Woodward D. Lloyd George and the Generals
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
present Government. That is the real issue which members will have before
them tomorrow. The unity which has hitherto been preserved in the face of
the enemy is threatened, and at a moment of unparalled danger we look like
being involved in a storm of internal dissension. It is a situation which must
give every patriotic man occasion for the most severe self-examination and
discipline.
89
Still, Asquith wanted answers and he supported the appointment of a select
committee to investigate Maurice’s charges.
After lengthy discussion within the War Cabinet about the best method of
dealing with Maurice’s allegations, Lloyd George decided against a select
committee. On May 8 he told the War Cabinet that such a committee would be
“perfectly useless” and would only lead to a “Party wrangle.”
90
His method of
handling the Maurice letter was through a statement to the House. A considerable
advantage for Lloyd George in following this course was that he would force the
House to make a choice between himself and Asquith. In truth, the violent
opposition to Asquith and the “Old Gang” in many quarters was Lloyd George’s
greatest strength. A campaign had already been launched in Fleet Street against
what the Evening News unfairly called “THE ASQUITH OFFENSIVE.”
91
With
no justification, Asquith’s enemies in the press continued to associate all of Lloyd
George’s opponents with the “pacifists.” This tended to divert attention from the
fundamental issue. Maurice’s serious charges, which implied that the government
was incompetent, not Asquith’s political fortunes, were the issue. Another reason
for Lloyd George’s willingness to make his stand in the House was that he was
reasonably confident that he could parry Maurice’s allegations. The indefatigable
Hankey had prepared a superb brief during the afternoon and early evening of
May 7 which gave Lloyd George a plausible defense with the exception of the
obvious mistake concerning the number of white divisions in Egypt and
Palestine.
92
Although certainly not suggested by Hankey, Lloyd George had decided to
build his defense around Under-Secretary for War Macpherson’s response to the
Baring question on April 18. Macpherson’s incorrect returns, which had been
produced in the adjutant general’s department and given him by Maurice’s deputy,
were as follows
93
:
Combatant Strength in France Ration Strength in France
January 1, 1917 1,253,000 1,530,000
January 1, 1918 1,298,000 1,832,000
Since these figures had passed through Maurice’s department, Lloyd George
appeared to have an iron-clad case against the former D.M.O.Maurice’s most
explosive charge that the government had failed to support Haig could be shown
to be false using the figures furnished by his own department. There was only one
LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 297
thing wrong with this defense. P.de B.Radcliffe, the new D.M.O., sent corrected
figures from the adjutant general to Lloyd George’s secretary, Philip Kerr, on May
8 which painted a quite different picture of Haig’s situation at the beginning of
1918. The new returns read as follows
94
:
Fighting Troops Nonfighting Troops
British Coloured (Indian Cavalry) British Coloured
January 1917 1,069,831 8,876 217, 533 2,704
January 1918 969, 283 11,544 295, 334 2,256
Labour (Labour corps did not exist until
mid-1917)
Total Effectives
British Coloured
January 1917 ——— ——— 1,298,944
January 1918 190, 197 108, 203 1,576,817
This was actually the second copy of the adjutant general’s revised returns on
British troop strength in France to reach the government before Lloyd George’s
speech to Parliament. On May 7, the adjutant general sent the above returns to
Hankey; and the secretary of the War Cabinet relied on these revised statistics
which corrected Macpherson’s mistaken returns when he prepared Lloyd George’s
defense on May 7, noting: “I frankly admit that the rifle strength of the Army [in
January 1918] had been decreased by [figure omitted by Hankey] bayonets.”
95
The whole episode becomes curiouser and curiouser because of what has been
called the “lost box” by Beaverbrook in his Men and Power, 1917– 1918. On
October 5, 1934, Miss Stevenson, who was assisting Lloyd George in the writing
of his memoirs, wrote the following in her diary:
Have been reading up the events connected with the Maurice Debate in order
to help D. with this Chapter in Vol. V, and am uneasy in my mind about an
incident which occurred at the time & which is known only to J.T.Davies
& myself. D. obtained from the W.O. the figures which he used in his
statement on April 9th in the House of Commons on the subject of man-
power. These figures were afterwards stated by Gen. Maurice to be
inaccurate. I was in J.T.Davies’ room a few days after the statement [she
must mean the May 9 Maurice debate], & J.T. was sorting our red dispatch
boxes to be returned to the Departments. As was his wont, he looked in them
before locking them up & sending them out to the Messengers. Pulling out
a W.O. box, he found in it, to his great astonishment, a paper from the
D.M.O. containing modifications & corrections to the first figures they had
sent, & by some mischance this box had remained unopened. J.T. & I
examined it in dismay, & then J.T. put it in the fire, remarking, “Only you
& I, Frances, know of the existence of this paper.”
96
298 THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE AND THE MAURICE DEBATE
One theory is that Davies destroyed the adjutant general’s report sent to Hankey
on May 7 rather than any paper from the D.M.O. as Miss Stevenson thought.
97
But this cannot be correct, for Hankey obviously received the revised statistics
and made use of them. The D.M.O. report Miss Stevenson refers to must have
been Radcliffe’s note to Kerr (with the adjutant general’s most recent returns),
which was the first communication from the department of the D.M.O. to the
government correcting Macpherson’s April 18 statement to Parliament. A copy,
not the original, of Radcliffe’s correspondence with Kerr exists in the Lloyd
George Papers today.
The “lost box” mystery is actually of little significance because it is now known
without question that Lloyd George knew that Macpherson’s figures were wrong
when he used them to discredit Maurice in Parliament on May 9. After listening
to Lloyd George’s speech, Hankey made this comment in his diary: “While he
had figures from the D.M.O.’s Dept. showing that the fighting strength of the army
had increased from 1 Jan. 1917 to 1918, he had the Adjutant General’s figures
saying the precise contrary, but was discreetly silent about them.”
98
In Lloyd George’s defense, he no doubt smelled a rat when the revised returns
were produced by the adjutant general on the very day that Maurice lit his political
bomb in the press. Why, he must have asked himself, had the adjutant general
waited until this moment to admit his department’s error and supply the
government with information which seemed designed to support Maurice’s
allegations? Lloyd George surely placed as much faith in the new returns as he
did in the often distorted statistics furnished by the War Office in the past. After
all, the adjutant general had done more than subtract 86,000 troops in Italy which
had been incorrectly added to Haig’s strength in January 1918. If this alone had
been done, Haig’s corrected “combatant strength” was 1,212,000 in January 1918,
down 41,000 from January 1917. However, by placing artillerymen, machine-
gunners, tankers, etc. with Haig’s “nonfighting troops,” it now appeared that Haig
had only 969, 383, “fighting” troops in January 1918, down approximately 100,
000 men from January 1917. Adjutant General Macready’s distinction between
Haig’s “non-fighting” and “fighting” (or infantry) strength was dubious, to say
the least. Fighting for his survival against what he thought was a military
conspiracy which had been brewing for some time, Lloyd George chose to
suppress the adjutant general’s new returns of May 7 and stick to the numbers
supplied by his department in mid-April to Macpherson for his statement in
Parliament. He might have made a strong case by challenging the War Office’s
narrow interpretation of Haig’s “fighting” strength. But a serious flaw in the
Welshman’s character was that he was often devious when forthrightness would
have served him just as well if not better.
After rehearsing his speech in front of Milner, Austen Chamberlain, who had
recently joined the War Cabinet, Hankey, and Kerr, Lloyd George put his case to
Parliament. At a little before 4:00 P.M. Asquith opened the debate. Instead of
focusing on Maurice’s charges, Asquith chose to explain why he wanted a select
committee in a long and lifeless speech. Then it was time for Lloyd George to
LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 299
stand up and do some rhetorical prizefighting. Taking the offensive, he rained
blows upon Maurice, using almost every trick he knew to discredit him. His most
devastating point was that the government’s comparison of Haig’s strength at the
beginning of 1917 and 1918 had been handed to Macpherson by Maurice’s own
department.
Lloyd George made it clear that he considered the motion for a select committee
a vote of censure. If the motion carried, Asquith would be returned to power. The
prime minister finished his brilliant, though distorted, speech with a passionate
appeal for national unity and an end to the bickering.
I have just come back from France. I met some generals and they were telling
me how now the Germans are silently, silently, preparing perhaps the biggest
blow of the War, under a shroud of mist, and they asked me for certain help.
I brought home a list of the things they wanted done, and I wished to attend
to them. I really beg and implore, for our common country, the fate of which
is in the balance now and in the next few weeks, that there should be an end
of this sniping.
99
The stunned opposition was virtually speechless. When the bell rang for a division
of the House on the motion for a select committee, Lloyd George was assured of
his greatest triumph in Parliament; when the votes were tallied, he had won by the
wide margin of 293 to 106. There would be no select committee and no
investigation of Maurice’s charges.
A few days after this momentous debate, Lloyd George talked with Riddell
about the political intrigues against him. “I can play that game as well as, if not
better than, they can—in fact I have done so…I don’t know about the wisdom of
the dove, but I have some of the craftiness of the serpent.”
100
No one would have
agreed with this more than Maurice. The end, rather than the means, mattered
most to Lloyd George; and there can be no question that Lloyd George lied to the
House to destroy Maurice’s credibility. What must not be forgotten, however, is
that the thrust of Maurice’s charges was that the government was responsible for
the setbacks of the army. This was based on the crude and one-sided view that the
Germans broke through because Haig did not have enough men to defend his
sector. If Maurice’s version became accepted as fact by the public, it would mean
the ruination of Lloyd George’s government.
Far from being weakened by the Maurice affair, Lloyd George emerged from
his smashing success in Parliament politically more secure than ever before. For
the rest of the war he had little to fear from Parliament or Asquith. During the next
few days he attempted to consolidate his ascendancy in British military policy.
Before the Maurice debate, he had eased Derby, the army’s friend, out of the War
Office, sending him to Paris as the British ambassador in mid-April.
101
Now, with
Milner as secretary of state for war and Wilson as C.I.G.S., the door of the War
Office was wide open to him, and he moved to exploit the broken defenses of the
army. On May 14, he told his colleagues that the examination of military questions
300 THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE AND THE MAURICE DEBATE
took up too much of the time of the War Cabinet; consequently he proposed to
meet with Milner and Wilson and the appropriate military authorities to make
inquiries into military questions, reporting when necessary the facts to the War
Cabinet, which would now begin thirty minutes later than in the past.
102
The first of the secret meetings of the so-called “X” Committee took place in
the War Office.
103
How symbolic of Lloyd George’s intentions. At long last he
seemed to be in a position to play the captain of war. Although later meetings took
place at 10 Downing Street, the primary purpose of the “X” Committee, which
served to exclude the other members of the War Cabinet from military policy, was
to examine the existing military situation and chart future British strategy.
One change which Wilson urged upon Lloyd George, the recall of Haig, was
not implemented. Although French had been sent to Ireland in preparation for the
appointment of Haig as commander in chief of the home forces, Lloyd George
apparently hoped to avoid another controversy so soon after the Maurice debate.
At the second meeting of the “X” Committee, it was decided to inform Parliament
that no change was contemplated in the command of the British Expeditionary
Forces.
104
The massive German onslaught in the West, although it had forced the
government to withdraw troops from the periphery, had not converted the
“Easterners” into “Westerners.” To the contrary, Ludendorff’s offensives, which
had failed to break down Allied resistance but had resulted in huge losses to
attacked and attacker alike, reinforced the belief of Lloyd George and many of his
colleagues that a great offensive by Haig’s declining forces was impossible in
1918. Amery, who often assisted Hankey in his secretarial duties at the “X”
Committee meetings, wrote a memorandum, “Future Military Policy,” dated May
22, which suggested that the government must not ignore the East even though
Allenby’s offensive had been canceled and many of his white troops transferred
to the West. “For the next eighteen months at least the only theatre in which the
Allies can take the strategical initiative is in the East,” he argued. Once the situation
in the West had been stabilized, Amery wanted British divisions sent to Palestine
from France to enable Allenby to launch his offensive.
105
Despite the great German
effort in France, many ministers kept a watchful eye on the enemy in the East.
Even though the general staff was confident that India was safe for the moment,
106
the Germans seemed determined to exploit their position in Russia. To keep
Russia’s manpower, wheat, and oil from falling into the hands of Berlin, the British
looked to America and Japan for assistance in stopping the field-grey tide from
flowing across the old tsarist empire.
On May 27, Wilson seemed ready to put the authority of the general staff behind
this peripheral strategy. The Allies had approximately four more anxious months
in France, he told Milner and Lloyd George, while American reinforcements
gradually tipped the scales in their favor. By late 1918 or early 1919, however,
the Allies would not yet possess sufficient strength to attempt a decisive battle.
“We must indulge in no operations of the Passchendaele type in this period,” he
said to the immense satisfaction of Lloyd George. “Consequently, between the
LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 301
time when our anxieties had been relieved and we would be able to strike a decisive
blow in the Western front, a long period must exist. He was examining the situation
on the basis that this period might be employed for striking a blow in one or other
of the outlying theatres.”
107
As Wilson, Milner, and Lloyd George plotted future strategy, the Germans
launched their third great offensive. This time they drove through French trenches
on the Chemin des Dames where five exhausted British divisions had been sent
to this supposedly “quiet” sector to recuperate. Like a tired heavyweight boxer
behind on points in the last round, Ludendorff was swinging wildly attempting to
deliver a knock-out punch. On a twentyfive-mile front, the Germans once again
surged forward, covering an astonishing ten miles the first day.
The German offensive confronted the Anglo-French forces with their greatest
crisis since the Germans were bearing down on Paris in 1914. Victory seemed
further away than ever. “Writing now, before breakfast,” Wilson recorded in his
diary on June 1, “I find it difficult to realize that there is a possibility, perhaps a
probability, of the French Army being beaten. What would this mean? The
destruction of our army in France? In Italy? In Salonika? What of Palestine and
Mesopotamia, India, Siberia and the sea? What of Archangel and America?”
108
During the next anxious weeks, Lloyd George never abandoned hope of winning
an overwhelming victory over the enemy. As usual, however, he wished to travel
a different road to victory from that of the British high command.
NOTES
1. National Review 71 (March 1918): 33–34.
2. Churchill, World Crisis, 4:110.
3. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 2:1688 and 1715.
4. Wilson, like Lloyd George, saw no hope of breaking through the German defenses
in 1918. His formula for success in 1919 was a massive tank assault rather than
human-wave attacks. Cabinet Paper G.T. 3969 of March 19, 1918, CAB 24/45.
5. War Cabinet (351A), February 21, 1918, CAB 23/13.
6. Ibid. (358A and 360A), March 4 and 6, 1918, CAB 23/13. This order was canceled
when the German offensive began.
7. Fischer, Germany’s Aims in First World War, p. 550.
8. Richard Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917–1921, vol. 1: Intervention and the
War (1961), p. 304.
9. Milner to Wilson, March 5, 1918, Wilson MSS, file no. 11. Also see the alarmist
“Weekly Report on Turkey & Other Moslem Countries,” Cabinet Paper G.T. 3836
of March 6, 1918, CAB 24/44.
10. Cabinet Paper G.T. 3840 of March 7, 1918, CAB 24/44.
11. Memorandum by Wilson, n.d., W.O. 106/982. Also see War Cabinet (362), March
8, 1918, CAB 23/5, and Amery to Lloyd George (“Notes on policy in Persia and
Transcausia,” March 14, 1918, inclosed), March 15, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/2/
1/16.
12. Milner to Lloyd George, March 20, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/38/3/20.
302 THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE AND THE MAURICE DEBATE
13. Amery, “Unity of Operations in the East,” March 20, 1918, CAB 25/72.
14. Milner to Lloyd George, March 20, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/38/3/20.
15. Wilson Diary, March 18, 1918, Haig to Lady Haig, March 20, 1918, Haig MSS, no.
150, and Haig Diary, March 2, 1918, no. 124.
16. War Cabinet (363–65), March 11–13, 1918, CAB 23/5, and Wilson Diary, March
16 and 20, 1918.
17. Fischer, Germany’s Aims in First World War, pp. 429–624, and Hajo Holborn, A
History of Modern Germany, 1840–1945 (1969), pp. 487–94.
