ASQUITH ON KITCHENER.

Wairarapa Age, 31 December 1921, Page 5

ASQUITH ON KITCHENER.

FORECAST OF THE WAR. THE DARDANELLES EVACUATION. (Press Association—Copyright.) (Received 9.15 p.m.) London, Dec. 29.—Air Asquith conI tributes a further instalment of his ! appreciation of Lord Kitchener to I ‘‘Pearson's Magazine.’’ It includes a remaj-kable forecast of the course of the war. ; Mr Asquith says:—“ln January, 1916, I asked Kitchener if he could give, for myself alone, his forecast of the future of the war. I jotted down an outline, which reads: ‘Fourth January. We must begin our French push not later than April. While it goes on in April and May, the Russians will hold the Germans in the East. When we are making way in June, the Russians will begin a great offensive. The Germans, in August, will ask our peace terms, which we will reject as impossible. The Germans, in September or October, will be pushed in on both sides. November anil se peace on our terms!” Mr Asquith continues: “This was falsified by events, but I venture to think, it shows remarkable military prescience, in view of Brussilov’s offensive in June and the Allies’ cam-' paign on the Somme. In December the Germans made overtures for peace.”

Replying to Lord Esher’s references to the evacuation of the Dardanelles, Mr Asquith says: “The double evacuation, carried out on Kitchener’s ad- • -ce, was one of the most skilful and most successful operations of the war. The only occasion on which I ever saw signs of his even for a moment giving way was when we considerel the evacuation of the Dardanelles. He told be he hardly slept the night before, as he imagined he saw boat-load after boat-load of our gallant soldiers sunk, on the way to the ships, by Turkish gunfire. This was remarkable, as he ncvqr countenanced the pessimistic forecasts, put forward by high authorities, of the enormous losses the evacuation would cause. I always believed that if Kitchener had arrived in Petrograd early in June the whole course of history might have been changed. M hen he said good-bye during the evening of the second, Kitchener was in the highest spirits, and described with gusto and humour some friendly passages-at-arm with hecklers in the Commons. He left the room gay, elastic, alert, and sanguine—the strongest contrast conceivable to the bewildered, buffetted, and senile figure of Lord Esher’s imagining.”—(A. and N.Z.)