LORD RENNELL.

Evening Star, Issue 23950, 30 July 1941, Page 6

LORD RENNELL.

Lord Rennell, whose death in his eighty-third year was reported j;.,..day, might have said with Ulysses; Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments. Myself not least, but honoured of them all.

Educated at Haileybury and Balliol, ho was a distinguished product of that system of recruiting the diplomatic service almost entirely from public school men which is to-day under criticism. As Mr Ilennell Rodd he was first known as the author of several books of not quite outstanding verse, including the poem for the Newdigate prize, which he won in 1880. A spirited sea ballad from his pen telling of the days of Queen Elizabeth was republished last year in an anthology for schools. After service in Berlin, Athens, Rome, laiis, Zanzibar, and Cairo he performed a mission that has links with the present day as a special envoy to King Menelik in 1897. It was the year after Adowa, the Abyssinians’ great victory over the Italians. Great Britain did her best to case that disaster for the defeated Power, but it was necessary also to see that Menelik did not show a wrong interest in the Sudan, where the Khalifa, not yet crushed at Oradurman, was making trouble. In the absence at that time of all railways, the journey to Addis Ababa was made, via Harar, with a caravan, and the caravan was almost an army, containing 200 camels. On the journey Italian prisoners were met with who wore as pleased to be done with fighting as any in the last tw’elve months. 1 hey had been half-starved for a time, which was also the state of the Abyssinians,. and some of them had to walk for 600 miles. The mission was cordially received, and its objects accomplished. In addition to Menelik the special envoy met and was much impressed by Ras Makonnen, the father of Haile Selassie, who was stated to have saved tho lives of many Italians and done much to facilitate their journey to the coast. During the whole period of the first Great War—for eleven years in all—Lord Reunell was Ambassador to Italy, after being. Ambassador to Sweden. Later he sat for four years in tho House of Commons and performed important services for the League of Nations.