The 1914 crisis was generated in the first instance by the introduction of a Home Rule Bill for Ireland. Two previous Home Rule Bills had been thrown out at Westminster: the first in 1886 was outvoted in the Commons and the second in 1893 was rejected by the House of Lords. After the general election of 1910, the political arithmetic in Westminster radically changed, with a hung parliament and the Liberals dependent on the support of Irish Home Rule MPs to cling to power. The quid pro quo was yet another Home Rule Bill to establish a parliament in Dublin. Control of the treasury, taxation, the armed forces and, most importantly, foreign policy would, however, remain firmly at Westminster. Ulstermen feared above all a role reversal where Protestants would become second-class citizens inside a Catholic state.7
Had it not suited their purpose, the Secret Elite could have brought down Asquith’s government and replaced it, but the formation of a Liberal/Conservative coalition was put to one side. Mistakenly believing they were an integral part of a great democracy, backbench MPs from opposing sides waved their order papers at one another and bayed across the House of Commons with jeers and insults,8 while their leaders met cordially behind the scenes, briefed each other and ensured that what was happening in Ireland was under their control.9 It mattered little to the Secret Elite which of their teams was running the government, just as long as the path to war was being followed diligently. In pursuing the Home Rule Bill with all their might, the Liberal team of Asquith, Grey, Churchill and Lloyd George was doing just that. The Secret Elite fanned the fear, tension, hatred and religious bigotry on both sides. Churchill and Lloyd George deliberately antagonised the Ulstermen, while Bonar Law and his team professed loyalty to them. The entire charade was carefully stage-managed.
Though he had no experience of leadership, Edward Carson, a lawyer and Unionist MP for Trinity College, neither an Ulsterman nor an Orangeman but a Dublin MP,10 was chosen by the Secret Elite to stir Protestant Ulster. He championed their heritage, their genuine and deeply held commitment to the Protestant cause and raised a battle-frenzy against Home Rule. Carson was a creation of the Secret Elite. He owed his political fortune to Arthur Balfour of the inner circle. As secretary for Ireland in earlier years, Balfour had appointed him as his chief prosecuting attorney, arranged a safe parliamentary seat and elevated him to the post of solicitor general in his 1903 government. Balfour was proud to boast that he had ‘made Carson’.11
Carson’s second in command in Ulster, James Craig, was a millionaire Belfast whisky distiller who served as an officer of the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa, where his capture and release by the Boers was in stark contrast to the treatment meted out in the British concentration camps. Like most of the Secret Elite’s placemen in Ulster, Craig’s involvement in the Boer War under Lord Roberts gave him the stamp of an Empire loyalist whom they could trust. He rejoiced in Ulster’s place in the Empire.12 He was Unionist MP for East Down and grand master of the Orange Lodge of County Down. James Craig had an organisational and administrative flair that served Ulster well, and he formed a very effective partnership with Edward Carson.
Once the Home Rule Bill had been introduced to Parliament in April 1912, the Ulster Unionist Council was urged to stand firmly against it. The council appointed a commission ‘to take immediate steps, in consultation with Sir Edward Carson, to frame and submit a constitution for a provisional government in Ulster’.13 Carson in turn promised the Protestants that ‘with the help of God, you and I joined together, will yet defeat the most nefarious conspiracy that has ever been hatched against a free people’.14
There was indeed a nefarious conspiracy, but it extended far beyond the four provinces of Ireland. Carson’s commission was to keep a firm hand on Ulster, maintain its integrity and lead its Protestant lodges and Unionist clubs. He had to fan the flames while preserving that narrow margin between dissent and rebellion.
