Woodward D. Lloyd George and the Generals

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which was too large a body to act decisively. Time was running out. Using the

lexicon of a golfer, Lloyd George warned that the enemy was “‘four up and five

to play.’”

Lloyd George’s stand on compulsion and his unrelenting support of Balkan

intervention further weakened a government that seemed in the process of

disintegration. The collapse of Britain’s “Eastern” strategy in conjunction with

the unsuccessful attack in the West and Russia’s great retreat put almost

everyone’s nerves on edge. Kitchener, worn down by the responsibilities of his

office, was especially affected. He cornered Hankey on Sep tember 30 and spent

almost an hour venting his anger against his critics, who, of course, included most

prominently Lloyd George. “He was almost in a hysterical condition; I couldn’t t

have believed it possible; he even talked seriously of resigning,”

Hankey

recorded in his diary.

As Anglo-French troop ships neared Salonika, Britain was still without a

coherent Balkan policy. Were troops to be sent in just to influence Balkan opinion

or was the expedition designed to be a military operation to save Serbia? As Lloyd

George’s ally, Sir Edward Carson, succinctly put it: “Were we simply going to

make a demonstration or to open up a great campaign?”

The indecision and

confusion which characterized British policy was understandable. The tangled

Balkan situation contained many uncertainties. What was occurring in Greece at

this juncture was typical of the whole muddled situation. Venizelos indicated that

Allied troops would be welcome at Salonika. But King Constantine, who was

married to the kaiser’s sister, expressed opposition. Thus it was not even known

if the AngloFrench force on its way to Salonika would be greeted as friend or foe.

A further brake on large-scale involvement in the Balkans was supplied by the

British military. Two important memoranda were prepared by the general staff

dealing with Balkan operations. The first, dated September 24, admitted that it

was probably too late to do anything to save Serbia if the Central Powers attacked

before November 1. The second, dated October 2, expressed concern that the

German threat to Serbia might be a clever ploy “to induce the entente powers to

disseminate their forces.” Further, “the General Staff are of opinion that the defeat

of the German Army in the Western theatre of war is still the main strategical

objective and that, so long as this is so, the balance of advantage is against the

employment of any Allied troops in the Balkan theater which could possibly be

thrown into the scale in France, unless it can be shown that the defeat of Serbia

would more than counterbalance success by the Allies in the main theatre.”

These

general staff appreciations, it should be noted, were a result of a change in late

September in the way in which the civilians were informed of the strategy and

progress of war. Kitchener’s muddled and inconsistent strategic advice had forced

Asquith to strengthen the general staff. Sir James Wolfe Murray—called a “feeble

old man”

by Hankey—was replaced by the handsome and professional

Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Murray, who had been chief of staff of the

British Expeditionary Force. On Asquith’s instructions, the general staff now

began to provide the government with frequent appreciations of the military

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 47

situation.

This new arrangement helped make the “Western” stance—the view

of the general staff—the dominant strategy of the government.

On October 5, the first contingents of the Anglo-French force of 13,000 men

landed at Salonika. The British contribution, the 10th Division, arrived fresh from

Gallipoli attired in cotton khaki shorts, clothing totally unsuited for the severe

Balkan winter. Tents arrived without tent poles. After nine months of scheming

and wheedling, Lloyd George finally had his khaki in the Balkans. But it was too

little too late. Because King Constantine opposed his policies, Venizelos resigned

on the same day that the Allied troops landed. This placed the whole operation in

even greater jeopardy. In fact, if Venizelos had resigned a few days earlier, it is

unlikely that the Allied soldiers would have gone ashore.

