Asquith (79 page)

After sending off his letter, Asquith dined, as on the preceding evening, with Edwin Montagu in Queen Anne’s Gate. There he “ refused to discuss the situation at all,” and Montagu “ feared the worst.” Nevertheless the fact that he chose to go there is supporting evidence for the view that he was resigned rather than falsely confident. He knew that Montagu would not approve of the letter, but he knew too that he could keep him off the subject. Had he wanted congratulation on a master-stroke he could easily have found it at McKenna’s house in Lord North Street.

Lloyd George did not receive Asquith’s letter until the following morning—Tuesday, December 5 th. He replied at length and almost at once. There was no question of his accepting the new situation. He intended to fight; and, to a much greater extent than Asquith had done, he wrote a manifesto and not a letter:

As all delay is fatal in war, I place my office without further parley at your disposal.

It is with great personal regret that I have come to this conclusion. In spite of mean and unworthy insinuations to the contrary—insinuations which I fear are always inevitable in the case of men who hold prominent but not primary positions in any administration—I have felt a strong personal attachment to you as my chief. As you yourself said, on Sunday, we have acted together for ten years and never had a quarrel, although we have had many a grave difference on questions of policy. You have treated me with great courtesy and kindness; for all that I thank you. Nothing would have induced me to part now except an overwhelming sense that the course of action which has been pursued has put the country—and not merely the country, but throughout the world, the principles for which you and I have always stood throughout our political lives—in the greatest peril that has ever overtaken them.

As I am fully conscious of the importance of preserving national unity, I propose to give your Government complete support in the vigorous prosecution of the War; but unity without action is nothing but futile carnage, and I cannot be responsible for that. Vigour and vision are the supreme need at this hour.
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This letter of strong but not unexpected challenge reached Asquith soon after noon. So did one from Balfour, written from a sick-bed in Carlton Gardens. This announced, quietly but determinedly, that Balfour did not want Asquith’s backing for the Admiralty:

I am well aware that you do not personally share Lloyd George’s view in this connection. But I am quite clear that the new system should have a trial under the most favourable possible circumstances; and the mere fact that the new Chairman of the War Council
did
prefer, and, as far as I know,
still
prefers, a different arrangement is, to my mind, quite conclusive, and leaves me in no doubt as to the manner in which I can best assist the Government which I desire to support.
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It is doubtful whether Asquith fully assimilated the shift of allegiance which this letter quietly announced. He saw Balfour and Lloyd George in such different lights that, the issue of the Admiralty apart, the idea of an alliance between them hardly entered his head. In any event he had little time to give careful immediate consideration to the letter; he merely wrote a short reply pressing Balfour to reconsider his position. At 12.30 Crewe arrived at Downing Street. He had been to Buckingham Palace for a Privy Council, and he was able to inform Asquith that the King still hoped for a solution without a change of Prime Minister. Then, at one o’clock, all the Liberal ministers with the exception of the Secretary of State for War assembled. Lloyd George was resentful at the absence of a summons, but as he had chosen to work almost exclusively with Unionists during the preceding weeks this resentment was hardly justified. The business of the meeting was to consider the situation created by Lloyd George’s letter of resignation. Montagu apart, there was unanimous agreement that his challenge must be resisted, and that Asquith could best do this by resigning. The outcome, it was believed, would then turn on the attitude of the Unionist ministers. Montagu’s alternative proposal was that the King should be asked to convene a conference of Asquith, Lloyd George, Bonar Law and Henderson. “ My suggestion was derided,” he recorded, “ and McKenna most helpfully asked me if I wanted four Prime Ministers, or, if not, which one I wanted.
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The attitude of the Unionist ministers was made clear during the afternoon. At 11 o’clock in the morning they had met—Curzon, Cecil, Long and Chamberlain—in the Secretary of State’s room at the India Office. At three o’clock the “ three C’s ” were summoned to Downing Street. Asquith asked them two questions. Were they prepared to continue in a Government from which both Lloyd George and Bonar Law had resigned; and what would be their attitude towards Lloyd George if he attempted to form an administration? To the first question, in Austen Chamberlain’s words, “ we replied that our only object was to secure a Government on such lines and with such a prospect of stability that it might reasonably be expected to be capable of carrying on the war; that in our opinion his Government, weakened by the resignations of Lloyd George and Bonar Law and by all that had gone on during the past weeks, offered no such prospect, and we answered the question therefore with a perfectly definite negative.” “ This was evidently a great blow to him,” Chamberlain added. “ Had we replied in the affirmative, he would clearly have been prepared to make the attempt.. . . ”
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To the second question their reply was equally discouraging. In effect they said that if Lloyd George looked like succeeding, they would join him. Cecil urged Asquith to do the same, but, Chamber-lain said, Asquith “ would not allow (him) to develop this idea, which he rejected with indignation and even with scorn.” The three Unionists then crossed Downing Street for a meeting with Bonar Law. From this meeting they sent back Curzon with a formal resolution, urging Asquith’s immediate resignation, and saying that he must in any event accept and publish theirs. In the meantime Asquith had received Balfour’s second letter, written at 4.0 p.m. Once again the style was casual but the intention was firm. Balfour would offer no opposition to Lloyd George.

In these circumstances immediate resignation was the only course open to Asquith. He announced this to the Liberal ministers who had once again congregated in 10, Downing Street. Perhaps one or two of them were so blinded by hatred of Lloyd George as to believe that the move would still show up his impotence. But this was not the general view. Montagu testified that they never seriously doubted Lloyd George’s ability to form a Government. And it was certainly not Asquith’s view. He decided to resign, not as a tactical manoeuvre, but because he did not have sufficient support to carry on.

