My impressions that night were of constant close proximity to death, repugnance for the stink of the unburied corpses . . . and general gloom and apprehension. It was all a real eye opener to me, now I had some slight conception of all that our officers and men have to go thro!! The whole life is horrible and ghastly beyond conception.25
Edward was horrified at the ineffectiveness of the Allies' strategy, with its repeated fruitless attacks, achieving at best the occupation of a few trenches.26 During the Battle of the Somme he wrote that, 'These continuous heavy casualty lists make me sick ... I can't keep the wretched infantry being slaughtered out of my thoughts.'27 His admiration of the fighting men and a sense of his own inadequacy made him reluctant to wear the war decorations he was given. In 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross, which he felt he had not deserved.28 He eventually got himself posted to the staff of the British Expeditionary Force's commander in France. Whenever possible, he moved to the battle zone, and had a narrow escape visiting positions at the front before the Battle of Loos. However, he did not take unnecessary risks, according to General Sir Ian Hamilton: 'He did take risks, but they were always in the line of duty. We did worry about him . . . but not because of any insubordination on his part.' His most important role in the war was to boost the morale of the soldiers - a job at which he excelled. One soldier later wrote to him a letter of thanks for his encouragement:
Our King, I saw you in the trenches in front of Arras in March or Feb 1917. The [Battalion| did not know you were there, it was your youth that made me recognise you, being 17 myself I wondered at you looking so young & your face 8c medals flashed a photograph into mind that I had seen of you in uniform 8c I knew & I worried & pondered, you should not have been there. But it gave me courage to carry on when sometimes all hope had fled."30
In 1916 the Prince went on a morale-boosting visit to the Canal Zone in the Middle East, where he met Australians and New Zealanders evacuated from the battle of Gallipoli.
The Aga Khan, the leader of the Ismaili sect of Muslims and a very wealthy and cosmopolitan man, also met Edward during the war. He recalled later that he knew 'the man who has said so poignantly and so truly ... "I learned about war on a bicycle" - endlessly trundling his heavy Army bicycle along the muddy roads of Flanders, to places like Poperinghe and Montauban and the villages around Ypres.' Edward's spirit, added the Aga Khan, was stamped forever by the slaughter and waste of those years of trench warfare.31
During his four years on the Western Front, Edward achieved a 'quite novel popular touch' by rubbing shoulders with thousands of ordinary people in the trenches, observed Lloyd George.32 An American soldier said that his 'manner was so simple and unassuming - he was simply one soldier among a group of soldiers - that he won the liking and respect of all of us.'33 Soldiering brought to the Prince of Wales, as to many other fighting men of the ruling classes, contact with men outside their own narrow circles. 'The First World War', he wrote later, 'had made it possible for me to share an unparalleled human experience with all manner of men.'34 In a letter written from Belgium at the end of the war, he told Freda Dudley Ward that, 'One can't help liking all the men & taking a huge interest in them.'35 Harold Macmillan, who came from a very wealthy family and also served with the Grenadier Guards, made the same point after the war:
By the daily life, working in close contact with the men in one's platoon or company, we learnt for the first time how to understand, talk with, and feel at home with a whole class of men with whom we could not have come into contact in any other way. Thus we learnt to admire their steadfastness, enjoy their humour, and be touched by their sentiment.36
The young Prince of Wales may have been disappointed that he was not allowed actually to go 'over the top' with the other soldiers. But he saw far more of the war and of the servicemen than did his brother Albert, who was a midshipman on the battleship HMS Collingwood when war broke out. After just three weeks, Albert was brought home by an attack of appendicitis, to his bitter disappointment. This was the start of three years of almost constant sick leave, caused by a gastric ulcer.37 To his great relief, he had rejoined the Collingwood when it opened fire in the battle of Jutland; and although he was then in the sick bay, he insisted on going to his battle station. But he fell ill again soon afterwards. He spent most of the war working at the Admiralty - a tedious job, which he endured without complaining.38 This was a humiliating experience for Albert: men who did not fight were generally regarded as cowards, and white feathers were sent to them in the post. Edward understood how badly he felt. He wrote to his mother on 6 December 1918 to suggest that 'Bertie' stay as long as possible in France after the Armistice. 'By remaining with the armies till peace is signed,' he told her, 'he will entirely erase any of the very unfair questions some nasty people asked last year as to what he was doing, you will remember.'39
