Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  Law learned of Asquith’s plans ‘with the deepest regret’ on 11 September and accused him of bad faith.116 The Liberals tried to cool the situation down, in the national interest. Churchill, on 13 September, wrote to Chamberlain: ‘My dear Austen, I beseech you to realize what an act of recklessness and unwisdom it would be for us – either party – to start a quarrel with Irish nationalism here, in the colonies, and above all in America at this time of crisis.’117 The government plan would merely create ‘the sentimental satisfaction of having an inoperative bill on the Statute Book’ until after the war and a general election; which he argued must be preferable to ‘open Irish disloyalty’ imperilling the British state. He promised that Ulstermen who had joined the Army would ‘never’ be the subject of coercion.

  Chamberlain was implacable – he retorted that Ulster was being sacrificed because of ‘blackmail’ by the National Volunteers. Nevertheless, his party saw it had to end its opposition to the government, given the national emergency. On 14 September the Unionists met at the Carlton Club to discuss tactics: the party admitted defeat, and decided that Law and Law alone should speak in reply to Asquith when he notified the Commons of the move. Smith assured Carson that after the war the Unionists ‘should revert to the most extreme fighting position.’118 Lord Robert Cecil, to ‘loud and prolonged cheers’, told the meeting he no longer regarded members of the government as ‘fit for the society of gentlemen,’ but as ‘cardsharpers’. Asquith, when notifying the Commons, took pains to disabuse his critics of the notion that he was exploiting ‘the spirit of patriotism’ at a time of ‘supreme national emergency’ to violate assurances previously given.119 If no agreement on how to frame the Amending Bill to the Irish Bill could be reached, then there would need to be agreement on a moratorium for discussion of it.

  He described a ‘great patriotic uprising’ in Ireland since war broke out: Irish Nationalists were joining Irish regiments to fight for King and country, and the last thing he wished to do was to poison this feeling by giving the Irish reason to accuse the British of betrayal, or to aggrieve Irish communities in America and the Empire. The Home Rule Bill – like that for Welsh disestablishment – would go on the statute book, but their operation would be suspended for twelve months or, if after a year the war continued, at a date fixed by Order in Council that would not go beyond the duration of the war. But he said the Amending Bill, to allow exclusions, would need to be reintroduced before the Home Rule Act came into force. Given the ‘grave and unprecedented national emergency’, Asquith felt this was the only means ‘of acting fairly, reasonably and equitably’.120

  Law and his party disagreed: he spoke of the feeling ‘not so much of anger or of resentment as of sorrow’ that came when he heard how the government ‘took advantage of our patriotism to betray us.’121 He said Asquith had broken his word in preparing to get the Royal Assent for the Irish Bill without having concluded the Amending Bill first, and – reverting to a partisanship not heard for six weeks – asked why the Opposition should believe the promise to have an Amending Bill before the Act was put into operation. Carson said that ‘there has probably never been a grosser breach of promises and pledges in the history of Parliament.’122 The Unionists wanted a complete moratorium – no enactment of the Bill, and no Amending Bill, but with an assurance that the provisions of the Parliament Act would still apply when it came to enact the Bill. They had thought the government was prepared to offer this, since the suggestions had been discussed the previous week: now they felt duped. Law complained that, but for the war, any attempt to do what Asquith planned would have caused an uprising in Ulster. Like Carson, Law felt the government now believed about Ulster that ‘whatever injustice we inflict upon them, we can count upon them.’123

  Law compared the breach of faith with that of Germany invading Belgium, and when he finished speaking led his party out of the chamber ‘not as a protest, still less as a demonstration. We leave it because in my belief to have forced us to debate this subject at all under present circumstances is indecent, and we shall take no part in that indecency.’124 The Suspensory Bill went through the Commons, and on the following day the Lords. ‘The whole House rose and cheered wildly,’ Asquith told Miss Stanley about the events in the lower House; it was ‘a really historic moment.’125 Law’s speech questioning Asquith’s bona fides caused the prime minister to observe that he ‘never sank so low in his gutter as to-day’.126 Redmond expressed the hope that by the time the Amending Bill was introduced Unionists and Nationalists would, in the pressing circumstances, have settled their differences. He would be disappointed.

  The Government of Ireland Act and its accompanying Suspensory Act had the Royal Assent on 17 September, as did the Act disestablishing the Welsh Church. This was a historic moment for the British constitution. They were the first Bills the Speaker had certificated as meeting the conditions of the 1911 Parliament Act, and therefore could become law despite the Lords not having agreed. The King was displeased. ‘I regret to say I had to give my assent to the Irish Home Rule and Welsh Disestablishment Bills … there must be an amending Bill for the former, the Govt have promised this.’127 Redmond issued a ‘manifesto’ about the war once Asquith had had the Bill enacted, calling upon the Irish people to take their share in fighting for democracy, and for an Irish brigade to be sent to fight as part of the BEF, so the Irish could fight together and be officered by Irishmen. Telling his people that ‘the democracy of Great Britain has finally and irrevocably decided to trust them and to give them back their national liberties’, he urged the Irish to participate fully in ‘a just war, provoked by the intolerable military despotism of Germany.’128 Sinn Féiners, however, abhorred Redmond’s pro-British sentiments, seeing Home Rule as the first and incomplete stage towards a republic: for the moment, they would be out of step with most Irish opinion. Unfortunately, the predominantly Protestant officer class of the Irish regiments, taking their lead from Kitchener, a militant Unionist, regarded former Nationalist Volunteers with disdain and distrust, which depressed recruiting.

  VI

  One criticism of the stewardship of the war during Asquith’s administration was that it occasionally smacked of amateurism or complacency. An early example was that, once war was declared, the first meeting of the Council of War, whose priority was to decide how to deploy the BEF, found itself unable to proceed because it needed to hear the French military attaché; so the meeting was adjourned until the following morning. The first session of the council, chaired by Asquith, included Grey, Haldane and Churchill, as First Lord, and service chiefs. Sir John French, Sir Douglas Haig and Sir Ian Hamilton, newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Home Army, were present, as was Kitchener, who was not appointed to the War Office until after the meeting; and the doyen of the Army, Field Marshal Earl Roberts, a veteran of the Indian Mutiny and the man credited with turning round Britain’s fortunes in the Second Boer War. Roberts was almost eighty-two and would die within weeks. This group would be formalised, but set a new constitutional precedent. Cabinet government was sidelined; the exigencies of war relied upon swift decision-making. When the council at last got under way, Haig agreed with Kitchener, stating that as Germany and Britain were fighting for their existence it would be a war ‘of several years’, requiring at once an army of a million men, ‘and neither side would acknowledge defeat after a short struggle.’129

  Haldane and Balfour had discussed late into the night of 4/5 August how large the BEF should be, and when it should go. Balfour thought a swift, hard strike was in order. Haldane wanted to assemble a considerable home army first, and send it to attack the Germans when it could do more damage: he did not know how fast the enemy was moving through Belgium and into France. He believed any force sent early would be ‘trifling’ compared with its opponents, and its destruction would be catastrophic.130 Balfour insisted 100,000 men ‘could be sent at once without in any way entrenching upon the strength of the Home Defence’. He noted that ‘on the whole I was rather
depressed by a certain wooliness of thought and indecision of purpose,’ something Unionists would decide characterised the government’s approach to the war.

  Haldane soon changed his mind and thought the BEF should leave quickly. The cabinet agreed that five, or possibly six, divisions could go to France without denuding Britain of its home defences; the question then was how rapidly they could be transported, and how it could be done without alerting the Germans. It was also agreed to reinforce Egypt with a division from India, and gratefully to accept offers of troops from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Finally it was decided to send four divisions at once, a fifth when circumstances permitted, with the sixth to follow later: it was estimated it would be twenty days before the BEF was ready for action. An advance group arrived in Le Havre from Southampton on 7 August: the bulk of the force travelled without incident to France between 12 and 17 August. Henry Wilson, then a major general holding the post of sub-chief of staff, with typical cynicism, described the discussions about this as ‘an historic meeting of men, mostly entirely ignorant of their subject.’131 Wilson was a highly partisan Unionist, with many friends high in the ranks of the Opposition; he was also an inveterate intriguer, and ended the war a field marshal.

  An advance party of the BEF arrived on the Continent on 7 August without, Asquith noted happily, any wind of it appearing in the newspapers. French, as commander-in-chief, was told what was expected of him: ‘To support, and co-operate with, the French army against our common enemies. The peculiar task laid upon you is to assist (1) in preventing, or repelling, the invasion of French territory, and (2) in restoring the neutrality of Belgium.’132 He was informed, in an interesting interpretation of recent events, that the justification for British involvement was not just ‘the infringement of the neutrality of Belgium by Germany’, but also ‘in furtherance of the entente that exists between this country and France’. A future Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir William Robertson, noted that as Britain had ‘no comprehensive war policy’, no indication was given to French about what the means would be for him to discharge his task. He was ordered that, if called upon to advance without the support of the French army, he should consult London first. The reality was that reinforcements would not be trained for months, and Territorials now massing in England were under no obligation to serve abroad.

  At the same Council of War Kitchener announced his plan to recruit at least another 100,000 men for overseas service: he would in fact recruit 2.5 million volunteers by March 1916. He made an early decision to retain at home some of the most experienced soldiers to train recruits: he was criticised for this, not least by Churchill, who later recognised it had been one of the smartest things Kitchener did, because of the high level to which men were trained. The Council of War’s concentration on building a far bigger army would have surprised the general public, whose belief in British sea power was absolute, as was the conviction that Germany would eventually be starved into submission by the Royal Navy’s command of the oceans. That belief was not entirely misplaced, but the timescale would be longer than even Kitchener had believed possible.

  On 11 August French paid a farewell visit to Asquith. He told him the BEF would be in place within a fortnight, and that the forces of both sides were likely to be concentrated south of Luxembourg: this was a far cry from the imminent reality, of opposing armies dug in on a line of trenches from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border, with the British predominantly in the north. That evening Haig noted he had told the King, who had visited Aldershot, of his ‘grave doubts’ about French. In his diary, he went further. ‘In my own heart, I know that French is quite unfit for this great command at a time of crisis in our Nation’s history.’133 Haig cited both lack of military knowledge and faults of temperament, but for the moment kept this assessment to himself and his Sovereign. By contrast, Asquith said of French to Miss Stanley that ‘I am sure he is our best man.’134 French would prove divisive: Sir James Edmonds, the war’s official historian, branded him ‘a vain, ignorant, vindictive old man with an unsavoury society backing.’135 French certainly had his faults: a noted womaniser, he was lucky not to have wrecked his career in the early 1890s when an affair with the wife of a brother officer led to his being cited in the ensuing divorce case. He was reckless with money and almost went bankrupt in 1899, which would have necessitated his resigning his commission; and he had form as an intriguer, a hobby that would flourish during the war. He had distinguished himself as a commander in the Second Boer War, in which he ended up promoted to lieutenant general, but was nonetheless considered to have risen to the post of Chief of the Imperial General Staff more by patronage (he was a close confidant of Lord Esher) than by ability. Because of an error of judgement over the Curragh incident earlier in 1914 he had had to resign from that post. Haig had known him closely for twenty-five years and, despite all Haig’s own faults of judgement, he was probably right about French’s limitations, though not realising he shared some of them himself.

  On 12 August, the day Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary, tempers were already beginning to fray in the supreme command. Asquith told Miss Stanley that ‘Lord K has rather demoralised the War Office with his bull in the china shop manners and methods, and particularly his ignorance of and indifference to the Territorials.’136 This was the yeomanry Haldane had set up and that Kitchener felt was useless. Asquith’s response was to ‘set Haldane on to him’, which had calmed things down. However, these tensions between Whitehall and the Armed Forces were a portent of much unpleasantness to come.

