So Rumania went under. But the event had a reverberating influence on Mr. Lloyd George’s mind. It brought him to a decision which he had long been meditating.
He could no longer go on being responsible for these repeated failures without a supreme effort to make them cease.
He had for a long time past gravely doubted whether he would not be more capable of helping in the conduct of the war if he left the Government. He had often been on the verge of resigning—on munitions, on conscription, on the Serbian failure. He had a growing conviction that the only hope of winning the war was through the nation; and he wanted to guide and to inform the nation. He longed to be “unmuzzled”—to speak out what he knew, to speak for himself alone.
But it had always happened that before he took action his policy had won; and then it became practically impossible for him to resign. Ministers cannot resign on delay alone. Yet these constant delays were piling up against us a constantly accumulating debt. Or, as with the proud Roman and the ancient Sibyl, the reward was diminishing while the price was not less.
The Rumanian disaster brought Mr. Lloyd George to the parting of the ways. He must either reform the Government to better uses, or he must gain his freedom—on that issue he was clear.
Reflecting deeply on the mode and method of reform, he saw but one way out—a smaller and more efficient body, wholly devoted to the direction of the war. That had been his view for a long time past—and every event had confirmed it. What was wanted was unified, unsleeping control.
He decided at last to place this view definitely and decisively before Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister.
He did so in a long conversation on the morning of Friday, December 1st, 1916.
This was the first phase in a crisis into which Mr. Lloyd George entered with the utmost reluctance. He was sincerely attached to Mr. Asquith. He had that regard for him which is often based on an entire difference of temperament. He fully recognised the greatness of those qualities which have given Mr. Asquith so strong a hold on the esteem and affections of his countrymen. He wished to continue the working partnership. He made in the course of these negotiations every conceivable suggestion which could make the changed conditions tolerable to the proper pride and self-respect of a man who had deserved so well of the nation.