George Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd

George Ambrose Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd,

Early life

Lloyd was born at

In 1901, Lloyd joined the family firm

As a lieutenant in the Warwickshire Yeomanry, Lloyd was called up three days after Britain had entered the war.^[14]

During the war, he served on the staff of

From July 1937 onward, he was chairman of the British Council in which he oversaw an increase in lectureships and made cultural tours of neutral capitals to maintain sympathy for Britain's cause during the early months of the Second World War.[24]

The council was a purportedly-independent group meant to engage in cultural propaganda promoting the British way of life to the rest of the world that was in fact under the control of the Foreign Office.^[25] As head of the British Council, Lloyd ran his own private intelligence network that employed as one his spies the journalist Ian Colvin, who served as the Berlin correspondent of The News Chronicle.^[26] Unusually, Lloyd enjoyed a privileged access to the secret reports of MI6, the British intelligence service.^[26] The British historian D.C. Watt called Lloyd "one of those uncontrollable lusi naturae the British elite throws up from time to time".^[27]

In November 1937, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden instructed Lloyd that the British Council was to concentrate especially on improving Britain's image in Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland.^[28] Regarding the Middle East, especially Egypt, as a crucial area of control for Britain, Lloyd regarded the approaches to the Near East as equally crucial, which led him to become obsessed with the Balkans, which called the "eastern approaches", independently of Eden's instructions.^[29] In April 1938, he suggested in a memo sent to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax that Britain needed to become more economically involved in the Balkans, which were rapidly falling into the German economic sphere of influence.^[29] After discussing the issue with King George II of Greece during a visit to Athens in May 1938, Lloyd submitted another memo calling for Britain to increase the import of staple goods from Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and Romania.^[30] In response, Britain granted Turkey a credit of £16 million that month, but Lloyd's idea of an "economic offensive" in the Balkans was not taken up at the time.^[31]

Czechoslovakia

Lloyd was not in sympathy with the Chamberlain government's policies towards Czechoslovakia in August–September 1938, and his advice that he gave to his old friend, Lord Halifax, who served as Foreign Secretary after Eden had resigned in February 1938 in protest against the Chamberlain's government's policies towards

Lloyd passed on to the government on 3 August 1938 a report from Colvin that stated that Germany planned to invade Czechoslovakia on 28 September.[31] In September, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany three times for summits with Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Bad Godesberg and Munich to discuss the Sudetenland crisis. In a letter of 20 October 1938 to Sir Percy Loraine, Lloyd sardonically wrote of those three summits: "If at first you don't concede, fly, fly again."^[32]

United States

In the tense atmosphere of 1938, Lloyd tried hard to increase British propaganda in the United States to an attempt to involve the America in the Sudetenland dispute and favored an approach of trying to appeal to the American elite, rather than the American people in general.^[33]

In June 1938, he argued that the British Council should arrange for British professors to serve as visiting lecturers at American universities to strengthen Anglo-American relations.

Lloyd was forced to use a more informal approach to the United States and arranged for Americans with the power to influence American public opinion to visit Britain, where they were met by notable British personalities, who were instructed to impress them the importance of closer Anglo-American ties as a factor for world peace.[34] The Britons recruited for this work were Sir George Schuster, the president of Lipton's Tea; the American-born Conservative MP Ronald Tree; the Scottish aristocrat Lord Lothian, the secretary of the Rhodes Trust; the Labour MP Josiah Wedgewood; Angus Fletcher, the president of the British Library of Information; and Frank Darvall, the president of the English Speaking Union who had received his degree at Columbia University.^[36] In particular, American journalists were cultivated with the principle theme being that both countries were champions of freedom and democracy and should work together more closely for that reason.^[37] As those meetings took place in Britain with individuals who were ostensibly expressing their own personal views, and the American correspondents in their writings and broadcasts merely recorded their own experiences of Britain, that completely bypassed the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Balkans

Accepting that Czechoslovakia was a lost cause after the Munich Agreement, in the autumn of 1938, Lloyd focused on convincing the government that greater British involvement was needed with the remaining two members of the Little Entente: Yugoslavia and Romania.^[38] Lloyd was especially involved with the latter, where his two principal collaborators were Grigore Gafencu and Virgil Tilea, both of whom he knew from his work with the British Council.^[38] In October 1938, Lloyd visited Bucharest to meet King Carol II.supposedly to encourage Anglo-Romanian cultural links but in fact to hear a plan from Carol for Britain to stop Romania from becoming an economic colony of Germany.^[39] Lloyd who rather liked Carol, sent a series of vigorously written telegrams from Bucharest urging for Britain to commit itself to spending £500,000 on buying Romanian oil, purchase 600,000 tons of Romanian wheat and assist Romania with building a naval base where the Danube River flowed into the Black Sea.^[39] In the cabinet meetings, Lord Halifax used Lloyd's telegrams to argue that Britain should buy Romanian wheat and said that "how urgent the matter is, and of what importance it is without delay to try and do something in the economic sphere for Romania".^[40] Chamberlain agreed with the idea, but he committed to buying only 200,000 tons of Romanian wheat after objections from the Treasury.^[40]

Lloyd, the most consistent advocate of more British support for Romania, argued to Lord Halifax that it was too dangerous to let that oil-rich kingdom fall into the German sphere of influence.^[41] Lloyd noted that Germany had no oil of its own and that there were only two places in Europe where oil could be obtained in massive quantities, the Soviet Union and Romania, and that since the latter was by far the weaker, he believed that Romania would be Hitler's next target.^[42] In response, Halifax argued that the Germans saw Romania as being in their sphere of influence, and too great of British involvement in that kingdom would have been seen by Hitler as "encirclement".^[43] When Carol visited London between 15 and 18 November 1938, Lloyd was present to argue on his behalf.^[41] Despite all of Lloyd's advocacy of Carol's case during his London visit, Britain agreed to buy only 200,000 tons of Romanian wheat at above world prices with an option to buy 400,000 tons but refused the king's request for a £30 million pound loan.^[44] The Chamberlain government committed to spending £10 million in support of threatened nations in November 1938, but the bill authorising the spending was not passed until February 1939, of which the largest sum, £3 million, went to China, and in the Balkans £2 million went to Greece and £1 million to Romania.^[27]

In a letter on 24 November, he mentioned that he just returned from the Balkans "to see what could be saved in the Balkans from the Nazis", an allusion to the recent tour of Balkans by German Economics Minister Dr Walther Funk, who pressed for greater economic integration of the region with the German Reich.^[41] Acting in his own capacity, Lloyd urged that the directors of the firm Spencer Limited to build grain silos in Romania, as Carol had mentioned during his visit to London that Romania's ability to export wheat was hindered by the lack of grain silos.^[45] In January 1939, Lloyd advised Gafencu, who just been appointed Romanian Foreign Minister, to appoint someone of "considerable energy and position" to be the Romanian minister in London, which led to Tilea receiving the appointment.^[46] After King Carol, the Balkan leader to whom Lloyd was closest was Prince Paul, the Regent of Yugoslavia for the boy King Peter II.^[41]

Working with a fellow member of the board of the Navy League, Lord Sempill, who had served as the deputy chairman of the London Chamber of Commence in 1931–1934, Lloyd sought from January 1939 onward to encourage British businesses to buy many products from the Balkans as possible.^[46] Lord Semphill had once been an enthusiast for Nazi Germany and had joined the Anglo-German Fellowship, but he was described as being "impressed by Lloyd's propaganda efforts and wanted to back them with specific business arrangements".^[46] In February 1939, he visited Athens to meet the Greek dictator, General Ioannis Metaxas, in an effort to improve Anglo-Greek relations.^[46] In a bid to "soften the dictatorship", Lloyd arranged for greater British Council involvement with the National Youth Organisation, which he believed would allow the British Council to win over Greek public opinion.^[46] During his visit to Athens, Lloyd also advised King George II to dismiss a Germanophile, Metaxas, as prime minister and to appoint an Anglophile as his successor, which the king refused.^[47] Lloyd made clear during his Greek visit his personal preference for Venizelism and met several Venizelist Greek politicians, which was also a way of expressing his distaste for the 4th of August Regime.^[46] Upon his return from Greece, Lloyd pressed very strongly for the government to force British tobacco companies to buy the Greek tobacco crop.^[48] During his visit to Greece, both King George and Mextaxas had told him that Germany had more to offer Greece economically than Britain, which led Lloyd to decide on a dramatic gesture to prove otherwise. Lloyd's advocacy of buying the entire Greek tobacco crop for 1939 led to bureaucratic struggle, as objections were raised that it was unfair to force British smokers to use Greek tobacco, regarded as inferior, when they were used to American and Canadian tobacco, regarded as superior.^[48]

Second World War

On 27 January 1939, Lloyd passed on to the government a report he received from Colvin that Germany was planning to invade Poland in the spring of 1939.^[26] In March 1939, Lloyd played a major role in the "Tilea affair" when Tilea claimed that Romania was on the brink of a German invasion, a claim that he strongly endorsed despite the denials of Gafencu.^[49] Lloyd argued to Halifax that based upon his sources in Romania, Germany had indeed threatened an invasion, which the Romanians were denying for fear of enraging Hitler.^[42] In late March 1939, Lloyd received information from Colvin that Germany was planning on invading Poland that spring, and on 23 March, he told Colvin that he would arrange for him to meet Chamberlain and Lord Halifax.^[42] Colvin met Chamberlain and Lord Halifax on 29 March 1939, but it is not clear much credence Lloyd placed on his reports, as on 31 March, the same day that Chamberlain announced the guarantee of Poland in the House of Commons, Lloyd told Halifax that he still regarded Romania, rather than Poland, as Hitler's probable next target.^[42]

Lloyd argued that Britain and France should co-ordinate their policies in the Balkans as the best way of deterring Germany and played a major role in ensuring the Anglo-French guarantees of Romania and Greece that were issued on 13 April 1939.

Reflecting his special case in the Balkans, when Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Lloyd had the pamphlet The British Case to explain why Britain had declared war translated into Greek, Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene and ensured that it was widely distributed all over the Balkans.^[51] A recurring theme of Lloyd's letters to Halifax during the Phoney War was that the Treasury was not providing enough money for the British Council's work in the Balkans.^[51] In September 1939, Tilea began to promote the idea of a "Balkan bloc", consisting of all the Balkan state, that would be committed to upholding neutrality in the Second World War with the understanding that the Allies would come to their aid if their neutrality was violated.^[52] Lloyd, who was in close contact with Churchill who was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty on 3 September 1939, called together with Churchill for a "Balkan league", which would form a line to block any German expansion into the Balkans.^[52] On 27 September 1939, Tilea asked Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Foreign Office's Permanent Undersecretary, "whether it would not be a good plan to send someone out to Bucharest, and he quoted as an example Lord Lloyd, who had the ear of the King and might be able to give good advice on the subject of Balkan reconciliation and consolidation".^[53] It is possible that Lloyd and Tilea had been working together on the same day that Tilea had asked for Lloyd to go to the Balkans. Lloyd had told Lord Halifax of his desire to go the Balkans saying "the urgency of which at the present moment obviously cannot be exaggerated".^[54]

Balkan tour

By October 1939, it was agreed that Lloyd would visit Romania but all of the Balkan states to work for a "Balkan pact".^[55] Sir Reginald Hoare, the British minister in Bucharest, was opposed to the plan to send Lloyd to the Balkans, but George William Rendel, the minister in Sofia, and Sir Michael Palairet, the minister in Athens, were supportive.^[56] In the interval, Lloyd had visited Spain to ask the Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco, if he was willing to guarantee the proposed "Balkan pact", an aspect of his visit to Madrid about which he neglected to tell the Foreign Office.^[55] The Foreign Office first learned of the plan from the Yugoslav Regent, Prince Paul, in November 1939.^[55] On 3 November 1939, Lord Halifax called a meeting to discuss the merits and demerits of the Balkan League plan, which Lloyd was allowed to attend by special permission of Halifax over the objections of Cadogan, who argued that an outsider like Lord Lloyd should be attending a Foreign Office meeting.^[57]

On 14 November 1939, Lloyd's Balkan tour began with a visit to Bucharest.^[58] Gafencu suggested a "machinery for common action", but negotiations broken down when King Carol learned that the British guarantee of Romania applied only against Germany, not the Soviet Union, as he wanted.^[58] As Carol had not seen Hoare for some time, the extended talks that Lord Lloyd had with the king was felt to provide "useful information and impressions".^[59] In Belgrade and Sofia, Lloyd's visit was hampered by inability of Britain to supply weapons on the scale that both Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and King Boris III of Bulgaria wanted.^[58] Moreover, the unwillingness of Boris to renounce Bulgarian territorial claims over Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania rendered the idea of a neutralist Balkan league impractical.^[60] After finishing his Balkan tour, Lloyd went to Syria to see Maxime Weygand, whose Armée de la Syrie had been intended by the French General Staff before the war to go to Thessaloniki.^[60]

