Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War.

by Gerry Docherty

  In this instance, the ‘occult influences’ failed. The secret Anglo-Franco-Spanish diplomatic arrangements were essentially a serious breach of trust towards the people and parliaments they were supposed to represent. That was the bottom line. Germany on the other hand sought transparency, not secret codicils. Germany was in the right.

  Théophile Delcassé let his personal hatred of Germany sway both common sense and reason. He knew that powerful forces in Britain were entirely behind him and he thought he was unstoppable. Indeed, one observer felt that he was much closer to the king than he was to his own French colleagues, adding that Delcassé behaved ‘as though he was one of King Edward’s ministers’.29

  Delcassé would not bend to any German request for a conference to settle the Moroccan question. More than that, he thought it ‘intolerable’ to yield to German pressure.30 In June 1905, sensible heads within the French government realised the grave danger to European peace and sought a reasonable understanding with Germany. Delcassé vehemently defended his position of ‘no surrender’ but found himself overruled by the entire French cabinet and resigned.31 Delcassé’s fall from grace was a blow to the Secret Elite. Controversially, King Edward publicly invited him to a breakfast meeting, which surprised and alarmed many Parisians and the Belgian ambassador in Paris:

  Such a mark of courtesy to M. Delcassé at this moment has aroused much comment … Frenchmen feel that they are being dragged against their will into the orbit of English policy, a policy whose consequences they dread, and which they generally condemned by overthrowing M. Delcassé … People fear that this is a sign that England wants so to envenom the situation that war will become inevitable.32

  Consider the implications. Delcassé had been forced out of the French cabinet, but King Edward responded with a very public display of support for the Revanchist cause. He could have held a private meeting with an ‘old friend’ but chose instead to draw attention to his unwavering support for Delcassé. He abused his undoubted popularity in France to publicly endorse a known warmonger. It was yet another example of the king’s involvement in politics. He repeatedly broke the constitutional convention that a monarch should not interfere in politics, not just in Britain but in staunchly republican France. There could only have been one reason. The Secret Elite knew that the recovery of the ‘Lost Provinces’ was the emotional pull that would eventually stir Frenchmen to war with Germany, and King Edward was the means through whom they continued to express their support for Delcassé and the Revanchists.

  The Germans considered Delcassé’s resignation as a diplomatic triumph: recognition that the French architect of the devious secret articles had been abandoned by the voices of reason. Oblivious to the psychological effect that Delcassé’s diplomatic humiliation was bound to have in the longer term, the kaiser genuinely believed that, with him gone, the thorny question of Alsace-Lorraine was now closed.33 In fact, Delcassé’s demise was an immediate point of contention in the British press, which began to treat the Moroccan Crisis as an Anglo-German affair rather than a Franco-German dispute. The Secret Elite presented matters as serious proof of Germany’s aggressive power and France’s defensive weakness.34 King Edward signalled his strong support for France by studiously avoiding the kaiser in the autumn of 1905, and relations between the two plummeted to a new low. Wilhelm was suspicious of his ‘mischief-making’ uncle and expressed the view that some very influential people in England wished for war.35 Unaware that he was talking directly to one of the ‘very influential people’ at the heart of the Secret Elite, the kaiser gave an interview to Alfred Beit during which he repeated allegations that Edward and Lord Lansdowne had threatened an invasion of Schleswig-Holstein36 and complained bitterly about the cruel personal insults that the British press always levelled against him.37 His thoughts were naturally passed from Beit to Lord Esher and King Edward.

  After a year of deliberately manipulated international friction, with blustering, false allegations levelled against Germany, reason prevailed, thanks in no small way to the intervention of President Roosevelt, who agreed that America would take part in the mediation. A conference was held from 15 January to 7 April 1906 at Algeciras, the Spanish port on the Bay of Gibraltar. Thirteen nations including Morocco, Holland, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, Portugal and Sweden ‘engaged in the delicate task of reconciling the French claims for predominance with the demand of equality for all’.38 It took three months to agree a satisfactory resolution. The conference re-established political integrity for Morocco and agreed equal economic and commercial rights for all the powers, as Germany had long insisted was both right and proper.

  While the end product was an inevitable compromise, the process provided evidence of how closely the British political and diplomatic elite supported France. The entente was not weakened. Far from it. Before the conference had opened, King Edward promised the French ambassador: ‘Tell us what you want on each point and we will support you without restriction or reserves.’39 The German envoy complained that the ‘British were more French than the French’40 and hinted that if the conference failed it could be blamed fairly and squarely on the British envoy, Sir Arthur Nicolson. This was a particularly astute observation, since Sir Arthur was earmarked for greater Secret Elite work within the Foreign Office and enabled their policies to hold fast inside Whitehall.

  If the French were worried lest the new Liberal government that had taken office in Britain in 1905 would prove less supportive, Algeciras dispelled their doubts. Other commitments were also agreed at this precise point, to which we shall come shortly. Irrespective of the party in power at Westminster, the Secret Elite had an iron grip on British foreign policy. Was it feasible, as President Roosevelt suggested, that Britain really would have gone to war over Morocco in 1905 or were they simply testing the waters, determining how far they could push Germany? The lessons learned were salutary and saved gross embarrassment at a later date. First and foremost, they were not nearly ready to challenge the German army in Europe. Second, they had overestimated the strength of French Revanchism. There was no critical mass of popular feeling against Germany in France. Delcassé was more like the voice of the prophet crying in the wilderness than the focal point of a powerful political movement.

  The French government, unnerved by their own insecurity about the strength of the entente, required reassurances that were to have long-term implications. Secret Anglo-French political and military conversations were stepped up and committees formed to ensure that the impetus for war with Germany was not lost in the desert sandstorm of Morocco or the political upheavals that seemed to threaten continuity in Britain and France. These were years of change through which the Secret Elite guided their forces with consummate skill, for their fingerprints are to be found on each and every major incident.

  SUMMARY: CHAPTER 4 – TESTING WARMER WATERS

  The Anglo-French Entente Cordiale of 1904 agreed British control of Egypt and recognised France’s interests in Morocco.

  The German government accepted this at face value until January 1905 when it learned of both a Franco-Spanish agreement and secret clauses in the Entente Cordiale that gave France a colonial stranglehold in Morocco.

  The Secret Elite always knew that Germany would learn of these clauses and was bound to protect its legitimate interests in Morocco. The new French ally was encouraged to break an international treaty over Morocco in a deliberate attempt to antagonise Germany to the point of war.

  Germany declared the moves to undermine Morocco’s independence ‘unacceptable’, but rather than risk war through a belligerent response, the kaiser proposed an international conference to resolve the issue.

  The British and French deliberately misrepresented this, and the kaiser’s visit to Tangier, as a German plot to break the entente.

  In the summer of 1905, the Secret Elite in London and the Revanchist clique in Paris openly considered war.

  The French foreign minister, Delcassé, had the full backing of King Edward VII and the
Secret Elite, but the French parliament overwhelmingly rejected his warmongering and forced him to resign.

  The Secret Elite learned from this that they would have to thoroughly corrupt the French government before conditions were ripe for a move against Germany.

  CHAPTER 5

  Taming the Bear

  THE ENTENTE CORDIALE UNQUESTIONABLY SIGNALLED a dramatic shift in British foreign policy, but it was neither a formal alliance nor the first move to end Britain’s ‘splendid isolation’. It was a convenient act of friendship that drew both nations closer at a point where their other commitments might have driven them forcibly apart. France was allied to Russia, and Britain to Japan, and a war between Russia and Japan would have proved a serious blow for the Secret Elite had the entente not been in place. While in the long term Russia played a vital role in the web of European alliances, there remained in 1904 unfinished business in the Far East that had to be concluded before the Secret Elite could mould its relationship with Russia to its own advantage.

