Asquith

by Roy Jenkins

  Asquith felt the force of the storm, but did not bow before it. Wisely or unwisely, he had committed himself to put down his motion and, if necessary, to vote for it. He had argued the case on purely procedural grounds, whereas Lloyd George had insisted, with daring persuasiveness, in bringing the substance of the matter before the House. This unbalanced the debate from the beginning, and the critics of the Government never recovered their equilibrium. But Asquith did not feel that he could be driven into withdrawal by Lloyd George’s aggressive tactics. He watched passively the unsatisfactory unfolding of the debate. It lasted less than three hours after the Prime Minister sat down. Carson turned about and gave almost wholehearted support to Lloyd George. Three Conservatives—General Croft, Colonel Archer-Shee and Lord Hugh Cecil—delivered damaging criticisms of the Government, Croft in particular applying himself to the substance of the dispute, and said they would abstain. Joynson-Hicks and two others, one a Liberal and one a Conservative, said that they had come with open minds, but had been convinced by the Prime Minister that there was no case for an enquiry. Colonel Josiah Wedgwood said that he had three times changed his mind as to how to vote,1 and appealed despairingly for some further guidance from the front opposition bench.

  1 In fact he too abstained.

  He appealed in vain. McKenna was there, Runciman was there, Samuel was there. But none of them rose to wind up. The debate petered out, with brief inconclusive speeches and increasingly impatient shouts of “ divide, divide.” Asquith mustered a vote of 108 (including the two tellers), made up of 100 Liberals and a minority of the Labour members. The Government had 295, including 71 Liberals. Asquith and his followers went gloomily home. They could not have been pleased with themselves. They had been badly out-manoeuvred. But they had no idea that they had participated in one of the great divisive debates of history, in an event from which Lloyd George would never allow the Liberal Party to recover.

  What were the merits of the argument? Did Asquith eagerly seize upon the false accusations of a sour and neurotic general (as Lloyd George insisted on regarding Maurice 1) or did the Prime Minister tear up the truth in order to discomfort his critics and gain a spurious House of Commons victory? Lloyd George, in his speech, rested upon two sets of alternative defences. The first was that his statements were correct, but that, even if they were not, the responsibility was Maurice’s who, as Director of Military Operations, had supplied him with the figures. The second was that, in making his comparison between January, 1917 and January, 1918 he had not included the non-combatant troops (labour battalions etc.), which had grown greatly in strength in the interval, but that he would in fact have been justified in doing so, as the distinction was an unreal one.

  The last point would have been a difficult one to sustain in detailed argument, and in any event it had been discounted in a parliamentary answer by the under-secretary for War on April 18th. So far as combatant troops were concerned, however, the final War Office (pre-debate) figures did not bear out Lloyd George’s contention. Those prepared on May 7th gave a total of 1,198,032 in January, 1918, as compared with 1,283,696 in January, 1917.h Yet Lloyd George had acted in good faith and on War Office authority when he made his statement on April 9th; and Maurice was directly involved in providing that authority.

  How, then, did the discrepancy arise? Part of the explanation was provided four years later. General Maurice, seeking to vindicate himself, and after a careful review of the facts, wrote to Lloyd George in July, 1922. The War Office document upon which Lloyd George’s first statements was based, he said, had been prepared in a hurry. By mistake the strength of the armies in Italy had been included in those in France. This mistake was quickly discovered, however (so one would hope, for the sake of General Maurice’s reputation as head of the Military Operations department), and a correction was sent to Lloyd George within a few days. When the Prime Minister made his May 9th statement, therefore, he did so on the basis of information which he knew had since been amended.

  But did he? In 1922 he brushed Maurice’s letter aside. He was never a man for the careful unravelling of past mysteries, particularly if the process might be embarrassing to him. He preferred the events of the moment, and he wanted no dealings with Maurice. At this stage, therefore, the matter remained unresolved. But in 1934 Lady Lloyd George (then Miss Frances Stevenson and still, as she had been for many years, one of Lloyd George’s most trusted secretaries) made an entry in her diary. And in 1956 Lord Beaverbrook, making use of his vast store of early twentieth century political papers, revealed this entry. It ran as follows:

  Have been reading up the events connected with the Maurice Debate in order to help Ll.G. with this chapter in volume v (of the War Memoirs), and am uneasy in my mind about an incident which occurred at the time and is known only to J. T. Davies1 and myself. Ll.G. obtained from the W.O. the figures which he used in his statement on April 9th in the House of Commons on the subject of manpower. These figures were afterwards stated by Gen. Maurice to be incorrect.

  I was in J. T. Davies’ room a few days after the statement, and J.T. was sorting out red despatch boxes to be returned to the Departments. As was his wont he looked in them before locking them up and sending them out to the Messengers. Pulling out a W.O. box, he found in it, to his great astonishment, a paper from the D.M.O. containing modifications and corrections of the first figures they had sent, and by some mischance this box had remained unopened. J.T. and I examined it in dismay, and then J.T. put it in the fire, remarking, “ Only you and I, Frances, know of the existence of this paper.”

