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Defense Policy - Great War

By her fateful decision of 4 August, 1914, Great Britain plunged into a world war which raged for over four and one quarter years, which involved three fourths of the population of the globe, which, first and last, called to arms upwards of 60,000,000 men, and covered a fighting area which included not only considerable portions of Europe, but parts of Asia, great stretches of Africa, and remote islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

The war aims of the British were voiced at the start and at intervals throughout the war by their leading statesmen with persistent consistency. " We shall never sheath the sword which we have not lightly drawn," declared Premier Asquith, 9 November, 1914, " until Belgium recovers in full measure all and more than all that she has sacrificed, until France is adequately secured against this menace of aggression, until the rights of the smaller nationalities of Europe are placed upon an unassailable foundation, and until military domination of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed."

The outbreak of the War found Great Britain unprepared in all respects save in the strength of her navy. In contrast to the navy, the British army was smaller than that of any other considerable European Power. At the most liberal estimate, it consisted of a highly trained regular force of 233,000 on the active list, and 203,000 on the reserve, exclusive of 150,000 Indian troops and a body of territorials for Home defense, amounting to 263,000 at most. Portions of the regulars were distributed in garrison duty and other activities in Ireland and overseas, except in the Self- governing Colonies which provided their own defense. Of the regulars, six divisions - aggregating 60,000 men - were at once sent to Belgium.

The first innovation in the Cabinet was to appoint as Secretary for War Lord Kitchener who, next to the aged Lord Roberts, was England's greatest living military hero. Kitchener showed great foresight in insisting, against the prevailing opinion, that the War would last at least three years; he achieved much in the way of recruiting and equipment; but he made the mistake of trying to do too much himself, and of trying to manage, from the hide-bound and torpid War Office, a vast complex organization that needed the cooperation of the best civilian administrative and business brains of the country.

The selection of a non-party Secretary for War was quickly followed by a party truce, so that for a while the Government had a free hand, except for the obstruction of pacifists and a few free lances. Moreover, various restrictions which hampered the expeditious action of the executive were done away with. Yet, in spite of the party truce, dissatisfaction began increasingly to manifest itself with the lack of energy, decision, and stability displayed by the Government. The authorities were confronted with a stupendous task - to raise an army of millions which had to be equipped and munitioned forthwith, and, at the same time, to provide for the civilian and check soaring prices, to say nothing of helping to supply and finance the Allies; and the innate tendency of the British openly to air their grievances, to submit all Governmental policy or lack of policy to "pitiless publicity" had no little effect in puzzling and misleading neutral countries where they were seeking to combat German propaganda.

The First Cabinet Crisis (May 1915) was brought to a head by two facts. One was the resignation of Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord, in consequence of sharp differences with Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, over the ill-fated Gallipoli expedition: the other was the ominous outcry against the notorious lack of munitions which was so seriously hampering Marshal French on the western front. Since the Unionists refused to refrain further from party criticism, the Cabinet was reconstituted, and although Mr. Asquith continued as Premier, eight Unionists and one Laborite were admitted in a Cabinet of twenty-two. Mr. Lloyd George was transferred from the Exchequer to a newly created Ministry of Munitions, where he achieved wonders. Confronted by national necessity, and reassured by the admission of a substantial number of their own party into the Cabinet, the Conservative opposition was once more stayed for a time.

The Lloyd George War Cabinet and Ministry (December 1916) arose after the Coalition Cabinet had hung on for eighteen months. Acute and growing differences developed over conscription, then, after that was carried, over the most effective utilization of man power; over the withdrawal from Gallipoli; over aid to Serbia and pressure on Greece. Conditions at home and abroad grew darker and darker: the stringency of the food situation; the shipping problem; the rebellion in Ireland; the limited success of the Somme campaign; the collapse of Rumania; and the increasing pro-Germanism and defeatism in Russian governmental circles. In the face of all these difficulties there was an insistent demand, led by Lord Northcliffe, of the London Times, for "a better machine for running the War." Mr. Lloyd George, who had done so much to speed up munition production, became convinced that it was beyond the power of any single man to perform at once the threefold task of acting as Prime Minister, leading the House of Commons and acting as Chairman of the War Committee. Feeling that he was best fitted for the latter work, he made various proposals aiming to secure for himself the active management of the Cabinet war policy. After Mr. Bonar Law, the Unionist leader, failed to form a Government, Mr. Lloyd George, on 6 December, 1916, was invited to assume the Premiership.

For more than a year, the British Government relied on voluntary enlistments for supplementing its small expeditionary force. In spite of a showing that was, on the whole, most gratifying - indeed nearly 5,000,000 enlisted from the various parts of the British Empire by May, 1916 - the need was soon realized for a better organized and more equable system. A Bill was introduced, which became law, 15 July, 1916, providing for a National Registration of persons between 16 and 65, with a view to finding what each was able and willing to do. After a further trial of the voluntary system under a Director General of Recruiting, a Military Service Bill was carried, which went into effect 10 February, 1916, imposing compulsory service - with specified exceptions and exemptions, particularly for men in essential occupations- on all male British subjects, between 18 and 41, who were unmarried or widowers without dependent children. By a second Bill, which went into operation 24 June, compulsion to serve was extended to married men between these ages. Still a third Bill of 9 April, 1918, raised the age limit to 50 and instituted a more drastic combing process of persons hitherto exempted on the ground of physical disability or occupation in essential industries. Furthermore, the King was authorized, if need arose, to call on men up to 56 years of age, and to extend conscription to Ireland.

