Whatever his private feelings, the duke’s one public intervention that year in his self-proclaimed role as Edward the Peacemaker came when he accepted an invitation from American NBC radio to make a broadcast from Verdun, the First World War battle site, appealing for world peace. “I speak simply as a soldier of the last war, whose most earnest prayer is that such a cruel and destructive madness shall never again overtake mankind. The grave anxieties of the time compel me to raise my voice in expression of the universal longing to be delivered from the fears that beset us.” While the emotional text, which the duke wrote himself, attracted thousands of letters of praise and support from worried citizens around the world, it did nothing to appease the royal family. As the king and queen were on their way to Canada and the United States on a crucial visit to drum up support for Britain and to introduce the new king to her most important allies, it was seen as yet another attempt by the duke to steal his brother’s thunder. The queen complained to Queen Mary: “How troublesome of him to choose such a moment.”
During these critical months, while the duke fretted over the designs for the livery, linen, and stationery for his palatial home, his brothers King George VI and the Duke of Kent, and his German cousins, most notably the Hessen family and Prince Max Egon von Hohenlohe-Langenburg, were working to avert the coming storm. The Duke of Windsor may have garnered the headlines, but other royal princes were doing the heavy lifting for peace backstage. The Duke of Kent, who travelled extensively throughout Europe, ostensibly on family business, used these visits to maintain a diplomatic back channel with Germany. As one journalist noted at the time: “The private journeys of members of the British royal house in fact have been quite often equivalent to discreet political missions.”
According to the memoir of Frederick Winterbotham, the head of British air intelligence, the Duke of Kent regularly met with the British agent and aircraft salesman Baron William de Ropp, a clandestine figure who became a confidant of Hitler and Rosenberg.
Though little is known about these meetings—Winterbotham even excised mention of the Ropp-Kent meetings in the second edition of his book—commentators have concluded that “the Duke of Kent obviously had a very real influence on political events. He was uniquely placed to act as an intermediary between high-ranking Nazis and the movers and shakers of British society for the betterment of Anglo-German relations.”
Perhaps his most delicate and controversial meetings were with his cousin and ardent Nazi, Prince Philipp von Hessen, who, for a time, had the ear of both Hitler and Göring. As Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, has confirmed, there was a “tremendous amount” of contact between the Duke of Kent and Prince Philipp von Hessen, the two men, for example, having diplomatic talks at the funeral of Queen Maria of Romania in Bucharest in July 1938.
The most important meeting between the two royals took place a year later in Florence on July 1, 1939, at the wedding of Princess Irene, the daughter of Constantine I, the king of Greece, and Prince Aimone Roberto di Savoia-Aosta, the Duke of Spoleto, the cousin of the Italian king.
The Duke of Kent was ostensibly sent along to represent the British royal family. Much more was going on behind the scenes. With war seemingly inevitable, Britain aimed to keep Italy out of the conflict for as long as realistically possible. The duke was to influence the Italian king in Britain’s favour.
George VI and Prime Minister Chamberlain had discussed the diplomatic brief for the Duke of Kent, even down to the language he would use when he met the king in Florence. Furthermore, George VI argued that his brother should invite Prince Philipp to Britain, where he could be used as a messenger to convey to Hitler that Britain was in earnest about declaring war should he try and invade Poland, the next target on his shopping list of countries.
The prime minister and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax disagreed with the king. They felt that the situation was too complex and unsettled for well-meaning amateurs rather than professional diplomats to be used to conduct negotiations.
While the king, according to his biographer John Wheeler-Bennett, did not press the issue, it is clear that he went “rogue,” defying his prime minister and foreign secretary and instructing his younger brother to initiate delicate conversations with the Italian king as well as with his German cousin Prince Philipp. It is a sign of how strongly the king felt about the possibility of royalty influencing the course of events that he decided to go way beyond his constitutional remit, which is to “advise, encourage, and warn” the government of the day. As historian Tom MacDonnell has argued: “George VI was haunted by the memory of the Great War, and he had been an enthusiastic supporter of Chamberlain’s appeasement policies. Repeatedly he had offered to make his own appeal to Hitler, sharing with his brother the Duke of Windsor the idea that kings and princes still had a meaningful part to play in diplomacy, as if nothing had happened to the map of Europe since 1914 when the Continent had been the private domain of royal cousins.”
At the war’s end Prince Philipp offered his own account of these unofficial royal discussions. He recalled that the Duke of Kent warned him that Britain would regard an invasion of Poland as a casus belli and that Germany should be under no illusions as to the possible consequences. Furthermore, the duke had pointed out that Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop was a “perpetual insult” to Britain and that conflict would always be imminent as long as the former wine salesman was in office.
As Professor Petropoulos observes: “It was bold for a British royal to circumvent established diplomatic and political procedures, and communicate to the Germans what acts would precipitate a war. According to the established practices of the British constitutional monarchy, this was not the purview of the royals.”
After his discussions with the Duke of Kent during the wedding in Italy, Prince Philipp returned to Germany to report to Hitler. The Führer was not especially interested in listening to the German royal, and it was not until August that he was granted an audience.
By then, events had moved on apace. Hitler brushed aside the warning from the Duke of Kent and then showed Prince Philipp exactly why he no longer cared what the British thought. As he stood in the room, the Führer took a phone call from von Ribbentrop, who was then in Moscow. At precisely the moment Prince Philipp was relating the warning from Buckingham Palace, Germany and Russia were signing the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact. Both Hitler and von Ribbentrop believed that the British were too “decadent” to fight. They were proved wrong; Europe plunged into war a month later when Germany invaded Poland.
Just as Hitler ignored the warning from Buckingham Palace, he ignored the urgent telegram sent from the Duke of Windsor on August 29 urging restraint. At least he did him the courtesy of responding, telling him that “if war came” it would be England’s fault. A similar cable, which the duke sent to King Vittorio Emanuele of Italy, evinced a more conciliatory response, the king assuring him that he would do his best to avert conflict. As his equerry, Dudley Forwood, observed: “I think he may have thought that his wise counsel might sway the Führer from confrontation with England.” The same could also have been said about his brother George VI who, in the dogged pursuit of peace, was prepared to provoke a constitutional crisis by exceeding his authority and defying his ministers. In the parallel world of what might have been, if George VI and the Duke of Windsor had reached an accommodation, the king could have used his brother, now a private citizen, to influence the course of war and peace.
For even though the Duke of Windsor believed, according to Forwood, that as abdicated royalty he was of little consequence on the international stage, he had an undoubted charisma that evaded his brother. For the man in the Strasse he remained, whatever his diminished status, a talisman of peace, a living icon who could change events. The profound, almost visceral response he provoked among the public was shown just a few weeks after war was declared.
A wildfire rumour spread throughout the Reich in early October 1939 suggesting that George VI had abdic
ated and that the Duke of Windsor, once more in possession of his crown, was calling for an end to the war. Propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels recorded that work in shops, factories, and offices, including some government ministries, was suspended amidst spontaneous celebration. “Complete strangers embraced in the streets as they told each other the news.”
It was a false hope but a reminder of the charismatic appeal of the ex-king. Though he was diminished, he was very relevant to the future of Europe—but not in the way he could ever have imagined.
CHAPTER NINE
The Game of Thrones
Once war was declared on September 3, 1939, the chances of peace breaking out inside the warring House of Windsor rose dramatically. The Duke of Windsor, arguably the most famous private British citizen on the world stage, was keen to sign up and help the country he once ruled in its hour of need. He contacted Walter Monckton in London and offered to assist his brother in any way he deemed appropriate.
