Asquith (80 page)

Again Balfour’s account is in substantial agreement, although he adds the gloss that when, at one stage in his summing up he referred to his assumption that Asquith would not serve under either Law or Lloyd George, Asquith intervened to say that he had not gone quite so far as that; he must consult his friends before giving a final answer.

The conference broke up at 4.30. Asquith returned to Downing Street and immediately began this consultation. There was a full turn
up of Liberal ministers, with the exception of Lloyd George. Henderson was also present. Decisions were taken in two stages. First it was agreed (the meeting in this respect giving the impression of being a little behind events) that Asquith should make no attempt to form a Government without Lloyd George and the Unionists. Then came the question of whether he would serve in a subordinate post. Crewe, Grey, McKenna, Runciman, Buckmaster and McKinnon Wood all urged him not to. Three others (Harcourt, Samuel and Tennant) apparently indicated silent agreement with this view. Montagu and Henderson w
ere alone in dissenting, not only from the advice tendered but also from the implied assumption that if Asquith did not serve, none of the others present would either.

“ Mr. Asquith,” Crewe recorded, “ entirely concurred with our statements ...” He did so, the account continued, not out of “ personal dignity or
amour propre
.” What, then, were his reasons ? First, he could hope to exercise no real influence in the new Government. Its tone would be set by those who were most distrustful of his leadership. It was doubtful whether he would even be a member of the War Committee. He saw no prospect of avoiding for long a head-on collision. It was better to stand out at the beginning than to go in with the expectation that he would soon have to provoke a further crisis by resignation.

Secondly, if on the other hand he were completely to subordinate himself to the new Government his influence in Parliament and the country would quickly be eroded. This was not a selfish consideration. Politicians exist to exercise influence. Unless they believe that they can do so beneficially they have no
raison d'être.
Asquith thought that the erosion of his would lead to the growth of an irresponsible opposition, undermining the near unanimity of support for the war effort. This may have been something of a rationalisation of his instinctive desires, but it was a perfectly defensible attitude. While not the most encouraging offer which a Prime Minister can receive, support from outside is a time-honoured formula and one which has frequently been used with much less excuse than Asquith had on this occasion. Furthermore he interpreted it in such a way that “ support ” was not an empty word. He did not cause Lloyd George a tenth of the trouble that Lloyd George, outside, would have caused him.

There was a third consideration, not mentioned by Crewe, in Asquith’s mind. He believed that so long as he remained in the
Government the Press attacks would continue and that his supposedly malevolent influence would be blamed for every failure. This would further undermine his position both with his colleagues and with the public. It would be an extreme form of responsibility without power.

By six o’clock Asquith had conveyed his decision, in a letter, to Bonar Law. The importance of the communication was symbolised by Lord Curzon, who had come across to 10, Downing Street to hear the news, acting as messenger boy. At seven Law went to Buckingham Palace and declined the King’s commission. At 7.30 the commission was passed on to Lloyd George. Within 24 hours he had succeeded in discharging it. “ Mr. Lloyd George came . . . and informed me that he is able to form an administration & told me the proposed names of his colleagues,” the King wrote in his diary. “ He will have a strong Government. I then appointed him Prime Minister & First Lord of the Treasury.”
^u

The new Government was principally but not exclusively a Unionist one. The War Cabinet was composed of Lloyd George, Curzon, Milner, Bonar Law and Henderson. Carson, although not after all included in this body, became First Lord of the Admiralty. Balfour, directed by the pistol’s point,
¹
moved with speed but dignity from the Admiralty to the Foreign Office. No Liberal member of the late Cabinet (except for Lloyd George himself), not even Montagu,
²
joined the new Government. None was formally invited, except for a late and not very attractive offer to Montagu, but Lloyd George would probably have been glad to have two or three of them had he believed that they would accept. A few lesser-known Liberals were brought in, and there were two Labour heads of departments, apart from Henderson.

¹
_{When offered the Foreign Secretaryship, Lord Beaverbrook wrote, Balfour “jumped up ” and said: “ Well, you hold a pistol to my head— I must accept.”
(Politicians and the War,
p. 502).}

²
_{He was badly torn by a conflict of loyalties, and in fact joined six months later.}

Asquith, as has been stated, believed that the end had come on the Tuesday, when he saw the Unionist leaders and gave his resignation to the King. On the Wednesday, after the Buckingham Palace Conference and his letter of refusal to Bonar Law, he was certain of it. Suggestions that, buoyed up by a false complacency about Lloyd
George’s inability to form a Government, he was playing a tactical game, are unfounded. They are without support, either from Asquith’s character or from the course of events. Late on the Wednesday night he wrote a private letter from Downing Street:

You see I am using up my stock of official paper. . . .

I have been through the hell of a time for the best part of a month, and almost for the first time I begin to feel older.

In the end there was nothing else to be done, though it is hateful to give even the semblance of a score to our blackguardly Press. I have very nice letters from all manner of people. . . .

The colleagues today were unanimous in thinking—what seems obvious to me—that it is not my duty to join this new Government in a subordinate capacity. Apart from the personal aspect of the matter, it would never work in practice.

So we are all likely to be out in the cold next week. We think of living under Violet’s roof on Cys’s salary, wh. he has just begun to earn at the Ministry of Munitions
.
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The humour of this letter was wry, and the sadness was pervasive, although by no means uncontrolled. But there was no hint of fighting back from a prepared position. There was a feeling of having been badly treated — but what Prime Minister, forced out and replaced by a lieutenant of eight years’ standing, would not have felt this? Bitterness, however, was reserved principally for the Press, about which, after years of being, in Margot’s phrase, “like St. Paul’s Cathedral,” Asquith was beginning to show signs of a mild obsession.

The actions of most of the politicians he had discounted in advance. For this reason he showed no great resentment at Lloyd George, and even less at Bonar Law. What did surprise him was the amount of Cabinet support which they acquired. Here Asquith was misled, partly by Curzon’s falseness, but more importantly by his own mis-appraisal of Balfour. Although he had often been critical of Balfour in the past, Asquith instinctively regarded him as a man of much the same values as himself. He liked dealing with him, he persisted in treating him as the real leader of the Unionist Party, and he saw him as a fellow-member, perhaps the vice-captain, of the team of gentlemen in politics. But Balfour never thought as much of this team as did Asquith. Asquith thought they were far superior to the players. Balfour’s disdain and arrogance was greater: he did not think there
was much to choose between the two sides. In addition, he had an unusually strong although carefully concealed love of office, and a complete faith in his own ability to look fastidious in any company.
¹
He was more attracted by opposites than was Asquith. One of his family referred jokingly to his having fallen in love with Lloyd George at the Buckingham Palace conference.
^w
For all these reasons he found no difficulty in changing his allegiance to the new team. But for Asquith the shock of seeing Balfour stroll nonchalantly out of the pavilion, as happy as ever under the captain of the players, was profound. He should perhaps have remembered that others —George Wyndham and Austen Chamberlain, for instance—with more claim upon Balfour than Asquith had, had previously found themselves let down. If Asquith was wrong about Balfour’s character, he was right about the importance of his switch of allegiance. It was the most decisive single event of the crisis.

Before leaving Downing Street Asquith had one important engagement to fulfil: to attend a full party meeting at the National Liberal Club—a similar one had not been summoned since his election to the leadership nearly nine years earlier—and place before the audience an account of his actions in the preceding week. This took place on the Friday (December 8th). The result was an overwhelming vote of confidence in his leadership. Montagu wrote of being “ deeply moved ” by “ Asquith’s firm hold on the affections of the whole Liberal Party.” That event over, he slept his last night in Downing Street, and then motored down the familiar Kent roads to Walmer. From there he wrote a characteristic letter to Mrs. Harrisson, a friend of a year or so’s standing, who was to be the recipient of many of his confidences for the remainder of his life:

Sunday
,
10 Dec. 16

Dearest Hilda,

I have two sweet letters from you still unanswered: I have been a shocking correspondent lately, but you will make excuses for me. If you want to understand something of the inner history of recent events you should look at the article called “ A Leap in the Dark ” in this week’s
Nation
. When I fully realised what a position had been created, I saw that I could not go on without dishonour or impotence, or both; and nothing could have been worse for the country and the war. Curiously enough, almost exactly the same thing has been going on in France, where the same forces have been at work producing nearly if not quite, the same result
¹

You cannot imagine what a relief it is not to have the daily stream of boxes and telegrams: not to mention Cabinets & Committees & colleagues & co. We are spending Sunday here by the sea: unluckily it is a gloomy day, but the vast crowd of shipping is a wonderful sight. I am writing in the little room where two years ago one Sunday Kitchener and French visited me and had a battle royal which I had to compose. Violet is here and the Crewes and Jimmy Rothschilds.

The King offered me the Garter, but of course I refused. I am glad you are reading the Book of Job: I think I must refresh my memory of it.

Bless you, dearest,

Ever your loving,

H.H.A.
^x

¹
_{Briand was under heavy fire at this time, but in fact survived as Prime Minister until March, 1917, when he was replaced by Ribot (then aged 75). Clemenceau did not come in until November, 1917.}

Asquith’s long premiership, still unequalled in duration since Lord Liverpool’s, was over. He was 64, and was never again to return to office. No brief summing up can do justice to his achievements and his failures, his qualities and his weaknesses; the balance of these should have emerged from the unfolding of events. But perhaps an appraisal by Edward Grey, always a notably cool (and even flat) writer on men and events, may serve as an epitome of his concept of leadership:

Asquith took no trouble to secure his own position or to add to his personal reputation. When things were going well with his Government he would be careful to see that any colleague got credit, if he (the colleague) were entitled to it, without regard to whether any credit were given or left for himself. On the other
hand, if things were going badly he was ready to stand in front and accept all responsibility: a colleague who got into trouble was sure that the Prime Minister would stand by him.
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“ These qualities,” Grey added, “ are happily not unique. . . . ”

They are sufficiently rare to explain why, at least until 1915, Asquith was above all a great head of a Cabinet.

1
_{Sir Winston Churchill
(Great Contemporaries
, p. 249) has described how Balfour passed from one Cabinet to another, from the Prime Minister who was his champion to the Prime Minister who had been his most most severe critic, “ like a powerful graceful cat walking delicately and unsoiled across a rather muddy street.}
”