Woodward D. Lloyd George and the Generals

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British censorship during the war, see Edward Cook, The Press in War-Time with

Some Account of the Official Press Bureau (1920).

125. War Cabinet (326), January 21, 1918, CAB 23/5. One result of the new War Office

tables was to place in jeopardy the Manpower Committee’s calculations which had

been based on earlier statistics supplied by the military authorities. To place the

blame where he believed it belonged, Hankey suggested to Lloyd George that the

committee’s manpower conclusions be adopted at once “and, if any alteration is

required in the Report or conclusions it ought to be clear that the responsiblity rests

with the Department who furnished incomplete figures and not with the Committee.”

Hankey to Lloyd George, January 24, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/23/2/12. The

War Office’s new estimates were, in fact, placed in brackets after the original figures

or in footnotes in the final manpower report.

126. Lloyd George to Derby, January 24, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/14/5/4.

127. Lloyd George to Derby, January 28, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/14/5/5.

128. Derby to Lloyd George, January 29, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/14/5/6.

THE SUPREME WAR COUNCIL AND BRITISH MILITARY PLANS FOR 1918 247

Command of the Allied General Reserve and

the Fall of Robertson

THE Supreme War Council had not met since early December and a whole host

of military questions begged for an urgent settlement. The permanent military

representatives at Versailles continued to issue joint notes, but until the Allied

leaders met and acted upon them, they were only suggestions. Meanwhile,

Robertson strenuously worked behind the scenes to effect a common military

policy among himself, Pétain, Haig, Foch, and Pershing. If he succeeded, he would

be able to keep Versailles in its place. “The Versailles people are doubtless doing

their best,” he wrote Haig, “but they cannot well help being a probable source of

mischief unless we responsible people have made up our minds on all points

beforehand and are in accord with the French.”

Differences between the French and British and even within the French high

command, however, made any common policy for the Allied generals impossible.

When a military conference was held at Compiègne on January 24, Pétain and

Foch at once fell out over the latter’s enthusiasm for spirited counterattacks in

1918. Uncharacteristically, the offensive-minded Haig sided with the cautious

Pétain. Foch’s stance, he believed, was “admirable in theory, but not practicable

because we have not the necessary forces.”

Other divisive issues were the

escalating French demands that Haig give relief to the French army by extending

his line and the creation and command of a strategic Allied general reserve. These

two questions were related because, if Haig had to reduce his reserves by spreading

his forces further, enabling the Germans to achieve a considerable superiority in

troops by concentrating on a point along his defenses, his best hope of receiving

immediate aid would be through calling upon an Allied general reserve under an

independent command freed from national considerations.

It will be recalled that at the Boulogne conference in September 1917, Lloyd

George accepted the principle of giving relief to the exhausted poilus by taking

over more of the French line. One result of the extension of Haig’s line, as he well

knew, would be to limit the British army’s ability to launch massive assaults. The

War Cabinet then turned the specific arrangements over to Pétain and a thoroughly

disgruntled Haig. When Haig talked with Pétain at Amiens in mid-October, he

argued that he could give more effective relief to the French by continuing his

Flanders attack to draw off and destroy German reserves.

Pétain, casting worried

glances at Russia’s headlong decline, however, feared for the safety of his forces

which held over three times the front occupied by the British. To meet the threat

of German divisions arriving on his sector from the East, he wanted a shorter line

to build up his reserves; and he insisted that the British take over a six-division

front extending to the forest of St. Gobain (Barisis). The best that Haig was

prepared to do was take over a four-division front. But the final phase of the Third

Battle of Ypres, the dispatch of British divisions to Italy, and the fierce fighting

around Cambrai prevented this agreement from being implemented and left the

British army exhausted and depleted in strength. Some French military leaders,

instead of being grateful to Haig for keeping pressure on Germany, were furious

with him. Foch criticized “the waste of life & effort at Passchendaele & at

Cambrai.” Such “individual efforts,” he complained to Wilson, “were fatal & upset

the general plan, as for example our taking over French line which now we

appeared incapable of doing.”

Despite the weakened condition of the British army, Clemenceau not only kept

up the pressure on the British government, he threatened resignation if the British

did not occupy French trenches as far as Berry-au-Bac, some thirty-seven miles

beyond Barisis. His demand sprang, in part, from his desire to tie the British down

in the West and force the British civilians to furnish Haig with more men.

With

Haig now assuming a defensive posture, Lloyd George was reluctant to support

the expanded French demands. Prodded by Wilson, who believed that French

desires should be met to some extent, Clemenceau then agreed to turn the whole

question over to the permanent military representatives and abide by their decision.

On December 18, Lloyd George and his colleagues in the War Cabinet accepted

Clemenceau’s position, obviously hoping that their experiment in unifying Allied

military policy might resolve this emotional question which was driving a wedge

between Paris and London.

On January 10, to the chagrin of Haig and Robertson, the permanent military

representatives attempted to split the difference, suggesting in joint note 10 that

the British take over the French line to a point east of the LaonSoissons road, some

fourteen miles beyond Barisis. The British high command raised immediate and

violent objections. Wully put it very plainly to the War Cabinet: “It is now for the

War Cabinet to decide between the Military Representatives, who have no

responsibility for the security of the front, and the Field Marshal Commanding-in-

Chief, who is responsible for the front and for safe-guarding his communications

with England.” Haig was even more blunt, telling Hankey that if the War Cabinet

supported extending his line beyond Barisis, it “would have to find a new

Commander-in-Chief !”

Although Lloyd George’s brainchild, the Supreme War Council, was being

challenged by his generals, he was not prepared to make an issue of it. If anything,

he was inclined to support the army against Versailles. If Haig became responsible

for yet another fourteen miles, he would clearly be unable to contribute to an Allied

general reserve, which Lloyd George hoped would strengthen Allied defenses and

perhaps even enable the Allies to have a more flexible strategy to counter German

moves in either the East or the West.

COMMAND OF THE ALLIED GENERAL RESERVE 249

Much has been written about the extension of the British line, but the origins

of a strategic reserve, which quickly became entangled with the question of a

generalissimo, remains shrouded in mystery. Initially Lloyd George, Milner, and

other British political leaders thought only of a British mobile reserve to free some

of their troops from the trenches of the West. On November 3, Milner had written

Lloyd George:

The more I think of it, the more dangerous appears to me the idea of tying

ourselves up more than ever in France. The soldiers will like it because it

keeps their army together, but it means that for the whole of 1918 our Army

will be condemned to a merely defensive role, while our more distant

expeditions will also be smitten with the paralysis, if not with failure….

The great point is that if, next year at any rate, we cannot make that force

strong enough to break through, it is waste to keep it stronger than is

necessary for a lively defensive. The force we could afford to withdraw from

France should be the mobile force of the alliance[,] the strategic reserve,

wh. we have never had & without wh. we can never win. It, or some of it,

is wanted now in Italy, but that does not mean we should immobilise it

permanently in Italy. It goes there for a temporary purpose—to give Italy

time to recover, not for ever & a day to hold a slice of Italian frontier.

With the initiative shifting to the Germans as they transferred division after

division from Russia to the West, however, the British civilians were forced to

consider an Allied (as opposed to British) strategic reserve to throw against the

Germans wherever they chose to attack in 1918. Lloyd George’s new Supreme

War Council might indeed lead to a more coordinated Allied strategy as he

claimed. But its machinery, aimed more at reducing Robertson’s influence than

anything else, was clearly defective, and he had admitted in Parliament that it was

essentially powerless. In midDecember, the prime minister apparently attempted

to test the political waters with an inspired leading article in the Astor-owned

Observer which called for giving more power to Versailles as a substitute for a

generalissimo and the creation of a strategic reserve.

Almost from the first, Clemenceau preferred a generalissimo to the Supreme

War Council. On December 11, the former French minister of war, Alexandre

Millerand, after consulting with his premier, told Esher that the Supreme War

Council as constituted was “a fifth wheel to a coach, and a further complication.”

The only solution was for Versailles to act as a general staff to a generalissimo.”

On December 23, Clemenceau himself lobbied for the creation of an Anglo-French

strategic reserve “under a single direction,” which seemed to imply a supreme

commander, when he met with Milner in Paris to coordinate Anglo-French support

of anti-Bolshevik elements in southern Russia.

