his neglect in regard to the preparation of second-line positions. It was serious enough that the positions indicated by Cadorna in the early days of the war had not been prepared. Much more serious was Brusati's report that these lines were in a satisfactory state of efficiency, when in fact they were largely untouched. Cadorna relied upon Brusati's reports, and when, at the end of April, he inspected the positions himself, the enemy attack was daily expected, and it was too late to effect more than slight modifications. In reply to the common criticism that Cadorna ought to have inspected the lines earlier, the answer is that he was fully occupied from Oct. to Dec. 1915 with his Isonzo offensive, and that from Dec. to April the greater part of the line between the Val Lagarina and the Val Sugana was under deep snow. After the initial disasters, which can scarcely be laid at his door, Cadorna showed the qualities of a great leader. He was quick to grasp the situation, and effective in the measures he took to cope with it. And he realized, when the outlook seemed blackest and all his generals were against him, that the impetus of the enemy attack was failing and that he could control the situation.
It has been suggested that Cadorna should have pursued his counter-offensive and left the Isonzo alone. There will always be adherents of the fallacy that Italy should have attacked through the Trentino, though they are in the main confined to those who do not know the country, or those who have no experience 'of modern war. With these, presumably, no argu- ment would serve. To those who maintain that Cadorna should have sacrificed everything in order to improve his defensive position in the Trentino sector, it may be answered that the line on which he stopped (or rather the modification of it neces- sitated by the retreat after Caporetto), properly prepared, backed by other lines in sufficient depth, and adequately served by new roads, was maintained until the end of the war. In refusing to waste men in attempting more than was necessary Cadorna took the right decision, and won a notable success.
(W. K. McC.)
ASIA MINOR (see 2.757). With the Turkish revolution in 1908 and the Armenian massacres of the following year began
a series of radical changes in the political division of Asia Minor;
nor was it yet possible in the summer of 1921 to foresee the end.
In the Italo-Turkish and Balkan wars of 1911-3 the Ottoman
Empire lost islands on the coast of Asia Minor. The World War
of 1914-21 saw the end of the empire itself, and the substitution
of a Turkish state confined almost wholly to Asia Minor. The
occupation of considerable territory by Greece in the region of
Smyrna became effective, and at the same time the Turkish
Nationalist Government with its capital in Anatolia offered
successful armed resistance to the full execution of the Treaty
of Sevres. These events were accompanied by further Armenian
massacres on the greatest scale. Asia Minor as a geographical en-
tity was therefore in 1921 in no sense any longer a political unit.
ASKWITH, GEORGE RANKEN ASKWITH, 1ST BARON (1861-
), English lawyer and civil servant, was born at Morley,
Yorks, Feb. 17 1861, and was educated at Marlborough and
Brasenose College, Oxford. He was called to the bar in 1886
(K.C. 1908), and in 1899 was one of the counsel in the Vene-
zuelan arbitration case. In 1907 he entered the railways section
of the Board of Trade as assistant secretary, and in 1909 was
appointed comptroller-general of the Commercial, Labour and
Statistical Departments of the Board of Trade. He acted as
arbitrator in many industrial disputes, and in 1911 was created
K.C.B. in recognition of his valuable work in that capacity.
In 1911 he became chairman of the recently constituted Indus-
trial Council, in 1912 he made a special report for the Govern-
ment on the Canadian labour laws, and in 1915 was appointed
chairman of the Government Arbitration Committee under
the Munitions of War Acts, holding this post till 1917. On the
Committee of Production he did important work for the Govern-
ment. In 1919 he retired from his position as chief industrial
commissioner, and was raised to the peerage. His wife, whom
he married in 1908, was a daughter of Archibald Peel, nephew of
the statesman Sir Robert Peel, and the widow of Maj. Henry Graham (d. 1907). During the World War she was an active
and energetic member of the Central Committee on Women's
Employment, and was created C.B.E. in 1918.
ASQUITH, HERBERT HENRY (1852- ), English statesman
(see 2.769), had been confirmed in power as Prime Minister by the general election of Jan. 1910, but the political situation
resulting from it was still one of unexampled difficulty (see
ENGLISH HISTORY). On several .occasions during the ensuing
parliamentary session, he put off importunate questioners,
with regard to the policy of the Ministry, by saying that they
had better " wait and see." The phrase was remembered, and
was often used by critics in subsequent years, especially during
the World War, as a compendious description of what they con-
sidered to be the procrastinating attitude of the Prime Minister
and his Government. But there was no procrastination in Mr.
Asquith's attitude in the autumn, as soon as the conference
arranged between the opposing political leaders on the constitu-
tional crisis had definitely failed. He and his Cabinet at once
took decisive measures to get it settled in their own sense. On
Nov. 1 5 the day Parliament reassembled for its autumn session
they advised the Crown to dissolve, but only on the under-
standing that " in the event of the policy of the Government
being approved by an adequate majority in the new House of
Commons His Majesty will be ready to exercise his constitutional
powers, which may involve the prerogative of creating peers,
if needed, to secure that effect shall be given to the decision of the
country." The King reluctantly consented, and the dissolution
was announced on Nov. 18; but the terms of the understanding
which had been arrived at between the Crown and its advisers
were not revealed till the crisis in the following summer. The
second general election of 1910 was held in Dec.; and the verdict
of the preceding Jan. was almost precisely confirmed.
Having, with the aid of Labour and the Nationalists, who- were both thoroughly with him on the constitutional issue, a clear majority of about 120, the Prime Minister went straight ahead with the Parliament bill, which had two main objects: to take from the Lords all power of either rejecting or amending a Money bill, and to provide that a bill passed in three successive sessions by the Commons should become law without the Lords' assent. He carried the second reading in March with the closure, defeated the stubborn resistance of the Unionists in committee by aid of the " kangaroo " closure, and obtained the third reading, on May 15 by an unbroken majority of 121. He did not conceal in the debate that the first use to which the new powers conferred by the bill on the Commons would be put was to pass the Irish Home Rule bill, followed by the rest of the controversial Liberal programme. When the Lords, after allowing the second reading to pass, introduced by an enormous majority an amendment (amongst others) providing for the submission to a popular vote of certain fundamental measures, he forthwith announced, in a letter to Mr. Balfour on the day (July 20) on which the amended bill was read a third time in the Lords, that the Government would ask the House of Commons to disagree with the amendments, adding:
In the circumstances, should the necessity arise, the Government will advise the King to exercise his prerogative to secure the passing into law of the bill in substantially the same form in which it left the House of Commons, and His Majesty has been pleased to signify that he will consider it his duty to accept and act on that advice.
This, the first public announcement of the King's consent to the creation of sufficient peers to pass the bill, produced an explosion among the Opposition; and the Unionist hotheads, among whom Lord Hugh Cecil and Mr. F. E. Smith (afterwards Lord Birkenhead) were conspicuous, shouted " Traitor " at Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons, and refused to let him deliver the speech in which he was to explain his policy. But he had effected his object of dividing the Unionist party; and eventually a sufficient number of peers followed their leaders in bowing to force majeure and allowing the bill to pass rather than risk the degradation of their House by an unlimited creation (see ENGLISH HISTORY). Mr. Asquith welcomed the vote of censure which the Opposition promoted in the House of Commons; gave
