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

by Gerry Docherty

  Churchill was a culture shock for those who had grown accustomed to naval tradition. Officers and resident clerks were required to remain on duty night and day lest a surprise attack from Germany caught them unawares.7 One of the Sea Lords had henceforth to be on duty at all times in or near the Admiralty building,8 and Churchill ordered a huge chart of the North Sea to be placed on the wall behind his chair, on which the daily disposition of the German fleet was marked with flags. He injected the Admiralty with a sense of clear and present danger, and put the department on a war footing. He ordered all naval magazines to be put under constant guard.9 It was a measure of the paranoia generated by the spy stories that Churchill made such immediate moves.

  Always a self-publicist, Churchill took credit for all that worked well. The Admiralty had commissioned oil-powered warships before he became First Lord. By February 1914 the navy had built, or was in the process of building, a grand total of 252 vessels that were either fitted for burning oil fuel only or fitted to burn oil and coal in combination, so the decision clearly predated Churchill, but he is credited with this radical change.10 It all added up to a navy that was permanently prepared for war, which was exactly what the Secret Elite expected from a First Lord of the Admiralty.

  Even with pliant and trusted men in the Cabinet, the Secret Elite had to keep their plan for war under tight wraps. Had the public known of their intention to manipulate a war with Germany, the government would have been swept from office. The regular meetings between military strategists from France and Britain that had been taking place in secret since 1905, sanctioned by Asquith, Grey and Haldane, were still only known to a privileged few, but secrecy was not easily maintained. Those in the know were bound to grow in number as the work of the Committee of Imperial Defence expanded. Foreign ministers and diplomats heard unconfirmed whispers or were included in confidential briefings. Newspaper editors and owners had sight of information that was kept from the public domain, but it could not last. By November 1911, sources from different parts of Europe made confident claims that secret deals had been done: deals that bound Britain to France and Russia through military and naval agreements that were repeatedly and officially denied in Parliament and in public.

  There was a furious row in Asquith’s Cabinet on 15 November, when details of the secret meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence to which Asquith had summoned both Churchill and Lloyd George came to the attention of a number of ministers who had not been invited.11 Lord Morley, himself a very senior minister, demanded an explanation about the joint planning between the French and British general staffs. How had this come about? Who sanctioned it? How could this have happened without the knowledge and approval of Cabinet? What precisely did it mean in terms of international commitments? No matter how much the Relugas Three squirmed, they could not find an answer to one telling question: if the ‘conversations’ really did not commit the country to war, why should information be withheld? Sir Edward Grey’s lame and utterly insincere analysis of the conspiracy to keep the Cabinet in ignorance, as recorded in his official memoirs, meekly claimed ‘there was no reluctance to have the whole matter discussed at the Cabinet. The only difficulty arose from the thing having gone on so long without the Cabinet generally being informed.’12 Apparently, Grey, Haldane and Asquith had simply forgotten to inform Cabinet members in 1905 and never got round to bringing the issue up thereafter. What a pathetic excuse.

  It was an awkward experience for the Relugas Three. Grey admitted that he regarded the agreements as a commitment to cooperate in military action with France, if that action was ‘non-provocative and reasonable’.13 Asquith took a different tack. He said that he still felt himself free under any circumstances to refuse Britain’s cooperation. The general reaction round the Cabinet table was one of anger and anxiety. At best only five ministers were in the know – Asquith, Haldane, Grey, Churchill and Lloyd George. The other 13 could clearly see that military ‘reciprocities’ meant that, like it or not, Britain was at least partially committed to France in the event of war. Two Cabinet resolutions were formally tabled and passed unanimously. The first stated that ‘no communication should take place between the general staff here and the staff of other countries which can, directly or indirectly, commit this country to military or naval intervention’. The second resolution ordained that ‘such communications if they related to concerted action by land or sea, should not be entered into without the previous approval of the Cabinet’.14 The Liberal Cabinet tried to assert some semblance of damage limitation. They genuinely believed that they had drawn a line in the sand before matters spiralled out of control. They were wrong.

  Challenged in Parliament, Asquith was forced into denial. He resolutely assured the House of Commons: ‘There is no secret arrangement of any sort or kind which has not been disclosed, and fully disclosed, to the public.’15 In a parliamentary debate on foreign policy, Grey reiterated the lie:

  First of all let me try to put an end to some of the suspicions with regard to secrecy – suspicions with which it seems to me some people are torturing themselves, and certainly worrying others … There are no other secret engagements.16

  Asquith repeated his assurances a month later, strenuously insisting that ‘There are no secret engagements with any foreign government that entail upon us any obligation to render military or naval assistance to any other Power.’17 These repeated, blatant lies were blanket denials of everything that they had sanctioned over the previous five years. The subtext was of serious concern to the Secret Elite. The British Cabinet and Parliament were clearly ill disposed to war with Germany and had been alerted to commitments that they rejected absolutely. Such potentially serious objections had to be circumvented.

  The secrets and lies continued unabated. The Secret Elite sent an emissary to Berlin on 29 January 1912 in the guise of King Edward VII’s personal banker, Sir Ernest Cassel. He and his German shipping-magnate friend Albert Ballin18 requested a private audience with the kaiser in which a document was passed to him, allegedly prepared with the ‘approval and knowledge of the English government’.19 It appeared to be a formal offer of neutrality, conditional on a reappraisal of the proposed German naval programme. Cassel had been sent in secret, directly to the kaiser, without the apparent foreknowledge of the ambassadors of either country.20 The British Cabinet was consequently told that a message had been sent from the kaiser through Ballin, asking Sir Edward Grey to come to Berlin to discuss armaments ‘free from all entanglements’.21 The British foreign secretary later claimed dubiety over the origins of the invitation. ‘I never knew whether the suggestion had really emanated from a British or a German source.’22 Of course he knew. Web upon web of outright lies covered his personal memoirs. The Secret Elite colluded with Grey, Churchill and Asquith in using Sir Ernest Cassel as a secret emissary. Churchill liaised directly with Cassel, who reported back to the Admiralty.23 Grey did not go to Berlin on the flimsy excuse that he was required to deal with a miners’ strike that was not even within his remit.24

  Once the inner cabal had decided that Richard Haldane, the minister of war, would be sent to Berlin as the British representative, Grey, Churchill, Haldane and Sir Ernest Cassel drafted a reply predicated upon the belief that, in both countries, ‘naval expenditure is open to discussion and there is a fair prospect of settling it favourably’.25 Here once more we find that small shaft of light that catches the Secret Elite in action. They used a high-powered international financier and his German contact to secretly approach Berlin. Cassel was much more than a mere message boy. He negotiated directly with the kaiser to set up the meeting, took the reply secretly to Churchill and helped draft the telegram that was sent back to Berlin.26 What power and influence did that demonstrate?

  In contrast, Haldane had no power to negotiate a treaty.27 Indeed, his instructions were explicitly not to bind or commit Britain to any pact.28 His visit raised hope inside Germany that they could establish a new era of cooperation and friendliness with Britain. Chan
cellor Bethmann confided to Haldane that ‘for two and a half years he had been striving to bring about an agreement between Germany and England’.29 Haldane had no such mandate, nor any such intention.

  Mainstream historians regularly described what followed as the ‘Haldane Mission’. Its object was to ‘reconcile’, if possible, the differences between the two governments.30 Their view is that the mission failed because of Germany’s ‘unwillingness to cease building a strong navy’.31

  This is completely untrue. Before Haldane’s departure, Grey assured the French ambassador that there was no question of opening negotiations with Berlin. His only desire was ‘to learn the wishes of the German government and obtain information about the German fleet programme’.32 In other words, Grey accepted the German hand of friendship but sent Haldane to Berlin primarily to glean confidential information about their naval programme. Haldane had been instructed to block any commitment to peace or negotiations, yet his ‘Mission’ has been portrayed as having been thwarted by German intransigence in rejecting British offers for naval reductions. Haldane’s mission was to get hold of as many details as he could about German naval plans and promise nothing.

  Despite an inflammatory speech by Winston Churchill delivered in Glasgow on the same day that Haldane arrived in Berlin, the minister for war was cordially received.33 Churchill had claimed that Britain’s fleet was a ‘necessity’ while the German fleet was a ‘luxury’, a provocation calculated to offend many in Britain and Germany who sincerely hoped for a better understanding between the two nations. Perhaps he was just sabre-rattling or, mindful that Haldane’s visit was unpopular with Britain’s allies, trying to give reassurance that the Admiralty had not gone soft on increased shipbuilding. He may even have considered that his stance would put pressure on the kaiser and his advisers and add weight to Haldane’s position in Berlin. But in fact this was simply one more shameful pretence, a charade behind which Grey and the Foreign Office constantly confused their German counterparts.

  On his arrival, Haldane promised that Britain was ‘against any aggression by any nation’ and repeated the great lie that ‘we have no secret treaties’.34 The Germans did not question his integrity and eagerly pursued a mutual agreement on ‘benevolent neutrality’ if either became entangled in a war where it was not the aggressor.35 All of the enthusiasm for compromise stemmed from the Germans. The kaiser presented Haldane with a copy of their proposed naval building programme. To Haldane’s surprise

  he had no objection to my communicating it privately to my colleagues. I simply put the documents in my pocket … I got some small modifications agreed to in the tempo of battleship construction, and a little in reduction of expenditure on both sides.36

  Without a single concession or quid pro quo, the Germans agreed to drop one dreadnought from their programme and postpone another two.37 The chancellor and the kaiser were elated at the prospects for future understandings raised by these conversations with Haldane, and Bethmann promised that the success of the ongoing Anglo-German negotiations was ‘the greatest object of my life now’.38

  They were like two Dickensian gentlemen who had had their pockets picked by a master, been conned into surrendering part of the family jewels and believed naively that they had received something of worth in an empty promise. Convinced that considerable progress had been made, Bethmann sent a note to Grey on 3 March, summarising the three days of satisfactory conversations and suggesting a formula for political understanding. Armed with the details of the new German naval law, and empowered with the information Haldane had gleaned about German naval strength, the British Foreign Office replied that Haldane had not appreciated the magnitude of the new naval law nor made any unsanctioned promises.39 Undaunted, the Germans promised to withdraw the proposed Fleet Law as it stood, in return for a pledge of British neutrality.40 Grey made the usual spurious claim that Britain ‘will neither make or join in any unprovoked attack upon Germany’ but would not use the word ‘neutrality’.41 The Foreign Office prevaricated by asking more questions, demanding better explanations and seeking complicated data that would take time to compile. After months of inaction, it slowly dawned on the gullible kaiser that he had been the victim of an insincere ‘political manoeuvre’ to slow down his naval programme.42 Such was Haldane’s mission.

  Undoubtedly, Britain’s secret military and naval commitments to France had been the backbone of British foreign policy since 1906.43 By the time Asquith and Grey were obliged to deny suggestions that secret agreements had been made with France, Haldane’s plans to mobilise and concentrate the highly trained British Expeditionary Force on the Belgian border had been in place for a year. Churchill was not so fortunate. Vital naval coordination with France and Russia had yet to be agreed. Churchill was never one who felt a need to play by the rules. No Cabinet resolution was going to hold him back. Secret naval agreements went ahead, dressed in the garb of an Admiralty reorganisation. He used the occasion of his report to Parliament on 18 March 1912 to stoke the flames of German antagonism and make bold alterations to fleet displacement that presaged the preparations for war.

  The first lord of the Admiralty loved these formal occasions in the House of Commons. The cut and thrust of the verbal duel fired his determination to have his way. He invited the Germans ‘to take a holiday’ that year. He proposed that if the German navy built no ships in 1912–13, neither would Britain. On the face of it, both countries would benefit, and the savings Germany would gain by cancelling three dreadnoughts would be accompanied by the savings that Britain would make by not building five new super-dreadnoughts. But Churchill couldn’t stop revelling in his own acid wit. He pompously added that the five dreadnoughts ‘wiped out’ by such an arrangement were ‘more than I expect they could hope to do in a brilliant naval action’.44 There was no ‘naval holiday’. Insulted by the British attitude, the German government proceeded to table new navy and army laws some four days later.

  Churchill warned that his initial naval estimates would have to be increased from their original £44 million in the next year if Britain was to maintain its level of superiority. When the German plans were passed in the Reichstag, he promptly presented a million-pound supplement to his original estimate and accelerated the British building programme. While he appeared to be offering a solution to Germany in that they could accept a ‘naval holiday’, he was raising the stakes in a reckless game of overspend.

  Churchill then surprised a packed House of Commons by announcing changes to the deployment of the British fleets. He moved the Atlantic Fleet from Gibraltar to the North Sea and the Mediterranean Fleet from Malta to Gibraltar, leaving only a small number of cruisers there. The North Sea Fleet was to be boosted to three battle squadrons. What message did that spell out to the German naval staff? What was the British navy planning to do? Members of Parliament were on their feet pointing out the very obvious dangers to Egypt and British grain supplies if these could not be defended by a sizeable British Mediterranean fleet. Churchill stood firm and answered his critics, but they wanted both a ‘reasonable preponderance of naval strength in the North Sea, and a fleet in the Mediterranean’.45

  What Churchill had proposed was in line with secret agreements already worked out between the British and French naval staffs, and on that very same day the French and Russian governments also agreed a secret joint naval pact. He could not tell Cabinet, because they had expressly forbidden such commitments. The Secret Elite had little interest in what the collective Cabinet thought, and their agents knew this well. Churchill, accompanied by Asquith, had met with Lord Kitchener at Malta in May 1912 and discussed how the British and the French fleets could be better stationed to maximise their advantage over Germany. While the issue of what comprised the Mediterranean Fleet took up heated parliamentary time, Churchill had already agreed the joint naval strategy for war. Although the Cabinet instructed Sir Edward Grey on that very day (16 July 1912) to remind the French government that anything that was agreed between the naval and
military experts must not be taken as a commitment to assist in a war,46 he and Churchill took the Secret Elite strategy in the opposite direction.

  On 22 July 1912, the Royal Navy reduced its Mediterranean fleet to a fragment of its former strength. The Atlantic Fleet joined with the Home Fleet to create battle squadrons ready to challenge the German High Seas Fleet. At the same time, France moved its entire battleship strength from Brest on the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean, to challenge the notional power of the Austrians and Italians. (Italy was never likely to join in naval operations with Austria against Britain and the Admiralty knew this, but the pretence served its purpose.) Thus, without the permission or approval of the Cabinet or Parliament, Britain and France entered into active naval coordination in preparation for war at sea. They were committed to a focused mutual responsibility. When war was declared, the Royal Navy would protect France’s Atlantic and Channel coasts, while the French navy would protect British interests in the Mediterranean.

  Let there be no doubt about it, this agreement sanctioned British action if the German navy attacked the coasts of France. That alone made nonsense of all the claims of non-intervention in time of war. A country cannot stay neutral but agree to defend one side’s interests.