Hidden Agenda: How the Duke of Windsor Betrayed the Allies (Hardcover)

The lynchpin of the book is a letter, supposedly written in late 1939 by the Duke. Its purpose was to introduce to Hitler the Duke‘s messenger, the Franco-American industrial consultant, Charles E. Bedaux who, in those early months and years of the war, was able to travel quite freely from one side of the „Sitzkrieg“ front to the other.

A facsimile of the letter is shown in the book. Obviously, for a mere reader, it is impossible to say whether the letter is genuine or not. The (German!) text of the letter is, however, just ever so slightly off the track with respect to normal German style, grammar, and vocabulary that it may well have been written by a person, such as the Duke, whose command of the language was good, but not perfect. It would have taken an excellent forger to achieve such a convincing degree of (im)perfection.

The immediate military results of the Duke‘s overtures toward Hitler were twofold. They represent, in a way, each party‘s ante in the bargain: the Duke‘s information on the French defenses allowed the Germans to turn the „sitzkrieg“ into a „blitzkrieg“ in the summer of 1940, whereas the German contribution was to hold their panzers back when they reached the Channel, thus allowing the British Expeditionary Force to retreat from Dunkerque with acceptable losses.

At this point, the book argues more or less explicitly, it would have been possible for some sort of peace deal to be reached. However, the Duke‘s position at home had been undermined by internal machinations that had led to his resignation and he was unable to realize his ambition which, according to Allen, was to recover his throne through this admittedly risky alliance with Berlin.

The obvious argument that comes to mind at this point is that any peace with Hitler would have constituted an abandonment of Poland for whose integrity and protection the Allies had, after all, gone to war. We must realize, though, that at the end of September, 1939, when the war in Poland had come to its rapid end, the Germans had occupied only the western half of that country. The eastern half of Poland was, by then, under Soviet domination, because the Soviets had, on 17 September 1939 (when the victory of their German ally was evident) sent in the Red Army to take over the rest - and to hold on to it to the present day.

This overt act of aggression did not cause a stir in the camp of the Allies and voids the argument sketched out above. The value of Allen‘s book lies in its exposure of the duplicity of the policy of the Allies. Only five years later, the world witnessed and for the most part, welcomed the complete hand-over of Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe to Stalin who, by that time, had become the West‘s most valuable ally in the fight for the ideals of freedom and democracy. It took History a mere fifty years and millions of dead to rectify that situation. One wonders if the price that might have had to be paid to Hitler would have been quite as high as that.

The British establishment, the author says, used Edward's love for Wallis Simpson as a pretext to force his abdication because of his pro-German views. Then, he says, that same establishment used Edward to spy on French military installations for Britain--but that Edward simultaneously passed the secrets along to the Germans through Charles Bedaux, a shady character with ties to both Edward and Adolf Hitler.

The book is built around a handwritten letter, in German, from Edward to Hitler, which the author says his father received years later from Hitler's architect, Albert Speer. The book surmises that Edward gave the letter to Bedaux, who hid it in his hat band, or elsewhere, and then personally delivered it to Hitler.

On the surface the letter is cryptic. Was Edward really trying to hurt Britain--or help Hitler put him back on the Throne? Was he being solicitous, or devious? If the circumstances surrounding the letter are indeed what the author claims, then this book has a real story to tell.

Unfortunately, the book's shortcomings as a serious history cast doubt on its conclusions. There is some original research, particularly with respect to the background of Bedaux himself. Most of the text, however, rests either on secondary sources or on no acknowledged source at all. The author does not cite the particular pages of the secondary sources, so it is virtually impossible for readers to evaluate the information for themselves. Worse yet, many highly accusatory and critical passages have no source references whatsoever, leaving frustrated readers to wonder whether the undocumented conversations and events actually happened. The overall tone suggests that the author has let his own animus toward Edward dictate the scholarship, rather than the other way around.

The author explains that many of the primary source documents have been destroyed, are not available for inspection, or are perhaps even being hidden by the British royal family itself. That, though, is not a license to make critical assumptions that result, essentially, in a charge of treason.

The letter appears to bear Edward's handwriting, as far as one can tell from the lithographic reproduction in the book. In an appendix the author recounts that a handwriting expert authenticated the letter. Sadly, however, he does not identify the expert, and the glaring absence of the expert's identity further undermines this book's claims.

Even if the letter is genuine, it does not prove the author's thesis. Edward was not anti-German, and he may well have thought that the Nazis were Europe's best defense against Soviet expansionism. He may also have been careless in his dealings with both Bedaux and Hitler. But that certainly does not mean that Edward would deliberately seek to harm the Empire that he served so long as Prince of Wales, and later as King.

The overreaching premise of this book makes the story of royal intrigue entertaining, but one should not uncritically accept all of the story.