Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the Great War (Cassel Military)

by Gordon Corrigan

  When Britain declared war against Germany on 4 August 1914, the post of Secretary of State for War had been taken on temporarily by the Prime Minister since the resignation of Seeley over the Home Rule imbroglio. Asquith’s Liberal government invited Field Marshal Lord Kitchener of Khartoum to fill the vacancy.

  Kitchener had been the British Agent in Egypt – effectively the Governor General – since 1911. He arrived in England on inter-tour leave in June 1914, and as the First Soldier of the Empire was consulted by both soldiers and politicians during that trying summer. Asquith was impressed by Kitchener’s grasp of world affairs and of strategy, particularly when he was asked for his opinion on the defence of the Mediterranean in the event of a war. Kitchener had long believed that there would be a European war and was a supporter of the ‘With the French’ group, which considered that if hostilities broke out Britain should intervene on the side of France. When war was declared Kitchener immediately prepared to return to his post, as the government had ordered all heads of mission to do. He was summoned from the Boulogne ferry at Dover by a telephone call from the Prime Minister, and on 5 August it was announced that he was to be appointed Secretary of State for War.

  Kitchener had no wish to become involved in political affairs. Like most soldiers of the day he distrusted politicians and thought they were ‘meddlers’, constantly interfering in matters about which they knew nothing. He had hoped to return to Egypt, finish his tour there, and then to be appointed Viceroy of India. Reluctantly he responded to appeals to his patriotism and agreed to serve, provided that he was excused parliamentary duties. He was to be a minister without party, and would have his field marshal’s salary augmented by £5,000 per annum as a minister, and by a special allowance of £1,150. Grey, the Foreign Secretary, was dubious about the appointment, and Haldane, standing in for the Prime Minister at the War Office, was against, but the public and the press were jubilant. As The Times of 6 August exclaimed,

  We need hardly say with what profound satisfaction and relief we hear of Lord Kitchener’s appointment as Secretary of State for War...there has been abundant testimony to the confidence which his name inspires in the public at this tremendous crisis...we heartily congratulate the Government on the promptitude with which they have confirmed the popular choice. In the huge task of equipping and dispatching our land forces, as well as perfecting the measures for protecting these shores, Lord Kitchener’s services will be invaluable.3

  It was said, then and later, that Kitchener was the first soldier to sit in the Cabinet since General Monck in 1660. This is false, as the Master General of the Ordnance, a serving general, was an ex officio member of the Cabinet and its principal military adviser until 1854, but it is true that no soldier had been entrusted with so much political power for centuries. The fact was that Kitchener’s enormous prestige at home, in the Empire and in Europe was a much-needed boost for a weak government, and a reassurance to the public that the war would be conducted by someone who knew how to do it, and whom they could trust.

  On 25 August Kitchener made his first speech in the House of Lords, having been tactfully dissuaded from sitting on the first available bench, which was reserved for bishops. He was listened to in respectful silence, although his assertion that Britain would need a mass army of thirty divisions horrified some (they would be even more horrified later, when he recommended seventy). Kitchener was well aware, long before any politician came to accept it, that this would be a long war and that Britain would have to field an army far larger than any in her history. He was sympathetic to the National Service League, which had campaigned for conscription since 1905, but he was astute enough not to press these views too publicly. Kitchener probably could have got Parliament to accept conscription in the first flush of bellicosity in 1914, but he was unwilling to create political waves, and deferred to Asquith’s advice that the time was not yet ripe. In any case, he thought that the whole process of getting the measure through both Houses, and setting up the machinery to register those eligible, would take too long.

  There can be no doubt that Kitchener’s greatest service to the nation’s war effort was the raising of the New Armies, which were colloquially known as the ‘Kitchener armies’. Here he began to upset politicians. Kitchener had little time for the Territorial Force – unlike Haig who had helped to set it up – and considered it to be largely a drinking club which played at soldiers at weekends. He also disliked the fact that the Territorial Force was not under the direct control of the War Office but was managed by County Associations, with all sorts of local interests to placate.4 Kitchener was perhaps too direct in his comments about the Territorial Force, which upset Liberal politicians who liked the idea of a citizen army.

  Kitchener was accustomed to absolute power, and had always managed to avoid serving at the War Office. As Commander-in-Chief of the army in India from 1902 to 1909, he had seen off no less a personage than the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, and in Egypt his power was almost unfettered. He saw no reason now to take politicians into his confidence on matters which they could not understand, and considered most of them to be a security risk: ‘If I tell them anything, they tell their wives, except for Lloyd George who tells somebody else’s wife,’ he is reputed to have said. Lloyd George was a consummate Welsh politician, pure but by no means simple. He was witty, he could be charming, he was a master of the quick riposte and had much Celtic romanticism in his veins. He was also inconsistent and was seen by many as an opportunist lacking principle. A political chameleon, he was a master of the spoken word and an expert at grubbing about in the political weeds. His real surname was George. He had tacked on the Lloyd, presumably to add a bit of class, and was annoyed if he was referred to as Mr George. Apart from parliamentary reports he was said to read nothing but sermons written in Welsh, and although his military experience was limited to brief service in the old, pre-Haldane, militia, he was given to monumental flights of strategy, usually based on little knowledge of the true situation and often on none at all. He began the war as Chancellor of the Exchequer and would, via the Ministry of Munitions and the War Ministry, become Prime Minister in December 1916. Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice (whose career came to an abrupt end when he accused Lloyd George of lying to the House of Commons) said, ‘Lloyd George’s strengths as a war minister were his faith in victory and his power of keeping the confidence of the public. His weaknesses were his belief in his military judgement, his power of deceiving himself, his failure to understand that opportunism, sometimes successful in peace, is highly dangerous in war.’5

  Lloyd George had little time for Kitchener’s methods, but Kitchener did not help matters by inviting unnecessary conflict with ministers. He should never, for example, have got himself involved in the row over chaplains. Prior to 1914 recognised religions in the British army were Church of England, Church of Scotland, Roman Catholic, Jewish (there were hardly any) and ‘OD’ or other denominations. Chaplains were appointed in proportion to the numbers of soldiers professing those religions. Only those ODs listed in King’s Regulations were recognised. Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised in Cabinet the spiritual welfare of Welsh recruits to the New Armies who might belong to one of the multifarious Nonconformist sects existing in Wales, which included Congregationalists, Welsh Baptists, Primitive Methodists and more. Kitchener flatly refused to appoint any chaplains from those faiths. The row escalated until Kitchener threatened to resign if the matter was pressed, after which he gave way ‘gracefully’.6 The War Minister should never have taken a stand on an issue such as this. The provision of chaplains was a matter for the Adjutant General, and should have been dealt with through the normal administrative machinery of the army. Lloyd George should not have raised it in Cabinet, and probably did so to cause mischief; Kitchener should have refused to be drawn.

  Kitchener and Lloyd George also disagreed over the raising of a New Army Welsh division. The long martial tradition of the Scots was well understood in the army, and there we
re Scottish divisions. There were also three Irish divisions, one regular (10 Division) and two New Army (16th (Irish) and 36th (Ulster) Divisions). Wales was a slightly different matter, however. There was little love for the army in the industrial and mining areas where troops had been used to break strikes; pre-war recruiting from Wales had long been difficult, and Nonconformist preachers tended to expound a doctrine of anti-militarism. Lloyd George won the day: a Welsh division was raised, and Kitchener’s view of Lloyd George as a meddler was confirmed. Again, it would have been better for Kitchener to give way and reserve his firepower for more important issues. In the event the Welsh joined with almost the same enthusiasm as did the English (twenty-two per cent of the adult male population of Wales against twenty-four per cent in England) and the Welsh Division was as least as good as any other New Army formation.

