Diplomat, Old Style*

PORTRAIT OF A DIPLOMATIST--Harold Nicolson--Houghton Mifflin ($5).

In the dear dead days before the present millennium had set in, diplomacy was secret, diplomats secretive and suave. The late Sir Arthur Nicolson (1849-1928), onetime English Ambassador to the Sublime Porte (Constantinople), to Madrid, to St. Petersburg, onetime Permanent Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, is the subject of his son Harold Nicolson's excellent biography. Son Harold, approving the manners but not the machinations of pre-War diplomats, considers his father "an admirable example for the study of the old diplomacy at its best. . . . Arthur Nicolson was neither imaginative nor intellectual: he was merely intelligent, honest, sensible, high-minded and fair. In temperament he was essentially English."

Arthur Nicolson entered the Foreign Office in 1870, left it in 1910. Between those two dates he held increasingly important posts in Berlin, Peking, Constantinople, Athens, Persia, Budapest, Morocco, Madrid, St. Petersburg. Friendly at first to Germany and fearing Russia's encroachments in the Near East, Nicolson came gradually to reverse this feeling, and ended by doing everything he could to strengthen the Anglo-Russian-French entente. He foresaw Germany's menace to England, but even during the War, "he was incensed by the theory . . . that Germany had provoked the War. . . . He was appalled by the Treaty of Versailles. Particularly did he resent the paragraph which obliged Germany by force to admit that she was solely responsible for the War. He considered that paragraph both undignified and meaningless."

A little man, frail, prematurely aged and crippled by arthritis, Sir Arthur was quiet, dignified, unhurried, hard to ruffle. The red tape of his job bored him; he knew how to laugh. When, newly appointed Ambassador to Spain, he presented his credentials to King Alfonso, he read his speech before the grandees of Spain, listened to the King's reply, bowed himself backwards toward the door, "stumbled over a stool, and fell flat on the carpet. Not a muscle moved on the face of King Alfonso. It was only when the great doors had closed behind him that Nicolson heard from the throne-room peal upon peal of schoolboy laughter."

Just before a meeting (1908) between King Edward VII and the Tsar, the King called Sir Arthur to him. "He then asked him to explain the present nature and purposes of Russian policy; the exact names and past records of the Tsar's staff; the prospects of agriculture in Russia; whether the Emperor would wear the uniform of the Scots Greys or whether he would appear dressed as a Russian Admiral; what decorations he would wear and in what order; what about the Russian Railways; whether M. Stolypin spoke French, or German, or even English; what exactly were the present relations between the Government and the Duma; was the Duma a thing one should mention, or not? The state of Russian finances; the conditions in the army and navy; the progress in education; the names of some of the leading Russian writers, musicians, and scientists. Would the Emperor talk about the Japanese Alliance? If so, what was the best thing to say? Was it a thing to mention, or not? Would the speeches be at luncheon or at dinner? Would Baron Frederickz be content with a K. C. V. O.?"

Biographer Harold Nicolson has much to say of the origins of the War, comes to the conclusion that "the war was caused by an unhealthy state of mind in Europe; that state of mind had been created by the amassed unintelligence of international thought from 1878 onwards." As for the British share: "British statesmen are usually blind to their own tendencies, but vividly aware of their own disinclinations. While not knowing what they are doing or what they want to do, they realize quite clearly what they do not want to do, and they are apt to grasp at this negative, and to proclaim it, in place of the very tiring calculations which any positive policy would entail."

The Author. Harold Nicolson (44), third and youngest son of Sir Arthur, grew up in the diplomatic atmosphere of foreign legations, entered the Foreign Office in 1909, later served in Embassies at Madrid and Constantinople. He married (1913) Authoress Victoria Sackville-West (TIME, Sept. 1). They have two sons. Egregious among present biographers, historians, he has a style polite, accurate, ironic, never loud. Viz: "Mr. Henry White, the United States representative was conciliatory, ignorant and charming."

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