15 June 1916 HMS Hampshire sinks killing Lord Kitchener

[TonyGosling]

Death of WW1 poster icon Lord Kitchener remains shrouded in conspiracy theories 100 years on
An assassin, a stock market scam or a new life as Stalin? The death of the man behind the famous wartime recruitment posters remains a mystery
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/death-ww1-poster-icon-lord-811143 1

BY WARREN MANGER 21:15, 3 JUN 2016UPDATED21:17, 3 JUN 2016

The iconic recruitment posters during the First World War made him one of the most recognisable faces in British history.

Lord Kitchener’s moustachioed face and steely eyes stared down from every street corner and shop window, accompanied by the words: “Your country needs you.”

So when he died suddenly and mysteriously 100 years ago tomorrow, there were as many conspiracy theories as surrounded JFK’s assassination almost 50 years later.

Some claimed Kitchener was murdered by the Government, killed in a conspiracy masterminded by Winston Churchill to make a fortune on the stock market... or he fled to Russia and became Joseph Stalin.

While the nation mourned – and gossiped about – a national hero, his family grieved for 65-year-old Uncle Herbert.

His great-great-niece Lady Emma Kitchener, who is married to Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, says: “There have many been great conspiracies but the family always saw it more as a great personal loss and a great loss to the nation.

“My gran and great-aunt both remembered seeing him before he left for Russia, he invited them for tea. He was a very loving and caring uncle. He was a really big part of their lives.

"There was a sense of shock when Uncle Herbert died. The memorial service, public procession and all the razzmatazz was equal to if not greater than Churchill’s. Churchill was very old when he died and his work was done. Uncle Herbert died in the middle of his work and there was a sense of panic.”

A vastly experienced Field Marshal, Kitchener was appointed War Secretary at the start of the First World War and played a vital role in preparing Britain for the biggest conflict in its history.

But sent on a secret mission to Russia in 1916, his ship HMS Hampshire sank near Orkney on June 5. On Sunday, Emma and Julian will attend the dedication of a new memorial wall on Orkney bearing the names of all 650 who died.

Lady Emma says: “It will be moving to look out across the sea and think about what happened, and to wonder what might have happened if they had not died.”

Julian adds: “Kitchener used all his experience to create an army that would win the First World War. That’s why it was called Kitchener’s Army.

"Nobody else understood how long the war would be, everyone else thought it would last a few months. He said it would last four years.

“He was a godsend. Talk about cometh the hour, cometh the man.”

By the time the First World War began, Kitchener had been at the heart of British politics and empire for 40 years.

At 24, he helped shape the future Middle East when he was sent to map the Holy Land. The point where his map finished eventually became the modern border between Israel and Lebanon.

By 33 he was a captain in the British Army, rising to major-general during the final years of the 19th century and leading the annihilation of the dervish army that rose up at Khartoum in Sudan.

And he cemented his ruthless reputation at the turn of the century in South Africa, where thousands of Boer families were put in newly invented concentration camps.

Stints as military commander in India and Egypt enhanced Kitchener’s status as an emblem of the British Empire and images of his huge handlebar moustache even appeared on tins of biscuits. Even Julian admits: “There are chunks of Kitchener’s life that would make a great drama.”

As the First World War kicked off in 1914, despite not being a politician, he was appointed Minister of War.


HMS Hampshire
Kitchener was en route to Russia on HMS Hampshire (Photo: Wikipedia)

By 1916 Kitchener had performed a minor miracle in keeping the British Army at full strength in the face of appalling casualty figures. The thousands of volunteers he attracted were rudely referred to as Kitchener’s Mob.

But his position was undermined by the scandalous shortage of shells and he made enemies of several senior politicians, including future PM David Lloyd George.

Kitchener once said: “The trouble with politicians is they are sworn to secrecy, then go home and tell everything to their wives. Except Lloyd George, who tells everyone else’s.”

When the Easter Rising in Ireland forced Lloyd George to withdraw from a vital diplomatic mission to Russia, Kitchener jumped at the chance to replace him.

He travelled to Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, where the British fleet was recovering after the bloody naval battle at Jutland, and boarded HMS Hampshire.

But a violent storm forced the ship’s escorts to turn back, leaving it isolated and exposed.

On the evening of June 5 there was a huge explosion and the HMS Hampshire upended “Titanic style” before sinking in 200 feet of water in just 20 minutes. Only a dozen men survived.

Boer soldier turned German spy Fritz Joubert Duquesne was quick to claim credit.

The former big game hunter claimed he had already tried to kill Kitchener in Johannesburg by infiltrating the army and leading an assassination squad.

Capt. Fritz Duquesne
German spy Fritz Joubert Duquesne claimed he sank the ship
This time he said he posed as a Russian duke to board HMS Hampshire and signalled a German U-boat to sink the ship before fleeing in a lifeboat. He claimed he was awarded the Iron Cross and was photographed wearing the medal.

But history professor Brad Faught, who recently released the book Kitchener: Hero and Anti-Hero, is not convinced.

He says: “Duquesne seems to have been a serially opportunistic attention seeker.” Others believed the Russian communists betrayed the details of Kitchener’s secret mission to the Germans as neither side wanted him to boost the Tsar’s army.

But some claimed it was actually the British who murdered their own War Secretary, as he had served his purpose in recruiting a new army and his political opponents wanted him out of the way. That theory was fuelled by locals on Orkney, who claimed they were prevented from using their lifeboats.

Oscar Wilde’s ex-lover Lord Alfred Douglas even claimed Churchill was involved in a conspiracy to kill Kitchener and misrepresent Britain’s victory at Jutland as a defeat, to undermine share prices, meaning business associates could buy cheap and sell at an enormous profit.

British poet Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas
British poet Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas claimed Churchill plotted to kill Kitchener for financial reasons (Photo: Getty)
Churchill convinced Westminster to launch a libel action to clear his name and Douglas was jailed for six months.

Dr Faught says: “It was probably nothing more than a wild-eyed and spurious celebrity attack to implicate Churchill but it was salacious enough that it rocked the boat for a while.”

In 1926, journalist Frank Power claimed a fisherman found Kitchener’s body washed up in Norway and he brought a sealed coffin to the UK. It was felt an inquest was needed – and the coffin was opened to reveal it contained tar, used to mimic the weight of a body.

And there were more outlandish theories. Kitchener was a Freemason and some said the secret society helped him start a new life.


How the Mirror reported Kitchener's funeral
There were even claims he reached Russia and became Joseph Stalin, though this seemed to mostly be based on their similar facial characteristics.

Dr Faught says: “The conspiracy theories were partly a result of the shock the nation felt and a result of the secrecy about Kitchener’s mission and the remote location of his death.

"It was also largely about the inability to produce a body. They could never prove he died.

“But in terms of how people die in war, it was pretty conventional. The Battle of Jutland had just ended so he was sailing into a high risk area. One in particular, U-boat 75, set up a field of 20 or so mines and it seems the Hampshire tripped the field. It was a complete naval disaster but a conspiracy seems unlikely.”