GUEST BLOG: Professor Hans Fenske (2) Early German Peace Proposals

Right away, the war was ideologically charged by the Allies. During a tour of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Asquith – in Edinburgh, in September – called the war a crusade against the arrogance of a single power trying to dominate the development of Europe. In Dublin, he declared the need to prevent small nations being annihilated by an overbearing power, and claimed that the war was about the final abolition of militarism as the ruling factor in the relationships between states. In London, on 9 November, he spoke on the necessary abolition of Prussian militarism, and his fellow party member Lloyd George wanted to see the German people liberated from the hell of the military caste. The speech from the throne of 11 November held that England would continue for as long as it could dictate the peace. All this was accompanied by sharp anti-German propaganda in the media. This even went so far that Germany was frequently called “Barbaria”. The British government was later not to leave their position briefly sketched here.

In France, too, there were demands to break up Prussian militarism. In October 1944, Foreign Minister Delcassé told the Russian ambassador that the aim of France was to annihilate the German Reich and to weaken Prussia’s military and political power as much as possible. In a similar vein, in a memorandum for the French government, Sazonov  in September spoke about the destruction of German power and the German arrogance to be predominant in Europe. On 5 September, the three Entente nations contractually committed themselves not to agree on a separate peace and to talk about their war goals in public only after having consulted their Allies. Several treaties were entered into regarding these goals, even with countries like Italy which only joined the Allies later in the course of the war. The plans were about weakening Germany and destroying the Danube Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire, which had joined the war in the autumn of 1914 on the side of the Central Powers.

After the important initial successes of the German army in the West, it could not be excluded that there soon would have to be talks about peace with the opponents. That’s why Bethmann-Hollweg, who stayed in the headquarters at the time, had a catalogue of possible goals compiled – which he expressly declared provisional – which he sent to the state secretaries of the exterior and the interior for revision on 9 September. The proposals required France to commit itself to reparations for the duration of 15 to 20 years to be calculated so that she would not be capable of spending much on armament, but without calling for territorial sacrifices with the exception of the Briey ore basin. Moreover, she should be closely linked to Germany by means of a trade agreement. A different section talked about a Central European economic association under German leadership. Bethmann-Hollweg could most identify with this. But this paper did not represent a firm agenda. With the Marne battle, the German offensive came to a halt, static warfare began, and hopes for the war ending soon had to be given up.

In mid-November, the Prussian War Minister General von Falkenhayn who now led the operations in the West, told the Chancellor that it was impossible to reach a decent peace as long as Russia, France and England stuck together. So they would have to break Russia away from the Entente coalition. Their thinking was that France probably would give in once Russia made peace. Russia should have to pay sufficient war reparations but remain territorially intact, apart from slight corrections along the border. France should also have to pay reparations yet receive an honourable peace, since Germany and France would have to amicably coexist again after the war. Bethmann-Hollweg fully agreed with these considerations. If Russia could not be prised away from the opposing coalition, the war might take a disastrous turn for Germany. If this didn’t happen the prospect of the war ending because of a general mutual weariness without any decisive defeat of one party or the other became likely. Bethmann-Hollweg kept to this opinion thereafter. Now, his aim in war was Germany’s self-assertion. He wanted to get guarantees for its safety, but he explained this only in general terms. Belgium and Poland were not to become the ground for preparing military action against Germany ever again.

Shortly after the conversation of von Falkenhayn and Bethmann-Hollweg, the Danish King Christian X. offered – via the Danish ship owner and state councillor Hans Niels Andersen and the German ship owner Albert Ballin, a friend of Emperor Wilhelm II. – his services in mediating a peace in London and St. Petersburg. Bethmann-Hollweg wanted to delay an answer so as to be able to improve the military position in the East, but von Falkenhayn and the Emperor considered an understanding with Russia to be urgent and gave Andersen a positive answer. During his visit to Petrograd, as the Russian capital was now called, in 1915, Andersen was told by Nicholas II. that he would never leave his Allies in the lurch, and that he was decidedly against a separate peace. The British and French ambassadors, who had come to know about Andersen’s visit, also tried to influence Sazonov in this sense.

When, following Bethmann-Hollweg’s request, Andersen went to Petrograd again in June and in August, he got the same answer. In November of 1914, the Ministry of State also tried to enter into talks with Japan which had declared war on the German Empire in August and had annexed the German leased territory Kiautschou in the Chinese province of Shantung. The state secretary Jagow thought that England could not have any interest in further strengthening Japan. This would offer the German Empire the opportunity to get into closer contact with Japan, provided Germany would accept the loss of Kiautschou.

Then, Japan could mediate with Russia. But this contact effort failed completely. In December 1914, the Japanese ambassador in Stockholm, Uchida, made it known to his German colleague via Swedish intermediaries that Japan was not interested in communicating with Germany. In this, he acted not on orders by his government, but on his own initiative. So these contacts were fruitless. When in early 1916 Uchida first met with the German ambassador in person, he had to declare that according to the London agreement of September 1914, there would be no separate peace and that the German Empire would have to succumb to the peace conditions imposed by the Entente.

Bethmann-Hollweg publicly declared several times that the Reich would be ready to enter into talks provided the offers were appropriate. When talking to Col. Edward Mandel House, a confidant of President Wilson, he declared his sympathy for a step towards peace made by the U.S. As the year went on, there were three more statements in the same vein. In October, he came to an understanding with the Austrian-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Stephan Burián, towards a joint step towards peace. This should happen at a point in time when it could not be construed as a sign of weakness. This was the case after the conquest of Romania. On 12 December, the Central Powers of the Entente submitted the proposal, via neutral countries, to soon enter into peace talks. They would submit proposals to form an appropriate foundation for an enduring peace. They stated this publicly, Bethmann- Hollweg for instance in the German Reichstag. The Allies brusquely refused and declared that Germany and its Allies would have to atone for everything they had committed, as well as providing reparations and security collateral.

They even refused the mediation offer Wilson made on 16 December. They said that currently it was impossible to enter into a peace reflecting their ideas. They wanted the restitution of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, the handing back of Alsace-Lorraine to France, the cession of all regions with Polish settlements to Russia and the breaking up of the Danube Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire. Also, they did not want to allow the Central Powers to take part in peace negotiations on equal terms.

In late January 1917, Wilson again offered the German ambassador his services for reaching a reconciliation between the warring opponents and asked to be informed about the German conceptions. He was told that Germany wanted to win a frontier protecting Germany and Poland against Russia – the Central Powers recently had proclaimed the Kingdom of Poland –, an agreement about colonial matters, certain corrections concerning the border to France, and an economic and financial compensation between the warring opponents.

Following the death of Emperor Franz Joseph in November 1916, his great-nephew Karl stepped up to the top of the Habsburg Empire. After the failed peace offer of December 1916, Karl I was looking for peace options on private routes. In the spring of 1917, his brother-in-law Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma, a Belgian officer, conducted several talks in Switzerland, Paris and London, which, however, did not achieve any results.

GUEST BLOG: Professor Hans Fenske (1) The Allied Refusal of Peace Talks 1914–1919

This is the first of four guest blogs from Hans Fenske, Professor of Contemporary History at Freiburg University from 1977-2001 and author of Der Anfang vom Ende des alten Europa. (The Beginning of the End of Old Europe; The Allied Refusal of Peace Talks, 1914-1919.)

A War Germany did not want.

When handing over the peace treaty to the German delegation on 7 May 1919, French Prime Minister Clemenceau stated very brusquely that the most horrible war had been foisted on the Allies, and that now the time of reckoning had come. There would be no spoken negotiations; only remarks concerning the treaty in its entirety would be accepted if submitted in writing within two weeks. In his answer, German Foreign Minister Brockdorff-Rantzau rejected the accusation of exclusive responsibility and demanded that an impartial commission investigate the amount of guilt of all parties concerned.

The victorious Allied powers were not prepared to concede forming an impartial commission to look at the facts, but there were a number of neutral scholars who in their academic work reached a view appropriate to the facts. As early as 1914, the renowned American Professor of Law, John William Burgess declared – after having studied the Blue Books presented by the warring parties – that the Entente held a far greater share of responsibility for the war than Germany and the Danube Monarchy. The Swiss scholar Ernst Sauerbeck confirmed this view in 1919. According to his findings, the Entente had unleashed the war without need and turned it into what it became – the tomb of entire nations. He also accused the victorious powers of having, by means of the Versailles peace treaty, allowed the 1914-1918 war to grow into the direst doom that has possibly ever threatened the world; that is the War that began in 1939.

In addition, experts from Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, who in 1927 presented their expertise in a volume published by a Norwegian committee investigating the issue of war guilt, assessed the share of guilt of the Central Powers as low. According to Hermann Aall, the committee’s secretary, Russia had provoked the war, and Great Britain played a decisive role in its outbreak. Axel Drolsum of the University of Oslo stated that Germany in 1914 had been the only nation to have tried everything it could to keep the peace, but that it failed due to the will of the other powers to make war.

Moreover, please let reference be made to one voice from a victorious country. In 1924, the French journalist and former diplomat Alcide Ebray recommended a thorough revision of the Treaty of Versailles. He claimed that the Czarist Regime held the decisive share of war guilt, while Germany acted in favour of a conciliatory position in Vienna and St. Petersburg in 1914.

In Serbia, the radical party had been the decisive power since the bloody officers’ putsch back in 1903, during which the Royal couple had been murdered. This party pursued a decidedly anti-Austrian foreign policy which demanded that all Serbs be united within one state. The problem here was the fact that there were about as many Serbs living outside the country as within, particularly in the two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Although they nominally still belonged to the Ottoman Empire, they had been under Austrian-Hungarian administration since the Congress of Vienna in 1878. When the Habsburg Empire annexed them in 1908 following an arrangement with Russia, there was a severe international crisis. When this was settled in March 1909, Serbia had to sign a treaty pledging to again maintain good neighbourly relations with the Danube Monarchy. But this did nothing to change Belgrade’s keen antagonism towards Vienna. First, however, Serbian activities were directed towards the South. The war against the Ottoman Empire started by Italy in 1911 to conquer Libya triggered Serbian talks with Bulgaria about whether to join arms against the Turks. After entering into an alliance, the two states started the campaign in the autumn of 1912. Together with Montenegro and Greece, they took away from the Ottoman Empire nearly its entire possessions on the Balkan during the First Balkan War.

This took place with the full assent of Russia, which wanted to get the Bosporus and the Dardanelles under its control and which therefore had a strong interest in effecting changes on the Balkans. Serbia enlarged its territory considerably towards the south. In November 1912, shortly after the beginning of the war, the French ambassador in Belgrade reported to Paris that Serbia was set on bringing down Austria at the first possible occasion. King Peter asked the Russian ambassador whether to enact the downfall the Habsburg Empire now, or whether to still wait. The Russian ambassador relayed this question to St. Petersburg, from where in February 1913 came the answer that Russia was not yet ready for a war against Austria-Hungary. Serbia should content itself with the present increase in territory for now, so that it could later, once the time was ripe, lance the Austrian-Hungarian abscess. Later, more statements of this kind were issued from St. Petersburg: Serbia would find its promised land in Austria-Hungary and should prepare itself for the inevitable battle.

When, in the summer of 1913, Serbia – together with Greece and Romania – turned against Bulgaria in a struggle over the recently conquered land, Russia backed Serbia; it clearly was a satellite of Russia.

At the beginning of 1914, the leadership in St. Petersburg saw Russia far better prepared for a war than the previous year. During a council of war, a decision was taken to use the upcoming war for occupying Constantinople and the Straits. The Russian military gazette expressly declared the Czarist Regime’s readiness for war, and in late March, the head of the military academy declared in front of officers that a war with the Triple Alliance was inevitable and would probably break out in the summer. The Belgian ambassador in St. Petersburg reported to Brussels at the beginning of June that it was to be expected that Russia would soon put its war tools to use. At the same time, Foreign Minister Sazonov exerted pressure in London to quickly conclude the marine convention about which negotiations had been going on for some time. Soon after, he travelled to Romania together with the Czar. There, he asked the Prime Minister how Romania would react should Russia see itself compelled by the events to start hostile actions.

St. Petersburg was well aware that in the case of a big European conflict, Russia would be firmly backed by France and Great Britain. A Russian-French alliance had been in effect since 1894. The British-French understanding about Egypt and Morocco of 1904 was amended from 1905 by firm military agreements made by the General Staffs, about which the Belgian military was kept informed. During his visit to England in September 1912, Sazonov was assured by the British Foreign Minister Grey that in the case of a German-French war, Great Britain would support France by sea and by land, and try to deliver as destructive a blow as possible to German predominance. For Grey, Germany’s strong economic growth presented a grave threat; its weakening was thus a definite necessity for him.

When the Serbian secret society “Unification or Death” planned the murder of Austrian heir apparent Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the head of the Serbian intelligence service, Dragutin Dimitrijević, leader of the putsch of 1903, asked the Russian military attaché, whether this plan was convenient. St. Petersburg sent its consent, although they should have been aware that the Danube monarchy would have no choice but to react harshly to the murder of their heir to the throne. Apparently, Russian leadership thought the moment had arrived to lance the Austrian-Hungarian abscess.

In mid-June, German Reich Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg asked the German ambassador in London to talk with Grey about securing European peace. If another crisis was to erupt in the Balkans, Russia might react more decisively  than before due to its comprehensive rearmament. Whether this would result in a European clash would depend entirely on Great Britain and Germany. If both states were to act as guarantors of peace, then war might be prevented. If not, any arbitrary marginal difference might light the war torch between Russia and Austria-Hungary. Grey’s response to the ambassador was placatory, but of course he did not tell him the truth.

After the Sarajevo murder on 28 June, Austrian Foreign Minister Berchtold and General Chief of Staff Hötzendorf argued for an immediate strike against Serbia. The Hungarian Prime Minister prevented this. They agreed to demand of Serbia absolute clarification about the crime, but to hand over the respective note only after the end of the impending French state visit to Russia. They were sure about German allegiance to Austria in case of complications; a high-level public servant had been given this assurance when visiting Berlin on 5 and 6 July. The relevant German decision makers agreed that Russia would not intervene, so that the conflict could remain localised. That was a crass misjudgement.

During their stay in St. Petersburg on 20 through 23 July, the French guests, President Poincaré and Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Viviani, repeated the assurance of absolute French solidarity in a war against Germany, often given before. Sazonov and Viviani agreed on 23 July that everything must be done to counter the Austrian demand as well as any request which might be construed as a meddling with Serbian independence. The Austrian note to Serbia called for an unequivocal condemnation of propaganda directed against the Danube Monarchy, and lodged claims as to how this should occur. It also asked for the participation of Austrian delegates in suppressing any subversive efforts directed against the Habsburg Empire, as well as in investigating the murder. An answer was expected within 48 hours, i.e. by the evening of 25 July.

At first, the Serbian council of ministers showed a strong penchant to accommodate this request, and maybe it might have been even more pronounced, had Vienna made reference in its note to the fact that after the murder of Serbian ruler Duke Michael Obrenović in 1868, a Serbian prosecutor had conducted examinations in the Danube Monarchy. A call back to St. Petersburg was answered with the admonition to remain firm, which caused a change in opinion. Thus Serbia mobilised its forces on the afternoon of 25 July and handed over a rather conciliatory answer three hours later. Only the Austrian involvement in suppressing the subversive efforts and in investigating the murder was denied. At once, the Danube monarchy cancelled its diplomatic relations with Serbia. On the same day, Berchthold had it stated in St. Petersburg that should a battle with Serbia be foisted on Austria, this would not be about territorial gain but about defence, and that Serbian sovereignty would not be touched.

Czar Nicholas II had informally started mobilisation directly after the departure of his French guests on 24 July; the respective measures did not go unnoticed by German observers. The British navy was made ready for war on 26 July, and France called back all vacationers to their respective units. Formal Russian mobilisation against Austria-Hungary was ordered on 29 July, complete one day later. The German Empire tried to mediate until the last minute. On 28 July, the day of the Austrian declaration of war against Serbia, Emperor Wilhelm II. advised Vienna to stop in Belgrade, and even on 31 July, he urgently asked the Czar to avert the doom now facing the entire civilised world. Peace in Europe might still be kept if Russia stopped military actions threatening Germany and Austria-Hungary. Since Nicholas II. did not cancel the mobilisation order, the German Empire informed Russia on the evening of 1 August that it regarded the state of war to have occurred. On 3 August, it also declared war on France, after efforts to receive a declaration of neutrality from France had remained unsuccessful.

This was intended as a pre-emptive measure. France could not be left to choose the moment for attack; after all, German plans for a war on two fronts envisaged first turning west. The breach of Belgian neutrality by Germany, which at that point was only nominal, gave Grey the welcome opportunity to lead Great Britain into war on 4 August. Up to that point, public opinion had predominantly been in favour of steering clear of the strife on the Continent. During the crisis, Grey had been very insincere about his intentions towards German diplomats, misleading most of his cabinet colleagues, the House of Commons and the general public.

Churchill – Less Than Audacious

Winston Churchill undermined his own position with prime minister Asquith by lying about the troops he took with him to Antwerp. His official report was printed by the Times on Sunday 11 October, but of course, as an ‘official report’, it contained only the parts that Churchill was willing to disclose. Firstly, it failed to mention that the First Lord himself had been present in Antwerp and thus implied that General Paris, R.M.A. had been in charge. Furthermore it claimed that the Antwerp mission had been made in response to an appeal from the Belgian government, whereas we now know that the triumvirate of Grey, Kitchener and Churchill determined that a force be sent to ‘stiffen’ the resolve of the Belgian king.

In rightly praising the spirit of determination and bravery shown by the Royal Marines and Naval Brigades as ‘remarkable in units so newly formed’, the Admiralty claimed that losses were ‘probably’ less than 300 out of a force of 8,000. Two of the three naval Brigades arrived safely at Ostend, but one brigade of 2,000 officers and men was cut off and withdrew to neutral Holland where they were interned for the duration of the war. [1] Asquith confided to his secret love Venetia Stanley that ‘a battalion of Marines had disappeared and are still unaccounted for.’ [2] These men, who by any definition were left behind, fought their way back to the relative safety of the Channel coast.

A month later the Times was able to circumvent the Censor and print an altogether more truthful version by publishing an account written by the American journalist, E Alexander Powell from the New York World  and, for the first time, the British public caught a glimpse of Churchill’s ridiculous behaviour in Antwerp.

‘At 1 o’clock a big, drab-coloured touring-car filled with British Naval officers tore up the Place de Mier, it’s horn sounding a hoarse warning, took the turn into the narrow Marche au Souliers on two wheels and drew up in front of the Hotel… the door of the tonneau was violently thrown open and out jumped a smooth-faced sandy-haired, stoop-shouldered, youthful-looking man in the undress Trinity House uniform. It was the Right Honourable Winston Churchill.’ [3]

Powell’s piece continued in like vein, deriding the First Lord for his pretentious play-acting. Churchill did little to salve his reputation by recording in his World Crisis that when he had finished with his posturing on the front line, ‘Twenty-minutes in a motor car, and we were back in the warmth and light of one of the best hotels in Europe, with its perfectly appointed tables and attentive servants all proceeding as usual’. [4] He left his raw recruits to the mercies of the German onslaught, virtually unprotected in primitive, shallow, broad tranches, [5] ill equipped and totally inexperienced, and drove back to the best comforts the elite might enjoy. And he thought this the stuff of Heroes.

