America 1917, 3: Why Did Wilson Go To War?

If on 4 March 1917, President Woodrow Wilson believed his own rhetoric when he proclaimed that America stood ‘firm in armed neutrality’ why was it necessary some twenty-nine days later, to advise a joint Session of Congress that they would have to go to war to defend and protect democracy? On April 6, 1917, America duly declared that war [1] after the Senate approved the action by 82-6 and the House of Representatives by 373-50.

In the Senate, a few voices were raised hopelessly against what they deemed ‘a great blunder’. Opposition inside the House of Representatives pointed out that no invasion was threatened, no territory at risk, no sovereignty questioned, no national policy contested nor honour sacrificed. [2] Be assured of one important fact. There was no outcry for war amongst ordinary American citizens. No excited crowds took to the streets. At Wellington House in London, the nerve-centre of British propaganda, the manipulators of truth were concerned that the American Press carried ‘no indications of enthusiasm except in a few Eastern papers’. [3] In the United States, citizens were genuinely unsure why the nation was at war, but loyalty to the flag has always carried great weight. Enlistment statistics threw an interesting light on American society. Before 1917, the Eastern seaboard editors, lawyers, bankers and financiers, teachers and preachers, leaders of ‘society’ in New York and Washington alike, had berated the Western states for their alleged unpatriotic attitude towards war. In the event, recruiting figures showed that the response from the western states was greater than their compatriots along the eastern seaboard. [4] How often do the movers and shakers turn into moaners and shirkers and fail to step up to the mark?

There was no instant Kitchener-effect in America. British propagandists watched this lack of enthusiasm with real concern. Woodrow Wilson set up the Committee on Public Information on 14 April to rouse the public to ‘righteous wrath’. [5] Two and a half year’s worth of Wellington House propaganda was at hand for regurgitation and dissemination. Even so, from 1 April until 16 May, total enlistment was a mere 73,000 men. [6] By June 117,974 men had joined the regular army, but the rate was falling. In July only 34,962 joined the ranks; in August it was 28,155; in September, 10,557. [7] This simply could not continue. A conscript army was required.

On 18 May, 1917, the sixty-fifth Congress passed a Military Act to enable the President to temporarily increase the strength of the army, and the ‘draft’ became law. [8] For all his talk of brokering peace between the warring factions in Europe, and many reported attempts at reconciliation, President Wilson led his country into war, provided the manpower to be sacrificed and stirred the hatred and propaganda necessary to popularise the slaughter on the western front. Why? Why within months of his re-election on the proud boast that he had kept America out of the war, was everything reversed; every assumed position revoked; every implied promise, broken? Some historians insist that Germany forced President Wilson into a declaration of war through two acts of blundering stupidity. Emphasis on such a focus has successfully deflected attention away from much more powerful interests which Wilson could not ignore.

On 17 January 1917, British code-breakers partially deciphered an astonishing message from the German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmermann to his Ambassador in Washington. Though the analysts in Room 40 at the admiralty in London could decipher some of the essential message, the new code which had been delivered to the German Embassy in Washington by the cargo U-boat Deutschland in November 1916, had not been fully broken. Senior British cryptographs were trying to reconstruct this particular code but had made only sufficient progress to form an incomplete text. [9] From their initial reconstruction it appeared that Zimmermann had requested the German ambassador to the United States, Count Johann von Bernstorff, to contact President Carranza of Mexico through the German embassy in Mexico City and offer him a lucrative alliance. ‘Blinker’ Hall, Director of Naval Intelligence, took personal control. His grasp of effective propaganda was second to none. Hall knew that once the full text was available it had to be carefully handled both to protect the anonymity of Room 40 and convince the Americans of its authenticity.

Room 40 focused on the ambassadorial messages between Berlin and the American continent and on 19 February the full text of Zimmermann’s instructions to his Mexican ambassador was traced. It had been sent to Washington by a wireless channel which Wilson and House had previously allowed Germany to use for secret discussions on a possible peace initiative. This effrontery added insult to injury. Once Admiral ‘Blinker’ Hall held the decoded and translated text in his hands, he knew that he had unearthed a propaganda coup of enormous importance. Zimmermann’s telegram read as follows:

‘Washington to Mexico 19 January 1917.

We intend to begin on 1 February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavour in spite of this to keep the USA neutral. In the event of this not succeeding we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following terms:-
Make war together
Make peace together
Generous financial support and an undertaking on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you.
You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the USA is certain, and add the suggestion that he should on his own initiative invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves.
Please call the President’s attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace. (signed) Zimmermann.’ [10]

After ensuring that they could conceal how they had obtained the telegram, the British Foreign Office released it to Walter Paget, the American ambassador in London, who promptly sent it to the State Department in Washington. Woodrow Wilson received the transcript on 24 February 1917. He was stunned to discover that the Germans had abused the cable line which he had insisted they be allowed to access for peace negotiations. [11] It took President Wilson four days to release the telegram to the Associated Press and following expressions of disbelief, he authorised Senator Swann of Virginia to announce in the Senate on 1 March 1917, that the Zimmermann note to Mexico was textually correct. Robert Lansing made a similar pronouncement from the State Department. Clearly the American public was not easily convinced. Even in 1917, they were suspicious of government pronouncements.

If the reader scans the infamous Zimmermann line by line, it quickly becomes apparent that its ludicrous nature verges on lunacy. Alliances are not forged by telegram. Vague promises of generous financial support, of a detailed settlement being left in the hands of the Mexican government and the subsequent ‘reconquering’ of vast tracts of America, did not make sense. Though the Mexicans gave no immediate response, the Japanese Ambassador authoritatively dismissed the proposition. They had no intention of being suckered by a spurious telegram. And why did Zimmermann describe Germany’s submarine tactics as ‘ruthless’? The whole incident seemed contrived.

One major American newspaper-owner firmly rejected the Zimmermann story. William Randolph Hearst had kept his stable independent of the British censor. Just as he had refused to swallow wholesale war guilt, atrocity or war aims propaganda, Hearst cabled his editors that ‘in all probability’ the Zimmermann note was an ‘absolute fake and forgery.’ He believed that the object was to frighten Congress into giving the President the powers he demanded. Hearst’s anxiety was that ‘the whole people of this country, 90 percent of whom do not want war, may be projected into war because of these misrepresentations.’ [12] He also accused the president’s advisor, ‘Colonel’ House of being a corporation lobbyist. Hearst was at Palm Beach in the weeks before America entered the war and his private telegrams to his editors and those of other newspapers, were later made public in an attempt to discredit him. [13]

Though publication of the telegram aroused some anger in the West and mid-West states, American newspapers generally chose to omit any reference to the fact that the proposed alliance would only take place after America had declared war against Germany. [14] The original note had been passed to the American embassy in London in such secrecy that the State Department could not reveal its origins to enquiring journalists. [15] Indeed the propaganda value was diluted by a suspicion that it was a forgery, as Hearst and his newspapers insisted until, to the immense relief of British and American war-mongers, the naive Zimmermann acknowledged that he was the author. At a press conference on 2 March, Zimmermann was invited by the Hearst correspondent in Berlin, W.B. Hale, to deny the story.

He chose instead to confirm that it was true. [16] In modern parlance, it was a spectacular own goal. Some have said that the Zimmermann telegram incident was the “overt act” that brought the United States into the war. It was not. Woodrow Wilson did not ask Congress to declare war until 3 April 1917, fully six weeks after the British delivered the telegram to him.

So why did Woodrow Wilson take the irredeemable step to war? Sympathetic historians were very clear as to the cause. German militarism. The diplomatic record left no room for doubt. ‘It was the German submarine warfare and nothing else that forced him [Wilson] to lead America into war.’ [17] Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War came to the same conclusion, but wrapped it carefully inside a moment of caution. He wrote that ‘the occasion’ of America entering the war was the resumption of submarine warfare. [18] Don’t confuse the words ‘cause’ and ‘occasion’. Indeed, consider that sentence again, but replace ‘occasion’ with ‘excuse’.

The German government had announced an unrestricted submarine campaign on 31 January, 1917. From that date U-boat commanders were ordered to sink all ships, neutral and belligerent, passenger or merchant inside a delineated Atlantic and North Sea zone. Despite perfunctory American protests, the British blockade had begun to take its toll in Germany from late 1916. Hunger was to be a weapon of war which both sides could use to advantage. German strategists were aware that such a tactic was likely to bring America into the war, but had concluded that Britain could be starved out before America had time to raise an effective fighting force and bring it into the European theatre. As it stood, America could hardly offer the Allies much more assistance as a belligerent than it currently did as a neutral, [19] but one unforeseen consequence hit home quickly. American shipping was temporarily paralysed. [20] Great quantities of wheat and cotton began to pile up in warehouses. The American economy faced dangerous dislocation. American merchant shipping clung to the safety of their shoreline and trade stood still.

Look carefully at the twin ‘causes’ of America Declaration of War, the Zimmermann telegram and Germany’s unrestricted submarine campaign and you will find flaws. The first was not a ‘casus belli’. It was a propaganda coup to soften the American public’s attitude to war, to stir indignation into resentment and stir the fear factor. No matter how ridiculous the notion that Mexican troops could invade Texas, New Mexico or Arizona, the very suggestion of an alliance through which three huge American states might be ceded to Mexico, placed Germany in a particularly bad light. Zimmermann admitted he was the author, but the clandestine nature by which the British secret service ensured that the information was passed to Washington, and the extent to which the Americans covered all traces of British involvement, leaves questions hanging in the air. Did Zimmermann have a cerebral meltdown? Was he secretly trying to prepare for any eventuality? No matter, it was not the cause of war.

