Final recollections of a diplomatist;

Front matter

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KAILVS f BOOKSTALLS

Preface

This concluding portion of my Eecollections||scarcely needs any introductory words. It comprises the last fifteen years of my official life, and tells my diplomatic story to the end. I can only commend it to the favourable notice of those who have kindly taken an interest in the preceding volumes. '

August 1905.

Contents

CHAP. PA(}E

T. ON THE WAY TO GREECE, 1885 . . . i II. ATHENS REVISITED, 1885 . . . .17

III. ATHENS, 1885— THE REVOLUTION AT

Chapter I On The Way To Greece, 1885

On the i8th of February 1885 I left Stockholm with my family for Gothenburg, and thence had a very pleasant journey, for the time of year, direct to London in the old-fashioned but most comfortable s.s. Bele of the long-established Thule Line. Like the great mass of travellers from foreign parts who are daily disgorged at the Victoria or Charing Cross stations, I had never before approached London by what is its truly Imperial avenue, and, favoured as we were by a beautiful spring-like day, the passage up the Thames — assuredly at all times a most striking and indeed unique experience in travel — interested me far more even than I had expected.

Somehow the impression it made upon me recalled to my mind a story which had been told me many years before by Julian Fane. He was leaving the Embassy at St. Petersburg, in the old days when railway communication with the Russian capital was still incomplete, on board a steamer bound for some German port. Apprehending a tedious passage, he proceeded to take stock of his fellow-passengers, amongst whom

A he soon singled out an intelligent-looking man — evidently a Transatlantic cousin. On entering into conversation with him, Fane thought it good policy at once to express his admiration of the astonishing strides made by the Great Eepublic in the paths of progress and culture, and of the marvellous energy and resourcefulness of its citizens. These, he ended by saying, conveyed in his opinion such valuable lessons that it seemed to him as if the education of an Englishman who had never been in the United States might almost be considered incomplete, and he, for his own part, felt quite ashamed of not having yet visited that wonderful country. In short, he very freely buttered the American toast ; his new acquaintance impassively listening to this flow of buncombe, and, when it had at last come to an end, dryly observing, " Well, sir, it is your duty to do so."

In the same way I would venture to say to those among my much-travelled compatriots who by chance have never had sight of the grand highway of the Thames, from its mouth to the giant city that lies astride of it, that it is almost " their duty to do so," They will thereby have brought home to them, in the course of a few brief hours, a far more impressive object-lesson on the greatness of British enterprise and wealth than they could derive from even the most diligent study of the trade statistics with which the country is now being flooded. The tide that helps to bear the countless, deeply - freighted vessels up the broad stream, to mile upon mile of wharves and quays and docks, is a tide of Empire in very truth, and, if an outburst of Jingoism be excusable at any time or anywhere, it would be so to my mind on the deck of a steamer passing up this unparalleled thoroughfare of sea-borne traffic.

CENTRAL ASIATIC TROUBLE 3

As far as we were concerned, the only drawback to this mode of arrival by the via triumphalis of our so-called nation of shopkeepers was that, through not getting up to Millwall Docks before nightfall of the 2 1st, and being detained there by somewhat vexatious Custom House formalities, we did not reach our distant home in Sloane Street until past 9 p.m:. I now indulged the hope of enjoying two or three months' leave in England. Unforeseen circumstances, however, much curtailed my stay there, and reduced it to little over six weeks. It so happened that in the domain of foreign affairs our political horizon at this period very suddenly assumed a threatening aspect. The more than customary activity manifested by Russia in Central Asiatic regions brought about between the two Governments a marked tension which, soon after, culminated in the Pandjeh incident, and brought us to tiie very verge of war.

