The Great Coup of 1916: 5 The Sacrilege Of Peace

As the Monday Night Cabal and Milner’s wider circle of friends and associates continued their manoeuvres through much of 1916, the issue which above all others fired their fears, was talk of peace. To the Secret Elite who had invested in the war, who had funded the war and who facilitated the war, this was a pivotal moment. Their aims and objectives were nowhere in sight. Indeed, cessation of the war would a greater disaster than the huge loss of life if it continued.

The bloodletting across the western front was suitably reducing the masses who might be induced to rise against the middle-class plutocracies, but even in 1916 there was still a sense of denial about the human cost in the purified air of the upper echelons. In early February, Sir Edward Grey told President Wilson’s emissary from America, Colonel House, that Britain had not been seriously hurt by the war, ‘since but few of her men had been killed and her territory had not been invaded.’ [1] Whether this was a stupid lie or callous disregard for the tragedies suffered in every part of the land we will never know, but in that same month (February, 1916) the Times carried column after column of the lost legions of dead and missing every day. [2]

The cost of peace did not bear contemplation. Think of the massive and unprecedented loans that could only be repaid if there were spoils of victory to plunder. Think of the manufacturers whose investments in new plant, new infrastructure and expanded capacity was predicated upon a long war. There were billions of pounds and dollars to be made from extortionate prices, but that only followed a period of sustained and costly investment. The profiteers had initially bought into procuring the loans and providing the munitions because they had been promised a long war. Such are the prerequisites of greed

Nor would a negotiated peace safeguard the future of the Empire. Indeed it would have had the opposite effect. If Great Britain and the Empire and all of the Allies could not defeat the German/Austro-Hungarian/Ottoman powers, then the message would reverberate across the world that the old order had passed.

Given the massive loss of life already inflicted on the troops from Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, the outcry against a feeble Mother country that had given up the struggle would grow to a clamour. Any notion of a commonwealth of nations would dissolve in cynical spasms of derision. [3] And a negotiated peace would leave Germany free to continue her plans of expansion into the Near and Far East. The real reasons for war, the elimination go Germany as a rival on the world stage, would not be addressed at all. Peace would be a calamity for the Elite under such circumstances. To talk of it was sacrilege.

The flying of ‘Peace Kites’, as Maurice Hankey described Colonel Houses’s approaches, brought one benefit for Milner’s intriguers. Those members of Asquith’s coalition who were attracted to a negotiated peace exposed their lack of commitment to the ultimate goal. Reginald McKenna, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, felt that Britain would gain a ‘better peace now [January 1916] than later, when Germany is wholly on the defensive.’ [4] The Secret Elite were watching and listening. Literally.

As Asquith’s personal confidante and permanent secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence,[5] Maurice Hankey was privy to many confidences but even he was surprised to learn that the Director of Naval Intelligence, Captain Blinker Hall, [6] had in his possession American diplomatic codes and was monitoring the telegrams sent from Colonel House to President Wilson. What the Americans claimed was that they would broker ‘a reasonable peace’ [7] and call a conference. If Germany refused to attend, the USA would probably enter the war on the side of the Allies. [8] Note that the promise was definitely not absolute.

In late January, Hankey went to Hall at the Admiralty on another pretext [9] and discovered to his horror that Colonel House’s visit was a ‘peace stunt’. 1916 was, after all, an election year, and President Wilson had to appear to be a serious peace-broker. It was a sham. Worse still, Sir Edward Grey had given the Americans an assurance that he would trade Britain’s blockade, euphemistically called the ‘freedom of the seas’, against an end to German militarism. Hall claimed that this priceless secret information had not been shared with Arthur Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty, which begs the question, with whom was it shared? The Foreign Secretary had made promises behind the backs of his cabinet colleagues, and we are expected to believe that Captain Hall told no-one? Grey was clearly mentally exhausted. Fearful that he might miss an opportunity to ‘get a decent peace’, if the war ‘went wrong’ Sir Edward Grey brought the American proposals before the War Committee in March 1916. They ignored it. When the Americans again pressed for a decision on the President’s offer to intervene in May 1916, the Cabinet was split. Asquith, Grey, McKenna and Balfour were apparently in favour; Lloyd George and the conservative leader Bonar Law, were against.

Alarm bells sounded. The Army Council, a body whose admiration for Alfred Milner could hardly have been stronger, threatened to resign if the War Council insisted on discussing ‘the peace question’, [10] but the threat had not passed.

Asquith was prepared to accept that ‘the time has come where it was very desirable’ to formulate clear ideas on proposals for peace and at the end of August suggested that individual members of his cabinet put their ideas on paper for circulation and discussion.[11] In September E. S. Montagu, then Minister for Munitions, advised that it was not safe to ignore the possibility of a sudden peace since no-one was more likely to ‘get out’ when the fight was up, than the Germans. [12] He also asked what an unqualified victory might mean. The General Staff brought forward their own Memorandum [13] which erroneously claimed that the French Prime Minister, Briand, would likely have ‘very decided views worked out, under his direction, by very clever people who swerve him and who do not appear on the surface of political life.’ They also offered their opinion on how an armistice might be managed to Britain’s advantage.

Foreign Office papers which were shared with the Cabinet in October 1916, showed that Germany was prepared to offer peace to Belgium irrespective of Britain’s position. Herbert Hoover who was running the scandalous Belgian Relief programme, [14] warned the Foreign Office that the German government intended to negotiate with the Belgian government in exile. He alleged that the Germans would evacuate the country, guarantee complete economic and political liberty and pay an indemnity for reconstruction purposes. Furthermore, in order to end the conflict with France, they were prepared to cede the whole of the province of Lorraine under the condition that the French would promise to supply five million tons of iron ore each year to Germany. Their ‘terms’ also included independence for Poland and an unspecified ‘arrangement’ in the Balkans. [15]

(A knowledgeable observer will have noted that in combining the Belgian Relief agency with the supplies of iron and steel from Briey and Longwy, two of the biggest scandals of the First World War were rolled together as a lure to peace.) [16] Hoover had no truck with such suggestions. When he next went to Brussels, the German-American member of the Belgian Comite Nationale, Danny Heinemann, approached him to try to find out what the British terms for peace might be. Hoover claimed that ‘he was not in the peace business’. He most certainly was not. He was in the business of profiteering from war. [17]

The more circumspect Lord Lansdowne, a member of Asquith’s coalition cabinet as Minister without Portfolio, asked a telling question on 13 November, 1916: ‘… what is our chance of winning [the war] in such a manner, and within such limits of time, as will enable us to beat our enemy to the ground and impose upon him the kind of terms we so freely discuss?’ [We might well read this as a ‘get-real’ moment, but when he continued by regretting that the Allied cause remained ‘partly vindictive and partly selfish’ to the extent that any attempt to get out of the impasse of a stalemate was viewed in negative terms, Lansdowne’s immediate future in politics was decidedly limited. [18]

Kitchener’s timely and suspicious death in June 1916 brought to an end any chance of his interference in what he looked forward to as a just peace, [19] but for the Secret Elite, their immediate problem focussed on politicians who clearly lacked the commitment to crush Germany. Asquith had run his course. His prevarications and capacity to ‘wait and see’ had no place at a time when the Secret Elite needed decisive firmness to see it through. Although Asquith went to considerable lengths in Parliament in October 1916 to shun any notion of a settlement, it was too late. His pain was heartfelt [20] when he declared:

‘The strain which the War imposes on ourselves and our Allies, the hardships which we freely admit it involves on some of those who are not directly concerned in the struggle, the upheaval of trade, the devastation of territory, the loss of irreplaceable lives—this long and sombre procession of cruelty and suffering, lighted up as it is by deathless examples of heroism and chivalry, cannot be allowed to end in some patched-up, precarious, dishonouring compromise, masquerading under the name of Peace.’ [21]

Less than two months later the men who had even considered defining peace had gone from government: Asquith, Grey, Lansdowne, Montagu and McKenna were disposed of. They had committed sacrilege. Their unforgivable sin was the contemplation of peace. There would be no peace.

[1] Edward Mandell House and Charles Seymour, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, 1915-1917, p.175.
[2] By this time there were daily examples of the horrendous waste of life on the Western Front. one example amongst hundreds can be found in The Times 1 February, 1916, p.10.
[3] Alfred Milner and his associates in the Round Table group in Britain had from 1905 onwards worked tirelessly to promote the Empire and indeed prepare the Empire of r ‘the coming war’. See Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the first World War, pp. 153-160.
[4] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, Volume 1, 1877-1918, p. 245.
[5] This secretive committee was originally formed in 1902 to advise the prime minister on matters of military and naval strategy. Maurice Hankey had been Assistant Secretary since 1908 and was the immensely authoritative Secretary from 1912 onwards.
[6] The nerve centre of British intelligence was in Room 40 at the Admiralty where the highly secretive Captain (later Rear- Admiral) William ‘Blinker’ Hall monitored radio and telegraphic messages from Germany and German ships. Britain had had possession of all German codes from the first months of the war. See Blog; Lusitania 1: The Tale of there Secret Miracles, 28 April 2015.
[7] House and Seymour, The Intimate Papers, p. 135.
[8] Ibid., p. 170.
[9] Allegedly, Hankey visited Hall on 27 January 1916 to discuss a ploy to put false German banknotes into circulation and the conversation just happened to wander into Mandell House’s visit to Sir Edward Grey. So they would have us believe. Roskill, Hankey, p. 247.
[10] CAB 42/14/12.
[11] CAB 42/18/ 8.
[12] CAB 42/18/ 7.
[13] CAB 42/18/10.
[14] See Blog; Commission For Relief in Belgium 13: As If It Had Never Happened. posted on 25 November 2015.
[15] FO 899 Cabinet Memoranda 1905-1918, Memorandum by Lord Eustace Percy, 26 September 1916.
[16] See our four Blogs on Briey from 12 November 2014 onwards.
[17] See Blog; Commission For Relief in Belgium 12: Hoover, Servant Not Master, posted on 18 November 2015.
[18] Harold Kurtz, The Lansdowne Letter, History Today, Volume 18 issue 2 February 1968.
[19] Randolph S Churchill, Lord Derby, King of Lancashire, p. 210.
[20] Asquith had lost his son Raymond, on 15 September 1916, at the Somme. It was a crushing personal blow.
[21] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 11 October 1916, vol 86 cc95-161.

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener 10: The Final Reckoning

The previous nine blogs have presented the reasons why the men of secret power wanted rid of Herbert Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War from 1914-1916… but were unable to manoeuvre him from office. He had threatened the smooth running of Trans-Atlantic finance, had interfered with, and apparently delayed, the enormous growth in armaments and munitions, and did not agree that the war would be won by the nation which fired most shells across the barren pot-holes of the Western Front. His phenomenal contribution to voluntary recruitment could not go on forever. Its initial success in the early months of the war was unsustainable. Conscription had to be introduced in March 1916 when the Military Service Act came into force [1] just as the parliamentarians had wanted, and Kitchener did not trust politicians. He was justified in his mistrust of gossiping Cabinet colleagues. Prime Minister Asquith, for example, shared secret confidential information with his paramour [2] Venetia Stanley on a daily basis. [3] He famously stated that he would give Cabinet ministers all they information they sought ‘if they would only divorce their wives.’ [4] In this, as in many of his other beliefs, Kitchener was absolutely right. London society was a hotbed of unbridled war-gossip especially in the first two years of the conflict.

What Kitchener failed to understand was that neither he, nor the British Cabinet, called the tune. The elite Bankers and financiers, the owners of the military-industrial complex, the manipulators of power and influence, the newspaper moguls and the academic guardians of historical record, the establishment on both sides of the Atlantic had ordained the war to crush Germany and amass even greater fortunes in the process. The Secret Elite whom we have identified by name in Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, [5] and further expanded in previous blogs, [6] held this as their sole objective.

An early end to the war was not to be contemplated. Nor was the notion of a just and fair peace about which Kitchener had been talking. What use was a compromise which would have allowed German commerce and industry to remain intact with all of the advantages through which modern business practice thrived? It was inconceivable that they would allow the war to end before the American government joined the conflict. The United States had to be drawn into the war in order to offload the enormous private loans and debts accrued by the Morgan / Rothschild/ Rockefeller empires through their monopolies on arms, munitions and international loans. Had Kitchener influenced a move for peace in 1916, the burden of debt would not have been shouldered by US taxpayers, and likewise, British and French tax-payers, but by the financial institutions. An honourable peace would have left Germany strong and independent. Germany had to be made to pay for a war they had never wanted. Lord Kitchener’s threatened intervention imperilled every aspect of the Secret Elite’s aim.

He knew he had enemies, clearly.

Though he himself was a very loyal servant to King and Country, Herbert Kitchener had to struggle against professional jealousy and disloyalty from his senior staff. Sir Henry Wilson, the Principal Liaison Officer between the allied forces in France, was a regular correspondent with Lord Alfred Milner, the acknowledged leader of the Secret Elite, and acted as a high level informant behind the backs of Kitchener and Asquith. The Prime Minister wrote that both he and Kitchener considered Wilson a constantly intriguing serpent [7] so there was little love lost on either side.

