AN ENIGMA
IN a note preceding this fourth and last volume of Lord Esher's Journals and Letters, the editor tells us that it completes the picture of a "distinguished private life." But he appends, in the manner of a motto, Lord -Beaconsfield's dictum that the most powerful men are not public men : "it is private life that governs the world." This applies so aptly to Lord Esher's career that its significance is no doubt intentional. He steadily
avoided public service, and declined all posts that entailed direct responsibility. Among those offered him were the Governorship of Cape Colony, the Secretaryship of State for War, and the Viceroyalty of India. His influence, he felt, was best exercised in irresponsible privacy : if he accepted such he tells us that he
"would be throwing away the substance for the shadow. ... Besides every day questions arise of vital importance to the country, where I can have my say and sway a decision. India would be for me (it sounds vain, but isn't) parochial."
His remarkable record is that of " a distinguished private life." Over two-thirds of this volume, covering the years from 1918 to 1930, deal with the War. Till the beginning of 1918 Lord
Esher practically lived in France, serving there in this private capacity and absolutely Unknown to the public. He defines his office as "between Robertson (Chief of the Staff), Haig and the French, which my knowledge of their people and family connexions, &c., enables me to do More surely than any other available person." He writes to Haig asking why he has not got a liaison officer in Paris : "If it were not for me," he says, "you would be shut off from all knowledge of what is going on." When he comes to England it is for similar offices, and he interviews the French Ambassador in preparation for Briand's visit, for somebody (possibly Lloyd George's friends) his made mischief between him and Kitchener:. so. he promises the Prime Minister to do what he can to help him and Robertson. His main business was to smooth down friction between soldiers and politicians, and to bring home to them that quarrelling among themselves did not conduce to a united, front against the enemy. A letter he wrote to the Prince of Wales gives a good example of his wisdom and common sense. The country, he tells him, in years to come will look to leadership from him. "Therefore for England you Must sacrifice much ; all your inclinations, your companions, Your secret wishes. It is a big
sacrifice but a noble one."
In this period he completely altered his estimate of Lord Kitchener. Previously he had lauded him to the skies, as the one sure rock and stand-by, worthy.of the unqualified support of the King. He had continual conferences with him and was the partner in his most intimate councils, his mentor and disciple. But in this volume he becomes his critic : he cannot think of anyone who would take Kitchenees place, but he sees in him manifold weaknesses and ignorance of the English : his judgement of men was faulty, he was singularly blind in administrative acumen, and time and again he was weak when the Government expected him to be firm. He was slow to per- ceive the obvious, he knew nothing about history or of the troubles that follow war, he judged by "an instinct of the desert." Lord Esher, in fact, though conscious of his immense diffiCulties, had ceased to believe in him, and when in June, 106, Kitchener Went down on the 'Hampshire,' he thought that with the raising of his army, his work had been done, and that all that the country had lost, was a figure-head symbolical of national aspirations; a "legendary hero," whose faults were obvious, and whose supreme merit had been his concentration on 'Winning the war. Statues, he hoped, would be erected to him everywhere and that "the men who decried him will hide their faces as they pass by." One would hesitate to describe Lord Ether's book The Tragedy of Lord Kitchener, published five years later, as 'one of these statues.
The letters and journals dealing with the remaining years of the Tar express, more than anything, Lord Esher's dis- gusted..Weariness of the whole affair. After 1917 his service in France ceased altogether, and his criticisms are chiefly• condemnatory, of those in charge.. Lloyd George in 1917 is "losing _the War, hard," a capital levy, will be inevitable, the French are :Purely ,materialistic, devoid of all idealism kid- their first desire is Jo get 'their_ expenses .paid in full by Germany. From the first he distrusted President Wilson.
"His," he says, "is the sea-green incorruptible character that produces cataclysms." As the end of the War approached, he acutely foresaw, as in his advice to the Prince of Wales, the dangers ahead, the imbecility of attempting to crush a great nation, the necessity for a "new dispensation" before a formula like the League of Nations can be effective. "War is a tragedy, Peace Congress the farce that follows," and in that farce President Wilson impersonates a foolish swollen- headed old Buddha, who ought never to have left his temple to walk the boulevards.
The bitterness of these comments, in spite of their keen discernment, suggests that he was a tired and perhaps a dis- appointed man, whose great days, when he had a determining finger in so many pies, were over, and that he wondered (indeed he suggests as much himself) whether his steadfast resolve to lead a "guarded life," always at work, but potently unseen, was wise or unwise. He remains, for all the copious- ness of these four intimate volumes, strangely enigmatic. Perhaps he was subconsciously or even consciously aware that his subtle and adroit brain, critical rather than creative, feminine rather than masculine in type, was unfitted for the decisiveness demanded of -Proconsuls, and that his continued refusals of the highest administrative posts showed a justifiable distrust of himself in such capacities. Or were his refusals of them partly due to his reluctance to quit a life which was so vastly more congenial to him ? Certainly it afforded his undoubted ability far wider opportunities of exercising itself in central and imperial businesses, in comparison with which the supreme conduct of Indian affairs seemed remote and parochial. . . . The psychology of the author of these Letters and Journals is at least as interesting as the events which
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