by N S Nash
No doubt these were causes of difficulty to the Secretary for India. But I would remind the House that the paraphrasing of telegrams was not done by the Commission, but by the India Office itself. With reference to the omissions in those cables and telegrams, we were instructed by the India Office and the Government that reference to complications in Persia, and matters connected with Russia, must be omitted from any telegrams quoted by the Commission. Consequently the Commission were unable to do otherwise than they did.
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Williamson’s mild and dignified response to an accusation of criminality reflected well on him and brought the parliamentary day to a close. The House rose at 2300 hrs and the members went to their respective beds in the knowledge that, come the morrow, they would go around the same roundabout again.
It had been a very significant debate, not least because of the extraordinary accusation of criminal behaviour on behalf of the MC and the total and repeated exoneration of Hardinge by his political masters of anything and everything. By this speech, and his remarks about Hardinge, Arthur Balfour had effectively emasculated the MC. The effect would be seen in the next few weeks.
The following day, 13 July 1917, the House assembled for the second day of the debate. The House was called to order and Sir Archibald Williamson, the member for Elginshire, was first to catch the Speaker’s eye. Having served on the MC, he had spent the previous sitting listening to any number of members criticising the MC and its entire works. He was aggrieved, and it showed. Once on his feet he got off to a frank start by saying:
I find myself today placed unexpectedly in a position of some responsibility. Having been one of those who took part in an investigation of a long and arduous character, the Report of which has now been presented to this House, I must ask the indulgence of the House if I discharge the responsibility which is cast upon me today of defending the Commission against some of the attacks which I think have somewhat wantonly been made against it.
Williamson pointed out that the Commission, brought into being by the House with its membership appointed by the House, found itself in the position of a criminal in the dock rather than in the position of a body investigating and reporting upon occurrences at the request of the House. He reminded the House that the Foreign Secretary, no less, had actually stated that the Commission was on trial rather than those who had been referred to in the Report.
He made mention that he and his fellow Commissioners had spent eight months taking evidence and that they had distilled their findings into a document running to 188 pages. He questioned the ability of the House to do justice to the Report in the brief time allocated for debate and without the evidence before it. He averred that the MC would have no objection to the evidence being printed; in fact, it would be very pleased that the evidence should be published. He said that when, and if, the evidence was published it would but serve to deepen the sad impression that was left upon the minds of the Commissioners themselves. Williamson then observed:
There has been, yesterday, in the debate an effort to discredit the Commission. Apparently from what we heard, nothing very much occurred, and no one is to blame. While passing eulogies, most of which I do not deny were well deserved, on the distinguished services of statesmen and soldiers, we must not forget the grief of the parents who have lost their sons in Mesopotamia, of the widows and fatherless children who have suffered for the sins of omission as well of commission of those who were referred to.
The member then turned to the matter of the Vincent-Bingley Report, which he reminded the House was in the hands of the Government before it appointed the Mesopotamia Commission. That report apparently did not give the Government satisfaction, for it did not publish the Report and instead it took the further step of appointing this Mesopotamia Commission to go into the whole matter anew. HMG added wider terms of reference, which gave the Commission power to inquire into other matters as well as those relating to the breakdown of the medical service. The Mesopotamia Commission found that the circumstances described by the Vincent-Bingley Commission were fully confirmed by independent evidence. Not only that, but it was found that exactly the same persons were responsible for the medical part of the inquiry, as those which the Mesopotamia Commission found to be responsible.
Williamson commented on the attendance of individual witnesses and their lawyers and observed that the witnesses numbered in the hundreds, and he claimed that it was inconceivable that all these witnesses could come to make their statements accompanied by lawyers. It just was not practical.
He continued by saying that he was quite certain that the House of Commons, when appointing the Commission, never thought it was appointing a court of law. The House of Commons appointed the Commission, as men of ‘ordinary intelligence and common sense’, to inquire into what had happened, and make a report to the House. On the basis of the Report, the House of Commons, in its wisdom, could take such action as it deemed appropriate.
Williamson, not unreasonably, remarked that it was only right that the Government should defend the Commission that had been brought into being by the House of Commons. No charges were framed because it was not the business of such a commission to frame charges.
He turned again to the management of witness statements and refuted the allegation that the witnesses had no opportunity of replying, and added that most of the findings were based on the words of the witnesses themselves. It appeared that there was a rule in the Commission that when one witness made a serious reflection on another, that ‘other’ witness was informed. Some of those ‘other’ witnesses were recalled; others could have been recalled if they had requested to do so. Williamson insisted that the Commission did not refuse to recall any witness who asked to be recalled. He referred specifically to the Commander-in-Chief in India and to the Secretary of State, and said that they were both supplied with the whole of the evidence as and when it came out. General Nixon, Surgeon General Sir William Babtie, Surgeon General Hathaway and Surgeon General MacNeece had all evidence that appeared to be relevant supplied to them.
