at High Society parties in the fashionable houses of the Edwardian era. He was secretive and patriotic: accordingly founding the Society of Islanders. Its one great principle was to build "two for one Keels" over and above any other Navy in the world in order to maintain global peace. Esher declined many public offices, including the Viceroyalty of India and the Secretaryship for War, a job to which Edward VII had urged he be appointed. In 1911 Esher helped ease out Lord Knollys, who was then seventy-five years old, having been in the Royal Household since 1862, but who had lost some royal confidence over the negotiation of the Parliament Act. Esher arranged a replacement as King George V's principal adviser with Lord Stamfordham. Esher's Great War In January 1915, Esher visited Premier Aristide Briand in Paris, who told him David Lloyd George had "a longer view than any of our leaders". An earlier opening of a Salonika front might have prevented the entry of Bulgaria into the war". He also made contact with Bunau Varilla, editor of Le Matin, to keep the Russian Empire in "the alliance and Americans to come to aid of Europe". By 1916 the French war effort was almost spent. Finance Minister, Alexandre Ribot told them to sue for peace, Esher reported. At the Chantilly Conference they discussed combined operations - "Dans la guerre l'inertie est une honte." Esher accompanied Sir Douglas Haig to the Amiens Conference, but was back in Paris to be informed of the surprise news of Kitchener's death. Returning to London Esher spoke with Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes. The following month at the Beaugency Conference they discussed the Somme Offensive. "For heaven's sake put every ounce you have got of will power into this offensive" he told Maurice Hankey. He often travelled to France to leave the "mephitic" atmosphere of the War Office, on a trip to Liaison Officer, Colonel Sidney Clive at Chantilly. He learnt first hand the French government's scheme for a "Greater Syria" to include British controlled Palestine. France's ally on the Eastern Front, Russia, had been badly defeated the previous year; so Asquith's neutrality over Briand's Salonika Plan perplexed Esher. He perceived the balance of power in cabinet shifting towards a new more conservative coalition. During the First World War Esher was, in one writer's description, de facto head of British Intelligence in France, reporting on