Surrealpolitik

Surrealpolitik: Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War

Authors: Gerry Docherty, Jim Macgregor

London: Mainstream Publishing (2013)

Quick Summary

The story of how World War I was actually started not by Germany, but mainly by England, drawing Russia and France into the conspiracy and ingeniously forcing Germany into a corner where it could be blamed for the war and then crushed. England feared Germany as an industrial and imperial rival and reckoned the best thing to do was destroy it the old-fashioned way. Many of the tricks of the trade in use today by warmongers were in evidence during the pre-WWI period, e.g.: -- secret society/Deep State manipulating events behind the scenes ("a small clique of determined men who set out to dominate the world") -- control/scope-limitation of any inquiries -- influence over both major political parties so as to weather any electoral fickleness -- control over membership of important committees and advisors (defense, intelligence) -- "triple penetration": control of politics, the media, and education, i.e., the power to shape narratives and world views -- circumventing of normal constitutional political processes via lies and secrecy -- stirring up of "false flag" events to create pretexts (e.g., Jan Smuts stirring up trouble in the Transvaal in a pretend anti-British way while secretly working for Milner et al)

Quotes

There are 15 quotes currently associated with this book.

The plan laid on the table was relatively simple. A secret society would be formed and run by a small, close-knit clique. The leader was to be Cecil Rhodes. He and his accomplices constructed the secret organization around concentric circles, with an inner core of trusted associates -- 'The Society of the Elect' -- who unquestionably knew that they were members of an exclusive cabal devoted to taking and holding power on a worldwide scale. A second outer circle, larger and quite fluid in its membership, was to be called 'The Association of Helpers'. At this level of involvement, members may or may not have been aware that they were either an integral part of or inadvertently being used by a secret society. Many on the outer edges of the group, idealists and honest politicians, may never have known that the real decisions were made by a ruthless clique about whom they had no knowledge...Secrecy was the cornerstone. (page 18)
Tags: [Conspiracy]
William Stead, Rhodes' close associate in the secret society, represented a new force in political influence: the power of affordable newspapers that spread their views to ever-increasing numbers of working men and women. (page 20-21)
Tags: [Media]
These then were the architects who provided the necessary prerequisites for the secret society to take root, expand and grow into the collective Secret Elite. Rhodes brought them together and regularly refined his will to ensure that they would have financial backing. Stead was there to influence public opinion, and Esher acted as the voice of the king. Salisbury and Rosebery provided the political networks, while Rothschild represented the international money power. Milner was the master manipulator, the iron-willed, assertive intellectual who offered that one essential factor: strong leadership. The heady mix of international finance, political manipulation and the control of government policy was at the heart of this small clique of determined men who set out to dominate the world.

What this privileged clique intended might well have remained hidden from public scrutiny had Professor Carroll Quigley not unmasked it as the greatest influence in British political history in the twentieth century. The ultimate goal was to bring all habitable portions of the world under their control. Everything they touched was about control: of people and how their thoughts could be influenced; of political parties, no matter who was nominally in office. The world's most important and powerful leaders in finance and business were part and parcel of this secret world, as would be the control of history: how it was written and how information would be made available. All of this had to be accomplished in secret -- unofficially, with an absolute minimum of written evidence, which is, as you will see, why so many official records have been destroyed removed or remain closed to public examination, even in an era of 'freedom of information'. (page 29)
Tags: [Conspiracy]
[From the first of Cecil Rhodes' seven wills:] The establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonization by British subjects of all lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire continent of Africa...the whole of South America...the whole United States of America, as an integral part of the British Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity. (page 31)
Tags: [Conspiracy]
The uprising never materialized, for the Uitlanders were neither as unhappy nor as oppressed as Flora Shaw portrayed in The Times. Word of the intended raid had been leaked in Johannesburg, and President Kruger had his forces ready. Jameson and his men were surrounded and captured. The entire venture was a fiasco...

In London, Rothschild, Esher, Stead and Milner met urgently to determine the Secret Elite strategy of denial. Barefaced lies were presented as truth. Chamberlain secretly visited Jameson in prison, and the good doctor agreed to keep his counsel...Sir Graham Bower from the Colonial Office was persuaded to offer himself as a scapegoat. Bower, who had personally handled negotiations between London and South Africa, agreed to lie before the committee by insisting that Chamberlain knew nothing about Jameson's raid. Edward Fairfield, another Colonial Office civil servant who had handled the London end of the negotiations, refused to follow Bower's lead and give false testimony. What incredibly good fortune for Chamberlain, Rhodes and the Secret Elite that Fairfield died suddenly from a 'stroke'.

In a manner that would become a regular occurrence down the years, every major witness who appeared before the select committee lied under oath. Prime Minister Salisbury, a member of the inner circle, insisted that Chamberlain himself should sit on the committee. When witnesses refused to produce documents or respond to questions, they were not pressed for answers. Whole fields of inquiry were excluded. The Secret Elite were thus able to whitewash all of the participants save Leander Starr Jameson, whose position was impossible. He had after all been caught in flagrante. He accepted sole responsibility and spent just a few weeks in prison. (page 35-36)
Tags: [Conspiracy, Disinformation]
The German Kaiser sent a telegram on 3 January 1896 to Paul Kruger congratulating him on preserving the independence of his country [the Transvaal] 'without the need to call for aid from his friends'. Kaiser Wilhelm's telegram was portrayed in Britain as a veiled threat of Germany's willingness to support the Boers in any struggle against the Empire. The jingoistic British press raised a lasting storm of anti-German sentiment. The Times misconstrued the kaiser's note as an example of brazen German interference and proclaimed: 'England will concede nothing to menaces and will not lie down under insult.' The windows of shops owned by Germans in London were smashed, and German sailors attacked in the streets. In sharp contrast, the German diplomatic response was conciliatory. Taken aback by such unexpected reaction, Wilhelm replied to a letter from his grandmother, Queen Victoria: 'Never was the telegram intended as a step against England or your Government...'

But the tide of public opinion had been turned and it was in no mood to turn back. 'A tawdry jingoism filled the air' and a new respect was found for Cecil Rhodes and Dr Jameson. The Secret Elite propaganda machine turned Jameson's violence into an act of heroism and converted a shambolic, potentially very damaging incident to their advantage. Jameson, the butcher of the Matabele, was rewarded with a directorship of the British South Africa Company and would later be made prime minister of Cape Colony. (page 37)
Tags: [Propaganda, Conspiracy, Media]
On 14 April 1897, Milner set out for South Africa on a personal crusade to make it as loyally British as the garden of England. He would remain there for eight years, cement his role as leader and build a team of brilliant young acolytes to drive the Secret Elite agenda forward over the next 30 years. His mission was absolutely clear: govern South Africa, all of it, remove Boer obstacles to complete British domination and take the Transvaal's gold. Milner knew it would mean all-out war. He also knew that the only way to make such a war acceptable to the Cabinet and British public was to portray Kruger's Boers as the aggressors. (page 38-39)
Tags: [Propaganda, Conspiracy, Disinformation, Gaslighting]
Jan Smuts...warrants considered attention. Prior to the Jameson Raid, Smuts had been Cecil Rhodes' close friend, trusted confidant and personal agent in Kimberley. The 27-year-old Cambridge-trained lawyer believed passionately in South African unity under British rule...Then he completely changed tack...[H]e abandoned his political philosophy, denounced his good friend Rhodes and reinvented himself. His conversion from Anglophile to Anglophobe was conveniently explained as a 'road to Damascus' moment. Born again as Rhodes's most vociferous critic, his violent anti-British agitation and uncompromising support for Kruger quickly yielded results. Despite his age and lack of experience, Kruger made him state attorney in Transvaal and his chief political advisor...

Smuts constant provocation of the Uitlanders was strangely at odds with President Kruger's attempts to calm the rising unrest...While the president was granting concessions and attempting to dampen down agitation from the anti-Boer press, Smuts seriously undermined him by arresting newspaper editors sympathetic to the Uitlander cause. Smuts was hell-bent on stirring Uitlander outrage. Strange indeed that in so short a time Rhodes' former close friend and ally was doing everything in his power to ensure that Milner got the one thing he and Rhodes most desperately wanted: war. ...

Years later, the Secret Elite held a banquet in Smuts' honor in the Houses of Parliament, with Milner sitting at his right-hand side. Smuts was always one of them. (page 41-42, 54)
Tags: [Conspiracy]
Set up as part of Kitchener's attempt to win the war, the concentration camps were by any standard abominable. From November 1900, the British Army had introduced new tactics in an attempt to break the Boers' guerrilla campaign. Kitchener initiated plans to flush out guerrillas in a series of systematic drives, organized like a sporting shoot, with success defined in a weekly 'bag' of killed, captured and wounded. The country was swept bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children. Some 30,000 Boer farms were burned to the ground and their animals slaughtered. It was the clearance of civilians, virtually ethnic cleansing, uprooting a whole nation, that would come to dominate the public's perception of the last phase of the war.

A total of 45 camps were built for Boer internees and 64 for native Africans. Of 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, almost all were set overseas. The vast majority in the camps were women and children. Inadequate shelter, poor diet, total lack of hygiene and overcrowding led to malnutrition and endemic contagious diseases such as measles, typhoid and dysentery. Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, over 26,000 women and children were to perish in the British concentration camps. (page 47)
Tags: [Rationality, Ruthlessness]
What marked out these young men, a collection of mere minor colonial administrators in 1902, is how their careers blossomed under the patronage of Alfred Milner and the Secret Elite...[T]hey would all go on to high office in the British government and international finance, and become the dominant influence in British imperial and foreign affairs for the next 40 years.

The unrelenting litany of political, academic and journalistic achievement of the men from Milner's Kindergarten is unparalleled. Ponder for a second on the likelihood of such success from any random group of university graduates in ay period of history. They became viceroys, secretaries of state, permanent secretaries, governors general, ambassadors, knights of the realm, managing directors, bankers, industrialists, Members of Parliament, Members of the House of Lords, editors of major newspapers, professors of history, members of war cabinets, writers and guardians of the great imperial dream. These men were recruited by Alfred Milner, moulded, trusted and proven able. They went on to become the Secret Elite's imperial guard, the physical proof of its triple penetration of politics, the media and education. (page 51-52)
Tags: [Conspiracy]
The problem for Milner was that he underestimated the impact that allegations of slavery and reports of vicious floggings would have on even his trusted Liberal friends like Asquith. Indeed, Milner was at times such a driven man that he failed to take account of the weight of opposition ranged against him. He warned his friend, Richard Haldane: 'If we are to build up anything in South Africa, we must disregard, and absolutely disregard, the screamers.' (page 53)
Tags: [Rationality, Lead Quote Candidate, Ruthlessness]
Irrespective of any change of government at general elections, the Secret Elite had to pursue a consistent foreign policy focused on preparing for a war that would see Germany crushed and the problem removed. To this end, both major political parties in Britain had to be under their control, whatever differences they might profess in domestic affairs. (page 62)
Tags: [Truth & Real, Conspiracy]
Ultimate responsibility for British foreign policy lay, by precedent, with the elected government and not the sovereign, but it was King Edward VII who enticed both France and Russia into secret alliances with Britain within six short years....France and Russia were needed in a new capacity: as Britain's friends and allies. This was agreed in secret by the Secret Elite without the knowledge or consent of the Cabinet. The alliances would have been unacceptable to most Members of Parliament and the general public but were enacted for one single purpose: to throttle Germany. There was no real opposition to be voiced, because the real opposition did not know it was happening. (page 66)
Tags: [Conspiracy]
[O]n 8 April 1904, the Entente Cordiale was signed. It marked the end of an era of conflict between England and France that had lasted nearly a thousand years. Isolation from the continent of Europe was formally abandoned. On the surface, the entente brought the two countries closer without any commitment to a formal military alliances. The talk was of peace and prosperity, but secret clauses signed that same day were to have very different consequences...The real purpose behind the entente was war with Germany. Why else were the secret clauses signed on 8 April 1904 hidden from Parliament, from public knowledge and from other governments? (page 70)
Tags: [Conspiracy]
One of the most important features of the Secret Elite plan for war was to keep an iron grip on foreign policy...To this end, a permanent Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) was established by Arthur Balfour. This secretive and very exclusive group first met in 1902 as an advisory committee to the prime minister on matters of national defence but was re-formed permanently in 1904...Esher recognized the strategic importance of the CID and the absolute necessity that its work remained hidden and at all times under the control of the Secret Elite. Afraid that a change of government would result in a radical element within the Liberal Party gaining control of the CID, Esher pressed the prime minister to appoint trusted agents like Milner, Field Marshall Lord Roberts, and Roberts' up-and-coming protégé, Sir John French, as well as himself, as permanent members. Balfour partly acceded. He sanctioned the appointment of both Esher and Sir John French to limitless tenure in the CID, and at a stroke the Cabinet was literally eclipsed from discussion on questions of defence. (page 72-73)
Tags: [Conspiracy]