On the manner of negotiating with princes / On the uses of diplomacy; the choice of ministers and envoys; and the personal qualities necessary for success in missions abroad

by Monsieur de Callières

Even at the best of times a man of good sense will not rely entirely on his native wit. He will find that knowledge of historical precedents will often act as a lever with which to remove obstacles from his path. Such knowledge of history, and particularly the true aptitude in applying it to current events, cannot be learned except by long experience. Even in those cases where success has attended the efforts of an amateur diplomatist, the example must be regarded as an exception, for it is a commonplace of human experience that skilled work requires a skilled workman. The more important the business on hand, the more vital it is that ministers of state should ensure for themselves the services of trained men. I am well aware that even the greatest courts sometimes neglect this vital precaution, and fill their embassies with improper persons, mainly because the minister or the prince had not sufficient strength of mind to resist appeals made on illegitimate grounds such as that of family influence. It will usually be found that the real expert does not push himself or his claims, and that the superior minds in diplomacy, as in other walks of life, are not found crying their wares at every street corner, but must be sought out with care in their own closets. It is also to be observed that in previous times the profession of diplomacy stood too low in public esteem to attract the services of first-class men—partly because higher emoluments were to be earned elsewhere, and partly on account of the prolonged absence from home which diplomatic service entails.

Diplomacy an Honourable Exile.

If diplomacy be a labour in exile, the state should see to it that it is at least an honourable exile. To counteract this drawback, the home government should so reform the system of diplomacy that it may offer attractions to the most ambitious as well as to the most refined spirits. There is no reason why not merely honour but adequate daily recompense for his services should not be offered to the diplomatists from the very beginning of their career. Having regard to the expenses which fall upon the diplomatists of all ranks in their service abroad, and in maintaining the honour of their own profession and their country, the prince will be well advised to pay good salaries and in other ways to mark his esteem of the diplomatic profession. Thus and thus alone can a prince gather round him a diplomatic bodyguard worthy of the name. If he follows this advice, his diplomatic service will quickly outstrip all others and a deeper mutual confidence will arise between himself and his diplomatic agents upon which the success of all his negotiations will rest secure. No diplomatist is less to be envied than he who finds himself at a foreign court bereft of the confidence of his own.

Value of a Well-Equipped Service.

Now the equipment of the state in diplomacy will be incomplete unless the diplomatic service contains within its ranks so large a number of practised and seasoned diplomatists that the King may be able to retain several of them at his side as special advisers in foreign affairs. In every campaign the true commander will take as much trouble for his reserves as for his first line of attack, and similarly the position of reserves in diplomacy has a great importance, for it means not only that the Minister for Foreign Affairs will have at his elbow a number of skilled diplomatists to assist him in a moment of crisis, but also that when one of the embassies abroad suddenly falls vacant his choice of a successor will not be too narrowly restricted. He thus will be able to avoid the fatal practice, which has prevailed too often in recent French history, of having to choose an ambassador haphazard at the last moment from among the courtiers and hangers-on at the palace.

The Right Man in the Right Place.

The nature of the business on hand must largely govern the choice of the ambassador who is appointed to carry it out, and if the diplomatic service be large enough and varied enough it will certainly contain within its ranks many different characters showing a wide variety of aptitude. Thus in all those secret negotiations which are so necessary in order to prepare the ground for treaties it is often found that the ambassador himself is not the best person to employ. It may be highly embarrassing for him to attempt to combine such secret negotiations with the ordinary duties of his office, and therefore a clever man who is not yet clothed with the prestige of high office is a more proper agent for this kind of secret traffic. The very fact that the high public position of an ambassador is apt to make the court and the general public familiar with his person and his face is certainly a drawback to his employment on more secret affairs, and though it is true, as we have said, that part of the business of an ambassador is that of an honourable spy, he should beware of doing any of the spying himself. Most of the great events in recent diplomatic history have been prepared by ministers sent in secret. The Peace of Münster, one of the most intricate negotiations I have ever known, was not really the work of that vast concourse of ambassadors and envoys which met there and appended their signatures to the document. The essential clauses of that treaty were discussed and drawn up by a secret agent of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria sitting at a table in Paris with Cardinal Mazarin. In a similar fashion the Peace of the Pyrenees was concluded as the result of secret negotiations at Lyons between Cardinal Mazarin and Pimentel, the secret envoy of the Spanish King; and finally, the Peace of Ryswick, to which I was a party throughout the negotiation, was devised by the same secret diplomacy before its public ratification in Holland in the year 1697.

Each Embassy a Miniature of the Whole Service.

Now the bearing of these considerations upon the organisation of diplomacy is fairly clear. If it is only a question of maintaining good relations between one state and another and of rendering a more or less correct account of all that happens at a foreign court, a diplomatist with a couple of secretaries will suffice, and indeed in ordinary times it is undoubtedly better not to have more than one diplomatist of the same rank at any foreign court. But it is equally obvious that there are occasions when it is of the highest advantage to maintain a more elaborately equipped mission at a foreign court, and even to send two or three diplomatists of higher rank to assist in the conduct of negotiations and in the other activities of diplomacy. This is of course true whenever a peace conference is about to meet, for negotiations of that character require great preparation beforehand, and it would be impossible for a single diplomatist to overtake all the work which is necessary in such circumstances together with the manifold duties of his own office. In a certain sense the embassy itself should be a reproduction in miniature of the whole diplomatic service.

Variety of Talent.