Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon

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Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon 1926

Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon GCB , GCMG , PC , FRS (born August 19, 1857 in Slinfold , Sussex , † November 1, 1941 in Hove , Sussex) was a British politician, diplomat and writer. Vincent held the office of British ambassador in Berlin (1920–1926).

Life and work

Vincent was the youngest son of Sir Frederick Vincent, 11th Baronet (1798-1883) and his second wife Maria Copley Young († 1899). As a young man he entered the British civil service. In the 1880s and 1890s, he served, among other things, as a financial advisor to the Egyptian government (1883-1889), governor of the Ottoman Reichsbank (1889-1897) and Conservative MP in the House of Commons for Exeter (1899-1906).

On July 2, 1914, he was as Baron D'Abernon , of Esher in the County of Surrey in the hereditary nobility raised. A hereditary seat in the House of Lords was associated with the title .

Vincent experienced the First World War as chairman of the central supervisory authority for alcohol traffic (1915–1920). In 1920 he first worked as a member of the Inter-Allied Commission in Poland, where he witnessed the Polish-Soviet War , before coming to Berlin as British Ambassador in the same year on the initiative of George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston . There he experienced, among other things, the German “catastrophe year” of 1923, in which he still wrote frequently quoted reports to the British Foreign Office in which he described events such as the “galloping inflation”, the Hitler putsch , the occupation of the Ruhr , the separatist movement in the Rhineland and the communist uprisings in Saxony and Thuringia from a British perspective.

In 1925 Vincent played a key role in bringing about the Locarno Conference . Werner von Rheinbaben quotes in his memoirs the letter from a mutual friend who characterizes Vincent as an “absolute cosmopolitan and European”, certifies that he was “clever as a fox and (a) great realpolitician”, and also noted that he had himself "With a lot of diligence deepened into German history and (...) made a great effort to understand the German psyche". Rheinbaben himself judges in the same place that Vincent had "pushed the United Kingdom over to the new course" in 1924/1925, which, alternating from the "one-sided pro-French attitude" of the early post-war years, consisted of the guarantee of the Franco-German security agreement of Locarno (Four times Germany, 1954, p. 214).

In connection with the private citizen Vincent, his art and culture diligence is emphasized again and again in the remaining testimonies: Vincent, who was a member of the Royal Society , is said to have been highly knowledgeable in Greek art and was a part of Germany during his time in Germany frequent visitor to the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum and the Berliner Kammerspiele . In his London home, a grand piano purchased by Lady Helen was used for house concerts.

On February 20, 1926 he was promoted to Viscount D'Abernon , of Esher and Stoke d'Abernon in the County of Surrey. On March 2, 1936, he inherited from his late brother Sir Frederick Vincent, 15th Baronet, the title of 16th Baronet , of Stoke D'Abernon in the County of Surrey, which was created in 1620 in the Baronage of England.

His marriage to Helen Venetia Duncombe, entered into in 1890, remained childless, so that all of his titles lapsed upon his death in 1941.

Works

  • Alcohol - Its Action on the Human Organism , London 1918.
  • To Ambassador of Peace, Hodder and Stoughton , London 1929–1931.
  • The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World: Warsaw , London 1931.

Web links

Commons : Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Vincent, Edgar, 1st Viscount D'Abernon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vincent, Edgar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician, diplomat and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 19, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Slinfold , Sussex
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1941
Place of death Hove , Sussex