Montagu was a friend of Asquith, Gertrude Bell, Lord Lloyd, Maurice Hankey and Duff Cooper, with whom he dined frequently. When Hankey was promoted to the newly created post of Cabinet Secretary, he recommended Montagu as Minister for National Service, for which he was considered in December 1916 (the job was given in the end to Neville Chamberlain). Instead he was initially left out of David Lloyd George's coalition government in December 1916, but in August 1917 he was appointed Secretary of State for India.[6] Montagu was not initially part of Lloyd George's inner circle, when he became Prime Minister, but he remained in office until his resignation in March 1922.
As Secretary of State, Montagu represented the interests of the British Empire and opposed the most strident Indian nationalists, calling S. Subramania Iyer the "Grand old man of South India."[7] Montagu led the Indian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, where he opposed plans for dividing Turkey (including the Greek occupation of Smyrna and the projected removal of the Sultan from Constantinople). On this subject, at the Council of Four on 17 May 1919, he introduced representatives of Muslim India (including the Aga Khan) and urged that Muslim peoples were beginning to see the Conference as "taking sides against Islam".[8]
The August 1917 memorandum by Edwin Montagu, the only Jew then in a senior British government position,[9]: 193 stating his opposition to the pro-Zionist Balfour Declaration, and that he viewed it as antisemitic[10]
Despite his father's active support for the cause, Montagu was strongly opposed to Zionism, which he called "a mischievous political creed", and opposed the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which he considered anti-Semitic and whose terms he managed to modify. In a memo to the Cabinet, he outlined his views on Zionism:
...I assume that it means that Mahommedans [Muslims] and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test.[11]
During the next three years Asquith wrote more and more frequently to her, even during Cabinet meetings. At the same time, Montagu was attempting to court her, unsuccessfully proposing marriage in 1913. She liked him but did not reciprocate his love. Also, Montagu had to marry within his Jewish faith to keep his inheritance. Although Stanley was from a freethinking family and was not a devout Anglican, conversion to Judaism seemed too great a barrier. However, Asquith's epistolary obsession with Venetia and his constant demands for advice apparently became overwhelming even for this intelligent and well-read woman, keenly interested in politics as she was. As a result, she finally accepted Montagu's proposal on 28 April 1915. She converted to Judaism, and the couple were wed on 26 July 1915.
In 1923 a child was born, Judith Venetia Montagu. She grew up to befriend Princess Margaret during World War II and marry the American photographer Milton Gendel, with whom she created an artistic salon in Italy.[12] They had one child, Anna Mathias (née Gendel), the god-daughter of Princess Margaret.[13]
Despite his wife's affairs, Montagu's marriage lasted until his death in 1924. The cause of his physical deterioration and death at the age of 45 was unknown, but was thought to be either blood poisoning or encephalitis.[14]
^Note, memo, 13 Dec 1916, Milner Papers, box 123, folios 124-8, Roskill, I, p.344-45
^Erez, Manela (23 July 2007). The Wilsonian moment : self-determination and the international origins of anticolonial nationalism. Oxford. ISBN9780195176155. OCLC176633240.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^The Deliberations of the Council of Four: Notes of the Official Interpreter Paul Mantoux tr. A. S. Link (Princeton, 1992) vol. 2 p. 99.
