nineteen years, chiefly as aide to various colonial administrators, when he was assigned
to Milner as military secretary in 1897. After three years of that, he went to London as
secretary to the Secretary of State for War (St. John Brodrick, 1900-1903), and to Canada
as secretary and military secretary to the Governor-General, Earl Grey (1904-1909). Then
he was brigadier general in charge of administration in Scotland (1909-1914) and on the
General Staff (1914), Chief of the British Military Mission to Russia (1914-1917), in
charge of the British Prisoners of War Department at The Hague (1917-1918) and in
Switzerland (1918), and ended his career in a blaze of glory as a major general, marshal
of the diplomatic corps (1920-1934), and extra equerry to three Kings of England (1934-
1946).
John Buchan was not a member of the inner core of the Milner Group, but was close
to it and was rewarded in 1935 by being raised to a barony as Lord Tweedsmuir and sent
to Canada as Governor-General. He is important because he is (with Lionel Curtis) one of
the few members of the inner circles of the Milner Group who have written about it in
published work. In his autobiography,
outline of the personnel of the Kindergarten and their subsequent achievements, and a
brilliant analysis of Milner himself. He wrote:
“He (Milner) had received—chiefly from Arnold Toynbee—an inspiration which
centered all his interests on the service of the state. He had the instincts of a radical
reformer joined to a close-textured intellect which reformers rarely possess. He had a
vision of the Good Life spread in a wide commonalty; and when his imagination
apprehended the Empire, his field of vision was marvelously enlarged. So at the outset of
his career he dedicated himself to a cause, putting things like leisure, domestic happiness,
and money-making behind him. In Bacon's phrase he espoused the State. On the
intellectual side he found that which wholly satisfied him in the problems of
administration, when he confronted them as Goschen's secretary, and in Egypt, and at
Somerset House. He had a mind remarkable both for its scope and its mastery over
details—the most powerful administrative intelligence, I think, which Britain has
produced in our day. If I may compare him with others, he was as infallible as Cromer in
detecting the center of gravity in a situation, as brilliant as Alfred Beit in bringing order
out of tangled finances, and he had Curzon's power of keeping a big organization steadily
at work. He was no fanatic—his intelligence was too supreme for that—but in the noblest
sense of the word, he was an enthusiast. He narrowed his interests of set purpose, and this
absorption meant a certain rigidity. He had cut himself off from some of the emollients of
life. Consequently, the perfect administrator was a less perfect diplomatist. . . [Later,
Buchan adds,] I was brought into close touch with a great character. Milner was the most
selfless man I have ever known. He thought of his work and his cause, much of his
colleagues, never of himself. He simply was not interested in what attracts common
ambition. He could not be bribed, for there was nothing on the globe wherewith to bribe
him; or deterred by personal criticism, for he cared not at all for fame; and it would have
been as easy to bully the solar system, since he did not know the meaning of fear.”
The effect Milner had on Buchan was shared by the other members of the
Kindergarten and provided that spiritual bond which animated the Milner Group. This
spirit, found in Toynbee, in Goschen, in Milner, and later in Lionel Curtis, was the
motivating force of the Milner Group until after 1922. Indeed, much of what Buchan says
here about Milner could be applied with slight change to Lionel Curtis, and Curtis, as we
shall see, was the motivating force of the Milner Group from 1910 to 1922. After 1922,
as the influence of Lord Lothian, Lord Astor, and Lord Brand increased and that of
Milner declined, the spirit of the Group became somewhat tarnished but not completely
lost.
Buchan went to Brasenose College, but, as he says himself, "I lived a good deal at
Balliol and my closest friends were of that college." He mentions as his closest friends
Hilaire Belloc, F. E. Smith (the future Lord Birkenhead), John Simon, Leo Amery, T. A.
Nelson, Arthur Salter, Bron Lucas, Edward Wood (the future Lord Halifax), and
Raymond Asquith. Of this list, five were future Fellows of All Souls, and four of these
were important members of the Milner Group.
Buchan went to South Africa in 1901, on Milner's personal invitation, to be his private
secretary, but stayed only two years. Placed in charge of resettlement of displaced Boers
and agricultural reform (both close to Milner's heart), he left in 1903 to take an important
position in the administration of Egypt. This appointment was mysteriously canceled
after his return to England because, according to Buchan, he was too young for the task.