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Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC (12
June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British politician who was
Foreign Secretary for three periods between 1935
and 1955, including World War II and Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957. He is mainly remembered for his role in the
Suez Crisis of 1956, which was politically disastrous from a British perspective. He is
generally ranked among the least successful British Prime Ministers of the 20th century.[1][2]
Early career
Eden was born in West Auckland, County Durham,
England, into a very conservative landowning family, and attended Eton. He was a younger son of Sir William Eden, baronet, from an
old titled family. His mother, Sybil Frances Grey, was a member of the famous Grey family
of Northumberland (see below). This was the meaning of Rab Butler's later gibe that Eden - in later life a handsome but ill-tempered man - was "half mad baronet,
half beautiful woman". He had an elder brother called Timothy and a younger brother, Nicholas, who was to be killed when the
HMS Indefatigable was sunk at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.
During the First World War, Eden serving with the King's Royal Rifle Corps reached the
rank of captain, received a Military Cross, and at the age of twenty-one became the
youngest brigade-major in the British Army; at a conference in the early 1930s he and Hitler observed that they had probably
fought on opposite sides of the trenches in the Ypres sector. After the war he studied at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in oriental
languages. (He was fluent in French, German and Persian and also spoke Russian and Arabic). After fighting a hopeless seat
in the November 1922 General Election, Captain Eden, as he was still known, was elected Member of Parliament for Warwick and Leamington in the December 1923 General Election, as a
Conservative. In that year also he married Beatrice Beckett. They had three
sons, one of whom died shortly after birth, but the marriage was not a success and broke up under the strain of Eden's political
career.
During the 1924-9 Conservative Government Eden was first Parliamentary
Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson Hicks, and then in 1926 to the Foreign Secretary Sir Austen
Chamberlain. In 1931 he held his first ministerial office as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In
1934 he was appointed Lord Privy Seal and Minister for the League of Nations in Stanley Baldwin's Government. Like many
of his generation who had served in the First World War, Eden was strongly anti-war and strove
to work through the League of Nations to preserve European peace. He was however among the first to recognise that peace could
not be maintained by appeasement of Nazi Germany and
fascist Italy. He privately opposed the policy of the Foreign
Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, of trying to appease Italy
during its invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935. When Hoare resigned after the failure of the Hoare-Laval
Pact, Eden succeeded him as Foreign Secretary.
At this stage in his career Eden was considered as something of a leader of fashion. He regularly wore a Homburg hat (similar to a trilby but more rigid), which became known in Britain as an "Anthony Eden".
Foreign Secretary and resignation (1935-38)
Eden became Foreign Secretary at a time when Britain was having to adjust its foreign
policy to face the rise of the fascist powers. He supported the policy of non-interference in the Spanish Civil War, and supported Neville Chamberlain in
his efforts to preserve peace through reasonable concessions to Germany. He did not protest when Britain and France failed to
oppose Hitler's reoccupation of the
Rhineland in 1936. But in February 1938, he resigned because he could not accept Chamberlain's opening of negotiations
with Italy. He became a Conservative dissenter leading a group conservative whip David Margesson called the "Glamour Boys," and a leading anti-appeaser
like Winston Churchill who led a similar group called "The Old Guard."[3] Although Churchill lost sleep the night of Eden's resignation
(later recounted in his wartime memoirs (The Gathering Storm, 1948), they were not allies, and did not see eye to eye
until Churchill became Prime Minister. There was much speculation that Eden would become a rallying point for all the disparate
opponents of Chamberlain, but instead he maintained a low profile, avoiding confrontation though he opposed the Munich Agreement and abstained in the vote on it in the House of Commons. As a result Eden's position
declined heavily amongst politicians, though he remained popular in the country at large - in later years he was often wrongly
supposed to have resigned in protest at the Munich Agreement.
Second World War (1939-45)
In September 1939, on the outbreak of war, Eden, who had briefly rejoined the army with the rank of major, returned to
Chamberlain's government as Secretary of State for Dominion
Affairs, but was not in the War Cabinet. As a result he was not considered a
candidate for the Premiership when Chamberlain resigned after Germany invaded France in May 1940
and Churchill became Prime Minister. Churchill appointed Eden Secretary of State for
War. Later in 1940 he returned to the Foreign Office, and in this role became a member of the executive committee of the
Political Warfare Executive in 1941. Although he was one of Churchill's
closest confidants, his role in wartime was restricted because Churchill conducted the most important negotiations, with
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin,
himself, but Eden served loyally as Churchill's lieutenant. Nevertheless he was in charge of handling much of the relations
between Britain and de Gaulle during the last years of the war. In 1942 he was given
the additional job of Leader of the House of Commons.
Post-war
Opposition (1945-51)
After the Labour Party won the 1945 elections, Eden went into opposition as
Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party. Many felt that Churchill should have retired and
allowed Eden to become party leader, but Churchill refused to consider this and Eden was too loyal to press him. He was in any
case depressed during this period by the break-up of his first marriage and the death of his eldest son, Simon Eden, in the last
days of the war.
