• Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Lloyd George, 1863

   

During a long tenure of office, mainly as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was a key figure in the introduction of many reforms which laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. He was the last Liberal to serve as Prime Minister, his coalition premiership being supported more by Conservatives than by his own Liberals, and the subsequent split was a key factor in the decline of the Liberal Party as a serious political force thereafter. After 1922 he was a marginalized and widely mistrusted figure.

Lloyd George is best known as the highly energetic Prime Minister (1916-22) who guided the Empire through the First World War to victory over Germany and its allies. He was a major player at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 that reordered Europe after the Great War. As an icon of 20th century liberalism, he is regarded as the founder of the British welfare state. He made a greater impact on British public life than any other 20th century leader, thanks to his leadership of the war, his postwar role in reshaping Europe, and his introduction of Britain's social welfare system before the war.

Although many barristers have been Prime Minister, Lloyd George is to date the only solicitor to have held that office. He is also so far the only British Prime Minister to have been Welsh and to have spoken English as a second language, with Welsh being his first. He was voted the third greatest British prime minister of the 20th century in a poll of 139 academics organized by MORI, and in 2002 he was named among the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK wide vote.

Born at Chorlton - on - Medlock, Manchester, United Kingdom, Lloyd George was a Welsh-speaker and of Welsh descent and upbringing, the first and so far only Welsh politician to hold the office of Prime Minister. In March 1863 his father William George, who had been a teacher in Manchester and other cities, returned to his native Pembrokeshire because of failing health. He took up farming but died in June 1864 of pneumonia, aged 44. His mother Elizabeth George (1828-96) sold the farm and moved with her children to her native Llanystumdwy, Caernarfonshire, where she lived in Tŷ Newydd with her brother Richard Lloyd (1834 - 1917) — a shoemaker, minister in the Disciples of Christ, and strong Liberal. Lloyd George was educated at the local Anglican school Llanystumdwy National School and later under tutors. Lloyd George's uncle was a towering influence on him, encouraging him to take up a career in law and enter politics; his uncle remained influential up until his death at age 83 in February 1917, by which time his nephew was Prime Minister. He added his uncle's surname to become "Lloyd George". His surname is usually given as "Lloyd George" and sometimes as "George." His childhood showed through in his entire career, as he attempted to aid the common man at the expense of what he liked to call "the Dukes". However, his biographer John Grigg argued that Lloyd George's childhood was nowhere near as poverty stricken as he liked to suggest, and that a great deal of his self confidence came from having been brought up by an uncle who enjoyed a position of influence and prestige in his small community. Brought up a devout evangelical, as a young man he suddenly lost his religious faith and became a lifelong agnostic. He kept quiet about that, however, and was hailed as " one of the foremost fighting leaders of a fanatical Welsh Nonconformity."

Articled to a firm of solicitors in Porthmadog, Lloyd George was admitted in 1884 after taking Honours in his final law examination and set up his own practice in the back parlor of his uncle's house in 1885. The practice flourished and he established branch offices in surrounding towns, taking his brother William into partnership in 1887. By then he was politically active, having campaigned for the Liberal Party in the 1885 election, attracted by Joseph Chamberlain's "unauthorised programme" of reforms. The election resulted firstly in a stalemate, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives having a majority, the balance of power being held by the Irish Parliamentary Party. William Gladstone's announcement of a determination to bring about Irish Home Rule later led to Chamberlain leaving the Liberals to form the Liberal Unionists. Lloyd George was uncertain of which wing to follow, carrying a pro-Chamberlain resolution at the local Liberal Club and traveling to Birmingham planning to attend the first meeting of Chamberlain's National Radical Union, but he had his dates wrong and arrived a week too early. In 1907, he was to say that he thought Chamberlain's plan for a federal solution correct in 1886 and still thought so, that he preferred the unauthorized program to the Whig like platform of the official Liberal Party, and that had Chamberlain proposed solutions to Welsh grievances such as land reform and disestablishment, he, together with most Welsh Liberals, would have followed Chamberlain.

On 24 January 1888 he married Margaret Owen, the daughter of a well - to - do local farming family. Also in that year he and other young Welsh Liberals founded a monthly paper Udgorn Rhyddid (Bugle of Freedom) and won on appeal to the Divisional Court of Queen's Bench the Llanfrothen burial case; this established the right of Nonconformists to be buried according to their own denominational rites in parish burial grounds, a right given by the Burial Act 1880 that had up to then been ignored by the Anglican clergy. It was this case, which was hailed as a great victory throughout Wales, and his writings in Udgorn Rhyddid that led to his adoption as the Liberal candidate for Caernarfon Boroughs on 27 December 1888.

In 1889 he became an Alderman on the Caernarfonshire County Council which had been created by the Local Government Act 1888. At that time he appeared to be trying to create a separate Welsh national party modeled on Parnell's Irish Parliamentary Party and worked towards a union of the North and South Wales Liberal Federations. For the same county Lloyd - George would also become a JP (1910) and chairman of Quarter Sessions (1929-38), and DL in 1921.

Lloyd George was returned as Liberal MP for Carnarvon Boroughs — by a margin of 19 votes — on 13 April 1890 at a by-election caused by the death of the former Conservative member. He was the youngest MP in the House of Commons, and he sat with an informal grouping of Welsh Liberal members with a program of disestablishing and disendowing the Church of England in Wales, temperance reform, and Welsh home rule. He would remain an MP until 1945, 55 years later.

