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Title: Politicians and the War 1914-1916 Vol. II

Date of first publication: 1932

Author: Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook) (1879-1964)

Date first posted: February 1, 2026

Date last updated: February 1, 2026

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This volume resembles its predecessor—Politicians and the War ^[1]—in that it does not profess to be a detailed history of the politics of the war. It deals with the outstanding events on the home front within the period—the Peaks of Politics. So far as I know, I have omitted none of the peaks. It is true that to-day some of them do not seem to me so lofty as I once thought them. This is especially true of the succession of crises on the Irish issue, which were always threatening to break up Administrations, and seemed almost alone in being able to procure resignations from War Ministries. I am quite prepared to admit that I may be wrong in the small importance I now attach to these Irish stories. At least I have described them as so much raw material for the historian of the future.

The second volume is concerned with a very short period of time. It might be said that the whole political action is concentrated in a single month. In this brief and fiery interlude the most acute differences arose between men who had one common object in view—the winning of the war. The time has now come when the full story may be told of the sharpest collision of all—that between Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith.

I have made throughout a most strenuous attempt to keep judgment on questions of military and naval policy out of this narrative—as being not inherently germane to it. But it would be quite wrong to infer from this that the politicians were careless of the war, were not constantly obsessed with its successive phases, and did not govern all their actions in relation to it.

There has been ever since the Armistice a decided tendency to write down the status of politicians as an important factor in the conduct of the war. It springs from the publication of a large number of diaries or auto-biographies or biographies military—and in a few cases naval—by personages who naturally tend to exalt their own professions at the expense of the civilian. All I do in this work is to attempt to keep a fair balance by pointing out the part the politician played in the struggle.

I have received a quite unexpected measure of praise for the first volume of “Politicians and the War.” To the critics who thus encouraged me I tender my most grateful thanks, for without their commendation I would not have gone through the ordeal of producing a second volume.

It was said, for instance, that in Volume I, I had attempted to draw a marvellous picture of Bonar Law as the great moving force in public life and that I had failed, for the public remained unconvinced.

To begin with, I made no such attempt at idealisation. I depicted Bonar Law exactly as he was, with all his virtues and all his faults and failings. But I am quite prepared to admit that I did not succeed in getting public opinion to recognise the full importance of the part played by him in 1915-1916. Nor shall I succeed any better in the present volume. The public have a certain conception of Bonar Law, which cannot be eradicated. I present my own view; some of Bonar Law’s contemporaries bring evidence to the contrary, and the verdict goes in their favour.

Allowing for the moment that my view is the correct one, why do I lose my case? The answer is that a politician, granted that he is a man of good character, largely stands and falls by the view he holds of himself. If he is a pushing, ambitious man, with a great belief in his own powers, which is justified by his capacity to attain high office, the nation is ready enough to take him at his own valuation. Self-confidence breeds the confidence of others and the valuation arrived at will probably be quite correct.

But Bonar Law was a self-effacing man who underestimated his own talents. He was very willing to let the credit for his own actions go to others. As a consequence his contemporaries took him at his own valuation, which was a wrong one. He was bound to be written down, and posterity is sure to accept the verdict.

On the day of his funeral, as Asquith, who was one of the pall bearers, was leaving the Abbey he remarked: “It is fitting that we should have buried the Unknown Premier by the side of the Unknown Warrior.”

I accept the epithet gladly. It exactly defines the part Bonar Law played in the war and in the few years succeeding it. It was his quiet judgment and invisible power which upheld every Ministry, just as it was the Unknown Warrior who won the war. So there they lie side by side in Westminster Abbey.—“The Unknown Warrior” and the “Unknown Premier.”

I know that Bonar Law was the greatest figure on the political stage with which these books deal—that by action, by support, or by withdrawal, he made and unmade every Government from 1915 to 1922. And I can prove it—but there are some people whom I never expect to admit it or believe it. I do not even ask them to do so.

I shall not be precisely in this difficulty in the present volume in dealing with the character of Lloyd George; but I suppose I shall be accused of exalting him unduly. This is not so.

My view of him is no reflection of events considered after the passage of years. It comes from the contemporary record that I kept.

In describing what took place in November and December of 1916, it would be easy enough to depict one side in that struggle as a set of heroic patriots—and the opposing side as a crowd of self-seeking scoundrels. This is exactly the sort of pit into which history will be liable to fall. At least, judging from experience, history always does fall into pits of this kind.

I tried very hard as a contemporary recorder of events to avoid this mistake—to do justice to the men on both sides, and to impute what I conceived as error, not to evil motives, but to an honest failure of the judgment. Of course, as I chronicled the hurried passage of events from day to day I did let passion sway me sometimes, and here and there I did misunderstand a motive in a man’s action. I have removed imputations where reflection has shown them to me to be unjust, and I have amended error wherever new facts have come to my knowledge.

On the whole, I will maintain that this account is based on a firm grasp of the essential divergences of opinion which led to the fall of the first Coalition Government.

The reader will readily understand that an ex-parte statement might have been more picturesque. I have had to sacrifice something of the drama of the action to the truth. And precisely because I have really done this, I must beg my audience not to read into my work more than it contains.

It has been said of the first volume that I have disclosed the jealousies, the feuds, the personal ambitions of politicians at times of political crisis—and the same criticism may be advanced against this volume as well.

The plain answer is that all men know or should know that such motives and passions do exist in the higher circles of statecraft because statesmen are human. But these very motives may just as well attach themselves as accidental pendants to grave differences of policy as to petty disputes about offices, precedences and honours.

It is absolutely necessary to make this point because as time slips by people more and more forget the atmosphere engendered by the war.

I am not a great artist and I cannot reproduce that atmosphere. I can show in the cold light of fact the minds of the politicians working and counter-working—but I cannot reproduce the coloured lights by which their temperaments and views were actually affected. And if any memoir-writer did so he would be accused of romance and be unable to justify himself from the evidence.

For instance, all through the struggle of the autumn of 1916, there lay at the back of many men’s minds the idea that a section of the Cabinet was working for a Peace by Negotiation instead of a fight to the finish.

This view was not accepted by the principal actors. But to those just outside the inner ring who knew vaguely of certain happenings inside the Cabinet there spread a conviction that this tremendous problem was lurking in the background. And it predisposed them to act in one way or another.

Lord Carson was quite frank in daring to think this and to declare it. He said definitely that the Asquith Government was manufacturing Pacifists and that the continuance of the Asquith regime would end in Peace by Negotiation. The Asquithites might not mean this—but that was what it would come to.

On the other hand, men like Lord Curzon and his group, who supported Asquith, never accepted his idea at all. They were for a fight to the finish, and did not believe that the continuance of Asquith in power meant Peace by compromise. Some of them sincerely thought the Carsonite movement was simply one to replace the Ins by the Outs.

The reader, in considering this story, must bear in mind these conflicting beliefs and the powerful passions which they bred. If at the end he really believes that all these conflicts were due to the personal ambitions of men desiring an office or hating a rival instead of to a passionate desire to serve their country according to their lights, my tale must have been badly told.

One very important fact has emerged since the war to support the view taken by Lord Carson and some of the other allies in revolt. It is now known that before the political crisis of 1916 Lord Lansdowne had sent to the Prime Minister his memorandum advocating Peace without Victory; and that the Prime Minister circulated it to the War Cabinet. The memorandum itself was not a plea that peace without victory was in itself desirable—but simply a reasoned contention that neither side in the war could hope to obtain a clear-cut military decision in its favour.

The Lansdowne memorandum was a revolutionary document; and the event proved its calculations to be quite wrong. But as a matter of fact it did not so impress at the time the Ministers who read it. They thought it simply a courageous attempt on the part of Lord Lansdowne to face cold facts. And indeed it served the interests of those who wanted a complete reform in the conduct of the war just as well as the objects of those who desired Peace by negotiation. For the Reformers could say that if the prospect was as bleak as this there was all the more reason for a drastic change in the management of the war. And outside opinion was swayed by the rumoured reports of this memorandum. Many people believed that Lansdowne and Asquith were meditating some complete abandonment of the position this country had assumed in August, 1914. This underground business of which few people knew at the time explains why certain public men took certain sides when the ultimate clash between Asquith and Lloyd George came.

But as I have said, the principals did not take this view. It was not until a year afterwards when Lord Lansdowne, in November, 1917, published his celebrated letter in the Press that the matter came to a clear issue in the light of day.

The Ministers of the Lloyd George Government were then startled into disapprobation by the views Lord Lansdowne expressed and by the reaction produced on the public. The original document had been a cold military and economic calculation addressed to half a dozen people in the inner ring of affairs. The letter was a rather sentimental and yet subtly worded appeal to the public to stop the war on almost any terms. It was therefore only on looking backwards that the Ministers, Liberal or Conservative, of 1917 realised that they had had rather a narrow escape from a Government ready to look at Peace by Negotiation in the crisis of December, 1916.

Asquith gives credence in his published memoirs to the suggestion that the Lansdowne memorandum was perhaps the causa causans of the revolt which overthrew him. As a matter of fact it was not—but the historian may record the verdict that it should have been.

Whoever reads this story must remember that always behind the scenes there existed in many men’s minds this subtle undefined feeling—a fear or a hope too deadly to mention—that not only the efficient conduct of the war, but the very issue of Peace and War was at stake.

The more that anyone contemplates or investigates the events of the winter of 1916 the more he will perceive how numerous were the causes and how complex the motives which combined to bring about the downfall of the Asquith administration on December 4th of that year.

Those who revolted in favour of reform were united by one single point only. They believed that the war was being inefficiently and half-heartedly conducted. Some ascribed the defect to the character or political opinions of the men in power. The Liberal rebels thought the Premier was dilatory because he was Asquith. Many of the Tory reformers thought that Asquith was inefficient because he was a Liberal. Others again of all parties or none imputed the blame not to men but to the machine the men had to work. They thought Government by Cabinet discussion unsuited to war conditions and demanded some kind of dictatorship either by an individual or by a Committee of public safety such as the War Council practically became. All these currents of thought after many swirls and eddies finally ran together and, streaming down a single channel, washed the Asquith administration away.

Such is the picture of 1916 I have endeavoured to present in this volume. And whatever that picture is, it is certainly not that of a set of self-seeking fellows quarrelling about their interests. It is a picture of able men, not free in their humanity from the ordinary faults of mortals, all jealously anxious to serve their country. They simply differed on the best method to pursue.

IN the summer of 1916 Asquith’s position as Prime Minister, supported by a Coalition Government of all parties in the House of Commons, was being steadily undermined. He himself must have been unconscious of the fact, because the principal causes of his growing weakness must be sought in his own method of conducting affairs.

People have sometimes talked and written as though his downfall in December 1916 was a sudden inexplicable catastrophe—or only to be explained as the result of a secret intrigue hastily engineered by unscrupulous rivals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ever since the spring of 1915 the Premier had been engaged in knocking the props from under him or in watching them fall without replacing them. He had neglected Bonar Law and exalted Curzon. He had alienated Lloyd George without disarming him. He had driven into an unwilling alliance of discontent the man with the most glittering gifts and the man with the most formidable moral power within his Government. Worse than that, he had let this combination beat him over the appointment to the War Secretaryship.

Such errors were, however, retrievable. What could not be retrieved was Asquith’s own way of looking at a world at war. This proved fatal. His complete detachment from the spirit of the struggle; his instability of purpose; his refusal to make up his mind on grave and urgent issues of policy; his balancing of one adviser against another till the net result was nil; his fundamental desire to have a peaceful tenure of office in the midst of war, could in the long run have only one result. The men who were in tune with the atmosphere of war—the bold, the eager, the decisive spirits—first fell away from him and then combined against him. And while all this was going on, he was immersed in his own social circle and engaged in responding to the devotion of his friends.

His colleagues would observe him in the midst of the transaction of affairs laboriously writing, in his own hand, long letters to private correspondents. He was violating one of the first canons of politics—that no man can afford to neglect business.

Outwardly, his position still seemed to be free from any serious menace. He had a group of supporters of his own in the Cabinet, such as McKenna, Runciman and Crewe, on the Liberal, and Curzon, Cecil, Lansdowne and Austen Chamberlain on the Conservative side. He was still held in general respect by the public at large—who were then only just beginning to grasp the fact that there was something essentially wrong with the central direction of the war. But this outside support is failing throughout the time covered by this narrative.

He was especially trusted by a very strong element in the community, consisting of the highly-placed socially, the eminent intellectually and the respectable morally. These included, no doubt, the accomplished hypocrites, but the group was none the less important for that. To any criticism on the conduct of affairs these replied that Asquith was indispensable.

The other argument—and one naturally congenial to Asquith himself—was the necessity for national unity. As a matter of fact, there was unity in the nation at large. But there was dis-unity in the Cabinet—and Asquith’s main task was to try to conceal the fact both from his colleagues themselves and the country. The blessed word “unity” was invoked on all occasions.

Asquith thus sits dreaming of his Peace in War. Of the more fiery or earnest spirits, Carson has resigned, Churchill has been extruded from the centre of power, Bonar Law is achieving within himself quite a new orientation of thought towards the war, while Lloyd George chafes more and more visibly day by day. And Lloyd George is getting dangerous. Yet the more he chafes, the less the Prime Minister likes him.

Why did not Asquith simply take up Lloyd George and make him his executive arm, while retaining the titular authority?

In this summer the answer to the question is a simple one. Asquith would not promote Lloyd George, for the same reason that he had come to distrust Churchill, even to the point of permitting his dismissal the year before. Asquith was the man of peace in the war—these Ministers of nervous action fretted his very soul. He did not want them about him—always hustling and hurrying and driving. This tendency of his seems to have increased as the war went on.

To understand his attitude towards Lloyd George, it is necessary to compare it with his previous behaviour towards Churchill.

At the beginning of the war, Asquith admired Churchill immensely. He placed more reliance on him than on any Minister except Kitchener. He supported him heartily over Antwerp, both in the inception of the affair and after the effort had failed. It is true that here he showed a sign of his customary instability of purpose. For, having praised Churchill up to the skies for his well-intentioned efforts to save the doomed city, he hears later his own son’s version of the affair. He then thinks the whole business was dreadfully mismanaged. None the less, Antwerp did Churchill no serious damage, either with Asquith or with anyone else—even if his colleagues did greet his request to be given the command in the field with a great shout of laughter.

What began the process of destroying Churchill’s credit with the Prime Minister? The primary cause in my opinion was what Asquith christened the “Dunkirk Circus.” And for this reason that hitherto practically unknown episode will be given a certain amount of prominence. It was not in itself a vital affair regarded from any military standpoint. It was encouraged by Joffre and supported originally by Kitchener so that the whole responsibility for the proceedings involved must be shared by other people with Churchill.

“On September 16, Marshall Joffre telegraphed to Lord Kitchener asking whether a Brigade of Marines could not be sent to Dunkirk to reinforce the garrison and to confuse the enemy with the idea of British as well as French forces being in this area. Lord Kitchener asked me whether the Admiralty would help in this matter. I agreed to send the brigade if he would also send some Yeomanry Cavalry for its local protection. He sent a regiment. I was thus led, though by no means unwillingly, into accepting a series of minor responsibilities of a very direct and personal kind, which made inroads both upon my time and thought and might well—though I claim they did not—have obscured my general view.”

But this narrative is not concerned with its military but with its political importance. This was great because it first shook Asquith’s faith in Churchill’s judgment. Asquith’s opinion in the matter may have been absolutely erroneous. But that he ended by getting a complete scare over Churchill and the Dunkirk Circus is proved by document after document—and his conversation was full of the same topic.

If ships were lost like the three cruisers, or a battle lost like the Coronel, or an enemy raid successful like the Dogger Bank, Asquith would simply say “Bad luck for Winston” or “This will be a blow to Winston; I am sorry for him.” He did not in the spoken or written word show any irritation with the First Lord over purely official naval misfortunes. Nor again did he do so over the inception of the Dardanelles adventure, though he must have been sorely tried at times.

It was something peculiar in the Dunkirk Circus which attracted Asquith’s attention and made him doubt in the long run whether Churchill was a wise counsellor in war. If it be answered that this was an irrational view for the Premier to take I cannot help this. It is a fact and no one can tell how deeply it affected Churchill’s fortunes.

Very few people would be able to answer that question to-day—and its existence was, indeed, hardly known to the war public of the time.

The Dunkirk Circus was begun with a landing and re-embarkation of marines at Ostend as a demonstration to make the Germans fear for their lines of communication in Belgium. The idea underlying it was really the historic policy of British armed intervention in Europe—most strikingly practised during the Napoleonic Wars. This was not to place a huge army in line with our continental allies, but to land smaller forces by means of sea power wherever they could upset the military plans of the enemy, and to withdraw them again by sea if their situation became dangerous. Churchill, however, could not claim to be an out-and-out supporter of this historic school of thought, for he was in favour of sending out the Expeditionary Force and placing it in line with the French army—instead of using it for the purposes of amphibious warfare.

The marine force disappeared from Ostend only to reappear in stranger guise at Dunkirk.

It was a portent, because it was a land army controlled not by the British military authorities at all, but by the Admiralty. It was thus a considerable source of irritation to the military. Its composition was extraordinary. It consisted of marines as infantry, of a regiment of yeomanry as cavalry, of a set of private motor cars Churchill had acquired and armed with maxims, and of a fleet of motor buses.

The object of this strange army was to encourage the Belgians and alarm the Germans by making a great parade of force without fighting any general action. The cars, the buses with infantry on board, and the cavalry, therefore, dashed in and out of such Belgian towns and villages as were not in possession of the enemy and played a kind of game of military hide-and-seek. They were here one moment and gone the next—ubiquitous, like their creator—a witness to the fertile and romantic imagination which had called them into being.

Had the matter stopped there, the trouble might have been confined to a growing irritation in the War Office and at G.H.Q. in France. But presently peculiar stories began to percolate to Ministers, who seem to have been at the outset very little informed as to what Churchill was doing on the Belgian coast. The Prime Minister told a story that Churchill had met General Seeley (a former War Minister) in Dunkirk and had offered to run him back in a destroyer for a day’s visit to his old colleagues. To this offer—so ran the tale—Seeley had replied that he had sworn never to leave the soil of France so long as it was profaned by the foot of the invader.

Asquith’s attitude towards the Dunkirk enterprise at this period may be gauged by the fact that he was so pleased with this story that he repeated it continually.

Then there were, on more than one occasion, unexplained absences on the part of the First Lord from the Admiralty, which were often inconvenient and caused a growing sense of annoyance among other members of the Government.

The Prime Minister, who, at the outset, had approved of the creation of the “circus,” found himself tolerating these absences and trying to conceal the whereabouts of his colleague from other Ministers. Subsequently he discovered that he must take charge at the Admiralty during an absence of Churchill. On a later occasion still he could not find the First Lord when the date of the sailing of the New Zealand contingent was at stake so that, Asquith complained, a very serious delay in despatching this force occurred.

This at any rate was Asquith’s opinion. It is easy to reply that the Premier could have operated through the First Sea Lord (Admiral Sir H. Jackson) in this matter during the absence of the First Lord of the Admiralty. Again it is the subjective impression produced on Asquith’s mind with which this narrative is concerned. The Premier was obviously irritated by the incident and it weakened Churchill against the crisis of the following year when everything depended on Asquith supporting him against the Tories. In fact Asquith’s views about the Dunkirk “circus” began to alter. It did not seem quite so amusing.

At last the Prime Minister expressed the pious hope to a third party that Churchill would have learnt by past experience, and that he would wind up the “circus” and transfer it to the proper military authorities. It never seemed to have occurred to him that he might long before have spoken in this sense to Churchill himself and with authority. In fact, he never did so, but went by a roundabout way to Lord French and induced the somewhat unwilling Commander-in-Chief to lay his hands upon the concern.

Lord French could find no other use for the fleet of derelict motor cars than to take the quick firers out of them and give them to his infantry. So unlucky was Churchill in the whole affair, that he was embroiled with Lord Kitchener over this transaction. The War Secretary complained to the Prime Minister that Churchill had offered the “circus” to Lord French behind his back.

We have seen the development of Asquith’s view towards the “circus.” It goes through three phases—that of hearty support—that of amused tolerance—and finally, that of growing irritation.

To put it in a different way, the Premier had begun by encouraging the First Lord in his policy of independent activity. Then, though he had ceased to believe in the policy, its executor’s tirelessness intrigues him. Finally, this very activity becomes a source of annoyance to his own peace. He wishes the man of action out of his life. When strong pressure from outside is exerted to put Churchill out, the First Lord is flung away easily because the citadel of trust and confidence which might have supported him has already really been betrayed from within. Asquith himself had passed over to the ranks of Churchill’s critics by the time the Tories demanded his resignation.

All this was really not quite fair to Churchill. At least, it seems a pity that the Prime Minister could not have handled him differently.

Churchill’s pugnacity, his exuberance of imagination, his mental and physical restlessness and keenness, were great national assets. What they needed, were pruning and directing. Was not this the natural task for the calmer mentality of an older man? Churchill, checked here and guided there by a man who was his official superior, could have been kept in office and his invaluable qualities turned to the most useful national purposes.

These qualities became uncontrolled. Churchill tried to work everything single-handed. This in a way was his fault. It was also the misfortune of the nation. What he needed was careful coaching—a steady supporting hand in return for the right of control.

What he got from the Premier was a free hand altogether—leave, so to speak, to make or damn himself. As this freedom develops into licence, the man who might have been his mentor is simply amused. Then the whole business begins to bore him. Other colleagues make trouble about it. Here is another of these men of action, always trying something new, always creating situations which demand impossible decisions. If Churchill must fall, then his fall will be a positive release.

So Churchill went, and in his place, to be the main new source of irritation, came Lloyd George.

That statesman had indeed, in 1915, come perilously nigh landing on his Gallipoli when he wanted to buy up the Drink Trade in England. Fortunately for him, all sections of opinion and all interests had rushed down to the beach in a mass and driven him back to the safety of the open sea. Since then, his two ventures—to obtain munitions and to attain the War Office—had been successful. He had committed no further imprudences.

THE second weakness which Asquith developed was not his fault. It might be described as the loss of the support of the Generals and the Generals’ party. Asquith had been from the outset identified with what might be described as the “men like gods” theory of the higher command. The Generals regarded it as the chief duty of a civilian Minister to listen respectfully to the oracles which proceeded from the mouths of the men of war. They wished to reduce the idea of civilian control and authority to the very minimum. Had the Generals justified this theory by success in the field; had they refrained from quarrelling among themselves; had they even given united loyalty to Asquith, his position would have proved unshakeable.

Unfortunately for him, they did none of these things. The first General to turn against him was Lord French, who set the Shell agitation going against the Government in order to cover his own failure to advance at Neuve Chapelle.

Sir Henry Wilson was all along conducting independently a virulent campaign against the Prime Minister. Wilson wrote and spoke continually to the Conservative leaders, urging them to turn Asquith out. In fact, he devoted much of his energy to fighting the Prime Minister.

It is a matter for reflection that although Asquith was well informed of what Wilson was doing, he never came down on him. While outwardly to the world he kept the pose of Olympian indifference, he showed himself inwardly a good deal hurt and disturbed by these military intrigues and yet unwilling to take steps to end them.

He describes Wilson as “the serpent.” He relates that he believes him to have set afloat a particularly malicious story that Kitchener had asked the French Generals whether they would not like Lord French to be superseded by Sir Ian Hamilton—and that this had destroyed good feeling between the British Field Marshals.

Finally, he ascribes various attacks on the position of Sir A. Murray, French’s Chief of the Staff, to Wilson, and to his desire to succeed to the post. This Asquith vows Wilson shall never do, come what may. Sir A. Murray comes home, but Field Marshal Sir William Robertson takes his place. The next retirement is that of Lord French himself, which is brought about chiefly on the representation given by Lord Haig of what occurred at Loos.

Thus, by the summer of 1916 the war is not going well—the Generals are quarrelling among themselves quite as violently as the politicians—and Asquith has lost the unanimous support of the Generals’ party.

People may wonder now at the absolute lack of self-assertiveness, amounting almost to a complete abdication of authority, which marked Asquith’s attitude towards the Higher Command. It is only fair to recognise how widespread was this feeling of the inferiority of the highly-placed civilian to the highly-placed soldier, both at the outbreak of war and for many months or years afterwards. In fact, in many cases it may be said to have lasted for the whole duration of hostilities.

The fact of the matter is that the Generals at once damaged and intimidated the politicians from the outset by the attitude they assumed towards them. This attitude was no doubt honest and natural enough in Army men; the Generals are not to be blamed. But no one could have a true picture of the war in his mind who did not realise the action and reaction upon the politics of the period produced by this “superiority” complex of G.H.Q. and by the acquiescences of revolts it produced in Downing Street or Whitehall.

The picture of Ministers which the Generals drew to themselves and which was reflected to some extent to the public, was something like this.

The Minister sat in a leather-bound armchair in a room where even the faintest hum of outside traffic was hushed, and pulled at a long cigar while he languidly superintended the activities of the secretaries. From this repose he would cheerfully give an order speeding “glum heroes up the line to death” by thousands—although he knew nothing of war. He then rose to go out to dinner, with others of his colleagues who had been similarly employed. If the Minister ever did show any activity, it was of that inconvenient kind by which an ignorant civilian interfered with the superb expert efficiency exhibited by the General. And in the meantime, too, the General, instead of smoking a cigar, was daily qualifying for a V.C. by the hardships he endured and the dangers he ran.

Anyone who will take the trouble to read those London newspapers of the period which reflected the Generals’ standpoint, will recognise the picture.

Now, the majority of the politicians were absolutely cowed by this presentation of the relative merits of St. Omer (Headquarters of The British Army in France) and Downing Street. The soldiers remained to the politicians as “men like gods,” while the politicians were mere men—and one does not argue with the gods, even if one thinks them wrong.

After a bit, however, some of the more independent and realistic minds among the Ministers of various administrations who had been to France fairly frequently began to have doubts about the validity of the Generals’ argument.

They found these officers just as snug and safe at St. Omer and other places behind the line as anyone in Downing Street or Whitehall. Like Ministers, the Generals took decisions which resulted in other people running the risks.

In fact, the Generals in their attitude towards the politicians were confusing themselves quite honestly with the men in the trenches, who, as a matter of fact, disliked them just as much as they did any civilian Minister. G.H.Q. was in essence no more or no less personally heroic than the Cabinet. The only question was whether it could claim to be wiser in other ways.

The Generals’ Press, however, insisted that the politicians were a nasty back-biting lot, thinking of nothing but personal advancement, whereas the Generals considered only the honour and glory of the country.

The more realistic Ministers, after a prolonged experience of Army generals, did not reach this conclusion.

But even the coolest of these observers were very slow to shake off the glamour which the Generals enjoyed in August, 1914. The Higher Command were particularly foolish in turning on Asquith, because he, more than any other possible successor, clung to this romantic view of civilian subordination to the last.

Two of the most important members of the Ministry who were shortly to take complete control of affairs were conscious of military disputes at home and in the Higher Command at G.H.Q. They had already revised their views on the god-like capacities of Generals when an event occurred which, though trivial in itself, had far-reaching consequences.

This episode, which brought the extraordinary mentality of the Generals home to the politicians, was the arrest ^[2] of Lord Birkenhead in France. Many amazing versions of this affair were circulated at the time and possibly still linger in the memory.

The main fact was a simple one. Owing to a disregard of a formality on the part of a high Law officer (Lord Birkenhead), or in the alternative, owing to a piece of impudence or carelessness on the part of someone on the staff at G.H.Q., a Minister of the Crown was arrested, ignominiously treated, and brought back as though he was a common prisoner or deserter, and confined by the Military authorities.

One might have judged the story incredible if one had not had previous experience of G.H.Q. in France.

I was at G.H.Q. as the Military Representative of the Canadian Government. I was, of course, really a civilian travelling in military uniform because it was impossible to get about in the war zone at all in other guise.

To understand the Birkenhead affair, one must realise the atmosphere. A lot of men—quite insignificant from any national standpoint—were dressed up in authority at G.H.Q. and thought it a duty to humiliate any civilian of importance who happened to expose himself by some carelessness or error of judgment. They caught Birkenhead because he did not know the atmosphere at G.H.Q.

The Generals also did not realise that the arrest of Birkenhead—a mere petty incident—would have far-reaching reactions. I do not think, in fact, that any of the parties concerned realised it at the time. They all sought to wash it out of their memories. It was a paltry thing—something to forget or be a bit ashamed of. Yet, none the less, in the background of consciousness the memory stuck like a burr.

Lloyd George and Bonar Law found at G.H.Q. in France not “men like gods,” but military authorities who were quite prepared to put questions of passes and procedure on a par with their own urgent duties to the troops.

I will now tell the whole story. I went down from the line to Paris, to see Bonar Law. As he was Colonial Secretary, I had to transact much of my Canadian official business with him—so that I was frequently in touch with him. In Paris I found him with Lloyd George. Birkenhead was also there.

Lloyd George and Bonar Law had already arranged to go on a visit to G.H.Q. Birkenhead wanted to go up at the same time, and wished me to send him there by car. I said “No”—it would be better to go in the ordinary way of routine by train to Boulogne with the others. He understood and accepted my advice.

I also advised him to telegraph to Haig’s private secretary for a permit to come into the military zone—which he did.

Subsequently the whole party, including myself, proceeded to Boulogne by train. Motor-cars were waiting for the Ministers. I got into my own car and drove straight to St. Omer by myself. I made it a strict rule never to take with me anyone who was not definitely vouched for and in effect billeted on me by the Military—as certain journalists were. I understood the mentality of G.H.Q.

Lloyd George, then Minister of Munitions, Bonar Law and Birkenhead then entered one car. No passes were ready for any of them. Lloyd George naturally was impatient, and simply said, “Drive on.” It thus escaped notice that no pass had been issued for Birkenhead. On arrival at St. Omer, there was accommodation prepared at Haig’s Headquarters for Lloyd George and Bonar Law, but none for Birkenhead. He came to me, therefore, at the Canadian Headquarters and I offered to put him up for the night. He then asked me for a car to drive him over to see Churchill, who was at the time in command of a battalion at the front. I told him I had no car available. He applied to the Army Service Corps pool and obtained a car from them. He was wearing a uniform as he was entitled to do because it was convenient to travel through the lines as a soldier and difficult to do so as a civilian.

The rest of the story is pretty generally known. Birkenhead found Churchill and was just setting out to go up to the trenches with him about 1 a.m. in the morning when he was suddenly arrested and brought back to G.H.Q. for not having a pass to come into the military zone. He was confined to rooms at the Hotel du Commerce, St. Omer, for the remaining hours of the night.

In the morning he was asked to attend at the Adjutant-General’s Headquarters. Macready, the Adjutant of the Forces, then asked him the following (no doubt carefully prepared) questions—If you are a civilian, why are you here in uniform? If you are a soldier, why don’t you obey the regulations?^[3]

After interviewing Macready he came to me at my quarters, and having been up all night, very sensibly went to bed. I went out at once to seek and inform Bonar Law. Churchill also had been active in getting in touch with the politicians at the Front, and sent the following letter:

Bonar Law was upset. The incident confirmed a view which had been growing in his mind that the mentality of generals was sometimes concerned with the day of small things. When Bonar Law was stirred, he could act forcibly. He interviewed Haig and told him quite frankly what he thought about the affair. He insisted that due apologies should be made to Birkenhead. I may add that the intention of the military up till this had been to send Birkenhead under escort to Boulogne, and deport him as one having no pass.

In the face of Bonar Law’s remonstrances Haig agreed not only to stop this amazing plan, but he sent his private secretary to see Birkenhead, and to invite him to lunch at Headquarters. Explanations were made by Haig in the presence of Bonar Law and Lloyd George and accepted by Birkenhead.

Of course the story leaked out through officers returning on leave—and generally it assumed the most fantastic shapes, nearly always presented in a light unfavourable to the chief sufferer—Lord Birkenhead.

Birkenhead was a wronged man in this matter. At the worst he had been a victim of some act of technical carelessness—which the Adjutant-General should have ignored in the legal adviser of the Crown. The episode, as I have said, is trivial; the memory of it stuck.

A FURTHER cause of weakening in the Asquith Coalition administration formed in 1915 was the perpetual battle in the Cabinet over Conscription. This raged intermittently throughout the year until by the time the autumn was reached it was admitted that a frank discussion and vote in the Cabinet would have broken the administration to pieces. Asquith, in consequence, followed his usual custom and prevented a discussion. The division of opinion here tended to follow party lines far more closely than on most of the War problems of the period—that is to say that the Conservatives were apt to be conscriptionists and the Liberals inclined to oppose compulsion, its strongest opponents, for instance, were Grey, Harcourt, McKenna and Runciman. This was the theoretical position. In practice it developed a good many modifications. For instance, the active fighting radical elements represented by Lloyd George and Churchill were conscriptionist from start to finish. On the other hand, Lord Lansdowne on the Conservative side early developed a passion for the voluntary system. We find here the germ of a fundamental difference of view as to the aim of the War and the methods by which it was to be conducted which completely transcended party. In the long run this divergence banded life-long enemies together against life-long friends within the Cabinet.

Asquith himself, however, took a purely party view of conscription: that is to say, he was certain that the Liberal rank and file in the constituencies would not stomach it. He thought that to carry a conscriptionist measure would disrupt Liberalism—and so long as he could shelter his opinion behind that of Lord Kitchener it was hard for the conscriptionists in the Cabinet to effect anything.

Sir John Simon also held to Asquith’s view, and envisaged a great host of Liberal adherents flocking to his banner. When he resigned on this issue on 11th January, 1916, on paper this host ought to have appeared. Actually no one rallied to the banner of freedom.

Asquith—and here he was followed by Simon—could not understand that Liberals were also human beings. Many Liberals had marched to the front with the best. Their wives, their fathers, their sons and their relations went through the usual agony of anxiety. Like any other people exposed to this stress they forgot all about the opinions held by Liberal ministers or Liberal Whips or Liberal Chairmen of Constituencies who were urging the Premier against Compulsion. But they were human beings as well as Liberal voters. And they said: “Well, Jack has gone, why should not Cuthbert go too?”

The truth is that Asquith had fallen into his besetting error of judgment—that of mistaking peace values for war values. The ideas of peace were a pleasant myth of the past, those of war were the only reality and quite different in character. Asquith clung to the myth throughout and ignored the reality.

One of Asquith’s characteristic pieces of political tactics in this matter was used to counter Carson who was a strong Conscriptionist in the Cabinet. He would relate in private the story that he had seen Carson and Bonar Law just before the outbreak of war, and that Carson had said that the Regular Reservists, officers and men, in Ulster would refuse to obey the mobilisation orders and would remain behind to protect Ulster.

It is difficult to see exactly what this question had to do with the principal of compulsory service. Asquith, however, thought it had and he told the story many times.

However, in September of 1915, after the Battle of Loos, the tension in the Cabinet on Conscription became so great that even Asquith was compelled to adopt some kind of expedient to deal with the crisis. Nine Ministers met at Lord Curzon’s house and resolved at all costs to bring the question to a head.

The Premier’s answer to this revolt was simple and characteristic. It was not a policy—it was a man.

The Premier sent for Lord Derby, and sought to cover the divisions in his own Cabinet by shovelling that issue out of sight behind Derby’s broad back.

Probably no other man in public life could have served Asquith’s turn in this scheme for postponement. For Derby’s name was one to conjure with among the people—immensely popular, greatly respected, supported by his broad acres and the hereditary virtue of his House, he could claim support for a scheme simply by calling it by his name. This, indeed, was so obvious to his conscriptionist Conservative colleagues in the Government that they attempted to ostracise him for accepting Asquith’s nomination as recruiting officer-in-chief. They said Derby was simply bolstering up a rotten voluntary system by his prestige, and that if he refused, Asquith could get no one else in England to do the job, and so must accept compulsion.

These colleagues actually induced Derby to attend at their meeting at Lord Curzon’s house. There these opinions were put forcibly to him—but he remained firm in face of a minatory lecture. He took the view and argued that his scheme was the first and inevitable step to Conscription.

Derby’s character and mentality are, I think, the most typical of all that I have come across in public life here. When I was fighting my first contest in the Manchester area, I tried very hard to get him to come to help me, but my effort was in vain. There was no personal reason for the refusal. His assistance would have been invaluable to me, because the cry against me was that I was a stomach taxer. So great was the Derby influence in Lancashire, that I would have derived great benefit by Lord Derby’s appearance on the platform with me. But because he disapproved of my warm advocacy of duties on imported foodstuffs, or because I was an unknown man, he refused my appeal, even though I made it through Bonar Law.

When I was successful, the Chairman of my Committee asked me to fix a date for a celebration of the victory. I did so. I was told I must change it because it did not suit Lord Derby. I refused to do so. It seemed to me that if he would not help me to a victory, I would not help him to celebrate it. After that episode I rather took the line that there should be no Stanley influence in my constituency. I hoed my own patch of political land and was independent of that influence—and at the time we had never met.

Later, when I was fighting hard for the retention of the Food Taxes—the proposal to tax foreign imported wheat and meat while admitting the Empire product free—Derby was leading the movement for striking them out of the Conservative programme. It was really his power which forced the leaders to abandon the Food Taxes.

That power was the fruit of a tremendous personal popularity in the country. To appreciate its extent to the full, one had perhaps to know the north of England in the pre-war days. In the Palatinate, Derby in his public appearances received something just short of a royal welcome. Party animosities were hushed and even the opposing Press was often loud in his praise. And this feeling was widespread in every constituency throughout the county of Lancashire.

Yet, curiously enough, and here we have the whole paradox of Derby’s character and career in a nutshell, he has never had a first-rate status with his Ministerial colleagues.

Even when the Derby scheme failed—no one knew better than Derby that it must fail and was meant to fail, and that conscription could only be built and was built on its failure—Derby was a great national figure.

On the War Office becoming vacant by the death of Lord Kitchener, some soldiers knowing Derby from his recruiting work inside their office, wanted him to succeed as War Secretary. He said plainly he would prefer the post of Under-Secretary, though it was definitely inferior to his general political status. He told Bonar Law that he was prepared to serve under him at the War Office—an offer which strengthened Bonar Law’s claim to the post.

When Lloyd George was appointed, he consented to serve under him in the same capacity, and his adhesion brought an accession of strength to Lloyd George in the critical months which followed his acceptance of that office.

It was in these months that Derby was at his strongest. Had he not attached himself to Lloyd George’s fortunes, many persons believed that the Premiership was within his grasp. For when Asquith fell, if neither Bonar Law nor Lloyd George could have formed a new Ministry, Lord Derby would have been the choice of all the soldiers and some civilians with formidable Press support. He occupied, too, a relatively independent position in regard to the individuals whose disputes had brought down the Ministry.

What is the real Lord Derby like? For on this point is a vital disagreement between popular opinion and Whitehall.

The popular approval given to Derby—greater than that enjoyed by most Prime Ministers and continued from year to year—is not based on any skill with the spoken or the written word. Derby is not a spell-binder—yet he speaks just well enough to get his personality over the footlights. It is that personality which begets his popularity—the high integrity, the sportsmanship, the amiability, the readiness to sacrifice everything to duty, joined to that tact and shrewdness which come from living much in the world.

Now we come to the Whitehall point of view. Whitehall does not deny all these qualities, but says that this imposing facade covers the weakness of a swithering viewpoint. Derby, it says, will agree in taking up a certain attitude but in the next ten minutes he will flop on to the other side if he meets an opposing influence.

Is this charge, which amounts to one of excessive amiability in counsel, correct? Yes, it is true. But it is right to say that this form of indecisiveness does not go down to any root principle. Derby has never gone back on any great cause. He has been meticulously consistent in his service to the Conservative party. He has never gone back on the leaders—though he might well have done so, much to his profit, on more than one occasion under the reigns of Balfour, Bonar Law and Baldwin. He has often been an alternative leader of the Conservatives, sometimes a potential and once a probable Premier.