  The eventual marginalisation of Kitchener was due as much to the army as to political distaste for his methods, his reluctance to take politicians into his confidence and his abrupt attitude towards them. With the removal of many of the senior officers in the War Office to man the BEF in France, and a weak CIGS, Kitchener found himself not only Minister for War but also sole military adviser to the Cabinet. Kitchener and French, Commander-in-Chief BEF, had disagreed as to the likely duration of the war. French resented Kitchener’s coming to France in full field marshal’s uniform to exhort the Commander-in-Chief on no account to withdraw the BEF to the Channel ports when the Allies were in full retreat in 1914; he was no happier when Kitchener insisted that the BEF should fall in with French plans for the Loos battle in 1915. Withdrawal of officers and NCOs from the BEF to train the New Armies was another source of friction. When Colonel Reppington exposed the ‘Shells Scandal’ in The Times in May 1915 much of the fallout landed on Kitchener, who was responsible for military policy, manpower and the provision of weapons, equipment and ammunition. That the BEF was severely deficient in ammunition was not the fault of Kitchener, but of the pre-war policy of stockpiling for an army of six divisions fighting a war of the intensity of the South African War, red tape in the procurement system, and the refusal of the government to put the country and its industry on a full war footing. The scandal did eventually allow the politicians to take the provision of munitions away from Kitchener, and while a great deal of fuss and feathers looked good to the public, it is highly questionable whether Lloyd George and his Ministry of Munitions achieved much more than Kitchener would have done with full government backing.

  Even if the army did not entirely blame Kitchener for the shortage of munitions, senior commanders felt that Kitchener’s military experience was out of date. By taking everything on himself, Kitchener had reduced the CIGS to little more than an office manager, and improvements in the military direction of the war were stalled until the reshuffle precipitated by the removal of French from command of the BEF and the appointment of Robertson as CIGS in December 1915.

  The ill-fated Dardanelles campaign was an example of the primacy of political over military concerns. In January 1915 the Tsar had asked the Allies to mount an operation against Turkey to draw pressure off the Russians in the Caucasus. The British and French governments were concerned that Russia might be tempted to make a separate peace, and agreed to do something to help. The War Council – effectively a subcommittee of the Cabinet – considered what might be done. Kitchener realised that Russia did need some assistance but emphasised that Britain’s reserves of manpower were still small, and would be needed in Flanders. Anything to help the Russians must not involve large numbers of soldiers. Lloyd George floated a grandiose scheme that involved shifting a large proportion of the British army to the Balkans where, in concert with Serbia, Romania and Greece, it might be used to knock both Turkey and Austria-Hungary out of the war. As Serbia was all but defeated and neither Greece nor Romania was a belligerent (and would not be until June and August 1917 respectively), and as the cooperation of Italy would be essential but was not yet assured (Italy would join in May 1915), this was a highly speculative plan, and Kitchener was fortunately able to quash it.

  Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, and like Lloyd George always seeking a clever way to outflank the Western Front, suggested that the navy should land a British force at Zeebrugge and Antwerp. This too was rejected by Kitchener – the navy could certainly land a force there, but it would be far too small to achieve anything. Having pointed out that any action on another front would need a minimum of 150,000 men – who could not be spared – Kitchener reluctantly agreed at least to consider an operation in the Dardanelles. This horrified Sir John French, who saw that the only way to make troops available for an adventure away from the Western Front would be to reduce the number of divisions available to him. Then Churchill struck again. He now proposed a purely naval assault on the Dardanelles. The navy could force the narrows, knock out the Turkish forts, sail into the Sea of Marmara and bombard Constantinople. Turkey would leave the war and the Allies could attack the Central Powers through the Balkans. It seemed the answer to everybody’s problems. It would help Russia, it would not need any troops, and it would preserve the Western Front as the main theatre on land.

  The Royal Navy failed to knock out the Turkish forts, thus confirming what most sailors knew already, if only they had stopped to think about it. The Admiralty now announced that the campaign could still be won if the army took a hand. Kitchener was unhappy, but his Middle-Eastern experience inclined him to the view that a campaign once started had to be seen through to victory, otherwise British prestige would suffer a blow from which it might not recover. Churchill was optimistic and Kitchener reluctant, but British troops were sent, and as France was suspicious about British long-term intentions in the Dardanelles, French troops went too. Gallipoli was a bloody failure, sucked in more and more British, Indian, French, Australian and New Zealand troops, and had to be abandoned in December 1915.

