Twenty to twenty-five! Those are the years!
Winston had been busy for the month of October getting all these permissions in place and in seeing how he could get the most out of the trip and the time spent on it. As we have seen, he wanted to have his first real adventure, his first proper military operational experience, his first test of his personal courage on a private rehearsal basis, and his first fling at becoming a better known public figure through exposure to danger and engaging in what all observers would agree was true adventure, even by the standards of what was an exceptional era of adventurers.
By the third week of the month, with 28 October as the preferred date of departure from England, he had so arranged things that he was going on the adventure with all his own personal objectives but also in a semi-official role as a military observer of a foreign army, a position that had become part of standard procedures by the end of the nineteenth century. He was authorised to wear his uniform, carry a regulation army pistol, although only for personal defence in case of danger, actually accompany a foreign army in the field, and be assured by his position and his letters of introduction of the very best attention by British and Spanish officials during the journey and campaign.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British subjects were invariably felt to be the most protected nationals of any country when travelling abroad and especially when going to dubious locations in the world. The vast presence of British diplomats overseas, unmatched by any country then or at any time in history prior to then, ensured that Britons seldom felt entirely without support from the home country when they travelled. In Cuba, for example, there were no fewer than nine British diplomatic offices on the island, including the two consulates-general in the port cities of Havana and Santiago, and seven vice-consulates in the shipping centres of Baracoa, Cárdenas, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Nuevitas, Sagua la Grande and Guantánamo. Thus few places in Cuba, other than the extreme west of Pinar del Rio province, were further than 100 miles from an agent of the British Crown. In addition, the extraordinary presence of the Royal Navy’s vast fleet also meant that help was often close at hand for subjects of Queen Victoria who got into trouble. British retribution could be swift if those subjects were mistreated and the resulting pride of Britons in their status was understandable if often deeply offensive to governments and even individual citizens of other countries. The Spanish authorities on the island had learned in the previous war that treating British subjects as they did others was fraught with danger and more than once British warships had intervened to save these people, usually engaged in support of the rebel cause, merely by their presence in Cuban ports or by the threat, implicit or explicit, of bombardment if such Spanish mistreatment, as viewed from London, did not cease. Churchill of course knew this, as did his mother, adding to their relative lack of concern over what was still a highly risky venture.
In addition, the semi-official status of the young officer as a military observer for the War Office would have been assumed to be the case by the Spanish authorities and perhaps even welcomed by them. In any case it ensured that his activities, at least in so far as they were along the lines of normal military observer duties, were acceptable. Or were they?
It is perhaps worthwhile now dealing with the question as to whether Churchill at this time can be considered to have been something of a spy, as is often asserted even by very serious analysts.1 In a way, of course, all officers posted abroad to observe and report on what other militaries are doing, could be considered spies. Indeed, diplomatic political analysts, usually first secretaries of embassies, can be thought of as spies as well. After all, they are there to find information of value to the home country, much of which is probably not that favourable to their countries of responsibility, and to do so with or without the consent of their hosts. The old saying that ‘a diplomat is a man sent abroad to lie for his country’ might also as credibly replace ‘lie’ with ‘spy’. And, needless to say, military and naval attachés posted to embassies are there with the main purpose of finding out what is actually happening militarily and not what the armed forces of the host country say is happening. But this is to miss a very major point.
In the case of all three – military observers, diplomats and military attachés – they are there with the understanding of the host government, which accepts their arrival and their activities as a matter of course. The practice of exchange of such persons is almost as old as modern diplomacy itself. Indeed, they are often seen as what is, in modern defence and conflict-resolution parlance, ‘confidence-building measures’ and, the more they have freedom of access to the militaries and defence-related issues of their host countries, the more it is likely that their home government will come to trust the host nation.
Churchill was of course neither a diplomat nor a military attaché and was not posted to another army or country for a specific time when he would be responsible for observing and reporting on the military situation in which Britain, and the War Office in particular, were interested. He was, at most, a semi-official military observer under the situation and rules of such an office. Military observers had served with several armies in the series of wars for Italian unification in 1848–70, the wars of German unification in 1864–71, the Crimean War of 1854–56, the US Civil War of 1860–65 and by 1895 were entirely standard. And for some time prior to this period young officers who were members of European royal families could gain some experience of war by attaching themselves, or having their parents attach them, to the armies of allied or at least closely linked countries on campaign. And even for more modern military observers, the status of such officers would always be that of military men coming from friendly states. The nature of Pax Britannica, as a period of overall peace, meant that, with fewer wars occurring, military observers were the only available means to evaluate and keep abreast of changes in equipment, tactics and especially weaponry, and the need for them was greater than at any time for centuries.
