ABSTRACT
Churchill, at the age of thirty-five, became the youngest Home Secretary since Sir Robert Peel in 1822. The seniority of the post was unquestioned, symbolised by the fact that it was his duty each day during the Parliamentary session to write to the King concerning the business of the Commons. Churchill's energetic preparations were bitterly criticised by Labour spokesmen who accused him of behaving as if he were living in a medieval state. There is no doubt; however, that Churchill felt his responsibility for the maintenance of law and order acutely. Opposition gossip, which could not take his lambasting at face value, suggested that Churchill, disappointed to be outstripped in radicalism by Lloyd George, was contemplating withdrawing altogether from the sphere of party politics. The Foreign Secretary reported the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia and the prospect that the four continental Great Powers would be drawn into a war.
