2 - Strategy

Summary

As the British faced financial crisis in the United States, the Treasury developed a strategy to fight the war while sustaining their ever-increasing reliance on American supplies. A near-failure of a large Anglo-French loan in the United States revealed that American investors were unwilling to finance these supplies themselves, a revelation that should have been a decisive moment for British war strategy. Instead, McKenna faced a significant faction in the Cabinet who dismissed these concerns as overblown. This faction demanded large increases in the size of the British Army and imposing conscription on the British public – demands that led to a series of political crises for Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to manage.