Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner


Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, was a British statesman and colonial administrator who played an influential leadership role in the formulation of foreign and domestic policy between the mid-1890s and early 1920s. From December 1916 to November 1918, he was one of the most important members of David Lloyd George's War Cabinet.

Early life and education

Milner's partial German ancestry dates to his paternal grandmother, married to an Englishman who settled in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. Their son, Charles Milner, who was educated in Hesse and England, established himself as a physician with a practice in London and later became Reader in English at University of Tübingen in the Kingdom of Württemberg. His wife was a daughter of Major General John Ready, former Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island and later the Isle of Man. Their only son, Alfred Milner, was born in the Hessian town of Giessen and educated first at Tübingen, then at King's College School and, from 1872 to 1876, as a scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, studying under the classicist theologian Benjamin Jowett. Having won the Hertford, Craven, Eldon and Derby scholarships, he graduated in 1877 with a first class in classics and was elected to a fellowship at New College, leaving, however, for London in 1879. At Oxford he formed a close friendship with young economic historian Arnold Toynbee, writing a paper in support of his theories of social work and, in 1895, twelve years after his death at the age of 30, penning a tribute, Arnold Toynbee: a Reminiscence.

Journalism, politics and service in Egypt

Although authorised to practise law after being called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1881, he joined the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette under John Morley, becoming assistant editor to William Thomas Stead. In 1885 he abandoned journalism for a potential political career as the Liberal candidate for the Harrow division of Middlesex, but lost in the general election. Holding the post of private secretary to George Goschen, he rose in rank when, in 1887, Goschen became Chancellor of the Exchequer and, two years later, used his influence to have Milner appointed under-secretary of finance in Egypt. He remained in Egypt for four years, his period of office coinciding with the first great reforms, after the danger of bankruptcy had been avoided. Returning to England in 1892, he published England and Egypt which, at once, became the authoritative account of the work done since the British occupation. Later that year he received an appointment as chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue. In 1894 he was made CB and in 1895 KCB.

In Southern Africa

Alfred Milner remained at the Board of Inland Revenue until 1897. He was regarded as one of the clearest-headed and most judicious officials in the British service, and his position as a man of moderate Liberal views, who had been so closely associated with Goschen at the Treasury, Cromer in Egypt and Hicks-Beach and Sir William Vernon Harcourt while at the Inland Revenue, marked him as one in whom all parties might have confidence. The moment for testing his capacity in the highest degree had now come.
In April, Lord Rosmead resigned his posts of High Commissioner for Southern Africa and Governor of Cape Colony. The situation resulting from the Jameson raid was one of the greatest delicacy and difficulty, and Joseph Chamberlain, now colonial secretary, selected Milner as Lord Rosmead's successor. The choice was cordially approved by the leaders of the Liberal party and warmly recognized at a farewell dinner on 28 March 1897 presided over by the future prime minister H. H. Asquith. The appointment was avowedly made in order that an acceptable British statesman, in whom public confidence was reposed, might go to South Africa to consider all the circumstances and to formulate a policy which should combine the upholding of British interests with the attempt to deal justly with the Transvaal and Orange Free State governments.
Milner reached the Cape in May 1897 and by August, after the difficulties with President Kruger over the Aliens' Law had been patched up, he was free to make himself personally acquainted with the country and peoples before deciding on the lines of policy to be adopted. Between August 1897 and May 1898 he travelled through Cape Colony, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Rhodesia, and Basutoland. To better understand the point of view of the Cape Dutch and the burghers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, Milner also during this period learned both Dutch and the South African "Taal" Afrikaans. He came to the conclusion that there could be no hope of peace and progress in South Africa while there remained the "permanent subjection of British to Dutch in one of the Republics".
Milner was referring to the situation in the Transvaal where, in the aftermath of the discovery of gold, thousands of fortune seekers had flocked from all over Europe, but mostly Britain. This influx of foreigners, referred to as "Uitlanders", threatened their republic, and Transvaal's President Kruger refused to give the "Uitlanders" the right to vote. The Afrikaner farmers, known as Boers, had established the Transvaal as their promised land, after their Great Trek out of Cape Colony, a trek whose purpose was to remove themselves as far as possible from British rule. They had already successfully defended the Transvaal's annexation by the British Empire during the first Anglo-Boer War, a conflict that had emboldened them and resulted in a peace treaty which, lacking a highly convincing pretext, made it very difficult for Britain to justify diplomatically another annexation of the Transvaal.
Independent Transvaal thus stood in the way of Britain's ambition to control all of Africa from the Cape to Cairo. Milner realised that, with the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, the balance of power in South Africa had shifted from Cape Town to Johannesburg. He feared that if the whole of South Africa were not quickly brought under British control, the newly-wealthy Transvaal, controlled by Afrikaners, could unite with Cape Afrikaners and jeopardise the entire British position in South Africa. Milner also realised—as was shown by the triumphant re-election of Paul Kruger to the presidency of the Transvaal in February 1898—that the Pretoria government would never on its own initiative redress the grievances of the Uitlanders. This gave Milner the pretext to use the "Uitlander" question to his advantage.
In a speech delivered on 3 March 1898 at Graaff Reinet, an Afrikaner Bond stronghold in the British controlled Cape, Milner outlined his determination to secure freedom and equality for British subjects in the Transvaal, and he urged the Dutch colonists to induce the Pretoria government to assimilate its institutions, and the temper and spirit of its administration, to those of the free communities of South Africa. The effect of this pronouncement was great and it alarmed the Afrikaners who, at this time, viewed with apprehension the virtual resumption by Cecil Rhodes of leadership of the Cape's Progressive Party.
Later in 1899, Milner would meet Violet Cecil, the wife of Major Lord Edward Cecil. Edward Cecil was commissioned to South Africa after serving in the Grenadier Guards. Milner and Violet would begin a secret affair that would last until her departure in late 1900 back to England. She had a noticeable effect on his disposition, Milner himself wrote in his diary that he was feeling "very low indeed". Edward Cecil learned of this affair and pushed for a commission to Egypt after Violet pushed to return to South Africa. Milner would later marry Violet Cecil.
Milner had an unfavorable view of Afrikaners and, as a matter of philosophy, saw the British as "a superior race". Thus, with limited interest in peaceful resolution of the conflict, he came to the view that British control of the region could only be achieved through war.
Famously, after meeting Milner for the first time, Jan Smuts predicted that he would be "more dangerous than Rhodes" and would become "a second Bartle Frere".

Milner Schools

In order to Anglicize the Transvaal area during the Anglo-Boer war, Milner set out to influence British education in the area for the English-speaking populations. He founded a series of schools known as the "Milner Schools" in South Africa. These schools include modern-day Pretoria High School for Girls, Pretoria Boys High School, Jeppe High School for Boys, King Edward VII School, Potchefstroom High School for Boys and Hamilton Primary School.
Although not all Afrikander Bond leaders liked Kruger, they were ready to support him whether or not he granted reforms and, by the same result, contrived to make Milner's position untenable. His difficulties were increased when, at the general election in Cape Colony, the Bond obtained a majority. In October 1898, acting strictly in a constitutional manner, Milner called upon William Philip Schreiner to form a ministry, though aware that such a ministry would be opposed to any direct intervention of Great Britain in the Transvaal. Convinced that the existing state of affairs, if continued, would end in the loss of South Africa by Britain, Milner visited England in November 1898. He returned to Cape Colony in February 1899, fully assured of Joseph Chamberlain's support, though the government still clung to the hope that the moderate section of the Cape and Orange Free State Dutch would induce Kruger to give the vote to the Uitlanders. He found the situation more critical than when he had left, ten weeks previously. Johannesburg was in a ferment, while William Francis Butler, who acted as high commissioner in Milner's absence, had allowed the inference that he did not support Uitlander grievances.

Protection for the Uitlanders in the Transvaal

On 4 May, Milner penned a memorable dispatch to the Colonial Office, in which he insisted that the remedy for the unrest in the Transvaal was to strike at the root of the evil—the political impotence of the injured Uitlanders. "It may seem a paradox," he wrote, "but it is true that the only way for protecting our subjects is to help them to cease to be our subjects." The policy of leaving things alone only led from bad to worse, and "the case for intervention is overwhelming." Milner felt that only the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal would give stability to the South African situation. He had not based his case against the Transvaal on the letter of the Conventions, and regarded the employment of the word "suzerainty" merely as an "etymological question," but he realized keenly that the spectacle of thousands of British subjects in the Transvaal in the condition of "helots" was undermining the prestige of Great Britain throughout South Africa, and he called for "some striking proof" of the intention of the British government not to be ousted from its predominant position. This dispatch was telegraphed to London, and was intended for immediate publication; but it was kept private for a time by the home government.
Its tenor was known, however, to the leading politicians at the Cape, and at the insistence of Jan Hendik Hofmeyr a peace conference was held at Bloemfontein between the high commissioner and Transvaal President Kruger. Milner made three demands, which he knew could not be accepted by Kruger: The enactment by the Transvaal of a franchise law which would at once give the Uitlanders the vote; the use of English in the Transvaal parliament; and that all laws of the parliament should be vetted and approved by the British parliament. Realizing the untenability of his position, Kruger left the meeting in tears.