In addition to his merciless mocking of Churchill, E Alexander Powell made great mention of the ‘rawness of many of the troops, and their lack of appropriate equipment and this was the factor which distressed Herbert Asquith. His son Arthur served in the Royal Naval Division and had been present throughout the doomed Antwerp escapade. When he returned to London he personally briefed his father about the true circumstances under which Churchill had operated. Despite having assured the prime minister that all new recruits would be kept out of the action and that the main body would consist of seasoned Naval Reserves, Churchill had patched together a force in which three-quarters of the men were ‘a callow crowd of the rawest recruits, most of whom had never fired off a rifle, while none of them had ever handled an entrenching tool’. [6]

Most of these recruits went to Antwerp without water-bottles, haversacks, or bandoliers, carrying ammunition in their pockets and bayonets in their garters. [7] Indeed the Morning Post was openly critical of Churchill’s ludicrous Antwerp intervention stating clearly that only a properly trained and fully equipped force could have had a meaningful impact. They asked who had authorised and conducted the operation knowing full well that Churchill had been responsible and that General Paris, though present, had not been in command. More deadly to his future was the question ‘Is it not true that the energies of Mr Winston Churchill have been directed upon this eccentric expedition, and that he has been using the resources of the Admiralty as it he were personally responsible for the naval operations? [8] His main ally, Lord Kitchener, stood by him in justifying the action by claiming that it bought time for Sir John French to win the race to defend the northern coasts of France. [9] But Churchill’s star was on the wane.

He was losing friends. Lloyd George for one refused to recognise the value of Churchill’s intervention in Antwerp, and criticised him in front of the editor of the Daily Chronicle. [10] He ridiculed Churchill’s habit of interfering with military and naval operations and described the First Lord as ‘too wild and impulsive’. What irked Lloyd George was that Churchill had taken untrained men over to Antwerp and literally left them in the lurch. That was what moved Asquith to call it a ‘wicked folly’ and conclude that ‘nothing can excuse Winston, who knew all the facts’ [11] yet still risked these untrained men for his own greater glory. Churchill was steadily undermining his position both within the cabinet and with the general public.

There was another sense in which Churchill became the victim of his own past behaviour. In peacetime he had become accustomed to giving orders to various fleet units, to visiting ‘his’ navy and directing them as he ordained and acting as if he was indeed the  ‘Ruler of the King’s Navy’.

He continued this practice into the war though always sought to work in conjunction with the highest naval professional, the First Sea Lord. (Initially, this was Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg, able and popular in naval circles, but damned in the public imagination by a German name-tag.) Churchill’s arrogance in Cabinet meetings was well documented. Charles Hobhouse, the Postmaster-General, described him as ‘ill-mannered, boastful, unprincipled and without any redeeming features except his amazing ability and industry.’ [12] His anger at being questioned in War Council meetings, and his tendency to make excessive claims, weakened his position. As he later confessed to Maurice Hankey, the Secret Elite’s eyes and ears at the heart of the British cabinet, [13] he got ‘a bit above himself at the Admiralty’. [14] An unpopular First Lord was a huge political liability, and Churchill appeared not to have understood the danger he placed himself in by fronting a range of miscellaneous and fruitless tasks in addition to his role as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Naval successes in keeping the seas clear for merchant shipping went unreported in the press lest such news gave advantage to German intelligence. Naval disasters were more difficult to hide, and impacted badly on Churchill’s leadership However, the greatest catastrophe at sea in 1914 was strictly and successfully kept out of the public domain when the fate of HMS Audacious one of the last breeds of British-built Dreadnought went unreported. Launched in 1912, she fell victim to one of 200 mines laid off the coast of Donegal by the German auxiliary mine-layer, Berlin, on 26 October 1914, to disrupt maritime traffic. Her original target had been the Firth of Clyde but a combination of extinguished coastal lights and a large amount of British warship wireless traffic convinced her captain that he would be unable to reach his target area.

Instead he decided to lay his mines in the nearest shipping lane, which was twenty miles out from Tory Island and Lough Swilly on the north coast of Ireland.  Unknown to the German command the British Grand Fleet was using Lough Swilly as a safe haven while the main base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands was modernising its defences against submarine attack. A 5,000 ton merchant ship, Manchester Commerce, was sunk by one of the mines on 26 October with the loss of 14 lives, but the presence of the mine-field remained undetected. Next morning, 27 October, Vice Admiral Warrender took the Second Battle Squadron out of Lough Swilly on a gunnery exercise.

 At approximately 08.45 HMS Audacious was struck by a mine on her port side and she developed a 10-15 degree list. All but 250 essential crew were taken aboard the White Star liner,  SS Olympic (sister ship to the ill-fated Titanic) whose passengers looked on in awe as the great ship sunk slowly over twelve hours of desperate and sustained effort to tow her to safety. By 17.00 the last crew-members were removed; at 18.15 she was abandoned. [15]

The sheer drama of events as they unfolded was photographed from the deck of the Olympic. Hundreds of her passengers looked on in fascination as Audacious slowly sank into the Atlantic, but despite this, news of the disaster was never published in Britain during the war. Churchill, backed resolutely by Kitchener, understandably insisted that a blanket news-ban be drawn over the disastrous loss. Asquith later told his wife Margot that the whole cabinet, except for Lloyd George and himself, favoured the ban on news of the Audacious. [16] Of course it would have undermined public morale if the man on the street learned that a multi-million pound ship had been blown out of the water by a single mine. It would not have been deemed appropriate to fuel a debate on the value of Dreadnoughts in October 1914.

Although a photograph taken from the Olympic was published in the Philadelphia Public Leger, the official report of the loss of the Audacious was not announced until 14 November 1918. The notice also added that ‘this was kept secret at the urgent request of the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Fleet, and the Press loyally refrained from giving it any publicity.’ [17] That was true, but Churchill’s growing critics in the press made oblique references in articles and editorials to the word ‘audacious’ [18] to the extent that an illustration of the disaster appeared entitled, ‘An audacious picture’ [19] Despite being accustomed to abuse from the press and from direct parliamentary attack, Churchill later claimed that he sensed the ‘the adverse and hostile currents’ that presaged the start of a sea-change in public opinion against him. [20]

The Secret Elite could only protect its political agents to a degree that retained some public support. Had Churchill been able to contain his urge to be the hero, or pick up and run with every new idea despite the considered objections of his colleagues, he might have survived the war as First Lord of the Admiralty. Such level-headed consideration was beyond him. His obsession to be seen as the man with the ‘big idea’, together with his reckless ego, was to have disastrous consequences both for himself, and for the naval and military forces with whose deployment he continually interfered. The Antwerp fiasco did nothing to stop his folly.

[1] The Times, 11 October, 1914, p.1.
[2] Michael and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.273.
[3] The Times, 27 November, 1914, p.5.
[4] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918, p.197.
[5] Geoffrey Sparrow and J N MacBean Ross, On Four Fronts with the Royal Naval Division, p.22.
[6] Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.275.
[7] Ibid., p.276.
[8] Morning Post, 13 October, 1914.
[9] Statement to Parliament, Lord Kitchener, 26 November 1914, published in The Times, 27 November, p.12.
[10] Richard Toye, Lloyd George& Churchill, Rivals for Greatness, p.131.
[11] Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.275.
[12] Edward David, Inside Asquith’s Cabinet, p.121.
[13] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p.313.
[14] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, 1877-1918, p.415.
[15] http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/audacious.htm
[16] Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.291.
[17] The Times, Thursday 14 November, 1918, p.7.
[18] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, p.217.
[19] Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.291.
[20] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, p.218.

