LORD ESHER'S BOOK

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 39, 15 August 1921, Page 7

LORD ESHER'S BOOK

SIR GEORGE ARTHURS PROTEST

LORD KITCHENER DEFENDED.

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPTRIOIW.)

(AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZBALAND CAIIJS ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 13th August.

Sir George Arthur, in a press interview, protests that Lord Esher has set out to pull down from his pinnacle of fame a man whose candid friend Lord Esher professes to be. Against Lord Esher's' views regarding Lord Kitchonor's alleged failure in the war ought to be arrayed Marshal Foch's and M. Poincare's Judgments. Marshal Foch. at the London Peace Conference, said they missed one great figure, that of Lord Kitchener, the organiser of the victory. M. Poincare said that but for Lord Kitchener's visit to Paris the Anglo-French co-operation, Would probably have been lost, and the British would not have participated in the Battle of the Marnn. Sir George Arthur combats the sugges tion that Kitchener wanted to "divert ths forces eastwards. On the contrary, he says, Kitchener's policy was the maintenance of. the supreme strength, on thfc Western front, in order to be [safe in the East. In January. 1915, Kitchener 'strongly opposed Mr. Lloyd George's proposal to withdraw troops from Francs and send them to Salonika,' refusing to denude the West by a single man.

Writing in the Daily Telejrraph, Sir George Arthur says: "Lord Esher pro-, poses to bequeath to posterity his further Judgments on Lord Kitchener. It might not be amiss that concurrently with Lord Esher's verdict on Lord Kitchener should run Lord Kitchener's estimate 'of Lord Esher as expressed to me." '

[Captain Sir George Arthur was private secretary to Earl Kitchener when the latter was Secretary of State for War. In 1920 he bublished " The Life of Lord Kitchener of Khartoum."]