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VIII. The Establishment of the Cabinet Secretariat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

John F. Naylor
John F. Naylor
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Buffalo
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Extract

In the aftermadi of replacing Asquith as Prime Minister in December 1916, David Lloyd George forged a greater change in the style of administration than in the content of the British Government's actions. Not until the spring of 1918 was he able to secure the replacement of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, ‘Wully’ Robertson, and even at that time he dared not move against the all-too-entrenched commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Sir Douglas Haig; meanwhile, die war of deadly attrition persisted in France and Flanders.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1971 , pp. 783 - 803
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 Quoted by Hankey, Lord, Diplomacy by Conference: Studies in Public Affairs, 1920–1946(London, 1946), pp. 66–7. In this volume (ch. 2) Hankey makes much of the existence in the papers of George III and George IV of ‘Cabinet Minutes’ submitted to those monarchs, although they by no means provide a continuous record of government proceedings; nor were the minutes maintained by a Secretary. Hankey was rather over-impressed by these historical ‘precedents’.Google Scholar

2 Jenkins, Roy, Sir Charles Dilke: A Victorian Tragedy (London, rev. ed., 1965), pp. 166–7 (pb.ed.).Google Scholar

3 Judd, Denis, Balfour and the British Empire: A Study in Imperial Evolution, 1874–1932 (N.Y., 1968), p. 39.Google Scholar

4 For an interesting sampling, Hankey, , Diplomacy by Conference, pp. 62–9.Google Scholar

5 B.M. Add. MSS 49703, The Balfour Papers, vol. xxi, letter of 4 Dec. 1914.

6 Photographic copies of the original letters in the Royal Archives in which Prime Ministers reported on Cabinet proceedings between 1868 and 1916 are available in the Public Record Office as CAB 41.

7 CAB 41/30/76, 16 Nov. 1906. Campbell-Bannerman's letters never exceeded two pages and were nearly always devoid of significant detail.

8 That King Edward and his trusted adviser Viscount Esher were dissatisfied with Campbell- Bannerman's reports is clear in the latter's letter of 20 Apr. 1906: ‘Your Majesty has noticed that the communications from the Prime Minister are few and somewhat trivial. From what he has seen of the way the Government business is managed, Viscount Esher believes the reason of this to be chat the Prime Minister has aged a good deal lately, and finds it even more difficult than hitherto to fix his attention upon detail. Never a laborious man, his disinclination to master tiresome subjects has now given place to impossibility, and Viscount Esher believes that the main reason why he writes so meagrely to Your Majesty is that he has very little to tell’ (Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher, Brett, Maurice V. (ed.) (2 vols., London, 1934), II, 1903–1910, 160–1). For this reference I am indebted to Professor Samuel R. Williamson.Google Scholar

9 Probably the lack of access to this or any other record was responsible for several unnecessary Cabinet resignations: Hankey, , Diplomacy by Conference, pp. 68–9.Google Scholar

10 For all but the last point, Daalder, Hans, Cabinet Reform in Britain, 1914–1963 (Stanford, 1963), p. 27.Google Scholar

11 Riddell, Lord, Lord Riddell's War Diary, 1914–1918 (London, n.d. [1933]), p. 234Google Scholar, reporting a conversation of 4 May 1919.

12 Cf. Wilson, Trevor, The Downfall of the Liberal Party, 1914–1935 (London, 1966), pp. 65–103Google Scholar, and Beaverbrook, Lord, Politicians and the War, vol. 11 (London, 1932).Google Scholar That there was behind the machination a national mood which dictated radical changes is well portrayed in a remark of Curzon: ‘The country … is not merely willing to be led, but is almost calling to be driven’ (23 House of Lords Debates, col. 922, 19 Dec. 1916).

