ABSTRACT
The politicians whose job it was to win the peace faced as large and formidable a task as those who had won the War. The gravest mistakes were made by those who believed that the pre-war world could be recreated, that England’s Edwardian summer could be restored and the impact of the War set to one side. By the time the War ended Austen Chamberlain was already something of an elder statesman. His experience of front-bench politics spanned more than two decades and, though in political terms he was a relatively young man, many of the figures who had been his associates and antagonists in the political arena had already departed or were about to depart from the scene. The post-war environment allowed scope for the emergence of Chamberlain’s inherent conservatism. It was inevitable that the end of the War and the holding of a General Election would occasion some changes in the government.
