Woodward D. Lloyd George and the Generals

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intelligent end, and that surely is not conducive to success.” As for the German

coup in Italy, the Evening Standard, asserted on October 30, “We believe that

there were men in English statesmanship who saw all this, who had a true

perception of the moral as well as the material things at stake, and who were for

sending all possible help to Cadorna. But despite the overwhelming case in favour

of such a plan it did not meet with military support.” The Daily Chronicle called

for an inter-Allied war council, and the Observer chimed in with “SEE IT

WHOLE.”

The Morning Post’s sentiment, “TALK LESS TRASH!,”

was

generally drowned out in the din raised in the London press for a singlefront

approach to the war. Even papers such as the Star and Daily News, which

previously had given unbending support to the military, approved of a central

organization to direct Allied military efforts.

It appeared that Lloyd George

might be right when he had admonished Gwynne for his support of the generals

against the civilians before he left for Rapallo. “I too have an army—the people,”

he blustered. To silence Haig and Robertson, he criticized them to their face for

using the press against him. Never mind that it was, in Hankey’s words, “a case

of the pot calling the kettle black.”

Buoyed by the apparent success of his press campaign, Lloyd George attempted

to deliver a knock-out blow to the British high command at a luncheon in the old

banquet hall of the French Ministry of War attended by deputies and senators at

which Painlevé announced the creation of the Supreme War Council. It was clearly

not an impulsive act; an earlier speech drafted by Smuts was torn up and Lloyd

George and Hankey spent hours on the one that he delivered. The result was a

speech that he had been bursting at the seams to give since his failure to redirect

Allied strategy during the last days of Asquith’s ministry.

In what quickly became his most controversial speech of his wartime

premiership, Lloyd George reopened old wounds, especially the defeat of Serbia

and Rumania. His central theme was that previous inter-Allied conferences had

resulted in “a collection of completely independent schemes pieced together.

Stitching is not strategy. So it came to pass that when these plans were worked

out in the terrible realities of war, the stitches came out and disintegration was

complete.” As each Allied general pursued his own offensive plan, the Germans

with their centralized direction of the war won victory after victory by striking at

the vulnerable points in the Allied defenses. To be sure, the Allies had had their

victories. But, as Lloyd George noted in an especially sharp jab at the

“Westerners”: “When I look at the appalling casualty lists, I sometimes wish it

had not been necessary to win so many.”

In an obvious comparison between the results of Haig’s Flanders operation and

the Austro-German breakthrough at Caporetto, he said:

When we advance a kilometre into the enemy’s lines, snatch a small

shattered village [Passchendaele] out of his cruel grip, capture a few

hundreds of his soldiers, we shout with unfeigned joy. And rightly so, for

THE SUPREME WAR COUNCIL AND BRITISH MILITARY PLANS FOR 1918 217

it is the symbol of our superiority over a boastful foe and a sure guarantee

that in the end we can and shall win.

But what if we had advanced 50 kilometres beyond his lines and made

200,000 of his soldiers prisoners and taken 2,500 of his guns, with enormous

quantities of ammunition and stores? What print would we have for our

headlines.

Significantly Lloyd George told his countrymen what he had been saying in

private. “Personally I had made up my mind that, unless some change were

effected, I could no longer remain responsible for a war direction doomed to

disaster for lack of unity.”

Before making his speech, Lloyd George had sent Smuts back to London to

create a favorable press; and the Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, Observer,

Daily Chronicle, and Manchester Guardian continued their support of his actions.

But his blast against the generals at Paris proved to be a serious political error

because the Supreme War Council was now linked (quite correctly) to his conflict

with the high command over the higher strategy of the war. There was even

concern that Haig and Robertson might be eased out. On the day before Lloyd

George delivered his Paris speech a political correspondent in the Sunday Times

had started tongues wagging with his suggestion that the formation of the Supreme

War Council was the prelude to new leadership on the western front and in the

general staff.

Thus Lloyd George found himself in the midst of a political crisis which was

largely of his own making when his train pulled in at Charing Cross on the

afternoon of November 13. The Times and the Daily Mail, desperately afraid that

the “Old Gang” might be returned to power if Lloyd George faltered, were both

somewhat circumspect in their comments. The Supreme War Council was

supported in principle, but Lloyd George was warned that he must not use it to

meddle in strategy. Other papers were unrestrained in their opposition. The Daily

News accused Lloyd George of attempting to make himself a “military dictator”;

the Nation wrote of “THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF MR. GEORGE”; The Star cried

“HANDS OFF THE BRITISH ARMY!”; and the Spectator argued that the “risks

run by having at the head of affairs a man capable of such levity, such

irresponsbility, such recklessness, such injustice, are beyond endurance.”

The

Globe, Morning Post, and Westminster Gazette joined in the chorus of opposition.

Indignation over Lloyd George’s challenge of the generals’ previous conduct

of the war in his Paris speech boiled up in Parliament. Nothing else was being

discussed in the lobby. When Asquith rose on the thirteenth to ask Bonar Law if

the prime minister were prepared to make a statement regarding “the very serious

matters touched on in his recent speech in Paris,” cheering erupted on both sides

of the chamber. The debate quickly centered on the role and authority of the

permanent military representatives. Would they usurp the functions and powers

of the general staffs of the Allies?

218 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS

Robertson, who had preceded the prime minister to London, had been busy. He

believed that he had made a serious mistake in not forcing a governmental crisis

over Lloyd George’s use of Wilson and French.

Now, faced with the Italian

debacle and the Allied decision at Rapallo, he was fighting an uphill battle to

protect his position. But, encouraged by Haig, he was determined to resist the

“new Soviet."

He voiced his opposition to Asquith, Colonel House, Woodrow

Wilson’s alter ego and special diplomatic agent, General Tasker H.Bliss, the

American chief of staff and soon to be appointed permanent military representative

on the Allied general staff, and the generals’ favorite military correspondent,

Repington.

He also sounded the tocsin in the War Office, receiving the support

of Derby and the Army Council.

If the Army Council had its way, Wilson would be gagged. On November 12,

the Army Council decided to inform the War Cabinet that it “presumed that the

technical advice given by the British Military Representative will be given on

behalf of the Army Council, and that he will be subject to the authority of, and

receive his instructions from, the Army Council.”

Lloyd George’s response to the rising criticism was to read the terms of the

Rapallo agreement among France, Italy, and Britain to the House of Commons on

November 14. Whatever his long-range plans, he was protected for the present

from the emotional charge of handing the British army over to foreigners because

from the very first he had made it clear that the Supreme War Council was to be

an advisory body with executive authority firmly in the hands of the respective

national governments. The sticky point in the new machinery was the relationship

between Robertson and Wilson. The Rapallo agreement gave the Supreme War

Council the power to review the campaign plans prepared by the national general

staffs and change them if necessary. Did this, then, pit the British military

representative against the C.I.G.S.? Rather than unity of control, would not this

create duality of military counsel? The next day the Globe warned: “THE

GENESIS OF AN UNWORKABLE SCHEME. THE DISESTABLISHMENT

OF THE GENERAL STAFF.” And Robertson wrote Derby: “All military advice

to the Supreme Council should remain in the hands of the responsible military

advisers of the respective governments. Dual advice can only lead to delay,

friction, weakening of responsibility and lack of confidence amongst the troops.”

In his anxiety to control Haig and Robertson, Lloyd George, as he had at Calais,

found himself defending a faulty system of unifying Allied military policy.

During the next few days the tug of war between Lloyd George and the War

Office over the control of “Ugly” Wilson intensified. Faced with his gravest

political crisis to date, Lloyd George at first could not make up his mind whether

to stand firm or retreat. At first the War Cabinet stood firm, informing the Army

Council on November 16 that even though Wilson was clearly “subject to the

authority of the Army Council…it should be understood that the British Permanent

Military Representative will have unfettered discretion as to the advice he

offers.”