It would be interesting to speculate as to what kind of leader and Premier he would have made. I feel sure that he would have scored a success. I do not make any reference here to the administrative side of such a Government. What I mean is that this popularity would have been enlarged even beyond its present sphere, and that the critics of Whitehall would have ceased their complaints. They would have said that his uncertainty was mere wise caution, and so the experts would have joined with the populace in adoring yet another “greatest” of living Prime Ministers.

BONAR LAW always had a strong streak of melancholy in his disposition. At the best of times he was never exuberantly gay—and in the summer of 1916 things were so bad with him that he became almost a tragic figure. He had always valued highly his old political associates in the Conservative party—not only the men who were leaders like Carson and Birkenhead, but many of the rank and file. And he had been for years on the best of terms with Chamberlain and Long.

Now his new conceptions of the necessities of the war began to press against his old personal and party loyalties.

As the year 1916 proceeded, he found himself doomed to an ever-increasing loneliness, until by the summer he stood absolutely alone. One working ally, it is true, he had in Lloyd George—but the alliance was not then based on friendship. As we have seen in the first volume of this narrative, he thought Lloyd George had treated him shabbily on more than one occasion, and attributed these incidents to the new War Secretary’s insatiable greed for high office and personal ambition. He could not refuse to work with Lloyd George because on all essential notions connected with the conduct of the war the two men coincided—but how much rather would he have been co-operating with the Tories!

We have seen how Asquith exalted Curzon at Bonar Law’s expense, and how a good many of the Tory Ministers tended to listen to Asquith rather than to their own leader—and again, how the taking of the Colonial Office depressed his prestige and cut him from the centre of active management. Curzon, to put the matter bluntly, was getting ready to wrest the Conservative leadership from Bonar Law and he was being encouraged both by the Prime Minister and the trend of events.

Over the evacuation of Gallipoli, Bonar Law had been fighting hard against the majority of his Conservative colleagues—including Birkenhead. For the courageous attitude he had assumed in compelling the evacuation he had received no praise. And Carson had resigned from the Ministry. This left him with Long alone as a really warm supporter, though his friendly relationship with Lord Lansdowne remained on the surface unimpaired. How long Lansdowne’s friendship for Bonar Law had been undermined it is impossible to say. And now Lansdowne and Long and many other lesser friends were about to join the band of the critics over the Irish issue. Yet Bonar Law’s apparently growing weakness in friendship and party ties was in reality his growing strength in all that really mattered. He had begun thinking for himself about the war instead of running in blinkers under the guidance of old prepossessions and ancient party friends. But I do not imagine that he ever really thought this out or it might have been a comfort to him.

In addition to his public worries, Bonar Law was also beset by private anxieties. His eldest son, James, had been to the front and returned. He had gone out a boy whom Bonar understood, he had returned a man whom Bonar found it hard to understand. The boy had seen both life and death to the full and had changed greatly and for the better. There was no question of a disagreement, but his father found a difficulty in adjusting himself to the new relationship. I suppose practically all fathers have been through the same experience.

Bonar Law’s greatest love in these days was for this eldest boy. He had even tried for one afternoon at the outbreak of war to interfere with his taking his commission—and afterwards was ashamed of it.

Later on, when his second son, Charles, joined up, though the child was barely of military age, Bonar Law made no effort to hold him back. The lad lost his life in Palestine. For more than a month there was hope that he might be a prisoner in the hands of the Turks.

As to James Law, Bonar Law never tried to get him a staff appointment—which was a form of renunciation on his part, for more than one General actually made the offer.

When James returned to the front, his father suffered terribly from apprehension of the War Office telegram—an apprehension which, alas, proved only too well founded—for James Law met his death in the air.

His eldest daughter, Isabel, now Lady Sykes, also meant much in his life. She was his comforter and shield all through the war. She subsequently became engaged to General Sykes when staying at my house near Leatherhead and I had the task of dissuading him from driving her back to town that afternoon. The secret, such as it was, was no secret to anyone except her father. The next morning she told him the news. He immediately called me on the telephone, beginning, “A terrible thing has happened”—yet ever afterwards he treated Sykes as his own son and had as much affection for him as if he had been born a member of the family.

Bonar Law’s sister had all his confidence and advised him in everything. But her advice was not always valuable, for she cast about too much to find out in what sense he wished to be advised.

Much has been written of my relationship with Bonar Law. I think a plain statement of the truth about the terms on which we stood cannot do any harm.

It has been said that we were boys together in Canada. This is patently absurd. Bonar was twenty years older than I was and left New Brunswick at the age of thirteen. I came in touch with him because his firm—William Jacks & Co.—was agent for the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company. Naturally I was interested in him, because while my father had been a Presbyterian Minister sent out from Scotland, with Church aid, to Newcastle, New Brunswick, his father had been a Presbyterian Minister—and one certainly assisted in the same way—at Richibucto, in the same province.

The first time I saw Bonar Law was in 1908 when I paid a visit to England. I went to see him at his flat at Whitehall Court, with no more romantic notion in my head than to establish a valuable business connection and sell him some bonds; for I was then placing Canadian Industrial Bonds on the British market on a very considerable scale.

My recollection is that I was disappointed with the shape of his head. I thought, “A man with a head like that cannot possibly go far.” At that time I held by a theory that no one could achieve success unless he had a big head.

Bonar Law’s account of the interview was that after a short time he got bored with me and became anxious to terminate it. As I would not go, he bought some bonds from me, and so got rid of me.

My real acquaintance with Bonar Law began some two years later, when I came over here in 1910.

This time I arrived in London as a rich man who had come through a fierce financial struggle with the spoils of victory, but was determined never to put those grave matters to the test again. It was true that I had had a success, but I did not desire ever again to steep myself in the atmosphere of money-making.

I was looking for an interest in public life. I was concerned about the connection between Canada and Great Britain, which appeared to me to be in jeopardy. I found in the doctrines of Imperial Tariff Reform the best remedy for the danger. I was also convinced that the formation of an Imperial Zollverein involved a tax on British wheat and meat.

It was in this new mood that I met Bonar Law again. I went along to his house one morning.

My intention was to interest him. I succeeded so well that Bonar Law asked me to stay to lunch and I saw he really wanted me to stay.

The food was not very good, and I noticed with a little annoyance that I was given one glass of whisky and water, whereas my host helped himself twice to what appeared to be special whisky out of his own bottle. This keeping of a special tap in one’s own house is a thing I have a prejudice against.

It was a week after that I found out that he was a teetotaller and his “special whisky” was a bottle of lime juice. I had remorse for my lack of charity. Henceforward I saw more of him, and it was plain that my conversation amused him.

Next, to my surprise, I found him dining with me. But perhaps his surprise was greater than mine, for he never dined with anyone if he could help it.

This was the more surprising because the food on Bonar Law’s table was always quite execrable. Its sameness was a penance and its quality a horror to me.

But this weakness in the cuisine was certainly not due to parsimony. On the contrary, money was poured out in profusion on the upkeep of the establishment. I should doubt whether any expenses of recent times in No. 11 Downing Street have been so great as Bonar Law’s, when he eventually became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the second Coalition—although some account must be taken of the high cost of living of his day.

It was strange to see this methodical man—who had conducted a large business with close attention to the practice of administrative economies—so absolutely careless about his household accounts. It was, however, part of his attitude towards life. In some spheres it was essential to be meticulously careful—but the management of a household was one of those things which did not matter, and did not count.

It is obvious that this kind of carelessness is just as likely to lead to getting too much as getting too little. The phases alternate. At the very time when I was groaning under the miserable cuisine offered me by Bonar Law, I discovered that Lady FitzAlan had had a precisely converse experience. She had gone to tea with the Laws at a time when the rationing system was in full force. She was quite shocked at the array of cakes which confronted her at the tea-table of the Conservative Leader. She formed the opinion that Bonar Law and his sister were inclined to do themselves too well. How I wished at the time that Lady FitzAlan had been right.

There was opposition to the rapidly growing friendship between Bonar Law and me. The hostility was not confined to Westminster. Some of it found expression in Bonar Law’s own domestic circle. His sister, Mary Law, was not at all sure that I was good for Bonar. She objected to the ribaldry of my remarks. She has since described to me the scene at which this issue came to a crisis.

Bonar Law was lying on a sofa. Though he took much exercise he had a desire for a recumbent position whenever possible. It was as though the somewhat tired aspect of his mentality demanded a physical expression. He was reading with his glasses on (and talking at the same time, as was his wont) in this favourite posture, when his sister suddenly remarked, “I don’t care about the growing influence of Max Aitken here.”

Bonar Law took off his glasses slowly and said quietly, “Do let me like him.” She then vowed he should have his friend as far as she was concerned and never complained again of the part I played in Bonar Law’s life.

I can picture the scene so well because all Bonar Law’s little tricks of manner dwell in my memory. For instance, when he was really perplexed by a problem he would first of all scratch his head. Then he would take off his glasses. Then his eyes, which were bright blue, always assumed an absolutely innocent expression. I used to be struck by this sudden appearance of innocence on a face generally so wise and experienced.

When he retired temporarily from active politics in early 1921, I wrote a signed article on his character and career. In it occurred the statement that while the most unselfish of all men in the great affairs of the world, he was quite selfish in trivial matters. For instance, he always took the only comfortable arm chair in the room. On reading this, Miss Law instantly sallied out to Barkers and bought two new armchairs exactly resembling the old one. His room became disgracefully overfurnished as a consequence, but she had completely destroyed my ground of complaint.

What—to come to the crucial point—was the influence which I exercised over that life in its public aspect? In vital decisions none. Bonar Law himself invariably said that my attitude towards affairs, to the great problems of politics, always interested and concerned him, but that it never determined him. He weighed my opinion carefully but in his own mental scales. And that was the truth as I saw it too.

Of course I was always there ready to listen or to talk. I heard most of his speeches in advance, and faithfully fulfilled the role of the audience—but the speech and the opinions it voiced were his own.

One thing I did supply where there was a real need. I had an almost unlimited belief in Bonar Law’s powers. His one weak point was that he had not this belief in himself. Is not his best remembered dictum “If I am a great man, then all great men are frauds”? I did help to make up this deficiency in ambition, in the confidence of the self in the self—call it what you will—which marked Bonar Law to some degree or another to the very end of his career. I nurtured his ambition in the days before the war. I applied another kind of stimulus to his energies during the war. And these stimuli never failed me. He always reacted to them. I would appeal to his sense of the duty he owed to the public. Later on in the course of the struggle I would exact of him with a pertinacity bordering on cruelty an account of what his dead son would have required of him.

I never carried any gossip to Bonar Law—nor would he have been interested in it. He didn’t care to know, as I admit I do, about the human frailties of associates.

He would not always accept my views of the motives underlying certain political actions or developments. I often had to resort to every art of exposition and to striking forms of expression to make him realise what was going on all about him.

But I never coloured the picture—that was part of my goodwill. I was punctilious in showing him nothing but the absolute reality. So I never suffered from any reaction from my description.

I think I went up in his estimation by refusing office in 1915. As a matter of plain truth I was never out for office and the fact that I was not a political “soldier of fortune” was a strong point in my armoury in those days. No office or promotion ever came to me through Bonar Law. He was anxious to hold me back rather than to urge me forward.

He believed that I was cleverer than anyone else and never would listen in silence to any attack on my character.

The same thing applied to the written word. I have seen since his death innumerable letters, of whose existence I had no idea, though I was managing his correspondence at the time, repelling assaults on me. With extraordinary delicacy he had hidden them away.

For my part I organised a very efficient system of effacing myself—particularly during his Premiership—and yet I was never out of his life.

No doubt my association did him an injury. Let us hope I did him some good as well. Birrell once said to him, after a speech of his in the House “You will go very far—if you will only get rid of Max Aitken.” Perhaps he could have gone farther if he had taken the advice—but would he have had the will to go forward, even to the extent he did? The two problems are distinct.

Anyhow, Bonar Law certainly ruined me. He became so much a part of my political life that Winston Churchill was justified in saying after 1923 that I had sat on a three-legged stool; one leg was myself; the second was my newspapers; the third was my relation to Bonar Law—now the third leg had gone and Churchill said I could no longer balance myself in politics.

It is true. When I lost that third leg I had no desire to sit again on the stool of party politics.

BONAR LAW’S loneliness was increased by the Irish crisis which now rushed over the horizon. It was not of his own creating. It originated in the Dublin Rebellion of April, 1916, and in the visit Asquith paid to Ireland after this event. Asquith thought that this dreadful business had caused a shock of horror to the British and Irish peoples alike, and that the moment was ripe for some act of reconciliation.

Therefore Asquith with the very doubtful assent of the Tories in the Cabinet authorised Lloyd George in June to set up a negotiation with the rival Irish Leaders. Lloyd George succeeded in bringing Redmond and Carson together on the basis that the Home Rule Bill should be applied at once to Ireland instead of being left over to the end of the war, and that the six counties should be excluded from its operation.

The Irish leaders persuaded their followers to agree. But Redmond subsequently declared that the Government altered for the worse the terms offered him by Lloyd George and broke off the negotiation. The scheme of reconciliation therefore failed.

That is all I intend to say on a very complex matter. Since the negotiation bore no fruit it would be unprofitable to dissect its lifeless body. I propose to deal with this Irish issue simply as it affected the position of Bonar Law. The Tory Leader in the Commons was in favour of carrying out the plan and supported Lloyd George and Carson. With the exception of Balfour all the Tory Ministers and practically all the Tory magnates outside took the opposite view. Bonar Law’s isolation was thus intensified.

He was stricken in the house of his friends because the operating force which destroyed the compromise between Unionist Ulster and Nationalist Ireland, was the hostility of the Unionists in the South and West, whom Lloyd George had omitted to bring into the deal. This body of opinion worked in Downing Street through Lord Lansdowne, a great Irish landlord, and Lord Long, sometime a Tory Irish Secretary. Bonar Law was instantly deprived of the countenance of those he thought his only two remaining friends in the Ministry, though Lansdowne’s friendship was in reality by this time a non-existent asset.

Nor was this by any means the worst of the business. In forming his decision he had to struggle hard with an internal clash, which was painful to him, between his duty to his country and his allegiance to his old party cause. In reaching it he incurred the violent displeasure of at least two thirds of his quondam associates. He explained himself the motives which finally induced him to support the Lloyd George compromise on Ireland—when without any special suggestion on his part the Ulster Nationalist agreement had been attained—in a letter to his old and valued friend Lord St. Audries—

It will be observed at once what an immense development in war mentality separates the writer of this letter from the Bonar Law who had thundered against Asquith for “putting the Bill on the Statute book.”

But not by patriotic and reasoned arguments of this kind was the tempest to be assuaged. In those days at Bonar Law’s office there was a rain of letters of denunciation and protest. They made a huge pile which he divided into two separate dockets—one labelled “Personally abusive,” and the other devoted to remonstrances from important people. The abusive letters again might be divided into two categories. Class one begins “Sir, you are a traitor who has sold his country for gold.” Class two begins “Sir, I have been a loyal Unionist all my life but—”

To Conservative Peers, to Chairmen of Associations, and to Conservative M.P.s at the Front, Bonar Law replied firmly. But he felt none the less the alienation of his supporters on an issue which he had once made particularly his own. He would quote the old tag of Carlyle generally applied to Asquith: “I am their leader, therefore I must follow them,” to point out that he was really paying the penalty for riding out in advance of his troop.

As to Tory sentiment towards him—he had plenty of opportunities of gauging this hostility. Lords Curzon and Robert Cecil went on a private mission to the Prime Minister to declare that the Conservative members of the Cabinet (except Bonar Law) had never, and would never, agree to the terms Lloyd George had offered Redmond. Lansdowne and Long had become his most bitter opponents—Long even hinting at resignation. Selborne did actually resign at the mere threat of putting Home Rule and Amending Bill into effect. Lord Hugh Cecil said that if a Bill to pass the Lloyd George proposal was produced, he would oppose it tooth and nail at every stage.

A typical letter of protest came from Lord Brentford, who was Sir William Joynson Hicks, written on paper with black edges—

This epistle had a particular significance, because the writer was a prominent leader of what was called the “business men’s committee”—a body particularly hostile to Coalition as such and, to Asquith and his Ministry—a “ginger group” which did not regard Bonar Law, quite apart from the Irish question, with any favour.

Finally a Conservative Party meeting was, after several postponements, summoned by Bonar Law. Immediately Lord Midleton protested against the exclusion of Conservative Peers—thus anticipating a similar protest over the famous Carlton Club meeting in 1922. Bonar Law answered, with deadly logic, that he was the Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, and was holding a private meeting of the supporters who had appointed him leader. None the less the party meeting was by no means propitious for him. He and Balfour harangued the audience in favour of the Irish settlement. Others spoke in a contrary sense. The meeting was adjourned without coming to any decision. It never met again.

This was one of the few occasions before the Second Coalition of 1916 on which Balfour and Bonar Law co-operated heartily. As late as 1915 Bonar Law always addressed his predecessor as “Dear Mr. Balfour.” Balfour never got further than “My dear Bonar Law.” Subsequently when they were in various Ministries together—Balfour used to write “My dear B.L.”

Carson of course also had his difficulties—but at least he had the advantage of not being in office.

However, immediately after Lord Lansdowne’s intervention in the Lords and Redmond’s protest, Carson also showed signs of impeding the settlement. He explained that having successfully accomplished the most distasteful task of persuading the Unionists of the Six Counties to accept Home Rule plus exclusion, he thought the Imperial Government ought to give some guarantees of protection to all the loyalists of Ireland. He began to dwell on the naval necessity of controlling the south and west coast of Ireland—which was the stock argument of the Tory opponents of the Irish compromise. He was increasingly alarmed at the open demonstrations of disloyalty throughout Ireland. He did not say that he had changed his mind about the advisability of sticking to the Lloyd George agreement—but his written arguments could hardly have been distinguished from those of an opponent of that agreement. He complained in the end that the “Daily Express” was rightly or wrongly supposed to be the organ of Bonar Law, and that its conduct had been such as to put the Carsonites in the gravest difficulties.

Now, all that the “Daily Express” had done was to support the plan when the Lloyd George scheme was launched, giving it a general blessing. Finally, when the dissensions in the Conservative ranks reached such a point that a party meeting had to be summoned, the “Daily Express” advised the Tories to listen to the advice of Bonar Law, Balfour and Carson, and not to that of the Tories in the Cabinet, who wished to wreck the settlement.

It will be seen that the defeated side in the Irish crisis were a little inclined to indulge in recrimination. Lloyd George, for instance, always maintained that had Asquith faced the Tory revolters firmly, he could have put the whole business through—having behind him all the Liberal Ministers, plus Bonar Law, Balfour and Carson.

So the July of 1916 closed sadly for Bonar Law. Yet there were several significant aspects of the Irish crisis, which were prophetic. For the first time Bonar Law, Lloyd George and Carson had worked together as a team.

In this Irish question Bonar Law had, as in the Gallipoli crisis, definitely disassociated himself from what might be justly described as the main current of Tory thought when it was manifestly wrong and out of date.

In the light of commonsense he refused to bow down before the idol of “Prestige” in the East and of the Dagon of “union at all costs” in the West.

It was this capacity for thinking clearly on the facts of the war as they emerged and of translating these thoughts into action by the exercise of cold moral courage which brought Bonar Law into the immensely powerful position he was to attain at the end of 1916. But his colleagues and friends in the summer of that year did not view the man or the matter in this light. They saw him apparently discredited and abandoned by supporter after supporter. They could not perceive that he had been forsaken by the people who were wrong because their minds did not move quickly enough for the urgency of the times, and that he must go to the top of any successful War Government which could be formed precisely because he had been right. Bonar Law’s apparent failure in early 1916 was the measure of this coming success.

BONAR LAW, as he stood in the summer of 1916, has already been sketched at full length in a previous chapter. As the war proceeded and his mind attuned itself to new conditions it became more and more evident that his active assistance was essential to the winning of the war. He outstripped the other statesmen of the time in the two conjoint qualities required for the task—wisdom and character.

Lloyd George was viewed by men at this period in an ambiguous light. To the outside public he was becoming a hero. He was certainly becoming a nuisance to his colleagues. I give my own experience of him as a small contribution which may throw a little light on the subject. I had more than one interview with Lloyd George, especially in connection with railway transportation and engineering behind the front, with marked reference to concrete. He did not seem particularly interested in my views, or to seek my opinion. After the episode of his appointment to the War Office I got to know him better in a private way.

My modernised and romantic versions of Old Testament events and characters certainly amused him. A free rendering of the Bible story of the life of David and other things with tales of the judges, would hold his attention. But I never felt anything like getting near to the real man himself. To adopt the Bonar Law phraseology, it did not seem certain whether he was a great man or a great fraud.

This same dubiety of opinion was manifested all round. The infallible instinct of the public working through the Press was beginning, though the needle quivered backwards and forwards, to point to him as the saviour of the State. On the other hand, we have seen him, and shall see him again, regarded by many of his associates as a purely ambitious intriguer caring for nothing except his own aggrandisement. McKenna, the most hostile witness, speaking of this period, describes him as a kind of pest in council—never helpful, always running down other people’s departments in order to seize a slice of authority for his own. McKenna declares that he was not the aggressor in his famous duel with Lloyd George. The quarrel was forced on him because he resisted Lloyd George’s policy of “wrecking before capture” other people’s concerns.

But the balancing factor to Lloyd George in the Cabinet in the early months of the war was out. Churchill, the other brilliant mentality which thought itself fit to ride the storm, had vanished from the centre of power.

In 1916 Churchill was a character depressed beyond the limits of description. When the Government was deprived of his guidance, he could see no hope anywhere. He had remained with the Ministry in a subordinate capacity from May 1915 to the late autumn of that year, simply in order to press the Dardanelles scheme. With the evacuation of Gallipoli his last tie with Whitehall was severed. He turned readily enough to his long-nurtured ambitions for a command in the field. Churchill had been a “regular,” and he possessed a mind singularly adapted to deal with a war of new methods and surprises. He might reasonably have expected a brigade—and I believe he would have secured one but for the intense prejudice manifested against him in certain quarters at home.

The night before his departure for the front I went to see him in his house in the Cromwell road. The whole household was upside down while the soldier-statesman was buckling on his sword. Downstairs, Mr. “Eddie” Marsh, his faithful secretary, was in tears. And it is a commonplace to Churchill that he should have evoked such a depth of sympathy in his private secretary. Upstairs, Lady Randolph was in a state of despair at the idea of her brilliant son being relegated to the trenches. Mrs. Churchill seemed to be the only person who remained calm, collected and efficient.

Churchill went to France and was offered by French, who was then nearly at his last gasp as Commander-in-Chief, an A.D.C.’s post at G.H.Q. or, in the alternative, a Brigade. Churchill chose the Brigade, but insisted first on obtaining some practical experience of trench warfare. For this purpose he served a month with the Grenadier Guards. After that Churchill was recalled to G.H.Q. and was actually given a brigade in Bridge’s division. But the very day after this was apparently settled French happened to go home to London and told Asquith what he was doing. The Premier was apparently frightened and urged French, who was in no position to insist on having his way, to give Churchill no more than a battalion. This really was rough. A Premier may have to throw a colleague overboard sometimes to save the ship, but surely he should not jerk from under him the hen-coop on which the victim is trying to sustain himself in the stormy ocean.

The simile is not inapt. Asquith, as a politician, had a perfect right to remove Churchill, another politician, from high office. But surely he had no call to interfere, for political reasons, with the decision of the Commander-in-Chief in France, who judged Churchill’s merits as a soldier and thought him worthy of a Brigade.

Thus pressed by Asquith, French simply hung the matter up. Before the question was really settled French was removed from the position of Commander-in-Chief in France, and Haig succeeded him. Churchill thereupon removed himself from General Headquarters and came to stay at Canadian Headquarters in France of which I had charge at that period. In the long run he only got a battalion at the hands of Haig.

My own opinion was that Churchill would have made an invaluable adviser to any Commander-in-Chief. He would have guarded his superior against all kinds of errors both military and diplomatic. His romantic initiative, which gave us the tank, would have been guided and checked in all directions by expert advisers. One Churchill on his staff might have saved French from dismissal.

Bonar Law was very strongly pressed to help Churchill to an appointment of this kind. He responded with an unswerving antagonism to Churchill. He thought that to give Churchill an influence on the conduct of affairs in France would be a disaster. Lloyd George would not give any countenance to projects for Churchill’s preferment.

Churchill, as has been said, received the command of a battalion. I did not think it a crack battalion at that—though Churchill in the pride of possession and with due loyalty to his own command would hotly deny this.

I do not even know whether he was a good colonel. Such a judgment lies quite outside my province. So if I do not praise his conduct in the field it must not be supposed that silence implies a suppressed criticism.

He went into the trenches with the highest ideals—with the clear determination to do or die in the effort to succeed in a military career now that politics seemed closed to him. But it was an amazing waste of sheer brain and genius to make Winston Churchill a battalion commander.

Churchill very soon discovered the limits set to his utility in this new field of endeavour. It is true that for a time he enjoyed the open air life of danger and seemed content to settle down satisfied with the command of a tiny province. But this mood did not last.

In the spring of 1916 he wrote me a letter foreshadowing his return to Westminster, and giving some excellent reasons for so doing.

Finally he received some political overture, which decided him to return. He was urged in the first instance by Carson, and independently by C. P. Scott of the “Manchester Guardian” and by Sir Arthur Markham, to come home and assist in a patriotic opposition. Churchill’s function was to support the various ginger groups irrespective of party. At this moment, in the spring of 1916, it was thought that Asquith might fall on the question of a further tightening up of the measure for enforcing conscription, and that a first-class crisis and a reshuffle of the Ministry might take place. Actually Asquith yielded to the more vigorous members of his Cabinet and the crisis and the Amending Bill passed in May 1916. Churchill was therefore left out in the cold for some time longer, and the feeling that the Empire was being lost through his powerlessness gnawed at his vitals.

When he returned to the House of Commons in the autumn he immediately plunged into the debates. He complained one day that the Government had failed to give the House a lead. The next day he declared that Ministers showed a lack of modesty in bringing forward a Bill to prolong the life of the existing Parliament—worse still they were going to put the Government whips on to carry it.

Bonar Law made a witty and merciless reply. “Mr. Churchill,” he said, “has given the House two valuable lessons—which came with great effect from him. One is that we should all conduct ourselves with becoming modesty.” (Laughter.) “That is good advice from whatever quarter it comes. The other is that the Government are committing an unpardonable offence in putting on Government Whips for a Government Bill. That is from the same right hon. gentleman who told us yesterday that the Government should lead the House.” (Laughter.)

The “Daily Express” gave considerable prominence to this episode. This drew from Churchill the following letter to me—

It was strange to see this “Battling Butler” of politics so sensitive to a debating cross-counter.

At this time his thoughts seemed to be turning inwards as though he was anatomising his own soul. He always showed signs of despair in certain circumstances. On one occasion before this date I was disturbed because he was an obvious victim of depression and forebodings that distressed him. In consequence I asked him down to spend a day with me at Cherkley, Leatherhead, in the hope that I could distract his mind.

I borrowed a Canadian army car and called for him at his house. I drove him down to Cherkley and we talked all the way about the war. I had noticed that he had placed on the car an easel and a box of colours. More mysterious still, a large red despatch box was added. The house was empty at the time. But Churchill’s easel was soon out and planted on the terrace, where we look out on a view which has fascinated so many politicians, including Asquith when he had his interview with Bonar Law over Ireland.

Churchill had turned to his painting. It was obvious that it absorbed his mind altogether. He could not talk while he painted and did not want to talk. I was glad to see him so engrossed in such a calm amusement. Also I thought it would be a good chance to get on with some arrears of work. Like every other administrator in the War period, I had to read innumerable and often badly written documents, and always carried with me the residue which had to be gone through. I had determined on that day to make a clean slate.

Suddenly Churchill turned round and produced the mysterious despatch box. “I cannot talk and paint too,” he said, “but I have not left you unprovided for. That is why I have brought the despatch case. In it you will find the whole of my justification for the part I played in the Dardanelles Expedition. I will let you read my case.” And Churchill unloaded on the turf a vast mass of printed, typewritten, and mimeographed matter—enough for a man to ponder on for a week!

Churchill’s charm lies so largely in his unexpectedness and in his belief that everybody takes everything as charmingly as he does. It is the simplicity of a child which no contact with the world could ever spoil.

But Churchill then was Churchill “down.” Practically he despaired of the Republic, and could see no rift in the clouds either for himself or the State. It is in these moments of depression that he is most fascinating.

Churchill “up” is quite a different proposition. I remember once a terrible scene with him when he was in a position of uncontrolled power and authority in dealing with public affairs which closely concerned me.

If any other man living had used such outrageous language to me as he did on that occasion I should never have forgiven him. Churchill on the top of the wave has in him the stuff of which tyrants are made.

The balance of personalities on the Conservative side was rather curious. The majority of the Conservative members of the Ministry—Curzon, Chamberlain, Cecil and Long—undoubtedly leant to Asquith. Curzon was openly aspiring to the leadership of the party. In adopting this attitude in support of Asquith these Conservative leaders were, in an ever-increasing degree, losing touch with their followers in the Commons.

No one could pierce through Balfour’s reserve—but on the whole his temperament seemed to incline him towards Asquith. Certainly Lloyd George was his most severe critic in the Ministry.

Birkenhead was not very definitely attached to any section of opinion. In policy he leaned towards the Conservative group hostile to Lloyd George, but he was at that time personally very much devoted to Bonar Law. As a matter of fact, the Curzon-Cecil-Chamberlain group whom he supported did not care for him. They said he was far too clever to be good. It was written:

Carson, on the other hand, having left the Ministry as a critic of its lack of vigour, was rapidly becoming the leader of the discontented Conservatives or Diehards.

Carson’s great ally was Gwynne, of the “Morning Post.” Gwynne in turn was the Fugleman of the Diehards in the Press. In all that followed he should have been my natural ally. Gwynne had in the past influenced me greatly for many years. His conversations were illuminating and our friendship had been sincere.

It was desirable that a piece of political information should be given out and I told the news early to Gwynne in confidence. Then Northcliffe came out with it in the “Times.” I really had a perfectly good explanation of how this happened. But Gwynne seemed to me to be refusing to accept my simple disclaimer—while I did not then understand how much a journalist, with his passion for his newspaper, feels such an incident. I should have sympathised now and taken great pains to explain to Gwynne exactly what had happened. As it was I simply let the whole business slide.

This episode will provide an explanation of the fact that Gwynne, who desired to bring down the first Coalition Government just as ardently as I did, had no part or lot in what I did towards the work of destruction. No doubt there were others whose personal hostility kept them apart from me in the events of the autumn and winter of 1916.

The Gwynne episode perhaps explains one of the reasons why I had so many enemies. Once a man showed any hostility or distrust towards me, I would take no steps to conciliate him or to placate him. I could not be troubled. Even when my enemies told the most infamous falsehoods about me I could not be bothered to refute them—nor have I ever done so. Bonar Law often reasoned with me and even urged me to try and disarm the enemy, but I would not. It was the great weakness of my position and nature at that time. I had to go out on an enterprise which involved welding all kinds of different people and groups of politics together with this great weight of personal hostility hanging round my neck.

IT must not be supposed that the growing unpopularity of the first Coalition Government was so clear to every one at the time as it becomes on looking backward, or that most men would have predicted the fall of the Ministry. Indeed, it would have been pointed out that as long as Ministers held together, or even as long as the two party chiefs—Mr. Asquith, Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Party, and Mr. Bonar Law, Colonial Secretary and Leader of the Conservative Party—held together, there was no instrument for securing their overthrow.

Everywhere men still said that Asquith’s leadership in the House of Commons was indispensable to the conduct of the war—that he possessed the unanimous and unswerving devotion of the Liberal Party; that he had more influence with the Tory leaders than Bonar Law himself—and further, that no other Premier could command any support from the Labour Party at all. Those who read this narrative must understand clearly how firmly this doctrine of the indispensability of Asquith was rooted in the minds of his colleagues and of Parliamentarians in general. They thought it so sure a shield thrown over the existing Ministry that no political instrument could be forged which could break down that protection and menace what it protected.

But this view would have been wrong. There was such an instrument in existence, though, as usual in almost every crisis, politicians were not aware of it.

The weak point in the whole fabric was the position of Mr. Bonar Law and his relationship to his own party. Speaking to that party at the time the Coalition was formed, he had said:

It followed, then, that if Bonar Law found himself with a majority of his followers against him he would be compelled to resign, and it could hardly be doubted that this would entail the most serious and possibly disastrous political consequences.

Now a section of the Conservative Party, called the Conservative Ginger group in contra-distinction to its Liberal counterpart, formed with the latter a kind of guerilla opposition. It had gained greatly in prestige by the accession of Carson on his resignation in October. Its persistent attacks on Ministerial policy, though not personally directed against Bonar Law—indeed, many of his oldest friends and sympathisers were among the critics—nevertheless struck the Tory leader as well as the Liberal Prime Minister at whom they were really aimed. The Tory Diehards were thus blindly or subconsciously using against the Government a weapon of whose potency they themselves had no real conception.

Thus it happened that throughout the summer and autumn a division, marked by increasing bitterness, was springing up in the ranks of Toryism—one section accusing the other of disloyalty, and the other retorting that Bonar Law was helping to lose the war by holding up the trembling arms of Asquith. The two Tory protagonists, Bonar Law and Carson, were no longer on those terms of intimate cordiality which marked the history of the Home Rule crisis, and a trial of strength could not long be delayed.

For some time before that debate, I had been drifting somewhat out of touch with politics and politicians owing to the pressure of my Canadian military duties. My attention was recalled sharply by a warning which I received from Mr. R. D. Blumenfeld, the Editor of the “Daily Express,” that things were far from well on the Conservative benches in the House of Commons, and that the Nigerian debate might very likely prove a decisive trial of strength between the two divergent sections. The merits of the Nigerian question are not germane to my subject. It is sufficient to observe that the issue chosen was one calculated to collect the greatest number of Conservatives and Tariff Reformers in the “No” lobby, and to place Mr. Bonar Law in a position of some dialectic difficulty. But though the question of the sale of these enemy properties in West Africa might seem remote and trifling when measured against the vast issues of the war, to the seeing eye this was not so. The result of that division on the affairs of a distant dependency would stretch out far and wide, and its consequences would be felt on every stricken battlefield in Europe. The developments must follow one another in an inevitable sequence of cause and effect. The great bulk of the opposition would be Conservative, so that a defeat on the motion would mean that the Tory leader could only carry into the lobby a minority of his professed supporters. In that case, how could he be said to retain the confidence of his party? No, he must resign office, and to pull out Bonar Law was to knock out the keystone of the Government arch. Some, if not all, of his colleagues would go with him, and the governing instrument must be proportionately weakened.

I was filled with concern for Bonar Law’s position, not on any personal grounds, but because I perceived he was going to be placed in such a difficulty that a wrong choice of any sort might remove him, perhaps indefinitely, from the centre of war direction—and that such a removal would have the worst possible consequences on the conduct of the war.

I went to see him and found him in his room at the Colonial Office—a room which seemed singularly uncongenial to him. At one end of its vast expanse was his desk—thoroughly uncomfortable and most unsuited for business purposes. It was a place for a pompous man and Bonar Law was anything but pompous. I should say that one epithet always suited him: He was unassuming. His personality stamped itself in no way upon the casual acquaintance. It was indeed the precise converse of the type of personality which clamours for attention. For he was quite indifferent to the opinion which outsiders might form of him. In his immediate circle, on the other hand, he was most anxious to make himself agreeable and could wield great charm.

His personal habits reflected his individuality. At bridge, to which he was much addicted in his brief leisure at this time, he was a sound player—but he was also an easy one. He never would exact the penalties due to him, as the keen player generally does. He played regularly for half-penny points—to change this to penny points meant a “bust” to him. Contrary to the custom in his own circles, he settled his debts with cash on the spot instead of with a cheque next day. If he was winning he lost interest in the game. If he was losing he was anxious to play on—yet he certainly did not care for money. He invariably asked for and tried to arrange his bridge partnership with the most unsuccessful and least experienced player at the table. He never in my long experience criticised his partner or complained of bad luck.

He always went to bed at a fixed hour and in the very worst days of the war he was able to sleep well. But he read himself to sleep with the most ordinary kind of detective stories. Gone were the days when he had studied Carlyle and the classics to improve his mind.

Since all detective stories are really cut out of a few patterns, I once said to him, “Don’t you get bored with the repetition and sameness of these tales?” “Not more bored than usual,” was his only answer.

One could bring him, like Asquith, by a little ingenuity to repeat the same story in response to the same lead. He had one about a man who suffered from gout all his life. He could find no remedy. He tried every sort of medicine, but with no effect. “At last,” said Bonar Law, “he told me he had found a cure. He said that he was taking half a bottle of champagne for breakfast every day and the gout had disappeared completely. But,” said Bonar Law in a tragic tone of voice, “in six months he was dead.”

Occasionally, he would talk about himself. But no “leading” would make him do this. The inspiration for self-discussion had to be spontaneous.

Bonar Law had no decent regard for his food. He liked little of it and plain—one course for preference—and simply swallowed it. The moment he had finished he started to smoke—generally a cigar, to be followed in turn by a pipe. Up till his final illness I only once knew him to touch alcohol. He took some brandy for an attack of indigestion. It did not cure him.

In the course of our interview at the Colonial Office I discovered that one thing concerned Bonar Law greatly. The bitterness of Carson’s attitude towards him—a bitterness he did not return, but which he felt to be in such violent contrast with their former intimate friendship.

After this interview I sounded Carson to try to discover the origin of this particular bitterness. Carson was full of complaints about Bonar Law—particularly on the score of his “stubbornness” over the Nigerian business. Nothing, therefore, resulted from this attempt, and events followed their course, until the date for the discussion in the House of Commons which was fixed for November 8th.

The night before the Nigerian debate I again saw Bonar Law—he was agitated, but confident of success. This feeling was chiefly induced in him by the reiterated assurance of his friends that a division would not be challenged. My attitude was one of detachment. None the less I felt quite certain that a division would be forced—for this I had from the editor of the “Daily Express,” who was far more likely than the Treasury Whips to know the plans of the Conservative Opposition. I also learnt from the same source that the division was expected to be a very close one. Both these forecasts turned out to be correct.

On the night when the debate was still in progress, I dined with Birkenhead, who was gloomy and despondent. He had been depressed by the course which it had taken in the afternoon discussion, and feared defeat, and the consequent resignation of Bonar Law. We went to the House together. The atmosphere was somewhat electric, civil strife inside a party always inducing greater mutual exasperation than a contest with the official enemy.

Bonar Law made a powerful statement of his case—but he was subjected to much interruption. He did not attempt to conceal his feelings against Leslie Scott, but he showed no resentment towards Carson, though the latter threw in some interjections which were decidedly strong—at one time accusing Bonar Law of “misrepresenting facts,” and at another exclaiming, “That is not true.” The division was taken, and Bonar Law was clearly sustained by a small majority of the Conservatives, but by a large majority of the House. The feeling between the two Tory sections was very strained. George Terrell, one of the Carsonite Whips, met Birkenhead in the Lobby coming out, and told us that Bonar Law’s defeat had only been averted by the votes of “the paid members.” “We will cross off the votes of the members who are paid if you cross off those who want to be paid,” was the prompt and characteristic reply of Birkenhead.

After the division I found Bonar Law in his room surrounded by supporters who were congratulating him as on a triumph and quite unaware of the real significance of the division. They had no idea of the critical nature of the situation, nor any sense of the impending downfall of the Ministry. They took the optimistic view and made light of the division. Very different were the feelings and forebodings of others. It was clear that such attacks could not be continued for long without a defeat in the Lobby ensuing, and that apart from this, continuance must render Bonar Law’s claim to the confidence of the Conservative party nugatory, and his position in the Government consequently impossible. It was indeed this very fact which made the attacks so dangerous. The opposition, or at least many of them, were not out against Bonar Law—they were out against the Government. But the fact remained that it was only by damaging Bonar Law’s hold on his own followers that they could menace the Ministry. And in effect this was exactly what they were doing. They were pulling out the linch-pin of the Government’s coach.

