The First World War Part 5

One of the signals intercepted and decrypted by Room 40 in the course of the night of 31 May-1 June 1916, but not pa.s.sed on to Jellicoe at sea. The order to open the barrier suggested the German fleet was breaking off the action to return to harbour

At 6.15 he began the deployment of the fleet to port, so putting the Germans to his south-west, and silhouetting them against the evening light. Each Dreadnought opened fire as she was free to do so, but because of the poor visibility could see only three or four enemy capital s.h.i.+ps at a time. At 6.35 a third battle cruiser, Invincible, Invincible, also struck in the turret, blew up and split in two. But the position of the High Seas Fleet was desperate: ranges were down to 12,000 yards, and the British could concentrate all their fire against portions of the German line. Scheer turned away to the south-west. But in so doing he was moving further from his base. Jellicoe could see less and less in the fading light, but he had the consolation of knowing that he lay between the Germans and their line of escape. This consideration was presumably what prompted Scheer to turn about and strike Jellicoe's line once more. For twenty minutes, from 7.15, the whole of the Grand Fleet was engaged. Then again Scheer withdrew, and to cover his retreat ordered his destroyers to unleash their torpedoes. Fearful of further loss, Jellicoe turned the Grand Fleet away to port, and therefore to the east. In so doing he broke contact with the German fleet. His aim now was to avoid the dangers of night fighting, but to keep the High Seas Fleet to the west, so that it would have to seek a fleet action on the following day. also struck in the turret, blew up and split in two. But the position of the High Seas Fleet was desperate: ranges were down to 12,000 yards, and the British could concentrate all their fire against portions of the German line. Scheer turned away to the south-west. But in so doing he was moving further from his base. Jellicoe could see less and less in the fading light, but he had the consolation of knowing that he lay between the Germans and their line of escape. This consideration was presumably what prompted Scheer to turn about and strike Jellicoe's line once more. For twenty minutes, from 7.15, the whole of the Grand Fleet was engaged. Then again Scheer withdrew, and to cover his retreat ordered his destroyers to unleash their torpedoes. Fearful of further loss, Jellicoe turned the Grand Fleet away to port, and therefore to the east. In so doing he broke contact with the German fleet. His aim now was to avoid the dangers of night fighting, but to keep the High Seas Fleet to the west, so that it would have to seek a fleet action on the following day.

At 11.30 Jellicoe received a signal from the Admiralty relaying an intercepted German signal, giving the course and speed of the High Seas Fleet two hours previously, at 9.14, when it was ordered home. But Jellicoe's faith in the Operations Department of the Admiralty had been undermined: twice already that day, in the morning and again at 9.58 p.m., it had managed to place Scheer in the wrong place. Only three of the sixteen decrypts pa.s.sed over by Room 40 between 9.55 p.m. on 31 May and 3.00 a.m. on 1 June were relayed to Jellicoe, and therefore he had no context into which to set the intelligence he did receive. But it was not only the Operations Division which was guilty of inadequate communication. Jellicoe knew that his greater speed would prevent Scheer cutting across his bow. Therefore the Germans' most obvious escape route lay astern, via the Horns Reef. This was screened by destroyers. They duly found themselves in confused and sustained fighting throughout the night, but they failed to report to Jellicoe. By the morning Scheer was safely through.

The High Seas Fleet claimed that the battle of the Skagerrak was a German victory. At first the British press tended to agree. At Scapa Flow the mood was despondent, a mixture of combat exhaustion and disappointed expectation. The battle of Jutland (as the British called it) engaged 100,000 men in 250 s.h.i.+ps over 72 hours. It dwarfed Trafalgar in scale but not - it seemed - in outcome. The Royal Navy had lost fourteen s.h.i.+ps, including three battle cruisers, and had sustained 6,784 casualties. The Germans had lost eleven s.h.i.+ps, including one battles.h.i.+p and one battle cruiser, and had suffered 3,058 casualties. But ten of Scheer's s.h.i.+ps had suffered heavy damage, and only ten were ready for sea on 2 June. Jellicoe, with eight s.h.i.+ps undergoing repairs, could have put twenty-four capital s.h.i.+ps to sea. On 4 July 1916 Scheer renounced fleet action as an option. Jutland left the Royal Navy's supremacy unimpaired and Britain's strategy intact. 'It is absolutely necessary', Captain Herbert Richmond reminded himself, 'to look at the war as a whole; to avoid keeping our eyes only on the German Fleet. What we have to do is to starve and cripple Germany.' Germany.'9 ECONOMIC WARFARE.

The blockade remained intact. Economic warfare rather than battle was the means of exercising maritime supremacy, particularly against a Continental coalition. But in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of war even its strongest advocates had been forced to doubt its efficacy. Three obstacles presented themselves. The first was the fear that Britain was more vulnerable to economic pressure than Germany. By 1914 almost 60 per cent of the food consumed in Britain was imported from overseas. Germany, its agriculture (unlike Britain's) protected from foreign compet.i.tion by tariffs, claimed to be self-sufficient in foodstuffs, although in fact about 25 per cent was imported. The second was legal. In 1909 the Declaration of London had defended the rights of neutrals by defining contraband, the goods that a blockading power in time of war might legitimately sequester, in narrow terms. Foodstuffs for the civilian population most certainly were not contraband. If Britain were neutral, the Declaration of London served the country's interests as a trading nation. If it were a belligerent, it did not. Britain refused to ratify the Declaration of London, but the divisions in its counsels revealed the practical - and third - objection to blockade. Germany would be able to circ.u.mvent it by importing through the neutral powers on its borders.

The most forceful spokesman of economic warfare in government was the secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Maurice Hankey. He bolstered Britain's pre-war policy, in 1911 establis.h.i.+ng the general principle that trading with the enemy would cease when war broke out, and in 1912 preparing the 'war book', which spelt out the legal steps and the financial initiatives to put economic warfare in place. He sustained that commitment once the war had begun. In June 1915, now secretary to the war committee, Hankey told the prime minister that the effects of blockade were c.u.mulative 'and the process inevitably slow. It may be that years must elapse before its effect is decisive. But when the psychological moment arrives and the c.u.mulative effects reach their maximum and are perhaps combined with crus.h.i.+ng defeats of the enemy, the results may be not merely material but decisive.'10 The long-term nature of the blockade frustrated Britain's soldiers and their allies, confronted with desperate fighting in the present, and sometimes uncertain whether they had a future. And the slowness also created a difficulty in a.s.sessing the blockade's effectiveness after the war. The economic pressure on Germany did not reach its maximum effect until 1917-18, and by then other factors, including the sustained nature of land warfare and the demands it made on German resources, also contributed to shortages in German production and to the deprivations suffered by the populations of the Central Powers.

