James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce

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James Bryce, 1893
James Bryce, 1913

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce OM , GCVO , FRS , PC , FBA (born May 10, 1838 in Belfast , † January 22, 1922 in Sidmouth ) was a British lawyer, historian and politician from Belfast.

After studying at the University of Glasgow, he first worked as a lawyer in London and later as a professor of civil law in Oxford . In 1878 he wrote the book " The Holy Roman Empire ". After staying in Armenia, in 1878 he published the book " Transcaucasia and Ararat ". From 1907 to 1913 he worked as British ambassador to the USA . After the outbreak of World War I, he investigated German atrocities in Belgium ( Bryce Report ) for Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith and then the Turkish Armenian atrocities , which he reported to the Prime Minister on September 15, 1915 and in the British House of Lords on October 6, 1915 . Together with the historian Arnold J. Toynbee , he collected reports on the massacres of the Armenians and organized global solidarity measures . He knew how to combine scientific interests with humanistic ideals and political consistency, but was also the subject of British war propaganda.

Life

Lawyer and historian

James Bryce was the son of a Scotsman who had lived with his family for a long time in Ireland (Belfast) and had many relatives there. After the first university courses in Glasgow studied Bryce at Trinity College of the University of Oxford and was in 1862 as a member ( " Fellow ") of Oriel selected. He worked as a lawyer in London for a few years before returning to Oxford University as Regius Professor of Civil Law (1870-1893). However, his international reputation as a scientist established his written book on "The Holy Roman Empire" ("The Holy Roman Empire"), which appeared for the first time in 1864 and saw numerous English and German reprints. In 1888, inspired by numerous stays in the USA, Bryce added another highly regarded standard work when he meticulously analyzed the political system of the USA in "The American Commonwealth" - quasi as a political and sociological snapshot. This work also experienced numerous new editions. In 1893 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1895 to the American Philosophical Society . In 1902 he became a member (fellow) of the British Academy . From 1899 to 1901 he was chairman of the Alpine Club .

Political activity

By background (member of a non-conformist church) and education, Bryce was a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party from his youth . In 1880 he was elected to the House of Commons for the first time as a representative of the constituency of Tower Hamlets , and he successfully defended his parliamentary seat in all subsequent elections until he gave it up in 1907 as a result of his appointment as ambassador.

Bryce was a well-educated man, but probably not a rousing speaker. For many MPs he seemed too much a "professor". Nevertheless, his extensive education, his hard work and his knowledge of the world, which he had acquired on countless trips, quickly led him into the leadership groups of his party. In 1885 he became Prime Minister Gladstone State Secretary at the Foreign Office called (Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), but he had that office in the same year after the election defeat of the liberal again give up. His subsequent government offices were always short-lived: in 1892 he was a minister without portfolio in Gladstone's last cabinet ( Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ), but in 1894 he moved under the new Prime Minister Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery , in the trade department (President of the Board of Trade ), which he had to leave again with the liberal election defeat of 1895. It was followed by a decade of the opposition, in which Bryce distinguished himself as an undaunted supporter of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman , which is why the latter reappointed him to the cabinet when he came to power again in 1905 as Minister for Ireland ( Chief Secretary for Ireland ); but this government function also ended quickly when Bryce was appointed British ambassador to Washington, DC in February 1907.

During the opposition period around 1900, Bryce figured as a staunch critic of the repressive British warfare in the Boer War between 1899 and 1902. Although he made himself extremely unpopular at times in the heated atmosphere of jingoism , he unreservedly condemned the systematic destruction of Boer farms and the internment of the elderly , women and children in British concentration camps (concentration camps).

Robert Baden-Powell , William Howard Taft and James Bryce in front of the White House , 1912

Bryce then held his important diplomatic post in the USA for a long time, until 1913. He was - with numerous old friends and acquaintances in US politics and science, including US President Theodore Roosevelt - extremely successful in his efforts to cement Anglo-American friendship. Decades later, the future German ambassador to Washington, Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff , openly admitted how relieved he was that he no longer had anything to do with Bryce as a diplomatic adversary when it came to ensuring US neutrality during World War I. which Bernstorff succeeded in doing until 1917 despite all the problems.

Last years of life

After his retirement as ambassador and his return to London, James Bryce was raised to the hereditary nobility in 1913 ( Viscount Bryce ) and consequently a hereditary member of the House of Lords - the parliamentary chamber that his Liberal Party fought fiercely in previous years and was largely ousted in the parliamentary reform of 1911.

As a result of his travel experience in the Caucasus in the 1870s, Bryce had formed a very negative opinion about Ottoman rule, while he had a deep sympathy for the Armenian people. During the First World War he was given the opportunity - albeit in vain - to campaign for the Armenians with all his might when, on behalf of the government, he worked out the so-called "Blue Book" on the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire (1916). Bryce had already been the first in the British Parliament in October 1915 to publicly address the systematic extermination of the Armenians by the Young Turks in the House of Lords.

These publications on German war crimes in Belgium (1915) and on the Young Turkish Armenian genocide undoubtedly also had propaganda functions - particularly with a view to influencing politics and the media in the then still neutral USA. Regardless of this, however, essential contents of these publications correspond to the truth and cannot be dismissed as "mere propaganda" - as is still the case today.

In the last years of his life, Bryce worked for the International Court of Justice in The Hague, supported the establishment of the League of Nations and published a book on "Modern Democracy" (1921). Bryce was a staunch Democrat and had been an admirer of the United States since the 1870s. Of course, Bryce also assessed the phenomenon of mass democracy, which also prevailed in Great Britain after 1918 (universal suffrage, women's suffrage ), partially critically. Bryce was a vehement opponent of women's suffrage, from which he expected a fundamental change in gender relations.

literature

  • HAL Fisher, James Bryce: Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, OM, 2 vols. London resp. New York (1927).
  • Thomas Kleinknecht, Imperial and International Order. A study of Anglo-American scholarly liberalism using the example of James Bryce (1838-1922), Göttingen (1985).
  • John T. Seaman Jr., A Citizen of the World: The Life of James Bryce, London / New York (2006).
  • Arnold Toynbee, Armenian Atrocities. The Murder of a Nation. With a speech delivered by Lord Bryce, London-New York-Toronto (1915).
  • Akaby Nassibian, Britain and the Armenian Question 1915-1923, London-Sydney-New York (1985).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Viscount James Bryce. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 23, 2018 .
  2. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 10, 2020 .
predecessor Office successor
Robert Bourke Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
1886 		James Fergusson
John Manners Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
1892-1894 		Edward Marjoribanks
AJ Mundella President of the Board of Trade
1894-1895 		Charles Ritchie
Walter Long Chief Secretary for Ireland
1905-1907 		Augustine Birrell
Henry Mortimer Durand British Ambassador to the United States
1907–1913 		Cecil Spring-Rice
personal data
SURNAME Bryce, James, 1st Viscount Bryce
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bryce, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British lawyer, historian and politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Belfast
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1922
Place of death Sidmouth , Devon