Dislocated to Success (11 page)

With all this as background, we had managed to send a delegation to the Sublime Porte; it was a small legation but it was very capable. They found a febrile political atmosphere, but also an abundant commercial one - the merchants of Istanbul were extremely interested in trade, and had access to spice markets and - most importantly - to coffee beans. Whilst the amounts provided were nowhere near the demand for the items, they help alleviate the shortages. It had been feared that coffee would disappear almost completely from the ration in 1981; thanks to the Ottomans it didn’t - it may have only provided around two cups a week, but it never went away and people tended to trade with tea drinkers. Beverages like Camp became popular again to eke out the short supply, whilst others like myself used the grounds again and again; you got a decent cup on Sunday, but by the Thursday it was barely recognisable.

Of course, the Spanish eventually came to heel. At first we had been modest; we had removed Trinidad and Florida from them and there had been no movement towards peace. We had increased our leafletting campaign, which certainly increased restiveness in parts of Spain, but there was no movement toward the treaty table. Everyone was a little tired of the war and wanted it to end - any semblance of Labour support for it had gone except from a few staunch right-wingers - so we gave it one further push. Our Portuguese ally joined the war (with the backup of a British battalion in Lisbon) and we used their colonial troops to seize Montevideo and Buenos Aires, as well as using our troops to take the Spanish Virgin Islands
sans
Puerto Rico. This caused further ructions; we understood that most of the army no longer obeyed the King and that Catalonia was on the brink of open revolt. Even that didn’t finally force them, so a decision was made to clear the Spanish forces out of the remains of the province of Cadiz and, if needed, to seize the ports of Venezuela which were reasonably close to Trinidad. I understand the French also had raised serious concerns about public safety in Catalonia by moving two battalions to the border. This finally did the trick, and we received a message the Spanish wished to treat.

This led to me spending the next two months dealing with what would become the Treaty of Bordeaux - not solidly, but a considerable part of it. I set up base camp in the Chateau Haut-Brion; the fabled wine wasn’t as good as the cis-counterpart, but it was perfectly drinkable. The owners were more than pleased to rent the Chateau for a fairly minimal sum, as long as they got to keep the added plumbing and septic tank. This was a rather complex series of talks; a number of people had given considered advice, which was basically to go for everything we could think of and let the Spanish whittle it down. Cabinet was slightly worried about this, as they had the collywobbles about what would happen if the Spanish just said
Si
after all; we understood they were in a pretty desperate way.

Ambassador Keene, our former man in Madrid, was particularly helpful and very skilled in dealing with the Spanish; he knew their ways and how pig-headed they could be. He urged us to make much larger claims than we wanted to allow the Spanish to gain face by retaining some of them, which was advice we were getting from others as well. He also warned us about Captain Sanjurjo - who was the effective head of Spanish Intelligence - as being the most capable man there. However, he did advise that it might be required to take further military action to get what we wanted, and he advised - as did the French - that any further action might lead to Spain convulsing into revolution. I think we were against that idea, although there were voices for it - and not all of them from the UK.

Of course, the biggest question was what we actually wanted from Spain. The answer depended on which department you talked to, and it was quite difficult to get a coherent list of what we wanted and why we wanted it and to get people to agree. There were even one or two who pretty much wanted to let Spain off the hook completely. However, we went in with a fairly outrageous list of demands - I know both Michael and Francis were actually quite worried that they might concede the whole kit and caboodle.

Their initial response was a white peace, plus the return of Gibraltar to them. Obviously, they had to make this offer; it was diplomatically compulsory and we rejected it out of hand as they expected us to. They then presented their real response, which was a sort of halfway house. I was actually quite surprised on what they folded on; their response was somewhat subdued and they made great concessions. They were at somewhat of a disadvantage because, whilst many European powers were starting to get a decent inkling of what lay beneath their soil, their knowledge was far more limited. We had to spend some time trying to work out what lay beneath this, but essentially they were defending Gibraltar and Panama to the death; however, they gave up Texas and California without a whimper. This was unfortunate; some form of access via Panama was an absolute must for Michael and the Forces were very keen on increasing the size of Gibraltar. So the talks continued, with a lot of careful map drawing over various boundaries taking up the spare time whilst people conferred about the main subjects.

Eventually, it was brought to a head; the Spanish domestic situation became so poor that we were invited by the civil authorities to bring peace and protection to the city of Sevilla after the retreat of Spanish forces back toward Castile proper. Similarly, the French informed the Spanish that they had received similar invites from the local commune about Barcelona. After one last attempt to try and give us absolutely anything but concede on Gibraltar, they came up with a serious and mature proposal on both Panama and Gibraltar - which we found acceptable with some modifications. In fact we were very surprised about the maturity of the Panama proposal; it suited both nations very well - to this day I still wonder who suggested it and pushed it through, because it clearly wasn’t from the Spanish court.

This left the UK with a somewhat increased number of theoretical colonies. We had gained the Spanish claims to the former West of the USA, as well as Baja California and a slightly modified Mexican border; part of East Texas would be traded with France for further concessions in the Mid-West of British North America. We had also gained the middle of cis-Argentina and the claim to the south, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, a small border revision in Guyana and some scattered islands and outposts. In addition, we added a lease to make Gibraltar more practical and certain rights over Panama - rights which not only gave us access to the Pacific, but - for the time being - a potential stranglehold over Spanish commerce from the Pacific on which they depended. Portugal gained much of what we knew as Uruguay, and settled some longstanding border disputes on the Iberian peninsula with Spain.

As a conclusion to this, we remained in part of Andalusia until all terms were fulfilled, although we immediately withdrew from Sevilla and a few other areas. When we finally left the province some two years later, despite the damage to Cadiz, we left the province in better order than when we came. Some of the inhabitants appreciated this, others did not;  there was a low-level petty campaign of graffiti and trouble-making throughout our brief occupation. This did lead to one small incident when the Prime Minister visited the city of Jerez, which was probably the area where we had the least problem and the most friends. A local priest spent some time shouting abuse at the PM, which she insisted on be translated; it seems he wanted her burned at the stake. She, as quick as a flash, replied -
“He can burn if he wants to, but this lady is not for burning”
.

There was also a small side treaty; the French and Portuguese agreed to exchange some possessions in India and the Far East, the result of which was mainly to concentrate Portugal in Bengal and France in the area of Madras. They also settled their border in Guyana/Brazil - which is more than they ever did back in our original time.

It was at this time that we also made contact with the new Pope; there was some worry that the conclave would choose differently, but mercifully all that had reached them was some rumours and the historical succession happened. Bruno Heim, the previous Apostolic Delegate, had offered to go to Rome and see if he could have an audience. Bruno was a top quality fellow and I had every confidence in his abilities. Whilst he didn’t quite manage a Commander Ashdown
[47]
level of introduction, I understand he was smuggled in by the Genoese and managed to start off what has been a difficult but good-natured relationship.

There are, of course, a number of doctrinal differences between ourselves as British Catholics and the Church of 1730 - never mind the social and philosophical differences. Even as I write this, these have not all been ironed out; the British church I sometimes believe survives mainly because of its large contributions of Peter’s Pence and is therefore allowed rather more leeway than most would within Holy Mother Church. Whilst this leeway has been gratefully received, there has certainly been a return generally to some of the traditional practices and some of our more liberal priests have wandered off into a Cantabrigian abyss whilst others have joined the congregations of Utrecht - and, indeed, dominated that group to some extent.

However, Bruno’s little mission meant that we had at least made contact, and received a period of grace during which the British Question - or, rather, the British Catholic Question - would be discussed. What I dreaded as a Catholic was the idea - which was very popular in some continental circles - that the United Kingdom would be put under the Interdict; it would probably lead to a large-scale schism of British Catholics. What I dreaded as a Diplomat was also the Interdict, but more for its effects on our foreign relations and our trade with Catholic States. Mercifully, Bruno bought us plenty of time, and by the time the question had been studied we had managed to create a favourable impression as a nation in enough Catholic circles to stop that sort of action. With that issue sorted out, I was able to look at other areas - such as India, where we had traded various rights with other European powers but had not looked at the situation with the Indian states and Bombay.

Whilst I had no direct responsibility for Bombay, which was a job for the Colonial Office, I did have responsibility for the rest of India; this was either confusing or not confusing, depending on how you looked at it. If you considered that the Mughals and the Marathas were the powers and that all their various vassals were mere minions, then it was relatively simple. If you took the pragmatic approach, and realised that many of them were effectively independent, then it was rather more complex. Officially, we hadn’t really set anything up outside of Europe except for Persia and Morocco - and they had both come to us. Unofficially, we had sent out feelers to several Indian powers and also were taking the temperature East of India; much of this was being done through the East India Company, who had the contacts, and with some introductions from the French as well. The next year’s task was to start to set this up on a more formal footing - I don’t think we realised at the time how difficult this would be, logistically or diplomatically.

Of course, with India, there was a substantial number of people originally from the sub-Continent here, many of whom had quite different opinions on what should and what should not happen - although a very substantial minority took a more “That’s not our India” approach. Many of them tried to co-ordinate their response through their community leaders, which did not help matters; I couldn’t possibly hear them all, and generally delegated this to civil servants or to one of my special advisors. Other groups were more organised and had a plan of sorts: the council of Sikh Gurdwaras had some good ideas and some willing bodies; similarly the Ismaili community pitched in with uplifting Bombay. The final group were more politically inspired and put their trust in the Labour Party and its self-appointed spokesman for India, Keith Vaz. Mr Vaz and I never really saw eye to eye, and any attempt at meeting with him usually descended into chaos as his list of contradictory demands was uttered. He had some hopes of being selected as an MP, preferably for a seat with a large Indian community, but his star fell somewhat and as of writing he has never managed to be elected.

Further East was even more laden with difficulties; whilst there were a number of people from the Far East in the UK, the majority of them were not particularly interested in their natal countries. Many of our Malays were of Chinese origin and supremely uninterested in Malaysia, the Singaporeans accepted that their country was effectively gone, and only amongst our Hong Kongers was there any great interest in China; even there, it was more towards how to make money in China rather than any real interest in Qing China. Not to say that there weren’t people who were interested in the fate of their country, but they were few and far between.

By this time, things had settled and I was able to contemplate Christmas - the first Christmas after the Dislocation, and my first Christmas without Adrian for many years. I did consider taking myself to Dorneywood with a selection of friends and doing the best we could; however, I didn’t feel much like it - and there had been a very stern memo about how ministers should not indulge in ostentatious displays over Christmas. The PM has always had that strong Methodist streak which disapproves of over-indulgence and ostentation at the best of times, but she can be more forgiving of personal foibles. So I settled for a very quiet holiday in Town, just going to the Christmas drinks at Clarence House and the Garrick Club do for New Year. It was all very contemplative, and several others mentioned this as well - there was even some austere editorial in the Telegraph praising the return to an uncommercial Christmas.

I had been warned by the Private Office that there would be a delightful series of Embassy ‘Do’’s - sadly there wasn’t a single one. The British Christmas was fairly unique, and I think some of embassies were rather shocked by it - some of them came round to our practices in time, and current Foreign Secretaries again finish Christmas in the sure and certain knowledge that their liver resembles that of a goose after gavage.