As backbench members of the House of Commons were not paid at that time, he supported himself and his growing family by continuing to practice as a solicitor, opening an office in London under the name of Lloyd George and Co. and continuing in partnership with William George in Criccieth. In 1897 he merged his growing London practice with that of Arthur Rhys Roberts (who was to become Official Solicitor) under the name of Lloyd George, Roberts and Co..

He was soon speaking on Liberal issues (particularly temperance — the "local option", and national as opposed to denominational education) throughout England as well as Wales. During the next decade, Lloyd George campaigned in Parliament largely on Welsh issues and in particular for disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England. He wrote extensively for Liberal papers such as the Manchester Guardian. When Gladstone retired after the defeat of the second Home Rule Bill in 1894, the Welsh Liberal members chose him to serve on a deputation to William Harcourt to press for specific assurances on Welsh issues; when those were not provided, they resolved to take independent action if the government did not bring a bill for disestablishment. When that was not forthcoming, he and three other Welsh Liberals (David Alfred Thomas, Herbert Lewis and Frank Edwards) refused the whip on 14 April 1892 but accepted Lord Rosebery's assurance and rejoined the official Liberals on 29 May. Thereafter, he devoted much time to setting up branches of Cymru Fydd (Young Wales), which, he said, would in time become a force like the Irish National Party. He abandoned this idea after being criticized in Welsh newspapers for bringing about the defeat of the Liberal Party in the 1895 election and when, at a meeting in Newport on 16 January 1896, the South Wales Liberal Federation, led by David Alfred Thomas and Robert Bird moved that he be not heard.

He gained national fame by his vehement opposition to the Second Boer War. He based his attack firstly on what were supposed to be the war aims – remedying the grievances of the Uitlanders and in particular the claim that they were wrongly denied the right to vote, saying "I do not believe the war has any connection with the franchise. It is a question of 45% dividends" and that England (which did not then have universal male suffrage) was more in need of franchise reform than the Boer republics. His second attack was on the cost of the war, which, he argued, prevented overdue social reform in England, such as old age pensions and workmen's cottages. As the war progressed, he moved his attack to its conduct by the generals, who, he said (basing his words on reports by William Burdett - Coutts in The Times), were not providing for the sick or wounded soldiers and were starving Boer women and children in concentration camps. He reserved his major thrusts for Chamberlain, accusing him of war profiteering through the Chamberlain family company Kynoch Ltd, of which Chamberlain's brother was Chairman and which had won tenders to the War Office though its prices were higher than some of its competitors. After speaking at a meeting in Chamberlain's political base at Birmingham. Lloyd George had to be smuggled out disguised as a policeman, as his life was in danger from the mob. At this time the Liberal Party was badly split as Herbert Henry Asquith, Richard Burdon Haldane and others were supporters of the war and formed the Liberal Imperial League.

His attacks on the government's Education Act, which provided that County Councils would fund church schools, helped reunite the Liberals. His successful amendment that the County need only fund those schools where the buildings were in good repair served to make the Act a dead letter in Wales, where the Counties were able to show that most Church of England schools were in poor repair. Having already gained national recognition for his anti - Boer War campaigns, his leadership of the attacks on the Education Act gave him a strong parliamentary reputation and marked him as a likely future cabinet member.

In 1906 Lloyd George entered the new Liberal Cabinet of Sir Henry Campbell - Bannerman as President of the Board of Trade. In that position he introduced legislation on many topics, from Merchant Shipping and Companies to Railway regulation, but his main achievement was in stopping a proposed national strike of the railway unions by brokering an agreement between the unions and the railway companies. While almost all the companies refused to recognize the unions, Lloyd George persuaded the companies to recognize elected representatives of the workers who sat with the company representatives on conciliation boards — one for each company. If those boards failed to agree then there was a central board. This was Lloyd George's first great triumph, for which he received praises from, among others, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Two weeks later, however, his great excitement was crushed by his daughter Mair's death from appendicitis.

On Campbell - Bannerman's death he succeeded Asquith, who had become Prime Minister, as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1908 to 1915. While he continued some work from the Board of Trade — for example, legislation to establish a Port of London authority and to pursue traditional Liberal programs such as licensing law reforms — his first major trial in this role was over the 1908 - 1909 Naval Estimates. The Liberal manifesto at the 1906 general elections included a commitment to reduce military expenditure. Lloyd George strongly supported this, writing to Reginald McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty, "the emphatic pledges given by all of us at the last general election to reduce the gigantic expenditure on armaments built up by the recklessness of our predecessors."

He then proposed the program be reduced from six to four dreadnoughts. This was adopted by the government but there was a public storm when the Conservatives, with covert support from the First Sea Lord Admiral Jackie Fisher, campaigned for more with the slogan "We want eight and we won't wait". This resulted in Lloyd George's defeat in Cabinet and the adoption of estimates including provision for eight dreadnoughts. This was later to be said to be one of the main turning points in the naval arms race between Germany and Britain that contributed to the outbreak of World War I.

Although old age pensions had already been introduced by Asquith as Chancellor, Lloyd George was largely responsible for the introduction of state financial support for the sick and infirm (known colloquially as "going on the Lloyd George" for decades afterwards) — legislation often referred to as the Liberal reforms.