Powerful politicians made public their support for Ulster. Bonar Law, Balfour’s successor as leader of the Conservative Party, was both a friend and admirer of Sir Edward Carson. He waded into the murky Irish waters on Easter Tuesday, 1912, at an enormous demonstration, well in excess of 100,000 strong, at the Balmoral showground near Belfast. Seventy special trains ferried Unionists and Orangemen from all parts of the province. Opening prayers from the primate of All Ireland and the moderator of the Presbyterian Church marked the solemnity of the occasion, where, symbolically, the Unionist Party of Great Britain met and grasped the hand of Ulster Loyalism.15 Bonar Law brought 70 members of the British Parliament with him, including Lord Hugh Cecil, Walter Long, Ian Malcolm and Leo Amery, all intimately connected with the Secret Elite. Bonar Law, son of a Canadian Orangeman and himself an Ulster Scot, invoked the memory of the siege of Derry, rousing the crowd with a passionate speech that ended: ‘You have saved yourself by your exertions and you will save the Empire by your example.’16
Rudyard Kipling, another member of the Secret Elite,17 was equally unstinting in his loyalty. His poem ‘Ulster 1912’, first published in the Morning Post on 9 April 1912, expressed fear and loathing as seen through the eyes of an Ulster abandoned by England, where ‘we know the hells prepared by those who serve not Rome’.18 Every prejudice was dressed in the Union flag. The passion of ordinary working-class Irish Protestants was whipped into a lather by fear that they were about to be surrendered as hostage to ‘Catholic Dublin’. But they did not start a civil war. No one broke rank. Carson and his allies in the lodges and clubs of Ulster maintained a remarkable and impressive discipline in the province.
Demonstrations of loyalty and solidarity continued with a public declaration of formal defiance. On 28 September 1912, Sir Edward Carson was first to sign Ulster’s Solemn League and Covenant. Staged-managed to perfection, Carson demonstrated his wonderful sense of occasion by walking the hundred yards from the Ulster Hall to the City Hall, escorted by guards from the Orange lodges and Unionist clubs of Belfast, with the Boyne Standard19 borne before him. Altogether, almost half a million people pledged their opposition to Home Rule by signing the covenant or, in the case of women, the ‘declaration’. They promised to
stand by one another in defending … our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom and in using all means … to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament in Dublin.20
Thousands more who could prove their Ulster origins signed in Ireland, England and Scotland.21 It was all carefully choreographed.
At Westminster in January 1913, Carson tried to use parliamentary procedure to exclude the whole province of Ulster from the Home Rule Bill, but his amendment was defeated. Consequently, preparations for a breakaway provisional government and all that it involved in Ulster were stepped up dramatically.22 On 13 January 1913, an illegal private army, the Ulster Volunteer Force, was formally established. Recruitment was limited to 100,000 men aged from 17 to 65 who had signed the covenant, the pure-blood loyalists. On the advice of Lord Roberts, Carson appointed the retired lieutenant-general Sir George Richardson to lead the Ulster Volunteers.23 Richardson was in residence in Belfast within the month, and a series of parades were organised to introduce him to the volunteers. Sir Edward Carson boldly stated that the UVF was no longer a collection of unrelated units but, under the general’s leadership, an army. At Antrim on 21 September, he warned:
we have pledges and promises from some of the greatest generals in the [British] army, who have given their word that, when the time comes … they will come over and help us to keep the old flag flying.24
It was no empty boast. Lord Roberts’ Academy would see to that.
The Ulster Unionists had other powerful and determined friends inside the Secret Elite, including Milner, Curzon, Balfour, Walter Long and Leo Amery, in addition to the entire Conservative Party, leading newspapers and influential industrialists. Like Carson, each played clearly defined roles in stirring the Ulstermen to a frenzy of fear and resistance against Asquith’s government: an ‘enemy’ that would not listen to their pl
eas. Few outside the inner sanctum of the Secret Elite appreciated exactly how much control was vested in Alfred Milner, who emerged from the backrooms of manipulative politics to play a pivotal role.
No one was more influential, more determined and more willing to take action than Milner.25 He wrote a ‘very confidential’ private letter to Carson on 9 December 1913 in which he pledged his total commitment to Ulster and offered his services as one who disbelieved in ‘mere talk’. Connected as he was to all the organs of power, Milner knew precisely what the government intended and reassured Carson that ‘they are just passing the time’.26 The entire construct was a charade. No one in London intended to subvert the people of Ulster, but the possibility of an impending civil war had to be given substance to prepare for Plan B. Milner assured Carson that he would ‘paralyse the arm which might be raised to strike you’. In other words, there were huge risks involved in unleashing dark forces throughout Ireland, but Milner reassured Carson that the British Army would not be used against Ulstermen. Carson had to control the UVF, and Milner had to control the army response. Read between the lines of this illuminating letter and you will understand the nature of the audacious plan. Milner and the Secret Elite knew that the government would not subvert Ulster no matter how it might seem. Most importantly, Milner promised to ‘paralyse’ any move by the army against the UVF. This was the Secret Elite’s covenant with Ulster: we will guarantee your safety and integrity, and nullify the government’s military authority in Ireland.27 But the charade had to continue. And it did.