The Second Boer War

When the Second Boer War broke out in October 1899, Milner rendered the military authorities "unfailing support and wise counsels", being, in Lord Roberts's phrase "one whose courage never faltered". In February 1901, he was called upon to undertake the administration of the two Boer states, both now annexed to the British Empire, though the war was still in progress. He thereupon resigned the governorship of Cape Colony, while retaining the post of high commissioner. During this time at the helm a number of concentration camps were created where 27,000 Boer women and children and more than 14,000 black South Africans died. The work of reconstructing the civil administration in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony could only be carried on to a limited extent while operations continued in the field. Milner therefore returned to England to spend a "hard-begged holiday," which was, however, mainly occupied in work at the Colonial Office. He reached London on 24 May 1901, had an audience with Edward VII on the same day, received the GCB and was made a privy councillor, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Milner, of St James's in the County of London and of Cape Town in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Speaking next day at a luncheon given in his honour, answering critics who alleged that with more time and patience on the part of Great Britain, war might have been avoided, he asserted that what they were asked to "conciliate" was "panoplied hatred, insensate ambition, invincible ignorance." In late July Milner received the Honorary Freedom of the City of London, and gave another speech in which he defended the government policy.

The peace

Meanwhile, the diplomacy of 1899 and the conduct of the war had caused a great change in the attitude of the Liberal party in England towards Lord Milner, whom a prominent Member of Parliament, Leonard Courtney, even characterized as "a lost mind". A violent agitation for his recall was organized, joined by the Liberal Party leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman. However it was unsuccessful, and in August Milner returned to South Africa, plunging into the herculean task of remodelling the administration. He bitterly fought Lord Kitchener, who ultimately won out. However Milner drafted the terms of surrender, signed in Pretoria on 31 May 1902. In recognition of his services he was, on 15 July 1902, made Viscount Milner, of Saint James's in the County of London and of Cape Town in the Cape Colony. Around this time he became a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian Society campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
On 21 June, immediately following the conclusion of signatory and ceremonial developments surrounding the end of hostilities, Milner published the Letters Patent establishing the system of crown colony government in the Transvaal and Orange River colonies, and changing his title of administrator to that of governor. The reconstructive work necessary after the ravages of the war was enormous. He provided a steady revenue by the levying of a 10% tax on the annual net produce of the gold mines, and devoted special attention to the repatriation of the Boers, land settlement by British colonists, education, justice, the constabulary, and the development of railways. At Milner's suggestion the British government sent Henry Birchenough a businessman and old friend of Milners as special trade commissioner to South Africa with the task of preparing a Blue Book on trade prospects in the aftermath of the war. To aid him in his task, Milner recruited a team of gifted young lawyers and administrators, most of them Oxford graduates, who became known as "Milner's Kindergarten".
While this work of reconstruction was in progress, domestic politics in England were convulsed by the tariff reform movement and Joseph Chamberlain's resignation. Milner, who was then spending a brief holiday in Europe, was urged by Arthur James Balfour to take the vacant post of secretary of state for the colonies. He declined the offer on 1 October 1903, considering it more important to complete his work in South Africa, where economic depression was becoming pronounced. As of December 1903, he was back in Johannesburg, and had to consider the crisis in the gold-mining industry caused by the shortage of native labor. Reluctantly he agreed, with the assent of the home government, to the proposal of the mineowners to import Chinese coolies on a three-year contract with the first batch of Chinese reaching the Rand in June 1904.
In the latter part of 1904 and the early months of 1905, Milner was engaged in the elaboration of a plan to provide the Transvaal with a system of representative government, a half-way house between crown colony administration and that of self-government. Letters patent providing for representative government were issued on 31 March 1905.
For some time he had been suffering health difficulties from the incessant strain of work, and determined a need to retire, leaving Pretoria on 2 April and sailing for Europe the following day. Speaking in Johannesburg on the eve of his departure, he recommended to all concerned the promotion of the material prosperity of the country and the treatment of Dutch and British on an absolute equality. Having referred to his share in the war, he added: "What I should prefer to be remembered by is a tremendous effort subsequent to the war not only to repair the ravages of that calamity but to re-start the colonies on a higher plane of civilization than they have ever previously attained."
He left South Africa while the economic crisis was still acute and at a time when the voice of the critic was audible everywhere but, in the words of the colonial secretary Alfred Lyttelton, he had in the eight eventful years of his administration laid deep and strong the foundation upon which a united South Africa would arise to become one of the great states of the empire. Upon returning home, his university bestowed upon him the honorary degree of DCL.
Experience in South Africa had shown him that underlying the difficulties of the situation there was the wider problem of imperial unity. In his farewell speech at Johannesburg he concluded with a reference to the subject. 'When we who call ourselves Imperialists talk of the British Empire, we think of a group of states bound, not in an alliance or alliances that can be made and unmade but in a permanent organic union. Of such a union the dominions of the sovereign as they exist to-day are only the raw material.' This thesis he further developed in a magazine article written in view of the colonial conference held in London in 1907. He advocated the creation of a permanent deliberative imperial council, and favored preferential trade relations between the United Kingdom and the other members of the empire; and in later years he took an active part in advocating the cause of tariff reform and Imperial Preference.
Lord Milner was the founder of The Round Table – A Quarterly Review of the Politics of the British Empire, which helped to promote the cause of imperial federation. It was felt that only the elite in England understood the cause of imperialism, and The Round Table's mission was to address this weakness by spreading the word to both politicians and mainstream Britains. The introduction to the journal, first published in November 1910, reads:
"It is a common complaint, both in Great Britain and in the Dominions, that it is well-nigh impossible to understand how things are going with
the British Empire. People feel that they belong to an organism which is greater than the particular portion of the King’s dominion where they happen
to reside, but which has no government, no Parliament, no press even, to explain to them where its interests lie, or what its policy should be.
Of speeches and writings about the Empire there is no end. But who has time to select what is worth reading from the multitude of newspapers and
reviews? Most people have no access to the best among them, and such as have are haunted by the fear that what they read is coloured by some local
party issue in which they have no concern. No one can travel through the Empire without being profoundly impressed by the ignorance which prevails in
every part, not only about the affairs of the other parts, but about the fortunes of the whole."
The journal, still in publication, was renamed in 1966 as, .

Censure motion

On 6 March 1906, a motion censuring Lord Milner for an infraction of the Chinese labour ordinance, in not forbidding light corporal punishment of coolies for minor offences in lieu of imprisonment, was moved by a Radical member of the House of Commons. On behalf of the Liberal government an amendment was moved, stating that 'This House, while recording its condemnation of the flogging of Chinese coolies in breach of the law, desires, in the interests of peace and conciliation in South Africa, to refrain from passing censure upon individuals'. The amendment was carried by 355 votes to 135. As a result of this left-handed censure, a counter-demonstration was organized, led by Sir Bartle Frere, and a public address, signed by over 370,000 persons, was presented to Lord Milner expressing high appreciation of the services rendered by him in Africa to the crown and empire.. The censure was made by a young Winston Churchill, who added:
"Lord Milner has gone from South Africa, probably forever. The public service knows him no more. Having exercised great authority he now exercises no
authority. Having held high employment he now has no employment. Having disposed of events which have shaped the course of history, he is now unable
to deflect in the smallest degree the policy of the day. Having been for many years, or at least for many months, the arbiter of the fortunes of men
who are 'rich beyond the dreams of avarice', he is today poor, and honorably poor. After twenty years of exhausting service under the Crown he is
today a retired Civil Servant, without pension or gratuity of any kind whatever... Lord Milner has ceased to be a factor in public life."
The problem confronting South Africa after the Boer War was that it needed to rebuild. The country was devastated by war, its biggest natural resource were its gold mines, and reconstruction would have to come from within. The quickest and easiest way to rebuild would be with revenue from its gold mines, and labor was in short supply. It was decided that advertising for workers from China would be the best way to fill that need. The workers were hired, they were shipped to South Africa, they lived in work camps close to the mines, and after their two year contracts expired, they were sent home. This was accepted practice in the British Empire, and in the United States as well, where Chinese coolies were imported to build the Transcontinental Railroad. Problems that occurred related to a lack of amenities, confinement in the work area, and insubordination. Flogging was used to deal with insubordination, and whether he knew about it at the time or not, Lord Milner accepted full responsibility for what happened, and said it was a bad practice.

