Sir Eyre Alexander Barby Wichart Crowe GCB GCMG (30 July 1864 – 28 April 1925) was a British diplomat.
Eyre Crowe was born in Leipzig and educated at Düsseldorf and Berlin and in France, with a German mother and a German wife. His father Joseph Archer Crowe had been a British consul-general and ended his career as commercial attache for all of Europe (1882–1896). His grandfather Eyre Evans Crowe was a journalist, writer and historian, and his uncle, Eyre Crowe, was an artist.
Crowe first visited England in 1881 when he was seventeen to cram for the Foreign Office examination and at the time was not fully fluent in English. Even later in life it was reported that when angry he spoke English with a German accent. He married his widowed German cousin Clema Gerhardt in 1903. Crowe's wife's uncle was Henning von Holzendorff, who was to become the Chief of the German Naval Staff in the First World War. Due to being half-German, Crowe was often attacked in the press and by Christabel Pankhurst and William le Queux for this during the First World War.
Crowe entered the Foreign Office in 1885 and until 1895 was resident clerk. He served as assistant to Clement Hill in the African Protectorates' Department but when responsibility for the protectorates was handed over to the Colonial Office he was asked to reform the registry system. His success led to his appointed as senior clerk in the Western Department in 1906 and in January 1907 he produced an unsolicited Memorandum on the Present State of British Relations with France and Germany for the Foreign Office which stated Crowe's belief that Germany desired "hegemony" first "in Europe, and eventually in the world". Crowe stated that Germany presented a threat to the balance of power in Europe similar to the threat posed by Philip II of Spain, Bourbon and Napoleonic France. Crowe opposed appeasement of Germany because:
To give way to the blackmailer's menaces enriches him, but it has long been proved by uniform experience that, although this may secure for the victim temporary peace, it is certain to lead to renewed molestation and higher demands after ever-shortening periods of amicable forbearance.
Crowe further argued Britain should never give in to Germany's demands since:
The blackmailer's trade is generally ruined by the first resolute stand made against his exactions and the determination rather to face all risks of a possibly disagreeable situation than to continue in the path of endless concessions.
Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, said he found Crowe's memorandum "most valuable". Grey circulated the paper to the Prime Minister Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith, Ripon and Morley but there is no evidence either way that any of them either read or were influenced by the argument. The historian Richard Hamilton states: "Though a life-long Liberal, Crowe came to despise the Liberal Cabinets of 1906–1914, including Sir Edward Grey, for what he perceived as their irresolute attitude to Germany".[1]
However, detractors of Crowe, for example the historian John Charmley, argue that he was being unduly pessimistic about Germany and by making warnings like these was encouraging war.
During the First World War, Crowe served in the Contraband Department and at the start of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference he was Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; by June 1919 he was head of the political section of the British Delegation there.
Crowe was sceptical of the usefulness of the League of Nations and in a memorandum of 12 October 1916, he said that "a solemn league and covenant" would be "a treaty, like other treaties", and asked: "What is there to ensure that it will not, like other treaties, be broken?" Crowe was also sceptical on whether "the pledge of common action" against breakers of the peace would be honoured and Crowe thought that the balance of power and the considerations of national interest would determine individual states future actions. Crowe argued that boycotts and blockades, as advocated by the League of Nations, would not be of any use: "It is all a question of real military preponderance" in numbers, cohesion, efficiency and geographical location of each state. Universal disarmament, Crowe also argued, would be a practical impossibility.[2]
Crowe was Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1920 until his death in 1925.
Crowe was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1907, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1911, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1917, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in the 1920 New Year Honours,[3] and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 1923 Birthday Honours.
Lord Vansittart in his memoirs said of Crowe: "a dowdy, meticulous, conscientious agnostic with small faith in anything but his brain and his Britain"[4] and Stanley Baldwin called him "our ablest public servant" whilst A. J. P. Taylor claimed "Crowe always thought he knew better than his political superiors".[5]
| Preceded by Lord Hardinge of Penshurst |
Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs 1920 – 1925 |
Succeeded by William Tyrrell |
Notes
- ^ Richard Hamilton, The Origins of World War I (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 272.
- ^ Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (Pan, 2002), p. 245.
- ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 31712, p. 5, 30 December 1919.
- ^ Robert Gilbert Vansittart, The Mist Procession (Hutchinson, 1958), p. 45.
- ^ A. J. P. Taylor, English History, 1914 - 1945 (Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 226.
Bibliography
- Sibyl Crowe and Edward Corp, Our Ablest Public Servant: Sir Eyre Crowe GCB, GCMG, KCB, KCMG, 1864-1925 (Devon, 1993)
- F.H. Hinsley (ed.), British Foreign Policy Under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge, 1977)
- Zara S. Steiner, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1898-1914 (Cambridge, 1969)
External links
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