Author: Abernon, Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'
Title: An ambassador of peace : pages from the diary of Viscount d'Abernon (Berlin, 1920-1926). Volume 1 : From Spa (1920) to Rapallo (1922); Volume 2 : The years of crisis : june 1922 - december 1923.
Description: With historical notes by Maurice Alfred Gerothwohl. London : Hodder & Stoughton, 1929. 2 Volumes. x,332; viii,336 pp. With 1 folded map in backcover. Bindings discolored. Good set, without volume 3. Mailorder only - Alleen verzending mogelijk. Book condition : very good. - From 1920 to 1925 D'Abernon was the British Ambassador to Berlin. In September 1921 he wrote that the success of the Inter-Allied Military Commission of Control, which reported on German disarmament, meant that there would be no military danger from Germany for many years and that it would be impossible for the Germans to conceal the manufacture of heavy weaponry. In February 1922 he criticised the idea of a military alliance between Britain and France: The fundamental criticism...is that England undertakes definite and very extensive responsibilities in order to avoid a danger which she believes to be largely imaginary. An armed attack by Germany on France within the next twenty-five years is admittedly improbable, an attack by Germany on England in the same period even more so...the whole tone of the French is to assume that the real danger to the future peace of Europe is military aggression by Germany. On 9 February 1925 D'Abernon wrote that it was necessary to abandon the view that Germans are such congenital liars that there is no practical advantage in obtaining from them any engagement or declaration. On this assumption progress is impossible. Personally I regard the Germans as more reliable and more bound to written engagements than many other nations. Lord Vansittart called D'Abernon the pioneer of appeasement.[7] General J. H. Morgan also called D'Abernon the apostle of 'appeasement' and did not believe in the possibility, much less the probability, of a German military revival Without volume 3.

Keywords: HISTORY, diplomacy