Traitor King
Page 12
On 31 July, de Rivera reported:
Yet the Duke declared he wanted to proceed to the Bahamas. No prospect of peace existed at the moment. Further statements of the Duke indicate that he has nevertheless already given consideration to the possibility that the role of an intermediary might fall to him. He declared that the situation in England at the moment was still by no means hopeless. Therefore, he should not now, by negotiations carried on contrary to the orders of his government, let loose against himself the propaganda of his English opponents, which might deprive him of all prestige at the period when he might possibly take action. He could, if the occasion arose, take action even from the Bahamas.37
Ribbentrop responded later that day by sending a ‘Most Urgent Top Secret’ telegram to the Legation in Portugal, stating that ‘Germany is now determined to force England to make peace by every means of power. It would be a good thing if the Duke were to keep himself prepared for further developments.’
He requested Santo Silva ‘make the most earnest effort to prevent his departure tomorrow, since . . . We are convinced that the Duke will be so under surveillance there that he will never again have the chance to come to Europe, even by airplane,’ adding:
Should the Duke in spite of everything be determined to depart, there is still the possibility that the Portuguese confidant might remain in touch with him and arrange some other way to transmit communications verbally, whereby we can continue beyond this present contact and, if occasion arises, negotiate . . . Please keep this telegram confidential and under your personal charge.38
The British authorities had no illusions about Santo. An intelligence officer, Desmond Morton, had filed a memo to Churchill, based on information from a source in Madrid and Lisbon:
Senhor Esperito Santo, head of the bank of that name in Lisbon, is very pro-German and a centre of peace propaganda. HRH the Duke of Windsor visited him in Lisbon and according to Senhor Espirito Santo, manifested extreme defeatist and pacifist sympathies. I find that Mr Jebb, Foreign Office, has heard similar reports about HRH. Senhor Esperito . . . is a crook. He is handling very large sums in bank notes and dollar securities from Germany via Switzerland to the Americas. These monies are almost certainly German loot from the captive countries.39
The psychological stress on the Windsors continued right up to departure. Pressure was put by Don Nicolas Franco on the Portuguese prime minister, António de Oliveira Salazar, to try and keep the couple on the Iberian Peninsula. In the small hours of Thursday morning, 1 August, Santo Silva was summoned by Hoyningen-Huene and he agreed to ask Salazar to intervene to try and keep the Duke in Portugal. Wallis was sent an anonymous gift of flowers with a greeting card containing a warning. One of their chauffeurs was bribed to refuse to go to the Bahamas, the car taking their luggage to the ship was sabotaged, and the luggage only reached the ship after an hour’s delay.
Primo de Rivera was also sent to try and dissuade the couple from leaving and told Stohrer, ‘The Duke hesitated right up to the last moment. The ship had to delay its departure on that account.’40 However, on the evening of 1 August, Schellenberg watched through binoculars from the tower room of the German Embassy as the Windsors steamed out of Lisbon on SS Excalibur. The same day, Hitler issued his Directive No. 17 ordering a full-scale attack on Britain.
On 2 August, Hoyningen-Huene sent a ‘Most Urgent, Secret’ telegram to Ribbentrop that: ‘Every effort to detain the Duke and Duchess in Europe (in which connection I refer particularly to Schellenberg’s reports) was in vain,’ but, ‘To the appeal made to him to cooperate at a suitable time in the establishment of peace, he agreed gladly . . . He would remain in continuing communication with his previous host and had agreed with him upon a code word, upon receiving which he would immediately come back over.’41
It was clear the Duke had not given up hope of returning to Europe.
1 Biographical Memoirs of Fellows X, Proceedings of the British Academy 172, BAA/FEL/10/585, British Academy Archive. Cf. obituary, Independent, 5 July 2006.
2 Bruce Taylor to the author, 27 April 2021.
3 DGFP, AA–B15/B002549, Vol. X, p. 152.
4 Ribbentrop to Stohrer, 11 July 1940, DGFP, AA–B15/B002549–51(GD D/X/152), No. 152, Vol. X, pp. 187–9.
5 Document 56, Fundacion national Francisco Franco, Documentos ineditos para la Historia del generalismo Franco, Vol. 11–1, Madrid, 1993, quoted Urbach, p. 214.
6 Stohrer to Ribbentrop, 16 July 1940, DGFP, B15/B002563.
7 Stohrer to Ribbentrop, 16 July 1940, DGFP, B15/B002563.
8 She was held up by the Gestapo as part of a negotiating ploy and finally reached the Bahamas in November.
9 ‘Most Secret’ telegram to Alec Cadogan, 26 September 1940, FO 1093/23, TNA. Parts remain redacted under 3(4) of the Public Records Act.
10 John Peck to Churchill, 20 July 1940, CHAR 20/9A–B/96, Churchill College Archives.
11 Churchill to the Duke, 24 July 1940, CHAR 20/9A–B/103, Churchill College Archives.
12 The cost of diverting a ship via Bermuda was $7,500 at a time when every available cruiser was needed to protect Britain.
13 The Duke to Churchill, 18 July 1940, CHAR 20/9A–B/87, Churchill College Archives, and CO 967/122, TNA.
14 Lisbon to Alec Cadogan, 19 July 1940, FO 1093/23, TNA.
15 Herbert Pell to Cordell Hull, 20 July 1940, NA 844 E 001/52, NARA.
16 Robert Vansittart to Lord Halifax, 23 July 1940, CO 967/122, TNA.
17 See John Costello, Ten Days That Saved the West (Bantam, 1991), p. 347, and FO371/24408, TNA.
18 Eduard Hempel to Foreign Ministry, 22 July 1940, Telegram 201, B15/B002577, Vol. X, p. 262.
19 Stephen Dorrill, Blackshirt (Penguin, 2006), p. 517.
20 Diary note, 23 July 1940, in Weizsäcker Erinnerungen (Freiburg, 1950), p. 294, quoted Costello, Ten Days, p. 348.
21 Observer, 12 November 1995; Report of the PVDE on the Visit of the Duke of Windsor to Portugal, PT/TT/AOS/CO/NE-1A/17, Arquivo Nacional, Torre do Tombo, Lisboa.
22 Bova Scoppa to Count Ciano, 22 July 1940, Italian Foreign Office archives, quoted David Irving, Churchill’s War, Vol.1 (Veritas, 1987), p. 375.
23 Stohrer to Joachim Ribbentrop, Nos. 2474 and 2492, both unpublished, Churchill’s War, p. 375.
24 Bova Scoppa to Count Ciano, 25 July 1940, Italian Foreign Office archives, Churchill’s War, p. 375.
25 DGFP, No. 228, 1504/371063–6, quoted James Graham-Murray, The Sword and the Umbrella (Times Press, 1964), pp. 239–241.
26 Stohrer to Ribbentrop, 25 July 1940, DGFP, B15/B002582–3.
27 Stohrer to Foreign Ministry, 26 July 1940, DGFP, AA–B15/B002591–3, Telegram 235, pp. 317–18.
28 Hoyningen-Huene to Berlin, 26 July 1940, DGFP, No. 749, B002597, unpublished, Churchill’s War, p. 375.
29 In 1940, 50 million francs would have been the equivalent of £3 million, almost £172 million today.
30 De Velasco operated as a German spy in Britain from 1941. See his Ml5 file KV2/3535, TNA, and his memoirs, Memorias de un Agente Secreto, Ed Plaza & Janés, Barcelona, 1979.
31 Bloch interview with Eccles, 1983, Churchill’s War, p. 375.
32 Lord Eccles interview, BREN 2/2/5, p. 14, Churchill College Archives.
33 Churchill to the Duke, 27 July 1940, CHAR 20/9A-B, Churchill College Archives, and Monckton Trustees, Box 18, Folio 51, Balliol College.
34 Bova Scoppa to Count Ciano, 29 July 1940, Italian Foreign Office archives, Churchill’s War, p. 376.
35 Hoyningen-Huene to Ribbentrop, 30 July 1940, DGFP, AA–B15/B002609 (unpublished), No. 783, marked most urgent. De Rivera reported the next day exactly the same: ‘He could, if the occasion arose, take action even from the Bahamas.’ DGFP, B15/B002619–20, quoted Donaldson, p. 373.
36 Neill Lochery, Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light 1939–45 (Public Affairs, 2011), p. 82.
37 de Rivera, 31 July 1940, DGFP, B15/B002619–20.
38 Ribbentrop to Portug
uese Legation, 31 July 1940, DGFP, AA–B15/B002617–18, Vol. X, No. 265, pp. 378–9.
