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

by Gerry Docherty

  The ordinary Member of Parliament had no inkling of these decisions. In the towns and cities of Great Britain, the populace got on with the business of the day, ignorant of the progress that was steadily being made towards war. Strikes in the docks, civil unrest in Ireland, suffragette disruption and the Olympic Games in Stockholm provided suitable distraction. The British press depicted the withdrawal of battleships from Malta and their new role in patrolling the North Sea as a response to the continuing German naval build-up. They painted a picture of Germany rebutting Britain’s attempt to achieve a slow-down in the naval race, of Germany ignoring Winston Churchill’s ‘naval holiday’. It was always Germany’s fault.

  All of the suspicions aired in Parliament were fully justified. Commitments, albeit verbal, had been made, and were clearly understood. Under pressure from the French to have a written commitment, Grey broke his own rule and finally relented. It was an act he would have cause to regret. He did not permit a formal diplomatic exchange, but instead he wrote a private letter to the French ambassador in London, Paul Cambon, on 22 November 1912. It stated that ‘the disposition of the French and British fleets respectively at the present moment is not based upon an engagement to cooperate in war’.47 His weasel words were mere sophistry and hinged around the phrase ‘at the present moment’. The only point that mattered was the future intention when a declaration of war would change everything.

  The decision to relocate the fleets was taken by Churchill. The promise that the French coasts would be protected by the Royal Navy was inextricably linked to the overall strategy to maximise the concentration of British power against the German navy. Cambon’s reply to Grey became the definitive example of Sir Edward’s insincerity and cover-up, but that will be dealt with later.

  The navy had been brought into line with the Committee of Imperial Defence and the preparations for war. The army had been reconstructed by Haldane and Esher, and its commitment was not questioned, but strangely its leadership remained under the spell of powerful old influences which need to be closely considered.

  SUMMARY: CHAPTER 14 – CHURCHILL AND HALDANE – BUYING TIME AND TELLING LIES

  The Secret Elite realised that major changes were needed to modernise the administration of the Royal Navy, and Asquith chose Winston Churchill to put the fleet into a state of readiness for war.

  Churchill continued the Admiralty’s high-spending regime with a programme that included a major switch from coal power to oil power.

  When details of the secret meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence in August became known there was an unholy row in Cabinet. It was the first time that they learned about the ‘conversations’ with France that had been going on since 1905.

  Angry Cabinet members passed two unanimous resolutions that banned commitments to any foreign powers without their expressed approval.

  In Parliament, both Asquith and Grey repeatedly denied that Britain had made any secret commitments to any foreign power.

  An invitation from the kaiser led to Viscount Haldane’s visit to Germany in February 1912. In fact, the initial approach had been made through Secret Elite agents. The net result of Haldane’s so-called ‘mission’ was that Britain gained advance warning of the German naval plans, and Germany was deceived into thinking that some agreement on neutrality might be possible.

  Despite the clear instructions of Cabinet, Churchill reorganised the British fleet in secret negotiations with the French.

  The French repeatedly wanted written confirmation of Britain’s commitment to them in a war with Germany. Uncharacteristically, Grey penned a vague letter to Ambassador Paul Cambon that was later to cause him embarrassment.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Roberts Academy

  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR war may have thought that he held political control over the army, but a small coterie of very powerful senior officers were, first and foremost, loyal to Field Marshal, the Earl Roberts of Kandahar, friend and close associate of Alfred Milner and the Secret Elite. The son of a highly decorated British East India Company army general, Frederick Sleigh Roberts was born in India in 1832. Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he served in many important British campaigns before going to South Africa to command the British forces in the Boer War. Although nominally retired as commander-in-chief of the British Army in 1905 with a £100,000 government gratuity (the equivalent of £8 million today), Roberts retained his imposing will over military affairs. The esteem in which he was held is reflected in the score of regimental honorary colonel posts he accepted, including such famous regiments as the Irish Guards, Sherwood Foresters and the Black Watch.1 He was the first president of the Pilgrims Society of Great Britain,2 a secretive organisation linking the very wealthy and privileged in America and Britain. Right up to 1914, Roberts played a highly significant role for the Secret Elite in selecting and shaping the military high command.

  In addition to his leading role in the Pilgrims, Roberts was president of the National Service League, which advocated four years of compulsory military training for every man aged between 18 and 30. He ran a well-funded propaganda machine to generate fear of a German invasion of England and resolutely championed the need to prepare for the war against Germany. Fellow members of the National Service League included Alfred Milner, Rudyard Kipling, Leo Amery and Charles Repington. Donors included Lord Northcliffe and Abe Bailey.3 At its peak, the National Service League had almost 100,000 members and over 200,000 subscribers.4 In 1909, Lord Roberts addressed the House of Lords in doom-laden exaggeration:

  I want to ask you to take definite action in order to bring home to the public mind the gravity of the situation … our present system fails utterly to provide the necessary insurance against the dangers which may at any moment threaten us … an invasion of this country is not only possible, but … possible on a far larger scale than has usually been assumed … The question at issue is a vital one, and far too serious to be passed over lightly. Our very existence may depend upon it being wisely dealt with.5

  Throughout the next five years, Roberts persisted in his scaremongering and made frequent demands for greater military spending. Backed by Arthur Balfour, he plagued the Committee of Imperial Defence like a spoiled child, with defiant insistence that an invasion of Britain by Germany was an eventuality that the government continued to ignore at its peril. Both Roberts and his naval compatriot, Admiral Jacky Fisher, always believed that they knew better than anyone else, though were staunchly agreed on the need to crush Germany. Roberts allied himself to Northcliffe newspapers to promote William Le Queux’s fantasy, The Invasion of 1910.6 Two years later, he wrote that: ‘all patriotic men within this Empire should be made to see that … England, by neglecting her armaments, has drifted into a position which it is impossible to describe otherwise than a position of danger …’7

  Lord Roberts had served with Alfred Milner in South Africa and knew Cecil Rhodes well. He was fully committed to Rhodes’ and Milner’s vision of an all-controlling Anglo-Saxon world power. How often do Secret Elite roots stem from South Africa and the Boer War?

  As we have already seen, Milner organised and developed a talented coterie of Oxford graduates inside his South African administration, men who by 1914 held critical positions of power in the City, the Conservative Party, the Civil Service, major newspapers and academia. Carroll Quigley specifically dedicated a chapter in his seminal Anglo-American Establishment to this ‘Kindergarten’,8 the men who rose to high office in government, industry and politics. He appointed, trained and developed his chosen men to drive forward the Secret Elite agenda with conviction. To the same end, Roberts used his South African experience to create an equivalent military kindergarten, his own coterie of trusted officers who were to dominate British military life for the next 20 years.9 In order to avoid possible confusion between the Milner and Roberts kindergartens, we have chosen to name the latter Roberts’ ‘Academy’. Through Milner and Roberts, the Secret Elite’s political and military strategy was as one.
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  Officered through the privileged route of Eton and Sandhurst, the army was known for its ‘gallantry’, its ‘self-indulgent amateurism and well-bred bearing’,10 but had not been noted for its ability or its views on the importance of systematic thinking or planning. The Boer War provided embarrassing proof of that. The unquestioning loyalty of the army was taken for granted by the ruling class, but a ‘new army’, a slick modern fighting force, was required for the massive task that lay ahead. While Haldane was tasked with reorganising and modernising the armed forces, Roberts set out to provide its leadership. His drive to replace the ‘old gang’ was given momentum by Arthur Balfour in the House of Commons and Sir George Clarke and Lord Esher in the Committee of Imperial Defence.11

