Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  Asquith conceded that some improvement in decision-making had to be effected, and proposed to Lloyd George the establishment of a ‘Civil Committee’ under the war secretary’s chairmanship to direct the resources of the home front, while the War Committee ran military matters. Lloyd George rejected the idea, because it would fail to give him what he wanted and expected: control of the war. Therefore, on the morning of 1 December, instead of having his heart-to-heart with Asquith, he delivered to him, in the form of a memorandum, an ultimatum about the changes he expected – in which Asquith and the cabinet would not have a veto on the committee’s decisions. He had consulted Derby – his deputy in the War Office, and a key convert to the idea of radical change – about the memorandum. Aitken had seen it too. It proved Haig’s point that Derby ‘like the feather pillow bears the mark of the last person who sat on him.’62 Asquith promised to consider it.

  Northcliffe, seemingly near the end of his tether, had seen Lloyd George before his meeting with Asquith; but even before that he (‘in one of his ugliest moods,’ according to Lady Lee) had telephoned Lee to complain that ‘I have wasted I don’t know how many hours of my time on LG already and it isn’t worth it. He will never really do anything and has not the courage to resign.’63 That morning The Times carried a leading article entitled ‘Weak Methods – and Weak Men’. It blamed poor leadership for aggravating problems undermining the prosecution of the war – manpower, food production and food control.64 This was despite the government’s having just acted decisively on another grave problem, by taking control of the South Wales coalfield and leaving the miners in disarray. ‘The days mount into weeks without the slightest sign of agreement or progress on a single point’, the leader continued. ‘Is it surprising that the country is seething with dissatisfaction, and that even the faithful friends of the coalition begin to trim their sails?’ It categorised the nature of government as ‘a series of debating societies’ and set out a superior alternative: a small war council in almost permanent session. It did not call for Asquith’s head.

  One can only conjecture whether Northcliffe’s mood stiffened the war secretary before his meeting. Lloyd George had told Miss Stevenson that Asquith was ‘absolutely devoid of all principles except one – that of retaining his position as Prime Minister. He will sacrifice everything except No 10 Downing Street.’65 She claimed in her diary that ‘countless anxious letters from all parts of the country’ were pouring in from a public ‘pretty sick’ of Asquith, and demanding Lloyd George take over. What was certainly true – as Lloyd George had told Haig over a lunch with him and Derby the previous week – was that the public were no longer, after the Somme, fooled by talk of great victories when scores of thousands of men died to capture a few miles of territory, and the mood was intensely bleak.

  At their meeting, Lloyd George told Asquith that just three people should run the war: the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord and a minister without portfolio. They would have ‘full power, subject to the Supreme Control of the Prime Minister, to direct all questions connected with the war.’66 The prime minister would retain the ‘discretion’ to refer questions to the full cabinet, and the war committee could invite any minister, or any departmental official, to be questioned by it. As for Asquith’s non-membership, Lloyd George cited precedents. Lord Liverpool, Gladstone and Salisbury had all kept their distance from day-to-day running of conflicts when prime minister. The comparison was scarcely an apt one; none of their wars, not even Liverpool’s when Britain fought Napoleon, had made such demands on the manpower and resources of the nation as the one Asquith was fighting.

  While Lloyd George reassured Asquith that he would continue to serve only under him, the two men had serious disagreements over personnel. Asquith wanted to retain Balfour, whom he had persuaded just a few days earlier to accept Jackson’s replacement by Jellicoe by promising the First Lord that he would stay in his post. Lloyd George, however, saw Balfour as ‘gaga, useless’.67 By contrast, Asquith detested Carson, and did not want him back. Lloyd George knew how useful Carson could be to him; but he too would have a problem to overcome with Carson, namely his determination to extend conscription to Ireland. Asquith wrote to Lloyd George later that day, agreeing with many of his points, admitting that change was essential: but insisted the prime minister must chair the war committee and that a separate Committee for National Organisation should run domestic matters. His letter, in which he did not discuss personnel, ended with the (to Lloyd George) unacceptable statement that ‘the Cabinet would in all cases have ultimate authority.’68

  Law, who unlike Derby and Aitken had not been consulted about the memorandum, was shocked when he learned from Lloyd George immediately after the meeting with Asquith of the proposed reduction in Asquith’s powers, to which Law had never agreed. Lloyd George claimed it would not harm the ‘dignity’ of the prime minister. However, he said he had insisted Asquith remove Balfour from the Admiralty. This was too much for Law, who said that ‘not only could I take no part in any attempt to get rid of Mr Balfour from the Admiralty’, but he would also refuse to succeed him – which appeared to be the plan – because of how honourably Balfour had behaved since Law succeeded him as Unionist leader.69

  Despite Law’s considerable misgivings he, Lloyd George and Aitken met again at the Hyde Park Hotel that evening. Law said if Asquith agreed to reconstitute the committee he would not feel it his place to dictate the membership, and neither should Lloyd George. Lloyd George agreed to give Law freedom of action; Law seemed prepared at that juncture to trust Asquith to streamline the committee and change personnel in a way that would improve the direction of the war. But the next morning, having received Asquith’s letter, an angry Lloyd George sent a copy to Law, with a posturing covering letter that read simply: ‘My dear Bonar, I enclose copy of PM’s letter. The life of the Country depends on resolute action by you now. Yours ever, D Lloyd George.’70 Law, who remained scrupulous in his desire not to act in any way to undermine Asquith’s position as prime minister, now saw the necessity of calling a meeting of his Unionist cabinet colleagues to discuss the growing stand-off between Asquith and Lloyd George. He summoned them to his house the following morning. Lloyd George, who feared Law’s colleagues would be against him, urged Derby to come to London to attend the meeting: but as Derby was not in the cabinet, and despite his clout in the party, Law felt unable to invite him.

  Had Asquith hoped details of the crisis would stay confidential he would be disappointed: Aitken had decided to see the press was informed of the growing crisis. Using an American intermediary, he ensured a detailed account appeared in two newspapers (including his own) on Saturday 2 December. The reports named Lloyd George, Carson and Law as the nucleus of the new war committee; Mrs Asquith would describe the leaker as ‘the greatest scoundrel of the lot’ and a ‘low Canadian blackguard’.71 Northcliffe was monitoring the situation partly through Aitken. That morning he told him: ‘Hope your man is not going to follow [Sir John] Simon into obscurity. It looks very like it today. We get some … abusive letters about his negative attitude, with much regret.’72 Northcliffe’s Times ran a leader attacking the government for the second successive day, only this time naming those it considered ‘worn and weary men’: Grey, Crewe, Lansdowne – none of whom would continue in office – but also Balfour, who would. Asquith’s head was not demanded, doubtless because either Northcliffe or his editor thought that this might be so provocative as to be counterproductive. It branded the men it did name the ineffectual ‘innermost circle’ who, thanks to Asquith’s misplaced loyalty, were mismanaging the country.73 It observed there were men in the cabinet who were ‘unworn’, and could motivate change ‘if they have the courage’. The challenge was issued.

  IV

  After lunch that Saturday Asquith left by car for Walmer Castle without having given an indication to colleagues of his next move. ‘It was very typical of him that in the middle of this tremendous crisis he should go away for the weekend!’ Hankey
expostulated.74 That day the Morning Post had run a leading article entitled ‘The Need for a New Government’, writing off Asquith but praising Lloyd George; the previous day it had warmed up with a leader entitled ‘The survival of the unfittest’. In its second barrel, the paper lamented that ‘nothing is to be hoped for as long as Mr Asquith remains prime minister.’75 It also promised, or threatened, to publish frequent analyses of why Asquith had failed until, it seemed, he took the hint. Northcliffe, sensing the way the wind was blowing, suddenly turned up at the War Office, ‘grovelling’ according to Miss Stevenson, hoping to be friends with Lloyd George. Hankey believed that morning’s stories had been ‘obviously inspired by Ll George.’76

