Bucharest and St Petersburg

  • John Fisher
Chapter
Part of the Britain and the World book series (BAW)

Abstract

The New Year of 1909 dawned brightly for Garnett. He was to go to Bucharest, and William Tyrrell, Sir Edward Grey’s private secretary, was keen that he should arrive there by 9 February, in order to replace Colville Barclay, who was to return to the Foreign Office.l In the event Garnett and Barclay did not coincide in Bucharest as planned, and Barclay advised Garnett by letter as to how best to prepare for the very mixed climate, and rather trying living conditions of his new post. He also informed Garnett that rather than rent a flat, it would be better for him to take a room at the Hotel du Boulevard, where the minister, Sir William Conyngham Greene, and other colleagues were staying. He also said that the legation house was in the process of refurbishment, although the Chancery had been finished and was back in use, and from June to October each year, when the legation moved to Sinaia, in the heart of the Carpathians, he would be able to obtain quarters in a villa. Garnett was also advised to come suitably equipped for skating, tennis, shooting, riding and, of course, bridge.2

Keywords

Fervent Supporter Russian Authority Foreign Policy Issue Royal Geographical Society Initial Doubt 
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Notes

  1. 14.
    Richard Onslow (Viscount Cranley) to Garnett, 23 Mar. 1909, ibid. Cranley was not being entirely candid: he had disliked Russia; The Earl of Onslow, Sixty-Three Years (London, Hutchinson, 1944), p. 89;Google Scholar
  2. M. J. Hughes, Inside the Enigma: British Officials in Russia 1900–1939 (London, Hambledon, 1997), p. 22.Google Scholar
  3. 15.
    D. Lieven, Nicholas II: Twilight of the Empire (New York, St Martin’s Griffin, 1993), pp. 170–1, 173.Google Scholar
  4. 23.
    Although Italy, in the October 1909 Racconigi Agreement, promised ‘benevolent consideration’ of Russian aims; H. Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire 1801–1917 (Oxford, Clarendon, 1988 imprint), p. 692.Google Scholar
  5. 26.
    C. J. Lowe and M. L. Dockrill, The Mirage of Power: Volume 1: British Foreign Policy 1902–14 (London/Boston, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 83–4. On the issue of the ultimatum,Google Scholar
  6. also see D. E. Lee, Europe’s Crucial Years: The Diplomatic Background of World War I, 1902–1914 (Hanover, New Hampshire, University Press of New England, 1974), pp. 203–4. Nicolson was in no doubt as to its intent; Nicolson to Grey, 24 Mar. 1909, private, FO 800/73.Google Scholar
  7. 28.
    K. Neilson, ‘“My Beloved Russians”: Sir Arthur Nicolson and Russia, 1906–1916’, IHR, 9, 4 (1987), 540–1; Britain and the Last Tsar, pp. 305–6.Google Scholar
  8. 32.
    Russia: Annual Report, 1911, p. 5; O’Beirne to Grey, 28 Jun. 1911, no. 183, G. P. Gooch and H. Temperley, BD, vol. X The Balkan Wars pt. 1, the Prelude; The Tripoli War (London, Johnson Reprint, 1933), p. 480.Google Scholar
  9. 34.
    Garnett to his father, 2 Dec. 1909, DDQ 9/22/28. Earlier reforms instigated to relieve junior diplomats of routine work had limited effect; R. A. Jones, The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914 (Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1983), pp. 164–7.Google Scholar
  10. 49.
    On Persia’s sources of revenue and connected problems, see J. Bharier, Economic Development in Iran 1900–1970 (London, Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 7–9.Google Scholar
  11. 50.
    See S. Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926 (London, Tauris, 1997), pp. 17–29. For an assessment of the Cossack Brigade, see ibid., pp. 54–65.Google Scholar
  12. 51.
    M. E. Yapp, ‘1900–1921: The Last Years of the Qajar Dynasty’, in H. Amirsadeghi (ed.), assisted by R. W. Ferrier, Twentieth Century Iran (New York, Holmes and Meier, 1977), p. 5.Google Scholar
  13. D. McLean, Britain and Her Buffer State: the Collapse of the Persian Empire, 1890–1914 (London, Royal Historical Society, 1979), pp. 57–8. Between 1903 and 1913, the British Government and Government of India had advanced roughly £750,000 to the Persian Government.Google Scholar
  14. 53.
    M. E. Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East 1792–1923 (London, Longman, 1987), p. 258. This paragraph draws upon this source, pp. 246–60, and Yapp, ‘The Last Years’.Google Scholar
  15. 74.
    Garnett to his mother, 4 Feb. 1911, DDQ 9/26/4. Meriel Buchanan (Sir George Buchanan’s daughter) recalled the ‘purgatory’ of the weekly ’At Home’ which each ambassadress was expected to host and, more generally, the tedium of much of the socializing; M. Buchanan, The Dissolution of an Empire (London, John Murray, 1932), pp. 18ff.Google Scholar
  16. 77.
    See Hughes, Inside the Enigma (p. 272), on Cecil Spring-Rice, who was embassy secretary, 1903–6. Also, as regards the weather, Buchanan, Dissolution, p. 63, and Ambassador’s Daughter (London, Cassell, 1958), pp. 99–100; Hardinge of Penshurst, Old Diplomacy (London, John Murray, 1947), p. 84.Google Scholar
  17. 105.
    Hughes, Inside the Enigma, pp. 13–14. A. Cross, ‘A Corner of a Foreign Field: the British Embassy in St Petersburg, 1863–1919’, SEER, 88, 1–2 (2010), 328–58.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© John Fisher 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • John Fisher
    • 1
  1. 1.University of the West of EnglandUK

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