by Anne Edwards
David believed his life was expendable because he had four brothers at home. One cannot say that he was particularly willing to take chances with his life because his death would bring no threat to the line of succession. Still, he certainly would have preferred that awesome responsibility not ever to become his. The problem was, his family was greatly apprehensive that Bertie could ever emotionally deal with such an eventuality. Harry was perpetually ill. Georgie, the fourth brother, was stable, healthy, and capable, but his position made it highly unlikely that he would ever have to be called upon.
Georgie was twelve when the war began, and his greatest fantasies became realities. An avid reader of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, he had, through them, envisaged with boyish excitement the advent of the flying machine. His heroes quickly became the air aces who rarely lived long, the average life expectancy of a pilot at the battlefront being three weeks. This extraordinarily heavy rate of casualties did not deter young men from entering this branch of the service. Several reasons were responsible for the grim death toll. Pilots had only ten to fifteen flying hours before being thrust into battle. They hardly knew their aeroplanes, and were faced with conditions and situations with which they could not cope. If a pilot was flying low, at 300–400 feet on dawn patrol, he was directly in the trajectories of the gunfire and was often shot to bits by his own side’s shells. And if he was flying at 7,000 or 8,000 feet, he had to dodge the enemy’s howitzer shells; still, Georgie viewed the pilot’s life with great enthusiasm. Boys were being taken into the Royal Air Force at age sixteen. Georgie made it known that he wanted to be a pilot if the war lasted that long. Portraits of various flying heroes hung on the walls of his room, and whenever his mother visited the hospitals where injured airmen were being cared for, he offered (with unsuccessful results) to accompany her.
At home, Bertie’s stammer kept him from taking an active part in the badinage and repartee that are natural aspects of family life. According to Wheeler-Bennett, he “bitterly resented the imitation of his inflection to which, with unthinking and unintentional cruelty of the young [Harry and Georgie], he was subjected.” Jubilantly, he rejoined H.M.S. Collingwood on February 12,1915. His mates at sea tended to ignore Bertie’s stammering; consequently, his impediment was never as intense when he was away from home.
Bertie was now a senior midshipman, and his job alternated between control of searchlights by night and charge of submarine lookouts by day. In port, he assisted the gunnery and torpedo lieutenants “and ran the steam pinnaces and picketboats under the supervision of the Commander.” Only three months after his return to H.M.S. Collingwood, Bertie’s abdominal attacks occurred again with much frequency, and on July 9 he was transferred to the hospital ship Drina. He was not to rejoin his ship until May 5, 1916. On the thirtieth, he encountered his first enemy action.
“We opened fire at 5:37 P.M. on some German light cruisers,” he wrote in his journal for that date. “The Collingwood’s second salvo hit one of them which set her on fire, and sank after two more salvoes were fired into her. We then shifted on to another light cruiser and helped to sink her as well. Our next target was a battle cruiser. We think the Deerflinger [sic] or Lutzow, and one of the Collingwood’s salvoes hit her abaft the after turret which burst into a fierce flame. After this she turned away and disappeared into the mist. By this time it was too dark to fire and we went to Night Defence stations ... the German Fleet all turned away from us after dark, followed by our light cruisers and destroyers who attacked them during the night. We were not attacked at all during the night and everything was very quiet.”
Three days later, the Germans struck again. “At the commencement,” Bertie records, “I was sitting on top of A turret and had a very good view of the proceedings. I was up there during a lull, when a German ship started firing at us, and one salvo ‘straddled’ us ... I was distinctly startled and jumped down the hole in the top of the turret like a shot rabbit!!! ... the ship was in a fine state on the main deck, inches of water sluicing about to prevent fires from getting a hold on the deck. Most of the cabins were also flooded.
“The hands behaved splendidly and all of them in the best of spirits as their hearts’ desire had at last been granted, which was to be in action with the Germans.”
To his brother David, he wrote: “When I was on top of the turret I never felt any fear of shells or anything else. It seems curious but all sense of danger and everything else goes except the one longing of dealing death in every possible way to the enemy.”
