Herbert Henry Asquith - Essay Example

148335 Herbert Henry Asquith had become Britain’s Prime Minister in 1908 after the death of Henry Campbell Bannerman and was eventually replaced by David Lloyd George. Asquith had previously been the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and had started the process of increasing welfare provision. Asquith was an effective political campaigner as well as a capable administrator. He was not the type of man easily panicked although he seemed to lack the dynamism of Lloyd George or Winston Churchill. Of course he had also been help to promote both men before the First World War started (Crystal, 1998 p. 48). As Prime Minister Asquith worked closely with his successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George to push through the Liberal social reform policies. The People’s Budget of 1909 had shown the government’s reforming credentials yet forced two general elections during 1910 (James, 2003 p. 88). Asquith had not had an easy time as Prime Minister yet had previously maintained the loyalty of the Liberal Party through the various problems faced before his replacement by Lloyd George. The Liberal government had been through enough traumas before the First World War. Disruption was caused through the issues of reducing the power of the House of Lords, dealing with industrial unrest, and votes for women, although the war itself put those issues and the more controversial moves towards Irish home rule on hold for the duration (Schama, 2002 p. 433). Although David Lloyd George was known to be ambitious, he had not from the outset of the First World War planned to oust Asquith and become Prime Minister himself. At the start of the conflict Asquith and Lloyd George had been united as to Britain’s war aims and that Asquith was the best available Prime Minister. Neither man for instance had thought about making peace with Germany, instead waiting for the outcome of the Somme offensive in 1916 (Stevenson, 2004 p. 148). In the source Stevenson argues that Lloyd George wished to become Prime Minister to help the nation win the war, to add a sense of urgency in the solving of political, military, and economic obstacles that were preventing British victory. Lloyd George’s ambitions are played down whilst the stubbornness of Asquith in refusing to step down is stressed. Asquith was assumed to be selfishly holding on to power to the detriment of the Liberal party’s future and British national interests (Taylor, p. 128). If the government had remained a wholly Liberal administration then Asquith’s position may have been successfully assailed earlier. As the administration had contained Conservatives as part of the national government since 1915, Lloyd George as Stevenson pointed out had to convince the Conservatives to back him rather than Asquith. For the Conservatives were initially reluctant to ditch a Prime Minister that had given them a place in government and had removed Winston Churchill from the Admiralty at their bequest (Paterson, 2005 p. 246). Churchill not unnaturally went on to support Lloyd George rather than Asquith once he became Prime Minister and when the Liberal Party split (Schama, 2002 p. 437). Conservative involvement in the government had resulted from the ‘Shells Scandal’ of May 1915 in which the Daily Mail highlighted the limitations of British offensives due to a shortage of munitions. Asquith had also moved Lloyd George from the Exchequer to the post of minister for munitions, which inadvertently allowed the latter much greater chances to influence the conduct of the war and eventually the chance to become Prime Minister (Holmes, 1999 p. 64). If Asquith was not prepared to step down in favour of Lloyd George as the source and most historians agree over that point, his position depended upon whether he could maintain the support of the Conservatives within the coalition. Both Lloyd George and Asquith knew that the Conservatives would only accept them as Prime Minister, the only other Liberal that had the qualities to be Prime Minister was Winston Churchill. Churchill’s reputation had been tarnished by the Gallipoli debacle and he was already detested by the Conservatives for defecting to the Liberals in 1904 (Paterson, 2005 p. 246). In political and ideological terms the Conservatives preferred the more moderate Asquith to the more radical Lloyd George, they disliked his desire to continue social and economic reforms after the war. That can help explain why the Conservatives were slow in supporting Lloyd George (James, 2003 p. 88). The change in Conservative support from Asquith to Lloyd George was slow and not instant, it was partly prompted by the costly failure of the Somme offensive which had left 420,000 British and Empire forces dead and failed to make a breakthrough (Hobsbawm, 1994 p. 25). The failure of the Somme increased Lloyd George’s belief that he should become Prime Minister to allow Britain to win the war by increasing the efficiency of the British war effort and even attempting to remove General Haig from his command (Stevenson, 2004 p. 174). One of Lloyd George’s arguments for becoming Prime Minister was that he sought victories away from the Western Front, which would bring about final victory with fewer deaths. Asquith had already agreed with General Haig that the main British offensive was to be in Flanders. Lloyd George could not force Haig to change strategy, whilst the onset of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans added urgency for the British to capture the Channel ports. Logic led to the battle of Passchendaele, which was everything that Lloyd George, had wanted to avert (Holmes, 1999 p. 144). Unbeknown to Lloyd George was that the events of 1917 improved Britain’s chances of victory as the German submarine campaign was defeated, and the United States entered the war on the allied side. German morale was also badly affected by the highly effective blockade of the Royal Navy and the spread of revolutionary ideas from Russia. If those events had happened earlier than perhaps Asquith’s less dynamic approach to conducting the war effort would not have led to his removal (Stevenson, 2004 p. 278). Lloyd George himself had been unhappy about the conduct of the war effort and Stevenson makes it clear that Lloyd George saw himself as Britain’s saviour in an hour of grave need (Taylor, p. 128). Lloyd George worked behind the scenes to make the Conservatives unhappy with Asquith being Prime Minister as a justification for taking the position himself. Whether Lloyd George’s attempts to undermine Asquith would have been successful is debatable, growing frustration about the failure to make all but the most insignificant of gains certainly undermined confidence in the government although the press were still largely on his side (Jenkins, 2001 p. 314). Lloyd George was able to gain power as Roy Jenkins notes in unforeseen circumstances. The Conservative MP Edward Carson contrived a plot that brought about Asquith’s fall via a vote over a minor legal matter in the House of Commons, relating to who would be able to buy land from the British government in the former German colonies in Africa. Carson had actually been trying to discredit his own party leader, Bonar Law instead of the Prime Minister. Carson and other Conservatives had resented Bonar Law’s unconditional support for Asquith. Bonar Law fearing for his own position thus became more favourable to suggestions that Lloyd George become Prime Minister. Bonar Law preferred Asquith to remain, as Prime Minister yet was not prepared to back him at the cost of losing the leadership of the Conservative party. Both Stevenson in the source and Jenkins portray Bonar Law as been slow to act and rather indecisive. Carson and Lloyd George were more active in the campaign to oust Asquith. Jenkins notes that the increasing hostility between Asquith and Lloyd George was not fully known in public until after the end of the First World War. Jenkins it must be remembered was writing about Asquith’s replacement by Lloyd George as a factor in Churchill’s political career. Churchill perhaps like many Liberals had divided loyalties between supporting Asquith who was their leader or supporting Lloyd George as the new Prime Minister attempting to win the First World War. Churchill like the majority of more ambitious Liberals backed Lloyd George, whilst the less ambitious or those that simply believed Lloyd George had betrayed their party maintained their support for Asquith. For Churchill the political advantages of siding with Lloyd George were not immediately obvious, although he was made Minister for munitions in 1918 (Jenkins, 2001 p. 319). Stevenson hints that Lloyd George had been unhappy with Asquith for not stepping down as Prime Minister voluntarily. Lloyd George would have preferred to have being what actually happened so that Liberal party unity that would have remained intact and therefore not damaged the party’s electoral fortunes after the First World War had finished. Lloyd George was very close to Stevenson so the latter would have known Lloyd George’s attitude towards Asquith. Stevenson gave the interview after the damaging consequences of the rift between Asquith and Lloyd George was apparent to the electoral fortunes of the Liberal party after 1918. Lloyd George primarily blamed those dire electoral and political consequences for the Liberal party upon Asquith’s refusal to stand down. Another possible slant on the reason for Lloyd George taking over from Asquith, as Prime Minister was that Carson persuaded him that to do so was a good idea for Britain’s future (Taylor, p. 128). However it could be countered that Carson’s schemes would have come to nothing if Lloyd George’s ambitions had stretched to the desire to become Prime Minister (Stevenson, 2004 p. 174). For Lloyd George personal ambition was combined with a strong sense of his own destiny, he was the great leader that would be his country’s saviour by ending the war as soon as possible at the lowest possible financial and human costs (Holmes, 1999 p. 144). Asquith reacted badly to his removal from office, although it was not surprising that he became bitter towards Lloyd George and the Conservatives as they gave him little option to stay in power. Gardiner and Wenborn were certainly not alone amongst historians in arguing that Asquith’s removal from office was down to his own apparent lethargy in conducting the war effort. Asquith lacked the dynamism and determination to lead his country through a war of unequalled cost and brutality. Any of the improvements in Britain’s fighting performance were not down to Asquith but down to Lloyd George improving the overall supply and quality of the munitions that were supplied to the army. Lack of supplies and munitions could no longer be used as an excuse for military failures. Its generals eventually adopting more effective tactics and strategy helped Britain’s bloody path to victory (Gardiner & Wenborn, 1995 p. 48). Bibliography Crystal D, (1998) The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Paterson M, (2005) Winston Churchill – Personal Accounts of the Great Leader at War 1895 – 1945, David & Charles, Newton Abbott Hobsbawm E, (1994) Age of Extremes, the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, Michael Joseph, London Holmes R, The Western Front, BBC, London James H, (2003) Europe Reborn – A History, 1914 – 2000, Pearson Longman, Harlow Jenkins R, (2001) Churchill, Macmillan Press, Basingstoke Paterson M, (2005) Winston Churchill – Personal Accounts of the Great Leader at War 1895 – 1945, David & Charles, Newton Abbott Schama S, (2002) A History of Britain 3 – the End of Empire 1776-2000, BBC, London Stevenson D, (2004) 1914 – 1918 A history of the First World War, Penguin, London Read More