THOUGH HE WAS only a backbencher, because he was an intimate of Bonar Law he was all of a sudden a major player. People were frightened of Max Aitken, as they are of any force of nature, and many wanted to reduce his influence to remove their fear. He was also inexhaustibly bright, and curious enough about others to make friends easily. But he could be as deadly as a snake with venom if thwarted. He continued in finance, both in Canada and England, bought a bank in Britain, and had a fondness for gambling in Monte Carlo.
He stayed in London to see what was happening in the political theatre. Once again, he was not in Gladys’s life, though she struggled to make a life for them all. Now she was in a foreign land, with her children. He would come back and forth, but it was like it always was, and always would be; there was always a hotel, where he could stay away. He would dress to go out to dine at night, at the gayest spots in town, alone. There were always other women. And he did not chastise himself for this, until it was too late.
Aitken came to England and to the government in a time of real class upheaval. The world was changing. The Conservative (or, as it was also called up until the First World War, the Unionist) Party, ostensibly the party of the upper classes, the party he belonged to, was in disarray; the Irish were pressing for Home Rule; the power of the establishment, in the guise of the fuddy-duddy House of Lords, was being challenged by people like the radical Liberal cabinet minister David Lloyd George; radicalism was sweeping the rank and file of British Labour, too. There were anarchists, nihilists, and Fenians. Women were calling for a voice in decision-making. There were marches and protests in the street. There was also a smell of war on the wind. All of this created divisions and fear and opportunity. Yes, it was the top of the world, and it spun like a top that might tumble on its side.
Max longed to be a player in the Conservative ranks in England. It was part of his nature to want to rule, or at the very least to belong with those who did. The famous picture of him walking side by side with Churchill on the HMS Prince of Wales in 1941 was no accident. Don’t think that, just because he wanted to be there, he was not needed by those he walked beside.
Still, not everyone was at ease with him. There was much talk about and against him by very famous British politicians, who hoped to stop him before he became too powerful. He was often the subject of gossip. His lax moral form was constantly whispered about.
There were flaws in his registry others were straining to see. They were trying to place him—somewhere where he wouldn’t be a threat. Asquith, the British Liberal prime minister, distrusted him immensely, and told Churchill so in 1911, writing, of Max becoming a commissioner of trade, “Aitken is quite impossible, his Canadian record is of the shadiest.” He was a charlatan and an upstart. They hated the idea of his wealth, and how he waded through the scene like a bull in a china shop. He could foresee trouble, he just couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was. He was also a bounder. A common adulterer.
Still I ask, if he had stayed at Cherkley, had dinner with Gladys, spoken to the nanny about his children, would the world have been the better for it? Could one believe his marriage would have been?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Law Becomes
Conservative Leader
For much of Aitken’s life, he was propelled or driven to succeed on the back of failure. He was also the kind of man who liked to create division. This is why he had in some circles such a bad reputation and was so unpopular. He revelled in division, and some say he revelled in his own bad press. There were probably reasons for this that were caused as much by the forces aligned against him as by something within himself.
In 1912, Arthur Balfour, the ageing leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, found himself head of an Opposition mired in unpopularity. Balfour, another Scotsman, was an intellectual (Eton and Cambridge) and had actually made something of a name for himself with a book of philosophy, Defense of Philosophic Doubt, published in 1889. He was a lifelong bachelor, had come up under former prime minister the Marquis of Salisbury (a man of the nineteenth century), and was now part of the old guard. According to Liberals like Prime Minister Asquith and David Lloyd George, he was relying on the hated aristocratic House of Lords for his main political support. The radical wing of the Liberal Party, headed by Lloyd George, was ostensibly for the common man, and wanted to weaken the power of this same muddling House of Lords once and for all.
When a bill was passed to contravene the power of the Lords, and Balfour, as Opposition leader, lost the Conservative fight against this bill, he was forced by his own party, to step down.
Aitken did not care much for the House of Lords either. Even if he was a Conservative and the House of Lords was a mainstay of Conservatism, he was still too much of a Canadian. One of the problems Max had was subtle enough. How could he be a Conservative, if he came, as he said, from poverty in Canada? That is, people constantly equate Conservatism not with values but with property, especially if they themselves are liberal or socialist, propertied or not.
With Balfour gone, Max helped persuade his friend Bonar Law to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party. He also persuaded Bonar Law to let him, Max Aitken, handle the campaign. For Max knew how to handle things when things got unsavoury. For Bonar Law, it was perhaps the best thing to happen to his political career. Law’s sister once complained to Law about this “awful man” Aitken, and Bonar Law supposedly said: “Mary, allow me to love him.”
The Conservative leadership of Great Britain would never have gone to the man from Rexton, New Brunswick, if Max Aitken from Newcastle, New Brunswick, hadn’t been one of the main players behind the scenes. He sized up the opposition and saw them to be the kind of mediocrities he had dealt with before. Max very likely had little respect for them and always, as a “cat who walked alone,” wanted to prove himself against them.
In the beginning, a Mr. Walter Long and Austin Chamberlain were running neck and neck against one another for the Unionist (Conservative) Party leadership. Though many Unionists of the time lamented that both candidates left much to be desired, the name Chamberlain is synonymous with British politics. Austin Chamberlain, older brother of the future prime minister Neville Chamberlain (1937–1940), who was to cave in to Hitler at Munich, had been chancellor of the exchequer under Prime Minister Arthur Balfour. His pictures, as those of his brother Neville, make me think of an austere nineteenth-century butler. He was from one of the most powerful Conservative families in the realm, and probably would have won, had not Sir Max Aitken himself stepped in, convinced Law, who was widely thought to be clear-thinking and practical, to run—and then taken the helm of Bonar Law’s campaign.
Aitken’s strategy was simple enough. He had Bonar Law’s supporters first back Long, then shift en masse to Chamberlain, then back to Long—like passengers rushing from one side of a sightseeing ship to the other. Finally the party realized that Bonar Law, who could so sway the leadership race, must be their new leader, as the great compromise that many wanted in the first place. Sir Max Aitken’s hands were all over this. So, I am sure, was his money. Like a behind-the-scenes conjuror, he always ran boards without belonging to them. This is why I never took seriously the contention that he aspired to the prime ministership. He was much better at back-room stuff. In this he was not unlike another New Brunswicker, of my father’s generation, Dalton Camp.
Still, back in 1912, many of the crème de la crème of the British Conservative Party felt they had been forced into this compromise by this man from away, and they would never forget the sting. They would never forget Max’s large head and moccasin mouth, grinning at them, like a man who has just put them in checkmate. Max was already disliked by the Liberals. So we will see, in the next few years, how both Liberals and Conservatives formed an unspoken British-born, Eton-educated coalition against him—one that he didn’t see coming until it was too late.
Max had had great moments already, but there were flaws and weaknesses that his enemies were straining to see. And some of t
hese enemies were as cunning . . . well, as cunning as his good friend, Welsh-born radical Liberal David Lloyd George himself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
War
“I’m a friend of old Lloyd George
And George is a friend of me
Together we will go
Marching to Victory!”
So went the song.
Just for sheer stupidity, baseness, governmental pomposity, upper-class egomania, and false morality, no other war approaches the war of 1914–1918. It came out of a welter of snubs and threats and bluster, and ended wiping out an entire generation, and at least four monarchies. So quickly did it come that Bonar Law himself, head of the Conservative Party of Great Britain in 1914, had to explain why his own Scottish ironworks were still selling steel for German battleships. The secretary (and second wife) of Liberal cabinet minister David Lloyd George, Frances Stevenson, was so worried about Liberal defections if Prime Minister Asquith supported going to war on the side of France and Russia without real provocation, that, as she wrote, she prayed every night for Germany to invade Belgium to give England a “just” cause. We can see that Lloyd George’s radicalism and precious fight for the common man, the “little English,” who would end up doing most of the fighting, must have contained at least a little selfinterested power-seeking in the end.
