No one saw this coming cloud more rapidly than Mr. Lloyd George. Early in September he read through the designs of the German commanders. With his uncanny eye for a military situation, he seemed to know what Hindenburg was going to do before he did it. He noticed a weakening in the attack on Verdun. He realised in a moment that Bulgaria would not be moving if she were not sure of German help. He saw straight into the heart of the German eastern ambitions, and he realised that here they had an opportunity which on no account would they pass by. He was full of a feverish desire to avert the blow, even at the eleventh hour. Could not anything still be done? There was Italy—she was at the doors of the East—there was Russia. Was it nothing to them who passed by—this crucifixion of a little nation? There was always something especially poignant in his emotions over these tragedies. He was not a man suited to the part of sitting by and doing nothing. But Rumania was already beyond the reach of our help. When Serbia was lost, Rumania was cut off also from British aid. The British Fleet, as Lord Salisbury once shrewdly remarked, cannot operate in the Balkans. Russia, the only possible rescuer, proved a broken reed. She was already paralysed by the sleeping sickness of internal treachery. So Rumania went under. But the event had a reverberating influence on Mr. Lloyd George’s mind. It brought him to a decision which he had long been meditating. He could no longer go on being responsible for these repeated failures without a supreme effort to make them cease. He had for a long time past gravely doubted whether he would not be more capable of helping in the conduct of the war if he left the Government. He had often been on the verge of resigning—on munitions, on conscription, on the Serbian failure. He had a growing conviction that the only hope of winning the war was through the nation; and he wanted to guide and to inform the nation. He longed to be “unmuzzled”—to speak out what he knew, to speak for himself alone. But it had always happened that before he took action his policy had won; and then it became practically impossible for him to resign. Ministers cannot resign on delay alone. Yet these constant delays were piling up against us a constantly accumulating debt. Or, as with the proud Roman and the ancient Sibyl, the reward was diminishing while the price was not less. The Rumanian disaster brought Mr. Lloyd George to the parting of the ways. He must either reform the Government to better uses, or he must gain his freedom—on that issue he was clear. Reflecting deeply on the mode and method of reform, he saw but one way out—a smaller and more efficient body, wholly devoted to the direction of the war. That had been his view for a long time past—and every event had confirmed it. What was wanted was unified, unsleeping control. He decided at last to place this view definitely and decisively before Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister.