ABSTRACT
Conservative reactions to the arrival of coalition in 1915 give a strong indication of the role that coalition was to play. Although there had been talk of a possible coalition five years previously between Lloyd George, Churchill and F.E. Smith, May 1915 did not represent the realization of a pipe dream. In its personnel, as by its timing, it bore little if no resemblance to these earlier efforts. While there was no wild celebration at the achievement of a halcyon political ideal, no one held out totally against the new combination publicly; those who voiced concerns did so privately. Conservatives in south Yorkshire were told that ‘no coalition Government, and scarcely any other [Government,] had ever been formed with so much prospect of success’.3 About as equivocal as they came was a London
Conservative magazine that emphasized the reluctance with which the agreement had been entered upon: ‘It is an open secret that the Unionist Party were, as a whole, against it, but … they unanimously decided that the only course open to them was to approve of the course proposed.’4 This line – that coalition had been an arrangement foisted upon the party and accepted by the leader for patriotic reasons – was subsequently to be repeated frequently by Bonar Law and widely believed. Coalition was greeted with an unenthusiastic appreciation that the requirements of war necessitated a cross-party government of sorts. As Walter Long commented to his friend William Bull, ‘I can’t contemplate a coalition without grave anxiety’.5 Yet, even Long did contemplate it. Reluctant support derived in part from the inter-party cooperation already in existence. Shows of cross-party solidarity had even preceded the decision to go to war in local areas.6 In the ensuing months interparty agreements had been successful in preventing by-election contests. These initiatives had again sprung up from local roots as from the formal agreement made centrally on by-elections between the three party whips.7
