Pearls before Poppies

by Rachel Trethewey

  There was a touch of other-worldliness about him, even before he became an airman; after that I think it is there with all of them; you see it in the puzzled smile with which they regard those of us who live below.

  Romanticising his friend’s end, he believed that Bron would have felt no ill will to the German who shot him down and there would have just been ‘a wave of the hand from one airman to another’.45

  Developing Barrie’s themes further, Maurice immortalised Bron in his poem In Memoriam. Comparing him to Homeric heroes and medieval knights, he portrayed his friend as the modern hero. Throughout the work, Maurice set his grief in a Christian context. He had been an agnostic, but he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1909. He wrote that it was the only action in his life that he was quite certain he never regretted.46 His friends saw his conversion as the crucial action of his life. From when it happened, he used his writing to express his passionate conviction that belief in God could ‘alone bring storm-tossed humanity into harbour’.47 According to Maurice’s friend, Laura Lovat, he developed a stoic ability to dismiss from his mind anything which would make life unendurable. In the face of sorrow and suffering he showed complete resignation. He wrote to a friend after a great bereavement, ‘You must make up your mind whether you wish to live or die, you must now concentrate on living.’48 Although he knew it was the most difficult thing in the world to do, he believed that a person had to accept sorrow for it to have any healing power.49

  His poem In Memoriam portrays dying in battle as a redemptive act of sacrifice which promises immortality. In it Maurice imagined that, after death, Bron enters the heavenly city to be with those who have gone before him – befitting his heroism, he is with the Arthurian knights. Maurice wrote:

  Surely you found companions meet for you

  In that high place;

  You meet there face to face

  Those you had never known, but whom you knew;

  Knights of the Table Round,

  And all the very brave, the very true,

  With chivalry crowned.50

  Although much of the poem explores his yearning for his lost friend, by the end he believes that there remains between them a perfectly realised friendship which transcends death. There is a reciprocal relationship between the living and the dead and the fallen are not forgotten by their friends who are inspired by their memory. He saw the dead warrior existing as a protective spirit for the living.51 Emphasising his Christian faith by drawing on the language of Revelations, Baring wrote:

  They think of you, and when you think of them

  You know that they will wipe away their tears,

  And cast aside their fears […]

  That it is well with them because they know,

  With faithful eyes,

  Fixed forward and turned upwards to the skies

  That it is well with you,

  Among the chosen few,

  Among the very brave, the very true. 52

  Baring’s In Memoriam was the culmination of his war poetry. It was widely admired. Writing to him several years after the war, T.E. Shaw (Lawrence of Arabia) told him that each time he read it, ‘It takes me […] absolutely by the throat. It is a lovely thing: and big, ever so big: and so simply sincere, and grievous and splendid.’53 It put into words Maurice’s Christian faith and the positive patriotic line. Through his poetry, he expressed his way of coming to terms with the loss of so many of the people he loved. His imagery of chivalry, heroism and sacrifice reflected his old friend, Ettie Desborough’s attitude to the war. Attracted by romance and religion, they turned to the past when the reality of the present became unbearable.

  Eleven

  THE PEARLS IN PARLIAMENT

  Although the pearls were steeped in symbolism, the appeal was for a very practical purpose – to raise money to help wounded soldiers. Lady Northcliffe never lost sight of this fact, and while she promoted the evocative stories of the jewels behind the scenes she was always planning how to maximise the profit they made. She knew that she had to get the timing just right if she was to make the most money for the Red Cross.

  The response to the Pearl Appeal reflected the situation at the Front; when the soldiers’ needs seemed greatest, the women of Britain responded by giving most generously. During the summer months, the situation had improved dramatically for the Allies. Repeated attacks had depleted German resources and their follow-up offensives gained little ground. In the middle of July, French troops supported by fresh American forces launched a ferocious counter-attack on the Germans in the Second Battle of the Marne. Now the weight of numbers had moved in favour of the Allies, not only were the Germans outnumbered, but Ludendorff’s army was left exhausted by the battles of the spring. Seizing the initiative, France’s General Foch and Britain’s General Haig agreed that it was time to go on the offensive. On 8 August at the Battle of Amiens, British troops, joined by their allies, inflicted a decisive defeat on the Germans.1 Recognising the importance of the battle, Ludendorff described it as ‘the black day of the German army’.2 Demoralised by their experiences on the battlefield and hearing about the dire situation at home in Germany where many civilians were close to starvation, German soldiers began to surrender in large groups.

