INTRODUCTION I William Edward Goschen, Best Remembered As Sir
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INTRODUCTION I William Edward Goschen, best remembered as Sir Edward Goschen, was British Ambassador in Berlin at the time of the outbreak of the First World War. It was he who, on 4 August 1914, delivered the British ultimatum to the Secretary of State at the Imperial Foreign Office, Gottlieb von Jagow, and subsequently had a celebrated inter- view with the Imperial Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Holl- weg. According to Goschen's report of his last days in Berlin, written later for the Foreign Office, Bethmann Hollweg complained that Bri- tain was going to make war on a kindred nation 'just for a scrap of paper'—the 'scrap of paper' being the London Treaty of 19 April 1839, which had provided for the independence and neutrality of Belgium, under the guarantee of the five Great European Powers.1 Goschen's report, which was laid before Parliament, helped to make the words 'scrap of paper' a catch-phrase, which was exploited over and over again for purposes of war-propaganda.2 The name of the author of what must be one of the most frequently quoted diplomatic documents of the early twentieth century naturally figures in numerous historical monographs. Goschen's character has been delineated by several of those who knew him personally: by Maurice Baring, who served under him in Copenhagen and later became well known as a novelist and journalist, in The Puppet Show of Memory (1922); by Henry Bruce, who was his private secretary in both Vienna and Berlin, in Silken Dalliance (1946); by Frank Rattigan, who was second secretary at the Berlin Embassy in 1913—14, in Diver- sions of a Diplomat (1924); and by Baron Hubert Beyens, who was Bel- gian Minister in Berlin from 1912 until the outbreak of war, in Deux Annees a Berlin (Paris, 1931, 2 vols.). The story of his conduct of his mission in the summer of 1914 has been related by Horace Rumbold, who was Councillor at the Berlin Embassy at the time, first in a 'rough account', set down shortly after its author's return to England,3 and then in The War Crisis in Berlin, published more than a quarter of a century later (1940; 2nd ed. 1944). His qualities as a diplomat have been appraised by Henry Wickham Steed, who, as correspondent of 1 Goschen to Grey, dated 6 Aug. 1914, F.O. 371/2164; B.D., xi, no. 671; cited here- after as 'no. 671'; for a discussion of the real date of this document see below. 2See below, p. 51; also Appendix B. 3R. P. Rumbold wrote on the envelope containing this document: 'A rough account by me of the crisis at Berlin during the 12 days which preceded the European war. This account was written immediately after I returned to England on 7 August, 1914.' Martin Gilbert in his Sir Horace Rumbold (1973), pp. 104-25, to which I am much in- debted, quotes at length from this document, cited hereafter as 'Rough Account'. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.93, on 24 Sep 2021 at 19:13:52, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500002233 2 DIARY OF EDWARD GOSCHEN The Times, was in close touch with him during the years of his Vienna ambassadorship, in Through Thirty Years (1924, 2 vols.). However, so far as the editor is aware, his diary and other private papers have not previously, been used by any historian. An 'Ancestral Tree', evidently drawn up towards the end of the nineteenth century by a professional German genealogist, provides a considerable amount of information concerning Goschen's descent. It shows that he was the youngest child of Wilhelm Heinrich Goschen, a native of Leipzig, who was born in 1793, and of Henrietta Ohmann, who was born in London in 1805. Wilhelm Heinrich Goschen was the fourth and youngest son of Georg—or Jurgen—Joachim Goschen, a native of Bremen, born in 1752, who moved to Leipzig, where he founded a publishing firm. Goethe and Schiller were among his authors. His wife was Johanna Henriette Heun of Sonnenschein. Wil- helm Heinrich Goschen emigrated to London while still in his early twenties, and, together with another young German, Peter Friihling, set up what proved to be the successful finance house of Friihling and Goschen. His marriage to Henrietta Ohmann, daughter of Wilhelm Alexander Ohmann (according to the 'Ancestral Tree', an Irishman of German descent) and Henrietta Sim, took place at Liverpool on 12 May 1829.4 Henrietta bore her husband six daughters and six sons. Five daughters and five sons reached