  There is no doubt that this is what Maurice had in mind when he accused Ll.G. of mis-statement. But the amazing thing was that the document was never fixed upon.... I was waiting for the matter to be raised, and for the question to be asked: Why did L.G. not receive these supplementary figures? Or did he? But the questions never came and I could not voluntarily break faith with J.T., perhaps put L.G. in a fix, and who knows, have brought down the Government!

  I suppose it is too late for the matter to be cleared up and I had better keep silent. But I will talk it over with J.T. In any event, no good could come of any revelation made now... i

  1 Sir J. T. Davies, 1881-1938, Lloyd George’s principal private secretary from 1912 until the end of his premiership. Subsequently a director of the Suez Canal Company and a trustee of the Lloyd George Fund.

  So, with this interesting sidelight on Downing Street life under the Lloyd George regime, the mystery appears to be cleared up. So far at least as his main charge was concerned, Maurice was right. Asquith knew that he was right, and acted from a high sense of duty, although with less than his usual parliamentary skill. But Lloyd George may genuinely have believed that Maurice, saying one thing in the War Office and another as soon as he was outside, was a conspirator against the Government rather than a performer of public duty. Nor did the Prime Minister understand how he had been misled on April 9th. He can therefore be acquitted of the heaviest charges which are laid against his conduct of the Maurice debate. The use which he subsequently made of it is a different matter.

  This use occurred seven months later. During the first half of 1918 the end of the war seemed almost infinitely remote. The generals and the politicians were thinking in terms of the campaigns of 1919 and 1920. And the public, which in 1914-15 had found it so difficult to adjust to the idea of a long war, now found it almost equally difficult to comprehend that peace might be near at hand. By the early autumn, however, the mood had changed. Asquith, who had spent a quiet summer, golfing at North Berwick and (a most uncharacteristic activity) climbing “ on about the hottest afternoon of the year ” to the highest of the Clumps behind Sutton Courtney, was deeply embroiled, by early October, in talks about the peace prospect and the possible terms. “ I came up here yesterday morning,” he wrote from Cavendish Square on October 8 th, “a day sooner than I intended, as I wanted to be in touch with people about this German Peace Note ... Lansdowne and Gilbert Murray are coming to l
unch: E. Grey after lunch: and Lord Reading about tea-time: so I am not wanting for counsellors.”j

  Asquith believed at this stage that he might have a great part to play in the peace negotiations, and in the subsequent reconstruction of Europe. He had a good deal of traditional English scepticism about the intentions and capacity of the Americans, but he was most anxious to meet Woodrow Wilson and to co-operate closely with him. When he heard that the President was coming to London he wrote:

  I confess he is one of the few people in the world that I want to see and talk to: not quite in the spirit of Monckton Milnes, of whom it was said that if Christ came again he would at once send him an invitation card for one of his breakfasts; but because I am really curious to judge for myself what manner of man he is. Gilbert Murray, who was here this morning and knows him, thinks that I should like him.k

  Asquith’s assumption was still that the Liberal Party would retain a dominant position in post-war politics. The process of disillusionment began, mildly at first, in early November. Lloyd George, following up a series of October talks, had written a formal but for the moment secret letter to Bonar Law on November 2nd, proposing that there should be a quick election and a Coalition ticket. Ten days later this proposal was accepted at a Unionist meeting. Before that Asquith had gathered what was intended. “ I suppose that tomorrow we shall be told the final decision about this accursed General Election,” he wrote on November 6th. “ If, as seems more than likely, it is to be upon us soon after the end of the month, it will be difficult to make any plans, as one may find oneself roaming about like the Wandering Jew.”l A strong deputation from Liberals in the constituencies waited upon Lloyd George during this week and urged him to fight in alliance, not with Bonar Law, but with Asquith. They received a discouraging answer. Asquith was of course informed of what occurred at this meeting.

  Then came the Armistice. Asquith had only a peripheral part to play in that dramatic and emotion-charged day of brilliant autumn sunlight. His main duty during the morning was to motor to Golders Green and attend the cremation service of a distant relation. When he returned he found a telegram from the King (in reply to one which Margot had sent earlier in their joint names). “ I look back with gratitude,” it said, “ to your wise counsel and calm resolve in the days when great issues had to be decided resulting in our entry into the war.” After luncheon he drove with Margot to the House of Commons, and listened to Lloyd George reading the terms of the Armistice. He contributed a few brief but appropriate remarks. The House then adjourned and moved in procession to St. Margaret’s for a service of thanksgiving. At Cavendish Square Margot had ordered all available flags to be put out, and Asquith found a Welsh harp “ fluttering greenly ” from his library window. The next day the Asquiths attended the national thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s, and lunched afterwards with the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace.

  Sometime in the next few days Asquith had an important interview with Lloyd George. Although at least three accounts of this survive, none of them fixes the day, but it seems likely to have been in the week following the Armistice. None of these accounts is in serious conflict with another, so perhaps Margot’s version (always the most graphic) may be given:

  . . . Henry was asked to go to the Prime Minister’s room in the House of Commons.

  Upon his return he told me what had occurred. He had been received with a friendliness which amounted to enthusiasm and asked where he stood. Mr. Lloyd George then said:

  “ I understand you don’t wish to take a post under the Government.”1

  To which my husband answered that that was so; and added that the only service he thought he could render the Government would be if he were to go to Versailles, as from what he knew both of President Wilson and M. Clemenceau he was pretty sure they knew little of International Law or finance, and that these two problems would be found all-important in view of fixing future frontiers and the havoc the war was likely to create in all the Foreign Exchanges.

  At this Mr. Lloyd George looked a little confused. He was walking up and down the room, and in knocking up against a chair a pile of loose books were thrown upon the ground. Hastily looking at his watch and stooping down to pick up the books, he said he would consider my husband’s proposal. Nothing more was said; the interview was over, and my husband never heard another word upon the matter.m

  1 The account of Vivian Phillipps, Asquith’s secretary from 1918 onwards, says that the question was asked directly, without assuming a negative. Lloyd George’s own account says that he offered Asquith the Lord Chancellorship, “ and the opportunity of attending the Peace Conference.”

  Neither of the two was willing to accept the other’s terms. Asquith was loath either to compromise his position as the head of an independent Liberal Party, or to desert his old friends, by entering the Coalition Government. Lloyd George was determined that, if Asquith wanted to go to Paris, he should first pay the price of subordinating himself in the Government. The impasse was complete, although Asquith continued to hope, even when the election had left its legacy of additional bitterness, that he might still be allowed his independent delegate status.

  The election campaign was as disagreeable for the independent Liberals as it was discreditable for the leaders of the Coalition. Lloyd George unaccountably claimed that he did not allude to the Maurice debate “ during the whole contest,but in fact he raised it at length (although without mentioning the name “ Maurice ”) at one of the first meetings—Wolverhampton on November 23rd—and made it clear that performance the previous May was to be the principal test of whether or not a sitting Liberal M.P. was to receive the endorsement of Bonar Law and himself. Nearly all who had voted for the select committee were provided with Coalition opponents—mostly Unionists. In this way “ the coupon,” as Asquith described it, was born.

  Asquith fought a campaign of integrity, but a slightly weary and dispirited one. “ I doubt whether so far there is .much interest in the elections,” he wrote on November 25th, “ despite the efforts of the newspapers to keep the pot boiling. The whole thing is a wicked fraud, which will settle nothing.”0 And on another occasion: “ I am rather in need of something to read on my journeys: I loathe all this knocking about, but it has to be done.”p

  He had some good meetings and found the Liberals on occasion “ breast-high against all this coalitioneering.,, But it would be an exaggeration to say that he was optimistic about the general result. The best that he could hope for was to maintain a bastion of a hundred or so independent Liberal seats against the Coalition flood. Most of these, he believed, would hold. In particular, he felt no doubts about East Fife. “ I confess that I felt so little apprehension for my seat that I spent most of my time ... in visiting and addressing other constituencies,’’ he wrote.® He was there for polling day, however, and was edified by posters somewhat clumsily proclaiming: “ Asquith nearly lost you the War. Are you going to let him spoil the Peace? ”

  The results were delayed for a fortnight to allow the soldiers’ votes to come in. This interval included Christmas, and Asquith spent most of it at the Wharf. He did not return to Scotland for the counting. That day (December 28th) he began by leading a deputation of Grey and Gilbert Murray to tell President Wilson of their support for the idea of the League of Nations. Later in the morning he went to see the Freedom of the City of London conferred upon the President. The freedom ceremony over, the company adjourned to the Mansion House for a Lord Mayor’s luncheon. Asquith sat at the high table, only a few places away from Lloyd George. As the meal drew to an end whispers of the election returns began to circulate amongst the guests. On their way out the air was heavy with fact and rumour. It was clear that the Coalition had won a crushing victory. Margot described the scene:

  ... I heard a man say: “ Herbert Samuel, McKinnon Wood and Runciman are out.”

  We left the dining-room and made our way down to the crowded front door. People waiting for their motors were standing in groups discussing t
he Election returns.

  “McKenna is beat: Montagu is in by over 9,000” was whispered from mouth to mouth, while the men thrust their arms into their coat sleeves, changing their cigars from hand to hand in the process, and asking for their motors.

  The news spread; man after man of ours was out.

  Where we all beaten?.... Who could I ask? Who would tell me? Henry crushed up against me and said calmly:

  “ I see our footman ”...

  Among the crush in the large open doorway... I perceived Rufus Reading, looking snow-white. Did he or did he not know if Henry was beaten? ... perhaps they all knew.

  I was jammed up against my husband and had no idea what he had heard.

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eyelids; he was standing a little in front of me, but not a sign of any kind could be seen on his face....

  I saw as if in a trance the cheering crowds, eager faces, mounted police, and swaying people, while we shot down the streets with our minds set and stunned. Not one word did we say till we got near home; then Henry broke the silence:

  "I only hope,” he said, " that I have not got in; with all the others out this would be the last straw.”