The Great Coup of 1916: 1 Democracy: Roots of Poison

The Secret Elite scorn democracy. They always have. The following series of blogs trace the activities through which they eventually replaced a democratically elected government with one in which they themselves took complete control of the British  government from 1916. 

In the first years of the twentieth century, their most important influence, Alfred Milner, the passionate promoter of British Imperialism, [1] and favoured heir of Cecil Rhodes’s ideals, [2] held an absolute contempt for the British Parliamentary system [3] which he condemned as an ‘absurd waste of power’. [4] His acolyte, Philip Kerr, later lord Lothian, described his mentor’s attitude to democratic government thus:

‘In every fibre of his being he loathed the slipshod compromises, the optimistic “slogans”, the vote-catching half-truths with which democracy seemed to compromise the majestic governing art …’ [5]

Before he returned to Britain in 1905, Milner, a copious letter-writer, wrote to his future wife, then Lady Violet Cecil, that the system was hopeless. With a prescience which might make the reader today shudder, he predicted that, ‘Perhaps the great charlatan – political scallywag, buffoon, liar…and in other respects popular favourite – may someday arise, who is nevertheless a statesman…and who, having gained power by popular art, may use it for the nations ends. It is an off chance…’ [6]

(Ponder these prophetic words. Though expressed in a different era, you might be forgiven for thinking that Milner’s description fitted Tony Blair or David Lloyd George. Both were loyal servants of the Secret Elite in their day, posed as a socialist, or Liberal in Lloyd George’s case, misrepresented the reasons for promoting war, popular when first in office, considered by some to be statesmen – but not buffoons or political scallywags. No. Such words are utterly inadequate to catch their devious characters.)

Milner never accepted democratic government. He was convinced that a dedicated, hand-picked and trained elite was better-equipped to run Britain’s affairs. [7] He was an unreformed disciple of the Oxford philosopher, John Ruskin, who advocated that the control of the state should be restricted to a small ruling elite. Social order was to be built on the authority of superiors who would impose on their inferiors an absolute unquestioning obedience. [8]

With that mind-set and a determination to manipulate the political system, the highest echelons inside Herbert Asquith’s Liberal government had been successfully infiltrated before he became prime minister in 1908. [9] Sir Edward Grey (Foreign Secretary from 1905-16), Richard Haldane (War Minister from 1906-10) and Asquith himself, all Secret Elite place-men, formed the triumvirate which steadfastly steered the British Empire into a predetermined war to crush Germany in 1914. [10] In this they were abetted by Winston Churchill and eventually David Lloyd George. [11] It would be ridiculous to imply that five mediocre British politicians were solely responsible for bringing about the world war.

They did not represent democracy in any shape or form. These men refused to be answerable to parliament or the people. They were, like many who have held top political positions in Britain over the century since, mere instruments of the power behind the scenes – the all-powerful, wealthy secret cabal whom we call the Secret Elite. This sham democracy was aided and abetted by the awesome power of the popular press, much of which was owned and controlled by the same men who wielded real power.

Few knew that a powerful group of newspaper editors and owners were closely associated with Milner and the Secret Elite. His personal network of journalists included George Buckle and later Geoffrey Dawson at the Times, Edmund Garrett at the Westminster Gazette, and ET Cook at the Daily News and Daily Chronicle. All were members of the Secret Elite. [12] Their greatest ally was Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe, whom the Secret Elite approved as owner of the Times in 1908 after he had been closely vetted on their behalf by Lord Esher. [13] As owner of the Daily Mail (1896) the Daily Mirror (1903) the Observer (1905) and the Sunday Times, amongst other publications, Northcliffe’s role in the immediate pre-war years was to stir the populace against Germany. His biographers have translated this into an apparently less threatening response to the calls of Lord Milner and Lord Roberts [14] to ‘champion the cause of national defence on land, at sea and in the air.’ [15] He was the scaremonger chosen to undermine public confidence by constantly accusing Germany and the Kaiser of ill-intentions towards Britain and her Empire.

Northcliffe unleashed a torrent of fear deliberately aimed to prepare the nation for war against Germany. The Daily Mail carried concocted half-truths and downright lies to unnerve a people who had previously considered Germany no more than a friendly rival. The unrelenting propaganda spun its rabid negativity into the fabric of the nation in similar vein to the years of fear-inducing hostile headlines which led the British working classes to believe that the Brexit option in 2016 would stop the ill-perceived ‘menace’ of immigration. Falsehood became truth; reason was poisoned. Ludicrous stories filled the pages of the popular press. Little changes. [16]

Spy mania added to the sense of paranoia so cleverly promoted by Northcliffe’s stables. Ludicrous claims were made about German intentions and by default, German residents in Britain. Typical of unfounded scaremongering was Lord Roberts’s calculation that there were ‘80,000 Germans in the United Kingdom, almost all of them trained soldiers. They work many of the hotels at some of the chief railway stations, and if a German force once got into this country it would have the advantage of help and reinforcement such as no other army on foreign soil has ever before enjoyed’. [17] It was of course, nonsense, but how often has the true charlatan abused fear of immigrants to gather public support?

Milner and his associates also had backing from finance and business. He had access to Rhodes’s money and the fortunes of his South African backers, Alfred Beit and Abe Bailey. [18] Having earned the gratitude of the Rothschild family by instigating war against the Boers in order to seize their gold mines, his standing with the armaments and shipbuilding moguls could not have been higher. As increasing numbers of financiers from both sides of the Atlantic joined in associated exclusive clubs like the Pilgrims of the United States and the Pilgrims of Great Britain, [19] Milner’s influence, and consequent power, spread.

As has been fully detailed in both our Hidden History, the Secret Origins of the First World War and over several blogs, [20] this combination of political power, media exploitation and financial backing bounced the British Empire into war with Germany in August 1914 in order to create the Anglo-American supremacy in a new world order.

Consider the awful failing of assumed democracy. Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August on the basis of a package of outrageous lies, vile deception and gross exaggeration just as she did in Iraq almost a century later. Despite the presumed responsibility of government to serve the needs of its citizens and stand accountable for its actions, every check which might have stopped the war was circumvented or ignored. War with Germany was visited upon the British people and the British Empire without consent. The people were not consulted. Ironically, the Liberal government which had been elected in 1906 won a landslide victory based on ‘peace, retrenchment and reform’. [21] Further elections in 1910 returned a government whose foreign policy had not changed; officially.

Parliament was not consulted about a declaration of war in 1914, despite several reassurances from Sir Edward Grey that it would be. Asquith did not move for a vote in cabinet because he knew that the cabinet was weighed against any decision to go to war. While the Secret Elite marshalled its forces in the press, the Church of England and the hallowed halls of Oxford, opponents were caught flat-footed, disbarred from criticism as the newspapers joined ranks to exclude their views. In Parliament the substantial anti-war lobby was practically silenced when an open debate was denied them by prime minister Asquith himself. [22] Those who thought that they could turn to Lloyd George to stand firm against the war and lead a popular opposition to it were sorely disabused of the notion. Like many since, he lead the dissenters into a cul-de-sac and left them there. The Welsh firebrand welched.

Britain was railroaded into war by a government which was neither capable of running it nor elected to do so. The belief that her naval and economic power was sufficient to defeat the Germans was one of the fundamental premises which underpinned the widely held assumption in Britain that it would be ‘business as usual’. [23] Amongst a range of disinformation put about to assuage a gullible public was that the navy would protect Britain from invasion, strangle the German economy and win a low-cost war, safe behind a decade of naval investment. There was no invasion. Never at any stage in the proceedings did Germany plan for an invasion. A much vaunted blockade [24] was secretly reduced to tokenism. It would not be ‘business as usual’. Be of no doubt, and we have repeatedly made this point in our blogs, the war could have been over by the Spring/Summer of 1915 had that been the prime objective. It was not due to incompetence, though the government merited that tag, or miscalculation, that the war was outwardly mismanaged, but by very carefully executed strategies to supply the enemy and prolong the war. [25]

In fact, the Secret Elite’s men in government did a very capable job in prolonging the war. Asquith’s dithering indecision, his failure to change the nature of decision-making in cabinet proved to be a stranglehold on progress. Lloyd George acted under the supervision of the banking and financial sectors on both sides of the Atlantic and used their backing to obtain loans and munitions through the exclusive J P Morgan / Rothschild portal. [26] Sir Edward Grey’s men in the Foreign Office bent double to accommodate the American interests and completely nullify the brave and tireless efforts of the navy to run an effective blockade. They also rubber-stamped the secretive and illusionary ‘Belgian Relief’ programme which was run by Herbert Hoover to supply Germany with much needed food. [27] Churchill ran amok like a headless chicken frequently abandoning his duties at the Admiralty in favour of self-serving publicity.

Victory in the field was not the objective unless it was predicated upon the complete destruction of Germany as an economic rival, and that would take time and absolute commitment. Two very different approaches were underway. Most of the liberal cabinet set out on a loosely sketched journey believing that a short war would be won at sea, and a small army would suffice for the continental struggle; the Secret Elite’s men embarked on a long debilitating war which protected their interests, guaranteed great profits, and was backed by vast resources from the United States.

Even although the Liberal majority in Asquith’s cabinet were reluctant to abandon their laissez-faire principles, Lloyd George, recognised that control of the railway network and guarantees for the shipping insurance business were absolutely necessary to the survival of social order. [28] In other words, government in times of modern warfare required direct intervention. Tellingly, Lloyd George’s first actions were to protect the banks, the money markets and the business of war. He took credit for saving the city after embracing advice from Nathaniel Rothschild and ‘a section of the business and financial world’. [29] Of course he did. He was their man.

Liberal ideology, long mocked by Milner and his followers, proved ineffectual. Do not include Asquith, Grey and Lloyd George as ‘ liberals’. The first two had long sold their souls to the imperialist race patriots; Lloyd George had simply sold his soul. They were not proponents of a political theory or party, but obedient servants of an apolitical, (in the Party sense) anti-democratic, power-obsessed oligarchy. These political place-men of the Secret Elite (then as now) were labeled liberal for public consumption. In reality they were not what the people, and even fellow members of their own party, imagined.

Prolonging the war was of course very profitable, but winning the war was everything. By 1915, the Secret Elite realised that Asquith’s approach to war-management was failing. He and his ministers were no longer dealing with the political issues for which they had been elected and could not be trusted with the unequivocal drive to crush Germany. The Secret Elite required a government focussed on the destruction of Germany and these men were not up to it.

Hundreds of thousands of young men had already been killed. Prolonging the war required men with cold, hard hearts devoid of compassion, committed to the Secret Elite’s cause. How had Milner expressed the steel required to see war through to the ultimate destruction of the enemy? His chilling advice to Richard Haldane during the Boer War was to ‘disregard the screamers’. [30] It takes a special kind of ‘strength’ to ignore humanitarian issues, ignore the utter chaos caused by the sacrifice of so many and yet be willing to sacrifice many more. Milner had such cold steel in his core.

To the Secret Elite, Milner’s deep-rooted fears were completely vindicated. Democratic liberalism, watered down as it had been since the death of Campbell-Bannerman, [31] denied Britain a co-ordinated agency to direct the war effort. In Asquith’s cabinet, only Lloyd George, increasingly the sole candidate for Secret Elite support, grasped the need to shake up the traditional approach to government. Even a pretence of democracy would not deliver ultimate victory. It was poisoning their cause.

But how could they remove the prime minister who had done their bidding?

[1] Viscount Alfred Milner was from 1902-1925 leader of the Secret Society funded and promoted originally by Cecil Rhodes. Although he spurned elected position and championed preparations for war against Germany, once the war was underway , he and his associates wanted control of the government in wartime to control the post-war settlement was they envisaged it. See Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, pp 4-14 and p.140.
[2] He envisaged his great purpose in life to expand the English-speaking sphere of influence until it was so powerful that no nation could challenge it. see Robin Brown, The Secret Society, p. 18.
[3] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden history, The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 55.
[4] Thomas Packenham, The Boer War, p. 551.
[5] The Nation & Athenaeum, 23 May 1925.
[6] Milner to Lady Cecil as quoted in A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, p. 46.
[7] Robin Brown, The Secret Society, p. 253.
[8] J A Hobson, John Ruskin: Social Reformer, p. 187.
[9] Docherty and Macgregor, Hidden History, pp. 101-2.
[11] Winston Churchill, World Crisis Vol 1, pp. 38-9.
[12] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, pp. 311-2.
[13] Lord Reginald Esher was one of the original members of Rhodes’s Secret Society. He was the confidante of Kings Edward VII and George V. His full role in vetting and approving Northcliffe’s acquisition of The Times see, J Lee Thompson, Northcliffe, Press Baron in Politics, 1865-1922, pp. 151-3.
[14] Lord Fredrick Roberts had formerly been Commander-in-Chief of The Forces before his retiral. A close associate ofViscount Milner, with whom he shared many a platform, he avidly supported compulsory conscription to the armed forces.
[15] J. Lee Thompson, Forgotten Patriot, p. 159.
[16] The worst of his kind was William Le Queux, a Walter Mitty character, his ridiculous anti-German propaganda was supported by Northcliffe’s Daily Mail. see Christopher Andrews, Secret Service, pp. 37-48.
[17] Hansard, House of Lords Debate, 23 November 1908 vol 196, cc1691.
[18] Brown, The Secret Society, p. 253.
[19] The Pilgrims Society was the embodiment of the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Great Britain. [Its centennial history was written by Anne Pimlott Baker.] Exclusive to all but the anglo-saxon elite on both sides of the Atlantic, the Pilgrims of the United States included the most pro- British and influential bankers and financiers.
[20] In particular see Blog of 17 June 2014, Secret Elite 3 : Building the Network.
[21] The great Liberal philosophy which was trumpeted by their parliamentary leader, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who fought and won the landslide Liberal victory of 1906.
[22] Hansard, House of Commons Debate 03 August 1914 vol 65 cc1831-2.
[23] David French, The Rise and Fall of Business as Usual’, in Kathleen Burk, War and the State, The Transformation of the British Government, 1914-1919, p.10.
[24] see Blogs on the sham of blockade, posted from 10 December 2014 to February 2015. Also E Keble Chatterton, The Big Blockade.
[25] Perhaps the most interesting and puzzling scandal of the First World War was Herbert Hoover’s Commission for Relief in Belgium which ensured that war was prolonged by providing supplies, especially foodstuffs, to Germany from 1914-1917.
[26] Kathleen Burk, War and the State, The Transformation of British Government 1914-18, p. 90.
[27] Michael Amara et Hubert Roland, Gouverner En Belgique Ocuppee, p. 99 and p. 214.
[28] David French, The Rise and Fall of Business as Usual’, in Kathleen Burk, War and the State, The Transformation of the British Government, 1914-1919, p. 7.
[29] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, p. 70.
[30] J Lee Thompson, Forgotten Patriot, p. 483.
[31] Henry Campbell-Bannerman died in 10 Downing Street on 22 April 1908 from a heart attack.

