In 1919, Sir Esmé Howard was attached to the British delegation during the Paris Peace Conference, also being made British Civil Delegate on the International Commission to Poland. At the Paris Peace Conference, Howard was assigned to drafting sections of the Treaty of Versailles dealing with Poland. That same year, he was sent to Madrid as ambassador there, arriving in August 1919. Being appointed ambassador to Spain was a major step up in the Foreign Office, but Howard knew that Spanish issues were for the most part secondary to Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary. In Howard's first annual summary as an ambassador from Madrid, Howard wrote: "In the first survey of the situation which I wrote after my arrival in this country I drew attention to three dominant factors in the state of affairs then existing: the activities of the "juntas", the labor unrest and the bankruptcy of parliamentary institutions. These elements were perhaps not so immediately threatening as they then seemed but they are still elements of mischief".