The great lost peace

One hundred years ago this month, my great-great grandfather sat down to compose a letter which would finish a long and distinguished career — and destroy his reputation. Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, had held some of the most prominent posts in the British Empire and government: governor–general of Canada, viceroy of India, secretary of state for war, foreign secretary and Conservative leader of the House of Lords.

But in the winter of 1917, as casualties mounted on the Western Front, he decided that enough was enough and that Britain should seek a negotiated peace with Germany to end the first world war.

Lord Lansdowne’s ‘Peace Letter’ remains one of the most controversial episodes of the war. Published in the Daily Telegraph on 29 November 1917, it sent shock waves through the British establishment, as much for its authorship as for its content. The Times, which had refused to publish it, turned on him; The Spectator described the letter as ‘inopportune’; political colleagues who had privately encouraged him disowned him in public.