Wickham Steed
Encyclopedia
Henry Wickham Steed was a British
journalist
and historian
. He was editor of The Times
from 1919 until 1922.
, England
, Steed was educated at Sudbury Grammar School
and the universities of Jena, Berlin
and Paris
. While in Europe he demonstrated an early interest in social democracy
and met with a range of left-wing figures, including Friedrich Engels
, Wilhelm Liebknecht
, August Bebel
, and Alexandre Millerand
. His encounters formed the basis of his first book, The Socialist and Labour Movement in England, Germany & France (1894).
as Paris correspondent for the New York World, Steed joined The Times in 1896 as a foreign correspondent, working briefly out of Berlin before transferring successively to Rome ( from 1897 until 1902) and then Vienna
(1902–13). In 1914 he moved to London to take over as foreign editor of The Times. During his time in Vienna he acquired a deep contempt for Austria-Hungary
. An anti-Semite and an Germanophobe
, in an editorial published in The Times
on 31 July 1914, Steed labeled efforts to stop the impending war as "a dirty German-Jewish international financial attempt to bully us into advocating neutrality". From 22 July 1914 on, Steed in close agreement with The Times proprietor, Lord Northcliffe
, took a very bellicose line and in editorials written on 29 July and 31 July, Steed urged that the British Empire
should enter the coming war.
Seen as a leading expert on Eastern Europe
, Steed's views had much influence with decision-makers such as high level bureaucrats and Cabinet politicians in the First World War and its aftermath. During the war, Steed befriended anti-Habsburg
émigrés such as Edvard Beneš
, Ante Trumbić
, Tomáš Masaryk
and Roman Dmowski
and advised the British government to seek the liquidation of Austria-Hungary
as a war aim. In particular, Steed was a very strong advocate of uniting all of the South Slavic peoples such as the Croats
, the Serbs
, the Slovenes, etc. into a federation to be called Yugoslavia
. The British Ambassador to Italy
claimed in a diplomatic dispatch that Steed's fondness for the Yugoslav concept deprived from a relationship he maintained for a number of years "filially I believe rather maritally" with a Slavic
woman from the Balkans
. In October 1918, Steed met with the Serbia
n Prime Minister Nikola Pašić
to gain his support for the Yugoslav concept; Steed was deeply angered when he learned that Pašić saw the new state as merely as extension of greater Serbia
and had no intention of sharing power with the Croats or the Slovenes. Steed charged Pašić with being a new "sultan" and severed his friendship with Paśić.
, resigned from his post in February 1919, Steed was Northcliffe's first choice to succeed him. Steed had worked closely with Northcliffe during the war, becoming an adviser to him on foreign affairs. Steed also possessed an additional factor that marked him out in Northcliffe's eyes: his obsequiousness. Steed was forced to contend with Northcliffe throughout most of his tenure as editor, as the press baron retained considerable control over the affairs of the newspaper.
After the war, Steed strongly disapproved of the Bolshevik
regime in Russia
. In an editorial written in another Northcliffe paper, the Daily Mail
on 28 March 1919, Steed accused the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
, whom Steed detested of betraying the White Russians because of a plot by "international Jewish financiers" and the Germans to help the Bolsheviks stay in power.
In 1920, Steed endorsed the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as genuine in an editorial in The Times. In the same editorial, Steed blamed the Jews for World War I
, the Bolshevik regime and called Jews the greatest threat to the British Empire. However, in 1921, when The Times’s Constantinople
correspondent proved that The Protocols were a forgery, Steed retracted his endorsement of The Protocols.
Despite being Northcliffe's personal choice for the editorship, by 1922 the press baron was increasingly frustrated with Steed's failure to return The Times to profitability. After Northcliffe's death in August 1922, the paper's new owners, John Jacob Astor
and John Walter, dismissed Steed on October 24 and brought back Dawson as editor.
(1923–30), the journal that had been established by William Stead
in 1890. In the early 1930s, he was one of the first English speakers to express alarm about the new German Chancellor Adolf Hitler
. In 1934, he caused sensation with an article claiming to have evidence of secret German experiments in airborne biological warfare
. This alarmed the British government sufficiently start stockpiling vaccines, although a retrospective analysis by the epidemiologist Martin Hugh-Jones has suggested that Wickham Steed's evidence could not have amounted to much.