Churchill – The Circus Comes To Town

The British Expeditionary Force had been successfully transported across the Channel to France without the loss of a single ship between 12 and 21 August. They were protected by destroyers and submarines which closely watched the Heligoland Bight, the entrance to the German Grand fleet base at the mouth of the river Elbe, to counter any attempt at interference from German patrols. German naval planners reckoned that it would take longer for the Royal Navy to organise a cross-channel expedition and were caught by surprise at its speed of execution. Their submarines, which might have attacked the British transport ships, were engaged in searching for the main British fleet further north. [1]

On 28 August, at the Heligoland Bight, a force of five battlecruisers, eight light cruisers, thirty-three destroyers and eight submarines ambushed six German light cruisers, nineteen torpedo boats and twelve minesweepers in the early morning mists just off the coast. Asquith considered it a heartening success, describing the three German cruisers that Churchill claimed had been sunk, as ‘a good haul’. [2] Later it transpired that only one destroyer had been sunk and the cruisers damaged. In terms of ships and men lost, victory was recorded by the Royal Navy, but more important than the statistics was the impact on Kaiser Wilhelm. Stung by the loss of his precious ships so close to home, he issued orders to restrict the initiative of the Commander of the Imperial Fleet in the use of his navy. In future, any great ‘sallies’ into the North Sea had to have his prior approval. The Imperial Fleet had effectively been muzzled by its own leader. Churchill claimed that, ‘except for furtive movements by individual submarines and minelayers, not a dog stirred from August till November.’ [3] His selective-memory syndrome was alarmingly inaccurate.

At a rally in Liverpool on 21 September 1914, Churchill’s bold predictions left him a hostage to fortune. In his blustering triumphalism, he prophesied that victory was only ‘a question of how much blood is to be shed, and the more men we can send the less slaughter there will be.’ [4] While his fine sounding words were set to inspire the 15,000 souls crammed into Liverpool’s Tournament Hall, they were empty promises, as was his assertion that, ‘if the German Navy did not come out and fight, it would have to be dug out like rats in a hole’.

The rats bit back immediately. On 22 September, three ‘good and powerful [British] cruisers of an old, but not obsolete type’ were sunk in the southern part of the North Sea. [5] More than 1,400 men and boys were lost, and his political enemies claimed that this was directly due to Churchill’s incompetence. [6] A few days later, Conservative MP George Bowles circulated a pamphlet which specifically alleged that ‘despite the warnings of the admirals, commodores and captains, Mr Churchill refused, until it was too late to recall them from patrol’ and the ships had carried on, ‘certain to fall victims to the torpedoes of an active enemy’. [7] Matters deteriorated. Half a dozen German cruisers were still at large on the high seas, and a New Zealand detachment for the British Expeditionary Force refused to sail without adequate convoy escorts. Decisions had to be postponed. There was a mini-crisis at the Admiralty for Churchill had sallied off to France and was incommunicado. Asquith remained loyal to his First Lord and meekly told Venetia that ‘unfortunately Winston was away on one of his furtive missions’, confirming for certain that Churchill’s yearning to be part of the action took him where he pleased. [8]

With his navy safely ensconced at Scapa Flow like a prize collection of favoured toys, more valued in display than in action, Churchill began to look for other avenues that would promote his self image. He had to be the centre of attention. Inactivity and patience ill suited him. He was exhilarated to agree to Lord Kitchener’s request that his naval air service be used to protect London from Zeppelin raids but a second request to send a detachment of marines to reinforce Dunkirk, and give the Germans the impression that British troops were already stationed along the channel coast, backfired. Churchill’s capacity for rash judgement began to take on a comic look when first he requisitioned fifty London buses and took them to France to make a flamboyant statement. What Kitchener had not envisaged was that Churchill would leave his office and visit his marines in France. They had great fun parading around Ypres, Lille, Tournai and Douai, towns that would become synonymous with the horrendous and merciless destruction of war, as did Winston, inspecting his air bases and ‘thinking up new escapades for his Circus.’ [9]

A week later the Churchill circus rolled into the Belgian city port of Antwerp. In the aftermath of the German defeat on the Marne in September, they switched their attack towards the channel ports, and in particular, Antwerp. Its heavy fortifications crumbled before the onslaught of enormous German howitzers and the King of the Belgians appealed for urgent and immediate aid, hinting that if reinforcements did not arrive, the Belgian army might be captured intact. It was a stunning predicament. Asquith called the Belgian government’s plans to abandon the city as ‘mad’. Someone had to steady the Belgian nerve, and who better than Winston Churchill? They had been informed that the King and the Belgian army intended to evacuate to England. Churchill was on ‘one of his jaunts with the Dunkirk circus’ [10] in a special train when he was summoned back to London for a late night emergency conference with Sir Edward Grey and Lord Kitchener. It was agreed that Winston should go immediately to Antwerp, ‘and beard the King and his Ministers and infuse into their backbones the necessary quantity of starch.’ [11] How quintessentially Eton and Oxford.

Why send Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty? Did he not have other pressing duties? Sir Edward Grey, as Foreign Secretary had only ever crossed the channel once, in the company of King George in April 1914, and did not speak French. Lord Kitchener was a fluent French-speaker, but as Minister of War could hardly act as a messenger. Churchill’s capacity to speak the language actually attracted Asquith’s later ridicule as ‘the worst French you or I have ever heard’ [12.] but in what the Prime Minister called ‘one of the many unconventional incidents of the war,’ off Winston went to stiffen the Belgian resolve.