The member reminded the House that the MC was to investigate what happened in the Mesopotamian campaign, and it was not in its remit to draw attention to Lord Hardinge’s illustrious services to the Crown. The bestowal of accolades was not for the MC, for that was the prerogative of the House of Commons and the Government.
Williamson raised the standard of reporting and comment in the newspapers and said that the conclusions of the Report and the conclusions of the newspapers were entirely and totally different. He defied any man with balanced judgment to read the Report carefully and then to read what was reported by the newspapers and to find the same result from the two readings. Regretfully, the country was taking its impression of the Report from what they read in the newspapers.
The Secretary of State for India, Mr Chamberlain, raised the topic of Sir John Biles and the design and provision of river craft for the Tigris. Williamson responded with a host of facts. This subject has been briefly ventilated elsewhere in the text, so the lengthy discussion that followed is not reiterated here.
River craft having been disposed of, Williamson brought his speech to a close by regretting that the Commission was unable to bring in a whitewashing report. He averred that he knew that that was expected, certainly by an element of the Press. He said that it was unfortunate and he very much regretted that the Commission was unable to come to such conclusions.
Presumably, this was said tongue-in-cheek. He concluded his speech by saying:
The gravamen of the findings of the Commission, I think, is really unshaken by yesterday’s debate, although there has been a great deal of defence of individuals. As for asking for trials, the Commission has certainly no objection, on principle, to trials. It was not a tribunal to inflict punishment; it was only requested by this House to ascertain to the best of its judgment the correct facts. It is for the House to follow up these facts if it sees fit to do so.
I do feel that the blame
, the individual responsibility, which is brought out in this report is very serious. I admit it is very serious, especially to the individuals concerned. But, however serious and however grave it is, it is an ephemeral thing compared, as I hope, with the permanent results of the investigation.
A great deal will have been achieved if the Report of the Commission draws attention to the need for reform of Indian administration. That is what the Commissioners kept always before them, that they might leave behind them not alone a record of mismanagement and a record of blame, but might leave behind them a record that they found the condition of administration in India unsatisfactory. I think it is high time the Government, the country, and the House took this matter in hand and brought the Government of India up to modern standards.
Captain Aubrey Herbert initially struck a pragmatic note when he said that he had concluded that if the House had to decide between retribution or salvation, by introducing much needed reforms, the House would choose salvation.
He agreed with Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, who the previous evening had asked, ‘What are we doing by this debate to help the war effort?’ He nailed his colours to the metaphorical mast by declaring that he would welcome any inquiry, which he hoped, at the very least, would ‘get rid of Sir William Meyer and Sir Beauchamp Duff’. He did not end there, and sought punishment for Surgeon General Hathaway and Sir William Babtie. Having accepted at face value the conclusions of the MC in respect of the four men named, Herbert then said that he would welcome any inquiry that would restore Chamberlain to office because, he claimed with some justification, the House knew that Chamberlain’s only fault was loyalty to his colleagues and subordinates.
He pleaded for mercy for Sir John Nixon on the basis that he was ‘a very gallant, fighting Englishman’, but did not acknowledge those many other gallant, fighting Englishmen who had died at the whim of Nixon.
Finally, he expressed the hope that Lord Hardinge would be ‘returned to that career for which his training and qualifications suited him so admirably’. Herbert saw nothing in the MC Report that gave cause for the censure of Hardinge. It was an unbalanced contribution to the debate, and Herbert was not alone in this respect. However, Mr Joseph King, who spoke later, balanced Herbert’s contribution initially by reiterating, in large measure, his early observations. Then he continued:
There is one other point to which I wish to call the attention of the House in connection with this report, which seems to me to be rather misunderstood, or placed in the wrong light. Honourable Members on both sides have referred to the delinquencies of officials and ministers as if they were crimes and misdemeanours, and as if they were capable of being brought to a court of law, and being established there as crimes, misdemeanours or offences according to the criminal law of the land.
As I take it, no criminal charge has been brought or been imagined by anybody. It is not a question of whether a man has been guilty of a crime; it is a question of whether the men we have entrusted with enormous powers, who have had immense confidence placed in them, have proved worthy. Have they proved capable, have they done their best, have they used the ability and imagination, the industry and the courage, which we expected of them? I believe on those points these men stand convicted. The evidence indeed has not been published, but extracts of it have been published. There is the story as put together by such unprejudiced men as Lord George Hamilton – a man who, having lived so much in official life, is certain not to have taken an unfair view towards the officials, a man who has been Secretary of State for India himself, and naturally from Conservative instincts and record might naturally be expected to be exceedingly kind to the traditional methods and achievements of the English Government. From that point of view we ought to consider that we have a right to complain.