The Oil Story 6: Hypocrisy And A Biblical Blind Eye

Perhaps the most searching question is why, on the outbreak of war, the British government did not force home-based multi-national oil companies, such as those owned by the Rothschilds or Marcus Samuel, to use their influence to stop supplying Germany. There can be no excuse that the government did not realise what was happening. Its close scrutiny of the oil industry in the run up to the war meant that the Foreign Office, the Exchequer, the Board of Trade, the Admiralty, and key members of the Cabinet understood the precise nature and structure of the global oil industry. [1]

Churchill defined the prevailing situation to Parliament one year before war broke out:
‘Our power to obtain additional supplies of oil fuel in time of war depends on our command of the sea’, and spoke of ‘Two gigantic corporations….In the New World there is Standard Oil; In the Old World the great combination of Shell and Royal Dutch with all their subsidiary and ancillary branches has practically covered the whole ground and has even reached out into the New World’. [2] The British government had analysed and itemised the world supply of oil in fine detail in order to assure itself of reliable supplies. It knew exactly where the oil was, who owned it and precisely how Germany obtained her oil.

On the outbreak of war, Germany should have been unable to source oil supplies directly from America. However, oil was not initially included in the definition of contraband, and as a result she could still legally import oil from the USA and other neutral countries. [3] That situation was supposed to have been changed in November 1914 when the House of Commons was informed: ‘His Majesty’s Government have reliable information that in the present circumstances any oil, copper, and certain other substances that may be imported into Germany or Austria will certainly be used exclusively for warlike purposes, and His Majesty’s Government have for this reason felt justified in adding those items to the list of absolute contraband. Every possible care is being taken to ensure that oil and copper intended for neutral countries should not be interfered with.’ [4]

Examine Prime Minister Asquith’s words. His government acknowledged that any oil allowed into Germany ‘would be used exclusively for warlike purposes’. Despite this, parliament was informed that oil intended for neutral countries should not be interfered with. It was classic double-speak. The government was well aware that much of the oil and other goods allowed through the naval blockade to neutral Scandinavian countries was being transferred on to Germany. Placing oil on the absolute contraband list was a sham. It changed nothing. Germany was still allowed to purchase oil from her neighbours in vast quantities.

Enticements were breathtaking. Rear-Admiral Consett, the British Naval Attache in Scandinavia revealed that in 1915 Germany was offering 1,8000 marks (£90) per barrel of oil whose market value in neighbouring Denmark was 125 kroner (about £7) Lubricants were always in short supply in Germany, but most especially in 1915 and 1916 [6] By December 1915 the American Ambassador in Berlin (Gerrard] recorded in his war diary that ‘probably the greatest need of Germany is lubricating oil for machines’. [7]

General Ludendorff, Deputy Chief of Staff, wrote later in his Memoirs ‘As Austria could not supply us with oil, and as all of our efforts to increase production were unavailing, Romanian oil was of decisive importance to us. But even with deliveries of Romanian oil, the question of oil supplies still remained very serious, and caused us great difficulty, not only for the conduct of the war, but for the life of the country.’ [8] Two points should be considered here. Yet again, the German High Command acknowledged that without oil the war could not have continued. He also considered Romanian oil crucial. Who owned the ‘decisively important’ Romanian oil fields? International conglomerates closely linked to the Secret Elite.

German imports of American oil through Scandinavia were well known to the British authorities from an early stage in the war. Rear-Admiral Consett repeatedly sent detailed and urgent alerts about this from his office in Copenhagen to the Admiralty, but nothing was done. Such large-scale abuse of the contraband restrictions became a scandal. In Copenhagen, German ships were openly berthing alongside tankers from America, transferring the oil, and trans-shipping every drop to Germany. Likewise in Sweden, virtually every consignment of oil imported through Stockholm was re-exported to Germany. [9] Profits for the Americans and the Scandinavians were enormous, but what did it profit the British government to turn such a biblical blind eye?

Their empty promises to prevent oil reaching Germany made a mockery of the valiant efforts of the Royal Navy in the dangerous, storm tossed waters of the North Sea. [10] The naval historian Keble Chatterton, likewise exposed the charade. He later wrote about Admiral de Chair, commander of the navy’s blockading fleet, complaining bitterly that the work of his brave sailors was deliberately undermined:

‘Those British authorities who sat in their office chairs on shore went on blundering. With some difficulty and trouble the American SS Llama [ Standard Oil ] carrying a large cargo of oil, had been chased by vessels of 10th Squadron and finally captured.

An armed guard had run the prevailing risks of submarines and taken her into Kirkwall, [Orkney Islands] yet by a mysterious mentality, someone in authority had ordered her release and allowed her to proceed on her way to Germany. She duly arrived at Swinemunde, where her most welcome cargo fetched a high price. It seems incredible that after a year’s war experience, we should deliberately allow such supplies to reach the enemy after the carrying ship had been intercepted.’ [11]

It did, of course, run much deeper than the ‘blundering’ of office bound officials as expressed by Admiral de Chair. It is inconceivable  that the oil tanker was released and allowed to continue its journey to Germany unless someone at the highest level of the British government had approved it. American vessels, including the Lusitania with the loss of 128 American lives, had been sunk by German U-boats. Outrage was being expressed by the American government, [12] yet American companies were providing the oil which fuelled those very U-Boats. It was not all they were providing.

On 9 July 1916 the large German merchant submarine Deutschland sailed into Baltimore harbour after a 16 day journey from Bremerhaven. She was welcomed with siren blasts from American and other vessels, and an official dinner was given by the Mayor of Baltimore. [13] Her cargo of chemical dyes, gemstones and medicinal products was unloaded and when she left for Germany on 2 August she carried 341 tons of nickel, a mineral essential for hardening steel for weapons production, 93 tons of tin and 348 tons of rubber.

On a second journey in November 1916 to New London, Connecticut she returned with a full cargo which included 6.5 tons of silver bullion. [14] America not only provided Germany with oil and the means to produce heavy weapons, she also helped fund her war effort. The hypocrisy was breathtaking. While the U S President apparently urged peace on Europe, American money enabled both sides to continue the war.

The hypocrisy was by no means confined to America. In exactly the same manner as raw materials such as silver, nickel, tin and rubber, and essential supplies of foodstuffs were deliberately allowed through the British naval blockade, critical supplies of oil poured into Germany from British -owned companies in the first two years of the war. In the House of Commons in July 1916, Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade was asked: ‘Whether he can ascertain what sales and deliveries, if any, of petrol, benzine, kerosene or other petroleum products have been made to enemy countries during the period of the war and which of the companies under the control of the Shell Trading and Transport Company, or any of their associated companies, have done this, other than the Astra Romana Company?’ Runciman did not reply in person, but sent his deputy, Lewis Harcourt, a long-time associate of the Secret Elite [15] to provide a typically cryptic non-answer : ‘I have no reason to think that any such sales or deliveries of petroleum products have been made, and the Shell Transport and Trading company inform me that they have not.’ [16]

The MP who put forward the question, Major Rowland Hunt, was well aware that the British company’s field at Astra Romana was selling to Germany. In effect he was not wanting to know if they were supplying oil to it, but how much. The answer was stunning in its conceit. Harcourt, as the government’s spokesman ‘had no reason to think that any sales or deliveries’ had been made. Shell said they had not, so that was the end of the matter. No further discussion, no independent investigation was required on this crucial matter. The Government appeared to accept without question the word of a multinational company that multiplied its profits by supplying the enemy.

It was, however, not a matter of naivety that shaped the official answer. It was a cover up. The war was deliberately being prolonged by oil companies partly owned by British shareholders supplying the enemy, and the top echelons of power in Britain colluded with them.

[1] F C Gerretson, History of the Royal Dutch, vol 4, p. 282.
[2] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 17 July 1913, vol 55 cc1465-583.
[3] Blockade 2: Britannia Waives the Rules, Wednesday 7 December 2014. http://www.firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com
[4] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 17 November 1914. vol 68 cc314-7.
[6] Rear-Admiral M W W P Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces p.180. Consett’s book is so important that our readers might want to peruse it. [https://ia801403.us.archive.org/27/items/unarmedforces00consuoft/unarmedforces00consuoft.pdf ]
[7] Ibid.
[8] Pierre de la Tramerye, The World Struggle for Oil p. 103.
[9] Consett, The Triumph, pp. 180-189.
[10] E Keble Chatterton, The Big Blockade, p. 73.
[11] Ibid., pp. 213-214.
[12] The United States and War: President Wilson’s Notes on the Lusitania and Germany’s reply, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, vol. XXX (1915) p. 47.
[13] Paul Konig, Voyage of the Deutschland, The First Merchant Submarine, p. 19. Konig was the Captain of the Deutschland.
[14] Dwight Messimer, The Baltimore Sabotage Cell, German Agents, American Traitors and the U-boat Deutschland During World War 1, p. 139.
[15] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 38.
[16] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 31 July 1916 vol 84 cc 2044-6.

Lusitania 3: A Statement Of Intent

In the first six months of the war the German submarine fleet was mainly used on reconnaissance missions and attacks on warships; in total, the U-boat fleet sank only ten British merchant ships. The first was the steamer Glitra on 20 October 1914 off the Norwegian coast. Having been ordered to heave-to, the ship’s company was given time to lower their life-boats and no lives were lost. [1] According to the recognised practice of international law, a submarine commander had to ascertain the identity of the target and make adequate provisions for the safety of crew and passengers before attacking an enemy merchant or passenger ship. Since it was impossible for the cramped submarines to take on board the the numbers present on large ships, the best they could do was stop the ship and give passengers and crew a chance to take to the lifeboats. [3] This was initially common practice. By early 1915 British merchant shipping still operated on a virtual peacetime basis without any reliance on a convoy system. Admiralty  Intelligence assessed that the German Imperial Fleet had no more than 25 submarines capable of blockading the British Isles, and since these could only operate in three reliefs, no more than eight were likely to be active simultaneously. [2]

Although international law was generally recognised by U-boat captains in the first months of the war, changes in British anti-submarine tactics led them to re-asses the risks they faced when surfacing near merchant vessels to give the crew the opportunity to abandon ship. At the outbreak of war, thirty-nine large British merchantmen had been fitted with 4.7-inch deck guns and increasingly more were armed with such weapons. Whereas ships could generally afford to survive several hits, a submarine which had surfaced was very vulnerable to attack and a single hit might make it impossible for her to dive. As First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill took an aggressive stance against submarine warfare by ordering merchant ships to attempt to ram U-boats on the surface.

In addition, the introduction of armed decoy tramp steamers (later named Q ships) greatly increased the risk to submarines operating from a surface position. With guns carefully concealed as deck-structure, the decoy would suddenly drop the disguised or camouflaged boards which concealed their weapons and then open fire.  This tactic was immediately successful but caused U-boat captains to rethink their strategy. The rules of engagement had been torn up and U-boats remained submerged for their own safety. There would be no warning. The first and only indication a merchant crew might get was a fast, steady stream of tell-tale bubbles heading towards them. Submarine warfare entered a new phase of silent approach and unheralded torpedo attack. In the bitterness of war the struggle for command of the seas brought ever increasing danger to maritime traffic.

On 1 February 1915 the German Chancellor approved a submarine campaign against sea-borne commerce in retaliation for the British blockade of Germany and the illegal tactics used by British merchant ships flying false ‘neutral’ flags. [4] The objective, to cut Britain’s sea communications and starve her into submission, was totally unrealistic given the paucity of U-boats and the volume of international trade.

