Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood
British diplomat, architect of the League of Nations Covenant (1864-1958)
Also known as: Lord Robert Cecil, Robert Cecil, Viscount Cecil of Chelwood
Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (1864-1958), was a son of Lord Salisbury and one of the principal British architects of the League of Nations Covenant. He worked under Balfour as Minister of Blockade during the First World War and served as British representative to the League through most of the inter-war period. Quigley uses Cecil to mark the Cecil Bloc's direct intervention in the design of the Geneva system.
Cecil Bloc and the League
As the third son of Salisbury and brother of the fourth Marquess (James Cecil), Robert Cecil was a Cecil Bloc insider by inheritance. Educated at Eton, University College, Oxford, he practiced law before entering Parliament in 1906. His political identity was distinct from the family Conservatism: he was a League-of-Nations idealist of the Wilsonian school and resigned from the Cabinet in 1927 over disarmament policy. Quigley records his work on the League 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) — a characteristic Quigley detail, in which the public author is from the Cecil Bloc and the substantive drafter from the Milner Group.
Naval disarmament conferences
Cecil was the chief British delegate at the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference. Quigley records his confrontation with Churchill, who had laid down rigid instructions on the number of cruisers Britain would accept: 'On this point Winston was adamant and was able to force the chief British delegate at the Geneva Conference (Lord Robert Cecil, who wanted to compromise) to resign from the Cabinet' (T&H 312). The episode shows Quigley's typical move: tracing inter-war disarmament setbacks not to abstract policy but to specific Cabinet personalities. Cecil was again at the World Disarmament Conference at Geneva (1932-1934) and the Brussels Nine-Power Conference (1937).
League of Nations Union
Outside government, Cecil served as president of the League of Nations Union (the British mass-membership society supporting the League) from 1923 to 1945 — a 22-year tenure that made him the principal British public voice of internationalism. He delivered 15 sessions as British delegate to the League, more than Balfour (16) or Hoare (in early years), making him among the most experienced British presences at Geneva (AAE 213). He was awarded the 1937 Nobel Peace Prize. Quigley's reading: the Cecil Bloc's late-Victorian internationalism and the The Milner Group's imperial-federation project formed two streams of the same English-establishment tradition, both expressed at Geneva.
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 17 Quigley
persons without family connections who were brought into the Bloc by Lord Salisbury. Most of these persons were recruited from All Souls and, like Arthur Balfour, Lord Robert Cecil, Baron Quickswood, Sir Evelyn Cecil, and others, frequently served an apprenticeship in a secretarial capacity to Lord Salisbury.
- 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. 213 Quigley
Anthony Eden 39; Sir John Simon 22; Sir Austen Chamberlain 20; Arthur Balfour 16; Lord Robert Cecil 15.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 312 Quigley
On this point Winston was adamant and was able to force the chief British delegate at the Geneva Conference (Lord Robert Cecil, who wanted to compromise) to resign from the Cabinet.