Return to government (1951-55)
In 1951, the Conservatives returned to office and Eden became Foreign Secretary for a third time. Churchill was largely a
figurehead in this government and Eden had effective control of British foreign policy for the first time, as the
Cold War grew more intense. He dealt effectively with the various crises of the period,
although Britain was no longer the world power it had been before the war. In 1950 he and
Beatrice Eden were finally divorced and in 1952 he married Churchill's niece, Lady Clarissa Spencer-Churchill (b. 1920) — a nominal Roman Catholic who was fiercely
criticized by Catholic writer Evelyn Waugh for marrying a divorced man — a marriage much
more successful than his first had been. In 1953 Eden underwent a series of operations at Boston's Lahey Clinic to correct
complications of gallbladder surgery he had undergone previously in London. During the removal of his gallbladder he suffered a
bile duct injury, a very serious complication of a relatively minor procedure. Eden's health never fully recovered; this was to
undermine his subsequent career. In 1954 he was made a Knight of the Garter.
Prime Minister (1955-57)
In April 1955 Churchill finally retired, and Sir Anthony succeeded him as Prime Minister. Eden was a very popular figure, as a
result of his long wartime service and his famous good looks and charm. On taking office he immediately called a general election, at which the Conservatives were returned with an increased
majority. But Sir Anthony had never held a domestic portfolio and had little experience in economic matters. He left these areas
to his lieutenants such as Rab Butler, and concentrated largely on foreign policy, forming a
close alliance with U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. His famous words "Peace comes first, always" added to his already substantial
popularity.
Suez (1956)
- Further information: Suez Crisis
This alliance proved illusory, however, when in 1956 Sir Anthony, in conjunction with France, tried to prevent
Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt, from
nationalising the Suez Canal, which had been owned since the 19th century by British and
French shareholders in the Suez Canal Company. Eden, drawing on his experience in the 1930s, saw Nasser as another
Mussolini, considering the two men aggressive nationalist "socialists" determined to
invade other countries. This inspite of the fact that the Suez Canal was built on Egyptian
soil by the European owned Suez Canal Company using Egyptian slave labour [1] Sir Anthony even responded by plotting to assassinate Gamal Abdel
Nasser by enlisting Miles Copeland's "assistance" since he was-apparently-a
close friend of Nasser's. Others believed that Nasser was acting from legitimate patriotic concerns.
In October 1956, after months of negotiation and attempts at mediation had failed to dissuade Nasser, Britain and France, in
conjunction with Israel, invaded Egypt and occupied the Suez Canal Zone. But Eisenhower
immediately and strongly opposed the invasion. The U.S. President was an advocate of decolonisation, because it would strengthen U.S. interests, and presumably make other Arab and African
leaders more sympathetic to the United States. Eden had ignored Britain's financial dependence on the U.S. in the wake of World
War II, and was forced to bow to American pressure to withdraw. The Suez Crisis is widely
taken as marking the end of Britain (along with France, whose forces had been defeated at Dien Bien Phu in Indo-China two years earlier) as a great power.
The Suez fiasco ruined, in many eyes, Eden's reputation for statesmanship and led to a
breakdown in his health. His Chancellor, Harold
Macmillan, despite having been one of the architects of Suez, manoeuvred Eden into resignation and succeeded him as Prime
Minister in January 1957. Eden retained his personal popularity and was made Earl of Avon
in 1961.
Suez in retrospect
His official biographer Robert Rhodes James re-evaluated sympathetically Eden's
stance over Suez in 1986 [4] and, following the
Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, asked, "who can now claim that Eden was wrong?"
[5]. Such arguments turned mostly on whether, as a matter
of policy, the Suez operation was fundamentally flawed or whether, as such "revisionists" thought, the lack of American support
conveyed the impression that the West was divided and weak. Anthony Nutting, who
resigned as a Foreign Office Minister over Suez, expressed the former view in 1967, the year of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, when he wrote that "we had sown the wind of bitterness and we were to reap the whirlwind of
revenge and rebellion" [6]. Conversely, D. R. Thorpe, another of Eden's biographers, suggested that had the Suez venture succeeded, "there would
almost certainly have been no Middle East war in 1967, and probably no Yom Kippur War in
1973 also" [7].
Health Speculation in later years
A medical mishap would change the course of Eden’s life forever. During an operation to remove Eden’s gallstones, the surgeon
damaged his bile duct. This blunder made Eden vulnerable to recurrent infections and attacks of violent pain and fevers. To
overcome this weakness Eden was prescribed the wonder drug of the 1950s - Benzedrine.
Regarded by doctors in the 1950s as a harmless stimulant, it belongs to the family of drugs
called amphetamines – the illegal drug we now call speed. During this time amphetamines were
prescribed and used in a very casual way.
