What to do with the Kaiser?

Letters

Vol. 40 No. 20 · 25 October 2018

Stephen Sedley takes issue with a ‘concocted’ Daily Mail story claiming that the Kaiser would be ‘held in the Tower pending a trial at which he would be prosecuted by the solicitor-general’, ‘the bombastic’ Sir Gordon Hewart (LRB, 11 October). In fact, the Daily Mail wasn’t entirely wrong; plans for a trial involving Hewart were being drawn up. The British couldn’t predict for certain what the Dutch would do with the ex-Kaiser once the Treaty of Versailles entered into force, or indeed whether he would stay put or flee to another country. Hewart, by now attorney-general, began to lay the groundwork for Wilhelm’s prosecution just in case he did fall into the Entente’s hands. The procurator-general, Sir John Mellor; a departmental lawyer, R.W. Woods; and two silks, George Branson and Frederick Pollock, set to work on a trial plan.

Pollock, envisaging the proceedings, asked: ‘What would I do if I were William’s counsel?’

I should advise him to follow Charles I’s example – protest against the jurisdiction and the Court, and say nothing more. But if he decided to plead, then

1. Admit nothing, claim all the rights of a prisoner in an English criminal court, require strict proof of all material facts[.]

2. Make all possible dilatory objections.

3. Rely on the usual German arguments only as a last resource.

After the Dutch refused to hand over the ex-Kaiser, Hewart pulled the plug on the British prosecution plan. The ill-starred Woods was given a new project to work on: the trials of Wilhelm’s subordinates at Leipzig for war crimes.

Kirsten Sellars
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London WC1