WAR HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 146, 21 June 1924, Page 16

WAR HISTORY

GENERAL NIVELLE'S DEATH RAISES. CONTROVERSY.

general Nivelle's death, which occurred in Paris in March, gives a new fillip to the eternal controversy over the tremendous fiasco of the AngloFrench offensive of the spring of .1917. As might be expected, states the Parisian correspondent of the ' 'Manchester Guardian,1' the papers of tho''Eight make it'an excuse for an attack upon "'the defeatists" of ' that period^ and couple together in their invective 8010, Alnieyreda, and Painleve and the Radicals generally; those of the Left seize the chance for throwing the blame for ajj: .immense folly not only nppn the militarist schpol, with their mystic doctrine of offensive scarified by P'ierrefeu iK'his remarkable book "Plutarch has Lied," but as much.-■ as possible upon AL, Poincare, who -as President of the. Republic threw all s.his weight in favour o£_;Nivelle's plan;-after "the. German sufjwise retirement-on'^lie Hindenburg line, uu'i French :pffensiye; on'1 the Aisno iigiinst the sngeirifir. /.-wisdom .both of .Painleve and 'of Pe'tain, who foresaw the consequences. !jSor is the controversy altogether idle. The; failure of the' contemplated' grand offensive of 1917 was probably the most important turnin'g^qjjrt of . the War. ■ Sftjitegipally it ; i-1 to have "leant^ the submergence" .of one schpol of.jiiilitary thought'i.and^its displacement "%l another less • doctrinaire and jnore. i\pi jto innovate new;-methods. PpliticaiCjjlit is declared.;;: at least on the ex-, tri&ie Left, tha,t.;;the excessive confide cute placed'by ■ t^e..Allied 'statesmen and: generals in this', grandiose offensive planned in December^ 1916, was, largely responsible _ for-the breakdown of all .the peace- efforts that had then begun. lUiere is nothing, however, in recent' coalmen ts_. that throws new' light on an cpis6de . j:-hat - has still to bo •' properly illuminated. All sections of opinion unite in paying tribute to the high' character of General Nivelle and in recognising the loyalty of his determined silence in face of a controversy in which he! was always likely to bo made tho Ecapsgoat -/of'-politicians.