War Diaries (December 15) (nonfiction)

War Diary entries for December 15.

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Diaries

Margot Asquith: December 16, 1916

6am Downing Street. My last day there.
I am quite alone in this house. Henry is at Walmer Castle with V. & Bongie. Elizabeth staying with Alice Wimborne in Dublin. Cys recovering from flu in Brighton with Beb & Cynthia. Oc with his Naval Hood Battalion in France (waiting for Death —).

I have gone through deep, deep waters since Saturday, 2nd Dec. 1916. When a government falls in one week!! or I should say five days, you may be quite sure its overthrow has been planned long, long before. I have seen the causes of this staring me in the face for months. Directly LI.G was put in War Office, whatever I may have written in my diary at that time (which I can't look up now to verify), I can truly say that I knew it was our doom. It has been. It was the first time that Henry gave way to blackmail.

Henry said to Crewe, Montagu and others the night Kitchener was drowned, or a few days after, 'I will not put LI.G. in his place in War Office.' The very same night Rufus and Montagu and others went to Henry, and told him that LI.G. would do if he didn't get all he wanted. On or 2 others, and Bongie and Violet, all thought it would be an excellent appointment.

I cried and sobbed over it. I could not believe it. All the time or our Rosyth visit (& after) when V., Bongie, Hankey, Montagu H & I were in Scotland seeing the fleet (just after the Jutland battle) & for a long time Henry and I never talked politics, he some times tried when alone with me & of course before the others but I never joined. I was heart broken with the Folly of this appointment & really frightened at the want of wisdom & perception of our immediate surrounders! (Hankey & Eric were the only ones who were very uncomfortable. Everyone Crewe, Nash, Baker, Runciman all told me since that they were sure at the time it spent our Doom as it has!). H. and I were on bad political terms for three or four weeks. He said, when I asked him why he had given WO to LI.G., that there was no prominent figure to take K.'s place; and though repeatedly urged by the King and many, many soldiers - a long signed memorial sent him by Ld French and many other requests to take WO himself - Rufus, Bongie and particularly Montagu said that if LI.G. was denied his way he would stump the country against H., and force a general Election!!!

It was enough to make Angel weep! ...

—Margot Asquith (diary)

• https://books.google.com/books?id=u-HoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT368&lpg=PT368&dq=%22war+diary%22+may+23&source=bl&ots=rkUtoaO9yE&sig=ACfU3U0SJnS4chbch-BzLauLRirTSdpNzw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjo7a2LisrpAhW8Ap0JHS7XCyQQ6AEwBnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22war%20diary%22%20may%2023&f=false
• Margot Asquith] (née Tennant; 2 February 1864 – 28 July 1945)

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Margot Asquith (nonfiction)
• War (nonfiction)
• War Diaries (nonfiction)

External links

• https://books.google.com/books?id=u-HoAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT368&lpg=PT368&dq=%22war+diary%22+may+23&source=bl&ots=rkUtoaO9yE&sig=ACfU3U0SJnS4chbch-BzLauLRirTSdpNzw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjo7a2LisrpAhW8Ap0JHS7XCyQQ6AEwBnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22war%20diary%22%20may%2023&f=false