Adventures of Hugh Gibson, part 6.
by Vivian Reed
Gibson is in Rome addressing the needs of US propaganda efforts and entertaining the plans presented by Horodyski to further the influence of the US in the Vatican and to solicit support for the Polish national cause.
On Wednesday, May 8, Horodyski dangled the possibility of introducing Gibson to Monseigneur Achille Ratti.
“On Sunday or Monday he wants to get Monseigneur Ratti to dine with me. Ratti is going to Poland as the first Nuncio the Vatican has sent in the past 150 years and the occasion is useful as affording an opportunity to fill him up to the neck with propaganda. I am supposed to load him up with large quantities of talk about the interest of America in the future freedom of Poland. It is really a great chance and I am sorry we have not some more people here to get hold of him and train him in the way he should go.”
Achille Ratti (1857-1939) was an Italian priest with doctorates in philosophy, cannon law, and theology.) At the invitation of Pope Pius X, Ratti moved to the Vatican to serve in the Vatican Library, heading it by 1914. In a major career change, Ratti was asked to take on a diplomatic mission to Poland then fighting for statehood. He arrived in October, making him one of the first to arrive in Warsaw. When Gibson arrived in April 1919, Ratti was the dean of the diplomatic corps. The two men became fast friends, spending many a chilly evening discussing Polish affairs over a brandy. In 1922, Gibson was sad to see his friend leave Poland – but it was for good reason. Ratti, then an Archbishop, won the Papal election upon the death of Pope Benedict XV, and became Pope Pius XI on February 22, 1922.
After dinner together that evening, Horodyski produced a copy of a telegram he had drafted to Sir William Wiseman “telling him that the only thing the United States can do to win the war at present is to send a representative to the Vatican. He wanted to mention me in it but I declined absolutely to be boosted for the job. I don’t care to have them thinking in Washington that I am touting myself for any sort of job, - which I am not.”
Sir William Wiseman, 10th Baronet, (1885-1962) was both a British intelligence officer and an American banker. After being involved in the British interception of the infamous Zimmermann Telegram in January 1917, Wiseman went on to connect with Colonel House. When the US declared war on Germany in April 1917, Wiseman was on hand to not only offer advice about the situation in Russia, but also to send Somerset Maugham into Russian territory in an attempt to keep these crucial allies in the war. Through Maugham, Wiseman became acquainted with Czech leader Masaryk and Emanuel Voska, who directed the Slav Press Bureau in New York. Both Masaryk and Voska would become quite familiar to Gibson over the next year, and Wiseman (often through Horodyski) was a key adviser to the US on Czech issues – over which Gibson would preside as of September 1918. At the Paris Peace Conference, Wiseman advised British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour. Subsequently, he moved to New York to work for Kuhn, Leob & Co., a Wall Street banking firm and became a partner in 1925. The link below recounts some of Wiseman’s World War II exploits.
https://spartacus-educational.com/William_Wiseman.htm
During a post-dinner tête-à-tête the next evening, Horodyski regaled Gibson with stories of his adventures shortly after the war began:
“He scouted about to find out whether there was any danger for his class being called and was told that there were still some months leeway. The day after he got to Vienna he learned that he would have to go up before a board within a month. Off he went for a maaskur as he was told that the only men who were sure to be exempted were those who were too fat to be of any use. He gained forty kilos in one month and got thrown out by the board as unfit. Just as he was congratulating himself Bobrinsky broke loose with his fool speech at Lemberg and the Poles were in such bad odor that he saw little chance of being allowed to leave the country. One morning as he was walking along the street cursing his fate a man came up very deferentially and took off his hat and addressed him. Horodyski did not know him but the man said that he came from Galicia where Horodyski’s father was Marshal of the nobility. The man bootlicked and fawned and showed anxiety to be bien vu and Horodyski, not knowing what else to ask him inquired what he was doing in Vienna. He said he had been driven out of his home town ahead of the Russian advance and that he was now handling the question of passports for Switzerland at police headquarters. Horodyski’s heart nearly stopped beating but he showed very little interest beyond saying casually that his sister was ill at Davos – which was quite true – and that he might have to go there to see her; that if he did he would count upon his new found friend to get him there. Friend said he would be delighted to serve in any way one so highly placed and when in due course Horodyski went to him, he fixed things in no time and in January 1915, Horodyski got back into Switzerland.
McClure ragged Horodyski somewhat about the Polish question and said that there was a scientific expedition to Africa to study the habits of the elephant. The German professor wrote a solid four volume work with a long title which showed everything that was in the book. The Englishman wrote a fat volume with plenty of photographs of himself in shooting clothes and called it THE ELEPHANT AND HOW TO KILL IT. The Pole wrote a thick pamphlet and called it THE ELEPHANT AND THE POLISH QUESTION.”
Georgiy Aleksandrovich Bobrinsky (1863-1928), great-grandson of Catherine the Great, was a Russian general who served as governor of Horodyski’s home state of Galicia.
Samuel Sidney "SS" McClure (1857-1949) was an American journalist, known especially for “muck-raking,” published McClure’s Magazine from 1893 to 1911.
Please look for the next post when Horodyski reports to Gibson about his meeting with Pope Benedict XV and Gibson connects with Skirmunt. Until then, stay well and thrive!
Vivian