 Esher complained that he would either lapse into “obstinacy and silence” or else mull aloud over various difficulties.Milner told Gwynne (18 August 1915) that he thought Kitchener a “slippery fish”.By autumn 1915, with Asquith's Coalition close to breaking up over conscription, he was blamed for his opposition to that measure (which would eventually be introduced for single men in January 1916) and for the excessive influence which civilians like Churchill and Haldane had come to exert over strategy, allowing "ad hoc" campaigns to develop in Sinai, Mesopotamia and Salonika.