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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780857283924 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Anthem Press |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2011 |
| Series: | Anthem World History Series |
| Pages: | 464 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Lloyd George at War, 1916â"1918
By George H. Cassar
Wimbledon Publishing Company
Copyright © 2009 George CassarAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84331-815-6
CHAPTER 1
SETTING THE STAGE
David Lloyd George was born near Manchester on January 17, 1863, an irony, to be sure, for the most famous Welshman in recent memory. His father William George, originally from Pembrokeshire in Wales, had become headmaster of an elementary school in Manchester. Failing health forced William George to abandon teaching and to return to Pembrokeshire where he died of pneumonia in June 1864, leaving behind two small children and a wife (Elizabeth) who was expecting a third. Left practically penniless, Elizabeth was forced to move in with her brother Richard and her mother in Llanystumdwy, not far from Criccieth. Richard Lloyd was a lifelong bachelor and, to his credit, looked after his sister's family as if it were his own. He was an unpaid Baptist preacher, self-educated, highly intelligent, passionate about Welsh culture and history, and a die-hard Liberal. He made a comfortable living carrying on a shoemaking business, so that young David and his siblings grew up without enduring privation in a stable and loving environment. At school it was clear that David was bright, with a phenomenal memory and he excelled in mathematics, history and geography. His formal education came to an end in 1878 when, thanks to uncle Lloyd's connections, a post was found for him in a leading law firm in nearby Portmadoc and the following year he was articled to the junior partner for a period of five years. In 1884 David did just enough to pass his law examination, but rather than remain with the firm, set up his own practice in Criccieth.
The early months were difficult for Lloyd George, as they normally are for any new attorney in private practice, and he had to content himself with whatever small cases came his way – debt collecting and defending clients accused of poaching, breach of promise and assault. Tentative in the beginning, he lost more cases than he won, but as he gained in experience and knowledge of the law, his performance improved dramatically. He was a compelling orator, a skill he had developed preaching in chapels and in local debating societies, and soon acquired a reputation for preparing his briefs carefully, skillfully arguing cases in court, and being ready to stand up to magistrates to defend the rights of the small man. As a result, his practice prospered and he subsequently opened offices in several nearby towns.
During the first year of his law practice, Lloyd George began courting Margaret Owen, daughter of Richard Owen, a prosperous farmer. Eventually, the romance blossomed and they married in January 1888. Although the couple had five children, two boys and three girls, and outwardly seemed happy, it was only because of Margaret's almost saintly forbearance that the relationship endured. It was not long before Lloyd George found married life confining and a bit tedious and began a pattern of conduct that would lead him into one adulterous affair after another. It was impossible for Margaret not to hear rumors of her husband's affairs and, while there were heated quarrels between them, she eventually became reconciled to that side of his nature. Regard for her husband's position prevented her from making more of a fuss, but there was probably a more poignant reason why she tolerated her husband's philandering: she still loved him.
Lloyd George had warned Margaret before their marriage that he had high ambitions and that to attain them he was prepared to sacrifice everything, "even love itself under the wheels of my Juggernaut" if it obstructed the way. Drawn to politics while still a teenager, Lloyd George gained local prominence through his work as a Liberal activist, many speeches and articles for various causes and as secretary to the Anti-Tithe League in south Caernarvonshire. These activities not only kindled his political ambition, but also advanced his prospects. An opportunity opened up when the sitting MP representing Caernarvon Boroughs died suddenly, precipitating a by-election. Lloyd George was chosen as the Liberal candidate and, in a hard-fought campaign, defeated his Tory rival by a mere 18 votes. Twenty-seven years old when he entered parliament in 1890, he would hold the seat through thirteen general elections over the next fifty-five years.
Although single-minded and eager to make his mark in national politics, Lloyd George was bound up with issues mainly of local or Welsh interest during his early years at Westminster. As a backbencher, he was actively involved in supporting Welsh Home Rule, financial assistance for Welsh education, and the disestablishment of the Welsh Church. His stinging and hard-hitting speeches, together with his habit of placing Welsh goals above all else, annoyed the Liberal leadership as much as the rival Tory party. During the ten years of Conservative ascendancy he became the leading spokesman for the Welsh Liberals and the recognized champion of Welsh nonconformity. Nevertheless, outside of Wales he remained an unknown public figure until the Boer War, which broke out in 1899.
The Liberal party was divided over the war and Lloyd George associated himself with the radical left of the party, which regarded it as morally insupportable. From the start he battled to counteract the jingoistic hysteria whipped up by the government, exposing himself to considerable danger, both politically and personally. His blistering attacks on the government, accusing it of waging a war for the benefit of gold-mining syndicates without any consideration for the suffering of the Boer women and children herded in concentration camps, caused riots and counterdemonstrations and made him the most unpopular man in the country. The best known incident, one which brought him within peril of his life, occurred at a meeting in Birmingham, fortress of Joseph Chamberlain, the colonial secretary. An angry mob of rioters, waving Union Jacks and blowing trumpets, surged into the hall and all efforts by the police to drive them out proved unsuccessful. Before Lloyd George made his speech, a huge melee broke out and he was whisked off the platform and safely smuggled out of the building disguised as a policeman.
Lloyd George reignited his political career after the end of the Boer War by broadening his horizon and acting as a spokesman for the British as a whole, and not just the Welsh. Shedding his image as a Welsh extremist and rabble-rouser, he worked hard and diligently to establish himself within the broad center of British Liberalism. When the Liberals returned to power in 1906 under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Lloyd George became president of the Board of Trade. In his first ministerial post, Lloyd George proved that he was a firm and competent minister, steering a number of bills through parliament. He was responsible for the Merchant Shipping Bill in 1906, which, apart from raising the standard of safety for ships, improved the pay, working conditions and accommodations of merchant sailors. Furthermore, he showed himself to be a skillful negotiator in the handling of labor, especially in averting a railroad strike in 1907. During the two years that he served at the board of trade, he compiled a solid if not spectacular record, confirming the growing impression in political circles that his wild and rabble-rousing days were a thing of the past and that he had now become a moderate and diligent statesman.
In 1908 Lloyd George became chancellor of the exchequer, an office vacated when H. H. Asquith succeeded the dying Campbell-Bannerman as prime minister. As such, he provided a powerful stimulus to the social policies of the Liberal government. He emerged as the leader of the radical wing of the Liberal party, determined to use the power of the state to improve conditions for the poor and the suffering. His first major task was to introduce the outgoing chancellor's budget, which, among other things, allotted pensions to those over 70 years of age. When he prepared his own budget for the following year, he required to find additional revenue in order to finance the construction of new dreadnoughts, as well as to cover the costs of old-age pensions and other social services. His solution was to raise death duties sharply (inheritance taxes on estates) and impose a super tax on incomes over £5,000, a land tax amounting to a 20 percent levy on any increase in the value of land (to be paid whenever it was sold) and an annual duty on the undeveloped land of large estates. Introduced in 1909, the so-called people's budget announced the intention of the government to tax the rich to promote a limited redistribution of the national income through social programs for the poor. It was a revolutionary principle and created a firestorm of controversy. It was heatedly debated in the House of Commons, session after session, and delayed other legislation for the rest of the year. Only after the general elections of 1910, when the Liberals were reelected by a narrow margin, was the budget issue finally settled.
Another of Lloyd George's cherished causes requiring navigation through rocky waters was the National Insurance Act of 1911, the capstone to the body of social legislation the Liberals began five years earlier with free school meals for children. The general plan provided for insurance against sickness and disability for manual workers, as well as unemployment benefits, though limited to industries in which employment was seasonal. It was to be a contributory scheme with the employer, employee and the state sharing the costs. The bill aroused widespread opposition and Lloyd George had to call upon all his reserves of charm and skill before it was carried into law.
After years of hard work and impressive political achievements, Lloyd George faced a major threat to his career in the form of the Marconi scandal. In the spring of 1912 Lloyd George, who was always looking for a windfall to alleviate his financial worries, unwisely bought 1,000 shares in the American Marconi Company at £2 each. He had acted on the advice of his colleague, Rufus Issacs (later the Marquess of Reading), the attorney general, whose brother was head of the English Marconi Company and a director of the American Marconi Company. The purchase had taken place at a time when the English Marconi Company was about to enter into a very lucrative contract with the British Government to construct a chain of wireless stations between Britain and its Empire. It was not very long before the shares were selling for £4 on the open market and Lloyd George immediately recovered his investment by selling half of his holdings. When his activities were revealed in the press in the summer there was a clear suspicion that he had benefited from insider trading to line his pockets. The opposition accused him of corruption and hypocrisy and it was only because of Asquith's indulgence and robust defense in the Commons that he survived.
Although Lloyd George would remain under a cloud for some time, he was still a central figure in the cabinet and indispensable to Asquith. He was the chief spokesman for the radical wing of the Liberal party. He was on intimate terms with labor and instrumental in settling a railroad strike in 1912. Furthermore, he was sent to Ireland to try to bring the opposing factions together. In early 1914 he devised a plan that called for the temporary suspension of the application of Irish Home Rule to the six counties of Ulster. Asquith proposed to Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster backbenchers in parliament, that the six counties could remain separate from Dublin for six years after which the public, through general elections, could decide their fate. Carson rejected the compromise. At that critical juncture external events intervened.
The long spell of peace in Europe was shattered on July 28, 1914, when Austria attacked Serbia, holding it responsible for plotting the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, presumptive heir to the Austrian throne, at Sarajevo a month earlier. Within a few days other powers became involved, with Germany lining up behind Austria, and Russia and France rallying to Serbia's side. As late as August 2 the British cabinet was divided over whether to enter the war in support of France. As a man on the left, opposed in the past to heavy defense spending and foreign entanglements, Lloyd George stood alongside the ministerial group that opposed intervention. What was missing was the usual combativeness and fierce passion that accompanied his defense of a cause to which he was committed. When the Germans invaded Belgium, prompting the British cabinet to declare war, Lloyd George, after much soul-searching, opted not to resign. "In the final analysis," Michael Fry concluded, Lloyd George "had sat too long with Asquith and Grey to walk away from power and responsibility." A champion of international peace in his earlier career, the war would transform him into a belligerent nationalist, in which stance he would frequently call, at least publicly, for a decisive victory over the enemy.
The Liberal cabinet's pre-1914 strategic doctrine did not represent any radical departure from the manner in which Britain had fought its wars over the past two centuries. The idea was to leave Russia and France to carry the main burden of fighting on land. Britain would provide money and supplies to its allies, send a token military force to the Continent and use the Royal Navy to keep the sea lanes open and impose a blockade of Germany. In a matter of a few months Britain would ensure Germany's defeat and preserve the balance of power without serious dislocation to its economy and trade. Lloyd George shared his colleagues' expectation that the war would be brief and one of limited liability for Britain. He told his wife on August 11, "We are keeping the sea for France – that ought to suffice here for the moment especially as we are sending 100,000 men to help her to bear the first brunt of the attack. That is all that counts for Russia will come in soon." Fortunately, Lord Kitchener, who was brought in by Asquith as secretary of state for war to give the cabinet the benefit of his military experience, had the foresight to see that the war would last at least three years and set about immediately to recruit a million-man army. Lloyd George's most immediate concern in the opening days of August was to deal with the monetary panic that began as soon as the war appeared imminent. The bank holiday on August 3 was extended an additional three days while he sought advice from experts and implemented various measures to restore the credit system and bolster confidence. When the banks reopened on August 7, they reported that business was proceeding as usual. The financial crisis had passed. Leading economists, long suspicious of Lloyd George's ability to handle public finance, now praised him for his skill and courage in saving the economy from ruin.
Lloyd George's next challenge (when the politicians realized that the conflict would not be over by Christmas) was to provide the financial means to carry on a major war of undetermined duration. In November he submitted his first wartime budget in which he raised direct taxes and increased duties on tea and beer. On the whole, the budget was well received and further enhanced his reputation.
Lloyd George played a central role in the events leading to the creation of the coalition government. In mid-May 1915 the conjuncture of two controversies, one a military setback attributed supposedly to a shell shortage and the other to the abrupt resignation of the impetuous and headstrong First Sea Lord, Lord Fisher, after a volcanic dispute with Churchill, occasioned the change. On May 17 the Unionist chief, Bonar Law, called on Lloyd George at 11 Downing Street and told him that, owing to the recent revelations, he could no longer hold his backbenchers in check. Lloyd George agreed with him that the only way to maintain a spirit of unity in the Commons was to broaden the government to include the Unionists. Lloyd George then went straight next door to see Asquith and impressed on him the need to forestall a renewal of party conflict, which would damage the war effort. Lloyd George's arguments in favor of a coalition won the day. When the government was reconstructed under Asquith's leadership a week later, Lloyd George left the Treasury to take charge of the newly created Ministry of Munitions.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Lloyd George at War, 1916â"1918 by George H. Cassar. Copyright © 2009 George Cassar. Excerpted by permission of Wimbledon Publishing Company.
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