Lloyd George and the Great War 1916-18

Lloyd George and the War Cabinet

The success of Lloyd George in coming to power was remarkable — it was a victory against the establishment. The backbenchers and the newspapers combined in a sort of unconscious plebiscite and made Lloyd George dictator for the duration of the war. This was remarkable because Lloyd George was not the leader of any political party. According to A.J.P. Taylor, “He had no friends and did not deserve any. He repaid loyalty with disloyalty, as Churchill and Addison experienced. He was surrounded by dependants and sycophants, whom he rewarded lavishly and threw aside when they had served their turn. His rule was dynamic and sordid at the same time.” He was corrupt as well, leaving office noticeably richer than when he entered it.

The war cabinet had just five members: Law (who was chancellor of the exchequer), Henderson (who represented 'Labour'), Curzon, Milner and himself. The war cabinet held meetings nearly every day, and an effective secretariat was organised under Hankey. But the cabinet did not have adequate staff, which Lloyd George attempted to rectify by having private staff who were lodged in huts in St. James's Park. His rule was thus presidential. The service ministers regarded the war cabinet as 'the enemy' and they disliked Lloyd George. Robertson, for the army, and Jellicoe (as first sea lord from December 1916) conspired to give the cabinet as little information as possible.

War Socialism

The development of war socialism progressed unabated. Five new departments were rapidly established — for shipping, labour, food, national service and food production. These departments (most of them were made into ministries) were lead by businessmen rather than by politicians. But the force of the state was not used; rather, voluntary agreements between producers and owners were established, and war socialism was largely motivated by patriotism.

Rationing of food was also largely run on a voluntary basis and was operated by the retailers. All the ministries controlled prices, and the cost of living was stabilised during the war. Prices were determined on a 'cost plus' basis, and this was usually accepted by industrialists as fair.

The management of the war economy was not entirely smooth, and problems were created which surfaced later. One of these was the control of rents, another the management of the mines. The miners still resented the profits of the owners, even on the 'cost plus' basis. However, the mines were nationalised for the duration of the war. But since there was no attempt to rationalise or modernise the pits, this was creating problems for the future.

Cotton production was controlled so as to reduce output. Bread prices were stabilised by a subsidy to offset the increase in the price of imported wheat.

1916 Offensive and Passchendaele

Lloyd George sought for a unified Allied strategy, and to this effect he proposed an offensive on the Italian front, but the Italian general, Cardorna, declined the responsibility. In 1916 Joffre was sacked as French commander-in-chief and replaced by Nivelle. He proposed another offensive on the Western front. Robertson agreed, and Lloyd George, once he had accepted the plan, became wholly committed to it. The success of Nivelle's plan would require swift action to achieve complete surprise; instead there were extensive delays in the preparations owing to the opposition of the British generals to the plan. However, Lloyd George forced it through, and the offensive commenced on 9-14th April with a British attack at Arras. The British losses were close to twice those of the Germans, and the Germans were not diverted. Nivelle's attack was a failure, the French army nearly mutinied, and Nivelle was dismissed in May. The French army was not able to mount another offensive in 1917.

The failure of Nivelle's offensive gave Haig the freedom to plan his own — an offensive in Flanders. The underlying idea was good, but the tactical problem of how to achieve a breakthrough in the first place had not been resolved. The bombardment merely turned the fields of Flanders into impassable mud. Lloyd George was opposed to the plan from the start, but he was overcome by the unity of the generals, and on 25th July the war cabinet endorsed Haig's plan. The offensive commenced on 31st July 1917. It is termed the third battle of Ypres, or more popularly, the battle of Passchendaele, after the final stage. It was a failure from the beginning. Although Haig had said that he would not continue beyond the first day if things went wrong, he persisted for three months. The British gained four miles. British losses were 3 dead for every 2 Germans.

However, an unconnected offensive using tanks was a success. Tanks broke through the German defences at Cambrai on 20th November 1917; but there were no reserves of infantry with which to consolidate the breach. An enquiry conducted by Smuts into the failure blamed 'the junior officers and N.C.O.s and men'.

Unrestricted submarine warfare and Convoys

The Germans renewed their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare on 1st February 1917. In February the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, and issued a full declaration of war against Germany in April. However, the effects of the campaign on British shipping was initially devastating. 25% of British ships that sailed were sunk, and approximately 1 million tons of shipping was lost. Neutral ships refused to sail to British ports. One specific problem was the interruption of supplies of pit props from Norway, which threatened to bring the coal industry to a halt. Neither Jellicoe, the British admiral, nor Carson, the first Sea Lord, could not think of a solution to the problem. Lloyd George took up the suggestion of cabinet secretary Hankey for the establishment of convoys, and single-handedly pushed this policy through: Convoys were due to Lloyd George alone, his most decisive achievement of the war. They began with the departure of a convoy from Gibraltar on 10th May. Losses were dramatically reduced — less than 1% of ships sailing in convoy were lost, and the shipyards were able to replace losses without difficulty — supply exceeded losses by mid 1918. Eventually, over 80% of ships bound for British ports sailed in convoy. The logistic difficulties proved to be less problematic than originally feared. Most of the losses after the introduction of convoys came from the Mediterranean, where ships were still sailing outside convoys. Carson was not moved from the admiralty immediately. Lloyd George moved him later by promoting him to the war cabinet in July. Carson was replaced by Eric Geddes as first lord of the Admiralty. Lloyd George was unable to remove Jellicoe for fear of uniting the generals against him.

The Allies were losing the war during autumn 1917. The Italians suffered a major defeat at Caporetto, when the Austro-Hungarians nearly reached Venice; and the October revolution brought a Bolshevik government to Russia, which signed an immediate armistice with Germany. Within the Cabinet, Milner proposed a negotiated peace with Germany that would recognise Germany's defeat of Russia; however, the British people "were obstinately set on the defeat of Germany".

During 1917 there was an outbreak of public consternation over food supplies — though this was in fact ungrounded. Once the losses due to the German submarine campaign were reversed by the policy of convoys, the food supply situation improved. There was a bumper harvest in 1917. However, irrational panic buying started. Food rationing was introduced to prevent the panic, not because there was any economic need for it.

But 1917 saw a worsening of the economic situation within Britain, with shortages of food and fuel developing. Discontent was growing. Lloyd George mounted an enquiry, which discovered that there was genuine cause for the grievances. The result was that wages for government work were increased whilst prices remained tightly controlled. Thus, real wages rose to almost the pre-war level. With less goods available for consumption, the public saved more. The government introduced National Savings to attract some of this money. This was Law's one initiative as Chancellor of the Exchequer; he made no other attempts to redress the imbalance in government finances.

German offensive 1918: The Second Battle of the Somme

In March 1917 there was a revolution in Russia. The new Russian government was prepared to continue the war, but only for an idealistic cause — they wanted a peace with 'no annexations and no indemnities'.

Haig requested an additional 600,000 men for the Western front, but the cabinet decided to prioritise the navy and the air-force, and he in fact got only 60,000. Haig and Robertson wanted the transfer of men from the Middle East, but this was resisted by Lloyd George. The campaign in the Middle East was going well: Baghdad was captured by the Army of Mesopotamia, with the acquisition of the Middle East oil for the British. Palestine was conquered, which enabled the British to court the favour of the influential Jewish lobby in the United States.

Lloyd George wanted to remove Robertson, but he was opposed by the King, Unionist backbenchers and Asquith. Lloyd George tried to outmanoeuvre his opponents by using the principle of Allied cooperation, and he convened a Supreme War Council in November 1917, to meet at Versailles, but Robertson refused to cooperate with it. In February 1918, Lloyd George made a further attempt to wrest power away from Robertson; he called for the establishment of a general reserve of British and French divisions. Robertson resisted, and he had the support of the king and Asquith and other ministers. However, Lloyd George opted for the show-down, and he threatened to resign. On 18th February Robertson was forced to resign. The new C.I.G.S was Sir Henry Wilson. Like his predecessor, he favoured the Western Front, but unlike him, he was prepared to work with the civilian government and give an ear to Lloyd George's ideas. However, Lloyd George's victory over the military was hollow — since the German offensive of 1918 forced the British to fight on the Western front after all.

Ludendorff mounted a German offensive on the Somme, and with some tactical improvements, such as the absence of the characteristic warning bombardment, he achieved a major breakthrough on 21st March 1918. The German army advanced 40 miles within a single day. The British army was threatened with defeat; once again, it was Lloyd-George who rose to the crisis. He took over the direction of the war office from Lord Derby, and organised the mobilisation of all reserves, and their rapid transportation across the channel. The reserve was transferred to France within 1 week. Lloyd George also acted independently of the Foreign Office, telegraphing President Wilson with an appeal for the immediate use of American troops, and Wilson agreed to this, overruling his own field commander, General Pershing, in the process.

The German assault threatened to divide the British army from the French army; Petain thought the British would collapse first, then the French. Foch continued to believe that the Germans would halt if resisted strenuously. The German assault came in stages: from 21st to 28th March they attacked the British at the Somme; from 9th to 25th April they attacked the British for a second time, but winning less ground; in late June they assaulted the French and advanced over the Marne to within forty miles of Paris. However, none of these offensives did decisively break the Allied lines, and British and American reinforcements prevented a complete collapse.

In response to the crisis created by the German offensive, there was an issue over whether conscription should be extended to Ireland. Lloyd George proposed to extend conscription to Ireland as and when Ireland accepted Home Rule. But the Irish Nationalists rejected the proposal and in fact walked out of the House of Commons, never to return. Conscription was denounced even by the Irish Roman Catholic Church. There was a general strike in Ireland, commencing on 23rd April, 1918. On the pretext of a 'German plot' the leaders of the Sinn Fein were interred; military rule was re-established, and conscription was also dropped.

There was some movement towards the establishment of war-aims. Wilson offered to mediate between the Allies and the Germans. In order to keep the Americans sweet Lloyd George started to embrace the concept of 'self determination', which would mean the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and the 'liberation' of subject peoples: the Italians, Slavs, Rumanians and Czechoslovaks. Thus, the aims of the war grew as the Allies sort to justify its continuation by discovering a "great cause".

Defeat of Germany

The final offensive by the Germans against the French, called operation 'Hagen', commenced on 15th July; it collapsed within 3 days, and was called off on 20th July. The German attempt to win the war was over. The British started to counter-attack. Using tanks they broke through at Amiens on 8th August. Haig improved on former strategy, and instead of continuing with the attack at Amiens and creating a vulnerable salient, he attacked at a second point. The effect was to force the Germans to fall back over their whole line. However, the German line was never completely broken except for a few hours, and the Germans were able to shorten their lines and hence improve their position.

At the same time, the Central Powers began to collapse in the East. Allenby destroyed the last Turkish army at the battle of Megiddo on 19th September, and he captured Damascus as a result. The army at Salonika at last started to advance, and the Bulgarians decided not to fight, and signed an armistice on 29th September. This left Central Europe wide open. Ludendorff had no reserves, so was forced to inform the German government that they must seek an immediate armistice or face total defeat.

The Ottoman government signed an armistice with the British on 30th October, and the Austrians with the Italians on 3rd November. The Ottoman and Habsburg empires were breaking up.

The German high commanded ordered the German fleet on a suicide mission in the North Sea; but there was a mutiny among German sailors.

Armistice

The Germans sought by appealing to the Americans to drive a wedge between the Allies. Wilson entered into private negotiations with the Germans lasting three weeks, and on 23rd October the Germans accepted the 14 points. Wilson then threatened to withdraw American from the war should the other Allies refuse to accept the armistice on the basis of the 14 points. The British would not accept the point about the 'freedom of the seas', but acquiesced once given a guarantee that the point would be discussed. Similarly, the French introduced a clause regarding their claim for compensation from Germany for war damage. The Italians also tried to table reservations in defence of their territorial claim to Lombardy, which was offered to them as part of the treaty of London. But they were told that this was not a part of the terms of the German armistice, and the supreme war council then accepted the armistice as brokered by the Americans with the British and French reservations included, but not the Italian.

The German delegation met the French delegation on 7th November in a railway carriage at Rethondes, where they received the terms for the armistice: (1) The German army would withdraw behind the Rhine; (2) All arms and railway equipment would be left behind; (3) all submarines and most of the surface fleet would be interned; (4) they would have to accept the annulment of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and German troops in Eastern Europe would be withdrawn behind the German frontier of 1914. The Kaiser abdicated and fled to Holland. The German delegation signed the armistice on 11th November. On the afternoon of 11th November Lloyd George addressed the house of commons; he related the terms of the armistice, and said: 'I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars.'

There followed a period of horse-trading between the Allied generals. The British wanted the destruction of the German navy, which the French opposed; and the French wanted to permanently occupy parts of the east bank of the Rhine, to which the British were opposed. In the end, they agreed on a comprise solution: the German navy would be interned, and the French would be allowed to occupy the Rhineland.

A post-war influenza epidemic engulfed the world, reaching central Europe in August and England in October. Over 3/4 of the population caught the disease; it killed 150,000 people in England. In India 16 million people died from it. More people died from the influenza epidemic than from the war itself.

Split of the Liberal Party

Lloyd George was threatened by political intrigues. He sacked Derby in April 1918, and reposted Milner to the war office. The military lobby resolved to resist any further encroachment on their territory, and Sir Frederick Maurice, fearing that Lloyd George was planning to oust Haig, accused Lloyd George on 7th May of lying to the House of Commons over the strength of the British army in France at the outset of 1918. Asquith, in response, demanded an enquiry by a select committee into the allegations. In defence, Lloyd George was able to show that his estimates had been based on figures supplied by Maurice's own department; however, Asquith continued to press for a division over the question of a select committee; in the subsequent division on 9th May, 1918, only 98 Liberals and 1 Unionist voted for the motion, and the attack on Lloyd George collapsed. The division in fact cemented the split within the Liberal party — the historic Liberal party committed suicide. The collapse of the attack inaugurated a period of personal “dictatorship” for Lloyd George.

However, there were other new sources of disturbance. 1918 saw the return of industrial unrest. Munition workers in Coventry struck in opposition to dilution. The London police struck to achieve recognition of their union. There were strikes by cotton workers against the rota system that controlled their industry. Meanwhile, the Labour party was continuing to break away from the Liberal party and the Coalition. They ran a candidate against the official Coalition candidate in a by-election at Wansbeck, and almost won. In other words, just as Lloyd George was consolidating his personal power within the existing House of Commons and establishment, class conflict was emerging as a new source of confrontation within Britain.

Lloyd George and Law agreed to maintain the Coalition and to fight a general election on a Coalition ticket. Parliament was dissolved on 5th November. Fighting had still not ceased, but the Germans were surrendering on mass.

The Impact of the war on The British Empire

The contributions of the Dominions to the war effort increased calls among the Unionists for the development of the Empire after the war into a closed economic system. Lloyd George supported the idea as a means to diminishing the power of the generals, and an Imperial War Cabinet was called in London in March 1917. However, the leaders of the Dominions were not interested in the idea of a customs union. They already only viewed the Empire as a collection of associated, but independently sovereign states, and thought of the conference as a diplomatic meeting only. The only exception was the South African prime minister, Jan Smuts. Smuts was a Boer, and fought the British during the Boer war. Lloyd George encouraged Smuts to remain in England and join the war cabinet in the hope that Smuts would act as an ally in his struggle with the British generals. Smuts did remain, but he did not prove to be an ally. His professional loyalty as a general meant that he supported Robertson and Haig, rather than Lloyd George.

The status of India came under discussion. Since India had more than 1/2 million men in the British army, and since the Indians suffered more casualties than any of the other Dominions, there was a need to grant the Indians some form of representation. This took the effect of a token presence in the war cabinet — the secretary of state for India and three assessors became members of the Imperial war cabinet. However, the principle was established that India was moving towards Dominion status.

Ireland

Regarding Ireland, Lloyd George repeated his offer to Redmond of immediate Home Rule for the twenty-six counties of southern Ireland, and a conference to achieve a final settlement once the war was over. But Sinn Fein were now winning every by-election in southern Ireland, and Redmond dared not compromise again. However, Smuts proposed a convention at which the Irish would settle things for themselves, and Redmond acceded to this. As a consequence, the men imprisoned and interned following the Easter uprising were released, and there was peace in Ireland for a year. Behind the scenes Lloyd George promised Carson that Ulster would have a veto over any settlement involving them, so with this promise of a convention Lloyd George was merely buying time.

Electoral Reform

The question of electoral reform arose. At this time, a man could vote in any constituency where he owned property, and he did not have to be a resident. Thus multiple plural votes existed. The problem reached a crisis in 1916 whilst Asquith was still prime minister. A conference under the chairmanship of the Speaker recommended unanimously that the franchise should be reformed so that there would be only one plural vote (it would be possible to have two votes, but not more than two votes) and a residency qualification of six months (you had to be resident in a constituency for at least six months in order to vote in it). Furthermore, a majority of members of the committee recommended votes for women, though not on the same terms as votes for men. All of the proposals were passed by a majority in the House of Commons, including votes for women, which was left to a free vote within the House. The bill passed through the House of Commons in December 1917, and became an Act in June 1918. The principle of 'one man, one vote' was established, with the exception of University seats and a second vote for business premises, which were not abolished until 1948. Thus, "war smoothed the way for democracy".

Opposition to the War

Opposition to the war gained some momentum within Britain during this time — and there were three divisions within the House of Commons over the issue of a negotiated peace — however, the proportion of MPs supporting the motion against continuance of the war was very small. At the same time, the Independent Labour party and the British Socialist party established a United Socialist Council, and a convention met in Leeds in June 1917 in order to initiate the British revolution — it was attended by 1,100 delegates.

The Labour party and the TUC made a joint statement of war aims in December 1917. It was drafted mainly by Ramsay MacDonald. He rejected secret diplomacy and called for reconciliation with Germany. Lloyd George accepted the war aims when he addressed a meeting of trade union leaders on 5th January 1918. He told them, "We are not fighting a war of aggression against the German people ..." War aims were stipulated in terms of (1) liberation of Belgium; (2) independent Poland; (3) self-determination for the peoples of Austria Hungary; (4) self-government by democratic processes. (5) 'a great attempt must be made to establish by some international organisation an alternative to war as a means of settling international disputes.' The statement had been given approval beforehand by the king and by the governments of the Dominions. The fact that it was made to delegates at a trade union conference and not to the House of Commons was unprecedented.

The development of an independent Labour Party

Henderson went to Russia during May 1917. He returned with the proposal that the British should agree to the Russian demand for a negotiated peace and that the Allies should send delegates to a conference in Stockholm of socialist parties. Lloyd George at first agreed to allow Henderson to attend; but subsequently retracted under pressure from the French. The Labour party conference supported Henderson, but seamen refused to carry the Labour delegation to Sweden, and Henderson resigned from the war cabinet. He was replaced by George Barnes, and the other Labour cabinet ministers remained in office. However, Henderson remained leader of the Labour party, and under his direction the Labour party aimed henceforth to be an independent party; thus, this episode brought an end to the Lib-Lab pact; the Labour party ceased to be affiliated to the Liberal party. The party programme was drafted by the Fabian, Sidney Webb. The programme committed Labour to the 'common ownership of the means of production'. Foreign policy was imported from the Union of Democratic Control, where MacDonald was most influential. Thus, MacDonald returned to the Labour party as effectively co-leader with Henderson. Thus, the Labour party came to represent an alternative party of the Left, free from the Liberal trammels with the privileged classes. Furthermore, it was from the beginning not an extremist party, through its close affiliation with the Trade Unions, who financed it: the unions had long been committed to a practice of negotiated settlement with the industrialists.

The divisions continued within the Liberal party. The unionists were united behind Lloyd George by their dislike of the alternative of Asquith as prime minister.

Churchill was reinstated as a minister: he was appointed minister for munitions in July 1917. Churchill introduced a series of committees that looked into nearly all aspects of the life of British citizens. Although most of their recommendations were not implemented, this in itself marked a move towards the welfare state, since the state started to recognise its obligations towards its citizens.

War Issues (1): The Use of Propaganda

The war saw some development in propaganda. In February 1918 there was established a ministry of information under Beaverbrook. It was divided into departments — with Rudyard Kipling in charge of the department for American and Allied opinion; and Rothermere in charge of the department for Neutrals opinion. Beaverbrook sought the help of Northcliffe, and together they thought up the policy of dropping balloons on Germany promising that those who surrendered would be treated well. Northcliffe's propaganda had probably little effect on German morale, but the balloon messages committed the government to the causes of the League of Nations and national self-determination, when the government had not yet clearly resolved on these aims!

War Issues (2): The concept of Aerial warfare

There was strong public support for an aerial campaign against the Germans in reprisal for German air attacks. An enquiry conducted by Smuts concluded that aerial bombardment alone, provided it was supported by sufficient numbers of planes, could destroy an enemy. Lloyd George accepted the report and established an independent ministry for Air under Rothermere. Trenchard became the Royal Air Force's chief of staff, and was given the task of bombing Germany into submission. Only 9 squadrons of bombers were built, instead of a projected 100, and the contribution of the air force to the war was insignificant. However, Trenchard was convinced that victory in war by the use of air-power alone was possible, and this myth became the RAF doctrine thereafter.