Through Thirty Years, 1892-1922. A Personal Narrative
by . New York: Doubleday, Page and Company. 1924. 2 vols. 8vo. xiv+412 + 418 pp. $7.50.
MR. STEED is well known to all who have followed the story of European international politics and cosmopolitan journalism for the last generation. He has lived in many countries, studied them and written about them; he has seen much of the working of diplomacy; he has met large numbers of prominent men who have influenced the history of their day. For years in the columns of the Times he was able indirectly or directly to impress his views on the English statesmen as well as on the public, and have his share in forming their policy. How large that share was is a matter of opinion and impossible to determine with certainty, but there is little concealment of Mr. Steed’s own views on the subject; indeed one criticism that will be brought against the book is overemphasis of the personality of the author.
Of the two volumes the second is perhaps the more interesting. The first, which comes down to 1914, though it throws good sidelights on many public characters, tells a story that does not differ essentially from the careers of other well-known journalists. The accompanying record of contemporaneous events with the comment appended to them is written in the tone of the day and suggests a lack of familiarity with some of the later information on the subject. The most important period of Mr. Steed’s earlier career was his stay in Vienna. What he tells us about it is worth while, but of less value than his extraordinarily good monograph, The, Hapsburg Monarchy (1914), which will remain a sketch by a master hand of an ancient empire on the eve of its fall, and which, having been written before the war, betrays less animus than does the present work.
In volume II we have an account of Mr. Steed’s activity during the war, where, as might be expected, he saw vividly many peoples and things and did his duty in various ways as an active patriot and promoter of allied causes, notably that of the Jugoslavs. In their behalf he had some sharp passages of arms with several of the Italian statesmen, whom he judges with severity. He wisely spares us one more detailed narrative of the Peace Conference, giving us instead an account of his own activities and achievements as editor of the Paris Daily Mail and journalistic confidante and intermediary of sundry negotiators, notably of Colonel House. With Lloyd George he fell ever more out of conceit and he criticizes him often unsparingly. The provision of the peace for which Mr. Steed perhaps claims the most direct credit is the Sarre agreement. All told the book is notable and will take its place among the records of a great time.
ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE