CHAPTER XVIII

[80]The evidence in the Sukhomikoff trial has now brought out the immensity of this shortcoming, not then fully divulged to the British Government by the Russian governing power.

[81]See his evidence in the Mond libel action.

[82]See Debate of April 22nd, 1915. Mr. Bonar Law gave some striking instances.

[83]Among the other members of that Committee were Mr. Balfour, Mr. Montagu, Mr. George Booth, Sir Herbert Llewellyn Smith, Admiral Tudor, and General Von Donop. Mr. Lloyd George made on April 22nd, 1915, a statement in the House of Commons as to the work achieved by this Committee.

[84]See his statement to theJournalcorrespondent in September 1917.

[85]“I saw a statement the other day that the operations, not only of our Army, but of our Allies were being crippled, or at any rate hampered, by our failure to provide the necessary ammunition. There is not a word of truth in that statement.” (Loud cheers.)Timesreport.

[86]See the full account in Lord French’s “1914.” His statements have not in substance been affected by the controversies which have raged round this book.

[87]Lieutenant-Colonel Charles A’Court Repington, C.M.G.

[88]See theTimesleading article. But on May 18th Mr. Asquith said in the House of Commons that the despatch was censored in France and Mr. Tennant added that it never came before the British Censorship. The open official chagrin at its emergence into print is one of the most significant features of the whole episode.

[89]Of all munitions, not only explosives. It proved subsequently that the chief want was big guns for the high-explosive shells and that the smaller guns were better suited with shrapnel.

CHAPTER XVIII

“Now all the youth of England is on fire,And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thoughtReigns solely in the breast of every man.”Henry V, Prologue to Act II.

“Now all the youth of England is on fire,

And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;

Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought

Reigns solely in the breast of every man.”

Henry V, Prologue to Act II.

Thelittle group of men whom Mr. Lloyd George assembled round him at No. 6, Whitehall Gardens, during the Whit-week of 1915, certainly seemed to have no easy task before them. A new Ministry had been founded, and a Bill to define its functions was being drawn up. But the Ministry possessed neither buildings nor staff, neither furniture nor office paper. It stepped forth into the world bare as a new-born babe.[90]

Even when its functions had been defined by Act of Parliament there always hung about this enterprise an atmosphere of indefinable adventure. Its relations to other Departments, and especially to the War Office, were never precisely defined. It was always the parvenu of Ministries. Throughout the crises of 1915 and 1916 it carried with it the spirit of Esau, its hand against every man and every man’s hand against it.

After all, that was precisely the kind of office for which Mr. Lloyd George was best fitted. He was ever impatient of precedents; here was a case where he had to make his own precedents. He always loved trespassing. Here was an office where every movement was practically a raid on the ground sacred to some other Department.

He was never in the least troubled by the restrictions of the situation. He soon found out one vital fact—that our supply of shells had sunk to 75,000. But he rapidly grasped that there were many other things required for success besides shells. There were, for instance, guns to fire them from—big guns such as were entirely lacking at that time. In June of 1915, finding that he still could obtain no sure or certain idea of what was needed at the front, he travelled to Boulogne, and met a little party of officers, many of them French, in a small café. The party consisted partly of Generals, and partly of regimental officers. He listened to all; for he wanted to know what was wanted in the firing-line as much as what was thought to be wanted at Headquarters. He closely questioned the French artillerists as to the number of guns they were using. General Du Cane[91]was there from our Headquarters’ Staff; and he brought with him a full report of what guns were required according to their views.

Mr. Lloyd George began to realise that the need for big guns was the centre of the situation.

After his cross-examination was over, Mr. Lloyd George turned to General Du Cane:

“Don’t you think you had better go back and revise your estimates?”

General Du Cane promptly agreed—he had himself been converted. He went back to Headquarters.

At midday there was a break in these urgent talks. M. Albert Thomas suggested that in the afternoon they ought to have a formal meeting to go into the whole subject.

“I am sorry,” said Mr. Lloyd George, “but I must get back to England.”

“Go back already?”

“Yes, already—there is not a moment to be lost. These big guns must be ordered.”

He went back. A revived estimate of the munition requirements in France was sent to Whitehall. Mr. Lloyd George increased that estimate. He sent it across to Lord Kitchener. The great man, willing but doubtful of our resources, sent it back with a comment: “That will take three years.”[92]

Mr. Lloyd George then called together all the heads of the armament firms. He laid the scheme before them. They viewed it with grave doubts. They produced laborious estimates—discussed—consulted their chiefs.