The problems of a.s.sessment were compounded because, of all the enemy's a.s.sets, his armed forces suffered least from the blockade's effects. The focus of economic warfare lay not simply where pre-war German calculations had located it - in the denial of raw materials vital for munitions production - but also in food supplies. Because in time of war the state gave priority to feeding its direct defenders, the soldier and the factory worker, those most likely to suffer from shortages were the militarily useless, the old and the weak. Death rates among epileptics in Bethel, near Bielefeld, rose from 3.9 per cent in 1914 to 16.3 per cent in 1917, and in all Prussian sanatoriums from 9.9 per cent to 28.1 per cent.11 The British official history attributed 772,736 deaths in Germany during the war to the blockade, a figure comparable with the death rate for the British armed forces, and by 1918 the civilian death rate was running 37 per cent higher than it had been in 1913. The British official history attributed 772,736 deaths in Germany during the war to the blockade, a figure comparable with the death rate for the British armed forces, and by 1918 the civilian death rate was running 37 per cent higher than it had been in 1913.12 Indirectly, at least, the blockade breached the principle of non-combatant immunity. Its naval aspects were the simplest and most immediate part of the undertaking. The deliberation of diplomacy was crucial to its international acceptance and to the cooperation of neutrals in its implementation. Indirectly, at least, the blockade breached the principle of non-combatant immunity. Its naval aspects were the simplest and most immediate part of the undertaking. The deliberation of diplomacy was crucial to its international acceptance and to the cooperation of neutrals in its implementation.

The United States, in particular, with its large German population in the Midwest and a vociferous Irish immigrant community, had good reasons to take exception to a British policy designed to close off overseas markets. Britain did of course also have immense advantages in its courting of American opinion, the English language and a common const.i.tutional inheritance among them. The News Department of the Foreign Office distributed the publications of the War Propaganda Bureau through its emba.s.sies and consulates to opinion-formers - newspaper editors and politicians. Books and pamphlets, written by famous authors like John Buchan and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and produced by private publis.h.i.+ng houses, eschewed bombast for subtlety. Moreover, the British navy had taken control of the world's underwater cable networks at the outbreak of the war, so all German communications to destinations outside Europe had to be transmitted by wireless and were therefore vulnerable to interception. Room 40 acquired the German diplomatic code in 1915, and also began reading neutral mail. In due course 'Blinker' Hall was enmeshed in counter-intelligence in the United States, exposing German sabotage and pre-empting Germany's own propaganda.

In this battle for the ideological high ground, Britain had a clinching if less idealistic argument. America's protests about the obstacles created to free trade were silenced by the profits that allied orders generated. In January 1914 US exports by value totalled $204 million. In July the economy was in depression and exports had fallen to $154 million. By December they had climbed back to $245 million. A year later, in December 1915, they reached $359 million, and in December 1916 $523 million. American shares soared: the Dow Jones index showed an 80 per cent gain between December 1914 and December 1915.13 The Central Powers were just as ready as the Entente to pay high prices for goods, and could - as the pre-war British pessimists had recognised - channel imports, especially those which were not contraband, via private businesses in neutral states. The opportunity for profit not just in the United States but also in Holland, Switzerland and Scandinavia was immense. Therefore, in addition to propaganda, the Foreign Office had a second task, that of industrial espionage. Britain took on responsibility for the blockade at sea and France that for the control of land routes. Each had to establish from scratch an enormous database on European trade. Bills of lading and s.h.i.+ps' manifests were scrutinised. Consuls paced quaysides checking the trans.h.i.+pment of goods. Captain M. Consett, the British naval attache in Scandinavia throughout the war, reported from Copenhagen that 'consignments of oil from New York consigned to - are reaching Germany through the intermediation of Mr. - residing in this town. The oil, which is in barrels, is marked "in transit at the buyer's expense," and addressed Nykjebing, Gottenberg and other ports. The barrels are brought down to the wharf ostensibly for s.h.i.+pment on vessels sailing for neutral ports, but on the other side of these are moored vessels bound for Lubeck and other German ports. The barrels are merely pa.s.sed across the decks of the vessels which are supposed to receive them, and placed on board the vessels bound for Germany.'14 With information like this, the British were able to use commercial pressures to persuade businesses to collude in the blockade, regardless of the political sympathies of their parent governments. Naval control meant they could disrupt normal maritime trade by stopping s.h.i.+ps, checking their cargoes and directing vessels to port, where they might be detained for three to four weeks. Neutral firms therefore had an incentive to form cartels to which goods could be consigned. The cartels guaranteed that the imports for their member firms were destined for domestic consumption and not for re-export to the Central Powers. The Netherlands Overseas Trust, set up in December 1914, was the first. In July 1915, 135 out of 186 vessels arriving in Holland were not detained; about three-quarters of those bound for Denmark, Norway and Sweden were.15 The Netherlands Overseas Trust therefore became a model for other trades. During the course of 1915 coercion gave teeth to the pressures for cooperation. Britain followed France in restricting the imports of the neutral states bordering Germany to their pre-war levels. Sweden found its rubber imports curtailed and the King complained that he could not play tennis. But such a policy only checked the escalation in trans.h.i.+pments; it did nothing to prevent the neutrals selling their own domestic produce. By 1915 Dutch cheese exports to Germany had tripled since 1913, and those of pork had risen five times. Sweden s.h.i.+pped four times the quant.i.ty of herring. In 1916, therefore, the Entente began the practice of pre-emptively purchasing the neutrals' produce: this was particularly important in the one sea it did not control, the Baltic. The Netherlands Overseas Trust therefore became a model for other trades. During the course of 1915 coercion gave teeth to the pressures for cooperation. Britain followed France in restricting the imports of the neutral states bordering Germany to their pre-war levels. Sweden found its rubber imports curtailed and the King complained that he could not play tennis. But such a policy only checked the escalation in trans.h.i.+pments; it did nothing to prevent the neutrals selling their own domestic produce. By 1915 Dutch cheese exports to Germany had tripled since 1913, and those of pork had risen five times. Sweden s.h.i.+pped four times the quant.i.ty of herring. In 1916, therefore, the Entente began the practice of pre-emptively purchasing the neutrals' produce: this was particularly important in the one sea it did not control, the Baltic.

