December 2010 Meeting
Prince Frederick, Duke of York
The first member to speak on this Member’s night was Graham Cope. Graham has been interested in the Napoleonic period since he was young, but in the last four years he became interested in the Duke of York specifically, after reading the chapter on him in Mark Urban’s book, ‘Generals’.
Born on 16th August 1763, Prince Frederick was the second son of King George III, a year and a day younger than Prince George. Frederick was the favourite son, out of fifteen siblings! His father gave his children many honours, making Frederick the Bishop of Osnabruck when he was only six months old – the youngest ever bishop!
He studied military training in Hannover between 1780 and 1787 and in that time met Frederick the Great, after whom he was named.
The French Revolution culminated in the execution in 1793 of Louis XVI and France declared war on England. King George sent an expeditionary force to the Netherlands to support the Allies, with Frederick in command. They set out in February 1793 and operating under the Austrian Prince Coburg.
On 23rd May they defeated the French at Famars and carried out a successful siege at Valenciennes in July, after which the Austrians headed south and Frederick went to Dunkirk and laid seige to the town from 24th August to 8th September. While this siege should have been easy, the Prime Minister, Pitt, refused to provide adequate supplies and the seige guns Frederick demanded never arrived. The Fre nch managed to reinforce the garrison and thus Frederick was force to abandon the seige.
On the 13th September an action at Boxtel provided the first military experience of one Arthur Wellesley, later to become the Duke of Wellington.
The war continued into 1794, with Frederick commanding a successful cavalry charge at Le Cateau to capture French guns and on 10th May 23,000 French were routed at Willems, with 500 killed, against just 40 English losses.
The successes were shortlived, however. On 18th May the Allies were defeated at Tourcoing, with 5,000 men lost. This proved a turning point, with the British press beginning to rise against the hierarchy of the army, the cartoons of Cruikshank, among others, showing bloated officers gorging and drinking while their men were poorly treated. Also leadership quality had declined, with young boys placed as officers due to family influence rather than aptitude.
By November 1794 Frederick’s army had withdrawn to Belgium and was eventually Frederick himself was withdrawn from service.
In February 1795 Frederick was appointed Commander in Chief at Horse Guards and spent the next thirty-two years improving the army training, he set up Sandhurst and provided care for veterans and widows.
He established himself as ‘The Soldiers’ Friend’.
Over this period the English army was transformed from a rag-tag army into the best army in Europe, enabling the defeat of Napoleon.
On a personal level Frederick had many affairs and major gambling debts. One affair, with Mary Ann Clarke, culminated in their being accused of taking bribes for army commissions in 1809. While an investigation proved him innocent, he had to resign and was only reinstated in 1811.
Despite all this, at his death in 1827 he had a State Funeral and a column and statue was erected on Regents Street, on the site of King George IV’s house.
The Belgian Relief Fund
James then spoke on the history of The Belgian Relief Fund.
Prior to the outbreak of the First World War Belgium was a prosperous manufacturing nation, however domestic food production only satisfied around a third of the country’s needs and Belgium was dependent to a large extent on international trade. However, with strong allies around it and good trade routes by land and sea, Belgium was secure and confident...
By the end of 1914 all of this had changed. The German occupation brought crippling economic impacts. The transport network was annexed, leaving towns and villages marooned, unable to travel and unable to find out what was going on in other parts of the country. Pillaging, whether officially sanctioned or not left civilians without valuables or savings. German soldiers were then billeted with Belgian families, who were required to feed them in preference to themselves.
Belgium was then burdened with formidable war contributions. A declaration on 10th December 1914 required Belgium to pay eight million dollars every month in 1915, a total of ninety-six million dollars – this was more than six times the amount of direct taxes collected by the Belgian state, direct taxes that, naturally, the German administration continued to collect...
Within a very short time the Belgian population was facing actual starvation.
A Central Relief Committee was formed in Brussels under the American and Spanish ministers to Belgium, to appeal to the wider world for aid to prevent a human catastrophe.
Herbert Clark Hoover was an American mining engineer, but with excellent contacts with the great and the good of American society and around the world. He had just been appointed to organise the safe repatriation of the 120,000 Americans who were in Europe at the outbreak of war.
“I did not realise it at the moment, but on August 3, 1914, my career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life.”
When the Central Relief Committee appeals reached the American ambassador in England he directed them to Hoover who immediately took the matter up with great vigour.
At the beginning of November 1914 the CRB announced the receipt of its first shipment of food from the US and revealed ongoing requirements would be for 60,000 tons of grain, 15,000 tons of maize and 3,000 tons of rice and peas every month!
For the next two years Hoover worked 14 hour days from London, administering the distribution of over two and a half million tons of food to nine million war victims.
Making up a large proportion of this relief was the 697 million pounds of flour, packed in cotton sacks by American and Canadian mills. The movement of these sacks throughout Belgium was carefully controlled since cotton was in great demand for the manufacture of German ammunition. As a result they were carefully accounted for an sent to professional schools, sewing workrooms, convents and artists.
The flour sacks were used by these various Belgian groups to make new clothing, accessories, pillows, bags and other functional items. Many women chose to embroider over the mill logo and brand name of the flour, with further embelishments of messages of gratitude the the American people, Belgian and American flags, the Belgian lion and American eagle. These decorated sacks were then given as gifts to members of the CRB, or sold to raise money. James has several examples in his collection of trench art.