Byrne The End of Asquith

The Downing Street Coup - December 1916
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-911110-11-8
Verlag: Clink Street Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 328 Seiten

London, December 1916. In the middle of the world's most deadly war, a political coup grips Westminster. The carnage of the Somme, the failure of the Dardanelles campaign, and the Easter Rising in Dublin have all left Britain's coalition government in disarray. The press is in open revolt and the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, is under sustained attack from political opponents and key members of his own party. Against this backdrop of mounting chaos, four politicians meet to consider their options. Edward Carson, militant Ulster Unionist and former Conservative attorney-general. Max Aitken, the future Lord Beaverbrook, now a backbench Conservative MP and journalist. Andrew Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party. And - most dangerous of all - David Lloyd George, the Liberal War Secretary. Over three weeks in the dying days of 1916 these four men engineer a stunning political coup. They force the prime minister to resign. The End of Asquith is a historically faithful, ?ctionalised account of Herbert Asquith's last days in office. It shows the prime minister slowly realising the emerging threat to his position and dealing with the concerns of his wife Margot, the friendship of those who stay loyal to him throughout the crisis, and the alarm of the king as his government collapses just as the war enters its most dangerous phase. An intimate and moving portrait of a politician facing the end of his long career, The End of Asquith recounts the dramatic removal from office of the last leader of a Liberal government in England.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Byrne, Michael

Leseproben

– 1 –

Tuesday 7 November 1916 — House of Commons

‘Order! Order!’ In the shadows off-stage he straightens his tie, closes his eyes, mutters a short prayer, and feels sick to his stomach. And then…

A tremendous wall of noise greets Bonar Law as he enters the chamber from behind the Speaker’s chair. Four hundred men shouting, groaning, waving order papers above their heads. Some standing, others seated. One or two leaning forward, pointing mockingly across the aisle. Mostly red-faced, post-prandial, boisterous. Some quite plainly drunk.

‘Order! Order!’ The Speaker calling to be heard. They ignore him.

As leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party and now also a senior Government minister, Law thought he could readily identify the many moods of the House. He can recognise the cheers that greet victory in the division lobby or a rousing speech. He knows also the groans that follow some crawling interjection, a ministerial embarrassment or obvious evasion, or a backbencher making a fool of himself. And he can identify immediately the unmistakable sound of the Commons in full fury. He has never suffered that indignity himself, although he had been party to two famous demonstrations that forced the Prime Minister to resume his seat without being able to speak.

This evening’s noise is different, however; partly a roar, partly a whoop of anticipation.

Government members cheer the Colonial Secretary as he shuffles along the front bench to the dispatch box. He is still unused to the experience of Liberal members cheering him, the second party leader in the now not-so-new coalition. When Asquith had been forced to reconstruct his ministry in May 1915, Law had led the Conservatives into government for the first time in ten years. This was Britain’s first modern experiment in coalition; two parties burying their separate interests and prejudices to advance a common cause. In this case to win the war.

Although Asquith’s Liberals could still command a Commons majority at that time, the mood of the country had turned against them. A general election in wartime was impossible. So the Prime Minister had decided calmly, even casually, on coalition. Law and the Unionists had joined him. But still the war continued, an exercise in butchery that even now, more than two years since its onset, showed no sign of resolution.

The Government carried on through this carnage and confusion with the strange result that Liberal backbenchers are this evening cheering a man who four years earlier they had accused of treason over Ireland. He finds it a curious and disturbing sensation. They were literally at his back, cheering him on, urging him forward, secretly willing him to fail.

But suddenly a more sinister noise rolls over from across the aisle. The concept of ‘opposition’ has little meaning now that all parties apart from the Irish are represented in the Government. Asquith had persuaded Henderson, the Labour leader, to accept appointment as President of the Board of Education and later as Paymaster-General. He had also appointed other Labour MPs to a number of junior ministries. Eight of his Liberal colleagues had been forced to leave the Cabinet to make way for Law and the Conservatives. Mostly they departed without rancour, understanding the political calculus that had sunk them, but some harboured grudges that would cause continuing problems for the new ministry.

The most spectacular casualty had been Winston Churchill, the one-time Conservative who had crossed the floor and become a Liberal minister, filling the position he most coveted, First Lord of the Admiralty, in Asquith’s first wartime government. The Tories hated Churchill with a grand and spectacular passion. The cost of persuading them to join the Government had been Churchill’s dispatch, which Asquith had accomplished with brutal efficiency. He remained in the new ministry as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a Cabinet role in which he had precisely nothing to do, but was driven into disillusioned departure in the autumn of 1915. Like many other MPs from both sides of the House, Churchill chose to transfer to France and active service at the front.

The curious nature of the swollen coalition meant that the Opposition benches now served mainly as a home for the vast overflow of Government MPs. But a daily shift in sentiment brought to the Opposition front bench those who planned to resist the Government on whatever matter was for debate that day. As he entered the chamber Law knew who was to face him across the dispatch box that evening.

Sir Edward Carson. Dissident Unionist leader. Former Attorney General. Member for Dublin University. An old friend of Law’s. But in this evening’s debate a calculating and dangerous opponent.

‘Order, order.’

Speaker Lowther. A man of unsurpassable pomposity and self-importance, Law reflected.

‘The House will come to order.’

Some semblance of quiet descends, enough for the Speaker to be heard.

‘The House will come to order. The motion is this: that, in the opinion of this House, where enemy properties and businesses in Crown colonies and protectorates are offered for sale, provision should be made for securing that such properties and businesses should be sold only to natural-born British subjects or companies wholly British. Proposed by the Member for Dublin University, Sir Edward Carson. The Secretary of State for the Colonies will respond for the Government.’

Law rises. But all at once he feels dizzy and weak, the blood draining completely from his head. An image of his boys, James and Charles, comes before him. He can no longer see Carson sitting opposite. His two boys…James already in France, Charles soon to follow. The Prime Minister’s son had been killed only six weeks before. At that precise moment Law knows that both James and Charles will die before the war is finished. He knows it with the full force of conviction that comes when it is impossible to dispute a matter. They will both die. He sits down again. The Speaker looks at him, puzzled, unsympathetic.

‘The Secretary of State.’

Now Law is aware of a hand reaching across from his left. Balfour has inched forward to pour a glass of water and passes it to Law who grasps it, grateful. Three sips. Then more, draining the glass. Removing the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his topcoat, he wipes his brow. And rises again. James and Charles shimmer into a haze and then disappear. Carson’s outline becomes clear again.

What is his gaze? Sympathy? Perplexity? Determination? All three.

Carson is the clearest thinker Law has ever worked with. A rigid logicist. A clear-sighted man of principle. Also a fanatic. About Ireland he had been unbendable, and Law had joined with Carson in his determination not to abandon those in Ulster who had shown loyalty to the Crown and the Empire. Nor to abandon those in the South who resisted the hatred of the Catholic Irish for ‘the planters’. But Law had changed. A new and more emollient approach was needed in Ireland following the rebellion that spring. He had worked with Carson and Lloyd George to try to effect this but they had failed. Now here was Carson again, staring fiercely at him across the dispatch box. He knows what that portends. But he must speak.

‘Mr Speaker.’ A little hoarse.

‘Mr Speaker, I regret that the policy adopted by His Majesty’s Government in relation to the disposal of enemy assets in the Protectorate of Nigeria has caused such confusion among a number of my honourable and right honourable friends. I regret that our effort to explain the proposal to colleagues has not helped them to understand the practicality of our proposals. And I particularly regret that a number of members, led by my right honourable friend the member for Dublin University, have seen fit to propose this evening’s motion. Let me explain again what the Government is proposing, and hope, even at this late hour, that they will accept the wisdom of our plans.’

Then Law explains to the House, as he has explained at least half a dozen times already, the Government’s policy in relation to the disposal of German assets seized in Nigeria.

The assets are to be sold on the open market but with legal protections to ensure they cannot remain in German hands or be acquired by Germans or by individuals who might return them to German owners. For Carson these legal protections are inadequate; indeed they miss the whole point. He insists that the assets should be sold solely to British citizens. The Government will not agree to this. If the purchasers had to be British, that would restrict the market and suppress the price that could be achieved at a time when funds were desperately needed. And so Carson must be resisted.

But what is really going on here?

Law knows that Carson is playing a much more devious game than anything to do with Nigerian assets. His motion is in fact an attack on Asquith, his ministry, and the conduct of the war.

Law had long since perfected the technique of thinking while he speaks. With the House not quite attentive but not yet dangerous, his mouth can speak the words of the policy while his brain sharpens his understanding of the game Carson is playing. Carson hates Asquith with a passion. That emotion had not prevented Carson from accepting appointment as Attorney General when Asquith formed his coalition the previous year. But to nobody’s great surprise Carson’s appointment had lasted less than six months: he resigned from the Government in the autumn of 1915.

Carson retired to the backbenches where his disdain for Asquith increased by the day. The man was a...