Colonel The Honourable Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert (3 April 1880 – 26 September 1923), of Pixton Park in Somerset and of Teversal,Per inscription on his monument in Brushford Church, Somerset"The Teversal estate in Nottinghamshire, formerly belonging to the Molyneux family, was brought into the Herbert family by Henrietta Howard, daughter of Lord Henry Howard-Molyneux-Howard of Greystoke, who married Henry Herbert, Lord Porchester, later 3rd Earl of Carnarvon, in 1830" (Somerset Heritage Centre, Ref:DD\DRU: "HERBERT FAMILY OF PIXTON PARK, Dulverton") in Nottinghamshire, was a British soldier, diplomat, traveller, and intelligence officer associated with Albanian independence. He was twice offered the throne of Albania.Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service (Simon & Schuster, 2002) p. 405 ("[Herbert] had been offered and turned down the Crown of Albania, after Lloyd George, 'who had the imaginative but quixotic idea that the head of a Scottish clan might make an admirable leader of the mountain tribes of Albania', had proffered it twice to Aubrey Herbert, MP.")Jeremy Paxman, On Royalty (Penguin Books, 2007) From 1911 until his death he was a Conservative Member of Parliament. His eldest half-brother was George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon (1866–1923), who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Origins Aubrey Herbert was born at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, the second son of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, a wealthy landowner, British cabinet minister, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. His mother (his father's second wife and cousin) was Elizabeth Catherine Howard (1856–1929Per inscribed brass tablet in Brushford Church) ("Elsie"), a daughter of Henry Howard of Greystoke Castle, near Penrith, Cumberland, a son of Lord Henry Howard-Molyneux-Howard, younger brother of Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk. Elizabeth Howard's brother was Esmé Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Penrith.
Aubrey Herbert was a younger half-brother of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the noted Egyptologist who in 1922, together with Howard Carter, discovered Tutankhamun's tomb; he predeceased him by five months. From early childhood Aubrey developed eye problems which left him nearly blind, and resulted in a total loss of sight before the age of 40.
Early life Herbert was educated at Eton College. He obtained a first class degree in modern history from Balliol College, Oxford. He was famous for climbing the roofs of the university buildings, despite his near blindness. He numbered among his friends Adrian Carton de Wiart, Raymond Asquith, John Buchan, and Hilaire Belloc. Reginald Farrer remained close throughout his life. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Nottinghamshire (Sherwood Rangers) Yeomanry Cavalry on 12 January 1900, and promoted to lieutenant on 11 June 1902. His poor eyesight, however, prevented him from taking part in the South African War. Herbert received as a gift from his father the estate of Pixton Park in Somerset, with of land, inherited by the Herbert family from Kitty Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon (née Acland), wife of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon.
His friendship with Middle Eastern traveller and advisor Sir Mark Sykes dates from his entry into parliament in 1911 when, with George Lloyd, they were the three youngest Conservative MPs. They shared an interest in foreign policy and worked closely in the Arab Bureau (1916). He was also a close friend of T. E. Lawrence; their letters do not feature in the standard Lawrence collections, but are quoted by Margaret Fitzherbert in her biography of her grandfather, The Man Who Was Greenmantle. (Greenmantle was one of John Buchan's novels about the adventurer Richard Hannay.)
Languages and travels Herbert was in his own right a considerable Orientalist, and a linguist who spoke French, Italian, German, Turkish, Arabic, Greek, and Albanian as well as English. A renowned traveller, especially in the Middle East, his trips include journeys through Japan, Yemen, Turkey, and Albania. Herbert often dressed as a tramp on his travels. During the period 1902–04, he was an honorary attaché in Tokyo, then in Constantinople (1904–05).
Albania Herbert became a passionate advocate of Albanian independence, having visited the country in 1907, 1911, and 1913. During a stay in Tirana (1913), he befriended Essad Pasha. When the Albanian delegates to the 1912–13 London Balkan Peace Conference arrived, they secured Herbert's assistance as an advisor. He was very active fighting for their cause and is regarded as having considerable influence on Albania's success at obtaining eventual independence in the resulting Treaty of London (1913). One of his constant correspondents on Albania was Edith Durham. He was twice offered the throne of Albania. On the first occasion in 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I, he was interested, but Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, a family friend, dissuaded him. The offer remained unofficial and was rejected by the Foreign Office. The Albanian crown went to William of Wied.
The second occasion the crown was offered was after the defeat of the Italian Army by the Albanians in September 1920. Again the offer was unofficial, although it was made on behalf of the Albanian Government. Herbert discussed the offer with Philip Kerr and Maurice Hankey, pursuing the idea of perhaps acting under the banner of the League of Nations; Eric Drummond, Herbert's friend, had become its first secretary general, and by lobbying led to Albania's acceptance as a member in the League of Nations in December 1920.Margaret Fitzherbert, The Man Who Was Greenmantle: A Biography of Aubrey Herbert, John Murray, London, 1983.Fitzherbert, Chapter 14: "The dear journey's end". With a change of foreign ministers in the Albanian Government, Herbert's chance of gaining a crown greatly diminished. In April 1921, the crown was, even more unofficially, offered to the Duke of Atholl by Jim Barnes of the British Friends of Albania residing in Italy.S.J. Hetherington, Katharine Atholl (1874–1960) Against the Tide, pp. 88-90, Aberdeen University Press, 1989; .
Parliament Herbert was an independent-minded Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for the Southern division of Somerset from 1911 to 1918, and for Yeovil from 1918 to his death. During his career, Herbert voiced his opposition to the policies of the British government in Ireland.
First World War 1914–1915 Despite very poor eyesight, Herbert was able, at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, to join the Irish Guards, in which he served in a supernumerary position. He did this by purchasing a uniform and boarding a troopship bound for France. During the Battle of Mons, he was wounded and briefly taken prisoner. After a convalescence in England, and unable to rejoin due to his ocular disability, Aubrey was proposed for service in military intelligence in Egypt by Kitchener's military secretary, Oswald FitzGerald, via Mark Sykes (see Baghdad Railway). In January 1915, Herbert was attached to the Intelligence Department in Cairo under Colonel Gilbert Clayton. In mid-February, he was sent on an intelligence mission into the eastern Mediterranean aboard the cruiser .
When the Gallipoli campaign started, General Alexander Godley, formerly of the Irish Guards and second in command to General Birdwood of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC), now commanding the New Zealanders, offered him an appointment as liaison officer and interpreter on the general's staff.
His pre-war contacts (including Rıza Tevfik Bölükbaşı) and ability to speak Turkish were to prove useful. He became famous for arranging a truceLord Kinross Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation, K. Rustem & Brother, Nicosia 1984 of eight hours, on Whit Monday, 24 May, with the Turkish commander Mustafa Kemal, for the purpose of burying the dead. This episode appears, with him as "the Honourable Herbert", in Louis de Bernières's novel.Birds Without Wings]pp. 366–68. In Eastern Mediterranean Intelligence, he worked with Compton Mackenzie.Fitzherbert, Chapter 9: "Anzac 1915".
In October 1915, on sick leave in England, Herbert carried with him a memorandum, stating in part: "They [Foreign Office] trust Egypt with the running of the Arabian Question...",H. V. F. Winstone, Gertrude Bell, Jonathan Cape, 1978; , p. 171 from the Cairo Intelligence Department from Colonel Clayton to the Foreign Office explaining the situation in the Middle East. In November, the memorandum, at first favourably received, became obsolete after the visit of François Georges-Picot and his subsequent negotiations with Mark Sykes. It would appear that the Arab Bureau continued working along the lines of the memorandum,Compare: Lord Hardinge's letter on the memorandum to Wingate of 28 November 1915 in Winstone 1978, Gertrude Bell, pp. 171–72. which led to contrary promises ensuing accusations of bad faith.FitzHerbert, Chapter 10: "Kut 1916".
In November 1915, Herbert was in Paris and Rome on a secret mission related to Albania. Following the plan to evacuate Anzac Cove beginning the following month, he volunteered to return to ANZAC to stay with the rear guard, convinced that his knowledge of language and his network of acquaintances would greatly benefit that body if captured. The 20 December successful evacuation of ANZAC and Suvla Bay and the good prospects for Cape Helles countered his proposal.
1916 Impatient with the Foreign Office indecision over Albania, at the start of 1916, Herbert went prospecting for new opportunities. Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss proposed a job for him as a captain in intelligence. When in February the War Office cleared him from involvement in Albania, he took up the offer and found himself in charge of Naval intelligence in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and the Gulf. Following the critical situation of British troops at Kut-al-Amara, the War Office was instructed to offer Herbert's services to General Townshend to negotiate terms with the Turks.
T. E. Lawrence was sent on behalf of the Arab Bureau while Colonel Beach acted for Indian Expeditionary Force Intelligence. Together they were to oversee the exchange of prisoners and wounded, and eventually to offer the commander Khalil Pasha up to £2 million for the relief of Kut. Enver Pasha rejected the offer, and the evacuation of the wounded was severely hampered through lack of transport. The situation at Kut led Aubrey to send a telegram to Austen Chamberlain, Secretary of State for India, with the support of General Lake but still in breach of army regulations, condemning incompetence in the handling of the Mesopotamian campaign. The Government of India ordered a court martial, but the War Office refused. Admiral Wemyss, who travelled to Simla for the purpose, supported him throughout.
Back in England in July 1916, Herbert started asking in the House of Commons for a Royal Commission to inquire into the conduct of the Mesopotamian campaign. He opposed the routine evasiveness of Prime Minister Asquith, (a close friend), by speaking in the House four times on Mesopotamia. His critics saw in his obstinacy a personal vendettaA letter from George Lloyd to Wingate of 27 May 1915 reads :"...the Government of India seem to be doubly cursed with a Commander in Chief with too little grip and a Finance Member called Mayer with too much..." in: Winstone 1978, Gertrude Bell p. 177. "Aubrey Herbert's interventions in the House of Commons date 12th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 26th July" ref: FitzHerbert 1985 against Sir Beauchamp Duff, the commander-in-chief in India, and Sir William Meyer, the financial secretary, but his persistence paid off, and a Special Commission Mesopotamia was subsequently appointed.