The Ministry looked like having a short life, and there were also certain cross-currents among the Liberals in the Cabinet which were setting in the same direction.

My reasons were briefly as follows. He was the only alternative Premier in the event—which now seemed probable—of the existing Government falling. Having resigned, he could at any rate sustain the Administration for a time from outside, and, if Asquith fell, he would be there ready to take his place and reconstruct a fresh Ministry. On the other hand, if he stayed in he would be, in my opinion, infallibly destroyed—and as he was the guide in whom I placed my trust in the war, such a prospect could only be regarded with intense dismay. But destroyed he would be if he were forced out of office by the action of his own rebellious followers. Then he must infallibly lose the leadership—and face a catastrophe.

Bonar Law would not agree to this line of argument. He said that if he had been an individual Conservative Cabinet Minister it might have been sound enough policy to leave the Government without quarrelling with it, in order to help it externally and reserve his power in the interests of the country when the inevitable reconstruction of the Ministry came. That this course was the best one for his own safety and advantage, he did not deny.

But, anyhow, he was not, he declared, an individual. He was the leader of the Conservative party in the Commons, and even though his Tory colleagues in the Cabinet seemed inclined to repudiate his lead, yet he must continue to function as leader, even though his right to do so were denied in practice. Now, the withdrawal of the Tory Chief from the Cabinet meant, or might mean, the withdrawal of Conservative support from the Government—the return to party warfare—the fall of the Liberal Ministry—the attempt to substitute a purely Conservative one—in fact, the triumph of all the methods against which he had been battling since the outbreak of war. Therefore, as leader of the party he could not do something which in a private Minister might have been quite honourable—and would certainly have been to his personal advantage.

He was not to be turned from this resolution. Nor did there seem any escape from the dilemma.

It was obvious that all would be well if an agreement between Bonar Law and Carson could be reached, but it was equally impossible to discover in what the basis of such an agreement could reside. Bonar Law at the time desired in some form or another the continuance of the existing regime and no open breach: Carson desired the destruction of the Government; and, whereas Bonar Law could not enforce quietude by some strong action against Carson, Carson could prosecute his assault against Bonar Law.

The character and views of Carson became, therefore, a matter of vital importance to the solution of the problem. He had set the game on foot and seemed prepared to hunt it down. The popular view of him, though it struck home on the vital point of his courage, was in other respects almost absurdly inaccurate. He was pictured to great numbers of his countrymen as the typical representative of that honest, dour, and narrowly fanatical type which people the plains of Ulster. But since there was in addition something romantic in his appearance and fiery eloquence very foreign to the North of Ireland, he was conceived of as adding to the ferocity of Luther the fanaticism of Torquemada.

Something in the contour of a face which in deep and solid lines stands out like a Rembrandt portrait, and a gloom in repose which appeared to be almost entirely the product of his belief in consistent bad health, intensified this impression.

Carson certainly believed that he was subject to some disease which threatened his health or even his life. Before the war he thought a surgical operation would be necessary, and used to say so quite frequently. During the war he began to take the view that there was something wrong with his heart. Fortunately, these threats never really developed. None the less, his own feeling that he lived under a kind of menace gave the outside public a conception of his character which was quite contrary to fact.

In truth, Carson in opposition possessed beyond all the politicians of his time a peculiar charm and fascination of manner. In counsel he combined great breadth of view in taking up a position and unbending firmness in adhering to it once it was taken up. He thought the matter out carefully, and where his mind stayed, it fixed. That is not to say that I have not known him change suddenly from one opinion to another. A man cannot be judged on his vagaries, but on his continued record during the great crises of his life.

I observed him closely on two great occasions: in the Home Rule negotiations, when the late Lord Murray of Elibank and I endeavoured to negotiate terms at the time of the Buckingham Palace Conference; and in the crisis which led to the fall of Mr. Asquith’s Government.

During the Home Rule crisis he showed great breadth and moderation of view, combined with unyielding tenacity. He was assailed on all sides by the cleverest men in England to compel him to change his ground; that ground was the threat of civil war, and a return to the time when heads were bartered for politics; it was shrewdly suspected, and not without legitimate reason, that his ground was bluff; he was pressed on all sides to admit it, and if he had done so it would have been fatal to his cause. Yet no one knows to this day whether it was bluff or not. I have seen many bluffs in great business deals, when the whole essence of the decision was to know when a threat was a reality; but I have never seen presented so impenetrable a front. Every word, every look, every letter was consistent, until what was either an heroic determination or a masterpiece of acting has left behind it an historic doubt.

Carson in office appeared in a different light to me. His resignation—from the first Coalition Government—impressed me at the time unfavourably. There seemed to be about it a certain element of petulance and of demanding miracles which made it possible to think that he was ageing and did not possess the immense self-restraint which kept Ulster in check during the critical months. It did not strike me at the time that the real explanation was that office in itself irked him and opposition fascinated him. At any rate he left the Government as an implacable enemy of the Asquith regime, and from that time forward, looking neither to right nor left, he strode straight on to its doom.

Certainly, during the negotiations relating to the fall of the first Coalition Government, he seemed to be the old Carson—vigorous in language, broad in view, inflexible in determination. He never aspired to office, but he never discouraged his partners by shrinking from the responsibility of taking it.

THE first striking intimation in outer political circles that all was not perfect peace in the Liberal wing of the Cabinet came in the form of a curious story widely circulated among politicians. It was to the effect that Mr. Geoffrey Howard, Liberal Whip, had telephoned to Lloyd George to remind him of the urgency of the Nigerian division. The answer came back from Mrs. Lloyd George that her husband was dining with Carson. In any case, Lloyd George put in no appearance at the House.

The story, as a matter of fact, was not accurate. Lloyd George was dining that night with Lord Lee of Fareham at his house in Abbey Garden, where several meetings had already taken place between Lloyd George, Carson, and Milner. All three had met that evening to discuss the general situation and the possibilities of co-operation, and it is claimed, the question of the Nigerian debate never came up at all. Lloyd George has always persistently denied that he refrained of set purpose from taking part in that division.

The implications drawn from the story however possessed great importance, for it implied that the Ministry was liable to assault from two sides, and that while Carson was attacking from the front, Lloyd George was executing a concerted movement on the flank. The day after the division Bonar Law met Lloyd George at the War Committee, and the latter volunteered the statement the moment they met, that he had been paired.

Further confirmation of the view set going by the story that George had deliberately absented himself from the division, was soon to hand. A day or so later I had occasion to go to the Treasury to see McKenna on other business. Without any opening on my part he asked whether I knew of Lloyd George’s intrigue against Bonar Law, and spoke of the War Minister with the greatest bitterness. I agreed that Lloyd George had tried to use the Opposition to defeat the Government. Bonar Law had summed up his view of Lloyd George’s attitude by remarking that Lloyd George was trying to take second place in the Government and lead the Opposition at the same time. It was clear that if this was indeed true an entirely new factor had entered into the calculation, and the most powerful personality in British democratic politics was actively engaged on Carson’s side. All this gave food for reflection, but the events of the next few days were indecisive, and only went to prove the uneasiness prevailing in Ministerial circles.

On Saturday, 11th November, 1916, Churchill and Birkenhead came to my house at Leatherhead. Bonar Law was to come the following day. In this plan no idea of politics whatever was involved. The notion underlying the meeting was simply one of social and friendly relaxation from the strain and anxiety of the period. It was typical of the time, however, that this holiday rapidly turned into a series of warm political discussions. The truth of the matter was that it proved quite impossible for anyone to put the war and the responsibilities of the war out of his mind.

An atmosphere of tension began on the Saturday evening with an argument between Birkenhead and Churchill. They started to discuss the position and the future of the Government—Minister versus ex-Minister. Never at any time, I think, have I seen these two friends quite so far apart. My criticism of Birkenhead in the past had often been that though he was naturally sound in counsel he was too easily led astray from his own opinions by his loyalties and his friendships. On this occasion he showed an absolute rigidity in holding to his convictions, from which Churchill could in no way deflect him.

Birkenhead started with a tremendous attack on Lloyd George for fraternising with the opposition in the House of Commons and for deliberately abstaining from voting for the Government on the Nigerian debate. He quoted with approval Bonar Law’s saying about Lloyd George’s dual and ambiguous position—with a foot in both camps. He showed himself an out-and-out supporter of Asquith, believing that the existing administration both could and should be carried on in Lloyd George’s despite.

He delivered a general attack on the Government with a defence of the position taken up by Carson which involved a certain amount of dialectic in praise of Lloyd George. So we had the curious spectacle of Churchill attacking the Government while lauding the second most important member of it. Equally strange was it to hear Birkenhead defending the Government while attacking Lloyd George bitterly.

One thing I noticed in the course of Birkenhead’s conversation which reinforced my opinion that the Government was nothing like so solidly founded as he thought. There was a Franchise Bill before the Cabinet just then, and it was causing considerable dissension among Ministers. Birkenhead resolutely declared that if votes were not given to soldiers he would resign. Now, when all things are well with a Government, its Attorney-General does not fling threatened resignations about like this on minor issues.

The next morning Churchill was due to go off early to see Lloyd George at Walton Heath—about three or four miles away. There Lloyd George had before 1914 a small house close to the golf course, and he retained it throughout the war. It was a most unattractive residence, much too small for his purposes, and it always looked as if the roof or the walls were leaking in wet weather.

I got up specially early to see Churchill before he started. My reason was that I thought Churchill might convey to Lloyd George, as the result of the previous night’s talk, an erroneous impression of the Conservative attitude towards him. I told him that I was not in agreement with Birkenhead’s position with regard to Lloyd George and that it must not be assumed that Bonar Law was either. I wanted to keep a possible avenue of agreement open by suggesting that I was certainly impartial in relation to Lloyd George and that Bonar Law was at least a potential friend. Churchill promised to tell Lloyd George what I said and he did so.

He came back in the course of the morning from Walton Heath. Later in the day Bonar Law arrived from London. He at once took me into another room in order to discuss the situation privately. He said that the crisis he had long foreseen, and which must in its nature force a readjustment of the conduct of national affairs was now clearly at hand. It was not a case for instant action, but for a preliminary discussion in order to be sure that when the moment came the decision he would have to take as Conservative leader would be a wise one. There were two dangers, he thought—the divisions in the Cabinet, especially on the Franchise Bill due for review next week—and, secondly, the growth of Parliamentary forces hostile to the Ministry. He discussed two alternative courses which seemed to be open quite calmly—one was to look on and acquiesce in the fall of the Administration, hoping that a better one might be formed out of the crash. The second was to appeal to the country and sweep the forces hostile to the Ministry out of existence in a General Election.

Anyone who was not immersed in or has forgotten the atmosphere of those days will need to be reminded what a terrible threat to the anti-Ministerialists resided in the weapon of dissolution then at the disposal of the Ministry. A Government consisting of the heads both of the Liberal and Conservative parties which in the middle of a life and death struggle like the German war made a united appeal for a vote of confidence from the country would have received a practically unanimous response from the constituencies. Nine voters out of ten would have said simply this: “I don’t want to hear any arguments: the Government must be supported. If the sitting member will not support the Government he must go.” Not merely those members of Parliament who were in favour of Peace by Negotiation, but the disgruntled Tories also, would have had to face the prospect of electoral annihilation.

To resume my narrative—Bonar Law then joined Birkenhead and Churchill in another room, where Churchill was growing impatient. The discussion began by being confined to the Franchise Bill. Birkenhead took a very strong line here, and declared again that if votes were not given to soldiers he would resign.

As the discussion proceeded, however, the Franchise Bill dropped out, and Churchill and Bonar Law came to a direct issue. Churchill had at the time been out of office for a considerable period. The administrative talents he knew resided in himself were lying idle. He was chafing at the sight of lesser men serving the country, as he thought, and not without justice, less efficiently than he could. He was a man unhappy in his impotence—looking eagerly always for some opportunity to push his claims to return to the centre of action. Bonar Law, on the other hand, represented the calmness of possession—insecure, perhaps, but still power and the will to defend it.

The contrast between the temperamental attitude of the two men was remarkable. Churchill frequently showed at the outset of the discussion a really conciliatory and friendly attitude towards Bonar Law. In fact, he more than once behaved as if he had no rancour towards the older man. Bonar Law, on the other hand, was, from start to finish, rigid, harsh and repelling to Churchill. His opponent might give an opening for better relations. Bonar Law kept his doors closed and his window blinds drawn. Then Churchill began to deliver an allocution denouncing the Government as though he were addressing not a single individual, but a public meeting—or at least a secret session of the House in war time.

He arraigned the Government on every kind of count as though he were marshalling all the various sections in the Commons to come out together and overthrow the Ministry. The only times Churchill ever bores his friends are when he talks to them as if they were a large audience. I saw the effect this style of address was having on Bonar Law, and I several times tried to break into the oration and bring the argument down to a conversational tone. In vain—Churchill swept on unheeding.

At last Bonar Law said, “Very well, if that’s what the critics of the Government think of it—we will have a General Election.” Churchill was absolutely staggered by this remark. I don’t suppose he foresaw in a flash the prospect of his own defeat in his constituency. What he did see was the elaborate sand-castles he had been creating with the spade of his rhetoric swept by one long low wave of the electoral sea into nothingness. In fact, he was obviously frightened. Churchill said afterwards that Bonar Law’s proposal to hold a General Election in the middle of a war was the most terribly immoral thing he had ever heard of. It showed that some men would do anything to retain power. Bonar Law said that Churchill’s remarks showed him just as ready as ever to use any kind of instrument as long as it got him back into office.

Birkenhead left in a temper. But he could not be converted to the belief that the crisis was at hand and that the fate of the Ministry was hanging in the balance.

The more one reflected on the conversations of this week-end, the more disquieting did the situation appear.

The events leading up to and following on the Nigerian debate itself had alarmed Bonar Law’s friends because they one and all implicitly believed that Bonar Law’s influence at the centre of affairs was essential for the right conduct of the war. They saw his whole position threatened by the crisis, or, at any rate, the influence they counted on diminished.

Churchill had been greatly startled by Bonar Law’s threat of a dissolution—but I doubt if he was as perturbed as I was by the suggestion.

This clearly. If the Diehard Conservatives persisted in their course and forced Bonar Law to resign, Asquith, backed by Bonar Law and these Tory Ministers, who were notoriously under Asquith’s influence, would appeal to the country against the followers of Carson.

This would mean in effect that all Liberal sitting members would be returned without a contest. On the other hand, the recalcitrant Tory members would have been opposed in their constituencies by Bonar Law Conservative candidates. These candidates would undoubtedly have swept the Diehards out of existence, for they would have had not only the support of the Conservative machine, which Bonar Law controlled, but the Liberal vote as well.

It must be pointed out at once that it was this special combination of the Tory and Liberal machine which made the power of dissolution such a deadly one in the joint hands of Asquith and Bonar Law. But a War dissolution which was simply a straight fight between the two historic parties or anything resembling it would have been a very doubtful experiment on the part of a Ministry.

What was horrifying about this suggestion of Bonar Law’s—and Asquith was behind him in making it—was the ultimate result of the step.

The Tory Party would be rent in twain. Its two sections would have destroyed their common heritage—to the advantage of Mr. Asquith. For he would have been left in a state of Parliamentary dictatorship for an indefinite period. The Parliament would have been elected specifically to entrust him with the conduct of the war. Bonar Law would, by assisting him to a dissolution, have rendered himself perfectly powerless to affect the conduct of events. For Asquith’s Liberal followers would be as numerous as ever in the new House. His new Conservative adherents would, like most of the Conservative Ministers, be definite adherents of the Asquith regime, elected largely by Liberal votes, whereas Bonar Law would have lost many of his old tried and trusted friends—men who only differed from him in the view they took of Asquith’s capacity to wage war—men who would have supported him against Asquith in any contingency. The salt of the Tory party, men most desperately anxious to win the war, would have been wiped out of Parliament in one single stroke.

Worst of all, the forces making for a vigorous conduct of hostilities and most strongly opposed to the idea of peace by negotiation, would receive a shattering blow from which they might never recover till all was lost and our fortunes ruined beyond repair.

One certain impression was left on my mind by this week-end. The crisis could not be averted; the storm was upon us. In what direction it would blow no man could say. But a man could do one thing at least—he could try and shape events instead of surrendering helplessly to the rush of the tempest.

So ended a meeting which appeared futile in results, but which began to move me to certain conclusions as to the future developments of politics. The facts now began to group themselves in an intelligible order. (1) It was clear that Carson could force Bonar Law into resignation and so break the Asquith Coalition Government—with all the consequences just described. Bonar Law was anxious to avoid this dénouement. (2) Lloyd George was in co-operation with Carson and equally anxious to remodel the Administration. (3) Asquith and Bonar Law working together could dissolve and appeal to the country, wiping out the vast majority of their opponents.

The way of salvation, if it could be taken, was a combination of the three men—Lloyd George, Bonar Law, and Carson—which would save Bonar Law’s position, maintain the unity of the Tory party, and restore the national fortunes, and lead to the vigorous prosecution of the war in spite of any movement in the direction of Peace by Negotiation. The next day was to bring a rapid development of this hypothetical plan.

ON the following Monday, 13th November, 1916, Lloyd George telephoned and asked me to go to the War Office. I hurried off immediately and on arrival was shown into his room. His surroundings there were different from those of Bonar Law at the Colonial Office. It is true that the room was big—very big—but it was better lighted and had not the unfurnished barn-like gloom of Bonar Law’s. At the Colonial Office one felt the isolation of standing on a mountain peak in the dark. By comparison the War Office room was a valley—even if it was a large valley.

It was rather strange to see men like Lloyd George and Bonar Law, who had been brought up in their youth in small rooms, in these immense places. It did not affect them in the least, for they had long trained themselves to be quite indifferent to their surroundings. None the less, such rooms never seemed suitable for doing business in. Here Lloyd George carried on his activities. He was at that time a tremendous worker—a man of limitless energy. In addition he was sought out by all distinguished visitors from abroad. Already his reputation was so far established that the stranger would not be satisfied to go back to his own country unless he could say he had met Lloyd George.

Every day after lunch he used to sit down on one chair, put his legs on another and take a short sleep. If one found him in this position the floor round him would be littered with newspapers.

Sometimes he would lunch at the War Office, and would produce all sorts of supplies out of a cupboard at the end of the room.

His secretaries were always in and out. He rarely spoke on the telephone himself—though more frequently than Bonar Law. When, however, a message was brought in to him asking him to speak, the secretaries automatically left the room in a procession. This was not due to the personal or confidential nature of what he wanted to say. For on such occasions I would ask him whether he did not wish to speak privately—and he would reply, “Oh dear, no”—and go on with his talk. The retirement of his secretaries was, therefore, a matter of routine.

The object of this meeting of ours on the Monday was to discuss the general position. By this date it appeared clear that if events took their course Bonar Law would have to resign under the pressure of Carson, and would bring the Government down with him; that Carson wished the fall of the Government; that Lloyd George was profoundly dissatisfied with the Government; that Asquith would try to persuade Bonar Law to join him in a dissolution and General Election, thus destroying the opponents of the Government and confirming Asquith in a dictatorship for the duration of the war.

And behind all this lurked the prospect of Peace by Negotiation. The best course appeared to be an agreement between these three powerful men, Lloyd George, Bonar Law, and Carson, and for this I was prepared to work. I was, however, surprised by the frankness of Lloyd George in this interview, the power of his national views, and his strong personality.

Lloyd George asserted that the Government was an ineffective weapon for fighting the war, and that reorganisation was essential. I promised at once that I would work with him on these lines in so far as I could without sacrificing my confidence in and loyalty to Bonar Law. Lloyd George then pointed out from his own political experience that Carson would smash Bonar Law almost immediately, and that the best way out was for the two men to join hands. He said quite frankly that Carson was working with him to get a War Council with autocratic powers. At this point Carson came in, and I went away for half an hour.

The exact relations between Lloyd George and Carson during all this period were a little difficult to determine. Lloyd George always assumed as a matter of course in all discussions that Carson and he were entirely at one. But on one occasion (Tuesday, 21st November) Carson flatly denied it to Bonar Law, and he several times gave me open hints that I must not regard him as completely identified with Lloyd George. It is impossible to give a formal and rational proof of the matter one way or the other, but one’s own instinct for fact, which all men must follow in action, pointed clearly to the idea that the two men were practically at one.

When Carson left I came back, and Lloyd George resumed the narrative of his grievances.

From the early autumn of 1914 onwards he had been dissatisfied both with the policy and the temper of Mr. Asquith’s successive administrations. He never believed in the policy of “attrition” in dealing with the Germans, and showed an uncanny and highly inconvenient insight both in the domain of military and foreign affairs. He made all Europe his province, and letter after letter full of prophecy and warning had been addressed by him to Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey and Lord Kitchener during the autumn of 1914 and the spring of 1915. In early September of 1916 he had written Sir William Robertson demanding action in relief of Roumania. These letters have been published. They are the letters of a man deeply impressed with his own responsibility, and though couched in courteous language, they breathe throughout the spirit of the saying, “I am sure I can save this country and no one else can.” Many of his schemes were never put to the test of actuality, and therefore we can never know whether they were the dreams of a visionary or a genius. But for a visionary he had a curious habit of putting his finger on the spot.

Lloyd George continued his harangue, declaring that the machinery for conducting the war was not functioning properly. This was partly due to having to put decisions before an immense Cabinet. The attempt to get round this difficulty by means of the War Committee ^[4] had been a failure, because Asquith, as chairman of that body was as dilatory and indecisive as in the Cabinet, and because, anyhow, the War Committee had not sufficient executive authority. His remedy was a real War Council of three with practically dictatorial powers.

After that he passed to his troubles at the War Office. He had much to do, but not enough to do, and not enough power to do it. He had his finger in many pies, but not in the War Office pie. In fact, he was impotent in his own office. This was because he was bound by the Kitchener-Robertson agreement, by which far too much power was given to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.^[5] This in itself might not have mattered so much had he not been at the outset an appointment unacceptable to the soldiers and had not Sir William Robertson shown a strong determination to have his own way in everything.

He said quite frankly that he had tried to mend matters by sending Robertson out to Russia on the original Kitchener mission, ended by Kitchener’s death.

His object, he declared, was not especially to get rid of Robertson as C.I.G.S. as many of his colleagues declared, though he would be glad of a temporary relief from the existing tension. He was genuinely concerned to get at the truth about the Russian armies, so that we might give them practical assistance in the form of munitions.

He said he was so keen on this matter that he himself had actually arranged to go with Kitchener on the ill-fated ship and that Sir Maurice Hankey had been going with him. He had only been stopped at the last minute by the projected Irish settlement and the Premier’s personal request to negotiate this never-ending crisis.

It would be an interesting speculation as to what would have happened if Lloyd George too had gone down in the ill-fated “Hampshire.”

I have heard it said many a time by members of his entourage that he was preserved by the Hand of God for the sole purpose of conducting the last two years of the war. In fact, one devoted follower said to me as an epitome of the whole episode which preserved Lloyd George’s life:

However, Robertson had practically refused to go, and Lloyd George was of opinion that Robertson had seen the Chancellor of the Exchequer, McKenna, and that McKenna had told the General that the mission was a device to get rid of him as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. So a section of the Cabinet was really supporting Robertson against the War Secretary. He went on to include Bonar Law in this number, and said that Bonar Law was certainly not manifesting any vigorous support of him in adopting this course.

His statement in this matter was quite correct. Robertson had discussed the question with Bonar Law, who had said that if the Chief of the Imperial General Staff was ready to declare that his presence in London was essential to the conduct of the war, he (Bonar Law) would support that view in the Cabinet. In fact, he told Robertson categorically that he would support him against Lloyd George and refuse to allow him to be turned out of his job.

Robertson then wrote a letter to Bonar Law, thanking him for his promise of support and expressing his gratitude:

Sir William Robertson was very suspicious of the motives of those who were pressing on him the mission to Russia. About ten days after this date he expressed his views to Robert Donald who recorded them in the following terms:

I now return to the general discussion between Lloyd George and me as to the obstacles put in Lloyd George’s way ever since he went to the War Office. These he explained with great vigour, fullness, and frankness. He was, he said in effect, so circumscribed as to be absolutely powerless. “I am the butcher’s boy who leads in the animals to be slaughtered—when I have delivered the men my task in the war is over.” When he was at the Munitions he could take a line at the War Committee and criticise or suggest alternatives to the proposals of the General Staff. Now his mouth was shut because he was simply the mouthpiece of the General Staff at the War Committee, and could not attack the views which as Secretary of State he was officially supposed to support, even when he disagreed with them. He was, in fact, bound by the original agreement between Kitchener and Robertson, by which the former promised to leave strategy to the latter. This arrangement did not suit Lloyd George at all—and he gave me an instance of how it worked.

Early in September, 1916, he was anxious about the position in the Balkans, and wished to reinforce the army at Salonika, but Robertson was of the contrary opinion at an interview which took place in the first week of September. Lloyd George then wrote Robertson the following letter on 4th September, 1916:

Lloyd George complained again of the fearful waste of time at the War Committee owing to the unwieldly size of it, and also of the bickering of its members. He personally had only to make a proposal for McKenna to oppose it, quite apart from the merits of the case. Finally, it was clear that he could not hit it off with Robertson at all in their present respective positions.

Lloyd George said that someone was giving away his private information to the newspapers and that he was always reading the arguments of his War Office opponents in the Press.

In effect he accused Robertson of being in communication with the newspapers, and conveyed to me the idea that he could prove his charges.

He then told me a striking story. One day, Northcliffe suddenly appeared in the room of his private secretary, J. T. Davies, at the War Office.

Davies naturally inferred that Northcliffe had come to see Lloyd George—and jumped up, as though to go in to his Chief and pave the way. Northcliffe waved him down. He had not come to see the War Secretary—but he had come to say something which could be transmitted to him. “You can tell him that I hear he has been interfering with strategy, and that if he goes on I will break him.”

It is, indeed, most important in view of what is to follow, to keep clearly in mind the fact that Northcliffe was not a supporter of Lloyd George. Northcliffe, indeed, ardently desired the downfall of Asquith—but for another set of reasons he was just as hostile to Lloyd George. He was at this time the soldiers’ man.

For instance, he attended a lunch at which he so conducted himself that everyone thought his speech a declaration in favour of the conduct of the War Government being handed over to the soldiers. I formed the same impression myself from a conversation I had with Northcliffe at this time. Certainly he appeared to be advocating a kind of Haig-Robertson dictatorship as a substitute for Parliamentary Government. All this, of course, was in direct antagonism to the way Lloyd George wanted to move. He thought the soldiers at home had too much power. Northcliffe thought they had too little.

I came away from the interview in a different frame of mind from that in which I entered on it. When I went my sole idea was that an alliance with Lloyd George might be useful in helping to solve the internal difficulties in the Conservative ranks and to place the whole political situation on a more satisfactory footing. My mood, therefore, was critical, cautious and even cynical.

I summarised in my own mind Lloyd George’s position and contention as revealed in this long conversation. Briefly it was as follows:

Under the first set of complaints came a double sub-heading: (a) We must have a small War Council—instead of a Committee, large or small; (b) Lloyd George was sure that he could run the war and that Asquith could not.

Under the second set of complaints came: (a) The refusal of the military to take any interest in Lloyd George’s strategic advice; (b) The Kitchener-Robertson agreement by which Robertson had real control of the War Office machine, to the exclusion of Lloyd George, the Minister.

I decided to abolish from my mind any issue concerning the refusal of the military to listen to Lloyd George’s advice on strategic subjects. Further, I was not greatly moved by his complaint against General Robertson.

Lloyd George was on rather weak ground. He had vowed he would never go to the War Office while this agreement subsisted, but he had done this very thing. It was so easy for any one not sympathetic to him to reply to his grievance: “Well, you walked into your present position with open eyes.” On the other hand, the fact that the War Secretary had made a mistake did not in any way alter the fact that the agreement was a bad one and ought to be done away with. Further, his statement threw a vivid light from quite a new angle on the situation in the Conservative camp and in politics as a whole.

The first alarm had been caused over the Nigerian debate by the risk that Bonar Law’s essential influence on the conduct of the war might be impaired. Then fears of a fatal dissolution following Bonar Law’s forced resignation and resulting in the permanent dictatorship of Asquith had become apparent. To these elements of natural danger was now added the conviction that it was imperative to create a small War Council free from the “dead hand” of Asquith’s inertia.

All these considerations seemed to dovetail into one another—and to demand that somehow the forces and individuals working for the more efficient conduct of the war ought to unite in order to escape destruction and win success.

The next question which arose was this: What course of action was the best to pursue?

The first practical step was to lay the question of an alliance before Bonar Law—but before doing this I determined to consult Sir Reginald Brade, Permanent Under-Secretary of State for War, as to the view he took of the relations between the War Minister and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

I saw Brade that night. He is the essence of diplomacy, and possesses an extraordinary sound judgment of men and things; and these judgments are in no way subject to impulse. He played a far greater part in the conduct of the war than he will ever get credit for. But his post was officially subordinate and subject to the inevitable restrictions of permanent officialdom, and the very success with which he performed his duties nailed him more tightly to his chair in Whitehall; he could not be promoted because he could not be spared.

My special reasons for consulting him were that Bonar Law valued his opinion, and that he was removed from the political arena. He was impartial, and in addition could give counsel on matters relating to the War Office on account of a wide experience directed by a keen intellect. I knew well that if Sir Reginald Brade took the view that Lloyd George ought to be supported against Robertson it would have an effect on Bonar Law. At this interview Brade defined his position. He was not concerned with the personal aspect or individual equation involved in the dispute. But he thought that on principle the Secretary of State for War should be a superior authority to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff or to anyone else in the War Office.^[6]

Further confirmed in my opinion that Lloyd George, Bonar Law, and Carson must at all hazards be brought together, I determined to set about the task without delay.

IN this and succeeding chapters I am, for convenience, dealing with the narrative day by day.

The next morning after I had seen Lloyd George I was ill in bed. Bonar Law, as was his custom on such occasions, came round to see me at the Hyde Park Hotel. I wanted, in a sense, to open the Lloyd George question to him then—but I was deterred by a variety of considerations. In the first place, I did not feel fit enough for what I knew was a vital conversation. Next, he had come round to visit an invalid friend, and it seemed rather a shame to take advantage of his kindness to bid him “stand and deliver” politically—for I knew he would dislike the topic.

Further, Bonar Law himself was full of the sale of enemy property in Nigeria, which was coming off that day. He was anxious that no foreigners should buy. One particular foreign firm was mentioned as a buyer. At his suggestion I communicated with Slaughter and May, solicitors to the foreign firm, and saw Burrows, of the Colonial Office, who was in charge of the Nigerian Department. I then asked Bell, of the Colonial Bank, to go to the sale, with instructions to buy any properties that appeared to be going to foreigners, but not to compete with the British West Africa Trust.

That night Bonar Law came again and Lord Rothermere also. Again the occasion did not seem opportune, and though all three of us had a long talk on the war we did not touch on politics. Just as they got up to go I said to Bonar Law: “I saw Lloyd George yesterday.” “Oh,” he remarked in a curious way he had—expressing at once interest and disapproval in the intonation—but he stopped behind. I knew the moment had come and that much depended on the way I put Lloyd George’s case. I was going to make myself the advocate for Lloyd George, and I knew I was not going to have an easy task, owing to the strong prejudice Bonar Law then entertained against the War Secretary.

The difference did not spring from any mutual incompatibility of temperament that makes it impossible for two men to work together even when their aims are the same. On the contrary, previous to the formation of the Coalition Government Bonar Law was probably in closer accord with Lloyd George than with any other member of the Liberal Ministry.

The root cause of the trouble was that Bonar Law had formed the opinion that in matters of office and power Lloyd George was a self-seeker and a man who considered no interests except his own.

He therefore regarded any proposal put forward by Lloyd George for a better ministerial instrument for waging war as certain to contain something to give its author a step upwards in the first place—whether it had any other advantages or not.

He based this view on a whole series of incidents. First of all, when the Government was formed Lloyd George had seized on munitions for himself and joined in the intrigue which relegated Bonar Law to the Colonial Office. Then he had insisted on retaining the Deputy Leadership of the House of Commons as well.

Bonar Law was convinced of Lloyd George’s ability to manage the War Office, but he was still of the opinion that Lloyd George was out for his own honour and glory, and that he was not a person to be trusted when national and personal interests happened to clash. An unfortunate incident in connection with the appointment of a new Judge Advocate-General, which, since it is of no public importance and its relation might give pain to individuals, I will not quote, further confirmed this adverse conviction.

A statement of mine that I believed Lloyd George’s plan included a small War Council with real executive authority only stirred him to attack Lloyd George afresh. He said he knew all about these War Committees. Had not Lloyd George treated him badly over the projected War Committee? In this he was really unjust to Lloyd George, as I proceeded to point out to him.

When the plan for a War Committee was brought forward by Asquith, the original idea was that the Prime Minister should be chairman and the only other two members should be Bonar Law and Lloyd George—and Lloyd George had said he would not serve unless Bonar Law did.

Now Asquith had a perfectly ridiculous idea of the importance of Lord Curzon in the eyes of the country and of the Conservative Party. When he was told that Curzon objected to Bonar Law going to the War Committee and might even resign if this happened, he was disturbed. One day Asquith, Lloyd George, and Bonar Law were all sitting together on the Treasury Bench, when Asquith, by some strange lapse of memory, spoke to Lloyd George as though forgetting Bonar Law’s presence. He suddenly observed: “I’ve thought how to get out of that difficulty over Bonar Law and Curzon and the War Committee. Balfour shall be the third member. He’s a Conservative and Curzon cannot possibly object to him. I cannot find room for Bonar Law as well, or else I should have to take Crewe in too.” It did not seem to occur to Asquith that the selection of Balfour over Bonar Law’s head would have been another heavy blow to Bonar Law’s leadership of his party.

Lloyd George said nothing, but Bonar Law was very angry with him because he did not reply according to arrangement: “Then I won’t serve on the War Committee either.” He seemed to have no blame to spare for Asquith at all. Yet such an attitude was transparently unfair. Surely it was far worse for the Prime Minister to think out a scheme to keep him off the War Committee, and perhaps do him a mortal damage, than for Lloyd George simply to acquiesce in silence.

Bonar Law’s attitude towards office in war time may be explained once and for all. He had no special belief in his own abilities as a war administrator—rather the reverse. He did not think he could save his country and that no other man could. If this was a weakness in his political character, then we must admit the defect. Nor did he care a scrap about personal prestige and self-aggrandisement. If the nation or the party had said to him plainly: “We think another man would do your work better than you can,” he would, I believe, have laid down office with a huge sigh of relief. But just as he never sought responsibility, neither did he shirk it. The responsibility of leading the Tory Party had been given to him and he had to take decisions as to the way in which this tremendous influence was to be used. Now he could not manage and control the party unless a certain amount of outward respect—in the shape of high office—was shown him by the head of the Government. He could not hold his post or control the machine if his subordinates in the party hierarchy were promoted over his head by Asquith. That was all he thought about, whether he was passed over for the Chancellorship, or the Deputy Leadership, or the War Committee.

Bonar Law’s position was indeed one of great weakness. He was little more than the titular leader of the Conservatives in the Cabinet. He had failed over and over again, as in the Dardanelles issue or on the Turkish crisis, to carry his Conservative colleagues with him. And this fact was weakening the cohesion of the Conservative Party in the Commons and the constituencies.

Curzon was opposing him on many issues and would say openly that no Conservative leadership now existed and that all the Tory Ministers were equal in the sight of Asquith. The leadership had been abolished by the mere fact of entry into the Coalition—and when this partnership was dissolved a choice of a new leader would be open to the party. He took this line quite frankly. He did not approve of Bonar Law as leader, and undoubtedly hoped to be chosen as leader of the party when Lansdowne disappeared.

This explains very adequately why Bonar Law preserved so jealously the rights and dignities of his post. He believed implicitly that weakness in his own titular position was in reality weakness in the party authority, discipline and cohesion.

We talked on and on that night at the Hyde Park Hotel, and I must say I found Bonar Law desperately “sticky.” I retailed to him all Lloyd George’s difficulties as I had been told them, and I also gave, for what it was worth, the personal impression I had formed of Lloyd George’s sincerity in this dispute.

As the discussion proceeded Bonar Law made this position pretty clear. It could be summarised in the following way:

Lloyd George was dissatisfied with the way the war was being conducted. “Well, I’m dissatisfied too—so is the public—in fact, the Government is very unpopular. I know all that without being told.” But, he continued, that was not the same thing as supplying a remedy—least of all did it appear that to satisfy Lloyd George’s aspirations was to supply that remedy. You might abolish a personal grievance and the war might be conducted as badly as ever.

Furthermore, he desired to retain Asquith’s personality as part of the machinery of Government. Bonar Law believed from the point of view of the conduct of the war that the control of the political machine was as essential as the preparation of big armies. He had said to Carson a day or two before our conversation that in the present House of Commons no one could control that machine as well as Asquith. Carson had acknowledged the strength of Asquith’s position in the House.

Bonar Law thought there was no reason why, if Asquith would alter his conduct in certain particulars and eliminate some of the evils of the present regime, such as dilatoriness, he should not be able to carry on successfully.

Bonar Law then pointed out the gravity of the issue which was being put before him. In his case there was no opening for personal resignation, no via media in his attitude towards the Government. For, as the leader of the Conservatives, his line must be decisive to the fate of the Ministry. He must either sustain it or he must go right on and destroy it.

To sum up, Bonar Law distrusted Lloyd George and his ambitions. He suspected that Lloyd George’s plan of a new executive War Council was not a considered scheme for reorganising the machinery of making war. He suggested it was a scheme for side-stepping Sir William Robertson’s authority under the Kitchener-Robertson agreement. In other words, whenever the War Secretary and the C.I.G.S. had a difference about strategy, Lloyd George would carry the matter to his own court of appeal, the War Council, and overrule Robertson there.^[7] Finally, the scheme was to exalt Lloyd George at Asquith’s expense. This he was quite clearly not prepared to do—at least not without a great deal more thought and argument.

In the meantime Lloyd George had gone to France—but I had an arrangement with him by which I was to send him a telegram if I thought he ought to come back.

On Wednesday I went to the War Office and settled with Davies (his secretary) to have a wire sent, as we had previously agreed, calling Lloyd George home. A reply came saying he would be back on Friday.

A colleague of mine went to see Carson in order to discover how far Carson was acting with Lloyd George. He told me that he and Carson, who was hardening against Bonar Law, had discussed the certainty of an open and immediate rupture. Carson attacked the Prime Minister with great vigour, but he maintained that Bonar Law must take his share of the blame for the existing state of national affairs, because he held up Asquith’s scheme, and without him the Prime Minister was helpless to resist the advocates of a vigorous war.

After this I went to Bonar Law in the afternoon. I told him Carson’s sentiments, and informed him that Lloyd George was willing to dine with him on his return on Friday night. He replied that he had Sir Henry Wilson dining with him, and a suggestion that he should put off Wilson was negatived.

He wanted to hear Wilson talk about the war. “Lloyd George can come and listen to Wilson too, if he likes. I should say it would do him good.”

I insisted that Lloyd George was practically coming back at Bonar Law’s request. The greatest concession I could get was that Lloyd George could come if Wilson did not object; in fact, Bonar Law actually telephoned to ask if Wilson had any objection, and the invitation was only sent after this doubt had been removed.

Now, I particularly did not want Wilson present at the first renewal of relations between Bonar Law and Lloyd George. If Wilson detested Asquith most of all the politicians, Lloyd George was easily next in the list of the men he hated. (Wilson and Lloyd George were reconciled in 1917, but the old difference broke out again later).