Greater weight may be placed on the general insistence that unrestricted submarine warfare brought about Wilson’s fateful decision. Historians have thrown a vast array of statistics into the equation to prove the importance of this single factor. In the first month of the unrestricted warfare at sea 781,500 tons of merchant shipping was lost. [21] While it is true that after Woodrow Wilson’s warning in February, ten American freighters, schooners or tankers were sunk, nine by submarines and one by a mine (laid originally by the Royal Navy), loss of American lives totalled 24 seamen. In total, 38,534 gross U.S. tonnage was sunk. [22] Was this sufficient to be a cause of war? The pro-war newspapers gave vent to their outrage when it was reported that three American ships, Vigilancia, City of Memphis and Illinois had been sunk on 18 March. The New York World screamed that ‘without a declaration of war, Germany is making war on America.’ The New York Tribune claimed that Germany was acting on the theory that already war existed; The Philadelphia Public Ledger demanded that Wilson’s administration take immediate action insisting was its duty to respond, while the St Louis Republic was confident that the President and his advisors would act with wisdom. [23]

What wisdom? Certainly a very small number of American lives had been lost at sea. Unarguably the Zimmermann telegram was a piece of effrontery … but was it sufficient reason to put the lives of hundreds of thousands of young Americans at risk? Or were there darker influences?

1. Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Presidential Proclamation 1364 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/woodrow_wilson.php
2. H.C. Peterson, Propaganda for War, pp. 321-2.
3. American Press Resume (A.P.R.) issued by the War Office and Foreign Office. “For Use of the Cabinet”, 18 April, 1917.
4. A.P.R. 30 May, 1917.
5. Peterson, Propaganda for War, p. 325.
6. A.P.R. 6 June, 1917.
7. Peterson, Propaganda for War, p. 324. footnote.
8. 65th Congress, Session 1, CH. 15 1917. H.R. 3545.
9. Patrick Beesly, Room 40, pp. 207-8.
10. http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/zimmermann.htm
11. Rodney Carlisle, The Attacks on US Shipping that Precipitated American Entry into World War 1. http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol17/tnm_17_3_41-66.pdf
12. Telegram to SS Carvalho, 2 March 1917.
13. New York Times 11 December 1918.
14. Peterson, Propaganda, p. 314.
15. Bailey, A Diplomatic History, p. 643, note 28.
16. Beesly, Room 40, p. 223.
17. Charles Seymour, American Diplomacy During the World War, p. 210.
18. Paul Birdsall, Neutrality and Economic Pressures 1914-1917, Science and Society vol. 3, No. 2. (Spring 1939) p. 217.
19. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, p. 641.
20. Millis, Road to War, p. 400.
21. Peterson, Propaganda, p. 318.
22. Carlisle, Attacks on American Shipping that Precipitated the War, The Northern Mariner, XVII, no. 3, p. 61. http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol17/tnm_17_3_41-66.pdf
23. New York Times, 19 March 1917.

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, F.E. 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 8: What Happened? None of Your Bloody Business

On 5 June 1916, at 7.45 pm GMT, an urgent telegraph was sent from Birsay Post Office to Kirkwall and Stromness. It read ‘Battle cruiser seems in distress between Marwick Head and the Brough of Birsay.’ Twenty minutes later the words ‘vessel down’ followed. [1] The cruiser was about a mile and a half from shore in tempestuous swells but clearly visible to the naval watching-post on land. Marwick Head is a jagged coastal fortress of cliffs and unwelcoming rocks. If there is such a place as the perfect ambush point for a ship such that the chances of survival are minimal, then it’s Marwick Head. The escort vessels, having failed to keep pace with the faster cruiser in such awful weather, had been ordered back to Scapa Flow. [2] There were witnesses. Joe Angus, a gunner in the Orkney Territorial Forces shore patrol [3] saw a great cloud of smoke and flame bursting up behind the bridge of the Hampshire, and it was he who set off the alarm. [4] Having been alerted, Corporal Drever, who manned the naval watching post, raced to the post office. [5] What followed beggars belief. If at the end of this blog you still consider what happened that evening as a mere catalogue of misunderstanding and error, then the official explanation will suffice. If not, you will be forced to conclude that dark forces were at work. Examine the time-scale:

5 June, 1916, 7.45 [GMT] pm [6]

The Hampshire had been set on a course North, thirty degrees East. [7] It struck a mine which exploded just behind the bridge. [8] but did not sink immediately. In the ensuing mayhem only twelve out of around seven hundred men [9] survived both the floundering ship and the wrath of the angry North Sea gale. Of these, nine survivors specifically reported that a single explosion ripped the ship apart. William Bennet, officer on watch in the engine room, thought there were two or even three. They had to overcome the poisonous smoke and suffocating fumes to reach the deck. Estimates of the time between explosion and sinking, ranged from ten to twenty minutes. Confusion added to the howling wind and booming seas. Lifeboats could not be launched because the ship’s power had been lost. Boats cut free were dashed to pieces in the cold, debilitating waters. Men with lifebelts jumped in desperation. Only the Carley safety floats offered any chance of survival. [10]

5 June, 1916, 8.00 [GMT] pm onwards

Stoker Walter Farnden was one of an estimated forty men who clung to No. 3 raft with its cork-reinforced edges and rope handles. One by one they disappeared into the deep, frozen, exhausted unable to steer towards anyone still holding onto life amongst the debris. Stoker Farnden later described the torture he and his comrades endured: ‘An hour passed, two hours, and nearer and nearer to land the storm hurled us. Men were still dying in the agony of it all until there were but four of us alive.’ [11] Hundreds of men died in the wild seas because no-one was on hand to help. This human tragedy unfolded one and a half miles from the coast, witnessed and reported to the authorities at Scapa Flow within minutes, yet these poor men were left to die; abandoned outside the largest natural anchorage in the Empire. Why?

At the moment when possibly hundreds of men might have been rescued by a prompt response to the emergency call, the navy failed its own. Later a pathetic excuse was offered blaming the initial telegram for inaccurate detail. That ceased to have any relevance when the 8.20 message read ‘Vessel down.’ By 8.35 a third despairing message read: ‘Four funnel cruiser sunk 20 minutes ago. No assistance arrived yet. Send ships to pick up bodies.’ Men had been in the water for almost an hour, but still the Admiralty dithered.

Vice-Admiral Brock at the Longhope station on Orkney was informed of the 8.20 message that a vessel was down. Despite all that he knew, Brock did not immediately order out a rescue flotilla. Time was wasted confirming the telegrams from Birsay. Brock had been one of the guests at the special lunch hosted in Kitchener’s honour by Admiral Jellicoe that day. Brock knew of the late change to the Hampshire’s course. He knew about Kitchener’s mission to Russia. His failure to take immediate action remains incomprehensible. There was only one warship on that exclusive route. He must have known that the stricken ship was HMS Hampshire. [12] Of course he knew. His delay undoubtedly cost the lives of many dozens of potential survivors. Had Kitchener been in the water, he too would have been lost.

Rear Admiral Osmond Brock ended his career as Admiral of the Fleet. [13]

Orcadians who witnessed the tragedy could see that there were survivors amongst the bloated bodies but the seas were a natural bulwark between the desperate sailors and safety. Unless there were secret orders in place, what followed remains a tale of incompetence, panic and bewilderment on a scale that fails to make any sense. At every point the reader must remember that the sinking took place just one and a half miles from the Orkney coast – an area bristling with naval activity- the home of the Grand Fleet itself.

In Stromness, news of the cruiser’s loss was quickly relayed to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute whose secretary G L Thomson immediately rushed to alert the naval authorities and launch the life boat. He was stunned when told not to even try to do so. He demanded to speak with the senior officer only to be told that it was ‘none of his bloody business’, and warned very clearly and very specifically that he would be charged with mutiny if he attempted to launch the life boat. Matters got so heated that he and his crew were threatened with being put into custody. [14] Lifeboats exist to assist those in peril on the seas. Their purpose is to save lives. Their history around the coasts of Britain is of great self-sacrifice and valour. That the navy should order the grounding of a lifeboat makes no sense. Had the Admiralty ordained that there should be no survivors?

In Birsay, the few locals who knew about the disaster wanted to help, but in some cases ‘were forcibly prevented [from trying to get to survivors] under dire threats’ and even ordered to stay away from the shore or they would be fired on. The local people were certain that had they been allowed to take immediate action, fifty more lives could have been saved. [15] Ponder that awful fact. Local people could not fathom the inaction, the secrecy and the lack of tangible assistance for those despairing souls on the water.

5 June, 1916, 9.45 [GMT] pm. to midnight.

It took over two hours for a tug and two trawlers to make their way out of Stromness, and then at 10.pm four destroyers followed. Observers on the island of Birsay recalled that none of these reached the scene of the disaster before midnight. At around 1pm, one of the Carley rafts washed up on the rocks of a small creek half a mile north of Skaill Bay. It carried around 40 men when it left the stricken Hampshire, picked up another 30 from the chilling seas, but only 6 men had survived the debilitating exposure when it smashed into the rocky cliffs. Fifteen minutes later a second life raft reached the shore just north of the first with four living men amongst the 40 – 50 bodies. Can you imagine their physical and mental exhaustion? And none was yet safe. They faced the black cliffs with no-one in sight to offer assistance, throw down ropes or guide their hands as they climbed blindly upwards. One or two men reached a farm house, exhausted and barely alive.

6 June 1916, 10.30am [GMT]

Initially, the authorities were unaware of survivors, and the following official statement was issued to the press at 1.40 pm. on 6 June;

‘The Secretary of the Admiralty has received the following telegram from the Admiral Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet [Jellicoe] at 10.30 am this morning:

I have to report with deep regret that HMS Hampshire (Capt. Robert J Savill, R.N.) with Lord Kitchener and staff on board was sunk last night about8 pm. to the west of the Orkneys, either by mine or torpedo. Four boats were seen by observer on shore to leave the ship. The wind was N.N.W. and heavy seas were running. Patrol boats and destroyers at once proceeded to the spot and a party was sent along the coast to search but only some bodies and a capsized boat have been found up to present. As the whole shore has been searched, I fear there is little hope of there being any survivors. No report has yet been received from the search party on shore. The Hampshire was on her way to Russia.’ [16]

The cover-up had begun. The Empire had been informed that ‘there is little hope of survivors’ and the instant histories, like War Illustrated bluntly stated that ‘Lord Kitchener … on board HMS Hampshire, had been drowned together with his staff and the whole complement of that cruiser.’ [17] The Times carried news from a special correspondent which inferred immediate assistance was sent. ‘vessels which were instantly summoned to make a search found no trace of the sunken warship, or even, for a time, of any floating bodies.’ [18] The first announcements were erroneous. Incredibly, there were survivors. However, no vessels had instantly been summoned. Rear Admiral Brock had seen to that. That was possibly the greatest lie of all.