In 1909 he introduced his famous budget imposing increased taxes on luxuries, liquor, tobacco, incomes, and land, so that money could be made available for the new welfare programs as well as new battleships. The nation's landowners (well represented in the House of Lords) were intensely angry at the new taxes. In the House of Commons Lloyd George gave a brilliant defense of the budget, which was attacked by the Conservatives. On the stump, most famously in his Limehouse speech, he denounced the Conservatives and the wealthy classes with all his very considerable oratorical power. The budget passed the Commons, but was defeated by the Conservative majority in the House of Lords. The elections of 1910 upheld the Liberal government and the budget finally passed the Lords. Subsequently, the Parliament Bill for social reform and Irish Home Rule, which Lloyd George strongly supported, was passed and the veto power of the House of Lords was greatly curtailed. In 1911 Lloyd George succeeded in putting through Parliament his National Insurance Act, making provision for sickness and invalidism, and this was followed by his Unemployment Insurance Act. He was helped in his endeavors by forty or so backbenchers who regularly pushed for new social measures, and often voted with the Labour Party on them. These social reforms began in Britain the creation of a welfare state and fulfilled the aim of dampening down the demands of the growing working class for rather more radical solutions to their impoverishment.

In 1913 Lloyd George, along with Attorney General Rufus Isaacs, was involved in the Marconi scandal. Accused of speculating in Marconi shares on the inside information that they were about to be awarded a key government contract (which would have caused them to increase in value), he told the House of Commons that he had not speculated in the shares of "that company", which was not the whole truth as he had in fact speculated in shares of Marconi's American sister company. This scandal, which would have destroyed his career if the whole truth had come out at the time, was a precursor to the whiff of corruption (e.g. the sale of honours) that later surrounded Lloyd George's premiership.

The Church of England no longer had majority adherence in most parts of Wales in preference to Wales led Protestantism, in particular Methodism. Lloyd George was instrumental in introducing the Welsh Church Act which disestablished, i.e., secularized, Wales though on the outbreak of War, postponed until 1920, removing the opportunity of the six Welsh Bishops in the new Church in Wales to apply ex officio to sit in the House of Lords and removing (disendowing) certain pre 1662 property rights.

Lloyd George was considered an opponent of war until the Agadir Crisis of 1911, when he had made a speech attacking German aggression. Nevertheless, he supported World War I when it broke out, not least as Belgium, for whose defense Britain was supposedly fighting, was a "small nation" like Wales or indeed the Boers. For the first year of the war he remained chancellor of the exchequer.

The cabinet was reconstituted as the first coalition ministry in May 1915, and Lloyd George was made Minister of Munitions in a new department created after a munitions shortage. In this position he was a brilliant success, but he was not at all satisfied with the progress of the war. He wanted to "knock away the props" by attacking Germany's allies - he argued for the sending of British troops to Greece (this was done - the Salonika expedition - although not on the scale that Lloyd George had wanted, and mountain ranges made his suggestions of grand Balkan offensives impractical) and for the sending of machine guns to Romania (insufficient were available). These suggestions were the beginning of Lloyd George's poor relations with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Robertson, who was "brusque to the point of rudeness" and "barely concealed his contempt for Lloyd George's military opinions", to which he was in the habit of retorting "I've 'eard different".

Lloyd George persuaded Kitchener to raise a Welsh Division, but not to recognize nonconformist chaplains in the Army.

Late in 1915 Lloyd George became a strong supporter of general conscription, and he helped to put through the conscription act of 1916. In spring 1916 Milner hoped Lloyd George could be persuaded to bring down the coalition government by resigning, but this did not happen.

In June 1916 Lloyd George succeeded Kitchener (drowned en route to Russia) as Secretary of State for War, although he had little control over strategy, as General Robertson had been given direct right of access to the Cabinet so as to bypass Kitchener. However, he did succeed in securing the appointment of Sir Eric Geddes to take charge of military railways behind British lines in France, with the honorary rank of major general.

Lloyd George told journalist Roy W. Howard in late September that “the fight must be to a finish – to a knockout”, a rejection of President Wilson’s offer to mediate.

Lloyd George was increasingly frustrated at the limited gains of the Somme Offensive, criticizing Haig to Foch on a visit to the Western Front in September (British casualty ratios were worse than those of the French, who were more experienced and had more artillery), proposing sending Robertson on a mission to Russia (he refused to go), and demanding that more troops be sent to Salonika to help Romania. Robertson eventually threatened to resign.

Much of the press still argued that the professional leadership of Haig and Robertson was preferable to civilian interference which had led to disasters like Gallipoli and Kut. Lord Northcliffe, owner of The Times stormed into Lloyd George’s office and, finding him unavailable, told his secretary “You can tell him that I hear he has been interfering with Strategy, and that if he goes on I will break him”, and the same day (11 October) Lloyd George also received a warning letter from H.A. Gwynne, editor of the Morning Post. Lloyd George had to give his “word of honor” to Asquith that he had complete confidence in Haig and Robertson and thought them irreplaceable, but he wrote to Robertson wanting to know how their differences had been leaked to the press (affecting to believe that Robertson had not personally “authorized such a breach of confidence & discipline”) and asserting his right to express his opinions about strategy. By November ministers had taken to holding meetings to which Robertson was not invited.

The weakness of Asquith as a planner and organizer was increasingly apparent to senior officials. After Asquith had refused to agree to Lloyd George's demand that he be allowed to chair a small committee to manage the war, he was forced out in December 1916, and Lloyd George became Prime Minister, with the nation demanding he take vigorous charge of the war. A "Punch" cartoon of the time showed him as "The New Conductor" conducting the orchestra in the "Opening of the 1917 Overture".