No restrictions were taken regarding Bertie’s “rendezvous with history.” David, however, felt he was “being kept, so to speak, on ice, against the day that death would claim my father. But in the midst of all the slaughter of the Western Front, I found it hard to accept his unique dispensation.”
By September 29, 1915, David was a member of the Guards Division and tauntingly close to the combat zone at Noeux-les-Mènes. He had managed to have his driver take him to the spot where—four days before—assaulting parties of the division had engaged the Germans in bloody battle. The dead lay unburied in the pastures and on the spots where they had fallen. The cruel sight of the bloodied, dismembered dead killed within yards of their objective was pathetic and gruesome. “It moved and impressed me most enormously!!!” he wrote in his diary, adding, “We emerged near Vermelles Church, a muddy pair [Lord Cavan accompanied him], for it was one continuous wallow in a foot of mud all the way in the trenches. We found our car all right but had a bad shock when we were told that Green [his driver] had been killed by a burst of shrapnel!!!! We went into No.4. F.A. dressing sta. close by and saw the poor man’s body; he was hit in the heart and death must have been instantaneous ... I can’t yet realize that it has happened!! ... This push is a failure ... I have seen & learnt a lot about war today ...”
He was sent to the Somme in July 1916, where a big offensive had been under way for several weeks. Again, he was expected only to be an observer. “Oh, to be fighting with those grand fellows & not sitting back here doing so little as compared to them who are sacrificing their lives!!” he wrote. “There could be no finer death, & if one was spared how proud one would feel to have been thro’ it ...”
During the opening stages of the war, American public opinion, except for the Southern states, was overwhelmingly in favour of maintaining “firm neutrality toward the European struggle.” After all, the warring nations were thousands of miles from America’s shores. German zeppelin raids and food blockades were very remote happenings. In American opinion, if the Allies won, Russia would most certainly dominate the continent of Europe; and if Germany won, “unspeakable tyranny of militarism for generations to come” would follow.
Most Americans shuddered at any thought of an alliance with the Tsarist government of Russia. Huge waves of recently arrived immigrants were refugees from brutal pogroms. The country also had a large and politically powerful Irish-American population, “trained to hatred of England as to a religion.” Germans living in America were a “highly respected, diligent, and peaceable community.” Moreover, they also were a strong political force controlling millions of determining votes.
None of this withstanding, American intellectual sympathies were strongly with the Allies, and because Britain was the most affluent of the belligerents and able to pay cash for large orders of war supplies, the business community was particularly supportive of the Allies. Not until the latter half of 1915, with the prospect of the presidential election of 1916 looming, did America’s attitude begin to solidify.
In May 1915, when the Germans sank the Lusitania,* many American lives were lost. Vociferous cries that the United States declare war on Germany were raised in both America and Great Britain. The official British view was that the U.S. entry into the war would be a disaster. Duff Cooper,† who was to become Secretary of State for War, commented in his diary:
The feeling in America is so strong that they may be forced to go to war ... I cannot help feeling that in the long run
neutral nations, and even more the thoughtful of the Germans, could not fail to be impressed by the spectacle of all the most civilised nations of the world joined in alliance against one enemy.
Munitions and manpower were a serious problem to the English. Churchill reminded the House of Commons that “nearly a thousand men—Englishmen, Britishers, men of our own race —are knocked into bundles of bloody rags every twenty-four hours, and carried away to hasty graves or to field ambulances.” Late-night consultations were held at Buckingham Palace to discuss the “ever-increasing demand for the imposition of Compulsory Military Service,” a subject that was “creating a conflict within the Cabinet.” On August 24, 1915, Prime Minister Asquith (“wearing a very light brown overcoat, the collar turned up, his long white hair sticking out behind his red face ...”), Sir Edward Grey (“... [looking] ominous with white face and black spectacles ...”), Mr. Balfour, and Lord Kitchener (“... [looking] like an officer who got mixed up with a lot of strolling players and is trying to pretend he doesn’t know them ...”) met at Buckingham Palace for lunch.‡ From this meeting the Derby scheme was hatched, and on October 23 it was promulgated together with a proclamation issued in the King’s name. The scheme called for all men to “attest” their willingness to serve if necessary. The men were then classified into twenty-three groups, married men and men who were the sole support of their family falling into two of the last groups. By Christmas, the politicians knew their scheme had failed—over a million single men had not registered.