Mr. Lloyd George put aside all the papers.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “this has to be done if the country is to be saved. You will do it!”

There was nothing more to be said. They went away to do it; and they did it.

The high officials responsible for financial control were a little disturbed at his way of conducting business.Later on, yet more guns were ordered, and official protests from other Departments were carried up to the highest quarters. But before a decision could be reached the orders had been given out, and the great guns—the guns that saved France and England—were on the way.[93]

That was characteristic of his way of using the new machinery of the new Ministry.

How this new Department of State was gradually built up; how picked men from all over the country, and from the Civil Service, were gathered to the side of the new Minister; how buildings were secured from day to day for the work of administration; how excessive hours were worked and excessive risks were run by old as well as young, and women as well as men,—this story has already been largely told in the Parliamentary statements of the Munition Ministers,[94]and it is one of the most romantic and thrilling chapters in the history of the war.

There are one or two features in the history of this movement which especially illustrate the characteristics of Mr. Lloyd George and his power of appeal to the public.

The first of these was the rally of the business men of England in response to his call. The British commercial classes were not, in the period before the war, particularly attached to Mr. Lloyd George. Theyhad some “bones to pick” with him. But it must be said, to their eternal credit, that when they realised the need of their country the old hatchet was at once put underground. They came in hundreds to help him. Many of them came without price, leaving their own factories and workshops, putting aside their chance of personal profit, and content to live on such salaries as their business could afford them. It is true that many of them have risen to high honour in this service. It is well that it should be so.

Happily there is sufficient soul of good in things to justify sacrifice and even to reward it. It is no ill thing that many of these men have risen to high honour and blazoned their names on the roll of England’s noblest servants.

But it was not only the commercial men that came forward voluntarily to answer the call. The Civil Servants also volunteered from all branches of the Service to undertake increased responsibility without additional gain. It was laid down from the beginning that none of those Civil Servants who came into the Munition Service should receive extra pay for extra work. Second division clerks raised to higher posts still continued to receive the old salaries; so great was the eagerness to save the country that men worked overtime without complaint, and there were in those early days many men who came suspiciously near to working night shifts as well as day.

It was precisely the combination of the best Civil Servants with the best commercial men that gave to the Ministry of Munitions such a marvellous touch of efficiency. Manufacturers coming up from the provinces were now pleasantly surprised to find a newswiftness of despatch in the conduct of their business. Every one brought into touch with the Ministry of Munitions found a new spirit which seemed to give a new hope for the government of this country. There was a certain thrill about the most common affairs within those walls. Every servant of the Ministry, down to the very boys and girls who carried the messages, seemed to feel that they were called to a high task for a great end. It was in this spirit that this great effort was undertaken and sustained throughout the years that followed. At the same time the country as a whole found itself provided at last with a capable machinery for using its services. Not only was the centre quickened and sharpened to new uses, but the whole of the United Kingdom was mapped out and in every district there sat a Committee who formed a careful estimate of the resources of that area.[95]

On the basis of that estimate there now began to grow up, as if by magic, that vast network of new war factories which saved the armies in France. The factories grew up chiefly near the iron and coal which provided the raw material of munitions and handy to the great supplies of skilled labour.[96]

But no adjustment could avoid a great upheaval of social life. For it was part of this great change that a vast mass of labour must be transferred from the industries of peace to the industries of war.

It was also part of the great stress of this crisisthat the State must be sure of its labour and that it must be able to draw from that labour the utmost power of effort, sustained and continued through a prolonged period of time.

Here lay the necessity for a new War Labour policy, difficult and delicate to justify and administer, but indispensable for the safety of the country.

It was clearly impossible to guarantee the adequate war output of this vast aggregate of factories and workshops on the basis of the old peace conditions—with an uncertain supply of skilled labour shifting about from shop to shop along the ordinary channels of demand and supply. The habit of “stealing” labour by the offer of higher wages had already grown to so high a point in the early days of the war that the Munitions Committee had had to issue an order under the Defence of the Realm Act making it an offence to “entice.”[97]Thus the peace freedom of movement had already been suspended. But now it was necessary to carry the restrictions further and to guarantee to the nation at war a hold on its workmen similar in kind, though not in degree, to the hold on its soldiers.

Mr. Lloyd George characteristically wished to make the bold appeal, and to say to the workmen: “Submit to the same discipline as your sons in the trenches. Place yourselves under the same law, with this only difference—that you are better-paid men.”[98]But this proposal, when laid before the leaders of the TradeUnions, met with fierce opposition. The “conscription of labour,” as it was called, was denounced as a “new slavery.” Some degree of national consent to such a measure was plainly necessary. So that proposal was dropped, and the Ministry of Munitions set out to search for a new policy.

