her cousin, Prince " Loche " Radziwill (a brother of the Duchess de Doudeauville) and this although her husband was killed only a few months ago, at the time of the Bolshevist invasion of Poland. They were not happy together and he met with a horrible death. Taken prisoner by the Bolshevists he was cruelly maltreated and mutilated. When his body was exhumed for identification, it was found to be perforated all over with stabs, and the skin of the hands had been pulled off and turned back like gloves. Princess Radziwill chatters about this without reticence, as glibly as one might do (yet hardly would do) had the unfortunate man been a monkey or a cat.
( pages 71-2 )