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 g.r.berridge

DIPLO M A CY
theory and practice
 Diplomacy

“Probably the most prolific contemporary writer on diplomacy is Professor Geoff

R. Berridge. Each of his many books is impeccably well written and full of insights
into the fascinating formation of modern diplomacy.”
—Robert William Dry, New York University, USA, and Chairman of AFSA’s
Committee on the Foreign Service Profession and Ethics

“I discovered Geoff Berridge’s book on diplomacy after serving as a diplomat for over
30 years. It is well-researched, sophisticated, inspiring and, where the subject invites
it, suitably ironic. I used the 4th edition with my students and will now continue
working with the 5th edition.”
—Dr Max Schweizer, Head Foreign Affairs and Applied Diplomacy, ZHAW School of
Management and Law, Switzerland

“Berridge’s Diplomacy is an enlightening journey that takes the student, the practitio-
ner and the general reader from the front to the backstage of current diplomatic
practice. The thoroughly updated and expanded text—also enriched with a stimulat-
ing new treatment of embassies—is an invaluable guide to the stratagems and out-
comes, continuities and innovations, of a centuries’ long process.”
—Arianna Arisi Rota, Professor of History of Diplomacy at the University of
Pavia, Italy

“This is an excellent text-book which fills a gap in the current writing on diplomacy.”
—Lord Wright of Richmond, Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign
Office (UK), 1986–91

“This book remains the best introduction to the subject.”

—Alan Henrikson, Director of Diplomatic Studies, The Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy, USA

“Berridge is the leading authority on contemporary diplomatic practice.”

—Laurence E. Pope, former US ambassador and senior official at the Department
of State

“Berridge’s study of diplomacy is the standard text on the subject—succinct yet sub-
stantial in content, lucid in style.”
—John W. Young, Professor of International History, University of Nottingham, UK
 G. R. Berridge

Diplomacy
Theory and Practice
G. R. Berridge
Politics and International Relations
University of Leicester
Leicester, UK
DiploFoundation
Geneva, Switzerland

ISBN 978-3-030-85930-5    ISBN 978-3-030-85931-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85931-2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the
whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does
not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective
laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or
omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: The front cover shows a meeting in Geneva in 2016 of the World Health Assembly, the main
decision-making body of the World Health Organization. Credit: Xinhua / Alamy Stock Photo.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Also by G. R. Berridge
BRITISH DIPLOMACY IN TURKEY, 1583 TO THE PRESENT: A Study in the
Evolution of the Resident Embassy
BRITISH HEADS OF MISSION AT CONSTANTINOPLE, 1583–1922
THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN DIPLOMACY and Other Essays
DIPLOMACY AND SECRET SERVICE: A Short Introduction
DIPLOMACY AT THE UN (co-editor with A. Jennings)
THE DIPLOMACY OF ANCIENT GREECE: A Short Introduction
DIPLOMATIC CLASSICS: Selected Texts from Commynes to Vattel
DIPLOMATIC THEORY FROM MACHIAVELLI TO KISSINGER (with
Maurice Keens-Soper, and T. G. Otte)
A DIPLOMATIC WHISTLEBLOWER IN THE VICTORIAN ERA: The Life
and Writings of E. C. Grenville-Murray
ECONOMIC POWER IN ANGLO-SOUTH AFRICAN DIPLOMACY:
Simonstown, Sharpeville and After
EMBASSIES IN ARMED CONFLICT
GERALD FITZMAURICE (1865–1939), CHIEF DRAGOMAN OF THE
BRITISH EMBASSY IN TURKEY
INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: States, Power and Conflict since 1945,
Third Edition
AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (with D. Heater)
THE PALGRAVE MACMILLAN DICTIONARY OF DIPLOMACY: Third
Edition (with Lorna Lloyd)
THE POLITICS OF THE SOUTH AFRICA RUN: European Shipping and
Pretoria
RETURN TO THE UN: UN Diplomacy in Regional Conflicts
SOUTH AFRICA, THE COLONIAL POWERS AND ‘AFRICAN DEFENCE’:
The Rise and Fall of the White Entente, 1948–60
TALKING TO THE ENEMY: How States without ‘Diplomatic Relations’
Communicate
TILKIDOM AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: The Letters of Gerald
Fitzmaurice to George Lloyd
For Jack Spence
 Preface and Acknowledgments

This edition of Diplomacy: Theory and Practice has been updated throughout
and—despite the excision of some long passages that I concluded were either
out of place or no longer important—considerably expanded. With the
Covid-19 pandemic in mind and because I had ignored it in previous edi-
tions, health diplomacy finds a major place for illustrative purposes. Among
other subjects new to this edition are capacity-building in following up,
embassy branch offices, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,
interpreters at summits, and—unavoidably—the diplomatic implications of
former US President Donald J. Trump. Subjects covered in the previous edi-
tion but to which increased attention is given in this one include the use of
embassies for transnational repression, video-conferencing, Twitter, intelli-
gence officers on special missions, and the variation in representative offices
by degree of diplomatic status.
An innovation to which I must give special notice is the addition at the end
of each chapter of a list of ‘Topics for seminar discussion or essays’. This draws
not only on my teaching career but also on my long experience of vetting
draft exam questions while an external examiner at five British universities. A
good question should be short and clear—and provoke thought, which is
therefore what I have tried to achieve on these lists. A few cautions: first, very
few of these questions can be answered well by reliance on this book alone,
hence the ‘Further reading’; second, some questions overlap, which does not
matter unless they are used by a lecturer setting an exam; and third, most lists
feature a comparative question (e.g., ‘Compare the roles of Austria and

ix
x Preface and Acknowledgments

Switzerland in conflict resolution’ in the chapter on mediation), for advice on

answering which, as well as on other points, see ‘7 common pitfalls to avoid
in writing essays and dissertations’ on my website.
In order to give better guidance on further reading at the end of each chap-
ter, here and there I have annotated the works listed. Other things being
equal, I have also given preference to sources freely available on the Internet.
As in earlier editions, I have avoided providing URLs for such sources, partly
because they are often so long, partly because they tend to change or disap-
pear, and partly because it is usually easy enough to find a web resource via a
search engine; I simply add ‘[www]’ to a reference available on the Internet at
the time of writing, although a few might be behind paywalls.
I do not believe that footnotes or endnotes are appropriate for a textbook.
However, sources for quotations must be provided and I do this by means of
in-text citations of full references to be found at the end of the book. Also,
where a box relies chiefly on primary sources I provide these at the foot of the
box itself.
The sources for unreferenced recent events are usually serious news agencies
such as Reuters, news websites such as Politico, and online versions of newspa-
pers such as The Guardian (which has no paywall). For many points in the
text, the sources are my own earlier writings or works listed in ‘Further read-
ing’ that should be fairly obvious. Works listed in ‘References’ at the end of
the book include all those cited in the text, together with the more important
among those on which I have drawn that are not listed in ‘Further reading’. In
providing book titles, it is an idiosyncrasy of mine that I put the name of the
publisher before place of publication, because I find this intuitive and because
publishers have been doing the same thing on the title pages of their own
books for well over half a century. (Students beware! You will probably incur
the wrath of your tutors if you follow my example.)
As usual, I have prepared the Index myself. Due to production difficulties
and space limitations, it is much shorter than before and I have concentrated
the entries on diplomatic activity, procedures and institutions at the expense
of countries and—with notable exceptions—persons. I believe the Index is
not seriously the worse for its relative brevity.
For valuable observations on parts of the text of this edition, I am grateful
to Christiaan Sys, Petru Dumitriu, John W. Young, Keith Hamilton, and my
daughter Willow Berridge. For sharing with me raw data from her research on
health attachés, I am in debt to Sabrina Luh. I must also mention Jelena
 Preface and Acknowledgments xi

Jakovljevic, who has for many years expertly managed my website, on which
the book is updated. Finally, I wish to thank most warmly the two anony-
mous readers of my proposal for this edition for giving me valuable ideas that
have shaped the final draft and Anne-Kathrin Birchley-Brun of the publisher
for her patient and prompt support throughout. The responsibility for all
remaining deficiencies is mine alone.

Leicester, UK G. R. Berridge

May 2021
 Online Updating

For each chapter in the book there is a corresponding page on my website,

which is hosted by DiploFoundation. These pages contain further reflections,
any corrections needed, and details of recent developments. Among other
things, the website also has pages on ideas for dissertation and thesis topics,
primary sources for study, recommended reading, and advice on essay and
dissertation writing. Please visit http://grberridge.diplomacy.edu/ Links to
other sites/organizations made to the content of this book by the publisher do
not necessarily reflect the views of the author.

xiii
 Contents

1 The Foreign Ministry  1

Staffing and Supporting Missions Abroad    5
Policy-Making and Implementation   6
Coordination of Foreign Relations   12
Dealing with Foreign Diplomats at Home   15
Building Support at Home   16
Summary  17
Further Reading  17

Part I The Art of Negotiation  21

2 Prenegotiations 23
Agreeing the Need to Negotiate   24
Agreeing the Agenda   27
Agreeing Procedure  29
Secrecy  30
Format  30
Venue  33
Delegations  36
Timing  38
Summary  39
Further Reading  39

3 ‘Around-the-Table’ Negotiations 41
The Formula Stage   41
The Details Stage   45

xv
xvi Contents

Difficulties  46
Negotiating Strategies  47
Summary  50
Further Reading  50

4 Diplomatic Momentum 53
Deadlines  55
Self-imposed Deadlines  55
External Deadlines  56
Symbolic Deadlines  58
Overlapping Deadlines  59
Metaphors of Movement   60
Publicity  63
Raising the Level of the Talks   65
Summary  66
Further Reading  67

5 Packaging Agreements 69
International Legal Obligations at a Premium   70
Signaling Importance at a Premium   71
Convenience at a Premium   73
Saving Face at a Premium   74
Both Languages, or More   75
Small Print  76
Euphemisms  78
‘Separate but Related’ Agreements   79
Summary  80
Further Reading  81

6 Following Up 83
Early Methods  84
Monitoring  87
Review Meetings  90
Capacity-Building  94
Summary  95
Further Reading  95
 Contents xvii

Part II Diplomacy with Diplomatic Relations  99

7 Embassies101
The Normal Embassy  105
The Fortress Embassy  115
The Mini-Embassy  118
The Militarized Embassy  119
Summary 121
Further Reading  122

8 Telecommunications125
Telephone Diplomacy Flourishes  126
Video-Conferencing Peaks  133
Summary 137
Further Reading  138

9 Consulates141
Consular Functions  146
Career Consuls  149
Honorary Consuls  152
Consular Sections  154
Summary 155
Further Reading  155

10 Secret Intelligence159
Ambassadors as Agent-Runners  160
Service Attachés  161
Intelligence Officers  163
Cuckoos in the Nest?  169
Summary 175
Further Reading  176

11 Conferences179
International Organizations  181
Procedure 183
Venue 183
Participation 184
Agenda 189
Public Debate and Private Discussion  190
Decision-Making 191
xviii Contents

The ‘New Multilateralism’  195

Summary 196
Further Reading  197

12 Summits199
Professional Anathemas  200
General Case for the Defense  203
Serial Summits  204
Ad hoc Summits  206
The High-Level Exchange of Views  208
Secrets of Success  209
Summary 212
Further Reading  213

13 Public Diplomacy215
Rebranding Propaganda  215
The Importance of Public Diplomacy  217
The Role of the Foreign Ministry  219
The Role of the Embassy  222
Summary 225
Further Reading  226

Part III Diplomacy Without Diplomatic Relations 229

14 Embassy Substitutes231
Interests Sections  231
Consulates 236
Representative Offices  238
Front Missions  242
Summary 243
Further Reading  244

15 Special Missions247
The Advantages of Special Missions  247
The Variety of Special Missions  249
Unofficial Envoys  249
Official Envoys  251
To Go Secretly or Openly?  255
Summary 257
Further Reading  258
 Contents xix

16 Mediation261
The Nature of Mediation  262
Different Mediators and Different Motives  264
Track One  264
Track Two  267
Multiparty Mediation  268
The Ideal Mediator  270
The Ripe Moment  273
Summary 274
Further Reading  275

Conclusion: The Counter-revolution in Diplomatic Practice277

References281

Index295
 Abbreviations

AU African Union [formerly Organization of African Unity]

BCE Before the Common Era [aka ‘BC’]
CGTN China Global Television Network
CHOGM Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
COP Conference of the Parties [as in COP21, the twenty-first conference of
the parties to the UNFCCC]
CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
CSO Civil Society Organizations
DFAT Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
EU European Union
FAC Foreign Affairs Committee [British House of Commons]
FAO UN Food and Agriculture Organization
FAOHC The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the [US] Association
for Diplomatic Studies and Training
FARA Foreign Agents Registration Act [US]
FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office
FCDO Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States
FOIA Freedom of Information Act
G7 Group of Seven
G20 Group of 20
GAVI Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization
GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters [British]
GRU Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye [Russian—formerly Soviet—
military intelligence]
HHS Health and Human Services, US Department
Humint human intelligence-gathering

xxi
xxii Abbreviations

IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency

ICJ International Court of Justice
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
ILC International Law Commission
IMF International Monetary Fund
ISC Intelligence and Security Committee [British]
JCPOA Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [for Iran’s nuclear program]
KGB Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti [Committee for State
Security]
KRG Kurdish Regional Government
MIRV multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle
MOU memorandum of understanding
MSF Médecins sans Frontières [Doctors without Borders]
NGO non-governmental organization
NPT Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
NSA National Security Agency [US]
OAS Organization of American States
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
OHCHR Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN
OIG Office of Inspector General [US Department of State]
OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
P5 Permanent 5 [on the UN Security Council: Britain, France, PRC,
Russia, United States]
P5+1 P5 plus Germany
PCO Passport Control Officer
PLO Palestine Liberation Organization
PNA Palestinian National Authority
PNGed declared persona non grata—no longer welcome
PRC People’s Republic of China
QDDR Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review [US]
SALT I Strategic Arms Limitations Talks [first negotiations, 1969–72]
S&T Science and Technology
Sigint Signals intelligence
SIS Secret Intelligence Service [British; also known as MI6]
SVR Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki [successor to the KGB—Russian
External Intelligence Service]
TECRO Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office
TPO trade promotion organization
UNESCO UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNFCCC UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNICEF UN Children’s Fund, formerly UN International Children’s
Emergency Fund
 Abbreviations xxiii

UNMOVIC UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission

UNSCOM UN Special Commission [on Iraq]
USIA United States Information Agency
USINT US Interests Section Cuba
USIP United States Institute of Peace
VCCR Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963)
VCDR Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961)
WMD weapons of mass destruction
WHO World Health Organization
WTO World Trade Organization [formerly General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade]
 List of Boxes

Box 1.1 ‘Department of Foreign Affairs’ to ‘Department of State’ 2

Box 1.2 Communications with Embassies 3
Box 1.3 Foreign Ministries: Formal Titles Making a Point, and Some
Metonyms4
Box 1.4 Crisis Management 7
Box 1.5 Should the Foreign Ministry Control Development Aid? 14
Box 2.1 The Geneva Conference Format for Middle East Peace
Negotiations32
Box 3.1 Formula for an Anglo–Turkish Alliance, 12 May 1939 42
Box 3.2 Nuclear Talks with Iran: The Details Stage 45
Box 3.3 The Cost of Making Major Concessions Too Early 49
Box 4.1 The Non-paper 54
Box 4.2 The Chinese ‘Deadline’ on Hong Kong 56
Box 4.3 The Good Friday Agreement, 1998 59
Box 5.1 Treaty Registration with the UN 71
Box 5.2 The ‘Treaty’ So-called 72
Box 5.3 A Peace Treaty in the Wrong Language 75
Box 6.1 Thai Tribute to the People’s Republic of China 85
Box 6.2 Special Group on Visits to Presidential Sites: Iraq, 26 March–2
April 1998 88
Box 6.3 The International Commission 91
Box 7.1 Locally Engaged Staff and Diplomatic Immunity 106
Box 7.2 Embassy Branch Offices 107
Box 7.3 The Economic and/or Commercial Section 107
Box 7.4 The Health Attaché 108
Box 7.5 Embassies and Transnational Repression 114
Box 8.1 The White House–10 Downing Street Hotline 126
Box 8.2 The Reagan–Assad Telephone Call 130

xxv
xxvi List of Boxes

Box 9.1 The Main Differences Between Diplomatic and Consular

Privileges and Immunities 145
Box 9.2 European Convention on Consular Functions (1967) 146
Box 9.3 Disgusted in Ibiza 148
Box 9.4 Consular Districts 151
Box 10.1 The British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) 164
Box 10.2 SIS and Passport Control Officer Cover 164
Box 10.3 British Consulate-General Hanoi During the Vietnam War 166
Box 10.4 Sigint Bases in Soviet Diplomatic and Consular Posts in the
Cold War 168
Box 10.5 The State–CIA ‘Treaty of Friendship’, 1977 170
Box 10.6 The Raymond Davis Affair, Pakistan 2011 171
Box 10.7 The Five Eyes’ Alliance 174
Box 11.1 The International Sanitary Conferences, 1851–1938 180
Box 11.2 GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance 186
Box 11.3 The UN Security Council: Question of Reform 188
Box 11.4 Inflated ‘Delegations’ to the World Health Assembly, 2019 194
Box 12.1 Philippe de Commynes 201
Box 12.2 The Funeral Summit 207
Box 12.3 The Role of the Interpreter 211
Box 13.1 Twitter 218
Box 13.2 ‘News Management’: Correcting Foreign Diplomatic
Correspondents220
Box 14.1 Protecting Powers and the VCDR (1961) 232
Box 14.2 Protecting Powers: When the Old System Lingers 233
Box 14.3 Diplomatic Acts and the VCCR (1963) 237
Box 14.4 The Consulates in Jerusalem 238
Box 14.5 The US/PRC Liaison Offices, 1973–1979 239
Box 15.1 The New York Convention on Special Missions (1969) 248
Box 15.2 About Lord Levy: Tony Blair’s Personal Envoy to the Middle
East and Latin America 249
Box 15.3 James Clapper’s Secret Mission to North Korea, November 2014 254
Box 16.1 Good Offices, Conciliation, and Arbitration 262
Box 16.2 Dr Bruno Kreisky 266
Box 16.3 Armand Hammer: Citizen-Diplomat 268
Box 16.4 Action Group for Syria 269
 Introduction

Diplomacy is an essentially political activity and, well resourced and skillful,

a major ingredient of power. Its chief purpose is to enable states to secure the
objectives of their foreign policies without resort to force, propaganda, or law.
It achieves this mainly by communication between professional diplomatic
agents and other officials designed to secure agreements. Although it also
includes such discrete activities as gathering information, clarifying inten-
tions, and engendering goodwill, it is thus not surprising that, until the label
‘diplomacy’ was affixed to all of these activities by the British parliamentarian
Edmund Burke in 1796, it was known most commonly as ‘negotiation’—by
Cardinal Richelieu, the first minister of Louis XIII of France, as négociation
continuelle. Diplomacy is not merely what professional diplomatic agents do;
it is carried out by other officials and by private persons under the direction of
officials. As we shall see, it is also carried out through many different channels
besides the traditional resident mission. Together with the balance of power,
which it both reflects and reinforces, diplomacy is the most important institu-
tion of our society of states.
The remote origins of diplomacy are probably to be found in the relations
between the ‘Great Kings’ of the Near East in the second, or possibly even in
the late fourth, millennium BCE. Its main features in these centuries were the
dependence of communications on messengers and merchant caravans, of
diplomatic immunity on codes of hospitality to strangers, and of the obser-
vance of treaties on terror of the gods under whose unforgiving gaze they were
confirmed. However, although apparently adequate to the times, diplomacy
during these centuries remained rudimentary. In the main this would seem to
be because it was not called on very often and because communications were
slow, laborious, insecure, and unpredictable.

xxvii
xxviii Introduction

Not so much later but more varied and probably more effective in its meth-
ods seems to have been the diplomacy of ancient China. As early as the last
two decades of the eighth century BCE, in a large region of some hundreds of
independent political entities well before the empire emerged in 221 BCE,
there is evidence of what were probably already well-established diplomatic
customs. Rulers themselves met in twos or threes, for example, to form mili-
tary plans, affirm friendly relations, make peace, or settle a marriage alli-
ance—although they convened ‘in the open, generally by lakes or on hills at
more or less sacred spots’, a practice probably born in times ‘when rulers dared
not open their capitals or cities to other rulers accompanied by retinues’
(Britton: 619). (However, princes in some friendly relationships made court
visits of a highly ceremonial nature in order to solidify their friendships.)
More numerous contacts were made by envoys of high rank enjoying the
‘extra-clan immunity’ of nobles; their missions were designed for similar pur-
poses but also included the delivery of gifts and preparations for the princes’
conferences (Britton: 634). Treaties were solemnized by blood oaths, and
mediation—uninvited as well as encouraged—was also a customary practice.
In the Greek world of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, which included
over 1000 city-states, conditions both demanded and favored an even more
sophisticated diplomacy, and great advances were made. First and foremost,
city-states appointed resident representatives to look after their interests
abroad, albeit not from their own people but instead from citizens of the for-
eign city-state, who for this reason bear a superficial resemblance to the mod-
ern honorary consul (see Chap. 9). The proxenos, as he was known, who was
usually an influential politician or judge, differed from the honorary consul in
so far as he was expected to handle any high-level political matters that came
up as well as the more mundane business of looking after visitors from the city
he served. Even small city-states appointed many proxenoi. The ancient Greeks
also employed large special missions, invented the oratorical techniques
required to gain popular acceptance of a bad as well as a good argument (the
art of rhetoric), publicized important treaties by inscribing them on stone or
bronze pillars (stelai) located in temples or other sacred places, practiced mul-
tilateral diplomacy in religious and military ‘leagues’, and employed media-
tion more or less thinly disguised as arbitration in the settlement of many
territorial disputes.
In late medieval Europe, the Byzantine Empire’s contribution in its declin-
ing centuries was to what would now be called public diplomacy, turning its
genius to ‘maintaining the illusion of world domination’ (Wozniac). Thus
other rulers were treated as junior members of the Emperor’s ‘family of kings’;
by means of elaborate ceremonial and extraordinary artifice, foreign envoys
 Introduction xxix

and minor rulers visiting Constantinople were overawed by the Emperor’s

power; and treaties were dressed up as unilateral decrees (‘golden bulls’), so
that even the most humiliating concessions—including the payment of trib-
ute to powerful barbarians on the Empire’s retreating frontiers—were made to
appear as acts of imperial grace.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages and over the following centuries, the
Republic of Venice had begun to set the pace, establishing new standards of
honesty and technical proficiency in diplomacy; the relazioni, the detailed
reports on all aspects of the country where ambassadors had served that were
presented to the Senate at the end of their tours, became famous.
It was in the Italian city-states’ system—of which Venice was a prominent
member—that in the late fifteenth century the recognizably modern system
of diplomacy first made its appearance. The hyper-insecurity of the rich but
poorly defended Italian states induced by the repeated invasions of their pen-
insula by the powers beyond the Alps after 1494, made essential a diplomacy
that was both continuous and conducted with less fanfare. Fortunately, no
great barriers were presented by language or religion, and although communi-
cations still depended chiefly on messengers on horseback, the relatively short
distances between city states made this less of a drawback. It is not surprising,
therefore, that it was this period that saw the birth of the genuine resident
embassy; that is to say, in contrast to the proxenos, a resident mission headed
by a citizen of the prince or republic whose interests it served.
The Italian system, the spirit and methods of which are captured so well in
the despatches of Niccolò Machiavelli to the Florentine Ten of War, was later
named the ‘French system of diplomacy’ by the British scholar-diplomat
Harold Nicolson (Nicolson 1954: Ch. 3). He did this with some justification
because it was Frenchmen—notably Cardinal Richelieu and François de
Callières—who were so influential in refining its practice and developing its
theory, and because French gradually replaced Latin as the working language
of diplomacy. The French system was the first fully developed system of diplo-
macy and the basis of the modern—essentially bilateral—system (see Chap. 7).
In the early twentieth century the French system was modified but not, as
some hoped and others feared, transformed. The ‘open diplomacy’ of ad hoc
and permanent conferences—notably the League of Nations—was simply
grafted onto the existing network of bilateral communications, which weath-
ered the attacks on it by the Communist regimes in Soviet Russia and, later,
China, as it had done those of the French revolutionaries of the late eigh-
teenth century. Why did diplomacy survive these assaults and continue to
develop to such a degree and in such an inventive manner that, at the begin-
ning of the twenty-first century, we can speak with some confidence of a
xxx Introduction

world diplomatic system of unprecedented strength? The reason is that the

conditions that first encouraged the development of diplomacy have for some
decades obtained perhaps more fully than ever before. These are a balance of
power between a plurality of states, mutually impinging interests of an unusu-
ally urgent kind, efficient and secure international communication, and rela-
tive cultural toleration—the rise of radical Islam notwithstanding.
As already noted, diplomacy is an important means by which states pursue
their foreign policies, and in many states these are still shaped in significant
degree in a ministry of foreign affairs. Such ministries also have the major
responsibility for a state’s diplomats serving abroad and for dealing (formally,
at any rate) with foreign diplomats at home. It is for this reason that this book
begins with the foreign ministry. Following this, it is divided into three parts.
Part I considers the art of negotiation, the most important activity of the
world diplomatic system as a whole. Part II examines the channels through
which negotiations, together with the other functions of diplomacy, are pur-
sued when states enjoy normal diplomatic relations. Part III looks at the most
important ways in which these are carried on when they do not.

