CHESTERFIELD WFA

Newsletter and Magazine issue 58

Co- Patrons -Sir Hew Strachan & Prof. Peter Simkins Welcome to Issue 58 - the President - Professor Gary Sheffield October 2020 Newsletter and MA PhD FRHistS FRSA Magazine of Chesterfield WFA. Vice-Presidents Andre Colliot In view of the current public health Professor John Bourne BA PhD FRHistS pandemic engulfing the globe, your The Burgomaster of Ypres committee took the prudent The Mayor of Albert decision, before the introduction of Lt-Col Graham Parker OBE Government legislation, to cancel until Christopher Pugsley FRHistS further notice our monthly meetings. Lord Richard Dannat GCB CBE MC DL Roger Lee PhD jssc Meetings and other activities will be Dr Jack Sheldon restarted as and when the authorities Branch contacts deem it safe for us to do so.

Tony Bolton (Chairman) In the interim this Newsletter / Magazine will [email protected] continue Mark Macartney (Deputy Chairman) We would urge all our members to adopt all the [email protected] Jane Lovatt (Treasurer) government`s regulations that way we can keep safe and

Grant Cullen (Secretary) hopefully this crisis will be controlled, the virus defeated, [email protected] and a degree of normality restored. Facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/15 Stay safe everybody – we are all – in the meantime - 7662657604082/ `Confined to Barracks`

Grant Cullen – Branch Secretary

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Western Front Association Chesterfield Branch – Meetings 2020

Meetings start at 7.30pm and take place at the Labour Club, Unity House, Saltergate, Chesterfield S40 1NF

January 7th . AGM and Members Night – presentations by Jane Ainsworth, Ed Fordham, Judith Reece, Edwin Astill and Alan Atkinson

February 4th Graham Kemp `The Impact of the economic blockage of Germany AFTER the armistice and how it led to WW2`

March 3rd Peter Hart Après la Guerre Post-war blues, demobilisation and a home fit for very few.

April 7th Andy Rawson Tea Pots to Tin Lids…how the factory which inspired his research (Dixons) switched from making tea services for hotels and cruise ships to making Brodie helmets in the Great War. CANCELLED May Nick Baker . The British Army has always fought a long battle with 5th the debilitations cause to its soldier’s efficiency through venereal disease, a combination of behavioural change and civilian interference resulted in an ‘epidemic’ of VD which threatened military effectiveness.CANCELLED June 2nd Rob Thompson 'The Gun Machine: A Case Study of the Industrialisation of Battle during the Flanders Campaign, 1917.CANCELLED

July 6th Virtual Meeting….On Line. Tony Davies entitled `The Knutsford Lads Who Never Came Home`. Jointly with Lincoln and North Lincs WFA .Fullest details of how to participate elsewhere in this newsletter August 5th Virtual Meeting – On Line . Beth Griffiths ` The Experience of the Disabled Soldiers Returning After WWI`. Details of how to join in this meeting elsewhere in this Newsletter. Starts at 7pm September John Taylor. ‘A Prelude to War’ (An Archduke’s Visit) – a classic and true 1st tale of `what if` ? Cancelled

October Virtual Meeting – On Line Peter Harris Tanks in the 100 Days. 6th Peter will present some of his researches for his Wolverhampton MA course. Details of how to join in this `meeting` elsewhere in this newsletter. Starts 7pm. November 3rd Paul Handford Women Ambulance Drivers on the Western Front 1914 – 1918.

December John Beech 'Notts Battery RHA - Nottinghamshire Forgotten Gunners' 1st

- 2 - Issue 58 – list of contents

2 Meetings and Speakers Calendar 3 Contents Page + Virtual Meeting details + Worksop Tank 4 Secretary`s Scribbles + Virtual Meeting Details 5 - 8 Branded Goods Update 9 – 13 Re-Dedication of War Memorial Pillar, St. Mary`s Barnsley 14 – 16 Military Ambulance Trains – part 7 17 – 26 A Disastrous Decision – The Tsar as Leader 27 – 40 Enemy Aliens in Britain in The Great War – part 3 41 Autumn News – Friends of Spital Cemetery Chesterfield

NEXT WFA ZOOM MEETINGS (all Mondays) Follow these links for registering

5 October Tea Pots to Tin Lids by Andrew Rawson http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/events/online-tea-pots-to-tin-lids-by-andrew-rawson/

12 October The Indian Labour Corps by Pratap Chhetri http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/events/online-the-indian-labour-corps-by-pratap-chhetri/

19 October Talbot House during the Great War by Simon Louagie http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/events/online-talbot-house-during-the-great-war-by-simon- louagie/

26 October The 48th (South Midland): A very ordinary division? By Bill Mitchinson http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/events/online-talbot-house-during-the-great-war-by-simon- louagie/

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- 3 - Secretary`s Scribbles Welcome to issue 58 of the WFA Chesterfield Branch Newsletter and Magazine. Well another month passes and we are now in (partial) lockdown (again). I think there was an assumption by many that by now the coronavirus would be becoming a bad memory, sadly not. It will be around for the foreseeable future even if/when a vaccine becomes available. Many of a certain age get the standard `flu vaccine (personally, I don`t) but it`s not 100% effective and has to be given annually. Time will tell. With `live` meetings` still way off in the future. Usually by now I am well on the way to organising the speaker programme for the next year, but currently it is a case of `wait and see`. Thanks to Jane Ainsworth in this Newsletter we have an excellent report on the Re-Dedication of the War Memorial Pillar at Barnsley St. Mary`s Church As mentioned below Peter Harris – a regular (with his good lady) at our Branch Meetings, has agreed to make his presentation – he was our scheduled speaker for the October Meeting – via the Demio virtual platform. Thanks Peter, it keeps communication and interest open with branch members and friends. Peter Harris is a consulting Civil and Structural engineer specialising in tunnelling and has been a wargamer for 50 years. His interest in family and military history led to him studying for an MA degree in the History of Britain and the First World War at Wolverhampton University which he completed in January. His dissertation was on the experiences of the BEF Tank Corps in the Hundred Days Campaign of 1918. He and his wife Caroline are members of the Chesterfield branch of the WFA. TITLE OF TALK on 6 OCTOBER 2020. The Tank Corps in the Hundred Days Campaign 1918. Here is the link to get you `into` the meeting on Tuesday https://my.demio.com/ref/sTs3L2VM4VAuF9Z7

Grant Cullen – Branch Secretary 07824628638 [email protected]

Any opinions expressed in this Newsletter /Magazine are not necessarily those of the Western Front Association, Chesterfield Branch, in particular, or the Western Front Association in general

- 4 - BRANDED GOODS NEWS WFA 2021 Calendars Because of the Covid 19 Situation and Government Regulations we realise that the sale of Calendars is a bit later this year and to this end as most Branches are as yet not holding meetings we will NOT be automatically sending out 10 calendars to Branches, The situation will be monitored regularly, so as it stands at the moment once the calendars are available the only purchase option will be to buy on line or phone Sarah at the Office, Calendars are now available.

WFA 40th Anniversary Coaster To celebrate the WFA's 40th anniversary, we have produced a 'special edition' coaster. The coasters are 4" in diameter and made of handcrafted slate. They are individually polished, screen printed by hand and backed by a baize to avoid damage to surfaces. These are selling so well that we had to order a second batch. If you would like a new 'WFA' Anniversary Coaster, please order through Website or ring Sarah at Head Office

- 5 - WFA Mousemats We have recently produced a mousemat which is currently selling so well that we've had to order a second batch. If you would like a new 'WFA' mousemat, please order through Website or ring Sarah at Head Office,

Info on all Branded goods (Including those mentioned above

Regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and notified members of the situation that we are doing our best to supply the service that we can within the Governments quidelines

Accepted Orders are:

Clothing; These are supplied direct from the Manufacturer (Check Website for Ordering Details)

Orders on the following items will be accepted as normal as these can be dispatched via Royal Mail Letter Box

Bookmarks

Baseball Caps

WFA Classic Ties

Lapel Badges

WFA Coasters (Special Edition)

Mousemats

DVD's (Individual -not sets)

The following items will be dispatched on a weekly basis (Dispatched from a RoyalMail Drop off Box)

WFA Mugs

Messenger Bags & Shoulder Bags,

- 6 - The following items will not be available until further notice:

DVD (sets)

Binders (Stand To and Bulletin)

No Orders will be accepted on these items until the situation is improved, The current thinking is that as such this is likely to endure through to the summer. Apologies for any inconvenience

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The Eshop on the Website has been updated. The link to the Website is here

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/shop/

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Rededication of the War Memorial Pillar St Mary’s Barnsley 18 September 2020

Restoration of the Memorial Pillar and two wall plaques was enabled by grants from the War Memorials Trust, South Yorkshire Community Foundation (Barnsley – Y&L Fund) & Barnsley Council, various donations and support from Friends of St Mary’s. It is wonderful for us to be able to meet in St Mary the Virgin Parish Church today for the rededication of the War Memorial Pillar, erected to honour people of Barnsley who fell during the Great War 1914 - 18. Listed amongst the names of far too many men is one woman: Dorothy Fox. A beautiful and intriguing addition as she did not serve in any of His Majesty’s armed forces. Her name shines out to remind us that behind the horrors of the war - indeed all wars – are people who serve, suffer and very often die while trying to alleviate the all-encompassing pain of others. Usually these people were and are women and too often their names have been forgotten. In Barnsley, we have Dorothy Fox of the Voluntary Aid Detachment whose name stands alone but whose presence reminds us that the war was fought on many fronts by many people and that families served and suffered in ways we often forget.

I am grateful to Jane Ainsworth and the Friends of St Mary’s for all that they have done to bring our history back to life. During the first months of 2020 we witnessed a hive of activity as the Memorial Pillar and accompanying wall plaques were cleaned and restored by Hirst Conservation and the Barnsley Pals’ Colours were rescued and framed by the People’s History Museum. A lot of planning and fundraising has gone into these two projects which form part of a greater project to restore the Chapel which has had repairs to the roof and heating pipes completed resulting in a drier, more secure environment. Internal plastering and repainting still needs to be done and the Colours need their mountings before they can be displayed fully.

- 9 - Please consider becoming a Friend of St Mary’s @ £10pa and if you would like to make a donation, or regular donations, towards the Pillar or Barnsley Pals Colours, here are the details: Name: PCC St Mary with St Paul Sort Code: 05-02-30 Account: 72387500 Reference: PalsProject

The Rev Canon Stephen Race

Please stand to welcome the Worshipful Mayor of Barnsley

We are here today to rededicate the recently restored War Memorial Pillar which has stood within this holy place for a century, reminding us daily of the folly of humanity and the evil of war. Upon the Pillar are the names of those who died as a result of the conflict that embraced the European Continent and much of the world during the years 1914 to 1918. The Memorial has been cleaned and the names repainted not because we wish to glorify war but because we hope to recognise the supreme sacrifice made by so many in the service of their King and Country. Above all, as we rededicate this Memorial, it is our solemn duty to rededicate ourselves to the call of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, to the service of others in the bond of peace: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” (Matthew 5v9)

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen Let us pray: Almighty and eternal God, from whose love in Christ we cannot be parted either by death or life: hear our prayer and thanksgivings for all we remember this day; fulfil in them the purpose of your love; and bring us all, with them, to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Reading: Isaiah Chapter 2 vv 1 – 4 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 In days to come the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. 3 Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

The Mayor: Dorothy Fox – a brief history - 10 - READING - MAYOR CLLR PAULINE MARKHAM The War Memorial Pillar has six panels listing almost 200 names. These were 200 young people from the central Parish of Barnsley, who died during the First World War. I find it difficult to imagine the loss of these 200 individuals. Other statistics for the number of victims from the whole of Barnsley or Britain and the Commonwealth are overwhelming. The global Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918/1919 killed more people than the war itself. Our experience of huge numbers of deaths has become personal with the Covid-19 pandemic and loss of more than 40,000 individuals in the UK alone. Each person who died during the war has a history: family born into, schools attended and jobs begun. They were all much loved children, siblings, spouses, parents, colleagues and friends. They sacrificed their lives for God, King and Country in the cause of justice and liberty. I want to tell the story of one person on the magnificent Memorial Pillar - Dorothy Fox - the only woman named on a War Memorial in Barnsley. It is of particular significance in 2020, which is the 150th Anniversary of the British Red Cross and the year of the most-deadly pandemic for 100 years. Dorothy was born on 26 September 1894 in Barnsley. She was the fifth of eight children born to Thomas Fox and Mary Emily Tomlinson nee McLintock. Both of Dorothy’s grandfathers were successful Barnsley businessmen: James Fox as a Wine Merchant and Robert McLintock as a Manufacturer / Linen Weaver. The Fox family had close connections with St Mary’s: Dorothy’s parents had got married there, she was baptised there and one of the main stained-glass windows is dedicated to James. Dorothy was well educated and attended Malvern College for Girls in Worcestershire. She would have been well aware of the implications of the Great War from the start because her uncle Charles was an Officer in the local Territorials. The 5th Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment were mobilised in August 1914 with Lieutenant Colonel Charles Fox leading them to France.

The British Red Cross Personnel Record shows that Dorothy was engaged as a Nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. She served for short periods in Ipswich and Corbridge Hospitals before moving to the 2nd Western General Military Hospital in Manchester on 8 October 1917.

There are no detailed records of what Dorothy experienced while working in one of the largest Military Hospitals in the country. However, we can imagine the sights, sounds and smells from other histories along with her distress and exhaustion. By 1918, Dorothy would have been nursing soldiers infected by Spanish flu as well as those injured on the battlefields. Dorothy died of pneumonia on 3 November 1918, aged 24, just days before the war ended; she probably succumbed to influenza. Dorothy's death was reported in Barnsley Chronicle on 9 November 1918 as the 'dearly loved daughter of Thomas and Mary Fox, Hall Bank, Barnsley.' She was buried in Barnsley Cemetery in an area with several Fox family graves. Dorothy's grieving parents paid for one of the two new stained-glass windows in the War Memorial Chapel – the other being dedicated to Captain Jack Normansell of the Second Barnsley Pals. It depicts St Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist), St Mary (mother of God) and St Helena (mother of Emperor Constantine the Great).

The plaque underneath matches the Pillar and plaque for Jack Normansell. They were all conserved in March 2020 by Hirst’s Conservation.

( Jane Ainsworth - September 2020)

Rededication:

- 11 - In a moment of silence let us remember all who perished as a result of the Great War: The soldiers, sailors, airmen and support staff; the doctors, nurses and stretcher-bearers, the young and the old, the warmonger and the pacifist, the victor and the vanquished. In this moment of silence let us rededicate ourselves to the cause of peace, the conquest of evil and the unity of humanity

Let us pray: Almighty and ever-loving God whose purpose is revealed in the beauty of creation and the self-giving love of Christ our Saviour; grant to all who gaze upon this Memorial, dedicated to honour the victims of war, the grace to strive towards the healing of nations and the pursuit of peace for the sake of all humanity that we may be re-created in your image in the Name of Jesus our Lord. Amen

Benediction: God grant to the living, grace; to the departed, rest; to the Church, Queen and Commonwealth and all humanity, peace and concord; and to us and all his servants, life everlasting. The Blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit come down upon you and remain with you always. Amen

- 12 -

- 13 - Military Ambulance Trains – Part 7

Arrangements at Southampton

Hospital ships arrived at Southampton alongside a large shed in which an ambulance train would be waiting. Patients unable to walk were carried from the ship on stretchers down a covered gangway into the shed. At the end of the gangway the stretchers were placed on specially constructed trolleys and wheeled a short distance along the shed to a screened off sorting place where the patients on them were received by members of the RAMC staff and examined so far as might be necessary to allocate them to different hospitals open to receive wounded or invalids. The patients, still on stretchers, were then lifted with the utmost care into the ward-cars and placed on the cots allocated to them. Meanwhile the `walking cases` would be finding there way into the cars and the whole procedure was generally accomplished with such expedition that the average time between placing of the gangways in position and the departure of the ambulance train was forty five minutes. Other arrangements made at Southampton included, besides a generous distribution of `comforts` among the wounded, the provision of an exceptionally large boiler from which steam could be supplied during cold weather for the simultaneous heating of eight ambulance trains berthed on separate sidings in the docks and, for the time being, unconnected with locomotives. Water for culinary and lavatory purposes was furnished to the trains by means of a special overhead supply. Gas for the provision of hot food and, also for the illumination of vehicles not fitted with electric light was sent from the London and South Western Railway Company`s Locomotive , Carriage and Wagon Works at Eastleigh by means of tanks mounted on railway wagons. The, also, in order to keep the trains in a presentable appearance after long trips, the employment of a huge gang of cleaners was necessary; though these workers looked after the outside of the cars only, interior cleaning was undertaken by RAMC personnel. In addition to the regular ambulance trains sent to Southampton as ordered by the responsible medical authorities, the London and South Western Railway Company provided two permanent emergency trains, each made up of corridor coaches and a dining-saloon, for the conveyance of sitting cases only. These permanent emergency cars were, in turn, supplemented by the keeping constantly available at Southampton Docks of a number of modern 60 ft. Corridor coaches which could be attached, when necessary, to either class of ambulance train for sitting cases, access being obtained to them by means of connecting gangways. Still further, the London and North Western Railway Company provided at Southampton some up to date 42 feet vestibule vans for the conveyance of lying down cases and the LSWR Carriage Department doubled the capacity of these vans by constructing special trestles which allowed of stretchers with comfortable beds being fixed firmly in position above those that were placed on the floor of the van, no other fittings being necessary. Each of the vans could take twenty cases and each was fitted with an overhead system of heating and ventilation.

From July 1916, to the end of 1918 there was available at Southampton, in addition to the other transport facilities already mentioned, two complete trains, each composed of six LNWR vans (arranged as described above), a LNWR dining car or corridor coach, and two brake coaches. Each train had accommodation for 120 cot cases plus medical personnel of one officer and ten men, the latter having their living and sleeping quarters in the corridor and brake coaches. Other emergency ambulance trains were made up at, or sent to, Southampton as required to meet the inevitable pressure occurring from time to time, and thus it was, for instance, that the rush on July 7th, 1916, was successfully handled. Thirteen ambulance trains used on that occasion were supplemented by none emergency corridor trains (the running of second trips increasing the numbers of train journeys to 29) and, also, by 24 separate corridor carriages and sixteen vans added to regular trains. In this way, the company was able, on the day in question, and in addition to all other transport demands upon it, to dispatch from Southampton, for distribution among hospitals in England and Scotland, no fewer than 6174 sick and wounded in the course of 24 hours. - 14 - Putting in tabular form the records established on the London and South Western in respect to ambulance train traffic from Southampton for the busiest day, week, month and year , respectively, the following figures are seen:-

Period Date No. of Trains No. of Invalids

Day July 7th 1916 29 6174 Week July3rd-9th 1916 151 30006 Month July 1916 391 68492 Year 1916 2060 329530

The approximate distance covered by the trains run in 1916 was 740000 miles. This figure, allowing for the return journey, gives an average outward journey per special to be 180 miles. The shortest single run was to Eastleigh, a distance of 5.5 miles, for which 14 minutes was allowed, and the longest was to Strathpeffer in Scotland, a distance of 624 miles, for which the time taken was twenty hours, thirty minutes. Between august 24th 1914 and December 31st 1918, the number of ambulance train specials dispatched from Southampton docks was 7822, and the number of invalids conveyed in them was 1234248. Included in the last mentioned figure were 233 sick or wounded members of Queen Mary`s Army Auxiliary corps; 13857 Indians; 8488 Americans and 9342 Belgians, together with 27656 sick or wounded German PoWs and 248 Austrians. All the figures thus far given relate exclusively to special trains run from Southampton Docks conveying patients arriving by boat; but the ambulance train traffic over the South Western system as a whole was much heavier than this. Eastleigh, for instance was a clearing hospital for Southampton and sufferers taken there by train direct from the docks afterwards sent on by other trains to other destinations. The South Western company also received a good deal of ambulance train traffic originating in other companies` lines. That coming from Dover for the Midland system passed first on to the South Western at Clapham Junction, and many Australian and New Zealanders collected from various hospitals in the country were also brought on the LSWR. Thus the total number of ambulance trains of all kinds dealt with by the LSWR system from the outbreak of the war until 31st December 1918 was 10332 and the number of patients conveyed in them (including 91371 officers) was 1848623.

There was 196 receiving stations to which ambulance trains conveying sick or wounded were sent either from Dover or Southampton, or as occurred in many instances, from both.

The distances travelled by a considerable proportion of the ambulance trains in the interests of the widespread distribution of the wounded, will, perhaps, be better still understood if the fact is added that between August 1914 and November 1918, the number of loaded military ambulance trains which ran over the lines of the Caledonian railway Company was 962, namely, 763 worked to Scotland from Southampton and 199 which came from Dover. The destinations of the trains were; Glasgow 522; Edinburgh, 97; Perth, 73; Dundee; 86; and Aberdeen 184. After having discharged their loads all these trains travelled back over the Caledonian lines on the return to the port from which they had started. The company had, therefore, to deal with 962 ambulance trains twice over, making a sum total of 1924.

Other Ports

While Southampton and Dover were the ports at which sick and wounded troops mainly arrived in this country for conveyance to inland hospitals by ambulance trains, various other ports were utilised. Avonmouth, Devonport, Liverpool were taken advantage more especially in regards to cases from the Mediterranean and further East.

- 15 - At Avonmouth, for example 1600 officers and 23500 men – a total of 25100 wounded were received. They were taken on mainly to London, Bristol or Manchester. In addition to these 600officers and 11000 men from various camps in England were conveyed to Avonmouth for overseas destinations. Altogether over 200 ambulance trains were dealt with at the port during the war. When, in the winter months, the trains had to wait several hours for the arrival of the ambulance transports and engine was attached to them for the steam heating of the coaches occupied by the medical staff. From Hull and Boston ambulance trains conveyed many thousands of sick and infirm repatriated British Prisoners of War, especially after the signing of the Armistice, though many had been dealt with before then. All were forwarded, in the first instance to London as a distributing centre. Direct to the Port of London came sick and wounded from various theatres of war. Sick and infirm repatriated prisoners were also received there. Leith was found a convenient port for dealing with invalids among repatriated prisoners of war and, also, wounded troops from Russia.

Totals of Military Ambulance Train Traffic

From the outbreak of the war to April 7th 1919, the total number of sick and wounded received at ports in the UK and conveyed therefrom in military ambulance trains was 2,680,000. This figure includes repatriated British prisoners of war, together with Americans, Belgians, Indians, Italians and 46000 German and Austrian prisoners, but does not include transfer or cases taken to ports for destinations overseas. The heaviest day of all was July 6th (1916) – just under a week after the start of the Battle of the Somme – for receipt of sick and wounded, when the total number received was close on 10000. The aggregate accommodation on the whole of the ambulance rolling stock available in the UK was 8300, namely 3300 cot and 5000 sitting cases; but the transport of 10000 military cases on the day mentioned was effected by reason of the fact that some of the trains made double journeys. The heaviest week during the war period was July 3rd – 9th 1916, when the total number of patients landed was 47000.

Concluded

- 16 - A Disastrous Decision - The Tsar as Leader

Pictured - General Pustovoitenko, Tsar Nicholas, General Alekseyev, October 1915, Stavka, Mogilev The “Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias” is officially a colonel in the Russian Army, the rank awarded by his father, the exceptionally reactionary Alexander III. He had no real experience with the duties and responsibilities of military life, having spent only minimal amounts of time with his soldiers. Despite his inexperience, Nicholas had always believed the army esteemed and cherished him like no other institution. As a child, he adored military parades. As an adolescent, he was never happier than when mounting a white horse to take the salutes of Cossacks passing in review. After his coronation, he disliked wearing civilian clothes and did so, reluctantly, only when traveling incognito to European spas. The soldier who was, as he saw himself, the real Tsar excelled at participating in glittering military ceremonies that helped convince him an unbreakable bond joined his troops to their sovereign. The “general consternation” and “great outburst of public anxiety” in June, as Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov saw it, arose from the fear that if Tsar Nicholas were to take command of Russia’s armies, his feeble military expertise would sap the people’s attachment to him as the central national symbol. If he moved to Stavka (general headquarters), would the government’s problems in St. Petersburg become even worse? Besides, the war is going very badly. How could the Tsar be shielded from public anger if more defeats were suffered - defeats for which he, if in command, might be considered responsible? And would he not be certain to con tribute to the chances of defeat? His supporters were nearly as unequivocal as his detractors in thinking him manifestly incompetent to lead a modern brigade, let alone an army of ten mil lion. Alexei Brusilov, one of the war’s few successful Russian generals, would soon curse the royal attendants who “Failed to use the most decisive measures–including even force– to dissuade Nicholas II from assuming those duties for which he was so ill-suited by reason of his ignorance, inability, utterly flaccid will, and lack of stern inner character.” That was the universal view of people who knew the monarch out side a small circle at the court. “Where are we headed?” wailed his disbelieving mother, the dowager empress. High government officials implored the sovereign to think again. The Council of Ministers were dismayed enough to send him a daring collective warning that assuming the commander-in-chief’s

- 17 - role would threaten “Russia, you, and your dynasty with the gravest consequences.” Nicholas answered the rush of pleas with his favorite mantra: “May God’s will be done.” Was it also God’s will that the Russian Army had suffered a terrible hammering during the war’s opening stages? The declaration of hostilities in August 1914 had inspired a frenzy of heightened reverence for the Tsar. “Lead us, Sire,” roared jubilant crowds. Russia surged with a patriotism the likes of which all monarchists dream of. That emotion sustained itself during the war’s beginnings while her forces scored substantial advances, especially against the Austrian army in the south. But the debacle at Tannenberg in August 1914 followed by the Great Retreat began to have an impact on Russian confidence in their leaders. The grim situation reinforced Nicholas’ conviction that it was his duty to lead the army. That was what he had wanted to do during the equally disastrous Russo-Japanese War of 1905, 11 years into his reign, until ministers and generals dissuaded him. Now he heeded his instinct to serve-submitting also to the prodding of his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. When he left to take up his “new heavy responsibility,” as he described it, Alexandra praised him for having “fought this great fight” against the overwhelming consensus of advisers and commentators ”for your country and throne-alone and with bravery and decision.” She continued: “Never have they seen such firmness in you before…. God appointed you at your coronation, he placed you where you stand and you have done your duty…. Our Friend’s prayers arise day and night for you to Heaven and God will hear them…. It is the beginning of the great glory of your reign. He said so and I absolutely believe it.” As always, Alexandra wanted her husband to assert his famously indecisive self to thwart imagined seekers of his throne. Also, she and “our Friend,” the monk Grigori Rasputin, couched their admonishment in the name of the highest power. “To yield that post to another is to disobey the will of God.” General headquarters, Stavka, was located in Mogilev, a provincial capital some 500 miles south of St. Petersburg and 325 miles southwest of Moscow. The Tsar arrived there on September 15, 1915, with an icon of Saint Nicholas that Rasputin had given him. Settling in, Nicholas wrote the Tsarina about Mogilev’s “delightful view over the Dnieper and the distant country.” The town had been chosen as the site for headquarters despite its name (mogila means “grave” in Russian). He believed his presence there would inspire his peasant troops, the “devoted souls” who, as the czarina forever as sured him, loved him absolutely. Initially, his power to comfort and encourage the troops seemed substantiated. His name “worked like magic with the men,” conceded one general who had bitterly, if privately, opposed the royal move. If states men and the intelligentsia had fewer and fewer illusions about Nicholas’ vision and competence, the peasant soldiers who had always considered him their leader anyway still venerated their Tsar. At the same time, however, the departure of the previous commander, the Tsar’s cousin Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, chipped away at morale in the ranks. Nikolaevich had contributed to Russia’s defeats at the beginning of the war, but the soldiers still considered him a strong, dedicated, stern officer who was concerned with their welfare. Nikolaevich made the change of command as easy as possible for Nicholas, objecting only to patently absurd talk eagerly promoted by the Tsarina–that he hungered to replace Nicholas as the sovereign. The Tsarina’s warped intrigues to strengthen her husbands resolve were part of her campaign to make her husband a more forceful person. An essentially timid man, a picture of loving tenderness in their domestic life, Nicholas tended to stutter when facing unpleasantness. His wife’s shining ambition was to persuade him to rule “like Ivan the Terrible.” “The emperor, unfortunately, is weak,” she had told the British ambassador when he questioned the decision to change command, “but I am not and intend to be firm.” Now she wrote to her husband (in English, their epistolary language) at least once a day, every day he was away. Her river of letters and telegrams exhorted him to save Russia and the Romanov dynasty

- 18 - from treacherous politicians by making himself feared. Once he had swept away the impudent villains who sought vile reforms, then Nicholas would rule without restraint–as God intended. Her goal of making her husband demonstrate who was in command pervaded her every suspicious instinct. “If you could only be severe, my Love, it is so necessary,” she wrote to Nicholas. “They must hear your voice and see displeasure in your eyes; they are much too accustomed to your gentle, forgiving kindness.” To strengthen her case, she invoked the power of Rasputin, the Siberian monk with the hypnotic eyes and apparently genuine ability to stop the bleeding of the royal couple’s hemophilic son, the Tsarevich Alexei Nicolaevich. She wrote endlessly of Rasputin’s love for Nicholas and the determining importance of the monk’s prophecies. “You need the strength prayers & advice of our friend,” she told her husband. Quoting his assurance that Nicholas was fulfilling a heavenly purpose, the Tsarina begged him to further strengthen himself for difficult meetings and decisions by grooming his hair with the holy man’s comb. After completing the delicate task of relieving his uncle, Nicholas himself felt blissfully calm, “as if after Holy Communion. God’s will be fulfilled.” His profound faith encompassed more than determination to serve the Creator. Divine determination had made Russia an autocracy; therefore, the monarch’s holy duty was to perpetuate that hopelessly archaic system. The czar had “unlimited faith,” as the historian Michael Florinsky said, “in the sacredness of the reactionary formula which reduced the essential elements of the Russian Empire to three: orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationalism.” Although most Russians rallied around the monarchy, more and more advisers were appalled by the war effort’s actual workings–the court intrigues, the military appointments won because of favoritism rather than ability, and the infernal muddle of military bureaucracies that deprived the fighting men of boots and food, not to mention guns and ammunition. In 1916, a year after Nicholas came to Stavka, a minister pleaded with him to institute reforms that would save the army from bedlam, his only reply was, “I will do what the Lord wills me to do.” Whatever it said about his religious devotion, that standard expression also camouflaged his refusal to face unmistakable reality and to cloak his ignorance in heavenly majesty. Tsar Nicholas settled into a comfortable routine at Mogilev. At 11am each morning, the chief of staff and the general quartermaster reported to Nicholas about the war situation. Every evening he received accounts from the front. Nicholas left the real conduct of the war to his chief of staff, General Mikhail Alexeyev, a relatively skilled administrator and strategist who took pains to keep his commander happily distracted. To most questions about strategy and tactics, the Tsar answered, “You must ask Alexeyev.” By that time, millions of Russians had been killed and millions more gravely wounded in the fighting. The same fate awaited millions more. Tsar Nicholas was persuaded that the way to sustain Russia was not to tackle the work needed to modernise and generally professionalise the army, nor try to learn strategy, nor explore matters crying out for sound decisions. It was to permit his suffering soldiers to observe the happy play, in the bosom of general headquarters, of the Tsarevich who represented their future, the heir to whom Tsar Nicholas read aloud all his mother’s scheming letters. In terms of his private life, the father’s affection for his sickly son, who “brings much light into my life here,” was high among his merits. Nicholas’ love for his children was exceeded only by his devotion to their mother, and he thanked God for giving her to him “as a wife and friend.” Convinced that her enemies, who increasingly numbered all thinking Russians–were “incarnations of evil,” the Tsarina was easily moved to hysteria by traitorous words doubting her and Rasputin’s righteousness. Her far less excitable husband also believed that any opposition to him was begot by evil elements seeking Russia’s ruin. His conception of those elements revealed the baseness of his political thinking. In his modest personal comportment, the winning outdoorsman who loved tennis, wood chopping, and country walks with his adored children was a model for royalty and commoners alike. He usually wore - 19 - a simple soldier’s belted blouse and boots. Kind , courteous, gentlemanly, frequently nervous, the shy and faintly feminine figure, as he appeared to one general, was never known to raise his voice, let alone lose his temper. The soft spoken ruler with his supreme devotion to his beautiful family seemed anything but a tyrant. However, many foreigners saw Nicholas as tragically weak ”in no way fitted to be a czar,” concluded American war correspondent Stanley Washburn. Germany’s monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm II, once remarked that his nephew Nicholas was fit only to “live in a country house and grow turnips.” Although that remark revealed as much about Wilhelm’s mean spirited contempt as about Nicholas himself, there was wide spread agreement that the throne’s occupation by such a feeble leader just when Russia needed vision and strength was a curse. Washburn thought Nicholas should have been a priest, for his religious belief went “almost to the point of superstition.” Not that Tsar Nicholas was stupid. On the contrary, his memory, reading comprehension, knowledge of royal history, and ability with languages was excellent. But his mystical conviction that the benevolent God who appointed him Tsar and supreme commander would make the right decisions for Russia kept Nicholas from applying himself to demanding military or political questions. Count Sergei Witte, a former minister of finance who before Nicholas summarily dismissed him did much to spur the country’s turn of the century industrialisation and advance toward parliamentarianism, characterised the Tsars motto as, “I wish, therefore it must be.” Absorption of painful realities, let alone any kind of creative thinking, seemed beyond him. Enclosed in his snug Stavka bubble, the supreme commander’s view of the war during that supreme national crisis was of maps with brightly coloured pins indicating troop positions and of picked regiments some “amazingly beautiful” and “astounding ,” he enthused whirling in review. His Stavka stay became an enlarged version of summer manoeuvres. Tsar Nicholas much enjoyed the reviews. The “performers” were “so tidily, cleanly and well dressed and equipped, such as I have seldom seen even in peace time! Truly excellent!” At least one planned offensive was delayed because he insisted on reviewing some of the Imperial Guard units designated to take part, and that rite was postponed for weeks until the Tsarevich recovered from an episode of bleeding. The French observer who reported the affair was understandably amazed. The Tsar’s reluctance to take a firm stand or issue an order became common knowledge among the staff. A few ascribed it to the difficulty of exerting authority in a sprawling landmass whose people leaned toward anarchy unless marshaled by superiors directly on the spot. “You see what it is to be an autocrat,” he complained wistfully to the British ambassador. Other supporters attributed his vacillation to qualities that would have been far less harmful in peacetime. The commander of his Imperial Guard thought the Tsars first decisions were almost always right. But “too much modesty” made him uncertain of himself, and frequent changes of mind “usually spoil[ed] the first decision.” If it was modesty that kept him from saying or ordering something concrete, his extraordinary view of his responsibilities at Stavka surely helped. Stavka was like no other high command on either side of the war–Nicholas’ behavior ensured that. At one point, the czar was so busy entertaining a steady stream of generals and colonels that for a month he failed to read a district military commander’s 11 page plea for reinforcements. His sedulous, upright chief of staff, General Alexeyev, tried to avoid the social gatherings. Alexeyev continued to devise strategy and plan operations, which Nicholas then “ordered.” However, General Anton Denikin, an army corps commander, believed that the czar “lacked sufficient authority, firmness and strength” even to accomplish his ceremonial ordering with the necessary understanding and decisiveness. Knowing that, Alexeyev took to informing Nicholas only about matters that had already been resolved. For the Tsars occasional trips to the front, his private train was rigged with a trapeze like device so he could exercise when that was impossible outdoors. Visiting hospitals, he bore huge supplies of medals for the heavily wounded, on whom he believed he made a stunning impression. General Denikin observed, to the contrary, that the decorated men were left with little to tell their comrades. The ceremonies produced no memorable words because his reserved commander “did not know how to speak with the troops.” Other generals found his ineptness went much further, not knowing “where to go or what to do.” - 20 - While he remained unaware of the waning support amongst his soldiers, Nicholas continued to enjoy “military” life at Stavka. “The life I lead here at the head of my army is so healthy and comforting,” he mused. He had always relished the officers’ mess of guards regiments. Taken in the company he liked, the meals were washed down by copious amounts of vodka and wine, although his own drinking was sparing. He enjoyed praying in church, which confirmed that his heart was “in the hands of God” and helped him to ignore that the terrible defeats the Russians were suffering were eroding the previously powerful national religious faith, specifically the prevailing conviction in the ranks that prayer would lead to victory. Most of all he loved reviews and parades. He took the throaty “Hurrahs!” of the troops he reviewed as evidence that his ministers in St. Petersburg knew terribly little of what was happening to the country as a whole. That, he believed, was proof that he had been right to assume supreme command. After all, Rasputin had warned that “trouble is coming” and that Nicholas would have been “driven from the throne by now” if he had not replaced Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. Trouble is indeed hurtling toward the regime. One of its chief causes was Tsars Nicholas’s illusions about his August calling and slight duties. His fondness for non-combatant military ways made him happy to be at Stavka, as did its refuge from decision making. Clear thought and action might have allowed Russia to evolve into a modern monarchy, able to acknowledge and cope with 20th-century economic and social developments. The same might have given her army a chance to make good its enormous potential in manpower, soldierly stoicism, and, by 1916, increasing amounts of supplies from awakening industries. Reasonable reform would have given able military leaders the ability to make and execute rational decisions. But Tsar Nicholas, clinging to his mystical sense of how victories are won and to his perceived role as the guarantor of celestial approval, continued to scorn all pleading to recognise the facts staring him in the face. “My brain is resting here no ministers, no troublesome questions demanding thought,” he wrote to his wife. His adoring wife continued thinking for him. The German born Alexandra was not a traitor as slanderous newspapers had begun suggesting. Apart from her relationship with Rasputin, she was guilty of few of the unusual scandals described by the growing portion of the press that sought to blacken the monarchy. Still, she was a greater menace to Russian victory than countless German divisions. When she visited Mogilev the generals ate in guarded silence and feared to enter the neighbouring room to which she retired after the meal. What would they have thought if they had read her letters to their supreme commander, with their beseeching to heed “our friend”? When Nicholas reported that intense fog had interfered with Russian artillery, she answered that “He [Rasputin] scolded for not having said it at once,” and conveyed his promise that “no more fogg [sic] will disturb [you].” The problems resulting from Nicholas’ lack of command presence were only compounded by Russia’s military leaders. War production was improving but much of the army’s generalship remained abysmal. Western liaison officers were appalled by the flunkies in high army positions. Although court favorites and unscrupulous intriguers were hardly new to Russia, their damage increased in proportion to the army’s urgent need for effective generalship. Never grasping the importance of finding effective leaders, the Tsar, throughout the duration of his command at Stavka, interceded to win high commands for “a motley crew of failed and incompetent generals,” summarised a historian. Eased into vital commands, a raft of inept aristocrats blundered woefully and helped ensure immense casualties by relying on nineteenth century concepts of warfare. A French officer characterised the Tsar Nicholas’s appointments as “scandalous favouritism.” The Tsar had long trusted and felt comfortable with only people of very mediocre minds and virtually no initiative. Now, when gifted, dynamic leaders were needed–precisely the qualities that provoked his ostracism or hostility he had difficulty judging who should serve because he had little talent for assessing others’ talents and worth. On top of that, he still knew little about the army’s real workings. Promotions based on petty impulses and resentments which friendly families should be rewarded with choice posts, what commanders must be punished for lack of deference thus led, in the crisis of war, to very tragic consequences.

- 21 - “Sadly,” wrote historian Bruce Lincoln, “such traits as likability, glibness, respect for his Tsarina, and a variety of other inconsequential criteria determined his choice of the men in whom he placed his trust. These men could never provide him with the advice and counsel he needed as Russia passed through the most critical moment in her history.” The Tsarina’s letters to Nicholas were full of urgings to accommodate flatterers, notably members of her friends’ families. One, she reminded, “Waits for a regiment.” It would be “lovely” if an other were given command of a brigade and has that been arranged for a third? A fourth should be the next successor to command of another brigade. Nicholas must “find work” for a fifth. Although some appointments and promotions went to excellent candidates, “the number of incompetents restored to duty and promoted through the favour of the Tsar and Tsarina was dangerously large,” according to one scholar of the Romanovs’ fall. Alexandra’s urgings to replace “incompetent” or “disloyal” generals was equally damaging to Russia. Her targets were almost always those who had revealed misgivings about Rasputin, a sure sign of ability, since good generals were anti-Rasputin almost by definition and telling the truth about him required integrity. She stimulated her husbands purge of precisely the skill, honesty and leadership for which the fighting units cried out. The enormously hard-working, incorruptibly apolitical chief of staff did not escape her poison. General Alexeyev’s dedication, endurance, and organisational achievements had won him his promotions and his peers’ admiration despite his plebeian birth. But the Alexandra warned her husband that anyone “so terribly against our Friend” could not do “blessed work.” Therefore, when Alexeyev was found to have cancer in late 1916, she wrote to Nicholas that God had sent the illness in order to save him from a man who was losing his way and “doing harm by listening to bad letters & people.” Although the Tsar was unwilling to sacrifice Alexeyev, he often followed her advice about other appointments. Rarely able to oppose her, he too was displeased, if not as violently, by expressions of doubt about Rasputin’s revelations. The grievous royal influence was crowned by the disastrous March 1916 dismissal of the man whom the British military attache identified as undoubtedly Russia’s ablest military organizer. General Andrei Polivanov, the war minister, had done more than anyone else to rebuild the army–some said miraculously after its terrible losses in the Great Retreat of 1915. The Tsarina considered him “simply a revolutionary” for cooperating with public organisations to improve army supplies. While campaigning stridently for his ousting, she also wondered whether the chief of the war industries committees could be hung for experimenting with workers’ participation. Nearly all at- tempts to cope with the emergency by innovation prompted her relentless calls for revenge. How dare public servants act on their own, unguided by the sanctified vision of Rasputin and herself? She protested in outrage that such impertinence was not merely wrong but also satanic because it challenged the natural order. “But we are appointed by God,” she reminded her husband. For all that, however, Nicholas’ greatest failure in Mogilev was of omission rather than commission. The duties of commander in chief and chief of staff are distinctly different. The latter, even had there been a standard-bearer who somehow worked even longer and harder than Alexeyev, cannot replace the former. But by occupying the top post with his military blankness, Nicholas effectively abolished a position from which energy, knowledge, experience, and in sight should have strengthened and directed the army. His confidence that God would award his faith was bolstered and his willingness to tackle real issues diminished by his wife’s reassurance that “A country where a man of God [Rasputin] helps the Sovereign will never be lost.” The ever courteous Tsars missing leadership was needed all the more because Alexeyev, for all his energy and skill in staff work, could not make quick decisions. That lack of a commander’s vision on the struggle as a whole deprived the army of a fighting chance. By early 1916, morale was improving because conscripts were being better trained and armed than ever before, thanks largely to the just dismissed war minister General Polivanov. In strictly military terms, Russia seemed to have turned the corner and could begin to hope for success. General Brusilov’s superbly commanded June attack into Austrian Galicia, Russia’s most successful operation of the war smashed so fast and far forward that Vienna considered negotiating for peace. - 22 - But the opportunity for a full breakthrough was lost because of the vacuum at the top. No one in- sisted on launching simultaneous offensives on the Western and Northwestern fronts. Although of the war might well have been changed. German Field Marshall, Paul von Hindenburg later confessed that a second offensive nearby would have severely threatened his forces “with the menace of a complete collapse.” But at an all important council of war two months earlier, Tsar Nicholas had remained silent, not even asking a question or venturing an opinion. What he did instead was read novels “from morning to night,” he wrote to Alexandra. His choices just then included a little boy blue tale ”so pretty and true”–that brought him to tears. By late summer of 1916, the Russian forces had suffered monstrous new losses of 1.2 million men and were closer to collapse than the Austrians. The missed opportunity of Brusilov’s offensive turned to rout because the command failure had allowed the Germans to rush in reinforcements to their Austri- an allies. After the war, Hindenburg would praise the sacrificial bravery of his Russian enemies who endured their stunning losses and whose total casualties would never be known. “All we know is that sometimes in our battles with the Russians, we had to remove the mounds of enemy corpses from outside our trenches in order to get a clear field of fire against fresh assaulting waves,” Hindenberg said. A careful study 10 years later led Russian General Nicholas Golovine to estimate that just under eight million men–more than half those who had been mobilized–had been killed, wounded, or taken captive. Tsar Nicholas was not completely oblivious to the horrific carnage, but his nature and entire background, his isolation from deliberation of real issues by the enormous gulf that separated him from his people, incapacitated him for useful reaction to it. Rather than strive to lessen the country’s pain by becoming genuinely involved in the conduct of the war, the Tsar began sinking into a kind of mental abdication. His reaction to the disastrous effects of the war on his army, or lack thereof, was nothing new. When, in 1905, a report reached him about Japan’s virtual annihilation of the Russian fleet in the Russo- Japanese War, he merely put it in his pocket and resumed his tennis game. During the Great War his innate passivism had advanced toward fatalism, probably deepened by bewilderment at the course of events. Count Paul Benckendorff, former ambassador to Britain and then chief marshal of the court, observed in 1916 that his “quite apathetic” majesty “is no longer seriously interested in anything. He goes through his daily routine like an automaton, paying more attention to the hour set for his meals or his walk in the garden than to the affairs of state. One can’t rule an empire and command an army in the field in this manner.” As popular discontent with the war swelled, blame began falling on the Tsar, just as loyalists had warned. Any genuine exchanges with his troops would have apprised the supreme commander of the people’s growing estrangement from him. But “the little colonel,” as he was now called by the troops who began mocking his physical size and leadership abilities, could not see the danger because it fell outside his own lofty view of himself, his army, and his earthly mission. Soldiers felt increasing contempt for the state system and the court they had begun holding responsible for the military failures. But most of their disaffection came from their own experience in one of a number of battlefield fiascoes. Robert Liddell, a British captain of a Russian company, called the Russian soldier “a very badly-off man” who knew the terrible odds he was fighting against, despite his fatalistic bravery. His “wonderful faith” slowly died as the war dragged on, its realities silencing the old slogan: “for religion, Tsar and motherland.” An army cook put it in terms of an old Russian saying: “A fish begins stinking from the head.” Despite his freedom from burden of command and his lack of physical hardship, his spirit and appearance began to deteriorate. The process had started soon after his arrival at Stavka, when the once bright, keen eyed enthusiast complained to his wife about a heaviness in his heart. He grew pale and tired. His cheeks began shrinking, his features visibly aged and his nervousness increased. Now - 23 - every one who saw him was shocked by his gaunt, deeply lined face with prominent black circles under the eyes. His military failures were not alone in wearing him down. Government affairs, presided over by the his relentlessly scheming wife in St. Petersburg, went from scandalously bad to progressively worse, with chaos and public disgust soaring in proportion. The “insane” regime, Count Witte despaired, was “a tangle of cowardice, blindness, craftiness, and stupidity.” The Tsarina’s solution was ever greater reliance on Rasputin, praise of whom was the quickest way up the slippery pole of ministerial ambition and opposition to whom was the quickest way down. Alexandra entreated Nicholas to talk to Prince Shcherbatov, one of a rapid succession of ministers of the interior, to “make him understand that he acts straight against us in persecuting and allowing him [Rasputin] to be evil written about or spoken of.” Shcherbatov and other doubters were replaced by toadies willing to heed “the position of our friend,” as Alexandra specified. Historian Michael Florinsky called the parade of ministerial nonentities “an amazing, extravagant and pitiful spectacle, and sone without parallel in the history of civilised nations.” Not satisfied to whisper directives for the great country’s political and social life, the “man of God” had long been using the correspondence to the Tsar and Tsarina to thrust himself into military affairs in a way that still takes the breath away. Why not military guidance, since God, the Tsarina assured, “opens everything to him”? “Do not fear to pronounce the name Grigori in speaking with [General Alexeyev],” she urged. “Thanks to Him [Rasputin], you have remained sound since a year ago when you took command when everyone was against you.” One message of November 1915 was prompted by what Rasputin had seen during the night. He urged Alexandra to inform her husband at once, “He begs you to order that one should advance near Riga, says it is necessary, otherwise the Germans will settle down so firmly… that it will cost endless bloodshed and trouble to make them move… he says this is just now the most essential thing.” Another, in June 1916, conveyed Rasputin’s blessing to “the whole orthodox army,” and reported his begging, “that we should not yet strongly advance in the north because he says if our successes continue being good in the south, they will themselves retreat in the north, or advance and then their losses will be very great.” The “successes” here came during Brusilov’s offensive, which had a chance to achieve a pivotal victory, if properly supported the opposite of Rasputin’s instruction. By the end of the following month, Alexandra was reporting “our friend’s” advice not to advance “too obstinately” for fear of extreme losses. When Nicholas wrote back that he had told Alexeyev to order Brusilov to cease the attacks the Tsarina now called hopeless, she answered that the Tsars orders left their friend “very satisfied…. All will be well.” In reality, the military situation was again wretched. The Tsar tried to draw a line between Rasputin’s spiritual and military counsel and to ignore the latter. More than once he specifically asked Alexandra not to inform the monk of the operational plans he shared with her. Never daring to oppose her, however, he was no more successful at keeping secrets from Rasputin than in advocating a suggestion in military councils. After the monarchy’s fall, she was found to have a map showing unit deployments along the entire front, one of but two copies the chief of staff had made, for himself and for the Tsar. To the Tsar’s several requests that some of his information be for her eyes only, Alexandra assured in reply that she told no one what he wrote to her, “Except Him [Rasputin], who protects you wherever you are.” While Rasputin was playing his bizarre military role, reasonable quantities of supplies including rifles for every soldier by mid-1916–were at last reaching the front. That worried German strategists, who well knew the Russians’ wondrous resilience after catastrophes that would have subdued less stoic armies. Despite the fearsome defects and difficulties, the Russian Army’s tenacious, heroic fighting had made a great contribution to the Allied effort by tying up much of the German Army in the east. Properly equipped and led forces were now showing themselves to be a match for German ones. A new chance - 24 - presented itself–not too late militarily–to get the “giant Russian steamroller” running. But as General Alexeyev had warned, the crucial factor in an army that relied so much on endurance was spirit. Once the faith in the “good father” czar was broken, no amount of materiel could save the fading national symbol who had so recently been revered. Whispers that the Russian infantry had lost its heart and that anti-war propaganda was rife in the ranks reached the British military attache in October 1916. After Prince Felix Yusupov, Grand Duke Dmitri Romanov and Vladimir Purishkevich violently murdered Rasputin on December 17, 1916, Nicholas spent more and more time alone with Alexandra in St. Petersburg. More clearly than ever, the very qualities that helped make him so sterling a family man who instinctively retreated from national issues to his household’s cherished isolation – simultaneously made him so inadequate as a military leader. While the devoted couple read, listened to music, and played cards, his empire continued to rot. Although the Bolsheviks were still a small, illegal organisa- tion, Tsar Nicholas’s flaws – now seen as evil were radicalising a growing mass of soldiers. By the end of 1916, his completely isolated government was universally distrusted and generally despised. Many in the ranks were convinced that Alexandra’s court was in the pay of Germany, which accounted for the military defeats snatched from victory. Most soldiers believed that the war could never be won under such leaders. They saw “all their feats of arms brought to nothing,” Brusilov remembered, “by what they considered a lack of intelligence and decision on the part of the Supreme Command.” Only a government responsible to the Duma–which had been all but solidly monarchist be- fore the Tsar began playing war at Stavka – promised hope for recapturing popular support of the war effort in the field as well as at home. By January 1917, the monarchy teetered so perilously near collapse that Prime Minister Mikhail Rodzianko ventured to tell the Tsar that hatred of the Tsarina was spreading throughout the country and doom was near unless a new government was installed. “Sire, not a single honest or reliable man is left in your entourage. All the best have either been eliminated or have resigned,” the prime min- ister pleaded. Rodzianko’s pronouncement was extraordinary. He had been brazen enough to confront the sovereign with the truth. However, not even that effrontery caused Nicholas to raise his voice. On the contrary, he pressed his hands to his head and asked whether it was possible that he had “tried to act for the best” throughout his reign, but “for 22 years it was all a mistake?” “Yes, Your Majesty,” Rodzianko answered, summoning even more boldness. “For 22 years, you followed a wrong course.” Still, the “little colonel” persisted in his highest political goal: no significant changes so that he could fulfill his coronation oath to pass on an intact autocracy to his son. His war to achieve that took precedence over the one against Germany and Austria. Calling it their “hidden cause,” Alexandra saw “what the struggle here really is and means - you showing your mastery, proving yourself the Autocrat without which Russia cannot exist.” Although Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky had an ax to grind, he would exaggerate only mildly when declaring that no regiment at the front or the rear would now do battle for Nicholas, let alone for that ruinous family cause. In the end, it was the collapse of military morale that undid the Tsars dynasty. If soldier - and an increasing number of their officers – had not disobeyed orders and sided with angrily protesting St. Petersburg crowds, his rule might have continued. Longing for Nicholas to go swelled among the officers of the army. The scope of the disaffection may have been lost on Nicholas but not on his generals. In the end, it was not politicians or courtiers but the leadership of his army that persuaded him to react. He did so only when his top generals told him that his only choice was to follow the prime minister’s advice and abdicate. The exhausted chief of staff went down on his knees to beg him to listen. In fact, the inflexible, fragile Nicholas went further. Rather than transfer executive power to the hated Duma, he chose to leave the field of political battle entirely by giving up the throne, the ultimate expression of his fatalism. Nicholas abdicated on March 15, 1917. Quietly, Nicholas remarked that he had been “born for misfortune”–a notion many of his subjects shared. Russians believed that czars were either lucky or unlucky and that Nicholas fell into the latter category for many reasons, including mass deaths caused by a stampede of celebrants at his coronation and more deaths in 1905 - 25 - during the war with Japan. He himself, when defending his fateful decision to lead the army, had reminded an imperial cousin that he had been born on the saint’s day of Job, the righteous sufferer. Perhaps, he reflected, a scapegoat was needed to save Russia, and he was ready to accept his destiny. “I mean to be the victim,” the Tsar had said. “May the will of God be done.” By now, he was a scapegoat, blamed for contributing even more stupid decisions to the hoard that ended the country’s evolution toward a workable monarchy. When news of the Tsar’s abdication spread, most of Mogilev joined the shouting for joy that resounded throughout the huge Russian land mass. Persuaded that the fragile Tsarevich would not live much longer, Nicholas abdicated in favour of Grand Duke Mikhail, his younger brother. Liberal monarchists hoped the dynasty would endure after the departure of Nicholas. However, Grand Duke Mikhail read the writing on the wall. Within hours, he effectively passed power to a newly formed provisional government. That government sup- pressed Nicholas’ last speech to his troops, which asked for God’s blessing and victory. Victory had become fantasy; the rational goal was to save the army from disintegration. Even now, the former emperor failed to grasp the situation or the perception of him. “My soldiers hated me not,” he declared. “They hated my crown and throne, but once I was divested of them, they made no accusation against me. What injustice have my people suffered that I haven’t suffered with them?” But huge numbers had come to hate him. His conviction that his people suffered no injustice he did not share revealed more appalling ignorance of the peasant masses to which he claimed such deep attachment. The disaffection by the army commanders – until then his strongest supporters – meant that they now saw him and his imperial government as too great an obstacle to defending the country. Nicholas failed to grasp that, too. Arrested shortly after abdication, he and his family were shifted from one place of internment to another. The last was Ekaterinburg, Siberia (called Sverdlovsk during most of the Soviet period). Nikolai Romanov, as the former autocrat of some 170 million subjects was now called, remained confident of rescue by an army that, he believed, retained its devotion to him. His illusion persisted until July 1918, some eight months after the Bolshevik seizure of power from the Provisional Government, when a revolutionary band murdered him, Tsarina, the tzarevich and his four daughters in the basement of an Ekaterinburg house. Perhaps that horror could have been avoided if Nicholas had listened to the advice of his most devoted supporters three years earlier and not made himself commander in chief. Perhaps the Romanov dynasty might have fallen–if to less ruthless usurpers than the Bolsheviks – even if he had not opened himself to personal responsibility for the country’s immense battlefield pain. But the wiser observers of the time knew he had neither the force of character to provide genuine leadership nor the vision to recognise why it was needed. They never doubted the link between the “pitifully unprepared “colonel’s assumption of supreme army command and the dynasty’s collapse. “It would seem,” lamented general Sir John Hanbury Williams, who led the British representation at Stavka, that “the czar was fated, on the rare occasions on which he made a critical decision, to assert himself in a manner disastrous to his own prestige and to the interest of his country.” The czar and Russia’s welfare had been seen as indivisible and sacred. During the course of his 18 months as supreme commander, however, he managed to squander the great reserve of soldierly affection and reverence for him. The moment “God’s will” took him to Mogilev, Nicholas began digging his dynasty’s grave. “We’re sitting on a powder keg, all we need is a single spark to set it off,” wrote a loyal minister shortly before Nicholas re placed his uncle. “In my opinion, the Sovereign Tzar’s assumption of the army’s command is not merely a spark but a whole candle thrown into a powder magazine.” The explosion damaged Russian society enough to open the way for and 70 years of Soviet rule. Sources: The Last Czar as Leader. By George Feiler 1998; King, Greg (2006). The Court of the Last Czar: Pomp, Power and Pageantry in the Reign of Nicholas II. John Wiley & Sons.[ The Complete Wartime Correspondence of Czar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra, April 1914 – March 1917. Edited by Joseph T. Furhmann Fuhrmann. Westport, Conn. and London: 1999; A. A. Mossolov (Mosolov), At the Court of the Last Czar London: 1935 - 26 -

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The Illusory Threat Enemy Aliens in Britain during the Great War

Farrar, Martin John

Awarding institution: King's College London

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Part 3 Study of the Department Sections of the Secret Service Bureau dealing with enemy aliens 1914 to 1916 This chapter examines the role of the Secret Service Bureau in relation to the enemy alien question during the first two years of the First World War. It was during this time that the Bureau found itself at the centre of government policy and decision making on enemy alien issues. The Bureau provided intelligence that was cascaded to other government departments on the threat that enemy aliens posed to the security of Great Britain and took on an advisory function to the government and police forces around the country on enemy alien policy. When thinking about internal threats to the security of the British Isles there are three types of - 27 - civilians that the Secret Service Bureau could focus upon. These are enemy aliens, deportees from war zones, and refugees, evacuees or ‘internal enemies’. As the main fighting was situated on mainland Europe, and with the sea being a natural barrier, civilian deportees from war zones were not a security risk for the Bureau. Therefore, the Bureau had to choose between focusing its limited resources on civilian enemy aliens or the internal enemies and refugees. By charting the changing bureaucratic structure and resource allocation of the Secret Service Bureau from MO5g in August 1914, to MO5 in August 1915 through to the birth of MI5 in January 1916, it is possible to understand how the threat of enemy aliens was tackled as the first priority. It is also possible to understand how the enemy alien question was being considered by government and that the government was not merely or simply responding to public pressure. What is clear, is that by 1916 the Bureau had mitigated the enemy alien threat level and moved onto dealing with internal enemies and refugees. On Wednesday 5 August 1914, the Prime Minister stood before the House of Commons and announced: ‘Our Ambassador at Berlin received his passports at seven o'clock last evening, and since eleven o'clock last night a state of war has existed between Germany and ourselves. This declaration of war set in motion the peace time preparations of the CID and the Secret Service Bureau to deal with enemy alien in the United Kingdom during a time of conflict. During the same sitting of the House of Commons the Home Secretary, Reginald McKenna, introduced the Aliens Restriction Bill. McKenna explained to the House that: One of the main objects of the Bill is to remove or restrain the movements of undesirable aliens, especially with a view to the removal or detention of spies. Information in the possession of the Government proves that cases of espionage have been frequent in recent years, and many spies have been caught and dealt with by the police. Within the last twenty-four hours no fewer than twenty- one spies, or suspected spies, have been arrested in various places all over the country, chiefly in important military or naval centres, some of them long known to the authorities to be spies. The arrangements contemplated by the Order have been designed with a view to cause as little inconvenience as possible to alien friends, while leaving effective control over dangerous enemy aliens.

