Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  Pushiness disgusted Asquith. He told Stamfordham: ‘All this canvassing and wire-pulling about the succession, while poor K’s body is still tossing about in the North Sea, seems to me to be in the highest degree indecent.’23 Northcliffe wanted Milner, whose record as a proconsul in South Africa was but the most recent of his many executive achievements, and whose no-nonsense style of doing business commended him to the press baron. However, Northcliffe said through the leader columns of The Times that ‘we cannot imagine any man of Lord Milner’s strong character joining the Cabinet in these days without a very clear understanding about his powers’ – and it doubted Asquith had the imagination to agree to such an understanding.24 Inevitably, The Times advocated that, whoever became war secretary, he should answer to a small ‘supreme War Council’ rather than be hamstrung by the disputes of a full cabinet.25 That argument would become persistent in the months ahead.

  Sir Max Aitken, Law’s fellow Canadian, chief confidant and crony and a Unionist MP who within months would become Lord Beaverbrook, was willingly being drawn more and more into the heart of political intriguing. He hosted a Sunday lunch at Cherkley, his house in Surrey, for Law and Lloyd George, to thrash out which of them should succeed Kitchener. It began badly, with Law accusing Lloyd George of being too much on the make. Lloyd George offered to back Law; but as the discussions continued into the afternoon it became apparent that Law would defer to Lloyd George, partly out of a natural lack of push and partly because he understood his rival’s immense popular appeal, which the coalition needed to harness to its maximum benefit. He said he would see Asquith to recommend Lloyd George’s appointment. The meeting took place the following morning, Whitsun bank holiday, at the Wharf, Asquith’s weekend house in Oxfordshire. According to Beaverbrook the prime minister was playing bridge when Law arrived, and his visitor declined to wait for the hand to be completed; that, like all Beaverbrook’s reminiscences, should be treated with caution. Asquith dismissed the idea of Lloyd George’s succeeding Kitchener, but with enhanced powers, so briskly that it deepened Law’s conviction that he was not taking his responsibilities entirely seriously. The prime minister then offered the job to Law, who said he was committed to Lloyd George. Once he understood Law’s intentions Asquith, whose wife was now feeding his suspicions of Lloyd George’s plans, was determined not to be rushed. As after the Curragh incident in 1914, he took over the War Office himself, without giving any indication of how permanent or temporary his tenure would be.

  Nonetheless, by 12 June Lloyd George felt certain the job would be his. Although deeply personally ambitious, he also maintained – with some justice – that too many incompetent generals were in senior positions where they were harming the war effort and sacrificing the lives of innumerable men. He believed there was too much ‘personal and professional favouritism’ in the existing system of appointments, which he was confident could be eliminated if handed over to the Secretary of State.26 Yet again, resignation was the alternative if Lloyd George was not content with what was offered him. To retrieve the powers of appointment given to Robertson an Order in Council would have to be revoked, which even Lloyd George accepted would not be easy: it would also have been a humiliation for Robertson, who might well not have swallowed it.

  To the shock of Churchill and Scott, with whom he had this conversation, Lloyd George revealed that if pushed to resignation he had ‘5 very rich men – 3 Liberals and 2 Unionists – who were prepared to back him financially to an almost unlimited extent, to run elections and the usual party machinery.’ Scott, whose worries about Lloyd George’s ambition exceeding the national interest were stimulated by such talk, sought to calm him by saying he would dominate any administration, whoever was prime minister, after a ‘reconstruction’.27 On 15 June Esher recorded: ‘I dined alone with Bonar Law this evening. He told me … he had been sent for by Asquith, who consulted him about the offer of the War Office to Lloyd George. He had agreed to this on the understanding that if Lloyd George refused he himself was to have the offer.’28 However, Law felt that neither he nor Lloyd George could accept the post under the Kitchener–Robertson agreement. ‘This seems to me very small and petty,’ Esher wrote.

  When Asquith admitted to his wife that Lloyd George ‘had the best claim’ to succeed Kitchener, she retorted that it was ‘unthinkable’ to have a ‘sly, dishonourable, brilliant man’ such as him at the War Office.29 Mrs Asquith had shuddered when Isaacs told her over dinner that Lloyd George actively wanted the job. She had lobbied Lansdowne and Robertson, among others, to persuade Asquith not to make the appointment. In her diaries she recorded that ‘the King was in despair when H told him of his intention’.30 She was right: Lloyd George was disliked at court: Stamfordham advised the King on 17 June that the ‘best solution is for PM to remain at War Office. Whole Army Council want this. Derby might be second in command.’31 Their reservations notwithstanding, that day Asquith offered Lloyd George the job, though made it clear he would enjoy no more powers than Kitchener had had. For that reason Lloyd George turned it down, but on that question Asquith would stand firm; he would have the job on Asquith’s terms, or not at all.

  The press, led by Northcliffe’s papers, demanded Lloyd George’s appointment, even though Northcliffe had earlier privately advised him to refuse it as it would make it impossible to turn the government out and get rid of Asquith. Mrs Asquith’s fear was that it would effectively put Northcliffe in the War Office, as she told Scott when she saw him by chance at Paddington station on 13 June. Lloyd George’s proposed appointment caused her ‘intense misery’ and would be ‘the greatest political blunder of Henry’s lifetime’.32 Of the Asquiths’ circle only Montagu backed Lloyd George, though Mrs Asquith deduced that was because he feared the damage Lloyd George might do if passed over. It was almost as if there were no war.

  The Unionists, too, had grave reservations about the job going to Lloyd George. Chamberlain, whom Asquith had consulted about the appointment on 29 June, expressed ‘considerable apprehension’, because of Lloyd George’s history of ‘intrigues’.33 Also, his threats to resign unless he had his own way were now becoming fabular, a sense that intensified after his failure to fight for the post-Rising Home Rule proposals. Colonel David Davies, Lloyd George’s parliamentary private secretary, claimed to have seen a memo sent to Asquith about the vacancy stating that Lloyd George’s popularity with the public was such that it would be ‘impossible not to appoint him’; but added that the job was ‘far less important than it was thought to be by the public’ and that ‘LG would probably be engulfed by the machine, etc.’34 So perhaps Asquith felt he was helping his colleague and rival to dig his own grave in offering him the job again.

  Lloyd George did in the end take the War Office, without the powers removed from Kitchener, even though he protested to intimates such as Churchill that he had won concessions. Asquith appointed him on the condition that he was not to interfere with Robertson’s authority; unfortunately, that proviso would lead to Lloyd George seeking to undermine the CIGS instead.

  It may well have been his own sense – reinforced, as has been shown, by the opinion of Miss Stevenson – that he had handled the Irish situation poorly that forced him to accept the War Office job, despite not getting the powers from Robertson that he thought should go with the role. He may also have sensed that his intimates were beginning to realise his weaknesses, and his limited scope and willingness to throw his weight around because he so seldom seemed to have the courage of his convictions. Churchill complained to Scott after the change that Lloyd George, once his move created a vacancy at Munitions, ‘had not lifted a finger to get him appointed Minister of Munitions’.35 Churchill did not realise then (though within a few months he would) not only just how despised he was, but how it would have damaged Lloyd George’s credibility even further to push him for a cabinet post.

  It was not until 4 July that Asquith finally confirmed to Lloyd George that the War Office was his (though Bonham Carter, Asquith’s son-i
n-law and private secretary, had told Hankey on 24 June), having seen off a last-minute attempt by generals to have him appoint Derby (who, to the King’s relief, became under-secretary, and His Majesty’s eyes and ears in the War Office). Haig found Derby ‘a fine, honest Englishman. I wish we had more like him in the Government at this time of crisis.’36 However, if Asquith thought the heat would be taken off him by appointing Lloyd George he was mistaken. Because some key ministers – Balfour, Grey and indeed Asquith himself – had deep reservations about Lloyd George, it seemed that in promoting him Asquith had undermined his own authority again.

