Maurice de Bunsen
Sir Maurice William Ernest de Bunsen, 1st Baronet,
Background and early life
De Bunsen was the son of Ernest de Bunsen, second son of Frances Bunsen and Baron von Bunsen, Prussian ambassador to London,[2] by Elizabeth Gurney. He was educated at Rugby School, and Christ Church, Oxford, and entered the diplomatic service in 1877.
Diplomatic career
De Bunsen was trained in the diplomatic service by
On 16 July 1914, reporting on what he had been told the previous day at a lunch with Count Heinrich von Lützow, who had learned of the planned aggression against Serbia and was trying to derail what he saw as a coming war, de Bunsen told Sir Edward Grey that "a kind of indictment is being prepared against the Servian Government for alleged complicity in the conspiracy which led to the assassination of the Archduke" and that "the Servian Government will be required to adopt certain definite measures in restraint of nationalistic and anarchistic propaganda, and that Austro-Hungarian Government are in no mood to parley with Servia, but will insist on immediate unconditional compliance, failing which force will be used. Germany is said to be in complete agreement with this procedure."[6]
An old hand at the diplomatic game, Von Lutzow made a friend of Bunsen feeling obliged to disclose the truth. However he was a thorough, diligent public servant, and an efficient administrator, who would prove an exemplary wartime record. Reserved, modest and decorous, Sir Maurice would later be forced to resign, but he showed a shrewd alertness to the July crisis. So when he visited
His wife recorded in her diary
A strong note with ultimatum Lutzow told M is to be sent in the next week probably not acceptable to Serbia.[8]
Whilst he may have believed Austrian innocence, Grey had already received the importance of the message loud and clear.
The Foreign Minister was reassuringly "charming", and the British showed no further curiosity about the leak of vital information.
He headed the De Bunsen Committee in 1915, established to determine British wartime policy toward the Ottoman Empire, and was also head of a special mission to South America in 1918. He retired from the diplomatic service in 1919.[1]
Honours
De Bunsen was sworn of the
Family
De Bunsen married, in 1899, Bertha Mary Lowry-Corry. They had four daughters[1]
- Hilda Violet Helena de Bunsen (1900–), married firstly Major Guy Yerburgh (d. 1926), and secondly Major-General Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones
- Elizabeth Cicely de Bunsen (1902–), married Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Vivien Campbell Douglas (1902–1977)
- Rosaline Margaret De Bunsen (1903–1968)
- Mary de Bunsen (1910–1982), Air Transport Auxiliary pilot and author[13]
References
- ^ a b c de BUNSEN, Rt Hon. Sir Maurice (William Ernest)’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007
- required.)
- ^ Otte, T. G. (2011). The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy: 1865 – 1914. pp. 138–139.
- ^ Otte, T. G. (2011). The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy: 1865 – 1914. pp. 155–156.
- ^ "No. 27473". The London Gazette. 12 September 1902. p. 5888.
- ^ de Bunsen to Sir Edward Grey, no.50, vol.11; McMeekin, p.128
- ^ de Bunsen to Sir A Nicholson, no.56 BD, vol.11
- ^ Sat 18 July 1914, Lady Berta de Bunsen, Diary; Schmidt, p.72; McMeekin, n.129.
- ISBN 0465038867), Ch. 8.
- ^ Bunsen to Grey, 8 August 1914. HHStA, PA VIII England Berichte 1913, Weisungen Varia 1914; Herwig, First World War, p. 19
- ^ "No. 27886". The London Gazette. 16 February 1906. p. 1133.
- ^ "No. 31255". The London Gazette. 28 March 1919. p. 4008.
- ^ "The Woman Engineer Vol 8". www2.theiet.org. Retrieved 21 August 2019.
Bibliography
- Fischer, Fritz, Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegszielpolitik des Kaiserlichen Deutschland, 1914–1918, Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1969
- McMeekin, Sean, July 1914: Countdown to War, London, 2013.
- Schmidt, B.E., The Coming of the War, 1914, 2 vols, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930.
Primary sources
- British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914, ed. G. P. Goochand Harold Temperley, London, 1926, vols. 1, 8-11.