WAR HISTORY

Evening Star, Issue 21935, 23 January 1935, Page 7

WAR HISTORY

THE WESTERN FRONT MR LLOYD GEORGE CRITICISED Press Association —By Telegraph Copyright. LONDON, January 22. “ As has been the case so often in history, the British army was called on to undertake a task beyond the power of its numbers,” is the dictum of the official history of the war with regard to the resistance to the German attack in March, 1918. The volume indicates that the establishment of the Supreme War Council at Versailles was a compromise, hindering rather than helping the Allies’ plans and operations, while the British plans in 1918 were further complicated by Mr Lloyd George s bias against the western front and his distrust of Sir William Robertson and Lord Haig, culminating in the dismissal of Sir William Robertson in February, Although he did not dismiss Lord Haig he rendered his task impossible by refusing men to fill the ranks of the divisions, which, on the contrary, were reduced to nine battalions from twelve. Simultaneously, in response to French political and military pressure, he agreed to extend the front south of the Oise, which placed a fatal burden on a weakened force (namely, General Gough’s), facing the heaviest assault ever delivered. Moreover, the defences of the new front had been neglected.— London ‘ Times ’ Cable.