Shortly before leaving Sweden I had been able to furnish to Lord Granville information of some value on this question which came from a perfectly unimpeachable and dispassionate source, and revealed the sentiments expressed, in private conversations on Asiatic affairs, by the head of the Imperial Foreign Office at St. Petersburg, M, de Giers, as well as by the Governor-General of the Caucasus, Prince Dondoukow Korsakow, who chanced to be on leave from his command at this time. The pith of the remarks attributed to M. de Giers was that Russia might possibly be compelled "by circumstances" — these no doubt being partly the favourable opportunity afforded by the difficulties in which the British Government then found itself placed in Egypt, and partly Russia's own entanglements in Turkestan — to advance further thaii she desired in that direction, and that she would not at any rate bind herself to stop in such advance. Prince Dondoukow, on his side — representing as he did the aspiring military element to which, by force of circumstance, the lead in these Russian warlike enterprises has always fallen, from the days of Tchernaieff and Skobeleff to those of AlexeieflF — was reported to have put the matter more tersely by saying that Russia on her Eastward march knew of no frontiers but such as she made for herself. " Nos frontieres marchent avec nous " were the words attributed to the Governor-General, and unfortunately nothing could be in greater contradiction with the friendly assurances given to our Embassy in the Russian capital by the Government which was at that very moment engaged with us on a peaceful delimitation of the Afghan boundary.

Without attempting to go at further length into the inner diplomatic history of that critical period, it is, I think, worth pointing out, that this untoward recrudescence of Russian energies in the middle East curiously coincided with a recent marked rapprochement between Berlin and St. Petersburg, following upon something like ten years' coolness — not to say estrangement. This coolness originated in the part taken by Russia, and more particularly by the Emperor Alexander II., with respect to the "French scare" of 1875, some graphic incidents of which have been lately given to the world in the Blowitz Memoirs. Shortly before, too, in September 1884, Prince Bismarck, as has since been revealed to us, had prevailed upon the Russian and German Sovereigns at the meeting of the three Emperors at Skiernievice, to enter into the so-called Ruchversicherungsvertrag, or secret treaty guaranteeing to each

KUSSO-GERMAN RELATIONS s

of the two contracting Empires the benevolent neutrality of the other in the event of its being attacked ; an arrangement the more remarkable from its being in some sense directed against the friendly Power with whom Germany had, only a few years before, come to the intimate understanding, for their mutual protection against aggression, which was later on perfected in the Triple Alliance.^ The Skiernievice compact answered its purpose for a time, but was allowed to lapse by Count Caprivi after the fall of its author, the great Chancellor.

Through these greatly improved relations with her formidable Western neighbour — at that time in the full zenith of world power and influence — Russia had of course acquired a much freer hand. Indeed it might, I think, be pretty safely laid down as an axiom that neither of the two great Northern Empires can well engage in any active course of policy, without having previously, in some degree, made certain of what has been well described as a circumspectly benevolent attitude on the part of the other. In this respect, if I do not entirely misread it, the history of the relations between those Powers — from the far-distant days of the Crimean war down to the Austro-German war of 1866, and to my own recollections of the repudiation of the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris — shows recurrent symptoms of a tacit understanding (by no means excluding mutual watchfulness) between the bordering Monarchies, based on a readiness to concede something to each other's ambitions a charge de revanche. Similar symptoms might possibly be dis-

^ The defensive Treaty between Germany and Austria was concluded on October 7, 1879, but was not made public till February 1888, after the Bignature of the Triple Alliance with Italy which bears the date of March 13, 1887.

cerned without much difficulty at the crisis of the present hour,* and have in fact been freely commented upon in such a sense by a more or less well-informed press.

But I must turn from this digression to the affairs with which I was now to be directly concerned. The threatening outlook in Central Asia reacted on the situation in the nearer Levant in the same way as it is to be feared that the actual conflict in the Far East can also scarcely fail to do. Although the great settlement of Berlin in 1878, barely seven years before, had, it was fondly hoped, set at rest for some time to come the rival aspirations and conflicting claims of restless Balkanic nationalities, the recoil from afar was already making itself felt and producing disquietude in the nearer Eastern regions. The first overt signs of impending trouble in the Balkanic Peninsula were the disputes that arose between the Governments of Servia and of the newly - created Bulgarian Principality on certain boundary questions, and about the asylum given in Bulgaria to Servian political refugees. These discussions, which covered the last six months of 1884, left behind them deep traces of ill-will that finally led to open war in the following year. The political atmosphere in the Near East was in fact sufficiently charged to justify our Foreign Office in the wish to see its representatives in that perturbed corner of Europe present at their posts. Some local incidents at Athens, which it is needless to enter into here, further contributed to render it desirable that I should repair to my new destination without too much delay.

