“I looked at the children asleep after dinner before joining Henry [Asquith, the prime minister] in the cabinet room. Lord Crewe [Lord Privy Seal] and Sir Edward Grey [foreign secretary] were already there, and we sat smoking cigarettes in silence. The clock on the mantelpiece hammered out the hour and when the beat of midnight struck it was as silent as dawn. We were at war. I left to go to bed, and as I was pausing at the foot of the staircase, I saw Winston Churchill with a happy face striding towards the double doors of the cabinet room.”
— Prime Minister Asquith’s wife, Margot, on 4th August 1914.
