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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Not much is generally known about the career of Sir George Sydenham Clarke as first secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence other than his arrival at Whitehall in 1904 and his departure under something of a cloud three years later. Yet Clarke's career is in many respects worthy of study. He can lay strong claim to being the first defence ‘bureaucrat’, and as such his career served to establish a pattern into which his successors had to fit themselves. His activities during his three years of office do much to illuminate the methods by which strategic decisions were reached and demonstrate the obstructions that beset the professional civil servant in such a milieu. The influence of the committee which he served has been the subject of considerable analysis and comment; Clarke's personal disposition helps to explain die remark of one scholar that, for a body occupying its influential position, the CID achieved relatively little.1 Finally, the manner of Clarke's going illustrates the political strength of the navalist lobby and of Sir John Fisher at a crucial time in the making of defence policy.
1 Mackintosh, J. P., ‘The Role of the Committee of Imperial Defence before 1914’, E.H.R. LXXVII (1962), 490–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 P.R.O. Balfour to Edward VII, 4 Dec. 1903. Cab. 41/28/25.
3 Cd. 1932, Report of the War Office (Reconstitution) Committee Part I, 1904, p. 4.
4 Cd. 2200, Copy of Treasury Minute dated 4th May 1904, as to Secretariat.
5 Clarke, G. S., Fortification: Past, Present and Future (London, 1890).Google Scholar
6 Sydenham Papers. Clarke to Chirol 14 Sept. 1907. B.M. Add. MSS 50832.
7 Hankey, , Diplomacy by Conference: Studies in Public Affairs 1920–1946 (London, 1946), p. 87.Google Scholar
8 Bond, B. (ed.), Chief of Staff: The Diaries of Sir Henry Pownall vol. I, London 1973. Entry for 22 May 1933.Google Scholar
9 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 7 Feb. 1904. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 1’.
10 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 18 May 1904. Ibid.
11 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 11 Aug. 1904. Ibid.
12 Esher Papers. Knollys to Esher, 6 Aug. 1904. ‘Lord Knollys Vol. 1’.
13 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 7 Nov. 1904. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 2’.
14 Esher Papers. Unheaded notes by Clarke, 15 Feb. 1905. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 4’.
15 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 12 Oct. 1905. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 5’.
16 Balfour Papers. Notes by Esher, 5 Oct. 1905. B.M. Add. MSS 49719.
17 Balfour Papers. Clarke to Esher, 11 Oct. 1905. Ibid.
18 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 3 Sept. 1906. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 7’.
19 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 23 Aug. 1906. Ibid.
20 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 27 Jan. 1907. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 8’.
It has been claimed that the Historical Section was intended to ‘fix the amphibious nature of England's national policy in the minds of the C.I.D.’; d'Ombrain, N. J., War Machinery and High Policy: Defence administration in peacetime Britain, 1902–1914 (Oxford, 1973), p. 216.Google Scholar Whilst this may be true, it was far from being the sole, or even the chief, purpose of the new outgrowth of the CID.
21 P.R.O. ‘An Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence’, 6 Sept. 1906. Cab. 4/2/90B.
22 P.R.O. ‘Historical Section’, 9 July 1907. Cab. 4/3/104B.
23 Williamson is mistaken in believing that Clarke felt trouble on the North West Frontier to be mare probable than European operations. Williamson, Vide S. R., The Politics of Grand Strategy (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), p. 92.Google Scholar
24 P.R.O. ‘Defence of India: Relations with Afghanistan’, 30 Apr. 1903, p. 4. Cab. 6/1/12D.
25 P.R.O. ‘Defence of India: Observations on the Records of a War Game played at Simla, 1903’, 5 May 1904, Cab. 6/1/50D.
26 Sydenham Papers. ‘Memorandum on Indian Defence Number 9’, n.d. (Sent to Balfour 24 November 1904). B.M. Add. MSS 50836.
27 Balfour Papers. Clarke to Balfour, 28 Apr. 1905. B.M. Add. MSS 49701.
28 P.R.O. ‘Suggestions as to a basis for the calculation of the required transport of an army operating in Afghanistan’, 5 June 1905. Cab. 6/3/83D.
29 Kitchener Papers. Clarke to Kitchener, 7 July 1905. P.R.O. 30/57/34.
30 P.R.O. ‘Suggestions as to a basis for the calculation of the required transport of an Army operating in Afghanistan’, 20 Nov. 1905. Cab. 6/3/89D.
