The woods sloping down to the Gulf are delightful in summer-time, and are absolutely carpeted with flowers. The flowers seem to realise how short the span of life allotted to them is, and endeavour to make the most of it. So do the mosquitoes.
I have very vivid recollections of one especial visit to Peterhof. In the summer of 1882, the Ambassador and two other members of the Embassy were away in England on leave. The Chargé d'Affaires, who replaced the Ambassador, was laid up with an epidemic that was working great havoc then in Petrograd, as was the Second Secretary. This epidemic was probably due to the extremely unsatisfactory sanitary condition of the city. Consequently no one was left to carry on the work of the Embassy but myself and the new Attaché, a mere lad.
The relations of Great Britain and France in the "'eighties" were widely different from those cordial ones at present prevailing between the two countries. Far from being trusted friends and allies, the tension between England and France was often strained almost to the breaking-point, especially with regard to Egyptian affairs. This was due in a great measure to Bismarck's traditional foreign policy of attempting to embroil her neighbours, to the greater advantage of Germany. In old-fashioned surgery, doctors frequently introduced a foreign body into an open wound in order to irritate it, and prevent its healing unduly quickly. This was termed a seton. Bismarck's whole policy was founded on the introduction of setons into open wounds, to prevent their healing. His successors in office endeavoured to continue this policy, but did not succeed, for though they might share Bismarck's entire want of scruples, they lacked his commanding genius.
Ismail, Khedive of Egypt since 1863, had brought his country to the verge of bankruptcy by his gross extravagance. Great Britain and France had established in 1877 a Dual Control of Egyptian affairs in the interest of the foreign bondholders, but the two countries did not pull well together. In 1879 the incorrigible Ismail was deposed in favour of Tewfik, and two years later a military revolt was instigated by Arabi Pasha. Very unwisely, attempts were made to propitiate Arabi by making him a member of the Egyptian Cabinet, and matters went from bad to worse. In May, 1882, the French and British fleets appeared before Alexandria and threatened it, and on June 11, 1882, the Arab population massacred large numbers of the foreign residents of Alexandria. Still the French Government refused to take any definite action, and systematically opposed every proposal made by the British Government. We were perfectly well aware that the opposition of the French to the British policy was consistently backed up by Russia, Russia being in its turn prompted from Berlin. All this we knew. After the massacre of June 11, the French fleet, instead of acting, sailed away from Alexandria.
Amongst the usual daily sheaf of telegrams from London which the Attaché and I decyphered on July 12, 1882, was one announcing that the British Mediterranean Squadron had on the previous day bombarded and destroyed the forts of Alexandria, and that in two days' time British marines would be landed and the city of Alexandria occupied. There were also details of further steps that would be taken, should circumstances render them necessary. All these facts were to be communicated to the Russian Government at once. I went off with this weighty telegram to the house of the Chargé d'Affaires, whom I found very weak and feverish, and quite unable to rise from his bed. He directed me to go forthwith to Peterhof, to see M. de Giers, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was there in attendance on the Emperor, and to make my statement to him. I placed the Attaché in charge of the Chancery, and had time admitted of it, I should certainly have smeared that youth's cheeks and lips with some burnt cork, to add a few years to his apparent age, and to delude people into the belief that he had already begun to shave. The dignity of the British Embassy had to be considered. I begged of him to refrain from puerile levity in any business interviews he might have, and I implored him to try to conceal the schoolboy under the mask of the zealous official. I then started for Peterhof. It is not often that a young man of twenty-five is called upon to deliver what was virtually an Ultimatum to the mighty Russian Empire, and I had no illusions whatever as to the manner in which my communication would be received.
I saw M. de Giers at Peterhof, and read him my message. I have never in my life seen a man so astonished; he was absolutely flabbergasted. The Gladstone Government of 1880-85 was then in power in England, and it was a fixed axiom with every Continental statesman (and not, I am bound to admit, an altogether unfounded one) that under no circumstances whatever would the Gladstone Cabinet ever take definite action. They would talk eternally; they would never act. M. de Giers at length said to me, "I have heard your communication with great regret. I have noted what you have said with even deeper regret." He paused for a while, and then added very gravely, "The Emperor's regret will be even more profound than my own, and I will not conceal from you that his Majesty will be highly displeased when he learns the news you have brought me." I inquired of M. de Giers whether he wished me to see the Emperor, and to make my communication in person to His Imperial Majesty, and felt relieved when he told me that it was unnecessary, as I was not feeling particularly anxious to face an angry Autocrat alone. I left a transcript I had myself made of the telegram I had decyphered with M. de Giers, and left. A moment's reflection will show that to leave a copy of decoded telegram with anyone would be to render the code useless. The original cypher telegram would be always accessible, and a decypher of it would be tantamount to giving away the code. It was our practice to make transcripts, giving the sense in totally different language, and with the position of every sentence altered.
After that, as events in Egypt developed, and until the Chargé d'Affaires was about again, I journeyed to Peterhof almost daily to see M. de Giers. We always seemed to get on very well together, in spite of racial animosities.
The clouds in Egypt rolled away, and with them the very serious menace to which I have alluded. Events fortunately shaped themselves propitiously, On September 13, 1882, Sir Garnet Wolseley utterly routed Arabi's forces at Tel-el-Kebir; Arabi was deported to Ceylon, and the revolt came to an end.
A diplomat naturally meets Ministers of Foreign Affairs of many types. There was a strong contrast between the polished and courtly M. de Giers, who in spite of his urbanity could manage to infuse a very strong sub-acid flavour into his suavity when he chose, and some other Ministers with whom I have come in contact. A few years later, when at Buenos Ayres, preliminary steps were taken for drawing up an Extradition Treaty between Great Britain and Paraguay, and as there were details which required adjusting, I was sent 1,100 miles up the river to Asuncion, the unsophisticated capital of the Inland Republic. Dr. ——, at that time Paraguayan Foreign Minister, was a Guarani, of pure Indian blood. He did not receive me at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, for the excellent reason that there was no such place in that primitive republic, but in his own extremely modest residence. When his Excellency welcomed me in the whitewashed sala of that house, sumptuously furnished with four wooden chairs, and nothing else whatever, he had on neither shoes, stockings, nor shirt, and wore merely a pair of canvas trousers, and an unbuttoned coat of the same material, affording ample glimpses of his somewhat dusky skin. In the suffocating heat of Asuncion such a costume has its obvious advantages; still I cannot imagine, let us say, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs receiving the humblest member of a Foreign Legation at the Quai d'Orsay with bare feet, shirtless, and clad only in two garments.