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La Nuova Guerra fredda (anche detta Seconda Guerra fredda o Guerra fredda 2.0) è un'espressione utilizzata per descrivere l'attuale stato di tensione politica e militare tra blocchi contrapposti di potenze geopolitiche, di cui un blocco è guidato dalla Russia e/o dalla Cina e l'altro da Stati Uniti, Unione europea e NATO. Si tratta di un riferimento alla precedente situazione storica della Guerra fredda tra il Blocco occidentale sotto l'egida degli USA e quello Orientale guidato dall'Unione Sovietica.

I critici hanno opinioni divergenti sull'inizio esatto della cosiddetta "nuova guerra fredda". Lo scienziato politico americano Robert Legvold sostiene che iniziò durante la crisi ucraina del 2013. Il politologo e cremlinologo Andrew Kuchins afferma che il termine sia inadatto alla conflittualità in corso. Il professore Philip Howard, di Internet Studies all'Università di Oxford, ritiene che la guerra sia condotta innanzitutto attraverso media, i social network e informazioni. Nell'aprile 2018, il Segretario generale dell'ONU Antonio Guterres, ha espresso la sua preoccupazione per il "ritorno della guerra fredda" e la necessità di lavorare per evitare una contrapposizione tra USA e Russia nella Guerra civile siriana.

Primi utilizzi dell'espressione

In passato, si è fatto riferimento alla "Nuova guerra fredda" come una fase della Guerra fredda, identificando con questo termine il periodo dal 1979-1985. Dopo la fine del bipolarismo è stato utilizzato nel 1998 dal celebre diplomatico e studioso George Frost Kennan, che definì l'allargamento ad est della NATO (che portò all'inclusione nell'Alleanza Atlantica di Ungheria, Polonia, Repubblica Ceca e altre nazioni che avevano fatto parte del Patto di Varsavia) come "una nuova guerra fredda" e previde una "futura reazione russa".

Tensioni russo-americane

Paesi che hanno imposto le sanzioni contro la Russia a seguito della crisi ucraina.

Il termine "nuova guerra fredda" si è diffuso dalle tensioni tra Russia e Occidente nel 2014, a causa delle sollevazioni filorusse in Ucraina seguite dall'intervento militare russo. Dall'Agosto 2014, entrambe le parti hanno imposto alla controparte sanzioni economiche, finanziarie e diplomatiche.

Alcuni osservatori - tra cui il Presidente siriano Bashar al-Assad - hanno inoltre identificato la guerra civile siriana tra Stati Uniti e Russia e perfino una "proto-guerra mondiale".

Pesa inoltre, secondo la percezione americana, la costruzione del gasdotto russo Nord Stream 2, tra la Russia e la Germania, visto come un segno del riemergere della potenza russa. Allo stesso modo, Mosca percepisce la NATO come "uno strumento della guerra fredda", utile per gli Americani sul continente europeo. Le relazioni tra la NATO e la Russia sono distanti dal dialogo lanciato agli inizi del 2000 tra l'Alleanza Atlantica e il Cremlino. Molte sono le frizioni ai confini tra gli Stati membri della NATO e la Russia, in particolar modo nel Mar Baltico dove sia truppe NATO che russe sono impegnate a testare le capacità di risposta degli aerei avversari, a tenere imponenti esercitazioni militari e ad inviare truppe; a tal proposito il Segretario generale della NATO Jens Stoltenberg ha dichiarato, nel suo intervento alla Conferenza annuale di Monaco sulla Sicurezza del 2016, che le relazioni tra NATO e Russia non si trovano in uno stato di guerra fredda vera e propria ma di certo nemmeno nella partnership che si era tentato di stabilire tra Oriente e Occidente alla fine della guerra fredda. Per contro, il Primo ministro russo Dmitrij Medvedev ha risposto definendo la politica della NATO "non amica ed opaca"; considerazioni simili erano state espresse nel 2014 da Gorbaciov, che in un'intervista al TIME, giudicò la politica estera di Obama come provocatoria nei confronti della Russia.

Vertice NATO di Varsavia (luglio 2016)

Nel luglio del 2016 il vertice NATO di Varsavia si concluse con la decisione di inviare quattro battaglioni, per un totale di tre-quattromila uomini forniti dall'Alleanza, negli Stati Baltici e in Polonia orientale, rafforzando le ricognizioni aeree e marittime, in modo da garantire la sicurezza di quei Paesi. Il comunicato ufficiale emerso dal summit chiarì che tale decisione era stata presa per "dimostrare incontrovertibilmente la solidarietà, la determinazione e la capacità degli Alleati di dare risposta collettiva a ogni aggressione." Il vertice di Varsavia sospese inoltre la cooperazione fra apparati civili e militari della NATO e quelli della Russia, mentre rimaneva aperto il dialogo politico.

The NATO summit held in Warsaw in July 2016 approved the plan to move four battalions totaling 3,000 to 4,000 troops on a rotating basis by early 2017 into the Baltic states and eastern Poland and increase air and sea patrols to reassure allies who were once part of the Soviet bloc. The adopted Communique explained that the decision was meant "to unambiguously demonstrate, as part of our overall posture, Allies' solidarity, determination, and ability to act by triggering an immediate Allied response to any aggression." The summit reaffirmed NATO′s previously taken decision to "suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation between NATO and Russia, while remaining open to political dialogue with Russia". Heads of State and Government "condemned Russia's ongoing and wide-ranging military build-up" in Crimea and expressed concern over "Russia's efforts and stated plans for further military build-up in the Black Sea region". They also stated that Russia's "significant military presence and support for the regime in Syria", and its military build-up in the Eastern Mediterranean "posed further risks and challenges for the security of Allies and others". NATO leaders agreed to step up support for Ukraine: in a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, the Allied leaders reviewed the security situation with president of Ukraine Poroshenko, welcomed the government's plans for reform, and endorsed a Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine aimed to "help make Ukraine's defence and security institutions more effective, efficient and accountable". At the meeting of the Russia–NATO Council at the level of permanent representatives that was held shortly after the Warsaw summit, Russia admonished NATO against intensifying its military activity in the Black Sea. Russia also said it agreed to have its military aircraft pilots flying over the Baltic region turn on the cockpit transmitters, known as transponders, if NATO planes acted likewise.

Il paragone tra le tensioni in corso tra Russia e USA e il periodo storico della guerra fredda è stato però respinto da alcuni studiosi e protagonisti degli eventi. Il ministro degli Esteri

The term "Cold War II" gained currency and relevance as tensions between Russia and the West escalated throughout the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine followed by the Russian military intervention and especially the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014. By August 2014, both sides had implemented economic, financial, and diplomatic sanctions upon each other: virtually all Western countries, led by the US and EU, imposed restrictive measures on Russia; the latter reciprocally introduced retaliatory measures.

Some observers − including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad − judged the Syrian Civil War to be a proxy war between Russia and the United States, and even a "proto-world war". In January 2016, senior UK government officials were reported to have registered their growing fears that "a new cold war" was now unfolding in Europe: "It really is a new Cold War out there. Right across the EU we are seeing alarming evidence of Russian efforts to unpick the fabric of European unity on a whole range of vital strategic issues."

In an interview with Time magazine in December 2014, Gorbachev said that the US under Obama was dragging Russia into a new Cold War. In February 2016, at the Munich Security Conference, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO and Russia were "not in a cold-war situation but also not in the partnership that we established at the end of the Cold War", while Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, speaking of what he called NATO's "unfriendly and opaque" policy with regard to Russia, said: "One could go as far as to say that we have slid back to a new Cold War." In October 2016 and March 2017, Stoltenberg repeatedly said to, respectively, BBC News and then CBS News that NATO would not seek "a new Cold War" or "a new arms race" with Russia.

In February 2016, a National Research University academic and Harvard University visiting scholar Yuval Weber wrote on E-International Relations that "the world is not entering Cold War II", asserting that the current tensions and ideologies of both sides are not similar to those of the original Cold War, that situations in Europe and the Middle East do not destabilize other areas geographically, and that Russia "is far more integrated with the outside world than the Soviet Union ever was". In September 2016, when asked if he thought the world had entered a new cold war, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that current tensions were not comparable: he noted the lack of an ideological divide between the United States and Russia, saying that conflicts were no longer viewed from the perspective of a bipolar international system.

In October 2016, John Sawers, a former MI6 chief, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he thought the world was entering an era that was possibly "more dangerous" than the Cold War, as "we do not have that focus on a strategic relationship between Moscow and Washington". Similarly, Igor Zevelev, a fellow at the Wilson Center, said, "[I]t's not a Cold War [but] a much more dangerous and unpredictable situation." CNN opined, "It's not a new Cold War. It's not even a deep chill. It's an outright conflict."

In January 2017, a former government adviser Molly K. McKew said at Politico that the US would win the "new Cold War" if the war happens. The New Republic editor Jeet Heer dismissed the possibility as "equally troubling[,] reckless threat inflation, wildly overstating the extent of Russian ambitions and power in support of a costly policy", and too centred on Russia while "ignoring the rise of powers like China and India". Heer also criticized McKew for supporting the possibility. Jeremy Shapiro, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution, wrote in his blog post at RealClearPolitics, referring to the US–Russia relations: "A drift into a new Cold War has seemed the inevitable result."

In August 2017, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov denied claims that the US and Russia are having another Cold War, despite ongoing tensions between the two countries and newer US sanctions against Russia.

In March 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalist Megyn Kelly in an interview, "My point of view is that the individuals that have said that a new Cold War has started are not analysts. They do propaganda."

Michael Kofman, a senior research scientist at the CNA Corporation and a fellow at the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute said that the new Cold War for Russia "is about its survival as a power in the international order, and also about holding on to the remnants of the Russian empire". Lyle Goldstein, a research professor at the US Naval War College claims that the situations in Georgia and Ukraine "seemed to offer the requisite storyline for new Cold War".

Amidst the deterioration in relation between both sides over a potential US-led military strike in Middle East after Douma chemical attack and poisoning of the Skripals, Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, told a meeting of the UN Security Council in April 2018 that "the Cold War was back with a vengeance". He suggested the dangers were even greater as the safeguards that existed to manage such a crisis earlier, "no longer seem to be present". Dmitri Trenin supported Guterres' statement, but added it had already begun in 2014 and was intensifying since, resulting in U.S.-led strikes on the Syrian government on 13 April 2018.

 Primo Ministro (1908–1916)

Ministro in tempo di pace

La formazione del governo

Asquith nel 1908

Divenuto primo ministro nel 1908, la leadership di Asquith fu sancita da una riunione di partito. Il primo ministro dispose alcuni cambiamenti all'interno del Gabinetto. Lloyd George fu nominato Cancelliere dello Scacchiere, in sostituzione di Asquith. Winston Churchill succedette a sua volta a Lloyd George come presidente del Board of Trade, entrando nel governo nonostante la sua giovane età (aveva 33 anni) e il fatto che fosse diventato un liberale solo quattro anni prima. Asquith, inoltre, spostò o licenziò un certo numero di ministri del gabinetto Campbell-Bannerman, suscitando alcune polemiche.

Ad ogni modo, lo storico Cameron Hazlehurs scrisse che "i nuovi uomini, assieme ai vecchi, formarono una squadra potente". Le scelte del governo bilanciavano la competizione tra le fazioni del partito; le nomine di Lloyd George e Churchill soddisfò i radicali, mentre i Whigs favorirono la nomina di Reginald McKenna come Primo Lord.

Lo stile di Asquith

Possedendo la facoltà di lavorare velocemente, Asquith ebbe un tempo considerevole per gli svaghi. Trascorse molto tempo leggendo i classici, la poesia e molte opere della letteratura inglese. Allo stesso modo mantenne la sua corrispondenza; detestava profondamente il telefono, ma fu un prolifico scrittore di lettere. Amava inoltre viaggiare e recarsi nelle residenze di campagna possedute dalla famiglia di sua moglie Margot: la coppia trascorse il proprio tempo fra Downing Street e The Wharf, una residenza di campagna a Sutton Courtenay, nel Berkshire. Altri svaghi di Asquith erano il bridge e il bere.

La passioni principali di Asquith erano tuttavia la vita mondana e la conversazione. Uomo di mondo, amava molto la compagnia di "donne belle e attraenti". Per tutta la vita, Asquith coltivò le amicizie con le donne, formando un vero e proprio circolo che Margot definì un "harem". Nel 1912, una delle sue amiche, Venetia Stanley, divenne sempre più intima. Il primo ministro la conobbe tra il 1909 e il 1910 e dal 1912 divenne una sua stretta confidente e corrispondente. Da quell'anno al 1915, Asquith le scrisse circa 560 lettere, per una media di quattro al giorno. Benché non sia ancora chiaro se essi fossero amanti o meno, la Stanley divenne una figura centrale nella vita dello statista.

Infine l'amore di Asquith per "le comodità e il lusso" in tempo di pace e la sua mancanza di volontà di modificare il suo stile di vita per le esigenze e le pressioni della guerra contribuirono, verso la fine del suo mandato, a farlo apparire come un uomo distaccato.

Politica interna

Riforma della Camera dei Lord

Asquith sperava di agire da mediatore tra i membri del suo gabinetto come loro portavano avanti la legislazione liberale attraverso il Parlamento. Alcuni eventi, tra cui il il conflitto con la Camera dei Lord, lo costrinsero a combattere sin dall'inizio del suo mandato. Nonostante l'imponente maggioranza liberale nella Camera dei comuni, i Conservatori aveva un supporto schiacciante nella Camera alta. Campbell-Bannerman favorì la riforma della Camera dei Lord che prevedeva che se un decreto fosse passato alla Camera tre volte, sarebbe diventato legge senza il consenso dei Lord, mentre diminuiva il potere dei Comuni riducendo il mandato massimo del Parlamento da sette a cinque anni. Asquith, quando era ancora Cancelliere dello Scacchiere, era stato membro di una commissione governativa che aveva scritto un piano per risolvere gli stalli legislativi con una seduta congiunta dei Comuni assieme a un corpo composto da 100 lord. In questo modo passarono alla Camera dei Comuni molte leggi nel 1908 che erano state precedentemente sconfitte o avevano subito molti emendamenti alla Camera dei Lord, inclusi il Licensing Bill, uno Scottish Small Landholders' Bill, e uno Scottish Land Values Bill.

