CONDUCT OF WAR

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1934, Page 5

CONDUCT OF WAR

PASSCHENDALE ATTACK. LLOYD GEORGE’S ATTACK. Following upon Mr. Lloyd George’s indictment of Earl Haig’s conduct of the British campaign at Passchendaele, in the fourth volume of his memoirs, the Weekly Dispatch says that pressure will be put on Earl Haig’s trustees to publish the war leader’s diaries. Earl Haig sealed these documents and deposited them in the British Museum, directing that they should not be opened until 1940. Senior officers during the war hope the diaries will refute Mr, George’s attack regarding Passchendaele. Accordingly they urge that advantage be taken of Earl Haig’s will authorising the trustees to publish the diaries and other papers at any time they think fit. It is pointed out that Mr. Alfred Duff Cooper is writing Earl Haig’s biography, which will appear in 1935, and in which, it is expected, there will be a reply to Mr. George, but it is doubtful whether he will be permitted io utilise the diaries.

Mr. Lloyd George says he does not fear a reply. He has received many letters from men who fought at Passchendaele, declaring that they are glad the truth has been told. “What I said about Earl Haig is nothing compared with what I shall tell about the other generals,” said Mr. Lloyd George to a representative of the Sunday Chronicle. “It is a great pity that Earl Haig is not alive to-day. I .would have preferred to criticise him in his lifetime, but was not able to write earlier, as the true facts only came out gradually. “Earl Haig and Field-Marshal Sir W. Robertson deceived the Cabinet about Passchendaele. They stated that all the officers under Earl Haig and Lord French were convinced of the advisability of the attack. CABINET IN THE DARK. “This has now been proved a deliberate lie. The Cabinet was completely in the dark, and had to support Earl Haig, in spite of private misgivings. It was impossible to supersede him, as the effect on English and French morale would have been disastrous. “Passchendaele was Earl Haig’s pet baby. He considered that if he were successful there he would be regarded as the greatest general in history. Germany, however, was contemptuous of British generals, who were as inferior to those of the French command as the British Tommy was superior to the French rank and file.” Mr. Winston Churchill, commenting in the Daily Mail on the fourth volume of the memoirs of Mr. Lloyd George, says the lay reader will accept the fact that the decisive victory the Allies gained was a hideous muddle, conducted throughout by knaves and fools. “Luckily things were worse on the other side,” he added, “so thank God we won. Mr. Lloyd George rightly saw that the defection of one ally from the enemy coalition would bring the whole structure clattering down. For that reason he was anxious decisively to attack Turkey, yet FieldMarshal Sir William Robertson, the Chief of Staff, would not allow him to take more than half measures. A renewed thrust in the Dardanelles would have brought the Turkish position to an immediate crisis.

“I always held with Mr. Lloyd George’s view on Passchendaele and have not read a more massive and sombre indictment than his attack on Earl Haig and Sir William Robertson, whose drive through the mud at Passchendaele lost 400,000 men and almost broke'the heart of the British Army.”