  Lord Roberts acted as chief military advisor to Balfour and Bonar Law, but his key influence lay in placing the principal military personnel within the War Office. Roberts’ Academy included men promoted to the very highest ranks of the armed forces, including John French, Henry Wilson, William Robertson, Henry Rawlinson and Douglas Haig.12 Their careers were launched on the strength of the little field marshal’s support and their acceptance of his self-determined ‘advanced ideas’.13 To a man, they owed Roberts everything, having been chosen in the first instance in South Africa for their unquestioning loyalty to him and his ‘vision’. In turn, they brought with them their own coteries of loyal personal followers who would form a ‘new army’ fit for purpose: the Secret Elite’s purpose.14

  John Denton Pinkstone French, born in Kent in 1852, was the oldest member of the Roberts Academy. The son of a Royal Navy commander, French followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the navy. After four unsatisfactory years at sea, he transferred to the army through the convenient back door of the militia.15 French obtained a commission in the 19th Hussars and was promoted to major in 1883. He almost ended his career by being cited for adultery with a brother officer’s wife while on leave but survived the scandal.16 Reduced to half-pay, French borrowed a large amount of money, reputedly the grand sum of £2,000, from a junior officer, Douglas Haig, to pay off debts incurred through speculation and save his career.17 French was posted to South Africa, where he commanded the Cavalry Division during the Boer War. His friendship with Lord Esher was ‘no handicap’.18 Well, no man’s was. He was promoted to general in 1907 and, on Esher’s recommendation, made inspector-general. From his base in the War Office, French was responsible for ensuring that army units attained the appropriate levels of training and efficiency. His royal credentials were impeccable. In 1908, French accompanied King Edward VII on his visit to the czar at Reval and was appointed aide-de-camp to King George V in 1911. Despite his lack of staff experience or study at Staff College, he was installed as chief of the imperial general staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army. Thereafter he was promoted to field marshal and became the second-ranking serving officer in the British Army after Lord Kitchener. When appointed chief in 1912, French stated that war with Germany was an ‘eventual certainty’ and that he intended to ensure that the army prepared for it.19

  French was not academic and, with a mind closed to books, was more renowned for ‘irritability than mental ability’. Indeed, King George V confided in his uncle: ‘I don’t think he [French] is particularly clever, and he has an awful temper.’20 By reputation, French alternated between extremes of aggressiveness and depression, and was easily swayed by gossip. He was loyal, trusted and biddable. What more did the Secret Elite need? As ever, an exclusive background helped.

  Henry Rawlinson attended Eton and Sandhurst before military service in Burma and India. Family connections had brought him into close contact at an early age with both Kitchener and Lord Roberts. Rawlinson first came under Roberts’ influence in India, where he served as his aide-de-camp. He gained a reputation of being hard and cold, and of putting his own advancement first. This stubborn disregard for others would best be illustrated at the Battle of the Somme.21 Rawlinson fought in the Boer War before being promoted to colonel and made commandant of the British Army’s Staff Training College at Camberley in 1903. Three years later, he moved to Aldershot and was replaced at Camberley by Henry Wilson.

  Sir Henry Wilson, the most industrious and committed member of Roberts’ Academy, was an Ulster-Scot whose career positively thrived under Roberts’ patronage. Having failed to pass the entrance exams to the royal military academies at Woolwich and Sandhurst on five occasions, despite intensive private tuition, Wilson also took a back-door route into the army.22 He joined the Longford Militia before transferring to the Rifle Brigade. Wilson had a flair for impressing influential people, including Lord Roberts, who helped him to ‘prosper’ in the South Africa campaign.23 The commander-in-chief had lost his only son in the war, and Wilson was considered by some to have become his surrogate.

  Roberts considered the post of ‘supreme importance to the future of the army’, since through it the staff ‘doctrine’ could be thoroughly influenced. How ironic that the Secret Elite chose an officer who had repeatedly failed his entrance exams as commandant of staff training. But this was not chiefly about education; it was about indoctrination. Wilson had risen from captain to brigadier general in five years: an unheard of advancement by any standard.24 He immediately wrote to Roberts: ‘I know well how much I owe you, Sir … and it is no exaguration [sic] to say that the whole of my career and future prospects have been of your making.’25 Sycophantic but true.

  As soon as his appointment at the Staff College was confirmed, Wilson cycled to visit Roberts at his home at nearby Englemere, where they discussed future plans.26 It was a journey he made several times every week over the next three years, keeping Roberts informed of all military developments and general army gossip. Wilson also repeated the much longer trips he had made to reconnoitre the Belgian borders in 1906. He traversed the frontiers from the Channel to the Swiss border by train and bicycle, making notes on the topography with detailed precision. His staple lecture at the Staff College was on ‘Frontiers’, and he was rightly recognised as the military authority on the Belgian, French and German borders.

  In 1910, Wilson left Camberley to take up the post of director of military operations at the War Office and advisor to the government and the Committee of Imperial Defence. He immediately crossed to France for further talks with General Foch, then commandant of the French Staff College. In Paris, Wilson visited the British military attaché, Colonel Fairholme. He was not impressed with what he found, noting in his diary: ‘there is much that I will change here, and, I suppose, in the other Military Attachés. They appear to me to be dealing with details and with peace, and not with war.’27

  This was the same Sir Henry Wilson who had briefed Asquith, Grey, Lloyd George and Churchill during the Agadir incident, who was responsible for the British Expeditionary Force and knew the precise details of the plans for war. He also knew that Haldane had authorised the general staff to discuss possible eventualities with not only the French but also the Belgian general staff.28 Shortly after joining the War Office, Wilson had dinner with Alfred Milner and Sir Arthur Nicolson, ‘both of whom he was to be much associated with in the future’.29 Several weeks later, General Foch came over from Paris, and Wilson took him to discuss plans with Nicolson at the Foreign Office. As a regular member of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Wilson sat at the heart of military decision making and ensured that the Secret Elite were fully acquainted with all that was going on.30

  Joint war planning with France took on an immediate new impetus on Wilson’s appointment as director of military operations. Over the next four years, he repeated his visits to the Franco-Belgian and Franco-German frontiers three and four times every year. On each visit he made bicycle or motor tours of the anticipated battlefields, taking careful notes and conferring with members of the French general staff. All the while, Haldane, Asquith and Grey were maintaining the disingenuous position that military ‘conversations’ were ‘just the natural outcome of our close friendship with France’
.31 In her Pulitzer Prize-winning The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman made it very clear that Britain was committed to war by 1911 at the latest. She highlighted the fact that the plans worked out by the joint general staffs ‘committed us [Britain] to fight whether the Cabinet liked it or not’.

  Of course they did. It was their prime objective. These military conversations were formal, undertaken in secret by the chosen few, such as Henry Wilson. Make no mistake about it, despite repeated denials in Cabinet, and to Parliament and the people, the Secret Elite had absolutely committed Britain to war with Germany.

  By February 1912, General Joffre, commander-in-chief of the French army, was able to inform the French Supreme War Council that he could count on six British infantry divisions, one cavalry division and two mounted brigades totalling 145,000 men. In tribute to Henry Wilson, Joffre had named the British Expeditionary Force, L’Armee ‘W’. He explained that the BEF would land at Boulogne, Havre and Rouen, concentrate in the Hirson-Maubeuge region and be ready for action on the 15th day of mobilisation. In the autumn of 1912, Henry Wilson returned to France to attend manoeuvres with Joffre and Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia. Thereafter they went to St Petersburg for talks with the Russian general staff. In 1913, Wilson visited Paris every other month to confer with the French staff and to join manoeuvres of the XXth Corps guarding the frontier.32

  The fact that Henry Wilson kept in constant touch with the French and Russian military had to be concealed, and all the preparatory work on ‘Plan W’ was carried out in the utmost secrecy. It was of paramount importance that the Secret Elite plans for war were confined to half a dozen officers ‘who did even the typing, filing and clerical work’.33 A wider involvement risked the inclusion of someone with a sense of moral decency who might have blown the conspiracy apart. It is impossible to be certain if Barbara Tuchman was referring to the Roberts Academy when she noted that no more than six British officers were aware of the top-secret plans for war. The numbers certainly fit.