ABSTRACT
Churchill was hustled out of the Admiralty with the jeers of the Tories and the boos of the multitude in his ears, but with his head held high. Churchill left the political stage like a lion at bay, delivering a ‘formidable apologia’ covering the whole of his stewardship at the Admiralty. It was a tremendous epilogue, filling twenty-two columns of Hansard, but it was his farewell; at least, for the time being. Churchill’s excursion into soldiering on the western front was brief but honourable. Asquith must have realized that the small flame of liberalism is particularly vulnerable in war, and must be shielded with devotion if it is not to be extinguished. In office the breach between him and Lloyd George would surely have been healed, for they were men of vision, devoid of pettiness, and tempered for years in the turmoil of politics.
