Woodward D. Lloyd George and the Generals

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terms that it was unwise to demand severe terms from Germany. A continuation

of the war might not be worth the price in blood the British would have to pay and

a harsh peace would leave Germany humiliated and longing for revenge.

By mid-August, the Committee of Prime Ministers had a preliminary draft

report on future military policy and strategy before them. Lloyd George’s position

on the manpower situation of the empire held center stage, with the preliminary

draft report prepared by Hankey emphasizing:

At the present stage of the War, man-power has become the controlling

factor on the handling of which victory or defeat may depend.… the

husbanding of our man-power has become a consideration on which the

whole future of our Empire depends…. Consequently, it is not only the right

but the duty of the Government to assure itself that operations involving the

probability of heavy casualties are not embarked on unless they give a

probability of producing commensurate results on the final issues of the War

and without wrecking the future of the Empire…. The Government, indeed,

is in the position of a Board of Directors who have to insist that before

committing the resources of the company in some great enterprise they shall

be fully apprised of its prospects, cost, and consequences.

After breakfasting with the prime minister on August 16, the dominion prime

ministers discussed the conclusions of this paper. The difficulties involved in

Lloyd George’s scheme of delaying a bid for victory in the West until 1920 and

reducing Haig’s army (the figure was now thirty-six divisions which included the

dominion forces and five divisions of category “B” men) in order to maintain

Britain’s war plant and fight in other theaters were highlighted. Once again it was

emphasized that, even if the Allied armies held together until 1920, public support

for the continuation of the war might have collapsed by then. Also, how could the

British Empire defend itself against the charge that it was letting its allies down

by limiting its role in the bloody trenches in France? “MR. HUGHES said it was

obvious that the position would be very delicate as regards our Allies. It would be

difficult to tell France and our other Allies that we now preferred to look after

ourselves and to draw the line as to the number of troops we would place at stake.”

Exactly how difficult such an imperial strategy would be was indicated most

forcefully to Lloyd George in a letter he received two days later from Clemenceau,

which accused the British Empire of admitting, in so many words, that it had

“arrived at end of sacrifices which it could make in common cause.”

In the end, the imperial leaders were forced to admit that there was little

likelihood that they could escape Britain’s commitment to the costly Continental

war without seriously damaging the anti-German coalition. Wilson’s principle

that Britain should make preparations for a supreme effort in the West in 1919

was accepted, but final approval of any offensive was withheld. On the other hand,

Lloyd George remained determined to reduce Haig’s forces, and he made it clear

that he only acquiesced in this decision because he “held the view that the Western

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 327

front included Italy,” where he, Milner, Smuts, and Borden believed that Allied

prospects were far more promising than in France. The imperial leaders also

refused to accept the General Staff s position that nothing big should be attempted

in Palestine or that an autumn offensive in Italy was not feasible.

This draft report was never signed because the course of the war in the West

and East very quickly made the discussions of the Committee of Prime Ministers

academic. How fortunate! The continued strong interest of Lloyd George and

others in military operations away from France and their desire to limit the British

commitment to France to thirty-six divisions, filling the gaps in the British line

with Americans, might have destroyed the concept of a generalissimo, if not the

alliance.

Following the success of British arms at Amiens, there was a pause in the

offensive. To keep the pressure on the enemy, Foch urged Haig to keep pushing

Rawlinson’s Fourth Army and the French First Army forward on the Roye-

Chaulnes front. Haig, when informed by Rawlinson that the position Foch wanted

to attack was strongly defended and casualties were bound to be heavy, ignored

this order. On August 15, he drove to Foch’s headquarters for a showdown. When

Foch at first persisted, Haig informed him that he “was responsible to my

Government and fellow citizens for the handling of the British forces.”

Haig’s

successful stand against Foch made it abundantly clear thereafter that the

commander in chief of the British army was not a compliant instrument of the

generalissimo. When the offensive resumed on August 21, it was Haig’s strategy

which prevailed over Foch’s. Foch desired a series of frontal assaults to drive the

Germans back to the Hindenburg Line as rapidly as possible. Haig, however,

favored a great turning movement.

In opposition to the general staff and civilians, Haig wanted the British to do

their “utmost to get a decision this autumn,”

a policy that put him on a collision

course with the prime minister who now thought victory impossible in the West

until 1920, and then only with the Americans doing most of the fighting. At this

very moment, Macdonogh was telling the members of the War Cabinet and the

dominion prime ministers that he did not think that Foch and Haig “had any big

objective in view.” Their military operations “were more a tapping of the enemy’s

weak points than anything else.”

As the Allied forces continued to advance along

a broad front, Wilson did everything possible to assure the ministers that the British

armies “were now confronted with a different situation from that which had

obtained at Passchendaele.” British losses “were remarkably slight, the fighting

having been of the nature of advance-guard and rear-guard fighting, and not a

general battle attack.”

As Haig approached the formidable Hindenburg Line, anxiety grew in London

that the period of “cheap” advances was coming to an end. On August 31, Lloyd

George, Bonar Law, Milner, and Wilson discussed Foch’s desire to continue the

offensive. Although Wilson pointed out that Haig “did not mean to press his

operations if they involved heavy casualties,” the politicians were skeptical. Haig

had displayed little interest in economizing his losses in 1916 and 1917 and they

328 THE UNCERTAIN ROAD TO VICTORY

feared that he would continue his attacks with little or no regard for the cost.

Concern was also expressed that he would misuse the American divisions still

under his command, thereby discouraging Pershing from sending any more troops

to the British sector. On Lloyd George’s initiative, Wilson was instructed to

telegraph immediately “Field Marshal Haig warning him that the War Cabinet

would not approve of attacks on the Hindenburg line involving heavy casualties

whether to British or American troops.”

When Haig received this message marked “H. W. Personal” on the morning of

September 1, he was infuriated. Was this his reward for a superbly conducted

campaign? “It is impossible for a C.I.G.S. to send a telegram of this nature to a

C.-in-C. in the Field as a ‘personal one’,” he noted in his diary. “The Cabinet are

ready to meddle and interfere in my plans in an underhand-way, but do not dare

openly to say that they mean to take the responsibility for any failure though ready

to take credit for every success!”

In his memoirs, Lloyd George denies all

responsibility for this telegram: “As to the casualty warning, Sir Henry Wilson

acted entirely on his own initiative on this occasion.… I cannot account for Sir

Henry Wilson’s letter [sic] to Haig.”

This, alas, was incorrect as the minutes of

the “X” Committee conclusively prove.

Lloyd George’s attitude toward an offensive against Bulgaria was quite

different from any attempt to storm the Hindenburg Line. Although the War Office

was unenthusiastic about an offensive by the Eastern Army, now reinforced by

the Greeks, Paris favored an attempt to knock Bulgaria out of the war.

General

Guillaumat, who had been replaced by the capable Fran chet d’Espèrey as

commander in chief of the Eastern Army, arrived in London in early September

to win British support for a Balkan assault. After listening to a glowing report by

Guillaumat concerning the potential of the Eastern Army, Lloyd George gave his

approval.

Hankey, who was not present, has written that “this was one of the

rare cases in which Lloyd George actually overruled his own military adviser.”

This is incorrect. Although Wilson was not very enthusiastic about the proposed

offensive, he agreed that it should be attempted.

September was the most encouraging month of the war yet for the Allies. On

the fifteenth, Franchet d’Espèrey’s Eastern Army attacked, cutting the Bulgarian

forces in half and putting them to flight. Four days later “Bull” Allenby, his white

infantry lost to France replaced by two Indian divisions from Mesopotamia, began

an attack which has been called by Liddell Hart “both one of the most quickly

decisive campaigns and the most completely decisive battles in all history.”

Enjoying a superiority of perhaps 2 to 1 in infantry, 8 to 1 in cavalry, and 3 to 2

in guns, Allenby implemented the plan he and Smuts had devised in early 1918.

100

His major departure from the South African’s strategy was that he broke through

along the sea rather than inland. The Turkish forces in front of him were rapidly

destroyed and he was off to Damascus, reaching that city by October 1. Not

surprisingly, Lloyd George was determined to gain maximum exposure for these

twin triumphs in theaters so dear to his heart. Wilson was instructed to make certain

that the War Office’s lecture to the press about these “Eastern” successes “‘must

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 329

not be given by an unbalances [sic] orientalist, who does not know that there is

more than one point to the compass.’ “

101

In France, the month began with the Germans continuing to fall back to the

Hindenburg Line. Each new battle report by Wilson to the War Cabinet seemed

more optimistic. On September 3, he noted: “Captured documents showed that

the Germans were in a bad condition.” After the British penetrated the outer

defenses of the Hindenburg Line, the C.I.G.S.’s enthusiasm was unrestrained:

“The evidence of the last few weeks all tended to show that no line could now be

regarded as impregnable. Previously all soldiers had been agreed that no real

advance could be obtained on a narrow front, and that such an advance must be

made on a front of at least 20,000 yards, yet the Hindenburg Line had been broken

on a front of 3,000 yards.”

102

A great victory by the American First Army at the

St. Mihiel salient south of Verdun on September 12–13, which resulted in the

capture of 15,000 prisoners and 450 guns, was another encouraging omen. An

area held by the Germans for four years had been overrun in thirty hours.

In an effort to convince the civilians that the nature of the fighting had changed

and victory was within his grasp, Haig, on his own initiative, made a trip to London

to talk with Milner. Brimming over with enthusiasm and confidence, he told the

secretary of state for war: “Within the last 4 weeks we had captured 77,000

prisoners and nearly 800 guns! There has never been such a victory in the annals

of Britain, and its effects are not yet apparent. … It seems to me to be the beginning

of the end.”

103

With only 170,000 recruits available for the army for all of next year, Milner

was dubious. To see the war up close he left London for a ten-day tour of the front.

When he visited Foch, the generalissimo praised Haig, arguing that he had

abandoned his “abominable” methods of the autumn of 1917 and had grown

considerably as a strategist and tactician. “Instead of hammering away at a single

point, we [the British] made a series of successive attacks, all more or less surprises

& all profitable” with an economy of losses.

104

Despite this picture of a “new”

Haig, Milner remained fearful that the British army might melt away by the end

of 1918 without decisive results. The last year of the war was, in fact, the most

costly—and successful—year for the British Expeditionary Force, with casualties

exceeding 800,000.

105

When Milner visited general headquarters he did not like

the gleam in the field marshal’s eyes. Although he warned Haig “that if the British

Army is used up now there will be no men for next year,” he returned to London

“with grave doubts whether he had got inside of D.H.’s head.” Haig was

“ridiculously optimistic” he told Wilson, who agreed. “I must watch this tendency

& stupidity of D.H.,” the C.I.G.S. wrote in his diary. “The Man Power is the trouble

& D.H. & Foch & Du Cane can’t understand it.”

106

Lloyd George, who greeted each new casualty list with dismay, was just as

determined as Milner to prevent the British army from assuming the primary role

in attempting to break through the German defenses. The British had carried the

greatest burden in the battles of 1918; yet Haig had only two American divisions

on his front, although well over a million and a half American troops were now

330 THE UNCERTAIN ROAD TO VICTORY

in France, over one half of them having been transported in British ships. Desirous

of reducing Haig’s divisions during the winter and forcing the Americans to make

up the difference in the British sector, he continued to use shipping as a weapon.

With the Turks and Bulgarians on the run, he was now primarily concerned with

giving British soldiers a respite from the horrors of the West and protecting British

industry. On the day that the British army broke through the Hindenburg Line,

September 29, he made it clear to Maclay, the minister of shipping, that the British

would in the future refuse to convey American soldiers to France “until this

situation has been cleared up.”

107

Picking a fight with the Americans and French over the distribution of American

divisions was clearly a shortsighted policy with victory so near. But it should be

remembered that in mid-October after the Germans began their quest for peace

Haig no longer believed that the German army could be broken up in 1918. On

October 19, alarmed by the stiffening of German resistance on the seventeenth,

he told the civilians that

the German Army is capable of retiring to its own frontiers and holding that

line against equal or superior forces…. If the French and American Armies

were capable of a serious offensive now, the Allies could completely

overthrow the remaining efficient enemy divisions before they could reach

the line of the Meuse. They are not. We must reckon with that fact as well

as with the fact that the British Army alone is not sufficiently fresh or strong

to force a decision by itself…. So we must conclude that the enemy will be

able to hold the line which he selects for defense for some time after the

campaign of 1919 commences.

108

Although Haig believed that the German army was not yet destroyed, the German

political and military leaders desperately wanted peace. Ludendorff’s war-

winning offensive had turned out to be a war-losing offensive. As he used up

Germany’s last reserves in one desperate attack after another, American

reinforcements at the rate of 10,000 a day streamed across the Atlantic; over 2,000,

000 American troops had arrived when the guns were silenced. Having lost the

initiative after the Second Battle of the Marne, the German army was pushed back

across the blood-soaked battlefields to the Hindenburg Line, which was breached

in late September and early October. As the Hindenburg Line began to crumble,

Bulgaria suddenly collapsed, severing Germany’s link to Turkey and opening up

a southern invasion route of Austria and Germany. The tottering of her allies and

the capitulation of Bulgaria had a profound impact on Ludendorff and the civilian

leaders. If an armistice were not quickly concluded, there was concern that the

Allies would have a new front close to the borders of Saxony and Bavaria.

109

The collapse of Berlin’s allies made Lloyd George more confident than Haig

that the anti-German coalition could treat Germany as a beaten country in drawing

up armistice terms. He also now took a more favorable view of Foch because of

the latter’s desire to finish off Turkey and invade Germany through Bavaria.

110

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 331

On the prime minister’s initiative, Foch was given strategical control of all military

operations against Germany.

111

No invasion was necessary. With its allies flying

the white flag and its army decimated, although still intact, Germany signed an

armistice on November 11. After 1,563 days the terrible carnage finally came to

an end.

Lloyd George emerged from the war with a reputation larger than life. His most

recent biographer entitles his chapter on his wartime premiership, “THE MAN

WHO WON THE WAR.”

112

Others have ranked him with the earl of Chatham

and Churchill as a war leader. Certainly, there seems to have been no one else on

Britain’s political stage who could have been better cast than Lloyd George as

prime minister when the strain was so great in every quarter. His courage,

independent mind, ability to inspire and extraordinary political skills served the

nation well. His dynamic energy coursed through the veins of the government,

acting as the nation’s s life blood. But the historian’s duty is to separate the man

from the myth.

In understanding Lloyd George’s strategy, one must first recognize the

importance that he attached to the political ramifications of military operations.

He never looked upon strategy solely in terms of interior vs. exterior lines, logistics

or the topography of the land. The impact of military operations on home morale,

manpower, existing or potential allies, and the security and advancement of the

British Empire were uppermost in his mind. This emphasis on political factors

often meant that he and most of the British generals spoke a different language.

Wilson was an exception. His frequently geopolitical analysis of the war map

helps explain why he and Lloyd George were in harmony for a time.

Humanitarian considerations also played an important part in his opposition to

the costly western offensives. In Lloyd George’s mind, it would seem, British

generals such as Haig represented his prewar enemies, the squirarchy and

capitalists; the rank and file of the British army represented the oppressed he had

championed before the war. The common soldiers, no less than the poor and sick

of industrial Britain, deserved protection against forces beyond their control.

“Haig does not care how many men he loses,” he once told Stevenson. “He just

squanders the lives of these boys. I mean to save some of them in the future. He

seems to think they are his property. I am their trustee.”

113

The unprecedented

casualties, which in truth were more a result of the nature of the conflict than

general headquarters’ frequently unimaginative tactics, strengthened Lloyd

George’s resolve to give the civilians a greater voice in the conduct of the war.

Lloyd George failed to have the decisive impact on the higher strategy of the

war he sought. In Asquith’s government, although he helped set the Salonikan

venture in motion, his plan for a great Balkan offensive was frustrated, more by

Balkan politics, divisions among the Allies, and limited British military resources

than by blundering on the part of the military authorities and his civilian

colleagues. As prime minister, despite his frantic efforts to give Allied strategy a

new direction, he, like Asquith before him, bowed ultimately to the government’s

military advisers on almost all major strategic questions. The Calais arrangement

332 THE UNCERTAIN ROAD TO VICTORY

and the creation of the Supreme War Council and the Executive War Board were

not really exceptions to this rule, because they were concerned directly with

questions of command and organization rather than strategy. These decisions,

moreover, were made under the protective shield of Allied councils. Only on the

question of a Turkish offensive did Lloyd George overrule Robertson. Even then,

he worked through the Supreme War Council. When Lloyd George gained a

measure of control over the general staff with the replacement of Robertson by

Wilson, the Germans had the strategical initiative.

