The Cripple Entente: Great Britain, Russia, and France. Their flags behind them, King George V, Tsar Nicholas II, and President Poincaré show the effects of the initial German victories in 1914.
Kriegs-Karte der 'Lustigen Blätter' Nr. 12.So muß es kommen:Die "Krüppel-Entente'.War Card of the 'Lustigen Blätter' (Funny Pages) No. 12It must come to this:The 'Cripple Entente'.Reverse:Kriegs-PostkarteVerlag der Lustigen Blätter (Dr. Eysler & Co.) G.m.b.H. Berlin SW. 68Druck von H.S. Hermann, BerlinWar PostcardPublisher of the Lustigen Blätter (Dr. Eysler & Co.) LLC Berlin SW. 68Printed by H.S. Hermann, Berlin
"The new Administration met for the first time on May 26 [1915]. From the very outset its defects as a war-making instrument were evident. The old Ministers had made an accommodation with their political opponents not on the merits but under duress. The new Ministers were deeply prejudiced against the work which their predecessors had done. . . . The Unionists had little confidence in the Prime Minister. . . . Mr. Lloyd George, the powerful politician whose action had compelled the formation of the Coalition, found himself on the morrow of his success in a position of singular weakness."
By mid-May, 1915, failures of the British war effort were apparent. From the April 25 Allied invasion, the Turkish defenders on the Gallipoli Peninsula had held the Anglo-French invaders to little more turf than their initial beachheads. On May 15, the London Times broke the story of the shell shortage on which British Commander Sir John French blamed the British failure in the May 9, Battle of Festubert, intended as Britain's major spring offensive on the Western Front. British Prime Minister Asquith was forced to form a coalition government, bringing in Conservatives and appointing David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, author of our excerpt above, was forced out of his position.
The World Crisis 1911-1918 by Winston Churchill, page 474, copyright © by Charles Scribner's Sons 1931, renewed by Winston S. Churchill 1959, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 1931, 2007
1915-05-26, 1915, May, Coalition government, British Coalition government, Triple Entente, Cripplel Entente