After demobilization, Edward took an active interest in the work of Toc H, an organization that was set up to provide a refuge for veterans of all ranks of men and officers, and the British Legion, which was founded in 1921 to cater for their welfare. His commitment to ex- servicemen was uncompromising. When he was in Belgium in 1923, one of his duties was to visit a hospital for the treatment of English soldiers suffering from facial disfigurement. He was introduced to the patients but, noticing that there were only twenty-seven present out of the twenty-eight known to be in the hospital, he asked to see the absent man. The officer in charge explained that his was such a frightful case - repulsive, even - that the patient had been kept away. But the Prince insisted on seeing him - as far as he was concerned, this man had the highest claim to his sympathy. He was taken to the patient's room, where he went straight up to the man and kissed him.40 This heartfelt compassion for the casualties of war was captured by newsreel reports. During a visit to North Wales, where he walked down lines of veterans, a Pathe newsreel lingered on his visible grief as he talked to a blind soldier who had lost his sight in battle.41 'I've seen both in France during the Great War and at home [how] the interests of your Subjects however humble (Especially Ex Service men) have been one of your interests', wrote a veteran to the King from his London basement in 1936. 'To me you will always be OUR TEDDY. You shook my hand at the First British Legion Gathering at the Crystal Palace. What a handshake.'42
Edward's concern for ex-servicemen embraced everyone, regardless of their background or nationality. In 1936 he invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace six thousand Canadian war veterans who - like himself - had shortly before attended the unveiling of the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France to mark the single victory in the Battle of the Somme. The garden party was a remarkable and alien sight to the conservative-minded officials of the royal court. The Deputy Comptroller of Supply at Buckingham Palace was astonished to see the Canadians strolling round the Palace grounds and passing through the famous Bow Saloon . . . dressed in lounge suits, all wearing their war medals, and many of them with berets on their heads. It was in striking contrast with the usual elegant, morning-coated, top-hatted guests at the normal Palace garden- parties.
When it started to rain hard, the King hurried indoors. A minute or two later he appeared on the balcony of the first floor, bareheaded, and gave a short speech of welcome. Never before, observed the Deputy Comptroller, had a sovereign spoken so informally at a garden party at the Palace. In the royal household, opinion about his behaviour was divided: 'The older ones, naturally, were taken aback by this new example of the changes that were taking place in Royal procedure.' But the younger ones like himself, he said, 'took the view that this was a fine thing ... for the King to step down for a moment from his exalted isolation and talk almost as man to man to the men who had been under fire with him in the muddy trenches of France and Flanders.'45
This affinity with war veterans was something that Edward's father, King George V, did not share. In 1923, he rode in an open carriage with the Prince of Wales and some other members of the royal family to review some 35,000 Silver Badge e
x-servicemen in Hyde Park. He was given an enthusiastic reception, 'but there was also another spirit abroad' - the dissatisfaction of ex-servicemen. They were angry - because they had returned home not to the 'Land Fit For Heroes' promised them by Lloyd George's slogan, but to unemployment and poverty. They had decided to tell King George of their bitterness:
As if by a prearranged signal, hitherto concealed banners with slogans were defiantly unfurled among the milling humanity which pressed about the King. In so tense an atmosphere there were possibilities of serious trouble, but fortunately the police were able to extricate the King without incident.
George V failed to understand the feelings of these men. Back at Buckingham Palace, he muttered,' "Those men were in a funny temper" - and shaking his head, as if to rid himself of an unpleasant memory, he strode indoors.'44
But to Edward, both as Prince of Wales and later as King, veteran soldiers and sailors looked faithfully as their royal patron. They begged him to use his influence with the Government to do something for them. In 1927, Edward became an enthusiastic patron of the National Council of Social Service, and went to hundreds of clubs and schemes for the unemployed and visited the poorest homes.45 The majority of the men waiting for Edward in South Wales and Monmouthshire in
November 1936, at least those who were middle-aged, were ex- servicemen like himself. The local press stressed this link between the King and his subjects: ' "I served in the War with the King", many a be-medalled veteran would say, and then, to leave no shadow of doubt in the mind of the listener - "Was in the trenches with him." '46 Even an old horse at Cwmavon, said the South Wales Argus, had survived the battles of the war. 'His name ... is either Sergeant or Major . . . and served in Flanders.'47
The horror of the war seemed to linger on into the thirties, in the sufferings of the long-term unemployed. In 1934, Harold Macmillan, now a Tory MP, drew a parallel between the despair of the trenches and the despair of unemployment. On learning in the House of Commons that the Government was planning to investigate conditions in the distressed areas of Britain, he remarked with bitter irony, 'I am glad that there has been on this occasion a visit from Whitehall to the Passchendaele of Durham and South Wales.'48 Ex-servicemen were bitter, too. The representative of the Central Ratepayers Association in Portsmouth explained to the King, 'I served my Country TWICE, during [the] Great War, and got "NOW'T" for it.'49 One man who in 1934 was sent to a camp for the unemployed, High Lodge in Durham, could hardly believe that
They had us digging trenches. Dig down so far then start further down, in stages as it were. We thought we were learning to dig trenches for war. It was just like a trench on the bloody Somme. We would dig it down one day then the next day another group would come and fill it in. That is all we done for three months. It was murder because all the time you were digging through chalk. Bloody hopeless it was.50
When the King returned to London from South Wales in November 1936, he immediately sent a message to the Lords Lieutenant of the regions he had visited, asking them to pass it on to the men who were unemployed. 'I would urge them', he said, 'not to lose heart and to rest assured that their troubles are not forgotten. - Edward R.I.'51 The people had been immensely encouraged by his visit. 'He came amongst us, he has seen, and will assuredly never rest content until happiness is abundant and useful work has been restored to the submerged tenth of Darkest Wales', observed the Western Mail & South Wales News. 'The whole nation', it added, 'has been stirred by the events of the wonderful tour.'52 The South Wales Argus thought the same. Referring to Edward's 'kingly brotherliness', it pointed out that he was ready to go 'among the humblest of his people in order that he might see for himself how the poor lived - in order that he might open the eyes of the nation to evils which need to be redressed.'53 'It may not be out of place', wrote John Rowland from the Welsh Board of Health to Sir Kingsley Wood on 20 November,
‘If I write to tell you that the King's Visit to South Wales has everywhere been a tonic to the people. I have not heard a single discouraging note; on all sides there is a strong hope that something very definite is to be done soon . . . Merthyr is placing her hopes very high.'4
Beyond Wales, too, there was widespread approval of the royal visit and of the King's words at Dowlais. They 'reverberated round the country like a thunderclap', wrote William Deedes in an article for the Morning Post.ss Most national newspapers were enthusiastic. 'Standing bowler-hatted before the towering cobwebbed chimneys of the once-famed steelworks of Dowlais, South Wales,' reported the Daily Mirror in November 1936, 'Britain's monarch spoke four live-wire words':
Spurring a Government.
Electrifying a nation of loyal subjects.
'Something', he said, 'must be done .. ,'56
'Never has the magic of personal leadership been better shown', observed the Daily Mail, 'than by the King's visit to South Wales.'57 It drew a sharp contrast between the King's energy and the National Government's inaction. Unlike Government Ministers, it observed, 'the Sovereign examined their plight and drew from them the tale of their trouble . . . the King has called for action . . . The contrast to the way in which national questions are customarily approached can escape nobody.'58 Everyone knows, enthused the New Statesman, 'that ... he is genuinely and deeply troubled about the misery and poverty which successive Governments have failed to relieve.'5" The News Chronicle, the chief organ of non-conformist opinion, commented that what the King had done was 'in the sole interest of truth and public service . . . The man in the street feels that Whitehall stands condemned.'60
The 'man in the street' was certainly encouraged by Edward's visit to Wales. The President and Secretary of the United French Polishers' London Society wrote that his organization admired the King's interest in the Special Areas 'and your Majesty's promise "Something will be done" to relieve them'.61 The genuine sympathy which he had recently displayed in South Wales, wrote a woman to the King from a village near Manchester, 'is only one of countless actions by which you have forged a bond between yourself and your people.'62
But other sections of the population were nervous about Edward's trip to Wales. 'Peers and politicians who resented his "demagogic" interest in labour', commented an American magazine, 'watched his trip nervously.'63 The statement that 'something must be done' was seen as particularly offensive because it carried an implicit criticism of Government policy and Government practice - and it was reported in this way in much of the national press. Ramsay MacDonald, who was Lord President, expressed his annoyance with the King in his diary. Referring to a meeting on 21 November with Sir George Gillett, the newly appointed Commissioner for the Special Areas, MacDonald recorded that they 'talked Distressed Areas & King's visit to S. Wales which has roused expectations; and the promises he has made will embarrass the Govt. These escapades should be limited. They are an invasion into the field of politics & should be watched constitutionally.' Members of the royal family, he added, were supposed to be above politics.64
It was not just the ministers of the National Government who were irritated by Edward's visit to South Wales. Dismay was felt across the whole matrix of the Establishment - that is, the groups of men and women who ruled Britain by reason of their traditional prominence or their wealth. The Establishment represented a very powerful alliance of the Conservative party, the Church of England (which was - and still is - the official or 'established' church) and the Tory press, especially The Times, the Telegraph and the Morning Post. H. G. Wells mocked these groups by describing them as 'the Bishops and the Court people and the Foreign Office and the Old Gentry and Bath and Cheltenham and Blimpland and all that.'65
At the centre of the Establishment was 'Society' - the exclusive circle of upper-class men and women who were closely tied to each other by birth, marriage and culture. Society was a tiny fraction of the population, but enormously influential in terms of social and political power. At its apex was the royal family, supported by the senior functionaries of the court.66 It was understood that either y
ou were 'in' Society, or you were 'out'. If you were 'in', then you shared with other members of Society a horror of anything vulgar - the word 'common' was used to express contempt. If you were 'out', then you simply did not belong. Businessmen were mostly 'out', unless they came in through the door of Conservative politics. Baldwin tried to imagine, said Beaverbrook, 'that he had the mind and habits of a country squire'.6- But in fact his family had made their money in iron and steel.
Going to public school, then to Oxford or Cambridge, was the standard route to adult life for men of Society. For women it was necessary to be a debutante and to 'come out': some eight thousand women were presented to the monarch each year at the four courts held in Buckingham Palace. Social barriers were starting to break down in the 1930s, but the power structure of British society was overwhelmingly monolithic.
On behalf of the Establishment, the editor of The Times, Geoffrey Dawson, was determined to set things straight on the matter of Edward's visit to South Wales. Dawson, in his early sixties, was a severe-looking man with thinning silver hair. A graduate of Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford, he was a Fellow of All Souls and a member of the Beefsteak Club, the Travellers Club and the Athenaeum, exclusive London clubs where he lunched and dined and discussed national affairs with other members of the male elite. In a written account of the period in which Edward went on his tour of the Welsh valleys, he objected that the Daily Mail had made a 'monstrous attempt to contrast his Majesty's solicitude for the unemployed in South Wales with the indifference of his Ministers.'68 He wrote a short leader on the impropriety and danger of this attitude which appeared in The Times on 24 November 1936. 'The King's Ministers are His Majesty's advisers,' it insisted, 'and to contrast his personal and representative concern for the well-being of a section of the people with the administrative slips of his advisers is a constitutionally dangerous proceeding and would threaten, if continued, to entangle the Throne in politics.'69 But as far as the King was concerned, he had simply responded to the tragic situation he found at Dowlais. 'I was quoted', he explained years later in his memoirs, 'as having said in the midst of some dismal scene of ruined industry, that "something must be done" to repair the ravages of the dreadful inertia that had gripped the region.'71 But this statement, he added, 'was the minimum humanitarian response that I could have made to what I had seen.'71 It was motivated not by a political aim, said Edward, but by a simple humanity. This was exactly how the visit was perceived by many of the ordinary people of Britain. 'When . . . King Edward came to Wales and said, "something must be done," he got into trouble for saying that, but he was not wrong. I would have said the same thing myself', observed a man who grew up in the Glamorgan town of Penarth in the 1930s.72
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