Lloyd George’s political insecurity and the limitations imposed by coalition

warfare restricted his authority. Also, his imagination, flexibility, and boldness—

qualities which served him well in politics—did not always inspire confidence

about his judgment in military matters among his civilian colleagues. He was

inclined to push grandiose schemes without fully taking into consideration the

difficulties, logistical and otherwise, of implementing them. Opposed to his

“political” strategy and unreservedly committed to the extreme “Western” view,

Robertson was unwilling to tell him how his plans might be made to fit actual

conditions. Rather, Robertson kept from the civilians his doubts about Haig’s

strategy and tactics and “cooked” the advice the War Cabinet received about a

Turkish offensive. The basic dilemma confronting Lloyd George was that the

peripheral strategy he favored, although politically attractive from the standpoint

of detaching Germany’s allies, expanding the empire, and raising home morale

while undermining the enemy’s, could not by itself destroy the German army. If

Lloyd George had favored a compromise peace rather than total victory his indirect

strategy would have been easier to defend. Yet, despite his profound pessimism

about the ability of the British army to achieve decisive results in the West, he

adhered to the policy of the “knock-out blow” except for a brief flirtation with a

compromise peace based on the sacrifice of Russian territory to Germany. Smuts,

who did not believe in either the possibility or wisdom of total victory, made a

more logical connection between military and polit ical objectives. His “Eastern”

strategy in late 1917 and early 1918 was directed toward improving Britain’s

negotiating position. The only way Lloyd George could square this circle in 1918

was to look to the Americans to deliver the decisive blows in 1919 or 1920—and

suffer the resulting casualties. In attempting to substitute American for British

troops and trying to restrain the “Westerners,” Lloyd George came into conflict

with the supreme command which he had worked mightily to create. His attitude

toward Foch demonstrates once again that he was motivated more by a desire to

influence higher strategy than by any strong attachment to the principle of unity

of command.

The reader should not be too hasty in condemning Lloyd George for his reading

of the military situation in late 1917 and early 1918. He was right in opposing the

resumption of the British offensive in Flanders, which, in all likelihood, would

have demoralized the British forces. Also, given the failure of the great western

attacks to achieve decisive results from 1914 to 1917, he was justified in believing

that Haig could defend his front. And it must be recalled that Robertson—not the

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 333

War Cabinet—was responsible for holding back the general reserves in Great

Britain before March 21. If Germany, as Lloyd George and other imperial-minded

statesmen feared, had remained on the defensive in the West and concentrated on

consolidating and expanding her position in Russia and the Middle East, with the

ultimate objective of reaching a negotiated peace with the Allies, the East would

have been of paramount importance to the British in 1918. Instead, Ludendorff

exhausted his forces in a gamble for victory in France. After the Second Battle of

the Marne, the German army was fatally weakened and beyond its formidable

defenses. The Allies were then able to launch a series of limited attacks, none of

them approaching the scale of Somme or Passchendaele. Haig deserves credit for

his skillfully conducted campaign. No one in Britain was more surprised by his

success than Lloyd George. But can anyone seriously argue that the “Westerners”

could have achieved the same results in 1918 if the Germans had remained on the

defensive, protected by the Hindenburg Line with their reserves intact?

The waves of panic unleashed within the German high command by the

destruction of its allies, especially Bulgaria, were viewed by Lloyd George and

his supporters as vindication of their “Eastern” strategy.

114

Haig’s sympathizers

have just as forcefully argued that the field marshal’s campaign from August 8

onwards brought Germany to her knees.

115

In reality, Germany’s defeat was

caused by many factors: the blockade, propaganda, the entrance of America into

the war, the collapse of Germany’s allies, and the defeats suffered by the German

Army in the West. Germany’s surrender did not really settle the

“Easterner”-“Westerner” debate conclusively one way or the other. German nerve

cracked when both “Eastern” and “Western” strategy succeeded at the same time.

Even then, it was Ludendorff’s s bankrupt “Western” strategy that set the stage

for Germany’s defeat.

NOTES

1. Clemenceau to Lloyd George, May 16, 1918, quoted in Clemenceau, Grandeur and

Misery of Victory, pp. 93–96.

2. Derby to Balfour, May 18, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/52/1/33.

3. The Australian Imperial Force in France, 6:170.

4. Cabinet Paper G.T. 4598 of May 21, 1918, CAB 24/51.

5. Cabinet Paper G.T. 4618 of May 22, 1918, CAB 24/52.

6. Cabinet Paper G.T. 4598 of May 28, 1918, CAB 24/52. Lloyd George put his name

to this paper authored by Hankey, and it was circulated during the second week of

June. Hankey Diary, June 11, 1918, 1/3.

7. For Lloyd George’s desire to put the production of War Office statistics in new

hands, see “X”Committee (5), May 29, 1918, CAB 23/17. The Welshman also

believed that a civilian administrator could make more efficient use of the services

behind the lines.

334 THE UNCERTAIN ROAD TO VICTORY

8. See Milner to Lloyd George, September 6, 1918, MSS Milner, c. 696/2, Milner to

Lloyd George, September 10, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/38/4/16, and Wilson

Diary, September 3, 1918.

9. Entry of May 12, 1918, Wilson: Life and Diaries, 2:99, and Wilson to Milner, May

15, 1918 (Army Council conclusion, May 15, 1918, and Milner’s minute attached),

Lloyd George MSS, F/38/3/32. It was noted in the War Cabinet that shipping was

Britain’s ultimate weapon in any conflict over control of the supply services. War

Cabinet (419), May 28, 1918, CAB 23/6.

10. “X” Committee (2), May 16, 1918, CAB 23/17.

11. Anglo-French Conference, June 1, 1918, CAB 28/3/I.C.-63 B.

12. See Wilson Diary, June 8 and 12, 1918,

“

”

Committee (3 and 10), May 17 and June

10, 1918, CAB 23/17, and Tom Jones to Hankey, June 13, 1918, Lloyd George MSS,

F/23/2/38.

13. The five American divisions, however, were soon replaced by an equal number of

Americans. Haig Diary, June 4, 1918, no. 128, and Edmonds, Short History of World

War I, pp. 323– 25.

14. “X” Committee (7), June 5, 1918, CAB 23/17.

15. Ibid. (8), June 5, 1918, CAB 23/17.

16. Wilson Diary, June 7, 1918, and Haig Diary, June 7, 1918, no. 128.

17. Wilson Diary, June 6, 1918.

18. “X” Committee (8), June 5, 1918, CAB 23/17, and Hankey Diary, June 5, 1918, 1/

3. Subsequently the Admiralty reported that shipping was available to embark from

300,000 to 400,000 men daily. See “Arrangements for Evacuation from France,”

June 25, 1918, Milner MSS, dep. 374.

19. Milner to Lloyd George, June 9, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/38/3/37. For British

alarm about German designs in the East, see War Cabinet (425 and 429), June 4 and

10, 1918, CAB 23/6, and “X” Committee (5), May 29, 1918, CAB 23/17.

20. Amery to Lloyd George, June 8, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/2/1/24.

21. Imperial War Cabinet (15), June 11, 1918, CAB 23/43.

22. Wilson Diary, June 8, 1918.

23. Imperial War Cabinet (15), June 11, 1918, CAB 23/43.

24. Ibid. (16), June 13, 1918, CAB 23/43.

25. Ibid. (17), June 14, 1918, CAB 23/43.

26. Amery, “War Aims and Military Policy,” June 15, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/2/1/

25.

27. Imperial War Cabinet (18), June 18, 1918, CAB 23/43. Yet another example of how

British minds were moving is the position taken by Esher. Previously the staunchest

of “Westerners,” he told Wilson that the “outside theatres” were Britain’s “most

promising sphere” when the Americans had a great army in France. Wilson Diary,

June 14, 1918.

