"Mr. Asquith had decided that the time had come when his Ministry ought to be reconstituted on a national instead of a party basis. He had invited the Conservative leaders to enter into a coalition, and they had agreed, but on conditions. One condition was that Haldane should not be included. A discreditable newspaper campaign had attacked him as pro-German, although in fact no man in the whole country had more clearly realised the danger of a German aggression, and no man had done more than he, as Secretary of State at the War Office, to initiate great reforms in the organisation, expansion, and equipment of the army to prepare it for such an eventuality. Haldane had been for many years an intimate friend of Asquith's and was his closest political associate. Now he had to choose—for the condition was insisted upon—between inflicting upon him what he knew to be a cruel injustice, or else failing in his duty to construct a combined Government to carry on the war."