By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The three 1939-40 coups to overthrow the British Government and place a Nazi puppet regime instead.

While, as we have seen, the Right Club’s plans for a coup d’état were interrupted in May 1940 by the arrest of Ramsay’s ‘Chief of Staff, Anna Wolkoff, a second organization led by pro-Nazi Fascist Leigh Vaughan-Henry officers from Special Branch MI5 arrested Henry seized the membership records for his organization – finding, amongst other names, that of Archibald Ramsay 1 – and discovered a receipt for “£250,000 Lee Enfield [rifles] made 1917, 1920” and “1939 Ammunition 303”2

Lee Enfield .303 bolt-action, magazine-fed rifles were the standard arms issued to British infantry. The apparent price of £250,000 – equivalent to £15 million today – would have purchased several thousand weapons and significant quantities of ammunition. The receipt also indicated that Henry had agreed to pay the freight cost on arrival at a UK port. 

Henry was detained under regulation 18b and interned for the duration of the war. Given the evidence of his conspiracy, the failure to charge him under the (then) new Treachery Act is puzzling. The detailed statements reported by Agents M/M and M/W provided more than enough to support a prosecution: indeed, other, less well-connected British traitors had been convicted on lesser evidence – and, before long, would be sent to the gallows for their crimes. 

No official explanation is available for the decision to spare him since his MI5 file – identified in other documents by the serial number PF 42909 and which ran to three volumes in the Security Service registry – has never been released. 

Similarly, the documents found in Henry’s flat, which detailed his coup plot, and the evidence that MI5 discovered concerning his purchase of firearms, are also missing. Although they are referred to in the Treasury Solicitors’ docket, the papers are absent - making it impossible to assess the breadth of his scheme or the names of all his co-conspirators. But the surviving records indicate that the plan existed, that it was severe, and that it seems to have been well advanced. 

 

The Bedford/Beckett Conspiracy

The third conspiracy, penetrated by MI5 agents and disclosed in de-classified Security Service files, appears to have been the most politically (as opposed to militarily) developed. Like those of Ramsay and Henry, it blossomed during the ‘phony war’ between September 1939 and May 1940 and similarly reached its apex in the fevered atmosphere of late Spring and early Summer that year. At its head were two prominent public figures, Hastings Russell and the former Independent Labour MPturned fascist, John Beckett.

In February 1940, Hastings William Sackville Russell was 52 years old and the 4th richest man in Britain. While waiting to come into his inheritance as the 12th Duke of Bedford, he enjoyed the courtesy title Lord Tavistock, a seat in the House of Lords, and the considerable privileges which his social status conferred.

Tavistock had been active in politics for much of the 1930s, flirting with socialism and communism before becoming enamored of the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany. He had also developed a near obsession with the need to reform international finance: this, according to an MI5 memo, “explains to some extent his sympathy for Hitler who he believes has abolished the capitalist system and imposed something in its place which at least resembles the Duke’s ideal of how our monetary system ought to be worked.”

This sympathy for Germany and its Führer led Tavistock to support the Austrian Anschluss in 1938 and thereafter to throw in his lot with a group of pro-Nazi fascists coalescing around John Beckett. The noble Lord’s money funded Beckett’s fascist organizations, the British Council for Christian Settlement in Europe, and its successor, the British People’s Party – both of which would trouble MI5 during the difficult days of May 1940.

Despite the very wide powers of suppression conferred by the 1939 Defence Regulations, the expression of dissenting opinions about the war was not, in itself, an offense. Communicating or consorting with the enemy, however, was unquestionably unlawful. Regulation 18b authorized the Home Secretary to order the arrest of anyone whom he had “reasonable cause to believe” had “hostile associations” or was a member of an organization that had “associations with persons concerned in the government of, or sympathies with, the system of government of, any Power with which His Majesty is at war.”

In February 1940, Tavistock (as he then still was) chose to ignore these prohibitions and made arrangements to travel to Dublin for a meeting with officials of the German Legation. He aimed to negotiate peace terms between Britain and the Third Reich – a draft agreement of which he and Beckett planned to publish in the pages of the Daily Express as a means to ‘bounce’ the British Government into accepting Hitler’s terms.52

MI5 got wind of the scheme through informants it had inserted inside the British Council for Christian Settlement in Europe. However, at first, MI5 appears to have been kept somewhat in the dark by its masters in Whitehall; it did not know that Tavistock’s mission had been given semi-official sanction nor that some of the most senior figures in government were turning a blind eye to treason. Since the outbreak of war, anyone – aristocrat or commoner - seeking to travel outside Britain’s borders needed an official exit permit, stamped by the Foreign Office and which stated the purpose of the journey. There is no indication in Tavistock’s suspiciously heavily-weeded MI5 files that he applied for, or was granted, any such authorization – although he and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, were clearly in frank correspondence; in a letter Tavistock wrote in January 1940, he asked Halifax to remember “that even in our boyhood the German Jew was a byword for all that was objectionable”6. And a subsequent internal Security Service memo suggests that the Foreign Secretary was aware of the Dublin trip before it happened.

“Through some means, which has not been ascertained, he [Tavistock] obtained from some German source, almost certainly through the German Embassy in Dublin, what he conceived to be the peace terms which Hitler was prepared to accept … Lord Halifax refused to give any assurance that the matter would be followed up; and the Duke, after some correspondence, asked if there would be any objection to his going to Dublin to visit the German Legation and to ask for such proofs of authenticity as Lord Halifax might consider necessary to establish the position. Lord Halifax informed the Duke that he could not prevent him from going to Dublin if he wished to do so but that there could be no question of him being entrusted with any mission. On receipt of this information, the Duke proceeded to Dublin.”755

Halifax’s claim that he was powerless to prevent Tavistock from meeting and negotiating with officials of a country where Britain was at war was nonsense. Not only did the Foreign Secretary have complete authority to block the exit visa, but even attempting to make contact with Nazi officials in Eire was a severe criminal offense: the following year, two Dundee youths would be jailed for three months each for trying – unsuccessfully - to telephone the German Legation in Dublin as a prank.8

No official record of the terms Tavistock brought back from Dublin. The copy included initially in his file is missing, and German diplomats subsequently disowned them; however, a report by one of MI5’s undercover agents indicates that for the price of Hitler stepping aside “to a nominal post in the government of the Third Reich”, an acknowledgment of “mistakes” in the handling of “the Semitic problem” and withdrawal from Poland and Czechoslovakia, Germany would halt its plans for invading Britain.9 

After being found out and named in the Commons, he wrote to one of his accusers, Brigadier-General Edward Spears MP, to justify his actions and, for good measure, to defend both Hitler and Germany’s “exceedingly reasonable” demands for territory.

Other, lesser mortals had been – and continued to be - interned under Regulation 18b for expressing such naked pro-German sympathies. Still, Tavistock’s lineage and privilege appear to have been crucial in insulating him from detention. In the months to come, the Home Office would display a remarkable eagerness to prevent his name from being discussed in other cases heard by the Appeals Committee on internment, and the best the Security Service could achieve was his name being placed on the secret list of those to be detained if, or when, Germany invaded Britain. It gave a stark explanation for this:

“In the event of the Duke [of Windsor] falling into the hands of the enemy, he would be likely to be set up as a Gauleiter or the head of a puppet British Government.”10

But there was an additional impediment to taking action over Tavistock’s trip to Dublin: he was not the only informal peace mission to which the Foreign Office turned a blind eye.

James Lonsdale Bryans was a 46-year-old self-described author (though he had no British publishing history supporting the claim). He was, however, impeccably upper-class: he counted Eton and Balliol as his alma maters. He cited Brooks – the haunt of aristocratic politicians for more than a century – as his London Club. He was a vehemently anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi fascist and believed that it was Germany’s right to rule Europe, leaving Britain free rein throughout the rest of the world.

Between September 1939 and the end of February 1940, Bryans embarked on two attempts to communicate directly with the Führer and to bring back to London peace terms acceptable to the Third Reich; both were backed financially by two notable aristocratic fascists, Lord Brockett and the Duke of Buccleugh.11 On both occasions – despite a growing file inside MI5’s registry, which showed him to be known for “views sympathetic to Hitler” - he secured exit permits to travel to Mussolini’s Italy. The second trip, in particular, was specifically authorized at the highest levels of the Foreign Office. According to a Security Service report:

“A second exit permit was granted to him on the 8th January to proceed to Rome … This permit was granted at the request of Mr. C.G.S. Stevenson, Private Secretary to Lord Halifax, who requested that all possible facilities should be granted to Bryans. When Bryans visited the Passport Office he informed [the officials] that it might be assumed he was undertaking some special work for the Foreign Office.”12

In reality, Bryans’ travels had a rather different purpose: he was – according to a letter he had sent to a German publishing company – attempting to gain “an audience with the Führer,” who, he said, was “a man … of faith and genius”.13 His contact and go-between was a Danish Abwehr agent, Ole Erik Andersen; according to a report of MI5’s subsequent interrogation of Andersen, 14

“Bryans told him about his contacts with Lord Halifax, and he impressed upon him that actually, all his travels were at the request of this gentleman … The interrogation boils down to the following: A person, now at large, can impress upon neutrals, who apparently believe him, that, with the help of wealthy friends and on commission for the Foreign Secretary of State, he is going to propose to Hitler that England should between them divide Europe.”15

The seditious Lord Tavistock, James Lonsdale Bryans, Lord Brockett, and the Duke of Buccleugh let go off.

