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

by Gerry Docherty

  A large and influential section of the British press was working to the rabid agenda of the Secret Elite in poisoning the minds of a whole nation. It was part of a propaganda drive that was sustained right up to, and throughout, the First World War. If The Times was their intellectual base, the popular dailies spread the gospel of anti-German hatred to the working classes. From 1905 to 1914, spy stories and anti-German articles bordered on lunacy.

  In the years prior to the Entente Cordiale, the villain in scare stories and invasion claims had been France. In 1893, Lord Northcliffe (or Harmsworth, as he was then) commissioned a magazine serial called The Poison Bullet in which Britain was attacked one evening by the combined forces of Russia and France.18 His aim was to stir public concern and underline the need for a larger fleet. The complete about-face in foreign policy at the start of the twentieth century was mirrored by an about-turn in popular storylines. It was Germany who was now spying on Britain, not France. It was Germany who was now plotting the downfall of the British Empire. It was Germany who was now the villain. The author of The Poison Bullet was the Walter Mitty of spy scare stories, William Le Queux. This was a man who found an extremely popular niche in cheap novels and scare stories, and made a fortune from them. His patron was none other than Lord Northcliffe. While The Times took a more high-brow approach to diplomacy and foreign policy, Northcliffe indulged his baser anti-German vitriol through the Daily Mail, where the editor, Kennedy Jones, operated on the basis of ‘writing for the meanest intelligence’.19 Northcliffe knew exactly what that entailed and was convinced that the British public liked a good hate. It was the perfect combination. By targeting Germany as the font of evil, the hate and the irrational spy and invasion stories gave the Northcliffe stables rich material to boost circulation and promote the war to which the Secret Elite were committed.

  The literary war began in earnest in 1903 with the publication of Erskine Childers’20 bestselling novel The Riddle of the Sands, which sounded the warning of a forthcoming German seaborne invasion of England. Written from a ‘patriot’s sense of duty’, The Riddle of the Sands was an epic of its time, with secret plans that had ‘seven ordered fleets from seven shallow outlets’ carrying an invasion army across the North Sea, protected by the Imperial German Navy. He claimed it was written to stir public opinion so that slumbering statesmen would take action against the German ‘menace’.21 His novel galvanised the Admiralty to station a fleet permanently in the North Sea and brought Richard Haldane’s plans to create a general staff for the army more popular support. As his biographer later claimed, Childers’ book remained the most powerful contribution to the debate on Britain’s alleged unpreparedness for war for a decade.22 His was the single literary contribution that had merit and was the forerunner to John Buchan, John le Carré and Ian Fleming.23

  In March 1906, Northcliffe commissioned William Le Queux to write The Invasion of 1910,24 another scare serial, published in the Daily Mail.25 It was utter drivel, badly written but meticulously researched. Le Queux spent several months touring an imaginary invasion route in the south-east of England assisted by the ageing former military legend and favoured son of the Secret Elite Lord Roberts of Kandahar, and the Daily Mail’s naval correspondent H.W. Wilson.26 The chosen route included too many rural communities where circulation could never amount to much, so, in the interest of maximum profit and maximum upset, Northcliffe altered the route to allow ‘the invaders’ to terrorise every major town from Sheffield to Chelmsford.27 The Daily Mail even printed special maps to accompany each edition to show where the invading Huns would strike the next day.28

  It was an outrageous attempt to generate fear and resentment toward Germany. The personal involvement of Lord Northcliffe, Lord Roberts, who had been commander-in-chief of the army and a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and the naval historian Herbert Wrigley Wilson gave the impression that this was a work based on reality not fiction. In an act of mutual self-admiration, Lord Roberts publicly commended the novel to all who had the British Empire at heart, and Le Queux endorsed Lord Roberts’ call for conscription to the armed forces. The Invasion of 1910 was translated into 27 languages and sold over a million copies, though, to Le Queux’s great embarrassment and considerable anger, in the pirated and abridged German version it was the Germans who won.29

  Northcliffe was offensive and meant to be so. He explained his ‘philosophy’ in an interview with the French newspaper Le Matin:

  We detest the Germans cordially. They make themselves odious to the whole of Europe. I will not allow my paper [The Times] to publish anything which might in any way hurt the feelings of the French, but I would not like to print anything which might be agreeable to the Germans.30

  He was, as the Belgian ambassador in London noted to his superiors in 1907: ‘poisoning at pleasure the mind of an entire nation’.31 He was indeed, but it was with the approval of the Secret Elite, whose ultimate success required fear and loathing to stir a hatred of Germany.

  These ridiculous, poorly written and utterly outrageous stories raised the fear factor. People really believed that a German invasion was possible – likely, even. And the subtext, the very worrying additional threat that grew in the wake of this manipulation of public opinion, was the spy menace. Suddenly, the nation had been secretly infiltrated by thousands, no, hundreds of thousands, of spies. Success breeds imitation, and Le Queux soon found his spy plots and storylines about the German menace being pirated by other authors. E. Philips Oppenheim began his own crusade against German militarism, writing 116 barely readable and justifiably forgotten novels that made him a fortune. These included the ‘revelation’ that the kaiser intended to rule the German empire from London. Oppenheim claimed that 290,000 young men, all trained soldiers, were in place, posing as clerks, waiters and hairdressers, with orders to strike at the heart of Britain when the moment came.32

  The spy mania sparked a forest fire whose heat generated genuine political concern. Even level-headed editors had trouble keeping the issue of spies and spying in perspective. By 1909, the net effect of Le Queux, and fellow charlatans who had jumped on this bandwagon to arouse a sleeping nation to a non-existent peril, was national paranoia.33 The combination of the so-called naval race and the spectre of spies around every corner bred a rampant fear of Germany. The fiction was peddled as truth in the Nation, the National Review, the Quarterly Review and a whole host of editorials in the national press. These fantasies were swallowed whole by a readership far beyond what Winston Churchill called ‘the inmates of Bedlam and the writers in the National Review’.34 Secret Elite approval was reflected in Lord Esher’s warning:

  A nation that believes itself secure, all history teaches is doomed. Anxiety, not a sense of security, lies at the readiness for war. An invasion scare is the will of God which grinds you a navy of dreadnoughts and keeps the British people in War-like spirit.35

  The will of God, indeed. It was the will of the Secret Elite allied to its soulmates in the armaments industry.

  By the autumn of 1907, Balfour and the Conservative opposition, bolstered by the press campaign, persuaded the government to appoint a further sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence to consider the invasion threat.36 The inmates were in danger of taking over the asylum. The sub-committee met 16 times between November 1907 and July 1908, and their report, published in October, rejected all of the invasion theories and surprise-attack scenarios. Such a message did not suit the Secret Elite, nor those promoting increased spending on the navy. Balfour, Lansdowne and the Conservatives portrayed it as a whitewash.

  A further sub-committee of the CID was set up in March 1909 by Richard Haldane to examine the nature and extent of foreign espionage in Britain.37 It recommended the creation of the British Secret Intelligence Bureau, a national intelligence service to operate both at home and abroad.38 Haldane, who had been elevated to the House of Lords, moved the second reading of the Official Secrets Act in July 1911, stressing that his bill emanated from the del
iberations of the Committee of Imperial Defence.39 The first noble lord who rose to approve Haldane’s Bill was both his and Lord Milner’s friend Viscount Midleton, previously known as St John Brodrick, former secretary of state for war.

  Such was the pressure to meet public expectation that the bill was rushed through its second and third readings in the House of Commons in a single afternoon with no detailed scrutiny and minimal debate.40 Thus Asquith’s Liberal government approved the setting up of what was to become the British Secret Service through an Act of Parliament that was little more than a crisis reaction to public hysteria.41 How ironic that the imaginary spies and outrageous scare stories from Le Queux and his ilk were responsible for the Secret Service Bureau. From these green shoots, planted in a flowerbed of fear and suspicion, both MI5 and MI6 were to grow into huge departments of national insecurity.

  The deliberate undermining of public confidence by the press, and the excessive claims of imminent danger to the nation’s survival voiced in Parliament and newspapers alike, slowly but surely eroded tolerance and trust. Liberal England was made to feel vulnerable. The influx of Polish and Russian refugees from the Jewish pogroms in the early years of the twentieth century had placed great social pressure on the East End of London, and a Royal Commission recommended the introduction of controls on their entry. These were not spies. They were desperately needy refugees, but fear of the foreigner now lurked deep in the national psyche.42 They became the victims of Britain’s first Aliens Act. A long-held tradition of succour for distressed peoples was the first casualty of the paranoia. The mounting fiction of bogus spy stories broke the resolve of Britain’s traditional freedoms. The foreigner might not be what he seemed. The immigrant became a cause for concern where previously the proud tradition of liberalism made Britain a safe haven for the oppressed. The Official Secrets Act went much further than any before by empowering the authorities to arrest without warrant.43 Freedoms eroded are rarely freedoms restored.

  What the Official Secrets Act and the Secret Service Bureau achieved was greater protection for the Secret Elite. The ordinary man or woman on the streets of London, Birmingham or Glasgow had no need to be safeguarded against imaginary bogeymen. Nor had they anything to hide. The Secret Elite had much they needed to keep from the public eye: illicit agreements, illegal commercial deals, secret international treaties, preparations for war. This was what the Official Secrets Act was really about. The Secret Elite had made a vital move to further protect its own interests, not those of the British people.

  SUMMARY: CHAPTER 10 – CREATING THE FEAR

  With his personal knowledge of the power of newspapers, Alfred Milner ensured that the Secret Elite gained control of a large section of the British press.

  The most important British newspaper, The Times, was given unprecedented access to the Foreign, Colonial and War offices.

  The Secret Elite vetted and approved Alfred Harmsworth as the new owner of The Times in 1908 because of his unstinting support for Milner and the Boer War, and his anti-German sympathies.

  Harmsworth also controlled a large stable of popular newspapers with mass readership. Such was his value to the Secret Elite that he was elevated to the peerage as Lord Northcliffe. Henceforth he operated close to the inner circle.

  Northcliffe promoted deliberately concocted scare stories in his papers, including German invasions of England and the country being infiltrated by vast numbers of German spies.

  The ultimate aim was to undermine public confidence, create a menace where none existed and introduce legislation that eroded freedoms and protected the Secret Elite.

  CHAPTER 11

  Preparing the Empire – Alfred Milner and the Round Table

  ALFRED MILNER REMAINED CONSUMED BY his ambition to ensure that the British Empire would dominate the world. He was a man on a mission. A large number of senior Conservatives, including Leo Amery, a fellow member of the inner core of the Secret Elite,1 urged him repeatedly to enter Parliament. They saw him as their natural leader, but nothing could move Milner’s resolve to remain in the shadows. In stepping back from the front line he avoided unwanted attention and was able to pursue his all-consuming agenda without the responsibility that attends representation. Contrary to the widely held belief that he withdrew altogether from politics following his return from South Africa in 1905, Milner set himself the mammoth task of preparing the Empire for war and bringing ‘the most effective pressure to bear at once’ if the necessity arose.2 He gave serious consideration to how the different countries within the Empire would react to war with Germany. Haldane’s reforms in Britain had prepared a small but highly trained British Expeditionary Force, but the Empire remained a vast untapped source of fighting men, the cannon fodder to ensure victory. In the early years of the twentieth century, Britain’s Empire covered a very large portion of the earth’s surface with a population of some 434,000,000, including over 6,000,000 men of military age.3 This could neither be ignored nor taken for granted.

