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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The Vatican in the twentieth century has played a far less considerable role on the world's stage than in previous centuries. Stripped of its temporal possessions, the Vatican no longer exercises that military and political power which Napoleon estimated to be worth an army corps of 20,000 men, but which his latter day successor, Stalin, could sardonically dismiss with the (apocryphal) question: ‘How many divisions has the Pope?’ Nevertheless, the papacy remains an influential factor in world affairs; and there is still strong appeal in die ideal of the papacy pursuing aims which, in contrast to those of other powers, are solely peace and reconciliation.
1 Delzell, C. F. ‘ Pius XII, Italy and the Outbreak of War ’, Journal of Contemporary History, II, 4 (1967), 137ff.Google Scholar
2 Of these, Malta was politically the most sensitive. Britain's strained relations with Italy made it important that the upper clergy of Malta should be sound and well-disposed men, and the efforts to secure suitable appointments and to block others led to some friction with the Vatican.
3 As Sir Orme Sargent, an Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office, remarked, the speed and secrecy of its publication was ‘ a fine achievement of the Vatican ’. And the British Minister, Osborne, was also impressed by the singular fact that he had been specifically informed of this move ‘ by an unquestionable, though unofficial source ’ several days before it was so secretly carried out. The Foreign Office should be aware, Osborne reported, that the repercussions of the German Church struggle were an important factor in Italian foreign policy. ‘ I am told that the actual or implicit denunciation of the German Government's ill-faith and persecution of the Church, by alienating Italian Catholics, will have its effect on Italian sentiment towards the Rome-Berlin Axis … It will also affect Austrian sentiment towards Germany.’ F.O. 371/C 2064/356/18, Osborne to Foreign Office, 12 Mar. 1937.
4 As the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Sir Robert Vansittart, commented in May 1937: ‘ There had in effect been a marked tendency in England during the Ethiopian campaign to consider that the utterances of some of the high dignitaries of the Catholic Church in Italy gave colour to the suggestion that they were Italians first and ecclesiastics after. This tendency had been so marked that he had taken it upon himself to mention it to some of his Catholic friends in England.’ F.O. 371/R 3086/868/22, 31 May 1937.
5 For this reason, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Anthony Eden, on the occasion of the 1937 Coronation, took the opportunity of telling the papal representative, Mgr Pizzardo, that ‘ the interests of Great Britain and Italy in the Mediterranean were essentially complementary rather than divergent. They had been so for fifty years and there was no reason why they should not be so again. Indeed our interests need not clash ’. F.O. 371/R 3328/1/22, Eden to Osborne, 11 May 1937.
6 F.O. 371/R 366/178/22, Osborne to F.O., 13 Jan. 1939.
7 F.O. 371/R 5093/308/22, 14 June 1938. In the summer of 1938, the librarian of the Foreign Office, Sir Stephen Gaselee, produced a masterly summary of British diplomatic relations with the Holy See since the Reformation, later printed in the Dublin Review (1939), cciv, 1–19.
8 Gaselee pointed out that a Nuncio, if appointed, would certainly claim precedence and assert that he was ipso facto the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps. The Vatican had always made this claim on behalf of its Nuncios, pointing out that such an arrangement had been the case in earlier centuries, and had been sanctioned by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The British Government had however not recognized this position for countries, such as Britain, where there had been no Nuncio in 1815, and had opposed ever since the wider interpretation sought by the Vatican. It would be difficult and delicate to alter the practice of over a hundred years.
9 At the time, the only two points upon which the Foreign Office expressed its wishes were that the nomination should be given in advance and that the person chosen should be a British subject. The Vatican was again reminded of the desirability of strengthening British representation in the Curia. There had been no resident British member of the Sacred College of Cardinals since Cardinal Gasquet, and until the elevation of the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Hinsley, the British Empire had been represented by only two Cardinals, one of whom was a French Canadian and the other an Irishman, a situation which the Foreign Office could hardly regard as satisfactory. F.O. 371/R/ 5093/308/22.
