Asquith Coalition Research Articles

Winter and Discontent: The December Crises of the Asquith Coalition, 1915–1916

Where the Lloyd George Coalition presided over ultimate victory – much though the term was contested – in 1918, its predecessor came to be regarded as a model of how not to wage war. An agglomeration of crises, the Asquith Coalition was wracked by two in particular: the first concerned the adoption of military conscription; the second the reconstruction of the executive. Both resulted from wider dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war. The crisis of December 1915 was surmounted; that of December 1916 destroyed the Government. The first concerned a matter of principle subsumed by circumstance into expediency; the second combined an incompatibility of personnel with a signal divergence of political orientation. One hitherto overlooked participant was central to each. By rescinding his resignation as Chancellor of the Exchequer in December 1915, Reginald McKenna enabled the Government to continue in an unreconstructed form for a further year; by emboldening the Prime Minister's resistance to change in December 1916, he ensured the destruction of the ministry, the accession of Lloyd George, and the emasculation of the Liberal Party. Both crises have been examined exhaustively, though never comparatively, and never with the papers of the ‘principal wrecker’.

A Compelling Case for Voluntarism: Britain’s Alternative Strategy, 1915-1916

British strategy during the Asquith coalition 1915-16 is usually described as being a battle between ideological `voluntarists’ and `compulsionists’, with the latter prevailing as Lloyd George came to power. In fact the view held by the leading voluntarist, the chancellor of the exchequer, McKenna, was not predicated on theory but on efficiency. Moreover, such were the consequences of his warnings being ignored, Britain found itself by 1917 in a position he had predicted, being forced into employing the policies he had advocated. The difference was that by then it was not out of choice.

Andrew Bonar Law and the Fall of the Asquith Coalition: The December 1916 Cabinet Crisis

With the coming of World War I, Unionist party leader Andrew Bonar Law concluded that the best way to maintain national unity was to suppress interparty strife, and therefore he led his party into a coalition under the Liberal premier, H.H. Asquith, in May 1915. This essay suggests that he continued to support the Asquith coalition only so long as he thought it the best path to unity and victory. In December 1916, however, he lost patience with Asquith’s desultory war leadership and acted decisively to drive him from the premiership and bring about an alternative Government under David Lloyd George. After the celebrated Nigeria debate of 8 November 1916, Bonar Law realised that the profound frustration of Unionists with Asquith’s leadership held the potential for a party revolt which could upset the government and provoke a divisive wartime election. He concluded that a small executive committee for war management would solve both of these problems and came to cooperate with two powerful colleagues who thought similarly: the War Secretary, Lloyd George, and the Irish Unionist, Sir Edward Carson. Though his part in the crisis is typically depreciated by historians, once it became clear that Asquith rejected the idea of an independent war executive (which he assumed would be made up of his three antagonists) as well as the ceremonial role assigned him, Bonar Law acted decisively and in close cooperation with Lloyd George in destroying the government. Acting largely independently of his senior Unionist colleagues. Bonar Law brought his party into a reorganized Government in which he became the second leading force. Much previously unexploited evidence supports the thesis that Bonar Law was a key decision-maker in the demise of the Asquith coalition and that his part in this important episode has been undervalued and misunderstood.

Trading With the Enemy: British Business and the Law During the First World War

At the onset of the First World War, the British government banned trade and instituted a naval blockade against the German empire, thus declaring limited economic warfare on the basis of “business as usual.” Soon allegations were swirling in Whitehall and in the press that certain businessmen were flouting the Trading With the Enemy laws, trading indirectly with Germany through neutral ports. Moreover, Unionist backbenchers in parliament complained that German companies were permitted under British law to operate in the United Kingdom, subject to restrictions on their profits. Because of potential harm to British economic interests and because important officials and ministers, particularly in the Board of Trade, remained sympathetic to prewar, laissez-faire attitudes, the government was reluctant in the early years of the war to apply a strict definition of the blockade against Germany. Accordingly, the courts moved tentatively against suspect businessmen; by 1916, however, the government was forced by public pressure, resulting from the growing intensity of total war and hatred of the enemy, to adopt severe measures against businesses operating in the United Kingdom with alleged German connections. The result was the radical Trading with the Enemy (Amendment) Act of January 1916 — the true end of business as usual — which authorized the Board of Trade to wind-up or confiscate British companies suspected of German affiliation. By the end of the war, 583 such companies, great and small, were wound-up, the majority under the Asquith coalition government. The 1916 law was driven by commercial envy, dating from the prewar period, as well as by the state of war that existed between Britain and Germany. British business’s experience with the blockade and the Trading with the Enemy laws in the midst of total war confirms the decline both of laissez-faire and of traditional international business customs and practices to an extent unforeseen in 1914.

British politics and the Great War: coalition and conflict, 1915-1918

The war and British politics the Asquith Coalition the Crisis - April to December 1916 the consolidation of the ministry - December 1916 to May 1917 uncertainty - May to August 1917 from Stockholm to the Lansdowne Letter the opening of the campaign - December 1917-February 1918 politics and the March Retreat A sort of Midlothian Campaign - July to December 1918 a new political landscape - capital and labour.