  One of Milner’s first tasks was to arrange a colonial conference in London in 1907. His stated agenda was to change the nature of the British Empire by creating an all-powerful imperial parliament that would reach across the world. At the same time, he had to ensure that the dominions were willing to stand by Britain in the coming war. He urged participants to be ‘a single Power, speaking with one voice, acting and ranking as one great unity in the society of states’.4 He pushed the heads of the dominions to develop a twofold patriotism: to their own homeland and to the ‘wider fatherland’. If properly coordinated, the joint members of the Empire would become ‘one of the great political forces of the world’.5 His vision embraced an Empire of independent but loyal nations tied naturally to an imperial government constitutionally responsible to all the electors, with power to act directly on individual citizens. He brought together the leading lights to devise a plan for future cooperation that would lead to greater still ambition.6 Quietly and unobtrusively, Alfred Milner sowed the first seeds for a world government. More immediately, he and his Secret Elite conspirators knew that when war came they had to be sure Australia, South Africa and the other great dominions of the Empire were ready and willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with Britain.

  Australia’s Premier Alfred Deakin was one of Milner’s prime targets during and after the colonial conference. They shared a platform at the Queen’s Hall on which Milner praised Australia’s commitment to the Empire and stressed the links of race and loyalty that bound the two nations. On his journey home, Deakin wrote a letter urging Milner to take up the leadership of the ‘Imperial Party’. As with many before him, he saw in Milner an inspirational character who could ‘rally the younger men … attract a large section of British opinion which is waiting for a lead, and for an Empire Policy’. Such was Deakin’s belief in Milner that he wrote: ‘I can see no other man who will be so much trusted … You can turn the tide.’7

  That was precisely the task that Milner set himself. He was no Canute, and he did not sit back and let events happen without asserting his convictions. One by one, he and his Secret Elite associates found ways to bind the dominions ever more closely to Britain. At the conference, a plan was adopted to organise dominion military forces in the same pattern as the British Army, so that they could be integrated in ‘an emergency’. Milner’s proposals led to a complete reorganisation of the armies of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, with highly beneficial results.8 Canada was the most challenging prospect. Its French-speaking Premier Wilfrid Laurier was a comparative outsider who was unmoved by appeals to Anglo-Saxon race unity.9 Milner made Canada his priority.

  At this time, Canada was recognised as the ‘greatest dominion under the crown’.10 British imperialists particularly treasured its wealth and future potential but feared that it might abandon its imperial connection in favour of closer economic and political cooperation with the United States. The well-proven Secret Elite tactic of manipulating colonial statesmen held little sway with the Canadia
n Premier. In Laurier’s own words, the chief force they used to influence him was the pressure of a very select society. ‘It is hard to stand up to the flattery of a gracious duchess … we were dined and wined by royalty and aristocracy and plutocracy and always the talk was Empire, Empire, Empire.’11

  Milner decided that a coast-to-coast trip across Canada was necessary and prepared for the gruelling journey by meeting as many Canadians in Britain as he could. Amongst them was a young man whom the Secret Elite recognised as a future leader for Canada, W.L. Mackenzie-King. He met Milner at a Compatriots Club dinner in April 1908, recording in his diary: ‘What was borne in upon me particularly in listening to Lord Milner was that … [it was] the furtherance of the power and strength of the British race that constituted the main purpose in their [imperialist] programme.’12

  With the support of the Canadian Governor-General, Earl Grey, a member of the Secret Elite’s inner core,13 Milner toured Canada, crossing the country by rail to Vancouver. His message was one of praise for Canadian spirit and Canadian patriotism. He repeatedly stressed that Canada would be ‘far greater as a member, perhaps in time the leading member, of that group of powerful though pacific nations, than she could ever be in isolation’.14 His itinerary took him to Toronto and Montreal, where he reiterated his belief that he was a ‘citizen of the Empire’ whose final duty was to all the dominions of the Crown. ‘That is my country,’ was his bold pronouncement.15

  The Secret Elite ensured that his trip was favourably reported in the British press. Northcliffe’s Daily Mail hailed him as the ‘brain-carrier of Imperial Policy’ and forecast his rise to high office after a Conservative victory at the next election.16 The subtext of Milner’s message was much more subtle: power, duty, empire, loyalty. These were not chance remarks. His aim was to stir the Empire and its sense of collective responsibility. ‘We should all cooperate for common purposes on the basis of absolute unqualified equality of status.’17 The common purpose lay ahead.