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what a pompous-looking twit

The 'pompous-twit', above, Lord Ampthill (known as 'Anthill' to his friends) became ~ briefly ~ the Viceroy of India when Curzon was on home leave in 1904. He served as Governor of Madras from 1900 until 1906.... A well-known rower in his youth, he was the son of the famous diplomat Odo Russell, brother of the 9th Duke of Bedford, who was the British ambassador to Berlin for many years towards the end of the 19th century and a close friend of Bismarck.

HH Patila Bhupinder Singh was a FM and recd a gold medal from the Grand Lodge of Phulkiyan States!

@ Julian Craig. In fact Ampthill's brief tenure (and Curzon's crucial absence) was responsible for the unfortunate (from the imperial point of view) turn of events after the Younghusband Mission to Lhasa. The strategic and diplomatic objectives originally envisaged by Curzon were virtually all lost thanks to Ampthill's completely different temperament. Had Curzon been in situ, the outcome would have been different, and so too possibly the history of Tibet. For one thing, Younghusband wouldn't have been disgraced the way he was.

I must agree with your comment, Mr Joyce. The Younghusband 'mission' was something of a disaster ~ one from which very few of those involved emerged with any credit. Of course, undermining the entire effort were the various political rivalries, just bubbling to the surface at that time, that would lead to Curzon's resignation as Viceroy a year or so later. In many ways it was a mistake on his behalf to return for a second spell in India and one which he would acknowledge himself, lamenting that if he had stayed in England : “Mary would still be alive , there would have been no row with Kitchener, and I would be first favourite for any appointment under the Prime Minister.” ... his career did not really recover for ten years.

And yet Mr Craig in many ways Curzon was the most enlightened of the viceroys, and certainly the most cerebrally gifted. One may forgive him his India-centred Russophobia - after all, the threat wasn't entirely imaginary at the time, given Russia's voracious appetites in Central Asia. And his policy on frontiers could hardly be faulted, given that the concept of buffer states wasn't intrinsically bad. Going back to the Younghusband debacle, the geopolitics of 20th century India-Tibet-China would seem to vindicate Curzon's foresight in sending that mission, even if the original motives sprang from personal pique with the Dalai Lama (for not answering his letters), and from a mistaken belief in Russian influence in Lhasa. Suddenly we find a China, which was all of three thousand miles away in Curzon's time, now cheek-by-jowl with India. Ripe field for the great 'ifs' of history!

.... The Russian 'threat' was always considered a real one, Mr Joyce... I am pleased to read that you seem to hold a positive opinion of Lord Curzon ~ he has always been a very misunderstood individual, both in Britain and in India. Partly as a result of his patrician background and partly as a result of his ample intellectual capabilities, Curzon, from a precociously young age, had been marked out as a man of unusual distinction and one of almost limitless potential. He also stood out as a man thoroughly convinced of his own sense of self-worth and importance who could at times exhibit an insufferable form of arrogance and a ridiculously over-blown pomposity that brought both the admiration and the ridicule of his contemporaries in equal measure. The Viceroyalty was a position that Curzon spent many years preparing himself for. As a young man he travelled extensively throughout Asia and he gained, by first-hand observation, a keen understanding of the nature of British imperialism, the virtues of which he became a passionate advocate of and that he firmly believed to be his countrymen’s finest achievement and their greatest contribution to global development - although he was far from blind to the numerous faults and moral ambiguities of Empire. He was certainly more forward thinking than the majority of his more resolutely narrow minded and jingoistic colleagues at the time – many of whom had never ventured further afield than the grouse moors of Scotland or the hotels and casinos of the Cote d’Azur. In the closing passage of his monumental book ‘Persia’, (1892) Curzon, wisely observed that: “Above all we must remember that the ways of Orientals are not our ways, or their thoughts our thoughts. Often when we think them backward... they think us meddlesome and absurd... Our system may be good for us; but it is neither equally nor altogether good for them... the normal Asiatic would sooner be misgoverned by Asiatics than superbly governed by Europeans.”

Endorse all of that Mr Craig! As a Central Asia history/travel buff I'm aware of Curzon's contributions in the field (I have his travel narratives, imbued often with unsuspected humour), and as for his image (and the enemies he made on account of it) he admitted bitterly somewhere that 'that piece of doggerel' ("My name is George Nathaniel Curzon...etc") had caused him far more damage than anything else in his life. That passage you've quoted from his "Persia" is the most prophetic and discerning of all pronouncements on the East made by any western proconsul. Yes, I certainly count myself among his admirers. Pity there weren't more like him; one would have to go back to Warren Hastings (whose own Tibet missions uncannily foreshadowed 1903-04), and Bentinck for something remotely similar.

~ hahaha~ yes, indeed that dreaded 'piece of doggerel' !!That gently mocking caricature of Curzon in his youthful undergraduate days was to cause its victim a great deal of frustration over the years for the description of himself as a “most superior person”, however unfairly attributed, certainly struck a chord with his friends and was unable to entirely shake off the whiff of snobbery throughout the course of his long public career. Despite his understandable annoyance with the snooty image that the rhyme helped to create, in later life, Curzon was able to find some humour in it and even managed to write some self-deprecating verses in way of reply which you might enjoy ~ I apologise for the length ! : 'Charma Virumque Cano' by George Nathaniel Curzon (1891) Charms and a man I sing, to wit ~ a most superior person, Myself, who bears the fitting name of George Nathaniel Curzon. From which 'tis clear that even when in swaddling bands I lay low, There floated round my head a sort of apostolic halo. Think not I mean thereby to say I am wholly 'without guile'~ That is a from of moral sloth that wears off in a while; But take the Scriptural heroes from King David down to Daniel, You'll find no better man than this particular Nathaniel. In early days I'm sure I never did or said a thing That the most captious critic at my memory could fling; And if I never showed a sign of future elevation, My Boswell can supply that need for his imagination. At Eton other boys might quail before the brandished switches, My virtue wore with modest pride the badge of intact breeches; And he who knows not what a swell the Captain of the school is For ever damned in my vocabulary as a fool is ! At Oxford I made speeches which might well provoke a fit In persons jealous of the name and the fame of William Pitt; And if the School Examiners deprived me of a First It was because with envious spleen those blinking owls were curst. 'Tis true that when a seat I fain win in Parliament My native county did not smile upon that just intent; But when they gave me notice in emphatic terms to 'off it' I smiled and quoted from St Luke a phrase about a prophet. With finer insight did a great Division in the North To be their spokesman in the House of Chatter send me forth. They took me in; and ever since, to pay the obligation, I've taken them in with a truly honest exultation. For me no mean ignoble stage~ give me the whole wide world, The seas of either hemisphere must see my sails unfurled. I have furrowed many an ocean, I have trodden many a land, From Chinquapin to far Cathay, from Fez to Samarkand. I have walked in Salt Lake City in the steps of Brigham Young, In fair Aegean isles have heard the songs that Sappho sung. I have seen the houris of Tom Moore in the streets of Ispahan, There has trembled on my lips the kiss of the maidens of Japan. In tents of wandering Bedouin I have harkened more than once To tales of prodigies performed by the great race of Blunts; And if for me on Nilus' banls the Memnon would not sing, It was because he's ceased to do so commonplace a thing. Stanley in Darkest Africa may mix with dusky broods; Give me the mystery of the East, the Asian solitudes; Ten thousand readers fall to sleep o'er Stanley's turgid pages; Mine, though uncut, will light a fire for unbegotten ages ! To emulate a Stanley's fame though I'm in no great hurry, I long have wished to find a Livingstone in Wilfred Murray. But now while in the distant States false rumour surges round him, In England I have made my quest, at Crabbet I have found him. I have a quite peculiar gift for unpoetic rhyme, You've heard it and have greatly wondered at it all this time, And when I say that now and then my conversation staggers, You must not dully set me down among the empty braggers. My looks are of that useful type ~ I say it with elation ~ That qualify me well for almost any situation ~ I've sometimes been mistaken for a parson, and at others Have recognized in butlers and in waiters long-lost brothers. Perchance with all these gifts you'll say, it’s strange that I am not wedded, And preach a sermon on the woes of life when single-bedded, But if Clarissa I adore, and rashly go and marry her, To Chloe's subsequent embrace it may erect a barrier. That I am most remarkable there cannot be a doubt, Although no one remarks it when he once has found me out; The only fear to which I own is lest some ass should blab it, And I should nevermore be asked to lose the prize at Crabbet.

Oh, thank you so much for this! One can't help feeling a trifle sorry for him :) And thank you for adding me as a friend! Still on the Great Ornamental, his "A Viceroy's Journal" is a reader's delight.