Three days later the Kaiser approved the action and proclaimed a designated war zone around the coast of Britain and out into the Atlantic. Germany claimed the right to dispense with the customary preliminaries of visit and search before taking action against merchant vessels. They warned that belligerent merchantmen were to be sunk and it was no longer possible to avoid the danger to crews and passengers. Neutral shipping was advised to stay out of the zone from 18 February onwards or face similar consequences. There was an immediate outcry. The Times portrayed the German tactic as a war on neutrals and dismissed the Kaiser’s proclamation as a ‘new piracy’. [5]

Initially the American press dismissed the declaration as ‘bluff’. The Philadelphia Ledger dismissed it as  an ‘intimidation calculated to raise insurance rates and instil fear in shipping circles’ [6] On the other hand, international lawyer Frederic Coudert fumed that it was an ‘absolutely unprecedented stroke of barbarism’ that was ‘not in any way justified by law or morality’. In reality, analysis of the German War Zone decree showed it to be very similar to the earlier British ‘blockade’ on Germany, and government officials in the American State Department realised that the Germans  had executed a clever counter diplomatic stroke. [7] Winston Churchill remained adamant that, ‘no appreciable effect would in fact be produced upon our trade, provided always that our ships continued boldly to put to sea. On the other hand, we were sure that the German declaration and the inevitable accidents to neutrals arising out of it would offend and perhaps embroil the United States.’ [8]

Despite the initial hysteria, the German blockade of the British Isles began as promised on 18 February. That same day a British merchant ship was torpedoed in the Channel and by the end of the first week, eleven British ships had been attacked, of which seven were sunk. But put this into perspective. In the same period no less than 1,381 merchant vessels had safely arrived in, or sailed from, British ports. Trade continued unabated. In April 1915, only twenty-three ships were sunk out of over six thousand arrivals and departures. Six of these were neutrals. At least four U-boats were destroyed in the same period. [9] This was not Armageddon.

Given that the total number of U-boats operating around British shores at any given time was strictly limited, the secret codebreakers in Room 40 had, by February 1915, the capacity to track their wireless messages and follow their general direction as they moved from area to area. Though not yet an exact science, the information was priceless. On 15 February 1915, three days before the German War Zone around Britain took effect, Churchill wrote a top secret memo to the President of the Board of Trade, Walter Runciman,  outlining an opportunity which the German tactic presented. It was the kernel of an idea which appealed to both him and the inner-core agents of the Secret Elite;

‘It is of the utmost importance to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope of especially embroiling the U.S. with Germany. The German formal announcement of indiscriminate submarining has been made to the United States to produce a deterrent effect on traffic. For our part, we want the traffic — the more the better; and if some of it gets into trouble, better still’ [10]

While the Mediterranean fleet headed towards the Dardanelles, where within four days they would begin a bombardment of the Turkish forts, the Secret Elite in London were plotting to use the German submarine campaign to provide their American counterparts with a reason to entice the United States into the war. Since so very few people knew about its existence inside the Admiralty, Room 40 became a secret weapon on its own with Churchill, a key Secret Elite operative, as its master and commander.

He did not supervise the day to day operations, that was the duty of Captain ‘Blinker Hall’, but all were answerable to him. Arguments have been constructed around the climate of absolute secrecy inside the Admiralty which insist that Churchill did not know all the circumstances surrounding the Lusitania’s voyage. What nonsense. He was obsessed by control; obsessed by his own image; obsessed by the public perception that he was the Admiralty. Of course he knew.

Consider the knowledge and information available to Churchill. In Room 40 the cryptographers knew precisely which U-boats were at sea and actively hunting down merchant shipping. They could follow radio messages from area to area and plot their location. The Admiralty Intelligence Division knew how the German submarines operated and the conditions they required for a successful hit. They were aware of almost every German vessel’s position. The Admiralty Trade Division knew which merchant ships and passenger liners were approaching British waters and which were scheduled to leave. No-one had instant access to these departments, save Churchill, the First Sea Lord, Jackie Fisher and  Admiral Henry Oliver, Chief of Admiralty War Staff.

To have such detailed information to hand put Churchill in a position few leaders have ever enjoyed. He had quickly determined that the information could be used to ‘embroil the U.S. with Germany’. How had he expressed it to Runciman? The greater the traffic, the greater the opportunity for German U-Boats to sink a neutral ship, and ‘better still’ if some American traffic got ‘into trouble’. This wasn’t a chance remark. It was a statement of intent.

And through Churchill’s department, the Secret Elite intended to engineer a crisis that would swing public opinion in the United States towards war. The plan which took shape was not discussed in Cabinet, nor recorded in official papers, but Churchill’s letter demonstrated clearly that the idea of an American ship getting ‘into trouble’ was  considered secretly at the highest level. We will provide evidence that the impact of a U-Boat torpedoing a Trans-Atlantic Liner carrying American passengers was not only  discussed with the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey and even the King, but the means of enabling such a traumatic incident had been agreed. The Secret Elite intended to facilitate an international incident to Britain’s advantage using  German submarines to their own end. Had it not been the Lusitania, another such ship would have served the same purpose, but the Lusitania was the perfect target. She regularly transported the richest of Americans across the Atlantic. The endangering of a hundred migrants or working class souls has long been of less concern that an international millionaire banker or icon from high society. If only they could isolate a target, channel it towards a prowling U-boat and leave the rest to the fates …

[1] Arthur J Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Vol 11, pp. 342-3.
[2] Winston S Churchill, The World Crisis 1915, p. 283.
[3] Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Vol 11, pp. 342-3
[4] The Times, February 16, 1915, p.8.
[5] The Times, 19 February, 1915, p. 9.
[6] From the Times Washington correspondent, The Times, 6 February 1915, p. 9.
[7] Walter Millis, Road To War – America, 1914-1917, pp. 134-5.
[8] Winston S Churchill, The World Crisis 1915, p. 284.
[9] Ibid., pp. 291-2.
[10] Martin Gilbert, Churchill on America, p. 57.

Blockade 10: The Worm Turns

By 1916 a sea change had taken place in Britain. Early public expectation of a quick decisive victory predicated on naval supremacy and a successful blockade had been shattered by its abject failure. Profound disappointment, indeed a sense of disenchantment, followed. The pliant and supportive British press of 1914 began by 1916 to look for reasons why victory seemed as far away as ever. Their focus turned to the naval blockade. Stories which abounded of vessels being released to neutral nations with cargoes of cotton, oil, ores, fish, meat, flour, lard and much more, drew an angry response. The Daily Mail campaigned against the ‘Sham Blockade’ and the Morning Post criticised the ‘Make Believe Blockade’ They carried rumours that Cabinet Ministers would be impeached and Sir Edward Grey was forced to deny the accusations in Parliament. [1]

For as long as the instigators of war held office, they continually lied to parliament about the blockade, its apparent limitations and its effectiveness. Churchill began the era of the First Blockade with his definitive and much publicised speech at the Guildhall on 9 November 1914, where he assured the nation that a naval blockade was in operation and promised that;

‘The economic stringency resulting from a naval blockade requires time to reach its full effectiveness…But wait a bit….and you will begin to see the results – results which will be gradually achieved and silently achieved, but which will spell the doom of Germany as surely as the approaching winter strikes the leaves from the trees.’ [2]

Winston Churchill set the level of expectation. He proclaimed that Germany would be doomed within a year; that the blockade would absolutely bring Germany to her knees. He lied. He lied too in Cabinet on 3 March 1915, claiming that the blockade was ‘in every sense effective: no instance is known to the Admiralty of any vessel, the stopping of which has been authorised by the Foreign Office, passing them unchallenged. It is not a case of a paper blockade, but of a blockade as real and as effective as any that has ever been established’ [3] False but clever semantics. Any vessel stopped by order of the Foreign Office would certainly have been impounded, but not the vast majority that were challenged on the high seas. Churchill deliberately failed to mention what had actually transpired.

The first blockade degenerated into a farce which was described by Sir Henry Dalziel, member of parliament for Kirkcaldy, on 27 March 1917. in the following terms;

‘For the first eighteen month of the war, the Admiralty were in a state of despair with regard to the actions of the Foreign Office. They were bringing in, day after day, ships which were admittedly carrying cargo to the benefit of the enemy. What happened? A telegram was sent to London to the Foreign Office, and in reply, often in the course of a fews hours, a telegram came informing them that they ought to let the ships go through, for some reasons that were no doubt considered satisfactory by the Foreign Office, but which tended to make our sailors absolutely depressed and in despair. It is a fact that for months at a time the officers themselves absolutely refused to take ships into port. They used to send junior officers and midshipmen, who took the ships into harbour, and, treating the matter jocularly, told the Harbour Master to let the ships away in a few hours to Germany. The whole thing was treated as a farce, though ship after ship, to the knowledge of the officers, carried goods for Germany.’ [4]

The first blockade which lasted for two years was a farce, during which Britain was effectively feeding and supplying Germany; effectively prolonging the war. Heads should have rolled. Guilty men ought to have been mercilessly exposed.

Several strong-minded members of parliament pursued that issue relentlessly, even when threats were made to silence them. [5]  On 12 July 1915, Sir Henry Dalziel raised the question of cotton supplies to Germany despite being ‘threatened if I raised the question tonight that I would be counted out, and I understand that great efforts have been made …to secure that object.’ Dalziel would not be silenced: ‘After nearly a year of war we are permitting, practically with our connivance, the most essential factor in the making of high explosives to go to our enemy, and we are assisting them to make munitions that kill our soldiers. … Without the cotton which we are supplying… Germany would have been practically unable to continue the war up to the present time.’ [6]

In the Upper House, Lord Sydenham continued to berate the government’s inaction over the blockade stating bluntly in December 1915 that ‘had Germany not received indispensable commodities of many kinds the war would have been over before this’. [7] Consider the accusations by these eminent men. The First World War could have ended before the winter of 1915. Both are absolutely clear about that. Turning on the stupidity of the agreement made that year between the British government and some Danish importers, Sydenham went further. He berated them for ‘enabling the enemy to prolong the war’ and added that ‘your new Agreement (with Denmark) will help much more than ever for Germany to be fed, the war prolonged, and your blockade made a joke. [8]

In February 1916, when the failure of an effective blockade was lambasted by an outraged Press, Lord Beresford, a former First Sea Lord and highly respected Admiral, stood in the House of Lords and laid bare the fact that had a full blockade of trade with Germany been put in place, rather than the ambiguous and colander like Treaty of London, ‘the war would now have been over’. [9]

The bitter anger against those responsible for the sham blockade became very personal. At the end of the war Brigadier-General Croft, MP for Christchurch, who fought at the Somme and was twice mentioned in dispatches, accused government ministers of lying about ‘the indefensible export of essential and vital foodstuffs during 1915 and the first half of 1916’. [10] Having witnessed the selflessness and bravery of men at the front, he became intolerant of the  opportunism of politicians at home whom he held responsible. [11] Croft wanted blood. He wanted names. He wanted the public to know who had made these decisions. The answer he was given was that no minister was responsible. Incredulously, Croft responded with warranted sarcasm, ‘We fed Germans because no minister was responsible.’ His patience snapped. ‘No minister was responsible during this time, and yet we find millions of tons of produce and raw materials left this country – ore for shells to blow our men to bits with in the trenches, cotton to provide explosives for these shells, and food to feed the Germans who fired those shells.’’ [12] Read these words aloud and feel the anger. Croft accused the government of ‘actually feeding the Germans and helping them to sustain the war at that time.’ The Brigadier-General suggested that Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and President of the Board of Trade Walter Runciman be impeached. One can only imagine the consternation amongst the Secret Elite and their agents. Naturally nothing of any consequence followed. As ever they deflected accusations, camouflaged the guilty and ignored the question.

Without a doubt, the most important, detailed and accurate information about the failures of the blockade that had been meticulously recorded and forwarded to the government came from the British naval attache in Scandinavia, Captain (later Rear-Admiral) Montegu Consett. His evidence has been amply discussed in previous blogs. Consett had famously said that, ‘Nothing would have hastened the end of the war more effectively than the sinking of ships trading in ore between Sweden and Germany, or by economic pressure brought to bear on the Swedish ore industry’. [13]  Consett’s damning expose, “The Triumph of Unarmed Forces” proved page by page, statistical column by statistical column, that the blockade between 1914-1916 had been a charade; that Britain had effectively allowed Germany to be fed though Denmark, Sweden and Norway and in so doing, had prolonged the war. The Foreign Office sent their chosen man, Sir Arthur Henderson over to Scandinavia in 1915 to evaluate the situation. His subsequent report, which they refused to publish at the time, refuted Consett’s evidence and claimed that, in Sir Edward Grey’s own words, the amount of leakage in the trade was ‘much less than might have been supposed’. Henderson was immediately rewarded with a peerage as Lord Faringdon. [14]

In a dismissive and patronising speech in the House of Commons on 26 January 1916, Sir Edward Grey criticised ‘reckless statements’ and claimed, ‘we are stopping the trade coming out, and we are also stopping the imports; more than that you cannot do. You cannot do more than stop all imports into the enemy country and all exports coming out.’ [15]  He was, yet again, painting an entirely false picture. What nailed the lie was a military analysis prepared in 1916 for the senior staff conference between the British and French commanders.

Their top-secret ‘Note on the Blockade of the North Sea’ was sent to the Committee of Imperial Defence in March 1916. [16] It plainly demonstrated how inept the blockade had been.

‘Germany has been able to continue to export merchandise and securities, and thus obtain money and credits from neutrals. She has even been able to import, at a high price it is true, the provisions and goods of which she stood most urgently in need…the economic struggle has not yet been undertaken; it is of urgent importance, however, that the Governments concerned should adopt the necessary measures without delay’. The adoption of these measures… ‘would certainly have the effect of diminishing the enemy’s power of resistance, and therefore of shortening the war.’ [17]

So there it was, twenty months into the war and still the blockade was not effective. Indeed the allied military staff went so far as to say that the economic measures which would have shortened the war had ‘not yet been undertaken’. Their assessment stood in stark contrast to the lies which were routinely spouted by Grey and other government ministers. The secret Note advised the government to take a harder line on the export of British coal and to extend the list of contraband to all goods and supplies. In fact they wanted to do away with the whole concept of conditional contraband and absorb everything into one prohibited list.

The facts spoke for themselves. The real blockade had yet to be put in place. The outcry became unstoppable. Time and again contemporary writers, members of parliament, top army and naval officers repeated the mantra that war could have been won within eighteen months had there been a real blockade. George Bowles, Conservative M.P. and Admiralty Lawyer, claimed that the conflict would have been over within four and a half months. [18] Others like Lords Sydenham and Beresford estimated that war would have been over in the last months of 1915. But the war was prolonged. Millions of men were sacrificed. Profits grew ever higher. The anguished voices of reason were eventually carried by the Press and forced change. From 1917 until 1919 a very different blockade came into effect, one which we will return to at an appropriate time.

So how did the Secret Elite reconcile history once the war was ended? How did they justify the sham of the blockade? Their normal tactic was to ignore criticism and remove it from official records. Pretend it never happened. Keep it from the public eye and deny it. Most of the official records of the Admiralty, Foreign Office and Board of Trade were removed, presumed destroyed. Some, a century later, might still be locked away in the secret archives at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire. [19] Interestingly, even in 2005, The Imperial War Museum’s Book of The War At Sea, 1914-1918, makes no reference whatsoever to the Blockade. [20] Apparently the heroics of 10th Cruiser Squadron out on the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, their hardships and sacrifice, their honourable and magnificent contribution, had no part to play in the history of the war at sea. Incredible. Unjustifiable, even if the truth has to be whitewashed.

Those who sought to deny the scandal of the first blockade were, however, thwarted by the publication of Rear-Admiral Consett’s damning book “The Triumph of Unarmed Forces”, published in 1923 and subject to the most extraordinary debate in the House of Lords. [21]  Sir Edward Grey, rewarded in 1916 as Viscount Fallodon, the man at the very heart of the sham blockade, attended the debate. He claimed to know nothing about the details revealed in the book save what he had heard that day, but proceeded to argue that the zealous man on the spot knew only one part of a whole picture, while at the centre ‘some mind which can take in much more’ knew all the consequences. Grey went on to state that if the government had taken the action advocated at that time by Admiral Consett, ‘we should certainly have lost the war.’ [22]

This was an utterly incredible statement and without doubt an act of deliberate obfuscation. His defence was that had a blockade been fully implemented in the early stages of the war, ‘Britain would have had such trouble with the United States that it would have been futile to the future of the Allies’. He reiterated the old canard that, had we upset America in the early years of the war, ‘it would have been absolutely fatal’. [23] Fatal to whom? This is nonsense. There were no conditions under which America would have stopped trading with Britain, or taken sides against her. It might have caused some localised trading difficulty in 1914 but a strict blockade would have ended the war very quickly. Had he forgotten too about the Lusitania, sunk in May 1915 by a U-Boat? What chance then of America siding with Germany? None.

But the charade went on. It prolonged the war and extended the profits. When fully implemented in its second phase from 1917-18, it was much more effective in ensuring that Germany was beaten. Unnecessarily and deliberately extended beyond the signing of the Armistice in 1918, it ensured that she was crushed. Not just beaten, crushed. A million more men women and children were to die of starvation in Germany before the blockade was finally lifted. That was an even more shameful episode to which we will return.

[1] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 26 January, 1916.
[2] The Times, 10 November, 1914.
[3] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1915, p. 295.
[4] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 27 March 1917 vol. 92. cc226-80.
[5] Hansard House of Commons Debate 22 June 1915 vol. 72 cc1094-1131.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Hansard, House of Lords Debate, 20 December 1915.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Hansard House of Lords Debate, 22 February 1916 vol 21 cc72-128.
[10] Hansard House of Commons Debate, 21 March 1918 vol. 104 cc1231-57.
[11] Andrew S. Thompson, ‘Croft, Henry Page, first Baron Croft (1881–1947)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32633]
[12] Hansard House of Commons Debate, 21 March 1918 vol. 104 cc1231-57.
[13] M.W.W.P. Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces (1914-1918), p. 80.
[14]http://archive.org/stream/greatbritainsmea00greyuoft/greatbritainsmea00greyuoft_djvu.txt
[15] Ibid.
[16] Foreign Office 21 March, 1916.  Secret Note on the Blockade of the North Sea, Printed for the Committee of Imperial Defence. G-67.
[17] Ibid.
[18] George W Bowles, The Strength of England, p. 173.
[19] Ian Cobain, The Guardian, 18 October 2013.
[20] Julian Thompson, The Imperial War Museum, Book of The War At Sea, 1914-1918.
[21] Hansard, House of Lords Debate 27 June 1923 vol 54 cc647-54.
[22] Hansard, House of Lords Debate 27 June 1923 vol 54 cc653-54.
[23] Ibid.

Blockade 9: Sustaining The Enemy – Tea, Coffee And Plenty Denials

From 18 February 1915, Germany began a blockade of the British Isles. They considered it an act of retaliation. Foodstuffs and fodder had been added by the British government to the list of conditional contraband on 29 October 1914 as a reaction to the German decision to assume national control for all grain and flour in the country. The argument ran that no distinction could be placed between the military and civilian population, so all imports of foodstuffs had to be considered contraband. [1] The German Admiralty had been angered by the British decision that the whole North Sea be treated as a military area since November 1914, and interpreted the embargo on foodstuffs as a declaration of unlimited economic war. [2]

Admiral Hugo von Pohl duly warned neutrals that their merchant ships would be targeted if they tried to break the blockade. Almost immediately her U-boats struck with punishing precision. An average of two British-bound cargo ships were sunk each day and many brave merchant seamen lost their lives in the cold Atlantic or North Sea approaches, in the Irish Sea and Bay of Biscay, but the size of the British merchant fleet, and the sheer scale of the imports it carried from across the world, ensured that the German blockade had little immediate effect on life on the home front. But Germany continued to import ever increasing volumes of food. Had the British naval blockade been properly enforced at the start of the war, Germany would have been brought to her knees by the end of 1915, but her trade not only continued, it grew in enormous quantities mainly through the Scandinavian life-line. [3]

The Foreign Office in London controlled the complicated and interrelated committees concerned with the regulation of war trade through a Foreign Trade Department, a Contraband Department, a Ministry of Blockade, a Licensing Committee and Contraband Committee. [4] This was a nest of Secret Elite members and agents who devised a concept of neutrality which enabled Germany to import her much needed essential supplies through Scandinavia. As we detailed in previous blogs, Denmark and Holland became Germany’s principal and essential sea-supplied larders while Sweden was her sea-supplied workshop. Conservative M.P. and Admiralty lawyer, George Bowles, accused the Foreign Office of ‘connivance’, and he was right. He explained how,

‘ … Goods were allowed to pour into their ports by licence of the English Foreign Office from all parts of the earth … even in vast quantities from England herself … The agriculture of Denmark and Holland could not be maintained for six months without unceasing supplies of overseas food-stuffs and fertilisers, the industries of Sweden depended absolutely upon steady supplies of coal. Fertilisers, food-stuffs and coal were thus essential to Scandinavia. All three poured in. Even British steam-coal was lavished freely upon the Scandinavia workshops and railways … and the fleets of steamers transporting ore into Germany.’ [5]

This was the backdrop to Germany’s survival. An army marches on its stomach; a nation has to eat to survive, and the collapse of agriculture and food production in Germany meant that her capacity to fight beyond 1915 was critically threatened, not by guns and bullets, but by the lack of bread and potatoes. The einkreisung (encirclement) of Germany by Britain, France and Russia had given the Allies a distinct advantage in starving Germany into submission but they did not take it. The opportunity to enforce a short sharp economic war was deliberately thrown away. Surrender was not what the Foreign Office intended. The outcome that the Secret Elite had always demanded was that Germany be crushed.

Rear-Admiral Consett’s book, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, [6] written in 1923, detailed the facts, figures and information which proved beyond doubt that the Foreign Office enabled the German army to be fed and provisioned through Scandinavia for over three years. Denmark’s home-grown supplies of food, if properly rationed, were sufficient for its own population, and an effective blockade, in combination with an embargo on British exports to Denmark in 1915, would have brought about Germany’s collapse. But no. British coal and British agricultural machinery was being sent to Denmark and in some cases was unloaded from the merchantman’s hold straight into railway trucks for transit to Germany. [7] ‘It was well known to Britain’s Allies and to the Americans in Scandinavia that Britain was actually competing with neutrals in supplying the enemy. Had the supplies been withheld it would have sounded Germany’s death knell at an early date.’ [8]

The facts are overwhelming. In 1913 Britain exported 370 tons of tea to Denmark, but by 1915 it had risen to 4,528 tons. Denmark was, in turn, exporting very substantial quantities of this tea to Germany. In March 1916, Consett found the Copenhagen wharves choked with cases of tea, ‘a large part of which was from our colonies en route to Germany.’ Coffee was likewise re-exported to Germany. In 1913 Britain exported 1,493 tons to Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and this fully met their demands. In 1915, however, British exports of coffee to Scandinavia had risen dramatically by 500 per cent to 7,315 tons. In 1913 Denmark exported 81 tons of coffee to Germany, but by 1915 this had risen by almost 3000 per cent to 2,339 tons. [9] In addition, oil cake and vegetable and animal oils and fats poured into Germany from Britain via Scandinavia. Used normally for food, soap, candles, lubricants and fuels, in wartime the glycerine was extracted for explosives. Consett explained that, ‘the importance of these raw materials was based on their suitability for meeting the ultimate requirements of Germany for explosives. For three years Germany and her neutral neighbours succeeded in realising their wishes. Denmark was supplied with oils and fats and oil cake from the British Empire far in excess of the quantities she had obtained from us in peace time.’ [10]

What a chilling observation. British merchants were actively competing to supply the enemy with much needed produce and material, while their own young men were being slaughtered in Flanders. The home comforts of tea and more particularly coffee, gave succour and sustenance to the German army, and the profits flowed back to Britain and the Empire.

Lord Sydenham, a former British army officer and Colonial administrator, fiercely attacked the government’s decision to sign a trade agreement with Denmark which many considered to be a worthless sham. He berated them in the House of Lords on 20 December 1915;

‘There is no doubt whatever that Denmark has been doing an enormous trade with Germany and Austria during the last seventeen months, and the prosperity of all here is too apparent, and that Denmark has received far far more of everything than was necessary for her own use. You [the government] have helped in this, and your new Agreement will help much more than ever for Germany to be fed, the war prolonged, and your blockade made a joke. This Agreement is very wrong and should be cancelled, and you should wake up and stir up your officials or dismiss them.’ [11]

Strong language indeed. He lashed out at the blockade as a ‘joke’. And here again, as many before and after claimed, was the stark accusation that the British government was prolonging the war. Sydenham exposed where the intransigence, as he saw it, lay. Unfortunately, his exhortation that the government should ‘stir up’ or indeed dismiss the officials in charge, missed the crucial point. Foreign Office committees were stacked with the chosen appointees who were prepared to do the bidding of the Elite.

Fish, beef, pork, fats, butter and other dairy produce had been flooding into Germany from Denmark since August 1914 despite the indisputable fact that Britain could easily have stopped it. Trade Agreements with neutral countries like Denmark were sound in principle but weak in practice and the foodstuffs flowed through Scandinavia in ever greater quantities such that Germany was able to stem the tide of starvation in difficult years. The Scandinavian farming and fishing industries sustained Germany, but those industries were themselves supported by imports of fuel and fertilisers often directly from Britain. During the last six months of 1914, Denmark sold 68,000 horses to Germany and thousands of live cattle were exported every week. These animals provided more than just meat. Britain allowed Denmark to import raw hides, boots and shoes through the blockade, thus enabling her to export the horses and cattle which would otherwise have been required for her own leather industry. [12] Did no-one see the connection?

Danish farmers were selling to Germany at huge profit. In the first seven months of 1916 agricultural exports amounted to 117,000 tons. The meat export alone during this period was 62,561 tons, sufficient to provide a million meat rations per day for the German army. Britain’s supplies of animal feedstuffs, fertilisers, and coal to operate Denmark’s agricultural industry increased markedly from pre-war levels yet Danish meat and dairy produce exports to Britain dropped by 25 per cent. [13] Britain was providing the basic fodder and fertilisers to boost Denmark’s agricultural output, and the vast bulk of the produce was sold to feed the German people and their army.

Danish and Swedish fish exports to Germany also continued on an enormous scale, rising from 55,819 tons in 1913 to 157,000 tons in 1916. Over the same period their fish exports to Britain fell from 8,677 tons to 1,902 tons. Despite this, in addition to supplying all of the petrol for the fishing fleets, Britain was selling these countries practically all of their fishing nets, yarn and rope. Special fish trains were running so frequently to Germany that at times the railways could scarcely meet the demands of the fish traffic. As we have seen, the trains were running on British coal.

Germany was also supplied with a large tonnage of fish from Norway. Prior to the war (1913) Norwegian fish exports to Germany were 78,771 tons. This rose to 194,167 tons in 1916. Consett pointed out that ‘during 1916 the fish rations to the German Army had been gradually increased.’ [p. 292] During the first two years of the war, not only was the fish feeding the German army, but provided much needed glycerine for explosives production. Like the Danish and Swedish, the Norwegian fishing industry depended not merely upon petrol supplies from Britain, but many other vital imports including fishing gear. Montagu Consett exposed how the Norwegian fishing industry, by far the largest and most important in Northern Europe, depended upon British or British controlled supplies. He believed that ‘the moment and circumstances immediately following the outbreak of war could not have been more favourable for Britain purchasing the Norwegian catch in return for a guaranteed supply of all fishing accessories.’ The opportunity was ignored by the Government.

From his offices in Christiana (Oslo), Britain’s naval attache Captain Montagu Consett watched in horror as mountains of exports were piled onto the quayside in Scandinavian ports and re-routed to Germany in plain daylight. This was not a secret operation. Open trade was being conducted in contempt of whatever loose agreements Scandinavian merchants had signed with Britain to keep their ships off an official black list. Consett was adamant that ‘in 1914, the blockade could have been enforced and sure ruin brought to Germany, [but] open trade was conducted through Scandinavia. … Britain was reaping what it sowed in 1915 and 1916 when it was building up great food industries and establishing them at the gates of Germany.’ [14]

The magnitude of the traffic going to Germany was scandalous. To his great credit, Consett reported every detail of these infringements and blatant abuses. He sent indignant reports and letters to the Foreign Office, the Admiralty and eventually, tired of being ignored, to anyone in Britain he thought might listen. With questions being raised in Parliament and critical newspaper articles, something had to be done to nullify his scathing expose.

In late 1915, the Foreign Office sent Sir Alexander Henderson to visit Scandinavia and Holland in order to make ‘independent’ inquiries. Henderson was a member of parliament and deputy chairman of the Shipping Control Committee, [15] linked through financial interests to members of the Secret Elite like Ernest Cassel and Lord Revelstoke. He was in insider and was tasked to investigate the allegations that foodstuffs and vital supplies were haemorrhaging through Scandinavia to Germany. Consett was ‘exhilarated’. At last a member of government had the opportunity to see for himself the extent of the Scandinavian trade. He fully expected immediate action. The result was a secret report that the government refused to release. Sir Edward Grey called it ‘very satisfactory,’ in that it showed that ‘the amount of leakage in the trade passing from overseas through these neutral countries to the enemy is…much less than might have been supposed.’ To emphasise that all was well with the blockade, Grey claimed that ‘the general tendency of the report is to show that the maximum which can be done is being done.’ [16] This was no investigation; it was a whitewash.

As before, Grey reprimanded parliament for forgetting the rights of neutrals to supplies for their own consumption. ‘You have no right to make neutrals suffer’ was one admonition, and he maintained that ‘no ships are going through to German ports at all.’ Fair enough, if you constrain the analysis to German ports. The Foreign Secretary’s claim concluded that ‘we are stopping the trade coming out, and we are also stopping the imports; more than that you cannot do.’ [17] But Grey was deliberately dealing in semantics. It was not Germany that Faringdon had visited; it was Scandinavia.

Sir Edward Grey chose not to differentiate between direct trade (through German ports) and indirect trade (through Scandinavia) where a veritable armada of merchant shipping, coal transporters, oil tankers, fishing boats, coastal traders and the like, was transporting the life-blood for German’s survival as a fighting nation.

Sceptical MPs like Sir Henry Dalziel asked to see the report. Sir Edward Grey said ‘No’. And that was that. Not for the first time, nor the last, Edward Grey lied to parliament. When asked how long Lord Faringdon had spent in Copenhagen and which other Danish ports he had visited, Grey did not ‘consider such answers (to be) necessary’ and stressed that Lord Faringdon was ‘quite capable of judging the value or amount of information at his disposal.’ [18] Such a patronising performance was worthy of a Secret Elite agent. Lesser mortals had no need to know what was going on, or why.

Consett was bitterly disillusioned. He knew exactly what Faringdon had witnessed and could scarcely contain his anger at the deception. He bluntly countered that the report.

‘on which the future and especially 1916 so much hinged, did not represent the facts as reported to Lord Faringdon by myself, or as reported by me officially through the British legation to the Foreign Office; or as disclosed by official statistics published after the war: all of which showed that the Scandinavian trade with Germany at the time of Lord Faringdon’s visit was on an unprecedented scale.’ [19]

So, was Faringdon’s report a lie, or did he bring back the truth and collude in a whitewash? Consett noted scathingly that, ‘Sir Alexander Henderson came, saw and reported, and became Lord Faringdon.’ [20] And he was right. Immediately on his return, Alexander Henderson was raised to peerage as Baron Faringdon of Buscot Park, his 3,500 acre estate. Was this the ‘just’ reward for a monumental cover-up? Faringdon’s fawning claim was that ‘the government were to be congratulated on the way they had dealt with many difficulties, and they deserved encouraging support.’ Enough said.

It was a cover-up of the first order, and the Secret Elite’s politicians who had been lying throughout simply continued in the same vein. Despite the literal slap on the face from London, Consett kept up a barrage of complaints. He was a relentless. In the summer of 1916, Commander Leverton Harris, Director of the Restriction of Enemy Supplies Department at the Foreign Office, and later Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Blockade, was sent to Scandinavia to investigate the situation once more. Leverton Harris, was the right-hand man of Lord Robert Cecil, the Secret Elite member and Blockade Minister. Consett warned him about two burning issues; the huge tonnage of fish going to Germany and the need to stop supplies of petrol to the Scandinavian fishing fleets. He explained.

‘The Danes themselves recognised that the United Kingdom would be justified in safeguarding her own interests by preventing fish from reaching Germany. Truth is certainly stranger than fiction. That we should be supplying the Danish fishermen with all necessities; that the fishermen should be sending practically the whole of their catch to Germany; that the Danes themselves could not obtain one of the principle articles of their diet; that the fishermen should be able to obtain unlimited quantities of petrol without hindrance from the British authorities who could kill the industry if they felt so disposed; that all this should be taking place without any serious effort to stop it was both strange and true.’ [21]

His claim was indisputable, but nothing was done until later in the war. In 1916 there was just sufficient food and munitions for Germany to continue the struggle, but there was no margin, even although she had a further source from Belgium. [22] An effective blockade in combination with an embargo on British exports to Scandinavia in 1915 and 1916 would have brought about Germany’s collapse. But the war was prolonged.

[1] Daily News, 1 January 1915.
[2] C Paul Vincent, The Politics of Hunger, The Allied Blockade of Germany 1915-1919, p. 40.
[3] see blogs
[4] Vincent, The Politics of Hunger, p. 35.
[5] George F S Bowles, The Strength of England, pp. 193-4.
[6] https://archive.org/details/unarmedforces00consuoft
[7] M W W P Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, pp. 268-293.
[8] Ibid., p. 288.
[9] Ibid., pp. 210-217.
[10] Ibid., p. 168.
[11] Hansard House of Lords Debate 20 December 1915 vol. 20 cc696-744.
[12] Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, pp. 134-136.
[13] Ibid., pp. 140-2.
[14] Source
[15] Martin Daunton, ‘Henderson, Alexander, first Baron Faringdon (1850–1934)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/47784
[16] Hansard House of Commons, Speech by Sir Edward Grey, 26 January, 1916 in a pamphlet entitled, Great Britain’s Measures Against German Trade, published by Hodder and Stoughton.
[17] http://archive.org/stream/greatbritainsmea00greyuoft/greatbritainsmea00greyuoft_djvu.txt
[18] Hansard, House of Commons Debate 24 February, 1916, vol. 80. c783.
[19] Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, p. 254.
[20] Ibid., p. 253.
[21] Ibid., p. 163.
[22] The history of the Belgian Relief Commission will be fully examined in later blogs. This in itself was one of the war’s major scandals successfully hidden from the public. Suffice for the moment to say that between 1915-17, huge quantities of foodstuffs were being redirected from Belgium to Germany.

Blockade 8: Scandinavian Scandals

Germany produced only a fraction of the resources needed for the complex manufacture of her munitions industry, dominated as it was by the Krupp company. Nickel, manganese, aluminium, copper, wool and flax, and all of its requirements in rubber, oil, saltpetre and jute had to be sourced from abroad and imported at considerable cost. A survey by the German navy in 1913 confirmed that on average, munitions companies held only sufficient resources for three months production, though some might have lasted longer. Their calculations indicated that, due to the lack of raw materials, the production of the weapons of war in Germany would slump after that point. But no such collapse took place. According to Professor Sir Hew Strachan, ‘Germany’s most significant import for military purposes, iron ore, seemed relatively impervious to maritime intervention’ [1] ‘Seemed relatively impervious’? What a meaningless phrase. Was there some mystery? None at all. The undisputed fact is that for at least the first two years of the war, Germany was allowed to import the raw materials for her war industries despite Britain’s overwhelming ability to stop it. The Oxford historian and British government favourite refuses to acknowledge this.

The reader may recall previous blogs on the non-defence of Briey (12 November-3 December 2014) which explained how, throughout the war, the French gifted Germany much of her vital iron ore from the Briey basin on the Franco-German border. She also obtained vast quantities of ore from Sweden, supplies which the Allies were perfectly capable of stopping. High quality ore was one of Sweden’s natural resources and the top grade steel it produced was used in ship-building, and in particular, U-boats. Germany’s iron imports increased immediately war broke out, and Montagu Consett, the British Naval Attache in Scandinavia, warned the Admiralty that this must be stopped. What outraged him most was that ‘the haulage of ore from the mines to the the coast was carried out to a large extent by the Swedish railways with British coal; its further transport by steamer across the Baltic was also (certainly for the first two years) effected by British coal.’ [2]

Much of the Swedish ore was carried to Germany by Danish ships which served effectively as a replacement for the German merchant fleet stranded in ports on both sides of the Atlantic. Such loyal service came with an added bonus. Not a single vessel belonging to the Danish owned East Asiatic line was sunk by German submarines during the war, and the company was able to pay a 30% dividend to its shareholders in 1916. [3] Fired by British coal they shipped between four and five million tons of Swedish ore into Germany per year. Consett stated bluntly, ‘Nothing would have hastened the end of the war more effectively than the sinking of ships trading in ore between Sweden and Germany, or by economic pressure brought to bear on the Swedish ore industry. [4] As we have previously explained, a British ban on coal exports would also have had a major impact.

Sweden sent other valuable ores and metals across the Baltic to Germany including copper, which was required for every phase of naval and military warfare. Although there was no indigenous production of copper in Sweden, she increased her imports on the outbreak of war then re-exported to Germany more than three times the amount she had formerly purchased from abroad. The authorities in London were aware of this, but rather than banning British exports of copper to Sweden, they permitted them to be doubled from 517 tons in 1913 to 1,085 tons in 1915. Throughout that same period, Sweden’s exports of copper to Germany increased well beyond her normal peacetime levels. [5] Two years into the war, supplies of these commodities were still pouring from the Baltic into Germany. [6] Two years of desperate struggle on the western front against the explosive power of German howitzers was literally sustained on the back of these unchallenged imports to Scandinavia. Copper was carried into Britain from America and elsewhere across the world in British ships burning British coal. Considerable quantities of it were then exported to Sweden in British ships using British coal. Much of that copper was then sent on to Germany in ships which were, once again, powered by British coal. Quite apart from the drain on Britain’s coal supplies, scarce British merchant ships and the valuable time of their crews were being used to assist the German war effort. It defies belief.

The British government argued that it dared not halt exports to Sweden lest the Swedes retaliate by banning exports of her own products essential to Britain and the war effort. This was but one more sham excuse that collapsed under investigation. A shortage of materials like pit-props or paper could be sourced either from home or the Empire. Sweden offered nothing that could not be found elsewhere by the Allies. Britain was not dependant on Sweden. Quite the reverse. Sweden was dependent on Britain and neutral nations for a wide range of imports including coal, cereals, lubricants, petroleum, fodder and fertilisers. [7] Had it wanted to, the British government could have exerted tremendous pressure on Sweden to stop all exports to Germany, but took no definitive action until very late in the war. If Sweden had appealed to the international courts about her loss of trade, it would have been perfectly feasible for Britain and her allies to allay such fears and purchase everything that was bound for Germany. It was not to be.

Sweden also exported zinc, steel and other essential metals to Germany, in addition to wire, machinery, timber and large quantities of food. As if that was not sufficient, Britain sent Sweden more than twice her pre-war imports of the most valuable of all ingredients for strengthened steel, nickel. In 1915, of Sweden’s total imports of 504 tons of nickel, 65 per cent came from Britain and her Empire. Of this, 70 tons were sent directly to Germany. The remainder was used in Sweden to manufacture war materials for Germany. The furious British naval attache reported that ‘We sent Sweden twelve times the amount of nickel in 1915 that we did in 1913’, [8] and all of it to the benefit of the enemy.

