Page 125 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8

17
The Conference of Lausanne was a microcosm with its own former dominant powers had to stop thinking and acting as colonialists’. thus assured ‘a direct line to Britain, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Poland, January 1922. ‘These high revenues are a result of the peace conference
rules, a scaled-down version of the real world which existed in The majority of delegates from the Allied nations were embassy and they could even reach Moscow and Constantinople. This was one of on Asia Minor.’
its own space and time and set its own pace, alternating between officials; Lord Curzon was the British foreign secretary and viceroy the major technological innovations made during the organisation of the However, not all of Lausanne’s hotels thrived during the
official negotiations and private discussions, work and leisure time, of India at the time, and an expert on Asia Minor. The French conference. Lausanne had also just launched its first wireless telegraph conference, and the city council had to subsidise at least one hotel
protocol and gossip. The participants soon fell into a routine. The secretary general, René Massigli, was a veteran of numerous post- service, which was the forerunner of the first radio in French-speaking which had had ‘a disastrous season’ on account of the conference
wife of the leader of the British delegation joined her husband at war diplomatic conferences. The Turks seemed less experienced Switzerland. The Beau-Rivage Palace seized the opportunity to update its and requested 15,000 fr. in compensation and another 13,079 fr.
Ouchy and stayed at Saint Moritz before being called back to the in diplomatic affairs, but from 1919 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had own telephone network to a “nine-wire” system and employed a number for staff wages.
shores of Lake Geneva to attend an important dinner reception gradually reconquered his country through a combination of of new, dedicated communications staff.’ 18 As well as reaping the financial rewards of the conference, the
hosted by the British delegation (fig. 8). military shrewdness and effective, assured diplomacy which The opening day of the conference coincided with a printing Lausanne hotel industry benefited in less tangible ways. Working
skilfully exploited the disunity of the Allies. Atatürk’s internal and dispute: salary negotiations broke down and the typographers with the Society of Hoteliers, the hotels took journalists on
HOTEL RESOURCES AND DIPLOMATIC RESOURCES foreign affairs strategy strove for Turkish independence, peace and went on strike. The strike, which started in Lausanne, spread press trips and cruises around the lake; they also set up a tourist
On the eve of the conference’s opening session, the the adoption of a Westernised model for the new Turkey. He rallied across French- and German-speaking Switzerland, notably to information office in the train station. These marketing initiatives
correspondent of Le Temps wrote, ‘The Conference does not have a a number of people for the conference who, although novices in Bern, Zürich and Basle. The stand-off lasted until December 1922, brought added kudos to the hotels. The Beau-Rivage’s board
single administrative department in charge of arranging meetings between diplomacy, were extremely knowledgeable on the West. General when the master printers returned to the negotiating table. The of directors was delighted with the resulting rise in profits, and
the different delegations or between the delegations and the press. Everything Ismet Pasha, who led the Turkish delegation to Lausanne, was a strike was finally called off on 15 December. The dispute forced praised the hotel manager for his ‘great skill’ in ‘spreading the
is still being done ad hoc.’ It was a harsh judgment, and perhaps military man with little experience in international relations, yet the editors of Lausanne’s four local daily newspapers to merge reputation of the Beau-Rivage, which will without doubt benefit the hotel
15
a little hasty. Although the conference had undoubtedly been with the help of his expert aides he was able to stand firm against temporarily under one title, La Presse lausannoise, which appeared in the future’. 20
organised in a hurry, the commissions had all been selected, the Lord Curzon. Ismet Pasha’s inflexibility and refusal to compromise in a drastically reduced four-page format leaving little room for ‘There was such a general mêlée at the opening of the Conference of
chairs appointed and the secretary general chosen. The conference finally won out over Curzon’s skill and experience, despite the commentary and analysis of the conference events. Lausanne that the people next to me mistook a humble regional council
was informed by the new diplomacy, which advocated a greater fact that as the conference’s co-ordinator, Curzon had set the The hotels offered their accommodation and restaurant representative for some member of a foreign delegation.’ This withering
level of transparency by involving politicians in the discussions agenda and had also been privy to secret messages sent by the services to the delegations, some of whom had already installed comment from the correspondent of the Journal de Genève makes
(even if this meant holding up the diplomatic process), taking into Turks which had been intercepted and decoded by his own people. their own secretarial staff in the rooms they had been allocated. light of the security issues surrounding an event which brought
account public opinion by opening the debates to the press and Although Lord Curzon’s performance was a brilliant tour de force The Lausanne city council had asked the city’s hotels, shops and over 250 delegates and a large number of journalists to Lausanne,
publicising them, and integrating economic and financial issues in classic international diplomacy, the Conference of Lausanne businesses to ‘guarantee fair prices and [to] maintain the city’s good as well as attracting members of the general public. The security
19
by bringing in other experts. In Lausanne, the new diplomacy would ultimately be remembered for its role in the birth of the reputation’. In response, the hotels drew up a list of rates, which was handled by the local and regional authorities, who deployed
resulted in an increased number of special commissions and new Turkey and its official recognition in the international arena. they sent to the council and to the foreign delegations. a special detachment of 63 men consisting of police officers and
the limiting of plenary conference sessions, direct exchanges The negotiators were under pressure from their respective The Conference of Lausanne proved to be lucrative for the security officials, all mobilised to guarantee the safety of those
16
outside of strict protocol and private meetings which multiplied governments and the public, who were kept abreast of proceedings Beau-Rivage Palace, which was unusually ‘full’ on 24 November involved in the conference. Extra measures were taken during
considerably when the talks broke down in January 1923. by the large official press corps. The correspondent of Le Temps 1922. The hotel manager, Egli, noted in his accounts book that public events, but overall, particularly within the hotels, the
Two dramatically opposing styles of diplomacy came face to welcomed the ‘lifting of the veil of secrecy initially imposed on the the daily turnover of 7500 fr. (yielding dividends of over 8 per security presence remained discreet, despite numerous terrorist
face during the Conference of Lausanne. On the one side, the delegates’, which opened up ‘information to public opinion’. A press cent) was ‘in large part thanks to the exceptional circumstances of the threats received by the police (fig. 9).
Allies continued to behave as victors, and found it hard to shake area was set up in the Lausanne Palace, giving journalists access peace conference’. The operating accounts presented at the board The Lausanne city council was faced with the spiralling
off their old colonial habits. The Treaty of Sèvres, a masterpiece in to an impressive range of resources, including secretarial offices, meeting of 15 January 1923 showed a substantial increase in costs of the conference, most of which were related to security.
arrogant diplomacy, was now dead in the water and the Allies were reading rooms, a brand new telephone exchange and a state of the revenue year-on-year: 1,666,000.15 fr. for the year ending 31 Spending rose to 65,402.55 fr., and a further 38,711.60 fr. went on
forced into a painful about-turn in response to the success of the art Marconi wireless telegraph system (identical to that used by December 1922, as against 1,513,599.95 fr. for 1921; 102,992 fr. overtime wages for city employees. The Council of State for Vaud
21
Turks. In the words of one commentator, ‘The representatives of the the League of Nations assemblies). Delegates and reporters were for the period from 1-14 January 1923, as against 27,056.25 fr. for announced a spend of 24,869.15 fr., plus 102,835.25 fr. in staff wages.

Benito Mussolini leaving the Beau-Rivage Palace. Photograph, 1922-23. Lord Curzon, Benito Mussolini and Raymond Poincaré on the steps Mustafa Kemal on Lake Geneva during the Lausanne Conference. Photograph, 1923.
to the south entrance of the Beau-Rivage Palace.

124 125