Words brought encouragement, but it was deeds that mattered. Milner’s promise to Carson was backed by a vast Secret Elite fund.28 Waldorf Astor, the émigré American millionaire and a member of the Secret Elite’s inner core,29 donated £30,000. His astonishing benevolence equated to £2.25 million in current money. Rudyard Kipling gave a similar donation.30 Lord Rothschild contributed £10,000, as did the wealthy Duke of Bedford and Lord Iveagh, the multi-millionaire head of the Guinness family. Intriguingly, one contributor, ‘C’, was not identified, even in a very secret document, leaving fair speculation as to whom that might have been. The Secret Elite amassed over £100,000 (approximately £8 million today) for Carson’s work in Ulster, and its spending provoked great alarm. Milner also wanted to use parliamentary process to blunt the British military in Ireland, but no politician would follow that ploy.31
General Sir Henry Wilson, senior member of the Roberts Academy, was at that point director of military operations at the War Office and advisor to the government and the Committee of Imperial Defence. This was the same Sir Henry who had repeatedly reconnoitred Belgium for the Secret Elite, briefed Asquith, Grey, Lloyd George and Churchill during the Agadir incident, who was responsible for the British Expeditionary Force and knew the precise details of the plans for war with Germany. Like Lord Roberts, Henry Wilson was full of admiration for his friends in the UVF. From January 1914, though the British Army saw very little of him, he regularly slipped over to Ulster to hold secret meetings with the Unionist leaders and observe at close hand the UVF forces as they exercised. Incredibly, the director of military operations at the War Office in London was in cahoots with the very people in Ulster with whom his own troops might be in imminent conflict, and he had access to their plans and organisation.
Colonel Hacket Pain, a Boer War veteran under Lord Roberts’ command, currently UVF chief of staff,32 issued a secret programme on 7 February 1914 for full mobilisation of the UVF. An undated, unsigned memorandum headed ‘The Coup’ recommended ‘a sudden, complete and paralysing blow’.33 All rail links, telegraph, telephone and cable lines were to be severed, all roads into Ulster closed, and all British Army depots of arms, ammunition and military equipment seized, along with supply depots for British troops and the police. Weapons were only to be used if fired upon, but any attempt to arrest UVF commanders was to be forcibly resisted. It was a plan; armies have to have plans, and it leaked.
In March 1914, Ulster almost exploded, or so it appeared. The Unionists claimed that Liberals, including Churchill and Lloyd George, had concocted a spurious accusation that a plot had been hatched in Ulster to grab control of arms and ammunition in army stores. Churchill was deliberately provocative in a speech on 14 March at Bradford, where he warned of bloodshed in Ulster and threatened to put these grave matters ‘to the proof’.34 He ordered a squadron of battleships, cruisers and destroyers from the coast of Spain to Lamlash on the Isle of Arran, menacingly close to Belfast. Both political factions of the Secret Elite in London were vigorously and successfully stirring the Irish cauldron. At the same time, John Seeley, the secretary for war, drafted an instruction to Sir Arthur Paget, the commander-in-chief of the British Army in Ireland, to take special and urgent precautions to ensure that the stores in Armagh, Carrickfergus, Omagh and Enniskillen were properly guarded. Paget was yet another officer who had served and been promoted under Lord Roberts’ command in the Boer War.
Rumours were spread that the British government intended to arrest the leaders of the Ulster Unionist Council, and The Times warned sternly that ‘any man or government that increases the danger by blundering or hasty action will accept a terrible responsibility’.35 All that followed has generally been brushed aside by historians as confusion and misunderstanding, muddled by exasperated Cabinet ministers and political opportunists. Not so. What followed was proof of the absolute authority of the Secret Elite over the British military establishment and its key officers.
Milner had promised that he would paralyse the arm raised against Ulster, and he did.