The Secretary of State’s enemies amongst the press included editors of the Morning Post and the National Review, but his loudest critic was Lord Northcliffe at The Times and The Mail. Ever close to the Secret Elite, The Times, through their privileged correspondent Charles Repington, had tried to bring Kitchener into public disrepute by fanning the flames of the so-called munitions crisis in 1915. [8] Far from weakening Lord Kitchener, their accusations against him damaged their reputation and underlined the strength of public support he continued to enjoy. [9] Thus Horatio Kitchener was a man with many enemies, not in the trenches, the workplace or the ordinary home, but inside the core of the Establishment. That he understood. What he could not grasp was the grand plan which had been constructed above the realm of public politics.

Asquith was obliged to shake-up his Cabinet in May 1915 and the net impact of the reorganisation was to bring more members of the Secret Elite into public office. Professor Carroll Quigley [10] identified eleven members of Asquith’s ‘coalition’ Cabinet as members of this cabal including Lords Lansdowne and Curzon, Andrew Bonar Law, the Conservative Party leader, Sir Edward Carson, FE Smith, Walter Long, the Earl of Selborne, Robert Cecil and most importantly, Arthur J Balfour, former Prime Minister, as First Lord of the Admiralty. The man whom they dearly wanted removed, Lord Kitchener, stood firm. Though in private they all wanted rid of him, in public he could not be criticised.

For as long as they could find reason to tolerate him, especially once his powers over munitions had been shifted wholesale into Lloyd Geoge’s court, Kitchener remained an asset both as the international figure-head for the British military and as a buffer between the Prime Minister and his detractors. However, once he began to speak privately about his role as a peace-maker at the end of the war, and share his ideals with leading figures in both the military and the government, [11] Kitchener’s days were numbered. The asset had become a liability. But how could they get rid of him? You might construct a long list of possibilities – ‘heart-attack’, ‘suicide’, a full range of ‘natural causes’ might have been actioned. Any public suggestion of his alleged homosexuality would certainly have ruined him but what possible good would have come from trashing the name and reputation of the hero of the Empire? None. Though the military and political agents of the Secret Elite schemed behind his back, it was in the interests of all to protect Kitchener’s public reputation. He had to be removed with a subtlety which brooked no backlash. What were the odds against Herbert Kitchener dying in a naval tragedy, lost at sea? No-one could have anticipated such a scenario or possibly suspect unlawful practice. Surely?

Before anyone rushes to close the account with the dismissive and entirely unfair claim that this is simply another conspiracy, re-read the volume of evidence, actual and circumstantial, which we have already presented. [12]

We have clearly established that there was no immediate need for Herbert Kitchener to visit Russia. Knowing that the Somme offensive would begin in July, he threatened to pull out of the venture as late as 2 June 1916 rather than have it postponed. [13] The central Secret Elite place-man at the Czar’s court in Petrograd (St Petersburg) was Sir John Hanbury-Williams, a close friend and associate of Alfred Milner. [14] Williams’s position as Chief of the British Military Mission to Russia from 1914-1917 was consolidated by ancestral diplomatic connections with the Empress Catherine the Great, which granted him a special place in the Czar’s more intimate circles. [15]

The Secret Elite network spun a spider’s web of influence across the globe. Hanbury-Williams had conjured the Grand Duke’s supposed appeal to the British to attack the Dardanelles [16] in 1915, and it was he who co-ordinated Kitchener’s visit to Russia in 1916. His diary shows that the Czar ‘talked over the proposed visit of Lord Kitchener with the greatest keenest and interest’ before Hanbury-Williams organised the details with the British Ambassador and the military attache, Sir Alfred Knox. [17] The plan to send Kitchener to Russia emanated from Britain, not Russia. Indeed Hanbury-Williams’s published record omitted detailed reference to the background preparations for what was transformed into ‘Kitchener’s’ visit. Allegedly, when Lord Kitchener insisted that any postponement of his visit would result in its cancellation, Hanbury-Williams took immediate steps to stress Czar Nicholas’s personal wish that the visit go ahead. [18] The plans devised by Hanbury-Williams were transposed into the Czar’s wishes. So ran the web of deceit.

Everyone personally connected with the Secret Elite whose name had been associated with the ‘mission’ to Russian withdrew. To add to this co-incidence, their reaction to the news of Kitchener’s death on HMS Hampshire was in its own right, suspicious. Lloyd George claimed that he heard the ‘startling’ news on his way to a War Council in Downing Street on 6 June. When he entered the Cabinet Room he described ‘the Prime Minister, Sir Edward Grey, Mr Balfour and Sir Maurice Hankey sitting at a table all looking stunned’. This was indeed an inner circle of powerful men who understood what had happened, yet they were unable to talk about the consequences? Remarkably, given the enormity of what had just taken place, ‘Sir Maurice and I quite forgot for the moment that had it not been for the Irish negotiations, we would have shared the same fate.’ [19] That is untrue. From the outset Hankey said he would not go, and Lloyd George’s refusal had nothing to do with Ireland. [20] How many people would have reacted with such sang-froid? He and Hankey ‘quite forgot’ that they should have been on that same ill fated ship? [21] It defied human nature.

Indeed, without breaking step or pausing for a moment to contemplate the many contributions of the now deceased Secretary of State for War, Lloyd George knew that ‘the passing of Lord Kitchener left an empty place at the War Office. I realised that this place might be offered to me.’ [22] This man of many plots, of endless carping behind the backs of others, who briefed the press, especially Northcliffe, against Kitchener, displayed an almost callous cynicism. Lloyd George did indeed accept that office on 4 July, but not before ensuring that all the powers that had been systematically stripped from Kitchener were reinvested in the new Secretary of State for War.

On hearing of Kitchener’s death, Northcliffe is reported to have burst into his sister’s drawing room declaring, ‘Providence is on the side of the British Empire’ [23] Fawning tributes dripped from the mouths of the guilty. Admiral Jellicoe solemnly declared that the navy’s grief for ‘a soldier’ whose loss ‘we deplore so deeply. It was our privilege to see him last; he died with many of our comrades’. [24] No mention was made of Admiralty culpability or unswept channels.

Look again at the depth of that culpability. HMS Hampshire was barely fit for service and its loss added little to the Navy’s post-Jutland woes. Jellicoe and his masters at the Admiralty approved the ship’s route into a known minefield. Naval intelligence at Room 40 had carefully monitored all U-Boat activity. References to the minefield and the sinking of the trawler, Laurel Rose were removed or altered to suit the cover-up ‘explanation’ when difficult questions were raised about the fate of the Hampshire. The official report was kept secret. Key documents have still never seen the light of day.

