1914 London


 For Alexander von Kluck, the unexpected collision with British troops on August 23rd wasn't a great deal more than a serious inconvenience.

The men of the British Expeditionary Force

were some of the world's best soldiers, hardened in their empire's colonial wars, but there were simply not enough of them to stop the avalanchlike advance of 

Kluck's 1st army.

For the French, politicians and generals alike, the very fact that Britain was in the war was a dream come true, something toward which they had been bending national policy for years. It meant that, if the war turned out to be a long one, they would have on their side the richest nation in Europe and the world's greatest navy.

Now for the British themselves, both in favor and not in favor of war, the whole thing must have seemed strangely improbable. Nothing had been less inevitable, as Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg and Vienna stumbled toward catastrophe in July 1914, then that London would be drawn in as well.

Even though

Sir Edward Grey's

foreign office had involved itself in the crisis from the start, its efforts had been directed at preserving the peace. So to that end it had maintained a posture of almost excessive impartiality, doing nothing to inflame the public opinion. Because the public attention and most of the governments attention in London, had been focused meanwhile on a crisis closer to home-one that involved Ireland, the nearest and most troublesome part of the British Empire.

Legally, officially, Ireland was no longer a British possession at all, no longer a colony but rather as a integral part of the United Kingdom as Scotland and Wales. Its elected representatives sat in Parliament. They were numerous enough not only to influence policy but, when the House of Commons was narrowly divided, to cause governments to rise and fall. For the mainly Catholic Nationalists of  Ireland, such power not nearly enough. They agreed, and not implausibly, that in reality their homeland was still what it had been for centuries; conquered and oppressed; They wanted their own Parliament and Government-Home Rule. But for the Ulstermen of Northern Ireland, descendants of the Protestants transplanted from Scotland by

Oliver Cromwell

2 1/2 centuries earlier when to be a Catholic was crime. Home Rule meant subjection to the Pope in Rome. They-The Unionists-were prepared to fight Home Rule to the death.

By the summer of 1914 the Liberal Party had been in power in London for more than 8 years. Its popularity had, inevitably, been worn down by year after year of struggle and crisis and controversy, by the things it had done as well as by those it had failed to do. It was, compared with its Conservative or Tory rivals, a reformist government, the champion of such things as national health insurance and a government system of old age pensions. Governments in Britain fall and are replaced when they can no longer command a majority of the votes in Commons, and by 1914 the Liberals were dependent for their majority on a bloc of 30 Irish Nationalists.

The price for this support was Home Rule, and the Nationalist, aware of how essential they had become to the government, were demanding to be paid now.

Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith

and his cabinet knew that they had to deliver or be replaced. Thus they were moving a Home Rule bill through Parliament. This bill was passionately opposed by the Conservatives, who were passionately supported by the Unionists. Compromise seemed impossible, so that the struggle became increasingly dangerous.

Weapons were being smuggled into Northern Ireland, where the Unionists were organizing a 100,000 Ulstermen into militias with the threat that they would rise in armed rebellion rather than become an impotent minority in an autonomous Ireland.

Tensions began to rise as the House Rule Bill moved toward passage, and the dangers of the situation were multiplied by the fact that much of the army's leadership was Anglo-Irish, Unionist, and implacably opposed to the Asquith government. As it became clear that implementation of Home Rule was likely to require military suppression of a Unionist rebellion, the crisis began to boil over. In the spring the war office had announced that no British officers whose family homes were in Ireland would be required to participate in putting down a Protestant rebellion. All others would be expected to follow whatever orders they were given. Anyone who found this policy unacceptable were to state their objections and expect to be discharged.

This of course sparked what was called the Curragh Mutiny. A large number of the army's senior officers openly declared that they supported the Unionists, and that the only crime the Unionists' committed, was being loyal to the United Kingdom and that portraying the Unionists as disloyal was an outrage. 57 of the 70 officers of a cavalry brigade based at Curragh in Ireland, their commanding general among them, announced that they would prefer dismissal to waging war against Ulster.

Things rapidly went from bad to worse. The secretary of state for war attempted to defuse the situation by offering assurances that there would be no armed suppression of the Protestants. When the Prime Minister repudiated these assurances, 

Field Marshal Sir John French

resigned as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Other senior officers resigned also. The King found it necessary to intervene, and leaders on both sides began to step back gingerly from the edge of chaos. By the end of May it was widely accepted that, in spite of the objections of the nationalists, Ireland was going to have to be partitioned. Some part of the North would be retained as part of the U.K. This situation continued to absorb the government in the weeks following the assassination of

Franz Ferdinand.

The day when Vienna delivered its ultimatum to Serbia, the Buckingham Palace had a conference on how to partition Ireland-a conference called by 

King George himself-

ended in failure. On Sunday, July 26th, 6 days before the French and Germans mobilized, British troops fired on a crowd of demonstrators in Dublin. Civil War seemed imminent.

Meanwhile, and with the public barley noticing, Britain was slowly being drawn into the European crisis. London had long based its foreign policy on maintenance of a balance of power on the continent, its aim being to ensure that no country or alliance could become dominant enough to threaten British security. Throughout all the generations when France was the most powerful nation in Europe, it was also, automatically, Britain's enemy. After the fall of 

Napoleon,

When Russia rose for a time to preeminence relations between it and Britain became so badly strained that in the 1850's the 2 went to war against each other in the Crimea-with France now on Britain's side.

Prussia had often been England's ally, but after 1870 the emergence of the German Empire and the corresponding decline of France changed that too. Suddenly the Germans, who for centuries had been too fragmented and backward to threaten anyone, appeared to have become the leading threat to an evenly divided and therefore safe Europe.

London's concerns were intensified when 

Kaiser Wilhelm II

made it his goal to build a High Seas Fleet big and modern enough to challenge the Royal Navy. This more than any other factor implanted in many British minds the belief that the next war was likely to be with Germany, and that , in order to keep the Germans from ruling Europe, it was going to be necessary to keep them from overwhelming France.

This kind of thinking was conspicuous at the headquarters of the British army, especially among those Unionist officers who thought(rightly as it turned out) that British involvement in a European war would mean the death of the Home Rule Bill.

For years before 1914 British general staff members had been meeting secretly with their French counterparts to plan a joint war against Germany. The chief military liaison to Paris, 

General Sir Henry Wilson,

was an almost violently passionate Unionist. He was heard to say that his loyalty to Ulster transcended his loyalty to Britain. His contempt for Asquith, whom he called "Squiff" in his diary, and for Asquith's "filthy cabinet," was only somewhat extreme example of the prevailing army attitude.

Wilson's talks with the French led gradually to the development of detailed plans for the movement of a British Expeditionary Force to France in the event of war. Only the "imperialists" minority in the Asquith cabinet was allowed to know the details of this planning, however. When other members asked for information, Grey would assure them that they need not be concerned, that nothing had been done to commit Britain. But the skeptical majority wasn't reassured when, early in the summer, it was revealed(in German newspapers)that British military and naval authorities were now also engaged in secret talks with Russia.

Grey publicly denied that any such talks had taken place, but he was lying. Here as in the July crisis that followed the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, his position was excruciatingly difficult. He had agreed to talks with the Russians only out of fear that without evidence of British interest-of possible British support in case of war-the Russians might abandon their Entente with France. Some influential Russians thought it absurd that the Romanov regime should be allied with Republican France. Nor, such men thought, did it  make sense for Russia to be allied with Britain, which to protect its overseas interests had consistently blocked Russian expansion to the south. More than a few British, by the same token, were scornful of a possible alliance with autocratic; repressive court of St. Petersburg. An agreement worked out with Russia in 1907 was basically, as London saw it, a way of relieving pressure on an empire that had grown too big for even the Royal Navy to defend. It was a quid poo quo affair; a willingness to be friendly toward Russia on the continent of Europe in return for Russia's willingness not to threaten India, Britain's portion of Persia(Iran to us), or Afghanistan.

Only gradually was the attention of Asquith's government drawn from the Irish problem to the worsening crisis in Europe. The cabinet was divided, with a solid majority opposed to involvement in a war that now seemed increasingly likely. The men who made up this majority had varied motives. Some believed that Britain should be allied with Germany, not France or Russia, and that the anti-German bias of the imperialists was irrational and sure to lead to trouble. Some warned that, instead of ensuring a balance of power, the defeat of Germany would make tsarist Russia dominant in Europe-an unappealing prospect to say the least. Some were simply convinced that there was no justification for going to war, that saving France wasn't Britain's business, and that the human and material costs would for outweigh any possible gain.

A cabinet meeting on Saturday July 25th, showed plainly that the antiwar majority would resign rather than approve any declaration of war. Such resignations would mean the end of the Asquith government, its near-certain replacement by a Conservative government under the dour Unionist. 

Andrew Bonar Law

and the undoing of everything the Liberals had achieved or expected to achieve in Ireland and at home. It would also mean war, because the Conservatives wanted war, and not incidentally it would mean the loss of every cabinet member's job. Not even the most vociferous members of the majority were eager to bring the government down.

It would be unfair to say that the cabinets' imperialists minority actively wanted war. Such an accusation might have some plausibility if directed at the flamboyantly adventurous young

Winston Churchill

Who as First Lord of The Admiralty had responsibility for the Royal Navy and admitted to being thrilled by the prospect of a fight. Asquith and Grey were more sober in their views. Both agreed that war, if it came, was likely to be a disaster for winners and losers alike, though they remained convinced that allowing Germany to crush France would be an even more terrible disaster. Russia mattered only as one of the means by which France could be saved. If a successful war increased Russia's size and power, that would be regrettable.

The problem of finding a way through all these complexities fell almost heavily on the thin shoulders of Sir Edward Grey, and it presented him with 2 distinct dilemmas. The 1st one was an immediate one; he had to try to use the influence of the British Empire to avert war while not saying or doing more than the cabinets majority would tolerate and thereby triggering resignations. In this he failed, though his failure wasn't his fault. The divisions of the cabinet made it impossible for him to intervene in ways that might have made a difference. Grey's other dilemma had to do with persuading both the cabinet and the House of Commons-it too was mainly against war as August came to and end-to agree to intervention if the continental powers went to war. In this he was ultimately successful, but his success like his failure rose out of factors beyond his control. It was made possible by an issue that emerged abruptly, as if out of nowhere(actually it was Kaiser Wilhelm who brought it to light), and ultimately swept the opposition aside.

Grey, 52 years old in 1914, was the very model of what an Englishman was suppose to be at the zenith of the British Empire. He also had the requisite firm belief that Britain was at least one large notch above the Europeans in the realm of morals and ethics, and that in serving the interests of the empire he was serving civilization. Work was becoming difficult for him because his eyesight was failing.

Prime Minister Asquith was more than content to leave the hard work of diplomacy in Grey's hands. Asquith was 61 in 1914. He had been in Parliament for 3 decades and had survived at the head of the Liberal government through 6 eventful years. Though he wasn't without principles, he appears to have been dedicated above all other things to staying in power without exerting himself overmuch-without having to give up the pleasures of society, his nightly game of bridge, or the pursuit of desirable women. Staying in power meant holding together his increasingly fragile Liberal majority, a combustible coalition that ranged from the Irish nationalists to the fiery Welsh reformer

David Lloyd George

from near-pacifists to the bellicose Churchill. Accomplishing this in July 1914 required skills of the highest order.

From Saturday July 25th on, the cabinet met almost daily, and it remained clear that any attempt to bring a majority around to the support of France could lead to nothing but the end of the government. Grey could do little more than hang on and wait. By Monday it was obvious that Grey's proposal for referring the Austro-Serbian dispute to a conference of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy wasn't going to work. The proposal itself had been naive, doomed by the fact that the London conference of 1913 had settled the 2nd Balkan War in a way that Austria-Hungary and Germany found thoroughly unsatisfactory. By using the London conference to their own advantage, the other powers had destroyed the potential of conferences generally.

On Wednesday members of the cabinets' majority suggested a resolution by which Britain would declare itself to be unconditionally neutral in case of war. Grey told his fellow ministers that he wasn't the man to implement such a resolution, and that if it were approved he would resign. When Asquith supported him, the majority drew back. Everything remained unresolved. The pressure on the government-on Grey in particular- was intense and coming from many directions. General Wilson, the Asquith-hating director of military operations, was demanding that the army be mobilized. The French were doing everything possible to persuade the British to support them, while 

German Ambassador Lichnowsky

was virtually begging Grey to remain neutral and and trying to persuade him that Germany neither wanted war nor had hostile intentions where British interests were concerned. The position that Grey and Asquith had taken with the cabinet might have had a powerful impact if the Germans had learned of it, but it remained secret.

General Wilson began insisting with almost hysterical fever that the government had a moral obligation to stand with France-that the years of military consultation justified the French in expecting nothing less. He pointed out that France had demonstrated its trust in Britain by agreeing to move its navy to the Mediterranean, leaving the defense of northern waters to the Royal Navy.

The antiwar ministers, annoyed, replied that over the years they had repeatedly expressed concern that joint military planning would draw Britain into commitments to France, and that they had been assured that such concerns were unfounded.

Thursday was the day when 

Tsar Nicholas

consented to mobilization. Grey, to his credit, had been urging the Russians to delay, but he and his Ambassador in St. Petersburgh had less influence there than France's

Ambassador Paleologue, 

who from the start had been urging action. This was also the day when 

French President Poincare

sent word to Grey that he believed Britain could stop the slide to war if it warned Berlin that it was prepared to support France. Grey, clinging to his pose of impartiality, responded in almost the feeblest way imaginable, saying only that he doubted Britain's ability to make that big a difference. Privately, he now took a step for which he didn't have cabinet approval. He told Lichnowsky, whom he knew to regard the prospect of a war between their 2 countries with horror, that in his opinion a German war with France would mean war with Britain as well.

By Friday, with everyone's options narrowing and the cabinet's majority still against war, Grey pressed upon Lichnowsky his Stop-in-Belgrade idea. When Vienna rejected the proposal despite Kaiser Wilhelm's endorsement, that option too was at an end. It was then that the Kaiser, desperate for a way out, instructed Lichnowsky to promise Grey that if Britain would remain neutral, Germany would pledge itself to restore the borders of France and Belgium if war came and Germany won.

Now Belgium; Germany's raising of this subject introduced an explosive new element into the drama. Even the antiwar ministers saw immediately that this was a momentous questions. The cabinet authorized Grey to ask France and Germany for an explicit guarantee of Belgium's neutrality and autonomy. The inability of the Germans to respond said everything. And so, in a matter of hours, the question of British intervention was cast in an entirely new context. The issue was no longer whether Britain should go to war in support of France and Russia-of whether the British public could possibly be brought to support such a war. Now it was a question of whether Britain would compromise its own interests by allowing a small but strategically important neutral nation, a nation whose neutrality Britain had pledged to uphold, to be invaded. This was something that the public would have no difficulty understanding.

Now on the last weekend of peace, the weekend when Germany and France both mobilized, the cabinet remained divided with 8 members favoring war if Germany invaded Belgium and 11 opposed. Churchill, Grey, and the Prime Minister were in favor. The most prominent figure on the other side-but careful not to allow himself to be positioned as the leader of the antiwar group, which would destroy his freedom to maneuver-was the Chancellor of The Exchequer, David Lloyd George. Though the opponents of intervention had maintained their majority, several were no longer firm.

Asquith and Grey had deftly softened the ground on which their opponents stood by misleading them into thinking and allowing them to hop, at a minimum, that Britain's role in the coming war would be a strictly naval one and therefore relatively low in risk and cost. The situation was moving away from the antiwar faction, and few still believed that resignations could make a difference. Some of the most senior members of the antiwar faction saw the whole matter as a kind of bait-and-switch ruse. 

Lord John Morley

and aging bulwark of the Liberal Party and one of the small number of cabinet members who in the end did resign rather than assert to war, said, "The precipitate and peremptory blaze about Belgium was due less to indignation at the violation of a Treaty than to natural perception of the plea that would furnish for intervention on behalf of France, for expeditionary force, and all the rest of it."

This resentful view would be supported years later by the woman who served as Lloyd George's private secretary(and mistress) in 1914, saw him swing around to support a declaration of war early in August. She later became his wife.

Frances Stevenson Lloyd George

"My own opinion," she wrote 40 years later, "is that L.G.'s mind was really made up from the 1st, that he knew we would have to go in, and that the invasion of Belgium was, to be cynical, a heaven-sent excuse for supporting a declaration of war."

On Sunday, August 2nd, things still hung in the balance. "I suppose," Asquith wrote that day to the young woman he was conducting his own romantic intrigue, "that a good 3/4 of our own party in the House of Commons are for absolute non-interference at any price." But as he wrote, the Germans were moving their army into Luxembourg and launching small raids into France. In the evening Berlin sent its ultimatum to Belgium, lamely stating that it had to invade Belgium before France could do so and demanding unobstructed passage for its troops. The French meanwhile were still holding their forces back from the borders, doing everything possible to make certain that Britain and the world would see the Germans as the aggressors.

Early on Monday King Albert of Belgium issues his refusal of Germany's demands. Later in the day Germany declared war on France. Grey, the eyes of Europe on him, addressed the House of Commons. He spoke for an hour, putting all of his emphasis on the government's efforts to keep the war from happening, on the threat that a violation of Belgium would be to Britain itself, and on his conviction that Britain must respond or surrender its honor. He kept his arguments on a high moral plane, artfully avoiding less lofty subjects such as the continental balance of power.

Not everyone was persuaded. "The Liberals, very few of them, cheered at all," one member of the House noted. But the Conservatives "shouted with delight." In any case a majority of the Commons was won over, and so was the public. The sole remaining questions were whether the Germans were going to pass through only a small corner of Belgium or move into its heartland and whether the Belgians were going to resist.(The Germans, in demanding free passage through Belgium, had promised to pay for all damage done by their army.)

Tuesday brought the answers. Masses of German troops began crossing the border into Belgium and moved on Liege. King Albert made it clear that he and his countrymen intended to fight. It was done. Before midnight Britain and Germany were at war. Some members of the cabinet resigned, but only a few, and they knew that no one cared. The pretense that only the Royal Navy would be involved was quickly forgotten. The British army prepared to fight in western Europe for the 1st time in exactly 100 years.

Lloyd George, having maneuvered in such a way as to keep his position in the government without seeming to compromise the principles that had long since made him a prominent anti-imperialists, found himself cheered on August 3rd as he rode through London. "This isn't my crowd," he said to his companions. "I never wanted to be cleared by a war crowd."

"It is curious," wrote Asquith, "how going to and from the House, we are now always surrounded and escorted by cheering crowds of loafers and holiday makers. I have never before been a popular character with the man in the street; and in all this dark and dangerous business it gives me a scant pleasure. How one loathes such levity."