Nessuna di queste leggi era abbastanza importante da sciogliere il Parlamento e chiedere un nuovo mandato in un'elezione generale. Asquith e Lloyd George credevano che i Pari avrebbero fatto marcia indietro se

Domestic policy[edit source]

None of these bills were important enough to dissolve parliament and seek a new mandate at a general election. Asquith and Lloyd George believed the peers would back down if presented with Liberal objectives contained within a finance bill—the Lords had not obstructed a money bill since the 17th century, and after initially blocking Gladstone's attempt (as chancellor) to repeal Paper Duties, had yielded in 1861 when it was submitted again in a finance bill. Accordingly, the Liberal leadership expected that after much objection from the Tory peers, the Lords would yield to policy changes wrapped within a budget bill.

1909: People's Budget[edit source]

This 1909 Punch cartoon suggests the Liberals were delighted when the Lords forced an election. Back row: Haldane, Churchill with arms up, being hugged by his ally Lloyd George. Asquith standing at right. Bottom row: McKenna, Lord Crewe (with moustache), Augustine Birrell leaning back

In a major speech in December 1908, Asquith announced that the upcoming budget would reflect the Liberals' policy agenda, and the People's Budget that was submitted to Parliament by Lloyd George the following year greatly expanded social welfare programmes. To pay for them, it significantly increased both direct and indirect taxes. These included a 20 percent tax on the unearned increase in value in land, payable at death of the owner or sale of the land. There would also be a tax of  ¹⁄₂d in the pound on undeveloped land. A graduated income tax was imposed, and there were increases in imposts on tobacco, beer and spirits. A tax on petrol was introduced despite Treasury concerns that it could not work in practice. Although Asquith held fourteen cabinet meetings to assure unity amongst his ministers,there was opposition from some Liberals; Rosebery described the budget as "inquisitorial, tyrannical, and Socialistic".

The budget divided the country and provoked bitter debate through the summer of 1909. The Northcliffe Press (The Times and the Daily Mail) urged rejection of the budget to give tariff reform (indirect taxes on imported goods which, it was felt, would encourage British industry and trade within the Empire) a chance; there were many public meetings, some of them organised by dukes, in protest at the budget. Many Liberal politicians attacked the peers, including Lloyd George in his Limehouse speech, in which he said "a fully-equipped Duke costs as much to keep up as two dreadnoughts (battleships)" and was "less easy to scrap". King Edward privately urged Conservative leaders Balfour and Lord Lansdowne to pass the Budget (this was not unusual, as Queen Victoria had helped to broker agreement between the two Houses over the Irish Church Act 1869 and the Third Reform Act in 1884). From July it became increasingly clear that the Tory peers would reject the budget, partly in the hope of forcing an election. If they rejected it, Asquith determined, he would have to ask King Edward to dissolve Parliament, four years into a seven-year term,as it would mean the legislature had refused supply. The budget passed the Commons on 4 November 1909, but was voted down in the Lords on the 30th, the Lords passing a resolution by Lord Lansdowne stating that they were entitled to oppose the finance bill as it lacked an electoral mandate. Asquith had Parliament prorogued three days later for an election beginning on 15 January 1910, with the Commons first passing a resolution deeming the Lords' vote to be an attack on the constitution.

1910: election and constitutional deadlock[edit source]

The January 1910 general election was dominated by talk of removing the Lords' veto. A possible solution was to threaten to have the King pack the House of Lords with freshly minted Liberal peers, who would override the Lords's veto; Asquith's talk of safeguards was taken by many to mean that he had secured King Edward's agreement to this. They were mistaken; the King had informed Asquith that he would not consider a mass creation of peers until after a second general election.

Lloyd George and Churchill were the leading forces in the Liberals' appeal to the voters; Asquith, clearly tired, took to the hustings for a total of two weeks during the campaign, and when the polls began, journeyed to Cannes with such speed that he neglected an engagement with an annoyed King Edward. The result was a hung Parliament. The Liberals lost heavily from their great majority of 1906, but still finished with two more seats than the Conservatives. With Irish Nationalistand Labour support, the government would have ample support on most issues, and Asquith stated that his majority compared favourably with those enjoyed by Palmerston and Lord John Russell. Asquith caricatured in Vanity Fair, 1910

Immediate further pressure to remove the Lords' veto now came from the Irish MPs, who wanted to remove the Lords' ability to block the introduction of Irish Home Rule. They threatened to vote against the Budget unless they had their way. With another general election likely before long, Asquith had to make clear the Liberal policy on constitutional change to the country without alienating the Irish and Labour. This initially proved difficult, and the King's speech opening Parliament was vague on what was to be done to neutralise the Lords' veto. Asquith dispirited his supporters by stating in Parliament that he had neither asked for nor received a commitment from King Edward to create peers. The cabinet considered resigning and leaving it up to Balfour to try to form a Conservative government.

The budget passed the Commons again, and – now that it had an electoral mandate – it was approved by the Lords in April without a division. The cabinet finally decided to back a plan based on Campbell-Bannerman's, that a bill passed by the Commons in three consecutive annual sessions would become law notwithstanding the Lords' objections. Unless King Edward guaranteed that he would create enough Liberal peers to pass the bill, ministers would resign and allow Balfour to form a government, leaving the matter to be debated at the ensuing general election. On 14 April 1910, the Commons passed resolutions that would become the basis of the eventual Parliament Act 1911: to remove the power of the Lords to veto money bills, to reduce blocking of other bills to a two-year power of delay, and also to reduce the term of a parliament from seven years to five. In that debate Asquith also hinted – in part to ensure the support of the Irish MPs – that he would ask the King to break the deadlock "in that Parliament" (i.e. that he would ask for the mass creation of peers, contrary to King Edward's earlier stipulation that there be a second election).

These plans were scuttled by the death of Edward VII on 6 May 1910. Asquith and his ministers were initially reluctant to press the new king, George V, in mourning for his father, for commitments on constitutional change, and the monarch's views were not yet known. With a strong feeling in the country that the parties should compromise, Asquith and other Liberals met with Conservative leaders in a number of conferences through much of the remainder of 1910. These talks failed in November over Conservative insistence that there be no limits on the Lords's ability to veto Irish Home Rule. When the Parliament Bill was submitted to the Lords, they made amendments that were not acceptable to the government.

1910–1911: second election and Parliament Act[edit source]

Punch 1911 cartoon shows Asquith and Lloyd George preparing coronets for 500 new peers to threaten takeover of House of Lords On 11 November, Asquith asked King George to dissolve Parliament for another general election in December, and on the 14th met again with the King and demanded assurances the monarch would create an adequate number of Liberal peers to carry the Parliament Bill. The King was slow to agree, and Asquith and his cabinet informed him they would resign if he did not make the commitment. Balfour had told King Edward that he would form a Conservative government if the Liberals left office but the new King did not know this. The King reluctantly gave in to Asquith's demand, writing in his diary that, "I disliked having to do this very much, but agreed that this was the only alternative to the Cabinet resigning, which at this moment would be disastrous".

Asquith dominated the short election campaign, focusing on the Lords' veto in calm speeches, compared by his biographer Stephen Koss to the "wild irresponsibility" of other major campaigners. In a speech at Hull, he stated that the Liberals' purpose was to remove the obstruction, not establish an ideal upper house, "I have always got to deal—the country has got to deal—with things here and now. We need an instrument [of constitutional change] that can be set to work at once, which will get rid of deadlocks, and give us the fair and even chance in legislation to which we are entitled, and which is all that we demand." Samuel Begg's depiction of the passing of the Parliament Bill in the House of Lords, 1911 The election resulted in little change to the party strengths (the Liberal and Conservative parties were exactly equal in size; by 1914 the Conservative Party would actually be larger owing to by-election victories). Nevertheless, Asquith remained in Number Ten, with a large majority in the Commons on the issue of the House of Lords. The Parliament Bill again passed the House of Commons in April 1911, and was heavily amended in the Lords. Asquith advised King George that the monarch would be called upon to create the peers, and the King agreed, asking that his pledge be made public, and that the Lords be allowed to reconsider their opposition. Once it was, there was a raging internal debate within the Tory party on whether to give in, or to continue to vote no even when outnumbered by hundreds of newly created peers. After lengthy debate, on 10 August 1911 the Lords voted narrowly not to insist on their amendments, with many Tory peers abstaining and a few voting in favour of the government; the bill was passed into law.

According to Jenkins, although Asquith had at times moved slowly during the crisis, "on the whole, Asquith's slow moulding of events had amounted to a masterly display of political nerve and patient determination. Compared with [the Conservatives], his leadership was outstanding." Churchill wrote to Asquith after the second 1910 election, "your leadership was the main and conspicuous feature of the whole fight". Matthew, in his article on Asquith, found that, "the episode was the zenith of Asquith's prime ministerial career. In the British Liberal tradition, he patched rather than reformulated the constitution."

Social, religious and labour matters[edit source]

Despite the distraction of the problem of the House of Lords, Asquith and his government moved ahead with a number of pieces of reforming legislation. According to Matthews, "no peacetime premier has been a more effective enabler. Labour exchanges, the introduction of unemployment and health insurance ... reflected the reforms the government was able to achieve despite the problem of the Lords. Asquith was not himself a 'new Liberal', but he saw the need for a change in assumptions about the individual's relationship to the state, and he was fully aware of the political risk to the Liberals of a Labour Party on its left flank." Keen to keep the support of the Labour Party, the Asquith government passed bills urged by that party, including the Trade Union Act 1913 (reversing the Osborne judgment) and in 1911 granting MPs a salary, making it more feasible for working-class people to serve in the House of Commons.

Asquith had as chancellor placed money aside for the provision of non-contributory old-age pensions; the bill authorising them passed in 1908, during his premiership, despite some objection in the Lords. Jenkins noted that the scheme (which provided five shillings a week to single pensioners aged seventy and over, and slightly less than twice that to married couples) "to modern ears sounds cautious and meagre. But it was violently criticised at the time for showing a reckless generosity."

Asquith's new government became embroiled in a controversy over the Eucharistic Congress of 1908, held in London. Following the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, the Roman Catholic Church had seen a resurgence in Britain, and a large procession displaying the Blessed Sacrament was planned to allow the laity to participate. Although such an event was forbidden by the 1829 act, planners counted on the British reputation for religious tolerance, and Francis Cardinal Bourne, the Archbishop of Westminster, had obtained permission from the Metropolitan Police. When the plans became widely known, King Edward objected, as did many other Protestants. Asquith received inconsistent advice from his Home Secretary, Herbert Gladstone, and successfully pressed the organisers to cancel the religious aspects of the procession, though it cost him the resignation of his only Catholic cabinet minister, Lord Ripon.

Disestablishment of the Welsh Church was a Liberal priority, but despite support by most Welsh MPs, there was opposition in the Lords. Asquith was an authority on Welsh disestablishment from his time under Gladstone, but had little to do with the passage of the bill. It was twice rejected by the Lords, in 1912 and 1913, but having been forced through under the Parliament Act received royal assent in September 1914, with the provisions suspended until war's end.

Votes for women[edit source]

Early 20th century suffragist lapel pin Asquith had opposed votes for women as early as 1882, and he remained well known as an adversary throughout his time as prime minister. He took a detached view of the women's suffrage question, believing it should be judged on whether extending the franchise would improve the system of government, rather than as a question of rights. He did not understand—Jenkins ascribed it to a failure of imagination—why passions were raised on both sides over the issue. He told the House of Commons in 1913, while complaining of the "exaggerated language" on both sides, "I am sometimes tempted to think, as one listens to the arguments of supporters of women's suffrage, that there is nothing to be said for it, and I am sometimes tempted to think, as I listen to the arguments of the opponents of women's suffrage, that there is nothing to be said against it."

The Prime Minister became a target for militant suffragists as they abandoned hope of achieving the vote through peaceful means. He was several times the subject of their tactics: confronted (to his annoyance) at evening parties, accosted on the golf course, and ambushed while driving to Stirling to dedicate a memorial to Campbell-Bannerman. On the last occasion, his top hat proved adequate protection against the dog whips wielded by the women. These incidents left him unmoved, as he did not believe them a true manifestation of public opinion.

With a growing majority of the Cabinet, including Lloyd George and Churchill, in favour of women's suffrage, Asquith was pressed to allow consideration of a private member's bill to give women the vote. The majority of Liberal MPs were also in favour. Jenkins deemed him one of the two main prewar obstacles to women gaining the vote, the other being the suffragists's own militancy. In 1912, Asquith reluctantly agreed to permit a free vote on an amendment to a pending reform bill, allowing women the vote on the same terms as men. This would have satisfied Liberal suffrage supporters, and many suffragists, but the Speaker in January 1913 ruled that the amendment changed the nature of the bill, which would have to be withdrawn. Asquith was loud in his complaints against the Speaker, but was privately relieved.

Asquith belatedly came around to support women's suffrage in 1917, by which time he was out of office. Women over the age of thirty were eventually given the vote by Lloyd George's government under the Representation of the People Act 1918. Asquith's reforms to the House of Lords eased the way for the passage of the bill.

Irish Home Rule[edit source]

Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force march through Belfast, 1914 The question of Irish Home Rule consumed much of Asquith's time during the final two peacetime years. Support for self-government for Ireland had been a tenet of the Liberal Party since 1886, but Asquith had not been as enthusiastic, stating in 1903 (while in opposition) that the party should never take office if that government would be dependent for survival on the support of the Irish Nationalist Party. After 1910, though, Irish Nationalist support helped keep Asquith in office for the remainder of the prewar period. Retaining Ireland in the Union was the declared intent of all parties, and the Nationalists, as part of the majority that kept Asquith in office, were entitled to seek enactment of their plans for Home Rule, and to expect Liberal and Labour support. The Conservatives were strongly opposed to Home Rule; the desire to retain a veto for the Lords on such bills had been an unbridgeable gap between the parties in the constitutional talks prior to the second 1910 election.

The cabinet committee (not including Asquith) that in 1911 planned the Third Home Rule Bill opposed any special status for Protestant Ulster within majority-Catholic Ireland. Asquith later (in 1913) wrote to Churchill, stating that the Prime Minister had always believed and stated that the price of Home Rule should be a special status for Ulster. In spite of this, the bill as introduced in April 1912 contained no such provision, and was meant to apply to all Ireland. Neither partition nor a special status for Ulster was likely to satisfy either side. The self-government offered by the bill was very limited, but Irish Nationalists, expecting Home Rule to come by gradual parliamentary steps, favoured it. The Conservatives and Ulster Unionists opposed it. Both Nationalists and Unionists began preparing to get their way by force if necessary, and the Unionists were in general better financed and more organised.

Since the Parliament Act the Unionists could no longer block Home Rule in the House of Lords, but only delay Royal Assent by two years. Asquith decided to postpone any concessions to the Unionists until the bill's third passage through the Commons, when he believed the Unionists would be desperate for a compromise. Jenkins concluded that had Asquith tried for an earlier agreement, he would have had no luck, as many of his opponents wanted a fight and the opportunity to smash his government. Sir Edward Carson, MP for Dublin University and leader of the Irish Unionists in Parliament, threatened a revolt if Home Rule was enacted. The new Conservative leader, Bonar Law, campaigned in Parliament and in northern Ireland, warning Ulstermen against "Rome Rule", that is, domination by the island's Catholic majority. Many who opposed Home Rule felt that the Liberals had violated the Constitution – by pushing through major constitutional change without a clear electoral mandate, with the House of Lords, formerly the "watchdog of the constitution", not reformed as had been promised in the preamble of the 1911 Act – and thus justified actions that in other circumstances might be treason.

The passions generated by the Irish question contrasted with Asquith's cool detachment, and he wrote about the prospective partition of the county of Tyrone, which had a mixed population, deeming it "an impasse, with unspeakable consequences, upon a matter which to English eyes seems inconceivably small, & to Irish eyes immeasurably big". As the Commons debated the Home Rule bill in late 1912 and early 1913, the north of Ireland mobilised, with talk of Carson declaring a Provisional Government and Ulster Volunteer Forces (UVF) built around the Orange Lodges, but in the cabinet, only Churchill viewed this with alarm. These forces, insisting on their loyalty to the British Crown but increasingly well-armed with smuggled weapons, prepared to do battle with the British Army, but Unionist leaders were confident that the army would not aid in forcing Home Rule on Ulster. As the Home Rule bill awaited its third passage through the Commons, the so-called Curragh incident occurred in April 1914. With deployment of troops into Ulster imminent and threatening language by Churchill and the Secretary of State for War, John Seely, around sixty army officers, led by Brigadier-General Hubert Gough, announced that they would rather be dismissed from the service than obey. With unrest spreading to army officers in England, the Cabinet acted to placate the officers with a statement written by Asquith reiterating the duty of officers to obey lawful orders but claiming that the incident had been a misunderstanding. Seely then added an unauthorised assurance, countersigned by Sir John French (the professional head of the army), that the government had no intention of using force against Ulster. Asquith repudiated the addition, and required Seely and French to resign, taking on the War Office himself, retaining the additional responsibility until hostilities against Germany began.

Within a month of the start of Asquith's tenure at the War Office, the UVF landed a large cargo of guns and ammunition at Larne, but the Cabinet did not deem it prudent to arrest their leaders. On 12 May, Asquith announced that he would secure Home Rule's third passage through the Commons (accomplished on 25 May), but that there would be an amending bill with it, making special provision for Ulster. But the Lords made changes to the amending bill unacceptable to Asquith, and with no way to invoke the Parliament Act on the amending bill, Asquith agreed to meet other leaders at an all-party conference on 21 July at Buckingham Palace, chaired by the King. When no solution could be found, Asquith and his cabinet planned further concessions to the Unionists, but this did not occur as the crisis on the Continent erupted into war. In September 1914, after the outbreak of the conflict, Asquith announced that the Home Rule bill would go on the statute book (as the Government of Ireland Act 1914) but would not go into force until after the war; in the interim a bill granting special status to Ulster would be considered. This solution satisfied neither side.

Foreign and defence policy[edit source]

Asquith led a deeply divided Liberal Party as Prime Minister, not least on questions of foreign relations and defence spending. Under Balfour, Britain and France had agreed upon the Entente Cordiale. In 1906, at the time the Liberals took office, there was an ongoing crisis between France and Germany over Morocco, and the French asked for British help in the event of conflict. Grey, the Foreign Secretary, refused any formal arrangement, but gave it as his personal opinion that in the event of war Britain would aid France. France then asked for military conversations aimed at co-ordination in such an event. Grey agreed, and these went on in the following years, without cabinet knowledge—Asquith most likely did not know of them until 1911. When he learned of them, Asquith was concerned that the French took for granted British aid in the event of war, but Grey persuaded him the talks must continue.

More public was the naval arms race between Britain and Germany. The Moroccan crisis had been settled at the Algeciras Conference, and Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet approved reduced naval estimates, including postponing the laying down of a second Dreadnought-class battleship. Tenser relationships with Germany, and that nation moving ahead with its own dreadnoughts, led Reginald McKenna, when Asquith appointed him First Lord of the Admiralty in 1908, to propose the laying down of eight more British ones in the following three years. This prompted conflict in the Cabinet between those who supported this programme, such as McKenna, and the "economists" who promoted economy in naval estimates, led by Lloyd George and Churchill. There was much public sentiment for building as many ships as possible to maintain British naval superiority. Asquith mediated among his colleagues and secured a compromise whereby four ships would be laid down at once, and four more if there proved to be a need. The armaments matter was put to the side during the domestic crises over the 1909 budget and then the Parliament Act, though the building of warships continued at an accelerated rate.

The Agadir crisis of 1911 was again between France and Germany over Moroccan interests, but Asquith's government signalled its friendliness towards France in Lloyd George's Mansion House speech on 21 July. Late that year, the Lord President of the Council, Viscount Morley, brought the question of the communications with the French to the attention of the Cabinet. The Cabinet agreed (at Asquith's instigation) that no talks could be held that committed Britain to war, and required cabinet approval for co-ordinated military actions. Nevertheless, by 1912, the French had requested additional naval co-ordination and late in the year, the various understandings were committed to writing in an exchange of letters between Grey and French Ambassador Paul Cambon. The relationship with France disquieted some Liberal backbenchers and Asquith felt obliged to assure them that nothing had been secretly agreed that would commit Britain to war. This quieted Asquith's foreign policy critics until another naval estimates dispute erupted early in 1914.

Impending catastrophe[edit source]

Main articles: Causes of World War I and July Crisis Sir Edward Grey The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 initiated a month of unsuccessful diplomatic attempts to avoid war. These attempts ended with Grey's proposal for a four-power conference of Britain, Germany, France and Italy, following the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia on the evening of 23 July. Grey's initiative was rejected by Germany as "not practicable". During this period, Cassar considers that; "The country was overwhelmingly opposed to intervention." Much of Asquith's cabinet was similarly inclined, Lloyd George writing in his memoirs; "The Cabinet was hopelessly divided – fully one third, if not one half, being opposed to our entry into the War." This overlooked his own opposition; on 27 July, he told a journalist; "There could be no question of our taking part in any war in the first instance. He knew of no Minister who would be in favour of it." Asquith himself, while growing more aware of the impending catastrophe, was still uncertain of the necessity for Britain's involvement. On 24 July, he wrote to Venetia; "We are within measurable, or imaginable, distance of a real Armageddon. Happily there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators."

During the continuing escalation Asquith "used all his experience and authority to keep his options open" and adamantly refused to commit his government; "The worst thing we could do would be to announce to the world at the present moment that in no circumstances would we intervene." But he recognised Grey's clear commitment to Anglo-French unity and, following Russian mobilisation on 30 July, and the Kaiser's ultimatum to the Tsar on 1 August, he recognised the inevitability of war. From this point, he committed himself to participation, despite continuing Cabinet opposition; "There is a strong party reinforced by Ll George[,] Morley and Harcourt who are against any kind of intervention. Grey will never consent and I shall not separate myself from him."Also, on 2 August, he received confirmation of Tory support from Bonar Law. In one of two extraordinary Cabinets held on that Sunday, Grey informed members of the 1912 Anglo-French naval talks and Asquith secured agreement to mobilise the fleet.

On Monday 3 August, the Belgian Government rejected the German demand for free passage through its country and in the afternoon, "with gravity and unexpected eloquence," Grey spoke in the Commons and called for British action "against the unmeasured aggrandisement of any power". Liddell Hart considered that this speech saw the "hardening (of) British opinion to the point of intervention". The following day Asquith saw the King and an ultimatum to Germany demanding withdrawal from Belgian soil was issued with a deadline of midnight Berlin time, 11.00 p.m. (GMT). Margot Asquith described the moment of expiry, somewhat inaccurately; "(I joined) Henry in the Cabinet room. Lord Crewe and Sir Edward Grey were already there and we sat smoking cigarettes in silence ... The clock on the mantelpiece hammered out the hour and when the last beat of midnight struck it was as silent as dawn. We were at War."