The Aberdeen trawler Effort passed the spot where the Hampshire sank two hours after the disaster. In the option of the crew, the sea was a not so rough as to prevent small boats being launched, but nothing was seen of the wreck. By that time the weather had moderated. Strangely the report from Aberdeen added that ‘the only craft observed was a Dutch vessel, which was steaming very closely.’ [19] Where did that come from? This mystery ship has never been identified.

Over the next days local Orcadians reported seeing two lorry loads of bodies arriving at Stromness Pier, barely covered, the lifeless crew piled high in open view, some almost naked as they were shunted down onto a waiting tug and taken for burial at Lyness. [20]

Take a second, please to review the main points. HMS Hampshire was sighted from land after an explosion had ripped her apart. Such was the violence of the explosion that her electrical system failed catastrophically and no mayday signal went out. However, a telegram was sent almost immediately from a watch point on the island of Birsay to alert the authorities at Scapa Flow. According to explanations announced by the Admiralty, vessels were immediately sent to the Hampshire’s assistance, but despite gallant efforts, there were no survivors. Later it was discovered that a dozen men survived the mountainous waves and freezing seas.

We now know that no ships were sent to find survivors until hours later. The log books from HMS Unity and HMS Victor, the two destroyers originally sent back from escorting the Hampshire show that they put to sea again at 9.10pm [21] and took an hour and a half to reach the area of wreckage . [22] Critically, and some might say, criminally, Vice Admiral Brock, who knew every detail of the Hampshire’s course, chose not to take immediate action to send assistance.

This was not, however, how these events were explained in the Admiralty’s official explanation.

[1] Jane E Storey.http://www.bjentertainments.co.uk/js/THE%20Orcadian.htm The Arcadian, New Light On Hampshire Tragedy.
[2] Philip Magnus, Kitchener, Portrait of an Imperialist. p. 373.
[3] Trevor Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 374.
[4] Joe Angus, Stromness, ‘World War One’, Orkney Public Library, Kirkwall, interview for Sound Archive by Eric Marwick.
[5] Jane E Storey.http://www.bjentertainments.co.uk/js/THE%20Orcadian.htm The Arcadian, New Light On Hampshire Tragedy.
[6] The timings used are at Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) which is used throughout the world. British Summer Time (BST) , or delight saving time, is one hour in advance of that, viz GMT+1.
[7] Royle, Kitchener Enigma, p. 372.
[8] Evidence of Petty Officer Samuel Sweeney. All of the following statements were sent by telephone from O.C.W.P. at 2.pm on 6 June 1916.
[9] The precise number may never be known, Royle puts it at 655 (p. 375). Orkney Heritage Society put the number at 737 to include men killed in the loss of the Laurel Crown. http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/ohs/index.asp?pageid=592610
[10] The Carley float was formed from a length of copper or steel tubing surrounded by a buoyant mass of cork. The American produced raft was rigid and could remain buoyant, floating equally well with either side uppermost. The floor of the raft was made from a wood or webbed grating. Commonly used on British warships in World War 1.
[11] The Great War- I Was There, Walter Farnden, part 15. pp. 604-7.
[12] Royle, Kitchener Enigma, p. 375.
[13] W. S. Chalmers, ‘Brock, Sir Osmond de Beauvoir (1869–1947)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32079
[14] Jane Storey; http://www.bjentertainments.co.uk/js/THE%20Orcadian.htm
[15] Ibid.
[16] The Times, 7 June 1916. p. 10.
[17] The War Illustrated, Volume 4, 17 June 1916, p. 410.
[18] The Times, 10 June, p. 8.
[19] The Times, 9 June 1916, p. 9.
[20] The Royal Naval Cemetery at Lyness on the island of Hoy is the resting place for 445 Commonwealth naval personnel, 109 of whom died in the First World War.
[21] National Archives ADM 53/66480 and ADM 53/67364.
[22] Royle, Kitchener Enigma, p. 371.

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener 7: Death on the High Seas

At around 7.45pm on 5 June 2016, Field Marshal The Earl Kitchener was drowned just off the west coast of Orkney in Scotland. His death shocked ordinary men and women across the British Empire who could not fathom why he was at sea. Disbelief was followed by a short period of criticism and enquiry. Numerous theories of spurious conspiracy were spread by the press which muddied the waters successfully in the weeks immediately afterwards, but a greater horror soon followed at the Somme and Kitchener’s demise became but one calamity in a summer of tragedies.

We know that key members of the Secret Elite wanted rid of him. His views on a fair peace and his self-ordained aims for the end of the war were unacceptable. [1] But how to get rid of him? Having demonstrated in previous blogs that his mission to Russia was not particularly important, that he was not invited by the Czar as several historians have claimed [2] and that he had considered postponing the visit, we have to critically re-examine Kitchener’s death. Was it simply an act of good fortune for those who wanted him gone or were there more disturbing undercurrents? Consider the sequence of events.

Herbert Kitchener left for his visit to Russian in good spirits. Critics of his performance as Secretary of State for War had been quashed in a failed censure motion in parliament on 31 May [3] and on 1 June he met with over 200 MPs to give them the opportunity to hear his views on the war to date. He answered their questions openly and the parliamentarians responded with warm and prolonged applause. [4] That evening he had a farewell audience with King George V and went from Buckingham Palace to Downing Street for a lengthy one-to-one meeting with Prime Minister Asquith. With hindsight it had the feel of a farewell tour.

At that very moment, out in the North Sea, near Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula, the only full-scale clash between the British Grand Fleet and the German Imperial Fleet was erupting. Both sides claimed victory, though the British suffered heavy losses including six cruisers and eight destroyers. [5] Almost immediately afterwards Admiral Sir John Jellicoe ordered an enquiry into the loss of so many cruisers [6] and as the fleet returned to Scapa Flow, bruised and damaged, the blame game began. While the loss of 6,097 men was a serious blow to Admiralty prestige, the German Fleet, which suffered 2,557 losses, [7] was afterwards more or less confined to port for the duration of the war. Both sides claimed victory, but Jellicoe’s reputation never recovered. He was already under great strain, both physically and mentally. [8]

And in the midst off this naval trauma, the most iconic soldier in the Empire arrived at Scapa Flow. Kitchener and his staff had travelled the 700 mile journey north to Scotland overnight by train on a special coach from King’s Cross station. Next day, Monday 5 June 1916, he arrived at the port of Scrabster near Thurso and made the rough two hour crossing to Orkney on the destroyer, HMS Oak. What is pertinent to all that transpired thereafter was that the Secretary of State for War was entirely in the hands of the Admiralty, and the Admiralty was in the hands of the Secret Elite’s Arthur Balfour. [9] It was Admiral Jellicoe who allocated the old coal-fired armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire to carry their precious passenger to Archangel in Russia even although she was reported to have sustained light damage in the Jutland battle. It was Jellicoe who issued the initial orders on 4 June to the Hampshire’s Captain, Herbert Savill, who had sailed the Orkney passages for over a year. Crucially, it was Jellicoe who changed these instructions at the last moment directing the cruiser up the western coasts of the Orkney islands, allegedly a safer more protected route. There was no protection from a cyclonic storm around Orkney save the stout safety of Scapa Flow harbour.

The weather was foul. In fact it was about as bad as it could be in June. According to the local newspaper, the Orcadian, a force 9 gale, the wildest summer storm Orkney had experienced for years, raged over the island. Alexander McAdie, Professor of Meteorology at Harvard University later destroyed the claim that Jellicoe and his staff could not have anticipated the raging gale which circulated around Orkney that day. A clearly identified cyclone was passing from the Atlantic to the North Sea and was on the point of recurve before heading into the Artic regions. He stated that ‘the forecaster in London would have warned against starting under such conditions…the counsel of the weatherise would have been to wait and follow the depression rather than try to precede it.’ [10] Apologists for the Admiralty and Jellicoe blamed ‘bad judgement and complacency’. [11] In 1923, McAdie destroyed such a notion by claiming that ‘the lack of definite knowledge of the storm’s position seems inexcusable.’ [12]

We are talking here about the British Admiralty, with its centuries of experience in weather and seamanship. The Admiralty knew about the organisation of Kitchener’s visit because they were responsible for its detailed planning. Jellicoe was the Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet. He knew Scapa Flow and its cyclonic storms and gales. He was in regular contact with London. Indeed Jellicoe telegraphed the Admiralty to seek permission to permit HMS Hampshire to remain at Archangel for the duration of Kitchener’s visit and received approval at 6.08 pm on 5 June, once the Hampshire was underway. [13] Surely, as Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, Jellicoe could have made such a decision on his own. Why did London have to approve it? Undeniably communications were exchanged between the Orkneys and London that concerned the Hampshire before it was blown apart. It is therefore impossible to sustain an argument based on ‘confusion and poor communications’ between the Admiralty in London and Jellicoe in Scapa Flow. They knew and approved the detail of Kitchener’s last journey. There was no confusion.

Questions were soon raised about the choice of HMS Hampshire to carry Kitchener on the Artic route to Archangel. An angry Portsmouth vicar wrote to The Times on 9 June: ‘Is no explanation to be given to us why the most valuable life the nation possessed was risked in an old ship like HMS Hampshire, unattended by any escort?’ [14] This is a valid question. The Hampshire was a thirteen year old Devonshire armoured cruiser which might well have been scrapped had war not found use and purpose for virtually every ship on the high seas. Unlike her sister ship, the Carnarvon, which had been partially fitted to burn oil and coal, the Hampshire was solely coal-fired and consequently, with a bunkering capacity of 1,600 tons, sat low in the water. In February 1914, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty supplied a written Commons answer to a parliamentary enquiry which listed two hundred and fifty two vessels, ranging from Battleships to Torpedo Boat Destroyers which were oil fired, soon to be oil-fired or partially fitted for both power sources. HMS Hampshire was not included. [15] Yet the old coal-fired, four-funnelled cruiser was Jellicoe’s choice. She would hardly be inconspicuous when steaming at full speed.

