Asquith (68 page)

All these resignations were not of equal authenticity. Simon’s was the most determined. He stuck firmly to the narrow point that it was wrong to compel men to be soldiers, and he attended no further Cabinet after that of December 28th. His letters to Asquith were full of regret and good feeling, and the latter felt no resentment against him. “ Poor Simon, I am so sorry for him in his self-righteousness,” was the harshest remark that he made.

Grey, on the other hand, did not feel particularly strongly about the principle of conscription. “ . . . . On the point of compulsion for unmarried men,” he wrote, “ I am prepared to support you and the decision of the majority at the last Cabinet.”
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But he agreed with McKenna and Runciman “ on general questions of economic and financial policy.” If they went there was no hope of these policies triumphing in the Cabinet. It was a tenuous reason for resignation; coupled with his telling Asquith that he felt increasingly uneasy about not having gone with Haldane in May, it suggested that he was looking for an excuse to leave a political scene which had become distasteful to him. Dissuaded by Asquith on this occasion, he tried again at least twice during the next six months, and during one of these attempts Asquith sharply reminded him that the two of them were more responsible than any other Englishmen for Britain being in the war, and that they had better both be prepared to see it out.

McKenna and Runciman, on account both of their reasons for resigning and of the firmness of their determination to do so, occupied an intermediate position between Grey and Simon. As almost the last representatives of a highly individualistic, nineteenth century businessman’s Liberalism, they were instinctively hostile to any form of State interference with private decision making. But they were not prepared to go to the stake on the narrow point of whether or not unmarried men should be compulsorily enrolled. They wanted, very sensibly,
to fight their battle on the wider issue of the shape of the British war effort. Kitchener said that to fulfil her commitments Britain must have 70 divisions and a rate of enrolment of 30,000 men a week. McKenna and Runciman said that these were mistaken targets which, if hit, would destroy our capacity to act as the arsenal of the Alliance.
¹

Asquith’s “ bridge-building ” in this situation took several forms. First, the anti-conscriptionists had to accept an immediate but limited measure of compulsion for single men. Anyone, like Simon, who stood out against this would have to go. Second, a very skilfully chosen Cabinet committee—the members were Asquith, McKenna and Austen Chamberlain—was appointed to investigate, over a period of a month, the competing military and economic claims. Third, Briand and Gallieni, under the guise of advice-seeking, were to have the central issue put bluntly before them. Which did they prefer: more men or more money? They must be made to see that they could not have both without limit.

On the basis of these arrangements Asquith got through the first reading debate and division on January 6th without any resignation other than that of Simon. The majority was highly satisfactory. Simon had only a handful of Liberals with him. The Labour members split almost equally. Only the Irish Nationalists provided a solid phalanx of opposition. Then trouble came from a new quarter. The National Executive Committee of the Labour Party came out flatly against the bill, and the parliamentary party took a majority decision to follow the Executive’s lead. Henderson, whose lack of self-regard made him always see himself as a purely representative figure, felt that he must resign. On January 10th he wrote a sad but clear-cut letter to Asquith:

In consequence of the decision of Organised Labour to oppose the Military Service Bill I have no alternative but to tender you my resignation. ... I supported the . . . Bill in the Cabinet; I
shall continue to do so in the House as the representative of my constituents on the ground of military necessity.
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Roberts and Brace, the two Labour junior ministers, followed Henderson’s lead. The Cabinet, that same day, could think of no remedy other than that Asquith should himself meet the parliamentary Labour Party and endeavour to set their fears at rest. This he did on January nth—and was triumphantly persuasive. He did not convert them all to conscription, but he did get them to agree that Henderson and the others should stay in the Government. Another hurdle was past.

The next day, McKenna began to have fresh doubts. Asquith’s irritation with him was not lessened by the fact that he thought he had a very good case. On the evening of January 13 th Asquith went to see Lady Scott, the widow of the Antarctic explorer, who at this time was one of his confidantes, and she wrote in her diary for that day:

P.M. came at 6.30. I hadn’t seen him for a week. ... he has been so worried. Said McKenna changes ground so often. Three days ago he (Asquith) would have said they were practically out of the wood, yesterday he would have said things could scarcely be worse. McKenna isn’t insisting on the pecuniary impossibility of the compulsion bill, but adopting the Runciman depletion of industry attitude, and, added the P.M., “ the Dickens is that I so agree with him.”

A month later, on the basis of mutual compromise by the War Office and the Board of Trade, the tripartite Military-Finance Committee (as Hankey, the secretary, called it) had succeeded, after daily meetings, in reaching agreement. But the process did not improve Asquith’s feeling about McKenna. Lady Scott is again the witness.

“The P.M. told me,” she wrote on February'’ 13th, “ that the man who had disappointed him most for many a long year was McKenna. Said he proved himself unstable mentally and morally —moreover he hadn’t the excuse of a stupid man, nor the excuse of artistic temperament or any such thing—it saddened him.”

But here again Asquith may have been influenced by a sneaking respect for McKenna’s views. Perhaps the best way for a minister to irritate his chief is stubbornly to advocate a policy which the Prime Minister would half like to follow, but knows he cannot, and to do it by always threatening resignation, while never carrying the threat into effect. By this time, however, Asquith had got his bill safely through
the House of Commons. And this achievement, even if it did not make him more tolerant of McKenna, at least gave him a short stretch of substantially calmer water.

