David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, (1863 – 1945) from the British Liberal Party was a highly effective leader of the coalition government that took power in late 1916 and managed the British war effort. However his coalition premiership was supported more by Conservatives than by his own Liberals, and the subsequent split was a key factor in the decline of the Liberal Party as a serious political force.
He won a landslide in the election of 1918, held just after the war ended, where he spoke out for harsh terms against Germany. However he was much more moderate at Paris. Unlike Clemenceau and Orlando, Lloyd George did not want to destroy the German economy and political system—as Clemenceau demanded—with massive reparations. Asked how he had done at the peace conference, he commented, "Not badly, considering I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon ".
It has been said that “Lloyd George was the most affable and the most resilient, and he was probably the best at negotiating”. In an article from the New York Times it says that "Lloyd George was a pragmatist determined to protect and expand the interests of the British Empire."
Read more about this topic: The Big Four (World War I)
Famous quotes containing the words lloyd george, david lloyd, david and/or lloyd:
“A fully equipped duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and dukes are just as great a terror—and they last longer.”
—David Lloyd George (1863–1945)
“The finest eloquence is that which gets things done; the worst is that which delays them.”
—David Lloyd George (1863–1945)
“However, our fates at least are social. Our courses do not diverge; but as the web of destiny is woven it is fulled, and we are cast more and more into the centre. Men naturally, though feebly, seek this alliance, and their actions faintly foretell it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Four spectres haunt the Poor—Old Age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth. We mean to banish the workhouse from the horizon of every workman in the land.”
—David Lloyd George (1863–1945)