These men have been judged by their equals. They have been judged by men sympathetic to them. It has been no hostile court before whom they have been brought, and these are the men who have condemned them.
Lord Portsmouth, writing to The Morning Post on 12 July 1917, had been unimpressed by what he had heard so far. He concluded that the debate ‘exhibits the most degrading of spectacles – an official bureaucracy, whether aristocratic or democratic, acting as a kind of trade union in its worst aspect to defeat the ends of justice and the responsibility of public servants to the public.’
Chapter notes
297 Mr Bonar Law (1858–1923). He is the only British Prime Minister to be born outside the UK and was also the one with the shortest term in office (October 1922 to May 1923). He died in office. In 1917 he was Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer, having been previously Secretary of State for the Colonies (May 1915 to December 1916).
Chapter 18
Responsibility – the Reckoning
‘Responsibility is the test of a man’s courage.’
(Admiral Lord St Vincent, 1735–1833)
The debate was at an end and the consensus seemed to suggest that something should be done, but quite what and to whom and in what degree was not clear. The committee formed by Lloyd George and consisting of Lord Curzon, Austen Chamberlain (censored by the Mesopotamia Commission), G.N. Barnes298 and Lord Derby299 was tasked with making recommendations to consider what form of disciplinary action could and should be taken. When Hardinge had sight of Curzon’s recommendations, he commented that they were ‘worthy of him, drastic and cruel’.300
Curzon was of a mind to apply draconian sanctions at the senior level but he was thwarted when five of the six officers insisted on their right to be tried by court martial. The MC Report was not, of itself, proof of either criminality or even malfeasance, and the disciplinary proceedings were quietly dropped.
71. David Lloyd George. (Internet source)
The Manchester Guardian encapsulated the position in which His Majesty’s Government found itself. It recorded:
But after all, does the public servant have the right to have the benefit of all legal rules of evidence like the burglar? We are not sure. The burglar, if convicted, loses his civil rights; not so the politician or the public servant who is censured for incompetence or bad judgment. The one is innocent until he is convicted; the other has to be above suspicion. In the one case the issue is one of guilt in the eye of the law; in the other it is one of political fitness or unfitness. The true analogy is not with the criminal but with the employee, who often loses his position on evidence that would be insufficient to convict a man on a criminal charge. All that can be reasonably expected of an employer who has grounds for suspicion is that he should act without haste and without prejudice; he need not observe all the legal rules of evidence. We confess that for the Government, after appointing a commission, to appoint a judicial court of inquiry strikes one as an evasion of executive responsibility.301
The Manchester Guardian had hit the nail on the head. In London there was this unfinished business. What to do about the MC and its Report? The House of Commons had made noises about forming a tribunal/court of inquiry to take further evidence in accordance with judges’ rules, but there was corporate inertia in Whitehall. No one initiated further action and so, by default, London took the easy way out and decided to do … absolutely nothing. It ‘evaded executive responsibility’, mentioned by the Guardian, to a heroic degree.
The MC Report was ignored and allowed to wither on the vine. Its pages were left unturned in public libraries and this heart-rending chronicle of abject misery and suffering was just quietly shelved and forgotten.
* * *
The cyclic nature of history and military history in particular is evidenced by the American/British invasion of Iraq (Mesopotamia) in 2003. This was, ostensibly, on the premise of seeking out the ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (WMD) held by the Iraqi Government. Eighty-nine years earlier, the aim of the invasion was to secure a source of oil, swiftly changed to an endeavour to annex the entire country.
In both cases the public were misled as to the validity of the action that subsequently l
ed to massive loss of life. The most recent campaign left chaos in its wake and gross instability in the country. At the time of writing, that murderous instability still persists.
In the face of increasing public clamour, it was in 2009 that the Prime Minister (Brown) instituted an inquiry to be headed by Sir John Chilcot GCB PC, a senior civil servant.
Decades earlier, the MC (see pages 223–226) consisted of five members who were elected politicians; one was a member of the House of Lords and three were military men. Chilcot’s team was made up, initially, of two historians, a diplomat and a crossbench member of the House of Lords – none were elected individuals, none have a military background and none are lawyers, a deficiency shared with their forbears. Chilcot does, however, have two ex-officio individuals – a QC and a general – to give legal and military advice when required.
Predictably, the composition of the Chilcot team drew cross-party criticism. Sir Martin Gilbert, a historian and member of the inquiry, and hopefully open-minded, wrote in 2004 that George W. Bush and Tony Blair ‘may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill’. He may have been right, but he died in February 2015 and his contribution to the Chilcot Report, whenever it is made public, remains to be seen.
Amid rising public disquiet, the Chilcot Inquiry went about its business with a notable lack of urgency and made it clear that it did not intend to report until 2016, at the earliest. The Daily Telegraph commented: