The Diplomat
In the books on the First World War two prominent Spaniards stand out: the King, Alfonso XIII for his humanitarian efforts and the ambassador to Belgium, Rodrigo Saavedra y Vinent, though the diplomat went down in history under the title he held; Marquis of Villalobar, (Madrid, 1866 – Brussels, 1926).
4 August 1914; the day Germany entered Belgium, neutral at the time, the centenary of which is being celebrated today across Europe. From that date the Spanish monarch contrived to keep Spain on the margins of the dispute. When, in 1915, the world realised the war would be prolonged, he set in motion a humanitarian effort, trying to locate prisoners of war, through the so called Pro-Captives Office, based within the Royal Palace. In addition he also participated in a number of diplomatic actions, alongside the United States, until the latter entered the war in 1917, and with the Vatican, so that the allies and the central empires would put an end to the barbarity.
The Marquis of Villalobar participated in each of these negotiations from his strategic position as Spanish ambassador to Brussels. Before being posted there he’d held positions in Paris, Washington, London and Lisbon. He would pass away in the Belgian capital, in 1926, still as Spanish ambassador. Thousands of people took to the street to say their last farewells, and a bust of him can be found in the Belgian senate.
The Spanish diplomatic corps was made up of exceptional ambassadors during the First World War, according to Álvaro Lozano in a study on the Marquis of Villalobar for the National University of Distance Learning (UNED in Spanish). Some of the most important and noteworthy were Ramírez de Villaurrutia, in Paris from 1913, a Francophile and Alfonso Merry del Val y Zulueta in London, who was an Anglophile. Polo de Bernabé y Pilón was posted to Berlin from 1906, while Ramón Pina y Millet had been representing Spain in Rome since 1911, at the head of a complicated embassy, due mostly to the fact that relations between the Savoys and the Bourbons had been strained since the Italian reunification and the end of the Papal States. Aníbal Morillo y Pérez, Count of Cartagena, was at the head of St Petersburg diplomatic mission from 1914 whereas the post at Bern was filled by Francisco de Reynoso and Lisbon, from a year earlier, by Luis Valora y Delavat, Marquis of Villasinda. Finally, within the cohort of diplomats that would play a particularly important role in the war was Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano, Count of la Viñaza, ambassador to the Vatican.
When German troops invaded Belgium, violating the country’s neutrality, all the diplomatic representatives decided to follow the Belgian Government into exile, to Le Havre (France), except the three representing neutral countries; Spain, the United States and the Netherlands (though the latter left only a chargé d’affaires). Villalobar soon established a friendship with his US counterpart, Brand Whitlock, and together they carried out extraordinary efforts on many fronts as “protector” ministers for Belgium.
In the days following the German invasion, Villalobar took charge of the diplomatic interests of a long list of belligerent nations, which would lengthen progressively as other countries entered into the war. This was especially so in 1917, when Whitlock abandoned Brussels for Le Havre due to the US entry into the conflict with Germany.
At first he worked closely with the local authorities, with the aim of ensuring that Brussels was not bombed, a process he would repeat only weeks later, this time for Antwerp, on the request of the German authorities. From the outset he established a long lasting relationship with the German occupation government, which, according to Lozano “would always be operational, though at times the tensions reached breaking point”.
Villalobar also met with the German occupiers to better the situation of the Spaniards resident in Brussels, especially those that became embroiled in German atrocities such as the destruction of Leuven, but also to help the Belgians. He attempted to stop civilian deportations, and interceded for certain Belgian personalities like Adolphe Max, Mayor of Brussels, or on behalf of renowned academic Henri Pirenne and Paul Frédéricq.
One of the most dramatic acts performed by the Marquis of Villalobar was his desperate efforts, on the night of 12 to 13August 1915 to try to postpone the execution of Edith Cavell, a British nurse condemned to death after a very brief trial before a German military tribunal. She stood accused of sheltering 200 Belgian, French and British soldiers (escaped prisoners and shot down pilots) in her hospital in Brussels before helping them escape from Belgium.
His attempts failed, though not before he had spent most of that fateful night harassing his German contacts, well into the early hours, going so far as to exceed his diplomatic prerogatives, and raising his voice to them over and over again, demanding, even, that they phone Kaiser Wilhelm himself and wake him up.
Another incident for which Villalobar is remembered is that of Mrs. Cartón de Wiart, wife of the Belgian Justice Minister, who chose to stay in Brussels with her six children rather than go into exile. From the get go, Mrs. Cartón de Wiart refused to obey the Martial Law imposed by the invaders. On 20 May 1925 she was arrested and brought before a tribunal set up in the Belgian Senate. She was condemned to three months in prison and sent to Berlin, to go into Moabit Prison.
All efforts made to secure her release failed; from requests from the Pope to the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. Finally, the intervention of the Marquis of Villalobar, alongside Alfonso XIII, had better results and Berlin agreed to leave her in the charge of the Spanish ambassador on the condition that she did not return to Belgium. Mrs. Cartón de Ward abandoned Germany under Spanish safe-conduct and entered Switzerland, where she reunited with all her children.
In the final months of the war, Villalobar mediated between the two sides, under the bases of the 14 Point Plan, which Washington had offered the belligerent nations in order to put an end to the war without there being any winners or losers. His intervention did not produce any results; the end to the war would come only a few months later with Germany’s armistice.