It may have crossed his mind that, given his international appeal and high-level contacts, particularly in Germany, he could have been used as a peace emissary or at the very least a recognized broadcaster whose words would have had an impact on the listening public of Europe. Undoubtedly he was an asset who could have been used effectively and imaginatively by the ruling class when Britain needed all the help she could muster. At the very least the First World War veteran may have been forgiven for thinking that on his return to his homeland he could be used to help rally the troops.
This was so much wishful thinking. Instead of offering a truce, the royal family hunkered down in the Buckingham Palace bunker and dug in for a long war of attrition with one of their own. The duke and duchess, who were at the La Croë villa in the South of France when hostilities broke out, were informed that they could return to Britain only if the duke accepted either the post of deputy regional commissioner to Sir Wyndham Portal in Wales or liaison officer with No. 1 British Military Mission, which was based in France, under the command of Major General Howard-Vyse. They were, both in title and intent, non-jobs.
The government offered to fly them home but as the duchess had a morbid fear of flying, having watched numerous plane crashes when living with her first husband, a naval aviator, they elected to sail back, the duke suggesting to the British embassy in Paris that a destroyer should be sent to pick them up. This self-absorption at time of war was too much for the ever-loyal Fruity Metcalfe, who accused them of behaving “like two spoilt children. . . . Women and children are being bombed and killed while YOU talk of your PRIDE.”
After that spat, the ducal couple, together with a calmer Metcalfe, drove to Cherbourg, where they were picked up by the destroyer HMS Kelly commanded by the duke’s choice for best man, Lord Louis Mountbatten. They arrived in Portsmouth in blackout conditions, met on the quayside by Lady Alexandra Metcalfe and their urbane lawyer, Walter Monckton.
On his own initiative Winston Churchill, now First Lord of the Admiralty, had organized for a Royal Marines band to play the national anthem when they stepped on British soil for the first time in three years. However, the band played only the first six bars—the full version, as the duke ruefully explained to his wife, was only for the sovereign. As for the royal family, they totally ignored their arrival, the queen sending a message to the Duchess of Windsor explaining that she could not possibly meet her. “He might not even exist,” noted Lady Metcalfe in her diary.
As Buckingham Palace had made clear that they would not be organizing transport or accommodation for the Windsors, the Metcalfes placed their country home and London residence at their disposal. For the next two weeks the duke busied himself meeting ministers and military top brass as well as renewing old friendships.
During their stay they lunched with Lady Colefax, diplomat and author Harold Nicolson, and the novelist H. G. Wells. As they left the house, Nicolson said to Wells: “Admit that man has charm.” “Glamour,” said H. G. Wells, a telling insight into the human potential which could have been harnessed. Enthusiastic crowds spontaneously surrounded him or his car when he was spotted out and about in London, while a Gallup poll indicated that a clear majority—more than 60 percent—would welcome his return from exile with the duchess by his side. Even Prime Minister Chamberlain was in favour of that idea. Not the king and his family, who consistently viewed his personal magnetism as a threat to the newly established order.
The queen, ever protective of her husband, led the charge, telling Prince Paul of Yugoslavia in early October: “What a curse black sheep are in a family! I think he at last realizes that there is no niche for him here—the mass of the people do not forgive quickly the sort of thing that he did to this country, and they HATE her!”
She was not able to contain the utter loathing she felt towards the American adventuress. “I trust that she will soon return to France and STAY THERE,” she wrote to Queen Mary. “I am sure that she hates this dear country and therefore she should not be here in war time.”
Unsurprisingly, the new queen made sure she had left Buckingham Palace on September 14 when the duke arrived for a meeting with his brother to discuss his future employment. While the talk was amicable enough, the duke’s first choice of the civil defence post in Wales was later inexplicably withdrawn by the king, presumably, the duke and duchess suspected, as he did not want a shadow king residing on home soil. Instead he was assigned to the British Military Mission in Vincennes outside Paris.
Besides the raw antipathy of the duke’s immediate family, he was treated with mistrust by some in the military establishment who feared that he would, inadvertently, give away secrets to the enemy. The story of the Italian naval shells and the duke’s eager disloyalty had by now gained traction among those in the know.
