Book Description

DIPLOMACY is one of the highest of the political arts. In a well-ordered commonwealth it would be held in the esteem due to a great public service in whose hands the safety of the people largely lies; and it would thus attract to its ranks its full share of national ability and energy which for the most part to-day passes into other professions. But the diplomatic service, at all times, and in almost all countries, has suffered from lack of public appreciation: though perhaps at no time has it had so many detractors as to-day. Its almost unparalleled unpopularity is due to a variety of causes, some of which are temporary and removable, while others must be permanent in human affairs, for they were found to operate in the days when the author of this little book shone in French diplomacy. The major cause is public neglect; but it is also due, in no small measure, to the prevalent confusion between[Pg vi] policy, which is the substance, and diplomacy proper, which is the process by which it is carried out. This confusion exists not only in the popular mind, but even in the writings of historians who might be expected to practise a better discernment. Policy is the concern of governments. Responsibility therefore belongs to the Secretary of State who directs policy and appoints the agents of it. But the constitutional doctrine of ministerial responsibility is not an unvarying reality. No one will maintain that Lord Cromer’s success in Egypt was due to the wisdom of Whitehall, or to anything but his own sterling qualities. Nor can a just judgment of our recent Balkan diplomacy fail to assign a heavy share of the blame to the incompetence of more than one ‘man on the spot.’ The truth is, that the whole system, of which, in their different measure, Downing Street and the embassies abroad are both responsible parts, is not abreast of the needs of the time, and will not be until Callières’s excellent maxims become the common practice of the service. These maxims are to be found in the little book of which a free translation is here presented. François de Callières treats diplomacy as the art[Pg vii] practised by the négotiateur—a most apt name for the diplomatist—in carrying out the instructions of statesmen and princes. The very choice of the word manière in his title shows that he conceives of diplomacy as the servant, not the author, of policy; and indeed his argument is not many pages old before he is heard insisting that it is ‘the agent of high policy.’ Observance of this distinction is the first condition of fruitful criticism. It is therefore worth while, at the outset, to clear away the obscurity and confusion which surround the subject, and thus, in some measure, to relieve both diplomacy in general and the individual diplomatist in particular from the burden of irrelevant and unjust criticism..