acquired it by a trick as disreputable as that by which the Italians collared the Dodecanese. (2) that it is wholly Greek, and that under any interpretation of self-determination would opt for union with Greece. (3) that it is of no use to us strategically or economically. (4) that we are left in a false moral position if we ask everyone else to surrender possessions in terms of self-determination and surrender nothing ourselves. How can we keep Cyprus and express moral indignation at the Italians retaining Rhodes? He says, ‘Nonsense, my dear Nicolson. You are not being clear-headed. You think that you are being logical and sincere. You are not. Would you apply self-determination to India, Egypt, Malta and Gibraltar? If you are not prepared to go as far as this, then you have no right to claim that you are logical. If you are prepared to go as far as this, then you had better return to London.’ Dear Crowe – he has the most truthful brain of any man I know. Whilst Crowe had been an implacable opponent of appeasement towards Germany, he also doubted the French government's motives and sincerity at the Paris Peace Conference, regarding the French as more interested in revenge than a lasting peace. He also regarded the League of Nations Mandates over Danzig, with Polish ownership of a German-populated city, as a 'house of cards that would not stand'. Crowe was sceptical of the usefulness of the League of Nations and in a memorandum of 12 October 1916, he said that a solemn league would be like other treaties, and asked: "What is there to ensure that it will not, like other treaties, be broken?" Crowe was also sceptical on whether the pledge of common action against breakers of the peace would be honoured. Crowe thought that the balance of power and the considerations of national interest would determine how individual states decided their future actions. Crowe argued that boycotts and blockades, as advocated by the League of Nations, would not be of any use: "It is all a question of real military preponderance" in numbers, cohesion, efficiency and geographical location of each state. Universal disarmament, Crowe also argued, would be a practical impossibility. Crowe was Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1920 until his death in 1925. He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1907, Knight