ATTACK ON HAIG.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 264, 6 October 1936, Page 7

ATTACK ON HAIG.

LLOYD OEORGE MEMOIRS. In the fifth volume of his wartime memoirs, Mr Lloyd George returns to his attack on Earl Haig, alleging that he was responsible for the defeat of the oth Army in March, 1918. when the Allies suffered 188,000 casualties. Earl Haig, it is said by Mr Lloyd George, refused to make proper preparations to meet the expected attack of the Germans.

“By the end of February.” he writes, “there ought not to have been, even in Haig’s obdurate mind, any doubt as to the part of the front on which the attack would be launched, nor as to the scale on which it would be made.”

A passage in the volume says of Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, that he was “whimsical almost to the point of buffoonery. He jested over questions of life and death, and had no powers of decision. Invariably he was effusive toward me i>ersonally and abusive behind mv back. One can understand the imputation of treachery associated with his name.” Mr Lloyd George says of Sir William Robertson, a former Chief of the General Staff: “Robertson and liis friends bad every hope of supplanting the Government with one which would make Robertson a virtual dictator for the rest of the war.” For Marshal Focb Mr Llovd George displays an unconcoa'cd admiration. “Our G.H.Q. had a poor opinion of Foch, and they did not conceal their contempt for the old soldier, but his supreme courage saved the situation,” he writes.

The book contains a scathing criticism of General Pershing, in particular. and of the American forces, in general, fie alleges that General Pershing fought stubbornly to keep bis American divisions intact and separate from the Allied armies.