British statesman David Lloyd George comes from a Welsh family. He went through thirteen general elections, entered the parliament at the age of 27, and maintained his seat in the parliament for a long period of 55 years.
When the Liberal Party split in two during the war, Lloyd George took part in the liberal left wing.
David Lloyd George, a British statesman, was born in Manchester, England, in 1836. He studied law. He was elected as a member of parliament from the Liberal Party in 1890. He served as Minister of Commerce and Finance in the Campbell Bannerman Cabinet between 1905 and 1908. He was appointed prime minister in 1916 and remained in this position until 1922.
In the First World War, he tried to shift the Allied operations to the Balkans and the Middle East. He supported the Greeks to land troops in the Aegean. Lloyd George, who was in a political deadlock with the success of the Turkish War of Independence, was forced to approve the Sinn Phoenicians' wishes to establish an independent Irish State. He faced a harsh reaction from the Conservatives and left his post.
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. A Liberal Party politician from Wales, he was known for leading the United Kingdom during the First World War, for social-reform policies (including the National Insurance Act 1911), for his role in the Paris Peace Conference, and for negotiating the establishment of the Irish Free State. He was the last Liberal Party prime minister; the party fell into third-party status shortly after the end of his premiership.
He died in Llaynstumwy Caernarvonshire in 1945.
Who is David Lloyd George?
He lost his father, William George, a primary school principal when he was one year old. His mother was the daughter of Baptist minister David Lloyd. The family was left in poverty after the father's death. Lloyd George was raised by his maternal uncle. He was influenced by his uncle's liberal ideas. He entered a law firm in Portmadoc as an intern in 1879. He graduated from the Faculty of Law in 1884 and became a lawyer. While continuing his career as a lawyer, he made great efforts to establish farmer unions. Lloyd George lost his religious beliefs in his childhood because of the pressure and domination that the Anglicanized, land-rich British established over the people.
He wrote articles about land reform in newspapers. He married Margaret Owen in 1888. Two sons and three daughters were born from this marriage. Lloyd George entered politics in 1890. He joined the parliament as a member of the Liberal Party. He continued his success as a lawyer in parliament. He retained his seat in parliament for a long period of 55 years. After the Liberal Party lost the election, he remained in opposition for ten years. He opposed the South African Wars. That's why he barely escaped being lynched by the public in Birmingham.
He opposed the tax relief brought to church schools in Wales and tried to abolish the church. When the Liberal Party came to power in 1905, he became minister of commerce. He enabled the passage of many bills. He made great efforts to pacify the strikes. In 1908 he became Minister of Finance in the Government of Henry Asquith. From now on, it seems that he was also active in foreign policy issues. He was one of the first politicians to see the dangers of Germany's armament. As a matter of fact, in July 1908, he told the German ambassador Count Metternich, "If Germany continues its arms race, distrust between the two countries will continue." he warned. However, it will be seen later that Germany did not pay much attention to these warnings.
Lloyd George made some legislative proposals to provide financial resources for the program of strengthening the navy against the Germans. However, these offers were rejected. The constitutional crisis occurred in 1909. Following these developments, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1911, which greatly restricted the powers of the House of Lords. He established a system similar to the German insurance system, which he examined during his trip to Germany in 1908. He implemented this despite fierce opposition. It was later understood that he was right in this regard.
He worked to prevent England from entering the war in 1914. However, he later changed his attitude and tried to solve the financial problems caused by the war. Lloyd George defended the view that "The magnitude of the war requires large-scale annexations and reparations." He fell into deep disagreement with the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener. In 1915, Asquith formed a coalition government with the conservatives. Lloyd George became the "Minister of War Ordnance" in this cabinet. He disagreed with the army leadership regarding the strategies of the war. In 1916, after the death of War Minister Lord Kitchener when his ship was sunk by German submarines on his way to Russia, he became "Minister of War" instead.
