The Queen’s Ambassador to the Sultan: Memoirs of Sir Henry A. Layard’s Constantinople Embassy, 1877-1880

2010

Once more students of Ottoman diplomatic history are in debt to the scholar-publisher, Sinan Kuneralp, for Sir Henry Layard was one of the most remarkable and controversial of British ambassadors to Turkey in the nineteenth century and served there during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8 – and yet the volumes of his memoirs dealing with this period have hitherto languished unpublished in the British Library, in part perhaps because of their size. (Layard admits himself to having been ‘somewhat minute, perhaps a great deal too much so’, p. 692.)They are here published almost in their entirety, the only exclusions being repetitive parts and some official despatches inserted into the text by Layard.

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The editor has also added numerous sub-headings to aid the selective reader and provided a very sharp, warts-and-all introduction to the ambassador’s apologia for his embassy to Constantinople. An otherwise excellent production is let down – as so often happens these days – only by its index, which is too short, and unaccountably divided by themes, persons and places. It also appears to have been devised by a computer: for example, the entry on Sir Alfred Sandison, the Anglo-Levantine chief dragoman of the embassy, refers the reader to twenty-one different pages but only three of them contain information on the subject of any significance.

Sir Henry Layard was a notable archaeologist and politician but as a diplomat he was also remarkable. As the editor of his Constantinople memoirs says, he was ‘probably one of the last if not the last British ambassador to have wielded some influence in the Ottoman capital’, and ‘probably one of the first Westerners to talk about double standards when Turkey is concerned’. He was unceremoniously recalled by the incoming Gladstone administration in 1880, largely because of this latter attitude but whether he was also remarkable in the professionalized diplomatic service, as Layard says himself in his bitter concluding pages, by virtue of being dismissed ‘without a cause assigned and before he had completed the terms required to entitle him to a pension’ (p. 680), I am not sure – but he was probably right. Layard was not a perfect diplomat (he was too hot-tempered and too inclined to speak his mind) but he is the more attractive for this reason; in any case he had many other diplomatic virtues and was a genuine liberal. He was also an elegant and trenchant writer, and a perceptive judge of character – not least that of the Sultan, Abdulhamid II. These memoirs are strongly recommended. Those with no prior knowledge of Sir Henry Layard and his extraordinary career before taking up diplomacy might also consult the excellent essay on him by Jonathan Parry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

The Constantinople diaries of Layard’s wife, Enid, who was only half her husband’s age, are also valuable, although in a very different way. Twixt Pera [where the British embassy was located in winter] and Therapia [the home of the summer embassy] is more revealing of life – especially the social life – of the embassy, than of high politics and diplomacy. As it happens, Lady Layard’s complete journal has been available in searchable form on the internet since 2004 but the editor of the Isis Press edition was probably right to bring out this copy in book form. As he says, students of nineteenth century Ottoman diplomatic history would be unlikely to stumble on it on the particular website where it is to be found (the present writer is a case in point!) and he has provided annotations not available in the online edition. Besides, Enid’s diaries perfectly complement the larger book containing Sir Henry’s memoirs.

Lady Layard’s diary entries tend to be rather formulaic, it is disappointing that she only rarely tells us what she thought of the many interesting personalities she met as opposed to describing their physical appearance and what they were wearing, the logging of her frequent headaches gets rather wearying, and the long lists of dinner guests are at best tantalising. The index is only a name index. Nevertheless, the entries have their compensations. For example, ‘embassy dined with us as usual’ is a frequent one, and on one occasion she records a ‘serious conversation’ with Sandison ‘on the subject of the imprudent marriage his mother was afraid lest he should make’ – all of which leads me to conclude that the family embassy survived for rather longer in Constantinople than I had thought. The entries usually record the arrival and departure of the Queen’s Messengers, thereby confirming that the service was at least fortnightly and, it seems, sometimes even more frequent. We also have further confirmation that the ambassadress was sometimes enlisted to copy the ambassador’s despatches and other documents, especially when – as we know from his own memoirs (p. 398) – it was necessary on Lord Salisbury’s insistence to keep them secret from the chancery. Those with different interests from mine will find other nuggets in these diaries.

Enid Layard was obviously a first-rate ambassadress and had charitable instincts that were strongly aroused by the appalling sufferings inflicted on the Turks by the unsought war with Russia which broke out within days of the arrival of the couple in Constantinople, and dominated the first years of their embassy. I wish that I had read her diaries before completing my history of the British embassy in Turkey.