Sir Max Aitken did not want war, and was surprised that so many of his colleagues did. (In fact this is a central point of Aitken’s life, and perhaps it came from the manse: he never wanted war—except on a personal level.)
But he was also aware of the fact that the sitting Liberal government might have to form a coalition with the Tory Opposition in order to last through this war. And, being Max, he was content to try and get this worked out, for his and Bonar Law’s benefit. That a coalition would increase Bonar Law’s power was unquestionable—and Sir Max was a dear, dear friend and confidant of Bonar Law.
The Liberal Winston Churchill actually wanted and promoted a coalition government in early August 1914. He did this for one reason: in case of a revolt against the war within his own Liberal Party. All of this, of course, delighted Max.
For the first time in a few years, Max, who perhaps thought little of his duties as an MP, spent some of his time in the House of Commons, dining with both Liberal and Tory members. But once Germany did invade Belgium, the die was cast, the non-intervention revolt within the Liberal ranks was thwarted, and a coalition became unnecessary (for the moment).
Rudyard Kipling wrote to Aitken, claiming it was the end of civilized life. Max, it was said, reassured him with £50 in gold, a sack of flour, and a ham. The trouble with a great imagination, as Conrad wrote in Lord Jim, is that it can play havoc with your nerves.
Aitken fell out of favour with his Tory party in September 1914, and with Kipling soon after, over what he considered foolish hysterics over Irish Home Rule, which did not matter with a major war near their shores. (He supported Home Rule for all of Ireland, while Law, and most in the House of Lords, wanted Ulster excluded.) Aitken and Bonar Law had a bitter argument over this, and Max left for Canada. He even thought of staying and becoming a sitting member for Northumberland County once again. Once again he wanted to go back to his roots and live life in a simpler way.
He was only persuaded to go back to Great Britain as the voice for Canada, and to create the Canadian War Records Office—and he ended up doing this better than anyone ever could. He was so successful that the British High Command complained by 1915 that it seemed to the world that Canada was in every battle. (Well, they were in enough.)
Max visited the Front as a lieutenant-colonel, for he was preparing to write a book about the Canadians. In a picture I have seen, he looks like an enthusiastic schoolboy ready to see a chemist’s lab explode. He may have been kept out of harm’s way, but if he was anywhere close to the Front, that may have been impossible. He could well have gone to the Front just after Churchill visited, for Max was an enthusiastic imitator of others. All his life he imitated those who assumed they were his betters, even if he knew in most ways they weren’t. Winston Churchill, of course, was one exception to this rule. Still, if Winston went, he would go too. When Winston had a painting done by Graham Sutherland in the 1950s, Max had one done as well. Stanley Baldwin (Conservative prime minister of Great Britain in the 1920s and 1930s) had a fine player piano at 10 Downing Street. In Max’s museum in Newcastle, New Brunswick, one sits. Hey, my boys, this is what the orphan does.
BACK IN ENGLAND, Max now and again entertained friends at Cherkley. On many a weekend there was a party, in the good old-fashioned Miramichi tradition. I don’t know if they all sat in the kitchen, but the guest book was filled. Max had other interests too, besides business and politics. He set up house in apartments in the neighbourhood called The Temple, closer to town, and then, closer still, in Hyde Park, a few blocks from Opposition leader Bonar Law.
From here he kept his eye on the shifting politics of the time and tried with some measure of success to influence events. He had many lady friends, seduced by his money, his fame and power, his narcissism, and his pretended devil-may-care attitude. For almost a year he stayed away from his family. And it was at his apartment in The Temple that his wife and children, coming to visit him one day, found him in bed with a well-known lady. These intrigues would in time help to kill his wife, and in the end turned his daughter’s love to hatred.
