CHURCHILL’S MEMOIRS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20023, 14 February 1927, Page 6

CHURCHILL’S MEMOIRS.

DARK AND GLOOMY DAYS OF 1917. NIVELLE TESTED. DOGGED BRITISH CARRY ON ARRAS OFFENSIVE. vn. Mr Churchill hern discusses the experiment of General Nivelle, and (he results of his popularity with Mr Lloyd George and the British Aar Cabinet. By the Right Hon. Winston Churchill. (Copyright.)

General Joffre'* plan for the campaign of 1917 was simple. It was to be fl continuation of the Battle of the Somme, with only tha shortest possible interlude during the extreme severity of the winter. The salient formed by the German line was to be crunched by convergent assaults of the British and the French. No time was to be lost in regrouping the armies; no delay was to be allowed for the arrival even of friendly reinforcements, or for the completion of the new artillery and munitions programmes of the Allies. As will be seen as the account progresses, the launching of these tremendous operations from the beginning and during the whole of February would have caught the Germans at a moment exceedingly unfavourable to them. Hero perhaps at last, after so many regrettable misadventures and miscalculations, Joffre might have won unchallenged laurels. But these possibilities remain in the mists of the unknown; for at this very moment Joffre was relieved from his command, and the supreme direction passed to another hand. •V new figure hud appeared. Nivelle had conducted the later battle of Verdun both with vigour and success, and under his orders Mangin had recovered the famous Fort of Douaumont. In the mood of (he hour Joffre had already selected Nivelle to replace Foch. Forthwith a stream of celebrities took the road to Verdun and made for the first time the acquaintance of the new Army Commander. They found themselves in the presence of nn officer whoso modesty, whose personality, whose lucidity of expression, exercised an almost universal charm, A stream ,of glowing' and delighted accounts flowed towards Paris. There can be no doubt of the attraction exercised by General Nivelle over the many experienced men of affairs with whom he came in contact. Briand, his Ministers, the delegations from the Chamber, were as swiftly impressed as Lloyd George and the British War Cabinet a few months later. Add to these pleasing impressions the glamour of unquestioned ami newly won military achievement, and the elements of an alternative Commandor-in.-Chief were not in that weary moment lacking. .... Meanwhile the French Staff in the dusk of Joffre had formed new conceptions of tactics. The principle that “the artillery conquers the ground and the infantry occupies it,” which had played a comforting if somewhat barren, part in 1915 and 1910, was, to a large extent, discarded m favour of greater audacity. The NivelleMangin exploit on October 24, at »evdun, had tended to become the mode] of the French Staff. It was the foundation, not only of General Nivelle’s fame, but ot liis convictions. It comprised the whole of his message. . . , He believed that he and his principal officers had found a sure, swift method of rupturing the German defence. He believed further that his method was capable of application on the largest possible scale. Multiply the scale of such an attack 10 or 15 times, and the resultant advantages would be multiplied in an even Greater proportion. Just as lalkenhayn fn his scheme of attack on \erdun had alwavs in his mind the victory of GorhceTarnow, so Nivelle a year later founded his hopes and reasoning upon his glorious achievement at Douaumont. . No one will undervalue the tactics which gained success on October 24. They were hammered out bv fighting generals amidst the fiercest fires. However, it docs not follow in war or in some other spheres that methods which work well on a small scale will work well on a great scale. As military operations become larger, they become niora ponderous, and the time factor begins to set up extremely complex reactions. , c , Where days of preparation had sufficed, months may he required. Secrets that can be kept for days are apt to wear out in •months. Surprise, the key to victory, becomes harder to secure with every additional man and gun. There were in the Ni*vollo-Mangin methods «nul m s P ir, k which animated them the elements of decisive success. But their authors had not learned to apply them on the gigantic scale with which they were now b ' o concerned: nor in the year 1917 did they possess the necessary superiority of force in its various forms. ... . it was reserved for Ludondorf. on Maich 21, 1918, to execute what Nivelle had conceived, to combine audacity of action with a true sense of values, to make long preparations without losing secrecy, and to effect a strategic surprise on a ‘front of 50 divisions. But this comparison cannot even bo suggested without numerous reservations arising from the diHcicnt ci remittances. LLOYD GEORGE.' NIVELLE. AND HAIG. Fortune had no sooner hoisted General Nivelle to the topmost summit of -power than she deserted him. From the moment of his assuming command of the _ French armies everything went against him. He was from the outset more successful in exciting the enthusiasm of the political than of the military leaders; and bo " ar ’ more successful with the British Government even than with bis own. He proceeded immediately to extend the scope of the immense operations which had been contemplated by Joffre. . In order to gather the troops required for the additional attack between hoissons ami Craonne. it was necessary tor Nivelle to request the British to take over !i larger portion of the front. . . , Nivelle was invited to London, and me. the War Cabinet and the now Prime Minister. T , His success was immediate. the British Ministers had never before met in council a general who could express himself in a forceful and continuous argument; and they had nc\er beroi e met a French general whom they could understand. Nivelle not only spo,\o lucidlv. but spoke English. He had not only captured Fort Douaumont; ho had an English mother. . . .Mr Lloyd Geoige was already set upon his great and simple conception of a unified command. It «as believed that bettor war direction could be obtained from the French. It was also believed—and in this case with tar more justification —that one single controlling thought ought to prevail on Hie whole of the Western front. It is not,” said Lloyd George, when he had carried his point a year later, •• that one general is better than another; but that one general is better than the strength of the authority he had received in Loudon. Nivelle sent instructions to Haig couched in a tone of command. Haig, who had received no pro vious official intimation of what had been decided by the Wav‘ Cabinet, declined to dispose nr engage his troops under the order of ■ a French commander. He appealed to liis Government and " requested to be told whether (lie War Cabinet wished the commander-in-chief of (he British Expeditionary Force should be subject to such treatment by a junior foreign commander.” The strain was sharp. A compromise was eventually readied, but the friendly and intimate co-operation which bad existed for so long between the British and French staffs bad undergone a noticeable decline, and Nivelle was criticised in French mgh military circles for having provoked tins unfavourable result. At this moment an unexpected event occurred. Jmdendnrff and the Germans acted. The great military pxmius which Germany had discovered in

her need, armed in the panoply and under the aegis of Hindonburg, by one sure stroke, overturned all the strategy of generals. Towards the end of February the German evacuation of the whole sector from Arras to Noyon began. Leaving a screen of troops to occupy the abandoned posi tions and fire off their guns and rifles, the German army withdrew 50 miles from the threatened area of the salient, and with unhurried deliberation assumed their new deeply considered positions on what was henceforward to mo known as the Hindenburg lino. The German General Stan: called tins long-prepared operation by the code name “ Albt*»!ch.” after the malicious dwarf of the Nibclungcn legend. They eft their opponents in the crater fields of ho Somme, and with a severity barborous because far in excess of any military requirements, laid waste with axe and fire tlie regions which they had surrendered. the retrograde movement, rumoured for some days, was first detected on the front of the British Fifty Arjny. On February 24 suspicion was aroused by L the German artillery shelling its own trench linos. British’ Patrols found the hostile trenches empty. The Fifth Army Operations Order said: ‘‘The enemy is believed to be withdrawing.” Immense clouds of smoko and the glare of incendiary tiros by night proclaimed the merciless withdrawal of tile enemy. On the 25th lie was reported as much as 18,000 yards back in certain sectors, and on February 28 the British Intelligence spoke of a retirement to the Hindenburg lines. However absorbed a commander may be in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is necessary sometimes to take the enemy into consideration. Joffre’s plan had been to bite the great German salient in February; and whether it would have succeeded or not no man can toll. The Nivelle plan was to bite it with still larger forces in April. But by March the salient had ceased to exist. Three out of Nivelle’s five armies, which were to have been employed in the assault were now separated by a gulf of devastated territory from their objective. All their railroads, all their roads, all their magazines wore so far removed from the enemy's positions that at least two months would 'bo required to drag them forward into a new connection with the war. The remaining two armies were left with no other possibility before them than to deliver disconnected frontal attacks on the strongest parts of the old German line. In these circumstances Nivelle’s directive to the British armies under his control is of great interest. Time, distance, numbers, direction—all were changed. Yet it was decreed that the principle was unaffected, and that the enterprise should proceed. Painleve became Minister of War on March 19. The hour was now imminent. The vast preparations were everywhere moving forward to explosion point. The British Cabinet had been won over. The British headquarters had been persuaded. The co-operation of England, the great ally, had by a tremendous effort been obtained, and, once obtained, would be given with crude and downright force. To resist the plan, to dismiss the commander, meant not only a Ministerial and a parliamentary crisis—possibly fatal to the Government—but it also meant throwing the whole plan of campaign for the year into the melting-pot and presumably, though not certainly, resigning the initiative to the Germans. So Nivelle and Painleve, these two men whose highest ambitions had both been newly and almost simultaneously gratified, found themselves in the most unhappy positions which disillusioned mortals can occupy: the commander having to dare the utmost risks with an utterly sceptical chief behind him; the Minister having to become responsible for a frightful slaughter at the bidding of a general in whose capacity he did not believe, and upon a military policy of the lolly of which Ire was justly convinced., Sucli is the pomp of power! I shall not attempt to describe the course either of tlie French offensive which began on April 16 or of the brilliant preliminary operation by which the British Army at the battle of Arras captured the whole of the Vi my Ridge. By the evening of the 16th Nivelle’s high hopes and confidence had withered, and liis orders for the resumption of battle on the I7th implied not merely tactical modifications, but the substitution of far more moderate strategic aims. The later phases of the battle were in some respects more successful than its beginning; nor were the losses of the French so disproportionate to those of the Germans as in Joffrc offensives. In fact, the Nivclle offensive was the least costly, both actually and relatively to the enemy’s loss, of any ever undertaken by the French. But the general could never escape from the consequences of his sanguine declarations. Again and again lie had affirmed that, unless the rupture was immediate and total “within 24 or 48 hours,” it would bo useless to continue the operations. He had predicted such a rupture with many circumstances of detail. Almost every one had doubted before. Now all doubts wore certainties. The slaughter, woeful to the shrunken manhood of France, was fiercely exaggerated. Disturbances broke out among tlie troops, and in the capital a storm of fury arose against the general. His wish to convert the great operation into a more modest enterprise was brushed aside. On April 29 Petain became, as Chief of the General Staff, the advisor of the French Cabinet on the whole conduct of the military operations. The Prime Minister’s power to restrain the British High Command had been compromised by his facile and even enthusiastic acceptance of General Nivcllc’s schemes. The Britisli headquarters, on the other hand, were in a strong position. For the first time they had found the "politicians” eager advocates of a groat offensive in the Vest. For their part they had for once been the more cautious. they had not concealed their misgivings about Nivellc’s far-reaching aims. They had actually been subordinated to him against their will for the purpose of tlie operation, and the operation had failed in tlie most obvious manner. It was their turn to shako their heads about rash endeavours to pierce the Gorman front, and to plume themselves upon the caution they had recently observed. Now that the ofTc. .ive had been opened thev were resolute to persevere. The British Army should ha thrown ungrudgingly '.uto the battle of attrition, and every effort must he made to induce the French to exes! themselves unceasingly to tlie utmost. ,p hey found in Air Lloyd Gem-,m at this juncture a sirong supporter. His action cannot bo judged apart froiu the situation. 'The hour was tragic. The U-boat sinkings for April, surpassing all previous records, had reach'd tha total of 800.000 tons. ’The fatal curve was still rising, and in Britisli minds it dominated everything. “Let the mies tiaht while time remained.” Or in 1 , vd Fisher's challenging phrase. “Cun the An - ' - win tlie war before he Navy loses it?” Prime Minister. Gomni indcr-in-Chicf. an 1 Sir William Robertson proceeded together to Paris, an in conference o.i May 4 and 5. Air Lloyd Geoxae addressed to Mm. Kibot and Pain-

levc, and General some of the most strenuous exhortations to continue the offensive that ha ever passed between AIhE UGLY HAPPENINGS AMONG FRENCH. But the demoralisation of the French Army was proceeding apace. Want of confidence in their leader, cruel losses, and an active defeatist propaganda had produced an intense spasm throughout its ranks. Mutiniers —some of a very dangerous character —occurrt in 1" separate Army Corps. Gome of the line ' troops were involved. Div s lected councils. Whole regiments set out for Paris to demand a peace by negotiation, and more home leave. A Russian force of about 15,000 infantry had before he .{evolution been sent to be armed an equipped in France. These men were affected by the political developments in their own country. They had put it to the vote whether thev should take nart in the battle of April 16, and had decided by a majority to do so. They were used by the French in a ruthless manner, and nearly 6000 had been killed or wounded. The survivors went into open revolt. One sentence of the manifesto reveals the propagand of a master hand. “Wo have been told,” so the complaint begins, “that we have been sent to France to pay for Munitions sold to Russia.” It was not until ’-rolongcd artillery lire had been employed against these troops that they were reduced to submission and disbanded. The spirit of the 1 rench nation was not equal to this perilo ,s trial. On May 15. Nivclle, cf ing to resign, was dismissci and Retain became Commander-in-Chief. Loval troops surrounded those who had fallen from their duty. Old Territorials, the fathers of families, pleaded with the infuriated linesmen. The disorders were pacified suppressed. Over all a veil of secrocv was thrown so impenetrable that, though scores of thousands of Frenchmen were concerned, no whisper ever reached the enemy. » • # Inta very few days it became clear to the British Headquarters that there could be no continuance of the French offensive. The French Army would require all its life strength to regain its discipline and selfconfidence. Nevertheless, profiting by Mr Lloyd George’s encouragement and no doubt deeplv concerned by the condition of the French, the British High Command decided to persevere single-handed with their Arras operations, and lost without attaining any further strategic result 0367 officers and 178,416 n.en between April and June. [By Arrangement with The Times.]