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In the 21st century, new kinds of challenges resulting from interdependence among states and globalisation have had a determining impact of the conduct of diplomacy. Diplomacy has become multifaceted, pluri-directional, volatile and intensive, due to the increased complexity in terms of actors, dialogues subjects, modes of communication, and plurality of objectives. This unique text, written by a leading scholar and Foreign Service expert, examines all such factors to provide the definitive guide to diplomacy as it is practiced today. With a multitude of examples from around the world, includi...

Chinese Ambassadors: The rise of diplomatic professionalism since 1945

Xiaohong worked on Western European affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing from 1977 until 1989. At some point after this she entered the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, and in 1997 was awarded a Ph.D. This book is her doctoral thesis, and - on the whole - a very good one it is. Chinese Ambassadors is based on many interviews with former diplomats and a variety of Chinese primary sources (including memoirs), and is clear, well organized, and - in its main thrust - tightly argued. As a result, it offers a rare insight int...

British Heads of Mission at Constantinople, 1583-1922

Last Man Standing: Memoirs of a political survivor

Jack Straw was the ablest and wisest of Tony Blair’s foreign secretaries and served in this capacity from 2001 until he was ungratefully dumped without warning by his leader in 2006. Afterwards he hit the headlines by courageously publishing his dislike of the full veil worn my some Muslim women, on the grounds that this was such a visible statement of separation and difference that it complicated community relations and was, in any case, a cultural preference rather than a religious obligation. (Straw was then and still is the Labour MP for a Bradford constituency with a large Muslim popula...

All Fall Down: America’s fateful encounter with Iran

All Fall Down is the definitive chronicle of Americas experience with the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis of 1978-81. Drawing on internal government documents, it recounts the controversies, decisions and uncertainties that made this a unique chapter in modern American history. From his personal experiences, the author draws revealing portraits of the people who engaged in this test of wills with an Islamic revolutionary regime.

Language, signaling and diplomacy

Part of Language and Diplomacy (2001): Ambassador Kishan Rana introduces the dimension of diplomatic signalling. Beginning with a reference to the Bhagwad Gita, one of the sacred texts of the Hindus, Rana outlines the qualities of good diplomatic dialogue: not causing distress to the listener, precision and good use of language, and truthfulness.

The Turkish Embassy Letters

Reflections on Persuasion in Diplomacy by Ambassador Joseph Cassar

In our families, in our jobs, in our political dynamic at a national level, we always try to persuade others, first and foremost. Since, diplomacy is part of the global human existence, it is natural that persuasion is an essential part and an essential tool of diplomacy … as much it is in your family life, in my family life, when you try to sort out trouble within your family, between your brothers and sisters, between your children and between your grandchildren at my age.

Twentieth Century Diplomacy: A case study of British practice, 1963-1976

Book review by Geoff Berridge What is so original about the book is that the author has asked himself: What are the major forms of diplomatic contact? And followed this with the question: How and to what effect were they each employed by one state over a period sufficiently short to make detailed research possible […]

Leaders’ rhetoric and preventive diplomacy – issues we are ignorant about

In this paper, Drazen Pehar analyses the argumentation made by George Lakoff of the University of California at Berkeley in his seminal paper on ‘Metaphor and War’, in which he tried to deconstruct the rhetoric U.S. president George Bush used to justify the war in the Gulf. He also analyses a reading by psycho-historian Lloyd deMause, whose theory differs from Lakoff’s. Throughout his analysis, Pehar describes the role of rhetoric in diplomatic prevention of armed conflicts, and its several functions, and concludes that the methods of preventive diplomacy depend heavily on the theory of...

A Dictionary of Diplomacy

Like all professions, diplomacy has spawned its own specialized terminology, and it is this lexicon which provides A Dictionary of Diplomacy's thematic spine. However, the dictionary also includes entries on legal terms, political events, international organizations and major figures who have occupied the diplomatic scene or have written influentially about it over the last half millennium. All students of diplomacy and related subjects and especially junior members of the many diplomatic services of the world will find this book indispensable.

True Brits: Inside the Foreign Office

Satow’s Diplomatic Practice, 6th ed

Satow’s Diplomatic Practice is a classic work, first published 90 years ago and revised four times since. This is the first revised edition for thirty years, during which time the world and diplomacy have changed almost beyond recognition. The new edition provides an enlarged and updated section on the history of diplomacy and revises comprehensively […]

Bilateral Diplomacy

Bilateral Diplomacy is the first of the DiploHandbooks, a new series on practical diplomacy. The book breaks new ground in the role ascribed to bilateral diplomacy, and its importance in international affairs today. It also covers the de facto “empowerment” of the embassy that flows from its new responsibility for relationship management.

