WAR MEMOIRS

Southland Times, Issue 22490, 26 January 1935, Page 7

WAR MEMOIRS

LLOYD GEORGE CLAIMS POLITICIANS AND SOLDIERS THE ATTACK ON LORD HAIG. (By Criticus.) ‘lf you look on these facts, you will ask whether I was not right in doing my best to stop that insane horror wnich achieved nothing.” With this statement, and the argument that an old man of seventy would not write a book unless he thought it necessary, Mr Lloyd George defended and justified those portions of his “War Memoirs” which have traduced Haig. Mr Lloyd George need not have excused his decision to write his “war book,” especially as many who were prominently situated m the war leadership have already given the world ' reminiscences in which they have not i spared the man who held office as Prime Minister during critical years. Attacks on men who have passed to their graves, of course, are open to criticism; but Mr Lloyd George insists that the evidence showing how Haig had deceived him was not available until after the British Commander-in-Chief’s death. Attacks on those who are dead are, after all, a matter of taste, and in these “War Memoirs” we are primarily concerned with historical facts, and the elucidation of matters of vital concern to the conduct of the Empire’s affairs in time of war so that Mr Lloyd George can ignore questions of taste. Mr Lloyd George claims that no statement of his connected with a cardinal fact has been upset, but on that point there is by no means entire agreement. His book continues the contest between the politicians and the soldiers, and it has given rise to tne suspicion that its appearance was discreetly made appropriate to a time in which Mr Lloyd George is making another effort to be the saviour of the nation. Outside the personal theme, the one continuous thread is that of clapping the shoulder of the military underdog and booting the rear of the Brass Hat, a gymnastic combination always calculated to arouse applause in the mob to whom the Welsh wizard makes his appeal, and Mr Lloyd George’s renewed effort to catch the votes of the crowd strengthens the suspicion that the appearance of the “War Memoirs” is not entirely unassociated with the appearance of the L-G New Deal. The personal theme of the work is that during the War one man was right on 99.9 per cent, of occasions, and in the rare instances in which he appeared to blunder he was the victim of stupidity or wilful deception among others in high posts. Kitchener failed because he (ried to do everything himself; Mr Lloyd George’s apparent errors arose from the fact that he himself could not do everything. Political Infallibility is not yet acceptel as dogma, and in Mr Lloyd George’s case the claim of infallibility involves charges that men like Haig and Jellicoe were guilty of petty lying and dissembling to cover up their own terrible incompetence. These charges are serious, but they have invited answers and amongst these is the suggestion that Mr Lloyd George himself has mis-used facts in his “War Memoirs.” In these pages Mr Lloyd George is a partisan, not an historian, and he is most emphatically, most recklessly a partisan of one, Lloyd George. His vindication of himself requires him to sneer that general officers never went into front line trenches, that the Admiralty under Lord Jellicoe opposed the convoy system out of sheer stupidity and obstinacy, that British and French troops helped the Italians to stem the rush of the Austrians on the Piave line after the Caporetto disaster in 1917. Mr Lloyd George, of course, applauded the Italian private soldier and damned the generals; but the Italians have shown conclusively that the Austrians were stopped on the Piave and that the line was firm before a single company or a single battery from Britain or France had gone into action on the Italian front. Lord Jellicoe has shown that the delay in establishing the convoy system was due to the Jack of war vessels for the convoy service, a lack which could be overcome only only when the Americans came into the war and put their naval forces unreservedly at the disposal of the British naval authorities. The point about the general officers was quickly answered by men who had served in the ranks. These may not be cardinal points, but they are facts and out of the minor facts it is possible at times to draw some inferences useful in fixing the method of the narrator. In the attack on Haig, however, people are most interested, because Lord Jellicoe is alive to defend himself, and the attack on the British Commander-in-Chief directs itself to two cardinal points of the military narrative: unity of command and the Flanders campaign of 1917. These two are associated; out of the antagonism generated by Mr Lloyd George s manoeuvres in connection with the first came some of the troubles in connection with the second; out of the second came even acts contributing to a disaster which produced the unity of command. Mr Lloyd George himself connected them, for he complains that though the British War Cabinet in November, 1916, asked Haig for a plan to clear the Belgian coast, at the request of the Admiralty, as part of the measures against the U-boat campaign, the first full report from Haig did not come until June, 1917, when the situation had changed and when hardly anyone judged the offensive in Flanders to be necessary or to have any hope of success. What are the facts of the story from the end of 1916 to Passchendaele and beyond? „ „ , . In 1916 the Chantilly Conference of Allied representatives agreed to a plan of united action, proposed by Joffre, under which attacks were to be made by the Allies in France, in Russia, m Italy and in the Balkans, beginning in February in order to prevent the Germans taking the initiative. The British and French were to attack first, on a front extending from Arras to the Oise, relatively the portion of the front selected by Ludendorff for his assault of March 1918, and a fortnight later Petain was to attack west of Rheims, after which the attack in Flanders was to be launched as requested by the British War Cabinet. This was the Chantilly programme so far as the front in France was concerned. But the French politicians had seen a new star— Nivelle. Like their brothers m Britain, the French politicians all along were looking for the “break through, for the Napoleon who with one stroke would smash the Germans and win the war. Nivelle’s brilliant successes at Verdun, won when the Germans had been worn down by the terrible Somme battles, had led them to hail him as the man who could use the Napoleonic touch. Nivelle himself thought he could do it. Papa Joffre, who declined to trust the politicians and who had not sufficient imagination to regard himself as a romantic Napoleon riding over the efficient German army in one charge, was removed. With him went Foch, who had been chiefly responsible for the tactics used at the Somme. Then, Foch was discounted on religious grounds, as was Castlenau. Petain, who scorned the break through idea, but disagreed with Joffre’s “nibbling” between major offensives, declined to serve if Joffre retained any over-riding power. Thus the way was opened for Nivelle and Joffre was quickly divested of any real authority. Away went the Chantilly plan; but when Nivelle spoke to Haig in Decem■jagi, 1916. he revealed his intention to