... Yes, I have his 'Journal' knocking about somewhere upstairs James ~ as you point out, it reveals a side of his character that is almost entirely at odds with the ultra-formal, public image... It's something of a shame that Curzon, having led such a busy life and dying at a relatively young age, never managed to sit down and write his memoirs (although he wrote several other books and left copious notes and private papers for future biographers to mine) ~ it would have been fascinating to read an account of his life and the many historic events with which he was involved, from his own perspective. As for feeling any degree of 'sympathy' for him ... hahaha ... well, yes, but only a 'trifle' ! He was, of course, very good at feeling sorry for himself ~ famously bursting into tears when told, in 1923, that Stanley Baldwin (whom he considered to be an utter non-entity) was to become Prime Minister... and not he ... His renowned arrogance certainly precluded the extension of any great degree of sympathy/ affection from his immediate peers, although he was very widely respected ~ the arrogance was, frequently, so over blown as to become almost comic ~ here is an account of a meeting between Lord Curzon ( then Foreign Secretary) and the Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar-Law , from the diaries of JCC Davidson (then Chairman of the Conservative Party), that, I think illustrates the point very well.... "January 22nd, 1923 .... I was there just after breakfast when Curzon arrived in Paris. He had travelled from Clermont-Ferrand on the very early train and had come straight to the [hotel]... I was with [Prime Minister] in his sitting room when Curzon was ushered in. We offered him coffee. Curzon then told Bonar-Law that he had never been treated so badly by anyone in his life and, when questioned, he explained that he had asked the [French] Minister of the Interior to stop the trams in Clermont-Ferrand during the night. Clermont-Ferrand is of course a considerable industrial town. The audacity of the man wanting to interfere with the economic life of this city seemed to [Bonar-Law] a little odd, but Curzon was very annoyed that nothing had been done. The Prime Minister asked him if he had really expected the Minister to comply with his request. Curzon said, "Yes, as a common courtesy to ME, he ought to have done it as I don't sleep very well." ..... Curzon is not of this world at all. He has an arrogance which is unbelievable and the most extraordinary mannerisms - but I do like him."

"Balfour once said that Curzon as Viceroy claimed a predominance for his views on policy which, if granted, 'would raise India to the position of an independent and not always friendly Power'." - Peter Fleming, "Bayonets to Lhasa" (1961).

~ hmmm ~ that is a curious quotation, James ... I am trying to think which of Curzon's policies Balfour could have felt that 'if granted, would [have] raised India to a position of an independent power' ??... While he was, in many ways, a dynamic, industrious and 'progressive' Viceroy, Curzon always remained a staunch Imperialist ~ a real die-hard ~ the idea that India was anywhere near to being granted 'self-rule' , within his own era, would have been, and was, complete anathema to him. His 'policy' was to keep India tied to Britain as closely as possible ~ for the mutual benefit of both the colony and the coloniser. Was it not Curzon, afterall, who said that " If Britain were to ever lose India, she would straight away become a third-rate power... defined by a narrow and selfish materialism ... merely a sort of glorified Belgium" ? (how prophetic that statement seems with hindsight !) To really understand Curzon's thoughts concerning any potential Indian 'independence' it is instructive to look at the later stages of his political career, long after he had left the sub-continent. As we are all aware ~ ' history is shaped by events' ~ and after the horrors of 1914 the British, for their part, had realised that all of their “free talk about liberty, democracy, nationality [that] had been used as common shibboleths” whilst under the pressure of war, had become in the Imperial context, dangerous thorns in their own side – and might fatally expose them to allegations by colonial 'nationalist' movements of moral hypocrisy ~ and this is exactly what the Indian nationalist leaders, at that time, began to do (in no uncertain terms !)The situation was further complicated by the makeup of the post-war ‘national’ government in London of which Curzon was a member, a Liberal coalition heavily dependent on Conservative support, which now found itself divided over its position on India. Traditionally, Conservatives (like Curzon) had argued that the only ambition of the British in India should be an ever expanding consolidation of their rule – while the Liberals were far more sympathetic toward Indian 'nationalist' concerns and potential liberties. A compromise was saught designed to keep all parties happy. And so in 1919 the British came up with the the following formula (the wording of which had been bickered over endlessly around the cabinet table in London) detailing their future aspirations for India: “The policy of His Majesty’s Government, with which the government of India is in complete accord, is that of the increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the fuller realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire.” The intricacy of the semantic battle that had accompanied this statement’s publication can be better understood when one learns that, originally it had contained the words “progressive realisation of responsible government”, but this draft had been vetoed and ‘progressive’ was replaced with the word ‘fuller’ – and thereby deployed in the sense of something that may or may not ever become full ie. may or may not ever happen ! It was Lord Curzon who had insisted upon this change. This subtle word-play may seem trivial, but it is one small clue in a much wider picture that leads one to ask the question of how sincere the British really were in their offering of concessions to Indian nationalist opinion (which they certainly underestimated ). For all the platitudes and nobly expressed sentiments it seems quite clear that the British had no real intention, certainly not in 1919 at any rate, of seriously contemplating the abandonment of their position in India (it would take another war to do that). Indeed, Lord Curzon admitted as much when he let slip in private correspondence that the British commitment to ‘self-governing’ Indian institutions was not a precursor to the establishment of any truly representative form of parliamentary style democracy in India and that, besides, the process by which any such institutions would come into being “MIGHT TAKE SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS”* !!!! .... oh, the irony ... * See David Gilmour 'Curzon' (1994) p. 487

