Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener 3: A Difficult Man To Control

When Kitchener first stepped into the War Office, two hours before he had even been formally given the seal of office from King George V, he is reported to have said, ‘There is no army!’ [1] His exasperation was genuinely felt but somewhat misleading. The full strength of the British army was 700,000 men of whom 110,000 were serving in India or some other station in the Empire. The Expeditionary Force totalled around 120,000 men specifically trained for the war against Germany. Kitchener’s outburst had considerable merit for he grasped immediately that, in a fight to the death, Britain needed a real, fully trained and equipped army.

To the shock of those who thought that war could be waged with limited liability, Kitchener dismissed the lame belief that it would be over by Christmas. He immediately laid his plans for an army of seventy divisions, calculating that its maximum strength would be reached during the third year of the war, when the enemy began to suffer from a reduction in its manpower. [2] In other words, briefed as he had been by the men who ran the Committee of Imperial Defence, Kitchener embraced the need for a long war. It would take time to train and arm an army of millions, which was the only way by which Germany could be definitively beaten. Yet, even these calculations were based on a crude estimate of available manpower, not strategic requirements. [3] Asquith had ruled out compulsory military service, anathema to Liberal thinking, so Kitchener took matters into his own hands.

He decided to expand the regular army by raising a new component – wartime volunteers. Each man was required to sign up for new ‘general service’ terms of three years or the duration of the war (whichever the longer). ‘Your King and Country need you: a call to arms’ was published on 11 August 1914. [4] It explained the new terms of service and called for the first 100,000 men to enlist. This figure was achieved within two weeks. [5] Kitchener’s recruitment scheme in 1914 was a resounding success. Alfred Leete’s famous cover picture of him pointing his finger over the slogan ‘Your Country Needs You” was a masterpiece of propaganda. [6] The recruitment poster became iconic. Margot Asquith, the Prime Minister’s wife is widely quoted as claiming that ‘if Kitchener is not a great man, he is at least a great poster’. He was of course aided and abetted by the Secret Elite’s propaganda campaign supported by the Church of England and  justified by the intellectual brigades marshalled in Oxford University.

Kitchener considered himself untouchable, and he was, certainly in the first year of the war when his position as Commander-in-Chief and Cabinet Minister made him pre-eminent. Men in the trenches carried his words with them in a printed address in their Active Service Paybook, ‘Do your duty bravely. Fear God and Honour the King.’ [7] They revered him even when he issued dire warnings about the consequences of troops catching venereal disease, as he had to his troops in India. [8] He in turn, took orders from no-one under the King, allegedly putting the Prince of Wales in his place when he tried to sneak up to the front line. Angry that Kitchener had banned his being anywhere near danger, the Prince confronted the Commander in Chief . ‘I don’t care if I get killed. I’ve got four brothers.’ Kitchener, with his accustomed disdain, put the young Royal in his place by retorting: ‘I’m not in the slightest worried about you being killed, Sir; what we cannot afford is to have you taken prisoner.’ [9]

And herein lay Kitchener’s critical worth to the Secret Elite. It mattered not whether the tale of the Secretary for War and the Royal Prince was true or apocryphal. Such stories emphasised his popularity. He was the commander. Kitchener’s presence in the public eye made war popular. He looked the part. His military record read like a roll-call of imperial victories. The essence of heroism washed over him. In an age before public relations, Herbert Kitchener was the dream-ticket. Richard Haldane, whom Asquith would have preferred as Secretary for War, could never have aspired to such popularity even had he not been dubbed pro-German by the press. Unfortunately for him, the Northcliffe press was rabidly anti-German and to have such a man as the most senior war office politician made little sense to the public. This may explain why Haldane, an  experienced and  faithful agent of the Secret Elite was literally abandoned by them.   Would he have had the stomach for the complete destruction of an enemy race from whom he had genuine sympathies? Herbert Kitchener was their preferred choice. He would be the Secretary of State who could promote a long and successful war to crush Germany and keep it popular.

But he was a qualified risk. In September 1914, Alfred Milner wrote to an army friend ‘I hope your Chief stands it well. We all depend on him and it is the greatest mercy that he is at the head of things.’ [10] This was true. Kitchener had dismissed any likelihood of a short war, had plainly stated that total victory would take time and unqualified effort. Victory would come at a cost. He connected with the nation in his appeal to raise a new army and stood apart from the politicians who placed their faith in democracy. But he also had enemies who wrote and spoke privately behind his back; enemies in the General Staff and in the Cabinet. The struggle in which Kitchener found himself embroiled was to be as all-embracing as that on the Western Front, but at the onset of war, he was the Ace in the pack.

Kitchener never quite grasped the concept of collective responsibility inside a British Cabinet. According to the diaries of Charles Hobhouse the War Office had been informed that the decision to finally dispatch every division of the BEF to France had been delayed because of Cabinet reticence despite Kitchener’s insistence, whereas in truth he had been given immediate and unquestioned approval was soon as he asked for it. [11] He kept his Cabinet colleagues ignorant of the true extent of war losses, but his early achievements outshone criticism. Voluntary recruitment was a staggering success, though its methodology was often questionable. [12] The immoral pressure from ‘The White Feather Girls’ [13] and the assaults from the pulpits on those who did not join up, remain largely forgotten. By January 1915, The Times declared that Britain was a nation in arms thanks to Kitchener and his portrait. [14] though in the House of Lords, complaint was voiced that he was ‘very economical in his information’ relating to certain theatres of war. [15]

Spectacular recruitment figures continued to enhance his reputation. 175,000 men volunteered in the single week ending 5 September; by the end of that month 750,000 men had enlisted. From August 1914 until June 1915, the average number of recruits ran at 125,000 per month. Two and a half million souls pledged their loyalty to the King through voluntary recruitment before it had to be replaced with compulsory service in March 1916. And here-in lay another problem. The existing military machine could not cope with these numbers. There were insufficient barracks, rifles, qualified sergeants to train the recruits or uniforms to clothe them. Yet Kitchener’s exhortation that ‘Your Country Needs You’ reverberated from street corners and station platforms. He agreed to the proposition to form ‘Pals’ Battalions’ which embraced young men from their employment, shipyards and coal mines, schools and transport companies, sports clubs and close communities. The great adventure on which these lads embarked in 1914 reaped a bitter harvest on the killing fields of Loos and the Somme. They were the cannon-fodder, sacrificed in useless attacks on well prepared defences. [16]

Critically, Kitchener associated himself absolutely with his men. They were his armies. Indeed the War Office code for the various intakes of recruits was K1, K2 and so on. [17] He made a point of inspecting each new battalion before it embarked for war. He considered it his duty to see them in person. No matter the weather conditions, there he was bestowing an almost apostolic blessing on the passing ranks. His pride in them was clear. His loyalty to them was reciprocated. His prestige brought into being the greatest volunteer force ever raised any country and each new parade added to his momentous prestige. [18] Yet his judgement, viewed from afar, was not without prejudice.

Kitchener backed a decision which was to hasten the ultimate division and separation of Ireland. There, the two tribes in Ulster and the South had built their own private armies, the Ulster Volunteers and the Irish Volunteers, both formed to defend their respective stance on Home Rule. Though they were equally anxious to be embodied in the British Army, the Secret Elite and, in this instance, Kitchener himself, favoured the Ulster battalions. He accepted the Ulstermen as a unit and rejected the Home Rulers, refusing to allow them to form a discrete division. [19] If you consider the immensity of this decision and its political importance you will realise that Kitchener had to have been influenced by the Secret Elite.

Desperate to impress the British establishment that Ireland would play her part loyally in defence of Belgium, and concerned that she would be dishonoured if the Nationalists did not support the war against Germany, John Redmond, the leader of the Home Rule Party went to meet Kitchener at the War Office on 6 August, 1914. [20] His reception was cold and friendless. [21] No-one took up Redmond’s generous offer that his Volunteers should defend the island’s coasts and the first of many opportunities to treat Ireland with a new found confidence and respect was rejected. [22] Much more was to follow. The preferential treatment which the Ulstermen had always enjoyed from the British State continued to manifest itself.

Prime Minister Asquith promised a new approach when he addressed a great rally in Dublin on 25 September. He declared: ‘We all want to see an Irish Brigade or better still an Irish Army Corps…’ [23] Clearly he had not discussed this matter with Kitchener who would not countenance a distinctive Irish division with its own badge and colours, based on the Irish volunteers. An official request from Redmond that at least one of these battalions be trained in Ireland to encourage recruitment and pride, was summarily refused. [24] Kitchener believed, as did the cabal which had pushed for his appointment, [25] that if the Volunteers were trained, armed and kept together in coherent units, there would be civil war once the crusade against Germany was over, with no advantage to Ulster. It was not the will of the prime minister which prevailed. These same arguments were not applied to Carson’s Ulster Volunteers. They were treated with distinct preference and in consequence the Ulster Volunteers metamorphosed into the 36th (Ulster) Division with their own distinctive uniform and badges. Not since Cromwell’s ironsides had a military force been united by such political unity and religious fervour. [26] It was a decision which rebounded on the British state in the years following 1916.

Kitchener treated his military allies in France with much more balanced consideration than he ever demonstrated in Cabinet. When the leading British ministers met with their French counterparts at the first inter-allied conference in Calais in 1915, Kitchener alone was fluent in French. He dominated proceedings. The British Cabinet had previously decided that there would be no fresh initiatives on the Western Front until 1916 and, anticipating objections, were surprised that the French agreed. What they did not know was that Kitchener had fixed a private arrangement behind their backs with Joffre, based on French support for the attack on Gallipoli, so when the autumn offensive was approved in military circles, the cabinet was not informed.

Lloyd George became increasingly frustrated by the conduct of the War Office and its manipulation of fact and figures. Even Kitchener’s reports to the Cabinet about the progress of the war did not present a clear picture about what was happening. Kitchener’s distrust of politicians was such that, as Lloyd George put it, ‘his main idea … was to tell the politicians as little possible of what was going on and get back top his desk at the War Office as quickly as he could decently escape.’ [27] And this was essentially Herbert Kitchener’s drawback. Despite his immense value in promoting recruitment, he would not be controlled. He frequently knew more than his field commanders and had a better grasp of strategy. His natural prejudices against Irish Home Rule was in accord with Secret Elite thinking but he would not brook overt political interference with the War Office. That was to be a problem.

[1] Sir George Arthur, Kitchener, Vol III, p. 7.
[2] Ibid., p. 8.
[3] A.J.P. Taylor, English History, 1914-1945, p. 47, footnote 3.
[4] The Times, 11 August 1914, p. 2.
[5] Army Order 324, dated 21 August 1914, then specified that six new Divisions would be created from units formed of these volunteers, collectively called Kitchener’s Army or K1. Subsequent increases were labelled K2/K3 and so forth.
[6] Trevor Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 264.
[7] The Times, 19 August, 1914, p. 6.
[8] Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 217.
[9] Max Arthur, Forgotten Voices of the Great War, p. 142.
[10] Arthur, Kitchener, Vol III, p. 13.
[11] Edward Davis, Inside Asquith’s Cabinet, pp. 188-9.
[12] A.J.P. Taylor, English History, 1914-1945, p. 48.
[13] https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/nicoletta-f-gullace/white-feather-girls-womens-militarism-in-uk
[14] Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 264.
[15] The Times, 7 Jan, 1915, p. 9.
[16] Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, pp. 168-9.
[17] http://www.1914-1918.net/kitcheners.htm
[18] Taylor, English History, 1914-1945, p. 49.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Peter Simkins, Kitchener’s Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914-1916, pp. 113-4.
[21] Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 272.
[22] Freeman’s Journal, 2 September 1914.
[23] The Times, p.10, 26 September 1914.
[24] Hansard House of Commons Debate, 18 October 1916, vol. 86 cc581-696.
[25] A.M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, p. 240.
[26] Howard Green, Kitchener’s Army, Army Quarterly, April 1966, vol LXXXXII, no.1, p. 93.
[27] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, p. 51.

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener 2: The Icon And His Critics

The first problem which the Secret Elite and their agents faced in bringing Kitchener into the Cabinet in August 1914 was that he was a serving soldier, not a politician. He did not take orders; he gave them. His appointment lent credence to the view that with his presence inside the Cabinet, Kitchener guaranteed the Liberal government ‘an aura of professional military competence which earned [them] widespread public approval.’ [1] The people in the streets and factories were delighted at his appointment. However, if any insider assumed that he would embrace the collective responsibility of cabinet membership, they were to be sorely tested. [2]

The second problem stemmed from Kitchener’s comparative lack of association with the military hierarchy which had been groomed at Camberley. [3] His world had been centred on the Empire. He was more at home as proconsul in Egypt or Commander-in-Chief in South Africa during the later stages of the Boer War, and again in India, [4] than in the confines of the War Office and the Cabinet Office. While Kitchener was hailed throughout Britain as a decisive and iconic figure, he had a more limited impact on his own staff. [5] Despite all of the careful preplanning carried out by the Committee of Imperial Defence and so clearly explained to Churchill, Lloyd George, Grey, Haldane and Asquith in 1911 [6] by Henry Wilson (at that point a General), the newly formed War Council [7] began to reconsider options. To Wilson’s horror they started to quibble over the number of divisions from the British Expeditionary Force which should be sent to France. He had assumed that the whole force would be sent immediately on mobilisation. That was what had been secretly agreed with the French army. The implications of failing to do so appalled him and he complained bitterly to senior military commanders, and prominent individuals like Leo Amery and Lord Alfred Milner, [8] both of whom were inner circle members of the Secret Elite.

