Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  However, the report’s credibility was questioned. The witnesses were not on oath, many had no corroboration for their stories, or the stories were hearsay. The committee did not visit Belgium – much of which was occupied – and in most cases did not interview witnesses. Their statements disappeared after the war: some testimony, from babies on bayonets and the dismemberment of civilians to the widespread rape of Belgian women, may have been rubbish. This was unfortunate, because there was corroborated evidence of executions of civilians and the destruction of villages, whose impact would have been devastating enough to Germany’s reputation without embroidering or resorting to fiction. However, it became a measure of patriotism to uphold and echo Bryce’s findings. With the imprimatur of the government, they were taken as gospel.

  Nervous naturalised Germans wrote to newspapers distancing themselves from the barbarous behaviour of the Kaiser’s forces. Rioting continued not just in Liverpool (where £40,000 worth of damage was done) and London, but also in Southend, angry after its bombing, where troops were called out. The rioting in London spread to Highgate, Camden Town, North Kensington, Fulham and Wandsworth. The attacks on shops were far from superficial. ‘Not content with smashing doors and windows and looting the whole of the furniture and the contents of the shops, the interiors of the houses were in numerous instances greatly damaged,’ The Times reported.193 ‘Staircases were hacked to pieces and walls and ceilings were knocked down.’

  The police were too late to stop the wrecking and looting: those responsible drove cartloads of German possessions through the streets, having simply helped themselves. Magistrates, faced with defendants who claimed that their looting and pillaging had been a case of doing one’s patriotic duty, fined and bound over most offenders: there was the rare prison sentence with hard labour, but little otherwise to deter the mob. An estimated £100,000 worth of damage was done in West Ham in three days. The national mood turned ugly; ‘retaliation’ was widely approved of, and those who found attacks on innocent and peaceable Teutons appalling – such as Mrs Asquith – were denounced as ‘pro-German’.194 A few condemned the inevitable attacks on entirely blameless people, and the fact that the attackers were, according to one outraged citizen who wrote to The Times, ‘those who are too lazy or cowardly to enlist.’195

  The public’s appetite to hate the enemy was fed further by reports of the ‘crucifixion’ of a Canadian soldier at Ypres on 22–23 April. The Times’s correspondent claimed British headquarters staff had ‘written depositions testifying to the fact of the discovery of the body’.196 The corpse, of a sergeant, had been found pinned by its hands and feet to a wooden fence; ‘he had been repeatedly stabbed with bayonets’. The report continued: ‘I have not heard that any of our men actually saw the crime committed. There is room for supposition that the man was dead before he was pinned to the fence, and that the enemy in his insensate rage and hate of the English wreaked his vengeance on the lifeless body of his foe.’ It added: ‘That is the most charitable complexion that can be put upon the deed, ghastly though it is.’

  With Asquith in a state of shock and able to engage in the required acts of leadership with even less concentration than usual, it was a terrible time for him to become the target of a campaign, mounted by Northcliffe, to force him to take a more muscular approach to the conduct of the war or to get out. Just as Miss Stanley dropped her bombshell, Northcliffe had his newspapers call for internment for non-naturalised Germans and Austrians without delay, to maintain public order and squash the spy menace (‘the public are evidently in no mood to “wait and see”,’ The Times sneered). On 13 May Asquith – not needing to be told twice – announced that all enemy aliens would be deported or interned, other than in exceptional circumstances.197 He would never, normally, have given such an indication that he was allowing Northcliffe, or any other press proprietor, to dictate government policy to him. Two months earlier, the government had resisted a Unionist call for a minister specifically responsible for dealing with the alien problem. Now, public opinion left it with no option but to take matters more seriously, not least to protect those at risk from vigilantes and thugs determined to make their alien status an excuse to attack them.

