Asquith on Serbian independence

On 2 November 1915 the Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, delivered in the House of Commons his long-announced speech on the state of the war. It had been awaited for weeks. The autumn had brought the British nothing but bad news: the great offensive at Loos had produced no breakthrough, ever gloomier reports were arriving from Gallipoli, Bulgaria had entered the war on the side of the Central Powers, and Serbia, attacked at the beginning of October, was falling back under the pressure of three armies. Attacks on the government were multiplying in the press, and Edward Carson, who had demanded immediate help for the Serbs, had left the Cabinet. The government later published the speech as a pamphlet entitled “How do we stand to-day?”.

Neither prisoner in the dock nor penitent

Asquith began with good wishes to King George V, who a few days earlier had been thrown from his horse and injured while reviewing troops in France. He then turned to his critics. The delay in making the statement, he said, had allowed him to hear a great deal of advice about what he should and should not say. Some of his advisers expected him to appear before the House like a prisoner in the dock defending a dubious past, or like a penitent in a white sheet, with a candle in each hand, asking for absolution. He did not intend to adopt either pose. He spoke as the head of the government to a nation which, in his view, was as determined as ever to carry the war to a victorious end. He admitted that the horizon was clouded in places and called for a sense of proportion, patience and courage. In passing he referred scornfully to a “small coterie of professional whimperers” who supplied the enemy with a daily ration of false hopes.

Next he presented the figures. In August 1914 Britain had sent six infantry divisions and two cavalry divisions to France, while in the recent operations at Loos General John French had had not far short of a million men under his command. Canada had sent 96,000 soldiers, Australia 92,000, New Zealand 25,000, and the Union of South Africa, after the conquest of German South West Africa, 6,500 men to Europe. The navy had carried 2.5 million soldiers, 320,000 wounded and sick, 2.5 million tons of supplies and 800,000 horses, mules and camels for the army, losing less than one-tenth of one per cent of the men. The Prime Minister gave British casualties in France and Flanders as 377,000.

The Dardanelles: “no one is more responsible than I”

He devoted most attention to the Eastern fronts. He presented the expedition to Mesopotamia as a series of successes and gave assurances that General Nixon’s troops were already “within reach” of Baghdad. He spoke differently about Gallipoli. He described how the government had approved in January the naval attack on the Straits, mentioning the doubts of the then First Sea Lord, Lord Fisher. He objected to putting the blame on a single minister and to suggestions that the whole strategy had been directed by some “undefined personality of great authority and overmastering will”. “If anyone is responsible for the initiation of this enterprise, no one is more responsible than I,” he said.

He admitted that never during the war had he suffered a greater disappointment than the failure of the August offensive. Success, he said, would have resolved the whole situation in the Balkans, prevented Bulgaria from joining the enemy and opened the road to Constantinople. He nevertheless defended the purpose of the expedition: without it the Russians might have been defeated in the Caucasus, the Turks might have attacked Egypt, and Bulgaria might have declared for the Central Powers many months earlier. According to the Prime Minister, the troops on the peninsula were tying down some 200,000 Ottoman soldiers. He said nothing definite about the future of Gallipoli. The matter was being considered as part of a wider strategic problem in the East. On 31 October the government had received from General Charles Monro, the new commander on the peninsula, advice to evacuate the troops.

A promise to Serbia

Asquith spoke briefly about the Balkans because, as he pointed out, every word had to be carefully chosen. He admitted that the efforts of Allied diplomacy to unite the Balkan states had ended in “disappointment and failure”. He explained that the Germans could easily promise Bulgaria Serbian and Albanian territory, whereas the Allies could not give away the property of their friends behind their backs. He answered the charge that help for Serbia had come too late by recalling the conduct of Greece. Until the last moment it had been believed that Greece would honour her alliance with Serbia. The Prime Minister listed the dates: on 21 September Eleftherios Venizelos asked for 150,000 soldiers, on 24 September Greece announced mobilisation, on 2 October Venizelos agreed to a landing at Salonika, on 4 October he announced in parliament that Greece would fulfil her obligations to Serbia, and the next day the King repudiated this declaration and Venizelos resigned. The new government held that no alliance obligation had arisen.

As a result, Asquith said, Serbia, without Greek support, had had to bear the frontal assault of Germany and Austria-Hungary and the Bulgarian attack on her flank. And he added, on behalf of the government and the nation: “We here in the United Kingdom, and I know it is also the view of our French and Russian Allies, cannot allow Serbia to become the prey of this sinister and nefarious combination.” He mentioned the recent visit to London of General Joseph Joffre, after which, he assured the House, the British and French were in complete agreement on aims and means. He did not reveal in what form the common policy would be carried out. He closed this part of the speech with the assurance that Serbia could be certain that her independence was regarded by Great Britain as one of the essential objects of the Allied powers.

Money, men and the direction of the war

In the next part the Prime Minister spoke about finance. The excess of imports over exports exceeded £30 million a month, against an average of about £11 million before the war, and loans to the Allies were expected to reach £423 million in the current financial year. He called for economy. On the question of soldiers he declared that he had no objection in principle to compulsion in wartime, but that conscription could be introduced only with general consent, otherwise it would destroy the unity of the nation. For the time being he was relying on Lord Derby’s scheme, whose lists were to close on 30 November. If, however, unmarried men were to evade service without good reason, he was ready to propose other measures. In doing so he made a pledge that was soon to weigh heavily in the conscription dispute: married men who came forward under the Derby scheme should not be called up until the unmarried men had been brought into service.

He also answered the criticism that a Cabinet of 21 members could not conduct the war efficiently. He recalled that since its outbreak some fifty committees and advisory bodies drawn from the government had been at work. He announced that the strategic direction of the war would be taken over by a smaller committee of three to at most five members, with the right to summon the ministers needed for a given matter. It was to take decisions and carry them out, keeping the Cabinet informed and consulting it before any change of policy. He promised to announce its composition within a few days. He also announced closer cooperation between the Allied general staffs.

Finally Asquith spoke about himself. He admitted that there had been mistakes in the conduct of the war, but rejected the charge of dilatoriness and of concealing the truth. Speaking of the fallen, he declared that, having searched his own heart and conscience, he “would not recall or revoke” the decision to go to war. He stated that he would not give up office as long as he had the confidence of the King, Parliament and the country. He ended the speech with a tribute to Edith Cavell. The promise to Serbia could no longer be kept in the field: within a few weeks the Serbian army had to leave the country. The restoration of an independent Serbia nevertheless remained one of the Entente’s war aims.