The contretemps was so unpleasant and the whole atmosphere so unfavourable for a discussion of this grave character that I sent a message through Davies to Lloyd George, asking him to telephone me when he arrived. I then advised Lloyd George to decline the invitation—which he did—returning straight home to Walton Heath, and joining me next morning at the Hyde Park Hotel.

Lloyd George arrived at my rooms in the Hyde Park Hotel to breakfast at nine a.m. He was in a state of profound pessimism; thought Bonar Law would prove immovable and was too much under Asquith’s influence to be likely to consent to his own proposals. If Bonar Law would do nothing, he himself would resign and join Carson in opposition. The grounds of resignation would be the indecision of the Cabinet, his absolute impotence at the War Office and in the War Committee, and the refusal of his advice on Balkan affairs. We talked till noon. I pointed out that if he resigned now, Asquith would try to arrange with Bonar Law for an immediate dissolution. He decided to withhold his resignation till Monday, while I made another attempt to straighten things out. Lloyd George left at noon. I went at once to Bonar Law, lunched with him, and stayed till four p.m. We had the whole matter out. I stated Lloyd George’s objections to the existing regime, and outlined Lloyd George’s proposals—in effect, that there should be a War Council of three, Lloyd George (chairman), Bonar Law, and Carson. The Prime Minister’s relation to the Council was left as a point to be settled in detail afterwards. My two main contentions were that Lloyd George was honest and sincere of purpose, and that the state of inefficiency in the Government was becoming intolerable and leading us towards the precipice. Bonar Law more or less admitted the truth of the last contention at once, but was not certain that Lloyd George would do any better; further, he doubted if Carson would agree to join, and asked whether Carson (if willing to join) could be got into the War Council over the heads of the Unionist Cabinet Ministers. On this point he foresaw the probability of great trouble. He agreed, however, to meet Lloyd George on Monday evening and discuss the proposals with him, and indicated that he would not mention the matter to the Prime Minister, who might put some impediment in the way of the conference.

I went over and saw Lloyd George at Walton Heath and informed him of the arrangements for the meeting. He went over much of the old ground again, but he remained pessimistic as to the prospects of coming to an agreement with Bonar Law.

None the less, the campaign had not opened so badly. Bonar Law was in possession of the outlines of Lloyd George’s proposals, and was prepared to meet him in conference. I at once invited Carson to come to this conference, so that the first step to creating a triumvirate which would save the Tory Party from an open rupture and infuse a new vigour into the war policy of the Government had been taken. Future developments lay in the lap of the gods.

I SAW Bonar Law early. To my surprise he told me that he had mentioned the Lloyd George proposals for a War Council to the Prime Minister—although he had said he would not do so. I complained that what Lloyd George had said to me had been told in confidence, but with the knowledge that I would disclose it to Bonar Law, and that he had done wrongly in divulging it to Asquith.

Bonar Law replied: “That is all very well, but I am not going to be drawn into anything like an intrigue against Asquith. I have had experience of what flows from this sort of conversation with Lloyd George. Lloyd George himself would do far better to go quite openly to the Prime Minister and tell him what he has told us.” This sort of argument was not convincing, because if Lloyd George had gone alone to Asquith, his visit would have had no effect whatever. But if he could go with Bonar Law’s support and authority, that would be a very different matter.

The Prime Minister had said that he thought that the whole proposal was simply a demand of Lloyd George’s for more power, and that he had never really been loyal to the Cabinet. He felt doubtful whether even if Lloyd George got his War Council he would remain satisfied. These views were to some extent shared by Bonar Law. As to Carson’s inclusion, the Prime Minister did not seem much exercised, but he remarked that he and some of his friends, including Conservative Ministers, had not formed a very high opinion of Carson’s constructive abilities while he was in the Government. There was a good deal of rather vague dialectic about the discussion, and, as was frequent with Asquith, it led to no definite conclusion or result.

However, something did result, because Bonar Law had told the Prime Minister about Lloyd George’s complaints of McKenna’s persistent opposition, and at the War Committee that day McKenna was very pleasant to Lloyd George. Bonar Law also was willing to encourage Lloyd George, and promised to consider, de novo, his proposal to send Sir William Robertson to Petrograd.

He said to me: “You can go and tell Lloyd George that I am prepared to reconsider my position with regard to Robertson and the mission to Russia.” (In other words, the removal of Robertson from the War Office.) In fact, he was ready to consider the whole position at the War Office and to support a change there. He said he must see Robertson personally first and explain his new view to him. He would have no difficulty, because it was now clear to him that Lloyd George and Robertson could not work together under the existing arrangement. He hoped that the grant of supreme authority to Lloyd George in his own office would be a sufficient solace, but he said: “Of course, I see his scheme really goes further than eliminating Robertson.”

This night the first meeting took place between Lloyd George, Bonar Law, and Carson at my rooms at the Hyde Park Hotel. The atmosphere seemed unfavourable, not to say strained. Lloyd George opened well enough with a repetition of his personal assurance to Bonar Law that he had taken no part against him in the Nigerian debate, and Carson confirmed this. But Bonar Law received his assurances coldly. Lloyd George then stated his main case with great skill and tact, nor did he go too far in his demands. He only asked for his War Council, and said the Prime Minister would lead the Commons—a task he was pre-eminently fitted for. Bonar Law had all along been of opinion that Carson would never join an Asquith Ministry again, but Carson seemed quite disposed to come into the projected arrangement—so that one difficulty vanished. Indeed, it may be said that things would have been much worse but for Carson’s presence. The party broke up without a decision having been reached. Carson and Lloyd George went off together, and Bonar Law remained behind with me. He was still hostile to Lloyd George; he did not believe Lloyd George’s Nigerian assurances, which he said Carson was bound to confirm, whether true or not, for he could not know what was in Lloyd George’s mind. Bonar Law’s main judgment was that Lloyd George’s plans boiled down to one simple proposal—to put Asquith out and to put himself in. I made another strong effort to convince him; repeated everything Sir Reginald Brade had said about the principle which should govern the management of the War Office—namely, that the Secretary of State for War should be a superior authority to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. This impressed him, and about this period he had an interview with Sir Reginald Brade, who said to him what he had told me.

This day the negotiations went on with ups and downs. Carson had a long talk with Bonar Law in the latter’s room at the House of Commons. This, although it improved their personal relations was not altogether to the good, because Bonar Law got the impression that Carson was not really working intimately with Lloyd George. But if Carson’s support of Lloyd George should prove to be illusory, then the position of the War Minister would be greatly weakened. Yet the association was never really a matter for doubt. Following on this I arranged another meeting of Lloyd George, Bonar Law, and Carson; again there was a vigorous argument and some progress, but no really satisfactory result, and—what was more important—no really good atmosphere. The trouble throughout was less a difference of principle than the view which men took of each other’s mentality. The prospect was depressing and the outlook was black.

There followed on this a meeting at my rooms at the Hyde Park Hotel without Carson, and this went the worse for his absence.

The whole question of the Prime Minister’s position under the new arrangement came up in an acute form. Lloyd George said quite frankly that Asquith must not be a member of the projected War Council. “For,” he went on, “if he is a member he must, in his official capacity, dominate it—and if he dominates it, he will destroy its whole utility—and the conduct of the war will have gained nothing in efficiency.” Bonar Law was taken aback by this demand. He at once said that my original version of Lloyd George’s proposals did not include this clause at all. This was true, and the explanation was simple. I had not thought it necessary to tell of this demand to Bonar Law. I was not sure that Lloyd George would insist upon this condition. I felt it might make an insurmountable obstacle at the outset of the negotiations. I wished to take the easier obstacle in the first place. The bigger jumps could be attempted later on.

I had also advised Lloyd George to try to settle all the other points with Bonar Law first and come to this one last, because it was the most difficult of the lot. Lloyd George, however, at this point threw my advice over and without any previous notice to me boldly produced the whole of his scheme—holding back nothing. And as it turned out, he was wise to do so.

But Bonar Law did not hesitate, after Lloyd George had departed, to criticise me severely. The lot of the negotiator is never quite happy.

During the week further meetings took place, and on Thursday there was a protracted and fruitful discussion.

On Friday, Sir Robert Donald, then editor of the “Daily Chronicle,” called to see Bonar Law. Their relations were always friendly, and Donald’s conversation, unknown to himself, had considerable influence on the position. Donald made it clear that Lloyd George was by no means alone in the dissatisfaction which he expressed. The movement in Liberal circles is well described by Donald’s own account of the growth of the discontent. He writes:

On this day, as agreed, Bonar Law, Lloyd George, Carson, and I met at one o’clock at Pembroke Lodge, Bonar Law’s house. Carson spoke out very strongly on the impossibility of continuing the existing system—on the delays, the reversals of policy, and the bickering on the War Council, and of the presence of two kings of Brentford at the War Office—the Minister and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff locked in perpetual conflict.

As we were going upstairs immediately after lunch, Carson held me back, saying, “What do you think of all this?” The question surprised me. I had taken it for granted, as indicated all along, that Carson was entirely in Lloyd George’s confidence throughout. But the query suggested that he shared some of Bonar Law’s doubts about Lloyd George. I replied that I was perfectly satisfied with the steps proposed and the situation arrived at, and then waited for him to explain himself. However, he made no further remark—possibly he was indicating an intention to resume his old relations with Bonar Law, and suggesting that he was not acting simply as Lloyd George’s “man.”

Before the meeting on Saturday morning I had drafted out a memorandum for the approval of the Triumvirate. Bonar Law made some corrections on my draft and after that it was adopted without alteration. It took the form of an announcement to be signed and published by Asquith.

It will be seen that the names of the other members of the War Council except Lloyd George were left blank, as in the text, but it was understood by all of us that Bonar Law’s and Carson’s names were to be added if the Prime Minister made no objection. Bonar Law and Carson were indifferent, and willing to make way for other men, but both agreed that Lloyd George was essential. The acceptance of this document marks a decisive stage in the negotiations, and also the primal definite, though not intentional, step forward to the fall of the first Coalition Government. The three men concerned had now reached an agreement which could be written down in ink. Bonar Law’s view of the position of the Prime Minister in the face of this memorandum was so accurate as to be almost prophetic. If the Prime Minister, he said, accepted the scheme voluntarily, plus his own additions, all would be well with him, but if he allowed himself to be forced into acceptance he might well find his position as head of the Ministry untenable.

Lloyd George explained his attitude towards Asquith at some length and with considerable vehemence. He personally was perfectly prepared to work with Asquith; the trouble was that Asquith would not work with him. This, he said, was due mainly to the malign influence of McKenna, who, by suggesting to Asquith whenever a difference of opinion cropped up that Lloyd George was insincere or ambitious, poisoned their mutual relations. These innuendoes had had their effect on Asquith, and made business under existing conditions impossible. The conclave broke up, Bonar Law going to the Prime Minister to present the Memorandum, Lloyd George and Carson to the War Office to await his return, and myself home to Leatherhead.

At this point in the narrative it will be well to point out the salient features in the memorandum and also to explain the attitude of the various men towards it. The features of the memorandum were three:

On the first two points there may be said to have been absolute unanimity—for there would have been no quarrel about personnel in any case. On the third point there were, in fact, degrees of divergence. Carson frankly wanted Asquith out of the Government, but he would take a lesser degree of elimination if nothing better could be managed. Lloyd George took a middle view—he did not want the Prime Minister to interfere with the war, but he was not bent on turning him out if it could be avoided. Bonar Law wanted to retain the Prime Minister if he would consent to a sufficient curtailment of his authority, but he wished to curtail it less than Lloyd George did, for, as I have already stated, Lloyd George wished to eliminate Asquith from the War Council altogether. All these facts will emerge quite clearly in the course of this history, but it will make the story clearer if they are stated here. The next move now lay with Asquith. What would he say or do?

BETWEEN seven and eight that evening Bonar Law called me up on the telephone and gave me a guarded account of his conversation with the Prime Minister. The latter had listened to what he had to say and taken a copy of the Memorandum. In the main the Prime Minister went over the same arguments he had used before with Bonar Law. He would agree to the terms suggested if they represented Lloyd George’s final aims and were not merely an instalment of further demands for power. Personally, he did not believe that this was a final demand. He went on to raise the former objections to Carson’s appointment to the War Council—the poor impression he had created in office and the difficulty of promoting him over the heads of other Conservatives in this summary fashion. Finally, he promised to give a definite answer on Monday. Bonar Law made it clear that, personally, he did not care a rap whether he was included in the new War Council or not, and went back to the War Office to meet Lloyd George and Carson.

It appeared that Bonar Law had been to some extent influenced by Asquith’s contentions, and as the latter’s objections to both Lloyd George and Carson were largely personal, he found a difficulty in stating them in exact terms. Moved by these considerations, he did not press the matter then to any definite conclusion, but reiterated his own indifference to the new office and declared that nothing could be done until the Prime Minister’s reply on Monday. This was agreed to.

Bonar Law’s attitude, both in itself and its reaction upon that of others, was a very potent factor in these proceedings, and, indeed, in the whole conduct of the Coalition Government. Disinterested beyond his contemporaries and colleagues to an almost abnormal degree, he was capable of occasional flashes of personal ambition, which blazed out in the face of critical opposition from supporters or colleagues or of abuse in the public Press. This was curious in a man who was as a rule so impervious to abuse. None the less, although he cared nothing for what was said of him, such opposition roused him to a determination to assert his power and to great vigour of action for the moment. Then the fire died away, and he resumed an attitude of passive philosophy beyond and outside that of passion and strife. He was not really bored with life, but the original affectation that he was so had by long habit almost superseded the reality. He never told a lie in a great thing, and very seldom in a small one; in trifles he was selfish, though kind-hearted and capable of singular devotion to family and friends. In large matters he was of an extraordinary generosity, and would sacrifice the whole comfort of his life for a friend or a cause.

But his distinguishing mark was undoubtedly his freedom from self-interest. The idea of whether he stood to gain or lose from a particular decision in politics never entered his head. He was therefore in this sense a great patriot, but he fell short of greatness in that he did not possess that supreme passion of patriotism which enables a man to be ruthless for the public good.

His very capacity for loyalty and friendship worked in this direction—for as a friend there was no one like him. There are certain qualities in friendship which every man knows, but no man can define. In Bonar Law one realised them all to a supreme degree.

This character the Prime Minister (Asquith) understood thoroughly, and was by no means inapt in playing on its various elements. Since the formation of the Coalition Government, no one had been a more loyal member of the Cabinet in the face of much provocation, and the appeal to loyalty was to the Prime Minister’s hand. At the same time, a kind of scepticism about strong emotions and distrust of ardent passions or sharp measures, mixed with a contempt for personal ambition, made him by instinct, if not by reason, regard the rise of Lloyd George to supreme power as a dangerous portent in politics—and this side, too, was open to the Prime Minister’s attack. The week-end passed, then, in a state of some uncertainty.

I went over at night to see Lloyd George at Walton Heath. He was far from contented with the prospect of Monday’s meeting. He felt sure that McKenna and his colleagues would be at the Prime Minister during the interval to refuse him all accommodation. He was strengthened in his pessimistic view of the situation by the fact that Asquith had belittled George’s influence with the Liberal party and the Nation in talking to Bonar Law the day before. Lloyd George on the contrary in prophesying a rupture dwelt on his influence with the rank and file of the Liberals at Westminster and enlarged on the weight he would carry in the constituencies if Asquith persuaded Bonar Law to join in an appeal to the country.

Early on Monday morning Bonar Law called me up from London on the telephone. “I am in a difficulty; come up at once,” was the gist of his remarks. I noticed, however, a difference in the tone; for the first time he seemed to be taking a keen interest in the proposals for the reconstruction of the Government.

The Prime Minister’s answer, which was in the form of a letter, was shown by him to Bonar Law in advance. Its most striking feature was some very disagreeable comments on Carson as a prospective member of the War Council. Carson, it was here written, had been vacillating in the Cabinet, and far from capable in general affairs. He was perpetually striving after strength until this constituted a weakness.

Bonar Law pointed out that since this letter was an answer to the Memorandum he had submitted on behalf of Lloyd George and Carson as well as himself, it must be shown to them. Asquith, of course, could not object to this. Bonar Law then went on to say that it would be very unwise—in view of Carson’s probable return to the Government—that he should read these reflections on his capacity. He made no objection to the references to Lloyd George. He thought, on the whole, it was better that Lloyd George should understand the light in which the Prime Minister viewed his activities. The Prime Minister then took out the peccant page and wrote in another of an innocuous character about Carson, and consented to the proposed disclosure to Lloyd George and Carson. Copies of the letter were delivered to both Lloyd George and Carson.

There was one curious feature about the Prime Minister’s letter. The original letter had been written on “The Wharf” notepaper at Sutton Courtney on the Sunday, but the substituted sheet was on blank paper. So the whole document looked rather odd.

On the afternoon of Monday the letter was considered by the three prime movers at a meeting at the Colonial Office. Bonar Law assumed the role of mediator between Asquith and Lloyd George. The present system of government, he agreed, could not, in the national interest, be allowed to go on, but it would be better if some modus vivendi between the two could be arranged. At the same time, he was most anxious to include Carson in the War Council. Unlike Asquith, he was a believer in Carson’s capacities as a War administrator and had always been ready to bring him back into the Government on any favourable opportunity.

Finally, Bonar Law suggested that Lloyd George, who was not surprised at the Prime Minister’s refusal, should go directly to Asquith to see whether or not they could come to an agreement.

Lloyd George then, as agreed, saw the Prime Minister, and conversations took place between the two men; they were of the usual somewhat indecisive character. In the meantime it became increasingly clear that the triumvirate were themselves far from united. Lloyd George and Carson, while not caring a button who had the titular post of head of the Government, were determined not to let the new War Council be run by Asquith, and said so quite openly. If Asquith would accept the titular role, well and good; if not, he must go. But Bonar Law would not go as far as the other two in this; he was restrained by a feeling of loyalty to the head of the Government, and was anxious to run Lloyd George and Asquith in harness together. In consequence, he genuinely assumed the task of mediator between the two men.

This holding-back attitude on his part undoubtedly annoyed Carson. Carson was seeing a lot of Gwynne, the editor of the “Morning Post,” at this time.

Gwynne was a powerful personage, for he was trusted by the Generals’ party, was the confidant of Carson, and definitely represented the views of the group of Conservative members of Parliament most hostile to the Government. Of course, he had in addition the “Morning Post” as his sounding board, for though the newspaper belonged to the Bathurst family, the policy was controlled by Gwynne. But he had influence, quite irrespective of his position in journalism, owing to his personality and to the clear-cut consistency of his views on the conduct of the war.

It was, then, highly significant that on 23rd November the “Morning Post,” which, owing to pre-war politics, had a natural tendency to be hostile to Lloyd George, suddenly went right about face and declared Lloyd George to be the necessary man and the saviour of society. This was clearly Carson’s work.

I have dwelt on the attitude of the “Morning Post” because the Press became a very important factor in the solution of the crisis during this week. Lloyd George’s strength in particular lay less in the Commons—and least of all in the Government—than in the country. And the Press was the only instrument for bringing this popular medium to bear. For this reason I was very anxious that Lloyd George should make it up with Northcliffe.

I had a strong belief both in Northcliffe’s power and in his rigid patriotism. I did not share the dislike and disparagement of Northcliffe then rife in Governmental and political circles.

I felt sure that if it could be shown to him that Lloyd George was doing the right thing to win the war, he would support Lloyd George in spite of past disagreements. Still, the relationship between the two men was awkward, for, as has been previously recorded, Northcliffe had threatened Lloyd George recently over the “Roumanian Letter”—and the threat had been offensive in character.

Anyhow, Lloyd George would have nothing to do with the idea. But he is the most placable of men—one quite devoid of rancour in public affairs, and the day was not far distant when he was brought to make an advance. He said to me, in reply to my pressure: “I would as soon go for a sunny evening stroll round Walton Heath with a grasshopper as try and work with Northcliffe.”

I replied that my experience of Northcliffe was that he always carried out any bargain he entered into—but my plea was in vain.

I was now occupying a room at the War Office near the Secretary of State’s quarters.

Sir Reginald Brade frequently called on me, though I was unwilling to call on him too often, because his office in the same corridor was like a public ante-room, with Generals and public men coming and going all day long.

One interview in the War Office room during this period stands out in my memory. Birkenhead attacked me, and with great and evident sincerity pointed out the enormous responsibility all of us who were planning to overturn the existing regime were assuming. He did not contest the fact that the intrigue (as he termed it from his point of view) would succeed, but he denied that an alternative Government could be formed. What, then, would happen to the country? I argued that his own position would be perfectly safe under a new Administration, but the suggestion annoyed him. He was genuinely alarmed at the situation and its development, and anxious to avoid a crash. He himself thanked his stars that responsibility in the matter would not rest with him.

Events were now fast approaching the actual crisis and came thick on each other. The Prime Minister could not be induced to come to a decision, but the men who were for a change in the conduct of the war were determined to compel him to do so. The manner and extent of their success will be exhibited in the ensuing pages.

BONAR LAW had now to make his vital decision. The crisis had developed up to a point which compelled him to inform his colleagues of the action he was taking and to disclose all that had occurred. He must reveal himself as definitely committed to a campaign for the creation of a War Council with dictatorial powers over and above those residing in the Cabinet. Finally, he must tell them that the fall of the Government was almost certainly involved in the acceptance or rejection of this scheme.

This was a day of great importance, because it witnessed this first meeting of the Conservative Cabinet Ministers. At that meeting, at which all were present except Balfour (who was ill, and attended neither this nor any subsequent conference), Bonar Law explained to his colleagues fully and frankly exactly what he had done in connection with Lloyd George and the Prime Minister. He read them the terms of the joint resolution concurred in by Lloyd George, Carson, and himself, and explained that he was insisting on his plan of a small Council of three, with supreme control, and real executive authority, and urging it on a somewhat reluctant Prime Minister. He made it clear that Lloyd George would be the chairman of this Council. Carson’s name, as a Member of the Council, never came up, for agreement broke down on the principle of the new scheme before the question of personnel was reached.

Bonar Law, indeed, at the very outset found himself confronted with the uncompromising resistance of all of his old colleagues. Their objection to the new organ of war administration was, in fact, based not so much on an objection to its theory as on an objection to the proposed chairman. They saw in the whole plan simply a scheme for the further aggrandisement of Lloyd George, and they were absolutely determined not to proclaim a dictatorship with Lloyd George as dictator. Their attitude would have been very different, had Mr. Asquith been the probable candidate for the new post. It would not be fair to attach blame to the Conservative leaders for this mental attitude. For fifteen or twenty years in the past they had lived in an atmosphere of fierce political animosity in which Lloyd George was often the principal target. They had no reason to like him, and, as has been already pointed out, Lloyd George’s conduct since the formation of the Ministry had been such as to destroy Bonar Law’s original faith in his disinterested patriotism, and, further, had inflamed the inveterate distrust of his enemies. His colleagues had not undergone the process by which Bonar Law’s doubts had been resolved. It is easy enough to blame them for rushing into violent opposition to the only scheme of reform which promised to save the country. But such a criticism would be unjust. The Conservative Cabinet Ministers were faced with a situation which had no parallel in their past experience; the precedents and modes of thought by which all public men had governed their political lives were useless and broken things; desperate situations require desperate remedies; but it required great imaginative insight to pierce through the superficial defects of the War Minister and see into the heart of the only man who had the courage, the genius, and the energy to rise to the height of the occasion. But if Conservative Ministers made a mistake in judgment (and this, of course, may still be open to question), it was certainly an honest mistake.

The popular judgment, never very far out in simple and vital matters, was sound.

The people were far enough away from Lloyd George to see him in better perspective. The majority of the newspapers, both London and provincial, were beginning to rally to him, and in countless trains and trams and omnibuses men were saying that “Lloyd George was the best man among the lot.”

The Prime Minister at least was perfectly aware of this fact which made it impossible for him or anyone else to put forward an alternative candidate for the Chairmanship of the War Council.

We must continue the narrative of Thursday’s meeting of the Conservative members of the Cabinet. Bonar Law was completely taken by surprise at encountering such vehement unanimity in rejecting his scheme. But if he was taken aback, it is also clear that at this first meeting the Conservative members of the Ministry had equally no idea of the formidable nature of the movement they were opposing. Lloyd George, they thought, had been simmering with discontent, marked by occasional ebullitions of protest for months. This was just another of his “gags” to gain a little more power.

Bonar Law made it perfectly plain that he was not going on under the existing system of war control; that there must be great changes in the administration; that Lloyd George must be given the general direction of the war, and that Asquith must be kept apart from this executive side. Both Long and Lansdowne, in letters printed below, interpret, and rightly, his position to be equivalent to a threat of resignation if his general idea was not accepted. Yet his colleagues were not impressed. They could not believe that when Bonar Law found himself in a minority of one he could possibly proceed with his plan. If he did so, he would simply be ruined, and they could still carry on in the Government. They had forgotten the Bonar Law who had compelled the evacuation of the Dardanelles. They acted on “the meek and humble Bonar Law” hypothesis.

The majority, therefore, were quite certain of getting their way and were determined to reject the demands of Lloyd George and Carson. Much resentment was felt at being invited to work with these two. Lloyd George, it was said, was simply using Carson as a tool to stir up dissension and discontent among Tory back-benchers and so frighten the Conservative members of the Ministry into giving way to his inordinate ambitions. Well, Bonar Law might be frightened of Carson—but they were not. Carson could accomplish nothing against either the Conservative leaders or the Government as a whole. In fact, the feeling against Carson was so strong that Bonar Law thought it inadvisable even to mention his name in connection with the new War Council. Some feeling was manifested, too, against Bonar Law afterwards, Lord Robert Cecil complaining that Bonar Law was ruining the Conservative Party by dragging it at the coat tails of Lloyd George. But the general sense was that the whole business would blow over and was not serious.

The opponents of the War Council, however, did not wish to be left in the position of maintaining that all was going as well as possible with the best of all possible wars. For this was manifestly untrue, and the country was showing signs of resenting the attitude.

Several of the Conservatives put forward an alternative plan of rather a complicated character for a reconstruction of the functions of the Cabinet.

Since Lloyd George was unavoidable if his War Council plan were carried, the only way of disposing of the man was to destroy the plan. This the Conservative antagonists proposed to do by the somewhat ingenious method of setting up an alternative scheme of reform.

When Bonar Law, therefore, urged his original plan he was met by a counter-proposal. According to this, it should be agreed to set up a small War Council, to include the political heads of the fighting departments, and, on the other hand, to create what might be called a Home Council, consisting of the principal Ministers concerned with the Home Services.

The Home Council, however, would fall into the keeping of a nabob of the official hierarchy, and the dictatorship of Lloyd George would be avoided. One may readily perceive that there was something specious about this plan. It had, however, one glaring defect. The whole crisis had arisen out of the failure of the Administration to secure any unified control of the war. As a remedy for this evil it was now proposed to intensify it by setting up two bodies of practically equal authority, whose functions would be found so to overlap as to bring them into sharp and incessant conflict. The remedy was, in fact, worse than the disease. Bonar Law stood to his guns, and the conference broke up without a decision, all his colleagues declaring for the two-council arrangement, though, obviously, some with much hesitation.

The two letters received by Bonar Law from those who had been his closest friends in former days show very clearly the extent of the bitterness and hostility aroused by the proposals put forward at the meeting.

Bonar Law had no difficulty in pointing out the intrinsic absurdity of the whole “two-council” proposal. He asked who would be responsible for the transport of troops to France. The reply was that according to the Conservative plan this would fall to the Home Council, which would be responsible for shipping. “And suppose,” he said, “the shipping authority orders troops to be taken across in cement barges towed by tugs because the transports are wanted for other purposes, do you suppose the War Council will agree not to have a word on that?” This instance, and many others showing the impossibility of working the scheme, strongly confirmed Bonar Law in his original opinion. The obvious truth of the matter was that the plan had not been thought out so much on its merits as a means of winning the war as of meeting the cry for administrative reform without giving Lloyd George the conduct of the war.

None the less the letter from Long forms, in another aspect, an impressive document. Long stated, in a manner highly creditable to him, a position for which there was much to be said. It was reasonable to say that whatever reform of the existing war control was needed it was far better that all the Conservative Ministers should agree together on it and put it through.

At the same time, Bonar Law received another letter from Lord Lansdowne conceived in a very different vein. Lansdowne puts the very strongest pressure on him to modify his attitude of support towards Lloyd George, indicating clearly that he went on his course alone and at his peril. Lansdowne did not like the “alternative”—that is the two councils—and seems to have been in favour of the status quo as far as can be judged from his letter:

The mildness of tone adopted in this letter really does Bonar Law something less than justice. Yet Lansdowne had been an old and valued friend, his co-partner and senior in the leadership of the party, and Bonar Law was at the time acutely aware of his own state of isolation. He was not influenced by the fact that the Prime Minister had been in possession for some weeks of a memorandum from Lord Lansdowne indicating the view that Britain ought to consider a policy of “Peace without Victory.”

The truth of the matter was that Lansdowne having convinced himself that we could not possibly win the war and must fall back on a negotiated peace had completely changed his standpoint. He re-viewed all his colleagues, Liberal or Conservative, in the light of this new policy. Were they men in favour of Peace by Negotiation or “bitter-enders”? He had therefore, quite unknown to Bonar Law, changed his friendliness of many years for one of hostility to the Tory leader in the Commons. He sensed accurately enough that Bonar Law would fight Germany to the last gasp. He also saw with resentment Bonar Law drawing nearer to Lloyd George because they were like-minded men. Therefore Lansdowne would have gladly seen them both thrown out of the Government. For he obviously believed that he could bring Asquith round to his view of Peace-by-Negotiation, not as desirable, but as inevitable, if the opposing element in the Cabinet were removed. And the fear of this development was very generally shared in circles favourable to Lloyd George, though not, as has been said, by most of the protagonists in the Cabinet.

Lord Crewe has stated that in his opinion the Lansdowne memorandum was somehow connected with the crisis.

It accounted for the hostility of Lansdowne to the Lloyd George-Bonar Law plan for a change in the conduct of the war and for his violent opposition towards Bonar Law himself. One at least of his Conservative colleagues was informed by Lansdowne of his disappointment with his colleague and joint leader in the House of Commons, and others no doubt were favoured with the same opinion.

Lansdowne said that Bonar Law had no knowledge of European history or politics. He could hardly distinguish one Balkan state from another. It was absurd to suppose that he could read the mind of Europe as Lansdowne could in the middle of this terrific crisis. The inference was that Lansdowne was right in his policy of Peace-by-Negotiation and Bonar Law wrong in his determination to fight till Germany was beaten. Lansdowne developed and expressed quite a distrust of Bonar Law as a war-time Minister. Asquith, on the other hand, he felt certain, was open to conviction. If only Bonar Law and Lloyd George could be overcome, the way to peace was plain.

Lansdowne, therefore, in his conduct at this crisis was entirely obsessed by his zeal for Peace by Negotiation.

But neither Chamberlain, nor Cecil, nor Curzon, nor Walter Long was in his confidence or understood the motive underlying his action. So far indeed was Cecil from being in the Peace-by-Negotiation camp, that his conduct of the Blockade of Germany was one of the most resolute and efficient performances of the whole war. Further, Lord Robert Cecil wrote in the form of a Cabinet Minute an excellent reply to Lord Lansdowne’s memorandum. No one put more clearly and firmly than he did the necessity for continuing war until a definite decision was reached. Yet he expressed his optimism and resolution in a balanced and tempered style.

The “Three C’s”^[9] then in conjunction with most of their colleagues seem to have regarded the Lansdowne memorandum as an academic essay on an unknown future. It was a brave and even lucid document. But it did not stir or interest them in the very least.

Bonar Law came back from Thursday’s meeting badly shaken. In the light of the opposition he had encountered, it would be necessary to go over his whole position again. As was his wont on such occasions, he proceeded to analyse the situation in all its bearings and to consider his various possible lines of future action. For this purpose, as usual, he made use of me.

To begin with, he considered the charge made against him by his colleagues that he was supporting Lloyd George because he was frightened of Carson and that his desire to bring Carson back to the centre of control was dictated by expediency.

Was this charge true? The answer was “No.” Do I believe that Carson is a good war administrator, a man of courage and character who ought to hold high position on his merits? The answer is, “Yes.” He reflected further:

I have no doubt that Bonar Law misunderstood Carson’s real attitude to Asquith. I was always convinced beyond question that Carson was determined throughout the autumn of 1916 to remove Asquith if he could from the direction of the war and to destroy him, if necessary, to gain his end.

In discussing this matter, Bonar Law always returned to the vital point: “What ought I to do about the War Council?”

So far it had been rejected by Asquith and turned down in effect by all his Tory colleagues. If he persisted—and that to the point of resignation—he went on with Lloyd George alone. Or would Lloyd George resign even if he resigned? Some experience of Lloyd George in the past made him uncertain on this point.

On personal grounds he would welcome the opportunity of getting rid of his responsibilities, but what would be the effect on the Government, on the country, and on the war of either a single-handed or a joint resignation?

The Government was already too feeble. If he retired alone into private life, he merely weakened it further. The Government would go staggering along for some time in a condition of ever-growing incompetence. Was the war situation such that the fortunes of the Empire could stand such a development? The answer was, “No.” It is possible to judge now more correctly how far Bonar Law was right in his estimate of the danger. His retirement would have left Lord Lansdowne the sole leader and therefore the paramount influence among Conservative Ministers while Lloyd George would have been so humiliated by his defeat that his influence in the Cabinet would have declined. In that case who can say that all we had fought for and all that we were to attain in the war would not have been sacrificed by a fatal “Peace without Victory.”

It must be admitted that there was at the time a widespread suspicion abroad that several of the Liberal members of the Cabinet would welcome any opportunity of negotiating a peace before a military and naval decision had been arrived at. The finger had been pointed at several Ministers in this connection. The names bandied about in Tory circles were Runciman, Grey and McKenna. Mr. McKenna, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was written down as a qualified supporter of any movement in this direction. I feel sure that he would deny this. But the mere fact that his name was widely mentioned in this connection shows how carefully the soil was being prepared to accept the seed of Lansdowne House.

Yet a whole series of minutes and recommendations and state papers issuing from Whitehall seemed to lead to the one definite conclusion that there was in the minds of men in authority a suspicion that a peace without victory was being contemplated. It would be easy, though unnecessary, to call the witnesses.

The reason why McKenna was suspect in this direction is obvious. His duty was to collect money with which to finance the war. He found this a task of growing difficulty day by day. He was always warning his colleagues at one Cabinet meeting after another that the payment for great orders for stores and munitions abroad was not quite such an easy matter as they imagined. All kinds of steps had to be taken in advance. It was not like putting a penny in the slot and pulling a lever.

The opponents of McKenna put the case against him quite bluntly. They said he did not believe that Great Britain could finance a prolonged war: that in consequence he was for Peace-by-Negotiation.

But several of the Liberal Ministers were more or less suspect to the Tory newspapers and to the Tory rank and file on the issue of a vigorous prosecution of the war. Yet the leadership of the Peace-by-Negotiation party was in the keeping of a Conservative, and one of the leaders of the party at that. It was Lansdowne who belled the cat for those Liberal Ministers who despaired of a Military decision favourable to Britain.

In some cases popular instinct was correct. We were never nearer peace by negotiation than in the summer and early autumn of 1916.

On the other hand, if Lloyd George retired, he intended—and made no secret of it—to appeal to public opinion against the Asquith administration. The country would be asked to declare for Lloyd George and a vigorous war policy. “Believing what I do about the muddled conduct of the war,” Bonar Law argued, “I should have to join in the campaign. My colleagues assume that they are representing the Tory orthodoxy in supporting Asquith. It is more probable that if I joined Lloyd George in such an assault the main stream of Tory opinion would go with me—and there would be a vast Press support. Asquith in the long run would fall.”

But would not all this produce an equally impossible situation? Would the Empire survive a weak Government on one side and a raging tearing campaign of criticism in the country on the other? Again, the answer is “No.”

Yet to do nothing, to submit, to carry on under a regime he did not believe in might be the very worst course of all for the nation. In these sombre and careful reflections Bonar Law passed the evening of Thursday.

Never had a man a more difficult decision to take. There were practically all the Liberals ranged behind Asquith, and reinforced by all the Tories in the Ministry, including even Birkenhead—whose support of the Prime Minister impressed Bonar Law.

I went home that night to the Hyde Park Hotel and sat in my room on the fourth floor overlooking the Park. A cold north-east wind blew in from the night and the single lamp was so shaded as to give hardly a glimmer. And as I sat there alone I thought how vastly greater were the forces ranged against Bonar Law than those ranged on his side. The strength of the two contending parties seemed ludicrously disproportionate. If the opponents showed anything like good powers of management, might they not repel Bonar Law’s attack? Ought men of good will to accept the inevitable? Should they bow before the strength of Asquith’s position and his immense following in his own and the Conservative Party? Would it be better to compromise at once rather than to damage and weaken the Government? Or, on the other hand, ought they to go on to the bitter end, believing, as they did, in the need for a sweeping change in the management and direction of the war? Despite these doubts of the dark hour, reason showed plainly that we must go on.

Granted absolute conviction of right on each side—and I grant this freely and sincerely to our opponents on this issue of long ago—the matter was really one of psychological calculation. The external forces were arrayed in their entirety on Asquith’s side. He had all the outer evidences—the oaths, the forms, and the ceremonies, the trappings of power and all the tempting baits existing office can hold out. Count heads on either front bench, and opposition to him would appear to be ridiculous.

His Liberal colleagues were, with the single exception of a hostile Lloyd George and a doubting Montagu, bound to him by indisseverable ties. Labour, it was said openly, trusted Asquith and had no love for the Lloyd George of the Ministry of Munitions. As to the Conservatives, Asquith had a far greater influence with the Conservative Ministers than their official leader. The front bench Tories were ready to throw Bonar Law over for him any day—as the event proved.

Above all loomed the immense conception—hardly doubted indeed even by most of his bitterest enemies—of the indispensability of Asquith as Prime Minister. Those who advanced to the attack of this political monument seemed in little better case than a pigmy slinging his stone at the Pyramids.

Yet Lloyd George with a flaming courage and Bonar Law with a cold determination, did advance against all these powers and principalities, apparently unsupported, and in the twinkling of an eye what seemed an easy victory was theirs.

No man to-day will recognise the desperate nature of their daring. It all seemed to happen so smoothly. At one moment Asquith was everything; in the next he was nothing. The great illusion of indispensability vanished in a night. Everyone, indeed, bowed down to the conquerors and accepted office and honours from them—but they did so not as to men who had performed a miracle of pluck, but as to men who had achieved some quite common political feat.

As a matter of fact, when Bonar Law and Lloyd George went into this issue they did so starkly as men doomed to inevitable defeat and political ruin in face of overwhelming forces, if Asquith had made full use of his powers and his majority in the House of Commons. They had nothing except patriotism and faith to sustain them against the all powerful myth that Asquith—bad or good as a war administrator—was indispensable, and that his opponents were like children playing by the seashore building up spade castles against the waves.

This was the great Asquith myth and it was false. Lloyd George and Bonar Law found afterwards that they could form a strong and reliable Government with the greatest ease. If every front bencher in the whole world of politics refused, his place in political life during the war would be instantly taken by a back-bencher, and in time of war hardly anyone in the country would notice the difference. The back-benchers were panting to take the place of the Right Honourables who had so far occupied the saddle—and I say this in no sense of irony. Everyone at that time thought that he could serve his country in office if he was too old to serve it in the trenches. Lloyd George or Bonar Law or anyone of standing who was commissioned by His Majesty to form a Government had only got to lift his little finger and his Ministry would be full—not of adventurers, but of men of solid reputation—Tory, Liberal or Labour—who were representatives of great constituencies and well seen by their neighbours. What did such men care for Asquith or Lloyd George as persons? They cared for the war.

