His views of Italian cuisine and culture were as jaundiced as of their military prowess. He could not stand macaroni, spaghetti or Chianti and hadn’t seen a single pretty woman, he told Lady Coke, so ‘I’m rather off Italy just now’.69 The monuments were little better: Mantua was ‘a deadly dull and antiquated little town’, Bologna had lots of picturesque buildings ‘tho I can’t say that I spent much time looking at them’; the Veronese paintings in the Villa Giacometti were ‘interesting as being over 300 years old … but I can’t say that actually they appeal to me enormously, and are, of course, typically Italian’.70
He was more impressed by Rome, which he visited in May 1918 to attend the celebrations of the third anniversary of the Italian declaration of war (a cause for jollification which the Prince was not alone in thinking somewhat far-fetched). The main function took place in the Augusteum, and in the course of his speech the Italian President, Orlando, spoke of the Prince as having come to Italy to share their dangers and defend their country. ‘The whole audience rose, faced the Prince and cheered madly,’ Henry Lygon told the Queen.71 The Prince’s speech from the royal box was delivered, wrote the Ambassador, Sir James Rodd, ‘in a clear voice which carried well, with just a little touch of boyish shyness that went straight to the hearts of his audience’.72 Claud Hamilton told Lady Coke that he had done it very well, ‘everybody could easily hear him, he received a great ovation’.73 It was a period at which Hamilton was inclined to be critical of his employer so his judgment that the Prince ‘played his part better than I have ever seen him do before’ can be taken seriously. The Prince was no less ready to judge his own performances harshly but he told the King that he felt his visit had done some good and had helped cement the alliance with Italy; ‘it has been rather a trying week but very interesting and it has taught me a lot’.74 His parents were delighted by his achievements: the King told him how much he appreciated the excellent way he had carried out the visit, while the Queen wrote of his ‘wonderful success … I feel prouder of my dearest son than ever.’75
The King had objected to the proposal that the visit to Rome should include a call on the Pope but Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, insisted that this was essential.76 Dutifully, the Prince paraded at the Vatican. He was not greatly struck by what he saw: he found Pope Benedict XV unprepossessing in his appearance, ‘tho intelligent and well informed and he talks fairly decent French’. The Prince kept the conversation to generalities; ‘and I most certainly did not kiss his ring,’ he told the Queen proudly. ‘Nothing would have induced me to!!’77 This sturdy independence availed nothing with the Daily Express, who reported that the Prince ‘appeared to be greatly gratified by his visit’. Under the headline ‘Visit which should not have been made’, the Express condemned the King for not having stepped in to veto it.78 George V considered the report a direct attack on the Crown, all the worse because the proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook, was a member of the government.79
‘Much tho one loathes the —— Huns, one can’t help admiring the way they are sticking out the war,’ the Prince wrote to King George V in October 1917.80 Their first offensive subsided, but there were signs that it was about to be renewed when the time came to celebrate the royal Silver Wedding in London. The last thing the Prince wanted was to become involved in what promised to be wearisome festivities. He persuaded Cavan to cable the King arguing that it would make a bad impression in Italy if the Prince left at so critical a moment.81 The King agreed, but little in the way of a German attack ensued, indeed, within a few weeks the enemy lines were crumbling all across Europe.
The war was clearly ending. The plan had been for the Prince to spend three months at the end of 1918 taking a staff course at Cambridge, but with time running out Haig pleaded that he should instead visit the Dominion and American troops in France. The King left the final decision to his son, who had been looking forward to three relatively easy months at home. ‘Of course I never hesitated as to what was the right thing,’ the Prince wrote. ‘… one has to sink one’s personal feelings and wishes on these occasions.’82 He was being disingenuous as well as priggish; Cambridge might have been enjoyable but nothing would have induced him to leave the continent with final victory so close.
He hoped that he would be able to visit the Dominion forces with a minimum of fuss. He was quickly disabused by Lord Stamfordham. The Prince of Wales could not visit Canadian or Anzac troops un-officially: ‘On the contrary these visits … have an undoubted political significance and may have far-reaching effects upon the Empire and Crown. You will be there as … Heir to the Throne and every word and deed will have its own particular influence.’ Pressmen would follow him everywhere and the coverage they gave him would affect the reception he received when he visited the Dominions after the war. He would be constantly in the public eye.83 It was a melancholy reminder to the Prince that with the armistice a new form of penal servitude would begin and that this time the sentence would be for life.
The Canadians were the first on whom he called. He was euphoric about his reception. ‘They are great lads these old “Knucks”,’ he told Joey Legh, ‘real, husky stout-hearted fellows for whom I’ve a great admiration.’84 He was overwhelmed by their cheerfulness and friendly informality: ‘How I wish I had been across to Canada, and living amongst them makes me just long to go there.’85 His only complaint was that they tended to assume that they had done all the serious fighting and to speak with some disdain of the ‘Imperial’ or British troops. ‘Still, I just don’t listen when they talk like that, it’s only really a pose and the best fellows never talk like that.’86 A report from an unidentified Canadian colonel somehow found its way into the Windsor archives. The Prince, it read, ‘had been the best force in real Empire building that it was possible for Great Britain to have, because he absolutely won the hearts of the many he came in contact with. As they put it, he was every inch the gentleman and sportsman, so simple, so charming and so genuine …’87 Even allowing for hyperbole, he seems to have made himself uncommonly well liked.
The armistice was signed while the Prince was with the Canadian Corps. ‘I feel it can’t be more than a marvellous dream and I still feel in a sort of trance,’ he told the Queen. ‘But I suppose I shall soon wake up to the fact that it all really is true.’88 It was soon time for him to move on. ‘I don’t think my month with the Australians will be so pleasant somehow,’ the Prince had written, when his love of all things Canadian was at its height. ‘These Canadians are so much more English and refined.’89 His first reaction, indeed, was to find the Australian troops somewhat shy and rough, but ‘that’s because they live so far from England’, he concluded charitably.90 It did not take him long to decide that he liked them enormously, and they seem to have responded quite as warmly. ‘The Prince has won the hearts of the Australians,’ General Rawlinson told Wigram. His stay had been an unqualified success; he would be fervently welcomed in Australia; not just because he was Prince of Wales ‘but as a personal matter between the soldiers and himself’. The Prince was nervous about his forthcoming visit to General Pershing, Rawlinson went on, ‘but it is both right and necessary for him to be with the Americans for a period’.91
The Prince had in fact long been anxious to see something of Pershing and the 2nd US Army. In common with most British he had been quick to denounce the ‘rotten Americans’ who sat back and let the allies do the fighting. ‘They said they were “too proud to fight”; I have never heard such rot!! Of course it is their game to keep out of it.’92 But once they were in the war, his enthusiasm for their efficiency and fighting qualities rapidly grew. They welcomed him rapturously at their headquarters at Coblenz and put twenty thousand men on parade to honour him, making some of them march twenty-five miles