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II. The Austen Chamberlain-Mussolini Meetings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Peter Edwards
Peter Edwards
Affiliation:
Nuffield College, Oxford
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Extract

One of the most fertile grounds for diplomatic and journalistic speculation in the late 1920s was the series of private meetings between Sir Austen Chamberlain and Benito Mussolini. During Sir Austen's tenure of the Foreign Secretary's portfolio, from November 1924 to June 1929, the two met five times in complete privacy, without aides or even interpreters, since both spoke fluent French. The communiqués they subsequently issued were conglomerations of clichés, stressing their personal friendship and political harmony but omitting any specific reference to the subjects discussed. It is not surprising, therefore, that rumours of secret agreements and cynical deals abounded. Indeed, Mussolini was compelled publicly to deny the widespread assumption diat he sought and received Sir Austen's approval for Italian foreign policy at these meetings,1 while Chamberlain was obliged to take his holidays in 1927 in Spain to avoid the ’ undesirable political speculation ‘ that would have followed another visit to his beloved Italy.2 The evidence of the Chamberlain Papers and the British and Italian diplomatic documents suggests that much of the speculation was very wide of the mark.3

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 1971 , pp. 153 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 Speech of 5 June 1928; Mussolini, B., Scritti e Discorsi, VI (Milan, 1934), 184–5;Google Scholar quoted in Currey, M., Italian Foreign Policy 1918–1932 (London, 1932), p. 240.Google Scholar

2 Petrie, C., The Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Sir Austen Chamberlain, II (London, 1940), 317.Google Scholar

3 This paper is based on the Austen Chamberlain Papers (hereafter C.P.); the Foreign Office (F.O.) and Cabinet (CAB) records in the Public Record Office; I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani series 7 (D.D.I.); and the files of the Chatham House Press Library, taken mainly from The Times, Manchester Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Corriere delta Sera, Le Temps, Frankfurter Zeitung, and New York Times. I am grateful to the Librarian of the University of Birmingham Library for permission to use copyright material.

4 D.D.I., vol. 1, nos. 2–4; 31 Oct. 1922.

5 Sforza, C., Contemporary Italy: Its Intellectual and Moral Origins (London, 1946), p. 290.Google Scholar

6 Salvemini, G., Prelude to World War II (London, 1953), p. 64. Cf. pp. 72–3.Google Scholar

7 F.O. W9979/9859/98; 13 Nov. 1924.

8 Ibid. 15 Nov. 1924.

9 D.D.I., III, 562; 15 Nov. 1924.

10 D.D.I., III, 567; 16 Nov. 1924.

11 D.D.I., III, 605; Dec. 1924 (no date).

12 D.D.I., III, 604; Dec. 1924 (no date).

13 F.O. W10747/134/98; 7 Dec. 1924.

14 See Seton-Watson, C., Italy from Liberalism to Fascism 1870–1925 (London, 1967). pp. 534, 557, 691.Google Scholar

15 Cf. Salvemini, , op. cit. pp. 64–5.Google Scholar

16 F.O. W11026/10091/98; 19 Dec. 1924.

17 C.P. 51/199, 200, 201; D.D.I., III, 616, 636; 14 and 23 Dec. 1924, 10 Jan. 1925.

18 D.D.I., III, 613; 12 Dec. 1924.

19 Sources as given in footnote 3.

20 F.O. C8001/459/18; minute by M. W. Lampson, 16 June 1925: ‘… I do not think that we care in the least whether they [the Italians] are in [the Pact] or not: it is entirely their own affair.’ Initialled without comment by Sir W. Tyrrell, 17 June 1925.

21 C.P. 38/1/1, no. 73; 1 Oct. 1925.

22 D.D.I., IV, 102, 118; 20 Aug., 8 Sept. 1925.

23 F.O. C13129/2511'62 (in C.P. as 38/1/1, no. 175); 15 Oct. 1925.

24 D.D.I., IV, 152; 12 Oct. 1925.

25 C.P. 38/1/1, no. 166; 14 Oct. 1925.

26 See footnote 23.

27 Ibid.

28 F.O. C2561/1435/90; 23 Feb. 1925. Cf. F.O. C2576/1435/90; 19 Feb. 1925.

29 F.O. C2561/1435/90.

30 C.P. 52/410; 2 Nov. 1925. Quoted in Petrie, , op. cit. II, 290.Google Scholar

31 ‘You have come to an extraordinarily true perception of Mussolini's character … His character, of course, has another side also and at some of my interviews when I returned here just after the Corfu incident I felt rather like being shut up in a cage with an irritated tiger …’ C.P. 52/411; 8 Nov. 1925.

32 Kirkpatrick, I., Mussolini: Study of a Demagogue (London, 1964), p. 243.Google Scholar

33 Manchester Guardian, 21 Apr. 1927, quoted in Swire, J., Albania: The Rise of a Kingdom (London, 1929), p. 495.Google Scholar

34 Salvemini, , op. cit. pp. 72–5.Google Scholar Salvemini's highly polemical argument is not clear at this point; he even contradicts himself on the date of the talks.

35 Guariglia, R., La Diplomatic Difficile: Memoires 1922–1946 (Paris, n.d., 1957?), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

36 'J’, ‘The Achievements of Fascism’, Foreign Affairs, IV, 4 (07 1926), 675.Google Scholar

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38 F.O. 11407/2:8/1; 15 May 1925. For the negotiations, see J671/218/1, 3 Mar. 1925, ff.

39 C.P. 53/310; 21 Apr. 1926.

40 F.O. E2577/62/65; 23 Apr. 1926.

41 C.P. 52/414; 21 Dec. 1925.

42 Manchester Guardian, 31 Dec. 1925.

43 Ibid.

44 CAB 23/52, 4(26)9, 10 Feb. 1926.

45 Lambert, M. E. (ed.), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, series IA, I (London, 1966), 315, note 6.Google Scholar

46 CAB 23/52, 1(26)4, 19 Jan. 1926.

47 CAB 23/52, 4(26)9, 10 Feb. 1926.

48 CAB 23/52, 3(26)1, 3 Feb. 1926.

49 F.O. 800/259, 13 Apr. 1926; in C.P. as 53/308; printed in Lambert, (ed.), op. cit. no. 422, pp. 608–9.Google Scholar

50 D.D.I., IV, 220; 9 Jan. 1926. ('Piú conosco primo ministro italiano piú lo apprczzo ed amo’ was Delia Torretta's translation of what Tyrrell told him.) Cf. Lambert, (ed.), op. cit. p. 292.Google Scholar

51 F.O. C10581/9326/22; 1 Oct. 1926.

52 F.O. C11092/9326/22; no date.

53 Manchester Guardian, see footnote 33; Steed, H. Wickham, ‘Italy, Yugoslavia and Albania’, Journal of the British Institute of International Affairs, VI, 3 (07 1927), 170–8;CrossRefGoogle Scholarde Jouvenel, Senator H., ‘France and Italy’, Foreign Affairs, v, 4 (07 1927), 548–9.Google Scholar

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55 F.O. C10581/9326/22; 1 Oct. 1926.

56 C.P. 53/321; 20 Dec. 1926.

57 F.O. 010581/9326/22; minutes by C. Howard Smith and Orme Sargent, 4 Oct. 1926, and by Chamberlain, 7 Oct. 1926.

58 F.O. C10581/9326/22.

59 Le Temps, 2 Oct. 1926, quoting an interview with the Daily Telegraph (date unknown).

60 F.O. C11092/9326/22.

61 In I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani there is no evidence that Aloisi was reprimanded, let alone recalled. He signed the Pact of Tirana for Italy on 27 November 1926 and was still in Durazzo at the end of January 1927; D.D.I., IV, 589.

62 See, for example, New York Times, 1 Oct. 1926; Corriere della Sera, 1 Oct. 1926.

63 For example, C.P. 38/3/109, 1 Dec. 1929; 38/3/108, 29 Sept. 1927; 54/228, 16 Dec. 1927; 55/210, 24 May 1928.

64 C.P. 53/310, 311, 312; 21 Apr., 4 and 24 June 1926.

65 ‘Il Chamberlain e-nel suo intimo-piuttòsto un simpatizzante per il Fascismo.’ D.D.I., IV, 443; no date.

66 F.O. C2504/2462/22; 3 Apr. 1929.

67 Petrie, , op. cit. II, 330.Google Scholar

68 For example, The Times, 4 Apr. 1929.

69 The Observer, 7 Apr. 1929.

70 F.O. C2619/2462/22; 11 Apr. 1929. Cf. C.P. 55/219, 220; 19 and 26 Apr. 1929.

71 F.O. 3145/2462/22; 30 Apr. and 2 May 1929.

72 C.P. 51/134; 9 Dec. 1925.

73 C.P. 55/217; 8 Apr. 1929.

74 Petrie, , op. cit. II, 381.Google Scholar

75 C.P. 39/5/63; 14 Nov. 1932. Cf. C.P. 54/216; 25 Jan. 1927.