On November 18, however, he received a letter from Curzon that warned

him that Chamberlain, who had just returned from a visit with Haig, and many

THE SUPREME WAR COUNCIL AND BRITISH MILITARY PLANS FOR 1918 219

other Conservatives could not support the government unless they were given

reassuring answers in Parliament on the charge that Lloyd George was attempting

to divide Robertson’s powers.

This disturbing news, along with steady pressure

from Derby, forced Lloyd George to give ground on the question of the powers

and responsibilities of Wilson, a matter which the Rapallo agreement had almost

nothing concrete to say. To pin Lloyd George down, Derby prepared a record of

Lloyd George’s comments in their conversation of the seventeenth and returned

it to him on the eighteenth. After Lloyd George made a few deletions and additions,

it read as follows:

(1). All proposals to be discussed at a Supreme General Council will be initiated

by the respective Governments, and will not be put before the Supreme Council

until, in our case, the War Cabinet has had it in front of them, and heard the opinion

of the C.I.G.S. on the proposal.

(2). The Allied Staff shall have no power of initiation of independent proposals

unless ordered to do so by the Supreme Council themselves, and any such

proposals they may wish to make follow the same procedure as in (1).

(3). The C.I.G.S. will accompany you to any meetings of the Supreme Council

whenever a decision has to be arrived at on military matters.

(4). The Allied General Staff will give their advice as a whole, and not as

individuals.

Lloyd George initialed every point in this document, but he did not return it to

Derby. Instead, he wrote him on the twenty-sixth, noting that he was in “substantial

agreement” with the points in his letter and that he was willing for Robertson, who

would remain the “official” adviser to the War Cabinet, to accompany him to all

Supreme War Council meetings. On the other hand, he resisted a precise definition

of Wilson’s role which would make him an extension of the War Office. “It would

be a mistake to lay too much emphasis on details at the beginning,”

he wrote.

Four days earlier, in fact, Wilson had told the prime minister that he would send

his “reports to him & not to anyone else.”

What had happened between November 18 and 26 was that Lloyd George had

scored a great personal triumph over his critics. On November 19, Lloyd George

made one of his rare appearances in Parliament for a full-dress debate with

Asquith, who, in support of the generals, was making his first serious attack on

Lloyd George’s leadership. In a packed and excited House, the Welsh Wizard was

in splendid form. Starting slowly, he built toward a rhetorical climax with passion

and gesticulations. Even so critical an observer as Repington had to admit that

“the whole House rose to him and rocked with joy.”

Lloyd George’s speech, however, was little related to his previous actions or

the chief criticisms of the Rapallo arrangement. Denying any previous interference

with the general staff’s strategy, he praised the generals, emphasized his support

of the army, and claimed that he had only attempted to wake up the nation with

his Paris speech. His motive in pushing the Supreme War Council was the

“coordination” of Allied plans, not the diminishing of Robertson’s authority or

220 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS

the creation of a generalissimo.

What had happened, one might ask, to the Lloyd

George who had delivered the blistering attack in Paris against the “Westerners”?

Both Robertson and Lloyd George were generally satisfied with the outcome

of the row over the Supreme War Council. To Lloyd George’s great relief, he had

avoided a division in the House and escaped careful scrutiny of Wilson’s and

Robertson’s s relationship. On the other hand, Robertson had reason to be satisfied.

Although Lloyd George had indicated in his Paris speech that he wanted the

Supreme War Council to have real power, he had been forced, as Robertson wrote

Haig, “to say that it would have practically no power at all.”

Given the right to

attend the Supreme War Council, Wully hoped to be able to “keep things on right

lines.”

The troublesome issue that lay ahead was Wilson’s position as co-adviser

to the Supreme War Council. With the backing of the prime minister, would he

stay in his place? Or would he allow himself to be used against the general staff?

