The Cotton Spies

by Simon Glyndwr John

CHAPTER 40

  The meeting of the Eastern Committee was going well so far, thought George Merson. The week had been sunny and warm that always cheered the English, though if it lasted longer than the following week everyone would be complaining of drought. No doubt the improving news about the allies’ situation on all fronts was also contributing to the good cheer everyone had. The German victory that had looked so likely during March, following their huge army advances in France and their successful submarine campaign, seemed to have diminished. The allied armies were regaining lost territory whilst the German submarine threat was being countered effectively by the convoy system.

  With his passion for India undiminished Merson was still worried about Central Asia, the next subject on the agenda. As chairman he already knew what was going to be discussed and as far as he could see it was one piece of good news and another of bad. He was not sure whether the two pieces of news counterbalanced each other.

  Arthur Ballard agreed with Merson that he would start with the bad news.

  ‘We have some news about the situation in Georgia that has come to us from our ambassador in Oslo.’

  Surridge interjected, ‘excuse me, Foreign Secretary, why has this come from Oslo and as it is coming from there is it reliable?’ Surridge sat back perplexed, Ballard’s statement seemed to him rather like having something happen in India and the people who first knew about it were the Bolivians.

  Ballard half smiled in a way that acknowledged the information’s source was odd. ‘Representatives of the Georgian government went to Berlin to make and indeed they have made an agreement with the German government. The Georgians have agreed to supply oil and cotton to the Germans. Apparently the Georgians and Germans have set up joint companies to handle this supply. The Georgians have also agreed to allow passage of German troops through the country. They have handed over their railways to the control of the Germans. Kress von Kressenstein, who landed in Georgia in May, commands the German troops there. On leaving Berlin following the signing of the agreements, the Georgians went to Oslo where they contacted the French and our embassies and informed both ambassadors of what they had done. The Georgians indicated that signing this agreement did not mean they supported German war aims but that they felt they had to sign the agreement because they have no army to oppose the Germans. Any resistance and they could end up with their country ravaged by invading Turks who are already present in the south of the country. These Georgians admitted that they preferred the Christian Germans to be present in their country rather than the Moslem Turks. I don’t think anyone can blame them for that,’ Ballard looked over his glasses at the meeting’s members and none of them contradicted his last sentence.

  ‘Lesser of two evils,’ Merson added, ‘general, do we have any agents in place still?’

  McColl was substituting for General Rixon who was at an Allied Military Meeting in Paris. ‘No, the missions we had in Georgia and Armenia have both been obliged to retreat.’

  ‘With the chaos that seems to be prevalent in South Russia how easy will it be for the Germans to move the oil or cotton and does it affect us directly?’ Surridge questioned.

  Merson proposed, ‘the Cabinet Secretary has those facts from the Board of Trade.’

  Sir John Baxter looked at his paper, ‘The Bolsheviks are shipping oil and cotton via Astrakhan for their own needs. The Germans could use that route.’

  ‘Surely they’d use the Black Sea ports?’ pondered Surridge.

  Sir John looked thoughtful before replying, ‘the problem is though the Germans or the Turks might control those ports, traditionally the oil exports leave the Black Sea through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean – which we control. Carrying both resources up the Danube is a strong possibility, provided they have the right ships or some other transport. It is not thought they do at the moment, though no doubt German expertise could cobble something together. I remind people an attack against shipping on the Danube was undertaken by the Royal Navy earlier in the war, but I do not think they could mount another because now our ships have no chance in getting into the Black Sea. Could the oil go through the Ukraine to Germany? I think the situation there is too fluid with the Bolos invading the Ukraine to try and win it back to Russia. So that route is vulnerable unless, as some of us think, the Bolos are German agents and if they re-conquer the Ukraine - they just wave the green flag at the Germans.’

  ‘Though I am not an industrialist or economist,’ interrupted Ballard, ‘I would expect these commodities will only slowly arrive in Germany to replenish their stocks which we know are low. Therefore even if Germany gets supplies of both resources it will have an impact on their economy by the beginning of next year at the earliest.’

  ‘By next year,’ said McColl, ‘American troops will be in Europe, trained and in such numbers that even these two commodities will not stop us winning the war.’

  ‘We want it won before then. I don’t like the thought of President Hickson controlling matters at the peace – too anti our Empire,’ Surridge stated what everyone else was thinking.

