Horace Rumbold
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Sir Horace George Montagu Rumbold, 9th Baronet, GCB, GCMG, KCVO (5 February 1869 - 24 May 1941) was the son of a diplomat and was educated at Eton and went on to become a well-travelled diplomat, learning Arabic, Japanese and German. He was also an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany during his time as Ambassador to Berlin.
Rumbold was an attaché at The Hague (1889 - 1890) and then served in Cairo, Tehran, Vienna, Munich between 1900 and 1913. Rumbold was then moved to Tokyo (1909 - 1913) and then to Berlin (1913 - 1914). After the First World War Rumbold was the British ambassador to Constantinople (1920 - 1924), during which he signed the Lausanne Treaty on behalf of the British Empire. He was then ambassador to Madrid (1924 - 1928) and then went on to his last job, which was ambassador in Berlin from 1928 to 1933.
During this time Rumbold was in favour of appeasing the Brüning Government in the hope that this would stave off German nationalist parties, like Adolf Hitler's Nazi party. However once Hitler came to power in 1933 he was deeply unsettled by the Nazi régime and produced a succession of despatches which were critical of the Nazis.
On 26th April 1933 Rumbold sent to the Foreign Office his valedictory despatch, in which he gave an unvarnished view of Hitler, the Nazis and their ambitions:
The new Reich must gather within its fold all the scattered German elements in Europe...What Germany needs is an increase in territory.[1]
Rumbold concluded by giving stark warnings for the future of international relations:
...it would be misleading to base any hopes on a return to sanity...[the German government is encouraging an attitude of mind]...which can only end in one way...I have the impression that the persons directing the policy of the Hitler government are not normal.[2]
Sir John Simon, the Foreign Secretary, found Rumbold's descriptions "definitely disquieting".[3] Ralph Wigram, an official in the Foreign Office, gave Winston Churchill a copy of this despatch in mid-March 1936.[4]
Rumbold retired due to his age in June 1933 and died in 1941. Lord Vansittart said of him; "little escaped him, and his warnings [about Nazi Germany] were clearer than anything we got later".[5]
| Baronetage of Great Britain | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Horace Rumbold |
Baronet of Woodhall 1913–1941 |
Succeeded by: Anthony Rumbold |
[edit] Notes
- ^ Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (Pan, 2002), p. 386.
- ^ Ibid, p. 387.
- ^ Ibid.
- ^ Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (Pimlico, 2000), p. 553.
- ^ Robert Gilbert Vansittart, The Mist Procession (Hutchinson, 1958), p. 274.
[edit] Books
- The War Crisis in Berlin: July to August 1914 by Horace Rumbold (London, 1944).
