Gerald Henry Fitzmaurice is said to have had great influence on the relationship between Turkey and Britain in the decade before World War I. He is best remembered today for his report on the massacres in Armenia and for his opposition to the "Young Turks" who led the revolution of 1908.

This page lists the raw data that I have received concerning this skillful diplomat. Any viewer with additional information or comments is requested to contact
John A. FitzMaurice.

Timeline

Obituary

Comments from Historians

Some Adverse Criticism

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Obituary by Professor Harold Temperley
for The Times of 30 Mar 1939²²⁶

The late Mr G. H. Fitzmaurice was a man of the most penetrating insight into the affairs of Near and Middle East and of most remarkable influence. His power of inspiring awe was most remarkable. I remember seeing a small town in Albania plastered with notices denouncing him; and a distinguished American diplomat once discussed with me, with some alarm, in New York, what the British government really meant by dispatching him to Tripoli as Consul-General during the Italo-Turkish War. What I think most people will regret is that he always refused to write his memoirs and preserved a more than official discretion as to his own deeds. Happily Dr. Gooch and myself were able, in Volume 5 of "British Documents on the Origins of the War", to publish to the world some of his official reports and private letters dealing with the Young Turk revolution, on which he was a supreme expert. But I believe that a report, largely written and wholly inspired by him, on the Ottoman Empire in 1908, also published in that volume, will prove of even higher permanent value. It contains a general survey of the Empire and its institutions just before the fall of Abdul Hamid, and may be said to embody, as much as any one document could, the conclusions of his life on a subject of which he was admittedly a great master.

from Pears, FORTY YEARS IN CONSTANTINOPLE (London, 1916)

p. 344:
'Now let me digress to speak of a somewhat delicate subject. The British Ambassador, Sir Louis Mallet, whose appointment dated from June, 1913, laboured under a series of disadvantages to which his German colleague was not subjected. Baron von Wangenheim had extremely competent interpreters or Dragomans. Nine months before the outbreak of the war we had at the British Embassy a Dragoman, Mr. Fitzmaurice, whose general intelligence, knowledge of Turkey, of its Ministers and people, and especially of the Turkish language, was, to say the least, equal to that of the best Dragoman which Germany ever possessed. His health had run down, and he had been given a holiday but when, I think in the month of February, 1914, Sir Louis Mallet returned to Constantinople, Mr. Fitzmaurice did not return with him, and was never in Constantinople until after the outbreak of war with England. It is said that he did not return because the Turkish Ambassador in London made a request to that effect. I do not know whether the statement is true or not. I think it probable that if such a request were made it was because Mr. Fitzmaurice did not conceal his dislike of the policy which the Young Turks were pursuing. In this respect he and I often differed, and have spent hours in discussing the policy of the Young Turks. But as his ability and loyalty to his chief is beyond question, and as he possesses a quite exceptional knowledge of the Turkish Empire, and had proved himself a most useful public servant, both in his investigation of the massacres in Armenia, at Urfa and other places, and at a later period in acting with the representative of the Indian Government in settling the boundary of the Aden district, it was nothing short of a national misfortune that he did not return with Sir Louis Mallet.
[continues on p. 345]

Though differing in opinion from Mr. Fitzmaurice, I invariably found him reasonable and well-informed; I had formed the highest opinion of his value as a Dragoman. It goes without saying that he would carry out any instructions which his chief gave him. It was therefore a matter of profound regret to everyone in Constantinople who knew that he had recovered from his illness, to learn that he was not permitted to return. For now, what was the condition of our Embassy when it had to strive against Baron von Wangenheim with his superbly equipped staff ? Sir Louis Mallet, so far as I know, had never had experience in Turkey. He did not know a word of Turkish. He had under him three Secretaries. Mr. Beaumont, the Counsellor, especially during the days in August before his chief returned from a visit to England, was busy almost night and day on the shipping cases, many of which passed through my hands. He also knows nothing of Turkish and had never had experience in Turkey. Mr. Ovey, the First Secretary, also had never been in Turkey, and knew nothing of Turkish. Unfortunately also he was taken somewhat seriously ill. The next Secretary was Lord Gerald Wellesley, a young man who will probably be a brilliant and distinguished diplomatist twenty years hence, but, like his colleagues, had no experience in Turkey. The situation of our Embassy under the circumstances was lamentable. The ever active Germans, arming Turkey as rapidly as they could, bringing in munitions of war and distributing them throughout the empire, defying international rules and treating the Porte almost as a negligible quantity, refusing to land the crews of the two famous ships; all under a strenuous Ambassador and a fully equipped staff of Turkish scholars to help him. The contrast between the two Embassies was all too marked.'

From G. R. Berridge:²²⁶

Apart from his personal qualities (he was also an unmarried workaholic), his influence derived from the special position in which European diplomats found themselves at C'nople: helpless in the face of a strange language and an even stranger 'oriental' bureaucracy. GHF's spoken Turkish was so good that he sounded like a native-speaker. He made his reputation by the success he achieved at Birecik in 1896 in the midst of the Armenian massacres (where he also demonstrated exceptional personal bravery) and in the Yemen after the turn of the century.

(Moorehead, Gallipoli, Arrow. 1959 edition, p. 19)

There was one other man who was extremely influential in the Allied camp. This was Fitzmaurice, the Dragoman of the British Embassy.  T. E. Lawrence had met Fitzmaurice in Constantinople before the war and wrote [to Liddell Hart] the following note about him:

"The Ambassadors were Lowther (an utter dud) and Louis Mallet who was pretty good and gave fair warning of the trend of feeling. I blame much of our ineffectiveness upon Fitzmaurice, the Dragoman, an eagle-mind and a personality of iron vigour [high praise from 'Lawrence of Arabia'!]. Fitzmaurice had lived half a lifetime and was the Embassy's official go-between and native authority. He knew everything and was feared from end to end of Turkey. Unfortunately, he was a rabid R.C. and hated Freemasons and Jews with a religious hatred. The Young Turk movement was fifty per cent crypto-Jew and ninety-five per cent Freemason [on this, see the article by Kedourie]. So he regarded it as the devil and threw the whole influence of England over to the unfashionable Sultan and his effete palace clique. Fitzm. was really rabid ... and his prejudices completely blinded his judgment. His prestige, however, was enormous and our Ambassadors and the F.O. staff went down before him like nine-pins. Thanks to him, we rebuffed every friendly advance the Young Turks made."

Note:  The letter quoted above is the only adverse criticism that I have found concerning the long term influence of Gerald Henry Fitzmaurice. Use of the phrase "rabid R.C." tells us more about T. E. Lawrence than it does about G. H. Fitzmaurice. I would expect the Foreign Office, circa 1908, to quickly recognize religious bias in an Irish Catholic and to take such bias into account when evaluating recommendations.

I have found no support for the accusation of anti-Semitism. There was much less anti-Semitism among Irish Catholics than among Catholics in other European countries.

I shall continue my search for well-reasoned disagreement with the views of GHF.

JAF

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G.R. Berridge: Current Research
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Genocide Chronology