39 Desmond Morton to Winston Churchill, 4 August 1940, FO 1093/23, TNA.
40 Stohrer to Ribbentrop, 3 August 1940, DGFP, B15/B002641–2, Vol. X, No. 285, pp. 409–10.
41 Hoyningen-Huene to Ribbentrop, 2 August 1940, DGFP, B15/B002632-3, Vol. X, No. 276, pp. 397–8.
CHAPTER 11
Exiled
The royal couple, together with the Woods and Gray Phillips, arrived in Bermuda on 9 August and were met by a guard of honour and band at the Yacht Club steps. They spent the next few days at Government House, swimming, shopping and playing golf, whilst they waited to pick up their connection to the Bahamas.
Whilst there, the Duke was appalled to receive a telegram from Lord Lloyd, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, saying that the Duchess was not entitled to a curtsey and should be addressed as ‘Your Grace’. He drafted a reply, saying in that case he would ‘not proceed to Nassau to take up my appointment’. Eventually he was persuaded not to send it.1
On 15 August, at the height of the Battle of Britain when Britain was fighting for its very survival, the Duke sent a coded telegram to Santo, who reported it to the German Ambassador. In turn, Hoyningen-Huene sought instructions from Berlin. ‘The confidant has just received a telegram from the Duke from Bermuda, asking him to send a communication as soon as action was advisable. Should any answer be made?’2
If genuine, as it almost certainly was, this was communication with a known foreign agent during wartime, which meant that the Duke could have been persecuted under the 1940 Treachery Act.3
The royal couple arrived in the Bahamas on board the Canadian cargo ship MV Lady on Saturday 17 August. They inspected a guard of honour in the 95°F heat – the Duke sweating profusely in the heavy khaki uniform of a major-general – before being sworn in by the Chief Justice and driven to Government House, where the Duchess gloomily inspected their new residence and the Duke played nine holes of golf.
Their new home was a Spanish colonial house dating from 1801 of white stone with a tiled roof and large patios, and consisted of seven bedrooms, six bathrooms and twenty-four other rooms. It sat in a ten-acre garden in the heart of Nassau, facing the water and surrounded by hedges of purple bougainvillea, with rubber trees and an avenue of giant royal palms. It had only recently been renovated at a cost of $7,000, but the couple argued it required rewiring and painting inside and out, and had patches of humidity and termite infestation, with Wallis describing the dining room as looking like a ‘ski-hut in Norway’.4
There was no laundry room and all washing was carried out in a small stream in the garden and dried on rocks. Within a week the royal couple had moved out to a villa, three miles outside Nassau, loaned to them by Frederick Sigrist, creator of the Hurricane fighter, who had just been appointed Director of British Aircraft Production in America.
The Duke argued that £5,000 was required ‘in order that Government House becomes a worthy residence for the King’s representative in this Colony,’ and ‘to ensure some dignity during my term of office.’5 He continued that it would ‘take at least two months to make it habitable’ and ‘as there can be no official entertaining during that period and the heat is now intense, I propose with your concurrence to take advantage of the hot weather season and go to my Ranch in Canada.’6
Officials were appalled that Windsor wanted to leave the island as soon as he had arrived and, when resources were limited, was focused only on his own comforts. Lord Lloyd responded that the request placed him ‘in a rather embarrassing position . . . For example, may it not be said that if a sum of £5,000 can be spared from Crown Funds it might have been used to buy a fighter?’7
Walter Monckton told the Duke that Churchill was ‘very grieved to hear that you were entertaining such an idea’ and hoped that, given people were suffering rather greater hardships during the Blitz, that the new Governor ‘would be willing to put up with the discomfort and remain at your post until weather conditions made things less unpleasant.’8
The Nassau House of Assembly voted a sum of $8,000 for redecoration, but the final cost came to $20,000, which included building a new three-storey west wing to house the Duke’s staff.9 The Windsors paid for much of the internal renovation, redecorating the mansion in a modernistic style with occasional Regency touches, and Wallis furnishing it ‘with low, glass-topped cocktail tables, open cupboards that displayed Sèvres porcelain, and she dotted it with bamboo chairs. She filled the house with so many tropical flowers, it seemed like a garden.’10 As Wallis told the press, ‘I must make a home for him. That’s why I’m doing this place over; so we can live in it in comfort as a home. All his life he has travelled, and a palace to come back to is not always a home.’11