The French military and political leaders, who thought only in terms of

a Frenchman as supreme commander, were alive to Lloyd George’s political

difficulties in the aftermath of Calais in placing the British army under a foreigner.

250 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS

Too much pressure in this direction was almost certain to be counterproductive.

Surprisingly, the French position on unity of command was supported by

Robertson’s s right-hand man on the general staff, General Maurice. Unlike Haig,

Maurice entertained no doubts about German intentions in 1918. Fearful of the

consequences of a great German blow against either the French or the British, with

no Allied machinery to effect immediate unity of action, Maurice took the lead in

exploring the creation of a generalissimo, working through General G.Sidney

Clive, the head of the British mission to French general headquarters. Robertson,

who may have seen this scheme as a way of destroying Wilson’s position, and

Pétain immediately gave their support to this plan, but Haig, convinced that he

and the French commander in chief could work in unison in any crisis, was

adamantly opposed. A fatal flaw in Haig’s position, in Clive’s prophetic words,

was that almost inevitably “mutual support” would “rank after selfpreservation”

when the moment of truth arrived.

As Maurice and Clive conducted their exploratory talks, Henry Wilson was

moving in another direction. Desirous of increasing his authority at the expense

of Robertson, he raised the question of an Allied general reserve with Wully on

January 9. Masking his true intentions, he told the C.I.G.S. that a certain number

of divisions should be taken from Haig and Pétain and placed under either the

control of Versailles or Robertson and Foch. Later, however, when Wilson talked

with Clemenceau, he made no mention of giving Robertson any control over the

strategic reserve. When the premier noted that in reality the strategic reserve was

to be “‘under Wilson,’” the Irishman readily admitted that this was his intention.

Apparently informed by Robertson of his conversation with Wilson, Maurice

breakfasted with the prime minister on January 10. After emphasizing that

Versailles, with only advisory power, would never be able to coordinate Allied

military operations in battle, he suggested that Joffre be made generalissimo “with

Robertson as his Chief of Staff & Italian & American staff officers under them.”

Although Joffre was the architect of the costly Anglo-French attacks in the first

years of the war, Lloyd George was immediately taken with his suggestion. After

altering Maurice’s proposal in one major respect—Wilson, not Wully, was to be

Joffre’s chief of staff—he turned to Wilson for his reaction. The Irishman

responded with a Machiaevellian counterproposal:

No, believe me a Generalissimo is impossible, nor is such an appointment

rendered more practicable by giving him a foreigner as Chief of the Staff.

In my opinion the real solution of all our difficulties lies in the further

development of the Versailles [idea] which the P.M. set up…. I suggest that

a Central Reserve be placed under Versailles.… I believe by this means we

shall gain most of the advantages of a Generalissimo and suffer few of the

disadvantages.

Wilson and Haig thus combined against an arrangement which promised to save

the Allies from many of their difficulties when the great German offensive began.

COMMAND OF THE ALLIED GENERAL RESERVE 251

Joffre, although a poor tactician, had proven to be extraordinarily cool in a crisis

and was capable of quick, difficult decisions.

With a generalissimo being pushed further into the background, the War Cabinet

on January 23 gave Lloyd George and Milner full authority to decide “the

disposition and command of the General Reserve on the Allied Western front”

during the forthcoming Supreme War Council.

Two days later the permanent

military representatives approved joint note 14, which urged the creation of an

Allied maneuver force for the French and Italian fronts. Not a word, however, was

said about its command. That an attempt to give Versailles executive authority

over this proposed Allied general reserve was certain to spark an explosion from

Robertson with political echoes in London was very much on Lloyd George’s

mind as he left for the meeting of the Supreme War Council in late January with

Milner. Robertson, intensely suspicious of Wilson, immediately made clear his

opposition to an Allied reserve independent of his or Foch’s authority when

consulted by the prime minister. “The advice I submit to you is,” he wrote the

Welshman, “therefore, that the High Command, as far as executive work is

concerned (and this is what matters most during active operations), must

necessarily be exercised by the Chiefs of the General Staff…. Recognise and settle

this point and the question of reserves will then settle itself.”

