Chapter 27, 145 Piccadilly, 7 July 1936
The car had taken two figures from Downing Street, one a peer and the other a civil servant. Like soldiers sent on manoeuvres, they had reported to their chief (in this case the Prime Minister), acknowledged his intent, and sallied forth. For the first time, they felt as though Government was acting, rather then reacting.
The car stopped first at a plush Piccadilly address; out stepped Edward Wood, Viscount Halifax.
Halifax was, as ever, struck by the gentle, comfortable simplicity of life in the Duke of York’s residence. Welcomed by an immaculate if unshowy footman, he was relieved of his coat and hat and was escorted, correctly, to a lightly decorated parlour.
“Ah, Edward,” the Duke of York greeted him, smiling sadly. He wore a sober business suit and looked, for all the good it would do him, like a prosperous businessman. Halifax’s scrupulously correct bearing was marred, slightly, when he tilted his head in response to a slight scratching at the door. It was one of the children, Princess Margaret Rose, Halifax suspected, who was openly watching the little meeting play out. The footman discreetly removed her, and Halifax noted obvious warmth in the Duke’s smile as he looked at his second daughter.
“Your Woyal Highness,” Halifax said grandly.
“I think that Chadwick there has ensured that we will not be disturbed. Elizabeth and Lilibet will be home shortly, but we can talk for a while.” Halifax noted that ‘Bertie’s’ stammer was much less pronounced, a sure sign of his contentedness, and with a heavy heart realised that he was about to poison that idyll.
“Sir,” Halifax began heavily, “it is my tewwible, awful burden to bwief you, on behalf of the Pwime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbuwy, some gwave developments in our governance and, er, constitution.”
The Duke, who had been quietly concentrating on Halifax’s little speech, frowned. He looked, his eyes filling with tears, at his old friend. “Is my b-brother in grave trouble?”
“He might be, Sir,” Halifax countered, “you know the nature of this twouble.”
“Mrs Simpson,” the Duke almost hissed. “What has that woman done now?”
Halifax frowned.
I must ride this course carefully, there are too many fences to jump, ditches to avoid. “Before we begin, Sir,” the ‘Sir’ was judicious, Halifax being overly formal before risking lese majeste, “might I enquire how, ah, involved you are with your bwother and Mrs Simpson?”
The flash of anger was instant, his eye narrowed, his cheeks swiftly flushed, but he was sharp enough to realise that Halifax’s visit was made in a spirit of support, not gossip. “Minimal, Edward. I am loyal to His Majesty.” Halifax wondered if the ‘His Majesty’ was a rebuke to Halifax’s lack of use of the term.
“Of course,” Halifax murmured.
“But, Elizabeth and I are not in the Belvedere clique.”
“Has he,” Halifax ventured again, this time with palpable apprehension, “suggested a formalisation of the welations cuwwently informally pursued with the aforementioned party?”
The Duke just stared at Halifax, completely baffled. “Er, w-what?”
Halifax offered an apologetic smile. “Has he, er, suggested…”
The Duke’s temper erupted like a flash fire, flickering wildly. “Out with it, Edward!”
That sharpened Halifax’s resolve. “Are you aware of an intent for your bwother to mawwy Mrs Simpson?” He asked it simply, miserably.
That stunned the Duke, who sat, silently, for at least a minute. “Is this,” he almost whispered, “is something that has been expressed to you?”
Halifax nodded sadly. “Not to me, Sir, but to Baldwin. By your bwother.”
“
His Majesty”, the Duke said with heavy emphasis, “would, I p-presume, not have the Government’s support?”
Halifax shook his head. “The Pwime Minister and the Cabinet are still explowing options. But one of those considewations is that the Cabinet will wesign.”
‘Bertie’ closed his eyes in horror at the idea of Edward and Wallis’ romance causing a Government to fall. “A-a-and Attlee?”
Halifax shook his head. “Mr Attlee is standing with the Government.” That was tosh, Attlee hadn’t yet been formally approached, but it was inconceivable that Labour would side with the King.
“Is there no compromise?”
“A compwomise, of sorts, has been pwoposed by His Majesty. A morganatic marriage, whereby…”
“I know what it means,” the Duke riposted. The sudden realisation of his predicament hit him. He closed his eyes again. “Is there no alternative?”
“If he pwiowitises Mrs Simpson over all else? Only abdication, which would make your family’s elevation even more likely.”
At that moment the Duchess of York entered with the two young princesses. “Edward!” She greeted Halifax as a long-lost friend. “I am
so sorry that we disturbed you. Lillibet, Elizabeth, this is Lord Halifax, he is a very important member of the Government.”
Princess Elizabeth approached Halifax and offered her hand. Halifax struggled but bowed before her, third in line to the throne, and perhaps, if her uncle would not yield, even closer to the Crown. “Your Woyal Highness,” he said, finding nothing unusual about prostrating himself to a ten year old.
“Lord Halifax,
how do you do,” the Princess said with a shy charm.
Gathering his wife and children, the Duke of York held his eldest daughter close.
“Edward, thank you for your support at this time. We will p-pray”, Princess Elizabeth held his hand in support at his stammering, “for His Majesty. Should it come to it, we know our duty. But I will need help.”
“You will have it, Sir, at any hour,” Halifax said with devotion. “But Pwime Minister Baldwin and I would have you, and your family, Sir, start to make thoughts,” he frowned, needing greater emphasis, “pwepawation, for what might be necessary. For the Realm,” he added as an afterthought. “I would like to facilitate the Archbishop of Canterbuwy,” he mangled the word, “and the Lord Chamberlain.”
The Duke looked to his wife, who nodded miserably. “Let it be done, Edward,” he said sadly.
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Not far away, in Whitehall, the other meeting was taking place. The attendees entered, took off their headwear (most of them wore military caps, but there were a couple of bowler hats as well), handed their coats to a man so forgettable that he must have been a Special Branch or Secret Service plant, and took their seats.
There were eight of them; the majority were representatives of the intelligence staffs of the Royal Navy, Army and Air Force. The Foreign Office was represented by the measured if disinterested Sir Ralph Stevenson, who took a seat at the head of the table. The Secret Intelligence and Security Services were represented by senior officials, and the Home Office had been persuaded to send a senior civil servant, Sir Alexander Maxwell. That the meeting had been so well attended was due to the figures flanking Stevenson: Sir Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretary, and Major General Sir John Dill. The original plan had been for them to meet in one of the military ministries but Dill and Hankey, with Maxwell’s tacit agreement, had suggested the Whitehall Gardens address, a building in which an earlier occupant, Benjamin Disraeli, had held meetings of his Cabinet. Now the large ornate rooms, modelled in the French style similar to the interior of the Palace at Versailles, occasionally housed the Committee of Imperial Defence and meetings of the Defence Chiefs. As it was at their direction (prompted by Hankey and Dill) that they met, to share a venue lent an immediate legitimacy to the new committee.
As they settled into their chairs Stevenson turned to Hankey. “Maurice, we meet at your fiat.”
Hankey shot a withering look at his colleague from the Foreign Office and looked across him to Dill.
“Sir John, I believe that the honour of opening this meeting should belong to you.”
General Dill looked surprised but recovered his composure swiftly. Rather woodenly, he opened the inaugural meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee. “Thank you, Sir Maurice,” he began without much emotion. “Gentlemen I began, last year, to liaise with Sir Maurice on the need to better coordinate that which we call our ‘intelligence’. The underlying problem, I assess,” Dill, warming up, now clasped his hands on the desk in front of him, “is not, strictly, one of duplication, but is instead one of sharing our awareness so as to provide the best possible intelligence for planning purposes.”
No one interrupted him, so he ploughed on. “What we mean by ‘intelligence’ has been traditionally affiliated under military authority. Each of the three services has its own dedicated intelligence staffs, and communication between them is unsystematic at best. Now alongside, but not particularly linked to the military is the civilian provision by the Security and Secret Intelligence Services, staffed at many of the key levels by former military personnel and providing information of relevance to the military.” They were letting him make his point, Hankey staring them down with a quiet, latent authority. “There is then,” he nodded towards Stevenson, “the political and economic material produced by our Foreign Office and its people. I am grateful for Sir Robert Vansittart’s support to this Committee.”
An Army Colonel of Dill’s Operations and Intelligence Directorate, supported by Major Belsay, was keeping the minutes and nodded to Dill that the all-important acknowledgement of Vansittart’s support was recorded. Dill was winding up now. “So, my observations are these. The result of these three elements is that we have so far been far more interested in assessing capabilities of our rivals than their intentions. And that there is little attempt to coordinate activities. This Committee must be the means by which those observations will be answered.” There was a general murmuring, Belsay sat fascinated as the representatives of the varying agencies tried to either conceal their boredom, or restrained themselves from making points that they were desperate to make.
Hankey, so obviously in command of the meeting, nodded his thanks to Dill and addressed the audience. “Now, you will entertain my summary of the politics. Thanks to General Dill’s perseverance I presented this issue to the Chiefs of Staff at their meeting in January. They commissioned a study, ‘Central Machinery for Coordination of Intelligence’ which concluded that,” he began to read, ‘our intelligence organisation requires some modification to cope with modern conditions’; those conditions were the overlapping mentioned by General Dill and the eventuality of war which of course would require an efficient intelligence system. The report, which was endorsed by the Chiefs and the relevant Cabinet Ministers, commanded that direct and permanent liaison between these departments represented today be established.”
“Sir Maurice,” Captain the Honourable Claude Hermon-Hodge, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, began. “Might I ask where this committee sits?”
“Under the Chiefs,” Hankey replied, immediately. “It gives you, Captain, the benefits of the secretariat and apparatus of the Chiefs’ Committee, and levers you into the planning and operations staffs.” Dill, not far away, nodded.
“And this is why,” Maxwell said pointedly, looking to Stevenson, “Home and Foreign Office participation, at a level not below that considered appropriate today,” he looked around the room, “is right and proper. I am grateful, Sir Maurice, for your insistence on the Home Office, for my part, being invited.”
Hankey smiled. Maxwell was a shrewd operator and had an easy but alert manner. “What we intend,” Hankey said in his best reassuring civil service tone, “is to use this forum as a way of sharing emerging concerns, for issuing requests between ourselves, and for allocating requests from Cabinet or the Chiefs. This is not a way of closing down or truncating your single service, ah, I mean agency, latitude.”
“So it’s a deconfliction forum come sorting or clearing house,” the RAF member, a mildly dishevelled Group Captain, said, instantly panicking that he’d been too glib. A sour look from Hankey, an exasperated Hermon-Hodge and an appalled Maxwell, confirmed that he judged this wrong. Dill offered a benign glance and quietly suggested to Stevenson that they move on.
Stevenson was slightly lost and sought solace in a question. “Sir Maurice, can I ask if we have received any requests from the Cabinet or Chiefs?”
Hankey made a half-shrug, “the key area of interest is in His Majesty, and so the Secret Intelligence Service ‘has the pen’, as we civil servants would say.” The MI5 and MI6 representatives exchanged knowing glances. “But I am going to drive the ministries to actually
ask questions of us.”
Dill nodded. “I am surprised that Military and Air Intelligence haven’t asked for more observations from the Italian adventure in Africa.”
“It’s a second rate war fought by second rate participants,” Stevenson quipped, earning pained looks from Dill and Maxwell. “Surely we should be more focussed on Germany.”
The meeting then broke down as several small groups discussed where the collated British intelligence effort should be focussed. Hankey allowed this to run for a few minutes before the true, sepulchral, pointed cough of the senior civil servant. “Well, we have much to do,” he quipped wryly, “but this is a beginning.”
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GAME NOTES
With a huuuuge apology for my absence, I decided to smash together the two draft updates that I was swirling around and offer, by way of apology (again) a hope that we are now where we would have been anyway. I’ve had a dreadful week, most of it my own fault for the hopelessness of my junior which meant that I have had to try and do the work of two. I am, in my sedentary, sloth-like state, barely able to do the work of one!
Back to the game, and we have one real event, and one emerging from the POD. To the real ‘meat’ of this update, the initial meeting of the JIC. And here I have given the British a helping hand, making the committee far stronger than it was in ’36 by adding for more (and weightier) members (particularly Maxwell, a senior administrator sans pareil) to get the business of coordination done much more swiftly. The genesis is interesting; in January 1936, the Committee of Imperial Defence created the Inter-Service Intelligence Committee, which by July of that year evolved into the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee. Its creation, rationale, composition, and focus were overwhelmingly military (which is why six of the attendees, historically, were officers representing the intelligence staffs of the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force), but was born out of the political anxieties over the rise of Nazi Germany (Stevenson's quip is a real one). The Foreign Office, always wary of domestic attempts to ‘clip its wings’, secured the chair and Stevenson (last seen in the FO meeting about the Rhineland) leading it.
The stimulus for its creation lay with Major General Dill, the Director of Military Operations and Intelligence, yet it would be Hankey, the establishment bureaucrat, who would turn Dill’s vision into reality. Dill had wished to create a body that would avoid the duplication of effort in the three Services’ intelligence branches, and would be charged with ensuring that the best possible intelligence was used for planning. Hankey, who is slowly being eased out of power elsewhere, nevertheless managed to create a subcommittee of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, thereby ensuring that, from the outset, intelligence and planning were closely aligned. By the start of the historical WW2, MI5 and 6 were included and, despite some blunders, it worked. I sense that its role has evolved, particularly with the Cameron Government’s establishing of a National Security Council and a National Security Advisor, but here Hankey has delivered.
Halifax, meanwhile, opens the Government’s position with ‘the heir and the spare’. As I have mentioned before, he is a complicated little character; portrayals of him always focus, seemingly, on the tragedy of the Abdication Crisis and ‘being killed by becoming King’ or the infamous stammer. While ‘noble Bertie’ was probably ‘more sinned against than sinning’ he was a grumpy, fierce when provoked and quite petulant man. That he was happiest with his wife and children (“we four”) is corroborated fact.
@stnylan: I think Baldwin needs to properly retire before he can truly ‘let go’, and as we’ll see your words are prescient.
@TheButterflyComposer: The remark ‘woof’ had me laughing for a long, long time…
@Specialist290: Oh how right you are!
@Cromwell: I’m kinda keeping the Cabinet meetings away from the story at the moment; I’ve sketched out
the Cabinet meeting which will be along soonish.
@Kurt_Steiner and
@TheButterflyComposer: Aye, but an immovable one…
@El Pip: I agree with you on the Baldwin front: I’m racking my brains as to whom it could be and very quickly arrive at a couple of (at this stage) virtual non-entities. The parallel with Thatcher in 1990/91 is one that niggles away, as John Major was no-one’s prediction until very late in the day.
On the commands, I think that while you make good points there is a balance here – not just ‘hindsight and all’ but that the RAF was at least organising in a vaguely professional manner.
@DensleyBlair: I can guarantee that, despite Lord H featuring here, this is not KFM Pt II. I would love to know how you find Pt I, by the way.
@Bullfilter and
@El Pip: I agree with you on Cyprus, to a point; for almost everything (supply, strategic position, existing facilities, not pissing off the neighbours) better options are out there. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that there is better.
@Director: Welcome Sir! Hopefully the footman has stored your coat and hat, grab a paper, warm yourself by the fire, and enjoy the tale.
I think at this stage two KGVs (or whatever they end up being called) are laid down, despite mutterings too much has gone on for them not to be. The question is, at this stage, whether there is an improved “batch 2” or the RN pauses and commissions a new design.
@DensleyBlair, @El Pip and
@TheButterflyComposer: I’m in no way a financier / economist and run as far and fast as I can away from any financial responsibility. But…
To me the Empire never really ‘got it’s groove’ on in the 30s and exploited that it was, as TBC has mentioned, a massive cartel. I agree with El Pip that the UK didn’t really have it as bad as others, but demoralised and pessimistic administrations seemed to have concluded that it did. And rearming your way out of trouble is, as El Pip has commented, slaying one dragon to create another.
@Director: I’d argue that this is what they did: instead, for example, of tons of (soon to be) obsolete Gladiators and Demons the British invested into the plant and equipment, the physical infrastructure necessary to switch into mass production at the right minute. Naval production (as HOI4 weirdly gets right) was different, as you have to plan five or so year ahead.
