ABSTRACT

The arrival of Lloyd George as Prime Minister, with his reorganisation of government machinery for running the War, and his greater ruthlessness in using powers available to him, coincided with a more settled working routine between the Press, the Government, and the AWOPC. Relationships did still however sometimes become strained by events and organisational defects. Dissatisfactions and disagreements unavoidable between groups with different motivations continued to fester under the pressure of a most damaging War. It was unsurprising, for example, that newspapers should ask Robbins at the beginning of February 1917 to obtain for them very early communiqués when the expected ‘Big Push’ came, and equally unsurprising that the War Office and Press Bureau should give no such guarantees [the next major campaigns, the battles of Arras and of the Aisne did not in fact start until April].