I don’t think much of most conspiracy theories which require that an improbably large number of people to keep a lid on some explosive piece of information forever. However, I could just be the victim of availability bias. Obviously, in the event of a successful conspiracy, I’d never hear about it.
I point this out, not to rip anything from today’s headlines, but as an excuse to quote this jewel from a book full of jewels, David Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace. Lord Kitchener, the general beloved by the British people for his successes in extending the empire in Egypt and India, had done a poor job directing British military strategy in World War I. Since his popularity made him impossible to fire, he had been sent on a trip to Russia. Kitchener was among the casualties when the ship hit a German mine. It shouldn’t have happened:
The departure route of the Hampshire had already been plotted, but should have been changed. Naval Intelligence, which earlier had broken the German radio code, intercepted a message to the German minelaying submarine U75 in late May. It indicated the the submarine was to mine the passage that the Hampshire intended to follow. Two further intercepts confirmed the information, as did signtings of the submarine. In the confusion at British headquarters at Scapa Flow, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the British naval commander, and his staff somehow failed to read or to understand the warnings that Naval Intelligence sent to their flagship. (At a court of inquiry that convened later in 1916 to look into the matter, Admiral Jellicoe succeeded in hiding the existence of these intelligence warnings, which were revealed only in 1985.)
{ 23 comments }
JR 06.14.05 at 1:55 am
I am reading this- and although it’s fascinating I’m concerned that the author appears to read no language other than English. It’s a book about WWI in the Middle East, but no Turkish, Arabic, German, Russian or French sources are cited. Is there anyone out there who can comment on this book’s reliability?
Matt 06.14.05 at 2:04 am
Of course in this case there is a completely obvious non-conspiracy explination for the cover-up: several people completely screwed up and hid the evidence so as to not get in trouble. Isn’t that at least, if not more, likely?
JR 06.14.05 at 3:01 am
Actually I didn’t read the passage (in the original or in the post) to suggest a conspiracy to kill Kitchener. The conspiracy was the cover-up (all the way to the top, in the person of Jellicoe)in the face of a court of inquiry.
bi 06.14.05 at 3:32 am
JR: Ted’s suggesting that the British government sent Lord Kitchener on his fatal trip because they wanted to fire him but couldn’t. Well, who knows.
Ray 06.14.05 at 4:52 am
I read it as the British sending him to Russia because he wouldn’t be able to direct the war from that distance – they weren’t firing him, but the were effectively removing him from command.
Barry 06.14.05 at 6:16 am
The modern way around that, of course, is not to rely on keeping things secret for long. Just pump out BS and lies, and discredit anybody who speaks the truth. One’s followers will have lots of motive to deny the truth, and to pump out lies and BS themeselves.
MFB 06.14.05 at 6:19 am
The problem with this is that they then got General Haig, who made Kitchener look like, well, the Duke of Wellington.
A similar theory would be that bold CIA pacifists assassinated Kennedy to keep America out of Vietnam by unleashing Lyndon Johnson.
Ray 06.14.05 at 6:41 am
Things don’t always go according to plan, especially wars. The government may have assumed that anybody could do a better job than Kitchener.
Dan Nexon 06.14.05 at 7:01 am
The most interesting conspiracy-theory argument in the book involves the motivation for the Balfour Declaration. Those passages prompted me, and one of my colleagues, to write a “back of the envelope” paper on the the paradox of actors-who-do-not-exist-as-such influencing international politics.
David 06.14.05 at 7:36 am
1. Kitchener had already lost most of his effective power by early 1916. The creation of the Ministry of Munitions, headed by Lloyd George, had broken off the war industry part of it (which Kitchener had not handled well). The military side of things was now much more controlled by the Imperial General Staff, and its Chief General William Robertson, and the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, General Douglas Haig (who took over in December 1915). Kitchener was a figurehead, kept on for his public popularity, but without much remaining influence.
2. Kitchener’s influence on strategy was actually quite positive. He was not the one who had committed the British to France. The General Staff had done so before the war, while Kitchener was in Egypt. Kitchener was the only one to recognize that Britain was going to need a large army to fight this war and set about recruiting it from the very start. His control over the actual fighting in the field was fairly small–it was Sir John French and Haig who had the main influence on that. The one exception to this might be the Gallipoli debacle.
Billings 06.14.05 at 7:55 am
How’s this for conspiracy? The Admiralty knew Lusitania was steaming into waters where a German submarine lurked but didn’t warn her. When the nun-raping and baby-bayoneting stories hadn’t roused America to sufficient anger to enter a war between rival empires, the sinking of Lusitania with a hundred or so American passengers aboard built the fire that brought the Yanks into the trenches. “Remember Lusitania,” the doughboys cried as they went over the top. The fruit of Churchill’s deep cunning?
Ted 06.14.05 at 8:10 am
I’m absolutely not suggesting that anyone in British command took advantage of an opportunity to sink a ship with Kitchener on it. Not at all.
I am saying that I’m stunned that the Admiralty managed to screw up this badly and keep it completely quiet until long after all involved were dead. I’m especially stunned because Naval Intelligence got it right, and I would have thought that someone there might have leaked. The knowledge that you were right but got blamed anyway is a powerful motivator for most people.
Ted 06.14.05 at 8:14 am
David,
You’re not at all wrong. But in this narrative, which is all about the Middle East, Gallipoli and the Ottoman front play a primary role.
rea 06.14.05 at 8:25 am
The notion that someone (Adm. Jellico?) had Kitchner assassinated by sending HMS Hampshire into a minefield is pretty silly. Chances were, Hampshire wouldn’t strike a mine. Even if it struck a mine, there was a good chance that Hampshire wouldn’t sink. If the weather conditions hadn’t been awful, chances are, most of the crew, including Kitchner, would have been rescued.
Given that the British had a bad record of underestimating German minelaying and that the naval staff was probably a bit distracted by the Battle of Jutland (fought only a few days earlier), simple mistakes are an adequate explanation.
Ralph Hitchens 06.14.05 at 9:28 am
Jellicoe’s ability to cover up facts personally embarrassing to himself should come as no surprise to readers of the Journal of Military History. A recent article (OK, within the last couple of years) made a fairly strong case that during and after World War I Sir John effectively obliterated the record and/or muddied the waters with regard to his significant prewar role in training and equipping the British fleet to engage the German Navy at short to medium ranges. This put British capital ships at a decisive disadvantage when they faced their German counterparts in long-range gunnery duels at Jutland, and although there was plenty of blame to go around, relatively little of it fell on Jellicoe.
abb1 06.14.05 at 10:18 am
What Barry said:
Plus there is always a huge double-standard: to admit a conspiracy by people we sympathize with we require undeniable proof (that almost never exists), yet when it comes to conspiracies carried out by people we don’t like – any kind of evidence (or even a gut feeling) is good enough.
Anderson 06.14.05 at 10:51 am
Jellicoe’s great advantage is that, no matter how bad he was, Beatty was worse.
Antoni Jaume 06.14.05 at 11:32 am
When one remembers that the Lusitania was sunk in 1915, it doesn’t look it was a spontaneous outrage.
DSW
Errol 06.14.05 at 3:33 pm
Kitchener was a figurehead, kept on for his public popularity, but without much remaining influence.
The Parliamentary Enquiry into Gallipoli contains some interesting comments about Kitchener. According to the evidence given, K’s advice on army matters was accepted without question at the top level (the Cabinet, from memory). The naval advisors kept quiet when Winnie was proposing his plans, although they later claimed to disagree.
But you have to remember that this enquiry succeeded in getting Winnie fired – probably its main purpose.
David 06.14.05 at 7:46 pm
The Parliamentary Enquiry into Gallipoli contains some interesting comments about Kitchener. According to the evidence given, K’s advice on army matters was accepted without question at the top level (the Cabinet, from memory).
You have to be very careful about that evidence though, for two reasons. First, it’s talkin mostly about the 1914-early 1915 period when the Gallipoli plan was being developed and when Kitchener’s word was being treated seriously. That changed dramatically after the Shells Scandal of May 1915 and the rearrangement of the government by Asquith. Kitchener’s authority continued to slip throughout 1915, most notably when Lord Derby (the “uncrowned King of the North”) was brought south to restart flagging recruiting efforts. By the end of 1915, Kitchener’s power was a shadow of its former self.
Second, remember that everyone at that meeting it trying to escape blame, and who better to put it on than the dead guy? The naval testimony is particularly sketchy: Admiral Jackie Fisher, who was First Sea Lord at that point, had never remained silent about anything in his life, and it is unlikely that he had started then.
Dick Fitzgerald 06.14.05 at 11:12 pm
The Manhattan Project for the US atomic bomb involved thousands of people, who kept it secret. So why then couldn’t a conspiracy involve a large number of people? The Dreyfus Affair comes to mind.
Danny Yee 06.15.05 at 2:13 am
I did a day tour of the Orkney islands in 2003, and our bus driver was a military history nut. So I got the full spiel on the sinking of the Hampshire (though not this particular angle!) and the Royal Oak and so forth.
David Margolies 06.15.05 at 4:04 pm
Dick Fitzgerald writes:
“The Manhattan Project for the US atomic bomb involved thousands of people, who kept it secret. So why then couldn’t a conspiracy involve a large number of people?”
This is not a good example, IMHO. Even at the time, lots of people knew something was going on in New Mexico and elsewhere, and that it involved many physicists (*). Anyone with a good knowledge of atomic physics probably had a good idea of what the goal was. Certainly others, such as Stalin, who were not on official Cc lists, had near perfect knowledge.
And soon after the war, when the need for current secrecy was over, almost the whole story came out.
I do not believe anyone doubts the ability to keep even big projects out of general knowledge for a time (the breaking of the WW-II German and Japanese codes is a better example, where the targets it seems really had no idea). I think the question involves keeping it secret for years after secrecy serves no apparent purpose. Ted’s example has such a secret kept for over 60 years.
* In WW-II, a Princeton physicist gets a letter from a colleague in New Mexico saying “something you would like to work on is going on and you should come. I cannot say more, but be in Albuquerque on this train on this day…” Guy goes to buy a ticket at Princeton Station. The station master says “I would not do that” “Why not?” “You are a physicist, right? Well, 15 physicists have gone to Albuquerque in the last year and NOT ONE HAS COME BACK!”
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