Editing Liberal Party (UK) (section)

=== Decline ===
{{Further|History of the United Kingdom during the First World War|Asquith coalition ministry|}}

The Liberal Party might have survived a short war, but the totality of the Great War called for measures that the Party had long rejected.  The result was the permanent destruction of the ability of the Liberal Party to lead a government.  Historian [[Robert Blake, Baron Blake|Robert Blake]] explains the dilemma:
{{blockquote|[T]he Liberals were traditionally the party of freedom of speech, conscience and trade. They were against jingoism, heavy armaments and compulsion. [...] Liberals were neither wholehearted nor unanimous about conscription, censorship,  the [[Defence of the Realm Act]], severity toward aliens and pacifists, direction of labour and industry. The Conservatives [...] had no such misgivings.<ref name="Blake">Robert Blake, ''The Decline of Power: 1915–1964'' (1985), p. 3.</ref>}}

Blake further notes that it was the Liberals, not the Conservatives who needed the moral outrage of Belgium to justify going to war, while the Conservatives called for intervention from the start of the crisis on the grounds of ''realpolitik'' and the balance of power.<ref name="Blake" /> However, Lloyd George and Churchill were zealous supporters of the war, and gradually forced the old peace-orientated Liberals out.

Asquith was blamed for the poor British performance in the first year. Since the Liberals ran the war without consulting the Conservatives, there were heavy partisan attacks. However, even Liberal commentators were dismayed by the lack of energy at the top. At the time, public opinion was intensely hostile, both in the media and in the street, against any young man in civilian garb and labeled as a slacker. The leading Liberal newspaper, the ''[[Manchester Guardian]]'' complained:
{{blockquote|The fact that the Government has not dared to challenge the nation to rise above itself, is one among many signs. [...] The war is, in fact, not being taken seriously. [...] How can any slacker be blamed when the Government itself is slack.<ref>''Manchester Guardian'' 1 May 1915, editorial, in {{cite book|author=Trevor Wilson|title=The Downfall of the Liberal Party, 1914–1935|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0PyvNxXVMg4C&pg=PT37|year=1966|page=51|publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=9780571280223}}</ref>}}

Asquith's Liberal government was brought down in {{Nowrap|May 1915}}, due in particular to a [[Shell Crisis of 1915|crisis in inadequate artillery shell production]] and the protest resignation of [[Admiral Fisher]] over the disastrous [[Gallipoli Campaign]] against Turkey. Reluctant to face doom in an election, Asquith formed a new coalition government on 25 May, with the majority of the new cabinet coming from his own Liberal party and the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Unionist (Conservative) party]], along with a token Labour representation. The new government lasted a year and a half and was the last time Liberals controlled the government.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 1876582|title = Asquith's Predicament, 1914–1918|journal = The Journal of Modern History|volume = 39|issue = 3|pages = 283–303|last1 = McGill|first1 = Barry|year = 1967|doi = 10.1086/240083|s2cid = 144038154}}</ref> The analysis of historian [[A. J. P. Taylor]] is that the British people were so deeply divided over numerous issues, but on all sides, there was growing distrust of the Asquith government. There was no agreement whatsoever on wartime issues. The leaders of the two parties realized that embittered debates in Parliament would further undermine popular morale and so the House of Commons did not once discuss the war before May 1915. Taylor argues:<ref>{{cite book|author=A.J.P. Taylor|title=English History, 1914–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sb0RDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA17|year=1965|page=17|publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=9780198217152}}</ref>
{{blockquote|The Unionists, by and large, regarded Germany as a dangerous rival, and rejoiced at the chance to destroy her. They meant to fight a hard-headed war by ruthless methods; they condemned Liberal 'softness' before the war and now. The Liberals insisted on remaining high-minded. Many of them had come to support the war only when the Germans invaded Belgium. [...] Entering the war for idealistic motives, the Liberals wished to fight it by noble means and found it harder to abandon their principles than to endure defeat in the field.}}

The 1915 coalition fell apart at the end of 1916, when the Conservatives withdrew their support from Asquith and gave it instead to Lloyd George, who became prime minister at the head of a new coalition largely made up of Conservatives.<ref>Kenneth O. Morgan, "7 December 1916: Asquith, Lloyd George and the Crisis of Liberalism." ''Parliamentary History'' 36.3 (2017): 361–371.</ref> Asquith and his followers moved to the opposition benches in Parliament and the Liberal Party was deeply split once again.<ref>Trevor Wilson, ''The Downfall of the Liberal Party: 1914–1935'' (1966), pp. 90–131.</ref>