maturity. The eldest son, George Joachim, born in 1831, entered the House of Commons in 1863 as a Liberal, was a member of Russell's second and Gladstone's first Cabinets, but, having broken with Gladstone, served under Salisbury as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1887 to 1892 and as First Lord of the Admiralty from 1895 to 1900. He had a house in Portland Place and another, Seacox Heath, at Flimwell, near the Kentish village of Hawkhurst, but on the Sussex side of the county border. In 1900 he was raised to the peerage. Henry, Charles and Alexander, respectively the third, fourth and fifth sons, pursued successful careers in banking. Two daughters, Emily and Marion, married brothers, Gustav and Georg von Metzsch, who were both in the service of the King of Saxony. William Edward, the youngest child, was born at Eltham in Kent on 18 July 1847. He was known by his second Christian name. Wilhelm Heinrich Goschen lived until 1866; his wife until 1895. Edward Goschen—to give his surname in the form that the family after a time adopted—spent much of his childhood at Templeton House, Roehampton. He was, like his eldest brother, educated at Rugby, where in due course he became, according to his fellow- ambassador, Maurice de Bunsen, who had been with him at the school, although a few years his junior, 'a great swell in the cricket 4'Ancestral Tree,' the property of the family. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.93, on 24 Sep 2021 at 19:13:52, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500002233 INTRODUCTION 3 eleven'.5 He went on to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and twice represented the University at tennis—real tennis, as it is now often called—against Cambridge. In 1869 he entered the Diplomatic Ser- vice. After being employed for a few months at the Foreign Office he was posted to Madrid. He subsequently served in Buenos Aires, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Constantinople, where he was for a time attached to George Joachim's Special Embassy, Peking and Copen- hagen. In 1891 he proceeded to Lisbon. It is at this point in his career that his diary begins. In 1874, wnile serving as third secretary at the Buenos Aires Lega- tion, Goschen married an American girl, Harriet Hosta Clarke, daughter of Darius Clarke. According to the 'Ancestral Tree' Hosta— she too used her second Christian name—was born in 1849 at Mar- shall in the State of Michigan; the wedding took place near New York. To judge from a portrait in oils by Archibald Stuart-Wortley, which is in the family's possession, Hosta must in her younger days have been strikingly good-looking. She figures frequently in her husband's diary as 'Boss' or 'Bossie'—nicknames that are probably the outcome of some family joke. She seems to have retained few roots in her country of origin and to have preferred life in Europe, although she evidently found the so-called entertainments of diplomatic life un- congenial. The marriage was a happy one. Hosta bore her husband twosons, Edward Henry, born in 1877 and known variously as 'Ted', 'Teddie', 'T. Wee', 'Twee' or 'Fry', and George Gerard, born in 1887 and known as 'Bunt' or 'Bunty'. She died, after a long illness, in February 1912. II It would be interesting to know whether Goschen kept any record of his activities before 1891, when this diary begins. No such document is to be found among his papers. One would also like to know his motives for keeping a diary. No doubt he did so, partly at least, for his own amusement. He probably found that to write an account of an important conversation soon after it had taken place helped him subsequently in the composition of a dispatch or private letter to the Foreign Office. He certainly found his diary a useful means of refresh- ing his memory concerning past events.6 He evidently also intended it to be read by his wife, from whom he was often parted and to whom 5De Bunsen to Hilda von Deichmann, 9 Jan. 1910, de B.P., MB/I/i 1. I have made enquiries at Rugby School, but have been unable to confirm de Bunsen's statement. However, there seems to be no reason to question its correctness: Goschen was a good athlete. 6Goschen to Rumbold, 21 March 1915, Gr. P., F.O. 800/1107. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.93, on 24 Sep 2021 at 19:13:52, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500002233 4 DIARY OF EDWARD GOSCHEN it contains numerous references—even an occasional mild reproof (Diary, 30 May 1891, 1 March 1903).