Kitchener’s murder was covered with dripping platitudes and cynically penned obituaries. In the House of Lords, Lansdowne proclaimed that Kitchener’s death ‘was a great and dignified exit from the stage upon which he had played so prominent a part during the long years of his life.’ [25] The two-faced Asquith lamented ‘his career has been cut short while still in the full tide of unexhausted powers and possibilities.’ [26] The Secret Elite’s John Buchan ordained that ‘in a sense his work was finished’ and ‘his death was a fitting conclusion to the drama of his life.’ [27] ‘Bollocks’ may not be a recognised historical assessment, but ‘bollocks’ it remains. They peddled lies as fraudsters do.

The full panoply of State and Church gathered at St Paul’s Cathedral on 13 June to hold a service of remembrance for Lord Kitchener and his staff. The King and Queen accompanied by Queen Alexandra, the Lord Mayor in his black and gold robes, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and assorted Aldermen and Sheriffs all gathered to pay their final respects to the former Secretary of State for War and champion of the Empire. They sang ‘Abide with me’, recited the ‘De Profundis’, read from the liturgy, said Prayers for the Country at War and thanked God for a brave and courageous life. The service ended with all three verses of God Save the King. [28] Thus with a great sense of theatre, Kitchener’s memory was consigned to the annals of received history. How quintessentially British.

No-one has ever been held to account for the murder of Lord Herbert Horatio Kitchener and over 700 other men.

[1] Conscription: the First World War – UK Parliament
http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private…/conscription/
[2] Asquith’s complex relationship with the much younger Venetia Stanley has intrigued commentators over the century. Whether or not they were lovers remains unproven.
[3]Michael Brock and Eleanor Brock, H H Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, Oxford University Press, 1982.
[4] Viscount Hankey, The Supreme Command, Vol. 1, p. 221.
[5] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, Mainstream, 2013 pp. 12-16 onwards, Appendix 1, p. 362 and Appendix 2, pp. 363-9.
[6] Secret Elite, Blogs 1-3, posted June 15-17, 2014.
[7] Brock and Brock, H H Asquith, Letters, p. 342, (Asquith to Venetia Stanley 28 Dec 1914.)
[8] see blog; Munitions 6: Crisis, What Crisis? posted 8 July 2015.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Professor Carroll Quigley, author of The Anglo-American Establishment, initially identified and named the secret cabal who controlled British foreign policy from the early years of the twentieth century.
[11] Randolph Churchill, Lord Derby, King of Lancashire, pp. 209-10.
[12] previous blogs posted from 4 May, 2016 – 29 June 2016.
[13] George Arthur, Life of Lord Kitchener, Volume 3, pp. 350-1.
[14] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 56.
[15] John Hanbury-Williams, The Emperor Nicholas II, as I knew him, p. 1.
[16] See blog, Gallipoli 9, posted 20 March 2015.
[17] Hanbury-Williams, The Emperor Nicholas II, p. 94.
[18] Ibid., pp. 98-9.
[19] David Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol.1, p. 456.
[20] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, Vol. I, p. 269.
[21] Hankey Diary 6 June 1916, quoted in Roskill, Hankey Vol 1, pp. 279-80.
[22] Lloyd George, War Memoirs, p. 456.
[23] J Lee Thomson, Politicians, the Press and Propaganda, Lord Northcliffe & The Great War, 1914-1919, p. 101.
[24] The Times, 14 June 1914.
[25] Lord Lansdowne , Hansard, House of Lords Debate, 20 June 1916 vol 22 cc315-22.
[26] House of Commons Debate, 21 June 1916 vol 83 cc145-51.
[27] John Buchan, Episodes of the Great War, pp. 246-7.
[28] The Times 14 June 1914.

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener 5: An Act Of Heresy

Kitchener was not a man who relished being sidelined, despite which he remained in office after his role as Secretary of State for War was deliberately subverted by his enemies and detractors in 1915, when he went to Gallipoli to assess the situation on the government’s behalf. Decisions were taken behind his back. As The Times noted, ‘in the absence of Lord Kitchener’ a small War Committee had been set up to co-ordinate the government’s organisation for war. [1] It comprised, Asquith, A J Balfour, Lloyd George, Bonar Law and Reginald McKenna, with Sir Edward Grey available when required, and Kitchener when he returned from his visitation to Gallipoli and the Near East. [2] By late 1915, he knew exactly what he was up against. In terms of armaments, Lloyd George had grasped control of the War Office’s ordnance remit and subsumed it into a new department, the Ministry of Munitions. [3] Strategically, Sir William Robertson was appointed Chief of the General Staff on 21 December, effectively taking charge of strategy on the Western Front. Robertson’s focus was exactly in line with the ultimate aim of the Secret Elite. He advocated the concentration of war in Europe in order to bring Germany down. While lack of success on the Western Front and the failure at Gallipoli reduced Kitchener’s standing inside Cabinet, his popularity within the mass of the populace did not waver. In stripping Kitchener of major responsibility for strategy, Asquith was sufficiently astute to retain him in office.

Maurice Hankey, [4] the Secret Elite’s central cog inside 10 Downing Street, was the prime minister’s confidant and most valued advisor. Hankey had been secretary of the powerful think-tank Committee of Imperial Defence since 1908, and was the most knowledgeable and experienced strategist in the country. In Hankey’s diary for 8 December 1915, he noted that Asquith wanted to be rid of Kitchener who, ‘darkens his counsel and is a really bad administrator, and he evidently wants to find some way of fitting K. [Kitchener] into his scheme so that the Govt. can still use his great name and authority as a popular idol … Personally I can see no way of fitting him in without making him a cipher in every sense.’ [5] This was the problem. How could the high priests remove the people’s idol without losing their credibility? The only answer was to find him high profile but marginal tasks to keep him distanced from the centre of power.

But Kitchener had always been his own man. He cared nought for politicians and cast doubt on their capacity to act wisely. He expressed these concerns to Sir William Robertson with honest clarity: ‘I have no fear as to our final victory, but many fears as to our making a good peace.’ [6] Such intentions shook the Secret Elite and especially Alfred Milner. Alarm bells rang in the memory of those who served with Lord Milner in South Africa. Kitchener had interfered then, at the end of the Boer War, to bring about his peace. It had taken all of Milner’s considerable influence to stop Kitchener agreeing a date for the restoration of Boer self-government. [7] Milner had gone to war against the Boers to break the mould and recast the country, not negotiate a political peace. Peace terms implied compromise. Milner had admitted to his acolytes that there was no room for compromise in South Africa. But Kitchener ‘paralysed’ Milner, and in his view, betrayed the peace. [8] Consider again the main objective of the Secret Elite. They wanted to break the mould of Germany and recast the country and its colonies so that it would never again pose as a threat to the British ascendency. Surely Kitchener was not thinking about interfering in a European peace – in 1916?

Did Kitchener really see himself as the arbiter of a good peace? Yes, he did. And there was one very important source which corroborated Kitchener’s intentions. Lord Derby, [9] reflected on Herbert Kitchener’s state of mind in his diary in 1938. [10] Had this been published in the years immediately after the war when the official censor edited, withdrew or destroyed information that the government wanted to keep secret, Derby’s evidence would have been buried. Herbert Kitchener held very strong views that he intended to push to the fore when peace was eventually negotiated. Kitchener confided his philosophy to Lord Derby over dinner some three or four days before he sailed on his final journey. Derby took notes immediately afterwards so that he did not have to rely on memory at a later date. He recorded Kitchener’s absolute belief that ‘whatever happened’, at the end of the war, the peace negotiators should not ‘take away one country’s territory and give it to another’. The fate of Alsace and Lorraine was included in his statement: ‘I think if you take Alsace and Lorraine away from Germany and give them to France there will be a war of revenge.’ He was insistent that Germany’s colonies should not be taken from her on the basis that ‘if they have colonies they would go there peacefully and not want to engage in war for new territory.’ [11] His sense of a ‘good peace’ had nothing in common with the complete destruction of Germany.

Can you imagine the impact these words would have had inside the closed corridors of the Foreign Office. Kitchener’s sentiments ran contrary to all that the Secret Elite had worked towards. Leave Alsace and Lorraine as part of Germany? Let them keep their colonies? Good grief, would he next advocate the restoration of the Ottoman Empire? He still held influence in these eastern parts, and the British government had great ambitions for Persia after the war. Surely not. Kitchener spoke heresy. Such sentiments stood to undo the war against Germany which the Secret Elite had so carefully planned  [12]

Kitchener had also confided in Sir Douglas Haig [13] that only a decisive victory against Germany followed by a fair peace treaty, would prevent further wars in Europe. He had come to the conclusion that the war should not be about the conquest of Germany. [14] In the eyes of the Secret Elite, he had completely lost focus. Imagine if the concept of a ‘fair peace’ had been leaked to the men in the trenches. That the great man himself was thinking ahead towards peace, had implications for the murderous continuation of war. And not just peace, but a fair peace? To the powers behind the government it was unthinkable. Unimaginable. Consider the impact which Kitchener’s words would have had amongst his armies if in recognising that the war had become a stalemate, he advocated an end to hostilities. If it was put about that the commander-in-chief thought that enough was enough they would have cheered him to the echoes. It would have acknowledged that he thought more of the safety and survival of his own men than the continuation of a bitter struggle to the death with Germany, Kitchener had become more than just a liability. He was a danger to the Secret Elite’s ambitions. His future intentions put everything at risk.

Matters were exceptionally sensitive in 1916. There was much talk of peace and peace conferences. Most of it originated from America where President Wilson had an election to win and ‘peace’ was a vote-catcher. The war had reached a point of deadlock; victory was only likely to be achieved by the ‘guerre d’usure’, the war of exhaustion. Certainly, Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, was in regular touch with the President through the controlling offices of his White House minder, Edward Mandell House, [15] but peace was not an issue that any of the warring nations could be seen to contemplate. Yet a deal took shape. Mandell House and Grey jointly drafted a confidential memorandum on 22 February 1916 which was confirmed by the President. It proposed the restoration of Belgium, the surrender of Alsace and Lorraine to France, the acquisition of an outlet to the sea for Russia, and compensation to Germany in territories outside Europe. If Britain and France thought the time was right, President Wilson would propose that a ‘Conference should be summoned to put an end to the war. Should the Allies accept this proposal and Germany refuse it, the United States would probably enter the war against Germany.’ [16] Sir Edward Grey had actually worked with Edward Mandell House to construct a memorandum which by definition was a basis for a negotiated peace. [17] By the end of the year Grey would be replaced as Foreign Secretary by Arthur Balfour who was in the inner core of the Secret Elite. [18]

But what to do with Kitchener? He was an enigma indeed. After the horrendous casualties at Loos in September 1915, nine cabinet ministers urged Kitchener to force Asquith to accept conscription, but he would not be disloyal. The Prime Minister warned his Secretary of State for War that this move had been instigated by Lloyd George (whom Kitchener loathed) to undermine him, but added confidently ‘so long as you and I stand together, we carry the whole country with us. Otherwise the deluge.’ [19] He needed Kitchener to take the flack.

In June 1916, Asquith accused him behind his back of abdicating his responsibilities and lying. Undoubtedly it suited the prime minister’s purpose to deflect criticism away from himself. He derided Kitchener’s tortuous speech and his repetitive presentations [20] but was obliged to defend him in Parliament in a brief but brilliant oration which was cheered from all sides. [21] Kitchener, for his part, kept faith in Asquith. Lord Derby wrote in his diary that Kitchener was devoted to the prime minister and liked him very much indeed, which may partly explain why he stayed his post. [22] As Asquith sat down in Parliament on 1 June, the conservative leader Bonar Law leaned forward and whispered; ‘That was a great speech, but how after it shall we ever get rid of him?’ [23]

How indeed?

[1] The Times, 12 November, 1915, p. 9.
[2] Trevor Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 338.
[3] See blog Munitions 4: Lloyd George And Very Secret Arrangements. Posted on 24 June 1915.
[4] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 313.
[5] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, Vol. 1, 1877 – 1918. p. 237.
[6] Sir George Arthur, Kitchener vol. III, p. 299.
[7] Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War, p. 570.
[8] Ibid., p. 551.
[9] Lord Derby, Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl aided Kitchener in promoting recruitment. In October 1915, as Director General of Recruitment, he introduced a scheme which included enlistment and conscription. Asquith made him Under-Secretary of State for War after Kitchener’s death. Derby was one of the few politicians whom Kitchener trusted.
[10] Randolph S Churchill, Lord Derby, King of Lancashire, p. 210.
[11] Ibid.
[12] The complete history of the Secret Elite’s drive to create a war with Germany is contained in Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor’s Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, published 2013.
[13] PRO 30/57/53 Kitchener Papers.
[14] Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 348.
[15] Edward Mandell House was President Wilson’s eminence grise in the White House. closely associated with the Morgan financial empire in New York, House was very much an anglophile who advised the President on all aspects of the war in Europe.
[16] Grey of Fallodon, Twenty-Five Years, Vol III, p 63.
[17] Ibid., pp. 68-71.
[18] Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 312.
[19] John Pollock, Kitchener, p. 453.
[20] George Casssar, Kitchener: Architect of Victory, p. 474.
[21] The Times, 1 June, 1916, p. 10.
[22] Churchill, Lord Derby, p. 210.
[23] Pollock, Kitchener, p. 471.