The list of spies that McKenna referred to in the House of Commons had been compiled, watched and catalogued by the Secret Service Bureau under Kell. The list from the Secret Service Bureau, called a Special War List, consisted of persons to be arrested in case of war. In the days leading up to the outbreak of war this list had been circulated to chief constables in police forces around the country, together with dossiers on the suspects to be arrested. From 3 August 1914 the police were busy in Abercynon, Barrow-in-Furness, Falmouth, London, Newcastle upon Tyne, Penarth, Portsmouth, Sheerness, Swansea and Weymouth rounding suspected spies up and taking them into custody. The remaining suspected spies were rounded up between the 6 and 16 August 1914 in London, Leeds, Jersey and Liverpool.

Andrew, in his authorised history of MI5, summed up the achievement of the Secret Service Bureau: ‘Never before in British history had plans been prepared for such a large number of preferably simultaneous arrests of enemy agents at diverse locations. However, Hennessey and Thomas in their unofficial history of MI5 take an opposite view on the co-ordinated approach taken by Kell’s Bureau and police forces to smash a German spy ring within the United Kingdom. They maintain that there was no German network to speak of in the first place and that the MI5 masterstroke of smashing organised espionage within Britain was a lie. Hennessey and Thomas even go as far to state that:

The myth of the ‘one powerful blow’ seems to have become a – perhaps – necessary ‘lie’ on the part of Kell to save his organisation from savage post-war expenditure cuts. But a lie it was.

This line of argument has been championed by Nicholas Hiley in a 2006 ‘Intelligence and National Security’ journal article and followed up in 2010 to challenge Andrew’s authorised history of MI5. Hiley argued that different lists, compiled in the 1921 historical report, the 1931 inter-war registry reconstruction and the 2009 authorised history, purporting- 28 - to include the twenty-one or twenty-two names of German agents arrested, are a complete fabrication first created by Kell in 1914. Both Andrew and Hiley agree that a number of German agents were arrested on the outbreak of war, but disagreement still reigns as to just how much of a victory this was against the German intelligence network operating in Britain.

Kell did arrest a number of German agents on the outbreak of war, but he could not consider the operation a success as they were peacetime naval agents working for the German Admiralty Staff. He remained convinced that a much larger wartime sabotage organization, created by the German General Staff, was undiscovered and still active. Even after the set in August 1914, the German intelligence service continued to send spies to Britain from neutral Holland throughout the war. Ruis estimates that one hundred and twenty spies were sent by the Kriegsnachrichtentellen (KNSt), based in Antwerp: ‘at least nineteen were Dutch, making the Dutch the third ethnic group after the Germans themselves and German immigrants with foreign, mostly American, passports. This claim is backed up by the research into German sources to understand the scope of German covert operations in Britain that Thomas Boghardt published in 2004.

Hiley infers that McKenna’s announcement of the arrest of twenty-one suspected spies was a ‘fabricated victory’ that had a sole purpose to cement the Alien Restriction Act’s passage through parliament. Yet, on the same afternoon in the House of Lords’ chamber, the Marquess of Crewe, Lord Privy Seal, Secretary of state for India and Liberal leader in the House of Lords, also mentioned the arrest of suspected spies when he set out the alien restriction bill to the assembled peers. Within the last 24 hours upwards of 20 spies or suspected spies have been arrested in different parts of the country, mostly at important naval or military centres. A great many of these have been long known to the military and naval authorities to be spies, and the authorities have, to the general advantage, kept them and their proceedings under close observation.

Hiley fails to comment on Crewe’s announcement. However, it would appear that when both McKenna and Crewe stood up in Parliament they quoted or were briefed on arrest figures that related to Kell’s Special War Lists. Hiley also fails to note the language used by both McKenna and Crewe. It surely demonstrates an ever changing situation? Phrases like ‘upwards of ’ and ‘no fewer’ offer a vague quality to the number of twenty-one quoted by Mckenna and twenty quoted by Crewe. The language actual mimics the confusing nature of intelligence work that is carried out in real time. Arrest numbers offered were debate updates rather than, as Hiley believes, actual statements set in stone. Note that both McKenna and Crewe qualify their vague numbers with a ‘suspect spies’ label. Until arrested and interviewed, individuals were always in the first instance going to be suspects. Only through arrest and further investigation could a professional judgement be made as to the status of actual spy. Reviewing a copy of the Special War List from July 1914, names with an ‘X’ next to them were to be searched in war and names with ‘XX’ next to them were to be arrested. Sixty-six names are marked as to be searched and twenty-eight marked as to be arrested from a total of three hundred and twenty-four.

It follows that as more individuals were searched and arrested by local police forces around the country and resulting information then processed by the Secret Service Bureau so the intelligence picture built up. In the eye of the storm on 5 August 1914, how could Kell, Mckenna or Crewe know for sure? Only when the dust settled could a fuller assessment be made by the stretched bureau of seventeen members of staff as to whether the pre-war assumptions were correct. It would not be until October 1914 and an official press bureau statement that the suspected spies became ‘twenty known spies’.

The pre-war assumptions had been built upon suspects the Secret Service Bureau had been trailing for many months before the war. In fact the hub of the German intelligence in the United Kingdom had been discovered in 1911 when the chief of intelligence of the German admiralty visited one Karl Gustav Ernst, a hairdresser in Islington, London, during the Kaiser’s official visit to the capital. This out-of-character visit for one of the Kaiser’s entourage- led29 - the Secret Service Bureau to take an interest in Ernst’s activities. Correspondence to and from his address was intercepted by the bureau before being sent on. From the letters and movements of Ernst between 1911 and 1914, the Bureau were able to compile a list of suspects to be watched. It also gave the Bureau a valuable insight into the level of German intelligence gathering in the United Kingdom. The contacts linked to Ernst formed the intelligence for the list of suspects who were arrested during the early days of August 1914. Ernst was brought to trial in November 1914, found guilty of espionage and sentenced to seven years hard labour. Andrew states that research into the German intelligence archives: demonstrates that Kell’s Bureau did not succeed in identifying all the German agents present in Britain at the outbreak of war. It seems, however, to have rounded up all those that mattered. There is no evidence that in the critical early weeks of the war any worth-while intelligence reached Germany from Britain

Hiley, on the other hand, is far from satisfied:

If Kell had scored a major victory against a functioning German spy network in August 1914, MI5 should find it easy to answer a number of simple questions in a straightforward way. When did the operation take place? How many people were arrested? Who were they? What were their names? What happened to them after arrest?

These are questions that can never be fully answered and are possibly a red herring as intelligence gathering has never been straightforward. Hiley wants black and white answers to something that was in reality, grey and constantly in flux. Andrew states that; ‘Kell’s original list no longer survives. Consequently, historians, such as Farrer who pulled together a list of twenty-one from the records available in 1921, have had a difficult task in trying to reconstruct a linear narration of what at the time was a chaotic non-linear world. This is compounded by the fact that many of those arrested on suspicion of spying early on the war were just interned.

In August 1914, the arrests were a reaction to intelligence reports and the suspects’ links with German intelligence, rather than a cynical ploy or fabrication on Kell’s part to rush the Alien Restriction Act through parliament. The government believed in the intelligence reports and Special War Lists provided and acted upon them. This shows the credibility Kell had at influencing policy towards enemy aliens. The arrests, and the immediate adoption of the Alien Restriction Act in Parliament, demonstrate that whole- scale internment of enemy aliens at the outbreak of war had not been seen as practical by the Secret Service Bureau. The immediate priority had to be the neutralisation of suspected and known German spies and saboteurs in Britain.

As the debate in the House of Commons, on 5 August, continued Mr Joseph King, Liberal Member of Parliament for North Somerset, asked McKenna for some reassurances. As one acquainted with many German subjects, some of whom have been resident in this country for many-years, and are much more British in sentiment than German, I should like some assuring words from the Home Secretary that some regard will be had for those person

McKenna assured the House:

Alien enemies against whom there is no reason whatever to suppose that they are secretly engaged in operations against this country will be subjected to nothing further than registration and the provision that they may not live in the prohibited area

This statement from the Home Secretary aligns with the information given on the security threat assessment made by the Secret Service Bureau. The four Special War Lists, with the names of over two hundred and thirty enemy aliens likely to be a danger to national security (which had been developed and updated since April 1914), and the introduction- 30 - of the Aliens Restriction Act were seen to be adequate measures to contain an enemy alien threat. Many of the fifty-six suspects in List three and the one hundred and fifty-five persons on List four were in the early months of the war: ‘detained and transferred to military custody as enemy aliens likely to be dangerous to the safety of the realm, or as enemy reservists still liable for naval or military service.

On the outbreak of war Kell left the family home in Weybridge, Surrey to base himself permanently in London. Initially he slept at the Secret Service Bureau office, located at Watergate House, York Buildings in The Strand. The Secret Service Bureau in August 1914 consisted of seventeen members of staff: seven officers and ten clerks split between two branches: Detection and Registration. However by the end of September 1914 the work of the Secret Service was split out into three Branches. The prevention and investigation of espionage which had been carried out as one function up until this point were separated into two Branches. Branch A became the ‘Detection of Espionage’ and Branch B was created around the ‘Prevention of Espionage. The registration work of the Bureau became Branch C, the ‘Central Records Bureau and Port Control’.

Figure 4. Structure of Secret Service Bureau, October 1914.

MO5g Security Intelligence Bureau

Branch A Branch B Barrister Walter Investigation of Prevention of Branch C Records & Moreshy Espionage Espionage Port Control

Drake Captain Holt- Captain Wilson M.M. Haldane Clerks Seven

1 Chief Detective

2 Detective

Branch A, Detection of Espionage, was headed by Assistant Director, Major Reginald John Drake. Nicknamed ‘duck’, Drake is described by Kell’s wife as ‘a most able man and most successful sleuth, small hope for anyone who fell into his net’. Before joining the Bureau, Drake had served sixteen years with The Prince of Wales North Staffordshire Regiment. During Drake’s time the Regiment saw service during the second-Boer war and was awarded South Africa 1900-1902 battle honours. Drake was made a captain of the regiment in 1901. Branch A’s principal duties were carried out by a staff of eight section officers and four clerks. The primary purpose of Branch A was to carry out investigations of individuals suspected of espionage, sedition or treachery within the United Kingdom and Ireland. Alongside its own case work, the branch also co-ordinated and organised espionage case traffic between government departments, the naval and military authorities, police and provincial agencies. This meant preparing cases for individuals that had been arrested on behalf of the Bureau, but with the prosecution being continued and carried - 31 - out by military or civil authorities.

Branch A also worked closely with the Censorship and Investigation Branch at the General Post Office (GPO). An arrangement cemented on 9 August 1914. The GPO division sent censored or intercepted correspondence, telegrams and communications to Branch A for examination. Once the material had been assessed by Branch A it gave the GPO direction on the disposal of the papers. The original correspondence would either then be sent on to its intended recipient, partly erased or destroyed if deemed too sensitive.