  On 25 August Kitchener struck a conciliatory note when he addressed the Lords for the first time not just as Secretary of State for War, but in his sixteen years as a peer. He explained his position did not ‘in any way imply that I belong to any political party, for, as a soldier, I have no politics.’137 This was not the view of many in Parliament and the press, who regarded him as a visceral Tory. However, it was true in this respect: surrounded by colleagues for whom politics was a career, he would quickly become estranged from them because he lacked their motivation. He saw his duty as to save his country; some of them saw theirs as to preserve or advance their places. He compared himself with those he urged to enlist: his was a ‘temporary’ occupation and, like them, he had signed on for three years. That time limit, he explained, was because if the war should last so long, another wave of men would be ready to come and take their, and his, places. Such feelings did not enter the minds of many of his cabinet colleagues, who saw themselves first and foremost as professional politicians with careers to maintain.

  Towns and villages across Britain saw columns of men marching through them most days, heading either for ports or training camps. Unbeknown to the British public, the BEF had reached France without a single loss of life. Ministers regarded this as a huge triumph because of the likelihood of the German navy attacking troopships. The movements had been reported in continental papers and the Germans must have been aware of them. London interpreted the failure to attack as proving the enemy’s belief in the inferiority of their forces compared with the Royal Navy; or as Hankey surmised, the Germans’ refusal to believe what they read in French newspapers unless they also read it in British ones.138

  On 19 August Kitchener sent a fifth division to France. Two days later John Parr, a reconnaissance cyclist, aged perhaps fifteen, became the first Briton to die on the Western Front. The BEF reached Mons on 22 August and went almost immediately into battle. The first news of the fighting concentrated minds: the Germans had captured Liège on 16 August, and at dawn on 24 August Kitchener woke first Asquith and then Churchill with the news that Namur, supposedly a heavily fortified town on the Meuse, 45 miles east of Mons, had fallen. The forts built just thirty years earlier had been no match for German heavy artillery. French had told him he would be ordering a ‘retirement’ from the line the BEF held at Mons. Asquith was horrified, ‘for we all assumed that Namur was safe, if not for a fortnight, at least for 2 or 3 days’.139 French tel
egraphed for reinforcements of 10 per cent of his previous numbers, implying heavy losses. ‘The casualty list has not yet come in,’ Asquith told Miss Stanley, ‘and one trembles to think what names it may contain.’

  Kitchener warned Asquith that he was waiting to hear from French whether a sixth division should go almost immediately. In response to this news that the BEF would need reinforcement – something Kitchener had leaked to Repington for the previous day’s Times and which caused his cabinet colleagues to rebuke him – it was decided to bring two divisions of the Indian army to Egypt; by 28 August the BEF felt so outnumbered they were told to continue to Marseille, where they were disembarked. Kitchener had wanted the BEF at Amiens, held in reserve in case the French were repelled: the French had wanted it at Maubeuge, 90 miles to the east, on the Belgian border due south of Mons, where it would be in the fighting from the start. Mainly due to Wilson’s insistence – as French’s sub-chief of staff – Kitchener had lost the argument: had he won it the BEF would not have been overrun at Mons and might have been in a better position to resist the Germans. Kitchener’s relations with Wilson became poor.

  The BEF sustained 1,600 casualties in the retreat from Mons: in the four days from 20 to 23 August the French had suffered 140,000: not that Asquith, or anyone in Britain, knew the extent of the debacle at the time. Unaware of the facts, but briefed by Kitchener (who was livid with his ally), Asquith thought the French had ‘badly bungled’ their plan of campaign, in contrast to the ‘really gallant’ Belgians.140 French told London his French allies were, as Asquith put it, ‘stricken with hesitation and something very like funk’, and stopping the BEF – ‘most anxious to take the offensive’ – from doing its job properly.141