Munitions 8: The Strange And Unendearing Story Of Basil Zaharoff

David Lloyd George had a special friend in the armaments business about whom he was publicly in denial. [1 ] In the murky world through which the Welshman had built his political career and abandoned the principles which he once held precious, none is stranger than his relationship with the international arms dealer, Basil Zaharoff. Neither Churchill, Sir Edward Grey, Asquith or Lloyd George mentioned him by name in their biographical histories, though we should always remember that the Censor intervened to ensure that details which the state wanted to remain secret were ruthlessly expunged before publication. But Zaharoff was there, lurking in the shadows of Whitehall, dealing and double-dealing mainly through the offices of Lloyd George when he was minister of munitions and later as prime minister. Asquith, in his last months in Downing Street, and Reginald McKenna, who stood-in at the Treasury for Lloyd George, even agreed that Zaharoff should be used to bribe the Greeks into war. [2] Who was this shadowy figure from whom the public record shrank after the war?

Basil Zaharoff was born into a middle-class home in Mugla, Anatolia in 1849 and died on 27 November 1936 in the height of luxury at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. His family were Greeks living in Turkish Asia Minor where persecution of Greek Orthodox Christians threatened genocide. They fled to Qdessa in Russia, but did not stay long, returning to the Greek quarter of Constantinople when the political upheavals had settled. [3] Zaharoff knew fear and poverty in his earliest years, but language and dialect came easily to him, and proved to be important building blocks for a self-propagandist and salesman who travelled the world to sell the armaments of death.

He has been repeatedly airbrushed from history, yet was historically important. He lied frequently about his origins, his age, his education, his early life in Turkey and wherever he claimed to be from or going to, yet was accepted into the wealthiest and most powerful villas and chateauxs in Europe between the late 1880s until his unremarkable death. He revelled in the mystery he sought to create about himself, in the women with whom he claimed to have consorted, in the deals and fortunes of which he loudly boasted. He bought honours and goodwill in France and Britain by acts of ‘philanthropy’. He gave generously from his alleged vast wealth to fund university chairs in Paris and Oxford yet like many benefactor before and since, he built his fortune on the misery of war and remained untroubled by its consequences.

Zaharoff had all the records and diaries which pertained to his life, destroyed. His biographer, Robert Neumann was exasperated by the lack of historical documentation. ‘You ask for his birth certificate. Alas! A fire burned all the church records. You ask for a document concerning him in the archives of the Vienna War Office; the folder is there but the document has vanished…. You obtain permission to inspect the papers in a law case….but no-one in the office can find them.’ [4] So successfully was he airbrushed from the accepted establishment history that no mention is made of him by Lloyd George in his Memoirs, and Zaharoff was ignored by almost every one George’s biographers. [5] The Times newspaper has in its accessible archives no reference to Basil Zaharoff between 11 May 1914, when he donated £20,000 to the French National Committee of Sports and 6 July 1918, when he made a ten guineas donation to a Concert on behalf of Belgium. [6] What does that tell us about his need for anonymity during the war, for Zaharoff was deeply involved in munitions and international politics during those years.

His entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is valuable because it avoids the mystique with which Zaharoff surrounded himself and itemises his early law-breaking and underhand dealings in a Turkish brothel, as an arsonist in the Constantinople fire-brigade, as an embezzler, a bigamist and an unscrupulous contractor in Cyprus before focussing on the single most salient fact. Zaharoff was an international arms dealer and, by all accounts, was very good in his chosen vocation. He began selling weapons for the Anglo-Swedish armaments firm Nordenfeldt, in Greece in 1877 but it was his salesmanship which became the trademark of corruption.

His Systeme Zaharoff included the use of large bribes to government and military officials and his technique of playing one country off against its neighbour first came to the fore in 1885 when he sold one almost unusable submarine to Greece and then two of the same type to their longstanding rival Turkey in 1886. Quick-firing guns became his chief specialism in the 1880s and 1890s. He had all of the qualities necessary to be a successful international arms salesman, including a complete lack of scruples, an ability to lie convincingly, a capacity to manipulate officials and politicians and a ready command of several languages. Crucially, and perhaps most importantly, he was a Rothschild man.

Zaharoff is credited with engineering the merger of the armaments firms Nordenfeldt and Maxim in 1888 before setting off across the world to sell their powerful new machine-gun in Russia, Chile, Peru and Brazil. [7] If Zaharoff engineered the amalgamation, it was the London House of Rothschild which issued the £1.9 million of shares and debentures to finance it. This was one of the first deals that Rothschilds undertook with Sir Ernest Cassel and marked the start of many years of direct involvement in the armaments industry. [8] Natty Rothschild retained a considerable holding in the company for himself and influenced the management and direction of the firm, for which Zaharoff was both the major international salesman and an influential broker. When Vickers took over the Maxim Nordenfeldt Guns and Ammunition business in 1896, it was once more Rothschild and Cassel, two of the most important bankers associated with the Secret Elite, [9] who financed the deal. Zaharoff became increasingly indispensable to them and was very clearly an important cog in the world-wide armaments business financed by Rothschild and Cassel.

Maxim-Nordenfelt owned a Spanish light-armaments works in Placencia, of which Zaharoff became a director in 1896. His connections in that country were cemented by a long-standing relationship with a royal duchess, by whom he allegedly had three daughters. From this vantage point he ‘created’ Vickers’ business in Spain where bribery and corruption were used on a grand scale. As a result, the Sociedad Española de Construcciones Navales, a branch of Vickers in Spain, was awarded exclusive naval construction rights for the Spanish Navy. Vickers not only sold weaponry to the Spanish armed forces but in 1909 formed a new naval arsenal in collaboration with the state. Zaharoff was also very active in Russia where, between1902–4, Vickers paid him a total of £109,000 which has a current equivalence of around £10.5 million. [10] In 1905, at the time of the Russo-Japanese War, he earned £86,000 ( an additional £8.4 million at current prices) in direct commission. Little wonder that he was hailed as Vickers’ ‘General Representative for business abroad.’ [11]

The Vickers Company records show that the ‘ever active’ Zaharoff used bribes to gain orders in Serbia, Russia and ‘probably’ Turkey. Bribes were used liberally as a part of Zaharoff’s business process when the customers were Spaniards, Japanese, South Americans, Russians, Turks or Serbs. In 1900 he was ‘greasing the wheels in Russia’ and in 1906, ‘doing the needful in Russia and Portugal, and administering doses of Vickers to Spanish friends’. [12] The British Ambassador in St Petersburg, Sir George Buchanan, assisted Vickers’ sales effort in Russia while criticising the German Krupp and French Schneider-Creusot firms for seeking to gain advantages in the same market as ‘too disgusting for words’ [13] This breathtaking hypocrisy places Vickers, their prime agent Zaharoff, and the British Ambassador right at the centre of the Russian military acquisitions which emboldened them to mobilise against Germany in 1914. Indeed, every overture to Russia made by Britain from 1905 onwards was occasioned by its value in an all out war with Germany [14] and both Vickers and Zaharoff played their part.

On the eve of the First World War Zaharoff had taken up residence in Paris. He represented Vickers on the Board of Societe Francaise des Torpilles Whitehead, and when Albert Vickers retired from the Board of the French ‘Le Nickel’ company in the spring of 1913 he was replaced by Zaharoff on account of his ‘great expert knowledge and powerful industrial connections’. [15] Le Nickel had originally been an Australian company based on the French-owned Pacific island of New Caledonia, but was bought into by the Rothschilds who had acquired most of the nickel refineries in Europe. The discovery of nickel reserves in Canada forced them into a market-sharing agreement with the American-Canadian International Nickel Company, [16] and nickel remained an invaluable asset as part of the steel-making process. The Rothschild-backed company operated two nickel plants in Britain and the cartel arrangement between Le Nickel and British nickel-steel manufacture ensured that prices were kept artificially high. [17] Thus by 1914 Basil Zaharoff, an adopted son of France, sat on the Boards of Vickers and Le Nickel, both Rothschild-financed and influenced.

Two events took place in Paris on 31 July 1914 that epitomised the chasm between good and evil. The ancient grudge of the warmonger wiped out any lingering hope by assassinating the peace-maker, while the wicked procurer was raised onto a public platform and promoted to the rank of Commander in the Legion of Honour by the French President. [18] At 9.20 pm. the charismatic French Socialist leader Jean Jaures was in the Café Croissant at Montmartre in Paris discussing the critical situation in Europe with the editors of his publication, L’Humanite. He was shot twice in the back of the head at point blank range. History has recorded the assassination as the work of Raul Villain, a 29 year old right-wing student, but no serious attempt was made to discover ‘whether any other motive power directed the assassin’s arm.’ [19] Villain was later acquitted of murder.

Days before, Jaures stood on a political platform in Lyon-Vaise and urged his international socialist brothers in France, Britain, Germany, Russia and Italy ‘to come together, united, to turn away from the nightmare’ which faced Europe. He raged against war and the makers of war, and his message carried great weight. [20] Jaures was in Brussels with the Scottish socialist leader James Keir Hardie on 29 July thanking the German Social Democrats for their splendid demonstrations for peace. With impassioned eloquence he urged workers throughout Europe to rescue civilisation from a disastrous war. [21] He returned to Paris after an emergency meeting with Rosa Luxemburg and was deep in conversation about how war could be averted when his life was taken.

Shock and consternation filled the streets of Montmartre, and the Paris police reacted by throwing a cordon around the palatial home of Basil Zaharoff at 41 Avenue Hoche. [22] It may seem an odd reaction, but in July 1914, Zaharoff the arms dealer was invaluable to the French government’s war preparation, and that very day President Poincare had announced his elevation to Commander of the Legion of Honour. The irony is odious. Jaures, the peace-maker, murdered in cold blood; Zaharoff, the merchant of death, hailed as an outstanding Frenchman. In fact, Parisians were too traumatised to turn their wrath against Zaharoff, and were dragged into war so quickly that the moment for instant retribution passed without incident.

As an arms dealer Zaharoff was pre-eminent in his time but he was much more than simply a multi-millionaire international salesman whose stock-holdings crossed every important munitions company in Europe. Rarely have there been so many uncorroborated stories about someone who was later dubbed ‘the mystery man of Europe’ by Walter Guinness in the UK Parliament. This unfortunate name-tag added mystique to Zaharoff’s clandestine activities. His association with Lloyd George has been immersed in a legend that distracts from an alliance which was intrinsically linked through the Secret Elite to the war effort. Allegedly, Lloyd George had enjoyed an extra-marital liaison with Zaharoff’s English wife, Emily Ann Burrows, [23] and this purportedly gave him some kind of hold on the Minister of Munitions. There was more than this to their unholy relationship.

[1] Hansard, House of Commons Debate 7 November 1921 vol 148 cc17-18.
[2] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, Man of Secrets, vol. 1. 1877-1918 p.239 and footnote.
[3] Richard Lewinsohn, Sir Basil Zaharoff, pp. 21-2.
[4] Robert Neumann, Zaharoff the Armaments King, p. 9.
[5] Donald McCormick, The Mask of Merlin, p. 201.
[6] The Times 6 July 1918, p. 9.
[7] Zaharoff, Basil, (1849-1926) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) Richard Davenport-Hines, at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38270
[8] Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild, The World’s Banker, 1849-1999, pp. 412-3.
[9] Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor, Hidden History, The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 125.
[10] Source http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php
[11] Zaharoff, Basil, (1849-1926) ODNB Richard Davenport-Hines, at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38270
[12] Clive Trebilcock, Legends of the British Armaments Industry, 1890-1914 – A Revision, Journal of Contemporary History, vol.5 no.4 1970, pp. 3-19.
[13] Ibid. p.18 quoting Vickers Archives; Sir G Buchanan to Vickers 20 May 1913.
[14] Docherty and Macgregor, Hidden History, p. 233.
[15] Lewinsohn, Zaharoff, p. 110.
[16] Ferguson, The House of Rothschild, p. 354.
[17] D.G. Paterson, “Spin Off” and the Armaments Industry, Economic History Review, vol 24. issue 3 pp. 463-468.
[18] Guiles Davenport, Zaharoff, High Priest of War, p. 154.
[19] William Stewart, J. Keir Hardie, p. 340.
[20] Discours de Jean Jaures, Lyon-Vaise, 25 July 1915. atelier-histoire.ens-lyon.fr/AtelierHistoire/episodes/…/5
[21] Stewart, J Keir Hardie, p. 340.
[22] John T Flynn, Men of Wealth, p. 372.
[23] McCormick, The Mask of Merlin, p. 202.

GUEST BLOG: Professor Hans Fenske (3) Towards A Prolonged Conclusion

In February 1917, the German Empire re-embarked on unlimited submarine war, causing the United States to enter the war on the Entente side in April. However, it was only at the beginning of 1918 that American troops were deployed on a large scale in France. The hope that England would give in within a few months as a result of the submarine warfare remained unfulfilled. The war continued to be a standoff.

In the spring of 1917, the Austrian leadership feared that the Danube Monarchy would not be able to continue the war beyond the coming winter. Emperor Karl I. and the new Foreign Secretary Czernin thus urged Berlin for new peace talks to be held. Bethmann-Hollweg confirmed his preparedness for talks, but he also said that at that point, the war could only be ended by the Central Powers submitting to the will of the Allies. They would have to wait and see how the revolution in Russia would progress. There had been workers’ unrests in March, the Czar had abdicated because of them, his brother had renounced his right for succession to the throne. The new Republican government continued the war.

In mid-April, the Russian Council of People’s Commissioners offered a general peace without annexations and compensations. In Germany, the Social Democrats at once supported this offer. Even Matthias Erzberger of the Centre Party who occasionally travelled abroad on behalf of the German government, supported it. He was the main initiator of the resolution adopted by the Reichstag on 19 July. With a clear majority, the Parliament expressed itself in favour of a peace of understanding and lasting reconciliation of the peoples against forced cessions of territory and economic and financial rape. Only an economic peace would enable a friendly coexistence of the peoples. The Reichstag also advocated the creation of international rights organisations but the Supreme Army Command was against this resolution. Bethmann-Hollweg thought it inappropriate at that moment in time and thus lost the confidence of the parties advocating the resolution. On 13 July, he stepped down from office.

His successor, Georg Michaelis, avowed himself at the beginning of the debate about the resolution to the lasting reconciliation of the peoples and to a peace of understanding, but one which would have to be able to safeguard Germany’s interests in Europe and overseas. Lloyd George, by now the British Prime Minister, called this speech a sign of commitment to war and to achieving a false peace.

On 1 August, Pope Benedict XV. called upon the warring parties to enter into peace talks. He advocated an obligatory arbitral jurisdiction for all international issues, the settlement of all territorial disputes in a spirit of conciliation, the mutual waiving of war reparations, disarmament and the freedom of the seas. This appeal had been agreed upon by nuncio Pacelli with the leadership of the Reich in late June. An official German comment was published only in mid-September, expressing the spirited hope that the Papal initiative be successful. This declaration was immediately handed over to the press. In doing so, the Reich government once again, like so many times before, made a public commitment to reconciliation. The Allies rejected the Papal proposition right away, Wilson did so very decisively. On 1 November, Michaelis stepped down from office. The new Chancellor Georg Graf von Hertling held no different attitude towards peace than its two predecessors.

In Russia, the Bolsheviks came to power following an uprising on 7 November. Lenin, the chairman of the now ruling Council of the People’s Commissioners, declared on 9 November in front of the Council congress that his government would offer peace to all warring nations on the basis of Soviet conditions, i.e. no annexations and contributions, and the right of self-determination to the peoples. This was also written in his decree for peace. The Central Powers agreed to his request for an armistice. On 4 December, a cease-fire went into effect to bring on a long-term and honourable peace for all parties. The negotiations started on 22 December in Brest-Litowsk. During the session on 25 December, Czernin called the Russian principles a basis worth discussing. Should that happen, the governments of all warring nations would have to commit themselves to respecting them.

It was decided to ask the Allies for a statement in this sense within ten days. Therewas no response. The Western powers equally disregarded an invitation by the Russian Foreign Commissar to take part in the peace negotiations. A conversation initiated by Czernin between an Austrian diplomat and the South-African politician Jan Smuts, a member of the British Imperial War Cabinet, which took place in Bern in late December, also brought no results.

The Central Powers’ draft for a peace treaty with Russia was very succinct. It demanded that the Russian government take notice of the will of the people to give full sovereignty to Poland, Lithuania, Courland, and parts of Estonia and Livonia. Further articles regulated the entry into force once again of the treaties effective before the war, and mutual renunciation of the replacement of war losses and the restitution of war expenses. The Soviet leadership was not united in their stance on this treaty. Lenin expected a world revolution, so he thought that the treaty would not to be valid for long so he might just as well sign it. Foreign Commissar Trotsky proposed to simply abandon the war and a majority was in favour of this. After returning to Brest-Litovsk, he first tried to delay the negotiations, and on 18 February 1918 he declared in the political commission that Russia would not sign the treaty but rather leave the war and hope that other peoples would follow suit. The Central Powers judged this a cancellation of the armistice, correctly according to international law, and  restarted their military advance. Soon afterwards, the Central Committee gave in and signed the treaty  which included some new amendments regarding Central Asia and Armenia. Peace was concluded on 3 March.

From June to August, supplementary German-Russian agreements were negotiated in Berlin. There it was agreed that the Central Powers were to withdraw their troops from the Russian areas they had occupied. Ending the combat operations in the East enabled the Supreme Army Command to deploy troops to the Western front. The Germany offensive which started there in late March was particularly intended to hit British troops in order to make London more willing to talk. At first, the German army was very successful, but in early June, they came to a halt. Starting in July, the Allied forces successively pushed back the German troops. Bulgaria had joined the Central Powers in 1915. In mid-September 1918, the Allied forces broke through the front there. By the end of the same month, the country had to surrender unconditionally. Now Hindenburg, the Head of the Supreme Army Command, demanded that the German government ask President Wilson to mediate an armistice. For this, he found agreement in Berlin. The crown council decided on 29 September to introduce the parliamentary system in order to improve the odds for a beneficial peace.

Hertling was against this and stepped down. Prince Max von Baden became the new Reich Chancellor. Thanks to his long-standing activities in caring for prisoners of war, he was well-regarded even abroad. He had spoken publicly in favour of a League of Nations, and in interior politics he was ready to conduct reforms. On the very same day he was appointed, i.e. on the evening of 3 October, he asked President Wilson via Switzerland for a peace treaty on the basis of the “Fourteen Points” of 8 January 1918, and in order to prevent further bloodshed, for the immediate conclusion of an armistice. The Danube Monarchy followed suit one day later, the Ottoman Empire soon after. Wilson delayed fulfilling this plea for an immediate armistice by five weeks because the Allies first wanted to improve their military position.

On 5 November, U.S. Secretary of State Lansing declared that the Allies were now ready for an armistice which would secure them the absolute power to enforce the details of the peace accepted by the German government. This delay cost the lives of some 10,000 soldiers. During this period, the Danube monarchy collapsed, and in Germany, a revolution broke out in early November. A Council of the People’s Deputies took over government. The armistice signed in the early morning of 11 November stipulated that battles should end at noon, 11 am British time.