In the conflict over strategy, the high command appeared to have the upper hand

immediately after Lloyd George’s success in Parliament because of developments

on the western front. Both Robertson and Haig continued to resist a defensive

strategy in 1918, and their advice received what appeared to be a resounding vote

of confidence on November 20. At twilight the ground shook at Cambrai as 1,000

guns opened up. Then, without a sustained artillery barrage, a force of

approximately 380 tanks, supported by a swarm of aircraft overhead, rolled over

the vast thicket of German barbed wire, completely catching the enemy off

balance. With relatively few casualties, the British pushed the Germans back from

three to four miles on a sixmile front, and the formidable Hindenburg Line was

pierced. Unfortunately, this great tank offensive, which had been originally

planned as a gigantic raid, was inadequately supported. According to the

historian’s prejudices, the necessary reserves had been either ordered to Italy by

Lloyd George or used up in the last and futile phase of Haig’s Flanders offensive.

The cavalry force, which Haig had stubbornly maintained in his rear to exploit a

breakthrough, was useless. The two cavalry divisions brought up to gallop through

the broken lines refused to go forward. Although their commander in chief did

not realize that horse soldiers did not belong on the same battlefield with trenches

and machine guns, the cavalry officers, who were in no mood for Light Brigade

heroics, did. Haig’s comment was, “They must be blind.”

At first euphoria reigned in the corridors of the War Office. Indeed, the attack

had been designed, in part, to restore the prestige of the British army. The War

Office encouraged the ringing of church bells and the displaying of flags to

celebrate the most spectacular advance of the war for Haig’s army. In one day the

British had advanced almost as far as they had in 100 days of heavy fighting in

Flanders where tanks were ineffective.

The news from Cambrai could not have come at a better time for the embattled

Robertson. He immediately moved without success to halt the flow of British

troops to Italy and emphasized that the Third Army’s success had been partly due

to the concentration of German reserves at Ypres.

He also gave support to Haig’s

view that the enemy was in a bad way. When the War Cabinet held a preliminary

THE SUPREME WAR COUNCIL AND BRITISH MILITARY PLANS FOR 1918 221

discussion of future military policy, he argued that “the position of the Germans

was worse than we were sometimes inclined to think…. On the whole, it was

dificult to explain the cessation of the offensive against Roumania and the failure

to exploit the Italian débâcle except on the ground of inactivity…[he] thought that

Germany’s military power was probably a good deal less and the condition of the

Austrian armies a good deal worse than we had thought to be the case.”

Robertson had just advised the War Cabinet that Haig should continue his attacks

next year to keep the initiative in the hands of the Allies. Otherwise the enemy

would attack “at a time and place of his own choosing—that is, in circumstances

in which the chances of victory are in his favour.”

Lloyd George, of course, took

a dim view of this advice. Given the existing balance of forces in the West, he

believed it suicidal for either side to launch massive attacks in 1918. After all, the

Allies, often enjoying a 5 to 3 superiority in rifles, had been stymied since 1914.

If the German high command were prepared to throw their last reserves against

Allied breastworks bristling with machine guns, so much the better. Significantly,

Haig himself believed that the Germans would be foolish to launch an all-out

attack in 1918. On December 16, he told Charteris “that the correct strategy for

them [the Germans] is to play a waiting game and not commit themselves to a big

attack.”

Lloyd George’s best hope of restraining Haig and Robertson was the new

Supreme War Council and in late November he journeyed to Versailles to establish

this new body on a firm footing. He was alarmed to discover that France’s new

premier, the fierce-tempered Clemenceau, was out to torpedo the arrangement at

Rapallo by making Foch chief of staff as well as permanent military representative.

‘This would mean Robertson and Haig,” an unhappy Wilson recorded in his diary,

“and we should be where we have been all along.”

Lloyd George met this

challenge head on by threatening to return to London immediately if Foch held

both positions. Clemenceau then agreed to send General Maxime Weygand to

Versailles as the French permanent military representative, with Foch moving to

the French ministry of war as chief of staff. This compromise, however, violated

Lloyd George’s principle that the permanent military representatives should be

independent of the national general staffs. Weygand was certain to be Foch’s

mouthpiece. “He is my doormat,” Foch once commented, “I use him to wipe my

boots on.”

Wilson, in fact, was now the only permanent military representative

expected to be truly independent of his general staff. General Bliss, the American

permanent military representative, had just stepped down as chief of staff because

he had reached the age limit; and Cadorna, the Italian permanent military

representative was for all practical purposes an extension of the Italian general

staff. It did not take Wilson long to realize his weak position. “I have come to the

following conclusions: That Clemenceau intends to direct the whole war by using

Foch to work with Robertson, and then by sending Weygand here to impose his

(Clemenceau’s) will on Versailles by Foch through Weygand.”

Despite Clemenceau’s lukewarm attitude toward the Supreme War Council,

Lloyd George achieved his major objective: permanent military representatives

222 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS

were instructed to examine the military situation as a whole and make

recommendations about the operations to be undertaken in 1918.

Before these

instructions were issued, Lloyd George emphasized that the war had become one

of exhaustion and might be decided by endurance rather than a military decision.

In short, conserving Allied manpower might be the key to success.

While Lloyd George lobbied for a defensive posture at Versailles, events at

Cambrai decided the issue. The British had found it hard going after their initial

thrust, attempting to hold on to a dangerous salient with soldiers who had fought

without rest since the twentieth. On November 30, the Germans penetrated the

British southern flank and the Third Army was sent reeling back. In only two days

the Germans recaptured much of the territory they had lost and only the spirited

stand of the Guards Division prevented a greater disaster. With the termination of

the Battle of Cambrai on December 3, “the British and the Germans resembled

two tired boxers, neither of whom was capable of doing the other any serious

harm.”

Haig collected his army commanders and told them that, in all likelihood,

the British army would assume a defensive position during the next few months.

On December 13, the permanent military representatives, in their first joint note,

recommended that a “co-ordinated system of defence from the North Sea to the

Adriatic must be adopted by the Allies.”

And on December 19, Robertson

assured the War Cabinet that “it was fully realised by Sir Douglas Haig that we

must act on the defence for some time to come, and he had no offensive plans in

mind at present.”

The end of the 1917 campaign found the British army in a bad way. In

midDecember it was described thusly:

The British Armies in France have been engaged practically continuously

since last April in exhausting offensive operations involving considerable

wastage and great fatigue. Every division has been engaged in battle several

times and while on defensive fronts, necessarily thinly held during the

operations, they have also had heavy work. The Artillery personnel

particularly has been engaged almost continuously in operations demanding

their utmost efforts night and day during the above period.

The whole Army is therefore at present much exhausted and much

reduced in strength. Many divisions in the line urgently require relief, while

the great majority of those for the first time being in reserve are neither

sufficiently rested to relieve them nor really fit to be thrown into a fight to

meet an emergency…of the divisions at present in reserve behind the British

front, only those belonging to the Australian and Canadian Corps are fit for

duty in front line….

The accuracy of this description would appear to be beyond dispute, for the author

was none other than Haig himself. In this same document, Haig commented on

the state of disrepair of British defenses. Constantly on the attack, the British had

neither the men nor the time to look after their fortifications. Although not touched

THE SUPREME WAR COUNCIL AND BRITISH MILITARY PLANS FOR 1918 223

upon directly by Haig, the nerve of his forces was beginning to falter. Cases of

drunkenness, desertion, and psychological disorders were increasing. Men home

from the front frequently spoke with great bitterness about “the waste of life during

the continued hammerings against the Ypres Ridge.”

When Parliament heard an exaggerated account of the successful

German counterattack at Cambrai from one of its members, there was a reaction

bordering on panic. The War Cabinet was hardly less disturbed as it gradually

learned of the magnitude of the setback. Haig was on the spot as never before.

When the War Cabinet met on the fifth, pointed questions were put to the military

authorities. Why the delay in forwarding the news of the German breakthrough

on the thirtieth? “If we had inflicted a corresponding reverse on the enemy,” one

minister harrumphed, “the news of our success would have been communicated

within a few hours.” The fact that Maurice had given a full and accurate account

of the disaster on the third to the War Cabinet did not convince Lloyd George and

other ministers that general headquarters had been frank in its first reports of the

German attack. Also, how had the Third Army been caught so completely by

surprise when the British had air superiority? Furthermore, how was such a

vigorous German offensive, their first in the West since Verdun, possible? After

all, the military authorities had consistently emphasized the “weakness and

deterioration” of the enemy.

With the stench of failure in everyone’s nostrils, Lloyd George considered

shaking up the high command. With some justification, he believed that Haig had

misused the British army and that the country could no longer afford his leadership.

Moreover, he was furious with the army’s machinations during the establishment

of the Supreme War Council. (No matter that many of the criticisms of the actual

machinery were legitimate.) On December 1, he vented his rage to Esher. Speaking

with “great bitterness and vehemence,” he complained “of the ‘intrigues’ of the

Army” against the civil authorities. “His means of information are varied and go

deep into the camp of his opponents,” Esher wrote Haig. “Of this there was ample

proof from what he said to me.”

Lloyd George’s case against Robertson seemed even stronger. After the

permanent military representatives had been instructed by the Allied ministers to

examine and report on the military situation, the army council had renewed its

efforts to tie Wilson completely to the War Office. On December 7, Wilson had

been instructed to forward all proposals he planned to make at the Supreme War

Council to the Army Council for its review.

A far more serious matter was

Robertson’s unscrupulous efforts to thwart Lloyd George’s Palestinian scheme.

On December 11, without any of the reinforcements that he had requested, Allenby

made a triumphant entry into Jerusalem. On the previous day, Lloyd George had

discovered to his amazement that the Turks now had a rifle strength of 21,000 in

Palestine. On the other hand, the British had 95, 812 rifles and 14,249 sabres in

Egypt and Palestine.

Yet, he was quick to remember, Allenby had requested

thirteen more divisions and a total force of almost half a million men to take

Jerusalem.

Robertson’s guerrilla action against the Supreme War Council was

224 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS

bad enough. But his “cooking” of the advice received by the War Cabinet was

clearly intolerable. No modern prime minister would or should tolerate such

conduct.

On the afternoon of December 11, Lloyd George approached Derby about the

removal of Haig and Robertson from their posts. Cambrai and Allenby’s capture

of the Holy City were used as a noose to hang them. Stopping short of sacking his

generals, the prime minister suggested to Derby that Haig be given the Joffre

treatment by appointing him generalissimo of all British forces. Robertson would

be cast aside by giving him an equally highsounding but unimportant assignment.

Derby, however, refused to abandon Haig and Robertson. If they were pushed

aside, he hinted that he would resign.

This would almost certainly precipitate

the political crisis which Lloyd George hoped to avoid through his face-saving

maneuver. Unable to gain the support of Derby, Lloyd George had to be satisfied

for the moment with the secretary of state for war’s willingness to pressure Haig

to dismiss his most important subordinates; Charteris, his myopic chief of

intelligence, being the primary target. In this Derby had the wholehearted support

of Robertson, who suggested to Haig that he also dismiss Lieutenant-General

R.C.Maxwell, a move that he had urged Haig to make as early as August.

Eventually, Derby included Kiggell, Haig’s chief of staff, whom he considered a

“tired man,” in this purge.

Lloyd George is sometimes given credit for these

dismissals, but the War Office, it would appear, was just as interested, if not more

so, in surrounding Haig with new men. One advantage might be to still the criticism

of the army that was surfacing in the press after Cambrai.

