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CHAPTER 1

The Origins Revisited

We are lied to. Constantly. We live in a world where fake news has impacted on national elections, plebiscites and referenda to such an extent that the freedom of the Internet has been called into question. This is not a new phenomenon. Governments and historians, official versions of events and records have long been manipulated and falsified to deliberately misrepresent what happened and why.

Each of us faces the difficulty of overcoming cognitive dissonance if asked to accept that the history we learned in school or university is incorrect, inexact or heavily biased. The challenge is greater if invited to consider the possibility that accounts of our past have deliberately been written to mislead, and are outright lies peddled as truth.

We have all read books or watched movies which are "based on true events," but paid for and produced by those with a vested interest in influencing our understanding of what happened. A world-impacting disaster like the First World War provides such an example. How was it explained to you in school or in books you have read? We now know that the catastrophic events of August 1914 were not caused by the shootings at Sarajevo on 28 June when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated by a Bosnian student, yet that has been taught for generations and remains the stock answer to the question "what caused the First World War?" Alarmingly, despite all of the evidence now available to us, the myths continue to be repeated.

Read the following, please: "The war began with the assassination of ArchdukeFranz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914...." If we told you this was written by a reputable journalist for the Irish Times one hundred and more years after the event, would you be surprised? The story may have gained credence through constant repetition, but it remains a convenient myth.

The question is not why journalists or teachers tell us lies but, more generously, how do they get it so wrong? When our teachers studied at university were they mislead by their professors and tutors? Who directed the sources of "evidence" they used when writing essays or answering exam questions? Whomsoever controls the teaching of teachers, controls the understanding of future generations. If the facts are polluted by propaganda, by suppression and careful editing, limited by the removal or concealment of documents and reports, clouded by rewritten diaries and heavily censored autobiographies promoted by those who made fortunes through the financing of war – then it becomes increasingly difficult to slice through the lies and disinformation to find the truth.

And we in turn have difficulty in disbelieving the lies because these were the certainties on which we have built our understanding. This cognitive dissonance, the disharmony and psychological stress resulting from simultaneously holding conflicting beliefs, leads to an unwillingness to consider alternative evidence. It is hard to admit that what we have always believed is a lie. Realizing that there is a suppressed body of evidence which runs contrary to what we consider the truth, represents for all of us a major step in appreciating that we have been deliberately duped.

This book is the second in a series which introduces readers to a concept that is totally at odds with mainstream history, and very likely to induce cognitive dissonance. The disastrous First World War which began in August 1914 was caused by a small clique of Anglo-American conspirators, who then very deliberately and unnecessarily prolonged it beyond the Spring of 1915 by supplying Germany with food, munitions, oil and money. Their ultimate goal was the complete and utter destruction of the young, burgeoning Germany as an industrial, economic and imperial competitor, and they knew that it would require a prolonged miserable war of attrition to achieve that. They also knew that Germany, surrounded as she was by her enemies, could not sustain a long conflict. Chapter by chapter, we reveal in great detail exactly how the war was deliberately prolonged at the cost of tens of millions of lives.

We also reveal how this clique justified the war they had so carefully contrived, mobilized the establishment which supported them, sometimes reluctantly, and produced a range of highly sophisticated propaganda to win over neutrals, especially in America. As the lies, treachery and duplicity are unmasked, what is left in the wake of this awful war is both shameful and unforgivable. It involves hidden forces on both sides of the Atlantic and persists well past the November 11, 1918 date which traditionally commemorates the final day of war.

If this is the first time you have read about those genuinely responsible for causing the First World War, an overview of our book Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War will enable a clearer understanding of the individuals involved and their treacherous intent.

It is important from the outset to repeat that the received history of the First World War is a deliberately concocted lie. Not the sacrifice, the heroism, the horrendous waste of life or the misery that followed. No, these were very real, but the truth of how it all began and how it was unnecessarily and deliberately prolonged has been successfully covered up for a century. A carefully falsified history was created to conceal the fact that Britain, not Germany, was responsible for the war. Had the truth become widely known after 1918, the consequences for the British Establishment would have been cataclysmic.

The Causes, A Brief Synopsis from Hidden History

In the late nineteenth century a secret society of immensely rich and powerful men was established in London with the singular aim of expanding the British Empire across the entire world. They deliberately caused the South African War of 1899-1902 in order to grab the Transvaal's gold from the Boers. Their responsibility for that war, and the horror of British concentration camps in which 20,000 children died, have been airbrushed from official histories. The second stage of their global plan was destruction of their major economic rival, Germany.

