King Edward VIII. Philip Ziegler

      After the exhilaration of flying, he found little to thrill him in the course he did with the Royal Artillery. It seems to have been a pointless exercise; the course was designed for officers who had done a year or more with an artillery battery, and, since he hardly knew one end of a gun from another, he understood nothing of what was going on. The drills were incessant and tedious, the other students uninspiring, the food disastrous. This last at least he could put right, with a weekly hamper from Fortnum and Mason containing a ham, two tongues and a Stilton. ‘You know I attach very little importance to my food,’ he told his mother, ‘and I have always taken the view that most people eat too much … But I must confess that I like the small amount of food that I eat to be good.’⁴⁶ The contents of the hamper were shared out around the mess and the Prince’s departure was a cause for sincere regret.

      At the end of 1916 Asquith fell and Lloyd George succeeded him as Prime Minister. Only six months before, the Prince had told his father that he did not care for Lloyd George ‘as a man, a statesman or anything’ but by December 1916 he had concluded that ‘everyone has gt confidence in him and feels that he is really out to win the war and that he has no thought for himself’.⁴⁷ He welcomed the change, believing that a strong government was essential and that ‘old Squiff’ could never have provided the necessary leadership.⁴⁸ He was particularly gratified that Churchill was not in the reformed government and disgusted when he reappeared as Minister of Munitions six months later – ‘I suppose he has silently wormed his way in again.’⁴⁹ Grudgingly he admitted to the King that Churchill would probably do the job well and ‘perhaps it is safer to give him a job than to have him hanging around unemployed’.⁵⁰

      By this time hopes of a rapid victory had been dashed by the collapse of the Russian empire. ‘Let us hope that the new Govt will get the upper hand and smash the socialists,’ the King wrote to his son in April 1917. ‘I should imagine that a republic in Russia is an impossibility.’⁵¹ To the Prince the blow struck at the allied war effort by the defection of the Russians seemed more catastrophic than the murder of his relatives whom he had hardly met. ‘Oh! this —— war … I feel as if we are in for at least another 10 years of it!!’ The Russian revolution, followed by the crumbling of the monarchies at the end of the war, caused him to think about the future of the British royal family. ‘Ours is by far the most solid,’ he told his father, ‘tho of course it must be kept so and I more than realize that this can only be done by keeping in the closest possible touch with the people and I can promise you that this point is always at the back of [my] mind and that I am and always will make every effort to carry it out … I also feel that we have good reason to be confident of the good sense and calmness of our race, anyhow just now, tho of course one knows there are many and great dangers, and one mustn’t shut one’s eyes to them even if they don’t really become formidable till 2 or 3 years after the declaration of peace when the race will have got over the joy and novelty of “no war on”.’⁵²

      His relationship with his father had been better since his visit to the Middle East, and he wrote in his diary in March 1917 that ‘the parents are more charming to me than ever, and seem glad to see me again’.⁵³ But though he was getting on well with his father, it was his mother with whom he felt closest. His letters and diary abound in references to cosy and confidential talks about every aspect of his life: ‘It’s so wonderful to feel that we can really talk things over now, and vital and intime things, and I can assure you, darling Mama, that this makes all the difference to me.’⁵⁴ The Queen responded warmly: ‘I think I do understand and can enter into other people’s feelings,’ she wrote in mingled gratification and surprise.⁵⁵

      She seemed to relish the fact that she was closer than the King to her sons, and was not beyond making a little mischief to emphasize the difference. She complained to the Prince that she had not been present when important decisions were made about his future, ‘such a pity, as first of all I ought to know and secondly it makes it more difficult for me just to hear in a cursory way from Papa’. She urged her son to write his ‘secret and intimate views’ on a separate sheet of paper, so that the King should not realize he was being kept in the dark. She evolved an elaborate plot to get the Prince back on leave for Christmas: ‘I cannot help laughing to myself at the mystery which surrounds any new plan which … we have to put before Papa, it all requires such a lot of thought, writing, choosing the right moment etc, really comical in a way but so tiresome.’⁵⁶ Yet though she would enter into conspiracy with her sons, an open confrontation with the King was still out of the question. Never did she doubt that his will must prevail.

      One issue on which she consulted her son without reference to the King was the future of Princess Mary. The Prince constantly pressed the Queen to allow his sister friends of her own age and greater liberty to move around outside the palaces. Princess Mary bravely insisted that life at Buckingham Palace was not too bad: ‘You need not feel so sorry for me … The only things I object to are those rather silent dinners you know so well, when Papa will read the paper.’⁵⁷ Her brother knew that she was lonely and, in everything except material terms, underprivileged. He joined eagerly in what his mother called the ‘all important matter’ of finding the Princess a husband who would be both socially acceptable and tolerable to live with.⁵⁸ Hopefully he put forward the names of friend after friend, only to find that his mother always shrank from proposing them to the King. Princess Mary did not find a husband until 1922 and then it was by no doing of the Prince of Wales.

      Early in 1919 his epileptic brother, Prince John, finally died. The young invalid’s always frail grasp on reason had been failing rapidly and it had been obvious for some months that he could not survive for long. The Prince of Wales hardly knew him; saw him as little more than a regrettable nuisance. He wrote to his mother a letter of chilling insensitivity. She did not reply but he heard from others how much he had hurt her. He was conscience-stricken. ‘I feel such a cold hearted and unsympathetic swine for writing all that I did …’ he told the Queen. ‘No one can realize more than you how little poor Johnnie meant to me who hardly knew him … I can feel so much for you, darling Mama, who was his mother.’⁵⁹ His overture was gratefully received. At first she had thought his attitude a little hard-hearted, she confessed, but now felt that he was only taking the common-sense view.⁶⁰ The King fully shared his attitude: ‘the greatest mercy possible,’ he called John’s death, his youngest son had been spared endless suffering.⁶¹

      Stamfordham had urged the King to bring the Prince back to London in the winter of 1917. ‘Time is slipping away and these years are valuable and important ones in His Royal Highness’s life. He should be mixing with leading men other than soldiers, doing some useful reading and gradually getting accustomed to speaking in public.’⁶² Cavan concurred. Then suddenly the Italian line collapsed. German troops, set free by the collapse of Russian resistance, had come to the aid of their Austrian allies and quickly turned the tide of the campaign. It seemed that Italy might be knocked out of the war if British and French reinforcements were not rushed south. The 14th Army Corps was chosen for the task. Cavan pleaded that if the Prince of Wales accompanied the Corps the moral effect in Italy would be great. Against this, he had to admit that the Corps might arrive too late to save the Italians, in which case anything might happen and the risk to the Prince be considerable.⁶³ The King decided the risk must be run and by 8 November the Prince had joined the Corps HQ at Mantua. ‘… and here we stay indefinitely,’ he told Lady Coke. ‘The whole show is the vaguest thing on record and we know nothing of our future … as it all depends on where the Italians stop the Huns.’⁶⁴

      At first it was uncertain whether the Italians would stop the Huns at all. The Prince arrived in time to see the wreckage of the Italian 2nd Army retreating by way of Treviso and Padua. It was a kind of mobile warfare which he had never witnessed, and even though the allied forces were patently coming off worst, he found it irresistibly exciting: ‘This is real campaigning, not the stale old warfare in Flanders, and it’s all a great experience for me.’⁶⁵ His initial opinion of the Italian armies could hardly have been less favourable: ‘contemptible soldiers,’ he described them, who didn’t understand the elements of modern warfare and retreated so fast that the enemy was unable to keep contact with them.⁶⁶