Sir Eyre Alexander Barby Wichart Crowe (30 July 1864 – 28 April 1925) was a British diplomat, an expert on Germany in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is best known for his vehement warning, in 1907, that Germany's expansionism was motivated by animosity towards Britain and should provoke a closer Entente Cordiale between the British Empire and France. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Crowe worked with the French President Georges Clemenceau. Although Lloyd George and Crowe's rivals in the Foreign Office tried to prevent his promotion and lessen his influence, Crowe served as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1920 until his death in 1925, as a consequence of his patronage by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon. Early life Half-German, Crowe was born in Leipzig in 1864. He was educated at Düsseldorf, at Berlin, and in France. His father, Joseph Archer Crowe (1825–1896), was a British Consul-General and Chief European Commercial Attaché between 1882 and 1896, and also an art historian. His mother was Asta von Barby (c. 1841 – 1908). His grandfather Eyre Evans Crowe was a journalist and historian, and his uncle, Eyre Crowe, was an artist. Crowe first visited England in 1882, when he was seventeen, to cram for the Foreign Office examination. At the time, he was not fully fluent in English. Even later in life it was reported that when angry he spoke English with a German accent. Foreign Office Crowe entered the Foreign Office in 1885 and until 1895 was resident clerk. He served as assistant to Clement Lloyd Hill in the African Protectorates' Department, but when responsibility for the protectorates was handed over to the Colonial Office he was asked to reform the registry system. His success led to his appointment as senior clerk in the Western Department in 1906, and in January 1907 he produced an unsolicited Memorandum on the Present State of British Relations with France and Germany for the Foreign Office. The memorandum stated Crowe's belief that Germany desired "hegemony" first "in Europe, and eventually in the world". Crowe stated that Germany presented a threat to the balance of power in Europe similar to the threat posed by Philip II of Spain, the Bourbons and Napoleon. Crowe opposed appeasement of Germany because: To give way to the blackmailer's menaces enriches him, but it has long been proved by uniform experience that, although this may secure for