The growth of the blockade's bureaucracy resulted in the creation in Britain in 1916 of a Ministry of Blockade, an offshoot of the Foreign Office. Both Britain and more especially France now saw the blockade as a means by which not only to defeat Germany but also to exclude it from markets after the war. In June 1916 an allied economic conference in Paris, following an agenda set largely by Etienne Clementel, the French minister of commerce, responded to the hot blast of pre-war German compet.i.tion by proposing to protect key national industries after the war and to reserve allied raw materials for the use of the Entente partners. Thus far Britain had maintained the fiction of free trade by doing deals with business interests in neutral states. But its commitment to the principle of the open market had never been doctrinaire. At home, the slogan of 'business as usual' exemplified the idea not that the political economy of the state was unchanged by the outbreak of war, but that business must carry on because it was a key component in Britain's war effort. Abroad, obeisance to the idea of free trade reflected that same principle: trade with the United States was crucial not simply to Britain's own war effort but even more to those of its allies. While Was.h.i.+ngton remained neutral, market forces, not government policy, had to determine the pattern both of allied purchasing and of the allied blockade.

German imports during the war fell by 60 per cent. But exports also fell - rather more, and for reasons which were not exclusively the consequence of the blockade.16 The war demanded that resources be channelled to sustain the military effort rather than the balance of trade. The blockade therefore made a virtue of autarchy, and nowhere was this principle more deeply etched than among German farmers and food-processors. Germany produced enough food to feed itself in the war. On the basis that an average daily intake of 2,240 calories was the norm, the German population experienced real hards.h.i.+p only in the months immediately after the failed harvest of 1916. In February 1917 daily rations dropped to 1,000 calories per person. This so-called 'turnip winter' - when turnips replaced potatoes - makes the point. Germans saw the turnip as animal feed. Their hunger, genuinely felt, arose from expectations derived from pre-war diets - varied, rich in fats and meat, and at least 15 per cent greater than the population's physiological needs. Those were the norms to which they aspired. The fact that after the winter of 1916-17 the average calorie intake did not again fall below 95 per cent of the norm did not offset the monotony of what was available. The war demanded that resources be channelled to sustain the military effort rather than the balance of trade. The blockade therefore made a virtue of autarchy, and nowhere was this principle more deeply etched than among German farmers and food-processors. Germany produced enough food to feed itself in the war. On the basis that an average daily intake of 2,240 calories was the norm, the German population experienced real hards.h.i.+p only in the months immediately after the failed harvest of 1916. In February 1917 daily rations dropped to 1,000 calories per person. This so-called 'turnip winter' - when turnips replaced potatoes - makes the point. Germans saw the turnip as animal feed. Their hunger, genuinely felt, arose from expectations derived from pre-war diets - varied, rich in fats and meat, and at least 15 per cent greater than the population's physiological needs. Those were the norms to which they aspired. The fact that after the winter of 1916-17 the average calorie intake did not again fall below 95 per cent of the norm did not offset the monotony of what was available.17 Coffee was a case in point. It served a psychological function more than a physical one. The War Food Office, created in 1916 under the auspices of the Prussian Ministry of War, recognised 'the meaningful influence that coffee and quasi-coffee drinks had on the general morale of the population', and deemed it a 'most important food'. Coffee was a case in point. It served a psychological function more than a physical one. The War Food Office, created in 1916 under the auspices of the Prussian Ministry of War, recognised 'the meaningful influence that coffee and quasi-coffee drinks had on the general morale of the population', and deemed it a 'most important food'.18 Wartime coffee, however, was no longer made even of chicory or beet, but of bark. Bread was another example. In January 1915 Wartime coffee, however, was no longer made even of chicory or beet, but of bark. Bread was another example. In January 1915 K-Brot K-Brot was introduced: the 'K' stood for was introduced: the 'K' stood for Kartoffeln Kartoffeln, or potatoes, whose flour was used in its baking, but for propaganda reasons it was dubbed Kriegsbrot Kriegsbrot or 'war bread'. Nutritionally or 'war bread'. Nutritionally K-Brot K-Brot was perfectly adequate, but it did not taste as Germans felt bread should taste. Sausages inspired particular inventiveness and comparable contempt. They contained 5 per cent fat, most of the rest being water, although cooking salt and vegetable leaf provided some flavour. Over 800 types of subst.i.tute sausage were recognised by the war's end, and over 10,000 other was perfectly adequate, but it did not taste as Germans felt bread should taste. Sausages inspired particular inventiveness and comparable contempt. They contained 5 per cent fat, most of the rest being water, although cooking salt and vegetable leaf provided some flavour. Over 800 types of subst.i.tute sausage were recognised by the war's end, and over 10,000 other Ersatz Ersatz foods. foods.19 Indeed Indeed Ersatz Ersatz itself ceased to mean subst.i.tute and came to mean fake. Nor was it much compensation to be told that, as the body shed weight, it needed less food to sustain itself. In October 1916 Ethel Cooper, an Australian living in Leipzig, noticing that three of her German friends had each lost 2 stone, realised that she too was 'down to 6 stone 10 ... There is so little nourishment in the present food, that one always has an empty feeling an hour after a meal.' itself ceased to mean subst.i.tute and came to mean fake. Nor was it much compensation to be told that, as the body shed weight, it needed less food to sustain itself. In October 1916 Ethel Cooper, an Australian living in Leipzig, noticing that three of her German friends had each lost 2 stone, realised that she too was 'down to 6 stone 10 ... There is so little nourishment in the present food, that one always has an empty feeling an hour after a meal.'20 Averages were not the same as each individual's daily food consumption. This varied according to age, s.e.x, occupation, cla.s.s and region of residence; it depended on the time of year and the year of the war. Many Germans did not have enough food and what there was was unfairly distributed. Food shortages were not exclusively the product of the blockade; the allies' efforts interacted with difficulties of the Germans' own making. Between 1890 and 1913 imports of fertiliser to Germany had risen fourfold and as a result yields of cereals had increased by between 50 and 60 per cent per hectare. The blockade cut off imports of saltpetre from Chile, and the quant.i.ty of nitrates used in agriculture halved. Fritz Haber had developed the synthetic production of nitrogen, but in 1914 the process's value to Germany lay particularly in the production of explosives. Mobilisation took horses, as well as over 3 million agricultural workers, from farming, and therefore reduced the supply of both manure and labour. Between 1913 and 1918 the area of Germany under cultivation fell by 15 per cent and yields of cereals by a minimum of 30 per cent.21 Communal feeding was one German response to the British blockade The Mittelstand, Mittelstand, white-collar workers often on fixed incomes, were particularly affected by rising food prices, and their corollary - falling real wages For them the war meant loss of status white-collar workers often on fixed incomes, were particularly affected by rising food prices, and their corollary - falling real wages For them the war meant loss of status

The German government realised very early in the war that food would be a problem: it introduced its first food controls in 1914, four years before Britain. But it responded to rising food prices and their consequent pressure on real wages by fixing prices at the point of production, not at the point of sale. The result was that producers withdrew from the market. Milk was deemed a staple, vital to children, to nursing mothers and the weak, but in 1915 the price of milk rose from 12 pfennigs per litre to as much as 3 3 pfennigs, an increase which in percentage terms workers' wages had still not matched by the war's end in 1918. In Berlin in November 1915 the price was set at 30 pfennigs, but that did nothing to promote city deliveries, which continued to decline.22 Price control prompted farmers to switch to the production of b.u.t.ter and cheese, which were not regulated. The most notorious consequence of this fragmented approach was the so-called 'pig ma.s.sacre'. By early 1915 potato shortages were attributed to the fodder requirements of pigs, which were consequently deemed to be getting priority over people. Pigs were slaughtered, resulting first in a glut of pork and then in a shortage. Thereafter it was not only the price of pork which rose, but also that of other livestock, to which both farmers and consumers now turned. At the same time the government held down the prices of bread and potatoes, and therefore paid relatively more to farmers to bring what the latter judged to be animal fodder to the human market 'at a loss'. Price control prompted farmers to switch to the production of b.u.t.ter and cheese, which were not regulated. The most notorious consequence of this fragmented approach was the so-called 'pig ma.s.sacre'. By early 1915 potato shortages were attributed to the fodder requirements of pigs, which were consequently deemed to be getting priority over people. Pigs were slaughtered, resulting first in a glut of pork and then in a shortage. Thereafter it was not only the price of pork which rose, but also that of other livestock, to which both farmers and consumers now turned. At the same time the government held down the prices of bread and potatoes, and therefore paid relatively more to farmers to bring what the latter judged to be animal fodder to the human market 'at a loss'.23 A German U-boat observes at least one rule of cruiser war by surfacing to fire its torpedo Given the limited number of torpedoes that each submanne could carry, accuracy was vital

Price controls were largely fictional, in any case. Inflation fed by an increase of the note issue meant that an excessive supply of money was chasing too few goods. In the autumn of 1917 rye was being sold for 380 per cent more than the official price, beans for 200 per cent and b.u.t.ter 90 per cent. The black market was so pervasive that for most of those directly involved in Germany's war effort rations were no more than notional. Even the army colluded in the black market to feed its soldiers, and perhaps one-third of Germany's food was sold this way by 1918. Money not need therefore determined who got food, so it became a source of cla.s.s division. All were encouraged to buck the authority of the state and descend into petty criminality. 'Everybody who can afford it bribes his trades people,' Ethel Cooper reported in December 1917. 'Those who will not, or cannot bribe, are told that the meat is sold out, and the others get four times the proper amount.'24 The farmers became convinced that the city-dwellers were profiteers, and the latter were persuaded that the farmers were well-fed h.o.a.rders. Townspeople went into the country, evading inspectors at the stations, on so-called hamster trips, 'to see if the farmers and peasants can be persuaded to sell us something to eat'. The farmers became convinced that the city-dwellers were profiteers, and the latter were persuaded that the farmers were well-fed h.o.a.rders. Townspeople went into the country, evading inspectors at the stations, on so-called hamster trips, 'to see if the farmers and peasants can be persuaded to sell us something to eat'.25 Failing that, they simply stole. Thus the town was set against the country. Regional imbalances were also the product of local administration, and so deepened the political divisions within the federation of Germany. The blockade worked not in isolation but through its interaction with the fault lines in German society and in the structure of the German polity. Failing that, they simply stole. Thus the town was set against the country. Regional imbalances were also the product of local administration, and so deepened the political divisions within the federation of Germany. The blockade worked not in isolation but through its interaction with the fault lines in German society and in the structure of the German polity.

U-BOAT WAR.

It was of course easier to blame food shortages on the allied blockade than on maladministration. As a result the demand for retaliation in kind was genuinely popular. With the elimination of the German cruiser threat by the end of 1914, these hopes came to be pinned on the U-boat. Before the war Jackie Fisher had scandalised his a.s.sociates in the British Admiralty with the suggestion that the submarine might be used for commerce raiding, but in October 1914 Hermann Bauer, the leader of the German submarine service, made exactly that proposal to Admiral Ingenohl. The constraints were technical, numerical and legal. The submarine was designed above all for use in coastal waters, not for long voyages. Moreover, the Germans possessed so few that there were unlikely to be sufficient to overwhelm the volume of incoming British trade. Their effects would be achieved less through damage than through terror, and through scaring off neutral tonnage in particular. But this was where the legal requirements of cruiser warfare impinged. The laws of war at sea expected the submarine to behave in the same way as a conventional wars.h.i.+p. In other words, she had to surface, give notice of her intention to sink a vessel and allow time for the crew to abandon s.h.i.+p. In the process the safety of the submarine herself was compromised.

None the less, support for Bauer's idea gathered after 2 November 1914, when as part of the blockade the British declared the North Sea a military area. From the outset Bethmann Hollweg and the Foreign Ministry were concerned about the possible reactions of neutrals, but the combination of press agitation and naval frustration overbore both of them, and on 4 February 1915 the Kaiser announced that the North Sea was a war zone and that all merchantmen, including neutral vessels, were liable to be sunk without warning. The US government immediately protested in the strongest terms, and in so doing opened a fault line between Germany's politicians, anxious to avoid incurring American wrath, and its sailors, determined to prosecute the U-boat campaign as vigorously as possible. Orders regarding the treatment of neutral vessels became ambiguous and the accusations directed by one belligerent against the other increasingly heated - and on the whole justified. The British flew neutral flags, and they armed merchant s.h.i.+ps. If the U-boat captain obeyed international law he was liable to have his submarine attacked, particularly if he had fallen for one of the British decoys, the heavily armed but equally heavily disguised Q s.h.i.+ps. In July 1916 the Germans court-martialled Charles Fryatt, master of the Brussels, Brussels, a British merchant vessel, on the grounds that on 28 March 1915 he had attempted to ram a U-boat although not himself a member of a combatant service. Fryatt was executed. a British merchant vessel, on the grounds that on 28 March 1915 he had attempted to ram a U-boat although not himself a member of a combatant service. Fryatt was executed.

