Asquith

by Roy Jenkins

  1 Nine of them (Morley, Lloyd George, Beauchamp, Simon, Harcourt, Pease, Samuel, McKinnon Wood and Runciman) even met together at Beauchamp’s house on one occasion; John Burns was the tenth.

  Margot Asquith, always at least as extreme as Lloyd George, might be tempted, as she confided to her Autobiography, by thoughts that her husband could respond by forming a coalition and isolating the whole “ peace party but Asquith himself had no wish to enter the war a prisoner of the “ ill-bred ” Unionist party with his own support rent in two. He wanted to keep the Cabinet as united as possible, and he had no doubt that Lloyd George was the key to this objective.

  No bridges were therefore to be crossed until they had to be. Nor, at this stage, independently of Cabinet opinion and contrary to what has sometimes been assumed, did either Asquith or Grey believe that a clear British commitment would necessarily assist the cause of peace. It might encourage France, and still more Russia, to a greater intransigence. It would destroy any mediatory influence which we might have with Germany and Austria. An apprehensive uncertainty about the British attitude might be the best hope. “ Of course we want to keep out of it,” Asquith wrote on the Wednesday evening, “ but the worst thing we could do would be to announce to the world at the present time that in no circumstances would we intervene.

  On the Thursday (July 30th) he found the situation “ at least one degree worse than it was yesterday ” and was struck by “ the terrible state of depression and paralysis” of opinion in the City, combined with a desire to keep out at almost any cost. The “ pacifists ” were not all in the Liberal Party. By the Friday (July 31st) a further decline of hope had taken place. The French, on the verge of mobilisation, were beginning to apply heavy pressure in London. Cambon, their ambassador, was resolutely using every form of moral blackmail at the Foreign Office. “ E. Grey had an interview with him this afternoon wh. he told me was rather painful,” Asquith wrote.

  Yet throughout these days of mounting crises and declining hope, Asquith still believed that he might be able to fulfil a Chester engagement on the Saturday (August 1st) and go on to Anglesey for the weekend. “ If I come, it will be by the train wh. gets to Holyhead at 6.45 p.m.”, he wrote on the Friday afternoon. But, of course, it was not to be. Asquith never neglected his duty, although he sometimes wished that he could. That night he made a dramatic visit to Buckingham Palace and on the Saturday morning he presided over the first really difficult Cabinet meeting. After dinner on the Friday he was sitting in Downing Street with Grey and Churchill when Sir William Tyrrell arrived from the Foreign Office with a message from the embassy in Berlin suggesting that, if Russian mobilisation could be held up, the Kaiser might be willing to restrain Austria:

  We all set to work.... to draft a direct personal appeal from the King to the Czar, and when it was settled I called a taxi and . . . drove to Buckingham Palace at about 1.30 a.m. The poor King was hauled out of bed, & one of my strangest experiences. . . was sitting with him—he in a brown dressing gown over his night shirt & with copious signs of having been aroused from his first “ beauty sleep ”—while I read the message and the proposed answer. All he did was to suggest that it should be more personal and direct—by the insertion of the words “ My dear Nicky ” and the addition at the end of the signature “ Georgie ! I got home again about 2 a.m. and tossed about for a little on my couch (as the novelists say)—but really I didn’t sleep badly . ..

  Next morning the Cabinet met at 11.0 and sat for 2 hours. Resignations began to loom.

  “It is no exaggeration,” Asquith wrote, “ to say that Winston occupied at least half of the time. We came, every now and again, near to the parting of the ways: Morley and I think the Impeccable (Simon) are on what may be called the Manchester Guardian tack—that we shd. declare now and at once that in no circumstances will we take a hand. This no doubt is the view for the moment of the bulk of the party. Lloyd George—all for peace— is more sensible and statesmanlike, for keeping the position still open. Grey, of course, declares that if an out and out uncompromising policy of non-intervention at all costs is adopted he will go. Winston very bellicose and demanding immediate mobilisation. Haldane diffuse . . . and nebulous. The main controversy pivots upon Belgium and its neutrality. We parted in a fairly amicable mood, & are to sit again at 11 tomorrow (Sunday) an almost unprecedented event.

  “ I am still not quite hopeless about peace, tho’ far from hopeful. But if it comes to war I feel sure (this is entirely between you and me) that we shall have some split in the Cabinet. Of course, if Grey went I should go and the whole thing would break up. On the other hand, we may have to contemplate with such equanimity as we can command the loss of Morley, and possibly (tho’ I don’t think it) of the Impeccable.”

  Asquith was right about Simon’s ultimate decision but wrong in thinking that would leave Morley alone. At the Cabinet the following morning (Sunday, August 2nd) when it was “ agreed at last (with much difficulty) that Grey should be authorised to tell Cambon that our fleet would not allow the German fleet to make the Channel the base of hostile operations,” John Burns at once resigned, and was persuaded only with difficulty to stay on until the evening. Lloyd George, Asquith recorded, was still against “ any kind of intervention in any event,” and was supported by Harcourt as well as by Morley. Crewe, McKenna and Samuel he spoke of as “a moderating intermediate body.”

  This Cabinet lasted from 11.0 until 2.0. The next meeting was from 6.30 until 8.0 that same Sunday evening. It brought no lightening of either the international or the domestic prospect. Burns remained unalterably determined to go. Several others were threatening to follow him. Lloyd George still inclined in that direction. When the meeting broke up Asquith went with three of his children (Violet, Cyril, and Margot’s daughter Elizabeth) to dine with the McKennas. Edwin Montagu was the only other guest. It was exactly the sort of “ scratch dinner party ” (his own phrase) which he liked most, and which, however tense the crisis, was his natural way of preparing for the next phase. On his way back to Downing Street he noted with distaste the beginnings of war hysteria:

  There were large crowds perambulating the streets and cheering the King at Buckingham Palace, & one could hear the distant roaring as late as 1 or 1.30 in the morning. War or anything that seems likely to lead to war is always popular with the London mob. You remember Sir R. Walpole’s remark: “ Now they are ringing their bells; in a few weeks they’ll be wringing their hands.” How one loathes such levity.

  Next morning Asquith received resignation letters from, both Morley and Simon. When the Cabinet met at 11.0 Beauchamp added his nunc dimittis. “ That is 4 gone! ” Asquith wrote. But there was a more important change the other way. The Belgians had rejected the German ultimatum early that morning, and with that development Lloyd George began to move in favour of intervention. He made a strong appeal to the four not to go, or at least to delay their resignations; and they all responded to the extent of sitting on the Government front bench that afternoon.

  It was a crucial occasion. Asquith described how he and Margot and their luncheon guests all went across to the House of Commons and then:

  Grey made a most remarkable speech—about an hour long— for the most part almost conversational in tone & with some of his usual ragged ends; but extraordinarily well reasoned & tactful & really cogent—so much so that our extreme peace-lovers were for the moment reduced to silence; tho’ they will soon find their tongues again.

  After that England was effectively in the war. That night Grey sat in his room at the Foreign Office and coined his famous phrase— the only memorable one of his life—about the lamps of Europe. Asquith, after another scratch dinner party,1 received a surprise visit from Bonar Law. He had to reassure him and his nervous followers that there would be no “jiggery-pokery ” about the Home Rule and Welsh Church Bills. He also wrote a letter of strong personal appeal to Simon.

  This appeal worked, and after the Cabinet the next morning (Tuesday, August 4th) Asquith was
able to write of “ a slump in resignations.” Simon and Beauchamp both decided to stay, but Morley remained “ obdurate ” and neither he nor Burns attended. Neither at the time nor subsequently did Asquith show the slightest sign of bitterness about these resignations. He noted that Morley wrote him “ a particularly nice letter/’ and to Margot he spoke of him “ as one of the most distinguished men living.” Both Morley and Burns continued to be occasional Downing Street luncheon guests.2

  1 “Jack Pease, Mrs. Keppel & girl, Anne Islington & Pauline (Cotton) Harry Wilson & Barbara &c &c.”

  2 “I had a nice talk John Morley,” Asquith wrote three months later: “ He and Birrell are the best of all company.”

  This Tuesday Cabinet, which Asquith rather oddly described as, “interesting,” received the news that German troops had entered Belgium, and responded by issuing an ultimatum, to expire at midnight, for their withdrawal. A British declaration of war became virtually certain.

  In the afternoon Asquith went across to announce the news to the House of Commons. “It is curious how, going to and from the House, we are now always surrounded and escorted by cheering crowds of loafers & holiday makers,” he wrote. And a day or two later he added: “ I have never before been a popular character with the ‘ man in the street,’ and in all this dark and dangerous business it gives me scant pleasure.” The House, he found, took the news “ very calmly & with a good deal of dignity and we got through all the business by ½ past 4.” Asquith then went for an hour’s solitary motor drive. It was not perhaps the way that many men of power would have chosen to spend their time at this watershed of history. But it gave him a good opportunity to survey his feelings and collect his thoughts. He was clear that the decisions towards which he and Grey had coaxed the Cabinet were right. He felt no enthusiasm for the outcome. “ The whole prospect fills me with sadness,” he wrote. “ ... We are on the eve of horrible things.” Yet he did not doubt that he could deal with the tasks ahead. He was very well, he said, though at times rather tired, and he contrasted himself with Grey who “ like Winston and others... is much overstrained.” He believed that he had a broad back for problems of policy and administration, and his nerve was in no way impaired. He would continue, no doubt under greater pressure, to apply his well-tried methods of government and his civilised standards of behaviour. His six-year premiership had already presented so many problems that no new one seemed likely to be insuperable.

  His drive over, Asquith returned to Downing Street to wait, without hope, for the expiration of the ultimatum. Margot described some of the events of the evening:

  I looked at the children asleep after dinner before joining Henry in the Cabinet room. Lord Crewe and Sir Edward Grey were already there and we sat smoking cigarettes in silence; some went out; others came in; nothing was said.

  The clock on the mantelpiece hammered out the hour, and when the last beat of midnight struck1 it was as silent as dawn.

  1 The ultimatum in fact expired at 11.0 p.m. (midnight in Berlin), but arithmetical accuracy was never Margot’s strongest characteristic.

  We were at War.

  I left to go to bed, and, as I was pausing at the foot of the staircase, I saw Winston Churchill with a happy face striding towards the double doors of the Cabinet room.a

  The group that he found within was less happy.

  A PRIME MINISTER AND HIS COLLEAGUES

  1914-15

  When the war started Asquith was nearly sixty-two. He had been Prime Minister for six and a quarter years, which was already a longer period of office than all but two of his predecessors of the previous century. He had become the “ natural ” head of the Government, with his own well-established routine of authority, and it required an effort of imagination on the part of his colleagues, his opponents, the electorate, and even himself, to visualise anyone else in his place.

  He did not make the mistake of regarding himself as indispensable. Indeed, one more than usually adventurous motor journey, a few months later, set his mind contemplating how short-lived would be the reaction to his sudden removal.

  “As we drove up this morning in the motor (it is about 80 miles),” he wrote, “ we had two or three very narrow shaves of collision & disaster. And after each, I said to myself—suppose it had gone wrong, and I had (as Browning says) ‘ended my cares' what would have been the consequence?

  Lots of stuff in the Press—a ‘ nine days ’ wonder in the country: violent speculation as to who was to succeed me—E. Grey, Ll. George, Crewe & co; many obituary notices; and after a week or 10 days (at the outside) the world going on as tho’ nothing had happened:... a few ripples, even, if you like, a bit of a splash in the pool—but little or nothing more.

  Of the men with whom I have been most closely associated, I think that those who wd. (for a time) feel it most are, oddly enough Haldane, McKenna & the Assyrian (Montagu): a strange trinity; of my own family Violet, Oc & perhaps Puffin; and among women I am inclined to think Viola1 (tho’ I am not at all sure about this).”2

  1 Parsons, born Tree.

  2 This was all written “ after midnight.” Next morning Asquith added the comment “ a stupid letter!” but he did not refrain from sending it.

  Although Asquith was never vain or foolish enough to think that the world, or even a small part of it, would stop without him, he rarely doubted his authority over his colleagues or the permanence of his command.3 When Montagu on one occasion (in March, 1915) assured him that if there were any question of his resigning “ the whole Cabinet, including Ll.G. and Winston, would go with (him), & make any alternative impossible,” Asquith implicitly believed the assurance. And when, later in the same month, he had to compose a bitter quarrel between Lloyd George and McKenna, he thought (and rightly, it appeared at the time) that the best way to do so was to remind them that he had been Prime Minister for nearly seven years but that if “ anyone among you has even the faintest doubt or suspicion about me, I will gladly (for what have I to gain or lose?) abandon this chair, & never sit in it again.” “ Their mutual anger dissolved like a frost under a sudden thaw,” Asquith recorded; “and they both with a united voice exclaimed: ‘ The day you leave that chair, the rest of us disappear, never to return.’ And I am sure they meant it.”

  This, however, was an uncharacteristic incident, for there can rarely have been a Prime Minister who talked, or thought, less about resigning than did Asquith. There was no sulkiness in his character, and unlike Gladstone, he did not take easily to the weapon of the false resignation. Nor did he ever seriously look forward to a life of ease and retirement. He sometimes found his duties burdensome. He longed for the war to be over, and for the unfamiliar and distasteful problems which it brought with it to be removed from his agenda. But his wish then was to return to a life of normal government and not one of well-earned rest. In all the vast outpouring of letters which he sent to Miss Stanley during the first nine months of the war, in his seventh year of supreme responsibility, there were hardly more than three or four references to the possibility of retirement. He was full of vague romantic yearnings for a more satisfying inner life, but so far as the outer framework was concerned he did not pretend to discontent. He was happier as Prime Minister than he had ever been before. He suspected that anything afterwards was likely to be anticlimax; and he was too honest to suggest otherwise.

  3 Nevertheless he recorded on November 3rd, 1914: “My dreams continue .... There was another, of which I have only a dim memory, in which (with the concurrence of all my colleagues) I was supplanted by Herbert Samuel—as Prince Hal says ‘ a Jew, an Ebrew Jew .’ Do you think that is going to be my fate? ”

  This was not because he had an exaggerated view of his own political talents. At one stage during these months, exercising his extraordinary taste for relaxation with pen and paper, he constructed, in a moment of ennui with the world around him and in a typically classical mould, a little play about his own qualities and limitations.1 The picture which emerged, he hastened defensively
to add, was not himself as he really was, but as “ a fairly intelligent observer ” might see him:

  1 The date was March, 1915.

  Scene—the infernal tribunal

  On the Bench—rhadamanthus

  At the Bar—self-released shade

  Rhad. (loquitur): So here you are, my friend—before your time.

  I am rarely surprised, but your premature appearance gives me a slight & welcome shock of something approaching to astonishment.

  You, of all people! Que Diable!

  Let me (in self-justification) dwell for a moment on the improbabilities of the case—which is nearly unique, even in my infernal experience.

  You were, in the world above, almost a classical example of Luck. You were endowed at birth with brains above the average. You had, further, some qualities of temperament which are exceptionally useful for mundane success—energy under the guise of lethargy; a faculty for working quickly, which is more effective in the long run than plodding perseverance; patience (which is one of the rarest of human qualities); a temperate but persistent ambition; a clear mind, a certain quality and lucidity of speech; intellectual, but not moral, irritability; a natural tendency to understand & appreciate the opponent’s point of view: and, as time went on, & your nature matured, a growing sense of proportion, which had its effect both upon friends and foes, and which, coupled with detachment from any temptation to intrigue, and, in regard to material interests & profits, an unaffected indifference, secured for you the substantial advantage of personality and authority.