On 28 January 1918 a raid caused panic at both Mile End underground station and the Bishopsgate Railway Goods Depot, where people were trying to get to shelter: a total of fourteen died at Bishopsgate when anti-aircraft fire was mistaken for falling bombs. In the same raid a bomb also hit Odhams Printing Works in Long Acre, killing thirty-eight, the floor giving way and sending the printing machines tumbling into the basement where people were sheltering. Others had taken to camping overnight in parks such as Richmond, and it was reported to the War Cabinet in October 1917 that Brighton was full of Jews from the East End, reflecting wider anti-Semitism. It was suggested by the coroner that the deaths in Bishopsgate were due to ‘panic almost entirely on the part of persons who might be called foreigners’, one newspaper carrying the headline, ‘Cowardly Aliens in the Great Stampede’.21 But it was not just aliens who were tempted to leave the capital. Following the raids in June and July 1917, The Times carried a full page of advertisements from potential havens. The Royal Beach Hotel at Southsea pronounced its ‘perfect immunity from air raids’, while it was similarly proclaimed, ‘For safety and rest Bath is the best’.22
In 1915 the Metropolitan Police had simply advised remaining under cover in basements and keeping away from windows. Later, those unable to get to shelters were advised to avoid top-floor rooms, place mattresses on upper floors to cushion impact, turn off electricity and gas supplies, and to make sure of escape routes if the building was hit. More important buildings were draped with steel nets and national treasures were moved out of London. Two large paintings at the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich, of the Battle of the Glorious First of June by Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg and of the Battle of Trafalgar by J. M. W. Turner, were sent to the Welsh National Library at Aberystwyth: the crates were so large, a hole had to be cut in the wall. The ‘Nelson relics’ from Greenwich were distributed between the vaults of the Bank of England and the GPO Parcels Tube Station in King Edward Building. Public records were despatched to Bodmin Gaol. Following the Poplar tragedy, the LCC introduced specific measures for schools, directing that upper floors be evacuated, and gates locked to prevent parents, or the public, from gaining access. Air-raid drills were to be implemented, and teachers would tell stories and encourage children to sing.
Eventually, London was ringed with 353 searchlights and 266 anti-aircraft guns, with 159 day fighters and 123 night fighters for additional protection. The whole was coordinated by the London Air Defence Area (LADA) headquarters, the latter a key recommendation of the first Smuts report. Following the raid on 13 June 1917, the War Cabinet requested Field Marshal Haig to withdraw two fighter squadrons from the front, one to be sent to London and the other to Calais. Haig argued that he needed both for the forthcoming Passchendaele offensive and was allowed to keep one, but 24 aircraft intended for France were held back. The squadron sent to London was returned to France on 5 July, just two days before the Gothas struck again. Thereafter defences steadily improved, with better communications systems installed between anti-aircraft guns, home-defence squadrons and observation posts. The latter had originally been established on an ad hoc basis in 1915 to report sightings of Zeppelins, but were now incorporated into the LADA system. The Special Constables who had initially manned such posts were supplemented by army personnel. Reports were now telephoned to ancillary operations rooms and then on to a central control room established in Westminster's Spring Gardens that was the model for the even more elaborate system developed during the Second World War. There were even experiments with concrete sound mirrors to try and detect incoming aircraft. Anti-aircraft balloons were also introduced in January 1918, such experimentation being encouraged by Smuts. On raid nights, therefore, the capital was a cacophony of sound and light, the cumulative effect of bombs, guns, flares and searchlights.
