page_title: H. H. Asquith
section_title: Progress of the war
hierarchical_section_title: H. H. Asquith / First Coalition: May 1915 – December 1916 / Progress of the war
caption_attribution_description: English: The Battle of the Somme, July-november 1916 Mr Herbert Asquith, Prime Minister of the Liberal Government 1908-1915 and of the Coalition Government until 1916, watches a squadron of aeroplanes returning to RFC Headquarters at Frevillers. With him is General Hugh Trenchard who was considered to be the Father of the Independent Air Force. Royal Flying Corps Headquarters at Franvillers, 7 August 1916.
context_page_description: Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC, FRS, generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last prime minister to lead a majority Liberal government, and he played a central role in the design and passage of major liberal legislation and a reduction of the power of the House of Lords. In August 1914, Asquith took Great Britain and the British Empire into the First World War. In 1915, his government was vigorously attacked for a shortage of munitions and the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. He formed a coalition government with other parties, but failed to satisfy critics. As a result, he was forced to resign in December 1916, and he never regained power.
  After attending Balliol College, Oxford, he became a successful barrister. In 1886 he was the Liberal candidate for East Fife, a seat he held for over thirty years. In 1892 he was appointed as Home Secretary in Gladstone's fourth ministry, remaining in the post until the Liberals lost the 1895 election.
context_section_description: Continued Allied failure and heavy losses at the Battle of Loos between September and October 1915 ended any remaining confidence in the British commander, Sir John French and in the judgement of Lord Kitchener. Asquith resorted to a favoured stratagem and, persuading Kitchener to undertake a tour of the Gallipoli battlefield in the hope that he could be persuaded to remain in the Mediterranean as Commander-in-Chief, took temporary charge of the War Office himself. He then replaced French with Sir Douglas Haig; the latter recording in his diary for 10 December 1915; "About 7 pm I received a letter from the Prime Minister marked 'Secret' and enclosed in three envelopes. It ran 'Sir J. French has placed in my hands his resignation … Subject to the King's approval, I have the pleasure of proposing to you that you should be his successor.'" Asquith also appointed Sir William Robertson as Chief of the Imperial General Staff with increased powers, reporting directly to the Cabinet and with the sole right to give them military advice, relegating the Secretary of State for War to the tasks of recruiting and supplying the army. Lastly, he instituted a smaller Dardanelles Committee, re-christened the War Committee, with himself, Balfour, Law, Lloyd George and Reginald McKenna as members although, as this soon increased, the Committee continued the failings of its predecessor, being "too large and lack(ing) executive authority". None of this saved the Dardanelles Campaign and the decision to evacuate was taken in December, resulting in the resignation from the Duchy of Lancaster of Churchill, who wrote, "I could not accept a position of general responsibility for war policy without any effective share in its guidance and control." Further reverses took place in the Balkans: the Central Powers overran Serbia, forcing the Allied troops which had attempted to intervene back towards Salonika.
  Early 1916 saw the start of the German offensive at Verdun, the "greatest battle of attrition in history". In late May, the only significant Anglo-German naval engagement of the War took place at The Battle of Jutland. Although a strategic success, the greater loss of ships on the Allied side brought early dismay. Lord Newton, Paymaster General and Parliamentary spokesman for the War office in Kitchener's absence, recorded in his diary; "Stupefying news of naval battle off Jutland. Whilst listening to the list of ships lost, I thought it the worst disaster that we had ever suffered." This despondency was compounded, for the nation, if not for his colleagues, when Lord Kitchener was killed in the sinking of HMS Hampshire on 5 June.
  Asquith first considered taking the vacant War Office himself but then offered it to Law, who declined it in favour of Lloyd George. This was an important sign of growing unity of action between the two men and it filled Margot Asquith with foreboding; "I look upon this as the greatest political blunder of Henry's lifetime, … We are out: it can only be a question of time now when we shall have to leave Downing Street."
  Asquith followed this by agreeing to hold Commissions of Inquiry into the conduct of the Dardanelles and of the Mesopotamian campaign, where Allied forces had been forced to surrender at Kut. Sir Maurice Hankey, Secretary to the War Committee, considered that; "the Coalition never recovered. For (its) last five months, the function of the Supreme Command was carried out under the shadow of these inquests." But these mistakes were overshadowed by the limited progress and immense casualties of the Battle of the Somme, which began on 1 July 1916, and then by another devastating personal loss, the death of Asquith's son Raymond, on 15 September at the Battle of Flers–Courcelette. Asquith's relationship with his eldest son had not been easy. Raymond wrote to his wife in early 1916; "If Margot talks any more bosh to you about the inhumanity of her stepchildren you can stop her mouth by telling her that during my 10 months exile here the P.M. has never written me a line of any description." But Raymond's death wa
caption: Asquith visits the front during the Battle of the Somme, 1916
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