Download Free Memorandum On Resignation Aug 1914 Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Memorandum On Resignation Aug 1914 and write the review.

This book presents a realistic assessment of British priorities in the years before 1914.
The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War may be commemorated by some as a great moment of national history. But the standard history of Britain’s choice for war is far from the truth. Using a wide range of sources, including the personal papers of many of the key figures, some for the first time, historian Douglas Newton presents a new, dramatic narrative. He interleaves the story of those pressing for a choice for war with the story of those resisting Britain’s descent into calamity. He shows how the decision to go to war was rushed, in the face of vehement opposition, in the Cabinet and Parliament, in the Liberal and Labour press, and in the streets. There was no democratic decision for war. The history of this opposition has been largely erased from the record, yet it was crucial to what actually happened in August 1914. Two days before the declaration of war four members of the Cabinet resigned in protest at the war party’s manipulation of the crisis. The government almost disintegrated. Meanwhile large crowds gathered in Trafalgar Square to hear the case for neutrality and peace. Yet this cry was ignored by the government. Meanwhile, elements of the press, the Foreign Office, and the Tory Opposition sought to browbeat the government into a quick decision. Belgium had little to do with it. The key decision to enter the war was made before Belgium was invaded. Those bellowing for hostilities were eager for Britain to enter any war in solidarity with Russia and France – for the future safety of the British Empire. In particular Newton shows how Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey, and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill colluded to pre-empt the decisions of Cabinet, to manipulate the parliament, and to hurry the nation toward intervention by any means necessary.
Asquith was at the pinnacle of his success when the course of his life and that of his country was changed by the outbreak of the First World War. Instead of being over by Christmas 1914, the war became a stalemate, with opposing trenches extending from the Channel coast to the Swiss border. During the initial stages of the war Asquith's oratory, tact and skill, combined with his imperturbability and prestige, made him indispensable. As the war dragged on, his failure to show the ruthlessness needed to win at any cost made him ill-suited to direct the nation in total war. In December 1916 Asquith was manoeuvred out of Downing Street by Lloyd George. Asquith as War Leader is the first comprehensive study of this exceptionally talented Prime Minister's war record. In a thorough examination of British war policy, with its evolutionary shifts and internal dissensions, George H. Cassar has defined the precise nature of Asquith's involvement and responsibility. He describes Asquith's part in bringing Britain into the war, in shaping war aims and strategy, and in mobilising the nation's resources. Because he was not the Prime Minister who won in 1918, Asquith's achievements in dealing with the problems of fighting a war on an unprecedented scale have been insufficiently recognised.
Before the First World War, the British Admiralty conceived a plan to win rapid victory in the event of war with Germany-economic warfare on an unprecedented scale.This secret strategy called for the state to exploit Britain's effective monopolies in banking, communications, and shipping-the essential infrastructure underpinning global trade-to create a controlled implosion of the world economic system. In this revisionist account, Nicholas Lambert shows in lively detail how naval planners persuaded the British political leadership that systematic disruption of the global economy could bring about German military paralysis. After the outbreak of hostilities, the government shied away from full implementation upon realizing the extent of likely collateral damage-political, social, economic, and diplomatic-to both Britain and neutral countries. Woodrow Wilson in particular bristled at British restrictions on trade. A new, less disruptive approach to economic coercion was hastily improvised. The result was the blockade, ostensibly intended to starve Germany. It proved largely ineffective because of the massive political influence of economic interests on national ambitions and the continued interdependencies of all countries upon the smooth functioning of the global trading system. Lambert's interpretation entirely overturns the conventional understanding of British strategy in the early part of the First World War and underscores the importance in any analysis of strategic policy of understanding Clausewitz's "political conditions of war."
British Foreign and Imperial Policy explores Britains role in International Affairs from the age of Gladstone and Disraeli to the end of the First World War, exploring such themes as Britain's involvement in the Scramble for Africa, the Anglo-Boer War, the foreign policy of Lord Salisbury and the prospects for Britain and the Empire at the end of the First World War.