ABSTRACT
Although nobody knew it at the time, the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914 marked the beginning of the end for British economic dominance in the Western world. Many took a long time to realise its full significance, but by the end of the war Keynes had no illusions as to its real meaning and its calamitous consequences for the UK economy. As will be documented in this chapter and the next, he was powerless to prevent UK financial power draining (almost literally) week-by-week across the Atlantic Ocean; indeed, his own wartime employment forced him to be an active and efficient organiser of this debilitating drain in the most intimate and excruciating way.
