David Lloyd George was the head of the British government for a period
of six years starting in the winter of 1916. He occupied a key role in the
conduct of World War I and in the subsequent peace negotiations. As the
nation's wartime political chief, the fiery Welshman helped shape Great
Britain's successful response to the German submarine menace; he also
could claim credit for the formation of a single Allied high command during
the spring crisis of 1918.
But in other matters, he failed. He never prevailed in his desire to move
Britain's major effort on land away from the western front. And he felt
compelled to approve the costly and unsuccessful offensive General Sir
Douglas Haig conducted at Ypres in the summer and fall of 1917. His effort
to prevent Haig from taking the offensive in early 1918 by keeping troops
away from the western front was a dangerous ploy that skirted the edge of
disaster. That a politician as incisive and forceful as Lloyd George had to
surrender his better judgment to his military leaders indicates the power of
the factors that allowed the generals to fight as they chose. At the peace
conference, he found himself overshadowed by President Woodrow Wilson
and Premier Georges Clemenceau.
The future prime minister rose from unusually humble roots: he was the
son of a Welsh schoolteacher. Bom in Manchester, England, on January 17,
1863, he made his home in Wales and identified himself closely with the
needs and grievances of the Welsh people. Trained as a lawyer, he entered
Parliament in 1890. Lloyd George was a brilliant speaker who became a
center of controversy during the Boer War ( 1 899- 1 902) when he denounced
Britain's Conservative government for provoking the conflict. When his
Liberal party replaced the Conservatives after the election of 1906, Lloyd
George entered the cabinet. In 1914 he was minister of finance (chancellor
of the Exchequer), a post he had held since 1908. It made him one of the
handful of political leaders who directed national policy.
Like most members of the Liberal government in August 1914, Lloyd
George backed British participation in the war following the German
invasioo of Belgium. Brilliant service as minister of munitions, from May
1915 onward, was his first great accomplishment. With "men of push and
go" whom he chose as assistants, Lloyd George lifted British production to
meet the needs of the growing forces in the field. In another sign of his
commitment to an energetic war effort, he emerged as a leading advocate
of military conscription.
Lloyd George also began to present strategic ideas that he clung to
throughout the war. Chief among them was the desire to employ most
British strength outside France. He saw Germany's allies as a crucial factor
in the wartime equation. Defeat them, he asserted, and Germany itself would
collapse. Thus, in early 19 1 5, he made the first of many calls for an offensive
northward through the Balkans to take Vienna and knock Austria-Hungary
out of the war.
The rising star of the British cabinet pushed Prime Minister H. H. Asquith
aside in December 1916 and formed his own coalition government. He
immediately confronted the gravest crisis to date for Britain: the onslaught
of German submarines on merchant shipping. With the support of naval
officers who dissented from the orthodoxy of their most senior leaders,
Lloyd George promoted the adoption of the convoy system. It soon brought
losses down to tolerable levels.
Lloyd George had less success in dealing with the army and the fixed
views of its leaders. He disliked and distrusted General Douglas Haig,
Britain's commander-in-chief on the western front. In particular, Lloyd
George viewed skeptically Haig's plans for an offensive in Flanders in the
summer and fall of 1917. But the prime minister gave in, possibly fearing
that his coalition government could not survive a confrontation with the
leader of the British army. He soon was horrified to find his countrymen
fighting a hopeless battle in the Flanders mud and suffering losses that
drained the British army of much of its fighting capacity.
One way to restrain Haig was to limit the number of troops the government
was willing to send to France. Despite the dangers involved, Lloyd
George kept substantial numbers of soldiers away from the western front in
the early months of 1918. Another device was to put Haig under an overall
Allied commander. But in March 1918, Ludendorff's vast offensive brought
crisis to the western front, and the British prime minister was compelled to
rush forces to Haig. On the matter of unified command, however, Lloyd
George's long-standing support of this measure prevailed. Ferdinand Foch
became Allied commander and Haig's superior in April.
Shortly after the war's end, British national elections took place. In the
heated campaign, Lloyd George campaigned for harshness toward the
defeated Germans. He pointed specifically at punishing the kaiser and
draining German wealth into the pockets of the victors. At Versailles,
pressure from home bound him to the pledge to punish the Germans with
heavy reparations. But when he could, he moved away from a peace of
vengeance. For example, he opposed, with success, French proposals for
taking the Rhineland from Germany.
The wartime leader continued to serve in the post- 19 18 era. He confronted
a number of explosive issues, among them the creation of an
independent Ireland and the conflict between Greece and the new Turkey
of Kemal Attaturk. The Chanak crisis of 1922, resulting from the Greco-
Turkish hostilities, led to his resignation. He never held high office again.
In the postwar period, the former prime minister criticized the harsh
treatment Germany had received at the peace conference. He also openly
admired Adolf Hitler as an energetic national leader. During 1939 and 1940,
the great World War I leader, now in his late seventies, emerged as an
advocate of a negotiated peace with Hitler. Rumors flew among his colleagues
in Parliament that he saw himself as the future prime minister
working out such a deal. He died at his farm in the Welsh countryside outside
Criccieth on March 26, 1945.
World History