  Asquith said that although 19,000 non-naturalised aliens had already been interned, 40,000 others – 24,000 men and 16,000 women – remained at large. He proposed that adult males should be interned ‘for their own safety, and that of the community’, and those over military age repatriated.198 He conceded, however, that ‘there will, no doubt, be many instances in which justice and humanity will require that they should be allowed to remain.’ A quasi-judicial tribunal would decide such matters. As for naturalised aliens, he said, ‘the prima facie presumption should be the other way.’ Only in exceptional cases would naturalised subjects be interned, but the government reserved the right to do so. Law welcomed the proposals on behalf of the Opposition, as ‘the only satisfactory way’ to end the rioting; Asquith had consulted him the day before. It was a portent of how all business would soon be done.

  By July 1916, however, 22,000 enemy aliens remained at large: 10,000 were women, many of them elderly, most of the rest married to British subjects with British subjects for children. The Austrian or German men still at large – 12,000 of them – were deemed ‘friendly’ because of their hatred of or opposition to Austria or Germany; such as Czechs, Poles, Slavs, Alsatians or Italians of Austrian citizenship; and around 1,500 of them were elderly and would be unlikely to survive an internment camp.199 But even then, despite Asquith’s pledges, 6,500 enemy alien men remained in society in mid-1916, exempted for reasons such as having British wives, or British children in the Armed Forces. Beyond that it was unquantifiable how many Germans or Austrians had anglicised their names to escape detection; or how many ‘Swiss’ waiters in London restaurants were really enemy aliens.

  The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police announced a curfew for male enemy aliens, ordering them to confine themselves to home between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Even before that, numerous enemy aliens – mainly unmarried men – surrendered at police stations, causing existing internment camps to be expanded. As the climate became more febrile, rumours swirled around London that a huge fleet of Zeppelins and aeroplanes was about to bomb the city flat, before the advent of a German invasion, which would be assisted by the dropping of a new, fiendish device called the Nebelbomb, which when it exploded would create a fog over several square miles.200 But every cloud had its silver lining: advertisements appeared for the ‘Kyl-Fyre’ fire extinguisher, a mere 5s 6d each, because ‘the Fire Brigades cannot be in all parts at the same time.’201

  Matters then became dramatically worse for Asquith. On 14 May The Times carried a report from Repington, its military correspondent, about the realities and consequences of the shell shortage – dismissed by Asquith at Newcastle – in impeding the Army.202 A shortage of high explosive had prevented the Army from levelling to the ground the parapets on the German lines at Fromelles and Richebourg; trenches had been gained from the Germans, but could not be held, because the Army lacked the ammunition. There could, he argued, be no decisive victory at Ypres until the shortage was rectified. ‘To break this hard crust we need more high explosive, more heavy howitzers, and more men,’ he said.203 He did not need to add that all these shortcomings were the government’s responsibility, because the newspaper’s editorial columns, following the proprietor’s wishes, made a feast of it.

  Kitchener – who had kept his distance from Repington since the cabinet had rebuked him over briefing the journalist – believed French had inspired the article, since the censor at the front had passed it, he maintained, on French’s express instructions. He believed French had seen both Northcliffe and Repington, with the latter of whom he was long acquainted, and who had been at French’s HQ in defiance of orders. Kitchener was right in his suspicions. Northcliffe had written to French on 1 May to tell him that ‘a short and very vigorous statement from you to a private correspondent … would, I
believe, render the Government’s position impossible, and enable you to secure the publication of that which would tell people here the truth.’204 French had shown Repington his correspondence with the War Office, and also sent it on via his ADC and his secretary to Lloyd George, Balfour and Law. On 17 May Lloyd George, always keen to help the press, had a ‘very useful’ discussion with Northcliffe at the latter’s request, and invited Repington for a ‘long talk’.205 He gave Lloyd George a hastily written but thorough paper on the situation; the political crisis by then in full swing removed any need for Repington to do more. Kitchener banned Repington from the front, and he did not go again until the Somme. By then, thanks to his article, the situation had been transformed. Repington’s position was hypocritical: he had called for censorship before war was declared, until he saw it ‘being used as a cloak to cover all political, naval and military mistakes.’206

