KITCHENER'S LAST DAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 312, 31 December 1921, Page 5

KITCHENER'S LAST DAYS.

MR. ASQUITH'S STORY,

A FORECAST OF 1916

(By Ca.ble.—l'lTess Association.—'OopjTigbt.)

LONDON, December 30.

Mr. Asquith, in a further instalment of his appreciation of Lord Kitchener, appearing in "Pearson's Magazine," includes a remarkable forecast of liie course of the war.

Mr. Asquith says: "In January, 1916, I asked Lord Kitchener if he could give, for myself alone, his forecast of the future of the war. I jotted down an outline in his presence. It reads: — January: We must begin our French push not later than April. While it goes in April and May the Russians will hold the Germans in the East. When we are making our way in June the Russians will begin a great offensive. The Germans in August will ask our peace terms, which they will reject as impossible. The Germans in September and October will be pushed on both aides. In November, peace on our terms."

Mr. Asquith continues: "This was falsified by events, but 1 venture io think it shows a remarkable military prescience, in view of Brussiloff's offensive in June and the Allied campaign on the Somme. In December the Germans made overtures for peace."

Replying to Viscount Esher's references to the evacuation of the Dardanelles, Mr. Asquith says: "The double evacuation, carried out on Lord Kitchener's advice, was one of the most skilful and most successful operations of the war. The only occasion I ever sawsigns of his—even for a moment—giving way was when we considered the evacuation of the Dardanelles. He told mc that he hardly slept the night before, as he imagined he saw boatload after boatload of our gallant soldiers sunk on the way to the ships by Turkish gunfire. This was remarkable, as he never countenanced the pessimistic forecasts put forward by high authorities of the enormous losses the evacuation would cause. "I always believed that if Lord Kitchener had arrived at Petrograd early in June the whole course of history might have changed. When he said good-bye on the evening of the 2nd be was in high spirits. He described with gusto and humour some friendly passages at arms with hecklers in the Commons, and left the room gay, elastic, alert, and sanguine, the strongest contrast conceivable to the bewildered, buffeted, desiccated, senile figure of Viscount Esher's imaginings."—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)