Edward Monson

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Sir Edward Monson (1841 - 1908) was a British diplomat.

He entered the diplomatic service in 1856, and served as diplomatic agent at Ragusa (then part of Austria-Hungary in the 1870s. He then served in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was British Minister to Athens, Greece in the 1880s.

In 1888 Queen Victoria appointed him arbitrator in the Carlos Butterfield claim between an American shipping company and the government of Denmark. Monson reviewed the legal statements of both sides and made his recommendations to the Queen, who decided in favour of Denmark, settling a dispute that had lasted 30 years.

Monson served as British Ambassador to France from 1896 to 1905. Relations between the two countries where rather strained, and this was not helped when Monson made a speech in 1897, in which he accused the French officials and press of anti-British bias. The French responded with predictable outrage and demanded his recall. Despite this Monson was able to procure a convention with the French Foreign Ministry in June 1898 that settled the vexed question of Nigerian boundaries, and later worked to repair Anglo-French relations after the Fashoda incident of September 1898.

His most significant role was in the signing of the 1904 Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, which settled outstanding disputes in West Africa, Siam, Madagascar, the New Hebrides and over Newfoundland fishing rights. Above all, it allowed Britain a free hand in Egypt in return for giving France a free hand in Morocco.