32 chapters
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32 chapters
CHILDHOOD
CHILDHOOD
“When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain.” Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night , Act v, Sc. i. Every school-child is familiar with that striking shape taken by North Wales on the map of Britain, so like to a human being pointing with outstretched arm down St. George’s Channel towards the Atlantic. In that shape Anglesey is the head, and Carnarvonshire is the pointed arm. On the lower side of the arm, towards the hollow of the armpit, there lie
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SCHOOL DAYS
SCHOOL DAYS
“Ye Presences of Nature in the sky And on the earth! Ye visions of the hills And Souls of lonely places! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed Such ministry?” Wordsworth’s Prelude . The training of a little Welsh Nonconformist child in a village Church School must lead either to submission or to revolt. In most cases it leads to submission. In this case it led to revolt. That is what makes the story of David Lloyd George worth telling. To subject children of one faith to the relig
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YOUTH
YOUTH
“Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;” Wordsworth’s The Happy Warrior . Portmadoc is a little provincial business town lying on the coast some five miles to the west of Criccieth in the very heart of Cardigan Bay. It stands at the mouth of the Glaslyn, one of those little mountain rivers which flow southward through wild valleys from the Snowdon range. The river broadens to a port at its mouth and the town spreads on both banks. A hundred year
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EARLY MANHOOD
EARLY MANHOOD
“Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of Noble Mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days” Milton’s Lycidas . During these years of the early eighties (1880-4) that great Government of Mr. Gladstone’s which opened so triumphantly in 1880 was rapidly drawing towards its downfall. Checked in Ireland and stagnant at home, the Whigs who dominated the Cabinet had been gradually drawn abroad into enterprises for which they lacked both heart and capacity. Mr. Gla
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MARRIAGE
MARRIAGE
“A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel! O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!” Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice , Act I, Sc. iv. Cut off from Parliament for the moment (1886) David Lloyd George spent no time in vain regrets. He resumed that life of combined public and private activity which was rapidly becoming his second nature. His diaries during the following years show that he was now absorbed in his growing “practice.” But that did not prevent him from continuing
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ENTERS PARLIAMENT
ENTERS PARLIAMENT
“The day of the cottage-bred man has at last dawned.”— Lloyd George. Now (1888) happily married and well started on his legal career, Mr. Lloyd George was able to return to his larger ambition of sitting in Parliament. From this time forward he definitely aspired to sit at Westminister as the representative of his own native constituency, the Carnarvon Boroughs. The achievement was not to be easy. There were many lions in the path. During the last few years, indeed, he had immensely increased hi
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FIRST SKIRMISHES
FIRST SKIRMISHES
“And now, Out of that land where Snowdon night by night Receives the confidences of lonely stars, And where Carnarvon’s ruthless battlements Magnificently oppress the daunted tide, There comes, no fabled Merlin, son of mist, And brother to the twilight, but a man.” William Watson on Mr. Lloyd George. Entering the House of Commons in April 1890, David Lloyd George walked straight into one of those great party struggles which in those days supplied the British p
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PITCHED BATTLES
PITCHED BATTLES
“Though it appear a little out of fashion, There is much care and valour in this Welshman.” Shakespeare’s Henry V , Act I, Sc. iv. David Lloyd George had gone to Parliament as a Welsh Nationalist; and, as the months passed, it became clear that the task of moulding and defending the new national cause in Wales would absorb his main energies. It was not a popular task at Westminster, where it cut right across the party divisions. It was not even yet wholly an easy task in Wales, where the old spi
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SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA
“God defend the right!” When the South African War broke out in early October, 1899, Mr. Lloyd George was touring in Western Canada. The mutterings of the coming storm had already reached him in the distant regions of the Rocky Mountains, and that swift political instinct of his had warned him of grave events. He turned in his tracks, abandoned his holiday, and made for home. [41] While crossing the Atlantic he had abundant time to meditate on the great issue between the South African Republics
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FOR WALES AND FOR ENGLAND
FOR WALES AND FOR ENGLAND
“No poor man can afford to be ignorant; leave that to the rich.”— Mr. Lloyd George at Hartley (1913). Mr. Lloyd George was not to remain idle long. In 1902 the Conservative wing of the Unionist combination once again asserted itself. The war was over. The Unionists found themselves with that great affair wound up and the whole world before them. It was a tempting position. They were still in supreme command of a Parliament which had five years to run. The House of Lords was their obedient servan
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A MINISTER
A MINISTER
“If they take part in public life, the effect is never indifferent. They either appear like ministers of divine vengeance, and their course through the world is marked by desolation and oppression, by poverty and servitude, or they are the guardian angels of the country they inhabit, busy to avert even the most distant evil, and to maintain and procure peace, plenty, and the greatest of human blessings, liberty.”— Bolingbroke in The Patriot King on his “Chosen Men.” The Department which fell to
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A GERMAN TOUR
A GERMAN TOUR
“In small, truckling States, a timely compromise with power has often been the means, and the only means, of drawling out their puny existence: but a great State is too much envied, too much dreaded to find safety in humiliation. To be secure, it must be respected. Power, and eminence, and consideration, are things not to be begged. They must be commanded.”— Edmund Burke , Letter I on A Regicide Peace . In the late summer of 1908, at the end of the parliamentary session, Mr. Lloyd George travers
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CIVIL STRIFES
CIVIL STRIFES
“It gives me a serious concern to see such a Spirit of Dissention in the Country; not only as it destroys Virtue and Common Sense, and renders us in a manner Barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our Animosities, widens our Breaches, and transmits our present Passions and Prejudices to our Posterity. For my own Part, I am sometimes afraid that I discover the Seeds of a Civil War in these our Divisions; and therefore cannot but bewail as in their first Principles the Miseries and
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A WAR MAN
A WAR MAN
“O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul Of Europe, keep our noble England whole.” Tennyson. From the moment that war was declared (August 4th, 1914), Mr. Lloyd George put aside all his doubts and hesitations. The perplexities of the previous week passed away like so many clouds from a summer sky. He became from that instant a war man, intent on nothing but achieving victory. “I can understand a man opposing a war,” he used to say, “but I cannot understand his waging a war with half a hea
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EAST OR WEST?
EAST OR WEST?
“For East is East, and West is West, And never the twain shall meet.” Rudyard Kipling. It is characteristic of Mr. Lloyd George that, when his mind once seizes hold of an idea, he is wholly possessed with it until either he can bring it to accomplishment or he is fully convinced of its impracticability. It was so with regard to this great scheme of outflanking the Central Powers by an attack from the Near East. The more he reflected upon it the more there seemed to lie in this plan one great cha
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SERBIA
SERBIA
“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”— Abraham Lincoln , 1863. Mr. Lloyd George now turned from the disappointments and tragedies of the Near East to look more closely into the situation at home. The opening of 1915 was a season of hope in Great Britain. The great effort to force the Dardanelles filled the public mind with visions. That attempt was then most lyrically applauded by those who afterwards rushed to denounce it. The whole outlook was magically irradiat
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MUNITIONS
MUNITIONS
“Like a rickety, clumsy machine, with a pin loose here, and a tooth broken there, and a makeshift somewhere else, in which the force of Hercules may be exhausted in a needless friction, and obscure hitches before the hands are got to move, so is our Executive, with the Treasury, the Horse Guards, the War Department, the Medical Department, all out of gear, but all required to move together before a result can be obtained. He will be stronger than Hercules who can get out of it the movement we re
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THE NEW MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS
THE NEW MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS
“Now all the youth of England is on fire, And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies; Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man.” Henry V , Prologue to Act II. The little group of men whom Mr. Lloyd George assembled round him at No. 6, Whitehall Gardens, during the Whit-week of 1915, certainly seemed to have no easy task before them. A new Ministry had been founded, and a Bill to define its functions was being drawn up. But the Ministry possessed neit
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PREMIERSHIP
PREMIERSHIP
“Not once or twice in our rough island-story, The path of duty was the way to glory.” Tennyson. This great revival in the supply of munitions to Great Britain and her Allies began, early in 1916, to show its effects on the fortunes of the war. There were some things that could not be retrieved—Serbia, Bulgaria, Kut. On the Western fields of war there was a steady stiffening, and the 1915 peril of collapse gradually passed away. During the spring of 1916 guns and shells were accumulated in great
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THE SAVING OF ITALY
THE SAVING OF ITALY
“Many hot inroads They make into Italy.” Antony and Cleopatra , Act I, Sc. iv. At the opening of the year 1917 the general situation of the World-war in Europe offered fair promise for the cause of the Entente Allies. On the Western front the immense latent resources of the British Empire were now coming effectively into play and were creating an opportunity for a really serious and formidable offensive. Tremendously reinforced in men and munitions through the powers of the Munitions and Mil
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THE VERSAILLES COUNCIL
THE VERSAILLES COUNCIL
“Besides, he says, there are two councils held; And that may be determined at the one Which may make him and you to rue at the other.” Shakespeare’s Richard III , Act III, Sc. ii. Italy was saved for the time; but if it was to be saved for all time, and if other dangers were to be averted, it was not enough to pass resolutions at Allied Conferences. The proceedings at Rapallo must be followed up by more effective action. Mr. Lloyd George has always the instinct in his heart that no public purpos
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VICTORY
VICTORY
“O God! Thy arm was here; And not to us, but to Thy arm alone, Ascribe we all.” Shakespeare’s Henry V , Act IV, Sc. viii. The last year of the Great War was undoubtedly the most critical and momentous year in the modern history of these islands. By an amazing combination of events, Western Europe was subject to a sudden revival of extreme peril exceeding in violence the menace of 1914. Looking back from the security of the present time (1920) it is easy to underrate the threat of that gr
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THE PEACE CONFERENCE
THE PEACE CONFERENCE
“War or peace, or both at once.” Shakespeare’s Henry IV , Act V, Sc. ii. The colossal strain of the last year of the Great War left both Ministers and peoples of the conquering Allies in a state of profound exhaustion. So near had been the peril of defeat that for a time it was scarcely possible to realise the fact of victory. For the first two weeks after the Armistice of November 11th, 1918, London, Paris, and New York were given over to a delirium of rejoicing such as the world never before w
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THE NEW WORLD
THE NEW WORLD
“With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations.” Abraham Lincoln , March 4th, 1865. “ I don’t envy the men who have to govern the world after the war,” said M. Clemenceau
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THE MAN
THE MAN
“He, though thus endued with a sense And faculty of storm and turbulence, Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes.” Wordsworth’s The Happy Warrior . That element of tranquillity which Mr. Lloyd George enjoys in his own home—that “happy fireside clime” which to him is always truly— “The pathos and sublime Of human life”— perhaps accounts for the serenity of his outlook on public life. That serenity is never more conspicuous than in seasons of hurricane. L
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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
“Jog, jog on, the foot-path way, And merrily hent the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.” Autolycus in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale , Act IV, Sc. ii. But , on the whole, it is the future rather than the past that rules the mind of David Lloyd George. To him the future has always been an unexplored miracle—ever in travail with some new birth. To him, behind the veil of the coming time, there always lies a possibility of some event such as the world has never k
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THROUGH FOREIGN EYES
THROUGH FOREIGN EYES
Praise enough To fill the ambition of a private man, That Chatham’s language was his mother tongue And Wolfe’s great name compatriot with his own. Cowper. Travelling about the world before the Great War, no one could fail to notice that the name of Mr. Lloyd George had already become an ensign. Men had begun to apply it to that particular type of statesman, becoming happily less rare, who take risks on behalf of the “common people.” It had become a way of classifying a statesma
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The Correspondence between Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George
The Correspondence between Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George
Memorandum of Mr. Lloyd George to Prime Minister, December 1st, 1916. War Office, Whitehall, S.W. 1. That the War Committee consist of three members—two of whom must be the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for War, who should have in their offices deputies capable of attending to and deciding all departmental business—and a third Minister without portfolio. One of the three to be Chairman. 2. That the War Committee shall have full powers, subject to the supreme control of t
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The Critical Russian Debate of January, 1919 Bullitt Exhibit No. 14
The Critical Russian Debate of January, 1919 Bullitt Exhibit No. 14
McD. I.C. 114. Secretaries’ notes of a conversation held in M. Pichon’s room, at the Quai D’Orsay, on Tuesday, January 21st, 1919, at 15 hours (3 p.m.)....
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Present:
Present:
United States of America. —President Wilson, Mr. R. Lansing, Mr. A. H. Frazier, Colonel U. S. Grant, Mr. L. Harrison. British Empire. —The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, Lieut.-Col. Sir M. P. A. Hankey, K.C.B., Major A. M. Caccia, M.V.O., Mr. E. Phipps. France. —M. Clemenceau, M. Pichon, M. Dutasta, H. Berthelot, Captain A. Potier. Italy. —Signor Orlando, H. E. Baron Sonnino, Count Aldrovandi, Major A. Jones. Japan. —Baron Makino, H. E. M. Matsui, M. Saburi. Interprete
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Situation in Russia
Situation in Russia
M. Clemenceau said they had met together to decide what could be done in Russia under present circumstances. President Wilson said that, in order to have something definite to discuss, he wished to take advantage of a suggestion made by Mr. Lloyd George, and to propose a modification of the British proposal. He wished to suggest that the various organised groups in Russia should be asked to send representatives, not to Paris, but to some other place, such as Salonika, convenient of approach, the
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THE “FOURTEEN POINTS”
THE “FOURTEEN POINTS”
In view of the fact that the Armistice negotiations started from the acceptance of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points by the Germans, and that the Peace Conference pivoted round those points as modified by the Allies at the Versailles Council of October, 1918, it is of interest to attach a full and complete version of the original Fourteen Points, as set forth by President Wilson in his great speech of January 8th, 1918: I. Open covenants of peace openly arrived at, after which there shall be no
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