H. H. Asquith

"Asquith drunk can make a better speech than any one of us, sober."

"We shall never sheathe the sword, which we have not lightly drawn, until Belgium recovers in full measure all, and more than all, that she has sacrificed; until France is adequately secured against the menace of aggression; until the rights of the smaller nationalities of Europe are placed upon an unassailable foundation; and until the military domination of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed."

"It was reserved for Mr. Asquith to cast away a second opportunity. After the general election men of all parties turned cordially and even eagerly to a veteran statesman whose sterling qualities, though tried by both extremes of fortune, have always commanded respect. But Mr. Asquith would not help. He proclaimed himself first and last a party man. Assuming airs of superiority for which there was little warrant, Mr. Asquith and his friends declared that all common action with Conservatives was improper, immoral, degrading in the last degree, and not to be thought of in any circumstances. Farther than that, they would place and keep a Socialist minority in office and beg in the most humane manner for any crumb which might fall from their table. Under this guidance the Liberal party deliberately cast away their opportunity of rendering an immense service to the public, and delivered themselves over bound hand and foot to their implacable Socialist foes. How swift are time’s revenges? Only a few months have passed, but now they can appreciate the almost fatal consequences of their failure to place country before party at a fateful juncture."

"The Liberals whom Asquith led formed one of the most talented administrations in British history, dominated in 1914 by such figures as Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty; Richard Haldane, a former reforming war minister, now Lord Chancellor. The prime minister himself was a survivor of an earlier era, old enough to have seen, as a boy of twelve in 1864, the bodies of five murderers dangling from the gallows outside Newgate, their heads concealed by white hoods. A lawyer of modest middle-class origins, a Roman reserve was always natural to Asquith, in the words of his biographer. He fought against any expression of his stronger feelings. George Dangerfield went further, asserting that Asquith lacked imagination and compassion; that, for all his high intelligence, he failed convincingly to address any of the great crises which overtook Britain during his years of office He was ingenious but not subtle, he could improvise quite brilliantly on somebody elses theme, He was moderately imperialist, moderately progressive, moderately humorous, and being the most fastidious of Liberal politicians, only moderately evasive. If this judgment was cynical, it was plain that by August 1914 Asquith was a tired old man."

"If the British Empire was viewed around the world as rich and powerful, the Asquith government was seen as chronically weak. It was conspicuously failing to quell violent industrial action or the Ulster madness. It seemed unable effectively to address even the suffragette movement, whose clamorous campaign for votes for women had become deafening. Militants were smashing windows all over London; using acid to burn slogans on golf club greens; hunger-striking in prison. In June 1913 Emily Davison was killed after being struck by the Kings horse in Derby. In the first seven months of 1914, 107 buildings were set on fire by suffragettes. Asquiths critics ignored an obvious point: no man could have contained or suppressed the huge social and political forces shaking Britain. George Dangerfield wrote: Very few prime ministers in history have been afflicted by so many plagues and in so short a space of time. The prominent Irish Home Ruler John Dillon wrote Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: the country is menaced with revolution. Domestic strife made a powerful impression on opinion abroad: a great democracy was seen to be sinking into decadence and decay. Britains allies, France and Russia, were dismayed. Its prospective enemies, notably in Germany, found it hard to imagine that a country convulsed in such a fashion - with even its little army riven by fraction - could threaten their continental power and ambitions."