13 Collier, Basil, Brasshat: A Biography of Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, 1864–1922 (London, 1961), p. 208.Google Scholar

14 Gollin, A. M., Proconsul in Politics: A Study of Lord Milner in opposition and power (N.Y., 1964), pp. 307–9.Google Scholar

15 Hankey, Lord, The Supreme Command, 1914–1918 (2 vols., London, 1961), I, 238–9.Google Scholar

18 Quoted in Sir Woodward, Llewellyn, Great Britain and the War of 1914–1918 (London, 1967), p. 48.Google Scholar That those gentlemen's ladies were particularly at fault is clear in Kitchener's remark to Hankey, , ‘If they will only divorce their wives, I will gladly tell them everything’. (Stephen Roskill, Hankey: Man of Secrets, I, 1877–1918 (London, 1970), 216 (Hankey's diary, 11 Sept. 1915).)Google Scholar

17 Woodward, , Great Britain and the War, p. 49.Google Scholar

18 Christopher Addison, Four and a Half Years (2 vols., London, 1934), I, 194Google Scholar (17 Apr. 1916). Randolph Churchill has acidly commented on ‘the almost total lack of military security’ in these months: ‘One cannot but sympathise with Kitchener's reluctance to impart his secret plans to a Cabinet of more than twenty members, many of whom, to assist their intrigues against each other or from a desire to seem important, would unthinkingly violate their oaths as Privy Councillors a dozen times a week’ (Lord Derby: King of Lancashire (N.Y., 1960), p. 220).Google Scholar

11 Churchill, , Derby, p. 215.Google Scholar

20 Young, Kenneth, Arthur James Balfour (London, 1963), pp. 368–9.Google Scholar

21 Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher, ed. by Oliver, , Viscount Esher, iv, 1916–1930, 39.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. pp. 71–2, 73–4. Blake, Robert (ed.), The Private Papers of Douglas Haig, 1914–1919 (London, 1952)Google Scholar records Haig's constant distrust of Lloyd George, whom he did not consider ‘straight’; Haig's papers do not, however, indicate any particular alarm at Lloyd George's accession. (Private Papers of Haig, ‘Introduction’, p. 42.)

23 Curzon's accurate description of Lloyd George's remarks, War Council meeting of 1 Dec. 1916 (CAB 42/26/6).

24 Beaverbrook, , Politicians, II, 21.Google Scholar Curiously, the idea was not unique to Lloyd George. In December 1915, despairing for the Dardanelles operation, Hankey had recorded in his Diary: ‘The Government are really dreadfully to blame … I see only one solution - to suspend the constitution and appoint a dictator’ (Roskill, Hartley, I, 237).Google Scholar

25 George, David Lloyd, War Memoirs, II (Boston, 1933), 369.Google Scholar Hankey apparently made no note of his own views, though his diary confirms ‘a stroll’ with Lloyd George, ‘who was full of schemes’ (Roskill, Hartley, 1, 319). Hankey's views, as recalled by Lloyd George, are consistent with his attitude at that time.

26 Without here venturing into these tangled events, I follow Randolph Churchill's reading of the situation: ‘… the Press campaign was a necessary part of the plan of action which started out with the limited intention of making Lloyd George Chairman of the War Committee but which, owing to Asquith's mistaken judgment of the forces at work, ended in Lloyd George's arrival at 10 Downing Street’ (Derby, p. 232).

27 30 Home of Lords Debates, col. 265 (19 June 1918).

28 Asquith had, however, been aware of Hankey's discussions with Lloyd George concerning reform of the system. (Diplomacy by Conference, p. 56.)

29 Churchill, Winston S., The World Crisis, 1911–1918 (London, rev. and abridged ed., 1931), p. 765 (pb. ed.).Google Scholar

30 Young, , Balfour, p. 242.Google Scholar

31 Roskill, , Hankey, I, 84–6.Google Scholar Somewhat regretfully, one must treat as apocryphal Lord Ismay's recounting of a letter Fisher supposedly wrote concerning Hankey's talents in 1906: ‘There is a captain of Marines called Hankey serving in the Mediterranean Fleet. He has a large forehead bulging with brains. He has been created by God Almighty for the express discomfiture of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Get him to the C.I.D. as soon as you can.’ (The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay (N.Y., 1960), p. 43.Google Scholar) No such enthusiastic endorsement of Hankey occurs in Fisher's collected letters until May 1911, though at that time the latter's praise typically knew no bounds: ‘… put your whole trust in Hankey, for it is true what Esher says of him that he is a Napoleon!’ (Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, Marder, Arthur J. (ed.) (3 vols., London, 1952–1959), II, 380.)Google Scholar

32 CAB 21/128, Hankey's Speech to the Secretariat, 19 Nov. 1918.

33 War Cabinet Minute (hereafter W.C.) 1, 2 of 9 Dec. 1916 (CAB 23/1).

34 Quoted by Wrench, John Evelyn, Geoffrey Dawson and Our Times (London, 1955), p. 145.Google Scholar Carson, not a member of the War Cabinet, had been invited to attend that historic meeting in his capacity as First Lord of the Admiralty.