Businessman

Having worked closely with Cecil Rhodes in South Africa, he served as a trustee to , upon Cecil's death in March 1902.
Upon his return from South Africa, Milner occupied himself mainly with business interests in London, becoming chairman of the Rio Tinto Zinc mining company, though he remained active in the campaign for imperial free trade. In 1906 he became a director of the Joint Stock Bank, a precursor of the Midland Bank. In the period 1909 to 1911 he was a strong opponent of the budget of David Lloyd George and the subsequent attempt of the Liberal government to curb the powers of the House of Lords.

Politics

From a letter published in The Times on , Lord Milner was asked to head the National Service League. As an advocacy group for conscription at a time when it did not exist, Milner pressed for universal conscription. forced a meeting with the King on 28 August 1915.
Known as, "ginger group meetings", Lord Milner held small meetings at his home at 17 Great College Street to discuss the war. In late September 1915, Lloyd George, then Minister of Munitions, and an advocate of conscription, attended one of these meeting. The two became friends. Lord Milner was also an outspoken critic of the Dardanelles Campaign, speaking in the House of Lords on 14 October 1915 and 8 November 1915, and suggesting a withdrawal. Starting in January 1916, the ginger group attendees, discussed the setup of a new war cabinet. Lord Milner, thinking the Asquith Coalition could be defeated, also envisioned a new political party composed of workers, called, the, "National Party". Empowered by the ginger group, the National Party got off to a slow start in 1916, running just one candidate, but it eventually ran 23 candidates in the 1918 election.
Lord Milner's speech in the House of Lords on strengthened the conscription law, "making all men of military age liable of being called up to service until the war ends." With the sinking of the Hampshire on 5 June 1916, both The Times and the Morning Post supported Lord Milner's replacement of Lord Kitchener at the War Office, although the job of Secretary of State for War went to Lloyd George. Bonar Law then asked Lord Milner to head the Dardanelles Inquiry Committee. However, Milner had previously committed himself to supervising the government's three coal committees, at the request of Lord Robert Cecil. His report, which addressed coal production problems, was submitted on November 6th..
With the governments principal internal critic, Lloyd George, now occupied with the duties of Secretary of State for War, Lord Milner was now the governments most forceful critic outside of government, and behind the scenes.. The ginger group tried to convince members of the Asquith's coalition government to resign. With this, they had no luck. They then tried to take down the Asquith Coalition in a dual approach, with Lord Milner making speeches in the House of Lords, and Sir Edward Carson, who was Leader of the Opposition, making speeches in the House of Commons. The two pillars of the Asquith Coalition were Conservative, Bonar Law, and Liberal, Lloyd George. The group knew nothing about Bonar Law, but both Milner and Carson had contacts with Lloyd George, so they focused on him. On 2 December 1916, Lord Milner dined with Arthur Steel-Maitland, Chairman of the Conservative Party, where he was asked to draft a letter describing the war cabinet he envisioned. This letter was then sent to Bonar Law.
The next day, Lloyd George met Prime Minister Asquith, and a reconciliation deal was thought to have been reached, one that would have created a small war cabinet headed up by Lloyd George, with Prime Minister Asquith still in charge. However, The Times published an editorial on , "Reconstruction," that announced a reforming of the coalition government, and the position of Lloyd George. Asquith blamed this news release on Lord Northcliffe and Lloyd George. He broke off future negotiations, causing both Bonar Law and Lloyd George to resign from the government. To express his disapproval, and to avoid a possibility where he might have to serve under one or the other of the two, Asquith submitted his resignation, and that of his cabinet, to the King on 6 December 1916. The King immediately summoned Bonar Law to form a government. He was unsuccessful. The King then turned to David Lloyd George, who was up to the task, and who took office the same day.
On 8 December 1916, Lord Milner received a letter from Prime Minister Lloyd George, asking him to meet him, and to join the new war cabinet, which was to meet the next day at the War Office. Milner happily accepted.

First World War

Since Milner was the Briton who had the most experience in civil direction of a war, Lloyd George turned to him on when he formed his national government. He was made a member of the five-person War Cabinet. As a Minister Without Portfolio, Milner's responsibilities varied according to the wishes of the Prime Minister. This meant that all domestic related issues pertaining to the war fell in his lap, such as negotiating contracts with miners, agriculture, food rationing, etc. Considering his background, as a former High Commissioner in South Africa, and a Tory intellectual leader, this was not a position ideally suited for him. However, he remained one of Prime Minister Lloyd George's closest advisers throughout the war, second only to Bonar Law.
Upon conclusion of the first war cabinet meeting on 9 December 1918, which lasted seven hours, Lloyd George got along very well with Lord Milner. He told his press contact, George Riddell, "He picked out the most important points at once", and, "Milner and I stand for the same things. He is a poor man and so am I. He does not represent the landed or capitalist classes any more than I do. He is keen on social reform and so am I." To fill in the Garden Suburb, Lloyd George turned to Lord Milner, who filled vacancies with capable men from his past: Leo Amery, Waldorf Astor, Lionel Curtis and Philip Kerr. It is this connection that gave rise to rumors in quarters of the liberal press of a sinister side to Lord Milner, with of behind the scenes, "Milnerite penetration" influencing crucial government decision making.
Following the death of Lord Kitchener aboard the HMS Hampshire on 5 June 1916, on 20 January 1917 Milner led the British delegation on a mission to Russia aboard the . There were 50 delegates in all including French and Italians. The object of the mission, stressed at the second Chantilly Conference in December 1916, was to keep the Russians holding down at least the forces now opposite them, to boost Russian morale and see what equipment they needed with a view to coordinating attacks. However, a feeling of doom prevailed over the meetings once it was discovered that Russia had huge equipment problems, and that England's ally operated way behind that of the west, which negated its manpower advantage. Instead of helping its ally, England's assistance was reduced to intervening with a task force to prevent allied stockpiles from falling into the hands of revolutionaries at the port of Archangel. The official report in March said that even if the Tsar was toppled—which in fact happened just 13 days after Milner's return—Russia would remain in the war and that they would solve their "administrative chaos". In fact, the Russian Revolution continued until 1923, when the forces loyal to the Tsar, the White Movement, were finally defeated.
It was to create an Imperial War Cabinet, similar to that of the War Cabinet in London, which comprised the heads of government of Britain's major colonies. The Imperial War Cabinet was an extension of Lord Milner's imperial vision of Britain, whereby the Dominions all have an equal say in the conduct of the running of the war. The problems of Imperial Federation are encapsulated here, whereby if all of England's colonies are elevated to the same status as the mother country, her say is diluted by foreigners with different points of view. In the closing days of the conference of 1917, the Imperial War Cabinet decided to postpone the writing of an Imperial Constitution until after the war. This was a task it never took up.
Due to the submarine blockade and the Kaiser's attempt to starve the English in early 1917, Lord Milner assisted the Royal Agricultural Society in procuring 5,000 Fordson tractors for the ploughing and planting of grasslands, and communicated directly with Henry Ford by telegraph. It is said that without the aid, England may not have met its food crisis.
Milner became Lloyd George's firefighter in many crises and one of the most powerful voices in the conduct of the war. He also gradually became disenchanted with the military leaders whose offensives generated large casualties for little apparent result, but who still enjoyed support from many politicians. He backed Lloyd George, who was even more disenchanted with the military, in successful moves to remove Admiral John Jellicoe as head of the Navy, Edward Carson from the Admiralty, General William Robertson as head of the Army, and The Earl of Derby as Secretary of State for War.
On at least one occasion the conservative Milner came to the aid of people from the other end of the political spectrum. He was an old family friend of Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse—in fact, he was Stephen's proxy godfather. In 1917, when Margaret was working to get her son and other British conscientious objectors freed from prison, Milner discreetly helped, intervening with high government officials. As a result, in December 1917 more than 300 COs were released from prison on medical grounds.
Milner was involved in every major policy decision taken by Prime Minister George's Government in the war, including the Flanders Offensive of 1917, which he initially opposed, along with Bonar Law and Lloyd George. Lloyd George spent much of 1917 proposing plans to send British troops and guns to Italy to assist in an Italian offensive. The War Cabinet did not insist on a halt to the Third Battle of Ypres offensive in 1917 when the initial targets were not reached and indeed spent little time discussing the matter—around this time the CIGS General Robertson sent Haig a biting description of the members of the War Cabinet, whom he said were all frightened of Lloyd George—he described Milner as "a tired and old man". By the end of the year Milner had become certain that a decisive victory on the Western Front was unlikely, writing to Curzon opposing the policy of "Hammer, Hammer, Hammer on the Western Front", and had become a convinced "Easterner", wanting more effort on other fronts. As an experienced member of the War Cabinet, Milner was a leading delegate at the November 1917 Rapallo Conference in Italy that created an Allied Supreme War Council. He also attended all subsequent follow up meetings in Versailles to coordinate the war.
Milner was also a chief author of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, although it was issued in the name of Arthur Balfour. He was a highly outspoken critic of the Austro-Hungarian war in Serbia arguing that "there is more widespread desolation being caused there we have been familiar with in the case of Belgium".
On 21 March 1918 came the German Spring Offensive. Milner wrote "On March 23rd, my birthday, I received a call from the Prime Minister who wanted me to go over to France to find out what was going on. I left the next day. On March 26th, at 8 in the morning, I drove to a meeting at Doullens, France, arriving there at 12:05pm. Immediately I met General's Haig, Petain, Foch, Pershing, their staff officers, and President Clemenceau. The front had broken wide open in front of us, threatening Paris. There was confusion in the ranks as to what to do, and who was in charge. I immediately took the general's aside, and using the powers entrusted with me as the Prime Minister's representative, I deputized General Foch, making him the Allied Commander at the front, and told him to make a stand." That stand was taken at Amiens, a town with a critical railway station, that, if taken, could have divided the allies in half, driving the British into the sea, and leaving Paris and the rest of France open for defeat. When Milner returned to London, the War Cabinet approved his action. On 19 April he was appointed Secretary of State for War in place of the Earl of Derby, who had been a staunch ally of Field-Marshal Haig, and presided over the Army Council for the remainder of the war.
Following the khaki election of December 1918, he was appointed Colonial Secretary and, in that capacity, attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference where, on behalf of the United Kingdom, he became one of the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, including the "Orts-Milner Agreement" allowing to Belgium the administration of Ruanda and Urundi territories to reward the Belgo-African army for its war effort which highly contributed to pushing German troops out of the future Tanganyika Territory.

