Chapter 53, Marylebone, 30 September 1936
Anthony Eden sat with his head in his hands. Next to him Derrick Gunston and Sir Roger Keyes pored over the list of Conservative MPs. The defectors to the King's group (which still lacked a name: it was seemingly going to stagger on under the pretence and name of a 'National Government') had been scored out in thick black ink, while the Chamberlain loyalists were a thoroughly Tory blue. Eden and his band were a strident yellow, while the new group, with its growing list, was red.
"So who do we have?" This was asked in a hysterical tone.
Keyes spoke first. "Harold Macmillan agreed to join us last night; he has persuaded Sidney Herbert to come over."
"They're both foreign policy types," Gunston added. "Most of the domestic types are going to Stanley and Neville."
"Let's," Eden snapped, "just focus, shall we? I asked," he said this tartly, "who do we have. Sir Roger?"
"Gretton is wobbly but will probably stay loyal to you until just before Neville takes the lead, Liddall will stay if you continue to talk about some relief for the North, and Cartland and Peat will cling to you because they're worried about Neville's knowledge of foreign affairs."
"Thelma will stick with you," Gunston added, "she hates Joseph Ball and his gang of thugs. Given that they're practically running Neville's campaign you might get the vote, Anthony, for being the one they hate least."
Gunston's remark was completely ignored. "What about Oliver?"
"He hasn't done us any favours, that's for sure," Keyes said bluntly. "Certainly Ronald Cross, John Eastwood and probably Lord Stanhope. Walter Wormersley will take the coastal crowd with him to Oliver's corner."
"Are we ahead?" Eden's tone was now slightly hysterical.
“Against Oliver?” There was the slightest nod from Eden to confirm the question.
Keyes nodded. "Yes, but only by a dozen or so. If that." Gunston nodded his agreement with this assessment.
"What do we do?"
Gunston now spoke. "I think we need to make an overture to Stanley. He is getting support, but this is frankly a distraction away from the contest between you and Neville."
Eden looked up, emerging from behind the rampart of arms and hands, and peered at Keyes. "What do you think?"
Keyes shook his head. "If this thing goes to a chat among the Party grandees then Oliver backs down. He has his moment of glory but then has to fall in behind you. He'll extract a deal, probably to be your Chancellor or Home Secretary, and then his boys will fall in as ordered."
Gunston shook his head. "I disagree. We need Stanley to tell his men to come with him to us. If they're free of loyalty to him some will go to Neville. Wormersley would, Cross might."
"I disagree about Ronald, he's on the younger wing, and has never seemed supportive of Neville."
"Nor of you," Keyes said bluntly, earning a pained sigh from Eden.
"Are any of our chaps wobbly?"
"Cartland is," Keyes said with evident irritation. "But I think he would defect to Churchill not Neville. He was most upset that he didn't get one of Neville's 'loyalty calls'."
"A what?"
Keyes looked surprised. "The whips have been good, dammed good. Every time that they scent defection the errant backbencher gets an invitation to lunch or dinner with one of the party leaders. Lunch with Halifax at the Dorchester, tea with Kingsley Wood." He shook his head ruefully. "One poor lad had supper with Zetland. That must have been bloody awful."
"And all of this is through whipping?" Eden was suspicious, something was not right. Gunston looked lost so Eden focussed on Keyes. "I'm going to ask around about that. Anyone important poached?"
"Cayzer," Gunston said immediately, Keyes nodding.
"Cayzer?"
"Yep. Our constituencies border one another. You know the chap; dapper, shipping magnate, hates anything that unsettles trade." Eden gave a vague nod. "Well, he's terribly rich, terribly influential, and would have been my recommendation for a job at the Board of Trade. Until Neville invited him to dinner with the Duke of York."
Eden sat up, bolt upright. "The Duke is involved?"
Keyes nodded, his expression full of understanding of the import of this. "Yes, I thought that rather unorthodox."
Eden sat and thought, he preferred to be alone at such times but managed to mentally 'block' Keyes and Gunston. That Chamberlain and Halifax were brazen enough to drag in the Duke to Chamberlain's rise to the party leadership was not surprising, but in these very delicate political times there could be an advantage to be gained here. "I need you to do something," he said to Keyes, ignoring Gunston. "If I give you a note, could you get some time with Winston."
"Yes," Keyes said in obvious confusion. "Why not call him."
"Because paranoids sometimes have enemies," he said, glaring at the telephone before looking at Gunston. "Could you go over to whomever is running Oliver's campaign..."
"Ronnie Cross," Gunston said immediately.
"Yes, fine, and tell him that I'd like to meet with Oliver. Somewhere discreet." He waved Gunston away in dismissal, while he scribbled a quick note for Keyes to convey to Churchill.
"Might I know its contents?" Keyes had been both a Flag Lieutenant and a Flag Officer, that was a standard question for an aide to ask and an Admiral to clarify.
"Yes, I'll leave it open, you can read it. Just get it to Winston," he said, placing it (but not sealing it) inside an envelope.
Keyes took the letter and walked out. Eden finally picked up the telephone, and asked to be put through to a number in the Foreign Office.
"Mr Eden?" A suspicious sounding Sir Robert Vansittart said as he answered. "I didn't think I'd get to speak to you so soon."
"It's nothing, really, but amidst the losing campaign to Chamberlain," he said this loudly, "I suddenly realised that there was some Spanish stuff to clear up. It's not right that I go to Hoare with it, are you happy for me to come over?"
"Actually, the protocol is that you write to your successor. I should be impartial from political matters."
"Oh go on," Eden said, hoping that his feigned surprise to precisely the reaction that he'd completely anticipated was working. “Just for old times' sake. I'll follow it up with a letter to Hoare if it helps."
There was a pause as Vansittart was seemingly considering it. "The embankment? Say, twenty minutes?"
"Meet me near the Victoria Gardens, and make it thirty," Eden said happily.
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Vansittart had clean forgotten that the Victoria Gardens were immediately in front of the Savoy. He realised that this couldn’t be an accident; Eden wanted them to be seen. Cheerful at the thought of looming controversy (Vansittart was one of the senior civil servants of the Empire, he was long past being frightened), he tipped his hat to a few passers by, said ‘hello’ to a couple of old acquaintances (looking perplexed at the sight of the Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office seemingly loitering in a municipal garden). As Eden arrived, carrying a tattered briefcase, Vansittart’s level of interest had gone from ‘mildly curious’ to ‘bloody intrigued’.
“That’s not the image one expects of a future Conservative leader,” Vansittart said, pointing at the briefcase.
“I’ll get to that in a moment,” Eden said in in a rushed whisper. Then, in an extraordinarily loud voice (but not a shout; he was loud, but not bellowing), “yes, yes, Sir Robert, dashed silly of me to leave that Spain stuff in the house, shall we have a walk, I’ll need to brief you, to help you brief Sir Samuel.”
Vansittart had the happily baffled face of a grandfather indulging his grandchild’s latest unfathomable game. “I trust that there is a point to all of this, fun as it is? I’m not Warren Fisher, you know.”
Eden pulled out a buff coloured folder and they began to walk, looking for all the world like Eden was briefing Vansittart on its content.
“Sir Robert, are we spying on the Government? And on the Conservative candidates?”
Vansittart almost stopped walking, until a panicked look from Eden spurred him on. “You’re asking me this?”
“You and I both know that Neville has used Joseph Ball and his ex-MI5 contacts to do some sneaking around in the past. I need to whether something similarly rancid is being done to me.”
“By the Government?”
“By the Party!”
“I work, do I not, to Sir Samuel Hoare.”
“Who is part of a minority administration and who may fall at any moment. I know, I know that you meet with Fisher and Hankey, and we both know that Fisher has been in meetings with Chamberlain and Joseph Ball.”
Vansittart looked shrewdly at his former Secretary of State. “Are you suggesting that the Security Service or the Secret Int…”
“Nothing of the sort. Well, I don’t know. Not the SIS, but possibly ‘five’. More likely to be Ball doing Neville’s dirty work for him. But I have common cause with Hoare on this. If he’s being spied on by someone, you need to investigate.”
Vansittart frowned at Eden’s tortured logic. “And in the course of dealings inadvertently support you by undermining your rivals.”
Eden was dramatic, exasperated. “We are talking, ah, about an egregious abuse of power and the state apparatus here. You owe it to the office to find out what is going on.”
They paused just before the entrance to Temple Bar; through the huge and dramatic entrance to Middle Temple Eden could see sombre-suited lawyers going about their business. “I could quietly investigate,” Vansittart said after a long pause. “I am aware, from the SIS daily digest, of a chap kicking his heels in London after wandering into the Lisbon mutiny a few weeks ago. I understand that C was going to dust him off and send him back to Spain, after the usual vetting and debriefing and so on, but it rather awkwardly turns out that in light of the flight of the Embassy from Madrid SIS has already replaced him with a new man. I’m sure that the good Admiral would allow me to second him to the Palazzo.” The ‘Palazzo’ was the nickname for the Foreign Office building.
“What would his cover be?”
“Spain, of course. I’ll get him to do some analysis on the fall out of us postponing the non-intervention conference. Which, to be fair,” Vansittart said wearily, “is probably a job that someone really does need to do.” That had been an embarrassing moment for the British, with the forum having been pushed back by the Baldwin Government and then killed entirely (or at least British participation in it) by the new administration. It wasn’t, Vansittart knew, that Hoare was planning to supply one side, instead it spoke of a deep desire to disentangle from foreign affairs.
“Is he good?”
“C reckons he’s unlucky, although I don’t know more than that.” He frowned. “Of course, he will need an administrator, someone to help him collate this for me. Fortunately we have a gal,” he said this with a puzzled frown, “who has been with us pending her training. She was supposed to become an analyst, but the murkier types think she might be cut out for field work.”
Eden frowned. “You know all this? Rather tactical for you.”
“I know,” Vansittart corrected, “enough of C’s staff. I have an interlocutor whom I can trust to form this little team and get them briefed.”
Eden nodded. “Thank you, Sir Robert.”
“I must warn you,” Vansittart said primly, “that my first duty is to the Secretary of State and my duties as a PUS. If there is a divide between that and your leadership campaign I must choose…”
Eden held up a hand. “I understand entirely, and you will of course do your duty."
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GAME NOTES
Two real points in this update, the state of the Conservative leadership selections (particularly Eden’s camp) and the more sinister world of Joseph Ball and his relationship with the intelligence community (particularly MI5).
To the Tories first; this is not, yet (nor is it likely to be) a leadership contest in the way that we would understand it. The Conservatives tended to heed to the recommendation of the outgoing leader / PM (not always the same thing) in his last moments in office and mobilise the party machinery to deliver the result. In the real TL Baldwin handed over to Chamberlain with little fuss and a rather quiet coronation. No one (of any consequence) argued against either Chamberlain or Baldwin’s right to anoint him and Chamberlain of course went on to become PM (of the National Government) and Tory leader. Where there was an initial lack of consensus, ‘soundings’ and negotiations would be conducted in private among the MPs and peers to see who could collect the most support. This very English, rather undemocratic system (the Whips and the party grandees wielded enormous power in the process) saw some interesting moments. The leadership race that took place at the 1963 Conservative Party conference following Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s resignation through ill-health proved most controversial. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who emerged as the new leader, was not considered a front runner but Rab Butler and Quentin Hailsham, who were both considered to be contenders, both suffered from poor publicity at the conference. Macmillan therefore recommended to the Queen that Home be invited to form a new administration. This was a process that prompted Ian Macleod’s well-known reference in an article for the Spectator in January 1964 to a “magic circle” within the Party. Home, ironically enough, introduced an election process during his spell as leader which was not amended until the late 90s.
And so to Eden. I have tried to conduct a ‘hustings in my head’ and place the Tories where I think they would fall under the murky, informal system outlined above. For anyone vaguely interested, this is the core of Eden’s support:
Amery
Derrick Gunston
Sir Sidney Herbert
Macmillan
Gretton
Ronald Cartland
Thelma Cazalet-Keir
Sir Walter Liddall
Sir Roger Keyes
Reginald Blair
Charles Peat
At least two of these may (will) defect in the weeks ahead, and in collating Eden’s core support I was struck by what a fragile little group it was. Keyes, despite mulling him supporting the King, would probably prefer Eden to Chamberlain’s crusty, humourless team or to losing the whip by joining Lloyd George. He was as colourful a character as portrayed (probably more so – being a campaign manager is hardly his metier!) and would support Eden’s more muscular approach to international matters. I’m convinced that Macmillan would have been a target of the rebels, but as I’m placing Bob Boothby, currently conducting a well-known affair with Dorothy Macmillan, among their number Macmillan will enact revenge and crush his Parliamentary career. Despite moments of occasional ‘toeing the line’ I think that the notion of being a significant player in Eden’s campaign would have its attractions. That said, I seriously mulled Macmillan joining Stanley.
Stanley’s campaign is the classic ‘third man’ candidacy that often derails UK hustings; a sudden, unexpected candidate throwing his name in for consideration at the last minute, skewing the result away from another candidate. FWIW, I have the following as the key Stanley supporters:
John Eastwood
Lord Stanhope
Ronald Cross
Walter Wormersley
His supporters would incline, I think, towards interventionist economic policies (particularly in the northern Tory constituencies) with a muddled, if slightly more assertive than Chamberlain, foreign policy. But all of these are secondary concerns: the one issue, as many of you have commented, that really matters is how to manage the King.
(sighs) Chamberlain and his gang (most of the old guard, a few of the less independent youngsters) have reputation, tradition, and the power of patronage. Would Bertie, Duke of York really be dragged into wining and dining wavering Conservatives? I remain, on balance, settled that he would; his judgment with Chamberlain was always dicey, and even as King he mixed the Royal with the political. The evidence? Well, the decision to put Chamberlain with him on the Buckingham Palace balcony after Munich was a controversial one even with the pro-appeasement political establishment, and more than one anecdote and recollection testifies to his support for the wing of the Conservative Party aligned with Chamberlain and his views. As readers of my previous AAR will recollect, regal support in the real world 1940 was closely for Halifax rather than Churchill and it was well into Winston’s premiership before the ice thawed. As a Duke (even as the Heir apparent / presumptive) he can be more involved, not less (cough Charles, Prince of Wales, cough) and I believe that the Tories would shamelessly exploit HRH to get their way. If this seems grubby, it is.
But not, perhaps, as grubby as the notion of an ex-MI5 officer getting up to no good on Neville’s behalf. If I am satisfied on a balance of probabilities that the Chamberlainites would drag poor Bertie to lobby on their boy’s behalf, then I am almost certain that Joseph Ball and his ex-intelligence skills would be used. Phones would be bugged, the Whips would be corralled into spying on (and then intimidating) young MPs thought to be wobbly. The legalities would be ignored and the Home Secretary (one of DLG’s rebels – I’ll explore the mess that is the Cabinet shortly) not involved. This means that someone in the Security Service would support Ball, and here I’m again relatively comfortable with my conclusion. Because, dear reader, MI5 and Joseph Ball has not ignored what a lot of the Conservative Party has – this contest is not about Hitler or unemployment relief, it is about the King and how he is dealt with. And the candidate that can reassure the party, swiftly, on this will ultimately win.
Thank you mon brave, the aim was just to widen our less slightly.
The thing is this - DLG hasn't, really, 'got in'. I mean, he has, in that he is PM, but he hasn't got there through a popular mandate and commands a tiny number of MPs. The gymnastics - that's to come...
Yes I wanted to show ze Germans in the SCW, particularly those fighting for the doomed Republic.
Like, I suspect, you, I am not particularly impressed by Wintringham; one of those buffoonish Englishmen who frankly gets in the way to pass on his (usually misguided) opinions. The point is that he wasn't always wrong, and his efforts in the SCW are probably the 'high watermark' of his credibility.
Thanks - Spain, as ever, dominates the early years of an HOI4 AAR
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