Edward Malet

Sir Edward Malet (1883)

Sir Edward Baldwin Malet, 4th Baronet GCB , GCMG , PC ( October 10, 1837 - June 29, 1908 ) was a British diplomat .

Live and act

Malet began his diplomatic career in 1854 as a British attaché in Frankfurt. In the following decades he took over posts at various diplomatic missions of the United Kingdom in other European and African countries, among other things, he was temporarily British Consul General in Egypt , where he witnessed the uprising of the Arabs.

In 1884 Malet was sent to Berlin as the British Ambassador for the German Empire, succeeding Odo Russell, 1st Baron Ampthill . In this position, which he held until 1895, Malet tried in particular to work towards the preservation of general European peace, which he saw as an indispensable prerequisite for Great Britain's position as a great power: With the loss of European peace, Malet feared that Great Britain would automatically become its arbiter lose the remaining European powers and experience a weakening of his position. Because without this special position of "standing between everyone", the way would be clear for the anti-British coalition of the other European powers, about which Malet judged: “We (are) the Dorado for all these powers; they would like to plunder us all. "

The special esteem that the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck showed Malet, with whose father he was friends, had a positive effect on the complicated German-British relationship of the late Bismarck years during Malet's time in Berlin.

Malet's staff at the Berlin embassy included Sir Charles Scott and the later ambassador to Italy, Rennell Rodd . A close friendship connected Malet with the painter Sir William Blake Richmond .

family

In 1885 Malet married Lady Ermyntrude Sackville Russel, daughter of Francis Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford .

Works

• Shifting Scenes or Memories of many men in many lands . Tauchnitz-Verlag, Leipzig 1902.

Web links

Commons : Edward Malet  - collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	title	successor
Henry Male	Baronet, of Wilbury 1904-1908	Edward Malet