is unclear whether this – amending a Cabinet document without Cabinet approval – was an honest blunder on Seely's part or whether he was encouraged to do so and then made a scapegoat. Gough, on the advice of Maj-Gen Wilson, then insisted on adding another paragraph clarifying that the Army would not be used to enforce Home Rule on Ulster, with which French concurred in writing. Seely had not been consulted about this second assurance. Asquith publicly repudiated the "peccant paragraphs" (25 March). Talk of a government "plot" was now widespread amongst the Opposition. Seely accepted the blame in the House of Commons on 25 March and offered to resign to protect French and Ewart; Asquith initially refused to accept his resignation, despite writing to Venetia Stanley that he blamed the crisis on "Paget's tactless blundering" and "Seely’s clumsy phrases". By 30 March it was clear that Asquith, to his regret, would now have to insist that Seely resign, along with French and Ewart. Seely remained a member of the CID, and it is unclear whether or when he might have been restored to the Cabinet had war not soon broken out. First World War Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, Seely was recalled to active duty as a special-service officer. Seely served for near the entirety of the First World War, with few breaks, leaving London on 11 August 1914 to take up a post on Sir John French's staff. On a liaison mission between the French Fifth Army and Haig's I Corps (31 August 1914 – during the period when Sir John French's retreat had opened up a gap in the Allied line), he claimed to have been almost captured in the fog, but to have bluffed his way past a German cavalry patrol by calling out (in German) that he was a member of the Great General Staff. In October 1914, Seely was dispatched to Belgium to participate in the Siege of Antwerp. Initially acting as an observer, Seely temporarily joined the staff of Archibald Paris, the commander of the British Royal Naval Division, which had been deployed to the city under orders from First Lord Winston Churchill. Seely's Orderly Officer in the Siege of Antwerp was Archibald Alexander Gordon, alias Major Gordon, who with him surveyed the British and Belgian frontlines. When the situation became critical, Seely contacted Lord Kitchener by phone and later