On This Day
11 November 1915
Asquith announces the formation of a War Committee
The government had previously appointed a committee to oversee the Dardanelles Campaign but it had proved cumbersome and at a Cabinet meeting on 21 October Asquith was charged with replacing the Dardanelles Committee with a smaller more strategic body. Negotiations within the coalition were made more problematic by the position Lord Kitchener, the War Minister, who had lost the support of a majority of the Cabinet. Kitchener’s short term future was secured by packing him off to the Dardanelles on a fact finding mission, while Asquith set up the War Committee consisting of three Liberals (himself, Lloyd George, and Reginald McKenna) and two Unionists (Bonar Law and Balfour). The War Committee proved largely ineffective being too large and lacking any executive authority, compounded by Asquith’s lack of strategic direction – lessons that were not lost on Lloyd George when he formed his War Cabinet in 1916.