by Simon Heffer
Law and Davidson left for an aerodrome and flew to London; Davidson took the letter to the King at Buckingham Palace, which he entered ‘through crowds of cheering people.’129 It was 9.15, and the King had just finished dinner. He took the letter, which read:
Mr Lloyd George with his humble duty to Your Majesty has the honour to announce that the long and terrible war in which the British Empire has been engaged with the German Empire for more than four years and which has caused such suffering to mankind has been brought to an end this afternoon by the Treaty of Peace just signed in this hall.
He desires on behalf of all the Plenipotentiaries of Your Majesty’s Empire to send their heartfelt congratulations to Your Majesty on the signature of a Treaty which marks the victorious end of the terrible struggle which has lasted so long and in which Your Majesty’s subjects from all parts of the Empire have played so glorious a part.
The King, in the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet, heard Davidson’s impressions of the Versailles ceremony, and – with a crowd now estimated at 100,000 outside – returned to exchange salutes with his people from the balcony. ‘Please God,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘this dear old country will soon settle down and march in unity.’130
1. The Illustrated London News imagines the diplomatic turmoil in the Foreign Office in July 1914: Sir Edward Grey is on the left, standing by the table; Count Benckendorff stands next to him; Paul Cambon is seated, engaging an unidentified man in conversation; opposite him, gripping his lapels, is Prince Lichnowsky; and the man sitting on the furthest right appears to be Sir Arthur Nicolson.
2. Henry and Margot Asquith just before the war, keeping up appearances.
3. Sir Edward Grey, later Viscount Grey of Fallodon, who saw the lamps going out all over Europe, painted by Sir James Guthrie.
4. Men queuing at the Whitehall recruiting office in London in the late summer of 1914: Mrs Asquith wanted a shelter built to protect them from the rain.
5. Viscount Haldane, whose mistake was to understand Germany, and Lord Kitchener, shortly to become a poster.
6. Sir John Jellicoe, who would command the Fleet and achieve a score-draw at Jutland.
7. To create a sense of the comforts of home at the front, the families of Tommies were urged to send them Oxo cubes.
8. Carl Hans Lody, the first German spy to be executed, in the dock at his trial in November 1914.
9. Ruins of the lifeboat station at Scarborough after being shelled by the German navy in December 1914: the raid provoked an outbreak of vulgarity from Churchill that distressed Mrs Asquith.
10. Bertrand Russell soaks up the sun at Garsington, Bloomsbury’s country club.
11. Lady Ottoline Morrell, chatelaine of Garsington, with her daughter Julian.
12. A three-man tribunal questions a conscientious objector and his adviser, watched by family and friends.
13. Horatio Bottomley, recruiter, demagogue, jingoist, swindler and charlatan extraordinaire.
14. The Earl of Derby, bearing an impression of the last artist to paint him, in this case Sir William Orpen.
15. A cartoon from John Bull by Frank Holland – who also drew for the Daily Mail – depicting the popular attitude to conscientious objectors.
16. Sir George (later Lord) Riddell, proprietor of the News of the World, and crony-in-chief and landlord of Lloyd George.
17. Lord Northcliffe, founder of the Daily Mail, owner of The Times, megalomaniac and possibly the most powerful man in Britain until Lloyd George supplanted him.
18. A shop in London’s east end advertises the nationality of its owners during the anti-German riots after the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915.
19. Edith Cavell, whose execution became the ultimate example of German ‘frightfulness’.
20. The British sense of humour as propaganda: another Boche headed for the corpse factory.
21. The stark reality of the German U-boat war: a mass grave in Ireland of Lusitania victims.
22. Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty in his ‘delicious’ war.
23. David Lloyd George, the man who very nearly lost the war.
24. Maurice Hankey, the power behind two prime ministers – as he said himself.
25. Field Marshal Sir Douglas (later Earl) Haig, who committed suicide twenty-five years after his death.
26. John Redmond, leader of the Irish Nationalists, whose warnings went unheeded.
27. Sir Roger Casement, who blundered his way to the gallows.
28. Éamon de Valera, the face of fanaticism and of Ireland’s future.
29. British soldiers man a barricade in Dublin during the Easter Rising.
30. Andrew Bonar Law, who passed the keys of Downing Street from Asquith to Lloyd George.
31. Earl (later Marquess) Curzon of Kedleston, the grandest of Tory grandees.
32. Arthur Henderson, Labour leader and patriot.
33. Viscount Milner, Kindergarten manager turned cabinet minister.
34. General (later Field Marshal) Sir William Robertson, adversary of Lloyd George.
35. Lord Stamfordham, a courtier of the old school, and his master, King George V.
36. Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice, who believed prime ministers should tell the truth.
37. H. A. L. Fisher, intellectual dynast dedicated to building a better post-war world.
38. A game of two halves: the munitionettes’ football XI 1917–18 from the AEC factory at Beckton, Essex.
39. A ‘clippie’ on a London bus in the summer of 1918.
40. Mary S. Allen, a former prominent suffragette thrice imprisoned, inspects women police officers.
41. Three college girls pull their weight on a flax farm in Somerset.
Children pushed into the front line of the Glasgow rent strike, 1915.
42. A handbill encouraging attendance at a celebration of the Russian revolution, 1917.
43. Miners further the war effort by going on strike in South Wales in 1915.
44. Lord Rhondda, who survived the Lusitania to become ‘food dictator’ in 1917.
45. A woman worker selling tickets at a National Kitchen.
46. The menu for a dinner of 74 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps before it returned to action, March 1918.
47. C. R. W. Nevinson’s uncensored depiction of a food queue, 1918.
48. An advertisement that appeared in the Sketch on 30 October 1918, at the height of the influenza epidemic.
49. A food ration book from the last days of the war.
50. Servicemen and VADs rejoice on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918.
51. Unforgotten: Nurse Cavell’s cortège passes the Palace of Westminster as crowds throng the streets, May 1919.
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