Woodward D. Lloyd George and the Generals

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because he saw no great leader among the Unionists. He once told Miss

Stevenson,” ‘But who is there who would make a fitting Prime Minister? Bonar

Law is limp and lifeless; Balfour can never make up his mind about anything.

There is no one.’”

What worried him now was that if he accepted a figurehead

position in the War Office, he would only prop up Asquith’s sagging government

without effecting any change in the direction of the war.

As Lloyd George edged closer to the War Office, the lobbying of the “soldiers’

party,” as Aitken called it, kept pace with its mounting alarm. Sir John French

visited Asquith and pleaded with him. For the sake of the army the prime minister

must himself take the War Office. Lord Derby, a favorite of the army, could be

made his second-in-command to run things. This was also the sentiment of the

Army Council.

The soldiers’ friends on Fleet Street had their say, especially the

volatile H.A.Gwynne, the editor of the Unionist Morning Post. Gwynne, a former

war correspondent in the Balkans, South Africa, and China, considered himself

the protector of the soldiers against civilian interference, and his paper was little

more than the mouthpiece of the War Office. In leading articles, the Morning Post

suggested that “the War Office would be suited ill indeed to Mr. LLOYD

GEORGE’s qualities.” The dynamic Welshman was portrayed as “an energiser

rather than an administrator.”

On June 19, Gwynne came more to the point: “If

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE would only learn that his task is to give the soldiers free

play to run the war upon their own lines…if he is to be appointed we implore him

to make no rash experiments and not to presume that the business of war may be

learnt in a month or a year.” On the opposite end of the political spectrum, the

liberal Daily Chronicle offered similar advice: “There is room for an outstanding

man, but he must be a man content to work and shine in his own orbit, without

infringing on the orbit of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.”

Lloyd George’s bid for the War Office presented Asquith with a real dilemma.

If he supported Lloyd George on his terms, the “soldiers’ party” would be inflamed

and Robertson might resign. With public trust in the army high, this would

endanger his government. On the other hand, Asquith recognized that “L.G. will

not be pleased if his demands are refused.”

If the minister of munitions resigned,

Bonar Law might follow him. Even if Asquith’s government survived this blow,

an unlikely event, Lloyd George would be more dangerous without than within

the government. To placate his headstrong colleague, Asquith offered him the

olive branch of the vicepresidency of the War Committee, which was tantamount

to making him the vice-premier.

Forcing Robertson to modify his arrangement

with Kitchener, however, was out of the question. Gambling that Lloyd George’s

threat of resignation was a bluff, Asquith delayed, hoping that in the end he could

mollify all parties by steering a middle course.

On June 17, Lloyd George drafted a long and artful memorandum. Combining

reasonableness with the threat to resign, he asserted that he could not accept the

War Office “under the humiliating conditions to which poor Kitchener had been

reduced.” He denied any intention of interfering with strategy. On the other hand,

he argued that if he, as secretary of state for war, were to persuade the Allies to

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 87

pull together, he must “possess real power and influence,” including the right to

remove incompetent generals.

This self-serving memorandum was destined to

gather dust in the Lloyd George Papers. Instead, a short note was sent. “I have

given a good deal of consideration to your kind offer of the War Secretaryship,”

Lloyd George wrote. “I have come to the conclusion that I shall be rendering a

greater service to the country in this emergency by not accepting it. As I told you

at our interview I thought that I could be of greater use in another sphere. I am

still of that opinion.”

There the matter seemed to end. Or did it? Lloyd George’s vague letter might

be read as a letter of resignation. But as usual he trembled at the brink. Advice

was sought from Bonar Law, Rufus D.Isaacs (Lord Reading), Aitken, Edward

Russell of the Liverpool Post, Sir Arthur Lee, and others.

The avenues of actions

open to him—and their advantages and disadvantages—were outlined in a letter

from Lee, a shrewd Conservative politician and the military secretary to the

Ministry of Munitions. Lee encouraged Lloyd George to reject a figurehead

position in the War Office, which would involve “yourself in difficulties compared

with which the Irish bog would be easy travelling.” If allowed to retain his position

as minister of munitions, Lloyd George should accept Asquith’s offer of the vice-

presidency of the War Committee. “You would have been acknowledged by the

Cabinet and the country as the only alternative Prime Minister,” Lee wrote, and

resignation later would have a decisive impact. But “to resign now ‘because you

could not get the War Office on your own terms’ would give your enemies a handle

for dangerous misrepresentations and enable them to exploit the sneer: ‘what was

good enough for Kitchener was not good enough for him.’”

