The Secret Elite (3): Building The Network; Spreading The Word

From 1905 Alfred Milner set himself the mammoth task of preparing the Empire for war and bringing ‘the most effective pressure to bear at once’ if the necessity arose. He gave serious consideration to how the different countries within the British Empire would react to war with Germany. In the early years of the twentieth century the Empire covered a very large portion of the earth’s surface, with a population of some 434,000,000, including over 6,000,000 men of military age. [1] It was a vast untapped source of fighting men, the cannon fodder to ensure victory, which could neither be ignored nor taken for granted. They feared that the Dominions might ‘abstain from a future war with Germany on the grounds that they had not participated in the decision to make war.’ [2 ] One of Milner’s first tasks was to arrange a colonial conference in London in 1907 in order to bring them on-board. It was vital that the Empire was wholly organised for war, and shared the Secret Elite vision.

The young men who had worked so loyally for Alfred Milner in South Africa returned to Britain fired by a determination to promote the Secret Elites’ grand plans. They dubbed themselves ‘The Round Table’, a grand Arthurian title which suggested equality of rank and importance, nobility of purpose and fairness in debate. In fact it was an unholy association of the secret society. Most members of the Round Table were lifelong friends who resolved to do great things together in the ‘national interest’. [3] Alfred Milner was both elder statesman and father figure, and his role in the Round Table was described as that of ‘President of an Intellectual Republic’. [4] Their objective was to win power and authority in national and imperial affairs. Round Table groups were essentially ‘propaganda vehicles’ comprising influential people that Quigley believed were created ‘to ensure that the dominions would join with the United Kingdom in a future war with Germany’. [5]

Their plan involved the formation of powerful semi-secret groups to influence governments and newspaper proprietors in America and throughout the Empire. Once they had a blueprint and a body of supporters in all parts of the world, ‘the quiet conspiracy could give way to a great crusade’. [6] They promoted their aims anonymously in their periodical, The Round Table: A Quarterly Review of the Politics of the British Empire. The first article in the first issue of November 1910, titled ‘Anglo-German Rivalry’, was deliberately provocative and set the tone for all the anti-German rhetoric that was to come. Carroll Quigley confirmed that this was the overriding purpose of the Round Table: ‘There can be no doubt that the original inspiration for the Round Table movement was to be found in anti-German feeling. In fact, there are some indications that this was the primary motive…’[ 7]

Round Table members aimed to gain political control and set the political agenda, but they were not willing to stand up in public. They preferred to remain behind the curtain and exercise power through political puppets whom they funded and endorsed. All was to be managed in secret, hidden from the electorate and unreported in the press. How dangerous are those who believe that they have the capacity to think and plan for the world’s good, impervious to the will of the people and disdainful of democracy itself? Closer ties with the United States were considered of crucial importance and a Round Table group was established in New York to encourage links between Westminster and Washington, and high finance in the City of London and Wall Street.

Secret Elite ties to the United States were exceedingly strong. If Rhodes original dream had taken effect, America would have returned to the Empire and played a subsidiary role to the mother of parliaments, [8] but by the turn of the twentieth century that was an impossible aspiration. However the growth of transatlantic commerce and investment and the U.S. banking links established by Rothschild and the City of London opened the door. Rich and powerful Anglo-centric eastern establishment elites on Wall Street who shared the values of the Secret Elite in London sold their souls and their services. A semi-secret organisation, the Pilgrims Society, was established on both sides of the Atlantic to promote the friendships and mutual interests, and pave the way for war. Ostensibly it claimed to seek everlasting peace. [9] Membership of the elite New York branch was closely restricted to those who could influence and manipulate politics and the press in America in favour of the Anglo-American Establishment.

Members of the JP Morgan-Rockefeller trusts and Wall Street financiers controlled the elections of pliable candidates to Congress and the Presidency itself. As if by magic a minor college president and political nonentity called Woodrow Wilson was conjured by the Democratic Party, launched into a Governorship in 1910 and propelled into the White House within two years. His Secret Elite handler, Edward M House, was given his own suite of rooms in the White House. One year on, at Christmas 1913, the Secret Elite’s political pawns and corrupt banking officials created the Federal Reserve System which put the control of America’s money supply in their hands. [10] Despite loud opposition, the Federal Reserve Bill was rushed through Congress and rapidly signed into effect by the puppet President in time to finance the British, French and, by default, the Russian war effort.

President Wilson was not the only head of state whose high office had been bought with Secret Elite money. Over the short but critical years of his reign (1901-10), King Edward VII played an important role with his Secret Elite compatriots, wooing the Czar, misleading the Kaiser, and building friendships with important European politicians and diplomats who happily committed themselves to the destruction of Germany. In France, King Edward and the Secret Elite promoted the political careers of Theophile Delcasse and Raymond Poincare from the anti-German ‘revanchiste’ group, blatant warmongers who detested Germany because she had annexed Alsace and Lorraine from France after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. These ‘revanchists’ talked reverently of the ‘lost provinces’ and lived for revenge. [11] They had one objective in mind, a further war against Germany to win back ‘their land’. The Secret Elite bribed the French press to support Raymond Poincare, firstly as prime minister in 1912 and then as President of France in 1913. It is no mere co-incidence that by 1914 the Secret Elite controlled the key men in the British cabinet as well as the presidents of France and the United States. [12]