The policy finally agreed upon took shape in the first Munitions Act and the subsequent amending measures. Round those measures a great strife afterwards arose, and it may be worth while to say something as to their origin and justification.

It was absolutely necessary, if the armies were to be properly supplied with the immense mass of munitions required, that the workers should both consent to the limitation of their freedom of movement and should also suspend a number of those limitations and conditions of toil which had been won in the course of the long conflict between Capital and Labour.

It was desirable to come to a bargain; and with that view the Trade Unions were consulted at every point. If the Government must trust Labour, Labour must also trust the Government. Labour must have assurance that a temporary suspension of conditions should not prejudice the position in time of peace. That assurance had been already given, and was now formally embodied in the Munitions Act.[99]

On these broad lines had grown up this Concordat, which, with all its frictions and inevitable misunderstandings, still carried the country through the moments of gravest peril. The liberty of Labour wasgravely restricted; but the great and sufficient reward for such a sacrifice to every patriotic workman always was the knowledge that brave lives were being saved and brave hearts sustained at the front. Another important thing was that the country was being saved also.

Certainly the restrictions were very formidable. No workman or workwoman could leave their employment in the war factory without a special “leaving certificate.” All rules or customs restricting labour were suspended; no strikes were allowed; and all questions of wages and hours were to be settled by compulsory arbitration. To administer these rules Munition Tribunals were set up in every district; and they had powers of inflicting heavy fines. Such provisions must depend largely on the good faith and good-will of employers; and there must always be some who will not “play the game.” Hence the chronic movements of revolt—the rise of the shop stewards, the engineers’ strike, the war-weariness of so many industrial districts in the summer of 1917.

In the autumn of 1917 Mr. Winston Churchill, the new Minister of Munitions, found it possible to suspend the leaving certificate and to slacken some of these conditions. But there could be no doubt as to their necessity up to that time.

The sole and sufficient excuse for these grave restrictions of liberty was always the war, and the war alone. War is a terrible master; and wherever he raises his head, few escape his tyranny. All that can be said is that, with all their troubles, the sufferings of the men in the workshops were as grains in the balance against the sufferings of the men in the trenches.

But, even so, the work of the men alone was not enough to meet the need. Other sources of labour must be tapped. It was now necessary to call in the women to the aid of the men.

Mr. Lloyd George ventured on a bold appeal. He asked the women to come from their pleasures and their comforts; he asked them to save the lives of their brothers, their sweethearts, and their husbands. They came in multitudes. They filled the ranks, and they filled the shells.[100]They silenced their sourest critics, even in their own sex. They worked by day and they worked by night. They earned for themselves a new position in the State. They showed that women could be patriots themselves, as well as the wives and mothers of patriots. Not easily will England forget those splendid women of 1915-18.

As for Mr. Lloyd George himself, he worked as hard as any one in the ranks of this new Labour Army. He was here, there, and everywhere. All through the summer of 1915 he travelled over the country, appealing, stimulating, and even when necessary rebuking. He visited all the industrial centres. He spoke straight to the English working classes; and it was only their worst friends who resented his honesty. He told them to suspend their peace weaknesses in this supreme hour; and he told them, as John Stuart Mill told them once before, where their chief weakness lay. He set up a Drink Control Board, as well as Munition Tribunals; and all that was best and most loyal among the artisans acquiesced.Ça ira; the plan worked; the machine began to do its duty.

Nothing was left undone. To fill up the ranks, unskilled men were trained to do the work of skilled. The Board of Trade organised a special army of Munition Volunteers. In the autumn of 1915 there was a great effort, in conjunction with the War Office, to bring back from the front some thousands[101]of those numerous munition workers, iron-workers, and miners who had been allowed to recruit in the first fine flush of the recruiting enthusiasm in 1914.

Mr. Lloyd George gave his whole mind to this one question—the making of war material. He had, as we have seen, found the Army with only 75,000 shells in hand in June, 1915; when he left the Ministry in June, 1916, he had provided shells in millions. He himself mastered the technique of shell-making and gun-making; he visited the factories and studied the machinery; he listened to every complaint from the soldiers at the front; he investigated every defect.

The real secret, indeed, of his work was that he kept in touch with the armies at the Western Front, constantly visiting them, studying their needs on the spot, listening to the actual fighting men. Above all he studied the German inventions. After a short while, thanks to the labours of our young scientists from the Universities, he was able to provide our soldiers with gas-masks that enabled them to face unshaken the worst deviltry of the enemy, and with gas that was a fit reply to theirs. He provided our men with flame-throwers which made them a fair match when they faced the flame-throwers of the Teuton.

I remember his taking me, one day in 1915, to see his little collection of these horrible devices in the basement of the old Metropole Hotel. He showed me the model shells, mounting by slow gradations to a giant’s height. He lingered halfway along this row of shells. He put his hand on one. “When I started the Ministry,” he said, “our shells went only as high as this. The German shells went to the top of the range. Was that fair to our soldiers?” It was a vivid illustration of what they were achieving.

So this gigantic new organisation was built up, and gradually brought its full weight into the struggle. Its functions were constantly enlarging. By proved fitness to rule over one city this new Ministry soon achieved the right to rule over ten. From supplying it took to making, from making it took to designing, and to designing after its own ideas. The great net-work of its new factories gradually spread over the land. Greatly daring, it built; it housed; it fed. From a servant it became a master. In August, 1915, it took over from the War Office the Royal Factory at Woolwich; and so it became the supreme war-maker of the nation.

Meanwhile, the soldiers at the front grew more confident and serene. They felt the support of the great working nation behind them. They grew more confident of supremacy. They knew that even the women-kind were “doing their bit.” In each great battle, as the shells swept over their heads, they felt a new power at work in their favour.[102]They “went over the top”with the knowledge that the mailed fist of Prussia was to be met with the iron hammer of England.

To this new feeling and the confidence born of it we may largely attribute the great victories of the Somme, the storming of the Vimy Ridge, and the smashing onslaught on Messines.

Many Englishmen, great and small, have a right to share in the glory of this great work. We must not forget those men who, before the great central crisis arose, battled alone against a sea of errors and failings in high places—great civil servants like Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, or great public servants like Lord Moulton. Such men do not labour in the limelight. We must remember their services.

Nor must we forget loyal political helpers like Dr. Addison, Mr. Lloyd George’s first lieutenant at the Ministry, and Mr. Montagu, his successor.

But, when all is said and done, the man who did the deed was Mr. Lloyd George. Without his resolution and decision England would have fared badly in that dark hour. It was he who designed, directed, and completed this noble and stupendous endeavour. It was he who carried it through. It was he who, when others failed, armed and strengthened our armies. It is scarcely too much to say that it was he who, under Providence, saved England.

[90]See Dr. Addison’s description (House of Commons, June 28th, 1917): “There was to be one aim, and one aim only—to obtain the goods and make delivery of them to the Army. No other interests and no considerations of leisure were to be entertained.”

[91]Lieutenant-General Sir John Philip Du Cane, Major-General R.A., G.H.Q., 1915. Afterwards British representative with Marshal Foch.

[92]Similarly, to Lord French he said eight years (Journalinterview, Sept. 1917).

[93]Mr. Montagu, in the House of Commons, on August 16th, 1916, said openly that “Mr. Lloyd George ordered far more guns than were thought by the War Office to be necessary, and yet received new requirements showing that he had not ordered enough.”

[94]Mr. Lloyd George’s statement of December 21st, 1915, Mr. Montagu’s statement of August 16th, 1916, and Dr. Addison’s statement of June 28th, 1917.

[95]Twelve areas: England and Wales, 8; Scotland, 2; Ireland, 2; 40 local Munition Committees in the engineering centres consisting of local business men. (Mr. Lloyd George, December 21st, 1915.)

[96]Within a year the labour employed on munitions had gone up from 1,635,000 to 2,250,000, and there were 32 national shell factories, 12 for projectiles, 6 for cartridges, etc. (Mr. Montagu, August 1915.)

[97]There had also been in March an agreement between the Government and the Trade Unions called the Treasury Agreement, and administered by a Labour Advisory Committee. The general line of that agreement was an understanding to suspend restrictive Trade Union practices in return for a promise to tax excess profits.

[98]He put this appeal very strongly in a speech to the engineers at Cardiff on June 11th, 1915.

[99]Clause 20 of the main Act: “This Act shall have effect only so long as the Office of Minister of Munitions and the Ministry of Munitions exist.”

[100]At Woolwich alone the number of women workers rose from 125 to 25,000.

[101]40,000 soldiers were brought back. In addition, there are 38,000 War Munition Volunteers, and 30,000 Army Reserve Munition Workers. (Dr. Addison’s speech.)

[102]By August 1916 the high-explosive shells had been increased by 66 per cent.; there had been a 14-fold increase of machine-guns; and a 33-fold increase of bombs. Every month saw as many great guns manufactured as existed at the beginning of the war. (Mr. Montagu, August 1916.)

CHAPTER XIX

“Not once or twice in our rough island-story,The path of duty was the way to glory.”Tennyson.

“Not once or twice in our rough island-story,

The path of duty was the way to glory.”

Tennyson.

Thisgreat revival in the supply of munitions to Great Britain and her Allies began, early in 1916, to show its effects on the fortunes of the war.

There were some things that could not be retrieved—Serbia, Bulgaria, Kut. On the Western fields of war there was a steady stiffening, and the 1915 peril of collapse gradually passed away. During the spring of 1916 guns and shells were accumulated in great masses for a summer attack.

The new Military Service Act, too, now began to come into action; a steady supply of young men began to fill up the gaps in the armies at the front.

What could be done by men and munitions was being done; and at any rate it was no longer possible for the commanders and men to feel that they were not being properly supported by the civilians at home.

It was not only in regard to the British armies that this great uplift of power took place. The Russians, too, now found themselves being supplied with streams of guns and shells from Great Britain; and Brusiloff began to prepare for his great thrust forward.

Thus events moved forward to those great battlesof July and August, 1916, when, by sheer force of gun-power, we captured positions thought to be impregnable, and brought about the dramatic withdrawal of the German armies towards the French frontiers in the spring of 1917.

But, in the meantime, Mr. Lloyd George himself had been called away to other and higher tasks. He is one of those men whom Nature seems to have marked out as pioneers; and there seems to be almost a law by which, when such men have accomplished one great task, another sphere calls for them. At the Ministry of Munitions he had now done his work—that work of starting, inspiring, and organising which is peculiarly his. Other men could now take up the task and keep it going; they could run the engine once it was devised and set running; happily, there are many such men in the world.

It was fated that a tragic event should make it necessary that Mr. Lloyd George should now himself move forward.

On June 5th, 1916, Lord Kitchener, always the head and forefront of England’s military effort, the great Captain of those legions to whom he gave his own name, met an untimely end in H.M.S.Hampshire, off the western coast of Scotland. The splendid cruiser which carried his fortunes was met by a fierce gale; but his mission to Russia was urgent, and he was not the man to delay. The ship altered its course to the lee side of the Shetland Islands, and there it met with a mine cast adrift by the storm, and quickly foundered. Lord Kitchener was last seen on the quarter-deck meeting death as calmly as he had faced life.

Mr. Lloyd George was called to take Lord Kitchener’s place, and passed in June, 1916, from the Ministry of Munitions to the War Office. The effect of this change was to increase his power of control over the war, and at the same time to deepen his responsibility.

He did not stay long enough in the War Office to obtain complete grip of the administrative machine, or to introduce the reforms which were so desirable in that office. But this period of power was marked by some of those bold and sweeping strokes which are so characteristic. In the autumn of 1916, on one of his periodical visits to the Western Front, he realised that the Army was on the eve of a tragical breakdown of communications. The French roads were becoming worn out with the strain of the heavy transport traffic. We had not enjoyed that immense relief from the structure of small railways which was common to our Allies and our enemies. He also grasped the fact that the fortunes of all future “offensives” were going to depend on swift and decisive concentrations of guns, shells, and men, only possible by means of railways. The railways then at our disposal in France were quite insufficient to carry the burden of vast armies as well as the local life of the countryside. He insisted, against great opposition, both from officials and Press, on placing the railways under the control of railway men. He persuaded Sir Douglas Haig to make Sir Eric Geddes a General at Headquarters in charge of transportation. Later on, Sir Eric Geddes was given charge of all transportations in the United Kingdom, as well as in the British zone in France; and he imposed on the British civilian population those restrictions of traffic which have been so cheerfully borne. All this made ahuge difference, both in the smooth working of the army machine in France, and in the organisation of those swift, sudden springs forward which played so great a part in the final victory.

But greater events were soon to claim his attention.

He had not yet obtained full grip of the machinery at the War Office when there loomed up in the East another of those great tragedies of the little nations, which, like Stations of the Cross, marked the stages of this world-agony.

Rumania had always felt strong sympathy with the cause of the Entente Allies. In spite of various cross-currents, the tide of her feelings had set very steadily towards the cause of the Western democracies. But she had hitherto been restrained by a very wise prudence from rushing into a struggle with powerful Empires close at hand.

But now fortune seemed to be swinging over to the democracies. The Somme and Verdun seemed to be the obverse and the reverse sides of the same victorious shield. The Italians were moving forward. The Russians were sanguine, and pressed Rumania for her assistance.

So the Rumanian Government, on August 27th, took the great decision and declared war on Austria.

All the world knows the episodes in that tragic story—the premature Rumanian advance into Transylvania, the sudden, treacherous attack in the rear from Bulgaria—the quick, smashing blows of the gathered German armies—the passing of that fearful harrow of war over that beautiful, romantic land.

No one saw this coming cloud more rapidly than Mr. Lloyd George. Early in September he read throughthe designs of the German commanders. With his uncanny eye for a military situation, he seemed to know what Hindenburg was going to do before he did it. He noticed a weakening in the attack on Verdun. He realised in a moment that Bulgaria would not be moving if she were not sure of German help. He saw straight into the heart of the German eastern ambitions, and he realised that here they had an opportunity which on no account would they pass by.

He was full of a feverish desire to avert the blow, even at the eleventh hour. Could not anything still be done? There was Italy—she was at the doors of the East—there was Russia. Was it nothing to them who passed by—this crucifixion of a little nation? There was always something especially poignant in his emotions over these tragedies. He was not a man suited to the part of sitting by and doing nothing.

But Rumania was already beyond the reach of our help. When Serbia was lost, Rumania was cut off also from British aid. The British Fleet, as Lord Salisbury once shrewdly remarked, cannot operate in the Balkans. Russia, the only possible rescuer, proved a broken reed. She was already paralysed by the sleeping sickness of internal treachery.

So Rumania went under. But the event had a reverberating influence on Mr. Lloyd George’s mind. It brought him to a decision which he had long been meditating.

He could no longer go on being responsible for these repeated failures without a supreme effort to make them cease.

He had for a long time past gravely doubted whether he would not be more capable of helping in the conductof the war if he left the Government. He had often been on the verge of resigning—on munitions, on conscription, on the Serbian failure. He had a growing conviction that the only hope of winning the war was through the nation; and he wanted to guide and to inform the nation. He longed to be “unmuzzled”—to speak out what he knew, to speak for himself alone.

But it had always happened that before he took action his policy had won; and then it became practically impossible for him to resign. Ministers cannot resign on delay alone. Yet these constant delays were piling up against us a constantly accumulating debt. Or, as with the proud Roman and the ancient Sibyl, the reward was diminishing while the price was not less.

The Rumanian disaster brought Mr. Lloyd George to the parting of the ways. He must either reform the Government to better uses, or he must gain his freedom—on that issue he was clear.

Reflecting deeply on the mode and method of reform, he saw but one way out—a smaller and more efficient body, wholly devoted to the direction of the war. That had been his view for a long time past—and every event had confirmed it. What was wanted was unified, unsleeping control.

He decided at last to place this view definitely and decisively before Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister.

He did so in a long conversation on the morning of Friday, December 1st, 1916.

This was the first phase in a crisis into which Mr. Lloyd George entered with the utmost reluctance. He was sincerely attached to Mr. Asquith. He had thatregard for him which is often based on an entire difference of temperament. He fully recognised the greatness of those qualities which have given Mr. Asquith so strong a hold on the esteem and affections of his countrymen. He wished to continue the working partnership. He made in the course of these negotiations every conceivable suggestion which could make the changed conditions tolerable to the proper pride and self-respect of a man who had deserved so well of the nation.

But on the fundamental necessity for a change in the organisation for control of the war, he remained throughout as firm as adamant. There could be no compromise on that point. There are certain questions on which no man can compromise. One is the safety and honour of his own country.

He regarded that as involved in his proposal to reform the machinery of war-control.

He had come to the conclusion that a smaller and stronger authority was absolutely necessary for the prosperous conduct of the war. He also held, with equal strength of conviction, that no man could bear at the same time the double burden of parliamentary leadership and of the day-by-day task of Chairmanship of the new War Council, with its entirely full and detailed responsibility for the conduct of the war. Mr. Asquith was universally acknowledged as the supreme parliamentary leader of his generation. He was a great national figure-head. It seemed a fair and reasonable proposal that he should continue to lead the Commons and the country, and should allow one of his colleagues to become the Chairman of the new War Authority. Mr. Lloyd George did not name himself as Chairman of that body. Mr. Asquith first namedhim. But it soon became quite clear to both that he was the only fit and proper man to carry out his own scheme.

Mr. Lloyd George, as we all know, laid these views in writing before the Prime Minister, and discussed them with him very fully during the two following days.[103]He laid them in memoranda and in conversations. As the talk went on the new proposal varied now and again in detail, but it remained always the same in essence. Mr. Lloyd George never disputed the supreme control of the Prime Minister: he even agreed to the final control of the Cabinet—for he had not yet ventured so far as to propose a supreme War Cabinet.

It is quite clear that Mr. Lloyd George’s proposal startled and alarmed Mr. Asquith. That great man is above all things a constitutionalist; profoundly impassioned for the traditions of English freedom. Trained up in parliamentary habits, it seemed abhorrent to him that any function of supreme control in affairs should be divorced from that fount and centre of power. It was not for his own personal position, we may be sure, that he resisted Mr. Lloyd George’s proposals. They clashed with all that was deepest in his nature. The heir and successor of Pym, Selden, and Pitt could not lightly acquiesce in any derogation to the authority of Parliament or Cabinet.

What Mr. Asquith did not see was that new needs call for new measures; and that the needs of a war such as this, unprecedented in extent and violence, may also necessitate remedies without precedent on the parchments of the English statute-books.

At one stage Mr. Asquith appears to have agreed with Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. Lloyd George was for some time (on Saturday, December 2nd) under the impression that the matter was settled on the general lines of his policy. He did not fight for details. He was willing to discuss the membership of the Committee; but he remained firm on the principle. He had already determined to resign rather than fail to carry it out.[104]But at that moment there seemed no necessity for such a step.

At this stage, however, there stepped into the arena those busy friends who, since the days of Job, have never been a man’s best counsellors. Energy breeds foes; and there were men who were inclined to ask the old question: “Who is this man that he should rule over us?” These men held up the arms of Mr. Asquith in his resistance to the policy laid down by Mr. Lloyd George.

On the other side there were also friends—friends of the Press, certainly not inspired by any amiable feelings towards Mr. Asquith. They belonged to a section which had always stood honestly and boldly for a more active prosecution of the war. It was certainly not the fault of Mr. Lloyd George that this Press had espoused his cause in all his great efforts for the nation; and it was preposterous to expect that he should reject their help. A member of a Coalition Ministry has no right to keep up old party prejudices in his dealings with the Press; and it has always been the role of Mr. Lloyd George to be accessible to the Press on both sides. It had happened, indeed, that only a few weeks before Mr. Lloyd George had hada sharp passage of arms with Lord Northcliffe over the question of communications on the Western Front; and certainly there was no working alliance between them. There was nothing more than a fortuitous temporary agreement in regard to the conduct of the war.

On Monday, December 4th, there appeared in theTimesan article giving a very clear and accurate summary of the negotiations, supported by a “leader” rejoicing over the discomfiture of Mr. Asquith.[105]It is the inveterate habit of British statesmen to listen with sensitive ears to the oracles from Printing House Square; and Mr. Asquith was no exception to this rule. He treated this blow as a thunderbolt. He immediately, on the morning of Monday, December 4th, wrote to Mr. Lloyd George plainly intimating that if this was to be the sort of view taken of his agreement he could not go on.

When he received this letter Mr. Lloyd George had not seen theTimesarticle. He knew nothing about it. He certainly did not inspire it. He was as surprised as Mr. Asquith when he read it. But he has always taken a tolerant view as to the activities of a democratic Press. He wrote back to Mr. Asquith a friendly letter deprecating any attention to press attacks of which he had himself had to endure so many, and strongly urging Mr. Asquith not to play into the hands of theTimes. He—Mr. Lloyd George—wanted an agreement. TheTimesdid not.

But it was too late. Mr. Asquith’s friends urged him to act and not to submit to what seemed to him a deliberate attempt to destroy his personal prestige.So on the afternoon he resigned and ended his Government. He acted with absolute correctness. He received authority from the King at once to form a new Government; and he wrote at once to Mr. Lloyd George. He could, in his view, start now afresh, unhampered by the negotiations of Saturday and Sunday.

His first condition was that he himself, as Prime Minister, must be Chairman of the new War Committee.

The former plan was thus now definitely rejected, and a clear challenge was thrown down to Mr. Lloyd George—not a personal challenge, but a challenge of principle. For Mr. Asquith sincerely and honestly held that his was the proper way to control the conduct of the war.

It was, indeed, now for Mr. Lloyd George to decide, not whether he should resign—for he was no longer Minister—but whether he should join the new Ministry on these terms, which clashed absolutely with his own plans. It was plainly impossible that he should do so.

So, still with regret but always quite decisively, on December 5th he placed his office at the disposal of Mr. Asquith in the formation of his new Ministry.

He parted from Mr. Asquith with every expression of personal regret, and offered his complete support of the new Government for the prosecution of the war.

After that events moved rapidly. On the Sunday (December 3rd) the Tory rank and file had met and decided not to follow Mr. Lloyd George. But Mr. Bonar Law made it clear that in that case they could not count on his leadership. He and his friends in the old Ministry refused to join the new Ministry.That made it impossible for Mr. Asquith to succeed.

The next step was for the King to send for Mr. Bonar Law. But the old Liberals, the Labour Party, and the Irish Nationalists refused to serve under his Premiership. He did not possess a parliamentary majority. It was useless for Mr. Bonar Law to take office with a minority following in the House of Commons.

Mr. Lloyd George, indeed, urged Mr. Bonar Law to make the attempt, and offered to serve under him.

The King, with a splendid desire for reconciliation, called a conference at Buckingham Palace, and tried to form a new Coalition Ministry of all parties under Mr. Bonar Law. But the thing was impossible. Asquith and his friends stood out; Mr. Asquith refused the Woolsack. He was contending for what seemed to him a definite issue of parliamentary control, and we can scarcely blame him for refusing to be spirited off the arena of political conflict, or relegated to a gilded cage.

It only remained for the King to send for Mr. Lloyd George, for he was now the only possible Premier. It was clearly his duty to accept the call. It was not easy for him to form a Ministry. The rank and file of the Tories, still shadowed by Budget memories, shrank at first from the idea of serving under so fervent a Radical; but Mr. Bonar Law was determined to submit all political divisions to the supreme issue of the war; and most of the powerful men of the party followed his patriotic lead. Many of the leading Liberal ex-Ministers plainly intimated, through various channels, public and private, that they were anxious to stand aside[106]; but most of the capable youngmen willingly came along, recognising that at this crisis there was a greater thing involved than personal loyalty. The Labour Party at first stood aloof. There were long conferences at the War Office. But at last Mr. Lloyd George won them over by large and frank concessions both in policy and share of office.

Such is a simple narrative of the events which made Mr. Lloyd George Premier. Of course there were mean and unworthy insinuations—of course there were men who saw, in this great and dramatic clash of ideas, nothing but the mean and sordid conflict of personal ambitions, or the still more squalid combat of rival journals. There will always be men with their eyes fixed on the ground when great signs are appearing in the heavens.

But to those who have followed this story the event will seem to be inevitable. At the given moment Mr. Lloyd George took the post of leadership, but he only took that post because for at least a year he had already been the leader. Great wars always have electric effects. For the ruling of such thunder-storms there is required a certain temperament of storm. The plain fact is that Mr. Lloyd George possessed that temperament—and sooner or later he must have been called to direct the thunderbolts.

When he really had the power to shape the machine of war after his own ideas, Mr. Lloyd George put aside half-measures. He boldly shaped a new instrument of Government—the War Cabinet as we afterwards knew it. That Cabinet was a small body of experienced administrators, united by the one tie of zeal for their country, who gave their whole energiesentirely to the conduct of the war. Except for brief holidays, they sat daily, and sometimes twice a day. Minutes were kept of their proceedings, although their speeches were not reported. When any Department was concerned, the Minister affected attended himself, and took part in the consultations. Thus the Foreign Minister was there when there was a discussion of foreign affairs, the Chancellor of the Exchequer on finance, and so on. The result was that the departmental chiefs were more free for their own administrative work, and less worried with the problems of other Departments. On the other hand, there grew up a new Civil Service attached to the War Cabinet, and a more active machinery for keeping the offices in touch.

It was confessedly a great experiment—but experiments are necessary for war. It was certain that that other instrument, the old Cabinet—already showing signs of weakness in days of peace—had broken down in war; for every revelation, from the Dardanelles to Mesopotamia, spoke eloquently of the failure, not so much of the men, as of that machine. It met too rarely: its proceedings were too cumbrous; there was a lack of concentration; there was a constant scattering and diversion of energies.

There is no room here for vain regrets over the past. There is no space left for old party feuds—and certainly not for personal issues. Both of these men are great, distinguished figures, divided only by small shadows of honest difference. Those shadows will pass; in the light of greater events they will appear trifles; and the common need will knit us together. The resolution for unity must prevail.

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