18. Correlli Barnett, The Swordbearers: Studies in Supreme Command in the First World
War (1963), p. 279, and Brigadier-General James E.Edmonds, A Short History of
World War I (1951), p. 281.
19. Barnett, Swordbearers, p. 309, and Martin Middlebrook, The Kaiser’s Battle 21
March 1918: The First Day of the German Spring Offensive (1978).
20. Middlebrook, Kaiser’s Battle, pp. 308–22. According to Middlebrook, German dead
and wounded on this day were more than double the British dead and wounded.
When 21,000 British prisoners are added, however, the losses suffered by the British
and Germans were almost identical.
21. War Cabinet (369), March 21, 1918, CAB 23/5.
22. Ibid. (370), March 22, 1918, CAB 23/5.
23. Lloyd George believed that the 88,000 troops (10,000 from the Fifth Army) on leave
in Britain were not counted by the War Office. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 2:1730.
On the other hand, the rifle strength of the Allies included Americans (49,000),
Belgians (58,000) and Portuguese (26,000). The Germans now had 191 divisions to
165 for the Allies. Given the superiority of German soldiers to the Belgians,
Portuguese, and untried Americans, it is difficult to accept Wilson’s contention at
this time that “for purposes of calculating, the present forces might be reckoned as
approximately equal.” War Cabinet (371), March 23, CAB 23/5.
24. War Cabinet (371), March 23, 1918, CAB 23/5.
25. Ibid. (372), March 25, 1918, CAB 23/5.
26. Haig Diary, March 24, 1918, no. 124.
27. Ibid., March 26, 1918, no. 124, Wilson Diary, March 26, 1918, and “Memorandum
by Lord Milner on his Visit to France, including the Conference at Doullens, March
26, 1918,” CAB 28/3/I.C.-53.
28. War Cabinet (375–76), March 27–28, 1918, CAB 23/5.
29. Milner to Lloyd George, March 28, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/38/3/22.
30. War Cabinet (377), March 29, 1918, CAB 23/5, and Robertson, Soldiers and
Statesmen, 1:331.
31. Churchill to Lloyd George, April 2, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/8/2/18, and
Memoirs of Marshal Foch, pp. 272–73.
32. Author’s italics. War Cabinet (380), April 2, 1918, CAB 23/6. Repington, for
example, gave his wholehearted approval to the elevation of Foch. Morning Post,
April 1, 1918.
33. Major-General C.E.Callwell, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries.
2 vols. (1927), 2:84.
34. War Cabinet (377), March 29, 1918, CAB 23/5.
35. Maurice Diary, April 1–2, 1918, 4/3.
36. Entry of April 3, 1918, Wilson: Life and Diaries, 2:86.
37. Allied Conference, April 3, 1918, CAB 28/3/I.C.-55a.
LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 303
38. Ibid., Sackville-West to Wilson, April 8, 1918, Wilson MSS, file 12 B, and War
Cabinet (387), April 9, 1918, CAB 23/6.
39. Memoirs of Marshal Foch, pp. 276–77.
40. Cox, “Note on the German Offensive,” March 31, 1918, Haig MSS, no. 124.
41. Haig Diary, March 31, 1918, no. 124.
42. Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1918, 1: vii.
43. Barnett, Swordbearers, p. 297.
44. “Talk with Lloyd George and General Sir Hubert Gough,” November 28, 1935,
Liddell Hart MSS, 11/1935/107. Also see Liddell Hart, Fog of War, pp. 272–76.