Lloyd George became prime minister with the support of the conservatives after the Asquith Government was overthrown. He took up war issues again. To speed things up, he established a war cabinet that would work continuously. One of the first things he did as soon as he became prime minister was to order his armies in Egypt to attack. Another was to order John Buchan, whom he appointed to the Directorate of Intelligence upon Milner's suggestion, to begin a propaganda campaign showing that the primary goal of the war was the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. The campaign appealed to the public's imagination, and the slogan "Turks must go" was effective.
One of his most important achievements is undoubtedly the organization of the fight against German submarines. The submarine struggle had led to a major shortage of agricultural products. He made efforts to resolve this. In 1917, disagreements arose between the prime minister and the British military administration. The Prime Minister had prepared some plans and programs without the knowledge of the army administration. Lloyd George's program to send troops to fight in the East led to conflict with his generals. The generals wanted to have a say in military matters. King Georg was also in favor of the soldiers. The press also began to side with the generals. They even threatened to overthrow Lloyd George. Despite all this, Lloyd George was insistent on the Eastern strategy. In the face of these events, the military side lost all confidence in Lloyd George. These developments weakened his position further. The politician who criticized the government the most was undoubtedly Winston Churchill. His appointment of Churchill to the cabinet further increased the reaction against him. Robertson resigned. Haig did not relinquish the commander-in-chief. Thereupon, the prime minister wanted to put Haig in a difficult situation by not providing him with enough soldiers. He eventually created a unified command under Marshal Foch. He continued to cooperate with conservatives after the end of the war.
After the Treaty of Versailles, he was awarded the Order of Merit by the king in 1919. While Lloyd George was carrying out military measures at the highest level for the success of the war, he was also continuing his intrigues. He offered Enver Pasha and his friends large sums of money, through his arms dealer friend Basil Zaharoff, if they accepted Britain's conditions and abandoned the war. Lloyd George's proposals were as follows: Arabia would be independent; Armenia and Syria will be autonomous within the Ottoman Empire; Mesopotamia and Palestine would be under Ottoman rule but under British protection. Passage from Çanakkale would be free. In return, the capitulations would be abolished and the Ottomans would be helped for economic development.
However, it is understood from Zaharoff's reports that Enver Pasha and his friends did not accept these bribe-like offers. During the temporary peace period that emerged after the Armistice of Mudros, he did not remain idle and continued to pursue new accounts. He supported the Greek-Turkish War in order to establish a Greek state under his control in Anatolia and to expel the Turks, whom he did not consider European, from there.
On May 5, 1919, in Paris, he proposed that the Greeks be sent to Izmir. He used all kinds of tricks to crush the Turkish War of Independence, which started under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, and to defeat Mustafa Kemal Pasha. He even made a statement on April 21, 1920, saying, "Mustafa Kemal cannot expel the Greeks from Anatolia." He thought of unimaginable measures to prevent the Turkish Armies, which drove the Greeks into the sea, from crossing the straits and taking Istanbul. For this purpose, he advocated sending an army consisting of Greek, Romanian, Serbian, and British troops to the front against the Turks with the support of the British navy. His support for the Greeks against the Turks and bringing England to the brink of war again caused a great reaction in England. If the Turkish victory led to the execution of six statesmen responsible for Greece's Anatolian adventure; It was also the political end of Lloyd George in England.
After September 30, criticism of Lloyd George's policy increased. Following these developments, he had to resign on October 19, 1922, as the conservatives withdrew. The main reason why the conservative party took this decision was the failure of the Lloyd George Government's Near East policy. He had to resign not because he accepted a new agreement with Turkey, but because he risked war to defend his hostile policy against Turkey.
After leaving the Prime Ministry, he published some books. These are War Memoirs and The Truth About the Peace Treaties. He continued to serve as a member of parliament until the end of his life. In 1936, he went to Germany and visited Hitler. However, he later showed an anti-Hitler attitude. He died in Ty-Newydd, Wales, on 26 March 1945. He was given the title of nobility after his death.