Finally Branch A provided data on the Classification of the methods employed by espionage agents and used this information to develop recommendations for amendments to legislation and regulations. These recommendations and amendments focused upon preventing espionage, sedition, or treachery and impeding the activities of naval and military spies, and agents still at large in Britain. The branch therefore not only carried out investigations in cases of espionage, but used the experiences to build recommendations with other government departments on how legislation should be updated to meet the changing security threat.

Table 4. The work of Branch A’s four sub-sections.

Sub-section Duties Staff A.1 Investigation of cases of suspected Two section officers espionage, sedition or treachery in the Metropolitan & City of London Police Areas. A.2 Investigation of cases of suspected Three section officers espionage, sedition or treachery in the UK outside the Metropolitan & City of London Police Areas. A.3 Investigation of cases of suspected One section officer espionage, sedition or treachery in Ireland. A.4 Examination of censored of intercepted Two section officers correspondence.

Branch B, Prevention of Espionage, was headed by Assistant Director, Major Eric F.B Holt-Wilson D.S.O. Holt-Wilson is described by Lady Kell as:

A man of almost genius for intricate organisation, his work of planning every detail with infinite foresight of what would be needed to meet the constant increase in size and importance of a department like M.I.5, contributed in large measure to its smooth running. Not only was he a most valuable officer, but he was an intensely loyal and devoted friend, and Kell found in him the support that is so important when work such as his caused him anxiety and strain.

Holt-Wilson joined the Secret Service Bureau in 1912 aged 37, having retired from the Royal Engineers. He had seen action in South Africa during the Boer war between 1899 and 1902 with the 7th Field Company. Holt-Wilson was a keen sportsman who enjoyed playing football and cricket, plus he was a regular skier. His personal diary reveals him to be a deeply religious man and it contains bible passages and prayers which had been cut out and glued in . At the back of his diary / journal is a typed list of places Holt- Wilson had visited over the years. A well-travelled man Holt-Wilson had travelled extensively across Europe, North America and spent time in Russia, Japan, India and China. - 32 - Holt-Wilson’s experience in South Africa should not be underplayed and the impact it would have in his leading of Branch B. For Britain just thirteen years earlier, the second Anglo-Boer war witnessed the British army’s first experiments with mass internment and deportation. Kitchener’s concentration camps were set up to house Boer residents within South Africa and the Orange Free State to deprive the guerrilla Boer commandos of any local support. The scorched earth policy carried out by the British army included the internment of all Boer and African women and children into concentration camps. In his journal, Holt-Wilson notes the places in South Africa where he spent time during his Boer war service. Of the thirty-two place mentioned, twenty- two had concentration camps associated with them. In a letter from Springfontein Orange River Colony to his father, dated 26 October 1901, Holt-Wilson comments on the conditions in one camp:

The Dutch Refugees are averaging 8 – 10 deaths a day from enteric, pneumonia, measles, etc, etc. I cannot conceive why they don’t move the whole camp down to the coast, where it would be cheaper to feed them and less trouble, much healthier for them and for us, and a great source of anxiety removed as to their spying and treacherous propensities

Reaction in 1901 to the South African camp conditions and high mortality rates amongst the women and children internees was a public relations disaster for the government and led Kitchener to change British policy. The placing of the women and children in the concentration camps was stopped and the government set in motion the Fawcett Commission to visit the camps. Holt-Wilson’s view on British internment policy expressed in May 1902 was not focused on the camp conditions.

It must be almost without parallel, the condition of affairs we have brought about by our childish policy of collecting and tending to their women and children etc so as to enable them to carry on brigandage with only their skins at stake. No other country in the world’s history has done or would do such a suicidal thing. However it is a fine proof of the power of the Empire, but I could have rather that my generation had not to bear the brunt of it execution!

He goes on to suggest that the second Anglo-Boer war might have ended earlier if the interned women and children had not been rounded up and left to fend for themselves:

Does anyone suppose that if they had been left to the natural fate their husbands and brothers brought on them; namely to take their chances of starvation and worse evils on lonely farms in the veldt – that they would not have long compelled their men to sue for peace in an honourable manner, when they saw their hopes of a Dutch Empire in S.A. were hopelessly lost?

And worst of all the Boer himself laughs at us for pitiful fools for looking after their families in this manner – and considers it a sop to his majesty!

With the British experiences during the Second Anglo-Boer war the lessons of interning women and children were not going to be repeated by Branch B when developing enemy alien policy in 1914. Holt- Wilson gained insight and Proctor suggests the learning crossed multiple strands of intelligence policy:

British military officials gained important insight from 1899 to 1902 into the success of civilian internment, press and postal censorship, and effective intelligence gathering, and processing during wartime.

This learning translated into a voluntary repatriation policy for enemy alien woman in Britain during the Great War rather than the wholesale internment that was placed on male enemy aliens. It created an illusion that enemy alien women were unlikely to be source of spy or sabotage threat. However, more importantly, the government recognised the political threat of interning women had on its international reputation. By January 1915 this repatriation policy had led to the deportation of nearly seven thousand women from Britain.Branch B’s principal duties were carried out by a staff of six section officers and four clerks. Its primary purpose- was33 - the ‘Co-ordination of the general methods of the Police, of Government Departments, and co-operation with the Allied Forces, in the application of Naval and Military Measures for the Control of Aliens and Prevention of Espionage in the United Kingdom. The Branch had a wide reaching remit across government departments. It was the go to authority for any questions of policy regarding counter-espionage that stemmed from both the Defence of the Realm and Aliens Restriction Acts. Branch B also wrote the draft proposals and any amendments on behalf of the military and navy to counter-espionage and control of alien`s legislation.

The Branch was an important centre of records and registers that other government departments could consult. Its key repository was the Black lists and other special lists which the branch continued to keep up to date and circulate with police forces, port authorities, the Home Office, other government departments and Allies’ intelligence services. Alongside this key tracking resource, other data bases of information were maintained, including a register of aliens, foreign communities and naval and military undesirables. These lists and registers were backed up with individual records of alien soldiers, sailors, police and officials and the case files of any enemy aliens permitted to reside with the prohibited areas of the United Kingdom. The branch also maintained records relating to any appeals or applications from enemy aliens logged with government departments. These covered credentials of enemy aliens proposed for release from military internment, appeals from aliens addressed to War Office and Admiralty, and applications of enemy aliens to leave the United Kingdom’. Branch B’s remit went wider, and was forward thinking to include issues that were starting to loom large on the horizon in September 1914. These included the investigations on behalf of the Home Office into the credentials of applicants for Naturalisation as British Subjects, as referred by the Home Office. The branch also worked with other government offices on the admission of Belgian refugees and workmen to Prohibited Areas. Finally B Branch authored official correspondence and draft official letters relating to their specialisms of measures for the control of aliens and prevention of espionage in the United Kingdom. Table 5. The work of Branch B’s five sub-sections.

Sub-section Duties Staff B.1 Alien Intelligence One section officer B.2 Prevention of Military Espionage One section officer B.3 Prevention of Naval Espionage One section officer B.4 Special measures for supervision and Two section officers control of Belgian Refugees B.5 General Duties Four clerks

The co-ordination of general policy of government departments in dealing with aliens and questions arising out of the Defence of the Realm regulations and the Aliens Restriction Act fell to Branch B. At the centre of this was sub-section B.1. ‘Alien Intelligence’ which was led by Henry Cuthbert Streatfeild. Streatfeild had before joining the Bureau worked in India from 1890 to 1913. During his time in India he had been the Commissioner Tirhut (an area in the Bengal province), been presented to the King whilst at the Nepalese border during the royal visit to India in 1911 and awarded the Companion of Indian Empire (CIE) in 1913. His civil service experience working within the Indian government gave the Bureau a wider knowledge of Imperial bureaucracy. Branch B had a wide ranging remit and scope, but it was the subject expert on aliens in the United Kingdom. The branch was the knowledge centre for all records of enemy aliens interned and released, the records of enemy aliens permitted to reside in prohibited areas and the paper work relating to the examination of aliens’ credentials passed to them by other government departments. This was backed - 34 - up by further records of all aliens (whether enemy, neutral or allied) in government service, and all alien personnel working at foreign Embassies and Consulates within the United Kingdom. These records were then analysed and compared against hard ‘facts’ the branch had access to, such as census reports, alien statistics, the distribution of alien populations and reports of alien cases and convictions. The results of this analysis were information reports and lists that the branch then circulated widely around government. They published the special alien and black lists that the police and port authority used to track potential spies, wrote summary reports on naturalisation of alien applications and enemy alien applications to leave the United Kingdom for the Home Office, and circulated collections of press clippings relating to articles on alien activity and policy around government. When government ministers stood up in the House of Commons and answered questions of the numbers of enemy aliens at large, the figures quoted were sourced from the Bureau. When Official articles were released to newspapers from the Press Bureau on the issues of spies and enemy aliens the statistics came from Kell’s agency. And when changes and amendments to the Alien Restriction Act were made in Parliament the recommendations for those modifications had originated from B branch. Both sub-sections B.2 Prevention of Military Espionage and B.3 Prevention of Naval Espionage were responsible for any military or naval amendments to legislation dealing with the control of aliens. They were also responsible for checking the credentials of any alien candidates for employment within government offices, or military and naval departments, and vetted the employment of aliens involved with military and naval contractors or the manufacture of military materials. Branch B’s reach and influence into other government departments is demonstrated by Kell’s and Holt-Wilson’s membership of the CID Sub-Committee on the ‘Treatment of Aliens in time of war’. Here they were able to meet face-to-face with officials from the Home Office, Board of Trade, Admiralty and the Board of Customs & Excise and use their influence on matters relating to enemy aliens. Kell and Holt- Wilson were the glue between government departments with the Secret Service Bureau at the centre of the alien enemy information and policy network. It is also interesting to note the introduction of B.4. ‘Supervision & Belgian Refugees’, under William M Rolph in October 1914. The creation of this sub-branch shows the Bureau’s adaptability to changing situations. As Belgian refugees flooded in to the United Kingdom in the autumn of 1914 much of Belgium was taken by the German army so a new perceived threat emerged. This was in the form of possible German spies and saboteurs passing themselves off as Belgian refugees. The first party of 437 refugees arrived in Britain on the 6 September 1914, with up to 250,000 others escaping Belgium passing through the ports of Harwich, Tilbury and Folkestone by the end of the war. Rolph’s section worked with the War Refugees Committee and carried out investigations into the credentials of all Belgian nationals who came to Britain, and kept lists of all firms employing Belgian workmen. By May 1915 seventy-six people were working within MO5g of which ten within Branch B had their focus directly on the issues of enemy aliens. In resources terms that related to thirteen percent dealing with processing enemy alien intelligence, shaping enemy alien policies, and then influencing other government departments to adopt the right enemy alien legislation. This does not take into account the work of Branch C which indirectly supported Branch B by collating, indexing, cataloguing and recording all its intelligence information, creating files on every individual suspect and drawing up Black Lists. Branch C, Organisation of Intelligence Police and Central Bureau, was headed by Assistant Director, Major Maldwyn Makgil Haldane. Nicknamed ‘Marmaduke’ he was the nephew of Richard Viscount Haldane, former Secretary of War between 1905 and 1912. Before joining the Bureau in 1914, aged thirty-seven, Haldane had served with the Royal Scots between 1899 and 1909. Serving with the 1st Battalion he saw action in South Africa during the second Anglo-Boer war. Again like Holt-Wilson, Haldane would have had first-hand experience of the British army’s internment policy and the resulting forty-five concentration camps set up across South Africa. Haldane retired from the army in 1909, to then re-join the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) at the outbreak of war. Branch C’s principle duties included the provision, maintenance and distribution of intelligence police personnel and employers, and the receipt, registration, distribution, indexing, filing, and custody of all central Bureau correspondence and records. This activity was carried out by a staff of six section - 35 - officers, seven clerks, five typing staff and thirty-four card room staff.

Table 6. The work of Branch C’s five sub-sections.

Sub-section Duties Staff C.1 Drafting of official War Office Two section officers correspondence C.2 Indexing, filing and custody of all central One section officer Bureau correspondence and records C.3 Control of office procedures One section officer C.4 Provision, maintenance and distribution of One section officer Intelligence Police Personnel and Employees C.5 Legal advice One section officer

The records of the Central Registry in Branch C had started from the Bureau’s pre-war unofficial register of aliens work and by the outbreak of war claimed to have card files on over half of the enemy alien population at large in the United Kingdom. By the spring of 1917 the Central Registry (then H Branch) had grown to include over 250,000 cards and 27,000 personal files. Miss Edith Annie Lomax worked as the section officer in C2 and lady superintendent of the card room, responsible for indexing, filing and custody of all correspondence and records. She was at the nerve centre of the Bureau, keeping intelligence records up to date, and was singled out by Lady Kell for special praise: so excellent that K [Kell] could rest assured that whatever she, and those who worked with her, and under her, were asked to do, would be quickly and eagerly carried out. If there was a rush, they would gladly work all night if that would help towards the success of whatever job they had in hand. There was something personal in the ready response to what was asked of them, K had indeed the gift of inspiring those who worked for him, to give of their best.

Figure 5. Structure of Secret Service Bureau, May 1915.

MO5g

Security Intelligence Bureau

Branch C Organisation Branch A of intelligence, police Investigation of & central bureau Espionage

A.1

Investigation of cases B.1 of suspected espionage in the Alien Intelligence A.2 B.2 Investigation of cases Prevention of military of suspected espionage outside espionage A.3 B.3 - 36 - Investigation of cases Prevention of naval of suspected espionage Ireland Espionage Branch B Prevention of Espionage

C.1

Drafting of official War Office correspondence & interviews at WO C.2

Indexing filling custody of all correspondence & records

C.3

Control of Office

Procedures C.4

Provision, maintenance & distribution of intelligence personnel

B.5 C.5

General duties Legal Advice

In August 1915 M05g reorganised to try to meet the changing needs of the internal threat to the United Kingdom. With the implementation of the Alien Restriction Act in August 1914 and the wholesale internment of all enemy alien males of military age in May 1915, the focus for enemy spies moved from the enemy aliens at large around the United Kingdom to passengers entering and leaving the country. On 11 August 1915 a new sub-division was created to deal with Port Control and MO5G was re-organised into four sub-sections and new letters were assigned under MO5. The new Branch E (M05E), Counter Espionage, under Major Claude E. Dansey, had one section officer and 3 clerks and dealt with military policy connected with the control of Civilian passenger traffic to and from the United Kingdom. It was then split into two sub-sections: E1, Military Permit Office, staffed by one military permit officer and three examiners; and E.2, Port Intelligence Services, staffed by six port officers. One of the interesting duties listed for M05E was: ‘Examination of reports on agents in Scandinavia, Denmark and Holland and in belligerent territory in Europe. This indicates that the perceived threat from spying within the United Kingdom had moved from the enemy alien resident population (which were either under restriction orders or interned) to focus on passengers from neutral countries trying to pass through Britain. As part of the reorganisation the three other branches were given new letter codes. M05(g) B became M05F dealing with military policy regarding the Civil population, including aliens, Aliens’ Restriction Orders, and Defence of the Realm Regulations special Intelligence duties. M05(g) A became M05G dealing with Counter Espionage. M05(g) C became M05H, and called the Secretariat of Central Bureau. It continued to keep the military records of Aliens and provide entire administrative support to the rest of the Bureau. The re-organisation of Branch G, Detection of Espionage, is interesting because it shows widening of the security threat in August 1915. No longer was the threat simply from spies and saboteurs hiding amongst enemy aliens. Sub-branch G.2, which investigated- 37 - suspected espionage cases within the United Kingdom, widened its net to include acts of sedition amongst Indians and Egyptians in the country. G.5 Sub-branch was enlarged to cover not just investigations concerning Ireland, but also to co-ordinate cases around the Empire. Finally Sub-branch G.1 moves completely away from the investigations of espionage case to concentrate on the fomentation of discontent through strikes, general acts of sabotage and any peace propaganda.These were not changes being brought about by press and public pressure. What was equally impressive in November 1915 was a list the offices to which the Bureau’s intelligence outputs in the form of MO5 circulars were distributed. This distribution list included the French and Belgian intelligence services, the Criminal Investigations Department at Scotland Yard, British GHQ and Downing Street.

Figure 6. Structure of the Secret Service Bureau, August 1915.

MO5 Security Intelligence

Branch F Branch H

Prevention of Branch E Counter Espionage Secretariat of Central Espionage Branch G Detection of Espionage

H.1 E.1 F.1 H.5 Compilation of Military Permit Office Registration of Aliens historical records & Legal advice G.2 statistics H.6 H.2 E.2. F.2 Investigation of cases of suspected Card index & records Port Intelligence Aliens & movement espionage in Great of persons, places & G.3 subjects H.3 F.3 Investigation of cases of suspected Records & Reports espionage in London G.4

F.4 Examination of censored & H.4 Belgian Refugees intercepted Accounts & contracts G.5

On 3 January 1916, MO5 became MI5, a separate branch of the Military Intelligence Department and so the designation of the various branches changed to MI5 E, F, G, and H. By 1916 most of the male enemy aliens in Britain and of military call-up age (between 17 and 45 years of age) had been rounded up and sent to internment camps across the country. This meant that the enemy alien threat, either as an uncontrolled group of spies dotted around the United Kingdom ready to signal to passing Zeppelins to send intelligence reports back to the mother country on British Military and Naval establishments or individuals prepared to take up arms in the event of a German invasion, had largely disappeared. The legislation that made this happen will be examined in chapter four, but for the Bureau it necessitated a structural change to its branches to try and adapt to the new internal threats to the security of the British Isles. These structural changes and resource re- allocation within the Bureau demonstrate the movement of the threat from the civilian enemy alien group to refugees and internal enemy civilians. Testament to this is the focus of Sub-branch G.1 onto the investigations of individuals behind labour strikes, and peace groups, and the widening remit of Branch G on possible causes of instability across the Empire. The Easter rising in Dublin during April 1916 brought the threat of Irish Republicans to the forefront of - 38 - British domestic security. In January 1916, the introduction of compulsory conscription added pacificism to the ever growing list of internal threats, and the Russian revolutions of 1917 brought communism under the focus of MI5. As the workloads and investigations increased so the pressure took its toll on the staff of the Bureau. In K’s office the strain of the work was beginning to tell on those who had been longest in the office and had very responsible jobs. Colonel Drake, the quickest witted and most successful frustrator of spies, had to take a short spell of sick leave, and many more were in need of a rest. The change in emphasis from 1916 also impacted upon the Bureau’s ability to influence government policy, as Andrew points out: Had German espionage remained a serious apparent threat throughout the war or Germany succeeded in launching a major sabotage campaign in Britain, Kell would have found it much easier to retain the lead domestic intelligence role. But during the second half of the war, with the government now more concerned with subversion than with espionage, it was easier for Thomson [Sir Basil Thomson, head of CID] than for Kell to gain the ear of ministers. While Kell’s Bureau undertook all the investigation and surveillance work on suspected German spies at large, because of its secret nature it was Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigations Department under Sir Basil Thomson that landed all the glory for the arrest of possible suspects. During the period from the outbreak of war to 1916, the bureaucratic structure of the Secret Service Bureau and the nature of the work carried out by its branches highlights the pivotal role Kell’s staff had in carrying out enemy alien policy. However, more importantly the structure shows the influence the Bureau had in directing the machinery of government to implementing enemy alien policy. Policy relating to enemy alien issues is balanced and considered by Branch B rather than just being a reaction to public concern. Since the 1883 mainland Fenian bombing campaign the Metropolitan Police had established within the Criminal Investigation Department the Police Special Irish Branch to combat Fenian terrorism. Later Special Branch would work in close co-operation with the Secret Service Bureau. The Bureau’s structure reveals the co-ordinating role that it had on enemy alien policy, regulations and Acts of Parliament between the police, government departments, military and navy. Branch C demonstrates that the Bureau was central to supplying intelligence on enemy alien matters across government and that this information, whether right or wrong on the perceived threat, was used in the construction of legislation and formed the facts in speeches used by Ministers in Parliament. The Prime Minister would on occasion visit Kell’s office to witness progress at first hand, showing that the Bureau’s influence went right to the top. During the First War, the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith came to see the large map in the office, and he saw the extent of the work, “why this amounts to a major victory”, so great had been this contribution to the successful countering of the enemy’s Intelligence organisation. The Secret Service Bureau was at the centre of and driving the enemy alien agenda during the first two years of the war. Its structure blueprint shows that the policy and procedures created by the experts of the bureau had been rigorously tested across government departments and based upon real intelligence from field work investigations. The Bureau was under no illusion. Contrary to popular images, intelligence services rarely work in a half-lit ‘parapolitical’ vacuum, cut off from the day-to-day working of overt government. They are, rather, simply instruments of policy, either of its formulation or of its implementation. Using Davies’ intelligence cycle model for comparison it is possible to show that MI5 was not a bureaucratic structure designed just to react to the whims of the press and public opinion. The model consists of four general sequential stages: tasking, collection, analysis and dissemination. In the first of the four stages, tasking, the intelligence information requirements and parameters are set by policy-makers. These policy-makers between 1909 and 1916 were the CID, Foreign Office, War Office and Admiralty and as consumers of the intelligence outputs set out the terms of reference for MI5. This group also included to a lesser extent the Home Office as throughout the cycle they were often the outward facing façade for MI5. The CID had set the task of understanding the extent of German spies and by association enemy aliens in Britain and the threat they posed to mainland security within the United Kingdom. - 39 -

The second stage, collection, witnessed MI5 at an operational level generating the raw intelligence. This was carried out by Branch A, Detection of Espionage, through mounting its own surveillance operations and also relying upon the police and other governmental agencies physical resources. The physical surveillance was supplemented by unofficial register of enemy aliens compiled with the help of local police forces, Home Office reports, the reports from other allies’ intelligence services, intercepted postal traffic and public eye-witness accounts. Once the raw intelligence has been gathered it is compared against what is already known to be true in the stage call analysis. In the early phase of the war this assessment activity was carried out by the Branch B and assisted by Branch C. Branch C provided the facts of what was already know from their card record system to which Branch B integrated the raw intelligence in a process termed ‘all-source analysis. The resulting new intelligence then had implications for changing threat levels, civilian groups requiring investigations, and governmental policy formation and direction going forward. This new direction was turned in an assessed intelligence product that could be circulated back to consumers and stakeholders in the final stage called dissemination. These consumers and stakeholders were the bodies that had set out the requirements for intelligence in stage one. The outputs circulated in stage four could be updated Black list, enemy alien statistics, or new recommendations on changes to the Alien Restriction and the Defence of the Realm Acts. The Bureau’s structure and direction in the first two years of the war was based on the intelligence cycle that had been continually developed since 1909. It was an agile structure that proactively championed and co-ordinated alien enemy policy and action with a wide range of government departments. Whether those government departments had the resources spare to devote to the Branch’s intelligence products, reports and recommendations on alien enemy issues shows how stretched the government was in a total war. Here Panayi is right to raise the point that no ministry or body had overarching responsibility for the internment and camp system. Enemy alien intelligence and policy direction was not the issue. However, the implementation of MI5’s recommendations had become a bottle-neck as government departments continued to work in isolation from one and other.

Sir Basil Thomson’s reflected with embarrassment the newspapers cry ‘Intern them all’: ‘My own view at the time was that we had so full a knowledge of the dangerous Germans that we should confine internment to that class and leave the innocent ones at liberty. This knowledge had been achieved through the thorough pre-war activity of MI5 with the help of the police and other government departments. Thomson then philosophises on the duties of an intelligence officer: The duties of an Intelligence officer are very like those of a journalist, the difference being that in the case of the intelligence officer he tries to sift out the truth, and give it all to his superiors, whereas the journalist has first to consider what is good for the public to know, and what will contribute to the popularity of his newspaper. During the first two years this is exactly what MI5, through its structures and bureaucracy, gave its superiors: the truth.

To Be Continued

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