By remaining in the Cabinet in December 1915, Reginald McKenna enabled the Government to continue in an unreconstructed form for a further year by emboldening the Prime Minister’s resistance to change in December 1916, he ensured the destruction of the ministry, the accession of Lloyd George, and the gelding of the Liberal Party. A participant neglected by history was central to each. December 1915 concerned a matter of principle subsumed by circumstance into expediency December 1916 combined an incompatibility of personnel with a signal divergence of political orientation. The crisis of December 1916 was of a much shorter duration and destroyed the Government. The crisis of December 1915 was successfully negotiated, with only the loss of one Cabinet minister and immeasurable goodwill. The first concerned the adoption of military conscription the second resulted from short term intrigue but reflected wider dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war.
That purpose built agglomeration of crises, the Asquith Coalition, 1915 1916, was wracked by two in particular.
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