  However, although it was the beginning of the end, the war was not over and the fighting continued. During the Hundred Days Offensive, the Allies eventually pushed the Germans back to the position where they had been at the beginning of the year, but the Germans fought hard every step of the way and the pressure on the British armed forces was unrelenting. No one knew when the war would end and many people feared that the Germans would not be beaten until 1919. As one historian explains, the British soldiers were caught in an awful trap where they could see that victory was approaching but they knew that they might not live to see it. In an act of ‘self-sacrifice on a grand scale’, they fought on.3

  Wanting to continue to show their support and to encourage their men to fight to the bitter end, British women gave more pearls. Over the summer the gems continued to pour in, so that by the end of July there were 3,300 pearls. Inundated with jewels, Lady Northcliffe and her committee had to make a decision about exactly what they would do with the hoard and when would be the best time to do it. Sir Robert Hudson wrote to Lord Northcliffe, ‘Your lady’s collection of Pearls is wonderful. But it is the devil to know what to do with them! They might fetch £100,000 if they were auctioned. They would bring in £1,000,000 if the Government would allow us to raffle them.’4

  At a packed meeting at the Royal Automobile Club, it was decided that the jewels should be made into necklaces and raffled. Not only did this idea have the potential of raising the most money, it was also more egalitarian. If the pearls were sold in the open market or at auction the number of people who could afford to bid for them would be small. However, if tickets were sold at £1 it would allow more people from all walks of life to feel that they were part of this special tribute to the dead and wounded.

  Unfortunately, there was one obstacle in the way of this plan – the law. Although raffles were ‘doing a roaring trade’, held at fundraising bazaars and village fetes throughout the country, it was actually against the law. Officially, any form of lottery was illegal as it was seen as promoting gambling. Although unofficially the police turned a blind eye and did not enforce the ruling, the law still stood. The Red Cross Pearl Committee faced a dilemma: if they held a raffle for the pearl necklaces it would be one of the largest the country had ever seen, but with such a high-profile project, supported by the great and the good, should they risk breaking the law? Never ones to be deterred, the powerful triumvirate of Lord and Lady Northcliffe and Sir Robert Hudson decided it was time to change an obsolete law. Lobbying their friends in high places, they persuaded Henry, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, to bring the Lotteries (War Charities) Bill before Parliament in July and August of 1918.

  Lord Lansdowne, was a controversial figure to pilot the Bill through Parliament. Before 1917 he would have
been the ideal person to take on the task. He was a distinguished politician who had been Governor General of Canada and Viceroy of India. When he returned to Britain he held Cabinet office as secretary of state for war. Later, as foreign secretary, he signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902 and the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904. Experienced in foreign affairs, in 1914 he was one of the senior politicians who pressed the government to send the British Expeditionary Force to the aid of France. However, his attitude to the war gradually began to change. On 31 October 1914 he received a telegram at his Berkeley Square home from the War Office. It stated, ‘Deeply regret to inform you that Lord Charles Mercer Nairne Royal Dragoons has been killed in action yesterday Lord Kitchener expresses his sympathy.’5 Charles was Lord Lansdowne’s favourite younger son and the much-loved first husband of Violet Astor. His father never recovered from the loss. A year after Charles’ death, on 28 October 1915, Lansdowne wrote to his wife Maud:

  My darling,

  You don’t want to keep anniversaries and perhaps you are right, but, for all that, tomorrow will be a bitter day for both of us. All I will say now is that the past twelve months would have been unendurable but for your help and the courage with which you have faced them. I doubt whether they have really taken the edge off our sorrow. That will last as long as we last ourselves.6