  Lloyd George not only had limited powers as war secretary; he would rely on cheerleaders in the press and the Army if he was to flourish. On 8 July Hankey noted that the first visitors to Lloyd George in his new office had been Northcliffe and Churchill, though the latter was simply soliciting support to exonerate him over the Dardanelles. As for Northcliffe, his deep belief in Haig’s wisdom and in the ‘success’ of the Somme would ultimately estrange him from Lloyd George; though Lloyd George knew he needed Haig’s support in his new post, however much he questioned his strategy.

  Miss Stevenson’s appointment as secretary to the new war secretary was widely publicised – it was good public relations to show a woman had such an important role – though Riddell, whose News of the World existed for such purposes, feared others would make hay with the accusation that she was more than an official. Given how widely known in political circles the relationship was, and since Riddell himself was effectively muckraker-in-chief, these fears were overstated. The other consequence of Kitchener’s death, and his replacement by an MP, was that there was no Secretary of State left in the Lords, which was considered a constitutional requirement. Grey’s eyesight was failing, and Asquith used this as a reason to ask him to continue in the office of foreign secretary as Viscount Grey of Fallodon. Grey was offered an earldom, but declined it to avoid confusion with his cousin Earl Grey of Howick, grandson of the 2nd earl who had piloted the Great Reform Bill.

  II

  Asquith’s Commons support was haemorrhaging: conscription and economic dirigisme dismayed Liberals and radicals; the Irish were appalled at the handling of the Rising; and the Northcliffe press, especially but far from uniquely, echoed and fed these views. To make matters worse the prime minister was also losing the confidence of his high command. Haig, visiting on a Saturday morning in April to discuss the summer offensive, found him ‘dressed for golf and evidently anxious to get away for his weekend.’37 In peacetime, recreation had been important to Asquith, to refresh him and keep his considerable mind focused: he had not adjusted to the demands of war, and was exhausted by his eight years – conflict-filled years even before the war – in 10 Downing Street. When they did get to discuss official business, Haig found Asquith distracted and agitated, not least by the War Office’s failure to carry out what Asquith had thought was government policy – to send newly trained soldiers to France rather than keep them at home. Yet Esher told Haig he thought Asquith would stay as prime minister ‘because there was no-one else to replace him.’

  The government was under constant pressure, mainly from Liberal MPs, about the treatment of conscientious objectors by soldiers into whose charge they were placed. Sir William Byles, as one of the Liberals’ most ardent pacifists, once more led the charge, alleging that men who refused to obey orders given them by soldiers – on the grounds that they were not members of the Army themselves – were suffering ‘punishments of great severity and brutality for conscience’s sake’.38 Such was the disquiet that Asquith was forced to make a Commons statement on 29 June to dispel the idea that the Army was out of control when dealing with these people.

  He promised all cases in which conscientious objectors were threatened with punishment for refusing to obey orders would be referred to the War Office. By taking evidence from those who knew the accused it would be determined, first, whether the conscientious objection was genuine. If it was not, the man would remain under military control and would serve any sentence in a detention barracks. If the objection was deemed genuine, the men would be spared civil prison if they undertook to perform ‘work of national importance’ under civil control.39 Asquith promised they would cease to be answerable to military discipline so long as they performed the tasks ‘satisfactorily’. The home secretary appointed a committee to decide what that work should be, and under what conditions it should be carried out.

  Asquith stressed ‘that all men whose objections to active military service are founded on honest conviction ought to be and will be able to avail themselves of the exemption which Parliament has provided.’40 However, the rest of the conscription programme would be imposed in a way that reflected the profound national emergency: ‘It is necessary that men who put forward objections of this kind as a pretext and a cloak to cover their indifference in responding to the national call, and are therefore guilty of the double offence of cowardice and hypocrisy, should be treated as they ought to be treated, with the utmost rigour.’

  Some MPs seized on that observation and made suggestions: Colonel Charles Yate, Tory MP for Melton, invited him to ‘take steps to deprive these men, whom he has just described as cowards and hypocrites, of their civil rights in the future.’ Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux, who had recently won a by-election in Portsmouth, asked ‘if there is one single sentence in Holy Writ which justifies the cowards who will not defend their women and children?’ As well as having masterminded the BEF’s movement to France in August 1914, Meux had, on his own initiative, led a naval brigade to relieve Mafeking, and had the status of national hero.

  There was another point of view. On 5 June a sideshow of cultural significance occurred at the Mansion House in London. It was the scene of Bertrand Russell’s trial under the Defence of the Realm Act for having published a pamphlet against conscription and the operation of the tribunals, notably about the jailing of a conscientious objector who had refused to serve. Six men from the No Conscription Fellowship had been imprisoned with hard labour for distributing the pamphlet: and Russell had written to The Times on 17 May claiming authorship – ‘if anyone is to be prosecuted I am the person responsible’ – hence his court appearance.41 The NCF committee was initially composed of men of military age; when they were imprisoned for refusing to serve, older sympathisers such as Russell had taken their places. The government relentlessly used DORA to suppress dissent: the previous month two Hertfordshire women had been given a choice between a £50 fine or jail (they chose jail) for distributing literature from the Church of England Peace Society, and copies of an appeal by the Pope to Europe’s rulers to settle their differences peaceably. Watched by Lady Ottoline Morrell and Lytton Strachey, Russell was fined £100. The police raided the NCF offices in London that day, and took away ‘large quantities of literature and propaganda leaflets.’42 They would raid them again the following November, to the concern of Samuel, the home secretary, whom the police had not consulted.43

  Russell appealed against his fine; his case was heard in late June, at the same time as the cases against Brockway and two others for a pamphlet they had issued called Repeal the Act. Derby (‘a large, fat man, in tight khaki’, according to Lady Ottoline’s account of the event) was among those who gave evidence against them.44 Russell lost his appeal and refused to pay the fine, so his books and furniture were confiscated and sold: a group of his smart friends, including Lady Ottoline, bought them back. Lady Ottoline’s husband later described this as ‘the first stage … in Mr Russell’s pursuit by the Government.’45 Brockway chose prison rather than pay a £100 fine.

  During 1916 the Morrells’ country house at Garsington became a haven for various of their Bloomsbury friends who had pleaded a conscientious objection. Through his friendship with Strachey and Keynes – both of whom had long been Garsington regulars – the first to arrive was Gerald Shove, like Keynes an economist at King’s College, Cambridge, and a member of the Apostles. Ordered to do farm work,
Shove asked Morrell to have him on the farm at Garsington, where he was supposed to look after the chickens. Lady Ottoline described how he went about his work ‘very slothfully and doggedly and unwillingly’.46 He also neglected his husbandry so badly that the birds laid fewer eggs and fell ill. Among others doing farm work – usually in theory rather than in practice – were Clive Bell, art critic and estranged husband of Virginia Woolf’s sister Vanessa. Shove’s wife, Fredegond, a poetess, and Lady Ottoline took swift exception to Bell and there was occasionally ‘a scene’.47 Asquith, on one of his visits (it was typical of his catholicity of mind that he should be happy to socialise with those determined to undermine his administration’s vital policy on conscription), described Bell as ‘that fat little yellow-haired bounder’.48 Luckily for the Morrells, but unluckily for the Shoves, the refugees were put in a separate house on the estate, thus minimising Bell’s impact on his hosts. Aldous Huxley moved in for the autumn of 1916, though his eyesight was so poor he was exempted even from clerical war work: his father deeply disapproved of his moving to Garsington, saying with some justification that it was full of ‘cranks’.49