Although during the political crisis Robertson had advised Lloyd George to “stick to it” and form a small War Council, Lloyd George had planned if necessary to appeal to the country, his Military Secretary Colonel Arthur Lee having prepared a memo blaming Robertson and the General Staff for the loss of Serbia and Romania. Lloyd George was restricted by his promise to the Unionists to keep Haig as Commander - in - Chief and the press support for the generals, although Milner and Curzon were also sympathetic to campaigns to increase British power in the Middle East.

After Germany’s offer (12 December 1916) of a negotiated peace, Lloyd George rebuffed President Wilson’s request for the belligerents to state their war aims by demanding terms tantamount to German defeat.

The fall of Asquith as Prime Minister split the Liberal Party into two factions: those who supported him and those who supported the coalition government. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George compared himself to Asquith:

After December 1916, Lloyd George relied on the support of Conservatives and of the press baron Lord Northcliffe (who owned both The Times and The Daily Mail). Besides the Prime Minister, the five member War Cabinet contained three Conservatives (Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords Lord Curzon, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons Andrew Bonar Law and Minister without Portfolio Lord Milner) and Arthur Henderson, unofficially representing Labour.

Lloyd George wanted to make the destruction of Turkey a major British war aim, and two days after taking office told Robertson that he wanted a major victory, preferably the capture of Jerusalem, to impress British public opinion.

At the Rome Conference (5-6 January 1917) Lloyd George was discreetly quiet about plans to take Jerusalem, an object which advanced British interests rather than doing much to win the war. Lloyd George proposed sending heavy guns to Italy with a view to defeating Austria - Hungary, possibly to be balanced by a transfer of Italian troops to Salonika, but was unable to obtain the support of the French or Italians, and Robertson talked of resigning.

Lloyd George engaged in almost constant intrigues to reduce the power of the generals, including trying to subordinate British forces in France to the French General Nivelle. Lloyd George backed Nivelle because he thought he had “proved himself to be a Man” by his successful counterattacks at Verdun, and because of his promises that he could "rupture" the German lines in 48 hours. Nivelle increasingly complained of Haig dragging his feet rather than cooperating with their plans for the offensive, whilst Haig further irritated Lloyd George with a press interview in February in which said the British were short of heavy guns, a complaint which Lloyd George, former Minister of Munitions and an advocate of sending guns to Italy, took personally.

This plot, launched with the full knowledge of Nivelle and the French Prime Minister Aristide Briand, was announced in guarded terms at a War Cabinet meeting on 24 February, to which neither Robertson nor Lord Derby (Secretary of State for War) had been invited. Ministers felt that the French generals and staff had shown themselves more skilful than the British in 1916, whilst politically Britain had to give wholehearted support to what would probably be the last major French effort of the war. Nivelle's proposal was then landed on Robertson and Haig without warning at an Anglo-French conference at Calais (26-7 Feb). Minutes from the War Cabinet meeting were not sent to the King until 28 February, so that he did not have a prior chance to object.

Robertson wrote to Haig (28 February) that Lloyd George was “an awful liar”, claiming he had misled the Cabinet in his claim that the French had originated the proposal, and that he lacked the “honesty & truth” to remain Prime Minister.

After continued lobbying by Robertson, and talk of the government falling, War Cabinet opinion turned in favor of Haig. If no government could be formed with a majority in the House of Commons, the King would have had to have agreed to a General Election (there had not been one since December 1910) and there were concerns that, after the recent Fall of the Tsar, Lloyd George wanted to neutralize the British Army before fighting on a republican platform. Lloyd George was also rebuked by the King for having insulted the British Army. At another conference in London (12-13 March) Lloyd George expressed the government’s full support for Haig and the status quo ante, by which British forces were expected to defer to French wishes but were allies rather than subordinates, was essentially restored.

The affair further poisoned relations between Lloyd George and the "Brasshats". In the event Nivelle's offensive was a failure, pushing the French Army to the point of mutiny and damaging Lloyd George's credibility.

Lloyd George set up a War Policy Committee (himself, Curzon, Milner, Law and Smuts, with Maurice Hankey as secretary) to discuss strategy, which held 16 meetings over the next six weeks. At the very first meeting (11 June) Lloyd George proposed helping the Italians to capture Trieste, explicitly telling the War Policy Committee (21 June 1917) that he wanted Italian soldiers to be killed rather than British.

Haig believed that a Flanders Offensive had good chance of clearing the Belgian Coast, from which German submarines and destroyers operated (a popular goal with politicians), and that victory at Ypres “might quite possibly lead to (German) collapse”. Robertson was less optimistic, but preferred Britain to keep her focus on defeating Germany on the Western Front, and had told Haig that the politicians would not “dare” overrule both soldiers if they gave the same advice. Haig promised he had no “intention of entering into a tremendous offensive involving heavy losses” (20 June) whilst Robertson wanted to avoid “disproportionate loss” (23 June).

The Flanders Offensive was reluctantly sanctioned by the War Policy Committee on 18 July and the War Cabinet two days later, on condition it did not degenerate into a long drawn-out fight like the Somme. The War Cabinet promised to monitor progress and casualties and, if necessary call a halt, although in the event they made little effort to monitor progress until September. Frustrated at his inability to get his way, Lloyd George talked of resigning and taking his case to the public.

