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THE PROTRACTED CONFLICT (2)Churchill andLloyd GeorgePOLITICAL MYOPIA, 1936-1945:HOPING YOUR COUNTRY WILL LOSEBY JAMES LANCASTER“ALMOST ALL BEHIND YOU, WINSTON”: Low would havecaused a stir had he added a ghostly Lloyd George, ponderinghis options in May 1940. (LG image from a cartoon in the tatlerof 26 Apri 1911.) Can readers name all the complete faces depictedby Low? Photoshop® modifications by Barbara Langworth.There is one conspicuous absentee in the famousDavid Low cartoon of 14 May 1940, “Allbehind you Winston,” where Churchill and hiscabinet colleagues stride forward purposefully,their sleeves rolled up, four days after WSCbecame Prime Minister.The absentee is David Lloyd George, Churchill’sformer mentor and Prime Minister for much of WorldWar I. He is not in the cartoon because he was not inthe Government—of his own choice. Lloyd Georgerefused to join the War Cabinet three times, on 13 May,28 May and 6 June. He also refused Churchill’s offer, on10 December 1940, to go to Washington asAmbassador, following the death of Lord Lothian.During the first six months of Churchill’s premiership,friends and colleagues of all parties tried to persuadeLloyd George to support Churchill and join thegovernment. His secretary and mistress, FrancesStevenson, tried as hard as anyone, admitting, “I knewthat LG’s iron will was set against working withChurchill.” 1 Stevenson recorded this on 20 June 1940.By October she had come round to Lloyd George’s plan,writing to him: “Your time will surely come, and thegreat thing is to keep fit until that time arrives.” 2Why did Churchill want Lloyd George, someonehe had, early in his career, referred to as “a chatteringlittle cad,” 3 in his coalition government? The principalreason was his belief that in a wartime coalition “Thesense of duty dominates all else, and personal claimsrecede.” 4 Although Churchill had become increasinglydisillusioned with his old chief in the interwar years, hewanted his government to represent all parties, includingthat much diminished Liberal faction led by LloydGeorge. He also wanted to muzzle the “Welsh Wizard,”and with good reason. Lloyd George had proclaimed onmany occasions his admiration for Hitler, following theirtwo meetings in 1936. He had consistently attacked thegovernment for incompetence, and had spoken in favourof discussing peace terms with Hitler. With his prestigestill intact, his emergence as a British Pétain needed tobe guarded against one way or another. Churchill certainlythought LG could do more good on the teamthan opposing it from the outside.Why for his part did Lloyd George, who resentedbeing successively spurned by Premiers Macdonald,Baldwin and Chamberlain, refuse to “fall in” behindChurchill? Where was his “sense of duty”? Why did henot bury his “personal claims”? To decline four invitationsfrom your Prime Minister to serve your country inthe hour of her peril reveals, at the very least, extraordinarydisloyalty. It was also unpatriotic. Worse, it sent thewrong message to the enemy. Many of Lloyd George’sarticles were so defeatist that many people thought heshould be locked up. Duff Cooper replied to one of hisharangues in the House in September 1939 saying thatit “would be received with delight in Germany, where itwould be said that the man who claimed to have wonthe last war was already admitting defeat in this one.” 5One reason for Lloyd George’s refusals was his profoundpessimism, his feeling that the situation was militarilyhopeless. Only a few weeks after the outbreak ofwar, Harold Nicolson and Robert Boothby met him atThames House. In his diary entry for 20 September1939 Nicolson wrote: “He [Lloyd George] says that he isfrankly terrified and does not see how we can possiblywin the war.” 6 The Welshman even constructed at a costof £6000 an air-raid shelter sixty feet underground atChurt, his country estate. His secretary, Arthur Sylvester,said it was like Piccadilly underground station.Lloyd George’s only formal explanation for notjoining the Government was his 29 May letter toChurchill, saying he could not join a War Cabinet containingChamberlain. When he refused Churchill’s finaloffer, to become Ambassador in Washington inDecember 1940, he said that his doctor (Lord Dawson >>FINEST HOUR 135 / 37