10 Documents on German Foreign Policy, ser. D., vol. vi, no. 65.
11 F.O. 371/C 12671/15/18, Osborne to Halifax, 28 Aug. 1939.
12 Actes et documents du Saint Siège pendant la seconde guerre mondiale (Vatican City 1965), vol. 1, no. 202.Google Scholar
13 Documents on British Foreign Policy (DBFP), 3rd ser., vol. v, no. 570.
14 DBFP, vol. V, no. 418.
15 DBFP, vol. VI, no. 336.
16 DBFP, vol. V, no. 661.
17 DBFP, vol. V, no. 589.
18 Actes et documents, vol. 1, no. 52. This communication was not printed in DBFP.
19 F.O. 371/R 4762/6/22, Osborne to Halifax, 5 June 1939.
20 DBFP, vol. VII, no. 23; Actes et documents, vol. 1, no. 100–1
21 Actes et documents, vol. 1, no. 166.
22 Actes et documents, vol. 1, no. 197; F.O. 371/C 12900/54/18.
23 F.O. 371/C 15735/15/18, Osborne to Halifax, 5 Oct. 1939.
24 F.O. 371/C 14210/15/18, Osborne to Halifax, 19 Sept. 1939.
25 F.O. 371/R 4762/6/22, 6 June 1939.
26 Deutsch, H., The Conspiracy against Hitler in the twilight war (Minneapolis, 1968), p. 121.Google Scholar
27 F.O. 371/C 14210/15/18, Osborne to Halifax, 19 Sept. 1939.
28 F.O. 371/C 17423/13005/18, Osborne to Halifax, 28 Oct. 1939.
29 Deutsch, op. cit. p. 121.
30 F.O. 371/C 15812/13005/18, Halifax to Osborne, 8 Oct. 1939.
31 Deutsch, op. cit. p. 119.
32 Deutsch, op. cit. p. 121–2.
33 F.O. 371/C 19745/13005/18, Osborne tel., 1 Dec. 1939.
34 Ibid.
35 Actes et documents, vol. I, no. 241 and 244.
36 F.O. 371/C 1137/89/18, Osborne to Halifax, 12 Jan. 1940.
37 Ibid.
38 Cabinet Papers 1940, 65/11, p. 159.
39 F.O. 371/C 2522/89/18, Osborne to Halifax, 7 Feb. 1940.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 On the German side, however, the papal initiative was greeted with acclaim. The former German Ambassador to Italy, von Hassell, when he heard on 16 Mar. the report of the conversations, noted in his diary that ‘ the Pope was apparently prepared to go to surprising lengths in his understanding of German interests ’: The von Hassell Diaries (London, 1948), p. 117. This feeling was undoubtedly based on wishful thinking. There is a major discrepancy between the evidence collected by Professor Deutsch and the British documents on this point. Deutsch states that Müller returned from Rome armed with a paper containing the British answer, which was then extended into a larger document, the so-called X report, to be used to convince the generals to take action. This took place, according to Deutsch, on 1 Feb., ‘ give or take a day ’. In fact, as we have seen, the British answer was not dispatched until 17 Feb. Furthermore, the terms allegedly offered by Britain in this report were far more concrete than anything in the British documents. Space does not permit a full discussion of how or where such a discrepancy arose, or whether it was the result of misunderstanding or deliberate misleading. There is no evidence to suggest that Pius himself was guilty of trying to lead the German conspirators up the garden path.Google Scholar
43 See Conway, J. S., ‘ Pius XII and Ribbentrop: an unsuccessful diplomatic encounter ’ in Annual Report of the Canadian Historical Association (1968).Google Scholar
44 F.O. 371/R 3316/274/22, Osborne to Halifax, 14 Mar. 1940.
45 F.O. 371/R 3437/274/22, Osborne to Halifax, 16 Mar. 1940.
46 F.O. 371/C 4215/89/18, Osborne to Halifax, 19 Mar. 1940.
47 F.O. 371/C 5286/89/18, Osborne to Halifax, 3 Apr. 1940
48 F.O. 371/C 2372/89/18, Osborne to Halifax, 9 Feb. 1940.
49 F.O. 371/C 7324/89/18.
