Ormsby-Gore, Edward Wood, Amery, three Cecils (Robert, Evelyn, and Hugh), two
Astors (John and Nancy), Samuel Hoare, Eustace Percy, and Lord Wolmer. In the
minority were Fisher, Simon, and Arthur Salter.
By March, Fisher and Simon were more threatening to France. On the sixth of that
month, Fisher said in the House of Commons: "I can only suggest this, that the
Government make it clear to France, Germany, and the whole world that they regard this
present issue between France and Germany, not as an issue affecting two nations, but as
an issue affecting the peace and prosperity of the whole world. We should keep before
ourselves steadily the idea of an international solution. We should work for it with all our
power, and we should make it clear to France that an attempt to effect a separate solution
of this question could not be considered otherwise than as an unfriendly act." Exactly a
week later, John Simon, in a parliamentary maneuver, made a motion to cut the
appropriation bill for the Foreign Office by £100 and seized the opportunity to make a
violent attack on the actions of France. He was answered by Eustace Percy, who in turn
was answered by Fisher.
In this way the Group tried to keep the issue before the minds of the British public and
to prepare the way for the Dawes settlement. The Round Table, appealing to a somewhat
different public, kept up a similar barrage. In the June 1923 issue, and again in
September, it condemned the occupation of the Ruhr. In the former it suggested a three-
part program as follows: (1) find out what Germany can pay, by an expert committee's
investigation; (2) leave Germany free to work and produce, by an immediate evacuation
of the Rhineland; and (3) protect France and Germany from each other [another hint
about the future Locarno Pacts]. This program, according to The Round Table, should be
imposed on France with the threat that if France did not accept it, Britain would withdraw
from the Rhineland and Reparations Commissions and formally terminate the Entente. It
concluded: " The Round Table has not hesitated in recent months to suggest that [British]
neutrality . . . was an attitude inconsistent either with the honour or the interests of the
British Commonwealth." The Round Table even went so far as to say that the inflation in
Germany was caused by the burden of reparations. In the September 1923 issue it said
(probably by the pen of Brand): "In the last two years it is not inflation which has brought
down the mark; the printing presses have been engaged in a vain attempt to follow the
depreciation of the currency. That depreciation has been a direct consequence of the
world's judgment that the Allied claims for reparation were incapable of being met. It will
continue until that judgment, or in other words, those claims are revised."
In October 1923, Smuts, who was in London for the Imperial Conference and was in
close contact with the Group, made speeches in which he compared the French
occupation of the Ruhr with the German attack on Belgium in 1914 and said that Britain
"may soon have to start rearming herself in sheer self-defence" against French militarism.
John Dove, writing to Brand in a private letter, found an additional argument against
France in the fact that her policy was injuring democracy in Germany. He wrote:
“It seems to me that the most disastrous effect of Poincare's policy would be the final
collapse of democracy in Germany, the risk of which has been pointed out in The Round
Table. The irony of the whole situation is that if the Junkers should capture the Reich
again, the same old antagonisms will revive and we shall find ourselves willy-nilly, lined
up again with France to avert a danger which French action has again called into being. . .
. Even if Smuts follows up his fine speech, the situation may have changed so much
before the Imperial Conference is over that people who think like him and us may find
ourselves baffled.... I doubt if we shall again have as good a chance of getting a peaceful
democracy set up in Germany.”
After the Dawes Plan went into force, the Milner Group's policies continued to be
followed by the British government. The "policy of fulfillment" pursued by Germany
under Stresemann was close to the heart of the Group. In fact, there is a certain amount of
evidence that the Group was in a position to reach Stresemann and advise him to follow
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