Rejected plan for union between Britain and France
British Government cabinet papers from September 1956, during Eden's term as Prime Minister, have shown that French Prime Minister Guy Mollet
approached the British Government suggesting the idea of an economic and political union between France and Great
Britain.[8] This was a similar offer, in reverse, to that
made by Churchill (drawing on a plan devised by Leo Amery [9]) in June 1940 [10]. The offer by Guy Mollet was referred to by Sir John Colville, Churchill's former private secretary, in his collected diaries, The Fringes of Power
(1985), his having gleaned the information in 1957 from Air Chief Marshal Sir William Dickson during an air flight (and, according to Colville, after several whiskies
and soda) [11]. Mollet's request for Union with Britain
was rejected by Eden, but the additional possibility of France joining the British
Commonwealth was considered, although similarly rejected. Colville noted, in respect of Suez, that Eden and his Foreign
Secretary Selwyn Lloyd "felt still more beholden to the French on account of this offer"
[12].
Retirement (1957-77)
Eden soon retired and lived quietly with his second wife Clarissa,
formerly Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, niece of Sir Winston, in 'Rose Bower' by the banks of the River Ebble in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire and published a highly
acclaimed personal memoir, Another World (1976), as well as several volumes of political memoirs. He sat for extensive
interviews for the famed multi-part Thames Television production, The World at
War, which was broadcast in 1974. He also featured frequently in Marcel Ophüls'
1969 documentary Le chagrin et la pitié, discussing the occupation of France in a wider geopolitical context. He spoke
impeccable, if accented, French.[13] From 1945–1973, Eden
was Chancellor of the University of
Birmingham, England.
On a trip to the United States in 1976-77 to spend Christmas and New Year with Averell and Pamela Harriman, his health rapidly
deteriorated. At his family's request, James Callaghan arranged for an RAF plane that was already in America to divert to Miami to fly
him home. The Earl of Avon died from liver cancer in Salisbury in 1977 at the age of 79; born in the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, he
thus died in the year of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. Eden's papers are housed at the University of Birmingham Special Collections.
Eden's surviving son, Nicholas Eden (1930–1985), known as Viscount
Eden until 1977, was also a politician and was a minister in the Thatcher government
until his premature death from AIDS at the age of 54.
His eldest son, Simon Eden, died whilst on operational duty with the RAF in Burma during the Second World War. There was a
close bond between Anthony Eden and Simon, and Simon's death was a great personal shock to Anthony Eden.
Anthony Eden is buried in the country churchyard at Alvediston, just 3 miles upstream from 'Rose Bower' at the source of the
River Ebble.
The Eden Government
Changes
- December 1955 - Rab Butler succeeds Harry Crookshank as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the
House of Commons. Harold Macmillan succeeds Butler as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Selwyn Lloyd succeeds Macmillan as Foreign
Secretary. Sir Walter Monckton succeeds Lloyd as Minister of Defence. Iain Macleod succeeds
Monckton as Minister of Labour and National Service. Lord
Selkirk succeeds Lord Woolton as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Minister of Public Works, Patrick Buchan-Hepburn, enters the Cabinet. The Minister of Pensions and
National Insurance leaves the Cabinet upon Peake's retirement.
- October 1956: Sir Walter Monckton becomes Paymaster-General. Antony Henry Head succeeds Monckton as Minister of Defence.
Eden's initial cabinet is remarkable for the fact that 10 out of the original 18 members were Old Etonians: Eden, Salisbury,
Crookshank, Macmillan, Home, Stuart, Thorneycroft, Heathcoat Amory, Sandys and Peake were all educated at Eton.
The Grey-Eden connection
Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey = Elizabeth Grey
|
------------------------------------------
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Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey William Grey
Prime Minister = Maria Shireff
| |---------|
Georgina Plowden = Sir William Grey | Winston Churchill
| |
Sir William Eden = Sybil Grey John Strange Spencer-Churchill
| |
Anthony Eden========Clarissa Spencer-Churchill
Prime Minister
References
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
- ^ Rating British Prime Ministers 29 November 2004
- ^ Churchill 'greatest PM of 20th Century' 4 January,
2000
- ^ http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/themes/95/95077.html
- ^ Robert Rhodes James (1986) Anthony Eden
- ^ Letter, Daily Telegraph, 7 August
1990
- ^ Anthony Nutting (1967) No End of a Lesson
- ^ D. R. Thorpe (2003) Eden
- ^ When Britain and France nearly married 15 January
2007
- ^ See David Faber (2005) Speaking for England
- ^ See, for example, Julian Jackson (2003) The Fall of France
- ^ "Postscript to Suez", recording conversation of 9 April 1957: John Colville (1985) The Fringes of Power, Volume Two
- ^ "Postscript to Suez", recording conversation of 9 April 1957: John Colville (1985) The Fringes of Power, Volume Two
- ^ We would have done the same under Nazi occupation Tuesday April 25, 2006
- Books
- Eden, Anthony. The Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. Sir Anthony Eden KG, PC, MC: Full Circle. (3 volumes) London: Cassell,
1960, 1962, 1965.
- Biographies
- Film: Marcel Ophüls. Le chagrin et la pitié, 1971.
- Thorpe, D.R. Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden, First Earl of Avon, 1897–1977. London: Chatto and Windus, 2003
(hardcover, ISBN 0-7011-6744-0); London: Pimlico, 2004 (paperback, ISBN 0-7126-6505-6).
External links
