In 1761 the 3rd or 12th baron’s descendant, John, 7th or 16th Baron De La Warr (1693-1766), was created Viscount Cantelupe and 1st Earl De La Warr. He was a prominent figure in the House of Lords, at first as a supporter of Sir Robert Walpole. He also served in the British army and fought at Dettingen, and was made governor of Guernsey in 1752.
George John West, 5th earl (1791-1869), married Elizabeth, sister and heiress of George John Frederick Sackville, 4th duke of Dorset, who was created Baroness Buckhurst in 1864; consequently in 1843 he and his sons took the name of Sackville-West. The earl was twice lord chamberlain to Queen Victoria, and he is celebrated as “Fair Euryalus” in the Childish Recollections of his schoolfellow, Lord Byron. His son Charles Richard (1815-1873), 6th earl, served in the first Sikh war and in the Crimea; and being unmarried was succeeded by his brother Reginald (1817-1896) as 7th Earl De La Warr. Having inherited his mother’s barony of Buckhurst on her death in 1870, he retained this title along with the barony and earldom of De La Warr, although the patent had contained a proviso that it should be kept separate from these dignities. In 1896 the 7th earl’s son, Gilbert George Reginald Sackville-West (b. 1869), became 8th earl De La Warr.
See G. E. C(okayne), Complete Peerage (1887-1898).
DELBRÜCK, HANS (1848- ), German historian, was born at Bergen on the island of Rügen on the 11th of November 1848, and studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Bonn. As a soldier he fought in the Franco-German War, after which he was for some years tutor to one of the princes of the German imperial family. In 1885 he became professor of modern history in the university of Berlin, and he was a member of the German Reichstag from 1884 to 1890. Delbrück’s writings are chiefly concerned with the history of the art of war, his most ambitious work being his Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte (first section, Das Altertum, 1900; second, Römer und Germanen, 1902; third, Das Mittelalter, 1907). Among his other works are: Die Perserkriege und die Burgunderkriege (Berlin, 1887); Historische und politische Aufsätze (1886); Erinnerungen, Aufsätze und Reden (1902); Die Strategie des Perikles erläutert durch die Strategie Friedrichs des Grossen (1890); Die Polenfrage (1894); and Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen Neithardt von Gneisenau (1882 and 1894). Delbrück began in 1883 to edit the Preussische Jahrbücher, in which he has written many articles, including one on “General Wolseley über Napoleon, Wellington und Gneisenau,” and he has contributed to the Europäischer Geschichtskalender of H. Schulthess.
DELBRÜCK, MARTIN FRIEDRICH RUDOLF VON, Prussian statesman (1817-1903), was born at Berlin on the 16th of April 1817. On completing his legal studies he entered the service of the state in 1837; and after holding a series of minor posts was transferred in 1848 to the ministry of commerce, which was to be the sphere of his real life’s work. Both Germany and Austria had realized the influence of commercial upon political union. Delbrück in 1851 induced Hanover, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe to join the Zollverein; and the southern states, which had agreed to admit Austria to the union, found themselves forced in 1853 to renew the old union, from which Austria was excluded. Delbrück now began, with the support of Bismarck, to apply the principles of free trade to Prussian fiscal policy. In 1862 he concluded an important commercial treaty with France. In 1867 he became the first president of the chancery of the North German Confederation, and represented Bismarck on the federal tariff council (Zollbundesrath), a position of political as well as fiscal importance owing to the presence in the council of representatives of the southern states. In 1868 he became a Prussian minister without portfolio. In October 1870, when the union of Germany under Prussian headship became a practical question, Delbrück was chosen to go on a mission to the South German states, and contributed greatly to the agreements concluded at Versailles in November. In 1871 he became president of the newly constituted Reichskanzleramt. Delbrück, however, began to feel himself uneasy under Bismarck’s leanings towards protection and state control. On the introduction of Bismarck’s plan for the acquisition of the railways by the state, Delbrück resigned office, nominally on the ground of ill-health (June 1, 1876). In 1879 he opposed in the Reichstag the new protectionist tariff, and on the failure of his efforts retired definitely from public life. In 1896 he received from the emperor the order of the Black Eagle. He died at Berlin on the 1st of February 1903.
DELCASSÉ, THÉOPHILE (1852- ), French statesman, was born at Pamiers, in the department of Ariège, on the 1st of March 1852. He wrote articles on foreign affairs for the République française and Paris, and in 1888 was elected conseiller général of his native department, standing as “un disciple fidèle de Gambetta.” In the following year he entered the chamber as deputy for Foix. He was appointed under-secretary for the colonies in the second Ribot cabinet (January to April 1893), and retained his post in the Dupuy cabinet till its fall in December 1893. It was largely owing to his efforts that the French colonial office was made a separate department with a minister at its head, and to this office he was appointed in the second Dupuy cabinet (May 1894 to January 1895). He gave a great impetus to French colonial enterprise, especially in West Africa, where he organized the newly acquired colony of Dahomey, and despatched the Liotard mission to the Upper Ubangi. While in opposition he devoted special attention to naval affairs, and in speeches that attracted much notice declared that the function of the French navy was to secure and develop colonial enterprise, deprecated all attempts to rival the British fleet, and advocated the construction of commerce destroyers as France’s best reply to England. On the formation of the second Brisson cabinet in June 1898 he succeeded M. Hanotaux at the foreign office, and retained that post under the subsequent premierships of MM. Dupuy, Waldeck-Rousseau, Combes and Rouvier. In 1898 he had to deal with the delicate situation caused by Captain Marchand’s occupation of Fashoda, for which, as he admitted in a speech in the chamber on the 23rd of January 1899, he accepted full responsibility, since it arose directly out of the Liotard expedition, which he had himself organized while minister for the colonies; and in March 1899 he concluded an agreement with Great Britain by which the difficulty was finally adjusted, and France consolidated her vast colonial empire in North-West Africa. In the same year he acted as mediator between the United States and Spain, and brought the peace negotiations to a successful conclusion. He introduced greater cordiality into the relations of France with Italy: at the same time he adhered firmly to the alliance with Russia, and in August 1899 made a visit to St Petersburg, which he repeated in April 1901. In June 1900 he made an arrangement with Spain, fixing the long-disputed boundaries of the French and Spanish possessions in West Africa. Finally he concluded with England the important Agreements of 1904 covering colonial and other questions which had long been a matter of dispute, especially concerning Egypt, Newfoundland and Morocco. Suspicion of the growing entente between France and England soon arose on the part of Germany, and in 1905 German assertiveness was shown in a crisis which was forced on in the matter of the French activity in Morocco (q.v.), in which the handling of French policy by M. Delcassé personally was a sore point with Germany. The situation became acute in April, and was only relieved by M. Delcassé’s resignation of office. He retired into private life, but in 1908 was warmly welcomed on a visit to England, where the closest relations now existed with France.