  Britain and Russia had been at loggerheads for 20 years over claims and counterclaims on Persia, Afghanistan and China. The British feared that Russia ultimately intended to add India to her overstretched empire. Politicians talked repeatedly of the ‘Russian menace’ to India.1 India was sacrosanct. Time and again the logistics and cost of defending what Disraeli had described as ‘the brightest jewel in the crown’ were raised in Parliament. Grave concerns were expressed about the numbers of troops needed to defend the borders of India. In 1902, it was estimated that 140,000 soldiers would be needed for that purpose. The question asked in Parliament was: ‘Where are we going to get the other 70,000 British troops to add to the 70,000 already there, without denuding the United Kingdom of the forces necessary to uphold our interests in other parts of the British Empire?’2 Astonishingly, the Secret Elite’s solution lay in Japan. Informed through their diplomatic, industrial, commercial and banking ties, they knew that Japan was equally alarmed by Russia’s intrusion into the Far East.

  Japan had proved herself a major player in Far Eastern affairs by invading China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and, to the astonishment of all, utterly defeating her gigantic neighbour. Japan promptly annexed Korea, Formosa and the Liaotung Peninsula of Manchuria with its strategic port of Port Arthur. Such impertinence from a ‘lesser’ nation offended Russia, France and Germany, who sent a joint ultimatum demanding the immediate withdrawal of Japanese troops from the peninsula and her warships from Port Arthur. The German demand was particularly rude and diplomatically inept. By expressing her intention to remove ‘all menaces to peace in the Far East’,3 Germany made an unnecessary enemy of a nation that valued courtesy and despised the loss of face. Japan reluctantly complied, but insult was added to injury when Russia moved troops into the peninsula and berthed her warships in Port Arthur. At last she had access to a port that would not be icebound throughout the long Russian winters.

  For the better part of a hundred years, the czar’s empire had been ‘groping southwards for a warm-water port’,4 and British opposition had been absolute to any advance towards the Black Sea Straits or the Persian Gulf. That resolve remained intact, but it was transparently obvious that Russia intended to enlarge her empire in the Far East and Port Arthur provided the perfect harbour. This the Secret Elite could not allow. Russia was in a position to threaten Britain’s Far East trade and was one step closer to India.

  The Russian empire held no secrets from the international financiers from whom they had to repeatedly borrow vast amounts of money, or the investors who developed the oil fields around Baku. Russian commercial and financial practices fitted poorly with their ambitious foreign policy, and the czar’s treasury was drained of any reserves.5 The Paris Rothschilds in particular raised huge sums in bonds to develop Russia’s railways and small but growing industries. In 1894, a Rothschild-led syndicate raised a 400-million-franc loan for which Alphonse de Rothschild was decorated with the Grand Cross by the czar.6 The Secret Elite knew that the Trans-Siberian Railway would enable Russia to transport its armies by rail from one side of the country to the other. The 6,365 miles of single track also provided great opportunities for the expansion of trade between Moscow and the Far East, in direct competition with British and Japanese interests.7 Fully aware that the line was to be completed by 1905, the Secret Elite appreciated that there was a strict timeframe within which action would have to be taken before the might of the czar’s armed forces marched into new conquests in China, Korea and Manchuria.

  There were, however, no means by which the British Army or Royal Navy could effectively intervene. It was a conundrum solved by a stroke of pure genius. Impressed by the Japanese success against China and confident of their antipathy towards Russia, the Secret Elite promoted Japan as the England of the Far East.8 The Japanese spent almost their last yen in the creation of a large army and a strong fleet,9 much of it underwritten by international bankers in London. From the mid 1890s, British shipyards built warships for the Imperial Japanese Navy. The first pre-dreadnought battleship, the Fuji, was launched in 1897 from the Thames Ironworks in Blackwall, London, while her sister ship, the Yashima, was built by Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle. When the Asahi was launched at John Brown’s in Clydebank in 1899, she was the heaviest-ever Clyde-built warship to that date.10 A ten-year Japanese naval programme, with the construction of six battleships and six armoured cruisers at its core, meant that in Britain the armaments industry thrived and the work was most welcome on the Clyde, Tyne and Thames. The last of these battleships, the Mikasa, was ordered from Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness at the end of 1898, for delivery to Japan in 1902. She took three years to complete, at the enormous cost of £880,000 (£74.5 million in current value).11 As a rule, the Japanese ships were slightly smaller than their British counterparts but were consequently faster. Quietly and unobtrusively, Britain built the most modern battle fleet possible for the Imperial Japanese Navy, created jobs for its own shipyard workers, made substantial profits for the owners and shareholders, and effectively provided Japan with the means to police the seas in the Far East.

  Events in China and Manchuria in 1900–01 further alarmed both countries. The Boxer Rebellion against the hated foreigners who had more or less stripped China of her natural resources was put down savagely by an international alliance. German, Russian, French, British, American, Japanese, Austro-Hungarian and Italian troops were sent to lift the siege of their legations in Peking. Russia, however, used the rebellion as a pretext to invade Manchuria and signalled her intention to stay. She was determined to partition China and end the open-door commercial policy that brought rich pickings to international traders. Japan brooded over the czar’s intentions and appeared to waver between making an alliance with Russia and accepting their domination of China or allying with Britain and squaring up to them.12

  Balfour’s government in London had decided to break 500 years of insular tradition by wooing Japan.13 The advantages of splendid isolation paled into insignificance in those Boer War years, with the looming threat of Russian expansion and the international scorn in foreign newspapers that had followed British military failures against the Boer farmers.14 The Secret Elite could never dominate the world by sticking to hidebound tradition.

  Negotiations were conducted in secret between Lord Lansdowne and the Japanese ambassador in London. An Anglo-Japanese treaty was signed on 30 January 1902. Some historians portrayed the treaty as a victory for Japan, claiming it had ‘terrified’ the British government into a ‘rushed’ agreement.15 Terrified? Not in the knowledge that their common bond was a determination to stop Russian expansion in China and Manchuria. Rushed? It had been at least eight long years in the planning.

  Britain’s clear intention was to contain Russian expansion in the Far East and protect the British Empire, especially India, from a known predator. The official reason as stated in Parliament was the government’s ‘anxiety to maintain the status quo in China’ and recognise Japan�
�s rights in Korea.16 The treaty stated that if either Britain or Japan became involved in war over China or Korea against a single enemy, the other would remain neutral. If, however, either became involved in war with more than one power, if, say, France joined Russia in a war against Japan, Britain would be bound to intervene on behalf of Japan.

  Undoubtedly it was the subtext that angered Russia, and it might have caused the French considerable consternation had they not been more interested in King Edward’s overtures for an Anglo-French entente. Essentially, Britain was giving Japan permission to go to war against Russia with a promise to cover its back if any other ‘power’ intervened. The implications for both France and Germany were clear. They should stay out of this. There were also a number of secret clauses wherein the British and Japanese governments agreed to permit each other’s navies to use coaling stations and docking facilities, and maintain in the ‘Extreme East’ a naval force greater than any third ‘power’.17 What particularly appealed to the Secret Elite was the additional bonus it brought. With the war in South Africa bleeding resources, the treaty with Japan offered a cost-effective way to protect British interests in the Far East.18 British naval power could be concentrated in and around the Atlantic and North Sea waters. The Imperial Japanese Navy would operate on Britain’s behalf by proxy.

  Parliamentarians were less than happy about the bombshell announcement on 12 February 1902. The treaty was ‘a complete surprise’, a ‘bolt from the blue’, a momentous departure from the ‘time-honoured policy of this country’.19 It was the first time Britain had concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with a foreign power, and the first that any European power had concluded with an Oriental race. Complaints were lodged about its secrecy, its sudden announcement as a fait accompli, the dangerous nature of an alliance that tied Britain ‘hard and fast to the wheels of Japanese policy’ and the fact that no one seemed to have previously thought it necessary.20 To the taunt that Britain had sought the treaty, the under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, Viscount Cranborne, elder son and heir of Lord Salisbury and cousin to the prime minister, retorted with the arrogance of a true aristocrat: ‘It is not for us to seek treaties; we grant them.’21