Asquith's Choice: The May Coalition and the Coming of Conscription, 1915–1916

The enactment into law in January 1916 of the first installment of mandatory military service in modern British history was an event whose importance few scholars dispute. While invariably considered a significant break in the British political and military tradition, recent scholarship has tended to treat the passage of the first Military Service Act as an episode that has little new to tell us about the political rivalry within the coalition cabinet presided over by Herbert Henry Asquith since May 1915. No student of the compulsory service debate can deny that he has been warned off, as Lord Beaverbrook wrote in the late 1920s that close study of the politics of conscription in the Asquith coalition would be “tedious to the last degree.” Most forbidding was the judgment of Lord Blake in his life of the Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law: “The question of conscription would indeed be a tedious topic to pursue through all its ramifications. The endless discussions, the attitudes taken by public men at various times, the compromises, the disputes, constitute a chapter in English history to which, no doubt in years to come dull history professors will direct their duller research students.”Many historians of the world war who have found the subject less dull than implied above have concluded that it presents a straightforward story: the implementation of conscription came about because the traditional policy of voluntarism had proven insufficient to raise an army of adequate size. The episode has been judged essentially a triumph of the Tory right wing (with the collusion of the maverick Liberal David Lloyd George) over orthodox Liberalism.

British coalition government revisited

Every schoolboy knows that ‘England does not love Coalitions’; yet the briefest acquaintance with the history of British politics in the present century would reveal that Britain has been governed by self-styled coalitions for more than a third of the period, although the ministries which can be regarded as coalitions for the purposes of this essay cover a much shorter span: the Asquith coalition (May 1915-December 1916); the Lloyd George coalitions of December 1916-December 1918, and December 1918-October 1922; the MacDonald national government (August 1931-September 1932), and the Churchill coalition (May 1940-May 1945). It is also the case that, on the fifteen occasions since 1943 when Gallup Polls have questioned the electorate about their views on coalition government, the proportion of those regarding such ministries as desirable has never fallen below 22 per cent. If these magnitudes are not evidence of love, at least it is clear that the electorate is on some occasions prepared to engage in mild flirtation, and their politicians in not too-infrequent marriages of convenience.

Lord Curzon of Kedleston, 1859–1925

A MONG those Ministers who gave their support to Chatham House in the early days of its existence was Lord Curzon, who was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from I919 to I924. In doing this he was following the lead given by his predecessor, Mr Balfour. Since Lord Curzon's death much has been written about him by those who knew him and worked with him, and more recently by those who never saw him at all. Lord Ronaldshayl and Sir Harold Nicolson2 have written first-rate books about his life and character and, therefore, it may well be thought superfluous to produce another account, however short, about the same man. Nevertheless, there must still be a large if diminishing number of people who have either known or heard about Lord Curzon who would, I think, be glad to read more about him, provided that the facts and materials are first-hand, authentic, fresh, and hitherto unpublished. I do not claim to be a biographer, but after three years of service under Lord Curzon I am in a position to speak of him from my own experience and I shall try to give a correct impression of the C-urzon that I knew and shall always remember with affection. What I have recorded is taken either from his letters to me or from words that I heard him use in conversation. Throughout the year I9I6 Lord Curzon was Chairman of a Committee appointed by Mr Asquith's Coalition Government to deal with the allocation of merchant shipping. I was Secretary of that Committee and consequently during that year it was my privilege and delight to serve closely under him and to see him constantly at I, Carlton House Terrace. In December I9I6 the Asquith Government fell, to be followed by the Lloyd George Coalition. A small War Cabinet was created and a Cabinet Secretariat was appointed, with Sir Maurice Hankey as Secretary. As a result of this change, Curzon became a member of the War Cabinet and, on his nomination, I became a member of the Cabinet Secretariat. And so, for two more years, from December I9I6 to December I9I8, I continued to serve under him in the Cabinet room at io, Downing Street and on various committees in the Lord President's room in the Privy Council Office.

The Cabinet Minister and Administration: A. J. Balfour and Sir Edward Carson at the Admiralty, 1915-17

When the Asquith Coalition Government took office in May, 1915, the new First Lord of the Admiralty was Mr. Arthur James Balfour. His appointment to that particular position at that time was due to a number of influences, among which political exigency was by no means the least important. In the Cabinet reconstruction, Asquith had insisted that Grey at the Foreign Office and Kitchener at the War Office were not to be changed, and these reservations materially lessened the higher Cabinet posts which were available for prominent Conservatives. As a result of this delicate weighing of leaders and offices, Balfour became the most obvious choice for the Admiralty, a position for which he was well qualified on at least two other grounds. He not only held a seat in the Commons, but his experience as an unofficial consultant and member of the War Council during the previous seven months had given him a more comprehensive knowledge of the problems of the fighting services than any of his Conservative colleagues. The suitability of his appointment, moreover, was endorsed by his predecessor, Mr. Churchill, who suggested that inasmuch as Balfour had recently been in unusually close touch with events at the Admiralty, he could take over its duties with very little break in the continuity of the administration.