“Eric Phipps”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Sir Eric Clare Edmund Phipps {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|GCB|GCMG|GCVO|PC}} (27 October 1875 – 13 August 1945) was a British diplomat.

Family

Phipps was the son of Sir Constantine Phipps, later British Ambassador to Belgium, and his wife, Maria Jane (née Miller Mundy). Henry Phipps, 1st Earl of Mulgrave, was his great-grandfather, and he was also a great-grandson of Lieutenant-General Sir Colin Campbell, who was present at the Battle of Waterloo, and of Rear-Admiral Sir John Hindmarsh, who was a Lieutenant on HMS Phoebe at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Early life and career

As a child, he accompanied his parents around Europe to his father's various postings. He was educated at King's College, Cambridge,^[1] and the University of Paris, from which he graduated.

He passed the competitive examination for entry to the Diplomatic Service in January 1899 and was posted as an attaché to Paris in October 1899, being promoted Third Secretary in January 1901.^[2]

In January 1905 he was posted to Constantinople, was promoted Second Secretary in April and returned to London to work at the Foreign Office in September. In September 1906, he was posted to Rome and in February 1909, he returned to Paris as private secretary to Sir Francis Bertie, British Ambassador to France. In April 1912, he was promoted First Secretary and posted to St Petersburg, transferred to Madrid in October 1913. He returned to Paris in May 1916.

He was on the staff of the British delegation to the Versailles Conference until September 1919, when he was promoted to counsellor and posted back to London. In November 1920, he was posted to Brussels as chargé d'affaires, and in November 1922, he was promoted to minister plenipotentiary and posted back to Paris, often serving as chargé d'affaires in the absence of the ambassador.

In June 1928, Phipps received his first independent posting as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria.

Ambassador to Germany

In 1933, he was appointed British Ambassador to Germany. To some extent, he followed policies later known as appeasement, as he believed that the League of Nations was the key to preventing the next war. He tried to enlist the French in efforts to get the Germans to co-operate.^[3]

However, in some despatches, he warned the British government about the character of the régime. On 31 January 1934, he told his Foreign Secretary:

Phipps gave a further warning on 1 April 1935 of Germany's growing military strength:

During his first year in Berlin, Phipps managed to see Hitler only four times.^[6] Phipps himself regarded Hitler as something of a cipher or enigma; Hitler was variously described in his dispatches back to London as more moderate than his followers or as possibly mad.^[7] In May 1936, Phipps presented to Hitler the famous "questionnaire", largely written by his brother-in law, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Robert Vansittart, that asked point-blank if Germany intended "to respect the existing territorial and political status of Europe" and was willing to sign "genuine treaties".^[8] Neither Hitler nor any other German leader ever responded to the "questionnaire".

Ambassador to France

During his time in Paris, Phipps strongly identified himself with French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet, and most of his dispatches to London reflected Bonnet's influence.^[9] On 24 September 1938, at the height of the great crisis over Czechoslovakia that was to culminate in the Munich Agreement, Phipps reported back to London "all that is best in France is against war, almost at any price", but it was opposed by a "small, but noisy and corrupt, war group".^[10] Phipps's extremely negative assessment of the willingness and/or the ability of France to go to war with Germany in 1938 created major doubts in London about the value of France as an ally.

In October 1938, Bonnet carried a major purge of the Quai d'Orsay, sidelining a number of officials opposed to his policy. In the aftermath of the purge, Bonnet was congratulated by Phipps for removing the "warmongers" René Massigli and Pierre Comert from the Quai d'Orsay, but he went on to complain that Bonnet should have sacked Secretary-General Alexis Saint-Legér Léger as well.^[11]

In response, Bonnet claimed that he and Saint-Legér Léger saw "eye to eye". Phipps, who knew about the state of relations between the two, drily noted that "in that case the eyes must be astigmatic".^[12]

In November 1939, suffering from ill-health, Phipps retired to Wiltshire. He died of a pulmonary embolism following a prostectomy at the London Clinic in 1945.

Honours

Phipps was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 1920 New Year Honours,^[13] Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in May 1922, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 1927 Birthday Honours, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in 1934, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) in 1939, and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1941. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1933, entitling him to the style "The Right Honourable". He also held the Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur and was a Commander of the Order of Leopold II of Belgium.

Family

Phipps married Yvonne de Louvencourt in 1907. After her death, in 1909, he married, Frances Ward, daughter of the sculptor Herbert Ward, in 1911. He had six children, all by his second wife:

Ancestry

In popular culture

Phipps features as a character in the 2012 novel Flight from Berlin by David John, published by HarperCollins.

References

1. ^{{acad|id=PHPS893EC|name=Phipps, Eric Clare Edmund}}
2. ^{{London Gazette |issue=27310 |date=3 May 1901 |page=3033}}
3. ^Gaynor Johnson, "Sir Eric Phipps, the British government, and the appeasement of Germany, 1933–1937." Diplomacy and Statecraft 16.4 (2005): 651–669.
4. ^Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (Pan, 2002), p. 387.
5. ^Barnett, p. 388.
6. ^Paul Doerr, British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, (Manchester UP, 1998) p 158
7. ^W. N. Medlicott, Britain and Germany: The Search For Agreement 1930–1937, Athlone Press: London, 1969, pp. 7–8
8. ^Medlicott, p. 26.
9. ^Anthony Adamthwaite, France and the Coming of the Second World War, 1936–1939, London: Frank Cass, 1977, p. 177.
10. ^Adamthwaite, p. 177.
11. ^D. C. Watt, How War Came, London: Heinemann, 1989, p.73
12. ^Watt, p. 73.
13. ^{{London Gazette |issue=31712 |date=30 December 1919 |page=5 |supp=y}}
14. ^{{London Gazette|issue=35938|page=1199|date=12 March 1943}}
15. ^Photographic portrait of Henrietta Phipps, nee Lamb with her mother and sister. Her mother Lady Pansy Lamb (1904–1999) was a sister of the writer and Labour peer Lord Longford, and aunt of Antonia Fraser.

Sources

External links