  The Gallipoli campaign did much to destroy Kitchener’s position with the politicians. While it was they who had initiated the scheme, Kitchener had gone along with them and they could blame him for its supposed mismanagement. They could also blame him for the failure of Loos in 1915, although it was the politicians who had insisted that the BEF should conform to French wishes against the advice of the soldiers, who knew that resources were insufficient to support two major campaigns 1,000 miles apart. Matters were not helped by the Cabinet’s seeing a letter written by Keith Murdoch, an Australian war correspondent (and father of the twentieth-century press baron Rupert Murdoch), which accused everybody in the Dardanelles except the Australians of incompetence and mismanagement; nor was Kitchener’s standing enhanced by the appointment of his old adversary Lord Curzon to the government as Lord Privy Seal. Increasingly Kitchener was being forced on the defensive in Cabinet by the well-honed rhetoric of Lloyd Gorge and the legal precision of Carson (Attorney General in Asquith’s government from May to October 1915). Many politicians who were in favour of conscription were turned against Kitchener by the field marshal’s insistence, contrary to his own private view, on staying loyal to Asquith, who was against it.

  While Kitchener was away in the Gallipoli Peninsula in November 1915, making a personal inspection in order to decide what to do next, his enemies struck. Led by Lloyd George, Curzon and Carson (now temporarily out of office, but still with considerable influence), and with the support of others in the Cabinet, the government was prevailed upon to reduce the powers of the Secretary of State for War. All control over munitions was removed from him, and henceforth the Master General of the Ordnance, the responsible military officer, would report to the Ministry of Munitions. Sir John French was removed from command of the BEF and replaced by Sir Douglas Haig (a move of which Kitchener approved), and Sir William Robertson was appointed CIGS.

  Robertson would only accept the job if he was allowed to fulfil what he – and many senior officers – saw as being the proper function of the CIGS, which was to manage the conduct of the war as a whole and be the sole p
rofessional military adviser to the Cabinet. This was a severe truncation of Kitchener’s powers, but it placed responsibility for the military direction of the war where it always should have lain: with the professional head of the army rather than with one man who, for all his greatness, could not possibly fill a Cabinet post and be de facto head of the army at the same time.

  As it happened Robertson and Kitchener got on well together, and both men arrived at an acceptable modus vivendi. Robertson’s difficulties were to increase greatly when Kitchener was drowned on HMS Hampshire on his way to Russia in June 1916, and Lloyd George became Secretary of State for War.

  Robertson was brusque to the point of rudeness; like Kitchener he had no time for armchair strategists or enthusiastic amateurs, and he had little time for party politics. On one thing, however, he was quite clear: the war would be won or lost on the Western Front because that was where the bulk of the German army was, and it was there, and only there, that it could be defeated. Any dilution of Allied effort on the Western Front was to be resisted to the utmost.

  What now needed resisting was another bright idea dreamed up by politicians. Opposed to any major effort on the Western Front in 1916, Lloyd George, supported by Balfour (who had succeeded Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty), again urged action in the Balkans. The British had already been sucked into that theatre when Bulgaria joined the war on the side of the Central Powers, and the pro-Allied Prime Minister of Greece, Venizelos, asked for Allied assistance. On 9 October 1915 French and British troops landed in Salonika, at the head of the Aegean Sea, hoping that they might be able to do something to help Serbia. Unfortunately for the Allies King Constantine of Greece was not at all in agreement with his prime minister, for despite having an English wife he was strongly pro-German. He dismissed Venizelos and declared Greek neutrality. The position of the Allied forces in Salonika was not improved when the Serbs were soundly trounced; indeed the very presence of the British and French was now pointless. When Robertson took over as CIGS he advocated the withdrawal of troops from Salonika. They could do little, and every man sent there diminished Allied strength in the main theatre – the Western Front. Despite military advice the government would not accede to withdrawal from Salonika, and even insisted on reinforcing it. At one stage Lloyd George even wanted to go to war against Greece (he was dissuaded), and by 1917 the Allies had half a million men in Salonika, many of them incapable of doing anything because of the ravages of malaria.