35 CAB 37/161/14, 11 Dec. 1916. Hankey may well have acted with such dispatch in order to prevent dilution of his own responsibilities, a course which at least one member of the War Cabinet, Lord Milner, seemed set upon. (Roskill, , Hankey, I, 337.)Google Scholar

36 W.C. 3, 6 of 12 Dec. 1916 (CAB 23/1).

37 Public Record Office, The Records of the Cabinet Office to 192.2 (London, 1966), p. 4. The revised ‘ Rules of Procedure’ of 24 Jan. 1917 (CAB 21/101) are printed as Appendix B, pp. 51–2. For many helpful suggestions as well as this valuable guide-a necessarily restricted institutional account-I am indebted to Mr A. W. Mabbs, its principal author.

38 Terraine, John, Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier (London, 1963), p. 241.Google Scholar

39 The History of The Times, iv, pt. 2 (N.Y., 1952), 1068 exaggerates in placing Milner in ‘second position’ under the Crown. Bonar Law functioned in that role for the duration of the war.Google Scholar

40 In the words of a cautious and sceptical pro-Milnerite, Gollin, A. M. (Proconsul, p. 375).Google Scholar

41 Quoted, Ibid. p. 377.

42 Hankey to Lloyd George, 14 Dec. 1916 (Lloyd George Papers (Beaverbrook Library), F/21/1/2).

43 Hankey's words, quoted from a letter to his wife of 16 Dec. 1916 (Roskill, , Hartley, I, 345Google Scholar). His success was all the more impressive, in view of Milner's carping to Bonar Law: ‘We have all constantly to work in harness with people whom we have not chosen and don't particularly care for.’ (Bonar Law Papers (Beaverbrook Library), 17 Dec. 1916, 53/4/9.)

44 Lloyd George Papers, F/21/1/2. Earlier in 1916, Hankey, upon hearing of Amery's intrigues against the Asquith Government from within the War Office, had suggested to the Prime Minister that Amery should be sent ‘… to Salonica or somewhere equally salubrious’. (Roskill, , Hartley, I, 270.Google Scholar) Surely he did not have Whitehall Gardens in mind!

45 Hankey, , Supreme Command, II, 590.Google Scholar Hankey's diary however gives a less favourable impres sion of the ‘scheming little devil’. (Roskill, , Hankey, I, 353.Google Scholar) While at Versailles, Amery remained on Hankey's Secretariat staff; however, Amery's account of his direct responsibilities to Lloyd George and Milner, and the War Cabinet as well, reads rather differently from Hankey's bland assertion that ‘… I and my Secretariat (Storr and Amery) took charge’. Cf. Amery, Leo, My Political Life, II (London, 1953), 126–9Google Scholar and Hankey, , Supreme Command, II, 733.Google Scholar ‘Nobody, indeed. could have been more helpful than Hankey’, Amery writes, but it is likely that neither of the men regretted the separation.

46 Quoted, by Gollin, , Proconsul, p. 379.Google Scholar Yet another Milnerite in this Secretariat was Lionel Curtis.

47 W.C. 36, 1 of 18 Jan. 1917 (CAB 23/1).

48 Wrench, , Dawson, pp. 127, 146–7, 150–1.Google Scholar Hankey, though, assessing the influence of this group and other ‘political congeries’ in his diary on 15 Aug. 1917, commented: ‘I have hitherto thought it advisable to keep clear of the groups.’ He did dine with the group on 19 Nov., however. (Roskill, Hankey, 1, 424 and 460.)

49 CAB 21/128, Hankey's Speech.

50 Cox, Montague H. and Norman, Philip (eds.), Survey of London, XIII, The Parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, pt. 2 (London, 1930), 209, note.Google Scholar

51 Such continuity in part was a hedge against the Liberals returning to power; since that party traditionally contained anti-imperialist and anti-militarist elements, Balfour feared that a Liberal government would destroy, or at least neglect, the CID (Judd, , Balfour, pp. 70–1Google Scholar). Records would ensure that this could not be done in ignorance or by default.

