UNITY OF ALLIED CONTROL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16697, 15 November 1917, Page 4

UNITY OF ALLIED CONTROL.

No more severe criticism of the higher conduct of the war on the Allied side has been made than that contained in the very frank speech delivered by Mr. Lloyd George in Paris. The Prime Minister of Great Britain asks why the Allies are not further along the road to victory, and returns the answer that the fault has been the absence of real unity in the direction of the war. Mr. Lloyd George mentions two deplorable instances of mismanagement in the Balkans which are universally I recognised as among the great tragedies of the war—the failure to save Roumania because it was no one's i business in particular, and the failure to save Servia because the Allies were too late. As a Minister! i who has held one office or another ! since the outbreak of the war, Mr. Lloyd George admits that he has a! i certain responsibility in the matter. [ He states that each ally has felt the need for real unity in controL When jit is remembered that on taking I office as Prime Minister Mr. Lloyd George put in the forefront of his programme co-ordination of Allied [ effort and control, it will be realised that practical difficulties of great j moment must have been encounI tered. It is the inherent weakness and the historical stumbling-block of an alliance that it should dissipate its strength in individual efforts. It has taken not one disaster, but several, to remove national and individual objection to a practically international control of the operations of the Allies. The new organisation which has been established promises well. Its beginning was auspicious, because it was devised by Britain, France, and Italy to save Italy, without delaying for American and Russian consent, which is now being obtained. The new plan of saving the situation first and talking it over afterwards is infinitely better than the old practice of talking about a crisis till it was irretrievable. The French and the Italian fronts are now treated as one, and the armies on it controlled and operated as one vpst organisation. This should stop the somewhat theoretical controversy as to the relative importance of the western and other fronts. Those who have maintained that the western front is pre-eminently important and those who have insisted that other fronts should have their share of attention, are merely viewing the same problem from different angles. It is admitted that the final decision will almost inevitably come in France or in Belgium. It is also incontestable that victories and reverses on other fronts vitally affect the western front, and the whole course of the war. In the words of Mr Lloyd George, the battlefront is continental, not local, and the Italian front is just as important to Britain, as to Germany..