In terms of propaganda and diplomatic effect, Fryatt's 'deliberate murder', as the New York Times New York Times called it, worked in Britain's favour. called it, worked in Britain's favour.26 But even more powerful ammunition was the sinking of the But even more powerful ammunition was the sinking of the Lusitania Lusitania off the Irish coast on 7 May 1915. She was indubitably a British-owned vessel, and as it happened she was carrying munitions. But she was princ.i.p.ally a pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p, and among the 1,201 who died were many women and children, including 128 American citizens. Colonel Edward House, plenipotentiary of Woodrow Wilson, the American president, had crossed the Atlantic in the Cunard liner only weeks before and was about to sit down to a dinner in London organised by the American amba.s.sador when the news came. House telegrammed the president to say that 'America has come to the parting of the ways, when she must determine whether she stands for civilized or uncivilized warfare. We can no longer remain neutral spectators. Our action in this crisis will determine the part we will play when peace is made, and how far we may influence a settlement for the lasting good of humanity. We are being weighed in the balance, and our position among nations is being a.s.sessed by mankind.' off the Irish coast on 7 May 1915. She was indubitably a British-owned vessel, and as it happened she was carrying munitions. But she was princ.i.p.ally a pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p, and among the 1,201 who died were many women and children, including 128 American citizens. Colonel Edward House, plenipotentiary of Woodrow Wilson, the American president, had crossed the Atlantic in the Cunard liner only weeks before and was about to sit down to a dinner in London organised by the American amba.s.sador when the news came. House telegrammed the president to say that 'America has come to the parting of the ways, when she must determine whether she stands for civilized or uncivilized warfare. We can no longer remain neutral spectators. Our action in this crisis will determine the part we will play when peace is made, and how far we may influence a settlement for the lasting good of humanity. We are being weighed in the balance, and our position among nations is being a.s.sessed by mankind.'27 On 10 May 1915 Queenstown in Ireland came to a halt, as 130 victims of the sinking of the Lusitania were Lusitania were buried in a ma.s.s grave buried in a ma.s.s grave

Such sentiments were calculated to appeal to Wilson's idealism, but so, too, did his own argument that 'there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right'.28 Wilson, an academic and a Democrat, whose high principles reflected his Presbyterian upbringing, had been president since 1913. For the moment he held back from war. In doing so he reflected the views of most of his fellow citizens, but he still went further than his pacifist secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, was prepared to accept. Bryan resigned when Wilson sent Germany a strong note demanding that it cease submarine warfare against unarmed merchantmen. It was a significant step: the sinking of the Wilson, an academic and a Democrat, whose high principles reflected his Presbyterian upbringing, had been president since 1913. For the moment he held back from war. In doing so he reflected the views of most of his fellow citizens, but he still went further than his pacifist secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, was prepared to accept. Bryan resigned when Wilson sent Germany a strong note demanding that it cease submarine warfare against unarmed merchantmen. It was a significant step: the sinking of the Lusitania Lusitania had convinced his successor, Robert Lansing, that ultimately the United States would have to enter the war against Germany. had convinced his successor, Robert Lansing, that ultimately the United States would have to enter the war against Germany.

In Germany itself, the incident inclined both Bethmann Hollweg and the Kaiser's circle in favour of operating under cruiser rules once more. In the short term the quant.i.ty of tonnage sunk actually rose rather than fell, as surfacing enabled the U-boats to use their guns and so economise on torpedoes. But on 19 August 1915 the crew of the British Q s.h.i.+p, Baralong, Baralong, sailing under the American flag until she opened fire, sank the U 27 and then killed out of hand the boarding party the Germans had put on a captured merchant vessel. British attempts to justify the sailing under the American flag until she opened fire, sank the U 27 and then killed out of hand the boarding party the Germans had put on a captured merchant vessel. British attempts to justify the Baralong's Baralong's action by reference to the fate of the Arabic, a pa.s.senger liner sunk without warning the same day, were somewhat specious but worked in the United States, because three Americans had been aboard her. By September the constraints on the U-boat commanders imposed by the Kaiser, as well as the internal friction they were generating within the navy itself, were sufficient to persuade the naval staff to suspend U-boat warfare. action by reference to the fate of the Arabic, a pa.s.senger liner sunk without warning the same day, were somewhat specious but worked in the United States, because three Americans had been aboard her. By September the constraints on the U-boat commanders imposed by the Kaiser, as well as the internal friction they were generating within the navy itself, were sufficient to persuade the naval staff to suspend U-boat warfare.

In the early hours of 30 June 1916 dynamite and munitions, loaded in rail cars and barges on Black Tom, a promontory ir New Jersey, caught fire The explosions shook the Brooklyn Bridge and blew out windows in Manhattan Believed at the time to be an accident, this was in fact the work of German saboteurs.

Scheer was not prepared to accept such pa.s.sivity, and after Jutland his a.s.sertion that the submarine was the most obvious weapon with which to strike Britain gained in stridency. He now had powerful support from the army. Falkenhayn had proposed a U-boat campaign against Britain to accompany his attack on France at Verdun, and when Hindenburg and Ludendorff replaced him they, too, accepted that economic warfare, not direct confrontation on the battlefields of France and Flanders, was the way to tackle Britain. However, they wanted to wait until they had sufficient forces available to deal with Holland and Denmark, should an unrestricted campaign drive the neutral states into the arms of the Entente. At the end of August 1916 Romania had finally been persuaded by the success of Brusilov's offensive in Galicia to declare war on the Central Powers, and therefore a new front had just opened for Germany. By December Mackensen and the recently demoted Falkenhayn had overrun most of Romania. The army supreme command planned to remain on the defensive in the west in 1917, and endorsed a memorandum written on 22 December by the chief of the naval staff, Henning von Holtzendorff, arguing that unrestricted U-boat warfare could win the war by autumn 1917. Once again German strategy was out of step. At the beginning of 1916, military action had not been accompanied by naval; at the beginning of 1917, naval action was seen as partial compensation for the renunciation of military.

Bethmann Hollweg remained very worried about the likely American response. At one level this seemed irrational. In the autumn of 1916 Wilson fought his campaign for re-election as president with the slogan 'He kept us out of the war'. But his success reflected other factors - his record in domestic policy, above all. Moreover, although he had not done as much to prepare the United States for intervention in Europe as Theodore Roosevelt and other Republicans demanded, he had secured the pa.s.sage of the National Defense Act in May 1916, doubling the regular army and expanding the National Guard, and of the Naval Appropriations Act in June, setting out to create a US navy equal to the most powerful in the world by 1925. Wilson's policy was one of internationalism, but he recognised that its fulfilment might require the United States to take up arms. A German move to unrestricted submarine warfare was likely to he the precipitant to such a step. The chancellor resolved to appease potential American wrath by himself proposing peace.

For Hindenburg and Ludendorff peace could only be a 'German peace', the product of an overwhelming German victory. The conquest of Romania enabled Bethmann Hollweg to persuade the army that, if Germany took the initiative in suggesting peace negotiations, it could not be interpreted as doing so out of weakness. But the chancellor was so constrained by the army's shopping list of war aims that his offer. when it was published on 12 December, was meaningless. It failed to specify terms, and it was accompanied by an order to the armed forces stating that the peace offer rested on a German victory. Realising that the Entente was likely to reject the German initiative, Wilson stepped in with one of his own. On 18 December he invited the belligerents to state their terms. But the Entente did not want a peace set by America, and the Germans did not want a public debate on war aims, which was likely to divide the country internally. The failure of the December 1916 peace initiatives was not simply the consequence of diplomatic manoeuvres and the great powers' amours propres. amours propres. There were irreconcilable issues here, which, if exposed in negotiation, would have deepened and explained the war's continuation, not ended it. France could not agree terms without securing the return of Alsace-Lorraine. and Germany could not accept that the provinces were not German. Britain had gone to war to restore Belgian sovereignty, hut the German navy was now clear that access to the Channel ports would be vital for Germany's future security, especially in the event of what many in Germany were already billing as the 'Second Punic War'. December 1916 was a caesura in the war's course, but not one which opened up a real possibility of ending it. Instead it confirmed its rationale. There were irreconcilable issues here, which, if exposed in negotiation, would have deepened and explained the war's continuation, not ended it. France could not agree terms without securing the return of Alsace-Lorraine. and Germany could not accept that the provinces were not German. Britain had gone to war to restore Belgian sovereignty, hut the German navy was now clear that access to the Channel ports would be vital for Germany's future security, especially in the event of what many in Germany were already billing as the 'Second Punic War'. December 1916 was a caesura in the war's course, but not one which opened up a real possibility of ending it. Instead it confirmed its rationale.

The Entente side-stepped Wilson by declaring that it could not agree to talks on the basis of the German initiative. At 7 p.m. on 8 January 1917 the navy and army presented a united front in an audience with the Kaiser, 'who has suddenly come round to the idea that unrestricted U-boat warfare is now called for, and is definitely in favour of it even if the Chancellor is opposed to it. He voiced the very curious viewpoint', Georg von Muller, head of the naval cabinet, noted in his diary, 'that the U-boat war was a purely naval affair which did not concern the Chancellor in any way.'29 Bethmman Hollweg was not even at the meeting, and when he was informed of the Kaiser's decision he simply accepted it. He had run out of options, hemmed in between the armed forces on the one hand and public opinion on the other. When at the end of the month he rose in the Reichstag to announce the decision to begin unrestricted U-boat warfare on 1 February 1917, 'his voice was hoa.r.s.e and rough. It was evidently very painful for him to plead for a policy which formerly he had pa.s.sionately opposed.' Bethmman Hollweg was not even at the meeting, and when he was informed of the Kaiser's decision he simply accepted it. He had run out of options, hemmed in between the armed forces on the one hand and public opinion on the other. When at the end of the month he rose in the Reichstag to announce the decision to begin unrestricted U-boat warfare on 1 February 1917, 'his voice was hoa.r.s.e and rough. It was evidently very painful for him to plead for a policy which formerly he had pa.s.sionately opposed.'30 THE UNITED STATES ENTERS THE WAR.

Wilson too had failed. It was now clear that the United States could not partic.i.p.ate in the creation of a liberal international world order by staying out of the conflict. On 3 February America broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. Its reason for doing so was the danger to American s.h.i.+pping, but within sixteen days its amba.s.sador in London knew of a possible German threat to the United States itself. In 1916 John J. Pers.h.i.+ng had led an American military expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa, a bandit backed by the Germans. Mexico's resentment at this intervention encouraged Arthur Zimmermann, the German foreign minister, to think that the Mexicans might relish the opportunity to invade Texas. He therefore signalled Germany's amba.s.sador in Was.h.i.+ngton, telling him to broach the idea of an alliance with Mexico in the event of war between Germany and the United States. He used three different routes to send the message and Room 40 intercepted all three. By 17 January 'Blinker' Hall had an incomplete version and on 19 February he was able to brief the US amba.s.sador in London. Wilson published the Zimmermann telegram as though the Americans had deciphered it themselves, so protecting Room 40's secrecy.

The revelation, and Zimmermann's own acceptance of its truth, persuaded those of the American people who remained to be convinced that America should intervene in the war. However, despite the appearances that it and the German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare created, Wilson's decision for war was neither reactive nor defensive. On 2 April 1917 he addressed the American nation, telling it of the cabinet's unanimous resolve: 'the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts - for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.'31 He meant what he said, and in saying it he revalidated and reformulated the big ideas which Britain and France had espoused in 1914, but which had lost their l.u.s.tre in the mud and blood of the intervening years. But he had little to offer in terms of immediate contribution, despite his measures to improve America's military preparedness in 1916. The army mustered 100,000 men, a third of whom were in the cavalry or coastal artillery. Pers.h.i.+ng's expedition against Pancho Villa marked the limits of its capability. Wilson immediately adopted conscription, on the grounds that it was the most democratic form of military enlistment, but the creation of a ma.s.s army had two short-term consequences likely to work against the rapid despatch of the American Expeditionary Force overseas: first, it required the existing army to become the cadre for the new, and second, the latter was likely to commandeer the war production of American factories carefully nurtured by Britain and France. When Ludendorff dismissed the military implications of America's entry, he was not just resorting to bravado. He reckoned that the United States could not put a major army on the continent of Europe until 1919, an a.s.sessment which exactly reflected America's own a.s.sumptions, and he knew that Germany would have to have won the war by then.

What Ludendorff's calculations failed to take into account was the consequences of America's entry for the conduct of economic warfare. They were much more immediate, and paradoxically it was they which were in large part responsible for his conclusion that the war would have to be over by 1919.

On 28 November 1916 the Federal Reserve Board, the nearest agency the United States had to a central bank, had published a warning to its member banks, advising against the purchase of foreign treasury bills. By this stage of the war Britain was spending about $250 million per month in the United States, both on its own behalf and on that of its allies. Much of it was devoted to supporting the sterling-dollar exchange rate, in order to control the price of American goods. It reflected a dependence on American industry and on the American stock market which in German minds both justified the submarine campaign and undermined the United States's claim to be neutral. Britain and France had calculated on spending $1,500 million in the United States in the six-month period between October 1916 and April 1917, and they antic.i.p.ated funding five-sixths of it by borrowing in New York - in other words, by selling treasury bills. On 28 November the Federal Reserve Board had been swayed by the views of one of its members in particular, Paul Warburg, a German by birth, who argued that the average American investor was too deeply dependent on an Entente victory. He believed that this over-exposure should be wound down. What followed was better described as a crash: $1,000 million was wiped off the stock market in a week. By 1 April 1917 Britain had an overdraft in the United States of $358 million and was spending $75 million a week.32 The American entry to the war saved the Entente - and possibly some American speculators - from bankruptcy. The American entry to the war saved the Entente - and possibly some American speculators - from bankruptcy.

Allied borrowing in the war after the United States's entry became the goad with which the United States could drive forward allied economic cooperation. The US Treasury refused to see the Entente's funding needs in isola-tion. It aimed to reduce wastefulness in their orders and above all to eliminate price inflation caused by the rivalries of compet.i.tive tendering. A joint committee on war purchases and finance was established in August 1917. The committee's remit extended to purchases from neutrals. The Entente had created a wheat executive in 1916; after America's entry, the model spread to other commodities. By 1917-18 the alliance was the most powerful economic bloc in the world's commodity markets, and its ordering created what were virtually global monopolies in the purchasing of major foodstuffs.

The United States enters the war, April 1917 the Stars and Stripes, borne in a British tank, are paraded past the Flatiron in New York.

What underpinned this was the blockade, which gave the allies the power of coercion. Moreover, the entry of the most powerful remaining neutral to the war removed any final constraint on the enforcement of blockade. America showed few of the reservations in dealing with the neutrals bordering on Germany displayed by Britain. Holtzendorff had hoped that the submarine would scare neutral s.h.i.+pping away; in reality, it had the effect of cutting the flow of imports to Germany's border neutrals and so reduced the quant.i.ties available for onward trans.h.i.+pment. s.h.i.+pping losses, as much as shortage of foreign exchange, forced the allies to coordinate their controls on purchasing, thus squeezing the Central Powers even more out of world markets. Both indirectly and directly, the German decision to adopt unrestricted U-boat war tightened the economic stranglehold in which it was gripped.

And that was where the United States's military contribution was first felt. Pers.h.i.+ng, appointed to command the American army in Europe, did not arrive in France until 14 June. Rear-Admiral W S. Sims, commanding the American naval forces in European waters, reached Britain on 9 April, three days after the formal declaration of war. In London, the US amba.s.sador and he drafted a cable to the president: 'Whatever help the United States may render at any time in the future, or in any theatre of the war, our help is now more seriously needed in this submarine area for the sake of all the Allies than it can ever be needed again, or anywhere else.'33

8.

REVOLUTION.

LIBERALISM UNDER CHALLENGE.

No one for a moment believes that we are going to lose this war,' Lord Lansdowne wrote in a memorandum for the British cabinet on 13 November 1916, 'but what is our chance of winning it in such a manner, and within such limits of time, as will enable us to beat our enemy to the ground and impose upon him the kind of terms which we so freely discuss?'1 Lansdowne's colleagues were quick to condemn him as a tired old man. Sir William Robertson lumped him together with 'cranks, cowards and philosophers, some of whom are afraid of their own skins being hurt'. Lansdowne's colleagues were quick to condemn him as a tired old man. Sir William Robertson lumped him together with 'cranks, cowards and philosophers, some of whom are afraid of their own skins being hurt'. 2 2 Lansdowne was none of those things: he had been secretary of state for war during the Boer War and had then moved to the Foreign Office. To speak as he did showed that he did not lack moral courage. Nor was he as isolated as his critics subsequently maintained. 'I am very depressed about the war', Lloyd George, himself now secretary of war, confided to Lord Riddell over dinner six days later. 'Perhaps it is because I am tired. I have not felt so depressed before. I want to go away for a week alone, so that I may think quietly by myself. Things look bad.'3 Ironically, Lloyd George was, in one sense, Lansdowne's target. On 27 September, in an interview with an American journalist, he had pre-empted any suggestion that the United States might mediate in the conflict: 'there can be no outside interference at this stage. Britain asked no intervention when she was unprepared to fight. She will tolerate none now that she is prepared, until the Prussian military despotism is broken beyond repair.'4 Lansdowne rejected Lloyd George's commitment to the 'knock-out blow'. 'Surely it cannot be our intention,' his memorandum stated rather than asked, 'no matter how long the War lasts, no matter what the strain on our resources, to maintain this att.i.tude, or to declare as M. Briand declared about the same time, that for us too "the word peace is sacrilege".'5 A Conservative, he saw the society and values with which he identified being destroyed by the very process designed to defend them. Across the Channel, on 27 December, Daniel Halevy, a middle-aged French intellectual who had dabbled in socialism and anarchism before the war, summarised his reactions to the subsequent failure of Wilson's peace initiative: 'Europe is at its last gasp; and that can only last a few months more'. A Conservative, he saw the society and values with which he identified being destroyed by the very process designed to defend them. Across the Channel, on 27 December, Daniel Halevy, a middle-aged French intellectual who had dabbled in socialism and anarchism before the war, summarised his reactions to the subsequent failure of Wilson's peace initiative: 'Europe is at its last gasp; and that can only last a few months more'.

Halevy's professional contacts had fed his unease. 'Guy-Grand knows the socialist world. He is worried about the ascendancy of Alphonse Merrheim, an tipatriotic radical, who has again taken hold of the metal-workers' union, that is to say the labour force which works for the war.... Gregh, who knows the political world, has doubts about even it: it is giving up, it is discouraged.' As an official in the French Foreign Ministry's propaganda department, the Maison de la Presse, Halevy appreciated as well as anybody the role of ideas in legitimating and explaining the sufferings of the previous two and half years. And by 6 February 1917 that realisation fortified him: 'I think that the discouragement and la.s.situde of individuals are not of great importance when the cause from which they derive is not individual, when it is a cause which is either national or idealistic, a cause ultimately which dominates the individual and employs him for its own ends without any consideration of what he suffers or what he wants.'

For Halevy, and for the Entente as a whole, the entry of the United States to the war in April 1917 had two direct benefits. The first was economic: 'America's intervention brings the certainty of permanent material aid; of useful maritime aid; it rea.s.sures us against exhaustion, it distances it, it lengthens our time, and the lengthening can be the victory'. Halevy appreciated that, for those who had begun to doubt the rationale for the war itself, the certainty that the allies would prevail in a war of exhaustion was not so rea.s.suring. For them America could be seen in negative terms, as prolonging the ordeal rather than terminating it. Thus in many ways the second American contribution was even more important than the first, and at the very least made sense of it: 'The intervention of America brings an immense boost, not only moral but also ideological. It is wholly liberal. It wants disarmament by cooperation and negotiation.... Our war was in the process of becoming a struggle of nation alisms, and the most robust, the most genuine, was European nationalism. It has become, thanks to Wilson, a struggle of humanitarian cooperation against nationalist absolutism.'6 By the beginning of 1917, as both Lansdowne and Halevy recognised, the business of making war threatened the liberal values that France and Britain had espoused with such fervour in 1914. The power of the state trumped the rights of the individual. Although this was a matter of natural law, its most immediate and real effect was financial. The normal system of budgetary controls was forfeit as the belligerent governments became the princ.i.p.al purchasers of goods, which they paid for with money they had raised largely through borrowing and taxation, devices they regulated. The moral consequence was a denial of personal responsibility. 'He signed cheques', Georges Clemenceau said of Lucien Klotz, France's last wartime finance minister, 'as though he was signing autographs.7'

The workforce of the Britsh armaments manufacturer Vickers a.s.semble for a group photograph to mark the armistice, 11 November 1918 War had prought full employment but many voug lose their jobs

In France the Law of Siege, invoked on 2 August 1914, gave the army the power to requisition goods, to control the press, and to apply military to civilians; it even subordinated the police to military control. Not until 1 September 1915 did the civilian administration in the interior regain control of policing, and not until April 1916 were strict limits set to the courts martial of civilians. In the military zone, close to the front, the army jealously guarded its prerogatives. Throughout 1915 efforts to inspect it by the Army Committee of the Chamber of Deputies were rebuffed. In October the appointment as minister of war of General Joseph-Simon Gallieni, seen as the saviour of Paris in September 1914 by many - and of all France by some - made approval for such visits easier, but only on a case-by-case basis. Gallieni, while anxious to curb the power of Joffre and his headquarters, was still a soldier: 'As for the ministry', he noted on 21 October, 'I am more and more resolved to accept it only if I have complete freedom and am independent of parliament'.8 When Gallieni resigned as a result of ill health in March 1916, his successor, another general, Pierre-Auguste Roques, tried to claim a greater independence of general headquarters than was the case: 'I do not want to be a sub-Joffre, but rather a ministerial friend of Joffre's'. When Gallieni resigned as a result of ill health in March 1916, his successor, another general, Pierre-Auguste Roques, tried to claim a greater independence of general headquarters than was the case: 'I do not want to be a sub-Joffre, but rather a ministerial friend of Joffre's'.9 Verdun discredited the French commander-in-chief and so aided the efforts to re-impose civilian control over the military. But the chronic instability of the governments of the Third Republic meant that for the time being their fortunes were still tied to the success or failure of their armies. Verdun discredited the French commander-in-chief and so aided the efforts to re-impose civilian control over the military. But the chronic instability of the governments of the Third Republic meant that for the time being their fortunes were still tied to the success or failure of their armies.

In Britain, the army never achieved that degree of autonomy, but the executive arrogated to itself powers which were contrary to any idea of parliamentary accountability and which affected the independence of the judiciary. The Defence of the Realm Act, pa.s.sed on 8 August 1914, although primarily designed to safeguard Britain's ports and railways from sabotage or espionage, permitted the trial of civilians by court martial. Its provisions were progressively extended to cover press censors.h.i.+p, requisitioning, control of the sale of alcohol (Britain's licensing laws date from 1915), and food regulations. After March 1918 a woman with venereal disease could be arrested for having s.e.x with her husband if he were a serviceman, even if he had first infected her. Piecemeal, the state acquired the right to intervene in the workings of the economy. Traditional Liberals complained that the import duties introduced in 1915 breached the party's axiomatic commitment to free trade; capitalists saw the excess-profits duty introduced in the same budget as an affront to the principles of Adam Smith. Nor were the mechanisms designed to soak up the liquidity generated by wartime business confined to the obviously wealthy. In 1914 income tax was a burden on the rich minority; during the war 2.4 million workers became liable to pay income tax for the first time, and by 1918-19 they made up two-thirds of all taxpayers. As significantly, those who did not pay tax avoided it because they were exempted on the grounds of family circ.u.mstance: in other words, they were no worse off financially (and probably the reverse) but they had now come under the purview of the state. The most significant step in the extension of state authority in Britain was compulsory military service, adopted by the Asquith coalition in the first half of 1916. 'The basis of our British Liberty', Richard Lambert, a Liberal member of parliament opposed to conscription, averred, 'lies in the free service of a free people ... Voluntary service lies at the root of Liberalism just as Conscription is the true weapon of Tyranny'.10 By the mid-point in the war Lambert was a comparatively isolated figure. This is the essential point with regard to the accretion of state power. The press and public grew angry more because not enough was done, than because the state had become the enemy of civil liberties. Asquith's government followed public opinion rather than driving it. When it acted it did so with consent. 'For the time, but it is to be hoped only for the time,' William Scott, Adam Smith Professor of Political Economy at Glasgow University, declared in a series of lectures given in London in early 1917, 'the freedom of the individual must be absorbed in that of the national effort. His true and permanent interest is interwoven with that of his country.'11 The erosion of the principles of liberalism and of const.i.tutional government was never really interpreted in Lambert's terms: in the short term people were prepared to become more like Prussia to defeat Prussianism. In France the debate on the extension of the state's power was even less emotive: the legacy of the French Revolution meant that the use of totalitarianism in the name of national defence had a powerful pedigree. In both countries, the popular cry was for more government direction, not less. The erosion of the principles of liberalism and of const.i.tutional government was never really interpreted in Lambert's terms: in the short term people were prepared to become more like Prussia to defeat Prussianism. In France the debate on the extension of the state's power was even less emotive: the legacy of the French Revolution meant that the use of totalitarianism in the name of national defence had a powerful pedigree. In both countries, the popular cry was for more government direction, not less.

It was on the back of this sentiment - the demand for a small war cabinet to direct the nation's strategy - that Asquith fell from power at the beginning of December 1916. An election should have been held in 1915, and was therefore overdue; the principle of universal military service had been introduced without the adoption of universal adult male suffrage (indeed, Britain had the most restrictive franchise of any European state except Hungary); and the formation of the coalition in May 1915 meant that opposition within parliament was effectively silenced. Lloyd George's arrival as prime minister in Asquith's stead might have presaged a return to democratic norms. He came from the radical wing