Myths

[Robert]

We in the JTR world know how our subject can be bedevilled by myths. But of course myths can be found anywhere, and if this chap's right, here's another one :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/w...r-existed.html

[Cogidubnus]

Didn't take long to get some replies did it...interesting that a large number of them suggest the Kitchener image is actually genuine and that in fact the reporter's talking through his arse...Interesting parallels with the JtR case...

All the best

Dave

[Mayerling]

According to the books on American involvement in the Great War the famous James Montgomery Flagg poster showing Uncle Sam doing the same thing Lord Kitchener was doing (pointing and demanding the patriots to volunteer), was based on the Kitchener poster. So who does one believe?

I read the newsletter on the missing subs being looked for (an interesting story) and also the 73 "invasions" of the British Isles since 1066. First, it was only the invasion of England in 1066, not of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Secondly the author stretched the term of "invasion" from landing troops with the intention of overthrowing the government (Bonnie Prince Charlie's invasion in 1745) to include sundry raids by French or Spanish or Norseman in England, and those portion of the isles that were not in English hands at the time (Ireland in the early middle ages?). Some were definitely invasions (Lambert Simnel's, Perkin Warbeck's, William of Orange (later William III)), but I notice they had real or pretended claims to the throne. In short, while one can't say the "Kitchener poster" article was researched like the "invasion" article", one can still wonder if it was.

By the way, who is this Monk (I think his name was "Ulrich") who seized control of the Channel Islands at one point?

Kitchener's death is interesting. Although we know it was caused by the destruction of HMS Hampshire in June 1916, there has been a cloud of questions about the failure to provide K with his safety escort, and also if it was just by chance his ship used a channel that only recently had German mines laid by a U-Boat. There may have been a security leak. Was it an accident or on purpose (Kitchener was not popular with the cabinet, especially Lloyd George - the Field Marshall did not think highly of politicians in general, and L-G in particular)? Any response on that issue or the "Mad Monk" or the poster problem or invasions?

Jeff

[Cogidubnus]

Context

Hi Jeff

Interesting yes...relevant to the early days of the war...probably no

Dave

[Phil H]

There was a monk who was a pirate, round about the time of Stephen and Matilda I think. I'll check my books.

On invasions, the usual terminology is that 1066 was the last successful foreign invasion of England.

The others: Henry VII, Simnel, Warbeck, Bonnie Prince Charlie etc have all been part of English factional conflicts.

Turning to Kitchener of K, I think it was pure accident. The "political" angle was that, because he was a "diccicult" colleague in Cabinet and increasingly isolated, he was being packed off to Russia to bolster the failing Imperial war effort.

Kitchener had foresight (one of the few men to perceive that the war would be long and dreadful and quite different from other wars) and it was thanks to him that Britain had a large enough army to fight the battles of 1915 and onwards. The small pre-war professional army lost heavily in the Mons campaign (1914) and was they finished off at First Ypres.

Unless KofK had issued his summons when he did, we would have had no effective back-up.

I think in some ways, dying when he did was good for Kitchener's reputation. He was in some was (purely my interpretation) a dinosaur from the "little wars" of the Victorian era (rather like Roberts who died early in the war in 1914). He was mentor to the new generation, but I don't think he liked or understood what was happening and I think had he lived into the 20s it would have been detrimental to the way he is seen now.

Phil

[Mayerling]

Hi Phil,

I suspect that given the example of the rise and fall of Sir Henry Wilson's reputation (due to his assassination in 1922, and then the release of his arrogant diaries) K would have had a similar fate post World War I had he lived.

Conservative by nature - trusting no politicians except from the Tory camp (and not even quite there) K would have written some memoir showing what chumps they were at war planning. He had already demonstrated a willingness to undermind political carreers. Read David Dilks two volume book about Lord Curzon's stint as Viceroy of India (while K was head of the Indian Army). Curzon's attempts to put the Indian Army under civilian control was derailed by Kitchener's use of social connections in England - particularly Reginald Brett (Lord Esher) and his sister. It ended Curzon's position in India.

With the post-war Liberal leadership split between Asquith and L-G, and Labour led by Ramsay MacDonald (who was suspect by his pacifism in the war), and the Tories led by the dying Bonar-Law, K might have initially have had some success. But the fly in K's ointment would have been the up-comng Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin was the most successful political fighter in England in the 1920s and 1930s, and was formidable enough to have found some way to diminish K's reputation permanently.

Jeff

[Phil H]

A very shrewd and insightful post, Mayerling.

I'm sure you are right. Baldwin, behind the avuncular front, was hard as nails and ruthless. Look at the way he got rid of Edward VIII (and there's another case of myths arising)!!

KofK was indeed the man who undermined and got rid of Curzon. In a similar way, Haig used court connections in 1915 to undermine and then replace Sir John French.

Your mention of Esher - a secret homosexual - and his connection with KofK is interesting. KofK also had a very repressed sexuality and feminine traits - he too may have been homosexual.

Finally, when I was in my 20s, Henry Wilson was something of a hero of mine. But the more I have read, the more I find him odious and distasteful, an arch-intriguer. Indeed, if anyone was behind Britain coming into the 1st World War (99 years ago tomorrow) it was he. He had made it impossible to let down the French through undertakings he had made with no political backing whatsoever!