Meanwhile, Asquith was receiving equally Machiavellian advice from Edwin

S.Montagu, the Liberal politician. Montagu suggested to the prime minister that

it would be advantageous to have the government’s leading critic in the War Office

during the forthcoming offensive, which was certain to result in heavy casualties.

What better way to silence the Welshman?

Asquith’s calm and unhurried diplomacy was rewarded. Lloyd George had

backed himself into a corner by his maneuvering after Kitchener’s death. If he

rejected the War Office, resignation was the alternative he had given himself.

Speaking his mind about the conduct of the war would be satisfying. But the timing

was wrong. He would be branded as unpatriotic if he took on the generals on the

eve of Britain’s s greatest offensive to date. Until the “Westerners” failed, he would

find little, if any, support for increasing his role in military policy at the expense

of one of the nation’s most trusted soldiers—Robertson. After much agonizing,

Lloyd George must have decided that boring from within the soldiers’ citadel was

preferable to an uncertain future of being a critic of war policy in the wilderness.

There was always the chance that he could gain acceptance for his ideas in Allied

conferences. After further discussion with Asquith, he decided to take the plunge

on June 24.

As for the Kitchener-Robertson compact, which gave the C.I.G.S.

authority never possessed by another British general, the prime minister let Lloyd

George attempt to make the best deal he could for himself. With no pressure on

88 WIZARD IN THE WAR OFFICE

him from the prime minister, of course, Robertson was unwilling to budge an inch

on any fundamental issue.

On June 26, in response to an uncompromising letter from Wully that reiterated

the terms of the Kitchener-Robertson compact, Lloyd George fired a Parthian shot,

making clear his unhappiness with Robertson’s definition of the role of the

secretary of state for war. While accepting Robertson’s s position as the War

Committee’s sole adviser on strategy, he insisted that he “be kept informed of

everything”—not, as Robertson had written, “all that he should know.”

Demanding that he be involved in every stage of the formulation of military policy,

he wrote: “It would be humiliating and intolerable if I were to hear your policy

expounded for the first time to the War Committee.… Political considerations (I

mean international politics) and questions of equipment—both in my sphere—are

just as essential to the decisions of war problems as knowledge of military

strategy.”

Lloyd George scored many debating points in this war of letters, but Robertson

clearly won the battle. Meanwhile, Asquith moved to pacify the soldiers (and the

palace) by appointing Lord Derby as War Office undersecretary. Sandwiched

between Robertson and Derby, even the shifty Lloyd George might be kept at bay.

On July 7, the Welshman formally took the seals of office. “We felt just like

children going to a new school,”

wrote Stevenson of the move from the Ministry

of Munitions to the War Office. To his critics, the new look at the War Office

bordered on the atmosphere of a children’s playground. The change from the

formal and very private Kitchener regime was striking. There was now a steady

procession of newsmen, politicians, foreign leaders, and secretaries to and from

Lloyd George’s cavernous new office.

Lloyd George realized that his every action as head of the War Office was being

carefully scrutinized. Yet within eleven days after he took office he suggested

strategy to the War Committee that was anathema to Robertson. With the Somme

offensive underway, Robertson was even more sensitive than usual about

“sideshows.” Earlier he had gotten the government to adopt a passive policy in

Mesopotamia and Egypt.

He had also labored unsuccessfully to reduce or

liquidate the “Eastern” venture, which caused him the greatest anxiety—the

Eastern Army at Salonika. With this background, one can imagine his

consternation when Lloyd George pushed his Balkanite ideas on July 18. The

French had been pressing the British to launch an attack against Bulgaria to protect

Rumania when that country joined the Entente. The ministers, advised by

Robertson, however, had only been willing to accept a limited British role to

occupy the Bulgarians in Macedonia while Rumania mobilized.

By mid-July,

however, it became obvious that the French were contemplating a big offensive.

When this was discussed by Britain’s war leaders, Lloyd George “pointed out that

there was another side to the question, which was whether it would not be an

advantage to cut out Bulgaria and clear a road to Roumania. This would have the

effect of cutting off the Turks. He thought it was worth considering. It would

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 89

prevent the supply of ammunition to the Turks, and stop Germany from getting

food supplies from the east, and would open up a new road to Russia.”

When Robertson immediately challenged this view, Lloyd George made no

response. He was conscious that his new position made it extremely difficult for

him to disagree with the government’s sole adviser on strategy. He possessed not

a single ally in the War Committee with the possible exception of Bonar Law, and

as secretary of state for war he was expected to work in harmony with the C.I.G.S.

