The Cabinet meets in the morning. Burns and Simon have resigned and Morley is ‘probably going.’

Belgium has received ‘demand from Germany for neutrality & has categorically refused. Germans concentrating at Liege.’ Grey says: “We must support Belgium & France”.

The leaders of the Conservative and Unionist opposition can see the logic of Burns’s position: ‘they agreed with Burns, fleet proclamation is a declaration of war.’

It appears that Germany has ‘offered Belgium neutrality if they allow passage of German troops.’ The German ambassador Lichnowsky has stated that Germany will not attack the French coast with its fleet, but ‘Grey does not think Lichnowsky authorised to say this.’

Asquith says that it is now necessary to mobilize the army, ‘not for Expeditionary force, but for home safety & defence.’.

A committee is appointed to deal with food supplies. The Cabinet debates extending the Bank Holiday for two days, and using postal notes for a few days whilst waiting for £1 & 10/- notes to be issued. There is fear that ‘there may be a run on P.O. Savings Bank £150 mill[ion]s.deposits.’

Asquith is in a sombre mood, and tells the Cabinet that the Cabinet’s authority is ‘ much shattered’ by the resignations, and that he fears Labour and the Irish will oppose him. He feels that he might have resigned, but he cannot see how any government could form with a majority in the House of Commons. He ‘dislikes and abhors a coalition – experiment none w[oul]d. like to see repeated.’ He will not ‘separate from Grey’; he feels that a continuance of the present government ‘remains in best interest of the country’ though it is a ‘most thankless task to me to go on.’

Simon states that ‘“if country at war it was the duty of men like himself and the Peace party to support the Govt.”: he broke down.’

The Cabinet resumes at 6 p.m. The German ultimatum to Belgium has come in: ‘very stiff.’

Churchill says “the Fleet will be absolutely ready by 4 a.m. tomorrow”.

Asquith says that ‘Army mobilisation will be completed by Sunday – we have 3 days more.’

Grey is to telegraph to Germany tomorrow morning to demand an answer over their ultimatum to Belgium.

Colliers in South Wales are said to have gone on strike as they ‘won’t dig coal for War.’

Asquith is hopeful that Simon may not resign after all.

The Cabinet decides that Lord Buxton should take up his post as Governor-General of the Union of South Africa, and sail in spite of the risk of capture.

Harcourt’s political journal features in the Bodleian Libraries exhibition The Great War: From Downing Street to the Trenches.

Entry for 3 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 2).

Entry for 3 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 3).

Entry for 3 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 4).

Entry for 3 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 5).

Harcourt continues to be active in the peace party. At midnight Simon and Illingworth visit his London home, 14 Berkeley Square, to ask him to join a delegation to Lloyd George at 11 Downing Street in the morning. At the meeting they agree they ’w[oul]d not go to war for mere violation of Belgian territory’, and that they would try to hold up any decision about British intervention.

Harcourt and Lloyd George go to 10 Downing Street to convey the views of the peace party to the Prime Minister at 11 a.m. Asquith listened, but ‘s[ai]d nothing.’ The Cabinet meets immediately after this, and approves the emergency financial arrangements discussed in earlier meetings, and also the war risk shipping insurance scheme. News arrives that Germany has declared war on Russia, and that German troops have invaded Luxembourg. At this stage it seems that they might be avoiding Belgium.

The German ambassador (Lichnowsky) has seen the Prime Minister, and in tears told Asquith that he believed it would be Germany that ‘is going to be crushed’ and not France. He thinks his government ‘mad.’ The Foreign Secretary Grey had seen Cambon, the French Ambassador, who was also in tears. Grey informs the Cabinet that he has told Cambon that Britain has made no decision about her action if Belgian neutrality should be violated, or the German fleet should come into the Channel. However, he wants to be able to reassure Cambon that if the German fleet attacks the French coast, Britain will intervene with her navy. He wants to be able to make a statement to this effect in Parliament tomorrow. The Cabinet decides that nothing should be said on these matters to Cambon today, though Grey wants to make this promise to France today, and is ‘much stronger than before for joining in war.’

As the Cabinet sits, a letter arrives from Andrew Bonar Law, leader of the Opposition, offering support if Britain should go to war, and stating that ‘it w[oul]d be fatal to the honour and security of the U.K. to hesitate.’ Winston Churchill says he will resign if Britain does not go to war on the violation of Belgian territory; John Morley says he will resign if Britain does go to war. John Burns announces his intention to resign over Grey’s plan to use the fleet to defend the French coast. He is asked to hold off until the evening Cabinet meeting.

In the afternoon, the peace party meet for lunch at Lord Beauchamp’s house in Belgrave Square. Many are angry that they are being pushed into decisions too quickly, and Simon thinks they ought to have resigned. Harcourt disagrees as he now believes that ‘a German fleet attack & capture of French territory’ on the Channel coast is ‘a British interest.’ The party agree that a German traverse of Belgian territory was not a cause for war, but that occupation or a threat to Belgian independence was a ‘vital Brit[ish] interest.’

The Cabinet meets again at 6.30 p.m. Grey has told Cambon that no British decisions have been made, and Cambon has accepted this ‘quietly’. Churchill has met the French naval attaché, and has arranged to ‘open “the joint naval signal books”’, a decision that angers Morley who says that this was an ‘attempt to create an alliance for war.’ Grey says he will not inform Germany about the decision to intervene against a German fleet attack on the French coast. Some of the Cabinet feel this is a mistake. It is now clear that the Germans have entered French territory via Luxembourg. Simon asks Churchill ‘if any orders given to attack German fleet if they come out tonight.’ Churchill says ‘definitely “No.”’ Harcourt says ‘it w[oul]d be monstrous to attack them if they were coming out not ag[ain]st us and without having been informed of our decision.’

John Burns says he must resign as nothing has changed.

As Colonial Secretary Harcourt receives a letter at 10 p.m. from the Admiralty suggesting placing a South African garrison and guns in Walfisch Bay in German West Africa. He rushes to McKenna’s house where the Prime Minister is dining to persuade him that this scheme is ‘mad’ and that such a position ‘w[oul]d be eaten up by Germans in an hour.’

Arthur Ponsonby visits Harcourt at 11.30 p.m. to ask how the peace party is getting on. He tells Harcourt that the peace M.P.s are split – ‘many of them think the violation of Luxembourg vital!!! Not one memb[er] of Cab[inet] (not even Grey) attaches any importance to this!!’

Harcourt’s political journal features in the Bodleian Libraries exhibition The Great War: From Downing Street to the Trenches.

Entry for 2 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 1).

Entry for 2 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 2).

Entry for 2 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 3).

Entry for 2 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 4).

Entry for 2 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 5).

Entry for 2 August from the political journal of Lewis Harcourt (page 6).

This is a provisonal title for the Bodleian’s centenary exhibition in 2014 which will be centred on the lives of eight (possibly more) Oxford alumni, using their letters and diaries to find new perspectives on the Great War. Edmund Blunden, alumnus of Queen’s College, has inspired the exhibtion title. ‘Daring the huge dark’ is from his poem Flanders Now. I think it conveys something of the foreboding with which individuals, and the nation, entered unfathomed depths, and yet ‘daring’ reminds us of the courage needed by ordinary men and women to endure.

I recently made a brief visit to the Somme, and took this photograph looking over to Thiepval Wood and the Memorial from a point near the village of Mesnil, close to the entrance to ‘Jacob’s Ladder‘. This was a communication trench  that led down to the British line at Hamel in the Ancre valley. Blunden describes it (and this whole section of the front) in Undertones of War, and it is mentioned in his poem, Trench Nomenclature. The tranquillity of the present scene is in marked contrast to the description of the area in his poem Thiepval Wood, which begins with the lines:

The tired air groans as the heavies swing over, the river-hollows boom;
The shell-fountains leap from the swamps, and with wildfire and fume
The shoulder of the chalkdown convulses.
Then the jabbering echoes stampede in the slatting wood

Thiepval Monument from the Mesnil-Hamel road

The image below is a detail from a trench map in the Bodleian Library drawn up just before the Somme offensive began, and shows the proximity of the British (blue) and the German (red) lines around Thiepval. The above photograph was taken from the fork in the road just north east of Mesnil, looking across to Thiepval village, with Thiepval Wood in the middle distance. Thiepval Memorial stands about 200 metres south-east of the chateau marked ‘CH’ on the trench map on the western edge of the village. ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ can be seen running between Mesnil and Hamel.

The trenches between Hamel and Thiepval, June 1916

Postcard to Gilbert Murray from Capt. Godfrey Elton, 4th Hampshire Regt., Baluchistan, July 1915, MS. Gilbert Murray 28, fol. 7

Thanks to Katie Longo for an excellent talk about the Gilbert Murray papers and the Great War on Friday 18 May. It was good to see the room packed with academics, students and library staff. It was particularly pleasing to have Gilbert Murray’s grandson in attendance as he was able to add some fascinating insights.

On Friday 18 May Katie Longo (Balliol College, Oxford) will give a talk, Towards the Great War Centenary: selections for an exhibition (1:00 pm, Seminar Room, Pitt Rivers Museum – see the CSB Calendar). This is also an opportunity to hear about plans for the Bodleian’s 2014 exhibition.

Katie was appointed to this year’s Balliol-Bodley Scholarship, which affords Balliol postgraduates the opportunity to work with Western MSS. in the Bodleian Library in support of cataloguing or curatorial research. With the 2014 exhibition in mind, Katie has been exploring the papers of Gilbert Murray (1866-1957), Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. Murray is a good starting point for asking certain questions about contemporary perceptions of the Great War. He is well known for his association with conscientious objectors and with the foundation of the League of Nations; and yet in 1914 he wrote a pamphlet justifying the British war position. Katie has been surveying the Murray papers, concentrating on the early part of the war, with several questions in mind. What is his general attitude to the war? Does he have a realistic understanding (in terms of the scale, duration, likely losses, strategy etc.)?  What is the source of his information (official sources, friends, newspapers, propaganda, soldiers at the front etc.)? What is his attitude to Germany and the Germans?

Over the course of the next few months I will be surveying some of the major archives of Oxford alumni, politicians, academics, writers, soldiers and others held in the Bodleian and elsewhere in the University, to ask such questions, and to find out what impact the war had on these individuals and their circles. Do their views change as the war develops, especially after the Somme in 1916, Passchendaele in 1917, and the German breakthrough in the Spring of 1918?  How do they react to the armistice in November 1918 – is there a sense of victory, a feeling that the war was worthwhile, or that it was futile? I hope to gain a sense of what the war meant to them as it happened, when none of them had the benefit of hindsight or any foreknowledge of how the post-war world would unfold.