Thus, HMS Hampshire slipped her moorings in the relative safety of Scapa Flow at 4.45pm on 5 June 1916 and headed west then north into the teeth of a storm. She was to be escorted by two destroyers, Unity and Victor, [16] neither of which had the capacity to cope in the vicious head-on gale. They joined the Hampshire at 5.45 pm and went through the motions of providing initial support for the cruiser. For thirty-five minutes Unity struggled against the odds to stay close, but even with Captain Savill’s speed reduced twice, it was a forlorn hope in the mountainous swell. She was ordered to return to Scapa at 6.20. Victor lasted a further ten minutes in the severe gale, then turned back. By 6.30 pm, the Hampshire was plunging a lonely slow furrow, her decks battened down save for the hatch to 14 mess, like a floating coffin with a single air-vent. Channelled down Jellicoe’s chosen route, past Hoy Sound, tossed and battered by the merciless storm, the given official account would have us accept that ‘unconnected co-incidences’ [17] drew the ill-fated ship into an unknown German mine-field, laid by U-75 just off Marwick Head. Only twelve men survived. Kitchener was not one of them.

That an ‘unknown’ German mine-field lay to the west coast of the Orkney Islands demands examination. Evidence now available demonstrates that vital messages about submarine activity on the precise route that Jellicoe had ordained the Hampshire must take, had arrived at the Naval Headquarters at Longhope on the Orkney island of South Wallis on the afternoon of 5 June. Apparently no-one paid attention. [18] The most prestigious passenger ever landed on Scapa Flow was already at the base and no-one had given instructions to update the commander-in-chief, Admiral Jellicoe, or his senior staff about submarine activity that day on the chosen route? This is unbelievable. Submarine activity in the proximity of Scapa Flow was always given high priority. Few places in the world were more conscious of the danger posed by a submarine. Given the vulnerability of the Grand Fleet after the Battle of Jutland, the disposition of U-Boats was of absolute importance. Failure to immediately alert the senior officers of the fleet to U-Boat dangers was a dereliction of duty which would have merited court martial. No-one was taken to task.

As we have previously shown [19] the Admiralty in London had gained possession of the three major codes used by the Imperial German Navy to transmit information to their ships and submarines before the war was even four months old. The decoders in Room 40 were able to decipher every naval wireless transmission and from these, plot German ship movements and build up detailed profiles on U-Boat commanders. [20] As the German preparations for what would be known as the Battle of Jutland took shape, three ocean-going submarine minelayers were sent to the sea lanes off the Firth of Forth, the Moray Firth and Orkney.

The commander of U-75, Kurt Beitzen duly laid his mines in five groups of four across the sea-bed on the precise route which Jellicoe selected for the Hampshire. Back in Room 40 at the Admiralty, U-75’s course, and that of its two sister ships, had been detected and decoded. Take stock of this statement. When Kitchener’s journey was being planned and approved at the Admiralty they knew of the risks caused by submarine activity. So too did Jellicoe. Two intercepts from 31 May and 1 June placed the new ocean-going minelaying U-75 west of Orkney. On 3 June, U-75’s movements were transmitted to the Longhope station, and Admiralty records show that three messages logged on 5 June, all timed and dated from the Cape Wrath station, identified a submarine, U-75, at 2.40 pm, 5.15 pm and 7.15 pm. [21] Hampshire had put to sea at 4.45 pm, but was in radio contact with Longhope. Undeniably, Jellicoe had instructed HMS Hampshire to sail into a section known to have been occupied by a mine-laying U-Boat. [22]

These were not the errors of some raw recruit or the hapless mistakes of an inexperienced trainee. Each of these decisions was dictated by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, commander in chief of the Grand Fleet. It is claimed that Kitchener had been keen to press on with his journey despite the weather, and consequently the Hampshire’s departure was not delayed. [23] Really?

Are we to believe that had Admiral Jellicoe not taken time to explain the debilitating effect of a force 9 storm, Kitchener would have over-ruled his advice? In fact, there was no such discussion. Jellicoe latter wrote that, in his opinion, ‘I did not consider the delay necessary as I should not have hesitated, if need had arisen, to take the Grand Fleet to sea on the same night and on the same route…’ [24]  Of course Kitchener wanted to get underway, but was sufficiently astute to understand the adage ‘more haste less speed’. He was a poor sailor. Claims that blame lay with Kitchener’s blind determination to sail through the cyclonic storm ring hollow. The same might be said of the choice of HMS Hampshire. Of all the options available to Jellicoe, the old armoured cruiser was the least-cost option. Her coal-burning boilers generated both power and steam and had she made Petrograd safely, how many submarine packs might have lain in wait for the return voyage.

In the weeks and months that followed, a great deal of heat was generated by allegations and conjecture about who, outside Britain, may or may not have known about Kitchener’s proposed visit to Russia as if that had bearing on the outcome. One factor, and one alone, did. Whoever knew about the U-75 and its minelaying activity around Orkney, knew that the passage to Marwick Head was a death-trap. Whoever instructed Captain Savill to take the route, must bear some responsibility. But did Jellicoe act alone? How far does the trail of complicity stretch? At the Admiralty there was one man in the inner circle of the Secret Elite whose authority over-rode all else. That was the First Lord, Arthur J Balfour.

But the mystery deepened when the Orcadians shared their shocking experience with the world, and ten years later, when the Admiralty Inquiry was eventually made public.

[1] Kitchener’s interference in munitions and his belief in a fair peace alarmed the Secret Elite leader, Lord Milner and his political allies, Leo Amery, Andrew Bonar Law, Sir Edward Carson and many others. Asquith and Lloyd George wanted rid of him quickly as did the press baron, Lord Northcliffe. These men represented the poisoned tip of an anti-Kitchener lobby which had no public support.
[2] Sir George Arthur, The Life of Lord Kitchener, pp. 349-50, is typical of the misleading notion that the Secretary of State for War was invited by the Czar to go to visit him in Russia.
[3] The Times 1 June 1916, p. 10.
[4] John Pollock, Kissinger, p. 475.
[5] The Times, 3 June 1916, p. 8.
[6] Nicholas A. Lambert, Our Bloody Ships or Our Bloody System? Jutland and the loss of the Battle Cruisers, 1916. Journal of Military History, vol. 62, no. 1, January 1998, p. 47.
[7] http://www.battle-of-jutland.com/jutland-gains-losses.htm
[8] S.W. Roskill, The Dismissal of Admiral Jellicoe, Journal of Contemporary History, vol.1, no. 4 (October 1966) p. 69.
[9] Arthur Balfour was at that point First Lord of the Admiralty. His Secret Elite credentials placed him in the inner core of the secret society. See Carol Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, pp. 17-18 and 312.
[10] George H. Cassar, Kitchener, Architect of Victory, p. 476.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Alexander McAdie, ‘Fate and a Forecast’, Harvard Graduate Magazine, September 1923, p. 46.
[13] Trevor Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 364.
[14] Rev C.H. Hamilton, The Times, Letters to the Editor, 9 June 1916, p. 9.
[15] Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 18 February 1914 vol 58 cc961-3W
[16] Both vessels were listed in Churchill’s lists of 252 ships to be oil-fired.
[17] The Times, 10 August, 1926, p. 9.
[18] Trevor Royle, The Kitchener Enigma, p. 367.
[19] See blog: Lusitania 1: The Tale of the Secret Miracles, posted 28 April, 2015.
[20] Patrick Beesly, Room 40 British Naval Intelligence 1914-1918, pp. 21-33.
[21] National Archives ADM137/4105.
[22] Royale, Kitchener Enigma, pp. 369-70.
[24] George H Cassar, Kitchener, Architect of Victory, p.476. or Royle, Kitchener Enigma, p. 480.
[25] Viscount Jellicoe, The Grand Fleet (1914-1916): Its Creation, Development and Work p. 427.

Ireland 1916, 7: Who Knew What … and When?

The Rising of 1916 did not take everyone by surprise. According to The Times, ‘those who knew how to read the signs’ believed that it was imminent. [1] Within the Unionist minority in Dublin, voices had complained that for months the rebels were flaunting their ‘arms and accoutrements’ in the streets and proclaimed to the world their disregard for law and order. [2] At a localised level such post-hoc observations might be expected in most situations of serious disorder. In this instance foreknowledge appears sufficiently extensive to obligate a deeper analysis. Other than the insurgents, who knew the Easter Rising was about to happen? What, if anything did they do about it?

The British Secret Services knew. Naval Intelligence had been in possession of German secret codes from mid-October 1914 [3] to the extent that virtually any wireless signal made by the German Navy could be intercepted by a select and very secretive group. [4] It was established at the Admiralty in London, in Room 40, under Captain (later Rear-Admiral) Reginald Hall. Possession of these priceless codes was a strategic coup of the highest order and proved invaluable in guiding the Lusitania towards U-20’s location in 1915. [5] The story of how these codes fell into the Admiralty’s hands stretches credibility [6] but further ‘good fortune’ also delivered the German diplomatic codes to the same people in March 1915. [7] Whether or not the codes originated from the sources stated in official histories is immaterial to the fact that in 1916, British Intelligence monitored Roger Casement’s activities while he was in America and Germany and knew of his intentions to return to Ireland. Room 40 decrypted at least thirty-two cables from the German Embassy in Washington to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin dealing with German support for Irish nationalism. [8] Count Bernstorff, the German Ambassador at Washington, cabled Berlin that an armed uprising was planned for 23 April, Easter Sunday, and requested that rifles, machine-guns and field artillery be provided to support it. Naval Intelligence knew that arms were to be sent in the small steamer Aud, knew the codewords to be broadcast and had more than enough information to closely follow its progress. [9]

Casements’ activities in America and Germany were also betrayed by his manservant and alleged lover, Adler Christensen, to the British minister in Oslo, who passed this to the Foreign Office in London. Sir Edward Grey forwarded the report to the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, the chief secretary for Ireland, Augustine Birrell, and to Lord Kitchener at the War Office. [10] Casement’s letters to the Irish Volunteer’s chief of staff Eoin MacNeill were intercepted en route to Ireland [11] and when he eventually stepped on to Irish soil in Tralee Bay, he was arrested within hours. From the moment he landed back, Roger Casement repeatedly stated that his sole purpose was to stop the rising which he knew to be a ‘fatal mistake’ [12] He had not returned to lead the rebellion but to stop it.

