worked—the Liberal Party was split and permanently destroyed— while in 1931 the
plotters broke off only a fragment of the Labour Party and damaged it only temporarily
(for fourteen years). This last difference, however, was not caused by any lack of skill in
carrying out the intrigue but by the sociological differences between the Liberal Party and
the Labour Party in the twentieth century. The latter was riding the wave of the future,
while the former was merely one of two "teams" put on the field by the same school for
an intramural game, and, as such, it was bound to fuse with its temporary antagonist as
soon as the future produced an extramural challenger. This strange (to an outsider) point
of view will explain why Asquith had no real animosity for Bonar Law or Balfour (who
really betrayed him) but devoted the rest of his life to belittling the actions of Lloyd
George. Asquith talked later about how he was deceived (and even lied to) in December
1915, but never made any personal attack on Bonar Law, who did the prevaricating (if
any). The actions of Bonar Law were acceptable in the code of British politics, a code
largely constructed on the playing fields of Eton and Harrow, but Lloyd George's actions,
which were considerably less deliberate and cold-blooded, were quite unforgivable,
coming as they did from a parvenu who had been built up to a high place in the Liberal
Party because of his undeniable personal ability, but who, nonetheless, was an outsider
who had never been near the playing fields of Eton.
In the coalition governments of May 1915 and December 1916, members of the Cecil
Bloc took the more obvious positions (as befitted their seniority), while members of the
Milner Group took the less conspicuous places, but by 1918 the latter group had the
whole situation tied up in a neat package and held all the strings.
In the first coalition (May 1915), Lansdowne came into the Cabinet without portfolio,
Curzon as Lord Privy Seal, Bonar Law at the Colonial Office, Austen Chamberlain at the
India Office, Balfour at the Admiralty, Selborne as President of the Board of Agriculture,
Walter Long as President of the Local Government Board, Sir Edward Carson as
Attorney General, F. E. Smith as Solicitor General, Lord Robert Cecil as Under Secretary
in the Foreign Office, and Arthur Steel-Maitland as Under Secretary in the Colonial
Office. Of these eleven names, at least nine were members of the Cecil Bloc, and four
were close to the Milner Group (Cecil, Balfour, Steel-Maitland, and Selborne).
In the second coalition government (December 1916), Milner was Minister without
Portfolio; Curzon was Lord President of the Council; Bonar Law, Chancellor of the
Exchequer; Sir Robert Finlay, Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Crawford, Lord Privy Seal;
Sir George Cave, Home Secretary; Arthur Balfour, Foreign Secretary; The Earl of Derby,
War Secretary; Walter Long, Colonial Secretary; Austen Chamberlain, at the India
Office; Sir Edward Carson, First Lord of the Admiralty; Henry E. Duke, Chief Secretary
for Ireland; H. A. L. Fisher, President of the Board of Education; R. E. Prothero,
President of the Board of Agriculture; Sir Albert Stanley, President of the Board of
Trade; F. E. Smith, Attorney General; Robert Cecil, Minister of Blockade; Lord
Hardinge, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Steel-Maitland, Under Secretary for the
Colonies; and Lord Wolmer (son of Lord Selborne), assistant director of the War Trade
Department. Of these twenty names, eleven, at least, were members of the Cecil Bloc,
and four or five were members of the Milner Group.
Milner himself became the second most important figure in the government (after
Lloyd George), especially while he was Minister without Portfolio. He was chiefly
interested in food policy, war trade regulations, and postwar settlements. He was
chairman of a committee to increase home production of food (1915) and of a committee
on postwar reconstruction (1916). From the former came the food-growing policy
adopted in 1917, and from the latter came the Ministry of Health set up in 1919. In 1917
he went with Lloyd George to a meeting of the Allied War Council in Rome and from
there on a mission to Russia. He went to France after the German victories in March
1918, and was the principal influence in the appointment of Foch as Supreme
Commander in the west. In April he became Secretary of State for War, and, after the
election of December 1918, became Colonial Secretary. He was one of the signers of the
Treaty of Versailles. Of Milner's role at this time, John Buchan wrote in his memoirs: "In
the Great War from 1916 to 1918, he was the executant of the War Cabinet who
separated the sense from the nonsense in the deliberations of that body, and was
responsible for its chief practical achievements. To him were largely due the fruitful
things which emerged from the struggle, the new status of the Dominions, and the notable
advances in British social policy." In all of these actions Milner remained as unobtrusive