He had invited General Wilson to the exclusive seclusion of Brooks’s Club as early as November 1913 to ensure he knew that the Secret Elite would look after its own. They were effectively plotting treason. Milner assured him that if any army officers resigned rather than order their troops in against the UVF, the incoming Conservative administration would ensure that they were fully reinstated.36 Wilson duly informed colleagues so that it reached the ears of serving officers everywhere, precisely as intended. There was a similar move from Sir Edward Carson, who asked Milner to guarantee a fund for officers who decided to resign rather than ‘violate their consciences’.37 The seeds of rebellion took root.
When Paget was ordered to reinforce strategic points in Ulster against ‘evil-disposed persons’ who allegedly intended to raid British Army stores,38 he did not consider the action justified.39 Consequently, Paget was summoned to London on 18 and 19 March, where he received direct instructions from a sub-committee at the War Office that included Sir John French, another senior member of the Roberts Academy.40 Immediately after the meeting, French discussed its conclusions with General Wilson, who, on that same night, dined with Milner and Carson, the men dedicated to protect Ulster against any move by the British Army. Why? Was Wilson informing them of the War Office decisions that had been leaked to him by Sir John French, or taking instruction on how to interpret them? Most likely it was both of these. There were no circumstances under which Milner, Carson, Wilson or, indeed, French, who was chief of the imperial general staff, would permit a move against Ulster. The most senior officers in the British Army actively intrigued with the men who controlled the UVF to prevent any attempt to enforce Home Rule.41 Was this not treason?
Strangely, though the special sub-committee and the War Office were involved with Paget over the two-day period, no records were kept. Such action was highly suspect and for that reason mystery has always surrounded the ‘mutiny’ incident at the Curragh that was ‘a consequence’ of the meeting at the War Office.42 On the 20th, Paget presented his subordinates in Ireland with an unprecedented opportunity to decide matters for themselves. Officers ‘domiciled’ in Ulster were to be allowed to absent themselves from duty during any forthcoming operations. Paget’s exact words were that these officers ‘would be permitted to disappear’ until the Ulster crisis was resolved, then return to their posts ‘as if nothing had happened’.43
The effect was electrifying bu
t hardly surprising. Within hours of his return to Ireland, Paget telegrammed the War Office to say that ‘Officer commanding the 5th Lancers states all officers except two, and one doubtful, are resigning their commissions today. I much fear the same conditions in 16th Lancers. Fear men will refuse to move.’44 Less than five hours later, Paget sent a second telegram: ‘Regret to report Brigadier and fifty-seven officers, 3rd Cavalry Brigade, prefer dismissal if ordered north.’45
Defiance swelled precisely as Milner intended. The wires in Ireland and Britain were hot with news about a mutiny at the Curragh. General Haig, commander in chief at Aldershot and a member of Roberts’ Academy,46 went to Downing Street to tell the prime minister that his own men strongly supported their fellow officers in Ireland.47 Wilson, French, Paget and Haig, some of the most senior military figures of the day, sided against the government, but not one army officer was accused of treasonous action.
Politicians lied about the circumstances. Denial swirled above Westminster like a breaking storm. It is a matter of record that Richard Haldane made a statement in the House of Lords that the government had no intention of giving orders to the troops to intervene. These words were seen as a pledge that under no circumstances would the government use troops in Ulster. Haldane later illegally changed the Hansard proof-copy by altering the sentence to read ‘no immediate intention’.48 Everyone involved bent the truth to the Secret Elite’s advantage.
Though Bonar Law denied it, he kept open communication with officers at the Curragh.49 An anonymous telegram was sent from there to the Conservative leader at the Commons at 5.40 p.m. on 20 March that simply told him: ‘General and all cavalry officers Curragh division resigned today.’50 Bonar Law knew it would happen, as did Balfour, Milner, Carson, Lord Roberts, General Wilson and Sir John French. They had, after all, facilitated it. Discussions relating to the episode were not recorded, but Seeley made the unforgivable mistake of exposing the fact that the government condoned the conspiracy by signing a memo stating that the army would not be ordered to take up arms against Ulster. Sir John French made a similar mistake by initialling the document, and thus exposed his collusion. When news of the ‘mutiny’ broke and all hell was let loose in Parliament, Seeley and French paid for their indiscretion and resigned. This conveniently deflected blame from the main conspirators. The Secret Elite’s golden rule was never to put anything incriminating on paper, and if an instruction had to be written, ensure that it was burned afterwards.
Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War. Page 41
