Calais Conference (December 1915)
Anglo-French political conference / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Calais Conference took place in the French city on 4 December 1915. It was the second Anglo-French political conference in Calais that year, following a conference on war strategy in July. The December conference focussed mainly on the issue of whether to continue the war on the Salonika Front. The British, under prime minister H. H. Asquith, foreign secretary Edward Grey and secretary of state for war Lord Kitchener favoured evacuation of the front following the loss of Serbia to Bulgarian occupation, the French under prime minister Aristide Briand, favoured continuing the effort.
At the conference, the British persuaded Briand to accept evacuation but, amid a political furore, he changed his mind and altered the record of the conference to remove his assent. The decision was also unpopular in Britain, with minister of munitions David Lloyd George threatening to resign from government if the evacuation proceeded. Fearing the collapse of the French government, Asquith sent Kitchener and Grey to Paris to discuss the matter. The pair agreed that the British would support a continuation of the Salonika front which was reinforced and remained active until the end of the war in late 1918.