Aubrey Herbert - Aftermath

Aftermath

Unclear policy led to nationalist criticism from Imperial bases such as Egypt (see Saad Zaghlul, 1919) at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, nor was the resulting political handling cause for much optimism to privileged witnesses such as Aubrey, T. E. Lawrence or Gertrude Bell.

At the Conference there was a glimpse of further prospect for Aubrey Herbert when the Italian delegates proposed to assume shared responsibility over the Caucasus, an area of vital strategic importance - the Baku oilfields, access from the north to Mosul and Kirkuk. By May 1919, the proposal appeared to be quite empty.

By May 1919 also, the Directorate of Intelligence had changed hands, on the authority of Lord Curzon (acting Foreign Secretary while Arthur Balfour was negotiating in Paris) from Aubrey's chief General MacDonogh to Sir Basil Thomson of Scotland Yard Special Branch i.e. from military to civilian in view of the Bolshevik threat on the home front. Thus it was possible for Aubrey in February 1921 to amaze a friend he could confide to, Lord Robert Cecil, that he was going abroad as an inspector of Scotland Yard: he went to Berlin to interview Talaat Pasha for intelligence.