By means of legislation, - for example, by successive Defense of the Realm Acts (popularly known as" Doras ") - by royal proclamations, by Orders in Council, the Government assumed an increasing control of transportation and communication, industry, property, and man power in both military and civil occupations. Perforce, there was much vexation and ineffectual meddling; but, on the whole, the new system accomplished its purpose uncommonly well. Existing plants were hastily extended for war work, others were transformed and coordinated, while new ones were constantly built. The need for moving supplies and troops led to the taking over of the railroads very early in the war, though the management was left in the hands of the regular officials, working under Government orders. Later, the canals, unable to meet the competition of the State-aided railroads, were taken over. At the end of 1917 it may be said that the whole industry of the country, production, transport and manufacture, had been brought more or less under Government control.

On 17 March, 1915, a momentous conference, the so-called " Treasury Conference," was held between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade on the one hand, and representatives of thirty-five Trade-Unions on the other, at which, in return for a promise to restrict profits, the Government secured an agreement, known as the " Treasury Agreement," that during the war there should be no strikes on Government work, that Trades Union rules hampering output - such as forbidding the use of automatic machines, the admission of semi-skilled and feminine labor - should be suspended, on condition that the wage scale should not be adversely affected.

While those who stayed at home suffered far less hardships, to say nothing of dangers, than those who went to the trenches, the granting of their demands to meet emergencies whetted their appetites for more. Some were material, no doubt; others were idealistic and began to have visions of a better and fairer world if the capitalist were eliminated and the workers or the State controlled the mines, the railways and the factories; moreover, they came to think that the interests of the plain people all over the world were one, and that wars would cease so soon as plain people were in the saddle. They began to feel that the existing system of political representation gave no adequate voice to labor as such; not a few began to look toward the Soviet for the control of affairs domestic and foreign. The first big move was a munition strike at Coventry in November, 1917, and was followed, during the next year, by more strikes in munition and aeroplane plants.

More than a million women went into munition factories; but all sorts of occupations, at the front and at home, were filled with busy and effective workers; they served not only as nurses, but as postmen, drivers of omnibuses and coal teams, as policemen, and as agricultural laborers. By the summer of 1918 about 2,500,000 men and 1,000,000 women were working in munition factories, while, altogether, 4,500,000 were engaged in the production of war material. The three Government munition factories had increased to over 200, exclusive of more than 5000 Government controlled and over 20,000 privately controlled factories and workshops.

In a speech delivered January 5, 1918, Lloyd George made the first comprehensive and authoritative statement of British war aims. He had consulted the labor leaders and Viscount Grey and Mr. Asquith, as well as some of the representatives of the overseas dominions, and he was speaking, he said, for "the nation and the Empire as a whole." He explained first what the British were not fighting for. He disclaimed any idea of overthrowing the German Government, although he considered military autocracy "a dangerous anachronism"; they were not fighting to destroy Austria-Hungary, but genuine self-government must be granted to "those Austro-Hungarian nationalities who have long desired it"; they were not fighting "to deprive Turkey of its capital or of the rich and renowned lands of Thrace, which are predominantly Turkish in race," but the passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea must be "internationalized and neutralized." The positive statement of aims included the complete restoration of Belgium, the return of AlsaceLorraine to France, rectification of the Italian boundary, the independence of Poland, the restoration of Serbia, Montenegro, and the occupied parts of France, Italy, and Rumania, and a disposition of the German colonies with "primary regard to the wishes and interests of the native inhabitants of such colonies." He insisted on reparation for injuries done in violation of international law, but disclaimed a demand for war indemnity. In conclusion he declared the following conditions to be essential to a lasting peace: "First, the sanctity of treaties must be reestablished; secondly, a territorial settlement must be secured, based on the right of self-determination or the consent of the governed; and lastly, we must seek, by the creation of some international organization, to limit the burden of armaments and diminish the probability of war." On January 8, 1918, three days after Lloyd George's speech, President Wilson appeared before both Houses of Congress and delivered the most important of all his addresses on war aims. It contained the famous Fourteen Points.

As nearly as it can be estimated, Britain contributed over £8,000,000,000 or one fifth the total amount expended by the allied and associated Powers, of which more than £170,000,000 was loaned to the Dominions and over £1,500,000,000 to her Allies. By raising the normal income tax, and imposing heavily graduated super-taxes on the great incomes; by increasing excess profit taxes first to 60 and then to 80 per cent; by doubling and then quadrupling customs and excises, and by introducing various new indirect taxes the revenue receipts, which were about £200,000,000 in 1914, were brought up to over £800,000,000 in 1918-1919; but, while the annual revenue was increased fourfold, the annual expenditure was thirteen times in 1918 what it had been in the last year before the War; and since three fourths of the amount had to be raised by borrowing, the British national debt mounted from £700,000,000 to over £7,000,000,000.

For this cause the Empire, outside the British Isles, furnished nearly £1,000,000,000 for direct war expenditure and about 3,000,000 men, of which the Self-governing Dominions contributed almost £800,000,000 and 1,500,000 men, not far from 25 per cent of their white male population.