If Kitchener required a quick lesson on how difficult rule by committee can be when strong-minded individuals feel the need to express contrary or optional views, this was a baptism of fire. The War Council could not decide where the BEF should be headquartered or how many division should be sent to France. Sir John French favoured switching headquarters to Antwerp rather than Maubeuge, as had been planned and agreed with the French army. Kitchener preferred Amiens, but wanted to have further intelligence from the French before settling the question. The meeting should have been held in Bedlam. Some War Council members thought that Liege was in Holland, not Belgium. In Henry Wilson’s view, they discussed strategy like idiots. It was, he rasped, ‘an historic meeting of men mostly entirely ignorant of their subject’. [9] And he included Kitchener in that wild generalisation.

Every day of indecision was a day irrevocably lost to the advancing Germans. On 5 August a further War Council meeting took place at 10 Downing Street. [10] Kitchener had decided that two divisions from the BEF should be withheld to protect the east coast of Britain from German attack and Asquith approved the action. According to Henry Wilson, when the prime minister backed Kitchener in withholding two divisions, he was more concerned about internal disorder than invasion, fearing that ‘the domestic situation might be grave’. [11] He still had one eye on Ulster and knew that there was a sizeable opposition to war amongst some members of the Labour and Trades Union movement. Whatever the reason, Kitchener approved the sending of only four divisions [12], and eventually, after bitter argument on 12 August, agreed that the BEF Headquarters be established at Maubeuge. Later, historians claimed that Kitchener’s final decision was indeed fortunate. Had all six divisions been thrown at the German army in Belgium, losses would probably have been far worse and the whole British army destroyed. [13]

The personal relationship between Lord Kitchener and Brigadier-General Henry Wilson soured markedly when the Secretary of State for War discovered that Wilson had met with the French intermediary, General Huguet, informed him of current British thinking and allowed him to return to France without meeting Kitchener on 7 August. Wilson’s diary records a most acrimonious meeting at which he spoke his mind to Kitchener, insisting that he would not be bullied ‘especially when he [Kitchener] talks such nonsense as he did today.’ We have only his word on such insubordination. In Wilson’s eyes, Kitchener had ruined the carefully designed plans which had been agreed with the French army by diluting the BEF’s strength in France. [14] Consequently, relations between Wilson and Kitchener remained toxic for the first eight months of the war.

Wilson continually undermined Kitchener’s vulnerable position, isolated as he was in the War Office, criticising his ‘colossal ignorance and conceit.’ [15] The Imperial General Staff had decamped to France with Sir John French in overall command, Sir Archibald Murray as Chief of General Staff, Sir William Robertson as Quartermaster and Wilson himself, ‘reduced’, as he saw it, to Brigadier General of Operations. [16] After a personal protest, Wilson’s position was redefined as ‘Sub-Chief.’ [17] Such vainglorious emphasis on titles rather than substance revealed the near ubiquitous pettiness and conceit among the outdated, outmoded and, soon to be very evident, incompetent military hierarchy of the Roberts Academy. Kitchener was thus left isolated in London where a substantial power vacuum developed between the war planners (the General Staff in France) and the policy makers, essentially the Cabinet advised by Kitchener.

General Sir Henry Wilson had much deeper and more extensive roots within the Secret Elite than Kitchener could ever have appreciated and regularly sent private letters of complaint about the conduct of the war to his mentor and Secret Elite leader, Lord Alfred Milner. Within a week of crossing to France, Wilson condemned the ‘cowardly ignorance’ of his superiors in London – meaning Asquith and Kitchener. He blamed the retreat from Mons on the ‘initial blunder’ (that would be Kitchener’s blunder, approved by the prime minister) of depleting the BEF’s original strength by keeping two divisions in Britain. [18] Blaming others was a tactic repeatedly employed by Henry Wilson. Any military failure was always someone else’s fault.

Despite the criticism of disloyal colleagues, both in the military and the Cabinet, Kitchener had a far greater grasp of the prerequisites for warfare and the appropriate application of sound strategy than most around him. What did not help was his overbearing and dismissive manner. [19] He alone amongst the military hierarchy recognised that Britain had to be committed to a prolonged war.

Historians have glibly accepted the idea that Herbert Kitchener first began to consider the impact of war in Europe in the short days of August immediately before his appointment as Secretary of State for War. What nonsense. While in Japan on his world tour in 1909, Kitchener was joined by his old friend Henry Rawlinson who had served on his staff in Sudan and South Africa. He was informed of the secret arrangements for combined action between the British and French in the event of war with Germany. Kitchener did not like the arrangement because it meant being tacked-on to the French, which ‘might not suit’. [20] After a joint military and naval conference in Malta in 1912, he and Churchill ‘used to talk over Imperial Defence topics when from time to time we met.’ [21] Kitchener also discussed Germany’s likely strategy in Belgium with Winston Churchill on 28 July. [22] To suggest that he was ignorant of the imminence of war in August 1914 is completely at odds with the evidence.

While the German plans for defence, should they be attacked from east and west simultaneously, the Schleiffen Plan, was widely known throughout Europe, Schleiffen’s original designs had been refined over the previous decade. The advance of the whole first army through Belgium had not been envisaged by Wilson and his entourage. This concerned Kitchener. He correctly concluded that the German plan of attack was to sweep around Belgium north of the River Meuse – which was why he had deep reservations about placing the BEF headquarters at Maubeuge. For all the years of detailed preparations which Sir Henry Wilson had spent laboriously mapping and planning along the Belgian – French border, he had never considered that his small force would face the full might of Von Kluck’s 1st German army, nor spend the next three weeks in retreat, struggling to keep in touch with the disheartened French.

Indeed as a soldier experienced in several wars, Kitchener’s grasp of the immediate situation before him was far more circumspect than that of anyone at GHQ in France. [23] He was under no illusion that the Expeditionary Force was completely inadequate to the task of taking on the vast resources and overwhelming manpower of the German and Austrian forces. He saw that the small British force had little value as an independent unit and consequently it became an auxiliary wing of the retreating French army.

Kitchener’s fears proved justified. Sir John French, a commander whose enthusiasms plummeted between unbound optimism and deep despair, had to be commanded not to retire to Le Havre with the remnants of the BEF. Perturbed by his commander in the field’s intention to withdraw, Kitchener was immediately sent by a small coterie of the Cabinet, including Asquith, Winston Churchill and Lloyd George ‘to unravel the situation and if necessary, put the fear of God into them all.’ [24] With his mind already poisoned by the bitter Wilson, Sir John French took Kitchener’s presence as a personal insult. He was even more upset when Kitchener appeared in the uniform of Field Marshall. Jealous of Kitchener’s superior rank, political authority, linguistic skills (his fluency in French gave him an advantage in discussion with the French high command,) [25] Sir John French resented the Secretary of State for War with a vengeance.

All of which begs the question – why did the Secret Elite pursue his appointment as Secretary of State for War with such insistence? What did Kitchener possess which made him integral to the pursuit of a very long war?

[1] Hew Strachan, The First World War, Vol 1, p. 203.
[2] Keith Jeffery, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, A Political Soldier, p. 132.
[3] Kitchener was an imperial soldier and proconsul. Several of his staff members during the Boer War served or commanded the Military Staff Training College at Camberley, but Herbert Kitchener was never one of Lord Robert’s entourage who dominated the upper echelons of the British army. He operated independently, and had his heart set on becoming the next Viceroy of India before war broke out. Thus he was an ‘outsider’ compared to the near masonic brotherhood which Roberts dominated inside his ‘Academy’. [ See Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the first World War, Chapter 15, p. 194 – 202.]
[4]  Strachan, The First World War, Vol. 1, p. 203.
[5] Jeffrey, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, 132.
[6] Winston Churchill, World Crisis, pp. 38-9.
[7] For details see previous blog.
[8] A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics p. 244.
[9] C E Callwell and Marshal Foch, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson VI: His Life And Diaries. p. 159.
[10] PRO CAB 22/1/1.
[11] Michael Brock and Eleanor Brock, H H Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 159.
[12] PRO CAB 22/1/2.
[13] John Terraine, Mons, p. 88.
[14]  Callwell and  Foch, Wilson Diaries:  p. 160.
[15] Jeffrey, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, p. 133.
[16] Callwell and Foch, Wilson Diaries, p. 157.
[17] Jeffrey, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, p. 132.
[18] Milner Papers held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, quoted in A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, p. 242.
[19] George H Cassar, The Tragedy of Sir John French, p. 252.
[20] George H Cassar, Kitchener, Architect of Victory, p. 160.
[21] Churchill, World Crisis, pp. 125-6.
[22] Ibid., p. 101.
[23] Callwell and Foch, Wilson Diaries, p. 161.
[24] Brock and Brock, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 213.
[25] Trevor Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 310.

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener 1: The Man They Could Not Do Without

This next series of blogs concentrates on Field Marshal, the Earl Kitchener, the Empire’s most decorated and famous soldier. Controversy still surrounds his appointment in 1914, his performance as Secretary of State for War, especially over armaments, and the circumstances of his untimely death in 1916. Some deeply valid questions still remained unanswered a century after his death.

Official histories would have us believe that at the outset of the war, Herbert Kitchener was, by chance, in Britain. His biographer, Sir George Arthur termed it ‘an almost accidental presence’. [1] Not so. Kitchener was in England at the behest of King George V. He had been elevated to an Earldom by royal command in July, [2] and was still in England, on leave from his post as Consul General in Egypt, in early August. The story that Herbert Kitchener just happened to be ready and available to serve his country in its moment of dire need in August 1914 is part of the mystique and folklore which has conveniently camouflaged the secret preparations that had been made for war against Germany. Nothing was left to chance, least of all, Kitchener’s presence and availability to step into the vacant post of Secretary of State for War. Had he been asked to take office in July when he first arrived, the message which would have been instantly translated to Berlin would warn of war to come; Germany would have immediately recognised that Britain was intent on war despite the lies and protestations made by Sir Edward Grey that Britain intended to stay out of the impending conflict [3] . As in all circumstances, the Secret Elite required the enemy to strike first to provide the excuse for action. They waited. Kitchener had to be patient.

For the job lay vacant. After the refusal of senior military figures to prepare to take action against Ulster in March 1914, (commonly called The Curragh Mutiny) John Seely, then Secretary of State for War had been obliged to resign. Herbert Asquith still hesitated to fill the post and undertook all its associated duties, as well as those of prime minister. By any standards it was a ridiculous workload, but there was little else he could do.

Asquith’s problem was disconcerting. No member of his existing Cabinet could be trusted with the War Office. The prime minister confessed so in writing to his beloved Venetia Stanley on 5 August. [4] The few who knew that war had been ordained against Germany already held key Cabinet Posts. Churchill at the Admiralty could not be moved. Neither could Sir Edward Grey from the Foreign Office nor Lloyd George from the Treasury. Richard Haldane, Asquith’s life-long friend and former War Office incumbent, would have been his perfect choice for re-appointment, but Haldane had been unfairly tainted by the press as pro-German, and his appointment would have caused disquiet. [5]

Any incomer would have to be briefed about the preparations for war. The well-structured plans from the Committee of Imperial Defence and the military ‘discussions’ that had been ongoing with France and Belgium for more than eight years were still more guarded than any other state secret. [6] His dilemma centred on the fact that there was no politician in his government whom Asquith dared trust with such knowledge, and certainly no Liberal back-bencher. On the positive side of this strange equation, a vacant post suggested that Britain was ill-prepared for war and had no intention of engaging in war. In the aftermath of the near revolt of the army over its possible involvement in restraining Ulster and the unprecedented tensions in Ireland, it seemed that the War Office had been downgraded; subsumed into a mere department of the prime minister’s office.

Random chance is a poor excuse why, as war was about to unfold, the most famous and decorated British military officer of the age was in London, not Cairo. His biographer claimed that Kitchener only realised how imminent a European war was, after he lunched at the German Embassy on 21 July. [7] He met with Churchill over dinner ‘two or three times’ in the week before the war and discussed ‘all the possibilities as far as we could see them.’ [8] The imminent war was why they met, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the most popular and high-profile military figure in the Empire. And we are asked to believe that these were chance factors. One has to remember that in the public domain Kitchener ‘was looked upon as a martial demigod, different and superior to other men, a brilliant soldier who could act as a national saviour in the effete councils of the Liberal politicians.’ [9] And the public has always loved a hero.

Even so, Asquith was tempted to defy public opinion and reappoint Richard Haldane. The Secret Elite inner-core was not. Whatever his previous difficulties over the ending of the Boer War, (Milner had been very annoyed by Kitchener’s willingness to accept compromises with the Boer leaders in 1901.) Alfred Milner considered Field Marshal Herbert Kitchener as the only man with enough driving force for the job. [10] Kitchener already knew that war with Germany was in an advanced stage of preparation. Asquith had approved his membership of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) some years before, [11] and we know that Winston Churchill regularly updated him. Yet Asquith hesitated to break with tradition and appoint a Field Marshal to his Cabinet. Sir Henry Wilson, at that point a Brigadier-General, and the most knowledgeable military ‘expert’ on the long planned war against Germany relayed the prime minister’s hesitations to Alfred Milner and his Secret Elite colleagues. They were also dismayed when the dithering prime minister failed to dispatch the British Expeditionary Force to France immediately. Asquith was infamous for his indecision. Fearing a tardiness that might mortally damage their plans, Milner and his Secret Elite took direct action.