For the rest of July and the month of August there existed surprising harmony

between Lloyd George and Wully. Robertson gave him copies of official

communications between himself and the commanders in the various theaters,

information which had been denied him before he went to the War Office. (The

C.I.G.S., however, continued to carry on a secret and unofficial correspondence

with his commanders in chief through “R” telegrams and “secret and personal”

letters to limit any anti-“Western” views which might undermine the strategic

advice he was giving the government.)

Robertson’s task during this period was to maintain the government’s

commitment to the great offensive underway on the Continent. A considerable

handicap was that he was as much in the dark about Haig’s progress as the civilians.

Haig’s initial attempt at a breakthrough had been an unmitigated disaster, and he

had fallen back on the strategy of wearing down the German army. As fresh

assaults were launched, Robertson—who had little more than press communiques

to go on—began to press Haig for some encouraging news to give the civilians.

“If you would send me a short letter which I could read to the War Committee I

am sure it would be to their general interest, and to your interest in particular,”

he wrote on July 7. Haig responded with a letter which emphasized the growing

demoralization of the German army.

Haig’s optimism, however, was not enough

to allay the restiveness of the civilians about the heavy casualties that lay ahead:

and for what—the conquest of a few thousand yards of German trenches? “The

Powers that be,” Robertson wrote Haig as July came to an end, “are beginning to

get a little uneasy in regard to the situation…. In general, what is bothering them

is the probability that we may soon have to face a bill of 2 to 300,000 casualties

with no very great gains additional to the present. It is thought that the primary

object—relief of pressure on Verdun—has to some extent been achieved.”

Another problem for Robertson was an extremely critical analysis of the Somme

offensive by Churchill, which was circulated to the cabinet with an introduction

by F.E.Smith on August l.

Hankey suspected that Lloyd George had a hand in

this memorandum, but there is no evidence to support his suspicions.

Robertson

certainly did not include Lloyd George with the critics of the Somme offensive,

writing Haig on August 1 that “LG is all right provided I can say I am satisfied,

and to enable me to do this it is necessary you should keep me acquainted with

your views.”

On August 5, Wully read a letter from Haig to the War Committee that stressed

the relief of Verdun and the assistance given to Russia’s great offensive by tying

down German soldiers in the West. There was, on the reverse side of the coin, no

90 WIZARD IN THE WAR OFFICE

hint of victory in the near future, with Haig emphasizing that his attack must “go

well into the autumn” and that another great offensive should be launched in

1917.

Lloyd George joined with the other members of the War Committee in

refuting Churchill’s criticisms and Robertson was instructed to send Haig a letter

“assuring him that he might count on full support from home.”

By simultaneous attacks the Allies were putting immense pressure on the

Central Powers. Despite his antipathy to frontal assaults with heavy casualties,

Lloyd George approved of Haig’s now deliberate and unhurried tactics, for the

British army was making enormous inroads on German resources on the Somme,

with the Germans foolishly attempting to retake every lost yard of trench.

“Everything is going marvellously here,” Esher reported to Lloyd George. “We

have got the Boches by the throat at last.”

The Russians under General Brusilov

finally had their steamroller moving against the warweary Austrians. Meanwhile,

the Italians applied the pressure on the Isonzo while the tenacious French defense

of Verdun took a heavy toll from the attacking Germans.

Lloyd George had feared that the Germans would take advantage of the

generals’ preoccupation with the West, giving up ground gradually, and winning

spectacular victories in the East as they had done in 1915.

But, as he told the

House of Commons in a survey of the war on August 22, Berlin’s s response had

been to play into Britain’s hands, throwing men and guns against the British on

the Somme, weakening their attack on Verdun and giving the Russians free reign

in the East.

In late August, two events occurred which quickly eroded Lloyd George’s

always fragile support of the Somme offensive. First, on August 27, after weeks

of haggling with the Entente over compensation for belligerency, Rumania

declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. Two days later, Erich von

Falkenhayn, the chief of the general staff and the architect of the costly German

assault on Verdun, was demoted. His successor was the hero of Tannenberg—the

sixty-nine-year-old Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. Lloyd George feared that

this change in command might signal a shift to the East in German military power.

On September 2, the day after Bulgaria declared war on Rumania, Lloyd George

expressed concern to Major-General Frederick B.Maurice, the director of military

operations, that Rumania might go the way of Serbia. Dissatisfied with the

response he received, he penned a note to Maurice:

We cannot afford another Serbian tragedy. We were warned early in 1915

that the Germans meant in confederation with the Bulgars to wipe Serbia

out. In spite of the fact, when the attack came we had not purchased a single

mule to aid the Serbians through Salonika. The result was when our troops

landed there, owing to lack of equipment and appropriate transport, they

could not go inland and Serbia was crushed….

I therefore once more urge that the General Staff should consider what

action we could in conjunction with France and Italy take immediately to

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 91

relieve the pressure on Roumania if a formidable attack developed against

her.

Although Robertson maintains in his memoirs that he has no recollection of such

a note, it is certain that Maurice informed him of the Welshman’s views for he

wrote Haig that “L.G. has got the Servian fit again.”

Robertson’s unyielding

position was that the best defense of Rumania was to continue hammering the

Germans on the Somme. If strong pressure were maintained, he argued, the

Germans could only hope to throw Rumania back on the defensive—not destroy

her.

Robertson’s strategy was ratified by the War Committee on September 12

without any opposition from Lloyd George.

The secretary of state for war was

away, touring the western front.

Lloyd George’s visit to the western front in mid-September was to have

important consequences for his future relations with the high command. The Battle

of the Somme was essentially an artillery battle; and Lloyd George was concerned

that general headquarters was mishandling its most destructive weapon. From

various sources he learned that the French on the Somme were making better

tactical use of artillery. The British artillery plan “followed conventional and rigid

lines, being based upon an estimate of the destructive and protective power of the

guns and the capacity of the infantry. Subordinate artillery commanders were

allowed little initiative.” The French commanders, however, emphasized

coordination between the more experienced French gunners and infantry,

postponing their attacks until the officers in the trenches were satisfied that the

enemy’s defenses were smashed. The difference between French and British

tactics was written in blood. The British Expeditionary Force lost thousands

“‘mopping up’ ground which had not been conquered by the artillery,” while the

French tended to expend metal rather than life.

Lloyd George’s view of the war up close reinforced his view that the generals

were hidebound and unimaginative. With Haig he motored to General Cavan’s

headquarters to meet with General Joffre, passing through many squadrons of

British cavalry on their way to the front. When Lloyd George inquired about their

function, Haig explained that they were being brought forward to exploit the

anticipated breakthrough of the intensified British attack in mid-September. Later,

in the presence of Haig and Joffre, Lloyd George dared express misgiving about

the utility of horse soldiers in trench warfare. His doubts were brushed aside, with

Joffre remarking “that he expected the French cavalry to ride through the broken

German lines on his front the following morning.”

As for the soldiers, the more they saw of Lloyd George the politician, the less

they thought of him. He could do nothing right in their eyes; even his table manners

were faulted. His tour of the front was just a “joy ride.” As Haig wrote his wife,

“Breakfast with newspaper men, & posings for the Cinema Shows, pleased him

more than anything else. No doubt with the ulterior object of catching votes!”

Philip Sassoon, Haig’s private secretary, was similarly acid in his comments: “I

was sorry we hadn’t an elephant for them to ride.”

92 WIZARD IN THE WAR OFFICE

A much more serious criticism of Lloyd George’s conduct concerned his private

interview with General Ferdinand Foch in which he quizzed the French general

about differences in French and British artillery tactics and casualty figures.

When Foch told Haig of this interview, the British com mander in chief was aghast,

commenting in his diary: “Unless I had been told of this conversation personally

by Gen Foch, I would not have believed that a British Minister could have been

so ungentlemanly as to go to a foreigner and put such questions regarding his own

subordinates.”

General headquarters’s reaction to this incident is very revealing of both its

intense rivalry with the French and its hostility to politicians who had their own

views on military questions. To be sure, Lloyd George knew that he was running

the risk of insulting the generals if they learned of his impolitic talk with Foch.

But what was protocol when the lives of thousands of soldiers were at stake? Lloyd

George wanted the facts, and he had reason to believe that he would not get them

from general headquarters. (Throughout the long Battle of the Somme British

artillery tactics underwent no fundamental changes.)

Albert Thomas looks on as Lloyd George expresses his doubts to Sir Douglas Haig

and General Joffre about the use of cavalry in trench warfare.

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 93

If anything, Lloyd George had reason to complain about the “ungentlemanly”

behavior of Haig’s supporters who used the press against him. Sassoon

immediately wrote Northcliffe about the Foch interview and the powerful press

lord went on the offensive.

Although Lloyd George had attempted to neutralize

Northcliffe on his return from France with talk of “too large casualties in

proportion to the results gained,” the latter would tolerate no criticism of the

generals, implied or otherwise.

The Times began to heap praise on the leadership

of the British Expeditionary Force and, as a hit at Lloyd George, linked success

or failure to the supply of guns and shells provided by the Ministry of Munitions.

Gwynne of the Morning Post was more blunt, delivering a dark warning to Lloyd

George in a leading article: “The Army is perfectly aware of what took place

during the recent visit of the WAR MINISTER to France. That particular form of

what the French call ‘gaffe’ must not be repeated; and we may mention that in

case of its repetition we shall feel it our duty to publish the facts of the

occurrence.”

Lloyd George, although infuriated by this press campaign, was all too aware

that it was political suicide to be linked with criticism of Haig, who was the

embodiment of the army in the public mind. His response, published in the

Morning Post, was full of praise for the army and its leaders. He also denied that

he had gone beyond “his legitimate sphere” on his tour of the front.

Lloyd George and Lord Reading watch a bombardment during the Somme offensive.

94 WIZARD IN THE WAR OFFICE

Despite the turmoil in the army and press about his talk with Foch, Lloyd George

refused to let the matter die, persuading Robertson to agree to the dispatch of Sir

John French, who now was commander in chief of the home forces, on a tour of

the French front to acquaint himself with French artillery tactics to assist him in

the training of troops in Britain.

Another obvious motive of Lloyd George’s was

to collect evidence that would confirm his low opinion of Haig and his

subordinates.

During the height of the brouhaha over the Foch interview, Robertson

uncharacteristically held his tongue. When word reached the War Office of Lloyd

George’s talk with the French general, he was eager for a showdown. But Haig,

when asked for the facts of the incident, counseled that “the wisest course is to let

the matter drop.”

Robertson took this advice for the moment. “Consumed by

dislike and suspicion of Lloyd George,”

however, he believed that he soon must

put the Welshman in his place. His anger was provoked by more than Lloyd

George’s implied criticism of Haig and the British red-hatted staff. His worst fears

of Lloyd George at the War Office were being realized. The dynamic and

irrepressible Welshman was pushing strategy upon the ministers that was

independent of the general staff.

In September Robertson’s attempt to have British arms play a generally passive

role in the East was under attack, with Lloyd George leading the charge. The

A photographic opportunity: Lloyd George in the trenches.

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 95

obscure port of Rabegh on the Red Sea between Medina and Mecca became a

focal point of this tug of war. In early June, Sherif Hussein of Mecca, the ruler of

Hejaz, led his people in revolt against the Turks. Mecca fell quickly and Medina

was beseiged. When Turkish reinforcements were sent south from Syria to

Medina, British ministers became concerned that the Turks would continue their

advance all the way to Mecca and crush the revolt.

Lloyd George, perhaps taking advantage of Robertson’s absence, took the lead

on September 1 in advocating military intervention at Rabegh to block the Turkish

road to Mecca.

Fearing another “side show” in Arabia, Robertson adamantly

rejected the idea of sending even a brigade to Rabegh. The usually supine War

Committee, however, was reluctant to accept the advice of the general staff. On

September 18, Lloyd George suggested that

it was a matter of first class importance to help the Sherif if we could.

Otherwise our prestige would go. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff

could not see how it could be done. He suggested that the Committee should

record their view that it was of the highest importance that the Sherif should

be supported in every way, and invite the General Staff to say what, if

anything[,] could be done. It was important to say whether Sir A.Murray

could spare a brigade or not. That was a question for the Staff; the question

of the policy of giving assistance to the Sherif was one for the Committee.

The committee readily agreed with Lloyd George that policy must be decided by

the civilians and that political considerations justified the proposed military

operation. Robertson was instructed, “in consultation with the Admiralty War

Staff, to advise as soon as possible what action, if any, he considered could be

taken to avert this possibility [Turkish conquest of Mecca].”

As the imperial-minded ministers haggled with the apostle of the “Western”

school of thought over intervention in the Hejaz, developments in the Balkans

began to pose a greater threat to the generals’ “Western” stance. First, there was

the increasingly obvious pro-German position of King Constantine’s government.

As usual Lloyd George favored decisive action over caution when the Balkans

were concerned. After Rumania came into the war, he was convinced that all the

British and French needed “to do was to give a little push, and Greece would come

in.”

Robertson, supported by the Foreign Office, however, was hostile to any

action which would involve Britain more deeply in either Greek politics or the

Salonikan venture.

As British policy toward the confused Greek political situation remained in

limbo, Lloyd George’s impatience grew. Returning to London from his visit to

the western front, he got the Greek situation placed on the agenda of the War

Committee. Attacking the indecisiveness of his colleagues, he accused them of

being “too tender.” The British were now the “laughing stock of Europe.” The

correct policy was to send to Athens a message “by a 14” gun.”

96 WIZARD IN THE WAR OFFICE