Читать книгу Politicians and the War 1914-1916 - Max Aitken - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Mr. Churchill was the leader of the War party in the Cabinet. His position at the Admiralty had long inured him to regard Germany much as a man in business regards a rival who is always cutting his prices. He would seem therefore to have been the natural ally of the Tories and their leader.

Yet how, as a matter of fact, was he regarded in the Opposition ranks?

It can only be answered, he was hated, he was mistrusted, and he was feared. Therefore, though he himself had decided to put all party considerations aside and play the great national role, should war break out, this decision was by no means tantamount to bringing such a truce in old quarrels into effect. It takes two sides to end a party feud.

It was also unfortunate for Churchill that there was not any real sympathy between him and Bonar Law. They were always in some ways at cross purposes with one another, both before and in and after the war. In fact, I shall show in these pages how often Bonar Law upset Churchill’s calculations and destroyed his plans. There seemed a kind of fate about these clashes, for if Bonar Law had no friendship for Churchill he had no enmity either. Churchill, however, showed rancour in relation to Bonar Law. It was the only instance in Churchill’s career, as far as I know, in which a complete reconciliation could never be effected.

Bonar Law, on the other hand, never went out of his way to fight Churchill, but he nearly always took an opposite view of what the situation demanded, so that this absence of understanding between the two men had a vital influence on the course of the war. And “misunderstanding” is, I think, the right word. For Churchill never did justice to Bonar Law’s intellect and Bonar Law always underrated Churchill’s character—by which I mean the power of holding resolutely to those things in politics which one believes to be true.

Both had entered the House of Commons at the same time, but they had never been intimate.

Bonar Law got office before Churchill, but the latter would never regard him as an equal, and always treated him in a patronising way up to the outbreak of war.

For instance, on one occasion Churchill wrote to him as follows:

“You dance like a will-o’-the-wisp so nimbly from one unstable foothold to another that my plodding paces can scarcely follow you.”

In another letter Churchill says—

“The words which you now tell me you employed, and which purport to be a paraphrase, if not an actual quotation, are separated by a small degree of inaccuracy and misrepresentation from the inaccuracy and misrepresentation of the condensed report,”

and in another communication he indulges in what might be termed a double positive. He wrote:

“I resist all temptation to say, ‘I told you so!’ ”

The slightly acrimonious tone of these epistles does not mean that the two men met each other as enemies. I remember seeing a typical meeting between them in the hall of the Midland Hotel at Manchester. Churchill had stood at the famous bye-election at North-West Manchester as a Liberal and been defeated. Bonar Law became the prospective Conservative candidate for the same seat at the approaching General Election. Bonar Law was in Manchester prosecuting his campaign, and Churchill had been making a speech somewhere in the Manchester area. Returning from this meeting, he ran into Bonar Law, and went up to him with a great appearance of giving him warm welcome. I thought the geniality on both sides rather forced. Bonar Law said, “Well, Churchill, I suppose I had better speak to you to-night, because I imagine after I’ve read your speech to-morrow I shan’t be on speaking terms.” And the jest was not altogether spoken in earnest.

Had both lived and remained in opposite parties, their relations might have become comparable to those of Gladstone and Disraeli. Had they both been included in the same party all through their careers, the relations between Lord Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt would have afforded a close parallel. In fact, had Bonar Law lived, Churchill would have had no future at all in Conservatism. I never heard the older man use but one kind of language of the younger. “I consider Churchill a most formidable antagonist. None the less, I would rather have him in opposition to me than on my side.”

Although this antagonism between the two men necessarily influenced me, I had been dazzled by the brilliant powers of the young Liberal leader. I had dined at his house, had talked with him unreservedly—of course with plenty of display on his part of that kind of wit which contains the promise of coming intimacy.

None the less, I was so far living in the Bonar Law atmosphere of suspicion, that when Birkenhead offered to take me to Churchill’s house at the Admiralty on the Saturday night before the war broke out, I went frankly as a critic.

We found Churchill there with a couple of friends. While we were talking a message was received announcing the postponement of the German ultimatum to Russia.

I ignorantly regarded it as an omen of peace and rejoiced in the prospect of escaping a European war. Churchill’s opinion was to the effect that this was only a postponement and that it was bad news, not good news.

I argued that a postponement would be desirable for it might result in composing national differences and avoiding the issue for ever.

“The German staff,” Churchill said, “have absolutely promised their Government a swift military decision, first against France and then against Russia. They may be right, or they may be wrong, but if their Government believes them, it will declare war, whoever is against them.”

He argued that the German menace had to be faced and fought out some time or another. It would be impossible for British statesmen ever to plan out a peaceful progress for the nation until it had been settled once and for all if Germany was going to control the German Ocean. You were not really avoiding a war—you were simply postponing it.

At this point, since some of us would have it that the crisis was ended, a rubber of bridge was demanded. Churchill took a hand in the game, but I was cut out and looked on.

Suddenly an immense despatch box was brought into the room. Churchill produced his skeleton key from his pocket, opened the box and took out of it a single sheet of paper, which seemed singularly disproportionate to the size of the box, just as the paper seemed too big for the brief message typed on it. On that sheet was written the words, “Germany has declared war against Russia.”

He informed his guests. He asked me to take over his partly-played bridge hand, leaving me, I must add, in an extremely unfavourable tactical position. He rang for a servant and, asking for a lounge coat, stripped his dress coat from his back, saying no further word. We tried hard to concentrate on the bridge game, but it was impossible to make progress. Our thoughts were wandering. A cool observer would, I imagine, have formed a poor impression of our play.

Churchill makes a picture for me at this critical moment when he got the message which meant war.

He left the room quickly, as in duty bound, and forthwith the Navy was mobilised, in defiance of the decisions taken by the Cabinet early on that day. History has recorded the dramatic directions given by the First Lord that night.

For my own part, I simply saw a man who was receiving long-expected news. He was not depressed; he was not elated; he was not surprised. He did not put his head between his hands, as many another eminent man might well have done, and exclaim to high heaven that his world was coming to an end. Certainly he exhibited no fear or uneasiness. Neither did he show any signs of joy. He went straight out like a man going to a well-accustomed job.

In fact, he had foreseen everything that was going to happen so far that his temperament was in no way upset by the realisation of his forecast. We have suffered at times from Mr. Churchill’s bellicosity. But what profit the nation derived at that crucial moment from the capacity of the First Lord of the Admiralty for grasping and dealing with the war situation!

We waited in Admiralty House long and anxiously for Churchill to return with further news. But he did not come back, and it was nearly morning when we left for our homes.^[1]

That Sunday morning, 2 August, was full of conferences. Lord Balfour, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Long, and probably, one or two others, called at Pembroke Lodge to see Bonar Law, and the general attitude of the party, which was entirely for war, was finally defined in the sense I have already indicated. Bonar Law had drawn up the draft of a letter to the Prime Minister, and this was generally agreed and despatched to Downing Street.

The letter was couched in the following terms:

Dear Mr. Asquith,—Lord Lansdowne and I feel it our duty to inform you that in our opinion, as well as in that of all the colleagues whom we have been able to consult, it would be fatal to the honour and security of the United Kingdom to hesitate in supporting France and Russia at this present juncture; and we offer our unhesitating support to the Government in any measures they may consider necessary for that object.

Yours very truly,

(Sgd.) A. Bonar Law.

This letter was in the first place intended as a record of the Conservative attitude. Further, it was meant to cover the point raised by Churchill that the Tories must strengthen Asquith’s hand against the pacifists in his own Cabinet. But it did not suggest giving any active assistance.

To this attitude of the official Opposition leaders towards the Government there was one exception. Lord Balfour was an ex-Prime Minister, an ex-leader of the Conservative party, the repository of the Salisbury tradition in foreign policy, and, above all, for many years the moving spirit in the Committee of Imperial Defence of which he was still a member.

These facts gave him both some freedom with his own party and closer touch with the Government. He was consulted by members of the Cabinet before the declaration of war, continued to sit regularly on the Committee of Imperial Defence, and subsequently on the Liberal War Council.

It was at this time necessary, in order to estimate Bonar Law’s position in the party, to consider his relationship with Lord Balfour.

It would be hard to analyse Lord Balfour’s attitude towards Bonar Law, his successor in the Tory leadership. It was not exactly friendly. Quite definitely it was not hostile. Never was there the slightest hint of an intrigue encouraged in that quarter against the new leader. And yet Lord Balfour was not helpful. The keynote seemed to be a slightly cold but absolute correctitude.

Bonar Law, as was natural to him, rated his predecessor’s attainments very high in comparing them with his own. He could not see his own counterbalancing advantages. You could, he used to say, put a case in which you believed to Lord Balfour and convince him of its truth. And yet he could make a better argument for the side in which he disbelieved than you had made for the cause in which you believed.

Although Lord Balfour was always perfectly frank with Bonar Law, there seemed to be no real point of contact between their temperaments. All the formalities were observed, and yet the relationship remained tepid. In this atmosphere Lord Balfour’s co-operation with the Government filled Bonar Law with a certain amount of anxiety. And he was right to be anxious. An ex-Premier and ex-Leader of his own party closely linked with the Liberals might, under certain circumstances, prove a real menace to Tory independence.

Curiously enough, the event proved the fear to be an unreal one. As I show in a later chapter, when Lord Balfour did try to use his influence with the Tories to save Mr. Churchill’s place at the Admiralty, he discovered himself quite impotent. With all his detachment Balfour had a sincere affection for Churchill, but failed utterly to save him from the wrath of the Tories.

Lord Balfour’s is a curious mind. He does not care for stories about politics or public men. He likes to hear the episodes of the life of action—and action to him seems to mean Finance. He will be thrilled with the tale of a big coup in the market place, and admires the successful promoter. In this respect he rather reminds me of Kipling, who adores the man of action too—only his hero must be a soldier or a governor. The soldier, if he is a sensible man, is confused by this worship, seeing that he thinks Kipling, the man of letters, far greater than any of his contemporaries. I have seen the same sort of thing happen with Lord Balfour when he heard the tales of the leaders in finance about the time that New York began to dominate the money making markets of the world. The late E. H. Harriman was his hero. This makes it all the more curious that Lord Balfour should not appreciate Bonar Law more. For I have watched them together and realised that Bonar Law was politically the greater figure precisely because he possessed that capacity for action that Lord Balfour lacked.

I have always admitted to a difficulty in forming a proper estimate of Lord Balfour and of the late Joseph Chamberlain. I write them down below the level at which nearly all my contemporaries in politics value them. I cannot be convinced of error. For instance, Mr. Tim Healy, sometime Governor General of the Irish Free State, has always placed these two statesmen in a rank commensurate with any great leader he had known in the course of his long career. And Healy has always had a great influence on the political judgments I have formed. I began to listen to him quite early in my House of Commons career; but it was just at the time of which I am now speaking that his influence was strengthened greatly by the following episode—

Healy and I left the House of Commons in the evening to walk along the Embankment to the Savoy and to get a meal. It was at the most critical period of the Mons retreat. As we walked Healy was holding forth about the oppression of Ireland and the iniquities of British rule. I paid scant attention to what he was saying. I had heard it all before. My mind was oppressed by a foreboding of disaster—for I had seen a despatch which had just arrived from G.H.Q. in France.

At last we sat down at a tea-table in the Embankment Gardens, and I said, “I am tired of hearing about the grievances of the Irish—let me tell you something of the perils of the British army.” From a somewhat retentive memory I was able to repeat to him that paraphrased despatch of the British Commander-in-Chief almost verbatim. “I mean to retreat to the sea. If the enemy remain in contact, this will be a very difficult operation. I advise you to look to the defences of Havre.”

I looked at my companion, and suddenly I saw the tears streaming down Healy’s cheeks. In a passionate and vehement flow of words he dedicated himself, before God, to the service of the Allied cause—as though I was not even there as a spectator of his outburst.

I have known Tim Healy—rebel, agitator, enemy of Great Britain—intimately since that hour, and he never violated the vow of service which he made that summer evening.

[1]	For Mr. Churchill’s own description of that evening cf. “The World Crisis, 1911-1914.” (Pages 216-217.)