He gave effect to his decision at seven o’clock that evening. He had been Prime Minister for eight years and 241 days.

“The Prime Minister came to see me,” the King recorded in his diary, “& placed his resignation in my hands, which I accepted with great regret. He said that he had tried to arrange matters with Lloyd George about the War Committee all day, but was unable to. All Ins colleagues both Liberal and Unionist, urged him to resign as it was the only solution to the difficulty. I fear that it will cause great panic in the City & in America & do harm to the Allies. It is a great blow to me & will I fear buck up the Germans.”
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Back in Downing Street, Asquith dined with Crewe. The King in the meantime had asked for a constitutional memorandum, dealing with a new Prime Minister’s right to a dissolution, from Haldane, and had summoned Bonar Law. His interview with Law went as badly as it is easily possible to imagine. They argued about a dissolution, about the course of the war, about the relations between politicians and the military. Having established this happy basis of almost universal disagreement, the King performed his constitutional duty by asking Law to form a Government.

The Unionist leader then went immediately to see Lloyd George, with whom he had conferred before his visit to the Palace. Afterwards he went to Downing Street where he called Asquith out from dinner and asked him if he would serve under him.
¹
Asquith demurred, and also responded discouragingly to a suggestion that they might all serve under Balfour. He did not believe that any such combinations would work, but he did not close his mind on continuing consultation.

¹
Austen Chamberlain
(
Down the Years
, pp. 125-6) thought that the order of the visits should have been reversed, and that it was characteristic of Bonar Law who “ is an amateur and will always remain one ” not to do so. There is no evidence that such a reversal would have made any difference.

Later that evening Bonar Law again saw Lloyd George, this time at Carson’s house. The following morning (Wednesday, December 6th) they went together to see Balfour, still in his sick-room. It was probably this occasion which prompted Lloyd George to write of Balfour: “ I confess that I underrated the passionate attachment to his country which burnt under that calm, indifferent, and apparently frigid exterior
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upon which Balfour’s latest biographer has somewhat severely commented: “ By ‘passionate attachment to his
country,’ Lloyd George presumably meant Balfour’s backing for him as Prime Minister . . .
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But this may be a little hard. Such a firm commitment was not sought at this stage.

A Buckingham Palace conference was to take place that afternoon. There is doubt as to where this idea originated. Beaverbrook said
that it came from Henderson; Balfour said that it came from Bonar Law; Law’s biographer said that it came from Balfour; and Crewe said that it came from Montagu and Derby. Whoever sowed the seed, the conference was due to meet within a few hours. Balfour’s role was likely to be crucial. He had kept himself the most aloof from the crisis so far. The main concern of Bonar Law and Lloyd George was that he should give no support for an Asquith restoration. Law that morning, according to Montagu, “ had objected to any Conference to put Asquith back.” They went away reassured.

Balfour saw the King for half an hour before the others came. He gave his opinion that no one man could be effectively Prime Minister, leader of the House of Commons, and chairman of the War Committee. It was arranged that he should open the discussion with a statement of this and other views. Then the other participants— Asquith, Lloyd George, Bonar Law and Henderson arrived. Beaverbrook, presumably informed by Law, wrote that Asquith’s mood differed from that of the other members of “ this grave assembly.” “His manner in fact was fairly like that of a schoolboy who has got an unexpected half-holiday. He was jocular with everybody.”
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This is to some extent contradicted by Lloyd George, who subsequently wrote:

It is now a matter of history how we expressed our readiness to serve under Mr. Balfour—all of us except Mr. Asquith, who asked indignantly, “ What is the proposal? That I who have held first place for eight years should be asked to take a secondary position.” This broke up the conference
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Whatever else this interchange may be, it is not a matter of history. There is no hint in the contemporary accounts of either Balfour or Stamfordham that such a conversation ever occurred; indeed it seems unlikely that the premiss of a Balfour premiership was ever before the conference. Lord Stamfordham’s memorandum describes how Asquith was urged by all the other participants to serve under Bonar Law, and then continues:

Mr. Asquith maintained that the Prime Minister and nobody else could preside over the War Committee, otherwise decisions might be arrived at which he could not agree to, which would result in friction and delay. . . . Mr. Asquith continued by denouncing in serious terms the action of the Press. The Prime Minister’s work was sufficiently heavy and responsible without
being subjected to daily vindictive, merciless attacks in the columns of the newspapers, and he urged that whatever government might come into office, measures should be taken to prevent the continuance of this Press tyranny. He had been accused of clinging to Office, but he appealed to all those present to say whether such a charge was justifiable. He could honestly say that on waking this morning he was thankful to feel he was a free man. Mr. Asquith referred in touching terms to the unquestioning confidence the King had invariably placed in him, of which he had received His Majesty’s assurance only two days ago. He deeply valued it, and only hoped that his successor might enjoy the same generous trust and support which His Majesty had graciously reposed in him.
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This may not have been very constructive, but, except towards the newspaper proprietors, it did not sound particularly bitter. Furthermore, it is an account almost exactly borne out by Balfour. But what next? The King, after Asquith had spoken, pointed out that no decision had been reached. Balfour attempted to sum up:

(He) said that he considered it was impossible for Mr. Asquith to form a Government after what Mr. Bonar Law had said about his party. A Government without Mr. Lloyd George was impossible. Apparently Mr. Bonar Law was ready to form a Government if Mr. Asquith would agree to accept a subordinate place, but, failing this, he would propose that Mr. Lloyd George should form an Administration.

The result of the meeting was an agreement that Mr. Asquith should consider the proposals made to him, and let Mr. Bonar Law know as soon as possible whether he would join the Government under him. If the answer was in the negative, Mr. Bonar Law would not form a Government, but Mr. Lloyd George would endeavour to do so
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