A newspaper campaign in favour of Kitchener’s appointment had gathered quick momentum. On the morning of 3 August, hours before Sir Edward Grey’s infamous Statement to Parliament, The Times carried an article by their military correspondent, Colonel Repington [12] demanding Kitchener’s appointment. [13] On the following day a Times Editorial trumpeted public confidence in him and pressed the prime minister to make a formal appointment ‘at least for the term of the war’. [14] The Westminster Gazette and Northcliffe’s Daily Express insisted on Kitchener’s appointment. Rumours that Asquith intended to return Haldane to the War Office were later denied by him with a sarcastic parliamentary swing at his critics; ‘Lord Kitchener’s appointment was received with universal acclamation, so much so indeed that it was represented as having been forced upon a reluctant Cabinet by the overwhelming pressure of an intelligent and prescient Press’ [15]

Asquith’s bold claims do not hold true in the light of later memoirs. The appointment of a new Secretary of State for War remained in the balance. One of the inner-core of the Secret Elite, Leopold Amery, [16] revealed that Milner had literally put Kitchener into a taxi to confront Asquith in Downing Street and demand his appointment. Kitchener was instructed to tell the prime minister that he would return immediately to Egypt unless Asquith gave him the War Office. [17] As ever, the Secret Elite held sway and Asquith was left to reconcile his Cabinet colleagues to the highly unusual presence of a Field Marshal in a Liberal Cabinet.

A War Council was held on 5 August. It comprised select politicians [18] and the top men from the ‘Roberts’ Academy’. [19]Lord Roberts himself was present with Kitchener, Sir John French, Douglas Haig, Haldane, Grey, Asquith and, since it was essentially an extension of the Committee of Imperial Defence, its secretary, and Secret Elite member, Maurice Hankey [20] Though he had retired from his post ten years previously, Lord Roberts’ presence was a reflection of the power he still exercised within the British army.

This was the Secret Elite War Council and their chosen military marionettes, an exclusive cabal of men who had planned the war, prepared the nation for war and proposed to run the war. Their task was to crush Germany, a mighty ambition that they knew would take years to achieve. Still the general expectation that it would all be over by Christmas boosted morale and hundreds of thousands of willing volunteers who would be sacrificed to that end, flocked to the colours.

It was not to be so straightforward, for the perfect candidate had a mind and approach of his own.

[1] Sir George Arthur, Life of Lord Kitchener, Vol III, p. 1.
[2] Sir George Arthur, Life of Lord Kitchener, Vol II, p. 346.
[3] Mensdorff to Bechtold, 29 July 1914, in Imanuel Geiss, July 1914, p. 277.
[4] Michael and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 157.
[5] Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years Vol.II, pp. 286-287.
[6] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 186-188.
[7] Arthur, Kitchener, Vol. III, p. 2.
[8] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, p. 190.
[9] A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, p. 240.
[10] J Lee Thomson, Forgotten Patriot, p. 309.
[11] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, 1877-1918, p. 134.
[12] The Times’ military correspondent, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Repington was allowed privileges accorded to no other journalist. As Lord Northcliffe’s man, he was regularly given access to the most senior military staff, even on the Western Front. He had his own desk at the War Office.
[13] Brock, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 152.
[14] The Times, 4 August, 1914, p. 5.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 68 and p. 312.
[17] Leopold Amery, My Political Life, Vol. II, pp. 21-23.
[18] Brock, Letters to Venetia Stanley, pp. 157-8.
[19] Docherty and Macgregor, Hidden History, pp. 194-202.
[20] National Archives, CAB 21/ 1/ 1.

John Buchan 3: Lies and Propaganda

John Buchan had known many of the prominent generals who held key commands during the First World War since his days in South Africa; Kitchener in particular. The Secretary of State for War had been ushered into post in August 1914, but was neither a team player nor a man to bow to the will of politicians. Many influential powerbrokers including Lord Northcliffe at The Times wanted him removed from office. Kitchener died onboard HMS Hampshire, an outdated pre-war battleship which had been selected to carry him on a mission to Russia in June 1916. Buchan noted that by 1916, how uncomfortable the minister for war was around politicians, and added ‘his friends were beginning to dread that a great career might close to an anti-climax, until in that June night when the Orkney seas put an end to such forebodings.’ [1]

What an odd choice of words. Why the need for a metaphor? It wasn’t the Orkney seas that killed Kitchener; it was either a submarine or a mine or sabotage. But the Secretary of State for War was no more, to the relief of a great many men of power. Kitchener had served his purpose. Buchan wrote that ‘in a sense his work was finished, for more than any other man he had the credit of building up that vast British force which was destined to be the determining factor in the war.’ [2] That sentiment ended with what sounded like an epitaph: ‘His death was a fitting conclusion to the drama of his life’. [3] Such ready acceptance, such calm unemotional, carefully crafted words ring hollow. Kitchener had become more than an irritation to the same men who had, in 1914, urged him into power at the War Office.

They feared that he was losing his commitment. Kitchener, however, remained untouchably popular. He retained the complete confidence of the British public and the soldier in the trenches. The propaganda machine managed Kitchener’s death with sublime professionalism, framing his loss like the passing of an elderly sage whose days simply ran out. No beating of breasts or wailing and lamenting. When propaganda makes so great an effort to bury the dead quickly and quietly, the suspicion must remain that something more sinister lurks in the shadows. We will examine this further in future blogs.

Although Buchan’s autobiography is empty of meaningful reference to his intelligence or foreign office work, other sources help fill in some of the blanks. Clearly the official censor cleansed his memoirs as rigorously as he did Lloyd George’s and Sir Edward Grey’s. What we know for certain is that John Buchan moved in and out of all the centres of power; his own department, Downing Street, The Admiralty, the War Office, and even on occasion, Buckingham Palace. [4] He knew exactly what was happening. He had access to all of the first hand reports and evidence of spectacular failures. He was literally the insider’s insider. And herein lies the problem. He knew the truth and covered it up. John Buchan was the author, the historian, the propagandist, the intelligence officer, the Milner acolyte and the Secret Elite go-to man. It would be ridiculous to believe that he did not know what he was doing; that he confused his writing of history with his writing of novels about the war. He earned his money by peddling lies.

Buchan met every foreigner of note who visited London during the crucial 1916-18 period. He knew that the Secret Elite’s inner-circle was operating and influencing events behind the scenes. He hinted of his privileged access to the real decision-makers, stating: ‘ I saw something of the veiled prophets who are behind the scenes in a crisis – Colonel House [5] and Lord Esher, [6] and especially Northcliffe’. [7] His conclusions were startling:

‘I saw at close quarters the intricate mechanisms which directed the War at home, one of the strangest mixtures of amateur and professional, talent and charlatanry, the patriot and the arriviste, which history has known, and behind it the dynamic figure of the Prime Minister, generating heat and somehow turning it into power.’ [8]

Tantalisingly he left it there. Or the censor did.

Furthermore there is an additional problem. John Buchan wrote his memoirs as if he was the observer of people and events, and not personally involved. The director of information did not meet and greet international visitors from America, the Dominions and indeed Russia, without judging their usefulness and their susceptibility to British influence or forwarding reports and making value judgements on how best they could be manipulated. In his reminiscences, Buchan is able to vaguely remember a dinner in the Spring of 1916 with guests such as the Secret Elite’s Arthur Balfour and representatives from the Russian Duma including Professor Pavel Milyukov, the Russian Foreign Minister in the provisional government of 1917. It was he who promised that ‘Russia would continue the crusade for annihilation of German militarism…. to prevent all possibility of war in the future.’ He failed. [9] His other Russian dinner guest was Alexander Protopopov, [10] the Minister of the Interior from 1916-17, whose friendship with Rasputin earned him imprisonment and a Bolshevik bullet. Not a word about their discussions, or indeed their subsequent fate. He had plenty of time to reflect on these events because his autobiography was not published until 1940. [11] Like many within the Secret Elite, Buchan had tales to tell that were buried with him.

One politician who was not impressed by John Buchan was David Lloyd George, who as prime minister, found himself hemmed in by Secret Elite personnel. Lloyd George took great exception to an account in Buchan’s  A History of the Great War which depicted a meeting between the prime minister and the French Commander-in-chief, General Nivelle in 1916. Buchan claimed that the prime minister ‘heard of Nivelle’s plan – limitless objectives, the end of trench fighting, victory within two days – and naturally fell in love with it.’ [12] Even in describing Buchan’s account, Lloyd George felt he had to rewrite it, accusing him of ‘lapsing into his fictional mood, giving a fanciful picture of my meeting with General Nivelle at the Gare Du Nord’ where, having heard of the Frenchman’s plans for the forthcoming offensive in 1917, ‘I instantly caught fire.’ [13] In fact John Buchan neither identified the Paris station nor used such florid language, but facts did not stop the Welshman putting Buchan in his place:

‘when a brilliant novelist assumes the unaccustomed role of a historian it is inevitable that he should now and again forget that he is no longer writing fiction, but that he is engaged on a literary enterprise where the narration is limited in its scope by the rigid bounds of fact. Had he taken the trouble to read the documents which were in the possession of the War Office, and therefore available to him, he would have known … that the Nivelle plan had been revealed to me by 25 December … that at the Rome Conference I had expressed my doubt about an offensive in France … and at the Paris station I had refused to discuss the plan … in the absence of Sir Douglas Haig. Three fundamental inaccuracies in a single sentence are not a bad achievement even for a writer who has won fame by inventing his facts. The real explanation is that Mr Buchan found it so much less troublesome to repeat War Office gossip than to read War Office documents.’ [14]

Fact or fiction? Lloyd George’s own Memoirs fall into the same confusion at times. Truth to tell, Lloyd George had backed the wrong plan. The Nivelle Offensive failed miserably and the shattered French army was consequently riven by mutiny later that summer. [15] Clearly he had his own  personal axe to grind for he considered Buchan to be little more than Haig’s mouthpiece. [16] His unqualified attack on John Buchan’s professionalism and integrity was exceptional by any standards. The difference between the two as writers of ‘history’ was that Buchan was not attempting to glorify himself. He was attempting to protect his friends and acquaintances. If it was as Lloyd George claimed, ‘War Office gossip’, it  suited John Buchan and the Secret Elite to paint the prime minister  as the villain.

Simply put, Lloyd George didn’t much care for John Buchan and snubbed him at the end of the war by omitting his name from the honour’s list. Not that that in itself caused Buchan any disquiet. He had friends in high places who would deal with such matters in due course.

Propaganda was the work for which John Buchan should be remembered, not his novels and histories. A week after the Armistice in 1918, one of his departing colleagues summed up the importance of their labours: ‘Public opinion was undoubtedly influenced, we have proof upon proof of that. And public opinion just meant everything to the Allied cause. [17] A euphemism of course, for lying about those  who were sacrificed and to those who, having survived these terrible years, had to pay the cost of war.

After the war, Buchan was swiftly ensconced at Elsfield Manor some four miles from Oxford, and appointed to a minor post as Curator of the University Chest by Lord Curzon, Chancellor of Oxford University. From this vantage point, he was in a position to recognise and groom future Oxford luminaries who would be welcomed into the society of the elite. In 1927, Buchan accepted the Conservative nomination for a seat in Parliament representing the Scottish Universities, and the Church of Scotland appointed him to the the position of  High Commissioner in 1933 and 1934. Pleasant though this was, the post had no political importance, though as the King’s representative, Buchan was treated in royal style, living at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, holding garden parties and being addressed as ‘Your Grace’. [18] He clearly enjoyed this role, and took pride in being the first son of a Free Church minister to become High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland.

What made John Buchan’s next elevation to great office so remarkable was its unprecedented nature. No-one in the history of the British Empire had been raised from ordinary member of parliament and former High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland to Governor-General of the Dominion of Canada. Yet, astoundingly, this commoner, the first of his kind, was appointed by King George V to one of the truly significant imperial  positions in the British Empire. This was not the usual order of promotion. It was stellar and owed nothing to Buchan’s prowess as a writer.

The prime minister of Canada, W L Mackenzie-King, a man who greatly admired Alfred Milner, [19] advised the King on this pinnacle of Crown appointments, and John Buchan one of the Secret Elite’s most valued members joined the nobility as Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Militia and Naval and Air Forces of Canada. Honours dripped on his head in honied reward. In quick succession Buchan was made a Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George, Privy Counsellor, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, Honorary Fellow of Oxford University and awarded nine honorary degrees from Oxford, Canada, America and his native Scotland. Eat your heart out, David Lloyd George.

These honours had nothing to do with writing novels. John Buchan had proved his worth to the Secret Elite with his loyalty to their aims, had won their trust and gratitude, and was placed at the heart of the Empire because of this. The propagandist was well paid. He still is.