He died in Wootton, West Oxfordshire
.
, appears in the 1974 miniseries Fall of Eagles
, bringing a rumour of the impending Bosnian crisis
to the attention of King Edward VII
, Georges Clemenceau
, and Alexander Izvolsky.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
. He was editor of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
from 1919 until 1922.
Life
Born in Long MelfordLong Melford
Long Melford is a large village and civil parish in the county of Suffolk, England. It is on Suffolk's border with Essex, which is marked by the River Stour, approximately from Colchester and from Bury St. Edmunds...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Steed was educated at Sudbury Grammar School
Sudbury Grammar School
Sudbury Grammar School was a boys' grammar school in Sudbury. The school was founded in 1491. In 1972, the school was amalgamated with other local schools to form Sudbury Upper School.-History:...
and the universities of Jena, Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
and Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
. While in Europe he demonstrated an early interest in social democracy
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
and met with a range of left-wing figures, including Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
, Wilhelm Liebknecht
Wilhelm Liebknecht
Wilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht was a German social democrat and a principal founder of the SPD. His political career was a pioneering project combining Marxist revolutionary theory with practical, legal political activity...
, August Bebel
August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel was a German Marxist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.-Early years:...
, and Alexandre Millerand
Alexandre Millerand
Alexandre Millerand was a French socialist politician. He was President of France from 23 September 1920 to 11 June 1924 and Prime Minister of France 20 January to 23 September 1920...
. His encounters formed the basis of his first book, The Socialist and Labour Movement in England, Germany & France (1894).
Foreign correspondent
Appointed by Joseph PulitzerJoseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading...
as Paris correspondent for the New York World, Steed joined The Times in 1896 as a foreign correspondent, working briefly out of Berlin before transferring successively to Rome ( from 1897 until 1902) and then Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(1902–13). In 1914 he moved to London to take over as foreign editor of The Times. During his time in Vienna he acquired a deep contempt for Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. An anti-Semite and an Germanophobe
Anti-German sentiment
Anti-German sentiment is defined as an opposition to or fear of Germany, its inhabitants, and the German language. Its opposite is Germanophilia.-Russia:...
, in an editorial published in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
on 31 July 1914, Steed labeled efforts to stop the impending war as "a dirty German-Jewish international financial attempt to bully us into advocating neutrality". From 22 July 1914 on, Steed in close agreement with The Times proprietor, Lord Northcliffe
Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe
Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe rose from childhood poverty to become a powerful British newspaper and publishing magnate, famed for buying stolid, unprofitable newspapers and transforming them to make them lively and entertaining for the mass market.His company...
, took a very bellicose line and in editorials written on 29 July and 31 July, Steed urged that the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
should enter the coming war.
Seen as a leading expert on Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, Steed's views had much influence with decision-makers such as high level bureaucrats and Cabinet politicians in the First World War and its aftermath. During the war, Steed befriended anti-Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
émigrés such as Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
, Ante Trumbić
Ante Trumbic
Ante Trumbić was a Croatian politician in the early 20th century. He was one of the key politicians in the creation of a Yugoslav state....
, Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , sometimes called Thomas Masaryk in English, was an Austro-Hungarian and Czechoslovak politician, sociologist and philosopher, who as an eager advocate of Czechoslovak independence during World War I became the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia, also was...
and Roman Dmowski
Roman Dmowski
Roman Stanisław Dmowski was a Polish politician, statesman, and chief ideologue and co-founder of the National Democracy political movement, which was one of the strongest political camps of interwar Poland.Though a controversial personality throughout his life, Dmowski was instrumental in...
and advised the British government to seek the liquidation of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
as a war aim. In particular, Steed was a very strong advocate of uniting all of the South Slavic peoples such as the Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
, the Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
, the Slovenes, etc. into a federation to be called Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
. The British Ambassador to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
claimed in a diplomatic dispatch that Steed's fondness for the Yugoslav concept deprived from a relationship he maintained for a number of years "filially I believe rather maritally" with a Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
woman from the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. In October 1918, Steed met with the Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n Prime Minister Nikola Pašić
Nikola Pašic
Nikola P. Pašić was a Serbian and Yugoslav politician and diplomat, the most important Serbian political figure for almost 40 years, leader of the People's Radical Party who, among other posts, was twice a mayor of Belgrade...
to gain his support for the Yugoslav concept; Steed was deeply angered when he learned that Pašić saw the new state as merely as extension of greater Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
and had no intention of sharing power with the Croats or the Slovenes. Steed charged Pašić with being a new "sultan" and severed his friendship with Paśić.
