Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  Haldane held his nerve and stuck to his principles. In a Lords debate on spies in November he emphasised that ‘to arrest aliens wholesale, irrespective of their guilt or innocence, irrespective of whether or not they had wives or families dependent upon them, in such a way that you might be subjecting absolutely innocent people to the greatest hardship, was a policy as inhuman as it was inefficacious.’92 Such reason and subtlety were lost on the public at the time, however, mainly because of the lead from elsewhere. Lord Curzon, a former viceroy and leading Unionist, mocked Haldane, saying that ‘the noble and learned Viscount appeared to be more concerned with considering the degree of discomfort for aliens which might be caused in these operations, and which in my view is no matter for alarm or regret, and to bestow insufficient attention on the much greater necessity of the State.’ Lord St Davids articulated the majority feeling: ‘I do not want in the least to make any alien suffer unnecessarily. If you put aliens into concentration camps, I hold that they should be fed as well as our soldiers. I would not have any unnecessary hardship inflicted upon them. But the country must not run any unnecessary risk even if these aliens do suffer hardships. All countries in time of war have to be hard … His Majesty’s Ministers should harden their hearts, and that on this particular matter they should adopt a much more drastic point of view.’93 Even Haldane’s Army reforms were used against him, as it was suggested that by cutting the regular Army and creating the Territorials he had weakened the military.

  As autumn turned into winter, the public believed the east coast teemed with spies signalling to German ships, even though no case had been proven. Maurice Hankey, secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, noted that the countryside was full of flashing lights, usually from motor cars, or soldiers on night signalling manoeuvres.94 The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, in another spies debate on 25 November, asserted that ‘the naturalised British subject of German birth is in many cases more dangerous than the alien enemy. I do not myself trust any man who has denationalized himself.’95 MI5 records show that sixty-five German agents were convicted or imprisoned under the Aliens Restriction Act during the war; German archives suggest they sent one hundred and twenty agents to Britain.96 Soon, German soldiers and sailors arrived as prisoners in camps in the countryside, providing another opportunity for the British to witness the character defects and shortcomings of the enemy. ‘So far as one can judge,’ a Times correspondent who had seen some at Frimley in Surrey reported, ‘they are contented and at ease in their compound. The Teutonic character makes for resignation, not for cheerfulness in adversity, and probably the men’s chief trouble is the monotony and the boredom of the camp life.’97

  IV

  In his survey of England from 1914 to 1945, A. J. P. Taylor noted: ‘Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home.’98 Now, suddenly – and despite the emphasis being placed on the British public giving up themselves, their time and their resources to the war effort – the state began to assert itself, not just by commandeering horse-boxes, railways and buses, but most of all in urging young, able-bodied men through a poster campaign and newspaper advertisements to join the services. These were the first steps towards the complete enlistment of the public in what would become total war.

  Before war came Whitehall had, in fact, taken preparatory measures for such a mobilisation of the country. It had drawn up a document known as the War Book, outlining measures to be taken in an emergency, and the revised administrative procedures needed to cope with the growth of state power. They included the closure of military areas to aliens, banning trade with the enemy, and requisitioning merchant shipping. Its effects were immediate and, by the non-interventionist standards of the pre-war British state, far-reaching. For example, magistrates spent the first day of the war signing requisitions demanded by the War Book, not just for horses but for motor vehicles. In fact, its powers were rather limited. The true controlling power would come from the Defence of the Realm Act, and its subsequent amendments, which by 1918 would leave very few aspects of private life untouched.

  The War Book had been the work of Maurice Hankey, a thirty-seven-year-old Royal Marines officer with a glittering career in intelligence, who had worked in Whitehall since 1902. As secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence since 1912 he oversaw the implementation of these procedures. Hankey would be the central figure in running the war in Whitehall, and his power increased as the war progressed, not just because he ran key government committees, but also because he cultivated a role as intermediary between what became the two opposing factions in Whitehall: politicians and senior officers.

  In his memoirs he noted that, in the early months, ‘my main duty was to keep the Prime Minister personally in touch with all aspects of the war, and generally overlook the working of the Government machinery that had been brought into existence as a result of the pre-war work of the Committee of Imperial Defence.’99 Asquith would come to rely on him almost entirely, though there were places to which even Hankey could not lead him. He was shocked when, on 4 December, his much-admired adviser suggested ‘the immediate arrest of 25,000 German and Austrian subjects still at large in London’, including, Asquith pointed out, ‘thousands of Poles, Slovaks, Slovenes &c &c who hate their rulers worse than poison’.100 Hankey feared these people were planning a massive campaign of sabotage: Asquith simply told him ‘no’.

  Hankey would later criticise how Asquith ran the war in its early months. He highlighted the absurdity that the cabinet had no secretariat to record decisions and ensure they were executed; and that conflicts arose between the War Committee that Asquith formed and the full cabinet. That Asquith would not see this showed why, for all his intellectual gifts, he failed to adapt from a peacetime prime minister to a wartime one, which made him politically vulnerable. His successor would install such a secretariat, with Hankey leading it.

