Margot Asquith's Great War Diary 1914-1916: The View from Downing Street

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Michael Brock (Honorary Fellow, Honorary Fellow, Wolfson College and Nuffield College, Oxford) Eleanor Brock

Margot Asquith's Great War Diary 1914-1916

The View from Downing Street

Michael Brock (Honorary Fellow, Honorary Fellow, Wolfson College and Nuffield College, Oxford), Eleanor Brock

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English

Oxford University Press
08 July 2014

Biography; Diaries, letters & journals; British & Irish history; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; Politics & government

Margot Asquith was the wife of Herbert Henry Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister who led Britain into war in August 1914. Asquith's early war leadership drew praise from all quarters, but in December 1916 he was forced from office in a palace coup, and replaced by Lloyd George, whose career he had done so much to promote. Margot had both the literary gifts and the vantage point to create, in her diary of these years, a compelling record of her husband's fall from grace. She once described herself as 'a sort of political clairvoyant', but she did not anticipate the premier's fall, and it is for her candour, not her clairvoyance, that the diary is valuable. Margot was both a spectator of, and a participant in, the events that she describes, and in public affairs could be an ally or an embarrassment - sometimes both. Her diary evokes the wartime milieu, as experienced in 10 Downing Street, and describes the great political battles that lay behind the warfare on the Western Front. Her writing teems with character sketches, including those of Lloyd George ('a natural adventurer who may make or mar himself any day'), Churchill ('Winston's vanity is septic'), and Kitchener ('a man brutal by nature and by pose'). Witty and worldly, Margot also possessed a childlike vulnerability: 'This is the 84th day of the war' she wrote in October 1914, 'and speaking for myself I have never felt the same person since. I don't mean to say I have improved!

On the contrary...'.

This volume brings together a wealth of previously-unpublished source material with an introductory essay from Michael and Eleanor Brock, two of the leading authorities in the field. This will be vital reading for anyone with an interest in the history of World War I or in British politics of the time.

Edited by: Michael Brock (Honorary Fellow Honorary Fellow Wolfson College and Nuffield College Oxford), Eleanor Brock
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 161mm, Spine: 50mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780198229773
ISBN 10: 0198229771
Pages: 520
Publication Date: 08 July 2014
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface and AcknowledgementsEditorial noteList of illustrationsFamily TreesChronologyIntroductionMargot's Diary1: 24 July to 7 August 19142: 10 August to 21 December 19143: January to 13 April 19154: 17 April to 19 May 19155: 20 May to 3 August 19156: 4 August to 15 November 19157: 16 November 1915 to 4 May 19168: 5 May to 29 August 19169: 17 September to 14 December 1916EpilogueShort titles (and bibliography) of sources usedAppendix 1: Biographical notes

Michael Brock is a modern historian, educationalist, and Oxford college head; he was Vice-President of Wolfson College; Director of the School of Education at Exeter University; Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford; and Warden of St George's House, Windsor Castle; he is the author of The Great ReformAct, and co-editor, with Mark Curthoys, of the two nineteenth-century volumes in the History of the University of Oxford. With his wife, Eleanor Brock, a former schoolteacher, he edited the acclaimed OUP edition H. H. Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley.

Reviews for Margot Asquith's Great War Diary 1914-1916: The View from Downing Street

They may not constitute the most important historical work published in this centenary year, but by a country mile they are the most entertaining. Max Hastings, Sunday Times Michael and Eleanor Brock have edited Margot's writing with meticulous academic precision. This diary is an invaluable and fascinating text, and we must be thankful to the Brocks for producing it. Jane Ridley, Literary Review Reading these diaries has been a pleasure enhanced by its editors, who have set the stage and introduced the cast with lucidity and scholarship. The Times In the present torrent of books about the Great War, this deserves to stand out. New Statesman