Lord Granville none the less considerately made due allowance for the fact that I had been very little in England in the course of the last six years, and that

1 Written in the spring of 1904.

LUTON HOO 7

my private affairs therefore urgently required attending to before I could once more take up my diplomatic wandering staff. I thus went through a few weeks of the earlier London season, during which I renewed my intimacy of days long past with a valued Vienna colleague, Christian de Falbe, who had now been for some years Danish Minister in London, and, through his marriage with the very wealthy widow of Mr. Gerard Leigh, had acquired in society a position quite unique of its kind for a Foreign representative in this country. So kind a friend did M. de Falbe show himself to me that I may be not unpardonably partial to his memory. Certain it is at any rate that nothing could be more genial than the hospitality which he and his wife — the handsomest couple, though no longer young, that could be seen — dispensed in Grosvenor Square and at Luton Hoo, which fine place became in their hands the most comfortable and luxurious of country homes. Of course ;^6o,ooo a year goes more than a long way towards keeping up a large establishment, but it was the perfect organisation of the entire household, the thorough finish of every detail throughout the beautiful house, and the many choice artistic objects it contained — picked up at Christie's and other sales, which the Falbes much frequented — that bore striking witness to their great taste and discernment. Seldom within my experience have great riches ministered with so much intelligence to the more refined luxuries of life, and this without the slightest vestige of ostentation. But the era of the South African millionaire had not yet then fully burst upon the London world, bringing with it examples of a faux luxe and a proneness to excessive display which have since become such questionable features of much of the entertaining at the present day.

We went down to Luton for Easter, our first visit to that delightful place, and met there a small and pleasant party, amongst whom — besides a daughter of the house, charming Mrs. George Forbes — were the Swedish Minister, Count Piper, Percy Ffrench of Monivea, and the universally-popular Major Seymour Wynne Finch. Beautiful, I remember, was the musical part of the service on Easter Sunday in the private chapel, Mme. de Falbe taking a great interest in the organ and choir. Luton Hoo, with its historic memories of Lord Bute and its massive Georgian grandeur, has now, it is sad to think, passed into entirely new hands. Its last owner, Mr. Gerard Leigh, succeeded to it on the death of his stepmother, Mme. de Falbe, but shortly after he too died, when all its contents were sold, including some very fine tapestry that filled the panels of one of the large reception rooms. These tapestries, it may be remembered, ultimately became the subject of an interesting law-suit involving the correct definition of what ought in strict law to be considered as hondfide fixtures.

Among my social recollections of London at this time are the dinners and musical evenings at the Duff Gordons', very old friends of my wife. The two kindly spinster ladies in Hertford Street, Mayfair — aunts of the late Sir Maurice Duff Gordon — were most hospitable, and entertained in a simple old-world fashion, having after dinner the very best of amateur music and an assemblage of artistic and agreeable people. These parties, which dated back to the days of old Lady Duff Gordon, will be remembered by many as a sort of landmark in a certain section of society, and only ceased with the death, at a good old age, of the younger of these typical English

THE BLUMENTHALS 9

gentlewomen of the fine old school ; the elder one, known to her many friends as "The Captain," from the decision with which she ruled the family quarterdeck, still surviving.

Well worthy of mention, too, are the perfectlyappointed dinners and interesting concerts given by the Blumenthals in their picturesque and artistic house at Hyde Park Gate, which to this day continues to be one of the pleasantest points de reunion in London, paradoxically remarkable though it be for the poor acoustics it affords to so much charming music. The walls of the quaint, low-pitched rooms were decorated by Miss Jekyll, and Madame Blumenthal, with her own delicate-looking but clever hands, elaborately inlaid the mahogany doors and panellings with ivory, &c. The popularity of Monsieur and Madame, as they like to be called, grows greater year by year, and their Tuesday invitations seem to be more and more sought after. The Blumenthal parties rank with the equally beneficent and attractive Sunday musical afternoons of my old ally Mrs. Eonalds, for innumerable are the real kindnesses thereby done by both hostesses to friendless musical artists of all nationalities, too often rashly launched on the uncertainties and risks of a London musical season.

The date fixed for our departure for Greece now came pressingly near. Shortly before Easter (on the 24th March) I had kissed hands at Windsor on my new appointment, and on Easter Monday (April the 5th) my wife and I had a take-leave audience of the Prince and Princess of Wales, at which the two young Princes, whom I had not seen since their visit to Buenos Ayres, were both present. The Prince of lo RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Wales, as I have said elsewhere, had been so good as to interest himself about my possible appointment to Athens, when I was passed over for that post and sent a second time to South America instead, and H.E.H. was pleased to express his satisfaction at the selection now made of me ; both he and the Princess charging me with letters and particular messages for the Court with which they were so closely connected.

The private matters I had had to look after being finally disposed of, we left London on the 1 5th of April ; our departure being marked by a series of mishaps, which, however trivial in themselves, have since seemed to me, when looking back upon them in the light of subsequent events, as absurdly prophetic of the difficulties I afterwards had to cope with in my new diplomatic sphere. We provokingly began by missing the morning express for Paris at Charing Cross, and, while waiting at the station for a later train to Dover, I was seized by a sudden attack of faintness and prostration, which prevented our proceeding on our journey before the afternoon. To complete our contretemps a butler, whom we had engaged only a few days before with the best of characters, showed such signs of intoxication on our arrival at the "Lord Warden," where we dined and awaited the night-boat, that he had to be discharged and sent back to London there and then. Altogether — as my wife put it in the diary she kept very conscientiously at this time and during most of our sojourn in Greece — it was "a terrible day of disasters." The same ill fate pursued us to Paris, where my wife was laid up for the best part of ten days ; fortunately at the very comfortable Hotel Liverpool in the Hue de Castiglione.

LUDOVIC DE POLIGNAC n

Our forced stay in Paris was quite devoid of incidents beyond a pleasant dinner at the Embassy, in company with the Bonhams, the young Leghs of Lyme/ and our two future successive Ambassadors at Washington, Sir Julian Pauncefote and Mungo Herbert,^ and some family gatherings at the house on the Boulevard Malesherbes of Alphonse de Polignac's widow, who was remarried to a Comte Kozan. This, by the way, was one of the last opportunities I had, after a long interval, of foregathering with the eldest surviving of my Polignac cousins, Ludovic, who died only the other day (January 15, 1904) at Algiers, where he had made his principal home for many years. A retired colonel of the Etast Major, and an oflBcer of conspicuous merit and great scientific attainments, he had fought, like his younger brother Camille, all through the Franco-German war, during which he served on the staff of General de Ladmirault. On the renewal of diplomatic relations after the peace he was sent as Military Attach^ to the Embassy of M. de Gontaut at Berlin, where, thanks to his name and courtly anden regime bearing and looks, together with his thorough command of German, he soon achieved great popularity, and enjoyed the special favour of the old Emperor William. His recollections of that period, if he has left any record of them, ought to be highly interesting.

We pursued our journey Eastwards on the 28th, with a day's break at Turin, where we put up at the Hotel de I'Europe (formerly Trombetta) on the Piazza Castello, the very same caravansary where I had landed — then but a raw, new-fledged Attach^ — in November 1 849, over thirty-five years before. The

' Now Lord and Lady Newton.

2 The late Right Honourable Sir Michael Herbert, G.C.B.

best part of our day was spent with our former Stockholm colleagues, the Spinolas, who had an old, rambling family Palazzo at Porta d'ltalia, and whom we were to meet again at The Hague some years later. I found the discrowned Piedmontese capital immensely changed since the days of my youth. It had quite lost its former distinct type of a medium-sized Court residence, with a dignified historical past that was well expressed by its formal, somewhat somnolent aspect. Its ancient stateliness and repose were now merged in the bustle and activity of a greatly enlarged commercial and industrial centre. The town had spread in all directions, and even in the older districts so much of it had been pulled down and rebuilt, that I had much difficulty in retracing some of my best-remembered haunts, and went about with the feeling of being an utter stranger, or as it were a ghost of the past, in a city every stone of which had formerly been so familiar to me. In my eyes certainly all charm and character had departed from the place I had known and loved so well in the glamour of my first burst into the pomps and vanities of diplomatic life.

We went on to Brindisi by the crowded, sluggish, ill-appointed night-mail of those days, having to turn out and change at Bologna at three in the morning. (Query : Why is it that travelling by rail through the glorious land of an eminently kindly, intelligent people is often made so singularly unpleasant by worn-out or insufficient rolling-stock and bad management, and by the too frequent want of civility of the Italian railway stafi" — not to touch upon other far graver drawbacks ?) Anyhow the journey to Brindisi seemed to us endless and most wearisome — even though for the greater part of the day we skirted the lovely Adriatic seaboard —

COKFU 13

and it was not until long after midnight that we were settled on board the small Greek steamer bound for Corfu. I had intended going on thence direct to the Pirgeus by the next boat, but, hearing that the King was expected almost immediately, I determined to await his Majesty's return to Corfu, and took up my quarters at the Hotel St. George — now thoroughly renovated and improved since I first knew it in 1864 when we gave up our protectorate over the Islands in favour of Greece. His Majesty's customary Eastertide stay in his Ionian dominions had been interrupted by the Ministerial crisis following upon the general elections that had proved so unfavourable to the Administration of M. Tricoupis, and which had led to that statesman's resignation.

A day or two later the King arrived, just in time for the feast of St. George, and his Majesty drove in with the Queen from the country to attend the service at the garrison church in the fortress. I went out on to the esplanade to see them pass, and was gratified when the King at once recognised me and greeted me cordially with a wave of the hand. I had of course immediately applied for an audience through the Marechal de la Cour, Admiral Sahini. That dignitary, however, having to go with the Queen in the Royal Yacht to Trieste to meet H.M.'s brother the Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovitch, the matter of my audience had escaped his attention. I therefore had to renew my application through the Aide-de-Camp in waiting, when the King at once graciously sent word that he would see me the next day at luncheon at his country villa of Monrepos, built by Sir Frederick Adam, and formerly the summer residence of our Lord High Commissioners during the British occupation of Corfu. Nothing could be kinder or more cordial than the welcome which his Majesty was pleased to give me at this strictly informal private interview. At luncheon there was no one present but the young Princes and Princesses, with their tutor and their French and English governesses, Mile. Hinal and Miss Boyd. The King afterwards took me to his study, where he talked with me for a long time on every kind of subject, beginning with our common recollections of his first visit to these Islands, when I had accompanied him as Charge d' Affaires and had been in daily intercourse with him for several weeks, as I have narrated elsewhere.*

King George had now entered on his fortieth year. The ingenuous youth of eighteen had, since I parted from him, weathered some twenty-two years of a chequered reign, during which he may well have lost a good many of the hopes and illusions that gilded its outset. Though still in the very prime of life, he had matured into a monarch of many and not always satisfactory experiences. He in part perhaps owed the remarkable insight he had acquired into men and things to disenchanting though unavoidable contact with party leaders whose keen intellects were too often bent on personal aims. Himself a thoroughly conscientious and patriotic ruler, he had sometimes been obliged by the exigencies of the hour to turn for advice to politicians of a very different typa H.M. had none the less steered his course with great tact and ability through many difficulties and disappointments. It so happened that shortly before my arrival both he and Greece had lost, in M. Coumoundouros, a statesman of great experience and capacity, and that they were now deprived, by the chances of a general election, of the services of by far the ablest and most high-minded of Greek Premiers, ^ " BecoUectioDs of a Diplomatist," voL ii.

KING GEORGE 15

Charilaos Tricoupis, a man fitted for a much bigger stage than that to which his exceptional talents and energies were confined. To his largeness of conception, in fact ; to a generous tendency to view and attempt things on a grand scale — partly arising out of a liberal English education,^ but mostly inspired by the noble and genuine faith he nourished in the destinies of the Greek people — M. Tricoupis chiefly owed the crushing defeat he had just experienced.

The King was of course full of the recent crisis, and spoke of it with real concern. He was of opinion that M. Tricoupis had brought about his own downfall — and a very rough one it was — by an almost reckless disregard of public sentiment. He had been repeatedly warned of the danger of too largely increasing the public burdens, and thereby preparing serious financial embarrassments for the country. Nevertheless, he had persisted in attempting to compass too much in too short a time, with the result that the nation had just unmistakably shown its thorough disapproval of his policy. It was now to be feared that the late Ministry might be impeached by the hostile majority which had placed M. Delyannis in power in its stead. Impeachment was a weapon that had been used by the new Premier on former occasions, and it would be surprising if it were not resorted to again. Passing to other topics. King George did not omit to touch upon the threatening aspect of affairs in Central Asia. Personally he did not anticipate that Eussia would push matters so far as to bring about a conflict, the issue of which might possibly be unfavourable to her. Although

^ M. Tricoupis had passed much of hia youth in England, where his father had been Envoy for a good many years, and had afterwards been attached to the Greek Legation in London.

the remarks made by the King were strictly guarded, it was pretty clear that he had not lost his sympathies for the country to which his Kingdom owed the Ionian Islands, and which had been mainly instrumental in enlarging his dominions by the splendid province of Thessaly. I came away from my audience much impressed by the shrewd sense, and charmed by the frank simplicity and easy, affable address of the Sovereign to whom I had the good fortune to be accredited.

Three days later we were on our way to Athens in the good ship Austria, reaching the Piraeus in the early morning of the 1 3th of May — an inauspicious date, as I have since been reminded, for entering on duties which before long were to entail the gravest responsibilities. At the Piraeus we were met by my old friend, Consul Merlin, formerly Manager of the Ionian Bank at Athens, and were taken on shore with all due honours in the galley of the Captain of the Port.

Chapter II Athens Revisited, 1885

I WAS of course prepared to find the Greek capital much improved and altered since my last view of it in 1864, but was none the less surprised by its development, and the signs it showed of steady expansion and growing prosperity. The kernel of the small town of former days remained much as I remembered it. Its busiest part centred as of old round the narrow streets of Hermes and Eolus with their shabby shops and execrable pavement; a few picturesque types — islanders with the baggiest of breeks, or swaggering fellows in fustanellas — still giving here and there a semi-oriental relief to the commonplace crowds with which they mingled. Unchanged, too, was most of the yet more primitive region round about the site of the recently excavated Agora and the Temple of the Winds, which thence went straggling up, in crooked lanes and wynds, to the first slopes of the Acropolis ; a region still enduring in witness of the sad level of Eastern meanness and squalor to which the city of the violet garland had sunk under Turkish rule. But, in almost every direction beyond these narrow districts, an entirely modern town had sprung up which was intersected by spacious avenues or boulevards, laid out on an ambitious scale, and a not too judicious design as regards their proportions. Under the cloudless, burning Attic sky, they simply afforded long, shadeless vistas of fierce sunlight, and in winter were too often swept by hurricanes of blinding dust.

Nevertheless, these broad thoroughfares, which ran, one above the other, in parallel lines, up to and along the rocky base of Lycabettus, were not devoid of dignity. At intervals their monotony was broken by a few really fine public buildings, among them the University and the Academy of Science and Art — the latter the work of the eminent architect Hansen, who, later on, was to erect that splendid Temple of Discord, the Parliament House at Vienna — and by various large educational institutions like the Arsakeion, the Varvakeion, and others. Sparsely scattered about these main streets, too, were a few sumptuous private residences, as, for instance, Schliemann's somewhat pretentious " Palace of Ilion " ; the beautiful house of that most munificent of Greek citizens, the late M. Syngros ; and those of half-a-dozen other rich Hellenes who, unlike the great majority of their prosperous congeners of Trieste, Alexandria, London, and other important Greek centres, had returned to live in their own country instead of contenting themselves with endowing it or financing it from a distance. For, splendid though be their donations to the Fatherland, the leading members of the Greek communities abroad show but little inclination to come and reside amongst, and throw in their lot with their own people. This seems a pity, and may indeed be accounted in some degree a national misfortune. In the complete absence of any clearly defined aristocratic, or upper, class, a cultured and patriotic plutocracy would furnish a valuable reinforcement to the feeble conservative elements of the country, and might serve as a counterpoise to the clique of professional politicians and