52 E.g. the account of Churchill's views on the German fleet, at the meeting of 4 July 1912 (CAB 2/2/117).

53 Hankey's own description, in a letter of 22 Jan. 1952, quoted by Johnson, Franklyn A., Defence by Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defence, 1885–1958 (London, 1960), p. 56.Google Scholar The part-timer, William Tyrrell, subsequently became Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, 1925–8, and served later as Ambassador in Paris, 1928–34.

34 CAB 2/1/13, 13 May 1903.

55 See above, note 23; for the request, Lloyd-George Papers, E/2/15/4–6, 22 Nov. ff.. 1916.

56 Ibid. D/17/3/12, 28 Jan. 1916.

57 Ibid. D/17/3/19, 23 Feb. 1916. Roskill itemizes Lloyd George's frequent criticisms in the early months of 1916, which he summarizes as ‘pin-pricking’. He offers no explanation for this ‘whole succession of difficulties’. (Hankey, , I, 252–3.)Google Scholar

58 CAB 21/18, Hankey's letter of 4 Sept. 1917.

59 This point is somehow missed by a reviewer of Jones, Thomas' Whitehall Diary, 1916–1925, Middlemas, Keith (ed.) (London, 1969)Google Scholar, who contends that the new arrangements of agendas and minuting ‘… encouraged ministers to strike attitudes’. (‘A fluid person’, Times Literary Supplement, 17 07 1969, p. 765.)Google Scholar

60 E.g. CAB 23/8, passim. Curzon's reply (CAB 21/18), citing his particular qualifications to speak on the proposed War Museum, will amuse students of the period: ‘I do happen to be an expert on Museums being a trustee of the British Museum, National Portrait Gallery, having founded … myself one of the greatest museums in the world the Victoria Memorial Hall in Calcutta and having more to do with collections and museums than any other member of the Govt.’ Hankey may well have wondered whether Curzon ever spoke with anything less than expert authority.

61 Chester, D. N. and Willson, F. M. G., The Organization of British Central Government, 1914–1956 (London, 1957), p. 286.Google Scholar

62 Lloyd George Papers, F/23/1/1, 10 Dec. 1916.

63 Records of the Cabinet Office, p. 8.Google Scholar Records of the War Cabinet's most secret meetings (the ‘A’ minutes) were not printed and circulated in the usual fashion, but were given a restricted circulation in typescript only. (Ibid. p. 13.)

64 CAB 21/100, ‘The Circulation of War Cabinet Documents’, 25 Sept. 1918.

65 Hankey, , Supreme Command, I, 325.Google Scholar

66 CAB 21/100, ‘Circulation of War Cabinet Documents’.

67 Ibid. Office Note of 16 Oct. 1918.

68 Thus the respected American political scientist, R. L. Schuyler, commented in 1918: ‘Under the new system, it has become necessary to devise new means to insure prompt and intimate com munication between the Cabinet and the officers of administration, who are now removed from it; and these in turn have involved the virtual abandonment of secrecy.’ (‘The British War Cabinet’, Political Science Quarterly, 33 (09 1918) 386.)Google Scholar

69 W.C. 75, 9 of 20 Feb. 1917 (CAB 23/1).

70 CAB 21/69, Hankey to Asquith, 20 Sept. 1916. In fairness to Asquith, one must note that the War Committee endorsed Hankey's stand (see CAB 21/69, Hankey to the Secretary of the Dar danelles Commission, 26 Sept. 1916) but the matter was not settled at the highest level until 1917. Also of historical interest is evidence that Lloyd George waged, nearly by himself, a struggle to make the full minutes available to the Commission, whether in an attempt to fell the Government we cannot be sure. Balfour on the other hand argued that ‘… to give the notes would be breaking up the whole system of Cabinet government’. A compromise was struck: the War Council-not the Cabinet-decided to give access to the full minutes to the Chairman of the Commission, not as a matter of record, but only ‘… so to satisfy himself that nothing had been kept back’ (CAB 42/20/6 and 42/20/8, 20 and 23 Sept. 1916). Apparently the War Committee thought that they had upheld the principle of secrecy.

71 In 1924, he indicated to Balfour his belief that some government documents—he had the official ‘inside’ Departmental histories of the war administration in mind—would in future be handed over to the Public Record Office, but he did not refer to the Cabinet Papers. (Young, , Balfour, p. 412.)Google Scholar

72 Lloyd George Papers, F/23/1/11, 7 June 1917. Yet on a future occasion Hankey recognized ruefully that he had spoken an ill-advised word to Margot Asquith-and even a word with her could be too much. Though no breach of secrecy was involved, Roskill properly comments that Hankey was ‘ slightly at fault’. (Hartley, , I, 561.)Google Scholar

73 Spears, E. L., Prelude to Victory (London, 1939). p. 137.Google Scholar I am indebted to Professor Paul Guinn for this reference.

74 Much light has been shed upon this question by Stephen Roskill; the opening of the Hankey papers will of course be a further aid. It is now quite clear that Hankey's advisory role antedated Lloyd George's premiership; already in September 1915 Asquith ‘… expressed a wish that the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence shall free himself as far as possible from detailed work in order to give his attention more closely to the higher policy of the war.’ (Quoted by Roskill, , Hankey, I, 211.)Google Scholar

75 Moorehead, Alan, Gallipoli (London, 1956), p. 30Google Scholar (pb. ed.). Roskill's full account of Hankey's role in the Dardanelles venture credits him with the ‘inception’ of the strategy; he prefers to characterize Hankey as an advocate of a maritime strategy-as opposed to a continental-rather than as an ‘Easterner’. (Hankey, , I, chs. 6–8.)Google Scholar

76 Moorehead, , Gallipoli, p. 210Google Scholar, confirmed by James, Robert Rhodes, Gallipoli (London, 1965), p. 249.Google Scholar

77 Blake, , Private Papers of Haig, pp. 90, 164 and 333.Google Scholar Haig's biographer Terraine concurs in a favourable reading of Hankey's mediative abilities, e.g. at the time of the Calais Conference. (Haig, , p. 272.)Google Scholar

78 Records of the Cabinet Office, p. 20.Google Scholar

79 CAB 21/101, Note on the Composition of the Secretariat of the War Cabinet, 13 Dec. 1916.

80 See above, note 37.

81 Records of the Cabinet Office, pp. 14–16.Google Scholar

82 Davies, Joseph, The Prime Minister's Secretariat (Newport, Mon., 1951), p. xvii.Google Scholar

83 Ibid. p. 60, arguing that their aim was to prevent the Prime Minister from ‘drowning in paper’.

84 ‘The New Bureaucracy’, Nation, 20 (24 02 1917) 696–7.Google Scholar

85 For instance, the Prime Minister's Secretariat assumed the responsibility of ‘acting as interme diaries between the Prime Minister and the different Departments of State with a view of discovering and reporting how far the decisions of the War Cabinet have been carried out by the Departments concerned’. (Lloyd George Papers, F/74/2/1, undated [late December 1916]; the F/74 file is central to any reconstruction of the organization of the Prime Minister's Secretariat.)

86 Ibid. F/75/3.

87 Quoted by Butler, J. R. M., Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr) 1882–1940 (London, 1960), p. 64.Google Scholar

88 Jones, , Whitehall Diary, 1916–1925, p. 15Google Scholar (letter of 12 Dec. 1916).

89 ‘A fluid person’, Times Literary Supplement, 17 07 1969, p. 766.Google Scholar

90 The Cabinet Secretariat proved especially useful in controlling Cabinet business to Lloyd George's satisfaction while he was attending the Paris Peace Conference. (Jones, , Whitehall Diary, 1916–1925, pp. 72, 89.)Google Scholar

91 Ibid. p. 123 (letter of 21 Dec. 1920).

92 In all fairness, one must note that by 1924 the Cabinet Secretariat was sufficiently strong to resist an attempt by the Prime Minister, MacDonald, to ‘correct’ a crucial Cabinet Minute written some six weeks earlier. The Prime Minister's clumsy attempt to extricate himself from involvement in the case of the Workers Weekly was frustrated by Jones and Hanlcey, who regarded one of his parliamentary statements as ‘“a bloody lie”‘ (Jones, , Whitehall Diary, 1916–1925, pp. 295–8).Google Scholar

93 Hankey, , Supreme Command, II, 580.Google Scholar