The cover description of Retreat From Glory by R. H. Bruce Lockhart in tantalizing:
By the author of British Agent. Mr Bruce Lockhart continues the fascinating story of his career. The Russian experience behind him, he tells in this new volume of the mad days in Central Europe, when the Habsburg Empire was being dismembered, exchanges were collapsing, and romance beckoned at every turn.
I came to a much different description after reading the book:
The personal and professional failures of a low-level British diplomat and supposed banker in the newly-independent countries of Central Europe immediately following World War I. The author spins yarns of socializing beyond his means while scheming to pay off his substantial debts, while his wife and son are basically abandoned in Scotland and London. Throughout the book, the author’s perceived entitlement and the presumed British superiority over continental Europe must be read with contempt as his stories of personal failures are front-and-center throughout the book. Though presenting interesting insights into Europe between the wars, readers must question the publisher’s willingness to accept such drivel.
Unquestionably Lockhart is an accomplished author with an ability to describe in great detail the locales he visited and his meeting with key players across the post-war European political spectrum. However, most decisions or key events are personally-driven, about whom next to approach for a loan or a new scheme to pay off existing debts. Without connections he’d be just another down-on-his-luck low-life, but instead he turned those connections and stories into a book, one that focuses on his failures in a variety of different situations. Eventually it becomes too much and you start scanning pages to move on.
According to Wikipedia, he divorced his first wife for her adultery, very cheeky considering he had a known lover in Moscow and apparent lovers in Germany and Czechoslovakia.