Third Ypres began on 31 July, but soon became bogged down in unseasonably early wet weather. Lloyd George tried to enlist the King for diverting efforts against Austria-Hungary, telling Stamfordham (14 August) that the King and Prime Minister were “joint trustees of the nation” who had to avoid waste of manpower. A new Italian offensive began (18 August), but Robertson advised that it was “false strategy” to call off Third Ypres to send reinforcements to Italy, and despite being summoned to George Riddell’s home in Sussex, where he was served apple pudding (his favorite dish), agreed only reluctantly. The Anglo - French leadership agreed in early September to send 100 heavy guns to Italy (50 of them French) rather than the 300 which Lloyd George wanted – Lloyd George talked of ordering a halt to Third Ypres, but in Hankey’s words “funked it” (4 September). Had he not done so his government might have fallen, for as soon as the guns reached Italy Cadorna called off his offensive (21 September).

At a meeting at Boulogne (25 September) Lloyd George broached with Painleve the setting up of an Allied Supreme War Council then making Foch generalissimo. Bonar Law had written to Lloyd George that ministers must soon decide whether or not the offensive was to continue. Lloyd George and Robertson met Haig in France (26 September) to discuss the recent German peace feelers (which in the end were publicly repudiated by Chancellor Michaelis) and the progress of the offensive. Haig preferred to continue, encouraged by Plumer’s recent successful attacks in dry weather at Menin Road (20 September) and Polygon Wood (26 September), and stating that the Germans were “very worn out”. In October the wet weather returned for the final attack towards Passchendaele. At the final meeting of the War Policy Committee on 11 October 1917, Lloyd George authorized the Passchendaele Offensive to continue, but warning of failure in three weeks' time. Hankey (21 October) claimed in his diary that Lloyd George had deliberately allowed Third Ypres to continue in order to discredit Haig and Robertson and make it easier for him to forbid similar offensives in 1918.

Lloyd George played a critical role in Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour's famous Declaration in favor of "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people".

The Italians suffered disastrous defeat at Caporetto, requiring British and French reinforcements to be sent. Lloyd George said he "wanted to take advantage of Caporetto to gain "control of the War". The Supreme War Council was inaugurated at the Rapallo Conference (6-7 November 1917). Lloyd George then gave a controversial speech at Paris (12 November) at which he criticized the high casualties of recent Allied victories. These events led to an angry Commons debate (19 November), which Lloyd George survived.

In reply to Robertson's 19 November memo, which warned (correctly) that the Germans would use the opportunity of Russia's departure from the war to attack in 1918 before the Americans were present in strength, Lloyd George wrote (wrongly) that the Germans would not attack and would fail if they did. That autumn he declared that he was willing “to risk his whole political reputation” to avoid a repetition of the Somme or Third Ypres.

In December 1917, Lloyd George remarked to C.P. Scott that: "If people really knew, the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know, and can't know."

Lloyd George had told Allenby, who was appointed the new commander in Egypt in June, that his objective was “Jerusalem before Christmas” and that he had only to ask for reinforcements, although the exact nature of his offensives was still undecided when he was appointed. Amidst months of argument throughout the autumn of 1917 Robertson was able to block Lloyd George's plan to make Palestine the main theater of operations by having Allenby make the impossible demand that thirteen extra divisions be sent to him. Allenby captured Jerusalem in December 1917.

In the winter of 1917/18 Lloyd George secured the resignations of both the service chiefs, Admiral Jellicoe and General Robertson. Relations with the latter had worsened further over the creation of the Supreme War Council at Versailles and he was eventually forced out over his insistence that the British delegate there be subordinate to Robertson as CIGS in London.

The War Cabinet was a very successful innovation. It met almost daily, with Maurice Hankey as secretary, and made all major political, military, economic and diplomatic decisions. Rationing was finally imposed in early 1918 for meat, sugar and fats (butter and oleo) – but not bread; the new system worked smoothly. From 1914 to 1918 trade union membership doubled, from a little over four million to a little over eight million. Work stoppages and strikes became frequent in 1917-18 as the unions expressed grievances regarding prices, liquor control, pay disputes, "dilution", fatigue from overtime and from Sunday work, and inadequate housing.

Conscription put into uniform nearly every physically fit man, six million out of ten million eligible. Of these about 750,000 lost their lives and 1,700,000 were wounded. Most deaths were of young unmarried men; however, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers.

Most of the organizations Lloyd George created during World War I were replicated with the outbreak of World War II. As Lord Beaverbrook remarked, "There were no signposts to guide Lloyd George."

In rapid succession in spring 1918 came a series of military and political crises. The Germans, having moved troops from the Eastern front and retrained them in new tactics, and now had more soldiers on the Western Front than the Allies. Germany launched a full scale spring offensive starting March 21 against the British and French lines, hoping for victory on the battlefield before the American troops arrived in numbers. The Allied armies fell back 40 miles in confusion, and facing defeat London realized it needed more troops to fight a mobile war. Lloyd George found a half million soldiers and rushed them to France, asked American President Woodrow Wilson for immediate help, and agreed to the appointment of French General Foch as commander in chief on the Western Front. He considered taking on the role of War Minister himself, but was dissuaded by the king, and instead appointed Lord Milner.

Despite strong warnings it was a bad idea, the War Cabinet decided to impose conscription on Ireland. The main reason was that trade unions in Britain demanded it as the price for cutting back on conscription exemptions for certain workers. Labour wanted the principle established that no one was exempt, but it did not demand that conscription actually take place in Ireland. The proposal was enacted but never enforced. The Catholic bishops for the first time entered the fray and called for open resistance to conscription. Many Irish Catholics and nationalists moved into Sinn Fein, a decisive moment marking the dominance of Irish politics by a party committed to leaving the UK altogether.

