On more than one occasion he had abstained from taking high office in the shifting Ministries of the seventies; and it seems likely that by this calculating coyness he sought to keep his influence intact, not for the petty personal ends which have often been alleged, but rather with a view to the more effective Embattling of all the national energies against Germany.
"The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.)"
John Holland Rose
He organized it piecemeal, on a class basis, instead of Embattling it as a whole.
"William Pitt and the Great War"
John Holland Rose