Further Reading

Adcock, F. and D. J. Mosley, Diplomacy in Ancient Greece (Thames and

Hudson: London, 1975). Part 2, by Mosley.
Berridge, G. R. (ed.), Diplomatic Classics: Selected texts from Commynes to
Vattel (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2004).
Berridge, G. R., The Diplomacy of Ancient Greece: A short introduction
(DiploFoundation: Geneva, 2018). Available on the ISSUU platform.
Berridge, G. R. et al (eds), Diplomatic Theory from Machiavelli to Kissinger
(Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2001).
Britton, Roswell S., ‘Chinese interstate intercourse before 700 BC’, American
Journal of International Law, vol. 29(4), 1935.
Bull, Hedley and Adam Watson (eds), The Expansion of International Society
(Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1984).
Cohen, Raymond and Raymond Westbrook (eds), Amarna Diplomacy: The
beginnings of international relations (Johns Hopkins University Press:
Baltimore, 2000).
Eilers, Claude (ed), Diplomats and Diplomacy in the Roman World (Brill:
Leiden, 2009). Introduction and ‘Roman perspectives on Greek diplo-
macy’ by Sheila L. Ager.
 Introduction xxxi

Frey, Linda and Marsha Frey, ‘“The reign of the charlatans is over”’: the French
revolutionary attack on diplomatic practice’, The Journal of Modern History,
vol. 65(4), Dec., 1993.
Frodsham, J. D. (transl. and ed.), The First Chinese Embassy to the West: The
Journals of Kuo Sung-T’ao, Liu Hsi-Hung and Chang Te-Yi (Clarendon
Press: Oxford, 1974).
Hamilton, Keith and Richard Langhorne, The Practice of Diplomacy, 2nd edn
(Routledge: London, 2011). Chs 1–4.
Jones, Raymond A., The British Diplomatic Service, 1815–1914 (Colin
Smythe: Gerrards Cross, Bucks., 1983).
Liverani, Mario, International Relations in the Ancient Near East (Palgrave:
Basingstoke, 2001). Intro. and ch. 10.
Machiavelli, Niccolò, trsl. by Christian E. Detmold, The Historical, Political,
and Diplomatic Writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, (James R. Osgood: Boston,
1882), vol. III (‘Missions’) and vol. IV (‘Missions continued’). More com-
monly known as the ‘Legations’, these are Machiavelli’s diplomatic des-
patches sent back to Florence. Detmold’s English translation of the
complete works is highly regarded and still, as far as I know, the only one
available of the ‘Legations’.
Mack, William, Proxeny and Polis: Institutional networks in the Ancient Greek
World (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2015).
Mack, William (Project Director), Proxeny Networks of the Ancient World (a
database of proxeny networks of the Greek city-states) [www].
Mattingly, G., Renaissance Diplomacy (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1965).
Meier, S. A., The Messenger in the Ancient Semitic World (Scholars Press:
Atlanta, GA, 1988).
Mösslang, M, and T. Riotte (eds), The Diplomats’ World: A cultural history of
diplomacy, 1815–1914 (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2008).
Munn-Rankin, J. M., ‘Diplomacy in Western Asia in the early second millen-
nium B.C.’, Iraq, Spring 1956, vol. 18(1).
Nicolson, Harold, The Evolution of Diplomatic Method (Constable:
London, 1954).
Peyrefitte, Alain, The Collision of Two Civilisations: The British expedition to
China 1792–4, trsl. from the French by J. Rothschild (Harvill:
London, 1993).
Queller, Donald E., The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages (Princeton
University Press: Princeton, NJ, 1967).
Queller, Donald E., ‘The development of ambassadorial relazioni’, in J. R. Hale
(ed), Renaissance Venice (Faber and Faber: London, 1974).
xxxii Introduction

Selbitschka, Armin. ‘Early Chinese diplomacy: “Realpolitik” versus the so-­

called tributary system’, Asia Major, vol. 28(1), 2015.
Sharp, Paul and Geoffrey Wiseman (eds), The Diplomatic Corps as an Institution
of International Society (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2007).
Skinner, Quentin, Machiavelli (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1981). Ch.
1, The Diplomat.
Victoria Tin-bor Hui, ‘Toward a dynamic theory of international politics:
insights from comparing ancient China and early modern Europe’,
International Organization, vol. 58(1), Winter, 2004.
Wozniak, E. E., ‘Diplomacy, Byzantine’, in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol.
4 (Scribner’s: New York, 1984).
 1
The Foreign Ministry

It is difficult to find a state today that does not have, in addition to a diplo-
matic service, a ministry dedicated to its administration and direction. This is
usually known as the ministry of foreign affairs or, for short, foreign ministry.
It is easy to forget that this ministry came relatively late onto the scene. In
fact, its appearance in Europe post-dated the arrival of the resident diplomatic
mission by nearly three centuries. This chapter will begin by looking briefly at
the origins and development of the foreign ministry, and then examine its
different roles.
Until the sixteenth century, the individual states of Europe did not concen-
trate responsibility for foreign affairs in one administrative unit but allocated
it between different, infant bureaucracies on a geographical basis. Some of
these offices were also responsible for certain domestic matters. This picture
began to change under the combined pressure of the multiplying interna-
tional relationships and thickening networks of resident embassies that were a
feature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first of these trends
increased the possibilities of inconsistency in the formulation and execution
of foreign policy, and this demanded more unified direction and better pre-
served archives. The second trend—foreign policy execution by means of resi-
dent missions—increased vastly the quantity of correspondence flowing
home. This added the need for attention to methods of communication with
the missions, including the creation and renewal of their ciphers. It also meant
regard to their staffing and, especially, their financing—including that of their
secret intelligence activities, because separate secret service agencies did not
appear until very much later (see Chap. 10). All of this demanded better pre-
served archives as well, not to mention more clerks and messengers. In sum,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1

G. R. Berridge, Diplomacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85931-2_1
2 G. R. Berridge

the rapid increase in négociation continuelle abroad required not only continu-
ous organization at home but also one bureaucracy, rather than several in
competition.
It has often been assumed that it was in France that the first foreign minis-
try began to emerge when, in 1589, Henry III gave to one of his secretaries of
state, Louis de Revol, sole responsibility for foreign affairs, an administrative
innovation that—after some regression—was confirmed by Richelieu in
1626. But there might well be other candidates, within and beyond Europe,
for the title of first foreign ministry. Moreover, the office of the French secre-
tary of state for foreign affairs in Richelieu’s time was little more than a per-
sonal staff: it was not even an outline version of a modern foreign ministry,
with an organized archive and defined bureaucratic structure. This had to wait
until the last years of the reign of Louis XIV at the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century (Picavet: 39–40).
Indeed, it was only during the eighteenth century that a recognizably mod-
ern foreign ministry became the general rule in Europe, and even then the
administrative separation of foreign and domestic business was by no means
watertight. Britain came late, having to wait until 1782 for the creation of the
Foreign Office. The US Department of State was established shortly after this,
in 1789 (Box 1.1). It was the middle of the nineteenth century before China,
Japan, and Turkey followed suit.

Box 1.1 ‘Department of Foreign Affairs’ to ‘Department of State’

A Department of Foreign Affairs was established by the Continental Congress on
10 January 1781. This title was also initially employed for the foreign ministry of
the United States itself under legislation approved by the House and Senate on
21 July 1789 and signed into law by President Washington six days later. In
September, the Department was given certain domestic duties as well, which
subsequently came to include management of the Mint, fulfilling the role of
keeper of the Great Seal of the United States, and the taking of the census. No
longer charged solely with foreign tasks, it was for this reason that, at the same
juncture, the department’s name was changed to ‘Department of State’. Despite
surrendering most of its domestic duties in the nineteenth century, the
Department found itself stuck with the name.

Even in Europe, however, it was well into the nineteenth century before
foreign ministries, which remained small, became anything like bureaucrati-
cally sophisticated. By this time, they were divided into different administra-
tive units on the basis either of specialization in a particular function (e.g.,
protocol and treaties), or—more commonly—geographical regions. In addi-
tion to the foreign minister, who was its temporary political head, the typical
 1 The Foreign Ministry 3

foreign ministry had by this time also acquired a permanent senior official to
oversee its administration. As time wore on, this official also acquired influ-
ence over policy, sometimes very great. Entry into the foreign ministry increas-
ingly demanded suitable educational qualifications, although the pool from
which recruits came was limited to the upper reaches of the social hierarchy
until well into the twentieth century, and certainly in some states—and prob-
ably in many—still is.
The foreign ministry continued to have rivals for influence over the formu-
lation and execution of foreign policy in the nineteenth century. Among these
were the monarchs or presidents, chancellors or prime ministers, who felt that
their positions gave them special prerogatives to dabble in this area, as also the
war offices with their nascent intelligence services. Nevertheless, assisted fur-
ther by the greater control of missions abroad given to it by the communica-
tions revolution of the nineteenth century (Box 1.2), if the foreign ministry
had a golden age, this was probably it. It did not last long. Distaste for both
commerce and popular meddling in foreign policy was entrenched in most
foreign ministries, which were essentially aristocratic in ethos, and this put
them on the defensive in the following century. World War I was also a tre-
mendous blow to their prestige because it seemed to prove the failings of the
old diplomacy over which they presided. Much of the growing dissatisfaction
with the way ministries such as these were staffed and organized, as well as
with the manner in which they conducted their affairs, focused on the admin-
istrative (and in some instances social) divisions within the bureaucracy of
diplomacy.
Despite the intimate link between those in the foreign ministry and the
diplomats serving abroad, both their work and the social milieux in which they

Box 1.2 Communications with Embassies

The heavy reliance on messengers on horseback (and later in horse-drawn vehi-
cles) for the carriage of diplomatic messages between home and missions abroad
began to change radically with the introduction during the nineteenth century
of steam ships, steam locomotives, and above all the electric telegraph. Soon,
using submarine as well as land cables, written messages sent by telegraph cut
delivery times over some routes from weeks to hours, although they were inse-
cure and so needed to be enciphered, and for a long time were also expensive
and prone to garbling. However, the invention of radio telegraphy in the 1890s
improved this medium further. In the early twentieth century, it also became
possible to deliver the spoken word over vast distances by telephone (available
in the late nineteenth century only over short distances) and short wave radio,
although it remained a very long time before foreign ministries steeled them-
selves to risk these methods.
4 G. R. Berridge

mixed were very different. Persons attracted to the one sphere of activity were
not, as a rule, attracted to the other, and they were usually recruited by differ-
ent methods. Foreign ministry officials had more in common with the civil
servants in other government ministries than with their own glittering diplo-
mats, whom in any case they rarely met and had good grounds for believing
looked on them as social inferiors. They also tended to develop different out-
looks. American diplomats, who closed ranks in the face of frequent ridicule at
home (notably in the Middle and Far West), developed a particularly strong
‘fraternal spirit’ (Simpson: 3–4). The result was that, except in small states, it
became the norm for the two branches of diplomacy—the foreign ministry
and its representatives abroad—to be organized separately and have distinct
career ladders. Between them there was little if any transfer. It was also usual
for the representatives abroad to be themselves divided into separate services,
the diplomatic and the consular—and, later on, the commercial as well.

Box 1.3 Foreign Ministries: Formal Titles Making a Point, and Some
Metonyms
Most foreign ministries describe themselves as the ‘Ministry of Foreign Affairs’
(or some generic equivalent), but in their formal titles it is now common to see
text added that advertises a priority of the moment or a recent merger with
another ministry, or makes some other point. It is a pity that a few feel the need
to add the word ‘Cooperation’, as if otherwise they might be suspected of a
greater interest in the opposite. Some foreign ministries are also referred to by
the names of buildings or streets with which they are associated (metonyms).
The following list illustrates the variety of titles given to foreign ministries at the
time of writing (2021), together with some metonyms:
Australia: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Austria: Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs
Belgium: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, and Development
Cooperation
Benin: Ministry of Foreign Affair and African Integration
Botswana: Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation
Brazil: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (‘Itamaraty’)
France: Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (‘Quai d’Orsay’)
India: Ministry of External Affairs (‘South Block’)
Italy: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (‘Farnesina’)
Japan: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (‘Gaimusho’)
Malaysia: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (‘Wisma Putra’)
Mauritius: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and
International Trade
Senegal: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Senegalese Abroad
South Africa: Department of International Relations and Cooperation
Syria: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates
United Kingdom: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
United States of America: Department of State (‘Foggy Bottom’)
 1 The Foreign Ministry 5

The gradual unification during the twentieth century of the bureaucracy of

diplomacy, including that of the diplomatic and consular services (see Chap.
9), no doubt played its part in enabling the foreign ministry to survive the
later challenge of ‘direct dial diplomacy’, discussed later in this chapter.
Freedom from the conservative reflexes likely to have been produced by close
relationships with powerful domestic interests also assisted the foreign minis-
try by making it easier to adapt to changing circumstances. There is no doubt,
however, that it is the continuing importance of the tasks discharged by the
foreign ministry that has ensured its survival as a prominent department of
central government in most states. What are they?

Staffing and Supporting Missions Abroad

The efficiency of the administrative departments that carry out the numerous
tasks falling under this sub-heading is of great importance, not least in foreign
ministries where the traditional glitter of the diplomatic career has been tar-
nished and the loss of experienced staff in mid-career is a constant risk. These
tasks include the following:

• Providing the personnel for the state’s diplomatic and consular missions
abroad, including posts at the permanent headquarters of international
organizations. This means not only their recruitment and training, some-
times in a fully-fledged diplomatic academy such as the Rio Branco Institute
in Brazil, but also the sensitive job of selecting the right persons for particu-
lar posts, which is of special importance in the case of mini-­embassies
(see Chap. 7).
• Supporting the diplomats and their families, especially when they find
themselves in hardship posts or in the midst of an emergency. Because of
the murderous attacks on its embassies in recent decades, the US
Department of State has had to devote considerable energy and resources
to giving them greater protection, and since 1999 has required an Office of
Casualty Assistance.
• Providing the physical fabric of the missions abroad, which means renting,
purchasing, or even constructing suitable buildings, and then providing
them with equipment and furnishings, regular maintenance, guards, and
secure communications with home.
• Performance measurement of missions against stated objectives, including
periodic visits of inspection. The reports that follow such visits are usually
valuable, provided they are conducted by persons commanding ­professional
6 G. R. Berridge

respect. The Semiannual Reports of the Department of State’s Office of

Inspector General (OIG), which has a hotline for whistle-blowers, are
available on the internet. These are unclassified summaries of detailed indi-
vidual reports of inspections, although some of the latter—much the more
interesting and rightly in parts redacted—are also publicly available.
Among those produced during 2020 were reports on the US embassies in
Namibia, Bangladesh, and the Czech Republic, as well as an audit of the
Department’s own Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations. By contrast,
the quantitative performance measurement popular with some foreign
ministries in recent years is generally worse than useless: not only is it
unsuited to judging missions’ core functions of policy advice and imple-
mentation but it also tends to frustrate staff and magnify the importance of
their commercial and consular services simply because they are more ame-
nable to measurement; for example, the value of arms sales assisted.

Policy-Making and Implementation

The foreign ministry has traditionally had the main role in foreign policy-­
making, issuing the appropriate instructions to missions and ensuring that
they are carried out. However, communications technology now allows mis-
sions to join more easily in debates at home and thereby themselves contrib-
ute more to policy; and some argue it should be their responsibility alone. The
foreign ministry should certainly engage its missions abroad in lively dialogue
on the bilateral relationships in which they are at the sharp end, but it is
important that it should not surrender too much influence to them. If it does,
it risks foreign policy being infected either by ‘localitis’, a resident mission’s
adoption of the host state’s point of view; or by ‘clientitis’, the sacrifice of
objective reporting by the mission to what some important client in its own
metropolis wants to hear.
It is in regard to policy advice that what are sometimes known as the ‘politi-
cal departments’ come in. Most of these are arranged either along geographi-
cal or functional lines, as already mentioned, although in an acute crisis a
special section within the ministry might take over (Box 1.4). Geographical
departments normally concentrate on regions or individual states of particu-
lar importance, while functional departments (sometimes called ‘subject’ or
‘thematic’ departments) deal typically with high-profile general issues such as
climate change, drugs and international crime, human rights, and energy
security.
 1 The Foreign Ministry 7

Box 1.4 Crisis Management

The foreign ministries of states that have to deal regularly with crises with
national security implications tend to have a crisis section that is permanently
operational. In the Israeli foreign ministry, for example, this is called the
‘Situation Room’, while in the US Department of State its name is the ‘Operations
Center’. Significantly, both are located within the office with overall coordinat-
ing functions within their ministry. Most states handle crises of this sort by means
of temporary arrangements, for which they have more or less precise plans,
although increasing numbers have permanent units ready to respond to con-
sular emergencies abroad. In March 2020 the Ukrainian foreign ministry created
a Situation Room to coordinate its response to the problems caused by the
Covid-19 virus for its citizens abroad.

Historically, the geographical departments dominated foreign ministries

and so, until relatively recently, had more prestige. Among those in the British
Foreign Office, the Eastern Department was for many years before World War
I the most prestigious and aristocratic; it covered the Ottoman Empire and its
predatory Russian neighbor, and was thus much absorbed with the famous
‘Eastern Question’ (whether to prop up or carve up the Ottoman Empire). In
the US Department of State, an attempt in the 1950s and 1960s to give more
prominence to functional departments at the expense of the regional bureaus
was made more difficult by personnel distinctions remaining from the pre-­
Wriston reform era: the functional departments were staffed by civil servants,
while the geographical ones were staffed by diplomatic officers.
Even issue-oriented functional departments, however, had some historical
pedigree. The British Foreign Office, for example, created a Slave Trade
Department at the beginning of the 1820s, although it was initially an exter-
nally funded add-on that did not become part of the regular establishment
until 1854 and was without parallel in other European foreign ministries.
Departments such as these concentrate technical expertise and advertise the
fact that the foreign ministry is seized with the current international problems
of greatest concern. More in harmony than geographical departments with
the concept of ‘globalization’, functional departments now tend to be at least
as prominent, and often more so. It is, however, highly unlikely that they will
replace the geographical departments completely and—except on the part of
small, poor states with very limited bilateral ties of any importance—it would
be a mistake to pursue this course. Apart from the fact that the disappearance
of geographical departments would weaken the case for a separate foreign
ministry (since the international sections of other government departments
might be regarded as capable of taking over their functional work), there are
8 G. R. Berridge

two main reasons for this. First, the conduct of bilateral relations with an
important individual state or region by half a dozen or more functional
departments, each with a different global agenda, is hardly likely to be well
coordinated. Second, functional departments inevitably have little—if any—
of the kind of specialist knowledge of the languages or history of the world’s
regions essential for judicious policy advice; a persuasive internal FCO report
laid much of the blame on country ignorance for the failure of British policy
in Iran prior to the fall of the Shah in 1979 (Browne: chs. 10, 11; FAC 2011:
11, 68–70).
It is chiefly for one or both of these reasons that, in the late 1970s, major
reforms in the French foreign ministry restored administrative divisions on
geographical lines after decades of advance by the functional principle; that
geographical departments still actively jostle functional departments in the
FCDO; and that the State Department’s six regional bureaus remain ‘the
heart’ of its operations, even if they might look ‘a mere bump on its impossi-
bly complex and horizontal wiring diagram’ (Pope: 20). It is also reassuring
that, even among small states, it is not difficult to find foreign ministries
where geographical departments are prominent in their structures; Armenia
and Botswana provide good examples. With the rise in importance of interna-
tional organizations, most foreign ministries now have multilateral depart-
ments as well, some of which also have a geographical focus in so far as they
deal with regional bodies such as the African Union (AU).
Some foreign ministries also have departments known by names such as
‘intelligence and research’ or ‘research and analysis’. These specialize in general
background research and assessing the significance of information obtained
by secret intelligence agencies (see Chap. 10). Although chiefly a consumer of
the product of these agencies, the foreign ministry sometimes plays a key role
in its assessment in high-level inter-departmental committees.
If policy is to be well made and implemented properly, the foreign minis-
try’s institutional memory must be in good order. This applies especially to the
details of promises made and received in the past, and potential promises that
have been long gestating in negotiations. This is why such an important sec-
tion of even the earliest foreign ministries was their archive (later, ‘registry’) of
correspondence and treaties, as well as maps, reports, internal memoranda,
and other important documents. Before separate foreign ministries were cre-
ated, such archives were kept by other secretaries of state or palace officials.
They even existed in the palaces of the Great Kings of the ancient Near East.
Preserving securely, organizing systematically, and facilitating rapid access to
their archives by indexing are key foreign ministry responsibilities. A related
task in the foreign ministries of liberal democracies is determining carefully
 1 The Foreign Ministry 9

what sensitive documents—and parts of sensitive documents—can be released

to the public upon application under freedom of information legislation.
Many foreign ministries also have a small historians’ section that is responsi-
ble, among other things, for selecting and publishing periodically hitherto
secret documents of historical interest. In America, under the title Foreign
Relations of the United States (FRUS), these have appeared since 1861.
Since foreign policy should be lawful and sometimes pursued by resort to
judicial procedures, and since agreements negotiated by exhausted diplomats
need to be scrutinized for sloppy language, internal inconsistencies, and
incompatibility with existing agreements, legal advice and support is always
vital—although whether it is taken is another matter. In some states, it has
been traditional to provide this from a law ministry (‘ministry of justice’) serv-
ing all government departments. Nevertheless, the predominant pattern is
now for a major foreign ministry to have its own legal (or ‘treaties’) division,
headed by an officer usually known as the legal adviser or, in French-speaking
states, directeur des affaires juridiques. It is also now more common for the
members of this division to be lawyers specializing in this work and not dip-
lomats with a legal education who are rotated between the legal division and
general diplomatic work. It is interesting, and perhaps hopeful for the
strengthening of international law, that since the end of the 1980s informal
meetings of the legal advisers of the foreign ministries of UN member states
have been held on a regular basis at the organization’s headquarters in
New York.
The foreign ministries of the developed states, and a few others, also have a
policy-planning department. Very much a product of the years following
World War II, this was a response to the frequent criticism of unpreparedness
when crises erupted and was inspired in part by the planning staffs long-­
employed by military establishments. It is no accident that the Department of
State was given its first planning staff when a former soldier, General George
C. Marshall, became secretary of state after the war, and that its Quadrennial
Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR)—the first of which was com-
pleted at the end of 2010—is modelled on the Pentagon’s Quadrennial
Defense Review. The best planning units—in regular contact with outside
bodies such as research institutes—are chiefly concerned with trying to antici-
pate future problems; identifying the type, quantity, and disposition of the
resources needed to meet them; and, in the process, challenging conventional
mind-sets. The British foreign ministry’s planners, like those in the State
Department, appear not to look much beyond the medium term of four to
five years, although others are more ambitious. Their potential value was
acknowledged following the failure of British diplomacy to anticipate the fall
10 G. R. Berridge

of the Shah in 1979. Thus, one proposal made by the secret FCO report to
help avoid such embarrassments in the future was that the planning staff
should regularly suggest ‘improbable scenarios’ for political risk countries and
challenge the embassy and the geographical department to refute them. This
was also one of the report’s recommendations accepted by the British ambas-
sador to Iran at the time, Sir Anthony Parsons, who believed that his failure
was not one of information but of imagination. A radical report on Dutch
diplomacy maintained that the most important element of the professional
expertise of The Netherlands’ foreign ministry should be its ‘ability to predict
future developments’ (Advisory Committee: 73).
Foreign ministry planners are usually given freedom from current opera-
tional preoccupations but are not left so remote from them that they become
‘too academic’ (Coles: 71, 87–8). With their strategic brief and supposed to
provide independent judgments, it is not surprising that they are usually per-
mitted to work directly under the ministry’s executive head. However, it is
often difficult to get busy foreign ministers and senior officials, who must
inevitably give priority to current events, to focus on discussions of even the
medium term, while the operational departments might well be obstructive.
As one former policy planner has observed, although they always say they
want ‘a strong institutionalized challenge’ to their assumptions, ‘in reality they
prefer a quiet life’ (Cowper-Coles 2012: 142). The result is that the policy
planners often feel they are wasting their time, which was certainly true of
George Kennan. The first director of the State Department’s planning staff, he
resigned after Dean Acheson, who had replaced Marshall as secretary of state,
began to make him feel like a ‘court jester’ and the operational units began to
insist on policy recommendations going up through the ‘line of command’
(Kennan: 426–7, 465–6). Today’s State Department policy planners, who
provide ‘mostly a speechwriting shop’, probably feel the same, although they
have only themselves to blame: the first QDDR was at once turgid and other-­
worldly, ‘drew nothing but yawns’ in the White House, and is best forgotten
(Pope: 39).
A related development of recent years is the appearance in a few foreign
ministries, notably those of Norway and the UK, of a department dedicated
to the big data analysis that has proved so productive for decision-making in
the business world. In February 2018 a report on the subject commissioned
by the Policy Planning and Research Unit of the Finnish foreign ministry was
published by DiploFoundation. This supported the creation of a ‘small, inno-
vative’ big data unit in the foreign ministry to ‘explore possible big data appli-
cations’, and also the appointment of a ‘big data champion’ in those
departments most likely to benefit from them (Jacobson et al.: 45–8). It also
 1 The Foreign Ministry 11

