Woodward D. Lloyd George and the Generals
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36. Ibid. (50), January 31, 1917, CAB 23/1; also see Lloyd George to Robertson, January
25, 1917, Lloyd George MSS, F/44/3/8.
37. Haig’s comments on Nivelle’s proposed operation, January 11, 1917, Robertson
MSS I/23/2/4, and Haig to Nivelle, January 6, 1917, Haig MSS, no. 110.
38. Haig Diary, January 15, 1917, no. 110.
39. Entry of January 15, 1917, A Diary by Frances Stevenson, p. 139.
40. Hankey, Supreme Command, 2:629.
41. Rennell Rodd to Lloyd George, January 12 and 15, 1917, Lloyd George MSS, F/56/
1/17 and 19.
42. Memorandum by Robertson, January 24, 1917, Robertson MSS, I/21/50/2, and
General Staff memorandum, March 20, 1917, W.O. 106/1512.
43. Esher Diary, January 17, 1917, 2/17.
44. Hankey Diary, January 17, 1917, 1/1.
45. War Cabinet (36), January 17, 1917, CAB 23/1.
46. Robertson, Soldiers and Statesmen, 1:179.
47. War Cabinet (59), February 9, 1917, CAB 23/1.
48. Ibid. (64), February 13, 1917, CAB 23/1.
49. Haig Diary, February 13, 1917, no. 110.
50. See Esher Diary, January 13 and February 13, 1917, 2/17–18.
51. Robertson to Wigram, January 12, 1917, Robertson MSS, I/12/31.
52. War Cabinet (63), February 12, 1917, CAB 23/1.
53. Stamfordham to Derby, February 15, 1917, Derby MSS, 920 (17).
54. Derby to Lloyd George, February 19, 1917, Lloyd George MSS, F/14/4/20.
55. Spears, Prelude to Victory, p. 546.
56. Robertson to Haig, February 14, 1917, Robertson MSS, I/23/7.
57. Robertson, Soldiers and Statesmen, 2:205.
58. Author’s italics. War Cabinet (75), February 20, 1917, CAB 23/1. Also see
Robertson to Haig, February 24, 1917, Haig MSS, no. 110.
59. War Cabinet (79), February 24, 1917, CAB 23/1.
60. Hankey to Stamfordham, March 4, 1917, RA GV Q1079/17.
61. Hankey Diary, February 24, 1917, 1/1.
62. “Memorandum on a conversation between Lord Curzon and Lord Stamfordham on
Sunday 4 March 1917,” RA GV Q1079/6.
63. It must be emphasized that the contention that French losses were proportionately
smaller than the British could not be supported by hard evidence. Later, in December,
when Lloyd George instructed Hankey to prepare a comparison of “the British and
French ration of wastage to combatant strength,” Hankey was unable to collect the
necessary figures to contrast French and British casualties. Hankey to Lloyd George,
December 24, 1917, Lloyd George MSS, F/23/1/36. Nevertheless, French tactics
were apparently superior to those employed by general headquarters. Lieutenant-
Colonel Wetzell, the chief of operations sector on the German general staff, noted
in December 1917: “The artillery, like the British tactics as a whole, is rigid and stiff
(reichlich starr)” Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1918. The German
March Offensive and its Preliminaries. Appendices, appendix 20.
64. Hankey Diary, February 26, 1917, 1/1, and Anglo-French Conference, February 26–
27, 1917, CAB 28/2/I.C.-17 (a).
65. Hankey Diary, February 26, 1917, 1/1.
66. Spears, Prelude to Victory, p. 143.
THE NIVELLE OFFENSIVE 147
67. Haig, “Notes on relations with French C in C [Joffre and Nivelle], 1916–1917,” n.d.,
Haig MSS, no. 215 K.
