The Lansdowne Letter (1917): The Plan to make Peace with Germany

[Music] in 1932 aldous huxley published his influential book brave new world the later forward to the novel contained a tribute to a now obscure british politician the marquess of lansdowne and his plea for a compromised piece during the first world war calling him the last conservative statesman the letter in question had been published in the daily telegraph on the 29th of november 1917. it came at the nadir of britain's fortunes in the first world war that year had seen the great clash at passchendaele which seemed to have brought little discernible benefit to britain for all the bloodshed the entrance former ally russia was now convulsed by revolution and was likely to sign a separate peace with germany it was in this context that lansdowne published his letter calling for a negotiated end to the war instead of continuing to seek the elusive knockout blow the prime minister lloyd george argued before lansdowne himself was one of the most intelligent and informed british statesmen of his day he had served as both viceroy of india and governor general of canada and had engineered the anglo-japanese alliance and on tom cardiac with france as foreign secretary he had earlier served in asquith's war government where the basic ideas of his later letter had been circulated but at the time of publication was not in the cabinet lansdowne was at heart a classic british whig politician he had supported britain's entry into world war one but had since become horrified by both the slaughter and the social consequences the conflict was causing the war he warned would bring about an end to civilization for lansdowne poignantly shown in the bolshevik october revolution in russia in the letter lansdowne argued that prolongation of the war would be a crime he laid out several war aims that the government should accept including a guarantee they did not seek to impose democracy on germany which led many to misinterpret it as an endorsement of the hohenzoller monarchy which lansdowne had actually roundly condemned in his first draft of the letter he was generally vague on what concrete terms should actually be proposed to the germans which perhaps offers evidence that he only ever intended it to start a conversation but the letter was to put it mildly not well received in britain lansdowne was ostracized from the government and even his own party leaders publicly denounced him among them the foreign secretary arthur balfour who had actually seen the important parts of the letter before publication but since claimed he hadn't wandsdown typically maintained his discretion and never once contradicted balfour in spite of the torrent of abuse from newspapers and the public he received for the letter even after all of the suffering britain in 1917 was not a country ready to negotiate peace the war had become one that demanded total victory nothing else was acceptable it was almost typical of lansdowne the whig grandee to be so out of touch with public opinion and he has since been accused of caring more about the preservation of the aristocratic social order than anything else with one historian calling the letter a plea for autocracy yet today his warnings do seem prescient is it not true that civilization if not destroyed was irrevocably harmed by the great war and what benefits did total victory actually bring britain and the empire other than a new round of hostilities 20 years later nevertheless it is unlikely that even if lansdowne had been taken seriously the war could have been brought to a negotiated end germany's own parliament had passed a peace resolution similar to lansdowne's but had been ignored by the german government which demanded major concessions in belgium and the east as a price for peace the lands down letter does then perhaps more than anything represent the fulfillment of churchill's phrase that the wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings the days of cabinet wars whereas huxley put it negotiated peace was the norm were over instead only a total victory would bring an end to the conflict though the on top would go on to win such a victory with it the old european order was swept away

Channel: Old Britannia

Views: 86,614

Keywords: World War I, WW1, British Empire, German Empire, War Aims, Lansdowne

Id: epU7sBIvO9E

Length: 4min 9sec (249 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 12 2022