“TASK BEYOND ITS STRENGTH”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20014, 23 January 1935, Page 9

“TASK BEYOND ITS STRENGTH”

BRITISH ARMY IN WORLD WAR STINGING INDICTMENT OF MR LLOYD GEORGE United Press Association—By Electric Tel egraph —Copyright (Received January 22, 7.40 p.m.) LONDON, January 22. “As has so often happened in history, the British Army was called on to undertake tasks beyond the power of its numbers,” is the dictum of the Official History of the War regarding resistance to the German attack in March, 1918. The volume indicates that the establishment of the Supreme War Council in Versailles, was a compromise, which hindered rather than helped the Allies’ plans and operations, while the British plans of 1918 were further complicated by Mr Lloyd George’s bias against the Western Front, and his distrust of Sir William Robertson and Sir Douglas Haig, culminating in the dismissal of Sir William Robertson in February. Although he did not dismiss Sir Douglas Haig, Mr Lloyd George rendered his task impossible by refusing men to fill the ranks of his divisions, which, on the contrary, were reduced to nine battalions from twelve. Simultaneously in response to French political and military pressure, Mr Lloyd George agreed to extend the front south of Oise, which placed a fatal burden on a weakened force (namely General Gough’s), facing the heaviest assault ever delivered. Moreover the defences of the new front had been neglected.