[1] John Buchan, Memory Hold the Door, p. 173.
[2] John Buchan, Episodes of the Great War, pp. 246-7.
[3] Ibid., p. 247.
[4] Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan and his world, p. 65.
[5] Colonel Edward Mandell House was one of the most important powers behind the scenes in President Woodrow Wilson’s government. Mandel House was his appointed advisor on just about everything. Linked to the J.P. Morgan organisation in New York, House was an Anglophile American. He regularly visited London and was close to Sir Edward Grey, Arthur Balfour and the senior ranks of the Secret Elite.
[6] Lord Esher was a founder member of the secret cabal organised by Cecil Rhodes in 1891. He remained at the heart of the Secret Elite all of his life. As close advisor to the monarchy, including Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and King George V, he held a unique status. His permanent appointments included membership of the Committee of Imperial Defence.
[7] Buchan, Memory Hold the Door, p. 169.
[8] Ibid., p. 170.
[9] New York Times, 20 April, 1917.
[10] Buchan, Memory Hold the Door, p. 171.
[11] Memory Hold The Door was first published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1940. It might better have been entitled: selective-memory, hold the door.
[12] John Buchan, A History of the Great War, vol III, p. 436.
[13] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol.1 pp. 886-7.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Kate MacDonald, Reassessing John Buchan chapter by Hew Strachan, John Buchan and The First World War: Fact Into Fiction, p. 77.
[16] Ibid. p. 83.
[17] Smith, John Buchan and his world, p. 68.
[18] Ibid., p.87.
[19] A.M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, p. 145.

 

Munitions 7: The Man Who Would Control

 

The Ministry of Munitions Act, which received Royal assent on 9 June 1915, was followed by an Order in Council which transferred the main functions of the War Office in ordnance contracts, supply and inspection to a discrete department of government headed by the man who wanted it most, David Lloyd George. The Defence of the Realm Act of 1915 (No. 2 March 1915) also allowed his ministry to take over any factory and its labour force to prioritise war production. Keen to be remembered as the man who saved the day by rescuing munitions from its ‘crisis’, the egocentric Lloyd George described his task as politically, ‘ A wilderness of risks with no oasis in sight’. [1] In reality, he had the full backing of the powers that operated behind the scenes on both sides of the Atlantic. In the process of advancing his political career, the once principled Welshman comprehensively sold his soul and proved himself devoid of all moral qualities. [2] Let there be no doubt, Lloyd George was in the political ascendency and through him, the Secret Elite expanded their stranglehold on output and production. The one-time pacifist was indecently eager to give them the chance to make huge profits providing they gave him the shells. [3]

In moving from his stewardship of the nation’s finances to master of munitions, Lloyd George entered a world where he was free to spend unlimited amounts of money on provisions of war which were never subject to targets or upper limits. The public perception was that more shells equalled certain victory, and any voice contrary risked accusations of treachery. He is reputed to have estimated the shell requirement by the following proposition; ‘Take Kitchener’s maximum; square it, multiply that by two; and when you are in sight of that, double it for good luck’. [4] What he did went well beyond the wildest dreams of the Armament’s Trusts. He once again cast himself in the role of the friend of big business and the industrial-financial elite whose favour he had curried at the Board of Trade in 1906. [5]

Lloyd George gathered round him men from business and industry, including Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, a Ruskin-adherent and old Oxford University acquaintance of Secret Elite leader Alfred Milner. Smith had been responsible for the system of war-risk insurance to protect shipping company owners, and in 1915 played a crucial role in wresting munitions supply policy from the War Office. He later developed Lloyd George’s wartime manpower policy [6] into a shape approved by Milner. Sir Percy Giraud, managing director of the Elswick Works of armaments giant Armstrong, Whitworth, became director-general of munition supply, and was succeeded by Sir Frederick Black, Director of Naval Contracts. It was to Black that George Macaulay Booth had reported when he advised that J.P. Morgan should be appointed sole purchaser for Britain in the American market. [7] Morgan, as we have seen was a close associate of the Secret Elite. While so many names may at first be overwhelming, they demonstrate the links between influential businessmen, American bankers, trusted high ranking civil servants and Secret Elite agents who pervaded Lloyd George’s munitions department.

His supporters in the national press, especially Northcliffe’s, hailed Lloyd George’s appointment as a decision that would ‘satisfy the country’, [8] and the owner of The Times sent him a personal note dramatically claiming that he (Lloyd George) had taken on the ‘heaviest responsibility that has fallen on any Briton for 100 years.’ [9] A Punch cartoon depicted the Welshman boldly controlling the twin horses of capital and labour as he rode to the army’s rescue with a carriage full of the munitions of war, under the banner of ‘Delivering The Goods’. [10] The general perception was put about that, in terms of the provision of shells for the western front, it was, ‘War Office, Bad; Ministry of Munitions, Good’, but the legend that Lloyd George saved the day in 1915 and the early months of 1916 is preposterous. [11] Raw statistics appeared to justify this self-proclaimed achievement. He took up office on Whit-Monday 1915 and by 31 December shell deliveries totalled 16,460,501, the vast majority of which arrived late in the year. In fact 13,746,433 of these had been ordered beforehand by the War Office [12] and had nothing to do with the rush to ‘rescue the situation’ as painted by Lloyd George’s friends and sponsors. In truth, these impressive statistics were the result of the steady conversion and expansion of war industry since August 1914,[13] an expansion that was primarily set in place by Lord Kitchner.

Unquestionably Lloyd George appointed some able organisers. Sir Eric Geddes, who epitomised his ‘man for the job’ approach, became  deputy director of munitions supply, responsible for rifles, machine guns, field guns, motor lorries, field kitchens, and innumerable other items. As head of the gun ammunition department he earned undying gratitude for improving shell output in time for the opening of the Somme offensive. [14] The additional supplies of heavy artillery enabled the generals to continue their awesome wastage and ironically it was Lloyd George’s radical drive which enabled the orthodox military policies to continue. [15] Over six days almost two million shells were fired at German positions at the Somme before the doomed infantry attack.You might even believe that it was a striking victory  if viewed in terms of the profligate use of munitions rather than the awful carnage and wasteful sacrifice of mutilated armies.

Lloyd George achieved the Secret Elite ideal to replace politicians and traditional career civil-servants with businessmen who, in his own words, ‘had touched the industrial life of the country and of the Empire at every point.’ [16]  The War Office caution was cast aside in favour of business managers and innovators. The ministry of munitions conducted a national survey of engineering resources, divided the country into manageable regions and put the issuing of contracts into the hands of local boards of management. While Lloyd George appeared to nationalise the munitions industry, he did nothing of the sort. A number of state factories were established with considerable fanfare but most of the local boards opted for a system of contracts placed under the management of the major arms firms. [17] This was a clever move because the ministry’s relationship with the Armaments Trusts remained mutually positive and productive. In many cases the national factories were integrated with or attached to existing firms, and prices still remained excessively high.

The Secret Elite’s need to control went deeper and further than the issue of armaments.  Powerful trades unions had to be brought into line. Lloyd George began a campaign to convince the country that war work was second only to that of the fighting forces of the Empire. Brooking no objections and fearing no-one, he set out on a crusade to tame industrial unrest, backed as ever by Northcliffe’s newspapers. The Times naturally supported his call for a relaxation of trades union practices and the employment of women in munitions. [18] In the full glare of national publicity he rapidly visited factories and Town Halls in Manchester (3 June 1915), Liverpool (4 June), Cardiff (10 June), and Bristol (12 June), knowing full well that every word he uttered would be front page news. Sometimes, as in Liverpool, he had private and unreported meetings with employers first, before addressing the massed battalions of dockworkers and declaring that there was no room for slackers. [19] Though he was cheered to the rafters, the Times noted three days later that there were just as many absentees from work in Liverpool on the following Saturday.

Lloyd George’s repeated warnings that he had powers under the Defence of the Realm Act that he might be forced to use, presaged the action he intended to take. A special conference was convened in private on 10 June with 75 representatives from 22 major workplace unions at the new ministry, and on 16 June a second conference at the Board of Trade was held with over 40 representatives from trade union associations. Lloyd George had the courage to make it personal, to meet the workers and their leaders and, in his own words, ‘tell you the truth’. [20] The truth and Lloyd George had long been distant bedfellows, but his rhetoric appealed to the masses and thrilled the employers.

He went to Cardiff to set up a national munitions factory in South Wales and, though he always found room to warn about the necessity of compulsory powers, Lloyd George urged his audience to ‘plant the flag on your workshop; every lathe you have, recruit it.’ [21] In Bristol the exhortation was to let the men in the trenches ‘hear the ringing in the forges of Great Britain, of the hammer on the anvil…’ [22] A deputation of workers from Wm. Beardmore and Co. and the Dalmuir shipyards on the Clyde had been sent to France to visit front-line troops and returned urging ‘more shells, and more high explosive shells.’ [23] Let it be clearly understood; Lloyd George was the only national politician who could have carried off the most all-encompassing restrictions planned on personal freedom and choice in Britain since Oliver Cromwell, without a revolt. He was an invaluable operator for the Secret Elite.

The Munitions of War Act (2 July, 1915) stamped an unprecedented control over the British worker. Despite its innocuous title, the new law introduced  draconian limitations on the rights of the working man and woman. Arbitration in disputes about wages, hours and conditions of work became compulsory. Factories could be deemed ‘Controlled Establishments’ whose profits were to be limited by a munitions levy or tax and no wage increases were allowed without the consent of Lloyd George’s ministry. While apologists hailed this move as evidence of a fair-minded approach, [24] the notion that profits were henceforth restricted to just 20% more than the average of the last two years of peace missed the point that pre-war profits were already exorbitant and the orders were now so vast that enormous gains continued to be made. However, on the face of it, the law appeared to demand an equal sacrifice from capitalist and labour, [25] and that was his message.

Strikes and Lockouts were prohibited. Workers could no longer move from one part of the country to another without explicit permission, and anyone attempting to relocate had to have a ‘leaving certificate.’ The Minister himself could organise war munitions volunteers, demand the removal of labour from non-munitions work and issue or withdraw badges identifying men who should remain in armaments production rather than volunteer. Workers were obliged to take certain jobs and work overtime, paid or unpaid.  Fundamentally, workers in the munitions industries remained civilians bound by quasi military restrictions on their personal rights. Munitions Tribunals were set up in the workplace to dispense local justice, and individual rights were taken by force of law and held in abeyance for the duration of the war. Not that it all went smoothly. [26] In more than a quarter of the cases where workers appealed to the Glasgow Tribunal against their employers’ refusal to grant them a  certificate to move to another workplace, the tribunal found against the employer. Almost immediately after the passing of the Act, the South Wales miners went out on strike and it took Lloyd George’s personal intervention to persuade them to return. Three workers at Fairfield shipyard on the Clyde were given prison sentences for the non-payment of a fine which led to a strike-call. It was only avoided when a mysterious donor paid the fines. Social unrest was not dispelled by the force of Lloyd George’s personality, and by August 1917 the provision was abandoned. [27]

Towards the end of 1915 the Glasgow Rent Strike erupted into a popular protest against greedy landlords who abused the housing shortage by raising rents in seriously sub-standard tenements whilst the family breadwinners were fighting and dying on the Western Front. That landlords and their factors could treat the suffering poor with such heartless war-profiteering and widespread evictions, stirred resentment to action. Protests were widely supported by left-wing groups in and around Glasgow and Clydeside including the Labour Party and trade unions, but mainly women left to protect their own. [28] Forced by the impact the protest was having on the massive armaments workshops, engineering factories and ship-yards arrayed along the banks of the Clyde, where imminent disruption to production was threatened in favour of the women’s resistance, the government  passed a Rent Restriction Act. [29] This once liberal government was moved not by social justice, but by the threat to war production.

Lloyd George suffered the embarrassment of being summoned to Glasgow to meet with three thousand exasperated union officials and armaments workers crammed into St Andrew’s Hall on Christmas Morning 1915. Problems of labour dilution by which less skilled workers were permitted to take on more skilled work,  and  their consequent loss of status, was a serious concern throughout the engineering industry. But the Minister of Munitions was determined to drive forward his plans for 80,000 new workers in ‘state-owned, state-erected, state-controlled, state equipped factories with no profits for any capitalists.’ [30] What arrant nonsense, but it sounded good. He faced down the cat-calls and the singing of the Red Flag with typical self-assurance, and earned praise from the Northcliffe papers. What cannot be denied is that lies and propaganda from a fawning press ensured that Lloyd George emerged from his time as Minister of Munitions as a national hero, basking in the success of his business colleagues, and fortunate in his dealings with the unions. His public profile was such that he outshone everyone else in the government, including Kitchener, and his stock rose even further with the Secret Elite. It certainly propelled him from offices in Whitehall Gardens to Downing Street.

What was studiously covered up, however, was his disreputable relationship with the international arms-dealer and merchant of death, Basil Zaharoff an agent of a different kind, whose contribution we will consider in our next blogs.

