THE RISE OF FEMALE DIPLOMATS VOICES OF WOMEN SHAPING FOREIGN RELATIONS

In the UK, women were officially permitted to take the Foreign Office competitive test starting in 1946 as a result of the contributions made by the civil servant Mary McGeachy in Washington or the orientalist Freya Stark in Iraq during World War Two.

- By Prof Dr Kemal YILDIRIM

Introduction

Women were not allowed to participate in politics or engage in diplomatic activities when they were not the sovereigns, but their influence through their salons and networks of friends and family was evident from the Congress of Vienna (September 18, 1814 to June 9, 1815). Prussian Wilhelmine de Sagan, the daughter of the Duke of Courland, for instance, owes her position on her close acquaintance with Metternich. “If you were a man...you would be an ambassador and I minister,” the Austrian official informed her, fully aware of the restrictions placed on women. She made it easier for him to carry out his political schemes and form an alliance against Napoleon.

According to legend, French negotiator Talleyrand consulted Wilhelmina’s younger sister Dorothée, the wife of his nephew Edmond de Talleyrand. By attending the Congress of Vienna, she reportedly contributed to the restoration of France’s good reputation.

In addition to these women of princely rank, Fanny von Arnstein, who came from a family of affluent bankers in Berlin, opened an Enlightenment-style intellectual salon in Vienna that was frequented by prominent men like Varnhagen, Wellington, Talleyrand, and Hardenberg. Diplomacy was vital to international relations after the Congress of Vienna. Ambassadors' wives might be persuaded to take on a role in the shadow of their husbands in this situation.

For example, when their spouse was nominated as ambassador, their social skills and comfort in high society were considered. The Prince of Lieven's wife, Dorothea von Benckendorff, meddled in English politics when her husband served as the Russian ambassador to London from 1812 to 1834.