Lord Curzon as Man. and Minister Curzon. The Last Phase,
1919-1925. By Harold Nicolson. (Constable. 18s.)
Ma. HAROLD NICOISON'S new book, like his biography of his father, Lord Carnock, is at once the study of a personality and the study of an era.. The author has peculiar qualifica- tions for his task. He was, as near as can be, born in the diplomatic service ; he was in constant contact with Lord Curzon during the latter's Foreign Secretaryship—particularly at the Conference of Lausanne, which constituted Lord Curzon's greatest diplomatic achievement ; and his own interests, like his chief's, slanted definitely towards the East, for apart from being born at Teheran he served there some forty years later as Counsellor of Legation and in the mean- time had been at Constantinople, and in another capacity had been plunged in all the deepest intricacies and the treaties of Sevres and Lausanne. Of his literary qualities it is super- fluous to speak.
But Mr. Nicolson is handling difficult material. Lord Curzon is not, in fact, a good personification of an era in diplomacy. He was not, for all his ability, his immense industry and his lofty sense of public duty, partly by reason of the defects of his own personality, a great Foreign Secretary, partly through the fact that he got to the Foreign Office in 1919 to find that the initiation and direction of foreign policy was largely in the hands of Mr. Lloyd George's brilliant but inexperienced secretariat on the other side of Downing Street. (He used privately to reproach his predecessor, Mr. Balfour, for having sold the pass.) But there is more than that. Mr. Nicolson rightly treats the period of Lord Curzon's tenure of office as the era of diplomacy by con- ference, a subject on which he has much that is instructive and pertinent to say. He gives a detailed list of international conferences held in 1920, 1921 and 1922, all completing the work of the original Peace Conference. They amount to twenty-five, and to them might be added the Brussels Financial Conference, the Washington Naval Conference and three Assemblies of the League of Nations. But in one only of these, the first Lausanne Conference, was Lord Curzon a figure of any consequence. From one he was deliberately and disgracefully excluded ; in the next he was a negligible personality. Mr. Nicolson's Hamlet, in consequence, has to be played on in the rather conspicuous absence of the Prince.
' That is an inevitable and by no means a fundamental defect. Lord Curzon abundantly repays this intimate and detailed study ; the question of diplomacy by conference abundantly repays discussion. And if Mr. Nicolson has to force the two into a slightly artificial unity his skill has disguised the sutures effectively. His criticisms of diplomacy by conference,- and his declaration of preference for democratic decisions on policy supplemented by expert conduct of negotiations, rather overlook one rather fundamental fact, that in the years following the War there was virtually no alternative to diplomacy by conference. Not two or three nations were involved, but twenty or thirty. National sensitiveness was acute. No State was willing to be left out of discussions. Whether the delegates were Cabinet Ministers or Ambassadors, in their aggregation they formed a conference. And in most cases rapid decisions had to be at least attempted, even though they were rarely if ever achieved. That involved the presence of principals, rather than of subordinates who would have constantly to refer home for instructions. It is pertinent, moreover, to note that the conference which Mr. Nicolson describes in detail—and most brilliantly—was in the end a very definite success.
In his study of Lord Curzon's life and character Mr. Nicolson shows himself possessed of a hand as light as an artist's and as firm as a surgeon's. He spares his Cromwell none of the warts. There is in fact rather much of Lord Curzon's tears, and the picture of his distress over the choice of Mr. Baldwin as successor to Mr. Boner Law in 1923 leaves one uneasily perplexed, for the story of-that must either be given by authority or without it, and while it is impossible to assume the latter it is difficult to assume the former. Personally, the Marquis (to revert to the once familiar appella- tion) emerges from Mr. Nicolson's pages as an intensely human figure, engaging as much in his weaknesses (though not in all of them) as in his more conspicuous public qualities— human, indeed, often to the point of pathos. And strange though it may seem to- those who knew Lord Curzon only
through the newspapers, that was in fact the real man.
Though I never knew him intimately I could quote many personal illustrations of that. Mr. Nicolson has done a very real service to the memory of a much misunderstood statesman, and in doing it he has exhibited qualities of exposition, analysis, and epigrammatic description and objectivity in at least as high degree as in the two earlier volumes of his diplomatic trilogy. And to say that is no light praise.
Into Lord Curzon's strength and weakness as a Foreign Minister there is no space to enter here. On many minor points concerning foreign policy generally I should question Mr. Nicolson's judgements, but that is simply an individual difference of opinion. He is right no doubt in his main thesis, that the Marquis was unequalled in his knowledge of the past and his grasp of the present, but defective in both imagination and decision as regards the future. On one point, Lord Curzon's real attitude towards the League of Nations, I should have liked to hear more from Mr. Nicolson. Its first four Assemblies and a dozen or more of its Connell meetings were held while the Marquis was in office, but he attended only one, the first meeting of the Council at Paris in 1920. (Mr. Nicolson is to that extent inaccurate when he says he attended none at all.) I remember his observing to me once that " as you know, I invariably do everything I can to support the League of Nations " and he did in fact use it to good purpose over Mosul. On the other hand, as Mr. Nicolson shows clearly, he let it down disastrously over Corfu. What did he really feel about the League ? H. Wu.sosf HARRIS.
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