28. Imperial War Cabinet (20), June 25, 1918, CAB 23/43. At this time there was great

anxiety within the Eastern Committee about German penetration of the Caucasus.

To right what Curzon called an “almost hopeless position,” Wilson and others,

against the opposition of the Foreign Office, considered bribing Persia and

Afghanistan into an alliance with Britain by encouraging them to take territory from

the former tsarist empire. See Eastern Committee (14 and 16), June 18 and 24, 1918,

CAB 27/24.

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE GENERALS 335

29. Hankey Diary, June 21, 1918, 1/3, Cabinet Paper G.T. 4837 of June 13, 1918, CAB

24/54, and Committee of Prime Ministers (19A and 20A), June 21 and 26, 1918,

CAB 23/44. Significantly, the decision to keep the 54th Division in Palestine was

made final on the day after the Second Battle of the Marne began when the final

outcome of the struggle in the West was still very much in doubt. War Cabinet (446),

July 16, 1918, CAB 23/7.

30. Committee of Prime Ministers (19A), June 21, 1918, CAB 23/44.

31. “X” Committee (19), July 1, 1918, CAB 23/17.

32. Ibid. (14), June 17, 1918, CAB 23/17.

33. Ibid. (12, 14, and l8), June 13, 17, and 28, 1918, CAB 23/17. Lloyd George also

thought of replacing the lightweight Sackville-West with Du Cane to beef up the

British section at Versailles. Wilson Diary, July 10, 1918.

34. Supreme War Council, July 2, 1918, CAB 28/4/I.C.-69.

35. Ibid., July 3, 1918, CAB 28/4/I.C.-70.

36. Hankey Diary, July 3, 1918, 1/3.

37. Wilson Diary, July 4, 1918.

38. Ibid., July 3, 1918.

39. Barnett, Swordbearers, p. 334.

40. War Cabinet (442), July 8, 1918, CAB 23/7.

41. See Edmonds, Short History of World War I, pp. 328–30, and Liddell Hart, Real

War, p. 420.

42. War Cabinet (444A), July 11, 1918, CAB 23/14. In his message Lloyd George argued

that Britain had a “special claim” to American divisions because British ships had

transported many of them to France since the beginning of May. If the British were

overwhelmed by “superior numbers” because of Foch’s distribution of troops, he

warned, “it would undoubtedly be fatal to the continuance of the arrangement

[generalissimo].” When Clemenceau was slow in responding, a second note was

sent. Lloyd George to Clemenceau, July 13, 1918, and Balfour (via Derby) to

Clemenceau, July 18, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/50/3/7–8. Haig at this time also

expressed a desire to get more American divisions behind his lines. By the end of

July there would be about 30 U.S. divisions in France, but unless the present

distribution was altered, 25 of these divisions would be in the French sector. Wilson

Diary, July 12, 1918, and Committee of Prime Ministers (24A), July 15, 1918, CAB

23/44.

43. “X” Committee (20), July 12, 1918, CAB 23/17.

44. Lloyd George to Milner, July 14, 1918, Lloyd George MSS, F/38/4/1.

45. Haig Diary, July 13, 1918, no. 129, and The Australian Imperial Force in France,

6:453– 54.

46. Wilson Diary, July 14, 1918, Hankey Diary, July 14, 1918, 1/3, Committee of Prime

Ministers (24A), July 15, 1918, CAB 23/44, and Wilson to Haig (by telephone, 12:

25 A.M.), July 15, 1918, Haig MSS, no. 129.

47. Committee of Prime Ministers (24B), July 16, 1918, CAB 23/44.

48. See Wilson’s comment in “X” Committee (22), July 17, 1918, CAB 23/17.

49. War Cabinet (447), July 17, 1918, CAB 23/7; Wilson Diary, July 15 and 17, 1918.

50. “X” Committee (23), July 18, 1918, CAB 23/17.

51. For the establishment of this committee, see “X” Committee (13), June 14, 1918,

CAB 231/17, and Imperial War Cabinet (19), June 20, 1918, CAB 23/43. The first

meeting of the Committee of Prime Ministers took place on June 21, 1918.

336 THE UNCERTAIN ROAD TO VICTORY