"Secretary of Everything Important": An Analysis of Maurice Hankey and his role during the wartime Asquith government, 1914-5.

Abstract

Maurice Hankey, Britain’s first Cabinet Secretary, has traditionally been portrayed as an apolitical bureaucrat who helped guide but never cajoled Britain’s decision makers during the First World War. This thesis argues otherwise. It illustrates Hankey, contrary his own self-presentation and the judgement of both contemporaries and historians, was in fact a figure of considerable influence, a wartime éminence grise who actively used his informal influence with Britain’s first wartime premier, H.H. Asquith, to manipulate British decision-making and advance his own wartime strategy. Hankey’s intrigues subsequently played a major role in the planning and enactment of the disastrous Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaigns, the culpability of which has been placed on other actors.