Lloyd George`s Memoirs

[PhilB]

I came upon this on the net (www.johndclare.net/wwi3_LG_WarMemoirs.htm) :-

"Lloyd George decided to publish the Memoirs in 1922, when General Frederick Maurice published a book called Intrigues of War, in which he accused Lloyd George of lying to Parliament about the strength of the army in 1918. Consequently, Lloyd George employed Major-General ED Swinton as a research assistant (1922-25), and also set his principle secretaries, AJ Sylvester (1922-25) and Malcolm Thompson (1925-) to interview colleagues, organise and index his papers, and to research the Cabinet records. Sylvester was a particularly experienced helper, for he had been in the Cabinet secretariat during the war, and had taken some of the Cabinet minutes himself. For almost a decade, Lloyd George had his secretaries keep him up to date about what people were saying about his war leadership, and he himself took particular interest in the growing debate about the war - in his War Memoirs, he says that his bookshelves ‘groaned under the burden of war autobiographies.

When he started writing the War Memoirs in 1931, Lloyd George further called on the help of Basil Liddell Hart, the war historian, and of Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretary. Their help on the project makes the War Memoirs assuredly reliable factually. Liddell Hart is arguably the best-respected of all historians of the Great War, and, through Hankey, Lloyd George had unrestricted access to the Cabinet Records. Also, Hankey vetted the Memoirs by sending each chapter to the relevant government departments to be checked, not only for potentially damaging revelations, but also for factual errors. To a degree, therefore, the whole civil service was drafted in to check Lloyd George's book.

Lloyd George's script WAS censored. Hankey deleted passages he thought would harm the national interest. Lloyd George also had to submit his script to the Prime Minister and the King (and he had some furious arguments about whether he would be allowed to published what he wanted). When he was Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin came under great pressure to censor the book. Since, however, these were people were Lloyd George's enemies, their restraining influence renders the War Memoirs more reliable, not less."

What I wonder is:-

1/ What national interest might have been threatened?

2/ With Haig dead, would KGV still have been anxious to protect his reputation? Phil B

[Chris_Baker]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Dec 4 2006, 07:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Their help on the project makes the War Memoirs assuredly reliable factually.

Ha ha! Brilliant! I'm sorry, but the tears are rolling down my cheeks. That is the funniest line I have ever read on this Forum. DLGs memoirs are a bad joke, where facts take a back seat to prejudice, self promotion and plain old cattiness.

[PhilB]

That also gets a mention!

"We have to remember that Lloyd George’s War Memoirs, were written 15 years after the event, and that they were designed to justify and glorify Lloyd George’s reputation as a war leader – Peter Simkins, Honorary Professor in Modern History at the University of Birmingham, calls them 'the self-serving War Memoirs of David Lloyd George'. In his article: "The Lloyd George War Memoirs : A Study in the Politics of Memory" in the Journal of Modern History 60 (1988), George W. Egerton acknowledges that ‘for LG, the principle intent of the memoirs was… the recording and vindication of his wartime leadership’ - so nobody would ever claim that the War Memoirs were unbiased!"

[Chris_Baker]

That's good. Peter has taught me everything I know!

[armourersergeant]

I will not have a bad word said against them....they make a cracking pair of door stops!

[Robert Dunlop]

Contrast with General Frederick Maurice, an intelligent and 'educated' general whose principalled stand againt LG cost him dearly, in terms of his career. His books are well worth reading.

Robert

[Chris_Baker]

I have an article about Maurice's stand against DLG, here: http://www.1914-1918.net/manpower.htm

[Robert Dunlop]

Nice article, Chris. Thank you. It is a very fitting memorial to General Maurice and what he did.

Robert

[armourersergeant]

Good old LG hounded the man to his grave. Honour and dignity typified I would say. His daughter who went on to have an affiar and I think marry Edward Speirs, 1914 liason fame, wrote a book about the incident which is a good read.

Wully Robertson thought highly of him, bringing him home from GHQ when he became CIGS.

regards

Arm

[Take on me]

I am not sure that gratitude to some military figures was present in either wartime leader. I do not think that Churchill was particularly grateful towards CIGS FM Alan Brooke after WW2.

Jon

[Robert Dunlop]

General Maurice featured in this evening's BBC2 programme 'Masters and Commanders'.

Robert

[Chris Best]

General Maurice featured in this evening's BBC2 programme 'Masters and Commanders'.

Robert

I did enjoy the programme. Staggered it was on so late, hope it'll get a re-run.

Chris

[PhilB]

So what might LlG have said (and been censored for) in his WW1 memoirs that might have damaged the national interest in the 1930s? Phil B

[Andrew Hesketh]

Oddly enough, I started reading LG's War Memoirs last week having let them silently adorn the bookshelves for a few years.

I exected them to be self-serving to an extent - most memoirs are - but this is quite unbelievable. I'm about 250 pages in. Hardly a page slips by wthout some self-aggrandising comment. Thus far LG has mentioned such bizarre things as:

if only you'd listened to me the war could have been averted....

if only you'd lstened to me we could have won in the first few weeks....

without me the army would have run out of ammunition and lost....

etc etc.

A terrible shame. I'm becoming less and less convinced by the revisionist 'Haig wasn't too bad' interpretation of history, and I'd turned to LG to discover more about his well-known anti-Haig views. Sadly they are going to be largely worthless due to LG's twisted perspective.

Out of interest, were these memoirs being written at the same time as LG's well-publicised PR disaster of meeting Hitler and praising him as a hero?

[Bernardlewis]

I am working through Grigg's bio of Lloyd George now. Sadly John Griggs died when only up to about October 1918 so I'm not expecting any insights there (I'm still reading 1914!) I have read elsewhere however, that great politician that he was (see the Ministry of Munitions for evidence) he was a wily old goat who wrote his memoirs to help himself and hinder his enemies. Must be read with a pinch of salt.

Bernard