At one point Lloyd George unknowingly misled the House of Commons in claiming that Haig's forces were stronger at the start of 1918 than they had been a year earlier - in fact the increase was in the number of laborers, most of them Chinese, Indians and black South Africans, and Haig had fewer infantry, holding a longer stretch of front. The prime minister had used incorrect information furnished by the War Department office headed by Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice. Maurice then made the spectacular public allegation that the War Cabinet had deliberately held soldiers back from the Western Front, and both Lloyd George and Bonar Law had lied to Parliament about it. Instead of going to the prime minister about the problem Maurice had waited and then broke King's Regulations by making a public attack. Asquith, the Liberal leader in the House, took up the allegations and attacked Lloyd George, which further ripped apart the Liberal Party. While Asquith's presentation was poorly done, Lloyd George vigorously defended his position, treating the debate as a vote of confidence. He won over the House with a powerful refutation of Maurice's allegations.

Meanwhile the German offensive stalled. By summer the Americans were sending 10,000 fresh men a day to the Western Front, a speedup made possible by leaving their equipment behind and using British and French munitions. The German army had used up its last reserves and was steadily shrinking in number and weakening in resolve. Victory came on November 11, 1918.

At the end of the war Lloyd George's reputation stood at its zenith. A leading Conservative said "He can be dictator for life if he wishes."

In the "Coupon election" of December 1918 he led a coalition of Conservatives and his own faction of Liberals to a landslide victory. Coalition candidates received a "coupon" (an endorsement letter signed by Lloyd George and Bonar Law). Wilson argues that by sending a "coupon" to so many Conservative candidates he broke with liberalism and linked his political future with the Conservatives. He did not say, "We shall squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeak" (that was Sir Eric Geddes), but he did express that sentiment about reparations from Germany to pay the entire cost of the war, including pensions. He said that German industrial capacity "will go a pretty long way." We must have "the uttermost farthing," and "shall search their pockets for it." As the campaign closed, he summarized his program:

1. Trial of the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II;
2. Punishment of those guilty of atrocities;
3. Fullest indemnity from Germany;
4. Britain for the British, socially and industrially;
5. Rehabilitation of those broken in the war; and
6. A happier country for all.

The election was fought not so much on the peace issue and what to do with Germany, although those themes played a role. More important was the voters' evaluation of Lloyd George in terms of what he had accomplished so far and what he promised for the future. His supporters emphasized that he had won the Great War. Against his strong record in social legislation, he himself called for making "a country fit for heroes to live in.".

His "National Liberal" coalition gained an overwhelming victory, winning 525 of the 707 seats contested; however, the Conservatives had control within the Coalition of more than two-thirds of its seats. Asquith's independent Liberals were crushed and emerged with only 33 seats, although were still the official opposition as the two Liberal factions combined had more seats than Labour.

Lloyd George represented Britain at the Versailles Peace Conference, clashing with French Premier Georges Clemenceau, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando. Unlike Clemenceau and Orlando, Lloyd George on the whole stood on the side of generosity and moderation. He did not want to utterly destroy the German economy and political system — as Clemenceau demanded — with massive reparations. The British economist John Maynard Keynes attacked Lloyd George's stance on reparations in his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace, calling the Prime Minister a "half - human visitor to our age from the hag - ridden magic and enchanted woods of Celtic antiquity". Poles were grateful that he had saved that country from the Bolsheviks, but were annoyed for his comment that Poles were "children who gave trouble". Asked how he had done at the peace conference, he commented, "Not badly, considering I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon".

A major program of social reform was introduced under Lloyd George's postwar government. The Education Act 1918 raised the school leaving age to 14, increased the powers and duties of the Board of Education (together with the money it could provide to Local Education Authorities), and introduced a system of day - continuation schools which youths between the ages of 14 and 16 "could be compelled to attend for at least one day a week." The Housing and Town Planning Act 1919 provided subsidies for house building by local authorities, and a total of 170,000 homes were built under this Act. This was a landmark measure, in that it established, according to A.J.P. Taylor, "the principle that housing was a social service". Under the 1919 Housing Act, 30,000 houses were constructed by private enterprise with government subsidy.

The Unemployment Insurance Act 1920 extended national insurance to 11 million additional workers. This was considered to be a revolutionary measure, in that it extended unemployment insurance to almost the entire labor force, whereas only certain categories of workers had been covered before. As a result of this legislation, roughly three - quarters of the British workforce were now covered by unemployment insurance. In education, teachers’ salaries were standardized (in 1921) through the Burnham Scale, whilst in agriculture the state continued to insist that farm laborers received a minimum wage while the state continued to guarantee the prices of farm produce until 1921. The Sex Disqualification Removal Act of 1919 allowed women to stand for Parliament, while the Rent Act of 1920 safeguarded working class tenants against exorbitant rent increases.

The 1920 Blind Persons Act provided assistance for unemployed blind people and blind persons who were in low paid employment, while the Agriculture Act of 1920 provided allotment tenants with the right to compensation for disturbance. Rent controls were continued after the war, and an "out - of - work donation" was introduced for ex-servicemen and civilians. The 1920 National Health Insurance Act increased insurance benefits, and eligibility for pensions was extended to more people. The means limit for pensions was raised by about two - thirds, aliens and their wives were allowed to receive pensions after living in Britain for ten years, and the imprisonment and "failure to work" disqualifications for receiving pensions were abolished. In addition, pensions were introduced for blind persons aged fifty and above.

Old age pensions were doubled, efforts were made to help returning soldiers find employment, and the Whitley Councils were established to arbitrate between employees and employers. In 1919, the government set up a Ministry of Health, a development which led to major improvements in public health in the years that followed. The Agricultural Act of 1920 provided tenant farmers with greater protection by granting them better security of tenure whilst the Unemployed Workers’ Dependants (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1921 provided payments for the wives and dependent children of unemployed workers. The Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act (1920) prohibited the employment of children below the limit of compulsory school age in railways and transport undertakings, building and engineering construction works, factories, and mines. The legislation also prohibited the employment of children in ships at sea (except in certain circumstances, such as in respect of family members employed on the same vessel).

The reforming efforts of the Coalition Government were such that, according to the historian Kenneth O. Morgan, its achievements were greater than those of the pre war Liberal governments. However, the reform program was substantially rolled back by the Geddes Axe, which cut public expenditure by £76 million, including substantial cuts to education.

Lloyd George began to feel the weight of the coalition with the Conservatives after the war. In calling the 1917-18 Irish Convention he attempted to settle the outstanding Home Rule for Ireland issue, but then his attempt to extend conscription to Ireland in April 1918 was disastrous, leading to the wipe out of the old Irish Home Rule Party at the December 1918 election. Replaced by Sinn Féin MPs, they immediately declared an Irish Republic. Lloyd George presided over the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which established Northern Ireland in May 1921, during the Anglo - Irish War, which led to the negotiation of the Anglo - Irish Treaty in December 1921 with Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins and the formation of the Irish Free State. At one point, he famously declared of the IRA, "We have murder by the throat!" However he was soon to begin negotiations with IRA leaders to recognize their authority and end the conflict.

Deep fissures quickly emerged in Lloyd George's coalition. The more traditional wing of the Unionist Party had no intention of introducing reforms, which led to three years of frustrated fighting within the coalition both between the National Liberals and the Unionists and between factions within the Conservatives themselves. Many Conservatives were angered by the granting of independence to the Irish Free State and by Montagu's moves towards limited self government for India, while a sharp economic downturn and wave of strikes in 1921 damaged Lloyd George's credibility. In June 1922 Conservatives were able to show that he had been selling knighthoods and peerages — and the OBE which was created at this time — for money. Conservatives were concerned by his desire to create a party from these funds comprising moderate Liberals and Conservatives. A major attack in the House of Lords followed on his corruption resulting in the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925. The Conservatives also attacked Lloyd George as lacking any executive accountability as Prime Minister, claiming that he never turned up to Cabinet meetings and banished some government departments to the gardens of 10 Downing Street.

The coalition was dealt its final blow on 19 October 1922. After criticism of Lloyd George over the Chanak crisis mounted, Conservative leader Austen Chamberlain summoned a meeting of Conservative Members of Parliament at the Carlton Club to discuss their attitude to the Coalition in the forthcoming election. They sealed Lloyd George's fate with a vote of 187 to 87 in favor of abandoning the coalition. Chamberlain and other Conservatives such as the Earl of Balfour argued for supporting Lloyd George, while former party leader Andrew Bonar Law argued the other way, claiming that breaking up the coalition "wouldn't break Lloyd George's heart". The main attack came from Stanley Baldwin, then President of the Board of Trade, who spoke of Lloyd George as a "dynamic force" who would break the Conservative Party. Baldwin and many of the more progressive members of the Conservative Party fundamentally opposed Lloyd George and those who supported him on moral grounds. A motion was passed that the Conservative Party should fight the next election on its own for the first time since the start of World War I.

Throughout the 1920s Lloyd George remained highly visible in politics; predictions that he would return to power were common, but it never happened. Before the 1923 election, he resolved his dispute with Asquith, allowing the Liberals to run a united ticket against Stanley Baldwin's policy of protective tariffs. Baldwin both feared and despised Lloyd George, and one of his aims was to keep him out of power. He later claimed that he had adopted tariffs, which cost the Conservatives their majority, out of concern that Lloyd George was about to do so on his return from a tour of North America. Although there was press speculation at the time that Lloyd George would do so (or adopt US style Temperance to appeal to newly enfranchised women voters), there is no evidence that this was his intent. At the 1924 general election, Baldwin won a clear victory, the leading coalitionists such as Austen Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead (and former Liberal Winston Churchill) agreeing to serve under Baldwin and thus ruling out any restoration of the 1916-22 coalition.

In 1926 Lloyd George succeeded Asquith as Liberal leader. Since the disastrous election result in 1924 the Liberals were now a weak third party in British politics. Lloyd George used his fund to finance candidates and put forward innovative ideas for public works to reduce unemployment (as detailed in pamphlets such as the "Yellow Book" and the "Green Book"). Lloyd George was also helped by John Maynard Keynes to write We can Conquer Unemployment, setting out economic policies to solve unemployment. However the results at the 1929 general election were disappointing: the Liberals increased their support only to 60 or so seats, while Labour became the largest party for the first time. Once again, the Liberals ended up supporting a minority Labour government. In 1929 Lloyd George became Father of the House, the longest serving member of the Commons.

In 1931 an illness prevented his joining the National Government when it was formed. Later when the National Government called a General Election he tried to pull the Liberal Party out of it but succeeded in taking only a few followers, most of whom were related to him; the main Liberal party remained in the coalition for a year longer, under the leadership of Sir Herbert Samuel. By the 1930s Lloyd George was on the margins of British politics, although still intermittently in the public eye and publishing his War Memoirs. Lloyd George was President of the London Welsh Trust, which runs the London Welsh Centre, Gray's Inn Road, from 1934 until 1935.

