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February 2006
ONE LAW FOR THE RICH, ANOTHER FOR THE POOR by J.P. Lethbridge John Frederick Drughorn was born in Holland on 1st August 1862 and was originally a Dutch citizen. By 1914 he had built up a multi-national shipping and trading empire with operations in many countries including Britain, Holland and Sweden. He had become a British citizen in 1912 two years before the First World War broke out. The shares in his commercial empire were mainly owned by himself and his wife so he was responsible for all major policy decisions. The Drughorn had two sons and four daughters. Their youngest son William Frederick Drughorn joined the 10th Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) in 1914 aged nineteen as a private shortly after war broke out. Meanwhile after the war started Drughorn's Swedish operations still shipped iron ore to Holland whose final destination was Germany. Drughorn helped organise this but apparently considered that trading between two neutral countries was outside the scope of the laws against trading with the enemy. Drughorn was charged with trading with the enemy and on 19th January 1915 was brought to trial at the Old Bailey. The judge was Mr Justice Rowlatt, the prosecution was conducted by Mr Muir, Mr Humphreys and Mr Boyd and the defence lawyers were Mr Pollock KC and Mr Barrington Ward. The trial lasted two days. The prosecution proved that Drughom had had actual dealings in Holland with arranging the transhipment of the iron ore to Germany. The defence argued that actions in a neutral country were outside the court's jurisdiction. The defence produced good character witnesses from eminent business figures. Nevertheless Drughorn was convicted of trading with the enemy. What sentence did the court impose? Did it: (a) Order him to be executed? (b) Send him to prison and if so for how long?(c) Fine him and if so how much? For answer see overleaf.
FURTHER THOUGHTS ON THE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN by Bob Butcher Peter Glover's THOUGHTS ON THE SCHLIEFFEN PLAN ( December 2005 meeting) got me thinking about the plan and three points in particular. Some time ago George drew my attention to an article by Terence Zuber in HISTORY TODAY which claimed that there was no precise plan of that name for the vast turning movement in front of Paris. I have re-read it several times and must confess that I feel like the victim of a legal advocate's motto 'If you can't convince, confuse'. However, the author's argument seems to go like this: the ' Schlieffen Plan' was first mentioned by German writers after the war who argued that the German failure in 1914 was due to tinkering with a perfect plan or not executing it properly. The author further believes that war games directed by von Schlieffen showed that he favoured a counter attack rather than a pre-emptive strike and that he planned to defeat the French army on the frontier (perhaps hoping for another Sedan, the 1870 battle in which the whole French field force surrendered?). The argument seems to have some force but I can only comment that it would be strange if generations of historians have accepted as fact, something that did not exist. What we can say with certainty is that Germany's war plans included holding operations in the East and a pre-emptive attack in the West by an immensely strong right wing through Belgium. Thanks to Germany's sabre rattling and the bellicose utterances of a conceited and none to bright Kaiser, Europe was a very nervous place in 1914 and nations feared being attacked before their forces had been mobilised. Thus, once one country mobilised, others followed although in most cases this did not make war inevitable. France, for example, forbade any military movement within ten kilometres of its border with Germany in order to avoid the possibility of a 'frontier incident'. Britain didn't even order mobilisation until the day that it declared war. In the case of Germany, however, the pre-emptive attack had to be made before France completed its mobilisation; hence German mobilisation automatically meant the attack being launched. The German generals believed that war was inevitable and that it was best to get it done with as soon as Germany was ready. Of course, as was brought out in the talk, in a true democracy the politicians MIGHT have been able to stop it had it not been for a powerful but irresponsible Kaiser, but that does seem rather unlikely. We know, of course, that Germany's offensive in the West came to grief on the Marne, a failure that has been attributed to tinkering with the Schlieffen Plan, for example by not making the right wing strong enough or by withdrawing two corps from it to meet the Russian invasion of Prussia. The fact remains that defeat on the Marne was the result of a gap appearing between two German armies. In other words poor generalship: But could the offensive have succeeded if that error had not been made? I have not heard of any expert consideration of the possibility of another Sedan succeeding, if indeed, that was the intention as the article suggests. On the other hand some experts consider that the wide enveloping movement in front of Paris could not have succeeded as a marching German army simply could not move fast enough and that the French would always be able to block it. There is indeed evidence that the German infantryman was on the point of exhaustion and some historians believe that even if the reverse on the Marne had been avoided, the invaders had in fact reached as far as they could go. It would have been a different story if the enemy had possessed Panzer columns, but that is another story.
SOUND ADVICE? After the German bombardment in December 1914 of Scarborough where Sir George Sitwell lived, he wrote to his son, Osbert who was about to leave for France with the Grenadier Guards. After assuring him that he would not encounter such a heavy bombardment as he and his wife had recently endured, he hastened to offer some advice. “Directly his son heard the first shell, he should retire and remain there until all firing had ceased. Even so a bombardment is a strain on the nerves, the best remedy for which is to keep warm and have plenty of plain nourishing food at frequent intervals. And, of course, plenty of rest including an afternoon nap.” Answer: The answer is (c). Drughom was fined one shilling, about ten pounds in modem terms, and ordered to pay the prosecution's costs as well as his own. Nine of Drughorn's ships were sunk by the Germans in the First World War but he himself remained very wealthy. His younger son was killed in action near Pozieres on the Somme in July 1916. His older son died in 1919 aged thirty-one. In 1922 Drughom was created a baronet, i.e. a hereditary knight, a higher award than most generals received. This was ostensibly a reward for his huge donations to ex service and golfing charities, but was more probably a result of bribes paid to the Liberal Prime Minister Lloyd George's unofficial honours salesman, Maundy Gregory. Drughom died at his Sussex country mansion on 23rd February 1943 aged eighty.
BOOK OF THE MONTH: No 45 A COVENANT WITH DEATH by John Harris. An excellent novel about the raising of a Sheffield Pals battalion and its fate on the Somme. Although fiction, it makes one feel that that was how it was:Bob.
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The Bulletin of the Birmingham Branch of the WFA Compiled by Bob Butcher |