There is a different account given by Lord Esher, one of the inner-most men in the Secret Elite. [13] According to his version of events, Churchill took it upon himself to go to Antwerp without anyone’s agreement. Esher claimed that the first that Kitchener knew about the expedition was when he received a telegram the following day from Churchill in Antwerp pleading for urgent re-enforcements. [14] Churchill went to great lengths in his own account to belittle the claim, blaming Esher’s ‘uncontrollable fondness for fiction’. [15]

Whatever the truth, Churchill left Victoria station at 2.00am on 3 October on his special train for a second time. He duly arrived at the Belgian Headquarters in Antwerp dressed like an understudy from HMS Pinafore in the uniform of an Elder Brother of Trinity House. Whatever possessed him to don such inappropriate and frankly, comic apparel, bemused the American correspondent, E. Alexander Powell. He described Churchill’s arrival in the city as follows;

‘ It was a most spectacular entrance and reminded me for all the world of a scene in a melodrama when the hero dashes up bare-headed on a foam-flecked horse, and saves the heroine, or the old-homestead, or the family fortune as the case may be. The Burgomaster stopped him, introduced himself, and expressed his anxiety regarding the fate of the city. Before he had finished, Churchill was part way up the stairs. ‘I think everything will be all right now, Mr. Burgomaster,’ he called in a voice which could be distinctly heard throughout the lobby. ‘You needn’t worry. We’re going to save the city.’ [16]

Of course he was. That was how he saw himself. Unquestionably Churchill’s arrival bolstered the spirits of the populace in Antwerp as did the two thousand marines who followed and the five or six thousand naval reserves who boosted their numbers over the next few days. The British force flung itself into the trench defences of Antwerp, and Churchill relished the opportunity to inspect the Belgian positions for three consecutive days, defiant of the extreme dangers from gun-fire and shrapnel. He was in his element. When the London buses arrived bedecked in their adverts for Theatre shows, teas, tobaccos and whiskies, Antwerp reacted like Mafeking. But the raw troops who were rushed into the trenches without head protection or sufficient artillery support could only hold the line for three days under murderous fire, [17]

Winston was enjoying himself. He was ‘exhilarated by the experience’ When his old friend Jack Seely arrived in Antwerp he found him at the centre of attention ; ‘He dominated the whole place – the King, ministers, soldiers, sailors.’ [18]

Churchill was unstoppable. He telegraphed Asquith on 5 October saying that he ought to resign as First Lord and take military command of the expedition to Antwerp with an ‘appropriate military rank and a full staff.’ Charles Hobhouse, the Postmaster-General, noted that ‘he appears to have promoted during his stay in Antwerp, several officers to be Generals.’ [19] Asquith tried valiantly to avoid answering questions in Cabinet about the missing First Lord of the Admiralty, but forced by repeated questioning into reading Churchill’s telegram aloud, his colleagues burst out laughing at his stupidity. [20] All bar Kitchener.

Antwerp fell only five days after his arrival but there is a general consensus amongst establishment historians that his intervention bought time for Sir John French and the remnants of the B E F further along the coast. It may have, but that had not been Churchill’s primary aim. He was there to stiffen the King’s resolve, to save Antwerp, to save Belgium, to win the war for the nation. Little wonder some thought it ‘the mere madcap exploit of a passion for adventure’, a view rejected by his friend and apologist, Sir Edward Grey. [21] The decision to withdraw the Belgian army was taken on the evening of 6 October and the bold Churchill, in the company of General Rawlinson, immediately retired from Belgium before the German bombardment of the city’s inner defences started.

The inner-line of the Antwerp forts were pummelled from midnight on 7 October and having no means to reply, the British naval brigades had no other recourse but to withdraw towards Ghent and Ostend on 8 October. Next day German patrols entered Antwerp and on 10 October 1914, the ‘stout-hearted Governor’ surrendered the city. [22] The retreat from Antwerp was described by the Belgian journalist Charles D’Ydewalle as a terrifying business. [23] So it is always for those left with the consequences of rash decisions. The original telegramme sent by the British minister in Antwerp, Sir Francis Villiers on 2 October, warned that resistance would likely last for only five or six days, and that is precisely what happened. Churchill’s presence had made no tangible difference.

[1] Robert Massie , Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany and the winning of the Great War at sea. P. 80.
[2] Michael and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.203.
[3] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, p171.
[4] Times, 22 September 1914, p.3.
[5] Michael and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.252.
[6] Leo Manxse to J S Saunders, 8 October 1914
[7] Virginia Cowles, Winston Churchill, p.178.
[8] Michael and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.253.
[9] Virginia Cowles, Winston Churchill, p.177.
[10] Earl of Birkenhead, Churchill, 1874-1922, p. 313.
[11] Michael and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.260.
[12] Ibid., p.418.
[13] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 311.
[14] Reginald Viscount Esher, The Tragedy of Lord Kitchener, p. 67.
[15] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, p. 322.
[16] E Alexander Powell, Fighting in Flanders, pp.176-7.
[17] Ibid., p. 183.
[18] Earl of Birkenhead, Churchill, 1874-1922, p. 315.
[19] Edward David, Inside Asquith’s Cabinet, p.195.
[20] George H Cassar, Kitchener, Architect of Victory, p.245.
[21] Grey of Fallodon, Twenty Five Years, vol. 2.p. 302.
[22] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, p. 323.
[23] Charles D’Ydewalle, Albert, King of the Belgians, p. 126.

Churchill – How Not to Make Friends …

Sir Edward Grey (left) Winston Churchill This is the first of thee blogs detailing Winston Churchill’s bizarre behaviour in the first months of the war.

War broke on Churchill like an early Christmas morning, full of excitement and anticipation. He wrote privately to his wife Clementine, ‘I am … geared up and fascinated by war. Is it not horrible to be built like that? The preparations have a hideous fascination for me’.  [1] His hideous fascinations took many forms and were to have serious consequences for the prolongation of war. He had lived for war with Germany.  After his initiation into the Committee of Imperial Defence on 23 August 1911 he worked relentlessly to ensure that the Royal Navy was fully prepared for war. Churchill had given the order to mobilize the fleet without seeking Cabinet approval and on 29 July, 1914, under his strictly secret instructions, eighteen miles of warships, ‘gigantic castles of steel’ as he termed them, rushed through the Straits of Dover in the blackness of the night to the safety of Scapa Flow. [2] He was thirty-nine years of age, had every advantage of privilege bestowed on him by birth, was arguably the third most powerful man in the Cabinet after the prime minister and foreign secretary, in command of the world’s most powerful navy, and still he was not satisfied.

He was his own worst enemy. In the Cabinet meetings immediately preceding war, Asquith found him ‘very bellicose and demanding immediate mobilisation’. [3] He talked incessantly, often persuasively, but was mostly disinterested in the opinion of others. [4] Such behaviour ill becomes a headstrong child far less a Cabinet minister and was considered offensive by colleagues with whom he shared the awesome responsibility for running a war. Part of Churchill’s problem was that he remained insensitive to his Cabinet colleagues and did not hesitate to tell them how he thought they should carry out their business. He had developed a deep friendship with his mentor, Sir Edward Grey, was tolerated with benign acceptance by Prime Minister Asquith and retained the confidence of Lloyd George. But he was not popular. The Conservatives distrusted him and took every opportunity to belittle him. Many in his own party and in the Labour party harboured cold memories of his treatment of trade unionists, but in August 1914, others predicted that he was the coming man, Asquith’s successor. [5] The Secret Elite would probably have allowed him to take charge of a war cabinet had he not contrived to lay himself open to ridicule and blame.

