A photograph of Benjamin Disraeli, taken by Cornelius Jabez Hughes on July 22nd, 1878, the year that the Congress of Powers met in Berlin. The chief challenge facing the Congress was that the Foreign Office was itching for war with Russia, convinced that Emperor Alexander II’s fractious relationship with Turkey was a cloak for a dastardly plan to invade India. A counter-campaign was led by John Bright MP, and in the event the Congress recognised Russia’s legitimate concerns for Christians struggling for their rights under the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Independence was secured for Montenegro, Serbia and Romania, and autonomy for Bulgaria — though handing Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria-Hungary proved a grave mistake.
Part 1 of 2
ON the evening before the formal opening of the Congress, Lord Beaconsfield* was received with high honours at the British Embassy. In the course of the evening one of his private secretaries came to Lord Odo Russell* and said:
‘Lord Odo, we are in a frightful mess. The old chief has determined to open the proceedings of the Congress in French. He has written out the devil’s own long speech in French and learnt it by heart, and is going to fire it off at the Congress tomorrow. We shall be the laughing stock of Europe. He pronounces épicier* as if it rhymed with overseer, and all his pronunciation is to match. It is as much as our places are worth to tell him so. Can you help us?’
Lord Odo listened with amused good humour to this tale of woe, and then replied: ‘It is a very delicate mission that you ask me to undertake, but then I am fond of delicate missions. I will see what I can do.’
And so he repaired to the state bedroom, where our venerable Plenipotentiary was beginning those elaborate processes of the toilet with which he prepared for the couch.
* Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), Prime Minister in 1868 and 1874-80, had been created 1st Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876. His Government regarded Russia with suspicion and was inclined to take Turkey’s side in the recent Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, whereas his arch-rival William Gladstone (1809-1898) was more sympathetic towards Russia and to the Christians of countries such as Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia, then under the Ottoman yoke. Disraeli’s outspoken critic John Bright MP (1811-1889) declared in a speech in April 1878 that “the English Government was the only obstacle to the Congress”, and that the Foreign Office was bent on forging a European coalition for war with Russia. He and his supporters felt vindicated when the Congress chose another course.
* Odo William Leopold Russell (1829-1884), 1st Baron Ampthill, styled Lord Odo Russell between 1872 and 1881. He was Britain’s first Ambassador to the German Empire, a country created in 1871 on the back of victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which had been initiated by Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of what was then the North German Confederation. The author of this passage, George W. E. Russell, was a great-grandson of the 6th Duke of Bedford, who was Lord Odo’s grandfather.
* An épicier is a grocer. See also A Nation of Shopkeepers.
Précis
On the eve of the 1878 Congress of Powers in Berlin, rumours were flying in the British Embassy that the Prime Minister, Lord Beaconsfield, intended to give his keynote speech in long-winded and mispronounced French. An aide burst into the Ambassador’s room and begged him to help, and being rather tickled by the request Lord Odo Russell smilingly agreed. (58 / 60 words)
Part Two
A caricature of Lord Odo Russell drawn by Leslie Ward (1851–1922) over his pen-name of ‘Spy’ for Vanity Fair in 1877. Lord Odo was Britain’s first Ambassador to the German Empire, a new country created in 1871 out of states orphaned by the Napoleonic Wars of 1804-1815. Odo liked Germany and Germans but not the policy of kulturkampf favoured by the Empire’s driving force, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, which positioned the State as, in Lord Acton’s anxious words, “the intellectual guide of the nation, the promoter of wealth, the teacher of knowledge, the guardian of morality, the main-spring of the ascending movement of man”. Nonetheless, Odo was a man of infinite tact, who won the Iron Chancellor’s trust and kept the two nations at peace.
‘My dear Lord,’ began Lord Odo, ‘a dreadful rumour has reached us.’
‘Indeed! Pray, what is it?’
‘We have heard that you intend to open the proceedings tomorrow in French.’
‘Well, Lord Odo, what of that?’
‘Why, of course, we all know that there is no one in Europe more competent to do so than yourself. But then, after all, to make a speech in French is a commonplace accomplishment. There will be at least half a dozen men at the Congress who could do it almost, if not quite, as well as yourself. But, on the other hand, who but you can make an English speech? All these Plenipotentiaries have come from the various Courts of Europe expecting the greatest intellectual treat of their lives in hearing English spoken by its greatest living master.* The question for you, my dear Lord, is — will you disappoint them?’
Lord Beaconsfield put his glass in his eye, fixed his gaze on Lord Odo, and then said: ‘There is much force in what you say. I will consider the point.’ And the next day he opened the proceedings in English.
* An exaggeration of course, in the age of Anthony Trollope, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) and Thomas Hardy, but not entirely empty flattery. Disraeli’s father Isaac was an acknowledged man of letters, and Benjamin himself had published fifteen well-regarded novels (his sixteenth and last would appear in 1880), a volume of poetry, a play, and a handful of non-fiction works. His speaking skills had required some work, however: see As Good as his Word.
Précis
Lord Odo made his approach just as the Prime Minister was retiring, saying that he hoped Lord Beaconsfield would not disappoint the gathered ministers of state by speaking in French, when to a man they were looking forward to hearing English spoken as few even in England can speak it. Flattered, the Prime Minister complied. (55 / 60 words)
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