January 3, 1915
London, England
I stare at the long table, set with monogrammed china and multifaceted crystal as if an elegant dinner party were to begin instead of an unofficial war cabinet meeting. The exquisite service for twelve does not contain the usual name cards, but then the usual rules do not apply in wartime. This leaves my place at the table uncertain, however, particularly because, as usual, I am the only woman.
Unlike many of the men holding these dinners, our host, Home Secretary Reginald McKenna, seems sensitive to my situation. He gestures for Winston and me to take seats flanking Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, and I gratefully settle into my chair. Servants immediately appear to ladle watercress soup into our bowls, and as they do, the men lining the table give me sidelong glances. I know they find my presence among them distasteful; after all, they wouldn’t dream of bringing their wives. But I am not here for their approval or their pleasure. I am here because I have a role to fulfill.
As I sip my soup, I listen. The men around me are tallying the latest skirmishes. Soon after the Allies began gaining ground against the Germans on both the western and eastern fronts—derailing Germany’s aspirations for a quick victory—the powers that be realized that the war would likely devolve into impasse, a sort of cat-and-mouse game with each side taking turns as cat. Only an unexpected, massive victory could upend this tit for tat.
The men’s tones are desultory as they discuss the machinations at the fronts, and I want to shake them into action. How can they be so lackluster about strategy and hope when over ninety thousand military men and civilians have already lost their lives? When women and children are being shelled in coastal towns? When the government has received intelligence that Germany may soon let loose its zeppelins over London to bomb our citizens from the air? Complacency cannot rule the day, but the only animation I observe stems from remarks about yesterday’s appeal by Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia for assistance against the Ottomans in the Caucasus, an idea they bat about like a tennis ball. Is Winston the only one in this room with a new idea?
I take a deep breath, reminding myself that Winston has a plan and I am here to bolster him. Despite the fact that I know this is my proper place, Nellie’s words from the holidays weigh on me.
Nellie came to stay with us at Admiralty House for a long stint during the holiday season after a harrowing turn at the hands of the Germans. Over the summer, Nellie received some hasty, basic training in nursing so she could be stationed at the front. Assigned to a unit in Belgium to tend to fallen British soldiers, her nursing unit was taken captive in late August when the Germans occupied the Belgian town in which she’d been working. We were worried sick about her, and Winston kept close tabs on her status. He learned that the nurses were generally treated rather well and that the Germans were keeping on her unit to treat British casualties in the area. When the nurses were commanded to treat German soldiers and refused in late November, they were repatriated. Having my little sister at home with us had been a great relief to our shared concerns about her twin, Bill, who was stationed on a naval torpedo destroyer. Winston kept us well apprised of his status, but there were so many variables at sea.
One night after dinner, she and I lolled about on the sofa in the private parlor, giggling about something Mother had mentioned over dinner just before her departure. Nellie turned to me and said, “Do you realize that this is the first time I’ve seen you sit down and relax in the three weeks I’ve been here?”
“Surely I haven’t been standing at the dining table and eating my meals, Nellie,” I kidded her.
“You are always running, Clemmie,” Nellie commented. Her tone was half-playful and half-serious. “Even when you’re sitting still.”
“Winston needs me, Nellie. Our country faces the fiercest threat in its history, and he is critical to England’s success,” I answer defensively. “You of all people should understand. You were just a prisoner of the Germans.”
“Yes, Clemmie, Winston’s work is important. But you have three young children and this vast house to run.” Her voice was matter-of-fact, but her eyes were pleading. “I worry that you are running yourself ragged by managing all that and attending these endless meetings and dinners with Winston.”
“My assistance to my husband is singular, and Nanny can tend to the day-to-day needs of Diana, Randolph, and Sarah as well as I can. Better.”
She paused. “You know you are not the lord admiral, don’t you, Clemmie?”
I felt as though I’d been slapped. I’d grown used to whispers and gapes critiquing my involvement, but not from my beloved sister. “You sound like Venetia.”
“Maybe she had a point.” She reached for my hand. “But only with respect to the toll it takes upon you, Clemmie. Even if you deny it.”
* * *
Winston clears his throat again, and I return to the present. I recognize the sound as his attempt to wait for the other men to finish their conversation. I’d cautioned him not to launch into his plan at the beginning of the evening but to listen for an opportune opening in the men’s discussions. If you can present your scheme just after the usual lamentations about the current military state, I told him, your plan will be better received. But Winston can’t help himself, and his mouth begins opening to interrupt the men’s talk. I arch my brow and give him a pointed look. His mouth closes, and he bides his time.
The secretary of state for war, Earl Kitchener, murmurs, “I heard that Christmas carols sparked an impromptu truce along the trenches. A meeting of the Germans’ ‘Silent Night’ with the British ‘First Noel,’ if you will.”
“The same rumors reached me. After the singing, apparently, Christmas greetings flew across the trenches,” McKenna adds.
“Exchanges of whiskey and cigars, in some spots,” Lord Chancellor Viscount Richard Haldane concurs.
“I understand that a rousing game of football was played in no-man’s-land between English and Germans in one case,” Asquith says.
“Football? Surely not,” Walter Runciman, the president of the Board of Trade, chimes in.
“All along the trenches in Belgium. Impromptu truces and spontaneous games of football,” Asquith insists.
As the men shake their heads in incredulity, Winston sputters. He cannot keep quiet any longer. “Why does our men’s desire for peace surprise you? It is bad enough that we left our men in the trenches of Belgium throughout Christmas, festering in the soggy ground with dysentery and snow and lice. They want to come home, and we must find a way other than these interminable trenches.”
What about the women and children who’ve lost their lives? I think. But I file that notion away for another day and another argument.
“I suppose you have a proposal?” Asquith answers Winston’s call to action through the puff of his pipe.
The men chortle, as if the idea of Winston without a bold idea is unfathomable. But in their laughter, I also hear derision. A rage begins to brew within me, but I tamp it down to allow Winston to take center stage. This is his moment, one to which we have been building in our nightly discussions.
Winston puffs on the cigar that has recently become ever-present in his mouth. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Let’s hear it then,” Asquith orders with a sigh.
“We have been presented with an urgent appeal from Russia to help with the Ottomans, who are in league with the Germans. What if we showed our naval might in the Dardanelles? If we take control of the Dardanelles strait between the Turkish mainland and the Gallipoli peninsula, we could capture the Turkish capital of Constantinople. This maneuver would have two key impacts—it would weaken Germany by eliminating Turkey as one of its allies, and it would open up a sea route between our country and Russia to aid with supplies.”
As he lays out the details of his plan, I gaze at the faces of the men at the table. Their brows furrow and their eyes look wary, and I even see Asquith shoot a cynical look at Kitchener. Have I erred in encouraging Winston to propose this bold course? Have I believed too much in his vision and importance to our country in this war effort? I say a silent prayer to a god I’ve much ignored that Winston has suggested the right path for the soldiers—both for their sake and for ours.