It was not a good start, with press complaints that the couple were undignified and extravagant – Wallis regularly flew in a hairdresser from Saks Fifth Avenue and flowers from Miami. Lord Lothian, the British ambassador in Washington, reported to Cadogan, ‘it is most important from the point of view of opinion in this country to avoid the impression that the Duke of Windsor is not taking his duties in the Bahamas entirely seriously.’12 Enclosing ‘copies of correspondence and newspaper cuttings which should illustrate as clearly as anything what I mean,’ he added that, ‘if we are to maintain a full and due measure of American sympathy in the present ordeal, we must one and all give the impression that we are taking life with befitting seriousness.’13
Wallis made no secret of her disgust at the posting, crossing out the Government House heading on official stationery and replacing it with the word Elba. ‘The Place is too small for the Duke. I do not mean that in any other way but that a man who has been Prince of Wales and King of England cannot be governor of a tiny place,’ she wrote to Walter Monckton shortly after arriving. ‘It is not fair to the people here or to him. The spotlight is on an island that cannot itself take it and the appointment is doomed to fail for both concerned.’14 In return, the locals nicknamed Government House ‘in honour of Wallis Windsor’s past . . . the red-light district.’15
There were numerous suspicions that the Windsors were not fully committed to their new posting. Courtney Letts de Espil, the wife of Wallis’s former lover, Felipe de Espil, was a friend of Alice Gordon who, together with her husband George Gordon, formerly American minister in the Hague, had been on the boat to the Bahamas with the Windsors. Alice, an old friend of Wallis, confided to Courtney that the Duke was:
‘. . . openly an admirer of the Germans. And we all know she was a great friend of Ribbentrop when he was Ambassador to England. She was even more stupidly outspoken against the British government than he . . . They both also openly admit their tenure of Nassau will not be long. And they were furious to have been sent there.’ All this Alice told me. There are many who think the Windsors expect to return to England in high capacity – when England makes terms with Germany.16
The British authorities remained nervous about the Windsors’ proximity to America and the inspiration they might give to Isolationists. ‘According to reports from the United States of America, President Roosevelt will try to bring about peace negotiations between Great Britain and the Axis Powers,’ claimed one briefing paper sent to Churchill in October. ‘The Duke of Windsor may also play a part in this attempt. He is known to have become convinced of the necessity for making peace when he was Liaison Officer in France.’17 The Foreign Office sent details to Philip Lothian, the British ambassador in Washington, as further evidence that the Windsors and Roosevelt should be kept apart.18
Franklin D. Roosevelt had his own concerns about the couple. He now reviewed an FBI report, commissioned at the time of the Duke’s appointment. ‘It has been asserted for some time the British Government has known that the Duchess of Windsor was exceedingly pro-German in her sympathies and connections and there is strong reason to believe that this is the reason why she was considered so obnoxious to the British government that the
y refused to permit Edward to marry her and maintain the throne,’ ran the memo to Brigadier Edwin Watson, secretary to the President:
Both she and the Duke of Windsor have been repeatedly warned by representatives of the British Government that in the interests of the morale of the British people, they should be exceedingly circumspect in their dealings with the representatives of the German Government. The Duke is in such a state of intoxication most of the time that he is virtually non compos mentis. The Duchess has repeatedly ignored these warnings.
Shortly prior to the designation of the Duke to be Governor of the Bahamas the (redaction) established conclusively that the Duchess had recently been in direct contact with von Ribbentrop and was maintaining constant contact and communication with him . . . The contacts of the Duchess of Windsor with von Ribbentrop from the villa which they were occupying became so frequent that it became necessary for the British Government to compel them to move.19
The fact Wallis sent her clothes to New York for dry cleaning made the FBI suspect that ‘the transferring of messages through the clothes may be taking place.’20
One of the FBI concerns was ‘that the Duchess may align herself with Axel Wenner-Gren, who you will recall has within the past year or so purchased a home at Nassau and apparently intends to maintain a permanent residence there. Lady Williams Taylor (the grandmother of Brenda Frazier) has been entrusted by the British Government with the social side of the problem of keeping the Windsors and the Wenner-Grens apart.’21
At the beginning of August, a letter sent to Axel Wenner-Gren from Rio de Janeiro had been intercepted by the FBI. It mentioned the arrival of a ‘new and interesting family with which I assume you will at once become friendly. I have met an old acquaintance who . . . states that family hold sympathetic understanding for totalitarian ideas . . . This should be of great significance for forthcoming development of events.’22