After leaving his brother at Buckingham Palace, he made the short journey to the Admiralty, where he was shown around by Winston Churchill. Much to the consternation of watching naval officers, Churchill took him to the Secret Room—the basement area where the position of the British and enemy fleets was marked hourly. The ever suspicious Earl of Crawford noted with alarm:
He is too irresponsible a chatterbox to be entrusted with confidential information which will all be passed on to Wally at the dinner table. That is where the danger lies—namely that after nearly three years of complete obscurity, the temptation to show that he knew, that he is again at the centre of information will prove irresistible and that he will blab and babble out state secrets without realizing the danger.
Now he had his orders, the ducal couple returned to France, viewing their brief sojourn in Britain with very mixed feelings. Shortly after arriving in Paris, he described the dismal atmosphere prevailing in Britain to Herman Rogers:
I had the opportunity of talking with most of the Cabinet Ministers and the senior officers of all three services, which helped me pick up the threads after three years absence. We found England definitely gloomy . . . But there is no enthusiasm over this war; a grim and rather sullen determination to make the best of the hopeless mess that successive bad governments have got the British people into is the atmosphere we left not unwillingly behind us! God knows how it’s all going to end and a lot depends on how long it lasts.
His worst fears about the enthusiasm for war were confirmed within days of returning to France. For a man who was so distrusted, he was given a particularly sensitive task. The French military were intensely secretive about their defences and fortifications, refusing to allow the Allies to inspect the Maginot Line, the chain of fortresses that formed the spine of their military redoubt. It was frustrating for the British.
While the mission was debating how to discover French military planning and deployments the duke was deputed to join them. As Brigadier Davy, the mission’s chief of staff, recorded: “At last we were given the heaven-sent opportunity of visiting the French front.”
The duke, who was as popular in France as he was in Germany and Britain, was the key to unlock the French military safe, General Gamelin, the F
rench commander in chief at Vincennes, proud to give the ex-king tours of inspection of the front line. He proved himself to be adept at using his modest charm to tease out French secrets, Major General Howard-Vyse informing the War Office that he had produced five “valuable” reports on the inadequacies of the French defence, particularly the poor training of antitank crews. While the original thinking behind his role as liaison officer was simply to get the duke out of the way, in fact the task, which required discretion and diplomacy, was eminently suited to the duke’s royal pedigree, his status opening all doors.
The duke did not see it that way, irritated at being deliberately kept from the British front lines and perfectly aware that nothing he said or reported was being acted upon by the military top brass in London. For her part the duchess, who was snubbed by all British charitable organizations, joined the French Red Cross, delivering medical supplies to field hospitals. It did not take long for them to feel bored, unappreciated, and resentful, the duke spending more time playing golf and attempting to secure the services of his French chef—who had been called up to the army—than working on military business. On several occasions the restless duke returned to London in the winter of 1940 without the knowledge of the king. He briefly saw Churchill, went to the Foreign Office to complain about his treatment by the embassy in Paris and, perhaps most significantly, to intrigue.
At a secret conclave with Walter Monckton and Lord Beaverbrook at Monckton’s home in early 1940 he seriously considered a suggestion that he lead an international peace movement, as he was poised to do when Bedaux was the paymaster. Beaverbrook, at his most mischievous, egged the duke on, suggesting that the war could be ended by a peace offer to Germany. The press baron thought that the duke should return to civilian life, enlist City support, and go around the country as a “peace candidate.” “Go ahead sir, I will back you,” said the impish Canadian before taking his leave. For some minutes the duke took up the idea with enthusiasm, pausing only when Monckton pointed out that he would be committing “high treason.” What really ended this delicious dalliance with a new important role was when Monckton indicated that if he returned to Britain he would have to pay income tax. At this the “little man” blanched and declared that the whole scheme was off; once he had to spend his own money, as with the aborted Bedaux tour of America, his enthusiasm instantly waned.
17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up Page 16