45. Barnett, Swordbearers, pp. 297–99, and Liddell Hart, Fog of War, pp. 274–75.
46. Daily News, April 9, 1918, Globe, April 8, 1918, and Star, April 8, 1918.
47. War Cabinet (382A), April 4, 1918, CAB 23/14, and Wilson Diary, April 4, 1918.
48. Haig to Derby, April 6, 1918, Derby MSS, 920 (17).
49. Wilson freely accepted responsibility for this mistake in his diary entry of May 8,
1918. On March 23, War Cabinet (371), CAB 23/5, he told the ministers that the
British had three white divisions in Egypt—not in Egypt and Palestine. On March
27, War Cabinet (374A), CAB 23/14, however, he asserted that Allenby “had under
his command three Divisions of white troops,” two of which should be withdrawn
from the line to send to France if necessary. On the other hand, there is a letter in
the Lloyd George Papers (F/47/7/20) from the prime minister to Wilson, dated March
29, 1918, requesting information on the number of white infantry in Egypt and
Palestine. It is minuted “Not seen by C.I.G.S.” A statement, “Rifle Strength of White
Infantry—Egyptian Expeditionary Force—Egypt and Palestine,” dated March 29,
1918, giving the number of white infantry in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (96,
135, including 1,764 French and 398 Italians), was returned. Hence, Lloyd George
almost certainly had the correct figures when he gave his speech, allowing Wilson,
who did not know that the War Office had furnished Lloyd George with the facts,
to take the blame.
50. Hankey to Lloyd George, April 8, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/235.
51. H.C.Deb., 5th series, vol. 104 (April 9, 1918).
52. War Cabinet (387), April 9, 1918, CAB 23/6.
53. Memorandum by Macdonogh, April 10, 1918, W.O. 106/982.
54. Terraine, Haig: Educated Soldier, pp. 426–27.
55. Jere Clemens King, Generals and Politicians: Conflict between France’s High
Command, Parliament and Government, 1914–1918 (1951), p. 219; Esher warned
Lloyd George: “I urge you not to put your faith in Clemenceau. He will always put
France before England: and he cannot be blamed.” Esher to Lloyd George, April 13,
1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/16/1/24.
56. War Cabinet (383 and 386), April 5 and 8, 1918, CAB 23/6, Lloyd George to
Clemenceau, April 4 (and via British Section, Versailles), April 5, 1918, Lloyd
George MSS, F/50/2/18–19, and Clemenceau to Lloyd George, April 7, 1918, Lloyd
George MSS, F/50/2/24.
57. Haig Diary, April 8, 1918, no. 125.
58. Cruttwell, History of the Great War, pp. 519–20.
59. War Cabinet (393), April 17, 1918, CAB 23/6.
60. Ibid. (389A), April 11, 1918, CAB 23/14, and (391), April 15, 1918, CAB 23/6. Also
see Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 2:1749–50.
61. Haig to Derby, April 7, 1918, War Cabinet (388A), April 16, 1918, CAB 23/14.
304 THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE AND THE MAURICE DEBATE
62. Memorandum by Milner, April 29, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/210/2/31.
63. Derby to Balfour, May 1, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/52/1/31.
64. Supreme War Council, May 1, 1918, CAB 28/3/I.C.-57.
65. War Cabinet (393), April 17, 1918, CAB 23/6.
66. H.C.Deb., 5th series, vol. 105 (April 18, 1918).
67. Wilson Diary, April 20, 1918, and Esher Diary, April 18, 1918, 2/21.
68. War Cabinet (396), April 22, 1918, CAB 23/6. It should be noted that the general
staff had been keeping the War Cabinet fully and accurately informed of the new
German divisions as they arrived on the western front from the East.
69. Wilson Diary, April 22, 1918.
70. Lloyd George to Milner, April 24, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/38/3/25.
71. There is some confusion about when Maurice officially gave up his duties as D.M.O.
He asserts that he left the War Office on the twentieth to go on leave that he had
accumulated, but Hankey still lists him as D.M.O. in the War Cabinet minutes as
late as April 23.
72. The student who desires to probe this controversy of numbers in more depth should
consult Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 2:1781–84, War Cabinet (396), April 22, 1918,
CAB 23/6, and Maurice, Maurice Case, pp. 164–68.
73. War Cabinet (397), April 23, 1918, CAB 23/6, and Hankey to Lloyd George
(“Summary of proceedings of the War Cabinet & Supreme War Council in regard
to the extension of the British line in France,” April 22, 1918, inclosed), April 22,
1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/23/2/31.