There was a further scandal that the government tried desperately to keep from public knowledge. Crucial supplies of nickel were regularly exported to Germany from Norway. Nickel is a very hard metal essential for the manufacture of strengthened steel for guns, ships and armaments of various type. A small amount of nickel, 2% to 4%, was all that was required to harden the metals, so the ore itself was very valuable, and few countries had good natural supplies. [9] Most known deposits of nickel were already in Allied hands through the Mond Nickel Company in Canada and the great deposits in the French Dependency of New Caledonia in the Pacific. Germany’s stock of nickel in 1914 was meagre. She had sufficient only for a short war and, apart from the nickel supplied by Britain through Sweden, Germany had to rely on Norway as her sole supplier. There was only one factory in Norway capable of producing the amount Germany needed, the Kristiansand Nikkel Raffineringswerk, known as the K.N.R, which smelted about 60 tons of nickel per month, almost all of which went to Germany.

The British government agreed a contract with K.N.R by which they paid the company £1 million to limit their export of nickel to Germany to 80 tons per month. [10] While the tactic of trying to restrict German imports of nickel was understandable, the deal itself caused yet another damaging allegation. It was fraudulent. The agreed 80 ton limit was greater than the company’s total output, so Germany continued to import her full quota, and Britain received no benefit from the deal. Basically, K.N.R was handed £1 million for a contract that did not interfere in any way with its exports to Germany. [11] Consett angrily claimed that by applying appropriate pressure, Britain ‘could have prevented the export of the larger part of the nickel to Germany, or could have stopped the production of the nickel itself.’ His official and repeated representations to the Admiralty to have the nickel traffic stopped were to no avail. [12]

If the British government was unwilling to take action, others, closer to hand, were. Norwegian ships had been sunk by German U-boats using torpedoes made from steel hardened with Norwegian nickel, and there was a deep and bitter feeling of enmity towards Germany. Norwegian patriots took matters into their own hands and blew up the works in May 1917. [13] Though hardly worth a mention in the British press, this act of defiance was a serious blow to the German shell production and a major rebuilding programme was quickly underway. Then the K.N.R scandal deepened. Newspaper articles in Canada revealed a connection between the British Government, the British American Nickel Corporation and K.N.R. The accusation was that, though nominally Norwegian, K.N.R was in fact controlled by a German company in Frankfurt. [14] The claims were entirely justified. But it went much deeper than was realised. The murky world of international armaments and munitions reeked of scandal and collusions which linked compliant governments with powerful agencies and cartels often referred to as the merchants of death. When we turn our spotlight onto this dark history in the months to come, we will return to the corrupt nickel story with a vengeance.

It is absolutely unquestionable that the quantity of essential war materials that were exported from Britain, her Empire and elsewhere, through Scandinavia was vast, almost unmeasureable. There is no conclusion to be drawn other than the horrifying realisation that millions were needlessly sacrificed and the war knowingly prolonged.

[1] Hew Strachan, The First World War vol. 1, pp. 1018-9.
[2] M W W P Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces (1914-1918), p. 80.
[3] George Seldes, Iron, Blood and Profits, p. 89.
[4] Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, p. 80.
[5] Ibid., pp. 190-93.
[6] Ibid., p. 141.
[7] Ibid., pp. 84–85.
[8] Ibid., p. 201.
[9] Ibid., p. 198.
[10] Seventh Report from the Select Committee on National Expenditure, 21. December, 1920.
[11] Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, pp. 197-199.
[12] Ibid., p. 199.
[13] Ibid.
[14] The Times, 24 January, 1918, p. 8.

Blockade 7: Coal – Digging For The Enemy

Thanks to the secret Contraband Committee, trade between neutral nations and Norway, Sweden and Denmark flourished as never before. Despite the blockade that nominally operated in the North Sea, the scandalous decisions of the Contraband Committee in London meant that trade in the supplies, commodities and material vital to the continuation of the war continued virtually unchecked for over two years and Scandinavia prospered. From the very first days of war, merchants and importers in Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsingborg and Malmo found themselves inundated with orders from Germany to supply thousands of tons of animal feed, foodstuffs, ores, cotton and coal. Purchased from the Americas, North and South, from Britain and the British Empire, from other neutral countries world-wide these imports literally bounced from the quay-sides and dockyards to the goods trains and canal boats that ferried them to their final destination. Germany.

Scandinavian merchants made profits beyond their wildest dreams because Germany was willing to pay grossly inflated prices to guarantee these vital supplies. [1] Denmark, and Holland too, became Germany’s sea-based importers while Sweden served additionally as her workshop. In an international game of charades, neutral ships were moderately inconvenienced in the north sea gateways to and from the Atlantic, but the loss of time was more than compensated by the immense profits that were made in America, in Scandinavia, and in Britain, for British merchants also traded unashamedly, but secretly, with the enemy.

The volume of trade that was permitted to pass across the North Sea exceeded all previous quantities. It literally saved Germany from starvation and allowed her to continue to fight the war. British trade with Scandinavia was justified by the British government on the grounds that guarantees were in place to ensure that Germany would not benefit by these exports, but the given pledges were worthless. The Secret Elite in London knew full well what was taking place for the straightforward reason that they were facilitating it. They controlled the Contraband Committee and it in turn controlled the gateways to trade. Government departments like the Foreign Office, the Admiralty and the Board of Trade knew precisely what was happening. The evidence was presented to them, but to no avail. As the British Naval attache in Scandinavia stated, ‘All representations, facts and trustworthy analysis presented to the British government about what was happening were disregarded.’ [2]

In addition to its naval supremacy, Britain boasted another strategic advantage. She held vast reserves of the next most important weapon for waging war, coal. Scandinavia had little or none. Germany had stockpiles sufficient to cover only a limited period and their shortage of coal soon gave cause for grave concern. Some was available from outside her borders. None of the Belgian coal mines had been destroyed by their retreating army, and Germany was ‘able to extricate herself from a very difficult position with Belgian coal.’ [3] But that in itself was insufficient.

The hot summer of 1914 had resulted in a surplus of British coal available for export and initially no national embargo was placed on it. Coal merchants were asked by the Admiralty not to supply ships suspected of trading on the enemy’s behalf, but that was the only restriction placed on them before May 1915. An appeal to patriotism, to do the decent ‘British’ thing, was considered sufficient, but the moral compass of the profiteer had no place for such a sentiment. British coal was always in high demand.

It was recognised across the world as a high quality product, especially for the purpose of generating steam power. The boilers in warships were designed for burning Welsh coal, and railway locomotives for English coal. Consett records that in Denmark alone, State railways, gas works, electrical light and power stations, even breweries were dependent almost entirely on British coal. [4] The irony here is that Britain was supplying coal to Denmark, and Danish and German locomotives were carrying food and war materials to the heart of Germany in trains fuelled by British coal.

Coal was power. And it was a power that the British government could well have used to good effect if its export to Scandinavia had been immediately curtailed. Admiral Consett wrote of

‘Special fast trains packed with fish, the staple diet of many of the Danes, carried it to Germany, when fish was unprocurable in Denmark; incidentally, be it mentioned, the trains were run on British coal, and the fishing tackle was supplied by Great Britain.’ [5]

Most of the merchantmen in the Atlantic depended on British coal, and bunkering stations were scattered widely around the world to provide the necessary supply to the fleets of the Empire. An effective and instant blockade could have been introduced in August 1914 simply by denying coal to any ship suspected of trading directly or indirectly with the enemy. The Scandinavians expected that British coal supplies would be restricted or perhaps even entirely cut off on the outbreak of war, and were well aware that industrial and military disorganisation would rapidly ensue. The curtailment of coal supplies at the very start of the war would have had the most deadly effect. No coal meant no power, limited transport, no heat, no factory production. It spelled disaster for Germany.

Swedish factories and manufacturers were in the main working for Germany, yet no effort was made in Britain to control or limit the supply of coal which continued to be exported to them until the end of 1915. Indeed, British coal fuelled the transport of Sweden’s invaluable iron ore to Germany, yet it was not until the spring of 1918 that any serious attempt was made to compel Sweden to reduce her exports to Germany. The Germans continued to purchase all the necessary imports for weapons production until the end of the war ‘through the prodigal supplies of coal from her foolish and gullible enemy.’ [6] It beggars belief. And all the while the government was exhorting British coal miners to do their patriotic duty and work harder digging coal for the British war effort.

Rear-Admiral Consett had no idea that it was not foolishness and gullibility that led to this, but a very deliberate policy of the British government. He noted that ‘Throughout the war, and particularly during the first two years, large numbers of German railway trucks were to be seen in all three countries. These trucks were hauled to and from Germany with British coal. According to various newspaper reports the State railways were handling so much traffic to and from Germany that local requirements had frequently to be neglected. Not only were we actively assisting German trade in Scandinavia, but we were performing valuable transport services for the enemy.’ [7]

There was another side to this raw profiteering. The loss of coal to exports impacted on the ordinary people of Britain. In 1915, Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, was alarmed at the exorbitant coal prices that were crushing the poor in the great cities of Britain, especially London. In February of that year The Times reported that coal bought at 21 shillings per ton at the pit mouth sold in London for 32 shillings per ton with further rises imminent. [8] Concerned MPs talked of the privileged class of colliery owners who, even with fixed prices at the pit head, had become millionaires. [9] Unquestionably coal owners controlled the price and, certainly in London, the London Coal Exchange coal-ring ensured that prices remained excessive. [10] While tens of thousands of miners, around twenty per cent of the workforce, volunteered for Kitchener’s army, the families they left behind were faced with coal price increases of a criminal nature.

The poor were at the mercy of coal merchants and hawkers who went round the streets selling small quantities of coal at exorbitant prices. Living hand to mouth, and having to make critical decisions between food or fuel, the poor city dweller bore the brunt of the mercenaries’ callous profiteering. [11] On the other hand, as was pointed out by MP Sir E Markham, the rich could easily buy however much coal they needed from Harrods (acting as the middleman) because they could afford the price. [12] Yet the politicians would have it that ‘we were all in this together.’ We were not. As ever it was the poor who bore the brunt.

Despite the desperate need at home, British coal continued to be exported to neutral countries. In September 1914, Sweden alone received 633,000 tons, a seventh of her whole yearly requirement. Scandinavian ships, using British bunkers, began to pour millions of tons of re-exports into Germany via Scandinavian ports. [13] The total amount of British coal exported to Scandinavia, from the outbreak of war up to the end of 1917, was 21,632,180 tons. [14] How many innocents froze to death in slums and hovels during those awful war winters, victims too of the mercenary instincts of the war profiteer?

That is another point which has been long neglected. Britain’s success in the bitter struggle against Germany depended on two factors, man power and the blockade. In other words the country had both to use its own working capacity to the utmost for war purposes, and reduce the enemy’s productivity and resources by means of the blockade. Britain’s policy on the export of coal conflicted with both these conditions. The argument could be made that our man-power was being employed indirectly for the benefit of the enemy. Hard working miners, struggling against the odds to increase output with a much decreased labour force, were, in effect, helping to maintain the enemy’s productivity because much of their coal ended up in Germany. [15] Had they known that they were digging for the enemy, the government would have fallen. The scandal of cotton was matched only by that of coal. Indeed a powerful case could be argued. that those who permitted it betrayed their nation and were guilty of a vile form of treason.

[1] George F S Bowles, The Strength of England, p. 193.
[2] M W W P Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, pp. x-xvi.
[3] Ibid., pp. 113-4.
[4] Ibid., p. 118.
[5] Ibid., p. xiii.
[6] Ibid., pp. 119–122.
[7] Ibid., pp. 127-8.
[8] The Times, 18 February, 1915.
[9] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 22 July, 1915, vol. 73, cc1674-1794.
[10] Hansard, House of Commons Debate 19 July 1915, vol. 73, cc1196-272.
[11] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 27 July 1915, vol. 73, cc2159-84.
[12] Hansard, House of Common Debate 19 July 1915, vol. 73, cc1196-272.
[13] Consett, Triumph of Unarmed Forces, p. 119.
[14] Ibid., p. 130.
[15] Ibid., pp. 131-2.

Blockade 6: Cotton – Rich Pickings, Horrific Consequences

Almost two years before the outbreak of war, the Secret Sub-Committee set up in Whitehall to advise the prime minister, the Committee of Imperial Defence, considered how Britain should approach trading with the enemy in what they knew to be the approaching war. Its conclusions put raw cotton at the top of a list of goods prohibited from export to Germany. [1] This was not what the Foreign Office had intended so an appendix was drafted by their representative C J B Hurst highlighting the risks involved in alienating America by such a policy [2] Cotton was consequently removed secretly from the initial list of contraband with calamitous effect for Allied troops on the Western Front.

During the first year of the war cotton was not included in the contraband list, and the blockading squadron had no authority to stop its transportation to Germany. Comprising 90 per cent cellulose, cotton was essential for explosives production. Cellulose is inflammable, but when treated with nitric and sulphuric acid it becomes the basic substance for a large group of explosives and propellants. Cotton was to the munitions industry what bricks were to the housing trade. When war broke out Germany immediately imported as much cotton as possible through her neighbouring neutral Scandinavian countries. In the pre-war years Sweden, Norway and Denmark maintained relatively constant annual imports of the material, but from August 1914, these suddenly and dramatically increased.

Though there was incredulity at the decision, the British government confirmed in October 1914 that cotton would not be declared contraband. Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, British Ambassador in Washington was instructed to reassure the American Secretary of State on the matter. He immediately sent a letter to William Jennings Bryan with an assurance given on behalf of Sir Edward Grey that, ‘Cotton has not been put in any of our lists of contraband, and, as your department must be aware, it is not intended to include it in our new list of contraband. It is, therefore, as far as Germany is concerned, on the free list and will remain there.’ [3] So there can be no doubt. The British government held open the door for Germany to import the most vital of constituents for explosive projectiles, and ensured that the Americans could continue to export cotton without fear of retribution.