On November 12, in the opening stages of the political crisis over the Supreme

War Council, Northcliffe had returned from his mission to America to be greeted

by a letter from Repington. “Welcome home! You have returned to find an Allied

Staff created at Paris contrary to the desires of our leading soldiers at home and

abroad, and contrary to the public interest.”

The arrival of the Great Beast

alarmed Lloyd George, and he immediately attempted to neutralize him by

offering him the head of an air ministry when it was created. Northcliffe, however,

publicly rejected the offer, arguing that it might gag him. His independence

retained, Northcliffe, however, did not use his influence to support the army

against the prime minister. The Cambrai failure was apparently decisive in his

shift of allegiances. On December 12, the Times demanded an inquiry into the

failure of the Third Army and “the prompt removal of every blunderer.” At the

same time Sassoon was bluntly informed by Northcliffe, “There is the memory of

a dead man or the knowledge of a missing or wounded man in every house. Outside

the War Office I doubt whether the Higher Command has any supporters

whatever.”

As important as Northcliffe’s support was to Lloyd George, it should

not be exaggerated. In fact, with some calling Northcliffe’s papers the

“Georgecliffe Press,” his support at times proved to be a serious liability.

The climate of mutual suspicion and distrust between the government and the

army, which had never been worse, was an important element in the crucial

discussions about manpower which began in earnest in December. Throughout

THE SUPREME WAR COUNCIL AND BRITISH MILITARY PLANS FOR 1918 225

1917, the army had been unable to persuade the government to extract all of the

men it demanded from civil life and had been forced to comb out category “A”

men (men fit for combat) from the home forces and administrative units in France.

This had not been accomplished without sparks flying between the War Office

and general headquarters. Robertson was angered by the implication that he was

keeping soldiers at home that Haig might use; furthermore, he could not

understand Kiggell’s reluctance to make better use of all the men available in

France. On August 17, he suggested to Haig that he “immediately” take steps to

“scrape up” combat soldiers behind his front (some 41,000 were found from the

administrative units). He also pointedly informed Haig that everything possible

was being done to send him men from the home service divisions.

On the day the Cambrai fighting died down, the Army Council, instructed by

the prime minister to review the manpower situation which had been exacerbated

by the gigantic losses suffered by the British army in 1917, prepared a

memorandum which emphasized the dire necessity of immediately replacing

Haig’s losses and providing for his wastage in 1918. If this were not done, the

Army Council warned, “the war may well be lost” because “of the probable release

of enemy forces on the Russian front.”

Since the high command had just ignored Russia’s collapse and advocated a

continuation of the offensive, many ministers tended to believe that the Army

Council was crying wolf. In the War Cabinet, with Lloyd George absent, it was

pointed out that the War Office view of the military situation in France, as

submitted to the War Cabinet, had undergone a complete change during the

last three weeks. Three weeks ago, so far from there being any question of

the German breaking through our lines, there had been most optimistic

reports regarding the deterioration in the German moral and the superiority

of the British over their opponents, in numbers as in everything else.

In response to the War Office’s plea for more men, the War Cabinet decided to

create a Manpower Committee, the fourth such committee on manpower since

July 1915, composed of Lloyd George, who served as chairman, Curzon, Barnes,

Carson, and Smuts. Much has been made about the fact that no member of this

committee had military experience (unless General Smuts is counted) and its

alleged failure to call upon the general staff for advice.

But this charge is a

distortion propagated by Robertson and his apologists. Macready, Macdonogh,

Maurice, and other military authorities (though not Robertson) were, in fact, called

before this committee to give evidence.

That the War Office’s evidence was viewed with considerable skepticism,

however, is beyond doubt. In truth, the War Office’s figures and statements were,

in Hankey’s words, “utterly unreliable, as their facts are twisted to support their

argument.”

One is reminded of Disraeli’s comment, “there are lies, damned lies,

and statistics.” A few examples are illuminating. In early January, Haig’s dispatch

of December 25, 1917, was published in the London Gazette, with the field marshal

226 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS