On Novemeber 11, Asquith payed a visit to King George at Sandringham to ask him to create new liberal peers in order to decrease the Conservative majority in the House of Lords, if the General Election produce another Liberal victory. The King answered that he would think about it. On November 16, Asquit went to Buckingham Palace for the King's answer. King George, in a great distress, asked the Pirme Minister if he would had made the same request to King Edward. Asquith answer: "Yes, sir. And your father would have consented". King George reluctantly agreed.
The General election was held on December and again Asquith won the majority. At the beginning of 1911, the Liberal government decided to create a Parliament Act that drastically cut the power of the House of Lords, who tried to reject it. But King George made public the promise he had made Asquith last Novemeber about creating 250 new Liberal peers in the House of Lords. Facing with this prospect, the Conserevatives gave up and let the 1911 Parliament Act to become a law.
On June 23, 1910, soon after his accesion, King George created his son, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, on the Prince sixteenth birthday.
On October 10, King George sent his wife a long letter: "...this is the first letter I have written you since our lifes have been entirely changed by darling Papa haven taking away for us... I fear, Darling, my nature is not demonstrative, but I want you to understand I am indeed grateful to you for all you have done all these busy months for me, and to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your love and for the enormous help and comfort which you have been to me in my new position... My love grows stronger for you everyday mixed with admiration and I thank God everyday that he has given me such a darling devoted wife as you are... God bless you my sweet Angel May, who I know will always stick to me as I need your love & help more than ever now".
King George's coronation was celebrated at Westminster Abbey on June 22 1911. The King recorded in his dairy: "There were hundreds of people who gave us a mignificent reception. The service in the Abbey was most beautiful and impressive but it was a terrible ordeal...Darling May looked so lovely & it was indeed a comfort to me to have her by my side as she has been ever to me during the last 18 years".
In December of that same year, King George and Queen Mary traveled to India to attend the spectacular Coronation Durbar that was going to be held at Delhi on December 12, 1911. The Indian word Durbar means a ceremonial gathering to pay homage. It was the third Imperial Durbar to be celebrated at Delhi (the first one was when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India in 1876, the second in 1903 to celebrate the accesion to the throne of Edward VII) This time was the first ocassion that the monarch attended personally to the Durbar i n Dehli. At the Durbar, King George announced the decision to transfer the seat of the Imperial Government, which until then had been in England, to Dehli. For this decision, King George was severely criticized by the Conservative Party. The Coronation Durbar gave King George a new self confidence. Being among million of his subjects, who reverenced him, in the magnificent celebration, finally convinced him of the majesty of his office and the magnitud of his responsabilities. It was the King's own decision to hold his Cronation Durbar in person; he was convinced that a beaurocratic government was not suitable for India and he hoped to strenghten the power of monarchy.
King George and Queen Mary had always wanted to pay an official visit to Kaiser Wilhelm II in Germany. Unlike his father, King George had always felt sympathy towards his German cousin and his relations with the German government were not as tense as had been during King Edward's reign. But in 1913 things were not going well in Europe and the Foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey tought it was not a convenient time for such visit, which could alarm France and Russia, which were England's allies.
Nevertheless, in May 1913, King George and Queen Mary were invited to the wedding of the Kaiser's only daughter, Viktoria Louise to Prince Ernst August of Hanover who as a grandson of the last King of Hanover (cousin of Queen Victoria) and son of Princess Thyra of Denmark (sister of Queen Alexandra) was doubly related to the British Royal couple. Sir Edwrad Grey persuaded King George that any Royal visit to Germany would only be considered a private family affair. The weding was the last great Royal gathering that would take place in Europe and also the last time King George saw his royal cousins, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II, since 13 months later the First World War would break out and the Tsar and the Kaiser would lost their thrones and the Tsar even his life.
A month after the King and Queen returned from Berlin, the French President Raymond Poincare paid an offical visit to King George at Sir Edward Grey's instigation. In April 1914, the King and Queen repaid the visit by traveling to Paris where they were given a wonderful reception.
On the morning of June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, was killed by a young Serbian named Gavrilo Princip, while visiting Sarajevo. Late that afternoon, King George received the nerws of the murder. He noted in his dairy: " A terrible shock for the dear old Emperor". But King George didn't realised at that very moment of the international consequences of this royal murder. On July 28, Queen Mary noted in her dairy: "Austria has declared war against Serbia". On August 2, she wrote: "War news very bad; Germany has declared war on Russia and will probably attack France...After dinner a large crowd assembled in front of the Palace and sang "God save the King" and we went on the balcony and had a very good reception. The Government has not yet decide what our action is to be. The Queen wrote on August 4: "Awful day of suspense ... At 12 we sent an ultimatum to Germany and at 7 pm. she declared war on us. It dreadful but we could not act otherwise. We went on the balcony at 8 pm. and again at 11:15 after the news of the war having been declared was out".
Before entering the war, England's attitude towards the warring countries was reserved. On July 24, during a conference, Lord Grey suggested the German ambassador in London, Lichnowski, that England would not interfere in war. On July 26, King George told the Kaiser's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, that neihter he nor his government would skimp resources in order that the war would not affect but Austria and Serbia. Prince Henry took it as if England would remain neutral in case of war. On July 27 London proposed a conference between the four powers to give a solution to the Austro-Serbian problem, but Germany refused. The next day Austria declared war to Serbia.
Sir Edward Grey told Lichnowski that if France was involved in the conflict, England would have to enter the war too. When Germany declared war to Russia, France mobilized her troops but mainteining them ten kilometers away from the German border. On August 3rd Germany invade Belgium as this country refused to let the German troops to pass though its territory. The same day Germany declared war to France.
On August 4, London sent an ultimatum to Berlin demanding Germany to respect the Belgian neutrality, but as the ultimatum was rejected, England declared war to Germany. That day, King George wrote in his dairy: "Warm, showers and windy. At work all day... I held a council at 10:45 to declare war with Germany, it is a terrible catastrophe but it is not our fault. An enormous crowd collecrted outside the palace; we (the King, the Queen and the Prince of Wales) went on the balcony both, before and after dinner. When they heard that war had been declared, the enthusiasm increased and May and I with David went on to the balcony; cheering was terrific. That evening King George tought about his second son, the future King George VI, serving in the HMS Collongwood. "Please God it may soon be over, he wrote, and that he will protect dear Bertie's life".
For the first ten weeks of the War, King George and Queen Mary did not leave London. These were weeks of uncertaninty at the German advance towards Paris, but the French army of General Joffre, supported by the British troops stopped the Germans at Marne in September. The British had another succes at Ypres in October.
By the end of November the King paid his first visit to the front.
In September 1914, the First Sea Lord of the British Royal Navy, Prince Louis of Battenberg, had been forced to resign because of his German origins. Everything German was unpopular in England and Prince Louis was accused of being a German spy altough he had proved he was a loyal Englishman. He was strongly supported by King George and by Winston Churchill, First Lord of Almiralty, but his resignation was unavoidably.
King George and Prime Minister Asquith were in disagreement about who would be the successor to Prince Louis. Churchil, supported by Asquith, wanted to recall John Fisher, who had already been Firts Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910. The King, who disliked the 74-year-old Fisher and his methods , wanted instead to appoint someone like Hedworth Meux or Sir Henry Jackson, both of whom Churchill would not accept.
The King's antipathy for the new First Sea Lord was reciprocate, but soon, facts would prove that he was wrong about Fisher, who, along with Churchil, filled the Almiralty with energy and enthusiasm. The British army in the front was constantly reinforced and supplied by the British Royal Navy. But Fisher's harmony with Churchill in work would last only six months.