by Simon Heffer
With such a heavy workload for the government, this was a bad time for Lloyd George’s methods to be put under continuing scrutiny. The election campaign, with its cynical promises of making a country fit for heroes and hanging the Kaiser, was already coming back to haunt him. Unlike, for example, Baldwin, too many of his associates did not meet pre-war standards of what it supposedly took to be in, or on the fringes of, public life. This last point was highlighted yet again because of suspected abuse of the honours system. A motion was debated in the Commons on 28 May, demanding transparency about the exchange of money for honours. It was seconded by, of all people, Horatio Bottomley, who had raised the £34,000 to have himself discharged from bankruptcy in time to stand in the general election. He would shortly preside over a massive swindle for ‘Victory Bonds’ that used the public’s patriotism to part with huge sums of money that it thought would be invested in government stock, but in fact went into Bottomley’s pocket: three years later he would go to jail.
The motion’s proposer, Henry Page Croft – a brigadier general – said that ‘the name “politician” has become one of opprobrium in every part of the country.’46 The National Party – a group of Tories, of whom Croft was one, who had chosen not to enter the coalition – had stipulated that only British subjects could donate to its funds, and the names of those who did were available for inspection: but besides attracting money, the honours system was also being used to propitiate and cajole MPs and wreck their independence; it was changing the nature of politics and of the party system and therefore of the parliamentary democracy for which the war had just, in part, been fought.
Embarrassing facts were read into the parliamentary record: Croft said 290 members of the last Parliament had received either titles, or jobs, or preferment. From the day Lloyd George became prime minister until 29 April 1919, hereditary honours had been granted to 155 men, of whom 154 had been civilians. One was from the fighting services. Of the 154, many were MPs or peers; others were constituency chairmen or supporters, and people connected with no fewer than fourteen national or regional newspapers and one news agency had been beneficiaries. One hundred per cent of recipients of viscountcies were pressmen; as were 20 per cent of baronetcies. The distinction between, as Croft put it, those who had offered their lives and those who had offered only words was stark.
Echoing the Lords debate of the previous year, Croft gave no quarter about ‘the character of the recipients of the honours.’ He said:
I am told, and I think it is generally recognised, that in the recent Honours List gentlemen received titles whom no decent man would allow to enter his house. According to a most distinguished journal, which I do not always fully agree with, several of them would have been blackballed by any respectable social London club. In this connection I heard an amazing story, probably not true, of the present Prime Minister. A friend of his said to him, ‘Do not you think we have gone far enough in this direction?’ The story is that the right hon. Gentleman responded, ‘My dear fellow, I am not worse than Walpole.’47
Croft could not understand why, if a man thought a cause to which he was subscribing was just – be it a hospital or a political party – he should be ashamed of it being known he had done so.
Croft would pursue Lloyd George over the abuse of honours, and would play a part, eventually, in bringing him down. The lack of recognition of warriors, to which he referred, was, however, soon rectified. Days before the Versailles Treaty was signed Churchill made his recommendations for the rewards to those who had helped secure the victory. Haig had continued to stand out against his own peerage because of what he felt were the injustices towards the men he had commanded. Although he was unquestionably sincere in wanting his men taken care of before he was, the politician in him had ulterior motives in refusing the offer of a peerage, and not just because, as far as his former subordinates and their families were concerned, it was a superb public relations move. He could not resist recording that ‘I also note that when FM French was recalled from the command of the Armies in France for incompetence, he was made a Viscount!’ Stamfordham told Hankey that ‘the people round the King are clamouring for a Dukedom on the precedent of the Duke of Wellington, whose army was not 1/10 the size of Haig’s.’48 Apparently shocked by this ambition, Hankey replied ‘that I was certain Lloyd George would never agree, and I suggested to work for an earldom.’ He said that if Haig became a duke, Beatty would want a dukedom too: Stamfordham thought that unworkable, so the King was steered away from a confrontation with Lloyd George.
Haig at last agreed to have an earldom and £100,000; Generals Plumer and Allenby would be made field marshals and given baronies and £30,000; Wilson would be promoted to field marshal too, and Generals Byng and Rawlinson would have baronies and grants of £30,000. Other awards were made further down the scale, such as £50,000 to French, and a baronetcy and just £10,000 to the unfortunate Robertson: and, such was Lloyd George’s grudge towards the former CIGS, that was largely only because of fear about the effect on Army morale if he were not rewarded. The other beneficiary was Hankey, awarded £25,000. According to the first edition of the Dictionary of National Biography: ‘to his private secretary he gave a box of small cigars.’49
III
The question of smoothing the progress of soldiers back into civilian life had concerned government since early in the war. Thomas Jacobsen, an industrialist and Liberal MP, had asked Asquith in May 1916 whether he would appoint ‘a commission to take into consideration the general position regarding employment that will arise upon the termination of hostilities, particularly for the purpose of making recommendations for dealing in a large and comprehensive manner with the question of ensuring that men returning from the forces to civil life obtain proper employment and that they do not suffer during any interval that may elapse before they are reabsorbed into our economic system?’50 Asquith assured him the question was ‘engaging the attention of the Government.’
It plainly did not engage its attention sufficiently, given the chaos of the winter of 1919. The first great scandal of the peace was the management of demobilisation, for which (despite Churchill’s pleas) little had been done since the Armistice. Men still serving did so on one of two bases: either until the end of the war, which would come with the signing of a peace treaty; or six months after the cessation of hostilities, which meant 11 May 1919. At that point, without further legislation, most of the Army would vanish. Ministers, however, had privately admitted they were in no hurry to demobilise the Army. They had to work out what to do with the millions of armaments operatives and other war workers who would join them in a flooded labour market.51 There were also the challenges of moving millions of men from a former theatre of war back home; and, at the same time, ensuring a sufficient force was left in France to enforce the terms of the Armistice and to be available, if necessary, should the Armistice collapse. And that army itself raised the question of who should serve in it and, if there were insufficient volunteers, whether an element of compulsion was still acceptable given the war was considered to be over. And even the men it was agreed could be demobilised posed a problem: was it first in, first out, or should the demands of the economy take precedence over all else? To establish a calm post-war society, it was perhaps better that the demands of men were attended to before those of the masters, even though the economy required industry to be ‘restarted’, a process in which the goodwill of the owners of capital would be essential. However, such was the political confusion (something Lloyd George, preoccupied first by the election and then by the Versailles peace conference, did little to resolve) that neither aim was properly pursued.
The Labour Party had discussed demobilisation at its conference in January 1917, and emphasised the importance of trades unions assisting the reabsorption of men into industry, and the creation of new labour exchanges: it had suggested 800 might be necessary. No Labour MP now sat in the cabinet to see that these intentions, or something approaching them, were carried ou
t. Yet Addison, as the then minister of reconstruction, had announced on 24 January 1918 that the machinery of demobilisation was in place, with a plan for assigning men to essential post-war industries if they had no job to return to. So-called ‘pivotal’ men – those with skills essential to the reconstruction of Britain – would be released first.52 It was a plan greatly found wanting in its execution.
Churchill urged Lloyd George to use government patronage to order metal goods from munitions factories, as he had with the railway companies, which needed a massive programme of investment to renew their long-neglected track and rolling stock. He felt the rapid implementation of the housing policy was essential, as was a plan to complete rural electrification. He had also implored the prime minister to make him responsible for demobilisation, given the importance to the process of redeploying the massive, and potentially restive, civilian army working in the munitions industry; but at the War Cabinet on 19 December it was agreed to give Eric Geddes the job, the duties of which he was supposed to discharge from the angle of ‘restarting industry’ rather than getting men out of the Army.53 Geddes had not wanted the post, but changed his mind, Hankey imagining it was because Lloyd George had ‘wangled’ him.54 Churchill was, according to Hankey, ‘sulky and hostile’ at the decision.55
The public became increasingly angry with a system that appeared slow and arbitrary, as did men who had volunteered, done their duty and wished to return to their normal lives. Aside from the government’s lack of willingness to tackle the problem, the first obstacle to men’s return home was the shattered railway system of northern France, and the poor repair into which the British system had fallen. It compounded the absurdity that many soldiers who could be brought back were held in camps on reaching Britain, rather than released from the Army. This was because no final decisions had been taken about whether they would again be needed for military purposes or, if not, the order in which they could be released.
During the election campaign it had been promised – rashly, and despite the arbitrariness that would result – that men home on leave could be immediately demobilised: now the Army Council issued an order that no man would be demobilised while on leave. On 3 January 1919, the 12,000 men in ‘rest camps’ at Folkestone and Dover were asked to re-embark for France to join an army of occupation. They refused, demanding an extension of their leave by a week. Wilson was livid: ‘The whole of the demobilisation has been completely boxed by Lloyd George, who, in his anxiety to get votes at the recent election, kept adding every sort of authority to help in demobilizing the army, a thing which we soldiers could have done alone and without a hitch.’56 The 2.25 million men waiting in France, as well as 200,000 horses and the stores for all of them, presented a logistical problem not helped by the un cooperativeness of the French army. The Quartermaster General’s staff in London told Churchill as he entered the War Office that ‘both Marshal Foch and General Payot are inimical to the present Quartermaster General in France’ and were doing as little as they could to help.57
Soon Geddes was struggling. It was not entirely his fault: businesses whose ex-workers were suddenly demobilised often lacked raw materials to resume manufacturing, and a shortage of shipping to move any goods that were made, so were slow to rehire. On 29 December 1918 he wrote to Lloyd George that ‘industry is not absorbing the worker turned over from war to peace work as rapidly as one might expect … trade is not showing enterprise and is inclined to lean on the government and submit to spoon-feeding’.58 The process slowed, annoying men wanting to return to their families. In the first six weeks of peace only 42,000 were demobilised, less than 1 per cent of the Armed Forces. There were fourteen government departments involved in demobilisation, demonstrating the vastness of the bureaucratic state and what Geddes had to juggle.
Wilson implored Milner on 6 January 1919 to impress on Lloyd George that he must make a statement that the war was not over, and that soldiers must obey orders, or there would soon be no Army. Lloyd George was, however, less adept at dealing with reality than some around him: and refused to say the war was not over, not least because his election victory had in part been based on the absurd assertion that he had won it. Wilson had it out with him on 7 January and boasted: ‘I frightened him.’59 Still no announcement was made: Milner handed the War Office over to Churchill, who quickly grasped the point but encountered continued resistance from the prime minister. On 8 January 1919 a procession of 1,500 soldiers from a camp in north-west London arrived at Downing Street to ask Lloyd George what was happening; he was out at the time. Many soldiers believed they were being retained to fight the Bolsheviks in Russia, and few relished the prospect.
Geddes, whose reputation was on the line, wanted men out of uniform as swiftly as possible; and because of the inertia of business in telling the government the sort of men it most urgently needed to help complete its order-books began to make plans to demobilise by age and length of service rather than according to skill or vocation, or even simply by battalion. But before he could change anything – and any change required Haig’s cooperation – grievances multiplied and the press joined in. Churchill, now he was Secretary of State for War, had the role in demobilisation he had wanted since the Armistice; but would have to cooperate with Geddes, who retained overall control of the task. On 15 January Geddes wrote to him suggesting it be decided how many men were needed for a ‘transitional army’ or army of occupation, and that they should be selected on a ‘simple principle’: the one he proposed was that ‘all men now under 33 who joined the colours after 1st January 1916 … might be retained and all others be demobilized.’ The cut-off date meant those men would have been conscripts under the Military Service Act and not volunteers.60
As was his habit, Churchill decided to take his own initiatives in this matter, even though the ultimate responsibility was not his. His first thought on assuming his new office was to stop demobilisation altogether, which showed little understanding of the restiveness of the men still in uniform, or their families. He warned Lloyd George on 19 January that Army discipline was being ‘rotted’ by ‘the pulling out of people in ones and twos without any relation to what the ordinary man regards as fair play’.61 By then 13,400 officers and 631,000 men had been released of the 3.67 million officers and men on the Army’s payroll on Armistice Day.62 Churchill believed that generals, all too used to the double-dealing of politicians in the preceding years, would not cooperate with demobilisation until given cast-iron assurances that the Army would not disappear, and could do the job the Armistice and the likely post-Versailles settlement would demand of it, in terms of occupying the Rhineland and dealing with the clear-up of the Western Front. He told Lloyd George by cable that ‘briefly the scheme consists of releasing four men out of five and paying the fifth double to finish the job. I am extremely anxious about the present state of the Army and am serving you to the very best of my ability in preparing a comprehensive scheme for your approval.’63
Wilson admitted on 10 January, the day of Churchill’s appointment, that he had received ‘ominous letters’ from commanders in France ‘about the temper of the troops there.’64 Haig issued a similar warning to Churchill about the effect of the delay on morale. These representations caused the war secretary to rethink, and delay demobilisation only for those in France for less than two years. A week after moving to the War Office Churchill further refined his ideas, and proposed releasing all men who had enlisted before 1 January 1916; the downside was that those called up last were those so highly skilled that they could least be spared. If industry were to be put on a peace footing again such workers should be recalled, rather than left hanging around in France.
It had been decided there would be an army of occupation in the Rhineland; it would be composed of five corps of two divisions each, plus a cavalry division. This gave a purpose to some of the men Churchill did not want to demobilise immediately, but the army of occupation rapidly decreased in size until by the summer of 1920 it was down to under 14,000 m
en. In any case, the numbers enlisted after 1 January 1916 and still serving were over 1.6 million, far in excess of what was required. It was agreed to demobilise at once men over forty and, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Labour, those essential to restarting British industry. No man wounded more than twice would be asked to stay, and only roughly two-thirds in those categories would in any case be needed. Men who wished to volunteer to stay on for a year could do so. However, he also proposed that any man who disobeyed military discipline and was found guilty of insubordination would go to the bottom of the list for discharge. The sweetener for those left behind was a substantial increase in pay and greater allowances of leave. There would be bonuses from 10s 6d a week for private soldiers to 42s a week for colonels and above. Churchill knew the old regular Army had to be remade, not so much for home defence as for overseas garrisons, and these bonuses were important in encouraging men to make a career out of the Army.
However, he, Sir Robert Horne (minister of labour) and the Geddes brothers had concocted this plan without consulting Lloyd George. Nor had they talked to the chancellor, despite the enormous financial considerations that would be entailed. The prime minister, in Paris, was furious when hearing it was proposed to keep a contingent of more than 1.6 million men in France, for the effect it might have on the Army itself, and because of the ‘extravagant’ nature of the plans.65 He told Churchill: ‘It is hardly treating the head of the government fairly. This is a question not of detail but of first class policy … I ought to have been consulted in the first instance.’66
In Lloyd George’s absence the War Cabinet could discuss the plans but not make a decision. Churchill, reinforced by Wilson (who was invited to attend) said that unless a plan was settled at once there would soon be no army of occupation – he told Curzon on 16 January that the Army was ‘liquefying fast and if we are not careful we shall find ourselves without the strong instrument on which our policy in Europe depends in the next few months.’67 There would be no soldiers to try to keep the peace in Ireland, no imperial garrisons and no regular Army worth the name. Thus threatened, the War Cabinet gave Churchill and Wilson’s proposals ‘unwilling assent’.68 Chamberlain was ‘very frightened’ of the cost; Law went to such lengths not to allow a decision to be taken that, in Hankey’s absence in Paris, he did not ask for a secretary to take minutes.