concluded that even large foreign ministries would need to outsource a great
deal of big data work to the private sector.
The foreign ministry’s influence on government policy varies from one state
to another. It is usually highest in those with both a constitutional mode of
government and long-established, strongly staffed foreign ministries with the
reputation for being one of the ‘great offices of state’, as in France and Britain.
This is one of the reasons why a major problem faced by Tony Blair (British
prime minister from 1997 until 2007) when re-shuffling his cabinets was that
everyone wanted to be foreign secretary and, once they had it, wanted to cling
on to it ‘until the end of time, or at least the end of the government…’ (Blair
210a: 270, 340). However, even in such states the foreign ministry is at a
permanent disadvantage relative to the military-intelligence complex if acute
military insecurity is ingrained, as in Israel.
A foreign ministry’s influence in the same state can also fluctuate markedly
over time, both in the case of that of its permanent officials relative to the
ministry’s political leadership and of the ministry as a whole relative to the rest
of government. One reason for this is the inevitable variation in the degree to
which prejudices embedded among officials chime with those of the political
leadership. For example, the pro-Indian tendency of the Department of State
at the time in the early 1970s when—for reasons of China policy—the Nixon
White House was ‘tilting’ to Pakistan, reduced further this foreign ministry’s
influence over US policy toward south Asia. But this was nothing compared
to the slump in the State Department’s position following the inauguration of
President Trump in January 2017. Led by secretaries of state without experi-
ence, hammered with savage budget cuts, subjected to a complete reorganiza-
tion without any strategic rationale, and embarrassed by a whole raft of senior
positions (including chiefs of mission) left unfilled, the department became
notorious in Washington for its demoralized staff and the exodus of experi-
enced personnel. Meanwhile, the FCO paid the price for its opposition to
Brexit, which it correctly judged would seriously weaken British diplomacy
while advancing the Russian goal of disharmony in Europe. Responsibility for
negotiating Brexit was given in July 2016 to a new ministry, the ‘Department
for Exiting the European Union’, and some of its tasks in economic diplo-
macy were simultaneously handed to a new ‘Department for [non-EU]
International Trade’.
Another reason for the fluctuation in a foreign ministry’s influence over
time is the inevitable variation in the political weight and experience of for-
eign affairs of individual foreign ministers. If new ministers are novices in
foreign affairs, senior officials are well placed to ‘educate’ them in the depart-
mental view. Such was the case with Jean Cruppi and Justin de Selves, who
12 G. R. Berridge

were successively French foreign ministers in 1911; it was their relative inex-
perience in foreign affairs that allowed a small group of activist officials in
the Quai d’Orsay to press successfully for a more forward foreign policy.
Today, with foreign ministers and any junior political colleagues in the min-
istry having to spend so much more time meeting their counterparts abroad,
in some circumstances a degree of role-reversal can be observed: diplomatic
officers at home shaping tactics and even strategy; ministers abroad seeking
to execute them. If the foreign minister is a political heavy-weight and the
president or prime minister has limited experience and interest in foreign
affairs, a perfect surge in foreign ministry influence is to be expected—as in
the case of the FCO following the appointment of William Hague as foreign
secretary and David Cameron as prime minister after the British general
election in 2010.

Coordination of Foreign Relations

Despite the foreign ministry’s continuing role in foreign policy via its
missions abroad, it is rare for it now to have its former authority, which
in many cases was far from absolute anyway. What the foreign ministry is
now inclined to aspire to instead is a coordinating role in the conduct of
foreign relations.
Probably in all states today the other government departments—notably
commerce, finance, health, transport, environment, the central bank, and,
above all, defense—engage in direct communication not only with their for-
eign counterparts, but also with quite different agencies abroad; and they do
so to an unprecedented degree. Indeed, the extent of this ‘direct dial diplo-
macy’ is now so great that these departments commonly have their own inter-
national sections. As a result, it is no longer practical—or, indeed,
advisable—for the foreign ministry to insist that, in order to ensure consis-
tency in foreign policy and prevent foreigners from playing off one ministry
against another, it alone should have dealings with them.
Direct dial diplomacy was the result of a growing list of increasingly com-
plex international problems, the diminishing ability of the generalists in the
foreign ministry to master them, and the increasing ease with which domestic
ministries could make contact with both counterpart ministries abroad and
the multiplying number of interested non-state actors—from multinational
corporations to civil society organizations. But this development was by no
 1 The Foreign Ministry 13

means as menacing to the foreign ministry as some observers thought and its
enemies hoped. This is because direct dial diplomacy threatened the overall
coherence of foreign policy. So, too, did other trends: pursuit of the same or
related negotiations through multilateral as well as bilateral channels, unoffi-
cial as well as official channels, and backchannels as well as front channels.
The chaos in the conduct of foreign relations that this promised could only be
reduced by some authoritative body charged with coordinating the foreign
activities of the other government departments: enter the hardy foreign
ministry.
It has been noted earlier in this chapter that foreign ministries have had
coordination very much in mind in reasserting the geographical principle in
their internal administration, but how do they try to promote coordination
beyond their own doors? Their strategies include the following:

• retaining control of all external diplomatic and consular missions, and

seeking to ensure that officials from other ministries attached to them
report home via the ambassador;
• placing senior foreign ministry personnel in key positions on any high-level
committee specifically charged with the coordination of foreign and
national security policy—attached to the office of a head of government,
such committees are often known by such titles as ‘cabinet office’, ‘prime
minister’s office’, or ‘national security council’;
• exploiting similarly the great potential of the lower-level interdepartmental
or inter-agency committee focused on a particular aspect of policy;
• securing for the foreign ministry the position of ‘lead department’ in as
many negotiations on global issues as possible, which is not realistic on
financial matters but is in more areas than might be imagined;
• requiring written clearance from the foreign minister of other ministries’
policies on key questions with an overseas dimension and securing the legal
prerogative of vetting all international treaties entered into by them;
• requesting prior notice of any proposed official trip abroad by a senior gov-
ernment employee;
• exchanging staff on a temporary basis with other ministries; and
• finally, and most radically, bringing under its own roof ministries with
which it has most affinity, the favored candidates here being those dealing
with trade and development cooperation (see Box 1.5; some examples are
listed in Box 1.3).
14 G. R. Berridge

Box 1.5 Should the Foreign Ministry Control Development Aid?

This issue has been around for a long time but caused controversy again in 2020
when a hard nationalist government in the UK brought the separate Department
for International Development (DfID) back under the control of the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office. (Development aid had been ping-ponged by successive
governments into and out of the FCO for over three decades.) The FCO duly
became the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)—Britain’s
so-called ‘super-department for international affairs’. This was officially described
as a ‘merger’ but, as the allocation of senior appointments made clear, was in
fact a hostile takeover.
The chief argument for giving development assistance to the foreign min-
istry of any high-income state is that this makes it easier to direct it to coun-
tries where it will foster important national interests; in other words, it
makes aid a more effective instrument of economic statecraft. The separate
ministry had to go, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, told the House of Commons
on 16 June 2020, because ‘For too long, frankly, UK overseas aid has been
treated like a giant cashpoint in the sky, that arrives without any reference
to UK interests’ (House of Commons Debates col. 670). Aside from the con-
siderable short- to medium-­term costs of administrative dislocation of merg-
ing major departments, the practice of locating development aid in a foreign
ministry has two main drawbacks.
First, foreign aid work requires special skills, notably in project manage-
ment, and a super-department for international affairs in which foreign aid
is the poor relation and lacks budgetary control is not attractive to the most
qualified, experienced and highly motivated individuals in this field; nor are
they likely to be replaced by the ablest foreign ministry staff since, as British
experience shows, aid work is not appealing to them as a route to improving
their career prospects.
Second, because a super-department is predicated on rejection of the
argument that aid should go to the most deserving, irrespective of any tan-
gible quid pro quo, it surrenders the moral high ground. In the process, it
also forfeits the influence or, if you will, soft power that derives from a repu-
tation for generosity, although against this has to be set the influence that
comes from ‘tied aid’.
There are other ways of keeping a separate development ministry while ensur-
ing that aid decisions do not ignore serious foreign policy considerations. Top-­
level oversight, inter-departmental committees, joint junior ministers and
in-country collaboration between ambassadors and aid officials are well tried
methods. But for a populist government they do not work well with tabloid
journalism.

Such strategies are by no means always successful, especially in the case of

the US Department of State.
 1 The Foreign Ministry 15

Dealing with Foreign Diplomats at Home

Senior foreign ministry officials periodically find themselves having to respond
to a démarche on a particular subject made by a foreign ambassador; occasion-
ally, too, foreign ministers will summon a head of mission to listen to a protest
of their own. When something of this nature occurs, the foreign ministry is
engaged in a function already discussed; namely, policy implementation.
However, it has other responsibilities relative to the diplomatic corps resident
in its capital.
Well aware of the capacity of diplomats for intrigue, as well as their legiti-
mate role as observers, governments have treated their official guests with
suspicion since the inception of resident missions in the second half of the
fifteenth century. In some states, notably China in the 100 years or so follow-
ing the mid-nineteenth century, and latterly in Saudi Arabia and North Korea,
foreign missions have even been firmly steered to a particular quarter of the
capital—the better to keep their activities under close scrutiny and avoid con-
tamination of the population with degenerate foreign habits and subversive
ideas. Today, most states are more relaxed about the political activities and
moral character of diplomats but there remains a concern that they will abuse
their immunities from the criminal and civil law.
This concern has grown since the 1950s, chiefly because the explosion in
the number of states since that time has greatly increased both the size of the
diplomatic corps and the size and frequency of special missions. Accordingly,
all foreign ministries must have either a separate protocol department or one
that embraces protocol together with a closely related function. Such depart-
ments contain experts in ceremonial and in diplomatic and consular law.
Among other things, they serve as bridges between the diplomatic corps and
the local community and oversee arrangements for visiting dignitaries. For its
part, the Chinese government still takes a particularly close interest in the
activities of the diplomatic corps, with a vast Beijing Diplomatic Service
Bureau affiliated to the foreign ministry, as well as a Protocol Department.
Among other things, the bureau provides service staff for the diplomatic and
consular missions in Beijing. Old habits also die hard in Russia, where an
analogous organization—the Main Administration for Service to the
Diplomatic Corps (GlavUpDK)—still survives. In some states, too, the for-
eign ministry is responsible for assisting in both the physical protection of
certain visiting dignitaries and foreign missions. In the United States, for
example, special agents of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic
Security are charged with coordinating the protection of all foreign officials
and their missions across the country.
16 G. R. Berridge

Building Support at Home

Foreign ministries and their diplomatic services have for a long time
intermittently been targets of attack from politicians and commissions of
inquiry, and have been frequently sniped at by the tabloid press. This was
marked after World War I—and in some cases earlier—and it was not so
long after World War II that the attacks resumed with something of a
vengeance. It is not difficult to see why: they had acquired reputations for
social exclusiveness in recruitment and for high living abroad, and faced
a growing challenge to their very raison d’être. It was, therefore, an acute
weakness that they had no domestic political base on which to fall back
for support. Education ministries had teachers, agriculture ministries had
farmers, defense ministries had the armed forces—but foreign ministries
had only foreigners, a political base worse than useless.
The foreign ministries in many countries belatedly responded to this situa-
tion with some success. They now tend to nurture their national media at least
as carefully as they cosset foreign correspondents in the capital, and actively
cultivate parliamentarians and domestic interests.
They stress the fact that their officers abroad are the country’s ‘first line of
defence’, and cost only a fraction of the military’s budget. They seek popular
approval, as well as greater efficiency, by recruiting more women and members of
ethnic minorities, and, at least in the West, by flinging open their doors to the
representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academics, and oth-
ers, even attaching them to conference delegations; a few—from Britain to
Mongolia—go so far as to open their doors literally by having ‘open days’.
On their websites, foreign ministries advertise their value by providing up-­
to-­date information on foreign travel destinations, including advice on per-
sonal safety. These sites also highlight the consular services available to their
nationals should they find themselves in need of assistance abroad (see
Chap. 9). A logical bureaucratic extension of arrangements of this sort, also
much hyped up by numerous foreign ministries and particularly poignant in
the case of Syria (Box 1.3), is a separate department devoted to the welfare
needs of nationals permanently resident abroad, including the facilitation of
their return, even if in the case of authoritarian states this can too often have
sinister undertones (see Box 7.5). Foreign ministries also take every opportu-
nity to impress on exporters, and agencies seeking inward investment, the
value of the commercial diplomacy of their overseas missions and the top
priority they now give to this. And, in the small number of cases where for-
eign ministries have actually merged with trade ministries, they have not only
promoted coordination but also moved directly to capture a share of a key
political constituency, the private business sector.
 1 The Foreign Ministry 17

In short, it is now widely recognized that it is as important for head office

to engage in ‘outreach’ at home as it is for its missions to undertake this abroad.