31 P.R.O. ‘Report and Minutes of Evidence of a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence appointed by the Prime Minister to consider the Military Requirements of the Empire as affected by India’, 1907, pp. 175–6. Cab. 16/2.
32 Sydenham, , My Wording life (London, 1927), p. 200.Google Scholar
33 P.R.O. ‘The Conditions governing an invasion of Egypt from the East, Note by the Secretary’, 16 Oct. 1906. Cab. 4/2/89B.
34 See the author's The Plans of War: The General Staff and British Military Strategy, c. 1900–1916 (London, 1974), ch. 8.Google Scholar
35 For a description of Clarke's role in the talks, Monger, vid. G. E., The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy 1900–1907 (London, 1963), pp. 236–57;Google Scholar also Williamson, , op. cit. p. 80.Google Scholar
36 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 29 May 1905. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 4.’
37 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 7 June 1905. Ibid.
38 Balfour Papers. Clarke to Balfour, 16 Feb. 1905. B.M. Add. MSS 49701.
39 Balfour Papers. Clarke to Balfour, 17 Aug. 1905. B.M. Add. MSS 49702.
40 Kitchener Papers. Clarke to Kitchener, 8 Nov. 1904. P.R.O. 30/57/34.
41 Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher (London, 1934–1938), II, 191.Google Scholar
42 Ibid. 11, 210–11, 218.
43 For an example of the political strength of this lobby - the ‘cordite’ vote of 1895 - vid. Midleton, , Records and Reactions 1856–1939 (London, 1939), pp. 87–91.Google Scholar
44 Arnold Forster Papers. ‘Proposal for Reorganisation of the Army’, 19 Apr. 1904. B.M. Add. MSS 50300.
45 Sydenham Papers. Clarke to Chirol, 1 Jan. 1905. B.M. Add. MSS 50832.
46 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 4 Apr. 1904. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 1’.
47 Esher Papers. Unheaded notes by Clarke, June 1904. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 2’.
48 Esher Papers. Fisher to Esher, 17 June 1904. ‘Sir John Fisher 1903–5’.
49 Arnold Forster Papers. Balfour to Arnold Forster, 14 Feb. 1905. B.M. Add. MSS 50309.
50 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 3 Feb. 1906. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 6’.
51 Sydenham, , op. cit. p. 192.Google Scholar
52 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 12 Feb. 1906. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 6’.
53 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 19 May 1906. Ibid.
54 D'Ombrain suggests that the primary cause of Clarke's departure from the CID was his failure to influence Haldane's army policy, this being what ‘counted most, and rankled most, in Clarke's decision to resign’; d'Ombrain, , op. cit. pp. 14, 183.Google Scholar Whilst disappointment in this field was undoubtedly a contributory factor, it must be added to set-backs which were far off in July 1906, particularly the result of the sub-committee on Indian defence. Also this failure was apparent some 12 months before Clarke's departure from office, yet in the intervening period he made no real attempts to find a more congenial post. The cause of Clarke's departure is not to be found in any single facet of his short but eventful career as secretary to the CID.
55 The claim that Clarke took up the cudgels over naval construction policy because of the Admiralty's ‘close-down’ on the CID over the winter and spring of 1905/6 - itself due to that body's adoption of a policy of intervention on the continent of Europe - is misleading: d'Ombrain, op. cit. pp. 13, 180.Google Scholar It devalues the thrust of Clarke's technical arguments, in themselves not y inconsiderable; and it depends entirely on acceptance of the thesis about Admiralty desertion of the CID, which is at the least debatable.
56 Esher Papers. Clarke to Esher, 10 Feb. 1906. ‘Sir George Clarke Vol. 6’.
57 Sydenham Papers. ‘Notes on Comparative Naval Strength’, n.d. (sent to Balfour, 2 July 1906). B.M. Add. MSS 50836. The pencilled correction ‘1907’ on the dating of the manuscript is in error.
58 P.R.O. ‘Statement regarding Admiralty responsibility for the Strength of the Navy’, July 1906. ('Private and Secret'). Adm. 116/3095.
59 P.R.O. ‘Note by the Board of Admiralty on the action taken on Naval Questions by the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence’, 16 July 1906. Ibid.
60 P.R.O. Slade to Ottley, 2 Aug. 1907. Ibid.
61 Carnock Papers. Chirol to Nicolson, 13 Feb. 1909. F.O. 800/343.