74. H.C.Deb., 5th series, vol. 105 (April 23, 1918).
75. Derby and Haig certainly did not accept the excessive subtlety of Bonar Law’s
response in Parliament. Haig gave Milner a note when he visited general
headquarters on April 28 which emphasized that he had always opposed the principle
of extending his line. Also, Derby, who incorrectly believed that the Supreme War
Council had been forced to order Haig to extend his line to Barisis, fired off an angry
letter to Milner, accusing the War Cabinet of attempting to shift all responsibility to
Haig and Pétain. See Haig Diary, April 28, 1918, no. 126, and Derby to Milner, May
7, 1918, Milner MSS, C. 696/2.
76. Robertson to Maurice, May 4, 1918, Maurice MSS, 4/5/24.
77. Wilson Diary, May 7, 1918.
78. “Intrigues of the War” first appeared in a series of articles in Westminster Gazette
and later in a pamphlet (1922). See Maurice Diary, April 9, 1918, 4/3.
79. See, for example, Times (London) and Morning Post, April 10, 1918.
80. John Gooch, “The Maurice Debate 1918,” Journal of Contemporary History 3
(October 1968): 211–28.
81. Maurice, Maurice Case; and Timothy Crandall Sullivan, ‘The General and the Prime
Minister: Henry Wilson and David Lloyd George in War and Peace, 1918–1922”
(Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1973), p. 110.
82. Repington, First World War, 1914–1918, 2:296.
83. See, for example, the leading article, ‘THE RESPONSIBILITY OF MR.
ASQUITH,” in the Nation, April 27, 1918.
84. Gwynne to Asquith, May 6, 1918, Gwynne MSS, 14.
85. Hankey Diary, May 8, 1918, 1/3.
86. Following the debate Maurice did, however, try to justify his actions to
A.G.Gardiner, the editor of the Daily News, who was waging a vendetta against the
LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 305
prime minister. Stephen Koss, Fleet Street Radical: A.G.Gardiner and the Daily
News (1973), pp. 239–40.
87. Esher to Wilson, May 1, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/47/7/24.
88. Gwynne to Asquith, May 8, 1918, Gwynne MSS, 14.
89. Westminster Gazette, May 8, 1918. Beaverbrook’s pen slips when he writes that the
Westminster Gazette called for the overthrow of Lloyd George’s ministry on this
date. See his Men and Power, 1917–1918, p. 254.
90. War Cabinet (406–7), May 7–8, 1918, CAB 23/6.
91. Evening News, May 8, 1918.
92. “Copy extracted from Hankey’s magnum opus,” May 8, 1918, Lloyd George MSS,
F/235. See also Roskill, 1877–1918, pp. 540–42.
93. War Cabinet (407), May 8, 1918, CAB 23/6.
94. P.de B.Radcliffe to Kerr (adjutant general’s statement, May 7, 1918, inclosed), May
8, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/235.
95. “Copy extracted from Hankey’s magnum opus,” May 8, 1918, Lloyd George MSS/
F/235.
96. Entry of October 5, 1934, A Diary by Frances Stevenson, p. 281.
97. Maurice, Maurice Case, pp. 171–75.
98. Hankey Diary, May 9, 1918, 1/3.
99. H.C.Deb., 5th series, vol. 105 (May 9, 1918).
100. Entry of May ?, 1918, Lord Riddell’s War Diary, p. 330.
101. See Hankey Diary, April 17, 1918, 1/3, Derby to Lloyd George, April 16, 1918,
Lloyd George MSS, F/14/5/16, Milner to Lloyd George, April 13, 1918, Lloyd
George MSS, F/38/3/23, and Amery to Lloyd George, April 14, 1918, Lloyd George
MSS, F/2/1/17.
102. War Cabinet (411), May 14, 1918, CAB 23/6.
103. “X” Committee (1), May 15, 1918, CAB 23/17.
104. Ibid. (2), May 16, 1918, CAB 23/17, and Wilson Diary, May 10, 1918.
105. Amery, “Future Military Policy,” May 22, 1918, Milner MSS, dep. 372.
106. Wilson, “Security of India,” April 30, 1918, W.O. 106/314, and Eastern Committee
(7), May 6, 1918, CAB 27/24.
107. “X” Committee (4), May 27, 1918, CAB 23/17.
108. Entry of June 1, 1918, Wilson: Life and Diaries, 2:103.
306 THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE AND THE MAURICE DEBATE