With Wilson and

Robertson at each other’s throats, Lloyd George saw no way to avoid a blowup.

“He found it very difficult to know what to do about Robertson & me; though he

said he knew what he wanted,”

Wilson noted in his diary.

The four-day meeting of the Supreme War Council got off to a rocky start on

January 30. Confusion rather than coordination appeared to be the result of Lloyd

George’s attempt to devise a common approach to Allied war policy, with three

sets of military advisers—the permanent military representatives, the chiefs of

general staff and commanders in chief—stepping on each other’s toes. “They all

gave different advice,” Hankey wrote his wife, “and the meeting got into a worse

state of chaos than I have ever known in all my wide experience.”Z

What Hankey

perhaps did not realize was that this divided military counsel gave the master

manipulator Lloyd George room to maneuver.

A crucial question before the Allied military and political leaders was the

security of their forces in the West. Although skeptical of the War Office’s

arithmetic, the prime minister could not ignore the intelligence reports of the

continued flow of German divisions westward. As a substitute to the general staff

s intelligence furnished to the War Cabinet, Lloyd George turned to Wilson, who

informed him on the eve of the meeting of the Supreme War Council that Germany

now had between 168 and 185 divisions in the West and might eventually have

215.

If this were correct, the Allied superiority in rifle strength was rapidly

disappearing.

When Haig and Pétain were called upon by the Supreme War Council to give

evidence, they painted an absolutely desperate picture of the future manpower

situation in an apparent attempt to frighten Lloyd George away from his “Eastern”

schemes and toward increasing the flow of recruits to the British army. In the event

252 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS

of hard fighting, Haig claimed that he would be down to thirty-five divisions by

November even if the Americans accepted amalgamation. Pétain’s forecast of his

losses was just as gloomy. As for the Americans, Pétain argued that, unless they

accepted amalgamation, they “would be of no use to the Allies in 1918, except,

perhaps, along some quiet section of the front.”

Lloyd George, Milner, Hankey,

and Wilson listened in disbelief. After all, Haig had just told Wilson that he did

not fear a German attack.

Hankey mirrored their skepticism when he wrote in

his diary: “Haig and Pétain made asses of themselves by absurd, panicky

statements in regard to their man-power.”

On the following day Foch put Lloyd George on the defensive when he delivered

a bitter tirade against the British for not providing their fair share of men. Lloyd

George responded heatedly to this charge, emphasizing the heavy casualties

suffered by the British army and the essential services in shipping, coal, etc., that

Britain was providing her allies. He then appealed to Clemenceau to stop Foch’s

intervention in what was solely the business of the British government. Foch was

silenced but tempers were hardly cooled because Clemenceau then linked Lloyd

George’s Turkish plans with the declining manpower of the British and French.

How, he wanted to know, could Lloyd George support a “side show” when Paris

itself was menaced? Lloyd George’s response was to argue that “the Allies were

in the West taking risks considerably less than had been taken by the Germans on

the same front during the war.” Did Clemenceau seriously propose that Jerusalem,

Baghdad, and Salonika be abandoned? After all, Haig only hoped to get two

divisions transferred to his forces if the Palestinian campaign was canceled.

In Hankey’s (and no doubt Lloyd George’s) view the “Tiger” had been gotten

to by the soldiers who wanted to “concentrate everything in the West.”

Robertson

was clearly delighted as he watched the “Tiger” sink his claws into the prime

minister. A stronger attack against Lloyd George’s strategy could not have been

delivered by Leo Maxse, he gleefully wrote Derby. “The P.M. was very badly

mauled and I never saw him look more knocked out.”

To win French approval for his Turkish campaign, Lloyd George promised that

not a single British soldier would be diverted from France to Palestine.

Furthermore, any action in Palestine would be delayed for two months to enable

the situation in the West to come into clear focus. But the Supreme War Council’s

tentative support was not gained before Wully had said his piece. When

Clemenceau turned to him for his opinion, he emphasized that a defensive posture

should be adopted in all secondary theaters. Mincing no words, he said that the

permanent military representatives’ recommendation was not “a practical plan,

and that to attempt it would be very dangerous and detrimental to our prospects

of winning the war.”

Lloyd George was furious with Robertson and let him know

it after the meeting. But he had what he wanted—the Supreme War Council’s

stamp of approval for an offensive against Turkey.

Another question of even more explosive potential remained to be settled: the

general reserve and its command. On February 1, Robertson and Foch teamed up

to suggest that the general reserve should be controlled by the chiefs of staff from

COMMAND OF THE ALLIED GENERAL RESERVE 253

the British and French war offices and special repre sentatives from the United

States, Italy, and Belgium. Lloyd George, assisted by Wilson, who busily passed

him notes, resisted this proposal. Robertson, the Prime Minister artfully suggested,

was too busy with his work in London to direct the general reserve in an

emergency.

When the ministers adjourned for the day the question of the

command of the general reserve remained unresolved.

Fearing that Wilson was about to further undermine him by gaining execu

tive powers, Robertson immediately wrote the prime minister:

No British officer in France who is not a Member of the Army Council and

in direct touch with that body can have the necessary information as to the

state of the troops, the supply, munition, and medical situation and other

questions essential to the effective control of military operations. On these

questions I feel that both the Secretary of State for War and the Army

Council should be consulted, as they affect vitally the principles of command

and administration of our troops in the field.

4. There are also constitutional questions to be considered…. I do not

quite see how a British Commander-in-Chief can be made, constitutionally,

to obey the orders of an Allied body, or indeed of anyone except the Army

Council and the Secretary of State for War—a Minister of the Crown. If the

C.I.G.S. were made a Member of the Versailles body, as is proposed in the

case of General Foch, this difficulty could be more easily surmounted

perhaps.

Lloyd George, of course, remained adamantly opposed to giving Haig’s ally,

Robertson, any control over the general reserve. But he did not know exactly what

to propose as an alternative. Clemenceau had never really liked Versailles and the

acceptance of a true generalissimo over the opposition of Haig might bring down

his government. Wilson, whose opposition to a generalissimo had begun to waver,

especially if his friend Foch were chosen, rescued the prime minister from his

predicament. According to his formula, the permanent military representatives

would constitute an executive war board to direct the general reserve, with Foch,

who would replace Weygand, serving as the chairman of this body.

During

breakfast with Wilson, Hankey and Milner on the morning of the second, Lloyd

George seized upon this compromise, though one suspects that he did not like

giving Foch increased influence over Allied strategy. After all, Foch had just

violently attacked him over manpower and had been the most offensive-minded

general during the discussions of the campaign of 1918. But Lloyd George now

had little choice. The alternative seemed to be enhancing Robertson’s s and

emasculating Wilson’s position by accepting the C.I.G.S.’s proposal that he be

allowed to sit on the Executive War Board. Furthermore, the creation of an

executive war board chaired by Foch (with the reserves under his control he would

act virtually as the Allied commander in chief in the West) was a giant step toward

254 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS

creating the supreme commander which Lloyd George had long argued was

essential to the efficient conduct of the war.

After meeting privately with Clemenceau and Orlando, Lloyd George brought

tears to the eyes of the Allied statesmen with his explanation and defense of

Wilson’s scheme. Robertson and Haig wanted to cry but for different reasons.

Haig at once raised difficulties about the manner in which he would receive his

orders for the reserves behind his front. How could a foreign general under the

British constitution command British soldiers? The proper channel for his orders

was through the C.I.G.S. When Haig persisted in this argument, Lloyd George

silenced him by informing the council that he was acting with the full authority

of the War Cabinet. When the meeting broke up, a shattered Robertson, who had

remained silent during the discussion of the Executive War Board, remained

“sitting alone in his place, motionless, his head resting on his hand, glaring silently

in front of him.”

Because of Lloyd George’s willingness to elevate Foch, the thorny issue of the

extension of the British line was more easily resolved. Haig, strongly supported

by Lloyd George, argued against the acceptance of joint note 10. The upshot of

this discussion was that the principle of this joint note was accepted, but the timing

of the British takeover of more of the French line was to be worked out by Pétain

and Haig. This suited Haig because Pétain assured him in private that he had no

intention to “‘taquiner’ (worry) me over this.”

Subsequently this matter became

a dead issue and not one additional yard of trench beyond Barisis had been taken

over by the British when the German offensive began.

The outcome of the Supreme War Council’s deliberations represented a

considerable triumph for Lloyd George. His defensive policy in the West had been

ratified, with Foch’s policy of counteroffensives being toned down.

As for the

creation and command of the general reserve and an offensive to annihilate

Turkey, the British high command had been outmaneuvered.

Although Robertson had been floored at Versailles, Lloyd George knew that

he was not down for the count of ten. After the prime minister’s attempts to

diminish the authority of the high command at Calais and Rapallo, the C.I.G.S.

had returned to London to provoke ferment and unrest. He was sure to do so again

and the prime minister had to be apprehensive about the outcome, especially if

Haig and Derby linked arms with Wully. With the army leadership united against

him, the protective shield of the Supreme War Council might not be enough to

protect him from the charge of “interference” with the army. The War Office and

its supporters might also beat the drum of nationalism against the Executive War

Board. Repington’s menacing presence in Paris during the meeting of the Supreme

War Council had not gone unnoticed. “You must be prepared for a raging, tearing

press attack on your decisions over here beginning at once,” Amery warned him.

The success of any press campaign, Amery went on to write, would depend on

the cooperation it received from the War Office. To muzzle the soldiers, Amery

suggested that the War Office immediately be given new leadership. Lloyd George

COMMAND OF THE ALLIED GENERAL RESERVE 255

took this suggestion to heart, telling Hankey on the way back to London that he

wanted to make his ally Milner secretary of state for war.

Meanwhile, Robertson attempted to keep Derby firmly in his corner. To put

steel in his backbone, Wully finished a letter to him on the train to London which

accused Lloyd George of creating a French generalissimo and of removing Wilson

from the War Office’s control. “I do not know how or by whom powers are to be

delegated to an officer, not on the Army Council and not directly under you, to

issue orders to a Commander-in-Chief of about two million men…. Are you

prepared to be Wilson’s Minister and yet have no control over him?” To make

certain that Derby got the message, Robertson added in a postscript: “The Army,

the Army Council, the C.I.G.S. and Cs in Chief, will look to you, their Minister,

to see that they are not placed in an impossible, unfair, and unpractical position.”

Once in London, Wully also turned to his old ally, the king, warning him about

the “Versailles Soviet.”

On February 4, the battle over the command of the general reserve began when

Derby entered the cabinet room in a combative mood. He had had his fill of the

Welshman’s cunning, informing the prime minister in a memorandum: “I might

as well have been a dummy for all the advice I have been asked for…. It is

absolutely impossible for anybody in my position to accept such a situation. I am

perfectly certain the Country would not accept it.” When Lloyd George brought

up the creation of the Executive War Board, Derby withheld his support. Lloyd

George shot back that the War Cabinet, with Derby present, had given him full

authority to settle the question of the command of the general reserve and the

matter had been decided “unanimously by the Allied representatives” at Versailles.

He consequently expected the Army Council to implement this Allied decision in

good faith. To prevent a national debate over the issue, the War Cabinet then

informed the press bureau that no reference to “the formation or command of a

General Inter-Allied Reserve” should be allowed past the censor.

Encouraged by Derby and Robertson, the Army Council refused to be buffaloed.

The Executive War Board as constituted, it charged, put Haig in “an impossible

position” because he had been placed under two authorities, Foch and the Army

Council. Furthermore, the arrangement was unconstitutional because it ignored

the prerogatives of the Army Council, the governing board of the army.

With Derby and the Army Council backing Robertson, Haig’s position was

crucial for Lloyd George. At the Supreme War Council meeting, after asking how

he was to receive his orders, the field marshal had lapsed into dignified silence.

Immediately after the Supreme War Council adjourned, Esher found him “quite

undisturbed by the Versailles Resolutions.”

What explains the different reactions

of Haig and Robertson? Haig, of course, disliked strife between the civil and

military authorities and at times had served as peacemaker. But this alone does

not explain his position. Having made it clear to his government that he had no

divisions of his own to spare, he thought that the general reserve might result in

the transfer of British divisions from Italy, Salonika, and elsewhere to the West.

He also believed that the new Versailles machinery was “so big & clumsy” that

256 LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS