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Lloyd George faced a tricky problem when it came to providing an account of 1918. How to narrate the events on the Western Front, particularly from July, without acknowledging the outstanding performance of the BEF, still under the command of Sir Douglas Haig? Lloyd George’s solution is soon evident. First, the Allied reverses suffered during the German offensives beginning on 21 March were primarily Haig’s responsibility. The BEF had been seriously weakened during the previous year’s Flanders campaign, and Haig’s inappropriate disposition of the BEF’s divisions along the entire British line and his neglect of the Fifth Army’s defences practically invited catastrophe. Second, the reversal of fortunes beginning in July and the eventual German defeat were due not so much due to Haig’s abilities, but rather because the Allies had at last found a general of ‘genius’, Foch, who in response to the setbacks in March and April, and largely due to Lloyd George’s pressure, was appointed to command Allied forces in France. Under the command of Foch, Lloyd George notes, Haig performed well, but as a ‘second-in-command’. Lloyd George’s third strategy is to downplay the significance of the Western Front in the defeat of Germany: rather, he points to the collapse of Germany’s allies, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey, as the main factor in bringing the Germans to seek an armistice, rather than any military defeat of the German army in France.

Kingsley Martin wrote of the third volume of the War Memoirs that in ‘dealing with the ghastly Nivelle offensive one feels that Mr Lloyd George’s account may have been unconsciously influenced by the fact that he himself was an enthusiastic supporter of General Nivelle’.1 There are few passages in the War Memoirs in which this is more apparent than in that which deals with the Calais conference of February 1917 where, to Robertson’s horror, he attempted to subordinate Douglas Haig and the BEF to General Nivelle. One must doubt, however, that it unconsciously influenced Lloyd George when he was writing this particular section. He had, after all, ample material to provide a full and frank account, but he deliberately omitted the salient facts of this unfortunate episode which reflected little credit upon himself.

Following his account of the outbreak of war, Lloyd George provides a critique of several aspects of British strategy in the first weeks of hostilities. He first argues that the decision to deploy the BEF on the left wing of the French was wrong and instead that BEF would have been better placed to inflict a severe, even decisive blow against the German advance by concentrating in Antwerp and joining forces with the Belgians. He then describes his proposal to circumvent the developing stalemate in France with an audacious Allied attack on Austria-Hungary in alliance with the Balkan states. This was rejected by the Cabinet, however, in favour of an attack on Turkey in the Dardanelles, initially with naval forces alone and later with substantial land forces, with well-known results. Allied forces were later deployed in Salonika at the end of 1915, but rather than launching a powerful attack on Austria as Lloyd George wanted, they were too weak in numbers and equipment to be anything but an irritant to Austria and Bulgaria until the last months of the war.

At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Lloyd George occupied the second place in the government. He had been Chancellor of the Exchequer for six years, and while he remained the most important ‘Radical’ member of the Cabinet, in the realm of foreign policy there was, at least from 1911, in reality little dividing him from his Liberal ‘Imperialist’ colleagues such as H.H. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey. Like them he was determined to maintain the strength of the Empire, convinced of the need for a strong navy to protect it, and aware of and determined to resist any German ambitions for dominance in Europe at the expense of Britain’s Entente partners. This was underlined in particular by his intervention in the Agadir crisis of 1911 and would be again by his eventual support for British entry into the war in August 1914.

Lloyd George’s chapters on the Third Battle of Ypres1 or Passchendaele are the centrepiece of his indictment of the British generals of the Great War, in particular Haig and Robertson.2 Passchendaele for Lloyd George was one of the greatest follies of the war, and the importance he placed on these chapters may be gauged by the fact that they were published for greater impact as a separate pamphlet. They contain the most bitter and passionate denunciation of Haig and his strategy to be found in the War Memoirs.

The establishment and development of the Ministry of Munitions by Lloyd George in 1915–16 was one of the Asquith Coalition’s few success stories, and the chapters devoted to munitions remain (in contrast to other chapters of the War Memoirs) a valuable contribution to our historical understanding of a comparatively neglected topic.1 War production was put on a sounder footing and rose dramatically from 1916. Lloyd George and his new ministry, he claims in the War Memoirs, laid the foundation in 1915–16 for the Allies’ material superiority in 1917–18. His account of the work of the Ministry of Munitions in the War Memoirs, however, can be criticised on a number of fronts. His allegations of War Office inefficiency prior to his appointment in June 1915 are, for example, greatly exaggerated, and to a significant extent quantity came at the expense of quality in many areas.

We come now to a consideration of Lloyd George’s treatment of the eastern theatre of operations. To this point this book has been concerned mostly, in one way or another, with Lloyd George’s account of the war in the west, and the alternatives open to the Western Powers in pursuing the war against Germany and its allies. The conduct, or rather misconduct of the war in France and Belgium certainly preoccupied Lloyd George in the War Memoirs. Lloyd George’s narrative, however, is not confined to that theatre alone. As we have seen, at various points in the War Memoirs Lloyd George discusses developments in the Balkans, the Middle East and Italy, and of course the great opportunities missed by the Western Allies in those regions. There is in the Memoirs also a consideration of various aspects of events on the Eastern Front and in Russia, and it is to aspects of these chapters that I now turn.

By the time of Kitchener’s death in June 1916, Lloyd George had completed his task at the Ministry of Munitions. The new ministry was well established, he had successfully wrested control of the munitions industry from the military, and British forces abroad were beginning to be adequately provided with shells, guns and other requirements. A move to the War Office was ostensibly a promotion, but the reduced powers of the office of Secretary of State meant that Lloyd George did not gain any significant influence over British strategy or military operations. His achievements were modest and his tenure frustrating. In any event he was Secretary of State for a mere five months, until political developments brought him to the Prime Ministership and thus greater power over and responsibility for the national war effort. How Lloyd George used Prime Ministerial power and how this is presented in the War Memoirs is the subject of subsequent chapters.

Few political memoirs of the Great War have been as influential or as controversial as Lloyd George’s War Memoirs. Over the years these volumes have made a significant contribution to shaping the historical and popular perceptions of the key events and especially the personalities of the 1914–18 conflict. When the Memoirs first appeared in 1933–36 the responses of critics and the reading public testify to the passionate reaction to his arguments and criticisms.1 In particular, many were outraged by the attacks on the generals, some praised the literary style and many the extensive documentation. It is no surprise that the Memoirs stirred controversy. The public and private memory of the war was still fresh in the minds of the adult population, and Lloyd George was an important figure in British politics even after his resignation in 1922.