The Germans switched to night raids in September 1917 as a result of the increased defences. But, even given more forewarning, air-defence fighters remained technologically limited and were groping for contact with the Gothas and the heavier Riesen (Giant) Staaken RVI bombers. The latter were introduced by the Germans in September 1917, as the Gothas were diverted to tactical operations on the Western Front. The Giants were armed with single bombs of far greater tonnage: the heaviest was a 2,200-pound bomb dropped in February 1918. Only six Giants, however, were available to supplement the Gothas, as they were expensive to build and each required a ground crew of 51 men. The last appearance of any bomber over London was on 19/20 May 1918, when 8 out of the 41 bombers used were destroyed by fighters or ground fire, and others in accidents. Yet, despite the greater losses inflicted on the Germans, air defence had not really proved effective, and the biggest impact of the raids was to tie up British aircraft that might have been used more profitably on the Western Front. In 397 sorties, the Germans lost only 24 Gothas over England – while tying up over 300 British aircraft – although another 37 Gothas were lost in accidents. Moreover, it was calculated that the anti-aircraft guns had needed to fire 14,540 rounds to bring down one aircraft.23 It was concluded, therefore, that there was no effective defence against the bomber.
That expectation was fuelled by the establishment of the Smuts committee in response to the raids of 13 June and 7 July 1917. Now forty-seven years old, the Cambridge-educated Smuts had been the Transvaal State Attorney at the start of the South African War in 1899. A leading Boer commando in the guerrilla phase of the war, Smuts subsequently worked with Louis Botha to negotiate the restoration of self-government. With Botha becoming prime minister of the Union of South Africa in 1910, Smuts occupied a number of key ministries. He established the Union Defence Force, and was appointed the allied commander-in-chief in East Africa in 1916. Arriving in Britain in March 1917 as head of the South African delegation to the Imperial War Conference, Smuts was then offered a place in the War Cabinet by Lloyd George in June though, constitutionally, he could only be in attendance. Smuts knew nothing of airpower other than having witnessed the raid on 13 June from the Savoy Hotel, but had already made his mark on the public with a series of morale-raising speeches. The War Cabinet itself had devoted little time to consideration of air matters since the waning of the Zeppelin threat. Its members were actually sitting during the raid on 13 June. Lord Derby merely reported that a raid was taking place and that Poplar and Woolwich had been bombed: there was no discussion of the news at all. The public outrage stirred a brief flurry of concern before the War Cabinet returned to what appeared the more pressing business of discussing the damaging report of the Mesopotamia Commission into the failures of that campaign. Then came the second raid. Assuaging public opinion was unavoidable. In fact, Lloyd George had already considered the establishment of a new air ministry before the raid of 13 June as a means of bringing Churchill back into government. Smuts had seen Churchill on 5 June to discuss this very possibility, which Lloyd George had first raised six months previously. Appointing Smuts to an inquiry into air defence and air organisation on 11 July, therefore, satisfied public opinion while also fulfilling Lloyd George's intended political agenda.
Lloyd George was supposed to be co-chairing the committee with Smuts in order to deal with political issues, but advanced various excuses for not attending. Smuts's suggestions of adding Churchill, Lord Hugh Cecil or Leo Amery to the committee were also not heeded. Instead, the assistant secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, Major Lancelot Storr, who had some knowledge of aviation, undertook much of the work. Smuts also received conflicting memoranda and advice from a number of quarters. A brief first report on 19 July recommended a reorganisation of home air defence with more and better aircraft. Smuts suggested that three home-defence squadrons be formed, as well as LADA under a single commander. In a second report on 9 August 1917, Smuts recommended a single unified air service independent of army and naval rivalries, and the establishment of an air staff and an air ministry. Drafted by Storr, the report had a stark warning, suggesting, ‘the day may not be far off when aerial operations with their devastation
of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale may become the principal operations of war, to which the older forms of military and naval operations may become secondary and subordinate’.24
Despite opposition from the Unionists in the coalition, Churchill had already been offered the new air ministry on 16 July. This was only five days after Smuts had been initially appointed to his committee, and three weeks before he actually formally recommended such a ministry, again suggesting Lloyd George's previous intent. Churchill chose instead to return to government as Minister of Munitions, and there remained some opposition to an air ministry. The War Cabinet only formally adopted the second Smuts report on 24 August. Smuts was then tasked with leading a new Air Organisation Committee to work out the arrangements for unifying the RFC and RNAS. It has been suggested that only Lloyd George's need for another political gesture following the failure of the Passchendaele offensive gave further stimulus to the establishment of an air ministry and air staff in January 1918, with the Independent Force, Royal Air Force (RAF), coming into independent existence on 1 April 1918. On 6 June 1918 the RAF was tasked with retaliatory attacks on the German homeland.
The RNAS had carried out thirteen bombing raids on some German towns from Lexeuil near Belfort between October 1916 and March 1917. The Admiralty's enthusiasm for extending the campaign had been opposed by Haig, who believed the resources better devoted to support of ground operations. Frederick Sykes, the new Chief of the Air Staff, calculated that 80 per cent of Germany's chemical industry lay in range of British bombers using French bases. Sykes made a virtue of the difficulty of obtaining command of the air to argue that aircraft could deliberately avoid opposing aircraft and thus overcome the deadlock on land. Hugh Trenchard, Sykes's predecessor, preferred to target railways and airfields. Having briefly occupied Sykes's post before resigning in a clash with the new air minister, Lord Rothermere, Trenchard now commanded the RAF. In any case, he believed that the most effective defence of London from the air would be to force the Germans on the defensive in the skies over France and Flanders. Some 242 raids were carried out on Germany and 543 tons of bombs dropped, at the cost of 109 aircraft lost and 243 wrecked. The tonnage was too small to do much damage and, as early as June 1918, it was concluded that only 23.5 per cent of bombs were falling within the designated target area. Nevertheless, the Germans were forced to divert resources to air defence, and some war production was disrupted. All wartime raids by British, French and Italian aircraft resulted in 797 German dead, 380 wounded and an estimated 15 million marks’ worth of damage. The new Handley Page V-1500 bomber, with a 126-foot wingspan and a bomb load of 3,500 kilograms, was poised to make the first raid on Berlin on the day the armistice was signed.
The Italians and Austro-Hungarians also carried out strategic bombing attacks during the war, the Italians being in the forefront of the use of airpower for strategic purposes. Gianni Caproni had developed the first true strategic bomber in 1913 and, by 1916, Italy had 40 of his massive three-engined triplanes with a 98-foot wingspan, a bomb load of 1,500 kilograms, and fuel capacity for a seven-hour flight. Giulio Douhet had also begun to develop his theories of strategic air power, although he was only director of the Italian army's aviation section from 1913 to 1914, and returned to it only briefly in 1918: he may never have learned to fly. While Austro-Hungarian aircraft raided Verona, Venice, Padua and Milan, the Italians struck at Adriatic ports, but the Italian air offensive did not really become of any significance until 1918. Paris was also subjected to aerial bombardment, 267 people being killed in Zeppelin or Gotha raids during the war compared to the 256 killed by the long-range artillery bombardment during the German spring offensive in 1918.
In all, there had been 51 Zeppelin raids and 57 bomber raids on Britain during the war, accounting for 1,913 and 2,907 casualties respectively. Of the dead, Zeppelins accounted for 557, and aircraft for 856. It was pointed out in the 1920s that this was not many more than the then 700 annual fatalities on Britain's roads. The estimated cost of all direct German bombardment or bombing of Britain was a relatively modest £3,087,098.25 In reality, neither the Gotha raids nor those of the RAF proved or disproved the evolving theories of strategic airpower in which both sides were to invest so much subsequent expectation. Instead, crude multiplication of the results of the Zeppelin and Gotha raids combined with public anxiety to establish the idea that there was no defence against bombing.
As suggested by Constable Smith's plaque, there are a number of reminders of the first sustained aerial attack on a modern city, including the remains of a bomb dropped on the church of St Edmund the King and Martyr in Lombard Street on 7 July 1917 and incorporated into the altar. There is a plaque, too, on the wall of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, that has particular resonance. On the night of 16 February 1918 a Giant dropped a single 2,200-pound bomb on what its commander took to be the City. It fell instead upon the northeast wing of Sir Christopher Wren's building, killing five. Not only does the plaque commemorate that raid, but also further destruction wrought on the Royal Hospital by a V2 rocket on 3 January 1945. In strategic bombing, as in so many other ways, the Great War cast its shadow.
CHAPTER 10
THE PROMISED LAND
The Balfour Declaration, 2 November 1917
PEOPLE AT war need to know that the sacrifices they are making are worthwhile, and that there will be a suitable payoff in the future for the country, and for themselves. Making promises that may not be fulfilled is a danger for politicians in the midst of conflict. Vagueness in making ‘war aims’ public is sensible, but it may become counter-productive because the failure to achieve them may appear akin to defeat. Agreements made with different allies, and promises made to potential allies in order to draw them into the war, may be equally problematic. As the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson, nicely expressed it in June 1919, war against Ottoman Turkey led Britain into making ‘so many promises to everybody in a contradictory sense that I cannot for the life of me see how we can get out of our present mess without breaking our word to somebody’.1
It was not just a question of the agreements forged with France, Russia, Italy and Greece, but also of the promises made to subject peoples within the Ottoman Empire, including Arabs, Armenians and Kurds. In addition, however, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour's almost casual recognition, in a letter to Lord Rothschild on 2 November 1917, of the need for a Jewish homeland in Palestine stored up enormous problems for the future. Balfour's engagement with Zionism was the outcome of his extraordinary intellectual bond with the Russian-born but naturalised British scientist, Chaim Weizmann. It endured for almost a quarter of a century from a crucial meeting in the Queen's Hotel in Manchester's Piccadilly in January 1906, to their last in March 1930, as Balfour lay dying at Fisher's Hill near Woking in Surrey. The consequences of that friendship and of the post-war partition of the Ottoman Empire remain evident to this day. The Balfour Declaration was intended to help win the war. Ironically, it did not have the intended impact on the war's outcome.
The British declaration of war on Ottoman Turkey on 5 November 1914 raised the issue of the present and future security of the British Empire. Fighting alongside the French and Russians did not extinguish older imperial rivalries, and winning the war for Britain meant increasing security against both current allies as well as current enemies. Though Egypt remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, Britain's Consul General had controlled it ever since British military intervention ended an Egyptian nationalist threat to European control of the Suez Canal in 1882. Under the Constantinople Convention of 1888, signed between Turkey and the European powers, the Suez Canal – so vital for British maritime trade and connections to India – was declared a neutral zone but under British protection. On 18 December 1914 Britain formally declared Egypt a protectorate, deposing the troublesome and ambitious Abbas Hilmi II as Khedive – technically, the Sultan's Viceroy over Egypt – and installing his uncle, Hussein Kamel, as
Sultan of Egypt. Abbas Hilmi was in Turkey when he was deposed.
A Turkish attempt to attack the Suez Canal was easily repulsed in February 1915, ending any real threat. But, apart from the Canal, Middle Eastern oil resources were also vital for a Royal Navy now fuelled by oil rather than coal. The need, therefore, to secure Persian oil, and to keep the Russian military effort concentrated on the Eastern Front rather than the Caucasus, persuaded the British to allow the Russians the post-war control of the Dardanelles in the Straits Agreement on 12 November 1914. The Foreign Office had comparatively little interest in the future of the Ottoman Empire compared to the India Office. It was the latter that determined on mounting a limited demonstration by the Indian army in November 1914 to occupy Basra in the Persian Gulf, to reassure the Gulf rulers of British protection against the Turks. It was generally believed that, in the possible break-up of the Ottoman Empire signalled by the Straits Agreement, Britain could not afford to allow the French to meet their own aspirations to acquire Syria without adequate compensatory protection for British interests in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
It was not until April 1915, however, that an interdepartmental committee was tasked with determining what British war aims – quaintly characterised as ‘desiderata’ – should be in the event of victory over the Turks. With representatives from the Admiralty, War Office, Foreign Office and India Office, the committee was under the chairmanship of a diplomat with North African experience, Sir Maurice de Bunsen. The decision had only been forced on London by wide Russian territorial demands in March. It might be noted, however, that such Russian demands did not negate their general willingness to accommodate British and French military plans.
The Making of the First World War Page 23