I think, Mr Craig, that Balfour's statement meant not so much an India independent of imperial rule as a quasi-sovereign state with Curzon as a potentate not entirely in sympathy with the Home government. Curzon at the best of times had little patience with Whitehall, and was notorious for not suffering fools, gladly or otherwise. In his imperious, magisterial manner he no doubt believed he knew far better what was good for India than the stuffed shirts of St. James's and Mayfair. I think Balfour's plaintive remark must be seen in this light!

~ hahaha~ yes, you are quite correct Mr Joyce, Curzon had little time for the opinion of the 'stuffed shirts of St.James and Mayfair" or, at times, even the opinion of the stuffed shirt who occupied 10 Downing Street, that foppish intellectual ,Arthur Balfour... During Curzon's period as Viceroy the nature of the relationship between Westminster and its Imperial 'outposts' was changing quite rapidly. Although Viceroy’s – as the ‘men on the spot’ – had traditionally been afforded a great deal of latitude in their actions with only cursory supervision from ‘home’, throughout the nineteenth century, with rapid improvements in transport and communication links, they were increasingly subject to regulation and scrutiny by the government in Britain. Curzon’s day-to-day transactions were conducted through his own advisory council that sat in Calcutta (or in Simla during the hot weather) but decisions taken by this body were subject to the approval of a counterpart council of ‘old India hands’ ~ those 'stuffed shirts' ~ that convened in London and was chaired by the Secretary of State for India, who was a member of the cabinet and constitutionally the Viceroys superior. Under normal circumstances this system, with its requisite checks and balances, worked reasonably well – but under Curzon, the scion of an ancient landed family, with a taste for autocracy, who, as you rightly point out, did not suffer fools gladly (or those he felt to be fools at any rate), relations became increasingly strained and fractious. Curzon’s exasperating habit of disregarding official channels and initiating legislation without proper authority brought him, frequently, to the brink of outright insubordination – and the nature of his personal relationship with those whom he should have consulted beforehand only complicated the situation. It says a good deal about the almost exclusively aristocratic make-up of government in Edwardian England that most of the individuals involved were not only professional colleagues but also old friends of many years standing. Arthur Balfour had known Curzon since their days as ‘back-bench' MPs together, while the Secretary of State for India during Curzon's time, St. John Brodrick, had been a direct and admiring contemporary at both Eton and Oxford and had served as the best man at Curzon’s wedding . However, both of these men would, eventually, feel themselves obliged to ‘turn against’ Curzon in a bid to curb his increasingly monarchical instincts .Brodrick (the 'Brodder') had tried to warn Curzon that his disregard for procedure was damaging his reputation, wondering why it was that he seemed to: “...have lost sight of the merits of the various questions in which you differ from the Cabinet ...[why] in any of these disputed matters, the thought seems to rise in [your] mind that ‘I will prove to the Cabinet that they are wrong about this and that I am right,’ that, ‘I have given my opinion, I am the Viceroy of India and confound you, how dare you set your opinion against mine?”. But his cautionary words appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Curzon’s truculence and his foibles were tolerated and even indulged to a certain extent for the substantial progress that India had made under his supervision could not be denied ~ and for that alone he deserved ( and still deserves today ) a great deal of credit. It would take the appointment of Kitchener as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army , whose ego was as large as Curzon's, for his Viceroyalty to begin to crumble.