A Military Service Bill compelling all single men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one to register was drafted and, on January 27, 1916, became law. The bill still excluded the compulsory conscription of married men. Lloyd George led the move to have Asquith withdraw this bill and introduce another to impose immediate and general conscription. The Prime Minister, recognising the power that opposed him, obliged. This new bill passed with only thirty-seven votes of dissent and received the Royal Assent on May 25.
These early war years were particularly critical and strenuous times for the King and Queen. The most trying crisis came on October 28, 1915. In the heat of the discussions on the passing of the Military Service Bill, King George had decided to pay a visit to the front lines in France. In view of the terrible losses of the British Army and the battering by the Germans, an appearance by the King, who embodied the spirit of Empire, was a good way to bolster the Army’s morale.*
The King was accompanied by Sir Frederick Ponsonby, Sir Charles Cust, Derek Keppel, and M. Cerard—the Royal chef (“A most important addition to the retinue,” Ponsonby notes). On one of the King’s first stops, Aire, a small medieval town with cobblestoned streets dominated by a fifteenth-century church, “the Prince of Wales turned up and stayed for dinner ... It always seemed to me,” Ponsonby ruminates, “that the Prince was at that time very nervous before his father. He remained singularly silent only opening his mouth when he was addressed and then weighing carefully each word he uttered.”
Later that day the Royal party, including David, motored to Archeux, where, with President and Mme. Millerand, they were to inspect French battalions. The men were blue with cold, and, according to Ponsonby, “the President and Mme. Millerand looked rather ridiculous walking through the mud. After going down the line we stopped under a sort of tent, and here the President presented the Prince of Wales with the Croix de Guerre ... The Prince had very strange views on foreign decorations and we had the greatest difficulty in getting him to wear the ribbon of the Croix de Guerre. At first he flatly refused as he said he had not earned it; but I pointed out to him that his refusal to wear it would hurt the feelings of the French, so reluctantly he pinned it on.”
Accompanied by Ponsonby, David, and Sir Charles Cust, the King motored from Aire to a crossroads near Hesdigneul on October 28, where they met General Sir Douglas Haig and his staff. The King and Pons on by then mounted horses for the short distance to Hesdigneul, where the 11th and 1st Corps were stationed. Rain fell steadily, and the wet weather made the ground impossible for any march past the corps’ three parades. The King and Ponsonby therefore decided they would simply ride down the line. After viewing the third and last parade, the Flying Corps, the King paused in the saddle long enough to exchange a few words with the commanding officer. At that moment another officer, thinking this a good time, called for three cheers to the King from his company. The King’s horse, startled by the sudden outburst, quivered in terror and crouched down on its haunches. The King held fast to the reins. Then, suddenly, the animal sprang up and reared straight into the air and—its hind legs slipping in the slush and mud underfoot—fell backward, right on top of the King. Ponsonby jumped off his horse. He was by the King’s inert body in brief moments. By the time—within two or three minutes—that the King opened his eyes, David had reached him and was kneeling by his side.
The King turned his head slowly toward the hushed and frightened parade of men still standing in formation and whispered to Ponsonby to fetch him his military cap, which had rolled several feet away. When Ponsonby returned, the King insisted that David and Ponsonby help him to his feet and support him on each side. After an effort to walk proved to be too painful, he allowed his son and Ponsonby to carry him in a sitting position to his motor, where he was propped up in the rear seat. David got in with him and they returned to the Château de la Jusnelle in Aire, where he was lodged.