Summary
In most states today, the foreign ministry must formally share control over the
making of foreign policy with other ministries and executive agencies—and
to a growing extent with its missions abroad. Nevertheless, it tends to retain signifi-
cant influence via its broader perspective, geographical expertise, control of the
diplomatic service, investment in public diplomacy (discussed in Chap. 13), nur-
turing of domestic allies, and acceptance by outsiders that it is well positioned to
make a major contribution to the coordination of the state’s complex interna-
tional relations. Most of these relationships issue, from time to time, in the activity
of negotiation, which—even narrowly conceived—represents the most important
function of diplomacy. It is therefore appropriate to turn next to this subject.

Topics for Seminar Discussion or Essays

1. What is the foreign ministry’s most important task?

2. ‘The US State Department’s Office of Inspector General provides a model
that all but the smallest foreign ministries should strive to adopt.’ What do
you think of this statement?
3. Should the development assistance programs of high-income states be run
from their foreign ministries? Make detailed reference to the experience of
AT LEAST TWO countries.
4. To what extent do you agree with the view that functional departments in
foreign ministries should be kept to the bare minimum?
5. What is the most serious threat to the influence of the foreign ministry?

Further Reading1
Advisory Committee on Modernising the Diplomatic Service, Modernising Dutch
Diplomacy: Progress Report, Final Report (May 2014) [www].

1
Many foreign ministries have their own websites, some of which provide at least a list of the different
departments (sometimes even an organization chart), while a few go so far as to give a detailed history of
the ministry; in the last regard, the website of the Canadian foreign ministry (‘Global Affairs Canada’) is
outstanding. The back copies of State Magazine, available via the US State Department’s website, are
also useful.
18 G. R. Berridge

American Academy of Diplomacy, ‘American Diplomacy at Risk’, April 2015 [www].

Anderson, M. S., The Rise of Modern Diplomacy, 1450–1919 (Longman: London,
1993). See especially pp. 73–80, 110–19.
Browne, N. W., ‘British Policy on Iran, 1974–1978’ (FCO: ca. 1980). Chs. 10 and
11 and the rejoinder by Sir Anthony Parsons in the Appendix [www]. A highly
influential internal FCO report on the failures of the British Embassy in Iran prior
to the fall of the Shah in 1979.
Burke, Shannon, ‘Office of the Chief of Protocol: Following protocol is this office’s
charter’, State Magazine, January, 1999 [www].
Cowper-Coles, Sherard, Ever the Diplomat: Confessions of a Foreign Office mandarin
(HarperPress: London, 2012). Chs 4 (includes his time in policy planning) and 13.
A Democratic Staff Report prepared for the use of the Committee on Foreign
Relations United States Senate, Diplomacy in Crisis: The Trump Administration’s
decimation of the State Department, 28 July 2020 [www]. Hard-hitting but cer-
tainly not just a polemic: clearly organized and authoritatively supported with 274
footnotes full of references for further reading.
Durrant, Tim, ‘There’s good reason to reform Whitehall—but the government needs
to know what it wants to achieve’, Institute for Government, 19 December
2019 [www].
FAC, ‘The Role of the FCO in UK Government’, Seventh Report of Session 2010–12,
Volume I, 12 May 2011, HC 665 [www]. See also the government’s response at
‘Seventh Report…’ lower down this list.
FCO Historians, ‘The Permanent Under-Secretary of State: A Brief History of the
Office and its Holders’, History Notes, Issue 15 (FCO, January 2002) [www].
Fitzmaurice, Gerald G., ‘Legal advisers and foreign affairs’, American Journal of
International Law, vol. 59(1), 1965. See pp. 72–86.
Fitzmaurice, Gerald G., ‘Legal advisers and international organizations’, American
Journal of International Law, vol. 62(1), 1968. See pp. 114–27.
Gates, Robert M., Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (Knopf: New York, 2014).
Useful on Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
Hamilton, Keith, ‘Zealots and helots: the Slave Trade Department of the nineteenth
century Foreign Office’, in K. Hamilton and P. Salmon (eds), Slavery, Diplomacy
and Empire: Britain and the suppression of the slave trade, 1807–1975 (Sussex
Academic Press: Eastbourne, 2009). A chapter of great interest written with
immense authority.
Hamilton, Keith, Servants of Diplomacy: A domestic history of the Victorian Foreign
Office (Bloomsbury: London, 2021).
Ingram, George, ‘Rightsizing the relationship between the State Department and
USAID’, Brookings, 11 April 2018 [www].
Ioffe, Julia, ‘The State of Trump’s State Department’, The Atlantic, 1 March
2017 [www].
Jacobson, Barbara Rosen, Katharina E. Höne, and Jovan Kurbalija, Data Diplomacy:
Updating diplomacy to the big data era (DiploFoundation: Geneva, February 2018)
[www]. An important and accessible piece.
 1 The Foreign Ministry 19

Kennan, George E., Memoirs, 1925–1950 (Hutchinson: London, 1967). See

pp. 325–7, 426–7, 465–6, on formation of the policy planning staff in the State
Department.
Kissinger, Henry A., Years of Upheaval (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and Michael Joseph:
London, 1982). See pp. 432–49, on the Department of State and the
Foreign Service.
Kurbalija, Jovan (ed.), Knowledge and Diplomacy (DiploFoundation: Malta, 1999).
See ch. by Keith Hamilton.
Mitchell, Ian, ‘Should the UK’s Development Department be Merged with Foreign
Affairs and Trade?’, Centre for Global Development, 22 January 2019 [www].
Neilson, Keith and T. G. Otte, The Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
1854–1946 (Routledge: New York, 2009).
Pope, Laurence, The Demilitarization of American Diplomacy: Two cheers for striped
pants (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2014). Pope was a US scholar-diplomat;
see chs 2–3.
Rana, Kishan S., 21st Century Diplomacy: A practitioner’s guide (Continuum: London,
2011). Authored by a former senior Indian ambassador; see ch. 6.
Rana, Kishan S., Asian Diplomacy: The foreign ministries of China, India, Japan,
Singapore and Thailand (DiploFoundation: Malta, 2007). A rare compara-
tive exercise.
Rice, Condoleezza, No Higher Honor: A memoir of my years in Washington (Crown:
New York, 2011). Ch. 21—interesting reflections on the State Department,
including policy planning; previously National Security Advisor, Rice was
Secretary of State, 2005–9.
Rogin, Joe, ‘The State Department’s entire senior administrative team just resigned’,
The Washington Post, 26 January 2017 [www].
Seldon, Anthony, ‘Power returns to the Foreign Office’, The House Magazine,
July 2013.
Seventh Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee Session 2010–12. The Role of
the FCO in UK Government. Response of the Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs, July 2011, Cm 8125 [www].
Stewart, Heather, and Patrick Wintour, ‘Three ex-PMs attack plan to merge DfID
with Foreign Office’, The Guardian, 16 June 2020 [www].
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Sala sent me word by his brother that he would not himself come
on board for fear of doing me harm by showing the friendship which
really now united us; but anxious to be useful to us, he would go to
Madidu, or at least write to him, and he hoped to have the same
success as his master, El Beckay, had had before him. Meanwhile
he would supply us with all we needed.
In fact, the next morning we were able to buy as much grain as
we wanted, and Sala gave us his own son Ibrahim as a guide.

THE ROCK BAROR AT TOSAYE.

We started about one o’clock on Saturday, February 29, and

passed between the Baror rock and the left bank. We very soon saw
the Tuaregs already alluded to gathering on the right bank. They
were of the Tademeket tribe, against whom Sala had warned us.
They followed our boats, but as yet made no hostile demonstrations.
We arrived at the picturesque entrance to the defile without
incident.
From the right bank juts out a line of rocks, partly barring the
passage. In the narrow opening, which is all that is left, the current is
probably very strong when the water is low, but just now, when the
river was at its highest, it was perfectly calm, and only moved very
slowly round, its surface flecked with foam in the restricted space in
which it is confined, the width of that space varying from 390 to 490
feet.
On either side rise red and black cliffs, which look as if they had
been calcined, cut across here and there with veins of white quartz,
giving to the scene a grand though somewhat melancholy character.
Barth relates that according to the natives the skin of a young bull
cut into strips and joined together would not be long enough to reach
the bottom of the river at this spot. Business of a very different kind
prevented us from verifying this belief.
Presently, exactly at the place specified by Barth as the narrowest
part of the gorge, a group of horsemen detached themselves from
the Tademeket, and one of them advanced towards the edge of the
cliff holding up a letter for us to see.
Already the evening before we had talked over what it would be
best to do under certain circumstances should they arise. I now had
the Davoust steered close to the cliff so as to be able to receive the
letter from the Tuareg, but the Dantec and the Aube remained, one
on the right the other on the left, ready to rake the banks with a
crossfire if any hidden ambush should be discovered.
I took the letter, and Father Hacquart read it at once. It was a
regular declaration of war, couched in very suitable language;
diplomatists could have found no fault with it.
Yunes, chief of the Tademeket, saluted me a thousand times and
wished me all prosperity. It would afford him the greatest pleasure to
let us pass down the river and even to help us to do so.
Unfortunately, however, we followed different routes, and I was of a
different religion to his. This being so, all I had to do was to return to
Timbuktu, and if I did not he would be under the necessity of
declaring war against me.
I answered that it took two to go to war, and my tastes, as well as
the instructions I had received from my chief, were to avoid it at any
price. I should therefore go quietly down the Niger as far as it was
navigable. If, however, the river became so bad that the natives on
the bank were able to prevent our further progress, they could attack
us, and they would then see what my reply would be.
Whilst the Father and Tierno were reading the letter I had a good
look at the herald who had brought it. After delivering it he had
prudently taken refuge behind a piece of rock, but seeing that we
took no notice of him he first peeped out with one eye, then with both
eyes, and finally ventured into the open and thus addressed me—
“Is there any hope, after all, of my getting a pair of breeches?”
The question appeared to me infinitely naïve and appropriate, for
the breeches he wore were in such rags that they were scarcely
decent, and the holes, drawn together with coarse thread, were
bursting out afresh. Still it was not exactly the moment for asking for
a new pair.
The fellow was a very good example of a begging tramp. This
fault of begging has, however, its advantages, and I felt pretty sure
that if we had acceded to his request in the first instance, and given
a few presents to the other Tademeket, we should easily have
converted their hostility to friendship.
I did not attempt it because I wanted to reserve myself for the real
Awellimiden, and I was, moreover, afraid if I once began giving that
some mistake or petty quarrel might make it more difficult than ever
to establish good relations later.
My reply delivered, we resumed our voyage. Seeing us move off
the Tuaregs uttered savage cries. We had now a perfectly clear
course before us, not so much as a boulder impeding our passage
over the black water, shut in between the lofty cliffs, on which the
Tademeket very soon appeared. There were now at least a hundred
horsemen and a number of runners on foot. They shouted and
fumed, working themselves up into a fury as they struck their spears
on their shields covered with white antelope skin. It was just such a
scene as one pays to see at a circus, and, but for our fears for the
future, we should have been delighted with it. Women and children
too now joined the procession, watching us as we slowly sped on
over the quiet waters of the pass.
Very soon the banks became lower, green meadows contrasted
with the black rocks of Tosaye; and noticing a little islet called Adria,
we anchored off it.
Our coolies now began to show signs of discontent. The shouts,
the cries, and the menacing gestures of the Tuaregs had aroused
their warlike instincts, and they conversed gloomily together. I put a
stop to this at once, and broke up their discussion; but it wasn’t only
the negroes who gave me black looks, Bluzet and Taburet were also
furious and full of bitterness at the way we had been treated. I
confess I too began to feel put out, and I had to put great stress on
myself, and call up all my reasoning powers, to keep my temper.
Should I have been able to succeed if Father Hacquart had not been
there? I would rather not answer that question.
Fortunately for us he kept his composure far better than we did.
He pointed out that it would have shown no particular courage to
reply with our guns to the insults of natives armed only with spears,
and he told me that when he was travelling with Attanoux amongst
the Azgueurs they were received with similar hostility, but that a calm
demeanour and the exercise of tact had made their enemies of one
day the best friends of the next.
 THE TADEMEKET ON A DUNE ON THE BANKS OF THE NIGER.

I harangued my people. Peace was restored, and that so

completely that we were presently amusing ourselves with catching
the goats grazing on the island and decking them out with collars of
different-coloured velvets.
Some negroes, who lived in a village on a little island near ours,
came to see us, bringing us some sheep. They did not seem at all
excited about what was going on, and in truth were accustomed to
the ways of the Tuaregs.
“They are dancers,” one of them said to me, pointing to the
Tademeket, who still continued to gesticulate at us.
The next day, March 1, we continued our journey, accompanied
as before by Tademeket on the right bank. We passed the Burrum
islands, where the river is very wide, and beyond which it flows
between two lines of dunes forming its banks.
The scenery is perhaps finer here than anything else we have
seen on the Niger. The mighty dunes look as if they had never been
disturbed by man, for the wind at once obliterates all trace of the
footsteps of passers by. There is a melancholy poetry about them,
and their outlines are rather marked than disguised by the thin line of
green bush at the edge of and in the water. How well I understand
the effect produced on the traveller by the Sahara in spite of its
apparent monotony. It exercises on those who gaze on it for long at
a time something of the hypnotic attraction of the sea. I am not the
only one who feels in this way about the dune of Africa, for Baudry
one day read us the following sonnet he had composed on the
subject:—

THE DUNE.

Vague summits on the dim, far distance rise;

Then wâdys, mirage, and that northern pass
Where flocks in summer seek the mountain grass;
Next, this long sand-hill that outstretchèd lies;
Nought else! Six æons long the solar dyes
Have steep’d the dune with ochreous gold and brass;
Flash’d in the silica like broken glass,
And dried the courses dug by wrathful skies.
Yon camel’s formless bulk against the blue
Seems parcel of the wild chaotic scene;
With grounded lance and figure sharp in view,
His master stands, a statue—well-knit, lean—
Then striding slow athwart the tawny sand,
Sits motionless beside the river strand.

Every now and then our Tuareg companions reappeared from

behind the yellow crest of sand, but their enthusiasm of the morning
had considerably cooled down. Horses and men alike were tired,
and the latter were dragging the former along by their heads, all
presenting a most pitiable appearance. Thus escorted we arrived
about five o’clock in the evening at the village of Bia on the left bank.
 Ibrahim, the son of Sala, did not care to go any further. We
persuaded an old Songhay who lived in the village to take his place.
Strange to say, though the Tademeket continued their vociferations
on the right bank, there was no sign of hostility from the left, which
made me hopeful for the future. We saw natives on foot and on
horseback pass, and they stared curiously at the boats, but showed
neither fear nor anger.
Night fell, and we had sat down to supper, when all of a sudden
there was a great noise like that of paddles beating the water, or
horses swimming. To arms! was the cry, and the next moment all
were at their posts. The people of the village of Bia shouted to us
that it was only the cattle of the Tuaregs crossing a little arm of the
river; but unfortunately for their veracity, we saw the next morning
that there was neither arm nor creek anywhere near. Whatever may
have been the cause of the noise I am glad it disturbed us, for it
proved to me that should an emergency arise our men would behave
well and quietly.
A minute later a canoe from the right bank appeared, in which
was a man who hailed us and offered us a sheep. He said he was a
gabibi, or negro, and lived in a village some little distance in the
interior. His pale complexion, however, led us to suppose that he
really was a Tuareg who had come to spy on us. He had arrived
when our coolies were all at their posts, and we hoped he would
report what he had seen.
On March 2 our enemies the Tademeket had all disappeared, but
their place was taken by another tribe, the Tenger Eguedeche, with
whom were a few Kel es Suk. A religious war had no doubt been
proclaimed in the country, and it was to an accompaniment of shouts
of La illa il Allah! that we pushed on. Every now and then all our
escort performed a solemn salaam, prostrating themselves on the
ground. We began to be very wrath, and I should have given the
order to fire on the least provocation. Once more, however, an
unforeseen circumstance calmed down my rising martial ardour. We
were no longer followed by men only, but by numbers of women and
children. Amongst them was a little chap as round as a barrel, who
kept picking up handfuls of dust and flinging them in our direction.
He shall be the first victim I resolved, but let’s have patience. A Kel
es Suk, mounted on a big white camel, who headed the procession
now, had never lost sight of us since we left Tosaye. He little knows
to what a trifle he owes the preservation of his life. Twenty times the
muzzle of my rifle covered him, and twenty times I reflected that we
were not running any immediate danger, and that there would be
nothing particularly brave in drawing the trigger on an unlucky
wretch, who was probably merely ignorant.
Thus attended we arrived in due course at the village of Ha, on a
little tributary of the Niger. We cast anchor, and tried to open
negotiations; but the inhabitants fled from us like a swarm of
grasshoppers. They shouted at us to go away, and when we asked
for the chief of the village, they replied that he was with the Tuaregs.
We waited an hour, in vain. The village was now entirely deserted,
and no chief appeared. To make up for this, we heard the tabala or
war-drum being beaten on every side, and a compact mass,
consisting of from 500 to 600 warriors, took up their position opposite
our anchorage, shouting louder even than the day before.
We thought we really had better try a little intimidation, for since
the morning they had kept telling us that our guns and cannon would
not go off, for Allah had forbidden them to. To show them therefore
what our weapons were really capable of, I decided to send a shell
over their heads at random, and we heard it burst far away in the
distance. The band at once dispersed like a flight of sparrows, but
their first terror over, they formed up again, and advanced with a
courage which I could not but admire. There was nothing left to do, if
we wished to avoid a real conflict, but to set sail, so we went and
cast anchor a couple of miles further on, opposite Mount Tondibi, or
the Black Mountain, as it is called in Songhay, though why I cannot
say, as it really is of a beautiful orange-red.
The next day was a repetition of what this had been. The Tenger
Eguedeche followed us, howling. We anchored for breakfast off the
right bank, and they withdrew to a short distance, but continued to
spy upon us, and yelled at us when we left.
 At about two o’clock we suddenly saw coming along the bank
from the opposite direction, a fine-looking, handsome Tuareg, riding
a splendid black horse. His clean clothes and well-kept person
showed that he was a chief. He advanced towards the crowd, who
had halted when they caught sight of him, and said a few words, at
which they all stopped shouting and squatted down. He then came
towards us, made us what seemed a friendly sign with one hand,
and leaning on his iron spear, the copper ornaments on which
gleamed in the sunshine, he watched us pass by.
After this, not a word, not a cry was heard, and the right bank
appeared perfectly deserted; only here and there behind some bush,
the glitter of weapons revealed the presence of a concealed Tuareg
sentinel watching our movements.
I learnt afterwards that the Tuareg on the fine horse was an envoy
from Madidu, sent to the Tenger Eguedeche, to order them to cease
from their hostile demonstrations. The Amenokal sent them word
that he considered he was the only person who had a right to decide
how strangers should be treated; and therefore, until he had made
up his mind, no one was to show us either friendship or hatred.
We had some little difficulty in understanding our guide. The
Songhay he spoke was so unlike that in use in Timbuktu. Towards
evening he wanted us to go up a little creek on the left, at the end of
which, with the aid of our glasses, we saw a number of camels
grazing; but not knowing why so many animals were assembled
here, for they are generally kept some little distance from the river, I
thought it more prudent to anchor opposite the village of Forgo, on
an island. We heard the tabala beating around us again. About eight
o’clock a canoe approached, in which was the brother of the chief of
the village, who hailed us. I did not at all like his reserved manner.
He kept on talking about the tabala of Madidu, which, he said, could
be heard when it was beaten all over the country from Burrum to
Ansongo. He promised us some presents from his brother, but,
needless to say, we never saw them.
We started very early the next morning, winding our way amongst
the numerous islands dotting the river.
 Presently on our left we saw some beautiful trees with bushy
foliage, and all of a sudden from their midst arose a greyish mass of
the shape of a truncated pyramid. There was not the slightest doubt
that it was the tomb of the founder of the Songhay dynasty,
Mohamed Askia, and that we were close to Garo or Gao; Garo, the
ancient capital of the Western Sudan; Garo, the most powerful city
ever founded by negro civilization, the metropolis from which
radiated the various routes bringing to the Niger the produce of the
Tchad districts and of Egypt; Garo, which but two Europeans, Mungo
Park and Dr. Barth, had ever seen.
Our emotion at this stage of our journey can be better understood
than described. From what was once the mighty town of Garo the
river mists of the morning rose up; from a dead city now, but one
which it was perchance our mission to restore. A great people,
whose heart this lost city may be said to have been, once lived and
flourished here. The Askias had united under their banner all the
African states from Lake Tchad to the Senegal, and from the desert
to Say. The Songhay empire was then not only the most powerful in
Africa, but of the whole contemporary world.
Felix Dubois, in his book called Timbuktu the Mysterious, gave an
account, founded on the Tarich es Sudan, of the Songhay, which
supplements well the information given to Barth about the people
who once dwelt in the great empire named after them.
To add to what these great authorities have said would be mere
waste of time. I must remark here, however, that I was struck by the
fact that lower down the Niger the Songhay have taken the name of
Djerma, which is that of the district and its inhabitants where they
now dwell. This name Djerma is also that of the North African oasis
which was known to the ancients as Garama, or the land of the
Garamantes. The resemblance between the two cannot fail to strike
every one.
I wonder whether the two words Djerma and Garama have the
same origin? and if the Garamantic race, or, as it is also sometimes
called, the Sub-Ethiopian, may not have been the primitive source of
all the negro tribes which now people the Western Sudan.
 If it be so, the greater number of the ethnic revolutions which have
convulsed the country have really after all been merely a struggle for
ascendency between three races—the Negro, which I have just been
discussing; the Berber, of which the Tuaregs are the purest
representatives; and lastly, the so-called Fulah race, which came
from the east, and may possibly be descended from the ancient
Egyptians.
I give my idea for what it is worth, whilst waiting for a more
exhaustive study to be made of local dialects or the discovery of
ancient manuscripts which shall throw a clearer light on the subject.
The Songhay empire of Garo, which was at one time so splendid,
had within itself the germs of its own decay, for its chiefs were
Mussulmans. The polygamy permitted by Islam gives to each one of
them in his numerous descendants a perfect legion of possible rivals
ready to dethrone him and usurp his power. It is to this, and yet more
to the hateful morality of the Mahommedans, always ready to find an
excuse for the most heinous crimes, that the Askias owe their rapid
decline.
Other emotions, however, besides those connected with historical
memories, agitated us when we came in sight of all that was left of
Garo. It was there we were told that we should know what were to be
our relations with the Awellimiden, and my own conviction still was—
the event proved that I was right—that it would be easy enough for
us to pass through their country with the consent of their chief
Madidu, but terribly difficult to do so without it.
We wended our way carefully amongst the submerged islets here
encumbering the course of the Niger, passing many big villages with
thatched huts, and seeing through our binoculars large numbers of
natives assembled here and there. The whole of the district bears
the name of Gao, or Gao-gao, a corruption of the old Garo. We
succeeded, not without difficulty, in approaching the central village,
the mosque of which serves as a kind of landmark. But the bank was
very low and partially inundated. It was really a rice plantation
belonging to the inhabitants, and we soon came to a standstill.
 The appearance of the village and its surroundings was far from
reassuring. The negroes quickly vacated their huts, and some
wading, others in canoes, hurried off with all their chief valuables,
whilst beneath the trees and on the higher banks collected groups of
Tuaregs, some on horseback, others on foot, watching our
movements in silent immobility. All were in full martial panoply, with
spear, sword, and huge buckler. I made a white flag with a dinner
napkin and hoisted it on a bamboo stem, which I stuck in the damp
ground. We then waited results.
A long and anxious pause ensued. The blacks continued to fly,
the Tuaregs appeared to be consulting together. At last two negroes
came forward from the bank, and waded through the mud, which
was above their knees, towards us, but they halted at a respectful
distance. They were evidently in a great state of alarm, and would
only converse with us from afar off; if we attempted to approach
them they decamped. It was a good half-hour before we were able to
reassure them sufficiently for them to come close to us, and even
then they still trembled.
The two messengers turned out to be Armas, relations of the chief
of the village. Their first articulate words were a prayer that we would
go to an island they pointed out to us rather more than a mile away,
for they said they were afraid we should come to blows with the
Tuaregs, and that their village would suffer.
We tried to reassure them, telling them we had not come to make
war; quite the reverse, we wanted to make friends with the Tuaregs.
To begin with, would they tell us where Madidu was? Madidu, was
the reply, was not far off, though not actually in the village. And what,
we went on, was the meaning of all this gathering of forces, as if they
were threatened with war? It was to defend themselves, they said,
against a raid of the Kel Air, which they had been told was about to
take place. I avoided replying that the Kel Air were far away on the
east and north, and that it seemed extraordinary that warriors should
have gathered on the banks of the Niger to repulse them.
But to return to the question really at issue. I begged the envoys
to announce to Madidu the arrival of the nephew of Abdul Kerim,
whom his father had received and treated well some fifty years
before; adding that we had not come to do any harm, in proof of
which I urged that when the Tademeket and the Tenger Eguedeche
had declared war against us we had not even answered their
challenge.
My uncle, I went on, had given El Khotab a horse, I now brought
the saddle for that horse to El Khotab’s son. I then uncovered a
splendid velvet saddle embroidered with gold, the handsomest
present I had with me, for it seemed to me that if ever the moment
arrived for placing it well, it was at this juncture. The Sultan of
France, I explained, had sent me to the chief of the Awellimiden to
discuss matters concerning them as well as the French, and I wished
for an interview with him, or at least with his accredited
representatives.

PANORAMA OF GAO ON THE SITE OF THE ANCIENT GARO.

Our visitors then withdrew, and we waited four hours longer

without news. At the end of that time the same negroes reappeared,
to tell me that Madidu was then in the village with a large retinue (I
greatly doubted the truth of this), and was at that moment consulting
with his principal advisers. But, they added, to prove your good
intentions towards the natives, go to the island. That will also show
that you mean no harm. Madidu’s envoys will come to you there.
I preferred yielding to this pressing invitation to go than acting in a
high-handed manner. Moreover, I was not sorry to put a little
distance between myself and the Tuaregs, for it was very evident
that in any discussion about us nine out of ten would vote for
attacking us, and in our island we should be perfectly safe from
surprise. We should see what to-morrow brought forth.
We estimated the number of warriors now assembled on the bank
at several thousand; it was a very different matter from the gathering
of the Tademeket and Tenger Eguedeche higher up stream.
We set sail, therefore, and when night fell we were camped in our
new position. In memory of our old and valued friend Gauthiot, who,
as I have related, had defended our expedition from all the
detractors in France who would have jeopardized its success, I
named after him this little corner of earth in the river, our river, where
our fate was really to be decided.
If I said that I slept peacefully and well that night I do not suppose
any one would believe me.
To face tangible dangers in a struggle with nature or with one’s
fellow men, greater or less courage is required, but what we had to
do now was to meet such hidden risks, as the miner who goes to his
work, not knowing at what moment he may be suffocated, blown up,
or crushed to death. Even the miner, however, gets accustomed to
the risk he runs, but what no one ever becomes used to is the long
mental fatigue of the responsibility of knowing that one mischosen
word, perhaps even one wrongly translated word, will be enough to
doom to destruction all those who have joined their fortunes with
yours with full confidence in you, for whom you are all and everything
for the time being.
 PALAVER AT GAO.

Father Hacquart slept no better than I did that anxious night.

Would he have slept if I had let him retire to his couch? Who can
tell? I needed his counsel and his experience, so we neither of us
closed an eye, for we discussed the situation, and what we should
say, the next day, for the whole night.
The result of our conference was, that we resolved to do the best
we could under whatever circumstances might arise, for to foresee
them was impossible; in a word, as sailors say, “Trim our sails
according to the weather.”
The Father, moreover, took an optimist view of our position, partly
because he is naturally of a hopeful disposition, and partly because,
by a really singular chance, our experiences coincided in a
remarkable way with his own two years before, when he was in the
Sudan on a similar journey. To begin with, the time of year was the
same, for it was on March 5 that he and Attanoux had arrived to
confer with the Tuaregs, Azgueurs, etc.
All night the left bank of the river was illuminated with the watch-
fires of the Tuareg camp, which resembled a great conflagration. We
had not been wrong, a large, a very large force was assembled
there.
 In the morning my heart beat fast when I saw a canoe
approaching, and I made out in it one of the negro messengers of
the chief of the village, a Tuareg, and another native whose woolly
crop of hair showed him to be a Moor or a Kunta.
The boat touched land, and the third person in it turned out to be
really a Kunta, whilst the Tuareg was Madidu’s blacksmith.
Why had this blacksmith come? Because in the Sudan the
blacksmiths form a regular caste, which has attained very great
influence over the negro chiefs, and the Tuaregs of the river districts
followed the example of the negro potentates in listening to their
counsels.
Not all the blacksmiths, it must be explained, follow their nominal
trade. They are many of them the familiar friends and advisers of the
chiefs; in fact, it is they who often wield the real authority, for, as
often happens in Europe, the prime minister is more powerful than
the king.
Ceremonial greetings having been exchanged we all sat down.
My fingers were cold, my throat felt parched, but I managed by a
strong effort at self-control to appear perfectly calm and indifferent.
I began the speech already resolved on. The Kunta knew Arabic,
so that I was fortunate enough to be able to employ Father Hacquart
as interpreter. He repeated in Ta-Masheg every word I addressed to
the blacksmith.
“I greeted Madidu, the Commandant of Timbuktu greeted Madidu,
and the Sultan of the French greeted Madidu. We were the white
people who, two years before, had driven the Tenguereguif and the
Kel Temulai from Timbuktu. We had already come twice in boats to
cement our friendship with the people of the country, and to trade
with them, without any idea of conquest. The Tuaregs had received
us badly, insulted and provoked us; we had attacked, beaten, and
punished them. Allah had given us their city; we were there, and
there we meant to stay.
“But the Tuaregs of Timbuktu had nothing in common with the
Awellimiden, they were indeed their enemies. Between Madidu and
us there had never been war.
“Now that we were neighbours, the Sultan of the French thought it
would be wrong for us to remain any longer unknown to each other.
“If we succeeded in making friends, nothing but good would result
to both parties. They would come to Timbuktu to sell their oxen, their
sheep, and their gum, receiving in exchange stuffs, beads, and all
the goods the white men know how to make.
“To remain longer without making friends would be to leave
gunpowder close to a fire. The day would come, through no fault of
theirs or ours, when some misunderstanding would lead to a scuffle
first and then to war.
“Moreover, if we knew their power, they also ought to know ours.
Evil might result to us, but worse would befall them.
“In any case it was more consistent with their dignity and self-
respect, as well as with ours,—for were not we as well as they of
noble race?—to know with whom they had to deal. The Sultan of the
white men had chosen me because of my relationship with Abdul
Kerim, who was the friend of the Kuntas and the Awellimiden. What
must I tell that Sultan on behalf of Madidu? Was it to be peace or
war?”
This speech was clear enough, and the reply was no less so.
“Madidu greets you. If you have come with pacific intentions, as
you said yesterday to the men from Gao, he is your friend; he will
give you guides to take you where you will, to Say or to Sokoto. If
evil should overtake you it will be from heaven, Madidu answers for it
none shall come from earth.”
This beginning could not but please us.
We told the young Kunta, who acted as second envoy, that we
were on good terms with his relations at Timbuktu and Kagha; and
then we tried to amuse our visitors, bringing out our bicycle,
phonograph, musical box, etc. All our attractions were paraded, in
fact, and then, after consulting with Father Hacquart, I decided on a
grand coup. Without asking for anything or adding another word, I
bade the ambassador farewell, giving him the beautiful velvet saddle
to take to Madidu.
The canoe shot back across the river. We saw a Tuareg advance
from amongst a group of horsemen, mounted on a fine bay horse,
and, strange to say, carrying a musket. He came to meet the envoys
as they landed; they handed the saddle to him, and when they
caught sight of it, the Tuaregs behind him clashed their shields and
uttered shrill cries.
The canoe returned immediately. The horseman we had just seen
receive the saddle was Madidu himself; he thanked us a thousand
times for our beautiful present, and even wished to come to us, but
his brothers, fearing treachery or sorcery, had prevented him from
doing so. Our generosity had hit the mark, and judging from the
manner of the blacksmith, we could make a very shrewd guess at
what were the feelings of his master.
It was the messenger’s turn now, and I gave him a beautiful
present of stuffs, beads, knives, and veils, with which he was
delighted. There were, however, still two things that Madidu wanted,
but if it was difficult to meet his wishes, he did not dare to insist too
much, for we had already given him more than either he or his
ancestors had ever received.
The first thing was ten silver pieces, not for himself, but for his
wife. She had heard him speak of that white metal which could be
worked like copper, and of which ornaments were made, but which
was not really copper, and she did so long to see some for herself.
This wish was easy enough to gratify, and to the ten five-franc pieces
I added two gold rings.
As for the second wish of the Amenokal, I would give you a
thousand guesses, and not one would be right. He wanted the
portrait of the President of the Republic.
All German and English travellers make a point of giving a portrait
of their sovereign to native chiefs. Thoughtless people may, perhaps,
laugh at this, but for all that it is true that it always produces a
considerable effect to show a photograph, a drawing, or, better still, a
chromo-lithograph, with the words—“This is our Sultan!”
Knowing this, we had brought with us, two years before, when we
started on our expedition, a hundred coloured portraits of M. Carnot.
He was dead now; and all we had been able to get were a few
engravings of President Felix Faure, such as you see at all the
mairies, and in the captain’s cabin in all the ships of the fleet.
Wherever we passed, the portrait of the Sultan of the French was
the object of great curiosity. I had pinned it up in my cabin, and every
one wanted to see it. It was a bust portrait, and the eye-glass
hanging from a ribbon was shown in it. After looking at the likeness
for some time in silence, the Tuaregs would begin asking me
questions.
“Is he your father? Why has he three eyes?” This of course was
suggested by the eye-glass.
I had hit upon a very simple way of answering both these
questions at once. “Of course,” I would reply, “he is my father; he is
the father of us all, and he has three eyes; it is just because he has
so many children that two eyes would not be enough to look at them
all.”
No one ever showed the slightest surprise or incredulity at this
double explanation of mine, my reply seemed perfectly natural and
satisfactory.
But to return to Madidu. He had heard his people talk about the
portrait, and anxious to possess it, he sent to ask me for it. His wish
was prompted by too good a feeling towards us for us to have the
slightest reason for saying no, and this is how it comes about that
the portrait of the President of the Republic at this moment adorns
the tent of the Chief of the Awellimiden, and goes with him from the
banks of the Niger to the plateau of Air.
After breakfast our Kunta came back once more. Madidu had sent
to ask when we wished to start, and hinted that the chief might
perhaps visit us himself a little further down the river. In any case the
Amenokal promised to send us a letter by some relation of his. He
would let us have the various promises he had made to us in writing,
and he now renewed them, assuring us of his friendship and his
resolve to protect our fellow-countrymen and fellow-subjects.
Madidu was now anxious to be off, for the raids of the Kelgeres or
Kel Air, of which we had heard so much, were all too real, for they
had actually attacked the camp of the Kuntas, who were on friendly
terms with the Awellimiden, and were under the command of Baye
and Bebe Hamet, sons of El Beckay.
The chief, therefore, wished to settle everything with us in hot
haste, so as to be free to go and meet his own enemies. He would,
however, send messengers and letters all along the river instructing
the chiefs, his vassals, to treat us well and supply us with guides and
provisions; in fact, to help us in every possible way.
I should very much have liked to have a personal interview with
the Amenokal, but I had good reason to know that it was by no
means easy to get access to Tuareg chiefs. It was very evident too,
in this particular case, that although Madidu, whose views were
liberal and tolerant, and who, thanks to the traditions inherited from
his father, had refused to listen to the advice of those hostile to us,
there did exist a very strong party against us, and it was necessary
to avoid putting weapons into the hands of our adversaries by giving
them an excuse for treating us badly. To insist on prolonging our stay
or on seeing the chief might have brought about the very result we
feared. I therefore decided to start the next morning.
We sent our guides back after paying them well, and they put off
for shore in their canoes. During their passage the Tuareg column
divided, one group going down to meet the guides when they landed.
The latter feared that the warriors had come down to see whether we
had not been too generous, and perhaps to make them divide their
spoil with them, so rather than risk this they turned round and came
back towards our camp.
At that moment a great noise arose on the right bank, caused by
the clamour of a number of petty chiefs, who in their turn had
ordered their blacksmiths to cross the arm of the river between us
and the bank, and to come to greet us on their behalf. These visits