Agent of Peace (18 page)

*
      Lord Newton was a long-serving parliamentarian who had taken on a voluntary war job of looking after internment camps and propaganda for the British Foreign Office. He had previously been Paymaster General in Asquith's government.

*
      Although the passport was stamped ‘Sans arrêt', ‘without stopping', it was an acknowledged fact that this journey required a day in Paris.

1.    Journal vol. 2 p. 85–vol. 3 p. 31

M
eanwhile, at the British Foreign Office in London, the health and welfare of the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey was of prime concern. His sight had been deteriorating. He wore dark glasses and had to take long breaks from the office. Although the war was at full ferocity, apparently no attempt was made to replace him. He was, however, ably supported by his Parliamentary Undersecretary, Lord Robert Cecil, a son of the former Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. Cecil, who was trained as a barrister, was also Minister for the Blockade and, as such, had a place in the Cabinet. He enjoyed parliamentary work and answered questions for Grey in the House of Commons. (Questions in the House of Lords were answered by the Lord President of the Council, Lord Crewe.) In mid-July Grey was to receive the title of Viscount. Grey and Cecil worked hand in hand and ultimately it was Cecil who was responsible for actions concerning Emily. Cecil was considered broad-minded but, although he supported Millicent Fawcett in her bid for votes for women, his actions towards her suggest he believed that women should be subservient. He would almost certainly have been aware that Millicent Fawcett considered Emily Hobhouse a traitor. Emily was not subservient.

The Foreign Office in those days was an all-male preserve, although as a war measure, there may have been a trickling of women typists. There was a rigidness about Foreign Office dealings – Cecil liked to keep it that way. Its insistence on conducting all its business with other countries through diplomatic channels was both a strength and a weakness.

Grey had brought England into the war in 1914. Now it seems almost certain that peace could have been had in 1916 if Germany was sincere in its willingness to evacuate Alsace-Lorraine, as was said, and if something could have been done to stop this terrible build-up of armaments. Cecil, at the beginning of the war, had joined the Red Cross and on a visit to France that autumn had dined with the British commander Sir John French and his staff. French felt the Germans knew they were beaten and Britain should only ask for the return of Alsace-Lorraine and the restoration of Belgium in peace talks.
1
(At the other extreme Fritz Fischer in
Grif
f
nach der Weltmacht
said Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg would have insisted on acquisition of the Longwy-Briery basin, near Metz in France, economic and military control over Belgium and a share of Persian oilfields for Germany.
2
)

Emily Hobhouse had returned to England with four main objectives: first to get peace talks moving so as to avoid further bloodshed, second to obtain the release of civilian internees on foreign soil, third to get better food and supplies to the people of Belgium, and fourth to discuss the food position in Germany. Her Boer War reputation had brought her many friends in high places, but also many enemies who (although she had been proved right) had not forgotten what they considered as slights against the integrity of their government. The establishment had been rocked, their comfort space had been invaded. They had not forgiven her.

On arrival in London instead of seeing the Foreign Secretary, as she desired, Emily was summoned to New Scotland Yard for a grilling by Basil Thomson, Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, Metropolitan Police, and liaison with the War Office and Admiralty Counter Intelligence Sections.
3

Dr Diane Clements Kaminski
*
in her PhD thesis
Emily Hobhouse – The Radicalization o
f
a Ministering Angel
says that since Grey had not answered her wire of 28 June, Emily wrote to him the next day, requesting a brief interview with him or Lord Crewe. She wanted to see one of them before she went to Scotland Yard and stressed that she would ‘not feel happy until I have told you all I have learnt,’ and that ‘it was only in the interests of our distracted world that she asked for this favour …’
4

But the Foreign Office was in no hurry. It was waiting for the Scotland Yard report.