Thereafter, the United States shipped 3,353,638 one-hundred pound bales of cotton to Scandinavia and Holland during the first five months of 1915 while previous shipments to these countries had averaged only 200,000 bales. The vast bulk of the excess was forwarded to Germany. British businessmen were quick to take advantage of the bonanza and made large profits by boosting the cotton trade to neutral countries which bordered Germany. Huge amounts of American cotton were also imported into Britain for munitions manufacture, but between January and May 1915, cotton dealers in England re-exported 504,000 one-hundred pound bales of that cotton to Scandinavia. This was around fifteen times higher that a comparative five month period. For example, between April and May 1915, Sweden imported 17,331 tons of cotton (pre-war imports for the same time-period averaged 3,900 tons) of which 1,500 tons came directly from Britain. Holland virtually doubled her cotton imports during the month of April to 16,217 tons, of which 5,352 tons were exported from Britain. At the same time British re-exports to countries which did not border Germany were considerably reduced. [4] It was a scandal.

Millions of German shells rained death on Allied troops on the front line propelled by high explosives that were dependant on cotton purchased from Britain. Sweden’s total importation of cotton in 1913 was 24,800 tons, of which 1,940 tons came from Britain and the Empire. In 1915 there was a five fold increase to 123,200 tons with 10,300 tons exported from Britain. Sweden’s export of cotton to Germany increased from 236 tons in 1913 to 76,000 tons in 1915. [5] Before any finger is pointed at others who profiteered from the war, the first and most disgusting culprits came from Britain herself.

Though Britain generously contributed to German cotton imports by ensuring its re-export through Scandinavia, most of the produce came from America where the right to sell cotton to any buyer was steadfastly defended, and cotton millionaires prospered as never before. The British Government had been offered the option to buy up much of the 1914 crop from the United States at a comparatively low price, but the proposition was never taken up. [6] Asquith’s government made no attempt to challenge the Cotton Lobby in America. Indeed Lord Robert Cecil, under-secretary for foreign affairs in the coalition government, and a member of the Secret Elite, [7] insisted in Parliament on 12 July 1915 that Britain had a responsibility ‘to respect the legitimate rights of neutrals’ and take into consideration the needs of both America and the Scandinavian countries. [8] His excuse was that if the cotton supply to neutrals was cut off it ‘would land us in international difficulties.’ Members of parliament ‘could not understand this cowardly policy in keeping cotton out of the contraband list.’ [9] No-one could. The British public was outraged and feeling was so strong that Lord Cecil was called a ‘murderer of his own countrymen.’ [10]

Commander Keble Chatterton of the Royal Navy could not hide his disgust that the government continued to ignore the loud demands that cotton supplies to Germany be stopped.

‘It was pathetic to know that Germany had obtained practically all she wanted of the last American cotton crop via neutral countries, though we could have stopped almost the whole lot… So long as the Blockading Fleet was left alone to do its persistent duties, Germany was doomed… She had gambled on a short, quick victory – and lost. Nothing could now save her from eventual collapse except some further folly that might issue from Whitehall.’ [11]

Germany should have been doomed. The blockading squadrons were doing their duty but, as we have demonstrated, were repeatedly obstructed by Foreign Office intervention. And, of course, there were further ‘follies’, but what transpired was much more sinister than mere folly. In late June 1915, British delegates were sent to an Anglo-Swedish conference on cotton in Stockholm, and the result was that Britain permitted Sweden to import even more cotton. Despite all of the clamour raised against cotton exports, the Secret Elite continued to have their way.

The Foreign Office historian Archibald Bell recorded that, in complete contrast, the government in France consistently urged that cotton should be declared contraband. The French were astonished to learn through their ambassador that Sir Edward Grey had actually recommended that the British cabinet relax the blockade. The American ambassador at London, Walter Hines Page, a man ‘on intimate terms’ with Sir Edward Grey, reported to Washington in mid-July: “I think that the government will make a vigorous effort to resist the agitation to make cotton contraband, with what result I cannot predict.” [12]

Such was the wide-ranging clamour against cotton being exempt from contraband that The Times published a letter on 20 July 1915 from ‘A Neutral’ which raised the issue to a higher level. It hit a chord with public anguish by reporting that, ‘the mothers of French soldiers think it inconceivable that you should her supplying the enemy with the means of killing the sons of your allies. French people are continually asking, “What is the English fleet doing to allow cotton to go into Germany?” [13] Next day The Times responded through its editorial pages and raised the question of exportation of cotton and rubber to Germany, and of the ‘inadequacy of the steps so far taken by the British government to prevent these vitally important products from reaching an enemy destination,’ which was arousing serious anxiety both at home and abroad. A further alarming point was raised by the Consulting Chemist to the Crown, Bertram Blount, that ‘there can be no doubt that if cotton had been made absolute contraband from the start the Russians would not now be retreating. If the proper steps had been taken at the beginning of the war to prevent Germany from obtaining supplies of cotton, the British and French troops would now be operating on German soil.’ [14] Here, from the pen of a government scientist was proof that the allies had been denied a quick victory. He had no notion that the war was being deliberately prolonged.

Despite the widespread disgust in Britain that cotton was being allowed into Germany to make the bombs and bullets that were killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers, the government repeatedly stated they they could not place it on the contraband list for fear of losing American support. They held out against the swell of public opinion and attempted to justify their inaction. Figures were later produced to make it appear that the cotton exports were not as great as had been widely reported. Lord Lansdowne, former Conservative Foreign Secretary and trusted member of the Secret Elite, told the House of Lords:

‘Take the import of cotton to Scandinavia and Holland. The figure for 1913 is 73,000 tons. The figure for 1915 is 310,000 tons. That is a very alarming figure – an increase nearly fourfold. But if you make the comparison that I conceive ought to be made, and compare the year, not as a whole, but month by month, you will find – I put it this way for convenience sake – that in the last six months of 1913 the amount was 49,000 tons and for the last six months of 1915 was 52,000 tons.’ [15]

This was supposed to demonstrate an important turning point to the advantage of the Allies, but Rear-Admiral Consett worked through the statistics properly. He proved that while it could be argued that the last six months of the year comparison showed only a 3,000 ton increase, the growth in the first six months of the year was from 24,000 tons in 1913 to a stunning 258,000 tons in 1915.[16] Lansdowne omitted to point out that the availability of cotton depended on the harvest. It took place in the autumn and through the latter part of the year, and consequently was only ready for exportation in the early months of the following year. There was always going to be a massive difference between statistics at different points in the cycle, but the Government manipulated the facts to indicate an improving situation.

Other factors intervened. The implications for maintaining the status quo were staggering. The men in the trenches, the families of those already sacrificed, the ordinary people in Britain and France would not have allowed the government to continue their ludicrous policy. Feelings were running high. It had been all very well for the leader of the Secret Elite, Alfred Milner, to instruct his supporters to ‘disregard the screamers’ [17] during the Boer War, but in an era of total war such high-handed disregard for public opinion was critically dangerous. In 1914 it had been simple to neutralise opposition to the war. One year on the climate had changed. When MPs like the Liberal Sir Henry Dalziel refused to be muzzled on the cotton scandal no matter the implication for his career, [18 ] the writing was on the wall. The Secret Elite urgently needed an exit strategy. Their solution was to announce that the Americans no longer objected to cotton as a contraband.

Suddenly the claim was made that the munition contracts placed in America by Britain and France had increased their domestic consumption of cotton to the extent that loss of the German market would hardly be felt by big business. Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, British ambassador at Washington reported that President Wilson was ‘quite satisfied’ that cotton should now be placed on the contraband list. [19] It smacked of the ‘old pal’s act.’

On 21 August 1915 , Alfred Milner, gave an interview to the New York Times in which he ‘supposed’ that the British government and their advisers ‘did not realise in the early months of the war that a vast demand for cotton for military purposes would arise.’[20] What puerile nonsense. The Committee of Imperial Defence had put cotton at the top of the list of contraband in 1912. Its subsequent removal had been a deliberate act approved by the Secret Elite.

Raw cotton, cotton waste and cotton yarn were finally placed on the contraband list on 22 August 1915.

[1] PRO CAB 16/18A, p. 45.
[2] PRO CAB 16/18 pp. 424-6.
[3] Archibald Bell, A History of the Blockade of Germany. http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/blockade/bgy15.html
[4] Ibid.
[5] Rear Admiral Montague Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces (1914-1918), p. 221.
[6] Lord Sydenham of Combe, Studies of An Imperialist, London 1928 p. 3.
[7] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 313
[8] Hansard House of Commons Debate 12 July 1915, vol. 73, cc719-20.
[9] E Keble Chatterton, The Big Blockade, p. 167.
[10] Bell, A History of the Blockade of Germany http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/blockade/bgy15.html
[11] Chatterton, The Big Blockade, pp. 166-167.
[12] Bell, A History of the Blockade of Germany. http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/blockade/bgy15.html
[13] The Times 20 July 1915, p. 7.
[14] The Times 21 July, 1915, p. 8.
[15] Lord Lansdowne House of Lords Debate, 22 February 1916 vol 21 cc97-98.
[16] Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, pp. 264-5.
[17] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 53.
[18] Hansard House of Commons, 12 July, 1915 vol. 73 cc712-13.
[19] Bell, A History of the Blockade of Germany. http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/blockade/bgy15.html
[20] Viscount Milner, Cotton Contraband, libcudl.colorado.edu/wwi/pdf/i73516569.pdf

Blockade 5: “A Strange And Sudden Invention”

In their efforts to render the blockade ineffective, the Secret Elite faced two major obstacles, the Royal Navy and the Prize Courts. The officers and men of the blockading forces were absolutely determined to stop any supplies getting through to Germany, and risked life and limb to do so. ‘From August 1914 to the end of 1917, the 10th Cruiser Squadron intercepted 8,905 ships, sent 1,816 into port under armed guard and boarded 4,520 fishing craft.’ [1] Over the years of the blockade very few transatlantic steamers and merchant ships or fishing boats escaped their attention. The North Atlantic blockading force ordered thousands of vessels to heave to, no matter the mountainous seas or freezing temperatures, and sent crews in small open boats to examine the cargoes, inspect their permits and papers and ascertain their destinations. It was dangerous work. There was ‘a perilous interlude when engines had to be stopped before lowering away or picking up the boat with its boarding party; and these moments when the cruiser lay rolling in the swell were more than enough for a U-boat’s captain to send his torpedo straight for the cruiser’s side.’

As early as 15 October 1914, HMS Hawke of the 10th Cruiser squadron was torpedoed by a U-Boat in the North Sea, turned over and sank with the loss of 525 lives. [2] These men were the unsung heroes of war, living on the knife-edge of uncertainty in a daily battle to deny solace to the enemy. 10th Cruiser Squadron was permanently on the alert but was constrained both by its outdated ships and unbelievable decisions made deep in the heart of the Foreign Office.

Suspicious cargoes were immediately seized by the boarding party and taken for inspection to the Orkney or Shetland islands. Thereafter the process should have been straightforward. Had the blockade operated within the dictates of international law, a Prize Court would have examined the cargoes and prevented onward passage if anything was deemed to be ultimately bound for Germany by way of Scandinavia. This was known as the doctrine of ‘continuous voyage’. In other words, if the cargo was being shipped to Stockholm and unloaded there, only to be transported on to Germany, it would be confiscated. The integrity of British Prize Courts had never been questioned and if ‘cargoes were proved to be of enemy destination or origin, they would be condemned by the Prize Court and there would be no appeal except to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.’ [3] On paper this system was flawless and fair. Given the acknowledged zeal and professionalism of the Royal Navy’s blockading fleet, very little contraband should have reached Germany from August 1914 onwards. That is what the public, the press and parliament in general believed. Winston Churchill had promised that the blockade would bring Germany to her knees in months. Not a word of dissent was voiced, yet powers greater than government ensured that the Prize Courts were neutered.

Behind the backs of the British people, in blatant defiance of the will of the British Parliament and widely accepted international law, the Prize Courts were sidelined and a more sinister authority created to exercise the real power over the blockade. As the former Admiralty lawyer George Bowles wrote in sheer exasperation in 1926, ‘The process of stopping ships that were carrying contraband, bringing them before the Prize-Court judiciary so that international law could be applied and stripping them of illegal cargoes, was completely undermined by influences inside the British Foreign Office through an invention called the Contraband Committee.’ Bowles believed that lawful processes ‘from first to last were checked, tripped up, manipulated and prevented from working by a deliberate and considered removal of the whole essential conduct of the war at sea from the Fleets and Prize Courts to the Foreign Office.’ [4] Look at the language Bowles used. There was no question of error or misunderstanding. Lawful process was hi-jacked and deliberately sabotaged.

Conjured by Sir Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, a small, carefully selected Contraband Committee was set up in secret as a barrier between the Navy and the Prize Courts. While the Royal Navy stopped and searched every merchant ship in the North Sea and and sent all suspicious cargoes into Kirkwall, the Contraband Committee ensured that very few of these were ever taken before a Prize Court. Under the guise of ‘freeing neutral shipping from all avoidable delay and inconvenience’, the Contraband Committee made the final decision on virtually every ship stopped by the blockading squadron. This compact group of five or six shadowy figures made apparently arbitrary decisions as to what was considered contraband or not, and determined which cargoes should be allowed to proceed to their given destinations. [5] Their decisions were not arbitrary. They consistently rejected the Royal Navy’s actions and released millions of tons of vital supplies that were ultimately bound for the German war effort.

The fate of the American oil tanker, the SS Llama, provided a typical example. With some difficulty the 10th Cruiser Squadron chased and captured the fully loaded tanker and an armed guard escorted her into Kirkwall. ‘But by a mysterious mentality someone in authority had ordered her release and allowed her to proceed on her way to Germany. She duly arrived at Swinemunde, where her most welcome cargo fetched a high price.’ Admiral de Chair thought it ‘incredible that after a year’s war experience we should deliberately allow supplies to reach the enemy after the carrying-ships had been intercepted.’ [6] The Llama was at that time owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey and was part of J D Rockefeller’s fleet. He himself was closely linked to the Secret Elite in London and on Wall Street. [7] When the Llama repeated the voyage she was again stopped by the 10th Cruiser Squadron and sent to Kirkwall. Ironically, she hit a reef and sank.

The Contraband Committee’s action, like its very existence, was a complete abrogation of the law. The rules were clearly set and did not include interference from committees or any other parties. According to international law,

‘Every belligerent Power must appoint and submit to the jurisdiction of a Prize Court… which administers international as opposed to municipal law. Only if there should be a gross miscarriage of justice would there ever be need for political intervention. If the Prize Court were under the direction of the Foreign Office, it could not more than nominally administer the law of international obligation.’ [8]

Commander George Bowles’s angry broadside summed up the Foreign Office’s illegal Contraband Committee:

‘This hitherto unheard of jurisdiction consisted, not, of course, in any form of open Court, but in a strange and suddenly invented Committee of persons nominated for the purpose by the officials concerned … It acted, deliberated, and decided in secret. It was in continuous touch with Foreign Office opinion. It was bound by no law, custom, precedent, treaty, rules of evidence, rules of procedure, or legal restraint. It maintained upon the seas, against the rule of the Law of Nations, the rule of the Department; and it was used by that Department to ensure the prompt execution of its wishes in cases in which the Prize Courts of England could not be trusted to carry them out.’ [9]

Commander Bowles’s assessment of the deliberate disruption of the blockade was perfectly valid, but he had no knowledge of the Secret Elite or their control of the politicians and mandarins within the Foreign Office. The secret cabal had assumed absolute control of the Foreign Office in 1905 when Sir Edward Grey was installed as Foreign Secretary. His minders, Sir Eyre Crowe, Sir Charles Hardinge and Sir Arthur Nicolson were proven Establishment men closely associated with the Secret Elite. These were the powerful individuals who actually ran the Foreign Office while Grey fronted and deflected questions in Parliament. [10] They sat in Whitehall offices by day, and dined in their private London clubs of an evening. They and the Contraband Committee made a mockery of the tireless efforts of the brave men of the 10th Squadron out on the cruel, unforgiving seas of the freezing North Atlantic.

Virtually every ship and cargo sent into port by the Royal Navy was kept out of the Prize Court by the Contraband Committee. According to the prolific maritime writer Commander Edward Keble Chatterton, the end result ‘allowed cargoes obviously intended for Germany to continue to their destination, whereas the blockaders had no sort of doubt, and the Prize Courts would certainly have condemned such cargoes… Today (he was writing in 1932) we know all too well how this misguided rule of allowing supplies to reach the enemy had the effect of prolonging the war.’ [11]

In December 1914 the worn-out warships of the 10th cruiser squadron were replaced by a mixed fleet of twenty-four armed merchant vessels ranging from 2,876 to 21,040 tons. Some were passenger ships from the major shipping lines, others were cargo vessels, and several had been used in the banana trade. All of their captains had been hand-picked by Admiral de Chair. The Executive Officer and Gunner on each ship also came from the Royal Navy, but the remainder of the officers and crews largely comprised merchant seamen. De Chair spoke of the outrageous conditions in which his men struggled to keep the nation safe. They faced blizzards of snow and hail and towering waves which made rest or sleep impossible. His praise for them was absolute. ‘It brought out the highest qualities of seamanship and navigation on the parts of the Captains, officers and seamen and there was no denying the remarkable discipline, devotion to duty, and firm resolve on the part of everyone.’ [12]

On 2 January two sailors of the blockading fleet were lost while attempting to rescue the crew of a Norwegian barque foundering in mountainous seas in a force 9 gale. A month later, on 3 February 1915, Clan MacNaughton of the blockade squadron went down with her entire 284 officers and crew. In those dangerous raging seas the cruisers of the Northern patrol intercepted dozens of vessels every week. Between March 1915 and December 1916 an average of 286 ships per month were stopped. [13] Ten ships per day; every day. All the while, despite their heroic attempts to prevent vital supplies reaching the enemy, Secret Elite agents in the Foreign Office and Contraband Committee continually released ships with cargoes bound for Germany which brave men had risked their lives to impound.

Was it any wonder that the blockaders felt indignation and resentment at the way in which the Foreign Office undid their very best efforts? And how did Commander Chatterton later see it? They were allowing supplies through to the enemy and so prolonging the war. Bear that in mind please. They were prolonging the war.

[1] E Keble Chatterton, The Big Blockade, p. 279.
[2] Ibid., pp. 43-46.
[3] Ibid., p. 25.
[4] George F S Bowles, The Strength of England, p. 173.
[5] Ibid., p. 176.
[6] Chatterton,The Big Blockade, p. 214.
[7] Docherty and Macgregor, Hidden History,The Secret Origins of the First World War pp. 215-217.
[8] Chatterton, The Big Blockade, p. 148.
[9] Bowles, The Strength of England, p. 176.
[10] Docherty and Macgregor, Hidden History, p. 114.
[11] Chatterton, The Big Blockade, p. 61.
[12] Ibid., p. 75.
[13] Arthur J Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. 11, p. 373.

Blockade 4: Lame Excuses

For centuries, halting seaborne commerce to an enemy by means of a blockade had dealt a tremendous blow to its fighting power, and had proved to be ‘the most systematic, regularised and extensive form of commerce-destruction known to war.’ [1] Throughout the first world war the Royal Navy had the absolute power to isolate Germany from international trade and stop seaborne goods from entering her ports but, for at least the first two years of the conflict, the very best efforts of the blockade fleet were effectively sabotaged by Sir Edward Grey and the Foreign Office.

The German merchant fleet had been effectively bottled up in harbours across the world, but despite the blockade, food and raw materials of every conceivable kind were exported to Germany across the Atlantic from North and South America in British, American and other neutral vessels. Since the cargoes could not be carried directly into Germany, they were conveyed to neutral Scandinavian ports then re-routed into Germany. That in itself was contrary to the international laws of blockade, since the doctrine of ‘Continuous Voyage’ meant that, even if the ships were docking and unloading in neutral Scandinavian ports, it was the ultimate destination of the cargo that was the test of contraband. Massive quantities of food and essential war materials were sent to Scandinavia after August 1914. Though fully aware that much of it was immediately being transferred onto trains bound for Germany, the Foreign Office allowed this scandal to go unchecked.

The British government’s the lame excuse was that it dared not interfere with the transatlantic trade between neutral states because it would risk losing the support of America, Holland, Denmark and Sweden. In reality, there was never any likelihood of that happening. Official trade statistics show that direct trade between the United States and Germany declined from $169 million in 1914 to $1 million in 1916, [2] but the figure is misleading. America certainly lost direct access to the German markets, but regained much more by trading indirectly with Germany through neutral countries. Desperate German importers were willing to pay high prices, and ruthless American, Scandinavian and even British traders were willing to abandon any sense of propriety or patriotism to take advantage of the rich pickings. In addition,between 1914-1916, American trade with the Allies rose from $824 million to $3 billion. [3]

American industry produced whatever goods the Allies wanted and business boomed. Financial credit was duly arranged through Wall Street banks linked to the Secret Elite, and the United States became ‘the larder, arsenal and bank’ [4] for Britain and France. The United States thus acquired a direct interest in an Allied victory, and any other outcome would have spelled disaster for American business and finance. The British government’s perennial excuse that they could not implement a strict blockade for fear of losing American support has been perpetuated by mainstream war historians.

‘The blockade would have achieved much more had the government enforced it more rigorously. But fearful of embittering neutral opinion and driving the neutrals, especially the United States, into Germany’s arms, they often released neutral ships containing meat, wheat, wool etcetera that the Navy had, sometimes at considerable risk, sent into port for examination.’ [5]

The suggestion that the United States might ally itself with Germany was ludicrous in the extreme. That possibility was never considered in the corridors of power in Washington. ‘Neutral’ America invested heavily in an Allied victory, fully supported Britain and France and, irrespective of the blockade, business thrived. Thousands of new millionaires were created year on year through war profiteering. The United States quickly professed her neutrality, but with equal alacrity accrued a vested interest in the allied cause with a myriad of financial loans and munitions supplies that were initiated through Secret Elite links with the J P Morgan’s financial empire on Wall Street.

President Woodrow Wilson made the obligatory protests about Britain’s interference with American trade. That was no more than a charade played out on both sides of the Atlantic. Wilson’s election in 1912 had been facilitated by the Wall Street bankers and big business who were themselves closely associated with the Secret Elite in London. [6] Not only had these financiers put their man in the White House, they gave him a minder, Edward Mandell House. The American historian and journalist Webster Tarpley described him as a ‘British-trained political operative’. [7]

Woodrow Wilson was indeed President of the United States of America but this shadowy figure, with his own suite of rooms in the White House, stood by his side ‘advising’ his every move. [8] At every turn, Mandell House liaised and co-operated with the Secret Elite in London to ensure that, no matter the protests, they were always acting in concert. London knew that there was never any fear of losing American support. President Wilson played his part by issuing a series of protest notes which leant credence to the spurious notion that Britain should not implement a proper blockade for fear of alienating America.

For example, on 3 November 1914 the British Admiralty issued a proclamation to maritime shipping that a blockade was in operation in the North Sea and all ships were warned that they entered it at their peril. Scandinavian countries objected, but the United States government initially refused to join their protest. When American exporters and shipping companies complained to the State Department, a protest note was eventually sent to London on 26 December, but it was couched in very conciliatory language. Furthermore, prior to the note being sent, Mandell House discussed it with the British Ambassador, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, so that any phrases that might upset British susceptibilities could be removed. [9]

Had a strict blockade been in place, the impact on American traders would only have temporarily stopped their exports to Scandinavia. In consequence, the war would have been over by 1915 and the disruption short-lived. In addition, the Americans would never have risked breaking the blockade at the cost of a consequent ban from the huge British, French and Russian markets. Likewise, fears that neutral Scandinavia would side with Germany if Britain implemented a strict blockade were rootless. Sweden alone showed some pro-German sympathies, but there was a strong and vocal movement there which had enjoyed 100 years of peace. Neutrality was the only option. Sweden had long stood by its non-interventionist policy and its trade dependence on both Britain and Germany laced any other position with poisonous danger. On 3 August 1914 the Swedish government proclaimed the country neutral and the majority of Swedes supported that policy. Some in the upper classes were pro-German, but ‘there was a difference between admiring Germany, or identifying with German culture, and being prepared to side with Germany in war.’ [10] The so-called risk of driving the Scandanavian countries into Germany’s arms was likewise a charade to justify British policy.

Rear-Admiral Montagu Consett, the British Naval Attaché in Scandinavia from 1912 to 1918, dismissed the suggestion that these small neutral states might have sided with Germany if the blockade had properly been implemented. A staunch English patriot, Consett spoke with considerable knowledge of Scandinavian opinion:

‘It was the universal belief that, should England become involved in a European war, Scandinavia would have to be prepared to make sacrifices. That all supplies from England would be cut off was not expected, but it was felt certain that bare requirements of domestic consumption would in no case be exceeded… The prestige of this country [Britain] never stood at so high a level. The name of England was …mentioned with real respect. When war broke out the stream [of food and war materials] that poured into Scandinavia, amazed the Scandinavians.’ [11]

The Scandinavians admired and respected Britain and were prepared to make sacrifices to support her in the war. The suggestion put about by the British government that Norway, Sweden and Denmark would support Germany if they applied a strict blockade was a scurrilous lie. As Rear Admiral Consett correctly stated, ‘It is certain Germany was neither prepared nor equipped for a struggle of four years duration.’ The impact of a blockade which leaked like a sieve meant that the war ‘was prolonged far beyond the limits of necessity.’ [12] If a proper blockade had been enforced, knowledgeable contemporaries estimated that war on continental Europe would have been effectively over within 6-8 months. [13]

[1] E. Keble Chatterton, The Big Blockade, p. 18.
[2] Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August, p. 337.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Arthur J Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Vol. 11. pp. 374-5.
[6] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 221-2.
[7] Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, George Bush, The Unauthorised Biography, p. 330.
[8] Docherty and Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 222.
[9] Joseph Ward Swain, Beginning the Twentieth Century, p. 472.
[10] http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/pdf/1914-1918-Online-Sweden-2014-10-08.pdf
[11] M W W P Consett, The Triumph of Unarmed Forces, 1914-1918, p. xv.
[12] Ibid., p. vii.
[13] George F S Bowles, The Strength of England, p. 173.