The Blair Years: Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries

Reveiw by Geoff Berridge

The New Diplomacy

Diplomatic Theory from Machiavelli to Kissinger

Bertie of Thame: Edwardian Ambassador

Guerrilla Diplomacy: Rethinking International Relations

In a previous book review for DiploFoundation, Petru Dumitriu described G. R. Berridge’s Diplomacy: Theory and Practice as 'a Robinson Crusoe’s book on diplomacy'. Suppose one is left on a deserted island and allowed only one book to study diplomacy; in that case, Dumitriu recommends Diplomacy: Theory and Practice. Without doubt, I wholeheartedly support this recommendation.

Diplomats as cultural bridge builders

Diplomats are people who are on the fringe somewhere, because they are either permanently living in or at least dealing with alien cultures, cultures with different values. The success of a diplomat depends on this brinkmanship because, on the one hand, they must remain credible with their superiors back home and, on the other hand, they must have access to the leaders in the country where they are posted. This paper discusses the role of diplomats as cultural bridge-builders.

The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Diplomacy

Book by Geoff Berridge

Diplomatic Notebooks 1, 1958-1960: The view from Ankara

Zeki Kuneralp (1914-1998) was one of Turkey’s most gifted, well-liked and influential diplomats of the second half of the twentieth century. This book, dispassionately edited, introduced and annotated by his son, the scholar-publisher Sinan Kuneralp, is the first of a promised series of six volumes. Beginning in January 1958 and ending in August 1960, when Zeki Kuneralp became ambassador to Switzerland, it covers all but the first seven or eight months of the period when he was assistant secretary-general for political affairs in the Turkish foreign ministry in Ankara (in May 1960 he was ele...

Diplomatenleben

A must-have for German-speaking students of Swiss diplomacy (and diplomacy generally) since the Second World War is Dr. Max Schweizer’s recently published Diplomatenleben.

Essence of Diplomacy

Christer Jönsson is Professor of Political Science at Lund University in Sweden, where Martin Hall is a Researcher. Their book is described as an exercise in ‘theorizing’ diplomacy, that is, an attempt to provide a general account of its causes and consequences. (The authors are thus severe in denying the title of ‘theory’ to the ‘prescriptive tracts’ which scholar-diplomats have written about their art over hundreds of years, though I notice that they are more indulgent to the use of the term ‘political theory’ as in, for example, ‘liberal political theory’.)

How do you know what you think you know?

In his paper, J. Thomas Converse focuses on four records-related areas where the issues of knowledge management and diplomacy come together and provide the greatest challenges to archivists, diplomats, historians and technology providers: validation, trustworthiness, context and longevity. He also explores some of the changes and challenges brought about by technology, and urges for a continued embrace of technology, while at the same time demanding the validating and relational functions which give archives their trustworthiness.

DC Confidential: The controversial memoirs of Britain’s ambassador to the U.S. at the time of 9/11 and the Iraq War

DC Confidential: The controversial memoirs of Britain's ambassador to the U.S. at the time of 9/11 and the Iraq War.

Diplomacy under a Foreign Flag: When nations break relations

The 21st Century Ambassador: Plenipotentiary to Chief Executive

Ambassador Kishan Rana, a diplomatist for four decades, is now a noted scholar and theorist of international relations and the new diplomacy that has evolved.

A Diplomat in Japan

The first portion of this book was written at intervals between 1885 and 1887, during my tenure of the post of Her Majesty's minister at Bangkok. I had but recently left Japan after a residence extending, with two seasons of home leave, from September 1862 to the last days of December 1882, and my recollection of what had occurred during any part of those twenty years was still quite fresh. A diary kept almost uninterruptedly from the day I quitted home in November 1861 constituted the foundation, while my memory enabled me to supply additional details. It had never been my purpose to...

Performance Management in Foreign Ministries: Corporate Techniques in the Diplomatic Service

Statecraft

To joke or not to joke: A diplomatic dilemma in the age of internet

Part of Language and Diplomacy (2001): The first paper, presented by Prof. Peter Serracino-Inglott as the keynote address at the 2001 conference, examines the serious issue of diplomatic communication in a playful manner, through one of the most paradigmatic and creative examples of language use: joking.

What Diplomats Do: The Life and Work of Diplomats

Sir Brian Barder’s book What Diplomats Do offers comprehensive insight into the life and work of diplomats. It deserves to be read by practitioners and aspiring practitioners of diplomacy, by students and teachers of diplomacy, and by anyone interested in what diplomats actually do. It crosses genres as easily as it addresses and holds the attention of a broad audience.

Politics Among Nations

Embassies under Siege

Lessons from two fields

Diplomacy for the New Century

Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy

Review by Geoff Berridge