Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War.

by Gerry Docherty

  Like many of his contemporaries, Professor Strachan makes no mention of the secret treaties that carved up Morocco. The American writer Frederick Bausman suggested that: ‘It is a good test of writers who discuss the cause of the war how they refer to the secret treaty of 1904. If they omit or do not reasonably discuss the secret part of the treaty, they must be viewed with caution.’40 Good advice.

  In the midst of diplomatic discussions between Germany and France, The Times kept up a barrage of protest. Its editorials and Paris dispatches were characterised by verbal violence. On 20 July, the newspaper stated that Germany was making outrageous ‘demands’ upon France and that no British government would tolerate them ‘even if the French government were found feeble enough to do so!’ The new French Premier, Joseph Caillaux,41 was placed under great pressure to concede nothing to the Germans. The Times pressed for the despatch of British warships to Agadir. Every possible avenue was explored by the Secret Elite to promote their war with Germany. The following day, Sir Edward Grey summoned the German ambassador, adopted the same tone as The Times and reiterated the ‘facts’. Grey hinted that it might be necessary to take steps to protect British interests.42

  That same evening, the chancellor of the Exchequer was due to speak to the Bankers’ Association in London. Before leaving for the Mansion House, Lloyd George went to seek the prime minister’s approval for the content of his speech. According to Lloyd George, the prime minister immediately called Sir Edward Grey to the Cabinet Room ‘to obtain his views and procure his sanction’.43 While it was unusual for ministers of the Crown to make important speeches outwith their normal sphere of responsibility, Lloyd George was not known to seek permission from anyone before speaking his mind. Bluntly put, this was not his normal way. Yet here he was, inside the Cabinet Office with Asquith and Grey, rehearsing a hymn that came from their Liberal imperialist hymnal, not his nonconformist origins. In the plethora of interventions, protests and counterclaims, this one stood out above all. It was a moment of great significance. David Lloyd George abandoned the fundamental conviction on which his golden reputation had been forged. The man of the people, the man who above all stood for peace and retrenchment, the man who buried the Conservative Party in the mire of the Boer War, shook off the robes of pacifism and joined the horsemen of the apocalypse. With carefully chosen words he warned:

  I would make great sacrifices to preserve peace … but were a situation to be forced upon us by which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated, where her interests were vitally affected, as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of Nations, then I say emphatically, that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure. National honour is no party question. The security of our great international trade is no party question; the peace of the world is more likely to be secured if all nations realise what the conditions of peace must be …44

  What he said reverberated across Europe. Saint Paul’s companions could hardly have been more surprised on the road to Damascus. The words may read mildly, but Lloyd George had drawn a line in the sand and crossed over to the dark side. ‘The security of our international trade is no party question …’

  What did he mean? How could a gunboat anchored off the Moroccan coast threaten the security of Britain’s international trade? It was nonsense. A complete non-event, yet he was deliberately whipping up a storm of protest. What situation was being forced upon us (Britain) that involved the surrender of the great position Britain had won by centuries of heroism? What was he talking about? This was the rhetoric of pure imperialism … from Lloyd George. Tellingly, in his personal memoirs, Sir Edward Grey ‘considered that there was nothing in the words that Germany could fairly resent …’45 Germany. It was of course aimed at Germany, a dark warning from the former champion of peace.

  The gunboat Panther sitting off Agadir justified nothing that Lloyd George had said. A senior member of the British Cabinet made a serious, if veiled, threat to Germany in the knowledge and expectation that she would resent it. Riling Germany into a dangerous reaction was, of course, the whole point of the exercise. Paul Cambon, French ambassador to London, later admitted frankly to Lloyd George: ‘It was your speech of July 1911 that gave us the certainty that we could count upon England.’46

  The Secret Elite wanted war and were preparing for it. If it could be arranged for July or August 1911, it would have cut across the hated Parliament Bill and brought legislation to a halt. The crisis of the constitution would instantly be replaced by the unifying crisis of war in Europe. British naval and military preparations were stepped up. Army officers were recalled from leave, additional horses purchased for the cavalry, and the North Sea Squadron placed on a war footing.47

  On the morning after Lloyd George’s speech, The Times printed his inflammatory words in two articles in the same issue with accentuated notes and headlines.48 It hailed his ‘decisive and statesmanlike’ references to Germany and portrayed him as national saviour. Europe had nothing to lose by his revelations on the ‘true pretensions of Germany’.

  The importance of the Times editorial lay in the fact that on the continent of Europe it was correctly held to represent the views of those in control of the British Foreign Office. A furious campaign followed in British newspapers and magazines, and raged for three months. Germany protested strongly about the insinuations and the ‘hallucination’ that she had considered establishing a naval base at Agadir. The German Note of complaint to Sir Edward Grey concluded: ‘If the English government intended complicating and upsetting the political situation, and leading to an explosion, they certainly could not have chosen a better means than the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s speech.’49

  The entire Moroccan crisis had been set up to provoke Germany into war. That was not so startling, but that Lloyd George allowed himself to be used as the mouthpiece of the Secret Elite to fuel the flames of hatred against Germany most certainly was to most observers. Was this the moment for which his ‘conversion’ had been carefully prepared, an initial down payment to the Secret Elite who had rescued his career in 1909? If Britain had successfully engineered war in 1911, Lloyd George would have presented himself as the man of the people who had tried to warn Germany off. With every passing day, he grew closer to the Relugas Three. Inside Asquith’s Cabinet, Charles Hobhouse certainly noted a much closer relationship between Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey.50

  Lloyd George was not the only new face in the inner circles of real power. He and Winston Churchill were brought quietly into the secret sub-committee of the CID that was responsible for the joint Anglo-French preparations for war: a sure sign of their standing with the Secret Elite. Asquith waited until Parliament had risen for the summer recess and ministers and backbenchers had left the sultry and oppressive city before summoning both men to a secret war meeting. This was an unprecedented act. It was a war briefing. To be there, in the company of the director of military operations, General Wilson, and Fisher’s successor as first sea lord, Admiral Arthur Wilson, with the prime minister, the foreign secretary, the first lord of the Admiralty and the secretary of state for war, would have shaken lesser spirits. Not Churchill, nor Lloyd George, both of whom had previously given these colleagues a hard time in Cabinet, questioning military and naval spending plans and the cost of reorganisation. They had no idea what had been happening behind the closed doors of the War Office and the Foreign Office, but on 23 August 1911,51 it was deemed that they had a need to know and could be trusted to pursue the imperial cause. That meeting was their initiation into a select fellowship who knew and understood that Britain was preparing for war with Germany. The only question that remained to be answered was: was now the time?

  The meeting lasted all day. Great maps were produced and the details of the German Schlieffen Plan were demonstrated with amazing accuracy. General Wilson (later Field Marsh
al Sir Henry Wilson) was a dedicated and far-sighted soldier. He had been working since 1906 on one project: to support the French army in a war against Germany. He knew the French general staff and their army dispositions. Secret information was regularly relayed to him from the continent, and his own office was plastered with a gigantic map of Belgium on which every road, milepost, railway junction, river and canal had been identified following his reconnaissance trips through the Belgian countryside.

  So it would start in Belgium, then. Three full years before the event, the Committee of Imperial Defence was taken through a meticulously accurate explanation of how war was to begin in 1914. Churchill was deeply excited by the prospect of war and with his customary conceit sent a memorandum to the CID forecasting how he imagined the first forty days of a continental war would proceed. In the event, his prognosis proved uncannily accurate.52 The presentation by the first sea lord, Sir Arthur Wilson, was, in complete contrast, vague and singularly unimpressive. The Admiralty remained absolutely fixed on Fisher’s view that a close blockade of enemy ports would be much more effective than the landing of an expeditionary force. He advocated keeping the army prepared for counter strikes on the German coast that would draw troops from the front line.

  It soon became obvious that there was no agreed naval war plan at all. Basically there was a fundamental impasse between the naval and military staffs. To be fair, a close blockade of the Channel and North Sea ports would have had a deadly impact on Germany’s capacity to wage a longer war, but other influences ruled out such a strategy. Haldane was furious. Despite all of his sterling reorganisation at the War Office it was absolutely clear to everyone in that room that if war was declared in 1911, Britain would be found wanting. They did not have a plan of action agreed between the joint services.

  The experience of attending the Committee of Imperial Defence stirred in Churchill a zeal that fired his imagination. There was going to be a war, and it could be very soon. He recorded that every preparation was made for war. The railway timetables for the movement of every battalion, ‘even where they were to drink their coffee’, were meticulously prepared.53 An ongoing railway strike ended abruptly after a confidential statement was sent from Lloyd George to owners and workers’ representatives. Thousands of maps of northern France and Belgium were printed for the Expeditionary Force. The press maintained a studied silence. Everything had to be organised in secret.

  Churchill wrote a detailed letter to Grey and Asquith on 30 August advising them on what to do ‘if and when the Morocco negotiations fail’. He actually believed that war was about to break out over Morocco. His advice to Sir Edward Grey was to

  Tell Belgium that, if her neutrality is violated, we are prepared to come to her aid, and to make an alliance with France and Russia to guarantee her independence. Tell her that we will take whatever military steps that will be most effective for that purpose.54

  Yet again, the war planners brought Belgium into the equation. It had always been destined to provide the excuse for taking up arms against Germany. Winston Churchill was consumed by war fever, and for a few days in late summer war seemed probable.

  In France, the radical Joseph Caillaux remained calm. He had formed his government in late June and withstood the pressure from the Secret Elite’s men: Grey in London and Delcassé in Paris. Caillaux favoured conciliation rather than war. His socialist policies included the introduction of income tax, improved housing and the nationalisation of the railways.55 Franco-German negotiations began in July and finally found a solution in the Treaty of Fez in November 1911, by which France was given a free hand in Morocco in return for a ‘guarantee’ that Germany’s economic interests in that country would be safeguarded. Germany was, in addition, granted territorial compensation in the French Congo. As usual, it was an imperialist carve-up that denied the indigenous peoples of Morocco and the Congo any say in the matter.

  In November 1911, two Paris newspapers, Le Temps and Le Matin, revealed the details of the secret articles in the 1904 entente, behind which Britain claimed to uphold the independence and integrity of Morocco while allowing France and Spain to abuse that country. The issue of Fez was a lie. The treaties and acts at Algeciras had been signed in bad faith. The indignation raised against Germany was founded on falsehood. In the December issue of the Review of Reviews, William T. Stead wrote a warning that was ignored at great cost:

  We all but went to war with Germany. We have escaped war, but we have not escaped the natural and abiding enmity of the German people. Is it possible to frame a heavier indictment of the foreign policy of any British Ministry? The secret, the open secret of this almost incredible crime against treaty faith, British interests, and the peace of the world, is the unfortunate fact that Sir Edward Grey has been dominated by men at the Foreign Office who believe all considerations must be subordinated to the one supreme duty of thwarting Germany at every turn, even if in so doing British interests, treaty faith and the peace of the world are trampled underfoot. I speak that of which I know.56

  He did. As an initiate of the Rhodes secret society, Stead certainly spoke with unequalled authority. He had been part of them, worked for them, but ultimately rejected their warmongering philosophy. This was one of the very few occasions that someone who had been connected with the Secret Elite gave us a glimpse behind the curtain. Stead confirmed the point that we have made before. The men who dominated Sir Edward Grey and British foreign policy, Milner and his Round Table, were at the core of the Secret Elite. They believed that it was their supreme duty, and as acolytes of Ruskin they would have focused on the word ‘duty’, to defeat Germany, even if the peace of the world itself was trampled underfoot. Stead knew precisely what he was exposing: the British race zealots who sought world domination.

  Thanks to both Kaiser Wilhelm and Premier Joseph Caillaux, the second Moroccan Crisis passed, as had the first, without recourse to war. It was the Secret Elite who were thwarted, but they had learned further. French politics had not been profitably corrupted. Delcassé had been rehabilitated and was impressively influential, but more was needed. They had to control the prime minister or the president of France. A staunch Revanchist was required in the Elysée Palace. Caillaux and his socialist-radicals would have to go.

  Alexander Isvolsky had been successfully transferred to Paris and had made immediate contact with Delcassé. It was a partnership that promised much but would require greater resources to bribe politicians as well as the press. Nearer to home, Haldane had created his military staff and an army ready for instant action, but the navy, despite relentless investment, was disjointed. The Admiralty wanted to act alone. It knew better than everyone else. Both of these problems required firm solutions.

  SUMMARY: CHAPTER 13 –MOROCCAN MYTHS – FEZ AND AGADIR

  Despite the guarantees given in the Algeciras Act, Moroccan independence and integrity were continually eroded by the French.

  Retribution against the local inhabitants at Casablanca in 1907 was grossly disproportionate and unnecessarily brutal.

  The French Chamber was completely misled about Morocco and had no knowledge of the secret agreements.

  Two major Secret Elite agents, Delcassé and Isvolsky, were the ‘wire-pullers’ influencing French foreign policy from 1911.

  A mythical rebellion at Fez was concocted and a large French military force sent to the city. Germany accepted the French promise that this was a temporary measure and that the troops would be removed as soon as peace had been restored.

  Despite these promises, it became an army of occupation, and Germany objected by sending a small gunboat to Agadir.

  The Secret Elite blew this out of all proportion with wild claims that Germany aimed to threaten sea lanes by establishing a naval base at Agadir. Their ludicrous propaganda claimed that Germany intended to push Europe into war.

  Lloyd George, once considered the arch radical and pacifist, joined the warmongers by making a deliberately antagonistic speech that aimed to rile Germany.
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br />   Lloyd George and Winston Churchill were drawn into the Secret Elite’s fold when the long-standing plans for war against Germany were shared with them. British preparations for war had been ongoing since 1906, down to the smallest detail. War was imminent.

  In France, the recently elected Premier Joseph Caillaux rejected the warmongering and entered negotiations with Germany.

  The kaiser and his ministers, while shocked by the malicious nature of the stories in the British press, refused to take the bait and agreed a diplomatic resolution.

  Thwarted, the Secret Elite realised that they would need to take complete control of the French government.

  CHAPTER 14

  Churchill and Haldane – Buying Time and Telling Lies

  THAT SPECIAL MEETING OF THE Committee of Imperial Defence on 23 August 1911 was a pivotal moment on the road to the Secret Elite’s war. Realisation dawned that the navy had to be given a similar shake-up to the army and be fully aligned with the secret war plans. The minister for war was alarmed by the ‘highly dangerous’ position caused by the ‘grave divergence of policy’, which, had Britain gone to war, ‘might have involved us in a disaster’.1 He despaired of the fact that ‘Admirals live in a world of their own’.

  It was a task that Haldane wanted to take up himself, believing that he was the only person equipped to cope with their intransigence.2 Asquith agreed to a shake-up. He had been particularly annoyed, when trying to get immediate information, to discover that all the Admiralty staff took their summer holidays at the same time. It was effectively shut. Haldane was shocked that inside the Admiralty they had no strategic maps of Europe at all, since ‘it was not their business’.3

  Even although he had been elevated to the House of Lords as Viscount earlier in 1911 and was a favoured son of the Secret Elite, Haldane was not chosen to lead the navy. The task went to a jubilant Winston Churchill, who had pestered both Asquith and Sir Edward Grey to be given the post. The story goes that Asquith shut Haldane and Churchill together in a room at his holiday home near North Berwick and let them argue out who should be in charge.4 Churchill claimed that he had been offered the key job while walking off the golf links at North Berwick.5 Whatever the case, Churchill brought a fresh burst of energy to the Admiralty and shook it hard. His mission was clear-cut: ‘to put the fleet in a state of instant and constant readiness for war’.6