Jack and Goonie had also increased their family in the past year with the birth of a second son, Peregrine. The two sisters-in-law had decided to spend the summer of 1913 at the seaside, so the children could play together. Accordingly they rented two neighbouring properties, Pear Tree Cottage and Beehive Cottage at Overstrand, a quiet cliff-top village with fine sandy beaches near Cromer in Norfolk. Winston and Jack usually joined them at weekends.
By this time Jennie and George Cornwallis-West had parted for good. Unable to obtain any formal financial settlement because George was bankrupt, Jennie accepted his word that he would pay her £1000 a year after the first £2000 (which he would need to live on) of any income. She sued for a divorce in January 1913 and the matter went to court that July. Jennie’s case was handled by F.E. Smith, who told the court that his client sought a divorce on the grounds of ‘desertion and misconduct’. The proceedings were brief, taking only seven minutes because George admitted his guilt in a letter, and a decree nisi was issued. Two hours after the decree was made absolute, on 6 April the following year, George married Mrs Patrick Campbell at Kensington register office. The bride wore black silk for the wedding, and there was no long honeymoon, for she was in rehearsals to play Eliza Doolittle, the starring role that was written for her, in George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, which was due to open at His Majesty’s Theatre a few weeks later. Shaw cabled Winston: TWO TICKETS RESERVED FOR OPENING NIGHT PYGMALION. BRING A FRIEND. IF YOU HAVE ONE. Winston replied: CANNOT MAKE FIRST NIGHT. WILL COME TO SECOND. IF YOU HAVE ONE.
Jennie had known in advance about George’s wedding but it was nonetheless deeply wounding, despite the sympathetic messages with which she was showered, including from George’s sisters. Princess Daisy cabled: JENNIFER DEAREST YOU DID YOUR BEST IT IS AWFUL AND HE WILL REGRET JUST READ NEWS IN PAPER AM MISERABLE HOPE SEE YOU SOON MUCH LOVE DAISY. His other sister Shelagh, married to the Duke of Westminster (known as ‘Bendor’*), told Jennie how much she had felt for her during the last months: ‘I knew all the time what you were going through; and I admired what you did for him more than I can say.’39 Her words were not mere idle sympathy, for Bendor was also involved with another woman, and soon after Shelagh wrote this letter they parted. Bendor did not discuss the matter with Shelagh, but wrote her a letter saying that he could no longer live with her and she must leave the house. He offered to make her an annual allowance of £13,000, which she refused, saying she would do ‘nothing that would reflect upon her position as [his] wife and mother of his children’. A year later there was a formal separation agreement and they lived thereafter much as Sunny and Consuelo did. The papers took the part of the wronged wife, and for a while Sunny was quite cheered to know that Bendor was now taking the sort of critical flak that he had endured for several years.
In the spring of 1913 Sunny paid one of his regular trips to the French Riviera. Unusually, Gladys did not accompany him, and soon after his arrival at a hotel in Beaulieu-sur-Mer he met one of his numerous cousins, Reggie Fellowes,* who was also a grandson of the 7th Duke. The meeting was not a friendly one, as Marlborough had good cause to believe that Reggie was either Consuelo’s lover or was about to become so, and he suspected that the pair had intended to rendezvous at this very hotel. He cut Reggie dead in public, considered a great insult in Edwardian society, and wrote to Gladys: ‘I have spoilt this plan for the moment…I ought really to have him watched. I must do so when I get back.’40
Whether or not he did so is unknown. The world they knew, in which such events as divorce had seemed of major importance, was nearing its end. By the early summer of 1914 Winston was practically sure that there was to be a war in Europe. He has often been called a warmonger, but his papers and letters make it obvious that war was positively not what he wanted. Yet he was not going to allow Britain to be caught unawares.
15
1914–16
A Fall from Power
That the Navy and the infant Royal Naval Air Service were fully prepared when war was declared on 4 August 1914 was arguably attributable to Churchill’s prescient grasp of politics and his determination in the face of severe opposition from others in the Cabinet.
His aim before 1914 was to ensure that Britain’s Navy remained superior to the German Navy in case of war. His plans were unpopular. Even his ally Lloyd George, now the Chancellor, opposed him, announcing in the newspapers as late as 1 January 1914 that he deprecated the increase in the naval estimates* announced by Churchill. Had the old (1887) levels been adhered to, he stated, the tax rate could have been slashed dramatically. It was a safe argument: tax cuts were always popular and nobody really believed Germany would attack Britain. Winston was shooting in France with the Duke of Westminster at the time this discord reached the headlines, and he maintained a dignified silence. But from this point onwards Clementine watched Lloyd George, and she warned Winston on numerous occasions that he was not someone who could be relied upon and that Winston should not wholly trust him, as he had hitherto. Clementine seemed now to be taking upon herself the role of guarding Winston’s public image.
The naval estimates row almost cost Winston the Admiralty, for at one point he threatened to resign over the matter, causing his Aunt Cornelia to write reminding him of his father’s ‘great error of judgement’ and the tragic consequences that resulted from it. ‘Because I love you and care so much for your career I have an instinct that you are going wrong,’ she warned. ‘Even the ablest of men may wreck their political life.’ Characteristically Winston held on, with almost everyone against him, insisting that the number of ships and aeroplanes must be increased for the nation’s safety, which also meant that of the Empire. Most other members of the Cabinet were by now fully aware of Germany’s aspirations in Europe, but were still hoping that the difficulties could be dealt with by diplomacy.
Winston set out the problem in simple terms for the King:
The burden of responsibility laid upon the British Navy is heavy…All the world is building ships of the greatest power, training officers and men, creating arsenals, and laying broad and deep the foundations of future permanent naval development and expansion…we are witnessing this year increases in expenditure by Continental Powers of armaments beyond all previous experience. The world is armed as it was never armed before. Every [diplomatic] suggestion for arrest or limitation has so far been ineffectual.1
It was his duty, Winston said, to ensure the Navy was ready for any eventuality. Fortunately, the King agreed with him.
Eventually, Lloyd George suggested that Winston should come to breakfast at No. 11 Downing Street to ‘settle the matter’. Winston accepted, fully anticipating that he might have to resign that morning. After Lloyd George had greeted him, he said: ‘Oddly enough my wife spoke to me last night about this Dreadnought business. She said, “You know, my dear, I never interfere in politics; but they say you are having an argument with that nice Mr Churchill about building Dreadnoughts.* Of course I don’t understand these things, but I should have thought it would be better to have too many rather than too few.” So I have decided to let you build them. Let’s go in to breakfast.’2
By the spring of 1914 it was no longer a secret that members of the German General Staff were braying for war against France and Russia. In June Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the thrones of Austria and Hungary, and his wife were assassinated at Sarajevo in Bosnia by a Serbian nationalist. Germany leaned on Austria to demand an Austrian-led search inside Serbian borders, to seek out those responsible for the murder. The wording of the deliberately offensive message, in effect an ultimatum, was considered so threatening that the governments of Europe were shocked by its open hostility. Winston immediately wrote to Clementine to tell her that Europe was trembling on the brink of a European war, ‘the Austrian ultimatum to Servia [sic] being the most insolent document of its kind ever devised’.
Even at the height of the direst crisis or when he was inundated with work, on board the Enchantress or at Balmoral with
the King and Queen – whenever they were apart Winston wrote daily to Clementine, never forgetting to add an affectionate remark and usually rows of kisses. One letter ended: ‘Here are three kisses, one for each of you. Don’t waste them. They are good ones.’ Clementine replied: ‘I have kept the three precious kisses all to myself, as I appreciate them more than the P.K. & [the] C.B.’* Not to be outdone, Winston countered: ‘Since you have kept the three kisses for yourself, I send you 2 more for the P.K. and [the] C.B. , and out of a store that will never be exhausted send you an additional six.’3
But his letters to Clementine, written as they were to someone with whom he never needed to prevaricate or hedge, are above all an important historical source as well as providing a record of Winston’s devotion to his wife. He produced beautifully written books about the events leading up to 4 August 1914, but it is arguable that the best record is contained in the letters he wrote at the time to Clementine.
There were no traditional summer naval manoeuvres that year, for economic reasons; instead, Winston ordered a test mobilisation of the Third Fleet. The review by the King was held at Spithead on 17–18 July. It consisted, Churchill would later write, of ‘incomparably the greatest assembly of naval power ever witnessed in the history of the world’. He knew the event would not have been lost on the Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and this deliberate show of strength by Churchill was an attempt to halt the deepening threat of war. The Fleet was never dispersed after this exercise, though some of the crews were sent on leave, for on Sunday 26 July, the Cabinet learned that Austria had rejected Serbia’s diplomatic reply to their ultimatum. That weekend Winston was at Cromer with Clementine, Jack, Goonie and all the children. They suspected that this was likely to be the last time in the foreseeable future they would all spend together. Winston’s second-in-command, Prince Louis of Battenberg,* kept him up to date with the news by telephone and as the cottage did not have one, some neighbours obliged by allowing Winston to use theirs. As the situation deteriorated, he decided to return early to the Admiralty, and by the time he arrived there, Prince Louis had already taken the decision to halt the planned dispersal of the naval ships to home ports. Winston ratified this order. Later he wrote to Clementine:
28th July 1914 Admiralty
Midnight
My darling one & beautiful,
Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up & happy. Is it not horrible to be built like that? The preparations have a hideous fascination for me. I pray to God to forgive me for such fearful moods of levity. Yet I wd do my best for peace, & nothing wd induce me wrongfully to strike the blow. I cannot feel that we in this island are in any serious degree responsible for the wave of madness wh has swept the mind of Christendom. No one can measure the consequences…
The two black swans on St James’s Park lake have a darling cygnet – grey, fluffy, precious & unique. I watched them this evening for some time as a relief from all the plans & schemes. We are putting the whole Navy into fighting trim (bar the reserve). And all seems quite sound & thorough. The sailors are thrilled and confident. Every supply is up to the prescribed standard. Everything is ready as it never has been before. And we are awake to the tips of our fingers. But war is the Unknown and the Unexpected!…You know how willingly & proudly I wd risk – or give – if need be – my period of existence to keep this country great & famous & prosperous & free. But the problems are vy difficult. One has to try to measure the indefinite & weigh the imponderable. I feel sure however that if war comes we shall give them a good drubbing. My darling one – this is a vy good plan of ours on the telephone…Ring me up at fixed times. But talk in parables – for they all listen. Kiss those kittens & be loved forever only by me.
