Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax
British Foreign Secretary, Viceroy of India, ambassador to the U.S. (1881-1959)
Also known as: Halifax, Lord Halifax, Lord Irwin, Edward Wood
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881-1959), was one of the senior British statesmen of the appeasement era and, in Quigley's account, one of the The Milner Group's three or four highest-placed insiders during the 1930s. He served as Viceroy of India (1925-1931 under the title Lord Irwin), Foreign Secretary under Chamberlain (1938-1940), and then as Ambassador to the United States (1941-1946). Quigley places Halifax in the Cliveden circle and treats his 19 November 1937 conversation with Hitler at Berchtesgaden as a pivotal moment of the appeasement decade (T&H 633).
Life and Indian Viceroyalty
Born in 1881, Halifax was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was elected a Fellow of All Souls in 1903 (AAE 45). Quigley places him in the outer circle of the The Milner Group from at least that date but only fully inside the inner core 'after 1920' (AAE 6). Halifax served as Viceroy of India (under the title Lord Irwin) from 1925 to 1931 — the period of the Simon Commission and the first Round Table Conferences with Gandhi. His handling of the Indian civil-disobedience movement included the famous 'Irwin-Gandhi pact' of 1931. Quigley notes Halifax's 'reluctance to see Gandhi starve himself to death' as emblematic of a particular kind of imperial Anglican humanitarianism (T&H 183).
Foreign Secretary and the Munich era
Halifax entered Chamberlain's cabinet in 1937 as Lord President of the Council. In November 1937, while Foreign Secretary Eden was abroad, Halifax — then 'Acting Foreign Secretary' — flew to Germany ostensibly on a fox-hunting visit and met Hitler at Berchtesgaden on 19 November 1937 (AAE 229). Quigley reads this as a substantive policy meeting: 'Halifax had a long conversation with Hitler on 19 November 1937 in which, whatever may have been Halifax's intention, Hitler's government became convinced that the British government accepted Germany's general European program.' The seven-point program had been pre-circulated by Lothian 'in The Times, in The Round Table, at Chatham House and All Souls' (T&H 634). When Eden resigned in February 1938, Halifax replaced him at the Foreign Office, holding the post until December 1940 (AAE 228).
The Cliveden Set
Quigley places Halifax in the inner appeasement-era circle of the The Milner Group. 'The group which spread this version of the situation included Chamberlain, Lord Halifax, John Simon, Samuel Hoare, Horace Wilson, the Cliveden Set, the British ambassador in Berlin (Sir Nevile Henderson), and the British minister in Prague (Basil Newton)' (T&H 640). When Cliveden House was being mocked in 1937-1939 left-wing press as the 'Cliveden Set,' Halifax was one of the regular weekend guests. The Astors 'urged Chamberlain at the decisive moment to have the courage of his convictions and place Halifax, even though he was a Peer, in the office to which his experience and record so richly entitled him' (AAE 62) — the Foreign Office, in early 1938. Quigley uses these connections to argue that the appeasement line was the institutional output of a coordinated network, not the personal misjudgment of Chamberlain alone.
Wartime and Washington
Halifax remained Foreign Secretary under Churchill in May 1940 — the only senior figure Churchill could not immediately remove — and was the candidate the Conservative establishment briefly preferred over Churchill for the premiership during the May 1940 leadership crisis. He was sent to Washington as Ambassador in December 1940, succeeding Lothian after Lothian's sudden death. He served there through the war and into 1946. Quigley records that knowledge of Germany's actual military weakness was deliberately concealed from the British public: 'prominent British political personages such as Lord Halifax, Churchill, and J. Wheeler-Bennett have tried to convey the impression that Germany had overwhelming military force in 1937-1940. This impression has, unfortunately, been generally accepted in America' (Quigley Misc, 3).
Quigley's structural placement
Quigley explicitly upgrades Halifax's placement in the Group as the AAE manuscript proceeded: 'several persons whom I place in the outer circle, such as Lord Halifax, should probably be placed in the inner core' (AAE 3). The 1949 manuscript reflects the more conservative judgment, but Quigley signals in the preface that the documentary record actually supports a stronger claim. He treats Halifax — alongside Hoare, Chamberlain, and the Cliveden circle — as one of the four or five figures through whom the Group's appeasement line was institutionally enacted.
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 3 Quigley
evidence, convincing to me, that he attended the secret meetings of the Group. As a result, several persons whom I place in the outer circle, such as Lord Halifax, should probably be placed in the inner core.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 6 Quigley
Lord Halifax, on the other hand, while close to it from 1903, did not really become a member until after 1920.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 228 Quigley
Halifax replaced Eden as Foreign Secretary permanently in February 1938, when Eden refused to accept the recognition of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in return for an Italian promise to withdraw their forces from Spain.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 229 Quigley
The visit was arranged by Halifax himself, early in November 1937, at a time when he was Acting Foreign Secretary, Eden being absent in Brussels at a meeting of signers of the Nine-Power Pacific Treaty of 1922. As a result, Halifax had a long conversation with Hitler on 19 November 1937.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 634 Quigley
Lothian had been pushing this seven-point program in The Times, in The Round Table, at Chatham House and All Souls, and with Lord Halifax. In the December 1937 issue of The Round Table, where most of the points which Halifax had just discussed with Hitler were mentioned.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 640 Quigley
The group which spread this version of the situation included Chamberlain, Lord Halifax, John Simon, Samuel Hoare, Horace Wilson, the Cliveden Set, the British ambassador in Berlin (Sir Nevile Henderson), and the British minister in Prague (Basil Newton).
- quigley-misc · p. 3 Quigley
Nevertheless, at that time and since, prominent British political personages such as Lord Halifax, Churchill, and J. Wheeler-Bennett have tried to convey the impression that Germany had overwhelming military force in 1937-1940.