Max has been criticized for a great many things. He has been accused of theft and being a womanizer. Theft maybe not; womanizer, of course. He bedded many. A moral lapse certainly, but why such reaction to the man? The last thing he pretended to was sainthood. In fact, he dabbled in that moral ambiguity so fashionable in our politics and literature and culture of today. Clementine Churchill, one of the women who hated him (which I always thought showed her distinct lack of imagination), had an affair herself, which most people neglect to mention, or tacitly approve.
Max did not fare as well with that kind of shoddy public opinion. I for one am not saying that he should have. But so much of this was tossed his way by a society in which mores were corrupt and understood to be. The reputation of David Lloyd George, the brilliant Liberal radical who became prime minister of Britain in 1916, fares much better, though he demonstrated the same incontinence. In one letter, Lloyd George writes that Max had the blood of broken Commandments on his hands, but Lloyd George was dubbed “the Goat” by others in the House, and had a man in his employ who would pay off women who had been offended by his sometimes overt advances.
BUT AT THIS TIME, on those grey, rainy, and tragic days, with huge dreadnoughts in the English Channel, Max was truly the main connection between the two political parties in Great Britain. Yes, apart from champagne and women and making sure the contributions of Canadians in the war effort were recognized around the world, he would do another merger. As his friend H.G. Wells, writer of The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, said, “When Max dies, he will be kicked out of paradise for trying to set up a merger between heaven and hell.” Of course the war was a terrible hell, and by 1915 this is exactly what he was trying to do.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Making of
Prime Minister
David Lloyd George
Let’s go back to the second decade of the last century for a moment.
Asquith’s Liberals were in power. In May 1915 they were reeling from the resignation of Sea Lord Fisher because of his dispute with Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty (the political position in the Navy), over the sinking of the battleship Goliath in the Dardanelles (it was not a huge battleship, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back) and the slaughter of the Australians at Gallipoli. This all happened during the Dardanelles campaign. Churchill had conceived of the plan to take the strait off Turkey, hoping to capture Constantinople and maintain a rearguard action against the enemy, the Germans and Austrians, and the Turks. This caper ended with the loss of a quarter of a million men, and caused the
resignation of Sea Lord Fisher and the subsequent firing (if we can call it that) of Churchill.
Losing Sea Lord Fisher over his dispute with an extremely unpopular Winston Churchill was a desperate blow to the Liberal government. Fisher was perhaps the greatest naval officer since Nelson, and had served the British with distinction for almost fifty years. He had masterminded the modernization of the British naval fleet in the early part of the twentieth century, by promoting the building of both submarines and battleships.
But really, by early 1916 there was no way to buoy up the Liberal government of Asquith except with Tory help. Now a coalition would have to be formed—that is, a merger. And Max Aitken from Newcastle, New Brunswick, merger-maker extraordinaire, was there.
Here were the principal players in 1916: Asquith, the prime minister (Liberal); Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty (disgraced Liberal); Fisher, First Sea Lord (resigned); Kitchener, minister of war for Asquith, deceased (the victim of a mine on his way to Russia); Lloyd George, chancellor of the exchequer and top Liberal cabinet minister; Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative Party; Austin Chamberlain, top Tory member; Sir Max Aitken, Tory MP for Ashton-under-Lyne.
MAX AITKEN, as well as many others, was politically astute enough to know that an election during the war would not favour a change in government. Therefore, the best possible solution was for a coalition government, which would for the time being keep Asquith and the Liberals in power but would give the Tories—that is Bonar Law—a strong representation within the war cabinet. And as Bonar Law’s friend and confidant, he would tag along. This is what Max hoped for—to be a tag-along into the cabinet.
A.J.P. Taylor states that Aitken wanted Bonar Law to have close to equal authority with the prime minister. Churchill, who had wanted the coalition in 1914, did not want it now for personal reasons. He desperately feared he would lose any personal power if a coalition were formed. The political climate had turned completely against him.
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