Falsified history? Secret society? Twenty thousand children dying in British concentration camps? Britain responsible for the First World War? Should you jump immediately to the conclusion that this is some madcap conspiracy theory, please consider the work of Professor Carroll Quigley, one of the twentieth century's most highly respected historians. Quigley's greatest contribution to our understanding of modern history was presented in his book, The Anglo-American Establishment. It carried explosive details of how a secret society of international bankers, aristocrats and other powerful men controlled the levers of politics and finance in Great Britain and the United States. Professor Quigley explained that very few people knew about this because the cabal was able to conceal its existence and "many of its most influential members are unknown even to close students of British history."

Cecil Rhodes, the South African diamond millionaire, formed the secret society in London in 1891. As Professor Quigley wrote: "One wintry afternoon in February 1891, three men were engaged in earnest conversation in London. From that conversation were to flow consequences of the greatest importance to the British Empire and to the world as a whole. For these men were organizing a secret society that was for more than fifty years to be one of the most important forces in the formulation and execution of British imperial and foreign policy." No one outside the favored few knew of the society's existence. Members understood that the reality of power was much more important and effective than the appearance of power, because they belonged to a privileged class that understood how decisions were made, how governments were controlled and policy influenced. Party-political allegiance was not a given prerequisite for members; loyalty to the cause of Empire was. They have been variously referred to obliquely in speeches and books as the "Money Power," the "Hidden power" or the "Deep State." All of these labels are pertinent. We, however, have called them, collectively, the "Secret Elite."

The Secret Elite aimed to renew the bond between Great Britain and the United States, spread all they considered worthy in English ruling-class values and bring all habitable portions of the world under their influence and control. They believed that ruling-class men of Anglo-Saxon descent rightly sat at the top of a hierarchy built on predominance in trade, industry, banking and the exploitation of other races. Victorian England sat confidently at the pinnacle of international power, but could it stay there forever? That was the question which exercised serious debate in the great country houses and the expensive cigar-smoke-filled parlors of influence. The elites harbored a deep rooted fear that unless they acted decisively, British power and influence across the world would be eroded and replaced by foreigners, foreign business, foreign customs and laws. The choice was stark. Either take drastic steps to protect and further expand the British Empire, or accept that the new, burgeoning Germany might reduce it to a secondary player on the world's stage. In the years immediately after the Boer War, it became clear that the "Teutonic menace" had to be destroyed. Not defeated, destroyed.

The plan began with a multi-layered attack on the democratic process. They controlled power in administration and politics through carefully selected and compliant politicians inside the major British political parties. British foreign policy was dominated by them from behind the scenes, irrespective of any change of government. The Secret Elite drew into their ranks the increasingly influential press-barons to exercise influence over the avenues of information that created public opinion. More subtly, they controlled the funding of university chairs, and completely monopolized the writing and the teaching of the history of their own time. One early example was the Times History of the War in South Africa (the Boer War) written by Lord Alfred Milner's select administrators whom he took from Oxford to reorganize and administer South Africa's recovery. They literally wrote their own history so that it was their version of events which became the accepted "truth." It became the template for the official histories of the First World War.

Five principal players, Cecil Rhodes, William Stead, Lord Reginald Esher, Lord Nathaniel Rothschild and Alfred Milner were the founding fathers, but the secret society developed rapidly in numbers, power and presence in the years before 1914. Influential old aristocratic families that had long dominated Westminster were deeply involved, as was King Edward VII, who operated within the inner core of the Secret Elite. Cecil Rhodes, a mining magnate who made millions in South Africa, had long talked about setting up a Jesuit-like secret society, pledged to take any action necessary to protect and promote the extension of the power of the British Empire. He sought to "bring the whole uncivilized world under British Rule, for the recovery of the United States, for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one empire." In essence, the plan was as simple as that. Just as the Jesuit Order had been formed to protect the pope and expand the Catholic Church, answerable only to its own superior general, so the Secret Society was to protect and expand the British Empire, and remain answerable to its leader. The holy grail was control, not of God's kingdom on earth in the name of the Almighty, but of the known world in the name of the mighty British Empire. Both of these societies sought a different kind of world domination but shared a similar sense of ruthless purpose.

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. Stead was the most prominent journalist of his day. He had dared to confront Victorian society over the scandal of child prostitution in an outspoken article in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1885 and, consequently, the government was forced to pass the Criminal Law Amendment Act. This is what earned Stead his place in Rhodes' elite company. He influenced the general public. He was one of the first journalistic crusaders and built an impressive network of younger journalists around his newspapers, who in turn promoted the Secret Elite's ambitions throughout the Empire.