Upon his return to Britain in December 1939, Lloyd backed French plans for a revival of the Salonika front strategy of World War II and urged at meetings of the Supreme War Council for British and French troops to land at Thessaloniki.^[60] In that, he was against the British government, which opposed the French plans for a "second front" in the Balkans under the grounds that it was unclear whether Italy intended to remain neutral or not.^[60] Lloyd enlisted the aid of Foreign Office officials such as Robert Bruce Lockhart who summarised his thesis: "Lloyd says that the only argument in the Balkans is strength. If we do nothing we shall lose everything. If we are vigorous we have the support of the Balkans. Therefore, without too much consideration of Italy we must go ahead with the formation of the Near Eastern force".^[61] In response to objections from Sir Percy Loraine, the British ambassador in Rome, that he was not certain how long Italy would remain neutral, Lloyd argued that Britain should just ignore the possibility of Italy entering the war but start troops to Thessaloniki at once.^[62] At the same time, Lloyd advised Halifax that Britain should start shipping weapons to Yugoslavia at once to indicate that Britain was serious about defending the Balkans.^[62] In January 1940, Lloyd wrote to Loraine that Benito Mussolini respected only force and of his belief that if the Allies landed in the Balkans, that was likely to persuade Mussolini to continue Italian neutrality.^[62]

Evaluation

In January 1940, the attention of the Supreme War Council shifted towards Scandinavia, and the Balkan plan was abandoned.^[51] Lloyd's major interest in February to March 1940 was in building a "British Institute" in Bucharest to promote British culture, who was supported by Lord Halifax against objections from the Treasury that it was a waste of money in wartime.^[63] In an assessment of Lloyd's work in the Balkans, Atherton wrote: "His position was an ambivalent one: neither a diplomat nor a politician, but a peer with a semi-official position and influential political contacts. It was also increasingly irregular, but despite his opposition to the Munich agreement and, after September 1938, to further appeasement of Germany, Chamberlain never sought his removal".^[64]

In cabinet

When Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, he appointed Lloyd as Secretary of State for the Colonies and in December, he conferred on Lloyd the additional job of Leader of the House of Lords.

London Central Mosque

Lord Lloyd was a leading proponent of the future London Central Mosque. As early as 1939 he worked with a Mosque Committee, comprising various prominent Muslims and ambassadors in London. After joining Churchill's cabinet, he sent a memo to Churchill to point out that London contained "more [Muslims] than any other European capital" but that in the British Empire "which actually contains more Moslems (sic) than Christians it was anomalous and inappropriate that there should be no central place of worship for Mussulmans [sic]". He believed the gift of a site for the mosque would serve as "a tribute to the loyalty of the Moslems of the [British] Empire and would have a good effect on Arab countries of the Middle East".^[65]

Other interests

In commerce, Lloyd was also director of the British South Africa Company and Wagon Lit Holdings.^[24] In peacetime, he habitually travelled in tropical countries every two months.^[24]

In his fifties, he trained for and obtained a civil pilot's certificate in 1934,^[66] and in 1937, he was appointed Honorary Air Commodore of No 600 (City of London) (Fighter) Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force^[67] with which he insisted on training himself to qualify as a military pilot.^[24]

Personal life

In 1911, Lloyd married Blanche Isabella Lascelles,

He appears as the character "Henry Fortescue" in Compton Mackenzie's novel Thin Ice.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• List of Cambridge University Boat Race crews

References

Sources

• John Charmley, Lord Lloyd and the Decline of the British Empire, Weidenfeld, 1987.
• Atherton, Louise (February 1994), "Lord Lloyd at the British Council and the Balkan Front, 1937–1940", The International History Review, 16 (1): 25–48,
  doi:10.1080/07075332.1994.9640667
• Goldstein, Erik "Neville Chamberlain, the British Official Mind and the Munich Crisis", pages 276–292, from The Munich Crisis, Prelude to World War II, edited by Igor Lukes and Erik Goldstein, London: Frank Cass, 1999.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd.

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by George Lloyd
• Newspaper clippings about George Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• The Papers of Lord Lloyd of Dolobran held at Churchill Archives Centre

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Henry McLaren	Member of Parliament for West Staffordshire January 1910 – 1918	Constituency abolished
Preceded by Rupert Gwynne	Member of Parliament for Eastbourne 1924–1925	Succeeded by Reginald Hall
Political offices
Preceded by The Lord Willingdon	Governor of Bombay 1918–1923	Succeeded by Leslie Wilson
Preceded by The Viscount Allenby	British High Commissioner in Egypt 1925–1929	Succeeded by Sir Percy Loraine
Preceded by Malcolm MacDonald	Secretary of State for the Colonies 1940–1941	Succeeded by The Lord Moyne
Preceded by The Viscount Halifax	Leader of the House of Lords 1940–1941
Party political offices
Preceded by The Viscount Halifax	Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Lords 1940–1941	Succeeded by The Lord Moyne
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron Lloyd 1925–1941	Succeeded by Alexander Lloyd