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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
1 Beaverbrook, Lord, Politicians and the war, 1914–1916 (2 vols., London, 1928–1932)Google Scholar.
2 A number of Beaverbrook's shortcomings and inaccuracies as an historian of the events which led to Asquith's replacement by Lloyd George have recently been exposed by Fraser, Peter in ‘Lord Beaverbrook's fabrications in Politicians and the war, 1914–1916’, Historical Journal, XXV (1982)Google Scholar.
3 For example, Maurice Bonham-Carter had written to Violet Asquith sometime soon after a meeting on 22 May 1915 at which Bonar Law and the Liberal leaders had discussed the allocation of posts in the new government: ‘B.L…was very frank about X [Long], simply regarding him as a necessary evil being likely to cause more difficulties outside than within the Cabinet…X he says, though useless in Counsel is the most popular man in the Tory party – a position he has gained by persistent cadging and lobbying. B.L. has no illusions about his own position in the party, frankly recognising that he is a compromise.’ Quoted in Bonham-Carter, Violet, Winston Churchill as I knew him (London, 1965), p. 406Google Scholar.
4 Long to Lady Londonderry, 9 Nov. 1915, Lady Londonderry papers, Durham County Record Office, D/Lo/C 666(279).
5 Long to Derby, 14 Nov. 1916, Lord Derby papers, Liverpool City Library, 920 DER (17) 33.
6 Long to Lady Londonderry, 18 Nov. 1916, Lady Londonderry papers, D/Lo/C 666(291).
7 Although the attack on the Somme, which began on 1 July 1916, was a failure from the beginning it continued until November, when it finally ground to a halt in the Flanders mud with no strategical gain having been made. As Taylor, A. J. P. has commented: ‘Not only men perished. There perished also the zest and idealism with which nearly three million Englishmen had marched forth to war.’ Taylor, A. J. P., English history, 1914–1945 (Oxford, 1965), p. 61Google Scholar.
8 Crawford's diary, 29 Nov. 1916, The Crawford papers: the journals of David Lindsay, twenty-seventh earl of Crawford and tenth earl of Balcarres, 1871–1940, during the years 1892 to 1940, edited by Vincent, John (Manchester, 1984), p. 369Google Scholar.
9 Ibid.
10 Long to Law, 2 Dec. 1916, Bonar Law papers, House of Lords Record Office, 53/4/28. Beaverbrook, quoted this letter in full in Politicians and the war, II, 166–7, but misdated it as having been written on 2 10 1916Google Scholar. A day earlier Long reported to Lansdowne that feeling in the Commons was running strongly against Asquith and that a change would have to be made. See Long to Lansdowne, 1 Dec. 1916, Lord Lansdowne papers, Bowood House, Calne, Wiltshire (in the private possession of the family).
11 Sir William Bull was Conservative M.P. for Hammersmith and a leading figure amongst Long's backbench supporters. Head of the firm of Bull and Bull Solicitors, of Lincoln's Inn and Hammersmith, he was for many yean Long's closest political confidant. He was also chairman of J. W. Singer and Sons of Frome, Somerset, a post which gave him a commercial interest in Long's part of the country. He served as Long's parliamentary private secretary from 1903 onwards, receiving as his reward a knighthood in 1906, appointment to the Privy Council in 1918, and a baronetcy in 1932.
12 Long to Bull, 2 Dec. 1916, Butt papers, Churchill College, Cambridge, 4/14.
13 Beaverbrook, , Politicians and the war, 11, 208–34Google Scholar
14 Long had spent the night at Iver Heath with Grant Morden, a wealthy Canadian army officer with political aspirations. Morden entered parliament in December 1918, having attached himself to Long in order to further his political career. In 1917 he helped Long out of financial difficulties; Bull disliked him intensely. See Bull's diary, ‘Second Summary for 1917’, Bull papers, 4/16.
15 Bull's diary, 3 Dec. 1916, ibid. 4/14.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Memorandum on Sunday 3 Dec. 1916, The Crawford papers, p. 371. Crawford says that the afternoon meeting took place at Bonar Law's house; Bull says that it occurred at F. E. Smith's. As Crawford attended the meeting, and Bull did not, it is more than likely that Crawford's statement is correct, Bull's incorrect.
19 Both Crawford's and Bull's accounts agree that this evening meeting occurred at 7 p.m.
20 Memorandum on Sunday 3 Dec. 1916, The Crawford papers, p. 371.
21 Ibid. p. 372.
22 For a summary of the evidence to support the view that a meeting occurred on Sunday evening between Asquith and the ‘three Cs’ see McEwen, J. M., ‘The struggle for mastery in Britain: Lloyd George versus Asquith, December 1916’, Journal of British Studies, XVIII (1978), 149Google Scholar.
23 Asquith to Pamela McKenna, 3 Dec. 1916, quoted in Jenkins, Roy, Asquith (revised edn London, 1978), p. 443Google Scholar.
24 Beaverbrook, , Politicians and the war, II, 294Google Scholar.
25 Memorandum of 4 Dec. 1916, The Crawford papers, p. 372.
26 See The Crawford papers, p. 372, n. 24.
27 Beaverbrook, , Politicians and the war, II, 272–80Google Scholar.
28 Chamberlain to J. A. Spender (Asquith's biographer), 23 June 1931, Austen Chamberlain papers, Birmingham University Library, AC 15/3/26. It must be noted that Chamberlain wrote this letter nearly fifteen years after the events to which it alludes.
29 Crawford's diary, 5 Dec. 1916, The Crawford papers, pp. 373–4.
30 Ibid. p. 375.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Hewins, W. A. S., The apologia of an imperialist (2 vols., London, 1929), II, 96–8Google Scholar.
34 Long to Lady Londonderry, 6 Dec. 1916, Lady Londonderry papers, D/Lo/C 666(292).
35 Beaverbrook, , Politicians and the war, 11, 313–27Google Scholar.
36 Frances Stevenson's diary, 7 Dec. 1916, Lloyd George, a diary by Frances Stevenson, edited by Taylor, A. J. P. (London, 1971), p. 134Google Scholar.
37 See McEwen, J. M., ‘Lloyd George's Liberal supporters in December 1916: a note’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LIII (1980)Google Scholar. The strength of the parties in the House was as follows: 288 Unionists, 260 Liberals, 82 Irish Nationalists and 40 Labour.
38 See Long to Chamberlain, 7 Dec. 1923, Austen Chamberlain papers, AC 15/3/20. Long's copy is dated 3 Dec. 1923, perhaps indicating that he hesitated for some days before posting the letter, and may be found in the Long papers, British Library, Add. MS 62405. Further correspondence between Long and Chamberlain concerning what happened in December 1916 may be found in the collection of Long's papers at Wiltshire County Record Office, W.R.O. 947/826. Long did not divulge what had happened until the general election campaign of December 1923 and his letter was provoked by an attack which Lloyd George had made about the role of the Conservative party during the war. Long cited the events of the afternoon of 7 December 1916 as an example of Lloyd George's duplicity. Chamberlain was not particularly surprised that Bonar Law should in 1916 have tried to drive a wedge between himself and Long. He told Long: ‘As far as the attitude of Lloyd George and Bonar to me at that moment is concerned, you must remember that George never like me…I also learned later from Bonar himself that at the moment of which you speak (1916) Bonar thought I was intriguing against him and trying to deprive him of the leadership.…I only tell you…now to show that I understand why Bonar separated you from me in his mind at the 1916 crisis and that therefore what you tell me will not alter my feeling for Bonar and does not pain or puzzle me.’ Chamberlain to Long, copy, 11 Dec. 1923, Austen Chamberlain papers, AC 15/3/21.
39 Bull's diary, 8 Dec. 1916, Bull papers, 4/14.
40 George, David Lloyd, War Memoirs (6 vols., London, 1933–1936), III, 1176Google Scholar; Hyde, H. Montgomery, Carson (London, 1953), p. 414Google Scholar.
41 On 13 June 1909 Bull had recorded: ‘Long would be the first to say he would make a rotten Chancellor – He would like the colonies or the Admiralty for choice.’ Bull's diary, Bull papers, 3/19. Long fulfilled both of these ambitions under Lloyd George's premiership.
42 See Long to Law, 7 Dec. 1916, and Long to Lloyd George, copy, 7 Dec. 1916, Bonar Law papers, 81/1/9. Lloyd George recorded in his War Memoirs, IV, 1732, that ‘Mr. Walter Long was rather piqued at his exclusion from the War Cabinet. He was always conscious of the fact that he was regarded by a large section of the Conservative party as the most eligible successor to the leadership vacated by Balfour.’
43 Long to Lansdowne, 7 Dec. 1916, Lansdowne papers.
44 Long to Lady Londonderry, 8 Dec. 1916, Lady Londonderry papers, D/Lo/C 666(293).
45 Long to Chamberlain, 7 Dec. 1923, Austen Chamberlain papers, AC 15/3/20.
46 Ibid.
47 Frances Stevenson's diary, 6 Dec. 1916, A diary by Frances Stevenson, p. 133.
48 Addison, Christopher, Four and a half years (2 vols., London, 1934), 1, 277Google Scholar.
49 Beaverbrook, , Politicians and the war, 11, 341Google Scholar.
50 Beaverbrook to Crewe, n.d., Lloyd George papers, House of Lords Record Office, G/3/6/20.
51 Long to Beaverbrook, 15 Nov. 1919, quoted in McEwen, , ‘Struggle for mastery in Britain’, p. 131Google Scholar.
52 Chamberlain to Cecil, 10 July 1931, Austen Chamberlain papers, AC 15/3/39.
53 DrStubbs, John, in ‘The Conservative party and the politics of war, 1914–16’, Oxford, D.Phil., 1973Google Scholar, seems to be the only historian who has hitherto suspected the significance of Long's letter to Chamberlain of 7 Dec. 1923, though he was not able to confirm his suspicions by consulting Bull's diary. Nonetheless, Dr Stubbs remarks perceptively that ‘there remains a very distinct possibility that it was Long not Curzon who did provide the leverage that Lloyd George and Bonar Law needed to ease the Unionists into the new Coalition government’. It is, however, rather more than a ‘very distinct possibility’. Long himself referred to the pivotal role which he had played in a letter to Lloyd George dated 18 July 1917. See the Long papers, Wiltshire County Record Office, W.R.O. 947/568.
54 For Long's accusations see the Morning Post, 4 Dec. 1923. Long's motive in disclosing this approach was to portray Lloyd George as a dishonest and self-seeking intriguer. Lloyd George denied that he had ever approached Long until after he had become prime minister. In his War Memoirs, III, 1046, Lloyd George claimed that in forming his government he had been guided entirely by Bonar Law in the selection of Conservative ministers.
55 It had been Churchill's personal intervention at Antwerp, intended to prevent Belgian withdrawal, which had provided Long with his first target of attack. On 13 Oct. 1914 a leader in the Morning Post, under the title ‘The Antwerp Blunder’, had called on the cabinet ‘to keep a tight hand on their impulsive colleague’. On the following day, and under the same heading, the Morning Post had published a letter from Long in which it was asserted that the government's policy had created ‘a general and profound feeling of consternation’. Thus, it was Long who was responsible, in the words of Margot Asquith, for ‘the first departure from the party truce’. See Margot Asquith's diary, 30 Nov. 1914, quoted in Gilbert, Martin, Winston S. Churchill, Volume Three, 1914–1916 (London, 1971), p. 180Google Scholar. See also ibid. pp. 125–9; Hazlehurst, Cameron, Politicians at war (London, 1971), p. 192Google Scholar; and Stubbs, , ‘Conservative party and politics of war’, pp. 102–3Google Scholar.
56 Taylor, , English history, p. 70Google Scholar.