Lloyd George: War Leader 1916-1918

This book is the 4th of a multi-volume definitive biography of Britain's great leader of ww1.The first 3 volumes were superb. However the author john Grigg died shortly before completing this volume. Margaret Macmillan (who wrote a brilliant work on the Treaty of Versailles) has written a good Afterward. There is no bibliography but hopefully this is planned for the final volume(s). There was a Note on Sources
In volumes 1 and 2.

On war, strategy and the relations between Foch and the British generals and Lloyd George’s difficulties with them, Grigg is in his element. On domestic politics similarly Grigg is masterful as in his account of Electoral Reform and Industrial unrest—but every now and then Grigg’s private Liberal Democatic sympathies slip out, berating the PM for not introducing proportional representation in the middle of the Great War. The calm shaded Oxford empiricism disappears into passion, which is after all, the stuff of politics. If you doubt your “objectivity” simply state the pros and cons clearly and let the reader make up his own mind.
Chapter 19 on the Balfour Declaration reveals what value free empiricism can lead to and for that matter so called objectivity. The analysis is dreadful, imbalanced and plain wrong. From the footnotes there is no mention of him having studied Leonard Stein’s “The Balfour Declaration” the most scholarly detailed and full work on the issue. Grigg fails as a result to understand Lloyd Georges Zionism, which was based on the principle of enlightened self-interest in foreign policy. LG hoped for a Jewish Dominion in the British Commonwealth and was strong enough (as were Churchill and Balfour) to push this through and make it stick against Moslem and anti Zionist Jewish pressure. Grigg prefers the Foreign Office line as did Chamberlain, Attlee and Bevin despite the fact that this policy ultimately failed. On page 350n.20 Grigg complains that public Anti-Jewish remarks are no longer considered decent!

In my dreams these flaws will be expunged in the second edition and this guargantuan work will be properly completed with at least one final volume by Margaret Macmillan or another able historian.If so the works will then as the quarry and classic on LG like Churchill and Gilbert on Churchill and Lady Gwendolen Cecil on Salisbury.

Lloyd George: War Leader 1916-1918

John Grigg

Reader Reviews:

lloyd george war leader by John Grigg (9/9 people found this helpful)

Similar Products

Categories