BRITISH GENERALSHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 267, 10 November 1934, Page 8

BRITISH GENERALSHIP.

STATESMEN AND SOLDIERS. v To the Editor.) Our cable news records another epate of criticism of British generalship in the World War. In justice to able and noble men T would plead for suspension of judgment. Hai* and Robertson are dead. Even if they vce° alive they would be no match in dialectic for those masters of words, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill. Kitchener had th same difficulty; he could not argue success* fully with a Cabinet of lawyers. Let us remember that Haig's diaries are sealed. In the meantime, there is the credibility of the witnesses to be considered, and there are great many Britons who would prefer to believe Haig and Robertson rather than Mr Lloyd George. We are told by Mr. Lloyd George that the Germans were, contemptuous of British generals (was von Ivluck?), and that these generate "were as inferior to those of the French Command as the British Tommy was superior to the French rank and file." Mr. Lloyd George said something to the same effect during the war. Memories of the initial French failure and Nivelle's tragic breakdown! What bunkum this is, and cruel bunkum at that! The British made no blunder in the war so great as the failure of the French to hold the first German thrust. They had had forty-four years to prepare for this, and thev miscalculated shockingly. What of Plumer Allenby and Maude? Was there any success on the Allied side so complete as Allenby's defeat of the Turks? But, above all what of Haig's victory in 1918? The British Government and. Foeh himself were preparing fer another year of war. Haig believed he could break through in 1918, acted on his own responsibility, and proved himself to be right. He saved the Allies another six months = to twelve months of fighting, and his operations were described by the French General Staff as a model of military art. Will Mr. Lloyd George tell Uβ this when he comes to deal with 1918? I, for one, will watch closely. JUSTICE.