THE GREAT WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19567, 21 February 1927, Page 15

THE GREAT WAR.

OHUECHILL'S MEMOIES. IDEA OF SINGLE COMMAND. BRITISH GENERALS OPPOSED. CHIEF OF STAFF RESIGNS. SV the ivr. hox. winston churchtll. (Copyright—By arrangement with the Times, London.) No. XII. The continued friction between Sir [William Robertson and Mr. Lloyd George came to a bead ;it the beginning of February/ 1918. The Prime Minister was moving cautiously, but tirelessly, toward the conception of a unified command. He did not feel strong enough to disclose his purpose. A proposal which obviously involved placing the British armies under a French commander was one which he judged as yet beyond his strength to carry. It was a hazardous issue 011 which to challenge the joint resignations of both Sir William Robertson and Sir ])ouglas llaig. Jt is probable that the War Cabinet would not have been united in its support, and that the Liberal Opposition would have been unanimous against it. The Prime Minister had therefore so far suspende.d, his wishes that, speaking .of an independent generalissimo, ho told the House of Commons in December: "I am utterly opposed to that suggestion. It would not work. It would produce real friction, and might produce not merely friction between the armies, but friction between the nations and the Governments." Proposal of General Reserve. Nevertheless, Mr. Lloyd George continued by a series of extremely laborious and • mystifying manoeuvres to move steadily forward toward his solution. On January 30, at the meeting of the Supreme War Council at Versailles, he secured a decision to create a general resolve of 30 divisions and to entrust it to a committee representing Britain, Italy, the United States and France, with General Foch at its head. Tins proposal constitutes his answer and that of the War Cabinet to the charge of imprudently lowering the strength of the British Army in France in the face of the growing German concentration; There is 110 doubt that had this plan been put immediately into execution, and had Foch been armed with 20 divisions specifically assigned to the support of whatever part of the front was attacked, larger resources would have been secured to Sir Douglas Haig in his approaching hour of supremo need. Sir Douglas llaig did not, however, welcome the proposal. On the contrary, lie opposed it by every means in his power. He declared that he had no divisions to spare for the general reserve, thus ignoring the fact that they would not be taken from him unless the attack fell elsewhere. His staff officer, in his account, is scornful of the idea of an "executive committee" doling out reserves on to a moving battlefield such as cxi.tcd during tho retreat of March 21. Now that the commanding genius of Marshal Foch belongs to history, we can say with certainty that 30 divisions in his hands (20 in addition to the British contribution of 10) would have brought a far more timely, abundant and skilful succour to the last heroic struggles of 1 he Fifth Army than was ever derived from the arrangements of mutual assistance made, between Haig and Pctain. Decision a Dead Letter. Sir Douglas Haig, howevei', preferred to trust to these arrangements, though they appeared both exiguous and complicated, and though they proved, when required, almost entirely illusory. The decision, like many others of the Supreme War Council, remained a dead letter; find events moved forward without the British Army receiving either the reinforcements for which Haig had pleaded or the reserves which Lloyd George had laboured to supply. Although the thirty divisions were lacking, the executive committee to control them was created. Sir William Robertson claimed that he, as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, should alone represent Gfeat Britain upon it. This raised an issue upon which the Prime Minister felt, himself strong enough to engage. He declared it a matter of fundamental principle that. the two posts could not be held by one man. He offered Sir William Robertson his rlioice between them. Either he could have, but not both. Sir William RobertSon, not perceiving tho disadvantageous ground upon which he had entered, offered his resignation. It was at onco Accepted. The vacancy was incontinently offered to Sir Herbert Plumer, then commanding the British armies in Italy, who with equal promptitude refused it. The principles of military duty on which Sir Douglas Haig invariably proceeded presented him, even at this time of acute divergence from the Government, from adding his own resignation to that of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. On questions which in his view involved flic safety of the British armies tinder his command. Sir Douglas Haig —fight or wrong—was, whenever necessary, readv to resign. But these constituted the sole exceptions which ho allowed himself to make in his obedience. Had any motive of personal intrigue been Present in his mind a serious crisis would have arisen between the high command and tho civil power. His retention without comment of his post was received with relief by the anxious War Cabinet, and Sir Henry Wilson was speedily appointed to the vacant chair in Whitehall. A Visit to the Front. In the stresses of this internal disturbance I took no part. I was on the front during the whole week busily occupied, and it was only on my return that J learned the inner facts from various actors in the drama. The view which 1 took of my own work made it necessary tor me to keep continually in touch the actual conditions of the fighting line. ihe Commander-in-Chief accorded me Lie fullest liberty of movement in the British zone, and placed every facility at iny disposal. I was most anxious to understand by norsonal observation the new methods of holding the line which V; ere involved in the preparations for a great defensive battle. T stayed .with general Lipsett, commanding the 3rd Canadian Division, and under his deeply instructed guidance examined minutely "from front to rear the whole of the sector which he occupied opposite to T.ous. cry different was the state of the from wliat T had known it to be as a battalion commander in 1915 and 1916 Ihe system of continuous trenches with their barbed- wire networks, their parapets, firing steps, traverses and dugouts, the first line of which was manned bi great strength and often constituted jhe strongest line of resistance, had van ■Jshed. Contact with the enemy was maintained onlv by a fringe of outposts, tome of which were fortified, while others trusted merely to concealment. Behind these over a distance of two or "three thousand yards were sited intricate systems of machine-gun nests Ticarlv all operating by a flank fire and Tiiutally supporting each other Slender communication trenches enabled these to be approached and relieved by night. The barbed-wire net- j instead of being drawn laterally (

in a continuous belt across the front, lay obliquely with intervals, so as to draw the attackers into avenues mercilessly swept by machine-gun tire. Open spaces between important points were reserved for the full fury of the protecting barrages. This was the battle zone. Two thousand yards or so farther in the rear were the field battery positions. Strong works to which the long . disused word "redoubt" was applied, and deep grids of trenches and deeper dugouts elaborately camouflaged, provided for the assembling and maintenance of the supporting tioops. Behind these, again, in modest and obscure recesses, lay the brigade headquarters, behind which, again, the groups of heavy and medium batteries were disposed in studied irregular array. Favoured by beautiful weather ■ and a quiet day, wo were able, by taking care, to make our way into the ruins of Avion village, in which in twos and threes the keen-eyed Canadian sharpshooters r maintained their ceaseless bickering 4 against the German outposts 50 or 100 yards away. I must frankly admit that all that I saw, 5 both in the line and of the minutely per- | fected organisation far to the rear, in- , spired me with confidence in the strength ' of the new defensive system. This system ' had been gradually developed by ihe army. Holding the convictions which 1 this volume describes on the relative t power of offence and defence under modern conditions, I looked forward, at least so far as this sector was concerned, ' to the day when the Germans would taste 1 a measure of that bitter draught our ; armies had been made to drink so long. Alas, tho conditions hero were by no means representative of the general stale ! of the line. ' (To be continued daily.) I