LORD FRENCH'S BOOK

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 22 May 1919, Page 5

LORD FRENCH'S BOOK

FURTHER CRITICISM OF LORD

KITCHENER

i BY CABLE—PSESS ASSOCIATION—COPYBIGHT LONDON, May 13\ Lord French, in the Daily Telegraph, has further criticisms of Lord Kitchener. In connection with Lord French's ef- : forts to effect a speedy move north | when the fall of Antwerp was imminent, he says: "Lord Kitchener did not make things easy for me. He was keenly desirous to influence the course of operations. His telegrams quickly followed one another, each containing directions regarding the local situation, of which he could .know little. For instance, he told me he was communicating with General Joffre and the French Government. I was not aware of what was passing between them. At the same time he was urging me to make what I knew were impracticable suggestions to General Joffre. I must repudiate any responsibility for what happened in the north in the first ten days of October. Lord Kitchener explicitly told me that the British were /not under my command. He said: 'They will not, for the present, be considered part of your force.' I certainly would have made different dispositions of these troops, and regret that I must record my deliberate opinion that the best which could have been done throughout the critical situation was not' done, owing entirely to Lord Kitchener's endeavor to unite in himself the distinct roles of Cabinet Minister and Comm&nder-rtn-'Chief." Lord French sent a telegram in which he even demanded whether General Rawlinson regarded himself as under his orders. Lord French proceeds; "When Antwerp was threatened, Lord Kitchener, unknown to me, arranged for General Joffre to.send one or two French territorial divisions to act with the Marines. It was.perfectly clear thai the operations for the relief of Antwerp should never have been directed from London. They actually had no influence on the fate of Antwerp, and could equally as , well have protected the Belgian retreat from safer and more effective directions. [ They might have saved Lille by landing " y on October 5 at Calais or Boulogne. By deploying, six or seven days later, j through the valley of the Lys they might also have saved Ostend, and even Zeebrugge." ,