The Dardanelles Committee met in a very frustrated and anxious mood on

October 6. The Balkan situation looked hopeless. Britain was even confronted

with the possibility of a Balkan “Belgium.” Because of Constantine’s hostility,

London was open to the charge of violating the neutrality of Greece. Furthermore,

a potentially hostile Greek force was now placed along the Allied lines of

communication to Serbia. Despite the great odds against a successful British effort

in the Balkans, Lloyd George plunged ahead. “Surely it would be better to make

our stand against the German eruption in the East, where we would have the co-

operation of the excellent Serbian army, than elsewhere,” he argued. His refusal

to recognize the futility of sending aid to Serbia at this point infuriated his

colleagues. Unusually strong language was directed against him. “Madness” was

the way in which Churchill characterized military operations from Salonika under

the circumstances. “Unthinkable” was Grey’s response to Lloyd George’s

suggestion that Greece’s neutrality should be ignored. The only support he gained

was from Carson, who was smoldering with discontent over the government’s

previous lackadaisical attitude toward the defense of Serbia. In the end, the

Dardanelles Committee decided to stop any more British troops from being sent

to Salonika until the Greek political situation was in clearer focus.

The next day the Dardannelles Committee continued its discussion of the

deteriorating situation in the East. Telegrams just received from the military

attaché at Nish made it clear that an Austro-German attack on Serbia was

imminent. Lloyd George insisted that the Gallipoli campaign was now doomed

because the Germans would soon be at Constantinople. But he drew back from

asking that the British forces there be withdrawn at once. Perhaps fearing that such

a suggestion would damage his compulsionist ties with Churchill and the Unionist

leader Curzon, he asked only that “a scheme for evacuation” be developed. The

Welshman also repeatedly asked for a careful study by the newly revitalized

general staff of the military situation in the Near East. This was a hit at Churchill

and especially Kitchener, who were both opposed to breaking off the Gallipoli

operation.

Lloyd George had his way. Asquith created a special committee of naval and

military experts to examine the question over the weekend. The advice of this

body was a cruel disappointment to Lloyd George. The generals and admirals

48 MUNITIONS, COMPULSION, AND THE FALL OF SERBIA

assumed a strong “Western” stance, slamming the door on British involvement in

the Balkans to save Serbia.

As the British leaders debated, the Central Powers acted. On October 6–7,

Austro-German forces launched an attack against Serbia. By the eighth the enemy

occupied Belgrade. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians ended their wobbly neutrality and

moved to sever Serbia’s link to Salonika, crossing the Serbian frontier east and

southeast of Nish.

As Bulgaria massed her troops on Serbia’s eastern frontier on the eleventh, the

Dardanelles Committee held one of its unhappiest meetings. Largely because of

French pressure, the government was still committed to sending additional troops

to the East. To the dismay of Lloyd George, the prime minister suggested that

these troops be used to launch a new attack in Gallipoli. Kitchener minced no

words in describing the importance of Gallipoli, noting that the abandonment of

that peninsula “would be the most disastrous event in the history of the Empire.”

Lloyd George and Sir Edward Carson were more concerned about the

abandonment of Serbia. Lloyd George “thought that if Great Britain abandoned

Serbia, the whole of the East would point to the way she abandoned her friends,

and that Germany was the country to be followed…. It seemed to him a very

serious thing to abandon Serbia.” In spite of his strong plea for Serbia, Lloyd

George was still unwilling to break with Unionists such as Curzon, who feared

that the evacuation of Gallipoli would do irreparable damage to the British position

in the East. “It also seemed that it would be a great disaster to withdraw from

Gallipoli,” he noted, “but at the same time if we made another effort there which

failed, it would double the number of men we might lose.”

The last part of the meeting was taken up by a discussion of Serbia, which the

majority of the British leaders were obviously prepared to write off. Serbia was

not to be promised assistance. Nor were the soldiers already at Salonika to proceed

through Greece north to Serbia. The only concrete decision made by the

Dardanelles Committee was to send a “specially selected General” to the Near

East to study the Gallipoli and Salonika operations. Later, once Joffre’s offensive

was over, troops would be transferred to Egypt for possible use in one or the other

theaters.

