期刊名称：Cercles : Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone
电子版ISSN：1292-8968
出版年度：2011
期号：21
页码：55-64
出版社：Université de Rouen
摘要：It is something of an understatement to say that the First World War was a watershed in the fortunes of the Liberals. The party entered the war remarkably united in August 1914, despite all the travails of the pre-war years, and emerged in November 1918 very seriously divided. Although there are long-term trends which also need to be taken into account in any discussion of the decline in the Liberal party, the Great War and the strains it placed on the Liberals must loom large. The Liberals struggled to comprehend and then adapt to the unprecedented scale of the war and key Liberal personalities responded to the supreme challenge in different ways, all of which had far-reaching effects. The press played an often pivotal role in these events. The role of the press was magnified by the diminished role of Parliament. It often seemed that the press stepped in to fill the relative vacuum left by the party truce and provide a sometimes vociferous opposition to the government. Indeed the press reached "an unprecedented level of importance during the First World War, never to attain such heights again"[McEWEN 1982: 459]. Lloyd George said in 1916 that "the Press has performed the function that should have been performed by Parliament" [TAYLOR: 26]. More than one of the "press barons", the proprietors of the mighty newspapers of Fleet Street, believed that they played a uniquely influential role in the life of the nation in its hour of need
