Ways and Byways in Diplomacy. By Sir William J. Oudendyk.
(Peter Davies. r5s.) SIR WILLIAM OUDENDYK'S memoirs of his diplomatic career in the Dutch service from 1874 to 1931 are written in excellent English and reveal an intimate know- ledge of China, Russia and Persia. Of the old China to which he was first posted he writes sympathetically, admitting the faults of its government under the Dowager Empress, but contrasting with its civilisation the greed and brutality dis- played by some of the European forces sent to relieve the Peking Legations. The author was the Dutch Minister in Russia during the revolution, and in 1918 took charge of British interests there—a task which earned him his British knighthood. His account of the confused horrors of those days is all the more impressive because of its studied modem. tion. As the only foreign diplomatist who was in touch with the secret police, it fell to him to plead for and to save some of their victims. He quotes hysterical telegrams from Tchicherin threatening reprisals if the Czechs in Siberia hanged any Bolsheviks. When Sir William returned to China in 1919 he saw much of the vain efforts of the Comintern to convert the Chinese.
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