the reform programme was substantially rolled back by the Geddes Axe, which cut public expenditure by £76 million, including substantial cuts to education, and abolished the Agricultural Wages Board. Ireland During Asquith's premiership, the armed insurrection by Irish republicans, known as the Easter Rising, had taken place in Dublin during Easter Week, 1916. The government responded with harsh repression; key leaders were quickly executed. The mostly Catholic Irish nationalists then underwent a dramatic change of mood, and shifted to demand vengeance and independence. In 1917, Lloyd George called the 1917–18 Irish Convention in an attempt to settle the outstanding Home Rule for Ireland issue; however, the upsurge in republican sympathies in Ireland following the Easter Rising coupled with Lloyd George's disastrous attempt to extend conscription to Ireland in April 1918 and led to the landslide victory of Sinn Féin and the wipeout of the Irish Parliamentary Party at the December 1918 election. Replaced by Sinn Féin MPs, they immediately declared an Irish Republic. Lloyd George presided over the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which partitioned Ireland into Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland in May 1921 during the Anglo-Irish War. Lloyd George famously declared of the Irish Republican Army that "We have murder by the throat!" However, he soon afterwards began negotiations with IRA leaders to recognise their authority and to end a bloody conflict. This culminated in the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in December 1921 with Irish leaders. Under it Southern Ireland, representing over a fifth of the United Kingdom's territory, seceded in 1922 to form the Irish Free State. Foreign policy crises A series of foreign policy crises gave Lloyd George his last opportunity to hold national and international leadership. Everything went wrong. The League of Nations got off to a slow start and was largely ineffective. The Treaty of Versailles had set up a series of temporary organisations, composed of delegations from key powers, to ensure the successful application of the Treaty. The system worked poorly. The assembly of ambassadors was repeatedly overruled and became a nonentity. Most of the commissions were deeply divided and unable to either make decisions or convince the interested parties to carry them out. The most important commission was on Reparations, and France seized full control of it. Raymond Poincaré, president of France, was intensely anti-German, was unrelenting in his demands for huge reparations, and was repeatedly challenged by Germany. France finally invaded western