  Asquith was in other respects prepared for the war, though worn down by the battles of the last years of peace. He had chaired key meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence since 1912 and understood exactly the plan being implemented. Hankey, working closely with him, described him as ‘the kindliest, simplest and most human of men’ with ‘courage of a high order … I never knew him to falter or waver for a moment, in public or in private, in his determination to see the war through.’101 To handle this stress Asquith poured out state secrets to Venetia Stanley, who, fortunately, kept them: he would write to her during cabinet meetings and sessions of the Council of War – a body of senior politicians and military men he had asked Haldane to assemble – and its successor, the War Council. He also maintained his habit of serious drinking, and – in the eyes of some colleagues the most inappropriate conduct of all – devoted as many of his evenings as possible to playing bridge.

  War limited Asquith’s meetings with Venetia Stanley in country houses at weekends, and drives round the park in London, such as they had taken before August 1914: while directing the war Asquith was pining for her, and (as he could not see her so often) writing her letters that now provide historians with a clear idea of what, in those first months of conflict, he was doing and thinking. On Saturday 22 August he was especially aggrieved to be unable to spend her twenty-seventh birthday with her. He had become emotionally dependent upon the escape from reality she provided: ‘It is because I have got so used to one [letter] every morning (which I re-read at intervals through the day) that I was impatient yesterday and could not wait (as I ought to have done) for the second post.’102 This obsession diluted his time with the war, Home Rule and Welsh disesta
blishment. Miss Stanley was well read, politically astute and intellectually energetic, and Asquith would seek her advice on key matters of policy.

  She, however, was already finding his demands on her more than she could handle. Asquith did not know that one of his protégés and junior ministers, Edwin Montagu – memorably described by Duff Cooper as ‘a man whose ugliness was obliterated by his charm’ – was also pursuing her, and that she was coming round to the idea that Montagu might supply her with an escape route from Asquith’s overwhelming attentions.103 The prime minister was lucky that Miss Stanley was discreet: some of the secrets he shared with her, about troop movements especially, could have put scores of thousands of lives in danger, and possibly altered the course of the war. Asquith knew the risk and had complete faith in her confidentiality. It was as well that she repaid it.

  Hankey was justified in criticising the cabinet’s slow adaptation to the needs of war, though force of circumstances inevitably brought profound changes. On 6 August the Currency and Banknotes Bill passed through Parliament in a day, allowing the issue of Treasury notes for 10 shillings and £1 to prevent the public hoarding gold. These became known as ‘Bradburys’, Sir John Bradbury being the joint permanent secretary at the Treasury, who signed the notes. A Liberal MP, John Henderson, asked whether for reasons of ‘dignity’ the appearance of the new £1 note could not be improved, since it looked ‘very much like a lottery ticket, or a ticket for a cloak-room.’104 Lloyd George admitted that ‘from an artistic point of view I cannot say that I am proud of this production, but it was the best we could do in the circumstances.’105 The design would soon be revised. That day, once panic had subsided, bank rate fell from 10 to 6 per cent, calming the financial sector. The next morning the banks reopened, the first Treasury notes appeared in circulation, and bank rate was cut by another 1 per cent. The point of restricting the printing of notes had been to ensure sufficient gold was in reserve to pay out the sums in cash if necessary. Now the government was issuing its own notes, backed only by its reputation. Britain had gone off the Gold Standard.

  In the House of Lords the Leader, the Marquess of Crewe, confirmed discussions his colleagues had had with representatives of the City and high finance, and assured peers that captains of industry and their workers had been consulted and would pull together. This did not stop several companies due to pay dividends announcing they would withhold them because of the crisis, a policy that outraged the well-to-do living on unearned income, and the government waiting to collect tax on the money. Businesses that feared trade would dry up sacked their staff. Despite this, there was industrial harmony unseen for years. Some minor disputes had been in progress – nothing widespread, but some among building workers in London and coal trimmers in Wales had potential to grow and cause great disruption – but were quickly concluded.

  In military matters, while there remained no question of compulsion, the government initially wished to increase the size of the Army by 500,000 men, after the immediate recruitment of 100,000. There were 247,000 in the Army at the time, around half serving overseas, and another 145,000 on the Reserve. On 10 August the government advertised for 2,000 university men, or men ‘of good general education’ aged between seventeen and thirty, to take temporary commissions for the duration.106 The next day advertisements appeared for 100,000 men aged between nineteen and thirty to serve for three years ‘or until the war is concluded.’107 General officers commanding were told that men in prison for minor offences could have their sentences remitted if they joined up. India, Asquith confirmed, had offered two divisions, and the ‘self-governing Dominions, spontaneously and unasked’, were sending troops: but the mother country had to lead.108

  Asquith’s sentiments were greatly approved: Balfour told Paul Cambon afterwards that his speech was ‘the finest thing he had ever heard’.109 Law endorsed the government’s conduct and praised Asquith and Grey. His only advice was that industry and the means of supplying food should be on a war footing too. Other Members renewed pleas for the wives of volunteers to be looked after: within days, separation allowances were announced for them, and for motherless children. The money was agreed without a vote: the Commons had given its unanimous sanction to the war. The separation allowances had an unintended effect of exposing many bigamists, as both the legitimate and the illegitimate wife applied for them for the same man.110

  Money was tight too because fears about shortages had inspired panic buying, which in turn had driven up prices, making it harder for the poor to feed their families. MPs urged the government to fix the price of bread, meat and other foodstuffs; and to order farmers to cultivate pasture, store cereals for government distribution and grow more the following season. The government resisted, but did not dismiss, such intervention in farmers’ private business. On 6 August a cabinet committee recommended maximum prices for food, but was ignored: and the government announced it was taking over the running of flour mills. A trafficking operation had been set up in the east end of London by what a later war would call black marketeers, sending a small army of children into shops with money to buy as much food as they could so it could be sold on at inflated prices. The government protested, correctly, that there was no food shortage, except as such dealings created.

  However, when stories circulated about ‘the panic and greed of better-to-do people who have really disgraced themselves by placing long queues of motor-cars outside the stores and carrying off as much [sic] provisions as they could persuade stores to part with’ – the words of Walter Runciman, president of the Board of Trade – the government had to act, even though Runciman maintained, on 8 August, that the panic was over.111 To ensure the food supply the government would seek powers to requisition foodstuffs considered ‘unreasonably withheld’ from market, whether by traders or farmers: though he expected the inevitable rise in prices would attract more imports. It was also a thinly veiled warning that steps might be taken against hoarders. The government had to ensure adequate extra provisions were sent to small towns where territorial units were being assembled, to avoid the influx of soldiers buying up so much food that local residents went hungry. On 20 August the government took over the sugar trade, as two-thirds of the nation’s supply had hitherto come from Germany and Austria-Hungary.

  V

  The mere declaration of war did not mean that the matters that had preoccupied the government until the last week of July 1914 could be brushed aside. Ireland, in particular, could not be ignored. Asquith was depressed and bemused that it impeded his concentration on the war. Redmond, as leader of the Irish Nationalists, had lobbied Lloyd George about how a planned adjournment of Parliament must not prevent the Home Rule Bill from reaching the statute book, and on 5 August, after a meeting with an ‘irreconcilable’ Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Irish Unionists, he had told Asquith the same.112 He said that if the government gave in to Carson – who was threatening that the Unionists would obstruct vital legislation – it would have ‘disastrous’ results in Ireland, and Asquith would lose ‘the greatest opportunity that ever occurred in the history of Ireland to win the Irish people to loyalty to the Empire.’ Asquith said the Bill would go on the statute book, but the short adjournment would proceed. By way of a Conservative response, Law and Lansdowne planned a press campaign to attack the government for undertaking Home Rule legislation when ninety MPs (mostly Unionists) had joined the colours and could not vote.

  The Home Rule argument was potentially dangerous, but Asquith thought he had defused it by suggesting suspending the Act until an Amending Bill, excluding Ulster, could be passed. The cabinet was divided. Asquith confirmed on 10 August, as Parliament rose for a fortnight, that on its return the legislation would be dealt with. The recess would be used to try to reach an agreement, to ensure the Irish controversy did not plague Westminster and the country when there was an external enemy to fight: something Law, a main agitator against Home Rule, said would be ‘a national calamity’.113 Austen Chamberlain, another prominent Uni
onist, warned Lloyd George that party strife would have a ‘disastrous effect on the City, on finance, and credit in all its branches’ and ‘would render a great financial crash certain.’114 He, like most Conservatives, wanted nothing done until the end of hostilities, something the Irish regarded as tantamount to ignoring the will of the House of Commons. Redmond returned to England on 21 August and saw Asquith, who after a long discussion found the only option Redmond would accept was – as he had predicted – the Home Rule Act going on the statute book with an exclusion for six counties in Ulster, each of which would have three years to decide whether it stayed out for good. Redmond returned to Ireland, to be told by Augustine Birrell, the chief secretary, that the government would pursue the line he wanted – though there was uncertainty about how Unionists would react. At that stage, Asquith was not proposing to postpone implementation of the Home Rule Act.

  To help formulate his party’s response, Law took advice from A. V. Dicey, Britain’s leading constitutional historian; though Dicey, in telling Law on 1 September that Asquith had made a pledge ‘which ought never to have been given’ in saying the Bill would go on the statute book, seemed oblivious to the passage of the 1911 Parliament Act (which he had also opposed), which said that once the Commons had passed a Bill three times it became law.115 Recruiting from Protestant areas in Ireland was significant, thanks to Carson: but the National Volunteers – the pro-Home Rule forces assembled before August 1914 to oppose any illegal Unionist resistance to Home Rule in Ireland – awaited word from Redmond. Asquith wanted the Home Rule Act put on the statute book, accompanied by a one-clause Act postponing its implementation until the end of the war. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who had feared the end of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, was placated by being assured it would have the same treatment. Any inclination Asquith might have had to soft-pedal with the Unionists was ended by the reversals the BEF suffered after its first engagement with the enemy at Mons in late August. The King, indeed, wrote to him once the news came from Mons to tell him to settle the Irish problem: but by that stage, shaken by events, Asquith needed no prompting.