[1] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, p. 144.
[2] George H Cassar, Kitchener, Architect of Victory, p. 343.
[3] Donald McCormick, The Mask of Merlin, pp. 100-101.
[4] Hew Strachan, The First World War, Vol. 1 The Rush To Arms, p. 1077.
[5] McCormick, The Mask of Merlin, p. 102.
[6] Rodger Davidson, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36147
[7] Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, p. 18.
[8] Daily Mail, 26 May, 1915.
[9] J. Lee Thomson, Northcliffe, Press Baron in Politics, 1865-1922, p. 242.
[10] Punch 21 April 1915.
[11] George A B Dewar and J H Boreston, Sir Douglas Haig’s Command, vol. 1, p.69.
[12] Ministry of Munitions, vol. 1 , Pt. 1 p. 150.
[13] Strachan, The First World War, Vol. 1, p. 1069.
[14] Keith Grieves, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33360
[15] Chris Wrigley, The Ministry of Munitions: An Innovatory Department, in War and the State, edited by Kathleen Burk, p. 39.
[16] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, p. 150.
[17] Strachan, The First World War, Vol. 1, pp. 1079-80.
[18] The Times, 1 June 1915, p. 5.
[19] Ibid., 5 June, 1915 p. 9.
[20] Ibid., 4 June, p.9.
[21] Ibid., 11 June, p. 9.
[22] Ibid., 14 June, p. 8.
[23] Ibid., 18 June, p. 5.
[24] R J Q Adams, Delivering The Goods: Reappraising the Ministry of Munitions: 1915-1916,  Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol.7 no. 3 (autumn 1975) pp.232-244.
[25] Rules For The Limitation of Profits In Controlled Establishments, PRO MUN /5/100/360/13.
[26] Conciliation And Arbitration, Monthly Labour Review, Vol. 10, no. 4 (April, 1920) p. 233.
[27] Niall Ferguson, The Pity Of War, p. 273 and ref. 123, p. 519.
[28] http://sites.scran.ac.uk/redclyde/redclyde/rceve5.htm
[29] T C Smout, A Century of the Scottish People, 1830-1950, pp. 268-9.
[30] The Times, 27 December, 1915, p.3.

Munitions 6: Crisis, What Crisis?

Rumours about military set-backs circulated in Fleet Street and lists of casualties grew by the day through the spring of 1915. Blame was not laid at the feet of those in the field, and certainly not on their commanders in France. Months of propaganda had reinforced an expectation that ‘our lads’ would sweep all before them and what better reason to explain failure than the accusation that the government had not provided sufficient armaments? There were localised shortages, an imbalance between high explosives and shrapnel and, as we have shown, the navy claimed and received a priority in explosive shells over the army. [1] The impression from those at the front was that, if anything, British artillery fire on German trenches was increasing, and in February 1915 Captain James Jack of the Cameronians recorded his great joy in watching British shells smash through German parapets on he western front, adding that ‘these days we shell the Germans more than they do us.’ [2] Yet history would have it that in May 1915, there was a shell crisis. But how real was this ‘crisis’ and to what extent were events driven by other political objectives?

The Northcliffe-dominated press, in particular The Times and the Daily Mail, began a very personal attack on Lord Kitchener after the ill-fated offensive at Aubers Ridge on 9 May. [3] Aubers was an unmitigated disaster for the British army. No ground was won and no tactical advantage gained. On that single day, 9 May 1915, 11,000 British casualties were sustained and it took three days to process the wounded through the Field Ambulances. [4] German losses were reported to be under 1,000.

This dreadful failure has been blamed on Kitchener’s inability to provide high explosive shells. But, was that really the case? Prior to the attack, Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief in France, had assured the War Office that he had sufficient ammunition [5] and he had written a letter to Kitchener on 2 May stating; ‘the ammunition will be all right.’ [6] After the disaster Sir John French deflected attention from his own poor leadership by telling The Times correspondent, whom he had personally invited to witness what he anticipated as ‘one of he greatest battles the world has ever seen’, [7] that it had failed because of a shortage of shells. [8] This wasn’t just disloyalty; it was a lie. The attack at Aubers was preceded by an intense and prolonged artillery barrage which those present thought heralded ‘the complete destruction of the enemy’s lines’. [9] It did not.

The ‘crisis’ of the shell ‘shortage’ was blown into a furore to address political objectives. Observe its origins. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Repington, The Times war correspondent, played a major role in creating the ‘crisis’ in conjunction with Lord Northcliffe, and The Times editor, Geoffrey Dawson, a Secret Elite inner-core member. [10] They planned to release Repington’s exclusive story behind the failure of Aubers in order to bring down the Asquith government and discredit Lord Kitchener and the War Office. If the general public could be turned against Kitchener and his ability to run the war, then control of armaments would be wrested from him and given to the trusted Lloyd George.

The Secret Elite organised and supported the attack on Kitchener. Geoffrey Dawson shared the plan with Lord Milner, their undisputed leader, [11] who was equally determined to bring down Asquith’s liberal government. This deeply contrived ‘shell shortage’ added to the problems the government was facing over Gallipoli and riots in the streets after the sinking of the Lusitania. Milner told his close friend, and member of the Secret Elite’s inner core, Sir Harry Birchenough [12] that the ‘chickens are indeed, coming home to roost.’ [13] But there was a major stumbling block. The conditions imposed through the Defence of the Realm Act meant that before any news from the front was published, it had to be given formal approval by the censor. On 11 May, Repington sent a private letter to Geoffrey Dawson with the curious message that his report would be stamped ‘passed by the censor’, though he (the censor) would not have seen it. [14] In other words an un-named source was about to fabricate official permission from the censor so that The Times could print French’s lie. It was a criminal act dressed as a duty to expose the ‘truth’ in order to undermine Kitchener and Asquith.

On 14 May, 1915, headlines in The Times screamed of Need for Shells and Lack of High Explosives. The piece began with the blunt statement that ‘the want of an unlimited supply of high explosives was a fatal bar to our success [at Aubers].’ [15] The dam was burst. Northcliffe maintained the pressure on Kitchener through his Daily Mail which wrote of the folly of using shrapnel against the powerful German earthworks and wire entanglements, claiming that it was as effective as using a peashooter. [16] On 21 May Northcliffe threw all caution to the wind and wrote the editorial for the Daily Mail with the headline, Kitchener’s Fatal Blunder. He pulled no punches; ‘Lord Kitchener has starved the army in France of high explosive shells. The admitted fact is that Lord Kitchener ordered the wrong kind of shell – the same kind of shell which he used largely against the Boers in 1900. He persisted in sending shrapnel – a useless weapon in trench warfare. He was warned repeatedly that the kind of shell required was a violently explosive bomb which would dynamite its way through the German trenches and entanglements and enable our brave men to advance in safety. This kind of shell our poor soldiers have had has caused the death of thousands of them.’ [17]

At the front, soldiers were ‘raised to a pitch of fury’ by the ‘perfectly monstrous’ attack on Kitchener. Major General Sir Henry Rawlinson lambasted the ‘diabolical plot’ to focus attention on high explosive shells stating that: ‘the true cause of our failures is that our tactics have been faulty, and that we have misconceived the strength and resisting power of the enemy. To turn round and say that the casualties have been due to the want of H.E. shells for the 18-pounders is a perversion of the truth’. [18] In the trenches, soldiers were likewise disgusted by the press attack at a time when everyone should have been working against the enemy. Douglas Haig made nothing of shell shortages, advocating that heavier guns be tried in the future. He stressed that accurate observation of the effect of a bombardment should be made before an infantry attack was launched. [19]

Instead of stirring public outrage against Kitchener, Northcliffe’s tirade provoked a torrent of loathing against him and his newspapers. ‘It shocked the public, shook Whitehall and threw Northcliffe’s critics into paroxysms of rage.’ [20] Reaction was swift. The Services Clubs in Pall Mall barred The Times and Daily Mail from their doors. Subscriptions were cancelled; advertising slumped. Copies of the Daily Mail and The Times were burned on the floors of the London Stock Exchange, the Liverpool Provision Exchange, the Baltic Exchange in London and the Cardiff Coal and Shipping Exchange. Though the Westminster Gazette praised ‘the manly and honourable impulse’ of the stockbrokers who cheered for Kitchener and booed Northcliffe, [21] there was more than just a whiff of payback about this allegedly impulsive demonstration.

Three years earlier, the city editor of the Daily Mail, Charles Duguid, had become so concerned about the high cost of dealing shares on the London Stock Exchange, that he decided, with Northcliffe’s blessing, to launch the Daily Mail’s own cut-price share service. Readers with stock to sell would write to the City Editor who then printed a small ‘ad’ that matched-up the buyers and sellers. Demand was so heavy that Duguid had to establish a small bureau to handle the administrative burdens of running a do-it-yourself stock market. When the London Stock Exchange closed its doors to trading on 31 July 1914, the Daily Mail Exchange took out half-page adverts in the Financial Times and the Financial News declaring it was open for business. [22] The Stockbrokers did not burn Northcliffe’s papers out of patriotism. Theirs was an act of spiteful revenge. But it caught the popular mood. Kitchener was an untouchable; a national icon whom the masses still revered. And, neither he nor Asquith resigned. Sales of the Daily Mail on the morning of the attack on Kitchener topped 1,386,000 copies and overnight slumped to 238,000. [23] This was not the effect that Northcliffe expected, but he did not desist or retract.

What makes this turn of events even more significant is that, in rejecting Northcliffe’s claims, the public refused to treat shell shortage as a ‘crisis’, though the supply of armaments remained a high priority. Official historians later adopted Northcliffe’s line and consequently the concept of a ‘crisis’ took root.

There were however, important consequences. Herbert Asquith was unable to hold together a government that had been elected in 1910 with no inkling of war, no experience of managing a war, and increasing tensions between ministers on how best to achieve victory in that war. Had there been a general election, Liberals feared that the Conservatives would be swept into power, and Asquith surrendered to a multitude of pressures from outside parliament to agree a swift and dramatic coalition [24] We have examined the pressures on Asquith in previous blogs, [25] but the Secret Elite were reminded that public opinion had to be carefully manipulated to achieve major change. It could not be taken for granted. They did have one outstanding success. Overall control of munitions was taken away from the still popular, Lord Kitchener.

A Ministry of Munitions was created as a discrete department inside the coalition government of 1915, and it was headed by their worthy agent, David Lloyd George. It may have looked like a side-ways step for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but it was not. In many ways it was the most important post he could have held. The Secret Elite sought complete control of all war production to maximise their profits under the guise of sustaining the war effort. Lloyd George had proved his worth to them at the Board of Trade where his business-friendly approach was very profitable. [26] Once a committed pacifist who had preached arms-control, the popular Welsh MP was the one man who could have led a successful concerted opposition to war in August 1914, but sold-out to the Money Power.

His access went beyond the political realm and his association with businessmen and financiers in Britain and America gave him power and status greater even than the prime minister. Lloyd George had developed close relationships with men who should have been political enemies. He regularly consulted Arthur Balfour, the former conservative party leader and prime minister, and through him had the confidence of Bonar Law who fronted the opposition party in 1915. Milner, consumed by the certainty that national conscription was the only way forward, considered Lloyd George the most able man in the government. [27] Knowing full well how to manipulate the Welshman, Milner noted; ‘if properly handled, [he] will end up going for it [conscription] and he is the only man who could carry it, if he could be induced to try.’ [28]

How well the Secret Elite played Lloyd George, pandered to his ambitions, and understood his public value. Together, they had plotted a complete take over of Asquith’s Liberal government in 1915, but had only a partial success. Asquith did not surrender the key posts in his Cabinet to the men who would strangle Laissez-faire and impose the kind of conditions that the Secret Elite knew were essential to their ultimate aim, the crushing of Germany and the Anglo-American domination of the civilised world. They would have to prepare the ground more carefully.

[1] See previous blog.
[2] John Terraine, General Jack’s Diary, War on the Western Front, 1914-1918, p. 99.
[3] The battle is variously known as Festubert, Givenchy and Fromelles. See A M Gollin, Freedom or Control in the First World War, Historical Reflections, 1976, p. 148.
[4] http://www.1914-1918.net/bat11.htm
[5] Hugh Cecil and Peter H. Liddle, Facing Armageddon, The First World War Experienced, p. 42.
[6] Trevor Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 292.
[7] Ibid., p. 290.
[8] Cecil and Liddle, Facing Armageddon, p. 42.
[9] Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 290.
[10] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 312. and pp.101-106.
[11] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 50.
[12] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 13.
[13] Milner Papers, Milner to Birchenough, 13 May, 1915.
[14] A.M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, p. 253.
[15] The Times,14 May 1915, p.8.
[16] Reginald Pound and Geoffrey Harmsworth, Northcliffe, p. 477.
[17] Daily Mail, 21 May 1915. See also Daily Mail Historical Archives at http://gale.cengage.co.uk/daily-mail-historical-archive/subjects-covered.aspx
[18] John Pollock, Kitchener, pp. 443-4.
[19] Haig, Private Papers, 11 May 1915. as cited in http://www.1914-1918.net/bat11.htm
[20] Pound and Harmsworth, Northcliffe, p. 478.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Alex Brummer, Daily Mail, 28 Dec 2012, citing research from Professor Richard Roberts, Kings College, London.
[23] Pound and Harmsworth, Northcliffe, p. 479.
[24] Edward David, Inside Asquith’s Cabinet, p. 242.
[25] See blogs, 25 and 27 May 2015.
[26] Donald McCormick, The Mask Of Merlin, p. 102.
[27] J. Lee Thompson, Forgotten Patriot, p. 315.
[28] Milner to Gwynne, 10 May 1915; in Thompson, Forgotten Patriot, p. 315.

Munitions 4: Lloyd George And Very Secret Arrangements

For reasons that have not been fully examined, Lloyd George began to assume a proprietary interest in munitions. His work as Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to have kept him occupied in monetary and fiscal matters, raising war loans and extending credit, but his voice as a Secret Elite agent in Asquith’s Cabinet repeatedly brought him into conflict with Kitchener. He interfered with War Office orders, placed twenty-million pounds at the disposal of the Master-General of the Ordnance in an effort to support increased capacity from the established armaments firms and virtually freed the Ordnance Department from Treasury control. [1] He also looked for assistance from America.

The Anglo-American Establishment closed ranks behind its British associates, and the U S State Department, which had previously blocked a request from the JP Morgan banking firm to make loans to the allies, issued a press release on 15 October declaring that, on reflection, it had ‘no authority to interfere with the purchase of goods by belligerents, even of munitions, and it would be highly unneutral for it to do so’. Pressure had been exerted on the Woodrow Wilson’s government ‘to permit the belligerent nations to buy goods and raw materials in America’ [2]. And that pressure emanated directly from the JP Morgan banking dynasty, with its Rothschild connection, the powerful Pilgrims Society, which included a select ‘collective of the wealthiest figures of both Britain and the United States who were deeply involved with the Secret Elite,’ [3] and the presidential advisor, Robert Lansing. [4] Though professing an absolutely neutral stance, the door to America had been opened for the allies by President Wilson’s administration from October 1914. The question was, would the War Office use the opportunity well?

The British Cabinet Committee meeting on 21 October agreed to contact the War Office agent in America with a request for 400,000 rifles and three days later sent their representative, Captain Smyth-Pigott to New York. They did not know that Lloyd George, whom the Secret Elite had determined would have ultimate control, had already acted independently. He had sent his most able Treasury expert, Basil Blackett, to America to evaluate the logjam that had built up in military procurement. His first reports insisted that the War Office and the Admiralty had to start co-ordinating their purchasing strategies because suppliers were raising prices and playing one off against the other. [5] Lloyd George met privately in his rooms with Lord Rothschild to seek financial advice shortly before the ‘Prince of Israel’, as the Chancellor dubbed him, died. [6] and, around the same time, a further most important connection was established.

In November 1914, the Chancellor of the Exchequer contacted his acquaintance, Edward Charles Grenfell, senior partner of Morgan-Grenfell & Co., and director of the Bank of England, to discuss whether rifle production in the United States could be increased and engineering production switched to munitions manufacture. The line of contact started in the Treasury with Lloyd-George, through Grenfell to J.P. Morgan & Co., the largest investment banking firm in America and back through the same channel to London. Morgan immediately promised to liaise with two firms, Remington and Winchester, ‘friends’ of his group, and an understanding was reached. [7] Delivery would however take eleven months. [8] Trusted Secret Elite agents had created a very pro-British accord which would benefit them all.

But Kitchener would not have it. The War Office complained loudly about this civilian arrangement and Kitchener contacted J P Morgan directly, demanding that the order be cancelled. In his view, munition supply was still War Office business and no-one else’s. Lloyd George was furious; Edward Grenfell, outraged. The carefully planned Trans-Atlantic accord appeared to have been smothered by Kitchener’s intervention, but the Chancellor had powerful friends on both sides of the Atlantic. Grenfell complained bitterly that ‘the manner in which the War Office have dealt with the proposed rifles contract with Morgan, Grenfell and Co, will have a detrimental effect on Public opinion in America.’ [9] It was always a good line to take. American public opinion mattered to the British government. That same day Lloyd George smoothed Edward Grenfell’s ruffled feathers by stating that Kitchener’s communication to Morgan was based on a regrettable ‘misapprehension’ and asked for Morgan’s cooperation’ [10] Subsequent orders were placed with Morgan’s chosen men without War Office interference.

Lloyd George’s next tactic was to use his valued associates from his days as President of the Board of Trade. The British Embassy in Washington had reported that a large number of purchasing agents were abusing their position and accepting ridiculously high prices for goods bought in America, so Sir George Macaulay Booth of the shipping company, Alfred Booth and Co. was dispatched to the United States to assess the extent of the problem. Here he found that British buyers were paying thirty-seven shillings for coats that could have been procured for twenty-four shillings.

The British Ambassador, Spring Rice, recommended that J P Morgan be appointed sole purchaser to protect British interests, and Booth returned in mid-November to report to Kitchener and Churchill, as well as the Board of Trade, that there was an over-riding need for a sole purchaser…and that it should be Morgan. Booth was well aware that in addition to his dominant position in American banking, Morgan controlled a vast tonnage in International Maritime Marine, and an alliance with him would guarantee the use of Booth’s ships in the allied interest. Apparently historians have concluded that it is not exactly clear ‘just which cabinet minister formally asked which British or American Morgan partner to take on responsibility, [for munitions] or when.’ [11] It was clearly Lloyd George. He had the confidence of the Secret Elite and they had facilitated the arrangement.

As a result, a purchasing contract was signed in January 1915 between J.P.Morgan and the British Treasury, appointing the New York firm as its sole purchaser in the United States. It should hardly be a surprise. Morgan was intimately linked to the Secret Elite, [12] had offices in London (Morgan-Grenfell and Co,), Paris (Morgan, Harjes & Co.) and New York, (J.P.Morgan and Co.) and E.C. Grenfell personally acted as the go-between. This was not the usual order of business. Under normal circumstances the British Embassy in Washington would have been the point of liaison. What emerged was unprecedented. Control over the spending of thousands of millions of British tax-payers’s pounds was placed in the hands of an American plutocrat and his British agent in London.

Each morning, Edward Grenfell called at the Bank of England with the latest pound-to-dollar exchange quotations from America. He would discuss this with the joint-permanent secretaries at the Treasury before walking back to his office in Old Broad Street. There, he had the orders of the day encoded and sent by secret cable directly to New York. And here again we find that Secret Elite agents operated above the law of the land, out-with the knowledge of the British cabinet, in contravention of the Defence of the Realm Act and over the head of the official censor. Lloyd George permitted Edward Grenfell in London, access to an unrestricted direct cable to J.P. Morgan in New York so that its messages were more secure and absolutely secret. [13]

Ponder for a moment on this unique arrangement. Unrestricted coded cables were sent on a daily basis to a New York banking company agreeing purchasing orders, banking instructions and exchange rates. Taking this line of argument one step further, the men who created and ran the Federal Reserve System were in cahoots with the British central bank to agree the values of their respective currencies without the scrutiny of any political or democratic agency. The Secret Elite, as embodied in the whole Anglo-American Establishment, was absolutely in control. It could be argued that the British economy was being run from J P Morgan’s offices in New York. Is there any clearer example of what was called ‘the Money Power’?

Questions were asked in Parliament when rumours of the government’s agreement were leaked to the press. Morgan was known to favour his own or associated companies to the exclusion of others, a practice which ran contrary to public policy and could adversely affect British manufacturing interests. The MP for Newry, John Mooney, alleged that Morgan companies were buying up goods and selling them on to the British government at higher prices. [14] But to no avail. The deed was done. The public new nothing of this. Indeed no-one knew of this most secret arrangement.

If we take one step back and look at these arrangements in the cold light of reflection, Lloyd George’s interference in armaments and munitions dated from September 1914 when he informed the War Office that he, as chancellor, had set aside £20 million to finance extensions to factories for the production of armaments. His consequent disgust at their intransigence in contacting the armaments ‘trade’, as he called it, to push forward additional supplies of ‘guns, rifles and ammunition’ has been well documented. [15] That he was the first to register serious concerns about the likelihood of a severe shortage of munitions, [16] arguing vehemently against Kitchener in Cabinet meetings that War Office practice was outdated, is in itself interesting. His informants were ‘prominent industrialists’ from ‘all over the country.’ [17] In other words, Lloyd George was the armament trusts’ voice in Cabinet. His confidence was such that he could initiate orders and organise processes, sanction agreements and by-pass War Office restrictions in the knowledge that he would be supported. Little wonder Kitchener felt undermined.

Lloyd George was also in a unique position compared to other Cabinet ministers. He knew of the frequent requests from Sir John French for more shells for his howitzers; requests that became the theme of ‘almost daily telegrams’ from the front. [18] While Kitchener was concerned about the unprecedented rate at which shells were being ‘expended’, urging Sir John French to economise, Lloyd George met with representatives of Vickers, Armstrongs, Beardmore and the Coventry Ordnance to promise them that the government would find the money to increase their capital expenditure on munitions. [19] That money would come from America. Much of that money would be spent in America on armaments and component parts and be paid for, eventually, by the British tax-payer.

So, who did Lloyd George represent?

[1] Michael and Eleanor Brock, HH Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, p. 267.
[2] Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, p. 14.
[3] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 312.
[4] See blog post Lusitania 8, published 18/05/2015.
[5] Kathleen Burk, War and the State, The Transformation of British Government 1914-18, p. 89.
[6] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, Vol. 1,  p.70.
[7] Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, p. 14.
[8] J P Morgan, New York, to E C Grenfell, 11 November 1914, PRO LG/C/1/1/32.
[9] Edward Grenfell to Mr Lloyd George, 13 November, 1914, PRO, LG/C/1/1/33.
[10] Lloyd George to Mr Grenfell, PRO LG/C/1/1/34.
[11] Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the Sinews of War, p. 18.
[12]  Docherty and Macgregor, Hidden History, pp. 212-214.
[13] Kathleen Burk, War and the State, The Transformation of British Government 1914-18, p. 90.
[14] Hansard House of Commons Debate. 20 April 1915, vol. 71, cc175-6.
[15] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 79-80.
[16] Richard Toye, Lloyd George and Churchill, p. 133.
[17] Lloyd George, Memoirs, p. 82.
[18]  Ibid., pp. 86-7.
[19]  Ibid., p. 89.

Munitions 3: Fighting For Control Of Supplies

Despite all the advantages which private British armaments companies enjoyed, the supply of guns, shells and ammunition was hindered by the infighting, lack of co-ordination and traditional red-tape that haunted the War Office when war broke out. Richard Haldane’s reforms from 1906 onwards had created the small, well-armed British Expeditionary Force, but leadership of the army was controlled absolutely through the ‘Roberts Academy’ [1] which remained wedded to the primacy of cavalry regiments and was rooted not in the coming war, but in the Boer War. Britain’s reserves of shells in 1914 were reckoned to be two and a half times greater than they had been in 1899. [2] The requirements had been based on guess-work and assumptions, covering a notional supply for four major battles of three days duration each over the first two months. [3] No-one suggested otherwise in August 1914. Lloyd George’s later condemnation of the War Office was biased. He blamed their failures on ‘traditional reactionism’ which based future wars on past, but irrelevant, glories. [4] But take care. As we will show in future blogs, Lloyd George had his own vested interest in painting a ‘history’ which flattered his insight and actions.

While the volunteers pressed themselves through recruiting stations in the vain expectation that they would see off the Germans before Christmas, little thought had been given to the fact that there were insufficient rifles, cannon, machine guns, mortars, uniforms or basic equipment on hand for the eager young men who signed in droves. The stark truth that you will rarely read in history books is that the Cabinet anticipated around 100,000 volunteers when Kitchener’s campaign began in 1914, but the swell of public enthusiasm obliged them to raise the limit to 500,000 and then beyond.

Of volunteers there was no scarcity. But what use was this, even had they been given competent leadership from their Generals, when they did not have explosive shells, sufficient machine guns, aircraft or artillery?

There were horses; 25,000 in 1914 and over half a million had been used by the end of the war. When horses and men faced explosive shells and machine-gun enfilades, the result was inevitable. The Roberts Academy, so trusted by the Secret Elite, proved inadequate for the task. They had prepared for the wrong war. Of course Sir Henry Wilson had liaised with his French counterparts, and his regular visits to Flanders and the North of France between 1908-1914 identified precisely where the BEF would go, but they failed collectively to anticipate the nature of this twentieth century war.

The national arsenals, (they were called Royal Arsenals) at Woolwich, Enfield Lock and Waltham Abbey had been in decline since the end of the Boer War and much of their machinery was run down. [5] The private munitions companies had largely specialised in ship-building and naval contracts but Vickers at Newcastle, Armstrong, Whitworth at Elswick and the Birmingham Small Arms Company also diversified into other engineering ventures including motorbikes, cars and airplanes. On the one hand the potential for increased production existed in theory, but the practice turned into a nightmare of red tape, tradition, pig-headedness, self-interest and greed.

War Office procedures choked under the volume of newly placed orders. The Ordnance Department had only ever dealt with a small circle of approved contractors and was reluctant to expand its suppliers. The years of underinvestment in the Royal Arsenals reaped an embarrassing dividend. They were not fit for purpose. Privately, many of the recognised contractors accepted orders that they could not complete within the required timescale and, at the same time, committed themselves to undertake massive additional orders from the Russian government. Greed is a powerful master, and these men were in a position to maximise the benefits for themselves, so the armaments’ ring talked of the risk of over-expansion. What would happen to them if they built new factories and the war was indeed over by Christmas?

The mind-set of the Roberts Academy had been moulded by the criticism made during the Boer War that the War Office had not provided sufficient shrapnel. It was outstandingly the most effective shell in the open veld.

The western front was a completely different battleground. It quickly became a stalemate. The high explosive shell, used to such shattering effect by the German howitzers, had not been part of their original strategic thinking. [6] Mobility and speed of action dominated the ‘Roberts Academy’ pre-war plan. Shrapnel was the undisputed shell of choice and in consequence, the demand for high explosives was originally relegated to around 30% of total orders. Ironically, despite years of careful preparation, the British Army was not as well equipped for the war that lay before it, as had been presumed. In August 1914, all of the British Army’s 13- and 18-pounder guns were entirely supplied with shrapnel. [7]

And it only got worse. Shrapnel had no effect whatsoever on well constructed parapets, deep trenches with blockhouses, on machine-gun posts or barbed wire defences. By the first week in September the General Headquarters in France was requesting supplies of high explosive shells which simply did not exist. Repeated pleas for increasing numbers of this ordnance were specifically made on 15th and 21st September, 1914. The army claimed that they desperately needed 50% of their shells to be high explosive but the War Office treated their requests as if the men in the field were over excitable schoolboys. The grounds on which the Ordnance Department based this attitude was that ‘the nature of these operations may change as they have done in the past.’ [8] But just how far was munitions shortage a reality?

In one critical area there was never a shortage; indeed, there was constantly an oversupply. When shell shortage was proclaimed a national ‘crisis’ in 1915, a focus manufactured by the Northcliffe press to damage the Asquith government and deflect attention from military failures, historians and journalists followed this explanation unquestioningly. Truth to tell, there was an abundance of shells; for Dreadnoughts and battleships. [9] The navy claimed its long-assumed priority over shells and the cordite required to fire these immense projectiles over five to nine miles. Early in 1914, the Admiralty agreed to raise the number of rounds from 80 to 100 per gun on battleships and to 110 per gun on battle cruisers.

In fact, by 1916, 8-gun battle cruisers were stocked with fifty per cent more ammunition than they were designed to carry. [10] Churchill was obliged to recognise the navy’s over provision in October 1914 by permitting the transfer of 1,000 tons of cordite to the army. [11] Yet over-supply to the navy was not meaningfully reduced. The Armaments companies continued to produce their heavy calibre shells despite the fact that there were very few naval engagements which would have consumed the ammunition. The navy continued to have priority over the army with the private producers and while there were perceived shortages on the western front, stocks hoarded by the Admiralty were ‘bountiful’. [12] Clearly heavy calibre explosives were being produced in great quantities, but not for the army, for whom the word ‘shortage’ had become a mantra.

High explosives were deemed to be the technological panacea, [13] and the lack of these became the ready excuse for failure. It also became an integral part of the problem. If the only solution to stalemate on the western front was even more extravagant use of heavy artillery, then the more these great guns blasted, often aimlessly, the more they accentuated the shortage. With governments ever willing to throw increased expenditure at the perceived ‘solution’, the armaments trusts could only reap untold profits. Kitchener believed that the shortage was exaggerated, but his generals in the field became fixated by this god-given ‘reason’ which rationalised their failures and justified their strategies. At every turn they wanted more.

There was an impasse. Kitchener’s War Office wanted to retain full control of munitions. They were suspicious of offers from American companies or orders placed in America by British government agents. Likewise they had no faith in dozens of smaller engineering companies across Britain which offered to switch production under license. Kitchener’s stubborn Master General of Ordnance, the man at the War Office who had to approve all orders, Sir Stanley von Donop, insisted that only firms experienced in the delicate operation of arms manufacture, firms that had a skilled workforce capable of safely producing the guns and shells, should be used.

The men who controlled the private armaments firms, their supply, manufacture and price, effectively a sub-set of the Secret Elite, were determined to secure their stranglehold by taking control away from the War Office. But how? Lloyd George found a way. Despite Kitchener’s objections, the government set up a Cabinet Committee in October 1914 to examine the issues of munitions’ supply. Absolute control did not immediately pass from the War Office, but within eight months Kitchener would be sidelined.

When Lloyd George, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, met on 13 October with the major representatives from Armstrong, Vickers, the Coventry Ordnance Works and Beardmore, he offered them a blank cheque. Incredibly, the nation had been held hostage. Lloyd George promised that the British taxpayer would cover whatever the cost of extending production lines, building new factories or investing in new machinery, irrespective of how long the war lasted. He committed the government to compensate them and any of their sub-contractors for any subsequent loss. The War Office protocols to protect the public purse were torn to shreds. Not surprisingly the open cheque-book had a miraculous effect. The merchants of death immediately promised to increase output by every possible means. For example, artillery gun production, which was doubled from 878 to 1,606, was to be completed no later than August 1915. [14] These great firms owned and run by self-serving capitalists who boasted their patriotism in parliament, pulpit and the press, were literally subsidised by the government to increase production and make outrageous profits. The Secret Elite removed the impasse.

What price patriotism?

[1] For detailed information about the Roberts Academy, the privileged post-Boer War clique which dominated military strategy and planning in the year before the First World War, see Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, pp. 194-202.
[2] Ministry of Munitions, vol. 1. pt. 1, p. 21.
[3] Hew Strachan,The First World War, vol.1: To Arms, p. 997.
[4] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, Vol. 1, p. 75.
[5] Hansard House of Commons Debate, 13 June 1911, vol. 26, cc1459-97
[6] Lloyd George, Memoirs, pp. 76-7.
[7] Strachan, The First World War, vol.1, p. 1000.
[8] Lloyd George, Memoirs, p.84.
[9] Strachan, The First World War, p. 998.
[10] Nicholas A Lambert, “Our Bloody Ships”, Journal of Military History, 1998, p. 36.
[11] Ministry of Munitions, vol 1, pt. 1. p. 96.
[12] Jon Tetsuro Sumido, British Naval Operational Logistics, 1914-1918, Journal of Military History, vol. 57, no. 3, July 1993, p. 453.
[13] Strachan, The First World War, p. 1001.
[14] Lloyd George, Memoirs, p. 89.

Gallipoli 18: Keith Murdoch And The Great Witch-Hunt

Popular wisdom and official histories would have us believe that Sir Ian Hamilton’s career and the Dardanelles offensive were brought to an end by an unknown junior Australian journalist, Keith Murdoch. [1] In Australia, his role has been given iconic status amongst the myths surrounding Gallipoli, but as we have detailed in the previous blog, the decision to remove Hamilton had already been taken on the recommendation of Maurice Hankey, aided and abetted by Major Guy Dawnay. The intervention of Keith Murdoch did play a vitally important role in that it deflected attention away from Hankey and the Secret Elite, making it appear that the truth about the Gallipoli disaster was suddenly exposed by a tenacious journalist. As Alan Moorehead observed in his masterly history, Murdoch’s ‘entry into the explosive scene is one of the oddest incidents in the Gallipoli campaign.’ [2]

So who was Keith Murdoch and how was he able to gain access to the heart of the British Establishment? A Son of the Manse, his father was a Scottish Presbyterian Minister who had emigrated to Melbourne in 1884. Murdoch sought a career in journalism but was handicapped by a serious speech defect. He went to London in 1908 in an attempt to break into Fleet Street and have his impediment cured, but unlike any other young aspirant newspaperman he had ‘ a sheaf of introductions’ from the Australian Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin. [3] One year earlier, Deakin had attended the Colonial Conference in London and was befriended by Alfred Milner with whom he formed a close bond. [4] Milner was the acknowledged leader of the Secret Elite and the most influential spokesman on Imperial affairs. Given his own journalistic connections, Alfred Milner would have been a natural contact to advance the young Murdoch’s career. On his return to Australia in November 1909, Keith Murdoch became Commonwealth parliamentary reporter for the Sydney Evening Sun and was soon in close contact with Deakin’s successor as Prime Minister, Andrew Fisher, and other leading Labour Party Ministers. He helped found the Australian Journalists’ Association (AJA) in 1910 and was totally sympathetic to the developing ideas of Milner and his Round Table associates. [5]

Murdoch had sought the position of Australian Press War Correspondent but was beaten into second place in the AJA election by Charles Bean who later became the official Australian War Historian. Disappointed by this failure, Murdoch sought new horizons, and was ‘told privately’ that a job associated with The Times in London was his if he wanted it. [6] The 29 year-old, left Melbourne again on 13 July 1915 to become editor of the United Cable Service at The Times offices in London.

Official accounts relate that he was asked by the Australian government to break his journey at Egypt in order to enquire into complaints about delays in soldiers’ mail. It was odd that for such a unremarkable task, Murdoch carried letters of introduction from both the Australian Prime Minister (Andrew Fisher) and Minister of Defence (George Pearce). The Prime Minister’s letter specifically stated that ‘Mr. Murdoch is also undertaking certain enquires for the Government of the Commonwealth in the Mediterranean theatre of war.’ [7] How peculiar. A journalist had been asked to conduct an investigation on behalf of his government rather than his employers. There were many Australians at Gallipoli who could have undertaken such a mundane inquiry, which begs the question of Murdoch’s real purpose. What was he sent out to do? What were his private instructions from the Australian government?

On arriving at Cairo in mid- August, he wrote to Sir Ian Hamilton and was duly given permission to visit  Gallipoli and speak to the Australian troops. Hamilton somewhat gullibly wrote in his diary that Murdoch ‘seems a sensible man’ [8] but wondered why his duty to Australia could be better executed with a pen than with a rifle. [9] Keith Murdoch spent four days there and met Charles Bean and two other Australian Journalists. Given that there were at least three other independent Australian journalists already there, why was Murdoch given his rather bizarre task of investigating mail? More pertinent to all that followed, he held confidential meetings with Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, the British war correspondent. According to Murdoch’s biographer, Desmond Zwar, Ashmead-Bartlett was disgusted by Hamilton’s handling of the campaign and asked Murdoch if he would take a sealed letter addressed to Prime Minister Asquith and post it when he arrived in London. [10] Ashmead-Bartlett, on the other hand, related a different story. According to his recollections, Murdoch, fearful of the impact on Australian morale of a winter campaign, ‘begged’ him to write a letter to the authorities which he would carry uncensored to London. Ashmead-Barlett coached Murdoch on what to say when he reached England, ‘but he wants something definite under my own signature.’ [11] Why did Murdoch need a signed statement, and what had any of this to do with the mail?

On 8 September Ashmead-Bartlett agreed to write a letter to Asquith informing him of the true state of affairs at Gallipoli. Men had been sacrificed in impossible conditions. No adequate steps had been taken to keep them supplied with water. ‘In consequence many of these unfortunate volunteers went three days in very hot weather on one bottle of water, and yet were expected to advance carrying heavy loads, and to storm strong positions.’ Within four weeks, nearly fifty thousand men were killed, wounded or missing. The Army was in a deplorable condition and the men thoroughly dispirited. ‘The muddles and mismanagement beat anything that has ever occurred in our military history… At present the Army is incapable of a further offensive… I am convinced the troops could be withdrawn under cover of the warships without much loss… We have not yet gained a single acre of ground of any strategical value.’ [12] This was not news to the British Cabinet or War Office, for Hankey and Dawnay had already revealed the full extent of the disaster.

When Murdoch reached Marseilles he was met by a British intelligence officer with an escort of British troops and French gendarmes and ordered to hand over Ashmead-Bartlett’s letter. [13] It has been suggested that another journalist, Henry Nevison, was eaves-dropping during their private conversation and betrayed them to the authorities, but to this day no convincing explanation has been forthcoming as to how British Intelligence learned of the letter. Murdoch arrived in London on 21 September, made his way directly to the offices of  The Times, and began typing up a report for his own Prime Minster which was highly critical of Sir Ian Hamilton. [14] His first contact just happened to be The Times editor, Geoffrey Dawson, a man at the inner-core of the Secret Elite. [15] According to the Australian historian, Les Carlyon, Murdoch ‘might just as well have been walking around with the sign ‘Pawn’ on his back. Powerful men who wanted Britain out of the Dardanelles, would push him all around the board’. [16] While Carlyon is correct about the powerful men behind the scenes, was Murdoch simply an unwitting pawn or had he already bought into their witch-hunt against Hamilton?

Over the following days Keith Murdoch met with numerous individuals who had been responsible for initiating the Gallipoli disaster including Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, Lord Kitchener, Sir Edward Carson and Winston Churchill.

In an accompanying letter to Asquith, Murdoch criticised Hamilton and the General Staff for ‘disastrous underestimations and stubbornly resisting in the face of hopeless schemes’ and ‘gross wrongdoings’. [17] No mention was made of Hamilton being starved of the men and munitions needed to successfully undertake the campaign or the countless requests that Kitchener studiously ignored. Without checking the accuracy of Murdoch’s accusations, or giving Hamilton a chance to respond, Asquith had them printed on Committee of Imperial Defence stationary and distributed to the Cabinet. [18] Consider the implications. Members of the Cabinet were formally issued with Murdoch’s unsubstantiated report to his own Prime Minister in Australia, as if it was an official British Government document. Was this not fraud?

Murdoch may well have played the role of willing pawn in the Secret Elite’s grand game, but one fact remains irrefutable. From 1915 onwards he was intimately connected to the most powerful men in the British Empire; men who valued his contribution and whose values he shared.

Meantime, Ashmead-Bartlett had been ordered home by General Hamilton, and on his arrival in London immediately met with Lord Northcliffe, another powerful figure closely associated with the Secret Elite. [19]  ‘The snowball was now gathering momentum.’ [20] The witch-hunt continued. He told Ashmead-Bartlett  that a great responsibility rested on his shoulders to inform the government, and the country, of the true state of affairs at Gallipoli.  [21]

On 11 October 1915 Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, and a direct route was opened between Germany and Turkey. It was time to get out. Three days later in the House of Lords, Lord Alfred Milner gave his blessing to a withdrawal from Gallipoli: ‘To speak quite frankly, I should have thought that whatever evils had resulted from the disastrous developments in the Balkans there was at least this advantage, that it might have given us an opportunity which may never recur of withdrawing from an enterprise the successful completion of which is now hopeless.’ [22] Milner had spoken. That very night the Dardanelles Committee decided to recall General Hamilton because ‘he had lost the confidence of his troops,’ [23] Hands were reaching down to push him under the water [24] and ’Kitchener was asked to do the drowning.'[25]

On 17 October the chief scapegoat boarded HMS Chatham to begin the long journey home. He was replaced by General Sir Charles Monro who almost immediately recommended evacuation. When Hamilton returned to England he received a very cold reception and people ‘cut’ him and his wife in the street. [26] The Secret Elite made a spectacular gesture in recalling Hamilton and ensuring through their pawns, Murdoch and Ashamed Bartlett, that his career was over. He was dubbed the man responsible for the disaster; responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of men. In truth, no one could have succeeded at Gallipoli under the conditions that Kitchener and the rest of the cabal imposed. But remember, the plan was set to fail. Constantinople could not be given to the Russians.

In the event, the nightmare was not yet over. Kitchener went in person to Gallipoli in early November and saw for the first time the impossibility of the task. He advised General Birdwood that ‘quietly and secretly’ a scheme should be devised to withdraw the allied forces. [27] On 23 November the War Committee officially decided to evacuate the whole peninsula on military grounds. Three days later the troops, who were still without winter kit, were faced with hurricane force winds and the heaviest rainfall and blizzards to hit the Dardanelles in forty years. Sentries froze to death still clutching their rifles, and five thousand men suffered frostbite. Flood water filled the Allied trenches carrying the rotting corpses of pack horses and Turkish soldiers washed out from their shallow graves. Two hundred British troops drowned. ‘Survivors could think of nothing but getting away from that accursed place.’ [28] On 12 December the men at Suvla and Anzac were told for the first time that they were being taken off. By 9 January the last man stepped safely onto a boat at Helles.

Questions remain unanswered about how the withdrawal was completed without a single casualty.

[1] Denis Winter, Haig’s Command, A Reassessment, p. 291.
[2] Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 305.
[3] http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murdoch-sir-keith-arthur-7693%5D
[4] A M Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, pp. 136-7.
[5] The Round Table was the name given to Milner’s organisation which promoted imperial ideals and aimed to influence the Dominions and other territories.
[6] Desmond Zwar, In Search of Keith Murdoch, p. 20.
[7] Ibid., p. 22.
[8] Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary Vol. II, 2 September, 1915.
[9] Zwar, In Search of Keith Murdoch, p. 25.
[10] Ibid., p. 28.
[11] Ellis Ashmead-Barlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, p. 239.
[12] Ibid., pp. 240-243.
[13] Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 309.
[14] Travers, Gallipoli, p. 274.
[15] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 312.
[16] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 599.
[17] Harvey Broadbent, Gallipoli, The Fatal Shore, p. 246.
[18] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 496.
[19] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, pp. 146-7.
[20] Zwar, In Search of Keith Murdoch, pp. 40-41.
[21] Ellis Ashmead-Barlett, The Uncensored Dardanelles, pp. 254-5.
[22] Hansard, House of Lords Debate 14 October 1915 vol 19 cc1045-62.
[23] Travers, Gallipoli, p. 275.
[24] Carlyon, Gallipoli, p. 502.
[25] Ibid., p. 503.
[26] Ibid., 504.
[27] Ibid., p. 619.
[28] Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 327.

Gallipoli 17: The Blame Game Begins

Most of the critical mistakes made in the original landings on Gallipoli in April were repeated in the August offensive. [1] Thousand of men were again sacrificed to little of no purpose and the commanding heights of the peninsula remained in the hands of the Turkish defenders. The attack at Lone Pine alone cost the Australian force 2,000 dead. General William Birdwood had taken command of the Anzacs in December 1914, but his confidence was not backed by military success. Like other contemporary senior commanders, Birwood failed to understand the debilitating effect of dysentery and other illnesses on his Anzac troops [2] and as a consequence lost more than 10,000 men. The horrors were repeated. Thousands of wounded were left for days under a scorching sun without water. [3] Bloated and rotting corpses lay everywhere and the stench of death sickened the living. When it seemed that the horrors of Gallipoli couldn’t possibly get any worse, hundreds of wounded men on the slopes of Scimitar Hill were condemned to an agonising death, unable to escape the flames of a raging grass fire. War correspondent Ashmead-Bartlett wrote, ‘When the fire passed on, little mounds of scorched khaki alone marked the spot where another mismanaged soldier of the King had returned to mother earth.’ [4] These lads were denied the glorious, noble death for civilisation concocted in the post-war era to justify their slaughter. Sick, wounded and abandoned, betrayed by hapless commanders, they were sacrificed without remorse.

Throughout August the surviving troops continued to suffer from dysentery or a virulent form of paratyphoid. Hardly anyone escaped. Eventually, more than a thousand sick and dying men were evacuated on a daily basis. [5] The Anzacs, who had arrived in peak physical condition, shrank before their commanders’ eyes, thin and gaunt with sunken cheeks. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was ‘melting away through disease at the appalling rate of 10 per cent per week,’ and nearly 80 per cent of the Allied troops on the Peninsula suffered from debilitating sickness. When GHQ offered advice on steps to be taken to avoid the infestation of flies, an embittered Australian doctor responded that he ‘might as well have spat on a bushfire.’ [6] At the end of August, Captain Aspinall reported that Allied casualties totalled 89,000 and Turkish morale had risen. [7] It was a different story for the commanders. Hunter-Weston had returned to England to nurse his dysentery, and the bungling Stopford was relieved of his duties and sent home.

Maurice Hankey, Secretary to the War Council, member of the Secret Elite [8] and the man who originally conjured the mission, was sent out to Gallipoli to gather ‘first hand information’. He held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and was given a ‘very unusual’ directive from the Prime Minister to go wherever he wanted and be at liberty to report directly to Downing Street. Before Hankey left London, Kitchener reassured him that he did not intend to allow the army to advance on Constantinople even if they were victorious on the peninsula. [9] It was a stunning admission, a clear indication of the true nature of the campaign of which Hankey was aware. From the outset the stated objective had allegedly been to take control of the Straits and seize Constantinople on behalf of the Russians. It was not. Constantinople was never to be handed to Russia. Tens of thousands of men had been, and continued to be sacrificed for a political lie. What mattered was that the Russians believed it.

Hankey arrived at Lemnos on 25 July and spent three weeks on conducted tours. He watched the disaster of Suvla Bay unfold much as Nero watched Rome burn. On 14 August he telegrammed the Prime Minister and Kitchener that the ‘surprise’ attack had ‘definitely failed. … Already enemy is entrenching within 3,000 yards of Suvla Bay.’ [10] Were these coded messages? There could have been no surprise attacks. The Turks were well entrenched, dug-in deep like the Germans on the Western Front. Every piece of evidence that Hankey had to hand stated explicitly that only a joint naval and military attack with legions of men, had any chance of success. Even his phraseology, ‘definitely failed’ carried no element of disappointment or surprise. It was exactly as expected.

While hovering around the Gallipoli shores, observing and recording the ongoing tragedy for a very select audience, Hankey made contact with a number of old acquaintances. Foremost amongst these was Major Guy Payan Dawnay, a member of Hamilton’s general staff at Gallipoli. Dawnay spent three years working with Hankey on the Committee of Imperial Defence and served in the War Office from September 1914 until March 1915. [11] With such close and direct association with both Hankey and Kitchener, it seems fair to speculate that Dawnay had been sent to keep a careful watch on Sir Ian Hamilton on their behalf.

Poor Hamilton was more than naive in his assessment of Maurice Hankey whom he welcomed into his headquarters ‘as a real help’. Hamilton believed that the Secretary to the War Council and close confidant of the Prime Minister would set the record straight. ‘From my personal standpoint, it will be worth anything to us if, amidst the flood of false gossip pouring out by this very mail to our Dardanelles Committee, to the Press, to Egypt and to London Drawing Rooms, we have sticking up out of it, even one little rock in the shape of an eye-witness.’ [12] He was to be sorely disappointed.

Hankey returned home via Athens, where he had long discussions with Sir Valentine Chirol, a member of the Secret Elite [13] and an ‘old friend’, Admiral Mark Kerr. [14] Kerr had played an important role in enabling the Goeben and Breslau to reach the safety of the Dardanelles at the outbreak of war. [15] Both men were deeply involved in Foreign Office intrigues in the Balkans, where the future involvement of Greece and Bulgaria in the war still lay in the balance.

When Hankey reached London on 28 August he had sufficient first hand evidence to recommend that a pretext be found for a withdrawal from Gallipoli. The chances of ‘a reasonable prospect of achieving success’ depended on a heavy investment in men and equipment, exactly as Sir Ian Hamilton had repeatedly requested, but Kitchener had refused. In a ‘very secret’ part of his report he wrote that, ‘ The Government may well ask themselves whether they are justified in continuing a campaign which makes so tremendous a toll on the country in human life and material resources.’ [16] Other options were completely unpalatable; there could be no repeat of the naval attack or an embarrassing diplomatic arrangement with Turkey and Russia. [17]

Maurice Hankey, who had originally brought the idea of an attack on the Dardanelles to the War Council for ulterior motives, knew by the end of August 1915 that the ploy had worked. Four Russian Officers had witnessed the Sulva Bay landings and informed Hamilton that his actions had saved the whole Army of the Caucuses, ‘and the Grand Duke knew it.’ They added that the Czar ‘ bitterly regretted’ that lack of supplies had prevented his army corps from ‘standing by to help.’ [18]. Russia remained committed to the war in the belief that Britain had sacrificed tens of thousands of men in a gallant effort to capture Constantinople on her behalf. It was job done. Next step was to arranged a strategic withdrawal, and ensure that a sacrificial scapegoat was prepared.

The man responsible for creating that scapegoat was Maurice Hankey though he was careful to conceal his role from the public domain. As ever, the Secret Elite used others to do their dirty work. Shortly after speaking with Hankey, Major Guy Dawnay left Gallipoli for London. General Hamilton harboured a misplaced trust in Dawnay who had convinced him that someone had to go and put the case for reinforcements directly to the government. Kitchener had remained deaf to Hamilton’s pleas and rumours of exaggerated military success were proving counter-productive. Dawnay was the true viper in Hamilton’s nest. A friend of the royal family and Prime Minister Asquith, Major Dawnay had access usually restricted to high-ranking members of the Secret Elite. On his arrival in London he was treated in a manner no other had enjoyed.

He told his story of Gallipoli incompetence to the King, and was permitted to present an unexpurgated analysis to Cabinet. It was, as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography recorded, ‘exceptional for a young staff officer to advise ministers to overrule his own C-I-C.’ [19] His audience included Asquith, Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Curzon and ‘just about everybody else with influence’. [20] Sir Ian Hamilton was being set-up to take the blame for the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign and as the case against him gathered pace in London, one final twist of the knife was to come from an unexpected source which would deflect attention from the secret cabal.

[1] Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 222.
[2] Robert Rhodes James, ‘Birdwood, William Riddell, first Baron Birdwood (1865–1951)’, ref. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31898.
[3] Edmond Delage, The Tragedy of the Dardanelles, pp. 216-7.
[4] Michael Hickey, Gallipoli, p. 319.
[5] Delage, The Tragedy, p. 222.
[6]  James, Gallipoli, p. 222.
[7] Tim Travers, Gallipoli,p. 273.
[8] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p 313.
[9] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, p. 189.
[10] Ibid., pp. 198-9.
[11] Dawnay had been a student at the Staff College at Camberley. His imperialist credentials were celebrated in his co-founding the Chatham Dining Club in 1910, [Richard Davenport-Hines, ‘Dawnay, Guy Payan (1878–1952)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; ] a seed-bed for those who shared the Secret Elite philosophy of British Race supremacy. Guest speakers between 1910 and 1914 included many of the most senior members of the Secret Elite including Leo Amery, Robert Brand, William Waldergrave Palmer, Earl of Selborne, Walter Long and George Lloyd. Maurice Hankey was amongst the first club members.  http://www.chathamdiningclub.org.uk/speakers/
[12] General Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, Vol.II, chapter XVII, 19 August 1915. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22021/22021-h/22021-h.htm#Page_144
[13]  Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 313.
[14] Roskill, Hankey, p. 204.
[15] See Gallipoli Blog 4. Fumbling Incompetence…And Too Few Stokers
[16] National Archives PRO CAB 42/3.
[17] Roskill, Hankey, p. 207.
[18] General Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, Vol.II, chapter XVII, 30 August 1915. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22021/22021-h/22021-h.htm#Page_144
[19] Richard Davenport-Hines, Dawnay, Guy Payan (1878–1952), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
[20] John Laffin, The Agony of Gallipoli, p. 189.