this policy. This was done through Smuts and Lord D'Abernon. There is little doubt that
the Locarno Pacts were designed in the Milner Group and were first brought into public
notice by Stresemann, at the suggestion of Lord D'Abernon.
Immediately after Smuts made his speech against France in October 1923, he got in
touch with Stresemann, presumably in connection with the South African Mandate in
South-West Africa. Smuts himself told the story to Mrs. Millen, his authorized
biographer, in these words:
“I was in touch with them [the Germans] in London over questions concerning
German South-West. They had sent a man over from their Foreign Office to see me. (4) I
can't say the Germans have behaved very well about German South-West, but that is
another matter. Well, naturally, my speech meant something to this fellow. The English
were hating the Ruhr business; it was turning them from France to Germany, the whole
English-speaking world was hating it. Curzon, in particular, was hating it. Yet very little
was being done to express all this feeling. I took it upon myself to express the feeling. I
acted, you understand, unofficially. I consulted no one. But I could see my action would
not be abhorrent to the Government—would, in fact, be a relief to them. When the
German from the Foreign Office came to me full of what this sort of attitude would mean
to Stresemann I told him I was speaking only for myself. "But you can see," I said, ‘that
the people here approve of my speech. If my personal advice is any use to you, I would
recommend the Germans to give up their policy of non-cooperation, to rely on the
goodwill of the world and make a sincere advance towards the better understanding
which I am sure can be brought about.’ I got in touch with Stresemann. Our
correspondence followed those lines. You will remember that Stresemann's policy ended
in the Dawes Plan and the Pact of Locarno and that he got the Nobel Peace for this
work!"
In this connection it is worthy of note that the German Chancellor, at a Cabinet
meeting on 12 November 1923, quoted Smuts by name as the author of what he
(Stresemann) considered the proper road out of the crisis.
Lord D'Abernon was not a member of the Milner Group. He was, however, a member
of the Cecil Bloc's second generation and had been, at one time, a rather casual member
of "The Souls." This, it will be recalled, was the country-house set in which George
Curzon, Arthur Balfour, Alfred Lyttelton, St. John Brodrick, and the Tennant sisters were
the chief figures. Born Edgar Vincent, he was made Baron D'Abernon in 1914 by
Asquith who was also a member of "The Souls" and married Margot Tennant in 1894.
D'Abernon joined the Coldstream Guards in 1877 after graduating from Eton, but within
a few years was helping Lord Salisbury to unravel the aftereffects of the Congress of
Berlin. By 1880 he was private secretary to Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, brother of Lord
Lansdowne and Commissioner for European Turkey. The following year he was assistant
to the British Commissioner for Evacuation of the Territory ceded to Greece by Turkey.
In 1882 he was the British, Belgian, and Dutch representative on the Council of the
Ottoman Public Debt, and soon became president of that Council. From 1883 to 1889 he
was financial adviser to the Egyptian government and from 1889 to 1897 was governor of
the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople. In Salisbury's third administration he was
a Conservative M.P. for Exeter (1899-1906). The next few years were devoted to private
affairs in international banking circles close to Milner. In 1920 he was the British civilian
member of the "Weygand mission to Warsaw." This mission undoubtedly had an
important influence on his thinking. As a chief figure in Salisbury's efforts to bolster up
the Ottoman Empire against Russia, D'Abernon had always been anti-Russian. In this
respect, his background was like Curzon's. As a result of the Warsaw mission,
D'Abernon's anti-Russian feeling was modified to an anti-Bolshevik one of much greater
intensity. To him the obvious solution seemed to be to build up Germany as a military
bulwark against the Soviet Union. He said as much in a letter of 11 August 1920 to Sir
Maurice Hankey. This letter, printed by D'Abernon in his book on the Battle of Warsaw
(
bargain might be made with the German military leaders in cooperating against the
Soviet." Shortly afterwards, D'Abernon was made British Ambassador at Berlin. At the
time, it was widely rumored and never denied that he had been appointed primarily to
obtain some settlement of the reparations problem, it being felt that his wide experience
in international public finance would qualify him for this work. This may have been so,
but his prejudices likewise qualified him for only one solution to the problem, the one
desired by the Germans.(5)
In reaching this solution, D'Abernon acted as the intermediary among Stresemann, the