Stead commented immediately after Rhodes' death that he was "the first of the new dynasty of money-kings which has been evolved in these later days as the real rulers of the modern world." Great financiers had often used their fortunes to control questions of peace and war, and of course influence politics for profit. Rhodes was fundamentally different. He turned the objective on its head and sought to amass great wealth into his secret society in order to achieve political ends: to buy governments and politicians, buy public opinion and the means to influence it. He intended that his wealth be used by Anglo-American elites to expand their control of the world. Secretly.

The third man present at the inaugural meeting of the secret society was Reginald Brett, better known as Lord Esher, a close advisor to three monarchs. Esher had even greater influence in the upper echelons of society. He represented the interests of the monarchy from Queen Victoria's final years, through the exuberant excesses of King Edward VII, to the more sedate but pliable King George V. He was "the éminence grise who ran England." Esher wrote letters of advice to King Edward VII almost daily during his eight-year reign, and through him the king was kept fully appraised of Secret Elite business. His precise role in British politics was difficult to grasp even for his contemporaries. He chaired important secret committees, was responsible for appointments to the Cabinet, the senior ranks of the diplomatic and civil services, voiced strong personal opinion on top army posts and exerted a power behind the throne far in excess of his constitutional position. His role of power-broker on behalf of the Secret Elite was without equal.

In the world of banking and finance, of investment and the raising of loans and bonds, the Secret Elite had a most important founding member, Lord Natty Rothschild. The Rothschild dynasty epitomized "the money power" to a degree with which no other could compete. It was all-powerful in British and world banking and considered itself the equal of royalty, even to the extent of calling their London base "New Court." Like the British royal family, their roots lay in Germany.

The House of Rothschild was immensely more powerful than any financial empire that had ever preceded it. It commanded vast wealth. It was international. It was independent. Royal governments were nervous of it because they could not control it. Popular movements hated it because it was not answerable to the people. Constitutionalists resented it because its influence was exercised behind the scenes – secretly. The Rothschilds understood how to use their wealth to anticipate and facilitate the next market opportunity, wherever it was. Their unrivaled resources were secured by the close family partnership that could call on agents placed throughout the world. They understood the worth of foreknowledge a generation ahead of every other competitor. The Rothschilds communicated regularly with each other, often several times a day, with secret codes and trusted, well-paid agents, so that their collective fingers were on the pulse of what was about to happen, especially in Europe. Governments and crowned heads so valued theRothschilds' fast communications, their network of couriers, agents and family associates, that they used them as an express postal service, which in itself gave them access to even greater knowledge of secret dealings. It is no exaggeration to say that in the nineteenth century, the House of Rothschild knew of events and proposals long before any government, business rival or newspaper.

Bankrolling pliant politicians was another tool. Although he was by nature and breeding a Conservative in terms of party politics, Natty Rothschild believed that on matters of finance and diplomacy all sides should heed the Rothschilds. He drew into his circle of friends and acquaintances many important men who, on the face of it, were political enemies. In the close world of politics, the Rothschilds exercised immense influence within the leadership of both Liberal and Conservative parties. They lunched with them at New Court, dined at exclusive clubs and invited all of the key policy makers to the family mansions, where politicians and royalty alike were wined and dined with fabulous excess. Edward VII was always welcome at the sumptuous Chateau at Ferrières or Alfred de Rothschild's enormous town house when enjoying a weekend at the Parisian brothels. It was in such exclusive, absolutely private environments that the Secret Elite discussed their plans and ambitions for the future of the world. According to Niall Ferguson, the Rothschild biographer: "it was in this milieu that many of the most important political decisions of the period were taken." Although Rothschild was the epitome of the "money-power," the undisputed leader of the Secret Elite from around 1902 until 1925 was Alfred (later Viscount)Milner. Remarkably, few people have ever heard his name. Professor Quigley noted that all biographies of Milner were written by members of the Secret Elite and concealed more than they revealed. In Quigley's view, this neglect of one of the most important figures of the twentieth century was part of a deliberate policy of secrecy. Alfred Milner, a self-made man and remarkably successful civil servant whose Oxford University connections were unrivaled, became absolutely powerful within the ranks of these otherwise privileged individuals.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Prolonging the Agony"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Jim Macgregor and Gerry Docherty.
Excerpted by permission of Trine Day LLC.
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