Churchill’s approach was often very self-centred but in matters of international business he was guided by Sir Edward Grey with whom he had formed a close working partnership. With war on the immediate horizon, Churchill requisitioned four ships, two Dreadnoughts destined for Turkey and two destroyers that had been ordered by Chile which were nearing completion in British shipyards. On 29 July Foreign Office officials warned the Admiralty that crews had already arrived to collect the newly launched ships which had been paid for by Turkey. The Sultan Osman I had taken on fuel and was under orders to sail for Istanbul at once, even though unfinished. Churchill immediately ordered security forces to guard the vessels and to prevent the Turkish crews from boarding and raising the Ottoman flag. [6]  He was aware that these ships meant a great deal to the Ottoman Turks who were gravely insulted by the enforced repossession. [7] Indeed many saw this as an act of overt provocation and given that Turkey was at that point neutral, his decision was probably illegal. The two ships had been financed by public subscription and their anticipated arrival caused great excitement. A Navy-Week celebration had been planned to welcome these great battleships to Constantinople for they were intended to form the backbone of a modern Ottoman navy.

In the first days of the war bizarre decisions in the Mediterranean robbed the Allies of an early victory against the enemy. From the 28 July the Admiralty knew that a German battlecruiser, the Goeben, in conjunction with a single light cruiser, the Breslau, was cruising between the North African coast and Sicily with dangerous intent. It was assumed that these ships had orders to intercept and disrupt French transport ships taking colonial troops from Algeria to France in the event of war. [8] The Goeben in particular represented a major prize for a joint French and British Mediterranean fleet of some three battlecruisers, four armoured cruisers, four light cruisers and fourteen destroyers. The Adriatic was closed off by Rear Admiral Troubridge and the western exit from the Mediterranean was blocked at Gibraltar.

Despite the huge numerical advantage of the British and French fleets, the two German ships were allowed to escape through the Dardanelles and steamed safely into Constantinople. Turkey was at that point still nominally neutral and so bound by treaty to block entry to the Goeben and Breslau. However, the Turkish government had signed a secret pact with Germany on 2 August, 1914 [9] though this had not been formally announced. After two days of negotiation, diplomatic problems were circumvented when the German government ‘gifted’ both ships to the Turkish navy. In a brief ceremony on 16 August, they officially became the Yavuz Sultan Selim and the Midilli, though they retained their German crews.

Although Sir Edward Grey was at great pains to insist in his memoirs that ‘what went on inside the Admiralty was not known to me’ [10] two facts fly in the face of that assertion. Firstly, Grey and Churchill were known to be close friends, and had worked in consort to rush through the Anglo-Persian Oil Bill just days before the war. They certainly appreciated the importance of Turkey and the remnants of the Ottoman Empire for the future of the near and middle-east. Safeguarding the oil was part of that strategy. Secondly, it was the Foreign Office that warned the Admiralty about the danger of the battleships leaving for Turkey before they were finally completed. Clearly Grey’s department was keeping a close eye on the situation, so Winston Churchill’s action was entirely in line with the foreign policy they were pursuing. It was a policy that had never been raised in Cabinet.

The First Lord of the Admiralty reaped what he had sown. The Kaiser’s ‘gift’ of two warships had an enormously positive impact on Turkish popular opinion and drew them to Germany’s side [11] And it was a decision that suited the Foreign Office and all of the Secret Elite’s pre-war planning. Their unilateral promise to give Constantinople to Russia as a reward for crushing Germany would have been exceptionally difficult had Turkey remained neutral, and impossible had she joined with the allies. By pushing the Goeben and the Breslau into the Dardanelles, the British navy simultaneously pushed Turkey into the German camp.

In the aftermath of the Goeben’s daring dash to Constantinople, and bristling with anger at the requisitioning of her dreadnoughts, Turkey cancelled her maritime agreement with Britain on 15 August 1914. Asquith proved himself to be completely out of touch when he boldly informed Venetia Stanley that ‘we shall insist that the Goeben should be manned by a Turkish and not a German crew … as the Turkish sailors cannot navigate her, except on the rocks or mines.’ [12] Ah, the myth of the stereotypical hapless foreigner ran deep in the British psyche. Was he really surprised when, on 28 October Turkey formally entered the war against Britain? More importantly, despite Asquith’s bold claims, the German commander, Rear Admiral Souchon retained command of his ships and was placed in overall charge of the Ottoman navy. On the 29^th and 30^th October, Asquith’s over-optimism proved to be embarrassingly ill-judged when the Breslau and a Turkish Squadron under German direction destroyed Russian naval installations in the Black Sea.

Churchill later construed the Goeben’s escape as the ‘Curse’ which ‘descended irrevocably upon Turkey and the East’. [13] With what became a signature stamp of his literary style, Winston Churchill offered his personal analysis of events with eloquent hindsight, concluding that ‘the Goeben, already the fastest capital unit [warship] in the Mediterranean…[was] carrying with her for the peoples of the East and the middle East, more slaughter, more misery and more ruin than has ever been borne within the compass of a ship.’ [14] So there we have it; the blame for all the misery caused by war in the middle-East was due to the Goeben, and presumably, Rear Admiral Souchon. It was convenient to blame the Goeben and the Breslau, to blame the British admirals for failing to stop their escape or to blame the French for failing to communicate effectively with the British Mediterranean Fleet. We are asked to believe that a battle fleet from the greatest navy the world had ever seen, aided by its allies, made such catalogue of errors that the two hunted German ships were able to slip through to safety. Look at a map of the Mediterranean. The Goeben and the Breslau were shepherded into the Bosphorous.

Inside this blame-fuelled culture a darker spectre lurked. Once the Turkish navy was secured behind the powerful German ships, the Admiralty could beat its breast and the Foreign Office lament the consequences, but Constantinople was safe from Russian occupation. Sir Edward Grey and the Foreign Office, had engaged in secret and longstanding diplomatic arrangements with Russia to lure them into war by promising the ultimate prize of Constantinople. It was a false promise; one of many false promises, and it would never have been honoured. Britain and Russia still had unfinished business in Persia and the near east. If Russia had gained access to the Mediterranean, the Black Sea fleet might at some future point sail to the Suez Canal and threaten the life-line to India. That was inconceivable. Utterly inconceivable. The British Empire could have been seriously threatened if Constantinople was in Russian hands. No British government could have survived in power if it surrendered Constantinople as a consequence of a secret deal. But, with a stroke of naval ‘incompetence’, the Ottoman Turks were gifted an exceptionally powerful defence against Russian invasion.

