Abstract
At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Lloyd George occupied the second place in the government. He had been Chancellor of the Exchequer for six years, and while he remained the most important ‘Radical’ member of the Cabinet, in the realm of foreign policy there was, at least from 1911, in reality little dividing him from his Liberal ‘Imperialist’ colleagues such as H.H. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey. Like them he was determined to maintain the strength of the Empire, convinced of the need for a strong navy to protect it, and aware of and determined to resist any German ambitions for dominance in Europe at the expense of Britain’s Entente partners. This was underlined in particular by his intervention in the Agadir crisis of 1911 and would be again by his eventual support for British entry into the war in August 1914.
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Notes
Lloyd George told Sylvester in 1933: ‘If you had had a Palmerston or Disraeli at the Foreign Office in 1914 there would have been no war’; Colin Cross (ed.), Life with Lloyd George: The Diary of A.J. Sylvester (London: Macmillan, 1975), p. 96.
Trevor Wilson, ‘A Prime Minister Reflects: The War Memoirs of David Lloyd George’, in John A. Moses and Christopher Pugsley (eds), The German Empire and Britain’s Pacific Dominions 1871–1919: Essays on the Role of Australia and New Zealand in an Age of Imperialism (Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 2000), p. 40.
Paul Guinn, British Strategy and Politics 1914–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), p. 23. It should be noted, however, that for much of 1913–14 Lloyd George largely concentrated on domestic affairs and seemed to take little interest in foreign policy. In the 18 months up to July 1914 he attended only one meeting of the CID;
John Grigg, Lloyd George Vol. III: From Peace to War 1912–1916 (London: HarperCollins, 1997 ed.), p. 137.
On the debates over the naval estimates, see A.J.A. Morris, The Scaremongers: The Advocacy of War and Rearmament 1896–1914 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), esp. pp. 164ff,
David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe 1904–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 165–75;
D.W. Sweet, ‘Great Britain and Germany’, in F.H. Hinsley (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) pp. 227–31;
Gilbert, David Lloyd George: A Political Life Vol. I: The Architect of Change 1863–1912 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1987), and II: Organizer of Victory 1912–1916 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1992), I, pp. 364–68 and II, pp. 71–79;
Michael G. Fry, Lloyd George and Foreign Policy, Vol. I, The Education of a Statesman (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1977), pp. 105–29, 167–81;
F.W. Wiemann, ‘Lloyd George and the Struggle for the Navy Estimates of 1914’, in AJ.P. Taylor, Lloyd George: Twelve Essays (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971), pp. 71–91;
E.L. Woodward, Great Britain and the German Navy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935), pp. 219–39, 423–28; Grigg, Lloyd George, III, pp. 132–37.
On Lloyd George’s 1908 visit to Germany and his inept ‘diplomatic’ initiative in pursuit of an Anglo-German naval agreement, see War Memoirs, pp. 28–32; Harold Spender, The Fire of Life: A Book of Memories (London: Hodder and Stoughton, no date) (1926), pp. 161–66;
Harold Spender, The Prime Minister (New York: George H. Doran, 1920), ch. 12; Gilbert, Lloyd George, I, pp. 349–51; Grigg, Lloyd George, II, pp. 306–07; and Fry, Lloyd George and Foreign Policy, pp. 97–103.
Lloyd George clearly thought that his intervention had averted war. See Sylvester Diary, p. 96. On the Agadir crisis and the Mansion House speech, see Edward, Viscount Grey, Twenty Five Years, 2 vols (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1925), I, pp. 215–18;
Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis, 6 vols (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1923–31), I, pp. 46–50;
Earl of Oxford and Asquith (H.H. Asquith), The Genesis of the War (London: Cassell, 1923), pp. 92–94;
Arthur C. Murray, Master and Brother: Murrays of Elibank (London: John Murray, 1945), pp. 84–85; Fry, Lloyd George and Foreign Policy, p. 137; Grigg, Lloyd George, II, pp. 308–10; Gilbert, Lloyd George, I, pp. 449–54; the same author’s ‘Pacifist to Interventionist: David Lloyd George in 1911 and 1914. Was Belgium an Issue?’, Historical Journal, 28, 4, 1985, pp. 863–85;
Keith Wilson, ‘The Agadir Crisis, the Mansion House Speech and the Double-Edgedness of Agreements’, Historical Journal, XV, 3, 1972, pp. 513–32;
Timothy Boyle, ‘New Light on Lloyd George’s Mansion House Speech’, Historical Journal, 23, 2, 1980, pp. 431–33;
Richard A. Cosgrove, ‘A Note on Lloyd George’s Speech at the Mansion House, 21 July 1911, Historical Journal, xii, 4, 1969, pp. 698–701; M.L. Dockrill, ‘British Policy during the Agadir Crisis of 1911’, in Hinsley (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey, pp. 271–87. Lloyd George’s notes for the speech and correspondence between Murray and William Tyrell can be found in the House of Lords Library.
Trevor Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of C.P. Scott 1911–1928 (London: Collins, 1970), p. 86.
G. Riddell, Lord Riddell’s War Diary (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933), p. 3;
John Morley, Memorandum on Resignation (London: Macmillan, 1928), p. 2; Gilbert, Lloyd George, II, p. 109.
See John CG. Röhl, The Kaiser and his Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ch. 7.
L.L. Farrar Jr, Arrogance and Anxiety: The Ambivalence of German Power 1848–1914 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1981), p. 171.
Cited in Jones, Lloyd George, p. 224; see also Mark Pottle (ed.), Champion Redoubtable: The Diaries and Letters of Violet Bonham Carter 1914–45 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998), pp. 169–72.
Churchill’s government propaganda sheet the British Gazette carried messages of support for the government from Asquith and Grey, while Lloyd George expressed his sympathy towards the miners; Rowland, David Lloyd George, p. 623; Jones, Lloyd George, p. 218. On Lloyd George and Labour in the 1920s, see C.J. Wrigley, ‘Lloyd George and the Labour Party after 1922’, in Judith Loades (ed.), The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (Bangor: Headstart History, 1991), pp. 49–69.
Lord Beaverbrook, Politicians and the War 1914–1916 (London: Oldbourne, 1960 ed.), p. 22.
Scott Diaries, p. 91. My emphasis. See also Cameron Hazlehurst, Politicians at War July 1914 to May 1915: A Prologue to the Triumph of Lloyd George (London: Jonathan Cape, 1971), p. 64.
Riddell, Lord Riddell’s War Diary (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933), pp. 2–4.
Michael and Eleonor Brock (eds), H.H. Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 140.
Samuel R. Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War 1904–1914 (London: Ashfield Press, 1990), pp. 168–70, 188–93;
Fry, Lloyd George and Foreign Policy, I, pp. 143–45; Guinn, British Strategy and Politics, pp. 19–20; Gilbert, Lloyd George, I, pp. 454–57; the same author’s ‘Pacifist to Interventionist’, pp. 871–73; C.E. Callwell, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries, 2 vols (London: Cassell, 1927), I, pp. 99–101; Grigg, Lloyd George, III, p. 141, n. 1.
Frances Lloyd George, The Years that are Past (London: Hutchinson, 1967), pp. 73–74. Frances Stevenson spent the whole of the weekend before the outbreak of war with Lloyd George at 11 Downing Street; Grigg, Lloyd George, III, p. 144.
See the criticisms of Lloyd George in Keith Wilson, ‘Britain’, in Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London: UCL Press, 1995), pp. 181–82. On Lloyd George’s horror at the ‘pandemonium let loose’ by the July crisis and the onset of war,
see Kenneth O. Morgan (ed.), Lloyd George: Family Letters 1885–1936 (Cardiff, London: University of Wales and Oxford University Presses, 1973), pp. 166–67.
See Röhl, The Kaiser and his Court, pp. 162–89; also Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions: German Policies from 1911 to 1914 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1975), pp. 161–64
And Annika Mombauer, Helmuth von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 138–43.
see Hew Strachan, The First World War: vol. I: To Arms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 52–55.
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© 2005 Andrew Suttie
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Suttie, A. (2005). ‘Pandemonium let Loose’: The Outbreak of War 1914. In: Rewriting the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505599_3
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