In Churchill’s case none of the above was true. He was certainly an aristocrat and from an influential family. But he was not from the nobility, much less a member of a royal family. And he was coming from a country where, as we have seen, while formally pro-Spanish in the sense of complying with Madrid’s wishes where international law and custom obliged London to handle questions of foreign enlistment and the passage of rebel troops or weapons through British territory, British public opinion was anything but favourable to Spain. And Britain had not been an ally of Spain for some eighty years, when during the Napoleonic Wars Spain and Britain had been on the same side.
This situation was odd but hardly unheard of. What was unheard of was a military observer of Churchill’s youth and inexperience in the army. The whole point of sending real military observers to foreign campaigns was to have them report on their conduct with a view to their own armies learning lessons from which they could draw conclusions useful for training, weapons acquisition, needed changes in tactical doctrine and the like. For this role they needed experienced officers of a generalist kind, such as that for general staff officers of the sort Germany had begun to produce as the nineteenth century wore on. Winston was a second-lieutenant almost straight out of military college with no military experience other than a very junior command in the cavalry and no exposure to artillery or even infantry practices.
Almost all military observers of the era were lieutenant-colonels or colonels, and, while a few were majors, a fair number were actually generals. Winston seems to have simply found himself in, or rather manoeuvred himself into, a position where all these rules were not to apply. It is difficult then to see him in the role of spy in any normal sense. He had certainly not received any training in such a role and the informal task set him by General Chapman seems far from the grand ideas of modern spy novels or even instructions given to their agents by intelligence agencies.
It is equally true that if he was thought by anyone to be anything like an agent or a spy, it was not by the British government beyond the War Office. There is virtually nothing in the Foreign Office archive on the visit of Winston Churchill to Cuba in 1895. But there is a highly interesting note to Sir Thomas Sanderson, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, of 9 November from a junior member of his staff, seemingly signing ‘A. Laveron’. This was the day that Winston and Reggie docked in New York, a week after they had sailed from Liverpool. The note speaks of a visit that day by Major Wilson of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, who called to let the Foreign Office know ‘unofficially’ and ‘on behalf of General Chapman’, that Churchill and Barnes had ‘gone to Cuba’ and ‘on their own account’. The note adds, ‘They have I understand been furnished with letters of recommendation to the Spanish authorities by Sir H. Wolff’, ending with ‘This information was merely given that we might know who they were in the event of any difficulties arising’.2
Thus it is clear that the Foreign Office must have known nothing officially of the trip before this date and that Drummond Wolff had been acting in a private and personal manner with the Spanish foreign and war ministries, not keeping London informed, much less asking its permission to act in the manner he did in the matter of arrangements for Winston’s visit. It seems thus to have been a classic example of things done in the best tradition of ‘old school tie’ and family and personal connections little related to matters of state. It is nonetheless of interest to note that the War Office did not feel that there were sufficient reasons for concern as to inform the Foreign Office before the officers’ departure, much less to consult with them about the wisdom of the visit or ask permission from the diplomatic authorities of the land. After all, Chapman knew and approved the venture in mid-October, three weeks before Major Wilson’s call at the Foreign Office. It would have been a simple thing to have checked with the Foreign Office earlier. He may have simply not wished to put his colleague at the Foreign Office on the spot by telling him of an activity that both Brabazon and Wolseley saw as potentially difficult.
In any case, intelligence in the Foreign Office of the day, run by Sir Thomas Sanderson, was in a special situation. Sanderson was an exceptional person on any number of scores.3 Born in 1854, he had only been appointed Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs the previous year. But he was hardly a new boy, as he had been assistant permanent secretary for the previous five years 1889–94 and had been working in the Foreign Office since 1869 when he joined as a junior clerk.
This veteran already had a tendency to be a one-man show, with his vast knowledge of foreign affairs, his deep intelligence and analytical capacity, and his dedication to his work. On the intelligence side, he did not have the then usual cypher-making experience of professional diplomats, especially junior ones. And, while he defended the key need for intelligence, and good intelligence, he did not believe it was there ‘to dictate policy’ but rather to be its ‘handmaiden’. Neilson and Otte, in their valuable work, suggest he was ‘curiously aloof’ from intelligence work and did not interest himself overly in it. Sanderson, who would go on to be the longest serving permanent under-secretary of foreign affairs in history, would perhaps not have been deeply concerned over the War Office’s slowness in informing his ministry of the Churchill and Barnes visit. In any case, he like others did not know that Churchill’s articles would soon be appearing in the national press.
There seems to be only one possible conclusion: this was no official spy mission or anything of the kind. And Churchill can in no serious way be considered to have been a spy. However, he may be considered deeply in what David Stafford calls the British tradition of the ‘amateur spy sent overseas with instructions to keep his eyes and ears open’.4 While this is almost certainly much of the truth in this case, it is still worth remembering that the word only applies so far because Churchill was in no real way ‘sent overseas’. He had decided to go on his own account and dealing with the War Office was a necessary step in getting away, not the principal reason for going.
What Brabazon, Wolseley, Chapman, Drummond Wolff and thus the Spanish authorities did not know, and perhaps even Lady Churchill as well, was that Winston, having obtained their approval, had also entered into contact with friends and acquaintances in the press to sound them out as to the possibilities of acting as a war correspondent while on the island.5 Winston was well aware of the power of the popular press, that exceptional product of the mass urban societies of the late nineteenth century. And perhaps the very best way to gain public notice was not just to be at historic events but also to report on them.
There were other reasons as well. While mamma had said she would pay for the trip as a birthday present, Winston would still hardly be wallowing in money while abroad and was already, as he was to be for almost all his life, in debt and facing significant financial challenges. Writing for the press was something which could help here as well and not just assist in bringing his name to the notice of the public with likely political gain accruing at least in the long run.
Be that as it may, Churchill’s connections with the press were brought into service and, through the good offices of a number of people in that profession or connected to influential men who were, he was commissioned to write a series of ‘letters’ from Cuba analysing the war while he was present with the Spanish Army. He was to write five of these and be paid 5 guineas each with a total of 25 guineas for the series.6 These were to be for The Daily Graphic, Britain’s only daily illustrated newspaper at the time and a paper for which his father had written when he dabbled in journalism in 1891 following his fall from grace politically.
The Daily Graphic had been founded in 1889 by William Luson Thomas of H.R. Baines and Company, founder of the Thomas newspaper chain. Thomas was born in 1830 and was an engraver and artist who had formerly worked for the prestigious Illustrated London News, but personal and professional reasons had driven him to wish to compete with what he himself called the ‘most successful and firmly established paper in the world’.7 He had therefore founded a weekly newspaper in 1869, The Graphic, which with great daring he sold for 6d a copy at a time when The Illustrated London News sold for 5d.
Thomas was keen on social reform and scandalised some people by placing images of London’s poor and scandals in the empire in his paper. Churchill’s father himself had played a part in this by denouncing ill doing in South Africa during his three months there reporting for the paper.8 Thomas was, however, a much appreciated gentleman whose high artistic and professional standards led to much praise from artists not only in Britain but from abroad, including Van Gogh. The two papers attracted much attention among their rivals too and even The Times admitted that Thomas had, with these initiatives, done ‘more than improve illustrated journalism, he influenced English art, and that in a wholesome way’.
Under Thomas at the time of Churchill’s Cuba trip was Thomas Heath Joyce, a man thirty years younger than Thomas who had taken over the editorship in 1890, in cooperation with Thomas, and was to hold that position until 1906. Neither man apparently knew Churchill well at this time although both were to get to know him well later in life. It is not clear who acted as intermediary between the future war correspondent and these newspapermen. Because of his father’s connections, Winston himself may have been able to open discussions with them. Be that as it may, the young officer was now a commissioned war correspondent with a major newspaper as well.
Peter Clarke may perhaps be somewhat unfair when he suggests that Winston subsequently sought other newspapers for which to write because the Daily Graphic was not as good a paper as he would have liked to write for. Clarke called the paper ‘undistinguished’. This seems unlikely given its status at the time and the reason for his later preference is more likely to be the simple fact that illustrated journals did not have the same space for written work as others of a more traditional kind, and of course he wanted to try his hand at many more papers and be paid much more in the future as Clarke rightly suggests. In the paper’s defence, the comments of Peter Harrington may be of use:
nothing could compare with the Daily Graphic, the sister publication of the Graphic … ‘the only illustrated morning newspaper in the world’. With 16 pages and occasional supplements, and with the full resources of the Graphic behind it, the paper brought the news of the day, ‘illustrated by rapid sketches from the pencils of the cleverest artists … [with editors] paying artists astounding fees for their services … sketches were mailed back to London where teams of staff artists set to work redrawing the rough pictures using black and white ink and wash on white board [grisaille] … Several weeks might elapse between the actual event and the publication of the image but this was the accepted practice.’9
Striking in all this is that there does not seem to have been any attempt by Winston to advise those who might be affected by his war correspondent’s status of this state of affairs. While, as other authors have pointed out, it was not forbidden for serving officers to write for newspapers in the way Churchill was to do, it was still far from a usual practice, especially for a very junior officer. Nonetheless, there is no evidence to suggest that, before the first article came out, Churchill told his colonel, his army commander, his friend the ambassador in Madrid or anyone in the Foreign Office, or indeed the Spanish authorities most likely to be concerned, of his new status or even of the fact that he was seeking such status for his trip. But no less a person than Mackenzie Wallace backed him in his effort by writing to The Times correspondent in Havana, a Mr Akers, and asking him to support Winston in any way he could.10
Now, armed with money, the approval and support of a more senior companion, permissions from his commanding officer, his army commander, his mother, more or less the Foreign Office or at least a very senior official who worked for it abroad and the appropriate Spanish military and diplomatic authorities, and with the status of a military observer, a legitimate traveller and a war correspondent to boot, Churchill could move forward with the plan. The date of 28 October had slipped slightly by the time Winston had everything of this complex jigsaw puzzle in place and the idea of taking a steamer from New York to the West Indies had given way to taking the train to a port in Florida from which the two officers could easily sail the last leg of the journey to Cuba. So the plan slowly settled and they were to sail from Liverpool on the posh Cunard steamship Etruria on 2 November for New York, arriving on 9 November, spend a very few days there, and travel on to Havana by train to Tampa, Florida, and sail from there to Cuba.11
It is not known how Barnes paid for tickets. His salary as a full lieutenant would not have been that much more than Winston’s and, as we have seen, he was the son of a clergyman. But he never seems to have had any problems paying the bills associated with being an officer in as chic a cavalry regiment as the 4th Hussars, in keeping horses or in taking a full part in the ‘sport of kings’, as polo is often called. Jennie meanwhile had got in touch with Lord and Lady Tweedsmouth, family friends who, thinking that the journey might still include Jamaica, were preparing letters of introduction to the Governor of Jamaica for Winston and his companion.12 All of the papers and most importantly, letters of introduction, were in Churchill’s hands and it was now a question of merely travelling.
Churchill and Barnes spent their first few days in the United States in New York as guests of William Bourke Cockran, a recent former lover of Winston’s mother.13
Cockran was born in 1854, and was therefore the same age as Jennie. He was born in Sligo in Ireland and went to the United States with his family at the age of 17. He was educated in the US and in France and was admitted to the Bar in 1876. He joined the Democratic Party and ran for Congressional office for New York, winning several times. But in 1896 he broke with the party and concentrated on his highly successful legal practice in New York. He was a noted political orator and repeatedly interested himself in the cause of Cuban independence, although mostly after Churchill’s visit.
There is virtually nothing to add about the Cuban side of the adventure in this first week. This could be considered odd because New York was the principal location for rebel activities in the world outside the island itself. The insurgent leader José Martí had lived and worked there as a journalist for much of his life, had conspired there, and there was a large group of Cuban insurgent political figures there at the time of the rebellion of 1895. The propaganda centre for the movement was also in New York, having as its main goal, as in the earlier struggle of 1868–78, the recognition of the Cuban insurgency by the United States or European powers and thus easier access to weapons and other supplies for the insurrection and wider legitimacy for its actions. In fact, New York had been the actual site of a quasi-government in exile during the Ten Years War, and more than one independence movement newspaper had seen the light of day there.
It would seem logical that, at least as a journalist, Winston would have wished to discuss the situation in Cuba with some of these leaders. Almost entirely ignorant of the realities of the Cuban political context as Churchill was, however, this seeming lapse should not really surprise us. It would also have seemed logical for Cockran, who knew who the Cubans were in New York and what they were doing, to have suggested seeing some of them. The truth is probably that he and Churchill discussed the idea but felt that, since Winston was to be a guest of the Spanish Army in Cuba, and that the Spanish spy ring in the United States was so effective, involving even agencies of the famous Pinkerton company, it would be best not to risk disaster by seeing any dissident Cubans. And, although it is unlikely that he already knew of the impact of just such meetings on Viscount Morpeth’s attempts to get to the front two weeks earlier, these considerations probably weighed on the two men’s thinking.
In any case, Winston and Reggie were far too busy to see themselves as idle on this front. Cockran was extremely influential and in no time had the two young men visiting places of interest in and around the city, lunching and dining with the famous and the powerful, and generally having a good time. The two men were received by Cornelius Vanderbilt, the tycoon whose niece would be the next Duchess of Marlborough, among many other major figures of the time. Even more important for Winston than these more public activities were the private chats with Cockran, running late into the night, when Barnes was apparently already asleep. Cockran’s speaking abilities struck Churchill as extraordinary, his political views impressed the young man, and his ability to express ideas became a model for Winston. A firm friendship was struck up between them.
Among many other places and things, Churchill and Barnes visited installations of the US military, including a warship in the Hudson River, and most interestingly the US Military Academy at West Point, north of the city. There Churchill, like many other visitors accustomed to a more relaxed British military tradition shared by most Commonwealth armies, was shocked by what he thought silly and excessive discipline unconducive to producing officers for a modern army. The US Navy impressed him more and he wrote to his brother of his conviction that, while soldiers could be made out of many peoples, sailors of quality seemed to be the ‘monopoly of the Anglo-Saxon race’.14
The junior officers extended their time in New York for a further three days as a result of the good time they were having and thus were using up more of their ten-week leave than planned. But doubtless it seemed to Winston time well spent. Certainly the friendship paid off quickly in ways the luxury-loving Winston appreciated. The Atlantic crossing in the luxurious Etruria, while rough at times and about which Churchill, who hated sea travel, complained to his mother, was now to be followed by the two men travelling in nothing less than a stateroom on the train. They set off southward on the morning of 17 November and they must have made quite a picture as the norm for such luxury would have been elderly people of means or successful middle-aged businessmen. The thirty-six-hour journey passed in style therefore but Winston makes no mention of his impressions of the countryside or anything else in letters home. The trip took them close to the eastern seaboard through Washington and Savannah, arriving in Tampa, the last town on the railway route, on the evening of 18 November.
The next day they took ship. This was no Etruria but it was a perfectly acceptable smaller steamship, the Olivette, which did two return trips to Havana from Tampa each month for part of the year, increasing that frequency to three return voyages a week in months when the demand was greater. The Olivette had been built in 1887 and was usually found, until the summer of 1895, working on the Charlottetown (Prince Edward Island) to Boston service. It was small at 1,678 gross tons but comfortable and reliable in the service provided. Churchill referred to it as a ‘little steamer’ but ‘very clean’, and the ‘captain and all the officers made everything as pleasant and convenient as possible’.15 It was already well-known in Cuban separatist circles as the ship that had brought José Martí, the national hero, from Havana to Key West in his 1891 speaking tour of Florida, when it was doing similar duties. After the 1878 peace Spain had allowed a great many former rebels to return and to travel back and forth to Cuba, and Martí had taken advantage of the offer.
It is typical of the way Churchill’s life seemed to be linked to wider events that later the ship was to be used to carry injured from Havana home to the United States after the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbour in early 1898. Later that year, in the Spanish–American War, the vessel was used as a hospital ship by the American Red Cross, and Clara Barton, the famous nurse, spoke of it in her book about that organisation.16 It is interesting to think that the same officers of the merchant vessel that were so pleasant to Churchill were probably still serving on her two and a half years later when they were in on another story linked to espionage. Captain Sigsbee of the Maine, after the disaster, was sent to Key West by the US Navy in order to keep a close eye on events in Cuba. He and the US consul-general in Havana kept in touch by secret messages carried by the Olivette between Havana and Key West over those months.17
The Olivette continued to be involved in notable events. On 3 July 1898, she acted as a hospital ship, picking up survivors from the Spanish fleet after the Battle of Santiago, where that force, hopelessly outgunned, was destroyed by the US fleet. The survivors included those of the Spanish flagship, the battleship María Teresa, with Admiral Pascual Cervera, the unfortunate but courageous commander of the ill-starred fleet.
1. Even Carlo D’Este (Warlord, p. 44) suggests as much.
2. FO 72/1993 internal memo A. Laveron to Sir Thomas Sanderson No.70 dated 9th November 1895.
3. This is mostly from Keith Neilson and T.G. Otte, The Permanent Under-secretaries for Foreign Affairs, 1854–1946, New York, Routledge, 2009, pp. 92–122.
4. See the first section of David Stafford, Churchill and the Secret Service, Woodstock, NY, Overlook Press, 1998.
5. Douglas S. Bissell, The Orders, Decorations and Medals of Sir Winston Churchill, Hopkinton, NH, The International Churchill Societies, 1990.
6. A guinea was an oft-used term, especially among the upper class, for £1 1s. The pound was divided into 20 shillings so would be expressed today as £1.05.
7. The quotes here are from http://Spartacus-educational.com/jthomasL.htm.
8. Manchester, The Last Lion, pp. 165–6.
9. See Peter Harrington, ‘Images and Perceptions: Visualizing the Sudan Campaign’, in Edward M. Spiers (ed.), Sudan: The Reconquest Reassessed, London, Routledge, 2013, pp. 82–101; and Peter Clarke, Mr Churchill’s Profession: Statesman, Orator, Writer, London, Bloomsbury Press, 2012, pp. 37–8.
10. In fact, there was not much Akers could do when Winston arrived as he was in Venezuela at the time. But, as we shall see, Winston needed precious little further help than what he had already garnered from so many senior sources. See CHAR 1/14/5 letter Makenzie Wallace to WSC dated 31 October 1895. Needless to say, given the Spanish view of the biases of the British press in favour of the insurgents, such information might have had some effect on the nature of the welcome given to Churchill.
11. A very large number of sources have Churchill leaving for Cuba from Key West after the rail journey from New York. But the only railway company serving southern Florida in 1895 was the Florida East Coast Railway. Churchill used this line to get as far south as he could since Key West had no rail service of any kind or indeed any other land-based route through the Florida Keys that reached as far as this ‘Southernmost point in the USA’. Railway service to the island was only established in 1912. See Jefferson Brown, ‘Key West Mail and Steamship Service’, in Key West: The Old and the New, 1912, in Floridpedia, University of South Florida, 2004.
12. Charles Wrigley, Winston Churchill: A Biographical Companion, Santa Barbara, CA, ABC-Clio, 2002, p. 146.
13. This part of the story is the only one that has previously received adequate attention, so little space has been given to this part of Winston’s trip.
14. Letter WSC to his brother Jack dated 15 November 1895, quoted in Coughlin, Churchill’s First War, p. 78.
15. CHAR 28/21/90–91 Letter WSC to Lady Randolph dated 20 November 1895.
16. Donald H. Dyal, Historical Dictionary of the Spanish-American War, undated, Santa Barbara, CA, Greenwood Press.
17. The Olivette met a sad fate. It went aground in thick fog and sank on 12 January 1918 while a general cargo ship still on the Key West-Havana run. For the ship’s story, see Dennis Casey, ‘A Little Espionage Goes a Long Way’, www.fas.org/irp/agency/aia/cyberspokesman/99–11/history1.htm, and http://www.ebay.com/itm/SS-Olivette-Built-a887-Cuba-tampa-Key-West-Mail-Steam. For its sinking see ‘Key West Ship Ashore’, The New York Times, 13 January 1918, which describes the dramatic rescue of its seventy-four passengers from the disaster.