Only in Britain can the chaotic fall of crown and government occur so elegantly. Beautiful update.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Chapter 73, Windsor Castle, 18 December 1936
David Lloyd George, beset as he was by swirling emotions, nevertheless found that there was something unreal about Windsor Castle in the morning’s crisp winter light.
Another new equerry saluted as Lloyd George arrived (he couldn’t remember, or care, if that was correct protocol), a young Lieutenant in one of the cavalry regiments. “Prime Minister,” he said gravely, nervous of the situation now unfolding.
“Has he read the papers?”
“He has, Sir, and is not best pleased. Mrs Simpson has left the country,” he said, as if delivering a death sentence.
“Hold on, lad, one thing at a time. What is his reaction to the Johnny story?”
“That he said it was a relief that Prince John died, and, well, some of the more salacious stuff?”
“If you want to survive in Palace service, you’ll need to be able to open in these discussions. He was very rude about Prince John.”
“Yes Sir,” the Equerry said unhappily. “But it was in a letter to Her Majesty Queen Mary!”
Lloyd George shook his head. He had booked a steamer to take him to Canada that evening, having already got the King’s signature on a wave of ennoblements when (if?) the inevitable election defeat occurred. Tired, and annoyed at relinquishing office again, he had not decided whether or not to contest his Carnarvon seat in the face of a strong local Labour candidate opposing the Royal marriage.
“Your Majesty,” he said without warmth.
“David,” the King, grief stricken, rasped. He stared again at the summary of that morning’s papers. “They’ve made me out to be a monster.”
“Shall we get to it, Sir,” Lloyd George had decided to circle around the attacks, “this should not be a long meeting.”
“I think it will!” Bulbous eyes stared madly at the Prime Minister. “I have had to deal with my brothers, all three of them, ranting down the ‘phone at me. Mary, sweet girl, is trying to support Mama in this, but…”
Lloyd George sighed. His hope for a dignified, brief dissolution request was not to be. “Her Majesty was…”
“…taken to her bed. I’ve demanded an investigation, of course,” the King said bitterly, a petulant smile forming. “The regimental moustaches will no doubt blame it all on me.” He turned to stare again at his Prime Minister. “I didn’t bloody leak the letters! Why on Earth…”
“…I think we are all aware that you didn’t do it. But it doesn’t matter. The timing is superb. Most of my members are scrambling to protect their seats, they won’t fight this for you.”
The King raised an eyebrow. “My my, now you have turned.”
“Sir,” Lloyd George forced himself to be calm, “I hereby request a dissolution of Parliament, with elections to be held on the Fourth of February next year.”
The King walked over to the window and stared out over the rolling park. “You know, I would have quite happily have given all of this up for Wallis,” he said ruefully. “I remember once writing to Freda, and telling her that I would happily dump it all for her. ‘Fuck royalty’, I think I said.” Lloyd George, whose whole enterprise over the last four months contradicted everything the King had just said, remained quiet. “Suppose,” he said after a pause, “I refused that request. My father didn’t prepare me particularly well for this role, but enough of those dreary lessons under Hansell must have worked. I seem to remember that this is just a request.”
Lloyd George’s temper finally snapped suddenly. A shock of white hair, he seemed to leap at the King, propelling himself forward with the pent up rage of four months. He grabbed the lapels of the King’s impeccably tailored jacket and shouted manically. “Listen to me you worthless playboy, I’ve dragged this country to the edge of the abyss for you. I have ripped apart the constitution and have endured more than any politician should. And all because I believed we deserved better than Neville Chamberlain.”
“Now, David…”
“The courts are going to drag every detail of your love life through the mud. All of it. If that happens, can you continue?”
“But…”
“If we hadn’t had a challenge, in the courts, it might have worked. It’s over.”
“I, I…”
“…you tell me that this is a request. It’s over, do you understand? Over. You lost, for God’s sake man, let it be over.”
The King staggered back, too shocked to respond. He sagged into a chair. “I, I…”
“…you agree to the request?”
“I do,” the King croaked. “I, I…”
“…we were fools to try, but we tried. I need to think about the campaign, after Christmas. We’ll stand under your banner, of course, if we stand at all.”
“February, David, is close to the…”
“…that’s for you. Do you want all of this to be dragged into court? If you do, we’ll campaign on your behalf. If you don’t, then we’ll let Whitehall return to normal.”
“I see, David…” the King seemed to want to say something else, but didn’t.
“Then that’s it then.” Smoothing his hair back into place, the Prime Minister strode from the room. On a delicate Jacobean chair, the King of England sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.
Lloyd George lingered in the park for a while, before getting wearily into his car to be driven back to Downing Street. As his car trundled into Windsor, he thought he saw the new equerry gaily driving his own car, a flash sports car. But it wasn’t the car that caught Lloyd George’s eye, it was that the equerry had one of the red boxes, that the King received from Lloyd George and the ministers, in the seat next to him. Now what, Lloyd George mused, is going on there?
All of the British newspapers, reeling from the publication of letters from the King (when he was Prince of Wales) to his mother Queen Mary, switched, with yet another big story, to the news of the dissolution of Parliament. Few of Lloyd George’s MPs went to their Christmas holiday with any degree of happiness or confidence.
====
GAME NOTES
So. This is, really, a continuation of last week's rather mammoth update. There are two bits here, the Government is dissolved and elections called (huzzah!) and the King is embroiled in a(nother) scandal.
Before that some housekeeping. Wallis Simpson fleeing abroad (I’m loosely positing France, perhaps Switzerland) is likely: for such a public figure she had a very odd sensitivity to publicity (a bit like Eden, oddly enough) and she hated the attention she got in the OTL Abdication Crisis. With an election now called which has to address the King’s behaviour I am convinced that she would escape to the Continent. I am not, actually, sure that she will ever return to the UK. You’re welcome.
The King did, in letters to his lovers Freda Dudley Ward and (possibly – the letters that is. She was definitely intimate with him) Thelma Furness fantasise about running away and ditching his claim to the throne. How much of this is romantic whimsy (this is the overdramatic 20s and 30s!) and how much was genuine divides opinion. As ever with Edward, I’m something of a centrist and believe that he certainly did have significant misgivings about inheriting the throne, and certainly didn’t anticipate George V dying when he did (there is a common theme of everyone anticipating it during earlier illnesses, but not the one that claimed him in January 1936).
The King’s letters have certainly landed him in hot water here. A bit of a disclaimer is necessary, I do not endorse the King’s views, nor will I expand on them more than I did above. Suffice as to say that the King, when Prince of Wales, sent letters to his mother which were rather offhand (code for ‘unacceptably offensive’) about his brother Prince John. John, or 'Johnnie', was the youngest of the six children of George V; a gregarious, slightly rebellious baby, at the age of four he was diagnosed with epilepsy which claimed him ten years later. Edward did write, to mistresses and his mother, about Johnnie's decline and death and these letters were kept by Queen Mary to subsequently (in this TL), by persons as yet unknown, be leaked to the Press. Given where we are in this TL, and the depth of the scandal gripping the King, I am of the view that if wasn’t this that was leaked it would have been some comment on the Nazis, or some off-colour remarks about imperial subjects or one of the other ill-judged remarks that he made. I picked this one as it is (remarkably) not as bad as some of the others, and because the letters were kept by Queen Mary in relatively easy access (if you knew where to look). I also, unlike some of the wilder (and who knows, potentially true) stories about the King, have the evidence that they were indeed written and were available in late 1936 (they later vanished, and I rather like tying in my plotline of them being stolen).
Would Lloyd George have lost his cool so spectacularly? I’m going to say yes; the evidence is that he was very rude to George V on a number of occasions, and, ironically (given the premise of this AAR) had a low regard for monarchy as an institution. This is a man who has been seduced by one last chance of power, and the cost of that opportunity has proven far too high. The alliance between Edward and his opportunist supporters is breaking down...
I'm torn, as we head toward the Feb 37 election, on precisely who among the rebels would keep their seats, and who would be out. Some of the majorities gained in the 1935 General Election were paper thin, and although Winston's was huge (20,000!), how many of those supporters would 'fall in' behind the official Conservative party machinery? Assuming he loses, I think that Chamberlain and Margesson will keep him well away from Whitehall, so some form of governorship might be the method used.
Monckton is an interesting one; the client-lawyer nature of his relationship with the King makes him employable again by "the Establishment," after a suitable period of quarantine and an acknowledgment that he did a grubby job with some style. My guess, knowing how the governance of the UK eventually turns out, is something between OTL and my use of him in the other AAR. Halifax, certainly, was very fond of him, although I'm not sure who the new PM will favour.
Until pretty late in the day I had some warped use of the Emergency Powers Acts, although as you know this 'bakes in' a Parliamentary element which just delays the inevitable. With Churchill fatally undermining the royalist cause there was nowhere else for the rebels to go.
Thank you. As updates go that one took an age to get right...
Attachments
- 5
Oh thank god, and good riddance.
He had so many horrible paper trails, and all of them no doubt will be leaked TTL. No grace required for this version.
I don't really see the point of him standing, even if he wins. Never getting into another party, never going to be enrolled in the Lords, never going to be listened to or allowed anywhere again...seems a bit like purgatory.
Would be rarher fitting as a punishment if the job was unimportant. As is, he really should stand aside and let someone else have a go.
...well, yes.
BULLY!
Quite.
Go fuck yourself, you spineless sex pest.
The festure film version of this scene will absolutely have DLG punching or throttling Edward. Philip Madoc would enjoy that.
Indeed. It would be better for everyone if you fell on your sword literally, but for God's sake at least do so metaphorically.
...if nothing else, DLG is going to stand by what he did and be publically shot down for it. As much as I want several members of his gang assassinated, rehabilitated and cut loose, I'm uncertain as to what to do about the ring leader.
I mean, he'll be dying shortly anyway, but so will Chamberlain and he is a whole other problem.
My sympathy for David on the other hand, has evaporated as this AAR has gone on.
What an absolute ****.
...on top of everything else, Bertie and Neville have to fix all the leaks in the Royal households.
And there are apparently even more than OTL.
I am deeply impressed at how fast you are kicking these out while maintaining your usual high standards.
As always you capture the personalities so well, everyone is acting 'in character' as they plot and react their way throw these events. I am pleased to see that Churchill did indeed see sense before the end, that Monckton escaped intact and that someone finally did grab Eddie by the lapels and shout at him. Never thought it would be DLG doing that last one, but there you go. I wonder if he will even bother returning, if he's got his peerage and the election will just be a shambolic disaster he might stay on the wrong side of the Atlantic. I can absolutely see him, Eddie and Wallace doing some relentlessly grubby and seedy speaking tour around the US to 'explain their side' and rake in some cash.
A veritable cavalcade of parliamentarians, excellent work in making them distinct. That some big names (or people who would become big names) will not make it through the next election seems inevitable, the only question is how many. On that note I do hope this is the last we see of Kingsley Wood, not for what he has done so far but to prevent him ever becoming Chancellor and inflicting such institutional damage on the machinery of government.
Thinking of the election there is an opportunity for a bit of new blood and a chance to draw a line under matters, or it could be a nasty circular fight that re-opens old wounds and sees lots of centralised control and yes-men candidates as party leaderships try to make sure nothing like the past few months ever happens again. I'd hope it was the former and if Eddie stays deflated and DLG stays away it just might be, but those two have made a habit of picking the worst option and damning the consequences so I fear it may be the latter.
As always you capture the personalities so well, everyone is acting 'in character' as they plot and react their way throw these events. I am pleased to see that Churchill did indeed see sense before the end, that Monckton escaped intact and that someone finally did grab Eddie by the lapels and shout at him. Never thought it would be DLG doing that last one, but there you go. I wonder if he will even bother returning, if he's got his peerage and the election will just be a shambolic disaster he might stay on the wrong side of the Atlantic. I can absolutely see him, Eddie and Wallace doing some relentlessly grubby and seedy speaking tour around the US to 'explain their side' and rake in some cash.
A veritable cavalcade of parliamentarians, excellent work in making them distinct. That some big names (or people who would become big names) will not make it through the next election seems inevitable, the only question is how many. On that note I do hope this is the last we see of Kingsley Wood, not for what he has done so far but to prevent him ever becoming Chancellor and inflicting such institutional damage on the machinery of government.
Thinking of the election there is an opportunity for a bit of new blood and a chance to draw a line under matters, or it could be a nasty circular fight that re-opens old wounds and sees lots of centralised control and yes-men candidates as party leaderships try to make sure nothing like the past few months ever happens again. I'd hope it was the former and if Eddie stays deflated and DLG stays away it just might be, but those two have made a habit of picking the worst option and damning the consequences so I fear it may be the latter.
- 1
Many thanks!
I have no idea, but it was great fun.
So this slow motion avalanche of muck, filth, farce and calumny authored by DLG & co will take until February to finally finish? There is time for so many more egregious acts before the soap opera is over.
Hitler and his odious henchmen must be laughing their arses off at all this.
Given the inevitability of the Chamberlain avalanche, and with the inevitable backlash coming too late to help anybody, the question becomes - what to do with one slightly-used king?
I simply don't see any way for him to stay as monarch - even the leaders of his party wold much rather have someone else. But with Wallis Simpson fled, could the man be inert and self-absorbed enough to simply stay put and drink himself to death?
If he does propose to abdicate, is even Wallis Simpson going to want him?
I simply don't see any way for him to stay as monarch - even the leaders of his party wold much rather have someone else. But with Wallis Simpson fled, could the man be inert and self-absorbed enough to simply stay put and drink himself to death?
If he does propose to abdicate, is even Wallis Simpson going to want him?
Last edited:
Freudian typo highlighted for truth.
Wallis is in her early 40s, is a multiple divorcee with a messy past and has had most of the non-British media parading her history and dirty laundry all over the front pages for weeks if not months. Whatever happens to Eddie he is devoted to her, he is going to remain rich and, unless he does something incredibly stupid (like go on a propaganda tour of Nazi Germany say...), they will remain welcome in at least some of the most exclusive high society groups on the Continent and in the US.
For a social climber who loves the good life it is hard to see how she could do much better than staying with him. She stayed with him in OTL after all.
As to pout, that demonstrates the perils of typing with arthritis, I fear.
From what I know, Wallis Simpson wanted the perks of hanging on a royal but was willing to put him aside - it was Eddie who declared his undying devotion and vowed to pursue her forever unless she acquiesced.
All of this is just a perfect barge of garbage that no sensible person would get into or remain in.
From what I know, Wallis Simpson wanted the perks of hanging on a royal but was willing to put him aside - it was Eddie who declared his undying devotion and vowed to pursue her forever unless she acquiesced.
All of this is just a perfect barge of garbage that no sensible person would get into or remain in.
- 1
Chapter 74, Ronda, 24 December 1936
“Striking, isn’t it,” Hillgarth said in welcome as Butler sagged into a chair. Another man, also palpably not Spanish, nodded a weary greeting to Hillgarth as he too flopped into a comfortable chair. “I suppose, on this day of days, that this makes us the three wise men,” Hillgarth quipped as he raised an eyebrow at the third man.
"Oh, sorry, Alan,” Butler said, slightly flustered, “this is Hamilton Stokes, our man in Gibraltar.”
“Ah, yes,” Hillgarth said. “We’re a bit out of your patch, aren’t we?”
“The same,” Stokes said primly, “could be said about you.”
Hillgarth smiled and took an age to light his pipe. “Look chap,” Hillgarth snapped as they sipped their coffee, (the café’s best stock, he claimed, which made Butler immediately suspicious), “you’ve done some wonderful stuff. But this is a dammed fool mission y’know.”
“Which is why I won’t shed any tears that the Chief has cabled you and Stokes here to get it stopped.”
“Not to say it is impossible, though,” Hillgarth said with a slight inflection. “The barking mad thing is that it could be done.”
“Would it take away from the main event?”
“Winston’s nephew, or nephew-in-law?” Hillgarth smiled. “I might have something for you on that. Your telegram gave me enough, so I’ve done some digging while you were on passage to Gibraltar. He’s not that far away, one of our chaps in the Republican forces thinks he’s in Madrid.”
Butler’s morale continued the steady rise that had accompanied his departure from England. The passage to Gibraltar had been easy enough, only slightly marred by the order to sit and wait upon arrival. It had given time to rebuild the relationship with Stokes, and to support the other man in finding out about Italian involvement in the Spanish War. Meanwhile Hillgarth, ordered to help Butler, had waited an age to find a ship going in the right direction from Majorca, where he lived, to the mainland. Hillgarth had a difficult job, watching Catalonia and the Balearics for the British, balancing and cultivating contacts on both sides. His civilian and military neighbours had so far left him alone. And now, to Butler’s relief, Hillgarth seemed to suggest that they could soon extract Romilly from the war and get him, and them, home.
Hillgarth smiled, reading the younger man’s thoughts. “We believe that there are two big British groups in the area that have merged into one. Some are survivors from the People’s Olympiad in the summer, while there is also a group of volunteers who have flocked to the Republican banner.”
“And Romilly is among them?”
“Almost certainly,” Hillgarth said emphatically. “My man in the group knows what he is doing.”
“Where?”
“In the city itself,” Hillgarth said carefully. “Our man was recently in Huesca with a group of foreign volunteers. Apparently, they’ve all been thrown into the city.”
“Fighting?”
“Shambolically, yes,” Hillgarth said, swirling around the dregs of his coffee. “Most of the heavy fighting is around the outskirts of Madrid presently. Franco and his chaps failed to take the city, again, and so launched an aerial offensive. They didn’t surrender, of course, so our little revolutionary is now trying to encircle the city, cut ‘em off from water, power and all that.”
“Resistance?”
“Yes, a brigade of the Republicans is doing its best.”
“How much of a Nationalist force?”
“The Italians in Majorca tell me three thousand on Franco’s side. Of course, that’s five days old.” Butler closed his eyes at the scale of it, but Hillgarth wasn’t finished. “But Franco is backed up by heavy artillery and aircraft.”
“Aircraft?”
“German. Junkers.”
Butler felt that all the months spent cultivating, carefully, the relationships in Spain, the networks of agents, the pliable friends on both sides, had been destroyed during his absence in England. All of these events should be being reported by him to London (and Hillgarth), not to him. It reinforced a sense that was growing. “Gents, who is running the station?”
Stokes looked awkwardly away while Hillgarth frowned. “There isn’t really a Spanish station, truth be told. The evacuation of the Embassy from Madrid was very disruptive, as was your recall after you nabbed that intelligence from the Italian cruiser.” He frowned again. “I see that Rees in Lisbon is trying to grow his empire, of course he got credit for cracking that naval mutiny,” he said this with a nod at Butler, “and Paris station always wants to take over. So, to answer your q, I think it’s me, Stokes here, and a couple of other old boys on the edges doing their best to make sense of this. But we lack anyone to really report it to, no one pulling it all together. HE,” he said as an abbreviation of ‘His Excellency’, meaning the British Ambassador, “doesn’t seem remotely interested. And London…”
Butler nodded. “That settles it, then. I get Romilly to HE, give the FO the problem of getting him home, and then I we start again. Low level, rebuilding the old links, tying them together.”
Hillgarth nodded. “That makes sense, at least to me. You can count on my support, of course.”
It was Butler’s turn to nod, and signalled to the dour Spanish tavernkeeper for another coffee. They were sitting in a small café/tavern that catered for travellers along the mountain roads. In the distance, the grandeur of the Ronda bridge and the plunging gorge made an impressive backdrop.
“Is it true,” Stokes said, curious, “that they throw people from the bridge?”
“I’ve heard it said,” Hillgarth confirmed, “I doubt that they’d do it at Christmas,” he said wryly. “I’m sure the local bishop might have something to say about that.”
Butler wasn’t ready for small talk. “So how do we get to Madrid?”
Stokes spoke first, to everyone’s surprise. “Your civilians.”
“That could work,” Hillgarth said slowly. “But which side do you infiltrate? I mean, we do agree, don’t we, that this has to be an undercover job.”
Stokes was warming to a plan. “Both. If we get intelligence that the Romilly boy has fallen into Nationalist hands we use the Vickers man; ingratiate himself with the nationalists, offer weapons, and then get the boy in exchange. If we think he’s still with the Republicans, your arms merchant stays out of the way, but your miner’s son and you join the foreign volunteers.”
“I like it,” Hillgarth said happily. “Most of the volunteers for the Republicans are lefties anyway. They’ll be suspicious of a random Brit getting to Madrid on his own, but a couple looks like a group. What’s the backstory?”
“I used a left-leaning bureaucrat/academic during my secondment to London, I’ll use that again.”
Butler frowned. “How do we get up you there? We had a challenge getting transport this far.”
“I can help,” Stokes said, enthusiastically. “I have a man who works as a doctor not far from here. We keep each other informed, I get him medical supplies when he needs them, in payment.”
Hillgarth nodded, but was clearly not saying something. Butler saw this. “Alan?”
“There is another option,” he said with a mildly buccaneering tone. “The Regia Aeronautica.”
Stokes frowned. “The what?”
“The Italian Air Force,” Butler said, suspicious. “How on Earth…”
“…simplicity itself. We tell them that your Vickers chap needs to see the rebel commanders. One or two of the Italians owe me a favour.”
“I’ll think about it,” Butler said.
Stokes looked worried. “It’s rather, well overt.”
"Perhaps," Hillgarth said with a chuckle, "that's its attraction."
Butler nodded. “On the subject of the Italians, this note,” he gestured to a report that Hillgarth had pushed at him, “is excellent.”
“Do you think London will care?”
Butler smiled, sadly. “I doubt it. Whitehall is paralysed and nothing is being decided, so the Civil Service is pretty much making all the decisions without any ministerial scrutiny. This,” he gestured at the paper, “should make someone sit up. Stationing bombers on Spanish islands, these airfields…”
“…two,” Hillgarth said. “A bunch down at Alcudia and the rest near me, at Palma. Bombers, the occasional fighter or transport, all safely there on the island from which they can launch raids on the mainland without reprisal.”
“It’s an occupation.”
“Well, that’s why I wrote the report,” Hillgarth said tiredly. “If Mussolini was to acquire them after a war…”
“…they could hinder us here in the Mediterranean.”
“You’ll get it through the FO?”
“Yes,” Butler said warily, “but I’m going to put it to the Chief, and Vansittart, directly. I’ve had a lot to do with both during my time in London, and I’m wary of anyone else.”
“As well as HE,” Hillgarth added.
“As well as HE,” Butler agreed. “But I sense there will be change in London. Maybe not for us, but for Kell’s boys almost certainly. You know that Lloyd George had him in virtual house arrest?”
Hillgarth shook his head. “I hear rumours, of course, and you can’t read a newspaper without learning of some lurid detail of one side or another.”
“Well, there are rumours that some of Kell’s men, or former men, were helping out Chamberlain and his papers. Listening to the telephone, reading letters.” Butler decided not to tell Hillgarth that he had being a significant player in investigating this activity; instead, he parroted the well-peddled rumours swirling around the intelligence community. “It rather feels like an American film, cowboys and outlaws.”
Hillgarth nodded. “I trust that you will do what you can. Are they interested in us?”
Butler sighed. “Barely.” He paused while the waiter poured the coffee. “The seniors are still dealing with the disasters in The Hague.”
“Dalton?”
“Yes,” Butler confirmed, “it turns out that he was embezzling passport fees.”
Hillgarth shrugged. “A little bit of speculation has never been…”
“Three thousand pounds worth,” Butler interrupted.
“Ah,” Hillgarth acknowledged.
“And the new man, Monty Chidson, is probably on his way out after a couple of months in the post.”
“Good God.”
“Another disaster,” Butler said bitterly.
====
GAME NOTES
I know that this AAR risks becoming a parody, “getting to the war by 1000 meetings,” but I wanted, before Butler and co are thrown into the cauldron that is Madrid, to offer something of an update on both Spain and the British Intelligence efforts there.
The Spanish Civil War had, by Christmas 1936, bled the nation white with no sign of letting up. Madrid rapidly assumed (or perhaps retained) a crucial value and became the focus for both sides. The strategic situation is as described; there were several confusing battles around (and on the roads leading to) Madrid. Franco did use German bombers to attack the city, with predictable results in terms of damage and civilian morale (which was not eroded – see London 1940 and Leningrad 1941) and the Republicans did, indeed, throw most of their foreign volunteers (including Romilly) into the city around this time. Germany and Italy, initially wary of being caught and challenged by the British and the French, became increasingly brazen (well, the Italians were) in this period with overt troop and aircraft deployments and the de facto (if not de jure) occupation of Majorca, a secure base from which to pound the mainland, free of threat of reprisal (the strategic bomber’s dream). Hillgarth’s description of the airbases is more or less as he reported back to London at this time (having been to Palma, many years ago, one wonders at the sobriety and military bearing of the Italians after a few months on the island). Mussolini’s claim over Majorca, if not the rest of the Balearics, will be looked at in a (much) later chapter.
Hillgarth and Stokes were real, and here perform the same roles they did OTL running SIS stations in Majorca and Gibraltar respectively. I fear I may have been harsh on Stokes by making him bland (if competent) but I can’t find much about his character, unlike Hillgarth, who seems largely as portrayed here. Hillgarth and Stokes, who, hilariously, were not well coordinated by the British Embassy (or London), were probably the stars of the weak MI6 efforts in Spain (in this TL we at least have an excuse for that as Butler has spent most of the AAR in the UK). Both ran effective networks (in the game I simulated this in Dec 1936 by having Butler re-establish a Spanish network) but were rarely given clear direction from London.
And finally to Ronda – this update initially saw Butler and the civilians journeying to Majorca, but given Romilly’s location I put them in striking distance, in a truly beautiful part of Spain. Your humble authAAR visited Ronda in the Autumn of 2016 (long story, but the work element of my 3 day trip was precisely 90 minutes) and loved it; there are some cafes in and around the town with lovely views of the bridge and the dizzying drop below. On a darker note, the anecdote about people being thrown from the bridge comes from a friend of mine, whose Welsh Coalfield great-grandfather died from his SCW injuries. He served, briefly, in a Republican group near Andalusia and gave a long account of his wartime experiences.
I genuinely don't what DLG; I'm not, entirely, convinced that he will lose his seat; local constituency issues and arrangements mattered more than they do now, where the Prime Minister is increasingly (gag) presidential in bearing. I have decided to let the election run on for a bit before jumping in, and it will be brief as 'Winston holds a rally' isn't probably that interesting. The fallout, though...
Interesting call to play DLG. Mark Lewis Jones did a solid, if probably too honourable attempt at him in 37 Days, and then there was Ron Cook in The Lost Prince (who, I think, captured his naughty schemy side). Who would play the King?
He is certainly unstable (he was anyway, to be fair). This TL has pushed him to breaking point - in the real world he drank so much he had to have his stomach pumped, so the sort of mercurial silliness we're seeing here isn't particularly far-fetched.
So his post-reign time is going to be an interesting challenge to write about. I sense you're right, I just cannot see, with the type of government that I'm going to unleash and the hatred felt for him by most of the Establishment, that Edward will be welcomed anywhere in the Empire (maybe South Africa or NZ at a push). He will therefore have to carve out more of a career, and further afield, than he did OTL.
It will be an odd election, both predictable and odd. A lot of people will, as you say, find themselves unemployed, and we will see some younger faces in the Commons.
So this slow motion avalanche of muck, filth, farce and calumny authored by DLG & co will take until February to finally finish? There is time for so many more egregious acts before the soap opera is over.
So I'm going to unleash a couple of further scandalous bits and then let the election run its course, picking it up when we get to February. There is little, formally, that prevents a PM from setting a ludicrously long election timeline.
So I think that DLG will be trounced, but a storm is breaking for Neville, as well. It is frankly a mess.
I agree - whomever ends up, after the dust has settled, running the show, will have to confront and deal with the King.
Agreed - she has ran away as a sort of 'it's me or the job' challenge, I surmise, and Edward would always, always, pick her.
A truly wonderful assessment of this AAR! That is going into my signature block!
- 4
He already did play the most overtly Welsh DLG, and my own father, upon having a secondary school Q/A with him after a Stratford upon Avon performance, confounded everyone by bring that up first before the Dad's Army thing.
Oh there's any number of people who were absolute drunken messes who were nonetheless stilp excellent actors. Any of the O'Toole gang could play it.
I do like a Butler update, if only for the contrast between him and his political masters. His endeavours have something of a going through the motions feel about them, it is all very well gathering this intelligence but it does rather depend on someone doing something with the end product.
Looking ahead after the election the new government will be very busy handling the King and a great many related domestic matters regardless of who ends up in No.10. Will they have the intent, or even capacity, to look at foreign affairs in much detail? And if they do will they really focus on Spain and not the various other matters calling for their attention?
Then again there is only so far Butler can freelance even in the absence of political direction from London and it is at least plausible for him to go back and rebuild the Spanish network, so it is the professional choice even if it's not perhaps the best choice.
Looking ahead after the election the new government will be very busy handling the King and a great many related domestic matters regardless of who ends up in No.10. Will they have the intent, or even capacity, to look at foreign affairs in much detail? And if they do will they really focus on Spain and not the various other matters calling for their attention?
Then again there is only so far Butler can freelance even in the absence of political direction from London and it is at least plausible for him to go back and rebuild the Spanish network, so it is the professional choice even if it's not perhaps the best choice.
Haha
Not at all. We’ll convene a sub committee to endorse that.A very nice touch.
So much to go wrong here. And hitching a ride with the Italian Air Force, seems like a rather reckless plan, I guess maybe that's why it might work, because no one was expecting it...
If the writing of the meetings is of this quality, I'll be here for another thousand of them, war or no war.
If the writing of the meetings is of this quality, I'll be here for another thousand of them, war or no war.
- 1
Every now and again my... well, I call it a sense of humor, but lector cave... bubbles up. I was reading the choices for actors to play the roles and was reminded of the distant-but-very-fun Portugal by Lord Durham. And I thought I'd dip in a toe, as it were... the humor of the idea is to pick actors who possibly bear some faint physical resemblance, have some box-office appeal yet are completely inappropriate for the part. In short, the sort of casting that put John Wayne in as Genghiz Khan.
So:
King Edward VIII - Dick Van Dyke or Vincent Price
Winston Churchill - Charles Laughton or Peter Lorre
Wallis Simpson - Elsa Lanchester in full 'Bride of Frankenstein' makeup; Bette Davis could do it but won't
David Lloyd George - David Niven or Harpo Marx, depending on availability
Neville Chamberlain - Groucho Marx or Cary Grant (with patently fake mustache), see above
Every secret agent will be played by Peter Sellers, since he likes that sort of thing.
The choice of Americans for roles is deliberate, as the accent, lack of accent or attempt at accent adds to the 'fun'.
Apologies in advance - any offense is unintended. Any suggestions?
@Le Jones - once this sort of silliness starts up it is high time for an update.
So:
King Edward VIII - Dick Van Dyke or Vincent Price
Winston Churchill - Charles Laughton or Peter Lorre
Wallis Simpson - Elsa Lanchester in full 'Bride of Frankenstein' makeup; Bette Davis could do it but won't
David Lloyd George - David Niven or Harpo Marx, depending on availability
Neville Chamberlain - Groucho Marx or Cary Grant (with patently fake mustache), see above
Every secret agent will be played by Peter Sellers, since he likes that sort of thing.
The choice of Americans for roles is deliberate, as the accent, lack of accent or attempt at accent adds to the 'fun'.
Apologies in advance - any offense is unintended. Any suggestions?
@Le Jones - once this sort of silliness starts up it is high time for an update.
- 1
Dunno why, in a 2010s remake I see Jude Law as Edward, Stephen Fry as Winnie (after a change in hairstyle), Kristin Scott-Thomas as Wallis, Jim Carrey as DLG and Michael Sheen as good old Nev.
- 1
Chapter 75, Westminster, 15 January 1937
The New Year had not brought a new vision, or a new energy; if anything the departure of MPs to their constituencies for Christmas and campaigning had drained Westminster of even more of its energy, its colour. The Civil Service, which had never really surmounted the challenge of the minority Lloyd George administration, now had the challenge of continuing stable government while a rather eccentric General Election was being fought.
Amidst a slow return from Christmas breaks and a reclusive, nervy senior Civil Service, some Westminster offices nevertheless retained their vibrancy. And it was in one such office that Sir Maurice Hankey, Walter Monckton, Brigadier Sir Smyth Child (the Master of the Royal Household) met with Captain Sir Bryan Godfrey-Faussett Royal Navy, formerly an equerry-in-ordinary to the King but latterly (since his resignation in disgust at the Simpson affair) acting for the Duke of York in managing the crisis (and, as was increasingly being discussed, the potential succession of one brother from the other).
“So,” Sir Maurice Hankey began. “You know that as I am no longer the Cabinet Secretary I lack any official authority here, gentlemen.”
“And,” Walter Monckton added as soon as Hankey had finished, “as I am no longer His Majesty’s Legal Adviser I also lack any official standing.”
“His Royal Highness is nevertheless grateful for your support, Gentlemen,” Godfrey-Faussett said automatically. “I presume,” he said, turning to look at Child with a sarcastic tone, “that you are still engaged by His Majesty?”
“I am,” Child said softly. “With all of you, gone…”
“…you did the noble thing and remained,” Monckton added in a sympathetic tone. Having wielded a horrifically burdened portfolio as one after another the senior Palace staff had handed over their workload and resigned, he looked sadly at the other man, and then to Godfrey-Faussett. “Is His Royal Highness acting for his mother on this matter?”
“He is,” Godfrey-Faussett confirmed. “I should also add that their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, as well as the Princess Royal have all agreed to abide the decisions of the Duke of York and Her Majesty Queen Mary on this matter.”
“Good,” Hankey said with relief. “That makes it much easier. So?”
“We have completed, with the help of the Royal Household staff, our investigation into the theft of letters from His Majesty, when he was Prince of Wales, to Her Majesty Queen Mary.”
“Oh God,” Child said in an almost pleading tone. “And?”
“Lieutenant Gore, His Majesty’s new equerry.”
“Why did he do it?”
“He is an officer of grand family and of conservative conviction, but, I believe, limited means. He has peddled some nonsense about believing that publication of the letters would embarrass His Majesty and undermine the strength of his support in the country.”
“But it’s money?”
“Yes, Maurice, it’s money.”
“Ah,” Monckton said, simply. “That puts rather an interesting slant on things.”
Godfrey-Faussett nodded. “That is why His Royal Highness has asked for this meeting.”
“I presume that the letters were all seized from the Queen’s apartments in Marlborough House,” Child who had more than enough to be dealing with at the Palace, seemed eager to keep the problem isolated to Queen Mary’s residence.
“They were,” Godfrey-Faussett agreed. “Since the death of King George, she has been cataloguing her collection of letters and gifts. It would appear that most of her staff know where she kept her letters. They were so well organised that it probably took Gore, who often takes messages between the King and his mother, a matter of minutes to find the highly damaging letters that were published by the newspapers.”
“But it’s worse than that,” Hankey, who had been quiet until now, said suddenly, but with a knowing tone. “Otherwise, you would have had someone dismiss Gore and made sure, albeit quietly, that his status in society was tarnished forever.” Next to him, Monckton nodded in agreement.
“Alas yes, Sir Maurice,” Godfrey-Faussett agreed readily. “Under interview by me, and Her Majesty’s Equerry he admitted that he had been approached…”
“…approached?” That was Monckton, probing.
“Approached,” Godfrey-Faussett confirmed, “by a person in Chamberlain’s senior clique.”
“Who?” Hankey was suddenly nervous while the others were intrigued. “Surely not an MP? Or a Civil Servant.”
“Sir Joseph Ball.”
“Never heard of him,” Child said, with irritation. “Who in the blazes is he?”
“I know him from the Inn,” Monckton said in a lawyerly air. “A barrister and, I gather, an intelligence type. He is close, I do believe, to Neville Chamberlain.” He looked at Hankey.
“I know of him, I’ve probably even met him, but I wouldn’t say that he was an intimate of Baldwin,” Hankey said, in the manner of a man not telling the whole truth.
Monckton had spotted the evasive demeanour. “You’re being cagey, Maurice.”
Hankey, embarrassed, looked at his shoes. After an unbearable silence he snapped. “Before I go on, I want you all to know that this was a grave period of national crisis…”
“…what on Earth did you do?” Child was horrified.
“Ball was implicated, I suppose is implicated, in a report that was prepared for Van-” he meant Sir Robert Vansittart of the War Office, “that suggested that former Security Service officers were being used by Chamberlain, no, perhaps it was more those close to him, to get him the leadership of the Party.”
“Get…” Child was clearly aghast. “How?”
“Oh, listening in to telephone conversations, nasty chats with the Whips, threats to expose naughty secrets.”
“A lot,” Godfrey-Faussett said huffily, “of what you describe is, I imagine, the normal cut-and-thrust of politics?”
“Much of it, Bryan,” Hankey said softly, “much of it.”
“But…” That was Monckton, convinced that there was more to reveal.
“If this comes out,” Hankey continued, “then those loyal to His Majesty will almost certainly leak that Sir John Simon, Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin authorised and knew about phone surveillance of His Majesty and the Duke of York.” Sir John Simon had been Baldwin’s Home Secretary.
“Pray tell Maurice, was it just the principals, or their advisers?” Walter Monckton, who looked incredibly angry, adopted a wonderfully even tone. All of the three Royal servants looked concerned.
“Officially only the Royals themselves. Certainly, Kell’s men appear to have complied with that instruction.”
Monckton wasn’t finished. “What about this Ball character? Is he connected to monitoring the Royal Family?”
“The danger is that there may have been some intermingling between the Security Service and Ball’s private venture.”
“The dilemma for us, His Royal Highness, now, I presume,” said Monckton, “is that he and we will have to decide what to do with the results from your investigation.”
“Just so,” Godfrey-Faussett agreed.
“Because if you, truly, pursue this to its logical outcome and act properly on this information you’ll be potentially undermining the Conservative campaign.”
“But if you don’t,” Hankey countered, “who knows what else this Ball character will do.”
====
It was to another Westminster address near the river, that on this dull overcast Thursday morning Sir Samuel Hoare MP (but for how long was anyone’s guess) found himself peremptorily summoned.
“Ah, Sam,” a gravelly voice said in half greeting and half command as he beckoned Hoare to sit (to Hoare’s irritation he hadn’t arisen from his desk to welcome Hoare), “take a seat.” Hoare’s eyebrow twitched at the pronunciation of ‘take’, which was in the flat northern way rather than the more plummy southern way, despite Ball being, Hoare recalled, from Bedfordshire. “Neville’s asked me to have a chat with you.”
“Kind of Neville,” Hoare said with a perhaps a touch more gratitude than was really needed. He had decided to be pliant until he understood Chamberlain’s intent for him; that didn’t mean that he had to be servile.
“He’s very busy, you follow, trying to sort out the election. And now this business with Queen Mary,” the smile on his face suggested, to Hoare, that he was enjoying the maelstrom that had swept across the print media (the BBC declining to comment on it on the wireless) over the publication of letters from the King (when he was Prince of Wales) to his mother.
“Which has certainly damaged His Majesty’s character,” Hoare said, half tempted to gamble and accuse Ball of orchestrating the scandal.
“We’re very pleased at the damage,” Ball said, obliquely supporting Hoare’s belief. He looked sharply at Hoare. “You want to rejoin, and keep your seat?”
“I do,” Hoare said, managing to mask his desperation with a flat agreement that sounded more confident than it was.
Ball sighed and removed his spectacles. He looked over to a map of Great Britain which showed the constituencies. “It’s difficult, Sam, difficult. Neville doesn’t need you.”
“But my MPs, my six MPs…”
Ball raised a hand, not unlike a bank manager frankly done with the pleadings of the loan applicant. “You and your MPs will probably be out of the Commons in a few weeks. If you were going to defect you should have done it before the dissolution of Parliament. Now you look like a chancer, Sam.”
“So,” Hoare said, his anger rising, “am I to take it that I get nothing. Nothing?”
Ball shook his head, and looked slyly at the former Foreign Secretary. “We might be able to secure you a peerage.”
“A peerage?” Hoare was devastated. He would have been able to wangle that from Lloyd George.
“Yes Sam, a peerage.”
“Prime Ministers are not made from the Lords, not since Salisbury…”
“…Cabinet ministers can be.”
Hoare, dejected, bought time by asking a question. “Does Neville?”
“…his idea. You declare that for the good of the Party you’re not standing in the General Election. We’ve got a cracking candidate lined up for your old seat, great fellow. You stand aside, and let young Profumo get the seat back into Conservative hands, and in time we can get you into the Lords.”
Sir Samuel Hoare was a man used to entreating with foreign dignitaries and the League of Nations. Certainly not this. “That does not,” he began primly, “offer me anything. There is no guarantee.”
“We’d be prepared to write you an offer,” Ball said, but sounding utterly untrustworthy, “but before we agree anything Sam, we might need something else.”
Hoare’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
“I understand you’ve been keeping a notebook.”
“I have been recording some of the decisions that I have made during this Government, Sir Horace.”
“We’ll have it,” Ball said, not in demand, but matter-of-fact.
“I understand, Sir Horace, I do,” Hoare said in his best sanctimonious voice, “but I truly cannot. There are personal details in there.” He sat up and leaned forward in a slightly schoolboy way. “I know, I shall redact some of the more personal stuff and then you can…”
“…just give it to us,” Ball said, in a flat but threatening way that reminded Hoare of the Conservative Chief Whip, Margesson. “We’ll respect the personal stuff.”
Just like you respected King Edward’s personal musings to his mother, Hoare thought sourly. “It’s not with me,” he croaked, feeling defeated.
“A shame, that,” Ball said with an air of regret. “Is it at home?” Hoare nodded. “Maybe one of my lads could accompany you to get it. We don’t want it falling into the wrong hands, do we.”
“Guarantee first,” Hoare snapped, regaining his composure.
“Of course, quite right,” Ball said in seeming agreement, but then adding, “after the diary.”
“Perhaps I should return here in one hour, say ten thirty?”
“Yes Sam, that’ll work. It’ll mean moving Amery’s local Party man but I think this diary of yours will be worth it.” He winked at Hoare as he rose from the desk.
====
Hoare left the meeting and walked quietly but briskly to his club. Once there he summoned two people. Hoare then sent a note to Ball claiming that recent Naval adventures between Germany and the Spanish factions were causing difficulty (this was true, although Hoare had diminishing interest in Spanish affairs) and that handing over the notebook just wouldn’t be achievable today. But he openly pleaded with Ball to keep the offer alive, of a peerage in the Lords and of real influence again.
“I am very tired,” Sir Robert Vansittart said as he arrived, sounding as weary as he professed, “of being dragged into Conservative Party scheming.” He pronounced this after Hoare had described the conversation with Sir Horace Ball. “I’m not sure that there is anything for me. The Palace, on the other hand…”
“…will be spoken to,” Hoare snapped. He turned to the other man. “Well, Inspector, is that enough for Scotland Yard?”
The Inspector, Darkins, was a tall, lugubrious lowland Scot who had forged a career in the Metropolitan Police by cunning and competence rather than a taste for intrigue. Not really at home in the stuffy Edwardian grandour of Hoare’s club, he raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he began, “Sir Samuel, as you know I cannot talk about the subject of a potential investigation.” That silenced Hoare, who took a crumb of comfort from the Inspector’s slip of an investigation.
The papers still supporting the King carried, the next morning, the story of Ball’s arrest on a range of suspected bribery and corruption offences. They also carried, in small print and in the darker vestiges reserved for less interesting stories, the sad announcement of Sir Samuel Hoare’s resignation from frontline politics.
====
GAME NOTES
Poor Attlee, I have, twice now, bumped a practically ready-to-go chapter in favour of something else. I suspect that having written/sketched out quite a bit on the election it is now getting a bit unwieldy. And so, deferring the decision on how to present it, I give you this instead: old Ball, Neville Chamberlain’s little facilitator. His history is, putting blandly, ‘interesting’, having been a barrister (and lo! We find a redeeming feature)/Army intelligence officer/spy/political operative/chum of Neville Chamberlain. It is this latter role that I want to explore first.
I know that the commentAARiat is as divided as the UK is/was on Neville Chamberlain, but one thing for good and ill that stands out in his character is how solitary his life was. Some of that was circumstance (his childhood, his six years in the West Indies) some, absolutely, choice. He didn’t cultivate friends through a chummy, clubbable ‘one of us’ way (Baldwin, arguably Halifax in his own weird way), passionate ideology (Attlee, arguably Churchill) or his position in society (DLG, Duff-Cooper, arguably Eden). Even those in the disparate Chamberlain clan he was close to (his sisters, always his sisters) were usually written to rather than socialised with. He understudied Baldwin for years but the two were never friends and never aligned on the big issues (unlike, say, Halifax and Baldwin or Sir John Simon and Baldwin). And yet this chubby, corrupt barrister became one of two people (the civil servant Horace Wilson being the other) who were, unquestionably, close to Chamberlain. While Chamberlain is a recorded poor judge of character (“Exhibit One, M’Lord, the Second World War”) this is truly remarkable. Apparently, they went fishing together. So what was he like?
Pretty irredeemable, tbh. He quickly turned his skills, which seem to have been a photographic memory and an ability to understand people, to MI5 and to what General Dill, in his slightly fussy way, would call ‘that business of intelligence’ which meant dealing with agents and the more active side of information gathering and collection (even now, the British Army Int Corps is split between the passive side and the ‘dark side’ of HUMINT collection). After the war he stayed on at MI5 before drifting into using his skills in the political area. There was, for a significant period, a polite ambiguity on whether he was a serving MI5 officer or a former MI5 officer turned political advisor. With this murkiness, it is not surprising that he is linked to a lot of shady stuff in the interwar years, and while some it is possibly a case of mud-slinging (I have looked, but have struggled to find a definitive link to the Zinoviev incident – I think that at its highest, it can be shown that he knew about it) much of it is also, undoubtedly, true. He choreographed what today would be called ‘spin’ for the Conservatives, some of it via the deeply unpleasant Truth periodical. As we progress through the 30s his role becomes clearer, and his harrying of anti-appeasement MPs gradually and more overtly crosses what was the burly robustness of British politics for outright bullying.
What I cannot figure out is what the Conservative Chief Whip (the truly terrifying Margesson) or its Chairman (a rather slight figure, Sir Douglas Hacking) made of all this. There appears to have been a very clear delineation under which Margesson ruled the Conservative Parliamentary Party (and very ably), Hacking managed the links with local Party associations (vitally important, as they still are today) and Ball was left to run his own propaganda campaign. We’ll see Margesson and Hacking soon, as we deal with the fallout of this latest scandal. And it is yet another scandal; on balance I think that the Duke of York would put monarchy above Parliamentary stability and would happily throw expendable politicians ‘under a bus’ if it aided the House of Windsor. Here, with the King probably now fatally damaged and a very eccentric little election being fought, this will have an effect and will undermine the Conservatives (or specifically Chamberlain and his coterie). Whether or not this will be enough to derail the election remains to be seen, although in terms of the number of MPs it is unlikely.
With the exception of Inspector Darkins (one of my favourite background characters from The King’s First Minister) and the mentioned but not seen Gore (there was a Lt Gore in the cavalry in the 1930s, I saw an old Army List recently and nicked the name) everyone is real.
Genuinely didn't know that about Madoc; he's one of that generation of larger than life actors, a la Blessed or O'Toole. I can imagine his DLG being incredibly fiery.
I think that everything that SIS did in the mid 30s was 'going through the motions'. The sense of poorly coordinated activity is certainly true, and London was rarely in step with its agents. The disasters that we have already chronicled (the faff over Gorizia, the Dutch station) all give a sense of a service that was not ready for the challenge coming its way.
I've scoped the plot up to around a month after the election and it's chaos; foreign affairs rarely feature (or defence, for that matter) and political stability takes an age to restore.
Haha
Yes - heaven forbid we make a courageous decision.
TBH some of the ideas proposed by SIS in the late 30s were that reckless. Remember that part of Butler's orders was to go to Franco and, in essence, have a chat.
Amazing, truly amazing. If I may, I think Dick Van Dyke as George VI with Vincent Price as a wonderfully imperious King Edward VIII would be breathtaking. And with Lionel Jeffries as a cherubic Lord Halifax, breaking into little ditties every so often...
Yes, yes, yes and yes.
We are, of course, skipping between a late 60s/early 70s @Director blockbuster and your 2010s remake. The 80s - 2000s were a truly weird time for (particularly but not exclusively) British TV and film. The 1980s BBC series would have been a thing to behold:
King Edward VIII - Either Edward or James Fox
Albert, Duke of York / King George VI - David Warner
Wallis Simpson - This will be a catastrophic misfire unless they cast an American. I don't know, Margot Kidder? Marisa Berenson?
Stanley Baldwin - Albert Finney (if the Beeb can afford him, if not Geoffrey Palmer)
David Lloyd George - John Mills (in full war film mode and RP accent)
Winston Churchill - God knows - Timothy West? Trevor Howard in a fat suit?
Lord Halifax - Sir John Gielgud (given that he played him in Gandhi) or Michael Horden
Sir Maurice Hankey - Philip Stone (in full Shining mode)
Walter Monckton - Derek Jacobi
Minor roles (Duff-Cooper, Eden, Attlee etc) - parade of emerging talent. For some reason Patrick Stewart as Attlee just makes me giggle very weirdly, and then Iain McNeice, Frank Middlemass, Robert Brown, Guy Siner (Ribbentrop?) and Richard Wilson.
If they have any sense it's a high brow Sunday night / Bank Holiday affair, probably over four parts. If they go full 80s, it's a complete arty faff with a soundtrack by Kate Bush or Bananarama.
Last edited:
- 4
All a bit tawdry isn't it? I'm a bit surprised that Ball was naive enough to think he could so easily shake down someone called Slippery Sam, for all Hoare's many faults (he was perhaps mostly fault) he was not actually stupid and knew how the game was played. Then again the general impression has been of Chamberlain being massively over-confident throughout all of this so it is perhaps unsurprising. Will this be enough to knock that complacency out of him I wonder. As you say he lacked an inner circle of friends, I get the impression he also lacked anyone who would tell him the truth and be listened to, so perhaps this may be dismissed as a minor isolated issue and not a straw in the wind.
Perhaps a tad harsh. I would agree they were not really ready for the challenge coming their way though, SIS in the 30s was far more obsessed with Communism and was busy worldwide battling the red menace. I'm not really convinced a focus on Germany would have particularly helped, maybe some slightly more accurate estimates on German production might have calmed people down, but the problem was never lack of intelligence about Germany or Hitlers intentions (he wrote them all down in a published book!), it was the lack of anyone at the top who would do anything about it.