  ‘No,’ said Merson into the silence, ‘any other comments?’

  ‘Yes, there is something of military significance about this event.’ McColl looked round the room. ‘The German advance towards the Caspian now becomes easier because of this treaty they have with Georgia. They will be able to reach Baku very soon from the west using the railway to the Georgian border and that rail-line continues into Azerbaijan. However once the line moves out of Georgia will the natives or the Turks allow the Germans access to it? We all know that Turkish troops are slowly approaching the gates of Baku through Azerbaijan from the south-east. It appears to be a race between our two enemies as to who gets there first and then whoever it is, what is their intention when they get there – is it to cross the Caspian?’

  Ballard rapped the table with his knuckles, ‘good point. The Foreign Office is hoping the oil will bring the Turks and Germans into conflict over which country will or should control it – military alliance is one thing, trade competition another.’

  The silence that descended after Ballard’s comments was broken by Merson. ‘I think you do have some good news as well, general?’

  ‘The news we have is confusing so I will try and make sense out of it. The good news is that there has been change of government in Baku – the Bolsheviks have been overthrown. This new government has asked for British help against the Turks. General Muncerville whose progress to the Caspian was held up for weeks by the Jangalis tribe has finally defeated them and reached Enzeli on the Caspian. General Muncerville will now sail from Enzeli to arrive in Baku within the next three days. He can now fulfil what has always been his goal - stop Baku falling into enemy hands. The less good news is political rather than the military so perhaps it would be better for the Foreign Secretary to speak.’ McColl looked at Arthur Ballard who took this as his cue.

  ‘What happened was that the Bolsheviks actually left Baku by ship and abandoned the town to the Turks who were a few miles away. When the Bolshevik Government secretly left Baku most of the Bolshevik army joined them and took nearly all the town’s military stores. However the Bolshevik ships were forced to return to Baku by other armed ships that were loyal to the new Baku government. The military stores were unloaded and made available to the city’s defenders. When these Bolshevik troops declined to assist in the defence of Baku, apparently under orders from Moscow, they were allowed to leave for Astrakhan by sea. I understand a few of the Bolshevik troops did volunteer to remain behind to defend Baku but not many of them. All twenty six members of the former Baku government, the Bolshevik Commissioners, have not been allowed to leave the city and they have been put under arrest by the new government who consist mainly of Armenian Christians.’

  Ballard paused and raised his eyebrows. ‘Now here is a particular piece of disquieting news. There was also a German mission in Baku when the change of government occurred. Apparently this mission had received permissio
n from the Moscow Bolsheviks to go to Baku to buy not only oil and cotton but also to buy manganese and to discuss the repatriation of German POWs. This mission, I am glad to say, has been interned by the new non-Bolshevik government. From the presence of this mission,’ Ballard looked round the room, ‘the Foreign Office deduces that the Bolsheviks are aiding and abetting the German and Turkish thrust to the east.’

  ‘So, Foreign Secretary, where do we go from here?’ Surridge looked worried.

  ‘I think we can do no more than wait until General Muncerville has had a chance to report on the situation in Baku. If the Armenians, with our support, can hold Baku and if things continue to improve in France, Mesopotamia and Palestine as they have recently, perhaps the Germans and Turks will be forced to stop where they are.’

  Merson decided it was time to move on to discuss the next agenda item. ‘Do we have any news from Kashgar, Lord Surridge?’

  ‘As I said at the previous meeting, Mr Chairman, they should have left for Turkestan sometime last week. No doubt we will hear this week that they left last week. Next week no doubt I will have news of the specific date that they left last week. Unless they get to a telegraph station in Tashkent first in which case we might hear when they arrived before we have heard when they left.’ Surridge sat back pleased with his rhetoric.

  ‘Thank you, most informative,’ Merson stared down at his agenda.

  Grimes perched on the seat opposite Lord Surridge as the latter finished writing a document. That done Surridge handed the document over to Grimes, who took it but did not move out of his seat.

  ‘You wish to say something, Grimes? Out with it I will not bite you as well you know,’ he smiled when he uttered the last phrase. ‘We seem to be doing rather well against the Hun at the moment.’

  ‘Yes, that is it. I was talking to Sir Malcolm Brown of the Board of Trade last night at the club. We were discussing what was contributing more to our advance on the Western Front: our army’s efforts on its own; the defeat of the German submarines in the Atlantic; the success of our blockade.’