Lloyd George emerged from the cabinet room in a dark mood. For months he

had played the role of Cassandra. But the generals who wanted to concentrate on

the German army in the West and the civilians who favored the Dardanelles over

the Balkans had ignored him. That evening, overwhelmed by a feeling of

impotence, he paced back and forth, dictating a bitter memorandum for the eyes

of his colleagues, especially Kitchener, whom he largely blamed for the Serbia

catastrophe:

It perplexes the mere civilian to find any explanation for the neglect of the

military authorities to provide against so disastrous a blow to our Empire,

when it was so clear to any careful observer that it was impending. It is

incredible that the fifth day after the blow had actually fallen finds us without

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 49

a plan—unless the sending of some general—not yet fixed upon—to the

eastern Mediterranean to account for a scheme of operations can be called

a plan.

Ignoring the military’s solid technical arguments against a British rescue mission,

he continued to emphasize political considerations in support of his Balkan

strategy. Both the empire and British prestige must be protected. Furthermore, the

government’s dilatoriness would have serious political consequences at home. He

noted, “The Cabinet may depend upon it that when it becomes clear to the British

public that we have been taken by surprise and that we have not made the slightest

preparation to counter the German thrust, confidence will vanish in our capacity

to conduct the War, and rightly so.”

On the twelfth He made a last-ditch effort to help Serbia. His ally was Churchill,

although relations between the “heavenly twins” were strained because of

Churchill’s strong Dardanelles views. First, he and Churchill “swooped down” on

an exhausted Kitchener with a telegram offering Greece and Rumania 150,000

men immediately if they would support Serbia.

With Kitchener’s approval, they

then descended on the prime minister, who was unable to resist their goading. In

fact, the number of soldiers promised was raised to 200,000.

The telegrams were sent, but Greece and Rumania remained on the fence.

German actions spoke louder than British promises. Meanwhile, the small British

force in Greece advanced to the Bulgarian border—but no farther. “Britain,” it

has been written, “like a timid bather, would not go in above her knees.”

The

French, however, appeared ready to risk drowning. They continued to push north

toward Nish along the road and railway through the Vardar valley.

An explanation of French policy in the Near East is necessary. As early as

February, Lloyd George, as we have seen, had discovered “Eastern” sentiment

among the French politicians, especially Briand. This civilian inclination to divert

French troops to the East had been reinforced by the curious case of General

Sarrail, the hero of the Radical-Socialists and a potential successor to Joffre. In

July, Joffre dismissed Sarrail from command of the Third Army. This provided

an outcry from the left and threatened the “Sacred Union.” To placate his

supporters, the Viviani government appointed Sarrail to the French Eastern

Expeditionary Corps, which was a “nonexistent army.”

Later, in October, Sarrail

was sent to Greece to take command of the French forces there. In Greece he

served as a magnet to attract political support for a bigger Balkan effort. The

French also felt it a point of honor to support Serbia. Even Joffre exclaimed, “On

ne peut pas faire autrement.” But the French commander in chief refused to release

more than three divisions.

Hence Paris expected the British to bear much of the

burden of sending troops to the Balkans. When a new government was formed

under Briand in late October, French pressure on London intensified.

By mid-October it appeared that Lloyd George could do little more to save

Serbia. But he was not without influence and resources in attacking the men he

held responsible—especially Kitchener—for leaving Serbia in the lurch. He talked

50 MUNITIONS, COMPULSION, AND THE FALL OF SERBIA

of resignation.

But, unlike Carson, who did resign, he was more inclined by his

combative nature to seek the resignation of others. Kitchener was his primary

target, although he felt that Asquith must share the responsibility for the failure

of British arms and diplomacy in the East.

Working with Churchill and the

Unionists, he put tremendous pressure on the prime minister over the issue of

compulsion, threatening to wreck the government. Asquith’s response was to draw

closer to Kitchener. “I should like you to realize,” he wrote the head of the War

Office, who appeared to be wavering on compulsion, “that what is now going on

is being engineered by men (Curzon & Ll. George & some others) whose real

objection [sic] is to oust you…. So long as you and I stand together, we carry the

whole country with us. Otherwise the Deluge!”

Opposition to Kichener was now at epidemic levels within the government. At

the conclusion of a cabinet meeting on October which Asquith did not attend

because of illness, the members of the Dardanelles Committee stayed on with the

exception of Kitchener. It was their decision that Kitchener had to go.

There was

also wide support for Lloyd George’s view that the argumentative and

cumbersome Dardanelles Committee should be replaced by a smaller committee.

Asquith was prepared to accept this suggestion, contemplating the creation of a

small body composed of himself, and the heads of the War Office and

Admirality.

Such a body, of course, could only serve to magnify Kitchener’s

influence. Lloyd George was determined that any reorganization of the

government must destroy—not enhance— Kitchener’s power.

On October 31,

he wrote Asquith a blunt letter:

…unless there is a complete change in the War Office the new Council will be

just as impotent as the Cabinet and old Council have proved themselves to be. Our

War Administration have committed every blunder that the enemy would wish

them to be guilty of…. If I thought the appointment of a small Committee would

put an end to all these amazing series of blunders, I should be satisfied. But I have

gone on for months always thinking that every mistake must surely be the last,

and finding myself constantly surprised by the capacity of our great war lords for

blundering.

Lloyd George ended his letter with a threat of resignation, warning “that I can

no longer be responsible for the present war direction.”

Lloyd George’s threat to leave the government and the tidal wave of opposition

to Kitchener forced Asquith to act. A master political tactician, he chose an indirect

approach to evade a violent reaction from the public. Kitchener would be sent

away from London on a special fact-finding mission to the Mediterranean. In his

absence, the prime minister would take over the War Office. “We avoid by this

method,” he assured Lloyd George, “the immediate supersession of K[itchener]

as War Minister, while attaining the same result.”

On the morning of November 4, Kitchener attended what many thought would

be his last cabinet meeting. Just before adjournment, this bronzed national hero

rose to leave the company of ministers who no longer had faith in him. He nodded

in the direction of Asquith and then slowly walked to the door. No words were

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 51

exchanged. Lloyd George, as he later confessed to Miss Stevenson, was touched

by Kitchener’s humiliation.

Lloyd George’s happiness over the fact that he might never again cross

strategical swords with Kitchener was diluted by Asquith’s reorganization of the

government. When the new committee held its first properly constituted meeting

on November 5, Lloyd George, Grey, Asquith, and Balfour, who had replaced

Churchill at the Admiralty, sat around the table. The first sea lord, Admiral Sir

H.B.Jackson, and the C.I.G.S. were also in attendance to offer advice on military

questions.

On the eleventh, however, Asquith told the House that the

membership of the War Committee included himself, Lloyd George, Balfour,

McKenna (exchequer), and Bonar Law (colonies). The presence of his archenemy

McKenna enraged the Welshman.

Of more concern was the size of the new War

Committee. When Grey and the military advisers were included, the membership

of the committee swelled to eight or more. To Lloyd George, this was further

confirmation of the prime minister’s irresolution.

Much of the War Committee’s attention was taken up by the British position

in the Near East. What made a decision so difficult was Britain’s precarious

political position in the East. In Hankey’s words, “It resembles a line of children’s

bricks standing on end: all that is required is the momentum to upset the first brick,

which causes the next one to upset its neighbour.”

The first brick was Serbia and

the last bricks in the line were Persia, Afghanistan, India, Tripoli, Algiers, and

Morocco. If Britain were going to make a stand in the Near East, the ministers’

choice was clearly Gallipoli rather than Salonika. Only Lloyd George was

enthusiastic about the Balkans.

Even after all hope of saving Serbia was gone, Lloyd George clung stubbornly

to his Balkan strategy. He just could not bring himself to abdicate the strategical

direction of the war to the “Westerners.” Believing that the British generals were

“crowding troops into France”

in a futile effort to breach impregnable German

defenses, he continued to argue in favor to a major campaign in southeastern

Europe which “would mean lengthening the German line across Europe, and so

attenuating it and making it weaker everywhere.”

He remained convinced that

khaki in the Balkans would eventually result in Greece’s and Rumania’s entry into

the war on the Entente side, substantially increasing Entente numbers. He was

prepared to admit that a major Balkan offensive could not be attempted in 1915.

But what about 1916? Do not “lock the door” to the Balkans and “throw away the

key,” he impassionedly pleaded with his colleagues.

No longer equivocal about

the abandonment of Gallipoli, he wanted British troops there transferred to

Salonika. The Welshman pointedly warned the War Committee that it “would be

assuming great responsibility if it came to a decision to keep our forces on the

Peninsula.”

The fact that Britain’s s leading generals were united in their opposition to

staying in the Balkans did not shake Lloyd George’s confidence in his own

views.

Sir William Robertson, the chief of staff of the British Expeditionary

Force, whose views were now frequently before the government, argued that

52 MUNITIONS, COMPULSION, AND THE FALL OF SERBIA

Germany—the main enemy—could only be defeated in France and Flanders.

defense of his “Western” stance, Robertson even insisted that the recently

concluded Anglo-French attacks at Loos and Champagne had “achieved brilliant

tactical results” and represented “a real victory.”

If these were “victories,” Lloyd

George wanted no more of them. He was convinced that the “expert” opinions

expressed by the “Westerners” were parochial and consequently biased.

Proof

of this bias was the strong support that some French and especially Russian

generals in November gave to his ideas. In fact, the Russian general staff could

not have been more Lloyd Georgian in its view, insisting that the Entente’s best

strategy was a “great turning movement in south-eastern Europe.”

In spite of (or perhaps because of) his usual persistence and aggressiveness, the

Welshman’s views were shaken off by the ministers as dew drops from the lion’s

mane. Only Bonar Law gave him tentative support.

As Balfour patiently

explained: “The time for attacking the Central Powers in the South-East was over,

and we should withdraw every man from Salonica to Egypt in [sic] the Western

front. With a hostile Bulgaria, an unfriendly Greece, and a crushed Serbia, the

order of things had changed. We must simplify our strategy.”

As November

came to a close, irresistible momentum built up for the complete withdrawal from

the eastern Mediterranean. Weighing heavily on the minds of the British leaders

was the belief that Britain was dangerously close to a war with Greece because of

the presence of French and British soldiers in that country.

Before the British retreated, however, French opinion had to be changed. The

surprise reappearance of Kitchener like a ghost from the grave to haunt Lloyd

George helped nerve the British government to challenge Paris. Kitchener, as we

have seen, was not expected to return to London. But Asquith’s clever arrangement

to keep him in the East had come unstuck. As Kitchener was on his way to the

Mediterranean, the Globe, on November 5, thundered: “Lord Kitchener, acting

with a single eye to the interests of his King and country, has tolerated manoeuvres

and machinations which none but the patriotic soldier would have endured for a

day.” With the public aware of the dissension between the head of the War Office

and his colleagues in the government, Asquith trembled at the prospect of keeping

Kitchener in the East if he wanted to return; and he did.

On December 1, just back from the East, Kitchener took his usual place in the

cabinet room when the War Committee met. He bluntly told the ministers that

Britain, even if she desired, could not hold Salonika. In fact, if Germany attacked,

“the Greeks would probably join in.”

Two days later he went further. He

presented an ultimatum to Asquith. If Britain did not withdraw at once, he would

resign.

100

An Anglo-French conference to resolve the difference between London and

Paris was subsequently held at Calais on December 4. One British minister was

conspicuous by his absence. For obvious reasons, Asquith left Lloyd George at

home to enjoy a weekend with Miss Stevenson at Walton Heath. At Calais the

British delegation was adamant that military considerations should determine the

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 53

future of the Allied expeditionary force in the Balkans. With great reluctance the

French agreed that preparations should be made to evacuate Salonika.

101

Although it appeared that evacuationist sentiment had triumphed at Calais,

appearances were deceiving. When Briand returned to Paris he was faced with a

revolt by the Socialists in his government. The “Sacred Union” was threatened.

On the other side of the Channel, the British delegation was greeted by a skeptical

Lloyd George. After going through the telegrams between Paris and London, it

was obvious to the Welshman that the Briand government still wanted to retain

an Allied foothold in the Balkans.

