Edward Goschen

Sir William Edward Goschen, 1st Baronet GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC (18 July 1847 to 20 May 1924), was a British diplomat. He was the younger brother of the Conservative politician George Goschen, 1st Viscount Goschen.

Family and early life

[William] Edward Goschen was born at Eltham in England on 18 July 1847. He was 12th child and sixth son of Wilhelm Heinrich Göschen, a German from Leipzig and Henrietta Ohmann who was born in London. At the time of his birth his father was 54.

Goschen was educated at Rugby and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Diplomatic Service

He entered the Diplomatic Service in 1869 and after an initial few months at the Foreign Office he served in Madrid, as Third Secretary in Buenos Aires, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Constantinople, Peking, Copenhagen as secretary to the legation, (1888-1890), Lisbon as secretary to the legation, Washington (1893-1894) as secretary and Saint Petersburg (1895-1898).

Ambassador to Belgrade

Goschen was offered the Belgrade legation and took up post in Serbia in September 1899. He was later to recall that his only instructions from the Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury was to "keep [an] eye [on] King Milan". He remained in Serbia until 1900.

Ambassador to Copenhagen

According to Goschen himself he was initially less than happy to be offered the Copenhagen Legation. "Oh dear, oh dear! I am not thrilled and later accepted but with misgivings". [1] He served as Minister to Denmark from 1900 until 1905 and although recognising the posting as something of a diplomatic backwater he at least revelled in the social aspects of his position.

Ambassador to Vienna

Goschen's appointment as Ambassador to Austria-Hungary was seemingly made at the behest of King Edward VII. Goschen most probably expected the Vienna posting to be his last but the imminent retirement of Frank Lascelles at the Berlin embassy posed problems for the Foreign Secretary.

Ambassador to Berlin

Finding a successor for Lascelles was not easy. Berlin made it clear that Nicolson would be unacceptable and the successor and although the Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Charles Hardinge had initially favoured Fairfax Cartwright, the Minister at Munich, he was in his turn vetoed by the Germans who wanted a public figure. Eventually a reluctant Kaiser was persuaded to accept Goschen. [2]

In his last conversation with the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg before asking for his passports, Bethmann famously expressed his astonishment that England would go to war for "a scrap of paper" (the 1839 treaty guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality).

Personal life

In 1874 he married [Harriet] Hosta Clarke an American from Michigan. They had two sons, Edward Henry Goschen born in 1877 and George Gerard Goschen born in 1887. Hosta died in February 1912.

Goschen twice represented Oxford at real tennis, played five matches of first-class cricket as a right-handed batsman for the University of Oxford and throughout his life was a keen sportsman. In later life he became an enthusiastic if untalented violinist. He notes in his diary playing duets with the Crown Prince of Germany in 1910.

Goschen was admitted to the Privy Council in 1905 and in 1916 he was created a Baronet, of Beacon Lodge, Highcliffe, in the County of Southampton. He died in Chelsea, London, in May 1924, aged 74, and was succeeded in his title by his son Edward Henry Goschen.

References

*Baring, Maurice, The Puppet Show of Memory (London, 1922)
*Bruce, Henry, Silken Daliance (London, 1946)
*Howard, C.H.D (ed.), The Diary of Sir Edward Goschen 1900-1914 (London, 1980)
*Jones, Raymond A., The British Diplomatic Service 1815-1914 (Waterloo Ontario, 1983)
*Kennedy, Paul M., The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914 (London, 1981)
*Rattigan, Frank, Diversions of a Diplomat (London, 1924)
*Rumbold, Horace, War Crisis in Berlin ((London, 1940)
*Steiner, Zara S., The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy 1898-1914 (Cambridge, 1970)
*Steiner, Zara S., Britain and the Origins of World War I (London, 1978)
*First World war primary documents - Britain's Breaking Off of Diplomatic Relations with Germany, 4 August 1914