Phil

[Mayerling]

Hi Phil,

There is that homosexual angle, and someone might have brought it up damaging K of K. In 1903 a similar rumor about the then Governor of Ceylon, General Sir Hector MacFarland, led to his suicide. There were rumors that led to an acquittal for Noel Pemberton-Billings in his trial for libel against dancer Maude Allen in 1918. Pemberton-Billings (assisted by a now "straight" Lord Alfred Douglas) claimed Ms Allen was part of a "Cult of the Clitoris" group controlling the upper levels of social and political society, that was weakening the war effort. This bilge got him acquitted. Something like that could have hurt K.

But aside from his being seen with men mostly (true, good looking male officers) K was never shown to have been gay. If he was, he was really extremely careful about it.

As for Wilson, while I don't approve of assassinations usually - inevitably I make an exception. One is Reinhard Heydritch in 1942 (I call that a premature "Nuremburg" execution). Wilson is another - the man capable of joining and leading the "Mutiny" at the Curragh" in 1914 might have tried a coup at some point in the 1920s or 1930s. Maybe the I.R.A. did Britain a major favor in 1922.

Jeff

[Phil H]

I don't think there was any scandal in KofK's life, but I think there might have been innuendo. I suspect he had an iron discipline - probably like Gordon (who may well have had paedophile tendencies) but in the style of their times they stayed celibate in every sense. But I think the LATENT potential was there in both men.

I don't think I condone assassination at all, but I do sympathise with what you say.

A funny TRUE story re Heydrich. One saturday in the late 70s I was on the london underground during the early afternoon. In the style of the times, I was wearing a leather trenchcoat (dark green - I loved it!!) and high "cowboy-style" boots outside by cords. I couldn't understand why I was getting funny looks from fellow passengers, until I realised that the book I was reading had a black cover and had printed in silver on the spine:

HEYDRICH: HITLER'S MOST EVIL LIEUTENANT!!!!

Absolutely true.
Phil

[Mayerling]

Hi Phil,

I would have liked to have seen that green leather trenchcoat too!

While thinking about "assassinations", there is a myth that the 1960s helped keep going. That is that due to an unfortunate number of assassinations in that decade and in earlier ones in the United States we were likely to be the "assassination" capital of all countries.

It was not entirely undeserved. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, John Kennedy, Huey Long, Robert Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, George Lincoln Rockwell (I always include the death of the American Nazi Leader among 1960s political assassinations), Governor William Goebel of Kentucky, Mayors Carter Harrison Sr. and Anton Cermak of Chicago, Allard Loewenstein of New York....it is a long list, and (I admit it) a shameful one. And I haven't included attacks (although Cermak died in an supposed attack on FDR).

The problem with the perception is that we are a young country in comparison with England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, Russia, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, India. Even Mexico and Peru were well organized centuries before the American Revolution, by the Mayans, Toltecs, Aztecs, Incans. If you look at the histories of the older countries - they are bloodier and have more assassinations than they like to admit. What do you think?

Jeff

[Phil H]

I don't see it as shameful or anything else. I see it as a reflection of a certain period of history.

Should England be ashamed about the Wars of the Roses? Kings deposed, murdered, killed in battle? I think not. It was (IMHO) about finding the country's identity about shaping what would eventually emerge as a nation state. It was, in part about discovering what "rule" is - civil strife emerging from the question what do you do when a sovereign is unfit to govern?

We then had a second civil war in the 1640s which addressed the question WHO governs?

True the US is a "young" country . I think it was in 1953, when The Queen was crowned that an American journalist said with amazement, we have another 800 years to go before we can have a ceremony as venerable this... or words to that effect!

To me the assassinations of the 60s were a reflection of those unsettled times - of a new world emerging. The boil would eventually burst with Watergate. Nixon's fall somewhat brought the "imperial" presidency to an end.

I have studied the kennedy assassination (JFK) for about as long as I have studied JtR (around 40+ years) and I still don't fully understand it. But I think behind it was a conspiracy of some kind, and maybe a political "coup d'etat". (I don't entirely buy the Oliver Stone version btw!) All countries have them.

There was another burst of assassinations, if you recall, in the 80s - the pope and Reagan were shot and The Queen was fired at (blanks fortunately). I was standing about 20 feet away from her when it happened. On TV that night, there was a shot of her face, a minute or so afterwards. She was riding side saddle and calmed her mount, then there was a rictus smile that seemed to cross her face. I thought then, and still believe that in the mood of those times she had expected to be shot at - and she had survived! Maybe she undertood the tenor of the times and appreciated its risks.

I don't know whether I have addressed your points or not, but that's my take.

phil

[Mayerling]

Actually your points seem fully justified. But I recall that in the 1960s some people were referring to us as the world's largest "banana" republic. For awhile it did seem that way.

My own opinion on JFK's assassination is we don't have the full story. However I have seen as many books on it written within fifty years as there are on Jack and Whitechapel, and most are contradicting each other with the same evidence. My sister once cynically suggested that someone in the Kennedy family was behind the assassinations of both Kennedys, for two "accidents" (one in a helocopter and the other at Chappaquidick) that were meant to kill Teddy, and for the deaths of several others (Joe Jr., Kick) for the purposes of getting the family fortune. I'm glad Lee has never been set up to look into the Whitechapel Murders - though she has suggested multiple killers to me.

The 1980 assassinations may have also included John Lennon - his murderer Mark David Chapman did stalk him for a few days before shooting him.

Jeff