In January 1935 Lloyd George announced a program of economic reform, called "Lloyd George's New Deal" after the American New Deal. This Keynesian economic program was essentially the same as that of 1929. MacDonald requested that he put his case before the Cabinet and so in March Lloyd George submitted a 100 page memorandum and this was cross - examined between April and June by ten meetings of the Cabinet's subcommittee. However the program did not find favor and two - thirds of Conservative MPs were against Lloyd George joining the National government, and some Cabinet members would have resigned if he had joined.

Rudman argues that Lloyd George was consistently pro - German after 1923. He supported German demands for territorial concessions and recognition of its “great power” status; he paid much less attention to the security concerns of France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Belgium. The Germans welcomed him as a friend in the highest circles of British politics. In September 1936 he went to Germany to talk with the German dictator Adolf Hitler. Hitler said he was pleased to have met "the man who won the war"; Lloyd George was moved, and called Hitler "the greatest living German". Lloyd George also visited Germany's public works programs and was impressed. On his return to Britain he wrote an article for The Daily Express praising Hitler; he wrote, "The Germans have definitely made up their minds never to quarrel with us again." He believed Hitler was "the George Washington of Germany"; that he was rearming Germany for defense and not for offensive war; that a war between Germany and Russia would not happen for at least ten years; that Hitler admired the British and wanted their friendship but that there was no British leadership to exploit this. However, by 1938, Lloyd George's distaste for Prime Minister Chamberlain led him to disavow Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies.

In the last important parliamentary intervention of his career, which occurred during the crucial Norway Debate of May 1940, Lloyd George made a powerful speech that helped to undermine Chamberlain as Prime Minister and to pave the way for the ascendancy of Churchill. Churchill offered Lloyd George the agriculture portfolio in his Cabinet but he refused, citing his unwillingness to sit alongside Chamberlain. Lloyd George also thought that Britain's chances in the war were dim, and he remarked to his secretary: "I shall wait until Winston is bust". He wrote to the Duke of Bedford in September 1940 advocating a negotiated peace with Germany after the Battle of Britain.

A pessimistic speech by Lloyd George on 7 May 1941 led Churchill to compare him with Philippe Pétain. On 11 June 1942 he made his last ever speech in the House of Commons, and he cast his last vote in the Commons on 18 February 1943 as one of the 121 MPs (97 Labour) condemning the Government for its failure to back the Beveridge Report. Fittingly, his final vote was in defense of the welfare state which he had helped to create.

Increasingly in his late years his characteristic political courage gave way to physical timidity and hypochondria. He continued to attend Castle Street Baptist Chapel in London, and to preside over the national eisteddfod at its Thursday session each summer. At the end, he returned to Wales. In September 1944, he and Frances left Churt for Tŷ Newydd, a farm near his boyhood home in Llanystumdwy. He was now weakening rapidly and his voice failing. He was still an MP but had learned that wartime changes in the constituency meant that Caernarfon Boroughs might go Conservative at the next election. On New Years Day 1945 Lloyd George was raised to the peerage as Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor and Viscount Gwynedd, of Dwyfor in the County of Caernarvonshire. Under the rules governing titles within the peerage, Lloyd George's name in his title was hyphenated even though his surname was not.

As it happened, he did not live long enough to take his seat in the House of Lords. He died of cancer on 26 March 1945, aged 82, his wife Frances and his daughter Megan at his bedside. Four days later, on Good Friday, he was buried beside the river Dwyfor in Llanystumdwy.

A great boulder marks his grave; there is no inscription. However a monument designed by the architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis was subsequently erected around the grave, bearing an englyn (strict - metre stanza) engraved on slate in his memory composed by his nephew Dr William George. Nearby stands the Lloyd George Museum, also designed by Williams - Ellis and opened in 1963.

Lloyd George had a considerable reputation as a womanizer, which led to his being nicknamed "the Goat" (coined by Sir Robert Chalmers, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury from 1911). Kitchener is said to have remarked early in World War One that he tried to avoid sharing military secrets with the Cabinet, as they would all tell their wives, apart from Lloyd George "who would tell someone else's wife". He remained married to Margaret, and remained fond of her until her death on 20 January 1941; Lloyd George was deeply upset by the fact that bad weather prevented him from being with her when she died.

In October 1943, aged 80, and to the disapproval of his children, he married his secretary and mistress, Frances Stevenson. He had first met Stevenson in 1910, and she had worked for him first as a teacher for Megan in 1911; their affair began in early 1913. The first Countess Lloyd - George is now largely remembered for her diaries, which dealt with the great issues and statesmen of Lloyd George's heyday. A volume of Lloyd George's letters to her, "My Darling Pussy", has also been published; Lloyd George's nickname for Frances referred to her gentle personality.

His second marriage caused severe tension between Lloyd George and his children by his first wife. He had five children by his first wife — Richard (1889 - 1968), Mair (1890 - 1907, who died during an appendectomy), Olwen (1892 - 1990), Gwilym (1894 - 1967) and Megan (1902 - 1966) — and possibly one child by Stevenson, a girl named Jennifer (1929 - 2012).

His son, Gwilym, and daughter, Megan, both followed him into politics and were elected members of parliament. They were politically faithful to their father throughout his life; but after 1945, each drifted away from the Liberal Party, Gwilym finishing his career as a Conservative Home Secretary while Megan became a Labour MP in 1957, perhaps symbolizing the fate of much of the old Liberal Party.