George Buchanan

Sir George William Buchanan, (25 November 1854 – 20 December 1924) was a British diplomat. Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, he was the youngest son of the diplomat Sir Andrew Buchanan, 1st Baronet and Frances, daughter of the Very Rev Edward Mellish by Elizabeth Leigh. Diplomatic career Buchanan entered diplomatic service in 1876 and served as Second Secretary in Tokyo, Vienna and Bern and as Secretary in Rome. By 1899, he was serving on the Venezuelan Boundary Commission and later that year was appointed chargé d'affaires at Darmstadt and Karlsruhe. In late 1901, he moved to Berlin, where he was appointed First Secretary at the British embassy. From 1903 to 1908, he was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Bulgaria, and in 1909, he was appointed as Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Invested with the Knight's Grand Cross of Royal Victorian Order in 1909, he was next sworn to the Privy Council. In 1910, Buchanan was appointed as the British Ambassador to Russia. He kept abreast of the political developments in Russia and met some of the leading liberal reformists in the country. When the Dardanelles were guaranteed by Germany to the Ottoman Empire, Italy sent two secret documents via the British diplomatic corps from Sir Michael Rodd to Buchanan at St Petersburg. They were the evidence that Russia needed to persuade Italy to support its Serbian policy in the Balkans. On 4 March 1915, Imperiali, the Italian envoy to London, presented the documents to Sir Edward Grey on the 16 February authority from Italian Foreign Minister Sonnino. France attached great importance to Italy's decision to join the Allies. Buchanan brought Count Sazonov to the negotiating table. It has been suggested that to have been secretly encouraged by the then Liberal government in London: