Lewis Namier

Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (/ˈneɪmiər/; 27 June 1888 – 19 August 1960) was a British historian of Polish-Jewish background. His best-known works were The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1929), England in the Age of the American Revolution (1930) and the History of Parliament series (begun 1940) he edited later in his life with John Brooke.

Namier was born Ludwik Bernstein Niemirowski in Wola Okrzejska in the Russian-controlled Congress Poland, now part of the Lublin Voivodeship of southeastern Poland, although his family moved to Austrian Poland in 1890. His family were secular-minded Polish-Jewish gentry. His father, with whom young Lewis often quarreled, idolized the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By contrast, Namier throughout his life detested it. Before coming to England he was educated at the University of Lwów in Austrian Galicia (now in Ukraine) and the University of Lausanne. At Lausanne, Namier heard Vilfredo Pareto lecture, and Pareto's ideas about elites would have a great influence on his thinking.

Namier emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1907, studied first at the London School of Economics for a year and then at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1908, and became a British subject in 1913, whereupon he anglicised his name.

During the First World War, he fought as a private with the 20th Royal Fusiliers in 1914–15 but was discharged owing to poor eyesight. He then held positions with the Propaganda Department (1915–17), the Department of Information (1917–18) and finally with the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office (1918–20).

Following the defeat of Germany in World War One, Namier joined the British delegation at the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919. Based on his personal background, Namier maintained a firm personal interest in Russian affairs; however, he was also seen as one of the biggest enemies of the newly-independent Polish state in the British political environment. During the Polish–Soviet War his relationship with the Polish delegation was highly antagonistic and his attitude towards Poland and Polish territories openly hostile. Namier was later accused of changing the British proposal – the "Curzon Line" – for the eastern border of Poland by leaving the city of Lviv (in Polish, Lwów) and the Oil Basin on the eastern side when the British Foreign Office sent a cable to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs of Bolshevik Russia, Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin [ru].

The Polish delegation had no knowledge of the existence of Line "A" whatsoever since the idea of handing Lwów over to the Bolsheviks was rejected by Prime Minister Władysław Grabski at the very beginning of talks. Lwów had never been under the rule of Moscow in its history.

Professor Piotr Eberhardt from the Polish Academy of Sciences speculates that Lloyd George could have been aware of Namier's modification; Bartłomiej Rusin refutes the claims that Namier was responsible and calls him "merely a convenient supplier of anti‑Polish arguments".

The earlier-approved compromised version of the Curzon Line which was approved at the Spa Conference in Belgium was renamed by Namier as Curzon Line "B". Chicherin relayed this document to Lenin who rejected it nevertheless, assured of his victory over Poland followed by a planned annexation of its entire territory.