WAR HISTORY

Southland Times, Issue 22487, 23 January 1935, Page 7

WAR HISTORY

BRITISH ARMY OVERWHELMING TASK OFFICIAL PUBLICATION (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 7.40 p.m.) London, January 22. “As so often in history, the British Army was called on to undertake a task beyond the power of its numbers, is the dictum of the Official History of the War regarding the resistance to the German attack on March, 1918. volume indicates that the establishment of the Supreme War Council at Versailles was a compromise hindering rather than helping the Allies plans and operations while the British plans in 1918 were further complicated by Mr Lloyd George’s bias against the Western Front and his distrust of Sir William Robertson and Earl Haig, culminating in the dismissal of Sir William Robertson in February. < Although he did not dismiss Earl Haig, he rendered his task impossible by refusing men to fill the ranks of the divisions which on the contrary were reduced to nine battalions from twelve. Simultaneously, in response to French political military pressure, he agreed to extend the front south of Oise which placed a fatal burden on' the weakened force (namely Viscount Gough’s) facing the heaviest assault ever delivered. Moreover the defences on the new front had been neglected.