LLOYD GEORGE AND HAIG.

Southland Times, Issue 22489, 25 January 1935, Page 9

LLOYD GEORGE AND HAIG.

To the Editor. Sir,— Work hard and breed tip manly sons. The Empire needs them: distant guns. Interest in Mr Lloyd George’s slashing attack on Earl Haig’s ghastly failure

at Passchendaele has been deepened by Sir Alexander Godley’s statements to

the Returned Soldiers’ Association at Gore and Oamaru. Sir Alexander is a bitter critic of Mr Lloyd George, but his main defence of Haig—that the French General Petain had insisted on the Passchendaele offensive to enable the shattered and mutinous French forces to recover —is completely refuted by the recent publication of the fourth volume of Mr Lloyd George’s “War Memoirs.” This volume states: “Both Petain and Foch expressed themselves early and strongly against the proposed Passchendaele offensive. On May 19 Petam saw Sir Henry Wilson and repeated his objections to the Haig plan.” Wilson records in his diary: “He told me that, in his opinion, Haig’s attack towards Ostend was certain to fail and that his effort to disengage Ostend and Zeebrugge was a hopeless one.” Foch was even more emphatic. He asked Wilson, “who it was who wanted Haig to go on ‘a duck’s march through the inundations to Ostend and Z?ebrugge.’ He thinks the whole thing futile, fantastic and dangerous.” Yet this offensive was persisted in until British casualties numbered 400,000 against 300,000 enemy losses. Mr Lloyd George quotes contemporary records to prove that Haig overcame the opposition of the British Cabinet, and obtained their consent to his plan, “by wilful and skilful misrepresentation.” Nothing is more disturbing in this record than its revelation of the sinister power of the military, its ability—and its readiness —to with-hold or distort vital information to suit its own. ends. Passchendaele will stand for all time as a monument to the stupidity of the “military mind.” Yet this “military mind” is still responsible for the expenditure by Britain of 76 per cent, of her revenue for war purposes. Is this money spent for the defence of the “man in the street” and his home or of oil and steel interests? We are to-day exactly where we were in the days before the War, pointing to the same enemy and _mviting an expenditure of money against the same country. If again she was laid in the dust, in another 16 years she might be again challenging us. This only shows that the scare campaign for increased arms expenditure, is only aiding those forces in every government, who driven by the economic crisis, are deliberately preparing the next war. I am, etc., “NEVER NO MORE, NOT BY NO MEANS.”

[Mr Lloyd George’s statements concerning Passchendaele have not proved misrepresentation by Lord Haig. They present his view of certain matters, and the answer to them should be considered.—Ed. S.T.]