During World War I, at around the same time he was appointed Director of the British Admiralty's laboratories, Weizmann, in a conversation with David Lloyd George, suggested the strategy of the British campaign against the Ottoman Empire. From 1914, "a benevolent goodwill toward the Zionist idea" emerged in Britain when intelligence revealed how the Jewish Question could support imperial interests against the Ottomans. Many of Weizmann's contacts revealed the extent of the uncertainty in Palestine. From 1914 to 1918, Weizmann developed his political skills mixing easily in powerful circles. On 7 and 8 November 1914, he had a meeting with Dorothy de Rothschild. Her husband James de Rothschild was serving with the French Army, but she was unable to influence her cousinhood to Weizmann's favour. However, when Weizmanm spoke to Charles, second son of Nathan Mayer Rothschild, he approved the idea. James de Rothschild advised Weizmann seek to influence the British Government. By the time he reached Lord Robert Cecil, Dr Weizmann was enthused with excitement. Cecil's personal foibles were representative of class consciousness, which the Zionists overcame through deeds rather than words. C. P. Scott, the editor of "The Manchester Guardian", formed a friendship with Weizmann after the two men encountered each other at a Manchester garden party in 1915. Scott described the diminutive leader asextraordinarily interesting, a rare combination of idealism and the severely practical which are the two essentials of statesmanship a perfectly clear sense conception of Jewish nationalism, an intense and burning sense of the Jew as Jew, just as strong, perhaps more so, as that of the German as German or the Englishman as Englishman, and secondly arising out of that and necessary for its satisfaction and development, his demand for a country, a home land which for him and for anyone during his view of Jewish nationality can be no other that the ancient home of his race.