Yet James Lonsdale Bryans, like his sponsors, Lord Brockett and the Duke of Buccleugh – and the equally-traitorous Lord Tavistock – never spent a single day in prison. Although MI5 argued for the internment, if not prosecution, of aristocratic traitors, their wealth, status, and connections in government protected them from the laws applied to less elevated British fascists. In Tavistock’s case, this leniency led him to finance John Beckett’s plans for a coup d’état.

Beckett earned notoriety when he became the first MP in the history of Parliament to seize the House of Commons ceremonial mace during an ill-tempered debate. Parliamentary staff wrestled it from him; he was ‘named’ by the Speaker for “disorderly conduct” and briefly suspended.16 

He traveled geographically and politically, enthusiastically touring Mussolini’s Italy and subsequently joining the British Union of Fascists. It appointed him Director of Publications, a post which put him in the editor’s chair of both the organization’s publications, Action and The Blackshirt; according to an MI5 memo, he was provided with “a budget of £210 per week 68 to maintain the British Union of Fascists (BUF) periodicals.”

In December 1936, Beckett acquired a criminal record and a fine for creating a disturbance outside Buckingham Palace during the abdication crisis of King Edward VIII. Five months later, Beckett and his closest colleague, the BUF’s Director of Propaganda William Joyce –soon to be notorious as the renegade Nazi propaganda broadcaster Lord Haw - was sacked by Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, and set up the National Socialist League. Beckett’s unpublished autobiography, obtained by MI5, shows that he had adopted revolutionary fascism as a creed by then.

After William Joyce fled to Berlin, Beckett set up a new organization, The British Council Against European Commitments (later renamed the British Council for Christian Settlement in Europe) – in reality, “a front organization for every fascist, neo-fascist and anti-Semite in London”, according to his son.18 This was rapidly subsumed into the British People’s Party, founded by Lord Tavistock and led by Beckett and Captain Robert Gordon-Canning, formerly the BUF’s Director of Overseas Policy (and who had been best man at Mosley’s 1936 wedding to Diana Mitford - an event which had taken place in the unusual surroundings of Joseph Goebbels’ drawing room).

According to MI5’s surviving files  Robert Gordon-Canning, acted as an intermediary between British fascists and Nazi officials and, in April 1937, had passed “secret information to Germany and Italy”19 The same dossiers included evidence that he had privately promised to help German forces if, or when, they landed in Britain.

The activities of Beckett, Gordon-Canning, and Tavistock attracted the attention of MI5, which dispatched a succession of undercover operatives to penetrate BCCSE and feedback intelligence on its leaders. The first of these – from an agent codenamed M/B – reported that, according to Beckett, “the British Council for Christian Settlement in Europe, has a membership of 1500 members, 300 in London and 1200 in the provinces”. But more worrying than the rapid membership growth indicated that it was in the early stages of planning for an armed fascist uprising.

“Beckett has stated that he is making intensive efforts to obtain contacts in H.M. Forces so that when the time is ripe, there [sic] persons will – to quote Beckett’s actual words – ‘turn their rifles in the right direction.”20

Between May 22 and May 24, Beckett, Gordon-Canning, and other BCCSE officials were arrested and interned under Defence Regulation 18b; the orders – signed, as required by the Home Secretary, cited their “hostile associations” and pronounced them to be a threat to the safety of the Realm. Unaccountably, alone of the organization’s leaders, Lord Tavistock was not detained nor even questioned.

The British Council for Christian Settlement in Europe posed a genuine threat, evidenced by a letter found in the raid on its offices. This highly detailed document – written by Beckett on May 22, 1940, and addressed to Tavistock at his Scottish estate – set out plans to replace the Government with a Quisling cabinet of Nazi sympathizers once German troops conquered Britain.

“I have had conversations with key people who realize the situation, and there is a consensus that you are the only person around whom we could build an alternative government in time. I cannot say more than this by letter and have probably said too much, but I consider it necessary that you be here as soon as possible for consultation with various people.” 21

Beckett went on to list the names of the most senior figures in this proposed “Coalition Government of National Security”. Tavistock was to be Prime Minister, Moseley the Leader of the House and “President of Council,” while Gordon-Canning would be rewarded with the control of all British Dominions.

Beckett reserved the crucial posts of Home Secretary and minister for “National Security.” Other aristocratic names from the fascist movement featured prominently in the roll call of ministers-to-be. Lord Lymington and the Duke of Buccleugh were to take charge of Food and Agriculture and the War Office, respectively, while senior Right Club figures were to be given junior ministerial posts.

The most disturbing element, however, was the apparent involvement of two of Britain’s most senior military leaders in Beckett’s plan for a Quisling Government. General John “Boney” Fuller was to be appointed Minister of Defence. Beckett was also expecting Fuller’s long-time friend and sponsor, General Edmund Ironside, to join the coup. According to a report from MI5’s Agent M/M

“M/M had a long talk with Beckett shortly before he was detained under 18b order. Beckett discussed General Ironside and said that he knew the General favored Fascism. Asked how he knew this, Beckett said he had been told so by Gordon-Canning and by a General “who is one of us.” According to Beckett, General Ironside would not come out into the open until the moment comes, but may soon be approached.”22

What makes these documents even more remarkable is their complete absence from the official histories of pro-Nazi fascists in Britain. Although Beckett and GordonCanning would challenge their detentions in the courts, their detailed plans for a Nazi puppet regime were never revealed.

Further, of the 39 putative puppet government ministers listed – at least half of whom were peers or knights of the realm – 32 were the subject of Security Service attention and have PF-series76 file numbers handwritten beside their names on MI5’s copy of Beckett’s list. Yet to date, only four of those files have been released to the UK National Archives. 

 

Continued in Part Six

 

1. Memo by Insp. Arthur Cain, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, June 13, 1940.  National Archives file TS/27533.

2. Leigh Vaughn-Henry: Reasons for Internment, November 28, 1940. National Archives file TS/27533. Op. cit.

3. 50 Ibid.

4. MI5 note of Special Branch report 29 February 1940. John Beckett. National Archives file KV 2 1508.

6. Hastings Russell, Lord Tavistock: “The Fate of a Peace Effort”, BCCSE, March 1940.

7. Memo by Edward Blanshard Stamp, 5 December 1941. The Duke of Bedford, National Archives file KV 2/793.

8. On 24 June 1941, Robert Webster Ireland and Gordon Archer (21and 17 years old respectively) pleaded guilty to “attempting to communicate with persons at the German legation in Dublin,” making a single attempt at telephoning the German Legation in Dublin. Perth Sheriff’s Court heard that they made the call “as a prank”; nonetheless, Sheriff Valentine jailed both young men and pronounced that “an attempt by any persons to put themselves in communications with the enemies of this country must be sternly repressed”. Perthshire Advertiser, 25 June 1941.

9. Report by Agent “M/D”, 27 February 1940. John Beckett. National Archives file KV 2 1508. 58 Hansard: House of Commons, 4 March 1940, vol. 358 cc2-42.

10. Summary of the case against Hastings William Sackville Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford, 7 December 1941. The Duke of Bedford, National Archives file KV 2/793.

11. Walter John Montagu Douglas Scott, Eighth Duke of Buccleugh, was Lord Steward of the Royal Household, brother-in-law of the King’s younger brother, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. Despite an official ban, he and Arthur Nall-Cain, 2nd Baron Brockett, were Hitler’s guests at his 50th birthday celebrations and military parade in April 1939.

12. Report on James Lonsdale Bryans by Edward Blanshard Stamp, 27 March 1941. James Lonsdale Bryans. National Archives file KV 2/2839.

13. Letter from Oswald Harker, Deputy Director-General, MI5, to Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 13 December 1940. James Lonsdale Bryans. National Archives file KV 2/2839.

14. Andersen pulled off a Portugal-bound boat on the orders of MI6 in December 1940. He was found to be carrying letters, given to him by Bryans, from Lord Brockett and the Duke of Buccleuch. 

15. Report of interrogation of Ole Erik Andersen Dec 17, 1940. James Lonsdale Bryans. National Archives file KV 2/2839.

16. Hansard. House of Commons debate 17, July 1930.

17. Equivalent to £10,000 today.

18. File Note by Maxwell Knight’s B5b Branch, 29 February 1940. John and Anne Beckett. National Archives file KV 2/1508. 

19. Letter from Home Office Advisory Committee to MI5, October 26, 1940. Captain Robert Cecil Gordon Canning. National Archives files KV 2/877.

20. Report of Agent M/B, 13 January 1940. John and Anne Beckett. National Archives file KV 2/1508.

21. John Beckett: Letter to Lord Arnold, 22 May 1940. John and Anne Beckett. National Archives file KV 2/1511.

22. Report of Agent M/M, June 1, 1940. John and Anne Beckett. National Archives file KV 2/1511.

 

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