He used it to make his longest wartime trip abroad. He left London on March 25th and was away for ten days. After a conference with the French ministers in Paris, and a visit with Hankey to the Marne battlefield, he travelled on to Italy. A letter which he wrote to Margot from the train shows that, for important passengers, the French did not allow the agony of Verdun to interfere with the amenities of their railway service:

We started from the Gare de Lyon at eleven in the forenoon and I have never travelled in such luxury—large saloons, eating car, wonderfully appointed bedrooms, etc; no stoppages except now and then to take in water. Apart from servants and attendants there were only four of us aboard—Bongie (Bonham Carter), O’Beirne (a diplomat), Hankey and self.
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1

¹
_{Hankey’s comment on the journey was: “ Never before or since have I so much regretted my ignorance of ‘ bridge,’ which compelled the others to play 'dummy ’ until we were joined in Italy by the Military Attache.”
(The Supreme Command
, 1914-18, n, p. 482).}

In Rome, according to Hankey, Asquith created an excellent impression 011 the Italian ministers, and the visit was “ a gigantic success,” contributing substantially to Italy’s decision, later that year, to declare war against Germany—at first she was only at war with Austria. Asquith made a number of excellent speeches, some in French and some in English, as well as impressing Hankey with his “ vast store of knowledge on all classical and historical matters.” “ However can he remember it all amid his tremendous burden of State affairs? ” the latter wrote. He was received in audience by Pope Benedict XV, and when His Holiness hinted at the desirability of an early peace “ pursed up his mouth and said words to the effect that we should continue to the end.”
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At the station he was seen off by an enthusiastic crowd and some shouts of “
Viva Asquitti
!” The Prime Minister then paid a two-day visit to King Victor Emmanuel at his farmhouse headquarters near Udine. He arrived back in London at 4.0 a.m. on April 7th and was almost immediately confronted with two major crises.

The first was a renewal of the old compulsion trouble. Recruiting under the January system did not go as well during the early months of 1916 as had been hoped. There was mounting pressure for general
conscription from the Press, from the Unionist back-benchers, organised under Carson, and from Lloyd George. The "
Military-Finance Committee,” meeting again with the addition of Lansdowne, recommended a further compromise, but half the Cabinet were unwilling to accept this. By April 17th and 18th London was thick with rumours that Asquith was on the point of resignation. They were not far from the truth. In the words of his official biographers, he was buffeted and mortified. And all, he believed, for a controversy which had been unnecessarily forced upon the Government at that particular stage.
"
The argument has become purely academic,” he told Lady Scott on April 18 th.
"
Why could they not have waited till the June attack
¹
has shown us more clearly what to expect for the future.”
²
The chief blame he put on Lloyd George, with whom his relations had deteriorated drastically.
^"
Of course Lloyd George is the villain of the piece,” he said,
^"
you know what I think of him.” But his feelings towards Grey, who was once again
"
reconsidering his position ” were also fairly sharp.

¹
_{The Somme, which was in fact postponed until early July.}

²
_{In the way of casualties and military demands.}

The next morning Asquith was so near to resignation that he wrote of
⁴⁴
preparing to order my frock-coat to visit the Sovereign this afternoon.” But a three-hour Cabinet improved the atmosphere. It was agreed that the House of Commons should meet in secret session on the following Tuesday and Wednesday, and that Asquith should open the debate with a disclosure of new facts and further suggestions for a compromise. Even so, when announcing this parliamentary plan that afternoon, he told the House that the Cabinet was divided and that unless the difference could be settled by agreement the Government must break up. It was an unusual disclosure. The only comfort he could offer to members was that the Cabinet was at least united in thinking that such a break-up would be "a national disaster.”

That evening (April 19th) a hundred Liberal members, including Simon, met at the House of Commons and unanimously passed a resolution assuring the Prime Minister of their conviction that
⁴⁴
his continuance as the head of the Government is a national necessity.” On the following day, the King, believing a little prematurely that the difficulty was over, wrote a letter of warm congratulation to Asquith:

During the last six years you and I have passed through some
strenuous and critical times and once again, thank God, we have “ weathered the storm ” . . .. In expressing my relief at the termination of the crisis, I wish again to assure you of my complete confidence in my Prime Minister
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With such crumbs to comfort him he departed for an Easter week-end at the Wharf. He read Quiller-Couch’s lectures on
The Art of Writing
and recorded that, although the house was “ almost over-guested (not in quality but in number),” he was “ spending a more placid Easter than I could have hoped for.”*
⁷
On the Monday afternoon Hankey arrived to help Asquith prepare his speech for the following day. Hankey’s diary entry was as follows:

I arrived at 4 p.m. and spent three hours with the P.M. ... There was a conclave to decide whether it would be best for him to spend the night at ‘ The Wharf’ or to motor to Town that night. Finally it was left to me to decide—in fact the whole party treated me as though I were a “ trainer ” charged with the duty of bringing “ the Bantam ” into the ring in the pink of condition.

I decided, knowing his habits, to go up that night, so he and I started at 10.30 p.m. to motor to Town. He was very chatty and jolly and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride... . On arrival (at 12.30 a.m.) we got the first news of the Dublin outbreak. Asquith merely said “ well, that’s something ” and went off to bed
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In spite of these preparations the secret session speech was not a success. The House was disappointed with the Asquith proposals, of which the essence was that unattested married men were to be given a further opportunity to come forward voluntarily. Unless 50,000 of them did so by May 27th, and 15,000 a week thereafter, general conscription would be introduced. There were subsidiary proposals involving immediate legislation, and Walter Long introduced this bill “ very badly ” on Thursday, April 27th. The House reacted violently against it. Asquith, deeply embroiled at Downing Street with the problem of Ireland, was hurriedly sent for. He sized up the atmosphere in the chamber and decided that the bill must be withdrawn and a more drastic solution propounded. “ It was very difficult, for it wanted a light touch to do such a humiliating thing,” was his curious comment to Lady Scott.