The Peace Treaty

Due to his responsibilities at the Colonial Office, Milner travelled back and forth to France as a Paris Peace Plan Delegate. From February 1919 until the treaty signing, he made five trips to Versailles, each lasting on average one to two weeks. On May 10, 1919, he flew to Paris for the first time. The trip took two and a half hours, halving the time it took by train, boat, and car. As part of the British Empire Delegation, the Prime Minister asked Lord Milner and Arthur Balfour to stand in for him whenever he had to return to England for political business. As Secretary of State for the Colonies, Milner was appointed to head up the Mandates Commission by the Big Four, which would decide the fate of Germany's oversea's colonies.
Milner was present at an important meeting at 25 Rue Nitot, Lloyd George's flat in Paris, on June 1, 1919, when the Empire Delegation discussed Germany's counterproposals to the peace treaty. In a last minute attempt to improve the conditions imposed on Germany, Lloyd George went back to Prime Minister Clemenceau and President Wilson and asked for revisions. He told them that without substantial changes to bring the treaty closer to the intent of the 14 Points, England would not take part in an occupation of Germany, nor would its navy resume its blockade of Germany if it failed to sign the treaty. However, President Wilson was tired from all the hard work he had put into the original draft, and Clemenceau refused to budge on the war guilt clause and huge financial reparations, which in 2020 dollars amounted to close to a trillion dollars. In the end, minor territorial concessions were made, the most important being a reduction in the occupation of the Rhineland by the allies from 20 to 15 years.
On June 16th, the allies gave an ultimatum to Germany and fixed the date of the treaty signing for the 28th. This caused a collapse of the conservative government in Germany on the 21st, and a rise of a liberal one. Two delegates were then rushed to Versailles, arriving on the 27th. When the peace treaty ceremonies commenced at 3pm on the 28th, and the German delegates entered the Hall of Mirrors, Lloyd George was unsure if they would sign or not, so he had them sign the document first. The entire ceremony took an hour, with a total of 65 plenipotentiarians signing the treaty. Lord Milner, for his part, spent the morning in session with his mandates committee, and motored to the Hall of Mirrors after lunch. He arrived slightly after 2pm, and he signed the treaty early. The British were the third group of delegates to sign, after the Germans and Americans, and Lord Milner was the 8th signatory to the Treaty of Versailles. He recalled the whole experience as, "not very dramatic".

