War Cabinet

In Britain the war was directed in turn by the War Council, the Dardanelles Committee and, from November 1915, the War Committee, but their decisions had to be approved by the full Cabinet of 23 ministers. Lloyd George, who replaced Herbert Asquith in December 1916, handed power to a five-member War Cabinet, which first met on 9 December. Its members were the Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law, Lord Curzon, Lord Milner and Arthur Henderson, later joined by Jan Smuts, Edward Carson and Austen Chamberlain, among others. Maurice Hankey's secretariat kept the first minutes of British Cabinet meetings.

From March 1917 the Imperial War Cabinet met with the dominion prime ministers and representatives of India. Its three sessions lasted until January 1919, and in Paris it became the British Empire delegation. The British War Cabinet met for the last time on 27 October 1919. Other states created small war cabinets or war committees on its model: France in December 1916, Belgium, Canada in 1917 and, in October 1918, the Germany of Chancellor Max von Baden.