Your own, W4
Winston had no Cabinet authority to mobilise the Navy; in fact, when the matter had last been discussed his request to do so had been refused. He recalled that when he told Asquith he intended to mobilise the Fleet the Prime Minister merely ‘looked at me with a hard stare and gave a sort of grunt’. So he knew only too well that he was taking a colossal risk when he gave the order; had war not been declared, he would have had to answer to a furious House of Commons, and his forced resignation would have been a matter of course. But he was utterly convinced that he was doing the right thing, and on the following night under cover of darkness, without showing a light, the First Fleet passed quietly through the straits of Dover into the North Sea. Two days later it was on station at Scapa Flow, Cromarty and Rosyth. The Second Fleet was ordered to assemble at Portland. All naval harbours were cleared, all bridges and stations were guarded; ferries and steamers were boarded by armed men. Observers were in place along the south and east coasts, and all reservists were summoned for a total mobilisation. That done, he wrote to Clementine.
31 July 1914. Admiralty
Secret – Not to be left about but locked up or burned.
My darling,
There is still hope although the clouds are blacker & blacker. Germany is realising I think how great are the forces against her & is trying tardily to restrain her idiot ally. We are working to soothe Russia. But everybody is preparing swiftly for war and at any moment now the stroke may fall. We are ready.
The City has simply broken into chaos. The world’s credit system is virtually suspended. You cannot sell stocks & shares. You cannot borrow. Quite soon it will not perhaps be possible to cash a cheque. Prices of goods are rising to panic levels. Scores of poor people are made bankrupts…but I expect the apprehension of war hurts these interests more or as much as war itself…
Fondest love my darling one – your devoted husband, W5
Jack and Goonie were among the ‘poor people’ who stared ruin in the face. Jack had carefully reinvested anything left over from his living costs since his marriage, but now all was wiped out by the stock-market collapse. Goonie told Jennie that they had not a shilling left in the world. ‘I do not know what the future holds in store for us,’ she wrote gloomily. Jack’s job as a stockbroker was now superfluous.
While trying to regularise his mother’s tangled affairs at this point, he had been alerted by the family solicitors, recently appointed by himself and Winston in case either should be killed in the forthcoming conflict, to a clause in his father’s will that had previously escaped everyone’s notice. Under this clause, the arrangement whereby Jennie had received the income from the capital left by Lord Randolph changed if she were to remarry. In this event, Jennie would receive only 50 per cent of any income generated, and the other 50 per cent over and above their allowances was to be shared by Winston and Jack ‘towards their advancement in the world’. In the event of their deaths it was to be distributed to their respective children.
Jennie was so deeply in debt, with loans made against her future income, that Jack knew there was no point in trying to reclaim any of the monies that should have come to him in the fourteen years that had elapsed since her marriage to George Cornwallis-West in 1900. However, he could not resist pointing out to his mother that the oversight had meant a delay in his marriage to Goonie, had prevented him from going into the Army as he had wished and even from going to Oxford, because there had not been the money available at the time. There was no suggestion that this was a deliberate attempt by Jennie to defraud her sons of their inheritance – the will had been drawn up by the old Duke’s solicitor and the man responsible had since left the practice. Jack himself was at a loss to explain how this significant passage could have been missed by all the solicitors who had examined the document – especially as the terms would have improved his financial standing in his marriage discussions. The clause had apparently even been missed by the Marlborough-appointed trustees whose job it was to administer the trust and pay Jennie’s annual trust income. That Jennie herself would have been familiar with all the terminology of a complicated trust is extremely doubtful; it had probably never been explained to her in full and the ‘new discovery in the will’ undoubtedly came as much of a surpri
se to her as it had done to Jack and Winston. They were each earning their own living and as long as they could do so, Jack wrote, neither of them would make any claims, although he believed that were they to do so they were entitled to a further £300 a year each. So the discovery would make very little difference to Jennie, except that it significantly altered the security she had offered against her borrowings: her guarantees were not nearly as safe as she had believed. In summary, Jack said that while it would not immediately affect Jennie, it gave himself and Winston considerable comfort that should they die before Jennie, their children would immediately inherit from their grandfather, under the terms of the will.6
Touchingly, although there had been a pecuniary effect due to the oversight, the discovery was chiefly important to Jack and Winston because it indicated that their father had not forgotten them. It made a considerable difference to them, Jack wrote, to discover that their father’s will was not made – as they were always led to suppose – without any consideration of his sons.7 Jack then went on to lecture his mother severely about her continued spending (Jennie was still buying herself expensive and unnecessary jewellery, furs and new dresses, despite the fact that her creditors were pressing hard), pointing out that she had an income of over £2000 a year, larger than his own, yet she had no family or family home to finance. If she started running up bills again, he admonished, nothing could save her from the bankruptcy courts.8
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