Anti-German Hysteria

On the outbreak of the First World War anyone who could speak in German was suspected on being a spy. Graham Greene was a schoolboy in Beckhamstead at the time. He later recorded in his autobiography, A Sort of Life (1971): "There were dramatic incidents even in Beckhamstead. A German master was denounced to my father as a spy because he had been seen under the railway bridge without a hat, a dachshund was stoned in the High Street, and once my uncle Eppy was summoned at night to the police station and asked to lend his motor car to help block the Great North Road down which a German armored car was said to be advancing towards London."

Greene was not the only one to report dachshund dogs being attacked. James Hayward, the author of Myths and Legends of the First World War (2002) has pointed out: “Famously, dachshund dogs (although not apparently Alsatians) were put to sleep or attacked in the streets, a persecution which endured so long that in the years following the war the bloodline had to be replenished with foreign stock.” The reason for the hostility towards dachshunds was that at the beginning of the war they were seen as a symbol of Germany. Political cartoonists commonly used the image of the dog to ridicule Germany.

German Cartoon (1915)
German Cartoon (1915)

In 1916 Noel Pemberton Billing founded a journal called The Imperialist that was part-funded by Lord Beaverbrook. His biographer, Geoffrey Russell Searle, has pointed out that "Billing campaigned for a unified air service, helped force the government to establish an air inquiry, and advocated reprisal raids against German cities. He also became adept at exploiting a variety of popular discontents."

Billing claimed in his journal that there was a secret society called the Unseen Hand. As Ernest Sackville Turner, the author of Dear Old Blighty (1980) has pointed out: "One of the great delusions of the war was that there existed an Unseen (or Hidden, or Invisible) Hand, a pro-German influence which perennially strove to paralyse the nation's will and to set its most heroic efforts at naught... As defeat seemed to loom, as French military morale broke and Russia made her separate peace, more and more were ready to believe that the Unseen Hand stood for a confederacy of evil men, taking their orders from Berlin, dedicated to the downfall of Britain by subversion of the military, the Cabinet, the Civil Service and the City; and working not only through spiritualists, whores and homosexuals."

Michael Kettle, the author of Salome's Last Veil : The Libel Case of the Century (1977) has pointed out: "Even Buckingham Palace was now seriously alarmed. The Royal advisers were acutely aware that the Royal Family could hardly be described as, well, entirely British. In fact, the Saxe-Coburgs were pure German, unashamedly came from Hanover, and had much more in common with the Hohenzollerns, the German Royal House, than with any decent old British family. The Prince Consort, it was still remembered (the old Queen's first cousin as well as her husband), had spoken a very funny sort of English indeed; and old King Edward had quite an accent, which could become very funny at times too. The present King was all right and spoke well enough. But it was not until mid-1917 that he had renounced his foreign orders and titles - in fact many of them were German - and had hastily changed the family name."

On 25th April, 1917, The Times printed a short piece, headed: "The House of Windsor", reporting that King George V, while addressing the Mayor and Corporation of Windsor, "said his family had long been associated with Windsor, and he had decided, considering the close connection which the Royal House had had for many centuries with the Royal Borough, to adopt the name of Windsor as their family name".

Primary Sources

(1) The Daily News (5th August, 1914)

Several arrests of suspected spies are reported.

At Newcastle yesterday morning Frederick Sukowski (26) was charged with being a suspected person under the Official Secrets Act and was remanded. It was stated that he had been found in the neighbourhood of the principal Tyne shipyards and had in his possession two measuring gauges, foot rules, and map of Great Britain, giving railroad and other measurements.

Sergeant Conron and Constable Kavanagh, of the R.I.C., Queenstown Harbour and the three harbour forts, namely, Forts Camden, Carlisle and Westmoreland. He was conveyed to the police barracks, where he said he was an Englishman and an undergraduate of Oxford. He had in his possession many valuable sketches, and his replies not being considered satisfactory he was kept in custody, and will be brought before the Petty Sessions.

A German was arrested on the Cotton Powder Company's works at Faversham, and taken to the police station. The police refuse all information about him.

(2) Graham Greene, was born in Beckhamstead in 1904 and published his autobiography, A Sort of Life in 1972.

There were dramatic incidents even in Beckhamstead. A German master was denounced to my father as a spy because he had been seen under the railway bridge without a hat, a dachshund was stoned in the High Street, and once my uncle Eppy was summoned at night to the police station and asked to lend his motor car to help block the Great North Road down which a German armored car was said to be advancing towards London.

(3) Michael Kettle, Salome's Last Veil : The Libel Case of the Century (1977)

Even Buckingham Palace was now seriously alarmed. The Royal advisers were acutely aware that the Royal Family could hardly be described as, well, entirely British. In fact, the Saxe-Coburgs were pure German, unashamedly came from Hanover, and had much more in common with the Hohenzollerns, the German Royal House, than with any decent old British family. The Prince Consort, it was still remembered (the old Queen's first cousin as well as her husband), had spoken a very funny sort of English indeed; and old King Edward had quite an accent, which could become very funny at times too. The present King was all right and spoke well enough. But it was not until mid-1917 that he had renounced his foreign orders and titles - in fact many of them were German - and had hastily changed the family name. The press coverage for that had been very carefully managed, not too little and not too much. But Lord Stamfordham (the King's secretary) knew well what someone like Noel Pemberton Billing could rake up in the present state of war hysteria over aliens; the name Wettin was not only obviously German, but had a nasty Jewish tinge to it as well. He shuddered at what Billing might do in the Vigilante ("Our Royal Aliens" or perhaps even "The Ashkenazim at the Palace"). It was decided that the King must take the initiative. He must naturalise himself again at once.

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