Roger Casement was promptly whisked off to London to be jointly interrogated by Sir Basil Thomson, head of the Criminal Investigation Department, Reginald Hall from the Admiralty and Major, later Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hall (no relation), MI5’s resident Irish Expert. All three were pro-Empire loyalist who followed the Secret Elite agenda with ruthless determination.

What Casement did not know was that Frank Hall had been military secretary to the UVF in Ulster, served on the 12-man committee on gun-running and was a signatory to the Solemn League and Covenant.  It was Frank Hall who, as secretary of the Unionist Clubs of Ireland [13] and senior staff officer in the UVF, had forwarded Sir Edward Carson’s letter asking all Ulster Clubs and Orange Lodges to help in the ‘immediate organisation of the UVF’, in August 1913. [14] The British Intelligence Service, and even Churchill himself, relied on Frank Hall’s assumed ‘expertise’ on matters pertaining to Ireland. And he despised Casement. Indeed all of his interrogators treated Roger Casement with contempt.

Was this why Casement’s request to be allowed to appeal publicly to the Irish Volunteers to call off the proposed Easter Rising and stop the useless bloodshed, was refused? Records in the National Archives at Kew confirm Casement’s requests. [15] Sir Ernley Blackwell, legal adviser to the Home Office cited an internal document [16] which recorded that Casement ‘begged to be allowed to communicate with the leaders to try and stop the rising but he was not allowed.’ This request was made before his interrogation at Scotland Yard. Blackwell’s appeal for more information about Casement’s interrogation added ‘On Easter Sunday at Scotland Yard, he implored again to be allowed to communicate or send a message, but they (Thomson and both Halls) refused, saying ‘It’s a festering sore, it’s much better it should come to a head.’ [17] Sir Ernley Blackwell specifically asked Inspector Edward Parker of Special Branch if this claim was true because he had ‘several similar statements from different sources’ which he was anxious to answer. Pertinently, the Home Office legal adviser had to hand ‘several similar’ claims that the interrogators wanted the rebellion to go ahead. [18] And it did.

Consider the awful implications of this admission. The most senior men in British Intelligence knew that the uprising was about to erupt, but refused  to make any effort to prevent it. Indeed, the inference is that they welcomed it. Basil Thomson replied by letter that same day, quoting first from Special Branch shorthand notes. Here Casement stated that: ‘The rising would take place on 23 April whether arms came or not…’ [19] At this point, the Assistant Chief Commissioner wrote that ‘after the shorthand writer left on Easter Sunday, Casement said, ‘I hope you will announce my arrest. I said Why? He said, because if they know that I am taken, nothing will happen, they will know that the game is up. I am positive that he did not ask to send a message, nor did anyone say, ‘It is a festering sore…’ Thomson ended his reply by stating that Casement said he felt it his duty to come and warn the rebels when he learned that the Germans had refused to send men. [20]

Thus according the Home Office records, Roger Casement made at least two requests to be allowed to communicate with Dublin to stop the Rising, the last on Easter Sunday. We know that Sir Ernley Blackwell had knowledge of ‘several similar’ statements that the Scotland Yard interrogators had expressed a comment about the need to let the festering sore come to a head. Who else was party to such a momentous decision? To have permitted an uprising against the Crown was treason itself. Yet the colouration of what did and did not constitute treason against the Crown changed hue dependent on whether one’s loyalties were to Ulster or not. Was Frank Hall under instruction? He had nailed his convictions to the union flag in August 1913, when he wrote that [Clubs] ‘must be kept going and encouraged by them in view of the possibility of a general election before the actual passage of the Home Rule Bill, and the consequent outbreak of hostilities.’ [21] Carson’s man had no love for the anti-war rebels in the South. What cannot be denied is that before a shot had been fired, a covert decision been taken to let the Easter Rising go ahead.

Other key members of the Secret Elite had foreknowledge of the outbreak in Dublin. Arthur Balfour, then in charge at the Admiralty, ‘knew beforehand that the rebellion in Ireland would start on Easter Monday 1916 and made naval preparations in advance.’ [22] Furthermore it was Admiralty staff who informed Downing Street about the outbreak of hostilities in Dublin. Balfour had instructed the Duty Officer at the Admiralty to stay constantly in touch with the Post Office in London to monitor the flow of telegrams to and from  Dublin. Immediately the line was blocked, Downing Street was told that that the rebellion had started. [23]

Herbert Asquith and his secretary, Maurice Hankey, another inner-core Secret Elite member [24] were ‘out of town’ and, according to Hankey’s diaries, arrived back in London late that Monday evening (12.30 am.) to be told that the Easter Rebellion had begun. Asquith’s reaction does not appear to include any surprise at all. According to Hankey, ‘Asquith merely said ‘well, that’s really something, and went to bed.’ [25]  Out of town? Merely went to bed? In the midst of a vicious war the prime minister could not be contacted about a rebellion in Ireland? How odd. Why did he not react immediately or ask why he had not been informed earlier or send for up-to-the-moment information, or contact Birrell or react with more concern? Why indeed?

On the morning of Holy Saturday, 1916, the British authorities in Dublin confidently believed that there was no danger of disruption in the city. They had been deliberately kept in the dark. With the capture and sinking of the Aud and consequent loss of arms and ammunition, the military commander in Ireland, Major-General Sir Lovick Friend retired to London for the Easter weekend. Similarly, Augustine Birrell, Chief Secretary for Ireland, was in London to attend a cabinet meeting on the impending and contentious conscription bill. Kept in ignorance of Casement’s statements or requests, Birrell decided to stay there for Easter. His under-secretary in Dublin, Sir Matthew Nathan was so confident that any danger of a rising had passed that he wrote an upbeat assessment for Birrell, though hard liners like Lord Wimborne still pressed for the arrest and internment of the Volunteer leaders. [26] Why had no-one told them what Casement had said? What Casement had offered? Regretfully, we can only surmise that for reasons that were never openly expressed, no warnings were issued through British Intelligence. The given excuse is that intelligence was in its infancy and not properly co-ordinated. How convenient.

The Admiralty Statement to the press that weekend made reference only to the German naval activity around the south coast of Ireland, linked to arms and ammunition. [27] Casement’s arrest and plea to be allowed to stop the Easter Rising was suppressed. Instead the events that transpired were predicated by news of German activity in and around Ireland. This is the context within which the general public learned about the rising.

On the following day, the first man into the breach in parliament was Lord Midleton, otherwise known as William St John Brodrick, an intimate member of the Secret Elite [28] and previously Secretary of State for War during the Boer War. As leader of the Unionist Association and Irish landowner, Midleton was primed for battle. He opened the attack with a simple question in the House of Lords, seeking information on the grave disturbances in Dublin [29] before anyone else had grasped the extent of the ‘disturbances’. Next day he was scathing in his attack on Asquith’s government. He dubbed the rebels ‘an organised body of Sinn Feiners’ and this label was stamped across the uprising by the British propagandists, even though Sinn Fein as a political movement had no place in the revolt. His typically partisan analysis criticised the regular Sunday ‘Sinn Feiner’ parades (no mention was made of the Irish Republican Brotherhood or Connolly’s Citizen Army) which, in his view, should have been put down months, if not years before. Similar restrictions were not envisaged in Ulster. Of course, the Gaelic name Sinn Fein sounded foreign to the English ear – why – it looked like German on the printed page.

Midleton’s account of unheeded warnings obligated Lord Lansdowne, at this point a member of the Cabinet, to admit that ‘my noble friend has access to information to which I have not access.’ [30] We should ponder this; these men were pro-unionist allies and friends; both were Secret Elite insiders. Allegedly, Midleton was better informed than the cabinet minister. It was a charade. Asquith’s coalition Cabinet was replete with Unionists in 1916, and since Cabinet Ministers could not offer public criticism of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, the old-fashioned Liberal, Augustine Birrell, the attack was spearheaded by Midleton in the House of Lords. At this juncture, Parliament was first made aware of the arrest of Sir Roger Casement, [31] though the association between Germany and the uprising had been repeated in the press for days.

What can be fairly deduced is that those to whom the leading officers in British Intelligence were responsible, who knew that the Easter Rising was about to happen did not alert the appropriate government officials in Ireland. Was a decision taken at the highest level to ‘let the festering sore come to a head’? Such a vital decision could never had been taken by Thomson or the Halls. Naval command at Queenstown, led by Admiral Lewis Bayly, had been given explicit instructions to prevent German weapons reaching the Irish mainland, and they did. Knowledge about this and the German connection was shared with Lord Kitchener, Field Marshal French, Commander of the British Home Forces and Major-General Friend in command of the armed forces in Ireland. Yet the army was not put on high alert. Indeed no action was taken which might have forewarned the leaders of the rebellion that the authorities had wind of their intentions. [32]

Usually, the given excuse for not sharing critical information was that military sources were too sensitive or valuable to risk exposure. In this instance the burning question must be, who decided that it was in the best interest of Britain or Ireland or Ulster to let the rebellion take place? There is a worrying conflict between the belief that the rebel Military Council gained an outstanding success in concealing its intentions and the fact that the British military and naval commanders knew about the impending uprising, knew that Casement wanted to call it off, knew that without the guns, ammunition  and men from Germany  it could never succeed.

Consider for a moment the benefits of permitting the rising to go ahead. The damage to the Cabinet Liberals was bound to be extensive, and many within the Secret Elite wanted Asquith out of government. [33] The Ulster Unionists had predicted that the Irish Volunteers could not be trusted. Here was the ultimate vindication of their case. Furthermore, Redmond and Dillon, indeed, everyone inside the Home Rule Party was compromised. What future the Home Rule Act which Unionists wanted to kill in its suspended state? Additionally, it allowed the British government to ruthlessly crush anyone who opposed war in Ireland and sought independence from the Crown; the socialists, the Irish Volunteers, the Citizen Army, trades-unionists and republicans, those who advocated neutrality or were conscientious objectors, the writers and orators, the organisers and sympathisers, all fell victims to suppression.

Whatever else, there were serious winners and losers.

[1] The Times 1 May 1916, p. 10.
[2] Ibid.
[3] see Blog, Lusitania 1: The Tale Of The Secret Miracles.
[4] Patrick Beesley, Room 40, British Naval Intelligence 1914-1918, p. 7.
[5] Colin Simpson, Lusitania, p. 115.
[6] see Blog, Lusitania 1: The Tale Of The Secret Miracles.
[7] Beesley, Room 40, pp. 129-132.
[8] Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of M15, p. 87.
[9] Beesley, Room 40, pp. 186-7.
[10] These documents still remain classified one hundred years later.
[11] Roger Sawyer, Casement: The Flawed Hero, p. 119.
[12] National Archives, Home Office Records, HO 311643/51.
[13] Timothy Bowman, Carson’s Army, The Ulster Volunteer Force, 1910-22, pp. 22-3.
[14] PRONI D.1518/3/8, Circular Letter from Captain Frank Hall to Unionist Clubs.
[15] National Archives, Papers of the Metropolitan police, 2/10664.
[16] National Archives, Home Office Records HO 311643/51.
[17] National Archives Home Office, MEPO 21/10664.
[18] Letter from Inspector Edward Parker to the Assistant Chief Commissioner, 18/07/1916. NA file MEPO21/10664/C/701389.
[19] Confidential reply, Thomson to Blackwell, 18 July, 1916, page 1. MEPO 21/10664.
[20] Ibid., p. 2.
[21] Bowman, Carson’s Army, pp. 22-3.
[22] Recollections, Vols 1,2, Memoirs of Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Henry Oliver, (unpublished), National Maritime Museum, OLV 12 , p. 165. Cited in G. Sloan, (2013) The British state and the Irish rebellion of 1916: an intelligence failure or an failure of response. Intelligence and National Security, 28 (4). pp. 453-494. ISSN 1743-9019 doi: 10.1080/02684527.2012.735079  http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/25318/
[23] Ibid.
[24] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 313.
[25] Stephen Roskill, Hankey, Man of Secrets, Vol 1, 1877-1918, p. 265.
[26] Michael Foy and Brian Barton, The Easter Rising, p. 79.
[27] The Times, 25 April, 1916, p. 4.
[28] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 9 et seu.
[29] Hansard, House of Lords Debate, 25 April 1916 vol 21 c810.
[30] Hansard, House of Lords Debate, 26 April 1916 vol 21 cc827-8.
[31] Ibid., cc826-7.
[32] Foy and Barton,The Easter Rising, p. 65.
[33] A.M. Gollin, Proconsul in Politics, p. 324.

The Oil Story 6: Hypocrisy and a Biblical Blind Eye

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Oil Story 5: Behind The Anglo Persian

Having spent a great deal of his personal fortune on exploration in Persia without any convincing returns, William Knox D’Arcy had had enough. The anticipated profit had not materialised and he transferred his holdings to Burmah Oil, recouped his outlay in full and made a profit of 170,000 Burmah shares, valued around £895,000 [1] for himself and his associates. [2] It was clear to the Secret Elite that D’Arcy’s personal fortune was more important than the future of the Empire and as a consequence he received no official honour for his ‘loyalty’. Not even a knighthood!Then, low and behold, the barren deserts spouted the priceless oil shortly after, in a district which had been identified as oil-bearing more than half a century before. [3] D’Arcy was either decidedly unlucky, or the victim of a calculated plan. In the summer of 1908, two tremendously profitable gushers were struck to the delight of his replacement, Lord Strathcona, a Scottish born Canadian financier, and other investors.

As Chairman of the Hudson Bay Company and Empire philanthropist, [4] Strathcona had all the international contacts necessary to lead from the front. From 1909 he played an active role as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s first chairman, ably assisted by Charles Greenway, a British businessman. Greenway’s ambitions reflected those of the Secret Elite; to obtain sufficient capital to transform Anglo-Persian into a major force in world oil, resist the early and unwelcome overtures from Royal Dutch/ Shell, and gain the Admiralty contract to supply the Navy. In 1913 he offered them a twenty-year fuel contract that would both guarantee their supply by a ‘British’ concern and co-incidentally, rescue the company from financial straits. [5] He shamelessly played on Marcus Samuel’s ‘Jewishness’ and Henry Deterding’s ‘Dutchness’ to better accentuate his own patriotic intent, arguing repeatedly that Anglo-Persian was a natural adjunct to British strategy and policy and was a significant national asset.

[6] Admiral Fisher, retired, but still highly influential at the Admiralty, was impressed by these arguments, and in May 1914 an agreement was signed with the British government. Much of Greenway’s biased rhetoric was reiterated in Churchill’s speech to Parliament on 17 June 1914 when he sought Parliamentary approval to purchase a majority shareholding of the Anglo Persian Oil Company at a cost of £2.2 million. [7] Its importance, he stated, was that ‘over the whole of these enormous regions we obtain the power to regulate developments according to naval and national interests’. [8] It was classic British Imperialism at its worst. ‘National interests’ covered a multitude of sins.

Churchill’s role was to front the signing of a deal that flew in the face of all previous Liberal Free Trade philosophy. To accusations of ‘Jew baiting’ he steered the proposal through what could have been troublesome Parliamentary waters with commendable success. His intervention dressed the purchase of oil from Persia in naval uniform and wrapped it in the Red Ensign. It focused minds on the fleet, on the price of oil, on the manipulation of greedy multinational oil companies, and on German rivalries. It played on old bigotries and new found fears. Though Sir Marcus Samuel and his colleagues at Royal Dutch/Shell were apoplectic at Churchill’s sneers and misrepresentations, [9] they could not change the government’s intentions.

But it had all been set up years before through the guiding hands of the Secret Elite who were able to mobilise their wealthy associates, William Knox D’Arcy and then Lord Strathcona, to nurture and protect the oil interests in Persia. They were altering the map of the Middle East and quietly but effectively planting a union flag in the Persian Gulf. Some seven weeks before the outbreak of war the government bought a fifty-one per cent holding in the Anglo Persian Oil Company, and at a stroke changed the rules of engagement. The claim to Persian oil was thus backed by the might of the British Government, not some commercial company. Eleven days before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the proposal was presented to Parliament for its approval. Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Labour opposition, warned that the contract ‘was far more political in its significance than economic’ and, with considerable prescience added, ‘commercial concessions, especially when government money was in them, had an unhappy knack of becoming territorial acquisitions.’ [10]

Six days after war had been declared, the Bill received Royal consent. [11] The Secret Elite had played a master-stroke in what one of their leading players, Lord Curzon, described as ‘the game for the domination of the world’. [12] Without the consent of any other government, and in full denial of such intent, the Foreign Office had effectively created a new protectorate to sit beside Egypt, Sudan and the route to India. And it had all started with the bribe which D’Arcy used to gain the concession from the Shah [13]

Once the deal with Anglo-Persian was approved, Churchill quickly contacted  Henry Deterding of Royal Dutch/Shell to negotiate a new agreement with them. Having trashed their reputation in public, he quietly secured their oil. Deterding promised that Britain ‘shan’t want for oil or tankers in case of war’. He was a practical man. He understood what had happened [14] Despite Sir Edward Grey’s denials, this was not primarily about the availability of oil, nor the price of oil. It was about a strategic and vital stretch of land in the Middle East. The decision had been driven not just by the Admiralty, whose technical imperatives demanded that Germany never got ahead in the Naval race, but, more importantly, by the Foreign Office.  It both secured the future of Anglo Persian as a ‘British’ oil company and signalled the fact that this region was now firmly a British sphere of influence.

And where did the money come from? It had not been included in the Naval Estimates, so technically it could not be allocated from the Admiralty. Amazingly, money was found by the Chancellor of the Exchequer without any requirement for additional borrowing. [15] It was indeed a fortunate circumstance that such a large sum [16] just happened to be available. Therefore, the Treasury, the Admiralty and the Foreign Office were in cahoots. In a month of unparalleled domestic upheaval, the rights to a small piece of land in Persia were purchased for the nation by the triumvirate of Secret Elite agents inside the Cabinet without prior discussion. This oil-bearing land had been acquired on the basis of supplying the navy. That was the Admiralty’s public position. In the depth of the Foreign Office oil had been transformed into an instrument of national policy for Britain. It gave the government claim to own part of Persia.

Thus in the weeks immediately before the declaration of war, Britain established its ownership of a potentially invaluable future source of oil. Unlike Germany, which was dependent to a large extent on the monopolies she could not break, it was relatively straightforward for Britain to purchase and transport by sea, oil from America, Mexico, Trinidad, Borneo, Romania and beyond, to guarantee supplies for the Royal Navy. So there was no urgency, no immediate necessity to protect the navy’s oil supplies even in time of war. The deal that was rushed through the British parliament had future ambition written large behind its front cover. The Anglo Persian field would require more time to prove economically effective and it did not disappoint in the long run. [17] But as Britain entered the mammoth struggle with Germany, it had established a claim on the disintegrating Ottoman region around Persia and the Gulf.

And even if the decision to acquire a majority stake in Anglo-Persian had been only an economic consideration, if it was simply the supply of oil for the navy that was of concern, surely that was sufficiently important to beg another question. Given that the politicians and planners knew how critical the supply of oil would be in time of war, why did the Allies not move immediately to deny Germany and the Central Powers access to oil at the outbreak of war? No-one can claim that the British government was unaware of this. Indeed Churchill spoke about the impact of such an embargo in the House of Commons when he argued that, ‘if he [the enemy] were able to stop oil ships and enforce his doctrine of contraband, he could also stop the grain ships, the meat ships, and the ships bringing cotton and all the other varieties of raw material to this country and, of course, he could very quickly bring the war to an end by that means.’  [18] He was absolutely correct. It therefore follows that had Britain stopped the supply of oil and other commodities to Germany from the outbreak of war, it would very quickly have been brought to an end.

And let us not forget another point which Churchill correctly identified. Control of oil throughout the world was in the hands of a relatively few very powerful oil companies. These were essentially Standard Oil (American) and Royal Dutch/Shell (Dutch/British), with Mexican Eagle (British) and the nascent Anglo Persian Oil Company (British) running far behind those two giants. Even though Germany had some influence through Deutsche Bank holdings, most of the shareholdings in Romanian and Russian oil lay with the Rothschild Dynasty and had by 1914 been amalgamated into the Royal Dutch/Shell giant. [19] Such a comprehensive stranglehold on the supply of oil should surely have spelled disaster for Germany after stalemate on the Western Front prolonged the First World War beyond the expectation of most observers. It did not.

[1] The current value of these share at 1909 prices is just over £83,000,000. http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php Dr FC Gerretson, History of the Royal Dutch states that D’Arcy was paid £170,000 in shares, while Ferrier, see below, cites 170,000 shares.
[2] R.W. Ferrier, The History of the British Petroleum Company, p. 112.
[3] F.C. Gerretson, History of the Royal Dutch, p. 231.
[4] Donna McDonald, Lord Strathconna, pp. 507-526.
[5] Daniel Yergin, The Prize, p. 159.
[6] Ibid., p. 158.
[7] The Times, 18 June 1914, p. 12.
[8] Yergin, The Prize, p. 161.
[9] The Times, 23 June 1914, p. 19. Company Meetings, Shell Transport and Trading Co. (ltd)
[10] The Times, 18 June, 1914, p. 12. Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s Views.
[11] Hansard, House of Commons Debate 10 August 1914 vol 65 cc2308-35.
[12] John Pilger, The New Rulers of the World, p. 101.
[13] Engdahl, A Century of War, p. 20.
[14] Yergin, The Prize, p. 163.
[15] Hansard, House of Commons Debate 05 August 1914 vol 65 c2001.
[16] Roughly £189 million at today’s prices. http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php
[17] Churchill was later to claim, without a moment’s hesitation, that the sums realised from this venture meant that the cost of all the great ships laid down between 1912-1914 were added to the British navy at no cost to the taxpayer. Winston Churchill, The World Crisis 1911-1918, p. 77.
[18] The Times, 18 June 1914, p. 12.
[19] Gerretson, History of the Royal Dutch, vol. Four, inset pp. 174-5 details the complex interlocking of the giant Royal Dutch/Shell’s organisation in the Western Market in 1914.

The Oil Story 4: British Interest Takes Shape

One essential point has to be reinforced. The Secret Elite ensured that plans had long been in place for war. Any other claim was a lie. The elites had worked assiduously to ensure that the conflict they instigated would appear to be caused by Germany, and written up as such by their pliant historians and journalists. [1]

The absolute advantage rested with the powers behind the scenes in Britain who controlled, among much else, the Foreign Office and Cabinet. They knew that the Empire was going to war – they had planned it after all – and they knew that a prolonged war was necessary to crush Germany economically, commercially and industrially. A short military conflict that was over by Christmas would not have achieved that. Germany, forced to fight for her survival on two fronts, encircled as she was by the proverbial ring of steel, had the most compelling reason for staking its survival on a short war. Theoretically, Germany was cut off from food imports, materials essential for armaments production and oil but, as we have seen in previous blogs, [2] the London elites took steps to facilitate a long struggle by enabling her access to them.

Britain herself had no indigenous oil and in the late nineteenth century had been reliant on America, Russia or Mexico for supplies. This dependency on foreign companies was a cause for concern in times of peace but was completely unacceptable in the event of war. [3] The Secret Elite had to ensure that British companies rectified this deficiency before unleashing the dogs of war.

It should be appreciated that the starting point was not 1914. Long before that date, the strategic importance and economic necessity of securing oil supplies preoccupied minds inside the Secret Elite. We are told that the most outspoken and influential champions of oil, and indeed the development of an oil policy, were Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, and Admiral Jackie Fisher, who chaired the Government’s Royal Commission into Oil Fuels in 1912. [4] Unquestionably they were important figure-heads. Churchill was a personal friend of Nathaniel Rothschild, whose advice he cherished. Churchill and Fisher were strongly supported by men with global ambitions for Britain, and ever protective of its Empire. Thus political, financial, commercial, strategic and imperial interests were all interlocked in the drive to secure oil; a drive which was well underway, but given little publicity, in the first decade of the twentieth century.

British interests in Romanian oilfields included the Royal Dutch/Shell Company, an amalgamation in 1907 of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and the Shell Transport and Trading company, which in turn had close links to the Rothschilds. As companies began to grapple with the detailed requirements and long term financial commitment that was a prerequisite for successful development, mergers and amalgamations became the order of the day to cut costs and increase profits.  Extracting oil from often remote sources was dangerous, and required complex and technically advanced transport arrangements for the refined, highly volatile petroleum.

Marcus Samuel, founder of the Shell Transport and Trading Company, understood the need for purpose built tankers that could be loaded, moved and unloaded in complete safety. He began by converting merchant ships to tankers that carried oil from Rothschild fields in Russia. [5]

In 1906 fields were acquired in Romania, and by way of further preparation in 1908, two new companies were created; Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij in Holland and the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company in London. Shell Transport and Trading placed all its assets in these companies which also held the assets of Royal Dutch/Shell. [6] Every possible competitor was bought up or absorbed. Between 1910–1914 fields were acquired in Russia (1910), Egypt (1911), Venezuela (1913) and Trinidad (1914). Henry Deterding, chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell, [7] later claimed that the group carefully cut the ground away from Germany’s feet. This was achieved partly by getting into oil-fields in which Germany hoped to establish herself, and partly by extending Royal Dutch/Shell influence in the German market, and in effect over German internal affairs’. [8]

In Persia and the Arabian Gulf, geologists had determined that the region was a prime candidate for oil exploitation. There were, however, a small but important number of immediate problems. The land technically belonged to the Ottoman Turks and the Persian rulers. To further complicate matters, Russia had long held designs on the same piece of territory in order to establish a warm water port. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Conservative Foreign Secretary, Lord Landsdowne, and his successor in the Liberal government, Sir Edward Grey, maintained identical policies approved by the Secret Elite. Quietly, and with no mention of the word oil, they extended British interests in the region and kept warships in the Gulf.

The Secret Elite, the Foreign Office and the Admiralty were, as always, inextricably linked with forward planning to meet the Empire’s needs. Concessions were bought, officials were bribed, explorations were started and treaties established. It took more than two decades of painstaking preparation, but when everything was in place, a local champion had to be found to promote the purchase of a company that both offered reliable quantities of oil and necessitated a British presence on the direct route to India. They approached a number of chosen individuals in the early 1900s and encouraged them to turn their attention to the possibility of making a fortune by investing in the future of Persian oil. William Knox D’Arcy, a wealthy gold mine director, became the front-man for British investment in Persian oil. Ultimately, however, the real power behind it was the unspoken ambitions of both the Admiralty and the Foreign Office, and the men behind them. They created a company which was ‘little known but intimately tied to the British foreign office and the secret intelligence services worldwide in the quest for control of future oil discoveries. The company was called the D’Arcy Exploitation Company.’ [9]

The Royal Dutch/Shell view of D’Arcy was disdainfully suspicious, and raised the spectre of Secret Elite involvement. [10] ’The only point that is still not clear is whether he [D’Arcy] undertook this extremely important affair entirely on his own initiative and at his own expense, or from the very outset, as a confidential agent of political circles representing British Imperialism. [11] The official History of the British Petroleum Company took a different view. D’Arcy’s action ‘was simply a personal initiative for profit’ and it dismissed as nonsense the ‘most Machiavellian of motives presumed to account for his investment’. [12] Well, they would, wouldn’t they?

Of course he was being used, and willingly so, for oil in Persia was supposed to make him an even greater fortune, and it brought him a credibility within the Secret Elite. In 1901 the Shah of Persia, in exchange for a bribe of $20,000, awarded D’Arcy a ‘firman’, or royal concession with the rights to drill for oil for a period of sixty years provided the Shah received 16 per cent of the profits from whatever oil was discovered. [13] It was a transaction of historic importance, and the Shah’s wasteful, extravagant lifestyle heralded the era of oil in the Middle East with a bribe. It would not be the last.

D’Arcy’s venture in Persia was no instant success. By 1903, only a few traces of oil had been found, and he wanted out. Behind the scenes in London a frantic search was underway to find the right sort of dependable man to ensure that the concession was not abandoned. A British oil company which had been set up in Burmah by a Scottish  investment group was lured towards the Persian concession. Burmah Oil was entirely British in ownership and it amalgamated with D’Arcy and Royal Dutch/Shell in 1908. It was a combine that required the word ‘British’ stamped all over it to send out messages both to investors and to the international community. D’Arcy asked Lord Alfred Milner, leader of the Secret Elite, to take the post of Chairman of this new company, but Milner was the puppet-master, not a marionette, and declined the offer. [14]

The published prospectus for the new company caused apoplexy in the corridors of power. There in black and white it stated that it was the Admiralty that had suggested developing Persia. [15] The company was immediately informed that if this became a matter of public comment, the Admiralty would deny the statement. What an amazing faux-pas. The carefully constructed secret plan for Persia, masked by commercial company investment, was laid bare. And what is more revealing, the company was immediately warned that the government would not hesitate to lie about it if the story became public. They had, after all, ‘fought like a tiger’ to take control of Persia’s oil resources. [16]

The pre-war activity of the British oil industry was far more extensive than is generally acknowledged. Indeed, few official historians give space to the unprecedented lengths to which the British government went to discover and protect supplies. Certain individuals inside or closely related to the Secret Elite played crucial roles. The Rothschilds, in addition to supplying Germany, invested in oil fields across the world which would be invaluable to the Allies. Others such as Marcus Samuel and Lord Cowdray, with oil interests that ranged from Romania and Russia to Mexico and the Far East, were likewise linked to the Secret Elite and the British government. ‘New’ men, loyal and dependable servants of the British Empire whose fortunes were based on success in Canada and Australia, were also encouraged to underwrite and champion the search for ‘British’ oil. [17] Essentially, British interests grabbed control of as much of the world’s oil as possible in the run up to war. At every turn they were aided and abetted by the Foreign Office and the Admiralty for military and strategic reasons that were kept closely under wraps.

[1] John Buchan, for example was a member of the Secret Elite. He wrote Episodes Of The Great War (Thomas Nelson and Sons), Nelsons History of the War in twenty-four instalments and amongst his other duties served as The Times Correspondent in 1915.
[2] firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com Blockade in 10 blogs, Wednesday 10 December 2014 – Wednesday 4 February 2015.
[3] William Engdahl, A Century of War, p. 20.
[4] In 1912, retired Admiral Jacquie Fisher was appointed chairman of the royal Commission to enquire into Liquid Fuel, with a view to converting the entire fleet to oil. Classified ‘Secret’, Fisher’s Commission reported on 27 November 1912, with two following reports on 27 February 1913 and 10 February 1914. See National Archives.
[5] F C Gerretson, History of the Royal Dutch, Vol. 1, p.214.
[6] The Times, 1 July 1908. Gerretson, History of the Royal Dutch, Vol. 2, pp. 197-8.
[7] F C Gerretson, History of the Royal Dutch, Vol. 2, p. 303.
8] Glyn Roberts, The Most Powerful Man in the World, The Life of Sir Henri Deterring, p. 106.
[9] Engdahl, A Century of War, p. 63.
[10] Gerretson, History of the Royal Dutch, vol III, p. 228.
[11] Ibid.
[12] R W Ferrier, The History of the British Petroleum Company, p. 5.
[13] Engdahl, A Century of War, p 20.
[14] Ferrier, The History of the British Petroleum Company, p. 97.
[15] Ibid., p. 105.
[16] Engdahl, A Century of War, p 93.
[17] Chief amongst these was Donald Smith, Lord Strathcona a Scottish-born Canadian businessman, financier and philanthropist. Donna McDonald, Lord Strathcona, p. 467.

The Commission For Relief In Belgium 9: ‘Not One Ounce Of Bread In Belgium Today’

Because the official histories of the First World War omit the Commission for Relief in Belgium, the extent of the deception has gone unnoticed. How could the flow of foodstuffs be maintained in such quantities that the Belgian need was more or less met and at the same time the Germans were able to benefit from the supplies and support their own people? Did no-one see this? Were there no complaints? Surely, with such massive sums of money flowing between New York – London, and the volume of trade between America, Rotterdam and Brussels so obvious, malpractice could not be hidden from public scrutiny. The answer is remarkably straightforward. It was. The CRB had political protection and the governments resorted to flagrant denial on both sides of the conflict.

We know that the Germans gave the necessary formal assurances in a letter to Brand Whitlock, the American minister in Brussels, on 14 November 1914. They promised faithfully that any imported supplies would be scrupulously respected, free from seizure or requisition and their possession, control and disposition would be entirely in the hands of the Comite National de Secours et Alimentation (CSNA). [1] So far, so good, but out of the blue Hoover’s lies about imminent disaster were unmasked by an article published in the New York Times on 22 November 1914. The personal adjutant to the military governor at Antwerp mocked the claim that the Belgian people were on the brink of starvation. He boasted that ‘an inter-communal commission had been organised at our suggestion and that all districts are being supplied’. The adjutant, [2] claimed that ‘if America has not been so soft-hearted as to send foodstuffs … we should certainly have considered it our duty to bring food from Germany, for … it is our duty to see that the people do not starve.’ [3] He was of course, absolutely correct, but this was precisely the message which could have destroyed the CRB before it was fully established. Hoover and the commission stamped on it immediately. When he threatened to close down American Relief the German Government quickly denied the claim and thanked the Americans for their vital work in helping avoid starvation. [4] Apparently, it was a misunderstanding made worse through poor translation. Not so. It was the very truth that everyone involved feared might spoil one of the world’s greatest scandals.

Caution was the by-word. Great care had to be taken to avoid alerting detractors to the scheme. In London, the British Cabinet was split over the issue of supplying food to Belgium. Indeed the impression given in October 1914 was that Cabinet Ministers thought they were discussing whether or not to approve the entry of food into Holland  under the guarantee of the Spanish and American Ministers, to be used solely for refugee Belgians [5] rather than the entire civilian population.

Kitchener, Churchill and Lloyd George voiced concerns that the Germans would use these supplies and take advantage of Belgian produce, but Grey, Haldane and Asquith were in favour and despite these objections, it went ahead. How unusual. The Ministers for War and the Admiralty, the voices of the army and navy, were strongly set against the importation of food to Belgium, as was a majority in Cabinet, yet it went ahead. What’s more, if they imagined that the food was ‘solely for refugee Belgian civilians’, they were being misled.

As early as December 1914, when Hoover was thwarted by the slow progress in obtaining the necessary funds to kick-start the CRB, he received a prudent note from Lord Eustace Percy at the Foreign Office. Knowing who and what he represented, Hoover expected doors to open and government approval be given automatically at every turn, but the Secret Elite could not deliver instant success. As ever, the ordinary person’s opinion remained vital to public support for the war. Matters had to be agreed in secret. Opposition in Parliament and in the press could flare up unexpectedly, and secret deals were always laced with the possibility of exposure. Concessions had to be fought for and conditions for approval, met.

Churchill’s department was positively obstructive. The Admiralty Trade Division took independent action to dissuade shipowners carrying cargoes of food to Dutch ports [6] stating unequivocally that ‘the Admiralty considers it most undesirable that any British vessels should be employed in adding to the already very large supplies of grain etc. which are flowing into Holland’. Such interference had to be stopped and Lord Percy leapt to Hoover’s support stating that he would ‘push the matter with all the force I can.’

What Lord Percy promised was unequivocal. His actions confirmed that a coterie inside the British Cabinet was fully committed to support the CRB, even although, from time to time, newspapers complained that the Germans were siphoning off the food supplies. Percy calmed the turbulence by assuring Hoover that ‘you must not let the momentary difficulties created by the action of overworked officials at the Admiralty or elsewhere dishearten you. Neither must you feel hurt if I put to you from time to time the unfounded rumours we hear about what is happening in Belgium. I want to nail the lies as they come up, but you mustn’t take any such enquiry as indicating that our sympathy with you in your work is slackening in any way. Whatever appearances may be, please accept my word of honour that we only desire to help, not interfere.” [7]

‘unfounded rumours … nail the lies … my word of honour … we only desire to help’

This was a letter of affirmation, a promise to Hoover that the Foreign Office was right behind him, even though from time to time, it may have to appear to take a different public stance. Games would be played. Warring sides would have to appear to be at cross purposes. But ‘our sympathy with you in your work’ will not slacken. It was a promissory note. And Lord Eustace Percy was as good as his word.

Hoover was not. He was prepared to make any promise, give any assurance and fabricate any answer to promote his venture and mask the real picture. In this he was greatly helped by Chancellor Lloyd George’s dramatic conversion from Cabinet sceptic to Treasury enthusiast. Hoover wrote a memorandum of a meeting on 21 January 1915 with Lloyd George, Lord Emmott [8] Lord Eustace Percy representing the Foreign Office and the Attorney General Sir John Simon, a personal friend of Secret Elite leader Alfred Milner and valued member of the cabal. [9] At the start of the meeting Lloyd George made it plain that he would veto Hoover’s proposals about the international exchange of money to facilitate the CRB ’s work because Belgian Relief was assisting the enemy and prolonging the war. By the end he had apparently undergone a personal epiphany to the extent that he gave his instant approval to Hoover’s proposals. [10] Yet again a key player changed his stance to fall in line with the Secret Elite. Amazing. How could Lloyd George go from his conviction at the start of the meeting that Belgian Relief was aiding the enemy and prolonging the war, to an absolute about turn which gave it his full support?

When asked by Lloyd George in February 1915 to put the needs of the civilian population of Belgium on paper, Hoover produced a memorandum which began: ‘Except for the breadstuffs imported by this Commission there is not one ounce of bread in Belgium today.’ [11] He must have been aware that there were a large number of civilians in Belgium and Holland who knew better. There were spy rings and information flowed regularly across the English Channel. [12] Every alleged fact he produced could be checked out, but it was grist-to-the-mill of the propaganda machine. Although Hoover continued his bombast, he was prepared to concede that ‘foodstuffs are sold at a small profit in order to compel the more well-to-do population to assist in the support of the destitute’. What arrant nonsense. Food prices in Belgium were continuously raised by the CSNA and the profits never satisfactorily recorded.

Herbert Hoover stated categorically that ‘there has never been any interference (by the German government) with the foodstuffs introduced by us. We can account to the satisfaction of any auditor for every sack of wheat from the time it leaves Rotterdam until it reaches the Belgian civil consumer.’ [13] This nonsense was to be unmasked later, but in February 1915 Hoover raised the stakes with a more extreme threat: ‘Unless foodstuffs are introduced into Belgium from foreign sources, the decimation of this population will begin in thirty days.’ [14] Threat of the ultimate starvation of the Belgian nation was to become a constant theme in newspaper articles and appeals voiced by members of the CRB. There was never any evidence of ‘ultimate starvation’. Yet the myth remains unchallenged even in Belgium. Strange.

[1] Tracy Barrett Kittredge, The History of the Commission for Relief in Belgium 1914-1917 – Primary Source Edition, p. 81.
[2] He was a German aristocrat, Major Frankenburg and Ludwigsdorf, personal adjutant to the military governor of Antwerp.
[3] Kittredge, The history of the Commission, p. 81.
[4] Ibid., p. 82.
[5] Edward David, Inside Asquith’s Cabinet, pp. 201-2.
[6] George I Gay and HH Fisher, Public Relations of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, vol. I p. 308, Document 189.
[7] Ibid., pp. 308-9, Document 190.
[8] Alfred Emmott was Chair of the Committee on Trading with the Enemy and Director of the War Trade Department from 1915-1919.
[9] Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment, p. 57 and 313.
[10] Gay and Fisher, Public Relations, pp. 232-235, Document 129.
[11] Ibid., p. 263, Document 146.
[12] The Germans were concerned about the amount of spying that was taking place in mid-1915. Oscar von der Lancken, Head of the German Political Department in Belgium, made particular reference to some members of the CNSA sending illegal information to Britain in the month before Edith Cavell was arrested. Ref. Micheal Amara and Hubert Roland, Gouverner En Belgique Occupee, p. 99.
[13] Gay and Fisher, Public Relations, p. 264, Document 146.
[14] Ibid., paragraph 4. p. 265.

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.