  A few days later, on their wedding anniversary, he wrote again to his wife, ‘Our married life has been very happy until this dreadful war came to ruin everything.’7

  Confronting his grief, Lord Lansdowne did what Ego Elcho had advised his parents to do; he invested all the love and hope he had had for his son in the next generation. Representing this shift, there is a heart-breaking photograph of an elderly Lord Lansdowne, dressed in army uniform, looking indulgently at his tiny grandson George, who is tightly holding his hand. The little boy is wearing a khaki soldier’s uniform which is identical to his grandfather’s and a scaled down version of the one his late father wore. Like Mary Wemyss and Ettie Desborough, Lord Lansdowne was determined his son should never be forgotten. Encouraged by his widowed daughter-in-law, Violet, he wrote a memoir about Charles for George. He explained, ‘I have promised your mother to write, for your special benefit, a few notes about your father: the “Charlie” whom I loved so dearly, the “Daddy” whom you lost when you were two years old.’ He wrote lovingly about his son:

  He had a keener and more delightful sense of humour than almost any of my acquaintances, a sense which led him to appreciate the brighter side of men and things and to find enjoyment even when the conditions did not promise to provide either, and although he never made light of the serious aspects of the case his temperament was essentially joyous and hopeful.

  He described him as not only ‘a wise councillor and a trustworthy comrade, but the brightest and most delightful of companions’.8 As well as telling his grandchildren about the father they never knew, he revealed, ‘His death well-nigh broke my heart.’

  For a time after Charles’ death, Lansdowne continued in politics. In 1915, he joined Asquith’s coalition as a minister without portfolio. However, when Asquith fell from office in December 1916 and Lloyd George became prime minister, he decided to retire to his estate, Bowood. His personal experience and his shock at the scale of the slaughter made him increasingly critical of the war. As well as losing his son, six of his employees were killed and five wounded. At first, he voiced his fears in private, but in November 1916 he circulated a memorandum to the Cabinet which emphasised the terrible losses to the officer corps and argued that the best of the male population was being killed. He criticised any needless prolongation of the war. In October 1917, he wrote to his brother that he was ‘more hopeless than ever about the war […] I don’t believe that anything which we can accomplish at the Front will end the struggle – Meanwhile we are being financially ruined and stripped of the flower of our youth.’9 A month later, in November 1917 he went public with his concerns, publishing what became known as the ‘Lansdowne letter’ in the Daily Telegraph. In it he called for Britain to negotiate a peace with Germany. He wrote, ‘We are not going to lose this war, but the prolongation will spell ruin for the civilised world and an infinite addition to the load of human suffering which already weighs upon it.’10

  Following the letter’s publication, Lansdowne’s view was immediately repudiated by the government and he was effectively excommunicated from the Unionist Party. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and America’s entry into the war, his critics considered his intervention to be particularly ill-timed. Lansdowne’s letter was misrepresented in the press as a call for ‘Peace at any Price’. The Northcliffe press was particularly vicious in its attacks. The Times ran an editorial on the letter headlined ‘Foolish and Mischievous’.11 An article in The Graphic commented that in the face of the appalling attack on civilisation represented by the war, it was:

  … not astonishing that these doubts should arise in some minds. The wonder is that they do not occur with greater frequency, as they would do if human nature did not possess the gift of resiliency. To this diminution of resistance, this failure of resiliency is exactly what Germany counts upon.

  The article ended defiantly, ‘The peoples of the Allies have made up their minds that they will neither like it nor lump it. They know that there can be no terms with this pestilence.’12

  Some observers were more sympathetic. The author of ‘Motley Notes’ in The Sketch attacked people who had criticised the letter without reading it. Instead, they had only read ‘savage condemnations of it’ under ‘blood-curdling headings’. The journalist argued that it was ‘a document of first-rate importance’ which might prove to be ‘the turning point of the war’.13

  Some of the younger generation also saw the point of Lansdowne’s argument. Duff Cooper wrote to Lady Diana Manners that he thought the letter was excellent and sensible.14 Recent historians have also described Lansdowne’s plans for an international organisation to arbitrate in future disputes, and reassurances to Germany that its enemies did not intend to crush them, as more sensible than the harsh terms which were eventually imposed after the war.15

  Although his political career was over, Lansdowne remained a stalwart supporter of the Red Cross. Since September 1914, the orangery at his home, Bowood House in Wiltshire, had been a Red Cross Auxiliary Hospital for the wounded. From 1917 Lady Lansdowne had been commandant of the hospital with a staff of up to twenty nurses caring for sixty patients. The walled gardens were turned over to growing vegetables for the hospital. Any bad feeling between the Lansdownes and the Northcliffes after their difference in opinion over the controversial letter were put aside for the greater good of the Red Cross cause. As an experienced parliamentarian, Lansdowne was willing to use all his political skills in the battle over the pearls.

  As the Bill was debated both inside and outside Parliament it was emphasised that the change in the law was hedged round with suitable restrictions. It would only legalise certain lotteries which promoted registered war charities and then only when the local police authorities had granted permission. It would be a temporary measure which would only remain in force during the war. It was argued that as lotteries were already taking place, it would be better to regularise the proceedings.

  Lord Northcliffe threw the full weight of his newspapers behind the campaign to change the law. The Times was at the centre of the battle. On 29 July 1918, the newspaper made its allegiance plain, ‘We hope and believe that it [the Bill] will meet with general approval’, it was ‘imperative’ it was passed. The article explained that the needs of war charities were increasing and although the public’s generosity to war funds had been ‘great almost beyond belief’, there were limits – not of desire or willingness to serve the causes, but of the ‘sheer inability’ of the same people to keep increasing the amount they gave.16 New sources of revenue could be tapped by resorting to lotteries.

  The anti-gambling lobby disagreed. In a letter to the editor from Farnham Castle,
Surrey, on 2 August, the Bishop of Winchester sent ‘a word of serious distress and grave protest’. He argued that those opposing the Bill were ‘striving against what is avowedly one of the gravest moral evils in national life, the spirit of gambling and speculation’. If the law was changed, he was particularly concerned about the publicity the Red Cross Pearl Necklace would give to gambling. He was also horrified by the possibility that pearls might get into the wrong hands. With snobbish disdain, he exposed the threat it would pose to the established order. If ‘a further sequel of newspaper paragraphs telling of the good luck of servants – maids or lads who have become possessed for a trifle of costly pearls, or a thousand pearls. The precedent would be deadly and far-reaching in effect.’17 On 5 August, the Bishop of Norwich joined in the debate from his palace in Norfolk. Paternalistic in his tone, he wrote to the editor:

  I cannot but fear that the proposed policy will make it harder in the future to bring home to our less educated people the inherent wrong of the kind of gambling which ruins their positions and their characters (…) such things started in wealthier circles are quickly noted and discussed.18

  The following day The Times published a letter sent by ‘Common Sense’ challenging the bishops’ hyperbole. The anonymous author used a real-life example of how raffles worked in practice to show that most people who bought raffle tickets did it purely for the charitable cause. A young officer, home on leave, gives a cigarette case to a Red Cross bazaar in his village, the worse for wear because it had been dented by a German bullet, which it helped to prevent killing him. It is raffled, and 100 people buy half-crown tickets, of which £12 goes to the local Red Cross hospital. The old lady who wins the cigarette case ‘shows no sign up to the present of starting on a wild career of gambling’. She exhibits the case proudly to her friends. ‘Common Sense’ asked, ‘Is it seriously contended that anyone is the worse for this transaction? If so who? The pleased winner, the very contented losers, or the patients in the beds?’ Nor could the writer believe that raffling the Red Cross Pearls would ‘sap the morals of the race’. He wrote, ‘The warm-hearted donors of pearls are concerned only that their gifts should realise as much as possible for Red Cross work.’19