68. Hankey Diary, February 26, 1917, 1/1.
69. Haig Diary, February 26, 1917, no. 110.
70. Entry of February 24, 1917, A Diary by Frances Stevenson, p. 146.
71. War Cabinet (82), February 28, 1917, CAB 23/1, and Robertson to Haig, February
28, 1917, Haig MSS, no. 110.
72. Haig Diary, February 28, 1917, no. 110.
73. Cabinet Paper G.T. 114 of March 7, 1917, CAB 24/7.
74. Derby to Lloyd George, March 6, 1917, Lloyd George MSS, F/14/4/24, and Derby
to Stamfordham, March 4, 1917, RA GV Q1079/18.
75. See, for example, Walter Long to Curzon, March?, 1917, Curzon MSS, Eur. F. 112/
113.
76. Haig to George V, February 28, 1917, RA GV Q832/130, and Rawlinson Diary,
March 12, 1917, 1/7. I am indebted to Professor Trevor Wilson for bringing to my
attention the above quote from the Rawlinson Diary.
77. Cabinet Paper G.T. 93 of March 2, 1917, CAB 24/6.
78. Robertson to Haig, March 2, 1917, Robertson MSS, I/23/9.
79. Robertson to Haig, March 3, 1917, Robertson MSS, I/23/10.
80. Spears, Prelude to Victory, p. 184.
81. C.E.W.Bean, The Australian Imperial Force in France, 1917, 4:139.
82. Eric Drummond to Lloyd George (note in French communicated by the French
embassy inclosed), March 7, 1917, Lloyd George MSS, F/3/2/14.
83. Nivelle to Haig, March 6, 1917, Spears MSS.
84. The copy of this note, dated March 7, 1917, is not addressed or signed, but it appears
clear that it is from Nivelle, who sent it to Bertier de Sauvigny in London, who passed
it on to the prime minister. See Lloyd George MSS, F/162/1, and Hankey Diary,
March 10, 1917, 1/1.
85. Memorandum by Hankey, March 7, 1917, CAB 63/19.
86. War Cabinet (91), March 8, 1917, CAB 23/2.
87. War Cabinet (92), March 9, 1917, CAB 23/2, and Hankey Diary, March 10, 1917,
1/1. Lloyd George’s defensive attitude was demonstrated when he refused to allow
the personal statements that he and Robertson made about Calais at this meeting to
be circulated, arguing that his statement had not been made in response to
Robertson’s and that the C.I.G.S.’s written statement differed from his verbal
statement. See Hankey Diary, March 20, 1917, 1/1, and Robertson to Hankey, March
17, Hankey to Robertson, March 21, and Robertson to Hankey, March 30, 1917,
Spears MSS.
88. See Derby to Stamfordham, March 4, and Stamfordham to Derby, March 5, 1917,
RA GV Q1079/18–19; also see Stamfordham to Haig, March 5, 1917, RA GV Q832/
134.
89. Derby to Lloyd George, March 10, 1917, Derby MSS, 920 (17).
90. Unsigned memorandum, March 12, 1917, RA GV Q1079/35.
91. Anglo-French Conference, March 12–13, 1917, CAB 28/2/I.C.-18.
92. Ibid.
93. Memorandum by Hankey, March 7, 1917, CAB 63/19.
94. Haig Diary, March 14, 1917, no. 110. Actually Haig’s preparations for an offensive
were already considerably advanced.
148 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS
95. Spears, Prelude to Victory, p. 202.
96. War Cabinet (83), March 1, 1917, CAB 23/2, and entry of March 1, 1917, Diaries
of C.P. Scott, pp. 265–66.
97. Lloyd George to Rennell Rodd, March 24, 1917, Lloyd George MSS, F/56/1/26.
98. See Lloyd George’s account of his conversation with Painlevé in War Cabinet (116),
April 10, 1917, CAB 23/2.
99. War Cabinet (37A), January 18, 1917, CAB 23/13.
100. For Lloyd George’s penciled copy of this letter, see Lloyd George MSS, F/50/1/3.
Also see Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 2:1175–1204, Lowe and Dockrill, Mirage of
Power, 2:256– 60, and Harry Hanak, ‘The Government, the Foreign Office and
Austria-Hungary, 1914–1918,” Slavonic and East European Review 47 (January
1969): 161–97.
101. Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1917, 1:498.
102. Haig Diary, April 18, 1917, no. 112.
103. Cabinet Paper G.T. 477 of April 17, 1917, CAB 24/10. Also see Smuts’s suggestion
in Cabinet Paper G.T. 549 of April 13, 1917, CAB 24/11.
104. Haig to Robertson, April 19, 1917, Haig MSS, no. 112.
THE NIVELLE OFFENSIVE 149
8
Passchendaele: The Rack of Choice
LLOYD George’s freedom to respond to the fluid political and military situation
facing the Allies had been limited by his involvement in Nivelle’s offensive. The
members of the War Cabinet who had supported Nivelle over Haig—no less than
himself—were in a chastened mood. Their authority in military policy had been
lowered, Robertson’s and Haig’s prestige and influence enhanced. One also
suspects that Lloyd George’s confidence was shaken—at least for the moment. In
the past he had been able to keep his distance from the big attacks in the West and
make a plausible case for being right about Serbia, Rumania, etc. Now, for the
first time, his reputation was entwined with the planning and failure of a great
western attack. No matter how deep-rooted his skepticism of Haig’s and
Robertson’s s plans, he now shrank from overruling them. His irresolute—at times
even noncommittal— stance in the coming months is more readily understood
when this is kept in mind.
On April 18, armed with an appreciation of the military and political situation
which he had requested from Hankey, he left for the Continent to confer with the
Italians and the French. The secretary of the War Cabinet warned him that the war
might last until 1918 or longer and that it was essential for the Allies to conserve
their resources—especially their manpower—and avoid “economic distress” to
“maintain that healthy public opinion which is essential to success.” On the other
hand, Hankey rejected the Pétain-Painlevé policy of standing on the defensive and
waiting for America. “We must do the enemy all the damage we can,” Hankey
wrote. “This can best be done by fighting a great battle with the object of
recovering the Flanders coast, which would be the most effective way of reducing
our shipping losses. We must not anticipate quick results. But even a battle of the
Somme type, in which we should rely mainly on our unequalled heavy artillery,
if prolonged throughout the summer, might produce great results. If the enemy
retires he gives us what we want. If he stands, he exposes himself to colossal losses
from our heavy artillery. Either way we stand to gain.”
1
The perplexing problem
facing Lloyd George was: How could another massive attack in the West be
reconciled with conserving Britain’s staying power?
After a disappointing conference with the Italians at St. Jean de Maurienne on
April 19 about the possibility of making a separate peace with Austria-Hungary,
Lloyd George met with Ribot, Painlevé, and Nivelle in Paris. Advised by Haig
that it would be a disastrous mistake to diminish the pressure on the Germans, the
prime minister pressed the French (and got their assurances) to continue their
attacks to enable the British to move into the second phase of their offensive,
which promised to win control of essential coal mines and enable the Lens-Arras
railway to be utilized.
While in Paris Lloyd George sought to defuse his explosive relations with the
military with humor. Emerging from one session with the French politicians, he
approached Maurice, who had been waiting outside the conference room, and
said:” ‘lt is settled. Two English and two French Divisions are to go to Salonika.
They are to be selected from the Western Front, and to go at once.’ “The stunned
director of military operations on the general staff, who did not realize that the
prime minister was pulling his leg, stiffly replied: “‘Very well, Sir, I will let Sir
Douglas know.’”
2
It is not recorded that Maurice or “putty nose” laughed when
he realized that the prime minister was joking.
It should not be thought that Lloyd George’s support of the continuation of the
Anglo-French attacks in April indicated any fundamental change in his strategic
views. With the French and Russians tottering, it might be disastrous to encourage
them not to fight. Furthermore, the next stage of Haig’s spring operation seemed
promising. “To Lloyd George’s mind,” Hankey has written, “there was all the
difference in the world between a battle fought with definite strategic, tactical or
economic objectives and the guerre d’usure as typified by the Somme.”
3
The French reaction to Nivelle’s setback was very much on the minds of the
British ministers during this period. On April 24 at Amiens, Nivelle reiterated to
Haig that the French would continue their offensive. But how much longer could
Nivelle speak for the French army? The word in London was that his days were
numbered and that General Pétain would soon be directing French military
operations. If this were true, the French might not be counted on for heavy fighting.
Anxiety over French morale was intensified by the tightening noose of the
submarine campaign, the worsening manpower crisis, and the continued decline
of Russia.
Robertson shared the civilians’ concern about French war-weariness and British
manpower. Realizing that Nivelle’s failure opened the way for Haig’s Flanders
operation, he wanted to make certain that Haig realized that his future strategy
and tactics must be linked to the available supply of men in khaki. On April 20,
he wrote Haig: “To my mind no war has ever differed so much from previous wars
as does the present one, and it is futile, to put it mildly, hanging on to other theories
when facts show them to be wrong. At one time audacity and determination to
push on regardless of loss were the predominating factors, but that was before the
days of machine guns and other modern armament.” Instead of aiming at distant
objectives or a break through, Robertson suggested cautious and deliberate tactics
to wear down the enemy by “inflicting heavier losses upon him than one suffers
oneself.”
4
Haig’s mind, however, remained fixed on distant objectives in Flanders, and,
with the French discouraged about the prospects of their attack, he wanted to
LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 151
switch off to his northern operation. For the present, however, as he informed
Robertson, he wanted the Anglo-French attacks to continue to exhaust German
reserves and encourage the Italians and Russians to fulfill their Chantilly
obligation of simultaneous offensives.
5
Lloyd George, when informed by
Robertson of Haig’s desire to continue his attacks a while longer, was dubious but
open to persuasion.
6
On April 30, London was given a clear signal that the Pétain-Painlevé strategy
was in the ascendancy in Paris when news arrived that Pétain had been appointed
chief of the general staff. Nivelle, relegated to the status of a figurehead
commander in chief, would be allowed to linger on for a bit longer.
7
With another
inter-Allied conference scheduled in Paris within the next few days, the War
Cabinet held a crucial meeting on May 1 to discuss the position that the British
delegation should take. Robertson, Sir Henry Wilson, Jellicoe, Derby, and Cecil,
who was acting secretary of state for foreign affairs while Balfour led a British
mission to the United States, were there to give their expert advice. Another
participant who was about to make his first important contribution to British
strategy was the South African general and statesman, Jan C.Smuts, who had
fought against the British in the Boer War. Smuts, who had arrived in London in
March to participate in a conference of dominion prime ministers, had greatly
impressed Lloyd George with his broad strategic views and the civilian perspective
he brought to military questions. To get a fresh look at the war, Lloyd George had
asked Smuts to prepare his assessment of the strategy of the war. Lloyd George
may have hoped that a different point of view from that of the general staff would
emerge from Smuts’s appreciation. If so, he was to be disappointed, for the South
African, fresh from a visit with Haig at general headquarters and in frequent
contact with Robertson, endorsed the field marshal’s plan to secure the Flemish
coast.
8
During the War Cabinet’s discussion, Lloyd George gave the French arguments
as he saw them for putting a brake on big and costly attacks in the West until the
Russian situation “cleared up definitely one way or the other” and American power
began to play a role in Europe. He suggested that the French would favor an active
defensive strategy in the West, consisting of “repeated surprise attacks designed
on a less ambitious scale,” while the Allies employed their “surplus strength to
clear up the situation elsewhere— in Syria, for example—and to eliminate Turkey,
then Bulgaria, and finally, perhaps even Austria from the War.” Although Lloyd
George did not speak either for or against the French position of limited offensives,
it was clear where his sentiments lay. “If Russia collapsed,” he maintained, “it
would be beyond our power to beat Germany, as the blockade would become to
a great extent ineffective, and the whole of the enemies’ forces would become
available to oppose the Western Allies. We could not contemplate with equanimity
the prospect of entering a Peace Conference with the enemy in possession of a
large slice of Allied territory before we had completed the conquest of
Mesopotamia and Syria.” Britain’s shrinking manpower weighed heavily on the
prime minister’s mind; and he warned his colleagues that Britain did not have
152 PASSCHENDAELE: THE RACK OF CHOICE
sufficient men to both maintain its shipping and take on the German army without
the undiminished support of the French and Russians.
Those present, however, expressed no sympathy for adopting the Pétain-
Painlevé strategy, which Robertson and Smuts “characterised as equivalent to a
defensive policy.” To do so would allow the Germans to finish off Russia and
perhaps Italy. Also, shipping losses might make impossible a great effort later.
Smuts’s contribution proved to be decisive. He stressed “that to relinquish the
offensive in the third year of the War would be fatal, and would be the beginning
of the end. It would be impossible to keep up the spirits of the people and
pessimism and despair would be rife among the Allies, while the Germans would
be correspondingly cheered and would have time to recover their spirits…. If we
could not break the enemy’s front we might break his heart.”
9
When Lloyd George left for Paris for the inter-Allied conference, his duty was
clear, for the War Cabinet had instructed him to “press the French to continue the
offensive.”
10
Lloyd George’s heart was not in this assignment, but he had no choice
but to support his generals. In Asquith’s ministry, it had been easier to be a critic
of the high command; now, as prime minister, he would be held directly
responsible if he ignored military advice and pushed policies that failed. Clearly
he could not afford another Calais. Besides, at this critical moment in the war, it
might be dangerous to support any slackening of the Allied effort because an
almost irresistible momentum for a compromise peace on the part of Britain’s s
European allies might be the result. French spirits must be boosted. If that proved
to be impossible, he would then reopen the discussion of future Allied strategy.
On the day before the conference began, he met with Haig and Robertson and told
them that he was prepared to support whatever policy they decided upon.
11
On the morning of May 4, prior to the plenary session of the conference,
Robertson chaired a meeting of Haig, Nivelle, and Pétain at the Ministry of War.
Later, during the plenary session with the ministers and military advisers present,
Robertson presented a short report of this meeting. His statement, as a result of
the differing views of Haig, Robertson, and Pétain, was imprecise and open to
several interpretations. The ministers were told:
We are, however, unanimously of opinion that the situation has changed
since the plan for the offensive, begun in April, was agreed upon by the two
Governments, and that this plan is no longer operative. It is no longer a
question of aiming at breaking through the enemy’s front and aiming at
distant objectives. It is now a question of wearing down and exhausting the
enemy’s resistance, and if and when this is achieved to exploit it to the fullest
extent possible. In order to wear him down we are agreed that it is absolutely
necessary to fight with all our available forces, with the object of destroying
the enemy’s divisions. We are unanimously of opinion that there is no half-
way between this course and fighting defensively, which, at this stage of
the war, would be tantamount to acknowledging defeat. We are all of opinion
that our object can be obtained by relentlessly attacking with limited
LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 153
objectives, while making the fullest use of our artillery. By this means we
hope to gain our ends with the minimum loss possible.
Having unanimously agreed to the above principles, we consider that the
methods to be adopted to put them into practice, and the time and place of
the various attacks, are matters which must be left to the responsible
Generals, and that they should at once be examined and settled by them.
12
Pétain then expressed support for Robertson’s statement. “Very shortly,” he said,
“the position was to maintain an offensive by limited action with definite
objectives, and the British Generals made it clear that the full forces of the French
and British Army were to be employed for this end.” With the British and French
generals in apparent agreement that future attacks, although heavy and prolonged,
were to be limited in their objectives with emphasis on expending metal rather
than men, Lloyd George supported the “Westerners” in the strongest possible
terms. His fighting words were intended to buck up the French and he made it
clear that the British commitment to the offensive depended upon the support the
French were prepared to give. “We must go on hitting and hitting with all our
strength until the German ended, as he always did, by cracking.” When Ribot
talked of guarding against excessive losses, Lloyd George emphasized that he
expected the French to fight vigorously: “We were ready to put the full strength
of the British Army into the attack, but it was no good doing so unless the French
did the same. Otherwise, the German would bring his best men and guns and all
his ammunition against the British Army and then later against the French.
Tentative and feeble attacks were really more costly in the end.”
13
Since Haig believed that the Paris agreement sanctioned his Flanders operation,
exactly what military policy was Lloyd George supporting? The generals talked
of new and restricted tactics to wear down the enemy at the smallest possible cost
to the attacking troops. Any grandiose objectives or the policy of breaking through
the German lines were expressly denied. But both Lloyd George and Robertson
knew that Haig, in the event of Nivelle’s failure, wanted to shift his attention to
Flanders and the War Cabinet had associated itself with this policy in January and
March.
14
Did the generals’ agreement, then, really overrule Haig’s ambitious plan
to conquer the Belgian ports and drive the Germans from Belgium as Lloyd George
maintains in his memoirs?
15
No minutes exist of the generals’ discussion on the
morning of the fourth, but it seems clear that Pétain and Robertson were in general
agreement that it had. As Pétain told Repington after the meeting, “Robertson had
been gradually won over, and had drafted the agreement on the Western front
exactly as Pétain would have drafted it. The offensive was to be continued, but it
was not to be a longue portée.”
16
On another matter there can be no argument.
Lloyd George was adamant that the British could not be expected to go it alone.
In this he had the support of Robertson, who admitted “that it would be folly to
undertake a big attack unless the French really meant business.”
17
Another subject addressed by the Paris conference was Salonika. Lloyd George,
because of the shipping crisis and his growing interest in the conquest of Jerusalem,
154 PASSCHENDAELE: THE RACK OF CHOICE
had been cool toward his brainchild since the beginning of the year. The French,
however, obstinately pushed for an ever larger commitment to the Balkans. On
the eve of the conference, Lloyd George had decided to give Sarrail one more
chance with his imminent offensive to defeat Bulgaria. Influenced by the Italians
at St. Jean de Maurienne, he “was of opinion that if the Allies were to succeed in
inflicting a defeat of any magnitude on the Bulgarians at Salonica, the latter might
not only break away from the Central Powers, but might turn on the Turks.”
18
This
view was based more on Lloyd George’s belief in Bulgarian war-weariness than
on the offensive power of the Eastern Army. To impress upon Paris that shipping
was the weak link of the Entente, Lloyd George included Jellicoe, whose
pessimism about the submarine campaign knew no limits, in the British delegation.
(In Paris Jellicoe was to warn the French that the Eastern Army might starve by
the end of the year if it were not withdrawn or greatly reduced in size.) If Sarrail
failed, Lloyd George was prepared to withdraw all or most of the British forces
there and transfer them to Egypt for the conquest of Palestine. The results of the
discussion of the Salonikan question were extremely satisfying to Robertson.
Lloyd George, following the C.I.G.S.’s advice, insisted that the British would
begin the withdrawal of one division and two mounted brigades on June 1. Only
if Sarrail knocked Bulgaria flat would this decision be reconsidered.
19
Haig and Robertson were delighted with the prime minister’s role in the Paris
conference, with Robertson proclaiming “that he was better pleased with the
Conference than with any other that had preceded it.”
20
The hateful Calais
agreement was now a thing of the past; and Lloyd George now sang the praises
of British generalship and gave every appearance of having been converted to the
“Western” school of thought.
In Lloyd George’s case, however, appearances were often deceiving. Although
he had accepted and even used the language of attrition, he still rejected a war of
exhaustion and was opposed to a second Somme. His instincts told him at Paris
that the French were nearing the end of their rope. After his speech exhorting the
French to fight, he had been confronted by Pétain in the corridor. “I suppose you
think I can’t fight,” Pétain remarked. “No General, with your record I would not
make that mistake,” Lloyd George had retorted, “but I am certain that for some
reason or other you won’t fight.”
21
His suspicions of French intentions seemed
confirmed when Esher, with his ear to the ground in Paris, wrote Robertson that
the “jelly fish” in the French government could not be counted on to fulfill their
commitments at the Paris conference.
22
When Robertson passed this letter on to
Lloyd George, the latter immediately instructed Robertson to inform Haig that the
British government’s support of continued assaults in the West was dependent
upon the French living up to the Paris agreement. “He [Lloyd George] is anxious
that you should clearly realise this in your discussion with Nivelle,” Robertson
wrote, “because Cabinet could never agree to our incurring heavy losses with
comparatively small gains, which would obviously be the result unless French co-
operate wholeheartedly.”
23
LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 155
If Lloyd George had known the true state of the French army he would have
been far more anxious and certainly more resolute in his opposition to the
continued hammering of the German lines. French soldiers had been broken in
spirit by Nivelle’s attack which fell so far short of its promised results. On May
3, the 2d Colonial Infantry Division appeared on parade without packs or rifles as
it was about to be sent to the front lines. The men shouted, “We’re not marching”
and “Down with the War.”
24
They were brought under control only after their
officers promised that they would not have to go “over the top” and attack. Like
a drop of oil on water, the French mutiny spread. The “Internationale” was sung
by French soldiers on trains carrying them home on leave. Once soldiers marching
through a town on the way to the front started baa-ing like sheep being led to the
slaughter. By the end of May many French divisions were unreliable. According
to Painlevé only two could be counted on between Paris and Soissons.
25
Astonishingly, the French were able to mask the extent of this mutiny from both
the Germans and their allies.
The mutinous state of the Russian army, however, was in clear focus in London.
Reports from Russia indicated that what has been called the “greatest mutiny in
history”
26
was already well advanced by May. On May 9, the day the Petrograd
Soviet advocated an international Socialist peace conference, Lloyd George
addressed himself to the consequences of Russia’s defection. In an apparent
attempt to rally support for peripheral operations, especially in Palestine, the prime
minister painted an extremely gloomy picture in the War Cabinet of Allied
prospects if Russia made a separate peace:
In such circumstances the best chance for the Allies would appear to lie in
a separate peace with Austria, in which Italy might have to be compelled to
acquiesce. If we failed to induce Austria to make a separate peace, he could
see no hope of the sort of victory in the War that we desired. In these
circumstances, it might be necessary to make a bargain with Germany for
evacuating Belgium in return for the restoration of her Colonies, and this
was a point to which he drew General Smuts’ attention. If it should prove
impossible to persuade Austria to make a separate peace, he inclined to the
view that it would be a mistaken policy to sacrifice hundreds of thousands
of lives in attacks on the Western Front, where even now we were doing
little more than hold our own, and he would like the War Cabinet to consider
whether, in these circumstances, it would be a better policy to concentrate
our efforts on a campaign to break up Turkey. Already we occupied
Mesopotamia, Russia occupied Armenia, and we were on the borders of
Palestine. To continue the process of releasing subject peoples from Turkish
oppression would be to gain considerable advantage.
27
Britain’s response to Russia’s apparent collapse was examined from all angles
during the next few days in London. A successful diplomatic offensive against
Turkey, Bulgaria, or Austria-Hungary to balance the defection of Russia, despite
156 PASSCHENDAELE: THE RACK OF CHOICE