Alfred Zimmern
Oxford classicist, architect of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (1879-1957)
Also known as: Zimmern, Alfred Zimmern, Sir Alfred Zimmern
Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern (1879-1957) was a British classicist (author of The Greek Commonwealth, 1911), a Milner Group associate, and a principal organizer of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) at the 1919 Versailles conference. Quigley names him as the substantive drafter of the so-called Cecil Draft of the League of Nations Covenant (AAE 23) and as one of the Group figures he explicitly admires: 'persons like Esher, Grey, Milner, Hankey, and Zimmern, who must command the admiration and affection of all who know of them' (AAE 3).
The Greek Commonwealth and the Group
Zimmern was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Curtis, Kerr, Brand, Edward Grigg, and Dougal Malcolm — the New College cohort that Milner would recruit into his administrative machine. Quigley summarizes: 'Alfred Zimmern (Sir Alfred since 1936) was an undergraduate at New College with Kerr, Grigg, Brand, Curtis, Malcolm, and Waldorf Astor (later Lord Astor) in 1898-1902. As lecturer and tutor in classics at New College he would have met every member of the Group in their student days' (AAE 75). His The Greek Commonwealth (1911) — a meditation on Athenian democracy as a model for English-speaking civilization — gave the Group its idealized intellectual self-image: a federation of free citizens linked by a common political culture.
Versailles and the League
Quigley's most consequential claim about Zimmern is that he was the actual drafter of the British proposal for the League of Nations Covenant: 'The other draft, known as the Cecil Draft, was attributed to Lord Robert Cecil but was largely the work of Alfred Zimmern, a member of the Milner Group' (AAE 23). The pattern — a Cecil Bloc figure publicly fronting a document drafted by a The Milner Group ideologue — is one Quigley repeatedly underlines as evidence of the operational interpenetration of the two networks. Zimmern was also one of the original organizers of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House).
Academic placements
After Versailles, Zimmern occupied two of the new university chairs that the Group helped to fund through Chatham House and the Rhodes Trust. He was the first holder of the Wilson Chair of International Politics at Aberystwyth (1919-1921) — 'this chair has been occupied by close associates of the Group from its foundation' (AAE 156). He then served at the League's Institute of Intellectual Cooperation in Paris, and from 1930 to 1944 occupied the Montague Burton Chair of International Relations at Oxford, an Oxford-equivalent post. Quigley's framing: the academic study of International Relations as a discipline emerged in the inter-war period, largely from Group-sponsored chairs filled with Group-aligned scholars, of whom Zimmern was the senior.
Quigley's placement
Quigley judges Zimmern an inner-circle Milner Group figure 'for a brief period in 1910-1922, thereafter slowly drifting away into the outer orbits of the Group' (AAE 6). His relationship with the Group cooled in the 1920s as he committed more strongly to the international-Geneva idealism that the Group's senior figures grew skeptical of. But his Versailles-era contribution to the design of the League and Chatham House — both still operating in their original form a century later — secured his place in Quigley's list of admirable Group members.
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 3 Quigley
In this Group were persons like Esher, Grey, Milner, Hankey, and Zimmern, who must command the admiration and affection of all who know of them.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 6 Quigley
Sir Alfred Zimmern, for example, while always close to the Group, was in its inner circle only for a brief period in 1910-1922, thereafter slowly drifting away into the outer orbits of the Group.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 23 Quigley
The other draft, known as the Cecil Draft, was attributed to Lord Robert Cecil but was largely the work of Alfred Zimmern, a member of the Milner Group.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 75 Quigley
Alfred Zimmern (Sir Alfred since 1936) was an undergraduate at New College with Kerr, Grigg, Brand, Curtis, Malcolm, and Waldorf Astor (later Lord Astor) in 1898-1902.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 82 Quigley
in 1944 succeeded Sir Alfred Zimmern as Montague Burton Professor of International Relations.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 157 Quigley
The new recruits included a historian, F. S. Oliver, (Sir) Alfred Zimmern, (Sir) Reginald Coupland, Lord Lovat, and Waldorf (Lord) Astor. Curtis and others were sent around the world to organize Round Table groups in the chief British dependencies.