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Horatio Bottomley -
the soldier's friend (1)
Horatio
Bottomley was one of those larger than life characters who litter the stage
of history. His career veered wildly from failure to
success, and from fame to disgrace, ending in the grotesque sight of the
journalist who had proclaimed himself 'the soldier's friend' being sent to
prison for defrauding thousands of ex-soldiers of what little money they
had.
Born in 1860 Bottomley spent much of
his early life in an orphanage; one of his early jobs as a court shorthand
writer led to a consuming interest in journalism and self promotion. During
the years before the Great War he founded several short-lived publications,
started other businesses few of which ever paid their shareholders. He was
made bankrupt twice, the second time in 1911 meant that he had to resign as
MP for South Hackney, and was twice taken to court for fraud, being
acquitted twice.
He was a man who loved the good life,
and like many such men tended to spend more than he had. But the start of
the war marked the beginning of the high point of his career, when he turned
his magazine John Bull into a patriotic paper: writing a couple of weeks
after war was declared, he thundered "Let every Briton, therefore, gird
on his armour. It is not necessary to be a soldier, but it is necessary to
be a MAN".
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Bottomley at a
wartime rally in London's Trafalgar square
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He then turned his
attention to the matter of recruiting. His famous recruiting speech was
first delivered on 14 September at a huge rally when five thousand people filled
the London Opera House and fifteen thousand waited outside hoping to get
tickets. Of course he had a high opinion of his own talents in this respect:
"Professional politicians are useless for this purpose. I’m going to
be the unofficial Recruiting Agent of the British Empire."
Early in 1915 he made
the following promise at another massive rally: "When the time comes I
will not hesitate ... to insist upon the trial by court martial of every man
who has taken advantage of his country’s troubles to line his filthy
pockets with gold at the expense of the State."
He became much sought
after as a speaker at recruiting meetings, and appeared in theatres
throughout the country, usually supported by a chorus of wounded soldiers
and hospital nurses. At one venue (he claimed) a thousand men joined up as a
result of his oratory.
At straightforward recruiting
meetings he charged only £25, but made his money at 'patriotic lectures'
where he took most of the takings - there were well over 300 of these during
the last three years of war.
He was virulently
anti-German, and believed that the whole race should be hated and shunned.
He gave the readers of John Bull some advice for when the war ended:
"If by chance you should discover one day in a restaurant that you are
being served by a German waiter, you will throw the soup on his foul
face."
The truth is that few
serving soldiers felt the same hatred for the enemy as those on the Home
Front - they were after all both victims of war. The Wipers Times mocked
Bottomley mercilessly, giving him the name Cockles Tumley.
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