Читать книгу Politicians and the War 1914-1916 - Max Aitken - Страница 7

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This chapter will be concerned with the internal difficulties of the Tory chiefs and with the second attempt made from the Liberal side to attract them into a Coalition Government. As in the previous instance, the protagonist in this Coalition effort was Mr. Churchill, who now occupied a position of very considerable influence in the counsels of the Government. In public prominence, at any rate, the First Lord of the Admiralty outstripped at this time any other Minister, except Lord Kitchener. His personality made a strong appeal to the imagination of the people. A striking speech of his at the Guildhall, consisting of only a few pointed sentences, had made a limited appeal to Conservative sentiment. And in October 1914 he had figured in the fiercely-discussed episode of the Expedition to Antwerp.

I propose to deal with this question only in so far as it had a political complexion. With its military aspect I am, of course, not concerned, though I believe that history will decide that the authors of the expedition had sound grounds for their action. In the world of politics the Antwerp affair nearly produced a striking change in the Cabinet, and one which might have profoundly modified subsequent developments in the Mediterranean. When Mr. Churchill hurried across the Channel to encourage the Belgian authorities to hold on to Antwerp until relief should arrive, he was so impressed with the urgency and importance of the situation that on 4 October he cabled to the Prime Minister from the beleaguered fortress in the following terms: “If it is thought by H.M. Government that I can be of service here, I am willing to resign my office and undertake command of relieving and defensive forces assigned to Antwerp in conjunction with Belgian Army, provided that I am given necessary military rank and authority, and full powers of a commander of a detached force in the field. I feel it my duty to offer my services, because I am sure this arrangement will afford the best prospects of a victorious result to an enterprise in which I am deeply involved. I should require complete staff proportionate to the force employed, as I have had to use all the officers now here in positions of urgency. I wait your reply. Runciman would do Admiralty well.”^[1]

Lord Kitchener received this despatch from the Prime Minister. His comment was written in his own hand on the margin: “I will make him a Lieut.-General if you will give him the Command.” But the Government did not accept the challenge. Lovers of the curious in history may regret that the occasion was lost for producing the spectacle, unprecedented in modern times, of a Cabinet Minister stepping direct from the council chamber to high command in the field.

The autumn and winter of 1914 were, indeed, a stagnant period as far as politics were concerned. The new days had dawned of a “patriotic Opposition.”

But though all was calm on the surface, the depths were frequently troubled. The Tory leaders in adopting the policy of silent support had undertaken more than the human nature of their supporters could always, one might almost say ever, bear.

Fresh from a fierce party conflict, these supporters distrusted Ministers profoundly. Several of the members of the Government they knew to be pacifists at heart. The Conservatives were no doubt burningly anxious to help to win the war, and they found their role reduced to one of negative endurance. There was only one thing which would really have satisfied them—the authority for their party to run the war—and since this could not be granted to a minority, many of them were none the less disturbed and discontented because what they demanded was plainly irrational.

Of all these thwarted desires the two Conservative party leaders—Bonar Law and Lord Lansdowne—had to bear the brunt. Some weeks it rained memoranda from members of the House, and the authors were firmly convinced that the fate of the Empire depended on the acceptance by the Government of their typewritten views.

The writers made the pills, and they expected their leaders to administer them to a harassed and recalcitrant Ministry. The national service members wanted at least a compulsory cadet system. G.H.Q. in France found a kind of spawning pond for its grievances in the Opposition ranks at Westminster.

Every month a suggestion for a debate which must either have been futile or revealed valuable military facts to the world had to be crushed without giving offence.

In these circumstances Bonar Law was fortunate in the temperament of the man on whom he most depended. The great need was to keep one’s judgment calm and one’s temper in check, and yet not to achieve a sort of cold superiority on some height inaccessible to the rank and file.

In calmness Lord Lansdowne shone. In 1914 he was wise and unruffled, bringing the serenity of a high, unchallenged position, a long experience of government in all parts of the world, to match Bonar Law’s sober-minded and middle-class placidity.

Lord Lansdowne was cautious, too cautious, if you like, but he displayed a consistent and absolute refusal to “get the wind up.” I like to think of him in this light. The two men set their faces like flint against the fussiness of colleagues and the indignant surgings of the rank and file.

Under these circumstances the discontented Tories—who were really the political ancestors of the present Die-hards—turned for countenance and leading to the late Lord Long. This was natural enough. He had been their candidate for the leadership as opposed to both Sir Austen Chamberlain and Bonar Law. He was understood to stand for a Toryism more agricultural and crusted than was usually found in the industrial constituency of Conservatism. It was just as well, perhaps, that he was selected as the chief of revolt—for he was conspicuously loyal by nature, and capable of forgiving the triumph of a younger rival.

Long was par excellence the country gentleman in politics. He aspired to be no more. In fact, he was a kind of second Lord St. Aldwyn, but without the ability or acidity of that statesman. His strength lay in character, and yet he had no firmness of purpose. This may seem a hard saying, for character in politics is generally regarded as constancy in clinging to a fixed opinion against all odds. Long, on the contrary, often changed his views, and would express two different sets of opinions at the same time because he had not yet fully realised the fact that he had changed. For his mental process was not sufficiently rapid or clear to let him see at every moment exactly where he stood, or allow him to grasp a contradiction. Yet none the less I maintain that the essence and value of the man lay in his character—in the good humour which covered the occasional roughness, in his sincerity of purpose, in the absolute quality of his personal honesty.

As a matter of fact, he tired in the course of time of the men who stood behind him—those whom nothing could satisfy but a purely Tory Cabinet, for which there was no popular support.

As his knowledge of the real problems of the war increased and the environment of office gripped him, he tended to march from right to left across the field of ideas, leaving his tail to Lord Carson and becoming more and more the protagonist of the doctrine that his Majesty’s Government must be carried on. But this is to anticipate.

As Lord Balfour pointed out very wisely and temperately at the outset of 1915, the dilemma of the Opposition was not to be eluded. You must either have silent, even uncritical, support, or you must have Coalition. You could not have loud discussions of military plans, nor give private advices to Ministers when the facts were not before the advisers.

Under these circumstances the second attempt to originate a Coalition Government was made. This movement, like its predecessor of August 1914, was started by Mr. Churchill, who had a curious passion for bringing the Tories, who were fundamentally hostile to him, into the Ministry. How was he to recapture the spirit of co-operation between parties which he believed to have existed at the outbreak of war? His friend Birkenhead was in France and not available any longer as a means of communication.

But the naval bombardment of the outer forts at the Dardanelles had proved a striking success. Constantinople seemed to be almost within our grasp, and the future of Constantinople had become a topic of serious consideration between the British and the Russian Governments. It was suggested that as a means of strengthening the War Alliance, the British Government should promise that coveted prize to Russia in the event of a successful issue.

Immediately another question arose. Could a single British party which might be out of office when Peace was declared pledge Britain to this course? Must not the Opposition be consulted in order to assure the continuity of British policy over Constantinople?

Mr. Churchill grasped eagerly at this opportunity. He counted Constantinople as being already in his gift. It might be used as a lure to catch Russia first and the Opposition leaders afterwards. He urged the Prime Minister to invite Bonar Law and Lord Lansdowne to a Conference. He imagined that the Tories would say, not without reason, that they could not take responsibility for such a plunge into European commitments unless they had at their disposal, as the Government had, full knowledge of the reasons which dictated the policy. From that attitude it would appear easy to draw them on one step further—namely, to a decision that they should share power if they were to be asked to share responsibility.

The Tory leaders were accordingly summoned to the War Council to discuss the cession of Constantinople to Russia, should it be in the gift of the Allies at the making of peace.

The event turned out very different from the anticipation. Bonar Law had no knowledge at all that he was being invited tacitly to step into a Coalition Government. None the less, with his customary acuteness, he suspected that something lay behind the invitation, and he behaved at the meeting with even more than his habitual caution.

The Prime Minister, on his side, was not in the least forthcoming. He found it in those days almost impossible to treat Tories as equals. The Tory leaders appeared to him to sit silent and hungry at the board. Inwardly they were registering a decision never to accept such an invitation again. For it was absurd to suppose that they would take responsibility for Ministerial policy when only the conclusion, and not the facts on which it was based, were put before them.

On leaving the War Council, Bonar Law and Lord Lansdowne determined that while they would meet the Prime Minister in private and listen to anything he had to tell them, they would never again fall into such a trap as the Conference on Constantinople had seemed to open before them.

Mr. Churchill’s efforts, therefore, so far from promoting a working agreement between parties, leading towards a Coalition which would, as he firmly believed, strengthen the instrument for waging war, had in reality a precisely opposite effect.

[1]	Mr. Churchill describes this offer of his to resign the Admiralty in “The World Crisis, 1911-14.” (Page 351.)