It did not falter long.  Once more the S.O.S. call of a Nation in Distress flashed out and again the spark found its man.  Lloyd George went from Ministry of Munitions to sit in Kitchener’s seat at the War Office.  Unlike the Hero of Khartoum, he had no service in the field to his credit.  But he knew men and he also knew how to deploy them.  Just as he brought the Veterans of Business to sit around the Munitions Board, so did he now marshal war-tried campaigners for the Strategy Table.  The Somme blow was struck:  the new War Chieftain proved his worth.

In the midst of all these new exactions Lloyd George found time for other and arduous national labours.  Two more episodes will serve to close this narrative of unprecedented achievement.

When the recent Irish Revolt had registered its tragedy of blood, death and execution, menacing the very structure of Empire, Lloyd George became the Emissary of Peace to the Isle of Unrest.

Again, when prying peacemakers sought to intrude themselves upon the nations engaged in a life and death struggle, it was Lloyd George, in a remarkable interview, who warned all would-be winners of the Nobel prize that peace talk was unfriendly, that “there was neither clock nor calendar in the British Army,” that the Allies would make it a finish fight.

So it went until gloom once more took up its abode amid the Allies.  Bucharest fell before the German assault:  Greece seethed with the unhappy mess that Entente diplomacy had made of a great opportunity:  land and sea registered daily some fresh evidence of Teutonic advance.  What was wrong?

England speculated, yet one man knew and that man was Lloyd George.  He realised the futility of a many-headed direction of the war:  with his swift insight he saw the tragic toll that all this cross purpose was taking.  He made a demand on Asquith for a small War Council that would put dash, vigour and success into the British side of the conflict.  The Premier refused to assent and Lloyd George resigned as War Chief.  The Government toppled in a crisis that menaced the very future of the nation.

Great Britain stood aghast.  Lloyd George stood for all the popular confidence in victory that the nation felt.  For a moment it appeared as if the very foundations of authority had crumbled.

But not for long.  When Bonar Law declined to reestablish the Government the oft-repeated cry for action that had invariably found its answer in the intrepid little Welshman, again rose up.  Upon him devolved the task of constructing a new Cabinet which he headed as Prime Minister.  He now reached the inevitable goal toward which he had unconsciously marched ever since that faraway day when his voice was first heard in Parliament.

Even with Cabinet-making Lloyd George was a Revolutionist.  He cut down the membership from twenty-four to five, establishing a compact and effective War Council whose sole task is to “win the war.”  He centred more authority in the Premiership than the English system has ever known before.  He virtually became Dictator.