  ‘All three I should think,’ replied Surridge.

  ‘Indeed but we got talking about the blockade and Sir Malcolm mentioned that the Germans were very clever and that they were getting round the shortages by scientific means.’

  ‘As you and I, Grimes, are both classicists we would not understand that.’

  ‘That is what I said to him. Anyway he gave me an example of what the Germans had done.’ Grimes looked anxiously at Surridge and took a deep breath, ‘they no longer need to use cotton in their armaments they have invented a different way of generating nitro and gun cotton.’

  ‘What invention?’ Surridge’s good humour was draining from his face very fast.

  ‘They use wood pulp, wood cellulose he called it. The Germans only need cotton for clothing and they could use wool for that.’

  ‘Where do they get this wood cellulose from?’

  ‘Sweden.’

  ‘Bloody Swedes, arch fence sitters, they are making a fortune out of this war. Why do the Germans want to buy the cotton if they have a replacement?’

  ‘It is only a stop-gap because it is not as effective or as efficient as using cotton.’

  ‘Could we block the transport of the wood across the Baltic?’

  ‘We could send our fleet to attack German transport shipping but the entrance to the Baltic from the North Sea is narrow and the Germans could easily block it to our surface fleet. Our submarines would face the same problem as the surface fleet on entering the Baltic. Even if submarines could get into the Baltic it is a short voyage from Sweden to Germany so attack opportunities would be limited and I’m sure the Hun transports would have a lot of protection from the German fleet. Now Russia is out of the war the Baltic is virtually a German lake. Now with regards to the cotton we instructed our mission into Turkestan to buy all the cotton it could. Kashgar thought the amount we would have to pay for the cotton was four to six hundred thousand pounds plus transport costs say another hundred or two hundred thousand pounds. With things going so well for the Allies I wonder if the money would be better spent elsewhere. The Germans are not beaten yet, but if they need the cotton maybe we can let them buy it knowing it cannot save them.’

  ‘Explain that last statement.’

  ‘I’ve estimated it would take them several months to transport the cotton back to Germany even if conditions were right and I don’t think they are right. First, the Germans could become enmeshed in the fighting currently between the Bolsheviks and the counter revolutionaries. Second, the railway they need to transport the cotton west is being used almost exclusively by the military on both sides of the Civil War, to move troops and ammunition. Alternatives to the railway like camel or horse caravans are slow and liable to ambush by tribesmen. Third, the only viable route to Germany at the moment is across the Caspian. Our allies the FTU have ships on the Caspian, which will allow us or them to seize the cotton as embargoed goods. We get the cotton free and Germany has wasted a lot of effort and money for nothing. So, I think we should let the Germans buy the cotton.’

  The smile returned to Surridge’s face. ‘I like that. Wait have we heard from Tashkent?’ Surridge’s face changed back to a scowl when he saw Grimes shake his head. ‘Then our mission may have bought the stuff already. Half a million pounds out of my budget would pay for a lot of soldiers and bribe a lot of people up on the Northwest Frontier. We certainly do not want to waste money where we do not need to. Why were we not informed about this German use of wood pulp instead of cotton?’

  ‘I suppose they did not think it was relevant for us.’

  ‘How do they know what is relevant? Did they tell the War Office about this?’

  ‘I did not ask. I doubt it, otherwise the War Office would have told us and been less supportive of our missions.’

  ‘You forget Grimes the War Office wanted to start a jihad first and foremost. The cotton was secondary to them. I suppose none of it matters now. Get on to Simla and see if they can do anything about getting information to Tashkent to suspend any cotton purchase. I am going to bring this matter to the attention of the Eastern Committee and see what that know-all Ballard has to say. We cannot run a war Grimes without information,’ then angry he added, ‘and accurate information at that.’

  Surridge watched Grimes leave his office and then stood and began to stomp up and down the room muttering. A fly that had been annoying him all afternoon buzzing round the office was scuttling across the window trying to find its way back to the outside world. Surridge returned to his desk and picking up some papers returned with a scowl to the window. Biding his time his lordship suddenly smashed the papers against the glass.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said as he threw the screwed up the report now splattered with the fly and its blood down on the desk, ‘well it needed to be re-written anyway.’