as Baron D'Abernon of Esher, Surrey, upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith. Poland D'Abernon was part of the Interallied Mission to Poland in July 1920, during the Polish-Soviet War. Later this experience provided material for his book The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World: Warsaw, 1920 (1931). Ambassador to Germany From 1920 to 1925, D'Abernon was the British Ambassador to Berlin. In September 1921 he wrote that the success of the Inter-Allied Military Commission of Control, which reported on German disarmament, meant that there would be no military danger from Germany for many years and that it would be impossible for the Germans to conceal the manufacture of heavy weaponry. In February 1922 he criticised the idea of a military alliance between Britain and France: The fundamental criticism...is that England undertakes definite and very extensive responsibilities in order to avoid a danger which she believes to be largely imaginary. An armed attack by Germany on France within the next twenty-five years is admittedly improbable, an attack by Germany on England in the same period even more so...the whole tone of the French is to assume that the real danger to the future peace of Europe is military aggression by Germany. On 9 February 1925 D'Abernon wrote that it was necessary "to abandon the view that Germans are such congenital liars that there is no practical advantage in obtaining from them any engagement or declaration. On this assumption progress is impossible. Personally I regard the Germans as more reliable and more bound to written engagements than many other nations". Lord Vansittart called D'Abernon "the pioneer of appeasement". General J. H. Morgan also called D'Abernon "the apostle of ′appeasement′" and claimed D'Abernon "did not believe in the possibility, much less the probability, of a German military revival". Later life After his retirement from the foreign service, D'Abernon devoted his time to directorships of numerous domestic organisations such as the Lawn Tennis Association, the Race Course Betting Control Board, the Medical Research Council, and the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, and the Royal Mint advisory committee. He was also a trustee of the National and Tate Galleries and President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1926 to 1928. Personal life D'Abernon married the renowned beauty Helen Venetia Duncombe, daughter of William Duncombe, 1st Earl of Feversham, in 1890. Together they shared a love of society and the fine arts,