They were also very active in Russian politics. King Edward had spoken to his cousin the Czar in favour of Alexander Isvolsky, the Russian foreign minister and later ambassador to France, whom he had befriended on a trip to Denmark in 1905. Isvolsky’s colourful and very expensive lifestyle extended well beyond his means which required to be supported by ample funds from the Secret Elite. [13] His complicity was easily bought. He hated Austria-Hungary for almost ruining his career in 1908, and stirred the Balkan countries against the Austrian Empire. [14] Bolstered by regular cash injections he was secretly assured that in the event of a successful war with Germany, Constantinople would be annexed to Russia. It was an effective but empty promise by perfidious Albion. As we will explain in detail later, the Secret Elite planned to carve up a Middle East that did not include Russia. Vast wealth lay in oil-rich sands of Persia and Mesopotamia, while Egypt guarded the vital sea-artery at Suez and the future of Palestine lay in the balance. The surrender of Constantinople to Russia was absolutely out of the question. No government in London would have survived such a disastrous concession to a nation that was distinctly unpopular with the British public. But Isvolsky believed his masters in London and loyally promoted their cause. Together, Delcasse, Poincare and Isvolsky were key figures in the lead-up to war and their influence over the Russian and French mobilisations in 1914 was crucial. All three owed their positions to the Secret Elite whose slush funds were made available to buy public opinion through the press.

Professor Quigley pointed to the ‘triple front penetration’ [15] which the Secret Elite employed to advance their cause through control of politics, the press and the writing of history. We have demonstrated how they had long controlled the political world through placemen and back-room machinations. Their control of the press was a more modern power-play. Milner above all knew how to manipulate newspapers and influence editorials. From his earliest years as a journalist working at the Pall Mall Gazette, his influence had been critical. His association with the crusading journalist W H Stead in the 1880s, brought him into contact with a number of other aspiring young journalists who went on to become major figures in the newspaper industry His personal network of journalist friends included Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times, Edmund Garrett at the Westminster Gazette, and E T Cook at the Daily News and Daily Chronicle. All were named by Professor Quigley as members of the secret society. [16] Crucially, they influenced public opinion by directing editorial policies in their newspapers.

The Times, considered by Professor Quigley to be the public voice of the Secret Elite, [17] had an intimate connection with the Foreign Office. Incredibly, Times correspondent, Charles Repington, had his own room within the War Office and was given secret access to Foreign Office and War Office correspondence. The newspaper proprietor, Alfred Harmsworth, who was most supportive of Alfred Milner during the Boer War, was closely linked to the Secret Elite, given a peerage as Lord Northcliffe, and was supported by them in his takeover of The Times in 1908. The price he paid for this honour was an obligation to retain the newspaper’s age-old policies. Editors could be changed but the essence of control always remained within the ranks of the Secret Elite. In fact The Times had been controlled by the Secret Elite for years, with members of the innermost circle ‘swarming about the great newspaper’. [18] Northcliffe’s newspaper stables also included the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Graphic. Thus in the years leading up to war a large and influential section of the British press was working to the rabid Secret Elite agenda of poisoning the minds of the British public against Germany.

Secret Elite control of the press was relatively straightforward and while the writing of history might appear more difficult, they shamelessly exerted control over academic historians and journalists to ensure that their version of the history of the war was the only one. The task of writing the Times History of the War in South Africa had been entrusted to Milner’s young acolytes and edited by Leopold Amery and Basil Williams, both listed by Professor Quigley as members of the Secret Elite. [19] The Times correspondent Flora Shaw, again a good friend of Alfred Milner and member of the Secret Elite, had access to the business of the Colonial Office and when The Times sponsored an update of the Encyclopaedia Britannica she was explicitly invited to revise and rewrite the imperial section. Surely not? Invited to revise and rewrite history? It may sound incredible, but it is certainly true.

The Secret Elite engineered their war against Germany with detailed precision and unrivalled cunning. What lay ahead was devastating but in their eyes, entirely necessary. There was a new Carthage. Germany had to be destroyed; not beaten, destroyed. Milner and his Round Table built up their connections with the press across the British Empire and infiltrated American newspapers through the Pilgrims and the Round Table. They bought the careers of President Wilson in America and President Poincare in France, where his election was crucially aided by Alexander Isvolsky’s abundant bribery and corruption. [20 ] Secret Elite control of politics and the Press was virtually complete, and we look next at the triple front approach which targeted the writing of history. Professor Quigley revealed that through Oxford University they were ‘able to monopolize so completely the writing and teaching of the history of their own period.’ [21]

[1] Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War, p.93.
[2] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p.117.
[3] A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, p.164.
[4] J. Lee Thompson, A Wider Patriotism, p.138.
[5] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p.121.
[6] Walter Nimocks, Milner’s Young Men, p.157.
[7] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p.326.
[8] W. T. Stead, The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes, p.59.
[9] New York Times, 3 March 1903.
[10] G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island, p.23.
[11] Harry Elmer Barnes, Genesis of the World War, pp.387-8.
[12] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, pp.223-4.
[13] Barnes, In Quest of Truth and Justice, p.17.
[14] John S. Ewart, The Roots and Causes of the Wars, vol. II, p.936.
[15] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p.197.
[16] Ibid., pp.311-12.
[17] Ibid., p.102.
[18] Ibid., p.42.
[19] Ibid., pp.312-313.
[20] Friedrich Stieve, Isvolsky and the World War, p.117.
[21] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p.197.