attack, and Haig agreed In principle to the scheme, which in its main lines contained the Chantilly idea. But when Nivelle dismissed the Flanders plan as ■unnecessary, declaring that his own attack in Champagne would render it unnecessary, Haig’s eyes were opened. The British War Cabinet had asked for this offensive, and Haig had said, he would require twenty British divisions for it (as Joffre agreed), so that when Nivelle spoke as he did and later asked, almost ordered, Haig to take over a greater length of front—to release French troops for the Champagne stroke —the British commander saw that the Flanders plan, on which his government had insisted, would be imperilled. He objected and Nivelle, through his own government, appealed to Mr Lloyd George to apply pressure to Haig. The British Prime Minister had already swallowed Nivelle and the Nivelle plan. Further, when he moved from Secretary of War to Prime Minister, Mr Lloyd George carried with him a contempt for Haig as a general and he grasped eagerly at Nivelle with his talk of “no more Sommes” and the “break through.” Nivelle was a good talker; in this respect he was like Sir Henry Wilson, and unlike Kitchener, Robertson, Haig, and when he attended the London conference of January, 1516, he completely captured the politicians. Haig was told to take over more of the front and, when he asked for six additional divisions for this purpose, was told he could have only two. Later the other four divisions were made available.

So pleased was Mr Llyod George with the eloquent Nivelle and the prospects of a “break through,” a Napoleonic touch, that on February 15, through the attache at the French Embassy in London, he allowed the French Government to know that-the British Government would be pleased to place Haig under Nivelle, making him a subordinate like a French general commanding an army group. At this time the British forces in France almost equalled the whole of the French there. This readiness to demote Haig was carefully hidden from Robertson, the Chief of Staff, and, of course, from the British commander in France.

From the outset Haig doubted the efficacy of Nivelle’s plan of attack, but he regarded the matter as one for the French, not for him. As time went by his belief that Nivelle’s great project would fail increased, and more and more he looked to the British Army’s safety. Nivelle was annoyed by Haig’s caution, though he never disclosed it to the British general—indeed, he was invariably most affable. Part of Haig’s distrust of, Nivelle’s plan was the freedom with’which it was discussed and its details made known outside purely military circles. Neither Haig nor Joffre would discuss details of their schemes with the politicians—even Cabinet secrets emerged at times. Foch was similarly reserved; Nivelle was eloquent I Nivelle communicated his views of Haig’s attitude to his own government and evidently Mr Lolyd George was made aware of them. Owing to some trouble over railway congestion, Haig asked for a conference with the French, which was fixed for February 26, at Calais. Two days before this the War Cabinet met. Sir William Robertson, Chief of Staff and the Cabinet’s military adviser, being told he would not be required, and under Mr Llyod George’s guidance, it resolved to put Haig and the British army under Nivelle, who was thus to be generalissimo. Mr Llyod George in this way sought “unity of command.” He went to the Calais conference, called to consider only the railway difficulty, with this up his sleeve, and though the French delegates knew the command issue would be raised, the British Army representatives were wholly in the dark. Nivelle, under pressure from Mr Lloyd George, produced a prepared plan placing the British armies under the French command, with a British Chief of Staff at French Headquarters, through whom all orders to the British Armies would be issued, thus reducing Haig to a sort of Provost Marshal—the Chief of Staff would obviously be Sir Henry Wilson. Haig and Robertson, who by this time knew of the German withdrawal and had rightly appreciated what it meant, were staggered by Nivelle’s plan and were even more surprised when Mr Lloyd George explained that this went further than the War Cabinet’s intention. The Prime Minister’s scheme was revealed! The War Cabinet did not dare shelf Haig; it could not bring itself to eliminate him, and this was how the French blundered in interpreting what they believed to be the British Prime Minister’s wishes. In principle, however, the schemes were the same: Haig was to obey Nivelle implicitly in everything There was a ding-dong battle for thirty-six hours, and Haig managed to extract the proviso that his obedience to Nivelle in the coming operations was contingent on his belief that Nivelle’s instructions did not imperil the British Armies. That reservation was useful later on. (To be Continued.)