The Great Titanic Conspiracy

by Robin Gardiner

  The national museum authorities are, of course, just another tentacle of the Government octopus, and the Government was always interested in what Morgan and his colleagues were up to. A Trustee of the British Museum was dispatched to America to meet with Mr Morgan. This is recorded in the Trustees’ Minutes (British Museum) Index entry for 14 August 1911, wherein it appears that Sir Charles Hercules Read was given an extra 12 days’ leave to visit America. Read left London on 9 August for Liverpool, where he joined a ship. He would not return until 9 September, a full month. Clearly the trip by Sir Charles was of some consequence to Morgan because he set time aside from his demanding schedule to meet the representative of the British Museum and escort him from London to New York. The entry in the Museum Trustees’ Minutes reads:

  ‘The Directors having informed the Trustees that Mr Read proposed to pay a visit to America which might be indirectly advantageous to the museum, but that he could not take all the time required out of his ordinary leave, the Trustees granted Mr Read additional leave to the extent of twelve days, if required, during the current year.

  Read a report by Mr Read, 9th October, stating that he had taken the additional leave (12 days) granted to him to visit America (during August) and had specially inspected the Metropolitan Museum at New York and the Widener collection. The Trustees approved.

  The Director reported that Mr Read had become a resident officer of the British Museum, having succeeded on the 26th December to the house given up on his retirement by Sir George Warner.’

  On his return to Britain, Sir Charles reported to the British Museum by letter dated 9 October 1911:

  ‘My dear Kenyon,

  As the Trustees were good enough to allow me extra leave for a fortnight, in consequence of my proposed visit to America in August last, it seems to me fitting that I should report that I was able to avail myself of the privilege thus granted.

  I left London with Mr Pierpont Morgan on 9th Aug. and arrived at Liverpool on my return on 9th Sept., an absence of exactly 28 working days.

  Although, as was to be expected, most people were in the country or in Europe, I was able to see the recent acquisitions of the Metropolitan Museum, an institution now conducted on admirable lines, and by no means deserving of the damaging judgement passed upon it recently by Lord Carson.

  The newly installed Egyptian department is most interesting, and it is astonishing to see monuments of such size and weight transported to New York with such apparent facility. This department of the Museum is admirably manned and is making very rapid progress.

  At Philadelphia I passed an interesting and useful morning in Mr Widener’s house, which is full of fine works of art of other kinds besides pictures. I also saw Mr Gordon of Pennsylvania University and had from him a detailed account of a recent robbery in the Museum there, and another in the Field Colombian Museum in Chicago.

  In New York I was fortunately able to be of some use to Mr Morgan in his collection, an attention he greatly appreciates.

  Yours very truly, C. H. Read.’

  Read’s trip to America at this time, and particularly his friendly relationship with J. P. Morgan, is curious to say the least. The major British museums were being put to considerable inconvenience by Morgan’s hurried shipping of his artefacts to America, the British Museum itself in particular. There has to be a reason, and it is not difficult to find.

  The Tutankhamun Deception by Gerald O’Farrell demonstrates that Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon had been quietly removing treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb for more than a decade before its official opening in November 1922. One of the chief beneficiaries of this looting was Morgan’s Metropolitan Museum in New York.

  The millionaire Theodore Davis, who had earlier employed Howard Carter on his concession ground in the Valley of the Kings, had, in 1909, given artefacts to Herbert Winlock (later to become director of the Metropolitan Museum) to ship to New York. Winlock did not examine these closely until 1921 when he was amazed to find some of them bore the seal of Tutankhamun and the royal necropolis seal, proof that they had been interred in the Valley of the Kings. It would appear that not all of the artefacts filched from the tomb were shipped, sight unseen, to the Metropolitan Museum. Some at least were held back by the excavator and his patron, which, after all, seems only reasonable as they had done all of the spade work and incurred all of the expense in finding the tomb in the first place. Among the items squirreled away was a papyrus scroll. Not of any great value in itself, what the scroll contained was political dynamite.

  In essence the ancient papyrus recounted the second book of the Bible, Exodus, but with a difference. The scroll told, as a matter of record, that the Jews were not God’s chosen people but a mongrel race descended from Egyptians and slaves. The scroll tells how a group of disaffected Egyptians left Egypt to preserve the religion founded by the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, with his blessing and under the guidance of his trusted advisor Moses. In short, the old Egyptian document had/has the potential to destroy the foundations of the Christian and Jewish religions.

  Lord Carnarvon had a contact at the British Museum in the person of Assistant Keeper Wallace Budge. Through Budge the scroll was offered for sale to the museum, but at a price that was outside their budget. Had they gone to the government it is likely that the funds could have been found, the scroll purchased and suppressed, and the threat removed. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and it wasn’t. Instead Charles Hercules Read talked to J. P. Morgan about the inflammatory document.

  By 1911 the existence of the scroll was known to any number of serious collectors and governments, who recognised its importance, although few had actually seen it. The British in particular, who had only recently become aware of the provocative nature of the historical document, had a vested interest in ensuring that it remained hidden for the foreseeable future. When Howard Carter tried to bring a court action against the Egyptian Public Works department for political reasons, it was the British Government, with the assistance of the Rothschilds, who headed him off, for fear of the scroll’s message becoming public.

  The British Government, with its not wholly secure hold on power in this part of its empire, had to tread carefully. Anything that came to light that could be exploited to destroy the stability of the Middle East, which rested on the cornerstones of respective religions, could have disastrous effects on the vital oil for Britain’s new battleships. And stability has never been a noticeable quality where the Middle East is concerned. The contents of the scroll could all too easily destroy that shaky stability and plunge the whole of the Middle East into war.

  It is hardly surprising, then, that J. P. Morgan managed to find the time to spend with Charles Hercules Read. Morgan’s focus of interest in antiquity and religion embraced how the Christians evolved from Judaic law and what the Jews inherited from the earlier civilisations of Egypt and Sumeria. He personally travelled great distances year after year, in discomfort, seeking anything related to the connection between the Christian and Judaic philosophies. That he put up with this hardship and privation time and again indicates that his interest was almost obsessive. As it happened the scroll would not only support Morgan’s interest in the Christian/Jewish connection but would also serve as a club to keep his Jewish financial rivals in order. To the British it was a threat to their Middle Eastern oil supplies, as war in that area would have been inevitable if the contents of the scroll leaked out. It wasn’t until early in 1912 that Morgan paid £80,000 for the Coptic manuscript, which had first been offered to the British Museum.

  Chapter 5

  Preparations for war at sea

  Despite Lloyd George having made Britain’s position over Agadir clear, the political situation continued to decline throughout August 1911. This was not because the differences between the major European powers were irreconcilable but simply because nobody knew what to do about it. Then on 23 August Prime Minister Asquith convened a secret meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence to discuss what action Br
itain should take if France was attacked. The meeting, which lasted from 11.30am to 9.00pm, was an eye-opener. Sir Henry Wilson opened the proceedings by outlining the Army’s role in the event of a European war. Standing by an enormous map, he revealed the British Army’s plan for helping France. Following the Clausewitz theory of supporting the largest allied force engaged against a common enemy, a British Expeditionary Force would be prepared. Six infantry divisions and a cavalry division, about 160,000 men in all, would be sent across the Channel as soon as war was declared. This force, or ‘contemptible little army’ as Kaiser Wilhelm was to describe it, would eventually prove its worth when war finally came. The Army, it seemed, was ready. Now what about the Navy, which would have to carry these troops to France?

  Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, the First Sea Lord, considered by some to be the greatest figure the Royal Navy had produced since Nelson, was the next to spell out what he saw as his service’s role. Sir Arthur, who was almost 70 years old, had won the VC fighting on land against the Dervishes. He was popular with the men of the Royal Navy and was regarded as a sturdy old sea dog, known throughout the fleet as ‘Tug’ Wilson. What this distinguished sailor had to say caused dismay in the Cabinet. The Navy was not ready for war with Germany and could not spare a single man, a single officer, a single ship to assist the Army. Every vessel the Admiralty could muster, in home waters, would be required to keep the enemy confined within the North Sea.

  General Sir William Nicholson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), was stunned. He said that he had always presumed that the Army could count on the ungrudging assistance of the Transport Department of the Admiralty. He had presumed wrongly, Sir Arthur Wilson replied, uncompromisingly. The Navy could not furnish any ships. Reginald McKenna, who was still the First Lord of the Admiralty but was soon to be replaced (although he didn’t know it at the time), supported his First Sea Lord. No assistance could be given during the first week of war. The Navy would be fully occupied in transporting its own personnel and mobilising itself. McKenna added that the Admiralty had already actually recorded in a Committee of Imperial Defence paper its inability to guarantee the transport of troops on the outbreak of war.

  General Sir Henry Wilson emphasised that the dates fixed for embarkation of a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were from the second day of mobilisation to the 12th day. It was expected that the Germans would deploy 84 divisions against 66 French divisions, so the French would need assistance from the outset.

  Asquith agreed that the simultaneous mobilisation of the French and British armies, and their immediate concentration in the theatre of war, was absolutely essential. Winston Churchill, still then Home Secretary but manoeuvring his way towards the First Lord of the Admiralty’s job, agreed with the Army view that the BEF would be needed by the French within days of war breaking out. He expressed his opinion that the Germans would attack through Belgium and that they should be halted there. In the event, he was absolutely right.

  Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson explained that he thought the expeditionary force was a poor idea anyway. In his opinion the smallness of its numbers would be a considerable disadvantage, as would the difference in language and training between the French and British forces. Over and above that, the differences in arms, ammunition and equipment would cause almost insurmountable logistical problems. In his way the old admiral was also right, but he had seriously underestimated the fighting ability of the relatively small but highly trained and efficient British Army.

  Churchill, with a certain amount of justification, was worried about what might happen to an expeditionary force if the French Army retreated. General Sir Henry Wilson’s opinion was that, as long as the British had command of the sea, the British Army would be able to operate from whatever base it chose. In other words there should be no chance of the Army being trapped in France. General Wilson’s whole line of reasoning was based on the idea that the Royal Navy would be able to dedicate itself to the support of the Army, and the Navy had already made it clear that this was not going to happen, at least not in 1911 or 1912.

  Churchill wasn’t convinced by General Wilson’s logic. He was worried about the Army being forced to retreat into the French interior, away from its own country, because of the lack of naval support during the early days of any war. Before an expeditionary force could be sent to France, provision would have to be made to extricate it if the French collapsed, and that provision would have to be reliable.

  Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, whose grasp on reality was not quite as secure as it might once have been, had a somewhat exaggerated opinion of the Navy’s capabilities. He was opposed in principle to the idea of the Army sending an expeditionary force. He believed that if the greater part of the Army was sent to France on the outbreak of war then the British civil population would panic about home defence. In his view the Navy could handle the situation, practically on its own. In Admiral Wilson’s assessment the Navy would immediately on the outbreak of war blockade the whole of the German North Sea coast. Then, if the Army would supply the Navy with troops, he thought that landings on Heligoland and in Germany itself would be a good idea. For the Heligoland adventure the Admiral thought that just one division, supplied by the Army, would suffice. Haldane pointed out that the Germans defending against the landings in Heligoland and their home country would have the benefit of the railway system to move troops into any threatened area. Before any bridgehead could be established the British troops would find themselves confronted by at least ten times their number of Germans.

  Admiral Wilson never got around to explaining quite how his army divisions were going to get to Heligoland and Germany, or how they might be supplied if they did manage to get there in the first place. He had already told the committee that there were no ships to spare for the transportation of troops. He would have known about the troop-carrying capabilities of the new White Star ‘Olympics’, although they were untried. Perhaps the very existence of the first of these ships had convinced the old admiral that there was no need for the Navy to supply ships for the transportation of troops.

  Admiral Wilson’s assessment of the way in which a war with Germany should be conducted convinced Churchill, and Haldane, who effectively controlled the Army, that naval thinking was about a century and a half out of date. Admiral Wilson had clearly failed to grasp the fact that a war with Germany would, at least in the first instance, be essentially a land war, and that hopefully it would be fought in France or Belgium. Haldane was of the opinion that the Navy’s first priority must be to transport troops to where they were needed, then to keep them supplied. Haldane, who in his five years at the War Office as Secretary of State for War, had completely reformed the Army (and given it a brain), decided that he wanted to take over at the Admiralty. Straight after the committee meeting he told Prime Minister Asquith that he wanted to take over the Navy, but the Prime Minister had other ideas. Asquith didn’t want to move Haldane to the Admiralty for two reasons. The first was that he was too useful where he was, and the second was that a transfer of such a famous ‘new broom’ would cause considerable friction with the admirals. Anyway, he already had someone else in mind to take over at the Admiralty, although he wasn’t yet ready to make any announcement. For a month he appeared to be turning the problem over.

  While Asquith seemed to be thinking things over, Churchill, who had also made it plain that he wanted the post of First Lord of the Admiralty (and had been promised the position by Asquith), began preparing the ground by running down Admiralty operations to his colleagues, and pointing out Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson’s shortcomings. At the end of September 1911 Asquith officially offered the Admiralty to Churchill, who had been well aware of what was in the wind and had been expecting the announcement to come at any time since the meeting of 23 August. Churchill and Reginald McKenna would simply swap jobs. McKenna, who was First Lord of the Admiralty until Churchill’s appointment and unaware of his rival’s designs on that position in the Government, was bitter about bein
g moved to the Home Office and resisted the transfer for as long as possible. Behaving like a true British politician, he delayed the drafting of a new Admiralty Warrant for almost a month, during which time he drew the salaries of both Home Secretary and First Lord of the Admiralty, while Churchill drew no salary at all.

  Asquith’s appointment of Churchill was a little ironic. Just two years earlier he had almost brought down the Government with his fanatical resistance to the construction of eight new battleships. Now, of course, he couldn’t get enough of them. Like McKenna and the others that attained high office in the British Government, Churchill fulfilled all of the prerequisites of a successful politician. He would embrace any policy that would bring him fame, popularity with the voting public (whom he detested), and personal gain. As the Spectator reported:

  ‘We cannot detect in his career any principles or even any consistent outlook upon public affairs. His ear is always to the ground, he is the true demagogue, sworn to give the people what they want, or rather, and that is infinitely worse, what he fancies they want.’

  Without doubt the gist of the Committee of Imperial Defence meeting would have reached the ears of J. P. Morgan and it would have done nothing to reassure him of the safety of his treasures and investments in Europe in general and Britain in particular. With the threat of war imminent and armed with the knowledge that Britain was by no means ready for it, Morgan would have moved decisively to safeguard his investments. Much the same ideas must have occurred to those in authority at the British Treasury, so together with Morgan’s artefacts British bullion began to secretly leave for America where it would be safe.