Last years

Right until the end of his life, Lord Milner would call himself a "British race patriot" with grand dreams of a global Imperial parliament, headquartered in London, seating delegates of British descent from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. He retired in February 1921 and was appointed a Knight of the Garter in the same month. Later that year he married Lady Violet Georgina Gascoyne-Cecil, widow of Lord Edward Cecil and remained active in the work of the Rhodes Trust, while accepting, at the behest of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, the chairmanship of a committee to examine a new imperial preference tariff. His work, however, proved abortive when, following an election, Ramsay MacDonald assumed the office of Prime Minister in January 1924.

Death

Seven weeks past his 71st birthday, Milner died at Great Wigsell, East Sussex, of sleeping sickness, soon after returning from South Africa. His viscountcy, lacking heirs, died with him. His body was buried in the graveyard of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, in Salehurst in the county of East Sussex.
Lord Milner is seated second from the left in this inconic :File:Imperial_war_cabinet_1917.jpg|Imperial War Cabinet picture, taken on 22 March 1917. It was his idea to create the war cabinet, which met in session for two years, in 1917 and 1918. .
It was his idea to draft the Balfour Resolution, which eventually led to the creation of the state of Israel.
The truth about the Doullens Conference, itself a mystery until , started appearing in The Times of London newspaper on , followed by news stories on , , , , and . Lord Milner's report to the war cabinet can be found , definitive proof can be found in the war cabinet minutes of , and a copy of the Doullens Agreement was published in on .
Upon his appointment as Secretary of State for War, Lord Milner maintained contact with the British War Cabinet and Prime Minister Lloyd George by creating the "X Committee". This secret organization, a euphemism for "Executive Committee", consisted of four people: Lloyd George, Milner, Henry Wilson, and Leo Amery. They met most weekday mornings, before the war cabinet sessions, to decide war policy.
Following Germany's surrender, it was Lord Milner's suggestion, from Leo Amery, that a two minute moment of silence be heard on every anniversary of the armistice.
The eighth signatory to the Treaty of Versailles, Lord Milner is seated third from the right in William Orpen's famous Hall of Mirrors painting. He is also a signatory to the , that made peace with Austria on September 10, 1919.
The town of Milnerton, South Africa is named in his honour.
A dedication was made for him at Westminster Abbey on the anniversary of the Doullens Conference:
He was lionized, along with other members of the British War Cabinet, in an oil painting, Statesmen of World War I, on display today at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Credo

Found among Milner's papers was his Credo, which was published to great acclaim:
"I am a Nationalist and not a cosmopolitan.... I am a British Nationalist. If I am also an Imperialist, it is because the destiny of the English race, owing to its insular position and long supremacy at sea, has been to strike roots in different parts of the world. I am an Imperialist and not a Little Englander because I am a British Race Patriot... The British State must follow the race, must comprehend it, wherever it settles in appreciable numbers as an independent community. If the swarms constantly being thrown off by the parent hive are lost to the State, the State is irreparably weakened. We cannot afford to part with so much of our best blood. We have already parted with much of it, to form the millions of another separate but fortunately friendly State. We cannot suffer a repetition of the process." .
On the South African War:
"The Dutch can never form a perfect allegiance merely to Great Britain. The British can never, without moral injury, accept allegiance to any body politic which excludes their motherland. But British and Dutch alike could, without moral injury, without any sacrifice to their several traditions, unite in loyal devotion to an empire-state, in which Great Britain and South Africa would be partners, and could work cordially together for the good of South Africa as a member of that great whole. And so you see the true Imperialist is also the best South African." From the Introduction to, 'The Times' History of the war in South Africa, Vol VI. .
in South Africa

Evaluation

Per the Biographical Dictionary of World War I:
According to Colin Newbury:

Honours

Primary sources