Asquith stays on as PM, December 1916

"The exact nature of the ousting is surrounded in mystery and historians continue to dispute the detailed course of events in the immediate days prior to Asquith's forced resignation." http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/history/the-buckingham-palace-plot-1916/

Chris Cook, in *A Short History of the Liberal Party: The Road Back to Power* (pp. 68-69) writes:

"The destruction of the last Liberal Government, leading as it did to the fatal split in the party, rapidly produced a wealth of historical mythology, most notably in the conspiracy theory which lay most of the blame at Lloyd George's hands. Recent historians have changed the parameters of the debate. A. J. P. Taylor has argued that, rather than being manoeuvred out of office, Asquith deliberately resigned office as a manoeuvre to rout his critics. A more recent view has been put forward by Hazelhurst [C. Hazelhurst, "The Conspiracy Myth," in Martin Gilbert (ed.) *Lloyd George* (Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1968)], who has argued that, essentially, the destruction of the last Liberal Government and the fall of Asquith was the outcome, not of the machinations of Lloyd George, but of a Tory Party crisis. In their desire to prosecute the war more efficiently, the aims of the Conservatives coincided with those of Lloyd George. This does not mean that Lloyd George necessarily went over to the Tories, nor indeed that he intrigued with them to *oust* Asquith, but that Lloyd George, in company with Bonar Law and Sir Edward Carson, worked together to persuade Asquith to change the political direction of the war. As Dr. Hazelhurst rightly argues, neither of the two prime movers, Bonar Law or Lloyd George, had any desire to remove Asquith from the Premiership. Indeed, the replacement of Asquith was not considered as a practical proposition by those later accused of conspiracy.

"Why, then, did the crisis of December 1916 end with the resignation of Asquith and Lloyd George's assumption of the Premiership? It is now clear that this was the result of something akin to a nervous breakdown on Asquith's part after the compromise agreement of 3 December. By this compromise, it was agreed that Lloyd George should head a small three- or four-man War Commission under the supreme, though not immediate control of Asquith, to whom all disputed decisions would be referred. This compromise in fact marked a very wide area of agreement. Henceforth, Lloyd George would have borne daily responsibility for the conduct of the war, without the supreme authority to force through decisions.

"There was no need, following this agreement, for anything that called for Asquith to resign. However, it was Asquith himself who, in a brief moment of mental and emotional exhaustion, lost the will to go on ruling. A combination of a deterioration in Asquith's relations with Lloyd George, at a moment of great nervous strain, propelled the Premier into a temporary capitulation. By the time Asquith had recovered his balance, it was too late."
https://books.google.com/books?id=Y1p9DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA68

Did the December 3 agreement in fact offer a way for Asquith to stay in office, and perhaps to avoid a split in the Liberal Party? Trevor Wilson in *The Downfall of the Liberal Party 1914-1935* has argued to the contrary, rejecting both the "failure of nerve" theory and Lord Beaverbrook's version (strongly supported by A. J. P. Taylor) of Asquith's resignation as a deliberate political maneuver:

(1) With respect to the Beaverbrook/Taylor theory: Taylor cited as "decisive evidence" the interview between Robert Donald, editor of the *Daily Chronicle* (a Liberal paper) and Asquith in which the latter (according to Donald) expressed a belief that Lloyd George would fail: "then he would have to come in on *my* terms." Wilson argues (pp. 102-3):

"The interview...does not provide 'decisive evidence' for the Beaverbrook view. In the passage quoted, Asquith and Donald were discussing, not whether Lloyd George would be able to form a government, but whether the government he formed would be able to last long. They were doing so, not while Asquith was contemplating resignation, but on the day *after* he resigned. And at no stage was Asquith speaking about his *motives for resigning.* Asquith may have said that if, as he seemed to anticipate, Lloyd George failed to form a 'stable' government and he was recalled, 'then Mr. Lloyd George would have to come in on *my* terms.' But this is not the same thing as saying that he resigned because he considered Lloyd George incapable of forming any kind of government. As a matter of fact, it is not a comment on his reasons for resigning at all. And certainly the interview provides no proof, *before the event,* of what was in Asquith's mind when he decided to relinquish office. It is not unusual for Prime Ministers who have been driven from power to believe that their successors must fail and that they themselves will soon be recalled--in the spirit, one might say, of *apres moi le deluge, et, apres le deluge, moi.* The interview with Donald seems no more than an example of a defeated man whistling to keep his courage up, and there is support for this in Donald's account of the interview. It begins: 'I called on Mr. Asquith at 10, Downing Street, at 4 o'clock. He was sitting at the large table in the Cabinet room, his back to the fire. He looked a very lonely figure and a tired man.' (Taylor, *Robert Donald*, pp. 118-23). This is hardly a portrait of an individual who believed that he was engaged in publicly humiliating his rivals [Beaverbrook had written that Asquith thought that by resigning he had put his opponents 'to the humiliation of being unable to form a Government'] , and that 'within the week' he would be revealed as 'the only and inevitable Prime Minister' [Beaverbrook's words] of Great Britain." https://books.google.com/books?id=0PyvNxXVMg4C&pg=PT78

Wilson reiterates the conclusion he reached earlier in the book (p. 97) that Asquith's "resignation was not a manoeuvre to strengthen his hold on office, but a despairing act of recognition that the process of retreat and surrender could go no further, and that the time had come to abandon a position from which dignity and authority had already departed." https://books.google.com/books?id=0PyvNxXVMg4C&pg=PT74

(2) But what about the argument that the December 3 compromise could have worked and that Asquith's rejection of it on the following day was a "failure of nerve" (perhaps motivated by a belief that Lloyd George had inspired the attack on him in *The Times*)? Wilson (p. 93) rejects this, arguing that "the true explanation may well be the obvious one, that he had come to see Lloyd George's scheme as being not an alternative to his expulsion from office but an expulsion in particularly humiliating circumstances--'a protean compromise,' as Curzon called it in restating the deliberations of the Conservative ministers, 'which, in our view, could have no endurance.' It is possible to criticise Asquith for not facing up to this from the outset. But it seems unjust to censure him for eventually doing so."

In any event, Wilson continues, "What is certainly incorrect is to claim that a final agreement had been reached between Asquith and Lloyd George on 3 December, and that Asquith then 'went back' on it. When Asquith, on the 4th, at last decided to stand and fight, it was in the knowledge that even if he accepted the principles of Lloyd George's scheme, he would still not have satisfied his colleague's apparently insatiable demands. Clearly, as long as Asquith was to be excluded from the war cabinet, the membership of this body was of the utmost importance to him. And we have the testimony of Lloyd George as well as Asquith that at no stage did they approach agreement on what the latter called 'the delicate and difficult question of personnel.' Nor were they ever likely to. Indeed, failure was more or less assured by Lloyd George's stipulation that 'the inclusion of Sir Edward Carson' was an 'essential part' of his scheme."

Indeed, Wilson believes that Lloyd George's insistence on the inclusion of Carson was designed specifically to prevent the negotiations from succeeding: "Of all the men...whom Lloyd George might, without flippancy, have nominated, Carson was the one most difficult for Asquith to accept. Carson's contempt for the Prime Minister, and determination to drive him from office, had been proclaimed throughout the land. It would be humiliation enough for Asquith, while remaining nominal Prime Minister, to be robbed of the direction of war policy. but for Carson to be among the select group which appropriated control would be carrying the process of humiliation beyond limits which could be considered tolerable."

In any event, whatever one's views of Asquith's motives for resigning--whether he overestimated the difficulties Lloyd George would have in forming a Government and thought that he himself would soon make a comeback, or just concluded that Lloyd George's terms were too humiliating--let's say that Asquith swallows his pride and agrees to stay on as Prime Minister on Lloyd George's terms, even swallowing the inclusion of the hated Carson on the War Commission. Wilson thinks this would have reduced Asquith to a figurehead--that the only control the Prime Minister and his Cabinet had over the War Commission was a veto that they would not dare to use for fear of bringing on themselves the collective resignation of the War Commission. Nevertheless, with the Leader of the Liberal Party still being Prime Minister, even in a weakened position, could the split in the Liberal Party have been avoided? At least prior to December 1916 Liberals might have hoped that an improvement in the war situation might rescue them from disaster. After December 1916 not even success in battle could help them--indeed, every step toward Allied victory helped to destroy the Liberal Party because it increased the prestige of a basically non-Liberal Government (though one supported by a section of the Liberal Party).

And there is also no doubt that whether or not Lloyd George had conspired to bring about Asquith's downfall, a great many people *assumed* he had done so, and this not only helped to keep the Liberal Party divided, but also added to Lloyd George's reputation for unscrupulousness--which is one reason why, when the Conservatives abandoned their Coalition with him a few years later, it was difficult to find much sympathy for him or any sense that *he* had been betrayed. As a popular rhyme put it:

Lloyd George, no doubt,
When his life ebbs out,
Will ride in a flaming chariot,
Seated in state
On a red-hot plate
'twixt Satan and Judas Iscariot;
Ananias that day
To the Devil will say,
"My claim for precedence fails,
So move me up higher,
Away from the fire,
And make way for that liar--from Wales!"

https://books.google.com/books?id=0PyvNxXVMg4C&pg=PT295
 
Well, my general assessment of Lloyd George is that he was a truly awful PM. So him having less power during the war may have more benefits than just avoiding the Liberal civil war. Certainly, if Asquith can minimize LG's influence on Versailles the world could end up a far better place (Lloyd George got some decidedly odd bees in his bonnet at Versailles).

Much does seem to depend on Asquith keeping his nerve and fighting to retain the power of his office while also being an effective PM... Altogether, that does sound rather exhausting and I can imagine Asquith and Lloyd George both being less effective as a result. This could end up being worse for the country and the Liberal party...

fasquardon
 
Also, if Asquith keeps his nerve, when 1917 comes and with it Passchendaele, could it be a wonderful moment to get rid of Lloyd George?
 
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