CHAPTER XVI

[64]On Sunday, August 26th, 1917, at Athens, M. Venizelos revealed the details of an earlier entente between Greece and the Allies, planned by him before the battle of the Marne. It was frustrated by King Constantine. The Greek White Paper since published fully confirms this.

[65]These were the main points. The actual conditions were very complex:(a) That England should endeavour to bring about the collaboration of Bulgaria with Greece, in which case Greece would withdraw her opposition to Serbia ceding part of Macedonia to Bulgaria.(b) If this condition could not be obtained, then the Powers should obtain the co-operation of Rumania, and the neutrality of Bulgaria.(c) If not, then Greece must be assisted by a substantial British contingent, or a joint British and French contingent.

[65]These were the main points. The actual conditions were very complex:

(a) That England should endeavour to bring about the collaboration of Bulgaria with Greece, in which case Greece would withdraw her opposition to Serbia ceding part of Macedonia to Bulgaria.(b) If this condition could not be obtained, then the Powers should obtain the co-operation of Rumania, and the neutrality of Bulgaria.(c) If not, then Greece must be assisted by a substantial British contingent, or a joint British and French contingent.

(a) That England should endeavour to bring about the collaboration of Bulgaria with Greece, in which case Greece would withdraw her opposition to Serbia ceding part of Macedonia to Bulgaria.

(b) If this condition could not be obtained, then the Powers should obtain the co-operation of Rumania, and the neutrality of Bulgaria.

[66]This suggestion actually came from Sir John Stavridi, the Greek Consul-General.

[67]See the Dardanelles Reportpassim, 1917, Cd. 8490.

[68]See Dardanelles Commission First Report, p. 39. “It can scarcely be doubted that, had it not been for the Dardanelles Expedition, Bulgaria would have joined the Central Powers at a far earlier date than was actually the case. Mr. Asquith was strongly of this opinion in the extracts quoted from his evidence. ‘Yes, I am certain of it,’ he said to the Chairman.’ ” (Page 40.)

[69]The Greek White Book has revealed that an understanding existed between Bulgaria, the Central Powers, and Turkey ever since August, 1914.

[70]Extract from his evidence in the Dardanelles Report.

[71]The treachery revealed by the Greek White Paper has since shown the wisdom of this attitude. King Constantine, it is now known, was in close and constant communication with the German Emperor.

CHAPTER XVI

“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”—Abraham Lincoln, 1863.

Mr. Lloyd Georgenow turned from the disappointments and tragedies of the Near East to look more closely into the situation at home.

The opening of 1915 was a season of hope in Great Britain. The great effort to force the Dardanelles filled the public mind with visions. That attempt was then most lyrically applauded by those who afterwards rushed to denounce it. The whole outlook was magically irradiated with the mirage of that golden promise.

Here was a quick cure for all our troubles.

Men dreamt of a speedy blow that would cut off the Central Powers from Turkey, and open to Russia an easy door to the West.

They thought little at that moment, and knew less, of the blows which Germany was preparing for Russia.

The story of the Dardanelles expedition has been fully told.[72]We all know the origin and history of that expedition, and can apportion with some fairness the proper spheres of blame and praise. Mr. LloydGeorge took little active personal part in the planning and preparations for it, though he was a member of the War Council, and later in June, became a member of the Dardanelles Committee.[73]His own proposal had been frustrated by events. Here was an alternative, hatched by other brains, inspired by other hopes. It was a serious thing to oppose it outright. His attitude from the beginning was one of suspended judgment.

“Whatever you do, do thoroughly; if you do it at all, put your full strength into it”—that may be summed up as his constantly reiterated counsel in regard to the Dardanelles.

If this advice had been adopted perhaps even that ill-starred enterprise might have met with better fortune.

But meanwhile, on other fields of war a situation was developing even more menacing to Europe as a whole. The great Teutonic attack on Russia began to develop with terrible success in the early spring; and Mr. Lloyd George took from the first a most serious view of this tremendous onslaught.

In the middle of February vast new armies of Germans, prepared in the winter, advanced to the invasion of Courland, Poland, and Galicia. The Russian armies still in Eastern Prussia had been speedily driven back across the frontier in wholesale defeat; and the northern German armies began to advance on to Russian soil. In the centre of Eastern Europe the Germans advanced victoriously to within fifty miles of Warsawbefore they met with a serious check. In the south the Austrians drove the Russians from Bukovina. The whole German-Austrian line was advanced throughout the length of Europe, from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains; and the hosts of the Central Empires were preparing for that great dramatic thrust which in May drove the Russians clean out of Galicia.

Such was the situation which British statesmen had now to face. It was impossible to regard it with indifference.

Mr. Lloyd George refused to be deceived by any rosy hopes either in East or West. His own view was that a firm grasp of reality was the first step to success. Unless they looked facts in the face, they could not grapple with them.

He came to be regarded as the Cassandra of the war; but, as Lord Morley once remarked, the worst thing about Cassandra was that she proved to be in the right!

Surveying the prospects of the great war in Europe as a whole, Mr. Lloyd George was seriously concerned about several vital matters.

The most important of these was that, comparing the available military man-power on both sides in this great contest, the Entente Allies were at that moment hopelessly outnumbered.

Germany and Austria at that moment had under arms or preparing to be armed—according to the intelligence supplied to the Government—no less than 8,700,000 men. Turkey had 500,000; she was soon, indeed, to supply a far greater number of her population as mercenaries to Germany.

On the other hand were France, Great Britain, Russia, and Serbia. Italy had not yet come into the war; and America was still afar off. The trouble with Russia was that, though she had such an immense population, she had many exemptions and few rifles. France was always doing her very best; but her census figures spoke for themselves. Great Britain was doing wonders with her voluntary system. But the question now for the first time faced him full front—Would our voluntary system suffice to keep up our armies, much less to supply the still greater armies that might be required for victory?

He still, at that moment, clung to the voluntary system. He thought that the necessary men could be still obtained by the voluntary system if it were properly applied. His own idea at that moment was that the best method of obtaining these men along voluntary lines was to follow the quota system. He was in favour of letting each county and town know clearly what was the proper proportion of men for them to supply for the national need, and then to leave the rest to local pressure and local patriotism. He firmly believed that if, for instance, it was officially announced that a particular county ought to supply, say, 10,000 men, and if that county had hitherto supplied 6,000, the remaining 4,000 would be forced to come in by the strength of local pride.

That scheme was never really tried. For some reason or other, there were forces at work against the territorial system of recruiting ever since the beginning of the war; and thus one of the greatest springs of national energy remained untapped.

It was also his opinion that at that time the Dominionswould send far larger forces of men if they were fully informed about the real facts of the situation, instead of being fed by news from agencies whose chief motive seemed to be to feed the popular vanity. That sensible policy was afterwards so strongly urged by Dominion statesmen that it was to some small extent adopted.

Such were broadly Mr. Lloyd George’s views and feelings in February, 1915. He was still leaning to the Eastern field of war and looking out anxiously for any chance of resuming his Eastern plan if Greece should become more friendly or Bulgaria repent of her Teutonic affections. But in the British scheme of war the plan of breaking through in the West had now resumed its hold on military minds; and in March the new armies made their first great attempt in the attack known as the battle of Neuve Chapelle. The valour and heroism of our troops in that splendid effort broke against the tangled defences of the German hosts; and in April and March our armies were once more fighting for their bare existence in the second battle of Ypres. In May came Dunajec, the smashing climax to the onslaught of the Germans on the Russians in Galicia.

Tremendously occupied as he was through the spring and summer with the great national effort to supply our armies with adequate munitions, Mr. Lloyd George was never blind or indifferent to the general trend of what followed.

Events began to succeed one another with fearful rapidity. In May and June the Russians were cleared out of Galicia. Then began that great rush forward of the central German armies which swept over fortressafter fortress “like castles of sand,” and submerged all the fairest towns of Western Central Russia.[74]

To these disasters there were, indeed, compensations in other fields of war. On May 23rd Italy declared war against Austria. In July Botha conquered South-West Africa. In the West the British and French troops still held on against the overwhelming forces of Germany attempting to snatch the Channel coast with every devilish device of gas and flame.

But, on the whole, the balance was against the Allies. The fact that stared Mr. Lloyd George in the face, wherever he looked at the fields of war, was that the Allied armies were outnumbered by the stupendous and unexpected man-power of Central Europe.

It was this fact that led him in this autumn to give to the public the first intimation that he, hitherto a convinced voluntaryist, was now being converted, against his will, to compulsory military service. The intimation was given in the preface written to a collection of his early war speeches.[75]

In the burning words of that remarkable address to the nation he communicated the views which he had slowly formed from a close and prolonged study of the facts throughout the summer:

“I know what we are doing: our exertions are undoubtedly immense. But can we do more, either in men or material? Nothing but our best and utmost can pull us through. Are we nowstraining every nerve to make up for lost time? Are we getting all the men we shall want to put into the fighting line next year to enable us even to hold our own? Does every man who can help, whether by fighting or by providing material, understand clearly that ruin awaits remissness?”

Then came the dramatic climax:

“If the nation hesitates, when the need is clear, to take the necessary steps to call forth its manhood to defend honour and existence; if vital decisions are postponed until too late; if we neglect to make ready for all probable eventualities; if, in fact, we give ground for the accusation that we are slouching into disaster as if we were walking along the ordinary paths of peace without an enemy in sight—then I can see no hope. But if we sacrifice all we own, and all we like for our native land; if our preparations are characterised by grip, resolution, and a prompt readiness in every sphere—then victory is assured.”

The meaning of this appeal was obvious. “To call forth its manhood,” could only mean conscription for the war; and it was to that policy, indeed, that Mr. Lloyd George had been driven by what seemed to him the inevitable logic of the terrible events in the fields of war. In no other way, indeed, did he think that the effort could be sustained.

There was no man who had thrown himself more vigorously into the volunteer recruiting campaign; there was no man who had more sincerely believed in it. Hisspeech to the young men at the City Temple on November 10th, 1914, is a splendid expression of that appeal. It is still the best attempt to argue with that extreme pacifist spirit which he has always treated with respect—with that imaginative sympathy which understands while it condemns.[76]

But now he had come—reluctantly but irrevocably—with the terrible honesty of a man up against facts—to the conclusion that the voluntary system would not suffice against this tornado. “You cannot haggle with an earthquake.” Here was a thing that transcended all theories—a convulsion of nature itself.

Having reached this conclusion, he never veered. He stood by silent through all the experiments of those days—the “Derby scheme,” the quarrel between the married and the single, the “starring” and “unstarring”—until slowly the whole of the Ministry swung round to his point of view. Assailed by old friends with a hurricane of abuse—maligned and misinterpreted by men who season peace with venom—he yet held on steadily to his view. There are many things one has to dare and endure for country and fatherland. Perhaps the hardest thing of all in this country is to profess a change of opinion.

“They say—let them say.” He paid little attention to these assaults. More terrible things were absorbing his attention.

The failure of the purely naval attack on the Dardanelles on March 18th (1915) had been followed by the military preparations and landing on April 25th,and the subsequent great military offensive on the heights of Gallipoli. By the end of July that offensive had failed. At this point in the development of events—at the end of July—Mr. Lloyd George now definitely again urged on his colleagues in the Government to consider once more the plan of going to the assistance of Serbia as alternative to going further forward with the Gallipoli attack. At this time he was very busy with his munition campaign in the country. But on the few occasions when he was able to take part in the deliberations of the Dardanelles Committee his attitude always was—the Germans are going to break through Serbia as soon as they can; so either make certain of getting to Constantinople quickly, or consider whether you ought not to go to the assistance of Serbia with all the strength you can command. The forces on Gallipoli were obviously the nearest available for such a rescue. The alternative adopted of a renewed attack on Gallipoli by way of Suvla Bay in August only resulted in a more tragic and wasteful failure.

His forebodings in regard to Serbia were destined to be very quickly fulfilled, for in October (1915) began that dastardly combined attack on Serbia which Mr. Lloyd George had foreseen since the beginning of the year. The Germans had now finished for the moment with Russia. With deadly method they turned to their next victim; and now the Bulgarians from the south and the Teutons from the north closed on that unhappy little country.

Mr. Lloyd George witnessed this assault with an anguish of soul inevitable to one born and bred in a little nation himself. Even at this last hour he didhis utmost to rescue Serbia from her fate. He racked his brains to devise some method of saving Serbia. He pressed the military authorities with a vehemence inconvenient in a world of steady routine and disciplined ideas. He agitated, argued, pleaded.

But by this time the facts were too strong even for him. Between us and Serbia lay a Royalist Greece now indifferent if not actually hostile, coldly resolved to abandon her pledged word. Rumania was still hesitating and fearful. Russia was for the moment exhausted. No help was near enough to hand to save the doomed victim.

So the British Government were compelled to stand by helpless while the very nation on whose account the war broke out was conquered and outraged, her armies scattered, her population enslaved, and her children scattered like sheep through the mountains.[77]No more tragic chapter is recorded in the annals of Europe.

But the mischief did not end there. Not only did the conquest of Serbia give to Germany the great link with the East for which she yearned, but it completely destroyed all our remaining chances of success on Gallipoli. The very enterprise which had already taken the place of the Serbian expedition became futile from the moment of the Serbian disaster. In the beginning of October the Turks had been running so seriously short of ammunition that success for our arms seemed near at hand. By the end of the month they were fully replenished. The enterprise became plainly impossible from the moment that Germany, having now,by the conquest of Serbia and the coming in of Bulgaria, achieved a direct route to Constantinople, could pour through as much ammunition and as many big guns as the Turks required for their defence.[78]

On December 19th began the withdrawal from that fatal peninsula, and on January 8th of the following year not a single British soldier remained on those bloodstained shores.

Is it not possible that the more chivalrous and vigorous action on behalf of Serbia for which Mr. Lloyd George had so importunately pressed might have been also the best policy for the prosperity of the Allies in the war as a whole?

[72]In two Reports, 1917—Cd. 8490 6dand Cmd. 371, 2s(Part II). The second, dealing with the military operations, is very sensational, and has not received enough attention.

[73]The Dardanelles Committee, which took over the control of the war from the War Council on June 7th, 1915, consisted of eleven members of the Coalition Government. The War Council were all Liberals. That was superseded on November 3rd, 1915, by the War Committee, consisting of seven Ministers. Mr. Lloyd George was a member of all these Committees.

[74]Swallowing up Warsaw on August 4th, Ivangorod on August 5th, Siedlce on August 12th, Kovno on August 17th, Novo-Georgievsk on August 19th, Brest-Litovsk on August 25th, and Grodno on September 2nd.

[75]Through Terror to Triumph.Arranged by F. L. Stevenson, B.A. (Lond.) (Hodder & Stoughton.)

[76]“To precipitate ideals is to retard their advent. . . . The surest method of establishing the reign of peace on earth is by making the way of the transgressor of the peace of nations too hard for the rulers of men to tread.”

[77]Some 30,000 Serbian boys were sent across the mountains to the sea to escape from the invader. Less than half reached the sea.

[78]See Lord Kitchener’s final telegram of November 22nd, 1915, which decided the War Cabinet to evacuate (p. 57 of Pt. II, the Final Report of the Dardanelles Commission).

CHAPTER XVII

“Like a rickety, clumsy machine, with a pin loose here, and a tooth broken there, and a makeshift somewhere else, in which the force of Hercules may be exhausted in a needless friction, and obscure hitches before the hands are got to move, so is our Executive, with the Treasury, the Horse Guards, the War Department, the Medical Department, all out of gear, but all required to move together before a result can be obtained. He will be stronger than Hercules who can get out of it the movement we require”—Colonel Lefroy’s letter to Miss Florence Nightingale, Sir Edward Cook’sLife of Miss Florence Nightingale, vol. i. pp. 322-3.

Fromthe early days of the war Mr. Lloyd George had perceived that there were two great difficulties ahead of us—men and the arming of men—and that perhaps the greater of the two was the arming.[79]For the first year, at any rate, the question of men seemed to present little difficulty. England’s manhood came flocking to the banner of Lord Kitchener. The great multitudes of free citizens who freely poured into the recruiting offices after the retreat from Mons, will always be one of the most splendid episodes in our history. The patience and valour—the good-humour and endurance—of those first armies of “Kitcheners” will always add an imperishable glory to the name of him who summoned them.

So far, indeed, “nought shall make us rue.” England rested true to herself and her great cause.

But it was not enough to gather the legions. It was necessary also to arm them. Here it soon became clear that we were up against a new portent. The stupendous war equipment of the German armies, both in guns and in munitions, has since become a commonplace; at that time it was a wonder and a surprise. The War Office went into the war still thinking in terms of the Boer War, when machine-guns were a new miracle and shrapnel was the last word in shells. They found themselves faced with an army in which machine-guns had become a multitudinous commonplace and shrapnel was already the humble servant of the high-explosive shell.

This was clearly, from the first, a struggle of machinery. It was not an old-fashioned war. It was a war monstrously new—a fight against a people immensely modern and scientific, as high in skill as they were low in ruth, armed cap-à-pie with every device of destruction, sharpened to the finest edge on the whetstone of prepared war.

All this has since become a commonplace; it is Mr. Lloyd George’s distinction that he perceived it clearly in the autumn of 1914. Then in the Cabinet he already insisted on the need for increased armaments. He preached in season and out of season the need for guns; and in the autumn of 1914 the Cabinet Committee, of which he was a member, forced the War Office to order 4,000 guns instead of 600 for the following year (1915).

But as the weeks passed a situation began to arise which threw even this provision into the shade of inadequacy.It became clear that we had to help in the munitioning of our Allies. There was France—early in the war she lost her richest industrial districts. With splendid promptitude she had organised her factories for the making of guns, shells, and rifles. But she required to be supplied with the raw materials now lacking to her.

A far graver need was soon to arise in Russia. The German victories of 1915 placed Germany in possession of 70 per cent of the Russian steel-producing area. Her millions from that time required arming, not merely for victory, but also, it soon became clear, even for defence.[80]

To meet this colossal situation Great Britain was but poorly provided. The Navy absorbed for her great needs the principal national engineering resources of the country. The only British military machine of munition-supply at the opening of the war was the Ordnance Department of the War Office. Nothing could exceed the devotion and zeal of the men at the head of that office. But it was hopelessly under-equipped for so great a call. It was wanting in staff, resources, and ideas. It was perilously detached from our great civilian industries. It found itself faced with unparalleled difficulties of material and labour. For with the opening of the war we were cut off from some of our most important raw ingredients for explosives; and the very fervour of our first great recruiting campaign, too little directed and restricted, denuded the possible workshops of war.

There were many crises in this situation. One of the gravest occurred in the late autumn of 1914, when we were faced with a complete inability to supply the army with explosives for the making of mines. How that situation was met by a group of civil servants and public men, and its first acuteness lessened by the formation of an Explosives Committee in the Board of Trade under Lord Moulton has already been revealed by Lord Moulton himself.[81]It is one of the great stories of the war.

But no such departmental devices could long suffice to meet the terrific call of the situation as a whole. As the weeks passed, it gradually became clear to Mr. Lloyd George that, if we were to be saved, a tremendous and radical change was required. This was nothing less than the calling to our aid in this war all those great manufacturing resources of the nation which had given us our ascendancy in peace.

The manufacturers, indeed, were quite willing to come. They needed no call. They were eager to help. They already clamoured at the door.

But the soldier is not suited by the traditions of his calling to work easily with the civilian. That very virtue of iron discipline which is the habit of war militated against the free play of mind essential to a new development of industry. There is a story of a great business man from the North of England who, after being summoned to the War Office for the transaction of business, was kept waiting for two hours, and then told that the officer in command had gone off for his lunch. He is said to have picked up his hat and said decisively: “Tell the General that if he wants me againhe must send a battalion to fetch me.” It was a fair reminder that there are limits to the power of mere military discipline.

Those who lived in the centre of things during the spring of 1915 will remember the flood of such narratives—many of them told to the House of Commons[82]—which came from the mouths of indignant and offended manufacturers. Offers were rejected which afterwards proved essential. Orders were given and then forgotten. Machinery was set up and then not used. There was devotion and zeal; but there was no adequate organisation to meet the demands of the present, and no proper foresight as to the needs of the future.

Lord Kitchener, indeed, had a deserved reputation for organising capacity; but that eminent man was hopelessly overwhelmed. It was the fault of those who expected too much of him—who first spoke of him as a god and finally treated him as a dog. Reluctantly giving up Egypt for the War Office, Lord Kitchener found himself in control of a ship unmanned. The splendid military staff gathered at the War Office had been scattered to all the fields of war. He found himself very much alone. He felt compelled to act as his own Chief of Staff, his own organiser of recruiting, his own controller of supplies. Among his great gifts he did not possess that of easy and swift delegation. He saw that the War Office required to be built up afresh; but he did not feel equal to building it up during a great war. The result was that he took too much on himself, and most lamentably diminished his own splendid utility in the process.

Such a method was certain to lead to neglect and delay in some of the chief functions of war. All were delayed and many were neglected. But where delay and neglect met in most disastrous combinations was in this matter of the supply of the munitions of war.

So grave did this defect become that it threatened our cause before long with irretrievable disaster. It was only a great effort of the whole nation, combined in one common impulse of energy, that saved the cause.

In that effort Mr. Lloyd George took a great and leading part.

His plea for guns in the autumn of 1914 was followed up by a visit to France, where he was enabled to obtain insight into the great effort of industrial reorganisation which had enabled France to rearm after the loss of the North, and the shock of the German invasion. He returned with a full report on this achievement, due to the great energy and splendid public spirit of that great Frenchman, M. Albert Thomas.

Mr. Lloyd George proposed to the Cabinet that Great Britain should follow in the steps of France. Mr. Asquith was quite willing; and a Cabinet Committee was set up with advisory powers to work out the details. The Committee sat at the War Office with Lord Kitchener in the chair. The matter was fully discussed. The War Office appeared to agree to adopt the French scheme. Weeks passed. Then it was discovered that little or no action had been taken. It was clear that it was the executive arm which was at fault.

The winter months passed, and there was littlequickening of energy. Hundreds of thousands of the Kitchener recruits were without clothes, arms, rifles, or guns. Rumours and murmurs began to come from the front of the tremendous British losses from superior German guns.

In February a new danger became instantly vital. The news came from the East of Europe of the definite breakdown of the Russian armaments. Their gigantic armies threatened to become unarmed mobs.

In the West things were little better. During February and March fuller details began to reach London—of one British machine-gun against ten German; of four British shells against forty German. The suppression of the free and independent War Correspondent had cast a veil of silence over the realities of the war. The truth was struggling to come through; and not all the efforts of all the censors could entirely suffocate and strangle it. But it meant that any zealous Minister had to fight hard against a lethal atmosphere of secrecy that soon bred ignorance.

Against this atmosphere Mr. Lloyd George persistently battled; and in the early weeks of April he made a fresh appeal for further speeding up. The Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) agreed. On April 13th (1915) he appointed a strong Munitions Committee, known as the Treasury Committee, consisting of Ministers, civil servants and experts, with Mr. Lloyd George in the chair.[83]

That Committee had no executive powers. It couldonly co-ordinate departments, and make suggestions. It was no more than a departmental Committee; but, in spite of this shortcoming it was able to give valuable advice, much of which was acted upon. It supplied new ideas. It was often able to meet special emergencies.

But from the very beginning this Committee suffered from one grave, paralysing defect: it could obtain no full or comprehensive view of the needs and demands of the war. Perhaps the chiefs of the War Office did not know themselves. In the hurry and bustle of war perhaps it is not incredible they had no leisure to take the larger and longer view. But in a long war that view was indispensable to action. The result of that ignorance, therefore, was fatal to this Committee. It never knew enough to act or decide with effect. Lord Kitchener may have had his reasons; but the fact stands out that he refrained from arming this important Munitions Committee of April and May, 1915, with the full knowledge necessary for real power.

At this point an astonishing thing occurred. The Western Army took the matter into their own hands.

There are many things that fighting men will endure—incredible tortures, surpassing those of the early martyrs. But there is one thing which always tries them beyond the limit: that is to be hit without the power of hitting back—to be shelled without being able to shell. Such was now (in April and May, 1915) the intolerable situation of the men under General French’s command in France.[84]They decided that it was not their duty to accept this cruel fate without some effort to find a cure.

They found their applications misunderstood, ignored, postponed. They realised that Ministers were not allowed to know the truth. They gathered from his public utterance at Newcastle on April 20th[85]that the truth was being concealed even from the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) himself. They perceived that the public were blind-folded. They determined to take steps to open their eyes.

With this design and object, the Headquarters Staff in France invited certain famous journalists and publicists to the front to witness for themselves the results of the lack of proper shells in the attack on the Aubers ridge.[86]Most of those visitors found themselves helpless in the grip of a double censorship—in France and in England. One of them, however, the famous military correspondent of theTimes,[87]wrote his despatch on the spot and sent it through the censorship of the field of battle, severe indeed, but on this occasion, perhaps, a little more friendly. In this way, and thanks to the historic prestige of the great organ which published it, there appeared in theTimesof May 14th, 1915, that famous message from the front, “mutilated and twice censored,”[88]which itself proved so powerful a petard.

“The want of an unlimited supply of high explosive was a fatal bar to our success”—that was the verdict of theTimescorrespondent; and it was confirmed by every observer and every soldier at the front, including the soldier members of the House of Commons. Once the word was uttered in public, the floodgates were opened. It was in vain that the Government tried to stem the torrent of evidence. Lord Kitchener rose on May 18th to make a statement in the House of Lords; but in that speech he showed that strange habit of the unexpected which baulked even his friends. For, instead of denying, he practically admitted the indictment, and for the first time stated in public what seemed to contradict the Newcastle utterance of the Prime Minister—that there had been “undoubtedly considerable delay in producing the material.”

This was indeed a mild way of stating the true facts. These continued now to pour through from the front with all the indecency of truth emancipated. The order-paper of the House of Commons began to bristle with questions and threats of debate; and it was only on the plea of public emergency that the Government postponed crisis.

On the following day Mr. Lloyd George received information which more than confirmed the statement of theTimescorrespondent. He realised with amazement that the Munitions Committee had been kept in ignorance of essentials; that the mainspring had been missing from the watch. He determined to resign from a function so void of power; and on May 19th he wrote a letter announcing his decision, and giving his grave and weighty reasons. He refused to remainchairman of a Committee which had no real executive power.

The situation now moved rapidly.

On the afternoon of that day (May 19th) Mr. Asquith announced to the House of Commons that the Liberal Government which had been in power since 1910 had ceased to exist, and that he proposed to reconstruct the Government “on a broader personal and political basis.” In other words, he had decided for Coalition.

It was a wise and prudent decision. The Opposition had full grasp of the situation at the front. They had not yet manœuvred for battle, but there was already forming in the minds of their leaders the conviction that they could no longer accept the responsibility of a silence which would inevitably spell complicity. If they were to continue silent they must share the government. The only alternative was the open scandal of a bitter party struggle, not without the possibility of grave injury to national interests.

But a Coalition Government alone was not enough. It was necessary to have some guarantee that the general calamitous shortage of munitions[89]should not continue. It is not the habit of England to send her youth unarmed to face her enemies. At all costs this grievous peril must cease.

But it was already clear to all parties that the War Office was far too heavily burdened to continue bearing this responsibility. There must be a division of function. Lord Kitchener must be left to raise thearmies. Another office must take over the duty of arming and equipping them. From this conviction arose the idea of a new Department—the Ministry of Munitions—for which Mr. Lloyd George was already, by the unanimous voice of public opinion, declared elect.

So on May 25th, 1915, after seven years as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd George closed the door of the Treasury behind him and became the first British Minister of Munitions. It was a great adventure. He was leaving behind him the secure vantage of an old historic Department. He was entering upon a region unexplored, without map or compass, without precedent or guide.

[79]“What we stint in materials we squander in life; that is the one great lesson of munitions.”—Mr. Lloyd George in the House of Commons, December 21st, 1915.

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