We shall see in the course of the narrative great Ministers changing their colours almost in a day. They strike the Asquith flag and hoist the Jolly Roger of Lloyd George. The man of mean mind will say they made the change purely for the advantages of office. I say nothing of the kind. They desired office so ardently in order that they might serve their country. When Sir Austen Chamberlain, a man whose name could not possibly be associated with any conception of sordid ambition, was asked on one occasion to accept a great post, he replied: “I must go; I feel at last as if I was being ordered into the trenches.”

That was what office meant to men in war times. No man, back-bench or front bench, would refuse office in the war—as he might well have done in peace time. That was the central fact—but Asquith and his allied Conservative potentates did not perceive it until the smash came. Lloyd George had many of the Liberal back-benchers behind him when he became Prime Minister, just as Bonar Law had the Tory ones practically solid in his support. As soon as this fact was recognised, as it must be at the crisis, the front benches of Toryism would fall into line rather than resign their patriotic endeavours and their great positions to what they regarded as less able hands.

The Liberal front benchers proved of sterner stuff, but then they were more absolutely certain that Asquith would win out. As anticipated, there was no lack of Liberal back-benchers to fill their places.

What was at issue, therefore, in December, 1916, was a combat between a myth and a reality. The myth was that Asquith was the only conceivable Premier under whom men would serve. The reality was that men would serve under any efficient Premier.

But Westminster was blind in its belief in Asquith. It forgot completely all the outside forces—furious chairmen of Conservative organisations, men in munition factories, men in the trenches, Fleet Street—in fact, all the powers that cared nothing about the solemn observances of a consecrated Downing Street. All these forces, slow as they were to bring their weight to bear, began to turn in the direction of Lloyd George and away from Asquith.

ON Friday morning I saw Lloyd George and discussed with him the proceedings at the Conservative meeting of the previous days. He had to face the fact that all the Conservative Ministers were hostile to Bonar Law’s attitude—with the very doubtful exception of Walter Long, who leant towards some kind of compromise. I told him that Bonar Law had gone so far that on parting with his colleagues he had left them with the impression that he would either have the War Council or resign. I then asked Lloyd George in turn how he stood with his Liberal Cabinet colleagues, hoping to hear some better news. Lloyd George replied that he had absolutely no support at all in this quarter except from Montagu.

We were thus confronted with this extraordinary position: Dealing with the Cabinet alone, Lloyd George had only one Liberal adherent (who turned out to be a doubtful quantity), and Bonar Law not a single Conservative one.^[10] As the third party in the controversy stood the Prime Minister, who so far had not shifted an inch in his refusal of the terms proposed by Lloyd George and Bonar Law.

The discussion then turned towards what outside support existed. Carson and his friends could be relied on. Derby was standing firmly behind Lloyd George. Montagu was encouraging Lloyd George, but his final attitude in the event of a clash was uncertain.

I then told Lloyd George the views that Bonar Law had expressed to me on Thursday night. From this account he was able to gather that Bonar Law thought that very careful consideration was necessary, and was indeed a public duty, before a definite rupture of the existing administration was forced on.

The news conveyed to Lloyd George was thus almost universally bad. None the less, he remained quite cool and undismayed. He was, he said, tired of all this indecision and playing about and abstruse calculation about the future. Whoever was for him or against him, he intended to go on, and would at once bring matters to an issue.

He thereupon sat down at the word and wrote a memorandum to the Prime Minister, outlining his proposals, and indicated in conversation with Asquith that resignation was not far behind if his terms were refused:

This letter is, in effect, a recapitulation of the proposals put forward by Conservative Ministers at their Thursday meeting with Bonar Law. The penultimate paragraph shows the Prime Minister’s approval of the scheme for two War Councils and not for one Supreme War Council.

Now that Lloyd George had gone forward, much turned on Bonar Law’s final attitude. The narrative has indicated this already, but it can be made perhaps still plainer. He had overcome his distrust of Lloyd George and was genuinely on his side in the struggle, but he was oppressed with other considerations.

There were several differences between the situations of the two men. Lloyd George had quarrelled with his Liberal associates often enough since the war, and in any case he was not their official leader. Bonar Law had had differences of opinions with his colleagues too, but, after all, they were his followers. Lloyd George had to threaten his leader; Bonar Law, his subordinates.

And then again he had never been in complete agreement with Lloyd George as to the extent to which Asquith should be eliminated from the control of affairs. It is difficult to state exactly at all times the points of difference, but the two men’s policies faced different ways. Lloyd George’s policy favoured the greatest degree of elimination which was compatible with decency, and did not shrink from complete dismissal if the knot could be cut in no other way. In fact, by this time it would not be putting it too high to say that Lloyd George was moving in the direction of Asquith’s destruction as Premier. Bonar Law did not want this sudden extinction. He believed that Asquith should keep the titular Premiership, while handing over the driving power in the war to Lloyd George—not in itself a bad or impracticable idea.

He was also influenced in this last direction by the proceedings at the meeting with his Conservative colleagues on Thursday and a very well defined sense of honour and the determination to commit no act approaching disloyalty towards chief or colleague.

There is no doubt, however, that during this time Bonar Law was acutely conscious of his position of isolation. On the Friday night, Bonar Law and I dined alone together at the Hyde Park Hotel. We went over the old ground again, I maintaining that nothing but bold measures could save us from defeat in the war, and that to preserve the Empire all private considerations must go to the wall. I said that the difference between Lloyd George and Asquith was that between two fire-engine drivers racing for a fire. One man was so determined to get to the fire with his engine intact and no spill on the way that while the driver watched the ditches and avoided the ruts the house would be burnt down before he got there. The other was absolutely determined to get to the fire in time to save the house and would cut corners and take heavy risks of a smash to do it.

I had, of course, reported to Bonar Law what Lloyd George had told me and what action he had taken during the day. He realised how absolutely alone both Lloyd George and himself stood, and he kept on reverting to the position he had taken up the previous night, and restating the old difficulty of responsibility to the nation. On which side of the argument did duty lie?

At last he said that he must see Lloyd George that night and at once. I had the means of finding Lloyd George at that time at any hour of the day or night, and I knew he was dining at the Berkeley Hotel. Bonar Law absolutely insisted on coming along with me too, so as to have an immediate interview, and come to some final decision. As we drove along in a taxi I realised that there was here a clash of temperament, or at least a divergence of mental process, between these two men. Both were sincerely united in a common aim, but in their intellectual method they were miles apart. In a big crisis Lloyd George was slap-dash. As the odds rose against him, his courage rose to meet them. He was urged on to the fray less by a reasoned calculation of chances than by an impulsive instinct that what he was going to do was right and that his cause would prevail. To ultimate consequences, springing in the third or fourth degree in the casual sequence from his action, he would not look at all. This slap-dash attitude of his sometimes caused the observer as much anxiety for the issue as did the exact antithesis of that temperament which dominated Bonar Law. For the Tory leader always wanted to be sure that he had foreseen every possible consequence of his action—even the comparatively remote. He would work the possibilities out like a mathematical formula on his intellectual blackboard. Men have often accused him of indecision—even of moral cowardice—because he would not act until the solution had by this method become a perfect thing, an indisputable conclusion to his mind. Once the conclusion was reached, he was like granite—and because of this deep thought and care his judgment was practically never at fault. Such an attitude in a statesman is neither indecisive nor cowardly. It has its springs, on the contrary, in the highest sense of duty and wisdom.

Now, Bonar Law was going to put these ultimate questions to Lloyd George before he decided whether or not to go out with him into the nightstorm against the all-embattled forces of official politics. He was going to say to him:

“Suppose we follow your instinct that a crash must come and had better come, rather than endure the slow atrophy of the national power and will to war—what is going to happen in the next three months? May we not so weaken this Government as to destroy the nation before we are ourselves strong enough to step into its place and conduct the war on an efficient basis? Or, again, if we advance boldly, will all yet be well in the space of a few days? Until these doubts are resolved I will not move. If they are resolved I will face anything.”

But how would Lloyd George, the bold man of adventure, treat the doubts of his associate? I felt the situation to be very critical as I entered the Berkeley Hotel, while Bonar Law waited in the taxi outside. Then the proceedings had about them a touch of farce.

Lloyd George was dining with the late Lord Cunliffe. There were also present at the dinner Lord Reading and Mr. and Mrs. Montagu. It was something of a feat to capture the War Secretary for such a social purpose. Lloyd George does not care for going into Society, and prefers to meet only his intimates. And he was already a European figure. Lord Cunliffe had, at any rate, the opportunity of discussing his own financial problems with an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it would not be surprising to learn that Mr. Lloyd George was listening—perhaps not altogether without relish—to criticisms of his successor at the Treasury, Mr. McKenna.

But the writing was on the wall—as at another feast but in a different sense. I did not approach the dinner table, but I beckoned to Lloyd George from some way off, and he came. He knew very well that only extreme urgency would have brought me to summon him at such an hour and at such a place. The guests looked rather staggered at seeing the War Secretary go out suddenly at a gesture from an ordinary back-bench Member of Parliament like myself.

As we left, I just had time to tell him in a few hurried words something of Bonar Law’s frame of mind. I said he was in for a difficult interview, and I urged him to take calmly whatever was said by Bonar Law. We all three drove back to the Hyde Park Hotel.

Lloyd George behaved at the interview extraordinarily well. He also exercised consummate tact. Had he taken a strong combative or argumentative line, he might easily have compelled Bonar Law to take the opposite view, and so fortify his own fears of the results of going forward. What Lloyd George said was in effect: “You must decide as you think best. I will not bring any pressure to bear on you.”

After this interview, which took place at the Hyde Park Hotel, I drove with Bonar Law to Pembroke Lodge. We went up to the sitting-room on the second floor. This room, as always, was insufferably hot. Bonar Law would have his fire perpetually made up and allow no ventilation. To add to the atmosphere, he always smoked strong cigars—with a pipe in between as a variant—and on occasions such as this he smoked rather more than usual.

I can still hear him speaking with that curious emphatic inflexion which always showed that he had come to the end of the period of interminable debate and made up his mind. So he had. He was going forward at any cost.

I came out happily into the cool air of the night and went home to the Hyde Park Hotel—to find I had to climb four flights of stairs because the lift was not working.

IN the meantime the question of the attitude of the Press towards the contending parties became one of urgent importance. In such a crisis, with most of the old party loyalties dissolved or in process of dissolution, and with the spirit of war abroad in the country, the newspapers were in the main free to voice public opinion quite irrespective of ancient party bonds—and public opinion expressed through this medium might decide the result of the political struggle. So the views of men like Northcliffe, Robert Donald, Gwynne or Garvin carried as much practical weight as those of an equal number of men in the Cabinet.

My immediate medium was the “Daily Express.” I did not at that time own the controlling shares of this newspaper, but I was on intimate terms with the editor. I had also taken pains to inform Sir Robert Donald, of the “Daily Chronicle,” of what was going on.

Robert Donald was an important figure amongst the various editors or proprietors in a political crisis involving the Liberal party: because he was a man of strong character; because he was a consistent Liberal; because he was trusted by Bonar Law; because he understood such important Press elements in the situation as the Robertson Nichol group; because he was not hostile to Lloyd George. Above all, he was a man devoid of prejudice or rancour, and a working journalist who could express himself logically and fluently, and meet and argue with the politicians on terms of equality. He was, in fact, in direct association with most of the leading public men involved.

Up till now the newspapers had been silent. There was, indeed, a certain premonition of coming trouble for the Government in Fleet Street, but nothing definite had been printed. The beams, which, like searchlights, were being projected hither and thither from the newspapers, did not show up to their readers clear and definite objects in a white light, but seemed simply to illumine a vague changing landscape with dark clouds hurrying across the sky.

The nation was now going to get the white light with a vengeance, and I must confess that the responsibility for the disclosure to the “Chronicle” and the “Express” was entirely mine. It is necessary to state this, because at the time Lloyd George was widely accused of inspiring the Press in his own interest during the crisis. The charge is untrue, so far as the “Chronicle” and the “Express” are concerned; whatever was done with these newspapers was done by me. It is true that there was an important publication of the news in “Reynolds” on the Sunday, with which I shall deal subsequently.

On Friday I gave Mr. R. D. Blumenfeld, the editor of the “Daily Express,” an outline of the position and the line to take. Robert Donald had already informed the editor of the “Daily Express” on Friday evening of his intention to give publicity to the crisis on Saturday morning. Both papers came out against Asquith’s direction of the war on Saturday morning.

The suggestion of a new War Council was made, and the names mentioned in this connection were those of Lloyd George, Bonar Law and Carson.

The “Daily Chronicle” on its front page also voiced general dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war, and put forward the same list of names for the War Council.

Mr. Asquith, the statement continued, has been carrying on under a tremendous strain, and Mr. Lloyd George would be better released from the War Office in order to take up his new duties.

It will be seen that the only two newspapers publishing accounts of the progress of the new attempt to reconstruct a War Government on a better basis were the “Daily Express” and the “Daily Chronicle.” To the man in the street, who was heartily tired of the incompetence exhibited in high places, their news contained the hope of salvation. The revolting section of the Press was viewed as a benefactor. To the narrower sect of the Liberals who were pertinaciously sworn to Asquith and the idea of an orthodox Liberal preponderance in the Ministry the whole business savoured of a conspiracy.

At this point the natural course would have been to explain the situation to Gwynne of the “Morning Post.” The path was closed because of the personal quarrel I had indulged in with Gwynne, of which an account has already been given. Gwynne was the natural ally of Bonar Law in this struggle. He would have been a tower of strength to the Tory leader in combating the influence of those Conservative members of the Ministry who wanted to support the Asquith regime against Lloyd George and Bonar Law. Unfortunately, I was debarred from making any approach. Bonar Law never would make any arrangement for support with a newspaper. Carson never appears to have explained the real essence of Bonar Law’s position in these critical days to Gwynne—a fact which, considering their political intimacy, has always appeared to me to be strange. Possibly the two men never happened to meet each other during the critical period.

The fact remains that Gwynne, in absolute and honest ignorance, was directing a cross-fire from the flank on Bonar Law, just as Bonar Law’s Conservative Cabinet colleagues were attacking him on the front because he agreed with Gwynne’s views on the Asquith Government. In a leader published in the “Morning Post,” Gwynne accused Bonar Law at the worst of co-operating with those Conservative Ministers who were trying to support Asquith and the old war system of control—or, at the best, of being at least a half-hearted indecisive adherent of Lloyd George and of the doctrines of the “new regime.” Actually at the moment this article appeared the Asquith Government was out, chiefly by Bonar Law’s efforts, and the Tory leader was fighting side by side with Lloyd George in the endeavour to construct the new Ministry.

It is now necessary to discuss the more intricate and difficult problem of the part which Lord Northcliffe and his newspapers played in the crisis which displaced Asquith and substituted Lloyd George as Premier. There has always been a vague, if unsubstantiated, idea in existence that Lloyd George and Northcliffe co-operated in this matter and that Lloyd George’s final victory was supported by Northcliffe. This idea is an illusion. When the battle between the old school and the new actually joined issue, Northcliffe supported Lloyd George against Asquith effectively and patriotically. But this was not done by pre-arrangement; nor did Northcliffe ever believe in Lloyd George any more than Lloyd George ever trusted Northcliffe. Northcliffe supported Lloyd George in his storming of the Premiership because he thought him a lesser evil than Asquith. His heart was with the soldiers and sailors and never with the politicians.

I have already related that I attached so much importance to Northcliffe’s influence that I urged Lloyd George very strongly to become reconciled to him. This move failed, and Lloyd George maintained an unswerving attitude on this point. He did not want Northcliffe’s support in his campaign for the reform of the Government. He said he thought it would do him more harm than good. The mere fact of Northcliffe’s adherence would damage him with the Liberal Press. Besides, he did not trust Lord Northcliffe to keep up a consistent attitude on any policy for more than a few hours.

Where I failed, Lord Lee of Fareham, who had great influence with Lloyd George, appeared to have achieved success. He had already, and with some difficulty owing to the antagonism between the two men, brought about a meeting at his house in Abbey Garden, and on Friday morning, December 1, 1916, he persuaded Northcliffe to come to the War Office to see Lloyd George again. I happened to meet them in the passage on the way to my own room and we exchanged a casual nod.

Whatever passed at that interview, Lloyd George did not give Northcliffe his confidence. At any rate, Saturday’s newspapers showed the “Daily Express” and the “Daily Chronicle” well informed as to the situation. The Northcliffe newspapers, “The Times” and the “Daily Mail,” on the other hand, published leaders favourable to the cause of the revolters in the Cabinet, but their news of the crisis was sketchy and inaccurate. Obviously Lloyd George had discussed general politics with Northcliffe and formulated his own complaints; equally obviously he had not revealed the innermost truth of the situation.

Next morning (Saturday, December 2) Northcliffe came down to the War Office once more. He interviewed Lloyd George again, and the War Secretary must at least have told him something pretty definite as to the state of his mind, for shortly afterwards the “Evening News” came out with posters “Lloyd George packing up.” My own idea is that Lloyd George at the second interview underlined his points and certainly made it clear that he contemplated resignation.

Afterwards, Northcliffe came to my room in the War Office. We talked at length. But I made no disclosures as I was uncertain as to the extent of Lloyd George’s confidence in the great newspaper proprietor.

But Northcliffe was not fully informed on the political situation even after two interviews with Lloyd George, and the proof is contained in a letter Northcliffe wrote to me on the Saturday afternoon. The note is written in his own hand. After referring to a trifling matter of business, it proceeds:

The letter shows that Lloyd George had never told Northcliffe in the course of two interviews that Bonar Law was standing by his side. The future Premier would not make a confidant of the greatest man in Fleet Street. And so it remained to the end of the crisis.

In stating that Lord Northcliffe was not in active co-operation with Lloyd George I am simply telling the plain truth. It must not be supposed that I am not fully aware of the great influence Lord Northcliffe’s attitude had on the development of events. Northcliffe had been foremost in denouncing the inefficiency of the Asquith Government and in interpreting and focusing the popular judgment in this matter. And when the breach between the supporters of Asquith and the insurgent Ministers came to a head, he stood firmly behind the revolt.

WE may now resume the strict chronological sequence of the narrative, which was left at the point where Bonar Law made his final decision late on Friday night.

On the Saturday morning I called on Lloyd George at the War Office. I told him of Bonar Law’s final decision in exact terms. The wording of my communication had been authorised by Bonar Law himself. A discussion took place as to what was likely to happen at a meeting of Conservative Ministers, fixed for the following day, at Bonar Law’s house. Lloyd George had by him the Prime Minister’s letter of Friday, December 1, which was by no means an acceptance of Lloyd George’s demands. It was in effect a recapitulation of the proposals put forward by Conservative Ministers at their meeting with Bonar Law on Thursday. It was a scheme for two War Councils and not for one supreme War Council. It was an acceptance of the plans of Lord Curzon and his friends and a rejection of the plans of Lloyd George and Bonar Law and Carson. If Bonar Law was overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers at the Conservative Meeting on the Sunday, all was over and lost. If Lloyd George and Bonar Law were beaten—whether their defeat took the shape of humiliation or resignation did not matter much—the consequences would hardly bear thinking about. The whole drive and pith would have gone out of the Ministry. There would have been left as the Conservative leader an avowed advocate of Peace-by-Negotiation, and as the Liberal leader an inveterate procrastinator. Ultimately the two tendencies might have met and resolved themselves into a common purpose. For the Cabinet would have been dominated by two men, one of whom did not think victory possible, while the other’s practice made it impossible. And if Britain wilted under these influences, the allied cause was ruined. On that Saturday the world was menaced with the prospect of peace which would have left a militant Prussia still unchained. But the triumph of Lloyd George and Bonar Law spelt Peace with Victory.

In the face of these gigantic issues which every man concerned felt hovering dimly at the back of his mind, Lloyd George acted with great simplicity. It was for Bonar Law, not for him, to bear the next onset. He therefore sent him the Prime Minister’s letter of refusal—presumably to be shown to his Conservative colleagues. And to hearten him up he sent him also a single sentence which deserves to rank with Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg, because both are simple, heroic and inspiring, and both mark a turning point in the history of a great people.

Later that day I met Churchill and Birkenhead together. Churchill was almost wistfully eager for news. It struck me forcibly as being so much out of character for him not to be in the very centre of events.

Birkenhead evinced little curiosity, but considerable gloom. He warned me that if the Government broke and Lloyd George failed to form a Cabinet, the consequent effect on the war would prove a heavy burden.

Lord Derby was recalled by Lloyd George to the War Office that evening from a short visit to Lancashire.

The suggestion was at once put forward that as he was a supporter of the War Council plan and of Lloyd George, he should be asked to attend the Conservative Ministers’ Conference on Saturday. This would at least give Bonar Law one ally in the Conference—and a powerful one at that. For Derby, although only an Under-Secretary, spoke for all the Chairmen of the Conservative constituencies and organisations throughout Lancashire. He was local opinion personified, and when he said he was on the side of Lloyd George it meant that many Tory big-wigs in Liverpool and Manchester would be for Lloyd George too. If they were not so already, they would be once they heard which side Lord Derby favoured. In this sense he was, and remains, unique. There are other Conservative peers in high political positions who are also territorial magnates. But anyone would at once realise the strength of Lord Derby’s influence in the northern constituencies.

Derby, however, was not actually a member of the Cabinet. His right to attend the meeting would not of course be challenged, because of the position he held in the party and the country. On the other hand, there was the risk that his presence might cause resentment and do more harm than good. It might be said that Bonar Law was trying to pack the Tory Conference—and this argument finally carried the day. It was decided on Saturday that Derby was not to attend the following day.

It could not be maintained that the position was free from doubt and anxiety. In attempting to strengthen the conduct of the war the revolters within the Government might end in weakening the Executive without displacing it or reconstructing it. The risk was not the damage to the rebels—for which they cared nothing—but to the country as a whole.

What was the balance sheet? What was the strength of the various parties, ideas, personalities, and interests concerned? On the debit side was the unswerving hostility of the Conservative Ministers.

On the credit side there was Carson. His instinct had penetrated to the belief that we were faced by a menace which might be described as respectable defeatism. Carson’s judgment was determined and his position unassailable. He was convinced beyond argument. He was a strong reserve in a great emergency.

The immense asset was that Bonar Law had made up his mind, just at the moment when the Prime Minister seemed to be swaying between defiance and surrender. Bonar Law had by this time completed his usual mental process. He had considered and calculated until the final solution had become clear in his brain. Once his mind was made up he never looked back, but marched straight on in the field of action to the inevitable conclusion.

Lloyd George was the final factor. Manifestly emerging as a mighty leader, he was not so clear in his mental process as either Carson or Bonar Law.

It was not quite so certain whether he desired to eliminate Asquith in a polite manner or to smash him. But this at least was true that, in some vague and inspired manner he represented all those forces of national energy which were determined on a complete victory.

Carson, perhaps, saw his way clearly, for his mind had long ago been made up to the fall of the Government and all that it entailed. Bonar Law had hesitated between the conflicting duties which now occupied his mind. Lloyd George ran the greatest risk and incurred the heaviest responsibilities, for his decision would in the long run be paramount. Lloyd George, even if all forsook him and fled, could still form an Administration out of the Tory back-benchers which would be more alert and able than its predecessor, and could put forward a policy so vigorous and inevitable that it would receive the thunderous endorsement of the country. In these various moods men awaited the day of trial.

SATURDAY had been to me an exhausting day, and I awoke feeling weary. None the less, knowing that the critical day was now come, I went round that morning to Pembroke Lodge, where the Conservative Ministers were in session. I found Miss Law and Lord Stonehaven in another room, and I occupied a third one. Thence I sent a written note in to Bonar Law to let him know privately that I was there—if he wished to see me. It was not advisable that his colleagues should know, since they were ready enough as it was to charge me with possessing too much influence over him—a charge which was not true.

You must picture me waiting nervously and impatiently and wondering what was happening in the other room.

Things downstairs had taken an extreme turn—extreme indeed beyond all anticipation. All the Tory leaders had arrived with copies of “Reynold’s” newspaper which contained a startling article. It was quite a different production from the statements in the “Daily Express” and the “Daily Chronicle.” The “Reynold’s” article said quite plainly that Lloyd George was prepared to resign if his terms were not granted and that he would then appeal to public opinion against the Government for mismanaging the war. Further it stated that Lloyd George was in active alliance with Carson: that Bonar Law would probably resign with him—and that Lord Derby was starting along the same road. Finally the article looked on the surface as if it had been directly inspired. It was like an interview with Lloyd George written in the third person.

No wonder the Tory Ministers were indignant at what they considered a monstrous breach of confidence taking the form of a public threat to them in the middle of a delicate negotiation. Indeed, it was hardly surprising that the tone of the meeting had changed since Thursday from one of passive hostility to Lloyd George’s plan to an active determination to force an issue and compel Lloyd George to accept the domination of the Prime Minister or retire from the Government. It became rapidly apparent that Bonar Law stood absolutely alone. Opposed to him sat the whole array of the Tory leaders—Lord Curzon, Austen Chamberlain, Lord Robert Cecil, Walter Long, etc. The dominant note of the meeting was hostility to Lloyd George and to his plans for organising a War Council. It must be observed in passing that this attitude was assumed by the official representatives of a party which more than any other was responsible for the demand for a change in the Administration. The Tory Press had been indefatigable for months, both in London and in the provinces, in demanding a change from “Wait and see” in military and naval methods; it both represented and created the opinion of the vast bulk of the Tory electorate who had rallied to the Lloyd Georgian view of affairs not from love of its protagonist, but out of sheer despair. Half the Tory party in the House of Commons (and this in the absence of the Service members) believed in Carson and more vigorous measures. Many others were only constrained from open concurrence by loyalty to Bonar Law and their party. In fact, every interest of national safety and of party expediency pointed in one direction yet the party leaders with one accord defied their chief, their followers, and their Press, and marched off in the other.

That these Party leaders were sincere and honest patriots, acting according to their lights, is not to be denied. Of course they were—and yet they were utterly mistaken.

The only explanation of this amazing fact must be sought in the hypnotic influence which Asquith—using his position as Prime Minister—had very subtly acquired over their minds. This influence alone makes the conduct of the Tory leaders explicable. They were, in fact, more Royalist than the King. They determined not only to support the Prime Minister against Lloyd George, but to compel the Prime Minister to advance far beyond his own intentions in a vigorous counter-offensive which was to turn Lloyd George out of the Cabinet. Never in political history was there a more confused situation. The Prime Minister only desired to be left in peace, and was not unprepared to make concessions in order to avoid a breach with Lloyd George, provided the price was not a break with other colleagues. His one fear, as he had explained, was that concessions might not avoid a final break. He was now to have his hand forced.

This resolution, like many such passed by committees, each member of which insists on inserting or altering phrases, is decidedly ambiguous. Its intention was to force a crisis by which the resignation of Asquith would compel Lloyd George to retire into private life or to attempt the formation of a Ministry. On his failure, which was thought certain, Asquith would return stronger than ever, and Lloyd George and his few friends would be thrown out of the Government on its re-formation. In any case, the decision, they thought, would prevent Lloyd George from dragging them at the tail of his coat. They did not believe in him, and they did not believe in the sincerity of his intentions. They looked on his activities as subversive of order and unison in the Government and the country. They charged him with inspiring the Press hostile to the Administration and held him responsible for attacks on several of their departments. They reverted to the accusation that he wished to be second man in the Government and also leader of the Opposition.

But all that the resolution says is that there must be reconstruction after resignation, and it might just as well mean that the Prime Minister should go as that Lloyd George must.

In fact, when the general terms of the Conservative resolution became known later on, after all the signatories had become members of the new Lloyd George Ministry, the outside public not unnaturally concluded that the resolution meant that Asquith should go—whereas it meant, to all its supporters except Bonar Law, that Lloyd George should go. I impute in this matter no discredit to the Conservative leaders. On the contrary, I think I can explain their motives. None the less, I must reveal the historic fact as to what their intentions were.

At last Bonar Law left the Conference and came in to me. He at once gave me an outline of the situation and of the attitude of his colleagues. He did not, however, show me then the actual text of the resolution, but he told me in general terms that it called on Asquith to resign.

Bonar Law’s motive in coming out to see me was not to ask for my advice, but to clear his own mind. As I have already explained, he had long formed a habit of arguing out his pros and cons of any political problem which confronted him, with me as an attentive audience.

The problem he now faced was this. Should he adhere to the resolution? He fully grasped that the object of that resolution was hostile to Lloyd George and intended to be helpful to Asquith—whereas his desire was to make Asquith part with a considerable portion of his powers (for war purposes) to Lloyd George. There was therefore a direct clash of intention between himself and his colleagues—yet these antagonisms might yet be covered by the terms of the resolution.

Seldom has there been, I should think, such a peculiar situation in the history of politics. The other Conservative members of the Government wanted to tell Asquith that he must resign office in order to crush Lloyd George finally and effectively. But Bonar Law had already told the Prime Minister that he would resign if Lloyd George’s demands were not granted. So—as he argued it out to himself—all he was asked to do was to subscribe in written form to a simple threat of resignation which he had already made in words. The resolution on the face of it committed no one of the signatories either to Asquith or Lloyd George.

Then came to Bonar Law the broader thought: “My colleagues and I are united at least on one great and single thing. We all alike believe that the present situation is intolerable—that the Government must go and a new formation take its place. They hope the new Ministry will be formed on their pattern; I hope it will be formed on mine. So let us agree to have a clean sweep of the situation—and then let the best man win.”

On this Bonar Law clinched his decision. He marched out of the room and back to his waiting colleagues. He gave his approval to the resolution, and promised to take it to the Prime Minister that afternoon at three o’clock.

The advice to Asquith of the Tory majority in the Ministry was not to reconstruct but to resign.

For the benefit of those not versed in the inside machinery of Downing Street it may be as well to explain clearly the courses and alternatives open to a Premier who finds himself faced with a revolt or a weakness in his Cabinet.

(1) If he is certain that he has the confidence of the country, he may do what Asquith did in May, 1915. That is to say, he can remain in office himself, but call for the resignations of all the other Ministers. This Asquith did, without objection, in 1915, in order to strengthen his Ministry by the inclusion of a Tory element.

(2) If a Prime Minister faced with revolt is not certain as to whether he possesses the confidence of the country, or whether some other politician might be preferred, he can put it to a simple test. He can resign—Ministry and all—and leave it to a possible rival to form an alternative Government. If the rival can do so, the test has decided against the existing Premier, and all is well from the constitutional standpoint. But if no rival can form a Ministry, then the resigning Premier returns to power with an immense accession of strength and prestige. He has proved himself the only possible Premier—so woe to the revolters in the Cabinet!

The Conservative Ministers wanted Asquith to take the second course—resignation—for one single reason. They thought it was the most complete and final way of crushing Lloyd George and dissensions in the Cabinet once and for all. They did not doubt that Asquith was the only possible Prime Minister—or they might have been more chary of giving the advice.

They were certain of it. What they wanted was to see it proved beyond all cavil by a failure of Lloyd George to form a Ministry. Then Asquith would come back to undisputed power and all his Ministers with him—save Lloyd George and possibly Bonar Law, or, if these Ministers chose to come in again under Asquith, they must do so as chastened and crippled colleagues.

Asquith, as we shall see, at first did not feel like this at all. He was frightened at the revolt and wanted to make some sort of terms with Lloyd George which would simply involve a reconstruction of the Ministry.

Even when a breach seemed unavoidable he would at the outset have preferred to follow the precedent of 1915, and at first proposed to do so because this course looked safer. But as the situation developed he found he could not do this because the conditions in 1916 were different from those of the preceding year. In 1915 he had the confidence of the country, and the Coalition was effected by mutual consent.

In 1916 he had not the universal confidence of the country or his own Cabinet. If he used the 1915 method to push his opponents out of the Cabinet, they would have fought him from outside and probably brought him down. The only method of crushing them finally was to show himself the only possible Prime Minister by resigning and proving that no one else could form a Ministry. This he thought wrongly that he could do.

When Asquith became converted by degrees to these ideas he changed his scheme from reconstruction to resignation.

To put the matter in a nutshell, reconstruction which left the Prime Minister still in office was only possible by means of an agreement with Lloyd George. The method was no good as a weapon against Lloyd George. If, on the contrary, there was to be an open breach, resignation became the only possible course.

I now return to my narrative. The Tory magnates departed at twelve noon and I remained to lunch with Bonar Law’s family. It was at lunch that Bonar Law showed me the actual text of the resolution he had agreed to with the others. I was startled by the Clause denouncing Lloyd George for communicating with the Press. Bonar Law had not mentioned anything about this to me. What did it mean? I took the clause and read it carefully. “In our opinion the publicity given to the intentions of Mr. Lloyd George makes reconstruction from within no longer possible.” If words meant anything these words meant this:

The danger to Bonar Law lay in this publicity clause. The rest of the document was one he could safely sign in perfect good faith, though he and his colleagues wanted different things.

But in the publicity clause was a definite accusation of a most serious character made against Lloyd George. On the basis of this charge he was to be destroyed and if he raised his voice in the Country his opponents would retaliate on him with this very accusation of his relationship with the Press. And Bonar Law had countersigned the indictment! It would be said that Lloyd George’s own ally believed this to be true of him and set his belief down in writing.

I was aghast at the results that must follow. For this would separate Bonar Law from Lloyd George and bring him back to the camp of his colleagues. In that case all the work of weeks would be wasted, and the Government would contrive to carry on the war as ineffectively as ever. Or rather things would be worse; for Lloyd George would have been thrown out of the Ministry.

I thought that if Bonar Law took the document to the Premier a split between Bonar Law and Lloyd George might result. I therefore implored Bonar Law in the most vigorous language to insist on having the publicity charge deleted from the resolutions—to throw it back in the teeth of his colleagues and suffer anything rather than accept responsibility for it.

Although I abhorred the publicity charge, I did not blame the Tory Ministers for their anger with Lloyd George.

I think the “Reynold’s” article tried them very highly. Here they had been from Thursday onwards in an extremely difficult negotiation which involved the unity of their party, the future of the Administration, and the fate of the country—and were trying to bring it to some sort of successful end. Suddenly the whole business is exposed in a truculent manner.

Bonar Law took the whole question of the publicity clause much more calmly. He deplored the publication in “Reynolds” because it had savaged the Conservatives, but he was not involved in the charge. So long as he continued to work in practice with Lloyd George what did this newspaper article or the protest clause in the resolution really matter? He was not going to be deflected in his course of policy by the incident at all.

I could not accept this view and I continued to press Bonar Law hard. But he did not take this persistency in good part.

At last I got quite heated and Bonar Law showed definite signs of impatience. He always swallowed his food in gulps and now he got up and left the table before the rest of us had finished. It was as though he resented my pressure and wished to be relieved from it. I finished my lunch quietly and then went up to his study, where he used to sit before the fire in a deep armchair, pipe going, and official documents heaped on the floor all round him.

I must say that I was a trifle doubtful of my reception. He might think me the pursuer come to renew the argument. But Bonar Law was never like that. He was the first to make advances after any kind of tiff or disagreement. He never sulked, and always made me feel that it was I that had a right to be angry.

He received my renewed arguments in a perfectly friendly way and he agreed to my suggestion that we should send for Birkenhead to discuss the question of the resolution on publicity.

Bonar Law agreed to this without making any real change in the view that the subject was trivial. The reason for selecting Birkenhead was that, though hostile to Lloyd George, he was loyal to Bonar Law, and with good reason. At the time of the formation of the First Coalition in 1915 he would never have obtained office but for the strenuous fight put up by Bonar Law on his behalf against all the rest of his Conservative colleagues, and also Lloyd George, who did not want him included in the Ministry. In fact he owed his political preferment to Bonar Law as much as one man can owe to another.

Birkenhead, however, when he arrived and heard the explanation, would give no assistance to the argument that the terms of the resolution ought to be altered. My contention was that the resolution assumed in advance that Lloyd George had inspired the “Reynold’s” article. But he might have had nothing whatever to do with it and be able to clear himself. If the resolution had been hypothetical—if it had said “supposing Lloyd George has done this thing then other steps ought to be taken,” it would not matter so much—surely the Conservative Ministers could be called together again and the resolution could be altered in this sense before it was shown to the Prime Minister.

Birkenhead replied that this could not be done. It would change the whole sense of the resolution against the intention of its authors. They believed Lloyd George was responsible for the article, and the resolution was definitely intended to be offensive to him on this ground. So nothing was changed. As the event proved, Bonar Law was right in thinking that this particular incident would not have any effect on the main course of events. None the less there was a big risk involved, and had the situation developed slightly differently much more would have been heard of the cry of “Trafficking with the Press.”

Was Lloyd George the direct source of the “Reynold’s” article? I have always believed that he was not—though I have no proof; still, it is a fact that Lord Dalziel, the proprietor of “Reynold’s,” saw Lloyd George on the day before the issue.

But the publication can be accounted for by other ways than by direct inspiration from the War Minister. Lord Dalziel was an extremely important person in the Liberal Party. Few people realise how in his early days he had been Lloyd George’s closest rival in the race for the support of the Radicals of the left. He had in those times a better sense of the House of Commons than Lloyd George, and a finer understanding of the uses of debate. He was openly pointed to as the future leader of the party. Lloyd George has told me that he himself shared this opinion of Dalziel’s qualities in the early days.

Dalziel is a most lovable man, but he never realised these high expectations others formed for him. Perhaps he would not play the great game because he was too much bound by commercial affairs. Enough, however, has been said to show that such a man was sure to be intimately advised from many sources as to the course the internal politics of the Cabinet were taking. As a matter of fact I saw him with Neil Primrose at his house during the crisis, but he never asked me for any account of the position—for he knew it too well. He only poked a little fun at me—treating my efforts in a satirical vein of humour. Dalziel was therefore perfectly able to write the article the Tory Ministers complained of by piecing together the various bits of information at his disposal without having recourse to one of the protagonists in the struggle. And this I believe is what really happened.

About three o’clock in the afternoon, Bonar Law started off to see Asquith, and I went with him as far as the Colonial Office. On that dreary winter Sunday afternoon Whitehall seemed more depressing than usual. We tried to get in by a side door. The attendant at the empty office seemed uncertain whether Bonar Law really was the Colonial Secretary or not. There was no fire in his room, and I lit it. Then I huddled myself up in this cold barn of an edifice over the flickering flames while Bonar Law went across to Downing Street. This wait was enough to depress anyone. It was the dark hour of this day of days—the most important and exciting I have ever passed in my life. In the gloom of the Colonial Office I had a sense of impending disaster. The mists seemed to creep up out of the afternoon and invade the room without a light. We were all mistaken after all? Would nothing result from our efforts but two or three months of confusion—of weaker Government even than that which existed at that day? All was chaos and night, and our plans might be swallowed up in the void.

For these few moments I doubted about my original preconception—that Asquith’s position was the myth and our strength the reality. The dark hours must come some times in every crisis.

IN the meantime Lloyd George had rung me up from Walton Heath before we started out from Bonar Law’s house for the Colonial Office. Naturally, he wanted to hear the result of the Conservative meeting. His voice came on the telephone, “WELL?”—interrogation itself epitomised in a word. It was not possible to explain it all to him on the telephone, but he said he would go straight to the War Office, and there receive the news both of the Conservative meeting and the attitude taken up by the Prime Minister.

Bonar Law now came back and related his interview with the Prime Minister. He had explained to Asquith that while he was separated from his colleagues on the subject of Lloyd George and his war plans, all the Conservative Ministers insisted on the resignation of the Government, including the Prime Minister, as the only possible way out of the existing dilemma. His colleagues thought this method would put an end to Lloyd George’s pretensions. Bonar Law himself thought it would have a very different result. Anyhow, there was the Conservative decision.

So much was said at the time about this interview, and so many echoes of the story still continue to reverberate, that it is absolutely necessary to try to form some clear idea of what actually took place.

For an actual charge of bad faith was levelled against Bonar Law in this connection though it was abandoned when the real facts became known. The charge against Bonar Law was simply this—that he had failed either by accident or design to impress on the Prime Minister the extent of the hostility felt by his Conservative colleagues to Lloyd George and his claims. In other words he had abused his position as an ambassador in order to misrepresent the views of his clients because he did not happen to agree with them personally. One could hardly imagine a more terrible accusation against any public man. In the case of a man of Bonar Law’s character such a charge might be left to refute itself by its inherent absurdity. Still I think it ought to be met by a true and contemporary account of what happened.

Bonar Law was clear-headed, determined, fixed in his intention, and settled in his mind at this interview. He was the last person in the world to fail to give a lucid exposition of a political situation. And his word is the last in the world to be doubted when he states, as he did, that he explained the whole situation to Asquith with the most complete frankness.

Asquith, on the other hand, seized on nothing in the Tory resolution except the demand that he should resign. This single word RESIGNATION frightened him. He had not got by any means so far as the use of that last great weapon against Lloyd George. The point that caught his sole attention was not therefore the motives which induced the three C’s ^[11] and Walter Long and others to urge him on to resignation—but the mere fact that they demanded that he should resign. The hostility of the Tories to Lloyd George, and the attack over trafficking with the Press, seemed to be quite occluded in his mind by the major issue of resignation. As to the attitude of the Tory Ministers mentioned, it is quite ridiculous to suggest that Bonar Law could have misled Asquith even if he had wished to. Asquith was in the closest communication with his Tory colleagues and was as well aware of what had been said at the Tory meeting on Thursday as if he had been present himself. But to know a fact is not necessarily to realise its significance. In spite of Bonar Law’s patient and lucid explanation the Prime Minister obviously did not at that moment grasp the importance of that part of the resolution which accused Lloyd George of trafficking in Fleet Street. He did not realise that the feeling of antagonism between the two conflicting forces in his Cabinet had gone very deep down, and that no accommodation was really possible. The one word “resign” was before him and he feared it.

It may help to clarify the narrative if the reader will remember that Asquith always had three courses before him in dealing with the Lloyd George revolt. Plan No. I was to grant Lloyd George’s demands. Plan No. II was to continue his Government but to expel Lloyd George and his friends from it. Plan No. III was to resign and prove that the rebels could not form an alternative Ministry and that he was the indispensable Premier. We shall find in the course of the next forty-eight hours Asquith changing from one of these policies to another as the facts of the situation change or the strategy of the hour demands.

The effect of Bonar Law’s communication and the word “Resign” was to impel Asquith violently in the direction of Plan No. I.

The gist of Bonar Law’s statement when he rejoined me at the Colonial Office was that the Premier was getting ready to come to terms with Lloyd George. I did not regard this, as Bonar Law did, as an ideal solution of the crisis, for I thought that nothing would go well so long as Asquith was in power at all. Yet a sense of pleasurable relief accompanied the idea of a peace. The tension of the last two or three days had been too much—and if a compromise could be effected which would avoid the risk of merely creating a Government weaker than its forerunner, was there not something to be said for a truce? This was a decision of the nerves rather than of the mind.

Bonar Law then proceeded to summon another meeting of the Conservative leaders (at Birkenhead’s house, so as to be handy for Downing Street) while I went off, according to my promise, to meet Lloyd George at the War Office.

This was the most momentous interview of my life. The future of the country depended on the events of the next few hours. Lloyd George had been content to say that Asquith was a muddler and that an ordinary, efficient, and practical man of affairs should be placed in control of the war. None the less, this more modest plea barely concealed Lloyd George’s real conviction that he was the only man for the crisis—the only adequate instrument for winning the war.

My first task was to tell him what had taken place at the Conservative Conference. Naturally, I was extremely anxious to see how he would take the news of the “Publicity Clause” in the resolution. Lloyd George showed no annoyance. He said “If this resolution is going to separate me from Bonar Law it matters. Is it going to separate us?” I said it need make no difference so long as he did not wish it to. “Then,” said Lloyd George “it is a matter of no importance whatever—and I don’t care a bit about it.” He regarded Asquith’s change of front in dealing with Bonar Law’s news from the Conservative camp as one more piece of evidence of the absolute instability of the Premier’s mind and of the urgent necessity of taking the control of the war out of this man’s hand.

But as a matter of fact Lloyd George did not need any encouragement at the critical hour which was to decide his fate and that of the nation. He was firmly fixed in his purpose. The national interests must take precedence over any personal interest or concern. Private and party loyalties were things of no account. All that counted was to save the people from a ruin worse than anything that could be anticipated. He would be accused of treachery to his Chief, of the ruin of his party—these threats and accusations would in no way deter him from doing his duty.

At last came the expected message and summons from the Prime Minister. Lloyd George took it very coolly. He lit a cigar and considered impartially the interview which lay before him. I had never seen any man exhibit so much moral courage in the face of such great events. He considered that what he had to avoid was a settlement which was not really a decision. He would not be duped into accepting a position which gave the competent men no final and complete control of the conduct of the war. He must know how he stood in this matter once and for all before he left Downing Street. If this control was refused, events must take their course. He finished his cigar quietly and left for Downing Street.

The result of this momentous interview was, after all these alarums and excursions, something of an anti-climax. Lloyd George and Asquith practically came to terms—that is to say, the functions and organisation of the War Council were to be as Lloyd George wanted, and Asquith would remain Premier. The only point that they did not settle was that of the personnel of the committee; Asquith was anxious to include Henderson as a Labour representative, and wished to exclude Carson. It did not, however, appear likely that the negotiations would break down on the question of personnel.

At the end of this interview Bonar Law arrived at No. 10. Asquith informed him that he and Lloyd George had come to a complete understanding as to the status and functions of the War Committee—but that they were not entirely agreed as to personnel. He added that Lloyd George was in the house and suggested that he should come in.

Lloyd George appeared, and the Prime Minister again repeated the statement that there was complete agreement between them as to the nature of the Council, although they were not entirely agreed on personnel.

This was the last private and personal interview which Lloyd George had with Asquith during the crisis. We shall see that on the morrow (Monday) Lloyd George tried in vain to arrange such a meeting.

About half-past six Bonar Law and Lloyd George returned to the War Office. Bonar Law then left for Birkenhead’s house. The conference of Conservative Ministers there (Walter Long was not present) simply agreed to hold over the whole question of resignation.

Sunday evening then closed in peace, for the issue appeared to be settled and a substantial if not a complete victory gained by the reformers.

Such is often the way with the political crises, for the political mind is a very curious thing. It can only be kept at a state of tension leading to big decisions so long as it can be concentrated on a single issue or problem. Relieve the strain for a moment; substitute some other question, if only for a few hours, and the politician will gladly grasp the chance to ride off on the side issue.

The night was, however, signalised by one curious incident. E. S. Montagu, Minister of Munitions, spent the evening with Asquith. He had been an encouraging supporter of Lloyd George, but doubts existed as to the point to which he was prepared to go. He desired the change in administration, but was unwilling to leave the ranks of official Liberalism, and the direful instance of Joseph Chamberlain was (rather absurdly, perhaps) held up before would-be seceders from the true fold. Chamberlain, it will be observed, lost the Premiership by changing his party, and this fact might be expected to act as a warning to Lloyd George and his backers. In any case, Montagu kept a leg in each camp. His position was obviously one of some difficulty. But his essential position was clear enough. The sum and aim of his policy all through the crisis was to keep Asquith and Lloyd George together. He considered that Asquith’s strength lay in the confidence of House of Commons and of the Country, and Lloyd George’s in the active conduct of the war. To combine these two forces was the path which led to victory; to allow them to separate, to antagonise, and so to nullify each other would be a national disaster. It was an eminently reasonable view and—as this narrative shows—Montagu’s opinion was widely shared by public men, including Bonar Law.

Lloyd George had been angling for Montagu’s support by proposing Montagu’s inclusion in the projected War Council as a kind of extra Liberal member to keep the balance even, and as a set-off to Carson. Montagu would only negotiate with Asquith’s concurrence, and as Asquith had never agreed to Lloyd George’s ideas of the personnel of the new War Council, the proposal never took formal shape. There is no doubt that Lloyd George played on Montagu’s sympathies, which coincided with his interests, and a settlement by consent represented the apex of Montagu’s ambitions. He might get on the War Council and yet keep Asquith and Lloyd George together. His influence was exerted for peace, and on Sunday night he persuaded the Prime Minister (against what had been settled earlier in the evening and without consultation with his colleagues) to issue a statement to the Press to the effect that there would be a reconstruction of the Ministry from within as follows:

This was the equivalent to the announcement of a settlement between Lloyd George and Asquith.

E. S. Montagu’s account throws light upon the position. Montagu says that agreement was reached on Sunday night while he was at Downing Street. He says that Lord Crewe came, but that the Prime Minister said little in front of Crewe, who was not cognisant of the negotiations.^[12] The resolution of the Conservatives presented by Bonar Law opened up an entirely new and critical development. Lloyd George was sent for on Montagu’s suggestion. When the Prime Minister was informed that Lloyd George was at Walton Heath he remarked, “That is the man for quick action.” On Lloyd George’s arrival, and after the conference with the Prime Minister, Lloyd George remarked to Montagu that an agreement was probable, but that he feared that Montagu was not likely to be a member of the new War Council, as Henderson had been considered.

Afterwards the Prime Minister told Montagu that all the Ministers would be asked to hand in their resignations, and he contemplated putting Runciman at the Admiralty. Thus, agreement with Lloyd George and Reconstruction, not Strife with Lloyd George and Resignation, was still the tendency that Sunday night.

Montagu begged the Prime Minister to put in writing his understanding with Lloyd George and send it to him that night. It was also decided to issue the notice to the Press.

Asquith’s own account of the position on Sunday night was written from 10 Downing Street on that evening.

The day which thus closed so calmly had been, indeed, sufficiently tempestuous to make peace grateful to the actors in this complicated and bewildering drama. The dénouement had been entirely unexpected. The day had begun by an attempt of the official Conservatives to come to the rescue of the Prime Minister and his Liberal friends against Lloyd George and to drive the latter out of the Cabinet. But, like the famous elephants of the Carthaginian army, their appearance as allies had struck more terror into the heart of friend than foe. The Prime Minister was frankly alarmed by the resolution which forced resignation on the Government, and hastened to make terms with his formidable adversary while he was still in the way with him, rather than face the perils of resignation.

Lloyd George had obtained from Asquith the official control of the war. But he had not got the Premiership, and this last boon was presented to him only by the efforts of his enemies. Unfortunately for Lloyd George’s opponents, many of them were busy picking up missing threads and joining gaps in the lines of communication. As Monday drew on they became cognisant of their conjoint numerical strength, but not of their concomitant moral weakness, nor of the powers with which they had to contend.

The Conservative Ministers who had opposed Bonar Law were especially indignant at the developments of Sunday evening. They felt they had been abandoned by Asquith, who had compromised with the arch-enemy instead of destroying him. Many of their Liberal colleagues felt precisely the same. Both sections thought the Prime Minister had been bluffed by Lloyd George and that the War Secretary held no real cards in his hand. So when Asquith suddenly turned round and decided to fight he had already inflicted a most serious moral damage on his own cause by his previous readiness to accept the Lloyd George terms. After his attempted compromise on Sunday Asquith lacked whole-hearted support in either party. The tempest, then, which had subsided so suddenly on Sunday night began to rise again the following day.

ON Monday morning the illusory peace of Sunday evening vanished and the great storm winds began to blow once more. Part of the reason for the sudden shift must be sought in what had occurred at Montagu’s house in Queen Anne’s Gate late the night before. Lloyd George had not been satisfied that Asquith’s verbal assurances at the afternoon interview, though more or less satisfactory in themselves, could be depended on. He wanted a ratification of his position as Mayor of the Palace for war purposes, in writing—for fear the weathercock might swing round. To obtain this vital document he employed Montagu, with whom Asquith was spending the evening, as his intermediary. Montagu undoubtedly desired keenly that Asquith should accept Lloyd George’s terms. A rupture between the two men would force him to make a dangerous and doubtful choice—whereas, as has been already shown, there was always quite a good chance that he might be promoted to the new War Council as a counterpoise to Carson.

Finally, there is no doubt that, on the merits of the case, he thought Lloyd George right.

So on the Sunday night he tried very hard to get the Prime Minister to sign some kind of document ratifying the treaty with Lloyd George provisionally arranged a few hours earlier. Had Montagu succeeded, all might have gone smoothly for Asquith, for he would have been so deeply committed to Lloyd George that it would have been practically impossible for him to draw back on the following day. Again, had Montagu failed to get anything in writing, Lloyd George and Asquith might have come to a complete and final settlement themselves—for nothing except the personnel of the War Council remained to be decided, and here there was plenty of room for give and take—on the Monday morning without any outside intervention having time to operate in a hostile manner.

As it was, all that Montagu extracted from Asquith was the disastrous statement to the Press issued at 11.45 p.m. on the Sunday. This merely announced the reconstruction of the Government. But it came as an absolute bombshell to the greater part of the political world. It brought the politicians out the following Monday morning buzzing like so many flies. Downing Street was besieged. Imagine the surprise of the Liberals—of Asquith’s colleagues and intimates! Only Montagu, Crewe and Reading knew anything at all about the Lloyd George plan and the Bonar Law negotiations. The other Liberal Cabinet Ministers had no idea that there was any serious trouble until they suddenly read in the newspapers that their Ministry was to be reconstructed. They must have felt a justifiable sense of grievance in having been kept in the dark in so strange a fashion. Asquith in 1916, as in 1915, intended to act in these periods of internal crisis as though the Ministry was his private property instead of a joint stock company.

Early on Monday morning the uninformed Liberal Ministers—McKenna, Harcourt, Runciman and Grey—all called at Downing Street. Their note was one of surprise, dismay and protest. When they heard Lloyd George’s terms they objected to them altogether. McKenna made himself the protagonist of this anti-Lloyd George attitude and voiced his own views and those of his colleagues in the most vehement fashion. To give way to the extent Asquith seemed prepared to do was, he said, to reduce the Premiership to a mere shadow, while all effective control of events would be transferred to the revolting Minister. It was a humiliation not to be endured by any statesman. Further, Lloyd George’s assumption that he was the only man fit to run the war was in no way justified by the Cabinet experience of the last two years. But if he was to have control he ought also to have full official responsibility. It would be better for Asquith to go now, rather than linger on as a discredited ghost of a Premier until it suited Lloyd George to turn him out altogether. Better still would be to fight Lloyd George now, to refuse his terms and to crush the rebellion. The Liberal Ministers would swear a pact to stand by Asquith. McKenna thus at once put himself at the head of the non-compromising Liberals, and his bold and resolute action produced important results. Montagu, for instance, had considerable hopes of securing Grey’s support for the policy of agreement and compromise, but found that McKenna had been before him and had secured Grey’s adhesion to his own standpoint.

But of course the principal reaction of the line taken by McKenna and his colleagues was the effect on the mind of Asquith himself. He suddenly found rising up behind him a new army pledged vehemently to support him against Lloyd George’s pretensions. He began to realise that he was not in such a weak and dangerous position as he had imagined the previous evening.

When, therefore, Montagu came to him later in the morning—once more at Lloyd George’s urgent suggestion—to secure written ratification of the proposed settlement, he found Asquith in a far less pliable and satisfactory frame of mind than he had been the night before.

For not only had the Liberal Ministers come to protest to the Prime Minister against his suggested course of action, but Tory Ministers had been too. The bulletin had said, “Reconstruction,” but the Tories wanted resignation.

Lord Robert Cecil had been for some little time in close contact with the Prime Minister and had kept him in touch with sentiment in Tory Ministerial circles.

Apparently, as the result of his intervention, a sudden doubt was spread whether the Prime Minister had been fully informed—or at least whether he really grasped the full vigour—of the intention of the Tory Ministers, excepting Bonar Law, to down Lloyd George at any cost and to insist on universal resignation rather than on partial reconstruction to achieve this primary end.

At any rate, the “three C’s”—Curzon, Chamberlain, and Cecil—then waited on Asquith that Monday morning (saying also that they spoke for Walter Long) and put their point of view and their policy before him.^[15] As has been explained already, Bonar Law, the previous day, had put Asquith quite clearly in full possession of the fact that all his colleagues were hostile to Lloyd George. But once more it may be said that knowing a fact is not the same thing as grasping its significance. Asquith was a worried man at the Sunday interview, and the word “Resignation” in the Tory resolution had alarmed him. Now, with the Tory leaders in front of him in the flesh he was reassured. He understood how deep was the severance between them and Bonar Law. It was explained to him that the plan of wholesale resignation rather than of reconstruction was only intended to make more certain the destruction of the common enemy. The three C’s at the time never made any secret of their purpose. They were never in any doubt of the wisdom of their course. The object of their insistence on Asquith’s resignation was this: Lloyd George and Bonar Law were to be given the opportunity of forming a Government—which the Tory Ministers were certain they could not do. When this failure was admitted, Asquith would form a new Government—minus the revolters, who would have been completely discredited by their inability to obtain support for a Government of their own. The new Administration would go to work on harmonious lines and the elements that were responsible for discord and strife would disappear. The only weakness of this calculation was that it was based on a fundamental error. There was, in fact, no doubt from start to finish that Lloyd George and Bonar Law could form a stable administration. Yet it is fair to state that Lord Curzon had given Asquith a specific assurance that no Tory Minister except Bonar Law would serve under Lloyd George. Asquith accepted this assurance and repeated it to his Liberal colleagues.

If you put the two sets of interviews together you may realise something of their cumulative effect. Here were the Radical members of the Ministry urging a fight to the death against Lloyd George’s pretensions and vowing unswerving loyalty to their old Chief. Then on the other flank all the oldest and the best of the Tories, the houses of Cecil, Chamberlain, Curzon and Long, appear to swear their fealty and to urge the most relentless method of suppression of Lloyd George. Asquith suddenly felt his strength that Monday morning, and thought he perceived the weakness of the enemy. He began to count noses in the Cabinet and the calculation seemed to prove his position impregnable. No wonder Edwin Montagu, coming in later in the morning, got small comfort out of Asquith.

Lloyd George, however, did not content himself with sending Montagu as an Ambassador to clinch the deal of the previous night and so avoid a rupture with the Premier.

Finding that Montagu brought back nothing, he himself made repeated attempts on that Monday through his secretaries, Sir John Davies and Miss Stevenson, to get an immediate interview with Asquith. He was told on each occasion that it was impossible for the Prime Minister to see him at this moment. Seeing that the two men were only separated by a few hundred yards and considering the tremendous urgency of the issues at stake, such replies were tantamount to a refusal of the Prime Minister to see the War Secretary at all. And such a refusal could only herald a complete breach.

The true explanation of the sudden change of Asquith’s attitude towards the Lloyd George proposals between Sunday evening, December 3, and Monday midday, December 4, is contained in his discovery of the number and strength of his own adherents and of their implacable hostility to Lloyd George. Now he wanted to fight.

But the negotiation was almost completed. How was he to break it off? And what ground was the best on which to refuse accommodation with the War Secretary? Asquith solved both problems at once by a single brilliant decision. It was on Lloyd George’s activities in the Press that the Conservatives were anxious to arraign and expel him. Well, that should be Asquith’s ground too, both for breaking off the negotiations and in the subsequent contest.

But for this purpose the “Reynold’s” article would not serve. Asquith had condoned it by treating with Lloyd George after its publication. Some other Press article must be found, and here to the Premier’s hand lay ready a leading article in “The Times” of that Monday morning, December 4.

It was hostile to the Premier, who immediately assumed that it was inspired by Lloyd George. Basing himself on this supposition he wrote Lloyd George the letter of complaint and hostility published on page 252.

“The Times” leader was a very different production from the “Reynold’s” article. It bore no sign of having been inspired by Lloyd George. It was news rather than comment, and it showed exactly the amount of knowledge that an influential and well-informed journalist would possess when he had read the other newspapers and seen a few public men. It represented in fact the kind of news that was fairly common property in political circles (outside the official Liberals) on Sunday night. The article described the Lloyd George proposals accurately—his protest against the cumbrous methods of directing the war, and his demand for a small War Council. It showed knowledge of the fact that Lord Carson was working with Lloyd George—and that Bonar Law was acting in support. The leading article gave Bonar Law a rather patronising pat on the back, and was markedly polite to Robertson and the soldiers. But it was hostile to Asquith and carried a sting in some of its implications.

“The testimony of his (Asquith’s) closest supporters—even more perhaps than the pressure of those who have no politics beyond the war—must have convinced him by this time that matters cannot possibly go on as at present. They must have convinced him, too, that his own qualities are fitted better, as they are fond of saying, ‘to preserve the unity of the nation’ (although we have never doubted its unity) than to force the pace of a War Council.”

These words as quoted may have hurt Asquith’s pride—but did they not really translate accurately enough the exact motives which had induced him to agree to the essential element in Lloyd George’s demands?

I have shown that Lloyd George had no dealings with Lord Northcliffe in this matter. Mr. Churchill states in the “World Crisis” that Northcliffe had nothing to do with the article. In this he is quite right. The leader was as a matter of fact written by Mr. Geoffrey Dawson, Editor of “The Times.”

Dawson was perfectly familiar with the events which led to the fall of the old Government and to the formation of the new one. He possessed the personal confidence of and had influence with another group of opponents of the Asquith regime which centred round Carson and Lord Milner. For it must be remembered that while I have described Carson chiefly in his relation to Lloyd George and Bonar Law, he had also another set of activities specially his own in connection with his friends and supporters in Parliament and the Press.

The first half of “The Times” leader was written on Saturday, December 2, at Cliveden, where Dawson happened to be staying with Lord Astor. The concluding passages were added on the Sunday after the writer had returned to London and had talked with Carson.

It will be seen that Mr. Dawson was perfectly well informed throughout on the political situation and in fact knew more than Northcliffe did.

Dawson did not attribute any tremendous significance to this leading article at the time of writing. He was astonished later to learn that Asquith had seized on it as the reason or excuse for precipitating an open clash with Lloyd George. Nor apparently did Northcliffe realise its significance immediately either. When, however, it began to be hinted abroad that it was this article which had provoked the crisis, Northcliffe, to use an expression of the theatrical world, “took the curtain.”

But after all these years it may be permitted me to record that what turned out to be a political bombshell was not thrown into the arena by those dreadful people, Lloyd George and Northcliffe, but by the highly respectable Dawson and Carson.

Therefore Asquith, in assuming that Lloyd George was the source of the article, made a complete error and did Lloyd George a grave injustice. If Lloyd George had been given a chance he could have cleared himself completely of the charge. Why did not Asquith ask for an explanation instead of writing Lloyd George a hostile letter assuming that he was somehow mixed up in the business or at least had the power to stop such articles appearing in “The Times”?

The answer is that “The Times” leader was simply an excuse eagerly grasped to break off the negotiation and to join issue with Lloyd George just on the ground where he was most suspect—that of trafficking with the Press. It was not the cause of the breach—its only importance was that it was a handy weapon for doing something which Asquith had already made up his mind to do for quite different reasons.

Making all allowance for a vanity hurt by the sting contained in the tail of the article: admitting that Montagu erroneously confirmed the idea of the Lloyd George authorship ^[16]: granted that McKenna, as the opponent of compromise, described the terms as being insulting—because it showed clearly Lloyd George’s intention of relegating the Premier to a position of absolute impotence in the conduct of the War—none the less it wrongs Asquith to suppose him capable of changing his whole policy at the crucial moment of his life because of a leading article in a newspaper. Such a theory denies him the qualities of clarity of intellect, of a sense of relative proportion, even of the personal dignity which friend and foe alike have allowed him.

No. Plan I had failed because the hostility to Lloyd George in Asquith’s own following, Liberal and Conservative, was too fierce to allow him to compromise with Lloyd George, and because the very strength of this feeling and following made Asquith think himself safe in tearing up the half accomplished settlement which he had never desired.

On the Monday then, Asquith turns to Plan II, the expulsion of Lloyd George from the Government practically for intrigue and disloyalty and trafficking with the Press. Hence his letter and the use made of “The Times” leader episode.

If, then, we envisage Asquith’s mind on that Monday morning and afternoon, we shall see that he realises that his action on the day before had been precipitate. It had not squared with the real political facts. He had sought out Lloyd George because he wanted cohesion for his Government and not a great political upheaval in which Lloyd George and Bonar Law combined would make dangerous adversaries. But on the Monday he found this move had brought him not reconciliation but the indignant remonstrances of all his other colleagues and followers. In so far then as his predominant motive is a desire for tranquillity he sees he will not obtain it by completing his deal with Lloyd George—for then he will simply be courting a blow-up in the other anti-Lloyd George wing of the Cabinet. In so far as his motive in negotiating with Lloyd George is fear of the consequences of refusing Lloyd George’s terms, the immense accession of strength which now rolls up all round him makes that fear seem almost ridiculous. He is like a night-walker who has been frightened by the shape of a tree in the dark looming like some great monster—and then goes and looks at it by daylight.

He now decides upon Plan No. II, the expulsion of Lloyd George. The War Secretary has said he will appeal to the nation at large if he is compelled to resign. Well, Asquith still holds in reserve the dreaded weapon of a General Election with which he and Bonar Law had threatened the Carsonites and Churchill only a few brief weeks before. So long as he remains Premier and does not himself resign, however much he shifts his colleagues as in 1915, the initiative for a General Election now lies in his hands. But it is just at this point that the argument in favour of Plan No. II is about to be shattered to pieces. The projected Dissolution to wipe out the Diehards and Grumblers was to have been a campaign jointly undertaken by Asquith and Bonar Law with both Party machines working in harmony to crush resistance.

But suppose Bonar Law will not play his part in the game? Whatever the three C’s might say or do, Bonar Law was the official leader and the Tory caucus would certainly in the main obey and follow him. In the clash between Tory and Liberal machines it was by no means certain that success at the polls would rest with the Government. In other words Lloyd George and Bonar Law, simply thrust out of the Ministry and left to agitate in the country, would be too formidable a menace.

In the long run they might, probably would, bring the Ministry down. If their Plan No. II would not work what was the alternative but Plan No. III?

Shortly before question time Bonar Law followed Asquith into the Premier’s room at the House of Commons. He asked whether Asquith was prepared to stand by the agreement reached on Sunday and to continue the negotiation on the matters left over. Asquith replied that he was not so keen on the War Council plan as he had been. When pressed he gave as reasons that all his colleagues, Liberal and Conservative, seemed to be against it, and that Lloyd George was trafficking with the Press. . . . Before the discussion could proceed further, Asquith was suddenly called to the Front Bench to answer questions. Such a summons is imperative. No Minister can disregard it—any more than an actor can delay at the call “The stage waits.” After question time Asquith attempted to avoid Bonar Law and so dodge a continuation of the argument. He left the House of Commons and went to Downing Street. Bonar Law, however, was not to be put off on such a vital occasion, and with his quiet pertinacity pursued Asquith to Downing Street. When he got there he found Grey, Harcourt, and Runciman, waiting outside the Cabinet Room with the Premier inside. He got hold of Bonham Carter and asked him to take in a message to the effect that he wished to see the Premier urgently and in advance of the waiting Liberal colleagues. He was duly admitted, but found McKenna closeted with Asquith. He then urged on the Prime Minister very strongly the necessity of standing by Sunday’s agreement on the appointment of a War Council.

He drove home his arguments for the proposed change by repeating and reiterating them. Asquith at first made perfunctory replies—and when Bonar Law persisted he lapsed into a glum and obstinate silence. Failing to receive any satisfactory reply, Bonar Law made it clear beyond all possibility of doubt that if the War Council scheme was not adapted he would break with Asquith. He then left the Prime Minister, who still sat in sulky silence.

This interview is of primary importance in the sequence of the narrative, because it shows exactly how, why, and when Asquith abandoned Plan No. II for Plan No. III.

Plan No. II, it will be remembered, was reconstruction without resignation—plus a General Election to destroy the rebels. But the moment Bonar Law said finally that he would go out with Lloyd George, this plan became impracticable, because a General Election would find the Tory machine working against Asquith. Asquith’s own mind had been already made up to refuse concession to Lloyd George under Plan No. I. Now Plan No. II vanished also. There remained only Plan No. III—Resignation and the definite proof that he was the only possible Premier.

It is rather curious to note how Asquith followed all along in his tactics plans which had been already laid down by the three C’s. It had been so in demanding two War Councils instead of one Supreme War Council and in using “Trafficking with the Press” as a cry against Lloyd George—and again it was the Tories who all along had insisted on resignation and not reconstruction. Inspired or driven by Tories and Radicals alike he begins to believe that the stronger course recommended by his Tory friends may be the best one. He sees—what was obvious all along—that the Tory method was the right and constitutional method, and that you cannot vanquish such an enemy except by compelling him to make an open exhibition of weakness. Let Lloyd George or Bonar Law try to form a Government, and Asquith will come back as the only possible Premier. It is a case for shock tactics and he will adopt them.

There does not seem to be anything in the least open to criticism in this attitude—change of attitude, if you like—in Asquith. When a great political crisis is in train, when both sides are battling quite honestly for what they believe to be the right, the facts of the situation change from hour to hour and men’s minds must change with them.

The right tactics of yesterday may be the wrong tactics of to-day, and the tactics of to-day may need revision to-morrow. Asquith employed tactics exactly as the other side did, and shifted his method in the light of new information. Asquith knew that the group opposed to him desired, looking at their intention broadly, to put him out of power. He felt weak, and offered a compromise. His opponents accepted it, not because they thought it an ideal solution, but because they were prepared to give way to some extent rather than fight to the death. Then Asquith felt strong and threw down the gage of battle. His enemies picked it up because they had no choice. There is no censure to be applied to either side on the score of tactics. Asquith did what he thought best for his country. He believed his own Government to be not only an effective but also the sole possible instrument for carrying on the war. If he changed his plans it was only to meet some new development in the situation. And he showed not only keenness and coolness of vision but, at the end, undaunted courage.

Once he had made up his mind on Plan III he stuck to it unswervingly. In the face of one of the fiercest storms that has beaten on our political life he refused every kind of accommodation offered him by the other side. He was certain he was the only man who could form a Government and he would therefore agree to no other. If he was wrong in his ultimate judgment he sustained it with splendid tenacity.

His error lay not on the surface of tactics but deep in the heart of things. He forgot the imponderable forces which will immediately rally to a new Ministry when a new Premier holds up the banner of office. He did not understand much of human nature—and he was defeated by the human nature of war time.

Yet by the time that Monday—December 4, 1916—is reached, he has probably little choice except to declare for a fight to a finish. Passions have been heated in the controversy. He must prove himself indispensable if he is to stay, and to prove himself indispensable he must resign.

The whole issue is now to be put to the proof. The rebels must face the alternative of surrender or they must try to form a Ministry.

Ominous notes began to reach Lloyd George from Downing Street. The first began with a strong protest against the tone of “The Times” leader, couched in a manner which suggested that even if Lloyd George had not inspired the article he had the power to stop others of a similar character:

It is hardly necessary after what has just been written to comment at length on this letter. It clearly represents a complete change of front from the arrangements come to on the day before. On Sunday the Prime Minister thought the plan feasible, on Monday a leading article causes him doubt. No fair-minded man could say, after the reading of that letter, that it breathes out anything except a hard and almost threatening tone. The definition of the terms of settlement are couched somewhat in the form of an ultimatum addressed by one Power insisting on its rights to another—surely a remarkable change from the amicable agreement of Sunday. The War Minister replied at once in a far more friendly spirit:

Lloyd George’s answer, though his repudiation of any responsibility for “The Times” leader was absolutely true, might be criticised in the light of history on the ground that it was more conciliatory than his actual attitude towards Asquith. This criticism would hardly be fair. He was ready to stand by the terms of the provisional settlement he had made with the Premier on Sunday afternoon—even though it fell short of his full desires. A smooth answer might ensure this settlement being ratified. If, on the other hand, Asquith’s note meant that he wished to draw back from the arrangement and was, in fact, courting a crash, then Lloyd George’s conciliatory reply definitely placed Asquith in the position of the aggressor. This last fact would prove important if the Liberals in the Commons and the country were to be compelled to take sides with one or other of the Liberal chiefs.

Derby’s name was introduced into the letter with his consent and approval. Lloyd George’s intention was no doubt to make a display of Conservative support which might be useful, particularly as practically all the other potentates of that party were ranged on the side of Asquith.

This Monday night was full of perturbation in the Liberal camp. The moderates still hoped for accommodation; McKenna and the extremists made ready for battle.

Montagu entertained at dinner the little troop of private secretaries known as the “Shadow Cabinet,” consisting of Hankey, Bonham Carter, Masterton Smith and Eric Drummond. Montagu and his “Shadow Cabinet” decided to resort to the expedient of a Buckingham Palace conference in the hope of keeping the Government together in a reconstructed form. The plan failed.

On the same evening, according to Montagu, a meeting of Liberal members of the Cabinet, with the Prime Minister present, was held. The question of the Premier’s resignation, and what would follow it, was discussed. No final decision was arrived at. At the meeting, Lord Buckmaster asked what their attitude would be if they were invited to join a Bonar Law and Lloyd George Government. McKenna said he would have no hesitation in deciding, as he was not likely to receive an invitation. According to other authorities, Buckmaster, McKenna and Runciman pledged themselves and their colleagues in most formal terms not to serve in any such Government. Any Minister who dissented was in duty bound to make his position clear.

Mr. Arthur Henderson says he was late in getting to the meeting. When he entered, Mr. Asquith explained briefly what had happened, and said that the general opinion seemed to be that Mr. Lloyd George would not succeed in getting the Conservatives, except Bonar Law, to join a Government. Mr. Henderson did not agree. He considered that the Conservatives would join Mr. Lloyd George. He was then asked what about Labour? Mr. Henderson said that Labour would join, too, as the terms offered would bring them in.

This evidence makes it perfectly clear that on Monday evening the Prime Minister was busily engaged in mustering his own array and counting up the forces on which he could depend. The basis of the calculation seems to have been this. Suppose the Prime Minister resigned and Lloyd George and Bonar Law were asked to form an administration, how many of the existing Cabinet Ministers could be counted on to refuse to join the new Government? Asquith had heard what his Tory visitors had to say on this point in the morning. As a consequence, Asquith was able to inform some of his Liberal colleagues that Lord Curzon on his own behalf, and purporting to speak on behalf of the Conservative Ministers with whom he was acting, had given him an absolute pledge. Curzon’s promise, couched in definite terms, was that in no circumstances would he, Curzon, or those acting with him take office under Lloyd George or Bonar Law.

Such had been the reinforcement proffered to the Premier in the morning, and now, at night, he was sitting there listening to pledges of refusal being considered or given by his Liberal colleagues. There is no doubt whatever that he had made up his mind that afternoon long before this meeting that the case for resignation was overwhelming and that reconstruction as in 1915 would not serve his turn at all. This time Asquith has got to prove, if it is safe, that he is indispensable—the one and only possible Premier. If the revolting leaders try to form a Government and fail, they are humiliated publicly and rendered impotent for mischief. Merely to accept the resignation of Bonar Law and Lloyd George would not serve this purpose.

And the same evening I had a talk with Neil Primrose, who did not conceal his certainty that the Prime Minister would offer no terms now, but would resign, and thus follow the Conservative plan for getting rid of Lloyd George and coming back without him. His predictions were verified in the letter which Asquith despatched to Lloyd George that night in reply to the note of conciliation Lloyd George had sent him.

Late at night I received an account of the proceedings at the meeting of the Liberal Ministers, which finally confirmed the news of Asquith’s intentions.

The Conservative Ministers acting in support of Asquith were, however, not informed on Monday night of a decision which fitted in so well with their views.

ON this morning, Bonar Law, at Derby’s request, breakfasted with him—the other guests being Lloyd George and Carson. Carson expressed himself in favour of what might be described as a “whole-hog” policy. He gave the opinion that a patched up arrangement between Asquith and Lloyd George was not possible. It would be unreal and therefore could not last—for any system founded on mistrust and jealousy is doomed to failure. The only solution, Carson thought, was for Asquith to resign and for Lloyd George to form a Government. If the present House of Commons would not sustain the new administration, then the new Prime Minister must appeal to the country. This, at least, in Carson’s opinion, would present a clear issue as to whether the country wanted to go on with the war and fight it in an efficient manner or not. As it was, the Asquith administration was manufacturing Pacifists every day. In this statement Carson got nearer to the root of the matter than most of his contemporaries and colleagues were aware.

I went to see Lloyd George at the War Office immediately on his return from Derby House. I saw the War Secretary, not in his own room, but in an ante-room usually reserved for his secretaries.

Lloyd George had just received the Prime Minister’s official letter written the night before at 10, Downing Street. Its receipt clearly dictated the need for some instant course of action. For, while the Premier’s missive was conciliatory in tone, its substance was an absolute repudiation of the agreement reached by Asquith and Lloyd George and ratified in Bonar Law’s presence on the Sunday night preceding. Its effect was to make the rupture final and conclusive unless Lloyd George was to make an abject surrender to the Prime Minister.

I was able to disclose to Lloyd George on the information I had received from various sources that this letter did not explain very precisely the Prime Minister’s real intentions. He had two alternatives before him. (1) If Lloyd George sent a conciliatory reply, accepting the rebuff to his own proposals for an effective War Council, Asquith would simply reconstruct the Government. It would contain the humiliated Lloyd George and a chastened Bonar Law, if they so wished, as impotent members of the fresh administration. (2) If, on the contrary, Lloyd George and Bonar Law refused to accept the prospect of defeat and flung their resignations at the Premier’s head, Asquith intended to deal with them in a more drastic fashion. He would resign and put his opponents to the humiliation of being unable to form a Government. Then he would come back as the only and inevitable Prime Minister. After that they could stay out or come in as they liked; they would be helpless in either case.

If Lloyd George would not submit, Asquith was going to smash him, not by reconstruction, but by revealing to the public Lloyd George’s impotence to form a Government. It has been shown that this intention was really formed by Asquith on the Monday night before the letter was despatched to Lloyd George.

Lloyd George being fully informed of what was going to happen, then wrote his answer:

In fact the Asquith letter was nothing less than an open declaration of a breach. There was nothing for it but to go straight forward or else to admit defeat with humiliation added.

Lloyd George, as his letter shows, did not hesitate. He gave in his resignation and he waved a flag at the same time. He was going to stand before the public as the advocate of an efficient war. Yet he had very few supporters. He could count on the unswerving co-operation of Bonar Law. Carson’s offer of support remained a firm one. Derby was with him, but outside the Cabinet. Montagu was an uncertain factor—a few Liberal under-secretaries might rally to his support. Other backing there was none. The ranks of official power seemed to be locked dead against him in both the historic political parties. Could he win through triumphantly and realise his ideal of conducting Britain to victory over the Germans—or would his political opponents prove too much for him?

It was true that Lloyd George possessed very considerable resources (far larger than either his Liberal or Conservative opponents in the Government realised) both in the House of Commons and in the country. General public opinion is reflected in the Press, and there Lloyd George was strong.

The Tory editor of the “Morning Post” and the “Globe” knew that he was the necessary man; the “Daily Chronicle” and the “Daily Express” were also openly on his side—so, from a rather different angle, were “The Times” and the “Daily Mail.” In the Commons the dissidents of the Nigerian debate could in the main have been marshalled by Carson against Asquith. Bonar Law would have brought in the backbone of the Tory Party, while Lloyd George showed subsequently that he had well over a hundred Liberal supporters in Parliament.

The trouble was that all this support and countenance was in fact inoperative in the desperate struggle which was now going on inside the Cabinet. Westminster and Fleet Street might have been in Ecuador for all the good they were to the rebellion for efficiency.

To put it in a vivid way, Lloyd George and Bonar Law were like two men struggling with the bayonet in a trench against twenty opponents. The fact that they had in support a tremendously heavy long-range artillery which must soon blow the enemy’s position completely to pieces did not help them in the least. The issue had to be decided hand to hand, and the long-range guns were under these conditions useless.

The same reason explains the practical disappearance of Lord Carson’s name from the story during critical days and hours. So long as the fight was in the Cabinet he could do nothing. He was a general waiting to intervene—but with his army necessarily held in reserve. One has to think of the circle cast by a light in a reading-room when its rays are suddenly lessened by turning on all the high lights in the roof of the room. The narrow circle showed Asquith victorious; the high lights which might be turned on blotted out his glare and heralded the advent of the man destined to succeed to the seat of power.

When Lloyd George came to the ultimate wrench he stood up to it like a great man. He faced a group which seemed infinitely more powerful than himself and his friends. And yet he was absolutely clear that he could and must defeat them. “Here I stand—I can no other”—that was his attitude, and it was illuminating to see the spirit of the man—the courage rejecting all compromise. I saw it with my own eyes—and anyone who says that Lloyd George in this issue was animated by nothing more than personal ambition does not know his man. He was immediately put to the extreme test. Asquith’s reply was prompt—and accepted his resignation.

He was clearly rather frightened by the propaganda part of Lloyd George’s letter of resignation with its appeal to the nation. He pleaded for its suppression on the usual and useful plea of the politician—the interests of the public.

As to the first part of your letter, the publication of the letters would cover the whole ground.

Lord Derby had made one last effort to avert the crash. He had visited the Prime Minister and implored him not to resign, but rather to come to an accommodation with Lloyd George. Asquith declined to enter into any argument. His mind, he said, was made up, and the motor which was to take him to Buckingham Palace with his resignation waited at the door.

So Lloyd George and Asquith terminated an association as Ministerial colleagues which had lasted for just eleven years and been of great reciprocal advantage.

It may be interesting to discover how Asquith viewed this separation immediately after the event.

Sir Robert Donald had a long talk with Asquith on December 7, when all was over, and asked him whether he thought Lloyd George, or some one acting in his interest, had courted the rupture. My narrative gives an exact answer to this question; but Asquith’s own view must be one of historic interest. He said that Lloyd George had always been most friendly to him, and that no rift had occurred, in their personal relations. Lloyd George possessed unique gifts—a real flair for politics, foresight, and inspiration. He would not say that Lloyd George owed everything to him, but he owed a great deal. He had saved him over the Budget of 1909, when every one else in the Cabinet had turned against him, and also on another occasion when he might have been obliged to disappear from public life for a time.^[17]

THE battle being now set between the two protagonists, it is time to describe how things were going on on this same day in the Conservative camp. Here there certainly reigned no more harmony than in the high places of Liberalism.

A most momentous meeting was held at eleven o’clock that morning at the India Office. It included the Conservative Ministers—Curzon, Chamberlain, Cecil, and Long—with the important exceptions of Balfour (who was ill) and Lord Lansdowne.

Balfour operated entirely independently throughout this crisis. On this Tuesday he wrote from his sick room two notes in succession to the Prime Minister.

The first letter was in the form of qualified approval of the proposed War Council with an acknowledgment of the need for appointing Lloyd George to the Chair. Further, Balfour assumed that his retention of the Admiralty would be undesirable in view of Lloyd George’s recent attacks on his administration. Lastly he tendered his resignation. The letter is as follows:—

The second letter—marked “4 p.m.”—was a recapitulation of his reasons for believing that Lloyd George should be given the opportunity of presiding over a War Council, and re-affirming his resignation.

Balfour in these letters shows clearly that, well aware as he was of Lloyd George’s hostility to his administration at the Admiralty, he was not going to let this fact stand in the way of the success of a new regime. He preferred to eliminate himself. The effect of his letters was therefore helpful to Lloyd George, and made Lord Balfour’s final acceptance of a new office under Lloyd George quite natural.

Bonar Law himself was not invited, and knew nothing of the meeting at the India Office. Birkenhead was not invited either. This gathering was in fact a kind of court of enquiry to be held on Bonar Law’s conduct and he regarded it as equivalent to an attempt to oust him from the Leadership. At this conference the Conservative Ministers took the view that Bonar Law had separated himself from them. They believed they were in the dark as to Bonar Law’s proceedings, and they were uneasy as to what was happening.

They believed that Bonar Law had not in the least made clear to Asquith the extent to which the Conservative leaders were on his side in the struggle with Lloyd George.

A full description has already been given of what took place at this interview and shows that Bonar Law did explain everything to Asquith, who was too alarmed by the resolution to face the real facts of the situation and square his momentary policy with them.

None the less, this tale about Bonar Law was gathering momentum because there was no one to contradict it. Bonar Law himself could not do so—for he was totally unaware of its existence. It gained currency and, naturally, it further estranged the other Tory Ministers from Bonar Law.

At this conference two decisions were arrived at: (1) To send the three “C’s” back to the Prime Minister to assure him of the support of the meeting and to urge him to withstand Lloyd George to the uttermost. (2) To send Long to Bonar Law to summon him before a renewed session of the conference to be held at the same place at four o’clock. In fact, the General was summoned to face a court-martial—the tribunal being his own staff.

The conference between Asquith and the three “C’s” was not really very important. The two sides simply went over the old ground with reiterated emphasis—Bonar Law was responsible for a misunderstanding: Lloyd George must be curbed. Curiously enough, Asquith did not tell his visitors that he had definitely made up his mind to resign himself rather than attempt reconstruction. The news would have pleased his Tory interviewers, for it was in accordance with their advice—advice they urged consistently from start to finish. Still the Prime Minister did not tell them of his decision—though he seems to have hinted.

Long appeared as the escort to conduct Bonar Law to the court-martial at four o’clock. When the Conservative leader realised the purport of Long’s mission, he was furious. It took a good deal to rouse Bonar Law, but when he was really angered he could treat people very roughly. Immediately after the interview with Long he was in a state of real passion.

He had told the unfortunate emissary that he would not go to the meeting at the India Office at four o’clock, that he was the Leader of the party, and that it was his business to summon them to meetings and not theirs to summon him. If this was another of Lord Curzon’s attempts to dispossess him of the leadership, he would appeal openly to the Tory party in the Commons and the country, and he thought the India Office Conference would find that the fact—whatever their ideas might be—would show that the great bulk of the party stood behind him and not behind them.

This, of course, was the truth. The back-bench Conservatives in the Commons and the Conservative organisations in the country hated the first Coalition. They recognised Asquith’s lack of passion and zeal for the war instinctively, and thought Bonar Law had been “diddled” into accepting bad terms for the Tories in May, 1915. There are thousands of letters extant to show that this frame of mind existed in the Tories’ local leaders. Some were written to newspapers, others to the Tory chiefs.

After this outburst of Bonar Law the ground was cleared for decisive action. The national situation was too serious for a complete breach of relations between the Tory chief and his colleagues to be contemplated without some further attempt at accommodation. Everyone concerned was too sensible to desire the prompt disruption of the Tory party. Bonar Law agreed to summon a conference of his own at the Colonial Office at five o’clock. It must have been a curious meeting. Was the chairman judging the board, or was the judge in the dock? It is true that some kind of apology was tendered to Bonar Law for summoning the first meeting without his knowledge and consent, but the charges of bad faith were persisted in.

Like most meetings of this kind, it went in a very unexpected way. Long had explained to Bonar Law the story being told against him over the Asquith interview of Sunday. Now Bonar Law had his first chance of clearing himself of such an injurious suspicion. He told his audience quite simply that he had explained everything fully to Asquith on Sunday afternoon. They must take his word—or they must take Asquith’s, that was all.

In an assembly of men who were bitterly opposed to Bonar Law’s policy at this moment, such was the effect of his simple word of honour—his reputation for complete honesty and truth-telling through many years of stormy politics—that his associates without a single dissentient or a murmur of doubt or comment accepted his assurance. And if honour is due to Bonar Law, honour is due also to the men who believed him. This untrue charge, which was likely to pass into history, was killed here once for all. It has never been revived since—and I shall show that Asquith himself abandoned it when the crisis was over.

Tension at the Conservative meeting was thus immediately relieved. The whole conference was at once back to the frame of mind of the Sunday preceding. They would insist on the resignation of the whole Government, including the Premier. Bonar Law this time had no difficulty in agreeing to the proposal. In fact, the situation had developed in such a serious way that there was no real alternative to this method of procedure.

There was therefore no difficulty in drafting another resolution in the following terms and addressed to Asquith:

Lord Curzon, who had practically made himself the leader of the dissidents, and was the most active supporter of Asquith in the Tory ranks, then made the following suggestion: Would it not be better to get the approval of the Prime Minister to the terms of the resolution, and then it could be published? The meeting agreed to this plan—and Lord Curzon proceeded to Downing Street with the resolution. By the time he got there Asquith’s resignation was already in the hands of the King.

Curzon returned with a statement to his colleagues that the resolution had been rendered useless by events. The Premier had resigned.

THE meeting at the Colonial Office was hardly over when the definite news of Asquith’s resignation was received. Bonar Law immediately took me over to the War Office to see Lloyd George. The problem of the new Premiership had to be faced.

The Government had now fallen, and the question was whether the old or a new Prime Minister would return. Asquith’s whole procedure had been novel, but the constitutional doctrine is clear. If a Prime Minister has difficulties with his colleagues he can either call for their resignations and continue to act, as Asquith had done in 1915, or he can resign on the ground that his internal difficulties make it impossible for him to continue the conduct of His Majesty’s Government. To resign and call on all Ministers to resign in order to force a minority out of the Cabinet is not a procedure which has any place in the practice of the Constitution, for it is obviously vexatious and unnecessary, since the minority can be made to resign by other means. The Crown, therefore, will assume that resignation is tantamount to impotence, and will not return to the resigning Prime Minister until all other possible persons have been asked to form a Ministry and have refused or failed. (It was on this last eventuality that the Prime Minister and his friends counted with certainty.)

It was clear in the circumstances that either Bonar Law or Lloyd George would be sent for and asked to form a Ministry.

All the probabilities pointed to Asquith recommending the King to send for Bonar Law as the responsible Conservative leader and the head of the largest individual party in the House of Commons. It was therefore absolutely necessary to take a decision as to what Bonar Law should say to the King. And the expectations were realised. Bonar Law was summoned to attend at the Palace at 9.30 o’clock that night. Was Bonar Law to accept the offer of the Premiership or was he to advise the King to send for Lloyd George? It is now necessary to give a complete account of the conversation which ensued.

Bonar Law said to Lloyd George that he would put forward his name to the King for the Premiership—as the man whose leadership was most likely to win the war. By now Bonar Law believed sincerely that while his judgment might be better than Lloyd George’s, Lloyd George had the more drive—and that drive was wanted to win the war. Thus with a characteristic and casual gesture Bonar Law tossed away the prospect of the glittering prize.

Why did he do it? Why did he so often cast away the prize he had won fairly and squarely by his own efforts?

It was due to his natural and inevitable disposition in regarding himself in relation to public affairs. He did not judge his own abilities himself. If public opinion or his colleagues designated him unmistakenly for an office, he would take it—because he would say that they were better judges of his capacity than he was himself. His own judgment was that Lloyd George was quite as good as himself for the supreme purpose of conducting the war, and that the ordinary public thought Lloyd George was better. He accepted this judgment—in fact, he preferred it. He was prepared to hold the stirrup of the great captain, provided he had a reasonable share in guiding the direction of the horse. How fruitful this combination was will be amply recorded in history. Lloyd George never went wrong until Bonar Law had to leave him.

Bonar Law’s attitude of self-distrust is of course amazing to the ordinary politician. If this quality is a defect, Bonar Law will be judged very hardly. I cannot help this. The truth about Bonar Law must be told.

Those who worked on the “personal ambition” theory of Lloyd George’s activities would have expected him to jump eagerly to seize on the offer. As a matter of fact, Lloyd George did exactly the opposite. “No,” he said in effect, “I don’t want to be Premier. I have not been fighting for the Premiership, but simply to get rid of the Asquith incubus. Give me the Chairmanship of the War Council and (turning to Bonar Law) I am perfectly content and would prefer to serve under you.”

It will be no use saying that this is a matter of hearsay or second-hand gossip. It was in my presence that Lloyd George told Bonar Law with the most transparent sincerity that he thought Bonar Law’s premiership would be the wisest solution and that he wished to serve under him.

However astounding this record may be to Lloyd George’s enemies, it is truth. Nor does the fact of this struggle of self-abnegation between Bonar Law and Lloyd George rest simply on my testimony. The whole written and accepted record of what happened in the course of the next hours and days bears it out.

The two statesmen finally came to this agreement: Lloyd George should have the Premiership if it was found possible to form an administration on these terms. Failing this (and there were serious obstacles in the way of a Lloyd George Premiership), Bonar Law was to take office, giving Lloyd George the Chairmanship of the new War Council.

The difficulties Bonar Law foresaw in forming a Lloyd George administration were twofold.

It was agreed between the two men that while Lloyd George’s Premiership should be aimed at as the ideal, Bonar Law’s should be accepted as the practical solution if all else failed.

Bonar Law was received by His Majesty at Buckingham Palace at half-past nine o’clock that evening. He explained the position fully to the King and was asked to form a Ministry.

As had been arranged, he asked for time, and then went straight to Asquith. He had not yet abandoned hope that he would get Asquith to serve under him, though he would not under Lloyd George, and on that condition Bonar Law was prepared to take the Premiership. If, however, this could not be, it was better, in his view, that Lloyd George as the real protagonist should take the chief post.

Bonar Law then went on from the Palace to see Asquith to ask him whether he would serve in a Bonar Law Government. He began the conversation in this blunt way: “When a man has done another a serious injury no good can come from explanations.” Asquith replied, “I have no feeling of hostility. You have treated me with complete straightforwardness all through.” Bonar Law repeated these two sentences to me at the time and I wrote them down.

In effect they dispose, or should dispose, finally of the charge that Bonar Law misled Asquith at the Sunday afternoon meeting. Nor did Asquith or anyone else ever raise the accusation again. No doubt Asquith, on thinking things over calmly, realised that it was his own precipitancy which had led to the misunderstanding.

Bonar Law then asked Asquith if he would serve under him. Asquith replied in the negative.

Bonar Law then put forward the following offer to Asquith. If he advised the King to send for Balfour, would Asquith serve under him—thus tossing the offer of the Premiership away for the second time that day. Again Asquith said “No,” showing clearly and with finality that he was in no mood for accommodation. By declining to serve under anyone he adhered resolutely to his plan of forcing Lloyd George or Bonar Law to try to form a Ministry.

Lloyd George and I then went to dine at Birkenhead’s house. Birkenhead and Churchill were at the Turkish Bath of the Automobile Club that evening, and Birkenhead had rung up George to remind him of a dinner engagement. He mentioned that Churchill was with him and Lloyd George immediately requested that Churchill should be asked to come too. This suggestion, probably quite carelessly made, produced on Churchill’s mind the natural impression that he was regarded as one of the new set of war administrators who were about to grasp the helm. Surely Lloyd George would not ask him to be included in a dinner party on this night of all others if he did not mean to offer him a real post—and a real post to Churchill meant nothing but war-service.

Apart from this deduction—a too hasty and optimistic one as it proved—there were many cogent reasons why Churchill should expect an appointment under the new regime and why Lloyd George should give him one.

As has been said previously, Churchill had really been abandoned by Asquith because of his restless energy and his intrepid capacity for innovation. He had been ruined by his overpowering zeal for making war which had led him to disregard precedents and to forget the existence of old-established political animosities. Later Asquith had turned on Lloyd George for developing a precisely similar set of qualities. Who then could employ Churchill more suitably than Lloyd George—especially since now that he was to become Premier he could keep Churchill’s activities under control? Churchill in fact was a natural Lloyd Georgian and supported the new movement throughout in so far as he could do so after his retirement. He had come back from France at the express request of Lord Carson—so that he might reasonably regard himself as a member of the alliance which had overturned the Government.

He had, therefore, every reason for expecting office when we met at Birkenhead’s table that evening. The company consisted of Birkenhead, Lloyd George, Winston, and myself. Bonar Law only was absent. The conversation turned entirely on the personnel of the new Ministry and everyone took a share in it on terms of equality.

It had been arranged that after Bonar Law had left the King and seen Asquith, Lloyd George was to meet him at Carson’s house. Lloyd George invited me to drive along with him to the interview. But Birkenhead insisted that I should return at once to him to give Churchill and him news of what was happening. I was torn between the desire to hang on to Lloyd George and the insistence of Birkenhead, but eventually promised to return—much against my will.

On this drive Lloyd George told me particularly that he was worried about Churchill. The pressure brought to bear against his inclusion in the new Ministry was enormous. The whole situation was so shaky that if it was asked to bear an additional piece of weight it might collapse altogether. If he became Prime Minister, Lloyd George was not ready to run this risk. His difficulties, he said, were sufficient in any case. Here Lloyd George was as a matter of fact shying at a shadow. The event was to prove him quite strong enough to carry Churchill. Lloyd George, however, said that though he realised Churchill’s abilities to the full, this was not an opportune moment for giving him the only kind of office which was worth his while. Churchill must wait a bit.

Lloyd George asked me to convey a hint of this kind on my return to the party which contained Churchill. He thought Churchill too confident of high office in the new regime. A refusal would be awkward. It would be better if Churchill was dashed a bit first. I went back to Birkenhead’s dinner according to promise and met Churchill again.

This is the story of our meeting, at which both of us can now in the after years afford to smile. He has held great Government offices, and I have found a different sphere of activity. But this was not the light in which the event could be looked at in that hour of Birkenhead’s dinner.

I had by this time come to the conclusion that I had been an important factor in forming the new administration. Lloyd George, Carson and Bonar Law had treated me as an equal. My sense of values was destroyed for the moment.

I expected the Board of Trade, and had good ground for my expectation. In fact I had been promised the place. My mind was full of plans for speeding up the management of the railways in the military area in the North of France.

Here it will be convenient to state once and for all, in a compact form, the opinions which guided me in seeking, accepting, or declining office during the war, and the feeling which underlay my actions.

I had been offered minor office, as has been related, in the formation of the first Coalition in May, 1915, and had refused it. Again I could have had office in July, 1915, when Lloyd George went to the War Office and certain changes had to be made in consequence. I did not want office then, either.

And the reasons in both cases were the same. In both cases the posts suggested had nothing to do with the direct conduct of the war whatever. I desired ardently to serve the country.

I did not want to be a sort of passenger on board a War Administration just for the sake of being a Minister. I wanted a war job for which I thought I had the talents and experience. Therefore I ardently desired the Board of Trade because it was an office of the highest importance in the conduct of the war and one in which all the experience of my past life would have been of the greatest service to me.

So when I came back to Birkenhead’s party that night with Lloyd George’s information stowed away in my pocket, I smiled on Churchill as a senior colleague might on an aspiring junior. I still, so to speak, walked warily—but I walked. Churchill also had every reason to suppose that he was sure of high office. We discussed as allies and equals the personnel of the new Government. Churchill suggested that I might be made Postmaster-General—a task suitable to my abilities.

Then I conveyed to him the hint Lloyd George had given me. I have a reason for saying that these are the exact words I used: “The new Government will be very well disposed towards you. All your friends will be there. You will have a great field of common action with them.”

Something in the very restraint of my language carried conviction to Churchill’s mind. He suddenly felt he had been duped by his invitation to the dinner, and he blazed into righteous anger. I have never known him address his great friend Birkenhead in any other way except as “Fred” or “F.E.” On this occasion he said suddenly: “Smith, this man knows that I am not to be included in the new Government.”

With that Churchill walked out into the street carrying his coat and hat on his arm. Birkenhead pursued him, and endeavoured to persuade him to return, but in vain. So, really my patronising manner was lost on Churchill, as was his calm assumption of superiority over my assurance. We neither of us got office. Churchill was included later. Lloyd George gave Lord Ashfield, my old and valued friend, the Presidency of the Board of Trade I coveted. Birkenhead was the only one of the three present who had a real reason to be uncertain about his future, though he thought rightly enough that he was indispensable. Actually he was the only one of the three to be in the new Government.

THE next morning, Wednesday, there was a meeting of the “Triumvirate” at Pembroke Lodge, at which I made a fourth. The question at issue was where to turn first in the direction of seeking support for the new administration. The most natural person to approach at once seemed to be Lord Balfour. He had been ill throughout the whole of the recent proceedings—and it seemed quite possible that he would take quite a different view of the situation from that of the three C’s and Long. There was also the undeniable difficulty that Lloyd George had been openly hostile to Lord Balfour’s administration of the Admiralty. Also he was undoubtedly the point of danger in the Conservative Party. Bonar Law and Lloyd George therefore went together to see him. They found him still unwell, but he received them.

In this conversation Lord Balfour did not commit himself definitely in any way to the new Ministry. He simply said that nothing could be decided until there had been an all-round talk at Buckingham Palace—an idea which Mr. Henderson had already put forward.

At this Conference, which took place immediately, there were present Asquith, Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Balfour, and Henderson. Balfour began the discussion. He expressed the view that in his opinion the right course was for Bonar Law to be Prime Minister, in order that both Asquith and Lloyd George might serve in the Government.

The main feature of the Buckingham Palace Conference was that everyone present—with a single exception—was anxious and especially anxious on one point—the retention of Asquith’s services for the new administration in one capacity or another.

The exception was Asquith himself. He was neither worried, nor anxious to serve in any proposed new regime. His manner in fact was fairly like that of a schoolboy who has got an unexpected half-holiday. He was jocular with everybody. He showed this grave assembly an anonymous telegram he had received from Liverpool saying how delighted the sender was that he had been dismissed.

When the meeting came to business, which really was to discover what Premier, if any, Asquith would consent to serve under—Balfour, Bonar Law, or Lloyd George—Asquith simply said he had held the first place for eight years, and was now asked to take a subordinate position.

Still Asquith did not give an absolute refusal, but said he must first consult his friends. Bonar Law actually left the Conference under the impression that Asquith would yet come in to the new Government.

The truth was that Asquith’s high spirits and disinclination to serve in a subordinate capacity were due to one single cause. He quite misinterpreted the situation and misunderstood the reasons for holding the Conference at all. He knew of course that Bonar Law had been asked by the King the previous evening to form a Government and he drew the inference that Bonar Law thought he could not form such a Government without Asquith’s countenance and assistance. He looked, then, on the Conference not as an act of decent respect towards himself, based on a desire to preserve a complete appearance of national unity, but as an acknowledgment of weakness presaging ultimate failure. So they could not form a Ministry without him after all! Well, he never thought they could. Anyhow, he had taken up his fighting position and decided to play the game to the end.

Asquith went away to consult his friends, with his mind already made up. It is doubtful if he needed any stiffening from the Liberal ex-Ministers who likewise did not believe that Lloyd George or Bonar Law could form a Ministry. They thought they had only to hold out resolutely and refuse all participation to secure Asquith’s triumphant return and the rout of his opponents. They pointed out with some apparent reason that Curzon and his Conservative group in the Cabinet looked on Asquith, not Bonar Law, as their real leader. They would stand out, too. How was it possible, then, for the revolting Ministers to form a Government under these circumstances—with both front benches dead against them, and practically no House of Commons support except from the Carsonites and a few personal friends of Lloyd George? They believed in the myth in preference to the reality.

As a result of their meeting this day Asquith sent a positive refusal within an hour and a half of the Buckingham Palace Conference.

In the handwriting of Bonar Law, on the margin of this letter, is written: “I thank you for your letter and I greatly regret your decision.”

McKenna and Buckmaster led the stalwarts at this meeting of Liberal Ministers, and succeeded in imposing upon their colleagues a self-denying ordinance pledging all Liberal Cabinet Ministers present not to take office. Henderson was there—but as a Labour man. Montagu says that Henderson and himself were in favour of them all joining Lloyd George—and that no definite decision was really taken. Henderson does not refer to this meeting in an account of this period available to me. Asquith’s letter really makes it plain what the sense of the meeting was.

It was a cruel blow to Montagu. He was left in a very awkward situation. He said himself with a real flash of humour that he had to choose between deserting a sinking ship and boarding one that would not float. He had done his very best to secure an accommodation between Lloyd George and Asquith. But in doing so he had practically become one of Asquith’s advisers, and so felt himself committed to follow Asquith’s course.

It seems clear that he behaved with delicacy and propriety in refusing the offers which the new administration made to him.

Lloyd George was particularly anxious to retain his services,^[19] and had him down on his new list of Ministers as retaining his old post at Munitions. Montagu says also that Lloyd George at one point offered him the Exchequer.

A week later, when all the principal posts had been settled, Bonar Law made a renewed attempt to bring him in—this time offering the Financial Secretaryship to the Treasury.

This letter would appear to be a complete justification of Montagu’s conduct in this period. Later, when circumstances had changed, he joined a Government with which he had always been fundamentally in sympathy.

However, we have left suspended the absorbing topic of the day. Was Lloyd George or Bonar Law to be Premier?

So far Bonar Law had been exploring the ground to see whether any manifest political advantage in the form of solidity for the new Government would be attained by his taking the Premiership himself.

The refusal of Asquith and the “Wee Frees” of Liberalism to accept his offer, cleared his hand. If they would neither serve under him nor under Lloyd George, then the Premiership should go to Lloyd George.

As far as the Conservatives were concerned, Bonar Law shifted his attitude slightly. He perceived, from the contents of shoals of letters from supporters in the House and from his knowledge of the party in the constituencies conveyed to him by the central office, that the Tory members of Parliament were in favour of the displacement of Asquith and the substitution of a Lloyd George-Bonar Law regime, and that Curzon would get the very feeblest kind of support if he quarrelled openly with Bonar Law, and endeavoured to take his place. Again this opinion proved to be perfectly well founded. The three C’s and Walter Long never had the countenance of the Tory Party for their allegiance to Asquith.

At any rate, Bonar Law decided that, the Radical Asquithians being counted out, he could bring enough well-known Tory back-benchers into the Government of which Lloyd George was head, to make it secure. He therefore, according to the agreement between the two men, returned to the King and advised His Majesty to call on Lloyd George to form an Administration. The King thereupon commissioned Mr. Lloyd George with this task.

When night fell on this Wednesday, December 6, Asquith, sitting in the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street, gave expression to his pent-up feelings. He had been through a rough time and he felt it. No person among his circles of friends and supporters blamed him. There was no feeling of hostility towards him on Bonar Law’s part. The other Conservative Ministers held him in the highest esteem. Men who believed him incompetent trusted his sterling honesty of purpose.

IT has been said that Bonar Law was quite certain of sufficient Tory support to make the new Ministry a stable one.

Lloyd George, however, was especially anxious to include the ex-Conservative Ministers. The first thing he did on receiving the King’s command was to ask Bonar Law to approach Lord Balfour on his behalf, and, in spite of past differences, to seek his aid. Bonar Law went to Balfour and found him sitting in a chair in his bedroom, wearing a dressing-gown. He offered him the Foreign Secretaryship. Lord Balfour jumped up instantly and replied: “Well, you hold a pistol to my head—I must accept.”^[20]

In this way he acted, much to his credit, as every single Tory Minister acted in those days. They thought of the cause of England, not of the particular Prime Minister, and it was this instinctive action on the part of the Tories which ruined the Asquith calculation.

Lord Balfour undoubtedly meant that the normal arrangements of politics, the etiquette dictated by party conditions, were abrogated. He was simply being asked whether he would serve England, and he said “yes.” This kind of consideration ought to be borne in mind if we are to judge the politicians of this period fairly.

When Asquith heard of Lord Balfour’s adhesion, shortly to be followed by that of the most important Conservative Ministers, he was completely thunderstruck. He had counted absolutely on Lord Curzon’s definite assurances and on his general belief that no Conservative except Bonar Law would join Lloyd George. He believed he could depend upon eight Tory Ministers out of nine. This was the basis of his whole policy of declining to deal with Lloyd George.

In informing Lloyd George of Lord Balfour’s adhesion, Bonar Law arranged with Lloyd George to sound the Liberals and see what independent support he could secure before they decided whether it was possible to form a Government or not.

This narrative will make it plain that all through Wednesday, December 6, Bonar Law and Lloyd George were in constant communication as to the filling up of prospective offices.

If such close contact seems strange and the Prime Minister’s freedom of choice circumscribed by such co-operation, it must be remembered that in so far as Lloyd George failed to secure Liberal or outside support, the burden of filling the vacancies up with Tories would fall entirely on Bonar Law.

The Second Coalition was not a one-man show. It was a combination between two men of widely different type. That was the principal element in its success.

How these communications affected my hope—nay, my practical certainty—of getting the Board of Trade may be judged from the following note sent by Lloyd George to Bonar Law on the evening of Wednesday.

So my kingdom was taken away from me and given to Stanley (Lord Ashfield), who was offered and accepted the Presidency of the Board of Trade.

As it was, I met the Triumvirate at Pembroke Lodge in the morning by arrangement made the night before, and left the Conference feeling that I was quite in the van of the whole movement for forming the administration.

I was so sure of the Board of Trade that I told the Conservative Chairman at Ashton-under-Lyne my expectations, and warned him to be ready for a by-election on my accepting an office of profit under the Crown.^[21]

I also asked my wife to go down to the constituency at once and begin the campaign for the inevitable fray, and she immediately started for Ashton.

And then on that Wednesday afternoon something strange happened. It was as though a curtain had suddenly fallen between me and the busy active world of politics in which I had been living for days. At one moment everything has been excitement—the abyss of despair or the exhilaration of triumph. The day had been all too short to fit the events into it. Only by staying up late and rising early could one deal with the constant stream of letters, telephone messages, notes by hand, which poured in unceasingly in the intervals of private and vital conferences.

The whole world seemed to turn round Whitehall or Kensington. The strained nerves felt that this racket would be unending, and now came tranquility in a most disturbing fashion.

A quietude like death settled on the Hyde Park Hotel. There were no more calls from politicians—no more agitated interviews. No special messengers arrived with notes. Even the telephone bell ceased to ring. The reaction was tremendous. It is said that people in a balloon do not feel any sensation of motion, but simply think the earth is drifting past them. There came to me this same curious sense of detachment—passing by degrees into boredom and then into anxiety, and finally into a kind of desperation. I had been in the centre of affairs and now I found myself translated to the extreme circumference.

I had waited in all afternoon and evening, expecting a message from the Prime Minister which never came. The dark drew down and no one came near me. There was no news of friend or foe. At last I could bear it no longer and walked out into the street. As by a magnetic impulse I was drawn towards the War Office, where all things must be settled. There the Prime Minister must be allotting the offices after his sensational and almost miraculous triumph. What I really wanted was a sight of Lloyd George. I reached the War Office, but a sense of propriety restrained me from going in. In that dark December night I walked round and round the square stone walls of the War Office like a lost soul.

As I was coming away I ran into Sir Reginald Brade, who told me in the most casual manner that Albert Stanley ^[22] would be the new President of the Board of Trade.

I returned to the quiet of my rooms—grateful now for the quietness which covered my disappointment.

I had had the chance of taking minor office in May, 1915, but had declined because the duties involved were not concerned with the conduct of the war. I had been in a position to get a small place in July of 1916, but I had withdrawn because I was convinced that my existing activities were of more use than the Ministerial functions I might have fulfilled. I knew at this very moment that the new Prime Minister would offer me the Post Office. But what did the Post Office mean, since it had no relation to the conduct of the war?

But how I regretted the loss of the Board of Trade—for, as I believed, it would enable me to take over the management of the railways used for the Army in France.

So there entered into politics the figure of Lord Ashfield. The new President acquitted himself splendidly in his public office. He had always done everything supremely well in the course of his long and romantic career. Born in England and brought up in boyhood in the United States, he started life as an office boy of the Detroit Street Railway Co. at 75 cents per day. Thence he went up steadily stage by stage to the control of big business. Then he gave to his country the most brilliant of services in the war.

Ashfield has, however, to his credit something greater than all his business or political successes. It is not only that men believe in and trust his judgment—he secures the love and affection of all with whom he has to deal.

So ended my Black Wednesday. The next day, Thursday, December 7, was to be the decisive day for the various interviews which made the formation of the new Ministry a certainty.

At noon a deputation of Labour representatives waited on the new Prime Minister with a view to hearing what he had to say before they consented to support the Government. It was obvious from the proceedings that the deputation contained members, particularly Mr. Sidney Webb, who did not desire the Labour Party to join in and support the Government. Subsequently, in fact, Labour split into two groups, the smaller one Pacifist and the larger Patriotic.

The new Prime Minister, however, rose to the occasion. No man was more skilled in answering what were meant to be embarrassing questions in a way which turned to his own advantage in debate.

Furthermore, he delivered to the deputation one of those rare war speeches of his which alone will make subsequent generations understand why Lloyd George was the winning force in the war—why men who distrusted him in all else trusted him blindly in the supreme emergency of their country.

It is a chopped sort of rhetoric, but, like the Napoleonic bulletins—which in style it resembles—it has the eloquence of energy, the soul of conviction. He said:

This speech satisfied—as it well might—the greater number of the delegates that they were backing the right man. Lloyd George was given to understand that he could depend on the majority of Labour members to uphold the new Government.

Mr. J. H. Thomas, it is true, refused a Ministerial post, but on the ground that his assistance would be more valuable from outside.

Mr. Henderson, leaving the Asquithites definitely, became a member of the War Cabinet.

As to the Pacifist Socialists, their enmity was an asset in the Premier’s favour.

At 1.30 the meeting broke up and Lloyd George left, assured that Labour would join the Ministry.

As has already been shown in the description of this meeting, there was a minority present which was more impressed with the diabolical skill with which Mr. Lloyd George evaded awkward points than with the general fervour and sound sense of his address. Among this minority was another future Premier. Sir Robert Donald has given me a record of the views Mr. Ramsay MacDonald expressed of this meeting a few days after the event.

IT has been pointed out in the previous chapters that the new Prime Minister attached the greatest importance to securing the services of the Conservative members of the late Government. He could now be certain—with Bonar Law, Lord Balfour, Lord Milner, the Labour men and many Liberals behind him—of forming a sound Government. But he did not wish to exclude the Conservative leaders.

While Lloyd George had been negotiating with the Liberals and the Independents, Bonar Law had approached his own Conservative colleagues. He had made no headway with them.

On the Thursday afternoon, Lloyd George made a separate overture to Walter Long. He received a refusal. Long said he would support the Government from the back-benches, but he could only act in concert with the other dissident Conservative ex-Ministers.

The general attitude of the other three Conservative ex-Ministers was summed up tersely at this time by an outside observer. “If,” he said, “they think their refusal to serve will make it impossible to form a Ministry, they will refuse; if they see it can be formed without them, they will come in.”

Lloyd George was very disappointed at failing to secure Long. He returned to Bonar Law and explained his anxiety to secure this group of Conservative leaders on the ground that the new Ministry should be formed on as broad a basis as possible. Would Bonar Law try again? Bonar Law said he would not. It was then agreed to send another intermediary to Curzon separately. This envoy took with him a definite offer to Curzon of a place in the War Cabinet.^[24] Curzon told Lord Crewe at the time that at this interview a strong appeal was made to his patriotism, and that it was this appeal which decided him to join the Ministry. I am perfectly prepared to accept this view that it was the motive of patriotism and not the lure of high office which induced Curzon to consent. It must be pointed out however that he did not follow Long’s example in declining to take office apart from the group as a whole. On the contrary, he accepted for himself and without consultation with Cecil, Chamberlain, and Long. He ignored, too, the pledge he had given Asquith not to accept office under Lloyd George.

However, with his adhesion, it became practically certain that the others would not stand out. As we have seen, Long’s attitude had not been unfavourable: Chamberlain could be relied upon as in May, 1915, to regard office as a public duty. Cecil seems to have been the most reluctant. Anyhow, an arrangement was made by which the Prime Minister should meet and confer with Curzon and Long, Chamberlain and Lord Robert Cecil, on the evening of Thursday, with a view to their joining the Government. This the Conservative Ministers eventually did on certain terms.

Their action in joining Lloyd George was utterly misunderstood by the public at the time. The rank and file of the Tory Party thought that the three C’s had been fighting Asquith all through the crisis, and heartily approved of what seemed to be their conduct in adhering to Lloyd George as the successor to the Premiership. It has been shown that this popular view is baseless legend—the precise reverse of the truth. A Liberal colleague, on the other hand, has said: “Is not this the last limit in political cynicism—men who have tried to ruin Lloyd George and turn him out of the Government take office under him the moment it is shown that he has won out in the struggle? The most violent supporters of Asquith against Lloyd George now transfer their allegiance to the victor!”

Is it really to be supposed that Sir Austen Chamberlain or the others would behave in this manner—that they would sacrifice every kind of personal loyalty or public principle in order to clamber back to office?

The idea is essentially absurd, and depends on a lack of understanding of the way the crisis developed, and of the unexpected positions in which contending personalities frequently found themselves.

The only real blame attaching to the three C’s was misjudgment of the party and national temper—leading to a complete underestimate of the strength of Lloyd George and Bonar Law, and an equal overestimate of Asquith’s position.

Suddenly it was clear that Lloyd George could not be driven out of a reconstructed Ministry—that Asquith was not indispensable as Premier—and that Bonar Law did stand for the Conservative Party in opposing a continuance of the Asquith regime.

The three C’s must obviously reason as follows: “We have made a mistake. Lloyd George and Bonar Law are far stronger than we thought. But the only question is what course to pursue now in the public interest. It is just possible that if we refuse to have anything to do with Lloyd George’s attempt to form a Government it may fail. Then we go back to Asquith again as Premier—but to what a new and altered form of Asquith administration! The myth of the indispensable Premier will have vanished. Lloyd George and Bonar Law will be gone, carrying with them the sympathies of most of the Tories and of many of the Liberals. Other Ministers and Members will soon drift over to their side. All we shall have done by sticking to Asquith is to sustain the fugitive existence of a fatally weakened War Ministry. Is this the path along which plain patriotic duty points us? No. There is obviously the other alternative of strengthening the new War Government by joining it—provided that we can be satisfied that the new Premier will make no radical departures in policy with which we disagree.”

This would appear to be a perfectly logical, and tenable position in war time. In peace time politicians may be expected to pay to personal loyalty the forfeit for a political misjudgment.

But the whole mentality of war politics was—and quite rightly—different in character. Men simply thought how they could best serve England. If they were men of long experience in public office and carried weight in the country they not unnaturally thought that experience invaluable to the cause, and the confidence created by their names a national asset in the conduct of Government.

They could by their decision—as the position appeared to them—either recreate an enfeebled Asquith Government or create a strong Lloyd George Government. From the national point of view there could be no hesitation between these two courses. The Conservative ex-Ministers chose the right course.

Lloyd George himself, as we have seen, certainly attached great weight both to their names and to their capacity for public service.

In fact, the impartial observer might consider that the new Premier, Mr. Lloyd George, made immense concessions and too many pledges to secure the adhesion of these statesmen. The document I print below gives colour to this view.

But it is a sufficient justification of the alliance then concluded that Sir Austen Chamberlain, after being in office with Lloyd George for six years, resigned the Tory leadership and went into the wilderness with him in 1922 rather than abandon his cause.

To their credit these men came forward and said, “We will serve under Lloyd George if certain conditions are granted in advance—we will watch him and check him and work with him. We come in with him, not as captives, but on the basis of an honourable and joint agreement.”

The interview, as has been stated, took place on December 7 between Lloyd George and the Unionist leaders, consisting of Lord Curzon, Lord Robert Cecil, Sir Austen Chamberlain, and Walter Long.

In reply to the question what assurances, if any, he had given to Labour members in return for their support, Mr. Lloyd George referred to several points which had been discussed between their leaders and himself.

(A) As regards personnel he had promised them—

1. A place in the War Committee ^[25] for Mr. Henderson.

2. The creation of a new Labour Ministry, to which the powers of the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Munitions, connected with labour, would be transferred, the office to be held by a Labour member.

3. One other office of importance in the Government, either Local Government or Pensions or Insurance.

4. Two Under-Secretaryships.

5. One of the Whips.

(B) The Labour members had criticised the taking over by the Government of the South Wales coalfields alone, and had advocated a similar treatment of all the coalfields in the country. Mr. Lloyd George had informed them that the late Government had regarded the taking over of the South Wales coalfields as a first step, to be extended to the rest of the country. He regarded this, accordingly, as settled policy.

(C) A similar feeling had been expressed in favour of the State control of shipping on analogous lines. Here no pledge had been given; but Mr. Lloyd George was disposed to favour that policy, and to recommend the appointment of a single Controller of Shipping, with executive authority, to replace Lord Curzon as Chairman of the Shipping Control Committee, but to continue to be assisted by the latter.

(D) Mr. Lloyd George had acquainted the Labour members with his general intentions as regards industrial conscription, and had read out to them the resolution on the subject passed by the recent War Committee. They had not refused assent to such a programme, but had asked that just as the enforcement of military compulsion had been preceded by a period under the Derby scheme of voluntary enrolment, with a time limit, so a similar procedure might be adopted in the present case.

It was understood that these were the only assurances that had been given by Mr. Lloyd George to the Labour representatives.

4. A prolonged discussion took place on the proposed constitution of the War Committee; and the various alternatives of a Cabinet identical with the War Committee, a Cabinet somewhat larger than the War Committee, but mainly composed of its members, and a Cabinet separate from the War Committee were examined. The general conclusions arrived at were as follows:—

(A) The War Committee and Cabinet would be identical, that is, there would be no Cabinet apart or distinct from the War Committee.

(B) The latter would consist of four permanent members, the Prime Minister and three Ministers without portfolios, or at least without heavy departmental duties, namely, Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Henderson, and Lord Curzon, who would sit daily to deal with the war. Mr. Bonar Law, in consequence of his duties as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons, could not be expected to attend regularly, but would have the right to be present whenever he desired, and would be kept informed of the proceedings.

(C) To their deliberations would be added, as the occasion required, Mr. Balfour as Foreign Secretary, Sir W. Robertson representing the War Office, and the First Lord of the Admiralty (for which place the Unionist members strongly pressed the claims of Lord Milner). Other Ministers and technical advisers would be summoned as required.

(D) The heads of the principal departments of State would continue to administer their departments, and would if the occasion arose—e.g., in the case of departmental disagreement—be called into consultation by the Prime Minister or the Leader of the House of Commons, whose functions it would be to decide.

(E) The new arrangement would relieve the Ministers not included in the small War Committee of Cabinet responsibility for the acts of Government. That responsibility would belong exclusively to the War Committee, which, as stated above, would be the Cabinet.

(F) Concerning other Ministerial appointments, Mr. Lloyd George explained that he proposed that Lord Derby should become Secretary of State for War, but without a seat on the War Committee, at which the War Office would be represented by Sir William Robertson; Mr. Long, Secretary of State for the Colonies; Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Robert Cecil, Sir F. E. Smith and Mr. Duke would retain their present positions. Sir Robert Finlay would become Lord Chancellor; Lord Curzon, President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords; Sir A. Stanley, President of the Board of Trade; Sir George Cave (failing a Liberal member of the recent Administration), Home Secretary; Dr. Addison (failing Mr. Montagu), Minister of Munitions; Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, President of the Board of Education; Mr. Gordon Hewart, Solicitor-General; Mr. S. H. Lever, Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

(G) In reply to other questions, Mr. Lloyd George stated that he had no intention of asking Mr. W. Churchill or Lord Northcliffe to join the Administration. The suggestion that Lord Rosebery should be invited to accept the office of Lord Privy Seal was unfavourably received by the Unionist ex-Ministers.

5. The question was raised as to the desirability of taking further powers for the suppression of the kind of Press attacks which had done so much to discredit and finally to bring about the downfall of the late Administration—on the lines advocated in the earlier days of the Coalition Government. Mr. Lloyd George thought it undesirable to announce any restriction of the Press in the earlier days of the new regime, but suggested that an inquiry should be made as to what is done in France.

6. Questions were asked as to the relations of Mr. Lloyd George with the Nationalist members, and whether any assurance had been given with regard to military compulsion for Ireland or a measure of Home Rule. Mr. Lloyd George believed that the Irish members were not unfriendly, but he had seen none of them, and had come under no obligation to them. No Minister joining the Government was being asked to join a Home Rule Administration. But it was obvious that no pledge could be given that Home Rule might not come on the tapis again at a later date.

7. As regards other controversial matters, such as the franchise, no Minister, whether on the War Committee or not, was committed in any way by joining the Government. The Prime Minister would explain that the Government had been constituted for war purposes only, and that would be, in all matters, the deciding consideration.

8. A question having been put as to the retention of Sir Douglas Haig as Commander-in-Chief in France, Mr. Lloyd George stated that he had no intention of proposing a change, if for no other reason, because there was no officer better qualified for the post.

9. After these explanations, the Unionist ex-members stated their willingness to accept office under Mr. Lloyd George, and the latter expressed his intention to inform the King without delay that he was now in a position definitely to accept the duty of forming an Administration.

A certain lurking distrust of the Prime Minister still seems to have animated the breasts of the Ministers who accepted the terms thus offered. It was Curzon who wished them reduced to writing and sent to Lloyd George for countersignature. He asked Bonar Law to send such a document along to the Prime Minister. Bonar Law refused brusquely—“Send it yourself.” By this remark he implied and meant that he was not a party to the arrangement come to between Lloyd George and his late enemies, and was not bound in any sense by the terms of the Memorandum propounded. It was strange that Curzon should ask him to act as his emissary to Lloyd George—particularly on an errand which implied distrust of the Prime Minister.

Lloyd George’s position was now absolutely secure after Thursday’s settlement with the Conservative ex-Ministers. He could count on the Tory Party almost to a man, since he had Bonar Law, Balfour, Carson, Long and the three C’s in his Ministry. He had promises of support from at least 130 Liberal members, and the majority Labour Party solid behind him. The opposition of the Wee Free Liberals and of the Pacifist Socialists was obviously doomed to futility.

He possessed, therefore, in the House of Commons more than a comfortable working majority, and if trouble arose he still held in reserve, with the King’s consent, the iron weapon of a dissolution. In the state of popular opinion and the obsolescence of the party machines it was not likely that his enemies would force him to the country.

The threat of dissolution was the rod which every Coalition War Government held in reserve against its opponents. They had only got to say unanimously and with one accord: “We desire the confidence of the country in order to prosecute the war to a victorious conclusion” in order to carry the whole nation with them. The critics would have been simply swept away and drowned by the force of the electoral current, providing both parties were united in the appeal to the constituencies.

It was under these circumstances that the silence which had fallen on Downing Street and Whitehall was at last broken and Bonar Law came to see me. Obviously he had not called until the settlement with the Conservative ex-Ministers had been arrived at. Only then would it be clear as to what offices were vacant.

Possibly it was as much as I was entitled to or fit for. But at any rate it did not appeal to me, for it had no relation to the conduct of the war, and I refused it.

I do not pretend that the estimate Lloyd George had obviously formed of my political abilities was not wounding to my self-esteem. I believed that I could do first-class work of an active administrative kind in the war. Obviously the new Premier was no longer of this opinion. And Bonar Law clearly did not believe in my powers sufficiently to intervene on my behalf. It was the work I wanted, not the office.

On the Saturday silence was broken from the War Office. Lloyd George called at the Hyde Park Hotel. Lord Rothermere was already there, too. When Lloyd George appeared he brought with him Bonar Law as a body-guard—so there were four of us.

Lloyd George broached the question of the appointment to the Board of Trade. He said that, rightly or wrongly, he had given Stanley ^[26] the post, and there was an end of it. He then offered me another and smaller place. I declined in fitting terms and decided to continue my task and duties as Canadian Government representative.

Immediately afterwards I received from him the following note offering to recommend me to the King for a Peerage.

I did not reply, but went down to the country instead. I was in an acute dilemma. I had informed my constituency that I had got a Government Office which I thought worth while. Now I had got nothing of the kind. If I went back there as an ordinary private member I should have placed myself in a position of extreme embarrassment. I had already telegraphed on Thursday to my wife to stop the campaign, and she came back on Friday. It seemed to me that a Peerage was the only way out of the difficulty, but I decided nothing for the moment.

Derby had come to see him. He naturally, and rightly, imagined that Bonar Law knew all about the offer of the peerage and had come to remonstrate from his own special point of view. I was, he said, a Lancashire member and that there were several other Lancashire members who thought they had prior claims to a peerage. They would be furious if precedence were given to me.

Bonar Law was completely taken by surprise by this opposition. He had immediately motored down to tell me that he was convinced that I should not go to the Upper House. He said he was most unwilling to see a peerage conferred on me as an intimate friend of his. It would be most embarrassing as a consequence of the crisis. I at once said that I would withdraw any claim I could possibly have. I withdrew as I had withdrawn from previous possible offices at his request. And I wrote Lloyd George that Sunday, December 10, 1916, a letter refusing the recommendation for a Peerage. Bonar Law carried this letter away with him to Lloyd George’s house at Walton Heath.

So on Sunday night I felt myself in a sense dis-Peered. The Peerage no doubt had been a phantom one—and now even the phantom had vanished.

Yet I was worried as to what sort of explanation I was going to make to my constituency. My ill-fated communication to Ashton-under-Lyne about accepting an office of profit under the Crown still weighed me down. However, I went to London on the Monday prepared to make the best of it.

On reaching the Hyde Park Hotel I found a letter from Bonar Law, saying, to my astonishment, that everything had been arranged and I must apply for the Chiltern Hundreds.

I went to Bonar Law and said: “What is it you want? Last night you asked me not to have my name submitted for a Peerage, and to-day you withdraw your objection.”

Bonar Law replied in effect: “I have too often stood in your way to suit my own convenience—I will not do so any longer. Besides, we want your seat at Ashton-under-Lyne for Stanley ^[27] and the Board of Trade.”

It will be seen that I was not altogether a willing Peer. I would much rather have stayed in the House of Commons with a suitable office. But I had been jockeyed, or had jockeyed myself, into a position in which I thought I had no choice. The Peerage was a way of escape. I took it. It would be absurd to deny that it was a very foolish way of escape.

I had by this time also attained to a more sensible view of things and recaptured a juster sense of political values. I saw now that the successful issue of the crisis had been due to the working of an immense number of forces. These forces had indeed been co-ordinated to a certain extent, but many of them had been working quite independently of any central direction. This undoubted fact reduced to real proportions my idea of the part I had taken in the transaction.

Yet, curiously enough, at that very moment the inner ring in politics started a myth about my activities which persists to this day. The chief authors of it were undoubtedly the defeated Liberal Ministers, and from their lips it rapidly spread outwards to the public at large.

It was said that I had managed Bonar Law, and then pulled wires and got hold of Lloyd George. In a word I was represented as the inspirer and architect of Asquith’s downfall. This view was epitomised by the “Morning Post” in the phrase “Bunty pulled the Strings.”

IN the actual event the Conservatives accepted a War Cabinet with greater authority than the one which had been proposed to Asquith and to their own conferences. On the other hand, the personnel and constitution was not that originally suggested by the Triumvirate. Lloyd George became Premier and Chairman of the War Cabinet. Bonar Law became Leader of the House of Commons and part-time member of the War Cabinet—thus fulfilling in effect the role reserved for Asquith under the compromise.

How Lord Curzon came into the War Cabinet has already been related. The remaining two places fell to Henderson and Milner, while Carson went to the Admiralty.

The Prime Minister hesitated almost to the last minute as to whether Milner should come into the War Council and Carson go to the Admiralty, or Milner take the Admiralty and Carson to the War Cabinet. Indeed, Milner actually got a notice to attend the first meeting of the War Cabinet an hour before he had been notified that he was to be a member of it.

Milner’s promotion was certainly the most startling. In the declining days of the Asquith Government he had received the seventh refusal of the food controllership. Having consulted his friends, he finally asked Lloyd George’s advice. Lloyd George strongly urged him to decline. I should imagine Lord Milner was as much surprised as anyone when his persistent neglect by consecutive Governments was crowned by the reward all politicians of the day coveted most.

Lord Curzon was in a position to congratulate himself. It is true that he had failed to overthrow Bonar Law and make himself the Tory leader. None the less, he had obtained a splendid office.

He was unselfish enough not to be content with his own promotion. He proposed to Bonar Law that the new Government should take in Lords Salisbury and Selborne—the most bitter antagonists of the new Prime Minister—and also Lord Midleton.

Bonar Law did not accept the suggestion, and these notables remained outside the Ministry.

Carson adopted the exact reverse of Lord Curzon’s attitude. The moment that Asquith’s fall was accomplished a kind of incuriousness seemed to descend upon him. He was like a man whose task is accomplished. He made no claim for himself. He gave up the War Council readily and took the Admiralty, which he really did not want. Nor did he make any claim for office on behalf of friends and allies in the House of Commons. A most grievous disappointment was thereby incurred by prominent members of the “Business Man’s Committee,” who had made certain at least of Under-Secretaryships when Asquith had been vanquished. And this feeling was not unreasonable. Once again it would appear that the Whigs were to have the best of it. All the smaller loaves and fishes were to go to Lloyd George Liberals, as in 1915, all the great posts in the Ministry had gone to Liberals without prefix.

I thought Carson carried this neutrality towards his old friends too far. Bonar Law did intervene on behalf of James Craig (Lord Craigavon), who seemed to me exactly the type of man who would be invaluable to his country in war time, and Craig did get office.

Carson’s only recommendation was a City Banker, a man who had never been in Parliament and had no political experience whatever, whom he seemed to think would make a good Financial Secretary of the Treasury. Most astonishing of all, his nominee was a Liberal!

But Carson’s mind was always filled with prejudice or free from it. This fact lends to his figure a real touch of historic interest. When he was in insurrection against a person or a Government the strength of his character was overpowering. He exhibited immense resource, he showed complete calmness in the face of risk and danger. His decisions seemed undeviating in their firmness. Here was a man, the onlooker was tempted to exclaim, fit to mount the throne of the Cæsars. Yet, the instant the opponent, Premier, or Ministerial system, was defeated and Carson reigned in their stead, with real powers of executive authority, an astonishing change came over his mentality. He became at once the orthodox Minister, trusted by his permanent officials and ready to defend their errors loyally. In counsel he showed indecisiveness or even weakness. He seemed to throw away in power every single quality which had given him his authority in opposition and placed him in the Government.

When Asquith objected originally to Carson’s inclusion in the War Council on the ground that he had shown no trace of executive ability in the Cabinet, Carson’s friends thought Asquith was merely prejudiced. When Lloyd George left him out of the War Council it appeared to be an act of folly. It shook the faith of inside observers in the new Premier’s capacity for judging men. It was said that he was promoting men of no real capacity at the expense of the proved and able.

Yet Asquith and Lloyd George were in essence right. Why? It would seem that Carson is by nature an insurrectionary. This part calls out all the great qualities of his mind. But reverse the roles and make him the Government instead of the rebel and something seems to dry up in his being. He changes back suddenly into a rather ordinary able lawyer-politician.

If the Conservatives had a voice on the appointments, they also had something to say about the exclusions. As will be seen from the Memorandum, they expressly insisted that the new Prime Minister should not give office either to Winston Churchill or Lord Northcliffe. Lord Northcliffe had taken the precaution of announcing publicly that in no circumstances would he serve.

Churchill was excluded. But Lloyd George at the time had no very high opinion of Churchill, believing that he had a leg in both camps and that Asquith was ready to give him the Admiralty back again should Lloyd George fail to form a Ministry. So, at least, he wrote in the following note, obviously tossed across the council table to Bonar Law:

No spur could have been more effective than this in strengthening Bonar Law in his decision to keep Lloyd George in and Asquith out.

All these matters being amicably settled, the principal posts in the Government were allotted, while the official Liberals, deserted by their allies and instigators, sat down to nurse, under a thin veil of moderation, an implacable policy of revenge.

The Ministry, with the exception of the minor appointments, was now formed, and the inclusion of a number of men with greater business than political experience met a strong popular demand.

I propose to close my narrative at this point somewhat abruptly. The formation of the Ministry was assured. The appointments to subordinate offices are probably due to much the same causes in all Ministries, and are matters of private rather than of public concern. Generally speaking the Tories who had supported Carson and Lloyd George received inadequate recognition. This was a serious matter for the younger Tories, as they were mostly men of middle age whose party had been ten years out of office. On the other hand, the Liberals who were ready to serve received ready acceptance at the hands of the Prime Minister. This was natural, because it was the essence of the new policy to form a Ministry which would be national in appearance as well as in reality. But if these Liberal members had obtained an advantage, they were also exposing themselves to a greater danger. The refusal of the Liberal members of the ex-Cabinet to join the Government indicated in no uncertain manner that Liberals who accepted office must run great risks in a political future—after the war—into which no one could peer with certainty. Of the minor appointments, that of Neil Primrose as a Government Whip was the most significant, for it showed that some of the old Whigs were prepared to join with the Radicals, the Tories, and the Labour members against the new Whig leaders.

In this crisis the difference of opinion bore no relation to party politics. Every party was divided against itself. The Labour Party had to subdue its peace cranks. The forward and backward wings of the two great parties fought each other unceasingly. The divergence was in the main not one of domestic principle, but of temperament, and methods and men chose their sides accordingly. As to who was right and who was wrong time alone can shew, history alone can judge.

For, indeed, a just survey of the matters at issue would cover the whole field of Europe, and would be concerned with military problems of which the ordinary civilian is no more a competent judge than the average military man. We should be concerned immediately with questions about the attitude of our Allies, the disposition of our forces, and many other problems so intricate that they might be argued for years and never be decided.

A friend of Mr. Asquith’s has given a picture of him on the critical day of his failure. “He was sitting at the large table in the Cabinet room; his back was to the fire. He looked a very lonely figure and a tired man. He had a quiet and severe expression. . . . My impression was that Mr. Asquith was quite convinced that Mr. Lloyd George could not form a stable Government. Mr. Asquith was evidently not in touch with public opinion, and had only prejudiced sources of information in this case. He complained of the Press attacks, but he never took any account of the Press himself. He maintained a curious aloofness, and regarded newspapers as not being of much account. He took no pains either through himself or his secretaries to keep in touch with newspapers which were his supporters. He was at some trouble to keep them at arm’s length, and they had to support him in the dark.” The observer was, in effect, witnessing the twilight of the old regime while the new man strode on to the stage to measure himself with Chatham.

But it would be a mistake to suppose that it was a triumphant Lloyd George who entered the portals of No. 10, Downing Street. I called on him at the moment when he was taking over the Prime Minister’s premises. The battle had left its scars. Lloyd George had shown immense courage and supreme calmness at the critical moments of danger, and he had to suffer the reaction. Forming his Cabinet had really been a terrible business. He had to go to Balfour, whom, for months, he had been trying to drive out of the Admiralty, and, really, it seemed that his political existence had depended for a moment on Balfour’s nod. He had to make a private deal with Curzon, who had been his arch-enemy in the whole affair. He had to go to Tories like Walter Long to be repulsed, and to his old Liberal friends like Samuel, who turned him down. At the last moment Montagu, his one ally, would not face the obloquy of joining his Government. And then, after what had happened, was any war administration to be considered stable?

Had not the very rapidity with which Asquith, at one moment supremely confident and at the next at the very depth of impotence, shown how brittle a thing was a Premiership in time of war?

There would not be, of course, much truth or justice in these reflections. They are the thoughts of a tired man whose stock of energy, vast as it is, has become exhausted.

And then there is the Press. Cannot the Press pull down the Government without offering to rebuild?

There was Northcliffe, for instance, in the background. The Northcliffe Press had supported him, it was true. But only because they meant the same thing for the present, not because they meant the same thing all the time. What power there was here of persistent detraction with no adequate opportunity of counter attack! Perhaps his new Tory colleagues had been right after all in saying that the power of the Press ought to be curbed. Fleet Street would be attacking him next.

His prophetic vision might have foreseen a headline in the Northcliffe Press two days afterwards—“Bad Balfour Rumour”—which heralded a series of critical attacks on the new administration.

In a moment Lloyd George is his own man again. If they can’t be squared they shall be squashed! His courage returns. His patriotism calls for the last ounce of his ability. His temperament responds as ever to the spur of danger. The nerve-weary despondent man vanishes.

In his place comes the man who is to advance by degree after degree from a position of preliminary weakness to one of supreme power. He is to be the idol of the nation, the Premier under whose ægis Germany was overthrown and the Empire saved. He is to attain an authority greater than that held by any British Prime Minister in history. For six years his smile means promotion and his frown banishment from office. He will dictate to Europe, fling out a great dynasty with a gesture, and parcel out the frontiers of races.

Everything is in his hands, and those hands will show that they have the power to use everything.

There, in this entry of his new day of glory, with the faded pictures of his predecessors on the walls around him, sits David Lloyd George, Premier of Great Britain.

Antwerp, Winston Churchill, 26

Army generals and civilian authorities, 34

Army leaders and political leaders, 36, 37

Ashfield (Lord), appointed President of Board of Trade in 1916, 291, 305

Asquith, his opinion of the Lansdowne Memorandum of 1916, 21;

downfall of administration in December 1916, and Liberal opinion at that date, 21;

relations with Bonar Law, Curzon, and Lloyd George in 1916, 23;

general attitude during the war, 24;

support of Crewe, Curzon, Lansdowne, etc., in 1916, 24;

unity in the nation but not in the Cabinet, 25;

relations with Churchill, 26;

attitude towards the Dunkirk affair, 31;

views differ from Churchill’s, 32;

relations with the generals, 34;

attacked by Sir Henry Wilson, 34;

disturbed by military intrigue, 35;

attitude towards the Higher Command, 35;

administration weakened by Conscription, 44;

invokes Lord Derby’s aid in army recruiting, 47;

the Amending Bill in 1916, 79;

strength in the Coalition Government, 85;

threat of dissolution, 107;

Conservative majority of ministers advise him to resign, 215;

he and the Lloyd George revolt, 225;

they come to terms, 228;

important official letter to Lloyd George, 259;

receives reply to it, 262;

further letters between them, 268-271;

his resignation, 280;

refuses to serve under either Bonar Law or Balfour, 286;

refuses to join Bonar Law’s Government, December, 1916, 295;

states his opinion candidly when Lloyd George is commissioned to form a government (1916), 299;

as pictured by a friend on the critical day in December, 1916, 340

Balfour (Lord), accepts Foreign Office under Lloyd George in 1916, 300

Beaverbrook, in France as Canadian military representative, 39;

his first contest in Lancashire, 48;

efforts to protect meat and wheat (home and empire), 48;

first meeting with Bonar Law in 1908, 56;

intimate acquaintance with him in 1910 and from then on, 57;

personal impression of Bonar Law, 61;

refuses office in 1915, 61;

Churchill expresses views, 62;

discussion with Lloyd George in 1916, 118;

sees Sir R. Brade, 124;

draws up memorandum for the triumvirate of 1916, 145;

argues with Birkenhead, 159;

the crisis in December, 1916—relations with Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Asquith, etc., 208 et seq.;

thinks that Lloyd George inspired the article in Reynolds’s newspaper, 220;

offers of office, 289;

Lloyd George omits him from his Ministry, 303;

offered a peerage, 328;

accepts it, 331

Belgians, effect of the “Dunkirk Circus,” 28

Birkenhead (Lord), his arrest in France in 1916, 38 et seq.;

Nigerian debate, 92;

he attacks Beaverbrook, 159;

the situation after Asquith’s resignation is discussed at Birkenhead’s house, 287

Birrell, A., 62

Bonar Law, his real part in the war, 16;

attitude changing, 25;

upset by Birkenhead’s arrest in France, 42;

letter from Churchill about this, 42;

relations with Lloyd George in 1916, 52;

retention of Conservative leadership in 1916, 53;

evacuation of Gallipoli, 53;

eldest son at the front, 54;

loses second son in Palestine, 54;

his daughter Isabel (Lady Sykes), 55;

first meeting with Beaverbrook in 1908, 56;

intimate acquaintance with him in 1910, 57;

personal notes, 57-59;

retirement in 1921, 60;

his personal impression on Beaverbrook, 61;

letter from Joynson Hicks, 68;

relations with Balfour in 1916, 69;

his standing at beginning and end of 1916 in regard to the Irish question, 70;

episode in the House (re Churchill), 79;

relations with his party during Coalition Government, 86;

he and Carson disagree, 87;

personality and habits, 89;

Carson’s attitude towards him, 91;

Beaverbrook advises him to resign, 93;

discussion with Churchill, 105;

threat of dissolution—and its results, 107;

one of the triumvirate of November, 1916, 138;

relations with Asquith at this period, 149;

letter from Asquith, 153;

mediates between Asquith and Lloyd George, 156;

Carson and Gwynne, 157;

important meeting in November, 1916, 160;

meets with opposition, 162;

letters from Walter H. Long and Lord Lansdowne, 166-168;

his final decision in December, 1916, 202;

critical position, 209;

resolution passed at meeting of Conservative ministers in December, 1916, 211;

his decision in the matter, 214;

crisis discussed, 217-220;

meets Lord Derby, Lloyd George, and Carson, 258;

important interview with Walter Long, 277;

sent for by the King, on Asquith’s resignation, 282;

offers to recommend Lloyd George for the Premiership, 283;

sees the King and then Asquith, 285;

on Balfour’s acceptance of Foreign Office in 1916, 301;

collaborates with Lloyd George in forming the Ministry—Asquith is surprised, 302

Brade, Sir Reginald, plays an important part, 124

Buckingham Palace Conference in December, 1916—Balfour, Law, Asquith, etc., 293

Buckmaster—position in December, 1916, 296

“Business Man’s Committee,” 335

Cabinet in autumn of 1916: opinions as to its views, 18;

lack of unity, 25;

its tendency to “group,” 82;

trouble arises, 82, 99;

Liberal wing, 99

Carson, his views as to Asquith Government and its peace negotiations, 18;

resigns in 1916, 25;

in favour of conscription, 46;

resigns from Ministry, 53;

he and Bonar Law disagree, 87;

attitude during Nigerian debate, 91-96;

the Home Rule Crisis, 97;

fall of first Coalition Government, 98;

attitude towards Asquith Government in autumn of 1916, 173;

important period, 206;

his attitude in December, 1916, 335

Cecil, Lord Robert (see Three C.’s)

Chamberlain, Austen (see Three C.’s)

Churchill, attitude in 1916, 26;

relations with Asquith, 26;

Antwerp affair, 26;

“Dunkirk Circus,” 26-28;

differs with Asquith and retires from Admiralty, 31-33;

arrest of Birkenhead in France, 42;

views on conscription, 44;

views and appraisal of Beaverbrook in 1923, 62;

leaves Ministry and goes to the front, 1916, 74;

Asquith’s attitude not helpful, 75;

services not duly recognised and utilised in France, 75;

prospects hampered by Lloyd George and Bonar Law, 76;

letter to Beaverbrook, and return home, 77;

Bonar Law episode in the House, 1916, 79;

interest in painting, 81;

Nigerian debate, 102-107;

his position after Asquith’s resignation, 288;

not to be asked to join Lloyd George War Committee, 324

Civilian authority and Army Generals, 34

Civilians and soldiers, popular opinion as to their relative status, 36

Coalition Government, diversity of opinion as to its fall, 17;

its unpopularity, 85;

its fall, 98

Conservative “ginger group,” 68, 86;

favours Carson and Asquith in the critical 1916 period, 210

Conservatives, attitude in December, 1916, 210;

they meet and pass a resolution, 211;

Bonar Law’s attitude, 213;

advice to Asquith to resign, 215;

the 1916 Conference, 227;

favour a Lloyd George-Bonar Law regime in December, 1916, 298;

Lloyd George War Cabinet in December, 1916, 315-318;

War Committee, 320 et seq.

Conscription, views and attitude of Harcourt, Runciman, Churchill, Lloyd George, Simon, Grey, Carson, McKenna, and Lord Derby, 44-49;

Asquith’s Coalition Government, 44;

proceedings in the Cabinet, 46

Craig, James (Lord Craigavon), 336

Curzon (Lord), his support of, and belief in, Asquith in 1916, 19;

his views regarding the settlement of the Irish question in 1916, 69;

leader of the dissidents in December, 1916, 280;

joins Lloyd George, 318;

achieves success, 333 (see Three C.’s)

Daily Express, 67;

the Irish question in 1916, 69;

reports the War Government progress, 197

Dalziel, Lord, 221

Dawson, Editor of The Times, 243

Derby (Lord), Asquith sends for him in 1915—his scheme for army recruiting, 47;

influence in Lancashire, 48;

his recruiting scheme a preliminary to conscription, 49;

appointed Under-Secretary of War, 49;

a possible Premier in 1915, 50;

his general popularity, 50;

how viewed by Whitehall, 50;

consistently loyal to Conservative party, 51

Dunkirk: Asquith and the “Dunkirk Circus,” 26-28;

Churchill’s action in the matter, 26, 27;

nature of army landed there, and its intended effect on Belgians and Germans, 29;

Asquith’s views and attitude, 30, 31;

French and Kitchener, 31;

divergence of Asquith and Churchill, 32

French (General) and the shell agitation, 34;

his retirement, 35

G.H.Q. in France, 40

Grey, Sir Edward, views on conscription, 44

Gwynne (of Morning Post), 83;

relations with Bonar Law, 197

Haig (General), 35;

arrest of Birkenhead in France, 43

Henderson, Arthur, 256;

his position in December, 1916, 296;

Lloyd George Government, 310;

joins War Committee under Lloyd George in December, 1916, 320

Irish Crisis, Dublin rebellion in 1916, 63;

Lloyd George and the crisis, 63, 64;

the general Tory attitude, 64;

failure of compromise between Unionist Ulster and Nationalist Ireland, 64;

Bonar Law and Lord St. Audries, 64, 65;

Tory sentiment towards Bonar Law, 64;

Balfour, Long, the Cecils, Redmond, Lord Lansdowne, Joynson Hicks, Lloyd George, Lord Midleton, 67, 68;

Daily Express, 67;

Bonar Law at end of 1916, 70

Jackson (Admiral) in Dunkirk, 30

Kitchener (Lord), mission to Russia in 1915, 116, 117

Labour, its attitude towards Asquith and Lloyd George, 179;

members of Labour party see Lloyd George when made Premier, 307

Lansdowne, his peace memorandum of 1916 and its effect on the Cabinet, 19;

his letter to the Press in November, 1916, 20;

attitude in November, 1916, and letter to Bonar Law, 168;

his desire for “peace by negotiation,” 172;

the “Three C.’s,” 173;

how regarded by certain Liberal Cabinet Ministers, 175

Lee (Lord) of Fareham, 199

Lloyd George, attitude in 1916, 25;

succeeds Churchill in Admiralty after Dunkirk affair, 33;

views on conscription, 44;

Irish crisis, 63;

as generally regarded in 1916, 72;

general belief in him grows, 73;

disagreement with McKenna, 73;

during Nigerian debate, 100;

dissatisfaction with Asquith’s administration, 113;

proposed relief of Roumania, 113;

bound by Kitchener-Robertson agreement, 114;

War Committee not a success, 114;

attitude towards Robertson, 115;

mission of Kitchener to Russia—and Robertson’s attitude, 116, 117;

discussion with Beaverbrook, 118;

letter to Robertson re the Balkans, 118;

complains of War Committee procedure, 121-123;

Northcliffe’s threat, 121;

relations with Northcliffe later on, 198;

important decision for Lloyd George and Bonar Law, 203;

calls in Lord Derby, 204;

the article in Reynolds’s newspaper, 220;

he and Asquith come to terms, 228;

obtains official control of the war, 234;

his terms objected to by several Liberal Ministers, 237;

The Times leading article, 242-245;

letter from Asquith re Times article, 252;

he replies to Asquith and repudiates the article, 254;

Lord Derby agrees, 254;

important official letter from Asquith, 259;

his reply to it, 262;

his position now not a very strong one, 266;

attitude of the various newspapers, 266;

further letters between him and Asquith, 268-271;

he and Bonar Law after Asquith’s resignation, 283;

feeling towards Balfour at the Admiralty, 292;

told by the King to form an administration (December, 1916), 298;

able address to Labour deputation on his attaining the Premiership, 307;

attitude of Ramsay MacDonald, Snowden, Sidney Webb, and J. H. Thomas, 312;

overtures to Conservative members of late government, 313;

Walter Long refuses, but finally joins the War Cabinet, 315;

so also do Curzon, Cecil, and Austen Chamberlain, 315;

interview with certain Conservative ex-Ministers in December, 1916, 318;

now sure of Conservative support, 326;

opposition of Wee Free Liberals and Pacifist Socialists, 326;

final invitation to Northcliffe and its refusal, 342;

he (Ll. G.) now takes things firmly in hand and goes forward, 343

Long, Walter, his important interview with Bonar Law, 277;

relations with Lloyd George in December, 1916, 315-318

MacDonald, J. Ramsay, expresses his opinions in regard to Lloyd George’s Premiership, 310

Macready, Sir Nevil (General), arrest of Birkenhead in France, 39, 41

McKenna and conscription, 44;

relations with Lloyd George, 73;

peace negotiations, 176;

government crisis in 1916, 238;

position in December, 1916, 296

Midleton (Lord) and the Irish crisis, 68

Milner (Lord) joins Lloyd George Government of 1916, 332

Montagu (Minister of Munitions) sees Asquith in December, 1916, 230;

his account of the political position, 232;

he, Asquith, and Lloyd George, 235;

his disappointment in December, 1916, 296

Murray, Sir A., 35

Negotiations in late part of 1916: Beaverbrook sees Lloyd George, 126;

Bonar Law and Lloyd George, 127;

Asquith and Lord Curzon, 129;

Bonar Law’s attitude, 130;

Lloyd George goes to France, 133;

Beaverbrook sees Law and others, 134;

Wilson dislikes Asquith and Lloyd George, 135;

Beaverbrook aids greatly in arranging a conference, 135-137

New Zealand contingent in Dunkirk, 30

Nigerian debate, its introduction, 87;

causes dissension in the Cabinet, 88;

Birkenhead, Bonar Law, Leslie Scott, etc., 91, 92;

Carson’s attitude during the debate, 91-96;

division on the question, 100;

Lloyd George’s attitude, 100;

Birkenhead and Churchill at variance, 101;

Law and Beaverbrook in discussion, 103

Northcliffe (Lord): he and Lloyd George, 121;

Beaverbrook’s faith in him, 158;

interviews and attitude in 1916, 199;

unable to co-operate with Lloyd George, 201;

not to be asked to join Lloyd George War Committee, 320;

refuses definite overtures from Lloyd George, 342

Ostend and the “Dunkirk Circus,” 28;

Churchill’s action, 28, 29;

General Seeley, 30

Peace-suggestion Crisis, December 1916, 21

Political leaders and army leaders, 36, 37

Press favours the generals, 38

Robertson, Sir W. (Field Marshal), 35;

relations with Lloyd George, 115;

Kitchener’s mission to Russia in 1915, 116, 117;

Robertson’s refusal to go to Russia in 1916, 117;

the Balkans, 118

Seeley (General) in Dunkirk, 30

Shell agitation and General French, 34

Simon, Sir John, views on conscription, 45

Snowden, Philip, 311

St. Audries (Lord) and the Irish crisis, 64, 65

St. Omer, 37

Sykes (General), 55

Thomas, J. H., joins Lloyd George Government, 310

Three C.’s (Cecil, Chamberlain, and Curzon), 173, 225, 239, 279;

with Lloyd George, 315-318

The Times article, 243

Triumvirate (Bonar Law, Lloyd George and Asquith) in late part of 1916;

meetings and discussions, 138;

Robert Donald, 143;

meeting of Lloyd George, Law, Carson, and Beaverbrook, 144;

memorandum drafted by Beaverbrook, 145;

divergence of views re memorandum, 148;

meeting in December, 1916, 292

War Cabinet in Lloyd George Government, 314

War Committee, a failure at first, 114;

formation and activities in December, 1916, 321 et seq.

War Council in December of 1916;

important meeting of Conservative Ministers, 272;

letter from Lord Balfour to Asquith, 273;

reply thereto, 274;

decisions of the conference, 276

Webb, Sidney, 311

Wilson, Sir H. (General), at variance with Asquith, 34;

attacks Sir A. Murray, 35

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

[The end of Politicians and the War 1914-1916 Vol. II, by Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook.]

CONTENTS

	Introduction	13
I.	The Dunkirk Circus	23
II.	Men like Gods	34
III.	Derby	44
IV.	Bonar Law	52
V.	Ireland again	63
VI.	Churchill down	72
VII.	The Nigerian Debate	85
VIII.	Trouble in the Cabinet	99
IX.	Lloyd George at the War Office	110
X.	Negotiations Opened	126
XI.	The Meetings of the Triumvirate	138
XII.	Bonar Law and Asquith	149
XIII.	Conservative Opposition	160
XIV.	Lloyd George forces the Crisis	183
XV.	The Press and the Crisis	194
XVI.	“The Life of the Country”	202
XVII.	The Storm	208
XVIII.	The Interview	223
XIX.	The Hurricane	235
XX.	The Parting	258
XXI.	The Court-Martial	272
XXII.	Choosing a Prime Minister	281
XXIII.	Forming the Administration	292
XXIV.	The Fruits of Success	300
XXV.	The Tories Come In	313
XXVI.	Loaves and Fishes Offices	332
	Index	344

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I
THE DUNKIRK CIRCUS

CHAPTER II
MEN LIKE GODS

CHAPTER III
DERBY

CHAPTER IV
BONAR LAW

CHAPTER V
IRELAND AGAIN

CHAPTER VI
CHURCHILL DOWN

CHAPTER VII
THE NIGERIAN DEBATE

CHAPTER VIII
TROUBLE IN THE CABINET

CHAPTER IX
LLOYD GEORGE AT THE WAR OFFICE

CHAPTER X
NEGOTIATIONS OPENED

CHAPTER XI
THE MEETINGS OF THE TRIUMVIRATE

CHAPTER XII
BONAR LAW AND ASQUITH

CHAPTER XIII
CONSERVATIVE OPPOSITION

CHAPTER XIV
LLOYD GEORGE FORCES THE CRISIS

CHAPTER XV
THE PRESS AND THE CRISIS

CHAPTER XVI
“THE LIFE OF THE COUNTRY”

CHAPTER XVII
THE STORM

CHAPTER XVIII
THE INTERVIEW

CHAPTER XIX
THE HURRICANE

CHAPTER XX
THE PARTING

CHAPTER XXI
THE COURT-MARTIAL

CHAPTER XXII
CHOOSING A PRIME MINISTER

CHAPTER XXIII
FORMING THE ADMINISTRATION

CHAPTER XXIV
THE FRUITS OF SUCCESS

CHAPTER XXV
THE TORIES COME IN

CHAPTER XXVI
LOAVES AND FISHES OFFICES

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I THE DUNKIRK CIRCUS

CHAPTER II MEN LIKE GODS

CHAPTER III DERBY

CHAPTER IV BONAR LAW

CHAPTER V IRELAND AGAIN

CHAPTER VI CHURCHILL DOWN

CHAPTER VII THE NIGERIAN DEBATE

CHAPTER VIII TROUBLE IN THE CABINET

CHAPTER IX LLOYD GEORGE AT THE WAR OFFICE

CHAPTER X NEGOTIATIONS OPENED

CHAPTER XI THE MEETINGS OF THE TRIUMVIRATE

CHAPTER XII BONAR LAW AND ASQUITH

CHAPTER XIII CONSERVATIVE OPPOSITION

CHAPTER XIV LLOYD GEORGE FORCES THE CRISIS

CHAPTER XV THE PRESS AND THE CRISIS

CHAPTER XVI “THE LIFE OF THE COUNTRY”

CHAPTER XVII THE STORM

CHAPTER XVIII THE INTERVIEW

CHAPTER XIX THE HURRICANE

CHAPTER XX THE PARTING

CHAPTER XXI THE COURT-MARTIAL

CHAPTER XXII CHOOSING A PRIME MINISTER

CHAPTER XXIII FORMING THE ADMINISTRATION

CHAPTER XXIV THE FRUITS OF SUCCESS

CHAPTER XXV THE TORIES COME IN

CHAPTER XXVI LOAVES AND FISHES OFFICES