102

This belief was soon confirmed by his friend

and counterpart, Albert Thomas, the French minister of munitions, who was sent

by the French cabinet to London in a desperate attempt to use Lloyd George to

reverse the position of the British government. The French could not have found

a more willing accomplice.

Accompanied by Bonar Law, Lloyd George had his interview with Thomas on

December 6. Armed with Thomas’s strongly expressed views, Lloyd George

berated his colleagues in a late afternoon meeting of the War Committee in the

prime minister’s room at the House of Commons. He warned his government that

the Calais decision threatened to destroy the Briand government and undermine

the Anglo-French alliance.

Kitchener riposted with the statement that “if it were decided to reinforce the

troops at Salonica and maintain that force for the whole winter, it might result in

our losing the war, and he could not be responsible for such a policy.” Kitchener’s

hysterical analysis had little impact. Pushed by Lloyd George the ministers were

prepared to subordinate military considerations to political considerations. If there

were “any breach in the Alliance the war would be lost,” Bonar Law emphasized.

Earlier in August Kitchener had won approval for Joffre’s disastrous autumn

offensive by stressing Britain’s obligations to support her Continental allies

without regard for the merits of Joffre’s strategy. Now Lloyd George was using

this same argument with success to block an Allied retreat from the Balkans. These

two incidents underline the haphazard manner in which critical military and

political decisions were made in the anti-German coalition in 1915.

To his credit Lloyd George on this occasion pointed to the lack of coordination

and planning in Entente policy. He said “that a scheme for bringing the war to a

conclusion appeared not even to have been thought out, or at least shown to the

War Committee. He inquired if it was still the idea to press for a decision on the

West, and if it was possible to do so, or if the idea was to starve Germany out. It

seemed to him that we were endeavouring to carry on the war by a piecemeal

policy of action in different directions, such as Gallipoli, Salonica, Egypt.”

Kitchener retorted that “he had so far seen many schemes put forward that would

not end the war, but he thought the time was not yet ripe to try and formulate a

plan which would do so.” Lloyd George’s sarcastic reply was that “he was certain

the German General Staff was in possession of a plan.”

103

In retrospect, Lloyd George’s outburst, whatever his intentions, was directed

as much against the “Easterners” as the “Westerners.” As a matter of fact, the

54 MUNITIONS, COMPULSION, AND THE FALL OF SERBIA

general staff had a “plan” to win the war: the concentration of British military

power on the western front. In the final analysis, this approach differed little from

the strategy of the German high command. To Lloyd George, however, the

continued pounding of the German defenses without decisive results was a

reflection of the intellectual bankruptcy of the British military.

The one-two punch of Thomas and Lloyd George resulted in the British war

leaders deciding to await the decision of Allied military leaders who were meeting

at Joffre’s headquarters. Murray’s report of the proceedings of this conference to

the War Committee on the eighth seemed to vindicate Lloyd George’s position.

Although no important British general could be found to support the Salonika

venture, the Serbian, French, Italian, and Russian military representatives were

opposed to evacuation.

104

Kitchener and Grey were then sent to Paris to calm the

troubled waters with the result that a decision to evacuate Salonika was put off.

Lloyd George’s position during the collapse of Serbia and the debate over the

evacuation of Salonika and Gallipoli further isolated him in the high councils of

the government. His support of the abandonment of Gallipoli estranged him from

the “Easterners.” He had been proven right about the German threat to Serbia and

Kitchener’s incompetence and would be proven right about compulsion. But this

did not improve his standing with Asquith and the Liberals. To the contrary, his

refusal to bend, to go along with the majority, made him a divisive and to some

even dangerous force in the government. The way in which the French had been

able to use him to reverse the decision at Calais to evacuate Salonika was a case

in point. Despite the hostility he provoked, Lloyd George made no effort to be

conciliatory. He was not above assuming an “I told you so” posture. On December

20, he went a step further, rising in the House of Commons to deliver a biting

speech which could be interpreted as an attempt to disassociate himself from the

“wait and see” attitude of Asquith’s government: “Too late in moving here. Too

late in arriving there. Too late in coming to this decision, too late in starting with

enterprises. Too late in preparing. In this War the footsteps of the Allied forces

have been dogged by the mocking spectre of ‘Too Late.’”

105

It is sometimes assumed that Lloyd George’s unrelenting pressure over

munitions, compulsion, and grand strategy is explained by his boundless ambition

to supplant Asquith. His growing disenchantment with Kitchener did indeed

inevitably draw him into conflict with Asquith, who for months lacked the courage

to replace, demote, or overrule the government’s adviser on military policy. But

there is no real evidence to suggest that it was Asquith rather than Kitchener whom

Lloyd George hoped to remove.

Asquith himself finally came to realize that Kitchener must have his powers

considerably diminished. But he still wanted to retain the protective umbrella that

Britain’s most popular soldier offered to the government. As he confided to

Hankey, he desired a solution which would enable the government to “use his

great name and authority as a popular idol, both here, in the Colonies, &

abroad.”

106

In early December, Kitchener acquiesced to making leadership of the

War Office little more than a figurehead position. Earlier he had lost munitions to

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 55

Lloyd George; now the strategical direction of the war was stripped from him and

given to Robertson, who replaced Murray as chief of the Imperial general staff on

December 23. Only recruiting and the administration of the War Office remained

in his hands. Kitchener’s diminished role did not cool Lloyd George’s conflict

with the army leadership. The future was to hold a confrontation between the

Welshman and Robertson that made the former’s differences with Kitchener seem

minor by comparison.

NOTES

1. Frances Lloyd George, Years That Are Past, p. 52.

2. Ibid., p. 40.

3. A.J.P.Taylor, ed., My Darling Pussy: The Letters of Lloyd George and Frances

Stevenson (1975), p. 5.

4. Lloyd George to Margaret Lloyd George, July 24, 1924, quoted in Morgan, Family

Letters, p. 203.

5. War Council, February 24, 1915, CAB 42/1/42.

6. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 1:75.

7. Ibid., p. 77.

8. Entry of March 15, 1915, Diaries of C.P.Scott, p. 120.

9. Asquith, Memories and Reflections, 2:83; for the exchange of letters between

Kitchener and Lloyd George, see Lloyd George MSS, C/5/7/18–19.

10. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 1:119–20.

11. Gilbert, Challenge of War, 1914–1916, p. 553.

12. Beaverbrook, Politicians and the War, 1914–1916, p. 88.

13. Ibid. Beaverbrook’s statement is the only evidence to link Lloyd George with the

initiation of the press campaign. Lloyd George’s correspondence with Northcliffe

over the shell crisis came after the press campaign against Kitchener began. See

Lloyd George MSS, D/18/1/1–10.

14. It is significant that Northcliffe had earlier written Sir John French: “A short and

very vigorous statement from you to a private correspondent (the usual way of

making things public in England) would, I believe, render the Government’s position

impossible, and enable you to secure the publication of that which would tell the

people here the truth and thus bring public pressure upon the Government to stop

men and munitions pouring away to the Dardanelles, as they are at present.”

Northcliffe to Sir John French, May 1, 1915, Northcliffe MSS, vol. 7.

15. Lieut.-Col. C. a Court Repington, The First World War, 1914–1918. 2 vols. (1920),

1:39, and Repington to Lloyd George, May 17, 1915, Lloyd George MSS, D/18/6/1.

16. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 1:134.

17. Bonar Law’s and Lloyd George’s accounts of this meeting agree in their essentials.

See Hankey Diary, October 6, 1920, 1/5, and Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 1:135–36.

18. Stephen Koss, Asquith (1976), p. 187.

19. Entry of May 18, 1915, A Diary by Frances Stevenson, p. 51. “Pussy” was the

nickname given Miss Stevenson by her young students when she taught at a boarding

school at Wimbledon.

20. Ibid.

56 MUNITIONS, COMPULSION, AND THE FALL OF SERBIA