time it was taking to resolve the various issues was not lost on the watching world, who were suspicious that everyone was enjoying themselves a little bit too much. The Foreign Office had already turneddown an offer from Thomas Cook in December 1918 to help with various tours of Paris – ‘excursions in and around Paris are not contemplated for the British delegation to the Peace Conference, who will all be engaged on urgent official work’ 79 – but it was unreasonable to expect that Paris would be all work and no play. Everyone who was anyone could be found on the fringes of the conference. Nicolson noted a typical evening’s entertainment:
Saturday 15 February: dine with Lutyens at the Meurice and back to the Majestic where they have a dance on. Prince of Wales there – still shy and sad. 80
It was not long before the press picked up on extra-curricular activities.
The Times
reported on The Majestic at play in March 1919.
Visitors to the Hotel Majestic in Paris may sometimes come away doubting whether everybody in it is as anxious as the rest of the world for the peace conference to do its work and to disperse. When one sees the dancing room, the theatre, the restaurant, all crowded with interesting figures and when one compares the lot of a secretary in ordinary life with the lot of the 140 efficient people who aid the delegates and the sub-delegates and the co-opted experts and the secretaries to the delegates and sub-delegates and experts, it is impossible to believe that the conference turns to the staff at the Majestic the same face that it turns to government potentates and ordinary citizens. 81
In particular, the report drew attention to an evening entertainment put on by the British delegation’s dramatic company, which packed out the theatre situated in the basement. The first play was in French; the second was a typical piece of British self-mockery – a series of skits in which all aspects of the conference were gently ridiculed.
It was a pity that Mr Alwyn Parker was not present to hear the reference to ‘
Ali Parker and the 140 Clerks
’… A government department which was not laughed at could be safely pronounced a ‘dud’. 82
As the conference dragged on into yet another month, the
Times
correspondent summed up the mood back in England:
It is a happy family at the Majestic: and it would be a good idea to give them all pensions to keep them there. Could we at the same time pension the Conference to go somewhere else? 83
This was a little unfair on the ‘140 clerks’ whose workload was relentless while the committees sat, continued to discuss and produced ever more paperwork – all of which was categorised, indexed and filed for reference. Yet men like Oldham, involved at the heart of the bureaucracy and thus privy to the multiple lines of negotiation, would still have had time to join the throngs of diplomats and politicians mingling in the foyer of the Majestic for the various receptions, as well as their counterparts from other delegations and countless international lawyers who regaled them with tall tales over dinner or at the bar. Such conversations and contacts could make or break careers – especially if the right information was passed to the correct interested party who could return the favour later on. It is hard to describe this ‘below the counter’ diplomacy as espionage, as technically everyone was on the same side and working towards a common goal. However, a large amount of horse trading was conducted at the Majestic and elsewhere that would decide the fate of millions, as borders were drawn and redrawn based on subtle negotiations outside the committee rooms. It was in this environment that Oldham saw how diplomacy worked at grass roots level, despite Hardinge’s reminder to delegates and support staff against ‘indiscreet talk’.
Then, suddenly, a new pace was injected into proceedings in mid-April when the Council of Four invited the Germans to hear their
Saturday 15 February: dine with Lutyens at the Meurice and back to the Majestic where they have a dance on. Prince of Wales there – still shy and sad. 80
It was not long before the press picked up on extra-curricular activities.
The Times
reported on The Majestic at play in March 1919.
Visitors to the Hotel Majestic in Paris may sometimes come away doubting whether everybody in it is as anxious as the rest of the world for the peace conference to do its work and to disperse. When one sees the dancing room, the theatre, the restaurant, all crowded with interesting figures and when one compares the lot of a secretary in ordinary life with the lot of the 140 efficient people who aid the delegates and the sub-delegates and the co-opted experts and the secretaries to the delegates and sub-delegates and experts, it is impossible to believe that the conference turns to the staff at the Majestic the same face that it turns to government potentates and ordinary citizens. 81
In particular, the report drew attention to an evening entertainment put on by the British delegation’s dramatic company, which packed out the theatre situated in the basement. The first play was in French; the second was a typical piece of British self-mockery – a series of skits in which all aspects of the conference were gently ridiculed.
It was a pity that Mr Alwyn Parker was not present to hear the reference to ‘
Ali Parker and the 140 Clerks
’… A government department which was not laughed at could be safely pronounced a ‘dud’. 82
As the conference dragged on into yet another month, the
Times
correspondent summed up the mood back in England:
It is a happy family at the Majestic: and it would be a good idea to give them all pensions to keep them there. Could we at the same time pension the Conference to go somewhere else? 83
This was a little unfair on the ‘140 clerks’ whose workload was relentless while the committees sat, continued to discuss and produced ever more paperwork – all of which was categorised, indexed and filed for reference. Yet men like Oldham, involved at the heart of the bureaucracy and thus privy to the multiple lines of negotiation, would still have had time to join the throngs of diplomats and politicians mingling in the foyer of the Majestic for the various receptions, as well as their counterparts from other delegations and countless international lawyers who regaled them with tall tales over dinner or at the bar. Such conversations and contacts could make or break careers – especially if the right information was passed to the correct interested party who could return the favour later on. It is hard to describe this ‘below the counter’ diplomacy as espionage, as technically everyone was on the same side and working towards a common goal. However, a large amount of horse trading was conducted at the Majestic and elsewhere that would decide the fate of millions, as borders were drawn and redrawn based on subtle negotiations outside the committee rooms. It was in this environment that Oldham saw how diplomacy worked at grass roots level, despite Hardinge’s reminder to delegates and support staff against ‘indiscreet talk’.
Then, suddenly, a new pace was injected into proceedings in mid-April when the Council of Four invited the Germans to hear their
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