  At Mrs Asquith’s request Hankey saw Law, who told him about the party meeting he had called for the next day. By now, Law’s reservations about Asquith’s being excluded from the proposed war committee appeared to have been overcome by the prime minister’s own acceptance of that condition in Lloyd George’s memorandum. In the light of this development, Law told Hankey that if Asquith rejected the proposal to hand direction of the war over to Lloyd George, Law would resign and take his party with him, ending the coalition. He added that he wished to resign before Lloyd George, so as not to appear to be ‘dragged at the heels’ of the war secretary. Asquith had asked Reading, of whose closeness to Lloyd George he had been well aware since the Marconi scandal, to keep his friend under control; but when Hankey asked him to persuade Lloyd George to hold off resigning, Reading told him he had bought a stay of execution of just twenty-four hours.77 Later on 2 December Asquith heard from Montagu, one of his closest colleagues and now the husband of Venetia Stanley, who told him that Lloyd George was adamant that the prime minister – whoever he might be – could not sit on the proposed war committee, because it would meet so often it would disrupt his other duties.

  According to Miss Stevenson – whose chronology is not always accurate – Lloyd George had refused to see Asquith on the Saturday before he left for Kent because he felt he had reached a brick wall, and drafted his letter of resignation that afternoon.78 Hankey realised it was vital to have Asquith on hand in Downing Street, and so sent Bonham Carter to Walmer to bring him back. Hankey and Reading discussed the absurdity of the quarrel: ‘The obvious compromise is for the Prime Minister to retain the Presidency of the War Committee with Lloyd George as Chairman, and to give Lloyd George a fairly free run for his money.’ But such a simple solution was beyond either man, close colleagues for the previous eleven years, who now had irreconcilable differences of personality and ambition as much as of policy. Asquith’s point was simple: if he wasn’t thought up to running the War Committee, then he wasn’t up to being prime minister.

  The Unionist meeting took place on the morning of Sunday 3 December, at Law’s house. He went into it having been urged by Aitken to resign, and having been told Aitken would put the full force of the Daily Express behind Lloyd George because it was in the national interest to change the government. Aitken was never honest about his control of the Express at this time: as late as 1956 his private secretary told a professor at the University of Hawaii, researching the subject, that ‘it was not until 1917 that he took over financial responsibility for the Daily Express and that he took no part in policy until 1 January 1919,’ one of the many fictions also contained in his memoirs. His biographer, A. J. P. Taylor, tells the truth, saying the deal was completed on 2 December.79 Aitken, anxious to elevate his less than central role, also claimed to have ensured an even more detailed version of events appeared in that morning’s Reynold’s News. This angered the Unionist ministers, who felt Lloyd George was trying to bounce them into unseating Asquith. Two potentially restraining influences from the old guard, Lansdowne and Balfour, were both absent, the former at his estate in Wiltshire and the latter still ill in bed in Carlton Gardens.

  Law told his colleagues he would back Lloyd George’s plan, and a resolution was passed (with only Lansdowne, consulted later, showing much reluctance) stating that:

  We share the view, expressed to the Prime Minister by Mr Bonar Law some time ago, that the Government cannot go on as it is.

  It is evident that a change must be made, and in our opinion the publicity given to the intentions of Mr Lloyd George makes reconstruction from within no longer possible. We therefore urge the Prime Minister to tender the resignation of the Government.

  If he feels unable to take this step, we authorise Mr Bonar Law to tender our resignation.80

  Chamberlain argued that with Lloyd George in ‘open rebellion’ – he and his colleagues assumed the war secretary had dictated the article in Reynolds News – and Asquith apparently powerless against him, the Asquith administration was effectively over.81 The question of who might succeed him, however, remained open.

  By Sunday afternoon Bonham Carter had brought Asquith back from Walmer. He, Montagu and Reading – who had Lloyd George’s interests very much at heart – persuaded Asquith to overcome his loathing of confrontation, to accept there was a serious crisis, and sort it out. Therefore, Lloyd George was summoned from Walton Heath to see him. Before he left Surrey Lloyd George shared his plans with Scott, who told him he thought the demand that Asquith should stop running the war was ‘rather a tall order’ and ‘that he might well regard it as inconsistent with his position’.82

  Law arrived at Downing Street before Lloyd George, to go into conclave with Asquith. He did not show – he claimed to have forgotten, rather than to have withheld it deliberately – the prime minister the exact wording of the resolution passed earlier that day. He did tell him Unionist ministers would resign, not in support of Lloyd George but to force the issue of a reconstruction. All that remained to be decided was which Liberal prime minister the Unionists would agree to support, but Law seems not to have emphasised to Asquith how deep his colleagues’ personal reservations were about Lloyd George, and how they might be happy to entertain Asquith as head of a different government. Asquith, though, interpreted the Unionists as asking him to resign, in order to see whether the King invited him back; rather than having him present the resignations of his colleagues and then remain in post himself to reassemble a new team.

  Alarmed the Unionists might desert him, Asquith – who may not have understood what Law said – thus promised him a reconstruction, news of which on Law’s advice was leaked to the press just before midnight on 3 December, and which appeared the next morning. When Lloyd George arrived at Downing Street that Sunday evening Asquith sent for Law. He told the two men there was agreement about the remit of the new war committee, with Lloyd George as chairman, but no agreement at that stage about other personnel. Asquith agreed to request the resignations of all ministers so he could reconstruct from scratch. Law told this to his colleagues that evening, and they in turn withdrew any call for Asquith to resign.

  Lloyd George, even at this late stage, was making histrionic protestations of loyalty, saying that, as usual, McKenna was blackguarding him – ‘he almost had tears in his eyes,’ Asquith told his wife.83 The same evening Curzon wrote to Lansdowne with an account of the meeting he had missed, describing Lloyd George as ‘a merely destructive and disloyal force.’84 Yet – and Curzon too could be disarmingly un-straight – he also told Lansdowne that ‘we know that with him [Asquith] as Chairman either of the Cabinet or War Committee, it is absolutely impossible to win the war.’85 Derby drafted but did not send a letter to Haig that same evening telling him what Lloyd George was up to and admitting: ‘We can’t go on as we are.’86

  Lloyd George thought the matter settled: and at noon the next day, Monday 4 December, he sent for Hankey, who had spent his morning trying to calm down Mrs Asquith. Passing through ranks of journalists outside the War Office and in the Secretary of State’s anteroom, Hankey found him reposing in an armchair by the fire. Hankey promised to work with him ‘loyally and wholeheartedly’.87 He asked Hankey to draft some ‘rules’ for the new war committee, to be circulated around the new cabinet. However, other fo
rces had been at work since Sunday evening, and Montagu almost immediately told Hankey the deal was off. Two factors made Asquith change his mind. He felt he had bought Lloyd George off by letting him chair the war committee, and by promising that he would not necessarily attend every meeting. Mrs Asquith, however, thought this mad, and Asquith seems to have unduly discounted the reality of his power as prime minister while someone else controlled the most important policies. When he told his wife he would retain control of the war, and had told Lloyd George that, Mrs Asquith was deeply sceptical.

  Most telling, however, was a leading article in that morning’s Times. It, and a news story, had full details of the plan and the manoeuvrings of the weekend, suggesting a high degree of collusion with Lloyd George’s camp: a supposition reinforced by its ultra-sympathetic approach to the idea that he should have more power. Elsewhere in the press it was portrayed as an unconditional surrender by Asquith, a smell of which also came from The Times’s coverage. The prime minister, his wife and his coterie detected Lloyd George’s hand and were determined to put him in his place; they were especially angered by the accuracy of reports of private conversations between the two men. Asquith wrote to him that ‘such productions’ showed ‘the infinite possibilities for misunderstanding and misrepresentation’ of what they had discussed. ‘Unless the impression is at once corrected that I am being relegated to the position of an irresponsible spectator of the War, I cannot go on.’88