Thomson was aware of Evelyn Grant Duff’s comments, had seen the copy of Emily’s letter to Aletta Jacobs, the original of which, still unsigned, had been forwarded to Aletta Jacobs in Holland. The full text of the letter is as follows:

24th June /16

Dear Friend,

I hope, all being well, to leave Switzerland and go home on the wings of the wind, and ere leaving must write you once more freely because from England that will not be possible.

Listen – to business; I returned last night from a trip through Belgium and Germany. I have been to Berlin and seen von Jagow, whom I knew in old days. From this, much I hope may develop. I am to keep open a line of communication with him. Will you help? – saying nothing.

If you have a letter from me (or a card) from home, beginning as above ‘Dear Friend’ and signed by me – but either elusive or with not much meaning for you, will you put it into an envelope, but do not post it – take it to the Ambassador at the Hague, to forward urgently. If, through the same hand, any word or letter should come back to be forwarded to me, will you re-write it, if necessary in your own hand and sign it with your name, unless it should reach you from the Legation in a form in which it could be forwarded. But a postcard is better.

Gertrude Woker has been such a dear. I am too exhausted to write, but want you to know that Frau Ragaz and Mlle Gobat have returned from Stockholm very disgusted with affairs there – and say Rosika has gone home, for which they are sorry, since she has such a capacity. Dr. Aked seems a firebrand. Emily Balch is there and I hope she may pull the thing together.
*

    Everything is at its worst and this great battle is preparing. Thousands on both sides have to meet Death in July – or sooner.

Too tired to write.

I am establishing here also a line of communication, but posts are so uncertain across France that I think a duplicate line necessary.

With best love.
5

Grant Duff had said he believed that this letter was the key to an international pacifist intrigue
.
He said that Emily had been staying in Berne with Gertrude Woker (which she hadn’t actually – but used her address), and said Gertrude Woker was ‘a militant pacifist well known to me as one of the most aggressive women in Switzerland’
6
and that the letter showed that Emily had arranged a code with the Germans. Further he believed Emily’s pacifist activity to be subversive. One undersecretary at the Foreign Office agreed and said: ‘This (letter) seems quite sufficient to justify interning Miss Hobhouse; and that even more drastic action might be taken.’
7

Basil Thomson reported to his chief at the Metropolitan Police, C.F. Dormer, that Emily had given him a ‘pretty clear picture’ of her movements in Germany and Belgium, where she ‘formed the opinion that the blockade was responsible for heavy infant mortality etc., exactly the sort of conclusions the Germans desired her to form’. She thought the prisoners, whom she interviewed at Ruhleben, were generally well treated though a number of them were suffering mental strain:

Her conclusions, of course, are quite immaterial, but I gathered in conversation that her talk with von Jagow included the usual discussion about Peace terms, and in that respect I think it probable that the Germans regard her as an unofficial peace emissary, from whose visit some results may be expected. I did not press her on the subject of the conversation, because she evidently preferred to communicate this to Sir Edward himself, or to someone delegated by him.

Up to a point she was evidently speaking the truth. I am expecting today or tomorrow a draft of a letter that she wrote to von Jagow from Switzerland, in her handwriting, which has come into our agent’s hands but what she did omit to tell me (a fact that came into my hands after the interview) is that she was given an address in Amsterdam
**
to which she is to communicate when she wishes to write to von Jagow. Probably it will be possible to intercept the letter, but one cannot be sure, and therefore she ought to be treated with great reserve. At the same time I do think that it might be well for her to see the Foreign Office.’
8

When Emily returned from New Scotland Yard she found a reply from Sir Edward Grey’s Private Secretary dated
29 June, to inform her that he would not be able to see her on the 30th. He said: ‘Sir Edward will be glad if Miss Hobhouse will communicate in writing the tenour of the information which she desires to give.’
9

So she wrote on 1 July 1916:

Dear Sir Edward Grey,
10

I only received today the kind note of your Private Secretary of June 29. I write to assure you that I bear no message from von Jagow and am in no way an Emissary of the German Government, a thing which I am sure would not be acceptable to you. It is simply that owing to the chance of old acquaintanceship I had a long and intimate conversation with him, easy and devoid of all official character – of the kind that gives one deep glimpses.

Afterwards it came to me a certainty that it was my duty – if you permit – to convey to you the gist of that talk for the day might come when it might be of great use to you.

One cannot convey such things by letter, therefore I have ventured to beg the honour of an interview.

I have the honour to be

Yrs Obediently

Emily Hobhouse

While she waited for Grey’s reply to this letter, the Foreign Office had received Thomson’s summary of his 30 June interview. Thomson now added: ‘she has mentioned our offensive’. He was alarmed at her general lament about continuing war deaths.
11
(The names of the dead were printed daily in
The Times
. The Battle of the Somme was about to start. There were 57,000 British and Commonwealth casualties on the very first day – 1 July 1916 – so these lists could be very long.)

Thomson’s position further changed when he received the copy of Emily’s letter to Jagow (this letter is not preserved in British Foreign Office files but is available from German Foreign Office records). As Emily kept drafts or copies of many of her more important letters, this was likely to have been obtained by the British agent from Emily’s maid – which would, of course, have been classic.

Bern, Schweiz

June 25 /16

To His Excellency

Dear Herr von Jagow,
12

Grant Duff was very angry but I soothed him as one does a child and I think he will let me go. Under the new French regulations the fact of my visit had to come out – otherwise he had no idea of it.

The post is so uncertain now via France, that I think it wise to arrange a duplicate line of communication via Holland. I have a reliable friend there whom I have instructed to deliver any letter or postcard she receives from me worded allusively, to the German Minister at The Hague to be forwarded to you. If this postcard spoke of Edward or Edward’s brother, you would know it meant Grey or one of his colleagues. Should you wish to send me any word in reply, she could send it to me instructed by your Minister.

Most important matters have nowadays to be written in duplicate for so much is lost.

She is absolutely reliable (but of course I have told her nothing).

Dr Aletta Jacobs, 158 Koninginneweg, Amsterdam

Though it may be true that men as a whole keep secrets better than women, yet some women can keep a secret better than any man.

Very sincerely Yours

Emily Hobhouse

Dormer now told the Foreign Office that ‘the Police are now asking the Home Office to intern her, as being in communication with enemy subjects, and in the circumstances he [Thomson] thinks the FO should not see her’.
13
But at the Home Office, where Sir John Simon had been succeeded by another distinguished politician, Herbert Samuel, it was not thought necessary to intern Emily nor to take other measures.

*
      I am grateful to Dr Diane Clements Kaminski for introducing me to the government side of events, which she included in her PhD Thesis at the University of Connecticut. Kaminski did far more work in sifting through the Foreign Office files than I have been able to do.

*
      Clara Ragaz and Marguerite Gobat were Swiss pacifists. Rosika Schwimmer, Dr Aked and Emily Greene Balch had all travelled to Sweden on Henry Ford’s
Peace Ship
. Rosika was a vice chair of the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace. Emily Greene Balch, a future Nobel Prize winner, was also associated with it. Dr Aked was a Baptist minister.

**
    Thomson’s facts were not correct or he would have seen that it was Emily who provided the address for Dr Jacobs, not Jagow, nor the German Foreign Office.

1
.    Cecil,
All the Way p.
128

2
.    Taylor,
English History 1914–1945
p. 65

3
.    FO 372/894

4
.    Kaminski p. 311

5
.    EH to Aletta Jacobs, Aletta Jacobs correspondence, Amsterdam. The letter arrived unsigned.

6
.    Kaminski p. 311

7
.    Ibid.

8
.    Kaminski p. 312

9
.    JHB Collection

10
.  Ibid.

11
.  Kaminski p. 313

12
.  GFO D959717-8

13
.  Kaminski p. 313

F
or just sixteen days Emily kept a diary, something she was never keen to do. She preferred to write a journal or to tell her story in letters to her friends.