What does it take?

I have been pondering over a comment to my last Sunday Rumble by 'RogerH' in which he suggested that the key requirement for a successful national leader, or a Foreign Secretary, was 'character'.  I was in a hurry this morning and could only leave a somewhat cryptic response in which I edged towards that tiresome phrase "it all depends on what you mean by ..."  which is usually a precursor to tedious semantic nit-picking.

However, in an effort to avoid that particular quagmire I have been thinking about three great statesmen and what, if any, characteristics they shared.  Talleyrand, a great hero of mine, was famous for his womanising, his corruption, his treachery - and his finely-honed shrewdness.  He might have betrayed various governments of France, including especially that of Bonaparte, but did so always in what he saw as the higher interests of the nation rather than the current Jack-in-office.  I seem to remember from the biography by Duff Cooper (no relation, alas) which I read decades ago that Talleyrande always possessed a very clear view of his objectives and resisted any attempts to confuse him with too much detail.  He instructed his clerks, who were wont to pile paperwork upon him, "pas trop de zèle!"  He understood, I think, that it was essential to keep clear objectives in a clear mind even if you had to duck and dive en route to reach them!

I have discussed that dreadful old Prussian bully, Bismarck, many a time and 'oft.  His is an epic tragedy.  His success in welding a new nation-state out of hundreds of mini-statelets all of which succumbed to Prussian leadership was outstanding.  Again, the old brute never lost track of his ultimate aim and thus, despite the multi-dimensional complexity of European politics in the 19th century, he achieved his ambition.  The tragedy was that in creating the new Germany under a Prussian system he built into it the massive flaws that eventually brought about its collapse.

Sir Edward Grey was about as different from those two as it is possible to be.  A Victorian/Edwardian gentleman of the 'old school', a man of impeccable manners and deportment, happy to avoid at almost any cost (except duty) what were for him the horrors of London society by returning as often as possible back to his beloved Northumberland for the excitement of - bird watching!  Throughout his career as Foreign Secretary he never went abroad.  Like the others, he never lost sight of his ultimate aims and objectives.

Of course, in all these three examples, one might criticise them for choosing the 'wrong' set of objectives, but alas, that brings us back to semantics and what you mean by 'wrong'?  Unsuccesful?  Immoral?  Impossible?  Because one might be tempted to suggest that up until 1941 Hitler's policy objectives had been reached with absolute mastery but do we admire him?  Somewhat cynically, one is forced into a position of suggesting that the first three were brilliant and steadfast - and what made them truly great was that they lived to die in their own beds! 

 

Comments

[A K Haart]

Our leaders are callow youths compared to your three examples and that's the problem. Roger is right (as usual), character is key, but modern leaders don't do anything to acquire it. Just look at their smooth, silly faces, unlined by experience.

[David Duff]

In general, you're right, of course, AK, but remember Pitt was, what, 24 when he became PM?

[rogerh]

Thank you Mr Duff. I slag off our politicos pretty readily, but asked myself, could I do any better? No, but at least I know that. Which led to the question - what does it take to be a real leader? Then I thought about Napoleon putting the great mathematician Laplace in place as Minister of the Interior - at which he was a dismal failure finding complication after complication. Then I thought about some of the business and (not many) military leaders I have met, they seemed to wear their position pretty lightly and to 'fit' their job very well - they plainly knew their trade. Then I picked up a book 'Other Men's Flowers' by some chap called A P Wavell and a jolly good book it was too and plainly Wavell was a clever chap - and a Field-Marshal and an Earl to boot. But I didn't see Wavell being much good with a computer or a microscope - not his bag.

Which brings me full circle to not knowing for sure what a real leader is and whether politicians are leaders at all (I have met a few un-famous ones and was not impressed). Which returns to Tallyrand, Bismarck and Grey, all powerful types brought up on a diet of power to which I would respectfully add Wavell. Which raises the thought that PPE and a spell in the meeja hardly bears comparison does it!

[David Duff]

Roger, as Geoffrey Rush, playing Phillip Henslowe in Shakespeare in Love", keeps repeating in a different context, "It's a mystery". Some men (and some women) have it and others do not, and by 'it' I do not mean just ability, character, high intelligence and so forth but also that critical element - luck! Bonaparte demanded that his generals be lucky, and poor old Wavell was, alas, very unlucky. It's much the same with US presidential elections. No-one really *knows* if Romney, highly successful in other fields would be as competent in high-stakes international politics. The job makes, or breaks, the man. And please feel free to use my Christian name, or any of the disrespectful nicknames the vagabonds who hang around here use so regularly.

[dearieme]

Wot abaht Metternich? Count Cavour? Those dreadful pre-T churchmen who litter French politics? Cardinal Wolsey? Thomas Cromwell? The Cecils? Strafford? Mrs Marlborough?

[David Duff]

Well you tell us, DM, 'wot abaht 'em? Is there a single characteristic that made them successful (mostly) political operators? And I'm not sure I would include Mrs. Marlborough who in the end, I think, drove everyone nuts and damaged her husband's standing.

[rogerh]

Well you are right that luck and right-place-right-time come into it. I am no military historian but my read was that Wavell was a good man who took on some nearly impossible tasks. The sort of good man you send into sticky spots and use him to gauge the next steps. This he seems to have done without complaining - a man of 'character'. Mind you, with his gongs complaint would have been out of order.

Others may have a more knowledgable view.

[Edward Spalton]

Metternich had the measure of Talleyrand pretty well. When the old fox dies, he remarked "I wonder what he meant by that?"

With regard to Bismarck, it was a great pity that his successors were not able to rein in the headstrong expansionists as he did. "The Balkans" he remarked "are not worth the healthy bones of a Pomeranian grenadier" and, more presciently "If a European war starts, it will be over some damned silly nonsense in the Balkans". He would never have sanctioned the "blank cheque" which his successors gave to the bone-headed, supra-national cabinet of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - a body more like the EU Commission than anything else.

Of course, he was no democrat and had a disdain for what we would call "the political process". If you like laws or sausages" he said "Don't go to see them being made".

[David Duff]

Yes, Roger, I must look into Wavell's life a little more closely.

Edward, that deadly phrase about 'what did he mean by that?' seems to be fought over by the shades of both Talleyrand and Metternich and a quick investigation provides no definitive answer. It is a compliment, I suppose, to both men that either could have said it.

I'm not sure anyone could have reigned in the German/Prussian expansionists because the very system of government that Bismarck created worked against such a process by anyone other than a ruthless, devious lying liar like him!