In his own self-indulgent explanation of events, Churchill created a list of ‘ifs’, which focussed on the actions of the naval personnel, the decisions they made and the interpretations of his instructions that they followed. [15] He omitted to ask questions about the consequences of the Goeben’s escape and its consequent impact on the war. If the Goeben and Breslau had been sunk in the Mediterranean, what would the Russian navy have achieved in the Black Sea? If Rear Admiral Souchon had gone down with his ship, what would have happened to the hapless Turkish navy? What would have happened to the supply lines to Germany that could be safely operated across the Black Sea because the Goeben was there to protect them? The Goeben’s escape was more than just fortunate. It served to thwart Russian ambition in the Black Sea and the Bosphorous, and keep them dependent on continued British and French support. Had Russia captured an undefended Constantinople, what reason would they have had to continue the war in Eastern Europe?

[1] Richard Hough, Winston and Clementine, The Triumph of the Churchills, pp 278-9.
[2] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, p109.
[3] Michael and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 140.
[4] Virginia Cowles, Winston Churchill, p. 173.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Galip Baysan, Stories of the Two Battleships,
http://www.turkishnews.com/en/content /2013/04/29/stories-of-the-two-battleships/
[7] Brock, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.168.
[8] Churchill, The World Crisis, pp 116-20.
[9] Avalon Project, Yale Law Library.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20thcentury/turkgerm.asp
[10] Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years, vol. 2, p.280.
[11] Roy Jenkins, Churchill, p. 244.
[12] Brock, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p.168.
[13] Churchill, The World Crisis, p.138.
[14] Ibid., p.136.
[15] Ibid., p.138.

The Unholy Spirit

Not untypically, the different churches could also fall out over their individual contributions to the war effort. No religious group wanted to appear less supportive than the other and the issue of priest, ministers or vicars joining the ranks became a sore point between the Church of England and Non-conformist clergy.

At the start of the war the Anglican Archbishops and Bishops agreed that their priests and curates were most needed to bring pastoral comfort to their parishes at home. The ‘ecclesiastical authorities’ declared that vicars and curates should not be allowed to obtain commissions or enlist in the ranks. That had not stopped young men who had not yet completed their divinity courses from joining up. The Bishop of Birmingham pointed out that, ‘our theological colleges, which are ordinarily full of young men about to take [holy] orders…are practically empty because the students have gone to take colours.’ [1] But keeping the ordained clergy out of the firing line remained a bone of contention. In fairness 2,000 Anglican clergymen offered their services at the start of the war to the Chaplain-General to serve with the armed forces [2] The Church of England tried to justify its position. The Bishop of Birmingham wrote in September 1914:

“I know the delights of being at the front and I confess a great longing to be there again…My young clergy think that I am hard because I disapprove of them becoming combatant soldiers…but the clergy are serving England bravely when they minister comfort to the soldier’s widow wife or mother, when they help to send out to help fight for their country, young men who fear God and fear no-one else.’”[3]

Delights of being at the front? He penned that letter just after the retreat from Mons and the first Battle of the Aisne, where the prolonged valour of the British Expeditionary Force bought invaluable time for the defence of Paris at enormous cost. Soldiers would have shuddered at the very notion of the ‘delights of being at the front.’ The mayhem of attack and retreat was steadily replaced by the entrenchment ordered by Sir John French. Thousands on both sides had already been slaughtered but the myth persisted that it would all be over by Christmas. The concept of serving England bravely by comforting those in need of solace hardly acted as inspiration but the roll of recruitment sergeant in holy orders had a powerful effect.

A storm broke after a short letter to The Times on 19 February, 1915 in which the question was raised as to why Anglican vicars stayed ‘comfortably at home’ while Non-conformist and Roman Catholic clergy were enlisting. Chaplains were invaluable in the field, ministering to the wounded and dying, consoling those who had suffered mental and physical exhaustion and providing comfort in desperate situations. The problem was that other clergymen were fighting at the front. A number of non-conformist ministers joined the ranks. [4] The contrast with France was embarrassing. Prior to the war the rift between the Catholic Church and state in France had been absolute, but the necessities of war closed the breech. The Times gave extensive coverage to The Church Militant in France where military chaplains had been reintroduced and priests and monks had joined the army as soldiers. Sympathetic stories of noble Catholic priests found expression in newspapers that had previously ignored them and religion merged into propaganda with unconscionable ease.

And the Bishop of London? Winnington-Ingram continued to enjoy his war. He wrote to Sir John French and invited himself to the Western Front for two weeks over Easter  in 1915. [5] He took a large box of hymn sheets and ten thousand copies of a short pamphlets of prayers and meditations which he himself had written. He met the Field Marshall and ‘every General in the British army to whose quarters he came.’ [6] He addressed the troops as often as he could. His carefully chosen texts included, ‘Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ’ and he praised the virtue of ‘fortitude’ by which he meant sticking it out in the trenches. His itinerary had been personally approved by Sir John French and it included a promise that he would not go up to the trenches. The Bishop kept his promise. The drama of the recorded visit contained an assurance that although he could not go up to the trenches, shells fell close to his entourage ‘once at least’. [7]  He was of course a precious cargo. On another day they ‘had tea close to the German lines in what was known as a warm quarter’. [8] Winnington-Ingram’s only stipulation was to spend Easter Sunday with ‘his own regiment’, the London Rifle Brigade. [9]

He held around sixty services at all the army bases. He visited, ward by ward, twenty-two hospitals in France and spoke to hundreds of men individually and thousands at meetings and services. [10] Sir John French sent a dispatch to Lord Kitchener, which though correctly fulsome in its praise of the bishop’s mission to the troops, added that

“personal fatigue and even danger were completely ignored by his lordship. The Bishop held service virtually under shell fire and it was with difficulty that he could be prevented from carrying on his ministrations under riffle-fire in the trenches.” [11]

Why spoil a good story by sticking to the facts? By such twists of truth, legends are born. He was exactly the kind of hero that the Secret Elite needed to keep recruits flooding across the channel to fuel their war.

There can be no doubt that the Church of England saw it as its duty to maintain the flow of recruits to the great slaughter. It turned Christianity into a jihad for Britain, the Empire and a spurious notion of ‘civilisation’.  When one thinks of the abandonment of humanity, the undermining of civilisation in the name of God and a Holy War, the arrogance of a ‘Christian’ justification that Germany alone was the instigator, the psychological damage inflicted on young minds from the pulpits of certainty, the Church of England has much to ponder in offering an apology for its role in the First World War.

[1] The Times, 20 February, 1915, p.9.
[2] E H Pearce, Letter to The Times 20 February, 1915, p.9.
[3] The Times, 30 September 1914.
[4] The Times, 23 January 1915, p.4.
[5] Rev G Vernon Smith, The Bishop of London’s Visit to the Front, p.10. https://archive.org/details/bishoplondonsvi00smitgoog
[6] Ibid., p. 19.
[7] Ibid., p. 46.
[8] Ibid., p. 49.
[9] Ibid., p. 58.
[10] Ibid., p. 84.
[11] Ibid., p 89.