Editor of The Times
When the editor of The Times, Geoffrey DawsonGeoffrey Dawson
George Geoffrey Dawson was editor of The Times from 1912 to 1919 and again from 1923 until 1941. His original last name was Robinson, but he changed it in 1917.-Early life:...
, resigned from his post in February 1919, Steed was Northcliffe's first choice to succeed him. Steed had worked closely with Northcliffe during the war, becoming an adviser to him on foreign affairs. Steed also possessed an additional factor that marked him out in Northcliffe's eyes: his obsequiousness. Steed was forced to contend with Northcliffe throughout most of his tenure as editor, as the press baron retained considerable control over the affairs of the newspaper.
After the war, Steed strongly disapproved of the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
regime in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. In an editorial written in another Northcliffe paper, the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
on 28 March 1919, Steed accused the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
, whom Steed detested of betraying the White Russians because of a plot by "international Jewish financiers" and the Germans to help the Bolsheviks stay in power.
In 1920, Steed endorsed the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion as genuine in an editorial in The Times. In the same editorial, Steed blamed the Jews for World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the Bolshevik regime and called Jews the greatest threat to the British Empire. However, in 1921, when The Times’s Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
correspondent proved that The Protocols were a forgery, Steed retracted his endorsement of The Protocols.
Despite being Northcliffe's personal choice for the editorship, by 1922 the press baron was increasingly frustrated with Steed's failure to return The Times to profitability. After Northcliffe's death in August 1922, the paper's new owners, John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever
Lieutenant-Colonel John Jacob Astor, 1st Baron Astor of Hever DL was a British military officer, statesman, a newspaper proprietor, and a member of the prominent Astor family...
and John Walter, dismissed Steed on October 24 and brought back Dawson as editor.
Final years
In 1923 Steed became editor of Review of ReviewsReview of Reviews
The Review of Reviews was a noted family of monthly journals founded in 1890-93 by British reform journalist William Thomas Stead...
(1923–30), the journal that had been established by William Stead
William Stead
William Stead may refer to:* William Thomas Stead , English journalist, victim of RMS Titanic disaster* William Force Stead , American diplomat, poet, Anglican clergyman...
in 1890. In the early 1930s, he was one of the first English speakers to express alarm about the new German Chancellor Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. In 1934, he caused sensation with an article claiming to have evidence of secret German experiments in airborne biological warfare
Biological warfare
Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...
. This alarmed the British government sufficiently start stockpiling vaccines, although a retrospective analysis by the epidemiologist Martin Hugh-Jones has suggested that Wickham Steed's evidence could not have amounted to much.
He died in Wootton, West Oxfordshire
Wootton, West Oxfordshire
Wootton is a village and civil parish on the River Glyme about north of Woodstock, Oxfordshire. The village is sometimes referred to as Wootton-by-Woodstock to distinguish it from Wootton, Vale of White Horse, which was in Berkshire but was transferred to Oxfordshire in the 1974 local authority...
.
In media
Steed, played by actor Andrew KeirAndrew Keir
Andrew Keir was a Scottish actor, who rose to prominence featuring in a number of films from Hammer Film Productions in the 1960s. He was also active in television, and particularly in the theatre, in a professional career that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s...
, appears in the 1974 miniseries Fall of Eagles
Fall of Eagles
Fall of Eagles is a 13-part British television drama aired by the BBC in 1974. The series was created by John Elliot and produced by Stuart Burge....
, bringing a rumour of the impending Bosnian crisis
Bosnian crisis
The Bosnian Crisis of 1908–1909, also known as the Annexation crisis, or the First Balkan Crisis, erupted into public view when on 6 October 1908, Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Germany and France...
to the attention of King Edward VII
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
, Georges Clemenceau
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...
, and Alexander Izvolsky.
Works
- The Habsburg Monarchy (1913)
- A Short History of Austria-Hungary and Poland (1914)
- The Press (1938)
- Our War Aims (1939)
External links
- The Habsburg Monarchy (1913)) eLibrary Austria Project (eLib Projekt) full text
- A Short History of Austria-Hungary and Poland (1914) Historical Text Archive full text