Because almost everyone at the château had taken the opportunity of the King’s absence for a few hours’ respite, Ponsonby had to hammer on the kitchen window for some time before one of M. Cerard’s assistants appeared. The man ran to fetch a footman. In the meantime, David and Sir Charles Cust were already carrying the King up the stone stairs to his room, where they laid him on a sofa. The King refused to see any of the Army doctors until his own surgeon, Sir Anthony Bowlby, travelling with him, arrived about an hour later (miraculously with a nurse serving on a nearby hospital barge, who had attended King George when he had had typhus twenty years before). At the time, the suspicion that the King had broken his pelvis had been discounted. Ponsonby telephoned Buckingham Palace and relayed to the Queen, through Lord Stamfordham, the news of the King’s accident, and David was dispatched to London that very evening to tell his mother the details. He left France reluctantly, knowing that the slightest movement gave his father “untold pain.”
Two days later, Sir John French came to see the King and remained for about ten minutes.* When he saw Ponsonby afterwards, he expressed his fear that the whole incident would soon reach the Germans through spies, and that “the enemy’s aeroplanes would buzz round and drop bombs on the villa.” Therefore, he said it was imperative that the King be moved. Ponsonby repeated this to the King, who replied, “You can tell French from me to go to hell and stay there. I don’t intend to move for any bombs.”
On October 31, with the pain still totally immobilising him, the King returned to England on a stretcher by train and hospital ship. “You can’t think how thankful we shall all be to get you back & every preparation is being made to make all as comfortable as possible under the circumstances,” Queen Mary wrote the King. “Nobody to meet you anywhere & I will wait in my room until you send for me for I presume you would rather be settled in your bed before you see me.”
Upon his return home, X rays established that the first diagnosis had been wrong. The King had sustained a fracture of the pelvis, for which he blamed Ponsonby, who, he claimed, should never have moved him in the first place (although not to have done so would have countermanded the King’s own order). His convalescence was lengthy. In fact, he was never to fully recover from this accident. Always thereafter he suffered considerable pain if he was on his feet too long or astride a horse for any length of time. He practised relentlessly to cover the small limp with which he had been left. All in all, he considered himself lucky. On January 2, 1916, he wrote to Lord Stamfordham (Arthur Bigge), who had lost his son John to the war that year: “... my boys are still safe a
nd He spared my life the other day in France. The Country is united and determined to win this war whatever the sacrifices are and please God 1916 may bring us victory and peace once more ...”
This “heartfelt prayer” was not to be answered. The war dragged tragically on, the epicenter in Western Europe. Month after month, trench after trench, gassed, mined, and mutilated, shivering in the penetrating cold and half-starved on alien rations, British soldiers floundered and died in the mud and rain of Flanders and France. The casualty lists grew ever longer. By the summer of 1917, few English families had not lost a close relative. Aunt Augusta had died, and Queen Mary had not been able to attend her funeral.* The worst news came from Russia, where revolutionary forces had taken over the Imperial Government in Petrograd [Saint Petersburg] on March 12, 1917. The Tsar had abdicated and signed away his son’s rights to succession. The Royal Family, most especially Queen Alexandra, thought “Nicky must have lost his mind.”
A decade later, that grand phrase-maker, Winston Churchill, was to say: “It is the shallow fashion of these times to dismiss the Tsarist regime as a purblind, corrupt, incompetent tyranny. But a survey of its thirty months of war with Germany and Austria should correct these loose impressions and expose the dominant facts ... War or no War? Advance or retreat? Right or left? Democratise or hold firm? Quit or persevere? These are the battlefields of Nicholas II. Why should he reap no honour from them? The devoted onset of the Russian armies which saved Paris in 1914; the mastered agony of the motionless retreat; the slowly regathered forces; the victories of Bruselov; the Russian entry upon the Campaign of 1917, unconquered stronger than ever; has he no share in these? In spite of errors vast and terrible, the regime he personified, over which he presided, to which his personal character gave the vital spark, had at this moment won the war for Russia.”