  When the rumour of French’s complicity was aired in Parliament, The Times denied it, saying the censor in England had also passed the article, albeit ‘severely mutilated’ by both him and his counterpart in France.207 Repington would observe in his memoirs that his earlier attempts to allude to the shells shortage were ‘censored as everything inconvenient to the Government was censored during the war,’ though he must have realised how helpful it would have been to the enemy to have such information.208 In an editorial, the newspaper wrote: ‘British soldiers died in vain on the Aubers Ridge on Sunday because more shells were needed. The Government, who have so seriously failed to organise adequately our national resources, must bear their share of the grave responsibility. Even now they will not fully face the situation.’209 The necessary policies ‘should have been set in hand nine months ago.’ There had been 51,000 casualties between 22 April and 9 May – a fact Repington saved for his memoirs after the censor cut it out – which he attributed to a lack of shells to take out the German guns.210

  To prove the point, the paper sent a correspondent to Glasgow to write about productivity on the Clyde. His report, published on 17 May, was damning: ‘men are working far below their capacity’, he wrote, and piece workers were engaged in ‘the deliberate manipulation of work’ to drag it out far longer than necessary so they could demand more money.211 This was common in peacetime, but now the country suffered. Also, union restrictions meant more efficient labour could not be brought in to man idle machines without provoking a strike.

  On top of all this, the news from the Dardanelles was worse daily. Fisher tried to resign on 12 May but Asquith persuaded him to stay. There were 30,000 casualties already, 16,000 British Empire and 14,000 French; and the Germans had had such success on the Eastern Front against the Russians that they were able to move troops to reinforce the fight against Britain and France. Fisher sent Churchill a long memorandum advising caution and arguing against a naval attack after the failure of the landings, but was, according to Hankey, ‘dissatisfied’ by his ‘slippery’ reply.212 On 14 May Kitchener told the War Council that ‘we should never get through the Dardanelles’ and that he had been ‘misled by the Admiralty as to the number of men that would be required’: Churchill had assured him there would be no ‘siege’.213

  Britain seemed on the defensive, its power weakening; the government and the prime minister had lost the initiative. Later that day the shadow cabinet discussed whether to call for a committee on the state of the nation, to meet in secret for ‘free and frank’ discussion.214 It was felt to be too potentially disturbing to press for this: but Curzon and Lord Selborne insisted something had to be done to make the government adopt firmer measures, possibly including compulsory military or industrial service. Lansdowne and Law promised to make representations to Asquith; but events overtook them.

  Fisher had threatened eight times in six months as First Sea Lord to resign because of disagreements with Churchill. His habitual indiscretion ensured everyone knew he opposed the Dardanelles expedition – ‘the North Sea is the place where we can beat the German.’215 However, he maintained to Mrs Asquith – while grabbing her by the waist and waltzing with her around a Downing Street office – that he had not expressed his opposition to anyone, but that Churchill had broadcast it to Smith and Balfour. ‘The old boy is a fine dancer,’ she noted.216 It was also thought Fisher had been, albeit indirectly, the source of much of the inside information that underpinned Gwynne’s increasingly savage attacks on Churchill in the Morning Post.

  When, on 15 May, Churchill overrode Fisher on reinforcing the Navy in the Dardanelles, he resigned for the ninth and last time. Writing to Churchill, he said: ‘I find it increasingly difficult to adjust myself to the increasingly daily requirements of the Dardanelles to meet yr views – As you truly said yesterday I am in the position of continually veto-ing your proposals – This is not fair to you besides being extremely distasteful to me.’217 He told Lloyd George the campaign was ‘bleeding the navy white’, and the land operations were doing the same to the Army.218 Once Asquith, who had not taken the resignation seriously when Lloyd George told him about it, received the letter containing it he immediately sent a message to Fisher that read: ‘In the King’s name I order you at once to return to your post.’219 Bonham Carter was sent to look for him; and, Fisher having been found and brought to Downing Street, Asquith told him that ‘he would cover himself in infamy and ridicule if he resigned now, at the moment we were in difficulties with our West line and in the Dardanelles: infamy for deserting the ship, and ridicule for not having resigned on the spot the day it was discussed in the War Council.’ This ferocity stunned Fisher, who asked whether he could consult McKenna: Asquith hoped McKenna would talk him out of it, though he was aware that McKenna disliked Churchill far more even than Fisher did. The view of other senior Liberals, such as Lord Reading, the Lord Chief Justice, was that if Fisher did go, a coalition would become inevitable.

  On 16 May, a Sunday, McKenna went to Asquith’s Berkshire house, the Wharf near Sutton Courtenay, to tell him Fisher was adamant, citing his inability to work with Churchill for his decision. Churchill begged Fisher to reconsider, on the grounds of their friendship, the risk Churchill had taken in having him reappointed, and in order not to give the impression that the Admiralty was at war with itself. He argued that ‘any rupture will be profoundly injurious to every public interest’ – and, he might have added, to his career prospects.220 Fisher was unmoved. Lady Lyttelton, wife of General Lyttelton and a friend of Fisher, told Riddell that ‘one difficulty between Winston and Fisher was that the latter goes to bed at 9pm and rises at 4am, whereas Winston liked to do much of the naval consultation work between 10pm and 1am.’221 Churchill wrote to Asquith the next morning to say he would happily leave the Admiralty, but would not serve unless in a military department; and if that was not possible he would rejoin the Army. His resignation was refused, so he set about finding Fisher’s replacement.

  The news leaked that Sunday evening. Law found an envelope, addressed to him in Fisher’s handwriting, containing a cutting from the Pall Mall Gazette reporting that Fisher had had an audience of the King. Law deduced Fisher was resigning and went straight to see Lloyd George, with whom he was on better terms than with Asquith: Law later told Esher that ‘he felt bound not to allow Fisher’s resignation.’222 He found Lloyd George with McKenna, who had returned to London and joined the chancellor at 11 Downing Street for a late-night smoke. Law asked straight questions and got straight answers: they concluded that Fisher’s departure would trigger a crisis. Law said if matters were that bad in the Admiralty a coalition was essential. ‘Of course we must have a coalition,’ Lloyd George told him, ‘for the alternative is impossible.’

  The next morning, once Asquith returned from Berkshire, Lloyd George told him what had happened: and the two men ‘not particularly at my instigation’, as Lloyd George told Mrs Asquith, agreed that ‘coalition was inevitable’ if a destabilising row that would be a propaganda gift to the enemy were to be avoided.223 Law sought confirmation that morning and was given it. He asked t
o see Asquith, and did so with Lloyd George. Law told Asquith he must either raise Fisher in the Commons, ‘or we must have a National Government’.224 Law – who according to Riddell had wanted Lloyd George to lead the government, but the chancellor refused to betray Asquith – noted that Asquith ‘agreed to a coalition without a word.’225 One can only conjecture whether Asquith’s resolve and spirit were broken by the breach with Miss Stanley, and that Lloyd George spotted the vulnerability, without knowing its cause. Before going to bed that night Asquith told his daughter Violet that ‘this has been the unhappiest week of my life’: although she and her stepmother realised Asquith was in love with Miss Stanley, she only knew the half of it.226

  A further symptom of Asquith’s defeatism was how little he fought to protect one of his oldest friends, Haldane, whose dismissal from the Woolsack was another condition of forming the coalition, given Unionist assumptions of his pro-Germanism. J. C. C. Davidson, then a Colonial Office official but a future Conservative Party chairman, described Haldane’s fate as ‘a shameful triumph for the mob and for the gutter press, and the Tories gained no credit from it.’227 Ironically, 17 May was also the day a dispatch arrived from Hamilton, commanding the Army in the Dardanelles, requesting reinforcements that might make a difference to the campaign. The new cabinet would not consider his request until 7 June, and the time that would elapse from his seeking troops to their arriving would be six weeks: and their arrival, thus, too late.228