Ottoman Public Debt, and soon became president of that Council. From 1883 to 1889 he
was financial adviser to the Egyptian government and from 1889 to 1897 was governor of
the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople. In Salisbury's third administration he was
a Conservative M.P. for Exeter (1899-1906). The next few years were devoted to private
affairs in international banking circles close to Milner. In 1920 he was the British civilian
member of the "Weygand mission to Warsaw." This mission undoubtedly had an
important influence on his thinking. As a chief figure in Salisbury's efforts to bolster up
the Ottoman Empire against Russia, D'Abernon had always been anti-Russian. In this
respect, his background was like Curzon's. As a result of the Warsaw mission,
D'Abernon's anti-Russian feeling was modified to an anti-Bolshevik one of much greater
intensity. To him the obvious solution seemed to be to build up Germany as a military
bulwark against the Soviet Union. He said as much in a letter of 11 August 1920 to Sir
Maurice Hankey. This letter, printed by D'Abernon in his book on the Battle of Warsaw
( The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World, published 1931), suggests that "a good
bargain might be made with the German military leaders in cooperating against the
Soviet." Shortly afterwards, D'Abernon was made British Ambassador at Berlin. At the
time, it was widely rumored and never denied that he had been appointed primarily to
obtain some settlement of the reparations problem, it being felt that his wide experience
in international public finance would qualify him for this work. This may have been so,
but his prejudices likewise qualified him for only one solution to the problem, the one
desired by the Germans.(5)
In reaching this solution, D'Abernon acted as the intermediary among Stresemann, the
German Chancellor; Curzon, the Foreign Secretary; and, apparently, Kindersley, Brand’s
associate at Lazard Brothers. According to Harold Nicolson in his book Curzon The Last
Phase (1934), "The initial credit for what proved the ultimate solution belongs, in all
probability, to Lord D'Abernon—one of the most acute and broad-minded diplomatists
which this country has ever possessed." In the events leading up to Curzon's famous note
to France of 11 August 1923, the note which contended that the Ruhr occupation could
not be justified under the Treaty of Versailles, D'Abernon played an important role both
in London and in Berlin. In his Diary of an Ambassador, D'Abernon merely listed the
notes between Curzon and France and added: "Throughout this controversy Lord
D'Abernon had been consulted.”
During his term as Ambassador in Berlin, D'Abernon's policy was identical with that
of the Milner Group, except for the shading that he was more anti-Soviet and less anti-
French and was more impetuous in his desire to tear up the Treaty of Versailles in favor
of Germany. This last distinction rested on the fact that D'Abernon was ready to appease
Germany regardless of whether it were democratic or not; indeed, he did not regard
democracy as either necessary or good for Germany. The Milner Group, until 1929, was
still in favor of a democratic Germany, because they realized better than D'Abernon the
danger to civilization from an undemocratic Germany. It took the world depression and
its resulting social unrest to bring the Milner Group around to the view which D'Abernon
held as early as 1920, that appeasement to an undemocratic Germany could be used as a
weapon against "social disorder. "
Brigadier General J. H. Morgan, whom we have already quoted, makes perfectly clear
that D'Abernon was one of the chief obstacles in the path of the Inter-allied Commission's
efforts to force Germany to disarm. In 1920, when von Seeckt, Commander of the
German Army, sought modifications of the disarmament rules which would have
permitted large-scale evasion of their provisions, General Morgan found it impossible to
get his dissenting reports accepted in London. He wrote in Assize of Arms: "At the
eleventh hour I managed to get my reports on the implications of von Seeckt's plan
brought to the direct notice of Mr. Lloyd George through the agency of my friend Philip
Kerr who, after reading these reports, advised the Prime Minister to reject von Seeckt's
proposals. Rejected they were at the Conference of Spa in July 1920, as we shall see, but
von Seeckt refused to accept defeat and fell back on a second move." When, in 1921,
General Morgan became "gravely disturbed" at the evasions of German disarmament, he
wrote a memorandum on the subject. It was suppressed by Lord D'Abernon. Morgan
added in his book: "I was not altogether surprised. Lord D'Abernon was the apostle of
appeasement." In January 1923, this "apostle of appeasement" forced the British
delegation on the Disarmament Commission to stop all inspection operations in
Germany. They were never resumed, although the Commission remained in Germany for
four more years, and the French could do nothing without the British members.(6)
Throughout 1923 and 1924, D'Abernon put pressure on both the German and the
British governments to pursue a policy on the reparations question which was identical
with that which Smuts was advocating at the same time and in the same quarters. He put
pressure on the British government to follow this policy on the grounds that any different
policy would lead to Stresemann's fall from office. This would result in a very dangerous
situation, according to D'Abernon (and Stresemann), where Germany might fall into the
control of either the extreme left or the extreme right. For example, a minute of a German
Cabinet meeting of 2 November 1923, found by Eric Sutton among Stresemann's papers
and published by him, said in part: "To the English Ambassador, who made some rather
anxious enquiries, Stresemann stated that the maintenance of the state of siege was
absolutely essential in view of the risk of a Putsch both from the Left and from the Right.
He would use all his efforts to preserve the unity of the Reich.... Lord D'Abernon replied
that his view, which was shared in influential quarters in London, was that Stresemann
was the only man who could steer the German ship of State through the present troubled
waters." Among the quarters in London which shared this view, we find the Milner
Group.
The settlement which emerged from the crisis, the Dawes Plan and the evacuation of
the Ruhr, was exactly what the Milner Group wanted. From that point on to the banking
crisis of 1931, their satisfaction continued. In the years 1929-1931 they clearly had no
direct influence on affairs, chiefly because a Labour government was in office in London,
but their earlier activities had so predetermined the situation that it continued to develop
in the direction they wished. After the banking crisis of 1931, the whole structure of
international finance with which the Group had been so closely associated disappeared
and, after a brief period of doubt, was replaced by a rapid growth of monopolistic
national capitalism. This was accepted by the Milner Group with hardly a break in stride.
Hichens had been deeply involved in monopolistic heavy industry for a quarter of a
century in 1932. Milner had advocated a system of "national capitalism" with "industrial
self-regulation" behind tariff walls even earlier. Amery and others had accepted much of
this as a method, although they did not necessarily embrace Milner's rather socialistic